23 Jan 2011

How about a nice juicy apple ?

Okay so there it iss , now just take a little bite...... it is really quite Exquissssite........

Yeah, ok enough of that, so Anyone that follows vaguely regularly knows I'm playing around with a Baron/Duke army at the moment.

I got bored tonight could not force myself to paint or write another article (yes, again , apologies)

So I picked up some bits and went to work , this model is just  a fill in for now so I have a suitable model to rep the duke pending some green stuff, including possibly a little more hair (can't decide)

Its pretty obviously a kit mash of D'elf Corsairs and D'Eldar warriors.

I think the serpent banner is kinda a giveaway and looks the part. I have tried to give him a more foppish/piratical feel  with the long gloves, dueling style Blast pistol and a nice baroque basket hilted sword/dagger and the 'snakeskin' cloak. I also chose the Corsair swords as I wanted to show they were not power weapons, as I do not intend to use another in the army It should look/be totally unique.



I have also given him the Darklance backpack, for two reasons really, I thought the cloak did not look 40k enough and I figured it made quite a suitable drug and poison injector/dispenser for the old boy.

I have some plans for the paint Scheme to reinforce his character yet further.

Is it ok ? I went for the prettiest male DE face , still not sure about the head but it was the best of a bad bunch (for the character) I would of liked one with an evil grin, I'm going to try and paint it to give him a smug/self satisfied look.

Check out the colour/pattern on that snake, decent palette ?


20 Jan 2011

Mad Bad and Dangerous To Know

Well for me the best character in the book is currently the Baron , him with a big blob of hellions is so much fun to play with and can be brutally effective. On monday they went all 'flying monkey' on a runepriests ass *belly laugh* "I got your psychic defense riight here beardy" people just cant comprehend having their character whisked away, do it in the end of your cc phase , in his turn he cant shoot you and can often only watch as the hellions do a slamdance on their heads. Delicious

Liking it so much I was inspired to make a suitable model , which is here for your veiwing pleasure , it is WIP pending some filling and touching up. I'm really liking him and may paint him up as a break from waveserpents soon.

Here he is :


And here Is the list I'm having great fun with: there may be some changes as I'm having teething troubles with wyches, they cant even seem to reliably beat guard or pink horrors thus far .....hoping they will get to shine vs hevier hitters at some point , they stay in as I wanted more scoring  and some AT ability in CC may prove worthwhile, sorely tempted to switch them out for incubi.... still thay also give me more bang for the buck from Sliscus , I'm fairly happy with it in this state and pending some small tweaks I'll roll it out once the mechdar achieve completion.



1750 
The Barons Flying Monkey Circus
HQ
Baron Sathonyz

Duke Sliscus 
Troops 

14 hellions + Helliarch with stunclaw

9 warriors (duke starts here for serpents venom bonus) blaster + Raider with racks + FF 

10 wyches + 2 shard + imp hekatrix with agoniser + haywires in Raider (duke joins here later on to give more cc punch and the twin shardnets help him stay up for longer) or is that those little blue pills he was handing out ....hmmm

Elites
4 truborn with 4 blasters in a raider 

4 truborn with 4 blasters in a raider 

Fast Attack
6 reavers with champ + 2 HL

6 reavers with champ + 2 HL

Heavy Support

Ravager

Ravager

Release the Flying Monkeys !!



19 Jan 2011

New ELDAR FW stuff , Shadow Spectres and Warp Hunter

NEW FORGEWORLD STUFF !!!!!!!  Forgeworld have released some sexeh new eldar toys on the run up to IA 11 , seriously the models are sweet, go see.

However I am not a happy bunny , Given their recent penchant for giving things super rules (Caestus/Achilles) I was expecting a solid showing for the new Edar stuff , should have learnt by now really,Gw Xeno ? yup the rules are weak.

