Sisters of Battle White Dwarf Codex Review

I got my complete set of Sisters of Battle rules from White Dwarf and I have had a week or so of reading it and build lists, so I thought I would go ahead and give my review of it.

My first thought is that over all it is a pretty good update for one given in a White Dwarf. It is a little low on background and history, but it had more than I expected it to have.

The thing that excited me the most is the fact it  is a Sisters of Battle army again. I never liked the inquisition aspects of the old book and I am very happy to see this codex bring back what the Sisters should be, the army of the Ecclesiarchy.

Now that I have the basics out of the way lets get to the meat and potatoes, the Army List.

Army Special Rules:

Acts of Faith - This rule needed changes badly and I actually like the direction that GW decided to go.  I like the fact that each unit has their own special Act of Faith and I like the system for getting the faith points. In most cases you should be able to get your act on a 4+ roll which is 50% of the time which is completely fair to me.

Independent Characters and Acts of Faith - Not much to say on this as I feel it works just like it should

Shield of Faith - Every single unit in the book gets a 6+ invulnerable save, I say YES!

Headquarters:

Canoness - Overall  I am unimpressed with the Canoness. She is unremarkable in just about every way. Her point cost for what you get is crap. Why take a Canoness at 65 points then pay 25 more for a Rosarius when you can take a Confessor for 75 and get one for free. Anyway that is just my opinion I have one of each in my army list.

Sororitas  Command Squad - If I take a Canoness I will be taking one of these with her just for the feel no pain if nothing else.

Ecclesiarchy Confessor - I love this HQ. I think you get allot for the points and I just like the whole idea of the Confessor

Battle Conclave - If you are going to take a Confessor you might as well build him a decent conclave. I have one in my list.

Special Characters: 

Saint Celestine - The most expensive of our HQs but if you have the points she is also the best of our HQs. I field her any chance I get. She is a deadly foe and I am not afraid to put her up against anything in the game and that continues in the edition of the codex.

Arch-Confessor Kyrinov - Well worth his points in wargear and special abilities alone.

Uriah Jacobus - Easily my second favorite of the special character. Point cost is reasonable and if you take a Canoness and him you get 2 units with feel no pain.

Elites:

Ecclesiarchy Priest - If you got extra points that you don't know where to put you can get a fairly good priest at a reasonable price.

Celestian Squad -Pretty decent squad 2 attacks is nice for the price. I don't have them in my current list but could easily see dropping a troop squad for one of these.

Repentia Squad - One of three units in the army that got much needed improvements. Feel no pain, fearless, fleet rage, shield of faith spirit of the martyr what doesn't this unit have? I have one in my list and am considering buying a second unit.

Troops:

Battle Sister Squad - our quintessential and only troops choice, the battle sister still are the core of the army and still a very effective mid range shooter unit. I run 4 squads of 10 with various weapon load outs to handle the most variety of enemies.

Dedicated Transports:

Rhino - Its a Rhino, but you get some Sisters of Battle upgrades. I run a mostly foot list so I don't use mine often.

Immolator - Pretty much the same. People are complaining but someone always will. I am running one with my Canoness and one with my Retributor Squad.

Fast Attack:

Seraphim Squad - another unit I thought got some good improvement. Their special rules are pretty cool. I love hit and run. I love re-rolling acts of faith but my favorite is allowing the Seraphim to choose to frie both pistols instead of being twin linked.

Dominion Squad - SCOUTS this is huge for me anyway. I now think this is one of the most useful units in the game and will almost always field a unit. I really feel this unit got upgraded with this update.

Heavy Support:

Retributor Squad - I love them as I always have. Pleny of different loadouts for what ever role you need them for.

Exorcist - You should have one, I want two. Easily our best Heavy. AP1 loving it!

Penitent Engine - The Special rules really upped this uint in my opinion, rage, battle frenzy, unstoppable rampage and shield of faith yes I am fielding two of these big boys.

Final Thoughts:

Overall I am impressed by the codex. It feels pretty streamlined and at times it felt like I had very few options but as I looked at it they basically removed allot of the crap I never used anyway. I think it is a decent codex for a White Dwarf release. Is it the next power house dex? No! Can an experienced
 Sister of Battle player win with this book? Absolutely!

So what are your opinions on the new Sisters Codex? Do you think it is a viable Codex? What plans do you have for your Sisters with the new Codex? Letme know what you think.

