Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 9

I've got to admit, I have up until this time pretty much avoided going into the BoLS lounge. Maybe I was afraid of being flamed by Melissia- who knows, this may well just remain one of life's greatest mysteries. But, earlier this week I got an e-mail from Maxx, pointing out a fight over a possible typo on the Vindicator entry in the new BA codex.

Friday Night Inernet Fight, Round 8 Results Show

Well congratulations to Mkerr for winning this week's fight, with 45% ot the 74 total votes (I got more voters than TKE's record breaking post from last week :p).  ...or well, maybe contratulations are due to whomever it was from the BoLS camp that organized the flash mob that stormed the polls here.  If nothing else, I've gotta admire the dedication behind organizing an effort like that to campaign on a blog that doesn't matter. 

Dicking Around Since 1996?

A friend of mine just pointed out an awesome site to me.  It's totally radical dudes.  It converts any URL into a mid 1990's style Geocities site as it would be designed by a 13 year old.  Click here to see what "Dick Move" would have looked like if I had made it in High School.  Bonus internets to anybody that can tell me what song is playing in the background.  Anybody else miss general MIDItunes?

+++edit+++ it totally plays different songs when you click away from the main page.  The mathlete post plays something from Evita.....I think I'm going to permalink this!!  I vote that everyone reading this, go and "fix" their own blog right now and post a permanent link to your new geocities awesome page.

Since you're all totally jealous of my totally awesome blog by now and want to have your own totally awesome Geocities site, here is a link to the application:  this is a link to awesometown, population: you.

this is a link to a different awesometown

igotsmeashitsandwich!!

Today in real non-competitive gaming I ran across this post from igotsmeakebab!! on Bolter and Chainsword. In his thread entitled "In-your-face 1,850pt list, Wha Bam," he has an idea for a Blood Angels list that is so overflowing with epic fail that it just makes me want to vomit exorcist style all over my laptop.

Dum Dum Girls

Just got a new CD in the mail today from the LA based, Dum Dum Girls. For those not in the know that's an Iggy pop reference. Great song writing from this all female four piece that is a throwback to 60s girl groups with a slight nod to early punk rock (IE the real punk rock, none of that NoFX, Blink 182, Greenday, anti-flag, etc bullshit). It actually reminds me a little bit of Canadian cuddle punkers, Cub*, but with musical talent. The songs are all short, as in the 11 song album clocks in at right under 30 minutes, and incredibly catchy. My only complaint is that the album is deliberately recorded poorly. I'm all for not using studio cheats and auto tuners, but I don't get the whole "lo-fi" scene**. Speaking of Iggy Pop, if I want to listen to a great record that sounds like complete and utter shit, I'll throw on the Stooges' "Raw Power" (Bowie dropped the ball producing that one- for better or worse), so stop trying to recreate that experience. That album was a happy accident, and any attempt to relive that recording comes off as contrived. The surprising thing about it all is that the Dum Dum Girls producer, Richard Gottehrer, has done so much better working with the likes of Blondie, the Go-Gos, Voivod, and the latest Raveonettes album. All I'm saying is that it's a shame to bury good songwriting under poor recording and mixing, especially if it's on purpose.

Anyway their first full length, after a string of vinyl only releases over the last few years, is entitled "I Will Be" and is available on Sub Pop records. I honestly am very impressed by the album and can't wait to hear more (hopefully with better production).

Here's the only video clip from their album "I Will be." It's called "Jail La La" and it will knock your socks off and make you wanna dance around like a goof.



Here is another song from the same album that I like a lot as well. This isn't an official video, but watching spliced together clips of really old anti-drug propaganda is a fair sight better than staring at the album cover for two minutes. So get ready to take a trip from squaresville; here's "Bhang Bhang, I'm a Burnout."




