Army musing

Posted: 28th April 2010 by admin in Army List, General Hobby, Theoryhammer
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So, the new Blood Angels Codex has been out for awhile and I’ve managed to get in a few games. My current record with the army stands at 3 wins, 1 loss, and 0 draws. Not a bad record, if I do say so myself. It has given me something to think about, however, and when I look at the codex and take into account what some people are saying on various forums and blogs, I think I’ve come to a clear decision about how I want to play the army from here on out and I think it probably runs counter to what conventional wisdom might advise me to do.

As already seen in the 750 point army list I put together, I’ve come to a point in list building where I’ve decided that I just simply prefer running assault marines with their jump packs rather than running them without and taking the point discount to run them in transports. I’ve seen so many lists and mathhammer posts based around the idea of 5 men in a Razorback of some sort with 1 special weapon, a power fist, and a sanguinary priest being the end all be all of what the Blood Angels are capable of but it just doesn’t appeal to me. I like the idea of having mobile heavy weaponry, of course, but at the end of the day taking into account the fact that assaults squads can take melta guns, I almost feel as though lascannons, twinlinked or otherwise, have become unnecessary. At least for my own personal uses. The mobility and speed that are afforded by jump packs really just seems like it’s enough, you know? And with Feel No Pain and Furious charge almost being an army wide rule and the accuracy provided in Deep Strikes by decent of angels just make me think that static or vehicle mounted heavy weapons and mech are just a crutch when it comes to the blood angels.

At current, given my philosophy about Assault Marines and their utility my list runs a pair of 10 man assault squads, armed with 2 melta guns, an Infernus Pistol, and a Powerfist, each accompanied by a Sanguinary priest, 2 Baal Preds of the Assault Cannon variety with no sponsons, 2 Furioso Dreadnoughts with Blood Talons in drop pods, and a Librarian with slogging Honor Guard in a drop pod. It’s worked alright for me so far, but the more I think about it, the more I think I’d like to branch out. The next list I’d like to try looks like this:

Captain with a pair of Lightning Claws, Jump Pack, and Melta bombs

This provides him 5 attacks on the charge at WS6, rerolling to wound, and with a sang priest nearby he strikes at strength 5, Initiative 6, and the melta bombs let him have a chance at cracking a tank or walker.

Honor Guard with Jump Packs, one member upgraded to Blood Champion, a power sword, Lightning claw, and a power fist.

This squad, with it’s built in Sang priest that can’t be picked out, is designed to escort the Captain and smash into whatever needs a powerful assault, hopefully leveling it with the large amount of power weapon attacks it can put out- 23 total on the charge at various initiative counts -and it provides ablative wounds for the Captain. Also, since every member of the squad is equipped differently I can play the wound allocation game.

2 Sanguinary Priests with Jump packs

By this point, their purpose in the army should be fairly obvious.

2 10 x Assault Marine Squads armed with 2 Melta guns, 1 Infernus pistol, and a Power fist

2 10x Assault Marine Squads armed with 2 flamers, 1 hand flamer, and a Lightning Claw

Forming the core of the army, this set up gives me four scoring troop choices and swells my total number of boots on the table to a hefty (for marines) 48 models. Ideally, I would run them in pairs, one tank hunting squad supporting and supported by one flamer squad, each trying to stay close enough together to gain blanket coverage from one sanguinary priest. The tank hunting squads are armed to get three good melta shots and then fall into assault on the tank if necessary, the powerfist and krak grenades hopefully acting like an effective can opener, but if pressed their weapon selection should also make them capable of attacking heavy infantry in a pinch. Meanwhile, my anti infantry squads are capable of putting out three flame templates in a round of shooting, hopefully scoring a phenomenal number of free hits. This goes back to my theory of volume of fire being the real equalizer in 40k because, in the end, I don’t care how good your save is, if I make you take 20 to 30+ times in rapid succession, you will fail it eventually. Meanwhile, the lightning claw fulfills my need for a power weapon, and while I lose an attack over the power sword, it gives me the ability to reroll to wound and I think that’s really more efficient at the end of the day.

