Vulkan's Finest - Warhammer 40K Blog

Current Fluff for my White Templars

2010-11-25T11:06:00.000-06:00

I'm putting the fluff in as a comment (and hoping that will work) because it is so long a post. I am also aware of a few typos, one glaring chronological issue, and the fact that GW has now stated that ALL Dark Angel followers are looking for Cypher, not just the Dark Angels and the Second Founding bunch. Not sure how to solve that, other than to say that I am also looking for Cypher without adopting the Dark Angel force organization.

Thanksgiving Update

2010-11-25T10:04:00.000-06:00

This will probably be the first of like 3 posts this morning - I've been saving up. For the others check out my other Space Marine blog.

I've been painting my White Templars up and, as any 40K hobbiest will tell you, it's slow going. Right now I have one HQ painted. I also have one tactical squad almost painted. In this case, "almost" means half of them still need their bases flocked for which I need some more PVC glue. Then I have to seal and then I need to go in with my gloss to make their armor and only their armor shiny. Once I have them completely done, I will try to take a squad pic and post it. While they are curing, I have begun painting up five terminators and one librarian in terminator armor.

However, being the person I am, I have come up with a new idea. More accurately, I came up with a color scheme and wanted to put it on something. It looked best on Chaos Space Marines, so on Chaos Space Marines it will go. Which means I am going to start another army. These guy will be the subject of another post, because having been inspired by a color scheme, I might have improvements on it. And while I was sort of plotting out that Army, I came up with another idea for a different army.... and it would be cool to give Blood Angels a try again as well. At which point, I began to regret my decision to dedicate a blog to each of my existing armies.

So, here is my plan, I am going to phase out my other 40K blogs (not like I made many entries), probably by the close of 2010, and make Sanctum Alborum Militum Templi my primary 40K blog that talks about all my various ideas, armies, etc. If you are following me, please take note.

As far as my "Salamanders", I just can't seem to get by the fact that they do not have a regulation GW Salamander paint scheme. They almost look more like Disciples of Caliban (but I don't want to adopt the Dark Angel army organization and they have all those heavy flamers and meltas). So instead, I think they will be a Salamander or Storm Giant successor named the Storm Dragons.

My Space Marine Armies are going to have to be themed. I think my White Templars will be drop pod based and/or fast attack (but not White Scars). They won't have much by the way of terminators or tanks, at least to start with. They will need some scouts though. They may expand to be more balanced later.

The Storm Dragons will be all about meltas, flamers, terminators, and tanks, both heavy hitting and close ranged. They won't be having many bikes or land speeders (which per Salamander fluff in a White Dwarf back at the beginning of Armageddon, is Salamandery). They are and will remain for a long time, my largest force.

Then I have some extra guys who might go back to being Blood Angels but I also might make them Emperor's Spears. If I do that I have two Baal Predators that I need to do something with though.

On the Chaos side, I'll have the Wicked Company who used to be the Emperor's Huntsmen chapter before they went renegade. At this point, they are going to be kind of steampunky looking and accordingly concentrating more on the steampunk looking Space Marine side of things and less on the mutations and daemons. They are the current apple of my eye because they are the newest project and they sort of came to me almost fully formed. They will probably be slightly assault oriented, but I don't want to go whole hog, largely because so many of the steampunk looking guys are shooty (Havocs anyone?). That probably means they will be a balanced force as much as possible.

I also have a Sisters of Battle Army that isn't going anywhere, and old Dark Eldar army that isn't going anywhere, and a Tau army I may pick up again because I love the Tau sans the Kroot (which I refuse to field).

I suspect I'm going to be spending a lot of Thanksgiving weekend painting because I promised myself I was not going to start in on the Chaos Marines until I can field a legal force of fully painted White Templars. At this point, I am roughly a tactical squad short of that, and I would like to at least be able to field some terminators, a dreadnought, a thunderfire cannon, and something assaulty. I also need like three drop pods.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving!

Still Alive

2010-11-15T10:17:00.000-06:00

If my blogs are right, I put up my paint stuff right before Thanksgiving 2008 because we needed the table space. This last weekend, with Thanksgiving at my Mother-in-Law's house, I got them out and began painting again. White Templars, 1st Squad, 3rd Company, are nearing completion.

I realized and am having to relearn some things. First, I am realizing that I am two years older. The details are harder to see and my back starts hurting sooner. I'm re-realizing that white is hard to paint with: hard to highlight, hard to make look smooth, and hard to cover with when I "oops" with another color.

My paints had two years of drying in them. The black was plugged and when it let loose it spattered a lot EVERYWHERE. I spent about two hours painting as much stuff black as I could before the spill dried out.

I re-read the fluff I wrote for the white Templars and re-visited my markings and insignia decisions. Part of this was refreshing my memory. Part was, having decided they are descended from the Angels of Absolution, I wanted to start using a bit more dark green in my cloaks and robes and things. I know the Angels are basically a bone colored army, but bone on white looks dumb. I also am a big fan of consistency. My Space Marines are an Army and should look like and reflect the regimented troops they are. What I mean is this: If I am trimming the pauldrons of my veterans in black, then the Terminators and Dreadnoughts also should have solid black shoulders.

