Archive for October, 2011

18

Rave Review: Ravager Gunship

By
Sorrowshard
– October 28, 2011Posted in: Dark Eldar: Rave Review

Well well well, a new Rave review , how long HAS it I been ? firstly a wee hobby update. I have been taking a nice break form hobby for the most part, though I have not been completely Idle There is a 99% assembled Tantalus (twas a pig) and a fair number of Combined Infinity models to show for the time, I was a little frustrated last weekend as I am waiting for the micro art bases for my Infinity stuff before I start painting them and would have been a goodly chunk of the way through the Tantalus Paintwork by now but am waiting on a replacement part from FW, essentially wrote off the weekend, its funny as I have plenty of assembled and even base coated DE stuff to work on but that’s not the stuff I have the enthusiasm for right now , I’m even still waiting on my replacement BF tray, what is it with the mini industry sometimes ? looks like this weekend is going to be written off too as I have called both places that ‘should’ have got stuff to me by now and both have said the things wont be with me til next week …… Fail

I think I’ll assemble the Scourges and maybe force myself to pick up something I don’t want to paint ….. Reavers Certainly need doing, a couple of my friends have put in for various Court of the Archon for my impending year-closer-to-death day so I’m not allowed to buy any let alone paint any….. which is the only other unit I have any enthusiasm for atm…..

On the subject of THAT particular day, Rants Birthday has been arbitrarily set to Halloween, There is going to be a competition/giveaway amongst other things so stay tuned.

Anyway this is turning into a ramble so I’ll get on with the article at hand.

The Ravager, So it’s essentially a gunship variant of the Raider with some extra armour and 2 more lances, Lances at a reasonable price are almost non-existent elsewhere in the book and the Ravager packs just enough volume that you ‘should’ achieve something every time it fires.

Amour 11 on a heavy support choice is hardly anything to write home about, however it’s the highest AV in the book and is only narrowly edged out for ‘on paper’ survivability by the closed-topped void raven , however on a points efficiency and ease of gaining cover basis I feel that the Ravager has the edge.

Subsequently this combination of good value and being the only source of multiple long ranged mobile lances means it is a staple of ‘competitive’ spam lists, for the record it’s a nightmarish dogsh1t to paint properly.

Early Ravager Prototype

 God, now I’m sat here trying to write about it it’s tough to find much to write other than It’s cheap, most cost effective AT heavy support we have , does not mean it’ s good , just grin and bear it m’kay ? and it often edges out the other choices because we need the AT , anti Infantry is pretty much covered just by taking a DE army , well for most lists anyway.

The Razorwing is 40 points more for a the loss of a lance and is harder to hide / gain cover for , of course it nukes the ever living Mum-Ra out of things but that may not be required if the rest of your list covers it (Venom spam) but you will always always ALWAYS need more lances, if they were a bit better than they are for their price and availability  this would be less the case.

I hate spam and I think a list can cope loosing a single lance as well as finding the points for a Razorwing, I don’t know about 1500, I would prob have to ditch it, not that I will play 1500 voluntarily anymore …. To be honest a pair of ravagers should be the staple default choice for any DE army IMO, I have written a flyer themed list that does away with them alltogether but the rest of the list has to pick up the slack so to speak.

 

Ravagers I will rarely reserve, I want them on the table nice and early laying down suppression (that’s all they can really be relied on for) if its spearhead and my opponent is going first I’ll reserve them, I often have an internal struggle when I have won first turn, my inclination is to gamble on their small chances of a seize to have good shooting position/range from the get go, I have been punished for this in the past, not so long ago I had been experimenting with more aggressive deployment and had the Initiative stolen from me three games in a row, ouch subsequently I just won’t risk it, always set it up in cover or at least so a minimum of your opponents ranged threats can draw uncovered los to it, with Tlos it’s always going to be kind of hard to actually hide but the opportunity does arise, I would humbly suggest you take that opportunity when you can as the ravager has the speed to come out of hiding , hopefully take up another good/covered position and get the drop on it’s targets, in a lot of games it is just flat impossible to hide and things like psyflemen will punish you horribly if they get to shoot, all you can do is put lances on them and hope that if/when you do penetrate you don’t stun/shake the damn thing , immobilized results are a stab I the back from your dice, send them to the microwave, essentially 50% of results do effectively jack. (that stupid rule alone is enough to make me want to disintegrate Ward, let alone the rest of Codex Rape knights)

Be sneaky with them , move from cover to cover, if there is none, use your other units to give them cover , your opponent probably won’t fear them as they are just not that effective but if he is sensible he will shut you AT down as fast as he can, Ravagers will be a priority so make it as hard as you can for them. On the subject of mobility Ravagers are quite good for working around for side and occasionally even rear shots, get lances on AV 10 and they are a different animal.