- Meatball

My First Citadel Finecast: Tomb King Liche Priest

Well today I broke down and bought my very first Citadel Finecast model, The Liche Priest for my Tomb Kings army.

The first thing I am happy to report is that my model had no warping or bubbles. There was a little flash but it cleaned up very easily with my hobby knife. The mold lines were almost none existent.

Over all the detail is great and I don't think it would look as good in metal, but when I purchased it today I got to compare it to the new Vampire Counts Cairn Wraith and Tomb Banshee, both of which are highly detailed, made of plastic and cost less.

Now what does concern me is the model does not feel very sturdy. I mean I expected it to be less sturdy than metal, but this feels more flimsy than some of my plastic skeletons from the same army. I am hoping that since the material gives more than plastic this will allow him to hold up to the strain of gaming.

In the end I am pretty happy with my purchase. I got a good model that didn't have any of the problems that are frequently put out there about finecast. It was a little more expensive than I feel it should be, but it looks like it will be a joy to paint and will fit very nicely in my Tomb Kings army.

Well there you have it, my product review for my very first Finecast model. Please take a moment to talk to me about any Finecast models you have purchased and what you though of their quality and price.

-Meatball

Preliminary view on new Sisters of Battle

Well I have spent the weekend reading and re-reading my White Dwarf Sisters of Battle codex part one. It is hard to make any real judgements yet as the wargear and points cost won't be out till next month, but I will highlight some of the things I do like.

I for one like the new Acts of Faith. I know others have stated they don't like them but for me I think they are pretty great and a real improvement over last editions.

I like the fact that they added the Sister Dialogus and Hospitaller as part of a Sororitas Command Squad, I just need to know what their gear is going to do.

I like the idea of Priests with Battle Conclaves but again until I see the points cost, I don't know how useful it will be.

I love the changes to the Repentia, Feel No Pain is going to be a great addition. I have always used them in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

I love the changes to Penitent Engines, the unstoppable rampage and battle frenzy are cool and they Get the Shield of Faith.

I love the Special Characters but again until I see the points cost it will be hard to determine their worth, but I will be picking up Arch-Confessor Kyrinov and Uriah Jacobs and adding them to the army.

The rest of the units are pretty good as well, but like I have stated already, without war-gear and points cost it is difficult to really decide on their worth.

That is all for now. Over all I like what I see but I have concerns on points. I will post a follow up article when the second half of the rules comes out next month.

-So what are your opinions on the new Sisters of Battle Codex?


-Meatball

Apples to Apples a really fun game!

Well I have recently played the Apples to Apples card game with some friends and I must say that I enjoyed it so much I went to the store the next day and purchased my own copy.

Now this game is a far cry from any of the gaming I blog about here, but it was so much fun I just had to post about it.

The game comes with everything you see in the picture to the left and can be played by 4-12 players. the recommended age is 12+ just due to some of the subject matter on the cards nothing risque or anything, just subjects younger kids might be lost on.

To play the game each player gets 7 or the red cards with the rest placed in the middle as the draw deck. Then you decide who is going to be the judge first. This rotates each hand afterwards to the currents judges left. The judge pick a card from the green deck with will usually have some kind of descriptive term like say "Smelly" and then it will have 3 other words further define what smelly means. The players then look at their red cards which have word or phrases along with pictures and a description that is usually pretty funny. Each player must play a card they think matches the green card. For instance if you had a red card with a "foot" on it you could play that. Once the players pick a card they give it face down to the judge and draw a new card from the pile.

This is where the fun starts. The judge then reads all of the cards and they decide which one best fits with the green card. The combinations can be quite funny and the judge can choose any car they want for what ever reason. I usually chose matches that made me laugh for instance in the game I played the word on the green card was "Innocent" and somebody threw out a red card with "Ninjas" on it. That was my choice because it made me laugh so hard!

Once the judge pics a card, the players state which card was theirs and the one who threw out the match keeps the green card. The player with the most green cards at the end is the winner, but at that point I really don't think any of us cared who won, we were having to much fun laughing at some of the silly combos.

Anyway I just wanted to do a quick review of what I think is a really fun game, which I can only imagine gets even better with some alcohol on-board. Yeah it doesn't have Space Marines or Dwarfs and Orcs but my friends, wife and myself had a blast for several hours and I am looking forward to the next time we play.


