It does ... WHAT!

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During the course of playing any miniature war-game (or most any type of game) you'll come across a model, card etc. that "breaks" the game. This doesn't necessarily mean the piece in question is overpowered or unbeatable; rather it changes the nature of the game.

What this leads me to is my least favorite faction to play against in Malifaux. The Neverborn are the bane of my existence. The general consensus amongst players I've spoken with is that Neverborn are "unbeatable" or otherwise "unfun" to play against. While opinion cannot be legitimately classified as right or wrong, I do tend to severely dislike playing against them. I could be playing against my favorite opponent, but as soon as those purple cards hit the table I lose a bit of my enthusiasm. 

The question then comes up as to why this is. The models are relatively "balanced" and once you figure out how to deal with them their weaknesses become obvious (still working on this one...). I think what it boils down to is every one of the Neverborn masters somehow ignores or changes a core mechanic of the game. Which in turn means that when playing against them you have to change your thinking and read and re-read their abilities. That I think is where the "unfun" issue comes up. When I have to try to remember every weird interaction possible, and my opponent has to do the same thing, games tend to drag on and get bogged down with looking up rules and interactions.

In my opinion the Dreamer and Pandora are the worst offenders. Both significantly change the way the game is played and involve more "single-player" aspects than other masters. Pandora is annoying because her ability revolves around Wp tests, in order for her to work she removes the immunity that some models have to Wp duels (and pay for). The Dreamer just makes my head hurt, mostly because his crew involves much more thought in dealing with and playing then any other crew in the game.

Regardless of what Neverborn Master you face you will have to deal with the fact that some aspect of the game becomes irrelevant.

Lilith – Ignores Terrain, Creates New Terrain, and can swap any models on the board

Pandora – Removes immunity to Wp, causes wounds for tests that you may or may not usually have to take, jumps around the board.

Zoraida – Takes control of you models, can hurt you indirectly, can ignore terrain

The Dreamer – ignores initial deployment (for the most part), can pop models up where ever, can't be targeted (under specific circumstances) and a few other weird thing I'm forgetting at the moment

So are these models "broken," probably not. There's ways to deal with them and ultimately playing to your strategy or schemes and avoiding them can win you games. Are they "unfun," that depends on your perspective. For me I have a hard time getting my head around them and remembering all the odd interactions so they border somewhere between annoying and passing on a game (depending on my mood). That's not to say I haven't had really fun games playing against Neverborn players, but on the same level I've also had plenty of unenjoyable games against really great opponents that are only unenjoyable because of the crew I'm facing.

I hope this doesn't come off as whining or complaining. There's nothing wrong with any of the models described above. The issue for me is really just finding the way to deal with them while still having fun. 

My Favorite List

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Malifaux – I've been playing this list for a few months now and have found it to be very consistent and quite a b1t of fun to play. For competitive Malifaux the sweet spot seems to 35 Soul Stone games, this gives just enough time to get in at least 4-5 turns (for slow players, experienced players will get the full 6-7) in an hour and a half or so. There is also a trend to using the shared strategies and having them be predetermined by the event organizer. Thankfully, most events retain the ability to change your list each round which is far to important an aspect of the game to abandon.

The list I've been playing is as follows:

Seamus

2 – Rotten Belles

1 – Crooked Man

2 – Necropunks

Killjoy

(7) Stones in Pool

The Basics
Your game plan remains basically the same regardless of the strategy you pull. Deploy the Necropunks as far forward as possible, when they activate move twice and cast leap. Depending on the table set up this should put them about 21" from your board edge. If they can't lock a model into melee, they should be positioned as a juicy target. (Note: avoid anything that has a "sacrifice" ability, it prevents slow to die and ruins the plan) Ideally your opponent will have to spend a minimum of 2 AP to kill the Necropunk. With your Slow to Die action you summon Killjoy. Who should be right in the middle of your opponents crew. The odds are he will die, but in the process he should be able to kill one model and put a serious hurt on another. You should get a minimum of 2 turns forcing your opponent to deal with the rampaging beast in their backfield.

 

Every model in this list has Slow to Die, you should only summon Killjoy on your own turn if it is the end of turn 3 and your opponent hasn't killed anything yet.

The rest of the list is about board control. The Crooked Man should be moving toward objectives and casting Shafted as many times as he is able. The Belles should be used to screen Seamus and protect him from getting engaged in melee. Each turn the Belles should be moving and only casting Lure to set up a shot for Seamus or Distract to limit the AP of threats.

