Genswick Imperial Guard Autocannon Team Conversions

Just a little bit of work today making my Genswick Autocannon teams. I utilized SM Landspeeder Assault cannons for a Gatling-gun look. I recommend, when ever working with assault cannons for anything, using a pin vice to drill out all the barrels. It will make it look so much cooler.
These will be the only non-wheeled heavy weapons, as my mortars and lascannons will be based off Ork Kannons and Zzap Guns (plus I couldn't reasonably find Empire Cannon chassis for these).
I particularly like the guy dousing water onto the barrel of one of the guns to cool it down.

Converted Savlar Chem Dogs + Genswick Veterans and Ogryns

Well I have recently done more work on my Imperial Guard though overall production has slowed down (as actual work work consumed more time). But I do have some cool things to show you

First off, I have built some Savlar Chem Dogs to use as my Penal Legionaries for my Imperial Guard Army.

This is actually a pretty simple conversion
First of all I just used simple Cadians (mixed from heavy weapon squads and infantry squads) as the bodies and torsos. I will be adding random assortments of pouches, back packs and sacks to represent the battlefield loot acquired by the Chem dogs, but that is simple cosmetic work.
As for the heads, which give them the Chem dog feel I selected Pig Iron Productions Kolony Militia Winter Heads.

These would actually be really good for any Vahallans or Vostroyans, but since I am going to be doing a winter basing theme for my Genswick (to match my Blood Angels and Terrain), the winter heads made sense. Even the typically bare headed Chem Dogs would want something warm on their heads. Maybe I should acquire some Vahallans to put on terrain as casualties, and remove their heads and replace them with bare ones. But that is beside the point.
To do this conversion I simple took the heads and clipped off the gas filters and then drilled with a pin vice where the filters used to be.

I then took melta bombs and cut the handle away and drilled a small hole in each end. This would form the Chem Dogs Nitro-Chem Inhaler.

Once that was complete I mounted by removing the Candian collar and filling in with some Green Stuff. I then placed the Melta Bomb on back of the Cadian, as seen in one of the above pictures. It works best if one of the ridges rests on the small mounting bracket for a vox on the Cadian's back. I then took guitar string and bent it to shape to fit into each of the sockets on the face and the bomb. Really a cheap and easy way to make a very cool and characterful squad. The hardest part is getting the guitar string the right length and shape and take some practice and judgment.

Beyond that I have another Genswick veteran squad/engineer squad, armed once more with double barreled shotguns.

As well I have constructed two Ogryns.

Their Ripper guns are auto cannons with shortened barrels. The heads are from a WHFB Ogres Iron Gut kit and the rest are from a Standard Ogre Bulls kit. I hope to give the Bone Head a more "Genswick" feel to it.
With these guys I was going for a WWI tank crew helmet look as seen here.

I think the paint job will be critical in conveying this fully, but as of now it is nearly spot on.

Unit Review: Brotherhood Champion – Discordian

The Grey Knight Champion is a very odd ball choice (probably why I like it). He comes in two flavors, one being a standard HQ choice and the other as Crowe the purifier tax. It’s very important to realize that both choices serve very different rolls which I will retouch on later in this article.

Brotherhood Champion
For a cheap price you get a Borther-Captian stat line, +1 ws, -1 bs, -2 wounds, a unique set of equipment and very unique set of special rules.

Equipment wise you’ll notice he doesn’t come in terminator armor but artificer instead, this opens up the ability for sweeping advances assuming your not babysitting other terminators. It also lets him ride in light transports, which is something no other pure grey knight HQ can do (Apparently older grey knights never leave home without their security blankets). He still keeps the standard marine HQ iron halo which combined with his nemesis force sword gives him a durable 2+ armor and 3+ inv in close combat.

Weapons wise he has an already mentioned nemesis force sword and storm bolter, the sword is special in that it always re-rolls to wound. He also comes with frag, krak and psyk-out grenades. Too bad he didn’t get the option to take other grenades; this is often why he’s passed over for other utility choices.

