40K, Renegade's & Heretics or IA13

IA 13 is I believe to renegade guard players what the 3.5 chaos space marine was to CSM players, now by that I don't mean it has the same power level as the much beloved dex did, but like it it gives you endless modelling opportunities & it's a fun book to use as well.

Something that FW do a lot better then GW imho is capture the feel of armies a lot better & why GW couldn't take a leaf out of their book (forgive the pun) is just beyond me to be honest, anyway I don't want to go on a rant so we'll leave it at that, but what I'd like to do is try to get across to you dear reader just what I love about this book.

The one downside to the book is it's like IA 1 & 2 in that it doesn't have any store like IA 3 to 12, but that apart is a wonderful book with a lot of details & a wonderful army list for those that have turned to chaos for a better tomorrow.

What this book does very cleverly is force you to build your army in the right way, what do I mean by that ? well the first thing you got to remember is this is not really a guard army although you could play it as one you would be handy capping yourself as a guard army plays a lot better as a guard army using their codex, stuff like orders, priest, vendetta's you won't get in IA13.

You'll get instead a mix & a flavour that will in a lot of ways come from your warlord & what god he has devoted himself to as it should be right ? With the different marks unlocking different options apart from that the units can take marks to gain benefit's which adds more flavour.

 As I said earlier FW have been clever in how they went about things , sure you can have things like vets, you'll get 5 for 35pts & after that their 10pts a model, so squad of 10 would cost you 85pts that 25pts more then the guard dax, but like I said FW where clever as this is not meant to be a army made up of vets but instead a gag bag bunch that have sold their soul for the hope of something better.

 With lots of verity and lots of modelling opportunities I see myself getting a lot of mileage out of IA13 & a lot of fun, when I first used this book I was nearing the stage of leaving 40K & although I could see that the book had a lot to offer I just couldn't really embrace it in the way I have this time round.

I'll leave it at that for this post, the picture's are from my game in the club the other night against Ger, so my thanks to him & as always my thanks to you for dropping in & if you'd like to leave a comment it would be welcome. :-)

Sector Six, Schwarzaber out.

To the Reich High Command, it is with a heavy heart that I send this report  with our beloved  leader Otto Fulkner dead, but we all must do our duty as he always said.

With so much blood spilt in this the bloodiest of  campaign's it was only a matter of time before such a manifestation would take place.

Just as we where getting ready for the finial push to bring victory to the glorious Reich we where set upon by the minions of the blood god, who lay wast to all of our Commander's brilliant plan's that had taken us so far in this war, so cruel a faith that in this what should have been his finest hour such a great hero should fall, but he did not go down with out a fight & it is only from his genius that any are left to send this report.

For what seem like a life time we gave battle to this unnatural foe, but how does one defeat a foe who's only intent is death be it his enemies or his own forces it is all blood to the blood god, we now regroup & await further orders.

For the last time Schwarzbar out. 

Designers note, Not such a big battle report this time but that is in no way a reflection on the game which was a blast, but before I go on I like to thank Will over at http://govgensectorsix.blogspot.ie/ for letting me take part in the campaign to shape the further of sector six, sadly if it turns out the Reich was victorious our hero Otto Fulkner will get to be apart of the new order, but I'm sure there will be a monument to him somewhere.

As you know dear reader this was a bit of a return game for me to 40K & if you've read the last couple of posts you know I was been torn as to what to field, well in the end I went with a combo from IA 13 & formations & am glad I did so as I felt this lead to me playing a very enjoyable army as you get to take part in every phase of the game & the summoning of daemons gave me the assault element that I miss when playing guard.

I feel the learning curve on getting the best out of this army will be high which is good imo but if I can master it I think it will be an army that might be able to hold it's own for the most part, so I'm back in the world of 40K apocalypse & talking of apocalypse I've just noticed my deployment was illegal so I guess I really do have a lot to relearn, sorry Doc

Well I'll leave it at that for this post, but before I go my thanks & a well done to the Doc (I hope you can live with yourself killing such a fine hero as Otto) my thanks once again to Will & as always my thanks to you for dropping in & if you'd care to leave a comment it would be welcomed, oh sorry about not having to many pictures as I to busy try to win a war lol 

40K lists, what have guard got ?

