Saftey warrning and Vulkan

When using a citadel hobby knife, cut away from your fingers! I now have a nice big cut on my left thumb after trying to change the leg on a devastator. His back pack ended up splattered with real blood.

On a brighter not, I finished painting Vulkan He'stan on Christmas eve and have photo's from my new digital camera :)

Enjoy and stay safe

Why a landraider redeemer?

So many things to blog about, where to start. How about the unit at the centre of my army’s tactics my landraider redeemer?
Over the past few months I’ve seen a few people with some harsh words regarding the redeemer, saying that it’s not as good as the other variants and not worth using by comparison. So I thought I’d explain why I use a redeemer in the game rather than another landraider variant.
Fluff: My army aren’t just any old space marines; they are salamanders, the fire-born, masters or flamer and melta weapons. They are also master craftsmen and one of the original space marine legions. Ect ect. You get the idea, a landraider redeemer fits the fluff of my army, especially if there are terminators inside (and why wouldn’t there be?). But does it really matter? Technically not, but there is so much cool fluff and back story for 40k that I can’t help but play to it. There are people who have spent years of work and been paid good money to write the fluff and having that fluff based element in my army is my little way of showing my appreciation for that. (plus it’s fun, but that’s my next point). You will notice on my redeemer when I get some pics up it says “Fire anvil” on the front, this is inspired my Nick kyme’s Salamander Novel which features a redeemer called Fire Anvil. So my redeemer helps to identify my army with the 40k universe as a whole.
Fun: Contrary to what you might think form some of the cheesy power gamming blogs out there, 40k is a game and the most important thing is to have fun! Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to what is fun (Which adds diversity and variety to life), but for me one of the funest things to do in a game of 40k is woooshing out a template (with sound effects) and wounding chaos marines or necrons or ork nobz or whatever else came to close on a 2+ with no armour or cover saves allowed. This is great fun to do to 3+ save troops who normal expect a save from flamers and are shocked when 6 khorn berzerkas die in one shot (BURRRN!)

First into the breach: One of the criticisms people have of the redeemer is its lack of long rang guns compared to the TL lascannon version. This is a fair point, especially if you want to play like fritz does to great effect in annihilation missions (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlYOgYgNPBs&feature=sub ). But as fritz admits this soooooo cheesy and bordering on unsportsmanlike. Yes it work, very well, but it’s not for me. For me, the redeemer actually fits my tactics better than the other patterns. My army doesn’t need more anti tank fire I already have (at 1500pts, current list) 3 TL multimeltas, a TL melta gun, a TL lascannon and 2 krak missiles. No, I need anti infantry support for my terminators as they lead my assault. My land raider charges up the centre using the machine spirit to pop off the odd shot with the multi melta or assault cannon but with the main focus of deploying 5 terminators a Chaplin and maybe Vulkan He’stan down the assault ramp and into the heart of the enemy. This can be devastating, (it aims to break the back of the enemy while the other units get to objectives or offer support) but is not fool proof and WILL lead to retaliation. I need something there to support my charge, either softening up the target before the charge or dealing with dangerous units in position to counter attack. The redeemers is perfect for this with the multimelta, assault cannon and flamestorm cannons it can deal with any target it so chooses and AV 14 all round can soak up some of the retaliation fire (particularly if you position to act as mobile cover for the squad.) For example, in a game a few months back the terminators charged a squad of elder guardians on an objective (I know, talk about overkill). Because it is a transport the redeemer was already in the thick of the fight so lack or range wasn’t an issue, much better to have to flamers to cook a nearby squad of howling banshees in cover to spare me there retribution.

Hopefully I’ve helped to restore the redeemer’s rep and shown you how and why I use the redeemer and given you some idea’s for your army. All comments and questions will be appreciated. Will have pictures soon.

Merry Christmas

New White Dwarf

Just slid over the ice in my Corola (deliberately slidding your car in an empty car park is fun) to the only 24hour supper market in sudbury to get milk and discovered somethng amazing. The new white dwarf (Jan 2010) is out early and WOW!!! Awsome new nids. Trygons and mawlocs bursting through the gound with raveners following in there wake, warriors as troopes, sything talons allow1's to hit to be re-rolled. Can't wait for Jan 16th.

I was going to start this blog with some spacemarine tactics that I use with my salamanders, but I wanted some pics to illustrate them so that will have to wait till after Christmas when I get my new camera. Instead I’m going to start by introducing what I'm doing with tyranids.

Unless you are completely unfamiliar with warhammer 40k or you’ve been living in a cave since September, you will know that the new tyranid codex is due out on 16th of Jan 2010 and that tyranids are awesome (especially the new plastic trygon/mawloc kit). So in the new year I’ve decided to go for it and collect tyranids as my next army. There are several reason why I’m doing this. Firstly, as I said; tyranids are awesome. Secondly, they are completely different in just about every respect to my trusty spacemarines so will present a new and exciting challenge. Finaly, I already have 22 genstealers and a broodlord and not just any old genstealers and broodlord, these are the very exclusive, limited production run, unique, beautifully crafted genstealers and broodlord from the spacehulk box set. I’ve already converted 5 of the blood angle terminators and the librarian from spacehulk into salamanders for my 40k force (while still keeping them usable in spacehulk by only bluetacing them to the 40k bases) and plan to use the ‘stealers in the same way.

Why am I telling you this? Well those of you who read White Dwarf will be familiar with the tail of 4 gamers articles. I’m going to attempt something similar, writing about the whole process of collecting, painting and gaming with a new army from scratch. I’m not going to stick to the same strict guidelines and times they did in WD but over the months I’m going to blog about my new nids, looking at paint schemes, army building, tactics and battle reports and hopefully getting some feed back from you guys about what I could do differently and what looks/sounds cool.

Anyway. That’s all for today. Have a great weekend. Nid ideas and salamander tactics to come

New blog

Hey guys.
So, my first every blog..... Where to start, where to start?
I’m Will, I’m a 24 year old Warhammer 40k player in Suffolk, England and I’ve been inspired by some fellow war gamers to start a blog about my hobby. Want to start with a few shout outs to say thanks to the guys who inspired me. Auxillion (http://auxforge.blogspot.com/ ), Fritz (http://saimhann.blogspot.com) and Jawaballs (http://warhammer40kbloodangels.blogspot.com). These guys are awesome and I highly recommend there blogs and youtube channels.

So what’s this blog all about? Basically, my whole experience of the games-workshop hobby, I’m going to talk about painting, converting, tactics, battle reports and fluff. I’m hoping to make it interesting to read and be informative so you guys can get some idea’s to try out your selves and learn from my experiences (What went well and what went epically wrong). I’m also hoping to hear from you guys and learn from you to improve my gaming (and painting, and modelling ect...... ). You get my drift, generaly get the most out of the hobby and help you guys do the same

At the moment I’m collecting a space marine army, salamanders chapter, I’ve got just over 1750pts painted and I'm starting to win slightly more games with them than I lose. I’m hoping to get well over 2000pts in the end and lead them with Vulkan He’stan (Got to love a character that rewards you for playing to the fluff). I’ve also got a few orkz and 1500pts of tau but neither are painted to a standard I would like and aren’t tactically up to date with 5th ed. so I don’t tend to use them (maybe one day.....?) and in the new year I’ve got something very cool planned with tyranids, but more on that in another blog.

One final point I don’t have a camera at the moment so won’t be able to put up any pictures for now. Thankfully Christmas is less than two weeks away and I may be getting a digital camera so then you can see my army and battles ect.

Thats’ all for now, I need some sleep cos I’ve got to be in work at 8:30.
Have a good week.