Warhammer 40K Tactics IV - The Enemy of Your Enemy is Still Your Enemy.

[Zorg]

Ghaz is an Ork warlord, the greatest seen in a long time. He only lost Armageddon 2 due to stubbornly trying to take Hades Hive from Yarrick, allowing time for the Blood Angels to show up and rescue the rest of the Imperial forces. Armageddon 3 was almost a big a battle as the 13th Black Crusade, and it is still raging while the 13th was pushed back from whenst it came.

Abadabbadon is charged with the power of four gods and has the might of most of the reamaining legions in the Eye and more behind him. Still can't get past Cadia. Though he once crippled the Blood Angels so they were out of service for a long time.
The Sin of Damnation claimed 99.5% of the Blood Angels... Black Crusade < Stealer infested Hulk.


Cheesegear - for your list I'd take the Destructor for more long range AT. Though personally I prefer the Annihilator or the AC/LC mix.


On Titans and Apoc. Titans are actually not that hard to take out - if you plan ahead that is. If you are suprised by a titan you're probably hosed.

[Winterwind]

I always figured Abaddon made no conquests because he was not going for any, following some other goals (like securing the Blackstone Fortresses for Chaos, which succeeded formidably).

Cheesegear - for your list I'd take the Destructor for more long range AT. Though personally I prefer the Annihilator or the AC/LC mix.

Wait, is the Destructor the anti-tank variant? Lexicanum told me the Annihilator was the one with the lascannons (I'm away from my codex right now)...
Anyhow, my vote goes for the one with the twin-linked lascannon for primary armament, however it might be called.

[Closet_Skeleton]

The Predator names always felt the wrong way round to me.

[Cheesegear]

Wait, is the Destructor the anti-tank variant? Lexicanum told me the Annihilator was the one with the lascannons (I'm away from my codex right now)...

No. No it isn't. The Annihilator is the one with Lascannons. I believe Zorg is telling me to take the Autocannon (Destructor), but, take Lascannon Sponsons rather than Heavy Bolters. Which, to me, seems like a bad idea.

Trip-Lascannons will do...Right?

Also, Predator variants are no longer in the Codex. Unless you're old-school (or live by Lexicanum), you'll have no idea what a Predator 'Destructor/Annhilator' is. Now they're all just Predators.

[Timberwolf]

Also, Predator variants are no longer in the Codex. Unless you're old-school (or live by Lexicanum), you'll have no idea what a Predator 'Destructor/Annhilator' is. Now they're all just Predators.

*Snarls quietly in the dim and distant reaches of a far off time.*

My old predator ( one with the round turret) had a turret autocannon and lascannon sponsons...

In my defence I bought it off someone who had made and glued it up. It used to do ok, but I never really fought any serious, serious armies and no one had any money to go buying anything heavier than a rhino.

[IthilanorStPete]

Also, Predator variants are no longer in the Codex. Unless you're old-school (or live by Lexicanum), you'll have no idea what a Predator 'Destructor/Annhilator' is. Now they're all just Predators.

Or, you, know, read the fluff in the Predator section.

[Shas aia Toriia]

Cheesegear, I'd reccomend getting the Annihalator. You don't seem to have too much AT, so all those lascannons would be good.
Although it would be pretty much your only tank, so. . .

[Lycan 01]

So, things have sucked lately. I'll spare you the details, but I've been depressed all week. A recently made friend did something nice for me this evening. He pretty much kidnapped me and drove me to a comic store he frequents in hopes that the RPG goodness within its walls would cheer me up.

Sure enough, when I walked in and literally found myself surrounded by 40K stuff, my spirits were lifted. They had stuff my local hobby store wouldn't dream of stocking, like the 250 dollar Choas battleforce. So I start looking around, and I notice something in the glass case full of cards and dice.

A Chaos marine army. For sale. Individually.

Now, I should point out, these were mostly terribly painted Khorne Berserkers, but there were a few other units mixed in. And they were all a dollar each for plastic figures, and 2 dollars for metal figures. I noticed a trio of Chaos Terminators, and I asked the manager how much they were. I then called my little bro, and asked what he thought on the matter.


I'm very happy right now. I got 3 Chaos Terminators for my little bro. For 10 dollars. Booyah.


Granted, they're poorly painted, so some stripping may be in order, but still. I got these suckers for 3 bucks each! I'm not sure how good the armament and equipment on them is, though. They've each got Chainfists, and two of them have Combi-Flamers. Is that an even better deal, or should I just be happy I got 3 Termies for 10 bucks?