The Other Stuff
If I'm playing this list competitively I'll ALWAYS take Bodyguard and Hold-Out as my schemes. The reason being these are the easiest to accomplish and if things aren't going your way it's easy to run Seamus back towards his deployment zone to protect it. As long as you're able to prevent your opponent from getting their strategy or denying their schemes you'll at least tie.

Seamus is pretty terrible in melee and should avoid it at all costs. I've found that his (3) AP are best spent maneuvering around to protect himself and/or take a shot when he can. Most of the time taking a shot results in a corpse which you should then attempt to cast Arise My Sweet on. His other spells are tempting but situational at best. It's far more important to keep him safe so that .50 cal can do it's job.

As I said I've been playing this same list for a few months against a variety of opponents, and even when they know EXACTLY what you're going to do they will still react similarly to your plays. If they don't deal with the Necropunks they'll tie up a model and slowly grind it away until it becomes necessary to sacrifice and summon Killjoy. The Shafted Markers the Crooked Man can pump out will dictate where your opponent will move as the 2/54 chance of losing a model is a pretty scary proposition. 

 

RIW Tournament Update – Sharing the Love

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I just finished up designing the pins that will be awarded at the Feb 5th event I'm hosting as RIW Hobbies in Livonia. I think they're a fun play on the "I Love New York" logo. From my experience players enjoy having some type of take-away that says they won an event. So I try to create a unique pin for each event I run. 

The pins are created by printing this pdf onto inkjet shrinky-dink paper. Once the pins have been shrunk I attach pinbacks (you can get these at any arts and crafts store) and seal them with an acrylic spray.

Board Game Night

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Saturday we had some friends over to try out some of the new games we received for Christmas. To start out the night we played Sorry Sliders. This is a really fun dexterity game that is similar to shuffleboard. The neat thing about it is the variety of boards. Each center board has it's own rules and scoring system. Mt personal favorite is the red board, "Danger Dots," if your piece touches one of the exclamation points on the board it's removed from play. Scoring is done with a separate tracker which matches up with the slider. Just like in Sorry the goal is to get your pieces to "Home" by an exact count. Everyone seemed to enjoy the game an although it's set up for 4 players you could easily create teams for larger groups.

Next up on the list is a game called Smart Ass. This one has a very simple board that tracks a players success. After answering a question correctly the player roles a 12-sided die marked with 1, 2, 3, and 4 to see how far you move. Each turn one player reads clues and the rest of the players blurt of an answer, if you answer wrong you cannot answer again. The clues are fun and this makes a fun party game. My only complaint is the board is to short and it's fairly easy for one player to quickly run away with the game. Overall fun but not the best game design.

The third game we played is Urban Myth. I had high hopes for this game as I'm a huge fan of urban legends. The gameplay is a bit confusing. Each player has a card that says truth on one side, myth on the other. One player reads a clue and the rest the the players secretly flip their card to say truth or myth. Players that get it right advance one space around the board, the reader advance one space for each player that got it wrong. That part is simple, it gets weird when it comes to scoring. If a player is on a square that matches the category of the clue and they correctly answer the question they get the card. Each card has a letter on the back and you when the game by collecting cards to spell TRUE or MYTH. While the game is fun and lets people that are terrible at trivia have a 50/50 shot of getting it right the scoring is very random and doesn't have much strategy. Fun party game that could easily benefit from some house rules or a dice to select categories. 

We wrapped up the evening with Carcassonne: The Discovery. Allegedly this is a simplified version of Carcassonne geared to younger players. I wasn't a big fan of this game as the simplification takes a lot of the fun and strategy out of the game. Each player has 5 meeples one that is used one the score board and the others are used to denote Brigands, Explorers and Privateers. The scoring for the game is slightly confusing as its based on the geography of the board rather than cities like the original. I think the combination of playing it late in the night for the first time and the oversimplified rules led to us not enjoying this game as much. We'll give it another shot, but right now I think I prefer the original.

Snowed In

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I had to cancel my regular Malifaux night due to the 5 inches of snow that got dumped on Metro-Detroit yesterday. Luckily, my good friend Chuck (paperbag4) has a truck so he came over to play some 40k.

We played a 1500 point Capture & Control mission. He ran a mechanized Imperial Guard army, lots of tanks and veteran squad as troop choices. I used Space Marines, trying out a list that featured the Landraider Achilles, Master of the Forge on a bike, three Tactical Squads with Razorbacks and a total of 6 Lascannons.

