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Well I'm shocked no one has brought this up, but the rules have been leaked. Kudos go out to hardcore Khorn channel Blog for the Blood god. Some really bad news in here. I know the way I play World Eaters will change quite a bit (unit wise). But there's some hope, while Angron may very well be dead, there's some nice alternative stuff that could be cool.

Well the entire WE codex is leaked. It looks like Angron is unusable (if rumours hold), but the codex looks like it has play in other directions. Since this is about EC, I just want to briefly clarify... I think the army works. I just am not a fan of how it's playing out. Most of my games are based on the ability to grab board control, and scalp characters. I'm not sure the best way to put this but... I feel sheepish when I'm dissecting characters, always forewarning my opponents, but at the end of the day this is what the army does really well. Secondly, it is a fairly similar playstyle to my larger world eaters army. And I see World Eaters kept Helbrutes (which are actually quite good in the new codex), and a few other units, which keeps more of my models in play.

Thanks very much. They are such amazing models to work on.

Well my Avatar usually shows what army I'm painting... but in this case, yes the army is sold. (most of it not assembled so not a great price for everything). I wasn't going to get into it, but I just have been personally disappointed in how they have been playing. Aside from my personal gripes about how it plays, it also has a lot of similarity to my WE army which is quite a bit bigger. I hope you folks love the army and the hobby aspect of it is really unique.

I do think these are better than my first attempt (which sold) a year ago.

Forgot to add these. I believe this 6 man Companion squad is quite a bit better than my first 6 man attempt (which is sold so I don't have them side by side.)

One of the very, very few things I despise about this edition is that most tables look horrible. A bunch of mini-shoe boxes, strewn about in an unrealistic pattern of segmented mini-malls. Especially tournament tables, but due to various reasons it's become necessary. My main group prefers a look that is more aesthetically pleasing and I'm glad for that, but I look at the potential size of this beast and wonder where the heck you'd put it ?

Just some final pics of some models I managed to 100% complete (aside from the vehicles). Sorry for the potato pics but these got sold within hours of these pictures being taken. So I literally did not think these would be the last pictures I'd take of these models. Hopefully you get the idea. :)

Sorry. Yes, I'm using the Spear/Whip build. I cannot imagine deviating from that build. It just has incredible volume. Further to that (the way I read it) the once per game bonus extends to those weapons. The 3 pistol build would not get any use from that so I'm steering away from that. Even in my Tormentor squad, it's a great character to use for an emergency assault, or a 'get out of jail' card when you are caught on the wrong end of an assault.

Sorry I missed this question. So the issue I've had in my last two games is the primary/favoured target I had for the Noise Marines happened to be T6 and inherently had -1 to wound against shooting that was above S6. This means my 'to wound' rolls were pretty abysmal. I'm not sure if it would have helped to start both squads on the table because he had this large squad of Hearthguard in reserves with an HQ. I knew I'd have to deal with it. What I did not anticipate is that even my reserved squad with Kakophonist would struggle so much to do damage to that squad. Yes I have played Bladesmen once. It definitely benefits from making your list nearly 100% melee. (At the time I still had a landraider in the list). It's 'good' but feels incomplete to me. Coterie, to me, has the best Strats by far. Very powerful tool box of strats. As far as calling kills: remember you can go character hunting. Find a weaker target with a character attached. Kill the character, then the squad (or even two weak characters in different squads) and you have a very strong buff up and running army wide.

That's a good point about the sticky objectives. There's really no chance to answer someone standing on your stickied objective. Although there's a lot of experimentation in my lists. I think I'm going to step back a bit and play my World Eaters for a while. I want to do a more valid comparison of the two.

