The War Master's Revenge

Death Guard

2012-05-31T23:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some heresy-era Death Guard I painted over the last couple of months. Like true sons of Nurgle, they're splattered all over with shit. Glory to the Gods. The pus-boils on their bases are some of my first real forays into green stuff, and I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. These guys are going on ebay soon as a part of a larger army deal. Who knows what corners of the galaxy will smell their rotting, bloated bodies after that?

Forge World Berserkers

2012-05-30T21:26:00.001-07:00

More World Eaters. I haven't posted much recently but I've been busy; plenty of pictures on the way!

Even more World Eaters Terminators

2012-04-13T12:35:00.003-07:00

Magnum Opus 3: The Sword of Malice!

2012-04-06T17:53:00.004-07:00

More World Eaters Terminators

2012-03-29T15:09:00.002-07:00

They bring death to all who oppose them.

World Eaters Land Raider

2012-03-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

This Land Raider is a transport for a new strike force, the Blood Wing! More to follow. Let the red river flow.

Magnum Opus 2: The Wolf King's Revenge!

2012-03-02T23:47:00.014-08:00

This is the first of a series of massive posts I'm calling Magnum Opus. Each installment will feature an entire army in all its bone-crunching glory!

After 10,000 years of bringing the wrath of the All-Father to the enemy in the very heart of the Eye of Terror, elements of the fabled 13^th company have been sighted in Imperial space! Who can doubt that the end times are upon us, when warriors of legend walk amongst mortals once more? These brave warriors are ready to rejoin their Primarch and the All-Father for the final battle against the legions of chaos. Behold!

This army is led by a mysterious warrior in full terminator plate, wielding a mighty two-handed axe which has felled many a hell-spawned beast!

He goes to battle backed by thirty fearsome warriors, each ready to crush the enemies of the imperium beneath the iron heel of terminator war plate!

Such a warrior must have a chariot worthy to bear him into battle, lest his saga end before he can bring the All-Father's justice to his enemies!

How fitting, to crush the servants of the dark gods beneath the hooves of their own slavering beasts! Two night-invincible wolf lords lead these mounted warriors into the thick of the enemy, leaving only blood and death in their wake!

Two five-man grey hunter packs hold objectives and provide crucial close range fire power while their more headstrong brethren close with the enemy.

Armor is no proof against the guns of the righteous! Two five-man grey hunter squads round out the force, cracking open enemy transports with a relentless barage of missiles. With nowhere to hide and nowhere to run, the enemy can do nothing but stand and die as the Sons of Russ close in for the kill!

The complete army list:

Logan Grimnar 275 points

Wolf Lord                                                                                           460 points
                Thunderwolf, Storm Shield, Ice Blade, Saga
Terminator Wolf Guard (30)                                                        1470 points
                Power Fist (6)
                Frost Blade (6)
                Chain Fist (4)
                Pair of Wolf Claws (4)
                Combi-Plasmagun and Power Fist (3)
                Combi-Melta and Power Fist (2)
                Combi-Melta and Chain Fist (1)
                Pair of Wolf Claws and Cyclone Missile Launcher (2)
                Heavy Flamer and Power Fist (1)
                Assault Cannon and Power Fist (1)
Thunderwolf Packs (2)                                                                   410 points
                Storm Shield (1)
                Power Fist (1)
                Normal (1)
Land Raider Crusader                                                                     240 points
Rhino (2)                                                                                             70 points
Grey Hunters (2)                                                                             210 points
                Bolter (3) Power Fist (1) Melta gun (1)
Long Fangs (2)                                                                                 230 points
                Missile Launcher (4), Squad Leader (1)
                                                                                                                                3365 points

I hope you've enjoyed the presentation. This army was originally inspired by Stuart Spengler's Death Wing army, which was featured way back in White Dwarf 311. When the Space Wolves codex came out it got an overhaul in order to stay competitive. All together it's over 3,000 points of (I hope you'll agree) expertly painted space marines. Now these brave warriors are off to carve out their legend anew in some distant corner of the galaxy.

The entire force is up for sale, and will soon make it's appearance on ebay. I'll list it for $2250 there, but I'll let it go for less if you're visiting the blog and you're ready to rock n roll. Shipping is free but I can't accept returns. That being said, if you do buy and you aren't satisfied for any reason, let me know and I'll go the extra mile to make it right. I don't sell junk and I don't want anyone who gives me that kind of money to feel like they haven't gotten something good. I can take more pictures on request; also I can make additions to the force if there's something you want but don't see here. We'll talk about the price depending on what you want. If you're interested, contact me at carinae986@gmail.com or leave a comment. I also have death guard, noise marine, and black legion armies that I'm planning to sell. If you're interested let me know.

