Shenanigans - Space marine Iron hands, Clan Raukaan

Hey everyone. Mike here with something I'd like to call Shenanigans. It's basically ridiculous builds or equipments, or even entire army lists that I either find super McCheese retarded or just plain funny. These doesn't have to be good ideas in terms of cost efficency or actual usefulness. Let the sillyness begin!

I will start off with a thing that dawned on me a couple of days ago when fiddling with my army list for my Clan Raukaan (Or Clan Forak as I call mine).

First off a little basics. Iron hands all gain a 6+ Feel no pain 'save' as well as characters and vehicles having It will not die (basically regenerating wounds, self repairing) on 5+ on the end of a friendly turn (the Iron hand players turn, that is).

So, for this Shenanigan I'm gonna create a silly hard to kill chapter master.
First give him artificier armor for a 2+ armour save, then give him a bike for toughness 5 and some mobility as well. Then he shall have the Gorgons Chain, an item that depending on how many wounds you have suffered gets worse. But! it starts off giving a 3+ invulnerable save, Eternal freaking Warrior and +1 to the Chapter masters Feel no Pain. He's now pretty darn tough, but we're not done yet!

For the next step you need to get another HQ that unlocks the Command squad. So a Captain, Chaplain or a Librarian. What you do with them is not important. What is important is the Command squad just mentioned earlier.

Give them bikes, let them accompany the Chapter master and make one of them an apothecary. then kit out the rest as you wish. for silly points sink why not storm shields and power swords/axes? The Chapter master wants to get into close combat after all.

You now have a fast moving Chapter master with Toughness 5, 2+ armour, 3+ invuln and a 4+ Feel no pain. That if you get the right warlord trait can even become a 3+ feel no pain. Oh, and Eternal warrior.

You can just look out sir any would be wounds to the command squad as you rush towards your opponent with your nigh unstoppable Chapter master.
I'd give him a power fist or a thunder hammer as well so he can really smash thing when he gets there!

Enjoy! (I will probably never use this. Unless I want to test its merits in a tard-fun game someday)

pew pew pew! The flesh is weak!

Iron hands Vs Orks. 1250 pts Tourney batrep

First of all I want to say thank you to Anders for his awesome article on the new Tyranid Codex, if anyone wants to write a guest article you're very welcome to shoot me a mail at hollstrom@mikepic.se and we can discuss it!

Now on to the Batrep!


So, my second Tournament battle was against the Orks Anders had just faced. Let's see if my small space marine army can survive the green tide of Da WAAAAGH!


We played the Scouring with deployment on the long table edges, The Orks won the roll off and elected that the Marines get first turn. Night fighting was on turn 1 as well.

my Army list for the tournament. <-

I deployed in the way I feel I SHOULD deploy this time (unlike in the last batrep, where I deployed like a total dumbass!), My Cenutrions in the centre, backing up my tactical squad and my honour guard.

Then my snipers deployed in a forest on my right, holding an objective and my Attack bikes on my left flank.

The Ork army I was facing included A warboss on a warbike with a power claw, cybork body and 'eavy armor (this is what I remember he had anyway). Two Deffdreads all kitted for melee. A Battle wagon full of shoota boys, a truck with 12 shoota boys, 10 gretchin with a mek with a shock attack gun, 8 lootas, a dakka jet and a single deffcopta.

A few more units than I field...

On turn 1 I dead great, the emperor was with me and we where chilling and shit!
My Drop pod landed in front of the warboss and battle wagon, after a long discussion and thinking I opted to shoot the battle wagon, instead of my intended target the Warboss. (I figured I could bring him to one wound, and if he charged my heavy flamer might finish him, and if not the ironclad would get to strike first).
But considering the battle wagon had a deff rolla and there was a deffcopta that could drive a rokkit in my rear armor, as well as a nearby deff dread. I figured I might have to go for first blood at least.
I shot the battle wagon, blowing it up. then I orbital bombarded, there where no real juicy targets so I shot it at the now disembarked Boys in a way that it would also hit the warboss. it was a direct hit and killed all but one shoota boy and put a wound on the warboss (dangit, I could have killed him!).

Next my centurions opened up and made scraps of the Deff Dread that was threatening my Ironclad Dreadbert.

My attack bikes single multimelta failed to do any harm (by missing) and the snipers did nothing of worth.

