First spacewolf list, curious on your thoughts?

Hi all,

so the first space wolf list I knocked up is what I've started (and nearly finished) painting. I'm curious on peoples input, because while it has done well in its initial games, they havent really been tested yet, and I have a million different changes and additions swimming around in my head.


Space Huskywolfthingeys - 1750

Wolf Lord - Runic Armour, Wolf Tooth Necklace, Storm Shield, Thunderhammer, Saga of the Bear, Thunderwolf Mount, Wolf Tail Talisman 270
Rune Priest - Jaws of the World Wolf, Murderous Hurricane 100

5 Wolf Guard, Combi Melta, Powerfist 215
5 Wolf Scouts, Melta 85

8 Grey Hunters, Melta, Wolf Standard 135
Rhino, Dozerblades 40

8 Grey Hunters, Melta, Wolf Standard 135
Rhino, Dozerblades 40

7 Grey Hunters, Melta, Wolf Standard 120
Rhino, Dozerblades 40

7 Grey Hunters, Melta, Wolf Standard 120
Rhino, Dozerblades 40

8 Fenrisian Wolves 64

5 Longfangs, 4 Missile Launchers 115
5 Longfangs, 4 Missile Launchers 115
5 Longfangs, 4 Missile Launchers 115

The wolfguard split and go with the wolfscouts + 4 grey hunters squad. The runepriest goes with one of the squads in their rhino, and the wolf lord treats the fenrisian wolves as ablative wounds from shooting while trucking through cover.

Some of my thoughts for chopping and changing; swapping Jaws of the World Wolf for Living Lightning.
Changing the rhinos to razorbacks, removing the wolf lord and fenrisian cavalry for more razorbacks.
Switching the runepriest for Njal Nomates, running without the wolf lord, and in 1750 points probably without the wolf scouts as well while I rock along more razorbacks (probably ~6 or 7).


While the wolf lord has been fantastic in most games, sometimes 3 wounds just isnt enough, and I wonder whether I really need to have a counter to the threats he's there to counter? Yes, with the dogs absorbing wounds he wrecks a unit of meganobs on his own, but is he ever actually going to need to do this?

Food for thought, and would love to hear others opinions.

- Charlie

Path? More Like Corridor of the Seer

Back in the day – 2006 to be precise – I had a bit of a flirtation with Craftworld Eldar. I had played a bit of Iyanden previously (and I think I was responsible for the death of more Wraithlords than Hivefleet Kraken) but for me 2006 was the Year of Ulthwe.

I put together and painted a list which I used at one tournament, Liber Animus. There, I was lucky enough to win the “Bloodthirster” award for Best General and I fell half a point short of the “Warmaster” (Best Overall) – I was pipped by White dwarf Editor Brian Cook and his beautiful Vostroyan army.

The list I used had a Seer Council in it and over time this unit has received more notoriety than just about any unit I’ve seen. I have had people swear to me that the unit was 24 strong and local hyperbole has had it breaching the 100 mark when people want to wind me up. In reality the unit was 14 strong – 3 Farseers and 11 Warlocks. The unit grew from my experience facing John Tailby’s eight man Wave Sepent-riding Council. Mine was all on foot and I loved the way they could get across the table and deal with both Mech and infantry.

However, this unit was part of an Ulthwe army. An integral part was the 60 Guardian Defenders (36 BS4 Black Guardians) that filled out my Troop choices along with two units of Pathfinders.

This is a roundabout way of me getting to my point. Bear with me I am ancient like my Farseers!

The other night I started mucking about on Army Builder building an Eldar list. I wanted to run the Seer Council again as I really like the unit and love my painted models. The interesting thing was when I got to my Troop choices. In 5th Edition the landscape has changed markedly compared to that when my Seer council last roamed free. Now the onus is on efficiency and your Troop choices are less frontline troops and more “sofa” units sitting on an objective near the back of the board or very fast units that can jump to contest/control objective on the last turn. From what I’ve seen/read/heard the 60 Guardian Defender army has gone the way of the Dodo.
When I put together my Troop choices – and remember I’m looking at making a competitive build – my choices were three units of three Eldar jetbikes (Shuriken Cannon on one) @ 76 points each and 5 Dire Avengers @ 60 points. Four Troop choices – none designed to fight – taking up the grand total of 288 points.