The spectres will do a nice job as a long range anti tank shot (singular) but they are 35 points each and are t3 5++ ....... so shite then really , they will be lucky to survive long enough to shoot a single tank. someone blithered about cover and jet packs, wake up asshat , 5 t3 models with a 4+ cover save @ 35 points each , how fast can you kill that ? even at range ? think about it man !!! the gun is not even ap1 even fully linked up so their one full str shot of the game still has a 66% chance of doing feck all , now lets talk cover ....

Tlos is not their friend.

The Warphunter made me jizz in my pants (Model) However the rules are even poorer , this actually pushed me over the edge and have sent an email to forgeworld detailing my concerns.

It has a really cool warp rift mode , which tbh will make it a kamikaze vehicle , it is like what banewolves and hellhounds want to be when they grow up. you willl get insta deaded with melta for using it ....so Its not going to force out my usual fire prisms/falcon.

The really crap bit is that the MASSIVE gun looks like it should do something of a magnatude somewhere between the support wep and the Scorpion Gonne , its EXACTLY the same as the shitty D cannon in our fossil codex with an increase to range , so its going to miss all the time and people will mostly just take cover saves , it also blows as reliable AT also. Shame as that model deserves to be feared.

These are experimental non approved rules currently , hopefully FW will fix it to be a scary ass cannon like it is in Apoc , marines get a raider with TL multi meltas , immune to lance/melta av 14 -1 on the chart thunderfire trolly and we get 6" extra range on a crap gun ? give me strength.



Is IA11 going to be all about Imperials beating up on Eldar ? I bloody hope not. Seriously if you care and wanted something Decent out of what is likely to be the only Eldar FW support for a very long time, send em an Email, please, couple of people on the forums already have , Eldar unite !!

18 Jan 2011

Rave Review: Trueborn Warriors

Colour by MajesticChicken
Ahh yes, Trueborn warriors. They are in almost every list I'm seeing at the moment and I'm finding it hard not to take 2 units every single game...

Why are they so attractive ?

Well for me it allows me to up the quantity of lances in the army though I feel they may have other uses too, I hope to start experimenting with some ideas soon.

Lets have a look.

Stats wise they are just 'elite' warriors, so like with marines its an extra point of LD and an extra attack for 3 more points , as the extra attack seems pointless in what is i feel mostly going to be a shooty unit I feel the extra points are probably being paid for access to the bewildering array of weaponry available to them.

no point really examining their basic kit as its identical to warriors, I'm almost certain you are not going to be buying them as a splinter rifle platform as warriors do it just as well and score.

So what can they have and why would you want to take it.

Shard carbines- 5 points gets you a three shot 18" range assault weapon, now , I'm fairly intrigued by these and find myself increasingly tempted to use a carbine equipped unit with a CC Dracon as an escort for sliscus, maybe even go for a couple of cannons too as they are also assault weapons, 27 3+ poison shots + a blast pistol followed by a charge, needs to be tried as running some rough numbers on an meq squad would suggest that only one or two models would survive to swing back , leaving you un shootable in the following turn where you will finish the squad in cc and gain FNP ,  they can also put a stupendous amount of wounds on MC's , I had plain splinter warriors with , splinter racks and Serpents venom shoot Fateweaver off the table today, pure torrent ftw ! In theory an agressive use trueborn/bodyguard unit like this could work.

CC wep and pistol - nah , Ill give it a miss thanks, more str 3 = more fail.

Shredders - Not a big fan of most things relying on the scatter dice , I find them woefully erratic, shredders are cheap and 'can' put alot of wounds on big huddled squads , I feel the rest of the army has anti infantry  well covered with all the poison you can build in, truborn are better used to provide something you do not have so much ready access to.

Blasters - seems more or less everyone is buying these and in most armies you will too, some folks get them with two blasters, but I have found lance weps to be so unreliable I have only been really 'happy' with performance when they take the full four, most of my WIP builds involve 2 units of four always in a transport of some kind. If points were tight you could try three, simply running the numbers should convince you hat more is better , without cover as a factor you need 9 lances on average to destroy a vehicle.

