Kroot are not Orks!!!

Kroot Renegade by Marco Schulze

Kroot are not Orks. Grab an Ork and grab a Kroot. Now look real close, go ahead I will wait.... You ready or do you need more time? Ok, now lest go over the differences.

Orks -

• ugly, plant fungus people
• if it is big it must be good mentality
• tend to drool allot
• scavenge what they can even to the point of destroying thing that were working to get that they want
• get 10 of them together and their IQ still wouldn't add up to a small earthquake
• can build anything but have no clue how it works
• love to fight but don't understand why

   
Kroot -

• birdlike, reptilian creatures
• masters at adaptation with a deep understandings of genetics and DNA manipulation
• understand that war isn't the end of it all, money and power are
• understand power through simplicity
• resourceful and willing to use other groups technology to their advantage
• hides real power behind a primitive appearance

   
There is even more but this is a good start. So why all of this, simple I have had it with the Kroot are Ork substitute mods and scratch builds I have been seeing. Kroot are not going to just grab some random bits and slap them on a vehicle and call it done. They are a little more restrained than that. Sure they will adorn their weapons and blades with trophies but even then only a few and really most of those are just...lunch. In may respects the Kroot are the classic movie western Indians. Holding onto their old ways but embracing some technology as needed. Trading weaker weaponry and pieces of armor when needed to accomplish a goal.

The best example of what the Kroot are about is by Marco Schulze and his Kroot Renegades (http://www.hivefleetmoloch.com/ or http://www.legionsgames.com/mastergallery/kroot_renegades.htm) . These are real Kroot. Take a close look at what he has done. There are no extra plates or thing just bolted on. All that was moved were the weapon systems and support systems needed to make them work. They stick to the script and make it work. So now that you have some inspiration and guidelines, get to building some Kroot.
   
   
   

Have Forgeworld must Play

I have had it with GW and Forgeworld. My beef this time around is not with the models or even the rules produced by either. The problem is nothing meshes together. FW makes models and rules, GW makes models and rules, they are both under the same umbrella as a company but you can't really use the FW stuff in a GW game. The reason normally given for this is, 'The Forgeworld books are not widely available, so we can't include them in the regular game.' and 'The Forgeworld rules are not as well tested as the regular GW rules so they will upset the balance of the game.' What a pair of BS answers. The one that makes my head want to explode is this one, 'Work it out with your opponent before the game.' So lets get this right, I give my opponent the ability to veto my list because he doesn't like FW stuff. Can I do this in the next game where I am facing 3 Landraider or the latest leaf blower IG list? Of course not, it would be silly to even ask. Something has to change. Forgeworld should be allowed in any game.

So why the push to get it in? For starters the models are cool. Most gamers are impulsive and buy models based on their look more than their tactical ability. Being a Tau player I have a set of heavy marker/gun drones. Are they any good, not really, they are somewhat of a waste of a heavy slot but they look cool and dwarf the regular drones. By the same token the new XV9 suites and commander are down right deadly and a much needed boost to and out of date codex. Looks at the Chaos Drop Pod. What Chaos player would not want to place one of those on the table. Sorry, its rules are slightly different than the normal ones so you can't use it.

Next up the rules availability. I can here the whining now, the books are too expensive. Right, and how much did you spend amassing the 5000 point army you are running now or the third army you have started this year, not played but started. You bought that crappy Planetstrike book, you subscribe to the 50+ page add book know as White Dwarf and some of you actually bought the collectors edition 40K rule book. The Apoc 1 & 2 books, stick them in your bag, take it with you to the game store and start playing. Even better most of the new stuff gets released as experimental PDF rules before the book comes out. Use it until the book is finally released.

I have the rules and they are bad, the point balances are off and the force organizing is useless. Bad rules are what makes 40K, well 40K. The rules have always been bad, full of wholes and designed to sell models instead of play the game. This is the GW way. With the spotty, staggered release dates, army of the week mentality and needing to sell stuff this is never going to change but we still play the game. At least this way you can keep the number of units growing somewhat to open up new tactics and ways of play. Sure there are a few out there that are royally scary like the dreadnought assault drop pod but still that is no reason to make a blanket statement that all FW stuff is bad.

Bottom line is this, it is a game. Why limit the fun by kicking out a whole segment of figs because of a few bad units. Let them in and expand on the gaming universe. Raise the game play bar a little and see what happens.

