IG Paper Camo Cloaks

Hi guys, it is me again.

Picture this: You fought against an IG opponent, he set his army in a long formation, his Company command squad is in an area terrain surrounded by heavy weapon teams. Knowing the commander can dish out commands making the HWTs twice as dangerous you commit some of your resource into taking care of the CCS gang. when your opponent rolled his / her cover save 3+ is counted as saved.

"Erm," you said, "cover save is 4+."
"Yeah but my guys have camo cloaks."
"Eh, your guys dont look like they had cloaks."
"Erm, I told you before the game my guys had cloaks, it is just that I don't know how to make them WYSIWYG."

How many of you has hit this scenario before? Please raise your hand :D
 
This time around I bring you a tip on a new IG upgrade which is useful but with llittle official sprue options: the camo cloak, Conventional method of doing this would be 1. using the sniper cloak on command squad box. 2. Doing it with green stuff. But option 1 is expensive as you got only 1 per box and 0 if you go Catachan and option 2 is erm, messy and skill demanding.

After some research and common sense tweaking I stumbled upon a solution any dude with the minimum modeling skill can do it: using paper. How to do it? First you cut any piece of standard paper into a suitable size, do foldings on them to add the texture and stick it on your dude. After that using white glue (the standard glue 40k hobbyist use for sticking sand on base) diluted with water and run them on the paper using brush, wait for it to dry and you will get a harden paper, does it as many time as your heart's content until the claok reached a hardness you like.

And thats it! Paint them like standard plastic kit and WYSIWYG camo cloaks.
 

 

My master vox caster in camo cloak, WYSIWYG

Alternatively ofcourse, you can try forgeworld stuff.

Say what? Paper?

The 5 best troop choice for Warhammer40K

Alright i have already gotten my cert and now i am back for usual blogging. Its nice to see Wong filling in for me during my long absent.

Now back to topic at hand, In the grim future of 40K we have unit that have unit that can dish out incredible firepower, unit that are swift that can maneuver around the battlefield and powerful monster or elites that can murder anything they touches. Regardless no matter how powerful your forces are without your troops its all for nothing. They are your unsung heroes (unless its a KP) holding the objective while withstanding the nastiest thing that touches them.

Salute them or you cant play without them anyway since you need like 2 of them to play a legal 40K game anyway.. LOL

So the criteria of a troop choice differ from the other units in your forces. They generally must be able to survive long enough to secure an objective, flexible in their option to support any army that you desire, and also tough enough to at least fend for themselves incase if they are under attack. They must be cost effective as after all you want to be spending more points on more powerful units.

So without futher ado, I shall present the 5 best troop choice.

No.5 Space Marine Scouts

These guys are more flexible than Tactical Space Marine. The five men squad can be equip with a heavy weapon, any model may pick a shotgun, CCW or sniper for free and come with variety of option.

Pros

- Lots of option.

- Sniper scouts + Cloaks + Missile launcher = nasty long range shots in safety of 3+ cover safe or 2+ if going to ground.

- Can infiltrate and scout + Shotgun and CCW = in your face assault at turn 1.

Cons

- vulnerable to prolong close combat attack and weapon that ignore cover safe e.g heavy flamer.

No.4 Eldar Dire Avengers

With the Eldar skimmer cheese builds. The Dire Avengers are their troops of choice. As they complement every cheese that Eldar farseer fortune, doom, and guide.

Pros

- 5+ Invul safe from Exarch

- Bladestorm (3 shot per unit Shuriken)+ Guide( reroll hit) + Doom(reroll wound) = Victim with alot of wounds. then skimmer can taxi them away.

- Defend (-1 attack per assault phase) which can tarpit enemy into submission.

Cons

- Without their beloved farseer and skimmer. They are pretty much screwed.

No.3 Grey Hunters

These guys are the Space Wolve bread and butter. They have points option like Chaos Space Marine. They are cheap by default(15 pts per model) and they have option to have their 2nd special weapon free of charge if they are ten men strong. They also have counterattack so be wary when assault them.

Pros

- Massing whole lot of them with meltagun and plasmagun along with your wolf guards can be some serious shit storm.

