Rave Review: Grotesques

You would be angry too.
 If someone replaced your pee pee with a steriod injector for lulz
Colour By Majestic Chicken

Hmm Grotesques , I can't really put my finger on it , but I love the 'feel' of this unit , they are essentially ogryns only...not. I feel they have their roots in polp culture characters like Pyramid head and the Abomination or the berserkers from Requiem.

Dunno if these steroid guzzling flesh juggernauts are some kinda DE sick parody of spess marheens or what, but they both delight and amuse me.

This unit is essentially a living battering ram and a wonderful if not totally unsubtle blunt instrument.

lets have a poke around ....

Stats: The stats are pretty nice, more or less direct comparable to ogryns with the main differences being higher I but lower LD and save, no one cares about the save as they come with a free pain point to start with and therefore feel no pain which due to their high tougness will save them from quite alot of stuff, including missile launchers.

They are also a short trip from FC which will bump the 'vanilla' Grots to str 6 and I 5 on the charge  ..... Its fairly easy to start them off with this as due to their pitifully awful LD you are likely going to want a Haemo to lead the unit. Hell bring them up to a decent Ld give them furious charge from the get -go  and bring another liquefier to the party, whats not to like? he'll even benefit from majority toughness 5.

Another rule they come with as standard is Berserk Rampage, essentially , If they are not lead by a character of some description you if you fail a test at the start of the turn another good reason to consider a haemo 'babysitter', the grots go PMT and smash everything within 2d6 for 2d6 str 5 hits... even allies, before essentially dying and they'll hit vehicles on the side facing. I really want to to get a unit to 'go off' in a parking lot ...The only other rule they have understandably makes them count as 2 models for transportation.

Abberation Conversion ?

At 35 points a pop, jury is out wether they are a reasonable price or not , yes its three T5 wounds, but they can still be ID'd with str 10 or ID weps, ten will cost you over 300 points with no toys.

Options-

Liquefier - We like these, may as well get one as small ish units of grots will struggle to kill meq through their saves not to mention the possibility of FnP marines .....

Abberation - 10 points gets you an extra attack and a rather pointless additional point of LD, not fabulous in and of itself but he now gets access to some toys. Its worth mentioning that in larger foot squads you may be better off simply buying an extra Grotesque, he becomes more useful in smaller squads in transports.

Venom Blade - cheap and cheerful and as he has high str you will even get to re-roll those 1's

Mindphase gauntlet - pointless rubbish

Scissorhand - expensive but possibly worth it if you are going the Abberation route , with these on he will potentially get 7 attacks on the charge that wound everything on 3's and re-roll to wound anything T6 or less .....

Scissorhand, early prototype

Flesh glove- This could work , as he gets 6 attacks on the charge anyway that wound everything on 4's which gets the str based poison re rolls, I imagine he will be a fairly serious threat to any multi wound non eternal character /MC.

Its essentially a choice of improved infantry killing with the scissors or character/Mc splattering with the Gauntlet, I think overall the scissors are the better choice as they offer flexibility and are also slightly cheaper.


Transport - They can have a raider, worth thinking about, MoAr dark lances are always nice as is a potential 20 odd inch charge. I think Abberations may go well in transported squads.

There is one more upgrade to consider, In lists which contain Urien Rackarth, Grots can be upgraded to base str 6 at the princely sum of 5 pts per model, Dunno str 7 charges ? Its going to mangle anything thats not a landraider / Lith. I have a theory I would like to test which involves 1 or two large upgraded squads of grots belting out of portals and multi charging several vehicles , or maybe a couple of vehicles and an infantry unit in order to dodge return fire. I think they have the potential to smash parking lots and will playtest them asap, possibly tomorrow down ze club. Also if Urien is in the squad he can act as a sort of medipack for the unit by soaking a wound for them every turn, as he will get it back.

I think Grots will be great in Haemo/WWP focused lists, generally as it stands I can see them being overlooked in favour of other elite choices in most lists. I really like the sheer amount of str 6-7 these guys can pump out, a raider squad can assault out to 20-24 inches and dish out 19 str 6-7 attacks, if your target tank is in range and has not moved fast enough, it be dead.

