Animated Angels of Death

Okay, I know my friend's wedding is mere hours away, but I couldn't resist checking the Warhammer Community while waiting for it, and boom! I saw this.



Wait, what?

Okay, never mind. Don't mind the cartoony illustration. Focus on the news, the news! That's right! For the first time (or not), Games Workshop has started an animated short series regarding the Blood Angels!

You can watch the teaser trailer here.

The animated series will be unleashed in 2019, and we'll get to see the Blood Angels animated in a series for the first time ever! For the Emperor!

Texas

I'll be in Texas for my best friend's wedding, so I won't be updating much. I had to pack and prepare for the trip tonight, so I couldn't buy Chapter Approved or Vigilus Defiant. I'll do that next week, and hopefully in 2 weeks I'll be able to do something regarding an overnight Apocalypse game at Burnsville. But it has been a crazy week and I wasn't able to do much Warhammer 40,000. Had papers to write (still have one last paper to write, but it ain't due until next year, January) and students' assignments to grade, so...you know. Life. Life always finds a way to get in the way of wargaming. I tried to get a game yesterday, but no one responded to my request, so...no news this week. Sorry about that.

That said, if there's any of you in Minneapolis, hit me up if you want a game and we can arrange something at Dreamers' Vault in Hiawatha Avenue! Otherwise, I'll just get the 2018 Chapter Approved, and budget willing, Vigilus Defiant next week. If not, I'll have to get Vigilus Defiant some other time. We'll see.

For the Emperor!

Oh, yeah. I wanted to check the Tyranids thing for Gladius Prime, but other than a small video, there's no news on that, so I'll keep an eye on that and let you guys know when I get more news.

I wonder if this means the Adeptus Mechanicus will eventually show up in the game, what with the removal of the Kastelan Robots from the Astra Militarum roster and their brief appearance in the Tyranids trailer.

Battle report 32

With the Chapter Approved leaks out, I decided to try out the new points cuts, and I managed to get a game with a friend yesterday. We decided on playing a 1,700-point game, and he was bringing his new Orks. Fresh with their new codex, it seems that Orks are dominating the current meta, which is a good thing. Now let's put all those "mono-factions are not viable, must play soup to be competitive, etc." complaints to rest. T'au is also another faction that's doing well, and Necrons have benefited a lot from points reductions. Awesome.

Anyway, I'm not sure what my friend brought, but he brought a Goff Battalion and a Bad Moonz Spearhead or something. I know he has a Warboss with jumppack, 3 units of Stormboyz, a Painboy, 3 Weirdboyz (yeah, 3 psykers), a Big Mek on a bike with kustom force field, a single unit of 10 Boyz, a single unit of 30 Boyz (both of which he used to mob up later), a squad of Grotz, 2 squads of Tankbustas - one in a Trukka and the other in a Battlewagon, a Dakkajet, a squad of Lootas, a mek gun, a Deff Dread and that's about it. I think. That's a lot of models on the table, and it was astonishing to see the sheer amount of Green Tide plopped onto the table.

As for me, I decded to play an extremely fluffy list, with Imperial Guard getting their asses handed to them by the Orks, and the Deathwatch swooping in to save the poor Guard, as usual. So I had a Guard Battalion with 2 Company Commanders with bolt pistols, 3 infantry squads with flamers (since they've dropped to 6 points), and 2 Basilisks with heavy bolters (one of them was actually fixed with a heavy flamer, so I need to change that one day...). The Deathwatch, on the other hand, had a Watch Master, a Primaris Watch Captain, 5 Intercessors, 5 Veterans with storm bolters, 5 Veterans with 4 Deathwatch frag cannons (Sergeant has xenophase blade and storm shield), a Corvus Blackstar, a Mortis Contemptor Dreadnought with dual twin autocannons and a Leviathan Dreadnought with 2 grav-flux bombard. Yeah, that's just insane. The Watch Master and 2 squads of Veterans were embarked inside the Corvus Blackstar.

The Deathwatch and Astra Militarum army mustering for war!

We decided to play Maelstrom, rolled and got Tactical Escalation. Cool! My opponent got to deploy first, and he used a Stratagem to place the Deff Dread in reserve. I did the same thing with the Teleportarium Stratagem and placed my Leviathan Dreadnought in reserve. Yay. Cool!!!! Anyway, I got a +1 to my roll, but my opponent still rolled higher and received the first turn. I failed to seize the initiative, and...boom. I was tabled in the first turn.

Nah, I was being dramatic.

First Turn

Anyway, jokes aside, the opening battle round felt thematic. The Orks all ran forward. I think my opponent received Blood and Guts as his first Tactical Objective, so that meant he needed to destroy 1 unit in combat for a victory point, and 3 or more for D3 victory points. We chose the Orks and Deathwatch type of Objectives for the Tactical Priority thing, so that meant we get an extra victory point if we achieved an Objective for that type.

