Perturabo... now on YouTube

A new YouTube video from A Galaxy in Flames.

Direct link: https://youtu.be/iG2ArYM6fA8

Also, check out our other pages;

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agalaxyinflames

Instagram: https://instagram.com/agalaxyinflames/

Or you can watch the video right here.

~Macca

Macca on Tactica: Characters and Challenges 101

Hello, and welcome to the first true Macca on Tactica in a little while. Today I wanted to take the time to look at the assault phase in 30k, specifically where our Legion Praetors and the like, as well as where a few special characters fit in. This is a cut-down and basic look at the HQ's a rock-paper-scissors look at what each is best used for.

Auxillia/Militia, Archmagos, Praetors & Centurions

There are a LOT of HQ options in the Horus Heresy, but a few really stick out. Lets look at them now.

For the Solar Auxillia, your HQ's are really more of an arm-wide buffing unit. You cannot expect to go toe-to-toe with an Astartes, unless you are willing to pay through the teeth for the wargear. Whilst it is possible to equip a Paragon Blade, Artificer Armour and a 3++ invul save, it's still not in your best interests to fight this fight, especially against the more martial of Legions.

With the Imperial Militia, your commander fights like a sponge, but unlike a sponge, he won't absorb much. It's probably best to stay away from combat with this guy and to instead drown your enemies in the corpses of your own men. Yes, this even applies to a cultist HQ with a tainted weapon, yes, you'll kill on a 6 to wound, but you'll probably be turned to a smear or pink mist long before this happens.

Ah, the Mechanicum Archmagos. Now here is a fish out of water. The Archmagos is a force multiplier like the previous HQ's, however, he is also quite a tough combatant, with good armour, higher than average toughness, and access to excellent wargear. Whilst unlikely to be instantly killed in a combat, save to a deadly strike of some kind, I wouldn't feel confident pitting this guy against anything more solid than a Legion Centurion, even with Liquifiers or other crazy weapons.

Legion Praetors. These guys are badass. Paragon Blade, Digital Lasers, maybe even a relic from their Legion, the Praetor fears nothing less than a Special Character or a Lord of War, AND even then, a well equipped Praetor can give a special character a run for their money. If you are using these guys, feel confident when throwing them into most enemies, as you are more than likely to win.

Legion Centurions. Ok, a stock Centurion is no good for challenges, so if that's the route you want to take, go for the Champion Consul option, Forge Lord with Servo Arm, Cataphractii plate, Rad Grenades and a Cyber Familiar (for sheer badassery) or, a Librarian Consul (force axe being a must-take). Pretty much any other kind of Centurion is simply too brittle to be trusted in challenges against most enemies. As a rule of thumb, use your Consuls to buff your troops or even a better HQ, a well placed Primus Medicae can buff a Praetor into the stratosphere with Feel No Pain.

Special Characters.

If you see any of these guys set up opposite you, and you have nothing better than a Centurion, AVOID THEM AT ALL COSTS. Seriously, they will light a fire under your ass so fast, it's not funny. These characters are strong, but many only get stronger in challenges. Especially Sigismund. Seriously, even if you have a Primarch, avoid Sigismund, he will actually cause a lot of damage to the weaker Primarchs, with Kurze, Corax, Lorgar (minus powers), Dorn and Alpharius all likely to win but only walk away with a wound or two left.

Kharn is a human hand grenade, if he is thrown into a unit which outnumbers him, he can get up to 9 attacks. On his own. He is a one-man army, and he will wreck most units he touches. Bonus points if you can tell me what the fuck happened to his Artificer armour and Iron Halo in 40k.

Sevetar, on the other hand, is a surprisingly weak fighter, who ONLY excels once he is in a challenge and fighting dirty. In a regular assault, his chainglaive is not as strong as many weapons, and any clown with a power fist will end him. Keep the Master of the Atramentar away from Terminators at all costs.

