Warhammer 40k III - Hats for the Hat Throne

[JMobius]

BS 4?

AFB at the moment, but I could swear they had BS 3.

[Etcetera]

Sorry, you're right. I mixed up T/S and BS/WS.

[Lycan 01]

Hm. Well, I just got a nice monkey wrench in my plans...

My roommate just gave me his Imperial Guard army.

Well, technically they weren't his to begin with. Me and a friend halved the price of the battleforce, and then I made most of the army. I let him have my "stock" in the army, though, and he bought the Codex. But now he's decided he doesn't have the time to play Warhammer anymore, and it'd be better if I just took the army home with me instead of keeping it at the dorm. Which is good anyway, since the other friend at home will be able to play now.

Unfortunately, my little bro will now be able to argue that I already have a second army, thus blowing a hole in my Chaos army arguement. (And yes, he'll argue very stubbornly about things like this...)

[SuperMuldoon]

Unfortunately, my little bro will now be able to argue that I already have a second army, thus blowing a hole in my Chaos army arguement. (And yes, he'll argue very stubbornly about things like this...)

Just don't tell him that you have this army, keep it a secret! In a box with a big =][= on it and anyone who opens it is a heretic!

[Zorg]

Well since you have two armies now, if you get a Chaos army as well you won't have to field your spikey guys against his, as you have two others to choose from. Or he can use your IG against your chaos etc etc.

Maybe it's just me, but you can point out to your brother that there are quite a few people besides him with chaos armies, and he can't dictate to you what you play. If you want to collect Chaos, do it. My brother and I both collect Marines, and always have - we swap bits, trade painting tips and ideas, and steal conversions from each other all the time. We also both collect Orks and IG.

And besides, two armies is nowhere near enough - and you need to get into the other systems still

[Dark Faun]

Just don't tell him that you have this army, keep it a secret! In a box with a big =][= on it and anyone who opens it is a heretic!

Since his brother plays Chaos, don't you think "anyone who opens it is a lapdog of the Corpse God!" would be more effective?

I second the sentiment that you should play the army you want to play.

[SuperMuldoon]

Haha didn't realize that his bro played Chaos as well. Well you get the gist of what I mean!

Anyway, yeah man play whatever you want, its your money & time so you should enjoy yourself.

[Lycan 01]

Actually, I'll probably give the Guard to the guy who helped me buy them originally, since he does own "half" the army... Of course, I'll be keeping them at my house. He's my little bro's best friend, and he spends 2/3 of the week at our place. And he's also... um... irresponsable. Two lost phones, a stolen wallet, a totalled car... you really think I'm gonna let him take an Imperial Guard army I spent weeks on home with him?


Thanks for the input, guys. I'm going to talk to him about it tonight. I've got two very good arguements, and I'm hopeful he'll be reasonable and hear me out...

ARGUEMENT ONE: "You'll never see them, so they don't exist."
I'll keep my army seperate from his. They'll never be on the same battlefield. If he's involved in a game, I'll just switch back to my Orks. I won't even keep my Chaos Marines at home - I'll probably keep them at the dorm, so I can work on them in my free time, rather on weekends. I think he's mostly upset because I'm stealing his glory (how Chaotic, eh? ) and he's also kinda jealous of my paiting skills, and hates to be outdone... But if my guys aren't even in the same picture with him, he doesn't really have much to be upset about, does he?

ARGUEMENT TWO: "Join me, and together we will conquer the galaxy!"
We could always combine our resources and make one big Chaotic army. I doubt he'll go for this one... But it'd be very economic if we just worked together on it. He buys some guys and makes them, I buy some guys and make them, and rather soon we've got a pretty nicely done Chaos army. In games where he plays, he can use it, and I'll go Orky. In games where he's absent, I'll be the one who makes the galaxy burn. Everybody wins, right?

[SuperMuldoon]

ARGUEMENT TWO: "Join me, and together we will conquer the galaxy!"
We could always combine our resources and make one big Chaotic army. I doubt he'll go for this one... But it'd be very economic if we just worked together on it. He buys some guys and makes them, I buy some guys and make them, and rather soon we've got a pretty nicely done Chaos army. In games where he plays, he can use it, and I'll go Orky. In games where he's absent, I'll be the one who makes the galaxy burn. Everybody wins, right?

This!

I think this is a great point - I think the Chaos guys come with lots of fun bits and stuff for customization, right? And there are tons of different units to get, like you could get some noise marines and he would get death guard and then you can share - saves money and time! Since I'm relatively new to this thread - does your bro have a theme (1K sons, emp children for example), and what are your plans for your chaos force?

[Lycan 01]

Well...