Being myself, I spent over a day thinking, planning, and sorting before I even lifted a brush. I have started numerous 40K armies and never finished painting a single one. When I first started, I played Blood Angels, mostly because no one else at my store did and they had red paint in a can. Consequently, I have two Baal Predators I never use. I began wanting to field a more "normal" Space Marine army because the BA started to feel kind of one-dimensional i.e. you assaulted. I opted to start a Storm Lord army and learned in the process just how hard it is to paint red and white side by side. Then GW published their version of Storm Lords who suddenly had yellow helmets. Mine had black faces, thighs and upper arms kind of like the White Panthers. I thought about going forward with mine and saying it was company tradition, but then they became part of the White Scar geneseed and I'm not a big fan of bikes - you pay almost twice as much for a model that dies just as easily. About then Armageddon came out and I discovered the Salamanders. My Salamanders are green and black (black face masks, thighs, and upper shoulders. They probably represent my largest single contingent of Space Marines - six tackle trays, about half of which are painted and the rest are primered black. With the latest Edition of 40K, I decided to start a new Space Marine Army, probably more drop pod based, eventually coming to call it the White Templars. I liked the "Stormtrooper" look and the insignia of the White Templars. The are my current babies. And I also have small forces of Tau and Dark Elder.

The point of the previous paragraph is simply that my stock of Space Marines stuff while extensive, is also very mismatched. For example, I have 4 dreadnoughts. 1 is green and black and finished. One is half red and half white and mostly finished. One is primered black. One is primered white. I have three Land Speeders. The Typhoon is half red and half white and finished. One is green and black and un-assembled. One is black primered and un-assembled. I have two assembled rhinos, one black and green and one that is half red and half white. The same is true for bikes, Predators, and the Marines themselves. It makes things very difficult when organizing. I've scavanged 80% or so of the old Blood Angels but the things that are left mostly cannot be scavanged like the Baal Predators or assault marines who are cast with BA markings. Red and white also took a heavy hit. Mostly now I've got White Templars and Salamanders (Or Salamander successors). I plan to keep both. Sallies tend to be solid and oriented towards heavy firepower. I'm thinking the Templars will be either a drop pod army, an assaulty army, or a shooty army. Lack of focus is my Achilles heel.

Also after much discussion on sites like Bolter and Chain Sword, I decided my White Templars are not descended from the Black Templars or Dorn. Nor are they Ultramarine stock. They are from the Angels of Absolution and thus descended from the Dark Angels. However, as a later founding, they are, at least at this point, a Codex Chapter. I hope GW doesn't decide to write them up now.

My Sallies (or Salamander descendants of an unknown name) are going to continue to keep the majority of the heavy stock. They will be mechanized, tank heavy, and melta happy. Hammers and salamander skin cloaks.

So isn't it odd that at this point, the stuff that would not require drastic alterations in order to become part of the White Templars are three rhinos, two thundercannon, two dreadnoughts, and maybe ten bikes? What a world.

What I'm doing these days.

2009-03-31T09:20:00.003-05:00

For the last month I've spent most of my free time car shopping, either researching on the computer or test driving everything from a Buick Lucerne to a Toyota RAV4 to a Honda Civic Hybrid. It would be easier if I knew what *kind of car* I wanted. Oh well.

Anyway, it occurred to me while looking at MINI Coopers, which seem to encourage you to personalize them with paint jobs, that it already comes in a color similar to Dark Angel Green. You could put the winged sword on one door, a squad number on the other door, a tactical arrow on the roof, maybe a purity seal painted on the back, and presto it would look an awful lot like a Space Marine transport.

I'd prefer to make it a Salamander transport, of course, but it just doesn't come in the right green. The Salamander chapter symbol would look great on it and you could certainly incorporate the flames which are common enough in other tricked out cars.

They don't have a pure white or you could do White Templars, but they do have Blood Red. No good Ultramarine Blue though. I had a good chuckle over this.

I really need to dig out the basement table and get back to painting....

Christmas

2009-01-23T08:44:00.002-06:00

We will, hopefully, get the last of the Christmas stuff back in the closet this weekend, at which point my wife allows me to "get out my toys" again. (We use the same table to painting as we do for wrapping and sorting Christmas things.) So, if I remember how to hold a paint brush again, I can get back to it.

Bikes

2008-10-29T09:27:00.002-05:00

I've got some bikes I'm trying to allocate. They began life as Storm Lord bikes so they are half red and half white. They either need to become White Templar bikes or bikes for my Salamander successors, the Emerald Lancers or whatever their name is this week.

It's easiest to paint them black and then green; not to worried about red bleeding through that. But Sallies aren't supposed to use bikes much.

:-/

New 40K Blog

2008-10-07T22:32:00.002-05:00

I made a new 40K Space Marine Blog for my other SM army. If you'd like to peruse, click here. Currently, I'm asking for opinions on painting there too.

Two other ways to do the Termies

2008-09-29T22:14:00.007-05:00

More paint schemes for you all to comment on.

Veteran Terminator - Orange Power Fist

Veteran Terminator - Orange on Shoulder

Or I could do both.

Or, what about an orange head? If I redid the mouth grill in black, that might look kind of neat.

I think I like that last one best. Maybe still give the sgt an orange shoulder also.

Thoughts?

Chapter markings

2008-09-29T15:27:00.003-05:00

This is a work in progress and if you see any glaring contradictions, let me know.

****

Chapter symbol: TBD after a name is chosen. Generally the left shoulder denotes chapter and function. The right shoulder denotes company and rank The right knee denotes squad..

Armor pattern: The standard pattern is feet, thighs, joints, and face plates with green in all other locations.

Company markings:
Company symbol is on the right pauldron.

Squad markings: Squad type determined by the trim on the left pauldron. Gold for HQ, Green for Tactical, Blue for Fast Attack, & Yellow for Heavy Support.
Scouts are designated by their armor style as are Terminators. Sternguard veterans in standard power armor from veteran squads have orange armor where the rest of the chapter's is green and the pauldrons have green trim. I don't know if I will keep this for the Vanguard veterans or not. I may simply paint them as normal assault marines and reverse the helmet and face plate colors. I may give all sergents orange or silver trim on their right pauldrons depending if they are veterans. I may throw a blaze of orange on the Terminators as well.

