Khainites

The advantage of actually sitting down and getting some painting done (spear block mostly finished now) is that I can put some thought to what's actually in my army, and what else I might need.

When I'd just started the army I was leaning towards a corsair/raiding-party idea with few if any Khainite units. The idea being that this army was concerned more with getting out there and getting rich instead of acting on behalf of anyone else. But this gives a pretty one-dimensional type of Dark Elf force, missing out a huge part of Druchii society.

Executioners

Of all the Khainite units, in fact of most of the Dark Elf range, the Executioners are the nicest models. They look utterly deadly. Although I could probably have made better use of some Black Guard the models just don't do it for me.

So I've now got 10 Executioners waiting to go into my 1500pt force. Against Shrooms' Goblins I'm not expecting huge results here; I'm not bringing many attacks, and striking last. However against tougher foes, particularly those in good armour, this unit will be a great little tin-opener. Tie up a tough unit with a mass of spears, then hit them in the flank or rear with Executioners and they should start to crumble before too long.

Cauldron of Blood

Reading up on tactics at Druchii.net puts the Cauldron of Blood pretty far up the list of awesome units. For a bit over 200 points you're getting a battle standard with multiple wounds, ward save, gives nearby units stubborness and one unit gets a nice buff. Now that I've got other Khainite units in my army (See the Executioners above) I wouldn't feel so bad taking a Cauldron. In fact, I expect the Executioners would be the ones most likely to get the buff from it, particularly the armour boost as striking last with two-handed weapons leaves them a bit vulnerable.

Witch Elves

Longer term I'm giving some thought to a decent sized block of Witch Elves to deal with large units of cheap troops. Frenzy, multiple weapons and poison attacks should carve through anything lightly armoured without too much trouble. And against something like a huge block of Goblins an attack boost from Cauldron of Blood will clear through them in no time.

Synergy

Most of what I'm thinking about here involves pretty heavy synergy between whichever units, the Cauldron, Sorceresses, etc. It's got me thinking that these types of combos may be worth a seperate blog post, so I won't go into them too much here and now. But what I will say here is that's a big thing that's changed moving from 40k to Fantasy, I'm thinking a lot more about how my units will cooperate.

Cold One Knights

I'm still thinking through how I want to set up my Cold One Knights. I've got 10 of them so far, but until I decide what I'm doing with them only five are built.

The original plan was to run a single unit of 9 Cold One Knights, a Battle Standard Bearer and a Sorceress. Or potentially 8 Knights and add a Dreadlord. The danger there is that there's a lot of points tied up in just 11 models; a good hit with a cannon, rock lobber, magic, etc. could make a real mess of things. Throwing in a magic item like Ring of Darkness would help protect from shooting, but I'm just not convinced it would be enough.

I've also considered running two units of five. This way I could have a small unit on either flank which would hopefully be able to clean up any skirmishers or bypass the enemy battle line and pick off war machines and shooty units lurking up the back. The down side here is that both units will suffer Stupidity without the Battle Standard Bearer re-roll, and the Sorceress could only accompany one of them.

Despite the vulnerabilities I'm still liking the idea of the big unit. A Battle Standard Bearer with the Hydra Banner in a unit like this is a devastating charge, and a Shadow Sorceress to debuff the enemy Strength is going to go a long way to help survivability in combat. Alternatively metal magic can boost the units ability to hit (Enchanted Blades) and survivability (Glittering Robe). And let's not forget the BSB reducing the risk of failing Stupidity, taking it from a 17% chance of failing to less than 3%! Add to all that the fact that at two ranks of five they're capable of disrupting flanks and you've got something pretty heavy-hitting to roll down one flank.

Da Boss will see you now...

So far so good. Armed with nothing more than a need for a pint and pay day I went to the GW and got myself De Slag Om Skull Pass because it was cheap (being slightly out of date and Dutch) and gave me both a small number of Gobbo's and Dwarves as I was still undecided which to play.

A check of rule books and a bit of thought later and I went back down for some fanatics aswell!

So I'm off to build my Gobbo's and maybe get some painted before I bother you with pictures.

Always strike first

I've picked up the start of my army, into Games Workshop after work (allowing myself to be delayed only by a quick pint down the pub) to spend silly money on toy soldiers.

I've now got my Dark Elf army book, battalion (28 Warriors, 20 Corsairs, 5 Cold one Knights), an extra regiment of 16 Warriors, another 5 Cold One Knights and a Reaper Bolt Thrower. I'm also waiting for my Sorceresses to show up from mail order and I can start getting this army well and truly together!

