Dick Move hits 100 Followers- Sporeginae for Everyone!

Hooray for momentous occasions. The impossible, finally appears to have happened- we've hit 100 followers.  Never mind the fact that Strictly Average is about to lap our readership, but fuck it.  Not Brent still wins forever.  Seriously though, thanks to everyone who's still reading this blog.  You're the reason I keep plugging away and dredging up all the shit I can find on forums, blogs, and the like.  We're not even a year into this site and I'm not feeling like giving it up yet, so keep those e-mails about dumb shit you fin coming- they help make my job possible.

How I Got Hooked on Warhammer and Why I'm Glad Island of Blood Wasn't Out Then Part 2

To refresh your memories, in part one of this two part series, I discussed my humble beginnings in wargaming, growing up in a medium sized city with few resources to offer the novice gamer.  Without the help of my dad's model railroad experience and learning with friends, I would have been screwed. 

Fast forward to today and we'll see if things have gotten better for the community.  My hometown had at least one dedicated, still solvent game store with GW support, last I knew.  That's an improvement over what I had.  FLGSs are a great resource for novice players, giving an environment where staff and patrons can teach game systems, show you assembly, and give painting tips.  In a brief and completely unscientific survey, it looks like most moderate sized towns have some kind of game store within a reasonable distance.  That's pretty good considering the average FLGS is hell bent on running itself out of business. 

How I Got Hooked on Warhammer and Why I'm Glad Island of Blood Wasn't Out Then Part 1

My copy of Island of Blood just arrived, and as I expected, it is chock full of sweet sweet miniatures and has a rulebook that is actually functional.  This is a welcome departure from the 9,000 page monstrosity that I have been using.  Be that as it may, something doesn't sit right for me, and maybe never has.  How do you prevent a novice player from being overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the hobby and rules aspects of the set and game in general?

IA 8 Revisited: FAQ off and Die!

As you may have guessed from the snappy title, the Imperial Armour Volume 8 FAQ was finally released, sort of.

Will This Be My Final Fantasy?

Looks like it's more or less official. The fluff bunnies have won the day. Just take a gander at this BoLS Lounge thread to see what I mean. As credible information has begun to leak out about the upcoming WFB 8th ed. release, two of my biggest fears have been confirmed:

From the Warp

There has been a recurring theme in the comments to my recent gloating about spending too much money and having some great FW customer service: warped parts. If you've ever gotten a FW kit you'll know what I'm talking about.

Spearhead Gives Players the Shaft?

If you haven't seen the rules for GW's newest 40k supplement, Spearhead, yet I have posted a quick rundown of the important bits over on the Chamber Militant forum. Now of course you have to understand before reading this post, I've yet to get in a game using the Spearhead rules, but feel like I'm still qualified to pass some kind of judgement on them.

Where's the Hydra?

I had intended to post about this several days ago, but my dog and finals thwarted all of my attempts to blog.

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.

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.

The day I lost all interest in Planetstrike

I've already gone on record railing against GW's constant stream of shit rules supplements over the last few years. This is a case of trying to do too much too quickly. While I was pretending to study for marketing earlier (50 questions 15 minutes, first one done, and already graded= 96%...) I got hooked in by a BoLS article about combos used to defeat guard. Now, this article is pretty bland and leads to list tailoring (read: cheating), but I decided to throw in my two cents and throw a combo* of my own into the ring. I decided to make it a more generalist combo, though, that will work against anybody. Way to be on topic, self.

Said combo is completely mean and unnecessary and I'm glad that the friend I pulled it on didn't punch me in the face. This is yet another reason that I enjoy playing against friends rather than random kids at the FLGS. My buddies tend to have a better sense of humor about shenanigans. Now, you're going to read the following and think, wow Dethtron, you are totally trying to pwn noobs, this won't work against veteran players. Well, you're wrong, and I'll tell you why after the break.

Here's the thread:

Dethtron- For planetstrike Pair a DH Inquisitor w/ 2x mystics w/ anything when you are defender and watch your opponent cry.

The last, and probably last ever, time I played planet strike I placed my inquisitor right next to an executioner squadron when playing against CSM. I also used a terrain setup and strategems that all but forced my opponent to DS within 9-12" of my combo and watched the incoming marines melt.

spiderglow- Hi, can you explain me how does this combo works?. Do you use auspex? I run witchhunters and would like to check if I can use this combo.