Eidolon is a funny character. He is quite strong on the assault with his Thunder Hammer, however, if he isn't on the assault, you won't be striking with his superior initiative, and just like with Sevetar, any clown with a Power Fist will end him. Bonus Points here if you can tell me how Skrillex's cloak isn't burned by his jump pack.

Abaddon. Powerful, but overall, not much stronger than a Centurion. Best used as a buffing unit. I thought it would be interesting to note that the most powerful character in 40k is really a mid-level special character in 30k.

Primarchs.

I will say it once, and once alone. Primarchs will kill anything less than a Primarch. They won't however kill Primarchs, at least not without half a dozen player turns elapsing. If you play a game of 30k, and you and your adversary send your Primarchs into each other at a hundred miles an hour, you've effectively removed both Primarchs from contributing to the game.

Primarchs are best used for two roles: to either buff their army into the stratosphere (Dorn, Alpharius, Guilliman), or to kill enemy heroes and Death Star units, especially if said Primarch is named Angron.

Conclusion.

In the end, everyone will use their characters however they feel, but it is good to know that you have limitations. None of the characters listed should be thrown into Terminators of any kind, nor should they be thrown into specialist units like Templars, Invictus etc. because you'll likely lose 150-200 points of character for probably 70-100 points of slain enemies (which is bad on any planet).

Try to keep your characters set on the path they were designed for, buff your army if that's your job, hunt weaker heroes if that's your job. But don't try and take on Sigismund. EVER.

~Macca

New Games Workshop Airbrush Range: Satire

Today, we saw our first preview of the new Games Workshop airbrush range. Needless to say, the community isn't too pleased about it....

I have a theory, that if Games Workshop actually did a release statement, covering the history of their paint range, it might go a little something like this:

"The community recognises that Games Workshop has an established history within the hobby, stretching back over thirty years. People have come to know and love our paints over the years, however we have from time to time had to revise our products. We found that our flip-lids from the early days just kept paint too long, in fact some bottles from decades ago are still wet inside. This simply could not do, so we came out with a smaller bottle with a screw top, which maximised out paint profits. The paint pots came with a screw top which often sealed shut tighter than an Egyptian tomb, which stopped people getting their paint out without having to tear the lid apart first.

It was a massive success, however, some of the time, the lids would open, so we had to can that idea too, and we moved onto a flat flip lid. Finally, a product that was almost guaranteed to dry out, and even better, we were able to remove the split pricing for our metallic paints (which used to cost more than the standard acrylic range) by streamlining all prices by jacking all paints up in cost.

Over time however, it became apparent that sometimes, our paints were still staying wet, and were still too good. Thus, the difficult decision was made to rebottle our entire range, and within a short time frame, to rebrand our entire range and create a new paint formula. Finally, we had hit upon the right solution:

-paints which separated inside the bottles, into a viscous watery goo and a rubbery collection of pigment, which no matter how hard you stir or shake it never quite works,
-the caps would clog and allow the paint to dry, ruining perfectly good paint in a couple of months,
-a range of washes that are far less effective than our previous inks, which also separate during drying leaving a milk residue on top of the model you lovingly painted all week;
-very little paint for your money.

It hasn't all been a success, as we discovered to our shock here at Games Workshop, that there are other companies who make paints. This came not long after the discovery that other companies also produce miniatures. Often these paints were designed for use with airbrushes, a market we had yet to corner. With this in mind, the decision was made to produce our own paint range for airbrushes, utilising the same terrible technology that makes our paints so effective that most painters use brands like Vallejo, Badger, Army Painter, Tamiya etc.

We believe that bringing our smaller, more expensive, less effective flip-top paints into a market saturated by high-quality dropper bottle paints is the best move for Games Workshop, a company which prides itself on delivering high-quality products to the consumer, at a reasonable 50% mark up over our competition.

Kind Regards,

Billy,

The work experience kid."

What might the new airbrush range look like? What might it cost?

But don't worry, these prices are for Australia and New Zealand, for those in the United States, this will be about $50.

