The Humble Chaos Space Marine

Hey everyone! Today I'm going to talk about the humble Chaos Space Marine. This unit is one that is very nearly awesome, but for a few drawbacks, and silly things that really hold them back.

First of all, lets look at their stat line. They've got a standard Space Marine stat line which is pretty decent, but they get no ATSKNF, Combat Tactics, or Chapter Tactics, and are only 2 points less than a standard marine. The thing we do get over our loyalist brethren is that we have lots of options.

So first for our options are the marks of chaos.

• Mark of Khorne - This mark gives you the Rage special rule, so should really only be taken if you're going to be outfitting them for combat. My favorite way to run Khorne Marines is to take a squad of 9 or 10 (depending on if you're bringing a character to go with them) and put them in a Landraider. Swap out their Bolters for CCW for free, give a couple guys Meltaguns and a CCW and of course Meltabombs on your Champion, and maybe throw in an Icon of Wrath in there as well. If you feel like you may be fighting Space Marines you can throw in Veterans of the Long War as well. What you end up with is a unit that gets 4 attacks per guy on the charge at strength 5 with re-rollable charge distances and Hatred (Space Marines) for just over 200 points, plus the cost of your Landraider. A bit pricey, but they will mangle any non-dedicated close combat unit, and can hold their own against tougher things as well. The Landraider will also help them actually make it to the fight.
• Mark of Slaanesh - This mark grants your units +1 Initiative. Now you can do something similar as with the Mark of Khorne, but with this mark, I prefer to use it to open up the option for an Icon of Excess. The Icon is a whopping 30 points, but gives you Feel no Pain, which can make for some tough objective campers. I like to bring either 10 in a Rhino with the Icon, or 15 if you're just going to sit on a back field objective. Of course, with the extra Initiative, you may want to send them into combat, and the Icon is a big help there as well. Mark of Slaanesh is really excellent as it is so versatile.
• Mark of Nurgle - This mark will give your troops +1 Toughness, which makes them ideal for taking or holding objectives. Generally if I want tough troops, I'll just go with Plague Marines, but for the Price of a Landraider you can have 10 of these bad boys in a Rhino with some Plasma Guns to give them some firepower. Not a bad option, but I generally wouldn't take it.
• Mark of Tzeentch - This is really kind of a loser mark. It gives you a 6+ invulnerable save. I don't really see a time when this would be very useful, so I can't give any advice on taking it. A Tzeentch themed army is the only reason I would take it. Seriously, don't bother.

Next we have our Icons. There are 5 in total that really range in their usefulness.

• Icon of Vengeance - This Icon gives you the Fearless special rule. It would almost be good, if it didn't cost so much.as it is, you could get 2 CSMs for the same price, and you wouldn't also lose your ability to go to ground. For 10-15 points it would be good, but as it is, I wouldn't bother.
• Icon of Wrath -  This is for units with the Mark of Khorne only and gives them Furious Charge and allows them to re-roll their charge distance. This Icon is one of the better ones in my opinion, at least for your standard marines. It's a little pricey, but not at all bad for what you get. I would take it if I were running Khorne Marines.
• Icon of Excess - This is for units with the Mark of Slaanesh. It gives them Feel no Pain, which of course is awesome! It is the most expensive Icon, at 30 points, but it really can dramatically increase your survivability. Definitely an attractive option
• Icon of Despair - Mark of Nurgle only, this one is garbage. 10 points nets you the Fear special rule for the entire unit. That's it. Fear is such a useless rule, I would never take this Icon.
• Icon of Flame - Tzeentch exclusive, this Icon grants the unit Soul Blaze for any Bolters, Bolt Pistols, or Combi-Bolters in the unit. I've never actually seen Soul Blaze do much, so as far as I'm concerned, this one is just a waste of points.

Next I'll talk about Veterans of the Long War. Not a terrible upgrade for only 1 point per guy, but only really useful against Marines. It gives you +1 Ld and Hatred Space Marines, including all their non-codex buddies like Space Wolves or Dark Angels. Really, it depends on if you think you'll be fighting Marines in close combat.