Grot SMASH !! hur hur hur

There are a few set ups I would like to try with them the usual Haemo with liquifier ,v blade + 4 grots with liqui's plus an Aberration with scissors in a raider , I think these smaller squads may benefit from the Urien Str bonus more than larger squads as they dont have the volume of attacks, it will surely help them VS armour. The above squad with the Str upgrade is over 300 points ..... seems a bit much to me, I'll at least give it a run out once or twice.

The other setup is just a giant blob rushing out of a WWP, even if they dont make combat they are a threat that cannot be ignored , and to have any hope of reducing them sufficiently your opponent may end up using stuff he would rather shoot at your Raiders etc ....

As they are also missing grenades another thing to consider is an Archon with a phantasm launcher , he can also bring a bunch of power weapon attacks which Grots also lack , there is even space in the raider squad above for him, as there is a space for an extra single char, Im not sure vs most enemy objective campers that lack of grenades is a big deal, but its always going to be better to go first with that lovely I5 on the charge.

For me at least an interesting unit , I'm not sure how much they are going to be seen in competitive play I'll need to play them a bit to see how comfortable with them I will be outside of casual /pickup games at the club I think its going to be hard to justify their inclusion in a non haemo style list.

For me, potential massed str 7 hits on rear armour is just plain sexy.

Small update- The first part of my space wolf showcase will be on El D's blog at some point this week.

Next up for Eldar retro are the Rangers and Pathfinders and For DE Its Manderps.

see you soon

Dark Eldar Test Scheme 3 A winner !?

At Last !! "The Invidious Requiem" kabal is given birth !

Muh hahaha ha haaagh liive ! LIIIVE my pretties, release the flying monkeys, Hellions !!

I actually like this test scheme, I think I'm good to go.

This turned into a heck of alot of work, going to have to find a way to speed this up when I do the army. I really like how the basing turned out and will have mangled skeletons and jagged rocks all over the place , I'm kinda Impatient to see what the red uplight looks like on a raider .....And I'm really going to need a way to speed these up, Its a little less monochrome than I had originally planned but needed the extra colour to make it 'pop'

I even tried something new with the photography, better ? or stick to white ?

Steve, if you read this , drop me a line , I need to bounce some ideas off you for my Archon Conversion ;o)

Does this work as DE ? I think it does ?

lastly a small update, Next rave review is Grotesques, should go up over the course of the weekend, spacewolf showcase on El D's blog is also on the cards and fingers crossed , we have a cracking Interview lined up. As for painting Ima crack on with finishing the mechdar while I convert my Archon , he will be my reward for finishing all the tanks ....

Soon

Retro review: Eldar Guardians

Hiya, Eldar up this time , though Im admittedly having trouble as I'm all about DE at the moment, it seems like an age since I played with or thought about the poor old Craftworlders, does not help that I'm essentially writing about mostly poor units.

Most people agree they smoke the pain pipe, however I am one of the people that feels Storm guardians at least demand a second look.

As usual this is discussed from a mech perspective, I will not be touching on footdar here as It is bloody awful in 5th

Ill start by getting Defender guardians out of the way.

In terms of 40k the stats are indeed bad, however in context and in direct comparison to guard I cannot see any other way to represent Eldar citizen soldiers on the table top. people may moan about the stats but they are right on the money, they are just eldar civilians with some basic training or past experience given a gun and pressed into service, they are actually equal if not superior to a trained guardsman ? works for me .... they also have better leadership and fleet.

Problems start to creep in when we look at the gun and their cost/fragiltiy ratio. I feel GW made a fundamental screw up with the current rules for shuriken weapons, read the fluff , these guns are stupidly advanced, the eldar are a dying people they are not going to give essentially potters and painters an smg assault weapon that only works from 3ft away, major rules fail, its ok if you shoot first but you will mostly bounce from meq and then be torn apart in response , this kinda forces the guardians into backfield where the guardians can do nothing but camp an objective and send a single heavy weapon downfield each turn.

On a slightly more positive note, the heavy weapon platform is fairly cool, it essentially gets 2 guys which makes it a bit harder to get rid of and allows the unit to move and shoot as if its an assault weapon, gotta admit thats cool, how many other armies would kill for that ? ones with better/cheaper heavy weps thats who, would be better if we could get two ...

The price of the weapons are another stumbling block and an unfortunate problem with the book from day one, especially now 5th is in full swing, theres no way round it, will give a quick analysis of each.

