All right first battle report of the week GK vs Necrons

All right had the first of many battles this week, actually two against Fred Fortman on Monday.  Here is one of the ones on Monday. This battle was fought at 2000 points.
His army list from memory

HQ's Zahndrekh
Voltaic staff cryptek
Lance cryptek
HQ's destroyer lord, weave, scarabs
Tr. 10 immortals, tesla
Tr 10 immortals, Nightscythe
Tr. 10 immortals, Nightscythe
Tr. 5 warriors, Nightscythe
FA. 6 wraiths, 3 coils
FA. 9 scarabs
Hv. Barge
Hv. Barge
Hv. 3 spyders, gloom prism

My list:

Coteaz
Terminator Inquisitor w/2 Skulls, Level 1 Psyker, Hammer & Psycannon
10 Termies 2 Cannons, 3 Hammers, Ammo
10 Strikes 2 Cannons, 1 Hammer, Ammo
4 Henchmen w/BP & CCW in Razorback w/Ammo
4 Henchmen w/BP & CCW in Razorback w/Ammo
4 Henchmen w/Bolters, 1 w/Flamer
Stormraven w/TLAC, TLMM, Hurricane Bolters, Ammo
Stormraven w/TLLC, TLMM
5 Purgation Squad 2 Psycannons, 2 Incinerators in Rhino
Dread w/2 x TLAC, Ammo and Light
Dread w/2 x TLAC, Ammo and Light

We played one of the Adepticon primer missions.  It had the relic and the home and home objective.  First blood, slay the warlord and linebreaker were the secondary objectives.  The deployment zones were the 12" along your board edge.  We took turns deploying the terrain.  There was one ruined building just to the right of the center.  The relic went on its left most corner base.  A hill 8 inches to the left.  There were two ruined buildings in my deployment zone one to the left and one to the right of my deployment zone pretty much dividing my deployment zone into three.  There were two hills farther back in Fred's deployment zone that would play no part in the battle.

Neither of us got any useful warlord traits, no night fight, Coteaz got foreboding and prescience and the inquisitor kept psychic communion.  I won the roll to go first and elected to go second hoping to steal and see how he set up.  Fred sets up along the 12" line with Zandrekh and the tesla immortals and the lance guy on one unit.  The wraiths and the destroyer lord on the right, a little back directly  behind the building in the center.  The scarabs and the spyders go just to the left of center directly behind the hill in the middle.  The barges go to the left of the scarabs.  I deploy in a line between the two buildings.  I put a razorback on the left with a dread behind it, in the center another razorback and dread and on the left goes the purgation squad in their rhino.  In front of them goes the terminators and characters just to the left of center, while the strikes go in front of the purgation squad rhino.  I try to steal to no avail.

Necron Turn One
The spyders spawn three scarabs.  The nemessor gives one of the barges stealth.  Everything moves up the Wraiths move up behind the building.  The scarabs go into the hill with the spyders following behind them.  Zandrekh's unit moves forward towards the relic.  The barges zip forward 12".  Shooting is uneventful.  I believe I lose one termie to big Z's squad while the barges snap fire and the left most razorback.  Causing the henchmen to get out.  First blood to the necrons.

Grey Knight Turn One
Coteaz casts prescience and foreboding on the termies. The termies and strikes move forward. The termies target the closest barge blowing it up.  One of the dreads blows up the main weapon on the other barge.  The razorback and other dread kill a couple of scarab bases.  The strikes to some wounds to Z who just laughs them off.  The purgation squad using astral aim puts two wounds on the destroyer lord.

Necron Turn Two
All his reserves come on. The spyders make three more bases to replace the ones I killed last turn. The night scythes come in three across the middle moving about 30".  On the left 10 immortal get out opposite the termies, 10 immortals get out of the center one right in front of the strikes, and the five warriors and the other cryptek get out of the right one.  The wraiths move up into the building.  The  scarabs start making an end around the left building to get to my objective and clear the henchmen off of it.  The last barge moves with them.  Z moves up behind the other squad of immortals. The shooting commences.  The barge on the right kills the purgation squads rhino causing them to bail out.  They take fire from the warriors and the middle barge killing the two flamers and the justicar.  The other scythe targets the razorback knocking off it's gun and stripping another hull point.  The strikes lose three guys and the so do the termies.  The scarabs and the barges continue their end around.  The wraiths run out of the building for better position.

