The New Necrons

With the new Space Marine codex on the horizon its time for new rumors to emerge. At the Games Workshop LA Games Day 2008 rumors abound with two new codexs Dark Eldar and Necrons to be released in 2009.

Some Necron rumors….

One new HS unit choice
Necron Warriors and Immortals get Slow and Purposeful, T increase by 1, and point increase.
We’ll Be Back replaced with Feel No Pain and Phase Out is gone.
Three different options of Necron Lords.
Veil will be changed to send units to reserve which it can then deep-strike next turn

Increase immortals T to 6!? and I am not sure how I feel about Phase Out being gone. Its kind of fluffy and was a way to beat the metal monsters. I am sure as we get closer to a release date more rumors will emerge.

I’d want to be a superhero

If you had asked me back in grade school what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said my first choice was an actor, but if I couldn’t be that, I’d want to be a superhero.
Vin Diesel

When I was young I was a serious collector of comics. My favorites began as Sgt Rock, GI Combat , Weird War and Unknown Soldier. A little later I added Warlord and Conan and a smattering of superhero comics (spiderman, xmen and the like). I still have boxes of these comics in my basement but today I don’t buy them, well not often, however I do follow a number of on-line comics. 

I was surprised one day when I began to read them how many there actually are out on the internet. It seems that anyone with a desire to write/draw has taken up a pen and posted their comic. As with anything else some of the comics are excellent and some are just plain drek. Some of my favorites, in no particular order..

Girl Genius
Penny Arcade
PvP
The Gods of Arr-Kelaan
Order of the Stick

Space Marine Codex Preview

Games Workshop has placed on their web site a preview of their new Space Marine Codex due out in a month.

Codex: Space Marines is the essential guide to the greatest heroes of the 41st Millennium, detailing their background and explaining how to use them in your games of Warhammer 40,000. A whopping 144 pages in size, the forthcoming Space Marine Codex is the largest ever and is packed with rules background and artwork. With its release just around the corner, Adam Troke takes you on a brief tour of the new book and shows you what you can expect

Games Workshop to raise its prices

According to Table Top Gaming News Games Workshop is to raise its prices once again. OK well its not a real surprise to tell you the truth they seem to do it every year . However GW is talking about as much as a 25% increase. Unfortunately their reasons for historical price increases have been less then steller. Now with the rise in prices, along with everything else comes at a bad time for everyone. Their already high prices are going to put a crunch on many people. I would be sure to go and pick up the items you wanted now. The increase is going to impact all metal miniatures, paints, books and the like. It does appear that the plastic minis will be held at their current price levels for now.

“Dear Valued Customers,

There is an old curse you might know: “May you live in interesting times “

I would be very surprised if anyone could look around our tiny world today and not ponder the truism of such a simple remark. There is very little doubt that these current days would certainly qualify as interesting.

Among many other concerns the world has been struggling with the rising cost of energy, transport, and materials. These rising costs have ultimately affected not only the price of gasoline that we put into our tanks, but the price we pay for milk, eggs and cereal. It has also, not surprisingly perhaps, greatly affected the costs for producing miniatures.

Today we are contacting all of our Trade customers globally to announce that due to these rising costs, we too will be raising some of our prices.

We do not do this lightly. We fully understand that the timing of the price rise directly conflicts with our annual July price review and for that we deeply apologize. I hope that you understand that this price rise is not something Games Workshop Global desires to do, it is something we have to do.

That being said, we wish to approach this change with the same dedication to customer service that we do for every endeavor. So for clarity and fairness I offer the following points:

We are contacting our Trade customers this week to prepare them for any questions they may have.

On Monday August 25th a message informing end hobbyists will be placed on all of our websites.

Prices will change September 29th.

A message will appear in our October White Dwarf.

The price increase will affect part of our paint and hobby ranges, as well as a large portion of our metal models and printed materials.

Even with the pressure of rising costs we are adamant that we will not at this time raise prices on any plastic model kits. Providing high quality, great value kits is fundamental to our corporate strategy and will continue to produce and distribute them at the current prices for as long as we are able.