Shuriken cannon- Cheap, really cheap, and 3 str 6 shots, its cost effective and adds to the anti infantry fire the squad can already generate, it increases their threat range somewhat and allows them to threaten light armour, just dont expect miracles.This is the best choice if you are going as cheap as possible but still want the unit to have the chance to do something other than squat an objective.

Scatter laser - top choice really, multiple shots to mitigate bs 3, strong enough to threaten most light armour and a healthy range so your campers can get involved. its not too expensive either, though I would expect a slight drop in future- best all rounder.

Missile launcher - again perhaps a little expensive given how prolific missile launchers are in 5th and generally with higher bs. Usual stuff on the krak missile, good threat to av 12 and under, increased range  allowing camoer units to engage a fairly significant part of the board from backfield, also its technically the best ML in the game as the plasma shot offers ap 4 and pinning, omnomnomTaunom, so offers good flexibility and range, its mainly the fact that its accuracy is questionable in either mode and its more expensive that the scatter laser wins out.

Starcannon - Im not a big fan of these, the range is good, otherwise its the worst plasma gun in the game , too expensive, not enough shots and does not have enough shots with the str 6 to threaten armour, say like the scatter laser, plus the current cover situation pushes even further into poor choice territory even just a shift to str 7 would do.

Bright Aids lance - anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time will be familiar with my feelings on these, I'll avoid another outright rant and just simply state that this is a very poor choice for guardians, and given what happened with the DE book, I don't expect any changes to be made profile wise, we might see a slight points drop, currently 30 points for what is essentially a bs 3 short ranged ML most of the time prohibits its use, yup imperial las tech>Eldar las tech *facepalm

Warlock- used to go in for the conceal, but its fifth, conceal is dead, long live cover. I would run them without a warlock to be honest as he adds significant expenze while not doing much for a campy unit, if you just cant help yourself go for embolden as this should protect from panic etc making them flee the objective, dashed inconvenience !

Transport - ok, Im a big proponent of meq, im just not sure why you would want to go anywhere as guardian defenders, maybe to claim an objective, except a small unit of DA is cheaper and better for this, that also applies for just spamming serpent hulls. only reason I can think of for getting defenders a transport is to run it as an empty gunship.....

Ok onto brighter and better things , sorta.....

When I first put the current mech list together I went for avengers, the avengers still perform a solid role in the army and as the gw stormies come in 8's (wtf ? no really, WTF ?) Ill be keeping them in, arguably though stormies are a better choice for all comers competitive gaming, its after some conversations with Kirby over at 3++ that I re-thought my attitude on stormies.

So what makes them good, well, they get pistols and swords, bear in mind they are never going to own marines in a straight up fight, but they do quite well on a pre softened, doomed target, doom is fairly essential to any cc shenanigans you are planning with these guys, though if guard plebs or firewarriors etc, you'll get away with it.

Main factors that work for them up front are the two special weapons they get, either 2 flamers or two meltas, or a mix of one of each ?

And a warlock gets gets some stuff that stacks with them, nice

Common builds include:

10 storms with 2 flamers and a warlock with destructor, coupled with doom these guys put the template beatdown on things, and can generate serious amounts of wounds, they need a serpent to deliver them, but it does mean you can use the mobility to set up maximum hits for your flamers. sometimes Ill flat out accross the board , and assuming the serpent does not get cracked , ill walk them out flame then assault the target, often due to your pitiful strength you can avoid retaliation fire in cc while you grind down the survivors of the flamestorm in cc. this is possibly the more popular build of the two here and is a direct replacement for storming Avengers.

10 storms with 2 meltas with destructorlock with spear, the budget version drops the destructor and sticks to pure tank hunting, kinda poor mans dragons ....

Application here is duality, destructor some pistols and 2 meltas still sucks to be shot with (doom) the shoot / assault tactic works here too, especially on tanks/walkers you have just shot and hopefully already crippled, the warlock should be fine to finish it off knocking on the back door at str 9 , mine have killed lots off stuff (lots of walkers, oddly)  and bs 3 really is not so bad, having three AT shots in one place kinda helps with the accuracy thang. Either fly up in you serpent hop out and fire, or the old flat out followed by getting out next turn shooting then assaulting is good too. I prefer this build as eldar struggle with AT at range so having another unit/s that is a reasonable threat to tanks but can also pass muster in an anti infantry role is ideal, supported and positioned well these guys have done really well for me, they always surprise with how effective they can be. Also being able to engage 5 targets with multiple melta in a turn is good stuff.

