I'M BACK!

Yes, you read that right, I'M BACK!

Just as soon as I had got the blog up and running I was hit with a series of unfortunate events (yes I did just steal a book series title...). To cut a long story short (doubt any of you would want to hear my sop story) I was quite ill, then hit with a mountain of work/exams (fun times kids) then finally internet issues and my laptop packing in.

I think its fair to say that I was unable to blog at all during that time, however, everything has resolved itself, I'm back, articles have been penned, blog posts written, lets get back to the Dark Angels!


As a side note, since I've been out of this for a little while I've not been able to keep up to date with all the Dark Angels stuff, so... comment bellow with stories of how your Dark Angels have been fairing and what you have found out about the new codex!

First impressions on the new codex!

I've had the codex for nearly half a day now (yes, I did download it at midnight!) and after having a quick ready and a a sleep, here's the first review/impressions of the codex! I'll do a more complete article after I've done all the unit analysis' as a nice way to round off all the articles directly linked to the codex.

Okay, as I've just said, I've got the digital/iPad edition of the codex but this review will focus on the codex itself, not any iPad element of the codex (I've got a separate article planned  focusing on the benefits of a digital codex)

From having only a quick read through the codex I can say it does look well written; by that I don't necessarily mean all the rules are watertight (there is already some debate over the wording of Deathwing Assault, more on that later) but I mean the codex has a good fluff section, is well set out, has good content, good art work and a nice range of units for you to use which seem pretty balanced (there's not auto-win button that I can see just yet).


For this review I will review each section in general, what I like/dislike, then at the end do a brief summary on where I see the book fitting power level wise and some of my favourite units so far. This is not a review of the rules/units in detail, just a broad summary of the book.

The Dark Angels

This section is the main fluff section of the codex (I'm not sure if it's called that in the printed versions, but it is in the iPad one so that's what I'll be calling it!); it follows the bog standard layout of most of the other marines codex's (general info about the chapter, founding and history, organisation, more 'modern' fluff (e.g. Hunt for the fallen) the timeline (which I think is a great feature in the codex's  gives you a sense of perspective in where the Dark Angels are now and where they will go) and The End is Nigh - pretty much reinforcing the grim darkness of the 40k universe and setting the scene for where things are going; everything getting much worse etc. I'd be surprised if the development team did ever move the story on though, which is a shame but for the time being at least this little section at the end is the closest we'll be getting to a moving on timeline wise of 40k.

Overall, I like the background section in this book, it has a nice balance of fluff, some interesting stories and pieces of information (little background boxes like the one for the Master of the Rock). There's no atrocious pieces of background (aka Draigo) so its a pretty good start to the book!

The Unforgiven

Now we're onto the rules section; each unit has a nice profile with some specific background material, rules, stats etc. you know the score. What I like about the way this book has been put together is that you have your Greenwing all together, then your Deathwing and then your Ravenwing, you're not jumping about all over the place, everything is nicely ordered.

Army-wide special rules look pretty good for the Dark Angels, as you'd expect for any Space Marine army we have ATSKNF and Combat Squads (not for all squads mind you, notably ravenwing bikers and tactical marines have this rule). We have stubborn and while that can be seen as a disadvantage with ATSKNF (you can voluntarily fail a morale check) it adds some character to the army and makes it a bit more interesting to play; which Dark Angel in their right mind would voluntarily fall back?! Several units have the Inner Circle special rule, giving them fearless and preferred-enemy Chaos Space Marines (mainly Deathwing, Ravenwing and HQ choices). You get a feeling that if you're playing against Chaos Space Marines you're going to have an easier ride with this codex, there are some other rules later on which do you a long way to helping you chop through CSM petty easily. Expect to see fear in CSM player's eyes when they see you unpacking the Deathwing Knights! The Warlord Traits are pretty good too, with only one result not being of much use in certain situations (+/- 1 to any reserve rolls) which is a nice thing, nothing worse than rolling a useless trait! Only problem is all of the special characters (except 1) come with a Warlord trait, so don't expect to be rolling on the table at all if you have a special character!

