[X] My Assistant

[Mr. Mage]

Ah yes... Furious charge, all Orks have it, and boy do I LOVE it!

[Karoline]

Ah yes... Furious charge, all Orks have it, and boy do I LOVE it!

I'm somehow unsurprised (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Critias]

One thing to consider with a new 'Nid list is the dipping method of painting, especially for a horde/swarm type of list. I know lots of folks poo-poo it as a beginner technique, or "cheating" to get a fast paint scheme, or whatever...but I actually think it looks really good for Tyrannids, since I think it's got a kind of organic look to it that works really well for their chitinous armor and insectoid exoskeletons and crap.

[Karoline]

Oh, forgot something on the Tervigon above. It has a ranged weapon (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Okay, now for the other Tyranid Army I have planned out. It is notably more complicated in how it works.

[ Spoiler ]

CODE

HQ:
1 Hive Tyrant (Monstrous Creature)
WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
8  3  6 6 4 5 4 10  3+
Synapse Creature, Shadow in the Warp, Psyker, Furious Charge
Rerolls all misses in melee
+1 to reinforcement rolls
roll d6 for each wound at the start of movement, each 6 rolled heals one wound.
Each wound sustained in melee causes an unsavable wound on enemy unit on 4+
Template 1S -AP Assault 1 <- wounds on 2+ against non-vehicle units, can be used in addition to other ranged weapons

Elite:
1 Lictor Brood (Infantry)
1 Lictor Brood (Infantry)
WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
6  3  6 4 3 6 3 10  3+
Lurk, Fleet, Hit and Run, Move Through Cover, Stealth, Rending
Reroll 1s to attack in melee
Always start in reserve, when they enter, they can be placed anywhere not within 1" of an enemy model, can't move or assault, but can shoot on that turn.
Always strikes in init order when assaulting from cover.
+1 to reserve rolls while on the board, deep strikes within 6" do not scatter.
6" 6S -AP Assault 2, Rending

Troops:
3 Tyranid Warrior Brood (Infantry)
WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
5  3  4 4 3 4 3 10 4+
Reroll 1s to hit in melee
Synapse Creature, Shadow in the Warp, Furious Charge
18" 4S -AP Assault 3 <- unit that takes a casualty must make a moral check at -1
Powers (pick 2)
    Shooting phase, auto hit non-vehicle enemy unit within 12", must make a moral check or fall back (fearless immune)
    Shooting phase, auto hit non-vehicle enemy unit within 12", suffers d3 S3 AP2 hits.  Hive Tyrant recovers wounds equal to unsaved wounds dealt, up to starting wounds.
    Shooting phase, auto hit non-vehicle enemy unit within 12", WS and BS reduced to 1
    Shooting phase, auto hit all non-vehicle enemy units within 2d6", must make a leadership test or suffer unsavable wounds equal to amount the test was missed by.

10 Termagant Brood (Infantry)
WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
3  3  3 3 1 4 1 6  6
Lurk, Move Through Cover
12" 4S 5AP Assault 1

Heavy Support:
1 Marloc (Monstrous Creature)
WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
3  0  6 6 6 4 3 8  3+
Feed, Deep Strike, Fearless, Hit and Run
If it deep strikes onto an enemy unit, instead of a mishap, it uses a large blast template to do 6S 2AP hits on the enemy before emerging and pushing them out of the way.
If not engaged in close combat, it can burrow to go back into reserve any time during its movement phase.

1 Trygon Prime (Monstrous Creature)
WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
5  3  6 6 6 4 6 10  3+
Deep Strike, Fearless, Synapse Creature, Shadow in the Warp
Reroll all misses in melee
Doesn't mishap during Deep Strike, instead only scattering to within 1" of the obstacle.
Mark the spot the Trygon Deep Strikes too, Tyranid Infantry can emerge from there instead of the side of the table, but suffer the cannot assault restriction of deep strike.
18" 5S 5AP Assault 12

So, basic plan is to get out a lictor as quickly as possible and put it deep in enemy territory, then deep striking my Marloc onto that point to cause template damage. It can then immediately re burrow if I want so it can deep strike again next turn, or I can leave it out to crush something (like maybe a tank). Long as my lictor and tyrant are on the field, reserve rolls are all 2+. The Trygon is there for psyker assassination mostly, popping up out of nowhere, dropping 12 S5 attacks on it, and disrupting its ability to use the warp. If the termagants aren't out already, they can follow the Trygon and push into the rear of enemy troops, distracting them so my small force of warriors can advance, along with my tyrant. This setup should be particularly good against vehicles thanks to all the monstrous creatures. Likely the biggest problem is it contains very very few models, so there is a good chance of being overwhelmed by numbers. Then again, maybe the Marloc will just eat everything and it'll be fine.

[Dumori]

I'm starting work on a deathwatch army. It's hard to really work out what with them being on gray knight vet lvls. I'm planing on playing a 500 point army focusing on vetran units or sepsialiaed roles. If I go above 500 points I'll be adding honorgaurd and a perditor to it but I'm yet to start picking the list fully. One cool thing I want to toy with is the multi chapter aspect of death watch so adding members of chapters in certain roles. Such as ultramarine/progenitors in scouts iron hands in heavy support ext ect.