Unfortunately (from the hobby point of view, at least) I'm away on holiday for the next fortnight or so, but you'll be left in the capable hands of my co-conspirators (and maybe another blogger into the mix, with any luck) until I get back and can really grind on with my army.

Nagarythe, here we come!

Bit by the war hamster (but what army to play?)

I finally caved in and bought the Warhammer Fantasy rulebook last night from a frighteningly enthusiastic staff member at the local Games Workshop. And for the size of the book alone this thing is epic. Skimming through it I'd guess at about 1/3 rules, 1/3 storyline and 1/3 hobby/painting, so it's got a bit of everything for everyone.

I've now set myself a week to decide which army to play, after that I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and go for it. For now I'm trying to choose between Dark Elves, Chaos Warriors or Chaos Beastmen.

As we stand the Elves are in the lead slightly. Massed ranks of spears is exactly the type of awesome I'm interested in, and the presence of some worthwhile shooting ability is something I'd like too (what's not to like about repeater crossbows?). There are a few bits of Dark Elf storyline that I'm not 100% convinced by, but I expect a large amount of that is just down to unfamiliarity. And hey, any army that rides into battle on the backs of dinosaurs is pretty cool in my books.

So, hopefully by this time next week I'll have figured out what I'm doing with this and picked up my army book and battalion box to get started with. Which will mean I'll have a third army to paint. Ah well.

Dangerous war hamsters

I was in Games Workshop over the weekend picking up some paints/supplies, and was subject to the usual sales pitch about the latest awesome whatever that I absolutely have to buy. This was, of course, Warhammer Fantasy Battles which is about to move on to the new version.

Now I haven't played WHFB in about 10 years, but I have to admit I'm quite tempted. There are all sorts of reasons that I'm not going to, of course; I can't afford the time or money and already have two 40k armies in desperate need of painting. But a quick play-test with a couple of units in the store impressed me with how much quicker and more flowing the game now seems to be.

So what might end up happening is once I've got my Eldar painted up and ready to roll I might think about a small WHFB force just to scratch the fantasy itch that I seem to have picked up (yes, I just compared Warhammer to an irritating rash). Top of the ideas list at the moment is High Elves, simply for the sake of all those spears. I do like spears. But then Elves are somewhat poncy, and it might be a bit close to my Eldar for my liking. If not that, then what? I used to play Bretonnians, and they are quite a cool-looking force. I do medieval reencatment, so the idea of a mass of peasants, men-at-arms and knights does have a strong appeal.

But what all this thinking about Fantasy has made me realised is that I can remember so little of the lore surrounding it. So I may spend some time browsing places like Lexicanum getting myself read up on the back story so I can make an informed decision.

It's deep strike that swings it

I've seen a few articles on deep striking recently (From the Warp, Tech Bay Four, probably some others I've forgotten), which is a subject I've been thinking about recently.

The last couple of times I've played my Slaanesh Terminator force I've been using the Space Wolves codex. Besides simply being shiny and new the Wolves get stronger independent characters and more fun wargear/rules toys. And lets not miss out the main reason I switched to Wolves - real Cyclone missiles!

But I'm thinking of going back to a Deathwing based list. The Cyclone thing isn't too big a deal, I don't really play tournaments so I can just pay the extra point for a proper Cyclone launcher. The weaker characters are a bit of a pain, but this is Fifth Edition where troops choice swings it, and with the selection of models I've got it's about six and half a dozen between the codices.

The Deathwing have deep strike. Ok, so Space Puppies can climb into drop pods, but it's just not the same. For one thing, I don't want to go spending all that cash on a drop pod model for each squad. On top of that, teleporting is just plain cool. And let's not forget that deep strike should put me close enough to dish out some heavy flamer based pain.

Now that still leaves my Dreadnaughts and Land Raider. I could put the Dreads in pods, then either ditch the Raider or run it solo, but I'll probably be better off keeping them on the go. They'll form a solid anvil to complement my deep striking hammer. Trundle up to pin the enemy down with that lot, Dreads can screen each other and the Raider while popping smoke and that will buy me time to get into position and start zapping Terminators onto the battlefield.

So far it's all theoryhammer, and may turn out to be full of fail. Regardless, I'm pretty tempted to give it a go and find out how it works, it's not a style of play I've ever had a chance to use before so if nothing else it's a learning experience.