He has a whopping 3 upgrade choices, one of which is digital weapons which in case you’re wondering is completely useless given the nature of his sword (unless you really want that storm bolter security). The other two are brain mines and psybolt, the former can have wacky fun results and the later is kind of meh. All options are really cheap but really not too useful.

Now for his special rules, the stuff that makes these guys real champions. He gives the unit he’s attached to re-rolls to hit on the charge, this can be pretty helpful when fighting other heavy assault units because grey knight have recently lost their weapon skills. He has Hammerhand, which it pretty sweet considering that means he can cast it and so can any squad he’s attached to making them str 6 or if you want allow your squad to activate their force weapons. Those last two abilities combined can make even basic strikes pretty devastating on the charge.

Now for the two rules that make this guy much more then a standard marine chaplain. Heroic sacrifice is a goofy psychic power that basically says “kill target important model with no saves allowed”. This rule alone makes him an incredible tool in close combat especially considering how cheap he is, instead of paying a super high price to put a super close combat monster in your list your putting a 100 point insurance policy against super close combat monsters. This ability was a big deal when the codex first came out but faded away because champions see very little play on the table.

The other important rule is both a great and bad ability. The good. Instead of having a normal attack line the champion can choose between 3 stances. One that lets him gain attacks equal to the number of enemies in base contact with him, one that lets you attack a monster or independent character d3 times at I 10, and the last which lets you re-roll all your saves. The bad. He doesn’t have normal attacks so you can’t just swing away at normal dudes.

Unfortunately it’s also worth noting that unlike a chaplain the champion doesn’t have the ability to make a squad he’s joined to fearless. Something I would gladly have paid more points for if he had it built into his rules.

The ways I have been successful with this guy is to attach him to any non terminator unit. Bide your time until you able to hit an important unit super hard. Following turn have him break off from his squad and run amuck in the back field killing small squads or tanking units I don’t want to deal with (I kept a Def dread locked in combat half a game by doing this). If my opponent has a special character I can’t go toe to toe with, Ill assault him and make sure that only the champion is in base contact. The attached squad focuses on the enemy attached unit while the champion keeps the character in time out, or if he gets killed attempt to sacrifice. Low point games and getting the assault is where this guy shines.

Pros: Super Tank, Anti-character, Cheap compared to other Grey Knight options, Has great potential in buffing a single squad on the table

Cons: No normal attack method, Zero army wide bonuses, Not cheap compared to Inquisitors who can get grenades, Can’t get grenades


Crowe
Has all the rules of the dudes mentioned above, but with some slight modifications. To start off he’s 50% more expensive, which is still pretty cheap. He in fact decided to be a douche and use some super demon sword instead of nemesis force sword, a demon sword that doesn’t actually do anything but hinder him. He loses the ability to have a 3+ inv in close combat and a force weapon, to gain a non power weapon and the ability to give units assaulting him re-rolls to charge and furious charge. I repeat the enemy unit charging him! Wacky right? Did I mention he is in fact not an independent character?

So here’s where he makes up for that. He has +1 Ws, In and Wound. He is the bestest swordsman whoever lived, he has the innate ability to rend on a 4+. So basically instead of having a normal power weapon he has a power weapon that always wounds on a 4+ and generally hates vehicles. He also has the added psychic power Purifying flame, this combined with the champion stance to re-roll saves makes him a super flame blasting tank, that has the potential to generate more attacks then any other single character. This can be very surprising. His last special rule makes purifiers troops. Min or max squads of these guys will make a very power force.

Pros: SUPER Tank Horde KILLER, Anti-character, Cheap compared to other Grey Knight options, Purifier as troops, Makes the most use out of Champion stances

Cons: No normal attack method, Not Independent character, Make people charging him better, have to find a way to get him places or stuck having him wait for people to come to him


The Skinny
If you for some odd reason have an open HQ slot in Grey Knight army (not easy considering the competition) I suggest giving the generic Champion a try. He adds a very unique set of utility options most people don’t expect and adds a lot of potential in making games interesting in variously different ways.

