Black Templar Review: The FAQ

The Black Templars are near and dear to my heart.  I have said this about a thousand times, but I got into 40k because of the Emperor's Champion model.  I love the model.  To this day, he is and has been my favorite.  To that end, I am going to try my hand at an army review.  I will start, in this post, with the new FAQ and how I think it has changed the Templars.  Then I will move through HQs, Elites, Troops, Fast, and Heavy.  So sit back, relax and enjoy the show.  This should be fun.

Until recently, not all marine codexes were created equal.  The various chapters of the marines varied across a large space of time including a change in edition.  Thus rose the comments of, "Your codex is broken, my stuff doesn't get that rule." GW finally made the move early this year to bring all of the codexes in line in regards to a few areas of where rules were not equal. 

The Black Templars were recipients of such changes via FAQ and honestly, they got a mixed bag.  The chief changes that affected Templars are as follows:

1) Weapons/equipments changes. 
     - Cyclones are now heavy 2 instead of heavy 1 twin-linked.  This is huge for a few reasons.  First,   Black Templar typhoons are much cheaper than vanilla marine typhoons coming in at 20pts. cheaper. Second, our terminators can take two heavy weapons choices per 5 models, meaning that you can take small 5 man units of terminators with 2 cyclones each.  Combine this with their ability to gain the tank hunters rule and you have a 5 man terminator squad with 4 S9 missile shots when aimed at tanks. This is a very positive step forward.
     - Storm shields finally give an all around 3++.  This allows assault terminators to now be better than the other codexes' versions as we can give our terminators preferred enemy through the EC, meaning we have rerolling thunder hammers and now get an across the board 3++ as opposed to a 4++ in combat only. 
     - Narthecium not grants FNP.  This isn't huge, but it gives us a reason to consider command squads again. 
     - Machine spirit now allows you to fire at two targets.  Again nothing huge, but allowing a LRC to choose between two targets can be nice. 
     - A big one was the change of smoke rules.  Smoke rules now are applied from the BRB instead of in the codex.  This was a big hit.  Beforehand, Templar smoke made all pens glances.  This greatly improved our survivability as there is a plethora of terrain to get cover from, so we essentially could have a cover save and then take large quantities of shots and keep going.  No more.  Templar smoke has gone generic.

2) The "Kill 'Em All" debate is finally laid to rest.  Yes, we have to test to shoot at stuff.  Some of us did, some didn't.  Now we all should.

3) Speculation over righteous zeal.  A new debate has risen that asks if a unit can be righteous zealed out of pinned status and move, fire, and assault in its own turn.  There seems to be some credence to the fact that yes, it can. 

The rest is piddly stuff.  The big changes came in the form of equipment/weapons changes.  That doesn't affect us much, but it gives us some nicer combat and shooting options.  Missile spam is much easier to pull off with command squads, terminator squads, shooty crusader squads, and typhoons.  Otherwise, things seem to be same old, same old with the Templars, namely charge forward and beat until dead. 

In my next installment I will go over our two Special HQs and why you should (or shouldn't) take them.

Check out the next installment here:
Codex Review: Black Templar Named HQs

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Blood Angels land on the Planet of the Apes

I got to Vassal tonight to play a game and you won't believe the army I played.  It was a GK army led by Coteaz boasting 8 units of 5 jokaeros and an additional inquisitor! After reading Sandwyrm's article on making sanguinary guard more competitive, I decided to take a hybrid list of our two ideas, thus my army looked like this


Mephiston
Dante


5 Sanguinary guard- powerfist, 2x infernus pistols
5 Sanguinary guard- powerfist, 2x infernus pistols
5 Sanguinary guard- powerfist, 2x infernus pistols
5 Sanguinary guard- powerfist, 1x infernus pistol


Landspeeder- multi-melta/heavy flamer
Landspeeder- multi-melta/heavy flamer

5 devestators- 3 missiles, 1 plasma cannon
5 devestators- 3 missiles, 1 plasma cannon


I made the changes from my previous list to try out speeders and to have a long range AP2 threat with the plasma cannons. 


