New Years Eve Grudge Title Match!

The wrestling ring is a dangerous place, but it can get a whole lot more dangerous when you put a steel cage in it. But we're not talking about wrestling, we're talking about HELL ITSELF unknowable reaches of it bottled up in megatons of steel plates. We're talking about SPACE HULK!

Now if you don't recall me and Norm's last grudge match you can check it out in the archive. But I can give the cliff notes. He lost and he cried. Last time we were playing for our terminator armies and I got Norm's deffwing. This time however since we're playing Space Hulk we'll be playing for the JustaRhino Championship Belt! (Seen above!). It's glistening gratuity is cover in glamours gold and bears the winged googlie eye rhino which is the ancient seal of JustaRhino!

But just to make sure Norm gets all this I'm going to formalize it:

3 Games of Space Hulk will decide the Ultimate Champion of 2011.
The missions will be:
1.) Suicide Mission
2.) Unknown Lifeforms
3.) The Artifact

Who will walk away with the Just A Rhino Championship Belt?

Flames of War Thoughts

Flames of War is a 15mm miniatures set in the war torn future of world war II.... I recently purchased the Starter Set "Open Fire" (seen above). This includes 5 miniature tanks, one miniature rule book, a handful of dice and regular sized quick start guide. First of all Let me say that I really like the rules for this game. The main rules for the game are pretty easy to get a handle on. The rules are pretty clear if not a bit repetitive. Though in practice there are some grey areas that bog things down a bit and get a bit confusing. Such as line of sight being based on a line and not on real line of sight and blocking terrain being defined before the game and usually not exactly what the terrain represents. But these are minor complaints really. The simplicity of the rules is actually really nice, especially if you've ever seen any other WWII games which involve numerous charts and graphs and string theory to determine how your guys moving around.

The miniatures from the company that prints the FoW rules are pretty nice, and pretty expensive. The infantry isn't that bad, giving you the option of getting a whole army of infantry on foot for $80 bucks, but tanks are really out of hand, going for around $14 a tank. Which is steep for something that's smaller than a space marine. Not that the models aren't good. They are just expensive. The good thing is unlike GW and PP's jurisdiction of only using their model in their game, FoW is open to any reasonably similar models. Which there are A TON of online.

I got mine from Plastic Soldier Company, it took a month to get my full plastic sherman tanks but I did get them for a hearty discount of $4 a tank. If you do a little poking around the internet your can find all sorts of minis that are 15mm WWII.

The game's also got a really we developed series of "army books" which each include almost too many options for units for you to field in the game. Almost every nation and era of the war is well represented with multiple army lists for each configuration. It's a lot to take in to say the least, especially since there's like 30 books out that serve as army lists for this game. They have been consolidating this library but ALL the list are still legal as of now. I'm playing Canadian Armor. It's fun and good to yell things aboot hitting people with hockey sticks. I would highly recommend checking out the FoW starter, at only 40 bucks it's a steal and is a good starting point to FoW.

News Flash! Sisters Get FAQED. (Mostly in the A)

Domo's here to bring us the latest on the developing Sisters of Battle FAQ story. He say's the story is, that there IS no story. The FAQ is shorter than GW's two paragraph rant about perfection. And it doesn't really do anything bad for the book. Nothing that really matters to be sure. I wonder why they even bothered to write it up, I mean they only bothered to write half a codex for the Sisters in the first place so why not just leave it at that? Well either way, It made me revisited Sisters thoughts. I had a bunch of attempts at Mech, but it doesn't seem like getting too close the enemy is something sisters want to do intentionally. My hybrid lists did a bit of winning until people stopped shooting at my giant squad of sisters and took out exorcists and dominions instead. So I went back to the drawing board once again.

Sisters of Battle Army List: Footers of Faith.

Jacob- 90pts

Kyrinov- 90pts

Battle Sisters- 265pts

20 Battle Sisters,

2 Melta Guns

Battle Sisters- 265pts

20 Battle Sisters,

2 Melta Guns

Battle Sisters- 265pts

20 Battle Sisters,

2 Melta Guns

Battle Sisters- 265pts

20 Battle Sisters,

2 Melta Guns

Battle Sisters- 255pts

20 Battle Sisters,

2 Flamers

Battle Sisters- 255pts

20 Battle Sisters,

2 Flamers

Retributors- 121pts

8 Retributors

4 Heavy Bolters

Retributors- 121pts

8 Retributors

4 Heavy Bolters

1994~ Pts.

