Planetstrike on Advanced Orders

GW USA put the Planetstrike up on advanced orders with nice pictures of the boxes compared to the grainy scanned ones recently seen on the net.

Labyrinth Comics and Games Saturday Tourament

The lab had a little event this weekend that I got to go to. I ran a Shrike plus scouts list detailed here. Basic idea is just try try to get close and assault fast with fleet scouts with support from assault marines and bikes. Even though this was sort of an odd list I managed through mainly luck on opponents and always winning turn choice to get second place in the battles with my 2-0-1 record. My list was not to heavy but played to slow to get sportsmanship and nothing was painted so no possible prize for me there. The top battle prize went to Daemons for a 3-0-0 record.

First Game: Chaos Space Marines

Spearhead with 3 objectives plus random meteor strikes. This list is tough for me since chaos marines are better in assault than normal marines. I won first turn and just setup my speeders and assault marines then after he set up most of his army in his corner I boxed him in with my infiltrators then scout moved to 12. I immobilized both of his transports and was assaulting during the first turn. The game ran really slow as the scouts and chaos marines worked on each other in combat. His heavy hitting lord and chaos terminators just got a deepstrike mishap so got placed away from the action. The game only made 2 turns in the time with me holding 2 and contesting 1 but we agreed it was a draw since I had started pretty much holding 2 and pretty close to the third. Telion earned his points back with a Bullet to the head of a Aspiring Sorcerer in a 1K Sons squad.

Second Game: New Imperial Guard

Dawn of War with Annihilation with sandstorms that occasional caused difficult terrain and night fighting. List had a ton of different things including 3 or so of the unique upgrade characters. Since this was dawn of war and the opponent did not have a fleet advisor I gave him first turn and held everything but the snipers for outflanking/deepstriking. After a long discussion of how platoons and units work in Dawn of War he deployed some combined platoons and then moved most of his forces on in turn 1. I moved on my assault marines behind a building to hide them and fast moved the landspeeders up.

He then destroyed my speeders and he put some fire on my snipers and on my assault marines from Marbo's demo pack and some deepstriking storm troops. He failed to force either to fall back so the snipers killed Marbo while the assault marines drop the stormtroopers to one lone brave member who fought on. Deepstrike the assault termis right in front of his line while I moved flankers in on his flankers to one side. His next turn decided the game where he put 2/3 of his fire power into trying to kill 5 assault terminators. We are talking about a decked out russ, 5 plasmacannon shot russ, bassilisk, 4 different squads. I think he might have killed 1. We were running short on time and I was already up kill points before my half of the turn with several guard units in assault range for multi assault by the termis and others by my scouts. My heavy hitting bike squad with Shrike also had not arrived so he called the game for me.

Third Game: Space Marines

While my first 2 games were against young players learning their armies this one was against an old pro. He had a Master of the Forge with 3 Drop Podded Dreads(1 Ven, 2 Iron Clad) supported by crusader with thunderhammer termis, 2 drop pods of tac squads, and a TL LC+ML Dread. The mission was a combined annhilation with 3 objectives worth 1 KP (1 random one was worth 2). I gave him first turn and reserved absolutely everything. He dropped in and secured the objectives and moved up his raider. I came in and popped the raider with my bikers then assaulted the termis(not my best good idea). The termi killed off my bikers over a two rounds of combat and caused Shrike to break and run. My Termis came in but did not get the job done and were killed off by the combined might of a dread and a tac squad. My assault squad got bogged down with an Ironclad. My assault scouts did better killing a tac squad and 2 pods and managed to stay alive with 3 in each squad including the fist. Shrike rallied and went back an killed the master of the forge. At the end of the 4th or 5th turn time was up and I was up 5-2 having killed 3 pods, 1 tac squad, and a landraider he had killed my assault termis and bikers. Victory points he was way up but the game was kill points so the victory was mine. If the game was going to go on he probably would have picked up 2 more kill points but I also would have probably got 2 more also.

Shrike Force

We had a little tournament at the FLGS, Labyrinth Comics and Games, on Saturday. It is pretty small with about 10 people and not a winner take all style. I decided to run a different list since I had done my Mech Pedro list twice already. I wanted a list with more mobility and fewer kill points. I decided on a Shrike based list at 1750.