6th Edition? - Discordian

So it’s real….

No it’s not……..

Maybe it is………

So for the last week everyone and their geek mothers have been going back and forth on whether or not the leaked 6th edition codex is real.

I’m honestly not sure myself. When I first caught wind of it I spent a few hours reading through it and then the next day applying what I read to the armies I played. It was a fun distracting exercise if I do say so myself. It wasn’t full blown list building more like a simple review and application. Here is what I came up with.

Tau:

Let’s start with Tau my first army.

Rail weapons do what now? Shot through everything in a line. Yeah if that’s true it might be a reason to start playing Sniper drones and pathfinder devastator teams again.

Cover more on the 5+ side. Sweet now I can put rail rifles back into my pathfinder squads. And since Tau armies are going to be shooting lines that at worst scatters, who needs Bs bumps.

Pinning now as -1 modifiers for every wound after the first. So what you’re saying is carbines might have a reason to exist…. and maybe I shouldn’t swap out to many marker lights.

Skimmers now ignore terrain period. Tau vehicles being slow meant that you had to kind of go in straight lines to get where you needed so sometimes I’d throw on sensor splines, but this would mean I really would never have to care. PLUS Necron asshat list won’t suck.

The document has burst cannons as Assault 4. This would help make it a possible choice for my suits and make warfish one shot better. This also almost makes Stealth suits priced correctly…. almost.

Eldar:

So power weapons get a parry save. The problem is they have to be normal power weapons with no other effects, which all elder power weapons have because they are usually strapped to a STR 3 space elfs. Off the top of my head this rule will help two units Mr. Cry of the Wind and …..BANSHEES. HOLY SHIT MY BANSHEES.
Eldar tanks and jet bikes will be harder to hit the faster they move because of the whole evasion system. Most people already hate Eldar Holofields this will just make it so much worse.

Also all elder tanks can be a plane if they want to.

Warlock squad upgrades can try to cancel out psychic powers. This doesn’t change my list because I already use them. But it makes my bike squads more then just a mobile heavy flamer.

Witch Blades are not str 7 and have a goofy ability to reroll inv saves. Not a power weapon, no longer always wound on 2+, and lost str 9 versus armor. Do not want.

Grey Knights:

Almost every unit in this book now has way to nullify psychic powers, almost a nail in the coffin of me not taking librarians anymore.

Justicar with MC Swords and maybe Falchions will have a 5+ save. Groovy.

Master crafted groups of weapons reroll as a group, so paladins will be more of a pain in the ass.

Wound allocations were you have to move wounds around at the end of the phase will kind of make up for this.

Deep strike assaulting makes Grey Knights stupid because your entire army can take advantage of this, Especially Mordrak and Callidus. The only downside is I’m fairly sure you’ll loss tons to defensive fire as your opponent lights you up in your turn.

Fortitude might take a hit because of how the new damage chart works.

Landraiders will come standard with a -1 on the chart. This might change my mind about using Ravens…..Oh wait never mind Ravens be planes now with locater beacons. Think about what that means to deepstriking.

Ravens be Planes, enough said.

Im not sure how I like it. Seems like someone went way out of their way to make the most annoying choose your own adventure rule book. Also the Stratagimic system makes list building not as important becasue you can tailor your game to fight your opponet.

It seems like a very complete rule system so it might be worth taking a read if you get the chance, just don’t waste too much time. It still might be a hoax and even if it is real it’s rather rough and super full of spelling errors. Like even more then in my posts.

So what do you think?

Downloads page is down

I used Mega Upload, which has been taken off line today. I will try and get a solution figured out soon, but I do not believe I currently have all the files.

I apologize and will attempt to solve this as soon as possible.

Genswick: Veterans/Engineers and 2 Infantry Squads

So last week I finally got some green stuff here in Japan and was able to continue work on my Genswick Imperial Guard Army.