- cheap by most space marine standard

- Assault by eitier way is nasty ( Base 1 attack + CCW and bolt pistol 1 attack + charge or counterattack 1 attack = 3 attack per unit!!)

Cons

- Low base leadership (8) weak against anything that require a leadership test. Cowardice are punish in the Space Puppies ranks.

No.2 Chaos Plague Marine

Papa Nurgle be praise!! This pus boys are like one of the ideal troop choice that one can ever field. High survivability and extremely tough. They can carry 2 special weapon regardless of squad size.

Pros

-Toughness 5 making them durable against small arms.

-Feel no pain making any high ap weapon even tougher to murder them.

-Two meltagun and one powerfist make them deadly warrior for those unprepared.

-Fearless, They no way you making them leaving the objective.

-Blight Grenades denying all your enemies their beloved +1 attack MUAHAHAHA!!

Cons

- Low initiative with only 3, Can die from sea of high initiative power attacks.

Now Number 1!!!

No.1 Blood Angel Assault Squad

You may ask why Blood Angel assault space marine. I tell you they are by far very flexible in option and can be molded to any combat strategies you desire. Whether you want to go mass DOA( Decent of angel) or Mech( Mechanize) or Mass power armor they can do it. The very codex itself have many things that can support them. Although they do not have the high survivability like plague marine but they make up in options. What separate them than the assault squad in all the other Space Marine codex is they can carry meltagun and are basically troop choice.

Pros

-Decent of Angel (reroll reserve + 1D6 scatter for deepstrike)

-Discard jump pack and get discount Land Raider, Razorback or Rhino.

- Can be accompany by Sanguine Priest hence have feel no pain and furious charge.

- Can get meltagun and infernus pistol.

- Can ride in Stormraven Gunship with jump packs

- Red thist( 16.667% chance of fearless and furious charge)

Cons

- Survivalbiltiy not as good as a plague marine but pretty good for a average marine if given Sanguine Priest.

40K Detachable Flyer base

Hi gang, Wong40k here. Since our regular host Red has gone busy with his real life hair flying project I am here to take over for the moment to share with you a modeling tip which is inspired by none other than Colonel Miles Quaritch from Avatar. Now I have to put up a limb to say this is a very good tip that has yet to catch on for I cant seem to find anyone else doing it at the time of this posting. 

Why Colonel Miles you ask? Remember the time before he bombed the hell out of the blue skins he famously remarked " I wanna be home for dinner"? This can only mean one thing... an IG list with 9 vendettas/valkyries!

As a modest person with meager income I started with 3 birds... as you can see they took their initial missions at a local tournament posted somewhere below. But one thing has quicky become apparent... the problem of having masss flyers would be 1: Transportation of mass birds, 2: Transportation of the flyer bases. Any one who has a 40k bird will come to realise the flyer base is a kind of nightmare for transportation. It is big, takes out losta surface area and just doesn't seems to fit into any regular size container. To magnetize such a base would mean either using a hell lot of magnets and trusting them to keep your precious birds air up right, a scary prospect. 

The very physical aspect of the problem of having to move 9 birds would become really daunting, it is by then I came up with a solution, ladies and gentlemen, boys and unicorns I present to you: the flyer X stand!

 

2 versions of Flyer X stand: One on the left is done with modeling concrete, on the right side cork board.

Ease of transportation and storage, now imagine doing it 9 times over!

Will be inactive for awhile

Hey Redeye here..

Just to let you all that blogging update for me will be on hiatus for the next few week. As i actually busy studying for a certification exam call CCNA. Its a Cisco Networking exam for entry level, which so by getting this i can be a certify engineer.

So gonna be real busy studying the exam so i am afraid that i wont have time or brainpower for blogging material. I may update but i have no guraantee on this so we shall see.

Other than that after seeing my Tau Firewarrior painted as they serve as Expandable for Kindred II. I feel like doing a full Tau army. My rough plan is that is going to be battlesuit heavy with alot of crisis suit and broadsides. No kroots or vespid as i not really into saveages or wierd looking aliens. I sticking to the "Mecha" theme like the gundam animes.

This is the kind of colour scheme i planing to do.

I guess that be it.. So i be signing out!