 I would go for a lengthy discussion of the options available however most of them can be discarded without a second thought, bare minimum I run Flickers they are good to have, we all know this. My reasoning for them to be the primary, nay compulsory choice is simple, any of the weapons your opponent bought for long range AT/suppression will be in range weather you have night fields or not, that’s not to say NF’s are useless but for me they are secondary and certainly not compulsory if points are tight, with the Meteoric rise of the GK I am starting to see a case for their general inclusion alongside FF’s but that does see me needing to find up to 90 points in my 1750 army and does jack to help with the inevitable psyfles, NF’s will help protect from medium ranged armies and deepstriking melta (to some extent) they are oddly of more use on Raiders and anything that’s going to be up close (I have always thought they should subtract 6 from your opponents Nightight range too )

Why can I connect this to Ward/GK ?

 The rest of the options are dross and pointless except for Maybe Retrofires , though if you were doing a derp strike list why would you not take the duke ? not that I can really recommend deepstiking Ravagers, ever

In summary it’s the bang-for-buck Heavy support choice that you will take because there is nothing better in the same price range, yes a Voidraven is better but offers very similar stats for a higher price , every time I read the rules for the Void mine after reading the glorious fluff I feel like a kicked puppy.

This kicked puppy

 That’s not to say I would not take a Void Raven, actually I would…. but that’s a discussion for the next Rave Review ;o)

 

 

7

Reader Email- To Razor or not to Razor ?

By
Sorrowshard
– October 25, 2011Posted in: Announcements and BS, Gloating, Musings, Reader Mail

Hi,

To start, congrats on the award at TOS, judging from the battle reports, it was well earned and well deserved. A major stinking shame about the painting but what can you do? Your army may not have gotten the credit it deserved but judging from the comments on your blog and on flickr, I’d say it definitely got some great exposure.

Regarding the subject at hand, I’m trying to build up my force up to 1750 points and I’m trying to see if it’s worth it to run 2 Razorwings 1 Ravager rather than 1 Razorwings and 2 Ravagers. From reading your tournaments I can see you had great success with the fighters but are they, in your experience, worth running in pairs to get the extra redundancy and assurance that “something” will show up by turn 3?

Thanks in advance,

Dark_Gear

 

Hello Dark gear,

As for ToS I feel I had some luck there too, as much as I like a good old supervilian style gloat I feel uncomfortable claiming it was all me, true I had some bad dice but there were a couple of times the dice were very kind to me at just the right moment, one particular instance sticks in my mind….

Thanks for your email, yeah my feelings about best painted have mellowed somewhat, my army is what it is. Also since you emailed  GW spotted them on Flickr and has asked me to write some stuff and ran a feature on” Whats New Today”

1750 Is a good level, my favorite for competitive games, 1500 is too tight and you just end up stripping down to the most soullessly efficient thing you can create (well that’s my inclination anyway) with 1750 the extra slack allows you to breathe a little and even be a little more creative with the list, if you have a solid 1500 core that really works what’s wrong with spending 250 points on some stuff you want to include ? or padding out the 1500 core with some more eclectic/experimental choices ? TBH if I really went into the 1750 I took to throne on a pure risk/efficiency basis the Incubi/Archon would be gone as both are expensive and only circumstantially useful, a couple of times when they should have been useful they have bounced so they really are in the list as an Indulgence. Anyway I digress.

Razorwings are a conundrum they cost a fair bit more than a Ravager and are harder to get cover for , FF’s help a bit in that department but its then more points. Conversely I tend to run mine with dark lances, a flickerfield and an additional splinter cannon. For me there is not even a contest with the dissies, it kills infantry stuff dead anyway so you wont particularly notice them but you will miss two lances, besides, with a splinter cannon and two lances it still has 8 shots ?

Long range AT is precious for DE there are a couple of approaches you can take, Unless the scenario or opponents setup allows you to get away with it I would pretty much always tend to reserve the Razor, obviously you need to make a judgment call, but most of the time mine is reserved, the theory being I WILL get to fire, there is no danger at all of it not getting to go, obviously this opens up the reserves can of worms (I still think DE should have reserves manipulation) hopefully your opponent is not entirely meched and/or you can either tempt something out of it’s box or failing that open it, derp strikers are fun too, obviously the bigger the units your opponent runs the better the pie torrent will be, now bear this in mind, by not taking the ravager you are three lances down, technically only one , however as you assume you will most often be in reserve you cannot bank on those lances in the early game, best value is achieved when a disembarked squad is right next to the vehicle you target the vehicle so your lances are doing something worthwhile and place the templates so the hole is on the vehicle but the template covers as much of the infantry nearby (usually get all of them) often you can net yourself a double kill this way, if you are feeling lucky there are times you can get away with deepstriking behind a tank/unit then even the str 6 is hitting AV10 , nice if the opportunity arises.

Diet humor break:

Just a note- sometimes you can and should and need set it up on the table, that’s something you will have to learn to judge for yourself. If I find myself doing it any time soon I’ll take a note of the situation.

Back to my point, as you are technically lances down you need to make sure the rest of the army can carry itself AT wise , for example I toyed with the idea of  running a triple Razor list bu took raiders elsewhere and three units of Reavers to make sure some tins get opened so I can pie them, venoms did not go in the list as anti infantry should be well covered.

Hmm I think the single Rav will prob die quite early, you honestly need pairs for redundancy and  to get the volume of lances required to do ‘something’  ANYTHING pleasegodwhywontitWORK!!

