On sportsmanship, Onslaught List Fail, and a Conflict GT list (6th!)

I’d like to take a moment to talk about sportsmanship.  A long time ago (15 years ago) I was a very poor sport.  I used to throw my dice, scream, and in reflection – had to be the least fun player to play against.  I never berated my opponents, but boy did I hate the failed dice rolls that thwarted whatever devious tactical move I was unleashing.  God love the guys that let me keep coming back.  Then I found and fell in love with the Skaven.  Discovering that if I didn’t manage to mangle about half my own army with misfires, explosions, failed castings, brazen cowardice, or other horrendous rat-splatting hijinks, I was doing something wrong and losing because I wasn’t taking the dice-dependent risks that you have to learn to do with good grace.  I found the laughter I’d been missing in my intensity with other army types – every time the dice went south, rats died – often in the most eye-wateringly hilarious ways.  Warpfire thrower or jezzail team explosions, poisoned wind globe scatters and doomwheel lightning frying my own units – my rats died for the glory of the Horned Rat at my own hands.  But it wasn’t my fault – clearly they were untrained morons the other clans slipped into my own ranks as spies, and I was better off they paid for their stupidity in rat-gibs!  The moral here is to find the laughter – and keep in mind one of the most important rules of battle: it’s better to be lucky than good.  Best summarized by the amazing Field Marshal Gebhard L. von Blücher:

Alle Kunst ist umsonst Wenn ein Engel in das Zündloch prunst", which roughly translates as: "All skill is in vain when an angel pisses in the flintlock of your musket"!

On to Onslaught List Fail: 

Shooty tyranid is shooty

Kudos on the big shooty 'nid go to Bloodtyrant over at miniwargaming.  At any rate - scooped again by Stelek here with one concept for a shooty nid list, but the idea has been on my mind after reading several batreps over the past few weeks with devilgaunts and dakkafex/tyrants putting the mow down on MEQ.

However, the more I look at the metagame theme of Mech+MSU seen across the major lists archetypes, the more I wonder if going a bit more shooty isn't a concept that bears further exploration.  Although tyranids are supposed to be a premier melee codex, they do have some interesting shooty capabilities.  Above all, tyranids are about synergy.  Reading the top players' batreps at different GTs and tournaments I'm amazed at the deep thought to synergy given - and how rarely I see it referenced in most batreps in anything but the most simple terms for Tyranids.  The tactical options available are incredible, and I think bear further exploration.

First we'll examine the Tervigon's underused Onslaught power, which allows a unit to both run and shoot in the same phase; and then charge if it has fleet (hellooo Trygons).  Although many tyranid ranged options are shorter ranged, Onslaught can be a rude surprise, and a nice tactical advantage.  A 30" potential range on zoanthropes and hive guard?  How would that change the game on turn 1?

Next up is the much maligned Biovore - which alternately is reviled and worshipped; discounted by most serious players but venerated on many different boards.  What the Biovore does well though is cause concern for a significant swathe of the metagame: IG, Dark and Light meat Eldar, Orks, Tau, and mirror.  Miss?  No problem, there's a movement inhibitor left behind.  The bottom line is Biovores appear to be a very viable tournament option that gets routinely ignored.  Who playtests or plays with these routinely?  Admittedly, not the best option vs. MEQ, but that isn't a reason to discount it entirely.

I think a very solid and competitive shooty list is out there that builds on Tervigons with Onslaught to buff some devilgaunts, a dakkafex star (2?), zoans, HG, and actually includes a full biovore brood.  Too much to ask for?  Too much theorycraft at play here?  What are your thoughts?

Overdue book: Tyranid Library part 5

It's past time to get back on track with an overdue library update.  The past few weeks have seen several excellent articles, but the ones that really got me thinking are a few that talk about using Tyranid warriors.  To be clear, these aren't warrior tactica articles, but no-kidding this is how to conceptualize a list that includes or is based on warriors. This is a continuing thread I've followed since looking at Tyranid MSU.