He's got 16 Chaos Marines, painted to be Black Legion. He's all about Khorne and assaulting. All his guys even have the Mark of Khorne hand-painted onto their armor to show they mean business. But he's also got them set up with plenty of ranged weapons. He's kinda got a Blitzkrieg thing going. One squad lays down heavy fire while the other charges in and assaults. He's even managed to beat me in assaults. He intends to get some Khorne Bersekers, and a Chaos Terminator Lord.

I, on the other hand, have nothing at the moment. I'd intend to get the Assault on Black Reach kit, and convert the marines to... something besides Black Legion. They would probably be a different Traitor Legion, just because I hate to be generic. I'd also follow Tzeench, and possibly Nurgle. I'd probably be geared more towards ranged combat, but with good assault capabilities for defense and counter-assaults. If I got a special marine squad, it'll probably be Thousand Sons. And I'd rather have a Chaos Terminator Sorceror for my leader.


So yeah, we've got totally different ideas. This helps lend more weight to my first arguement. But if he likes the second, I've got no problems with being Black Legion and following Khorne. Its a lot easier to paint.

[Etcetera]

The scourged are quite a cool Tzeench legion. Dark red and blue, black inked over.

[SuperMuldoon]

So yeah, we've got totally different ideas. This helps lend more weight to my first arguement. But if he likes the second, I've got no problems with being Black Legion and following Khorne. Its a lot easier to paint.

Well, I think that you should definitely still do what you want...and then if you want to mix your forces together just yell "black crusade!" or something and your guys could have simply rallied to the black legions banner to go punch the galaxy in the face.

[Lycan 01]

Well, I tried to find a pic of The Scourged, and I found this. Thanks, CoT! Now I know what Traitor Legion I'll be if I do play.


Oh right, a Black Crusade. I keep forgetting you can combine different Chaos powers now... Yeah, that'd be pretty cool. Maybe he would like that idea...

[Jinura]

So I'm sort of leaning towards Eldar right now, but are they really that fragile? Also how is a War Walker on it's own? Seems like it'll go down in 5 seconds.

[Eldan]

Warwalkers go down fast when an antitank weapon is trained on them. However, they are just about the cheapest way to get heavy weapons on the field. Two warwalkers with 2 scatter lasers each can take just about anything.

[Erloas]

So I'm sort of leaning towards Eldar right now, but are they really that fragile? Also how is a War Walker on it's own? Seems like it'll go down in 5 seconds.

Well when used right their fragility doesn't come into play much. Your melee units either have to win in the first round of combat or they are going to be ground down to nothing. Usually at least, if you just happen to have 1-2 models left that happen to pass their LD test to stay you will be fine, charging into 30 ork boyz and still having 20 to face after your attacks is going to mean the end of most things.

Wraithguard and Wraithlords are incrediably durable, they are some of the most durable units in the game.

Rangers are great in cover, out of cover they die like flies. Same with normal guardians. Dire avengers are a bit better, at least they get their armor save from most infantry weapons. Jetbikes are really pretty good, they are basically marines but with the ability to turboboost for a great cover save or jump away from the opponent after they make their shots, however they don't have a high model count so it doesn't take too many wounds to take them out.

The wave serpent is probably the best transport in 40k. The Land Raider and Monolith are of course a lot more durable and have a lot more firepower, but they lack the speed of a wave serpent, which is the point of a transport. They cost significantly less, although they are a lot more then things like Rhinos and Trukks.

Vypers and War Walkers will die to every heavy weapon, from bolters to railguns and everything in-between. How you keep them alive is keeping them in cover, not too hard since they aren't large models. It also helps that as is often the case you have more important targets to shoot at like your Wave Serpents and Falcons. They are also really cheap for the firepower they can bring, you just have to make sure you are only using them for support fire and not for a primary roll in your army. Put some bright lances on them and suddenly they jump way up in the priority list and then they die quickly. Scatter lasers are the way to go, enough ROF to be a problem for any infantry and enough strength to cause problems to most tanks, at least on the flanks and rear (not a hard place to get with the speed of the vyper and outflanking with the walkers).

The biggest strength of the Eldar is manuverability, and if you can use that correctly their fragility is not really an issue. You use your speed to isolate pieces of the enemy's army and pretty much completely remove one or two units a turn and don't have to worry about a huge amount of counter-fire.

Overall the eldar fall into the middle of the survivability scale. They will go down faster the Marines, but they will greatly outlive IG, Orks and Tyranids. And their numbers generally fall between those so it works out.

[Eldan]

Yes, it's interesting: I've lost every game i've had with my eldar on the tabletop, save for maybe one or two, but whenever I use the exactly same list on Vassal, I get epic victories.

[Jinura]

So I'm probebly gonna get Eldar but I have two questions first.

First: Is the Battleforce a bad idea to get as Eldar, I've heard really bad stuff about it like guardians being useless and the thing with the single war walker.

