Vanguard, SG or Honor Guard?

Today, I'm going to compare these three units and highlight the good and bad of each one.

Vanguard Vets for Blood Angels are simply better than their C:SM counterparts.  Not only are they cheaper, but they have Descent of Angels ontop of Heroic Intervention.  Vanguard Veterans can reliably come in at the right place and the right time to assault anything in the game.  They can take special pistols, carry power weapons and use meltabombs against those stationary artillery units.  The best thing about these guys is their ability to come down and turn the tide of battle instantly.  If you're stuck in combat with a squad that's wearing you down or if you're getting bombarded from afar from some artillery vehicle, Vanguard Veterans can save the day.

For these guys, I prefer a cheap and effective layout:

5x Vanguard Veterans (3x PW, 2x MB) = 205

Keep in mind that the squad leader already comes with a power weapon so you're only paying for 2 more.  For these guys, a Power Fist is another strong investment because of the 2 base attacks, but I prefer Power Weapons and Meltabombs instead.  The reason why is because they're supposed to act as a counter-charge element that can free up tarpits (near a FC/FNP bubble) or destroy non-moving vehicles.  This is why my cheap squad has 3 guys with power weapons.  The rest of your army should have fists already so I'm not really worried lack of S8 on these guys.

Salamanders

"Into the fires of battle, unto the anvil of war!"

Battlecry of the Salamanders

Whenever you hear about Salamanders these days, you hear about Vulkan He'stan.  He is the current Forgefather for the Chapter, charged with finding the lost relics of his Primarch.  Being one of the First Founding Chapters, the Salamanders have served the Emperor with distinction for thousands of years.  They are known for their artisan craftsmanship and their use of heat-based weapons.  This should be no surprise as their homeworld of Nocturne is ridden with volcanic fire and violent radiation.  Weapons such as Flamers and Meltaguns are all commonly seen on the battlefield when the Salamanders are present.  Even Thunderhammers are expertly designed and perfectly balanced; fitting for the forge-born warriors of Nocturne.  By taking the Vulkan He'stan to battle, Space Marine players can truly enjoy the gifts of the forgefather.

Vulkan He'stan trades Chapter Tactics for something truly remarkable.  He makes all your fire-based weapons such as Flamers, Heavy Flamers, Meltaguns and Multi-meltas twin-linked.  Vulkan also makes all your Thunderhammers master-crafted.  The forgfather himself has Captain stats and has a 2+/3++ armor/invulnerable save.  He also comes with a MC Relic Blade (S6) and a built-in Heavy Flamer as well.  Because of this army-wide buff that Vulkan provides, Space Marine players can quickly take advantage of the most destructive weapons of mankind and use them with greater effect than other Marine Chapters.

With that in mind, it's not too difficult to construct a list that can take advantage of these bonuses and keep to the theme of the Salamanders Chapter.  The list below is the list that I constructed at 1750 points:

Raven Guard

"Victorus aut Mortis."

Battlecry of the Raven Guard

The Raven Guard are one of the original Space Marines Legions.  They are known for their hit and run tactics and their ability to strike unseen from the shadows.  Stealth and infiltration is their forte and their attacks are precise and focused.  By striking at their opponents weak points, they leave their opponents disorganized and confused; making them susceptible to the fury of the Space Marines.

My second thematic army from the C:SM Codex was the Raven Guard.  After playing Crimson Fists for a bit, I decided to needed to spice it up a bit.  After looking through the codex for some inspiration, I came along a Special Character named Kayvaan Shrike, Captain of the Raven Guard 3rd Company.  Being one of the more familiar names in Space Marine lore, I quickly looked over his special rules and noted what he can offer to the table.  The first thing I noticed about Shrike is that he trades Chapter Tactics for Fleet.  This makes the assault elements of your army even more deadly as they can close the distance and engage in battle much quicker.  The other thing to note about Shrike is that he can give him and the squad that he's in Infiltrate.  This means that regardless of where your opponents deploy, Shrike's squad can start 18" away from them (or 12" if they're out of LoS).  The ideas quickly started to pour into my head.  I needed an army that can have enormous first strike potential at the weaker points of my opponents' army.  The army needed to be precise like a surgeon's knife and hit hard like a hammer.  This is how I came up with my army list:

Crimson Fists

"There is only the Emperor!"