The game was a draw on turn 7. I was really concerned about facing that many tanks, but after playing out the game it wasn't that bad of a match-up. The veteran squads were really difficult to deal with given the amount of special weapons they can safely shoot from the top of a Chimera.

After the game we tried out Cthulu Dice, which turns out to be a very fun version of LCR that allows you to target specific opponents. Played a dozen or so games in under an hour and enjoyed the randomness of the game.

Getting Organized

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Warhammer 40K – Following through with one of my resolutions, I've begun organizing my space marine army. I've found that when dealing with a large number of models like this it's best to organize what you have to develop a plan of action. I've assembled, primed and base coated most of my models. When working with GW stuff I tend to put a quick base coat on every model after they've been assembled. It's a habit I developed from playing in 40K events years ago. The old (maybe still in effect?) rule was a model had to have at least 3 colors on it to participate in an event. While this works fine to avoid having grey or black models on the tabletop it slows the process for finishing models. From a distance base coated models look ok and it's easy to slack off and never finish them (hence this huge cabinet of half finished models).

After sorting through the models I have built and re-reading numerous source books I'm only one squad of tactical marines short of having a full company. Of course in addition to the standard company I have numerous squads that would be part of other companies or support units. Rather than attempt to build an entire chapter I think I'm going to flesh out the captains of each company and reuse the basic components when I want. To keep this flexibility I'm not using the codex company color identifiers, this keeps this fluid and will also allow me to use multiple codexes depending on what I feel like fielding.

Reading through the Blood Angel codex I think this will be the basis for at least one of my companies. Using that book gives you numerous possibilities for varying your force and shoehorning in some of the traits that were left out of the current marine codex.

 

No Wonder It Cost So Much ...

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Warhammer 40K – While waiting to hear back from Forgeworld regarding the damaged parts of my order I started working on the items that weren't broken or missing vital parts. The shear size of the the excessive resin is pretty daunting to deal with. At first I though they included tank traps as part of the sprue. I'm not sure what the though process is in attaching a delicate piece to a giant block of resin, but it's not good. 

After a few hours of cutting and sanding I was able to assembly the bodies of both dreadnoughts and the landraider. I'm pretty happy with all the kits once they're assembled. Still waiting on the banner poll for the venerable dread, but overall they went together easily and had very little warping.

Start with a good foundation

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Warhammer 40K – I received a large box of GW Foundation paints for Christmas and thought it would be helpful to test them out. The claim is the paints will give one coat coverage over black, even with the reds and yellows. Upon opening the jar the first thing you'll notice is the paint appears to be very thick, so thick in fact that I thought it may be drying out. After a vigorous shaking the paint seemed to thin out a bit. I'd still recommend thinning it before use as with any paint. Using it right out of the pot is never a good idea.

WIP – Master of the Forge

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Warhammer 40K – I've been working on a conversion to have a Master of the Forge on a bike with a conversion beamer. I based the chassis on a tutorial I found on Bolter & Chainsword. I made a few modifications to the gun mount, namely using a wench section from the Vindicator kit as a weapon mount. The hole in the wench was also exactly the same size as a teleport homer pipe so it was easy to snap it into place. For the conversion beamer I'm using a Necron heavy guass cannon. Once the model is painted I'll put some yellow or blue neon rod in the weapon barrels.

The rider used the basic bike legs, torso from the vehicle sprue, Dark Angels techmarine head, apocarthy backpack, tentacle from a defiler and servo arm from a servitor. I had to remove the one of the sensors on the backpack to fit it on the bike. After carefully cutting off the offending piece I mounted the sensor to the cannon. For the servoarm I carefully bent the tentacle and heated it under a lamp to hold the curve. I then pinned it to the backpack and attached the servitor arm to the end of the tentacle with a pin. 

I'm looking forward to using this model as it will allow me to field up to 6 dreadnaughts, as well as being a cost effective mobile weapons platform.

Save the Date – Feb 5, 2011

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Since this is a Valetine's Day Themed event, there will be a special rule in effect for the entire day.

Each board will have a fixed strategy and special event/terrain.

At the beginning of each round the TO will flip a card from the top of a deck. If the card is a heart/ram or a joker than the following rule will be in effect for the duration of the round.

Love is in the Air

Models attacking a model of the opposite sex receive a negative twist on CB duels, models attacking a model of the same sex receive a positive twist on CB duels. Constructs are sexless and neither rule applies to them.