Now for weapon options. Any Marine can swap their Bolter for a Close Combat Weapon for free, or you can take a Close Combat Weapon for 2 points. I generally would only swap out, as taking both tends to be a bit unnecessary. you also can take a Flamer, Meltagun, or Plasma Gun, and if you have 10 or more guys you can have another of each of those or choose fromaa Heavy Bolter, Autocannon, Lascannon, or Missile Launcher with Frag and Krak Missiles. I'm not really a fan of taking a heavy weapon as it really limits your mobility. I prefer to take either 2 plasmas or 2 meltas. If we could combat squad, I think you would see a lot more Chaos Marines toting Lascannons and stuff, but as it is, it doesn't seem to be worth it.

Honestly, if you're looking for a cheap place holder unit to fill up some troop slots, Cultists are probably the way to go, but outfitted correctly, Chaos Space Marines can pack a punch, and they tend to be better for taking objectives in the mid-field or farther up the board. They also can be taken in big mobs, so if you have lots of these guys kicking around, try playing around with big 20 man squads. They can sometimes be a pain to shift, particularly with a character in there to keep them from running away. If you haven't taken these guys in awhile, try giving them a shot. Sometimes they can do pretty well, especially if the circumstances are right.

Painting Update - My Latest Projects

Hey everyone! I just wanted to post an update on all my latest painting projects that I've been working on for the last few weeks. There's quite a bit of stuff, as I'm not the fastest or most motivated painter so this is what I've gotten done:

So chronologically, first up is Ahriman. Technically, I didn't paint him all that recently, but he recently was used in a local tournament, and I quite like how he turned out, so I think he was worthy of a photo opp.

Next up is my Lord on a Juggernaut which is mildly converted from an old Juggerlord model, with a new fancy Juggernaut. This one was kind of a fun project, as I got to raid my bits bin a little for it, and painting Khorne stuff is usually a good time.

Thirdly is my old 3rd edition Bloodletters. Personally, I like these models much better than the new ones, as I really think Bloodletters should be totally beefcake, and axes are more Khorne-y in my opinion. I was thinking of doing some conversions using Beastmen as a base for future Bloodletters, and I have a Herald in the works that follows that idea.

Next are my two Lascannon Predators. I tried to do a whole bunch of highlighting on these, and I think it worked out pretty well, even if it took quite a while to do. Honestly, I don't really like painting vehicles, so I'm pretty much just happy having them done and ready for games.

Finally, here is my custom Lord of Change/Daemon Prince of Tzeentch that my girlfriend recently finished painting up for me. It was a lot of fun picking out the bits to be used for this guy, and she really worked hard to get him all converted and painted. The torso was from the Daemon Prince kit, the arms form the Tomb Kings Necrosphinx/Warsphinx, the legs are from a Tyranid Hive Tyrant, the Wings are from the Empire's Karl Franz's Griffon, and the head is from the High Elf Sky Chariot.

Anyways, that's all I have for now. My next project is likely to be a whole bunch more marines, but I'm also hoping to figure out my airbrush and maybe start working on my Wraithknight and Revenant Titan, so stay tuned for that!

Warhammer 40k 7th Edition

Hey everyone! Now that I have a few more games of the new edition of 40k under my belt, I figure its time for me to go over some of the changes and how I feel about them. This will be an opinion piece, so if you disagree about something, make sure to comment and tell me what you think.

First off, why don't we talk about the elephant in the room. The psychic phase. This is the main thing about the game that has been radically altered, and because of it, the way we build lists and play needs to change a bit as well. Now, I'm sure most of you already know how the psychic phase works, and how psychic tests have changed, but what does it mean for our psykers? Well, frankly, it's going to mean that you no longer will be casting all of your psychic powers very reliably, especially if you roll low on the "winds of magic" roll. If you're wanting to cast a power with a warp charge cost of 1, you're only getting a 50% chance of success with a single dice, and if you want to cast a power with a cost of 2 or more, you're going to be using a lot of your dice. Denying the witch has also gotten a lot more interesting. No longer do you have to sit idly by while your opponent casts his blessings, and even with no psykers in your army, you have a pretty good chance of denying at least one power a turn, and if you have a lot of psykers, you can basically stop them from casting any powers at all.

Because of all these things, I think we'll start to see a shift in the meta towards taking lots of psykers to control the psychic phase. Armies without access to psykers could also have a very hard time, especially against armies that are summoning tons of Daemons.