Rank markings:
Margrave - Denoted by a surcoat, banner, and gold pauldrons w/ green trim.
Captains - Denoted by surcoat, banner, and silver pauldrons w/ gold trim.
Veteran Sergents -- Orange right paudron trim
Sergeants -- Silver right pauldron trim
Privates -- Green right pauldron trim

Banner markings: Each Company has a symbol which is denoted on it's company banner. All squad banners are patterned to designate the squad type and are in the color codes for that type of unit. All squad banners have the squad number as an Arabic number on them as well. Squad banners may have other squad specific deisgns. Independent characters may have their own personal standards with a design that is up to them.

Specialist markings:
Apocatharies have white armor where the rest of the chapter is black except the face plate.
Librarians have blue
Techmarines have dark red, but this may change because it looks Christmas-like with the green.
Chaplains have all black armor, skull face plates.
Champions -- Black armor with green pauldrons with gold trim, green surcoat, and a gold head laurel

Pictures

2008-09-27T15:52:00.002-05:00

Thanks to Bolter and Chainsword, I have some pictures of my paint scheme for people to look at. Without further ado:

Tactical Marine

Terminator

Assault Marine

Veteran

What's in a Name?

2008-09-25T09:55:00.004-05:00

So I'm back to thinking about not being "real" Salamanders but rather being a chapter of my own invention. Partially this is because I like doing creative things like that. Partially, this is because my paint scheme is not really a Salamanders one (Think of a White Panther or Mortifactor but make it black and snot green). Partially it is because I found a neat article on Bolter and Chainsword about Do It Yourself Chapters. And partially it is because I have an idea.

So you have a Founding, let's say 23rd (because 23 is large enough to be interesting and also prime). A proto-Chapter is created and a group of about 20 Marines from another chapter sent to train up these boys and make the chapter operational. They settle on a homeworld and begin, but the homeworld is attacked before they get the Chapter operational. Chapter is involved in a desperate and losing struggle to repel the invaders during which the 20 trainers are all killed. When all seems lost, a company or two of Salamanders drop pods in and drives off the attackers, saving the planet and the proto-Chapter. The Salamanders leave 20 of their guys to finish off the proto-Chapter's training. This would be a very formative event for the Chapter and would lead them to take a lot of Salamander doctrine, similar colors, and perhaps even part of their Chapter name as they emulate their saviors. They might even consider the Salamanders as their spiritual parent chapter regardless of the actual gene-seed. I think that's an interesting backstory that explains the similar, but not identical uniforms and doctrine I tend to use.

One of my issues is gene-seed though. I can either say my seed is from the Ultramarines/White Scars/Imperial Fists and I know it. (Or, if the invaders destroyed the original Fortress Monastery I might not know who my gene-seed came from.) Thus, the original training cadre would be from that Chapter. That's not too tough.

The other option would be to have actually been seeded from Salamander stock. all we know is that the Salamanders seeded no SECOND Founding Chapters. Their seed is pure and there is NO reason not to have used it. However, we also know that NO known daughter chapters exist. We know that Salamanders have black skin and red eyes, but it is intimated that this might be environmental and thus limited to Nocturne. Certainly if any later founding Chapters exhibited these obvious physical traits then you'd KNOW they were Salamander daughters. The obvious conclusion is that the Salamander gene-seed does not AUTOMATICALLY convey the black skin and red eyes. So it is POSSIBLE to have been formed from Salamander geneseed.

Next problem: Since no one knows of any Salamander daughters, obviously if my new Chapter was a daughter, the records would have to have been lost. From our point of view, that is easy if out Fortress Monastery was destroyed, but why doesn't the Imperium have a record? More to the point, wouldn't Salamanders have been sent to train us then and wouldn't the Salamanders know? Could the politics between the Marine Chapters mean that the Ultramarines might have politicked to have have themselves train this new chapter so, unlike the Salamanders it is organized properly? If that is the case, does it stretch coincidence that the Salamanders happened to be the ones to drop pod in and save them?

None of this even touches what KIND of world the homeworld is (I like ice and snow because I think it looks good on vehicles. What kind of people live there? what has the Chapter done post being made operational. Etc.

Thoughts anyone?

Model Painting

2008-09-24T10:04:00.002-05:00

When you first see some of the really well painted minis in White Dwarf or other magazines, it's kind of inspiring. Then you go home and do some painting and you think you're really doing well because you can stay within the lines, you use highlighting, you use shading, you use washing and inks, and you even paint your flock and put in grass. All on stock GW figures.

Then you see some of the armies that people have put together on the web with Eldar crossing lakes of lava, Necrons climbing small hills, or a Space Marine with his foot atop a fallen foe; where the lowliest trooper is painted far better than your best character model, and you just get depressed. How do you even posed a Space Marine's leg anyway? When I try it looks unnatural or I ruin the model.

Speed, the lifeblood of any army

2008-09-22T12:46:00.002-05:00

Prior to the invention of the battleship in the late 19th century, naval combat was decided at short ranges by boarding. A British visionary, Adm. Jackie Fisher, changed that by building H.M.S. Dreadnought, one of the few ships that could be said to have changed everything in an instant. She was an "all big gun" ship, meaning she had pretty much only large guns to fight other ships with and they could all lob a shell quite a long way. Her invention led to a drastic change in naval tactics. Where before gun crews trained for ranges of about 2000 yards, they now had to train for 15,000 yards and be able to hit the target. Dreadnought was also armored to be able to duel with another ship throwing shells as big as she herself carried.

