Must-Have Units

Ron at From the Warp has asked fellow bloggers for their favorite must-have units. We're not talking compulsory choices, like troops, but those units that you always find room to squeeze in, no matter the cost.

For my Space Marines, the Legio Draconis, there really isn't one choice that I *absolutely* always field, though there are a couple that I regularly stick in. One of those is the Chapter Librarian, Necronomicus.

He stands on the battlefield with his eyes closed, his jaw set like it was cut from granite. He inhales, his nostrils flaring, picking out the scents of sweat and blood. His psychic hood crackles and those marines standing nearby take a step back as they feel their hair on the backs of their necks begin to rise. Those loyal marines always feel a moment of unease at the start of the battle--it is not fear of their enemy that taunts them, nor fear of death, but fear of the unknown. For each of the hardened battle brothers know that when Necronomicus opens his eyes, when that terrible light shines forth from his mouth, that they are about to be sucked through the Warp, a place meant for no man. Each battle brother says a prayer to the god-emperor, putting his faith momentarily into the god-emperor's noble servant, this keeper of secrets, this Librarian.
Kitted out with The Avenger, Gate of Infinity, and the Epistolary upgrade, he transforms an ordinary tactical squad into a surgical instrument. I often employ a beacon-equipped drop pod to establish a spearhead against my opponent, and being able to teleport the librarian and a tactical squad to the front lines of the battle on the second turn can be crippling to my opponent. The tac squad gives the unit the numbers to take a few casualties, while the Librarian's Avenger power, backed up by a flamer in the tac squad and a hail of bolter fire, can decimate most infantry units.

As an alternate option, I sometimes give the Librarian terminator armor and embed him with a Terminator squad. In this case I will replace Gate of Infinity with Might of Ancients. The termy squad usually packs a Heavy Flamer, giving this squad a decimating pair of template weapons. The ability to boost the Librarian's strength and initiative with Might of Ancients combined with his Force Weapon turns him into a MC/IC killer.

The Librarian may not be the most effective or reliable choice in the Space Marines 'dex, but it is one of the most fun. Being able to teleport 24" per turn, escape from assaults, lay down an AP3 template, counter other psychic powers, and having a free power weapon makes him a fun choice for me and a major headache for my opponent.

Okay, okay, so it's a bit of vanity, too. My Librarian model is the nicest-looking model in my army and made First Cut at Games Day Baltimore 2008. I'm no crazy Golden Demon painter, but I think it came out pretty well, and I just like showcasing it on the tabletop. Here's a pic:

What are your must-have units?

Eldar Pics

My parents were in town this weekend and my mom is a photographer, so I got her to set up her extremely nice camera and do some photos of my WIP Eldar. Check them out!

Eldar Army - WIP Part 3

Finished up the Dire Avengers. Here's a finished pic of the group, followed by a series of stage by stage photos for the Exarch. (I can't figure out why I can't put in larger sized photos. Sorry. One day I will put up a whole gallery of images once I figure out how to take better photos and use the blog tools better.)

Started with the GW Spraygun and a pot of regal blue over black primer. Then painted on a couple more coats of regal blue to bring up the brightness a bit.

Regal blue lightened with a bit of white, built up on the armor in a couple of layers. Starting to see some of the definition in the model.

Well, maybe we missed a few photos in here. My rechargeable batteries suck. But basically, helmet, banner, and tabards were painted astronomican gray thinned and lightened up towards white. Washed with asurmen blue wash. Guns are black with two layers of gray. The top of the gun is bone washed brown and highlighted with lightened bone. Crest is pretty straighforward. Painted it with a brownish foundation paint (some fleshy color), then with my primary colors, washed, then highlighted.

The finished model. I did some more highlighting and evening up around the helmet. Highlighted the armor to add further definition. I did a freehand Dire Avengers symbol on both sides of the banner, which I'm fairly happy with (I suck at freehand). I also did a little doodle on the front of his tabard which you can't really see in this photo. His base is a bit of sand and a chunk of a wine cork. Eyes are shaded with purple.

Here's the finished gang in another shot.

Promptly started to work on the Farseer. My batteries were dead so you missed a number of steps. My primary colors here are hormagaunt purple and hawk turquoise (and bleached bone). I use the purple wash to brighten up the hues of the lightened hormagaunt purple. For the hawk turquoise, I started with orchide green base and washed darker areas with asurmen blue. I'm working on a NMM bronze for the blade. I wanted something that would look good with the model without re-using a color already on the model. My buddy shades suggested bronze, and so far I'm happy with the results. You can see the NMM effect better in the bottom two photos.