Sincerely,

Games Workshop”

So that codex is now going to be $25 and that metal Oblits are now going to be $28 dollars!! Even better a box of Blood Knights will almost cost $100.00

Interesting and it seems more expensive times to be sure.

On a side note Tom Kirby (Chairman) bought 100,000 shares of GW , and this right before the price increase. If investors see the price increase as a good thing, Tom will be making a nice bit of change.

Space Marine Pre-Orders

Appears that GW has posted the new Space Marines for Pre-order. Be the first to have a Drop Pod or Thunderfire Cannon on your block. Space Marine Pre-Order

Ever wondered what a real-life Rhino would look like?

Wow the guys at THQ in honor of the upcoming Dawn of War II are in the middle of building a Warhammer 40K Space Marine Rhino.

“But what would this look like in real life? Let’s find out! Over the next four weeks we’re going to be converting a real tank into the infamous tabletop icon.”

Built off a British army FV432 tank its supposed to have its debut for the 2008 Games Workshop Games Day. Check out the photos Flickr Gallery  , blog and trailer.

I wonder if they are going to paint it blue?

Pappa Nurgle has a hold on me

With all of this talk of the new Space Marine codex I have put my Bretonnia army on hold for right now. The forces of Chaos are mustering for a large apocalyptic battle at my local game store in a couple of weeks and I need to re-think my armies. I have played most of them at one time or another really going back and forth between armies.

I have traded off my Marine army, a large Ultramarine for for Dwarves and most of another army for Chaos. Papa Nurgle has been haunting my dreams as of late. Now I wasn’t too thrilled with the current codex. When I came back last year or so and started to play 40K again I picked up Marines first. The old guys in Blue were OK but had no real ‘soul’ as it were, they were very boring. Chaos on the other hand was a lot of fun. You had a number of ways to build an army with your Demons and Lord having different Chaos powers. For a year I played with those rules then boom a new book comes out. After playing a couple of games I realized I was just playing another ‘marine’ army and sold them off. I went to Tau, they were interesting but still I couldn’t get excited about them. They too went to the auction block. Now a year later with the new edition rules out I am back with Chaos. Papa Nurgle has a grip on me and has seduced me back into the fold. Once I get an idea on what my Death Guard army is going to look like I will post it.

On a side Note, those that loved the Dawn of War Computer Game check out the new Dawn of War II

Rumors : Space Marine Codex

The new Space Marine Codex is on the horizon which means that the internet continues to spew forth rumors and news of its contents. Below is a large list of changes/additons to the new book taken from various sources on the internet. Of course this list will soon be moot as the actual book is supposed to be released on Oct 4. We shall see how many of these so called rumors are true and what is warp.

HQ
Chapter Master
- Ws6 Bs5 S4 T4 W3 I5 A4 Ld10 Sv3+
- May take a Relic blade and Storm Shield.
- May take Artificer Armour.
- Has around 20 Options
- May take Terminator armour, Jump Pack or a Bike
- Gives a one shot Orbital Strike which is S10 Ap1.
- Has a Bolter, may upgrade to Storm Bolter, Combi Plasma, Combi Melta, Combi Grenade Launcher
- May replace Bolt pistol and CCW for pair of Lightning Claws or a Relic Blade

Captain
- Ws6 Bs5 S4 T4 W3 I5 A3 Ld10 Sv 3+
- May take a Relic blade and Storm Shield.
- If he takes a bike, Bikes may be taken as Troops
- Much the same options as above, does not have the orbital strike.

Chaplain
- Ws5 Bs4 S4 T4 W2 I4 A2 Ld10 Sv3+
- Price is about the same.
- Comes with Crozius and Rosarius
- Still allows rerolls to hit.
- Makes unit with him Fearless
- Can replace his bolter with storm, combi-, powerfist, plasma pistol.
- When taking terminator armour he replaces “power armour, boltgun, frag and krak grenades for Terminator armour and” one shooting weapon.

