So, now that I have my basic Slaanesh Marine army listed out, built, and through some preliminary testing, where should I take it? Where do I want to go with it? How do I want to grow it to expand my options and/or run larger lists? Well, there are some things I could already start building right now.

• Chaos Terminators: They’re a nasty unit in my Khorne list, so I have no doubt that they’d also be effective in a Slaanesh list. Is the extra initiative worth the trade-off for the extra attack? Volume of blows is great, but being able to wound your enemy first, and thus blunt their ability to attack in return, is great for survivability. Sure, this unit can’t sweep its foes in assault, but it can still tie them up for a while, and it’s less likely to get swept itself. I have 7 terminators and a terminator lord yet to build, so I have plenty of parts to work with. I might want to look for a Land Raider to cart them around in, but in the meantime I can deep strike them, especially with all the icons I carry around.
• Chaos Bikers: Some bikers running around the board with 5 initiative sounds fun – almost like Eldar in power armor – and I just happen to have six of them waiting to be assembled. The question is, do I bother giving any of them special weapons, and do I upgrade any of them to an aspiring champion? An icon bearer is a must, of course, but everything else is up in the air.
• Defiler: Right now, my heavy support choices are a bit limited; I have Obliterators and… Obliterators. However, I have an unassembled Defiler that would make a nice addition, and unlike my Khorne Defiler, this one would keep all of its ranged weapons. I’m thinking of running the Reaper Autocannon and a Havoc Launcher on it, so that I could fire either one big shot or a number of smaller shots each turn. I’ll need to figure out some appropriate customizations to make the the model itself, though.
• Vindicator: Again, more heavy support choices. A possessed Vindicator, or even a plain one, would be useful on the field. I could have one together in a single evening, but much like the Defiler, I’d have to figure out how I want to customize its look.
• More Noise Marines: I have a couple of spare Noise Marine arms just sitting around, and I have a number of unassembled Chaos Marines, so I could easily throw these together and pad out the squad a bit. It’s a useful add-in if I find my self having 50-100 points spare to use up.
• Chosen Marines: Again, I have spare marine bodies to work with, so it wouldn’t be hard at all to throw a squad of them togther. Having some outflankers would be quite useful, and they’re very customizable. I’d have to get a Rhino for them, though. Of what I can assemble now, they’re at the bottom of the list, but that’s because it’s a list with no real bad options.

As far as things I’d need to buy if I wanted to add them, there’s not much. The main thing that comes to mind is more Lesser Daemons (again, using the old Daemonette model), just so I could run more/larger squads of them to deep strike in and claim/contest objectives. Other than that, it’s a matter of getting more Rhinos for the units that need them, and deciding if I want a Land Raider or not. Still, with everything above, I could easily add another 1000 points or so to the army and have plenty of options to pick and choose from.

Finally, there’s the small matter of my other Chaos Marine army. The Khornite army isn’t bad; it’s just that I enjoy playing the Slaaneshi army more. Storage space is at a bit of a premium, and if I’m not going to use the army much, I might as well sell it to someone else who will. I haven’t done a final tally, but I know I have between 1750 and 2000 points, all assembled, and most of which is primed (apart from one squad of Berzerkers and Kharn himself). I’d prefer to sell it to someone local, as I’d hate to try to pack it for shipping and risk all the various spiky bits getting broken, but if there’s no interest here, there’s always eBay. Keep your eyes on this spot.

And in the meantime, I have to get to priming and painting these guys!

Artwork by jubjubjedi. Used without permission.

So, after months of not wanting to run a Daemon Prince list because they seem so prevalent amongst Chaos Marine lists, once I had one I figured that I might as well put together a list that included it. Most of the list – such as the Obliterators, the Noise Marines, and the other Chaos Marine squads – I was happy with, so I really only needed to change up the daemonic portions of the list. Here’s what I managed to put together:

HQ: Chaos Sorcerer (1#, 130 pts)
1 Chaos Sorcerer (Mark of Slaanesh; Lash of Submission; Personal Icon)

HQ: Daemon Prince (1#, 135 pts)
1 Daemon Prince (Mark of Slaanesh; Sorcerer; Lash of Submission)

Troops: Noise Marines (7#, 285 pts)
5 Noise Marines (Sonic Blaster x4; Blastmaster; Personal Icon)
1 Noise Champion (Doom Siren; Power Weapon)
1 Rhino (Daemonic Possession)

Troops: Chaos Space Marines (11#, 285 pts)
9 Chaos Space Marines (Icon of Slaanesh; Plasmagun x2)
1 Aspiring Champion (Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol)
1 Rhino