Just remember, this is all satire, a look at how an out of touch company seems to look down on us. If their airbrush range is priced anything like the Age of Sigmar metallic range, I hope their company HQ is struck by an earthquake, because since they won't listen to what the hobbyists want, maybe an act of god will help them along?

~Macca

Home Made Damocles Command Tank

Another day, and a fun conversion. today we have my home-made version of a MK I Damocles Command Tank.

The Damocles is an existing kit from Forge World, based on the MK II Rhino chassis. I am thinking of using one in a tournament coming up in October (Inferno IV, in Brisbane. If you're in Australia, do check it out, it's a lot of fun and a great opportunity to meet a bunch of passionate HH hobbyists) and I decided I needed one. Since the kit is around $115 Australian, I thought instead I could convert one rather than pay all that money for a tank I may not need.

Thus, the MK I Damocles was born.

The old red rhino I repainted had textured paint on it, which meant that I had no option, bar completely stripping the textured paint (which is much harder than regular paint, without plastic dissolving solvents) than to paint some dust and mud onto the tracks. So, I painted some mud and dust onto the tracks. It's not ideal, but it's good enough.

I cast myself a mid-size Iron Warrior emblem for the front visor, as well as making a small scroll for the IVth legion on the opposite side. The hazards had to be worked into the vehicle somewhere, so I put them above the slits. I think it's the perfect spot and it actually complements the vehicle, as opposed to painting them into all the inlays on the side.

The tank has a nice Olympian sounding name and this Greek pattern motif throughout. These are off the Minotaurs Transfer Sheet from Forge World, because I felt my freehand wasn't up to the task of such tiny tiny symbols.

The dish itself is a pair of grates off a Nephallim Fighter from 40k, attached to a chaos searchlight, with a small aquilla from an old Leman Russ kit attached to make it more imperial-y. The assembly is mounted atop a chaos rhino cupola slightly modified to look more like a scanner.

A few spare cables, a filter off a German King Tiger tank and a bit of a hunter killer were combined together for the small generator unit behind the dish.

IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT

Here is the starting Rhino, it was a mess!

  

So, all in all, this is the kind of project that I have come to LOVE about the hobby. A simple idea, for a budget command tank, realised with just parts I had lying around. I think it looks good enough that nobody will complain, well, at least I hope.

~Macca

Iron Warriors: Erasmas Golg and more Consuls!

Erasmus Golg.

Not many photos here, as he is the most simple conversion, simply a Grave Warden with a head swap and a vexillia.

Primus Medicae.

This guy was a little more effort. Apothecary lights and sensors were glued onto his torso, and his weapon is a conversion of the grenade launcher, combining a melta and bolter together for a combi-melta combination.

Multi-HQ.

The most fun of the three, this guy is a combination of a little Forge Lord, Siege Breaker, Warsmith, Praetor, Champion, Consul etc. This is my Jack-of-all-trades character, something I can use in multiple lists.

Befitting his stature and techno-prowess, I elected to modify the grenade launcher arm in a different way, combining a melta into it, and adding a small augery scanner (just above the hand). He has a large servo arm on his back, as well as a single frag assault launcher.

Three HQ's.

So there they are, three HQ's. The choice to go with more Cataphractii is in response to a few things:

-My previous force, the defensive siege force was too dominant in the ranged game, reducing the entire tournament I played in to a shooting game, I felt like dirty Tau.

-I have little to no effective Zone Mortalis forces. Can't defend the Contrador with MK IV armour!

-I lacked mobility. The one situation where my shooting failed was when Michael from the Eye of Horus backed away with the Relic hidden inside his Spartan. I had to cross the battlefield to grab it, I couldn't just shoot both the Spartan AND the Stone Gaunlet Breachers with Feel No Pain to death. I needed strong assault options to do it.

So, here I am. I hope you enjoy these quick snaps.

~Macca

Is Games Workshop out of touch? Um, I guess this is part 3?