Librarian
- Ws5 Bs4 S4 T4 W2 I4 A2 Ld10 Sv3+
- Has gotten cheaper.
- Comes with Force weapon and Psychic Hood
- May have 2 powers.
- May be upgraded to an Epistolary which allows the use of two powers a turn. Apparently this is expensive.
- Psychic hood now has a range of 24″ (whether it means that the power is within 24″, or the Psyker I dont know)
- 9 powers:
Avenger – essentially an AP3 heavy flamer,
Force Dome – 5+ invulnerable for Librarian and squad until end of next player turn,
Gate of Infinity – Librarian and squad Deep Strike back within 24″, but with minor risk…,
Machine Curse – shooting attack causing Glancing Hit on 1 vehicle within 24″,
Might of the Ancients – Librarian gains strength 6 and rolls 2d6 armour penetration.
Null Zone – all enemy units within 24″ re-roll successul invulnerable saves for rest of player turn ,
Smite – 12″ range, assault 4 St4 AP2,
Quickening – gains Fleet and Ini.10,
Vortex of Doom – 12″ St10 AP1 Heavy1 Blast…failed test = blast centred on Librarian without scatter.

Master of the Forge
- Ws4 Bs5 S4 T4 W2 In4 A2 Ld10 Sv2+
- Comes with Servo Harness
- Has Conversion beamer which gets stronger and more powerful the further away he is firing, in three stages. Maxes out at S10 Ap1 Large blast at 72″
- Allows Dreadnaughts to be taken as Elites AND heavy support if he is there.

Honour Guard (?-10)
- Ws4 Bs4 S4 T4 W1 I4 A2 Ld10 Sv2+ 30+ points as standard.
- Can only be taken if a Chapter Master is present in the army.
- Artificer Armour and power weapon as standard.
- Can take Relic Blades which are a two handed power weapon that gives St6.
- Can take Aux. Grenade launchers.
- One may take a Chapter Standard which, if it still has the same rules as now, gives them Counter attack.
- They may take a Chapter Champion, Champion is WS 5.
- Chapter Champion must direct attacks against enemy Independant characters if he can.
- May NOT take Storm Shields.

Command Squad:
- May only be taken by captains.
- 4 vets and 1 apothecary, Company Champion is an optional upgrade for one model.
- Chainsword and either bolter or pistol as standard.
- They can have bikes.
- Any can replace pistol or sword with: Storm Bolter, Flamer, Plasma gun, Meltagun, Combi-whatever, power sword or fist, lightning claw, thunder hammer.
- Pistol can be replaced with Plasma Pistol.
- Melta bombs and Storm Shields can be taken by anyone.
- Apothecary gives the unit Feel no pain
- One may take a Company Standard which, if it still has the same rules as now, gives them Counter attack.

Kor’Sarro Khan, Captain of the White Scars 3rd Company
- Ws6 Bs5 S4 T4 W3 In5 At3 Ld10 Sv3+
- Gives models in his unit hit and run and Furious Charge.
- Moondrakkan is a bike he may take. It’s a bike which can use the Run ability and can also Fleet
- Moonfang- A Power sword. Any 6’s on the to wound roll become Instant Death.
- May exchange Chapter Tactics for Outflank.

Kayvaan Shrike
- Ws6 Bs5 S4 T4 W3 In5 At3 Ld10 Sv3+
- Jump pack, Iron Halo and master crafted rending lightning claws.
- May exchange Chapter Tactics for Fleet.
- He has Infiltrate and gives it to his unit.

Pedro Cantor
- Ws6 Bs5 S4 T4 W4 In5 At4 Ld10 Sv2+
- Storm Bolter (Assault 4 and AP 4) and Powerfist
- Sternguard in his army count as Scoring units
- May exchange Chapter Tactics for Stubborn.
- All friendly units within 12” receive +1 attack.