Abusepuppy writes a very intriguing article here – but make no mistake, while the four different lists he presents are interesting – there are three very critical parts of the article; the first is where he discusses speed and arrival:

Speed is one problem with Warriors; to take full advantage of them, you want to be using both their shooting and melee abilities, which means not Running most of the time; this, in turn, makes them a full one to two turns slower than things like Raveners, Shrikes, Genestealers, Hormagaunts, etc, at arriving in combat. All-melee Warriors are possible, but they will always need forward elements to draw fire and tie up enemy units so that they can arrive to do their bloody work. More often than not, though, Warriors (like Tervigons and other "midfield" units) are going to be well behind the front lines of a fight, doing their best to support other units.

Why is this so interesting?  Confirmation bias of course!  Warriors are on the same movement-to-contact timeline as Tervigons, and their roles are very nearly identical – which we’ve also heard here from TheGraveMind previously, and again here, where he talks about the pros and cons of close-combat (dual bonesword, tox) warriors.  One of the more interesting pros he mentions is the mathhammer on a Tyranid warrior vs. a Terminator: a 2+ Terminator means statistically it takes 6 shots to kill one terminator; a W3 4+ warrior also takes 6 shots to kill; so long as we aren’t talking S8 AP3 or higher…  which in turn dovetails back to the second part of Abusepuppy’s post after the jump:

Parasite of Mortrex WIP: Rippler Bug+Ravener

And a little Mawloc tongue for extra gribbly...   pre-green stuff yet, but I think it has potential.   I had my doubts about using the rippler, but found one for a few bucks on Ebay and decided to give it a whirl.  I'll almost definitely pull off the wings (haha) and replace them with at least one pair, maybe two, of gargoyle wings, rather like Eldar Addict's (probably my favorite Parasite conversion).  I tried using ravener talons and warrior/ravener rending claws, and even tried Mawloc talons, but none really looked as much like the Parasite's talons in the codex drawing as the rippler bug's.

Here's a few more pics:

..and to all a Happy New Year

Whatever your persuasion, creed, belief, or lack thereof, here's hoping you had a great holiday season and wishing you the best for the new year.

Where to for 2011?  I'm not much for resolutions, but I do need to set some goals for the year.  Forthwith:

1. Paint up the hive fleet to-do list:
1. On sprue currently: 3 raveners, 6 warriors, 3 zoanthropes, 1 HG, 1 trygon, 1 tyrant, 2 venomthropes, 1 carnifex,
2. Parts on hand: 1-2 tfexes, a third tervigon, harpy, parasite of mortrex, 3 raveners, 1 tyrant, 2 carnifexes, 1 old one-eye, 1 red terror, 1 spod
3. Built: 2 HG, biovore
4. Based: 2 tervigons, 1 mawloc, 1 HG, 5 ripper swarms, 15 stealers
2. Play in a tournament (for all you baby seal hunters - salivate away)

Sounds easy enough.  Thanks to all of you who inspire me (blogroll!) and have given me encouragement as I stumble forward.

Pic credit to ~slaine69

Codex Pictures Blog Trolling?

Ah the wonders of the intarwebz and Gewgle. So I noted this comment on my blog this morning and thought "cool" someone might have read my maunderings. But something didn't click. Grammar and syntax, eerily positive, self-deprecation, and an advertising link. Here's the post in all its glory:

I have just finished watching the Ultramarines movie on DVD, and yes the graphics are not Avatar but once you get swept up in the plot, and immersed in the world, it is all really good.

I agree it is a solid film where it counts, in the atmosphere, and an encouraging start for a small independent company.

It is a VAST universe and let hope there are some more epic films to follow!!

I liked some of the lines from the film, and thought they would make comically awesome ring tones…

Then I found out today you can download them here!

http://www.ultramarinesthemovie.com/widget

Rather aware of the idea that blogs are a very rich source of market segment research and influence, I thought it might be possible some of the Codex folks or the publishers or whoever might read reviews. I didn't really think they would stoop to being lame enough to troll boards and blogs where people had posted about the Ultramarines movie. So I looked around a bit, and found the nearly identical post in a few other places:

http://www.quietearth.us/articles/2010/08/23/First-ULTRAMARINES-trailer-is-all-kinds-of-bad

http://www.beastsofwar.com/warhammer-40k/ultimate-ultramarines-movie-review/

http://www.firstshowing.net/2010/08/23/first-bloody-animated-warhammer-40k-ultramarines-teaser/

**EDIT** Found a couple more, and now they're using bit.ly or whatever URL shorteners:

http://4-ones.blogspot.com/2010/12/ultramarine-movie-review.html#comments

http://theback40k.blogspot.com/2010/12/ultramarines-movie-quick-fix.html

http://is.gd/j4Dew Have a look at the new Ultramarines Widget.