Grey Knight Turn Two
After the dust settles I realize I can no longer out shoot them with what I have left.  So charge of the light brigade it is.  I cast prescience but it fails, I cast foreboding on the termies and psychic communion as usual. I get one Raven the TLLC one.  The Raven comes in on my right, right next to the right most scythe.  The termies, strikes and dreads move forward.  The razorback without a gun also moves forward.  The raven strips two hull points off the scythe.  The purgation squad kills all but two warriors and the cryptek dies.  Both dreads target the wraiths finishing off the destroyer lord and downing a wraith.  The strikes and termies both kill off a few immortals and the charges begin.  The termies begin their March to the sea like Sherman and hit the one unit of immortals to the left but are unable to grab the spyders as well.  They crush them and consolidate towards the middle.  The strikes out a hurting on the other immortal unit but remain locked in combat by the relic.  The right most dread charges the wraiths putting a wound on them but taking no damage back.

Necron Turn Three
I have put the necron player on his heels a bit.  Zandrekh gives one of the night scythes tank hunter.  Seeing the termies barreling down on him Zandrekh jumps in the middle scythe.  The two scythes move fast to go nose to nose with the raven.  The spyders prepare to help the immortals while the scarabs get ready to overwhelm the henchmen squad.  The wounded scythe flies off the board.  The two scythes drop the raven.  Leaving only the flamer behind.  The spyders charge in the combat killing off some strikes leaving only four and leaving only two immortals.  The dread does nothing but get stunned.  The henchmen die like dogs.

Grey Knights Turn Three
Coteaz casts prescience on the termies.  The inquisitor casts psychic communion.  The other raven comes in.  It goes nose to nose with the other scythes.  The termies move to help the strikes.  The non locked dread moves towards the scarabs better to be charged than be charged.  The raven whiffs only putting one hit on one of the scythes.  The purgation squad and the dread targets the scarabs killing 3 more of them.  The termies charge in the ongoing combat and all the necrons are wiped out leaving the 2 characters, 3 termies and one strike.  The consolidate next to the relic.  The dread suffers another hull point but manages to down a wraith.  The other dread charges in to the scarabs however they are in difficult terrain causing him to go last which leads to an untimely death.

Necron Turn Four
The scythes that are on the board fly off the board.  The other scythe comes back on to shoot at the last strike, killing him .  The barge keeps moving with no target in sight.  The scarabs charge the last two psycannons from the purgation squad.  They kill one on overwatch and lose psycannon to combat.  The wraiths finally kill off the dread.

Grey Knight Turn Four
Coteaz casts prescience on the termies.  They move up to charge the wraiths picking up the relic as they go.  The razorback keeps moving towards the necron home base.  The raven whiffs on the scythe. The termies shoot then charge the wraiths wiping them out but they are now down to two hammers, one psycannon and the two characters.

Necron Turn Five
This will be the last turn as we are running short on time.  The two scythes come back in to shoot the termies. Zandrekh disembarks with his immortal squad to add to weight of fire. The other scythe deposits it's squad of two warriors on my home objective.  The scarabs line up to charge the termies.  In the shooting phase the inquisitor suffers a wound and two termies die.  When the five remaining scarabs charge they do another wound to the inquisitor and strip him of his armor but die to overwatch and hammers.

Grey Knight Turn Five.
The last terminator and Coteaz are in possession of the relic.  The storm raven flies interference while the henchmen disembark on to his objective.

He has first blood and linebreaker, I have linebreaker.  We each have an objective, but I hold the relic.  Big win for me.

I made a lot of terminator saves in the last few rounds and got lucky by crippling his barges early.  He made one mistake by not leaving his Zandrekh unit in the board where they could have had two more turns of shooting and could have been mire aggressive with his wraiths.  The termies and the two inquisitors just crushed everything in their path.  The man of the hour had to be the dread who not only killed the destroyer lord but took down two wraiths and held them up for two turns allowing the termies to run free.

