Chapterhouse is one of the following

Completely devoid of a brain, or in possession of the biggest set of bawls documented in human history.

This is relation to this by the way.

When under the guns of GW's legal team, is it really necessary to make another not-GW GW model?  You want to make shoulder pads, thats one thing, but whole models?  Even if it turns out to be legal, they are leaching off of the work that GW has done.  And what if they win their legal battle?  Do you think they'd have done anything to help the hobby?

Also don't think about it as copying the work of GW, think about it as copying the artistic vision of Jes Goodwin and all the other artists who have worked for GW.  Their work has really progressed the quality of miniatures over the last 30 years.  That model is not up to the quality that those artists produce, and it is an insult to them to try and poorly imitate their style to make a few bucks.  

I'm also tired of TGN's coverage of anything remotely GW related.  The powers that be there seem to have an ax to grid when it comes to GW.  As you can tell from this bitchfest because GW didn't give out a million dollars of free stuff at Adepticon.

Is Mech still the only way to go?

I'm not going to say mech is dead, but is mech still the only viable option now that we are 7 codexes into 5th edition?  There are benefits of running an all mech army, and I still think mech is a good choice.  On the other hand, I'm starting to think that it doesn't have to be the only choice.

There are some people who would like to say that there is no meta-game, but the state of the game does change with every codex.  We started with an incomplete picture of the edition, but now things are much clearer.  For most 4th ed codexes, it's hard to spam any long range shooting over a strength of 6.  Anything stronger is over-costed or on platforms that are limited by FOC.   With melta as the only reliable anti-tank in early 5th, rhinos and chimeras become very tough to kill from across the table.  However, each successive codex has added more effective options for taking on light-armor at mid or long range.  There is a lot of strength 7 and 8 spam now and most of it comes on foot options.  There's now a way to build a solid long range fire base that is effective at taking out armor 11 and 12 vehicles reliably.

At this point I think that light armor is becoming a liability.  To spam it effectively, you have to skimp on the units inside.  5 marines, even with a melta gun, are not very scary if they are stuck on the other side of the board.  A good round of shooting from a newer 5th ed codex army can really hurt a light mech spam list.  10 or 12 Razorbacks are still tough to take out, but not as tough as it used to be.

Basically what I'm saying is that every army doesn't have to be min squads in razorbacks to be competitive anymore.  There are tools to deal with them now, and variant list approaches for people willing to stop drinking the kool aid.  I think people should look into foot or hybrid lists more. I'm not saying everyone should do this.  The 4th ed codexes are still 4th ed codexes, but the newer codexes have a shot at pulling it off.  I think it requires a different type of thinking than creating a mech spam list.  You have to build the list around an idea other than getting the most fire power or the most bodies.  It becomes more about selecting units that work together.  Good Tyranid and Demon players do this, and I based my foot GK off the way the good demon players I know build and play their lists.

Gamers DMZ Tournament 4/23

Came in sixth place today going 2 and 1 with my GK deep strike list.  I changed up my list a little for the tournament. I replaced the dreadnought with a second Dread Knight, and took the conversion beamers out of the list.  I gave the inquisitors psycotroke grenades and made all the Justicars' weapons master crafted.  Master crafted weapons for the Justicars are very much worth the 5 points.  I think that I'm going to run rad grenades instead of psychotroke next time though.  Psychotrokes are too random, and I was continually rolling results that where of no use.  Inquisitors with grenades and a couple of crusaders are one hell of a CC unit. Overall, I'm happy with how my list is working.

My first game was against Blood Angels.  He was a casual player, and I let him call it on the top of turn 5 with a squad of marines left.

My second game was against Tyranids, and it was a brutal close game.  I kept my army in one block to focus fire and to keep half of his army out of the game.  It hurt me because it meant that I had to give up on 3 of the 5 objectives.  It came down to having to kill two tervigons on the last turn.  My inquisitor made his psychic test and instant killed one, but my dread knight periled and lost his last wound fighting the other one.  He won 2 objectives to my 1.  I killed most of his army though.  He had only 10 gaunts, 2 hive guard, and a tervigon left at the end.  I killed 73 gaunts in the game.  He was a good opponent, and it was a fun challenging game.

The third game was against orks.  I was the highest ranked 1-1 player so I played the lowest ranked 2-0 player.  The game started out really bad for me.   I was missing just about every roll, and the ork player was rolling phenomenally.  It changed up in the fourth turn.  I was able to counter attack affectively and finally roll above a three. I ended up almost tabling him at the end of turn 7.

I was only about 180 points behind the 2-1 player that got to go into the final round.  If I had been a dick and tabled my opponent in round 1, I would have gotten at least 4th place.

It was a very fun tournament.  I feel bad for the locals though.  90% of the hard core Indy tournament players showed up, and beat a whole bunch of local kids in the first round.  We had 4 G2D4 regulars show up and play locals in the first round, and all of us ended in the top 6.  Of the other two, one was from Muncie and the other a north side player.  Even though I'm a hardcore competitive format proponent, I think the locals could have benefited from a more hobby friendly event for their first tournament experience.

My GK 1500 point list

I got the opportunity to try out my Ultra-Honor-Grey-Guard-Knights last Saturday.  I played a game versus Shrike Marines and another one versus Space Wolves.  I was able to pull off wins in both games, but I'm still not confident in the list as it has some weaknesses.

Here's was my list.

Xenos Inquisitor w/ Conversion Beamer, Psychic Mastery 1 (Psychic communion), 3x Servo Sculls
Xenos Inquisitor w/ Conversion Beamer, Psychic Mastery 1 (Psychic communion), 3x Servo Sculls
Henchmen w/ 4x Crusaders, 1 Mystic
Henchmen w/ 4x Crusaders, 1 Mystic
Vindicare Assassin
5 man Strike Squad w/ hammer, psycannon
5 man Strike Squad w/ hammer, psycannon
5 man Strike Squad w/ halberd, psycannon
5 man Strike Squad w/ halberd, psycannon

5 man Strike Squad w/ halberd, psycannon

5 man Strike Squad w/ halberd, psycannon

Dread Calgar w/ heavy incinerator

Dreadnought w/ 2x twin linked auto-cannons, psybolt

Yep, a deep striking foot GK list.   Pretty simple setup.  The two inquisitors deploy with the henchmen and hide for a turn.  On turn two they cast Psychic Communion and deep strike all the Grey Knights on a 2+.   The Vindicare and the  Dreadnought are not final elements of the list.  As soon as I get a second Dread Knight I'm going to swap it for the dreadnought.  I'm still undecided about the Vindicare.  There aren't very many targets in this list on turn 1; making him very vulnerable. He does provide the best anti-Land Raider ranged firepower in the list though.  I'll either swap him for a Calidus  (since communion adds or subtracts per die roll, I can hold her in reserve longer than the rest of the army) or a third Dread Knight.

I'm think I'm going to cut the conversion beamers from the army.  I need the inquisitors to survive until turn two, and giving them firing lanes where they can see and be seen is counterproductive to that purpose.  It's also 45 points for a ST 8 template 90% of the time.  I think a combi-melta would be more useful. 

Dread Calgar Walks!

I couldn't get Calgar's torso bit to fit even after cutting off his cape.   The arms fit rather nicely once some of the bolter feeds where dremeled off..