 

Customs ... how I loathe thee

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My loving mother was kind enough to buy me a bunch of Forgeworld stuff for Christmas. Much to her dismay what the package arrived it was in a blue plastic bag and the models were just dumped into the bag along with a destroyed box. As she ordered it just in time for Christmas she had no idea what to do. Not having any idea on what it was she actually bought she had no way of knowing what was missing or broken. 

Of course when I opened the box to find a Babab War book, Land Raider Achilles, 2 Dreadnaughts, Captain Korvydae, Damocles Command Rhino, and Raven Guard Doors for the Land Raider and Rhino I was thrilled. Then of course she explained how it arrived and upon closer inspection I noticed an immense amount of damage.

The book looked like it had been chewed up in some type of machine and several of the parts were missing for numerous models. Many of the parts were broken to the point of being unfixable.

I have attempted to contact Forgeworld regarding the damage and would hope that the package was insured since it was several hundred dollars worth of product. Since they just got back from the holiday break I hope to hear something soon (and hopefully positive). Be forewarned this is part of the danger of shipping or ordering things from overseas.

 

After a bit of a wait, the kind people at Forgeworld helped me out. They replaced all the missing or damaged parts with COMPLETE new models. Customer service like this really make a company stand out. 

Happy New Year

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With a new year comes a time to reflect on what we can do better than we did in the previous year. I thought I'd take a moment to share my resolutions as it pertains to gaming.

1. I resolve to actually finish a 40K project. As I've gained and lost interest in the Warhammer 40K system I've amassed quite the collection of models, bits and kits. In the coming year I plan to see at least one of these projects through to completion. I've decided that completing my marine army will become my top priority for my painting table between commissions and special projects.

2. I resolve to help the local Malifaux community to grow. While the game initially had a huge spike in interest it has since fallen off to a dedicated core group of people. I plan on doing some special projects to give away as tournament prizes to bring back the initial hype. Also the Metro League was a success so I will attempt to run at least two (maybe three) in the coming year. Hopefully the revised rules manual and V2 cards that were recently announced will clear up any of the issues that precluded people from throwing themselves into the game. I look forward to seeing the game grow and attract new players.

3. I resolve to improve the content of this site. I really want to bring in more interviews and tactics to the site. I received a Flip for christmas and will se what I can do to bring some video content to the site. I'm not sure how interesting it will be to watch someone else paint or play games but I'll give it a shot and see how it turns out. 

Keeping it simple seems to be the smartest way to insure that I can accomplish the goals I set for myself so hopefully I'll be able to stick to them and make 2011 a great year.

Now readers I have to ask what are your resolutions?

Movie Review – True Grit

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Last night I went to see True Grit, and I have to say this is an amazing movie. I wasn't aware prior to seeing it that it was a remake of a 1969 John Wayne movie, but I'll be bumping that up to the top of my Netflix que to see how they compare.

The visuals are everything you'd want in a western wide open spaces as well as suitably gritty interior locations. For Malifaux players I'm sure you can glean some inspiration for scenery and terrain from this film. I particularly liked the use of snow in several of the scenes. It adds to the mood of the film without blanketing it in a frozen wasteland.

The dialogue is period accurate yet still feels witty and clever. Most period films either feel forced or will update the dialog to be current. Jeff Bridges does an excellent job in the role of Rooster Cogburn, adding just a touch of comedy to the hard drinking marshall's persona. His co-star Hailee Steinfeld is also great in the role of Mattie Ross. The chemistry between the two is classic.

I highly recommend checking this film out, it's a nice break from the overproduced all CGI productions that have been flooding theaters as of late. The film is relatively kid-freindly as well, so long as slightly graphic corpses don't cause your kids to have nightmares.

Another year older...

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I love December. Having my birthday and christmas in the same month usually means lots of new games. Earlier this month we celebrated both my and my wife's birthdays. Hers tends to fall Thanksgiving weekend so we'll celebrate with family all in one go.

This year I was lucky enough to receive the Myths and Legends expansion for Small World. I'm really looking forward to trying this out as it seems to add a whole new level to the game. As with the original game the art is fun and clever. On the board game front I also received Call of Chthulu LCG and the Chthulu Dice game. The card game seems similar to Magic the Gathering without the collectible aspect. Chthulu Dice is a variation on LRC with different terms and a funky 12-sided die.

Quick side note: Recently I watched Chthulu (2007) this is by far one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Be forewarned it is a giant waste of time. 

