449 replies to this topic

[Daniel]

This is for the Warhammer 40000 gamers out there - what faction do you play as?

Talk about what army you chose, why you chose it, your operational strategies for each army you've collected, and any other information you want to contribute. I'll add my own army list and backstory for my army later.

Best/Dan

[Tyris]

There will now follow a marching chant.

*ahem*

Orks, orks, orks, orks,
Orks, orks, orks, orks,
Orks, orks, orks, orks,
Orks, orks, or--*shot*

...

*retrometabolises* Well, anyway. Orks are fun, and Deathskulls are mega fun 'cos lootin' is ace and konvertin' is brill. Or possibly the other way around.

We don't have any strategies yet, because we've only been actually paying for stuff since the beginning of this August and have yet to actually play a game. Zog, we don't even have any of them painted yet, and da Big Boss doesn't have a head 'cos we need to sculpt a neck out of Green Stuff before it can be stuck on, and the Grot mob has too few Grots and too many Runtherds (at least it will have too many when we finish the third, who is in bitz on the desk right now, waiting for us to break out the candle so's we can soften up his belly plate enough to fit it round his great fat gut)...

We have some fun plans in the works, though. There are going, eventually, to be representative from many armies in our little warband - a Land Speeder Storm is going to become a Trukk, a Falcon top turret is going to become a Kan body (and we'll have to do something with the rest of the Falcon too, or that'll be one wastefully expensive walker), a Hammerhead is either going to be a Battlewagon or Looted Wagon, at least one Trukk or Battlewagon is going to have loooooong trakks and its 'Ard Case is going to be modelled after a Gerry Anderson-style transporter truck... and we have no zogging idea what to do with a Carnifex rules-wise but the idea of "looting" one by sawing off the top of the skull and putting a Mad Dok on top, holding the control wires going into its brain, is too hilarious not to do. Modelling first, playing later.

Now, if you'll excuse us, we need to get out that candle...

[Elijah Sight]

Marines.

In.

SPAAAAAAAAAAACE!

*ahem*

Yes. My Space Marines are called the Knights of Clarity, and focus on long-range bombardment combined with suppression fire. My force is troops and heavy-support intensive. The general idea is to take and hold the center of the map with my Tactical Squads and Sniper Scout Squads while providing long-range support with my three Whirlwind missile artillery platforms. Then, while the enemy is struggling through all that, I have a Venerable Dreadnought, Assault Squad, Veteran Squad with drop pod, and Land Speeder that deep strike into the enemy formation and wreak havoc.

[Tyris]

Wuerrrrrgh.

The plate bent fine, all right. But then we tried to alter his whip a bit too, and... well, his thumb melted.

Good thing that was a spare bit.

Guess it's not just imagination that the fangs on the plate look a little runnier, either. From now on, we'll be sticking to methods of altering bits that don't involve fire.

(Well, mostly.)

[Elijah Sight]

Guess it's not just imagination that the fangs on the plate look a little runnier, either. From now on, we'll be sticking to methods of altering bits that don't involve fire.

I reccomend a hair dryer. That's what I use for all my platic-reposing needs. It can usually heat the plastic enough to be malleable and retain its new position when cooled, but it can't actually melt and deform it. Hurrah!

[Pvt. Jet]

Haven't started playing yet, but I've looked at the Tau and Space Marines. If I start playing, I'll tell ya. Gotta rustle up the time and money first. College doesn't learn itself ya know!

[thereisnosaurus]

I have, over the years collected

Blood angels
Astral swords (my own loyalist chapter)
Eldar
Imperial guard
Drop troops (imperial guard variant)
Tau

all up to between 1000- 5000 points

[Daniel]

I originally started out playing several different chapters of Space Marines (long history short - they were descendants of one of the lost primarchs and it was my excuse to have a few Space Marine chapters that adhered to the pre-Heresy mind-set), but after a while, I grew increasingly dissatisfied with the way they looked. They were the first models I'd painted, and it showed. So, I spraypainted them all black and prepared to go over with new-and-improved color schemes. At about the time I began repainting, though, I also grew tired of the hackneyed, almost hand-waved nature that the chapters clung to the "Old Imperium" idea. They were pretty much blank slates again at this point, so after mulling over my options, repainted them as Crimson Fists. I concocted a story to explain how the suits of armor and a few of the vehicles changed from Purpled Hands/Burning Wings/Magma Armored Corps./etc to Crimson Fists materiel (read: the Fists went in, beat them up, and stole their stuff - for the Emperor!), and now I have a sizable number of incompletely-painted Crimson Fists.