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*In case you thought that song was originally by TMBG, you were wrong :p
** I do actually kind of like the Mummies, though. They could more or less pull off the whole lo-fi thing.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a Mathlete

While I was surfing around Librarium online this morning, I stumbled ~watch your step across one of the most pointless bits of Warhammer math ever to grace the Internet. Curly24242 decided to give us all a helping hand by calculating the points cost to Pounds Sterling cost ratio of some of the models he arbitrarily claims are representative of the larger body of 40k play.

Can Small Games Be Fun?

As promised, I'm going to continue to bring some positivity to your Mondays. Mostly this has, so far, taken the form of me pointing you towards blogs that are better than this one, but today I'll be defending an oft shat upon topic: the low points game. A lot of people out there decry any game of less than 1,500 (sometimes even 1,750 or 1,850) points as "not Warhammer." They see it like the WNBA- all the fundamentals are there, but it just isn't exciting. Well, I'm calling bullshit on that.

Dick Move Goes All Literary

Well I am absolutely wiped out from being conscripted into cooking a 6 course Thai meal for a bunch of Dr. Girlfriend's friends last night. On the plus side, I learned how to make several very authentic curry pastes from scratch in one day, so go me! Today will be no less busy. Band practice is just around the corner and then Hoagy, Evan, DFM, Joe numero dos, and I will be rocking some 40k in me olde basement. Gonna try out my nids list some more (since I retired my Leafblower:) list ). I'll try and put up some pics if I remember to take any. So if you like dark pictures that usually have a shot of somebody's crotch in them, you're in for a real treat my friend.

So no real substance to give you today (wait have I ever given you anything of real substance?). If you like books, though, you should go check these literary dick moves out. This is one of the funniest things I've read in a while. I particularly liked Nabakov slamming Hemmingway. PS, fuck Hemmingway.

Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 8

Do you enjoy it when the BoLS gang picks on Stelek, of YTTH, and he responds by fueling the flames of e-drama? Well, enjoy it while you can, because the halcyon days of this ongoing fight may be coming to an end.

Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 7 Results Show

Lady and Gentlemen, we have a winner. Congratulations to The_King_Elessar, guest writer of last week's fight for prevailing over "footdar." He managed to capture 30% of the vote. We broke a record with 60 total votes last week. All it took was me not writing. Stay tuned for the next round, due out in a few hours. I'll be writing it again, so be sure not to read it :)

Fang Island

Just got back from an awesome show. Well, by awesome I mean I paid $25 to see the opening band play a 30 minute set and then left out of sheer boredom during the 2nd* of 3 bands' sets. Tonight was Dr. Girlfriend's birthday, so we hit the town in style to go see one of her, and Andrew W.K.'s, favorite new bands, Fang Island. With roots in Providence, Rhode Island, they've been kicking around since 2006. Their first full length and self titled album was released in February 2010 on the heels of 2 EPs in the years prior (one of which I now own and is signed with a happy birthday message to the girlfriend...the guys were all super cool, and I think I was next to their bassist's grandparents during the show).

In trying to describe this band's sound, I keep coming back to comparisons to Akron/Family (could not for the life of me find a studio version of that song, but you should buy the album, it's great) and Animal collective with oddly metal undertones. So they're kind of like indie rock metal. Sounds awful, but somehow it works. Great guitar virtuosity and riffs that would make a lot of "face melting" guitarists jealous drive their songs and are backed by 4 of the 5 members periodically singing chorus style vocals. Most of the songs launch into instrumental passages that breezily fly through a number of styles, tempos, and time signatures with a natural ease. These guy have some talent, that's for damn sure.

Here's "Daisy" from their self titled album. For some reason they added an extra minute of nothing happening to the video mix, so just go ahead and skip to about 1:15 in. I won't judge you for it.




Their 2nd video from the same album is "Life Coach." This is the song on the album that most reminds me of Animal Collective, but not in a ripoff kind of way. It's a little "lighter" as well, but if you listen closely, there's some pretty heavy palm muted guitar in there.