Marneus Calgar
- Ws6 Bs5 S4 T4 W4 In5 At4 Ld10 Sv2+
- Can be fielded in either power armour or terminator armour. Has an Iron Halo with either.
- 2 Powerfists and a Stormbolter (Assault 4 AP 2)
- He has a power weapon which he is allowed to use (only when in artificer Armour?)
- Eternal warrior.
- His Chapter Tactics allows his army to choose to pass or fail any Ld tests.
- May reroll any failed to wound rolls in both shooting and hand to hand.
- May take 3 squads of Honour Guard, if they are all 10 man. These do not take up FOC slots.

Chaplain Cassius
- Ws5 Bs4 S4 T6(!) W2 In5 At3 Ld10 Sv 3+
- Feel No pain
- New background.

Chief Librarian Tigurius
- Knows all(!) the psychic powers available to the marines.
- May use 3 powers per turn.
- Allows army to reroll any reserve rolls.

Captain Lysander
- Ws6 Bs5 S4 T4 W3 In4 At4 Ld10 Sv2+
- Thunder hammer is Master Crafted and gives Lysander S10, he also adds +1 to the damage against vehicles
- Storm Shield (3+ invulnerable save for him)
- Eternal Warrior (Again?!)
- Bolter Drill- The Squad he is with is allowed to reroll misses with Bolters, bolt pistols, storm bolters and heavy bolters.
- Allows one piece of terrain to be fortified, to give +1 to its normal cover save.
- May exchange Chapter Tactics for Stubborn.

Captain Sicarius
- Ws6 Bs5 S4 T4 W3 In4 At3 Ld10 Sv3+
- 1 tactical squad gets Counterattack, Infiltrate, Scout or Tank hunters for free.
- An army led by captain Sicarius may re-roll the dice when attempting to seize the initiative.
- Blister pack allows for bare head & helmet in hand or wearing helmet with plasma pistol in hand.
- His mantle gives him Feel no pain(?)
- Is able to kill a Wraithlord in one hit with his wargear(?)

Vulkan He’stan
- Ws6 Bs5 S4 T4 W3 In4 At3 Ld10 Sv2+
- Chapter tactics allows all meltas and flamers to become twin linked and all Thunder hammers to become Master Crafted.
- 3+ invulnerable (GAH!)
- Heavy Flamer (which rerolls to wound)
- S6 Power weapon, Master Crafted

Brother Chronus
- Upgrade for a Space Marine Vehicle
- Gives it Bs5 and allows it to ignore Crew Stunned and Crew Shaken results.
- If vehicle is destroyed he can scurry away and crew another one.

Scout Sergeant Telion
- Upgrade for Scout Squad
- Can give his BS of 6 to another scout in the unit.
- Armed with a long range ’stalker’ pattern boltgun with the pinning and rending special rules.

Elites
Sternguard Veterans (5-10):
- Ws4 Bs4 S4 T4 W1 I4 A2 Ld9 Sv3+
- Come with Bolters and 4 Kinds of Specialised round
- Dragonfire bolts- Normal Bolter, Ignores cover
- Hellfire Rounds- wound on a 2+.
- Kraken bolts- 30” range, S4 Ap4 Rapid Fire
- Vengeance rounds- 18” range, S4 Ap3, Rapid Fire, Gets hot
- Can Upgrade bolters to Storm Bolters (lose the specialist rounds)
- Can take Combi weapons (keep the rounds).
- Can also take from a small list of special and Heavy Weapons (Flamers, Heavy flamers and such.)
- One of the Sternguard can take a Powerfist or Power weapon
- They may choose which round to use each turn.

Dreadnaught:
Just like now, also may take twin CCW’s or twin autocannons.

Venerable Dreadnaught:
WS and BS 5, with most of the Dreadnaught’s basic weapons options.

Ironclad Dreadnaught:
Basic Dreadnaught Stats with front and Side armour 13.
- Probably comes with a Heavy Flamer rather than a Storm Bolter
- Can take a Hunter Killer
- Has Move through Cover.

