New flyers trend

In seeing some of the rules for the upcoming new Tau flyers, my opinion on the Nephilim and Dark Talon may be changing. The Dark Talon, of course, already had some viability thanks to the Standard of Devastation and its potentially awesome Stasis Bomb. At 160 points it clocked in at the same price as a Ravenwing Attack Squadron with 6 bikes and dealt slightly more damage while bringing some other tools and utility.

On the other hand, the Nephilim has always been disappointing. It boasts decent mid-strength firepower or a single TL lascannon for 180.  Thanks to strafing run and unrelenting hunter it's excellent at crippling light vehicles especially transports since even if it doesn't get a kill, it's never going to merely blow the storm bolter off a rhino, instead upping to immobilized. It's also excellent at shooting enemy flyers that are AV11 or less since immobilized results are crippling to most flyers. The problem is when you compare it to Vendettas and Heldrakes. Both are cheaper and bring much more to the table.

Now, the new tau flyers are rumored to be AV11/10/10 HP3. The fighter can supposedly have 6 S7 shots at 150. Dependent on the other special rules and most importantly the BS, this means it may be roughly on par with the Nephilim. They have similar firepower 7 S6 shots vs 6 S7 shots. The tau is less durable since side shots will be fairly common. If only BS3, the Tau is less accurate. Combined with the Nephilim's strafing run and unrelenting hunter, this makes the Nephilim a bit more reliable at killing light vehicles.  However, the tau flyer has two seeker missiles as well, giving it slightly more punch for 1 round.

Once the full codex is in hand, I plan to revisit this and see how they ultimately stack up. So far, though, it's looking like the Nephilim will become relatively stronger as more 6th edition books come out.

Fortress of Redemption

I have been trying to get this ready for the Contest of Champions at Great Escape Games in Sacramento. They're allowing fortifications and it was very firmly implied by the TO that I *had* to bring it. So everything else has been on hold to try and get it ready.

6th Edition looms ever closer

I am extremely excited about Warhammer 40k 6th Edition coming out next week.  I have not been able to work on my Storm Talon this week due to other commitments, but I have been following the 6th Ed rumors/news rather closely.  As a Dark Angels player, I am very excited about the new psychic lores. We probably stand to gain more from this change than any other army due to how terrible our psychic powers are.  Dark Angels currently only have 3 powers, Hellfire, a completely random template attack that can be awesome or horrible, Force Barrier, which is admittedly pretty awesome, the best invuln save in the game, but only usable once per turn, and Mind Worm which is a terrible power limited only to Ezekiel that is a Heavy 1 remove from play ranged attack. I'd gladly give up all 3 for 2 decent powers. Ideally, however, we'll be able to trade 1 for 1 and will have the option to keep our Force Barrier while trading in Hellfire and Mind Worm for powers that don't suck.

Hit a block on assembling the Storm Talon

So, I originally wanted to magnetize my weapon pods so that I could swap freely between both missile types, heavy bolter or lascannon. However, the pods have a ridiculous number of bits to make the different weapon options.  Now I have to decide between tons of magnetizing for each pod which may result in them not wanting to stay together well or going with a less than optimal look for the cannon variants.  I hate thesekinds of decisions.  Anyway, here's some pics:

Storm Talon

In light of 6th Edition coming out on June 30th, I am putting aside work on my Deathwing or really much of anything that may significantly change in a few weeks.  So, I started building my Storm Talon.  I know a lot of people hate the look of the Talon and have decided to do conversions, but I decided to embrace the stock look and just see how it turns out.  Here's my assembly pics so far:

Stuck in a holding pattern

As 6th edition is right around the corner, I am kind of on hold until I see what I need to change for my list for the upcoming Golden Throne GT in San Jose.  From a rules standpoint, I am pretty excited by some of the rumors coming through about 6th. Particularly, as a Deathwing player, I am anxious about the rumored change to power weapons in close combat.  If it's true that most power weapons will become AP3, that is a huge boost to Deathwing.  Right off the bat, we'll be getting armor saves versus most power weapons, barring fists and the like.  But even more so, unless something changes, we will be getting Feel No Pain versus most power weapons making our Deathwing Command Squad absolutely beast.

I have ordered a Storm Talon, so I'll be posting my progress on assembling and painting that. It should be exciting.  I have to wait to see the actual model, but I have a feeling I will be making some modifications to the nose turret.

Reviving my project log

I've neglected this blog for far too long, so I'm going to try and revive it now.  Here's some recent work I've been doing for my Dark Angels.