The Abstraction Distraction

Wow, first post of 2020! It's not so much that there's been nothing to talk about, more that I've felt others were more qualified to do so. Today, though, I thought I'd ramble a bit about the concept of Abstraction, and how I feel it's being applied in 40k at the moment.

Firstly, let's define what we mean by 'Abstraction'. Put simply, this is the fact that what we see going on on the gaming table is at best a very rough approximation of what would actually be happening. For example, the Flyer rules rely very heavily on abstracts- the Flyer isn't really staying still in the spot where the model is, it's actually flying rather higher than the flying base suggests (except when it isn't, for LOS purposes..) and it's apparently manoeuvring more than it seems to be given that it ignores any concerns of arc of fire, so a Dakkajet can shoot something behind it with its wing-mounted guns, for example.

In more general terms, we're also using a turn-based system to reflect something that certainly isn't turn-based in real-time, which is another layer of abstraction. Now obviously, this leads to a lot of odd situations, like the fact that two opposing models separated by a piece of LOS-blocking terrain who want to move to shoot each other will have who shoots first determined by who's turn it is, so your hyper-swift Eversor Assassin will still stand there slack-jawed whilst a platoon of Guardsmen amble around a corner, form a firing line.. wait for it, second section.. and First Rank Fire him back to Pluto.* Here, the designer is banking on that abstraction evening out over the course of a game. Even the alternating-activations system many people would dearly love 40k to adopt still falls prey to this problem, though the alternation tries to compensate for it faster.

What this boils down to, though, is another reason why the current Character rules don't make a lot of sense.** The reasoning behind the Character rules comes in two parts- the actual reason for them, and the in-universe explanation for them. The actual reason for the Character rules is so that we can use our Warboss/ Captain/ Daemon Prince in a game of 40k without the enemy army taking the sensible measure of levelling four Lascannons at the big angry guy from the other side of the table and blowing him all the way back to.. Pluto.*** To achieve this, we have the rule that Characters must be the closest target to the shooting model, which is explained as the fog-of-war preventing them from picking out the enemy commander specifically. The issue, however, is that this abstraction breaks down completely as soon as you play the game.

We'll leave aside for the moment the fact that it seems very odd that only the most dedicated Sniper models can tell the difference between a Chaos Cultist and a Daemon Prince of Khorne at a distance of ten meters, and instead look at what players do about the Character rule. Of course the simplest approach is simply to shoot the beejeezus out of anything closer to you than the Character you want to get rid of, and in this case the rules work fairly well, with the notable exception of enemy units out of LOS or locked in melee who are closer than the Character. But there's another option, especially in more competitive games, which is to use movement tricks to get the would-be assassin**** into a position where the Character they wish to kill is the closest target. A classic example is to use a Flyer to buzz the Character and 'stop' right next to them before unloading into them. Advanced players will of course try to counter this by 'bubble-wrapping' the Character, either making it so they're surrounded by friendly models or preventing the Flyer from fitting its base in a suitable position. (Of course, the latter measure is once again relying on an abstract rule- you can't place your Flyer on the table in a given position so it can't 'fly' there, even though that makes no sense in 'reality'.)

Here's the problem, or at least one of the problems, with that scenario. We've established that the Flyboy in my Dakkajet can't tell Roboute Guilliman from a Tactical Marine at anything beyond point-blank range, which is why I, as Supreme Warlord, can't tell him to shoot the Blue Meanie. And yet I can order him to fly on a precise course straight up to the Pimp-Handed Primarch and then give him the benefit of Maximum Dakka.***** How? What's the explanation for my units knowing exactly where to stand, sometimes to an accuracy of a fraction of an inch, in order to shoot a target which the rules preventing me shooting said target assume they don't know is important? (I re-read that about four times and I think it makes.. about as much sense as any of this does.)

I mean to be fair, they're both blue.

Once you step back from thinking of the game as simply an interaction of rules, and start thinking about it as an attempt to depict something happening, more of this sort of thing rapidly piles up. Artillery currently doesn't need spotters, so we can fire indirectly at units out of LOS with it without penalty, but we can't fire Overwatch at a unit that starts its Charge move out of LOS. But the unit being charged clearly knows the enemy is there, so why can't it wait until they show themselves? For that matter, how is it possible to Charge a unit armed with Flamers from outside the range of the Flamers to avoid their Overwatch fire, when the charging unit is clearly going to have to get closer to them? Does the charging unit teleport? On the flip-side, how does one unit manage to fire Overwatch multiple times in one turn? (Due to failed charges or the Overwatch wiping a charging unit out) Does the rate of fire of their weapons suddenly increase, or do we assume they usually spend the enemy Assault phase firing at nothing?******