So I stumbled across an article on BOLS last week, find it here. Jervis has a bit of a gentleman's rant, which I'm all for, however I find his view incredibly one-sided for someone who wields so much power over the system. Anyway, long story short, I think the contents and discussion within merits a deeper thought than what was presented.

The key points I want to address (lifted from the article) are as follows:

"Here is a summation of the points he makes against tournament players in case you didn’t read it all:
— Tournament gamers only “play to win” and are WAAC
— Tournament gaming and tournaments “destroy what the hobby is really all about”
— Tournament gaming is directly opposed to painting (LOL)
— Tournament style gaming is unimaginative
Here’s how Jervis thinks the game should be played:
— Scenario based games and campaigns are the pinnacle of the hobby
— Scenario and campaign games have no need for point values or pre-set win conditions
— Points and even match-ups are the cause and death of “casual play” and scenario and campaign based gaming for the wider community"

Jervis... why?

(I will add a note here, the piece written by Jervis is a decade old. It's not a current document, however it's the best peek into the mind of their key developer. His attitude may have changed over time, but given the direction the game has taken, and how little communication we actually get out of GW, this is the best representation of their attitude I can find.)
— Tournament gamers only “play to win” and are WAAC

No, not in Australia. No, that's not true, it's less WAAC here but I would say it really just applies to certain people as opposed to the whole scene. There are a lot of players who are running narrative lists and who win Tournaments. They don't have to be mutually exclusive. Spraggy, Keepy even myself, have all won tournaments with lists that were as fluffy as they were tough.


— Tournament gaming and tournaments “destroy what the hobby is really all about”

Um.... no? I love nothing more at a tournament than spending as much time as possible discussing models, rules, fluff etc with other hobbyists, all whilst looking at well painted armies. I know in 30K especially that we area community that thrives on 'rule of cool'. You see forces all the time with converted units EVERYWHERE. People like to go above and beyond, I find.


— Tournament gaming is directly opposed to painting (LOL)

As above, I find that most armies are excellently built and painted. There are holdouts, but, honestly, the majority take a lot of pride in their armies. Even players who aren't great painters at least jump in and give it a go. Good on them too, it's the only way to improve!


— Tournament style gaming is unimaginative

Try playing a Horus Heresy mission sometime, when you start in a city full of objectives and the buildings start collapsing onto your units as they try and capture them. True story. Book I will tell you all you need to know on that...

— Scenario based games and campaigns are the pinnacle of the hobbySounds like forcing his style onto others. I agree with it, mostly, I myself like to play narrative games, but the narrative should stem from interesting and well developed missions available in the game, or even missions that the players themselves come up with. That said, it is not the pinnacle, some people honestly do enjoy a simple 'kill them all' approach. We call them World Eaters players.


— Scenario and campaign games have no need for point values or pre-set win conditions

What did I just read? Ok, so, you're playing a campaign and, I dunno, Horus decides to start a Heresy of some kind and he is fighting across the stars. He is a valuable asset should you chose to field him in your campaign, but the counter is, if you use him, and he dies, you lose, so you have to be selective.

According to Jervis, that's just silly. Apparently I'm not forging a narrative with that...

Not only that, lets just go full on GW, Lord of War limits? Nah, lets rock up with half a dozen super heavies, that's a waaaaaay better approach to forging the narrative.


— Points and even match-ups are the cause and death of “casual play” and scenario and campaign based gaming for the wider community"

Why can't even match ups occur? I hate a lack of balance, because when I play, I want to test my generalship against the other player. If he or I rocks up with a list that is far superior, it kinda takes the fun out of it for me. You're either clubbing a baby seal, or you yourself is getting clubbed. It can be fun, but usually it only works with some kind of balancing mechanic. Problem is, you need a rough starting point to make the lists from, and you cannot do that (with any level of ease) without points. Without some guiding force, you end up with silly combinations, it's that simple.

Why does this worry me, and why should YOU be worried?

