Project List

I've made mention several times about my project list, things getting bumped down or up on the list, but I don't think I've actually laid out my long-term goals here yet.

So here we go!

First, a reminder of what I currently have, then a list of projects and add-ons I'd like to do.


I currently have armies for:

• Space Marines (Silver Skulls Drop Pod)
• Orks (Blood Axes)
• Tau (Shadowsun ambush force, no Crisis suits or vehicles)
• Chaos Space Marines (Sons of Horus and Word Bearers)
• Imperial Guard (Merkan 76th)

I previously had, but have since sold:

• Tau (lots of crisis suits and vehicles)
• Space Marines (DIY Praetorians chapter)
• Eldar (Biel-tan Swordwind)
• World Eaters CSM
• Fantasy Goblins

I'm currently in the middle of building and painting the Scythiak Usurpation (Chaos Guard).

I have plans to build:

• Fantasy Warriors of Chaos, with some old stuff leftover from previous army, leftover figs from making the Scythiak, and a large infusion from Papa JJ. Will probably be Tzeentchian and/or Undivided.
• The Sons of Taurus, my eponymous renegade SM, long-waiting and long-suffering in limbo.  I did a few test figs for them back when I returned to 40K in 3rd ed, but wasn't happy with the results and ended up painting up simple black Sons of Horus instead.  Will either be built with Space Wolves or CSM rules, currently leaning towards SW as I have several CSM armies already, and Bull Centaur "Thunderwolves" sounds cool to me.
• Space Sharks!  When I was choosing my loyalist SM when I returned to 40K, it came down to Silver Skulls and Space Sharks.  Silver Skulls narrowly won out at the time, but I've had a soft spot in my heart for the Space Sharks from the early days seeing them in the Badab War section of the 40K Compendium.  I have been toying with the idea of finally doing them, perhaps with the Blood Angels book (Seth seems like he'd be a good Space Shark commander).  I had even considered commissioning some custom bits, but now Forge World announced that they were releasing Badab War books, including stuff for the Space Sharks.  My, my, my. 
• Servants of Decay/Death Guard - combo army, regular Nurgle CSM plus the Nurgle Guard renegades from Vraks III (IA 7).
• Fantasy Bretonnians  - I have a bunch of these guys, but they keep being pushed back.  If I get heavy into 8th ed fantasy, I may try again to do these guys justice.

One or more of my current armies may have to go to make room/funds for the new projects.  If I start to get a lot more games in I may persuade myself to try harder to hang on to everything, but it's possible that the Tau may go (again) and I may sell parts of the Silver Skulls depending on how high prices for RTB01 guys go, or just re-model/paint them as part of the Space Sharks, depending.  The Brets may wind up going too.

Other non-full army projects on the list:

• Chop up my city board to make it more easily rearranged/stored/transported, and add pieces to it.  I've gotten a lot of good use out of the board as-is, but it's pretty inconvenient in its current form.  
• Add some more terrain pieces for my desert and jungle themes.
• Orks: Build/paint Killer Kans.  Possibly do some buggies and Nobs.  Maybe some Lootas, Burnas, and Tankbustas, along with another Battlewagon or Looted Wagon.
• IG: Build/paint sentinels (armored, with plasma cannons) for the Merkan 76th, to allow them to go to 2000pts or just as an additional option for smaller lists.
• Scythiak: add other unit options, like Stormtroopers, more tanks, beastmen/penal legion, more squads, perhaps a Valkyrie.
• Refurbish the Sons of Horus, or even potentially turn them into something else.  

Plus tons of misc. Reaper/Ral Partha/etc. figures.  I'll often do a few of these in between big army projects for a little variety, but the unpainted pile keeps growing faster than the painted pile.

I think that's it as far as things that may actually someday get done.  There's also some pie-in-the-sky ideas, like the Pulp serial "Dark Eldar" army, full of dashing heroes with rayguns in rocketships, Tomb Kings, Iron Warriors, White Scars, Deathwing, etc...but these are mostly "wouldn't it be neat" ideas, not things I have actual plans for or have started to collect figures for...at least, not yet!

40K Basics: How to Make Stuff Work

With school starting back up and various personal life things taking up time, I haven't gotten any painting done on the Scythiak, so here's another musing post, this time about How to Make Stuff Work.  I doubt it will make the Earth move for any of you vets, but maybe for some newer gamers it will help turn a light on.

Beatin' the odds.  This won't be a hard-core mathhammer post, just a basic reminder that there are a few different ways to make probability work for you.




So you want to do something in a 40K game.  How to make it work with those little cubes with the pips on them?