If you have played Apples to Apples or any other cool games recently please feel free to comment and give me your thoughts.

-Meatball

Orcs and Goblins Army Book Review

Well the new Orcs and Goblins book has been out for a couple of weeks now so I thought I would give it a review. I know there are some other reviews out there but I wanted to give my opinion as a non-competitive player on the new rulebook.

First and foremost, I know some people complained when it was announced that the book would be hardback. I for one love it. I think the book is beautifully put together and just feels so much sturdier than any of my other Army Books. The full color is nice but I could have lived without it. The fluff section was pretty awesome and I particularly liked the timeline that was included. The Bestiary section was well put together but no different than other army books. I was a little disappointed with the hobby section as it seemed to only showcase the GW painted minis, there was no painting guide or examples of conversions and no sample army lists at all. The army list section is fairly standard but I don't like how no page numbers are listed for units until the last page of the section.

OK, now onto how I feel about the greenskin specific rules. The two biggest changes are to the Animosity and Choppa's rules and I personally love both. Animosity can still wreak your battle plans but over all I like what they did with it. The Choppas are by far one of the best things about this new army book. +1 strength in the first round of combat is going to be extremely useful and equipping my boyz with two choppas and in a horde should be pretty devastating.

Moving onto the characters. I have no complaints about and on the standard lords or heroes, but when you get into Special characters there are some issues for me. Chief among these issues is their points cost. This seems to be the trend for fantasy but some of the Characters are just crazy. My best example is Azhag the Slaughterer. At his points cost you cannot use him unless you a playing a minimum of 2500 points. On top of his cost, he has Stupidity which really makes him unreliable in my opinion. I just don't feel his rules match his fluff and his cost is just not worth it for me.


Now there are two Orc Special Characters I love, the first is Gorbad Ironclaw. While I still consider his cost a bit high he is actually worth taking. One of my favorite things about him is he allows you to take more than one unit of Big Uns.The only down fall is if he dies not only do you lose your General but he counts as your BSB as well.

The Second Orc character I like is also my favorite, Grimgor Ironhide. I personally feel that he is the best Orc Character in the book. He is hard as nails, strikes first, re-rolls misses and givens a nice upgrade to the mandatory unit of Black Orcs you must take with him.

I thought all of the Goblin characters were pretty fairly priced and all seem to be rather useful. I will definitely be looking to some of them for my all goblin army list.

Moving onto the core units, I really don't see any bad choices here. The Boyz are great, I am going to field at least one horde unit of them. I need to get some Arrer Boyz as they seem extremely useful. I love the Savage Orcs' Big Stabbas upgrade that gives them impact hits. Goblins are probably my least favorite choice though they can still be useful. Both Wolf Rider and Spider Rider units are good fast cav choices. Lastly my favorite unit in the core, the Night Goblins. Give em netters and Fanatics and just sit back and have fun :)

Next up are the special choices which are some of my favorites. Black Orcs are still full of awesomeness, I think both boar boyz types are a little pricey for me, but I would probably use them in a larger game. I like both the Orc and Goblin chariots; it is nice to know if I am getting short on points I always have the option for a cheaper chariot and Goblin chariots can be taken in groups of three, now if they just made it in plastic they would be perfect! Spear Chukkas, what is not to love about a 35 point warmachine :) I almost always field at least two. Night Goblin Squigg Hoppers and Herders are cool units that can dish out some damage but for me will only make an appearance in my goblin army. The Snotlings, what can I saw they are a nice tarpit unit that now have a pretty cool ranged attack option as well. Basic Trolls are probably one of my favorite additions to the special section; again if I am running low on points but want some trolls these guys are 10 points cheaper than their cousins and don't use up points for my rares if I am running close to the limit.

Last but not least is the Rare section. I am not going to go through each one because little has changed with the trolls and giants. I am disappointed that the Rock Lobber was moved to rare but in my opinion the Doom Diver is better so I will be spending on them instead.The Snotling Pump Wagon jus got even better, it has 4 cool upgrades a the Pump Harder Ladz rule lets you roll 3D6 for movement. I plan on having at least two of these in my armies. The two new additions to the rares are both excellent. First off is the Arachnarock Spider. I think the model looks great and the stats and price are pretty awesome. I don't plan on using either of the upgrades for this unit, I am going to take a basic spider and just run it at my enemy. Now my favorite addition, the Mangler Squiggs, These guys are just as devastating as Night Goblin Fanatics and just as random, the only disappointment is that GW did not make a model :( These will always be in my goblin army and will make appearances in most of my other armies.

