Dark Angels

Hey, this is a bit premature, as the codex is coming out soon, but figured with all the news and leaks some stuff about them should be shared.

Intro to the Dark Angels
Let me start by saying that I really don't know what to do with them. Personally, I think their models are cool, and they've got some awesome abilities, but I don't like their back story  and their play style is...weird. Allow me to explain. The Dark Angels are one of the founding Chapters (also one of the few that use the Codex Astartes for tp. That gets them cool points.), but didn't take part in the Heresy on either side, because they were slow to move. Their Primarch is named Lion'El Johnson, and he's a crappy leader. To further the whole crappy leader image, when the Heresy broke out, he decided to go, but stopped at home to leave his corrupt second-in-command (which there is question of whether he knew or not about that), and pretty much all the disloyal troops on his home planet. Missed the Heresy, came back, and Luthor (his #2 man) took control of the planet. So Johnson blew it up, big climatic sword fight, Johnson gets mortally wounded, blah blah blah. Now they hunt down the traitors that escaped. It's pretty cliche, and I'm not really a big fan of the story, because it comes down to Johnson being either a jerk, or incompetent, with his choices.

Force Composition:
Now, forces are usually spearheaded by either their 1st company, Deathwing, or their 2nd company, Ravenwing. Deathwing is Terminators. Ravenwing is Space Marine Bikes and Land Speeders. My issue is that they have 2 almost completely diametrically opposed methods of use, both are fairly expensive (points wise), and very little middle ground. But they do have perks. In previous editions, you could use Belial or Sammael, and they would make Deathwing Terminators or Ravenwing Attack Squadrons, respectively, as Troops. The rumor mill is saying the new codex will allow Deathwing or Ravenwing Commanders. Now to get into the rules and such. Keep in mind, with the new codex coming out, this may all be subject to change.

First off, the units mentioned will only be the ones with significant difference from Codex: Space Marines. As of writing this, they still get normal Dreadnoughts, Techmarines, Scouts, Tac squads, Assault squads, Dev Squads, Tanks, and Dedicated Transports. They get Company Veterans Squads, but I'm going to assume that's going to be replaced with other, more fan-service units, and generally not worth discussion. Second, Deathwing Terminators and Ravenwing Attack Squadrons may use the Combat Squad rules. Third, Dark Angels are, from what I see, supposed to be used with either Belial or Sammael.

Deathwing Terminators:

• They act as either Terminators or Assault Terminators on a model-by-model basis.
• Fearless
• Deathwing Assault: you may put them in Reserve, and Deep Strike half of your units (rounded up) on your first turn, just like Drop Pod Assault rules.

Combine all this with the ability to make them Troops choices (and therefore take and hold objectives), this is a huge improvement on the classic Terminator squad. They have greater tactical flexibility, and, as objective holders, give you a defense that's going to be pretty tough to get through. The downside is that they're very expensive.

Ravenwing Attack Squadron:
They're the same as a regular SM Bike Squadron, but with a few differences:

• Scouts (rumor states they'll get Skilled Riders, unsure if this will happen, or if this will be in addition to, or will replace Scouts)
• Fearless
• Maxes out with 6 regular bikes, 2 Attack Bikes, and a Land Speeder. When they Combat Squad, that allows them to break up into 3 separate entities (2 Squads of 3 Bikes/1 Attack Bike, and a Land Speeder)

This one is more of a significant departure from their Codex counterpart. The extra Attack Bikes and Land Speeder, while creating a significantly more expensive unit overall, give you much more firepower. As Troops, that gives you 3 very able, small units, to hold down the fort. Especially with good backup. I've stated before that Space Marine Bikes are a bit of a glass cannon, these guys definitely bring more to the fight.