World Eaters Rhino/Razorback

2011-11-17T13:26:00.000-08:00

Skulltaker's Cohort of Blood/Apoc discussion

2011-11-13T22:25:00.000-08:00

In all its infernal glory. The swords got painted different colors because it's unspeakably boring to paint 65 swords the same color, and also to differentiate the squads. But only three colors. This is a demonic host, not a pride parade.

He's missing the crazy back fin thing. Must have gotten chopped off in a fight.

shin-kickers.

hair-pullers

stabbers-of-eyeballs

head-butters

ass-kickers

stranglers-of-puppies

extra-mad-cause-they-don't-have-a-banner-guys

toe-stompers

I know what you're thinking.... why o why does this man want 64 bloodletters and skull taker? What could possibly be the point? I'll tell you why. Because it's right. Because I am a fanatic. Because it makes me happy. The point of having 64 bloodletters is having 64 bloodletters. It's pretty much it's own reason. Am I wrong?

Ofcourse I didnt paint all these things. I did what any sane person who wants 65 bloodletters would do: I paid someone else to do it. He's available for commissions btw, so if you think he does good work and you've got more money than time, let me know.

This is probably a good place for a little bit of impromptu Apoc advice...... here are some of the things I've learned about this format:

1. Playing chaos in Apocalypse is not the exercise in sportsmaship that it so often is in a standard game of 40k. If you take the right formations and use your assets correctly, you can cover over two of the major weaknesses of the codex: second rate shooting and third rate mobility. Formations like the Cohort of Blood, which completely nullifies a gun line the turn it drops, or the Lords of the Black Crusade, which brings a bucket of strategic assets, are very strong.

2. As a chaos player you are, in Apocalypse, the king of the orbital bombardment. Abaddon drops an apocalyptic blast every turn; indiscriminate bombardment drops two more; scheduled bombardment gives you another three. The Chaos Conclave lets you bring another. If you place these blasts correctly and the dice don't screw you, you can cripple alot of enemies on the first turn. Three very useful combinations of assets are Blind Barrage/Strategic Redeployment, Thousand Sons/Fateweaver/Altar of Chaos, and Vital Objective/Corrupt and Despoil. The first lets you put your entire army within striking distance at the end of the 1st turn, or else forces your opponent to deploy in odd ways in order to counter it; the second gives you as many 3+ invulnerable saves with rerolls as you need, backed up by a guy with 3 wounds and a 2++ rerollable save. The only way to really get rid of Fateweaver when he's on top of the altar is to hit him with a vortex missile (you'll never get close enough to throw the grande). The third lets you double the value of an objective which, if it is protected by, say Fateweaver, the Lords of the Black Crusade, and half a company of thousand sons, your opponent will never get you off of, while at the same time taking away an enemy objective. This gives you control of 40% of the available objectives and you haven't even done anything yet; hold one more and you win. The other two can be ignored.Other assets that are your friend are Flank March (often banned because it's absurdly good for assaulting armies), Hammer Blow, and of course the mighty Vortex Grenade. Don't take major possession. No matter how cool it might be to possess an enemy character, the fact that they choose which one completely nullifies this asset. Letting your opponent place your models is never a good idea, and they'll probably just throw away some 100 point chump anyway. It's not worth it.

3. There is no problem that can't be solved by enough chaos terminators. They are your go-to unit as a chaos general. The more the better.

4. The tyranid bio titan is crazy good at killing other titans. If you're playing bugs, take as many as you own or can borrow. If you're playing against tyranids, don't bother bringing your own titans; hierophants smoke them without even thinking about it. As a chaos player you have atleast one very strong counter to the hierophant; if you own enough terminators you can give them all combi-plasmaguns, drop next to this guy, and shoot him full of holes in one turn. Pretty strong.

5. Lascannons are in Apocalypse what meltaguns and missile launchers are in standard 40k. If you're playing chaos or an imperial army, bring as many as you can get ahold of.

6. Take as many destroyer weapons as you can. They're amazing

7. Plan plan plan. Nothing is worse than realizing you can't win a game of apocalypse on turn 3, and having to play for another 5 hours. Know what formations and assets are available to your opponent, so you don't have to learn about this stuff while he's beating you over the head with it.