For all of the above obvious features of Dreadnought, one thing that is usually a second mention in discussing H.M.S. Dreadnought is the fact that she was driven by a steam turbine. Why? Because that was the only way to make her fast enough in Fisher's eyes. Why did this floating citadel need speed? Therein lies the point of this post.

Speed, as Fisher pointed out, allowed a ship to set the range of the engagement, by which he meant, absent an objective that needed to be defended tying the ships in place, the faster ship would always be the one to choose the range at which a naval battle was to be fought. If the faster ship wanted a long range duel, then it could successfully sail away when the enemy closed, thus keeping open the range. If it wanted to fight a close action, it could close and the enemy could not escape. For Dreadnought, this meant that she could stand off an enemy ship and fight at the ranges she was trained at rather than allow the enemy to close to the ranges the enemy was trained at. Likewise, it also meant that enemies could not simply avoid Dreadnought by sailing away from her.

In Warhammer 40K, we play on a table, usually 4' x 6' or 4' x 8', which means we don't have the unlimited free movement provided by an expanse of open sea. However, some of Fisher's principles still apply; the faster army can do a lot to choose the engagement range. If the faster army is shooty, it can do a lot to stay away from the enemy and allow the maximum amount of shooting for as long as possible. Tau do this. If the army is built around the assault, then it benefits from being able to close on the enemy and catch up as fast as possible. Blood Angels do this (or at least used to with their vehicle turbo boosts). Because the board is finite, you cannot employ speed completely -- Imagine what it would be like if your shooty army could keep retreating and firing as it goes for oh, say, 24 feet before the assault elements could finally come to grips with it. (Likewise a bigger board would reward a faster army because you would have room to really develop a flanking maneuver and string out a slower enemy which just can't happen on a normal sized board.) Still, even with the limits of the board in mind, it seems to me that speed is one of the most decisive factors in an army, every bit as important as armor or weapons.

All of the above said, because of the limitations imposed by the board, VOLUME of fire becomes a huge issue as well. Since you can't move as much, you need to make it hurt more that you can move.

Comments?

Thunderfire Cannon

2008-09-21T18:47:00.003-05:00

Sat around the hobby shop with the new Codex and figured out the new Thunderfire Cannon. My question had been that the SM Codex says that the techmarine becomes an independent character if the cannon is destroyed, but no stats were given for the cannon. Per the guys hanging around the shop, the Thuderfire is artillery and that has a special rule in the main book. It is a ten armor and any glancing or penetrating hit destroys it. I'm gonna have to go look that up.

I have to confess, this is one of the items I'm really excited about because it seems to Salamandarish. It's not fast and can be easily incorporated into an infantry army.

The other thing I'm excited about is the Land Raider Redeemer. Lots of flamers. Woot!

Assault Cannons vs. Missile Launchers on Terminators

2008-09-19T11:16:00.011-05:00

Was debating last night on the relative merits of the assault cannon or the missile launcher for terminators. Both are heavy weapons.

ML 48" range and can be S8, AP3 but has only 1 shot.

AC has 24" range and is S6, AP4 but has 4 shots. What makes this interesting is that the AC is a "rending" weapon which means that if I roll a 6 to wound or penetrate, cool stuff happens. Against people, it becomes and AP2 shot. Against a vehicle it gets another d3 to add to its penetration.

This means that, regardless, the ML can engage at twice the range. The maximum penetration value of the ML is 14 which will only glance a Land Raider. The maximum penetration of an AC is 15 which will penetrate a Land Raider. The average penetration of a a ML is 11.5 which will penetrate most side and back armors, but not most fronts. The average penetration of an AC is 9.8 which won't penetrate anything. However, the ML gets 1 shot at that 11.5, while the AC gets, on average, around 3 (slightly less actually). Now the chance of NOT rolling a 6 is right around 83%. But the chance of not rolling a 6 on any of three dice is only about 57%. So figure 43% of the time the AC will get penetration values of 7 or above for a total hit of 13 or above. That DOES punch almost anything except a Land Raider. Further, 2/3 of that time you will glance or penetrate a Land Raider. That means about 37% of the times you shoot, you'll have at least 1 hit that will glance a Land Raider and 14% of the time, you'll penetrate it. The ML can only glance the Land Raider 17% of the time. The AC will penetrate it almost as often as the ML will glance it and the AC will at least glance it almost twice as much.

(Compare a melta weapon which at S8 + 2d6 will have an average penetration value of 15 and thus will penetrate about 50% of the time at least glance it almost 2/3 of the time. A melta though is not as much good for fighting a mob army.)

It seems like the AC is a better choice, but the lack of range still bothers me. Of course, the rest of the terminator squad is only going to have a 24" range and having the same range for your squads is important.

NO BITZ???!!!

2008-09-19T11:16:00.008-05:00

So I went into my local fine hobby shop and requested to look at the bitz catalog. I was thinking I'd need to do some converting for my 'Manders. I am told that GW has discontinued bitz. WTH? "No Bitz?" says I. "It will be harder to do custom work." I'm told that you just need to buy the entire model now. Screw that. Now I'm mad at GW all over again. I wonder if there are any bitz traders out there peddling other people's cast offs.