Just trying to move forward with Daemons and thinking about the ATC,

All right have been muddling around with Daemons lately.   I have a few problems with putting a list I like together.  The first is that I found a bucket full of Daemons in the basement.  I know you say usually having a bunch of models is not a problem.  However it is when you don't have everything you want and want to make use if what you have.  I have bunch of flamers and fiends.  I have one painted fiend and 4 unpainted ones.  I would really love to make these work but then I compare five fiends to 15 seekers and I just look at the 60 attacks that the seekers are putting out compared to the 20 that the fiends are putting out.  The same goes for my unit of screamers using 8 at 200 points either gives me 8 str 4 ap 2 attacks or 32 str 4 attacks.  If only the unit was strength 5 I could justify them over the seekers 80 str 3 rending attacks.  Or if even the fiends were strength 5...  Also I have a 5 man unit of dogs with a khorne herald on a jugger painted.  I would really like to make this a 10 man unit.  I feel that they do very well especially with the herald giving everyone +2 attacks on the charge and having furious charge and scout.  I really don't want to use seekers.  That is gonna be the one unit that everyone has in their army.  All right the latest daemon army is:


Keeper of Secrets Level 3 2 x Greater Gifts  260
Herald of Tzeentch Level 3, Exalted Gift on Disc 150
Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut, Locus of Fury, Lesser Gift 125
Herald of Slaanesh on Steed, Exalted Locus, Lesser Gift 100

5 Fiends 175

14 Bloodletters 140
10 Daemonettes 90
10 Horrors 90

10 Khorne Hounds 160
8  Screamers 200

Soul Grinder w/Slaanesh, Phlegm   180
Soul Grinder w/Nurgle, Phlegm 180

1850 Points

Also this week being off work will be a gaming week. Tomorrow I will be trying out an ATC style list designed to take on flyers and daemons.  Just playing around right now.  It probably needs an aegis defense line but will see....


Coteaz
Terminator Inquisitor w/2 Skulls, Level 1 Psyker, Hammer & Psycannon
10 Termies 2 Cannons, 3 Hammers, Ammo
10 Strikes 2 Cannons, 1 Hammer, Ammo
4 Henchmen w/BP & CCW in Razorback w/Ammo
4 Henchmen w/BP & CCW in Razorback w/Ammo
4 Henchmen w/Bolters
Stormraven w/TLAC, TLMM, Hurricane Bolters, Ammo
Stormraven w/TLLC, TLMM
5 Purgation Squad 2 Psycannons, 2 Incinerators in Rhino
Dread w/2 x TLAC, Ammo and Light
Dread w/2 x TLAC, Ammo and Light

2000 Points

Chaos Daemon versus Space Wolf Battle Report

All right had my first real go with the Daemon army I am putting together.  I played my buddy Matt and his Space Wolves.  We used the Adepticon Primer Missions.  We played the mission Wolves Beyond the Door.  This mission uses the Hammer and Anvil deployment (the football field one). It uses victory points as one primary with any fast attack choice giving two points per unit and objectives (6) for the other.  The secondary objectives were the usual Warlord, First Blood and Line Breaker. The army I am using is by no means optimized as I am using just what I have.  It is as follows:


Keeper of Secrets Level 3 2 x Greater Gifts  270
Hearld of Khorne on Juggernaut, Locus of Fury, Lesser Gift 125
Herald of Tzeentch Level 3 on Disc 120
Herald of Tzeentch  Level 3 w/Loci of  Conjuration 120

4 Fiends 140

15 Bloodletters  Blood Reaper w/Lesser Gift 165
10 Plaguebearers 90
20 Horrors  180

5 Khorne Hounds 80
8 Screamers 200

Soul Grinder w/Slaanesh, Phlegm   180
Soul Grinder w/Nurgle, Phlegm 180

My opponents list from memory is:
Rune Priest w/chooser and using 6th powers
Rune Priest w/Living Lightning and Jaws

Arjac Rockfist and the other Wolf guard that go with the squads
Lone Wolf in Terminator Armor w/Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield

3 x 11 Man Grey Hunter Squads all with banner, mark of the wolfen, power fist two special weapons and wolf guard w/power fist and combi weapon.  One squad has two plasmas, a plasma pistol and the guard has a combi plasma.  The other two squads just have two melta guns and and combi meltas
6 Man Grey Hunter Squad w/banner, mark of the wolfen, power fist, melta gun and wolf guard w/fist and combi melta
5 Man Grey Hunter Squad w/melta gun

3 x 5 Man Long Fang Squads 2 w/all missiles 1 w/3 missiles and two plasma cannons

We realized later that him putting Arjac and a wolf guard in one squad was wrong but it really didn't have any affect on the outcome of the game.