There we go. 136 3+ 6++ Fearless Sisters with 8 Heavy Bolters, 8 Melta Guns, and 4 Flamers. It might need more melta, but your opponent is going to have a hard time shooting through 18. Sisters at a time to get to your delicious melta gun centers. More importantly you're going to have 20 Feel no Pain girls out in front to keep concealment on the people behind. And if you put Kyrinov in the right place you can get Fearless on all the girls, except the one's who are stubborn, they don't need it. Just move up to mid-field and shoot it out, or just march into their faces if their a gun line. The biggest con of this list is OMG 136 SISTERS! I don't want to admit that I have more than that... But most sane people don't and unless people just give them to you (Like they did for me thanks :P) then you're going to be dropping some mad duckets on 3 sisters for ~$12.

How To Be Better at 40k: Be Batman!

That's right. Batman would be an awesome 40k player because he's the world's greatest detective, meaning he's the world's greatest problem solver. 40k is a game of chance and abstract problem solving, collation of data, and weight of risk and reward. Batman is great at the shit! He know's just how to defeat his enemies and delivers the telling blows in an expert and practiced way.

Now it's been almost every kid's dream to be Batman at one point or another so let's jump right into some simple ways you can be like the caped crusader.

1- Knowledge is Power: Batman has a giant wealth of information at his disposal either inside his own head, inside his giant crime solvin' computer or anywhere else he gain access to. He uses this information to combat villains and solve crimes. In 40k you have the same tools and resources at your disposal so you should really start by knowing everything you can about the game (Fluff excluded cause it might not help you win a game to know those things, though it is interesting).

You're probably at least a bit familiar with all the rules of the Giant 40k rule book, but it's best to go over it a few times, and actually read that sucker if it's going to really stick in your brain, but that's kind of a gimme and usually you can access the books at any time during the game, so what I'm really suggesting here is to read ALL the codices. Yeah, it's not fun sometimes, and you might think that you'll never play an army so why read it's codex? You know when the worst time to find out about some kind of special character BS or giant lazer death beam is? Right after it blows the mother loving hell out of your favorite models. Batman wouldn't walk into a villain's trap only to be killed with no means of escape, so study up.

2-Superstitious and Cowardly Lot: Gamers are in scads as much or worse than criminals. Use fear as a way of building up your army against a given foe. I find it strange that many gamers find particular units much scarier than they actually are, or perhaps over fear strong units. This ploy can be used to your advantage. If your opponent is afraid of some part of your army that isn't important to your strategy then use it to draw his attention. Put in a place where it will draw a lot of firepower off your more important units. If your army is well balanced it's even possible to do this with something that's important to your strategy. for example I have a crazy fear/hate of Thunderwolf cav. I hate them so much! They are way too good and I will literally stop at nothing to bring them down, including over extending my battle line to only get charged from the damn things, meanwhile long fangs are shooting the shit out of my whole army.

3- Know How to Hurt Them: Batman knows all the karaties! He doesn't just know one way to break a guy's elbow, he knows a crap ton. He knows exactly where to do things to people to get them to do what he wants, fall unconscious, breaks their arms, throw them off buildings ect. Don't forget what threatens your army the most and how to deal with them. If your opponent plays mech. then have your anti tank ready, if he's playing horde your flamers and machine guns better be there. If he's got a brick unit you're going to have to find a way to slow it down or make it in-consequent. You're list needs to have strong and weak points but it also needs to have been built to take all challengers, however they come. Batman not only knows how to hurt people but he's never trapped for very long, he's never in a losing situation. He's always got a utility belt shark-repellent to get him out of trouble. You need to remember than mono-building seems practical and the internet loves it but you're going to get beat hard if their not throwing the things you're good against against you. I like to keep a few different types of units around giving them different equipment. Like 3 squads with heaters, and 2 with heavy flamers or heavy bolters.

There you have it, a brief guide on how you can become a better 40k player by pretending to be Batman.