I think you're right... the other codexes (minus DG) will probably be just as restrictive. As far as early pressure, I'm just experimenting at this point. The issue I have with waiting on close combat is that I lose the table coverage advantage, and I may never get it back. (Keeping in mind I have been facing T5 armies so far.) And yea, I definitely fear the real CC monsters out there. I was just talking to my Blood Angels buddy and the melee tricks he has are pretty strong. That's another army to add to the category of "I'm not sure I want to charge this." That's why I compare this opening experience to White Scars. The big difference is we don't have much of a codex to fall back on for shooting. I foresee a lot of players taking shooty Wardogs. I really don't want to go this route though. The Flawless Blades: Just my opinion but they are my favourite sculpts in the new release. This makes it doubly hard to see how they are doing in their current state. If I was going for the most competitive build I could imagine... they certainly don't make the cut. As a side note I have been a huge fan of the Transport based Detachment (I forgot the name, don't have my codex with me.) Coterie is a lot of fun though. I still want to try the vehicle detachment. (It's CP hungry but has some really good tricks I think.)

I think my thread (which is primarily hobby based) was getting a little side tracked with my games. So I'd like to steer that back to more hobby than gaming, and I thought we could have this thread to go through some of our gaming experiences. So far I've had a handful of games. Some competitive, some only mildly competitive. I have done okay, but I've had to adapt to work around codex limitations and the fact that these are NOT World Eaters. As strange as it sounds, playing these guys just like WE will get you in trouble (This is my personal feeling as a WE player personally.) Well my last game was just as hard as I have not fought marines yet. (Oh what I would do to face a 2 wound, T4 army right now... or T3!!!) Thus far my grind has felt.. uphill with a plethora of T5 armies with far greater numbers than my EC. This in fact (I believe) is our second worst matchup. (I think someone loaded in armour is going to be worse since I've had a lot of trouble with vehicles.) Anyway last game was Votann... yes, more T5, multiwound models that LOVE the 18" range fight. Luckily I have an army that's T4 and loves to get closer. As a side note, we have a few guys in our group that play very competitive Deathguard, and I am terrified of facing these guys with E.C. So I played my typical setup, but I made one adjustment: The landraider is gone. This is something I didn't want to do, as it's fun, and actually has a place in this army but the expense of it was driving down my model count too much. Instead I've gone up to 3 Rhino's (Love 'em) and 2 Maulerfiends. (As you'd guess, 1 just never reaches its target.) Coterie of the Conceited Basically Lucius, 2 x Exalteds, D.P., Kakophonist. 1 x 10 Infractors (Ex goes here) in Rhino 1 x 10 Tormentors (Ex goes here) in Rhino 1 x 5 Tormentors 1 x 5 Tormentors 2 x 6 Noise marines (Kak goes here) in Rhino 1 x 6 Flawless Blades (Lucius walks behind these guys usually) 2 x Maulerfiends As mentioned I pulled the Landraider, and I typically really like their Spawn, but had to pull them to get more 'sticky' objective troops in. I can't remember the Votann entirely. It's a pretty basic codex, but this guy always runs 2 units of Hearthguard, and 2 of the big Goliath tanks with a ton of infantry that he can fit around his three vehicles (one transport.) I end up going first, and to be honest, I thought to heck with it... I'm going all in towards him to see if I can exploit our deployment (we played the map with quarters.) I did reach a 10 man troop squad with an HQ aboard with my Rhino full of Infractors and Lord Exultant. (LE in the future) He was shocked, I did warn him about the speed many times during deployment, and kept warning him about Precision. (Something I do in every game.) But good news for him! Between my LE, and Infractors I could not even kill his HQ so he was fully okay to return his attacks. This happens to me a lot and it reminds me that these guys are not World Eaters... but over and over again I give them a task that's probably beyond their means. To be honest, I keep thinking I can take out an HQ, and fail miserably the only thing I did was put the LE's attacks on the squad (because I have to) and therefore killed 3-4 dudes. The good news for me is his squad isn't really close combat oriented, aside from his HQ. Here's perhaps the biggest reason I did the assault above: When I consolidated I tagged 2 vehicles and screwed his firing sequence up badly. He realized this and really started to worry. In his return volley he kills most of my Infractors. The rest of my army took positions on the objectives. I did pull the secondary where you need quarters which is fun with this army, and another with "Kill" units. Votann hit back hard. I've lost that Infractor squad and some of my Flawless blades. At the end of his turn, I of course failed to kill anything so for that Battleround my Warlord takes 3 Mortal wounds (Lucius) and this game is off to a shaky start to say the