On the RPG front I was fortunate enough to receive the Deathwatch core rules and the Rogue Trader: Into the Storm expansion. Both live up to Fantasy Flight's high level of quality and I look forward to eventually nailing down a day each month to run a campaign. RPG's have been notoriously difficult to run with my usual gaming crew but everyone seems interested in this system. It seems like the nature of it will also lend itself well to players being absent for a session.

Weathering the Storm

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Warhammer 40K – Sunday was supposed to be the first gaming session in the newly remodeled game room. However due to a snow storm most of the guys were unable to make it out.

Luckily Brian (paperbag fox) braved the weather to get in a game. We decided to play a quick 750 point game of 40K. After setting up a ruined city overgrown by the jungle we rolled up annihilation with corner deployment.

I don't remember his exact list but this is one of my stan-by lists, it takes advantage of the stock unit choices:

• Captain with bolter and hellfire rounds and a power axe

• 5-man tactical squad in a Razorback with lascannons

• 10-man tactical squad in a Rhino with flamer and missile launcher 

• 10-man tactical squad in a Rhino with flamer and missile launcher 

• Assault Bike with Multi-melta 

The game mostly went my way due to clever deployment and combat squads. I was able to cause his two big mobs of boyz to route after heavy casualties. His Warboss decimated a squad, but they were able to hold out long enough for the calvary to arrive and gun down the massive beast.

Small point games don't play to the strengths of the Orks. It probably didn't help that he had quite a few points tied up into some Killa Kans that didn't make much impact on the game.

On the Painting Table...

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TE_paintingtable1282010.jpg

Malifaux – Finally getting back in the swing of things a working on some new commissions. On the table we have an Executioner, Electrical Creation, Enslaved Nephimlim, Purifying Flame and Scales of Justice.

Assembling the Scales of Justice is a huge pain. The next time I put one together I'll glue the pans to the chain first. I didn't do that this time and had to hold the pans in place until it dried (I don't use accelerant because it weakens the bond). Once you get around the difficulties of assembly it's a really cool model. 

I think this is the third or forth Electrical Creation I've assembled and painted. At this point I've gotten really good at getting the electricity arcs to quickly bond. The bag/tentacles are still weird no matter how many times I paint them but with a bit of work you can highlight them so they look more like a torn bag and less like fleshy tentacles.

Painting fire is one of my least favorite things, mostly because getting it to look remotely realistic is a tedious affair. I've found working with a light yellow and layering up various shades of yellow, orange and red is most effective. Then to smooth the transitions I wash with a yellow or orange ink. 

I dread painting the flesh of the executioner. My biggest issue with the model is the large smooth belly. I've seen many variations that add hair or tattoos to break up the area, but most of those techniques are more time consuming than I'm willing to do on a table top quality piece. With a bit of layering you can get a nice finish however. I really wish that if Wyrd does an alternate sculpt of the model that it include sculpted hair. 

The Nephilim is really simple and the amount of detail on the model makes it easy to quickly accomplish a nice tabletop finish. For the flesh I used an Ivory color washed with Ogryn Flesh and then highlighted with the same color. I think this is the easiest way to paint pale otherworldly flesh. I'll probably do a light purple wash to make the flesh of the torn wings look bruised.

Extreme Gameroom Makeover (part 4)

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The end is nigh! Just about finished with the gameroom makeover. The cabinets are up. The miniature display cases need glass shelves and lights but look way better than the old cases.

Next up is to find a reasonably priced loveseat and ottoman. Since the gameroom will double as an entertainment room, we've kept added a small microwave for popcorn and what-not.

Finally the sofa and coffee table/game table were delivered and I can call this project finished. The first sofa we chose wouldn't fit down the stairs, so after looking around a bit we found a sofa that comes apart. It's pretty cool as it's essentially three chairs connected by a rail system so getting it down to the basement was a snap. The coffee table we chose has a button you push that lifts it up to standard table height and has 4 wedge shaped stools that also have storage. I think this will wind up replacing my card table for most board game nights.

Back to the 41st Millenium

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Warhammer 40K – After helping my cousins build and teaching them the basics of painting Orks and Space Marines, I was once again bitten by the 40k bug. After digging out my Twilight Raven marines I realized that I pretty much abandoned the project and have quite a bit of work to do before the company is completed.

My goal with this army was to build a complete company of marines and eventually move on to build the entire chapter. Given the skyrocketing costs of new GW product, building the chapter is probably a pipe dream however I have most of the raw material to complete the company and have a few additional elements.

