Sunday, May 20, 2007

A bitsbox of gaming

I've been up to lots of game related things this weekend. I haven't finished my Marauder horse yet, but I've added the metallics, horsehair and fur. I'm going to break out the foundation paints soon to paint the flesh.

The latest issue of White Dwarf dropped through my letterbox on Friday. I was really looking forward to getting my mitts on this as it had part one of the Blood Angels codex update. There were no points costs listed, just some background material, the Blood Angels special rules, a wargear section and the stats and unit descriptions of the models unique to the Blood Angels. The full army list will follow in the next issue.

I noticed a few things right away. Some rules are as per the Dark Angels codex - all models now come with frag and krak grenades and ten man veteran, tactical, devastator, assault and scout squads can be split into combat squads. I haven't really thought through the implications of this as I don't play Dark Angels, so I don't know if it is a good or bad thing. It fits the background of the Marines, though, so it can't all be bad.

Assault Marines are now Troops. This is a relatively unexpected development (for me at least) and means a big change in background and army play style. I can't really imagine many people investing in Tactical marines now. My own plans were for a mechanised force so I don't know how this change will affect my planned army. The loss of Furious Charge across the whole army makes them slightly weaker, but I still expect most BA armies to contain lots of these jump-packers.

The Death Company look nasty. They come with two attacks basic, fearless, feel no pain, furious charge and rending. Ouch. There is no confirmation of the rules on acquiring the Death Company, so these must appear in part two of the codex.

The Furioso Dreadnoughts can now upgrade to Death Company Dreadnoughts. This is great news for me as I had modelled a Furioso to represent Chaplain Blackblood, an old hero of mine since Rogue Trader days, who had been mortally wounded and placed in the dreadnought while gripped by the Black Rage. The movement rules probably make it not so great in the game, but at least I can play the model 'correctly.'

Speaking of vehicles, the over-charged engines are much better. You now roll a d6 - on a 1 the vehicle stalls and cannot move, on a 2-3 it moves normally and on a 4+ it moves up to 18" as a fast vehicle. This will make a massive difference to predators with heavy bolter sponsons in particular, as they could move 12" and shoot their main weapon and secondary weapons. Baal predators are therefore very nasty indeed. I already have a predator destructor painted and ready to roll.

Mephiston has lived up to the pre-codex hype. His statline is excellent and he can cast all three psychic powers per turn, and can even use them in the opponents turn. He is a close combat monster, hitting with 6-8 attacks with a Force Weapon. His only slight weak point will be no invulnerable save and a probable high points cost. Still, I expect to see him on a lot of table tops.

Two rules queries came up immediately.

1 - Mephiston. His Lord of Death special rule says ...Mephiston has all three BA psychic powers powers, and can use each one of them and his Force Weapon once each player turn... Does this mean he can use Wings of Sanguinius to fly around in the other player's turn? The implications are huge.

2- Over-charged engines. Can you try to use these on the turn you enter the table from reserves? If so, what happens when you roll a 1 and can't move?

If anyone has any ideas I'd like to hear them.

The new Blood Angels codex has really stoked me up and I want to build an army of the bloodthirsty protectors of humanity. In order to do that, because of my vow to only buy models with the proceeds of sales of my gaming gear, I need to sell a lot more stuff. To that end I dug out all of my Tau stuff. All laid out it looks quite impressive.



Here is the full list of models.

Tanks
  • 2 Hammerheads
  • 2 Devilfish
Battlesuits
  • 6 Stealthsuits
  • 9 Crisis suits
  • 3 Broadsides
Infantry
  • 8 Pathfinders
  • 24 Kroot
  • 60 Firewarriors
Drones
  • 31 Gundrones
By my rough and ready reckoning I estimate there are around £300 worth of models in this army. I'd be more than happy if my sales pulled in half this amount. That would leave me with more than enough to finish my Chaos Horde and complete a 1500 point BA force (I already have a number of models).

In future posts I'll let you know how what BA models I already have and post some pics of the finished models. I have also begun to flesh out the background of the Imperial fleet for the Skolarii Sector. I've also been ruminating on a master plan for collecting and painting future armies and using or losing the models I currently own. When I've decided on the details I'll post it up here.

No comments:

Post a Comment