Project Tau: Hyper Dimensional Fortress 40,000

There has been almost 2 weeks between posts. But the holidays aren't the most conducive to blogging or 40k. But I've been abuzz with the new Tau Codex rumors that have been circulating throughout the internet. These juicy tidbits about giant battle suits and an all battle suit army has really got my imagination train crashing at full speed. So I've decided to build a new tau army based on those sweet animes we know and love.

First of all let me say, finding models/toys from mecha anime lines that are the right size was not theeasiest task, each scale is almost worthless seeing as a 40k doesn't really have a scale, and most gundams and other robots are supposed to be giant so getting the same scale as 40k wouldn't work. So it comes down to buying a few test kits and seeing if they fit or not. Those are on their way, so pics will be coming soon.

Grudge Match: A Major Discrepancy and Other Bitz

Sorry for the delay in posting. My oh-so-esteemed cohort has been holding of on posts until I wrote up my battle report, and I've been writing college papers. How irresponsible of me. As it's been a few weeks, I don't remember a point-by-point synopsis of the game (Frank and I agreed to take better notes next time). As such, I'm just going to provide a little color commentary, and assume Frank got most of the details right.

Except One. F***ing. Thing.

Grudge Match: Leslie Wing's Side of the Story

Grudge Match Battle Report #1:

This Will be my side of what happened between Monty and I in the Grudge Match...

The Bitter rivalry of Dark Angels and Space Wolves is deep rooted in the fact that Lion'O O'Johnson punched Russ out on some ancient battlefield, apparently the argument was about some misapproprations by O'Johnson as the banker in a game of Monopoly.

Leslie gave a brief overlook of the battle, seeing "crybabies" on the horizon she rushed back into the hyper combo attack and prepared to show the "dorkangels" what real fighting was like.

Grudge Match: Leslie Wing Vs. Deathwing

There was once two men who knew more of bloody blades than of human sympathy.

They snuffed out life, laughing as their weapons flew. Now they guard the darkness, hallow shells of the villains they once were.

Though myself and Mister Norm "Monty True PUBstar" are some of the bestest friends in the world. That doesn't mean that we've never competed against each other, serious competition among friends is sometimes problematic as someone seems to take things tearjerkingly too far. But, this problem hasn't really plagued us. I guess good sportsmanship is something we've both got a handle on. But when It's time to get serious battle lines are drawn and faces prepare to be peppered with insults/fists/dice/fistfuls of pepper/hard noodles or whatever else we have at hand. And this time We'll be playing "for pinks" meaning, whomever loses will give their army to the other. That's a scary thought considering the time and money spent on a 40k army. If you're ready like we are then let us start with our first official grudge match! When the dusts settles someone will have won and the other might be crying (Especially if that someone is Monty).

The Army Lists

For those of you who don't know it already I have a Logan Wing Army: The Space Wolf Girlminators. I converted all of them to be girl's instead of boys, including The Great Wolf now Leslie GrrrmGrrrl. For more information about the Girlminators you could check out this thread. Or you can wait and see the Armies in action. It also is true that Monty owns himself a Deathwing army! And being the Gary to his Ash I decided that a formal challenge of him and his So called army would be appropriate. To make things even more interesting our lists would basically be mirrors of each other, obviously it wouldn't sink up exactly since Deathwings are Cheaper than Wolfgirls and such but it worked out pretty neatly.

Kid Famous's Girlminators:

Leslie GrrrmGrrl.

RunePriestess in Terminator Armor.

Iron Priest: 2 Cyber Wolves.

5 Wolf Guard Terminators: 2 Storm Shields,

Assault Cannon, 2 Power Fists.

5 Wolf Guard Terminators: 2 Storm Shields,

Assault Cannon, 2 Power Fists.

5 Wolf Guard Terminators: 2 Storm Shields,

Assault Cannon, 2 Power Fists

5 Wolf Guard Terminators 3 Stormshields, Thunderhammer,

Powerfist, 6 Wolfclaws, Frostblade.

Hyper Combo Attack: Land Raider Redeemer

Multi-Melta Searchlights Extra Armor.

Venerable Dreadnought: Assault Cannon

Monty's Death Wing

Belial x2 Lightning Claws

Interrogator Chaplain: Terminator Armor

Deathwing Squad: 3 Thunder Hammers, 2 Lightning Claws,

Company Banner, Apothecary.