Splinter cannon - I like these , not sure how much they will be of use but I keep finding myself trying to sneak a couple on to my usual Blaster squad, think I'm just getting greedy for Moar poison , but its something I want to test the usefulness of , my head is saying it wont be useful most of the time but my cold dead shriveled black heart does enjoy massed poison ....

Colour by MajesticChicken
Dark lance - Not really found myself using these thus far as I am very aggressive with my DE , current thinking is to buy just two of these to increase the long ranged lance fire available to your army, they can't score so sitting objective is comparatively less handy than with say a unit of warriors with a lance, buying a small squad to sit with the lances opens up the opportunity to buy a transport also , I think the venom will be most popular as it can bring a load of splinter to balance the lances, will also help get them into position in DoW games , of course if you need yet more AT in the army plump for a Raider.

Dracon - does very little for the squad really, no LD boost and gains an attack , as they will mostly be used in a dakka role he's going to spend alot of time twiddling his thumbs.

He does have a ream of options that will help if you decide to experiment with dakkassault  Tborns, 5 points for the extra attack is ok , cheapest upgrade to sgt in the book.
he can have ghostplate , which I think is overpriced and unnecessary. Again the phantasm launcher is a cool upgrade but 20 points is pretty hefty , if going the dakkassault route plain assault grenades will do for half the price, if you are getting assaulted "your doing it wrong". He can have a blast pistol, again 15 points for a gun that will get fired maybe twice a game seems pointless, AT can be handled by others.

Lastly we have the CC options , best overall is possibly the venom blade , it allows the unit to further threaten Mc's and can kill a suprising amount of marines etc through reliable wounding . Second up is a power weapon - not bad and 10 points is ok , just think of it as rending on a 5+ that gets better once you have furious charge ....... lastly the agoniser, 20 points ..... 20 points , sorry I just cant get over it costing as much as a power fist while essentially being a str 4 power wep . I have yet to be able to bring  myself to pay for these on anything in the book , they simply cost too much, its not like MC's are ever going to be a problem for DE. I would bring it at that cost IF it did something to vehicles.

Transport

They have access to both transports and I tend to base my choice on how big the squad is and weather I need more AT or more poison. I like both and they are of comparative points, mostly I have been taking 4 blasters in a venom, however the list I am currently trying has them in a Raider as I needed more AT and had plenty of poison and torrent elsewhere in the list, this applies to any DE list you may run and gives you an easy way to tweak the level of anti infantry or AT.



Overall a very solid Elites choice , a fairly certain staple of most lists which allow you to tailor the type of firepower in your army like no other unit. Mostly being bought for massed blaster access, true most of the time you simply need the blasters that much , However I am keen to discover if they have more than one string to their bow.

15 Jan 2011

Dark Eldar FaQ 1.0 Musings


Well Funt me ! That was fast for GW, a solid round of baby kissing from the intergalactic plastic crack peddlars today, good show chaps !

lets have a quick look at the more important stuff maybe see if there is anything to be exploited. There is a fair bit of clarification of the obvious in there.


Q: When a unit comprised of some models with Power 
from Pain and some without destroys an enemy unit, does 
the unit gain a pain token? (p25) 
A: Yes. 

So I got excited here, I thought wow, beasts are truly going to be super mean and harlies just might be viable....

Then they put this



Q: When a unit comprised of some models with Power 
from Pain and some without has a pain token, does the 
effect it gives apply to every model in the unit or just to the 
models with the Power from Pain special rule? (p25) 

A: It only applies to the models with the Power from Pain 
    special rule.

While being a little sad faced this does make sense.

This is an interesting one for me and could be considered a nerf as I was under the assumption you could boost any damn direction you like if you are willing to forgoe the cover save , this (I think) will stop the move 18 to just about touch an enemy unit then fly 18 more or less directly back shenanigans, now its pretty much A to B stuff under can be hit. A small nerf ?

