Aspects Of Khaine 2.0: Swooping Hawks

So we begin. The Aspects of Khaine version two. We start this reboot and retool with an Aspect that is a favorite of mine. The Swooping Hawk. The Hawk is associated with Vengeance and Retribution in the Eldar mythos. The spirit of a murdered soul would come back to inhabit a hawk and hover above its killer to mark his or her guilt. I personally like the Hollywood version loosely based on Native American folklore. A Crow bringing back a vengeful spirit to avenge itself, but I am a child of the 90's. I digress......

So the Swooping Hawks are Avengers. The bring retribution to the enemy. So how do they do this? Well with mobility. They are Jump Infantry, so you have the mobility to move around the table and engage targets. Now some of the other fringe benefits of being Jump Infantry do not really help the Hawks a whole lot. They are Fleet so they get to re roll charge distances already so using the jump packs in the assault phase only really gives you Hammer of Wrath attacks. This is kind of nice as it gives you more attacks. Since they already hit at strength 3 you are more or less getting bonus attacks that may thin the herd a bit before your main attacks. You should not really be charging units though. Swooping Hawks are not close combat troops. They are mobile anti vehicle and anti infantry.

Swooping Hawks are armed with Lasblasters which are 24” Assault 2 weapons with a strength of 3. Basically its a lasgun with a higher rate of fire. Volume of fire does damage and should be directed on light targets. Imperial guardsman, Kabalite Warriors, Chaos Cultists and the like are decent targets. Especially after the unit has been softened up by a large blast form their Grenade packs upon entry. If the unit is deep striking. Which in all fairness it should be doing.

I do Start the Hawks on the table though. Usually when they are in more of an anti vehicle roll. Their survivability tends to go down drastically though when switched to this roll. Especially when its a decent sized unit and your opponent realizes they are all armed with Haywire Grenades. These combined with the Exarchs powers makes even Land Raiders nervous.

The Exarch Has the option of Taking Skyleap and Intercept. Now formerly Intercept gave the unit no worse than a 4+ to hit vehicles regardless of how fast they moved. Now with the mechanic changed and the FAQ updated Intercept now says that vehicles, except walkers, count as weapon skill 0. SO basically the Hawks auto hit with Haywire grenades in an assault. Being able to throw them to remove a hull point or possibly more is pretty handy as well in the shooting phase. I am a big fan of Haywire Grenades. Sadly the only units in the current codex that have them is the Swooping Hawks and the Autarch. This can be a great combination though. Since the Autarch can be armed with more potent weaponry they can split off from the unit to bring the weapons to bear, you can more easily open up transports, like chimeras, without assaulting them and blast the occupants with las fire from the Swooping Hawk unit. There are lots of possibilities. This gives the unit utility, which is awesome in an army of specialists.

Skyleap and the Grenade packs make for some fun now as well. Since the Deep Strike Mishap table is not quite as deadly and the FAQ states you can Skyleap on the Turn you arrive, you can bomb units pretty much every turn. As I see it using the Skyleap power means that the unit enters ongoing reserves when it uses the power. So this means once you actually come in from reserves you could Skyleap at the end of every movement phase and come back the next turn automatically. This has lots of uses besides keeping the Hawks alive and still be semi useful. The real big use of this I see is being able to claim objectives in games where fast units can claim, or just contesting objectives in general.

The Exarchs weapons are decent. You have the Hawks Talon which is a strength 5 AP 5 assault 3 or the Sunrifle, my favorite, which is a strength 3 AP 5 assault 6 with pinning. Pinning is always a nice bonus, as is the really high rate of fire. The Sunrifle really bolsters the fire power of smaller units.

Baharoth, the Phoenix Lord of the Swooping Hawks brings the Fearlessness as well as Hit and Run to the table. Sadly it specifically says it only affects the Swooping Hawk unit in the codex. This comes in handy when dealing with Walkers. If charged or if you charge you can leave the combat after delivering your haywire grenades. Baharoth even just by himself gives you a maximum of 4 Large blasts that you can drop if all your units arrive on the same turn, which is far more likely given reserves arrive on a 3+ and automatically on turn 4.

So there you have it. An overview of the Hawks in 6^th. Next up is my namesake and favorite Aspect. The stalkers of the dark. The sons of the fallen one. The Striking Scorpions.

