The Eternal Warriors

The Tyranid codex, while not as competitive as the other recent codex releases, does have a few highlights worth mentioning.  The Tervigon, Hive Guard and Zoanthropes are the 3 most common mentioned units and for very good reason.

The Tervigon is a solid HQ choice whose Psychic ability and special rules make him a force multiplier for any effective Tyranid list.  The ability to fit him in the troops slot is just icing on the cake with him.  Even without that FOC flexibility he’d be a very popular choice.

The Hive Guard and Zoanthropes bring much needed anti-mech firepower to the Tyranids like they’ve never had before.  While short ranged and competing for the same set of 3 Elite slots on the FOC they allow the Tyranids to destroy vehicles instead of only shaking them.

Traditionally that’s where the ‘awesome’ ends in the Tyranids codex.  I disagree.  An overlooked and mis-utilized entry is the Tyranid Warrior Prime.  He is much more than a basic cheap HQ choice similar to any other HQ choice that can be found in any other codex.   He is a step above and beyond almost any other HQ choice in any other codex and at a much cheaper price.

When compared to a Space Marine Captain you notice that the Warrior Prime has a much more potent stat line for 20 less points.  He has an additional point of strength and toughness and an additional basic attack.  Where the Warrior Prime begins to come out ahead is when typical upgrades are added.  For 20 points total the Warrior Prime can get a pair of Bone Swords,  an extra set of Scything Talons (re-roll 1’s in the attack phase) and Adrenal Glands (furious charge) for the cost of giving up his Devourer and 20 extra points.  The Marine Captain’s typical upgrades are a combi-weapon,  Relic Blade and Artificer Armor for a total of 55 points.  While the Marine Captain will have a potent shooting attack and a very good armour save the Warrior prime now assaults at a higher initiative with weapons that can cause instant death and ignore the Captains armor save entirely except for his Iron Halo.  In a 1 vrs 1 combat the Warrior Prime should win every time when he costs 50% less points to field (100 points vrs 155 points).  This doesn’t even take the Warriors’s Synapse ability and Shadow in the Warp psychic protection.

There could be a bit of argument on how best to use the Warrior Prime because of his Independant Characters status.  Because of the Brood Progenitor rule most people will run the Warrior prime with brood of Tyranid Warriors Troops.  Although this is a good diea it forgets that Tyranid Shrikes are a varient of Tyranid Warriors too and are able to benefit from the Brood Progenitor rule.  Although they will lose the speed of wings during the movement phase if the Warrior Prime is with them the smart player will take advantage of the Independent Character rule and only attach them at the end of the movement phase when an enemy squad is within assault range.  That allows the Shrikes to stay behind and enjoy the protection of cover while the Warrior Prime charges forward attached to another squad of much cheaper gaunts.

In both cases I’d recomend giving each model in the Tyranid Warrior or Shrike brood a pair of Boneswords and Adrenal Gland for 15 points.  While it brings up the model cost to 45 and 50 points each they will gain power weapon attacks and furious charge.  This is especially deadly vrs MEQ opponents as you will be hitting on 3, wounding on 3, and allowing no save at initiative 5.

Of course if the Warrior Prime stays with that original brood of Gaunts he significantly boosts that broods close combat ability.  The humble (and dirt cheap) Termagants and Hormagaunts are unable to have any power weapons in the broods.  That liability is usually overcome with massive numbers of attacks from cheap models.  At their cheapest a maxed out brood of Termagaunts is only 150 points and can dishout 60 attacks on the charge at initiative 4.  While that many dice being rolled at once can pose a serious danger to any squad their attack is only at strength 3.  Which limits the damage they can do to MEQ opponents.  Even with that bucket of dice rolled that lower strength results in an average of 10 wounds on a typical Marine squad.