Deathwing Squad: Assault Cannon

Deathwing Squad: Assault Cannon

Deathwing Squad: Assault Cannon

Deathwing Squad: Assault Cannon

Venerable Dreadnought: Multi-Melta

Wreck Becka: Land Raider Redeemer:

Multi-Melta, Storm Bolter, Extra Armor.

Thats A LOT of Terminators!

Mission and Deployment

Despite having to play on what was essentially 2 small tables moved together and covered

with a GW battle mat to make one giant table, we were able to place down 3 objectives. After

Monty rolled Dawn of War 4 times in a row like an idiot I decided we'd be best off playing pitched

battle due to the size of the table.

After jointly placing terrain we rolled of for first turn, and remembering "how to win at 40k" I rolled more than my opponent was able to win the game aka: go first. Monty deployed his forces as best he could given the irregular shape of the table and it was on to first turns...

Role Playing a Bug

It was a gloomy, frigid autumn day in Pittsburgh when The Traveler arrived.  He bore the strange fabrics of foreign lands on his frame, and sinister malice in his heart.  So it was, as the two-tone Chevy Lumina pulled in behind the other chariots, that Norm knew his fate was sealed.  For in the grim darkness of last Saturday, there is only...

[Fake Editor's note: Stop that.  We don't have pictures for the battle report yet.]

Oh.  Well damn.  I was all set to regale you all with the story of my most recent battle against none other than this blog's other esteemed writer, Frank.  I'm all role-played up, though.  You know the feeling.  When you decide that being a regular guy with a regular job is dumb, and you're just drunk enough to pretend to be an Ork for a few hours.  Even if you don't 'for-real' role play, you've probably gotten caught up in a really good game at some point.  Maybe you made your commander leap theatrically from his Land Raider, or used his obnoxiously large sword to topple enemy models.

[Editor's note: Please respect your opponents and his or her models at all times.]

Sisters of Battle: Army Lists

In the Previous exhaustive volumes we wen't on a little trip through Codex: Sisters of Battle!

And despite previous implications that the list "Suckzors" I believe we found a lot of strong points the list has, and an overall average of quality that would leave orks and tau very jealous.

Though just like orks and tau it's important to steer clear of potentially pointless units and make a list that's well rounded and to the point, which isn't always the easiest. So let's start with some easy lists for Sisters.

Sisters of Battle Part 3: The Good, The Great, and The Underwhelming

In my previous two sisters analyses (part 1/part 2) I have been comparing the new book to the old book and talking about how the new book functions and how some things have changed, and how some units are very bad. I feel like it's not an unfair handling of those units or that part of the book. I think the faith points/rules system is much more streamlined and easy to explain (which you'll be doing every game to your opponent.) And I even think making the Faith Points a D6 roll works very well with how the Acts of Faith are attached to units, you don't need to rely on them as much and units you need them for will be taken care of with 2-3 Faith Points a turn. And I wasn't out of line by saying Repentia and Penitent Engines suck, because they do. But, no one really took them before so you don't have to worry about them sucking. So now I'm going to give you some real good news. You've all had faith (ahaahhahahah get it?) this long and now you'll be rewarded.

The Good:

Battle Sisters: "Can't Spell Sisters of Battle without Battle Sisters."

Cannoness and Command Squad

So here's some pictures of my in progress Sisters of Battle. I started with the command squad and Cannoness, because....they are the funnest to paint! Duh!

I still have to finish highlights on both, especially the cannoness herself, I'm also planning on painting a pinup or something on the back of the Cannonista's cape. More to come

My First Army: A Necrospective

There's Necron rumors about online, and they've got me thinking back to the days of my first army.  Looking at some of the leaked pictures, I fear that the game is losing its best starter army in favor of making the Necrons into a modern list.  As a Necron fan, these changes are welcome, and I'm very excited to read the new book (November 5th, if things online are real), but I also know that I would never have fallen in love with the game without last edition's Necrons.

Hobby Stress

While writing my post about Necrons, I got into a serious 'thing' writing about hobby stress, and figured it should get a quickie post of its own.