Until then

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aspects Of Khaine: 2nd Edition

Well as promised I am going to delve into Aspect warriors in 6^th edition. Kind of an “Aspects Of Khaine” 2^nd edition. I want to kind of start with some of the basics to Aspect Warriors as they relate to the rules changes. Things work slightly differently now. In fact there has been some things pointed out to me that really got me contemplating the Craftworlders again. Granted we may be getting a codex this fall, but I am not holding my breath.

Ok so as we know Exarch powers only effect their unit and any Autarch that is joined to the unit. This is true except for powers that specifically say they do not effect the Autarch. The Phoenix Lords are the same way. The one exception is that they are fearless. Now it does say in the Eldar codex that Phoenix Lords make their associated Aspect fearless when they join the unit. In the past this meant that if, say Karandras joined any squad other than a Striking Scorpions one they would not be fearless.

Now the Fearless states that “units containing one or more models with the Fearless special rule automatically pass pinning, fear and regroup and morale tests”. So any model that is fearless that joins a unit essentially makes the unit fearless. This means you cant go to ground or voluntarily fail morale checks. There are some situations this is bad in, but I will get to that later. So now your Fearless Phoenix Lords can bestow their macho awesomeness to even the lowly guardian.

Granted the first thing that came to mind to counter this little ploy was to tie up the unit with a critter it could not hurt. Since the unit can't voluntarily fail a morale check, you can't use the “our weapons are useless” rule. This can work well to tie up Fearless units like Plague Marines and such. Throw them into combat with a Wraithlord and you have the unit tied up with a model they cant even hurt. This works well for Noise marines and the like. As long as there is no power fist or anything or you can manage to kill it quick, you can tie up units pretty well. They will just have to sit there and take it.

The Aspects I am going to cover first are the ones that have had the most changes. Either in the FAQ as to how wargear works or how the new rules re purpose them. I am going to start with an Aspect near and dear to my heart. An underused and under appreciated Aspect, who is getting some major improvements thanks to the FAQ and 6^th edition in general.

I speak of course about the Swooping Hawk and their founder Baharoth. Changes to Jump Infantry, Exarch powers and the ability to glace vehicles to death has made the Swooping Hawk Aspect a very nice mobile tank hunting and light Infantry suppression unit. More on them next time.

I would also like to announce that Evolution games is having a tournament this Saturday, February 16^th. It is a 1500 point 3 round tournament. You can check out their Face book page for the Missions.

Registration starts at 10am and dice roll at 11. Farseer Re-Rolls assures me we will be done by 6:30 pm.

Well Next time Swooping Hawks and possibly an Iron Warriors Update.

Until then.....

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!

DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPORER!!!!!!!!!!!

Old Seers And New Tricks: Vypers

Apologies for my absence this month. I have been in the process of moving and its been a pain. I am now in the new lair. I am sharing a house with The Stormlord and his Royal Court. I am hoping this stirs the hobby bug as he has been cranking out models like crazy from his basement tomb.

I digress though. Last time we were talking vehicles. Or at least my take on them. I covered Wave Serpents and Falcons. Now I want to visit an old favorite of mine and their rather fast moving counter part. War Walkers and their flying equivalents, kind of at least in my mind, the Vyper.

War Walkers have not really changed much with the transition to 6^th edition. In fact they have not changed at all. They are still the mobile gun platform they have always been. Granted they may be a bit more important due to the weapons load outs they can take. They can pack a lot of strength 6 shots which is pretty handy, especially when you are dealing with bike armies. Given the preponderance of Raven Wing armies that are popping up you will need all the fire power you can get to down these guys.

The vehicle that has changed due to the rules that is forefront in my mind is the Vyper. Now I have used Vypers in the past as a secondary gun platform to support the War Walker units I run. They are fast so they can get extra daka on the scene pretty easily to help finish off units or soften units up for the War Walkers to really hammer into. I usually run them with scatter lasers or Star cannons. The latter as a clean up unit and the former as a squad softening unit. Granted you do have to deal with the BS of 3, but as I have said before I have come to terms with that. The real bonus to the Vypers now is that they can fire their full compliment of weapons while moving 12 inches. Its the same thing that made the Falcon a little more useful. Fast skimmers can fire 2 weapons at full BS when moving 12 inches.

