An eclectic mix of everything that fits nowhere else including miniatures, terrain, house rules, comics, lyrics and anything that doesn’t have a home elsewhere.

Now that the new Grey Knight models are about to be released, I am tempted to pick up a couple to use with my normal marines. Of course the plan is to use the grey knights as an alternate force for my own chapter. How am I going to justify it in game terms? I am going to use the rules for grey knights to run the force as the full chapter librarium on the tabletop. This will mean that I can field them as part of my chapter during apocalypse games and they will match the look of the other models in the chapter. Well, as the librarians of my chapter anyway!

I won’t be using all the grey knight specific icons and will probably need to remove chapter specific parts of armour as well. A good paintjob, swapping chapter iconography and not using the grey knight helmets will mean that they look different enough from a regular grey knight force.

Being able to represent the chapters full librarium in this way will mean I have a significantly different force and one that can provide a wealth of choice in regards to librarians in my regular marine army. Adding the tyranid hunter icons and some tyranid type trophies will certainly make them distinct. Also the inclusion of some of the trophies collected from defeated daemonic enemies will match in with some of my current marines which have assorted trophies festooning their armour. Finally adding the tyranid hunter force symbols would round them out as members of my chapter.

The added bonus with this is my existing librarians can be revisited and given an update to help them match in with the grey knight models. It would probably only take a shoulder pad swap and possibly some additional bits and pieces from the grey knights sprues to tie them in nicely. (along with a few painted touchups of course)

And then there is the option of using the grey knight rules to run my thousand sons force, which would be a different way to run them on the table! Also I can see the GK rules being great for pre-heresy thousand sons armies. It would be much closer to their sorcerer background than the other rules I have seen. Then you also have the option of running imperial agents to represent cultists, religious fanatics, space pirates, mercenaries and rogue traders who have no qualms about who they work for.

After having a couple of friends look over my planned list, a few things cropped up. Cassius the tyranid hunting chaplain no longer gives the preferred enemy ability to units he joins, nor does he have it himself. So I may drop him in favour of a chaplain who is kitted out to join and lead my assault unit. The other thing that cropped up was that hellfire rounds only work in boltguns. They can’t be added to bolt pistols like previously, which means I may drop the hellfire rounds or add a bolter to my captain and upgrade his powersword to a relic blade. The relic blade means you don’t get the extra attack for a second close combat weapon anyway. Hellfire rounds with the captains ballistic skill would mean that he would have very high chances to hit and then wound. The only problem would be that the armour penetrating ability of the rounds are the same as a normal bolter, when you could get a plasma pistol for a fairly similar cost which is way more powerful.

After reading up a bit on the various tyranid army builds, finding a balance with heavy guns to take out massed infantry and anti-tank weapons to deal with the big bugs (or nidzilla lists) is not easy. I am lucky that I don’t face tyranid armies with the big tyrgon included, but I am sure it is only a matter of time. (the model is awesome so I can see it being purchased even if only as a centrepiece model for someones collection which sees very limited tabletop use)

Checking the space marine codex FAQ I noticed that you can buy razorbacks for full ten man units and simply attach it to one of the combat squads. Of course from the way it reads it looks like you can only buy a single razorback for the squad as a dedicated transport which will mean one combat squad gets to footslog it to keep up.

This option gives me the chance to have a five man squad with a flamer and possibly a character leading them, in a vehicle armed with a twin linked heavy weapon. Leaving me the other five man squad with a heavy weapon to help form a defensive firebase with other units in my army.

Yes, I do use the hammer and anvil tactics as my standard strategy against most enemies, but I have found against target rich armies it is sometimes better to use a ‘wall of firepower’ and stand firm whilst using the bolters of my troops to thin down enemy units till they get close and then unleash my close combat units to finish them off before using a methodical advance to seek and destroy the remaining enemy units.

Sometimes the plan goes pear shaped from the start. A lucky artillery hit or a high roll on the vehicle damage chart can mean your flank lynchpin disappears leaving you having to redeploy heavy weapons troopers to cover the shortfall in firepower. Normally I like to keep a squad or two for these instances, but I am thinking of swapping my reserve units (small squads mounted in razorbacks left at the rear of my defensive line to fill holes due to casualties or to charge forward and lead a counter attack into enemy advance forces) replacing them with possibly a bike squad or attack bike squad would give them added survivability as well as giving me the option to get them moving fast and flanking into the enemies deployment zone. I don’t like the survival odds of a unit doing this unsupported, but add in the landspeeder tornado to help it could be a handy fast moving mini force that can harass the enemy rear and hopefully take an objective in the last rounds of the game.