So… there it is. That’s my design philosophy going forward. I don’t know how well it’ll work for me, but on paper I think it’s going to work well. It will, of course, require extensive playtesting and that means I’ll need to work on getting the minis to actually build it.

Shopping list:

2 Boxes of Death Company, 2 boxes of vanilla assault marines, 1 (maybe 2) boxes of Sanguinary Guard for bits, and 1 (maybe 2) boxes of Command Squad, also for bits.

Not broken, just different…

Posted: 12th April 2010 by admin in Theoryhammer
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As of late, I’ve had a bit of a bone to pick with people in the 40k community and it’s stemmed mostly from the release of the newest codex, The Blood Angels. Almost as though on some sort of universally understood cue, those people whom espouse the existence of codex creep emerged from the wood work with both immediacy and fervor the likes of which I could scarcely believe, holding up the new book as the prime example of Games Workshop constantly pushing the power level up, making each codex stronger than the last in some never ending treadmill of escalation the likes of which has not been seen since the Cold War’s nuclear arms race and frankly… I believe it’s bunk. Personal beliefs about codex creep and it’s existence aside (cough it doesn’t cough cough) however, I would like to address some of the things that I’ve been seeing people talking about and attempt to explain why I believe the Codex is not broken, going through several specific points in no particular order:

  • Rhino Chassis Vehicles Are Fast: I’ve seen numerous people making a big deal out of the fact that all Rhinos and other vehicles based off the stock Rhino frame in the Blood Angels codex are fast. “Imagine the power of the vindicator,” they’ll say, “when it can have a 36″ threat range with it’s demolisher cannon” or “Razorbacks can still move 12″ and fire their twinlinked guns! That’s broken!” but these arguments hold little water for me because what it seems these complaints ignore is the fact that we Blood Angels players are paying for what we get. All Blood Angels dedicated transports based on the Rhino frame (Razorback and Rhino) cost a full 15 points more. Our vindicator costs 30 points more. It’s not as though we’re getting the benefit of a fast vehicle for nothing (if we did THEN and only then would I agree it’s broken), we are paying for it! And while I’m on this topic, people also like to complain about the fact that the Baal Predator has scout. Well… just so you know, we pay 115 points for that Scouting Predator with an assault cannon and no sponsons. 115! Last I checked, a vanilla predator costs 60 points with no sponsons and no upgrades. I think we can see that point cost is of great effect here. It might not seem a lot at first glance but realize, small amounts of points add up across a whole army list, and more specifically, you could get nearly 2 tanks for the cost of 1 of my scouting ones.
  • Land Raiders Deepstrike! OMG!: Now this… this is a point people bring up that makes me absolutely die of laughter and I tend to think that anyone who actually uses this as a serious argument has not read the codex or has been sadly misinformed. Allow me to illuminate why this is: Units that deep strike via land raider cannot assault the turn that they arrive. Take a moment to absorb that. Reread it if you have to. Now lets address what that means. The earliest that your land raider can arrive from deepstrike is on turn 2. Yes you get to put it where you want it, and yes you can use Power of the Machine spirit to fire one of the guns, but this also pushes back your assault a full turn. Under normal circumstances a Land Raider will move 12″ on turn one, then move as far as it needs to allow it’s payload to debark 2″ then assault 6″. This is the way the tank is meant to function and it allows for a second turn assault. By deepstriking the Land Raider, yes you save the possibility of having your giant plastic paper weight blown up on the first turn, but you lose your second turn assault and beyond that… it just pushes off the inevitable. I tend to believe that if your Land Raider would have been destroyed on turn one, it will just get destroyed on turn 2 during your opponent’s shooting phase, likely now close enough that the cargo inside might be in serious risk from enemy shooting. And all of this completely discounts how much you are bound to lose if you suffer a deepstrike mishap…
  • Assault Marines as Troops: I’m not really sure why this is such a big deal, really, but I’ve seen some people call it a broken aspect of the codex. I wholeheartedly have to disagree and I will use math to support my stance. Consider if you will the Space Marine tactical squad, troop of choice for vanilla marines. 10 men with two special weapons mounted in a rhino comes in a point cost of 205 points. This unit will be able to move forward 12″ in it’s little metal box for protection and though it can’t assault out of the vehicle it has mobility and an extra layer of defense. Now for the Blood Angels assault squad? 10 men with no special weapons what so ever costs 190 points, and what’s more, if you mount them in a Rhino using the Assault Squad discount you still wind up 205 points and you also lose your assault advantage and the ability of tactical marines to rapid fire or take 24″ shots. What I will grant people, though, is that yes, our Assault Squads do have better special weapon options (such as melta and plasma guns) and yes, our flamers are 5 points cheaper, but our Storm Shields for our sergeants (should we wish to take them) are more expensive and none of the upgrades for the unit are free and the expanded choice of special weapons is both to allow the squad to function properly as troops and and also to make up for the fact that the squad cannot take heavy weapons. Just keep in mind that a vanilla tactical squad with a melta gun, multimelta, power fist, and a Rhino comes in 235 points while a kitted tank hunting assault squad with 2 meltas, an Infernus pistol and a power fist costs me 250 points and I won’t have a 24″ melta. I’ll only have 2 12″ meltas and one that’s only 6″. It’s a bit harder to get that half range for the melta effect, eh?
