So we have all heard about the new lander for the Twilight Marines, and let’s face it, wether it is the Tantalus or the Stormraven it matters little. It is going to be a nice looking space marine vehicle which considering it’s armaments is going to be very popular. Okay, so my marines can’t take them. Say hello to apocalypse and a custom datasheet for a drop pod force with landers instead of pods. Now to save up to have enough to field a force of them!

Anyone else planning on getting the new miniatures to just paint, for parts or for adding to their armies as counts as or even apocalypse only units? I am pretty much in all those camps at the moment! If the descriptions are anything to go by, I will be getting boxes to add bits to my rather huge marine collection and to add to my bits box for future conversions…

After having a read through the new space wolf codex, I am thinking of getting together an army of units that will be fun to convert and paint. Hopefully it won’t be too rubbish on the tabletop either!

My thoughts are getting a strong yet functional force broken into two parts, much like a hammer and anvil build.

Canis Wolfborn and a unit of Thunderwolf cavalry along with a unit of fenrisian wolves supported by a landspeeder squadron as an outflanking or assault element.

The other force component would be a couple of squads of grey hunters, one of wolf guard, a dread or two, a unit of long fangs and a Rune priest. Additions would be some transports for the squads or some more artillery either being more long fangs or vindicators or whirlwinds. More so whirlwinds as the vindicator might be pushing templates too close to the assault elements!

A lone wolf would be nice to use to harass the enemy or make units disengage form the main attack to deal with him.

The thunderwolf cavalry are going to be mounted on converted juggernaughts of khorne, (unless the models are out quickly) which means I get scary looking models leading the charge!

I just see this force lacking in heavy firepower, and lacking long range armor busting abilities. Perhaps it is facing guard armies that make me think of how much I need to break armor! I can see this army is going to struggle against a deathwing army, or a heavy mech list. But once in close, I don’t see it being any problem at all.

The additional options would be to include a Wolf Lord with a saga that helps to bolster the grey hunter squads whilst they fight, but I see a psychic attack option being better for the force as a whole.

Once I get a chance to write it up, I will post it (without values of course)

This is just a follow up to my last post about the cover art.

Below is the proper box art, and if you haven’t seen the quality of the miniatures from the game I have added an example below as well.

The highlight for me is the quality of the objective counter. (a dead marine slumped in a chair) This I am thinking will be making a big appearance in the golden demons this year.

Don’t you agree the quality of this box is well worth picking it up?

Just don’t refer to them as twilight marines.

After seeing a few army lists online, and seeing how many of them have one of three Chapter Master special characters, I wanted to do something different to get people using something other than one of the main three Chapter Masters.

Yes, I am looking at you Vulkan, Lysander and the Crimson Fist character.

So, to do something different, I am suggesting you simply add:

0-1 Chapter Master of Legend.
Points and choices as per the standard Chapter Master.

The only difference is that you can elect to swap the Orbital Strike with a Chapter Tactics trait.
You lose the Orbital strike, to allow access to the chapter traits list, of which you are allowed to pick one.

(I haven’t thought of values, or of exact traits, but some ideas are as follows)

Hunt the Xenos – Allows Preferred enemy (same as the previous codex)
Purge the Xenos – Allows the heavy weapon to be swapped for a flamer.
Death before Dishonour. – Cannot elect to fail any morale check or something similar
Praetors of Mars – Allows cybernetics to be selected by vet sarge’s and so on. Or terminator armour to be selected for sergeants.
Tactical Acumen – Can force the opponent into an extra turn if they so wish.
Purity above all – Allows sergeants to be upgraded to apothecaries.
Fight them tooth and nail – Allows true grit for all bolter armed marines.

Using the chapter traits as a basis from the last codex to generate choices.
What I am suggesting is that you build the options so that all the traits are in there, but the most relevant drawback is included with the chapter traits.

So the major traits would have an included drawback, and the minor traits would be stand alone.

So, you could have:
Trust in your brothers – Allows you the option for true grit or similar, but means you get one less heavy support slot.
Strike with the Emperors might – Allows you one extra heavy support slot, but the opponent can elect to run the game for one additional turn if they so wish
Hunt the xenos – Allows the army to be upgraded to have preferred enemy (choices as per old codex) but the models must be converted, with no drawback. (other than cost)
Purge the Witch – Gives a single 6+ save against psychic attack per turn, but means you cannot have any librarians, psykers allied to you, or inquisitors with psychic powers (or retinue with psychic powers) in your army. Could be an issue in Apocalypse.

Of course, this would require playtesting to get the correct rules and amounts.

Any comments further ideas?

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

I got to look through the shiny new book at the store recently (yay for previews) but the first thing I noticed was that the cover is already coming off. Not good. I think I will photocopy the rules and use them to protect my book from unnecessary flipping.

I noticed auspex were gone. shame, I really liked the cheap price and the fact it kept infiltrators well away from my squads. Hellfire rounds for characters is nice, my fave is the aux grenade launcher. That weapon would be an excellent addition to a terminator captain. In fact, I have an old termie capt. with one mounted on the back of a power fist… Perhaps some conversions of twin lightning claws and an aux grenade launcher for my captain are in order…

So there is no upgrade for sergeants to veteran as they are considered vets already. Fine. No real choice wargear wise for them is a shame.

But I do like the idea behind special characters and the fact that white dwarf may get more of them in the future to give other chapters their own special rules…. (and it makes it dead easy long term too)