Blood Angels: Synchronise!

Some of Burkhardt's Blood Angels.
They're much nicer than yours. And mine.

As Duncan will tell you, this article is late. Like, really late. No, it isn't a crude reference to Blood Angels bleeding profusely and suffering from insanity for 5 days a month: nor is about the phenomenon of menstrual synchrony; its about a few blogs that have got together to throw up a few ideas about how 6th edition has affected how they build Blood Angel armies now and how they've changed compared to how they were in 5th. I've just had to deal with the fact that I've been too ill to post recently despite this article being almost entirely complete for two weeks already. I'll add a few ideas to how to build army ideas that the lads have suggested beforehand and things I think will work based on games I've played, such as Allies which the lads have given scant regard to.

Little Dave over at the Red Thirst and Caolán of the Skibb Wargamers and are my co-conspirators in this endeavour, although I hope that a few more heads will contribute their thoughts on how they've rebuilt their BA (or their own armies as is the case with Dan from Tzarkahn40k and his Guard), especially with a return to the scene of an ETC veteran (2007) in the shape of Big Rog (pronounced Roj) recently running a Blood Rodeo list and Burkhardt (such pretty, pretty models) overcoming his distaste for anything random and inefficient. How un-Germanic - it must be the case that he has been here for too long already.

Ultramarines live longer with Calgar

I wonder if Mat Ward sees this when
he looks in the mirror?

You know the jingle used at the end of Calgon ads? They have it here in German but not in English for some reason. Anyway, if you use the words in the title of this post in place of the ones actually used you'll have that jingle stuck in your head all day. Now that its in there, you can hum along while you're reading the rest of this post.

The reason for it being here is because of a thread on w-ired that reminded me to go back to something I'd been looking at for a while in 5th but abandoned because it wasn't very good - the Calgar wave. Basically the idea is to have a ton of Marines sprinting across the board and getting Hit-and-Run lite in order to hop in and out of combat and pump out as many shots as they can get like waves hitting a beach, or bogging units down in combat when they need to pin something in place like that annoying floater that sometimes decides not to go down the toilet when you flush. What does that floater want anyway?

It didn't work in 5th because the worst things in the Marine army were Marines but with 6th vehicles have taken a hit and infantry is better and you can now run a horde of guys and stand a decent chance against most armies. But there's something that really gives it a big boost: Guard Allies.

Sisters @ Moofool Game 2

It's heading right for us!

After the win in my first game I was pitted against Dan's Guard. This was a match that I reckoned would give me more problems as much of my firepower is short to mid-ranged and I would have to advance into the teeth of his guns to make the most of my melta bonuses. Thankfully, Celestine had the potential to work her way through the infantry squads with her Flamer and combat ability while the Rhinos could get me across the board relatively quickly.

Oh wait - Dawn of War. And the Guard are going first. And is able to deploy almost half of his army due to a recent FAQ update? Right. A change of tack was needed. In the end I deployed a Sisters squad in their Rhino on the halfway line to attract some firepower while Celestine deployed hidden ready to get the jump on some of the Heavy Weapons teams. I was hoping she'd be standing or get back up on the final turn and contest just to piss Dan off.

ETC Battle Report Round 2: Belgium

Just look at those legs.

ETC Game 2 - Belgium

Flushed with victory from Round 1 we were drawn with Belgium. We were confident that we could get 2 points from them too which would have meant we might play one of the pre-tourney favourites like ze Germans or the Poles.

I wandered off to have a look at other armies including a stunning Harlequin-themed Dark Eldar army and give the Captain room to think about match-ups. I came back to see Guard and Grey Knights in front of me. I wasn't excited about Guard in Dawn of War but nor did I fancy the 2+ save horde of GK. My decision was made when the GK were given to our Nid player Cornflakes who assured us he had taken this kind of list in practice and knew what to do to crack it.

And this is where the importance of the match-up system came into being.

ETC Battle Report Round 1: Finland

Posers.

So I'm thrown up early as an answer to the Finnish Guard played by Aleksi Meuronen who has the coolest 'tache I've ever seen. I've had a fair bit of practice against this list (with match-ups for Round 1 released early) so I reckon I can take it but I'm worried about how much I'll bleed: 8 Razorbacks at the start tends to become 3 or 4 by the end while my Grey Hunter squads are beefy enough to mangle 10 Guardsmen but not enough to stand up to sustained fire from a gunline. Plus my Scouts are quite squishy and will take on a solitary Guard squad but not 2 or 3 at once.

It was definitely going to be an interesting game but I was feeling quietly confident going into it. Then we had our team talk where I was told that I was expected to get a win and loads of points. Basically: Nuke Finland.

No pressure so then.

Bewbs from the Big Dorian

If only Heineken tasted like this...

I was in Jakarta a few months back and I managed to drop by a shop there called Fantasy N Games. Well, two shops actually: both the one on the 2nd floor in the Pondok Indah Shopping Centre in Jakarta Barat (West Jakarta) and Taman Anggrek in Jakarta Selatan (South).

It was in the latter that I picked up Njal Stormcaller (the same price as here which is a couple of week's wages for most people over there o_0) and I managed to take some piccies of some stuff in the shop cabinet.

Wolf Scout Shenanigans

I wonder if my disguise will work?

I've been messing around with Wolf Scouts a fair bit lately, mainly to try out an old favourite. I used to like these guys despite their randomness although this has worked against them in the new Wolf book as there are more reliable units available.

Having seen how popular they were at the Nova Open I was willing to give them a run-out to see how they would perform. I played 2 games using them, this one being the 2nd against Ivan's Guard in Spearhead/Annihilation.

He was using:

Company Command Squad with 4 Plasma in Chimera

Choir Boys in Chimera

4 Vet Squads in Chimeras with 3 x Melta, 1 x Flamers

3 x Vendettas

Hydra Squad
2 Manticores

T-Fex Batrep 3

So I've been espousing the merits of the Tyrannofex as has Kirby over on 3++ in order to combat some of the internet stupids that are claiming the thing is a write-off. That these are also the same people that complain about the Nid book in general isn't a great surprise...

Since I'd claimed they were useful I figured that I had to put my money where my mouth was and give them a run-out and see if they were any good, or if I was simply talking through my hole. I've got 3 games up where the list evolved over time and this one is the latest game with a T-Fex list I would recommend so that's why its going up first and not chronologically.

Brocon game 3

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