We place terrain.  He puts two ruins and a forest in his side one in the back left corner and one in the center. he also puts the forest on the left side straddling the center line on the left side.  I place two ruins on the mid line both near the center. I place my forest on the left side a little back form his.  We place the objectives.  He puts one in the back corner, one just outside of the ruin in the center of his deployment zone and pretty much one in the middle of those two a little forward.  I place mine on in the back of my forest one  in the ruins in the center of the board and one in his forest.

Now all the rolling starts.  He gets move through cover warlord trait and gets prescience and misfortune for his warlord.  My warlord gets -1 ld for fear tests (great just what I wanted lol), he gets +1 wound and IWND for one greater gift, and reroll invulnerable saves for the other (hmm not bad).  He rolls three telepathy powers and ends up with Psychic Shriek, Terrify and Hallucinate.  The Flying Herald gets Prescience, Perfect Timing, and Infernal Gateway.  The Walking herald gets Prescience, Foreboding and Flickering Fire of Tzeentch.  The horrors default to Flickering Fire and the Khorne  Heralds takes and ether blade along with the reaper.  Wow that was a lot of pregame book keeping.  It is also night fight for the first turn.

I win the roll and elect to go first.  The plague bearers go hang out on my objective in the forest on my side of the board.  I out to model them with deck chairs and pina coladas because that is all they are going to do. The horrors and walking herald go in the center, the fiends on the left side, the Keeper between them along with the dogs and the khorne guy,  the screamers and the flying herald go on my right. The soul grinders go behind the fiends and the keeper.  The bloodletters go in deep strike reserve.

He deploys one unit of long fangs in the ruin on my leftalong with the small grey hunter squad.  The other two along with his warlord go to the ruins in the center of his deployment zone, all the grey hunters, the other rune priest and the lone wolf go between the two on the middle objective.  he uses the other 6 man squad as cover to hide his guys behind.  The hounds and herald scout up to the ruins on the left of center.  He attempts to steal and fails.

Daemon Turn One.
Heralds presceince their units.  Everything moves forward.  The Fiends run into the edge of his forest taking two wounds from difficult terrain.  The dogs reshuffle taking a wound from difficult terrain, the keeper comes up next to them.  The grinders move forward.  The horrors move and run onto the objective in the center ruins.  The screamers turbo boost up the right flank to get a charge off on his long fangs next turn.  The plague bearers refill their drinks.  Start of my shooting phase the Chaos Gods want to screw with you table is rolled on.  Up comes an eleven.  I began to chuckle maniacally and Matt wants to know why.  We determine it is the non warlord rune priest who promptly rolls a 15 for his leadership and is dragged screaming into the warp to be replaced by a Herald of Tzeencth with Tzeentch's Fire Storm.  The newly arrived herald then casts this spell on the long fangs in the left ruins killing two of them one then dies from the failed toughness test.  They proceed to fail their morale check and roll eleven for fall back going right off the board.  At this point Matt is banging his head off the wall complaining about this new codex.  Everything but the grinders runs to better spots.  The grinders target the massed grey hunters and do 18 or so wounds and after cover saves killing two.  Oh well Chaos is fickle

Space Wolf Turn One
The warlord presciences his unit of long fangs.  The small Grey Hunter unit moves forward to shoot the new herald.  The other small squad moves forward to shoot the dogs.  All the other grey hunter units shuffle forward.  the lone wolf sees the fiends and begins taking off after them.  In his shooting phase the long fangs who are prescienced fire at the screamers killing only one due to night fight.  The right most grey hunter squad also shoots at them and takes a wound off another.  The other unit splits fire with plasma cannons going on the horrors and the missiles going against the screamers.  He kills two horrors.  The shooting from the small grey hunter squad kills the new herald.  The other small squad puts a wound on a dog. The other two grey hunter squads kill off one of the fiends.  His lone wolf rolls 1,1,2 for his charge distance failing to get to the fiends.  The other 6 man squad rolls 11 for theirs and is able to hit the dogs.  The herald challenges the wolf guard and whiffs.  The wolf guard doing the honorable thing also whiffs.  The dogs kill two and the space wolves kill one dog causing a push.

