New Chaos and Tau Codex covers

5pts too much?

On this I am going to talk about a space marine war gear which no one in his or her right mind would use and a suggestion to fix it. Yes, we are talking about the glorious combat shield.

Combat shield is a space marine war gear costing 5pts on current codex, granting the user 6+ invul save and retaining the user's side arm. 5pts getting you a 6+ invul save sounds ridiculous to begin with, because investing a further 10pts will get a a proper 3+ invul save in the form of storm shield, not mentioning the Sergeant is usually the dude having the precious power fist / thunder hammer and hence naturally the last guy you would ever want to assign a wound when the squad is in close combat with real nasties, it doesn't require long to figure out 83.3333% of the time buying a combat shield is just a waste of points. Basically, it is a piece of junk.

But... but... they look so cool!

Solution:
Very simple, in the next codex, whenever a ASM sergeant buys a power fist, he should be able to get the combat shield for FREE! Not thunder hammer, not power sword but only power fist... since GW seems to tailor their modern army to model range anyway. I would say this is the best solution. Personally I really like the looks of combat shield, but at 5 pts they will never make it into my army list... unless my army is making a fashion statement.

Seriously, when was the last time any of you see a combat shield in a game?

Rise of the Librarians

"You are looking for our Captain? Well I have not seen a brother Captain for a long time, Brother Librarian is in charge now..."  -Communication log with unknown Blood Angel Chapter successor.

For the longest of time typically a space marine strike force is always lead by a brother captain, but it seems that has became a thing of the past. Recently a dark trend envelopes the sons of Sanguine, slowly but surely it seems their captains are disappearing from their ranks.

The curious trend was first discovered during a massive sub sector campaign where no less half a dozen of Blood angels successor chapters took part. Segmentum command reported almost all of the Sons of Sanguine they have came into contact were void of Captains, sometimes a Reclusiarch was in charge but most often then not a Librarian is in command of their strike force, a Captain was no where to be seen.

This curious trend of abnormal number of Librarians in power of a particular Astartes genus has caught the attention of Ordo Hereticus, a report was made to the highest authority of the order and a subtle "enquire" came into action.

What they found out was a disturbing under trend going inside most Sons of Sanguine chapters. It seems some newly discovered psychic ability weldable only by Librarians of Blood Angels origin has propelled them into very powerful position within their chapters.

The emergence of psychic powers like Sword of Sanguinius, Shield of Sanguinius and Unleash rage has amplified their prowess in any battlefield to the point a Captain or Chaplain would seem redundant or even obsolete in most combat scenario. A Librarian in a Blood Angels successor chapter is now crucial to the success of most sizable operation by increasing the survivability of their gunships, denying hostile psychic powers, increasing the battle prowess of their battle brothers or cutting down monstrous creatures and walkers alike themselves. It is said within the chapters a battle not participated by a Captain is unfortunate, but a battle not participated by a Librarian is disastrous.

Slowly and surely the Captains of such chapters found themselves sidelined from the Chapter's core of power as they now serves no more than over glorified swords man in a battlefield filled with hostile psykers, monstrous creatures and column of tanks -- all which the Librarians are better equipped to deal with. To add insult to injury, it is said a Librarian cost considerably less resources to be fielded than a Captain.

It would seem the Librarius was gaining so much power it eroded the authority of their Captains to a point they longer have access to artificer armor nor relic blade like standard Astartes chapter do.

While this trend is in no way violating any Imperial decree, the Inquisition is keeping a close eye on the development. In the meantime, seeing a Space Marine Captain from the Blood Angels line in combat is as rare as a space marine getting killed by a grot in close combat.

Nork for 110 points?

Hello everyone.


Last weekend while at Hobby Forge an interesting discussion came up at the FLGS. The question was "Why are some characters in 40K designed in such a way no one sensible will ever use them?"

Here we have exhibit A: Nork Deddog.
Why Nork? Well let's put it this way, the fella is nice on paper, fluffy and all that but there is a problem, the fella cost 110 pts to field.