Of course anyone who runs Termagants should have a Tervigon nearby and that will boost the damage causing ability of that brood if the Tervigon is equipped with Toxin Sacks and Adrenal Glands.  Suddenly their 60 attacks go before the Marines and are now Strength 4 poisoned allowing a re-roll to wound.  That gives a doubling of wounds caused by the same 150 point brood of Termagants.  That will force the MEQ player to take an average of 22 saves from the Gaunts and 4 power weapon wounds from the Warrior Prime before their own attacks are rolled.

Another ideal use of the Tyranid Warrior Prime is to attach him to another brood of Toughness 4 multi-wound models.  This allows you to take advantage of wound allocation rules and assign the Strength 8 power fist and missile launcher wounds to the Warrior Prime.  Nobody wants Their critical Zoanthrope or Doom of Malan’tai doubled out to a single hit.

This is what happens when boredom sets in!

Since the end of Dice Like Thunder and the beginning of The Eternal Warriors, we have received many emails and notes lamenting the loss of the DLT forums and the community there. Well, you’ve spoken and we’ve listened.

We are pleased to announce the building of the TEW forums! The dominant opinion in our group of hosts was to utilize this front page more than we did with DLT. We would post articles on different hobby/community aspects and you would interact with us there and tell us how stupid or smart we were. In our effort to be more involved ourselves, we had not realized the impact the ending of the DLT forums had nor that the community was so strongly opposed to it.

Thank you to the efforts of so many people who finally convinced us to move ahead with adding a forum to our website. At some point this weekend or early next week, we will announce the opening of the TEW forums and add a link for it to our front page.

While the hosts of TEW will be involved in the new community forum, we do not wish to carry it as much as we did with the DLT forums. The atmosphere, tone and setting will be completely up to the community!

And I would also be remiss if I did not mention our ongoing original art contest.

In case you’ve forgotten, we are looking for original artwork for both a banner logo (at least 1000 pixels wide and 181 pixels tall at 72 dpi resolution) and a square logo. The only requirements are that your artwork be original, be scalable to a larger size with minimal pixilation and that you allow us to use it for the website and other places where the TEW logo should be.

Also remember the deadline for this contest is Nov 5th and all submissions can be sent to richard@theeternalwarriors.com. Please submit both square and banner artwork for consideration.

The winner for best banner/square logo will receive a $50 gift certificate to spend at the Broken Forge webstore.

The Mona Diesel

So far we’ve gotten three submissions for our banner/logo contest and they all look awesome!

In case you’ve forgotten, we are looking for original artwork for both a banner logo (at least 1000 pixels wide and 181 pixels tall at 72 dpi resolution) and a square logo. The only requirements are that your artwork be original, be scalable to a larger size with minimal pixilation and that you allow us to use it for the website and other places where the TEW logo should be.

Also remember the deadline for this contest is Nov 5th and all submissions can be sent to richard@theeternalwarriors.com. Please submit both square and banner artwork for consideration.

The winner for best banner/square logo will receive a $50 gift certificate to spend at the Broken Forge webstore.

So registration has already begun for the most bad ass Con in the world! Just head over to www.adepticon.org and get signed up! Yours truly has already registered and signed up for the 40K GT which I will be bringing my Black Templars to. I previously stated I will only be playing my Templars up until Adepticon because I want to be the highest ranked Black Templars player there.

I also signed up for the Killzone event on Sunday. If you don’t know what Killzone is, it’s a homebrew rule set made by the infamous Big Jim (aka BDJV) and all the info you need about it is over at www.galaxyinflames.blogspot.com. It is quite the awesome ruleset for some skirmish action. I’m also contemplating giving my Eldar another whirl in combat patrol which will probably end up being on Saturday. Also look for the She-Swizzy to make her combat patrol debut during Adepticon 2011 as well

I really wanted to sign up for a Warmachine tournament (and get my ass smoked in the process) but the Hardcore tournament interferes with the 40K GT. There is however a nice Tier 1 25 point tournament on Saturday but it starts at 11pm and ends at 7am Sunday which might interfere with any social get togethers me and the boys will probably have planned for that night. So I guess I’ll have to settle for some pick up games. Wiggles, this means you!