Back From Kindred II + Report

Redeye here again.. Just writing up on what happend on Kindred II yesterday.

With Kindred II wrap up i can finally reveal Me(redeye) and Wong army. I apologize for the crappy pictures as i forgot to bring my sexy camera so i had to use my handphone.

Here a brief summary of the army.

Redeye Blood Angel

Libarian HQ(5+ Shield and str 10 sword)

Assault squad (5 men with meltagun and infernus pistol)

Storm Raven x2 (Lascannon and Multi melta)

Furiso Dreadnought (Frag Cannon and Meltagun)

Wong Imperial Guard

Company Command Squad(Plasma Pistol and Grenade launcher x3)

Veterans ( 10 Men with Autocannon)

Vendetta x2( Twinlinked Lascannon x3 + Heavy bolters)

Valkyie ( Multi laser, rocket pod, heavy bolters)

Manticore

So in the morning as i grab Wong. At first i felt that i could be heading to Legio Malaysia to early but when i arrive there already 3/4 people have arrive . As i guess the Tourney judges reminder of people to come early really did took effect. So we lay our army on the table and people started to notice the amount of flyers we are deploying. The tourney judges compliment us for having a really cheesy army. So not long after that we had a short briefing of the tournament and we off on our 1st round.

Round 1 vs Subhan Daemon and Najmi Chaos Space Marine.

Mission: 3 Objective in the middle of the field.

Our SOP(Standard Operating Procedure) has always been to take out the enemy fire support first then deal the rest later. So we focus on knocking out their Obbys on our 1st turn. They got Juggernaut squad to arrive early so i reckon i send my Furioso Dreadnought in hope i can tie down his Juggernauts. Sadly he only held for 1 turn at best as a squad of Berzerkers with a power fist punch him to destruction. The rest of the game was a scoot and shoot as Wong Vendettas keep kiting his juggernaut while i go take the objective.

However with berzerkers and expendables taking all the objective and time was running out we decide to flatout all the flyers to contest their objective and hopefully end the game with a draw. Unfortunately a squad of bloodletters furious charge the Valkyrie, score a glance and got immobilize damage result hence wrecking it. So they holding one objective we lost the game.

Although it was a really good roll on that but to be fair their Chaos Terminator with combi melta fail to arrive the battlefield as they keep failing their reserve roll.

Round 2 vs Chang IG and Wong(another wong) Blood Angel.

Mission: Capture and Control. Expandables must be at reserve and must come to the enemy long table edge.

This time we go against 3 Leman Russes and Mephisto with Assault squads. So as usual we strike hard firing lascannon and blood strike missile at the Leman Russ. However only manage to stun and shaken them. So eventually the formation was slowly breaking as my Assault squad, Furioso Dreadie and our expandable reaching into their lines. Sadly we didnt had enough time to grab their objective as the game ended at around turn 3-4. So it ended as a draw.

I dunno if it was a good thing or bad thing but their expendables fail to arrive to our table edge. As they couldn't contest our objective but at the same time we cant rake in the kill points from expandables.

Round 3 Carl and Boon Kin Chaos Space Marine and Death Wing Dark Angel(I forgot who own which army)

(Sorry no pics as i totally forgot to take one during the battle)

Mission: Kill points and both Expandables start game lock in close combat.

So we start striking hard by firing missile and lascannon. Only manage to took out a Land Speeder typoon and couple of terminators. Their Deathwing Terminators had cyclone missiles, storm shield and thunder hammers making it really hard to kill given if your opponent rolls are good. So after 1-2 turns of firing the Terminators rarely flinch. Their Daemon Prince flew to aid his Terminator allies. . As the Daemon Prince was close to our lines we diverted fire to it leaving only 1 wound which the Manticore heavy bolter send him back to the Warp.With the Daemon Prince now far from his berzerker squad i send my Stormraven with Dreadnought to the Berzerker squads. So Furioso came out and shot his Frag cannon with meltagun. Nearly wiping out a whole berzerker squad left for one which he got murder in assault

So now Wong and one of my Storm Raven engage their Deathwing Terminators. My other Storm Raven and Dreadnought the other side raking in extra kills by killing their rhinos. The other berserker in fear of the Furioso Dreadnought frag cannon rather assault it than risk getting shot placing me into a tarpit.