Now you could say, with a certain level of justification, that since we're playing a game rather than attempting to accurately simulate the Battle of Waterloo none of this stuff matters very much. After all, I'm pretty sure that medieval queens weren't known for rampaging around killing the subjects of rival kings before finally pinning them in a corner and shouting 'Checkmate' at them*******, and yet Chess is a game still played and enjoyed by millions. The difference, though, is that most games aren't tied so closely to a narrative. After all, one of the types of 40k is literally called 'Narrative Play' and we have a wealth of fiction that tries, with varying degrees of success, to reflect what happens on the tabletop. For me, at least, the fact that we can control our troops' actions so precisely, right down to deciding exactly how many swings of Gorechild Kharn is going to favour each of the three separate squads he's enthusiastically butchering with, and yet are prevented from doing other things because of the 'fog-of-war', is bizarre.********

What I find particularly strange is that many of the odder abstractions have been added to the game comparatively recently. I still consider the older Character rules, where Characters were attached to squads and could also benefit from Look Out Sir rolls, to work a lot better than the current mess. We used to have arcs of fire on vehicle weapons and Flyers that didn't somehow cease to exist if they flew off the board and I find it hard to believe that either rule was that hard to fathom. For that matter, Overwatch was once per turn, originally. It seems the rationale for a lot of these changes is 'simplicity', and indeed attached Characters with different profiles to their unit threw up more than a few issues, but I think the repeated tweaks and tinkerings with the 8th Edition version illustrate that the newer version is no better, and makes less sense.

What? No, this time you can't shoot me because the tactical guy is standing behind you. Honest!

Inevitably at this point the question arises as to what I would do to 'fix' things, assuming it's agreed that fixes even need to be made. It's a non-trivial question, certainly. For Characters, I'd allow them to be attached to squads, with shooting wounds never allocated to them until all the models in the unit other than the Character were slain, until the squad was destroyed at which point the wound pool empties and the Character becomes a valid target. (This method avoids worries about mixed Toughness values which used to plague prior editions.) I'd also allow Characters to palm off shooting hits onto squads within 6" on a 2+, making them hard to take out but always in at least some danger. In melee, I'd just make them fair game as they are now. Whilst I'm at it I'd limit Overwatch to once per turn, per unit, and have a unit that Overwatched miss its following Shooting phase, but remove the LOS and range restrictions because the enemy is running towards you, duh. (And into that bargain I'd have units that failed a charge still move the rolled distance towards the enemy, rather than the odd situation now where they.... I can't even explain exactly what a unit that fails a charge is supposed to be doing.)

Then again, if I had my way I'd bring back armour facings, weapon arcs, and templates, and I can hear the tournament players throwing tape measures at me from here.

So there we are- not that I expect a mass of comments but I'll ask the question- do these abstractions bother you, or do you not care? Would you tweak the Character rule still further, and if so, how?




*Or wherever they're based. Pluto sounds about right.

**Yes, this again.

***Apparently Pluto is popular this time of year.

****Not an actual Assassin, since most of those don't care about the Character rule for one reason or another

*****Which will probably do him about two wounds, but it's the principle of the thing.

******If they're Orks, this is entirely feasible.

*******This would make history lessons far more interesting, though.

********I don't use Grammarly, but I think the installation of it that I don't use on a server somewhere in the far corners of the internet just had a seizure and died anyway.

Xmas 2019, the revenge

So another year draws to a close, its end hurtling towards us with the inevitability of Tactical Marines going mail-order only. It's certainly been an.. interesting one, with 40k flip-flopping around from being at times quite awesome (such as the long-awaited and mostly excellent Sisters of Battle release) and at others being thunderously wrong headed. (Certain supplements. You know which.)

For me personally it's been a year of slowly grinding forwards, with my writing career still not so much sitting on the tarmac as being carefully reassembled from bits somewhere near Kitty Hawk. On the gaming side I've been gradually learning how to play Age of Sigmar, mostly due to having a lot of Daemons lying around, though the resurrection of my ancient WFB Chaos army as Slaves To Darkness might just happen at some point. Frankly I still find the game a bit weird and seem to keep winning as Hedonites mostly by just shoving pink things in people's faces until they don't like it.*

Ain't no party like a WFB Slaanesh party..

Anyway, I've written a new short story to celebrate the festive season. It's called Foundation Day, and ties into the overall story of the Thelenic Curriculum without providing any spoilers for the books, mostly because it's set some twenty years before them. If you read it and like it, please consider checking out the other shorts either on this page or on the new site at thetcbooks.co.uk, or even buying the books on Kindle. We're talking a 400+ page novel for less than the price of a Starbucks latte here, people!