  • The Stormraven: Ah the Stormraven. Everybody loves to hate on new things. I’ll come right out and say it: Suck it up. I’m sorry your favorite vanilla chapter doesn’t have it and I’m sorry the Space Wolves don’t have it, but you don’t. And beyond that, it really does fit the Blood Angels fluff better in my opinion and it’s really not as good as people seem to think it is, at least not in my opinion. Yes, it can carry 12 models (6 if they have Jump Packs) and yes it’s an assault vehicle and yes it also gets to carry a dreadnought in addition to the troops inside but what it is not is a flying land raider. I don’t know where this rumor arose from the Stormraven gunship does not have armor 14 and it is not invincible. Yes, it’s a fast skimmer with power of the machine spirit so it can burn across the table 24″ and still fire a gun but it’s only armor 12. It’s much easier to take down with more conventional long range weapons like lascannons than a land raider is, even with the cover save and though it has good weapon choices it can’t possibly use all of them, at least not in the opening moves of the game when it’s doing it’s transport duty and once it’s pulled back to adopt it’s secondary gunship role it won’t be moving nearly as far which should, I’d think, make it easier to destroy. Something to also consider is the fact that as a unit, this vehicle costs 200 points before any sort of upgrades are applied to it. It’s a good unit at a good price, yes, but it’s not nearly so cheap that I would consider it broken and you certainly can’t spam them if hope to /also/ fill them with the kit that they’re capable of carrying and the troops they allowed to transport.
  • Point about something related to dreadnoughts here: There are a lot of things about Blood Angels dreadnoughts people seem to take exception to but I’m just going to roll them all into one category and address them all at once. The two most common things I see or hear people talking about are Librarian Furioso dreadnoughts and blood talons. To begin with, I will address the Librarian first. Yes, it’s a Librarian that is a vehicle with an AV13 front face, and yes it can take a psychic power that allows it to move 12″ as though it had a jump pack but it’s still a vehicle. What this means is that weapons designed to destroy vehicles will still destroy it quite well, especially if you’re able to hit it from the sides or the rear and it should also be noted that if the dreadnought opts to use Wings to move 12″ it can’t use it’s other powers (likely Blood Lance) in the same turn, leaving it with only it’s DCCW or it’s Force Weapon and it’s 3 attacks to deal with whatever it might engage in combat (yes it still has a storm bolter, but are you really afraid of that?). Also, I should like to point out that if the dread should suffer Perils of the Warp, it immediately takes a glancing hit and that means, last I checked, every time you fire off a psychic power, you have the chance to immobilize yourself and with that said, I’ll move onto blood talons. Yes, they are dreadnought sized lightning claws and yes the dreadnought is strength six and hell, I’ll even grant you that the fact it can (in theory) generate infinite attacks is kinda cheesy but hey… here’s an idea: Don’t let it assault you! Again, it’s still a vehicle, and if it’s carrying two blood talons it got no goes so it’s going to have to get to you. If you kill it first, it can’t kill you! And I know, I know, some people will point out drop pods, but guess what! There’s a whole turn there where it still can’t assault you. It’ll get to shoot it’s little guns, but it’s still gonna stand there and get shot so take the initiative. Try to kill it rather than calling it broken.
  • Sanguinary Priests: I know, I know… if anything in the codex /might/ be considered broken, it’s these guys, what with the fact that they hand out feel no pain and furious charge like candy, but I’m going to go ahead and throw them into the not broken pile and I’ll tell you why. Volume of fire. Yes, I know, a space marine with his 3+ armor save and then the 4+ FNP might look intimidating, but honestly… I don’t really see it that way. It’s a great way to improve the survivability of a unit but given enough fire directed at a single target probability dictates that you will eventually kill what you’re shooting at. Especially if we were talking about something like say… a squad of lootas, theoretically able to direct 45 shots at the squad in question. And what about in assault? Well… if you can… try to isolate the priest and kill it if you can. It’s still an independent character and once he’s gone things should get much easier to deal with.