[Karoline]

Oh, just remembered. From extensive use of scouts in Warhammer 40k VG, I wonder how effective having several teams of them is in the board game. Slap sniper rifles on all of them and take out entire units at a time with sniper fire, or at the very least pin them.

[Karoline]

So, I figured I'd try and find out how much a full Tyranid army would cost me, and I quickly found that Games Workshop doesn't seem to make figures for all the Tyranid units. Is there another group that makes minis for 40k that might have the remaining ones?

[Critias]

Oh, just remembered. From extensive use of scouts in Warhammer 40k VG, I wonder how effective having several teams of them is in the board game. Slap sniper rifles on all of them and take out entire units at a time with sniper fire, or at the very least pin them.

It used to be a pretty viable tactic, really. Scout Squads have always been some of my favorites, and their old line of metal models were among my favorite in the game (even the Shotgun guy looked badass!), with very dynamic poses, cool gear, you name it. I dug 'em. They had the same statline as full Marines, all across the board, except for a weaker armor save and a lower points cost. What wasn't to love? And Sniper rifles were the bees knees. Great range, always damaged on a 4+ (still do), and always hit on a 2+.

Then the latest Dark Angels Codex hit. A Codex that, for the most part, I really very much enjoyed, don't get me wrong...but that bumped Scouts into the Elite category. Elites? The new kids suddenly took up the same force organization slot as Dreadnaughts, Terminators, TechMarines, and Veteran squads? Huh. Well, that's kind of too bad...oh, and the latest edition made Sniper rifles hit on a normal to-hit roll, based on BS? Well, no biggy. They just went from a 2+ to a 3+, right?

And then the new Space Marine Codex came out, which the DA Codex was in many ways a sort of "dry run" for. It, too, is a very well made book, well laid out, gorgeous artwork, etc, etc...but now Scouts are WS/BS 3.

So if you keep playing with the Dark Angels rules (which I sometimes do), your Scouts are still pretty cool, but they take up an Elites choice. If you play with the vanilla Marine codex, your Scouts are back to being Troops, but they're just not nearly as awesome any more. They've got the basic WS/BS of Imperial Guardsmen, not Space Marines, and while their extra gear is very affordable (Sniper Rifles are free, in fact), comparing them to the previous edition of Space Marine Scouts make them look like bumbling idiots.

A unit that used to be able to hit on a 2+ now hits on a 4+, and that's just a huge, insurmountably huge, loss, to me. Sniper rifles wound half the time, and invariably allow an armor save...making them only hit half the time, too, just makes them not terribly useful. A full unit of 10 Scout/Snipers will only hit with five shots, will wound two or three times, and will likely, at most, inflict a single casualty once armor is taken into consideration (against most armies, sometimes it'll be two). It just doesn't have as big a payoff as it used to, in my book, when compared to a full-on team of Tactical Marines.

Add on that the Scouts now only have WS 3 for the inevitable melee that will ensue later in the game (at least that invariably ensued for me, since I played against Orks), and they're sadly just not terribly worth it in a Vanilla Marine list.

[Karoline]

Well, there are two things you're forgetting. Pinning and rending. Sniper rifles force a pinning roll if they wound, and a 6 to wound bypasses armor. Since on average 5 hits are made, then you should slightly less than average get that 6 and so at least one wound per attack, often two. Their other potential advantage is that they can take on vehicles if they can get around back (Which they should be able to do with infiltrate and scout). Maybe not real well, but it is possible.

Still, yeah, it sounds like they got taken way down in power.

[Mr. Mage]

So, I figured I'd try and find out how much a full Tyranid army would cost me, and I quickly found that Games Workshop doesn't seem to make figures for all the Tyranid units. Is there another group that makes minis for 40k that might have the remaining ones?

You could try Forge World... they make some normal units, but mostly they specialize in Titans and other large models. But like I said, they make some normal sized ones.

[Karoline]

You could try Forge World... they make some normal units, but mostly they specialize in Titans and other large models. But like I said, they make some normal sized ones.

It seems they do have some very cool minis, but not the ones I'm looking for (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

I did a bit of searching, and it seems no one actually makes them, and found various posts on making your own custom one by combining/tweeking one or two other models. I also found a place that does it for you, and the final product is about $100. Looks like I may need to scrap my army that uses them for the moment. I'm going to head down to the local game shop today (Finally in the right town) and see if anyone plays 40k or anything. Maybe someone will have an extra army I can use.

[Mr. Mage]

Okay...this has nothing to do with building armies...but I thought I'd share this with people.
http://somethingbadass.5.forumer.com/uploa...-1241476823.jpg

Hopefully that will get you there. If not, here's the original article it was posted in...

[StealthSigma]

I hate myself. I broke down and bought the Black Reach kit to get started.

Now I'm trying to figure out what Space Marine chapter I want to model my space marines after. I don't want to do Ultramarines for two reasons. I don't want to mimic the box art and I'm not a big fan of blue.