Orks turn 1 began and he moved his second Deff dread to his right flank, closely followed by the trukk.

The deffcopta swung around and took off a hull point of dreadbert, and the shock attack gun rollde double 2's allowing me to place the large blast. s4 isn't enough to really do much to his trukk/deff dread so I put it in the ruins on the lootas and killed one of them.

The warboss then charged and took another wound from overwatch due to the heavy flamer! He was now down to one wound but of course I totally failed to wound him in close combat and he killed poor dreadbert! Emperor, don't go! The battle has just begun! T__T

On my second turn I moved up my attack bikes to get within 12" of the Deff dread, to blow it up with the multimelta in Melta range. But of course I missed again!

The Centurions finished the job instead and wrecked it. My Drop pod failed to kill the lone Ork that actually passed his Ld test!

My tactical squad, holding on to an objective, fired their heavy bolter on the trukk but despite hitting with all three shots the trukk remained unscathed due to cover saves.

Snipers fired at the warboss, but failed to wound him. And the Honour guard simply moved up, trying to get to close combat.

The Orks Trukk moved up and spilled out Shoota boys near the attack bikes, the warboss also moved up into charge range of the honour guard, but was a bit hesitant to charge these elite warriros, especially since their champion has to declare/accept challenges meaning he would fight the warboss and possibly slay him.

Luckily the Dakka jet didn't appear on this turn.

instead the shock attack gun fired, direct hit and strength 7. killing every single Honour guard (two due to Look out sir!), leaving only the Chapter Master standing... Uh oh!

The warboss charged, my overwatch unfortunately missing. And since both struck on initiative 1, we pulped each other to death, in a pure epic fashion!

Then the shoota boys put a wound on the attack bikes, and then charged them. 2 heavy bolters, a multimelta and 3 twin-linked bolters managed to only kill one Ork on overwatch. Then they killed two Orks in melee, but lost an attack bike and another took a wound.

With only my tactical squad, snipers and centurinos left in the fight (attack bikes getting bogged down in ork boys and therefore kinda useless) I decided to move the Tac.Squad up towards the central objective (which was worth 4 points, they were sitting on a two pointer). They did in the process get their meltagun in range of the trukk so they made it explode.

centurions caught wind of the deffcopta, and split fired between it and the lootas. faling to wound the deffkopta but killing another loota (or two?). The Snipers decided to finish off the deffkopta and actually managed to do so!

Then the Orks retaliated with the dakkajet coming in on a mighty WAAAAAAGH!

Its guns chewing through most of the tactical squad, leaving about 4 marines standing. The Lootas finishing them off. Almost! one brave Marine was still standing.
The Shock attack gun fired at the Centurions and managed to hit with strenght 8, killing one of them.

the fight of the boys vs the attack bikes ended with 0 wounds on both sides. What a stalemate! But it was more worth it for the Orks, tying up my fast attack so it couldn't move up and shoot at the shock attack gun.

The combined fire of the two centurions and the snipers flakk missile put two hull points off the dakka jet and immobilized it. The lone Tactical marine passed his Leadership test and moved up to cover in the centre.

The Dakka jeft flew on, and managed to kill 3 out of five scouts, killing the missile launcher!

The lootas then finished the job on the tactical marines, the boys killed the attack bikes, and the lone ork boy from the battle wagon hid behind a rock, claming an objective as well...

The shock attack gun once again hit the Centurions, but this time with a strength 6 shot, only causing one wound.

With not much left the centurions shot at the dakkajet, hoping to score a point for killing a fast attack before it moved off the board edge. It dove/dodged and didn't take the hits that got through. But we later read that Immobilized flyers can't evade so we recounted is as a kill.

the lone sniper tried to shoot the shock attack gun, but whiffed.

The ork boys moved towards another objective on my left flank, the one were my attack bikes deployed. the dakka jet flew of the board (and then we realized it was really dead!). the shock attack gun missed the centurions but the lootas killed the last scout. My Centurions moved up to try and stop the gretchin from scoring the central objective worth 4 points but fell an inch short from denying it, and failed to kill enough of them to stop them from reaching it! they would have had to kill two more, but alas one of the missiles scattered way off and Grav weapons only wound on a 6+ against opponents with no armour saves.