HQ:
Shrike

Elites:
Assault Terminators: 4 Thunderhammer Storm Shield, 1 Dual Lightening Claws

Troops:
10 Man Scout Squad: 8 Snipers, 1 Missile Launcher, Cameo Cloaks, Telion
10 Man Scout Squad: Powerfist+Shotgun, 1 Shotgun, 3 CC+Bolt Pistols, 4 Bolters, 1 Heavy Bolter 10 Man Scout Squad: Combimelta, 1 Heavy Bolter, 1 Sniper, 4 Bolters, 3 Shotguns
8 Man Scout Squad: Powerfist+Boltpistol+Meltabomb, 7 CC+Bolt Pistols

Fast Attack:
Landspeeder Squadron: 1 Heavy Bolter and Assault Cannon, 1 Multimelta and Heavy Flamer
10 Assault Marines: Powerfist, 1 Flamer
6 Bikes: Powerfist, 2 Meltaguns, Multimelta Attack Bike

This list is clearly not optimal especially in the scout squad weapons and landspeeder. For some reason even though I barely paint anything and WYSIWYG is not required at this store I try to play a strict WYSIWYG list. These were all the scout models I had so I tried to form up units that would at least make some sense if I combat squaded them. I liked this list since it allowed me to get like 10 models that had never seen the table out for some games.

If I was going try to tune up the list I would keep the snipers as is and get 2 10 man squads with fists sergeants and cc+bolt pistol scouts. Normally I might recommend the shotguns to try to thin the enemy before assault but since this army has fleet you will not be taking those shots often. The last squad would get the combimelta and melta bomb plus 4 shotgun scouts then a heavy bolter and 4 bolter scouts. Landspeeders would be 2 with heavy flamer plus multimeltas to get the points for the 2 missing scouts.

I included 3 units(termis, bikes, assault marines) to decide who to put Shrike with to gain his inflitrate ability depending on the other sides list. I can then either inflitrate 5 units then scout move 4 units or outflank 5 units. Other units can deepstrike or start on the board so I have pretty good choices in deployment.

Predator Configurations

Determining how to arm you predator for any specific list depends on the roll you want it to fill. Currently the power list involves the "dakka dakka" predator which has the autocannon, heavy bolter sponsons, and storm bolter. This is a lot of anti light infantry firepower for under 100 points. The next configuration is the generalist shown above. It has the TL lascannon for anti tank duty and and HB sponsons for anti infantry. This is a predator for use on the move since often only 1 weapon is brought to bear on a target so I add the dozerblade. This one is a significant point jump at over 130 but can help when you need a little overall boost to your firepower.

Another option is the autocannons with the lascannon sponsons. This is cheaper than the previous one but is for anti tank duty not general support. It is able to engage light and heavy armor. When you are on the move you will have to pick between the autocannon and lascannon. If you are firing at Armor 10 the autocannon is best. At armor 11 they both generate the same penetrating hits but the autocannon generates twice the glances so use the autocannon. For Armor 12 or above the lascannon is best. This tank might come in handy against squadrons of light vehicles like walkers or skimmers.

The final option is the all lascannon predator for anti heavy armor. This one rings in at over 160 points so is not a popular choice. I would probably only bring this for anti monolith duty where melta's are not effective or for opponents spamming nasties inside Landraiders where the stand off weapon range is important. This tank will generate .75 glances + .75 penetrates while stationary against AV 14 not to shappy. This compares to a single multimelta at close range with .1 glances and .4 penetrates assuming 2d6 armor penetration.

Magnets and More Magnets

I finally got off my butt and ordered some magnets for some projects. They are mainly for getting my Tyranid monsterous creatures started since I have had an assault brood box and a hive tyrant sitting in my basement untouched for months and months. Originally I had bought some ~1/4 inch ones from my local craft store but the more I look at them they just seemed to big.

I ordered a whole range of sizes so I can try different things. I got 1/16 inch diameter ones at thicknesses of 1/32, 1/16, and 1/8. Let we tell you those 1/32 are tiny. Not sure if I will be able to use those. They might work for something like a speeder or attack bike since I can probably get away without countersinking them and the weapon is already partially held by the rail.

That is a 1/16 compared to a bolter. This is the diameter for space marine hand swaps. Now this is what the three lengths look like on the side.


I also got some 1/8 diameter which will probably be the mainstay for most pieces I hope. They seem a pretty good since for handling.


I also got some 3/16 for bigger parts like dreadnought arms and MC heads/arms. This size fits perfectly inside the Arm holes of the full plastic dreadnought kit. They are a little big for the Black Reach one.


All in all I got like 400 magnets for about 40 bucks including shipping. They even arrived really quickly (4 business days) without special postage or handling just normal first class from K&J magnets. Project 1 will probably be magnetizing my Dreadnought Arms since I have been using double sided tape when I want to use 2 dreads. Project 2 will then be a new predator with all the options to go with my more classic TL lascannon with HB sponsons.