Loganwing with Grey Knights Test List

Logan Grimnar
Wolf Guard x 4 w/Bolters, 1 WG Terminator w/Power Axe, Cyclone
Wolf Guard x 4 w/Bolters, 1 WG Terminator w/Power Axe, Cyclone
Wolf Guard x 4 w/Bolters, 1 WG Terminator w/Power Axe, Cyclone
Wolf Guard x 4 w/Bolters, 1 WG Terminator w/Power Axe, Cyclone
Wolf Guard x 4 w/Bolters, 1 WG Terminator w/Power Axe, Cyclone
Wolf Guard x 4 w/Bolters, 1 WG Terminator w/Power Axe, Cyclone
Land Speeder, Multimelta x 2
Land Speeder, Multimelta x 2
Longfangs x 4, Multimelta x 4, Pack Leader, Drop Pod

Inquisitor
Strike Squad, Extra Strike Squad x 5, Psycannon x 2, Psybolt
Strike Squad, Extra Strike Squad x 5, Psycannon x 2, Psybolt
Interceptors, Extra Interceptors x 5, Psycannon x 2, Psybolt

67 Infantry, 3 disposable vehicles

Thoughts welcome. 

Why Are People Still Liking Fex Stars?

I've been wrong before. In my mind, it goes without saying that when I say something, anything really, it's prefaced by an imaginary "in my opinion."

It's hard to argue about maths, because you can be either absolutely right, or absolutely wrong. Sometimes I've made mistakes, and in those instances I'm absolutely wrong. More often than not, I get the maths right, and then I'm right.

But saying that something has X probability of Y occurring, is not the same as saying that X is best. There is no magical "mathematical formula" for creating lists. Math can inform decisionmaking, but it cannot make decisions. Never has, never will. You can try and incorporate as many different variables in as many different ways as you can, but you will never capture the subtleties of threat ranges, movement options, hell, base sizes, footprints, etc. It's almost impossible.

But sometimes you can find a truly "apples to apples" comparison.

The Fex Star versus the Tyrant Star.

So... this is a debate that went on and on between SinSynn and I back in the day. One of my favorite ever internet debates.

And at the end of the day, we left neither of us having convinced the other. But now it's a new edition, and a new debate.

So, let's clearly define our terms:

Contender A, the Tyrant Star:

Hive Tyrant, Devourers x 2, Tyrant Guard, 260 points.

Contender B, the Fex Star:

Carnifex, Devourers x 2, Tyranid Prime, LW/BS, 285 points.

As I understand it, Kirby has used the Fex Stars, and seems to think that the Fex Stars transfer well to 6th. I, too, have suggested that Fexes with Devourers make a great tool, once your HQ slot is used up.

But I would offer that if you are going to be using your HQ slots for Primes and attaching them to Fexes, that the Hive Tyrant with a Tyrant Guard is a superior option.

Firepower: Identical.
Combat Ability: Fex Star is the winner.
Durability: On its face, the Fex Star is the winner (one extra wound).
Heavy Armor Killing: When smashing, identical. If Smashing is not needed, the Fex wins. Usually. (See below).
Psyker support: Ohhhh wait. Guess the Tyrant wins this one.
Army support: I keep looking in the dex, I don't see any options for Preferred Enemy Bubbles on the Carnifex. Heh.
Vulnerability to Jaws: Tyrant wins hands down.

So for 25 points cheaper, I'm thinking I will be sticking with the Tyrants. The addition of the psyker abilities is huge. If I want to, I can splurge and grab a 2+ save, or get a Preferred Enemy bubble. *shrug* I like those options.

NOVA Open DRAFT FAQ's Released

Here is the link.

A few things that affect Tyranids directly.

A Flying Monstrous Creature which fails a Grounded test must still be hit only by snap fire, and can be Grounded again that same turn (thus suffering an additional hit). As is mentioned in the FAQ, I think GW will ultimately change this, but for now NOVA is going with the RAW which helps FMC quite a bit.

Multiple applications of Enfeeble from different sources are "different" and thus stack. This is a big one.

I would encourage you to give them a thorough read-through, and if after reading Mike's post on the topic you have further questions or challenges to the rulings, post them up in the appropriate place (detailed in the FAQ).

Thanks again to Mike and his crew for all their hard work under such short time constraints.