This brings me neatly to my next point. Daemonology, specifically Mealific, is crazy! I attended a small local tournament on the weekend, which I brought a Thousand Sons army to, and I decided to spend the day trying to summon as many Daemons as possible. The first game, all but one of my psykers blew themselves up with Perils trying to summon, and not a single Daemon made the field, but in my second game I managed to summon a Lord of Change, 2 units of Horrors with icons, iridescent horrors and instruments, a unit of Bloodcrushers and a Herald of Slaanesh. For those of you counting at home, that's a total of 665 points of Daemons! The last game I got 2 units of Horrors again, the Herald, the Bloodcrushers, and a unit of Plaguebearers out. This is with an army that is suffering Perils of the Warp on ANY doubles, and I was still able to summon lots of units and minimize losses of my psykers as well. This army was not at all optimized for summoning, and yet managed to do ok at it anyways.

So what did I learn from this army? Well first off, If you can summon even a single Daemon unit with a mastery level, i.e a unit of Horrors, a Greater Daemon, or a Herald with a mastery level, you now have a unit that is likely to be able to summon a unit of two a turn, if you have lots of psykers elsewhere. If you were to really optimize your summoning, you could be easily getting 300-400 points worth of Daemons a turn.

I also noticed that while Chaos Daemons have the monopoly on the amount of dice you can get, thanks to cheap heralds coming in sets of 4 and troops that can have mastery levels, the most reliable unit for summoning is a Daemon Prince from the Chaos Space Marines codex with a spell familiar, as you can summon without getting a perils on any double, and you can do it with fewer dice, thanks to the re-rolls a spell familiar grants. The next best after Daemons themselves, is oddly enough, Eldar. These guys can generate a huge amount of dice, and Farseers are practically immune to Perils, thanks to their ghosthelms. To me, this makes absolutely no sense, as the Eldar are largely about keeping down the influence of Chaos, particularly Iyanden and Ulthwe, but oh well, I guess.

So, moving on from the Psychic phase we have some other important changes. The Vehicle Damage Table has changed and has made vehicles far more survivable, which is great news to pretty much all my armies, as I like to use tanks and daemon engines. It'll be nice to be able to field Defilers and Forge/Maulerfiends without having them immediately blow up every game anymore, and it'll maybe help out my poor Orks in their crappy Trukks and Battlewagons that used to blow up when you looked at them, but now will need at least a stiff breeze to do the job.

Jink is another thing that was changed, and there are pros and cons for my Eldar. The main benefit will be when facing lists with Drop Pods, or playing on tables without too much cover, as I'll always be able to get at least a 4+ cover save. The downside is that now you must declare a jink before any rolls are made, and if you do, you snap fire in your next turn. Honestly, with the mobility of the Eldar, and the fact that we prefer tables lush with terrain of all sorts, I don't see myself using Jink all that much, as I'll be likely to be getting cover anyways.

Another big change was to how Flying Monstrous Creatures work. Gone are the days of swooping up the table, before switching to gliding mode turn 2 to get an assault off. Now, you have to wait a turn before assaulting if you've come from swooping mode. Lame. On the plus side, you are much harder to ground now, as you now only test for grounding once at the end of each phase, and then only if you suffered an unsaved wound. This means that you're Creatures are more likely to get to the enemy in one piece, but have to hang out and have a smoke or something before they're allowed to do anything. Kind of weird, but ok. I should also mention that Smash is now a single attack, as is Vector Strike, aside from if you're attacking flyers or Flying Monstrous Creatures. I would also be remiss to not talk about the humongous nerf that Heldrakes took. Their Baleflamer is now Hull Mounted, and with Vector Strike losing potency, they really are barely worth the points, if they are at all.

Last, but certainly not least is the change to how armies are built. You can now take as many detachments as your heart desires (meaning as many force orgs as you want, so long as you keep taking an HQ and 2 Troops per detachment) while still being "Battle Forged", or you can take an Unbound army in which the Game Designers have apparently just thrown their hands up and stormed off shouting that they quit and you can just do what you want. Super Heavies, Titans, and Gargantuan Creatures are all part of the main rule book and so undeniably part of the game as well. Honestly, I think we'll still mostly be seeing Battle Forged armies that follow the regular force org chart, with only the occasional gimmicky unbound army, or super heavy, at least in my local meta.

So where do my armies stand after these changes? Well, I think Daemons are going to be super powerful now, even though Monstrous Creatures are going to have a bit harder time, as you'll be able to potentially get them back through Daemology, as well as get tons of troops very quickly, and lots of other shenanigans with things like Cursed Earth and the Grimoire and stuff like that.