Daemon Turn 2
Both Heralds cast prescience.  The Keeper hallucinates the left most grey hunter squad.  They roll the just stand there result.  The blood letters come down.  The go in front of the horrors after the scatter 11 inches.  Also only put down 10 of them for some reason forgetting the reaper and four of his buddies.  Maybe the are chilling with the plague bearers.  The horrors shuffle forward getting in range of the right most squad but out of rune weapon range.  The three fiends run by the lone wolf towards the stunned hunters.  The soul grinders  move forward.  The keeper moves forward.  The plague bearers mix up a new round of drinks.  In my shooting phase the warp is calm.  The keeper tries to shriek some grey hunters but is denied.  The horrors and herald crank up seven dice worth of strength 6 hits and do 23 wounds to the grey hunter squad killing two. (Doh!) The disc herald casts gateway and watches it scatter off onto the other long fang squad killing one.  The grinders come up with a repeat display and only manage to kill two more hunters.  The fiends charge the stunned hunters.  The keeper blows his assault roll even with fleet and watches.  The screamers charge into the long fangs losing one more to overwatch.  The fiends manage to kill one hunter.  The herald of khorne finally remembers you use the pointy end of the sword and cuts down the wolf guard.  The dogs kill another two hunters and lose one of theirs in return.  Of course the wolves pass morale.  The screamers and the herald manage to kill two long fangs while losing one of theirs in return for a push.  Not exactly my finest hour....

Space Wolf Turn 2
Hoping to turn the tide the Space Wolves move forward.  The right grey hunter squad moves to help the long fangs entangled in the screamers.  The lone wolf goes to help the stunned hunters.  Arjac's hunters move up to shoot the Keeper. The five man grey hunter squad makes like a plague bearer and moves back into the ruins on to their objective thus ending their involvement in the battle The unengaged long fangs kill four of the blood letters.  Arjac's grey hunter squad lights up the Keeper with massed bolter and melta fire taking a wound off of him.  In come the charges.  The lone wolf smashes another fiend while they manage to kill one more grey hunter.  They pass their instability test.  The screamers manage to kill two more long fangs before they get sent back to the warp by the grey hunters and two remaining long fangs.
The herald of khorne is to busy cutting the head off the dead wolf guard to be bothered with the other space wolves while both the hounds and the hunters whiff.

Daemon Turn 3
The remaining herald casts prescience on his unit. The keeper attempts to hallucinate the lone wolf but fails. He then shrieks at Arjac's hunters rolling a seven on three dice. The 4 remaining blood letters move forward to take revenge for the screamers.  The horrors do the terrain shuffle.  The keeper moves forward to get to grips with Arjac's group.  One plague bearer acts as a DJ and they all do the zombie shuffle on their objective. The horrors light up the grey hunters who killed their screamer buddies knocking them down to four remaining.  One soul grinder runs the other just fires his harvester not wanting to risk a bad scatter.  The blood letters charge in wiping out the one unit of grey hunters losing two of their number due to overwatch and combat.  The lone wolf and the  plasma hunters finally finish off the fiend and move towards the dogs and grinders.  The keeper and arjac fight a challenge while all his mates cheer him on.  They each put a wound on each other.  The herald of khorne finally remembers he is a herald of khorne and finishes off the grey hunters.  Also I rolled a seven again for the warp.

