Crusade of Fire: Emerging from the Warp

Tonight at The Foundry, we are starting a Crusade of Fire campaign with some customization. I will be playing the roll of GM and telling the origin story for my Dark Angels successor chapter (Currently going under "Angels of Darkness"). Things are a bit fluid right now with exactly how the special end-of-phase missions will play out as we are still planning those, but a lot of the elements from the campaign missions will be present.

We have nine players, but turn order will be done a bit differently. The Unforgiven (taking the place of Prophets of War) will be placing first (We already control the system), and will be outnumbered by all the other factions. This balances out the early benefits for holding the best Strategic Objectives. We have the same amount of planets of each size as the original campaign, but more strategic objectives with a little bit better spread. We will be bringing in planets in a different order to make things interesting (Starting with 5 planets, and then bringing in 2 more in each of the other phases).

I have generated a custom map for the campaign, which you can see below, showing only those planets available for Phase 1:

We will be allowing Forge World models and we will be using the Dogfighting rules. At least one special mission will utilize the Special Operations: Killzone rules. All standard games will be played at 1500 points. Each campaign turn will take 2 weeks, giving us about 18 weeks to finish this off. It looks to be a great time. I look forward to sharing how things go, and I will post map updates as we progress.

Playing Dark Angels: Building a Better Battleforce

One of the hallmarks of the very best players in 40k is their ability to bring an army that looks like a random sample of units from a codex, and continually trounce upon opponents of all skill levels. I don't consider myself quite that good at the moment, but I'd like to think I'm approaching that direction, especially with my primary army: Dark Angels. This actually isn't something that every codex is capable of, at least not in the most competitive scenes. Sure, great generals can take weak codices and do some significant things, but it's almost always due to vast amounts of player skill and an understanding of the army's strengths and weaknesses. Armies with better tools, more efficient tools, and multiple units with similar roles are much more able to pull this off. Right now, I'd probably limit just a few codices in the game to pulling this off really well. Space Marines, Necrons, Imperial Guard, and Dark Angels are the best, with Chaos Space Marines and Space Wolves coming in just behind them (in my opinion). Other codices are extremely competitive, but have very few competitive options.

So what's required to make and play one of these amazing "battleforce" armies? Let's take a look:

Works in Progress: Ravenwing

I'm just showing off my latest work as I'm getting my Ravenwing ready for CAGE 2013. I've off to a good start, and though I'll be extremely busy for the next 2 weeks, I shouldn't have a problem getting these done in time. These are the test models for my Black Knights (left) and Ravenwing Attack Squadrons (right). Let me know what you think!

Playing Dark Angels: Emerging from the Warp

I've been silent on the hubbub of Dark Angels tactics and strategies for a while as I absorb the codex, test some things out, and get myself to a point where I can give advice and have it mean something, rather than just spout stuff from having skimmed the book a few times.

Starting this week, my FLGS will be doing a Crusade of Fire campaign with modifications. I play a DA Successor Chapter, and this campaign is going to tell their re-emergence story, as their solar system emerges from some raging warp storms. I'm gonna use the opportunity to try out very weird or unusual things with my lists, so I'm sure I'll find some awesome new tactics to share with everyone.

Also on the agenda is preparing my Dark Angels army for the 2013 CAGE Match Finals taking place February 9 &10, just 3 weeks away. I'm focusing on the most immediate competitive builds, and there are a few things going around right now that are worth building around:

• Ravenwign Command Squads/Black Knights
• Azrael with Guard Blob
• Standard of Sevastation
• Power Field Generator + Land Raider Crusaders
• Flakk Missile Spam
• Drop Pod Assault + Deathwing Assault
• Support Speeders in squads of 5

I will be posting somewhat regularly over the next few weeks with insights from the campaign and playtesting. We're getting our team set up for ATC this year too, so expect some information on that!

Space Marine Bikes revamped

Not too long ago, I posted up a bike list with a tremendous amount of firepower. It was weak to fliers but otherwise extremely solid. I've tweaked the list a bit to cover that weakness, and here is the new, improved SM bike list

• 150 Captain
  • Power Axe
  • Bike
• 200 Bike Squad
  • 2 Plasma Guns
  • Attack Bike
  • Power Sword
• 185 Bike Squad
  • 2 Plasma Guns
  • Attack Bike
• 185 Bike Squad
  • 2 Plasma Guns
  • Attack Bike
• 200 Bike Squad
  • 2 Meltaguns
  • Attack Bike with Multi-Melta
  • Power Maul
• 200 Bike Squad
  • 2 Meltaguns
  • Attack Bike with Multi-Melta
  • Power Maul
• 120 Attack Bike Squad
  • 3 Attack Bikes
• 155 Storm Talon
  • Skyhammer Missiles
• 155 Storm Talon
  • Skyhammer Missiles
• 100 Thunderfire Cannon
• 100 Thunderfire Cannon
• 100 Thunderfire Cannon

Total: 1850

Basically, this downgrades the captain's weapon, loses a couple other axes, and swaps 2 attack bike squadrons to pick up a pair of Storm Talons. The volume of shots means we aren't really losing out on anti-infantry firepower, and it gives us some solid and reliable anti-flier shooting. As always, I'm open for critique!

CAGE List Update

We had our practice tournament this weekend for CAGE, and I went 2-1, losing out to Cron Air (Necron Air Force). Too much of my anti-flier tools were on AV11 platforms, which night scythes tend to shred very quickly. I've come up with the following changes, retaining my ability to deal with infantry and ground vehicles, and giving the acolytes a leg up in durability with sporty new rides. Anti-flier shooting is much improved, though I can now fire on fewer targets. I do give up fewer kill points though, which makes winning Annihilation easier. I lost the defense line, so the infantry blob is now set to advance and have a good ol' time.

Primary Detachment

• 100 Coteaz
• 240 Strike Squad
  • 2 Psycannons
  • Psybolt Ammo
• 240 Strike Squad
  • 2 Psycannons
  • Psybolt Ammo
• 35 5 Acolytes
  • 5 Storm Bolters
• 35 5 Acolytes
  • 5 Storm Bolters
• 205 Storm Raven
  • Multimelta
  • Assault Cannon
• 205 Storm Raven
  • Multimelta
  • Assault Cannon
• 160 Nemesis Dreadknight
  • Heavy Incinerator
• 160 Nemesis Dreadknight
  • Heavy Incinerator

Allied Detachment

• 80 Lord Commissar
  • Power Axe
• 260 Power Blob
  • 1 Platoon Command Squad w/ 4 Flamers
  • 3 Infantry Squads w/ Power Axe, Flamer, Melta Bombs
• 130 Vendetta

Total: 1850

Let me know what you guys think. My first test game with the basic setup felt pretty good, even though I played rather poorly. The list made up for that though and killed lots of stuff.

Chaos Space Marines with Necron Allies @ 1850

Another distraction on my path to finishing up that Dark Eldar series, this is an idea I had for Chaos Space Marines when another friend was curious about potential uses for allies and trying to figure out a list for CAGE. For this army, I would definitely try a counts-as approach, making all the Necron stuff similar to the new Daemonforged units.