Paint me an old romantic but this just doesn’t feel right to me. There is no feeling of an army just a cynical exercise in rules exploitation.
And that to me is the point. I hope that when 6th Edition comes around that the rules mechanisms they include make such armies an anachronism. I think Troops should be the bedrock of any army and while I appreciate that Eldar are a dying race, I’m hoping things are so bad that the total number of Troops is most efficient at 14.

One of the things I like about 8th Edition Fantasy is that armies look like armies. There is a solid block of core and quantity is its own quality. I would love to see something that rewarded you for taking solid numbers of core in any 6th Edn 40k list.

Burn notice issued.

White Dwarf - July Issue

The July White Dwarf arrived today.

Flicked through it in ten minutes. Worst. Issue. Ever.

Seriously it is very poor. Essentially fluff piece for selling Storm of Magic products. Unless you intend getting into SoM I'd give it a wide steer.

Disappointing.

Fields of Blood 2012 - Venue Announced

The venue for the 2012 New Zealand Warhammer 40k Grand Tournament can now be confirmed. The venue was booked over the weekend and a deposit paid.

Fields of Blood will be held at Raroa Intermediate School in Johnsonville, Wellington on the weekend of 7/8 July 2012.

This venue has ample offstreet parking, is next to railway station and five minutes walk away from the Johnsonville Shopping Centre.

There you have access to the five major food groups:

McDonalds
KFC
Burger King
Subway
Hell's Pizza

For the adventurous among you there is a food court in the shopping centre that sells that wonder of the world "The Mixed Kebab", as well as a selection of Chinese and Indian food.

As per previous years there will be food available onsite for those that like their food bar-b-qued.

So Google Map Raroa Intermediate School and remember to mark your diaries now!

Product Review - Dulux Spraypak Quick Drying Spray "Flat Black"

I went into Games Workshop the other day to pick up some Chaos Black spray. Unfortunately the only salesperson was tied up on the phone so after browsing the shelves for about five minutes I left and walked around the corner to the local Bunnings (hardware store).

Over the years I’ve been pretty dubious of buying sprays from manufacturers other than GW, as I’ve always felt that they produce a good quality product fit for purpose. However, recently the price of a can has moved through $25 and I thought it might be the time to check out alternaives.

Wandering into Bunnings, I found their spraycan area (all locked up as per retail law) and started checking out the various products they had on offer. In the end I settled on a can of Dulux Spraypak Quick Dry “Flat Black” which came in 325 ml cans.

Took it home and sprayed some Mighty Empire tiles (plastic) for next weekend as well as the Sisters of Sigmar figures (metal) I got for my Empire army. The results were very good, especially on the plastics. The nozzle on the cans allowed for a more directed flow than the GW spraycan which I suspect means that you don’t use it up as quickly. The finish was very very matt which was exactly what I like. The can says it takes 20 minutes to dry which is slower than what I’ve found with GW spray but when I went back after 30 minutes everything was fine.

So I’m very happy about the quality of the product and certainly recommend it. This is especially true when you take both availability and price into consideration. Being Dulux brand you can get it locally at virtually every hardware or paint shop. This saves a special trip into GW – with attendant parking charges – just for spray paint. I have literally a dozen paint shops closer than the central city store. The second benefit, the price point, is also full of win. GW’s spray at $25 per 400 ml can works out to 6.25 cents per ml. The Dulux product retails at $10.73 per 325 ml can. This works out at 3.30 cents per ml (just under 50% cheaper).

If you go through spray as much as I do then I’m thinking you can quickly save yourself some money by subbing in Dulux. This will leave you more money to spend on actual product!

Something Wicked that way... went?

Hihi!

So a while back I posted a quick pic after putting some long fangs together. Well, I finished them, and also painted up a wolf lord, with the thunder wolf to look like one of my Siberian Huskies; Aska.

As usual, you can click the pictures to make them bigger.

Here's the wolf lord:

Front On

Side On

Reverse Side On

And the wee girl it's based off:

After that, I finished off my long fangs. I couldn't resist taking a comparative shot to the teaser shown last time:

A little group action on a wet pallet never hurt anybody...