Troops: Chaos Space Marines (11#, 285 pts)
9 Chaos Space Marines (Icon of Slaanesh; Meltagun x2)
1 Aspiring Champion (Power Fist)
1 Rhino (Daemonic Possession)

Heavy Support: Obliterators (2#, 150 pts)
2 Obliterators

Heavy Support: Obliterators (2#, 150 pts)
2 Obliterators

Summoned Lesser Daemons (6#, 78 pts)
6 Summoned Lesser Daemons

Total: 1498 points

There’s a lot of icons in the list, and that’s to make sure that the Lesser Daemons (and if I choose to deep strike them, the Obliterators) always have a spot to come down safely. And yes, it is a dual Lash list, albeit one with only one Daemon Prince. The two Lash users, though, have different purposes. The Sorcerer rides along with the Noise Marines and uses his Lash to pull enemy infantry into the range of the Champion’s doom siren. The Daemon Prince, on the other hand, mostly uses it to pull units into assault range (to make up for the lack of wings) or out of it (when facing off against horde armies). Otherwise, the list performs identically to my other Slaanesh CSM list.

I even had a opportunity to run a short test of this list against WDR, one of my friends at the Undergopher podcast, and his vanilla Marine army. We only had time for a partial game, maybe three turns, so we rolled up a mission from the main rulebook. Luckily, we got Pitched Battle/Annihilation, the most basic mission type available. WDR won the roll-off to see who would deploy first and decided to take the first turn. He brought the following:

1 Razorback w/ Twin-linked Lascannons, with 5 Sternguard Veterans and a Captain inside
2 Rhinos w/10-man Tactical Squads inside
2 Scout Squads
1 Dreadnought w/Multi-melta and Storm Bolter
1 Whirlwind
1 Vindicator
1 Predator w/ Twin-linked Lascannons and 2 Lascannon sponsons

That was a lot of tanks to face off against, and those tanks were packing serious firepower. In response, I deployed everything I could, knowing I would need my Obliterators on turn 1 to counter his armor. Then, tempting fate, I attempted to seize the initiative… and succeeded! This turned the tables a bit, and gave me the first turn to get the jump on his army.

Chaos Turn 1: I run my Rhinos up and pop smoke, keeping my Daemon prince shielded from WDR’s scout snipers. The Obliterators take some shots with Lascannons, but don’t manage any noticeable damage.

Marine Turn 1: He keeps his army stationary, choosing to take shots and make me come to him. He’s able to land a couple of wounds on the Daemon Prince with the Razorback and the Dreadnought, but otherwise either he misses, fails to do damage, or my smoke cover keeps me safe.

Chaos Turn 2: The Lesser Daemons come in, and I bring them in 6 inches from the melta squad’s Rhino, which puts them within 6 inches of his one deployed scout squad. Everything else moves up closer towards his tank line, and a pair of meltagunners fire from their Rhino and destroy the Razorback, killing two veterans and slightly wounding the captain in the process. The Daemon Prince then lashes the survivors closer, so that it can assault them. The Obliterators also have a decent turn, wrecking one Rhino and taking the turret off the Predator, as does the plasma squad, which wrecks a second Rhino. When time for assault comes, it’s a mixed bag. The Daemon Prince slaughters the remaining veterans, leaving only the Captain. On the other hand, the Lesser Daemons only roll a 4 on their Difficult Terrain check, leaving them unable to cross the lip of the crater holding the scouts.

Marine Turn 2: Again, WDR keeps his army mostly stationary. He manages a solid shot with one of the Predator’s sponsons on the Noise Marines’ Rhino, destroying it and killing one of them in the resulting explosion. Elsewhere, he cuts down half of the Lesser Daemons with sniper gunfire. Near the center of the table, the Captain and Daemon Prince remain locked in combat, with the marine taking a second wound.

Chaos Turn 3: My army continues pressing on. The melta and plasma squad Rhinos pull up and drop off their passengers, who proceed to whittle down one of the two exposed Tactical Squads down to 3 men remaining. Meanwhile, the Sorcerer splits off from the Noise Marines so that he can “fire” separately, lashing the other TacSquad into a  teardrop-shaped formation. The Noise Marines then open fire, leaving one marine remaining. The Obliterators have another productive turn, destroying the cannon on WDR’s Vindicator. In assault, the Noise Marines finish off their lone opponent, the Lesser Daemons lose two more members after finally getting into assault, and the Captain and Prince remain locked in combat, each unable to kill the other.