'Hobby Stress' is a term I like to use for the feeling a new player gets when he feels like he's 'doing it wrong'.  The first model I ever built was a jet plane.  Just a cheapo Wal-Mart kit, and when I got it together I immediately painted it bright, glossy red with a glossy black nose cone and tail fin.  I hadn't 'done it wrong', and it never occurred to me that I had.  I had a lot of fun building and painting a jet that would be totally unsuitable for war.  I put it on my desk, and nobody ever told me that a real f-14 would be grey and have squadron markings on it.  Or that The Angels of Absolution actually lost all their Predators on Threndar IV, so I shouldn't be allowed to field them.*

To be fair, every list has associated 'hobby stress', not just marines.  But no matter what you put on the table, somebody will walk by and snidely point out that your black-shirted orks are actually Goffs, and they wouldn't hang out with your red-shirted orks.  Or that 'real' Tau would use different deployment protocols or something.  A reasonable person might look up and say 'I don't care, my black orks are Oakland Raiders, and the red ones are Kansas City Chiefs.'**

But nerds like me who want to fit in -and are painfully aware that they almost never do- would probably just apologize and study up on how to play orks 'right' when they got home.  This is ruinous to the hobby.  I don't think it's always a matter of elitism or bullying.  I understand that a lot of it comes from loving the fluff, and wanting the game to be characterful.  You read all the books about the Dark Angels, and now some doofus is completely screwing it all up.  

Nobody wants to feel like they failed at having fun, though, and the idea that you can play 40k 'wrong' is a great way to get people to quit playing entirely.  You don't have to think my NFL Orks are cool.  I'm just asking you to back off, and let me enjoy them.  Nobody made you look at my table, man.

* I made this up, this is not true.

** Yes, the Raiders and Chiefs are division rivals, and would are also unlikely to be friendly with one another. If you wanted to point that out to me, you are exactly the problem.

Sisters of Battle Part 2: Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Last time I was discussing key differnces between the new and old Sisters of Battle book. It really came down to splitting hairs. The new sisters book functions a lot less like a melee weak marine army and now functions like a highly durable and mobile guard army. The changes to the faith points system and acts of faith are tragic, but I'm way over it now after playing my sisters a lot. It's not as advantageous to constrain the types of Acts of Faith a squad can use in the new book but, it's much more of a consistent effect. So let's get away from reiteration and get to some very obnoxious aspects of the new Sisters Codex.

The Last Stand New Characters Betas

HEROES

Heroes have a number of features that are unique to themselves that aren't in standard warhammer 40,000 aswell. The also benifiet from a number of Universal Special Rules.

Heroes Universal Special Rules

The following Rules/Equipment apply to every hero:

Fearless

Independent Character

Assault Grenades

Special Power Points: Each hero has a pool of points they can spend each turn in order to destroy their enemies or assist their allies. Some of these abilities are attacks, some are bonuses, but whatever the case, a hero may only use 1 Special Power per game turn unless they are a psyker, and then they may use 1 Psychic power per game phase: Movement, Shooting, Assault.

Special Powers use Special Points (SP) to work. Every character uses the amount listed next to the Special Power in order to use the power itself. Simply deduct the cost of the power from the total of SP the hero has and this is the total number of SP the hero has left. If you don't have enough SP to pay for the whole cost of the power then you cannot use it though the SP aren't wasted. Each turn a hero recovers a number of SP which is listed next to their total SP in their stat line as a "+X" value. X is the number of points they regenerate at the beginning of each hero turn. The number of SP a hero has can never go over the starting total listed in their stat line.

Psyker: This character can use up to 1 Special Power per phase during the hero player's turn. They pay for abilities normally. They don't need to take Psychic tests, simply pay for the ability as normal to use them.

Hit the jump for the first two completed hero profiles!

The Last Stand: Beta!

LAST STAND BETA RULES V 1.0

40k But Different: This is a game based on the 5th edition rulebook of Warhammer 40,000. As such, all the regular game rules apply, plus some additional rules such as "Special Moves" and "Special Points." Treat this like a special encounter which puts a few flavorful characters in a "No Win" scenario. Survive against wave after wave of deadly enemies, collect points to level up, grab phat lootz from terrifying bosses, and try to survive longer than your friends. But you're going to have to work together to survive. The game pits 2 sides against each other, on one side is the "heroes". They might be from a bunch of different races across the 40k universe but right now they work together.

The "Last Stand" Rough Draft

Since I bought and Loved Space Crusade (aka Smash TV 40k style) I have been looking for a way to implement the same kind of points and heroes play-style into a tabletop version.