Lots of Dice - Throw more dice, and you're more likely to succeed.  Get more shots or throw more CC attacks, and you'll get more hits.  Get more hits, and you'll get more wounds.  Neat, huh?  Some armies operate on this principle, throwing a ton of attacks at you and hoping something sticks. 

The flip side of this is true too.  For things where failure is bad, the more you can make your opponent pick up dice, the better off you are.  If you force enough saves, pinning tests, morale tests, etc. they'll fail some of them.  If you're relying on Lots of Dice, you're trying to overload the enemy and let aggregate probability carry the day for you. 

Good Dice - The more likely your roll is, umm...the more likely it is.  Saves that are 2+, morale checks on Ld 10, shooting with BS 5 - these things are likely to succeed, so you can pick up the dice with some level of confidence.  This is one of the main reasons Marine armies can be so good - whenever they do something, they have a good chance of success.  Shooting something?  Hit on 3+.  Got hit?  Save on 3+. 

You may not have as many shots, but the ones you have are more likely to hit, and to wound.  You don't have as many guys, but they're more likely to survive.

Re-rolls - Hey, a do-over!  Re-rolls are important tools, and feed into the good dice method.  The more re-rolls you can get, the better off you are.  Twin-linking, master-crafting, lightning claws, and so on.  The game is full of them.  They can make Lots of Dice into Lots of Pretty Good Dice, or make Good Dice into Great Dice.  Take them when you can, and remember to use them!

No Rolls - Take dice out of the equation.  Make your stuff 100% successful and their stuff 0% successful.  What does a Deffrolla need to roll to hit?  Nothin'.  What does a flamer need to roll to hit?  Nothin'.  What kind of armor save does he get against that lascannon wound?  None.  Reducing your chance of failure and the enemy's chance of success to zero makes things easier.  Every time you have to roll a die there's a chance of failure; every time the other guy gets to roll he has a chance to succeed - take those chances out of the picture when you can.

Normally we think about these sorts of things in relation to the straight combat applications - hitting, wounding, saving.  But don't forget other parts of the game, like movement.  Is it worth taking dozer blades on those tanks to get re-rolls in terrain?  Is Ghazghkull coming along, to make that Waaagh roll a sure thing?  And of course there's a lot of No Roll things in movement already; basic movement won't involve dice at all.  Take that surety away from your opponent when you can.  Make him have to check to immobilize his vehicles to get where he wants to be.  Make him have to roll for difficult terrain to assault you. 

Whichever method your army uses, keep in mind how to Make your Stuff Work and their Stuff Not Work.

Forge World wants my wallet - Space Sharks!

First they start kicking out old Marine armor mark kits. 


Then they make some announcements at Games Day for what's coming down the pipe...including Badab War IA books! 


 
Props to those passing this info along.  An example thread can be found on Dakka with a nice summary by Sarrazon which I'll quote here:

Alright, I attended the seminar about it today, so this is what was said about the Badab books, and FW's other stuff.

Badab is two books (IA 9 and 10), and is pretty close to finished.
Also working on IA 11 - more on that in a bit.
Re-releasing IA 1.

Badab War book 1 will have lots of background and color schemes for the various chapers, rules for boarding actions, a list for Huron's traitors, and lots of special characters for the normal marine 'dex. Book 2 will have more background, schemes, and special characters, as well as a Siege list for Marines, and information on SM sieges. Also (I believe) some BSG rules. Red Scorpions are getting more upgrade packs (Honor Guard upgrade for the command squad kit and a librarian), and Huron is getting a new model. Also, to my great joy, and much amusement when I asked, Space Sharks will be showing up in the second book.

IA 11 will be Eldar and Space Wolves, set on an ice world. Pictures of some in progress stuff for Eldar was shown, including the Phantom Titan which was ridiculously huge - the base was taking up a good portion of a 2x2 Realm of Battle board, and the Falcon shown for scale was in the same size area as its feet, and an unnamed eldar light tank which looked sorta like a cross between a falcon and some of their fliers (one of the few things my phone could get a decent picture of, so that might be up in a while).

Unrelated to the above, also shown was the mother of all Grot Tanks, and a Necron model (unrelated to any book) being in production was mentioned. 

That's right folks - Forge World Space Sharks!


I've long loved the Badab War storyline, and look forward to these, which while unfortunately spread across two books, should provide a lot of good stuff.  Splitting the space vs. siege stuff makes sense, so I can forgive that.  All those different marines and schemes back in the day fueled my 40K imagination, I almost did Space Sharks for my first real army, and my yet to be done but long brewing eponymous renegades are a result of the Badab War.  The books themselves combined with Space Shark kits will make my finances scream a bit I'm sure.  I'd already planned on putting Space Sharks in the project list, but this might bump them up the queue a bit!