Well, in simple terms, Jervis heads up the department writing rules and codexes. This guy can turn around at the near-drop of a hat and re-engineer 40k into Age of Sigmar. If this happens, 30k as we know it will cease to exist. What we need is honestly an injection of sanity or player feedback into GW headquarters. I'd put my hand up, but I have good ideas (mostly), and I know I'd never make it through the doors at Nottingham. (Ok, I'd probably stumble into a bar somewhere near the airport and that would be my trip over) Jervis' record of writing codexes is also something I would like to point out, as the man single handedly destroyed the 3.5 Chaos Dex, not just toning it down, but removing all the flavour from it and turning Chaos Space Marines ever since into Codex: Red Corsairs. For a person who believes in narrative play and fluff, he took a big dump on one of the most beloved dexes of all time in both the crunch and fluff.

Jervis, please, if you're reading this (ok, I know you're not, I pay out on GW waaaaay to much to have many, if any, readers who work there) just keep the game as it is, try to tone a few things down, change a few existing rules and let the players play the game how they deem fit.

Yes, we can always take a person out of context. We can overhype and exaggerate a certain comment to the extremes. We can misinterpret the intent and dwell on the wrong words. Yet somehow, I really believe this is the mindset at GW, because nothing they have done in the last 15 years suggests otherwise to me. What do you think?

~Macca

A Galaxy In Flames Tutorial: Making a wet palette in 5 minutes.

My old wet palette. I constructed it when I was working on Horus in order to get my wet blending done. So, as I peel yet another old dry piece of paint soaked paper off, I thought I'd talk about making these things.

Wet palettes are used so that paint doesn't go off on the palette, it's an excellent way to blend paints whilst you're working on a miniature, rather than chasing your tail trying to blend new colours constantly.

I used a few of the old blister pack foams, and I placed them into an old Citadel Basing container. Nothing crazy here, just make the foam pretty much form fit the case. The foam looks bad, but it's just stained. By washing the palette after use you can stop the paint sinking into the foam and hardening it.

Next, I cut some paper towel. Just a single piece of paper, cut to size and tested.

After that, simply pour some water in, making sure it isn't soaked to the bone. Pour any excess water out.

Simple as simple gets. When you go to use it, simply adjust the wetness to suit your style.

~Macca

Progress for the VIIth Legion 32nd Vanguard company

It has been so long that i had forgotten how to use a paint brush, but life has taken some turns for me and i am able to hobby again. So where i left off about a year ago i had a few pics of the very initial stages of painting for a vanguard company of imperial fists. This company was gonna be all about breachers and armour using the Stone Gauntlet Rite of War.

So with a local fun tournament just over the horizon run by the guys at A Traitors Hand, I've pulled my finger out and got back to putting some more paint on these guys. Here are a few pics of my recent progress

Getting To Know Your Graviton

Macca here, and today we are talking tactics. I recently took a battery of 3 graviton rapiers to the 2500 point Inferno III tournament. I was rolling a solid 6/10 list, as follows:

HQ
Siegebreaker
Praevian Narik Dreygur with 5 Vorax

Elite
10 Siege Tyrants
2 Contemptors with chainfist and graviton guns
3 Graviton Rapier Batteries

Troop
2x 10 man tactical squads

Heavy
Deredeo
5 Iron Havocs with Autocannons and an Augery Scanner

The list is on foot. It's slow. It has no real close combat muscle. It has no meltaguns, no plasmaguns, not a single fast attack unit. Yet for game after game the list held its own. Why?

Gravitons. (ok, and siege tyrants, but the tyrants rarely got their points back, the rapiers however killed 2 Sicarians, a Cerberus with Castraman Orth and a Spartan in one game alone.)

The trick with Graviton Rapiers is to place them in a position where they can dominate the enemy in the first 2-3 turns. The units you want to take out are their armoured assets, and damn are these good at that. I also had Gravitons on the dreadnoughts, but they are more situational, so I will be focussing on the rapiers.

The Graviton Rapier mounts a Graviton Cannon, a 36" ranged, S- AP4 Large Blast. It is haywire, always wounds a target if they fail their toughness test. Sound a bit boring? Well, it leaves an area of difficult AND dangerous terrain in play in the turn after it has fired, and this is the gold dust.

