It’s finally time to take a look at the special characters that come with the new IG codex.  Just one note – although specific characters have specific backgrounds there is no reason you can’t use them as “count as” in any army.  So, Lord Castellan Creed could end up in the same army as Commander Chenkov; you’d just want to alter the names to fit a common theme.

Lord Castellan Creed

Here is a good choice if you are interested more in the tactical possibilities of a special character than his ability to directly do damage.  His ability to give any single unit the Scout ability can potentially be quite handy, especially if combined with an astropath (or two).  Likewise, his power to give four orders a turn is nice.  His special order – “For the Honor of Cadia” – strikes me as being of moderate usefulness.  You don’t usually want to be charging into combat with infantry squads, but if you are facing a situation where there is no viable alternative you might as well get some bonuses out of it.

Colour Sergeant Kell

While usually seen as being the eternal sidekick of Creed with the new rules Kell is actually worth taking on his own for one reason – his ability to let a commander use his leadership at range when using orders (e.g. the target unit uses the commander’s leadership to see if they obey).   However, overall you’ll still want to keep these first two choices together if at all possible (even if it is a pricey combo).  You get the most out of Kell’s leadership power while also giving Creed a powerful bodyguard – important since the latter isn’t any tougher than your usual commander.

Knight Commander Pask

I see Pask as a niche special character only useful in certain situations.  His most obvious use is as the commander of a Vanquisher – add in a secondary lascannon and have him go to town on the enemy’s vehicles.  If you are otherwise light on the anti-tank weaponry here is a way to get a lot out of relatively little.  One temptation may be to stick him in an anti-infantry Leman Russ to give his BS4 to as many weapons as possible, but doing that loses you the benefit of his crack shot ability (although, this could make something like an Executioner into a credible light vehicle threat admittedly).  Nevertheless, I expect “Pask” to become synonymous with “Vanquisher”.

Sergeant Bastone

If you want to add as many orders as possible to your army then Bastone is a good choice.  He costs almost as much as the veteran squad he must lead, but he’s sure going to give that unit a lot of backbone.  He can give it any of four orders each turn while allowing it to regroup regardless of casualties.  He also sports a power weapon and hot-shot laspistol.  Bastone is basically a super vet sarge.  The question is whether you want two vet squads or one with a great unit leader.

Colonel “Iron Hand” Straken

Now here is your choice of commander if you are looking for someone able to wade into combat and take heads.  Essentially the “bionic commander” he boasts a 6 strength, 4 toughness, 3 wounds, refractor field, and the equivalent of power armor.  Add in the fact that all of his attacks ignore armor and you end up with a guy as powerful as most Space Marine commanders!  He only gets to give two orders a round, but that is more than balanced by his ability to give everyone with 12” Counter-attack and Furious Charge while he and his command squad are Fearless.  Even at 95 points Straken is my pick for best overall special character.

Guardsman Marbo

I’m not sure what to think of this Rambo clone.  On the one hand he has some impressive abilities, but on the other they operate in a vacuum outside the usual needs of your army.  He acts as his own unit doing things solo.  For an individual model he is pretty nasty, but not so nasty as to be able to carve his way through most units.  Obviously, you have to use him carefully, going for high reward targets that can fall to his attacks.  I just don’t believe he is powerful enough for you to feel confident he’ll be worth the points – not when he costs 65 of them.  As such I see him as more of a curiosity than anything else.

Gunnery Sergeant Harker

Another super vet serge Harker strikes me as being about as useful as Bastone.  He doesn’t get a power weapon, but he does have a heavy bolter than he can use on the move.  He also gives his unit the Infiltrate, Stealth, and Move Through Cover special abilities.  Likewise, as he personally Feels No Pain he’ll stay up in a fight for a while, but he is not going to be quite as nice in close-combat as Bastone.  Still, for 55 points he makes a good pick for a veteran squad.

Commissar Yarrick

An oldie, but a goodie Yarrick is pretty much what he has always been – one tough hombre with a thing against greenskins.  Perhaps his best ability is that he makes everyone with 12” Stubborn, making him a good choice to stick in the middle of your battle line.  He and his group also get to reroll misses when charging into combat.  Beyond this he has what he has always had – a power claw, special force field (which now forces wounds against him to be rerolled), evil eye, and the iron will to keep on going even after losing all his wounds.  One interesting aspect to Yarrick is that he is his own pick – unlike most other special characters he does not replace your commander.  Thus, you can employ him wherever needed instead of him being chained to a special command squad.  He is an astonishing 185 points, however, so I suspect he’ll be used relatively rarely.

