House of Paincakes Article No.23

Tuesday HoP article here.

This time it's a somewhat self-deprecating article about how my laziness is managing to lose me games that I should have won...

I suppose that you'll be wanting the Tuesday Eye-Candy now?

I was struggling to come up with an appropriately geeky theme for this week as I've pretty much done all the 'classics'. I have therefore picked an arbitrary group of pictures of attractive women holding guns...I hope that's okay with everyone...

 I'd forgotten how hot Linda Hamilton looks holding an Assault Rifle....or maybe that's just me, lol.

List Design for Beginners - Part 3(e) - What Army to Choose?

Well were on the home straight now,

Previous articles can be found below,

Blood Angels, Chaos Daemons and Chaos Space Marines,
Dark Eldar, Eldar and Grey Knights,
Imperial Guard, Necrons, Orks,
Space Marines, Dark Angels, Space Wolves and Tau.

Now for the last three,

Black Templars.

The recent FAQ has been fairly kind to the Black Templars as it has given them the Marine versions of many of the special rules and weapons stats. These FAQ's have breathed a bit of new life into the codex in much the same way that they did with the Dark Angels but not necessarily for all the same reasons ;-)

Mech - Due to the ability to give pretty much all your vehicles Power of the Machine Spirit you can make a mechanised Black Templars army 'pseudo' fast, by which I mean you can take Razorbacks, Predators and even Vindicators and make it so you can move 12" and still fire a weapon. This helps to get side armour shots with the Predators, shots after moving 12" with the Razorbacks and to have an effective threat range of 36" with your Vindicators. Combined with the 'Abhor the Witch/Destroy the Witch' vow and you can get an extra D6" of movement towards the enemy after deployment if the enemy army has a Psyker in it....Even an extra inch or two can make a big difference ;-)

Terminator Spam - Take a pair of Terminator Command Squads and another three units of Terminators from your Elite slots and give each unit a pair of heavy weapons and you have a formidable wall of 2+/5+ saves that are firing a combined total of  40 Assault Cannon or 20 Cyclone Missile Launcher shots per turn. For 3 points a model you can give them 'Tank Hunters' as well.

Black Templars work well enough if you use the codex as it's intended. If however you just like Power Armour then pick one of the other Marine 'flavours'.

Tyranids.

Tyranids are a difficult army to do well with based on how the current game works. They're are quite light on anti-tank shooting and in addition have problems with the way their Force Organisation Chart has crowbarred a lot of useful stuff into one slot (Elites). They can be made competitive but you as the controlling player need to accept their limitations from the beginning in order to avoid frustration.

The 'Death-Star' - Take a Hive Tyrant and give him a 2+ save, 'Old Adversary' and a few other upgrades, then stick him with two or three Tyrant Guard and repeat a 2nd time. Then throw both units at the enemy and hope they reach it intact enough to kill your opponent when you reach it. There are of course other variants on this theme but the basic concept remains the same.

The Horde - Termagants, Hormagaunts and Gargoyles are fairly cheap and Genestealers are reasonably priced (as long as you can reach your opponent without being 'torrented' to death)  so an army with over a hundred creatures is entirely possible. This sort of build really requires Venomthropes to give it a 5+ cover save (amongst other advantages) but will have problems vs. vehicle heavy armies, especially ones that have any degree of mobility.

Stealer Shock - An old build that I never really rated even when it was popular. It's the same principle as the 'horde' build but uses Genestealers (almost) exclusively and relies on going first in combat (due to high initiative) and a torrent of attacks in order to cripple what it hits before it gets a chance to hit back. against vehicles you just have to hope that you get enough rending rolls to do the job. It bounces off Land raider Spam as well...

Balanced - This is the way to go with Tyranids (imo). Take a HQ of your choice, Hive Guard as light anti-tank, Tyrannofexes with Rupture Cannons for heavy anti-tank, Tervigons and Termagants as troops and advance the lot in a series of lines designed to give everything (except the expendable stuff at the front) a cover save.