"He is our shield and our protector!"
Warcry of the Crimson Fists

The first army that I started with in the C:SM codex was the Crimson Fists.  Being a Seconding Founding Chapter of the Imperial Fists, the Crimson Fists received its unyielding tenacity from the Primarch Rogal Dorn.  Lately, tragedy has befallen the Chapter and their Fortress Monastery on Rynn's World has been destroyed the Orks.  Though injured and severely outnumbered, Pedro Kantor, Chapter Master of the Crimson Fists rallied the remnants of his Chapter and fought courageously to purge the Ork invaders from Rynn's World.

Ingame, Pedro Kantor is actually one of the most price effective choices in the entire book.  He's a Chapter Master so he automatically has access to Honor Guard and Orbital Bombardment.  His special rules replaces the entire army's Chapter Tactics with Stubborn and Hold The Line!  Stubborn makes it so you always take morale checks at max leadership when you lose combat and Hold The Line! makes all your Sternguard Veterans count as scoring units.  Probably the biggest bonus that he offers is an amazing 12" aura of +1 attack to all friendly units within 12" called Inspiring Presence.  This is huge!  It makes your basic Marines fight like Veterans and your Veterans fight like gods.  This also effects Dreadnoughts so your Ironclads get 5 attacks on the charge.  Aside from that, he comes with a S4 AP4 Assault 4 Storm Bolter at BS5 and a Power Fist at WS6 and 3 attacks base.

Three days, three Chapters

Over the next couple of days, I'll be revisiting the army lists that I've used for 5th Ed. Space Marines.  Space Marines was the first army that I started with 8 years ago and they're still my favorite.  When the new codex came out, I chose three thematic yet competitive ways to play the new book and I will cover one each day in the next three days.  Each list has a distinctive playstyle, true to the theme of the chapter they represent.  Those glorious heroes are the Crimson Fists, Raven Guard and Salamander Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes.  Enemies of the Imperium beware.

List synergy

A lot of the time I see people making lists that lack the synergy needed to carry out their battleplan.  You see lists that's supposed to be fast take slow units that slow the rest of the army down; or an army that takes too many reserves and it gets dissected on the field turn by turn.  This post will hopefully help people realize these issues and how to improve upon it.

Let's look at some example lists that preform well in battle and analyze why they work.

Eldar Castle list (Defensive):

Avatar

Eldrad

2x large units of Wraithguard

3x Wraithlords

A squad of counter-attacking Harlequins + Shadowseer

The entire army moves slow but the units here are incredibly resistant to damage.  The big to note about this list is that the army's movement speed is the same.  Everything moves as one, the tempo remains constant, and nothing is left stranded or out of reach of immediate assistance.  The Wraithguard, Avatar and Wraithlords are all really tough with their T6+ and 3+ saves.  Eldrad offers great protection to the army via zone wide psychic protection and Fortune on your units so you get that armor re-roll.  Your shooting is primarily short-ranged but with guide  your Wraithguards' no armor save instant death shots become really intimidating.  The main weakness of this army is CC, but that's why you have Harlequins with a Shadowseer hiding behind your Wraithguard as the ultimate counter-charging element.  Overall, this list favors a more defensive player's playstyle but has all the right tools to make it work.  It moves as one, shoots at one and reacts as one.

