Hobby Update: Gamesday 2011 and other stuff

On the hobby front, I'm now half-way through the Space Marine Command Squad. It really should have been finished by now, but I've not been painting as much as I'd like due to different things.

I got both the Plasma Pistol/Power Fist and Plasma Gun marines done fairly quickly, but then hit a hiatus on the Apothecary due to a lack of actual white paint. This has now been rectified, and I have now made a start on getting this one done as well and am currently about half way through.

Once the Apothecary is done, I just have to do the Standard Bearer and the Company Champion, then that's the whole Command Squad completed and it's time to move on to the two Commander models!

On a different subject, last week I attended GamesDay 2011 at the Birmingham NEC Area for the first time since 2007. Overall it was a good day, but I couldn't help thinking that it wasn't as busy as the previous two that I've been to. Not sure if this is because they have moved to two larger halls instead of three smaller ones, so people are more spread out, or if the attendance was lower than previous visits. Maybe a combination of both? There also seemed to be a pronounced lack of free marketing material sloshing around than there has been previously. No free t-shirts being thrown at me, or posters or much of anything else either. must be the economy.

Sadly didn't get near the GW Retail or Forgeworld Sales stands as they appear to have been very badly placed and demand much underestimated. The queues were a least 2 or 3 hours long for most of the day and the staff were only letting in a set amount at a time. This is a far cry from 2006/07 when the retail sales were in their own hall and much more accessible. In fact the problems that they had have actually led Tom Kirby to send out an email apologising for the mis-handling of the sales area and promising that lessons will be learned for the next time. I'm quite impressed at this as it's not often that GW publicly apologise for many things.

The Licensee stands were however, far more accessible and I picked up a copy of the Deathwatch RPG core rule book and a pre-release copy of Blood Bowl Team Manager from Fantasy Flight Games.

Most of the other stuff that happened at the event has been publicised elsewhere on the internet and I'm not going to bother repeating them here; except to say that according to the man at the top Forgeworld do want to make a Warlord Titan, but they may not do it for another few years as they can only do models of that size every 2 or 3 years due to the amount of time it takes.

Tyranid Unit: Heavy Support Units 1 and 2

Here are my current two Heavy Support choices for the Tyranids. Two Carnifexes, one designed as a mobile gun platform and the other as a close-combat monster.

Note that these were originally designed before the current edition Codex was released, which ended up making them less effective than they were previously. I just couldn't be bothered pulling them apart to remodel them. In time I may replace them with newer versions but that will require time and money.

Tyranid Unit: HQ - Hive Tyrant

Here's the completed Hive Tyrant from my Tyranid swarm.

Although I now field him with a wider variety of options, the original build had it down with a twin-linked Devourer throwing out Assault 6 with re-rolls on missed shots, at S6 with -1 to LD tests caused on the target unit for shooting casualties suffered. A Dessicator Larvae Thorax Swarm which is a Wounds on 2+ template weapon for mopping up an survivors of the Devourer.

Psychic Scream was on there to allow it to attempt to lower the target unit's LD before combat - but this was at the expense of using one of the above shooting weapons. As a Monstrous Creature, it could also choose to use the Paroxysm psychic shooting power to lower a target's WS and BS to 1. If it then charged into combat against this unit with it's own WS of 8, it was guaranteed to hit on a 3+. I have since dropped this option as it's only really useful against targets with a WS of 8 or more, unless used to soften up a target for another unit, which if done prevents the Tyrant from charging anything other that the target of the psychic shooting attack.

Indescribable Horror means that anyone wishing to charge into close combat must pass a LD test first, or be left unable to charge and will then be a sitting duck to be charged by the Tyrant instead. With 4 Attacks, 5 when Charging all at S6 (7 during first round due to Furious Charge from Adrenal Glands) with re-rolls on to hit rolls of a 1 due to a pair of Scything Talons and that ignore Armour Saves; that's not a great prospect.

Any close combat attacks that Wounds on a natural 6 causes Instant Death regardless of target Toughness due to the Implant Attack. Combined with the number of Attacks and re-rolls from Scything Talons this is a killer - literally - to many multi-wound models that lack an Invulnerable Save.

On top of that due to it's Acid Blood, each Wound taken by the Tyrant in Close Combat results in an Initiative test for the enemy unit which if failed results in an automatic Wound to that unit with no Armour Saves or Cover Saves allowed as they are sprayed in virulent acid! Even when they hurt it the enemy gets hurt back. To add insult to injury the Tyrant may then Regenerate any Wounds taken on the roll of a 6, rolled for each wound suffered so far at the start of it's turn.

This rolls in at about 295 points, so I've normally reserved this build for larger point games. Granted it still needs a bit of tweaking, but it performs fine most of the time.