It was game over!

I had two centurions standing and I scored 4 points, 2 for killing two fast attacks (dakka jet and deffcopta), slay the warlord and First blood.

The Orks had a total of 13 points! from objectives held by the Gretchin, the lone Ork boy, the other ork boys, slay the warlord and linebreaker.

Good game that started out ridiculously well for me on turn one and then a few large blast ap2 shots later looked really grim, and then I lost with only two models still standing!

Tyranids First and Not-so-First Impressions - A guest article

So the new Tyranids have been out a couple of weeks now, and me and the rest of the Tyranid players are slowly but surely rising out of the craters following the bombing that was the first impressions of the new codex. I'm not gonna lie, it was bad. Things had been removed, stuff that was good had been nerfed, and the new things in the codex seemed lackluster to say the least. I'm sure I wasn't alone in sending slightly angry e-mails to Games Workshop asking them what the playtesters of this mess had been smoking, but deep inside we knew nothing was going to change.

The new models were on their way, so I figured I would just ignore all the bad things I had been reading myself and that others had been telling me and just go for it. Try to make it work. I had noticed things like the Venomthrope being buffed, and some new statlines that could work (including the BS4 Hive Tyrants. Lovely!) so I tried to feel as positive as I could as I prepared for my first game with the new bugs, which so happened to be against the very person owning this here blog!

I was stunned, really, I was. Things were going really well. I was dodging shots left and right with my 3+ cover saves from the Venomthrope/Intervening models combo I had figured out, and my shooting went very well, with Warp Blasts from my Zoanthrope piercing Centurion armor, and my Hive Tyrant's Venom Cannon killing regular Marines. Slowly and steady I was stomping my way up the table, and soon enough I was ready to charge. The assaults went well, and with the constant spawning my Tervigon did, I never really ran out of cover for my bigger creatures. The game ended with a pretty crushing victory for the Hive Mind. ”New-codex-luck”? Maybe, but it had gone really well, and I felt pretty damn good.

The next targets for my dear Tyranids were the Orks of a player another town over. I had heard to be careful when playing against him from some of his friends and this time, I thought, the new Nids were going to meet their doom. This game was longer than the one with Mike, so I won't go into detail, but I won this game too! 2-1 in victory points, so not a huge victory, but a victory nonetheless.

So, in short, my first impressions were terrible. I was hugely dissapointed, and I really felt almost betrayed by Game Workshop. They had released a half-baked mess, I thought. However, as I 've played more games with them, they still have that Nids feeling. A lot of bugs, running around, giving cover to the big boys, stomping behind them. Venomthropes is the name of the game now. Venomthropes and lots of shooting. Preferably two Flyrants with devourers. Carnifexes are also really appealing now, being a lot cheaper. So if you were like me kids, and you thought the new Nids were nothing but xeno trash, think again. There is potential, and while many things were indeed nerfed, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if you really try to create interesting combinations of different units. For the Hive Mind!

-Anders Alléus

Tourney pictures. Orks Vs "New" Tyranids

Just some pictures from another battle, I wasn't around to watch the entire thing but I do believe the Nids won, the cover saves helping them a great deal against the custom-made shokk attack gun!

The next batrep will be my Iron hands against these Orks!

'New' Tyranids Vs Iron hands. Tourney battle 1250 pts - The Relic

So Anders and I once again play the Relic mission. But this time he's bringing the new Tyranid Codex and units! The Spore pod (spore pod prime!) down on the right side of the image is the Relic for this game. worth 3 victory points.

His army looked something like this.
a hive tyrant with boneswords and a venom cannon, with two Tyrant guards, A Tervigon, a Venomthrope, 2 units of termagaunts, an Exocrine, 3 hive guard, a Zoanthrope and a Hive Crone.

I brought my Chapter master with artificier armor, plasma pistol and Axe of medusa.

5 honour guard, with chapter banner and 1 power axe, the rest toting power swords.

10 tactical marines, heavy bolter, meltagun and a sgt, with a gravgun and meltabomb.

5 sniper scouts, one with a missile launcher+ flakk.