My Blood Angels unit bucket

So with the release of every new codex, I look through the book and find the best stuff and the worst stuff.  I erase all the garbage units (Chaos Spawn) in my head and concentrate on two sets of units; my competitive units and my fun units.  The competitive units are normally the best units in the codex; whether its because they're cost effective or just really good.  The fun units are the units that are fluffy, fun to take and mess around with, but I wouldn't take them in a serious game.  I completely understand that by dismissing the "garbage" units I throw out half of the units that I can possibly play.. but this is a money game in every sense of the word.  Maybe it's the RTS gamer in me that makes my use of resources so overly-critical, but I think anything with limited expenditure should be taken seriously.  It's all about being cost effective ingame, and in real life because you should only purchase models you know you'll use.

Before we continue, understand that these are my opinions on what the best choices are.  You don't have to agree, in fact, I encourage you don't.  That way, we can all engage in a wider spectrum of gameplay and playtest diversity.

Here is my competitive units bucket:

Preferred Enemy

This post actually has nothing to do with the USR in the rule book, but rather what armies I prefer playing against.  I would consider myself the type of player that falls at the half way line between WAAC and fluffy.  The army lists that I write often contain a central theme and the units I pick have to fit that theme.  I'm also one of those players that enjoy fighting against enemies of the Imperium more so than other Marine Chapters.  I think it's more thematic when my Space Marines fight against treacherous Chaos Space Marines or the foul xenos scum that is Tyranids rather than fighting against Space Marines.  For this particular case, I would say that aesthetics of the game certainly outweighs how competitive the lists should be.  I don't think anyone I've encountered actually enjoys mirror matches on the table-top. I absolutely hate fighting SW vs. SW or BA vs. BA.  I mean, what's the point?  And it's incredibly frustrating when I see two of the same SCs on the field.  I would rather field a different army than face that.

Fear of the Darkness

Summoning the indescribable malice of the Warp, the Librarian unleashes a mighty wave of sheer terror, piercing every creature's soul with the horror of death and revealing their utter insignificance in the face of an uncaring universe.

- 4th Edition Space Marine Codex

One of the funniest psychic abilities I have seen in a long time is Fear of the Darkness in the upcoming BA Codex.  It's a psychic shooting attack at 24" that forces the enemy unit to make a morale check at -2 leadership.  If you fail the morale check, you immediately flee 2D6" towards your closest table edge.

While it might not look so hot at first compared to some of the other abilities, let's look at all the dirty things we can do with it.  That way, when you do it to your opponents, you can kindly guide them to the rulebook while they nerd rage.

Tyranids: The good, the bad

When the new Tyranids codex came out, I quickly rushed to my LGS and picked up a copy.  Every good soldier of the Imperium must understand his enemy before he can defeat them.  Maybe that's why I own almost every codex.. especially those of the xenos and traitors!

After looking through the codex, I quickly noticed that a lot of the issues in the older codex were fixed (I'll just list a couple):

1. You could no longer spam nothing but Carnifexes and Hive Tyrants and win games - A moment of silence for my footslogging Grey Knight army back in the 4th vs. the countless number of Nidzilla lists..
2. Tyranids anti-tank no longer blow ass because Zoanthropes are the now go-to unit for blowing up anything within 18" with their S10 AP1 Lance.  And in a lesser form, the Hive Guard at 50ppm and 2 shots of BS4 S8 shots with no LoS needed.
3. And finally, some new monstrous creatures and better core choices so you didn't see the same Nidzilla cookie-cutter (I swear everyone thought theirs was unique) list in every game that you played.

With those things in mind, I was pretty thrilled that Tyranids were going to be something special, something truly unique in the world of Warhammer 40K.. but this was not the case.

My Blood Angels army list

All this talk about Blood Angels and no army list..  Let's change that right away!  Here is my current 2K army list that I plan to field as soon as I have the book in my hands.  This army will follow the same philosophy as my other lists in terms of army design.  To make things a little easier, I think I'll just break the list down and analyze each and every piece separately.

