HQ

One of the great things about living in the area in which I live is the plethora of gaming hotspots.  The community here, extreme persons disregarded, is supportive and usual up for a game if you show yourself to be a fun opponent.  My favorite store to play at has begun to be especially intentional in its support of the 40k community over the course of this year and has held monthly events with interesting tables and rule sets.  Through these events I have met many great players and I always look forward to the next event.  This month's event is set for larger individual games at 2500 pts and is set to be built with double force organization in mind.  As I'm sure many of my opponents will do, I decided to take full advantage of the points and extra force slots.  I have a game scheduled for tomorrow to test my list and I'll be making final tweaks as the week goes on.  As I wrote this post, I realized just how long this post was shaping up to be.  To keep it manageable, I'll be breaking my army list up over several posts.

HQ

For this list I knew that I'd be taking a double force org list.  With this in mind I revisited some of my early lists for inspiration.  While I've only ever run a double force org in the one Apocalypse I've played, I did have a habit of doubling down on HQ choices for a period last fall.  I've never felt that the named characters in the codex to be a good representative of their points costs and even after a year of playing Templar, I still haven't purchased either of the characters.  And so I sat down to decide what roles I wanted my HQ's to fill.  It's no secret around my local game store that I love chaplains.  Both in the fluff and the benefits they offer squads in game, I always find myself dropping a chaplain into my lists.  Since I was planning on deep striking a unit of shooty Terminators with two assault cannons, I decided running them as a command squad with a Marshal would fit the role I had in mind for them.  The goal of this unit is to be a problem causing squad in the backfield targeting tanks and other priority targets.  I don't plan to spend much time charging this unit into close combat, but should they be charged I wanted to give a couple power swords to strike at initiative and free up the power fists to do their thing.  The Marshal is perfectly paired for this, while giving the entire board the ability to use his leadership.  The leadership bonus acts more as insurance to help against failing zeal tests, but his real purpose is to dice units that attempt to assault the squad.  As a command squad, I get a sergeant to accept challenges freeing the Marshal to inflict pain on the squad.

For my primary force I plan to run my usual Chaplain.  I always kit out my Chaplain and take full advantage of the old armory system.  Being able to give my Chaplain 2+ armor and Eternal Warrior is invaluable when high strength shots start flying around the board.  As I discovered last week, a Chaplain gets even better when you kit him out with a command squad and apothecary for Feel No Pain.  A 2+/4++ save can be intimidating enough and when combined with a squad for "Look Out Sir"s the risk of loosing your Warlord decreases immensely.  By adding Feel No Pain to the equation, the command squad becomes very difficult to roll over.  The biggest threat for the squad is travel.  I too bought into the internet hype that vehicles were dead in this edition.  What I have found in gameplay is very different.  The biggest risk I find in vehicles is giving away an early kill point for First Blood if a rhino finds itself in front of a battle cannon.  But the difference in losing a vehicle over troop models is a big difference maker.  In the time it takes my command squad to walk across the board, hugging terrain for protection and including zeal moves, I would probably lose two or three models if I'm lucky.  A squad of ten could handle the losses and keep the pressure on in assault, but anything smaller faces serious risk to necessary momentum.  While assault is still alive in 6th edition, I believe it is even more crucial than it was in fifth to maximize damage in first turn of the assault, since Templar will stay locked in combat until the opposing unit falls back or either squad is destroyed.  Placing the Chaplain and Command Squad in a Land Raider Crusader gets them across the table to where they need to go.  Like the Terminator Command Squad, the Reclusiarch squad will be hunting priority targets, usually scoring units.

For my required Emperor's Champion, I opted to take the anti-psyker vow.  I considered the vow giving my army Rage, but for the points the psyker vow was worth the risk.  If my opponent doesn't have any psykers, I'm only out twenty points.  With the amount of points available, it seems likely that armies who can take a psyker will.  To free up my Chaplain I will be running the Emperor's Champion with the Reclusiarch Command Squad.

