Exploring Special Characters from Imperial Armour 9

Last time we made a Daemons army using Blight Drones to dramatically increase firepower and block movement. This time, let's check out some of the many Special Characters from Imperial Armour 9 - The Badab War part 1, and what they can do for your army.

Captain Tarnus Vale - 175 points

This guy is the Praetor of the Fire Angels 3rd company and has a thing for armoured warfare. He is a regular Captain stats-wise, but isn't a powerhouse in close combat or shooting. He is a 175 point army buff because of his Chapter Tactics rule:


Chapter Tactics: Vale is a master of the mechanised assault and anti-armour warfare. If you include Captain Vale then all units in your army exchange the Combat Tactics special rule for the Tank Hunters USR. In addition, any Rhino or Razorback bought as a dedicated transport for squads affected by this change gains the Extra Armour upgrade for free.

In addition he has the following special rule:
Master Gunner: Any vehicle with the subtype (Tank) that transports Captain Vale gains the Tank Hunters USR.

Put him in your army, and all your Devastators' Missile Launchers are S9 versus vehicles. That's pretty hard core! Put him in a Land Raider and your Godhammers will pummel the enemy tank lines with two Twin-Linked S10 shots per turn. All the Krak Grenades in your army are S7, Power Fists S9, Plasma Guns S8 and even the humble Bolter gets bumped up to S5 as long as a vehicle is the target!

Sure, he's a liability if you expect to meet a lot of footsloggers like Footdar, Tyranids or The Green Tide, but the strength of getting Tank Hunters on all your foot troops is immense!

Let's try a list @1850 points:

Captain Tarnus Vale

5 Assault Terminators, Land Raider w/Multi-Melta

10 man Tactical Squad w/Meltagun & Lascannon, Sergeant with Combi-Melta, Razorback w/Lascannon, Twin-linked Plasma Gun & free Extra Armour
10 man Tactical Squad w/Meltagun & Lascannon, Sergeant with Combi-Melta, Razorback w/Lascannon, Twin-linked Plasma Gun & free Extra Armour

5 man Devastator Squad w/4 Missile Launchers, Razorback w/Lascannon, Twin-linked Plasma Gun & free Extra Armour
5 man Devastator Squad w/4 Missile Launchers, Razorback w/Lascannon, Twin-linked Plasma Gun & free Extra Armour
5 man Devastator Squad w/4 Missile Launchers, Razorback w/Lascannon, Twin-linked Plasma Gun & free Extra Armour

That's 75 free points of Extra Armour! 12 S9 Missile Launchers and 4 S10 Lascannons should make short work of any Razorback or Chimera spam on the other side of the table. All the Extra Armour will keep your tanks moving and your deployment zone from clogging up with stunned tanks.

If the enemy tries to rush you, the Meltaguns are S9 and should stop any vehicles coming too close for comfort. Sure, 5 Assault Termies aren't the best counter charging element there is, but they should be able to hold up most units that have weathered the storm of fire.

Next time we'll look at Chapter Master of the Raptors, Lias "The Grim" Issodon and his stealthy ways. His boys are even more stealthy than the Night Lords!

Let's try Imperial Armour!

I guess most of you guys are familiar with pretty much all the codexes out there, and all the major blogs are churning out lists for Space Wolves, Blood Angels or Dark Eldar. But very few places have I seen people talk about the wealth of stuff contained in the huge tomes known as Imperial Armour. Sure, they are seldom considered "official" by hardcore gamers, and I know of only one tournament that allows them. Incidentally, this is the tournaments I and Briefspite host, called Strategikon.

I recently acquired all the Imperial Armour books released to date, and have had many good evenings in my comfy couch with a cup of gourmet coffe and a big book in my lap. Let's try to make a decent list using some stuff from IA7 The Siege of Vraks part 3. And none of that really freaky stuff like Structure Points or  Flyers or anything like that. Plain 40k rules here.