By comparison upgrading your senior officer to Lord Castellan Creed or Colonel Straken won't even cost that much, although these 2 examples does "replace" your generic senior officer so to speak.

But that is besides the point for a sensible player will simply ask the question of what does he or she get out of the bargain and for the same amount of points what else is available?

Lets us see now, for the same cost of Nork an IG player can get:



Either; a vanilla valkyrie with 2 Hellstrike missiles (72", str 8 ap 3 Ordinance)  and heavy bolter sponsons.

OR, 2 Chimeras with 2 primary weapons each.

Grots! Must Charge!

Sadder still, the "benefits" which you can get by fielding Nork can mostly achieved by other means ... with less points cost and better results! Want CC prowess? Well Col Straken strikes better (WS5) and harder (s6), ignores armour saves and does 2D6 against vehicles. Nork give you stubborn USR? Straken gives you fearless. Feel no Pain and body guards? Well Nork out cost 2 body guards and a medic upgrade by close to twice the amount. Nork's advantage of being T5 doesn't even come into play most of the time as he is bunched with a group of humans all the time. You can argue Nork could eat a krak missile and still do the feel no pain, well by that logic something is really wrong should a competent opponent decides to shove high str AV rounds into your command squad.

Also from the same codex we have exhibit B: Mr. Mogul Kamir. For almost 80% the cost of an entirely new squad of rough riders you get Mr. Kamir to take over as the squad leader of your rough rider squad but by doing so you lost control of the squad as they gain rage USR. So let us get this straight, you can spend a lot of point to make your rough rider squad always angry... so angry in fact they will charge out into open field and get shot to pieces because they have lousy stats (T3 and 5+sv, any one?), thus totally nullifying their place as the counter assault unit, what gives?

++++++++++++++

The "Nork syndrome" is buffling in the extreme because it DOES NOT:

1. Help GW sell more models, for they cost high points and eats into the army budget in question
2. Offer "codex creep" factor to subtlety encourage power players to switch to IG
3. Serve to further popularize heroic charactesr in the 40k universe.

The only hypothesis I can come out with is that there are a bunch of executives are making questionable decisions inside GW, and my money is on the same bunch of people who authorised Ultramarine The Movie. Why do you think?

Tactical Mahreen!! Where mah Shotgun??

Hi Redeye here!!!! When Wong is eitier busy or "uninspired" or just gotten bit by lazy bug.. I shall fill in between those gaps..

Still it was nice he let me post in his blog!

So for my first article i shall take a extract from my recent blog entry at http://redeye117.multiply.com/journal/item/28/Tactical_Mahreen_Where_mah_Shotgun?replies_read=2

Ah yes the Tactical Space Marine.. until now i just dont understand why Tactical Space Marine cannot be equip with Shotguns, Sniper rifle or Combat blade..

Even their Brothers from the 10th Company aka Scouts have actually more weapon option their Battle worthy Brothers..

I understand the Assault Space Marine going chainswords as they need to be in close combat all the time, and Devastator need to pick target off faraway (no sniper rifle is rather imba but make sense)

Yeah i know fluff always glorified the Bolter as this mass killing assault rifle that can explode and pop heads. Which the bolter is always associate with the Adeptus Astartes.. and such...

But in the Table top game all you get is 2 dice for rapid fire.. and murder most people on a 3+ - 4+ . Yeah so answer that on fluff perceptive..

So i say.. I thinks its fair that Devastator and Assault doesn't get additional gun option since there already got load of other option to consider.. but the Tactical Marine could at least have the option to swap their bolter for a shotgun or combat blade since Sniper rifle is a stealthy kinda thing.

Who needs a Chain Sword?

Lets us take a look at one of space marines main weapon of choice: chain sword. Curiously enough for something so sophisticated as current state of rules a chain sword does absolutely nothing extra compare to say a combat knife of a butter knife. As illustrated above when sufficiently bulky and heavy a teddy bear would have the same characteristic with a mighty chain sword. So the question now is. why the chain sword?