Drop Pods

2008-09-19T11:16:00.005-05:00

There is going to be a new drop pod model for the Space Marines and I see a lot of talk on the forums about drop pod based armies. I played with those back in 3rd Ed. and honestly, I don't see the point. Here's my take:

Defender deploys all of his army. Attacker's Army comes in piecemeal depending on the roll of the dice. This means that ALL of the defender's fire can concentrate on a smaller portion of the attacker's army. This allows the defender to defeat the attacker in detail. The only reason to use drop pods would be if you were playing an assaulty army and even then you usually get too shot up before you can get your assault on.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Assault Cannons

2008-09-19T11:16:00.002-05:00

Anyone know why the 5th Ed. Book has Space Marines Assault Cannons as Heavy 4 Rending weapons, but Assault Cannons under the Sisters of Battle are Heavy 3 weapons?

Tactical thoughts

2008-09-17T10:05:00.002-05:00

I’ve been looking at/for Salamander tactica on-line and not having a whole lot of results. One of the best sites was apparently www.thefireofnocturne.com but it seems to have lost its registration. I have managed to salvage some bits from it by using cached Google results and I may post those here someday after I clean them up. I also tried www.archive.org, but had little luck there.

I remain concerned about being short range shooty because that sounds a lot like shoot once and be assaulted to me. People on the Salamander boards often refer to “our short range firepower” like we somehow have more than most other Marines or are better with it. the truth is that, as of 4 October, any other marine outfit can takes exactly the same range of weaponry that we can. Their bolters, standing and shooting at 12” are every bit as good as ours. We can, for fluff reasons, optimize for fluff by doing something like only taking flamers and meltaguns, but that would mean that when marching at another Space Marine player, we’d be taking a lot of plasma and lascannon fire before getting into range.

I’ve also pondered GW’s decision to limit tactical squad’s ability to get special weapons to only ten man squads. Obviously, they want to encourage the players to take more troops and full ten man squads. They then allow us to break up our tens into two five man squads. I can see this having a few effects. 1) People may elect to take the two cheapest five man squads they can and then fill out their list with three elites, three fast attack, and three heavies; exactly the opposite of what GW wants. 2) They may break up their squads so they have two assault halves with say meltaguns and 2 heavy halves with lascannons. The assaults then move together assaulting and the heavies stand on the same hill and shoot. It’s like having a light devastator squad. 3) I think you can put two meltaguns or flamers in a tac squad now and if you can conceiviably when you split them, you could end up with a five man squad with two meltaguns. If you matched up two halves like that you could have a ten person group with two sgts geared to assault, four meltaguns/flamers, and four damage sponge vanilla space marines. This group of course is actually two units so it would take casualties a bit more easily. On the other hand it can divide and go after two targets at the same time (useful when assaulting tanks with meltaguns). 4) Do as GW intends and take a ten man squad.

I remain kind of honked off by the fact that if I want terminators with thunder hammers, they can only go in an all assault squad where the base weapon is a lightning claw. As a general rule, I prefer a LC to a TH for carving up bad guys so I’d be grinding my teeth every time I had to pay to upgrade. If I want flamers, a quintessential assault weapon though, I have to go to a “shooty” terminator squad. I can still make an assault oriented squad from that by putting in two heavy flamers and eight other storm bolter/power fist guys, but then I can’t have my hammers, damn it! Besides, if I’m a shooty terminator, I want my assault cannon and missiles. Oh and did I mention that all these terminators are expensive?

I forgot to mention the problem now with veterans. Only assault veterans can have thunder hammers. Only Sternguard veterans can have heavy flamers (and no figure is made for a space marine carrying a heavy flamer by the way). So, whereas previously and in fluff a Salamander veteran squad should have both heavy flamers and thunder hammers, I have to choose. I think you could make an interesting assault squad of Sternguard veterans with the heavy flamers and whatever I can give them to make them better assaulters. Probably mount 'em in a Razorback. At least that's what I'm going to TRY doing. Problem is that I need another 4 terminators with just a storm bolter and power fist. I could get the "terminator" box which would give a me a second assault cannon and a second chainfist. But that is $50. I already have 12(!) termies with t-hammers of course.

I feel as if I am being forced to trade effectiveness for fluffiness. I can be fluffy or good or do neither well.

The only good short-range shooty battle I can remember was actually with my Sisters of Battle running out of a Chapter Approved book. Like the Salamanders, Sisters have a lot of flamers and meltas. I was fighting a Chaos Marine enemy, Tzeneech (or however it’s spelled) and it turns out that while he was good in the assault, he could not initiate an assault. He had to be assaulted which I was not about to do. So we stood eight inches apart and shot at each other. He had a higher toughness. I had numbers and meltas. I won. Otherwise, the best battlefield for the Salamanders would be an impassible hedgerow running the length of the table, 23” from the opponent’s edge in a scenario which had no deep strike, jump packs, etc. Even then, it’s probably just a break even fight.

The Dark Side

2008-09-16T11:41:00.003-05:00

More and more, I find my interest going to the Dark Eldar. I don't know if that is simple procrastination or the fact that I am always drawn to the least played army because it is the least played army. I'm also in the minority that thinks the DE models look cool.

Captain Kirk imitation: MUST.... FINISH.... SALAMANDERS.... .... FIRST!

This is why I have so many unpainted figs...

2008-09-15T10:32:00.003-05:00

I came into this last weekend with Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday to paint some of my Salamanders. By the time I went to bed Sunday night, I had touched up 5 figs and added boltgun metal, metalic gold, black, and done their purity seals. I found myself wondering what happened?

Well, let's see:

1) I spent a lot of time noodling around with my boxes, rearranging which sergeant was with which squad or rearranging my special weapons for the squads.

1.5) Went to the local hobby store to re-examine the advance copy of the new codex.

