Target Priority: Assault

Hey everyone. Its been a bit since Ive posted here but I'm still around. So this post is part of a two part series that will be covering what I call Target priority. I'm not refering to the 4th ed. rule. What I'm talking about is effectively picking targets to maximize your units effect on the battlefield.

This first part is about Assaulting. The assault phase is a very brutal phase in 40k. Games Workshop describes the assault phase as a swirling melee with weapons flying blood and gore everywhere as the units fight a desperate battle against each other and the 5th ed. assault phase does a good job of that. So what does target priority have to do with this? Well not every unit is an assaulting specialist and those that are do not all work the same way.

Firstly not all units are created equal.. especially for the assault phase. We all know the basics of this. Tau firewarriors are weak in the assault,Tyranid Genestealers are strong in assault, etc etc. But there are units that can assault that are not specifically geared for it. A good example are Tactical Marines for Space Marines. They are not geared for assault but they can do it and often do. However they have to be used effectively or they will be withered down. Firstly with assaulting with tactical marines is that they should shoot first and often. With Tactical Marines there shooting is a strength they have and even though they have a great stat line for general assaulting they should utilize there bolters and special weapons widdle down the enemy and then finish them off in melee if necessary. Now this is just a general guideline.. against Tau you may want to rush into assault with there fire warriors and against tyranids you may want to maximize your shooting. It all depends on what you face but a general guide line is they should shoot first and utilize assault as the last measure to finish off a unit if necessary.

Now with dedicated assault units like Assault Marines, Striking Scorpions, Genestealers etc. the thought process is different. With units like these you want to get them into assault quickly and as unmolested as potentially possible. These either means fast moving, outflanking or infiltrating to get into a nice position or utilizing transports. However you get your assaulters across the board you have to do it effectively. To demonstrate what I mean I will talk about Striking Scorpions and Howling Banshees.

Those two units are assault specialists but they work differently and are meant to be utilized for different roles. Howling Banshee squads are full of power weapons and go at a high initiative on the charge. Down side? average strength and toughness a weaker save and not many more attacks then standard assault oriented units. So what are they good for then? Well they can assault imperial guardsmen, Ork boyz, tactical marines and stuff like that and do well against them but that is not utilizing them to full effect. Because they deny armour saves they are good to throw against terminators to force them using a lesser save. Even against the new stormshield it will force that lesser save. Now on the other hand Striking Scorpions have a better save then banshees a higher modified strength and more attacks. Down side? Well like with most assaulters they don't have power weapons except for the upgrade weapon for the exarch which strikes at initiative 1. So how does his unit differ? Well It can dish out a lot of attacks which could overwhelm a squad of 5 terminators but that is not the way to maximize there effectiveness. Chances are some terminators will live and proceed to cripple your scorpions. This unit is good at dealing with hordes. With the amount of attacks at a strength of 4 the scorpions can deal with units over double its size. They have a decent initiative and the armor save to live through the attack backs in general.

The two examples above basically are anti elite assaulters and anti horde assaulting. In general if you assault smart you will have a higher success rate in your assaulting. This is a basic concept but in the heat of the game Ive seen assault units just chomping into the nearest thing they can which is not always the greatest thing.

Well that was long enough I'm guessing. heh. Take care everyone and thanks for sticking with me. I will try to add more here quicker then this. Also this Target Priority series will have a video supplement at some point on the Fortress Monastery youtube channel which has a link in the astronomicon section of this site.

Blood Reavers test Model

Hey everyone. this post is about my Blood Reavers Space Marine chapter. This chapter came to existence because my other chapters I have can only run one way really and that's the way I built them. Dark Angels use there codex. Pre heresy thousand Sons were built to utilize the Space Marine codex. My Dark Angel Successor Chapter uses the Space Marine Codex but in a different way just like my Iron Ravens idea and the official chapters I still want to do all have there set ways.

So what does that mean? Well the Blood Reavers came to being because I wanted a hard hitting assaulting Marine army. I am not a fan of Space Wolves so that left Blood Angels and Black Templars.. and I decided this chapter would do double duty. I am modeling it to have the capability to do both codices. now there will be a few models that wont be usable in both but that is fine. So here is the test model! Sorry for the fuzzy picture camera went wonky.

Now I just have some minor touch up work to do mostly on the shoulder pads but aside from that it is done. I know the black isn't highlighted and it wont be. But anyway it is a sergeant for a Assault Marine squad if ran in a Blood Angel codex or a initiate with powerfist in a Black Templar codex. The magnetized back packs let it go into both codices and allows flexibility in both. They are a loyalist chapter in case anyone was wondering.

I wanted a more dynamic pose so I bent him a bit so it looks like he is looking down from higher ground issuing an order before leaping with his jump pack or before charging.