Marine Turn 3: At this point, WDR is ready to concede the game – we’re running out of time, and I’m definitely in a superior position. However, in true marine fashion, he doesn’t want to go out without a fight. His Whirlwind wants to land a shot on the Obliterators, but he doesn’t have line of sight to them, meaning he’ll scatter without any Ballistics Skill reduction. Instead, he tries to drop the shot on a Rhino he can see… and the scatter takes the shot right on top of the Obliterators anyway! That’s some Kentucky windage for you. (Unfortunately, the shot does no damage.) The remaining TacSquad unloads some shots on the melta squad before charging into assault and manages to take a few Chaos marines with them, and the scouts sweep the remaining Lesser Daemon. Finally, the HQ assault is finally resolved – the Daemon Prince is unable to injure the Captain, but he manages a wound on it. The Prince loses the assault, and then loses its life as it fails to save its Fearless-inflicted wound at the end of assault. The Captain is victorious! Unfortunately, he’s also surrounded by two angry squads of Chaos Marines and has only one wound remaning. With that, we call the game in Chaos’s favor.

I have to say that I like this variant of the list just as much as the other one, although there are still things I might change. I’d like to pump up the number of Lesser Daemons I’m running (which means finding more previous-edition Daemonettes), and to make the points for it, I might consider dropping the Chaos Sorcerer. It’s not that he’s not useful, but the points have to come from somewhere, and he’s semi-redundant with the DP there. Alternately, I could bump the list to 1750 points and have the best of both worlds, although none of my friends have 1750-point lists together yet.

So, where does my Slaanesh list go from here? Come back tomorrow, where I’ll take a look at the future of my Chaos Marine army.

Artwork by SelenaH. Used without permission.

I finally had a chance to use my Slaanesh CSM list on Saturday in two separate games. Actually, I used two different versions of the list; now that I have a daemon prince together, I went ahead and created a variant that included one. First, though, I wanted to play the original list I’d built. I’d promised my friend Jon that he would get first crack at the list, so he brought his Space Wolves to the table. Here’s what I brought to the table:

HQ: Chaos Sorcerer (1#, 125 pts)
1 Chaos Sorcerer (Mark of Slaanesh; Lash of Submission)

Elite: Possessed (7#, 241 pts)
5 Possessed (Icon of Slaanesh)
1 Possessed Champion
1 Rhino (Daemonic Possession)

Troops: Noise Marines (7#, 280 pts)
5 Noise Marines (Sonic Blaster x4; Blastmaster)
1 Noise Champion (Doom Siren; Power Weapon)
1 Rhino (Daemonic Possession)

Troops: Chaos Space Marines (11#, 285 pts)
9 Chaos Space Marines (Icon of Slaanesh; Plasmagun x2)
1 Aspiring Champion (Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol)
1 Rhino

Troops: Chaos Space Marines (11#, 265 pts)
9 Chaos Space Marines (Icon of Slaanesh; Meltagun x2)
1 Aspiring Champion (Power Fist)
1 Rhino

Heavy Support: Obliterators (2#, 150 pts)
2 Obliterators

Heavy Support: Obliterators (2#, 150 pts)
2 Obliterators

Total: 1496 points

We rolled up a mission from the Battle Missions book and ended up playing Pillage, a Chaos Marine mission. It’s basically a Spearhead deployment objective mission, but with two differences. First, your board edge is not the long board edge touching your table quarter; instead, you only get the edges of your quarter itself. It’s a bit restrictive, but as you can only start with an HQ and 2 troops, and everything else goes into reserves, it’s not as crowded as a standard Spearhead deployment. Secondly, you don’t score objectives held at the end of the game. Instead, you accumulate points by having an uncontested, un-assaulted unit touching the objective at the end of your opponent’s turns. It’s an interesting concept, but in practice it felt very wonky. I was able to claim two of the three objectives on the first turn, and I just out-accumulated Jon to the point where the winner was clear on turn 3. I’d rather use the deployment with a standard Seize Ground mission instead.

With the scoring being a bit odd, I won’t go into the play-by-play, but I will cover some of the highlights of how my army performed.

Initiative wins battles. I’ve played enough games against Eldar, with both my Tau and Khorne CSM armies, to know how important going first in assault is. Having the Mark of Slaanesh on everything in the army (save the vehicles and Obliterators) made a huge difference. Rather than trading blows with the Space Wolves in assault, I could get the drop on my opponent and throw a flurry of blows at them. With enough hits, I could cut down the competition (even something as hardy as a Storm Shield Terminator) and reduce their ability to counterattack. Unlike Khorne Berzerkers’ Furious Charge, the effect wasn’t limited to the first round of combat; every time, I was swinging and hitting first.

