Doug_L

-5 WC2 blessing, 18". Move target unit by 18". -6 WC2 blessing, 24". Swap target unit with the psyker's unit. Can work on allies and enemies alike. Hahahahaha - oh man, I hope those are as good as they sound! This is like Space Marine Christmas.

Sometimes it's frustrating playing as space marines and it can feel like the Eldar/Tau/Necrons flavour of the day are always a little more cost effective than your equivalents. But hot damn, GW really do spoil us when it comes to choice! I feel like a date who's only ever taken to Olive Garden, never anywhere fancy, but wow do we ever go there often...

I never got around to trying out the lists I was brainstorming above and have stuck with the 1850pt list below for another few games: Inquisitorial Detachment Inquisitor with hammer, psycannon and 3 skulls Iron Hands CAD Librarian, Level 2, Auspex (picks from telepathy or divination) 2x 5 scouts with sniper rifles 1x 3 centurions with grav-cannons, grav-amps 1x drop pod (for centurions and librarian) 2x dreadnoughts with multi-melta, heavy flamer, drop pod 2x storm talons with skyhammer, assault cannons Grey Knights Nemesis Strike Force Librarian, level 3, cuirass of sacrifice (picks from telepathy or divination) 2x 5 terminators with hammer, psycannon 1x dreadknight with psycannon, incinerator, teleporter Overall my impressions are: - It generally works well and is a fun list to play so if I change anything, I'd like to keep the feel of it. - The psychic phase is frustrating. Success on 4+ is a real pain and even though I have 10+ dice every phase with 2 psykers, I treat it like a surprise when it works. - Body count is a huge pain and I really feel every casualty. I really only have 13 infantry bodies plus characters and dreadknight. - The dreadnoughts are amazing every once in awhile but most games are knocked out early without making an impact. - The scouts have never killed anything, ever. They're good for capping objectives and generally don't die by going to ground so probably make up their points there but I have no interest in painting them either... - Vehicles can be hit or miss. I rely on assault cannon rending or close combat which requires a bit of luck but fortunately, I don't see too many vehicles around anymore. - It bounces off necrons hard. I play them the most and those guys are super frustrating! I just need a few more bodies to make it to close combat. So, with that in mind I'm thinking of going to the Wet Coast GT in Vancouver this summer and may modify it as below. I want to drop the dreadnoughts and scouts, improve the pysker abilities and improve the body count. This is what I'm thinking: Librarian Conclave 3x Librarians, Level 2, terminator armour, auspex Ravenwing 2x storm talons, skyhammer 1x speeder, multi-melta, assault cannon Grey Knights Nemesis Strike Force Brother-Captain, Level 1, cuirass of sacrifice, hammer, psycannon 4x terminators, hammer, psycannons (3), incinerator (1) 1x dreadknight with psycannon, incinerator, teleporter With no more inquisitor, I'll have to be more cautious with deep strike but honestly, I usually put the skulls in the middle of the board where they are only partially useful anyways. Every other time I've tried to be more aggressive with skull placement the opponent steals the initiative and chases them away. On the plus side, the conclave should make my psyker phase reliable and I now have 20 terminator bodies rather than 13! I lose the scouts who normally cap backfield objectives but the speeder may be able to fill the same function. It still relies heavily on assault cannons and psycannons for popping vehicles but I find rolling all those rending dice highly entertaining. I may change the brother-captain to another librarian to really overload the pysker stuff and shave some points but I think his close combat function and psycannon may be more useful. The loss of grav may hurt if I see a wraith knight but I don't think I'll be winning those games anyways! What do you think - is it a step up or a step down?

Oooh boy those new formations look awesome. I may take that Raptor Wing with my regular marines.

That more supports the other side of the argument though. The rules tell us how our psykers work so that should be considered the default case. As the Conclave rules don't really explicitly say that can't use their powers at all in the phase, of if they do say it it's rather roundabout, we should assume that it's business as usual right? Personally I can see both sides here and knowing that if someone were to cast with every librarian in the formation I probably wouldn't mind.

The beak is a classic. It was always my favourite space marine head. Not to derail your commentary on 90s cartoons, I just started thinking about heads...

I just noticed that the ITQ rules allow all Iron Hands vehicles to get IWD. Awesome!