As the week goes by, I will continue to go through my list.  Comment below with thoughts and opinions on this list and any improvements that could be made.  Thanks for reading!

The Command Squad Rides

Against all odds, I ended up with a completed command squad ready for my games last week.  I got three games in against some very competitive tournament players and had a ton of fun.  One special treat for me was playing against Black Templar.  I have never faced a Templar army, and it was an extra treat to see how a more competitive player would play.

My first two games were against Chaos Space Marines.   The goal of the first game was to see how a fully loaded out command squad would handle a less than ideal situation.  I've done this in the past and found it to be helpful in learning what upgrades to spring for and how the squad is best used.  I dropped the squad in a Land Raider Crusader and ran them straight at a squad of Chaos bikers with a Korne lord leading the way, with a pair of Maulerfiends backing them up.  I maneuvered up and dumped my guys out three inches away expecting to land some hurt on the bikers before the Maulerfiends came to back up the Chaos Lord.  And as became the trend for most of the game, I rolled two ones failing my three inch charge.  The game at this point began the downward trend to a mop up and with a little bit of flailing, lost the game by turn three with my only points being First Blood from a blown up Rhino.  Despite some really bad rolling, I was impressed by how much abuse the command squad took.  They tied up the bike squad the whole game and did their fair share of damage, beating most of the squad.

For our second game I reintroduced tactical planning for the command squad.  My opponent spread his forces across the long board edge and I opted for edge denial avoiding his Maulerfiends.  For this game it was my Techmarine's turn to bring a lackluster attitude to the battle.  But the command squad, shamed by the previous game, roared into the back field smashing all foes before them.  The game was going much better for my Templar this time around and I felt good about how I was playing tactually.  I had set up his Maulerfiends to run through a gauntlet of high strength weapons fire, but my dice abandoned me on turn three, seeing my landspeeder fail to wound with its multi-melta and a full Crusader Squad fail its zeal to run off the table after taking one casualty.  While I lost this game as well, it was nip and tuck until the end.  The close game combined with a fun opponent created the type of games I love to play.  The bad rolls on both sides were cause for laughter and both games were fun to play. 

My last game of the afternoon was a pleasant surprise.  Both of us showed up to play other people and happened to have time to play.  Going into the game I knew I had to move quick.  My opponent opted for fewer troops, running two Crusader Squads, to bring three Stormtalons and two Land Raider Crusaders.  I hadn't planned to play extra games and the army I had brought was by no means a take on all comers list.  I had no answer for his fliers and instead tried to get to the center, we were playing the relic mission, to counter his charge.  He wisely kept his troops penned up in his Land Raiders and our Land Raiders held a duel.  The Land Raider duel was one of the highlights of the game as we danced around each other's melta range.  I was able to crack open one of his Land Raiders and my Land Raider went down in flames when the Stormtalons came in from reserve.  My opponent was forced to drop all of his Stormtalons into hover to shoot up the command squad allowing my bikes and command squad to get into combat with them.  But my assault woes for the day continued as I failed to hit with my bikes.  By holding his troops inside the Land Raiders they were able to hide out from most of the fire frenzy winning the game in the end.

It was fun to see someone else running Black Templar, since I don't get to see them on the board often. And even more so since it was an experienced tournament player.  I learned a ton during the game and in our discussion after the game was over.  I look forward to facing him again, and we talked about both playing Templar in the event at our local store this Saturday.  I'll be doing other posts throughout this week as I prepare for the event.

My takeaway from the day was that a command squad is awesome.  I probably wouldn't take one in a game smaller than 1850, but they earn their points back if only to give my Chaplain Feel No Pain.  As I figured I would, I spent way too many points on the command squad.  The banner options we currently have offer too little to afford their points, especially since the squad can buy counterattack at three points a model.  This is a pity as I love the way my banner looks on the board.  Here's me hoping we get some great options for banners the way Dark Angels received the Banner of Devastation.  But the Command Squad forces my opponent to deal with them allowing other units the freedom to maneuver. The apothecary is an outright stud, between giving Feel No Pain to the unit and wounding on a four in close combat he earns his keep and then some.  The Command Squad only gets better with two special weapons.  I'm going to be playing with some combinations for these slots to see what will be most helpful to how I envision the unit being used.  And the cherry on top of the sundae of awesome is the Company Champion.  I modeled him with the Power Halberd to make use of the Power Axe stats, which mauls through just about anything.  I have more playtesting to do before I settle on exactly how I want to use them in competitive play, but I can only imagine the Command Squad will get better in the coming codex.  