So get signed up and prepare for the time of your life!

See ya there!!

I was listening to The Overlords podcast out of the UK and they touched briefly on an interesting unit with great potential relative to its cost: The often ignored Ratling Snipers out of the Imperial Guard codex.   People say they aren’t the strongest unit in the book, but they don’t have to be.  This unit is the runt of the codex, just like this guy.

The smaller ratling trying to vie for attention to make the team.

Taking a minimum squad of three is a great way to go.  They are cheap (cheaper than nearly any other unit in the game) and are fully equipped to do their job.  Taking the minimum squad of 3 models only costs the same as two space marines, but these guys shoot as well as marines and have a rending shot that always wounds on a 4+.  Increasing the squad size really doesn’t help them much, as it only takes points away from more killy things in your army for little benefit.

Every turn they fire at an enemy unit, they are putting on average a single wound on a model (before armor saves).  Every three rounds approximately, you’ll end up with a single dead marine.  Opponent goes “so what…one dead marine, what do I care?”

Well there is a pinning test involved after that marine is killed. While the chances are relatively low of pinning a unit, the consequences of the opponent failing a pinning test for a key unit can often turn a game (how much would you pay for a chance to pin a squad of Long Fangs for even a single turn?).  Using this squad in conjunction with a psyker battle squad can make that likelihood of a failed pinning check even greater.   The potential to hamper or paralyze a more expensive unit makes this unit effective, compared to their cost.

If an opponent has a character or monstrous creature, you’re presenting an asymmetrical threat to that model.  What I mean by that is you have an extremely inexpensive unit with the potential to do much more damage to the enemy unit relative to what the enemy model could do to that unit.  If the unit scores at least a single unsaved wound on almost any character or monstrous creature, they have done more than 30 points worth of damage to that model.  The best the enemy unit can do to them is to kill a 30 point squad, which doesn’t achieve much when dealing with 1500 point or greater armies.

In the old days, Ratlings were referred to as "Charlie."

Did I also mention that they can be relatively survivable in cover (thanks to “stealth” USR) and infiltrate?  This can be a very inexpensive way to deny enemies from being able to infiltrate close to your lines and to make it more difficult for enemy units to scout close to the main body of your army for a first turn assault (deff-coptas, valkyrie vet rush, etc) as those models must keep 12″ away from any of your models, so if you infiltrate out into the middle of the field, you make it harder for the opponent to get a first turn assault on the unit he wants to hit.

For their extremely cheap cost, you’re adding another unit to any opponent’s already stretched target priority list.  If the opponent attacks them, it takes shots away from more valuable models.  If the opponent doesn’t deal with them, then the chances increase for them to take out enemy models, wound creatures and/or characters, or to pin units.

Force Org Slot competition is not much of an issue either.  Most of the things people use in the codex come from troops, heavy support, and fast attack, leaving at least one elite slot open for this unit to be fielded.

In summary, taking a minimum 3 man squad of ratlings is an excellent cheap filler unit that has the potential to be hoisted off of the field in glorious victory!

TEW is pleased to announce our very first contest.

At the very top of our website you will find a square logo that we came up with in 4 minutes. Next to that is a large rectangular gray space we are looking to fill out. We are looking for original artwork for both a square logo and a banner logo (at least 1000 pixels wide and 181 pixels tall at 72 dpi resolution). The only requirements are that your artwork be original, be scalable to a larger size with minimal pixilation and that you allow us to use it for the website and other places where the TEW logo might need to be.

The deadline for this contest is Nov 5th and all submissions can be sent to richard@theeternalwarriors.com. Please submit both square and banner artwork for consideration.

The winner for best banner/square logo will receive a $50 gift certificate to spend at the Broken Forge webstore.

Andy Hoare is staring into your soul!

This interview was originally published on www.dicelikethunder.com and we have republished it here.

We have had the pleasure of picking Andy’s brain the last few weeks about writing for Black Library and his latest novel, Hunt for Voldorius. A very special ‘thank you’ is due to Andy for his time spent with us between deadlines and Vincent Rospond from the Black Library for his generosity to Dice Like Thunder and now The Eternal Warriors.