The two squads of Boyz mobbed up into 40 Boyz. Now that's scary. The Weirdboy used Da Jump and all 40 reappeared right in front of my guardsmen who were shielding my Basilisk. The Tankbustas in the Trukk and the Mek Gun fired and took 6 wounds off my poor Corvus Blackstar, and the Stormboyz Advanced after running forward. That's fine, with the jumppack Warboss following them, he had the Warlord Trait that allowed them to charge after advancing. That was bad for me. The Dakkajet fired everything into my Corvus Blackstar and did no damage, or perhaps it was one of the 6 wounds that was taken off it, I can't remember. I think the Battlewagon, Lootas and the Tankbustas inside that Battlewagon fired and destroyed one of my Basilisk. Damn, I lost a Basilisk before I could even fire a single shot. That was a huge blow. To make matters worse, the 40-men Boyz dealt a few wounds to the other Basilisk with their shooting, killed about 3 or so Guardsmen in one squad and 2 in the other, then they charged in. Needless to say, with power claws and choppas, they destroyed my second Basilisk. Both Basilisks didn't even get to fire a single shot before they were destroyed. Even when using Defensive Gunners, I probably only killed one Boy on overwatch. I think I killed about a total of 1 or 2 Boyz on overwatch, with the lasguns mostly missing as well. That was just bad. Sigh. I lost about 7 guys in combat, which meant they were wiped out in morale for one squad, but the other was mostly untouched (maybe I lost 2 or 3 guys), and I rolled a 1 for that squad's morale so they were fine. But he achieved Blood and Guts with the destruction of my Basilisk and First Blood, giving him 2 Victory Points. On the other side, the Stormboyz and Warboss crashed into my Guardsmen and took out about 6 Guardsmen. I actually killed one Boy on overwatch with the flamer, so that wasn't so bad. Morale killed another 3 dudes, and I had only just the Sergeant left. Damn.

Can't wait to test out my new Leviathan Dreadnought! Accompanying him is a Mortis Contemptor Dreadnought!

That was devastating. Within the first turn, I lost the bulk of my firepower, both my Basilisks destroyed before they could fire a single shot. I was counting on them to help me take out the Orks. If you're wondering why I didn't screen them properly with my Guardsmen (the Orks declared a multicharge), then that's because my opponent was shrewd enough to choose a deployment map where I only had a 6" space to deploy my Basilisks, so I couldn't place my Guardsmen directly in front of the Basilisks because the Basilisks themselves were 6" long. UGH. Of course he would choose a map that's advantageous to him...

My turn came, and I had my Corvus Blackstar hover, and my Watch Master and 2 squads of Veterans disembarked and moved toward the Stormboyz. I had no choice, with my Basilisks gone, the bulk of my firepower was gone. I had my Guardsmen and Sergeant fall back from combat because, you know. They were useless in combat, and I wanted to shoot the dudes. Speaking of which, I completely forgot to attack back with my Guardsmen, but given their WS4+ and Strength 3 AP 0 attacks, I doubt if I would be able to kill any of them anyway.

My shooting was decent, and my Primaris Watch Captain Intercessors, storm bolter Veterans, and Blackstar Corvus killed all the Stormboyz. I used the Hellfire rounds for my Special Issue Ammunition and had the re-roll wound rolls of ones against Fast Attack, so that helped. A lot. Yay. Having drawn Big Game Hunter for my objective, I had my Mortis Contemptor Dreadnought fire his autocannons into the Trukk and brought it down to 3 wounds - it would have been 8 damage, but my opponent used the Stratagem to give his vehicle a 6+ Feel No Pain. The twin lascannons from the Corvus Blackstar finished it off, netting me that one Victory Point. The Guardsmen fired their lasguns and flamer after being ordered by a nearby Company Commander to Get Back into the Fight! and I killed a decent number of Orks, about 3 or 4 more. I know there were 34 left by the time I was done with my Guardsmen shooting. Not having those Basiliks really hurt. Then after killing all the Stormboyz, the Warboss was now the closest target for my Veterans with Deathwatch frag cannons, and I simply killed him. That was brutal. Oh, and that gave me Slay the Warlord. Heh. Speaking of which, he rolled two ones after I destroyed the Trukk, so 2 Tankbustas bit the dust. Phew.

I think that was it. I did manage to clear a big chunk of his army, so no complaints there. I think. And I also achieved 2 Victory Points, so despite being at a massive disadvantage, we were still level on victory points. For now.

Turn 2

Most of the Orks continued to move upward, with the Boyz moving toward my Primaris Watch Captain, and the 2 Weirdboyz moving toward my Intercessors. The Tankbustas moved toward cover, I think. The Deffdread deep struck 9" away from my storm bolter Veterans, the Battlewagon, Lootas and Grotts moved up a little, I think. The dakkajet also dove toward my Intercessors. I can't remember, but I think the Smite took about 2 or 3 Intercessors out. Ouch. And maybe one storm bolter Veteran. Anyway, the dakkajet failed to kill any of my Intercessors, and the Boyz moved forward, shooting my poor Guardsmen off the table, but failing to wound the Primaris Watch Captain with their shootas or something. Anything else...the Big Mek failed to wound the Primaris Watch Captain as well. The tankbustas put another 3 wounds on my Corvus Blackstar, bringing him down to 5 wounds. Ouch. But I made a 6+ armor save (I needeed a 5) against the Mek Gun, so yay. The Boyz charged into my Primaris Captain and the Deff Dread into my storm bolter Veterans - he used the Stratagem to roll 3D6 for the latter. I rolled 7 ones for my Primaris Watch Captain and he died before he could even fight back. How did I roll 7 ones out of 14 or so rolls!? As for my storm bolter Veterans, I used Vengeance Rounds for Overwatch and dealt a single wound to the Deff Dread. A lot of help that did. Despite having a storm shield, the storm bolter Veterans were wiped out in combat with 4 ones and twos. Again...I have no idea why I was rolling so badly for my saves. The Boyz then consolidated into my Intercessors. Ugh. Once again, I have no idea what to do. I can't remember what my opponent's Objectives were this turn, but he only achieved one of them, which brought him up to 3 victory points. Was it overwhelming firepower? I think so. Or was it making a charge? Nah, that can't be right. I know it wasn't an Ork Tactical Objective, or he would have an extra victory point from that.

As you can see, none of the Guardsmen and the Bailisks lasted for very long...

Obviously, with the Fast Attack units all gone, I swapped the Mission Tactics to the one that re-roll wound rolls of ones against Troops. Yay. My guys were getting dangerously low on health here, damn. That was bad. Really bad. NOOOO!!!!! I was on the verge of getting tabled.