Eldar I think will remain largely the same, though the change to psychic powers may slow them down a bit as you will be far less likely to get all of your buffs off. That being said, we still have a truly ridiculous amount of firepower, and some great rules to see us through with what I think will be hardly a bump.

Chaos Space Marines are going to have an even harder time now, unless they're summoning Daemons. The only really powerful unit we had access to is now but a shadow of its former glory, and though vehicles got better, Daemon Engines are still pretty expensive for what you get. The problems of over-costed units and tons of trap options and stupid, useless units still exists, and likely will for some time.

Lastly, with Orks, its impossible to say for sure. With a new codex on the horizon and some very interesting rules rumored to come, it could be a new dawn for our green-skinned friends. Most of the changes didn't really affect the buggers, but they got a minor buff in their vehicles getting marginally harder to blow up, so we'll see when the new Codex drops.

Overall, I think that 7th edition offers a lot of interesting things, and its been quite fun so far. I definitely look forward to playing some more games and hopefully I can get a battle report up fairly soon for you guys. Thanks for reading!

Painting Challenge Update/Upcoming Tournament

Hey everyone! So though it may seem like I've dropped off the face of the earth, and there was no update at the end of April for the Painting Challenge, I have been working on some projects, albeit not very quickly.

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for the lack of updates lately, but life has had me quite busy for the last few weeks, and I haven't had tons of hobby time, or time to update the blog. Hopefully things will be back to normal soon, and I will be able to update more regularly and get some more Battle Reports up for you fine readers!

So with that out of the way, lets get on to the painting stuff. Well, April didn't work out so well for me. By the time I had finished marathoning the Dire Avengers, which I was painting up in time for a local 1000 point tournament in which I took 2nd place,  I was feeling so burnt out that I hardly got anything else done, though I did get the majority of my Stegadon painted up. May didn't go a whole lot better, and all I managed to do that month was a Lord on a Juggernaught, and a unit of 10 Bloodletters.

Lately, I have been working much harder. I just recently finished up a Predator tank, and I'm about halfway through a unit of Thousand Sons, which I hope to have finished by the end of the week in time for another local tournament. I also am hoping to finish up a 2nd Predator and some Terminators, but we'll see how that goes.

I also hope to do a bit of an update in regards to the new ruleset for 40k, once I have a couple more games under my belt. I've had time for one test game with Brennan, which he won, and I think that it helped to get the basics down, but I didn't have a chance to try out the Psychic Phase, as I was using a Khorne themed army. Luckily this will be rectified this weekend, as the list I am bringing to the tournament is a Tzeentch themed Chaos Space Marine list.

Ahriman's Cabal 1500

HQ:
- Ahriman (Warlord) - 230

- Sorcerer with Mark of Tzeentch, Mastery Level 3, The Balestar of Mannon, Gift of Mutation, Melta
   Bombs, and Sigil of Corruption - 190

Elites:
- 3 Chaos Terminators with Mark of Tzeentch, 3x Combi-Meltas, 2x Power Axe, and Power Maul - 127

Troops:
- 13 Thousand Sons with Melta Bombs - 339

- 10 Thousand Sons with Melta Bombs, in a Rhino with Dozer Blade - 333

Heavy Support:
- Predator with Twin-Linked Lascannon and Lascannon Sponsons - 140

- Predator with Twin-Linked Lascannon and Lascannon Sponsons - 140

Total: 1499

Now first off let me start by saying that I know this list is not in any way competitive. It is just a fun fluffy list meant to exploit the Psychic Phase and see what I can do with some units that people rarely, if ever, see. This list will net me a fairly impressive 10 - 15 Warp Charges a turn, and I intend to try and use these Warp Charges in order to summon some Daemons to come and help me out. With a little luck, I'll be able to bring in enough stuff that it'll be able to tie up the enemy or keep the pressure off my Sons while they run around and score objectives. The other nice thing about this list is Ahriman's Warlord trait. I'll be able to start at least one squad right up close to the enemy, and counter-deploy pretty much anything that they might have. Add in the fact that most of the summons will be coming from Ahriman's squad, and we could be seeing some Daemons coming in right away to put the pressure on the enemy and bolster my main units. My real goal going into this tournament is to have a good time, and to really experiment with the Psychic Phase in 7th Edition, and maybe even win a game if the dice are with me.

So anyways, I hope this post clears some things up, and I'll try and get some pictures of my latest painting projects up soon. Thanks for reading!