Captain Al’Rahem

A replacement for a platoon commander Al’Rahem is another possibility for best character.  He gives his platoon the Flank March ability, something they must use (that’s not a liability since you’ll be planning for it).  That’s potentially as many as 14 units (one platoon) coming in to one side of the board!  He also gets a special order he can give called “Like the Wind”.  If successful a unit can shoot and then move d6 in any direction.  This gives you a limited ability to hit and run – you shoot at the incoming target and then hopefully scamper out of charge range or at least into cover.  Finally, Al’Rahem gets a power weapon that causes instant death (which isn’t as nasty as it used to be).  He doesn’t get any special protections, but does have a plasma pistol.

Commander Chenkov

Another platoon commander replacement, by far Chenkov’s most important ability is that he makes anyone within 12” Stubborn – like Yarrick, but for far less points.  He does get fewer orders as typical commanders, in this case only “Get Back in the Fight” and “Move, Move, Move” which at least are two of the better ones.  He also can let you spend 75 points to make one group of conscripts eternal – they can return after being destroyed – but that seems a bit pricey for what you get.  Otherwise, Chenkov is a typical platoon commander with carapace armor and a power sword.

Mogul Kamir

An add-on to a Rough Rider squad I frankly don’t like him.  He does make his unit Fearless while being able to Furiously Charge, but only at the cost of suffering from Rage.  As I argued in previous postings a Rough Rider squad depends on being used carefully to be effective, namely by waiting patiently for the best time to strike.  However, when subject to Rage they have to gallop toward the nearest enemy as fast as possible.  In effect, a unit that must be tightly controlled to work best is in this case mostly out of your control.  I see Mogul and his men being too easily shot down while in the midst of a temper tantrum to be useful.

Nork Deaddog

Perhaps the closest thing to “loveable” you are likely to find in the 40K universe Nork is what he has always been – the best bodyguard around. He’s big, Feels No Pain, and is Stubborn with a strength and toughness of 5 and 3 wounds.  He can automatically take wounds for a commander while being potentially tough enough to survive them unscathed.  His attacks don’t ignore armor, sadly, but at least he gets four of them.  He also receives one last death bashing where he does d6 strength 6 attacks to the unit that killed him.  At 110 points he's expensive, but he will make any commander squad far tougher.

GW released pictures of the new upcoming Hellhound model this morning and I thought I would pass them along to anyone else who hadn't yet seen them.  In includes all three of the new variants.

 

 

I'm definitely going to get one.  My only problem will be picking which variant to use -- I like them all!

Thought I would go over the newest White Dwarf and any 40K material inside.  Most of the material in this issue relates to Warhammer, specifically to the Empire.  Great for those of us with Empire armies, but not so great for 40K.

Page 12 -- A preview of the upcoming Planetary Empire expansion.  It's basically Mighty Empires for 40K.  Same tiles, but with a 40K theme.  The tiles are of a planet surface, not space.  The quality looks as good as its Warhammer cousin.

Pages 44-49 -- Two new Apocalypse formations with lots of nice pictures.  Both relate to the new Valkyrie models.  The first is the "Bellerophon" Pattern Airborne Assault Group.  You need to take at least two Valkyries to play it.  It turns IG codex Valkyries into flyers, the whole group counts as a single unit in terms of reserve rolls and must enter play within 12" of the command Valkyrie, and you get the Blind Barrage strategic asset.  The second is "Steel Eagle - Colonel Paseski's Command Valkyrie".  For 200 points you get to reroll immobilized results for any Valkyrie/Vendetta within 24", instead of heavy bolters you get snipers that can (beyond normal fire) get one special "champion" shot that can potentially kill or blow up anything, and the Steel Eagle counts as the Supreme Headquarters strategic asset.  Page 49 includes a sweet bunch of pictures of the actual Steel Eagle conversion.  Think Valkyrie with a Catachan theme.

Page 79 -- A page on using Chaos bits to liven up models and to make objective markers.

Pages 80-84 -- Another painting masters article about Keith Robertson.  Fantastic painter.  A number of his shown examples are of 40K miniatures.  I wish I could blend and highlight like he can!

Pages 94-95 -- Citadel Hall of Fame showing off some wonderfully painted Harlequin models.