While everywhere else going well, Our expandables are not faring well in the close combat battle as our number are slowly thinning out and their expandable took a few losses. Eventually we lost the close combat battle but once they were out of close combat we shot down all their expandable as to avenge our fallen brethens.

In the end we won by a 8 - 3/4(cant remember). For once we manage to play a proper complete game by ending at Turn 6!. So we could truly took advantage of our list advantage and not do anything desperate or stupid.

So by the end of the day we had 1 Win, 1 Draw, and 1 Lost. Although we didnt kick ass but we atleast bought something home. A lexicanum award... as Wong put it A sliver league trophy. I didnt stay for long as i was exhausted and wanted to go back home for some well deserve rest.

Overall technical wise the army was actually pretty good. We had superior firepower and mobility. The reason why couldnt kick ass as the problem there generally they wasnt enough time for each game. So the army depends on scoot and shoot so we lose ground each time they advance. So the idea is that eventually anything will crack under immense fire but with battle ending averagely ending at turn 4-5 is just isnt enough time for it forcing us to take huge risk just to get a favorable outcome.

As for Kindred II. I did had a good time as rarely you get events that deal with team games. Also with all kinds of wacky awards, pizzas and smack talks it was a hilarious time. However my gripe is 2 things, firstly the time for each round was to short in my opinion. Most of the game ended up without completing the full turn 5. I feel that 1 hour 30 min each game is more like ideal condition providing everyone deploy beforehand and familiar with the game. Hence trying to squeeze in new expandable + inhouse rules strike confusion with player and certain army takes time to deploy eats up on that 90 min time frame just isnt enough.Another thing is the noise level. With people roaring and music sometimes it gone to a level even i couldnt hear my own voice. So it was hard to communicate with my opponents as i could barely hear what they say.

I hope people dont take this the wrong way. I not sounding unappreciative to the tourney organizer for their hardwork and dedication on doing this event. I do apprecitate the effort as they are being creative with events but what above it what i feel that need improvement.

I guess back to regular gaming until KIII

Kindred II tomorow. Playing the team game!

Usual blogging for this week shall be interupted as both Me(redeye) and Wong is preping for tomorow Kindred II at Legio Malaysia.

I write something short to make it up.

Team gaming in Tabletop Gaming

Its like playing a typical table top game but this time is you and your partner using 2 armies fighting another 2 armies. In my experience in Video gaming it actually not much different than in table top. The real difference is that you get to know your ally in person so you or your ally cant afford be a jerk as you dont gain the same anonymous as online game.

Other than that the fundamentals are still same. Here are some pointers

- Know your Teammate! This is the problem with PUG or Pick Up Group. Not everyone necessary sucks, Its just that both of you have a different play style and have different expectation. Discuss with your teammate on strategies and tactics so both you can have an agreement on what its expected for both of you.

- Optimize your Army List: If you are expecting a team game coming. Discuss with your Teammate on army list. E.g If your partner have plenty of long range weapons then you can cut that Devastator Squad and get more assault or close combat unit.

- Communication!! : This is important especially during the game. I know its hard to discuss properly in a tabletop game as your enemy can eavesdrop and know your game plan. It is recommended to simulate battles beforehand and workout the outcome then than now.

- Rules : As the standard codex is not meant for team game in mind. Rules can be blurry when allies are involve. So in ways you have to obey RAW(Rules As Written) or RAI(Rules As Intended). Like e.g A Blood Angel Sanguinary Priest grants Furious Charge to all friendly units at 6" means it you ally benefits from it as he/she consider friendly. On contrary Space Marine Cato Sicarius Rites Of Battle only allow Space Marine units to use his leadership 10. So if your ally is not a space marine then he/she cannot use the special rule.

In a nutshell, Team games are meant to be play for fun and not to be taken competitively. So if stuff aint going your way, Dont complain to much.

So that it.. For those who are still not happy... here a funny and addictive song about a sandwich.

Blood Angel Furioso Dreadnought.. Simply awesome!

