Tyranid Onslaught: Rising Leviathan III First Look

The third entry in the Tryanid Invasion Rising Leviathan series is here. The datalsate concludes the invasion of Satys and provides several new formations and missions.

Dark Angel Librarian - Painting

What's up everyone?  So one of my more recent projects out of Wolf Works has led to me acquiring a Dark Angels Librarian (Try to guess the Project).  Last night I had a couple of hours to paint and decided to work on the Librarian from the Dark Vengeance Starter Set.  I have to say that this is a pretty cool looking model.

I like the look of him, but I realized that I wanted to give him a unique feel, one that was a little bit different from the standard Mini above.  Since I am working on a model from the Ravenwing as well, I decided to go ahead and roll with the Darker, black, Pre-Heresy look.

Painting up a Mini Titan

There's a New Mini I am proud to be the owner of even though he is slightly undersized, slightly over matched, and slightly outdated.  Everyone that plays Warhammer 40k has at sometime or another gone onto the mythical Forge World and looked at one of the Titans with an awe and respect that could only be matched by the Adeptus Mechanicus.  I have always dreamed of owning one but could never justify buying one.  That was until I started researching an out of date game called Epic: Armageddon.  It is basically a game designed around large scale battles at a very tiny scale.  So small that the Imperial Titans, the mechanical behemoths that obliterate everything, are about the size of a Dreadnought/Terminator.

Prospero Burns (Horus Heresy Book 15) Review

I took a bit of a break, but I'm back to the Horus Heresy review series with Prospero Burns by Dan Abnett. This was the one book I'd read before coming into the series. As with previous reviews, spoilers ahead.

What is the Meta, Part II: Matchup Heat Maps

Following my first Meta post, +Brad Voorhees raised the question of how each army performed against other armies. I toyed with the Torrent of Fire database a little and came up with a series of Heat Maps that plot stats on a Allies Matrix style grid and show whether a particular matchup is hot or cold.

For these charts, Red represents a high percentage, while Blue represents a cold or low percentage. For matchup stats such as Win%, the columns are the army being played, while the rows are the army being played against. Specific examples will be discussed for each chart.

Bat Rep: 1,000 Pts Dark Angels vs. Tyranids

After games 1 and 2 I had a pretty commanding lead in points, and a 2-0 record. There were 12 players in the tournament so going into the final round there were three undefeated players. I was in the championship game against Will, but there was a chance that the third undefeated player could outscore us and take the top spot.

I forgot to take pictures in game, but Will was kind enough to provide some pics of his beautiful models in action.

Facing the Grey Tide Podcast - Episode 5: DarkStar GT Recap, Tyranids, and Imperial Titans

What's up everyone?  Here is the fifth episode of the Facing the Grey Tide Podcast.  Tonight we look look back with Bryan at the DarkStar GT, we go through some of the Tyranid formations that we love, and we finish off the night by quickly running through the Imperial Knights and playing against them in a local tournament.  Quick Episode tonight because of the short turn around from last weeks episode but a lot of good information especially with Bryan holding down a 3-2 record at DarkStar.

Enjoy the Podcast.

Dark Star Part II- Games 3-5

Hey everyone,

BeeCee here once again to finish my recaps from my games at DarkStar. Where we last left our fearless hero (that's me if you didn't read the last update), I was 1-1 coming off a Mike Tyson-esqe beating at the hands of quadruple riptide Tau.

Next up I was facing Wes Szmaglik's beautifully painted multi-wing Dark Angels (Wes would take 3rd best painted army). The mission was called "The slaughter will never end" and it had a crazy special rule that any non-vehicle/non-hq unit that was destroyed would re-enter play at the end of your movement phase of the following turn. You could score up to three extra victory points by destroying a unit twice.

Here are Wes's beautiful Ravenwing Black Knights and his Deathwing terminators.

Crimson Slaughter Supplement First Look

Picking up the Crimson Slaughter Supplement, I'm sure it will surprise no one that like all other special codices and supplements, the book is predominantly fluff and very light on actual rules. We'll take a first look at those rules that are presented, which are predominantly new Warlord Trait tables and Artifacts. 

Necron Painting Day

In our last podcast, I mentioned that I was toying with the idea of binge-painting some Necrons. So, last Saturday, I put together and fixed the warriors I had (24) and Scarabs (5) along with a couple Necron Lords and got them ready for a massive batch paint.

Hobby Fund Painting Challenge

Hello. My name is Evan and I have a plastic crack addiction. After a recent eBay binge, I've decided I want to do something to get myself in check when it comes to my buying habits. I also need to go through my attic of destiny and clear out some "projects" that will never actually see the light of day, let alone a game. The 100+ unassembled skaven I have tucked away come to mind.

