Noise Marines... The Forgotten Cultist?

When building a Chaos list (who does that anymore, I mean really...) many skip over the lowly CSM's and go straight for the Cult Marines. Obvious choice really, as the cult marines can do some pretty cool stuff. So naturally you see a lot off Chaos lists runnin the immovable Plague Marines, or the close combat baddies, the Khorne Bezerkers. I've even seen entire armies built on the backs of those 4++ Thousand Sons. One thing missing from this list is Slaanesh's own, the Noise Marines.

Why do we not see more units of Noise Marines on the table? Possibly because Plague Marines and Bezerkers are the "obvious choices" in the book. The interwebz tells us that old codexes only have one way to play competitively, and all other choices are suck. Now while based in truth, this generalization can really keep people from finding out that some units are exactly what their army needed.

All the fellers can switch from the regular ol' bolter to the Sonic Blaster, essentially making their bolter either Assault 2 or Heavy 3. Doesnt sound like much but being able to double tap a bolter then charge in at I5 with 3 attacks a piece is sweet.

I like to think that they rock out to Poison
 and White Snake while they flay the skin from
Your Bones

Then one dude can get the almighty Blastmaster. This may be my favorite gun in the effin game. It has two different settings, an assault and a heavy, that both cause pinning. The assault is basically a heavy bolter with one less shot. Okay, not too bad. The heavy is where it gets fun. Imagine a krak missile with a small blast. Yeah, buh bye MEQs. This thing is awesome. It can pop tanks, kill infantry, take out heavy infantry, I mean it can do it all.

The last cool thing is the Doom Siren. It is a champion upgrade, and it packs a wallop. It is a heavy flamer that is ap3. Let me repeat that. It is an AP 3 Flamer. Basically you roll up to your opponent and say, "Lets play pick up your marines on a 3+". This unit now has a crapton of killin power.

Now comes the question, "Well how do we use these guys?". Well glad you asked. This unit can't take a beating like plague marines, Nor can it charge into battle like Bezerkers. The Noise Marines are more of a thinking man's unit. I tend to run Chaos squads in their sacred number, as I think it brings good luck, and it also tends to put the unit at the right point cost, not too high nor too low. 

Therefore I run them in squads of 6 in a rhino. I start them out as fire support, sitting on my objective in C&C, anchoring the back line and using their blastmasters to take out high priority targets, while the rest of the army surges forward. This gives your army a solid choice for objective sitting, while giving you a few more shots.

The great thing about these guys is their ability to protect your objectives. I am currently running two squads. Now to the untrained opponent, 12 guys in rhinos on an objective doesn't seem like much. This is where the unit excels. These puppies. can pop out and dump 8 Bolter shots, 2 Heavy Bolter shots, and a AP 3 flamer shot per unit. Then you charge in and wipe out whats left. Very little can take that many shots and the subsequent charge. 

For an example, here is the list that I am currently runnin.

Abaddon

7x Plague Marines

...2x Melta, Fisty Champ w/ combimelta

Land Raider - EA, Dozer Blade

Kharn the Betrayer

8x Zerkers

...Fisty Champ

Land Raider - EA, Dozer Blade

2x6 Noise Marines

...4x Sonic Blasters, Blastmaster, Champ w/ Doom Siren

Rhino

2x Oblits

1999pts.

In this list, the 2 Raiders are free to go and rock face and such, while my Noise Marines hang back and hold my objective (or the closest ones to my side of the board). With pure 'Zerker and Nurgle armies, it sucks leaving one of those squads back, with Noise Marines, you won't have to.They excel at this fire support role, but are no slouch when the enemy closes in. 

Well thats all for today, I have been having a blast pulling the Chaos out and giving them a whirl. It is fun to watch a list out of an outdated codex play well, and if you've got your chaos on the shelf, I encourage you to pull 'em out and let the most characterful army in 40k march the fields of battle once again for the Dark Pantheon. Until next time, Grizz Out!

Ard Boyz Semis, quick and dirty...