Lash of Submission is effective. I know that quite a bit has been written about Lash princes and Lash sorcerers, but there’s a reason; it’s that good. Even with mechanized armies being so prevalent, it’s not hard to force troops out of their transports, and once they’re out you can pull them right to where you want them. One particularly effective strategy was to Lash a unit of marines towards my Noise Marines into a vaguely teardrop-shaped formation, and then have the Noise Champion hit them with his doom siren. Whatever survived the AP3 template weapon (which generally wasn’t much) would be mopped up by the rest of the unit’s sonic blasters, and any particularly lucky enemies that survived would get assaulted.

Obliterators are more fragile than I thought. Obliterators are basically Terminators on steroids: same armor save, same invulnerable save, and twice as many wounds. However, melta guns ruin their day. Not only do they ignore the Oblits’ armor, but they’re strong enough to double them out and kill them instantly. With every unit of Jon’s Grey Hunters packing a marine with a melta gun, there were multiple threats on the table, and Jon used them effectively to whittle down my heavy support.

Possessed Marines aren’t bad. There’s not much chance of me running them as a hammer unit; they’re not predictable enough or nasty enough to serve that job. However, they’re still a decent assault, and the randomness is a fun aspect (which I think can be just as important as being powerful). I’d compare them to summoned daemons, but with a number of advantages even though they cost more. First, they’re not solely dependent on having a 5+ invulnerable save; they still have marine armor under all the claws and teeth. Second, they can take icons, which mean they can take chaos marks; see “Initiative wins battles” above. Third, they really only have one bad random power: Scout. Everything else they can get is a solid option. Finally, they can take a Rhino, which gives you another piece of moving cover to use.

All told, I had a lot of fun playing this army. Unlike my Tau, which can really only shoot, and my Khorne CSM, which can really only assault, this felt like a much more versatile list. Like most marine variants, it’s solid both in shooting and in assault, and it has a few edges particular to it that really allow it to shine. In fact, I enjoyed playing this army so much that I’m strongly considering selling off my Khorne army to focus more resources on growing this one. Anyone interested in 1750-2000 points of assault-y Chaos Marines?

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about the other variant of my Slaanesh list, which got to face off against W.D.R. from the Undergopher podcast and his vanilla Marine army!

Artwork by Remton. Used without permission.

Yesterday, I finally got a chance to run my Slaanesh CSM list, “Pink is the New Black“, in two different variations. I’ll write more about that tomorrow, but first, there’s something else I started working on yesterday. When I first started putting together my Slaanesh list, I was pretty adamant about not wanting to use a Daemon Prince. However, while I was on vacation a few months ago, I happened upon a gaming store that had the Urban Legends variant of Reaper’s Sophie succubus mini on the shelf. Once I had it, I wasn’t sure exactly what to do with it, other than to just paint it up as is. After some reflection, though, I decided to make it into a Daemon Prince. I don’t feel like GW’s Daemon Prince kit was a good fit for Slaanesh, so this seemed to fit my army’s theme better.

Rather than just run her as-is, I wanted to “monster” her up a bit. I had a Chaos Spawn sprue that I wasn’t planning to use otherwise, so I took some of the bits from that. The large crab claw arm – very Slaaneshi in style – was attached, along with a couple of insectoid legs springing up from where her wings would be. Why didn’t I just use the wings that came with the mini? Frankly, because I didn’t want to use them. Yes, wings are great on a Daemon Prince, but I feel like they’re a bit overdone. True, you see a lot of Slaanesh DPs with Lash of Submission, but honestly I don’t mind footslogging her around. I can keep her in cover – that’s what the Rhinos are for. The claws were also a bit of an homage to Andariel, one of the demonic bosses in Diablo 2.

Here’s a few pics of how she’s coming along:

The horns are made from daemonette tails. Unfortunately, all of the tails in the daemonette box are unique, so I couldn’t have two of the same horn. I’m not too bothered by it; being a bit asymmetrical fits the theme as well. The base is a 60mm resin base from Micro Arts, and represents my first time working with anything resin. I had to drill into it a bit to make space for the peg on one of her feet. I trimmed that peg down a bit to fit, and trimmed the other peg off entirely; while she wasn’t 100% stable before the glue set, it’s held her in place quite well.

There’s still some work to do before she’s ready for priming, mostly involving the use of green stuff. There are still open holes in her back where the wings would have been that the insect legs don’t fill completely. I want to fill those in, and I also want to smooth in the joint between the back and the crab claw arm. In addition, I want to add a shoulder pad to one of her arms, although I don’t know if I want to use a standard marine pad or one for a Terminator. Her shoulder is actually slender enough to fit a standard one, but I’ll try both and decide which one I prefer. Once that’s done, she should be ready for priming and painting. I haven’t decided if I want to prime white or black yet, but I’ll need to decide soon.