I think you guessed it right... not every product in their line needs to maximize profit. They have hundreds of models available after all. It's very common for some to be used as exclusives or special offers to help prop up the brand in general.

That's a good comment about the all-or-nothing for reserve. With that in mind, the jet fighter just won't work as I wouldn't want to accept the risk of none of the grey knights showing up on turn 1 and forfeiting automatically... If that's the case, I'm stuck with using a storm raven in the GK detachment for anti-air firepower. It's not necessarily a bad choice, and I already have the model, but it's not as fun as a new forgeworld model . I played another game today against a new guy with Guard and it did not go well... I'm still getting used to the army so sometimes don't realize how devastating it can be for someone unprepared for it. I wiped out his army on turn 2, causing him to forfeit as the rest of his army was still in reserve. I have a big collection of models gathering dust so I will put together a more friendly, tacticals-and-rhinos list next time when I'm playing someone new! However, for the meantime my regular opponent brings hard-as-nails necrons so here's my next idea. I will swap out the space marine detachment but keep the GK detachment mostly the same. I like to plan my purchasing well ahead because it always take time to find the models from second-hand sources. Inquisitorial Detachment Inquisitor with terminator armour, psycannon, 3 skulls Grey Knight Detachment Librarian, Level 3, Terminator armour 5 Terminators, hammer, psycannon 5 Terminators, hammer, psycannon Dreadknight, teleporter, Incinerator, Psycannon Stormraven, TL Assault cannon and multi-melta Ravenwing Detachment Librarian, Level 2, Bike, Auspex, Meltabombs 5 Black Knights, melta bombs 5 Black Knights, melta bombs 3 Bikes, 2 melta guns, melta bombs 3 Bikes, 2 melta guns, melta bombs 3 Bikes, 2 grav guns It feels pretty mean to me and should take a chunk out necrons. Any thoughts? I may not even need the inquisitor anymore with all the scouting teleport beacons but he's always useful and only 89 points! However, if I drop him and the level 3 I have lots of spare points to play with. I could even consider dropping one of the bike squads on top of that and getting a second dreadknight. The stormraven is another source of extra points but most of the lists I play against often have a flyer or two. He may not be the best choice but it's fun to to shoot down other flyers.

Are there any pictures of your completed units available?

Any thoughts on the cold star suit? 60pts seems expensive but a flying tau suit with usual arsenal sounds dangerous.

I've finished my latest two models - a drop pod and the Dreadknight. I was a little shocked at how badly my blending skills have atrophied in the last ten years so I "cheated" with washes! Both models turned out okay but they're not quite what I envisioned in my head. Maybe it's time to get an airbrush... Drop pod (2 are now painted of 3 total. I just noticed now I paint the wings backwards!) Dreadknight (I enjoyed painting the sword but the rest of the model was a drag. I think in future I'll buy that airbrush for big models) Otherwise I've had about a dozen games so far and really enjoy this army. It plays just like how I feel a space marine army should; I can attack anywhere and often try to apply most of my army at couple of weak points, it's lethal at shooting with 24" and holds its own in close combat. The only downers so far is that my late game mobility is poor which has hurt in a few maelstrom missions and my AP3 shooting is weak. This especially hurts as my most common opponent are necrons; I heavily rely on the devastators, close combat and the rending cannons against them. To add some variety, I'd like to start mixing things up with a few ideas below: - I'd never bought forgeworld stuff before but there's a few that look interesting. The Sicaran tank and Deredo dreadnought are awesome models but don't really fit the drop pod theme nor do they really add much to the army as I already have lots of mid-strength AP4 shooting. How about the Storm Rapter? Anyone had any success with this guy? I could fit him into the space marine detachment in a role similar to the storm talons. His AP3 nose cannon looks pretty potent. - How about a Ravenwing detachment? I'd drop the space marines entirely and mix-n-match the Ravenwing with the Greyknights. I'm thinking the grey knight detachment will stay mostly the same, maybe buying an extra squad, but I'd then add a few units of blackknights. With scout and automatically arriving on Turn 2, they should be able to catch up no problem. They'd bring AP3 plasma talons and a huge mobility bonus for late game objectives. The only downer here is that I notice the HQ selection seems kind of broken. I'd want to take them with a librarian on bike but for whatever reason I notice the only valid HQ is Sammael...I may just take the librarian if my opponent agrees but this may be an issue for potential tournaments. To keep the anti-air firepower, I could take the Dark Angel jetfighter or take the storm raven above. Anyone had success with the jetfighter? I wasn't overly impressed with him myself and I'm leaning towards the storm raven. - Another obvious selection is changing the marines into a skyhammer detachment. Unfortunately, this looks pretty disgusting to me and I think I'd only use it if my opponent is bringing a similarly hard army. I already have lots of space marine models and could field 10x assault marines and devastators with 4x plasma cannons and 4x melta using my existing painted models. Is the grav really necessary if I have plasma cannons? The grav definitely looks better but the plasma cannons are already owned and painted...