My opponent took:


 

Corteaz

Inquisitor with Artificier Armor  

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

Let me tell you, when I saw this list, it took me by surprise.  It has unparalleled torrents of high strength fire.  My only saving grace were the jokaeros' BS 3.  Hopefully they would miss the predicted 1/2 of their shots and I could use cover to protect my advances.  These 8 units though, can shoot lascannons, multi-meltas, or heavy flamers as they see fit!  40 lascannons in a single army!  To add on to it, some of the squads had rending due to the jokaero's rule for customization.  Others had an increased range by 12".  Imagine 36" meltas.  Yikes.

We played capture and control with dawn of war deployment.  I deployed a sanguinary guard unit and mephiston.  My opponent kept everything off. 

Nothing special here, but a stupid mistake on my part.

You may not see my mistake yet, but you will.  Turn 1 was uneventful as turn 1's usually are in dawn of war.  That is 8 chimeras getting ready to blast stuff.

There's the big mistake.  I thought I had Mephi behind the LoS blocking terrain appropriately, but my opponent could just see him with two chimeras.  Dead Mephi.  Ugh...  All of my deepstrikers managed to come in though, and they took out two chimeras and harmed a few jokaeros. 

Turn 3 started to get brutal.  Rending heavy flamers and melta really whittled my squads down.  In the end though, I was able to take out all of his right flank and start to move towards his center keeping cover between our armies.  I was also able to take out a central unit of jokaeros due to some shooting and a failed morale test.

Things started to heat up as my upper sanguinary unit went for my own objective and my opponent start to whittle down my devs.

My lower units of sanguinary guard took tons of casualties, but two units of one man and two men respectively made it into assault and started whittle down his troops. My upper sanguinary guard made it to my objective and camped out ready to go to ground if necessary. 

After all of his shooting, he couldn't take out my upper sanguinary guard and my speeder rushed up to contest getting me the win. 

So Sandwyrm almost has me eating my words.  It was the landspeeder that won me the day in the end, but the landspeeders in general didn't contribute much to the game.  That last turn rush to contest saved my bacon, though.  Otherwise, we would have had a straight up tie. The plasma cannons were a worthless  investment for the most part. I got one great shot that killed 4 jokaeros and ultimately helped to cause the squad to run and die.  Otherwise, I think the saved points could be used better elsewhere.   

I really liked how the guard held up even though they were severely whittled down.  With cover and sanguinary priests, they really are pretty resilient, even in the face of loads of high strength shots. 

If I hadn't lost Mephiston on turn 2 due to idiocy, I would have had a frontal threat as well.  He would have really put pressure on my opponent and caused him to move forward to handle my army.  Unfortunately, I didn't think that through as well as I thought I had. 

On the other side, those jokaeros are murder from range, even at BS3.  Since you can take some many and they all act like they have lascannons, they are ugly.  But they die easily. Not a single jokaero made a wound on any of my models in combat.  Ultimately, I think the monkey train is a gimick list, but man it can be nasty.

**Update- As I look over this, I realize the list may have been illegal.  Coteaz' rule states that henchmen can be taken as troops and that puts a max limitation of 6 squads on the army.  My opponent couldn't play 8 units.  Hmmmmm.....oh well.  Shows me that I need to read the rules better. 

Another good game that was won by the narrowest of margins. 

Fun with Magnets: Grey Knights Terminators

I saw this tutorial today and was really impressed. I thought it seemed a bit too overboard at first, but it totally works.  You can also choose to do few magnet points.  Check it out: Grey Knight Termi Magnetization Tutorial by Merkmon

Comparative thoughts on making Sanguinary Guard more competitive

As I was perusing blogs today, I came across an article from Sandwyrm about how to make Sanguinary Guard a more viable list, namely against MSU armies.  That immediately pricked my attention.  Sandwyrm's batle reports and tactical analyses have served as a source of inspiration in building my own Sanguinary Guard list.  You can see his article here: Making Sanguinary Guard more Competitive.