If that's not for you and you'd rather stay within the comfortable realm of 40k** then may I direct you to my 40k short, The Ork-Mass Miracle. It's a cheerful tale of Orks trying to find their way through a foggy warzone and one plucky Grot who... well, you'll see. This one was written for last Christmas but if you've not read it and find yourself with a spare half hour over the festive period, in my humble opinion you could do worse.***

Anyway, shameless self-promotion aside it just remains to wish all my readers and anyone else who's blundered in here a very Merry Christmas! See you on the other side....



*And then doing it even more, of course.

**I'd suggest that's an.. innovative use of the word 'comfortable' but hey, you do you.

***After all, some channel's going to be showing The Sound of Music again.

Sisters of Battle- the Canoness Cock-up

I've had a chance to try out the new Sisters of Battle rules now (the new models are still on my painting table) and for the most part I love them. However, there's a glaring issue in the army set that really needs to be talked about a bit more because I think it shines a light on one of the recent GW trends that is distinctly negative.

The picture above is the mono-build Canoness model included in the army box.  Now the first, and relatively minor, issue here is that she's not the Canoness shown on the back of the box- that model has an icon of the Ecclesiarchy and a Condemnor Boltgun and is, as I understand it, the as yet unreleased multi-option kit. The good old 'box contents may vary from those shown' disclaimer is doing some heavy lifting here, but that's about it. As an aside, I'd be interested to hear in the comments if anyone actually got the other Canoness. Given that the instructions in the box specifically refer to the model pictured above, I think that's a little unlikely.

However, that's only a side-show to the real, and more serious, issue with the model. You see, gentle reader, that Canoness is illegally equipped. She has a Power Sword (or possibly a Blessed Blade), a Rod of Office, and a Plasma Pistol which you could be forgiven for not seeing because it's tucked in behind her right leg (on the left as we look at the picture). All of those weapons are valid options for the model- but not in that combination. I couldn't find a picture of the Canoness' rules and I'd rather not risk the wrath of GW's lawyers by taking one myself, but the default equipment for the Canoness is a bolt pistol and chainsword as well as the inevitable frag and krak grenades. Her options, which I'll reproduce verbatim here, are as follows:

• This model can be equipped with 1 boltgun and 1 power sword instead of 1 bolt pistol and 1 chainsword. If this model is equipped with 1 boltgun and 1 power sword it additionally has a rod of office.
• This model can be equipped with one of the following instead of 1 bolt pistol: 1 condemnor boltgun; 1 weapon from the Pistols list.
• This model can be equipped with one of the following instead of 1 chainsword: 1 power sword, 1 blessed blade.
• If this model is equipped with 1 chainsword, it can have a brazier of holy fire or a null rod.

The Plasma Pistol is available from the Pistols list along with the Inferno Pistol and Hand Flamer.

So as we can see, in order to get the Rod of Office (a very useful little item that boosts the Canoness' re-roll to a 9" radius) we need to take the first option of a boltgun and power sword. Unfortunately, so doing locks us out of any of the other options and there's absolutely no wriggle room. Therefore, although we can easily work out the points value of the Canoness as equipped in the box, there is no currently legal way to field her. It's doubly baffling given that it seems it would have been much simpler and more flexible to just allow the bolt pistol and chainsword to be replaced with one weapon option each, then add the choice of the null rod, rod of office, or brazier as the 'special' option.

Firstly, this lead in to an odd issue in the new Sororitas Codex in general, which is a lack of previously available options for no discernible reason. The Eviscerator, for example, is completely gone outside of the Repentia version. Missionaries have barely any options at all outside of replacing their autogun and laspistol with a shotgun and bolt pistol. Sisters Superior can no longer get Storm Bolters and the Canoness, as we've seen, loses access to any sort of longarm other than a bolter or Condemnor Bolter. Several of these changes actively invalidate existing models, including the legendary Plasma Preacher and Redemptor Kyrinov who was re-released as Made To Order to coincide with the set coming out!

Now I get that the idea here is to sell the wonderful new Sororitas models, but here's the thing- it's entirely unnecessary. Existing Sisters of Battle players have been clamouring for plastic models for years, not because they needed loads of new options but because the old solid metal models were heavy, chipped all over the place as soon as you touched them, and were extremely expensive. We were already going to buy the new stuff like it was limited-edition oxygen, we didn't need our existing models made unplayable.

Unfortunately this seems to be part of a wider trend at GW of limiting and reducing the options for character models and squad Champions, from stripping Marine (and particularly Chaos Marine) characters of mobility options like bikes and Jump Packs to restricting almost all newly-released characters to a very limited suite of equipment indeed. I consider this to be an extremely retrograde step for GW to take- ask almost any veteran 40k modeller what their first conversion or kitbash was and it's very likely that it was to add a desired weapon option to a model for which an official kit wasn't available. Removing the incentive for such simple, entry-level conversions weakens the hobby as a whole.