It does give me a sense of déjà vu talking about bike units like that as my old eldar army consisted of multiple jetbike squads supported by vypers and a couple of tanks. The army was a first strike big win / big loss build designed to specifically target a friends space marine army. If the army got first turn, it could more often than not take out the vehicles and characters in their first turn, any that survive from the retaliation are merely a bonus. Once the marines were without heavier weapons and vehicles, the eldar tanks and vypers can advance unmolested and clean up the remaining troops. If the eldar go second it is a little bit harder to get the first strike options happening. I haven’t updated the list to the latest codex, but previously you could get two meltaguns in each guardian jetbike squad and they were the best option to take out enemy armour and characters. I was tempted to update them to fly out against the new tyranids but I am more interested in just getting ready for the upcoming ‘summer of fliers’ at the moment.

The recent Armies on Parade has me thinking about refining my tournament army into a much better looking force. To be honest it has been a while since the tournament force has hit the table, as it needs a few adjustments due to the last codex release. (moving house and holidays with the kids mean tournaments took a backseat for a while as the miniatures were boxed up for the move early on.

So what do I intend to change? Well aside from a few weapon changes in some of the units, I am going to push the army up from it’s 1500 point mark to the 2000 mark. Which means some new units to be added to the force. Currently the force is my own chapter with a focus on ‘stealer hunting’ (which means lots of bolters, heavy bolters and assault cannon).

The first additional inclusion will be another tactical squad which is built to function in kill team games so will have a lot of attention and conversion done to it. This may replace one of the squads in the force already. Adding another dreadnought has been on my list for a while, and I have been looking at making a much more brutally armed version by swapping out the dreadnought fist with some sort of saw contraption built from ork dredd parts. But with fliers becoming the flavour of the month I may include a mortis pattern dread instead. That would match my army style quite well and be useful on the tabletop. Neat looking conversions are what I am wanting to add to the force. I have an old rhino waiting on a few extra pieces before it gets a coat of paint.

Mostly the army was put aside as I didn’t have time to sculpt up all the tyranid hunter sigils and trophies that I wanted to add to the army. Yes I did fall for the whole preferred enemy chapter trait from the old custom chapter codex rules. As I was facing a genestealer coven list a lot it made a lot of sense to me to go for tyranids and not the orks or eldar. These days eldar would have been a better pick to gain a bonus against the dark eldar!

I have avoided the thunder hammer and storm shield terminator squad in my tournament list as I feel that my assault squad does just as well and I can use the terminators to advance guns blazing to take and hold objectives and survive any attempts to dislodge them. With no rules for deathwatch with the latest marine books and no idea when a xenos inquisition book may be done, I am toting with the idea of swapping out the terminators for a sternguard squad (dressed as a deathwatch unit) as both the sternguard and deathwatch have similar weapons. And I like the look of the deathwatch and want to include a unit for myself.

Adding a bit more punch via another predator may help boost the longevity of the current one I have.

Which just leaves the command choices. I currently run a captain with a powersword and bolt pistol and a conversion field to keep points down and help protect my tactical units from enemy assault units by drawing in the assaulters to himself rather than the weaker tactical troops. The real powerhouse is the fully kitted chaplain with jump pack who joins the assault squad to put a big dent in enemy ground troops or to put the frighteners on enemy armour. (I have seen people move their armour away from the squad to avoid close assault by them only to pass into the fields of fire of my units and be destroyed by them instead. It is tempting to swap the captain for the ultramarines chaplain to gain some of the anti tyranid special rules he brings to the force.

You will notice a distinct lack of special characters as I was never one to rely on Marnues Cowpat or Tigurius and his rod of bullshit when they first appeared. The special character models are nice and fun to paint but I don’t see them adding much to my force. Yes it was tempting to swap around some units and heavy weapons to make full use of the special vulkan rules, or to go for a Lysander focused force but the idea of having named characters everyone else does is too much of a downside for me. Not that I don’t have enough miniatures to field such armies, I just wouldn’t enjoy it. (not to say that I don’t field a deathwing force built from my terminator units from time to time as a change against the normal opponents I face)

So if anyone has good tips on what units would look good added to a tyranid hunter force, let me know. Tips on how to add the tyranid hunter symbols would be greatly appreciated, as I am tempted to do transfers to make the symbols a bit easier to add rather than sculpting them on each model. I am less worried about on table effectiveness as I am with building a cohesive looking force that matches the theme of my chapter and can convey the hunter aspect.