Andriod software review - WarHelper Pro

The application is a pretty straight forward dice roller app with a few extras. It is offered in 2 versions, free and pro. The differences between the two were minor and for the $1 you might as well go pro. The main feature is the die roller. It supports adding dice in singles or blocks of 5 so you can run any combination of dice you want. I tried to test the maximum number it will roll but I stopped at 500. I figure if you need more then 500 dice at once you need to seek medical attention. The roller handled this number without any problems and gave consistently random results. As an example I did 50 rolls of 500 dice and ended up with a fairly average chart with only a few awesomely good and horribly bad rolls. In a my spot check of rolls of 4 or better the numbers were consistently in the 230-270 range out of the 500. This leaves me to believe the random number generator used is pretty solid.

Features during the basic rolling are a little limited, you have add and subtract dice, roll positive / negative, the ability to tag dice for rerolls and batch dice so you can only show the dice that hit and remove those that don't automatically. The pro version adds shake to roll which is nice but just as easy as pressing the roll button so take it for what it is worth. The batch function is the nicest feature. This will automatically highlight any die rolls that meet the criteria you set. The criteria can be a basic high low or a specific number set. So on a 4+ it highlights them and makes them standout or if you only want to keep rolls from 2-4 it does that to. No more accidentally calling hits misses and vice versa. A feature that would be nice to see is selectable dice size. The dice size is geared to getting the most dice on the screen at once and is a little small if you have large hands like I do. It is easy to tag the wrong dice by miss clicking. Having the option to change the size of the dice would be nice.

Next we have Auxiliary options. This part of the program has a turn counter, scatter die roller and artillery and the ability to select up to 3 die for each. The turn counter keeps track of both players turns and the game round you are on. It has no upper limit so if you are playing a last mini standing battle you need not worry. It would be nice to have it handle the turn 5 roll off for turn 6 or even give you a message that you are on turn 5. The scatter die and artillery rollers are pretty neat. To use them you place the device next to the unit and press roll. It displays hits with a big bullet hole marker and the rest of the time it displays an easy to read arrow that is large enough to keep people from guessing about the direction. At the bottom of the screen are displayed the die values for the roll. The dice here are also big for easy reading. 

 There are 2 statistics sections that round out the software. The first is statistics, this gives you a sliding menu for all the mathhammer players instant access to the percentages for each type of roll. For example a 4 to hit with reroll, a 3 to wound and a 4+ cover save should hit 25% of the time. If the wound gets a reroll the chance goes up to 33%. If you change the 3 to wound to a 2 and no reroll it drops to 31%. Depending on how you play this can help or hurt your strategy during a game. Some times knowing that you only have a 5% chance to wound is not worth knowing. The other stat it tracks is how often a each die result has come up. This is how I ran my checks earlier. It tells you the raw numbers and percentages which is nice. Ever wonder how many 1's you really rolled in that game, well now you know.

As an application is it worth it. Yes. This is great if you are looking for a roller that is geared toward the game. There are a bunch of plain rollers out there but the extras put it over the top. Having all the standard rolls there in one place it nice and have the stat tracker pushes it over the top.

http://www.androlib.com/android.application.com-jbecker-quickrollpremium-xtmE.aspx
QR Code

Threat Range

We hear about it all the time in 40K, threat range. This is the thing that makes so many assault units insanely powerful. Things like Knob Bikerz, Thunderwolf Calvery and Bloodclaws being able to assault from over 12" away and in some cases ignore soft terrain ranged shooting has essentially been nerfed out of existence. IG is really the only shooty army that stands a chance of surviving thanks to insane unit sizes. After all throw enough dice at anything and it will die. Orks have the same setup as well and can even back it up in close combat after all a mob of 30 Shoota Boyz is still allot of dice rolling. But want about the other groups like Necrons or Tau, they are stuck. Small unit size and only 1 horrible option for a rapid fire weapon is a disaster waiting to happen. I know what people will say, 'Well just stick the troops inside a transport, that will protect them.' The problem is then they can't do what they are designed to do, shoot things. In a game that is about cinematic events and heroic deeds you never are going to hear something like, The brave men of company B held up inside of there transport hoping to not be assaulted but the enemy. Also trading 12+ dice for 4 to 6 and the ability to only target 1 unit doesn't get you very far or help you with the threat range problem. With the amount of power weapons floating around in every other army hiding in a transport does no good.

So how to correct this.

Free defensive weaponry. Grenades are nice but for some reason Tau has to pay for them separately while everyone else gets them free. Even when taking carbines that have grenade launchers on them they still have to pay for regular ones. Talk about an early date with the foam box. They should be passing these things out like beads at Marti Gras.

New units that add protection. For a group that is supposed to rely on technology so much the Tau need to actually start doing it. They have stealth fields and disruption pods why not put them into a drone. A disruption drone that shields troops like a disruption pod does for ships. This was the intent of the shield drone but really it isn't doing its job. That 12" buffer no target zone would actually mean that they could get a shot off now and then.