New Stuff, Rumors, and Leaks:

Ravenwing Support Squadron:

It's essentially a Land Speeder Squadron, but with a couple of changes:

• Maxes out with 5 Speeders.
• May only take 1 Typhoon and 1 Tornado

Whereas the previous squads are usually just improvements on the original, the Support Squadron is more of a mixed bag. the 5 Speeder max gives you more firepower on the move, and more models, but the Typhoon and Tornado limit, well, limits your flexibility. As I have previously shown, there's lots of ways to set up a Squadron, but this kind of forces you to purpose-build it, without much ability for dual-purposing (example: you build a straight tank-hunter Squadron, you are banking on one Typhoon for anti-Infantry weapons). Personally, I expect them to either make them regular Land Speeder Squadrons, change the number of Typhoons and Tornadoes, or reduce the number of Speeders, but allow you to take Land Speeder Vengeances or Darkshrouds. More on that in a minute.

Librarian Powers:

I'm not going over them individually, but they're a hell of a lot better than Codex SM.

Newspangled Stuffs:

Alright, not sure how much of this will change, but here goes.

Deathwing Knights:

• Equipped with Storm Sheilds and power weapons specifically designed to kill Chaos Space Marines.
• Have abilities that allow them to be tougher. No idea how, though.
• There's a rumor about some special S10/AP2 attack that they can do.
• Personal thoughts: cool unit, probably expensive, probably not much of a game-changer, though. Lack of ranged weapons makes me cautious, and I don't trust the Dice Gods more than I have to.

Ravenwing Black Knights:

• Fast Attack, bikers, no idea aside from that.

Dark Talon/Nephilim:

• Dual Kit (I hate these, purely because I think it's laziness in their art team)
• Fast Attack Skimmer/Flyer
• Dark Talon looks to be almost pure Crowd Control, with Hurricane Bolters and other new weapons that aren't being fully revealed
• Nephilim looks Anti-Tank, with Heavy Bolters, and Lascannons that can be replaced with Mega Bolters and missiles

Land Speeder Vengeance/Darkshroud:

• Vengeance is Heavy Support, Darkshroud Fast Attack
• Heavy Bolter/Assault Cannon and some newfangled plasma gun (Vengeance)/something that gives buffs to nearby units (Darkshroud)

My Thoughts on Playing:

I think they already were meant to be played with either with the Ravenwing, and hard and fast, or with the Deathwing, and slow and purposeful. My prediction is that with the new Codex, it's going to stray even farther from the middle-of-the-road abilities, to be focused on one side or the other, with a couple of token units to make up for it. Both would make a pretty decent defensive-to-midfield army. The only problem is you're going to have to be extra careful with your points, as I do predict everything will have a high cost. If you can figure out a good balance between them, you could build a force to be reckoned with.

Thoughts on Playing Against:

This is fairly complex, as there's two styles to play against. With either, I honestly suggest playing numbers. There's a lot of firepower to compete with, so try and play hard and aggressive. Take out the heavier vehicles and transports as soon as possible, and what's left are all usually light Skimmers and Infantry (and small numbers of them, at that). Try to move in quickly for the kill. Terminators and Bikes are tough, but, if you wear them down with lots of focused firepower before going in for the kill with massively superior numbers, they will fall pretty quickly. If they manage to get the objective first, let them have it for a while, while you whittle them down to a more manageable size.

On crazy new stuff for the Space Marines:

Not sure how I feel about this, I just think it needs to be tossed out there. Between the Blood Angels Codex and this one, we're seeing a lot of new, crazy stuff come out for variant Space Marines. I'm still going to complain about the Space Wolves kinda getting screwed on that end, we got the Thunderwolf Cavalry and Lone Wolves, while losing the ability to field Leman Russ tanks. I mean, come on, they're named after our Primarch. Anyways, I'm hoping this means they will move the story forward, and we will see more new stuff throughout the Space Marines either in this edition or the next one. I'm worried that we won't, and the "splinter" Space Marine Chapters will continue to be less and less, well, Space Marine-ey.

Anyways, that's all I have. I will check in again when I can.