Page 108 -- The best part, namely the listing of our upcoming tournament at Origins!

That's pretty much it, but never fear as next month looks to be 40K-centric -- Planetstrike is coming!

Couple of items concerning the Rogue Trader Tournament we are running at Origins:

The first thing is that we are listed in this month's White Dwarf --

The second is that we have nailed down the awards for the tournament.  There are going to be four winners -- Grand Champion, Best General, Best Sportsmanship, and Best Painter.  Every one of these winners will be receiving trophies -- not just pieces of paper, but honest-to-goodness trophies.  The Grand Champion will also receive one of the new Cadian Imperial Guard Battalion boxes.  Now, that's not too bad!

Finally, there are still openings for the tournament so be sure to visit the Origins Game Fair website and sign up today!

Let’s face it – if there is anything that will get the blood of an Imperial Guard player pumping it’s tanks and heavy artillery.  Well, you’re in luck as today I am reviewing the Heavy Support choices in the new Guard codex.

Leman Russ Squadron

We’ve known of a whole host of different Leman Russ variants for quite some time, but they were relegated to Forge World books and therefore only seen in special games.  Now those variants are now completely legal options.  In fact, you have seven different variations of what may be the best tank in the game (for the price) to pick from.  That gives you a Russ for every occasion.  The only real question is if it works for your army given the points cost.

One thing that is for sure is that Leman Russes now represent a hell of a lot of potential firepower.  The new Lumbering Behemoth rule means you can fire the main gun and everything else at the same time – now you don’t have to make the choice between taking sponsons and using ordinance weapons.  Along these lines you can also take any possible sponson weapon – multi-meltas, heavy flamers, heavy bolters, and plasma cannons – on any variety of Leman Russ.  That makes for a lot of nasty – if pricey – firepower!

All this dakka does have one drawback of a sort – taking heavily armed Russes in squadrons is almost a guaranteed waste of points.  When you can load up a single tank with enough bang to annihilate entire squads you don’t want to be forced to fire two or three such behemoths at a single target.  A more reasonable use of a squadron would be one without sponsons meant to be mobile.  In such a case combining fire on a single unit might work, but even then you’d be tactically limited.  In general, the Leman Russ is just too powerful of a tank to be efficient in squads.

If there is any downside to so much choice it’s knowing what to choose and when to choose it.  Some variants are clearly better in some roles than others.  For instance, a Vanquisher is a good vehicle killer but next to useless against masses of troops.  Likewise, a Punisher will mow down hordes with ease, but be little more than an annoyance to well armored tanks.  Unlike in the past when you could just pick either variant – the Battle Tank or Demolisher – and have something that did everything at least pretty well you now have to actually stop and think over your choices.

Broadly speaking I think you can split the various Leman Russ types into four categories:

Good All Around:  These are Russes that can fill most any need and include the Battle Tank and the Demolisher.  Thanks to having high strength, large template weapons they can hit vehicles and slash through good infantry armor with equal effect.  Sponsons are liable to be inefficient on a regular Battle Tank because of the big difference in ranges between its main gun and sponson weapons, but with the Demolisher it may be worth it since it needs to be up close and personal to work anyway.

Anti-Vehicle:  While other types can certainly be lethal to vehicles only the Vanquisher is obviously designed with them in mind.  I suggest taking it with a lascannon and no sponsons (since they can’t carry any weapon with the range to match what the tank already has).

Anti-Heavy Infantry:  Only the Executioner fills this role as it has an AP2 main weapon great for killing even the toughest infantry, but on the weak side for going after vehicles.  You’ll get the most bang for your buck going after pricey enemy ground pounders.  If you want something truly horrific to power armor go for the plasma cannon sponsons – you could wipe out an entire squad of Space Marines or Necrons in a single round – but the high cost of such a load-out makes this choice high risk, high reward.

Anti-Infantry:  This type includes the Exterminator, Eradicator, and Punisher.  None have weapons that are better than AP4, but do have the potential to hit a lot of infantry at a time.  Take a Heavy Bolter for the hull mount and for the sponsons to create tanks with a plenty of dakka (especially the Punisher – you could end up rolling 29 dice!).