3 centurions, 2 grav-cannons a TL-Lascannon, omniscope and 3 Missile launchers

Ironclad dread with 2 HK-missiles, heavy flamer and meltagun, in a Drop pod

3 Attack bikes, 2 Heavy bolters and one Multimelta

There was a couple of things we got wrong in this game, the biggest one is that we have always thought Instant death took away all saves except cover saves (!) wich is pretty huge.
I didn't know I could move and shoot with slow and purposeful as if stationary, thus severely shortening the range of my grav-cannons in this game.

I got first turn + night fighting and I have never deployed worse in my life! I dunno what the heck I was thinking. My centurions were off on the right side, far back in a ruin, not in range for anything, my tacticals were far back in the centre, which was so stupid because I already knew I was gonna have a hard time to even get to the relic against the Tyranids. my snipers were in a good positions in a ruin to my left, backed up by my attack bikes.
But on top of my poor deployment I decided that hey! lets just move the attack bikes further up on the left flank in behind a building so they can't do shit for a turn, waggle my Centurions up to try and get in range/LoS so at least the lascannon+missile launcher can fire and hey, lets move my only close combat unit into the central ruin so they will be even slower! And then I moved up my tactical squad, out of cover and into the open.  Then instead of drop podding my Ironclad near his warlord to try and go for first blood/slay the warlord I drop him near the exocrine and zoanthrope and do one wound to the Exocrine...

in total I killed two Termagaunts on turn 1 because everything pretty  much had 3+ cover saves.

Tactical genius achieved!

On tyranid turn one he managed (due to us not knowing how Instand death worked!) kill 5 tactical marines in one blast from the venom cannon, then he killed the dreadnought with the exocrine taking one hull point and then the Zoanthrope one shotted it with a s10 ap2 Lance shot! Giving him first blood and breaking Dreadberts run of staying alive for 3 turns and smashing things up :(

on my next turn I instead of keep the bikes going towards his table edge, I doubled back and shot the 2 Heavy bolters and multimelta + TL-bolters into the gaunts that had moved up to the Relic. Missing horribly!

I dropped the Orbital Bombardment on the Hive tyrant, killing a tyrant guard. in hindsight I should have nuked the Venomthrope. That would have made shooting the rest of his army so much easier.

My centurions did very little on turn 2 as well, which is really bad. I need them to start wasting enemies turn 1....Not turn 3!

The Tyranids then opted to kill one centurion and take the Relic. And then just generally moved up the board, the Tervigon spawning even more termagaunts. The Hive Crone came in and killed two honour guard in the ruins with his vector strike! 

The Iron hands answered by letting the rookie bs3 scouts fire at it, one sniper and the flakk missile actually hit. the sniper failing to wound but the missile not only put a wound on him, it also grounded the foul beast, taking another wound from it! the halved tactical squad shot at it bringing it down to one wound left that the Chapter master saw fit to take with is plasma pistol, slaying the Hive Crone. Thank the Emperor!

The tyranids retalieted by charging the honour guard through the ruins with a group of fresh termagaunts, stalling the Chapter master from getting to the Relic. Needless to say the Honour guard decimated most of the gaunts, but as they are fearless in synapse they didn't move. the Gaunts with the Relic started moving away from my lines to steal it away.

My Honour guard and chapter master cut their way through the last gaunts and moved to try and catch up to the relic, but was intercepted by even more gaunts with the tervigon right behind them.

the attack bikes tried to drive past and go for line breaker to give me at least one victory point for the tournament, but the hive tyrant chased them down and crushed them.

I think I had lost my centurions around this point to the Exocrine and Zoanthrope duo.
My snipers tried to make the gaunts drop the relic but even though I got a precision shot in, it failed to wound. 

At the end the snipers were all that was left and we decided that the game could end now with Anders getting all the Victory points possible from the Relic mission and me getting 0.

Not a great start to the tournament for me but at least it was cool to see the new Nids in action. Not a bad codex, with lots of cool combos possible. Not an OP codex either wich, as always, leave the internet trolls raging like it's the end of the world. I like it. though Venomthropes are such a pain!

The Distant future is ever-changing

Sooo. I posted my 3k points wish list last time. Of course this list is gonna change on like, a daily basis (durr!) so here's the next update to it. no picturespam this time though

Oh and this is the list with the stuff I already have included as well, for a more complete overview.