Space Wolf Turn 3
The rune priest casts prescience on him self and the long fangs.  The plasma hunters move towards the hounds and herald.  The lone wolf moves towards the nurgle grinder.  The five man grey hunter squad builds a fire and begins heating up their dog food.  The full strength long fangs target the horrors killing 8 of them.  The other two long fangs choose to target the slaanesh grinder doing nothing.  The plasma hunters send the hounds and the herald back to the warp, losing one plasma gunner in the process.  Arjac and the keeper continue to dance.  The lone wolf and the soul grinder began beating on each other doing nothing.

Daemon Turn 4
The tzeentch herald casts prescience all the Keeper's powers are dispelled.  The Slaanesh grinder moves forward to charge the plasma hunters along with the two remaining blood letters. The plague bearers play a rousing game of kick the nurgling.  The horrors kill the last two long fangs.  The grinder and the blood letters finish off the plasma hunters but both blood letters go down in the process. Both the grinder and the Keeper find the battle stimulating and do not wish to cause or take any wounds.  Once again seven is rolled on the warp table.

Space Wolf Turn 4
Once again the rune priest casts prescience.  The five man squad lies down to take a nap.  The long fangs take down a few more horrors as they go to ground.  The keeper tires of Arjac and finally kills him.  The lone wolf glances the grinder while he takes a wound in return.

Daemon Turn 5
The Keeper forgets to cast anything (dummy).  He takes the challenge of the wolf guard and cuts his head off.  The grinder finally finishes off the lone wolf giving my opponent a victory point, doh!  The plague bearers begin planting mushrooms and fungus in the forest.  Once again I roll a seven on the warp table.

Space Wolf Turn 5
The long fangs kill a few more horrors.  There is about six left and the herald sitting on the objective.  Three grey hunters die but the last two stubbornly hang on.  Time is called.

I have two objectives to his one.  With the double victory points for fast attack he has 10 and I have 6.  We go to the secondary.  I have first blood and line breaker neither has warlord.  I win a minor victory. Yay!

After looking at the battle the performance of some of my units was underwhelming.  The screamers really did nothing.  I used weight of attacks and my opponent made a lot of armor saves but they really did not impress me much.  I think when I substitute a bunch of seekers and a slaanesh herald in for them they will be much better. Also the fiends really did not do much, the jury is still out on them.  I think the hounds and herald will do better they just rolled abysmally.  The horrors also did not do very much.  Of course they were going against space marines but that is who they are most likely to see.  The grinders did their job  but I am not sure I need both of them.  I also need a flying greater daemon so I need to put my lord of change together.  All well back to the drawing board.

Why the new Space Marine codex is so important for our hobby

Hi everyone !

I have been very busy working on completing my army for a Grand Tournament this weekend so not much time for blogging. The hours so quickly pass by while painting and I like to play nice looking armies. I told myself though I need to dedicate some time to write a serious article about 40k. You might not believe it but I can easily spend eight hours or more writing what I consider to be a good article. I'm not really into bashing GW, the hobby or other people so I try hard to focus on subjects that I feel passionate about and want to spend the time to do it right.

I am playing in a GT this weekend and took the time to research every army that will be there. As is often typical the vast majority is some flavor of power armor and I am cool with that fact. If you stop to think about it in many ways Necrons are kind of an exotic power armor army... In the past that seemed to be common knowledge but probably not as much so now for whatever reason(s). There has been some huge changes to the game over say the past three years. Some of the veterans have left and to me it feels like there has been a huge influx of new players. New players and veterans are both the life blood of the hobby - it is what it is for whatever reasons.

Historically vanilla Space Marines (e.g., Ultramarines, White Scars, Raven Guard, Imperial Fists, Crimson Fists, etc.) have been one of the most popular armies. A lot of players have stuck with these armies over the years through each new edition. Not everyone wants to jump on the band wagon each time a new codex rolls out. The fourth edition Space Marine codex written by Graham McNeil was a very powerful codex and highly customizable much like the fourth edition Chaos Space Marine codex. There was a lot of backlash on the Internet back then as is always the case with any very powerful army that is released. If we jump forward in time the fifth edition Dark Angels codex was an attempt by certain parties within GW to fix Space Marines... It was an awfully horrid codex and only with the advent of the Dark Angels FAQ that allowed Deathwing to finally be able to take the 3++ stormshield did the army come back en vogue.