Hydra Flak Tank Battery

The Hydra has been around for a long time – always did like the Forge World model – but it was really only meant for to be anti-flyer and it was also expensive for what you got.  Its usefulness was therefore limited mostly to Apocalypse games.  Well, that’s true no more.  The new Hydra is half the price of the old Forge World incarnation and comes in squadrons.  With its twin-linked long-range Autocannons it can potentially hit anything on the board while its firepower is limited enough to make taking multiple Hydras in a single group worth a squadron’s inherent limitations.

The Hydra’s ability to ignore the effects of movement for skimmers and bikes isn’t quite as nice at it seems at first since Autocannons are only AP4 and bikes you are most likely to see – Eldar and Marine – have 3+ armor.  Still, at least Orks and Dark Eldar are cursing the day the Hydra rumbled on to the field.  Otherwise, the Hydra is just a long range and accurate set of autocannons good at killing infantry and light vehicles.  For 75 points that’s not bad.

Ordinance Battery

When people speak of the “might” of the Imperial Guard this is what they mean – big guns!  You now have four options which you can mix and match in squadrons as much as you want.  All of them are good choices.

The Basilisk is much the same as it always was, a strength 9 pie-plate that can be fired indirectly if necessary.  Even better to my mind is the Medusa (a model and rule set I preferred since Forge World produced it).  It’s basically a Demolisher cannon with a three foot range, something that makes it far more useful.  At strength 10 and AP2 there is nothing that will not fear it.  Because of this I’m not too wild about the Bastion-breaker Shells.  Given its comparative inaccuracy to other vehicle killers like lascannons it just doesn’t seem worth giving up the larger template just to give what’s already a strength 10 shot even more penetrating power.

The Colossus is the still effective worst of the bunch.  Not being able to fire direction is a significant liability even if it is an AP3 large template.  That means it is going to be inherently inaccurate.  Still, it has the range to hit a target even a few tables away and will frighten any infantry not in terminator armor.

Finally, we have the return of the Griffon.  Compared to your other choices it’s somewhat meager in firepower, but then again it is half the cost and is a large blast.  It too can only fire indirectly, but that’s okay since its special rule is the ability to reroll scatter dice.  The Griffon will work over any enemy infantry not in power armor.

The question of whether or not to take any of these in squadrons is more complex than Leman Russes.  I wouldn’t take the first three in more than pairs as otherwise you’d almost certainly be wasting too much firepower on a single target.  However, the lower cost and strength of the Griffons make them a good choice to take as trios.  Also, since you shouldn’t be moving your ordinance battery unless something is really wrong they are a prime choice for camo netting (even if it does cost 30 points).

Manticore Rocket Launcher

Another Forge World alumni, the previous incarnation of its rules never appealed to me.  It was pricey, didn’t do any more damage than a Basilisk, and was limited to just four shots.  This new version still suffers from the first and third limitations, but the second is now far different.  A Manticore rocket is now a d3 barrage meaning that a single shot could potentially drop as many as three strength 10 ordinance templates!  Suddenly the Manticore is worth the limit of just four shots.  One, because it often won’t survive longer than four turns anyway, and; two, because the amount of damage it can do during that time is tremendous.  A single salvo can annihilate everything in its range of effect not in power armor.

With a range of 120’ you can setup the Manticore as far back from the action as you like, relying on its ability to fire indirectly to get the job done.  However, it’s worth noting that the Manticore can fire directly if necessary thereby raising the odds of an accurate hit.  You can’t take these tanks in squadrons, but that’s okay – they do enough damage individually.

Deathstrike Missile Launcher

I’m not sure what to think about this would-be wonder weapon.  On the one hand it is a cool concept that really will vaporize anything and everything it hits.  Yet, on the other hand it only gets a single shot which isn’t likely to go off until at least the third round.  Whether the Deathstrike is a legitimate choice in regular games or just a curiosity I can’t say.  It will, however, always be interesting.

Certainly, if you take one you’ll have to do your best to protect it – camo netting is a virtual requirement.  You’ll then have to hope you get lucky as the sooner it fires the better.  The biggest limitation that I see in its use is that it’ll go off too late to be worth its cost.  Over time the enemy will be naturally whittled down, thereby lessening the odds that a juicy mass of targets will be around to target.  If nothing else your opponent will tend to spread out to avoid the worst effects of the Deathstrike, although this could potentially work in your favor.

Ultimately, I think the possible usefulness of the Deathstrike Missile Launcher comes down to one question – do you feel lucky?

More to come...