DLT: You have many credits in GW rule books and codices for Games Development (Codex: Blood Angels, Imperial Guard and Space Marines) and writing (Codex: Witch Hunters, Tau Empires and Dark Angels). How hard of a transition did you go through from writing/developing a codex to writing a fiction novel that includes elements of their background?

Andy: Well, the processes are very different for a start – as a Games Developer you’re always working to a tightly defined brief and as part of a team. Writing a novel you’re pretty much on your own with only your undertaking to meet your deadline to get you through! Having said that, in my case at least the games development and the novel writing are coming from the same place, which is a desire to interact with and express the depth and character of the setting.

DLT: Did knowing the rules mechanics help or hinder you in writing a novel?

Andy: You have to keep things within the setting’s own internal logic, but not feel constrained by the narrow range of possibilities afforded by raw game rules. The point about writing a character in a novel is that you’re focusing on someone who’s special or exceptional in some way, so he can do the things the rules of a game may not always allow. Knowing the rules is useful in knowing how to break them!

DLT: Your latest book, Hunt for Voldorius, focuses on the White Scars chapter of the Space Marines. Most Warhammer 40,000 players know Kor’sarro Khan primarily from his entry in Codex: Space Marines. Can you describe the process you went through in bringing a personality to Kor’sarro Khan and his White Scars?

Andy: In Kor’sarro’s case I looked to identify an underlying archetype. That gives you an immediate shorthand and you can build up from there. I’m a massive fan of Robert E Howard’s writing and I think there’s something of the ‘noble savage’ in the White Scars, which is a theme Howard developed in lots of his characters. Kor’sarro is very much the product of his home world and culture, as are the White Scars as a Chapter. One challenge with the White Scars was keeping them different from the Space Wolves, and I think I managed that. I made their dialogue quite formal to keep them apart from the Space Wolves and tried to include lots of cultural idioms in their speech patterns and the way they interact with one another and with other Chapters.

DLT: Do you prefer writing about characters that already exist or do you like coming up with your own?

Andy: Kor’sarro is a pretty new character that hasn’t been written about very much so it wasn’t too bad. Writing about a better known character could be harder, but to be honest even if a character is well-known on the tabletop we may not have seen the world through his eyes in long form prose, so there’s lots of possibilities.

DLT: The prime antagonist is Kernax Voldorius and in the current Codex: Space Marines, there are a couple pages that give a summary of his deeds and downfall. In writing Hunt for Voldorius, did you feel constrained by already knowing the path and outcome of the story? Perhaps it was a challenge, as a writer, to fill in all the gritty details?

Andy: The book was actually more complicated than that! I took the project over from Mitchel Scanlon who had developed a synopsis that filled in some of the details in the codex story, but he’d been unable to commit to writing the novel. Obviously I had to stick to the story in the codex and I was glad to further Mitchel’s development too. What I think is great about the Space Marine Battles novels is that they’re expanding on iconic conflicts that everyone who loves the setting will know about. In many cases these battles will have existed in the background for years, as is the case with the Rynn’s World story, which goes all the way back to the first edition of the tabletop game. The Voldorius story, while presented as an important event in the codex, has yet to earn itself a similar place in the consciousness of readers, so I certainly wanted to write something that would contribute to that overall status.

DLT: With Hunt for Voldorius you presented a White Scars force that could be fielded on the table top. If you were to write a Dark Angels novel, how closely do you present their forces compared to their codex?

Andy: It very much depends on the context – if it was a book in the Space Marine Battles series it would focus on the events and the characters that drove them forward, and the larger force would be a bigger part. If the story called for something more involved or complex it would probably be more about the characters themselves and there might not even be a force with them, or if there were they might just be in the background.

DLT: There is a subset of 40K players, some would call them ‘Fluff Nazis,’ that know all there is to know about their favorite army and sometimes view Black Library novels as something other than 40K Canon. How do you feel about this perception?