Still, the worst thing about all this from my point of view is that once again, it shows that GW have released a high-profile product that contradicts itself within its own contents- and in this case, in a particularly obvious and egregious way. Given the great strides they've made in recent years, it's unfortunate to see.

New Sisters- the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (initial thoughts)

As I write this it's a little under a week before The Great Unwashed (that's me, and probably the majority of you lot) get their grubby little mitts on the new Sisters of Battle set- and more importantly for the purposes of this piece, the Codex that comes with it. I'm not going to go into detail about all the various cool stuff in there since I don't have the book yet and will almost certainly get things wrong. If you really want to know all there is to know right now, or more accurately in about an hour's time, Guerrilla Miniature Games did a very detailed breakdown video that I'll link here:

...and welcome back. With all that out of the way, I'd like to talk about the good stuff, the bad stuff and the plain ugly stuff that's in the new book as I see it so far. Fortunately, I think the first bit will be the biggest.

The Good (now with extra mild rules-lawyering in italics)
Firstly, I think the way that GW have changed the core mechanics of the book is absolutely great. I mean really, really great. To paraphrase if you've not learned how the new Sisters work yet and didn't make it through that GMG video, which I appreciate is long, the new Act of Faith system revolves around Miracle Dice. You gain at least one per Battle Round (and usually more than one), roll it when you get it, and then keep it. The dice can then be used for most of the more common rolls in the game instead of (and, importantly, before) rolling the dice for it. So for example, to take one of my favourites right now, say a Knight Valiant takes violent offence at your Exorcist (as well it should, and we'll get to that) and blats it with its 10+d3 damage kebab-skewer of doom. All that stands between your organ (stop that sniggering at the back, Wilson) and annihilation is its 6++ save. However, if you have a 6 in your Miracle dice pool, you can spend it on the save to survive.

There are multiple reasons why this mechanic is really cool. It allows Sisters to do things that should be staggeringly unlikely with complete confidence- exactly what warriors motivated by absolute faith should be doing. Other examples might include landing a hit with a vehicle that is so damaged or affected by other modifiers that it needs a 6, auto-passing a critical Morale check with a 1, nailing a critical Advance to grab an objective, and more besides. What's possibly even more interesting, though, is the threat of a Miracle. For example, players will often throw lone Characters or transports into combat with a shooting unit to stop it firing next turn and/or murder it utterly. However, if that unit is packing a meltagun or multi-melta and there's a 6 sitting in the Sisters' Miracle pool, such an assault suddenly looks a hell of a lot more dangerous to attempt. I'd expect Sisters players to comment at appropriate times about all the things they could possibly do with an Act of Faith for the sheer deterrent value of it. Knowing that a D6 damage roll might get spiked to a 6 is very intimidating.

Things get even meaner when we look at the new, improved Exorcist, which is one of the most improved units in the book and a great showcase for advanced Miracle Dice use. The main change for the Exorcist is that its missiles are now Heavy 3d3 rather than Heavy D6, so the old average of 3 is now the minimum, the old maximum is the new average, and the new maximum is a terrifying 9. Each of these S8, Ap-3 missiles does D6 damage into the bargain. Now, as well as being very scary, this throws up an interesting situation and a possible head-scratcher of a rules question. Let's say I have several Miracle dice in my pool, and for the sake of argument that I have all the numbers 1-6 available. I get several wounding hits on a multi-wound model and it fails some saves- for the sake of this illustration lets say I get three wounding hits through and the target model has 8 wounds left.

Here's the interesting bit- the Damage rolls, which most players would usually roll together, actually take place one at a time. So I can roll the first 2D6 and see how much damage I inflict, then use whatever value is necessary from my Miracle dice pool on the last D6 roll to ensure that the target dies. In our example, if I utterly flub my first two rolls and score 2 damage, I can still get the kill by making the last roll a 6, whereas if I roll an average 7 I get to keep my dice since even a 1 on the last roll will secure the kill.

Now, the reason why I say there's a potential rules issue here is that strictly speaking, each attack should be resolved separately from start to finish, so each should roll to hit, then to wound, then to save, and then for damage before the next is resolved. If we're doing things this way, then I can't be sure which hit is the last one to score damage so I'm more likely to 'waste' a high number by using it as soon as it'll secure the kill. This is a very fringe rules question but I fully expect it to come up in the tournament scene. 