2) I read through my Witch Hunter Codex again and wondered if I should maybe paint up my Sisters (who are even more unpainted than the Salamanders and have to compete with them for my store of Rhinos).

3) I read through my Dark Eldar Codex and wondered if it was really still the most recent printing like everyone says. Got on-line and tried to look it up. Got excited about my Dark Elder and wondered if I should play them.

3.5) Posted my findings on the new Salamander terminators.

4) I looked up the weapon strength of some of my Salamander's weapons and readjusted what is where agin. Made labels for the squads so I could remember what I was thinking later.

5) Got out my paints.

6) Primered some of the Space Marines for later painting.

7) Looked through my Dark Elder figs.

8) Looked through my Witch Hunter figs.

9) Cleaned off the table and got out the paints.

10) Got on-line to look up some aspects of Salamander painting. (Are the belts green?) Couldn't find it so I dug out the Armageddon Codex and used a magnifying glass. (Answer: Yes.)

11) Thought about squad markings and my inability to freehand the Salamander symbol, or any other markings. Wondered if I should go piant something that required less artistic talent.

12) By now it is after 10 PM on Sunday, so I pulled out 5 mostly painted Salamanders (meaning they have got their green on) and began gluing their backpacks on. Then painted until 11:30.

13) Went and primered the other side of the figures I primered previously.

At some point I relaized I was procrastinating, but I'm not sure where. Painting is, after all is said and done, something that happens with a brush. I need to remember that.

More thoughts on 5.0 Salamanders

2008-09-14T03:38:00.004-05:00

It's 3:30 AM and I'm writing this so I don't forget it before morning, but I hope it's coherent.

Noticed today that the old Salamander Assault Terminators with thunder hammers and 2 heavy flamers is DOA. The only terminators that get heavy flamers are the ones that are shooty (storm bolters, missiles, assault cannons). So if you want heavy flamers, you need to be assaulting with the power fists not the thunder hammers. Crap.

While we're on the subject of heavy flamers, the only space marine squads that get heavy flamers is the Sternguard veterans. That's right, the "shooty" veterans can get TWO heavy flamers and the assault veterans get ZERO. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it, cuz when I want to stand back and shoot from range, I always want my flamer. So if you want heavy flamers in your assault, you have to go with Sternguard and then equip the sgt. as assaulty as you can. Of course GW doesn't even MAKE a Space Marine with a heavy flamer so I guess we aren't supposed to use them.

On the subject of assaults, the regular assault squad can field a flamer but a veteran assault squad cannot. The veterans can field power weapons and all kinds of things like that, including I think, thunder hammers and lightning shields, but not a simple flamer.

Oh and while I think the number of ICs that can get thunder hammers is dismal, like I said the veteran assault squad can get them. Anyone want to bet on whether you can buy a bitz order of just t-hammers and storm shields?

Cover

2008-09-12T10:31:00.002-05:00

I have been slogging through the new 5.0 40K book and I got to the bit about cover. (BTW, if you are riding on a light rail or subway, don't try to read; all the speed up slow down can make you ill.) When they allowed a unit to shoot through an enemy unit to the unit behind, they apparently decided that they would call the rear unit in cover from the front unit. This gives the rear unit a 4+ cover save (which is unaffected by AP value). Some things stuck me about this:

1) It would seem to me that if I fielded two units with say an armor value of 6, then by putting one behind the other I would be dropping its armor value to 4+ vs shooting attacks for FREE. Whereas if I have a 3+ Space Marine, it only matters against AP3 weapons or better. Seems like the guy with weak armor gets a bigger boost and more bang for his free buck.

2) Whereas previously one tended to screen good units with throw away units, that my be reversed somewhat now. If I have a unit with a 3+ save (A) and a unit with a 6 save (B) and I put A in front, then A has a 3+ and B has a 4+. If I put A in back and B in front, I still use my 3+ save for A because it's better, but B drops from 4+ to 6. Of course if you are facing a lot of AP3 weapons, you will out that unit in the rear to give it a save. Otherwise though it seems like there is some logic in screening with your better (usually) unit or at least the better protected unit.

Dark Eldar

2008-09-11T14:08:00.003-05:00

The more I get back into this hobby, the more I realize that I have one of the scarcest armies out there -- Dark Eldar. You can't even find the figures, although they are in the 5.0 rulebook. For me, playing something scare is a draw and I am sorely tempted. But I have a grave fear that Games Workshop will not continue the army much longer due to lack of interest. That means I'd have sunk substantial time and money into a defunct army. That's a big minus. That's why I'll probably continue with my plan to first revive my Space Marines -- they have a new book coming out and I KNOW they'll be around for a good long while.

How can I still need more figs?

2008-09-10T10:30:00.004-05:00

I started arranging my Salamanders last night into squads based on the notes I took from the local store's advanced copy of the new Space Marine Codex. Actually, first I pulled all the models I might use as Salamanders from the tackle trays of Blood Angels and Storm Lords, setting aside all special Blood Angel stuff. Then I began organizing them into squads for Salamanders.

I have about 18 Terminators. I can field a ten man squad with all thunder hammers and storm shields except for the two with heavy flamers. Of course these guys can't shoot for a damn, but I don't generaly think of terminators as shooters, which may be a mistake. Besides hammers and flamers are so very Salamanderish. I do have one with a missile launcher and some with storm bolters. I also have like 4 with lightning claws. I am contemplating making a shooty terminator unit and making an assaulty unit. Obviously the T-hammers, lightning claws, storm shields, etc. would be the assaulty side of the house. I actually have to buy a couple more termies for a full ten on the shooty side.