Tyranids are generally considered one of the weaker of the 5th Edition codices and there are fairly justifiable reasons why this is so. With the growing popularity of Librarians (or equivalent) as HQ's making the possibility of your six wound monstrous creature dying to a single lucky Force Weapon hit quite likely and that same psychic defence stopping many of the near essential Tyranid psychic abilities from working it can be a bit of an uphill struggle for the Tyranid player. Grey Knights obviously make that Force weapon issue a much bigger problem as well.

Witch Hunters.

I don't see these anywhere near often enough to have a good handle on them so this might be the weakest analysis I've done so far. If anybody has considerable experience with Witch Hunters and would like to 'chip-in' with some filler in the comments section then that would be much appreciated. In fact I only know one really effective Sisters of Battle list...

Immolator Spam - Take anything that can have an Immolator as a transport and give it one and then fill out the points with Sisters of Battle in Rhino's and give all the passengers all the Meltaguns they can carry. This sort of build needs practice to get right but once you've got the hang of it you'll be popping transports and flaming the contents like there's no tomorrow ;-)

And on that somewhat of an anti-climax we've reviewed all the various codices...

Now that's complete I hope you can pick a codex that suits you and an appropriate build from it as the basis for your army. Next we'll start looking at some list building concepts that apply across the board like Duality, redundancy, Bubble-Wrap etc.

Thoughts, comments and filler for the Witch Hunters section are (as usual) most welcome.

List Design for Beginners - Part 3(d) - What Army to Choose?

So far we've covered,

Blood Angels, Chaos Daemons and Chaos Space Marines,
Dark Eldar, Eldar and Grey Knights,
Imperial Guard, Necrons and Orks.

As the whole 'alphabetical order' system seems to be working just fine we'll carry on like that.

Space Marines.

First lets clear up a bit of a misconception. The newer Space Marine variants like Blood Angels and Space Wolves are not better than 'vanilla' Space Marines, they're just...well...different and therefore have their own builds that work well. I have Marine builds that can happily kick the shit out of other Marine books because they're builds that compliment the codex. If a build would be better using the Grey Knights book then that's what I'll use but the fact that I still have 'vanilla' Marine armies that win games should tell you something as I don't play to lose now do I?

Now that I've got that off my chest...

'Best Of' - A concept that was first made popular by Stelek of YTTH that was then stolen by lots of people who claimed to have been doing it that way all along...Some of them actually may have been I suppose, but if they were then they were keeping very quiet about it, lol. Anyway, the idea was to take Marine units that were cost effective and offered both Duality* and Redundancy* and then repeat that idea across your whole army.

* These are all fundamental list building concepts we'll go into later in the series along with a few others that I've mentioned in earlier articles.

The basic format was a Master of the Forge with Conversion Beamer who fortified a building and sat in it with a unit of Camo Cloak equipped Sniper scouts (so they all got a 2+ Cover Save), 3 Basic Dreadnoughts, 2 or 3 Tactical Squads in a Rhino with Multi-Melta + Flamer, Some Multi-Melta + Heavy Flamer equipped Landspeeders and 3 Predators in the cheapo Autocannon + Heavy Bolter configuration. This particular build is still an excellent example of list building at it's finest and is a good example of all the concepts we've been talking about as we've gone along so far.

Biker Armies - Taking a Space Marine Captain or Kor'sarro Khan on a Bike enables us to take Space Marine Biker Squads as Troops. This gives a highly mobile army that can pack a lot of Melta but is quite low on models even at high points values. It also really requires a tooled up, expensive Command Squad if it actually wants to kill anything that's a bit tough as normal Space Marine Bikers aren't what you'd call an assault unit by any stretch of the imagination. The basic template is Biker Captain, Biker Command Squad, Space Marine Biker Squads supported by either Land Speeders or more Bikers depending on your preferences. I've also seen it fielded with two Captains and two Command Squads but that particular army is 'Elite' in the extreme. Both variants are relatively cheap to buy if you use the  Dark Angels Ravenwing Battleforce as a basis. Four of the aforementioned battleforces will set you back just over £200 but will give you 24 bikers, 4 Attack Bikes and 4 Landspeeders to build your army out of.