HQ:

Mephiston = 250

My HQ choice is going to be the Lord of Death himself.  He provides my army with that much needed Ld.10 Hood and acts as a Greater Daemon mounted on a 25mm base.  Because of his amazing statline and small stature, he can easily hide amongst a fully mechanized army.  His ability to fly increases his threat range by a ton, so I don't need to worry about obstructing his influence on the battlefield.  Mephiston can cast 3 psychic abilities a turn; Sanguine Sword which gives him S10, Wings of Sanguinius that allows him to fly and Unleash Rage which gives him Preferred Enemy.  All of these will be instrumental in making him extremely dangerous to the enemy.  Remember what I said about S10 weapons that ignore armor:  They pose a threat to everything on the table (especially when it's a force weapon as well).  Peace out Trygon.

Making a good list

What makes a good list? I define a good list as a list that can win battles.

I've always viewed games as this: The point of the game is to have fun. The objective of the game is to win. Now since I come from a strong RTS background, there's only one outcome at the end of the game: You either win, or you don't. Victory or defeat. Winner or loser. There's no other way to really play a game with objectives otherwise. Now, I understand that wargaming is all about throwing dice, drinking a few beers and having fun, and I do that. But in the end of the day, you want to see your army victorious on the battlefield. You want to see that one Marine raise that flag ontop the corpses of your enemies. That's what the gaming aspect of Warhammer is all about.

Now, how do you accomplish that? How do you make a list that can slay your foes, capture objectives and emerge with enough collective bodies at the end of the game to claim victory? There's a method to that. Below, I will show you my mentality when constructing a competitive army list.

My balanced approach at 1750

Here is my 1750 SW list.  I named it "Steel Rain, Armored Column".

1732
11 kp

HQ:
Rune Priest (Chooser) = 110

TROOP:
9x Grey Hunters w/ WG (Rhino, PF, cbM, Meltagun, WS, MotW) = 243
9x Grey Hunters w/ WG (Rhino, PF, cbM, Meltagun, WS, MotW) = 243
8x Grey Hunters w/ WG (Rhino, PF, cbM, Meltagun, WS, MotW) = 228
10x Grey Hunters w/ Rockfist (2x Meltagun, WS, MotW) = 368

HEAVY:
6x Long Fangs (5x ML) = 140
6x Long Fangs (5x ML) = 140
LRC (MM) = 260

The idea behind this list is quite simple. You force a reaction out of your opponents army by shooting the hell out of him with 10 rockets per turn. S8 AP3 at 48" means I can reach out and threaten everything he has so I'm satisfied in that department. I mean, I could go for max beard and take Razorbacks for those Grey Hunters and min-max my list to shoot, but I like my friends so I think I'd rather keep them. Space Wolves, believe it or not, can shoot the living crap out of you with 15 missiles per turn (3x6 Long Fangs) with Razorbacks w/ TLLC and supporting Cyclone Launching WGT. All that fits pretty comfortably in your heavy support choice too.. which is pretty scary.

Blood Angels Psychic Powers

After going through the codex a couple of times, there were a few things that I noticed about the psychic powers available for the Blood Angels. For one, they're really good - I would say on par with the Space Wolves in terms of effectiveness. It's not surprising that the last three Marine books have strong psychic potential and Librarians being very cost effective options.

Let's go down the list really quickly and see what the Blood Angels have..

Smite - Same as C:SM. 12" S4 AP2 Assault 4.
Might of Heroes - Gives you +D3 attacks.
Wings of Sanguinius - Redbull gives you wings. Not really, but you get Jump Pack movement.
Unleash Rage - You and your squad gains the Preferred Enemy USR this turn.
Blood Boil - Pick an enemy unit from 12". It takes a wound with no armor save. If you roll 5 or less on your psychic test, you choose the model.
Blood Lance - 4D6" straight line that ignores friendly models. Enemy units touched by the line takes a S8 AP1 Lance hit.
Shield of Sanguinius - All friendly units with 6" of you get a 5+ cover save.
Fear of the Darkness - 24" Enemy unit takes a morale test at -2 to their Ld.
Shackle Soul - Enemy needs a leadership test to do anything; move, shoot, run, assault.
The Sanguine Sword - Your Librarian has S10 this turn.