The Furioso Dreadnought is a Walker for the Blood Angel codex. Each unit takes up one elite slot. with AV(Armor Value) of 13 12 10. Its default wargear is 2 Blood fist(Dreadnought close combat weapon) and each arm is has inbuilt eitier a stormbolter or meltagun but neitier double of each weapon. It has a choice of replacing both its Blood Fist for Blood Talons or one of it for a Frag cannon.Also you can add a magna grapple . Altenatively you can upgrade your Furioso Dreadnought to a Libarian making him a psyker walker.

While by it own right its already great unit but what makes it even better that is that it can be transported on a Storm Raven. So this covers alot of the Furioso weakness which is actually getting to close to combat. So in the protection of the Storm Raven , fly in and at the next turn be at assault range.

However another thing great is that it is frontal armor 13!.. So even at range is hard to take out unless you have lascannon but that still a 50/50 chance. In close combat this things are deadly with 2-3 attacks. Even in close combat its deadly as conventional krak grenades aint gonna cut it, Thunder hammer and power fist also have a hard time breaking him.

With quite array of choice for your furioso.. here a run down of each wargear and upgrades for the Furioso.

BloodFist

Pretty straight foward... A pair of fist so +1 attack. With Melta gun and storm bolter.

Frag Cannon

The weapon on the dreadnought right arm(His right!) is the Frag Cannon. Its generally like a shotgun Template Str 6 Ap - Assault 2!!! Rending!!. In a nutshell is like rending flamer.. So anyone in that template x2 to wound. Ignore cover due to template weapon.

This is an awesome weapon agaisnt hordes. Since its does 2x wound per model and dishing it on a 2+ by average. It ignores cover but enemies can still make their saves due to ap - but with crap load of wound it can do. Its still worth it. It also makes a last resort anti vehicles weapon because of rending so it almost like 1 one shot assault cannon to a vehicle.

Blood Talon

This are like the Lightning claws for Dreadnought. Just like Space Marine lightning Claw they strike with their base strength which is 6 and able to reroll to wound. When you have a pair of these you get a ability that whatever unsaved wound you occur to your enemy. You get another set of attacks based on how many wound that unsaved. So if your rolls are rather good you can claw your way though 30 Guardsmen at a single assault phase!.

Libarian Furioso Dreadnought

This upgrade your Furioso Dreadnought to a psyker able to take up to two psychic spells from codex. It also comes with a Psychic Hood and Force weapon. This is great as now your Dreadnought has psychic spell defences, force attack and able to use Blood Angel libarian spells.

Here are some my recommendation.

Wing of Sanguinius : This is definately must have as it allow your Libarian Dreadnought as a jump infantry. Allowing you to move 12". You can maneuver around the battlefield without a Stormraven. It can get you to assault range quicker.

Shield of Sanguinius : This is also a good ability as it generates a shield proving 5+ cover safe to any unit around 6" radius. So not only your Libarian Dreadnought get protection but his allies get it. Group him with other unit and everyone get protection.

Might of Heroes: Add D3 attack, This is increase your attack on your assault. Good for when you are locked into combat and desire to breakout from it.

Blood Lance: It fire a Str 8 AP 1 Lance at a straight line on a 4D6 range at any direction of the Libarian Dreadnought. Any enemy unit that touches it take damage. This is good for taking out vehicles that line up in a column.

Unleash rage: Grant preferred enemy as the problem when engaging in close combat is the 3+ to 4+ to hit. So you can reroll those hits and let those str 10 attacks loose!.

Magna Grapple

When i saw this weapon this is the 1st thing that when though my mind.

Its like DOTA Pudge Meathook. Its a 12" Str 8 Ap1 hook that if it glance or pennetrate a vehicles and if the Vehicles isnt destroyed. It will drag the tank at 2D6 distant toward the Dreadnought. So the idea is to drag the enemy vehicles closer to you so you can eitier get it to Melta range or assault.

Overall

It a really deadly close combat unit. With a wide array of choice along with an army that can support him. Its just an awesome unit. Only downfall is no long range weapon but then it a dreadnought it mean to go close and tear people up . If you already own a Stormraven there no excuse to not get one as it can transport dreadnought arounds.

So i shall end it with!!