Gobber da mighty Sqiggoth WIPs

So, I havent posted pics of Gobber in a while, and Ive been getting progress made on him between rounds of sculpting I was doing on my Hellhound.

Mounting the kannon and gunner between the driver and the Rokkits up top has been the fiddliest part to fit, mostly because I couldnt decide exactly how I wanted to do it before I started.

So I figured the gunner would be frustrated too- since they miss most of the time I have him displaying the Orkish good luck symbol to some foe that he missed with his last shot (the finger still needs sculptin)

The driver Im gonna have haulin back on some chains for all he's worth- sort of a Yosemite Sam screamin 'Whoa mule!! Whooa!' sorta moment. And for those that might be too young to know who Yosemite Sam is, you suck and arent cool enough to read my blog, GTFO ^_^

The rest of Gobber is pretty obvious, lots of strapped on armor plates, rivety goodness all over, dag decorations.

Still planned is some trophy rack sorta stuff and glyphs, the right side/top of the howdah needs a bit more buffin up to look AV12-ish

Assault Cannon > LasCannon ?!? Math-hammer says yes...

So...numbers can be funny sometimes. We all know meltas are teh uber tank rapers in the current rule set.

But, there are other weapons out there that do things meltas dont, and Ive been toying with them. I saw a post in which someone said they thought Assault cannons were better Vs av 14 than las cannons. I think most initial reactions will be 'Bullshit!' Mine was.

But, then I crunched the numbers with the nifty Vassal40k- this is 100,000 rounds worth of fire for each weapon- hittin on a 3+ (PS- crunchin the numbers for 400,000 ac shots made my laptop use its safeword)
So Lascannon vs AV 14 11056 dice glance (5), 11186 dice penetrate (6+)
Metla-with 2d6 vs Av 14= 9074 dice glance (6), 38830 dice penetrate (7+) =
Melta w/1d6 vs Av 14= 11071 dice glance (6) =
Assault Cannon vs AV 14 14786 dice glance (8), 15082 dice penetrate (9+)


Lascannon Vs AV 13= 11036 dice glance (4), 22466 dice penetrate (5+)
Melta w/2d6 vs av 13=7274 dice glance (5), 48219 dice penetrate (6+) =
Melta w/1d6 vs Av 13= 11085 dice glance (5), 11089 dice penetrate (6+) =
Assault Cannon vs Av 13 = 14288 dice glance (7), 29664 dice penetrate (8+)


Lascannon Vs Av 12 = 11097 dice glance (3), 33222 dice penetrate (4+) =
Melta w/2d6 vs av 12=5496 dice glance (4), 55943 dice penetrate (5+) =
Melta w/1d6 vs Av 12= 11042 dice glance (4), 22196 dice penetrate (5+) =
Assault cannon vs AV 12 = 45188 dice penetrate (7+) (note- cant glance AV 12 since a 6 pen roll adds the 1-3 to its AP)

Lascannon Vs Av 11 = 11019 dice glance (2), 44327 dice penetrate (3+) =
Melta w/2d6 vs av 11=3655 dice glance (3), 60849 dice penetrate (4+) =
Melta w/1d6 vs Av 11= 11207 dice glance (3), 33192 dice penetrate (4+) =
Assault cannon vs AV 11 = 44201 dice glance (5), 44956 dice penetrate (6+)

Lascannon Vs Av 10 = 11007 dice glance (1), 55415 dice penetrate (2+) =
Melta w/2d6 vs av 10= 1902 dice glance (2), 64722 dice penetrate (3+) =
Melta w/1d6 vs Av 10= 11067 dice glance (2), 44509 dice penetrate (3+) =
Assault cannon vs AV 10= 45276 dice glance (4), 89708 dice penetrate (5+) =


So, Meltas within 12/6" are king Vs Heavy armor. Assault cannon are however capable of more penetrating hits than Lascannon. But the Lascannon has the edge over Meltas when they are only using a single penetration dice.

