Sunday 30 September 2012

1500 Skaven Tournament List - Doing Well So Far!

So for whatever reason my local Games Workshop has Fantasy tournaments at 1500 points. The tournaments are nothing big, with a maximum of 10 people who pay $5 each to play 3 games on a Sunday where the money paid is split between the winner and runner-up in Games Workshop vouchers, but they're a good way to get to know the players around the store, get some practice in and have some fun.

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Skaven aren't OP, they just like their cheese.

So this is what I'm currently getting painted up for these local tournaments:
Lords - 260pts.
Grey Seer - Power Stone - 260pts.

Heroes - 167pts.
Chieftain - BSB, Storm Banner, Shield - 122pts.
Warlock Engineer - Doomrocket - 45pts.

Core - 508pts.
20 Clanrats - Shields, Musician, Standard Bearer, Warpfire Thrower - 172pts.
20 Clanrats - Shields, Musician, Standard Bearer, Warpfire Thrower - 172pts.
40 Skavenslaves - Musician - 82pts.
40 Skavenslaves - Musician - 82pts.

Special - 264pts.
32 Plague Monks - Standard Bearer, Plague Banner - 264pts.

Rare - 300pts.
Doomwheel - 150pts.
Doomwheel - 150pts.

TOTAL - 1499pts.

Now before anyone bitches at me: no, it's not like your retarded meta list. Why? Because 2 Doomwheels are better than 1 Hell Pit, because I don't need another tar pit with a unit of 40 Clanrats and because Warpfire Throwers are cool. I know the Clanrats will not hold anything up or beat anything in combat, but they're not meant to. They're not even meant to be in combat at all, just like all my characters. They act as bunkers for those characters for protection against Canonballs, missile weapons, spells and so on. They're there so I can take those Warpfire Throwers. And to be honest, 40 Clanrats are never going to beat anything in combat either. If I wanted another tar pit I'd take more slaves.

I'm not saying units of 40 Clanrats are bad, I'm just saying that I don't need them in my list and the units of 20 suit how I play and the tactics I use. What? I use different tactics to other players on the Internet?


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That's fucking insane!


With that out of the way, the list has been performing quite well in the few test games I've played with it thus far. It has been tweaked a little, but I think it's about done for now. The latest two games I had the other day were against High Elves and Warriors of Chaos. I tabled my opponents in both games, coming out both times with a pile of dead Slaves and the unit of Plague Monks, but the rest of the army was otherwise untouched.

Well, that was a lie. In the second game, there was quite the highlight. I hit my opponents Chaos Knights and brought them down to a man with Impact Hits. He managed to hold his ground. During the second round of combat he passed all 3 armour saves caused by Grinding Down the Foe, failed To Wound with his Knight, but then his horse hit and wounded, my Doomwheel failed its armour save, lost its shit and ran away. It was chased down by the Knight who went 12" to my fairly sad 9" with 3D6 movement.

Thoughts? Comments?

Friday 28 September 2012

Chaos Space Marine's Fiendishly Good Looking Models

There's a lot of complaints flying around the internet over the new Chaos Space Marine models, especially about the Fiends. Upon first inspection, I kind of agreed with the majority opinion, but after taking a slightly closer look at the models, I must admit that I quite enjoy how they look. In fact, the more I look at them the better they get.

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How could you hate this model?

A few have been whining about the new Raptor models too, saying they prefer the older models. Personally I can't get over how brutal their weapons look and prefer the new ones a hundred times over.

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Leaps and bounds better than the last models.

The only model that I'm not entirely impressed with is the Heldrake, but even that I don't really hate.

I guess it is all just a matter of opinion though, so what's yours?

Wednesday 26 September 2012

Hellpits, Doomwheels and Cannons: Oh My!

As just about anyone should be aware, Hellpit Abominations are pretty popular. As in, just about every Skaven list has one. But that's part of the problem: most people only take one.


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He's pissed.

See, one Hellpit is usually pretty easy to deal with for anyone prepared. Hell, even Wood Elves should nail it in a turn or two with a unit of Glade Guard with the Banner of Eternal Flame. As such, it's really a matter of two Hellpits or none, unless you're playing a game too small to fit a pair.

Another thing that's pretty common knowledge is that Warp Lightning Cannons are damn powerful. Top 5 Skaven units powerful. But then if you're taking your pair of Hellpits, you won't have any room for any Cannons until 2250 point games, and you won't be able to take a pair of them until 2600 points, which is a bit above the average (here at least). Thus, in my opinion, I think 2 Doomwheels and 2 Cannons is the superior option up until that level.

In terms of ranged fire power, 2 Cannons will mean fairly consistent firing, even when one screws up, as Skaven machines so often do, and, obviously, more dead stuff overall. I don't think I can adaquately describe the amount of damage a pair of Cannons has done for me, so I won't try. But you get the picture...

As for the Doomwheels, those things are insane. Some douche on the internet that clearly thought he was the lord of all Warhammer ever, told me that I must be using "better i.e. different" Doomwheels to the one's he's seen in his travels. That guy is either playing Dwarfs with as many War Machines as possible against opponents who don't bring a Storm Banner or, more likely, he's a moron.

The major benefit of Doomwheels though is their ability to wreck 3 machines, monsters, Ogres or what-have-you in a single shooting phase. I will admit that 3 Ogres isn't that impressive, but rolling up beside a Dragon, hitting it at S8 or 10, killing it with the first Zzzap! or two and then finishing off the rider with the third is always nice. Same with hitting 3 Cannons, Bolt Throwers or Catapults and taking them all out in one go with your relatively cheap Doomwheel. Then you can also fire whilst in combat and you completely ignore cover. Not much is really safe, provided you're in range. That includes your own slaves though, but they're slaves, so who cares?

In terms of survivability, the 4+ armour save is going to hold up much better against flaming attacks than the Regen the Hellpit relies on. Unfortunately Cannons are a pain, but that's what Gutter Runners and Storm Banners are for, and if they're not dead when you get close enough, your Doomwheels too.

2 Cannons and 2 Doomwheels will also annihilate enemy Hellpits you come across. They may not ignore the Regen, but they can only pass so many 4+ saves and when you're doing D6 wounds they won't be around very long. Or you could shoot them with Warpfire Throwers if you prefer, but that's going a bit off-topic.

Anyway, that's just what I've found with my experiences with Skaven. If people around your store don't have flaming attacks or lots of multi-wound shots, then do what you want. I just feel that 2 Doomwheels and 2 Cannons is stronger that 1/2 Hellpits and 2/1 Cannons.

Tuesday 25 September 2012

Maybe I Should Re-introduce Myself...

I made this blog something like a year ago, but being as terrible as I am and lacking in motivation at the time, it kind of fell through. But I've been looking around, reading other people's blogs and with the arrival of 6th edition and the new Chaos Space Marines codex coming out, I've been inspired to give it another go.

So I'm still working on adding tabs up top, but hopefully I can have those up tonight when I get home.

For anyone wondering, I play Skaven, Dark Eldar and Chaos Space Marines as of right now, with a Wood Elves army planned for the future, but unfortunately with the release of all the shiny new toys for my first 40k army, that's probably going to be put on hold for a little bit longer.

Temporary2+ is a reference to the Dark Eldar Shadow Field as well, just FYI. I'm generally not a fan of it, because it always seems to fail me the moment I get hit by anything S6+.

I look something akin to this guy every time it happens, which is pretty much every game:

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I have a pretty short temper...