My Intercessors fell back. Having drawn Secure Objective Three and Defend Objective One, I then moved and advanced my Sergeant to capture Objective Three, but it was currently being occupied by 34 Boyz (who were stretched across my entire deployment zone in a straight line). Brave Sergeant, but he was able to be more than 1" away from the Boyz while being within 3" away from the center of the Objective. The Company Commander grabbed Objective One, which was just a little over 9" away from the long line of Boyz, and the other Company Commander stayed where he was. My last squad of Deathwatch Veterans and the Watch Master moved up to be within 8" of the Boyz. Then I teleported my Leviathan Dreadnought right on Objective One. YAY!

Needless to say, I fired the two grav-flux bombards, which gave me 14D3 shots since they had 34 Boyz - 7D3 per grav-flux bombard, since I added a D3 for every five, so I added 6. I wiped out 18 Boyz with the Leviathan Dreadnought's shooting alone. Holy Terra! That was brutal. I was pretty lucky with my rolls, I think, and I got to re-roll wound rolls of ones too! On the other side, my Deathwatch Veterans opened up with their Deathwatch frag cannons, which auto-hit, and erased 16 Boyz. I actually did 17 or 18 wounds, so it was slightly overkill, but I erased the entire mob of Boyz with two shooting units. Meanwhile, my Corvus Blackstar fired and destroyed the Deff Dread. The Mortis Contemptor Dreadnought then killed the 3 Tankbustas with his dual twin autocannons, clearing my deployment zone of Orks. But my opponent still had a lot of guys left while I had only two Intercessors, one Veteran squad, Deathwatch Watch Master, a Corvus Blackstar and two Forgeworld Dreadnoughts left, not counting the Sergeant and two Company Commanders from my annihilated Draconian Imperial Guard regiment. TT_______TT

On the other hand, I captured Objective 3, and that netted me another Victory Point. All I needed was for my Company Commander and Leviathan Dreadnought to survive my opponent's next turn and I would get another 2 victory points. Yay.

The Orks deploying. Lots of bodies over there! The Green Tide indeed.

Turn 3

My opponent discarded his last Objective and drew 3 Objectives this time. One of them was the Ork Tactical Objective, which gave him a victory point if he had 3 or more dudes advance this turn. So if he did that, he would have 2 victory points because of Tactical Priority. Another was capture Objective Four, and the last was to defend Objective Two. He then had one of his Weirdboy move up and captured Objective Four, while his mek gun had to advance (it only had 3" movement), and he had to spend a Command Re-roll to get it to get within 3" of Objective Two. Plus he needed to survive. As for the rest, they just moved. Don't ask me why. I guess he wanted to shoot or something. The Big Mek on a bike tried to get to the Objective, but for some reason he opted not to, probably because he wanted to shoot stuff. And he couldn't reach it even if he advanced, so he...moved it toward my Leviathan Dreadnought? I think?

The Dakkajet flew over as well. The Tankbustas inside the Battlewagon fired and did about 6 damage to my Leviathan Dreadnought. Ouch! The Dakkajet and Lootas did absolutely nothing, failing to wound or hit. That was just...sad... Earlier, the Weirdboy used Smite, and rolled an 11, and did D6 mortal wounds. He did 4, which was enough to kill the 2 surviving Intercessors in my battered squad. On the othe hand, the other Weirdboy was not as lucky, and despite pulling off Smite, only killed a single Veteran with a Deathwatch frag cannon. He only netted one victory point this turn, having only advanced two units instead of the three required. Oh well.

I drew 3 tactical objectives, having secured 2 victory points because I successfully defended Objective 1 for 2 turns. YAY! Not bad! I now had 5 victory points to his 4, and my 3rd turn was only just beginning. The 3 new tactical objectives, however, weren't very promising. I needed to secure Objective 2, which was not going to happen. The other option was to defend Objective 5 for two turns, which was unlikely. The final Objective was the Deathwatch purge objective, which required me to destroy one unit this turn, and if I destroyed one unit with Deathwatch Intercessors or Veterans, I get D3 victory points instead. Neat, and perfectly doable. With nothing to lose, I had my Company Commanders run and then order themselves to run and capture Objective Five. Not sure if they would be able to defend it for 2 consecutive turns, though... The Sergeant stayed on Objective 3 because he wouldn't have made it to the Objective even if he ran and advanced twice. Oh well. My Veterans and Watch Master moved toward the Weirdboyz and Painboy. My Leviathan Dreadnought brought the Dakkajet down, destroying him with his grav-flux bombard and auto-hitting heavy flamers. Cool! On the other side, the Mortis Contemptor Dreadnought opened fire and killed the Mek Gun with his dual twin autocannons, thus denying my opponent the Defend Objective Two thing. Hah! Meanwhile, I killed both Weirdboyz right outside my deployment zone with the Corvus Blackstar's Blackstar Rocket launcher, hurricane bolters and the Watch Master's guardian spear, as well as the Deathwatch Veterans' Deathwatch frag cannons. They went down, and wouldn't be smiting anyone anytime soon. Heh. That meant I completed the 2nd part of the Deathwatch Objective, and I rolled a 6, which meant I got 3 Victory Points for that. So I had 8 Victory Points, plus 1 since it was a Deathwatch Objective (Tactical Priority). So I had a total of 9 victory points to my opponents' 4. If I succeeded in defending Objective 5, I could raise it to 11, but that would require him shooting all his Battlewagon, Tankbustas and Lootas at my Company Commanders instead of my Leviathan Dreadnought. Oh well. Oh, the Corvus Blackstar fired his lascannon at the Battlewagon, but I don't think he did any damage. Whoops.