JaegerWolf

Space Wolves

Alright, it's been a while, I'm going to dive right in here. WARNING: Space Wolves are my army of choice, I figured I'd go a bit biased here, but I will still explain the downfalls of them. I was originally going to do Imperial Guard next, but I decided to do the non-codex Space Marines afterwards, so there's a close frame of reference. Also, it's worth saying that there's a lot more detail into playing Space Puppies over at Wolves for the Wolf God, So give them a shot. Now, let's get to it.

What's different?

In summary, very little and a whole lot. It's an entirely different style of play at work, so let's list this down.

• There are no cheap selections. Let that sink in. Unlike regular SM's, you don't have any "cheap" infantry to boost your numbers. The best you have is Blood Claws. And they're horrible. Just terrible. I mean rancid.
• You cannot combat squad them. This prevents them from splitting fire, or covering more ground with the same number of troops. This is a big deal.
• The only Infantry that can carry heavy weapons are your Long Fangs and Scouts. May not seem like much at first, but those extra weapons can mean a lot in a firefight.
• Everything has Counter-Assault and Acute Senses. This means you can afford to be the assaulted party in most situations. In 6th, I recommend it against practically everything but Terminators and Orks.
• Squad leaders must be bought separately, and are an Elites choice. I will get into that later.

Okay, what makes them so awesome?

• First and foremost, they are genetically modified, 8 foot tall, super-soldier, drunken, space Viking werewolves, equipped with chainsaw swords and axes, Power Armor, and .75 HE MP5's. That is pure manliness in a can right there. Just typing that sentence caused at least 3 women to become spontaneously pregnant, with children destined to be Delta Force operators.
• EVERYTHING in your army has Counter-Assault. Your primary Troops choice (really only troops choice, Grey Hunters) is equipped with chainswords, bolt pistols, and boltguns. That's 2 attacks each, 3 on the charge (or counter). Also can be upgraded with standards that allow you to re-roll 1's for the rest of the turn.
• Long Fangs. A 4-6 man squad, sorry, pack, that can split fire. Also, everyone but the pack leader must be equipped with a Heavy weapon, for cheaper than a Devastator Squad.
• Space Wolf Scouts using outflank have a 66% chance to come out from whichever board edge you choose. Because of Acute Senses, they can re-roll that. I believe that makes it an 88% chance. Combine that with access to melta bombs, melta guns, and a Wolf Guard Pack Leader with a combi-melta, you have yourself a unit that can pop out wherever you want to waste tanks.
• Aside from being superior to regular Grey Hunters, Wolf Guard can be individually customized and equipped with a gamut of weapons and other upgrades, for cheaper than Independent characters, by about 5 points per piece of equipment.
• The Rune Priest Psychic Power list is amazing. For at least small armies (and some large), always pack one as your HQ.
• Mark of the Wulfen: A lot of units have this upgrade. For the price of a Power weapon, you can give one of your models D6+1 Attacks. Add another for the charge. And those are Rending.

In conclusion, they have a lot that helps them midfield. They are much better moving and charging into the fray than regular Space Marines, with the option of being a static, defensive army.

That...sounds pretty awesome. What's the catch?

There's a lot that they can't do, and they do pay pretty well for it.

• Blood Claws. Not only do they suck, they're 15 points each. they have WS/BS 3, and, unless supervised by Wolf Guard, cannot shoot the turn they assault. Plus, Bike and Assault squads are made up of them (Swift- and Skyclaws, technically), which confer the exact same downfalls. This means that your usable Fast Attack choices are Land Speeders, Fenrisian Wolf Packs (not bad, but not good, either), and Thunderwolf Cavalry (amazing, but insanely expensive).
• Long Fangs. They are awesome. But the rules governing their packs means you can't up the squad size to waste less important models before getting to your weapons. Every failed armor save hurts a lot more.
• Wolf Guard. This requires some explanation. They can be assigned, as pack leaders, to most units in the game. This is more or less necessary, as it gives the squad some combi-melta/power weapon love and +1 Ld. The downfall is twofold. Because your Grey Hunters don't have heavy weapons, they can use one assault weapon, and another one for free, if you have a 10 man pack. If you mount them, your WGPL has to replace a model, in order to fit in the vehicle, reducing your squad's firing abilities. Ignore that if you go light. Second, a Wolf Guard Pack takes up an Elites choice (unless you have Logan Grimnar), thus reducing your available Elites Choices.
• You cannot Combat Squad your packs. This is the big one. It means that your individual squads will have to cover each other, making them stay close to each other. It doesn't seem like much, but that also means you can't spread out your forces, putting random missile launchers all over the place.

