Grav Guns with Imperial Guard

First off this is complete speculation on my part, I have no clue if Imperial Guard are going to get access to Grav Weapons when their codex gets updated but for this post I am going to assume that they are. Just don't go running around saying that this is prophecy or some craziness like that. If you haven't guessed by now I am going to look at how access to grav weapons will effect IG armies.

More List Building!

As much as I may hate math there is a small amount required when doing list building. Space Marines more than any army need to be very careful with how many points are put into a unit. A player can very easily get carried away throwing all sorts of special weapons on a squad making it very expensive only to see it get wiped off the table by some large blast template. My current equation has to do with bikers as I am sure a lot of people are trying to work out. This specifically works to my 1750 point list which I am not going to put up again on this post. Just so you know what I am working with as far as the bikes are concerned, I have 140 points to put in this unit without having to take things away from other units. So how about we take a look at this problem.

From 1500-1750 Points

For a very long time now I have been in a comfortable state of playing 1500 point games. I have stated many times that this is probably my favorite point level to play because it allows a player enough points to take everything they might want but not enough to go over board with crazy things. When I was trying to hunt down a tournament not many were at the 1500 point range, most hovered between 1750 and 2000 points. I want to get my primary list up to that point limit, I will be taking my previous 1500 point list and adding 250 points worth of new stuff. What this post will cover:
1. Current 1500 point list.
2. 250 points of additional troops.
3. What it will cost.
4. How the army will work.

Monster Hunting Bikes and Space Hulk

Allow me to start off saying that I really like the Space Marine codex, there are a ton of options which is only a good thing. Just like any release there are part that someone won't like, for me that is most of the new options. I really like the anti air tanks but the Centurions of both flavors don't really do it for me. Grav guns have been on my negative view roster until the other day when I was thinking about using them on bikes. I will go into that later on in the post. In my free time I have been watching a few videos on the Spce Hulk video game and while they are entertaining to watch the comments section bugs me due to people's over zealous nature in attacking the game and trying to poke holes in the logic of terminators in spcae hulks. Instead of getting into arguments all over YouTube that won't do anything I am going to address it all in this post. If you follow this link it will take you to GW's website and you can view an army by a gentleman named Teemu Valve who has a BEAUTIFUL Carcharodons space marines army. It is well worth a look. http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=11000026

Moving on Up in the World 2,000Views!!!!

2,000 page hits is awesome! Thanks to all of you that have visited the page. I didn't do anything special for 1,000 views so I decided to do something different and allow all of you wonderful people to hear the sound of my voice. I took my most popular post and made a YouTube battle report out of it. I will be the first to admit that the result is not perfect but for a first attempt I am somewhat pleased with the end product. If you amazing people like it please let me know and I will see about converting past battle write ups into these video reports as well as doing it for future games. As always I have a ton of ideas for what to do in the future so your input is always appreciated and let's me know where my attention should be. The link to the report is below. I hope you enjoy it and as always have an Emperor blessed day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaJr1ot5pH8&feature=youtu.be

Evolution of a List

For those that have seen my battle reports my list has essentially stayed the same with only minor changes. This particular build has been getting modified for a hell of a long time by this point and I am sure that there will still be some modifications that will be made in the future. In this post I really just want to look at the evolution of my current list starting from where it began to where it was at in my last battle report. This has the potential to be a rather long post so don't say you weren't warned hahaha!

Space Marine 1500 points; Iron Hands and White Scars

Developing lists is a huge part of this game and one of my favorite things to do in my copious amount of free time. I built this list with the purpose of creating something balanced, fun, and hopefully a little competitive. It's a little bit of mech with a lot of bodies, 52 Space Marines with a few vehicles seems like a good balance to me. Continue reading to see the list and my analysis of how the list works as a whole.

Space Marine Codex Review: Chapter Relics and Custom Characters

Just like the title suggests I will be going over the 6 chapter relics and the 7 regular characters you can make. So far I am really liking this book, I will never complain about having so many options and we are not even out of the HQ section of the book yet. There are some awesome characters that you can make yourself with the inclusion of the relics so instead of hinting at it let's just get to it.