[Thatguyoverther]

Having never bought SM or CSM I have no idea but the guys over in this thread probably do.

[Arcanoi]

Be joyous, for thou hast saved $20. Never question such bounties when a GW hobby is involved.

[Mattarias, King.]

Lycan, you have an awesome friend and an awesome game shop. Awesome that you're feeling better, and grats on those terminators.

I mean.. Uh.. Grimdark, grimdark, grimdark! Feeling good?! Chaos?! HERESY!

<.<;; Am I doing it right?


...As a sidenote, might be getting an immolator soon. Delicious holy promethium. Good to drink, better for burning!

[Selrahc]

Ghaz is an Ork warlord, the greatest seen in a long time.

I mean the codex says that, but he doesn't seem to have any major achievements to his name. To defend him while railing Abaddon is a bit of a double standard. I know Abaddon is a lot less fun than Ghaz, but no wayis Ghaz any more succesful.

He only lost Armageddon 2 due to stubbornly trying to take Hades Hive from Yarrick,
allowing time for the Blood Angels to show up and rescue the rest of the Imperial forces.

4th Black Crusade Abaddon would have taken Terra itself if he hadn't spent so long annihilating the fortress world of El'phanor. An incredibly similar situation, which differs only in that Abaddon was in a bigger fight.

Armageddon 3 was almost a big a battle as the 13th Black Crusade,

Looking at the force dispositions the 13th Black Crusade was a far bigger conflict than Armageddon 3, raging across many more worlds for far bigger stakes(well.. if Ghaz had won decisively it may have been the first step towards galaxy wide unison of the Orks which would have been a big deal. But that was more of a pipe dream than a reality.)

and it is still raging while the 13th was pushed back from whenst it came.

That is just wrong. The 13th Black Crusade was officially a victory for the forces of Disorder. The Third War for Armageddon was officially a defeat for the Orks.

Fluff wise battle is still raging in both warzones. But while on Armageddon the humans are still in control and Ghaz has been forced to flee from the battlefield hunted by an Imperial taskforce the situation at the eye is far more ambiguous. The Cadian gate still holds but there is a direct stalemate. The forces of Chaos can emerge into the universe around the gate and cause unprecedented havoc. The level of destruction unleashed on the Imperium in the wake of the crusade is the greatest since the civil war of the age of apostasy.

And really, weakening the Imperium is an important goal of Chaos.

Abadabbadon is charged with the power of four gods and has the might of most of the reamaining legions in the Eye and more behind him. Still can't get past Cadia. Though he once crippled the Blood Angels so they were out of service for a long time.

The thing is we don't really know what the goal was with the previous black crusades. Only a few of them are defined. But the most recent one is the biggest so far and Abaddon was still heavily outnumbered by the forces of the Imperium.

It seems unlikely that the goal of many of the black crusades was to attack Cadia. Of the ones that we do know:
The first swept past Cadia, caused horrendous devastation and almost destroyed the Imperium.
The second was the biggest real defeat with a complete halt at the cadian gate.
The fourth was a stab at Terra that was eventually overwhelmed by imperial reinforcements as Abaddon stopped to raze El'Phanor.
The seventh was just an attempt to cause destruction and carnage.
The twelfth was a mostly succesful attempt to capture the Blackstone fortresses.
And the thirteenth was the greatest attack yet, which resulted in a partial victory against the Imperium.

Only two of those that we know about really had anything to do with an attack on Cadia. The second and the thirteenth.

[Zorg]

I look at it as a relative achievement of goals:

Ghaz setout to have the biggest Waaagh and stomp heads - he did. Ork philosophy allows for retreating and coming back later to finish the job.

Abbadon is portrayed as railing against Horus for failing to kill the Emperor and being a failure and so on. He claims to be better than Horus and that he will surpass him. In one go Horus destroyed half the Imperium and crippled the Emperor. Abbadon is always aggrandising himself and we, the audience, are being told how much of a danger he is, but without the victories to back it up he comes across as a ranting, one dimensional scenery chewing faux-threat to the galaxy.
Abbadon is constantly thwarted, so his minor victories are portrayed as all part of his master plan etc. But as an evil overlord he is a hollow threat as were he to win it would be the end of 40k, so he never will.

Ghaz on the other hand may well take Armageddon in the 4th war, as that's something that can be acomodated in the background. Yes, that's all a little meta, but part of writing a good villain is having them a credible threat.
Currently the threat of Abbadon is like the Joker being beaten up by Batman in The Dark Knight - the Joker's not in any way intimidated because he knows there is no way Batman will kill him. We as the audience know this so the scen lacks tension.
Ghaz taking Armageddon is like how they blew up not-Katie Holmes - killing her was dramatic and you didn't know if they would or not, but her death doesn't really change much in the grand scheme of things, so was much more unexpected.

