Deathwatch Codex

I just got the Deathwatch Codex and it was worth the decade-long wait. Certain websites that shall remain nameless have had this Codex on their "next 8-12 months" for almost that entire decade. Rumors are such garbage. 

It took GW more than a few tried to get Daemonhunters/Grey Knights/Ordo Malleus right and some could say that they still are not a well-rounded army. They have never done justice to Sisters of Battle with numerous chances and it almost seems misogynistically intentional at this point. While I can't say that this is a "home run on the first try" situation that we have here but is a darn good for a first try. 

Deathwatch is going to suffer from what every Astartes army suffers from and that is being out numbered, except Deathwatch (like Grey Knights) runs the risk of being out numbered by Astartes. All of these armies lack a cheep troops choice. There were several things that I was shocked to see didn't make it into this book that were part of 40k cannon, but I was really shocked to see Scouts missing. GW seems to have a problem moving that dated box set. They would not even have to release anything new to include them though a Deathwatch Scout arm like the one I made would be pretty awesome. 

Moving up

Posting has be little more than pictures over the last few weeks and I have a good reason. I just moved across town and had to pack up all my TMM stuff. People say that you do not know how much stuff you have until you have to move it, but I knew precisely how much stuff I had because I was always digging through it for bits. 

I kept it all boxed up since the last move across the country so packing it up was really not a problem. The hard part was the triage of deciding what to put into storage and what to keep out. The apartment we moved into is too small for me to sprawl my 40k stuff all over the place. 

I've just gotten my desk set up (pictures later) and am ready to get back into painting. The only hang up is that Borderlands 2 just dropped and that is soaking up all my painting time. It will be a few more weeks until I am tired of joy-puking my face off and can get back to painting and blogging regularly. 

Your reinforcements have arrived!

Finished - Wolf Guard got a hammer

I don't know how much play time that this guy will see but I love the model. I tried a different pattern with the Blood Claw markings and painted them horizontally. I was unsure as to how that I was going to paint the hammer but like how it came out in the end. If I had thought twice, I would have chosen a different head. I wanted my Blood Claws to all look young and wild but this gut is rocking a Chester A. Authur chops and I love it. 

Next up is a Wolf Lord. I am going to give him Storm Shield and a Frost Blade. I really wanted to use the Frost Axe bit, but with the changes to the Power Axe rules and them striking last, I am less likely to put that on my I 5 leader. 

In semi-related news, GW put out a new load of FAQs that fix the specifics on Sanguinary Guard power weapons, Dante's axe and the rest. Maybe SandWyrm will be able to stop his temper tantrums and play now. On second thought, I don't think the hobby misses him. 

Epic Post - This is not the EMBARGO you are looking for.

I am now the proud owner of GW's new starter box Dark Vengeance. Oddly, this is the first starter set not names for a place or a battle. Equally odd is that this is the first time a named Space Marine Chapter has been featured in a starter box. The last two starter boxes have ostensibly been Ultramarines but there was little detail on the minis to distinguish them from vanilla Marines.

It retails for about $100 which is friggen crazy for a starter set. No parent is going to walk in there and drop that on a child's whim and no gamer has that much to throw around on a new hobby. Bad move  IMHO from the start, GW. $50-$70 would have been a much smarter place to stay.

There is an OMG Limited Edition Pre-Order WTF that is about $10 more and you get is a pretty awesome plastic Interrogator Chaplain. Pretty good deal right? Wrong! You can only get the LE Edition from GW Direct or from your FLGS/CLGS. Unless you have a really cool FLGS that give you a loyalty discount you are really paying $25 for that one mini. Average discount on GW products is 20% because GW sells to independent retailer at 30%-50% off (I can't remember the exact figure) the retail price on the GW website. As a loyalty bonus to people that buy from the store they play in rather GW or the Internets, most stores will give you a little break.

Shooting and Assault the New Way!

As we get closer to the release of 6th, the more reliable rumors start trickling out of GW. Now, it is hard to make any sort of assumptions based on even this information but it does make the mind race.

IT HAS BEGUN!

6th Edition has dropped and the nonsense has begun. SandWyrm over at the Back 40k already came up with combinations of allies that are broken. This is before the rules have even been read. Why would you even do this? I seems like SandWrym is trying to point out what a super-bad idea this is by point out how you can abuse the rules to make the game not fun anymore and that is a good point. Unfortunately, it is impossible to make these combinations before you even know how they are made.

I wonder what this could be

I mean it is so subtle and cryptic. I am perplexed at what it could be.

Unless you are living under a rock, you know that 6th Edition of Warhammer 40k has been on the drawing boards for a while now. There have been all kinds of rumors about when and what and who that it makes me a little sick. Half are wrong and the other half are inaccurate. I see no use in speculating as to the difference or planning anything in advance. When the books hits we are all gonna buy it and then I'll see what is what.