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*This was a band from Boston named Caspian. Super boring derivative garbage with no stage presence. I know they keep coming up a lot over here, but they really thought they were Sigur Ros or God Speed You! Black Emperor. Too bad they sucked. I wanted to like them, but left 3 (obnoxiously long and boring) songs in. The 3rd band was the Red Sparrows, who I checked out a few weeks ago and came to the conclusion that it would end up as the same bullshit as Caspian.


Hey you made it this far. Here's another Animal Collective video, because they're awesome. Reminds me a bit of when the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson started doing A LOT of acid during the making of "Pet Sounds."

Dick Move Mathlete of the Week

Today I'm going to try and add a new feature to this blog. I see a lot of mathhammer out there while trolling the Internet to bring you some of the worst garbage I can find. Some of it is good and some of it is just pure shit.

The Reason You're NOT a Game Designer- The Debate Over Saves

Everyone has seen this guy on the Internet. You know him. He's the guy who thinks he can make an uber character or "fix" a rule in an established game system. Every time I look at a homebrew thread I pretty much want to choke the shit out of whoever wrote it. It really just seems like most of the time the people coming up with this bullshit don't have the foggiest idea about the mechanics behind the games they are playing. 9 times out of ten this guy makes something ridiculously over powered or that isn't congruent with the current state of the game system.

Have you Snowmobiled Someone Today?

As I've noticed this popping up on other sites lately, I'm going to coin a term for my favorite activity. Henceforth the art of inserting colored text into copy/pasted versions of other people's work with the intent of mocking them will be referred to as "snowmobiling*." You heard it hear first, don't you ever fucking forget it.***

========================================================================
*Not to be confused with any other form of snowmobiling that may involve either a snowmobile or having your way with your partner doggy-style and grabbing their arms out from under them**.
**When performing this manoeuvre, I would highly advise being cognizant of where you are in relation to walls or any other barriers. That is a story I will not freely tell.
***I am only kind of implying that I have been robbed of this idea. It's not quite as obvious as the time Tiger Army ripped off my band, but I'm suspicious. That is a story that I will glady tell you.****

****Did you notice that there is more footnoted content than post content?

Looking to fulfill my wildest fantasies

Hey everyone.  I'm trying to get back into Warhammer fantasy battle and looking for some good reading material.  I know there's a new edition rocketing our way like a twin flame belching hammer of doom, but I'd like to get some insight into 7th edition.  It would also just be nice to see somebody who isn't a "comp is the greatest" fuckhead writing about fantasy.  So, if you could send some links to good blogs, hit me up in the comments.

Time To Get Organizized

Spring is in the air over here at Dick Move HQ (aka Planet LaPorte; aka the Super International Hall of Justice). Over the past 2 weeks I've managed to get some new grass seed planted, donate a bunch of shit I don't need to the Salvation Army, and clean my garage*. Then I was catching up on my buddy Hoagy's blog, When Cannons Fade and realized how behind I really am. He recently ran an article on the hoarding tendencies inherent in himself and gamers as well as the joys of having a 2 year old son mucking up the place. It's a great read and quite inspirational. Even with working and having a kid running around, he still finds the time to clean up after himself and get some painting in.

Warhammer Fantasy Battles 8th Ed. Announced, Terrible Cover Released

Unless you're dead to the rest of the world, you probably already know that GW has officially announced the release of WFB 8th ed. You may have also gotten the e-mail from them with the full proclamation. You may have even read the whole thing searching for hints about rules or game play changes. I did, and they weren't there. I would now like that 2 minutes back. Thanks for making me read up on all the fluff that I already knew about. That sure got me excited about the new book. Please GW tell me more about this "Chaos" you speak of.

Well with no real meat to sink our bones in to what are we to do with this news? Why find something to make fun of, of course.

Did you see that new book cover? In case you missed it, it's the big fucking picture at the top of this post. Maybe somebody who follows this stuff a little more closely can answer this, but did GW recently fire their entire art department only to hire a bunch of stoner metal heads? Having followed the company since the early 90s, which featured some of the worst art since their early 80s efforts (when as far as I know GW was actually run by stoner metal heads), it's been nice to watch GWs art evolve into something worthy of some praise. Then they release this dud right on the heels of the spectacular Salvador Dali melting head Blood Angels Codex cover.