So in summary they are a bit of an odd one. Defenders for me are really bad but Stormies have served me too reliably for me to do anything but recommend you at least consider them, they are defo a unit that is better on the table than on paper. A true case of not necessarily 'what' you have but how you use it.

Coming up next: Completed test paint tomorrow, Grotesques Dark Eldar unit review with a new Colouration from Majesticchicken, and I have the first Hobby interview in the pipe too, watch this space.

Big News: DE Art for Rant

Hellions -coloration by Majesticchicken

Some people may not get this , but Im excited to bits,hopefully you have noticed by now, that I always try and use artwork on this site, I'm a massive art fan and GW art has been an inspiration to my hobby and many others from the very start.

A while back one guys work came to my attention, his name and art have cropped up on here before and he is my top fan artist, I love the colours he uses and the feel he creates with his work.

I have used and will continue to use any Eldar related fan artwork in the hope that it increases the quality of my readers experience and also importantly gets some of these really talented guys some recognition.

Recently I have been frustrated with finding good art for my DE reviews , which came to a head when I had to use all black and white for the Incubi article I wrote yesterday, displeased with this I actually made contact with the colourist/artist responsible for the awesomeness above.

So it is with some fanfare that I would like to Introduce MajesticChicken  to those who have been unfortunate enough not to have enjoyed his work so far. I really wanted to give him some exposure through my blog as I adore his work. Hands down some of the best coloured GW fan art / colouration you will see.

He has kindly agreed to provide me and the Rant readership with Colourations for the Rave review series of articles and possibly Retro too. I hope all you readers get as much pleasure from his work as I do !!

His work now also adorns the this weeks Rave review : Incubi , go see the picture and have a read, enjoy :o)

Edit: Quick update, chicken has just sent me some more (a machine ?), I have updated the Haemo Rave review with the brand new shiny, as for the others, guess you'll just have to watch this space *grin

Rave Review: Dark Eldar Incubi

I must break you ......
Colour provided by Majesticchicken

Dark Eldar Incubi. If there is just one concept I had to pick out as my favorite in this book its these xeno blenders, they cut, they slice and dice, peel, wash and prepare....

Meq are as inanimate vegetables to these guys, hacking apart a squad of marines is all in a life affirming and fulfilling days work for these psychos. Watching a well executed combat go off is like watching a piece of paper being sucked into a paper shredder, you know that almost lazy, deliberate, efficient yet oh so final pace.....

Fungasm !

"Hi I'm Shard and I'm a Jes-aholic"

As you may have guessed I'm big time sold on these guys as a concept. The God-Win has gone above and beyond even his usual brand of genius. I have a rampant 'nerd on' for Mr God-win's work him being the father of  Eldar design after all (fap fap fap), a subject very close to my heart, ok I digress, time will come for my 'Ode to Jes in E major', but not today.....

The new fluff rocks, in-fact, so much it causes one of my issues with the rules, on that subject lets actually start with a look at  the stats.

Initiative FIVE,  Weapon Skill FIVE with 2 attacks and a 3+ save with +1 STR pow wep and FLEET ?!? yup its a drool fest, when you factor in that they have PfP so thats FnP then FC,  spelt out thats potential I6 str 5 power weaponed charges and they are actually tough, without crunching the numbers I would hazard a guess they are tougher than standard MeQ so as far as Eldar go, they are Ivan Drago, a whole unit of him ..... I have had a unit with FC chop up a Carnifex recently, because the noob Archon they were escorting lumped-with flubbed all of his 1 gajillion attacks...."errr, no boss, like dis" *slutch thunk chock splushh... thud*

I win for me, FOR ME!!

So the basic guy is a machine , and  I would largely recommend just squads of these as they are more than good enough by themselves also the squad leader has some issues.......

The Klaivex- Essentially the incubi equivalent of an exarch, he even has the same issues that exarchs suffer from and like exarchs will rarely appear in squads I fear.