Like a Champ

I'm still chipping away at my Command Squad and I'm afraid I won't have them completely finished for my game on friday.  I got busy last night on several other things, and didn't start painting until much later.  As a result, only the company champion ended up painted.  I was a little concerned about the amount of gold going on the model, but after dulling it down with washes I think it hit a good sheen to match the rest of the model.

One of the unexpected additions to the mini was the helm.  I had originally planned to place the maltese cross off center in white with red detailing; it was late and to my horror the cross looked terrible.  The only aspect I liked was how the white stood out against the black and gold.  So the rest of the helm ended up white and the accent stripe went on in the style of the pre-heresy imperial fists.  While I took the long way around, I still accidentally accomplished my end goal of making the helm into a focal point for the model.

An aspect of my painting that has come a long way since I started is my power weapon skills.  I've done a variety of styles from plain blue with flecked shades of light blue and white to a gradient style.  But, I think my favorite is the lightening effect.  I based my method on the tutorial from the blog From the Warp (one of my favorite places to go for beginner tutorials.  You can find the tutorial here: http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2009/09/power-swords-space-hulk-style.html  The large difference between what I did here was using two different washes, both nightshade and violet.  The nightshade first darkens both the blade and the lightening effect, and the violet adds color to the lightening to make it stand out.  Then it's simply picking out some spots with white and you're finished.

About the only thing missing from this guy is his basing and doing the script on the the scroll above his head and on the shield.  And while it seems unlikely that I'll be getting both my apothecary and sergeant finished tonight.  At least the majority of the squad will look good running with my Master of Sanctity and Emperor's Champion.

Introduction

It has been on my mind for quite some time to attempt a blog in which I take all my experiences and thoughts on the wargaming hobby and toss them out into the expanse of the internet.  While I highly doubt that my musings will equal the strategic examining of Marshal Laeroth, or my painting examples come close to the dozens of painting specialists found on the internet, it is my hope that my particular perspective coupled with a ridiculous amount of enthusiasm will find it's niche in our gaming community.

As with many Black Templar fans, there was quite a bit of excitement around the house with the rumors of a shiny new Black Templar codex. (More info can be found here: http://natfka.blogspot.com/2013/07/faeits-rumor-tarot-breaking-rumors.html )  And once I had calmed down, cleaned up the spilled coffee, and quit sending messages to all my wargaming friends, I settled down to explore just what rumors were saying about the rules coming from an early play test.  And while a bit of salt should be applied, I was excited to see Templar being talked about outside of the debate on whether they were original enough to warrant their own codex.  And riding the wave of emotional response, I determined that all the grey and primed models sitting around needed painting and several new techniques needed to be attempted.

My previous attempts at wet blending have met with less than ideal results, usually with me sheepishly dropping the model into a bath of simple green.  But having gained some more practice, I thought I'd give it another shot.  With all the potential a new codex has to bring, I realized my crusade was lacking a battle standard to lead them into battle.  The knight persona was what led me to choose Black Templar in the first place so I hurried off to my local game store and snatched up a command squad.

Overall, I'm pleased with the end result, since the banner is my second attempt at free hand.  The rest of the squad is still on my work bench and will hopefully be finished for my game on Friday.  Pics of the finished product will be posted as I have them.  To really see what this squad can do, I'll be loading the squad out and hoping they don't run afoul of some Korne Beserkers since they'll be quite the point sink.    

Over the next several weeks I'll be taking pics and doing more posts about my Templar as well as some of the conversions I have on my to do list.  If you have any tips, questions, or comments please leave them below.