Possible Additions to my Space Wolves Army

Greetings, Aseldi here with a brief post with some additional content which didn't really fit in the last one.

Njal, despite being the first Space Wolf model was only glued together and used for the first time last Friday at the GW lock in. From that experience, he is great fun to field. While no where near as potent as he should be, I love his lore, and the Lord of Tempest rule is great fun. Currently, I'm working a list around having him deploy by drop pod with some Wolf Guard.


I've also been looking into adding Cypher to my force. My idea behind this would be that Cypher's ultimate show of defiance against the Dark Angels would be siding with their rivals. Considering my first army was also the Dark Angels, it's got quite a personal touch to it too, and I've always loved him as a character. His rules are also pretty awesome judging by a glance, which is a bonus!


All in all though, I'm holding off adding much to my Space Wolves until the get their update, which judging by certain rumours, and the GW's current pattern, shouldn't be too long.

-Aseldi

A Return to Tournaments (and a 1500pts List)

Greetings, Aseldi here. Recently, my local GW hosted a small lock in tournament for the release of the Tyranid WD. Having not played a game since the Invasion tournament 6months back, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get back into things.

In short, I turned up with much the same list I'd used for the previous tournament, with Njal added on and minus a power fist on the Grey Hunters since the points limit was 1500pts.


HQ:

Njal, Lord of the Tempests - 265pts
-runic terminator armour

Rune Priest - 120pts
-Runic armour


TROOPS:
Grey Hunter Pack (10) - 220pts
(Rhino)
-plasma gun
-plasma gun
-Wolf Standard
-Mark of the Wulfen

Grey Hunter Pack (10) - 210pts
(Rhino)
-plasma gun
-flamer
-Wolf Standard
-Mark of the Wulfen


ELITES:
Wolf Guard Pack (5) - 270pts
(Drop Pod)
-5x terminator armour
-combi-plasma, wolf calw
-combi-plasma, wolf calw
-assault cannon
-combi-melta, power fist
-combi-melta


FAST ATTACK:
Thunderwolf Cavalry - 265pts
-3x storm shields


HEAVY SUPPORT:
Longs Fangs Pack - 140pts
-5x missile launcher


Total - 1495pts


1st Game:
My first game was against a Dark Angel DeathRavenwing build. I'm pleased with the way my force acted here, as they were easy able to divide his forces and whittle them down with bolter fire from the Grey Hunters, and missiles from the Long Fangs, before charging in for the kill with the Thunderwolf Cavalry. I'd go as far to say that this is the best method with which to use them.

As before, the Rune Priest stayed back with the Long Fangs as well as in range of one of the packs of Grey Hunters, able to cast Prescience whenever necessary.

Njal himself was rather underwhelming this game. Without a squad he could easily be attached to, since the Grey Hunters had Rhinos and the Wolf Guard being at full capacity in a drop pod, it was hard to move him anywhere meaningful without fear of him being gunned down easily.


2nd Game:
My second game happened to be against my friend, who I'd arranged to attend the tournament with. He was fielding a nonsensical bunch of Eldar units which i stood no chance of distinguishing. All i know is that it was horrible to play against, with his Guardians, once a favoured target to be easily mowed down with Bolters now have access to an almost perpetual 2+ cover save and have Rending… I still suspect some of the rules, but he wiped the floor with me in 2 turns, with the tanks (no idea which ones) wiping out entire squads in 1 shooting phase… If someone could tell me I'm not alone in thinking the Eldar are a tad OP, that'd be much appreciated.

Njal died turn one...


3rd Game:
A suitably exciting game to end the night on. My opponent was fielding Imperial Guard, and it turned out that we were using the Escalation and Stronghold Assault Rules, so he'd brought one of their massive tanks (the one with the Vulcan MegaBolter, I should really brush up on my unit knowledge). Anyway, I managed to seize the initiative, and my Wolf Guard managed to destroy a Leman Russ by Dropping behind and using the combo meltas, and my Long Fangs dispatched another. The game continued in much the same manner, me destroying tanks, his Vulcan Mega-bolter firing a silly amount of shots… It all came down to the last turn when I managed to seize victory by charging the Apocalypse Vehicle with my last remaining Thunderwolf, and destroy it with the power fist. Epic conclusion.