 Q: How do you mark the start and end points of a unit of 
unit of Reavers move when they are using their special 
Bladevanes attack? (p29) 
A: Should confusion arise, simply pick any model in the 
unit as the start point and mark that spot. Then move the 
unit and pick any model as the end point. One unengaged, 
non-vehicle unit under the line between the two markers 
can then be chosen to be the target of the attack. 

Yup , she still sucks something terribad.

Q: Lhamaeans confer their Mistress of Poisons special 
rule onto the Archon they belong to. When do I nominate 
which Court of the Archon belongs to which Archon? (p35) 
A: You should nominate which Archon each Court belongs 
to at the start of each game. Archons with a Court that 
includes one or more Lhamaeans will benefit from the 
Mistress of Poisons special rule. 

Although this kiinda makes sense the original interpretation of the rule went some way to explaining the mind bending cost of an Implosion missile. Can safely say I will never ever EVER use them.

Q: When an implosion missile hits a complex unit (one 
where all the models are not identical in gaming terms) 
how do you work out what rolls are needed to wound and 
how do you distribute these wounds? (p47) 
A: Although the implosion missile causes wounds in an 
unusual way it should be treated the same as any other 
blast weapon. A unit will suffer a number of hits equal to 
the number of models underneath the blast marker. Using 
the majority Wounds value of the unit roll to see how many 
wounds are caused and then allocate these in the usual 
manner. 

Okay the following was make or break on the Void Raven for me , thank god they made good *victory jig* Still frankly a highly underwhelming weapon to be classed as 'the dreaded' still no clarification as to weather you get cover or not /how it is worked out .......

Q: Can a void mine be used regardless of the speed the 


Voidraven Bomber is moving at in its Movement phase? 
(p47) 
A: Yes. 

Boo hiss, blatant nerf , ID rule itself is quite clear on the subject.

Q: When using Asdrubael Vectʼs Obsidian Orbs or the 
Orbs of Despair, do you use the targets Toughness or 
Leadership for the purposes of working out if Instant Death 
applies? (p55) 
A: You use the targetʼs Leadership

Now this really pisses me off , its taken a big nerf from last edition as it is, we are now in an edition where melta/AT is positively coming out of people ears so they make it softer ? with no access to some of the useful upgrades ....., pretty much means I wont be fielding it even for fun and wont likely buy one if GW releases it, 200 points for what exactly ? mounded pile of fail, 200 point handicap. yeah the high lord of Commoragh himself can't bling his pimpwagon ?


Edit: Apparently the french version has Aerial assault and was not removed in the new faq , now THAT I might pay 200 points for.

Q: Can the Dais of Destruction take any of the vehicle 
upgrades available to Raiders? (p82) 
A: No. 


Things I would like to have seen were the absence of tormentors being explained or rectified, also sliscus' deep strike still differs from retrofires and needs clarification.

Its early days yet so I expect more questions etc will feature in 1.2 faq . Also to note Mr Kelly has an article on playing with DE in WD this month , as its written by the guy that designed them I would say its worth a look.

In funny shit this week, Warseer .....



Coming up later this weekend , Rave Review for Trueborns 


12 Jan 2011

Retro Review: Wave Serpent Transport

New year, slow start.....

Time to write about possibly the most important tool in the true mecdar list. Defining why it is important is fairly simple , It gives Eldar some real resilience and a definite edge vs most armies in terms of raw mobility.

Apparently there is no decent art not one single piece in all of the interwebz so forgive my grudging use of mini photos - however it does allow me to showcase some work I think deserves some exposure.

I'll start with the few negatives it has. In a direct comparison with the pricing trends for transports in 5th it is over priced especially when you consider its pointy eared contents (at time of writing) are largely over priced. It could probably do with a five - ten point drop and having the twin linked Shuricannons as part of the standard price.

The over pricing is compounded by the cost/effectiveness of any weapon upgrades , in fact the vehicle upgrades just push the price even higher into the stratosphere.

Currently at its most cost effective IMO, I run it with Tl shuricannons and upgrade the nose catapults to a second cannon, thats a 110 point transport ..... ouch. Thank Feth its arguably the best 'basic' transport in the game. I'm not sure its quite worth that many points but at the moment its all we can have and gets the job done.

