to Finecast or not to Finecast ...

So far I did not buy any of these fancy new finecast models. The reasons are simple, I did not need any so far. All my 40k armies work perfectly fine without metal or finecast models and indeed at this point I don't see any change in the near future.

For me this is quiet brilliant, because I have never been a fan of metal models and love plastic models much more (yes yes, this discussion is older than some of the 40k players out there). From this point of view I liked the idea of switching from metal to resin, but what I read about the actual outcome and what I saw at some friends made me shiver... As a customer that pays a quiet (relatively) high amount of money for a product - which is obviously the case for GW models - I demand quality. This means that I would open the product (finecast model) directly inside of the GW store and check the model. And if it has imperfections, return. Now despite the fact that I refuse to go inside any GW store anymore to support my local gaming stores and to avoid these brainless GW zombies, I doubt that after the second or third package the GW zombie will let me open another one and what happens then? Also, what happens if I order some models on the internet and discover all these finecast horror I have seen on the internet? And it is surely not the fault of my local gaming store if these models are cluttered with imperfections, but I don't pay for rubbish! So how is GW handling the complaints? We all know that Forge World is an excellent company that is aware of the fact that they also produce a lot of rubbish and they always threat their customers right, but GW? ....

The problem I am currently facing is, that for my WHFB army I would like to buy a Slann Mage-Priest but it is a metal model. Since it is pretty big, it is very heavy and since I hate metal models,  I actually like the idea of having this thing made of resin. But on the other hand, ... its finecast ....

Test Waaaagh

Review of my first game with Orks against tyranids as a test for our upcoming campaign.

Facing the upcoming second part of our 40k campaign 'Shadows over Neble II - part 2' 40kkk.blogspot.com (which ended in December and was won by my Space Marines) we gathered up for some game last week. As I pointed out in some posts some time ago, I am building up an Ork army. Unfortunately it is a very slow (almost static) process. But nevertheless I tried to play with my Orks last week, in order to see wether I will play Orks in the next campaign.

First off, the list I played was build up in about 5 minutes and highly relied on the models I had available.

The list was basically the following (can't remember all the details):


Warboss on bike, combi-flamer, PK, BP

Bigmek, KFF, BP, 'e Armor

15 Lootas

5 Nobs, Warbikes, 2 PK, 2 BC, Painboy, Grot Orderly, 2 combi-Flamers, 2 big, 2 shootas, BP, Warbanner, Stikkbombz

30 Boyz, Nob, PK, BP, 'e A, Stikkbombz, 2 rokkits, Shootas

30 Boyz, Nob, PK, BP,'e A, Stikkbombz, 1 Rokkit, 1 big shoota, Shootas

3 Killakans, Grotzukkas

1.5K

Before I give you my experience, I would like to ask you for your opinion: what do you think about this list?

Well, I faced a Nid army which was, like always, a very heavy (hard) list. Genestealers, Tervigon, Trygon, this special Zoantroph in a drop pod, some termas in a drop pod, two hive guards, 2 venomthropes, 2 tyranid primes and 3 biovores. Well my joy of testing my orks was gone when I saw this list, but ok... I wanted to have some fun with my orks and its orks, they are fun by definition.... :)

At the end I lost. It was much closer then the result (3-1 objectives) suggests. And a horrible mistake including the unbelievable double one for the most important charge distance roll basically ruined the game for me. Not to mention the way I used my nobz and the stupid idea of using lootas to hold a objective :). So at the end some boys and the bigmek survived and the killakans...

So this is my experience:

Warboss - Can't say anything. Really could not use him correctly. But I might give him some extra attack next time. Maybe he will hit something then :)

Nobz - basically the same as the warboss. Problem was that I was shot by this damn hive guards (in my opinion one of the best, ridiculously overpowered units in the game) ... no saves at all.

BigMek - Ruled! This KFF is so damn good. Even though it was only 5++ it was really nice.

Lootas - They killed the Trygon in the first shooting phase. 45 shoots and I don't know how many hits.... Problem was they exponentially start to suck if their number is decreased. Anyway a nice unit. Next time I should remember that they are elites and not troops :)

Boys - Well what can I say. They are very nice when they charge. After the charge their ridicules strange 3 sucks! But they did quiet well.

Kans - Well.... Fantastic. 6 templates with BF 3 , S6 was wonderful! Devastating. Even though I had one round with an average scattering of 9 inches and hit nothing! one thing I don't understand is, why do I have to hit with each of this small templates and the fucking biovores have to hit with 1 (the first) of their large templates and then the rest is basically for free ?! this sucks!

So after all I liked this list and I was pretty sure that knowing my army better and knowing all this god damn tyranid special rules, I would be able to kick ass in a rematch. Using my Nobz correctly and securing some objectives instead of just trying to kill everything would definitely help :)