Be careful what you wish for....

After the release of Battle for the Abyss, I was thoroughly disgusted with Black Library. Some of the Horus Heresy books that had been produced just seemed sacrilege. Somewhere Dan Abnett and I understand each other because none of those authors made return trips to the 30th milena.

Now I am kicking myself. I am still happy with the decision mind you, but I am just pining for some more 40k books. It's going to be 7 months between Fallen Angels and Prospero Burns, I'm starting to DT..........

Rix

Bad Assery 101

www.redknuckle.com

So over Thanksgiving I was having a conversation with RC about Lysander. RC raved about how powerful he was and how he was really at the pinnacle of his power. His assertions were: Eternal Warrior and four wounds is unheard of, thunder hammer and storm shield are undercosted in SM codex and they tear shit up, and he works awesome with one of the strongest units around: assault terminator squads. I decided to give him some more thought for my Fist army.

My first concern was that I didn't want to break my fluff goals with the army. The army was made to be a half-company, and would not include any attachments. So I was not going to be adding a terminator squad. The only model I could see having some terminator armor was the Captain. Well the good news is that Lysander counts as a captain, so I can even keep my command squad.

So, I started to weigh the benefits of Lysander compared to the added cost. First off we know he is a bad ass stat wise, but being in a squad it gets watered down a lot. Compared to another commander the biggest difference is the strength 10 thunder hammer. Bolter Drill will be useful since my command squad all have bolt pistols. Bolster Defenses is another surprising good one with this army as I always have one squad in cover in the backfield (devastators or at least a combat squad). Lastly I was very interested in using Chapter Tactics, since I was relatively underwhelmed with Combat Tactics (at least for my style of play).

He seemed like a winner so I wrote up my list. I had to change out my command squad razorback because of Lysanders terminator armor, so I went with a drop pod. I also had to lose the devastators rhino to make up some points. No real bother as they are usually stationary anyway.

So after one game I was floored with how much of an improvement it was. The first thing that was apparent was how much better the drop pod was than the razorback. My command squad is meant to be very survivable (storm shields and an apothecary) but they weren't as big of an impact after my razorback got immobilized at half field. Now, turn one they are a factor. As survivable as they are I was not scared to unload in front of some pretty heavy firepower. The enemy was forced to deal with them. My rhinos zipped across the field at record speed. There was a lot of synergy going on there (yes I work a desk job). I will venture to say that I like the drop podding command squad more than I would like a deep striking assault terminator squad. The drop pod comes in first turn and doesn't have to worry so much about mishaps. So I don't need so much stand off distance.

The other big takeaway from the battle is how much more I like Stubborn than Combat Tactics. I know Combat Tactics can be very useful. Woe be the player who shoots at a combat squad before assaulting. I am just not the kind of player who dances around a board like that. I find that I am much more likely to go where I want to go and plant my squads. Seems like it falls in line with a certain chapter I know about. Every time I got into combat and had to roll leadership I was reminded how much more I like Stubborn. My army definitely feels more like Sons of Dorn.

And with that one game, I shelved my space wolves and started getting back to painting my Fists. I am actually in pretty good shape with my to-do list:

• Since I am not tweaking my space wolves anymore, I don't have anything on them to do (I'll chalk that one up as a painting win, since the codex came out a month ago)
• I only need to paint a drop pod, Lysander, and finish my assault marines to finish the 1500 points
• I only need to paint up one more tactical squad, their rhino, and five bolter wielding devastators to finish off the half-company

I think I will be set for a Jan tyranid release :D

Rix

Meh

So after a month of living, breathing, tweaking, and playing my space wolves I am officially bored with them. I have struggled to figure out why. Here are my best reasons:

• I always thought I loved Assault lists (my first love), but after playing all different types of armies I finally figured out that assault armies are pretty one dimensional.
• I settled very quickly into what I believe is the best list possible (given my already painted units)
• Allocating ICs and Wolf Guard between a mech list is confusing and annoying
• Lysander drop podded into my heart

More on the last later. But overall I have been very pleased with the way my wolves performed, very content with the viability of my list, and very bored playing it. I used to love setting up my Space Wolves for battle, they sat on my side of the table mocking my opponents "Do what you want, but my wolves are coming across to whop your ass!!" Now when I set up I feel like I am on the losing side of a battle of wits. My opponent has all kinds of tools at his disposal (reserve forces, combat squading, deep striking) and I am just looking to meet him in the middle without losing to many transports.

On another positive note, I like my list. I have a healthy number troops and some real punch in close combat without having to spend 750 points in HQ choices. The units all fit into my great company scheme (one of these days I'll get around to finishing that). But that cut out one of my favorite parts of the game, critically thinking about the list and doing some hard core tweaking.

Lastly, I do really like the ability to attach wolf guard. It's a poor man's combat squad. But trying to figure out between 4 squads which 3 should get a leader, which of those should get the special weapons, and then try and figure out which should get ICs, oh and also some are in razorbacks and some are in rhinos.....it all gets pretty confusing. I always end up just throwing some units together and deploying them haphazardly, which in turn I feel like I am always screwing up deployment.

For all of these reasons, I am Meh on my puppies and have shelved them for now.

Rix