On a side note, I also received 6 of the metal Juan Diaz daemonettes for my birthday (thanks, Dennis!) and got them together as well. Right now, I’m planning on using them as lesser summoned daemons in at least one of my Slaanesh lists. I’d like to get at least 6 more; they seem like they fit best in larger units that can absorb some fire before they get into assault with something.

Last Monday, I managed to get in a couple of games to celebrate the holiday weekend, and to start off I decided to use my Khorne Chaos Space Marine list to mix things up a bit. On the other side of the table was Dennis and his Eldar army. Lately, he’s been working on switching things up a bit and trying out a few variant lists. He also picked up one of the new Fire Prism kits, which looks as good up close as it does online. He also assembled a second Wave Serpent and third Vyper and went fully mechanized. His list looks something like this:

• 6 Howling Banshees w/Exarch and Jain Zar in a Wave Serpent
• 9 Dire Avengers w/Exarch in a Wave Serpent
• 8 Jetbikes, w/2 Shuriken Cannons and a Warlock w/Witchblade
• 2 Fire Prisms
• 1 Vyper w/ Missile Launcher
• 1 Vyper w/ Brightlance
• 1 Vyper w/ Starcannon

We determined mission and deployment randomly (including the Battle Missions book) and still managed to come up with Seize Ground/Dawn of War. I went first, and started my Berzerkers as close to mid-table as I could, and held the rest back for Turn 1. In response, Dennis deployed nothing. Two objectives were placed just left of center of the table on my table half, just over a foot apart. His objective was on the right of the table closer to his table edge.

Chaos Turn 1: With no sense of where he was going to be other than his objective, I ran my Berzerkers up towards where his army would be coming in. The rest of my army started following behind, with the Defiler on my left, the Land Raider coming up near the middle, and the Raptors moving up the right. Most of the army would be out of range due to night fighting rules, but the Rhinos popped smoke just to be safe.

Eldar Turn 1: Dennis had his army come in mostly on my left flank, refusing the right save for his three Vypers. This kept his Jetbikes out of immediate reach of my berzerkers. One of his Fire Prisms ended up on the far right edge of the table, and the other sat on a hilltop near the center of his table edge, with Wave Serpents flanking the hill. He took a number of shots at the Rhinos, but between the smoke and the night fighting round, he was unable to land a single damaging hit.

Chaos Turn 2: The Rhinos did not move this turn so that the Berzerkers inside could disembark and move. One squad moved up and assaulted the Starcannon Vyper, destroying it. The other squad assaulted the Wave Serpent to the left of the hill, with the Skull Champion wrecking it with his power fist. However, I discovered that I had chosen my target poorly, as a angry squad of Howling Banshees, complete with Exarch and Phoenix Lord, poured out the back. My Defiler lobbed a shot at the Jetbikes but only managed to drop one. The Land Raider advanced a bit more slowly so that it could fire a shot with one Lascannon, which destroyed the other Wave Serpent, forcing out the Dire Avengers. Finally, the Raptors harassed the far Fire Prism, managing to stun the crew.

Eldar Turn 2: The Jetbikes started moving along the right edge of the table, trying to avoid the mess that was gathering around the hill. The Brightlance Vyper made for some ruins to put distance between it and the Berzerkers harassing its peers. The Dire Avengers stood their ground near their objective. On the other hand, the Howling Banshees came around from the back of their destroyed transport and proceeded to utterly wipe out the responsible squad of Berzerkers. The Fire Prism on the hill took a shot at the Land Raider, but could not penetrate its armor. Finally, the Jetbikes took some potshots at the Raptors, but only managed to kill two.

Chaos Turn 3: If left unattended, Jain Zar and her Banshees would do terrible things to my army, so I had to put a stop to her. I moved in the Land Raider and both Rhinos, boxing the squad in. The Land Raider released its cargo of Terminators, ready for the kill. The Rhinos fired their combi-flamers, and the Heavy Flamer terminator joined in. By the time the shooting was over, only Jain Zar remained. The Terminators finished the job, only losing two in the process. The Terminator Lord, however was of no help, as he was busy smacking himself in the face with his Bloodfeeder. Elsewhere on the table, plans were shifting a bit. My remaining unit of Berzerkers pulled back towards the closest objective, and the Raptors charged the Fire Prism on the hill. Again, thought, they could only stun it. The Defiler hung back near the objectives, keeping them contested as it continued lobbing ineffective shots at the Eldar troops.