All of the action in the background is your standard fare. Not poorly executed, but quite unremarkable just the same. But check out that awesome flaming hammer on the cover. Is it supposed to be flying through the air on jet engines or something? It seriously looks like somebody with my spectacular photo editing abilities photoshopped those flames in as an afterthought*. I'm just going to assume that somebody accidentally mixed up the real cover art with the album cover for Sweden's newest melodic power metal act, Basalt Monolith**.

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*I didn't do it, I swear. Go check out the cover elsewhere, they all have the rockethammer. Unless, of course this whole blog isn't written by some dude in a metal band in Chicago, but by somebody on the inside at GW...Ok the cat's out of the bag, I'm really John Blanche.

**This band doesn't exist. Or it does and you're not cool enough to have heard of them yet.

Blood Angels Blitzkrieg Take 2

After some feedback and my initial thoughts after a playtest with my Blood Angels Blitzkrieg list, I decided to make a few tweaks. Ordinarily I'd like to get in a few games before making changes to a list, but there were some things that I felt needed to be addressed sooner than later. It seems I forgot that 5th ed. 40k still uses infantry models...oops.

Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 7 TKE goes for the TKO

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 5 Results Show

Well well- it appears that I have finally won a round of the old Internet fight. You like me. You really like me. Except I win for sucking at life :( Oww my feelings. I managed to capture a total of 56% of the 37 votes with "Too many choices...you suck at life Dethtron." I like all of you voters, because you're classy. Sanctjud wins out of all of the fight participants, though with 10% of the total vote.

Keep your eyes open for later today when Round 7 will be posted. I've got an extra special surprise for you.

Mech Blood Angels V. Mechdar playtest

Yo yo yo follow this link to a battle report for my proposed blood angels blitzkrieg list.  While you're there, feel free to check out the newly retooled Chamber Militant forum.  It is a top notch, general purpose forum run by a good friend of mine, Hoagy.  You may want to consider joining, as we are looking for new members and you are looking for a place that is guaranteed to be 75% retardation free or better.  Join us.  You know you want to. Why the fuck am I still awake?

The Mission, again....

I'm beginning to think that I may need to write some kind of a brand/vision statement about this blog and pin it up top.

Here's a comment that came in from anonymous today in the leafblower post:

RIP Peter Steele

I'm taking the day off from blogging in observance of the death of Peter Steele, frontman of Type O Negative. Makes me wish that my copy of "Nosferatu" with the Type O soundtrack and intro by David Carradine hadn't broken...

Here's a news article about this.

...and the leafblower you rode in on!

So I'll let you all in on a little secret: in spite of having a high speed Internet connection since 1999, I've never really had the opportunity to spend too much time on the Internet.

Jónsi

Every once in a while an album comes along that changes my entire perception of music.

Librarium online debates the IG Heavy Weapons Squad; stupidity ensues

Praetor, a recent IG convert, wants to know what the best load out is for his newly recruited Heavy Weapons Squads (HWS).

Kirby gets down to bidness with the Blood Angels

Everybody knows that Blood Angels are the new hotness. They are clearly an overpowered product of GW's continuous codex creep. Haha j/k. They are, however, totally sweet and capable of making a lot of different builds that weren't possible or viable with other SM lists. You can run a list of almost all dreadnoughts, 6 predators, deepstriking land raiders, and jump packs, of course.

If you, like me, are confused about where to get started with BAs, due to the ridiculous number of options available, you should go check out Kirby's fantastic index of basic BA lists on "3++ is the new black". You won't be sorry. Click here to not be sorry

I'm kind of liking his "blood rodeo" list myself, but am most likely still going to stay the course and rock a mech 6x predator list.