Sandwyrm advocates using landspeeders.  He also states some very good reasons for using, chiefly duality and blocking.  These are two things that make landspeeders very attractive.  They can take out armor and infantry. 

But I hate speeders!  They have never worked for me and I think that they are way too fragile. Recently, I have been intrigued by typhoons, but I tend to like units with at least a little resilience.  Speeders just don't tend to have that.  They tend to serve as easy kill points or just as distractions that get swept aside easily. 

I contend that if you want ranged attack that can serve a dual purpose, you can't go wrong with missile launchers.  Thus, I advocate devestators.  For 130pt., you can have 4 missile launchers.  That gives you range, high strength shots (S8) and duality (krak- S8, frag- S4 template).  Plus, the missile launchers come on a platform that isn't stun/shakeable and they take better advantage of cover saves.  Throw in the ability to babysit multiple units with a sanguinary priest and you have a very durable unit. 

That said, Sandwyrm places a lot of value on blocking using his speeders.  I totally agree that this is a huge ability.  Tanks wishing to ram a speeder risk it passing it's dodge save and being stuck in front of it, wasting their ability to shoot.  Tanks can tank shock infantry out of the way.  This can be a wonderful way to prevent tanks/transports from moving forward to advance on your army.  However, I wonder if this is needed with the unprecedented mobility available via a DoA jumper list.  With a 12" move and deepstrike capabilities it seems that jumper lists should be able to mitigate enemy units crossing the table on a wide frontage using these abilities to refuse a flank or rapidly redeploy to keep units at arms length. 

So, who is right?  Well no one really.  I think these arguments really just come from preferences and playstyles.  It could be that a balance could be struck where a unit or two of each, devestators and speeders could be taken to combine the strengths of each while simultaneously mitigating weaknesses as well.  For now, I will try out my devestator missile spam and see how it works.  One thing can be said in Sandwyrm's defense, though.  He has far more experience than I do and seems to be more tactically sound.  If I were to place my army design versus his, I think we would have similar strengths and weaknesses, but I would simply be outplayed.  As per my usual tenant, barring wonky dice, the more experienced player will always come out on top.  Familiarity with rules, army design, and tactics usually wins the day. 

What would you do? BA v. GK

I played a game against a guy on vassal awhile back.  He was playing the new GK codex.  He was also playing a Terminator heavy list.  At the time, I was playing a BA Sanguinary list.  You can see our lists here.  At the bottom of turn 5 I found myself in this position. 

If you can't see, he has three units of terminators, the black ones are joined by a grandmaster while the blue ones are joined by a librarian.  I have a three man sanguinary guard squad by the central forest.  In the forest are two units of devestators with missiles launchers.  On the far right, I have a unit of sanguinary guard with a priest and Dante and a vanguard vet squad. 

So my question to you is this, what would you do?  I firmly held two objectives to his 1 and at the time, was hoping I could shoot away a terminator or two before jumping in and finishing off a unit or two.  Unfortunately, my missiles weren't penetrating his armor and he was so bunched up, I had no way of dealing with a unit without immediately being counter-assaulted by another.  Nonetheless, I thought I had this game firmly in hand, but his advance couldn't be stopped and in the end, we tied as he contested the center objective.  What would you have done with your two last turns (we played to 6) to pull out the win?

MWC and the LiveStrong Wargaming Project

It seems like Warhammer related charities are really taking off, but things could be worse.  The Warhammer community is organizing to make a difference.  The guys over at Miniature Wargame Conversions are working towards raising money for the LiveStrong Lance Armstrong Cancer Foundation.  This is a good thing.  Take a look at MWC's blog post here, and see how you can get involved. 

