Finding an alternative to Warptime

The latest round of FAQs which GW released last month put a bit of nerfing on Chaos Space Marines. I've run Nurgle Daemon Princes with wings and warptime since the Codex was released, but with the FAQ of Warptime I'm not feeling the love for that power.

To re-cap the FAQ states:

Q: Does Warptime allow the psyker to pick and choose

which To Hit and To Wound dice he will re-roll? (p88)

A: No. He can decide after each To Hit or To Wound roll

but he must re-roll all dice or no dice

I'll be honest, I've never used it like this, nor have I seen it played like this, but the FAQ is pretty clear. All you're now mitigating against is a particularly bad set of rolls like 5 misses or similar. Given Warptime is reasonably pricey in points, IMO this is not worth it.

At a small tournament last month, I dropped Warptime in favour of Wind of Chaos which is more points than Warptime (30 points IIRC so 5 points more). I did find it useful in most games and I think it probably made it's points back in most cases.

Alternatives for a Nurgle Daemon Prince are not great. Doombolt is weak, Gift of Chaos is amusing if not all that useful and Nurgle's Rot is meh against most thing in power armour (OK against hordes I suppose).

So I think Wind of Chaos is where I'll be for now. Of course, if I drop WoC on both Princes that would be a 60 point saving which is almost the cost of an Obliterator...

Blood Bowl Necromantic Team: Painted

I've been feeling the Blood Bowl vibe recently, and so finally got my team painted up.

They're more or less named the same as they are in the online BB league I play in.

Here they are: the Rotting Remains.

Two werewolves, 1 - Skokurg the Furry and 2 - Caleb Whitemane:

Two Wights, 3 - Robin the Cold-Hearted and 4 - Sikvor the Revived:

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!

6 - Jack Splinter

7 - Toby Hearted

8 - Brainy the Hungry

9 - Dearly Departed

12 - Halo Shoemaker

Ghouls:

10 - Mudgrinder

11 - Spinemuncher

I've just got to do a Flesh Golum or two now. I might use the new Crypt Stalker models for that.

Uriah Jacobus, Protector of the Faith and Tournament Update

I had a mad rush on to get the last model painted up for my Sister of Battle army for a small Freebootaz tournament which took place at Warhammer World in early February.

The final model to paint was Uriah Jacobus:

The tournament I used my Sisters in was a 1000 points per player doubles tournie (Saturday was singles when I played Chaos). My list was:

HQ:

Uriah Jacobus, 9 Death Cult Assassins (225)

Troops:
Battle Sister Squad, 1 Melta Gun, 1 Heavy Flamer, Rhino (190)
Battle Sister Squad, 1 Melta Gun, 1 Storm Bolter, Rhino (173)

Fast Attack:
7 Seraphim, twin inferno pistols (140)

Heavy Support:
Exorcist with searchlight (136)
Exorcist with searchlight (136)

I had been due to team up with an IG army, but my partner was ill and couldn't make it down. Fortunately, someone else stepped up and I teamed with his Grey Knights which proved to be a pretty good combination (since we won!).

Uriah Jacobus was awesome as a force multiplier, for several reasons.

Firstly, he gives you a re-roll of your dice to generate Faith Points each turn. At 1000 points, I didn't find this particularly essential as I rarely used more than one or two points per turn, but since the Faith mechanic doesn't really scale that well, in larger games I can see the re-roll being important.

Secondly, he carries the Banner of Sanctity. This gives his unit +1A and Feel No Pain. Combined with Death Cult Assassins this is brutal. FnP is handy since they only have a 5+ save (and assuming you can make FnP rolls which I never can), but +1A is also pretty nasty.

Thirdly, he has the Righteous Rage special rule. This is identical to a Space Marine Chaplain's Liturgies of Battle rule, so it gives re-rolls to hit on the charge.

Fourthly, he's Stubborn and Ld10. Being an IC he confers this on any unit he joins.

The unit I ran above (Jacobus and DCA) had 45 I6, WS5, S4 power weapon attacks on the charge, with re-rolls to hit. Against a 5 man GK terminator squad, this ended up causing 27 wounds with no armour saves. Next game, they carved through a SM tactical squad like they weren't even there. The weakness of this unit is that if you can be out Initiatived (like assaulting into cover) you are going to get hurt as DCA are not that survivable. You're also vulnerable to getting left in the open after an assault and then being shot to pieces.

Ogre Rhinox Rider

I've been lax on blogging recently, but I've been doing a reasonable amount of hobbying since Christmas.

This guy has been sat on my painting table since Christmas 2010, so I finally got round to painting him up. A Forge World Ogre Rhinox Rider:


This was a great model to paint, and Forge World have even updated the rules for the beast:

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/r/Rhinox.pdf

I've also picked up the new Ogre Kingdoms book and drawn up a list using the stuff I currently own. I just need to convert a Butcher/Slaughermaster and a BSB and I can run it at 2000 points, assuming I can use the Rhinox rider (who seems a bit undercosted to me, but I'm no expert on Fantasy).