My first Citadel Finecast experience!

Nick speaking,

With all the hype and chat about the New Citidel Finecast models going around recently, and then my copy of White Dwarf turning up on my door step totally covered with the new stuff! There was no getting away from it, Finecast was here!  I have seen many great reviews on various Blogs with some great arguments for, and against this latest revolution. So on the day of release, I just had to go to my local GW store to check it all out. To be fair, I had no intention of buying anything, as I am saving for a holiday at the moment, but still...

I waited until the end of the day as I assumed it would be pretty busy, and it seemed like I was right. Being a Saturday, they had some sort of gaming event on, which I caught the tail end of, but there was still plenty of people around. First impressions of the new stuff was 100% great packaging, much better than before, and when I picked up a Hive Guard model, I seriously wanted to buy it. With the Hive Guard in my hand, the impulse was very strong, but I couldn't quite part with my £15.50 for this one model, especially knowing that I really need three of them! I think I will wait a while and see what happens to the metal model market on eBay? The other reason why I stopped myself from buying it, was seeing the prices of some of the other models I want to buy. With the Trygon having a new price of £36, it really makes you think, and I need two of them! Surely price rises like this is going to affect sales somewhere along the line?

To be honest, I have always hated metal models, mainly because the paint chips off so easily, but also many are top heavy and topple over, making the situation worse. I know this contradicts what I said above a bit, but some metal figures are not top heavy and are fine. Ideally I would like all plastic models, but I know the production issues makes that difficult, so resin it is! I am slightly worry about the brittleness of them though, and I can see some parts snapping off easily, but I will have to wait until I actually buy one to find out.

All in all though, I have to admit, seeing all those boxes of new resin models in their new packaging, and all my old kits that I have bought now in resin, gave some sort of excitement and made me feel good about my hobby. I felt like I just wanted to buy some more models, and I bet that is exactly the feeling GW wants me to have!!! The question is, do I eBay some of my old unpainted metal mini's for Resin ones? Maybe, but it would have to be just the top heavy ones!

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Fenrisian Wolves

Nick speaking,

Wolves, wolves, wolves, wolves, wolves, wooooolves!!!

Yes, one reason why I chose the Eye of Terror, 13th Company Space Wolves as my second army, were the Fenrisian Wolves! OK, I also wanted a totally different army to my Necrons, and lets face it these guy's were different. Not much shooting and lots of assault nastiness. The only thing they had in common was a distinct lack of vehicles, but that seemed to be a running theme for me as I ended up with Tyranids as my third army! That was the main reason why I gave my Eldar tanks so much love and attention with all the Forge World upgrades, when I eventually got an army with tanks!

Anyway...

With the new Space Wolves Codex making my Eye of Terror codex defunct, I can now have tanks for my Wulvenkind (Yeppy), but does this mean that the thirty wolves I have, have had their day? I am trying to make sure they haven't, as I really like the models...

I have had reasonable success with packs of Fenrisian Wolves in my army. I'm not saying they are competitive, but when they get into combat they definitely have the ability to earn their points back. Of course, having a six plus save is the main drawback, especially in kill point missions, but I have managed to flank a unit across the table to surround a ten man strong scoring Rhino, wrecking it and killing all the guy's inside who were unable to get out!

Insert howling wolf noise!

I now use my Chaos tainted wolves as Cyberwolves, or for whenever I take wolves as wargear for my characters, as they tend to stand out from the normal Fenrisians...

I have also been thinking about using them as a counter assault unit for any rear objective holding Razorbacks! Place them down in cover nearby, going to ground for the three plus cover save, and then hitting any units that come close enough with their fleet and twelve inch assault ability?

I still want to try out a pack of fifteen wolves, with two or three Characters on Thunderwolves joined with them! Take two wolves with each character and charge!

Anyone else out there also having fun and success with Fenrisian Wolves?

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Annihilation: Mech Eldar Vs Orks

Nick speaking,

I have been having some fun latley with my Eldar Mech list, this time I play an Annihilation mission against Orks...

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Defending Defender Guardians!

Nick speaking,

As I walked home from work one hot summers day, and passed a local charity shop, that's when it happened! Sitting in the front window was an Eldar Farseer and some boxes of Eldar Guardians, for pretty much next to nothing. Next thing I know I am walking home with a bag of Eldar goodies! Then after a trip to my local Hobby Shop for the Eldar Codex, the IDIC Eldar were born...

To be fair, I knew very little about Eldar at that time, I had never seen them on the battlefield before, and had only known that they were "fast and fragile", as told to me by a friend. I built up my Guardians and purchased some Striking Scorpions next, to go with my Farseer, for some small fun games.

Although I found the Scorpions to be great in those small games, It didn't take me long to discover that Guardians were one of the worst units in the Eldar Codex. On a side note as I write this, why did I stop using Striking Scorpions? They were fun to play and did the job in the assault, oh yes, I then got some howling Banshees and the Scorps went out of the window, but still, maybe I should get them out again for some infiltrating/flanking fun!

Anyway, with twenty of my thirty Guardians converted into Storm Guardians, I now only have ten Defender Guardians left. I kept these guy's as they were the bench mark for my IDIC Eldar paint scheme, and I would love to see them on the table at some point, but sadly these days, they hardly ever make it out of the case...

I know that there is a potential for a foot slogging list that is based around mass defender guardians and the Avatar etc, but is it viable to fit just ten guardians in a list and make them work?

Needless to say, I have been struggling to fit them in any sort of list apart from when I am playing Cities of Death. This has lead me to start thinking about using the models for something else totally, maybe having the platform controller guy's as doom, fortune and guide markers just to get them out on the table. Not ideal I know, but how else am I going to get them out of the case? Is there anyone out there prepared to defend the defender Guardian?

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