I was very surprised this edition when they broke down power weapons into swords, axes, staves etc. and then made every other option so much more viable than the sword. +1WS would work for me - it doesn't really impact anyone else hitting you but now your odds of hitting go up dramatically against most stuff in the game but you'll suffer to wound, which should be the case.

This weekend's game was against an 1850pt Harlequin eldar army. I'm not very familiar with that book so roughly his army was: - Jetbike Seer council with roughly 10 farseers/warlocks - 3x units of harlequin close combat troops, each with a character of some sort in an open-topped fast transport - 2x units of close combat tooled jetbike troops - Crimson Death Formation The mission was Relic on Eternal War and the marines won. Some highlights were: - As usual, I wanted to go second to try to stretch out his army a bit. It makes it a bit easier to drop down and try to pick apart sections after he's moved the faster elements away. It worked very well here to isolate the seer council. My devastators and one unit of grey knights came down and killed that entire squad in the first turn. So far I've been very pleased with my army's shooting at short range. It's a lot of fun to be able to feel like you can easily control 24" blobs around the drop sites. - Despite a huge uphill battle for the eldar losing their seer council, the Crimson death formation very nearly turned it around by themselves. My storm talons were outmatched and having a low model count army was not healthy when facing that many lances. My main take away here was that aliens get all the good formations. - The dreadnoughts had a surprising utility that I'd never considered before and they were devastating using their flamers against the Harlequin transports. Because I could drop-pod right beside them, both dreadnoughts managed to hit two transports each on the turn they arrived. I was thinking of dropping the flamers to shave points but now I realize that while they're often not very useful, every once in a while that 10pt upgrade pays off huge. - I thought I would have good psyker control after the seer council got dropped but as usual, I could only get a single power off a turn and it was never the "best" power (that one would be denied). This is 3 games in a row now against no pysker defense where I've been disappointed with my inability to do anything in the phase. Maybe I felt a little short changed when I saw how many re-rolls his seer council got! In the one turn they were alive, he got off more powers than I did the entire game... The funny thing is that I always forget to use the Iron Hands chapter tactics. I have never made an IWD or FNP roll and it hasn't seemed to hurt so maybe I should swap to Ultramarines and try to find a way to get Tiburious in there. Otherwise, I'm about 50% done my dreadknight and a second drop pod so I should have pictures ready by next weekend.

You're right, I read through the necron codex and he was playing a few rules wrong for the movement and unit types. No big deal, I get them wrong too as I've only got a few 7th games so far! I still really like the concept of psykers - and I dislike the concept of close combat characters - so I will keep them in. However, after a bit of thought I may drop the camo-cloaks and the heavy flamer on one dreadnought to free up points for another psyker level. That could either bump up the GK to level 3 or give a level 1 to the inquisitor. I've also found a new games shop in the nearby town (Edmonton) so I will try to find a few new opponents this weekend. Hopefully I can play against something other than necrons for once...

I've really enjoyed my stormtalons so far - TL assault cannons with strafing run are surprisingly punchy against all sorts of targets. On the other hand, I've haven't had much luck with the assault squads. They only do well against the weakest targets and unsurprisingly don't far well against enemy assault units. I would leave the character and vet sarge out and use them solely as a cheap tarpit unit for enemy shooters or a melta bomb delivery vehicle.

