A New Love - The Archon & Court

This weekend I got to play a game with my Dark Eldar army that I am working on, and I now have a unit that I think I may never go without in a regular size game. The Archon & Court. Now when I first read about the court of the Archon I was not overly impressed with all the units, and you had to take at least one of each. The Ur-Ghul's, and Sslyth's were cool, but I was not a huge fan of the Medusa and Lhamaean. Well I was wrong!

In the past I have been playing Space Marines, and using a the terminator death star unit, Land Raider, Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield Terminators, and a terminator Librarian, Quite a nasty unit with much staying and hitting power. This unit came in as a whole at about 600 points. Now for 415 points I pick up the following:

• Archon w/ Huskblade, Shadow Field, Soul Trap, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Haywire Gernades.
• 1 Lhamaean
• 2 Medusa
• 2 Ur-Ghul
• 3 Sslyth
• Raider with Flicker Field

Now over all the staying power in comparison to armor saves is nothing compared to the terminators, but this unit makes up for it in other ways, and may be nastier than the terminators over all. Here is my current list of my thoughts, and pros and cons.

• This unit is faster than the Terminators, and most units in the game, by far. The Archon has 6 attacks on the charge, the Sslyth, and Ur-Ghuls pack a ton of Str 5 attacks on the charge, and the Lhamaean & Archon attacks are poisoned (2+).
• The Sslyth's are tough 5, 2 wounds, which helps with high str weapons.
• Add a homculus to the mix and the unit starst the game with feel no pain, and rest assured more tokens are soon to follow.
• They all have fleet, which makes them really fast.
• The Medusa were a surprising plus as well, not in the CC department, but with shooting. They use a template weapon of varying str, and ap, but being a template no cover saves can be taken. I managed to wipe out a unit of marines in cover by rolling an okay str and low ap. was nice, and to top it off the Sslyth carry carbines (aasualt 3).
• Low Armour save, but the speed of the unit makes up for that, and makes me think this unit has a real chance of being my much cheaper death star unit. I wonder what this unit could do to a unit of Thunder Wolf Cavalry, or Paladin Squad? Guess I should go find out...right?

I am currently really like the unit and will continue to put them up against many units as possible, so stay tuned.

Adepticon Dark Eldar Team Table (pt.2)

Well this weekend, I went in and worked on the team table on Saturday, for a couple hours. There was a very large tournament going on where we are working on the table, and it was quite crowded, and hard to work so not very much got done. Basically I managed to get the landing pavilions platforms in place, finish the roof of the leering windows, which will be a viewing area and have several large spires coming out of them, tacked in pillars that will have a low level balcony viewing area on them, and started the base of a spire. Here are some pics to give you the idea.

In this Picture You get a general overview of the work done in two hours today. You can see the spire base on top, the other landing pavilion in place, the pillars with a temporary platform on top. I tacked that platform in place to give a frame of reference on what the completed balcony system should look like.

In this picture you get a view of the other side. Notice the ever so slopping spire base. It took me a little while to figure out how to make the cuts to get that right, good thing I have hung a fair bit of crown molding in my time.

Here is a tight close up of the spire base. The spire itself sits upon a large observation area of the arena, above the windowed viewing area; we are starting to get some height now. The spires will be for the Archons themselves. I plan to make a main spire, that goes on top of the base, rise up at least a foot, with a personal viewing area for the Archon himself on top. hopefully the spire skeleton is completely done by next week. we plan to have four in total of varying size, and one will have a very special terrain piece floating above it; it should be pretty grand.

This is a close up of the low level balcony area. No real detail, just a pic so you get the idea of what is to come.

Dark Eldar Battle Report

Over the last few months I have been working with a group of fellas that I have committed to playing in the Adepticon team tournament with in 2012. We as a team, The Chicago Kamikazes, have decided to run Dark Eldar as a whole, forming two unique teams to take part in the tournament. Over the last few months, my teammates and myself have had many discussions on what works best, and what our individual armies should look like. The basic format for an individual army on a team look like this:

• 1 HQ
• 1-3 Troop
• 0-1 Elite
• 0-1 Fast Attack
• 0-1 Heavy

There are a couple of rules that allow for certain members of the team to expand certain organization slots, but everyone has the basic guidelines. Well after much discussion and listening to many current Dark Eldar players, we came up with the following basic roster.

• 1 Sucubus w/Agoniser
• 2 5 man warrior squads w/blaster, mounted in Venom with extra splinter cannon
• 1 8 woman wych squad w/ hydra gauntlet, mounted in Raider with flicker field
• 1 3 man trueborn squad w/ two dark lances, mounted in Venom with extra splinter cannon
• 1 beast squad w/ 4 beast masters, 5 Kymeria, and 6 razorwings.
• 1 Ravager

That is roughly a thousand points. Each team member has a slightly modified list, and a couple of Hemoculus have been put in place of sucubus, but each army has that general layout. Very exciting.

