Gunslinger

Been quite busy lately with the holidays; prepped for a tournament in november but now cancelling due to family events, term papers and final exams.

  I listened to a couple of podcasts out there and heared a lot about the meta-game the community is playing. Right now infantry armies are the hot thing since it seems that everyone is taking Aegis Defense Lines to go toe-to-toe with flyers and vehicles. What I predict is that people will eventually go back to what they have been playing before because it sounds like a cycle. I foresee the 40k community begin playing infantry based armies to fight vehicles and flyers (which is beginning), then they will move to the anti-infantry armies with vehicle and flyers to beat out the infantry units. Then they will go back to their old army play style or realize they spent a lot of money on their army and think about playing 40k Apocalypse LOL.

 Anyways, I've been reading up on 6th edition and spotted the gunslinger rule and see how it can apply to my Imperial Guard. I see that it only applies to special characters (i.e. veteran sgt.'s) and then it clicked. I've talked about Stormtroopers before. The Storm Trooper Sergeant can not only duel wield pistols but Plasma Pistols as well. So not only can one have 2 but 4 plasma weapons in a 5-man deep striking unit. HE HE HE :) Also a good guardsman exploits what only he has available to his army. An army overlooked by the community is the only ally they can have and that's Sisters of Battle. Ready the new FAQ the Sisters of Battle Canonness with the Acts of Fate CAN give a 40-man blob squad +1 initiative and preferred enemy on the first charge. Imagine that with Colonel Straken within 12'.  Not only that, let's up it a step and place that Cannonness in a full squad of Ogryn. WOW I like to see that on the tabletop but who knows since the assault phase seem to scare  people.

 So to add I've been working on a conversion with a dual plasma pistol wielding storm trooper sergeant because I have have three squads of storm troopers already. I also removed some dust and began painting a 10 Battle Sister Squad I had shelved since 3rd edition. More to come later when things calm a bit
- vmreyes1 out.

My new models

I am building some new models right now. I am working through a Manticore/Deathstrike kit, a valkyrie, 5 stormtroopers and a veteran squad.

The Veteran Squad (Harker unit) I mentioned before are almost finished. All I need to paint up now is Harker himself.

I finished putting together a Valkyrie which will be kitted with rocket pods and be hand painted similar to this P-51 mustang.



I will be painting 5 more stormtroopers as Harakoni Warhawks whick complete 3 10-man squads. This will allow me to have a complete Stormtrooper Strike Force to play an Apocolypse game(pics of the complete unit later) :). So far so good. The only thing bad to report is that a AgR has shut down recently were I play Apocolypse and wish the old owners best of luck.

Harakoni Warhawks

I was contemplating on changing my stormtroopers color scheme for awhile now because I wanted my stormtroopers to stand out away from my veterans. My veterans use the same models and grey/ black color scheme as the stormtroopers. When I first started with my IG in 3rd edition, I painted my guard to the Harakoni color scheme mentioned in the the 3.5th ed. codex. This last month I found an old printed color copy of the Madusa V campaign book, that was free from GW in a PDF form at that time, and decided to read the copy completely this week. I noticed an old drop troop strike the Warhawks conducted against the TAU and recalled that I was part of that attack during the MADUSA V Campaign.
So I decided to repaint my storm troopers to their original color scheme I ounce had them. Pictured above are my three veteran Sergeants. I am very happy with the change I made and hopefully they will see action on the table-top here again with their old color scheme.

Lessons Learned

I learned a little bit more of my army at the LA Battle Bunker Apocalypse game (See old posts for details).

Here are key points I learned:
* A lot more fun then expected. This was my first Apocalypse game and was expecting it to be something similar to Planetstrike and Spearhead which I don't have much interest in playing. I went and blew a lot of stuff up and units were annihilated :)

* Apocalypse was a lot more stress free to play then a regular game since I didn't have to worry about a force org. and worry about the point limit since their was none. It got me out of my burn out and into a little bit more hobbying then I expected.

* Take some transports to move into enemy units quicker. I felt bogged down because I couldn't move my infantry up in 4 turns to anything since I was in a far corner from my enemies.

* Priests worked great with Straken and Infantry platoons. It helped me re roll my initial assault and help chop a demon prince with his eviscerator.



* Vets with demo and shotguns are AWESOME. I got more bang for the buck in taking vets with demolitions and grenadiers doctrine then my Storm Troopers. My storm troopers landed everywhere but where I needed them. I think I will be taking storm troopers as 5x man squads from now instead of 10. Vets will definitely be coming along with demolitions from now on since my 160 pt vet sqd took out of play 405pts by blowing up the Macharius Vulcan heavy tank in turn 1 and a leman russ executioner base 190pts later in the game.

* Ask questions on the forums about units. I took Astropaths and Officers of the Fleet to the game to be told that their abilities can not be used for the special event.

* Take a fold able chair to the tourney. I took mine but saw that many others didn't. They were hurting from standing up all day.

With all this learned I have a new found respect for Apocalypse and greatly look forward to playing more Apocalypse games then regular games in the future.

Underestimated Unit

Sorry for the long wait on a post but I was waiting on my friend to come over and play a game of 40k so I can post up a battle report but no luck. So instead I would like to write about the Imperial Guard Stormtroopers. I know that they are an expensive unit but I think they are worth every point if played with the Airborne Doctrine. They can bring alot of fire power on board when they deepstrike in were you want them. Imagine dropping 2 inches away from a monstrous creature/vehicle or a large bothersome squad and hose them down with AP3 hot-shot lasfire, melta, or plasma with either a 5 or 10 man sqd. For me they work best as either a 5 man melta squad or a 10 man plasma squad. You may think that if only they don't scatter somewhere disasterous. To you I say, " that's why airborne allows you to re-roll the scatter dice." If you scatter badly after the re-roll then the dice gods are not with you. Remember that 40k is just a game and taking risks is a big fun factor in it. When the risk pays off your fun just doubled.