A couple are by someone who goes by "King Felix" and the one on my blog by this lovely lady. Who has her own blog, which really has zip to do with 40k. Or Warhammer. She even uses contractions in her writing. I wonder if she knows her account was used to post here? **EDIT** It looks like she's now made her blog private... hmm **EDIT**

Granted, four posts don't make a huge "trolling" campaign. Those are all I can find with only a few hours of Google webcrawling to back up the research. I would bet there are more out there.

I don't mind adding to the publicity - no such thing as bad publicity after all. Maybe it will work and those of us who haven't already purchased it will be swayed, just to see if it is indeed comically bad. That would be British self-deprecation at its best, in the finest tradition of Monty Python and a thousand other snarky UK classics.

What are your thoughts - cheap shot or smart marketing? How will it play to this audience??

Ultramarines Movie review

I'm torn. I don't want to give in to my GW fanboi nature and wax eloquent as only a mother can over her ugly child, and claim I only see the good. At the same time I know that the entertainment industry runs on money first and talent second. I know that if we, the die hard fans don't make sure this movie isn't accepted and applauded, the real potential we know is out there likely won't ever be realized.

The good:
- Yes! A 40k movie. I've waited for this since reading the Rogue Trader and Lost and the Damned books and realized the cinematic potential this universe has.
- As Jawaballs so eloquently depicts in his review here the production value on the package, novel, and case are outstanding. Everything we as players could hope for I think. The story in the graphic novel is a bit light, but the art is good (and has Tyranids kicking Ultramarine backside mwahaha)
- For what it is, a low(er) budget animated film, it is very good. Compared to other similar movies of similar genre (Dragonlance anyone?) the values and art are excellent.
- The voice actors are good, if often uninspired.
- Sound effect quality was excellent; I really liked the chainsword, heavy bolter fire and brass.

The bad, or what the uninitiated would see if they knew nothing about 40k:
- The animation is jerky, and looks very, very unnatural. By comparison, the Dawn of War/Dawn of War 2 movement are similar, but look more complete and natural.
- Speech mapping of the character's lips to the voices is rudimentary and often appears to be off-sync.
- Pixel jags of character and detail occurs regularly, particularly in ranged shots with multiple characters. I thought it was just my 1080i TV, but I put it into my other HDMI-input 1080p and had the same effect.
- While I get the intended "realistic" effect of the skin/faces, it ends up with characters being nearly indistinguishable, especially with the lack of expressive animations and speech mapping.
- Plot timing. For a 76-minute movie, the first 36 minutes is taken up with Marines walking and whining. Mostly walking. It gets better, but the first half sucked.
- Character development or dialog that helps the watcher understand the depth and nuance of the backstory was largely lacking. Even a few lines of elucidation would have been nice, beyond the quickly boring "Chaos is the root of all evil" that gets intoned over and over.
- I own just about every GW book Dan Abnett has written; I was less than blown away with the almost painfully obvious plot and the lack of character development.



The potential:
- Every one of us that has watched Pirates of the Caribbean (let alone Avatar) knows how unbelievably stunning the 40k universe could be on the big screen. I practically wept to see the crew of the Flying Dutchman and Davy Jones in POTC2, knowing that Abaddon and Sanguinius and Tarik and Bloodletters and Banshees could exist on screen in all their ornate, baroque glory.
- Babylon5, Stargate, V, and (the new) Battlestar Galactica are all fantastic examples that prove without a doubt that Hollywood could do justice to Eisenhorn, Ravenor, or the Horus Heresy plotlines/novels.

Overall - I'm happy and stoked to have it. I'll watch it dozens (and dozens) of times over the next few years and be happy that a tiny piece of the dream is real today. A part of me mourns the unrealized potential, but a bigger part is happy for what Codex has achieved in making this a reality. The bottom line is this movie is worth the money if you're a fan of the fluff or the game. But I think I'd have a hard time introducing this movie to someone new to 40k or gaming in general and expect them to have more than a lukewarm response. YMMV. Anyone know Guillermo del Toro's number?