This past Weekend I got to try out the list and see how it functioned for the first time, for the most part. Okay to be fair I played 1500 points so added two extra units.I replaced the sucubus with and Archon and court in raider, and a Razorwing fight. If you have looked through my blog you will find a post about the fighter versus the ravager, so I had to include it.

We played a dawn of War scenario, with kill points, and objectives being the objectives for the game. My opponent played a heavy infantry, Necron army, and won the roll to take first turn. After his deployment, I decided to not deploy any units on the table, and bring on all my units on in the first turn. I will save you the play by play of the game and just summarize it, and point out key points of the game.

• After my opponent moved the rest of his army on the table, he was set up very evenly across the board with his strongest unist in the center of the table. I moved on heavily from the his right, in an attempt to over whelm that side and sweep up the flank after.

• I deployed my Massive beast unit, and jet fighter on his left flank, to deal with two scarab swarms and a unit of warriors coming up that side, and then close on the center of the filed. I have no picture of the unit as I am in the process of building them and I used proxies for this game.
• I managed to eradicate my opponents right side with combined fire from the Venom's and Wych's. and a little help from the Archon and crew, which are quite nasty I might add, but I will cover them in a separate post.

• My Beast unit was highly effective in dealing with enemy units, on the charge I was getting 36 rending attacks from the razorwings alone, WOW!
• Massed splinter fire cannon fire just rolls through units! was very nice.
• In this game I have to give the win to the ravager in Fighter versus Ravager, as my fighter scattered its missiles horrifically of target, otherwise I think it would have been close. My ravager hit on average with two lances a turn. both units were not very effective against infantry heavy Necrons.

• The Archon unit is really nice, I killed a tomb spider in one swipe.

Adepticon Dark Eldar Team Table (pt.1)

Adepticon is a massive gaming convention, run by gamer's for gamer's. It is by far one of the coolest gaming events I have aver been to. The amount of great armies and display boards for viewing is astronomical, to say the least. One of the coolest things at this event is the 40k team tournament, which I have the great pleasure of taking part in this up coming year with "The Chicago Kamikazes", Check them out here http://chicagokamikazes.blogspot.com/, in the team event. Every year certain ambitious teams go so far as to make an eye popping display table to display their teams armies. These tables tend to be battle scenes, or something form the Warhammer 40k universe, and in most cases they will drop your jaw to the floor as you gaze upon them. Well this year the Kamikazes have decided to join the ranks of the ambitious, and as you will see, its real ambitious! We have decide to build a portion of the Dark City centered around a Gladiatorial Colosseum.

Now you may think "okay a big Colosseum", But now let me take you on an imaginary journey that the Kamikazes are trying to make a reality. Imagine a table that is only 18 inches wide, but 8 feet long. Make a 90 degree turn and add another 8 feet of table; In the certer corner of the table is a massive Colosseum, with massive viewing windows, that leer over the gladiatorial field, pits, and platforms. A massive pleasure barge has pulled in over the arena, balanced gracefully between massive spires, with powerful Archon's watching the spectacles from their loft peaks above. As you leave the Colosseum, you will pass over the landing pavilions and into the dense and dangerous dark city itself, you will quickly find yourself lost in a maze of sinister towers and buildings, and right smack in the middle of a Dark Eldar Kabal war. As you try to take shelter form the fury of battle you will find yourself moving to the subterranean levels, and even more death! You have now entered the even Darker underworld, with all of its dark minions and secrets.

Well that was mouthful! As you will see for the pictures and future updates, we are building a two level table that brings to life the story you just read. We have just begun construction but already the excitment and ideas are following, below is the concept sketch ( bare with the artist, thank you), and some photos of the progress. Enjoy!

Not he best of sketches but it works for me, to get the basics in place. As you can see it is big, and two levels.

Here you get to see the start of the Colosseum, and its leering viewing windows. We plan on painting the windows onto the foam board. In the very corner you can see a triangular hole, this area is going to have some form of beam, or rock jutting out of it to the center of the Colosseum, with two hang platforms for combatants to battle on as well.

In this photo you can see the start of the landing Pavilion, and a cut away of the wall where you see an entrance into the area under the Colosseum.

Showing off the landing pavilion with a raider docked to it.

This picture is suppose to give you as sense of the scale we are working at, and the leering feeling from the Colosseum. You can also get a glimpse of the lower level, at this time all full of drop off we may use, lol.

And finally besides myself ( who is taking the photo)here are two fellow Kamikazes that help start the skeleton, Matt and Arron. We worked for three hours and just wanted to get a skeleton up. I think we did that, we plan to work at least once a week on the project, but may get a few more days in randomly. I will keep you up dated.

Dark Eldar

With the Nova Open said and done, it is time to turn my full attention to my next big event, Adepticon 2012. This year I am being really ambitious and have joined a 40k team, " The Chicago Kamikazes"; You can check out the blog here http://chicagokamikazes.blogspot.com/. This is an eight man team, that will create two four man teams for the team tournament at Adepticon this year. I am also going to probably play in the 40k championship as well this year, in both events I plan on running Dark Eldar......