What I find especially frustrating is that there are no repercussions for rumormongering just like there are no penalties for predicting the end of the world. Loudmouths can yell whatever they want no matter how half-baked it is and pay no price for it. a few years later they get to do it all over again and no one calls them on it.

Digital GW? I don't know about this.

It seems like a good idea right? Digital and searchable codicies and painting guides right there on my laptop? I am willing to give GW the benefit of the doubt but I already have my Codex as PDF on my phone. What could these ebooks offer above and beyond that?

This will require some more careful investigation.

New Paints - Imperial Primer

A while ago I bought some of the new paints and I have to talk about one of them.

I am flippin in love with the Technical Imperial Primer. It is exactly what GW says it is. They will tell you that it is an undercoat comparable to spray paint that can be used when conditions are not optimal for spray paint (too hot/cold or humidity over 70%) and I think that they may be underselling it. It is so much better than that.

It is a great primer. It goes on evenly and dried matte. That matte finish makes it easy to paint over because a shiny surface is slick and smooth and a matte finish is rough and porous. It covers great  and does not pool in joints or crevices. It is really magical.


What it does no do is that they say it does is cover over another color. GW says that it has a special high concentration of pigment that makes it easy to cover, but I found that regular black paint covers better. That limits its use to just being a primer and not really an undercoat over another color.

Regular black paint

Imperial primer

I prime many of my minis red because I find that painting red armor over a red undercoat is easier than using a Foundation paint over black. It preserves detail and time. The Imperial Primer went over red crappy. The picture actually makes it look like it did a better job than it did. I could have used super-watered down black paint and it would have covered better.

Regardless of its shortcomings, The Imperial Primer will always have a home on my painting bench. I currently live in a place where it rains 9 months out of the year and that means that my ability to spray paint is very limited. This stuff will give me the ability to prime bits and minis when the humidity is too high. Also, it means that I do not have to go through the hassle of priming a single bit which is notoriously a pain. Now, I can just pin it and zap it with the brush on primer and go.

I can't wait to try out some of the other new paints and see if they are as awesome as the Primer. I'll be sure to post about them too!

The best advice on painting from Andrew Taylor

There is a interview worth listening to over on the GW blog. A Golden Daemon winner talks about painting in general and it all comes down to hard work. That's how you get to Carnegie Hall after all. Nothing beats hours at the bench and trying new things. His words are the best thing I've seen in terms of painting advice to new and experienced painters. It's really kind of beautiful.

His conversion is majestic. I fully plan on doing my Attack Bikes this way when I get to it.

PuppetsWar.com Review

The crew over at BoLS have been chatting up PuppetsWar.com quite a bit lately. First it was the Necron jetbikes and the Vindicator stand in. More recently they talked the Ork plane and the Dreadnought Autocannon arms. Now, I don't know if this is more embedded sponsorship like the dull and droll Man Boy Genius and his inane Spikey Bits plugs that masquerade as content, but they are decent reviews of decent-looking products. That's right, aside from that little tear on MBG for his crappy articles and even crappier conversions, there is no hate in this post. We're gonna keep it positive. I am going to give a brief overview of some of the interesting bits and models available over at PuppetsWar.com.

Vurumai's Law

I've always wanted something named after me but never came up with something original first to have the chance to do that. Until now.

I've noticed a trend in mini wargaming that seems to extend to almost all genres and manufactures. It seems that the bigger the size of the weapon on the mini, the stronger it is in the rules.

I am not saying that I am the first person to notice this, but I may be the first to articulate it and name it. I may write it up more thoroughly later with graphs and such, but I wanted to name it before someone else gets to it.

Rumormongering. GeeDub style.

 GW has a strange relationship with their fans especially regarding their release schedule. They do not tell their fans what they are working on until it is 2 weeks from hitting the shelves. given the short memory and attention span of the average gamer, who can blame them. Promoting something that is not available for months is a waste of money when they know we're gonna buy it anyway.


When they try to stir up excitement, it is pretty weak and flaccid attempts. There was this one a while back for the Necron release. We all knew it was coming and what ti was. The mystery was wasted on everyone but perhaps the very young or the very unplugged. It was nice to know what was coming, but at the same time, it gave us nothing useful. More excitement could have been drummed up by giving us a taste of what was to come rather than having someone tell us that they smelled something in the kitchen.

Old School because I am an old fool.