Money Saving Shout-out

Low and behold, Dethtron isn't the only one spending his time coming up with ways to save money.  Check out this post by Marcus that appears on the Miniature Wargame Conversions blog.  It is an excellent post on how to take excess GK Strike Squad bits and through some additional cheap bits make additional models for your GK army.  I really like this.  I do this all the time as it costs far less money to buy some additional tac squad bodies and convert them than the real McCoy. Excellent article. 

The Lord of Death, take him or leave him

As you saw in an earlier post, I am beginning to collect the models I need to put together a sanguinary guard heavy list. As I look at lists, one thing comes to the forefront.  Librarians are a must-take (or at least the smartest choice) in a Blood Angel list, especially an all infantry/jumper list.  They provide the army with the ability to have cover saves, psychic protection (which is starting to be needed with the new GK), and the ability to be more combat effective.   To that end, I have begun to look at whether or not I should take a standard libby or if I should go with Mephiston.  Let me just say, I really like Mephiston.    He is a combat beast, able to take on units all by himself and come out unscathed.  He can cover great distances on the board with ease.  He can cast three psychic powers a turn.  The list goes on and on.  However, there are some negatives to taking Mephiston, the most obvious of which is points cost.  The dude is as expensive as a full squad.

So let's take a look at the Lord of Death and see what he brings to the table and whether or not he is worth it.  We will start with the positive aspects he brings and then look at the negative aspects. 

To begin with, Mephiston boasts a stout characteristic line with such stats as S6, T6, 5W, and I7.  Mephiston is essentially an eternal warrior versus high strength attacks.  This doesn't mean he can't be chomped up by a bonesword or force weapon though, so watch out!  In most cases, he is going to strike first, strike hard, and have no mercy.  We will cover how his psychic powers aid him in this shortly.  In return, he has T6 and a 2+ armor save which make him extremely hard to wound, but like most things, thunder hammer/ storm shield terminators will make him cry.  So, if he makes combat, Mephiston can churn through units with ease as he has 5 attacks in the turn he assaults (4 + 1 for assaulting).  Units without invul saves will die against him.  That is why he needs to get into combat ASAP. 

Getting Mephi into combat is actually fairly easy.  First, he is fleet, so even on foot, he can possibly move, run, and assault an astounding 18".  Now add to this that one of his psychic powers is Wings of Sanguinius and you have a 24" threat range.  That is quite a bubble of control.  This can really affect an opponent psychologically as well as in gameplay.  I tend to think of models this devestating as "shepherd" models.  They corral the opponent's units into a certain location because the opponent wants to avoid them.  This allows you to set up traps, fire zones, and combi-assaults as your opponent tries to avoid and destroy this one model.

This guy is also a huge threat.  This also makes him a fire magnet.  This means that while he is taking fire (of which he can ignore quite a bit), your army is advancing unmolested.  This is especially nice in objective games where his kill point doesn't matter. Mephi has such as stigma and reputation that most players are either are scare to death of him and attack him or try to avoid him like the plague.  Both work for you.

Mephi's psychic ability is amazing. It is only matched by some of the new GK characters (librarians with the purchased extra ability per turn). His ability to cast three powers per turn makes him an absolute monster.  What's more, his LD10 makes it easy to pass those psychic tests.  All of his abilities are combat oriented meaning that they are meant to get him into combat and summarily to shred stuff.  This makes his usage fairly straightforward.  Get him into combat (using wings if necessary) and cast powers that buff him and allow him to trash units with ease.  He can have S10 (bye bye land raiders), preferred enemy, or light up his force weapon and level monstrous creatures in a single blow.  His psychic powers make him scary.

All of that said, Mephiston has quite a few downsides.  The primary being his points cost. At 250pt, he costs roughly a land raider. If you are running him alongside another HQ, you have eaten quite a few points from your army. 

No invul save is our next issue.  With a 2+ save, if a power weapon can get through his armor and toughness, he takes wounds like crazy.  He doesn't like thunder hammers or lightning claws for this reason.  They stand a good chance of wounding him.  Though he has 5 wounds, he still dies to massed attacks like any other model.  This also means that any army with a good number of AP2 or better weapons can mass fire and take care of him easily as well.