So 'old' stuff first (with three new additions)

Chapter master, now with a thunder hammer, artificier armor, plasma pistol and chains of the gorgon.
Chains of the gorgon starts out with giving +1 Feel no pain, a 3+ invuln save and Eternal Warrior. but loses buffs gradually the more wounds you take, starting with loosing the fnp, and then EW and lastly dropping the 3+ invuln to a 4+. But eternal warrior and a step better on the feel no pain (as well as a better invuln) should really help out!

5 Honour guard, staying the same as before, but adding a Razorback with a storm bolter and Twin-linked heavy flamer. This should help me get them and the Chapter master into combat unscathed!

Techmarine, with a servo harness so he can dish out more pain and repair vehicles better. I'm still debating on wether to drop one honour guard to get him to fit in the razorback, or if I should stick him in a tactical squad.

10 Tactical Marines, my first tactical squad, heavy bolter and flamer with a veteran sgt. with a chainsword and grav-pistol. (For sure need to be giving these guys a Rhino in the future)

10 Tactical Marines, my new tac. squad is gonna carry a lot of plasma in the form of a plasma gun, a plasma cannon and a veteran sgt. with a plasma pistol and a power fist. Might ditch the Fist though...but it's cool.

5 Sniper scouts, one of them has a missile launcher. might drop the flakk ammo because the gunship can take the role of anti air much better.

3 Centurions, my current champions of dakka, blowing up units left and right, they're equipped with two grav-cannons and a twin-linked Las-cannon, as well as having three missile launchers between them, they put out A LOT of shots, and with the omniscope they have night vision and can split fire, so they should always do something turn 1 no matter what, and could even try to take out two targets with some luck. three Missile launchers mean they can take on either vehicles/heavy targets or shoot three small blasts at light infantry if need be. Love these guys!

3 Attack bikes, I used to run them with 2 Heavy bolters and one Multimelta. but I'd recommend sticking to one type here and so I shall in the future. 3 Heavy bolters is cheaper and as they can fire 3 twin-linked bolters as well it might have some better synergy, plus HB's have longer range than multimeltas. On the other hand Multimeltas bring ruin to vehicles and heavy armor.

Ironclad Dreadnought in a Drop pod. Dreadbert is usually a strong MVP candidate, dropping in on turn 1 and shooting 2 Hunter-killer missiles, a meltagun and sometimes even his heavy flamer to pop something big and scary so the rest of my army doesn't need to worry. He also disrupt the enemy lines and requires the opponent to focus on him. his AV 13 means a lot of things can't even hurt him, and the heavy flamer is a good deterrent if anyone wants to charge him. All in all he is still a pretty expensive suicide unit.

this is half my army (or currently my entire army!) at 1500 pts. It's pretty varied and super not competetive but oh so much fun to play!
SO here's what I (currently) want to add.

Librarian with a jump pack because that's totally badass, also he gets the Mindforge stave, which is basically a force power fist for 15 points! also mastery level 2 so he can actually do shit against tyranid psykers etc.

5 Scouts in Land speed storm,  waiting in reserve to come in and land on an objective and hopefully not get shot to pieces! Their only valid target is other light infantry with their bolters, as well as the Land speeder storm having a heavy flamer to help out.

10 Assault marines, joining the the Librarian as a body guard. two flamers and the veteran sgt. will have two power claws and go all Wolverine on enemy infantry or take the Librarians place in duels and die horribly.

5 Command squad dudes on bikes, one of them being an Apothecary and the other four toting grav-guns.
As my army overall isn't that competetive I thought I could bring these bad boys to the show. I was considering a devestator squad with missile launchers + flakk to deal with flyers buuut even with snapshots these guys should be able to hit at least once or twice on flyers and their hits cause immobilised meaning aircraft can't dive to avoid getting shot at and they can only go straight. should be effective!

And screw it (this might change down to five,six models)
10 Legion of the damned! with a plasma gun and a multimelta and a sgt with a power axe and a plasma pistol. see the previous post for why I want these guys.
I compare them to deep striking terminators, but they are more expensive and bring less firepower on the turn they DS compared to the Legion. Also the legion ignores all cover and have a 3+ invuln instead of a 5+.

Dreadnought, plasma cannon + TL-autocannon

Dreadnought, plasma cannon + TL-autocannon

no more extra armor and venerable, that's like 35 pts extra on each dread. geez! And one less dreadnought let me take another troop choice in a transport, coming in from reserves to help out mid-late game.