The Dark Eldar are a very different army than I am used to playing (Space Marines), but I really excited fort he challenge. I have been testing out units and list with my teammates for a couple of months now, and I think I have a basic feel for the army; Well see right.....

To kick things off I am posting up a Dark Eldar warrior test model so everyone can get a feel for the upcoming army, and as I am seeing, I need to get closer to take my pictures, but this gives you a feel.

As you can see I have gone with a green for the armor with lighter green highlights, with a yellowish gun, I use a light grey to break up the model and give it some definition. I am pretty happy with the test model, now to see how a unit looks, and do some test bases. The paint Pallet is as follows:

• Knarloc Green for armor
• Camo Green first highlight
• Rotting Flesh final highlight
• Iyanden Darksun for Gun
• Macharious Solar Orange fro the gems
• Astronomican grey for helmet and tabard
• White highlight on grey.
• Thraka Green wash on armor (60 water/ 40 wash)

So far it has been a easy paint scheme, and I have on my painting table the rest of the unit and there vehicle to finish this week. I will update when done. On top of painting my new army we as a team are also building a very elaborate display table, that's right table, to display our entire team armies on. I have to say we have just begun building the frame work of the table and it is really exciting, but I will save the details for the next post, with some good pictures as well. Stay tuned...

The Nova (recap)

What a great event! The Nova Open is a two day, eight game tournament, and It was one of the best events I have been to; ever! I have to start by pointing out, the person I was going with, and myself were in much debate whether we should make the trip, as the weekend of the tournament was also the weekend of Hurricane Irene, go figure. We decided to make the trip and could not have been happier. Hurricane Irene became a tropical storm, and was not a major issue. Now to the recap.

Here is my army on display at the Nova:

Not the best of pictures but you get the general gist of what I brought. I went four for four on the weekend. I probably could have done better but my dice failed in the end, isn't that what we all say? My list was designed as a all comers list, and that really showed in the tournament, As I did not overwhelm anyone, and vise versa. My list comprised of the following:

• Term Librarian
• 5 thunder hammer & storm termies w/ Land Raider Redeemer
• 10 man tac squad, w/ las cannon, flamer, pwr weapon, las plas Razorback.
• 10 man tac squad, w/ Missile launcher, melta gun, pwr weapon, las plas Razorback.
• 2 5 man scout squads w/ sniper rifles & a heavy bolter.
• 3 attack bikes w/ heavy bolters
• 2 attack bike w/ multi meltas
• Landspeeder typhoon w/multi melta
• 2 thunderfire Cannons
• Vindicator

Over all I was very please with the list. It was capable handling every opponent I came upon. I will save you the play by play of each game, but I played the following lists in this order.

• Blood Angles ( I lose in bottom of 6th turn)
• Dark Eldar ( I lose in bottom of 4th turn)
• Necrons ( I win in 4th turn; phase out)
• Ultramarines ( I win in bottom of 7th)
• Tryanids ( I win bottom of 6th)
• Guard ( I win bottom of 6th)
• Space Marines (I Lose. My dice hate me, lol)
• Dark Eldar ( I lose by 21 points bottom of 6th)

Everyone of my opponents was great, in fact I did not find a single poor sport in the tournament, everyone was having a great time. the organizers did a great job with prize support, and going around talking with everyone, you could tell they truly cared how all were doing.

AWC Round 4 ( Nova Prep)

Here is a quick post to get the timeline and nova prep out and rolling. I have realized while writing all my post for Nova that I need to get better with pictures, so sorry for the few and poor ones I will post up in this series of posts.

Well I did not quite get all the models I am was planning on taking to the Nova Open completed for this tournament, so I inserted Sternguard in place of three attack bikes, no worries. I was really excited to run the bulk of the army at this tournament as it was being run as a Nova prep, using the Nova primer missions. Unlike the tournaments run here in Chicago, the Nova mission have three objectives as the local tournaments do, but instead of weighting all the objectives equally, they are set in a primary, secondary, tertiary format. A change of mind set was needed, and this tournament was going to do it for me.

I wont go into massive detail about the games and the tournament in general, because my focus was to get my mind set ready to play Nova missions, and boy did I need it. I lost all of my games in the tournament, not because of the army, it actually did really well, and every game came down to the last turn; I felt really good about that. I however caught myself in each of the games playing to every objective and not the primary. I felt by the end of the tounament that I was in the right mind set,. so yea AWC 4.

I played A solid chaos army in round one, we played a kill point game , and did a lot of jockeying for position, in the end he beat me by one Kill pint at the bottom of round 6. Round two was a great game against IG. We went round and round and again the bottom of turn 6 saw me lose the game. In the third round I was I played another Space Marine player and I got crushed, I could not hurt Iron Clad Dreadnoughts. every game was great and I learned a lot about playing the missions. I do feel that if I would have played the missions better I would have won the first two games, but oh well. Off I went to finish some attach bikes and keep a close eye on a hurricane. I will post up my Nova download tomorrow.