The Gaming Kingdom

Hi All,

I thought I should right up a bit of a review of our weekends gaming and give you all my thoughts on how things went.

Well first up we had the Blood bowl event, the first ever Kingdom Cup.

Considering the 'in house' nature of the event I was happy with the turn out and feel that with a little more advertising we could have ourselves a gem of a competition.

We managed to put on a respectable prize pool with prizes for first, second and an extra prize for the MVP of the comp.

In what proved to be a close fought day with almost everyone having fun (sorry Nic, I am telling you, you would love Blood Bowl if you used Orcs) the eventual winner was Paul with his Dwarfs, I managed a respectable Second place with my human Team despite not actually losing a game. In a not to shocking turn of events Hux managed to win the MVP award with a Gutter runner on 13 Star player points from 3 games!

On the Sunday we moved on to our new idea for a 40K event, Man Up 40K. Basically the rules were after you had your HQ and two Troops it was fair game. FW was allowed including super heavies! So with (almost) everyone cheesing up their armies and (almost) everyone remembering to bring their entire list with them (sorry Jono) we got underway.

We had Paul playing Nids who had taken full advantage of the rules and was fielding a Bio Titan!

Sam and Jono fielding Imperial Guard, Sam's list revolving around two tanks kicking out 10 plasma templates a turn and Jono's list was somewhat softer being the army he did for the Tale of Gamers as he just wanted to give them some table time.

Matt, Liam and Aaron all fielded Space Marine Lists whilst James took to the table with a Hoard of Necrons, lead by the Deceiver.

I was in the mix with my Craftworld Eldar army featuring 3 squads of Fire Dragons in Falcons and not a lot else.

Again it was a well fought affair with everyone having fun, Pauls Titan survived the entire tournament (despite my best efforts) while Jono did better after remembering to actually field his Sentinels.

I actually came away with First place in this one after a hard fought game against James's necrons. James clung on to Second place despite his beating and Sam picked up the Most Bloodthirsty award for amassing the most Kill Points. (10 Plasma Templates a turn, what do you expect!)

So we hope to run something again later on in the year and hopefully we will be in a position to make the events even bigger!

Kris

Hi all,

I am sure you all know about my love affair with the Kroot, since the run up to 5th ed and all the work I put in to doing an update for the codex I have wanted to build a new Kroot Mercenary army and even went out and spent a stupid amount of money on Forge World stuff just to put in the army.

The thing was that with the 40K Radio World Wide War event coming up and the stupidly good fun I was having building up my Goblin army they kind of got pushed to one side. 

I finished off my Dark Angels for the World Wide War and then got board painting Common Goblins as I wanted to do a Warhammer Fantasy army to take to a few tournaments and didn't think an all Goblin army would cut it (although I may well take them to a few events next year if I can find some comp friendly ones).  So with the release of the Warriors of Chaos and the tactica that I wrote for them I ended up doing a Slaanesh Army to take to the tournaments for this year. 

This thing is, in an attempt to finish armies I had slowed down in the building side of things and was only building things in manageable chunks and painting those up before moving on to the next block.  Now this did lead to lots of fun small games and other people got on board and made smaller armies and we are even planning a 600point mini 40K tournament in the club in April it was just not getting me inspired to do my Kroot. 

Enter the tale of gamers; finally I had a reason to do the Kroot justice.  I would have to do them properly and put the effort in to them.  So we are now two months in to the tale and I have put up my articles for both months and although I was inspired to do the army and all the cool plans for conversions were forming I still was not as into the army as I wanted to be. 

That brings us up to Friday night and after a mind numbing painting session of applying scorched brown to 15 Kroot carnivores to finish off my 500 point army I thought, what the hell, I can build a couple of test models for the other squads that I have planned. 

And that brings us up to now, Sunday evening and I have been a little more productive than I intended to be.  Well what happened was I thought that as I had mixed up some greenstuff there was no point stopping at the one Kroot Fire warrior that I had built to be my mock up so I built another one, and a third.  Before I knew it I had the full squad of twelve done and the squad of 6 Kroot Sting wings half done, and the 20 Kroot to go with the Kroot Hounds were all built.  

I had assembled a good chunk of my army and was having cool ideas that could go in to my various army plans and was actually looking forward to putting some paint on them to see how they came out. 

Unfortunately my painting desk is covered in Kroot with bits of Harpy wings here and the odd Tau shoulder pads there.

Not to mention that there are still 15 scorched brown Kroot carnivores staring up at me that need finishing. 

It was a fun weekend though. 

Kris

Hello all,

Yes that?s right another blog entry, and you thought I had forgotten about you.

Well it wasn't that I had forgotten about the blog commitment that I had set out to do for the site more that I couldn't think of anything interesting to write about.

Now that hasn't changed but I thought I would push on and write something anyway.

Now as some of you will know, in December I set myself the goal of painting up a Warriors of Chaos army to take with me to the RAF War gaming Championships on March the 13th-15th.  As I had spent a lot of time working on the tactica article for them I thought I would be able to do well with a list that was not considered to be a top tier list.  Also as I have some big plans for later on in the year (that?s for another time) I wanted to get some practice in with my green stuffing skills so I decided that the entire army would need to be converted.

The list I decided on was the Fast Monogod Slaanesh list from the Warriors of Chaos Tactica part 2 that I wrote as I thought it would be a nice compact force that would show off my sculpting and give me lots of cool stuff to draw the attention (that and if I am honest I had a Slannesh Daemon Prince already converted and painted and I didn't want it to go to waste).