First of all here are my Veteran w/ shotguns AND/OR my DKK Engineers depending on which list I am running.

Doubled barreled shotguns just seemed the most appropriate approach for Genswick shotguns. The Meltabombs will be melta-bombs for IG lists when they have demolitions and Gas grenades when they are engineers in a DKK list. I gave them different helmets from the normal Genswick rank and file as the Tommy helmet didn't seem quite appropriate for guys in a mine.
I particularly like the "Sergeant" figure. The pick just works to me, and if you notice, on his right hip is a little bird- paint it yellow and he has a canary for mines/countermines.

Next up is some members of Platoon Command Squads.

These aren't quite done. I still need 1 officer (going to use the guy on the right here). And I need to make the melta-gunners, but I am still waiting on those bitz in the mail. So the vox is the horn, and each squad has a small horn on the waste of one of the soldiers. These larger ones just seem more appropriate for a command unit. The officer I have is the Officer of the Fleet model from the current IG range with a Brettonian helmet and holstered sword added (power weapon).

Last of all are the 2 rank and file infantry squads. Both of these are missing their special weapons and one sergeant is missing a power weapon (waiting on bitz once again). I particularly like the use of the hammer as the power weapon.

And a full army shot for fun

The only thing missing that is built is the 3 DKK Grenadiers I have done.

OH And I have seen the 6th edition "leak". I for one don't really like it (assault before shooting- because if I ran at you with a pistol and a knife, I would wait until after I hit you with the knife to shoot you), and while it seems to be "legit", there are too many flaws and general sloppiness/disorganization to it that doesn't seem right to me. Plus, with GW trying to keep a lid on everything to satisfy the makers of the Hobbit, I doubt anything close to what is real would get out. Anywho I shall be ranting on that later, and I am sure Discordian will chime in too. And point out how some small aspect of the leak shall spin into the ultimate DOOM OF THE GAME!

1500 and 2000 pt Eldar List

Camera Issues today. Tomorrow pics of Genswick.

To fill in, just 2 quick Eldar Lists I threw together to demonstrate the principles of list building to a friend. They are in no way intended to be competitive, but have some fun units he liked and explain how force org and such works.

HQ
Farseer- 105: Mind War, Fortune (attach Farseer to Storm Guardians)

Fuegan- 195 (attach to Fire Dragons)

Elites
Fire Dragons (5)- 100: Exarch w/ Firepike (embark in Falcon)

Troops
Dire Avengers (10)- 150 : Exarch w/Power Sword and Shimmer Shield, Bladestorm
Transport- Wave Serpent- 120: Eldar Missile Launcher

Storm Guardians(10+1)- 122: 2 x Flamers, Warlock w/ Embolden
Transport- Wave Serpent- 120: Eldar Missile Launcher

Guardians (10)- 80

Guardian Jetbikes (3)- 76: Shuriken Cannon

Heavy Support
Falcon- 145: Bright Lance

Reapers (5)- 175

Wraithlord- 110: 2 Flamers, Wraithsword, Shuriken Cannon

Pts: 1498
Scoring Units: 4
Kill Points: 12

TO MAKE IT A 2000 PT LIST ADD THE FOLLOWING

Elites
Harlequin Troupe (6)- 172: Troupe Master w/ Power Sword, Harlequin Kiss, 2 x Fusion Pistols, Death Jester

Troops
Wraith Guard (10)- 396 : Warlock w/ Spirit Seer and Conceal

ADD Eldar Missile Launcher to 10 man Guardian Squad- +20

Pts: 2000
Scoring Units: 5
Kill Points: 14

Terrain WIP- Giant Robots and Scratch Built Bastion

First of all thank you to Ranter McRanterson for his post this week.

As well, I managed to get a bunch more work done on Terrain and my Genswick army (post tomorrow).

Today's post is exclusively about the terrain progress though. And it features giant robots.