The game ended there and then, because the store was closing, and it was almost impossible for my opponent to catch up in victory points (I disagreed, I mean, he was going to draw 4 tactical objectives this turn, but it was true that the store was closing so we didn't have time to continue the game). The game thus ended in the Deathwatch and Astra Militarum's victory, commanding an overwhelming lead over the Orks. Which was pretty surprising, considering that he had wiped out the majority of my army, and I only had two Company Commanders, a wounded Corvus Blackstar, a wounded Leviathan Dreadnought, 4 Veterans, the Watch Master and a Mortis Contemptor Dreadnought left. On the other hand, my opponent still had Lootas, Grotz, Tankbustas, a Big Mek, a Painboy, a Weirdboy, a Battlewagon left. Yeah, that's a lot, especially when compared to my pitiful army. If the game went on, I might have lost. I dunno. I have no idea how it would have gone, but that would still be cool to see what would have happened if the game had happened. It all came down to whether he would be able to take out my Leviathan Dreadnought or not. If he couldn't, I would probably just have the Leviathan Dreadnought single-handedly kill the remaining Tankbustas, Lootas and Battlewagon, but I doubt that would happen. Well, at last I still had the Corvus Blackstar and Mortis Contemptor Dreadnought and the Veterans, so I might be able to turn the game around somehow. I have no idea. In any case, it was a great victory for the Deathwatch and Imperial Guard despite me being at such an overwhelming disadvantage and losing 2 Basilisks and most of my Guardsmen in the first turn! The Emperor protects, indeed! I think the Leviathan Dreadnought was my MVP, bringing down a massive chunk of the Boyz and the Dakkajet on his own, and weathering so many shots. The Veterans with Deathwatch frag cannons were also pretty awesome, slaying the Warlord, wiping out the Boyz and eliminating a Weirdboy.

Not chronologically ordered, but this was before I lost everything on the right side just in the first turn alone.

Final score: 9 to the Imperium and 4 to the Orks!

Tempestus Drop Force

Oh, wow. I forgot to mention this yesterday, but I saw this:



And we get a cool Stratagem that goes with it. Awesome!



This makes for a very fluffy Kamikaze Troopers detachment! So I was thinking that I could build an Ordo Xenos strike force with my Kamikaze Troopers and Deathwatch, and they will look something like this:

Deathwatch Company
Watch Master
Primaris Watch Captain
Veterans with storm bolters (Sergeant with stormshield)
Veterans with 4 Deathwatch frag cannons (Sergeant with xenophase blade and stormshield)
10 Intercessors with bolt rifles and 2 auxiliary grenade launchers (Sergeant with power sword)
Corvus Blackstar with twin lascannon, hurricane bolter, Blackstar rocket launchers and auspex array
Relic Leviathan Dreadnought with 2 grav-flux bombards
Contemptor Mortis Dreadnought with 2 twin lascannons

Kamikaze Tempestus Drop Force
Tempestor Prime with Tempestus Command Rod
Tempestor Prime with Tempestus Command Rod
Tempestus command squad with 4 plasma guns
Tempestus command squad with 4 plasma guns
Tempestus squad of 5 with 2 plasma guns
Tempestus squad of 5 with 2 plasma guns
Tempestus squad of 5 with 2 plasma guns
Valkyrie with lascannon, multiple rocket pods and heavy bolters

That looks awesome! YAY! I'll go with this then! This makes for a very fluffy Ordo Xenos list! My only wish is to include an Inquisitor, but I guess it's fine. I can pretend that one of the Tempestors Prime is an Inquisitor, which makes sense, since Inquisitors have a retinue of Stormtrooper bodyguards and there's no reason why an Inquisitor wouldn't be able to order his Stormtrooper bodyguards about. Then I can use the Cypra Mundi Null-Emitter as an exotic item that the Inquisitor carries, to make him more Inquisitor-y! YAY!

I can't wait to try this out!

According to 1d4chan, we get a second Stratagem called Aerial Fire Support, where a Militarum Temepstus Drop Force Valkyrie fires overwatch for any Tempestus Drop Force infantry unit within 6" of it that gets charged. And your Valkyrie hits on 4+ on overwatch regardless of modifiers! Awesome!

Chapter Approved Leaks

Oh, our good friend Natfka has gathered a huge pile of Chapter Approved leaks! Head over to his blog to check them out. This is awesome!

There is also more stuff here in Imgur.

The ones that interest me the most are these:





Simply put, Armored Setinels went down by 10 points, Astropath went down by 4 points, the Banehammer and Banesword went down by 20 points, Chimera went down by 15 points (not counting the multilaser and heavy flamer points reduction), Deathstrike went down by 30 points, Doomhammer went down by 20 points, Hydras went down by 15 points, Manticore went down by 10 points and back to its original 125, Officer of the Fleet down by 5 points, Ogryn Bodyguard down by 10 points, Ogryns down by 6 points, Ratlings up by 2 points, Scout Sentinels down by 5 points, Servitors up by 3 points, Shadowsword up by 20 points, Stormlord down by 20 points, Stormsword down by 20 points, Tank Commander down by 25 points (I see the notorious Karru screaming and throwing a fit on the Bell of Lost Souls comment section about this, that guy always finds something to whine about), Valkyries down by 10 points (multilaser, multiple rocket pods all got cut by 5 and 3 respectively), Veterans down to 5 points (don't think anyone will take them, given how they're relegated to Elites rather than Troops), Wyrdvane Psykers down by 1 point and Wyverns up by another 5 points to 95. Leman Russ Annihilator remain at 122 points, and that's the only forge world model that I use, so I'm not going to go through the Forge World list for Astra Militarum.