So after rummaging through my collection I found that I had a Shaggoth (That I think I bought to paint but as it was not even undercoated I can't be sure), Some Dragon Ogars (That were so badly painted I can only assume that I was challenged to make them look worse than they already do), Slaanesh Champion on Daemonic Steed with extra parts to make almost a second boobworm (Now these I got to put in to my Daemonic legion army but when the new Daemon book came out I could not bring myself to play Daemons as they are just far too good) and lots of random bits. 

So after that first rummage around that left me short of 18 Marauder cav and 5 Chaos Knights and a Sorcerer on Chariot.

For a change though, rather than just going out and buying what I needed I took a second look in my collection of random unopened boxes, half built armies and unstated conversions. 

I found that I had 3 High Elf chariots that I had intended to put in to a Dark Elf army that had not been built and a unit of Cold One Knights that I got in the Dark Elf spearhead.  Now if I ever got around to building my Dark Elf army I knew I would have been using the Cold ones to pull the High Elf Chariots so the riders and the lions would be going spare so that was a tick in the box for the Chaos Knights. 

Realistically I would only use two chariots in a Dark Elf army anyway which left me with one spare and an extra cold one, combine that with the bits for my second boobwom and there is my chariot.  Leaving me with only the Marauder Cav to buy.  Luckily I found some boxes of Sisters of Battle stuff that I had never opened that I had no immediate use for and so off to the local Games Workshop I went and 4 boxes of Marauder Cav and a Champion of Slaanesh later I had all the ingredients to start building the list and had cleared out some crap from the house.

After a few test games though I knew all was not well with the list, it worked how I knew it would but I needed something cheap and expendable so after a bit of reworking I managed to fit in 10 war hounds but again rather than buying them I decided to see if I could trade them for something.  So off to the internet I went and although I did not get a direct trade for the war hounds I managed to make the money I needed to buy some and some extra to get some Ogar Ironguts to convert the Dragon Ogars so it was job done really.

So there you have it that?s the story of how I managed to get a 2250 point fantasy army by trying to clear out some of my collection of stuff.

Kris

In this blog I want to let you know what I think about when choosing an army, when playing the games and while converting and painting my armies (ok maybe not the painting as much as i'd like but hey i'll get it done), I of course mean the imagery of the games we play.

For most of us we play games to have fun and not only does this depend on how we play our games by learning through experience and our opponents but also the effort we put into our armies when creating them. When I start an army the first thing I like to do is think of a theme, a reason for the army to exist whether it be something as simple as they are Black Templars on a Crusade or a more in depth background including character names and a historical events that they were raised for or fought as part of.

There are many ways we can continue this once the army building begins when we assemble our models and most of us have no doubt converted models whether it be a simple head swap to something slightly more complicated such as making or sculpting items from modelling putty. As the process continues we paint our armies to reflect the theme whether it be a setting or by basing them in a certain way to match gaming tables or scenery, all of this helps to convey the imagery of the setting which if you reflect on, the very source of enjoyment for our games whether it be the Ultramarines fighting to the last against the Tyranids or the kin strife of the High Elves fighting the Dark Elves all help to convey that sense of hope or dread of that foe that we somehow care about or take more pride in beating.

Without the imagery of the games we play the fun and excitement would be minimal as essentially all we would do is have dice rolling competitions and what fun would that be? For me the highs and lows of playing games comes from seeing my force warriors taking to the field and giving all they can to carry the day and perhaps write their own little piece of history, by having that moment that can be reflected upon in the months and years to come whether it be a bold move or a crushing defeat under the strangest of circumstances.

Hopefully this has helped you understand that for me at least the setting is very much part of the game itself and while I strive to paint my armies to complete this I am confident the New Year will give me plenty of oppertunites to do so. I'm also hoping that if you don't already do so that you try putting that little bit of extra time and effort into the theme of your army as i'm sure you'll find it rewarding.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment with any feedback

Jono

Ok for the first list we will look at the kind of list that the new book encourages, a mixed list with a variety of marks and units interacting together to produce the best results.

2000 point Infantry Mixed Mark List.

Hero

Exalted Hero, Mark of Khorne, Additional Hand Weapon, and Fury of the Blood God.

Exalted Hero, Mark of Tzeentch, Disk of Tzeentch, Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Protection, Sword of Might

Chaos Sorcerer, Level 2, Mark of Tzeentch, Third Eye of Tzeentch, 2x Dispel Scroll

Core

6 Chaos Warhounds

15 Warriors of Chaos with shields, Full command, Mark of Slaanesh, Rapturous Standard.

15 Warriors of Chaos with shields, Full command, Banner of Wrath.

15 Warriors of Chaos with Additional Hand Weapon, Mark of Nurgle, Full command, Banner of Rage.

Special

5 Chaos Knights, Full Command, Mark of Tzeentch, Blasted Standard

Rare

2X Spawn with the Mark of Slaanesh

Total- 2000 points

This list emphasizes the mixing of marks that the army book now allows.  It gives you a solid core of infantry with three blocks of chaos warriors, any one of which could be supported by the Exalted with the mark of Khorne or the Sorcerer.

The Characters are very much in the supporting role in this list with no lord having been chosen.  The Exalted with the Mark of Khorne offers you some good magical protection for one of your units with magic resistance 2 and is throwing out 6 strength 5 attacks so can really beef up one of the warrior units to make them something to be feared. The Sorcerer is therefore the magical defence primarily but with the Third Eye of Tzeentch has the ability to cast your opponent?s spells instead of his own, so with a well cast drain magic or power of darkness you can really turn the tables on an opponent in an unexpected way.

The Third Hero on disk is a super support unit.  His stat line and basic all around magical item selection give him 4 WS7, S6 attacks, a 1+ Save and a 5+ ward and the ability to fly, making him a very potent character.