Once you get to lighter armor however, the sheer number of Pen & glancing hits the assault cannon puts forth is pretty impressive. This seems to make it an ideal weapon for working over squadron based vehicles.

And, all this isnt even getting into using the weapon Vs Infantry.

All this being said- I really think the Assault cannon- while 'nerfed' from 4th ed, is still worth the points in 5th ed.

This also has me wondering if the Assault cannon is better than the Cyclone/Typhoon, as for anti vehicle use krak missles are very easy to compare (use the melta w/1d6 stat line and jsut x2 for the results- its rough but close enough), however, 2 frag missles are pretty random, so are really hard to balance in an anti- infantry role. Oddly, it looks like the Assualt cannon is better Vs Av 14, and AV 10, but a Cyclone/typhoon would be noticably better Vs 11,12, and debatable vs 13 if you look at the glances. So, I think for termies, the assault cannon is better- as it cooperates with their 24" storm bolter range. For speeders, the typhoon gives better stand off range.

Note: I realize this is pure meta-gaming- there are numerous factors unaccounted for.

A Space Marine a day?

My early A.M. epiphany of the day- I should be sleeping. But, the migraine says "^$#* you!!" So I'm geeking out on 40k as usual.

I made the mistake of digging through my Space marine box looking for a looted bit for my Squiggoth. While goin through the box I realized I have alot of SM crap.

I think the biggest thing that bores with SM's is painting them. Im not a perfectionist type painter. I paint them to a 'better than most' standard with some conversions thrown in and call it a day. But, painting a SM army is pretty boring, so uniform, the base color starts to get old as theres little variety. Base, trim, high light, wash, highlight....zzzzzzz

So, it got me to pondering. The old Rogue Trader 'Rainbow Marines' may have been stuffed back in the closet- but that doesnt mean I cant make my own Rainbow Marine army!

There are alot of cool color themes for various chapters out there, so why not make an 'All Star' sort of space marine army? Keep it regular 'nilla codex entries, but take different squad/selections based on the chapters fluff strengths. Like Blood Angel & Ravn Guard assault marines, Ultras and Imperial fists for tac squads, White scars/ravenwing bkers, stuff like that.

To take it a step farther- Im taking a unit or two of Stern Guard- and modeling them after the unit that pretty much gave birth to thier rules- DeathWatch.

This all works out pretty well with the UM army I have painted so far- as its painted ot 7th Company- which is the reserves- so any holes in my roster I can just fill in with UM reserve units :)

So, along with my usual modeling stuffs- Im going to try and paint up a Marine each day from a different chapter. This will help me get my paintin skills back up to speed, and after a month or two, I'll have a colorful SM army in addition to whatever else Im working on.

Brilliant idea, or retarded gimmick? Psychic tricks for IG

So, with my memory being spotty these days, this blog might help me keep track of my genius moments when I figure out something that seems really cool.

So, Im really enamored with the new IG Psyker Battle Squads. Cool conversion possibilities, and a ordanance blast attack were what caught me at first. Then I started thinkin about Weaken Resolve- and alone its just, meh. But, in combo with other stuff...its pretty uber.

My first thoughts of it- were direct IG related stuff. Snipper and barrage pinning. Lets face it- with a Ld of 2 a squad is probly gonna piss its pants off a single pinning casualty. Might make a unit or two of cheap mortars worth taking- still better than ratlings.

But, pinning isnt good enough for lil ole me. So I carried it over to the joys of Tank Shocking- which can be useful for breakin squads, or making them move into lil bunches for template stuff. But, that wont work- WR its used in the shooting phase, and thats after the Movement Phase. Bummer really.