In the Zone: Special Operations Killzone

If you've been following Big Jim's Galaxy in Flames blog or have heard his many guest spots on the podcast circuit, you've probably heard about Killzone.  It began as a way to plug some of the holes in Kill Team, but quickly morphed into an entirely separate way of doing skirmish-level action for 40K, hearkening back to RT and Necromunda.

I'm honored to be helping as a wall to bounce ideas off of as part of the Star Chamber committee.  Truly an esteemed collection of scum and villainy.  You can find the PDF of the WIP rules on the left of the page, and here's a link to the Killzone posts so far. 


It's still very much WIP, but will hopefully provide a good way to engage in some smaller scale, cinematic action.  Check it out, and give Big Jim your thoughts and ideas!

40K Basics: Are you using everything in your toolbox?

In 40K everything has a variety of things it can do - some obvious, some not so obvious.  Whether you're building a list or in the middle of a game, keeping the toolbox of options and abilities in your mind can help.

Most people have at least some idea of what they're going to use their units for when they build a list.  This unit is to hold an objective, that one is to bust open tanks, that one is to assault stuff, and so on.  But in many cases they're just looking at the top section of the toolbox, the commonly-used screwdrivers, pliers and the like.  Pull that top section out and root around in the bottom and see what you might be able to do with the Allen wrenches or an angled nut driver.


Just flip through the rulebook and find a section to look over.  Is there something there you may be able to make use of?  Do you have a way to counter someone else doing so?

Take a few simple, but fundamental examples.

• Line of sight (LOS).  If someone has something behind LOS blocking terrain that you have to take out, do you have a way to do so?  Perhaps something fast enough to get to it quickly, a different deployment type like Deep Strike or Snikrot, or a way to hit them regardless like indirect fire?  On the flip side, are you taking advantage of LOS, protecting your units where possible?

• Movement.  While most things in 40K can move, many players only see movement as a means to one of their own ends - getting into range to shoot or assault, or getting to an objective.  But it can also be used to deny the enemy from achieving their ends by doing things like blocking access to objectives or getting throwaway units in the way of desired assaults.  Your units aren't just a collection of shooting and close combat attacks; they're also little bits of partially-impassible terrain that you can shuffle around the battlefield.

 The toolbox is a good bit of the reason why mechanized armies can be so powerful.  They gain their player access to improved or extra tools (potentially faster movement, tank shock, mobile terrain) as well as rob their opponent of the use of their own tools (via inability to target transported models).

Everything is about either giving yourself a tool to take advantage of, or denying the enemy the use of theirs.  You take units with good armor saves to give yourself the ability to ignore a lot of damage, but the tool of low AP or a power weapon can take that ability away from you, etc.

What tools do you find to be especially useful?  Is there something you often take advantage of that others often overlook?

Scythiak Usurpation - WIP Russ part 2

Second WIP on the M3 traitor Russ stand-in, with regular Russ chassis on the left for comparison.  As you can see the M3 is basically the same width, but is a good bit taller. 

Side view, showing that the M3 has a good bit of extra length.  Despite the height and length I think it's a good stand-in.  A smaller scale tank would wind up too small for the extra decoration and the turret.






Couple views of the extra decoration.

Paint is coming for the army!  The past week I've been away, this week is a bit crazy, next week school's starting up again so I'm not sure how busy that will be, but once I get in the groove there should be time for some painting sessions.

40K Basics: Wound Allocation - it's not that hard, really.

The wound allocation complaints have been making the rounds again lately, including the complaint that it's "too hard" or "takes too long".  If you really have problems understanding it, here's some examples that hopefully will clear it up a bit.

Here's a complicated unit - ten Chaos Marines: six normal, two meltaguns, icon, champion, so four wound allocation groups.






Here's the unit taking ten wounds of the same type.  Each group is full up with one group of wounds.  Six on the bolter guys, two on the meltaguns, one on icon, one on champion.

If we go by the dice results here and say they're normal wounds they get saves against, two bolter guys and one meltagunner will die.

Now we mix it up a bit.  The red dice are still something normal, like lasgun wounds, but now we add the black dice as for example plasma wounds, which will ignore the CSM's armor save. Four plasma wounds and ten lasgun wounds.

All four plasma get allocated to the regular joes, along with two lasgun wounds to fill them out, the meltagunners, icon, and champion each get a lasgun, and with two lasgun wounds left over, they lap around back to the bolter joes.  