So now that's out of the way, let's talk about what really stands out. In my previous article with Space Wolves, I talked about Murderous Hurricane, Living Lightning and Jaws of the World Wolf being big players. In this new Blood Angels Codex, I can see Sanguine Sword, Unleash Rage and Blood Lance/Fear of Darkness being the winners. Of course if you're a Librarian Furioso, the Wings of Sanguinius will be top priority (that and probably Might of Ancients or Blood Lance). Nobody wants to fight a AV13 Dreadnought with WS6.. let alone one that can fly.

Optimal Long Fang loadouts

As many Wolf-Brothers know, Long Fangs are one of the best things in our new dex. Their ability to split fire with differently equipped heavy weapons gives them unmatched versatility and target options, not to mention they're cheaper than their C:SM counterparts! In this short blurb, I'll go over what I consider to be the most optimal Long Fang configurations.

6x Long Fangs (5x Missile Launchers) = 140

With the ability to hit and wound anything from MCs to vehicles as well as delivering earth-shattering instant death to MEQ from 48" away, this is the most popular and tried setup. S8 AP3 allows you to chew through Marines and punch open Rhinos. They can reliably bust open any armor save for AV14 due to their sheer amount of shots. If you're facing Orks or Tyranids and few like throwing some frags into their face, 5 blast templates will sure give you justice. You might even consider adding a Wolf Guard Terminator with Cyclone Missile Launchers to this squad. He'll take orders from the Long Fang squad leader and you can fire control those 2 additional missiles at separate targets if you want to just like the rest of the group.

Eldar: Xenos Lies!

I just wanted to blog really quickly on something I've been seeing on a lot of the gaming forums (Warseer, Dakka..etc): Eldar players complaining about the metagame and codex creep. Now I don't know about you guys, but I find the Eldar Codex to be one of the best books ever written. I just want to say that I think Phil Kelly is a man that has the ability to write books that can last through the editions. Not to mention he wrote the latest Wolf Dex and that thing's amazing.

Let's take a quick glance on why I still find the Eldar army to be one of the best in 40K. During my time in 4th Ed, I played over a hundred games with Eldar before I sold them for Space Marines. The Eldar have specialized units that are really good at doing what they're supposed to. Fire Dragons melt tanks with their meltaguns, Dire Avengers bladestorms infantry to death and Wraithguard puncture holes in everything that they touch. All of these awesome abilities can be further augmented by Farseers that can guide, doom and fortune all day long. Their mastery of the warp is unmatched by any of 40K because all of their spells compensate for what their army lacks; which is huge. The army moves and flows like water but has the ability to strike like lightning if it wanted to.

Seth and his Flesh Tearers

One of the new Special Characters in the Blood Angels Codex is Chapter Master Seth. He's CM of the Flesh Tearers.. a rather savage and bloodthirsty successor Chapter of the Blood Angels that's dying from Black Rage.

Ingame, Seth is pretty interesting. He has the same statline as a SM Captain (3+/4++) but he has 4 attacks and a S8 Rending 2h Chainsword. It counts as a normal weapon and thus is not a power weapon (boohoo). If you look it closely though, you'll notice that S8 Rending is actually pretty dangerous. In Fantasy, there's a thing called Killing Blow that basically kills you outright if you roll a 6 to wound unless you have a ward save. In 40K, there's a thing called Instant Death.. which is pretty much the same thing. Anything that's double your toughness can kill you instantly and S8 is right at that sweetspot for instant killing MEQ. With 4 attacks, 5 on the charge, 6 if you take him with Honor Guard and a Chapter Banner, he basically wounds any MEQ on a 2+ and any failed armor saves means the target dies (unless he has Eternal Warrior). Any multi-wound models traveling in 3+ gear should be wary of such a thing.. making Artificer Armor so much more important. To make matters worse.. if he rends with his S8 Chainsword, this truly becomes something worthy of Killing Blow. When that happens, you tell your opponent to make that 4+ invul or die. Just imagine a huge Chainsword ripping through your opponent's power armor, spilling his guts and flinging them all over the battlefield. And mind you it's just a Chainsword.. so it might take a few tries for it to completely cut through - quite awesome if you ask me. Oh, and the S8 Rending also auto-pens a Land Raider if he rolls a 6. At 160 points, he might be worth considering.. especially if you want to run a Flesh Tearers army.