There's still a lot more good stuff in the book even after Acts of Faith. The Sacred Rites, of which you can pick one or roll two (unless you roll a double) are very versatile, and of particular note is the one that adds 3 to the Sister's 1d6 Deny The Witch roll, making it suddenly far more capable of defending them. Whatever your army is trying to do, there's a Rite that will help at least a bit. There are also a ton of very useful and versatile Stratagems in there, including several that work with Miracle dice- a couple of standouts being Moment of Grace, which lets you burn Miracle dice to gain +1 per dice to a roll you've failed, and Miraculous Intervention which resurrects a Character at the end of the phase with wounds equal to the number of Miracle dice burned. These both build into the feel of the book, which is that an opponent can never be truly certain what's going to happen- even the most heavily outmatched Character might survive, the most incredibly improbable charge ever might be made, etc etc- and whether or not these things happen is under the control of the Sisters player.

Flags of our Sisters

Finally, for reasons of brevity rather than because I've run out of stuff to talk about, there are the Order Traits. All of them are useful to varying degrees, but I'm personally particularly pleased that the Order of the Valorous Heart, who previously got merely a miserly 6+ wound-ignore save, now ignore AP -1 on shooting attacks, or AP -2 when under the effects of an Imagifier's 6" bubble. Anyone who's recently put infantry on a table against Marines knows why this is extremely welcome!

The Bad
So of course it's not all good news. The most glaring issue I have with the book is the fact that Dominions no longer confer their Vanguard pre-battle move to a transport they're embarked in. One one level this is understandable since it could be abused (eg by loading a Rhino with five Dominions and five Retributors with Heavy Flamers) but on the other it makes the ability far less likely to get used. There's also a very significant nerf to Shield of Faith in that the various auras that boost it now cannot affect vehicles, meaning the days of the  4++ Exorcist are over. Being able to do this was very, very powerful so whilst the loss is saddening, I think its understandable- and there are still ways to use Acts of Faith to mitigate at least some of the incoming damage.

There's also the fact that the <ORDER> keyword, which is neeeded to make a lot of abilities work, isn't universal through the Codex. Most importantly, the Hospitalier and Dialogus don't get it, meaning that Celestians (who need the <ORDER> keyword for their Bodyguard ability) can't protect them effectively from snipers. Given that both models are quite squishy and have some really useful abilities, they're going to spend a lot of time trying to hide behind things to at least force Eliminators to fire the less powerful version of their murder-bullets.

Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

The Ugly
Ok, tin hats on, because here comes the proper grousing. The most notable and infuriating omission from the new book is once again the bloody Repressor. With its extra durability and ability to have passengers fire out of it*, the Repressor is/was a really useful tool in the Sisters armoury but has only ever been a Forge World model. The Exorcist started out the same way (though with a tube-shaped twin launcher rather than a massive organ**) but eventually made it to the mainstream, but the Repressor seems to have failed to do the same. It's always possible Forge World will update its rules- and as it stands, I think the model is still playable- but with Legends on the horizon its days seem distinctly numbered.

But that's not the most gear-grinding thing about the new Sisters range for me. Oh, not at all. No, that's reserved for this damn thing:

That, kids, is a Heavy Bolter. It's stuck to the hull of the new Immolator model (and the new Exorcist) like some sort of nasty little pimple. Let's not beat about the bush here***- this gun is on the model for the express and sole reason of making people's existing models obsolete. No, GW apologist at the back, it's not a massive buff to the tank to add a mediocre compulsory gun to it. I hate that this thing is there, and I hate that my much-loved older models are now going to have to have janky pintle-mounts or sponsons added to them to make them Codex-compliant.

There are a couple of other annoyances in this category, like the fact that any HQ sister other than a Canoness is still MIA (they're called Palatines, GW, they used to be in there!) and that the Canoness herself has lost a lot of options and still can't take a damn jump pack- I guess the Geminae were the only two Canonesses in the galaxy to have one****

Damn you, Cruddace!

The Other Bit
Yeah, so sorry for the minor bout of Nerd Rage there. I'd just like to end on a positive note, because believe me I am incredibly excited to try out the new Codex. I'd also like to extend my thanks to the good folks at Wyldstorm Games for securing me my copy of the new set. Hopefully my poor ravaged body will survive carrying all those old metal Sisters around until the rest of the new plastics hit..



*not to mention hilarious and occasionally-effective dozer-blade assaults.

**I warned you once, Wilson.

***Though said bush is almost certainly on fire, so maybe we should.

****Saying that, given their profiles maybe having one also makes you incompetent. That, or being repeatedly resurrected.

The White Queen Walks!

I've finally finished my Knight Tyrant, the White Queen! In this post I'll show off a few pictures and talk about some of the conversion and painting ideas I used. Alternatively (or additionally, if you so desire) I have a background piece which can be found either in the side bar or right here. It's a bit horror-tinged, appropriately for the season.