Where do I find rules for the Comms Relay? The list I played against was roughly: Judicator Battallion formation (2x praetorians, 1x stalker) Annihilation Nexus formation (2x barges, 1x ark) Cannoptek Harvest formation (spyder, 8 wraiths, scarabs) Destroyer cult formation (Lord and 7-8 destroyers) Unit of 10 deathmarks (I don't know how he got these in here, I assume unbound?) I'm used to the warriors and monoliths style armies so there was a lot of new stuff here I haven't faced before. Unfortunately, it all moved 12" minimum and seemed designed to kill terminator armour so the going was a little rough... We played maelstrom and my overall strategy was to pod in one corner of the board to try to concentrate fire against a portion of his army first. I hadn't quite realized how fast his necrons could move so success was mixed. A few notable highlights: - My dreadknight didn't last long. I suspect he brought the deathmarks for a very specific reason... - The devastors and librarian pulped one squad of praetorians then got wiped by a strength 10 blast from the ark on Turn 2. I was a little dismayed at this point in the game. - However, the grey knights and an unhealthy run of sixes were saviors of the game. One squad chose not to show up until turn 4. The other squad wiped out the stalker, the deathmarks and even all 8 wraiths in close combat (force + hammer hand turned out useful). We called the game in my favour at this point (bottom of turn 4) but I suspect if we played another round they would've bagged the destroyer lord and his unit as well. - Continuing my disgusting luck, the stormtalons rended with every second assault cannon round and destroyed three vehicles and the spyder. A few other general thoughts: - The servo-skulls were not great and were too easily removed. I positioned them 24" away from his guys but on the first turn his wraiths moved 12" then ran 2D6 and the praetorians moved 12" with a D6 run and jetpack 2D6 on top of that. They were scary fast. Fortunately, I had the lone scout unit with beacon to bring in the terminators. The beacon was so handy as a back-up plan I may keep them as is rather than upgrading to sniper rifles. - The dreadnoughts were fairly invisible and one was easily glanced to death. However, it's useful having the second guy coming in reserve and he picked up a well-timed victory point. I may consider giving the second guy a long range weapon (plasma cannon or maybe just trusty assault cannon) if his utility is going to be more victory point taking rather than shooting at tanks from behind. - I'm going to keep trying psyker heavy lists but it never works out as well in reality as I think it will. With 2 level 2s and a few level 1s (the units) I usually have 9-10 dice. With those dice, I will attempt 3 spells which I will probably get 2. One of those will likely be denied (usually the one I prefer) leaving me with just one, my second choice spell. If I were to face an army with any level of psykic defense, my odds go down further. That said, force and hammerhand (plus lots of luck) won me this game so I won't complain too much. I just think another dreadknight would be a better use of the nearly 300 points I have in psykers. - I agree that maybe the camo-cloaks can be dropped. I certainly did go to ground with the scouts as soon as they were shot at and in that case, the 3+ cover save is probably "good enough." That's my only source of free points to shave off in the list if I think of something else to buy. - I wish I had formations like the necron codex... There's no useful space marine formations for the units I want to use...

My list will have 2 stormtalons because the model is very cool. Here's my most recent one - affectionately named Miss Behavin. Here's my next two grey knights - one with incinerator that I will likely not use and one with hammer. Their golds are a bit light because I ran out of tin bitz. The next few will be darker. Here's another pictures of one of the older ones showing the darker red just for reference. It's not my favourite and I will stick with the lighter red in future. I have a game tonight against necrons and will be using this list at 1850pts exactly: Inquisitor with Terminator armor, Hammer, Psycannon, 3 servo skulls GK Librarian with Level 2, Force Staff, Curiass of Sacrifice 2x Terminator squads of 5 each with Psycannon and Hammer 1x Nemesis Dreadknight with heavy Psycannon, heavy Incinerator SM Librarian with Level 2, Auspex, Force Axe Centurion Devastators squad of 3 with grav-cannons and grav-amps 1x Scouts with camo and sniper rifles 1x Scouts with bolters, teleport beacon 2x Dreadnoughts with Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer, Drop Pod (one pod with locator beacon) 1x Drop pod (for devastators) 2x Stormtalons with TL assault cannons, Missiles I haven't used a fully drop pod army before so I'm excited to give it a go, especially the devastors which I've also never used before. I'm fully expecting to thoroughly melt at least one immortal squad. The mission will probably be maelstrom so that may be a pain. The stormtalons may be used for some last minute hovering to grab objectives. He often has at least one flyer so they will be busy regardless. The marines are using Iron Hands rules for durability. I'm a bit concerned about the librarian being squishy but points are very tight. Likewise I would've wished to upgrade Psyker levels but couldn't find the room. In future, the scouts will likely all use sniper rifles (dropping the locator beacons for points) but I don't have the models yet.