The first squad

The second squad

The third squad

Next up I have another 2 squads of grey hunters to finish basing, and I need to photograph the 4 rhino's I finished the other day.

Keen for any feedback or comments, let me know what you think!

- Charlie

6th Edn Warhammer 40k - Sneak Peek Round 2

Again Blood of Kittens has the scoop on what is supposedly we'll see. No claims as to veracity:

Layout

Pretty crisp and clean
on odd pages there is the normal rule text with examples, on even pages there are the usual diagrams and charts, and small boxes with definitions

Lots of rules that were formerly explained within the text, are now only summarized in the text, the full rules are given in these boxes, you can read the rules text very fast without much detail, there are some boxes that have a name of a rule, but are empty otherwise. I guess that there should be page references to later pages, for example in the terrain rules, there is Torrent of Fire mentioned, the rule is explained much later (in a box), there is an empty box in the terrain section that reads Torrent of Fire however

So you have both: clear rules veterans and easy reading for first-timers
But it seems that there is not much space left for pictures, though

Fundamentals:

characteristic tests as normal,
if unit must make test, it is made by squad leader
vehicles fail every test automatically if they don’t have the value
test on ld is made with single D6 on halved value, vehicles pass these tests automatically
Majority characteristic: characteristic-value with most wounds in unit, if draw, use the higher

Horned Rat IV Campaign Weekend

Next weekend is the second of the Fantasy Campaign Weekends that I am organising. Horned Rat IV has attracted 21 players split over seven teams. Most of the players were at the first event, Runefang IV, and I’m really happy that we’ve got such a strong returning coterie.

The teams that are participating are:

Resplendent – High Elves

Stunty – Dwarves

SAD – Skaven

Squigchompas – Orcs & Goblins

R.O.Man – Empire/Brets/Wood Elves

Dark Alliance – Chaos

Slippery - Lizardmen

Points’ value for the weekend is 2000 points with 100 point sideboard (one unit) in each of Core, Special and Rare. There is very light comp as per previous posts on this blog.

Based on GW’s Mighty Empires, this time there will be extra event cards and secret strategic objectives. There will also be the opportunity for the Races to horse trade amongst themselves based on simple Good/Evil lines:

Good – Resplendent, Stunty, ROMan, Slippery

Evil – SAD, Dark Alliance, Squigchompas

Of course that doesn’t stop a race acting independently.

Hopefully we’ll get lots of interesting battles and heaps of pictures.

Review - Hoard of Bits

For me, one of the best services for wargamers is offered by a US firm Hoard of Bits.

As you’ve probably guessed these guys supply specific parts broken down from plastic GW kits. They exist on eBay and have the advantage of offering both auctions and the options to buy immediately. This allows you to pick up some very good bargains where you are after specific parts – for instance I bought 32 Tomb King archer arms and quivers delivered to New Zealand for $10 (USD 8, GBP 5). This is the equivalent of buying two boxes of TK infantry.

So there is a real opportunity to save yourself money where you only require part of the box. Remember though, it is driven by supply and demand so you the price you pay reflects desirability. In 4th Edition, Terminator Assault Cannon arms were sought after, now you find you have to pay up for power armour combi-melta arms. In Fantasy there are similar dynamics Skaven Gas Mask heads are a sought after item. However you can buy in bulk e.g. if you want Skavenslaves in shackles or Pestilens clan rats etc. It is also a great way to get the same shield for your units.

There are other bits suppliers out there but where Hoard of Bits work for me is that everything in their shop is for sale. Nothing is advertised that is not in stock. So you can check out the Buy It Now price or if you have some patience you can bid on an auction. So many of the other sites seem to work on the basis of requiring a threshold of orders across a plastic box before it is purchased and broken down. By virtue of its size that’s not the case with Hoard of Bits!

Postage is very cheap and also very quick - typically a week at most.

So strongly advise checking them out (eBay ID: hoard_*_bits).

New URL - TheFieldsofBlood.com

Today we purchased the URL www.thefieldsofblood.com

Hopefully this will make it easier to find us.

You can email Jack, Charlie and myself using name@thefieldsofblood.com