I also have been inspired heavily by Warhammer Quest and THQ's Last Stand Game Mode in Dawn of War 2. I've pretty much put all these in a blender and frappe'ed myself some custom game goodness. This is a rough draft of the game, a first run of the rules just to get things going, there will be much more to come.


[We've moved the content to new posts, but I wanted to leave this here so people would know where we're coming from.  Stay tuned for updates!]

Just a Rhino Approved #1

I hope you are all very excited. Because I'm here to unveil a new article type here at JaR:

Just A Rhino Approved!
I know! But please, hold your applause till the end. This new type of article will consist of Homegrown rules, scenarios, games, rainy-day crafts, hats, or anything else we think you need to have rules for. If you're anything like me you miss that thrill of opening a new White Dwarf magazine to find a whole new Chapter Approved rules waiting for you (I know it happened two months ago, shut up!). It's like Christmas but better because you didn't have to wade through the snow to argue with your family about who isn't a doctor at any point. And these rules were REAL, you could go and play with them like the official Codices. Oh boy! But....

After Andrew W. 40k left Games Workshop these articles dropped off completely as did sales of White Dwarf. I'm not here to talk about how pointless White Dwarf is now, maybe I'll do that later, or Monty can do it. Right now we're talking about Honest to Gosh rules for new stuff!

Though I love 40k to death, I made this blog because there are plenty of things about it that I hate. And one of those things I hate is the fact that EVERYONE plays Space Marines.

Which...sucks.

Variety is the spice of life and all I've got to play against is PISS in my Cheerios.

And THAT sucks.

The worst part is most people who play 40k are pretty into the fluff. Which means that all those Marine players (especially the Ubiquitous Ultramarines) are breaking the Codex Astartes. If you don't know what a Codex Astartes is, then let me summarize. The Codex Astartes was written after Big Bad Horus died, and all the Rebel Space Marine Legions went back to the warp. The Imperium didn't want 10s of 1000s of space marines to go all Jason Bourne on them again. So they wrote the Codex Astartes which said that each Space Marine chapter can only number 1000 doods and thus the Second Founding occurred, dividing up the space marine chapters of the First Founding into smaller bite sized increments.

Now that my little trip through Roleplay city is over, nowadays EVERYONE playing Space Marines is breaking the Codex Astartes because I bet dollars to boltguns that there are way more than 1000 Space Marine Models representing each chapter in the world. Hell, there's a guy at our local gaming store (Chris Eiemers Shout-out woot woot!) who literally owns the entire Ultramarines chapter. So assuming that he's the 1st 1000 the Ultramanndoes get, then all the rest have to be....ELIMINATED! And so the Inquisitorial Branch Mahitoius was born. Founded by Thorian Inquisitor Xanidella De Fel Crois Bow,

her sole mission is to eliminate suprlus members of the space marine chapters before whatever diabolical plans they have come to horrible fruition.

She is obviously intended to be an HQ choice for either Grey Knights, Imperial Guard or Sisters of Battle.
Try her out! Tell me how it goes!

You can look for more JaR Approved articles in the near future!

Why We Hate Chaos

Shut up. Thank you. If you don't hate Chaos, you should probably read this. And if you do hate Chaos, you probably don't know why. You think you do, but you're wrong. Ok, everybody offended? No? Jesus, a Jew, and Mel Gibson walk into a bar...

Oh, sorry. You ARE all offended, because I either just told you I hate you, or called you too stupid to understand your own mind. Great. Let's begin.

We'll start with some of the reasons you think you hate Chaos. And if you're some kind of social deviant (Chaos player), just swap out 'hate' for 'refuse to play anything but' and it'll read the same. Assuming you can read and understand the basic principles of substitution. Hey-oh!

A Sister by any other name...

Two Posts in one day? You guys must be lucky. But don't get too excited it's more Sisters of battle stuff. These are all test models from myself. Hammering out which color schemes I want to use on my Sisters.

Scheme 1: Really Red and Boney Bone

I'm not too fond of the first one, it seems a bit bright for a 40k army (Hardy har). Which is also probably why it's the least finished.

Hit the jump for three more schemes!

SISTAZ of Battle Part 1: A Crisis of Faith

The new Sisters of Battle codex hit the news stands about a month ago now. This has given me some time to really find out what the book does and doesn't have going for it.