When fired at a group of tanks, it tends to scatter. Poor Nate had a carpark with 2 Sicarians and a Predator in our game in a single confined area, and the rapiers, with scatter, managed to kill both Sicarians and to punish the Predator. This is the average performance of these fearsome weapons. The best part is, if a vehicle does survive, it has to make a dangerous terrain move next turn, potentially damaging it, and this is fantastic for killing transports.

I can hear you all now, "what about flare shielded Spartans rolling a squad of Red Butchers and Angron?"

What about them? Flare shields don't affect haywire, the Spartan still has to go through the terrain patch left after firing and generally they never survive more than 2 salvos from the Gravitons, if they are lucky. What do you do however once the squad disembarks? You have no armour left to kill, and AP4 toughness test graviton won't kill terminators?

Why, little Billy, you shoot them anyway. Make their slow Cataphractii 'cannot run' asses wade through difficult terrain for 3 turns to get to you. Angron leaves the unit and runs at you solo? Even better, you can focus on just him now.

That's how you use graviton. You use it strategically.

Got trouble with the Mechanicum? Well, if they are rolling constructs, the haywire attacks cause a subsequent wound on any cortex units on a roll of a 6. It's not much, but it's a potential extra wound. You fighting Imperial Militia? Who cares, Large blast, AP 4, going to wound on 4's and leave them in dangerous terrain, what's not to love?

Against Superheavies like knights, these guns also rock. The poor player I faced in round 1 copped 3 of these and had to divert his shield to that arc. As soon as he did that, he had now opened up the other 3 arcs on the knight to my remaining firepower (which was quite considerable). When Nate took a run at these guys with his Castraman Orth pimped Cerberus Super Heavy, he found that even the Neutron laser and Lascannons combined were having trouble killing these Toughness 7 platforms in cover. Two turns was all it took for these guns to turn the pride of his army into a massive explosion. 

In summary: WHY AREN'T YOU USING GRAVITON RAPIERS? YOU ARE HERE TO TALK HOBBY AND WIN GAMES, AND RIGHT NOW YOU ARE DONE TALKING HOBBY!

Seriously, if you're Iron Hands, you're immune to bolter fire. If you're Alpha Legion... who the hell knows what you can do, something shadey that's for sure. If you're rocking these things, you can do a LOT of damage. Even if you don't take them with Grav, take them with Heavy Bolters for insane Imperial Fists accuracy, or Iron Warriors with a crapton of pinning. (Seriously tho, take grav)

~Macca

Knowing Your Rites of War.

I wrote a couple of articles a while back, on the actual units you may consider taking in a Horus Heresy list. The first two-parts can be found here:

Part 1.

Part 2.

Ok, so onto the crux of it, Rites of War. As most HH gamers should know, you should never let the Force Org Chart get in the way of a good, fun list. Rites of War are there to spice it up a little, they allow you to change how your army implements the FoC, as well as giving (and taking) rules from you. There are 4 main Rites of War listed in the HH book. These are unlocked by taking a Master of the Legion, typically a Praetor, Primarch (obviously) or some special characters.

Basic Rites of War:

Orbital Assault: This RoW basically lets you take drop pods and dreadclaws as dedicated transports instead of rhinos. The down side is, any unit that can't deep strike, or ride in a vehicle that can, can't be taken. Also, no fortification for you.

Armoured Spearhead: Rhinos become Land Raiders (for the right points..), if you tank-shock an enemy, their Ld is at -1. All infantry must be embarked on a vehicle at the start of the game. If you buy 12 marines and only brought them a rhino, I have bad news for you. If all tanks in your force are destroyed, your opponent gets a free VP. Oh, and no fortifications. Again.

Angels Wrath: All jump pack models gain hit and run. Rhinos now become Storm Eagles. Only jump units, fliers, skimmers and vehicles embarked on fliers may be taken. Oh, and a trivial side matter... no tanks at all, and no fortifications. Again.