Andy: One thing I really like about the setting is that, unlike many movie and comic franchises, there’s never been any of that nonsense where entire story arcs get relegated to ‘alternate timeline’ or ‘expanded universe’, generally in a misguided attempt to explain everything in line with some overarching, objective truth. Maybe that sounds bloody-minded, but I think it’s entirely in keeping with the ethos of the setting and true to its roots!

DLT: I just read Ambition Knows No Bounds from the collected short story novel, Fear the Alien. How does some of the less written about story lines, like a Rogue Trader or Necrons or any other non-Space Marine element, play into where you take a story?

Andy: Rogue Traders are an interesting subject, as they’re very popular amongst a small sub-set of people (like me!) but not well known or hugely appealing to the masses. That presents a range of issues, like needing to establish who and what they are every time you write about them and making the story appeal to a wider audience. It probably wouldn’t have been possible to write Ambition Knows No Bounds as a novel as it would have been too niche, but as a short story in a themed collection it was just the right balance.

DLT: Do you choose your projects or are they assigned to you? For instance, if you really wanted to write about the Sisters of Battle or Tau could you? Or perhaps you receive a phone call where an ominous voice tells you that your next project will be the downfall of the Squats?

Andy: All of the above (apart from the bit about the Squats!) Black Library has its long term plans and they know very well what subjects will appeal, so will ask authors to submit pitches based around a particular theme, character or race. In addition, any author can pitch any idea they like at any time, and the commissioning editors are always open to new ideas, but to get accepted the idea has to be likely to appeal to enough people to make commissioning it worthwhile.

DLT: What can you tell us about your next book, Savage Scars (March, 2011)? Will you be bringing plot elements from Hunt for Voldorius to Savage Scars? Or is Savage Scars the first step towards a trilogy of sorts?

Andy: Neither of the above! Savage Scars is a stand alone Space Marine novel, but it also wraps up the story presented in my two previous Rogue Trader books. To be clear, you don’t need to have read the Rogue Trader novels to read Savage Scars! I’ve been asked a few times if Savage Scars might be the first in a series, and while it wasn’t written as such I’d be very happy to write about its central character (Veteran Sergeant Sarik) again.

DLT: What projects do you have lined up for the future?

Andy: I’m writing another Black Library novel right now, but as it hasn’t been announced yet I’ll have to keep that under my hat. I’m also writing a lot of material for Fantasy Flight Games’ Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay line, so pretty busy in all!

DLT: Finally, is the Imperium of Man a descendant of the British Empire? Or does it just sound that way from their accents?

Andy: The bad guys always have British accents

We are building and working today, only be a couple hours till everything is live!

We thank you for following us from Dice Like Thunder to The Eternal Warriors. As this is entirely our own vision, you can expect a few format changes from DLT.

Firstly, the five hosts are establishing blogs and we will be updating them weekly. Every time we do so, you will find an announcement on this page. The blogs will have comment sections for you to have some lively debate with us. Even Jon has something to say!

Secondly, every time we post a show you will find the show notes here. You can also expect a few format changes to the podcast. Were we negative in the past? Sure, but at least we gave you an honest opinion of something rather than only talk about what advertisers wanted. Chris has even filled his prescription for happy pills.

Thirdly, we do not plan on having a forum like we did with DLT. As I already mentioned, we have our individual blogs where you can leave comments. What we are planning to do is establish a niche within My Battalion where fans of the show can post about subjects, much like they already could do in the DLT forums. We’ve sacrificed a few goats and we think Warren will be able to accommodate us. Oh, wait … Dan just sacrificed a gerbil. Just kidding, no animals were harmed in the making of this website.

Fourthly, some of the gaming materials you can get from DLT will follow us here.

Fifthly, we are looking for some help with original artwork for our logo. If you have something you think we’d like, send it to Chris or Richard. There probably will be something in it for your time and trouble.

Expect episode 1 of The Eternal Warriors some time in the first 7 days of November!