8. Always take a disruptor beacon or something that gives you an equivalent effect, and always plan on your opponent doing so. The Chaos Conclave is my preferred method of doing this, because the beacons are only really important on turns 1-3, and it's very hard for most opponents to get rid of 8 chaos lords that quick. The reason you always want a disruptor beacon is that it completely hoses opponents who use strategic reserves without planning for the beacon. An enemy unit that's placed 6 feet away from the nearest objective is essentially out of the game, and all you have to do is roll a 4+ to do it. There aren't many places in 40k where you can get those kinds of odds. By the same token, if you're using strategic reserves, you have to plan on your opponent having this thing, if only to protect yourself. If they take it in its asset incarnation your best bet is to knock it out with an orbital bombardment, as its pretty fragile and likely to be well-guarded and/or hidden. But you can't hide from an orbital barrage.

9. Never, never, never take the doombringer annihilation force. If you want to drop a crazy number of terminators, just do that. You don't need the formation. The fact that its keyed to a particular objective, and your opponent knows which one because you have to keep hitting it with an orbital barrage, lets your opponent plan for it's arrival. All they have to do to kill the whole formation is spread out, leaving the terminators with no room to deploy, and hence forcing them to roll on the mishap table, where the unit is likely to be wiped out. It's difficult to recover after losing an entire formation to something dumb like this.

10. Speaking of strategic reserves, keep in mind the size of the board and the point values - you might be surprised how quickly a board can fill up - literally fill completely up - leaving you with no place to deploy. Not cool.

11. Plan on 1 hour for every 2000 points on the board, roughly. If you have 6 hours, don't play a 10,000 point-per-side game; you'll never finish.

12. Power armor doesn't mean shit in Apoc. Too many destroyer weapons etc. If you're not in cover, you're in trouble.

13. If you have better mobility than your opponent, deploy your objectives far away from each other. That way if he tries to go for them individually you can use your mobility concentrate your whole force on one part of his army at a time and wipe it out piece by piece. If you have worse mobility than your opponent, deploy your objectives close together so that you can keep your guys close enough to support each other and don't have to run around trying to protect them. This holds for normal games of 40k too. You should know, as you are placing objectives, which ones you intend to hold, which ones you intend to ignore, and which ones you intend to corrupt and despoil. Those decisions ought to inform your placement of the objectives. If you plan on holding an objective, for instance, it's probably a good idea to put it in cover, etc.

14. The entire format is pretty ridiculous if you play competitively and allow proxies. If you do there are all kinds of tricks possible that are evil, funny, and not at all funny, all at the same time. You can probably think of 5 in as many minutes. The only ways to get around this, that I've found, is to have someone else write both armies, or else to disallow proxies entirely. Most people don't have enough models to abuse the freedom that Apoc gives you; they would have to proxy to do the really dumb stuff.

Well, that's all for now. Cheers!

First Thoughts on Necrons

2011-11-07T23:01:00.000-08:00

1. Quantum shielding is a direct, hard counter to a very popular shooting strategy: sit back and throw out 20+ str 7 and 8 attacks every turn, thus smoking all enemy APCs by turn 2. Brilliant! Except it's not the cure all it used to be. Necrons do not care. This is good news in that it balances out a too-popular strategy, but bad news in that it was necessary in the first place. i.e. the designers should balance the game **before** the codex comes out, not **afterwards**

It's typical of Matt Ward that he would write a codex that introduces a great new dynamic, and then nullifies it completely with the next book. For instance, Blood Angels gave us 40+ cheap, deadly assault marines, who are completely hosed by init 6 power weapons, and cheap, deadly razorbacks, who are completely hosed by blessed autocannons and psycannons. That was great for Grey Knights, but now they have to eat it to quantum shielded barges, which don't give a damn about psycannons. I'm not jumping on the "hate Matt Ward" bandwagon, but this is getting a bit old. He needs to knock this shit off and start thinking more seriously about the overall game environment.

2. This army gets stronger as the game goes on. Your opponents guys don't get back up. Yours do. So you should be able to retain more capability further into the game than other armies, which start out strong but tend to diminish rapidly in capability after turn 4 or so. The key to taking advantage of this resilience is, of course, staying out of close combat. I haven't poured over every last detail of the book, but my first impression is that even Necron close combat specialists are junk. It's better to just accept that guys who get caught in assault are going to get wiped out, than invest in a 200-300 point squad that won't solve the problem anyway.