Your core choices are all there to perform their own specific roles.  The warhound unit can be used to screen your frenzied troops, anchor a flank, march block or any number of other dastardly tactics.  While each of the Warrior units has a purpose of its own.  The Unit with the Mark of Slaanesh is there to be your reliable unit, its 3+ save against shooting and immunity to panic, fear and terror should allow you to ensure it is doing what is required of it.  The unit with the banner of Wrath is there to add some weight to your magic phase as it provides a bound spell, has a good save and gets to reroll failed panic checks. The unit with the mark of Nurgle and the banner of rage is your hammer unit as it is throwing out 4 strength 4 attacks each with a -1 to hit them from shooting and a -1 to your opponent?s weapon skill in combat.

The Special Choice knights supplement this theme by being resilient and able to react to most threats, a 4+ ward against shooting in addition to their 1+ armour save makes them very survivable indeed and once they make combat they still have a 6+ ward that gives them that slight edge if needed.

The Spawn completes the list by giving you two unbreakable units that always strike first.  Whilst unreliable on their own they work well as a pair as you should be able to keep pace with your infantry with at least one of them and they anchor a flank very well.

This army list gives you a solid core of troops each capable of taking on a specific roll in the list whilst the support units do just that.  They enhance the ability of the Warriors to do their job in one way or another and if all else fails a charge from a unit of chaos knights supported by an Exalted Hero should smash most units in the game.

2000 Point Mono Good List

Hero

Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, Word of Agony, Level 1, Diabolic Splendour.

Exalted Hero of Slaanesh, Battle Standard Bearer, Daemonic Mount, Soporific Musk, and Flail.

Chaos Sorcerer of Slaanesh, 2x Dispel Scroll, Chariot of Slaanesh.

Core

3x 6 Marauder Horsemen of Slaanesh with Flails

Special

5 Chaos Knights of Slaanesh, Full command, Rapturous Standard.

3 Dragon Ogres with Great Weapons, Champion.

Rare

Dragon Ogre Shaggoth with Great Weapon.

Total - 2000 Points

This army list is all about Speed, Hitting Power and Supported Charges.  While all of the units would need a bit of luck to break an enemy unit on the charge on their own if you can combine a charge with any combination of them they should be able to deal with almost any enemy unit in the game.  The fact that the slowest unit in the army is the Sorcerer on chariot tells its own tail, with most units having a very respectable 14 inch charge range.  This allows you to be in a position to threaten with the vast majority (if not all) of you army from turn two onwards.   That and the fact that no unit can be ignored should give your opponent headaches for which one to shoot and which ones to line up to receive charges from.

This army in not the easiest to use due to its complete lack of static combat resolution and the fact that if you can?t get your combo charges off you are going to struggle to break even the most basic of infantry unit.  The benefit comes from when the fact that all though most of your units would struggle to take on a unit alone no matter which one your enemy does target, even if it is destroyed you should still have enough of a threat to crush their army under your combined charges.

The Build for the Daemon Prince is quite interesting as he stands very little chance of breaking a ranked up unit in combat as he is only unit strength 3 but he is very versatile, providing you with a dispel dice, a flying unit, a terror causer and the ability to scare most enemy hero/lord choices due to the word of agony.

The Exalted Hero is another fast unit, able to keep pace with anything in your army, the BSB give you a guaranteed combat resolution point allowing him to pick on the enemies support units with near enough impunity.  Not to mention the fact that Soporific Musk and the Horse lords rule combine extremely well or the combination of a BSB and Rapturous Standard makes for a near unbreakable unit.

The Sorcerer on Chariot would be my choice of general in this list and I would use him to guard the rear of my lines.  The fact that the army is so fast often tempts the enemy to land a flyer behind your lines but with the threat of D6+1 Strength 5 impact hits can often be enough to dissuade most enemy flyers from trying it.  He is also very useful later in the game after his scrolls have been used as a chariot arriving in the second round of combat will make up for the lack of conventional staying power and combat resolution.

These two list should hopefully demonstrate just how varied the warriors of chaos can be and how builds can be combined or mixed to give you a different style of army.  There is no one warriors of chaos list that you can expect to face as if you tool up against elite infantry you could easily find yourself facing a Marauder Horde or an all Cavalry List.

You can face a magic heavy monster horde one week and an elite killing machine the next but with creative combinations of the Unit types, Marks, Characters, and Magic Items you can come up with a very individual list that performs in its own unique way.

Cheers for reading and I hope that it gives you some ideas for a Warriors of Chaos army.

If you have any comments feel free to add them or if you have some other tactics that you feel I have missed add them to the warriors of chaos tactics thread in the Warhammer Tactics section of the forums.

Thanks

Kris

Well the first thing that strikes you when you pick up the Warriors of Chaos book is that it is a heft tomb, 128 pages all told is not bad and seems to be something that games workshop are going back to, bulking out the books with some solid background sections and artwork.

The background and art is a nice mix between old and new stuff with more of an emphasis on the northern tribes and the path from Marauder to Daemon Prince or Spawn is explored quite nicely throughout the book.  The colour section is also quite bulky with some good colour schemes and banners.  There is also what I assume to be the upcoming plastic Daemon Prince model is in there too, which is a nice bonus.

The Bestiary section is well laid out and flows a lot better than some recent army books; it follows the path from Marauder to Daemon Prince in the way that it lists units with all of the mounts and monsters after that with all of the support elements.  One thing in the Bestiary section that will interest you is the army special rules and the much talked about Eye of the Gods table.

The army special rules and Eye of the Gods table is where my first real complaint with the book comes up.  The wording on the Eye of the Gods rule makes it slightly ambiguous as to how it works exactly but the gist of it is that when your Heroes and Lords kill opponents in a challenge or slay a large target the get to roll on the table with the result affecting them for the rest of the game and the possibility of them stacking.  The tables effects range from the character becoming stupid at one end, through a whole load of stat increases to them being stubborn and having a 4+ Ward Save at the top end of the table.