Editors Note : I've just checked and Wayland Games are currently doing the Ravenwing Battleforce for £41.00. Their banner is at the top of my blog so give it a click if your interested ;-)

Dreadnought Spam - The Master of the Forge enables us to take Dreadnoughts in both the Elite and Heavy Support slots giving us the option of taking up to six in total. Most often used to take six Ironclads but has also been utilised to gain access to six 'Rifleman'** or 'Dakka'** Dreadnoughts in the same army. The Master of the Forge/Multiple Dreadnought concept is also a fundamental part of certain 'drop' builds.

** These are the common internet nicknames for a Dreadnought that's replaced both it's arms with Twin-Linked Autocannons as four Twin-Linked S7, AP 4 shots at BS 4 can be pretty scary...

Fast and Slow - A hybrid of the Biker and the Dreadnought builds. The basic idea is that the Bikes zip about killing things and drawing the enemy fire while the Dreadnoughts move forward and punch things when they reach the enemy in later turns. I'm not convinced about the idea myself but I'm told it has been used effectively by other people. If any of them are reading this then feel free to extol it's virtues in the comments section.

Drop Pods - Another army that requires a bit of practice to utilise correctly. The 'Drop Pod Assault' rule enables you to drop half of your army (rounding up) on turn one with the rest arriving from reserves as normal. Drop Pods also have the advantage of not dying if they land on another unit like most 'deep strikers' do, rather they stop just short of whatever they would have landed on...they can still scatter off the board though so be careful ;-)
There are many different 'drop' army concepts though my personal favourite is to alternate between standard Dreadnoughts and Tactical Squads till you reach your chosen points value (including a Master of the Forge once you need that 4th Dreadnought) and then use the Dreadnoughts as an 'Alpha Strike' first wave with the Tactical squads arriving later in support. A Master of the Forge with no upgrades, 6 normal Dreadnoughts in Drop Pods and 5 Tactical Squads (with free upgrades) in Drop Pods comes to 1965 points if your interested. Dropping a Tactical Squad and a Dreadnought and their associated Drop Pods reduces the army by about 250 points so you can easily scale it down if you so desire.

Salamanders - By taking Vulkan in your list, all your Flamers, Heavy Flamers, Meltaguns and Multi-Meltas become twin-linked. Combine this with BS 4 and you have Melta weapons that rarely miss (It's something like an 11% chance of missing I believe) and Flamers that re-roll to wound. This rather cleverly makes your army behave exactly like a salamanders army would, lol. Don't forget to take some long range weapons though or you could find yourself outmanoeuvred or crippled at range by certain opponents.

Razorback Spam and Rhino Rush - Yes they can do these if they like but they are (imo) two of the 'other Marines do it better' builds.

Hopefully the above will have shown you that there's still plenty of life in that particular book. It also contains the 40 point Thunderhammer + Storm Shield armed Assault Terminator which is one of the most cost effective assault unit in any Marine book and arguably one of the most points effective in any Codex...

Editors Note : It's also been pointed out to me via E-Mail that my alphabetical order system has failed by virtue of the fact that I forgot to mention both Black Templars and Dark Angels...I am therefore going to pretend that I intended to cover Dark Angels with Space Marines, sneak Black Templars in the next article with an equally lame excuse and just hope everyone believes my poor attempt at deceit...

Dark Angels.

Dark Angels basically had no build that couldn't be done better by somebody else in Power Armour. The recent FAQ has however created one viable build by virtue of the fact that they now get the 3+ invulnerable save version of the Storm Shield and the two shot version of the Cyclone Missile Launcher. It goes a little something like this...