The Deathwing will be pretty unique in terms of special rules; Deathwing assault has been improved and you can now deep strike all your Deathwing troops on turn 1 or 2, no need to roll for reserves. This is a welcomed change as the Deathwing now have the rules to enable you to play them the way they should be played, a whole cohort of Terminators appearing out of nowhere in one go, annihilating everything in there path. With rules letting all your weapons count as twin linked on the turn you deep strike, toughness 5 terminators and having Belail in your squad meaning you won't scatter, the Deathwing are now a force to be reckoned with! The addition of some new Deathwing units is nice; my favourite being the Deathwing Knights, these are definitely going to be the unit for inflicting maximum damage on your opponent, a ready made deathstar. Why? Let's just say that anyone who finds 10, toughness 5 Terminators with storm shields and (albeit 1 use) strength 10 Ap 1 weapons deepstriking into the middle of your lines with no scatter on turn 1 has a difficult game ahead of them (that's not the mention the other Terminator squads dropping in firing with twin-linked weapons!)

Ravenwing forces have also got a boost with this new codex. Bike squads come with teleporter homers as standard, and combined with the speed of the bikes in 6th, and scout moves, there's no reason why you shouldn't be taking a bike squad or two to help with guiding in your Deathwing  We're already starting to see the synergy in this codex and we've only just flicked through a few units so far! While you can play 1 element on its own, I feel that the key to winning to Dark Angels will be extreme synergy between the different 'wings'. Back to the Ravenwing and the Black Knights are just as deadly as the Deathwing ones; capable of carrying grenade launchers which can reduce the initiative & weapon skill or the toughness of your opponents. Both new Landspeeders compliment the existing Ravenwing forces very well and both flyers (despite the negative press they've been getting in some forums out there) are useful and do have a place in the army! Ravenwing forces will be very viable, very fast moving and very deadly!

Now onto the rest of the army, the 'normal marines' or greenwing if you will. They are slightly less unique than the rest of the army, not as many special rules, however, they will form a solid core for your army, with lots of Plasma! You have most of the basic Space Marine units available (Tactical, Assault, Devastator etc.) and some are cheaper than their vanilla counterparts. Plasma seems prevalent with lots of choices for that, as well as flakk missiles available! So if you want a devastator squad with x4 flakk missiles you can now do it! Apart from that there's nothing too special to write home about just now, you'll have to wait till articles come out for each individual unit for more details.

Armoury of the Rock

The final section I'm going to review is the armoury, there's no point going over the model pages (just look at the pictures on the Games-Workshop website, that's all that's in that section) or the army list (nothing interesting that I can particularly comment on there!).

As it seems to be and hopefully will be a trend in the new 6th edition codex's we have a nice armoury section, with some new and some old pieces of wargear! I don't want to go into too much detail here as I think certain items are best explained when I do a unit by unit review. In brief, we have a wide range of Melee weapons, good ranged weapons and some interesting special wargear. Banners?! Did I mention banners?! We have some excellent options regarding banners, think salvo 2/4 on 10 relentless ravenwing bikers...

Thoughts on the iPad version

Just a few thoughts on the iPad version of the codex. I think I'll be buying all my codex's on the iPad from now on, it's so much easier! Ever looked in the army list and wondered what that rule was? No problem, just touch it and you can see what the rule is! No more flicking back between the main rulebook and a different page in the codex. No more needing to keep reminding yourself what wargear is special issue wargear; this is nice and easy when writing an army list, a lot quicker and a lot less frustrating. It's also a lot smaller and easier to carry around when at tournaments etc. with easy access to any page and any information/rules. It's nice to be able to zoom in on artwork and know you can't accidentally tear out a page! Basically I much  prefer the iBooks version.



Closing Comments

Overall I'm really impressed with the new Codex, it has a nice range of units, good internal balance, a focus on synergy (which in turn promotes a good tactical list composition) and lots of different list builds! I can see this not only being a fun codex to play with but one which will also be quite competitive without being overpowered/broken which will result in cries of cheese coming from every person who you play.

Make sure you check back here over the next few days for army lists, individual unit tactics, army wide tactics, a podcast, unboxing videos and much more!

What are your opinions on the new Codex? Leave your thoughts below!

Tournament List Musings

Little bit of background to this post, bare with me for a sec...