This really helps to emphasise the nature of the army and reinforces the fear of having a chaos lord closing on your lines as you know that not only is he hard but he is probably going to get harder.

At the other end of the Bestiary is the special characters section and for those of you who like to field them you will not be disappointed, my personal favourite being either Throgg the troll king, who has the ability to pass on his leadership to all monsters even if he is not the army general, counts trolls as core and can vomit D6 times a round compared to once.  Or Kholek Suneater, a Dragon Ogre Shaggoth with 8 wounds, 7 attacks a 2+ save and the ability to not only attract any lightning based attacks but to call down his own every shooting phase.  All of the gods get at least on character and there is even a Marauder Hero in there as well.

Moving on through the book you will reach the Magic section that not only contains the new lore?s of chaos but the Marks, Gifts and Magic items as well.  All of the Chaos lore?s have had an update and are different to the ones in the Daemon Book.  While both Nurgle and Tzeentch are a vast improvement on the old lore Slaanesh has become very situational with spells 2, 3 and 4 having no effect on units that are immune to Psychology and spell 5 making one of your own units cause fear.  This means that although immensely powerful in some situations it is next to useless in others and so can be a double edged sword in an all comers list.  Also worth a mention is the number 6 spell in the lore of Tzeentch, Infernal Gateway.  This spell is cast on a 15+ and does 2D6 Strength 2D6 Hits on a unit within 24 inches of the caster.  What makes it worth a mention and its 15+ casting value is that is and 11 or 12 is rolled for the strength of the hits the entire enemy unit is removed from the game!  No armour saves or ward saves the unit is just removed from the game and transported to the realm of chaos.  Now when you take in to account that to be able to cast the lore of Tzeentch the Sorcerer must have the mark of Tzeentch which gives him +1 to his casting rolls things start to get nasty as it is easily possible to get +2 to cast on multiple mages with some form of reroll to boot.  This spell is going to win someone a tournament but you have to try to keep it in context.

The marks of the gods have all been updated as well with varying degrees of change.  The mark of Tzeentch now provides a 6+ ward save which stacks with any other ward save the character may get.  It also gives +1 to cast.  This means that the Fighting Tzeentch Sorcerer lord is gone but forces you to make the choice between fighting and magic.

The mark of Nurgle is probably the most improved as it now provides a -1 to hit to shooting attacks directed at the unit and when in combat gives and give -1 weapon skill to opponents in base contact. 

The mark of Khorne conversely is probably the least improved as it still gives frenzy but no longer adds any dispel dice.

The mark of Slaanesh no longer confers immune to psychology; you are now just immune to fear, terror and panic.  This may seem like a small change but give them the ability to flee as a charge reaction now and makes them susceptible to more magic items and magic.

As more units can now be marked, including your Marauders and there is no longer any restrictions on mixing marks on characters and units the army becomes a lot more flexible as long as you are not playing mono god armies.  On the plus side, as a mono god player at least the Marauders can be marked now allowing cheaper troops that still fit the theme.

After the marks comes the Daemonic Gifts, unlike the ones in the Daemons book these can only be taken once per army and although some of them are interesting they don?t combine as well as they could with the marks and magic items available like the bloodline powers do in the Vampire book.

On to the Magic Items with 17 magic weapons to choose from you know the direction the book it going to take already.  The other thing that does stand out though is the lack of magical defence and an around ward save.  I assume the latter is to give fighting characters with the mark of Tzeentch an advantage but can see no real reason for the lack of magical defence as it almost force you to take at least a level one scroll caddy which is a shame if you were hoping to do a mono Khorne army.  A good thing about the new magic items list is the removal of the restrictions on who can take what, meaning that you can still take the Khorne themed items in an all Khorne list but you can take them on a character with the mark of Tzeentch if you want to, as although it may rub people up the wrong way with the restrictions in place the mono god lists were at a serious handicap with the magic items available to them.

Finally after the magic items we come to the army list itself.  I will give a quick description of each entry and try to highlight something good and bad about each choice.

Lords;

Chaos Lord

This guy is easily the match of any other lord in the game, with the right equipment I could see him taking on a Bloodthirster in combat and at the least holding his own.  Stick him on a Chaos Dragon and there in not a lot in the game that will stop him.  Unfortunately this kind of combat monster does not come cheap will be tipping the scales at almost 800 points on a dragon

+Combat monster that could charge units in the front and win on his own.

-Has to challenge so will very rarely get to eat through a unit and cost a truck load of points.

Sorcerer Lord

Not your standard sorcerer lord as this guy is just as good in combat as most normal heroes and can take on lord level characters from some of the books.  Equip him correctly and you would hardly know that he was not a fighting character, but again can cost 800 point if you max him out.

+Relatively cheap way of getting two dispel dice without losing too much in combat.

-Has to accept challenges so can be head hunted by a smart opponent.

Daemon Prince

At first glance it is hard to see the use of this guy and most people will leave it at that, not as good in combat as a chaos lord, more expensive than a sorcerer lord if you want to upgrade him to cast magic, only unit strength 3 and only has a 5+ ward.  Where he comes in to his own is that he is a jack of all trades.  With a little thought he can do any job you need and with the right chaos gift can add spice to a list.

+Versatile

-Can be fragile

Heroes;

Chaos Sorcerer

Again the hero level sorcerer is a step above most other spell casters when it comes to combat, with a base of 2 attacks and a weapon skill of 5 he can get stuck in to unit champions and with either a good roll on the eye of the gods table or the right magic weapon he can take on heroes as well.

+Solid choice and not a lot is lost but taking at one.

-Again has to accept challenges so can he head hunted.