Warseer makes me has a sad :(

In a Warseer post entitled "GWS Ironic Balancing Act" Elvinltl rages against the evils of codex creep in a post that ironically contains exactly the same amount of real irony as Alanis Morissette's "Ironic."* Thanks to Lauby for e-mailing me this bit of silliness. Read below to see what happens when an idiot with less than no understanding of how businesses operate attempts to act as a consultant for GW.

Neon Neon

Neon Neon is a collaboration between Welsh Gruff Rhys (of super furry animals fame) and Ohioan Boom Bip, a fairly well known record producer. They released their first and only (ever) album in 2008 with some success. Going with the current "Back to the Future" theme that is developing on Dick Move in the back half of this week, their album "Stainless Style" is a concept album chronicling the life of automotive mogul John Delorean. I kid you not, the record is about John fucking Delorean.  Given the bands incredibly narrow scope they have publicly stated that this will be the only Neon Neon album, although the duo may collaborate together again under a different name.

To say that the record lacks a musical focus would be a huge understatement, as it bounces back and forth between new wave style throwback tracks and several different varieties of hip hop. I really like all of the new wavy stuff and can stomach most of the hip hop as well. I generally don't like modern rappers (but listen to NWA, Public Enemy, Kurtis Blow, etc frequently enough), but Neon Neon manages to even make a song featuring Har Mar Superstar (who I despise) tolerable enough.

Here's my favorite song on the album "I told her on Alderaan" which loosely uses Star Wars references to tell the story of Deloreans divorce following a hugely public drug scandal.  Gruff's voice on this one really reminds me of Colin from Men At Work, which makes me smile. Remember- some times a gear shift is just a gear shift :)




As a counterpoint to that, and to show the album's variety, here's one of the hip hop tracks, "Sweat Shop."



As a bonus, here's an a link to the official video for "I told her on Alderaan/Trick for Treat."  I didn't use the it above, as it cuts both songs off short to mash them together, but the video is well done enough to make it fun to watch.

Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 5

But wait, didn't round 6 happen last week, how is it now round 5? Yes, yes it did.

Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 6 Results Show

The votes are in and after a flurry of last minute activity, Stelek nearly managed to edge out a concept for victory. But, even with his last minute momentum, this juggernaut of the gaming scene only managed to eke out a draw, sharing 25% of the vote with "no matter who wins, codex reviews are the real losers." Glad to say that He has actually gotten back to codex reviews and dropping science this week. Now if he'll just answer that serious of nearly entirely comprehensible e-mails about Blood Angels I sent him....

In other News Von edged out Mkerr, no doubt for making a lot of sense and trying to bring reason to a fight so tainted by dickwavery. Von also tied with Chumbalaya, who wins the "least likely to dispel our preconceptions about college students" award, and "run it's the fucking gaming apocalypse," which did not happen. If you are one of the 4 people that saw this fight as a precursor to the Ragnarok, you should go get your head examined. Stay tuned for the next round, by which I mean the previous round ;)

PS, TKE, though you only managed to swing a draw with Mkerr you certainly won the "avatar that looks the most like Bender" award in my heart. Maybe next time I'll represent what you do more fairly. Maybe.

You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friends' nose or Sanguinary Priests?

Ran across a funny/bad discussion on Tabletopwelt.de. Bitte Hier klicken wenn du Deutsch sprechen kannst. Or if you couldn't read that last sentence, I will translate for you.

Dark Eldar rumors, Sasquatch photo edition

In case you haven't seen the above image take a good long look at it. It's supposed to imply something or other about the imminent release of the new Dark Eldar Codex. Now, I believe that the evil space elves will be getting a codex one of these days soon, but is that photo really evidence that proves it's about to happen? The Internet sheep seem to think so. Maybe it's just my old age (that seems to also be manifesting itself into long-winded rants about teenagers, the Internet, and the hippity hop music) and failing eyesight, but I can't make out a fucking thing in that picture. All I can see is kind of a dark blur that could just as easily be the cover of a Warmachine supplement as a Warhammer 40k one. Those banners are admittedly similar, after all. Long story short- I'll hold out for more conclusive evidence.

