Tyranid Dimachaeron and Other FW Kits

Been a while since I posted but decided I'd share some of the new models coming down the pipe from FW

First up, and of most interest to me, is the new Tyranid Dimachaeron

Tau Tigershark AX-1-0

Deciding that we should have an Apocalypse battle before CA55EN goes traveling, we all agreed that we should each use at least one Super-Heavy each. Considering a Manta is way out of my price range, there was really only one choice for the Tau; a Tau Tigershark AX-1-0.

The model arrived in decent condition with only some mild warping to fix. It comes in less parts than I had expected, with only the weapons, engines, and cock pit needing assembly. The most awkward thing I foresee is removing all the resin gates but even that will just require a saw and files.

The game won't be taking place for a while yet, so I'll work out how to base it next week perhaps. The base provided is a GW Flying Base which is much too small to support the Tigershark. I'm thinking some clear plastic rod and a wooden base should suffice.

I'll post the finished model when its assembled, and give a review of how I found making it.

Tyranid Review: Final Thoughts and Army Lists

Now its time to bring it altogether. I've reviewed each section of the FOC, giving my thoughts on each unit and rating how useful they would be. As you'd expect, what units I feel are best in each section aren't always going to be the auto-includes in the lists we build. An example is Hive Guard. I felt Hive Guard were our best unit in the Elites slot, but I found myself taking them rarely in the lists I concocted. This is not because they were a terrible unit, but because they didn't synergise well with the lists. Zoanthropes were needed to provide extra Synapse and Venomthropes were needed to protect the rest of the army, which often left no more Elite slots open.

The Tau forces battle Hive Fleet Gorgon

While writing lists I found that Synapse was a consistent problem. With Hive Tyrants and Zoanthropes being the only reasonably costed Synapse Creatures, I found that you really needed to just suck it up and field some of the less cost effective options. As a result, I feel that I may have undersold the other Synapse units. Tervigons and Warriors are particularly useful as they are able to capture objectives. I found that I was taking a Hive Tyrant, Tervigon, 30 Termagants, and at least one Zoanthrope Brood in literally every list, which I have started using as a core to the army before adding other units. Similarly, I feel I undervalued Genestealers, Lictors, Harpies, and Hive Crones as they are not as dependent on synapse as the rest of the army. Hive Crones are invaluable for dealing with Flyers. Outside of Fortifications, we don' t have many other options, so two of them almost always found their way into the lists. However, if you want to use Fortifications then a Firestorm Redoubt placed slightly ahead of your deployment should be quite effective. Putting a brood of Zoanthropes inside will help protect them, while extending the Synapse bubble a few extra inches. The attached guns also don't need to be fired manually, which will allow us to use them even if we go back to our 5th edition FAQ limitations.

Tyranid Review: Heavy Support Tactica

This, the sixth installment of my Tyranid Review/Tactica articles, will cover the Heavy Support section. As before, this is as much to help me sort out my thoughts on each of the units in the new book as it is to help, so if you have any feedback or differing opinions feel free to leave a comment.

Carnifex Brood

A Hive Fleet Behemoth Carnifex thunders into an Ultramarine Rhino on Macragge

Often regarded as the Monstrous Creature, the Carnifex got a significant buff. It lost any significant use for Scything Talons, but dropped 40pts, gained an Initiative, and its Hammer of Wrath provides D3 hits. With a variety of options rivaling that of Tyranid Warriors it is an adaptable unit, able to be equipped for melee or range.

Tyranid Review: Fast Attack Tactica

Here is the fifth installment of my Tyranid Review/Tactica article series. I cover the section that hosts some of my favourite Tyranid units; the Fast Attack. This is as much to sort my own thoughts on the new book as to review, so if you have any further comments or differing opinions, feel free to add them in the comments.

Tyranid Shrike Brood

The late Parasite of Mortrex, a unique Shrike-esque mutant

Tyranid Review: Elites Tactica

Here is the fourth part of my Tyranid Review/Tactica articles. This is as much to sort my own thoughts on the new book as to review, so if you have any further comments or differing opinions, feel free to add them in the comments.