So what does this mean for a Space Wolves Player?
It basically means you're Space Marines, but a midfield version. Due to the nature of larger, less numerous separate units on the field, you can't control as much land at a time. You should be constantly on the attack with SW's. Inherently, they're meant to be, and much better at, moving around the board, wrecking things in both assault and at range. The lack of heavy weapons in most squads helps that out, too, allowing you to bring extra firepower, but stay mobile with it. Mix that, lots (and lots) of Assault upgrades, and some well picked Anti-Tank and Area Denial choices for backup, and you can play an excellent, slightly offensive Space Marine force.  Just don't take Blood Claws. Not kidding.

I've gotten my butt kicked by them. What should I do?
I've been there. One of the reasons I started playing as them. Very few armies would consistently and soundly pound mine into oblivion as Space Wolves. At first, I chalked it up to them being a cheap army. Now, I just see they're one of the easiest to adapt to the board. Here's the trick to beating them (totally shooting myself in the foot with this): avoid Grey Hunters. Seriously. The entire army is designed to move quickly, take an objective quickly, and quickly deal with most threats, before moving on. You beat them by avoiding their main force, and thus, avoiding the brunt of their attack on their turn. Instead, take out their support. Space Wolves are, to some extent, much more dependent on their Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support choices, to make up for what they cannot. If you eliminate their support as quickly as possible, you will lose models and vehicles. But when you turn on their Troops, they will be (almost) a breeze to take down. Most people lose against them trying to capture objectives, or control corners. Space Wolves are best dealt with by treating the game as though it's a fight to annihilation, and, not to sound cocky (it's happened to me, when I played against them), if you don't, it might wind up being that, but your opponent will have the advantage.

Previously you said that you should start out with Space Marines. These guys seem better. Why shouldn't I start with Space Wolves?
In all honesty, you probably could, and wind up being about the same or better off for it. I still say start with regular Space Marines though. And, really, it's for two reasons. First is oddball unit types and abilities. Regular Space Marines are rather limited in both, and use pretty basic stuff for everything. When you're still learning to walk, though, it helps to keep it as simple as possible. Second, their strengths mean that an average player can pick them up and be semi-decent, or a bad player can pick them up and be horrid. I suggest learning to read the terrain and opponents better before picking them up.

My next post will deal with Blood Angels, followed by Black Templars and Dark Angels. After that, I will cover Imperial Guard, and we're going to get into some more advanced ideas with that, which will need images. That's all for now...

JaegerWolf

Edit: The world got in the way, and the order changed.

New Ideas/Offense, Defense, and Midfield

So I've come to realize that my priorities don't necessarily align with my blog, and when I do have the time, a lot of my image editing takes up far too long for me to continue as I have. From now on, I am going to have a change of style. Instead of simply writing out army info and how to use it for every piece in the game (as was the original intent), I will leave it open to send in questions for specific pieces. I will email with the person, and, should that correspondence prove fruitful, and allow insight into playing, I will post conclusions and summaries of what to do, as per this discussion. This allows a change from filing through tons of links and posts for each army, to finding a specific question. If you can't find something, just send an email, I will be happy to either answer it, or, if I have already talked about it, send you a link to the discussion. Aside from that, I will be doing my older, random, general tactics posts. Speaking of which...

