Give Thanks for Updates!!

OK, these pictures aren't the best, but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't update my blog before going away for Thanksgiving.


Here is the second unit of Thousands Sons. The sorcerer needs a little more gold, but all the rubric marines have their base gold (which is a 1:1 mix of Vermin Brown and Shining Gold)

Here are my unmarked Chaos Space marines. They're going to represent Space marines that have recently rebelled, so I've mixed a lot of loyalist parts in.

LET THE SPAWNING BEGIN!!!
This was one of my birthday presents. Thanks again guys.


Here are the first four chaos spawn I've made. I tell you, making spawn is fun! I could just make spawn for the rest of my gaming career, seriously.


Game Store Update and Sale!

As mentioned in my last post, there is a new store in town. I got to visit a couple of weeks ago and it's looking good so far. I heard they've added a couple of tables, so that's even better.

I thought about it later. This is probably the first game store with gaming in Chicago in nearly 10 years. The last one I can remember was Third Eye games, and close down a long time ago.

Anyway, Galaxy America is having a Thanksgiving sale. Here are the details.

In the spirit of the turkey, we are having a sale this Wed., Fri., Sat. and Sun. (closed Thursday) 10% off on everything in the store (several baneblades in stock), 5% off special orders, and a few specials including a SM Battle Company marked from $450 down to $400. Also, LOTR is 15% off. Our 2 full-sized gaming tables are up and running and terrain options are constantly expanding. You can find us at:

4318 W. Irving Park Rd.
Chicago, IL 60641

Wed-Sat: 2-8pm
Sun: 2-6pm

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Hazzah!! A New Store!

There is now a game store in the Chicago city limits. Yes, I'm as shocked as you are. It's called Galaxy America and it's on Irving Park Road. Check out this forum post.

Also, I called the place today, they were super friendly on the phone. I'm planning to check them out on Saturday, so I'll report back.

As far as the regular painting blog stuff, I've done so much lately, but have no pictures to prove it. Recently, I've built a full squad of Chaos Space Marines, a Thousand Sons Predator, and four Chaos Spawn. Basically, my loyal readers, I owe you a lot of pictures.

In other news, I finally got a chance to play the new codex. I have to say, that I like a lot of the way the new list plays. It was nice to be able to include a unit of relatively cheap CSMs along side my Thousand Sons. Also, those AP3 bolters are nice against Sisters of Battle. Wounding on 3, with no save? Nice.

I'm not going to say much about spawn yet, because I think I got pretty lucky my first game. I rolled well enough to get a first turn charge. The two spawn broke a unit of Imperial guard, effectively taking them out of the game. My opponent, Anton, committed three death-cult assassins to taking them out. The spawn took out two before falling to the third. Not a bad performance, but like I said, I think I got lucky.

Force weapons are nice, too. My sorcerer was able to take out his Cannoness with one wound and a psychic test. Too bad his Inquisitor killed my HQ in the same turn. Also, when that one remaining Death cult assassin charged one of my units of sons, she didn't last very long.

I lost the game, but it was the closest game I've played against this particular opponent. I really need to get my sons some Rhinos, too. They really need to be kept away from close combat. They also need a commanding firing position to blast away at the enemy.

I'll keep posting about this as I get more games under my belt.

Thoughts on Army building

I've actually built and painted quite a bit since my last blog post, but I haven't seem to have found the time to take any pictures. However, I hate the thought of a week going by without a post, so I decided to write about something else on my mind.

I've been thinking a lot about the way in which people go about planning their armies. There are countless ways to go about this, I've found two general philosophies pretty common. One is to build a force in small, playable chunks. The other is to write a goal list (for example a 2,000pt tournament list) and build your army to that goal.

I've been trying to build with the second philosophy in mind. Long ago, I wrote a 1,850 (or so) list that was something like this:

HQ - Tzeentch Sorcerer on Disc
Troops - Thousand Sons Squad w/ Sorcerer
Troops - Thousand Sons Squad w/ Sorcerer
Troops - Thousand Sons Squad w/ Sorcerer
Troops - Horror/ Flamer Demons
Troops - Horror/ Flamer Demons
Heavy - Defiler
Heavy - Defiler
Heavy - Lascannon Predator
Fast - Screamers

Every model I was working on would be part of this list. I found ti difficult, however, to write smaller lists with models from the larger list. This became quickly evident when I started playing the escalation league. We started at 300 points, which basically bought me one squad of Thousand sons. this was compounded by the fact that there were a lot of restrictions on what you could buy at various stages of escalation (see the rules here).

Another thing that threw a monkey wrench in the works was the fact that a new codex came out while I was still int he midst of building my army. This meant that my "goal list" was no longer valid.

Plus, with the new codex, there is a lot more freedom with which units I can add to my army.

I decided to adopt a new policy in regards to my army building. Instead of thinking of my army as points, I would just think of it as a series of modeling projects. I then created a new goal list based on the modeling ideas I have banging around in my head. It looks something like this:

HQ - Tzeentch sorcerer on disc
HQ - Renegade Lord in Terminator Army & Lightning Claws(Unmarked/ Undivided)
HQ - Tzeentch Demon Prince
Elite - Chosen of Tzeentch (w/ Meltaguns)
Elite - Chosen of Tzeentch (W/ Flamers)
Elite - Renegade Termiantors
Elite - Chosen of Slaanesh (Power Weapons, Power Claws)
Elite - Possessed of Slaneesh
Elite - Dreadnought (Slaanesh themed)
Troops - Thousand Sons Squad w/ Sorcerer
Troops - Thousand Sons Squad w/ Sorcerer
Troops - Thousand Sons Squad w/ Sorcerer
Troops - Renegade marines (Unmarked/ Undivided)
Troops - Renegade marines (Unmarked/ Undivided)
Troops - Renegade marines of Slaanesh
Troops - Noise marines
Troops - Summoned Demons (Horrors)
Heavy - Defiler (Close combat)
Heavy - Defiler (Reaper/ Havoc)
Heavy - Lascannon Predator
Heavy - Vindicator
Fast - Raptors of Slaanesh
Fast - SPAWN!!! (About a dozen, I figure)

Whew! that should keep me busy for about 10 years. Granted, I could never field all these units in one game (unless it's Apocalypse of course). Still, it's a nice way to keep all the things I want to do organized.

