Signals from the Frontline: Warhammer 40K and General Gaming News, Rumors, Rules, Tactics and Bad Jokes!

Show Notes

7-30-13

News

• The Las Vegas Open is filling up! Both 40K and Fantasy are selling quickly, 40K is already 30% full of  the 256 slots available!

• 47 Ronin looks good, but seriously, another white guy as “the samurai?” He should team up with Tom Cruise to form the ultimate team of ridiculous and culturally biased samurai!
• Check out his blog here.Grant plays a NASTY Jetseer Deathstar list that has been kicking the crap out of everyone around here, lately. It is just brutal and he is in the process of repainting it, and planning out his trip to Las Vegas.
• Dark Heresy, the 40K RPG, announces a 2nd Edition on the way!

• A new Space Hulk video game has been announced!

• We posted a link to a very cool time lapse tournament video sent in to us by Simon from Oz, check it out on the blog.
• Games Day US pictures are floating around the net. Some very cool looking Forge World models in there including AdMech walkers, Iron Hands Contemptors, the new Space Marine Storm Raptor, and Sicarian Battle Tank to name a few.
• Mantic releases some new units for the Basliea faction of their game, Kings of War. Check them out, pretty cool looking mins.

• Ramshackle Games’ Kickstarter for the Rhebok APC blew their goal away, and the model looks really cool.

• Warmachine: Tactics Kickstarter is well over a million dollars with 11 days still to go!

Rumors: The Rumor Section is gathered from the web and is not in any way information we receive from any manufacturer. This section is intended for entertainment purposes only.

• Check out the make a Dredd sequel page and like it! We want to see a Dredd part 2!

• Warzone previews their new concept art for possible new miniatures, Captain Hiroko, Captial Heavy Infantry, the Orca, and Sea Lions.

• Rumors about upcoming supplements: not every sub-faction will be getting a book, only those that will serve to make a distinctly different take on an army. The example given was the cult Chaos legions (Khorne, Nurgle, etc.) won’t be getting a supplement since they are represented in depth in the codex. However, legions like the Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Black Legion and Word Bearers would. In fact, it was said that slightly over half of the original Astartes Legions would get a supplement. 3 of the Craft Worlds and an additional 2 more than Farsight, which is pretty wild. We don’t know what will happen, but the more the better in our opinion.
• More rumors that there WILL be cult legion books with possible cult terminators. Who knows, these are rumors, right?! Just fun to talk about.
• A Black Templars monstrous dreadnaught thing? Mace, shield and assault cannon? Cool.
• More chatter about a possible Wood Elf reboot. Rumors indicate that they will still be a guerrilla warfare style army with premiere archers and multiple new plastic kits as well as a Stag style monstrous cavalry unit, which sounds boss!
• Rumors passed to us that Mortarion is the next Primarch to be done and that Horus may be the next before the end of the year.

Rant Session

•  Feast of Blades Tournament this past weekend.

Tactics Corner

• This tactic comes to us via Mike M.

So I might have figured out a GOOD way to use banshees.  Qualified for FoB so thinking about taking this list:

HQ 2 -435 points

Eldrad- 205

Kandras – Warlord. 230

Elites 1 – 320 points

10 Banshees- exarch, executioner, fear, shield of grace – Wave serpent w/ TL SL, Holo Fields -320

Essentially Kandras, eldrad, and banshees all start as close as possible near a side edge of the board. They move serpent 6, rotate it, then disembark 6, then run d6 with fleet gets them about 16 inches up the board. If the enemy deployed poorly, you are assaulting turn 2. If they deployed very defensively then maybe you turbo boost over there, unload turn 2 then assault turn 3. Kandras always strikes first with “power fist” str 8 ap 2, since banshees give -5 initiative when assaulting. Eldrad buffs/debuffs does his thing and can use pretty much all of the Runes of fate other than the first one. (even death mission due to the fact that he’s in a CC unit if its getting beat up bad and outnumbered, he has a ap 3 force weapon, which even though base 2 attacks since he has 2 weapons, having an extra 2+d3 attacks and +5 ws/bs would make him a CC monster). Kandras just does tanky look out sir shenanigans and banshee exarch is challenge bait since in extended CChe only gets 1 attack (2 on the charge), he can use shield of grace to get his 1 attack and a 3++ save.

• We had a faux-challenge from David R. who threw the gauntlet down with his Dark Eldar against Reecius’ Footdar. The only problem is that he lives all the way up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada! Haha, so probably not going to happen anytime, soon. His list is pretty hard core though, with 9 Venoms, 3 Ravagers, Beast Packs and Min Maxed Scourges.

Rules Lawyer

• These come to us vis Raw Dogger: What counts as a Daemonic Gift for the purposes of Dark Excommunication?
  • Pg.25 of the GK Codex states that all Gifts cease to work, Pg.61 of the Daemon book lists everything that is a gift. The only confusion is if Hell Forged Artifacts are considered gifts or not. The FAQ only specifically excludes steeds.
  • Can Fateweaver reroll the end of game dice? The wording for the rule is exceedingly poor. The Codex says ANY die per turn which implies both players. However, every tournament that we know of rules it as only dice that were originally rolled by the Daemon player. The real question is the end of turn, seize the imitative rolls. The rule is written so poorly that it is unclear. It comes down to whether you interpret the Seize or End of Game dice rolls as being in the phase or not. BRB Pg. 122 implies that the end of game roll does occur during the turn. Pg.122 also indicates that the roll to seize begins before the turn and as such. A strict RAW reading would be that Fateweaver can reroll any die, his or the other players including the end of game roll (assuming he has not used his reroll earlier in the turn), which is heinously OP, IMO. We would rule that he can only reroll a die per player turn that the Daemon player originally rolled, excluding the end of game roll. Definitely a biased opinion, but in the interest of fairness.
• This is one we see people playing wrong all the time. Psychic Shriek is a witchfire. Pg.69 BRB says all Withfires must roll to his, counting as shooting an assault weapon. I never see anyon roll to hit with Psychic Shriek.

List Review

• Here is the list 1750 tau:

  HQ

  Farsight 165The bomb- 7 suites

  1-iridium armour, command control node, msss, drone controller, nuero web jammer

  1- 2x fusion target lock

  1- 2x fusion target lock

  1- 2x fusion target lock

  1- 2x plasma vector thruster

  1- 2x plasma

  1- 2x plasma

  14 gundronesEthereal 50Troops

  Fire warriors x10

  Fire warriors x10

  Kroot x12 kroot hound sniper rounds

  Kroot x12 kroot hound sniper roundsElites

  Riptide early warning overdrive velocity tracker 205

  Riptide early warning overdrive velocity tracker ion cannon 210

  Ageis defense line quad gun.

  So this is my try at the farsight bomb.  My bomb has 28 s5 bs3 18″ shots, 7 s6 ap2 at 24″, 6 s8 ap1 melta shots at 18″, Hit and run, an ability to make opponents weapons get hot, all twin linked ignore cover.  I didnt include shadow sun because my local meta doesn’t allow a hq to join a unit and allow it to infiltrate and I think she is not worth it for what she gives you otherwise, do you think she should be included any way?

  Firewarriors and riptides hang back behind the line and shoot fliers and anything else while the ethereal keeps them on the board, kroot outflank to threaten my opponents backfield objectives.

  So my questions are, 1) how competitive do you think the farsight bomb actually is? It’s a much discussed Internet list but a rarely encountered list from my experience and 2) the weakness I see is a lack of markerlights.  I was thinking some pathfinders cold solve this But I’m not sure where to get the points.

  Hope you guys decide to review it on the show.

  Best,

  Ben R.