Chaos Daemons: 2000 points
Bloodthirster (Might, Instrument)
Bloodthirster (Might)
5 Plaguebearers
5 Plaguebearers
5 Plaguebearers
2 Blight Drones
2 Blight Drones
2 Blight Drones
Soul Grinder (Phlegm)
Soul Grinder (Phlegm)
Soul Grinder (Phlegm)

The Blight Drones are Fast Skimmers with AV12/11/10 and the same Vomit and Phlegm attack that the Soul Grinder has, in addition to a Reaper Autocannon.

The idea behind this list is that your opponent's small arms are completely nullified. Your preferred wave can bee all six Blight Drones and all three Soul Grinders. This gives you nine S8 AP3 large blasts from wherever you want in turn 1, from a wall of AV12/13. The Blight Drones are even pretty much impervious to close combat troops, requiring sixes to hit them!

Assault Terminators in a Land Raider is a typical example of this. You can't really threaten the Raider with shooting, but the Soul Grinders and Bloodthirsters will rip it up if they can survive to the turn after the drop. The Blight Drones are perfect for this. The Land Raider can't easily Tank Shock the skimmers away (3+ dodge save), and then the Terminators won't be able to get to your Grinders.

If you get the other wave, no matter. Just sit in cover with the Plaguebearers and try to get the enemy moving, exposing their sides and rear. Then you drop the Blight Drones and Soul Grinders on the flanks or up their tailpipes.

Next time we'll take a look at two Space Marine characters from Imperial Armour 9 - The Badab War part 1.

Let's ban all Special Characters!

After becoming the team captain for Team Norway at the next year's European Team Championship, I started reading both the rules pack and the discussions in the Captain's Council that lead to these rules.  You see, all aspects of the ETC is decided in a democratic process, where the team captains of each nation have one vote each. The majority rules.

Most of the decisions have been excellent, and the tournament format is undoubtedly very good for this kind of event. I did however wonder why they decided to ban all Special Characters Here in Norway, we have allowed SCs for  quite some time now, after GW started removing the need for "opponent's consent" whenever fielding an SC.

The discussions prior to the vote mostly dealt with some characters breaking the game. Some argued that allowing Special Characters would decrease the number of viable builds available to players. If Vulkan was allowed, for example, every Space Marine player would do a flamer/melta-heavy Salamanders list.

I don't agree with this at all. I find that by banning all SCs, you limit the possible number of high-level armies and skew the metagame into something that is easier to quantify and systemize than you would by allowing them. Sure, the SCs are powerful, but they all have drawbacks. Some are expensive which gives you less support (Logan Grimnar, Ghazkull Thraka, Abbadon), some are great in close combat but lacks firepower or are slow (Swarmlord), some act as a force multiplier but are vulnerable to shooting and assault  (Eldrad).

You pay premium points for their abilities. Sure, some of them are cheaper than you'd expect, but that can easily be said about many units too! Terminators with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields are cleary undercosted. Let's ban them. Thunderwolves are a little too god, let's ban them too. And Fire Dragons. And while we're at it, take the Vendetta, Manticore, Plague Marines, Obliterators and Hive Guard too. In fact, the best way to make sure the game is fair is if we all play Necrons!

And ban the Monolith...

Daemon Prince of Khorne

When GW released the plastic Daemon Prince, I bought two immediately, and got my buddy Norau to build them. I recently got around to painting them, and here's the first one.


It was a treat to paint. The model's got great details and should be in all Chaos Space Marine and Chaos Daemons army.

Gingerbread Bolter

My friend Herman sent me a pic of his latest creation, the gingerbread bolter:

Seriously, how awesome is this?

Merry christmas, folks!

New Daemon Prince

Awesomesauce! When I saw the new Daemon Prince I knew I had to have two. I asked Norau to build them for me, and this is a sneak peek of the first one.

Some green stuffing remains, but I think the posture of the model is really cool. It's like he's just massacred his way through hordes of lesser foes, but now he is finally facing off against a worthy opponent. Movie moment right there.