In short though, if you're too busy (or jaded, you sour old veteran you) to read that, the idea is that the White Queen is an initially noble Knight which has fallen to the sin of Pride*. Accordingly, it looks beautiful and pure with only a few subtle hints that All Is Not Well**.

Since the White Queen has no House, its chest-scroll proclaims 'Salvation'

So, on to the modelling stuff. Having decided that I was going for 'pretty' as opposed to 'soul-shreddingly horrifying' for the Tyrant, I hit upon the idea of making it look almost like a fairy-tale castle, with lots of flags, bunting and pennants. To this end, I first drilled holes in the tops of the turrets for the Siegebreaker cannons and inserted a couple of flags from the Drukhari Raider kit. Initially I was going to use the robe parts from Shalaxi Helbane as weapon banners, but it became apparent that they were so long that they'd make transporting the Knight extremely hard and would also fall in an odd way. Instead, I used a couple of pennants from the Witch Elf kit on the arms and attached the Helbane robes to the legs of the Knight at the hips.

This side's banners read 'Honour' and 'Defender of the Weak'

I also added some of Helbane's jewellery on the carapace, the chest-plate and the loincloth, using Green Stuff here and there to add extra little balls to the beaded ropes where they didn't quite fit. In addition to these details, I also decided to add lots of sculpted armour plates to make the hull of the Knight prettier.*** In order to do this, I used some moulding material and took casts of the back of the mirror from a Cauldron of Blood and the floor of a Seeker Chariot, which I then pressed into wet Green Stuff on the pauldrons, carapace front, and armoured hood. To these I added a couple of Doom Sirens I'd taken a cast of some time ago, and a cast of the Slaanesh Icon from the legacy CSM command sprue, which was added to the right leg and left shoulder. 

On this side, the banners read 'Virtue' and 'Praise and Worship'

To cap things off, and make the thing look just that little bit weirder, I took a cast of Helbane's face and pressed it onto the Knight's head without the mask on it. After a couple of tries, this came out cleanly enough that I was able to fit the head jewellery from the kit into the slot in the face before gluing the beaded ropes from it to the inside of the hood. I also took a cast of a Daemonette's face and pressed it into the Mechanicus symbols on the twin reactors and the back ends of the weapons. The hull was further accessorised by replacing the railing with spikes and trophies from a Raider.

The Daemonette faces are a bit twisted and distorted, but this seems completely appropriate.

To paint the thing, I left the fully-assembled carapace off, allowing me to remove the arms and work on them separately. I also put a couple of magnets inside the dome of the leg fitting, and two more inside the body so that the Knight could break into two at the waist for transport. A small Green Stuff socket prevents the model from sagging forwards at the waist, which it otherwise liked to do. I sprayed everything apart from the top of the carapace with good old Chaos Black, doing the carapace itself in Wraithbone, before painting the armour panels and banners with more Wraithbone. From there it was a case of laying in the metalwork, using drybrushing on the gold to bring out as much of the moulded detail as possible. The white was based with Apothecary White Contrast paint and the pink with Volupus Pink before conventional paints were used to highlight the pink and smooth out the white. As always the white could be smoother, but that sort of thing is why you're reading this here and not in White Dwarf.

I'm well aware that the pink-tipped Shieldbreaker missiles look like lipstick, but that amuses me so I'm keeping them that way.

For a few special effects, I painted the inside of the sculpted Slaanesh runes pink, then filled the hollow with water-effect gel. Though it's very hard to see in the pictures, I painted a bloody hand-print on the cockpit glass and covered it with a couple of thin layers of Water Effect before adding a final highlight and lowlight to the glass, which was then varnished with 'Ardcoat to give the impression that the print is on the inside. It sort-of-works when you can see it past the shine. 'Ardcoat was also used on the various lights and gems, as well as on the eyes and lips to add some life to them.

I added a couple of small transfers to the banners, but other than a few slogans I didn't add any extra details to the armour panels. I prefer the pure, clean look and my freehand skills largely suck.**** The metal was finished with Grey Knight Steel, both because the blueish metal fits in well and because it probably annoys them a bit.

Overall I'm very happy with how she came out. Stay tuned for some War Dogs some time this week, and don't forget the background piece if you're thirsty for more right now...





*Yes, Pride. You thought all my Slaanesh stuff was only about the Lust, didn't you? Admit it!

**Or less subtle, if you're not an innocent Imperial citizen who doesn't know what the Rune of Slaanesh looks like.

***And also to avoid having to paint too much insignia. Yes, we've got some Sloth going on here too.

****Also, Sloth again.

Phoenix Rising- Interesting bits and drunk GW..