The Dark Angels Build - Belial, Upgraded Terminator Command Squad with Apothecary, Cyclone Missile Launcher and maybe a Standard Bearer, 3 or more Deathwing Terminator units with Cyclone Missile Launchers and a couple of Ravenwing Attack Squadrons with 2 Meltaguns and a Multi-Melta attack Bike. Everything that can have a Storm Shield gets one, every unit that can take a Cyclone Missile Launcher does so.

If anybody deserves a new codex then it's the Dark Angels as only having one build that works and a load that don't must be pretty annoying.

Space Wolves.

The Space Wolves Codex is another fine example of what wonders can be done with a 5th Edition codex if some thought has gone into it's design. Their Grey Hunters get the 'Chaos' weapon load-out of Bolter, Bolt Pistol and Close Combat Weapon giving them that all important extra attack, in addition they get the 'Counter-attack' special rule so they get the same number of attacks when assaulted (if they pass their Leadership test) as they do when assaulting. This is somewhat mitigated by their lack of a 'sergeant' making them Leadership eight, but even taking that into account they're a bloody bargain.
Wolf Guard can be taken as elites and configured with almost any combination of Marine equipment that you so desire. Additionally, members of the Wolf Guard unit can be attached to certain other Space Wolf units giving the controlling player considerable flexibility in unit configuration. This wide variety of war-gear also extends to your HQ's making them flexible in the extreme...Oh...and you can take four HQ's if you like...
Before this turns into a unit by unit Codex review, lets look at some builds...

Razorback Spam - A Grey Hunters squad in a Las/Plas Razorback costs 150 points, three Wolf Guard with Combi-Meltas in a Las/Plas Razorback costs 144 points and your Long Fang Squads can take them as well. Add in a Rune Priest or two with the 5+ Cover save power (Storm Caller) and at least one with Tempests Wrath in order to annoy deep striking opponents and maybe a Chooser of the Slain or two in order to keep Infiltrators at a safe distance. Twelve razorbacks at 2000 points is enough to annoy most people but certain Tau, Dark Eldar and Imperial Guard builds will still give you a rough time should they be going first.

Cavalry - Thunderwolf Cavalry were another 'broken' unit until people actually looked at their points cost and other limitations and then (most) people shut up about them. That's not to say that they're ineffective because they're still bloody good at what they do. You can almost do a pure cavalry but you'll need to have a couple of Grey Hunters units to hold objectives if you want to win two thirds of the missions. If you take Canis Wolfborn as a HQ then Fenrisian Wolves become troops but are unable to score by virtue of their special rules so you can do an all Cavalry list but you'd need to completely destroy your opponent in Objective games in order to win. The basis of a list like this would be Canis (or a Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf), Iron Priests on Thunderwolf with Cyberwolves, Fenrisian Wolves, some Grey Hunters for objective holding duties and Thunderwolf Cavalry (Obviously). As Games Workshop don't produce a Thunderwolf model other than Canis then you'd have to find a 3rd party who supplied something you could use instead, though I've seen lists using Chaos Horses from Fantasy, Khorne Juggernaughts, converted Elven Lions from the Chariot kit as well as any number of other options.

Loganwing - Logan Grimnar makes Wolf Guard units troops so you can have an army of them if you like. For the most part these consist of Power Armoured Wolf Guard with attached Cyclone Missile Launcher Terminators with various support units but the possibilities for such builds are far to varied to discuss here without starting a new series of articles but it's enough to say that it's an extremely viable possibility for now.

Battleforces - I know that's a dirty word amongst competitive gamers but it's possible to take quite a varied combination of Space Wolf units and still have an entirely viable army as long as you remember to cover the basics.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this section, there's a lot of variety possible with this codex so it's not surprising that it's the basis for many 'Counts-As' armies.

Tau.