Augur Array down 5 points, autocannon down 3 points to 10, chem cannon down 8 points, demolisher cannon got cut a whooping 20 points (50% decrease!), Eradicator nova cannon down 10 points, Executioner plasma cannon down 5 points, Exterminator autocannon down 8 points (still not good enough, to be honest), flamer down 1 point, grenade launcher now a measly 3 points, grenadier gauntlets down 5 points, heavy flamers down 3 points, heavy stubber down 2 points, Hellstrike missiles down 8 points, hot-shot lasgun and hot-shot laspistol now free (down 1 point each), meltagun down 2 points for normal Guardsmen and down 3 points for Veterans and Stormtroopers, missile launcher down 5 points, multi-laser down 5 points, multi-melta down 5 points, multiple rocket pods down 3 points, plasma cannon down 5 points, plasma gun on Veterans and stormtroopers down 2 points, power fist down 4 points, servo-arm down 12 points and are now free, Taurox battle cannon down by 10 points, Taurox gatling cannon still 20 points, Taurox missile launcher down 20 points, twin heavy flamer 28 points, Vanquisher battle cannon down again by 5 points (now no one can complain how trash it is compared to battle cannon, etc.).

What does that mean for me? Basically I can fit an extra tank into my list or something. In the past, my Brigade plus Spearhead looked something like this: 3 Tempestors Prime with Tempestus command rods, 3 Tempestus command squads with 4 plasma guns each, 3 Tempestus Kamikaze squads with 2 plasma guns each, 3 infantry squads with plasma guns, 2 Armored Sentinels with lascannon, an Armored Sentinel with plasma cannon, 2 Basilisks, a heavy weapons squad with 3 mortars, Tank Commander in Leman Russ Punisher tank with 3 heavy bolters, 2 Leman Russ Executioner tanks with lascannon and plasma cannon sponsons, a Leman Russ Annihilator with lascannon and plasma cannon sponsons. With the points cut, I'm suddenly freed up with 142 points - 149, if I count the leftover 7 points from my original list. By adjusting stuff here and there, I will be able to cut out the mortar heavy weapons squad for a Carnodon tank with volkite weapons and have 74 points left over. I can either swap the Leman Russ Annihilator out for a Leman Russ Executioner and trade the Tempestus Scions' plasma guns for hot-shot volley guns to bring in a Taurox Prime with Taurox gatling cannon and hot-shot volley guns, or I can just swap the Leman Russ Annihilator out for a Leman Russ Executioner tank commander and a heavy weapons squad of 3 lascannons.

Alternatively, I can forego the Brigade because of the awesome Tempestus Drop Force I'm looking at right now. I'm already drooling over the Emperor's Fist Tank Company and will definitely be using it for my Spearhead Detachment, but the Tempestus Drop Force looks really awesome too!



Yeah, I so want to use my Valkyrie and Kamikaze Stormtroopers! If I do that, I'll probably break my list down into 2 Battalions and 1 Spearhead. Probably swap the Armored Sentinels and heavy weapons squad out for the Valkyrie and 2 Company Commanders. I can probably downgrade my Leman Russ Executioner Tank Commander into a normal Leman Russ Executioner and turn one of the Company Commanders into a Primaris Psyker. Hell, I can even turn my Battalion into an Emperor's Wrath Artillery Company, just so I can shoot twice with my Basilisks. Heh! That will be so cool!

Now the next thing of concern to me is Deathwatch, since I have Deathwatch allies for my army.





Basically, Bikers went down 4 points, Chaplain in Terminator Armor went down 10 points, Corvus Blackstar went down 15 points, Dreadnought went down 10 points, Drop pods went down 20 points, Intercessors down 1 point, Land Raider down 39 points, Land Raider Crusader down 44 points, Land Raider Redeemer down 64 points (yeah...), Librarian in Terminator Armor down 18 points, Primaris Chaplain down 8 points, Primaris Watch Captain down 9 points, Redemptor Dreadnought down 35 points, Repulsor down 25 points, Terminators down by 8 points, Vanguard Veterans down 1 point, Venerable Dreadnought down 10 points, Watch Captain in Terminator Armor down 10 points, and Veterans are down 2 points (HELL YEAH!!!!).

Best of all, all our bolt pistols are free! YAY! Absolver bolt pistol, auxiliary grenade launcher and bolt pistols and heavy bolt pistols are all free now! Bolt carbine down by 2 points, chainfist cut 50% to 11 points, combi-flamer down 3 points, combi-grav down 4 points, combi-melta down 4 points, combi-plasma down 3 points, Cyclone missile launcher down 12 points, Dreadnought combat weapon down 10 points, flamer down 3 points, flamestorm gauntlets down 3 points, grav-gun down 3 points, hand flamer down 7 points, heavy flamer down 3 points, heavy onslaught gatling cannon down 6 points, heavy plasma cannon down 14 points, inferno pistol down 13 points, meltagun down 3 points, missile launcher down 5 points, multi-melta down 5 points, plasma gun down 2 points, power fist down 3 points, relic blade down 12 points (HOLY TERRA!!!!), stalker bolt rifle now 1 point - cut by 2 points, storm shield down by 5 points for Characters and down 3 points for others, last but not least twin lascannon cut by 10 points.

That means, my original list of Deathwatch allies that comprised of a Watch Master, a Primaris Watch Captain, a Watch Captain with relic blade, Veterans with storm bolters (Sergeant with stormshield), Veterans with 4 Deathwatch frag cannons (Sergeant with xenophase blade and stormshield), 10 Intercessors with bolt rifles and 2 auxiliary grenade launchers (Sergeant with power sword), and Corvus Blackstar with twin lascannon, hurricane bolter, Blackstar rocket launchers and auspex array, originally costing 976 points, now only cost 893 points. That's an extra 83 points I can spend on elsewhere for my Imperial Guard!

Now the twin lascannon matters because I take Dreadnoughts. Contemptor ones, I mean...