Eldar Turn 3: The Dire Avengers did not like having the Raptors that close, and proceeded to Bladestorm them, but to little effect. They then swung around their wrecked transport and assaulted them. They managed to whittle away a couple of Raptors, but both sides remained locked in combat. The unstunned Fire Prism took a shot at the Land Raider, but once again could not penetrate its AV14 shell. On the other side of the field, the Brightlance Vyper took a shot at the Defiler, but failed to damage it. The Missile Launcher Vyper, on the other hand, set its sights on the withdrawing unit of Berzerkers and managed to kill a couple. The Jetbikes turbo-boosted towards my table edge in order to gain a 3+ cover save against Defiler artillery.

Chaos Turn 4: One Rhino pulled back to attempt to shield the Berzerkers from the Vypers, while the other attempted to ram the Missile Launcher Vyper. However, the fast skimmer darted out of the way. The Terminators moved up the hill, joining the Raptors in combat and evening the odds a bit. Together, though, they’re still unable to wipe out the Dire Avengers, and both sides remain locked. Again, the Terminator Lord was too busy keeping his Bloodfeeder under control to be of any assistance. The Land Raider wheeled around to fire its lascannons at one of the Fire Prisms. Once again, though, only a stun could be managed.

Eldar Turn 4: The melee on the hill finally concluded, as the Terminator Lord finally got his weapon to behave and butchered the Dire Avengers to a man. Elsewhere, though, the Eldar were more successful. The Brightlance Vyper landed a solid shot on the Defiler’s back armor and wrecked it, and the Missile Launcher Vyper finished off the other Berzerkers. Finally, the Fire Prism on the hill, unstunned again, destroyed the Rhino nearest to the objectives on my side of the board. Oh, and the Jetbikes? They just waited, out of range from any threats.

Chaos Turn 5: At this point, it became clear that I’d been outplayed. I moved one of my Rhinos back towards my objectives, but I can only manage to get in contesting range of one. The Land Raider will fare no better, so I take the opportunity to unload with both sets of lascannons on the far Fire Prism, finally immobilizing it. The  Terminators hang tight, as they have nothing they can contribute from their location, and the remaining two Raptors ineffectively assault the Fire Prism on the hill.

Eldar Turn 5: Coming in for the victory lap, the Jetbikes turbo-boosted to my objectives, claiming one of them.

Final Results: Eldar win, 1 objective to none.

I’m still getting used to an assault-y army, and in this case I got straight-up outplayed. I wasn’t as aggressive with my Defiler as I probably could have been; had I been going after Vypers with it, I might have kept my second unit of Berzerkers alive. That might have been enough to keep the Jetbikes from coming in relatively unmolested at the end. I also need to stop trying to assault Banshees with my Berzerkers; it never ends well for my side. I didn’t completely lose track of the mission, but in true Khornite fashion I got more interested in kills, and it cost me.

On the other hand, the Raptors did a fair job of keeping Dennis’s Fire Prisms tied up early on, which kept my units a bit safer, so I felt that they were well-utilized. I am contemplating swapping them for a third unit of Berzerkers in a Rhino, though. The price is roughly the same, and I could mount a Combi-Melta on the Rhino so as not to lose all the anti-armor capabilities. With more troops and some better play, I could have tied the game, if not won it outright.

I will say that there’s some luck involved, though. There’s some absolutely lousy rolling on both sides, but particularly on the Chaos side. Had the dice been more favorable to Krox’s opponent, he would have been in a much better position to overrun Krox’s positions. It’s a very hard-fought battle, though, for both sides, and I’m definitely leaning towards agreeing with Krox in the Null Deployment v. Alpha Strike debate.

I’d like to talk to you a moment about Daemonettes.

Several years back, Games Workshop put out metal Daemonette and Seeker of Slaanesh miniatures sculpted by Juan Diaz. These miniatures replaced the old Daemonette line, which mostly consisted of hideous, bald, roughly-female humanoids in leather with cartoonishly-large crab claws. In contrast, the new Daemonette was sleek, lithe, definitely female, and disturbingly alien-yet-attractive. One of their most noticeable features were bare breasts – sometimes multiple sets of them. They fit Slaanesh’s theme of being simultaneously deadly and seductive, monstrous and alluring. For years, when you bought Daemonettes (or Seekers), this is what you got.