Exalted Hero

Nice cheap hero who is a mach for most lords in the game if tooled up correctly.  Can be the battle standard bearer and has some very good options for mounts.  With the Juggernaut of Khorne to make him a solid tank with a -1 save  or the Disc of Tzeentch for the cheap flyer the stand out choices for me.

+Very versatile and if you are happy to go without the leadership make you wonder why you need a lord.

-I honestly can?t think of one for this unit ever chaos army should have at least one in some form!

Core;

Chaos Warriors

If you think of the old books chosen you won?t go far wrong.  2 attacks each with chaos armour as standard.  Good weapon options and the ability to be marked.  You can go for your Nurgle tanks with 2+ save in combat or if you really want to smack up a unit go for a Khorne unit with either additional hand weapons or great weapons for those 4 strength 4 attacks or 3 strength 6.  With core infantry like this it makes you wonder why you need characters?

+Hard as nails core infantry.

-Movement 4 and the points rack up if you get carried away.

Chaos Marauders

Cheap core infantry to contrast the warriors.  You can field a unit of 20 with full command for as little as 100 points but with a few upgrades the become a solid choice that makes the all Marauder hoard viable.  My unit of choice, 12 with mark of Khorne and Flails a cheap ass unit that can?t be ignored.

+Cheap and can have a mark.

-Toughness 3 and little, if any armour.

Chaos Warhounds

Another cheap unit but this time it does not count as core.  Can be upgraded to have a scaly skin save or poisoned attacks but may advice it to keep them cheap and use them as screens for you frenzied units.

+Cheap and relatively quick.

-Low toughness and leadership that can cause panic in your force.

Marauder Horsemen

Core fast cavalry and the count towards you minimum core units as well!  They also have the interesting Horselords rule that lets them re-roll the dice to pursue an enemy defeated in combat making it more likely that you can cut people down which is always nice.  A whole host of upgrades are on offer.  Including the ability to make them in to a fairly solid medium cavalry that can hit as hard as most people heavy cav.

+Core choice fast cav.

-Can be expensive if tooled up too much.

Special

Chosen

And you thought Chaos Warriors were hard.  Chosen have an extra point of weapon skill on the core warriors and cost 3 points more.  Did I forget to mention that they get a free roll in the eye of the gods table at the start of the game and get to re-roll the bad results?  That combined with options for weapons, marks, magic banners and the fact that the champion can have a 25 point magic item makes them a very solid choice.

+Free eye of the gods roll

-Movement 4

Forsaken

Forsaken are the same points as chosen but with movement 6, weapon skill 4 and a random number of attacks.  This unit is what happens to a chaos warrior when it all goes wrong and unfortunately that is all I can see happening when you field them.  The movement is good but with only a 5+ save and no command options available to them I can see the getting overwhelmed very quickly.  If only they skirmished.

+Fast and relatively cheap support unit.

-Not good enough to compete for a special slot.

Ogres

For 15 points more than a minimum unit of forsaken you can have a minimum unit of ogres.  You will be on a similar frontage, same movement, have the same armour, cause fear, be guaranteed 3 attacks per Ogre, have 9 wounds in the unit not 5 and not be subject to frenzy. All round a better choice I feel if you want some fast moving infantry support and when you consider they can be marked and have weapon and command options you can really make a monster unit.

+Can have equipment and marks to make them more specialised.

-Points can rack up very quickly.

Chaos Chariot

Your usual chariot but that little bit harder hitting.  D6+1 strength 5 impact hits and 4 strength 5 attacks from the guys on the back in addition to the ninja horses will ruin any ones day.  Excellent support unit and could devastate a flank with one a well supported charge.

+Can be marked and taken as a mount for characters.

-Can be left behind in faster armies.

Dragon Ogres

There is not much that needs to be said about dragon ogres to be honest just take a look at their stats and then put them in your list, with great weapons if possible.

+Very solid stat line with some good upgrades.

-Initiative 2 I suppose.

Trolls

A nice unit option that can get a roll on the eye of the gods table if the pass 3 regeneration saves in one turn.  That and the vomit make them a very useful unit but it all depends on you passing those leadership tests for stupidity.

+Can get an eye of the gods roll and ignore armour with the vomit.

-Stupidity

Chaos Knights

I don?t think you will see many armies without a unit of chaos knights in them.  You can quite easily spend 300+ points on the minimum sized unit if you are not carful but with 2 attacks each and the option of strength 6 lances or strength 5 all the time can be devastating, and that?s without a mark.

+Very hard hitters.

-Expensive command upgrade.

Rare;

Spawn

A cheap double rare option that with the right mark can be deadly against the right opponent.  I like the mark of Slaanesh for always strike first as you can hold up a flanking force with two of them very effectively for a relatively small investment.

+Cheap and unbreakable.

-Random movement.

Chaos Warshrine

A counts a monster with ok stats and a movement of 4 that give your unit champions access to the eye of the gods table and lets you bless one unit per turn with a roll on the table.

+Guaranteed eye of the gods roll.

-Movement 4 I suppose.

Hellcannon

The hellcannon has been toned down slightly but is still an interesting choice.  Give you the chance to reach out and hurt people at range are you can use it as a monster and get it in to combat as quickly as possible.

+Hard hitter in combat and at range.

-Gives up half point it's the chaos dwarfs die.

Dragon Ogre Shaggoth

The Shaggoth is a solid rare choice that has a very impressive stat line and the option of either an additional hand weapon for 6 attacks of a great weapon for strength 8.  That, causing terror and an impressive 6 wounds makes the Shaggoth my preferred rare choice.

+Can survive a lot of punishment and still be a threat.

-Needs to be used with care as he will not beat a ranked up unit on his own.