With the release of the new Phoenix Rising book I spotted a couple of things that don't seem to be getting a lot of discussion. One is an intriguing bit of lore, one is a classic 'drunk GW' moment, and one is either a screw-up or a hint of things to come. Oh, and there's another probable Fulgrim sighting but of course there is. (We'll say no more of him other than to mention that it's in the sidebar of page 14.)

I'll do my best to avoid spoilers but the first one is a bit tricky, so skip the next bit if you've not read the book yet and want to go in clean.

SPOILER: Yvraine's Guests
At one point near the end of the story, Yvraine receives a visit from two people, one an Aeldari carrying two slim swords and the other a human woman described as wearing black power armour and having white hair. Obviously this sounds like a Sister of Battle, but the woman is also described as having a powerful psychic presence. Given that Yvraine has already met Inquisitor Greyfax, who could just about fit that description otherwise, it seems to me that there's only one person this character could be (assuming they aren't new.)

Ephrael Stern. She was last seen, at the climax of the Daemonifuge strip, opening her own personal webway portal in the company of an Eldar (as they were then) called the Pariah, on her way to the Black Library. This is technically unconfirmed but if it's anyone else I'll eat my socks. This would be a pretty big development given how long ago Daemonifuge was, and points to interesting times to come if it's not a one-and-done- and of course, the Sisters of Battle are coming soon and are involved in Psychic Awakening.
END SPOILER.

Drunk GW #1: Ynnari characters
This one is a pretty classic example of one hand not seeming to know what the other is doing. In the interests of spoiler avoidance I'll keep my terms of reference vague, but during the Phoenix Rising story Yvraine is joined by several other named 40k Aeldari heroes who fight alongside her against a powerful enemy. At least one of those is portrayed as drawing Strength From Death in the way Yvraine has taught them (in fact, they do it during an earlier incident in the book too.)

Then we come to the Ynnari rules, which once more require a Ynnari detachment to have one of the three Ynnari special characters in it in order to gain the YNNARI keyword. They also specifically prohibit any other named character being in the detachment. And yes, the character in question has rules in the book and no, they don't have an exception in there.

This seems to me like an obvious screw-up, though I have no idea if they'll bother to fix it. Personally, I also think it's a bit sad that we still have to use the Triumvirate members to field Ynnari detachments, since it limits options in a way that I don't think is needed and makes the faction feel very small.

Drunk GW #2.. or is it? Focus Will
This last one seemed at first to be an obvious mistake, an example of sloppy rule-writing and poor proof-reading at its most egregious, and put your hand up if that would surprise you. No? Well, there may be another explanation.

We're looking here at the Focus Will power from the new Runes of Fortune, which are 'minor' powers that a Craftworlds PSYKER can use to replace Smite. Focus Will is worded as follows:

"If manifested, select one friendly <CRAFTWORLD> PSYKER within 6" of this psyker. Until the end of this phase, when a Deny The Witch test is taken for that model add 2 to the total."

The emphasis here is mine. Obviously, as written here the power does nothing- you  don't Deny The Witch in your own Psychic Phase, and the effect ends as soon as the phase does. I thought initially that the power was meant to last until the start of your next Psychic Phase (making it a handy boost for a Farseer) or, more tenuously, was meant to raise the difficulty of Deny The Witch against a power cast by the target Psyker by 2 (in which case it's terribly written.)

However, Age of Sigmar players and other smart people will probably have already spotted one other possible explanation- Endless Spells. Now of course, these don't yet exist in 40k, but if they're going to put in an appearance an event called the Psychic Awakening would seem to be the time to do it. So here we may have the first evidence that Psychic Manifestations or whatever they end up calling them are coming to a 40k table near you soon.

Either that, or GW messed up again. It could be either, if we're honest.

Supplemental

The nights are drawing in and I find myself with hobby time again! One of the more recent things I did with it was play some 40k, most recently against the new Iron Hands.

Yeah.

Now, I'm sure that those who think of themselves as wise old heads will be telling anyone who'll listen that it's too soon to declare the Iron Hands as the new top of the pile, but one can only truly judge these things by personal experience. The guy I played was a friend of mine whose Iron Hands I've played against several times before- to be clear, we're not talking about some kind of scene-kid or bandwagon-jumper here. He was also running models he'd had for some time and had used before, with the notable exception of the new Iron Father.* Unfortunately (for me) that includes two Stormtalons and a Stormhawk, as well as three Castellax Battle-Automata who were being Venerable Dreadnoughts because there's not much of a Heresy scene around these parts and he wanted to use his nice models.