least! ---------------------------------------------------- Turn 2+ I'm really disappointed, because my gambit failed to produce any kills. For Coterie I Pledge 2 Kills which I get (easily since his squad was nearly dead with the HQ.) I should have said higher, but manage to kick in the reroll 1's to hit which is sorely needed as I'm rolling incredibly bad. I'm still reeling from his resilience though. I just can't kill anything and his Hearthguard. are now in play and they (combined with berzerks) kill all but 1 Flawless blade. My 10 man Tormentor squad comes out of a Rhino and finishes up his remnant squad that my Infractors could not. Maulerfiend 1 reaches one of his bike squads and mulches it up big time (hitting on 2's rerolling 1's). On my right side though his other bikes/troops are mulching up badly. My troops are dying there, and my D.P is already brought down to 1 wound!!! Ouch. ---------------------------------------------------------- Mid Game: So at this point I'm really struggling against his Hearthguard. My first Noise Marine squad can't really do anything to them. They are T6 and have a rule where you're -1 to wound if you hit with higher strength so you can imagine what a squad of mostly S5 shooting is doing to them with their 2+ saves at T6. I send in my last Flawless blade, and Lucius. They bounce badly. (Lucius as really disappointed me in my last 2 games... I don't think he likes T6 very much.) I just didn't have a better target as he was screening with tanks. It becomes apparent that my army is far from 'Flawless' and my gameplay is not living up to Lucius' standards, but I have one thing going for me... my DP won't die. I have no idea why, and I gave him the enhancement to get back up from death on a 2+ which I have been warning my opponent about. Inadvertently this appears to have given my opponent the sole purpose of killing my DP with his army. This is just silly but the DP would not die. My DP swoops in, kills the Berzerks and a transport. This opens things up a bit and I can get through his screens, but I'm losing models, and the second Maulerfiend goes down without getting a fight in. -------------------------------------------------------- End Game: Now I've got an issue; his second Hearthguard squad has dropped in my neighbouring quarter. Not my quarter, but right next to it. And the Hearthguard proceed to blow up my Rhino, and the plasma shots just rip my homebase Tormentors in half. The carnage at this stage is pretty bad. Fulgrim is going to have a LOT of spare parts to work with. I intentionally kept my other Noise Marines and Kak in reserve, waiting for his Hearthguard to come in. The Kak has the change any dice to a 6 enhancement for extra cheese on a Blastmaster (sustained 1). Surprise! It doesn't work! I roll in the very edge he did the previous turn to try and take that objective back but all shots and the mortal wounds, etc just really don't do much to that T6, 2+ save unit. Plus he has an HQ attached that is going to rip me apart. My DP goes down. I've lost my troops. I can't interact with his big Goliath tanks. Lucius is dead along with the Flawless Blades. I have 2 Rhino's and a Maulerfiend with a hell of a limp that looks like a gold fish in its last hours.... We look at the board state and he can't catch up to me. He can do his secondaries, and I have the odd model left which is nearly useless but I still have my home objective stickied. (I forgot to mention my Rhino bound Tormentors stole his home objective for one turn!) So it basically means I won two games now just due to early Primary leads. In the last 3 games I've been nearly tabled. -------------------------------------------- Post game: I think Lucius is a bit over costed. He's super fun, but to be honest I'd rather have Titus' build here. Titus is comparable to me to Lucius but he's better at killing infantry than Lucius and actually helps a squad immensely. The 'fightsfirst' is good, but Lucius is a little weak for it to really dent anything other than a mid character or entry level troops. The Flawless blades. I keep coming back to these guys, but I just think they're bad. Really mediocre unit that in my opinion falls far short of Eightbound, but more importantly even though they are cheaper they just don't feel like 'awesome bladesmen'. While I'm not sure Maulerfiends are 'great' I will say two is a must. I know that's just common sense but I just got a second one. :) So far when I win it's a blood bath on my side, and I'm grabbing my points very early. I feel like if I take my foot off the gas pedal I will die to attrition, and lose my point lead advantage in early game. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the feeling so far. This is NOT a late game army the way I'm playing it. It doesn't survive first impact very well. Truly it reminds me of White Scars where you look amazing in the early game then you meet your equal (or superior) in melee and it can all go sideways pretty quick. (Again, I'm terrified of the Deathguard meta I will have to face. I just can't see competing against it in any meaningful way.) So I'm not going to change anything list wise for a while. I will switch my enhancements back to the way they were before though..other than that I'll see how this list fairs my next game.