You know what this means....We've got to enhance!

You're a Veteran all right...of pissing me off

+++warning, serious amounts of caps lock ahead. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED*+++

WTFUCK man, BoLS has let Mr. Footdar himself, Reece "I'm undefeated" Robbins, write for them AGAIN. Just get it over with and make him a permanent fixture of your site so I can stop reading it and move on with my life.

First go read this PILE OF SHIT if you haven't already done so. Then come back. I'll be waiting**.

Well that was painful. Reading that was about as much fun as sticking my dick into a nest full of angry hornets***.

Let's start at the beginning shall we. I've always found that to be a good place to start. Reece, your title has NOTHING to do with your article. Thank you for giving it the title that you did, though, it gave me a lot to go on in titling my own post.

A Place to Bury Strangers

Billing themselves as "the loudest band in New York," A Place To Bury Strangers don't disappoint. While certainly not as loud as early 80s SWANS (who reportedly played loud enough to induce vomiting amongst audience members on more than 1 occasion), I am certainly glad I brought my earplugs when I saw them live last fall. It was an awesome show and they certainly don't disappoint live. It's a little hazy due to a fog machine and too much cheap beer, but I'm pretty sure that at some point in the middle of one of their songs their guitar player created some kind of infinite feedback loop, threw his guitar down on the ground, dragged it around to make more noise, all while getting a second guitar out to continue playing more "melodic" bits. Clap your hands if you believe in a wall of noise.

Released in October 2009, their 2nd album (their first album being borderline unlistenable), "Exploding Head" is a masterpiece of noise and shoegaze mashed together. It's a welcome sight to see a guitar player who actually knows how to use lots of effects pedals and not look like a total douche rocket*. This is as it should be, since lead singer and guitarist Oliver Ackerman makes custom pedals in the comfort of his trendy NY loft.

Apparently they've gotten a little positive NME press across the pond after touring with MGMT and opening for NIN**, but are still largely unheard of outside of their native NY. Which is a damn shame, because they're pretty fucking amazing.

Here's the first single off their 2nd album "In Your Heart"



Just in case that didn't satiate your fever for more feedback, here's the second single "Keep Slipping Away"








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*I'm looking at you Tom Morello. You know you're a piece of shit. Every time you play it sounds like you're twiddling knobs on a new pedal that you just bought and are trying to figure out how to use. Fuck you Tom Morello, burn in hell!

**Speaking of douche rockets, fuck you too Trent Reznor. You're a fucking washed up hack. Not only have your last 3 or 4 (or however many shit sandwiches he's released since "Downward Spiral") albums been bland and uninspired, but you snubbed Pigface you asslicking cunt. There isn't a deep enough layer of hell for you to occupy.

Blitzkrieg des Blutengels

Well here goes my first attempt/imminent fail at writing a pair of scalable lists for Blood Angels Mechanized fun at 1750 and 2000 points. The lists aren't completely done yet, as you'll see by some wonky remaining points totals that I just can't seem to spend.

Help a Brother Out!

Sorry, it's been a bit quiet over here the last few days. I wish I had some awesome excuse, but the truth is that I've been a bit lazy and have been desperately trying to make heads or tails of the new Blood Angels codex. It looks fun, don't get me wrong, but it contains a mind-numbing variety of options and plays a lot differently than the Dark Angels that I (unfortunately) have some experience with.

Happy Easter...

Happy Easter, if you're into that kind of thing. Otherwise, Happy Sunday.

Friday Night Internet Fight Round 6, Title Bout

Those of you without internet access (wait, what?) may have missed a huge fight spanning multiple e-mails and blogs between YTTH's Stelek and BoLS/Chainfist's Mkerr this week.

Friday Night Internet Fight Round 6 Works Cited

Works Cited


Editorial: Best Gamer vs Best Hobbyist

Von Zings, Stelek Zips

Time spent blogging...

Credibility, Stupidity, Et Al

Oiy...