Second: For HQ I'm gonna get a farseer, I was wondering however if I should buy a seer council but it seems like I'll get two farseers in it. Should I just try to convert him into a warlock ( if so does anybody know how to if it is?)

[Erloas]

I bought the seer council box so I could give my guardians a warlock if I needed (really haven't seen the point and they didn't do much the times I did try) and you can use a warlock as a farseer and most people wouldn't care and probably wouldn't even know. Having 2 farseers is not a bad option to go with.

As for the Battleforce, I would still get it, in fact I bought 2 when I started. War Walkers work fine in single units, thats how I usually run mine. The only real issue is if you don't have any other vehicles for your opponent to shoot at. For smaller games its just something to deal with, it also means you probably aren't going to be facing a whole lot of heavy weapons anyway.
The wave serpent is always good to have. The dire avenger squad is a bit small at only 5, but it works. Which is why I bought 2 boxes, I wanted 2 walkers, 2 wave serpents and a full unit of 10 dire avengers. Maybe not the best choice though if you aren't buying 2000 points in one go like I was. The guardians are good, I use them all the time. I don't generally run 2 units of them, but I don't think I've ever made a list not using at least one. They are good at holding objectives on your own side. They aren't going to be taking many objectives by themselves, but if you give them decent support they can work their way to farther objectives with the rest of your army. They aren't that powerful, but they are pretty cheap and they are a pretty good value for their points. I always use them more aggressively and only keep them sitting in the back if they are holding an objective. If you are paying 90+ points for a single heavy weapon shot on BS3 (such as with a missle launcher or bright lance) they are very rarely going to be worth it.

[Lycan 01]

Me and my brother reached an agreement.


I will not be getting a Chaos Marines army. Instead, I will be helping him with his army. Mostly just painting and assembly, but I'll also help pitch in to buy certain units. But the army will remain officially be his. However, in games where he doesn't play, he's going to let me borrow them if I want.

So in the end, we both win. He keeps his army, and I get to work on Chaos stuff and play with them pretty often. So... woo!



Since I don't have to worry about building a Chaos army, I guess I can focus a bit more on my Orks. Of course, I'm still getting all the Orks from the AoBR kit, since my bro intends to do what I wanted to do and convert the marines from the kit to Chaos. Woohoo! And I might also start saving up a little money on the side for my own 2nd army in the future... When does the new Tyranid Codex come out?

[One Step Two]

Awesome stuff on the compromise Lycan. As for the new 'Nids codex, I remember hearing something about it coming out next January.

[Lorn]

So, I was browsing the Apocalypse articles on the GW site earlier. Came across rules for Angron.

Link.

So. 500 points Greater Daemon with a retinue (as a squad, I believe) of Bloodthirsters.

Not nice to fight in close combat.

So, I turned my thoughts to how to do this.

Throwing conscripts works. Grab the IG hero who lets you spam conscripts, Lord Commissar nearby, and Angron is weighed down by 300 models. All the time.

(Bonus points if they're modelled as Spartans.)

Termagants/Synapse Creature would also work.

But that's dull and just means he's stuck. Unlikely to die too fast.

So, Daemonhunting time. And doing this, I may have realised the most monstrously game-breaking anti-daemon tactic imagineable.

In Apocalypse, there are no limits, IIRC. Just grab what you want.

I want to take a load of Inquisitors and Inquisitor Lords, each equipped to stay alive and with the psyker power Sanctuary.

Basically, the power pushes all daemons to outside 3" of the casting model. No save. At all.

This can be used in your shooting (may be movement, unsure) phase, when you are in assault. Technically, it could push something off the board - but that takes FAR too long. Or you could just throw things out of assault in your shooting (or movement) phase then assault them again in your assault phase.

So, your opponent has this 1000+ point unit of Angron and many Bloodthirsters. Going to hurt when it reaches your lines.

In comes a cordon of Inquisitors.

Carefully place them so that they shut at least one model out, and cast Sanctuary with all of them. Have them placed all around this model.

Suddenly, they can't get back into squad coherency. In fact, one of the Bloodthirsters may not be able to move - hell, it may not even be able to be placed there anymore if you run it tightly enough.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but you've just caused a 1000+ point Fearless unit led by the World Eaters Primarch to automatically break because it cannot regroup. It will then fall back.

And it's between several units, if you've thought this through.

Unit autodies due to the Crossfire rules.

Nothing else, it's just dead.

And it would work against any other unit of daemons - just prevent it from getting back in squad coherency, and if I'm right, it just dies due to crossfire.

Similar tactics can be used, in theory, to actually push enemy units (daemons only) off the board. Or keep them pinned down and unable to move. Or even cordon off your entire force when fighting a purely Daemons army so they can't assault you.

I'll say now, I'm running off memory - still no idea where the 'Hunters codex is. I may be horribly wrong about how this works.

Someone, please, tell me how I'm wrong :p This seems far too good to be true.