Best of the Blood Angels Codex

Most cost effective HQ:
Librarian followed by Reclusiarch. You either choose to take a cheap psyker with a Ld.10 hood and awesome psychic abilities (such as Blood Lance, Sanguine Sword, Unleash Rage..) or you take a super Chaplain that has +I/A/W and makes your squad Fearless/Re-rolls to hit. Both are good choices with the Chaplain slightly more expensive.

Best Troop choice:
Aside from your basic Tactical Squad, you can now have 10x Assault Space Marines without Jump Packs in a Rhino, Fist and 2x Meltaguns for 250 points. That's pretty amazing if you consider how many attacks they can have and the fact that you can take 2x Special Weapons. With Fast Rhinos, you can move 18" your first turn and get ready to party the next. A close contender for second is probably smaller ASM squads in a Razorback. If you drop Jump Packs from them, you get a 35 point discount on your next transport. That's pretty damn good.

Best FA slot:
I only see one unit here that stands apart from everyone else, and that's the new Baal Predator. For 145 points, you get a Baal Pred with Scout and Fast, Twin-linked Assault Cannons and HB sponsons. The runner up in this field is Vanguard Veterans with their ability to Heroic Intervention off Decent of Angels. DoA allows your reserve rolls to be re-rolled and you only scatter 1D6" for Jump Pack units. Now that BA VVs are 5 points cheaper than C:SM equivalents, you can deck them out with some weapons and go hunting reliably.

The Man-Mountain

So everyone knows about Arjac Rockfist right? In case you didn't know, he's a special character/upgrade character to Wolf Guards (essentially, a SM Sergeant equiv). That means he can be split up and put into a squad at the beginning of the game and can't be picked out in combat. If you think that's mean, he's WS5, always hits on 3s (Wolf Tooth Talisman), re-rolls vs. ICs and MCs, has a S10 AP1 Thunderhammer that can be thrown at BS5 at 6", has 4 attacks in the first round of every fresh combat (5 if you charged), and wears Terminator Armor with a Storm Shield, and oh yeah, he has Eternal Warrior with 2 Wounds. His S10 Thunderhammer known as Foehammer can crush the skulls of any MEQ, Tyranid Warrior or Nob Biker. He's 188 points and he's one of the best buys in the book.

I've taken him a few times and in the games I've used him, he has rarely died. He has always made his points back in the games where I've taken him.. killing tens of Plague Marines, Tyranid Warriors or Wraithguard, he's always a great buy. A lot of the players in my club are complaining that he might be too powerful; I agree with them. The fact that he can't be picked out in combat and is always swinging at targets of opportunity (such as ICs) is ludicrous. That S10 hammer threatens everything in the game and nothing is safe from it. I normally take him in a squad of 10x Grey Hunters w/ 2x Meltaguns, Mark of the Wulfen and a Wolf Standard. The fact that I can use Wolf Standard in conjunction with Arjac is also pretty funny. Being able to re-roll failed Terminator saves of 2+ or SS saves of 3++ is quite entertaining.

I think in every game I've taken him, he's killed triple his cost. If that's not a good buy, I don't know what is!

My current SW army list

My current army list is scaled at 2K points and I add and subtract points from it depending on the opponent. No matter what, the core pretty much always looks the same. I will always have my 3x Grey Hunter packs in there as well as my Rune Priest.

