Critiquing Kirby's Coteaz List

Kirby posted up a 2000 point version of his Acolyte spam Grey Knight list. You can see his list and his original post here.

Well, his list was similar enough to a few of my list ideas that I figured I would respond in a thoughtful way. Unfortunately, the length of time and cumbersome nature of the comment system precluded anything really "thoughtful" so I sent him an email instead.

Flames of War - First Game, Impressions

Ok, SO!

Flames of War.

I dig it.

Thanks for reading.

Monstrous Creatures and Tank Shock - A Bitch Session

Nurglitch from this thread said:

I suppose it would make more sense to have them rammed, rather than tank-shocked. But the likelihood of a Rhino running over a Carnifex is 33%, and the risk of the Rhino being immobilized, stunned, or destroyed is 66%. Likewise a Carnifex charging a 12" moving Rhino has a 68% chance of doing that sort of damage.

Don't get me wrong, it's frustrating to see a 200+pt Carnifex get run over, but it's also fun to a Carnifex get a free Rhino in its diet. So I disagree somewhat on the notion of Tyranids having no way to prevent movement to contest objectives. Like the multi-charges, it's mainly a tactical problem.

He said some other interesting things too, but that one kind of encapsulates it. Anyways, I think he may be seeing this through rose-colored glasses a bit. The Carnifex vs. Rhino matchup is the MOST favorable for the Nids (within the "MC" category, the Zoanthrope fairs better). And yet it still has a 1/3 chance that the 35 point Rhino will run over the (minimum) 160 point Carnifex.

6th Edition Magic Eight Ball - How Necrons Give Us Hope that Tyranids "Will Be Back"

So... this is something that's been on my mind since Necrons came out, and I just thought I would share. I'm not sure if this has occurred to anyone else or not. *Shrug* You get to listen to me blather about it anyways!

So. The Necron Destroyer. Clearly a shooting unit. Not a close combat unit. By most accounts it seems a touch overpriced as well. And it has a rather odd rule... Preferred Enemy (Everything!).

Game Night Recap

Got to test drive my Grey Knights army for the first time against Kingpin's new Necrons.

Turns out, never playing with an army against an army you've never played against after not having played for three months... not so good.

But really the biggest problem out of those was my unfamiliarity with my own army.

Tyranid List - Seeking Feedback

So, I'm not going to provide a lengthy explanation, I just want to give you guys the lists and you guys tell me what you think. Interested both in reviews of the lists themselves as well as comparing the two lists' relative strengths and weaknesses.

Bloggers I Like - 40k For the New Professional

I have a wild hair up my ass to highlight people who I enjoy reading, along with a few things that I enjoy about them.

Today I am going to discuss a blogger who I think of as a "kindred spirit." I'm not sure why, but I've always felt like if I were to neatly divide all 40k bloggers into little cliques, these guy would be in my crew. Or I would be in his. Or we would be in a socialist commune group without a clear heirarchy.

Whatever.

Kennedy over at 40k for the New Professional arrested my attention immediately. I've always really enjoyed reading his stuff, and felt like we were on a very similar wavelength. Tragically, his blog completely crashed and burned some time ago. I can say that this had to have been a heart-wrenching experience.

We bloggers put a lot of time and energy into our blogs, and when it comes down to it, that means we've invested a part of our lives into what amounts to a bunch of electrons and possibly some electronic friends. Seeing both of those go up in smoke has got to be painful.

Well, he's started over again, and seems to be writing again. He's only got 29 followers at the moment, but I say we give him some encouragement and some new followers and get this SoB writing again (Sister of Battle or Sunofabitch... the world may never know).

So check out his blog, follow it, comment. Let's get this guy re-hooked on the crack that is blogging.

An Excellent Rifleman/Psyfleman Conversion Tutorial

Gone to Ground has a great post that's a few months old now about converting Imperial Guard Autocannons into Rifleman Dreadnought arms.

The funny thing is, I used IG Autocannons also, but my process was MUCH harder and, in the end, doesn't look any better, lol.

This is an elegant and cheap way to do it. Check it out.

Oh, and added to the blog roll. ;D

Melta-guns, Bell Curves, and YOU!

Ok, so today I saw a dude's blog where he was trying to do some unit-vs-unit analysis. There were several things that I thought were really wrong with his analysis, but the glaring mistake was when he calculated the "expected number of pens" from meltaguns.

This guy had these huge tables of numbers, and was relying upon them whole-heartedly in his decision-making/analytical process.

But he assumed that every meltagun that hit a target penetrated it.

Every. Single. One.

Calculating the chance to kill a vehicle: The Correct Way

Ok, so I've seen a couple of instances of bad math out there lately, and I thought I would take a moment to put out some information which apparently hasn't made its way out into the general knowledge pool yet.

Most people have a pretty easy time figuring out the "number of wounds" of a given unit firing against another unit. What they are actually calculating in most cases is the mean number of wounds, or the average. It's important to remember that this calculated mean will not necessarily be the number of dead Spesh Mareenz after you have unleashed your volley of DOOM on them.

Display Board Idea

Well, since my new army is going to have 10-11 vehicles in it, I'm sure there are some that will not enjoy playing against it.

Well, why fight the hate? Embrace it I say.

So I'm thinking my display board is going to be a parking lot.

Like, an actual parking lot. Black Asphalt, yellow paint, etc.

A little label on the edge "welcome to the vehicle pool."

I'm not sure whether it will disarm some that might otherwise be upset, or further upset them. Lol.

Not that it's my number one priority (I'm hopeful that for the most part I will be playing against like-minded and similarly capable armies in any tourney I attend) - it is something I at least think about.

I probably won't do it - but it was kind of an amusing thought.

So... Talk to me about Flames of War...

I just bought the starter box, as well as the North Africa/Mediterranean book. These will be Christmas gifts for my dad.

He's a massive military buff, and has been doing military scale modelling for... decades. He's really good too. 1:100 scale will be a bit smaller than he's used to, but I think he will like it. This seems like the best way to cross his hobbies/interests (WWII, models) with my own (also like WWII, models, and gaming). Is that all I need to get started? Is mid-war going to really limit who I can play with? Can I be thinking about buying models that work for both Mid-War and Late-War?

With any luck, the end result will be me and my pops rolling dice and blowing up each other's (beautiful) tanks in the Casserine Pass/Monte Cassina/Solerno, etc. And heck, maybe at some point we'll "move forward" to Normandy, Market Garden, maybe even the Eastern Front.

Talk to me about game balance. Are the rules designed such that historically accurate (ish) forces can be successful? Are there "power builds," or are most choices fairly legitimate?

Or is it more like Warmahordes, where most choices can be made to work, within the proper list?

What should we expect to pay for a "full sized" army? What are some solid purchases early on which would fit into a variety of builds? We now have three Shermans and 2 Stug(?) Assault guns, so, yeah.

I'm going to wait to see what my dad wants to play. He may not be comfortable playing "Ze Germans" and if so I'll take the Krauts. I've always felt like Rommel was one of the more sympathetic Germans anyways. Poor bastard. Wrong place at the wrong time.

Anyways, if my dad does take Ze Germans (again, Rommel is pretty appealing) then I will be hard pressed to decide between the Brits and the Americans. Playing the Big Red One would be pretty bad-ass, but then again so would the Desert Rats or even the 9th Australian or the Highlanders.

Too many damned options, which is a good feeling.

Basically... talk to me about Flames of War. The good, the bad and the ugly.