3. Scarabs are good. Really good. They're cheap, so you can take alot of them. Their entropic strike rule can shred even the heaviest armored unit, and they have enough wounds to sandbag alot of infantry units that would otherwise pose a real threat to your warriors/immortals. They're beasts, so they're reliably in combat by turn 2, giving the necron player the initiative about **what** to sandbag or **which** vehicles to strike. And the fact that they're small means they can hide from many shooting attacks. The ideal way to get rid of them is with a flamestorm cannon, of course.... In any case, I really like this unit, and recommend it highly. Entropic strike in general is your friend. If I were playing this book I would try to take as many copies of it as possible.... not that I ever would play the xenos scum........

4. Immortals are usually going to be worth it over warriors. Every squad should get the ghost ark - it's open topped, it has a bunch of guns, it keeps your guys from getting shot up without limiting their own shooting, and it protects you from assaults. Oh and more of your guys get up. This thing is an auto include for any infantry squad imo.

5. Invest in ressurrection technology. It's what your army does. Anything that makes more guys stand up plays to your army's strength.

6. The Monolith ain't what it used to be, but it's still strong. I don't see any reason to take the annihilation ark over this.

7. Tesseract labrynths are an auto include. For 20 points the chance to assassinate a guy like Grimanr or the Swarm Lord is too good to pass up.

8. When GW sees a good idea, they're just not happy until they've stolen and copywrited it..... expect to see the producers of Battlestar Galactica retro-actively sued for using GW's ghost ark design for their resurrection ship, their doom scythe design for the cylon raiders, etc....... I for one intend to purchase a starbuck mini and use it as an objective for every single game against these guys.

Cheers.

More Cult Terminators

2011-11-07T02:02:00.000-08:00

Another batch of cult terminators. Only one of these got a leg repose. Enjoy!

Another Blood Thirster

2011-10-30T09:24:00.000-07:00

Yes. I went there.

Undead Imperial Guard?

2011-10-18T15:08:00.001-07:00

I dont normally post stuff that isnt finished, but just this once....

Possessed Berserkers

2011-10-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

Sarkan the Reborn

2011-10-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

Condemned to live out the rest of his life as a broken corpse, floating helplessly within the iron tomb of the dreadnought armor, Sariel the Bold, once the captain of the 4th Company of the Blood Angels, betrayed the emperor, mankind, and his own immortal soul so that he might be reborn as a mighty demon prince! He took the name Sarkan Blood Fist, and led his band of renegades from one corner of the galaxy to the other in search of the Eight Burning Books of Khorne. In these books all the greatest slaughters of Khorne's servants were recorded. The books were bound in bone, with pages of flesh, and written in ink of blood! He laid these books at the base of Khorne's throne of brass, and as a reward for his bloody labors he ascended to the ranks of demon kind. Sarkan Blood Fist was reborn! Now he stalks the galaxy in search of fresh slaughter, a soul drenched in gore, beyond any hope of salvation, who craves nothing but the chaos of battle and the glory of victory. He is known by a thousand names on a thousand worlds, but everywhere his name is cursed, if it is dared spoken at all. As for the Blood Angels, they speak of him no more, and any unwise enough to mention his woeful legacy in the presence of the Sons of Sanguinius will be heard from no more!

World Eaters Storm Raven

2011-09-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

World Eaters: Stealing the Emperor's toys since the 30th millenium.

World Eaters Terminators

2011-07-11T23:18:00.000-07:00

There are just some things you can't run a proper cult without... and hard assed terminators are one of them!

I wanted to model these terminators with a lot of motion, because the way the terminators are posed strait out of the box just seems too static in general, and definitely for a bunch of hyper active warriors like the world eaters. I clipped the right leg at the knee and used clippers and green stuff to repose it, and also I used green stuff to fill in the gaps at the shoulder joints.

I tilted this guy forward to give him a more aggressive pose. In general I think lightning claws are one of the hardest options for terminators to make them look good, just because the angles of the elbow and joints seem really static and it's hard to make them look like the terminator is using them in any kind of realistic way.

This guy was copied from one of the terminators at Wade's Workshop, one of my favorite sources on the interneet for inspiration. I painted mine alot brighter than he did, though, because that's what I do.

These guys took about 10 hours each. I really tried to take my time with them, and it was definitely for the love of modelling rather than to put the unit on the field.

Magnum Opus 1: Alien Scum

2011-06-08T21:06:00.001-07:00

We dont normally feature xenos scum on this website, seeing as it is dedicated to the glorious gods of chaos and their chosen warriors.... but I guess it will be ok this one time. Twice if you count the avatar. Which is more of a psychic construct than an alien per se. Whatever. Anyway I have a friend whose selling a beautifully painted Tau army so I thought I'd showcase it here. Enjoy!

