Dark Angels: Deathwing

My allegiance to the Greenwing has been seriously weakened by the mind-numbing tedium of painting marine after marine in the ludicrously slow style I've adopted and in order to get the Dark Angels moving off the paint station I've turned to the Terminators who, of course, aren't green... It's taken a few weeks but they're finally done and here they are:

So far I've run then out in three games (one against Necrons and two against Blood Angels) and they've rocked (largely due to their being joined by Belial)). They certainly add something to the list, they can't be ignored and they seem to be able to stand up to an almighty amount of unfriendly attention.

Next up, it's back to the Greenwing. The Command Squad is almost done, just the Banner of Devastation to paint (yikes!). 

Incursion on Kickstarter

As a long-time fan of Grindhouse Games' board game Incursion I'm really excited to see that they've just (3 days ago) announced a campaign on Kickstarter that will see the game rereleased with a full set of plastic figures. I'm posting here in the hope that it'll help push the campaign along, given that Incursion is already a well-established (if slightly niche) game there's very little risk here, just the promise of a great game that'll play as well as ever and look fantastic.

The good news for anyone who already owns the game is that the campaign includes a pledge level (Metalhead) which includes all of the new figures in metal, there are six of them, along with a limited run sculpt of Gretel, and cards and counters for everything in the SNAFU expansion and a two-board poster to play the big SNAFU games on. The metalhead pledge comes in at $80 + $30 shipping and of course there's the import tax, VAT and Royal Mail's handling fee so the cost could be seen as pretty high for those of us outside the US but there's talk on Kickstarter that an EU distributor may be found so I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Here's a link to the campaign, as you'll see it's nearly there:

Dark Angels Green Wing Part Six - Librarian

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, real life has been a bit hectic to allow for much hobby time. But I have been slowly getting on with things and finally there's enough done to share. First up, here's the Librarian who seems to lead the army most of the time:

And finally the first squad is finished, I'm happy with how they turned out but the time they took is killing me!

I also found the time to get a game in, this time against a Necron army which totally tore my army apart. My pre-game 'tactical' decision was to rush plenty of stuff forward to get into combat with the Necrons to avoid being outshot. As it happened my rush forward was very ill-conceived with all three of my vehicles being taken off the board in the Necron's first turn - a lucky scatter managed to take out the Powerfield wielding Techmarine who was hiding behind the landraider and the rest was as you'd expect with a unit of scarabs performing most of the vehicle-killing duties. This was also my first game using bikes but that didn't go well. Both squads outflanked and managed to kill nothing with their first turn of shooting (even the Multimelta-armed attack bike failed to hurt the Necron walker tried to shoot in the back, twice!). The Marines of the match were the Devastator squad who sat at the back and did a decent job of shooting up the Necron menace and I think they were the only unit left by the end! All in all it was a fun but brutal game that left me with plenty of questions to answer.

So, next list, more Devastators. In fact, I'll aim for two units each of which will be joined by a Librarian to help with their shootiness. With this in mind I've begun converting some tactical marines, specifically working on their shoulder pads. Here's my first attempt at greenstuffing Devastator markings:

And painted up: It came out a bit thicker than planned but I can fix that with the next attempt.

The Dev's need to wait for the Forgeworld Brass Etch to arrive before they can be built up (I want to put the chapter symbol on the other shoulder) so in the meantime my attention is directed to the Veteran squad... Hopefully the next update will be here soon!

Dark Angels Green Wing Part Five - Dreadnought

It's been a while but finally there's something to show, here's the first Dreadnought to join the army.

I say 'the first' dreadnought as I've just picked up a second-hand copy of Assault for Black Reach and the first thing I plan to paint up is the dreadnought. Not that I think they're particularly good in the game but I do like the look of them and they don't take that long to paint.

There are also other reinforcements on the way  - a fourth tactical squad, a second Devastator squad (and reinforcements for the first squad), and a couple of rhinos (once I get hold of some new top hatches to replace the ones I'm about to rip off).

By the next post the first tactical squad will be done - finally - there's just one to go...

Dark Angels FAQ 1.1A

I've just noticed that the Dark Angels FAQ has been updated on the Games Workshop website (here). The biggest change for my list is the errata to the Powerfield Generator which now reads: “If the bearer is embarked upon a Transport vehicle, the powerfield’s effects only apply to models embarked upon that vehicle”. So, no more super-survivable Landraider which doesn't seem like a particularly bad decision. But... what if the bearer isn't embarked upon a Transport vehicle? What if he stands next to a Landraider (or two...)? Then, reading the rules-as-written the vehicle would have a save, as would any marines inside that vehicle. Hmmmm....

A bit of googling around suggests that this is the general way this is being read. There's a good discussion on the Bolter and Chainsword forum (here) and a suggestion for what sounds like a nice conversion from march10k:

"If the PFG bearer is standing between four land raiders in a parking lot, all of them get the full effect of the 4+ invulnerable save, but as soon as he steps inside one, all of them, including the one he's riding in, lose the save.  There's a relatively simple fix for this...put your PFG on a bike behind the land raiders, instead of inside!  You heard it here first! ... damage assessment.  I'll have to put my PFG-bearing techie on a bike.  He'll also be able to repair either of the two tanks that he's following around, but only on a 5+, not the previous 4+.  Also, he's at more risk than before, especially from deepstrikers.  Countervaling, late-game, his bike makes him an excellent objective-contesting unit.  And with T5 and a 2+/4++ save, he's not the most fragile model on the battlefield, single wound be damned."

The downside (apart from the fact that my techmarine is painted and now looks like he needs replacing) is that you no longer benefit from having the techmarine inside the Landraider to extend the range of the PFG to catch multiple units and I'm assuming that this is the purpose to the errata here. But the upside of having some funky modelling to do makes up for this! Here's some inspiration from Warseer, posted by Rich 123:

The other key errata concerns the Standard of Devastation: "Q: The Standard of Devastation states that ‘all friendly Codex: Dark Angels units within 6” of the standard treat their boltguns as Salvo 2/4 weapons’. Which boltguns does this apply to? (p66) A: This applies to the standard boltgun (24”range, S4, AP5, Rapid Fire), twin-linked boltguns on bikes, the bolter component of combi-weapons, and hurricane bolters [my emphasis]." Good news, mainly because I didn't like the feeling that I might be playing this incorrectly.

So, overall not such a bad result from the FAQ. No doubt the PFG-Landraider interface will result in another FAQ at some point but until then I think it's pretty clear what the rules say though it's a shame it wasn't spelt out more exactly.