[Cheesegear]

Fluff goes in the Fluff thread?

[Selrahc]

I suppose, just the conversation started here. I was never really clear why we decided to separate the threads anyway. Conversations tend to drift over both topics and its not like the grand unified 40k thread was harder to use when fluff and tactics coexisted peacefully.

[Lycan 01]

Really? I prefer it when the two are divided into seperate threads. I'd rather not have to wade through a bunch of fluff to see if anyone answered my questions about model advice, and I'd rather not have somebody interupt my discussion about plot points with requests for painting tips...


Speaking of painting tips, these Termies need a make-over. The paint job is suck-tastic. The legs are red, the shoulders are gold, the horns are crimson, and the faces, arms, weapons, and torsos are either a vibrant shade of silver... or just unpainted. One of them is completely black, though, so that takes care of base-painting. All he needs is some touch ups, and my bro can just do all the gold and details, since they're gonna be Black Legion.

But... I'd like to fix a few things. They're glued together in... plain poses. Like, they're just pointing their guns and chainswords directly ahead of them. There's no action, no individuality... They're just there. And as much as I'd like to move their arms around a bit to give them a more... dramatic appearance... the original owner went crazy with the glue. I don't think he even used glue. There's this thick beige junk built up around the joints, and it looks almost like plastic cement or something. I tried to chip some off, since it looks almost like a crust or something, but it wouldn't budge.

So, these guys are stuck the way they are, it seems. As much as I'd like to pry their arms off to repose them and pre-paint the hard to reach places, I fear that they're so solidly glued I may actually rip pieces off of them if I try to detach them. I don't suppose anyone knows how to remove or dissolve glue, huh?

Also, should we paint over the original coats, or would stripping the paint be a better idea for these suckers? If so, how?

[crazedloon]

Lycan are they metal models? If they are than they are the older models and you are note going to get much more of a pose out of them and I would just take a file to the joints to clean up the junk.

However if you wish more of a pose take a knife to them (may need to use a modeling saw) and then you will need some extensive clipping, pinning and green stuffing

[Myatar_Panwar]

Sounds like plastic glue. Which if I understand correctly, literally melts the plastic together to form the bond.

[Selrahc]

Really? I prefer it when the two are divided into seperate threads. I'd rather not have to wade through a bunch of fluff to see if anyone answered my questions about model advice, and I'd rather not have somebody interupt my discussion about plot points with requests for painting tips...

/shrug

I guess. Seems like the fluff thread is always falling back to page 3 and having to be dug up though. And conversations get rerouted or halted by the separation.

Not like I really mind much though.

[Shas aia Toriia]

Sounds like plastic glue. Which if I understand correctly, literally melts the plastic together to form the bond.

Fun times.
Good luckk with removing that, then.

[Lycan 01]

They're metal models. Did the research - they're from 3rd edition!

I'm not expecting to get dynamic poses, but I'd like something better than the arms literally being pointed straight ahead, at a right angle with the torso. They just look... static, and unnatural. If the chainfist were down by its side and the gun arm was raised, it'd look like he's blasting away with the combi-weapon. If the weapon is lowered and the chainfist is raised aloft or straight out, it looks like he's preparing to attack or just thrusted it into his foe's gut.

.....

.....

Well, it looks like the point is moot now. Just as I finished writing that, my little bro walked up and presented me with a severed arm and the Terminator it belonged to. And sure enough, it looked cooler with the chainfist reposed to be raised or lowered, rather than straight out.



So yeah, my little bro is now brute forcing his way through the Termies... I won't stop him, since I'm sure he won't hurt them seriously. But, I still need to decide if I should strip the paint, or just paint over them...

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

They're metal models. Did the research - they're from 3rd edition!

I'm not expecting to get dynamic poses, but I'd like something better than the arms literally being pointed straight ahead, at a right angle with the torso. They just look... static, and unnatural. If the chainfist were down by its side and the gun arm was raised, it'd look like he's blasting away with the combi-weapon. If the weapon is lowered and the chainfist is raised aloft or straight out, it looks like he's preparing to attack or just thrusted it into his foe's gut.

.....

.....

Well, it looks like the point is moot now. Just as I finished writing that, my little bro walked up and presented me with a severed arm and the Terminator it belonged to. And sure enough, it looked cooler with the chainfist reposed to be raised or lowered, rather than straight out.