Here's to You, Nikephoros - Making Sense of the New Hull Points Maths

Ok, so Nike has made a rather interesting tool and posted it up on his website. He essentially is performing what is called a "Monte Carlo" or resampling approach to attempting to determine what the odds of killing a vehicle target are. It's a fine approach, and in fact Monte Carlo methods are the cutting edge in statistics right now, and allow you to do lots of things without having to make messy assumptions about the data you are working with.

But it's not my preferred method for Warhammer, for the simple reason that I feel like I 'own' the data more if I actually calculate these probabilities myself. To be clear, I'm not saying that you 'need' to know any of these things to be good at Warhammer. At all. But I enjoy working with numbers, and find that it actually makes me a smarter person to go through what are essentially uber cool word problems.

I mean imagine if you were sitting in 5th grade math class and your teacher reads you the following problem:

Quick And Dirty Batrep Nids vs Necrons

Got a game in today against a foot-heavy Necron army. Just a friendly game, he doesn't have many vehicles for his army yet. He did have one Command Barge which was a pain in the butt for exactly one turn.

Lessons learned: Stay out of close combat with Lords with Mindshackle Scarabs. Those things are stupid. Lol. It doesn't help that I can't seem to roll ten or lower on 3D6 to save my life. It does result in nice spawning rolls though!

The army list functioned exactly as intended. At the end of the game I had a Tervigon, a Dakkafex and a Hive Tyrant and would have tabled him the next turn but we called it. He had 20 Immortals, a Lord, three units of Scarabs, and the rest were Warriors. And the Overlord on Barge of Obnoxiousness.

I eliminated all three units of Scarabs on the first two turns, by debuffing them to Toughness two and shooting them with lots and lots of devourer shots. He grounded my Hive Tyrant and managed to assault it with a Mindshackle Lord and killed it in one round. I hit myself three times, wounded myself three times, and he finished me off with a Warscythe. Ridiculous!

But after that it was just a matter of shooting and assaulting down his hordes of foot sloggers.

This game proved nothing in terms of the effectiveness of the army as a whole, but it did show the validity of some of the individual tools in the toolbag, and gave me more experiencing with the Psyker powers, maneuvering the Flyers, debuffing things, etc.

So a nice little game, and now I'm home for more painting. I want the Nids to be FINISHED before Dark Angels come out, because they are one of my main armies (I play Guardians of the Covenant, a successor chapter) and I'm sure I'm going to go bananas when they drop).

Bugz For a New Age

Well... I've got about a hundred different ways I could throw this together but I think my basic build so far is going to be twin Flyrants, twin Tervigons for midfield holding, twin Devilgaunts for dakka, two units of Hive Guard, one unit of Zoanthropes, plus... X.

I can run the Hive guard in two's or threes. I can take Gargoyles or no, and have played around a bit with Genestealers (once on the board, but mostly just thinking about them).

Here seems to be a fairly solid configuration which I will hope to test soon:

Hive Tyrant, Wings, Devourers x 2
Hive Tyrant, Wings, Devourers x 2

Hive Guard x 2
Hive Guard x 2
Zoanthrope x 2 (Almost always will swap powers for Biomancy for support)

Tervigon, Catalyst, Onslaught, Adrenals, Toxins, Crushing Claws
Tervigon, Catalyst, Onslaught, Adrenals, Toxins, Crushing Claws
Termagants x 10, Devourers
Termagants x 10, Devourers
Termagants x 11
Termagants x 11

Carnifex, Devourers x 2
Carnifex, Devourers x 2

So there's really nothing super radically different from several 5th edition lists I had posted, but what I feel has changed is that the Hive Tyrants now add a new dynamic to the army, helping with Jaws, buffing/debuffing, and absorbing shots that otherwise would take down the Tervigons/Carnifexes too early.

I see this army trading shots with the enemy, losing the Tyrants, the Fexes, and possibly even the Hive Guard, but ultimately dominating the midfield and winning the game with both Tervigons alive (which can bat cleanup much more effectively in this edition).

Unlike in 5th, I am not overly concerned with light armor spam, nor am I greatly concerned about Land Raiders. What I WILL struggle greatly against will be flyers, but I have six units in the army that, with some luck, can at least try and address them, and possibly more depending upon what psychic discipline I decide on pre-game.


The most obvious switch up for this list would be dropping the Crushing Claws and Scything Talons off the Tervigons and changing the naked Termagants into Gargoyles with Adrenals and Toxins. Both have their advantages.

Thoughts?

Quick and Dirty Batrep - Nids Versus Chaos Daemons (Plague Flavored!)