I lost.
But good things happened too!
I qualified with my razorspam Blood Angels list, but I wanted to try something new for the Semis, so I mixed it up with a nasty Coteaz henchmen list:
Coteaz, Grandmaster with tons of grenades, 3 venerable pysriflemen, 4 Henchmen squads that were just 3 warriors with melta, 1 shooty Henchmen squad with 3 plasma cannons, 3 jokers and warriors, a squad with 7 DCA and 3 flamer warriors all with psybolt razors, a stormraven (for the Grandmaster and dca squad) and 3 psyriflemen dreads.
First mission was "messenger", nominate a troop model to be the messenger, get it into your enemy's deployment zone for a vp bonus, victory points to win. I rolled up my buddy Tommy (Puma713) he was playing mech BA, with Mephisty, 2 LR, Asscannon razors and a vindy for good measure. I did well up till turn 3 and for some reason I had a lapse of reason and moved my 3 venerable dreads towards his LR and got triple charged by fnp termies, swinging kps in his favor, I never really recovered and he got a major victory.
Bound to annihilate my next opponent I roll up Jeff in the "get more scoring units within 6" of the center" mission. Jeff was a nice guy and his list probably could have done well on this mission, he played horde orks with ghazzie ambushing with snikrot. Had he walked ghazzie up the center of the board I think he wins...but I roll grand strategy and get a 4 choosing 2 ven dreads to score. Then I get first turn...I think after my alpha strike I had killed both looted wagons, the battlewagon, his looks, a unit of stormboyz and around 17 boyz...massacred him in 4 turns.
I felt pretty good after my massacre because a lot of folks tied the second mission, my next opponent was Clay from Mobile, AL playing Draigowing. I anticipate a massacre since I have twice as many shots per turn as he has models. We roll for deployment and he chooses a quarter with the biggest piece of LoS blocking terrain I have ever seen...literally. It was 20" long, 6" wide and 5" tall....this is gonna suck...Coteaz sees me sieze on my second try and I do what I can to shoot him, Immobilizing his stormraven and killing a 5 man purified squad. Second turn I killed some pallies and then immobilized the LR, I'm feeling better! Turn 3 time to roll the mission (roll a d6 at start of 3 to determine mission, kp quarters or hold terrain) I pray for quarters or terrain, but the emperor didn't hear my cries...kp. my army has 23 available kps, his has 9...he wins 6-5 with only 5 models on the table...I hate life...
Grats to my fellow Fixed Dicer Rob Blackwell on second!

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Space Marine - First Impressions

Hey all, The Grizz here. Since yesterday the couch and my butt have been inseparable. "Why is your posterior unable to remove itself from directly in front of your Plasma Screen Grizz?" you ask. "Two words," I utter, "Space Marine".


Words cannot describe the nerdgasm that is Space Marine. From the time I put it in the Xbox I have been hooked. The campaign is a lot of fun. You are a Space Marine captain deployed to a forge world overrun by an Ork Horde. It is up to you and your veterans to save the planet and vanquish the Green Tide. Oh yeah, and there's daemons. Take that. 

The missions are pretty straight forward, and the controls are easy to get a handle on. The Melee system is pretty neat, and allows for some Tekken-esqe combos. Nothing about the gameplay is awkward, everything flows pretty smoothly. The only thing that I have missed is the Gears of War cover style. There is no way to properly hide behind cover, but then again You are an Astartes, a Captain no less, so maybe cover isn't a big concern for you.

pshh Cover, Who needs that?

You get a multitude of weapons, each with a different purpose (wait till you vape an ork with a meltagun for the first time, nothing but red mist and a "HOLY SH---!!!!!!" ). All of the wepons save one is from the actual 40k universe, so it should look pretty familiar. 


The multiplayer is a blast. There are only two types of games thus far, Seize Ground and Annihilation (see what they did there?) , but honestly, when you play CoD or Halo, how often do you deviate from slayer/deathmatch? You level up much like CoD, to a maximum of 41 (41 levels, 41st Millenium, if you haven't noticed there is a theme here..) and gain new weapons, perks, and armor along the way. The real cool part of multiplayer, however, is the customizer. 

This allows you to make your own chapter to play with in multiplayer. And believe me, whatever your chapter looks like, you can make it in the customizer. In the paint section, all the GW paints are in there. So if you painted your Marines Mechrite Red, you go over to the colors and select Mechrite Red. Pretty cool, Right? Last night I was literally up till 2am paintin power armor. The Chaos armor is the same way. So if you can dream it, you can fight against other nerds over the internet wearing it!

Graphics = Epic

The Graphics really are top notch. Everything is rendered smoothly, the Space Marines look amazing, the world is all grimdarkly proper. Usually games like this lack in either graphics, story, or gameplay, with the company just trying to scrape as much money as they can out of the title alone. As much as we bitch and moan about Games Workshop bein too overprotective of their IP, it made Space Marine what it is -epic. GW doesn't want their IP to go to the crapper, so they made sure that everything was right and perfect. Honestly that is what made the game for me, how you can tell that GW wanted it done right.


