Recent Musings 5-18
May 18th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Well, it seems it decided to eat some posts. That’s annoying. all set now, though.
Lately it’s been a question of just what I want to work on. There’s the chaos marine footslogging army that still needs some paint. There’s an inquisition army waiting in the wings. There’s an Ork army that only lacks 4 vehicle models to have everything I need to build it. And there’s more chaos marine ideas to work on, too. And let’s not forget the Warmachine army that’s been languishing for some time now (never seem to find enough local players!)
I’ve about come to the conclusion I should try to stick with chaos marines. They’re the only 40k army I’ve never seriously considered getting rid of, and they do still offer a lot of neat modelling options, even if a lot of them got gutted from the codex with the last rendition.
Among the chaos projects hitting the table is a revival of the sculpted daemon princess. That project got buried (figuratively and litterally) some time ago when I started trying to avoid the Lash-prince because it just felt so darn cookie-cutter. That’s more or less a death-knell o my interest when it because a sea of sameness. However, it’s still useful for any other prince version, and unlike the idea I have of using Monique de Noir from Reaper minis, it’d actually be tournament legal (yay for greenstuff casting hybrids!).
To that end I’ve started poking around with some more sculpting supply options. I’ve basically given up on attempts at mold-making with Flex Rubber. It’s just to darned time-consuming and labor-intensive. Back to good old OOMOO for me. I’ve heard something like a Mold Max 1000 latex compound is good, but haven’t found a good supplier yet. Ah well. As an added bonus, the extra supplies will give me the chance to refine my molding and casting techniques for customized bases. I’m trying to nail down a good consistent result and it’s basically going to require 2-part molds instead of the 1-parters I’ve been using. Hence, I need more molding material.
When the dice hate you
May 9th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
This is a subject I think we’re all familiar with. Sometimes the dice just hate you. Maybe you didn’t get them a card for thier birthday, or you didn’t sacrifice enough (chocolate) bunnies, or whatever, but they despise you.
For me, it’s usually just a bad roll here or there. But recently I enjoyed a streak of it in one game. Playing my chaos marines I needed to make 4 morale checks (one of them a re-roll, one a regroup check) all in the space of about 2 turns. Being from shooting, they were at Ld10. So there’s only a 1 / 12 chance of failing any given one of them.
Well, I failed 3 in a row to kick things off. The odds of getting those rolls? Something like 1,728 to 1. And, being chaos marines, we are well aquiainted with fear and decided to take our slightly-below-half unit with attached HQ running off the board with no chance to rally. And this was the evil mean Khorne marked squad, too. The havoc squad ran too, however, they got thier heads back in the game on the next morale check to rally.
We weren’t done fleeing in terror before the awesome might of the space faries and thier magic wands (of DEATH) - I mean, Eldar. Not long after Some termies decided enough was enough and made tracks as well.
The lesson here? Icon of Chaos Glory is my new best friend!
also, sacrifice more chocolate bunnies on the altar of diciness (also known as my mouth). It may not work, but it’ll taste good!
Pet-Peeves of a Pizzaman
May 5th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Ok, we’re going off-topic today. As a public service for delivery persons everywhere and pizza people in particular, here’s a few tips:
1) Make sure the house number is clearly marked.
Little numbers on the front of the mailbox do not count, especially if it’s on a road with a speed limit above 25mph. We will have people behind us and cannot go slow so we get a fraction of a second to glance the front of a mailbox at best. It’s hard enough during the day, and all but impossible at night.
You need to put big reflective numbers on both sides of the mailbox unless you live on a 1-way street.
If you have a number on the dwelling proper, here’s a few tips… Make sure it’s either around the door (on it, beside it, above it, in that order of prefference) and have the porch light on at night to illuminate it. Or if it’s on the corner of the house, make sure you have a light for it at night or it’s useless.
Remember, it’s not just us delivery folks who need these, it’s the Ambulance when you have a heart attack, your kid lops off a leg with the weed eater, etc. If we can’t find it easily and quickly, neither can they.
2) Don’t tailgate a deliver vehicle. This includes following them within more then about a 1.5 second lead time. For starters, we go the speedlimit (or close to it…) because tickets cost us our jobs. We will not go faster just because you’re impatient. We’re also prone to need to go slow to find poorly marked houses because lots of people have missed Tip #1. And we may need to stop in short order if we find the place. With you on our bumper, that forces us to find a place to turn around farther on because you couldn’t be troubled to drive safely.