I have 2 squadrons of Vypers currently. One with chin mounted shuriken cannons and one without. I may be changing the one without. Having a shuriken cannon along with a scatter laser makes them almost as effective as the War Walkers in terms of the amount of fire they can deliver. Granted you have 3 less dice and you have to be within 24 inches for the full weight of your fire to come to bear, but you can move a lot faster and get into optimal firing position much easier. Have a Farseer hanging back behind the unit on a Jet bike and you have the ability to guide the unit and doom their targets.

I plan on running a test list soon with the Eldar using Vypers in conjunction with War Walkers. We will see what, if any, synergy comes out of the combination.

Well Thats all for now. I will be much more active this coming month. I plan to finish talking about vehicles covering the Fire Prism and Artillery next time. I am also going to start the Aspects of Khaine series 2.0 updated for 6^th edition. I will also have some Adepticon Army Updates and be talking about my new obsession, Flames Of War. Which by the Way every other Saturday Morning at Evolution Games in Lansing the Flames of War players will be meeting up to play. I am usually there every Saturday afternoon regardless so I am always ready to play.

I will also be talking about the 3^rd annual Test Of Khaine. It is going to be April 13^th At Evolution Games.

Until Next time......................

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPORER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Old Seers Learning New Tricks

SO I was having some thoughts about the Eldar as I was writing the Combat Patrol blog the other day. Since 6^th edition came out and my grasp of the nuances of the game are growing I have been looking at our much outdated codex and trying to find things that an Eldar player can use to be a bit more competitive with the newer codexes. I was also corrected by a new Seer to the shop. George, who is a reader and I don’t know his blog handle, corrected me on some rules in a recent team game. Cvinton's Necrons teamed up with my Iron warriors to play The Judges Grey Knights and The Georges Eldar. Needless to say upon review I have to admit I was wrong. IN fact the group here at the FLGS has been interpreting a couple of rules wrong. Rather than pout I went back and started really reading the codex, the FAQ and the Rule Book. I have been stuck in the same way of doing things so long I did not really take the time to format my brain and relearn the game and my main army.

I have made a few realizations and found some new things that actually may re-purpose some units. As I have said before you have to try and get out of the old way of doing things. I am realizing this building and playing the new Chaos Marine Codex. I should have been really doing it with the Eldar. It just so happens you can teach an old Seer new tricks.

So first lets look at the vehicles. Many players, including the internet forum meta, denounces vehicles and says they are not as useful. In fact many go so far as to say that transports are dead and useless now. Although there have been some very successful tournament armies that are foot slogging, I think that the main reason they have been tournament winning is because people are still getting use to the game and are not ready for new and different things. I have to say that vehicles aren’t dead and transports are defiantly not useless. Lets take a look first at the Eldar's 2 transports. The ubiquitous Wave Serpent and the Falcon.

If it has done anything the new edition has helped out Falcons. The first thing that popped into my head is that you can actually fire all the weapons on the Falcon now. Moving the standard 12 inches most players move their fast skimmers, IE cruising speed, means you can fire both the turret weapons at full ballistic skill and snap for the chin mount. I would also like to point out that this makes Vypers more effective as fast moving fire support platforms. This means whatever squad you transport can make its way across the table faster and still have good fire support. The Pulse laser, the main gun for the Falcon, got a bit of a boost as a tank killer as well. Being AP 2 it now gets a +1 on the pen table.

So I ma going to dust off my Falcons and give them a new test drive.

The Wave Serpent has always been one of the best transports in the game. Although currently pricey they do full fill the role of both troop transport and battle tank. Thanks to the prow and side shielding it has a higher survivability probability than the Falcon or Fire Prism. Thanks to the new transport rules you can effectively deploy your units from the rather limited space at the rear of the Serpent. The slim rear profile of the serpent which makes hitting the rear armor harder for you opponent also gave issues to Eldar players because of the limited amount of deployment space given to them in 5^th edition. It usually meant units where ripe for blast and template weapons. Now you can move 6 inches out when you deploy. So you can spread out and deploy effectively. The energy shields as always help out against any weapons capable of slaying the Wave Serpent with a single hit. I am also taking a second look at holo-fields. 35 points is still a big investment, but with key vehicles it could help with the new pen table. I have not really done the math, but I think it may give you a better chance against destruction. Is it a chance worth 35 points. Probably not, but I am not ruling anything out.