Hive Guard Brood

The centauroid Hive Guard stands its ground

Went up in points slightly and lost a point of BS. The loss of the BS4 hurts a bit, but the nerf was deserved to be honest. Still a great unit due to their powerful guns, they provide some much needed ranged anti-armour to the army. The default gun puts out two S8 shots that Ignore Cover and do not require Line of Sight. For 5 points this can be upgraded to a new weapon that fires a S5 AP5 Haywire blast. Unfortunately the range is only 18” compared to the Impaler Cannon’s 24” which can make quite a difference. I can’t think of many scenarios were I would rather have the Shockcannon, so I’d just stick with the Impaler Cannon. The S8 combined with the two special rules make it an incredibly versatile weapon; particularly against skimmers. For whatever reason, GW saw fit to give Hive Guard access to Toxin Sacs and Adrenal Glands (while Raveners still don’t). They’re cheap, but don’t bother. Hive Guard were not made for close combat.

Overall, a fine unit. Definitely one of the better Elites choices.

Tyranid Review: Troops Tactica

Here is the third part of my Tyranid Review/Tactica articles. This is as much to sort my own thoughts on the new book as to review, so if you have any further comments or differing opinions, feel free to add them in the comments.

Tyranid Warrior Brood

To the dismay of Tyranid players everywhere, these did not get changed much. Weighing in at 30pts base with some decent stats and options, the Tyranid Warrior seems perfectly fine. They can withstand a decent amount of small arms fire. But its 4+ Save, 3 wounds, and Toughness of 4 make it extremely vulnerable to Instant Death. They are the perfect target for Battlecannons, Demolisher Cannons, Manticores, etc. If an opponent uses their Krak Missiles against the Warriors it’s a blessing in disguise. Better he fires those at your Warriors than at your Monstrous Creatures. A Tyranid Prime can be added to boost the skills of your Warriors and provide a T5 body for tanking S8 and 9 hits, but I feel he is still too expensive. Not a great unit, but they see some use as relatively cheap Synapse providers.

White Dwarf Changes and Warhammer Visions

 It seems the rumoured White Dwarf change is upon us.

White Dwarf dying (apparently; I'm no astronomer!)

While White Dwarf Magazine isn't dead it has changed to a weekly format. Here's the official word.

 From GW:

"White Dwarf magazine goes weekly!

Tyranid Review: HQ Tactica

The second part of my Tyranid review. I cover the HQ section here. Again these are just my opinions.

If you disagree or have any feedback, let me know. This is as much to help me figure out the new 

Codex as to provide my review.

Hive Tyrant

It’s not a Tyranid army without a Hive Tyrant. The iconic leader of the swarm, the Hive Tyrant boasts a decent statline, Mastery Level 2, and access to most of the wargear chart. He also has the Synapse Creature and Shadow in the Warp special rules allowing him to keep both his underlings and any enemy psykers nearby in check. 

A Hive Tyrant of Hive Fleet Leviathan

Before getting into the majority of the options, we need to mention the Wings biomorph. For a reasonably minor cost you can turn your Hive Tyrant into a Flying Monstrous Creature. This provides him with much greater manoeuvrability and provides some defence as well. To get the most out of your Hive Tyrant I see very little reason to not take Wings; they just add so much to the unit. In the past a Hive Tyrant with Wings toting two pairs of Devourers with Brainleech Worms has been the go-to Tyrant load out, and I don’t think this has changed. Twelve twin-linked S6 shots that can use the Skyfire rule can do a lot of damage to most units. If you are so inclined, you’ll be fine only taking one pair of Devourers and either Scything Talons or Bonesword & Lashwhip. With two rolls on the Tyranid Discipline table there’s a moderate chance of rolling Warp Blast, and Wings provides you with Vector Strike, both of which will count as a shooting attack. This also helps close combat Hive Tyrants to remain viable.