Tau only really have one viable build and it's somewhat one dimensional if were being honest. Most Tau armies work by shooting at you and hoping they kill your whole army before you either shoot them dead first or get into combat with them and then kill them dead. It's a running joke at my FLGS (started by me I'm ashamed to say) that if a Tau player is looking at the assault stats of anything in his army other than Kroot then your probably about to win.

The Tau Build - Commander with Crisis Suit, 3 units of Crisis Suits, mandatory unit of Fire Warriors, some Kroot, Piranhas, possibly some Pathfinders and some combination of Hammerheads or Broadsides in the Heavy Support slot.

I've honestly got nothing against Tau. They're an extremely effective army when used correctly but if you want to win games then your army configuration is going to be very similar to every other Tau player who wants to win games...

Okay that's three more done. Just Tyranids, Witch Hunters and Black Templars (that I should have done first but forgot all about) left to cover before we can get stuck into some of the list building fundamentals.

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.

Warhammer Forge : Newsletter 8

Warhammer Forge Newsletter #8

22/04/11

	Hi there,             As the dust settles from Games Day France, this week’s newsletter brings you two more exciting releases for Empire and Chaos players: the notorious Captain Van Der Kraal and the Manann’s Blades Command group, and the brutal Chaos Siege Giant. We also have an update to our Events pages regarding Games Day Chicago 2011. Captain Van Der Kraal and Manann’s Blades Command Group Pirate, mercenary, smuggler, gallows thief, Captain Edvard Van Der Kraal has been many things in his life, almost all of them disreputable. He has cheated Morr a great many times over the years, fighting against the dark-mist kindred of the Cursed Marshes and emerging victorious; raiding Norsca with fire and sword; even surviving being shipwrecked on the infamous Vampire Coast of Lustria and returning to tell the tale. Despite his ruthlessness, he is a man of his word which makes him rare indeed and much sought after as a mercenary. The Manann’s Blades Command, designed by Steve Whitehead, comprises three complete miniatures: Captain Van Der Kraal himself along with a Standard Bearer and Musician, and is available to order now for immediate despatch. Full rules for this nefarious soldier of fortune and his ruthless followers will feature in the forthcoming Warhammer Forge bookTamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos. Chaos Siege Giant The Sorcerer-Smiths of the Chaos Dwarfs have long been aware of the battlefield potential of a captured Giant, and have been unable to resist the urge to ‘improve’ on the creature’s natural strengths. The most common result of this is the Siege Giant, a mutilated, half-insane creature made proof against attack by layer upon layer of iron and bronze plates nailed deep into the creature’s flesh and even directly to its massive skeleton. Weapons such as immense hooked blades are spliced directly onto the Giant’s truncated arms to enable it to scale or tear down fortifications and slaughter the largest monsters. The beast is also fitted with scaling hooks and chains, enabling its dead carcass to be used as a scaling platform should it fall. The Chaos Siege Giant, designed by Keith Robertson, is a complete resin and plastic kit that makes a barbaric centrepiece to any Warriors of Chaos army. It is available to order now for immediate despatch, and experimental rules for this terrifying behemoth are available to download now, taken from the forthcoming Warhammer Forge book Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos. Warhammer Forge at Forge World Events Games Day Chicago – 24th July 2011 Forge World will soon be returning to the U.S. for Games Day Chicago 2011, held at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Centre. Forge World model designers Will Hayes and Mark Bedford will be accompanying our intrepid sales team and a huge selection of the Forge World and Warhammer Forge range, including all our recent releases and the hugely popular Show Only MkIII Armoured Boarding Marine and Chaos Dwarf Hellsmith. We are now accepting reservation orders for Games Day Chicago, and this is the best way of ensuring that we will have exactly the models you’re looking for, packed up and waiting for you to pay for on the day. To place a reservation order, please send an e-mail entitled ‘Games Day Chicago Reservation’ to fwreservations@games-workshop.co.uk, making sure to provide your full name and a list of the items you’d like to reserve. You can also phone the Forge World Customer Service team on 011 44 115 916 8177. Thanks, Ead Brown Forge World Customer Service Manager     Forge World  Games Workshop Ltd Willow Road, Lenton  Nottingham, NG7 2WS Registered in England & Wales Company Registration Number 01467092   Phone: 0115 916 8177  Fax: 0115 900 4882  Web site: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/  Copyright © Games Workshop Limited 2000-2011. Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo, GW, Forge World, the Forge World logo, Warhammer, the Warhammer logo, Warhammer 40,000, the Warhammer 40,000 logo, the Aquila logo, 40K, Citadel, the Citadel Device, and all associated marks, logos, names, places, characters, creatures, races and race insignia, illustrations and images are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2011, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. All Rights Reserved.