When I get better at making the models magnetized I will post a tutorial on here but it will take a few more marines. The legs are from a Khorne Beserker box. I have fluff for the chapter and when in the future I will post about it.

More to come on these guys and my other Space Marines in the future. Until next time..

Admech Advisor

Hey everyone. Ive been a little busy with the hobby so I got some stuff done like those bases in the last post. Here we have what I will be using for a Master of Ordnance Advisor for my Admech army.

He is a Titan crew member on foot from forgeworld. I do not have the other 2 painted up yet but this guy is one of the moderati. I thought he would fit well with the admech army as he looks techy enough. The model is perfect for the master of ordnance I feel because he has a little data slate thing in his hand so it looks like he is marking coordinates to transmit back to whatever is dropping the ordnance (Titans or Admech Ordinatus perhaps?). i will eventually paint the other 2.

A word of caution for these models is that they are one piece meaning the model and base are molded together. That is fine but they are casted in a white resin or some such which feels weak. You could probably snap this model in half with your hands easily. So some care is needed when your painting the model. More Admech to come in the future.

All Your Base... Batch painting

Hey everyone. I thought i would share how I normally do bases. So here is a picture.

Now unless there a special character or some special kind of unit I do bases in batches. How I determine how many to do is simple as it's based on the squad size. These bases are for a group of 20 shoota boyz. I normally do the bases first. The only exception are slotted or peg models in which case the bases are done last but even in this case I usually do them by squad size.

It can certainly feel like a grind doing 20 or more bases at once. Sometimes ill do them in batches of 5 at a time but I will get all the bases done before I work on the models. If I were to make a rubbled bases I would test fit a model first but it would be unbased just clipped to make sure it will fit. But doing bases in batches makes them go decently quick especially once you get into the "zone".

I prefer putting models on bases after it is based so it looks like they are walking on the desert or whatever the base is instead of looking like there sinking slightly into it.


Well that's that for batch painting bases. More Basing to come in the future.

Admech Commissar

Hey everyone. To go with my last all your base post I have a model using one of the bases. Now I didn't try the orange light drybrush on this base. Ill try it on the other one and if it looks nice and subdued ill go back and touch up this base.

The model is a Death Korp Commissar. But it will be for my Admech army as a Commissar. I just love the model so i decided to use it for my Admech. I think it fits in well as the gas mask head give it a tech and inhuman feel.

Well thats the model. The actual Armies color scheme is that of his pants which is scab red over mechrite red. the metal bits are a mix of chaos black and bolt gun with a light pure boltgun highlight.

Thats pretty much it. I have stuff in various stages that im working on and part 3 of the Legends of War should be starting soon which means a 20 shoota boy strong squad to work on that gets priority. More updates and other stuff as i get to them. take care.

All Your Base... Martian desert

Hey everyone. Been busy but I did make some progress hobby wise. Here is another All your Base installment. This time it is my attempt at a martian desert type of scheme. The results work although there is probably a better way to do it. But this was quick and easy.

Alright so after flocking the base I gave it a base coat of bestial brown. Any darker brown will work but I went with bestial because it has a kind of reddish quality to it.

I then heavily drybrushed the base with scab red once the bestial brown was fully dried. I tried to cover practically all the brown with scab red leaving trace amounts of brown.

The final step was to drybrush red gore on top of the scab red. This was a light drybrush that I did only until I saw a slight difference in color on some of the flock. You could probably go beyond this with a mix of red gore and blood red or some sort of orange but I left it at this stage because I did not want a more extreme highlight color. I did the sides of the base with Graveyard earth.

That's pretty much it for this type of base. Ill have more bases to come soon as well as progress updates when I have things to report. Until next time...

All Your Base... Urban

Hey everyone. Ive been busy with Work and building my new computer so I haven't had time to post here. But here is another installment of All your Base!.. This time is Urban basing. Now i am going to make another post on here when I do more Biker bases as I do not have a picture of the finished base without the bikes on them. But here we go:

Firstly After flocking what I do far all urban bases is base coat the stuff black. I try to get everything coated in back but if some flock isn't covered that's fine. The later stages should deal with that.

And there are the bases done. What I did here was drybrushed codex and fortress gray over the black. For the yellow striping I used Iyanden Darksun foundation as it is nice and flat. Now there are 2 ways I dry brush urban. If I want it to be a non street urban base I make it very grey with codex grey. If I want it more of a urban street its a light drybrush of the grey so the black bleeds through the drybrushing. That's pretty much it. As I said when i do more of these bases ill make an additional post for urban showing the base in more detail.

One quick note. These new biker bases are great. As you can see the bikes sit fine on them. As far as I know there only available with the scout bikes but you can buy them in groups of 5 off Games Workshop's website. Well until next time... Take care.