If we go by the dice as shown, four bolter guys will die (no save) and one meltagunner also dies from a failed lasgun save.  If you ignored wound allocation in this instance and just did everyone as one large group, you would only have five bolter guys die and the meltagunner would be safe.  Using the allocation properly provides an example of how wound allocation can benefit the shooter, even with mixed AP weapons.

Here's another mixed AP example, this time with the white dice representing the armor-ignoring attacks, and red dice still being normal armor saves.  Say, eight Demolisher cannon wounds, six heavy bolter wounds.  

Six demolisher wounds go on the bolter carriers, and everyone else claims a heavy bolter wound until everyone in the unit has a wound allocated.  Then in the second lap, all of the remaining wounds (two demolisher and two HB) wind up on the bolter carriers.  

With the dice in this example, the bolter guys are wiped out with a little left over, while the other groups are safe.  This is one of the examples those who dislike WA hate; if you just did everything as one group, you'd wind up with nine dead CSM (eight from no-save demolisher, one from failed HB save).  Interestingly though, the CSM player would get to choose which one survived.

Let's make the squad smaller.  Three bolter guys, meltagun, champion - three wound groups.

Basic allocation, six regular wounds.  Each group is full up, and bolter guys get an extra wound.

Using the dice as shown, everyone is OK except for the champion, who bites it.  Without wound allocation, rolling the six saves as one group, you'd just see a regular bolter guy go down instead.  Another example where WA can benefit the shooter.

Bringing mixed AP in again.  Two plasma wounds (white dice) added to the six lasgun wounds.

Two plasma and a lasgun go on the bolter guys, lasgun to meltaguy, lasgun to champion.  Three lasgun wounds left over, wrap back around to the bolter guys.




Here, dice as shown would have two bolter guys die (no save) and the champion bites it again.  Without wound allocation, you'd just see the three normal bolter guys die instead.

One of the much less likely, but commonly used examples - a bunch of normal saves and a bunch of amor-ignoring ones.  Again, white dice for armor-ignoring shots, like plasma, red for normal shots like lasguns.

Three plasma to the bolter guys, lasgun to melta, lasgun to champ.  Wrap around - repeat three plasma to bolters, lasgun to melta, lasgun to champ.  Two lasgun wounds left wrap around a second time and land on the bolter guys.

This is an example those who dislike WA really hate, as it only has the three bolter guys die, where if you ignored allocation the squad would be wiped out by the plasma wounds.

For the last example, let's tie it in with another of the big 5th-edition hates, cover saves. Here the five-man CSM squad is in a trench, hunkered down for a 4+ cover save.  They're hit as in the last example, with six amor-ignoring plasma wounds and six lasgun wounds, but this time they get to make cover saves against the plasma.

Allocation as previously, but this time the CSM get lucky with their cover saves and unlucky with some lasguns, felling both the champion and the meltagunner but sparing the normal joes.  Without wound allocation, rolling as one big group, you'd see two bolter guys removed instead.


So there's how to do it.  Keep track of how many and what kind of wounds your opponent inflicts, grab some dice, put them in groups, roll, remove casualties.  Try it a few times, it really doesn't take long.  If you try the above scenarios (or others) and roll them out a few times, you'll see that sometimes wound allocation ends up benefiting the attacker, sometimes the defender.

You may or may not like it, and that's your right, but I hope that you won't consider it "too hard".


 

You put your chocolate in my peanut butter!

Lyrics | Nofx lyrics - You Put Your Chocolate In My Peanut Butter! lyrics

There are two main GW games many play - 40K which is the sci-fi version, and WHFB, which is the fantasy version.  Two different things, right?  Not always.

When responding to a post on Table Top War about why Magilla doesn't see much cavalry  in 40K games, I mentioned that some people just don't like the idea of them in a sci-fi setting.  They don't want to play a fantasy army, a Napoleonic army, or even a World War I army; they're playing a sci-fi game, they want big laser guns, flying tanks and things like that, dangit! 

On the flip side, there are fantasy players who want to see armies with swords and spears, cavalry and wizards, and dislike all these guns, cannons, tanks and helicopters peeing on their imagery.  Take your warpstone creations and Hochland whatchamijiggers back to Mars, thankyewveddymuch!




Of course, others like the combinations.  They enjoy seeing 41st-millennium knights pile out of tanks to engage their foes with swordplay, or seeing someone enchant a cannon to shoot better.  The imagery of the mashup is part of the appeal to them.



Where do you stand?  Are there things that you think are silly to see in your game of choice?  Are there supposedly anachronistic things that you love?