Terminators(5-10)
- Basic Terminators just like now.
- Cyclone Now Heavy 2
- 1 Heavy weapon, 2nd may be purchased if squad has 10 models.

Assault Terminators(5-10)
- As now.

Techmarine
- Comes with a 2+ save.
- Allows one piece of Cover in his deployment zone become +1 to its cover save.
- Still has servitors. May choose to leave them.

Legion of the Damned
- WS4 BS4 S4 T4 W1 I4 A2 Ld10 Sv 3+ invulnerable
- Their Sergeant has Ws5
- They always Deep Strike, but reroll scatter if they want.

Troops
Tactical Marines(5-10):
- Start at 4 marines and a sarge for 90 points, full squad is 165.
- Sergeant is included in cost, may take powerfist, storm bolter, combi-bolter.
- Variable squad sizes are possible.
- Special and Heavy weapons are unavailable unless there are 10 marines in the unit, but then they get free Flamer and a free Multimelta or Heavy Bolter or Missile Launcher. Meltagun- 5 points, Plasmagun 10, Lascannon- 10, Plasma cannon- 5
- Bolter, Polt Pistol, Frag and Krak grenades as standard. (NB: they do NOT have a CCW)
- Sarge can take Power weapon, Power Fist, Lightning Claw, Plasma Pistol, Storm Bolter, Combi Flamer, Combi Plasma, Combi Melta (and maybe combi grenade Launcher)

Scouts
- Ws3 Bs3 S4 T4 W1 In4 A1 Ld8 Sv4+
- Sergeant is WS4, BS4.
- Sergeant may take combi-weapon, plasma pistol, power weapon or powerfist.
- Shotguns probably S4
- May be an option for Teleport Homers.
- Their Heavy bolter can take hellfire Rounds
- Squads can be equipped with camo cloaks, granting the Stealth USR.

Bikes
- Requires a Captain on a bike.
- Requires 5+ bikes. For details of bikes see Fast Attack options.

Rhino:
- Probably will drop to 35 points ala Dark Angels and Blood Angels.

Razorback:
- Comes with heavy bolter included in cost.
- May upgrade to: twin-linked heavy flamer, twin-linked assault cannon, twin-linked lascannon, lascannon and twin-linked plasmagun.

Drop Pod:
- Drop pod assault means that Half of all Drop pods come in on the First turn (GW doesnt want Deep striking armies to come on turn 2 or later…understandable)
- Drop pods in the first wave can act as guiding beacons for pods in the Second wave.
- Costed at slightly more than 2 marines.
- Holds 12 marines or 6 terminators or 1 Dreadnought or 1 thunderfire cannon.

Fast Attack
Bikes (3-8+trike):
-May combat squad, requires 8 bikes plus an attack bike. Divides into 4B/4B+1AB.

Attack Bikes (1-3):
- Must pay for Multi-Melta.

Scout Bikes (3-10):
- Can upgrade bike with a grenade launcher
- Can booby trap areas of terrain with hazardous cluster mines.
- Sergeants can be equipped with locater beacons. These function as a teleport homer for any deep-striking unit (drop pods, jum packs etc.)

Assault Marines (5-10):
- Sergeant may take a Storm Shield or combat shield.
- Only sergeant may have melta-bombs.
- Special weapons are 1 for every 5 models
- Specials include flamers and plasma pistols.
- May remove jump packs and get a free rhino or drop pod in return.

Vanguard Veterans (5-10):
- Ws4 Bs4 S4 T4 W1 I4 A2 Ld9 Sv3+
- Sergeant may take a Relic blade and Storm Shield.
- Come with Bolt Pistol and Close Combat weapon, can all take from a bunch of upgrades including: Power weapons, Power fists, Lightning claw (yes, one)
- Probably have an option to take Bolters
- May also take Combat shields and storm shields.
- Jump packs are an upgrade which gives them the Heroic Intervention rule. May take a transport instead.
- Heroic Intervention allows them to assault the turn they Deep strike.