The problem, points Raep, he IS indeed better than a standard incubi, maxed out and with two pain tokens he is capable of 6 str 4 attacks or 4 str 6 pow wep attacks on the charge, at initiative 7 and WS 6, he will re-roll to hit a nominated IC and allow himself and his squad to generate an extra attack for each 6 they roll to wound ..... he also cannot be singled out as he is a sgt option, sounds amazing does it not ? on top of all that madness he can also have a meq slaying flamer ......

Just soak that in for a second before I pop our bubble, bad ...ASS...

You will lose

Right, then we look at what that costs us, a standard Incubi weighs in at a very reasonable 22 points, thats good right ? a cheap and cheerful Klaivex will run you an additional 35 points, the powers he brings cost 10 and 15 points (comparable to exarch powers cost) , fully kitted out including the 'flamer' he comes to 97 points .... or more than 4 more Incubi , Im not really sure he can even remotely competes with that , the unit is so good by itself its better to leave him out most of the time, the one and only time I would consider using him is if you are running a five man unit to go in a venom it's essentially impossible to buy any more incubi to jack up the power , but the klaivex will increase their power without using up transport capacity, just a thought.

Last few bits to cover , the Incubi have no grenades , I'm not sure why , I think it's to keep points down but also reflects their martial nature. I actually don't have a problem with this, possibly because there is a way around this, An Archon can buy a phantasm launcher which will not only give them offensive grenades but defensive ones too, as a squad of incubi is a great escort for an Archon it is worth considering.

I come to my other gripe, its brief, the fluff mentions neural shock attacks with 'tormentors" when launching an assault, there is no rule mechanic for this ? I assume this is somehow covered in the stats ? dunno... feel a little short changed on that front, not that they actually need a boost of any description, I suppose its my need for fluff and mechanics to mesh where possible.

Transport- yay ! Im discovering a love for our paper planes, The final piece to complete the puzzle of awesome, a transport can turn these guys into something horrific, the ability to reach out upto a 29 inch charge range is simply staggering for a unit like this, plonk them in a suitable position in your line and they have a huge counter assault/assault threat radius, believe me, no one in their right mind wants to get charged by these guys.

If he dies, he dies

Small units are ideal for a venom and worth thinking about a klaivex to ensure the 5 man unit hits hard enough, you just need to be clear what you want from the unit.

The raider allows a larger squad and I feel it is a better choice as I like a squad of at least six, more than likely with  an Archon, this is usually enough to smash most meq 10 man squads but leave a survivor or two, so a good chance you can avoid being hosed in your opponents turn. the extra lance is always welcome as Incubi cut into the amount of Trueborn you can field.

Drazhar- Ok I'll keep this brief as he has no place in a competitive build, lots of points , lots and lots of points, and NO invun, Fail much ? thats all you should need to know.

However there is more, he takes an IC slot is sadly not an upgrade character but is essentially only any good leading a unit of Incubi, and only gets the benefits of his skills when in the unit, NO invun, even transports have a fething invun...

He is a carbon copy of the P Lords, not sure if thats a good thing, improved by dint of having PfP and a possibility for FC, he is a combat machine, as with alot of the DE characters, he excels at chopping up loads of rank and file, even though he is kinda presented as a character killer.

Darting strike is an ability he has that is unique and allows you to position him anywhere in a combat where there is room, he can hopefully avoid hidden fists til he has chopped up the rest of the unit with his 6-7 str 5 -7 attacks , he will only really fall down when he comes up against a character with an invun better than 5+

He has another skill called riposte that is so inconsequential I simply dont get it, every time he passes a save on a 6 in cc he gets an immediate attack back at base str .... wtf ? he needs an invun not more attacks ?!?! Fail more ?

So yeah another Phoenix Lord carrying on the tradition of Plord suckfail, the simple addition of a basic invun would have boded well for any future Craftworld release *sulk , just does my head in that they hand out 4++ or better wholesale to Meq characters and units and in the case of deamons, whole armies.

Final thoughts, when used well Incubi can win you the game, they hit like a ton of bricks and only get harder, be aware they are quite focused for slicing up Meq, they wont like protracted combats or power weps and its worth thinning out big hoardy units with support fire before ripping out their hearts in CC.

Maybe not quite the most utterly optimal choice in a competitive list but so much fun, meq players are going to hate them and I like the models too much NOT to take a unit.