Where my wallet goes to die

Bat Rep: 1,000 Pts Knights* vs. Tyranids

Since this was a small tournament, a special exception had been made to allow the knights to be fielded as a primary - namely, that only two could be taken, since otherwise a Knight army does not fit under 1,000 points. I had taken my typical 1k Tyranid list, which is just about half my 1,850 list, with about 80 points of wiggle room. Full lists after the bump, but this was game 2 of my store's monthly tournament. In game 1, Jay, the Knight player, had tabled the other Tyranid player in the tournament. The mission was Emperor's Will on regular deployment, with no night fighting.

The board we would be fighting over. 

DarkStar Recap Part I - Games One and Two

Hey everyone,

BeeCee here. I just got back from Darkstar and I had an absolute blast. As some of you may know, this was my first tournament of 40k ever and also the first time I've ever had a fully painted army on the table!

Here is my unreltenting tide of Tyranids. Well ok, they relent some when you shoot at the gaunts with... well... anything.

So going in to the tourney I had two main goals. The first one was to win at least one game and secondly to meet some of the cool people that exist within this great 40k community. I also had a stretch goal (this kind of sounds like a kickstarter pitch here...) that if I did halfway decent maybe I could walk away with best Tyranid player. My thought was, with all the hate directed at the bugs right now and the fact that most of the hardcore competitive players are not playing bugs, that maybe with a decent showing I could steal it.

Bat Rep: 1,000 Pts Space Wolves vs. Tyranids

It was time for the local monthly tournament. With it being a college town and the weekend of Spring Break, it was mostly locals, many of whom decided it was a good opportunity to bring some different and marginally crazy lists. There was a triple-riptide list, a dual wraithknight list, a dual Imperial Knight list, and a dual heldrake list to name a few. Round 1 saw me matched up against Will and his Space Wolves. The mission was Crusade with 5 objectives, board edge deployment, and night fighting round 1.

 vs.

Codex: Imperial Knights

With the initial White Dwarf behind us, and the Official Codex out, let all of the fun begin.  First off I would like to say that this is the Red Pill, this is the first step down the Rabbit Hole.  The Codex that is made of nothing but Super Heavies is out, so let the discussions begin.

Before that though, lets break this bad boy down.

Introducing Codex:  Imperial Knights

Facing the Grey Tide Podcast - Episode 4: Tyranids, Legion of the Damned, and Imperial Knights

What's up everyone?  Here is the fourth episode of the Facing the Grey Tide Podcast.  Tonight we look at a variety of army supplements as we break down the White Dwarf Imperial Knights (with the Codex dropping this weekend), Codex:  Legion of the Damned, and the second supplement for the Tyranids; Tyranid Invasion:  Rising Leviathan II. This is a quick episode as Bryan gets ever closer to DarkStar GT, and the guys talk about some of the recent games, their conquering of their Grey Tides, and some fun stories along the way.

Enjoy the Podcast

Bat Rep: 1,850 Pts. Chaos Space Marines vs. Tyranids

The final game of our last gaming weekend saw Chris crossing over to 40k to play my Tyranids with a highly proxied Chaos Space Marine list. I would be using my planned NOVA Tyranids, so I wanted to make as strong a CSM list as possible. To that end I reached out to the guys at Forge the Narrative and the 40k Wrecking Crew for help strengthening a Nurgle CSM list.

What is the Meta?

When I first started getting into the online and tournament communities, I had to wrap my head around the concept of Meta. It is intended to describe the gaming environment that is prevalent at a particular time, and can be general and wide ranging (aka, Meta, Tournament Meta) or fairly specific (local Meta).  It's also used as a scapegoat for explaining why a list or unit is good or bad. To some degree Meta is a strawman.

That said, the perceived definition of Meta is simply defining what is popular and powerful in a particular area. The wide ranging meta for 40k used to be fairly glacial in terms of change, and so, was fairly well defined and understood. However, with the rapid release schedules of 6th edition, that's been turned upside-down a bit.

Fantasy Bat Rep: 4,000 pts Dark Elves vs. Nurgle Chaos Warriors

On our last gaming weekend, we branched out a bit and played some Fantasy. Chris came down to join us and he's been getting into Fantasy rather than 40k, so we planned on playing a bit of both. Chris was my main gaming buddy growing up, and like me, he had dropped the hobby in college and for several years after.

Tyranid Invasion: Rising Leviathan II, A First Look

Greetings everyone, BeeCee here. Evan usually gets the honor of reviewing all the new books but this time I thought I would take a quick stab at one. Tonight part two of the invasion of of world Satys was released and we have five more dataslate formations to talk about!

Quick! We have to come up with a way to sell Tyranid warriors kits!