I know I've set out a post schedule on the right, but as you can tell from this post, that is just a rough idea. Right now I'm in the middle of several exams (how lucky am I!?) so finding time to blog amongst a load of revision isn't by any means easy! Now this doesn't mean I'm going to take a break from this blog, how could I when the codex coming out in a few days? But what it does mean is my posts might be a little more spontaneous, so if you can put up with this for a few more days the articles all about the new codex and what you can do with it will be flowing out of here!

Anyway, I'm sat on a bus on a cold Wednesday morning, thinking about possible lists, got my iPad out, started writing, and this post is a result of that musing......

I've just booked a place for my first tournament of 2013 and the one which will be my first using the new Dark Angels! (well mostly Dark Angels anyway, more about that in a bit)

It's a tournament, Target Sighted, at a local shop, The Outpost, which I never knew existed until very recently! It takes place towards the end of February, so just over a month away (if you're near the Sheffield area and interested in attending then I recommend you check out the venue and attend the event!). Considering that the event is not long away and as of yet I haven't ordered a full army* I think I may have to use some allies in this list. I plan to keep them to a minimal, use as many points of Dark Angels as I have, then fill in the rest using a few Grey Knights I have around somewhere.

*my initial order consists of Dark Vengeance, Bellial, a Terminator Box and a hell of a lot of modelling stuff (2 cans of spray paint, 20 paints, new brushes, glues etc. etc.). Chances are I won't be able to order any more stuff till around the time of the event, so by the time my order turns up I won't have them tournament ready.

These are the models I'll have available to me for the event

Bellial

Captain/Company master (DV)

Librarian (DV)

x5 Deathwing Knights/Command squad (I will have one of both eventually, just not sure which to build my first box up as, lets see the difference in rules first!)

x5 Deathwing Terminators (DV)

x10 Space Marines (DV)

x3 Ravenwing Bikers

Allies

Inquisitor

x10 Grey Knight Terminators

Callidus Assassin

Vindicare Assassin

With those being the models at my disposal and since that this tournament is a relatively friendly one (basically I'm not going with a finely tuned list, just something which will be fun to use and showcase some of the new Dark Angels, a suitable first outing I hope you'll agree!) I think my list will look something like this:

Bellial

x5 Deathwing Knights/Command squad

x5 Deathwing Terminators

x10 Space Marines

x3 Ravenwing Bikers

Allies

Inquisitor

x5 Grey Knight Terminators

Callidus Assassin

Obviously none have any equipment yet and this list is only rough as since we don't know any points costs for the Dark Angels its hard to tell where abouts this list will come out. Though given what we know and going off past codexs, this looks around 1500 to me!

I'm not going to go into any more detail or tactics surrounding this as we don't know what anything does yet! But this should hopefully give you an idea of where I'm at and what I'll be taking to the tournament in February!

Let me know what you think of this proposed (very rough!) list!

A more complete first draft of my tournament will be up early/mid next week, as soon as I've had a chance to read the codex and some first reaction and tactica articles are up!

Podcasting

Hey all,

Just a quick question/suggestion here, what do you think about me creating some podcasts? Basically I plan to create a series of podcasts  go along with the written articles about the new Dark Angels. Let me know what you think of this by leaving a comment or voting in poll to the right!

If any of you have experience/advice about podcasting post a reply to this post and give me a hint or two!

First reactions to the new Dark Angels!

In this article I'm going to give you my first reactions to the new models (given the new high detail pictures of them and what we know about their rules!)

If you want to purchase any of these new models, check out this page here! Contains some further thoughts and the best/cheapest places to buy!

First up we have the Deathwing Command Squad/Knights/Terminators. Model wise they look great, I've already ordered 3 sets of these just based on that! The kit as all the heavy weapon options (which means no more hunting around on the bitz stores for that sought after Cyclone missile launcher!). Rules wise all flavours of the Deathwing squads look great, and I'd be surprised if we didn't see 10-15 Terminators in each 1500+ list

Start of a few Ravenwing kits now; first up is the Bikers. Again, like the Deathwing they are a pretty much complete kit, with all major options included. All variations of the bike squad look deadly, however I think that the Knights will be a more common unit, probably in 3s or 6s. I plan to run a 3 of knights for teleporter homer purposes which can then form a distraction to my opponent. Considering how good Deathwing are, and the fact that ravening come with homers, expect to see 2-3 groups of 3 bikers in most lists.