Well next time I am going to talk Vypers, Fire Prisms and War Walkers. I am also going to cover Artillery. Apparently I have been using Vibro cannons wrong. Apparently they don't require line of sight.

Until next time.........

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPORER!!!!!!!!

Flames Of War: SeerK's First Look

Sometimes its nice to branch out and take the edge off a bit when you suddenly find yourself immersed in one particular thing. In this case its 40K. Despite building an Adepticon GT army and plotting a Eldar Strike force for combat patrol I am having the hobby blahs. So I decided to try something different. Inquisitor Vogrin is on a 40K hiatus and despite being a Pressganger and playing lots of War Machine wanted to try out a little Flames Of War.

So we split a Flames Of War Boxed set, the open fire one, and read through the rules so that the following Saturday we would throw down. I started with historical war games back in the day before I started playing Battletech and Warhammer 40K. I have been wanting to try Flames Of War ever since Old School Terminator gave a good review of it after trying it. I loved Epic 40K and its previous version Space Marine so mass combat games have always appealed to me. OST compared it to Epic. That was the thing that pushed me over. An investment of $35 was not bad as well.

So I split a box and took the Germans. For those of you unfamiliar with Flames Of War, it is a large scale world war two game. The miniatures are in 1/100 scale. The infantry is on bases with 4 or 5 soldiers to one base. These individual bases make up infantry teams. The teams are grouped into platoons. Each platoon is typically 6 infantry bases and 1 smaller 3 man command team. Tanks are typically in platoons of 1 to 5. A collection of platoons is a company. Games are typically played on the company level. Typical games are 1500 points. There is a force organization chart to help you assemble your army. The whole army building portion was pretty easy as its very 40K like in its execution.

The starter box Inquisitor Vogrin and I split had about 810 points of Germans in it. After looking at the Adepticon events for Flames of War I saw that the late war tournaments were 1000 points. SO basically adding another platoon of something will put you at an entry level tournament point level.

The game plays with the same basic turn sequence that 40K has. You have movement, shooting and an assault phase. Everything, ranges and such, are measured in both English standard and metric. All the unit entries in the books list both. Epic and Battlefleet Gothic, for those of you who played those GW games, both used metric, IE centimeters, to measure everything so this again brought up some nostalgia and some familiarity.

Units do not have a ballistic skill or a stat line though in the 40K sense though. Every unit has a skill rating. This skill rating is used to determine how hard it is to hit the unit. So the die roll needed to hit a unit is based on the target units skill level. Units can be Conscripts, Trained or Veteran in skill level. They also have a morale rating of Reluctant, Confident and Fearless. This helps determine command range as well as the die roll needed for morale checks from casualties and to activate skills and such.

Cover adds difficulty to hit targets as does movement and range. Vogrin and I had a very long drawn out fire fight between our platoons in cover. The difficulty to hit and damage was high. Vogrin broke the stalemate by over running my position in an assault. I have to say assaults are very deadly and to the point. I lost one of my infantry platoons to the assault. Meanwhile my anti tank gun teams and Stug tanks were making short work of the Sherman tanks Vogrin were bringing up on my flank.

I have to say after playing on game I am impressed by the rules set. I am also impressed by how concise they are. Nothing is really left to question. A thing that is often lacking in many of Gw's games. You will be seeing Flames of War articles now and again. This is a good change of pace for me. I started out with historicals and Battle Tech. Apparently though according to Samsquatch Monster and The Judge I am now officially an old man. Oh well had to happen eventually.

Well next time We will be in 2013. Its been a weird year to say the least. A new edition and a new chaos codex. Rumors abound about what the future holds for my beloved Eldar. I guess we shall see.

Have a happy New Year all. I will be partying in Ann Arbor with my Rogue Trader crew. Two words. Battle Shots!

Until Next Year.....

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPORER!!!!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas From The Craftworld!