Offensive, Defensive, and Midfield playing:
BAM! Bigger text. Means that $*!t is important. Not really. But kinda. This can also be re-described as aggressive, defensive, and mixed, or any other number of things. What it boils down to, thought, is how you are focusing your army. I prefer Midfield, but that's personal preference. None of them are better, but if you pick something that translates better to your thought pattern, it's easier to form strategies.

Defensive Strategy:
I'm going to start with Defensive strategy, because, simply put, this one is the easiest to implement and carry out. Armies meant mostly for Defensive strategy are Tau, Necron, Codex Space Marines, and Imperial Guard. The most defensive-oriented army would have to go to Imperial Guard, so I will be using them as the example throughout my assertions here.
Let me start this by saying playing defensively is more than just castling and fish of fury, or any idea of just setting up and letting your opponent charge you. There is that element, but it is not limited in that fashion. Instead, I'm going to go through and discuss the typical characteristics for fighting defensively:

1. Heavy use of cover: This goes without saying. Keep your men in cover, because that extra 6+ is better than nothing. Aside from that, being in cover makes your men a much less ideal target for assault, as it screws with your opponent's ability to charge and Initiative. Calculate every move out of cover. Run, if that helps. but you want to keep more static positions. If at all possible, Transports for Everyone! It gives you a mobile piece of protection, no matter what it has for weapons.
2. Forming a Wall: This is one way of taking care of things. Form a solid wall of your men, with everybody supporting everybody, and make your opponent pay for every inch. Basically, you want him to come to you, and whittling away at his troops in the process.
3. Trapping your opponent: This is a simple concept. Set up bait, like, say a unit your opponent will take risks to kill, and placed somewhere to emphasize that (like an objective). Now surround that unit, at a distance, with ranged support, so that when your opponent attacks, his guys will be annihilated.
4. Numbers matter: Best way to put this in perspective: I have a list written up for Imperial Guard. It is simply a Command Squad, and 4 Infantry Platoons (each have a full squad of Conscripts and 4 Infantry Squads). This totals in 385 models, for 2000 points. Yes, there is no anti-tank, fire support, anything to give them bonuses (except orders), but how much does it matter when you can literally just cover the objective with enough models to prevent your opponent from ever touching them?

Offensive Strategy:
As Defense is not merely sitting and waiting, Offense is not merely charging into the line of fire, and is definitely the middle child here, as far as ease of pulling off. Offensive armies are Blood Angels, Sisters of Battle, Dark Eldar, Orks, Chaos Daemons, and Tyranids. This has more of a set of rules to go by than characteristics:

1. If you can't shoot, move: This is pretty self-explanitory. If you are out of range, probably out of range, not sure if you're in range, or, for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER,cannot shoot, Go a full move and run. Until you meet the above criteria. Avoid heavy weapons. Also, unless you have a VERY good reason, don't shoot a heavy weapon when the rest of your squad is out of range.
2. If you can't move, shoot: See above, just the opposite.
3. When in doubt, attack: You need to bring the fight to the enemy, every turn. If you can't decide on your actions, do the one that involves shooting/assaulting.
4. Cover is your friend; difficult terrain is not: Because you need to be fast, weigh your options as to difficult terrain (push through vs going around). Then choose whichever gets you in range fastest.
5. Numbers matter: you're going to lose a lot of your troops. Use caution while purchasing upgrades, that extra Shoota could be the difference between winning and losing an assault.

Midfield Strategy:
This mixes ideas from both strategies, and favors mobility, firepower, and specialized or superior units over brute force or static formations. Midfield armies are Eldar, Chaos Space Marines, Space Wolves, Black Templar, and Grey Knights.