Relic/THQ nailed it. There is no other way to say it. The Ultramarines act just the way one would expect an Ultramarine to act. The Guardsmen look/act just like Guardsmen. A bolter looks and sounds just like I always thought it would, I mean I could go on and on. This game is 100% 40k and 100% fun. As a 40k fanatic and a video game nerd, its like a double whammy of awesome. 

Oh yeah, did I mention you get to shoot Storm Boyz out of a Valkyrie?

The greatest element to this game as far as getting you into character, however, is the health system. Your health doesn't regenerate, there are no health packs. There is only one way to regain health - kill. By doing certain attacks, you regain health. And once you've killed a multitudinous amount of crap you can unleash your Fury Meter. This also fills your health, and makes you uber marine, boosting damage output.


This element is integral to this game, as when you are hurt, you aren't looking for a place to hide, nor are you running from your enemy. You wipe the blood from your mouth, heft your chainsword, and charge straight into the horde, killing all that stands before you. That is what it means to be an Angel of Death, to Know No Fear. That dynamic is what makes Space Marine great. They put you in the power armor and tell you to " 'Ave a go at 'em".

Now I know that it seems like this post is a whole lot of "blah blah awesome game blah blah cool great blah", but in all honesty, if you love this hobby like I do and are into video games, there is just no way you can pass this one up. So go out, buy the game. You can thank me later.

Unit Comparison: 5 Warriors vs 5 Wracks

Wow. It's been a long two months. For those of you who don't know, I got a new job, moved, got a house, all sorts of crap. Also with all this going on, my monitor acted funny. I let my wife called HP to get a new one. Long story short, I spent the last 3 nights trying to repair my computer. I am also very happy to be apart of Da Deff Kompny Supa Duppa Mo Dakka, Mo Chopper, Krumpedy Krump( just like Gork, or possibley Mork) Blog ever!!!! Anyhow, the Blog fairy is angry so on to the article....


Ok, I've been thinking, Venom spam seems to be all the rage right now. I am personally not convinced,  but that is another story. I definitely see the appeal. Venoms are amazing. I have been running 10 man squads and have found them to be a tad lacking. I am also finding it harder to squeeze in enough Anti tank and decent assault units. And at the end of the day, it's not like 10 man units are more durable or anything. All these things got me thinking about our "red-headed step child" troop choice, wracks. Anyhow lets compare two very similar units.

Warrior Unit.......125 pts.
5 Warrior
Blaster
Venom w/ 2 Splinter Cannon

Wrack Unit.......125 pts.
5 Wracks
Liquifier Gun
Venom w/ 2 Splinter Cannons

The warriors are the classic choice. They are much more fragile than the wracks but, their big advantage is the blaster. One blaster doesn't seem like much, but remember we are looking at the army as a whole. That means 5 or 6 more darklight shots on the table. That can really change the game. Plus the poison shots can be great. The Wracks have poison, but have to be in assault to use it. And when I say Wracks are more durable, it still doesn't mean they are all that durable. T4 FNP is good, but with 5 models it is still not the type of unit that can get thrown into the mix.

Of course, in every other way the wracks are better. The only real down side is the having to take a haemonculus to make them troops, and it's not really a downside, just a restriction. Plus the liquifier gun can be a MONSTER!!!. I killed a 10 man unit of Eldar warp spiders in one shot. Absolutely gross. Another great thing is, if you have an assault force, or plan to assault anything, the Wracks have the ability to move up and support, where as the others can't.

Verdict: At the end of the day,which is better? I think, like with all DE armies it depends on the army you build around it. I personally think wracks are better. They will be more able to push units off of objectives, as well as the abiltiy to support other assault units in your force.  Compared to some of our other anti-infantry options, 125pts for this unit's damage output is a steal. Also, anti tank can often be found most efficiently in the rest of the army. Of course, if you need the anti-tank, or have a generally shooty force, warriors are the obvious choice.

Welcome!

Welcome!!

Hey Everybody, Grizzly Adams here, And welcome to Da Deff Komp'ny!! Da Deff Komp'ny (or DDK) is a collaboration between myself and fellow bloggers Wiley The Nord and Pariah Stevo. We previously ran seperate blogs, If It Wears Power Armor..., Ghostlight of Commorragh, and Tainted By Xenos, respectively.