From all of us at Craftworld Lansing, Merry Christmas!  I have been busy this month.  The holidays, more 40K and work have got me busy but thankful.  The stomach flu I contracted Sunday I am not thankful for.  So I am recovering.  I had intended to post about some thoughts I had while reading the good old, emphasis on old, Eldar codex.  The rules changes have given some old units new tricks and we need all the help we can get.  I also have an update on my Iron Warriors progress.  I took CVinton to the ropes with a raw list.  I hope to have both these posts up before the new year.  This new year is also going to see me actually starting and playing a new game.  I have gotten in a couple games of Flames Of War and I am hooked.  In fact I have a small company of Germans in primer at the moment ready to break up the Iron Warriors army build and paint monotony.

So Merry Christmas, Happy Yule, have a Joyful Solstice und Froliche Weinachten!


Until Next Time.........


Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!


Death To The False Emperor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Combat Patrol: Eldar Style

Well the Iron Warriors project is off to a decent start. I have started Painting. I need to buy quite a bit but paint has started to hit what I do have. I have decided to do Combat Patrol as well as the GT this year at Adepticon. I felt I had to still whip the Craftworlders back and fourth at Adepticon this year. I Think they will do well in the combat patrol. In the highly competitive environment of the GT I don’t think I can bring an Eldar army that can really deal with everything. That said I do think I can bring a 400 point force that can be competitive. Especially with the changes to the rules this year. Namely the rules for vehicles. Wave Serpents are now viable. Expensive but very cool.

I have designed a list that really is in the spirit of a patrol. This means mobile units. Even if they cannot pack a huge punch they can still hit targets fast and move away from harm. Luckily the Eldar excel in hit and run. They also have very mobile units that can lay down very impressive levels of fire.

The first unit that comes to mind when thinking about a patrol is the good old War Walker. With a variable unit size, 1-3, and an impressive array for weapons available. They also fit into the required rules for armor facings. Since you get a swing slot two squadrons could be taken. The popular scatter laser load out, that means two per walker, for most players works very well in combat patrol as the amount of fire you can lay down is pretty overwhelming for this point level. Range is not a real issue as you can pretty much hit everything in a 4x4 even with shuriken cannons, a nice cheap option for any unit. War Walkers also have 2 attacks with a strength of 5 in close combat so chicken kicking units or vehicles is a nice last ditch.

A basic unit of 5 Rangers or even Pathfinders is very nice in combat patrol. The Pathfinders especially can really be a threat to lightly armored vehicles. Precision shots, rolls of 6's to hit which are also AP 1 for these guys, let you pick out possibly the only model with a high leadership value in the opposing force. This gives you better chances of pinning units and driving them off the board. They also allow you to eliminate those pesky 2 wound HQ units quickly, that are relatively cheap and pretty over powered in a low point game. Units are also pretty cheap. A unit of 5 Rangers is only 95 points and a unit of 5 Pathfinders is only 120 points.

Jetbikes are great in a combat patrol albeit expensive. You don’t need large units though in this particular style of 40K game though. In fact having single large units works against you as you can only pick out individual units while a strike force of 3 or 4 units, 4 if you really number crunch, can engage multiple units or just concentrate fire into the one unit. Jet Bikes got better in 6^th edition. I actually am working on a blog covering the Eldar codex presently about re purposing units due to the new rules. Eldar Jet Bikes are now mobile to the extreme and have lots of nice options to add to make the unit tough and be able to deal with just about anything your opponent can throw at you in a 400 point game. You have access to shuriken cannons and twin linked weaponry. You can add a Warlock for some psychic punch and to act as the patrol Leader. Being a troop they also act as your mandatory troop choice. Jet Bikes and Rangers really are your best troop options for combat patrol In my opinion.

Being at the the same point level as a jet bike squadron we cant overlook Warp Spiders. These guys are always a favorite because of their mobility and high strength weaponry. A fully kitted squad of 5 including an Exarch is 152 points. If you take a unit of 3 war walkers it is about 180 points. Granted the War Walkers give you more shots, with scatter lasers, but the Warp Spiders give you a higher quality shot with a higher ballistic skill. They are also more mobile. Plus like the jet bikes you have nicer close combat options now. Hammer of wrath although not earth shattering can help tip the balance in some cases.

There are many more options. Theses are my favorites though. I will be putting together my Combat Patrol force together as I build the Iron Warriors. Which speaking of the Iron Warriors. Apparently I am going to be part of a blog vs blog painting challenge starting in January. Look for detail over at Dark Future Games next month.

Until Next Time...........

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!

DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPORER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!