I would either take one or three razorwings, if taking three you need to build the list around that, DE are complex, even using the Razorwing is not simply point and click, you have to think about what you are doing, you need to get used to the fact it may not arrive when you need it , trying to set up things or it’s arrival will not always pay off but if things do come together it’s great, sometimes you will have to make the most of a bad situation and kill what you can, with the lance setup even if  it does turn up and there is nothing De-meched or you can’t de mech anything for it that turn at least you have lances right ?

Incidentally I will probably swap out my Razorwing for a Shatterfield bomber when it is available as it is technically tougher than a Ravager, offers a similar statistical kill probability as a Ravager and will do pie plate storm nicely, of course it will cost a few more points but in theory at least it’s worth it as you get teh best of both worlds, maybe I’ll jiggle the list and try play testing it.

You could try play testing with a pair but making a judgment call I would say you want one or three. Three will/should impact how you build the rest of the list whereas one can be added to almost any list as long as it has solid AT already , my current list has 18 lances and 2 heat lances not including the razor (so 20 and 2 HL’s total), I pack some haywire Wyches too, as you know my own preffered setup is two Ravagers and a Razor.

On the subject of reserves, usually Ill either put as much as possible on the table (and prob reserve the razor) or reserve everything, by having only one thing in reserve it minimises the impact of fail reserves rolls on your overall game plan. likewise reserving everything ensures you should at least have some stuff come on.

I Hope that helps

 

Edit: there are a few guys who read this blog who know their stuff  so maybe they will be able to expand/offer their experience.

40

Newsflash

By
Sorrowshard
– October 20, 2011Posted in: Uncategorized

So yeah, I’m not really one to let things lie, I may be having a little trouble letting go of the whole “your army is too crap for ToS thing” so I may have submitted a bunch of piccies into GW’s Flikr pool…..

I thought I might mention it in case anyone went on there, saw my army and thought that it was mighty strange it did not get even a sniff of a nomination .

Just to clarify I neither expected or deserved to win best army, I think the right person won in the end but some of the other nominations were frankly bizarre and the whole thing left a bad taste in the mouth, I’m by no means the first to point this out either.

Maybe a few of you reader types could throw me a bone here :o P

Call this an experiment if you will

PS, Conversely  if I’m being an arrogant Fapbag, hit me up in the comments, and no I don’t mean the usual Shard stuff, specifically in relation to just this M’kay ?

17

Throne In E minor Report & Review

By
Sorrowshard
– October 18, 2011Posted in: Announcements and BS, Gloating, Musings, Rant

Right, throne of skulls, where to start.

 Yep it was a biggie, lossa people lots and lots of armies , I’ll break this down into sections but I’m going to do general events stuff/’product’ review and then a brief rundown of what I remember from my games.

Ok, the venue , the hall was good, duh well yeah I cant say I remember feeling squashed or claustrophobic so all good there, a few of the lower tables had some pretty good terrain, now I understand a tournament of this scale may stretch resources a bit but the terrain was a bit thin on the ground and some of the tables it was largely incidental, it would have been nice for say the top ten tables to have had the correct amount and differing types of terrain, as its those players who will miss it the most, as a DE player I use every last scrap where possible just to stay alive, other than the odd low building or bastion everything was flatish area terrain, at least on my tables I got a bastion for the last two games, but that was the only high blos/cover giving terrain on the table. More on them later though. My first thoughts were ‘oh dear’ I expected tough games due to lack of terrain, the hall could really do with some better lighting too.

The event team guys seemed like nice guys and the organization for the most part was pretty spot on, plenty of time for games, as at least a couple of mine were fairly short I got to have a bit of a stroll around which was nice, given the number of people involved they did a fine job on that part of the tourney, the lists and match ups/results postings were pretty slick too, I know art is subjective but the ‘best painted’ is a sore spot for me and others who were actually there and saw what else was on offer, the nominees were questionable in places but I think the right army won, not to my tastes particularly but it was very impressive and flawlessly executed. I just firmly believe my stuff deserved at least a shot in the cabinets so people could see them properly. The dingy hall meant that the only people who got excited about my army were the ones who actually bothered to take some time looking, the event organizers had the luxury of being able to look at my army list/brochure which I put together, the guy I handed it into was like OMG is this your stuff !?, nominated ? no …. I can only put it down to politics or somesuch weirdo BS which on the whole seemed to be completely lacking the rest of the time, though I have come to understand ‘best painted’ can mean almost anything depending who you ask, this weekend banged the confirmation nail home on that.

That’s me grumbling done, I quite liked the food actually, the curry and chips I had on the Saturday night was just what the doctor ordered and the treacle sponge on Sunday tasted waaay better than it looked, nurgle on the outside Slannesh in the middle, considering they had so many people to cook for it was a fine effort and went some way to justifying the ticket cost , on the subject of cost I would pay it again, so I guess it is about right. Conversely if they drop back to 1500 points as rumored I won’t be in attendance.

The pub quiz was a laugh and they managed to make it pretty tough, considering we were a small team we did pretty ok, the wipeout round was brutal.

