DE: Black Heart Kabal With Alaitoc Allies

Eldar brings the pain.

With the new book coming over very soon and with my experience with it so far, I've decided to visit some old comrades of mine to see how they can benefit us to the fullest.  One thing's for damn sure:  Our cost savings have been huge and Black Heart Kabal has been absolutely fantastic for me.

To give you guys an idea how kick-ass Black Heart has been, last night I must have saved at least 15 or so wounds from rolling those 6+++ on my vehicles over the course of THREE turns.  I also started with 5 CPs since I was trying a hybrid Wych build and taking extra Relics and Warlord traits, but ended the game on T3 with 4 CPs AFTER casting a counterspell and multiple Cunning rolls on all the Strategems that were being thrown out.

I stand by firmly what I said before:  Kabal of the Black Heart is the best Kabal.  It's just too flexible and gives you a fantastic amount of protection for free.  The Wych Cult that I brought yesterday was also freaking insane.  I had a unit of Wyches with the Succubus in a Raider and the Succubus herself with the Whip and Blood Dancer threw out 14 freaking attacks (6s to hit turn into 3 hits!).  Check out the article from yesterday to get some better insight into my thought process there.  Sure, my friend had SS Termies eating all those Agonizer wounds (I think 9 or so) and saved like a boss, but if they were any single-wound model, she would have annihilated everyone.  That felt awesome.. especially since you can look at her cost and just shake your head how cost-effective that is (she's 54 points).

With that said, I've been having a blast with Dark Eldar so far.  They feel like they're in a good place so how do we turn it up a notch?  Well for one, we should look to our nearest kin who is CW Eldar.  Harlequins is right around the corner and there might be some good synergy there, but let's first look at what Psykers can bring to our army.

Here's the list:

1999 // 7 CP
Black Heart Battalion +3 CP

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, PGL = 94
Cunning, Living Muse

Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, PGL = 94

TROOP:
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114

+++

Black Heart Spearhead +1 CP

HQ:
Archon, Blaster, PGL = 92

HEAVY:
Ravager, 3x Disintegrators = 125
Ravager, 3x Disintegrators = 125
Ravager, 3x Disintegrators = 125

PARTY BOATS:
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Raider, Dark Lance = 85

+++

Alaitoc Patrol +0 CP

HQ:
Farseer Skyrunner = 135
Doom, Mind War

TROOP:
5x Rangers = 60

FLYER:
Hemlock Wraithfighter = 210
Jinx

Hemlock Wraithfighter = 210
Jinx

+++

Firepower:
9 Disintegrators at BS3+
6 Dark Lances at BS3+
7 Blasters at BS3+
3 Blaster at BS2+
26 Splinter Rifles at BS3+
4 Heavy D-Scythes at Auto

Yes, I was always an Alaitoc player.  Said no Eldar ever.

Here's what the Alaitoc Patrol offers:

• Hemlocks - These things are insane with the -2 to Hit from Alaitoc and their auto-hitting S12 AP-4 D2 damage weapons.  Not to mention they can Smite, have Jinx and have built-in Spirit Stones.  Let's also not forget that they debuff leadership within 12" of them and that works very nicely with our sped up PFP table thanks to Black Heart, PGLs and Mind War.
• Doomseer - This is damage consistency at its best.  The Skyrunner gives you movement to keep up with our army and Doom is arguably one of the best spells in the game.  It drastically increases the killing potential of all of your units on a single target and works perfectly with Disintegrators due to needing 5s in some cases vs. heavier armored targets.  This works very nicely in conjunction with Jinx because you're just increasing damage so much higher, turning Dissies into AP-4 in most cases vs. 2+ armor or removing that cover save bonus.
• Mind War - With leadership debuffs, you can actually get this off pretty reliably and kill key targets before they ever get a chance to hit your lines.  When you have the right kinds of debuffs, this becomes a much more reliable Smite that can seriously threaten even the most daunting of foes i.e. Magnus.
• Psychic Protection - Let's not forget that the Farseer can dispel twice a turn and so can the Hemlocks.  Enough said there I think.

Sure, I lose firepower overall, but I also gain Heavy D-Scythes that are utterly ridiculous in their own right.  I also gain the ability to turn up the damage big time on key targets when I want to and that cannot be underestimated.  What do you guys think?  Is this more powerful than pure Kabal?

Something A Little different....The First Of The Romans

One on-going project I have at the moment (and one which is going to go on for quite a long time!), is painting up a lot of Warlord Early Imperial Romans. Not for me, I might add, but fun nonetheless. Here are the first 2 cohorts- eventually I'll have a couple of Legions worth + all the Auxilia to do. So, quite a bit.
I'm not doing this alone, thank God, but as part of a team of painters in order to accomplish this massive task.

I've always wanted to do an Early Imperial army, but have never actually got round to it, one of those situations common to just about every wargamer, we all have "those projects" I guess, so having the opportunity to paint one for someone else will hopefully get it out of my system.

Early Imperials have always been the "classic" Romans for me, Square Scutem, Lorica Segmentata, I suspect my like of them goes back to a bunch of Timpo figures I had when I was a youngster.
The Warlord figures have been around for while, go together fairly easily, choices of sword-arm or pilum, a few different head choices. The ones in the pictures are a mixture of the basic set and the set sold as "veterans" - these give you a few extra choices - different heads and helmets, and battered shields. All the veterans have the additional magnia sword- arm armour a few legionaires adopted for the Dacian wars. Fortunately these are indeed for the Dacian campaigns so they will fit right in.

                       There are a few extra metal command figures mixed in- manufacturer unknown.

Anyway, I'm enjoying doing these, which is probably just as well, seeing as there are a few to paint! It makes for a good diversion from the WWII projects which I'm also doing for myself.

        So thats a few Romans, Next up, I'll be showing some rather lovely Dacian tribesmen to oppose them

New Year, Fist Update....

Hello all,

 

Just wanted to drop in and give an update. The transition from WGF is complete, we have our warehouse and have been shipping from that location for about two months. We have worked out the software issues for the wholesale orders and have been filling them.

 

We have about a year's supply of product on hand and OOS items such as the Panzerjäger are on the water heading here now.

 

I have been working on the day to day business aspects, cost analysis, product restocks back end implementation issues, etc. so not a lot of glamorous items to give an updated on for that front.

 

We have two restock orders incoming from China, the cost has been educational. The cost of shipping is not just crazy expensive for my customers but for us as well. In some cases, it costs more to ship a product than it does to produce it, in other cases the cost to produce a kit was not in line with what it is being sold at into distribution. Some kits were being sold at a net loss once shipping was factored in. Unfortunately, this will mean a price increase, some kits will see a marginal increase, other will be a bit more drastic.

I will give a detailed SKU by SKU run down and explanation later this week.

 

We have two new SKU's that will be offered once they arrive. The 15mm scale Capacitor cooler and a 60mm tall display model of one of our Assault Troopers. We should have these in hand sometime next month. We are putting the final touches on the files for the Shadokesh main trooper box set. No eta on a release date yet for the Shadokesh, until they are on the water and heading here it is simply impractical to give an estimate.

 

That's it for now.

All the best!

Mark