Well there you have my take on the new Orcs and Goblins book. I think this is an excellent army book which I expect to enjoy playing for many years to come. I didn't write this for competitive gaming, just an honest review of what I think of the book. As always thank you for stopping by the blog and please feel free to leave a comment.

-Meatball

Product Review: Gorilla Super Glue

I just wanted to give a quick product review of my new favorite super glue, Gorilla Super Glue. I have used numerous super glues on my models and none have held as well as Gorilla Super Glue.

There are a few differences between Gorilla and other super glues. First it is slightly thicker in consistency than other glues. Second, it takes a little longer to bond than other glues, so a little more patience is required when using this product. Now if you can deal with those two things Gorilla glue's bond is superb.

I recently used this product for the first time on some Warmachine Jacks I was building. After I had finished, I was taking a few of the models to be primed, I dropped my metal Crusader jack onto my concrete garage floor. I expected to look down and see a demolished model with pieces everywhere. Instead I saw my jack lying on its side, fully assembled, with the only damage being a bent weapon. I picked up the jack and unbent the weapon fully expecting the arm to pop off and still it held.

Ever since this incident I have been using Gorilla Super Glue on all of my metal minis. Most recently I used it to assemble 20 Tzeentch Horrors for my Daemons army and it worked like a charm. If you have ever assembled Horrors you know how temper-mental their arms can be. Well mine have been holding fast and i attest that to the use of the Gorilla glue.

This is just my experience with this product, but I highly recommend it to anyone out there looking for a really strong bond from their super glue. As always thank you for visiting my blog and please feel free to leave your comments if you have any experience with using Gorilla Super Glue.

-BJ

The Beastmen - My Initial Thoughts

First let me say I am basing my current opinion solely on the information that was in the February White Dwarf through the Beastmen article and Battle Report. I will be buying the official rulebook tomorrow and will provide further feedback once I have had the chance to totally read it.

This rulebook is the one I have been waiting on, I was very disappointed with the last version of Beastmen and so I have a large army that has sat on a shelf for years.

Since reading the Beastmen article and the accompanying battle-report in this month's White Dwarf I must say I am very pleased with the direction they have gone with the Beastmen. The first thing I was happy to see is there is no mention of the Chaos Gods, I never felt like they fit the beastmen. It seems as though the beastmen just worship Chaos itself more than one particular deity and I like the feel of that much better.

The second improvement that I am excited about is the actual rank and file troops as opposed to skirmishing troops. I think this was a necessary change and one that will vastly improve the army all together. I also love the fact that Gors and Ungors are now separate units, although I am not looking forward to rebasing all of my Ungors to the smaller bases.

I am also particularly excited about some of the abilities that the beastmen units are getting. They are going to make the units more random, something like Orcs but they will only get better and not stop to squabble. The minotaur's Frenzy rule is pretty exciting as the more they win combat, the better they become at it making them seem like the blood lusting creatures they should be.

Another positive is the new creatures such as the Razorgor and Ghorgon, although I am disappointed that not all the models are yet ready to be released, at least I will have something to keep looking forward to. Speaking of models, the new models for the Beastmen army look amazing, especially the Minotaur, I plan on picking up a few sets with my book tomorrow and getting rid of the old metal ones I have on my shelf.

Lastly it sounds as though their new lore of magic, Lore of the Wild, is going to be an interesting addition to the army. That coupled with the ability to use Lore of Beasts, Death or Shadow magic means my Bray shamans will still see much use in my army lists.

Well that concludes my initial assessment of the New Beastmen Rulebook, I will do a more in-depth review in a few days, after I have thoroughly read the book. Please feel free to give your opinions or remarks as they are always welcome.

-BJ

Product Review: High Elf Lord on Dragon

My mother-in-law got me the High Elf Lord on a Dragon for Christmas (I love having in-laws who don't mind my hobby). So naturally once I helped the kids put all of their new gifts together I sat down and began work on assembling this all plastic kit.

One of the very first things I loved about this model is that the mold lines are hidden very well and I had very little to clean up once I clipped everything off of the sprue.