Yea, I just realized they had pistols in my last game. It is kind of strange to me though. I honestly would have thought how incredibly cool it would have been to give them some sort of screamer pistols instead.

Just a quick update: Hobby wise: I am finding these guys super difficult to get painted, and on the table. I think the pink/black/metal combo is harder, and slows me more than the World Eaters Red/Gold intricacies. Add in the extra details... those tassels! Everytime I think I've found them, I'll put the fig down and find a new one. (If you've done a squad of troops, you know what I'm talking about!) That said I'm very close to finishing my first 10 man Infractor squad and Lord. I think they're decent quality paint jobs but again, I do think getting this arm on the table is going to be quite challenging for me. I'm putting a lot of time in for 11 dudes. Game wise: I had my second game vs. a semi competitive Ork list. It was a good player, and he was using a a lesser competitive detachment. I had first turn and tried an experiment: I went full tilt for high aggression and failed a lot of attainable first turn charges, but did get 2 off. I had early board control and my opponent was certain he was going to lose..... By turn 3 I was in trouble. The army started melting. He nearly tabled me and by turn 5 he had literally tied the game. Thoughts on the game: Peerless bladesmen is a bit lacklustre. It doesn't have the strats of Coterie. I think you can make it work, but it requires more pure dedication towards close combat than I had. - Getting rid of the Landraider. It just takes up too many points. This army feels so small... even compared to my WE. - Noise Marines are situational. They read well, but I was hesitant to call them amazing (Same goes for the Kakophonist.) - Maulerfiend. Fun, but if you can't take 2, I am seriously considering pulling it for bodies. There just is no real reason to put points into armour when the army focus is infantry unless you can truly put substantial armoured threat on the table. Without Preds, Helbrutes, etc, this feels like a tough thing to pull off. - Daemon Prince got hammered by that Sharknado dude. (I always forget his name) The Ork character ripped the landraider apart, died to the D.P., fought on death, and killed my DP easily (I missed that enhancement from Coterie on him.) - Flawless Blades. This is turning into potentially my least favourite squad on paper. It just doesn't do anything. It has to be incredibly cheap, because it's awkward to transport, and has such an incredibly narrow target scope. In this game they ran into a squad of Boyz with fists, and just got decimated. (they also lack Precision so it's another knock on them just vs more battleline units.) - Lucius: I have loved the guy up until this game. He got locked in with a squad of T5 boyz and just did very little this game. - The T5 baseline of the Orks created a very difficult targeting issue. There was no 'soft target' and as a result the troops felt their least 'useful' in this match up. Flawless Blades don't have enough attacks to make up for this, and off the start you are going to be extremely outnumbered by an army that (typically) doesn't shoot better than you, but hits potentially harder, is tougher, and greatly outnumbers you. Probably going back to Coterie. I have to get some more models put together to make a better go of it.