Like this guy. He is a Bandai, Master Grade 1/100 scale MS-06J Zaku II (Principality of Zeon Mass Productive Mobile Suit). Otherwise known as a Zaku from the popular Japanese Animated Mobile Suit Gundam series. You can get these pretty cheap here in japan (approx 2000 JPY) and you can get them at department stores like Aeon (their version of a Super Target I guess). I picked up 2 of these, but have only really experimented with building one. I went ahead and followed the instructions, which are self explanatory and have no need to be documented here. BUT I will say that a Master Grade model is awesome and very cleverly constructed. It has like a million points of articulation and was pretty fun to build and play around with. Once I was done I figured out what pose I wanted my Zaku in roughly and cut foam to fit and support it. All my terrain will ultimate be winter scape, so the little bits are actually going to be built up snow drifts.

Once I had those in place and glued down I began going to town on my Zaku to make it a wreck, blown out at the waste. A pin vice, pair of clippers and some random bits of wire did the job just fine.

I also completed my scratch built bastion first seen in this post. Really all I did to finish it was reinforce the edges with some odd Japanese epoxy and add on firing points.

Next piece of terrain is actually my least favourite and really only seems good for games of Apocalypse. It is way too large and really not that model friendly in terms of usable space.

As you can see it is a trench embedded into a hill. I added a small bunker and fire point on opposite ends. I wish I had done it slightly differently, like doing 2 firing points instead of a bunker and having an L shaped trench.

The final piece was actually built by Mrs. Gothmog. And I have to say it has a brilliant simplicity to it, and a lot better than my obscene monstrosity of a hill above. Not too large, reasonable amount of space for models to stand on and reasonable cover from multiple angles but exposed from others.

So that is all for now, but I will have a significant post on Genswick tomorrow. One Veteran Squad and Infantry Squad built this week, plus some command squad elements.

6th Mumers - Discordian

First off Sorry Mr. Flappy Mc Flapperson, I’m lazy and the other jerks didn’t do anything so I got lazier.

So there are these rumors of 6th edition hitting the streets next spring. There are also a lot of people popping up chirping in about crazy rules that will change the game. If you want to read about them I’m sure you can find one of the main 40k forum sites, they have tons of rumors threads dedicated to this. One thing that really makes me happy is the mention that upon 6th edition release errata updates will be done for each of the older books like they did in fantasy. Wow its like someone decided to do work or something.

They couldnt have fired everyone uselful

One of the big questions is how the current codexs be affected by these rules. And I’m beginning to think there are subtle hints hidden inside most of the 5th edition codexs pointing to things to come.

Deepstrike PUNCH!

Like This But Far More Effective

This is a big one. The rumor is you will be able to assault out of deepstrike, Wow. There are a couple of downsides to apparently. If your within 6 inches of a enemy you scatter 3d6, 6 to 12 inches 2d6, 12-18 inches 1d6, and outside of 18 no scatter. One of the other mentions is if you’re within 6 you always scatter using the small arrow on the hit as your direction, so it will be very dangerous to just pop up on the table and go to town on some poor fool walking in the middle of a peaceful field.

I’m beginning to think this is somewhat if not all true. I play Grey Knights and when the new codex came out I was super happy to have a new shiny book with a competent army, a break from my poor poor Tau.

One of the first things I noticed that did piss me off in the new book is that the Callidus Assassin can no longer assault the turn is shows up, instead she has this deepstrike with no scatter rule (she also lost “A Word in your Ear” dam it).

Another unit that I heard early rumors about was Mordrak and his buddies. I loved the idea of this unit simple because this guys imaginary friends are in fact a unit of Terminators. When I looked him up in the book you get this weird realization that his ghost can’t buy any gun upgrades. So they show up storm bolter some shit, they don’t even get Psybolts, and hope enough of them are left next turn or your opponent didn’t just simply drive away. They do get to deepstike without scatter first turn.

See the key phrase here there? Deepstrike without scatter. Here’s couple of other guys with similar rules.