The march toward Origins continues.  Here is another finished terminator squad:

 

I thought I would take some time out to go into more detail as to why I don’t think Rough Riders work well within the dictates of the game mechanics of 40K.  I do still think they are cool models – both in basic design and conversion possibilities.

With Rough Riders you get the following abilities and liabilities:

• Only as tough as a Regular Guardsman
• Possible Charge Range of 24” (6” basic + 12” Assault + d6” Run)
• One shot power weapon at Strength 5 and Initiative 5
• Otherwise, normal attack at Strength 3 and Initiative 3 – do not get bonus for extra weapon
• Possible to take some special weapons, but this is mitigated by the necessity to always move
• Frag and Krak Grenades

The big limitation as I see it is that RRs are so fragile – a few heavy bolter shots and they are suddenly pointless.  That means you are going to have to hide them behind cover while waiting for the chance to charge a particularly appealing enemy unit.  If you can’t do so or decline to do so then expect the enemy to devote heavy weapon fire to whittling them down.  Once they are at 5 members or less they can be effectively ignored.

But, let’s say you succeed in the best of all possible ways and get the drop on, say, a squad of ten Space Marines.  You charge and skewer the buggers.  On average you can expect to kill 6-7 marines with you first charge.  That’s not bad.  You’ve roughly killed 96-112 points worth of the enemy.  Since your squad of ten regular Riders cost 105 they’ve just made their points back.

While that may sound pretty good in reality it’s not.  Remember, this is a best case sort of scenario and you’ve done is recovered the points you spent on Rough Riders.  A one-for-one exchange makes for at best a draw.  It certainly isn’t a recipe for victory.

Ah, but you counter that the group can still kill even more thereby making your points spent/points killed ratio better.  The problem is that you won’t be killing much of anything else.  After their one single grand attack Rough Riders are reduced to fast moving guardsmen with a single close-combat weapon.  They are going to have a hard time even finishing off the remaining Space Marines of their initial target let alone galloping on to further victories.  The classic tactic with close-combat troops is to attack one target after another, in the process hopefully rolling up your opponent’s battle line.  Yet, Rough Riders are one-shot-wonders that don’t have a prayer of doing so.  Once their single power attack is gone they become little more than cannon fodder.

Whether or not your Rough Riders will get to enjoy a best case is highly debatable.  Since they have to hide out before the big charge your options for using them are limited.  It also makes it easier for the enemy to deal with them.  For instance, one good method is to advance toward where the Riders are hiding with an expendable unit of troops or, alternatively, with a heavy vehicle.  The first target is a waste of the Riders’ abilities while the second is going to be difficult if not impossible to hurt.  Yet, they can’t just wait for something better to come along as the approaching unit will soon get line-of-sight and start firing.  You could easily find yourself having to charge a unit all but guaranteed to blunt your Riders’ effectiveness.

To my mind that is the real problem with Rough Riders – since they only have one good shot that really limits their possible uses, so much so that it’s hard not to conclude that some other unit would be better.  For roughly the same cost as 10 Rough Riders with a few special weapons I could get, say, a Hellhound or Valkyrie.  Either choice is going to be superior 9 times out of 10.  They are also less likely to be complete duds.  Remember it takes just one round of bad dice rolling – or good rolling from your opponent – to ruin Rough Riders for the rest of the game.  That just seems like too much of a risk to me.

If I was designing Rough Riders I would reduce their attack to Strength and Initiative 4, but let it count as a power attack for every charge.  Give them hit and run and they would suddenly be a real threat while being able to protect themselves somewhat from fire by always being in close-combat.  Add in scouting (come on, scouting has always been the historical role for cavalry!) and you’d have a useful unit.  Instead, what we have now is at best a borderline Fast Attack choice that the designers seemed to have overlooked while writing the new IG codex.

 

I am happy to pass along that the registration page at the Origins Game Fair website is at last open.  Here is the event information for the four events we are running:

Event ID 1171 -- Thurs 11am -- Warhammer 40K Space Hulk
Event ID 1237 -- Thurs 3pm -- Warhammer 40K Space Hulk
Event ID 1414 -- Fri 10am -- The World's Largest Apocalypse Game
Event ID 1627 -- Sat 9am -- Origins Warhammer 40K RTT

Again, just visit the Origins Game Fair website to sign up.

Remember, not only are these events going to be a hell of a lot of fun, but the better we do this year the bigger and better the next year will be.  I would, for example, really like to do a team tournament...