No eternal warrior makes him a target for force weapons and other ID weapons.  Luckily his toughness prevents him from being doubled out, but there are still quite a few items that can effectively take care of business quickly. 

Granted, if he had EW and/or an invul save, the guy would be so terrbily heinous he would be blacklisted from most events.  This is a balancing element and I think it is a good one. 

Finally, Mephiston doesn't have any psychic powers that benefit the rest of the army. They only help him out as he isn't an IC and can't bestow his powers to other units.  That kind of sucks especially since small elite forces can really come to love Shield of Sanguinius.

For my verdict, I choose to like Mephiston.  He is a combat monster and it is fun to smash stuff in 40k.  I don't mind his cost, but I know that some do.  I am not the most competitive gamer though I have been known to win the odd tournament.  I think of Mephiston as a plexi-glass hammer,  more durable than other glass hammers out there, but a competent opponent can handle him.  The debate any player is going to have is whether or not he justifies his point over a cheaper utiliy libby.  I am currently thinking about adding him just for the fun of it and for the purpose of having a small model count.  1 $20 Mephiston model can take the place of a 10-man $50 unit of assault marines or some equivalent models.  I like that. 

What do you think?  Post a comment and tell me whether Mephiston is worth his points or not.  Is he competitive or better used for casual games? 

Converting: One Man's Trash...

I love a good deal.  I love re-purposing things.  I love finding value in things that could be considered junk by other people.  For that reason, I love converting models.  It is fun to create models that stand out and more closely resemble the excellent pictures provided by GW in their fluff. 

It's also a challenge.  Finding the right pieces, fitting them together to make believeable, dynamic poses, and creating a model that stands out can be a challenge, but one that pays off. 

To that end, there are many great places to find cheap bits to work with.  I use thewarstore.com a lot.  It is a bit more pricey, but has the most readily available new bits.  I have also heard good things about bitzbarn.com .  Finally, I absolutely love bartertown.  It is very easy to place an advert for what you need and allow fellow gamers to supply the models or pieces for trades or money.

Once you have your bits, it is all about vision.  Bringing the pieces together to create a model that doesn't look cobbled together from junk can be daunting, so a clear vision is necessary.  I occasionally, draw a picture or go by an already created picture for my inspiration.  From there, it is just a matter of cutting, scraping, gluing, and sculpting your way to a nice model.

Here are a few models that I have recently converted. 

My most famous conversion is my take on twinlinked autocannon arms for dreadnoughts.  You can check out my tutorial here.

Here is my take on Logan Grimnar.  He strides forward with a deadly purpose.

Here are my much debated "thunderhoof" cavalry.

Here is a rune priest that uses many warhammer fantasy pieces.

My most recently converted project is Vulkan.

Converting is fun, it helps us come up with models that GW doesn't currently have in production and it allows us to use our creativity to create characterful models for our armies.  One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Support Heroes of Armageddon

Last year when the Storm Warden project hit the interwebs, I was totally blown away that the 40k community responded in a huge way to raise $16,000 for Doctors Without Borders.  Now the crew that brought you that charity, is going bigger than ever. 

This year's big project is the Heroes of Armageddon.  The gist is that four modellers: Dave Taylor, Jawaballs, Goatboy, and Madboy Genius are creating four 3,000 point armies modelled from participants involved in the 3rd war for Armageddon.  They are then raffling off chances to win one of the armies.  There are even some Golden Daemon winners pitching in to paint models.  This thing is huge AND it's for a good cause.  This is something that gets me stoked as I see it as a good chance for good people to do a good thing.  That's a lot of good.  So, check out the links below for more information from each of the big players involved. 

Dave Taylor

Jawaballs

Madboy Genius

Goatboy

The Official HoA Blog

Get behind this cause as it has a ton of potential.  I know I will.