This means my dual twin autocannons Contemptor Mortis Dreadnought is now 148 points instead of 166, and my dual twin lascannons Contemptor Mortis Dreadnought is now 168 points instead of 206.
Adding the Deathwatch Captain with a relic blade, the list from earlier becomes 1,297, enough for me to add 2 Leviathan Dreadnoughts - one with a grav-flux bombard and siege drill (322 points), and the other with one grav-flux bombard and siege claw (312 points) - for a total of 1,931 points. I have no idea what to do with the last 69 points. Alternatively I can swap the siege claw for a 2nd grav-flux bombard on one of the Leviathan Dreadnoughts for another 21 points (333 points), so I would have 48 points left. Otherwise I'll just take out one Leviathan Dreadnought and the lascannon Contemptor Mortis Dreadnought, and the Captain with Relic Blade for an Astra Militarum Battalion that includes 2 Company Commanders with plasma pistols, a Tank Commander in a Leman Russ Executioner tank, 3 infantry squads with plasma guns and 2 Basilisks.

And now, my 2nd favorite faction after the Astra Militarum. The Thousand Sons! Let's see what they have.





Woo! A lot to go through here. Anyway, Chaos Cultists went up by 1 point as rumored, Chaos Land Raider fell by 39 points, Chaos Spawn dropped by 8 points, Defiler dropped by 20 points, Forgefiend dropped by 19 points (another 5 for each Hades autocannon, so 29 in total), Helbrute went down by 12 points, Heldrake dropped by 18 points, Maulerfiend dropped by 20 points as well, Mutalith Vortex beast dropped by 25 points, Rubric Marines dropped by 2 points (YAY!), Scarab Occult Terminators by 3 points, Sorcerer dropped by 5 points, and Sorcerer in Terminator Armor by 18 points. Flamers and Screamers both down by 3 points, by the way, if you're summoning Daemons.

Combi-flamer is now 8 points, down by 3. Combi-melta down by 4 points, Ectoplasma cannon down 6 points, flamer down 3 points, Hades autocannon dropped by 5 as I said earlier, havoc launcher dropped by 5 points, heavy flamer down by 3 points and heavy stubber down 2 points, heavy warpflamer dropped 6 points, Helbrute fists dropped by 10 points, Helbrute hammer dropped 22 points, Helbrute plasma cannon down 14 points, Hellfyre missile rack down 7 points, inferno bolt pistol is now free, missile launcher down 5 points, multi-melta down 5 points, plasma pistol cut by 2 points, power scourge down 8 points, reaper autocannon down 5 points, soulreaper cannon down 5 points, twin heavy flamer down 6 points, twin lascannon down 10 point, warpflamer pistol down 4 points and warpflamers down 5 points (AWESOME!!!!).

Hellforged Contemptor Dreadnoughts are down 15 points and so is the Hellforged Deredeo Dreadnought. While the butcher cannon dropped 5 points and the butcher cannon array dropped a whooping 20 points, the deathclaw dropped 10 points and chainclaw dropped 7 points, the soulburner went up by 7 points, cancelling out the chainclaw drop. The Hellforged Leviathan Dreadnoughts' siege claws and siege drills dropped 25 points. Hellflamers remained the same, but meltaguns dropped 3 points.

Essentially, what this means is that my Thousand Sons army that formerly consisted of a Daemon Prince, Ahzek Ahriman, Exalted Sorcerer on disc, Exalted Sorcerer on foot, 2 squads of 5 Rubric Marines, a squad of 10 Rubric Marines with warpflamers (Aspiring Sorcerer with warpflame pistol), 5 Scarab Occult Terminators, and Chaos Rhino with havoc launcher has dropped a ton of points. Exalted Sorcerers now cost 120 and 140 points respectively, the squad of 5 Rubric Marines cost 96 points (don't forget to remove the inferno bolt pistol's 1 point!), the warpflamer squad costs 261 points, the Rhino now costs 78 points, and the Scarab Occult Terminators now cost 211 points. Awesome. So I basically saved about 125 points. Enough for a Mutalith Vortex Beast if I so desire. In any case, this basic Battalion with an extra Sorcerer tallies to 1,348 points.

My Hellforged Contemptor Dreadnoughts will now cost about 145 points (butcher cannon and deathclaw with combi-bolter, 168 points (butcher cannon and chainclaw with hellflamer), 138 points (twin butcher cannons) respectively. The Hellforged Leviathan Dreadnoughts will cost 339 points (dual Grav-flux bombard, but hellflamers remain the same) and 333 points (soulburner ribaudkin and siege drill) respectively. If I want to really save costs, there is the option of equiping a Leviathan Dreadnought with 2 butcher cannon arrays (289 points) or a soulburner ribaudkin and siege claw (323 points). The Hellforged Deredeo Dreadnought is 198 points.

So I can either build a list with the 3 Contemptor Dreadnoughts and Deredeo Dreadnought, or I can swap the Deredeo Dreadnought and a Contemptor Dreadnought for a Leviathan Dreadnought, or the Scarab Occult Terminators and 3 Contemptor Dreadnoughts for 2 Leviathan Dreadnoughts. Or I could swap the Chaos Rhino and Scarab Occult Terminators out for a Leviathan Dreadnought with 2 butcher cannon arrays. That would be fun.

Anyway, that's how Chapter Approved will be affecting my lists, and it was fun experimenting with the new points. This will be great! Now the problem is obtaining the butcher cannon array and a Carnodon tank...

Cybernetica Cohort and Emperor's Fist Tank Company

Today, I bring news to you from Warhammer Community regarding our Imperial Specialist Detachments!

For Adeptus Mechanicus, we have Cybernetica Cohort.