Well, there you have it. All the reasons I don’t think the Blood Angels are broken. They’re certainly a different army, you know, but that doesn’t make them imbalanced or over powered. What it means is that you have to think a little harder, learn the good strategies and figure out what you can exploit. The army is likely to be one with a small unit count, what with things costing more, and a Blood Angels player is likely to lean more towards the elite cadre set up than any of the other marine players. To me… it’s no different than fighting against the death wing, just a little bit faster. Remember what strategies worked then and adapt them to the new scenario. You’ll be fine and you should ultimately realize that the codex isn’t as bad as you think.

Of Tournaments and Army Lists

Posted: 8th April 2010 by admin in Army List
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So, news of a tournament coming up in the near future has filtered back to me and I find myself hard pressed to resist. I know I’ve said in the past that I’m not much of a tournament player and I’m really not but one of my fellow players was doing his level best to encourage me and I admit that the format of the event sounds fun. It’s a 750 point tournament, most if not all of the games being special scenarios which have not yet been announced. These games are to be played on 4×4 tables and it’s promised that the tables will be cluttered with lots of terrain. It just sounds like an interesting event and something I think I might like to participate in. Of course… given the low point value, I have to decide what I’d run should I enter such an event so…

Well… here’s what I’m thinking. I figure it speaks for itself.

HQ

Librarian w/ Jump Pack

Elites

2 Sanguinary Priests w/ Jump Packs

Troops

10 man Assault Squad w/ 2 Meltas, Infernus Pistol, and Power Fist

10 man Assault Squad w/ 2 Flamers, Hand Flamer, and Lightning Claw

The above list comes in right at 750 points and it has a decent amount of both vehicle and infantry killing ability as well as a decent sized model count. I could probably get more into the list if I ran tactical marines I’m sure but… it just doesn’t fit my playstyle. That and I’d want to put them in Rhinos and I honestly just don’t have any to use. I know, I know, that makes a terrible marine player but it’s just the way that it is. The only that really becomes an issue at this point is that I’m not sure what psyker powers to run. I’m rather partial to The Blood Lance and I think that may well be one of them but for the second there are just so many choices. I could choose Unleash Rage to get a squad Preferred enemy, which might be nice, or I could take Shield of Sanguinius to give the whole army a rolling 5+ cover save (though with the promise of dense terrain I wonder if that’s needed). Meanwhile there are also powers like Sanguine Sword to turn the Librarian into a S10 beast or Might of Heroes to give my power fist guy +d3 attacks… Heck, I could even see a case for Fear of Darkness or Shackle soul in this case… so many choices…

I need test games, obviously.