I went on a buying spree this weekend to update my 4th edition army. I'm not going to complain about the prices - I think that's overdone - but Warhammer is not even close to my most expensive hobby and I was still more than a little surprised... I got the following: - 4 drop pods and a bunch of scouts off ebay. The pods I needed, the scouts were just fairly cheap. - Centurion devastators. $90 kit but it has lots of bits so I only grimaced a little. - Storm talon. $50 kit and it has lots of bits and looks cool. This one was a pretty good deal. I considered buying the hunter/stalker but it was also a $90 kit and even worse, you only get one of the models, not parts for both!! Therefore, I'm thinking the AA formation probably isn't going to happen. I was looking at the gun only on ebay and it looks like a difficult fit (much wider than the razorback gun) to the normal rhino body so I'm not sure how to make it work. Instead, I may get another stormtalon because it's a really, really cool model. I don't think I can even look at the landspeeders any more. Those are 90s moulds and are totally outclassed by the new hotness. I also read the rules for the inquisitors and wow are those servo skulls good! I agree that they will mesh really well with a drop pod army. That means I may drop the AA formation and the two MM bikes from your recommended list above and replace them with 2x stormtalons and put the dreadnought with pod back in. I think that will just about be an even swap on points. However, I did also buy a ton of scouts for the hell of it. Are they a good fit with this sort of list (snipers) or are having the extra power armour bodies in the pods preferred?

The helmeted techmarine looks good, very simple. I'm not a fan of the big Dr. Oc style from the space marine range.

This may be a super obvious question but... when you take 2-3 predators, do they form a single squadron type unit? In the entry, it says: Options: - May take up to two additional predators... 75 points - this doesn't really imply they form a unit but just that they are taken from the same heavy support slot. I will allow that it's the same wording used for Tactical marines and other units and we certainly assume they're the same unit there. The confusing part is that the wording squadron isn't used. Above that is: Killshot: Whilst this unit contains three predators, all predators in the unit have... - that certainly seems to imply they are a unit or at least are unit when 3 are chosen. I then go back and read the rulebook and it is very explicit that all vehicle units are called "squadrons." Then in the Dark Angels book, the Hammer of Caliban formation comes out and says: Might of the Lion: All vehicles in this formation must form a single Vehicle Squadron... So that's really straightforward. But what about the predators? Am I reading too much into this - are they a single vehicle squadron or are they separate units under the same heavy support slot?

Have I been doing it wrong...? I thought all the space marine formations were only usable to make up a Gladius Strike Force detachment, abiding by the core, command and auxillary rules as written. Am I allowed to simply ditch the demi-company and all its tactical marines?

I might be missing something but don't you need a marine demi-company formation along with the librarian formation to make a detachment?

Maybe as a more general question but what is the best way to make an mechanized marine list "work" in 7th edition? I assume the armoured formation with it's ignore stunned/shaken is the way to go but it doesn't seem to really gel with any of the chapters. It's too bad that Iron Hands lost IWND for vehicles. I used to have a really fun 4th/5th salamanders army. It had lots of predators, whirlwinds, vindicators but in hindsight... they weren't particularly effective. You can just can't rely on an Autocannon/Lascannon predator to put reliable wounds on anything. The vindicators were basicially guaranteed to miss the one shot per game they got. The winners of the army were all the marines with twin-linked flamers and melta guns hiding in the rhinos which were in turn, hiding behind the not-so-useful tanks. It doesn't look like those tanks have gotten much better or cheaper but in contrast, everything they're shooting at seems to be tougher and their own list now has tougher competition like centurion devastators.

Has anyone found any success with the vehicle units? I'd like to take 3 predators for the tank hunter bonus but it seems wasteful to have 3 big guns always shooting at the same target. Maybe it's more appropriate for the cheaper whirlwinds. Any thoughts?