The 2nd thing I loved is that you get enough pieces to assemble two riders, Not only that but there are many options for both a Lord or a Mage. I decided to assemble a Lord with lance, sword and shield, and a Dragon Mage holding a tome in one hand and a staff in the other.

The final reason that I loved this model was how easily it was assembled. All of the pieces fit perfectly together. There was no need to go back and fill in any gaps. The pieces stuck together easy which meant the glue adheared faster and assembly time was cut down.

In my opinion the is easily one of the best large models that GW makes and I hope the quality continues as they convert more monster type creatures to plastic. I am rating this model as a 5 star top quality product. Now I just need to collect a High Elf army to go with it!

-BJ

Snow-Tex: Add good looking snow to your models!

Well with Space Wolves just being released and fresh in everyone's minds I thought I would review the product I use to add snow to my miniatures. The product is DecoArt's Snow-Tex. This stuff is easily found in most hobby/craft stores this time of year, but can also be easily ordered off the web all year long.

When I first purchased my Beastmen army for Fantasy I wanted to give them snow bases. I bought some of the GW snow flock and personally I couldn't stand it. It doesn't look right to me no matter how I mix it. I then bought another company's (I forget the name) snow product and while it did look cool at first, after clear coating and a few days had passed the snow began to get a yellow tone to it. I was not happy with the effect and decided to shelf my beastmen army until a later time.

Then, 2 years ago, my buddy Brandon asked me to paint his Space Wolves. He wanted snow bases and I cringed, but I was determined that I could make this work. It was the Christmas season and my wife wanted to go to Hobby Lobby to look for some decorations, while she was looking I decided to check out their paints. I was looking through the stuff when I noticed a bottle labeled Snow-Tex, the Jar was under $5.00 so I decided to buy it and give it a try.

Not only was I pleasantly surprised, but I was blown away. The stuff was already textured and had a very white appearance to it. I starting applying it to a few of the Space Wolf miniatures and the outcome was amazing. I still had my reservations, though because I had luck with the product that turned yellow, so I sprayed on a clear coat and then set the models aside for a few days. When I came back to look at them the snow was just as white as the day I painted them.

Here we are two years later when Brandon asked me to paint him some more Space Wolves in anticipation of the new codex. I asked him to send me a few that I had painted so I could make them match up. When the models got here the snow was still just as white as the day applied it to the models.

Needless to say I am sold on this product. It can be applied by brush, sponge or palette knife. It dries to a hard finish with little (if any) shrinkage from how you originally place it on the model. It can be thinned with water and can be tinted using other acrylics, so those of you who want a bluish tint for icy snow, it can easily be achieved.

This product has many other uses than just snow, you can tint the color and make it look like stucco for building walls, or it really makes a great mud when tinted or painted up with browns. I have used it to give bases some texture or small mounds and it is much cheaper than using green stuff to accomplish this.

Throught this article you can see some of the ways I used Snow-Tex on Brandon's Wolves, and below you can see how I used it to make textured rolling ground for some objective markers. I hope you find this review useful and if you decide to give Snow-Tex a try feel free to post here and let me know what you thought.

Spray Varnish: How I beat the frosting effect!

Ron asked the members of the FTW blogger group to post some of our thoughts on spray varnish and how to deal with frosting.

In the past I had come across the problem of frosting after using a spray varnish. I asked around my gaming club on how to fix the issue and what caused it. I was told that it is caused by high humidity or overspraying and the number 1 recommended way to fix it was to do a clear coat followed by another matte coat.

While their method did fix the frosting the miniatures still looked different from ones I had sprayed without frosting. I started doing some research online and found many art students recommended using Krylon Matte Finish.

I picked up a can and it worked beautifully. I have been using the Krylon Matte Finish ever since. As of writing this I have yet to get a frosted model in about 4 years of painting minis and using this product. The instructions on the can still recommend not using it in high humidity, you can apply a second coat in just 2 minutes and the models are dry in 10-15 minutes.

I have had allot of success with this product so I just wanted to pass it on to my fellow gamers. I still pay attention to the humidity before I spray but this product has worked like a champ in 102 degree Texas summer heat. It costs around $5-6 a can and can be found at various stores from Walmart to hobby/art supply chains. You can find more information about this product at http://www.krylon.com/

-BJ