So, I had an epiphany, and a pretty good one. Callidus assassin. This is a good unit as is, Word in your ear to shuffle an opponents unit out of cover at the game start, Phase sword to ignore pesky Invulnerable saves. But, its the Neural Shredder and Polymorphine Im lookin at. the NS treats the enemy models LD as their toughness, and its S8 vs that. So, Hittin the unit with Weaken Resolve, dropping their Ld to 4 or less, means you have an AP1 flamer, wounding on a 2+ and instant killing anything it wounds. With polymorphine letting the assassin pop up anywhere without deviating- its a very surgical sort of strike- that could be devastating against things like Nob bikers, plague marines, or a Hive Tyrant with a full unit of guard. Any non fearless unit (like the Nobs) will likely take more than 50% casualties and flee off the table unless they have something that might rally them once the WR wears off.

Now, to take an assassin, you gotta take an Inquisitor. No biggie, an =][= with mystic side kicks is common fare. But takin a cheap Inq and an assassin wont work using WH allies, so its gotta be an Inq Lord as an HQ slot- which actually is better. Heres why:

A reg Inq has a Ld of 8, so is pretty useless with a psychic hood. An Inq Lord can take Purgatus- and has a good shot at reducing any opponents IC psykers Ld by3 pts for the rest of the game. Which means any other psyker is probly gonna be neutered totally by the Inq psychic hood.

The next trick is a second psychic power that was pretty lame in 4th ed. Divine Pronouncement. Heres where the PBS tag team comes into play. Say hi to the new Lash for the Imperium. DP makes the target squad roll a Ld check as though they just took 25% casualties. Further- for every pt if Ld the target unit is lower than the Inq, that diffference is a penalty to their roll. So, even if your PBS has taken some losses from Warp perils, just droppin a target units ld to 6 will have them needing a 2(auto success anyway) vs a Ld 10 Divine Pronouncement. It doesnt work on fearless units though. But, could still be useful for runnin off squads that cant rally off objectives, and using it on the last turn to break a squad for an extra KP (fleeing units count as destroyed correct?)

And my last bit of insight. I got this idea lookin at some Ard Boyz battle reps. An IG player lost the tourney because of a drawn game because of being one objective short. A squad of CSMs with double flamers had cleaned his infantry off an objective. Only thing near it was 2 armored Las cannon senitnels, with 2 turns left he sat there and shot at the CSMs with it. 7 CSMs,in 4+ cover, 4 lascanon shots. Not gonna happen. He had a PBS with LOS to this 7 CSM squad, a soulstorm shot wouldnt be likely to kill all 7 with scatter & cover. So he shot at something else. I see a different option- and yes, one of desperation- but hey ya never know. I think he should have hit them with WR, woulda dropped them to 2 Ld. And, charge the sentinels. The CSMs without a p-fist cant hurt them, really, krak grenades vs walkers isnt reliable. But, jsut a single CSM casualty would have most likely had that squad breaking with a 2 Ld. 2 turns left is 4 assault phases, so 4 attacks on the charge, then 6 more from 3 subsequent phases- math hammer is 5 hits, and 3 or 4 wounds- one casualty is likely. Better odds than 4 LC shots(if only he had plasma or H-flamers on these! ), of which half miss, and the half that wound get soaked up by cover. So, ya, WR for Assault support of walkers-sorta last ditch, but it could have one the guy the game. If he had broke that scoring unit. I suppose this would work for any assualt- but short of a 30 man infantry blob (with commisars and priests lol)charging with Creed giving them 'For Cadia' its not likely that we'll see IG winning an assault.

My latest Modeling effort...

So, heres a catch up thread for my Hellhound variant

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/246737.page

It was origianlly just gonna be a Land speeder based sort of buggy. But with the new IG codex, I find myself liking the tactical uses of the HH and variants, but I hate the model (yes- even the new ones). Hence an armored car, that actually looks like it can move fast was born.

Many nay-sayers are complaining its too small. I think theyre retards-a full sized tank frame(ok APC) without suspension isnt gonna go faster jsut because the fluff claims a bigger engine. And flame & chem weapons dont need huge resivoirs. Too much bad stuff in them would make them too explosive. So basically- you just need something that can spray liquid. Like a fire hose, or farm equipment. Not too complex ;)

As I get more done on the sculpts, and possible casts I'll post pics from my free but craptastic cam.