[YPU]

Hm the inquisition working together to root out one problem at a time. Where shall we start? how about daemon primachs? sounds good!

[Whiteside]

Whiteside's brother has a 500-point Chaos list that takes the absolute bare minimum in order to fit in a Land Raider. But he can forgive him, since it is such a nice model. 'coz it's got a mouth where the boarding ramp should be...

[Cheesegear]

So, I came across the tail-end of a particular conversation while visiting my local GW today. Right, so, before we get started, know that Australian competitions/tournaments have a thing called 'Compostion Score'. Basically, it's a score on how Bullshi* your army is. Say, for example, you take 2 HQ, 2 (minimum) Troops, 3 Elites and 3 Land Raiders, you wont be scored highly.

Anyway, barely even reading the list, the GW Blackshirt tells the guy to re-write the list. Which you don't even have to do. But, the guy was refused entry to the tournament because his (SM) list contained 50 Scouts with Sniper Rifles. I'm assuming he had other things, but, what? I never heard.

I've always believed that Scouts are way better than Tactical Marines, but, still, saying "You can't play at all unless you re-write your list." seems a little bit harsh. Especially when you're graded on your list in the first place.

[One Step Two]

I think composition scores are an okay thing in theory when grading an army over-all, but thats theory talking.

Punishing someone for using unorthodox tactics however, not necessarily broken ones, seems unfair and stifles creativity.

That said, 50 scouts broken into 10 combat squads to give a better distribution of sniper fire is a pretty nice tactic, you'd only have to make sure an enemy squad is pinned to take it out for the next turn before letting your shooting rotation move onto the next target. Wow, I think need to try this.

[Cheesegear]

I think composition scores are an okay thing in theory when grading an army over-all, but thats theory talking.

They're exceptionally helpful in practice as well. It pretty much means that the ars*hole with the b0rked list wont win the tournament. Sure, he might get a 25/25 Battle Score, he might get a 25/25 for painting, 25/25 for sportsmanship, but, if he only gets 5/25 (5 battles, and you can't put '0') for Comp score, he gets a total of 80/100 for the day or weekend. And that's pretty easy to beat.
It means guys who went for a fluffy and competitive army actually have a chance.
Basically, the rule is there so that people "Play fair." Also, it's usually not a coincidence if someone ends with 5/25 for Comp Score, and 5/25 for Sportsmanship.

Punishing someone for using unorthodox tactics however, not necessarily broken ones, seems unfair and stifles creativity.

That's what I said. I make heavy use of Scouts in my Hawk Lords army. Although, only 15 of them have Sniper Rifles. He may have an incredibly legit reason why he's taken 50 Scouts with SRs. And, like I said; Telling him he couldn't play at all with his list was a bit harsh.
He gets graded for his Composition Score anyway...The tournament will tell him he's beardy. It doesn't seem right to ban him outright though. As I said, people with beardy lists rarely win 'overall points' anyway.

That said, 50 scouts broken into 10 combat squads to give a better distribution of sniper fire is a pretty nice tactic, you'd only have to make sure an enemy squad is pinned to take it out for the next turn before letting your shooting rotation move onto the next target.

That's my understanding as well.

:My own question:
So, putting together my Devastators, I realised I was massively spoiled for choice. So, I went out and bought another 5-man box (of bolters), and am currently doing weapon swaps.
I've already got Team Rocket (who, incidentally, are supposed to protect the world galaxy from Devastation ), who have 4 Missile Launchers.
For the next five, I'm considering 2 Lascannons, 2 Plasma Cannons and a 'spare' Heavy Bolter for good measure (I like to keep my options open).

Am I right in thinking that Multi Meltas have no place in a Devastator squad? And Heavy Bolters are 'less than needed' since nearly every other model in the army carries some sort of bolter in the first place?

[Lorn]

Am I right in thinking that Multi Meltas have no place in a Devastator squad? And Heavy Bolters are 'less than needed' since nearly every other model in the army carries some sort of bolter in the first place?

Probably correct.

Although - IIRC, a Rhino has two firing points.

Get a ten-man Devastator squad, two multimeltas and two something else (doesn't matter what.)

Split into two combat squads. Multimeltas in one, anything else in the other.

Chuck the Multimeltas into the Rhino, which powers/smokescreens forwards. Soon as it's close, two multimeltas start vaping tanks. Basically, in about two turns time...

Likely not the best tactic, but better than anything else I can immediately think of involving multimelta Devastators...

[Dark Faun]

Do keep in mind heavy weapons can't fire from a Rhino after it moved though.

[Etcetera]

If you don't know what HW to take in a tactical squad, take a heavy bolter. With a bolt pistol, it basically means exchange the ability to fire one S4 AP5 shot for the ability to fire 3 S5 AP4 shots if you don't move. And it's free!