Blood Knights of Khorne (Khorne Thunderwolf Conversions)

2011-05-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

Ok so enough of this netherborn stuff. I feel the wrath of the Blood God upon me! These khornate thunderwolf conversions can be blood crushers or thunder wolves or whatever. Wouldn't surprise me at all to see Blood Knights (or whatever they call them) in the next Codex: CSM. I think alot of arguments in the 40k design team go something like this:
Writer: "I want to do XYZ"
Editor: "No that's dumb."
Writer: "We did it in the last codex."
Editor: "Oh yeah, we did. Ok you can do it whatever."
Hence... if Spacewolves get bad ass wolf riding warriors... it's hard to argue why the chaos codex shouldn't get bad ass juggernaut riders. Hopefully Matt Ward will write our next book. They'll let him write anything.

Logan Grimnar

2011-05-23T08:18:00.001-07:00

At this point, really, there's no reason to buy the character models that come in the blister packs... they're old, they're overpriced, they're not even going to be metal anymore, and you can make way cooler stuff on your own anyway, if you just use the plastic kits and a little imagination. So... Logan 2.0

Dreadnought Macharion

2011-05-17T10:24:00.001-07:00

ebay gem

2011-05-13T12:49:00.008-07:00

1st edition chaos squat, complete with armored mustache. What a gem. Seller is listing it for 40 bucks

A Blessed Demon Engine of Khorne

2011-05-13T11:07:00.000-07:00

May it reap a great talley, that the Lord of Skulls may be exalted!
and may google get its shyte together so I dont have to post this thing a 3rd time

World Eaters Rhinos/Razorbacks

2011-05-09T03:03:00.000-07:00

Rhinos... they aren't sexy, but damnit you gotta have em. If they can turn into chaos razorbacks, so much the better. Planning on adding skull racks and crazy buzz saws etc later to make them more world eaty.

Why I Love Counts As

2011-05-05T04:13:00.000-07:00

Arguments against Counts-As usually go something like this: It unfairly benefits marine players because he has half a dozen books to choose from, but the poor orks or bugs player only has one book and he's stuck with it. Counts as lets the marine player crush his enemies by playing flavor of the month bull shit from online, but his friends can't come to the party. Besides that it makes a mockery of the fluff to have berserkers, for instnace, running around pretending to be blood angels. If you're a berserker player, play berserker rules. That's the way it was meant to be.

Ok a couple things...
First I agree with the feeling and I much prefer to play an army where the fluff, rules and models all sync together. The problem is there are alot of smart people out there playing new and obviously more powerful books. If I don't want to set myself up to lose against them, I've got to play one of the newer and more powerful books myself. You dont bring a knife to a gun fight, and you dont play chaos verse blood angels. Simple as that.

Second it's not just marine players who can do this. If you want to play your shootaboyz as guardsmen, your truks as chimeras, or your nobz as ogryns, whose going to stop you? Not me. If it's fair for me it's fair for you, so there's no reason to complain here either. As long the substitutions are clearly modelled and obvious to you and your opponent, there shouldn't be a problem.

Third I shouldn't be forced to choose between playing my best game and spending money I don't have. None of us should. Counts-as is a quick and easy way to maintain play balance across a variety of books that have obvious and widely different power levels. Disallowing it basically hands the advantage to the guy with the most money to spend, because he can do all the codex hopping he wants, but the rest of us have to play the same book year after year. This should be a game of skill and luck, not of competitive splurging.

Fourth alot of competitive lists already make a mockery of the fluff. The lash-plague-oblit list is a pretty obvious example of that. Competitive lists are going to ignore the fluff one way or another, and counts-as really doesn't have anything to do with it.

Fifth counts as is not proxying. Counts-as is an opportunity to do some creative modelling; proxying is just taking some random object and calling it a rhino or a demon prince or whatever. A counts-as model should reflect the rules its supposed to represent, so everything is clear to the opponent. That's just being corteous. Proxying is a great way to playtest stuff you're not sure about, but it's no way to play a casual game.

I love counts as for alot of reasons. It helps me to play my best game and experiment with different rule sets, it allows me to keep up with the environment without spending a truckload of money, and it gives me the opportunity to do some creative modelling and have some fun with the background. I really think it should be an opportunity for everyone, not a drag! Let's all get used to this new development in the 40k environment and make the most of it! Because, until that blessed day when GW drops the codex system and gets serious about play balance, it's definitely here to stay.

Agree? Disagree? Want to troll the site? Speak your mind!