Scouts are in a similar mixed bag. I have about six or seven with sniper rifles, about as many with shotguns, and about as many with pistol and sword. I have 1 with a heavy bolter, 1 with a missile launcher, and 1 with an autocannon. *sigh* The scout with the autocannon is no longer allowed which sucks; it was a conversion. As a Salamander, I usually used scouts as shooters who could move into good positions to shoot a tank in the butt. As a Blood Angel, I assaulted with them. I'll probably stick to the shooting bit, especially now that there will be a landspeeder that can carry scouts. Of course, Salamanders are supposed to be real light on fast attack stuff like speeders, bikes, and assault troopers, so I'll have to be careful on this score. Again though, I don't have quite enough scouts to field a full ten of anything. I may break them into two units, the snipers with the heavy bolter making a group of ten. Then have a smaller group be set to board the landspeeder. Give them a missile launcher for up the kilt shots. Maybe I'll swap the heavy bolter and the missile launcher.

HQ is a real mess. It used to be that you had a command squad of up to ten people which could include techmarines, apocatharies, standard bearers, etc. Essentially it was a veteran squad with special guys. No longer. Now there are two types of these squads, honor guards for chapter masters and command squads for company captains. Honor gurads are up to ten figs, but command squads are five and only five figs. Both can have apocatharies and standard bearers (or chapter banner bearers or whatever). The other HQ's, Librarians, Techmarines, and Chaplins have no command squads. Techmarines, by the by, now come in three flavors, masters of the forge, techmarines, and slaves. Techmarines are independant characters now as well. Masters are HQs and normal Techmarinnes are elites. Masters let you field six dreadnoughts instead of three (three as elites and three as heavies). GAH! I currently have two Librarian figs, three Techmarine figs, two Chaplain figs, two commander figs, and an Imperial Champion. The Champion is one of my best paint jobs back from when they introduced the Imperial Champion and let any chapter have one. But of course now only Black Templars can have one. Maybe it can be a Chaplain or a Commander. Actually, the rules allow the command squad to have a company champion, maybe it could be that. I also have generic command squad marines with power fists, flamers, etc. that I will now have to see it they can still be fielded in the modern command squads. Tactically, the HQ was one of my few assault units because I could load it down with power weapons. time will tell if that still holds true. The other problem will be choosing which HQs to use. I like my Librarians and the Techmarines are very Salamanderish, not least because they can be armed with thunder hammers. And some of my best figs are the Chaplains. (I have the special Xavier figure x2.) Do I put my best painted army on the field or my most effective? Do I care more about fluff or performance on the field?

And now I move to discuss my devestator squads. Slow moving and carrying heavy weapons, I've always felt that devistators are very Salamanderish, especially when tricked out with 4 multi-meltas. That said, I discovered I used to have two D squads. One carried four multi-meltas. The other carried my favorite heavy weapon, four plasma cannons. Plasma cannons are a small template weapon that pierces most armor and will kill most things and, unlike the smaller plasma guns and pistols, can't blow up the user. A plasma cannon hits hard enough to have a chance of destroying most light tanks, skimmers, etc. but it is also a great anti infantry weapon. It's not usually considered a Salamanderish weapon though. Moreover, because the new rules allow tac squads to field multi-meltas for free, I split up the D squad based around multi-meltas for use in tac squads. In the place of the multi-melta D squad, I now have the beginnings of an anti-personnel D squad consisting of a heavy bolter, a plasma cannon, and two missile launchers. I may eventually set up an all heavy bolter squad, we'll see. The rub is that I don't have enough figs to make this second D squad a ten man squad. I either need to get more figs or I need to mount these guys in a Razorback.

Next, let's talk tac squads. I currently will have five of them. Partially, this is because I broke up the multi-melta D squad which gave me 4 multi-meltas. I already had one tac squad that was a multi-melta and a flamer. Now the rub. I don't have enough flamers because, in my experience anyway, flamers sucked; short range and almost everyone got a save. It was better to have another guy with a bolter who could shoot all the way across the field. Now though flamers are free and people are telling me they got "way better" because there is no cover save anymore. Perhaps. Still, they are a Salamnder weapon. What did I have though? Well I had meltaguns (big hit, pierces armor, short range) or plasma guns (almost as big a hit, same range as the bolter, pierces most armor, can blow the gunner up). My recollection is that it is far better to have a squad with similar engagement ranges than one with different ranges. I went with the plasma guns though the meltas are probably more Salamanderish.

I have 1 assault squad and I need to find out if the flamer guy in it can stay. I also have a lot of extra assault marines so I may be cobbling togehter a veteran assault squad. It will give me a place to put all the guys from the old command squad with power fists, etc. I noticed that all of my old composition (power fists and thunder hammers) was based on the fact that, against most enemies, I was going slower anyway so I took the "always-go-last" weapons. I don't know if I will keep that mold now that I no longer have an init penalty.

None of the above includes vehicles. I have a Vindicator, a Land Raider, a Land Raider Crusader, a Whirlwind (I never use it), 2 Razorbacks, 5 Rhinos, a Typhoon Landspeeder, a normal Landspeeder, and two dreadnoughts. Oh and a bike squad with an attack bike, something else I never use.

I also have four guys with Lascannons. They could be slotted into a D squad or I could put them into a veteran shooty squad. A shooty veteran squad in a Razorback looks mean. I have them, even though they are not very Salamanderish, b/c a lascannon is about the only weapon we have that will shoot a heavy tank like a Land Raider at range with any hope of penatrating. Land Raiders laugh at missile launchers, plasma weapons, or anything like that.