Dante: A guy in army that already scatters only 1d6 less when deepstriking has this ability to just be placed, how he is used now is simply a safe melta gun deployment method which when you scatter only 1d6 in the rest of the army isn’t to special. Also notice how descent of angels is 1d6 less, not just 1d6, see what they did there and how it could be applied to the rumors heard.

Imotekh: The new jerk on the block has this ability to pick one unit on the table and all flayed ones deepstriking around that chosen unit don’t scatter. Doesn’t sound like much because flayed ones are terrible. No rending, no fleet, no power weapons without a babysitter, no guns, 4+ save, and cant be freakin troops like everyone hoped. Now imagine if these guys could burst out of the ground and give you a big hug. Makes them make more sense right

Marbo: really doesn’t need it because he can do something the turn he shows up. Cool story, I’ve seen him blow himself up….. it was great.

Lictors and Deathleaper: yes there rules say they can’t assault the turn they show up but that’s something that could be changed in one of the codex updates mentioned above. I bring these guys up because I only saw lictors played once and that was mostly because my friend played nine of them as a joke. Hilarious yes, effective not so much.

Kheradruakh the Decapitator: Same deal as the Lictors. Can’t assault the turn he shows up because of his personal rules, but would so make sense if he could because he is not an independent character. Also read his fluff, its awesome, he’s like making a stereo system based on human eye sockets or something. You’ll want to play him until you realize he literally does shit nothing and doesn’t even unlock Mandrakes as troops.

Caw CAW

probably going to be just as annoying

Almost every new codex has gotten giant fast skimmers. No surprise people have been guessing flyers will not be restrained to the open skies of apocalypse. One thing that really caught my eye is the new “Aerial Assault” and “Supersonic” rules mentioned both in Darkeldar and Necorns. Both these rules kind of give their respective fast skimmers plane like abilities. Generally that didn’t perk my interest too much until I read about the new Night Scythe from the Necorn Codex.

It has both of these rules but one of them doesn’t make sense. “Aerial Assault” allows the Night Scythe to fire all….. ONE of its guns if it moves 12 and under inches. It doesn’t have the option to get a second one which is making me guess that Aerial Assault will have added functions come spring.

Preferred Headshot

BOOM

I heard about the rumor of Preferred Enemy applying to shooting before the new Necorn codex. Then when destroyers showed up hating “Everything!” It kind of makes the rumor seem super plausible because these guys really don’t seem to be the touchy feely type of close combat.

 This might just be wishful thinking but imagine if this was true and it was applied to a Hive Tyrant escorting some Tyrannofexice across the board with his nifty little aura ability.

Tiered USR

Some raise your hand if you hate how everyone has felt no pain. Okay well imagine if only a few people had 4+ feel no pain and everyone else had varying versions that where either 5+ or 6+. Sound a little fairer? I do because I’m super annoyed of having to tell my fire warriors it’s not their fault.

One thing that makes me feel GW if willing to adjust the issue of spammed FNP is the introduction of the Assassins Synskin 6+ feel no pain. Super shitty for them but super awesome in pointing that there is totally the possibility of different versions of feel no pain. And for that matter different levels of other USRs like instant death, eternal warrior, stealth, etc……

Bugs with Goggles

So acute senses/night vision has been seen added army wide to both Space Wuffs and Dark Eldar. Not too odd, one is a bunch of underrepresented werewolves struggling not to become mounts of mounted cavalry. And the other is a bunch of emo elf douches who like to cut themselves in the corner and attach arms where arms shouldn’t be. Awesome fluff right, that’s one of the main reason I love this game.

Now I want to take a look at the Raveners from codex Tyranids. WTF. I hope this points to a change in the general mechanic of Acute Senses, otherwise I think GW is just screwing with us or kind of doesn’t understand the game they make.

I do Say Buzz mm'yess

So if you have a new codex and want to believe GW can write a decent rule system, take a look. Look for things that don’t make sense in the current game system. Find anything?