I know some people don't like Space Marines in general but on the other hand this codex is in many ways the life blood of the game. The money spent by consumers for Space Marines funds many other armies... It is the proverbial cash cow. To me that is something you don't want to screw around with either. Space Marines are intended to be an army that is easy for beginners to pick up, learn how to play, collect and paint. For many many years power armor was all I played and I was a very vocal advocate in favor of Space Marines. I still am for sure.

So now here we are in sixth edition. It seems to me that Chaos Space Marines are very popular again, more so than the new Dark Angels. So I ask myself as a hobbyist what are the good things we collectively as players can take from each of these two new codices. In my opinion they both have more flavor now and as a hobbyist that is what is most important to me. As a competitive gamer I want to avoid building new armies that have only one or two competitive builds. So there should be a balance. A codex should also pass the test of time... That is it should still be competitive when the next new edition is released. Orks pass this test while eldar fail. While some might hate on Grey Knights and Space Wolves they have both stood up well going into sixth edition so far.

There are obviously lots of new codices to be released for sixth edition and it's too early to clearly determine what is the new direction for the game. Sure we all know that flyers and the Aegis defense line are strong along with allies but that is in and of itself is not everything plus it's quite obvious as well. Generally speaking it seems like the overall power level has been toned down a few notches. That is fine but I wouldn't be willing to bet yet that will be the general trend... Like I said its still too early.

Getting back to the main topic of Space Marines in general - I would like to see a new codex that is like what I said above... It should be an army that is easy for new players to learn how to play, collect and paint. Somehow the developers should design it so that you can play a wide variety of different chapters that are all fun and interesting. If only say Salamanders are competitive then it will overall fail. The same can be said more specifically about the various choices for units and their new special rules. I think it's safe to say most of us don't want to see a handful of undercosted over powered units... You know what I am talking about in this specific regard. To me that could be quite a daunting task and it's very important it is done very well however the developers choose to go about meeting these goals.

That is all I have to say on this subject for now. I'd love to build a new Imperial Fists army and that would be a brand new venture for me. Excitement, passion and interest are what keep me in the hobby... That is not going to change.

Daemons and such.....

 All right picked up the Daemon codex last week.  As a matter of fact I have been getting them on my iPad so I can drag them with wherever I go.  Picked up the last three that way.  I really wish they would release the 6th edition rule book this way, of course it would probably cost $120...
 Anyway after perusing it I sort of like it and would definitely be interested in running a daemon army.  They do have a few drawbacks.  They sure could use some grenades, they are also a close combat army in a shooting edition and I am going to have to assemble and paint a ton of them (or have a ton of them assembled and painted) and there sure is a ton of random stuff not to mention all the book keeping.  However they are very different than the other army I own right now, Grey Knights.  They can also be very fast which I usually like in all my armies. Finally as I was poking around in the basement I found a box I had got in a trade a while ago full of half assembled and primered daemons.  Bingo!
  As for what I like about the new codex.  I like the Slaanesh units they are fast and cheap and all have rending and a ton of attacks.  I like all the greater daemons, I like soul grinders and they are even pretty decent now.  I can see having a lot of stuff hitting you turn two for some fun with some soul grinders and other things mopping up with some small troop squads coming in later.  Anyway here is what I found in the box assembled that I am going to use in my first battle.  Please remember this is not an optimized list by any means and just what was there.

Keeper of Secrets Level 3 2 x Greater, 1 x Lesser Gifts 270

Karanak 120

Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut, Locus of Wrath, Lesser Gift 135

4 Fiends 140

5 Flamers 115

15 Bloodletters, Banner of Blood, Reaper w/Lesser Gift 185

10 Daemonettes, Alluress w/Lesser Gift 105

20 Pink Horrors 180

5 Hounds of Khorne 80

6 Screamers of Tzeentch 125

Soul Grinder w/Slaanesh, Phlegm 180

Soul Grinder w/Slaanesh, Phlegm 180

I know it isn't the best but I am just interested in seeing how it does.  I may swap out the herald of Khorne for Tzeentch Herald on a disc but will see.  I still have 35 points left to play with.  Hopefully will post a report later this week.