I also have some converted Dark Angels in robes (including one with a LasCannon) that I used as the Storm Lord command squad. I may retain them as the Honor Guard should I ever field a Chapter Master. Which brings me to the fact that I don't know if I ever will. My army, big as it is, is only company sized, not chapter sized. It would seem inappropriate to field a Chapter Master.

I also wonder if you can, under the new rules, make a D squad that has four heavy flamers and is geared for assault.

Just my thoughts for today.

New Codex

2008-09-09T21:38:00.002-05:00

Went to the local hobby store and spent some time looking over the new codex due out next month. Many changes, especially for an old third edition player like me.

Getting back into 40K

2008-09-09T12:02:00.004-05:00

Obviously, I am thinking about getting back into 40K. It's been 4 or 5 years at least; the last time I played, they had just redone the Rhino and Necrons were new. I decided that keeping up with this hobby was too expensive, met a girl, and moved. Moved all the damn 40K stuff too... twice. Now I have a house, have a basement, have a family, and they just popped out Warhammer 40K v. 5. People I know from LARPing play 40K and I was talking to one of them last Saturday evening and it kinda got me in the mood again as it were. So Sunday, I dusted off and unpacked my Warhammer stuff and started going through it. Picked up the new rulebook ($OUCH!).

So, as you may realize depending on how much you know about 40K, I am considering "reactivating" my Salamanders army. Partially this is because I tend to rgard my Blood Angels as being a bit cheesy. The brand new Space Marine Codex comes out next month making it a better choice over the Tau (which would have been my other option). I'd choose these over my Sisters because the Sisters are the least painted of my armies). The Dark Eldar have been a long time since the last update. If I continue to get more enthused, I'll probably pick up the Tau and the Dark Eldar. Still, I'm going to actually try to gte one army painted before I get the next army started. For a change.

The Salamanders, per their fluff, ("fluff" is the non-rules stuff written about the various armies like the army history, philosophy, etc.) are one of the nice guy Space Marine Chapters. Many SM's are arrogant, mutuated, etc. The Salamanders believe in self-reliance, loyalty, and they live with the population of the planet where they are based. They are solid, uncomplaining, and a good, reliable ally. That's why I like them.

In terms of combat doctrine, they are fans of "close range shooting." This is where I don't like them. I'll be the first to admit that my understanding of 40K is a bit out of date, so maybe what I'm about to say is out-of-date. Still, it seems to me that if you are a shooty army, it behooves you to have as much range as you can, especailly against assaulty armies. Open up the range and keep open the range as long as possilbe to maximize your strength. If you are an assaulty army, you close range as fast as possilbe to stop yourself from being shot up. In those terms, close range shooty is kind of an oxymoron. The ONLY reason I can see to do it, is if you were facing a long range guess-range template weapon and you wanted to give them a chance of hitting their own guys. I tried that, it did not work well.

The bigger problem is that the close range shooty weapons like meltas and flamers require you to close to 12" or less which is assault range. You'll get one good round of shooting and then next round they will assault you and, in assault, the attackers have all the advantages. Even if they are a shooty opponant, they will assault you because they don't want to BE assaulted. Against an assaulty enemy like the Blood Angels, well, they'll carve through me in an assault. So, one turn of shooting (if I'm lucky) and then it;s hand-to-hand. Old School (Armageddon) Sallies were even -1 initiative so they always went last. With such bad HTH troops, I would have preferred to have shot from long range, with Lascannons. Of course those are not fluffy weapons for Sallies nd if I use to many of them, I will get mocked or called a generic Space Marine Army in Salamander Colors.

The other thing is whether I want to play a true Salamander army. Space Marine chapters often have daughter chapters called foundings. The biggest founding was the second, but their have been others. Because the Sallies were one of the smallest chapters, they had no second founding daughters, but the fluff implies they may have had other, later, foundings. I could play a later founding daughter chapter... call them Storm Dragons or Storm Hammers. OR I could keep my good old Salamanders.

Things to ponder.

Starting Thoughts

2008-09-09T11:41:00.001-05:00

This is the second blog I've started and, as before, I am not quite sure what this blog will be about. As I create it, I have in mind to discuss Warhammer 40,000, specifically Salamanders Space Marines. Hence, the name.

However, I also have Tau, Dark Eldar, Sisters of Battle aka Witch Hunters, and Blood Angels Space Marines, and that's just in the 40,000 world. If they ever re-introduce the Praetorian Imperial Guard, I'll be sorely tempted. I have Warhammer Fantasy Battles High Elves and have long considered Chaos Beasts (under the theory that you need to have at least one "bad" army and one "good" army). Beyond that I play all kinds of RPGs from D&D to Serenity to Space 1889, and one CCG, L5R. In the CCG, I play several clans, Phoenix, Scorpion, Lion, etc.; always have. I also play in several VtM LARPs, mostl in OWBN. I know - lots of letters. If they mean something to you, great, if not you should probably ignore them. I also know from experience that my interests wander around; I'll be really into L5R for 6 months or a year and then get distracted by something else like 40K. I'll do that for a few months and then move into LARP or back into L5R. It's the way I am, but it means I'll be gung-ho or dormant on subjects like this one.

The point is, I called this blog one thing, but may find myself covering a lot more topics than just the one I named the blog after. I may eventually make a new blog called Dan's Geeky Hobbies and put all this in there, or I may break out into several sub-blogs. Or I may not stick with it. Time will tell.

I do have another blog, Misanthropic-Codswallop, which is where I tend to talk about stupid things I hear, the folly of the human race, general stupidity of this I see, politics, religion, or other things like that.

Anyway, that's what this is and sort of what you can expect from it.