Now we're onto the new speeder; given the voice of the internet, this speeder is a little like Marmite  you either love it and will use it regardless of rules, hate it and not use it regardless of rules, or if you're like me, see how it fits in with everything else you have. I can't say I love the design of the model, but at the same time have nothing against it. Considering I will play primarily Deathwing, and to keep this thing alive long enough you'll need a mainly Ravenwing force, don't expect to see this in any of my lists just yet.

Lastly we have the 1 kit which I feel will be in every Dark Angels list (and depending on how the rules turn out, maybe in some allied SM lists too). While I'm not overly keen on the masonry flyer, if I was going to use it, it would have the body of the non masonry one (stay tuned for a modelling tutorial on this). The anti-flyer flyer will definitely be in mine and many others' lists; a flyer who's sole job is to take put other flyers? Sold! This will stop you worrying about your opponents flyers while punishing him if he doesn't have any anti flyer stuff!


Okay, so that's first reactions, check out the box on the right hand side of the blog to see what other articles are coming up this week, and expect in depth reviews and tacticas as soon as the codex hits on saturday!

New Dark Angels Models

The new Dark Angels models are now on the Games-Workshop website. Now while I'd still highly recommend that you buy/pre-order all your models here (for 20% off) like I have; they have put up some videos showing off there new models. Even if you have the White Dwarf, digital or paper, these videos still show off their new models pretty well (makes a change from the grainy pics we've seen up until now!) so I'd have a look at them!

Coming up tomorrow; Review of the January White Dwarf;

Coming up in the rest of the week; White Dwarf Analysis (what can we learn about the Dark Angels?), Plans for my Dark Angels army, Codex/Models release day!, The start of many tactica articles about the new Codex!

Anyway, back to the videos!

Pre-orders are up!

Wayland Games have their pre-orders for Dark Angels up!


I personally have just ordered a lot of Dark Angels, not long till the army will be here, around a week!


For ease of reference I'm going to list all of their orders and deals on this post. I fully recommend you buy from Wayland Games, if you order before the end of the weekend you can get free shipping! They offer 20%-25% off so if you want new Dark Angels, here is the place to get them!

Click on any banner or picture below to be taken to their website and order your Dark Angels (or any other hobby related items for that matter).


I'm going to give you a run down of all the things which have gone up for pre-order and why they'll be useful for you!

Probably the most important item on this page is the Codex! Crucial to all Dark Angels players!

A nice release bundle, everything you need to get your army started, and at a great price!

A perfect way to have a full Deathwing army straight off the bat! No more purchases, buy this and you're done; you'll be winning tournaments in no time!I'm doing a special set of articles about these bundles (how to build lists using these models etc.) buy one of these and you'll have all the support you ever need for your army right here!

A perfect way to have a full Ravenwing army straight off the bat! No more purchases, buy this and you're done; you'll be winning tournaments in no time!Like with the Deathing set, I'm doing a special set of articles about these bundles (how to build lists using these models etc.) buy one of these and you'll have all the support you ever need for your army right here!

Essentially a Ravenwing battleforce, 7 bikes and a landspeeder, a great way to start an army or to add to an existing one

This is going to be a key purchase in any Dark Angels army, with the dominance of flyers, without one of these you're going to be at a severe disadvantage, I see them as a staple in every army from now on!

The brand new landspeeder, given we now know what they do, if you have any Ravenwing elements in your army, this is the best way to compliment them

I'd be surprised if any army didn't include a squad of these, they are not only part of the Dark Angels identity but they pack a punch; now we have a new unit of Deathwing Knights, I'd recommend everyone buys at least one of these kits

The repackaged Sammael model, if you want to include Ravenwing in your army then he is a must!

The new Ravenwing bikers! They add a fast element to your army, and I personally wouldn't leave home without at least 1 squad of these!

The Master of the Deathwing himself! If you want an all Deathwing army; he's a must!