Kneel before He'Zod!!!

Rejoice Humans, I bring the Audacity of Oppression!
Image courtesy of P5YCHIC

So Adepticon 2011 is in the books, and like all good "in the neighborhood of average" team captains, I have begun the process of preparing for Adepticon 2012.  With the added benefit of 2012 being a major election year for the U.S.A. I have decided to include a mascot for the upcoming year's preparations.  No, I don't really think Team Snake Eyes needs a mascot.  I have been given permission to add some Salamander flavor to our Overlord's name in recognition of his status of TSE 2012 front man.  Yes, I made this decision within milliseconds of seeing this sweet image.  You can't tell me you guys haven't generated a blog post based almost entirely on a cool image right?  Right?  Oh well.  I'm going with it.

As I mentioned in our after action report, we finished much better than last year, and to be honest, much better than I anticipated we would finish (37 of 106).  Primarily, we have room for improvement in the Battle Points area.  In short...play better.  Easy right?  Not really.  The likely members of the team don't live near each other, and we'll have a hard time getting in any practice games.  I'm also most likely to gets comments and criticism from them on army list choices after I have finalized them and begun working on completing the needed models.  Yes, that is a subtle hint for my team...no, it likely won't inspire much more input from them.

Codex: Space Marines has a lot of variety in it, but one thing I noticed this year was a bit of codex envy from my opponents.  Primarily from the Blood Angel and Space Wolf books.  With HeroHammer(R) making a strong come-back the named characters from those books are just awesome.  Don't get me wrong, I love me some Vulkan, but once you get your face kicked in by Mephiston, you feel the disparity.  I also made a strong effort to remove any weapons with a range over 24" to force my armies into an aggressive stance.  For the most part it worked, but I played a Blood Angels list that spammed Predators and Las/Plas Razorbacks.  That sort of firepower made an impression right away.

Something else I have to contend with in making army list decisions is my inventory.  I have almost completely filled my PACK 1520 carrying case (some terminator slots and a land raider remain unfilled).  I have almost completely exhausted my supply of "wife points".  Married gamers know of what I speak.  Bachelors quake in fear of what comes.  That said, I need to stick primarily with what I've got, and make small changes with the most impact.  What are my initial thoughts?

Well, terminators and another land raider are obvious choices.  I have 5 more thunder hammer/storm shield termies on my desk, and 10 standard terminators unbuilt.  I also have a terminator librarian who is likely going to replace my power armored librarian.  Not having an invulnerable save has really hurt this guy in all of my games with him.  Also on my drawing board are the other named HQ units in the vanilla codex.  I have stayed away from using them up till now, but I'm only ever going to have one space marine army.  I enjoy the others, but I just can't afford to buy blue/yellow/black marines to play with their special characters.  It will allow me to expand my play options with my Salamanders without requiring completely new armies.  I am also considering adding an Imperial Armor unit.  We were allowed one this past year, and if its offered again, the Salamanders are rumored to have an HQ Dreadnought character.  I know nothing about him, but it sounds cool.  I've made much poorer choices with far less provocation.  As you can see, it's a process.

"Can I get that in Green?"

I also need to spice up my line infantry and vehicles.  I hear there are some Forgeworld shoulder pads for power armored marines as well as a brass etching sheet coming out.  I love the Chapterhouse Studios pads, but the detail of a forgeworld pad is hard to pass up.  That and a resin dread (or his conversion) would really add some great detail to the army.  In any event, I'll be posting updates as time progresses.  Feel free to post comments and suggestions.