As an aside I have been looking at creating an apocalypse datasheet for the tyranid hunter force, basically it will be the tournament army itself with maybe one or two special rules added to reflect the tyranid hunting aspect, anyone built their own infantry datasheets?

So after seeing the latest White Dwarf and having a couple of chats with friends we are thinking of allowing the Stormraven into our games using all the rules and points cost given in any space marine army. The discussion has been over if it should be a limited choice, like one or two maximum or if it should just be run as per the Blood Angels codex.

As an additional fast attack choice I can see my plan for a reserve force of marines and a dreadnought would make for a flexible option in reinforcing the normal gun line of tactical marines or counter attacking enemy units as they advance, or sweeping around to contest enemy held objectives or simply disrupt enemy artillery and heavy weapon units.

The problem is that I am just not that happy with the model, it looks like a slim land raider with wings bolted on and an intake slapped on the roof behind the turret. Swapping the turret for the razorback one (or landraider one) would reduce the height so I could lower the height of the intake above it.

The ability to deploy dreads like this with a supporting unit of infantry and the ability to soften up targets and knockout enemy tanks could make for a particularly useful (annoying for opponents) tactic. Having it priced in the low 200s can mean that once it has delivered the ground forces, any enemy forces it destroys helps offset it’s point cost.

I had planned on a cheap tactical squad being mounted in it with a dread, but now I am tempted to go down the assault squad path (with jump packs) as it would mean that both the dread and assault unit deepstrike together in the stormraven and the jump packs would allow the assault squad to redeploy or attack further enemy forces more easily. Upgrading the dread to be kitted for assault as well would make for a hard to beat force. But I know most forces I have played against keep their heavy artillery and heavy weapons squads near their deployment zones, so they are not the most efficient close combat troops and I can run a fairly normally armed dread with a heavy weapon and a dread close combat weapon which should be more than enough to take on anyone but the most specialised of assault units or characters.

This may seem like a crazy waste of points to some when I could just go for three vindicators with upgrades to pound enemy forces to dust. I have considered that method, but it just isn’t fun nor do I feel it is in theme for my marines. I’d go for iron warriors if I wanted to do that to be honest.

The previous reserve group I normally ran in big games was a mix of tactical and combat squads in rhinos and razorbacks, held back behind my advancing gun line of marines. Until there is a need or opportunity to push them up to engage enemy break throughs or to capitalise on openings in the enemy forces to push the reserves up to take enemy objectives or to cut off and destroy important enemy units. The plan was to drop in additional predators to roll up with the rhinos using them as cover to give a multitude of varying targets to distract the opponent from other greater threats such as a quietly manoeuvring vindicator trying to get a new firing line onto enemy units or characters.

Of course with fliers now the next flavour of the month (summer of fliers is coming up) you will see a greater need for anti aircraft solutions so it may be better to look at a couple of landspeeders than heavy artillery options. With the Imperial Guard being the only one with a dedicated anti-aircraft solution in the Hydra, here’s hoping we see the model released to aid the IG against the influx of fast moving aircraft. (I would be tempted to get one to get the weapons to use on a Mortis pattern dreadnought conversion that I have been thinking about.)

Anyone have any specific plans for changes to their current army to cope with the new additions to their opponents armies? Or do you have a plan to add in some cool new stuff to your own armies?

After hearing of the Armies On Parade via the GW blog, I have been thinking of digging out my old rogue trader space marines and dust them off and rebase them and build a display base for them. My tournament space marine force could also do with a bit of attention, as moving houses a couple of times has left a few with a couple of dings and broken pieces. Both would look great on a detailed board with some updating to reflect the very latest rules. (the older ones might even get a bit more use if they are out in a display case rather than a box in storage)

I know most people are going to have marines, they are one of the most popular choices and certainly one of the easiest to customise. My third choice would have to be my old genestealer invasion force. Yes I know it is not a proper force anymore, but a huge box of stealers, patriarch, magus and hybrids just won’t be that common. The problem will be finding a way of getting all of them to fit on the 2 by 2 board! I have been looking at an inquisitor scale genestealer or two as a counts as carnifex or tryant. That would at least help bring them into the current tyranid ruleset AND make them have a bit of a heavier punch to deal with vehicles. Adding in the additional models would at least help break up the massive swarm / wave of stealers that would be in the board.

The problem is picking a theme for the board, do I want to get my hands on some genestealers and broodlords from the space hulk range to do a hulk themed board or having them bursting out of a crashed shuttle. It is just finding the spare models on eBay or via trading forums.

Anyone planning something a bit different for their own Armies On Parade? I would love to hear about them.