I absolutely love this model and intend to keep tinkering with it until it's looking top notch. I might take this to next year's Baltimore Games Day.

Team Games & Thorny Balance Issues

We regularly play team games - 2 players to a side, 4 players total. It adds a nice teamwork dynamic to the game, and allows more of us to get together at our buddy Shades' place. Shades has a great gaming space: a fantastic table, lots of quality terrain, and most importantly, beer. In fact, we're playing a team game this afternoon - 1500 points per team, 750 points for each player.

Early on, the decision was made that the combined army had to adhere to a single force org chart, rather than each player having to adhere. That meant that 1 player could, conceivably, take all the heavy and elite slots while the other player takes troops and HQ. Seems simple enough, right?

Not so fast! One team was running all Tau. On the other team, one player was running IG, the other Marines (me). Since I regularly use reserve units, my teammate, Aaron, decided - hey, let's use the IG Astropath so that the marines get a +1 on Reserve Rolls. This began a massive debate about what should be allowed and what should be unallowed in team games, that is, how should army-wide special abilities and game rules affect a mixed team? Should the Astropath's ability affect Space Marine allies? Can guardsmen climb into an empty Rhino? Can a lone SM Captain join a squad of guardsmen?

If all four player are playing different armies, you can make some global calls about this at the beginning of the game: everything goes, nothing goes, or pick and choose. However in our situation, we have a mixed team with a homogenous team. The all-Tau force doesn't have to consider questions like this. We can safely assume the Shades' Fire Warriors can climb into Erik's Devilfish. It would seem ridiculous to disallow this just because the players are different. Disallowing this would be the same as having a player assist you in playing your own whole army and then deciding that the models that he was controlling couldn't interact with your models in a beneficial way because they were controlled by a different player.

It seemed counterintuitive to the Tau team that SM's and Guard should be able to use each others' abilities, leadership, independent characters, or transports. And it should be pointed out that the SM+Guard team have an ability the Tau team does not have: the ability to make up for the other ones' shortcomings (not that marines have shortcomings) when building our army list. We can build a force of tough-as-nails marine infantry combined with hordes of cheap guard tanks. The question then becomes, does this strategic benefit outweight the tactical ability losses our combined teams suffer?

Here's what we went with: The Tau-team (Shades and Erik) get the army-wide and team-wide benefits of leadership, independent characters, troop transports, as well as special abilities like markerlights and such. The SM-Guard team (Shannon and Aaron), have the opportunity to build a more strategically viable army list thanks to the wider array of unit options and the ability to shore up each others' weaknesses. The SM-Guard team are denied army-wide abilities, shared leadership, trading independent characters, and shared transports.

I still don't know what is balanced, but I DO know that come end of the game, if I win, I want to know it was because I outplayed the other team. I don't want anyone, myself included, to think "if the SM hadn't gotten the astropath ability, they wouldn't have won." So we play as conservatively as possible within the accepted framework (shared force org chart), and if we win, no one can accuse us of breaking the system.

For future games, I think it is best if each team maintains its own independent force org chart. However with a smallish 1500 points per side, its difficult to field tactically viable full force org charts at only 750 points. The table winds up flooded with troops and no one has any heavy choices.

What do you think? Should mixed armies sharing a force org chart be able to share each others' tactical abilities as if they were the same army? Should team-ups contrary to the fluff be permitted (tau+SM)? Is there any way to guarantee game balance in team games?

In my experience, it is always better to decide these questions in advance of the game. Once the dice are rolling, someone is going to be left with a sour taste in their mouth as either they feel they are denied something they ought to have had, or they feel that the other player is breaking the rules. Just talk it out in advance, and if you can't come to an acceptable consensus, don't play. It's that simple.

And don't bother wishing Aaron and I luck. We shouldn't need it. BWAHAHAHA!

Eldar Army - WIP Part 2 - Dire Avengers, cont.

Here are a few more pics of my dire avengers. At this point I have gone over them with a blue lightened with astronomican gray to even out the base colors on the shoulder pads and armor plates. I went over the helmets, first with astro gray, then a wash of asurmen blue, then a gray-white blend. They'll get one or two more coats of gray lightening to white before they're done.

The crests are pretty cool. They are pretty much done - they might get a touch more highlighting. They were easy to paint too, except that I kept slopping paint up against the targeting doohickey that sits on the shoulder. Touch-up work comes later.

The guns took me longer than I expected. They had all gotten blue in the basecoating, so I went over them again in chaos black. Then I edged with a dark gray, then edged again with astronomican gray. The center strip is tallarn flesh base (to cover the black, followed by bleached bone, followed by a brown wash, followed by more bleached bone. I will probably touch it with white on the edges, just to make it pop.