Games Workshop Newsletter

Another of those E-Mails Games Workshop insist on sending me in the vague hope that it'll encourage me to buy stuff, lol.

The Games Workshop Newsletter 26.05.2011 In this issue: Reinforcements arrive for both Dark Eldar and Tomb Kings!

New Dark Eldar & Tomb Kings models available to Adavnce Order! Today there are loads of new miniatures available for you to Advance Order! We've made additions to both the Dark Eldar and Tomb Kings ranges; not only do these include models that are part of our stunning new Citadel Finecast range, but also on Advance Order is the fantastic Razorwing Jetfighter plastic kit. Head on over to games-workshop.com to see what's available.

List Design for Beginners - Part 3(c) - What Army to Choose?

Part 3(a) can be found here and Part 3(b) can be found here.

And on we go,

Imperial Guard.

The quintessential Mechanised army. Cheap Transports, Squadron-able Heavy tanks, Vendettas and Valkyries combined with cheap troops should you feel your tanks need some bubble-wrap* make for a formidable wall of armour to have to wade through. Fortunately for your opponent the guardsmen inside them are (for the most part) crap.

*another concept we'll come back to later sometime after we've completed our codex overviews.

Mech - The obvious one really. Chimera's filled with scoring units backed by various tanks with Vendetta/Valkyrie Squadrons zooming about annoying the fuck out of your opponents. An army that works well is pretty easy to come up with using this aspect of the Imperial Guard codex, an army that will roll over your opponent without feeling the bumps takes a bit more work.

The Flying Circus - Valkyries and Vendettas in various squadrons filled with Veterans with Meltaguns can arguably be considered as one of the best Alpha strike armies there is.....as long as you go first. Armour 12 is not a great defence and once your on foot even Veteran Guardsmen are going to get boned by pretty much everything in assault and pretty much everything else when shot at. I'm not dismissing it completely as a competitive build but it certainly has some issues.

Infantry - Due to the cheapness of Imperial Guard troops it's possible to field hordes of infantry backed up by dozens of Heavy Weapon Teams. Large 'blob' squads of infantry will make a mess of pretty much anything (and I do mean anything) should a correctly configured one get the chance to charge an enemy. Such armies do have a number of weaknesses however the main ones are that Guardsmen will lose in a fight against almost anything that gets stuck into them and that having no vehicles has a major impact on your mobility.

Hybrid - Often the best bet. Lots of armour with infantry to get in the way of anything that tries to destroy them.

The Imperial Guard codex has gained somewhat of a reputation for being overpowered which it doesn't necessarily deserve. It's scary to be sure but is by no means unbeatable...

Necrons.

Another of the older codices that has trouble competing in the mechanised world of 5th edition. Due to the 'phase-out' rule which causes your army to disappear should the number of units with the 'Necron' rule go below a certain percentage you'll find that much of your army will be ignored while the aforementioned 'Necron' units get wiped out causing everything else to die with them.

Tri-Monolith - Monoliths are a bastard to kill, 3 of them are almost impossible to reliably get rid of for most builds. However I've only once lost to Necrons in all the years I've been playing and have also never even fired at a Monolith, I just destroy everything else and go for the Phase-out...

'Balanced' - I'm not sure there is such a thing for Necrons. Take enough Warriors so your army doesn't phase out after losing a unit or two and fill the rest of the army with killy stuff.