Meta-what?

Posted: 6th April 2010 by admin in Theoryhammer
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Meta game.

For some players, the idea of meta game is considered a dirty word. I’ve seen it a million times in the past on various forums and heard about it in pod casts. People seem to believe that there’s no such thing as a meta game. I, however, am a person who wholeheartedly disagrees with this claim. Nothing, not a man, not a game, not even a 40k army exists entirely in a vacuum (try as you might) and it is primarily for that reason that I feel if you’ve ever played the game with a hope to win you’ve given some consideration to this concept (whether you named it such or not).

To begin with, many people who’ve got some amount of competitive spirit in them have taken a look around at what’s big in tournaments and thought “Alright, now how would I beat that?”. “But wait!” you might cry, “I’ve never once been to a tournament and I’ve never wanted to play in one or play the way those people do!” Well, congratulations, you’re officially like me but that does not exempt you from meta game. If you have the desire to compete then I’ll bet you’ve looked at the people you play regularly against, those generals who stand across the table from you fussing with their dice and moving their own collection of plastic men about that you call your friends and you’ve thought to yourself “Alright, now how would I beat them?”. Those thoughts are what often guide a person in terms of what units they might like to take, how they kit out their squads, and what tactical elements the battle plans they have brewing in their heads will require in order to achieve victory. If you’re not learning and adapting and evolving based on your environment then you’re at a dead end. Plain and simple.

Of course, bear in mind that the above might be putting too fine a point on it, but for interest of this little discussion it will suffice.

Now then, moving on, my local meta game. It’s a group with it’s own particular concerns and really is quite varied in the armies represented. We’ve got a fair balance of people who rely on shooting as opposed to assault and mech, while not common, is certainly represented. We ourselves are not tournament players (though I don’t think any of us would really complain about participating in the events) we just aren’t ones that look at what’s currently steam rolling the tournament scene and take that into account. We’re also not the sort to “Net Dex” as some call it, going out onto message boards and looking for power lists as though we were building Magic: The Gathering decks so that we can pit those against one another. No, for the most part we as a group have picked our armies because they are what we love at the end of the day and we build the lists that we enjoy playing. Going more in depth, I’ll break it down by player in no particular order:

  • Dennis: The best way that I can think to describe Dennis as a player is as a theme player. He harkens back to days of 40k past when you would (to borrow something I read elsewhere) have Imperial Guard players who’d built their army exclusively out of some ulterior purpose beyond the game itself such as reenacting the battle of Stalingrad. The primary example in this is that, as an Eldar player, when he first began getting into the game his entire goal was to build an army mounted entirely on Jetbikes being that he’s the sort of person who greatly values speed and mobility in a tactical set up (makes Eldar perfect for him, no?). This did, of course, lead to a small army and some choices I wouldn’t consider particularly optimal from a rules stand point were made but he was okay with that, taking our suggestions of running Fire Prisms or Pathfinders and setting them aside, only coming back to them later when he decided to branch out his lists and make them slightly more competitive while still trying to keep his theme at the core of the lists. It’s not uncommon for all of his lists to include some amount of jet bike shenanigans and I can’t think of a list off the top of my head that doesn’t include Jan’zar and her Howling Banshees in a Wave Serpent bearing down on the enemy or even Harlequins for that matter, but they’re his favorite units and he loves to run them. He also runs them well. He’s a good player, well suited to the mobility his lists afford him and I’m just thankful he hasn’t fully adopted the awesome that Eldar Mech to tank shock the heck out of everything.
  • Richard: Now here we have an interesting case. Richard got into the game not because he wanted to play it but because he wanted to put together minis. Scratch built, homemade sculpts, chop jobs and conversions of all stripe, that’s his bread and butter. Didn’t stop us from actually getting him to play with them though. His preference in armies run in the form of Orks and Tyranids so horde armies (specifically the kind that assault) are his forte and with the huge collections of minis he’s got, generally buying anything and everything in the codex as long as it’s cool and making what GW doesn’t give him minis for the lists we might play against are almost as varied as snowflakes. That said, however, he does have things he particularly enjoys running, one of which being Nob Bikers. You know the ones. The ones that are fully kitted up with power klaws and a pain boy shrugging off wounds as they shove their front tires down the throats of your front ranks? Yeah. Them. It’s for that reason that we’ve all had to consider taking more flamers in our armies to deal with his vast numbers but also had to worry about taking melta guns and las cannons (or their equivalents), even when not fighting mech, because getting past that FNP is just so important to a victory.
  • Dan: The inheritor of the hobby, as I would like to call him, Dan is the guy in our group that can’t really afford to play the game but we didn’t want to leave him out so most all of us has pitched in to buy him minis. This has, of course, led to him having quite the eclectic collection of vanilla space marines but that’s not necessarily a bad thing as it’s given him cause to try and piece these rag tag elements together in as many different ways as he can think of. Dreadnought heavy lists are common from him, using the Techmarine from his Thunderfire Cannon as a master of the forge to accompany all those Black Reach dreads and the Iron Clad I personally bought and built for him but his primary HQ is currently (And will likely always be) Vulkan He’stan. What this means is that while his lists aren’t optimal his army does have the promise to someday become a force to be reckoned with if he had enough mech, flamers, and melta guns to spread around the table. Doesn’t mean his dread list should be counted out, however. I’ve not personally played against it, but it looks rather… well… destructive on the table.
  • Jon: While not technically into the game quite yet, we’ve been working on our friend Jon for quite some time to get him into the hobby. It took some doing but eventually we did manage to wear him down and this has resulted in him taking a look at the various armies available and finally deciding that he wanted to play Space Wolves. Joy. While I have nothing against facing off against another Bolter army, being a marine player myself, what makes the Space Wolves an interesting case is that I can’t think of any other army that has as much raw assault power as they do that still remains in the MEQ category and it’s made even more of a theoretical threat in the back of my mind given that he’s taken quite the interest in Thunderwolf Cav and lets all be honest… we know what happens then. Storm Shields and Thunder hammers charging across the table, 3+ invul saves, tons of high strength attacks as they crash into your ranks and then naught but carnage in their wake as they move on to their next glorious slaughter. I’m… really not sure how to beat them yet, considering I haven’t played against them, but my first instinct is to treat the whole army like Nobz on bikes and hope to god that’s enough to get the job done.
  • Rob: Our local king of mech, this guy loves his metal boxes. Playing both Tau and Chaos we get both ends of the spectrum, swinging from highly mobile shooty mech to blood thirsty, killy Khornite mech and, at the moment, really nothing in between. Either way though, for a long time, he was the player to beat. We’ve all felt the sting of being out ranged by pulse rifles and we’ve all had sections of our army obliterated by rail gun sub munitions courtesy of twin Hammer Heads. It’s what ultimately pushed many of us in the direction of adopting a fair number of anti vehicle weapons just to try and do something about all those mechanized elements. I know I, for one, take as many melta guns as I possibly can these days and it’s something that’s being made all the easier by my new choice in army, but we’ll get to that in a moment. As a player I’d say Rob is probably the most well versed in the rules and certainly has shrewd tactical acumen which is what makes his lean towards Mech all the more difficult for the rest of us to deal with, many of us preferring to gain mobility by way of biker armies or simply accepting the short comings of footslogging the table and dealing with it as best we can.
  • Me: My leaning, as I’ve said previously, has always been towards the Dark Angels and the Blood Angels. I’ve stuck loyally by those chapters for the years, generally leaning more heavily on the Dark Angels, but with the advent of 5th Edition’s Vanilla Marine Codex I felt the sting of playing an outdated army list quite harshly. Certainly, I could have stuck it out, but as Codex after Codex was released and I often found my rules feeling more and more outdated I eventually shelved my Ravenwing and my Deathwing terminators and I’ve now moved over to the new Blood Angels codex. Personally, I would have to say that I’m probably the most daring and aggressive of our players. I’ve always been one to push forward quickly and play small armies that required a lot more thought put into each and every move but hey… high risk means high reward. It’s for this reason that at current, my plans for the good old space vampires are largely centered around deep strikes using Assault Marines and Dreadnoughts in drop pods while pushing forward with the fast tanks the new codex allows me. Only time will tell whether this strategy will pay off or not, but it should certainly slake my lust for the blood of the fallen.