Before I get into the meat of the games, It was pleasant to see more people had taken a similar approach to myself than I thought would, there were boring dull dull dull soulless spam lists aplenty but they were mostly missing from the top tables which I find telling, what was especially great to see was xenos beating face despite the deluge of Imperial armies I did not play a single xenos race and got 4 meq armies and an IG hybrid gunline thing to ‘play’ with (mwah ha ha ) man of the weekend goes to the little greek fella on table 2 who smashed a purifier/crowe spam list brutally with a good non spam list that looked very balanced, tbh I have no idea how he did it but the GK player looked like my Archon had ‘slipped’ with his soul trap, he must be a magician with the fish-men, I think he equaled my battle points, ya hear that Synnsin ? gogettem outta the cupboard and smash some GK bandwagoners into the arms of the next new hotness (Wardcrons), pretty much everyone I spoke to played almost nothing but MeQ, it seemd to me that Bangles are very popular out there still ( 3 of my games ?)

So onto my games, it’s been a couple of days now so these will be more an overview based on what I can remember:

Game one – Sanguinary Guard – with Sanginor and Dante, uhm, lol oh dear , he pulled up to the table a bit late and the guys from the tables around had come over for a snigger they had seen the 25? Little red men on the tray and seen my flotilla of evil , he was a good sport and put on a show , I think it must have been essentially impossible for me to loose, I won the roll off forced him to go first and reserved the lot , he reserved too and had to bring stuff in before me so I just rolled on and wiped out what had come in piecemeal , venoms were ineffectual but without vehicles to occupy them my lances were making fast work of his stuff , to kick of my Archons (what I had hoped at the time) planned ‘Pokemon’ weekend I cut up a sanguinary high guard and used his soul juice to go and pwn Sanginor (despite being peado-smile masked by Derpte) who I had cunningly shot down to one wound , apparently his royal shinieness does not like six or seven str 7 attacks to the face, he promptly got hoovered into the trap too, I can’t remember what happened to Dante , I think it involved lances ….

I made a boob with positioning my Incubi, where  he had got into cover with all but one sang guard and I moved around the side so I could assault just him without having to go through cover, I should have set up further back so as to just be able to clip him with one member of my squad, I think the incubi ended up receiving the spank paddle for my stupidy but my Archon cleaned up , I think he was tabled and I held both objectives after maybe 40 mins so off to a good start. My opponent was a really great Scottish guy, he actually gave me a fave army vote too, legend !

Second game was hybrid mech gunline , I remember a blob squad of doom , battlepsychers , roughriders, ten bajillion weapon teams of the autocannon and lascannon variety , another random guard squad seemingly buried in flamers  2 vendettas with nasty contents 2 russes and a couple of other armour pieces I forget , box shape AV12 front squishy sides phallic objects abound.

Was spearhead annihilation …joy , so I total reserved and came on the side , this is the first time I have been really happy to get a one for drugs my reserves were poor but I used what I had and lucked out as the incubi and archon managed to make a huge run roll to get into combat from off the table so to speak , I run out of details but I shot up the psychers bad with venoms who fled off the table (I was pleased) I lost the incubi to a countercharge from the riders but had  done 8 wounds that combat, there were only 4 incubi left to kill so the riders went off the table too , I think if the blob squad had not been commissar/stubborn and kept the archon busy for most of the game he would have run the lot of the table after that combat, lol anyway , cat and mouse with the vendettas ensues, lots of Darklight going on, not much happening in the way of lasting damage , I think I rear armoured one with reavers in the end and chopped up what fell out, lances continued to fail It did go down in the end. My razorwing sadly did not make it in on the 3+ as I had hoped so had to weather a pretty appalling turn of shooting at the start, I think we both thought he had me from that point but the following turn the rest of my stuff made it in having ran out of gum on the way, Razorwing stole the show here and just obliterated all but three of the heavy wep teams , it was just awesome to behold , the game had firmly see sawed back into my favour and I continued to punish the poor IG until they were all gone – tabled ftw I got 18 kps in that game, though the brutal shooting had cost me 8-9 before the DE one-punched the life outta his army in retaliation. I only realized after the game that I had never rolled the reserves for my wyches or bought them on ….

 Third game – Meph razorspam, ten vehicles in all containing two dreads one of which was venerable and lurked behind the armour wall giving cover, this was a hard game for me, I used the one bastion and my mobility to cut down on what was coming at me as much as possible and just tried to focus on one thing at a time, he passed a filthy amount of cover saves but the darklight nerf battery eventually started to wear through.

He started with some scouts in the middle(only) building who I fed to the wyches, this dragged meph over who struggled to really dislodge them so the following turn the libby dread waded in too which did see them off , my archon flailed away at him for a couple of turns , sure it was a gamble but I needed a single six to get rid of meph and he needed me to roll ones to die as it happens my ability to roll ones on cue far out strips my ability to roll 6’s (on multiple dice) so he died also spoiling my Pokemon mini-game for the weekend (boo hiss)

My incubi smashed a 5 man assault squad off one objective and were on their way to dispose of another when meph caught them up … ouch, though meph was forced into hiding by the threat of the DL disco of death, I kept working his vehicles with the darklight and things started to crumble, the Reavers really shined in this game killing three vehicles, just gliding in range popping one and then back out of range and into cover, as it was objectives and he was relying on cheapy five man squads to score he could not risk going after the Reavers or even getting out the Razorbacks really as it was a death sentence for his scorers.

