DOOM!!! Ultra-Violent!!!

Today I want to share with you one of my greatest works with conversions. This is a project I helped my brother Ken with over at Next Level Painting. I had the luck and privilege to convert a Chaos Demon army to look and feel like the Demons from the amazing FPS DOOM. This article will be long and pic heavy, but I hope you will enjoy it

Penitent Dread Knight Complete

Here are the finished Pictures of the Penitent Dread Knight.

2k Grey Knight Army on eBay

I thought I would post the pics of my Grey Knight army that I am selling on eBay. This army did me well. I built it for Genghis Con in Denver earlier this year and won the event with a field of over 60 players with no practice using the army before hand. Since then I have played it 4 times, all against Ken at Next Level Painting to play test 6th and went 2-2. The army is the classic Paladin Star list and is every bit as lethal in 6th as it was in 5th. I never intended to keep it. It was always meant to be sold after Genghis Con. so now it is on eBay: Grey Knights on eBay

In addition to being the army I used to reclaim my title at Genghis Con, the army was also a test for my new airbrush. I used the hairspray/salt technique to weather the army, and the blue color was chosen as the best contrast to the rust. 

More pics bellow.

Penitent Dread Knight

Here are some pics of a commission I am currently working on, a kneeling Dread Knight. This model has a lot of work put into it with cutting, reposing, and green stuff.

The model is almost done. Just needs to have some of the green stuff work cleaned up.

Thunder Hawk Pt. 3

The Thunder Hawk I posted in these articles: Part 1  Part 2  and Part 2.5 is now finished! My brother Ken over at Next Level Painting just finished it up for his client. Click on the link to Ken's blog to see more pics of the Thunder Hawk!

Updating for your Battlefield for 6th

Crazy Dave here again! This time I want to discuss updating our terrain for 6th edition. Each new edition means we as gamers need to take it upon ourselves to update our collections as well as to pressure our LGS and various TO's to do the same. When 5th edition kicked off, true LoS made most of our 4th edition terrain useless. It took almost the entire edition before events started to update their collections. Today I will show you how to make trees that give cover vs. flyers and the such.

6th Ed. Battle Report Space Wolves v. Death Wing

Here's the inaugural battle report to issue in the new 6th edition of Warhammer 40k recently released. There is a lot that has changed, and a lot that has stayed the same. The Brothers Boucher battle it out again in another match in their long running rivalry. They hold no quarter, and fight each other as only brothers can. You can also check out Ken's blog at:

http://nextlevelpainting.blogspot.com/ Witness the destruction and carnage in the pics below.

Power Weapons Pt3. Tactics and Challenges

In this last article on Power Weapons we will take a look at tactics involving picking the best options for your Power Weapons.

Right off the bat, it would seem that the Power Axe is the best option. You lose your Initiative but gain +1S and AP2.  In some cases this is true, and in others sadly it is not. We need to examine the new Challenge mechanic to understand our options.

In 6th edition we have gained Challenges much like in Fantasy. Challenges are important for many reasons, but mainly they allow you to protect your squad. By issuing a challenge with a character like Draigo, Lysander or any other tank type character will force your opponent to fight him with their character or back down and not fight at all. This tactic works great against a unit with 1 character, or even against a unit of 1 like a Demon Prince or Dread Knight. If you have a sergeant level character in addition to your bad ass IC, challenge with your sergeant and force him to fight this low level character. He will get slaughtered against an IC, but will keep your unit alive while your IC hurts his unit. Also, if your opponent is the one issuing the challenge, you can try and do the same tactics in reverse. Match your tank to his IC, or you sergeant to his Tank.

Now that we have taken a quick glimpse at the Chess Match of challenging we need to determine which power weapons work best for sergeant level characters. The power Axe is great for its +1S and AP2, but in a challenge against an opponent with a Power Sword could cut you down first before you can attack. This makes the Power Axe powerful against terminators and such, but easily dealt with. The Power Sword has the speed to do well but falls short against any 2+ save opponent.

The pros and cons between the two make it so the swiss army knife that HTH used to be is over. Now your HTH units have to pick a role and stick to it with a few exceptions.

Right off the bat we have to look at Phantom or Hidden Power Weapons. These were terms used back in 3rd edition when character could be singled out in HTH combat. These are squad members with access to power weapons or fists. A quick look at a few units would be:
Grey Hunters
BT Crusader Squads
Vanguard

There are a lot more, but we will leave it at those. In these cases a Power Axe becomes a very attractive option as you can get your I1 attacks in and not worry about being killed first. Even units with all Power Weapons like Banshees and DCA could benefit from axes. In the case of the Banshees you would only take a few so as to not lose your I10. With the DCA it would be beneficial to take Power Swords and Axes as they have 2 weapons.

Also, units like IG Blob squads with 5 or more characters in them also benefit from Power Axes as they can accept or issue a challenge and still have plenty of back up axes to attack with. Units like these can take full benefit of Challenges and taking low Initiative weapons like Axes.