Space Marine Codex Review: Special Characters

Fair warning, this is a long post thanks to there being a ton of special characters and other options to take as an HQ choice. I will be doing them in order the book has them so Ultramarines are coming first, and there are a lot of them. If you are familiar with the previous codex all the names will be familiar except the addition of the Black Templar characters.

Space Marine Codex Review: Warlord Traits and Chapter Tactics

Warlord Traits are probably my least favorite part of 6th edition because I have yet to play a game where they have mattered. It is a great idea that could add a lot to a game and the way a character operates on the battle field. In this post I will look at how well the six new warlord traits work in the Space Marine codex. I will also be looking at all of the chapter tactics and how they work. I think that chapter tactics is the wrong wording for what they do, a better term would be company tactics. I like company tactics better because it makes more sense that a company specializes in one particular set of tactics then the whole chapter mastering that particular way of war. I know that when I start running Space Marines I will not be saying I am running, for example, White Scars and Iron Hands it will be Captain Bob of the third company who is a bike master and Honored Brother Henry of the Armory who is a friend of machine spirits everywhere. Enough of that, on to the review!

Blood Angels+White Scars VS. Imperial Guard 1500 Point Battle Report

I was able to get a game in with the same gentleman that I played last time. Both of us changed our lists a bit, since I just got the Space Marine codex I really wanted to try one of the new chapter tactics and the only one that I could do without using my assault marines as tactical marines which hurts their feelings when I do that so I used my Blood Angel bikers as White Scar bikers. We decided on 1500 points because it is a good point limit that allows each player to take a variety of units but not enough to take a bunch of crazy things. We rolled up the relic mission which I feel like gave the advantage to my opponent since all of my units a fast and the relic will just slow them down. Warlord Traits did nothing like every other game. I won the roll to go first and he did not steal the initiative. Continue reading to see both army lists and how the battle turned out.

My Deployment

Space Marine Codex: First Impressions

Very happy to report I was able to pick up my book today and had enough time to give it a look over and gather some first impressions about it. I am not disappointed with the book at all, it is beautiful, the pictures are all high quality, I like the organization of the book, and probably my favorite part of it is the quick fold out reference sheet for all the chapter tactics and special rules that I am sure will be seeing a lot of use. This is going to be my first post before I start delving in depth with the codex later in the week. Continue reading to get the parts that stuck out to me the most.

Space Marine Preorder and Fedex

I preordered the Space Marine codex on Sunday guaranteeing me a copy on release day which has me very excited. Naturally the minute I get an email from Games Workshop with the tracking number I open the link and watch it travel from Memphis Tennessee to California. Up in the top right hand corner there is an expected delivery time and date which is 1030 in the morning on Friday. When I woke up today and did my morning rituals and sacrifices to the Emperor of man kind I looked up the tracking information expecting to see that my book was delivered safely. That is not what I see, what I get instead is a big red exclamation point saying that the business was closed so they could not deliver it. Okay, no problem just load it on a truck to try again during a later part of the day right? Nooooooo, we will deliver it the next business day which means Monday. After a period of wailing and gnashing of teeth I calmed down and resigned my fate to getting the book on Monday. It did not take me long to remember that the store I ordered it from which happens to be a Games Workshop store does not open until Wednesday after they close on Sunday.

I stalked around the house a bit bashing servitors and cursing my fate at having to wait another week for my book since I would not be able to pick it up during the week. After preparing a scathing speech which would make the GW customer representatives ear's bleed I decided to call the store to see if they would be able to do anything to fix the situation. I called the store and calmly explained the situation. Quickly the manager opened up the boxes that had been delivered earlier in the day to see if my book was in there. After looking for a while he promised me that if the book was not in the box he would gladly let me walk out with one off the shelf so that I would not have to wait until the next week which soothed my ill mood. He went to the bottom of the last box that he received and sure enough was the book marked for me. With the Emperor shining down on me once again I hung up the phone and began to paint my last assault marine.

For those of you that are picking up your codex in the next few days or even weeks I hope the Emperor shines upon you like he did me.