As it happens lance fail reared its ugly head one turn and I think the best part of 20 lance shots netted me a single weapon destroyed on his talon furioso, I had him boxed up pretty good and all he could do was keep those last scorers where they were and hope to outlive the turns ,  top of my last turn we both had 2 objectives each , I just had to park one of my several available skimmers on one or both of his objectives, I somehow got caught up deciding what to do with everything else after earmarking a venom full of  warriors for the job, next thing you know it I’m shooting and only realize my epic boob when I come to shoot the venom , I kinda double took at that point, now I had to hope for another turn which ultimately never came, gutted as this cost me max battle points.

Meph was still hiding in the corner of a building when game over happened  , so yeah not a brilliant result but not a loss and my  pokemon mini game was foiled ,drat! Meph would have been a great addition as I have Sanguinor , Lysander, Driago and assorted chaff in there to date, many librarians ….

Ill get you next time gadget….

Fourth game was kp’s vs one of the top GK players, Im not sure where he was set to end up but he knew his business and army and in between we had a laugh over the sheer awfulness each turn visited on both of us. he was running a hoopy inq warbnd retinue thing with an inquisitor and one of those broken GK libbies, sanctuary and stealth for all is unbelievably hideous, 3+ cover save Ravens ? check , plus you are not tied into protecting a given unit it’s just a bubble effect so even after I deleted the first Raven with surprising ease the people that dropped out had 3+ cover, he passed a staggering amount of saves, I put 48 shots (ish) from the Venoms into the squad and only got 3 of them dead , aargh , needless to say they double quick timed of to join the giant termy squad that arrived the following turn which put paid to any plans of polishing off the libby or Inquisitor easily , double drat

the middle of the board nect to the inevitable bastion got bogged down into a wych pit, that was after the flamer spam purifiers jumped out of the other raven along with their pet dreddy , they did a fair job on my clustered venoms and I can’t remember what the dread did but I multi assaulted the dread and the purifiers and the melta survivor from the first raven crash  over the course of the rest of the game caused by some woeful rolling I eventually ground down the purifiers , stabbed up the melta man and had an armless immobilized dread that simply refused to die, I imagine after the game my heamo would have had great fun with his tin opener and surgical ‘hobby’ kit ….

much lance fire was spammed into the second Raven that eventually blew up  having been immobiised on the floor for a turn or two, it continued to be annoying with its machine spirit shenanigans , his big term squad was bunched up from the teleport , has gamble to shoot paid off as I faled the 3+ for my razorwing reserve again , so when it turned up I think he had spread out and I could only pie four per plate rather than ten (that would have hurt) , It did however manage  to do enough wounds to decapitate that pesky inquisitor , I think there might have been a termy or two in the mix. he had  another five man squad of termies that I plinked away at with darkmatter of which only one remained by game over, had we another turn he was a goner , the last few turns were not much of anything neither of us had the confidence in our units to attempt something decisive .

He only had the large termy unit , I had a fair bit of stuff but it was all fragile and I took the safe option to move them out of range as I was just about ahead in kp’s my decision paid off as we got turn over , was pretty tense at the end there  but I figured evn if he had killed something  I only had to kill a single termy to put myself ahead again so was relatively safe I think  had it been a casual game I would have just gone for the kill and tried to darkmatter spam his termy blob to death , thinking about it the wyches were not far off pulling down the dread it was immobilized and weaponless.

This was another game where one unit did not take part, I bought the reavers in from reserve and just boosted them far away from the termies,  bladevanes were not worth the attempt to just loose the Reavers and there shooting was similarly not going to make a huge difference here so they just got stuck out the way.

Likewise the Archon and Incubi could not get involved as they simply cant kill enough termies to not just get murdered anyway so they hung back, In a casual game I would have hammered them with  all  my shooting then tried a charge thinking about it

No one really landed a decisive blow both of us had a chance and flubbed it several times despite this probably the most tactical game of the tourney  as it bacame all about positioning.

Last game was interesting, I drew Razor spam once again oddly enough there was a vindi and another storm raven with a death star in it , Corbulo and a chappy with termies , Pokemon was back on ….

was dow so I opted to roll everything on , forgetting BA are fast , fortunately I had been quite cautious on the basis of them being 6″ in so some of his fire was wasted, I think I lost some ? stuff to his opening volley , as I was right in his face with no nightfight next the lances etc were nasty , first shot brought down my third storm raven of the tourney (4th if you include practice) dropping his deathstar in font of the rest of my guns sadly my luck then ran out as he passed alot of saves, I think I got two off after that , same turn wyches made a long range haywire charge on the vindi, stunning it then taking it out the following turn , they moved onto a razor whose occupants took a dislike  to them, fnp helped me to survive a flamer blast with only a couple of casualties, his assaulters had to come into the wreck of the  vindi to get me so he took DT and lost a guy, they bounced off the wyches and slowly got dragged down in following turns, he threw another squad in there later too, combat almost went the distance. A melta unit hopped out their battered razor and melta’d the wych raider , my Razorwing that arrived right after went for the twofer and targeted the razor but obviously the pie plate got the whole squad too, missile strikes took out the razor before I could roll for lance hits also and there was one marine left where there had been five (I love Razorwings) the Heamo, ever one to capitalize hopped from the raider wreckage and got the shell shocked survivor with an AP1 likky ‘gush’?