Conversion Project begins with generous support and a giveaway!

I am super excited about a project I have decided to do. Recently, I've spoken with Jeff from Dragon Forge and he agreed to send me some of his resin bases.  They came in yesterday and man they look great.  I have seen quite a few resin bases both professionally and amateurly made, and these are nice.  The edges are crisp, the details are solid, and the bases don't feel soft like other resin bases I have seen/used.  You can see the variety he sent me below. 

So, looking at these bases and my current unused/underused models, I have decided to start out with a conversion project.  I have an unpainted terminator with chainfist laying around in my carrying case and I have decided that a conversion project needs to happen. Here he is in all of his unfinished glory.

It is my hope to convert this model into a SW Lone Wolf model and put him on the terminator sized rock base found to the far right in the picture above.  What's even more, I decided that after he is converted and painted, I will be doing the first ever Gone to Ground prize contest!  For now, I need to work on the details of the contest, but it should be fun. 

I look forward to using these resin bases and reporting my findings.  Check back as I work on them to see my progress and go now to Dragon Forge and check out Jeff's line of sculpted, resin products. 

Thought Provoking Tuesday

I have decided to try out a weekly update type post.  The Thought Provoking Tuesday post will be a way for me to share blog posts that I thought were really interesting either from a game perspective or a hobby perspective.  They have given reason to pause and think about how I model, paint, or play.  This week's 5 thought provoking blog posts are:

Mind War FTW- Missile Spam and Codex Creep by The_King_Elessar.  This is a great article about comparing the strengths of codexes through the medium of missile spam to determine if there is any codex creep truly happening.  I would love to see if Elessar will write additional articles that seek to derive conclusions using other measures. 

3++ is the New Black- Abuse Puppy laments the Grey Knights' effect on the Tyranid codex. I don't know if his perspective is a bit too pessimistic or not, but he has some great points.  I perceive his arguments to be true initially, but eventually I think that Grey Knights will normalize like every other codex and there won't be so many players out there as new, shiny codexes come out.  I also think there is a correlation between new codexes and the number of inexperienced player using them.  I think a canny Nid general could outplay many less experienced players who are using the GK codex.  Of course, in tournament play, trends do seems to develop quickly. 

Miniature Wargames Conversions- Lantz from the Magnet Pro gives a wonderful tutorial on how to make resin molds. I, for one, have always been leary about trying resin molding, but Lantz really spells it out in a wonderfully written tutorial. 

Tentakel- David Stillberg works on a stunning conversion for a Blood Angel Chaplain.  Again, the resin casting and sculpting included in the model make me think that I need to start working on those skills for myself.

3++ is the New Black- Kirby talks about Karamazov and his uses in a Grey Knight army.  I love the fact that Kirby considers this lesser talked about and used model.  He definitely brings up some nice options.

Space Vampire Madness Begins

As a perk for being the paint judge for the Lonewolf GT, I was given a bit of swag.  It was fantasy merchandise, but luckily GW does pretty hassle free trade-ins.  Here is the fruit of my labor, or at least the start:

I still really want to do a sanguinary guard heavy list, so I started out by buying Dante and a squad of Sanguinary guard.  Next, I hope to buy 2 more boxes of guard, 3 sanguinary priests, and an assault squad.  That will handle my jumper element.  The rest will probably be comprised of Mephiston and some devastators.  It should be a fun army.  I should have some time to run another playtest this weekend, so I will hopefully get that done in between commission jobs. 

On a side note, I think I want to convert Dante to have wings just like the guard, but I want them to be a bit nicer and better posed that the sanguinary guard's wings, so I was thinking about getting Astorath's of the Saguinor's wings.  Anyone know where I can russle those up for a decent price?

Let the vampire madness begin!

From the Warp Returns!

I am a huge fan of Ron Saikowski's work with FTW and his more recent scaled back effort, Black Dot Barrel Studios.  Ron's detailed approach to the hobby is a breath of fresh air and the impact he has had on my thoughts towards painting has been enormous.  I am glad that From the Warp is back after its hiatus.  Head over to the blog and check out his most recent posts.