All-in-all they are coming along well, and I'm getting some nice Greek-themed ideas for my Craftworld working on these. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Eldar Army List

Here is my first crack at a list for my new Eldar force. Keep in mind I have only a few models right now, so I'm sort of open on the way I take this army. Any advice - weaknesses you see or improvements you would make - I'm keen to hear.

HQ

Farseer on Jetbike (Singing Spear, Doom, Fortune)

Warlocks x5 on Jetbikes (2x singing spears, Embolden, Enhance, Destructor x3)

Farseer (Doom, Fortune, Mind War) - This Farseer rides with either Dire Avengers or Banshees

Elite

Howling Banshees x10 (Exarch, Mirrorswords)

- Wave Serpent (Shuricannon, EML)

Fire Dragons x6 (Exarch, Firepike, Tank Hunters, Crack Shot) - ride in the Falcon

Troops

Dire Avengers x10 (Exarch, Shuriken Pistol, Power Sword)

- Wave Serpent (Shuricannon, EML)

Dire Avengers x10 (Exarch, 2x Shuricats)

Dire Avengers x10 (Exarch, 2x Shuricats)

Fast Attack

None

Heavy

Falcon (EML, Spirit Stones, Holofield) - carries around the fire dragons

War Walkers x3 (all with EML)

What do you think? Is this list too unfocused? Am I at risk of having too few units on the table? I figure the walkers outflank. Even if they come in on the wrong table edge, with 48" range they should be able to do their business (6 str 8 missiles!) Between the seer council, the fire dragons, and all the missile launchers, the list shouldn't have much problem with vehicles. Horde armies, I lay down the missile launcher str 4 blast templates all over the place and break open the horde with either the seer council or the banshees backed up by a farseer to reroll wounds. If I know I'm going to be facing land raiders, I can trade out some of the EMLs for bright lances.

Space Marines - Legio Draconis, The Fluff

Here's the background and army colors for my Space Marines Chapter, Legio Draconis:

Foundation
During their long wars across the galaxy against the Orks, the Crimson Fists were driven off the world of Korrux. The 2nd Company Veterans were left unaccounted for, presumed destroyed in the fierce battles across the planet’s surface. Indeed, the veterans were caught up behind enemy lines and formed a short-lived resistance against the great beast. Between this brief, bloody struggle and the Crimson Fists’ orbital bombardments that followed, only one veteran survived – a sergeant named Aurumvorax.

Near-fatally wounded, Aurumvorax was nursed back to health by a wise hermit—a psychic outcast from the Imperial Administratum. His name, Necronomicus, was taken from an ancient tome of secrets. He now lives on this feral world in his small library in a cloister to the dragon god Bahamut. Aurumvorax became a local hero of the primitive people—a god among men, a feudal warlord in the primitive society. He took a wife—Maliha—and they bore a child, whom they named Bahamut.

The world of Korrux was threatened by primitive beasts, and Aurumvorax became a great beasthunter, protecting the populace in the name of the region’s feudal master. During one such event, Korrux took his holy bolter out to put down a terrible dragon. He failed and was slaughtered by the beast.

Bahamut grew up in the shadow of his father’s legacy, tutored in the ways of the Imperium and the sacred history of the Space Marines by Necronomicus. When he came of age, he and a band of warriors went out into the wilds, and he slew the beast with broadsword and crossbow. He reclaimed his father’s bolter, and Necronomicus determined that it was time to send him out into the galaxy. When the Crimson Fists returned to Korrux seven years later, Bahamut was a lordly master of the feudal planet.

He was taken into the Crimson Fists and impregnated with the same gene seed as his father, the same seed that was injected into the mighty leader Pedro Kantor. Within the Crimson Fists, Bahamut rose through the ranks of tactical squads, veterans, and quickly rose to the rank of Captain. Leading his own company, Bahamut crushed the Ork invasion of Morlock Prime. But all was not well within the Crimson Fists. Bahamut experimented with new combat techniques, diverging from the rigid structures of the Astartes Tactical Treatise. Other Captains were unhappy with Bahamut’s quick progress and how he was favored by Pedro Kantor. Unease was growing.

Eventually, Kantor released Bahamut from service, providing him with half a company of soldiers, a gene seed, and a variety of equipment from the Tech Priests of Mars. Bahamut returned to Korrux and founded a new chapter: Legio Draconis, the Dragon Legion.

Bahamut
Bahamut is cold, hard, and aggressive, but has powerful ethical notions about protecting humanity. He honors the Crimson Fists, though he disagrees with some of their tactics. Nevertheless, the two chapters have been known to work together on more than one occasion.