They are completely useless.

I only really have the opportunity to play WH40K against my friend Joe, and he plays Imperial Guard. He does not suscribe to the normal human wave tactics so usually favored, but instead fields tank companies. When I finally had enough models to engage in a 1500 point game, I was expecting to see him field a few tanks. I had a few lascannons and a dreadnought with twin-linked lascannons, so hey - the Emperor's Finest should be able to hold their own, right?

No.

Five Leman Russ tank variants, three chimeras, one hellhound, a sentinel or two, three squads of Guardsmen, and a partridge in a pear tree beat the living snot out of my Space Marines, his ordnance being able to shoot over all the barriers erected while my Space Marines had to advance through a maze of impassable walls in order to hit with their line-of-sight weapons,

So, I've been reading some novels about the Imperial Guard (Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!)), and I've slowly been converted into a Guardsman fan. The battle in which my Space Marines were ground down into a fine powder under the tracks of his tanks convinced me to make the switch. So, I am currently building up on Catachan miniatures, painted in olive drab and dubbed the "Drab Guardians", hailing from the planet Varestus Prime. Unlike the normal Catachans, the Drab Guardians are an air-mobile, anti-tank unit: the 1315th Varestan Air-Mobile Infantry. Joe is probably the only opponent I'm going to face for a while, so while the Varestans may be over-specialized, they're specialized Joe-Killers. I originally planned on including a Steel Fury Baneblade Company (and even bought two Baneblades and assembled one), but I decided against fielding them due to the new army focus:

6 Vendetta Gunships - 780 points
1 Lord (Lady) Commissar with Carapace Armor - 80 points
1 Company Command Squad with Regimental Standard and Vox-caster - 70 points
2 Veteran Squads with Meltas and Vox-casters - 210 points
3 Scout Sentinels with Lascannons - 150 points

Total - 1290 points.

A Baneblade costs 500 points. For 495 points, I can field a full vendetta squadron and a veteran squad. In addition, the Vendettas (and the troops riding inside of them) can deep-strike, allowing them to appear right in the enemy's flanks, allowing them to disgorge the troops they're carrying behind enemy lines and hit the enemy armor in the side or rear, where it's the most vulnerable. It's hard to argue with nine twin-linked lascannons and three meltas (Or, if I want to be mean, have all the Vendettas and Veterans gang up and hit with 18 twin-linked lascannons, six meltas, and the kitchen sink). Sadly, I can't drop a sentinel behind enemy lines.

Oh yeah! I'll need to get a couple of those.

The story angle I'm working with is that after the planet Varestus Prime fell into Imperial hands, the Catachan regiments that conquered it were given praetorship, since it's pretty much exactly like Catachan. Attempts to tame the jungles have proven futile, as the local flora is voracious enough to tear apart roads and buildings in as little as a week. Settlements are small and constantly maintained, with armies of workers fighting back the jungle to make life possible. To navigate this terrain, all travel overland is mostly conducted either on foot or by sentinel walkers, or the civilian equivalent thereof.

Unlike Catachan, though, the planet is broken up into dozens of small continents, separated by hundreds or thousands of miles of water. Any travel on a manageable timetable or overseas, then, is conducted by airborne transports. This way of life has produced an exceptional number of aviators, and Varestus is a prime recruiting ground for the Imperial Navy. When the population grew numerous enough to contribute to the Imperial Tithe, the Phantine Precedent was invoked to allow the newly-raised regiments to contribute their own air cover and transport. It is common to see Varestan Drab Guardians operating alongside Phantine and Elysian regiments.