 After some discussion, we decided to put all of our creative might into one masterpiece, thus creating Da Deff Komp'ny! This blog will cover all aspects of the hobby that is Warhammer 40,000, From painting and modelling, to list buiding and tactica, as well as battle reports and whatever else we can think of! 


All of our previous posts from our respective blogs have been combined and added into DDK, so that way everything we have worked on previously is all in one place for your viewing pleasure. Thanks for checkin us out, and if you wanna keep up with what the Komp'ny is doin, please click the "Follow" button on the right hand side of the screen!

Abaddon Unleashed!

Abaddon may be my favorite named character in the game. He's an IC, he is tough, durable, and can be just absolutely ridiculous in the assault phase, able to go toe to toe with just about anything in the game. The problem is, his model doesn't do him justice. No, let me rephrase that - His model is absolutely terrible.


So years ago when I scored the deal of the century and payed 130 bucks on eBay for an entire Nurgle army (50+ Plague Marines!!), I decided to make my own. At that time, I was wanting to stay pure Nurgle, so I took my Typhus model and created one of my favorite retarded ideas to date - Typhusbaddon. 

Typhusbaddon - Born of Necessity, Beer, and Boredom

Yes the almighty Typhusbaddon saw many a tournament, game night, victory and ass whoopin. As my Chaos horde began to grow, however, being "pure Nurgle" began to become less important. I had already phased out my Nurglezerkers (don't ask), and Typhusbaddon's run was coming to an end. 


So I picked up a terminator lord/sorcerer kit, and ordered a Skulltaker model from which to procure a suitable weapon from which to make the mighty Drach'nyen. I have had him assembled for over a year, but just now finished painting him. So here he is, the Warmaster himself, The Colossus of Clout (The Colossus of Clout!) - no, I am not above Sandlot references - Abaddon The Despoiler!

Sorry bout the quality of the pics, the lighting is kinda suck :(


Love it? Hate it? Let us know!

Back to Business/Fun With Chaos!!

Ok, sorry for the long layoff, but in the break The Grizz became a Homeowner!! He is now only about 20 minutes from his favorite game store, Dicehead Games! So unpacking, painting, moving, all that jazz has really put a damper on the 40kness for a while. But now The Grizz has his very own subterranean 800 sq.ft. Bear Den all to himself! So yes, mucho excitement on my part.

Got Room to have a table up and leave it up! Now just need to get some good terrain!

Room for all my Armies to get out of the foam and on display!

Armies on parade!

Well this weekend I ran a game out with my good buddy Pariah.Stevo, who debuted his new to him Black Templar. He ran a 16 terminator/6 Speeder Typhoon list, that promptly put my wolves in their place. I have been playing a lot of shooty shooty lists lately, and have had a lot of fun with them. One thing I have had some issues with, however, is termie squads and AV 14. Shooting the poowater out of them is not necessarily the most effective method.

Well this got my mind thinkin. Why don't I start playin around with some just absolutely nasty lists, with that gross center? You know, somethin that is nothin but pure fun to throw down somebody's throat. Why not try some termies and AV 14 myself? Everyone loves a good beatstick, Well when I think of beatsticks, My bestest friend Abaddon always comes to mind. Well the problem is that when you take Abaddon, you have to take a Land Raider, and I always have problems fitting a LR in a chaos list.


So, what if I build a list centered around the LR? Then the cogs started tickin. So I designed a Chaos List unlike anything I have ever played before - A Dual LR list. I just played a game by myself (something I do often, actually really helps your gameplay) matching up the Chaos with the Space Wolves, Pitched Battle, C & C.


Let me just say that the results were more than surprising. The Chaos were one long fang squad away from a complete wipe, and controlled both objectives. I am still shakin my head about it. The List - 


Abaddon
7x Plague Marines
---2x Melta, Fisty champ w/ combimelta
---Land Raider - Extra Armor, Dozer Blade


Sorcerer
---MoS, Lash, Wings
3x Termie Champs
---MoN, Dual Claws
1x Termie Champ
---TLBolter, Chain Fist

---Land Raider - Extra Armor, Dozer Blade

2x10 CSMs

---Fisty Champ, ML, Rhino

2x Oblits

1996 pts.

No it does not have a world of shooty, but throw those two LRs up there and if your opponent can't stop you, then its bad news bears all up in here. I will be playtesting it the next couple weeks, maybe I can get up a new batrep of them for y'all to enjoy! Till next time!!

So, glad to be back! What do y'all think of the list! Love it? Hate It? Either way let us know below!!