12-12-10 armour means it is very resilient for a transport, even chimeras suffer from av 10 on the side, there are other factors that make serpents even more resilient, the rear armour of ten is essentially a non-issue as your superior mobility should make it nigh impossible for opponents to take advantage, if your opponent has deep strikers or flankers just keep a mental note of that and remember to put the rear armour against terrain or a table edge or back to back with another serpent, honestly I struggle to remember ever having a serpent shot in the rear.

Its a fast skimmer and a tank, this opens up many tactics to your army and gives you powerful tools such as  long range tank shocks, objective grabbing, potential str 10 ramming and blocking enemy movement and assaults, flat out mobile cover/walls. Serpents really do make great blockers and have the mobility to be very 'inconvenient' most of this stuff does not require a serpent to have any guns left so I often find myself getting creative with empty and gunless serpents, use your imagination a bit and it will become apparent that the wave serpent is so much more than just a simple transport.

The very best thing about the serpent is its energy field, this baby has taken a bit of a boost with fifth as people are so reliant on melta for AT, the force field does two great things, note: these only work in the front and side arcs so pretend the battlefield is like a prison shower room.

 The first effect stops enemies weapons having a str higher than 8, ever, got railguns ? cry me a river...... the second effect stops enemies ever having better than a single dice to penetrate,  an often missed aspect of this rule is that alot of people assume it just nerfs the second melta dice, which in and of itself would be funky, but no, this force field has so much more to give, it stops ordy getting two dice to pick the highest and makes rending not work, couple this with the potential for a fortuned flat out save and its arguably (circumstantially) the hardest transport to crack in the game, far more elusive and frustrating to kill than say a landraider, even the most powerful AT weps are going to need a 5 to penetrate.

Discussion of load outs.

I would always always recommend replacing the catapults with a cannon, massed str 6 is another of the strengths/hallmarks of mechdar and is a tool well worth the having, is also helped by being the nearest thing to cost effective you are going to get with this books pricing conventions.

As for the Tl top weapon, its worth mentioning that a TL bs3 wepon is actually statistically more accurate than bs4 so serpents are also one of the few 'accurate' platforms in the book. The only problem being that with only a couple of upgrades and what passes for a mid priced weapon you are looking at well over 100 points for a single transport.

TL Shuricannon - best buy in my humble opinion, cheap and effective, with the nose gun upgrade you will have 6 str 6 shots, which is pretty respectable for a transport, it can also threaten all but the most heavy of armoured targets , especially if it has weaker side and rear facings, you can use the serpents mobility to hit their weak facings far more easily than with other vehicles. so it offers a degree of duality, also with doom thrown in most MC's disappear  in the hail of str 6 a few serpents can generate. the range is a little short but as you will be tight on points most of the time it is often going to be your best bet, as the vast majority of carried units have a very short area of effect unless you are camping home objectives the short range is hardly an issue.

Tl Scatterlaser - A popular choice, sadly not for me as its a whopping 15 points more for a single extra str 6 shot over the Shuri's, it does make your cruising speed shooting slightly more powerful and the extra range can be nice from time to time but honestly the price is too high for what you get, I honestly do not believe it to be a cost effective choice as in game they barely feel more effective than a shuricannon while 1. pinching already limited points and 2 making an expensive transport even more so for little real gain.

Tl EML - The EML is actually a pretty good weapon , it offers duality an improved (ap and pinning) frag missile and more importantly for an eldar army in 5th, 'accurate' and long ranged armour suppression and transport cracking firepower, which the army lacks to a painful degree. I have found getting side shots to be fairly straightforward with serpent mobility so I feel it to offer slightly better value than the scatter , it is however , still overpriced and I have not been able to squeeze any into a sub 2k list over  the raw cost effectiveness of the shuriken cannons.