As I step once again in the grim dark that is 40K it's time to see what guard can bring to the table, there are 5 places we need to turn to when building the army to see what we can get.

1) The guard codex
2) Formations
3) IA 1
4) IA 13
5) Stronghold assault

Right where to start ? why not with what's everyone's flavour of the month formations, guard don't have to many of these as their codex is before GW copped on that formations is the best way ever to sell models, but at least they have some & there's 2 that are really drawing me to them.

These are the Psykana Division & the Emperor's Spear aerial company, the combined points of the 2 the way I'd want to run them would be 815pts a big points sink, but what do you get for this you may well ask ?

Well the 3 squads of psykers with their friendly commissar's are popping off their magic on rolls of 2+ with any perils been fixed with a bullet from said commissar's most time's I'd use these units to summon daemons.

The Emperor's Spear is 3 squadrons of valkyrie's or vendetta's in any combination, for this you get a rule that let's you fly in low & drop guys off where you want them but must take a dangerous terrain test of every bit of terrain you fly over that's more then 3" high, not to great now is it ? but what it does apart from given me 3 flyers in 3 different squadrons is it leave's a FA place for my vulture gunship, if I use the guard dex

With most thing on the ground easily killed in assault & with thing able to be in your face these days on turn one it might be better to fight the war from the air where your safe from assault & most things need a 6 to hit you, but you still have to be mindful of not getting wiped before the flyers get in on the act.

Stronghold is where I'll head next for a landing pad, after that's it's either the guard dex or IA 13, if I was really feeling brave or just wanting something a bit different for me I could go to IA 1 & run an armoured company, it's good to have choices.

The guard codex is where I'm going to to build this army from for my game on Saturday, the reason for this is simple I can build an army that I'd be more use to using to get me up & running as you'd be amazed how much stuff you can forget when you've not play to much in the best part of a year.

IA 13 I love but as using that in the way that I would want to would need me to have a lot of big units on the table & that's not something I'm sure would be wise just yet, as I get more into the grove of 40K again I'll most likely go down that road but for now it's keep it simple stupid.

Needless to say that I don't have all the stuff ready that I'd like to use so some part's of the army will pick itself to start off with, but at least I'm getting stuff done for this army once more.

The Vendetta is the latest addition to the army just like the couple of tanks I did this model has been lying around for a long time & it great to be back getting these models painted up, well  that brings this post to an end all that's left for me to do is to thank you very much for dropping in & if you'd care to leave a comment it would be welcomed.

40K Renegade tank's

It's been long & many a day since I done anything for this army but I do have some models tanks that I got with the intention of adding to it so I made a start, now as everybody & his dog in this hobby know's the hardest thing about going back to an army is matching thing up paint wise.

Step one pick a tank

Step two chaos stuff

Step three more chaos stuff

But that's jumping a head a bit a the first thing I need to do was to bring a bit of chaos to things, by that I mean just add some stuff to the vehicle to you know make it look like it's changed size's kind of thing.

Step four pick out stuff

Step five add stuff

Step six try to paint it

With that much done it was time for the moment of truth could I paint  the same way ? you see apart from colours changing people's style of painting change over the years & this army first came to been before this blog even started.

The chimera in the middle was painted when the army was first done as was the turret on the russ, clicking on the photo might help as the light in not helping to show things well. 

As you can see the colour's are close enough, the turret was at the time I built the army use as a gun emplacement but GW have since brought out a model for them, plus it never sat right with me that this army hadn't got a russ, the fact that the turret is not the right one please's me no end, as in this kind of army it feels right.

Well that it as always my tanks for dropping in & if you care to leave a comment it would be welcome.