My opinion is to wait until they get their new codex (which should be sooner rather than later) when they'll hopefully have been bought up to 5th edition standards.

Orks.

Another army that many deem to be uncompetitive due to their lack of Melta, crappy vehicles and (somewhat ironically) poor performance in assault if a decent or semi-decent unit assaults them first.

Horde Orks - 180 Orks takes a lot of shooting to kill and a few of these armies did remarkably well in the early days. However a Mechanised opponent will outmanoeuvre you and it doesn't take many Flamers to put a dent in a horde army with saves as rubbish as most Orks have. Other more practical disadvantages are that it will take forever to paint and you'll be lucky to finish a 1500 point game in less than 2 hours, lol.

Battlewagon Spam - A wall of Battlewagons (well 3 could be a wall...admittedly it wouldn't be a very big wall...) filled with scary killy Orks is a common enough concept. Though armour 14 on the front is great, your more likely to be being shot in your side armour of 12 due to how narrow the 'official' Battlewagon model is. As Front, Side and Rear armour facings are decided by drawing an imaginary line across the vehicles corners Battlewagons are only armour 14 in quite a narrow cross section. These sort of builds also require you to use at least one HQ choice on a Big Mek with a Kustom Force Field in order to give your vehicles a 4+ 'obscured' save. There are, however very few armies that are unable to destroy three vehicles in a turn and from that point on your walking...

Kan Spam - Killer Kans can be taken as Squadrons of three and a single Deff Dread can be taken as a troop choice for each big Mek you have as a HQ. This gives you a wall of armour that the rest of your army can hide behind. The Meks (with the obligatory Kustom Force Field) will be giving a good portion (if not all) of this wall a 4+ save with the rest of it getting a save either from the KFF or from the big pile of tin cans in front of them. Two Meks with KFF's, nine Killer Kans and two Deff Dreads can be fielded for less than 800 points which leaves plenty for Troops and Lootas.

Dual Nob Bikers - The army that gave wound allocation such a bad name. Each Warboss enables you to take a Nobz unit as a troop choice. You then give the whole unit Warbikes and each model in the unit a slightly different war-gear load-out so you can spread any non-instant death wounds around the squad. You end up with an extremely mobile unit that takes a 4+ cover save with it wherever it goes and can kill pretty much anything it assaults with brutal efficiency. The downside is that two Biker warbosses and a pair of wound allocation optimised Nob Biker units is going to be the best part of 1500 points of your force and there are plenty of balanced army lists that can still kill them relatively quickly.

Hybrids - Your best bet for a consistently successful Ork army is to create a balanced force using the best bits rather than to opt for a 'Spam' list.

Orks are a fairly forgiving army for the beginner but you'll find them frustrating to use against more experienced opponents.

Okay that's another three covered. Space Marines, Space Wolves and Tau will be coming up next...

House of Paincakes Article No.22

Article can be found here.

This week on the subject of the balance between 'torrent of fire' and 'low AP' fire-power.

This Tuesdays Eye-Candy will be bought to you by Jeri Ryan who's fortunate to be blessed with good enough looks to compensate for her terribly wooden acting in everything she's ever been in...

As Juliet Stuart in Dark Skies.

As Valerie Sharpe in Dracula 2001

As 'Seven of Nine' in Star Trek : Voyager

As Tara Cole in Leverage

And as I can't find any decent pictures of her as Sonya Blade in the new Mortal Kombat TV series you'll have to settle for a few of her as herself...

You're welcome ;-)

Games Workshop Newsletter - 'Finecast' Announcement

The 'Official' Announcement for the three people left in the hobby world who don't know yet...

Announcing Citadel Finecast Last week we gave a teaser and today we have made the announcement in full. Be one of the first to find out about the amazing new Citadel Finecast miniatures. Head on over to games-workshop.com today and all this week to read all about the table-top revolution.