Tl Starcannon - Recieved the Xeno nerfbat and has yet to recover, 35 points for a weaker plasma gun equivalent makes me weep tears of nerd-rage. A great choice If you wish to be mocked as an imbecile and have cabbage and rotten eggs flung at you in the street.

Bright Aids lance - not only do Eldar apparently suck at making plasma weapons they also get to play second fiddle to Imperials for laser weapons too, this steaming pile of baboon stool  is so over priced as to be comical, in most situations this is WORSE than a lascannon , and AV14 duties are for fire dragons, not only is it over priced to the point of being an excellent parody of the british car insurance industry protection racket, it has no place in the army as a missile launcher offers duality and does the same job on 90% of targets for near half the price, lances are also fail in 5th, I run many more lances in my DE army and its an exercise in frustration to put it mildly. Given what has happened with lances in the DE book don't expect them to improve markedly in availability, effectiveness or price when in the grim darkness of the future E 5th edition swings round.

Vectored engines -over priced pointless junk IMO, they are only useful situationally and 20 points is far too hefty a price tag.

Star engines - open up yet more mobility based shenanigans including going stright to your opponents dep zone from reserve, and makes Eldar tanks the very fastest in the game, even DE are slower as their equivalent only adds 2d6 instead of 12" flat, however as your serpent  is already highly mobile and already over priced I have to advise against taking them competitively.

Spirit Stones- are worth a look as they protect you from getting insta smashed in combat and help insure you can put certain units in position when you need them there, positioning and timing are key with 'Dar' of all types, having said that I don't run any to save points, they are well worth considering on key units transports IF you have some points spare, some people swear by them but most games I dont honestly miss them and am far to tight for points to put them in.

Look ! a bright lance .....

So all in all a gold star for the Mechdar workhorse, slightly fouled by some plain bonkers pricing/weapons nerfs, not that the problem is localised to the serpents by any means but a strong flaw within the current dex. 'The' most important vehicle in the book so well worth getting to grips with, I went pure mech a year ago and cant recommend multiple serpents highly enough. Dragons may be the best unit in the book but how good would they be without a serpent ?

6 Jan 2011

Rave Review: Mandrakes

Colour by MajesticChicken
First real post of 2011 !

Ok These guys have been contentious even from before the book came out.

People seem fairly divided by these consisting of the "My god what suck is this ? " and the "They are ok and can be made to work" camps.

Im right there in camp number one, I really think they blow, they annoy me with their sheer crapness, the rules are so godawful that GW has insured irrespective of how tasty the models may or may not be I shall not be owning/painting any time soon.

Best use I can think of If you have bought some, wracks ? ....

Okay so I suppose the above is a pretty sweeping statement, so I suppose i will attempt to break down the squad and justify my feelings.

Stats, cant complain too much STR4, I5 with 2 attacks fresh outta da box, 15 points is a bit heavy for a T3 model no matter how you shape it ......

The squad can have a Nightfiend for an extra 10 points , annoyingly as with the incubi there is no model for this supplied with the box, poor show really given that the older aspect warrior boxes all contain a suitable exarch model, Hopefully GW will rectify with a later blister release...... hopeful much ?

He gets an extra attack and brings LD 9,  so as I imagine they are shaping up to only be remotely useful as objective campers it will be a worthwhile investment to prevent them fleeing from shooting casualties.

Thats it for him, exciting huh

They all come with a single cc wep as standard, making their cc ability borederline underwhelming, oh yeah NO GRENADES ?!
Uh, Phil.... you sure ?
Infiltrate , uh yeah , I just dont know how useful this is on a unit forced to stay in cover to mitigate its t3 and lack of grenades, will help with setting them up somewhere they will get cover I guess , as for outflanking, dunno I don't see it working on anyone with a brain, no meltaguns no flamers and no grenades, T3 , sounds like suicide 101 to me, suicide is acceptable if a unit is going to do something in the process (melta) I just see them being shot up and beat up by meq badly and vs geq they may get the jump on a unit or something then die horribly to counter fire , hardly a good exchange , they have to be the worst setup unit to really get any benefit from outflank in existence.