Then, a couple of years ago, GW revised the Chaos Daemon codexes in both Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Coupled with the release of these books was a brand new line of plastic Chaos Daemon miniatures. One of the sets released was a new box of plastic Daemonettes. Taking advantage of improvements in their plastic production process, these new Daemonettes were well-detailed and very customizable, with a good selection of bits on the sprue. However, design-wise, they were a throwback to the old crab-claw Daemonette sculpts. They were strapped into leather corsets and had oversized (but not cartoonishly-so) arthropod claws. Their faces were furrowed and sneering, and their figures were far less feminine than before. As the woman behind the counter at one of my local game stores said, “I like the old models better. These new ones look like butch bikers.” You be the judge:

Image © Games Workshop. Used without permission.

The reason for the redesign, as far as I understand it, was to appeal to a new customer demographic: mothers of teenaged boys. Games Workshop, like any company, is trying to grow their customer base, and one of the markets they’ve been trying to capture is the 12-to-16 male market. However, those customers don’t tend to have their own money. Instead, it’s their mothers that drop them off at the hobby stores and fund their hobbies that have the purchasing power. The new Daemonettes, looking less naked and feminine than their predecessors, would be less offensive, and they’d be more likely to buy GW products for their children.

On the surface, this is fair logic. If you’re GW, you’re trying to make your game a bit more family-friendly to boost sales without compromising too much of the flavor, and if that means using a revised version of an older, more palatable aesthetic for a couple of miniatures, it’s a fair trade. I can’t fault Games Workshop for making that decision. Given their circumstances, I might have made the same one. However, I have to question how removing some bare breasts from the line would make the game that much more friendly to the moms. You’ve got Chaos Terminators sticking the severed heads of their fallen foes on spikes and wearing them. Necron Flayed Ones are covered in shreds of human skins. There are Bloodletters and Skulltakers and Fabius Bile wearing a coat made out of faces. Maybe it’s just me, but a pair (or three) of visible nipples seems tame by comparison.

Even with the new plastic Daemonettes readily available and decently affordable, the old sculpts are still in high demand. One has only to look at the secondary market on eBay and look at the prices these miniatures are going for. It’s not unusual to see a set of ten – the contents of the previous Daemonette box – to go for $95 or more. Seekers are even harder to get a hold of, because no new plastic version was been released after the metal topless version was discontinued.  Obviously, there’s still a market for the less-family-friendly sculpt, even if the models aren’t as customizable as the plastic versions. If the online marketplace is any indication, I’m not alone in my opinion.

Is there an easy solution to this? I don’t know. I doubt that the Juan Diaz Daemonette sculpt will ever be re-released; I imagine the molds have long since been destroyed/worn out. I also don’t see GW scrapping the current design and returning to a revamped version of the naked Daemonette, as it would be counter to their current marketing plan. I do see a potential solution, though: Forge World. Take the Forge World Keeper of Secrets, for example. It’s basically the Diaz Daemonette made huge and cranked up to 11. Since FW is owned by Games Workshop, obviously they realize that there’s a chance to sell a more mature-oriented model. A line of resin Daemonettes done in a similar style would be well received, I imagine. Would it be more expensive than the plastic versions? Without a doubt, it certainly would. However, it would beat having to claw your way past auction snipers on eBay, and would still be more reasonably priced. It’s a nice idea, isn’t it?

Miniature and photography by Saff. Unedited version available here. (Potentially NSFW.) Used without permission.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I wanted to turn my metal terminators into plastic. Last night, I finally broke down and started that process by throwing some of them up on eBay. One box of Chaos Terminators, along with a Terminator Lord, all still in their original packing and never assembled, are now up for auction. Hopefully, they’ll fetch a halfway-decent price. I don’t know if they’ll end up completely paying for a box of plastic Terminators and a plastic Terminator Lord, but if they can pay for, say, half of that purchase, I’ll consider the experiment a success, and I’ll put the other five Terminators and Abaddon up for auction.

So, please, take a look at the auction, and if you’re interested, place a bid!

Chaos Space Marine Terminators x5 + Lord Warhammer 40K

As promised, I managed to get some pictures of my army in its current build state. Everything but the Rhinos are fully assembled, apart from basing. The Rhino chassis are built, and just need to be ‘Slaanesh-ed’ out. Above is the sorceror I’m using. He’s an older one, salvaged from a lot of 2nd Edition minis. He might actually be pewter, rather than the newer white metal blend. He’s been stripped of paint and reassembled as-is.

Here are the Possessed that will be accompanying him in their (appropriately enough) Daemon-possessed Rhino. The icon bearer is the one on the left, with the tentacle. The possessed champion is the one in back with the wings. These guys were fun to assemble just because of all the options in the kit; each one will definitely look unique on the table, and I still have bits left over to play with for other marines (such as an eventual squad of Chosen).