Dethtron- my original reply seems to have disappeared into the aether, so here's another one:

This combo won't work with WH, as the mystics are the key. Here's what you need to make this mean:
-set up your objectives/bastions all on a short edge of the board. Line both long edges with impassible terrain that would stop transports, footsloggers and other vehicles from coming on close to you.
-clutter the midfield with with terrain to prohibit midfield deepstrikes
-leave a sweet zone 9-12" away from your inquisitor where opponent can deepstrike . leave another zone on the opposite short board edge, where your opponent may deep strike or come on normally.
-load up on barrage weapons/long range firepower

when you have the mystics w/ inqisitor, he can tell any unit within 12" of him to fire at an enemy who deepstrikes within 4d6" of him (expected value is 14"). if he happens to be standing by a pair of leman russ executioners, your enemy will have to eat 10 plasma cannon shots EVERY time he deepstrikes near you. If he doesn't deep strike, he has to slog across the field the whole game and through a "bog of terrain" that you have created in the midfield. He must either deep strike into his certain doom or be forced to run across the whole field, getting shot to pieces by your abundant long range fire the entire game.

This can be pulled off in non-guard allied forces as well, just plop anything heavy hitting (from devastators to typhoon speeder squadrons to exorcists) by the inquisitor and watch the bodies fly.


Remember when I said this isn't just about pwning N00bs with an obvious trick? Here's why- nobody is going to fall for the deepstrike trick more than once, unless they are dumb as shit. They are, however, completely fucked whether or not they deepstrike, because deploying all the wy across the board is a shitty option as well. So the combo isn't really the important thing, the threat of the combo is, and by giving your opponent the choice of a shit situation or a shittier one, you've pulled quite the dick move.

....and that was the day that I lost interest in Planetstrike. After a handful of games (and almost $300 in new terrain), it became the least fun thing in the universe to play. This is so ridiculously geared towards defending that I don't enjoy attacking or defending. That firestorm shit, doesn't make up for all he free cover you an weapons get along with the ability to tailor the board to your own sadistic whim as a defender. Hint for surviving the firestorm- if you're guard take trenches and go to ground the first turn. You get a ridiculous cover save for all your models and your officers can order everybody back into the fight for the beginning of the game. Last time I played, I lost 1 fucking guardsman with a lasgun to the opening barrage.

I really wanted to enjoy Planetstrike, but it just fell short of all of my expectations. Fluff is fun, but not when it involves ass-raping 1 player every time you play. That's not what I call fun.

Full disclosure, I wound up fucking up my terrain placement when I pulled this and there was a tiny sliver left on a long board edge where my opponent was able to deploy, losing me a manticore for my efforts. I still won, though. It just wasn't the bloodbath it should have been. The combo is still sound, however.

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*those that know me know of my love for combos, especially the pizza flavored ones.

Failotaurs

Being someone who has always wanted to believe that one day the dark gods may get a codex or army book that works, I was super excited to see how well done the new Beastmen book is. I also got super pumped about checking out some superbly crafted new minis. In a time that has given us some of the best miniatures ever released by Games Workshop, I am majorly disappointed by a few of the new Beastmen minis, especially the Minotaur. That piece of shit Aly Morrison bug-eyed Razorgor piece of shit is a close second in awfulness, though. The new gors, on the other hand, are pretty good looking.

Think about the quality of stuff we've been getting from them lately, all the shit in Space Hulk was top notch. The new tyranids all look great. Skaven minis were solid. The forthcoming Blood Angels releases caused a spontaneous release in my pants. Dynamic poses, great details, and stuff that usually even fits together correctly all around. Basically a vast improvement over some of the older kits. Now take a closer look at the new minotaurs. Take a real close look. What the hell is going on with these guys?

Beyond the fact that the poses are blocky and uninspired and that the joints around the arms look to be clearly visible when assembled, the muscles on these guys are all kinds of jacked up. What happened here? Especially since, according to sculptor Mark Harrison, the "Greek Minotaur was very much all man apart from the head...and we took that as our cue" (US WD361 p. 25). The only thing these guys have in common with people is that they're bipedal. So they're buff, I get it. Maybe that warrants more than a regular six pack, but these guys are each sporting like a 30 case of Keystone that somehow extends all the way up to their chesticles. Blech. Unfortunately, things only get worse below the belt. Take a look at those legs. I did, and I got confused about how those muscles work. I even showed my girlfriend, a podiatrist who is quite familiar with below the knee anatomy, and all she could say was "that's just not right." The muscles are all at the wrong angles and seem to wrap around the legs like a barber poll.

Don't believe me, check them out here.

But Dethtron, that's just a bad, over-shaded paint job that overemphasizes the muscles! Bull-fucking-shit! They clearly used their own washes to shade these guys. I know from experience that those take several coats and a very deep recess to get a color that deep. Therefore, all that awful detail is sculpted into those minis very very deeply.

Here's to hoping that one day the planets will align and we'll get a chaos release with a functional army list and phenomenal miniatures.