... and we have no zogging idea what to do with a Carnifex rules-wise but the idea of "looting" one by sawing off the top of the skull and putting a Mad Dok on top, holding the control wires going into its brain, is too hilarious not to do. Modelling first, playing later.

If you do not post a picture of this, I will be forced to hunt you down and steal your model so I can oggle it.

Best/Dan

[Pvt. Jet]

I have to admit Tyris, I would have never thought of doing that. Ever.

[thereisnosaurus]

um, iirc dan vendets don't have a transport capacity. at least I'm pretty sure they don't. They're a gunship, not a transport. It's an army that will cream things like monolith crons or landraider marines (or even heavy mech marines or tau), but you're going to be up against the wall against anything not relying on big costy tanks... Admittedly you'll be like Hugh Jackman crossed with Ian Mckellen up against that wall. Walls will literally que to have you up against them. They will LONG for you. Carnally.

But sexy as that army will look, I'm not sure it will be able to fight all that well...

edit: I've also seen the looted carnifex idea somewhere before also.

[Daniel]

In the codex, it's listed as having a transport capacity of twelve models; the only difference from the regular Valkyrie is that the weapons have been changed. As I said, it's a specialized Joe-killer. If I can find some cheap magnets, though, I may put magnet strips on the hardpoints and weapons so I can switch the lascannons and multiple rocket pods out depending on who I go against.

For Great Justice!

Best/Dan

[roonstown]

Orks.

Attack Attack attack.

Rokkit launchas are fer killin' wagons.

Powa Klaws are fer Killin' hard stuff.

Battlewagon squishes troops good.

[Tyris]

If you do not post a picture of this, I will be forced to hunt you down and steal your model so I can oggle it.

Will do, will do... but for now it's only a plan, so you'll have to make do with the pictures below.

edit: I've also seen the looted carnifex idea somewhere before also.

Yes, it's the only idea we didn't come up with independently (the one that inspired the sentiment of "this is too hilarious not to do" is here, and there's another here). The others probably aren't fresh, but we did think them up without seeing someone else do one first.

Also, we have decided that the Hammerhead will become a Battlewagon. This way, it can be given a deff rolla made out of a cheesegrater.

[Maddie Mondale]

After reading the Ultramarines Omnibus and The Killing Ground, as well as Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium and Cain's Last Stand, I'm torn between the Ultramarines and the Grey Knights.

Edit: Am in the process of creating an Ultramarine-based army.

[Lord Steel]

I guess my fav would be Marines, they have some honor.

[thereisnosaurus]

noootttt really. I mean, yeah, if you happen to be a loyal marine then fair enough. Anything else and you're dirt on their shoes. The whole glorious battle thing went out with the heresy. Now it's just burn them all and let the dark gods sort them out

[Author]

In the Warhammer 'verse it seems as though it's smart to ally with the Chaos Gods if there's no afterlife. Or the afterlife is the Warp. Or if the afterlife involves getting your soul ground up by the Emprah's throne to power his beacon.

[Tyris]

It's not much better if you're with Chaos, though, since the gods are as likely to chow down on the souls of their own followers as they are their enemies'.

[Daniel]

IF you're not serving Chaos, the Dark Gods are always trying to eat your soul. If you're serving Chaos, the Dark Gods are trying to eat your soul, but they're giving you an extension to do something for them before they do it. Unless you've serving Tzeentch, in which case your guess is as good as mine.

Best/Dan

[Pennpenn]

I've got many starts of armies, and a few big groups that could be armies if I tweaked a bit. Got a lot of Space Marines at the moment, they've sort... accreted over the years. Currently trying to do them up as Relictors (Loyalist, but also Chaos and exile and... its a long story. At least its from GW). Got a whole bunch of Chaos Marines or varying colour and loyalty, an army of Craftworld Eldar, two big clumps of Guard (one Imperial, one Chaos) which aren't really big enough to be self supporting yet, and the usual gamut of false starts, and a bucketload of Orks in storage, which I'll get around to...