It seems like many people have given the book a very rough handling.

(like Games Workshop! -Rimshot- )

It's true the book, is a lot different than it used to be. But people yelling

"OMG SELL YOUR SISTAZ NOW OFMG!"

is really uncalled for, especially when they were doing that before the 2nd part of the codex was even out...

An informed opinion I'm sure.

Also, people seemed to gain a lot of knowledge about how bad sisters were NOW, even though they had exactly ZERO previous experience with the Codex...

An informed opinion I'm sure.

Well now that that's out of the way..

Instead of going and drilling to death individual unit reviews I'll stick with making a general list of Pros and Cons in-relation to the old book addressing the biggest complaints I've seen circulating.

Dreadfleet Preview

So, there's this new GW thing. It's called 'Dreadfleet', and it looks pretty cool. There's a 10-minute video hosted by Phil 'Dank Budz' Kelly detailing all the ins and outs. Because it's GW, an over-acting pirate tells you in harsh pirate language how cool every ship is, and how super spooky it is that ships can be made of ghosts. The goods are about 9 minutes in though, as you'd expect. And if you're a gamer, you know 'the goods' are: What do we get?' We love our fluff, aye, but we'll not spill our purses unless you tell us how many models we get! I'll embed the video at the end, feel free to watch it, but be aware that your host is HIGH AS HELL.

HIGH AS HELL, BRO

3rd Annual: Texas Tag-Team Tournament

There comes a time every year when everyone at the local gaming store feels the pressure.

The pressure of having to find the perfect partner for the "Texas Tag Team Tournament!"

And I'm not immune to such pressures, every year I try to become inspired by my own personal Heroes.....

....The Legion of Doom.

What would you do Hawk and Animal?!

No, elbow drops aren't the answer this time.

Despite their council I have yet to capture Tag-Team glory in the 41st Millennium.

But NOT This Year!

This year I've been grooming a new dark apprentice to stand at my side and claim victory...and destroy the Jedi once and for all!

However, having 6'' spiked shoulder-pads and an evil manifesto against space samurai isn't enough, at least not when it comes to 40k, so we'll also need the perfect Army List to bring down the house! A "5 Moves of Doom" if you will.

From The Depth of Local Gaming!

Every weekends friends get together to do things with and to each other (if you're lucky.)

I seem to spend many of my weekends hunched over a gaming table making many bad long term life choices at once. Which is why so often after weekly gaming we retire to the bar, for some much needed emotional salve on our sore emotion anuses.....emotionally!

This weekend was no different. However, this weekend stood out with a break in form of having a rather large mega-battle, pitting forces of the Imperium against the:

"RUINOUS POWERS OF CHAY-OAS!"

The powers, ruinous as they may be, consisted mostly of . Orks, Dark Eldar,...and 1 Chaos Marine player (who wasn't foolish enough to not run Space Marine formations and use Chaos models).

As I have recently sold my most precious Ork army, I decided I would need something fancy to put together during the week to have for Saturday. A trip to Toys "R" Us and the Hobby Store later.... This came a rolling out of my workshop

Grey Knights

I think a lot of the grey knight models are very cool.

The dreadknight reminds me more of that robot from the matrix, or some sort of anime mech than it does a dreadnought, but that's ok.

The models I really don't care for are the terminators.

It seems like they put their crotches in the wrong place, like their hips are too wide and the crotch is too high up. I don't know, maybe it's just me but it does seem like there's a bit of a proportions change from the plastic termies. And they need more details, like seals and tabards and censures (sp)

I like the power armored GKs, even if GW painted them like a horses@$$.

Also some of the poses on the Power armored ones really make you wonder. The storm bolters are SO HUGE, it's almost impossible for me to believe that they could wield 2 handed weapons. They bolter would just run into their chest and they couldn't really swing back.

They are also holding some demon heads? Aren't demons incorporable (or whatever) wouldn't they just disappear to the warp when they die? That last one is pretty nit-picky, but hey.

I think the worst model they came out with is Driago, don't get me wrong, he's got lots of awesome detail, that I feel is appropriate for a grey knight master, however look how he's standing and holding his sword. Stand up and act that out, and tell me if that's something you don't feel awkward doing. But I guess they can't release models that aren't pointing with power swords and screaming.