I had his dread first turn and pretty much ignored it except towards the end I gave it a death sandwich, ram from the front that bounced but simultaneously my reavers snuck up behind (they do that alot) and blew it apart , ah yes the old Raider/melta one-two ….

In the center I had set up a beatiful counter charge with my archon and incubi , his deathstar only had a venom to charge  I think they took it out or maybe it was already a wreck and they ate the warriors, nothing to worry about (will get the guys in the lab to grow some more) so I jumped them with the archon and Incubi after a little more light softening fire which removed the last thundernator, due to the way his models were in relation to my charge I could not get Vidious into B2B with Corby so pokemon had to play second fiddle to getting rid of the far more dangerous chaplain, Viddy gave him two wounds, he promptly passed both 4++’s and then bounced off my shadow field. the incubi (charging) did a single wound to corby and one to the termies,  who saved , Incubi then evaporated under the lc’s etc , I just passed the break check and managed to get past his freakish saves the following turn nomming the chaplain  ” I have the POWER”

I think the single surviving Incubi killed corby  (god knows when I’ll next get a chance to catch him *sulk) Archon flubbed his str 6 attacks doing only 2 wounds , there were two surviving lc termies, two 5++’s were passed …..this bleeping death star should have been dead twice over !!! anyway finally managed to put those immortal termies to death in the last CC of the game.

Got to turn five his last five man was huddled on an objective in cover, they got given the dreaded japanese darklight  laser disco and obligingly failed lots of 4+ cover saves, tabled for the win.

I felt I had momentum from the start here and managed to keep the hits coming thick and fast, I felt very in control of the game and the dicefail though shitty was just an inconvenience, had the whole game hinged on the charge going off without a flubb it could have been very bad.

Very Pleased to come away as best DE, given the scoring that was the best I could have hoped for though if I had got the other two points from by brainfart draw it would have been pretty close, I can live with being a hair from max battle points *kicks self*

Tonight Pinky, We try to take over the world…

Yeah, thats me … ignore the gurning I was caught up in the moment. To the guys from Empy that came with and GW  Thanks for a good time (but not for fixing best painted) I think this is the boost my 40k needed, I have already assembled my new Tantalus, I just await a small replacement part from FW before I shall begin painting ,still well up for Infinity (assembly wip) as I feel balance is important and playing other tactical games can only help, I am intrigued by the possibilities of what an infinity tourney might offer.

Taking a wee 40k cooldown after this article, going to get some Infinity on the go after that business as usual, I’ll aim to get the rave/retro reviews finished up and continue to finish 1-2 units per month for the  planned DE expansion to 3.5k.

Thanks for wading through that block of text folks, back soon :mrgreen:

 

 

 

26

R Am WinNaR !!

By
Sorrowshard
– October 16, 2011Posted in: Announcements and BS, Booze for teh win, Gloating, Musings

Pretty tired right now and I have a large box of Infinity stuff to work through for my 40k sabbatical, which will be after I clean up assemble and probably paint my shiny new Tantalus, which will be nice for a bit of a chill.

I’ll try and cover my games as best I can possibly tomorrow, of 5 games only one was non-marine derived, even my casual game the night before was vs a Paladin Star .

I’m a bit pissed I did not even get a nomination to be judged for best army, there were actually some very nice armies chosen but the Judges did not even stop to look at mine, I have realized it is far to subtle to be noticed on the tabletop, I could have put a quarter of the effort into this army and no-one would notice. people just walking past completely ignored it, was a little heartbreaking If I’m honest.

My Club Did well, Ryan picked up best GK with a minimal spam non net list Ben, Adam and Sam did really well I think we were all in the top quarter, the  scoring tables are slightly confusing but other than Best DE I think I was 3/4th overall and If not for one dumb mistake I would have been 2 points short of the tourney maximum for a possible overall win, even then I possibly could not win as there were quite a few DE players and some of them were putting in a good showing.

Still I’ll go away content & undefeated and I’m really pleased a list I considered underpowered saw me proud.

 

Once again Empy boys, thanks guys had a great time largely thanks to the good company, hopefully we can get the rest of the club interested for next time and give tha haggis stuffers a run for their money :)

29

This is why lances are cr@p

By
Sorrowshard
– October 13, 2011Posted in: Uncategorized

Aside from yet another game where volley after volley of lance fire  failed to do anything bar kill a single dreadnaught in the four turns of failure I could stomach.

Here’s some stats to prove how pants lances are. Over to you Sons of Twilight and a very interesting article called:

How many Missiles to the Center of a Razorback?