Stormtalon Gunship with Typhoon missile launcher. This thing can come in and help me clear the skies or bomb vehicles or even put two small blasts on light infantry!

The distant future: what I want next for my Iron hands (aiming at 3k points)

First off, just something I've always wanted.

The Legion of the damned

Not only are these guys pretty darn badass, both the models and their backstory,

but they have pretty cool rules as well! Deep striking (that can reroll the scatter dice)

no cover saves against their weapons. 3+ invuln saves! And they even cause Fear.

So I initially want 6 of them, one multimelta, one plasmagun and a seargent with a plasma pistol and power axe. They are slow and purposeful meaning they can't run or overwatch, but they can fire heavy weapons while moving, meaning they can fire that multimelta right of the bat at full ballistic skill!

Next I do need a Razorback tank to transport my Chapter master and his Honour guard in to battle with.

they have no firepoints but as the only ranged weapon of worth on my warlord and his bodyguard is the Orbital bombardment they can just drop that when they get out. The biggest drawback might be that they can't charge after exiting the razorback, so they will probably get off a bit early, orbital bombard something and in the next turn move up and charge something, using the razorback as cover until that point.

(photoshopped for great justice!)

Then because I'm Iron hands and can take dreads in either Elite slots or Heavy...

3 Venerable dreadnoughts! ( I already got an Ironclad dread! )

altough I'm probably just gonna get 1 actual venerable dreadnought model and two 'ordinary' dreadnoughts

because the venerable kit doesn't come with missile launchers.

My loadout for them would be, 1 with dreadnought power fist (with a heavy flamer on) and an assault cannon.

the two others will have a missile launcher + plasma cannon each.

I will run the assaultcannon/powerfist one along with the razorback as an additional body guard for the Chapter master, blasting apart infantry and opening enemy transports for him and his Honour guard to deal with what's left.

The other two will hang around my tactical squad, providing long range fire support.

Speaking of my Tactical squad, they will be joined by a Techmarine, I actually want two techmarines, but I'm gonna custom make the other because I want him to fit on a bike.

But this first one will be on foot and accompany the tactical squad, so he can repair the two dreads if need be. and dish out some pain in close combat if anything gets too close.

I also want a Librarian, with a jump pack! Because he will join a unit of 10 Assault marines

these guys will have two flamers, the seargent two lightning claws so they can wipe out light infantry. This will be great for the Relic mission to clear the relic from hostile forces while my tactical marines move up to grab it.

the Librarian will also get psyker mastery level 2 and the mindforge stave (Raukaan supplement)

The Librarian allows me to bring a command squad, so that is what I will do.

these guys will go on bikes, have an apothecary for a 5+ feel no pain, and then 4 gravguns! Yikes!

the 2nd Techmarine (on a bike) will ride with these guys for some serius punching. plus they can swing around and repair vehicles if needed!

And theeeeen I want a Landspeed Storm for a 5 man scout squad to come in from reserves with.

I have 5 chaos cultists (the ones who have the gasmasks) that I'm thinking of converting to IH scouts.

these guys will swoop in and land on objectives at the later stages in the battle.

And they will be followed by a Stormtalon gunship no less! Just to clear the way for them and maybe give the opponent something bigger to worry about than lowly scouts!

Too bad he can't use the Escort craft rule on units that outflank because the Landspeeder storm Scout can do this, and it would have been glorious!

And that's my wishlist for 3000 pts right now. very low in troops perhaps. I should really get another tactical squad and maybe a Rhino or two but that's not fun when you can get all these badasses above here.

Also if I get another tactical squad I should really have to get another Iron hand tactical squad upgrade pack, and that makes them so much more expensive, wich makes it even less fun to buy tbh.

Hopefully one tactical squad and 2 scout (I have 5 sniper scouts already) squads should be enough, the dreads and other thing should keep the enemy busy, or you know.... Dead!

Another slight variant I might do is drop the bike techmarine and add 4 more Legion of the damned ...Legionnaries to that unit, bringing them up to 10 

FOR THE EMPEROR!

Blue tint to my Iron hands

Decided to repaint my Iron hands a bit, giving them a blue seconday colour, mainly chaning the power weapons from silver to blue.

I even replaced all the reds, like in their eyes.