Chaos Giant

The giant is just as tough as the Shaggoth and has the same number of wounds but lacks the armour save.  Not a problem when you are getting shot by cannon balls but can make a big difference against bow fire and the like.  One advantage he does have is that he can be marked and can charge a unit in the front without too much fear due to his stubborn leadership 10.  Mark of Slaanesh for always strike first is again my first choice.

+Stubborn and can be marked.

-Random attacks and no armour.

That?s if for the review and as you can see the Warriors of Chaos are quite a varied list with a lot of good options.  Next time I will be taking a look at how the units can go together to make an army and will run through 2 sample lists to give an example of two completely different play styles available to you.

Kris Sherriff

Hi all,

Another exclusive for us here at the Gaming Kingdom we managed to get an interview with author Graham McNeill.  So without beating around the bush for too long, lets get right to the interview.

KS: Hi, Graham and thanks for answering a few questions for us.  So a stock question to start us off, do you remember what it was that attracted you to the Wargaming hobby and do you have a preferred system/background?

GM: I first got into the hobby via the old ?Choose Your Own Adventure? books, and I still have my battered copy of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain on my shelves to remind me. I collected and played all of them, before graduating to role-playing, where I spent altogether far too much time developing worlds and characters and plots. My players never got to see or interact with a lot of these, but they made the world seem more real to me and, by extension, them. As the adventures I wrote became more ambitious in their scale I needed a system of rules to allow us to fight mass battles. A brief flirtation with the AD&D Battlesystem soon led me to Warhammer and 40K?and the rest is history, I fell in love with the darkness of the background and the scale of the games, and played them every weekend with my mates, writing campaigns, new rules, new characters and all manner of ?between-game? stories. I love both backgrounds, since they?ve developed into such rich and varied worlds. I prefer reading 40K fiction, but writing Warhammer fiction. Odd, I know, but that?s the way it goes.

KS: Do you still make time for role-playing and gaming and what are you favorite armies/systems and are you working on anything hobby related at the moment?

GM: Very much so. Every Wednesday the guys gather round my house for a spot of role-playing.  We?ve been playing for the last eight years and have ventured into the realms of Cthulhu, Serenity and WFRP. Currently we?re playing through an AD&D campaign, which is proving to be great fun. On the Wargaming front, I don?t play as much as I?d like to, but every now and then I dust off the Empire or Space Marine models for some dice rolling.

KS: What part of working for GW did you enjoy the most and is there any project that you are most proud of other than your Black Library Books?

GM: I enjoyed all the work I did for GW, but the project I was most proud of was the Witch Hunters book I did with Andy Hoare. At the time, we felt that 40K had drifted into an arena where it had lost some of its gothic madness and after the Daemonhunters book I did with Phil Kelly and Andy Chambers, these books put that insanity back, front and centre. We got to come up with some really cool concepts, got some great miniatures for the project and I?m very proud of what Andy and I did with that book. Oh, and the Black Templars?and the Empire?and so on.

KS: The Horus Heresy books have been a big success, how did they come about and was it always planned to keep them running?

GM: Yeah, they?ve been amazing, and we?ve been blown away by how much people have gotten into them. Doing Heresy books was something that had been talked about for a long time, but I?m glad it?s taken us this long to do it, as I don?t think we were ready to do them before now ? certainly I wasn?t. Basically, a whole host of us BL writers got together with the editors and GW background guru, Alan Merrett, to talk about what was involved; the history, the characters, the themes and, most importantly, what differentiated a book set in HH times from one in the Age of the Imperium. That last part was, for me, the most important facet of what we were going to be writing, because these novels should read as completely different types of book from a regular 40K story. They shouldn?t just be 40K books with different names, they should read and feel like something totally different. As to how many books there will be in the end, the answer is that there will be as many as we think are needed and as many as people want to keep reading. As long as there are ideas and stories to tell, we?ll keep telling them.

KS: As you entered the Heresy series with book two, what was it like taking over the reins of characters rather than working on ones you had created yourself?

GM: It was a challenge, that?s for sure, but one that turned out to be a real pleasure. Continuing a series kicked off by Dan Abnett was always going to be hard work, but continuing it after such an awesome novel as Horus Rising, was the biggest test and honour of my career. I read the manuscript of Horus Rising over and over to make sure the characters and plot was etched in my brain before starting. What made it easier for me was that Dan had crafted such well-rounded characters that it was easy to get a handle on them and get them to walk and talk the way they did in the first book. Dan and I were in communication with each other all the time during the writing of these books, zipping ideas back and forth to make sure the two books really gelled. I think you can really tell there was a lot of care put in them and it?s something that?s been commented on by the fans, so that?s very gratifying.

KS: On to the next book in the series Mechanicum, what?s it about and where does it fit in the series?

GM: Mechanicum starts slightly before the Istvaan massacre and covers the fall of the priests of Mars to Chaos and sheds light on what was going on in the minds of the Adepts, Titan Legions and Knight Households while the galaxy was tearing itself apart. One of the maxims we have with HH books is to always bring something new to the table and to always try and show people something they didn?t know or turn something they thought they knew on its head. The novel follows the exploits of a number of characters, but the central one is Dalia Cythera, a lowly transcriber from Terra who gets caught up in events that will have far-reaching consequences for the galaxy at large and which have their origins in the far past of Old Earth?

KS: I hear on the grapevine that you tried to keep Space Marines to a supporting role only in this book.  Was this a conscious decision or just something that happened while you were writing?

GM: It was something that evolved in the writing. Originally, the Space Marines were going to be much more prominent characters, but as the story came to life, I realized that I was drifting from the point of the book, and that was the Mechanicum. It wasn?t the Space Marines? story and I cut back their scenes, though I still gave them some screen time, as they do play a part in the final fall of Mars. The more I cut them away, the happier I felt, as it meant I was staying ?on-message?.