I've used the guy on the right as a Daemon Prince until now. He's just a Possessed Chaos Space Marine with wings and a 40 mm base. He's performed well, but really is too small to act as a credible Prince.

Autocannon Dreadnoughts - First trial games

This weekend we opened our new gaming venue, Briefspite's basement! For this first session, we were testing out lists for an upcoming tournament in Sweden. This particular tournament uses some quite restricting composition rules, so some of the harder choices will give you a negative score before even starting the game! This effectively means no extreme mech spam, no Terminator spam, no Land Raiders, etc...

Image courtesy of From the Warp

I have wanted to test out the viability of DakkaDreads and DakkaPreds for quite some time now, and finally got my wish. My list:

• Librarian with Machine Spirit & Null Zone
• 3 Dreadnoughts with 2xTwin Linked Autocannons
• 2x10 Space Marines with Flamer, Missile Launcher and Combi-Melta in a Rhino
• 6 Scouts with Missile Launcher and Camo Cloaks
• 10 Assault Marines with 2xFlamers and Power Fist
• 2 Predators with Heavy Bolter Sponsons
• Thunderfire Cannon

I played Illumini's Blood Angels twice. Both games was Capture & Control (one objective each) with Dawn of War deployment. His list was something like this:

• Librarian with Sword Sanguine and Jump Pack
• 5 Sanguniary Guard with some equipment
• 2x5 Assault Marines in Razorback with Lascannon & Twin Linked Plasma Rifle
• 2x5 Assault Marines in Razorback with Twin Linked Heavy Flamer
• 3 Dreadnoughts with Multi Meltas
• 2 Baal Predators

Even though I had longer ranged firepower and all his stuff had to come on from his board edge, I didn't have enough to stop his advance at range. Add to this that I deployed stupidly, and used my resources in a less than optimal way, all he had to do was walk up and take my objective. In hindsight, I could have placed my Rhinos in front of his Baals, blocking his advance for a turn, but I still had nothing that could threaten his objective. All I could hope for was a draw. And I still lost...

It should be noted that my list is rated as being a lot weaker according to the tournament composition rules. Still, this is a weak excuse for lackluster play.

In conclusion, going all-out Autocannon isn't all that awesome when the opponent has AV12 or higher. I still think that the concept may work, but the list needs more Melta and more mobility. Melta to make it less desirable to simply drive up close, and mobility to be able to threaten objectives.

Team Norway 2011!

OK, it's official! We are going to participate at the European Team Championship, the ETC, next year.

ETC 2010. Photo by dafruk of The Warhammer Forum

I have been asked to be the team captain for Team Norway, and we are currently in the process of putting out team together. Seven of the eight people that are required to participate have more or less confirmed that they are clearing their calendars for August 2011, so we really only need one more player and job's a good'un!

This will be the first time Norway participates in the 40k event at ETC, and we have much to learn in the coming year. Making lists, testing lists, adjusting lists and of course playing a lot of games! Fortunately, we have a lot of resources on hand, among other things the entire terrain collection of the Strategikon tournaments.

You've been flayed!

This photo was sent to me by the youngest player at Strategikon 3. Cheers Herman! :)

I'm back, baby!

Space Wolf Razorback

I spent the summer becoming a dad, which is awesome! I did take a break from wargaming for a few months, but now I'm back on full steam.

During the summer I decided to start a Warhammer Fantasy army, and landed on Tomb Kings. Halfway through assembling my first unit of Skeleton Archers, I found that I really don't enjoy assembling figures.

I sent my buddy Norau the proposition that I paint his figures if he'll assemble mine. He readily agreed, and I quickly started painting his new Space Wolf army. Here's the first of four Razorbacks.

In other news, my buddy Briefspite has started his blog @ www.briefspite.com, and the tournament we are hosting in October has gotten its own website @ www.strategikon.no. Be sure to check them out and give them some love!