1. Move as an army: Never push your a unit out of support reach. When you move your army, do so in a way that keeps everybody together. If you have to overreach with a unit, make sure that either they can defend themselves, or your opponents will be tied up with other targets.
2. Never play your opponent's strong suit: Don't let a defensive army build a wall, don't fall for the bait. Don't let an offensive army slam into you like a sledgehammer. Find your opponent's weakness, and exploit it.
3. Divide and isolate your enemy: Look for that weak spot in your opponent's formations, and turn it into a chasm in the middle of his table. Make him adjust to what you're doing, not the other way around.
4. Never get cornered: you should never wind up with your back to a wall. If that is coming, focus your efforts on creating a hole in his forces to escape through. If you do get cornered, assault first. At best, you will be able to break free. At worst, you will do more damage than if your opponent charges you.

That's about all I got, I understand I might have gone over this before, but I figured a little more depth is never a bad thing.

Changes for 6th Edition, part 1

Alright, finally got a look at the new rulebook, and I can say there are some substantial changes here. I will take a break from what I was doing to break down a lot of the changes of rules for people, and talk about what/where I see GW going with this new edition/what I would like to see in the future. Should take a few posts (hopefully just a few weeks), and during this, I can continue writing about the Space Marines, and get a good post out to you.  I'm just going to go through some of the larger/more major changes. I will start with the basic phases:

Wound Allocation: This is the biggest change to my style of formations. Now all wound allocation will be done from the nearest model to the furthest model, with owner's decision in the event of a tie. I understand the earlier idea, based around the "other members of the squad pick up the weapon" theory, which is accurate. This means moving your Assault Weapons and Leaders to be more centrally located, so they receive a "buffer zone" from being killed, while staying forward enough to be used up close and personal.
This works in close combat as well, with Independant Characters having to roll a 6 to hit in order to specify the model taking the wound.

Morale: In ranged combat, It seems we have 2 Morale levels: above 25% strength and below. When below, you require a snake eyes to stay put. when above, it is a normal modifier. This simultaneously makes it harder for those that get chewed up in ranged fire, but easier for everyone else. In assault, you take a -1 modifier for every unsaved wound that you lose combat by, making it easier to break units.

Shooting: Bunch of changes. Let's start with my favorite.

• Snap Shots: actually something I had been arguing for and using as a house rule for a while now. You can fire Heavy Weapons after moving, but at BS 1. This seems like a crap deal, till you realize that allows your Heavy Weapons squads to fall back and fire, allowing you to cause casualties in the enemy and protect your unit better. This is also useful, as your regular line squads can now still move and shoot somewhat. Use blast weapons to maximize the impact. Didn't spot that you can't do this with blast weapons. My bad.
• Blast Weapons: now roll 2D6-BS, instead of D6
• Running: you may now assault after running. Big boost for assault oriented units.
• Flamers: I believe that, prior to 6th, they were almost useless upgrades for a possibility of getting to use it once. With the new wound allocation method, they must be placed either at the front, in which case they are the first ones killed, or centrally, where you run the chance of not being able to use them. Making them even more useless than they were before. "Then why did you even bother to bring it up," You ask? Simply put, they make great defensive weapons now. The problem with them in the past was the unreliability of the shot. You essentially had a 50/50 shot of using them. Either you used it once before an assault, or you didn't get a chance to (by the time your opponent was in range, it was his turn. And he assaulted.). Now, you have an opportunity with Overwatch to land some serious hurt on an opponent (D3 hits) before the first blows are struck. In my mind, it's still a bit of a gamble, but now I think the right person could make them worth the points.

More will be covered with special rules.