KS: I know that Dan Abnett was really pleased that he got to uncover some big secrets in Legion, have you got any planned for us in Mechanicum?

GM: Hell, yeah. I can?t really say what they are without giving it all away, but I think there?s going to be plenty of fodder for the conspiracy theorists out there.

KS: What about your Ultramarines Series, Uriel Ventris is back and The Killing Ground is in my pile of books waiting to be read (so don?t spoil it for me) but do I have more of the same to look forward to or do you have a new direction planned for him?

GM: After Dead Sky, Black Sun I had my characters in a place that needed some real planning to get them out of without the readers being cheated. The Killing Ground is the characters? odyssey home and it gets them back in a way that I felt dealt with the circumstances of their return in a way that was exciting, interesting and, most of all, fair. I mean that in the sense of feeling right. Think of the scene in Stephen King?s novel, Misery, when Paul Sheldon writes the first scenes of Misery Returns for Annie and she is raging that it?s not fair, because it ?cheats? in relation to what went before. Well, I didn?t want that, so I put a lot of thought into how to get my boys home in a way that would prevent me from being hobbled by an angry fan. The next book, Courage and Honour, is halfway done and is a much more back-to-basics story, with Space Marines doing what the do best. It?s a step up in scale for the Ultramarines again, since the last two books have just had Uriel and Pasanius as main characters. This book has a full company at war and the next one will be even bigger!

KS: On the Sigmar trilogy, I really enjoyed reading the first book and can?t wait for the second.  One thing that struck me about it was that it felt a lot more mature, in a similar vain to the Ambassador Books.  It still has the grand battles that Black Library books are all about but there is a lot of depth to the characters and the emotion of the moments really come through.  Was this something that you went in to the book planning to do?

GM: Absolutely. I never write for gamers, I write for readers, and I?d never write a book I wouldn?t want to read myself. If all I want are battles, I?ll play a game of 40K. A story?s not worth reading if there?s no depth to the characters and I always try and write each novel as though the game doesn?t exist. I avoid anything that breaks the illusion of the novel?s events not being ?real?, say by referring to a unit type (that isn?t an in-world name) or a piece of terminology that could only be known by a player. It?s the emotions of the characters that keep you reading a book and that?s paramount when it comes to telling a gripping story. If you don?t care about the characters, then what does it matter if they live or die, win or lose?

KS: Do you have any other things that you are working away on?  What else is there for us to look forward to?

GM: On the novels front, after Courage and Honour, I?ll be moving on to the second of the Sigmar trilogy, which will be called Empire. I can?t wait to get to this one, as it has lots of big battles, some really nice character moments and some stories of Sigmar that we?re not so familiar with. After that, it?ll be onto the concluding part of Defenders of Ulthuan. My first Starcraft novel, I, Mengsk is out in January. What else? oh, yeah, Fire and Honour issue 2 is out just now and we?re looking at the pencils for a four-part Ultramarines comic strip. So, lots to look forward to!

KS: Space Hulk or Hero Quest?

GM: Space Hulk, simply because you can?t beat the idea of Terminators in a haunted house.

KS: Lord of the Rings Trilogy or Band of Brothers?

GM: It has to be Lord of the Rings. I could watch those movies over and over again and never get tired of them. Everything about them came together in an amazing way to craft something incredible, the likes of which I doubt we?ll see again in movies for a long, long time.

KS: The Emperor or Horus?

GM: That?s a tough one. Before embarking on the HH books, I?d have said The Emperor, but having read and written Horus, I have much more sympathy for him and now feel the tragedy of what happened to him. The more we write of the Emperor, the more we see what a ruthless bastard he really was. And though it may damn the galaxy to oblivion, I?d side with Horus, simply because it looks as he and his lads are having the most fun. For now, anyway?

Well that?s all the questions I had for Graham and I would like to thank him again for answering them for us.  If you want to find out more about his books and what he is working on you can check out his website at www.graham-mcneill.com

Kris

One thing that all war games have in common is that they all require an army of some sort and usually you the player have some say in how that army is put together.

It is easy when you start playing a new game or take on a new faction in a game that you already play to get carried away with what you perceive to be the shiny parts to a list or to scour it for hours looking for brutal combinations that will surly win you the day.

Both of these approaches are perfectly valid and I may explore them in a later article but for now I wanted to concentrate on the way I usually make an army list these days.

I love the story behind my games, I can?t help it.  One of the main reasons that I started Wargaming was the imagery of the different universes on offer and the wow factor that you can get if you immerse yourself in the game.  Due to this part of my nature I more often than not find myself teaming my army in a certain way.

We all do this automatically; it starts from the moment we pick up a Codex, Army Book, and Briefing Pack whatever.  From the moment you start turning the pages you are thinking about what would be a good army and how it could all fit together.  What I am talking about is taking it that one step further; don?t just think about what would be a good army.  Think about what would be a cool army, or what would be a good looking army and what would make it fun to play, not just with but against.

I am not saying that you should not take those cannons in your Warhammer Empire army, or that Tiger in your Flames of War list just that you should think about why you are taking a thing and how it will fit in to you list.  Not just form a tactical stand point but from all of the others as well.  I have found that this approach makes building a list a lot harder but it does reward you once it all comes together as the force you have at you disposal is truly yours and you will already have its back story in your head for where each unit is from and how they fit in to you plans.