Now factor in cover/flat out and GK immunity to stun/shake stupidity ? yeah about as much ‘fun’ as being beaten in the man treasure over and over and over with a nine iron.  

I feel your pain bro

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12

DE 1750 Full army pictures

By
Sorrowshard
– October 11, 2011Posted in: Announcements and BS, DE Army Painting, Gloating, Procrastination and Excuses

People kept asking, so here they are.

Taken down the club in the best light I could find, the phone camera was a bit suckfail but you get the idea.

I am now orking on a reasonably professional looking presentation for my army list , I’ll tack on the Archons fluff too, with some purdey pictures supplied by the Wonderous BeckJann from Deviant art

If though hast not yet laid eyes upon mine Archon, get thee to  yon previous post and forsooth!  feast thine eyes on mine finest creation.(ish)

ThEre WilL bE cAkE iF yOu do….

22

Archon AND ToS army Complete !!!!!!!!!

By
Sorrowshard
– October 9, 2011Posted in: Announcements and BS, DE Army Painting

Well at times it seemed like I was never going to make it, but I stuck to my schedule as best I could and I have finished bang on time, It leaves me all this week clear to tidy up things, chop together a nice-looking themed Army list (later post perhaps) and makes some stop-gap objective markers whilst we await the Slaughterhouse, bondage pain-bunny concubines, plus I’m not convinced GW would let me use models with ball-gags etc ….

There will be lolling about and much chillaxing also.

Heres My Archon, Lord Vidious, the Kabal, it’s. HIS. I have taken influence from a few characters I adore from outside the GW sphere. He’s kinda the special character I always wanted them to do , anyway there’s some flavour text for him if you can be bothered to wade through it at the bottom, I’ll try for a full army shot tomorrow at the club, but no promises because I’ll need good lighting as the army is so black….

I will say I’m pissed off with my appalling sculpting on the hair, I have done my best to hide it with paint, but I nearly had ‘fuck-it’ moment, was not happy, were there time I would re-do it , but there ain’t and he looks ok.

A word in your ear sssire ….

I’m raising a glass to celebrate finishing, wish me luck  :grin:

 

Archon Vidious cast his burning ruby eyes over the carnage below, the eternal hollow gnawing sensation had started to fade a little, far more and ever inventive atrocity would yet be required to satisfy his needs and return his chillingingly beautiful countenance to the image of perfection

 

His bone white  blood spattered hair boiled around his face in the high winds battering what was left of the Raid-site.

 

Below, Female figures danced and cavorted in the flicker from dirty orange flames, their music the haunting screams of their Mon keigh victims as they were slowly torn to shreds and scattered by the dance, a strange seemingly multi limbed creature floated nearby enjoying the performance, an array of strange implements and vials glinted wetly in the fire light.

 

A strange noise caught his attention, He looked downs into a Large red eye which flickered around to meet his gaze, a feral intelligence stared back, its depths spoke of an eternity of hunger and frustrated rage.

 

The Sorrow-shard, as Vidious had appropriately named it, was an Artefact that had been acquired in the early days of the Invidious Requiem, possessing only a single ship, they had travelled to many far flung planets in search of slaves, booty and Slaughter preying on a bewildering array of cattle race ships as and when they encountered them.

 

He suspected it was either an alien life form or some sort of Archaic fusion of Alien and deamonic technology… Long and wickedly curved its body was an oddly organic looking blade of an unknown pitch black material, Molecularly sharp and destructively fatal. Unknowable alien hieroglyphs would come to life and pulse like a dull red heartbeat across its length in eager anticipation of impending violence.

 

If it had been fabricated or ‘grown’ the process was far beyond even the consummate technological and biological skill of the Dark Eldar. One thing was for certain though, its hunger for death and slaughter surpassed even his own, he delighted in it’s single minded brutality and enjoyed the battle of wills required to prevent amusing yet inconvenient deaths. Their relationship was symbiotic, he offered it perpetual Massacre and in turn it shared the stolen energies of the deaths far more spectacularly than his own Innate dark eldar ability to feed on pain and destruction.

 

One of his Incubi mercenaries noiselessly slid over to him, the basic act of simply walking conveyed cold murderous efficiency. Vidious looked at the flat, cold and highly polished mask of his hired Killing machine “ What is it V’shaak ?“ A flat tone responded from inside the helm “ My Lord, the Cult of the Crimson Tide indicate the prey has been exhausted here, the Mon keigh slaves of the corpse god are no doubt on their way in force.” Vidous cast his eyes back over the charnel house below once more, satisfied with his work he gave a razor grin “ Yes, we lack the numbers and weaponry here to engage in open warfare, this was only an amusing diversion, get your associates and the Crimson tide back to the raiders, we will return to The Black Star now, the rest of my forces should be mobilized now, these witless Mon Keigh are clearly overdue for their education.”

 

Moments later the knife-like shape of the Wyches raider could be seen vanishing over the horizon, its sleek black shape quickly disappearing into the gloom, it’s passage only tracked by the glowing exhaust from it’s engines.