*People Mareehns

 I have managed to arrange Something I am really excited about for this blog, hopefully be able to announce it soon ;o)

Also expect the next test Models for my DE very soon.

 I will also will be showcasing my old completely converted Spacewolves army (I came to my senses) over on Mind of the Daemon, the blog belongs to one of my oldest and dearest friends, El Diablo, a master of conversions and a great all round hobby guru (he has the answer), he introduced me to new ideas and techniques a few years ago and has continued to push me outside my comfort zone, which allowed me to reach the standard of painting I can now achieve. We designed built and painted the army together and as I wish to keep this purely focussed on the Eldar hobby there is no more fitting place to showcase the army as it is his as much as mine.

Dark Eldar Test Scheme 2

Well , I managed to get a good idea in my head and subsequently managed to paint something last weekend, not quite what I was aiming for , kinda painted itself.....

If I go with this scheme I think the helmets will be black with metal details or green maybe both for variety, will have the glowing purply- pink eyes.

Even though Its better than the last I'm not sure I like this one either ....

I still have the requiem/sin city style to try and another idea or two to flesh out on, lets see how the former  pans out next.

Also managed to post this weeks eldar review below, dont miss out ;o)

Retro Review: Guardian Jetbikes

Its that time again, this week we will be discussing that mainstay of all Saim hann themed lists, the guardian jetbike.

In theory these offer you another core choice and allows you to make swordwind armies.

My Usual disclaimer here, I have been working on pure mech this last year, bikes are ok in hybrid mech but dont work with the principals of pure mech due to cost, as we know, the Eldar book is priced on the high side, enter the bikes, they cut into your tank budget and offer a logical target to your opponents anti infantry guns, which are largely not bothered with cover saves anyway.

The crux of the problem with jetbikes is that they essentially have a marine scout statline with increased mobility for 22 points, they can get places but not really do much when they get there......

I mean Eldar jetbikes are fun enough, the ability to turbo boost lends the army plenty of mobility , just be careful how you go about it as assaults are not a good place to be for these little fella's, the jetbike assault phase move and general mobility is pretty cool and allows for some interesting uses as cover for tanks, blocking,late stage grabbing and sliding out of assault/ double tap range after firing off their guns.

Lets have look at the options.

Well they can have a shuriken cannon for every three models which is actually a fairly nice upgrade as I would tend to run 6's as a matter of course or 9's at larger points two or three cannons ups the firepower and threat range considerably, this allows them to threaten most tanks, coupled with their mobility you can work for side and rear armour shots.

Warlock - yowch expensivo,consider carefully if each unit realy NEEDS that warlock to function. He brings BS4 to the party, oddly and annoyingly he offers no LD boost to the unit .... fail

Even then though its hard not to look at a unit of jetbikes just as a warlock delivery system. He brings a witch blade as standard which means in a pinch the unit can shoot a tank with cannons and assault an armoured target, with his three str 9 attacks on rear armour, my warlocks have massed quite a tally of armour over time, dreadnoughts are fair game as are mbt's, I would try and steer away from assaulting transports as you are prone to heavy reprisals from the contents.

he can also bring some other things to the table in the form of psychic abilities.

I sometimes like destructor, dooming a target then hitting it with destructor a bunch of catapult and cannon shots and if you do enough damage consider an assault into the remains.

Embolden is handy as it helps with morale and is cheap, enhance is not a good choice here neither is conceal due to the state of the cover system in 5th.

The singing spear is a fairly solid choice and a matter of preference  as it can be thrown from 12" alongside your cannon shots hits on 3's @ str 9 (essentially a short ranged mobile las-cannon), makes the unit fairly solid AT / suppression (not that eldar cant do this better and cheaper with other units ) the advantage of the spear over the blade is you still have the ability to slink away 6" after doing it, putting you roughly 18" away with any luck. it just depends what you want from the unit as 3 points is inconsequential I would prefer to try and stay out of assault and rapid fire range where possible as jetbikes, given their cost likes neither of those things.

"Destructorlock"

Summary: in terms of competitive play a fairly sub standard unit and overpriced, but not as bad as some units in the book and can be useable to a point I hope to see some form of improvement to them in the next book, a slight price drop fixing the shuricats and improvements to how the warlock works with the unit/powers.