Also, Njal survived until the penultimate turn! Rolling well on the Tempest table, and causing half of his infinity units to flee from the game!


Placings wise, I achieved 2nd for painting, which I'm astounded by, and 2nd overall! Considering my length of time away from the game, and the ageing codex, as having not intention of high placings, I'm very pleased!


So what I learned from this tournament… That Eldar are a nightmare to play against. Escalation and Strong Hold assault, in my opinion and that of the group I regularly play with, aren't expansions we'll be picking up any time soon. Mainly this is due to the rather high cost of even more books, and the models which they allow. Almost bordering on Pay to Win in a way?

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated! Especially on the devious ways of the Eldar, and whether Stronghold Assault and Escalation really are worthwhile additions.

-Aseldi

6 Months Without Warhammer

The title says it all; and so it is, with a somber mood, I make this blogpost.  Basically, I'm hoping to relay what my experience in relation to the hobby has been like having taken a step back for a number of months; what else have I wasted my time on, off not intense theory crafting for toy soldiers?

Firstly, LAN gaming. With a group of friends, a club has been set up where we ignore the wonderful convinience of online gaming, and instead wire out laptops up to a router, and muck around with firewall settings for hours upon end. You know how it is. But why am I bringing this up? Well, it's my blog, I can do what I like, but also because the main game we've been playing is actually Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. Dark Crusade to be precise. And in doing so, rediscovered what an epic game it is! Nothing can compare with the experience of building armies with friends, and sending them to battle. Much like real warhammer, except costing a fraction of the price. 

So if you haven't played Dawn of War in a while, try it again! It opens up a whole different angle on the franchise, and on LAN, it's pretty great.

Keeping up with news has proved to be near impossible. Now it seems that digital mini codices are a thing, as well as singular character cards? Still no news on a Space Wolf update though, so we can all rest easy. Seeing as I'm still to update my other armies, Warriors of Chaos and Dark Angels, it's also quite a relief on my wallet. Wood Elves are something else I've got my eye on though...

With all this hype around the hobbit release too, and Battle for Middle Earth another game featuring in the LAN club (also excellent, although incredibly difficult and expensive to pick up these days), I'm also beginning to feel almost inclined towards trying that side of the Games Workshop's franchise. Lord of the Rings after all is what created most of the lore that Warhammer is based upon anyway.

So in the meantime, I'll keep telling myself I'll try and paint the many untainted models I still have - and start immersing myself more in the lore, since that's a much easier thing for me to access these days.

-Aseldi

Stripping the Paint of the Past

Hello all! Aseldi here. Recently, I appear to have been making a backwards move with my goal to paint up a 1250pts Space Wolf army for Conflict Scotland... I've been removing the paint of totally unrelated models!

My first army when I came to the hobby was the Dark Angels... Back when Codexes cost £12... Well, many things have changed since then, not least the price of the codex, or my allegiances. The Lion would not be pleased, but Russ showed him who's boss, so no losses there.

Anyway, my point. I had Azrael and Ezekiel (the latter happens to be one of my favourite models in the whole game actually...) sitting on the shelf, bearing the splatters of a far younger self. I'd even gone to the extent of varnishing them, so their shine seemed to congeal all the mess already upon them.

But anyway, to my point: acetone is really effective for stripping the paint off metal models! Basically nail varnish, I just poured some into a jar, put my models in, and left them overnight.
By the next morning, the paint and varnish had softened enough to be removed with a bit of scrubbing from an old tooth brush, and the acetone had also dissolved the superglue.

So now I'm left with the models as good as new! Maybe I'll get round to painting them again some day...
-Aseldi

The Eastern Fringe's Debut Post!

Hello to all that have visited The Eastern Fringe! This is a blog which has been set up by a group of 3 friends, and we are looking to collaborate to make it the best it can be! 

Between us we collect: Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Chaos Space Marines, Dark Eldar and Necrons, so will be posting up articles related to these races.  Hopefully, these articles will be on tactics, army lists, unit reviews- the usual, as well as a multitude of battle reports.

Later this year we are also hoping to do a painting project to finally get our armies painted, so we'll post updates on that too.

So in the meantime, bear with us, we'll hopefully have our first battle reports this weekend!

-Aseldi