Extended rapid fire range. This is a big one. Pulse Carbines need to be able to rapid fire at longer ranges. These guys are the best of the best shooters. They should be able to write 'For the Greater Good' across a space marines chest at any range like some '20s gangster with a Tommy gun. Ideally give them it at 18" instead of 12". The fluff behind it is pretty simple too, if the 'we can't change a light bulb without saying a 30 minute prayer' marines can have weapons that are smart enough to tell friend from foe why not let the Tau have tech that improves their shooting other than marker lights.

Mine layers or drop barriers. This is one that I just don't get. Tau are masters of the air on par with the Eldar. They have airdropped gun emplacements that while limited, make since. Why not expand on this and give them a drop minefield or barricade like a bastion defense walls. Both are perfect ways of not totally stopping a charge but taking some of the bite out of it.

Drone sacrifice. Give Them the option of sacrificing their drones and allow them to move d6 inches away. This is the classic war movie tactic and would fit the Tau better than standing there and getting punched in the face. They see that charge coming and setup a couple of drones as the first line so they can still return fire. The d6 distance doesn't put you way out of range but at least stops the assault and since it is a one time thing it allows you to hopefully avoid the inevitable.

So there you have it, any one of those gives a needed boost and make threat range less of a problem without breaking the Tau feel like most fixes that basically beef them up to Marine numbers.

Photoshoot - Cinematic Effects

I have had a bag of Armorcast Cinematic Effects for 2 years and never really used them. I think I have added them to 1 fig and that was it. Well until now. This is the ACFX006 Missile/Rocket/RPG Launcher Upgrade. I left off the backblast smoke section and will probably use them on my Black Reach Orks. The only issue with them is they are a little on the heavy side so I can only use them on the shoulder mounts. When you place them on the arms they tend to rotate around. I will have to upgrade a few other missile pods or SMS for my Devilfish.

From full-army

Rant - I want bigger paint pots!

The problem with hobbies, any hobby, is you always run out of stuff when you need it. The big one for me is paint. So why, it is simple, the teeny, tiny, minuscule, incredibly small pots. GW, Reaper, Valajro, you know the players and they all do it, ration paint to you like it is diamonds. It isn't so bad for some colors, after all I think I have the same pot of Tentacle Pink in the old soft plastic caps. But for the staples they really need to offer multiple sizes. Black, white, space marine blue, green and red, Tin Bitz and Boltgun Metal all should be available in something other than 12ml/0.4 floz pots. Folk Art and Anita's have the right idea, 59ml/2 floz and monster 237ml/8 floz bottles that pretty much guarantee you will have plenty of warning before you run out. I can here the cries now, but it would be so expensive that no one would buy them or GW tried it with colored sprays and they didn't sell well. Lets see, how much time do you lose waiting for shipping or driving around picking up stuff instead of paint. Even if your time is billed at minimum wage of $6.55, you can figure 2 hours in travel, longer if it is a weekend. That is $13.10 just in drive time, not including the gas and gray hairs for dealing with morons that haven't realized that cell phones have an off switch. So give me a $10 2oz black or white as a start and it will pay for itself in one trip.

Battle Foam Buys 40K Radio

Battle Foam Buys 40K Radio

From Spencer!

 

For the past few weeks many rumors have been spread about 40k Radio and Battle Foam partnering up.  Well, the facts are in and the good news can be shared.  Battle Foam LLC has reached an agreement with Spencer Harding to buy the show.  Battle Foam LLC is the new owner of 40K Radio LLC.  40K Radio has been registered as a new Arizona based company and will be run by the good folks at Battle Foam.   Look for amazing new content and two great hosts named George Miller and Rik Massei.  Stayed in touch with all the latest news on www.40kradio.com.

Silly Gadget Time - 7" Turntable

I am a sucker for gadgets. I have more "useless crap" than any normal person should be allowed to own. Well every once in a while I pick up something that actually has a purpose. This time around I found one of these. It is a 7" turntable. Where has this thing been hiding. This is the most simple cool thing I have gotten in awhile. This one has 2 settings, slow/counter clockwise and fast/clockwise, runs on batteries and a mirrored top. It should be a good photo base since I can now turn the model without having to touch it and I can now easily record videos of all side without having to stitch images together. I am going to have to do some minor modifications to it to get it exactly how I want it. It needs a remote on off switch, the ability to have it more at different speeds in either direction and lastly battery elimination. I really hate batteries. Keep an eye on my YouTube channel for a full review and the modifications I do to it.

Display Turntable @ Hobby Lobby