Tyranid Review: Army Special Rules, Wargear, and Psychic Discipline Tactica

Presented here is the first part of my Tyranid Tactica/Review. Note that anything I say is merely my opinion. This is as much for me to work through the options in the new book as it is for others, so feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments.

Army Special Rules

Synapse Creature

Synapse is tremendously important to Tyranids. Possessed by many units which fill a leadership role, this rule gives the unit and all friendly models within 12” the Fearless special rule.

Instinctive Behaviour

This is the reason synapse is so important to the Tyranid army. If a Tyranid unit begins its turn outside of synapse range it must take a Leadership test. If this is failed they roll on their Instinctive Behaviour D6 table. There are three different tables; Lurk, Hunt, and Feed. On a 1-3 something bad happens, 4-5 either forces or encourages the unit to do something, and a 6 is the same as 4-5 but with a beneficial special rule. 

Hobby Update: Christmas

Been a while since I posted anything due to real life, but the past weeks have been a very busy time for the hobby.

With the release of Escalation and Stronghold Assault the 40k community has been pretty agitated due to the powerful units that have become available. It hasn't really affected Derpzilla too much; Hieronymus is considering getting the Necron Tesseract Vault kit, CA55EN the Baneblade, and I have picked up a Firestorm Redoubt. Elsewhere on the GW front, GW released their annual Christmas bundles and several were pretty good value. Hieronymus decided to start collecting an Eldar army and purchased an Eldar Ghost Warriors boxset. This makes him the second Eldar player in our playgroup, but he is limiting himself to mainly Wraith units meaning the diversity has increased.

In light of recent Tyranid leaks I have also decided to redirect the money I have saved up for the release into my Tau army in the form of the Tau Empire Firebase Support Cadre. This also allows me to use the new Tau Dataslate of the same name which should prove effective. On the subject of the new Tyranids, its sounding very disappointing. I'll get the Codex and play around with a few lists before jumping to any conclusions, but the leaks have been very disheartening. We shall see how they turn out in the end.

RIP Doom, Ymargl's, Parasite, and Snot Pods

Hieronymus and CA55EN continue to delve into Flames of War, and Departed has shown an interest in collecting a small elite British force. Infinity has also been recently invigorated due to Hieronymus getting involved with it so I imagine our forces will see some new additions fairly soon. Departed especially is looking to add to his ALEPH force, and my Tohaa have had a few releases since we last played so I might pick up some Auxiliars.

On the painting front, I finished a unit of Saurus and got distracted by my Emperor's Children. Managed to finish a few squads of marines and some Obliterators. 

As far as the blog is concerned, on the to-do list is the Dark Elves Tactica similar to the Lizardmen one, as well as one for the new Tyranids.

Lizardmen Armylists

Here I present two sample 2500pt Lizardmen lists; one with a Slann and one without a Slann. I tried to make them both vaguely competitive. Just for fun, I then created a monster mash list. It’s not as good as the other two in my opinion, but I tried to make it reasonable. I used 2500pts lists as that is what we use in the group and it is the popular size for tournaments in our area.

Lizardmen Review: Special Characters Tactica

 Here I give my thought and opinions on the Lizardmen's Special Characters as part of my Lizardmen Review/Tactica article series.

Special Characters

Kroq-Gar

The named Oldblood on Carnosaur. He weighs in at only slightly more than a tooled up Oldblood on Carnosaur which is promising. 

Lizardmen Review: Rare Tactica

Rare

Ancient Stegadon

The better of the two Stegadons we can get, the Ancient Stegadon exchanges an Initiative, an Attack, the Giant Bow, and its 4+ Scaly Skin for an extra Strength, Giant Blowpipes, and a 3+ Scaly Skin. It has the same two upgrades that the regular Stegadon had and can also upgrade its Giant Blowpipes to an Engine of the Gods.