For my part, I brought an Emperor's Children army with a small smattering of Daemons, deliberately taking some Noise Marines because hey, you're playing against Iron Hands so it's rude not to. You might now expect me to describe how the game went, and I would if we'd actually had one. But after a first turn in which any foot infantry model in my force that could shoot got deleted by the Stormtalons (whilst in cover) before my winged Daemon Prince got killed on Overwatch by a Stormhawk having previously lost only a single wound, it was pretty much over.** (Not only do Iron Hands Overwatch on 5+, they can improve this to 4+ with a Stratagem)

I also picked a bad day to try out my new Mutilators

To bring up the first point I'd like to address today, the Iron Hands supplement is utterly bonkers. Even ignoring the new stuff (like Repulsor Executioners) older models like the Stormtalons are amped up to extreme levels without the controlling player needing to do anything more than put them in the list and stay in Devastator Doctrine. (If you're not aware of why this is, in Devastator Iron Hands reroll 1s to hit with Heavy Weapons, ignore the penalty for moving and firing them, and still gain the additional -1 AP, so ignoring outside factors the Stormtalons hit on 2+, re-rolling 1s, with all their weapons at all times.) I've seen it said that the Iron Father doesn't do a great deal besides his 5++ save aura and repair ability, but he also packs a Heavy Bolter with an additional point of Damage, allowing him to sit there giving out his buff whilst still killing enemy infantry- and a 3-shot, S5 gun with -2 AP, hitting on 2s and re-rolling 1s and inflicting 2 damage per hit would be a useful model if that was all it did.

I've also seen the oft-repeated mantra used that one should 'play the mission' and avoid LOS to counter the Iron Hands. Unfortunately avoiding the fire of Flyers is extremely difficult even if the table is terrain rich, (not to mention Whirlwinds and Eliminators, who don't care about LOS anyway) I think, though, that this ignores the most important point- we don't play 40k to put our models on the table and then do nothing but hide from the enemy for five turns. Sure, if an army has a nigh-on unkillable castle blob that destroys anything it lays its gunsights on with contemptuous ease you might be able to outmanoeuvre it and 'win' that way, but outside of a heavily prize-supported tournament who really wants to waste two hours on that game?***

I've seen quite a few video BatReps featuring the Iron Hands already, and what strikes me isn't just that the poor sod playing against them is having to work extremely hard to put a brave face on the game (even often whilst technically ahead on VP). No, what strikes me is that the guy playing them is often either not enjoying himself, or is actually embarrassed by how little he's having to think.****

In this batrep, we see an Iron Hands player gradually realise what he has become.

Now, some people will tell you that this isn't a problem outside of tournaments, but I'm inclined to disagree. The problem is, as has been said by many other commentators, that in order to even begin to get a game out of facing the Iron Hands opponents have to bring nothing but the very strongest lists their Codex is capable of, even if their opponent is playing fairly casually. That has a toxic effect on a local scene, because players turning up at their FLGS in search of a casual game end up facing nothing but WAAC lists that were built on the off-chance that the local Iron Hands player might be looking for a game. That even sucks for the Iron Hands players themselves, who find themselves inadvertently transformed into That Guy even if they've been playing the army for a decade and spent most of that time putting up with a limited 6+ FNP and nothing else.

To come to the meat of the problem though, I fear GW have backed themselves into an extremely dangerous corner here. We're approaching Chapter Approved time, and traditionally the response to an army being obviously overpowered is to increase their points values. Unfortunately, however, since the Iron Hands rules were added in a Supplement, there's no simple way to do this without punishing people playing other Chapters.***** Should they go the other way, making everything else cheaper (I'd like my 12 point CSM and 180 point Chaos Land Raiders, Chapter Approved Santa), the effect is still the same. On the other hand, simply removing some of the extra rules the Chapter gets is going to greatly annoy people who bought the book. One possible solution might be to add, say, a 10% point 'tax' on Iron Hands, but this sets another dangerous precedent- that of actively saying than one Chapter is 'better' than another.******

Of course, it looks like the 40k rules and background are heading for another big shake-up with Psychic Awakening and this is a game constantly in a state of flux, so it may be that all these concerns will look quaint in the space of a few months. But I can't help thinking that the new Supplements are going to prove hard to swallow for those who aren't lucky enough to get a good one.






*I've nicknamed him Ferrero Rocher, and I'm determined it's going to stick.
**There was more to the game than that- I killed a squad of Tacticals with Possessed!- but it was mostly a sideshow.
***On the other hand I managed to spell 'outmanoeuvre' right first time, so now I feel like an Ultimate Spelling Wizard.
****The gender choices here are accurate based on the videos I've seen. We really need more ladies doing BatReps!
*****Admittedly, unless the local scene is very strict about paint schemes or they really, really like another Chapter, that'll be about one person.
******Of course this is basically true at the moment, but it'd be a big thing for GW to actually come out and say it.