Cool. We have 2 Stratagems for our Cybernetica units. So Kastelan Robots can do Power Surge that will add 3" to their charge rolls, or Strafing Fire Run Stratagem, which lets them treat heavy weapons as assault. So no penalty to moving and shooting, or you can advance and shoot those heavy phosphor cannons with a -1 to hit penalty. Though why you would do that with 36" guns is beyond me...



This sounds awesome too!

Second and more importantly...we have this!



Oh dear Emperor, this is what I've been waiting for! Not only do we have a Warlord Trait for our Tank Commander to let all tanks within 6" of him re-roll all failed hit rolls for overwatch (I'm so gonna spend a Command Point for this!), we have Stratagems that allow us to charge and roll over enemy units with our tanks or fire twice even if we advanced. YAY! And we also have a cool Astra Militarum relic for our Leman Russ battle tank!



This is gonna be amazing! I can't wait to see what the Emperor's Wrath Artillery and Militarum Tempestus Drop Forces do! But my Militarum Tempestus are in the same Astra Militarum Detachment as my other normal Draconian dudes, so if it's only Militarum Tempestus Detachments, I probably can't use them. >_____<

I'll let you guys know more when I get more details!

Testing out my Hellforged Dreadnoughts

I managed to get a game on Saturday night, but I spent too much time looking for and writing about rumors that I literally didn't have time to write a report. Fortunately, it wasn't much of a battle since it lasted all of 2 turns...

The kids wanted a game, and they wanted a 3-way game because...there were 3 of us and they didn't want anyone to get left out. I swear, kids are the best. Anyway, I was happy to oblige because I wanted to test out my new Thousand Sons units anyway. I won the roll-off, but I let the 2 kids go ahead of me because...you know me. I don't care about winning or all that, and I wanted to let the kids have their fun.

The first kid brought his Blood Angels. Hmm, I can't remember what he had, but I'm sure he had 2 or 3 squads of Intercessors, a Baal Predator, a Predator Annihilator, Greyfax for some reason, a Tech-priest Enginseer (a sacristan, as he calls it, and he took both this dudde and Greyfax in auxiliary Detachments, subtracting 2 Command Points), Mephiston, 2 squads of 3 Inceptors, a Captain in Terminator armor, Terminators, Death Company, a Librarian Dreadnought, a Death Company Dreadnought, and he allied them with a Knight Errant. A pretty convoluted list, but still hits hard and fast. He had a Battalion, a Vanguard, a Super-heavy Auxiliary and 2 Auxiliaries. Why, I have no idea. Greyfax and the Tech-priest Enginseer did nothing. And I suspect he was using more Command Points than he actually had, but I might be mistaken.

The second kid brought Tau Empire, so 2 fire warriors, 1 squad of breachers, 2 squads of pathfinders, Longstrike, a Stormsurge, and stuff like that. I can't remember. I believe he has a Crisis Commander too, with a burst cannon and fusion blaster, and maybe an Ethereal? I think he also had a Ghostkneel or something. I'm sure he had more, but I can't remember how many. Mostly because we were too far away to actually fight each other, ha ha.

A gunline of Hellforged Dreadnoughts!

I brought my Thousand Sons, but a heavily modified list because I wanted to test out my new Hellforged Dreadnoughts. Fluff-wise, I'm playing a Warband that relies heavily on automata and giant robots, so they aren't really Helbrutes or Dreadnoughts but automata. Heh. In any case, I brought Ahzek Ahriman, an Exalted Sorcerer on disc with two power swords, an Exalted Sorcerer on foot, a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, 2 squads of 5 Rubric Marines, a squad of 10 Cultists, a Hellforged Contemptor Dreadnought with two butcher cannons, a Hellforged Contemptor Deadnought with a butcher cannon, hellforged deathclaw and combi-bolter, a Hellforged Contemptor Dreadnought with a butcher cannon, hellforged chainclaw (represented by...gasp! A Force Sword on the Osiron Contemptor Dreadnought) and soulburner, a Hellforged Deredeo Dreadnought with butcher cannon array and greater havoc launcher, and lastly, a Hellforged Leviathan Dreadnought with gav-flux bombard, 2 hellflamers, a meltagun and a siege drill. Yup, most of my army has gone into these giant robots! Awesome!

The Blood Angels player went first, and he did a lot of damage to me. He moved all his hard hitters up, his Knight Errant, Baal Predator (which super-charged and zoomed right into my frontline), his Dreadnought (which used the Death Company Stratagem to get that move before battle begins), Mephiston, Greyfax, the Librarian Dreadnought and even a bunch of Intercessors. Only a single squad of Intercessors deigned to move toward the Tau's deployment zone. Guess they really hate Traitors! And damn it, I completely forgot about Death to the False Emperor...that might have helped me. Never mind. I can't remember what happened, but the Predator Annihilator fired all his lascannons. I failed all my saves, and my Osiron Contemptor Dreadnought blew up. Ouch. I was rolling really, really badly this game. At this point I wondered if I should have gone first, ha ha ha! But nah, I didn't want to hammer the poor kids. Anyway, the kid didn't have quite the luck, I know he fired something at the butcher cannon-deathclaw Contemptor Dreadnought, but only rolled a 1 for damage. On the other side of the table, the Knight Errant fired and only did 1 wound to my other Contemptor Dreadnought with dual butcher cannons. He rolled a dice for his thermal cannon, only to roll a 1 for damage. Heh.

His Intercessors fired and killed 1 or 2 Pathfinders, but otherwise he didn't do anything to the T'au. He focused everything he had on poor me.

The T'au didn't have much to shoot at, with the Stormsurge and the Hammerhead firing at the Kngiht Errant and everything else into the Intercessors. After all was said and done, I think he didn't put a single wound on the Knight, who made all his saves with the 4++ rotate ion shield Stratagem. At most 2 or 3 wounds, but no more than that. About 2 Intercessors died, but that's about it.