 

Vidious leapt up in a single bound onto the decks of the Incubi’s Raider, His own Tantalus left behind in favor of the smaller lighter transport better suited to these small speculative hunting raids, he could see some of the lumpen smoke belching Imperial transports coming to investigate his handiwork now, their sheer ugliness and complete lack of grace disgusted him.

 

The Sorrow shard twisted and pulsed in his hand, sending a thrill of sickly killing lust up his arm. Vidious had to beat down the urge to destroy these Insects in glorious close combat, “better to feed later my pet more will come” he muttered “better a feast than scraps”

 

Crude weapons flashed from the lump-vehicles as they slowly clattered and belched their way towards the single raider ,solid rounds kicking up dust and stitching holes in the nearby wreckage of dwellings.

 

Vidious laughed as his crafts flicker field briefly flared making a heavy slug that would have struck mid-ships seem to pass right through the raider.

 

The sleek transport came to life instantly, rising up a meter or so and swinging its nose to face the alien contraption in one effortlessly fluid movement, Vidious took control of the deck gun, sickly green light flowing out as it powered up to his touch.

 

The Mon keighs fire tracked the raider as it danced from cover to cover, playing with them, always flitting away just before they could bring their shells on target, tracer disappearing harmlessly into the night.

 

Vidious pumped darkmatter at the leading vehicle, the first beam of impossibly bright sickly-green Light split the night and surgically sliced a section of tracks away from the vehicle, it slewed to one side as Vidious sent several stabs into its now exposed soft side armour, the vehicle seemed to go limp and belch more smoke then usual, hatches were thrown open and the Mon keigh spilled out fleeing for cover. Smirking, Vidious put some shots into the small figures for good measure, he enjoyed the overkill, two Mon Keigh were scythed apart in a flash as one beam bisected the pair of them.

 

Two shots smacked through the flicker field as, the mon keigh, managing to target the source of fire  put a hole in the sail, a deep buzzing marking its passage as the other smashed into the prow blowing chunks out of the plating there and ploughing straight through to punch an Incubi from his feet, smashing him onto the mast support as it continued on to destructively exit out of the rear of the Raider, the steersman managing to narrowly avoid a messy death.

 

Enjoying himself thoroughly Vidious put two shots on the dead centre of the offending vehicle. The first spent its energy in the thick metal leaving a glowing white-yellow bore hole for the second shot to blow straight through, it eviscerated the innards of the box neatly slicing through and disintegrating everything in its path, spending the last of it’s energy in the fuel tanks. Vidious’ wicked grin was lit up by the sudden ball of fire in the distance, debris rained down on the survivors of the first wreck as thick under-lit black smoke gushed up into the night sky blotting out the stars.

 

The Archon Signaled for the steersman to break off, his night vision had picked up more smoke belching lumps in the distance and the raider was unlikely to forgive further punishment, spitting plasma it roared off into the gloom like a phantom, impossibly fast.

 

As he hurtled through the night Vidious’ thoughts turned to the coming conflict, those reinforcements would arrive to nothing but destruction and carnage the babbling terrified reports of a shadowy ghost craft that spat deadly light from the darkness and moved fast enough to appear to simply vanish, planted seeds of fear and confusion in the forces of the corpse god, it amused him to think of their misplaced arrogance, how ignorant of their complete inferiority these hu-mans were.

 

As the Raider hurtled back to the Dark Star in the night, another cruel smile crept across his lips, the Sorrow shard was purring in his hand.

 

 This first small lesson was just a taste of horrors to come Mon Keigh, he thought,

 

 Just a taste


 

9

Doc. H Innahouse!

By
Sorrowshard
– October 9, 2011Posted in: Uncategorized

One model to go, ONE model to GO !!!

Sinsynn, this ones for you buddy, literally, he’s on the way to the Bronx as we speak….

He’s left some instructions for ya too: Doc H’s Greatist hits, track 1

 

I’ll aim for a finish on the Archon tomorrow, then I can try and work out how to do an army shot and a glossy army list, Interim objective markers should be done before the end of the week too.

Back soon !

7

Trueborn Finished, major army Milestone passed !!

By
Sorrowshard
– October 7, 2011Posted in: Uncategorized

Hey,  just a quick one from me today, though it seems the last rant was popular so I shall continue my work on the next one which may turn out to be quite a large thing …

yup just happily chipped away at these a couple of hours a night this week, It’s good to know I have a whole weekend and five nights left to do two characters, though they should be done and dusted by close of business on Sunday.

Then I just need to faff together some suitable objectives as I wont have time to do my slaughterhouse bondage concubine pain girls, I’m still trying to choose/find the correct models for that….

And then there is the small matter of a pimpy presentation of the list, any help or ideas are welcome at this stage.

Hopefully back tomorrow with a painted Heamy, though thats looking increasingly challenging the further into this bottle of knob creek I get…

Yes, so I may have rewarded myself for getting all the troops and vehicles done, conversely I intend some heavy ‘rewarding’ once the characters are complete, then its nothing but computer games for a few weeks, lol

Also Rant silently slid past the one year mark, so I’m arbitrarily going to set it’s Birthday on Halloween from now on and there’s going to be a competition and with any luck a brand new banner too.

Over and out !

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