Currently between commission work I'm sorting through what I have built and what needs to be painted. Each marine has a scroll on the base for their name. The names were chosen using the scientific names of various bird species. Looking at the decal sheet I made ages ago it shouldn't be a problem to have 150 or so marines each with their own unique name.

Once I have them sorted into 10 man squads the next step is to denote squad numbers and markings. Not only is this helpful for keeping track of them on the table but it's also useful for building lists. I keep a composition book with multiple lists built out so when it's time to play a game I just look for what I'd like to play and am ready to go. I've also gone through and built numerous 750 lists that can be combined together quickly and easily to create a 1500 point list.

The great thing about a DIY chapter is you can pull from whatever marine codex you'd like reusing the basic building blocks that are consistent throughout the various marine codexes. I've loosely based my chapter on the Raven Guard, however if I feel a different codex will fit the feel for a force I'd like to build I can easily adopt that into my own canon. 

For example Raven Guard used to be able to do a jump pack heavy list with a special command squad. The current generic marine codex doesn't allow that option. The Blood Angel Codex does however allow you to take assault squads as troops so I will use that when I'd like to play all my jump pack marines.

The next challenge, besides painting the remaining models I have will be to right an Index Astartes article detailing the background of my chapter. I'll need to put a lot of thought into how I'll write the background information, so they remain as flexible as I want (ie would marines riding giant birds as a proxy for thunder wolf calvary be ridiculous...)

Extreme Gameroom Makeover (part 3)

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The flooring is just about done. I'm really surprised at how easy it was to install. We went with Trafficmaster Allure in cherry for the floors. It's a relatively inexpensive product that is readily available at Home Depot Stores. I looked at other options but considering it was to be installed in a basement game room this made the most sense. 

Installation was easy, just clean the floors and start laying down the plank. Each piece has a sticky strip that grips to the next. Going around polls or weird angle was a huge pain in the ass but otherwise it was smooth sailing. If I could have cleared the entire basement out and bought enough product, I could have done the entire room in a few hours.

Next up is the shelving and entertainment consoles. I went to Ikea to pick up the TV stand and bookshelves, of course its going to take several trips as my little car can only hold so many giant boxes.

Short rant, I really hate when stores are set up to trap you in there. If you go to Ikea to buy something and don't print directions from the website, you have to search the showroom to find the items you need and then travel to the storage area to locate the product. I find that to be really annoying. The other thing that bugs me about the store is the graphic design. On numerous occasions I've heard it said, "Ooh Ikea has such sophisticated design it's so clean." That's a load of crap the design is simple because it's cheap, they used the same look and feel for every item in the store. Rather than have words in the instructions it's all images, I'm sure it's because they don't want to pay for translation. In short, the design keeps the cost down and looks consistent but it's not really customer friendly. Rant over.

Using the crappy instructions I struggled through and built the TV stand. Only had to take it apart twice ... guess you get what you pay for. It looks nicer and has better construction that similar items you'd find at a discount chain (k-mart, meijer) but it still is just particle board with a laminate finish. It works for a basement or apartment, but if you own a house and are decorating regular living spaces I'd spend the extra on real wood furniture.

Dark Eldar – First Impressions

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Warhammer 40K – Over the weekend I picked up the new Dark Eldar codex. At first glance I do have to say I'm very impressed. The past year has been pretty much dominated by Malifaux so I haven't had much time to indulge in 40K. I'm thinking that might change, this book updates an army that had huge potential but never really saw it. The old models had some interesting sculpts but most of them were pretty ugly and dated looking. I sold off my old Dark Eldar force 5 years ago, assuming that a new codex would never see the light of day.

The new release adds a ton of background information (especially considering the existing info was a little pamphlet) and almost the entire range has been updated. I'm seriously considering picking up the force. But before I do I'm going to have to read and reread the book to find a list that I like and stick with it. Unlike my marine army which can change and be different every time I play, the dark eldar strike me as a force that you find a list that works for you and you play it over and over trying to figure out the tricks. 

I'm really tempted to use the special character that makes Hellions troops and do a them list with that. When the scourges come out I hope they look cool, the drawing in the book is very odd. It's a shame they didn't do the Archon in plastic, it would have been a great way to build the special characters from one kit.

One thing that concerns me is transporting the raiders and other models on flying stands, It seems like there are plenty of bits that can break off during transport. So custom cut foam is probably going to be the best option which should be considered when pricing out the army.