I had everyone stayed still, and healed my dual butcher cannon Dreadnought with Temporal Manipulation. Then I used psychic powers to smite a lot of stuff. After Smite and shooting from my Hellforged Dreadnoughts, the Baal Predator only had 1 wound left, the Knight had taken about 18 wounds or so, the normal Dreadnought only had 1 wound left, and the Predator Annihilator was untouched.  The Leviathan Dreadnought put 5 wounds on the Baal Predator with his grav-flux bombard. That felt good! Unfortunately, my opponent made most of his saves, particularly for the Dreadnought and the Knight, or I would have wrecked them. As it was, I wasn't able to do anything to them. Ugh. I think I killed one or two Intercessors with the heavy bolters and greater havoc launcher from the Deredeo, but those 3+ armor saves (the cover negated the AP -1) made them hard to take out.

The Blood Angels struck again. Everyone moved forward, but the Dreadnought still wasn't in position to charge. The Inceptors Deep Struck behind the T'au lines, and the Terminators and Death Company all Deep Struck behind my lines. The Tech-priest Enginseer used the Tech Adept Stratagem to repair the wounded Knight twice, bringing him back to 8 health. But even with BS 4+, he failed to do any significant damage with his thermal cannon and heavy stubbers, either missing or me makig my invulnerable save against the single hit he made. The Baal Predator killed 1 Rubric Marine from 1 squad, and his heavy flamers attacked my Rubric Marines in the other squad. Despite needing a 2+ armor save since they were in cover, and had All is Dust, I rolled 4 ones, and all but my Aspiring Sorcerer got wiped out. What the Tzeentch...

The Intercessors failed to kill the Aspiring Sorcerer despite their shooting, and the Predator Annihilator dealt 9 damage to my Leviathan Dreadnought, with me failing all my saves again. I was rolling horribly. So was the kid, his Death Company fired on my Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, only to blow one of them up with his supercharged plasma pistol. And he didn't even manage to hit the Daemon Prince, I remember he was pretty much unscathed when the shooting phase ended and I don't remember needing to make any saves for him. However, once again, when the Terminators and Terminator Captain fired all their stormbolters into Ahriman, I failed so many of my 3+ invulnerable save that it wasn't funny, and Ahriman...died. Damn it, Tzeentch! What the feth are you doing!?

On the other side of the table, the Intercessors and Inceptors killed about 1 Pathfinder in 1 squad, 2 or 3 Pathfinders and a Shield Drone in another, and about 3 Fire Warriors. I know one Inceptor squad made his charge, despite his 2 comrades being blown apart by overwatch. The other Inceptor squad was luckier, losing only 1 wound, but they failed their charge. On the other side, the kid used his 3D6 charge Stratagem for his Death Company to get into combat. He failed to kill my Daemon Prince in combat, dealing like 3 wounds with chainswords. In return, my Daemon Prince killed about 2 or 3 of them. On the other hand, the Blood Angels Terminators attempted to charge the Deredeo Dreadnought, but because he was 12" away, they failed. Muahahaha. Wait a second, this was just weird. I remember the kid used the 3D6 charge Stratagem for his Inceptors to charge the Fire Warriors too (he rolled a 3 and 2 ones and failed spectacularly). How did he use the same Stratagem twice in the same phase? Anyway, by the end of his turn, the Aspiring Sorcerer managed to pass his morale. Just barely. Phew.

The T'au guy helped me out a lot by wiping out the Inceptors, leaving just one wounded one in his backline (killing the sole survivor who succeeded the charge and 2 more in the other squad). The Stormsurge failed to wound the Knight, who made all his Rotate Ion Shield saves (why does the Blood Angels player have so many Command Points?), but Longstrike scored a 6 with his wound roll after hitting the Knight, dealing 6 damage plus D3 mortal wounds or something, thus destroying the Knight in a single volley. Heh! The 5-men Intercessor squad was reduced to just 1 guy. I think that's about it because he couldn't reach anything else.

My turn came and I pretty much destroyed everything with Smite. Smite from my Aspiring Sorcerers destroyed the Baal Predator and the wounded Dreadnought, I healed my Leviathan Dreadnought with Temporal Manipulation and my Exalted Sorcerer rolled an 11 for Smite, dealing 4 mortal wounds to the Terminators and killing 2 of them. Heh! The Daemon Prince also used Smite to kill another of the Death Company dude, leaving just 1 guy locked in combat with him. The Hellforged Contemptor Dreadnoughts and Deredeo Dreadnought destroyed the Librarian Dreadnought and wiped out the Terminators, but I only killed 1 or 2 Intercessors because my opponent made all his 3+ armor saves. The Leviathan Dreadnought fired his grav-flux bombard at the Terminator Captain, but I only rolled a 1 for shots, and despite hitting and wounding, he made his 4++ iron halo invulnerable save. Damn. Then the Daemon Prince killed the last Death Company guy in combat.

Oh...that was looking pretty bare for the Blood Angels player. He only had a Predator Annihilator, Mephiston, Greyfax and a Terminator Captain left in my deployment zone, and an Inceptor in the T'au's deployment zone. Not looking good for him at all. Oh well...

Anyway, it seems that my Hellforged Dreadnoughts packed a lot of firepower! The Blood Angels kid lamented that had he known I was bringing so many Dreadnoughts, he would have brought 2 Knights and a Baneblade...dude, that's overkill. Dreadnoughts aren't that good. Relax.

Well, that's all the battle for this week. I'll be keeping my eyes for more news on Chapter Approved and how my Thousand Sons and Imperial Guard will be affected. Cultists rising to 5 points per model has been confirmed officially by Warhammer Community, but that's all I can say for now. Until next time!