I find that I usually start with my commander.  I look at the model I will be using to represent them and try to come up with their character and how I think they would command, this then leads on to what type of troops they have at their disposal and then the relationship between the two of them.  Once I have the core to my army I then think about the type of tactics I would like them to employ and start placing the troops into the back story of my characters.  Did my High Elf lord just trip over that Star Dragon on his way to breakfast, is there a reason my commander prefers close support mortars over 25 pounders?  Answering these questions and making a few sacrifices along the way will help you to build a story for your force and it all comes back to the imagery, if you put that little bit of effort in to piecing together an image of what your army looks like, where they are from and why they are fighting it makes the images of the battle you are fighting come so much easier.  Once you have that connection with your troops and you see them not as a game winning unit but as an essential part of the story that you are telling with your opponent you may just find yourself enjoying your games in a new way and you never know you may find that you still win games as well.

So in a change from the regular schedule i've decided to give Kris a week off from Blog writing and give it a go myself.

At this point you'll be wondering who this is or you'll have skipped to the end and checked the signature (boo hiss to you, lol) so without further ado, onwards to my point (and I do have one honestly).

In this weeks Blog I want to discuss the variety of the games we play and how they can reinvigorate our passion for the hobby. For the vast majority of club members our entry to the hobby will have been through one of the many fantastic Games Workshop games such as Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Lord of the Rings or one of the many Specialist Games such as Blood Bowl or Necromunda and while these games will hold a  special place for all of us I think we've all had that time when you just want a change from the norm.

This is where the variety comes in, recently in the club we have been looking at other wargame systems such as Flames of War, Warhammer Historical and Infinity but for the first time recently we dipped our toes into the unknown waters of board games with many members having a go at Carcassone and Talisman for those of you who still remember such things. What I saw at the club was hobbyists of various age groups and hobby experience all having a good time enjoying fairly simple game systems and the best part was they were simple to organise, quick to set up and everyone who wanted to play was able to do so.

The variety offered by these other games is essential in our hobby to avoid stagnation or repitition and the best part is that the next week people will be playing with their armies but with a renewed sense enthusiasm.

Now the downside and the official "it's ok to do it" if you need "permission". Some people seem to feel that they are somehow abandoning there favourite system by having a go at other games by companies other than the one they are used to. Wargaming is a very varied hobby and I encourage everyone to try something new. A good example of this was at the RAFWA AGM where Kris helped someone there get into Warhammer 40,000 as he'd never played it before and after a quick run through if the basics and some creative liscense from Kris the guy was hooked and had his friend looking at the models as well. I think this aptly shows how we can keep each other ethusiastic and shouldn't be afraid to share new wargarming experiences with others as you never know who may be interested?

Well thats all from me for now, hope you enjoyed my first ever Blog entry, normal service will probably resume sometime soon

Jono

So in something of a follow up to last week?s column I thought I could write about one of my favourite parts of the Wargaming hobby.  Starting a new army.

I don't mean going out and buying a cart full of models and working on your army list, although this is an important part of starting a new army.  I mean the time you spend thinking about what army you want to do.  The cunning plans that form while you should be thinking about something else.  The conversion and background ideas you come up with and how you fit it in to whatever gaming universe it happens to belong in.

My first real memory of doing this properly was when I was about 14.  Like many young lads I had a paper round to supplement my ?1.50 a week pocket money and all in was taking home about ?50 a month.

The paper round was for one of the free papers that had to be delivered to every house on an estate and I used to spend about 2-3 hours on the Thursday and Friday delivering it.

Most of the time I would spend planning an Undead army for Warhammer Fantasy and come up with cunning combos and run the math of different scenarios through may head.  This combined with planning how to budget for buying said army used to while away the hours and this paten has continued through most of my working life.

I am blessed now to have a job that is interesting when I am busy but that provides me with the time to think about these things (and write articles to post on the internet) when it is quiet.  So in between the spates of activity what have I been planning?  Well much like everybody else I have been looking at the new Space Marine codex.

I started off by looking at the colour section and looking at the pretty models.  This was followed by the army list section to see what was 'beardy' and what had been 'nerfed' and it was about this time that the inevitable thoughts of cool armies start to form.  First off I was good and thought about getting a couple of drop pods for my Dark Angels and sticking with those.  I have always liked the Dark Angels and have a good enough win record with them and even managed to do well at a recent tournament with my fluffy list.

These thoughts though just did not satisfy the hunger inside.  You all know what I am talking about, as much as you like an army you are working on it is just not as good as the next army you could be working on.  This was not helped by the fact that I had just gone back to reading Brothers of the Snake by Dan Abnett.  I had put the book down a few months ago as I had hit a bit of a wall with it but had recently picked it back up to get it finished.  So my head was filled with thoughts of Iron Snakes and then my Imperial Armour Vol 6 arrived with the updated rules for Red Scorpions and there Apothecarys in squads.  It was like a sign surely I should be doing an Iron Snakes army, they all have Apothecarys in squads too you know.

Fortunately this plan was halted quite quickly as I knew one of my friends was already painting up some Iron Snakes, anyway who needs to do a Chapter from a book when the local Games Workshop is running a Chapter Founding competition?

Not me that?s for sure, so again I sat down and thought up some ideas wrote up their background in two drafts, the first is the one to be handed in as part of the competition and the second contained all of the chapter's secrets and other characteristics that 'outsiders' wouldn't know.  So after a quick trip to Dawn of War's army painter the Storm Knights were born.  As I like a challenge I came up with some interesting self imposed restrictions to do with the chapter organisation and wrote up some an army list.

It was whilst writing up the army list for the Storm Knights that I noticed the rules for Shrike and the Raven Guard.  Now here was an army I could get onboard with.  Fleet Space Marines for the win, sorry Fleet Space Marines with Jump Packs for the win.

So which idea am I doing?

At the moment none of them.  I am painting my Flames of War Australians but they are all stored for use in the future and one day the Storm Knights may just be drop pod assaulting a planet near you, well them or the Raven Guard of course or did I hear that the new Chaos Army Book is out soon?

Kris