Power from pain , this is a bit of a conundrum for manderps as to get it they need to kill something , to kill something they will have to leave cover and then likely die so thats not going to work, they could use their bale blast to finish something off , oh wait,  you need that first token to get their pointless shitty gun too ...... So you are pretty much forced to put a haemo with them to make them actually difficult to shift from cover with shooting a flat 3+ cover save on t3 is not that great really when you consider a basic meq is harder to kill with standard weapons, the fnp tips the balance and makes them actually hard to kill with torrent, course they are pretty shit vs meq in cc so you could just assault them. they need to be the ones charging to really do anything approaching effectual on meq (sadly the game standard), again they need their silly gun attack to really be rolling enough dice to do much , just charging a unit of tacs is only going to net you 2ish kills before they beat your t3 5++ ass into the floor, if you allow for a round of shooting from the bale Failblast your total kills for the turn will crawl upto 4-5 which should just about tip the balance so you should eventually win the close combat.... Furious charge will help but I can see actually getting it being a struggle for them.

I think maybe the intention for them is to use move through cover to charge stuff that strays too close to the terrain they will be forced to hug, weakened units are going to be par for course.

I just cant work out what the hell they are supposed to offer an army, especially given that they are another elites choice, Just look at the other stuff in elites ? are you really ever going to sacrifce that to take this tripe ? they are worse than the troops choices.....

I honestly cannot see a way they are ever going to be useful and getting them to be worthwhile is too much of a faff for competitive play,  If they were troops I would consider them for camping duties,  currently they don't even score, I suppose contesting ? god knows what Kelly intended for them Either he ran out of ideas or this was one of the units 'fixed' in the re-write.

Bale Failblast- It would actually be alright if you did not have to essentially jump through burning hoops to have it , if they all got flamers as I thought they would from the description I would understand the need for the pain point , but the gun is underwhelming, ap 4 as we know is pointless 99.99 percent of the time as is pinning, they are just poor mans pink horrors , I would rather have bloody pink horrors. To have any hope of starting with some use from it you have to fork out yet more points to get a haemo, which should really be factored into their cost, so 50 points minimum for a heamo = essentially 20 point mandrakes: supping from the fail pail :oS

Stealth- I forgot to mention this early, yes the shadow deamon-things are exactly as stealthy as a man draped in a bit of unwashed green cloth, a + 1 cover save is nice enough and they do get a 5++ too which is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick I suppose, as I said poor mans horrors.

As we are on the subject I'll discuss the Derp-Crapitator  here too, he sure puts the 'special' into special character, best thing about him is the background fluff and the artwork, for an HQ slot and 140 points you get a t3 character with no armour save and a 5++ ....... he cannot even join a squad, has a Marbo style derp-loyment, but is so 'special' that he cannot assault the turn he does and unlike Marbo does not have a decent ranged attack to drop the turn he arrives either.... he does have the failblast.

Not picked for the team again 
Hunter of heads - An ability that lets him get pref enemy vs one enemy IC, how he is supposed to get there let alone actually kill them when he gets there is beyond me , he also has NO fething grenades either.

He would be fine just the way he is if you was an upgrade for a mandrake unit and maybe made the scoring, I would 'consider' using him then, as he is currently he is a hot contender for worst character in 40k

Other than the usual manderp stuff he has a powersword that does ID on a roll to wound of a 6+ woopity doo ..... I rolled a bunch of test dice, against chars without an invun (they even exist ?) he can have a tough time vs them, let alone someone with a decent save,  Furious charge makes him hit harder on the charge, but again , getting a second pain point and somehow getting into cc with his chosen target who hopefully has no invun seems incredibly hopeful....

Big steaming pile of Self-Edit.

As much as overall the books internal balance is about right I just don't know what went wrong here, yet more things that make me question GW's design process,or lack thereof ... Do wonder if they got the now infamous late stage 'edit' Xeno nerfbat.


Mandrakes: The Ginger stepchild of the DE