The Stupid, It Burns! Part 2

Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 4 Results Show

So the results are in and Andy Chambers, Phil Kelly, & Graham McNeill have won the fight. Hooray for horribly flawed rules design. I was sort of pulling for ihatehumans' RAW argument, but I don't have any more say in this than the rest of you goons :).

ps, got back from the vet and Loki is doing fine. We caught the problem early, so are just going to be watching it for now.

pps, Friday Night Internet Fight, Round 6 is in progress and may find it's way to the intertubes by tonight...huzzah.

Going to the Vet

Gotta take my dog to the vet, so may not have time for Friday Night Internet Fight, but will try and get it up today or tomorrow. Looks like Loki might have an abcessed tooth, but is still in high spirits, see above picture.

Stormtroopers revisited, the Imperial Guard Strikes Back?

Blech, can't think of a clever Star Wars themed title, so you're all stuck with the above. In re-reading yesterday's post about IG storm troopers, I realized that I failed to make a key point that I wanted to discuss. Specifically, I wanted to look at the effectiveness of the storm trooper to try and come to an understanding of why they are deemed "bad." Guess blogging while ill isn't the best idea after all.

First let's look at the some of the pros:

• BS4


• Real armor...stands up to bolters even :)


• AP3 weapon


• Cool special rules for maximum tactical flexibility


• Pistols, and CCW, and 2 kinds of Grenades, OH MY!

...and some cons:

• High points costs


• Short ranged


• Obvious target


• Competes with Rambo and Psykers for your Elite attention


• Can't receive first rank, second rank... order

Well, all of the above should be pretty self-explanatory and I'm not going to insult my readership's intelligence by prattling on at length about that shit. Two problems do, however, merit some tender loving care- high points cost & AP3 weapon. A large portion of the points increase with this unit is due to the AP decrease in the new book. Who cares about AP3? Well mostly marines (all types), but Tau and Tyranids certainly care every once in a while. Anybody else care? Not really, and that's why this unit isn't so great.

In response to yesterday's article Chumbalaya had the following to say

*I enjoyed the chicken littling when the hot-shot lasguns got AP3. Oh noes!! What will we do?! The S3 weapons will kill us all!

Like retarded lemmings, these people.

Retarded lemmings indeed. So here's my two sense on the AP3 issue- it's only good against a portion of the field and is, therefore, not competitive. I have used them against Smurfs in the past and they have pretty much always earned their points back in marine kills. Anybody that doesn't see the value of using these against MEQs is an idiot; they rape face and are actually a pretty good deal. Unfortunately against just about everyone else there is no difference (other than range) between a lasgun and a hot-shot lasgun. Do you think a horde of Orks gives a fuck that you're AP3? Good luck with that.

Basically against non-MEQ foes, you're paying a 300% premium for around 1/3 of the killing power vs an equivalent points value worth of regular guardsman (if I weren't feeling lazy, this is where I would bust out some serious statistical data about wounds caused, etc...). So, in a world where you're not sure who you might be facing, their flexibilty is severly diminished when compared to the whole possible playing field. Not a good deal in light of the fact that, if the adepticon rumors are true, you stand about a 1 in 3 chance of facing an IG army now. In the old days where Marines dominated major events, these guys may have had a place in certain types of builds, if you were to believe in a metagame and were less worried about non-Marine armies. Now I'd rather take a unit that can put out a huge amount of firepower instead. They can deal with masses of lightly armored troops and can still force enough armor saves to kill MEQs.

In an unrelated note, what the hell is up with renaming the weapon? We've gone from hellgun to the more P.C. hot-shot lasgun. Isn't the hot-shot powerpack used in sniper weapons in the world of Danabbnetthammer** 40,000?

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*hey chumbalaya, if you can identify the twisted firing of synapses that has led me to choosing this avatar for you I garrrroooonnnnteeeee you will earn my respect. Alas, I fear that you may be to young to be aware of this.....

**Danabbnetthammer 40k's rules are known to frequently differ from the rules Warhammer 40k, physics, common sense, and the established 40k fluff.