And the squad of Noise Marines. These guys have a pretty standard setup – a Noise Champion with a doom siren and a power weapon, one Noise Marine with a blastmaster, and four more with sonic blasters. I still have bits for making two more sonic blaster Marines, but it was getting late, and, frankly, the arm assemblies on the sonic blasters are frustrating to get onto the torso. Oh, for a plastic Noise Marine kit.

Here’s the first squad of standard Chaos Marines – the melta/anti-vehicle squad. The actual meltaguns are further in the back of the squad, but up front is the Aspiring Champion with his power fist, the icon bearer, and a Chaos Marine with a head taken from the GW Mutations sprue. That is a fun sprue to work with when it comes to making Chaos Marines that don’t just look like loyalists with horns.

And here’s the other standard Marine squad, the plasma/anti-power-armor squad. From left to right, there’s another mutated Chaos Marine, an icon bearer, an Aspiring Champion with a power sword and plasma pistol, and one of the two plasma gunners in the squad. I really like how the champion turned out in this unit; the spike rack and the Slaanesh champion head really make him stand out amongst the rest of his squad.

And finally, here are my two squads of Obliterators. Working from left to right, you can see the gaps on the torso belt on numbers 1, 3, and 4 that I’m going to have to fill. The first one isn’t too bad, and really just needs a tiny amount of gap filling, but the gaps on 3 and 4 are very noticeable and are going to require an extra ‘link’ in the belt to be sculpted. It should be an easy fix, but it’s still a bit of a bother to have to do it in the first place. Still, I’m happy with how these guys look, with guns and blades at all angles. I may not be happy with the actual casting job GW did in some cases, but the design/sculpt is great. I will say, though, that it’s another model that I’d love to see in plastic.

So this weekend, I hope to get some work done on at least one of the Rhinos. I’ll also likely be getting some basic basing done with sand for the various marines so I can get to priming them. Once primed, then they go into the much-neglected painting queue, where I still need to finish up my first squad of Berserkers and get two more Tau Devilfish painted.

The build phase of my Slaanesh Chaos Marine army is just about complete. Last night, I finished up the last Chaos Marines and Noise Marines for my list. A few days earlier, I finished assembling Obliterator #4, so all of my Heavy Support choices are assembled as well. I wouldn’t say that they’re completely built. There’s a number of gaps that need filling with green stuff. These aren’t just small cracks where the two metal pieces didn’t quite join completely. There are a couple of really noticeable spaces where the figure was not quite molded correctly, especially at the front of the model, where I’ll have to resculpt bits to make the Obliterators seem complete.

In fact, I’m going to take a moment to rant about GW’s metal pieces. The casting process they use must be horribly random at times, and it seems to have gotten worse over time. The first three Obliterators I put together – the ones that I acquired from the collection I purchased – went together decently well. I even disassembled their torsos (to clean off some clumsy overgluing) and reassembled them with no problems. Actually getting the weapons on was occasionally tricky, but they all ended up fitting decently with some patience and careful filing/drilling. The fourth Obliterator, though, was a pain to assemble. Nothing seemed to fit quite right, and even getting glue to bond, especially on the arms, was a nightmare. I had to use a combination of Zap-a-Gap and Gorilla Glue to get it to bond, and even then I had to basically immobilize the mini for the better part of an hour for it to set properly. It’s similar to the situation my friend Dan faced when getting his Thunderfire Cannon put together. The pieces were so badly cast that we had to bring in our modeling expert Richard, who was able to basically beat the thing into submission. I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with these issues when assembling my Tau – any metal minis were in one piece.

Anyway, the infantry are all put together. Next on the list is to pimp out the two Rhino chassis I have put together. I’ve got a box of Daemonettes to hack apart and glue on to represent Daemonic Possession, and I’ve got some ideas for sculpting some custom green stuff details, so this should be fun. I’ve also started work on a Daemon Prince; it’s not part of the list, but I’m thinking of building one anyway, just for flexibility’s sake. I’m inspired by this model (somewhat NSFW, due to daemon toplessness), and I just happen to have the base model he used (which I picked up as a lucky find on vacation). I’m going to follow his lead and use some Chaos Spawn bits to customize her, along with a couple of scraps of Chaos Marine armor. I don’t know if it would be a tournament-legal piece, but for friendly play it’s all good.

And after that, it’s time to sell off the metal terminators and pick up plastics in their stead, because I see this list going to 2000 points and beyond! Also, I will try to get some pictures this evening of what I have built so far. No good talking about the build if I can’t show my work.