Land Speeders (1-3):
Pretty much as now.
- Typhoon missile launchers fire as Heavy 2 missile launchers.

Land Speeder Storm:
- Has a Jammer which disrupts deep striking close by.
- Scouts charging from it -2 from the enemy Ld.
- Carries 5 scouts (and scouts only) and counts as Open Topped

Heavy Support
Thunderfire Cannon
- Has techmarine crew.
- Can fire in 3 different ways (all heavy 4): St 6 AP5 blast, St 5 AP6 blast ignores cover, St 4 AP- blast causes difficult terrain test in next turn/dangerous terrain for vehicles(inc. skimmers)
- May be mounted in a Drop Pod.
- Techmarine attendant can bolster defences, providing a 1 point bonus to the cover save of a single ruin in the Space Marine deployment area.

Predator:
Pretty much how it is in Codex: Blood Angels (i.e. expensive)

Vindicator:
- Siege Shield allows it to auto-pass terrain tests.

Devastator:
- Sergeant has a Signum, allows one Marine to fire at BS 5.

Whirlwind:
- Has BA/DA style ammo. (Including incendiary?)

Land Raider
- Machine spirit allows an extra weapon than allowed to be shot at any available target.
- Multi Melta is now a pintle option for all variants.
- Can Carry 12 models

Land Raider Crusader
- Machine spirit as above
- Frag Launchers as normal (useful too, now.)
- can carry 16 Models

Land Raider Redeemer
- Machine Spirit as normal
- Redeemer cannon: Range- Template S6 Ap3 Heavy 1
- Transport Capacity: 12 models

Not unit specific:
Decision to split in to combat squads is made at the time each unit is deployed or when a unit disembarks from its Drop Pod.
Combat Tactics – allows any unit to automatically fail any Morale Check it takes (from shooting and CC).
Combat shields now give a 6+ invulnerable save.
Storm shields now give a 3+ invulnerable save.
Aux. Grenade launchers are short range, can fire in tandem with another weapon.
All sergeants are veterans now, so are just called sergeants.

US Fencing rack up the medals!

Well sorry for the lack of posts for the last few days but just spend part of last week in San Diego for a meeting. The flight although long was good coming back it was bumpy but we arrived back home only a few minutes late. I had not travelled United Airlines before but I would do so again.

While I was gone the US Fencing team has been busy.

Mariel Zagunis , Becca Ward and Sada Jacobson brought home a bronze with the Women Team Saber tournament. They crushed South Africa but lost to the Ukrainians (who ended up winning gold) Still it was nice to see them come back after such a loss and beating France.

Not to be outdone a congrats to the US Men’s Team when Keeth Smart won against  the five time world champion Stanislav Pozdnyakov from Russia to bring home a silver in Team Saber.  Smart, Tim Morehouse, Jason Rogers and James Williams along with Keeth lost to France but it was a great accomplishment.

Keeth must also be proud of his sister Erin. The US Women’s foil team shot past favorites to take silver upsetting Poland who had been the world champions.

“Hanna Thompson beat Magdalena Mroczkiewicz, seven touches to none in the seventh round to tie the scores. Emily Cross eked out a 3-2 edge over Malgorzata Wojtkowiak and Errin Smart protected the narrow lead by drawing 6-6 with Sylwia Gruchala.”

US women had not won a medal in foil until this time.

A huge congratulations to all of the US fencers in a job well done.

One Knight is not enough

I have spoken a few times already about my new Bretonnia army. My group is in the middle of the Warhammer Fantasy Battle pyramid campaign and I am entering with a new army. (Once again Ill not mention my ill tried, unlucky Ogre army which I didnt even bother to start painting) I posted my Damsel and began work on a group of 8 Knights errants a week ago. I have completed my first troop and for someone who hasnt painted WHFB in over 10 years its not too bad of a job. I am using 5th ed figures but have added the newer heads and many lances (which had broken off) Over all I think they will look good with the rest of the troops. Next I am going to work on a troop of Bretonnia Knights of the Realm. Ill post more as the work progresses.