So I had the great pleasure of getting an abbreviated game in with my buddy ChappyDBC last night when I arrived. He was already embroiled in a game against Necrons, so I was forced, kicking and screaming, against my will, to go grab a beer with some Warhammer nerds after being at school and work for 12 hours on a Saturday.

Ok, so the beer was actually a really nice break. Heh.

But the unfortunate consequence was that we started our game with about an hour left till the store closed, which didn’t bode well.

I was playing the following, typed up based on the models I had grabbed from the house:

Hive Tyrant, Wings, Devourers x 2
Hive Tyrant, Wings, Devourers x 2

Hive Guard x 3
Hive Guard x 3
Zoanthrope x 2

Tervigon, Catalyst, Onslaught, Adrenals, Toxins, Crushing Claws
Tervigon, Catalyst, Onslaught, Adrenals, Toxins, Crushing Claws
Termagants x 10, Devourers
Termagants x 10, Devourers
Genestealers x 13, Broodlord w/Scything Talons, Toxins for Everybody!

Gargoyles x 15, Adrenals, Toxins

1999 Points

So, just shy of the dreaded “DOUBLE FORCE ORGOMGPANIC!!” lol.

He was playing an Epidemius Plague Daemons army. Let me see if I can recall the general elements:

Epidemius
The big shit Daemon (Kugach or something?)
Herald of Nurgle

A bunch of units of Plaguebearers

3 Spawn of Nurgle

3 Daemon Princes
Everything that could take Breath had it. Icons were sprinkled throughout.
So, my setup took a while, as I have not yet had the chance to make myself lots of sets of Psychic Power cards, so I was reduced to rolling dice and typing up my powers on my laptop. Needless to say, if I take a Nids army to a tournament, I will need to have some system for quickly and easily keeping track of my powers and probably some tokens for keeping track of buffs/debuffs.

So now we have like 45 minutes to go, and we roll into the Daemon player’s drop (skipping me standing around staring).

Princes came in and killed a few Genestealers with templates. Some Plaguebearers run around.

I start my turn, and Enfeeble Kugach I think.

So, since I decided I didn’t want to just swoop around with my Hive Tyrants, I decided to glide with one of them and aim him at Kugach. The Genestealers also moved in towards Kugach.

I shot the Daemon Prince to death after Enfeebling him, and then shot about half of one of the Plaguebearer units away.

The big mistake play on my part was in accepting when Kugach issued a challenge. I should have declined, and allowed him to send my Hive Tyrant to the back. This would have allowed my Broodlord and Genestealers to beat the piss out of him with their Toxin Sacs. I was pretty confident that the Tyrant, which had gotten Warp Speed off for plus two attacks, (7 attacks hitting on 3’s) would take him down. But unfortunately I just totally blew the attack roll, only hitting twice. Even with my ten dudes cheering on the Hive Tyrant (or... something? Hissing in support? Whatever), he only hit three times. A few good saves later, and Kugach stood there chuckling. Now, on the other hand, he hit and wounded me three times, and I my Hive Tyrant was... no more.

Ah well, lessons learned.

So the next turn, Chappy’s reserves arrived (most of them). He flamed some of my Devilgaunts that I have foolishly clustered into a ruin (silly really, no reason to be in cover against his army... ever really).

His Plaguebearers charged my Genestealers, and he got another two Daemon Princes in, and some more Plaguebearers, and two Plague Spawn. I was suddenly nervous as I had not managed to eliminate his first elements and his second wave was almost fully in my face. During the assault phase, I finished killing off Kugach, and several of the Plaguebearers who had charged me. Meanwhile, his tally was steadily climbing as he chewed apart gants and genestealers.

Now, in a tournament, I almost certainly would have backed off, screened, and just shot shot shot until I could assault and wipe him.

But that sounded pretty boring.

So I moved my Tervigons forward, spawned gaunts, and prepared to get “stuck in.”

I shot apart one of his princes, took down a few Plaguebearers, etc.

Charge!!

And then the game ended. Lol.

It would have been a pretty epic combat as we all dumped into each other. Neither of my Tervigons had spawned out yet, but he was also about to get “wounds on 2+” power weapons, so that would have been a bitch.

It would have been hilarious.

In general, it was a stupidly funny matchup. High toughness with poison versus high toughness with poison... Hurrah!

Anyways, it was good to see my buddy, and just getting the models on the table keeps me motivated to keep modeling and painting. Plus he makes fun of my when I have to proxy winged hive tyrants, etc. Harrassment: the best kind of motivation. And it also helped me to get my head around exactly how I want to create my game aids for tournament play