I tend to have an appeal and draw towards black and red which is one of the reasons Blood Ravens is appealing to me. I figure I can use the Dawn of War army painter to find some color combo that I like...

[Tanegar]

If you paint your Marines as Blood Ravens, expect a degree of ridicule from long-time 40k grognards for your newbieness. IIRC from my time at 40kforums.com, they tend to look down on players brought in by Dawn of War. If you like black and red, try Blood Angels.

[Karoline]

What about people who come from Warhammer Fantasy?

Blood Angels sound cooler anyway.

[StealthSigma]

If you paint your Marines as Blood Ravens, expect a degree of ridicule from long-time 40k grognards for your newbieness. IIRC from my time at 40kforums.com, they tend to look down on players brought in by Dawn of War. If you like black and red, try Blood Angels.

Of course they do.

Imperial Fists has a color scheme I could get behind. Nothing like yellow to assail your opponent's eyes.

[Karoline]

Yeah, but yellow would be really hard to get clean of the blood of your enemies. Unless they have yellowish blood I suppose.

[StealthSigma]

Yeah, but yellow would be really hard to get clean of the blood of your enemies. Unless they have yellowish blood I suppose.

Hmm. Yellow would make it easier to put blood on the miniatures. Especially ones that have a more close combat model...

Also, some questions about miniatures.

General:
Do you typically paint then assemble or assemble then paint?

Black Reach Specific:
# I'm having a lot of difficulty with assembling the Ork Warboss. It comes in four or five pieces and I cannot get the alternate side of his claw to attach and I can't get the back piece to fit in.
# I'm also having trouble with the Ork Deffkoptas. I've done 1/3 so far. It seems like I have to apply a lot of pressure to get the blades to sit on top and the head and arms to this model isn't setting properly either. Also, when I put the the one I've "completed" on the stand, it tilts badly.
# The stand for the Dreadnought has NO hold in the top. It has about 5 hole locations on the bottom, but I can't for the life of me believe this is intended.
# I had 4 little bits that I can't for the life of me figure out what they're supposed to do. It's 2 skulls and 2 things that look like some ammo. My guess is that they're meant to be planted with the Terminator models.

[Karoline]

When I first started painting, I assembled and then painted, partly because I wanted to use my figures before I got around to painting them, but found that created some real difficulties and trying to paint at very odd angles, so I moved to painting the parts and then assembling them.

I'm guessing the skulls and ammo are just base decoration.

[StealthSigma]

When I first started painting, I assembled and then painted, partly because I wanted to use my figures before I got around to painting them, but found that created some real difficulties and trying to paint at very odd angles, so I moved to painting the parts and then assembling them.

I'm guessing the skulls and ammo are just base decoration.

I have a couple of concerns about doing paint -> assemble.

# Chipping. Applying pressure to put the pieces together could cause the paint to chip.
# Painting itself. Some of the pieces have barely any room to grip them that doesn't get painted. So this leads me to believe that painting a portion of the surface, then letting it dry would be how you would need to deal with it, but I would be worried about getting uneven coats.
# Gluing. Some of my parts do not fit snugly, are quite loose, and demand that they get glued on. If the glue was a tad much it could seep out. Not so much with assemble->paint because you can just file off the excess glue, but if you do it the other way around, you risk filing off paint....

[Karoline]

I never found chipping during assembly to be a problem. You don't generally put that much pressure on the piece. Or at least not with the pieces I was using.

For painting what I did was attach them via an area that would be covered with another piece (like the shoulder socket) to a nail head with a dab of glue. It allowed me to paint the entire piece without touching anything, and I could move them easily on the nail. The nails themselves were stuck into Styrofoam.

Gluing however can be a problem. My best suggest is to be careful with the gluing and try not to go overboard with it. Also, you can look for any glue seeping out while it is still fresh, and then brush it away with a paper towel or something similar so that it doesn't get a chance to dry. Personally I found this to be far less of a problem than having trouble reaching parts of figures when they are assembled, but to each their own. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Maybe try 5 figures in each style and see what you find easier. It might also vary from figure to figure, based on figure size and how much its parts get in the way of each other. You also have the option of just doing base colors before assembling them, and then finer details that are easy to reach after assembling them.

[StealthSigma]

Maybe try 5 figures in each style and see what you find easier. It might also vary from figure to figure, based on figure size and how much its parts get in the way of each other. You also have the option of just doing base colors before assembling them, and then finer details that are easy to reach after assembling them.

At this point, I don't have very many unassembled minis left and trying to break apart some of them seems impossible without apply more pressure than I want to. I'm thinking it would be best with space marines. I noticed that the biggest difficulty with painting them would be that their guns cross in front of their chests and those come off easy enough, along with the back pack. Ork boyz seems to not matter much each way. There's very little in the assembled model that covers up other parts of itself.

[Karoline]

Yeah, wouldn't suggest trying to beak them apart (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[StealthSigma]

Personally, I find painting Imperial Guard soldiers with a red flak jacket to be appropriately humorous.

I would like to make pink and green into some army....

[Karoline]

Personally, I find painting Imperial Guard soldiers with a red flak jacket to be appropriately humorous.

I would like to make pink and green into some army....

Tyranid maybe?