So yeah, my little bro is now brute forcing his way through the Termies... I won't stop him, since I'm sure he won't hurt them seriously. But, I still need to decide if I should strip the paint, or just paint over them...

I would strip'em, if you've done it before, or know how to do it. If done right, you're less likely to lose detail than painting over.

[Lycan 01]

Well, I'm not really sure how to strip them. Plus, I don't think my bro would be patient enough to wait for us to have the chance to go get the stuff we'd need. Plus, the paint on them is reeeeeally thin, so I don't think there'd be any detail loss.

So yeah, I think I'm going to go with just painting over them...

[Narazil]

Well, I'm not really sure how to strip them. Plus, I don't think my bro would be patient enough to wait for us to have the chance to go get the stuff we'd need. Plus, the paint on them is reeeeeally thin, so I don't think there'd be any detail loss.

So yeah, I think I'm going to go with just painting over them...

It's always better to strip. Always. Even then.

Guide using Simple Green.

Another guide.

[Lycan 01]

Alright, alright...

Hm. Well, I have no idea where to get simply green. But I know my mom has nailpolish remover, and I think we've got pinesol. Plus, my dad is mechanic, so he can provide brake fluid... although I'd rather not use something that harsh and... y'know... hazardous.

So yeah, should I give the polish remover and/or the 1/4 pinsol/water overnight soak a try? Or just try to find some of that Simply Green stuff?

[Mattarias, King.]

A piece of advice- If you freeze your minis, the glue gets wicked brittle and instantly comes off. Handy trick I learned from a friend.

Nail polish I've seen work wonders, but needs decent elbow grease to really get the crappy paint off. Never tried pinesol, but it might be better. Also likely smells better. I dunno.

Is it ok if I post up an Eldar list my girlfriend made for some critique, by the way? She's a bit shy on these matters, and I know nothing about the Eldar.

[Narazil]

Alright, alright...

Hm. Well, I have no idea where to get simply green. But I know my mom has nailpolish remover, and I think we've got pinesol. Plus, my dad is mechanic, so he can provide brake fluid... although I'd rather not use something that harsh and... y'know... hazardous.

So yeah, should I give the polish remover and/or the 1/4 pinsol/water overnight soak a try? Or just try to find some of that Simply Green stuff?

I'm 90% sure Simple Green is an American product, probably only sold in America. It's a brand, not a type of product. I think.

Also, the reason I listed guides is because I have no personal experience whatsoever.

A piece of advice- If you freeze your minis, the glue gets wicked brittle and instantly comes off. Handy trick I learned from a friend.

Nail polish I've seen work wonders, but needs decent elbow grease to really get the crappy paint off. Never tried pinesol, but it might be better. Also likely smells better. I dunno.

Is it ok if I post up an Eldar list my girlfriend made for some critique, by the way? She's a bit shy on these matters, and I know nothing about the Eldar.

Of course you can post up a list.

[Mattarias, King.]

Of course you can post up a list.

Alright, makin' sure, makin' sure.

Whaddo you guys think of this? Also, any advice on getting up to 1500?

Spoiler

Show

HQs (one unit)
210pts Eldrad Ulthran
140pts 5 warlocks with witchblades. One has Enhance.
155pts Prince Yriel
105pts Wave Serpent transport with star engines

Troops
82pts 5 Dire Avengers. One is an Exarch with diresword and shuriken pistol.
105pts 10 Guardians with star cannon weapon platform.
148pts 5 Guardian Jetbikes. One is a warlock with Enhance. One has a shuriken cannon.

Elites
286pts 10 Harlequins, including a Troupe Master and a Shadow Seer. All models have harlequin kisses, two have fusion pistols.

Heavy Support
100pts Wraithlord with a twinlinked flamer and a wraithblade
50pts War walker with scatter laser and spirit stones.

Total of 1381 points

[Myatar_Panwar]

If the paint is just a thin coat, don't worry too much about stripping.

And simple green is just a cleaning solution. You can get it at most hardware stores (around here anyway).

[Lycan 01]

The paint on the two partially painted ones is so thin you can barely see any build-up. But the black one has a pretty thick layer of paint on him... The two partials can be ignored, I suppose, but I think the black one probably needs to be stripped.

Freezing, you say? I'll have to try that!

So yeah. My bro has already disassembled the two partially painted ones, while the black one is still in one piece. I may try freezing him tommorrow. Then, we're going to try nail polish remover. If that doesn't work, pinesol mixture over tommorrow night. And if that don't work, I'll get something better during the week... Or send 'em off with my dad so he can baptise them in brake cleaner where he works.