So, first thing you’ll probably notice is the distinct absence of Imperial Guard. Nobody in our group (except for myself) really has an interest in them (and I can’t afford them) so particularly frightening walls of mech and large blobs of infantry supported by Commissars are entirely unknown to us. Well… not entirely, they have apparently had a showing a couple of the local tournaments the others have attended, but we don’t see them very often. The other thing that’s important to note is that we really only tend to play to 1500 points. We tend to think it’s about the most balanced point level on the whole and it requires us to be a bit more choosy about how we build our lists. We can’t just spam whatever we want and really get away with it. It also tends to put a lot more weight on each unit and the tactical choices that we make.

Any way, there it is. That’s what I fight against and with that information in hand maybe the lists that I build and the rules discussions I’m sure to engage in will come to make more sense with this as a background.

The Hobby that is 40k

Posted: 5th April 2010 by admin in General Hobby
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A long, long time ago in middle school, I remember sitting down at a lunch table with a bunch of people I’d never met before. You see, I had just moved to the city from the middle of what I’d like to call nowhere and I had absolutely no point of contact with this strange new world I’d found myself in. But what’s important about this, you might ask? Well… these kids were sitting there, all huddled around a book I’d never seen before but I’d seen some of the pictures as I walked by and I just had to get a closer look…

Anybody else remember this?

I admit, I was instantly fascinated by the contents of the book. I wanted to know everything that there was to know about it and it was in these conversations that I struck up with these other middle school kids that I learned not only about the game but also found myself the few friends that I would have that lasted me through high school. It made it so that the hobby was more than just about little plastic and metal men and their tanks. It was also about friendship. I don’t know if other people have similar experiences or not but for me it’s what’s kept me consistently interested in the game ever since, even during the times that I didn’t play.

With that in mind, while I do tend to harp on the rules somewhat and I will discuss them, this blog isn’t so much about gearing up for tournaments and making the most broken lists I can think of, it’s more about the hobby and my love of the game.

(And every now and again, I fully expect to get called on that statement.)

Okay, so now that the requisite preamble is out of the way, on to something a little more… important, shall we say?

So, the first book that I bought for the game myself was Codex: Angels of Death…

<- Yeah. That one.

The book had iconic art and really, really interesting ideas in it that, at the end of the day, I found I really just couldn’t resist. It was this book that got me into the game properly, I’d say, and it was from this book that I built my very first army. It was not, however, Blood Angels. No, I started out as a Dark Angels player though I did love the fluff for the the good old sons of Sanguinius as well.

Anyway, long story short, I stuck with the Dark Angels for a long time. Editions came and went, codex changes were made, I dropped in and out of the game but the principle remained the same: I loved me some space marines and more specifically I loved the weird off kilter ones that didn’t include fangs, wolf pelts, and viking runes. Still do, in fact. And that’s what this blog is going to be about when not just generally speaking of the game as a whole.