3) If you place a delivery order, make sure you will be there when we arrive. this means no ordering on the way home and trying to time it to be there 5 minutes before our estimated arrival. Remember, it’s an estimate. We may be faster. You may get stuck in traffic. It’s slows down the delivery if you’re not there to make the transaction on time, and that affects everyone in the delivery queue after you.
4) No, we do not have change for $100 bill. Seriously people. We do not carry more then $20 maximum. If we had enough money to break a $100, we’d be getting robbed by every punk on the block. Not gonna happen. So unless you ordered something like $86 worth of stuff, we will not be breaking your $100, and you will not be getting any pizza, and we will be very put out (even though we’ll smile and be polite about it because that’s our job).
5) If you order by credit card, be there to sign it. No, your kid cannot sign the receipt. So don’t order deliver for him over the phone from work as he cannot legally sign to finalize the payment. You can stop by the store and place the order and pay for it there if you don’t have time to take it home yourself. Or you can make the kid some sandwiches before you leave in the first place, or you can leave him some cash to pay for the pizza with. But don’t expect us to let the tike sign for a credit card when he can’t even drive yet 
..sigh… ok, I feel better now. I’ve got some games coming up, including my new footslogging marines with Karmoon Specials. and I’ve also got a nice biker warboss conversion in progress. So we’ll have something nice for you next time 
Unit Review: Summoned Lesser Daemons
April 27th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
This is a unit in the Warhammer 40K Chaos Space Marines Codex that is often overlooked. I mean really, it’s only 2 points cheaper then a basic Chaos Marine and has the same statline, but gives up it’s armor, weapons, and wargear to get a 5+ invulnerable, Fearless, and a quasi-deep-strike off icons.
So, it’s more fragile against most stuff it’s likely to fight. And it has trouble assaulting into cover due to a lack of grenades and a weak save. What’s it good for? Tactical Reinforcements.
Essentially, these little guys are good for popping up where you need a little extra help. They can assault the turn they arrive, so they con pop down and join an on-going assault, or tie up a nearby enemy unit that stinks in melee (hi guardsmen, how are you today?), or they can also be a cheap scoring unit to leave sitting on an objective twiddling their thumbs instead of wasting one of your pricey killy units on that job.
For example, Plague Marines are often looked to for holding an objective. But even a small squad is very expensive. And if they sit on the home objective all game while the rest of the army goes after the enemy, they usually just sit there being an expensive paper weight. Lesser Daemons can fill that same job for much cheaper.
They can also throw enemy plans off. 1 scoring unit moves near 2 objectives and the enemy commits to trying to contest the 1 the unit could likely reach. Suddenly there’s a second scoring unit and not enough enemy forces to stop them both.
Now, not every army has equal use for these things. A highly mobile army with lots of bikes, transports, raptors, etc, probably has the speed to change up the battle plan as needed. Less mechanized forces can find the extra flexibility of bringing them in quite desirable.
And that’s ultimately what lesser daemons offer. Tactical flexibility. Anytime you can reliably place a unit where it needs to be after the battle has already started shaping up, that gives you an advantage. They’re a bit on the weak side, but for the price, they’re worth it.
Footslogging on with CHaos Marines
April 26th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Got in a couple more games with the footslogging chaos marines. Mech Eldar, and Mech Dark Eldar. In both cases, I found that the oblist get shot by all the anti-tank weaponry first and the prince gets shot after he eats a squad to remind people he’s there.
The Havoc squad has yet to be wiped out, and yet it consistently kills more vehicles then the obliterator squads. I basically get told the enemies just don’t have a good way to remove the entire squad.
The Lesser Daemons have been doing well. they either enter combat and die but not before killing off at least 1 unit, or they sit off in never-land camping an obscure objective that wins me the game. In a slow list like this, thier ability to pop in where I need them makes them very handy.
The big Khorne marked squads are kinda so-so. They tend to be the focus of enemy attack and often die rapidly. In fact, thier most often cause of death is fleeing from close combat and either running off the board or getting swept. An Icon of Chaos Glory would greatly alleviate that, albiet at the price of some offensive punch.
So, what I’m thinking of next:
Drop the Prince and the Oblits entirely.
Take a cheap lord.
Add in another squad or two of basic CSM with missile launchers
Change the melta squad to Chaos Glory from Khorne and add a combi-melta on the champ
Beef up the size of the main Khorne squad some more.
The net result of various tinkering on this leads to about 80 models in the army. 72 in power armor, and 8 daemons.
Other ideas:
Add in what is known as a “Karmoon Special”. It’s a squad of 4 terminators. 3 with combi-plasma, and 1 with a power fist and Heavy Flamer. It’s a deepstriking suicide squad that’s only 140 points and can unleash a lot of havoc.