Post-Event Paint Judging Thoughts

I finished paint judging at about 8:15a.m. yesterday morning and got to witness the successful completion of the 9th annual Lonewolf GT.  It was a great time and I learned a few things about painting along the way as well. 

After judging around 85 armies in a 2 day period, I have come to realize that there are some definite steps a player can take to make their army stand out for those player's choice and best painted awards.  If you don't feel you are up to that high standard, these tips will also help improve your soft scores in a tournament.

Dave's 5 tips for scoring well in the painting category.

1) Paint your entire army!!  Out of about 85 armies, somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% weren't fully painted.  This is huge.  Don't procrastinate in getting your army painted.

2) Base your army consistently! Don't leave bases unfinished.  Then, don't have several different basing schemes.  Keep the army look consistent.  After all, your entire army is fighting on the same battlefield.  Their bases should look the same. 

3) Layer- The differences between a fully drybrushed army and an army with even two layers of paint is huge.  Drybrushing gives off a very chalky, messy look and while it is nice for quickly painting chainmail or fur, it shouldn't be used army wide.  Yes it is fast, but it won't get you as many points.  Simply laying down a base coat, a layer of wash, and then a second highlight layer looks far better (though I advocate several layers).  Simply doing this should pip above the vast majority of armies. Check out the From the Warp painting archive for some great articles on how to make your army pop. 

4) Remember the details- Pic out the various trophies, gems, EYES, etc. in your army. Don't pass over them.  Picking out these small portions of the model really helps and makes them pop.  If you don't want to spend the time to do that on every model, pick out a few key models, do them well and place them prominently when being judged.

5) Get a display board-  Not a cafeteria tray or even a tv tray.  Those work for keeping the army together and for easy transport, but they aren't a DISPLAY board.  A display board is meant to help model the army in a dynamic way so that it looks cool.  Most of the time they include scenery  Base it just like your army is based and spend some time on it.  Display boards really set up many of the armies I judged for higher points.  If you want to go the extra mile, you can make a highly creative display board.  Some people include electronics in their boards!  Check out some of the boards below.

Following these tips can make a huge difference.  There are also a lot of other things you can do, but these small things can make quite a difference in your painting scores. 

As promised, here are some of the sweet(-er) armies from the tournament.

The above lizardmen army was designed around an army of albino lizards that live in a cliff dwelling. 

The above painted Ogre Kingdoms army was converted like crazy.  Almost every model had some sort of conversion from simple head/weapon swaps to full own kitbashed models.  The painting was also a cut above just about everyone in the room.

These two models were painted by the owner of the OK army.  They are superb examples of a well painted model.  Too bad I have shaky hands. 

The above army is a Warriors of Chaos army done totally as a Japanese Samurai army.  This was a really slick army.  You can see the detail that went into it in the battle standard bearer and oni warrior. 

This Dwarf army was really great as well.  The display board was perhaps one of the best.  It included lighting mounted into the board in the entrance of the keep and under an overhang.  The army was very well painted and highly converted.  I especially love the mortar firing goblins (counts as stone thrower) and unit fillers.

Each of these armies fulfilled (and in many cases surpassed) the tips included above.  Consequently, they are some of the highest scoring armies in the tournament.

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Guest written article

Howdy folks.  Well, we're about 2/3s of the way through the tournament this weekend, most of the judging is done, but I need to go back in and finish up this morning. 

I have been thinking about finding someone to write up a good general purpose article on one of the non Space Marine codexes.  I don't have a ton of experience with any of the xenos or chaos space marines aside from occasionally playing them.  I would love to have someone write a guest article for me.  It can range from a battle report using another type of army to a breakdown of units to a tactical how-to. 

If you are interested in writing an article, click the "email me" link on the sidebar and share your idea with me. Thanks in advance for the help.