Pride of the Legion: Veteran Marines and Terminators are troops choices, not only that, they MUST be selected to fill your compulsory troops slots. Command squads can take Land Raiders as dedicated Transports. Of course, the ever wonderful down side is if you lose all your veterans and terminators, your opponent gets an extra VP. You also can't take allies. Period.

As said in the past, RoW give you buffs, but they also take away options that can be quite hard. That's the penalty for fluff, and it's a fair one too.

Legion Specific Rites of War:

Here is where it gets interesting. I am not going to go into any great detail here, as they are varied, some haven't come out yet (we do only have 13 legions of 18 at the moment after all). The main thing to keep in mind when it comes to Rites of War for your specific Legion is that it's forcing you to play in a specific way.

The first example I will use in detail is my very own and beloved Raven Guard.

The long short of the Raven Guard Rite of War "Decapitation Strike" is that:

-all the models with the Legiones Astartes (Raven Guard) special rule get preferred enemies 'independent characters'.
-If this force is my Primary detachment, I may reroll for deployment and to see who goes first.
-Drop pods become dedicated transports for all the main foot-slogging units, i.e Tac Squads, Terminators etc. Deathstorm Drop Pods may also be taken as Elites, not just heavy. This probably has something to do with the limitations..

-You may only take a single Heavy Support choice.
-You may only take a single Consul as part of your HQ choice.
No Fortifications or allied Space Marines allowed. (but Mechanicum, Knights, Imperial Army etc. are A-OK)

So, what does this mean game play wise?

As you are limited in the HQ department, thanks to your single consul, and since you need a Master of the Legion to even run the Rite of War, my choice goes to Alvarex Maun. With the ability to have no-scatter deep strike and re-rolls for reserves in a force specialising in Drop Pod assaults, he comes in very handy.

Force wise, you are aiming to go for a lot of drop-pods, fliers etc. These can negate the loss of your heavy support elements by bolstering your firepower with their aerial prowess (Storm Eagles with melta/las are awesome for anti-armour whilst you machine spirit fire your missiles into infantry blobs). The key with Decap. Strike is to use it to take on characters and gain the bonuses of killing the enemy HQ. Against Mechanicum and Solar Auxillia armies, the loss of their general can be devastating, and I highly advise using a squad or two of dedicated character killers to 'off' them. A suggestion in this area might be to use Mor Dethyan snipers, and declare the marked target, for a turn of 2's to hit, 5's to REND preferred enemy sniping....

Characters and Rites.

Certain characters can have a massive influence on your Rites of War. Some restrict them, others can practically make the Rites of War redundant or allow you to essentially take two. Erasmus Golg of the Iron Warriors, for example, opens up Terminators as troops, making Pride of the Legion slightly pointless. Perturabo gives all of your Terminators deep strike without needing to take Orbital Assault as a Rite of War. It's good to know where these rules can stack, and combine. Michael from over at the Eye of Horus podcast uses the Stone Gauntlet Rite of War, which allows him to field toughness 5 breachers. Suddenly they are worthit, as opposed to being a 100 point more expensive and less effective tactical squad. By combining un-named characters into these units, he ends up with a list stronger than the sum of its parts. Keep this in the back of your mind.

Alternate Force Organisation Charts and Rites

So, you like the idea of running a Pride of the Legion force combined with an Alternate Force Org. Chart? Guess what? You cannot. Pride of the Legion only applies to lists built using the standard Force Org. Chart. I'm not going to tell you where it is written, but my challenge to you is to find it out for yourself, that way when somebody rocks up with a POTL list with 4 heavy choices you can shoot em' down.

Final Thoughts

Having a Rite of War is a great thing, it allows you a lot of options and gives you the ability to run really fluffy (and even competitive fluffy) lists, without having to proxy or make awful allied detachments. I recommend you play around with them and see what you can come up with, because there are some fantastic options.

All the photos in this post are from Inferno III, the full album is located on our Facebook page here.

~Macca