There are also a few weapons in the game that still ignore armor saves without having an AP value. These weapons for the most part are from 4th edition codexes. These weapons give the benefit of high Initiative and essentially AP2 against non-vehicle units. Some of these weapons are:
Commander Farsight's Dawn Blade (I5 and S5)
Colonel Straken (I4 and S6)
Warp Spider Power Blades(I6 S3 +1A)
Howling Banshee Mirrorswords (I6/10 S3 +2A)

6th edition has added a lot of variables to the game. Power Weapons are one of them and require a lot of Strategy and Tactics to use efficiently.

Power Weapons Pt. 2, WYSIWYG

In our last entry, we discussed unique characters and the question of modeling their weapons. In this article we will take it to the generic codex entries and discuss what options models actually have and again look at the question of modeling to your advantage.

We will take a look at the Grey Knight Codex to see the differences in weapons. I will make 2 lists. The first is models that have access to a Power Weapon, and the second will be those that specify Power Sword.

Codex GK:
Power Weapon
Death Cult Assassin
Crusader
Tech Marine

Power Sword/Force Sword
Inquisitors
Warrior Acolyte

This trend exists, albeit a lot less with the FAQs. Now lets see what it means.

The Death Cult Assasin is armed with two power weapons. The Crusader has a power weapon, the Acolyte a Power Sword and the Inquisitor a Power Sword.

The argument here is that even though the DCA has 2 power weapons in it's entry, the official model is equipped with swords and therefore the model has swords and prevents conversions to the contrary. This argument has some logic, but it has a few hiccups. Such as the fact that the DCA on the right only has one weapon, or better yet this:

Here we have an Inquisitor model armed with a Power Maul/Force Maul. Inquisitors only have the option for swords, so this model is illegal. What does that mean for the rules. The question also is raised for plastic kits. A SM Assault Squad comes with a Power Axe, so can he be modeled with the Power Sword from the Plastic SM Captain Kit?
It comes down to the fact that you have to allow for conversions, which makes the question raised in the first article that much more a hot topic.

Also, as a suggestion, in addition to being WYSIWYG, players will need to indicate what their models have on their army lists. This is to prevent you from switching from Axes against the the Death Wing army to Maces for the Ork player because you either have extra models to represent this, or they are magnetized.

This post was edited thanks to a catch by Chris Dillion.

Power Weapons Pt. 1

Power Weapons have changed drastically in 6th edition. Some good, some bad.

This will be the first in a series of posts covering the changes to power weapons, what they mean, tactics to use and will raise a few questions at the same time.

Part 1: Unique Characters

The first subject of discussion we will cover is unique characters, and how these new rules effect them.

To begin we must start with a question; Can unique characters benefit from the modeling part of the rules for power weapons?

This question sits on a fine line. On one hand, unique characters are just that, unique. They almost never have any options, and they almost always have a model to correspond to their rules. On the other hand, there seems to be no real rule to exclude them. GW encourages us to convert and forge a narrative.

 This seems to be a question that each event will have to address on its own. Luckily, the list is pretty small for the characters that can benefit from this rule (Remember that the weapon can have no melee special rules, such as Master Crafted, or Two Handed). Lets take a look at those that can:

Imperial Guard

Colour Sargeant Kell (model has Sword)
Chenkov (model has Sword)

Eldar

Baharroth (model has Sword)

Chaos

Huron Blackheart (model has Axe)
*Ahriman (model has a Staff)
*it is important to note that Ahriman's force weapon does have special rules, however, since the special rules are not melee special rules, it does not make his weapon unique like GK Nemesis weapons or Runic Weapons.

The list is small, a total of 5 unique characters that can possibly be modeled to have different power/force weapons. So let us now look at the benefits that each character might have from said change.

• Kell- Kell comes equipped with a power fist as well as a power weapon. Modelling him to have an axe would therefore be a waste. A power sword seems fitting for the initiative 4 strikes. A maul would also be interesting for some S5 shots at I4, but for the most part is not that great when you can go at I1 S6 AP2.
•  Chenkov- Chenkov, like most IG characters, benefits from a power axe the most. This is a model were changing to an axe would be more beneficial.
•  Baharroth- Being a Phoenix Lord, Baharroth sports an impressive I7. Giving him an axe is almost a crime with that high initiative. He has a good number of attacks at 4 and a very high WS at 7. Even though he is only S4, he can cut down a few marines well. I will say, I do like the idea of a Maul on him for the S6 to knock out vehicle Hull Points, but with haywire grenades and probably a unit of hawks with the same. it seems a power weapon is best suited for him.
• Huron Blackheart-Like Kell, he comes with a powerfist. This makes the axe he is modeled with redundant. He would be best suited with an sword
• Ahriman-With the change in targeting IC's in HTH, Ahriman does not need to strike at initiative. He would be best suited switching out to an Axe.

It would seem that 3/5 of our Unique Characters benefit from a little conversion. So, the question once again is "Are they allowed too?".