Special Rules:

Lotta ground to cover here

• Acute Senses: Now allows you to re-roll outflank. Most models with this rule have outflank. Mostly helps them. Puts a kink into the Space Wolves, because it doesn't state that it grants outflank (that would be awesome). Unless you have Bran Redwolf. Then it becomes awesome.
• Counter-Assault: Now needs a leadership check. Not much, but makes it slightly less reliable.
• Fleet: This changes every edition. Now it allows you to re-roll one D6 during a run or charge.
• Gets Hot: Now affects vehicles.
• Independent Characters: Now allow you to take Morale checks without penalty if the unit is under 25% strength.
• Skyfire: 6th seems to be bringing aerial rules fully into the game this time around. Skyfire basically lets you shoot at flyers normally, instead of only succeeding with shap shots.
• Sniper Weapons: same as before. Now a roll of a 6 allows the attacker to choose his target. Lets you pick off special/heavy weapons and leadership targets. On a personal note, sniper rifles are moving in a direction I have been wanting since 3rd Edition.
• There are a bunch of special rules now for melee weapons (Thunder Hammers are now Concussive) that were in existence, but now have names.
• New special rules were left out of this to save space and time. A lot of them were existing rules, but revamped to fit larger numbers of weapons/units.

Unit Types:

Infantry: No real changes, so to speak...

Bikes/Jetbikes: 

• Now have the Hammer of Wrath and Jink Special Rules, so you get an automatic extra hit with every bike, every time you charge, and they gain a 5+ cover save by moving. 
• They can also Turbo-Boost now, so bikes can opt to move up to 24", and Jetbikes up to 36" in a turn, but they give up the ability to shoot, charge, or anything else.
• Eldar Jetbikes can move 2D6" in the assault phase, without assaulting.

Artillery: only one thing seems to need mentioning. You always use the Toughness of the gun, and wound allocation goes to the closest model. Put all your crew in front of the gun (within 2")

Jump Units: May choose whether to use the pack in their movement phase (move 12"), or Assault Phase (can re-roll charge distance and gain Hammer of Wrath)

Jet Pack Units:

• Move as Jump Units.
• If not engaged they may move 2D6" in the Assault Phase (without charging)/
• Relentless

Monstrous Creatures:

• Can fire 2 weapons in the shooting phase.
• Fear, Hammer of Wrath, Move Through Cover, Relentless, and Smash rules.

Beasts: Move 12", and are not slowed by Difficult Terrain.

Cavalry: Beasts with Hammer of Wrath.

Flying Monstrous Creatures:

• 2 Flight modes: Swooping or Gliding
• Gliding: Treated as a Jump Monstrous Creature.
• Swooping: Same as above, with following rules:
• Must move 12-24"
• Can make a 90° turn at the beginning of the movement phase, but must move in straight lines only for the rest of the turn.
• Does not take dangerous terrain tests.
• May run 2D6" (straight forward, still)
• Cannot charge or be charged
• Shots resolved at Swooping FMC's are resolved as snap shots (unless the weapon/model has Skyfire).
• May be intentionally removed from the board and placed in Reserves.
• After hits and wounds are rolled, but before armor saves, the FMC may elect to Dive, gaining Jink until the end of next turn, but may only make snap shots during this time.
• After taking hits from shooting attacks, it must make a Grounded roll. On 1-2, it crashes, taking a S9 hit with no armor or cover saves allowed. It loses Jink, and may be assaulted until its next turn, where it can move as normal.
• Starts game in Glide mode when deployed normally; mode chosen when entering from reserves.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So I have changed my author name, I'm no longer Tactica Imperialis, now I will post as JaegerWolf, as I am adding another author to the blog. Hopefully this will lead to more and better posts...

New Tabletop Image

Alright, I made this new image to accurately represent the average table. I think it is clearer and more concise than previous images. Red is your enemy's deployment zone, blue is yours, and the green squares represent terrain.

Well then...

So I sat down a couple days ago to start actively working on my blog again. I have been very busy with my job, a wife out of work, and 2 kids. So I haven't exactly been keeping up with painting, gaming, or knowing what's going on with GW. When I sat down, I found out there's a new edition rulebook out. Until I get a look at it, it's impossible to say how much has changed since I started this and wrote about tactics and whatnot (the codexes should still more or less apply), but I will have to look at it to see how much needs to be revisited. Until then, I shall continue as if nothing happened.