The loss of an Initiative doesn’t make too much difference as it wasn’t great to begin with. The loss of an Attack is slightly more impactful but a Stegadon does most of its damage through Thunderstomps and Impact Hits. On that subject the extra point of Strength the Ancient has over the regular Stegadon improves makes these Strength 6. Strength 6 Thunderstomps and D6+1 Impact Hits combined with an above average resilience allows the Ancient Stegadon to go toe to toe with most infantry. The only other monster we have that I would not be afraid of sending into combat alone is the Carnosaur.

I’d still suggest giving Unstoppable Stampede a miss, but I would always take the Sharpened Horns upgrade unless you knew for a fact you wouldn’t be facing any multi-wound models. With that in mind always try to get the charge with this. Without the charge you are missing out on a lot of this monsters potential. If you are taking a Slann with High Magic, an Ancient Stegadon is one of the best targets for Walk Between Worlds. This can really help get it up there early and threatening the flanks or rears of units.

Lizardmen Review: Special Tactica

Below is the fourth part of my Lizardmen Review/tactica articles series. Took a bit longer to get it typed up due to the amount of Specials we have.

Special

Temple Guard

The elite Saurus unit, for just 3pts more than a Saurus Warrior they gain a WS, an I, light armour, halberds, and gain Stubborn and Immune to Psychology when joined by a Slann. In return, the Slann gains protection through the ability to join a Temple Guard unit’s second rank. As a result you will want to attach your Slann to this unit if you are running one.

Hobby Update: November

I've decided to do a monthly article to give an overview of whats happening on the wargaming front in the Derpzilla playgroug and me in particular.

After a few weeks of waiting, the Dark Elves that I ordered from the second wave have finally arrived. Two boxes each of Warlocks/Dark Riders and Executioners/Black Guard allow me to actually finish the list I've written with the new army book, which I will likely put up here at the weekend. I should hopefully get to test it out next weekend and I'll see if it needs any reviewing.

The kits seem to be pretty good. Only complaints are with the Executioner/Black Guard kit. There is a definite lack of possible poses and the bodies are attached to the sprue by the shoulders which resulted in some minor damage to one of them. I'll hopefully get them all assembled and finish the Special section of my Lizardmen review tonight.

On the painting front, I have only just started to tackle my Fantasy collection. In the last few weeks I've managed to get Hellebron, an Assassin, a Sorceress, two Scar Vets, Kroq-gar, and 17 Saurus Warriors completed. Got a long way to go to even get a completed army finished so I've decided to focus on the Lizardmen first. I've built a 1,500pt list that should give me a manageable goal to work towards.

As far as the rest of Derpzilla are concerned only Hieronymus and CA55EN have been doing anything of note. They've recently picked up Flames of War and play Russians and Germans respectively. CA55EN seems to be going for a mixed forces kind of list while Hieronymus seems to just be going 100% tanks. I don't play myself so I can't give too much information on the subject regrettably.

Anyways, keeping it short this month as its the first one.

Lizardmen Review: Core Tactica

The third installment of my Lizardmen Review/tactica series.

Core

Saurus Warriors

Saurus are a good solid unit with a great stat line. An average Weapon Skill and abysmal Initiative are their only major faults in terms of stats. In general you want at least one block of Saurus in your army. They are regarded by many as one the best core infantry in the game. They may not be as hard or dangerous as Chaos Warriors but they are much more reasonably costed. 

Lizardmen Review: High Magic, Lords, and Heroes Tactica

Continuing on in my review/tactica of the new Lizardmen army book I present my impressions of 

the new Lizardmen Lore, and the generic Lords and Heroes.