When they do give us a good hard look at what is to come before it is out, I find it hard to get excited. For the 25th anniversary model, they put out a video that tried to whip up a frenzy and establish its value, but this was completely lost on me. I started 40k at the tail end of 3rd Ed and never saw the marine on the cover of Rogue Trader. It means nothing to me and thus no nostalgia. I think the cover art is lackluster but on par with the art of the time. The model does not do much for me either. I mean, it is ok but nothing spectacular. It's just as fancy as a Sternguard or Vanguard vet. It got some other people excited but just for me I was unimpressed.

That brings up to GW's latest attempt at stirring up excitement while not really telling us what we are excited about.

"OMG 145! I don't know what it is but I want to preorder one now!"

I wonder how many people would preorder a 145 if you did put it up for preorder. GW should try that one day.

I went to GW site after a long time of being away and scrolled down the What's New blog. I saw this post. I see the 145 on the cover art and click it. Que the tension music and exciting reveal of the numbers. By the end all I could think was, "...so?" The big secret that they were building up to is just a number and even that was on the cover art. Why make a video if you are going to give away your ending before it even starts. Seems pointless.

And the big super secret is not hard to figure out. Citadel shield and a paint splatter? Warlord683 put it together pretty fast over on LJ. It's paint. Big buildup and all this fanfare for them putting out new paint. Big whoop. Do they think that this kind of rumormongering is going to up their sales? Do they think that telling us that they are going sell less old paint if they tell us that they are making new paint?

Heck, I'd go and buy up all the paints I like if I knew they were going away. I'd clean them out. That would help them clear out their backstock and generate revenue. Maybe I am missing something about their model that makes it in their best interest to act this way, but it is lost on me. I am not a businessman and have a hard time understanding the reasoning of them.

Ancient Rylanor Has Been Deployed!

A perfect book.

Last night I was reading in Fulgrim and as I was drifting off to sleep I gaized longingly at the cover. On said cover, is are a few Heresy-era Marines and the towering visage of a Dreadnought. Games Workshop has never made a plastic metal or even a resin version of these Dreads. They think that this is a Dreadnought.

"Even in death, I still serve."

GW has produced other plastic and metal versions of this box on legs, but they have all been variations on this theme. Short, squat and out of scale for the Space Marines that surround them. There are articles about making both Space Marines and Dreads in a more accurate scale, but that is an awful lot of work.

This morning there wan a newsletter from Forge World. The first article was about the new release of the Contemptor pattern Dread. It was like x-mas, my birthday and the second coming of jebus all at once.

This resin model, though pricy, towers over Space Marine and walking-box Dread alike. It is a beautiful sculpt and it looks fairly poseable. The FW guys were super smart and the close-combat arm and the lascannon arm good for left or right so they only need one SKU and one bit for each. They even came up with some freaky rules for this new model.

It has a similar stat line to most Dreads with a few variations. For starters it is S7 not S6 like most. that does not really matter as it come equipped with Dreadnought CCW that double its basic Strength to a max of 10. The bonus Strength only crops up when both of its arms are destroyed and by that time, the unit is a write off anyway.

It has a WS of 5 and a Front AV of 13, traits combined from the Ironclad and Venerable Dreads. Only the Blood Angel's have something similar with the Furioso. This means that it is going to hit most things on a 3+ in close combat and that there is very little that is going to be able to stop it in hand to hand.

The Contemptor also comes with a shield that provides it with a 5+/6+ invulnerable save in shooting/close combat respectively. There are very few instances of a vehicle or a Dread having an invulnerable save. While it is nothing to be relied on, the save combined with its very high armor value should give it more than adequate survivability.

The options are all pretty standard, but the blacked out "Forbidden" lines hint at some new options to come. I hope I can hold off finishing the model long enough for Forge World to get more rules or even a new Imperial Armor book out. There are also hints that the CSM will see their own version and perhaps model in the future.

I can't wait to get one of these. Literally. I'm going down to the TMM store as soon as it opens and putting in my order. The only downside is that it is only up for pre-order now and won't be ready until the end of July. Hopefully I'll have it in 6 weeks and that's just sad.

My only other problem is how to equip it. These Dreads are always pictured with a CCW and a long range weapon, usually a lascannon. As I'll likely be using this in my Blood Angel army, I'll pick up two CCW like the Dread in the picture above.

I plan to use it as a deal closer for units that lack the heavy hitting punch. This thing in a Storm Raven accompanying a  few Assault marines, Vanguard or Death Company would be fierce. Alternatively, with its high AV, it could serve as a good distraction as it walks towards the enemy. Though, this thing belongs in close combat so that might not be such a great idea.


Edit:
Order placed. It ended up being about $80 after money conversion and sales tax. I get free shipping though but have to wait a long time. I chose two CCW. I'll have to come up with a nifty way of modeling flamers in those arms. I chose this option because, the lascannon/CCW idea, thought looking great, does not excite me much and is not very Blood Angelic. I think I'll have more fun posing it with two fists anyway.