My current army list:

1984
13 KP

HQ:
Ragnar Blackmane = 240
Rune Priest (Chooser, WTT) = 115

TROOP:
9x Grey Hunters w/ WG (Rhino, PF, cbM, Meltagun, WS, MotW) = 243
9x Grey Hunters w/ WG (Rhino, PF, cbM, Meltagun, WS, MotW) = 243
8x Grey Hunters w/ WG (Rhino, PF, cbM, Meltagun, WS, MotW) = 228

ELITE:
5x WGT (WC/SB, WC/cbM, PF/cbM, CF/cbM, WC/HF) = 225
in LRC (EA, MM) = 275
Lone Wolf (TDA, WC/CbM) = 55

HEAVY:
Vindicator (Dozer Blades) = 120
Vindicator (Dozer Blades) = 120
Vindicator (Dozer Blades) = 120

Space Wolves

Space Wolves is my current 40K army and they're fantastic.

I like the rate the armies that I come across in 3 different fields: Power, Balance, Design. Before I go any deeper, I'll define what these words mean to me in terms of gameplay mechanics.

Power
The strength of the codex compared to the current metagame. How does it fair against the top rated tourney armies at the moment? Are there many viable power builds in the book? Are the units strong throughout the entire codex? Are they weak? Even if two casual players sat down and played a game, who does it favor more? This is something that competitive players care about a lot - whether or not their current army stands a chance against X new codex.

Balance
This is defined in two ways: Internal balance and external balance. By internal, I mean how the units in the book is priced against eachother. Do you find some units absolutely terrible and others too good? Or does everything have a use and is priced at reasonable levels. By external balance, I mean how does this book compare to other books in terms of unit/cost effectiveness? The biggest question here is simply: Do you get the best bang for your buck? Out of these three values, I believe this one is the most difficult to analyze as it's often skewed by opinion and criticism.

Design
I like to define the design of the book as this: Does the book capture the essence of the army strictly in terms of gameplay aspects? Does it feel like a Wolf army when I'm constructing my lists and playing them on the table? Can I make multiple different armies with this book or am I stuck with just one viable build? These aspects must fit the needs of a competitive and casual player. You must feel comfortable playing an army not only because you enjoy the fluff and the lore.. but because the fluff and lore plays out just as you imagined it on table-top. That is the selling point of a good book; one that players will love for many editions to come.

Why start a blog?

I've been holding out on starting a blog for a long time. Maybe it was pure laziness that prevented me from transferring my ideas onto paper, but due to the encouragement of my peers, I've finally decided to get started.

In this blog, I will talk about the various aspects of computer gaming, table-top gaming or any form of game-related material that I happen to come across. I can't help it really.. I work at a gaming company and I'm surrounded by games all the time. My big focuses right now is SC2 beta, Warhammer 40K and some Warhammer Fantasy. Don't be surprised if all you read is Warhammer 40K for a while.. that's my big thing right now with the new Blood Angels Codex coming out April 3rd. It's safe to say that I'm very excited about it.

By reading my blog, you'll understand the thought process that I share when playing the games that I enjoy. I am a competitive person and I love a good challenge - this is what keeps me motivated to become better. I will go through the various aspects of competitive gaming, why certain methods of gaming are better than others and how anyone can aspire to greatness if they try.

Here are some strategy guides that I've done in the past:

• Battle for Middle-Earth Audio Commentaries.
• Age of Empires 3: In-depth Spanish Guide.
• Age of Empires 3: Portuguese Micro Guide.
• Age of Empires 3: Portuguese Fast Fortress.
• Dawn of War: The Codex Astartes.
• Dawn of War: The Bible of Chaos.
• Dawn of War: The Vior'la Academy.
• Company of Heroes: Axis Buildings and Tiers.
• Company of Heroes: Axis Commander Guide.
• Company of Heroes: How-to Guide to Success.
• Company of Heroes: Complete Guide to Tier2.
• Company of Heroes: Axis Guide to MG Ownage.
• Command and Conquer 3: Nod Unit Guide.
• Command and Conquer 3: GDI Unit Guide.