The Lore of High Magic

Lore Attribute

The Lore Attribute, Contemplations, allows the user to forget a spell after casting it and generate a new spell from any Lore using the normal spell generation rules. The first way this can be used is to swap out a spell after it is no longer useful to you. For example, Arcane Unforging allows you to destroy the opponent’s Magic Items. Once this has been achieved the spell could be considered useless so you could swap it out for a spell from another Lore. The second way I can see this being used is to just take the Lore of High Magic if you are unsure of what your opponent will be using. Once you see his army, you can then start casting some cheap spells on turn 1 and generate a more useful one from another Lore. The way I would view this is to assume you are rolling on a Lore for its Signature Spell with a chance of potentially getting something better. An example of when you would do this is upon seeing that your opponent is playing Warriors of Chaos and has gone Knight heavy. You could cast Tempest first turn and then Swap it out for a roll on the Lore of Metal.

Unlike most Lores, the Lore of High Magic contains two Signature Spells.  

• Drain Magic

This spell can remove Remains in Play effects on friendly or enemy units. While it is fairly cheap (you should essentially never fail casting this using two dice) a similar effect can be obtained through the use of the Cube of Darkness so I don’t rate this too highly. Not bad, but nothing amazing either.

• Soul Quench

Effectively a shorter ranged but more efficient Fireball, this is the Signature Spell that I prefer. Very straight forward spell, I like it.

• Apotheosis

A way to regenerate wound son a nearby model. It is relatively cheap to cast and we generally have a large amount of suitable targets to cast this on, so I think it is pretty useful to have.

• Hand of Glory

Allows you to buff the Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Initiative or Movement of a nearby unit by D3. Can buff it to affect all of them. The increases to WS and Initiative are very helpful to our Saurus as those are the stats they aren’t great in. Combined with a Bastilodon, this can manage to bring our Saurus up to a respectable Initiative. However, this is more difficult to cast, has a weaker effect, and is less reliable than the similar Speed of Light from the Lore of Light. This can also be used to help get a unit into range next turn or to boost a unit of skinks BS so they can double tap at long range after moving, etc. All in all, it isn’t a bad spell but the Lore of Light does what this is trying to do better.

• Walk Between Worlds  

This is one of the best spells in the Lore. It allows a unit to move 10/20 inches counting as Ethereal. This can really help outmaneuver your opponent’s units and works especially well on Carnosaurs, Salamanders and Ancient Stegadons. Great spell.

• Tempest

This is a handy enough spell. I find that it works most effectively against Elves as they tend to be more ranged than most armies and have a lower toughness. Outside of those armies it can have its uses but it doesn’t have enough hitting power compared to other damaging spells and isn’t as reliable as Iceshard Blizzard at countering ranged. Unless your opponent is a low toughness army I would exchange this one before the others. It even has a fairly long range to enable you to use it effectively on the first turn.

• Arcane Unforging

A nifty spell that can neuter a combat character while having a decent chance of knocking a wound off. After making use of it, this is another one I would suggest swapping out for another spell. As you won’t know what items their characters have before casting its best to target their more powerful characters. It’s also an effective way of drawing out an opponent’s Dispel Scroll. If they don’t use it, the wizard could take a wound and lose it anyway so it is in their best interests to use it. Very handy spell to have, but don’t be afraid of swapping it out once you’ve got the most out of it.

• Fiery Convocation

This spell can really put the hurt on any horde units you come across. It should absolutely devastate a unit of Toughness 3 models. It is of limited use against armies like Ogres and Chaos however. If facing them don’t be afraid of swapping out for another Lore.

In summary, I like the Lore. It has several situational utility spells and a decent mix of damaging spells and augments. If you want to take High Magic I would suggest taking Focus of Mystery so that you will get all of the spells in the Lore. This will allow you to get 8 spells and give you the most flexibility for swapping them out.

Lizardmen Review: Army Special Rules and Magic Items Tactica

Haven't posted in a long while now. Got a lot of spare time on my hands lately so I figured I should try reinvigorating the blog. As all of my armies have been updated recently, I decided I would share my thoughts and opinions and write a Tactica on each of them. I'm starting with the Lizardmen for Fantasy as they came out first and I will break it into manageable chunks.

I don't claim to be an expert, but I've picked up a thing or two over the years and you can judge for yourself.