Plus it gives me flexibility. I can field a renegade force with Thousand sons allies, or I can field a renegade force with Slaanesh elements. Or maybe just a dark allegiance of Tzeentch and Slaanesh. We'll see if I work some Khorne or Nurgle in at some point as well.

Is this modeling-based approach to army building practical? I'm not so sure. I know that this is the way that my mind works, so it will make the building of this force, a lot more enjoyable.

Why can't Tzeentch get Apocalypse love?

I haven't bought Apocalypse,yet, but I've been paying attention to the news and rumors about it. So far, all the Datasheets I've read are pretty cool (I would buy several Tide of Spawn boxes if I could afford them).

The one thing that kinda burns me is that there are no Tzeentch specific Datasheets.

On the Apocalypse book itself, there is the Brass Scorpion (Khorne) and the Plague Reaper (Nurgle). Fine, they promised that more Datasheets would follow and the website, so no big deal.

Games Workshop just released more Datasheets (at this point only on the UK site). What do you know, another Khorne sheet (Maelstrom of Gore) and another Nurgle sheet (Zombie Plague).

Don't get me wrong, those sheets are awesome, but why no Tzeentch?




Edit - Since I posted this yesterday, GW has removed the datasheets from their website. Hopefully they'll be back soon.

C:CSM Review?

I was planning on writing a lengthy review on the Codex: Chaos Space Marines. I've wanted to write a review for a codex for a long time and figured that this was my chance. The problem being of course that the thing has been out for almost a month now. I started writing the review and realized I wasn't saying anything that hadn't already been said ad naseum on dozens of forums.

Anyway, I won't bore you with a long-winded re-cap of the pros and cons of the new codex.

I will say, however, that I love this new list. It's so much more flexible! while it was nice to get bonuses for doing a purely Thousand Sons force, just adding one random non-Tzeentch unit would make the whole thing fall apart. Now, I can add anything I want!

Needless to say, this alters my plans for this army dramatically. I plan to add some vanilla renegades, havocs, some Emperor's Children Noise Marines, and some Slaneesh-marked possessed. Who knows, down the line, I may even add some Nurgle themed troops.

This doesn't mean that I'm abandoning the Thousand Sons. It does mean however, that to do all the things I want to do with this army, I'm committed to chaos for a long, long, time.

Update

This will be quick, but I'm now finished with all the layers of blue.

More later...

Third Edition Chaos Retirement Party!

A couple weeks ago, I took a trip over to my friend Art's house to play a game of 40K. We actually met before hand to Games Workshop Oak Park so I could pick up a copy of the new Chaos Codex.

In some ways, I considered the game that followed a retirement party of sorts for the 3rd edition Chaos Codex (and good riddance!). I purposefully wrote a list that used as much 3rd edition stuff as possible. My list looked something like this:

HQ - Sorcerer Lord (Mark of Tzeentch, Disc, CCW, PW, Demonic Aura, Personal Icon, Familiar, Bolt of Change, Twisting Path)

Troops - two 9-man squads of Thousand Sons (Free Aspiring Champion and Icon, Champion armed with PW, familiar, Doom Bolt, Bolt of Change, and two Thralls)

-Two 9-man units of Demons (5 flamers and 4 horrors)

Heavy - Defiler with consecrating warp fire and mutated hull

Fast - 5-man unit of screamers

I unfortunately don't have Art's list nor did I take very good notes. what follows is pictures and a brief synopses of the game.


Here's a picture of the board set up:

We played secure and control with 5 loot counters. Since we were using such a 8x4 table for a 1200 point game, most of the loot counters ended up in our respective deployment zones. There was plenty of room to keep them 12" apart without having to go into the middle of the board.

I deployed most of my force(the defiler, and both units of sons) in the large ruins closest to my right flank. I deployed my HQ on my far left. I was hoping to use him to go tank hunting w/ Bolt of Change.

Pretty quickly, I realized two mistakes. Since I had tried to cram three units into one building, I had created a great target for Art's Basilisk, Leman Russ, and Hellhound. Also, as strong as my lord was, he was basically all alone on the left flank.

In the first turn, my HQ destroyed a lone Sentinel, but then was wiped out by a direct hit from the Russ. TheBasilisk then destroyed half of one of my son squads.

The rest of the game was very back and forth. My screamers performed very well for what will probably be their last outing. I used them to charge one of his large squads from behind. The guard broke and fled, but since the screamers were behind and flamers/horrors were in the front, they were wiped out.

I also have to commend Art's supreme commander. He was brave enough to charge a unit of flamers and caused enough wounds to force an instability test, sending the rest of the unit back to the warp.

In the end, Art held three objectives and contested one, while I only contested one. Good game over all.

Here are some more pictures:

Above is the only picture of my own forces I managed to take. my two units spent most of the game sheltered in this building against Basilisk shots.

Art's Command squad in their post-battle prayer meeting.