Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It's that time of year to eat copious amounts of turkey, ham, stuffing, sweet potatos, kapusta (if you're part of the Swizzy household), pecan pie and whatever else tickles your fancy. Don't forget watching football while trying to not fall into a food coma, lol.

But the real reason for Thanksgiving is to think about what you are thankful for. I for one am thankful for my girlfriend, brother, parents, family, friends, coworkers and my job. I'm also thankful for all the fans out there that listen to the show or read our blogs. It really makes me feel fuzzy inside knowing that people like and appreciate what we do just for fun.

So from me and the rest of The Eternal Warrior's Crew, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Unit of the Week:Warmachine MkII Rulebook

Wait a second, a rule book isn't a unit!

I know, I know but hear me out on this.

So GW came out with a new FAQ for 40k, (available here) and it kind of got me going a little. Let me bring your attention to the very first sentence "Although we strive to ensure that our books are perfect, sometimes mistakes do creep in". And then there's 6 pages of amendments, clarifications and errata. So I read all 6 pages and it really affirmed my belief that 5th edition 40K is very flawed. The rules are way too broad and general, not enough specifics. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate GW attempting to fix their mistakes, but there's just too much to fix at times...

So after reading the FAQ, I picked up my Warmachine Prime MKII book and gave it a quick glancing. Comparing 5th edition to MKII is like comparing day and night. You are very very hard pressed to find a vague rule description in MKII, in fact at times the rules are overly wordy and complex. Do I find that annoying at times, yes, but at lease I know all bases are covered. Privateer Press has also put out FAQs, but nowhere near as bing as that 6 page monster that GW just put out.

So do yourself a favor, pick up a copy of MKII and see what a well written rule set is like.

Unit of the Week: Dark Eldar Voidraven Bomber

C Swizzy here with another weekly installment of the Unit of the Week. No, I'm not talking about the Batwing, I'm talking about the Voidraven Bomber. On a side note since there is no GW model for the Voidraven, this Revel Batwing model does the job for only $25 or so, so have at it! Mad props go out to Frosty from The Warhammer Forum http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/index.php who uncovered this gem.

I'll be up front with you guys, I'm not too familiar with the Dark Eldar codex but honestly none of us are. I skimmed through the book and I did find many things to be DISGUSTING but the Voidraven jumped out at me.

Basic cost is 145 and it's a Heavy Support. Front armor 11 so it is kind of paper thin but you can take Night Shields and Flicker Fields for 10 points each which will definitely help out with your survivability. The other thing that will help out with that armor 11 is the fact that the Voidraven is supersonic, which means you can turbo boots 36 inches. In other words this thing is fast fast FAST. Oh, it also deep strikes so this thing can almost do it all.

Weapon load out is where this thing shines. You get 2 Void Lances which are Str9 Lances. That extra point of Str help out a ton, especially if you're playing that jag off Black Templars player that has Blessed Hull (negates lance) on all of his Land Raiders... lol. Now you only need 3's to glance and 4's to penetrate, or if you are playing said jag off, you will actually pen on 6's. Add in the fact that the Voidraven has the Arial Assault rule, you can fire both of these off at cruising speed.

The Void Mine is my personal favorite though. Basically you can drop a mine over any unit you fly over, keeping in mind this vehicle is beyond fast so you can almost pick out whatever you want. The mine is also a Str9 lance but there is some scatter and it is a small blast so it can scatter off if you roll bad. With Arial Assault you can fly over a tank, drop a mine and still fire your Lances off if you only moved at cruising speed. Need to get out of harms way? Well now you can, and pop a tank all in the same movement!

The Voidraven can also take 4 different types of missiles. The Monoscythe is Str6 AP5 Large blast. Pretty good for horde hunting. The Necrotoxin Missile is Str X AP 5 with Poison 2+, large blast and pinning. A large blast wounding everything on a 2+ is pretty nasty and is basically effective against everything, especially high toughness units like Plague Marines. The Implosion Missile forces whatever you hit to make a characteristic test against their number of wounds (base, not current) and if they fail they die instantly. Cover and Invuln saves still apply though. The last missile we have is the Shatterfield Missile. This bad boy is Str7 AP - large blast that you get to reroll wounds with. Keep in mind all of these Missiles are one shot, so you only get one chance to bring the pain with each one. You can take up to 4 Missiles and you can mix and match between the 4 different types. I personally would like to go with 2 Shatterfield, 1 Necrotoxin and 1 Implosion just to get a nice balance and be ready for almost anything, but that gets expensive. All missiles are 10 points except for the Shatterfield which is 30.

My idea load out would be Flickershields, 1 Shatterfield Missile, 1 Necrotoxin Missile and 1 Implosion Missile bringing the total up to 205. Kind of pricey but it can handle almost anything and should be able to survive if you're good with positioning.

All in all this is a pretty damn good unit that will only run you about $25 or so. If I was playing Dark Eldar I'd always run 2 of them, because we all know that I think more than 2 is spam.

Early Call of Duty: Black Ops review

So I was one of the 5 something million that bought Call of Duty: Black Ops when it first came out. I have not done a lot of multiplayer yet because I am one of those people who has to finish the campaign first. So I'm gonna give a quick review of the campaign.

First of, the game does not take place in the modern era like some (including myself) assumed. The setting is in the 60s, Cold War era, which I found to actually be as interesting if not more so than the modern ear. The storyline is give and take. The missions of the game are basically flashbacks that the main character has while he is being interrogated/tortured by an unknown person. You do quite a bit of jumping around in the world, Cuba, Laos, Russia, you get to see quite a bit. Is the story line as good at Modern Warfare 2? In my opinion, no. The storyline gets a bit boring and predictable after a while.

My other complaint about the campaign is there are too many vehicle events. Not only do you have to man a turrent like you did in other COD games, but now you also have to drive the vehicles as well. The controls for that suck, like almost as bad a Halo vehicle controls. You also have to run and make these long ass jumps in some levels. I thought I was played a FPS, not a platformer guys...

So in summary I give the campaign a B-. From what I've played of multiplayer already, I'm pretty sure I'll be giving it an A

The Eternal Warriors

So we recorded our first episode last night and it felt really good to finally get it done. It's been quite the roller coaster ride since DLT ended. Between picking a new name, getting a website and Libsyn account going and all that, it's been a pretty hectic few weeks. 

Episode 1 should be out sometime on Sunday. It will be on iTunes, of course.

Just steer your browsers over to http://theeternalwarriors.com/?feed=rss2 and feel free to add it to you RSS feed.

Not only will the episodes be on the RSS feed but we will also be posting new blog posts on a regular basis. My day is Thursdays and the rest of the guys (along with a few guest writers) will be posting stuff up on a regular basis as well. You can expect a new post almost every day.

Don't worry though, I will still have blog posts that will be specific to my personal blog. 

So check it out, I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

Unit of the Week: Black Templars Dreadnought

C Swizzy here and I'm going to start the Unit of Week, normally posted up on Thursdays. I will be going over 40K as well as Warmachine units over here.

So lets's get started with the Black Templars Dreadnought. I am not going to touch on the regular 5th Edition Space Marines Codex, or the Space Wolves, Blood Angels, etc. All of these books have different variations of the Dreadnought, but the Black Templars one is in my opinion the most versatile (and also the one I know the best).

For starters, base is 105 Points and it comes with the Assault Cannon and Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon (DCCW) with a Storm Bolter. Ok so that's basically the same as almost every other Dreadnought. You can also change the Storm Bolter to a Heavy Flamer, and you can also take out the Assault Cannon and add a Twin Linked LasCannon. You can also remove the DCCW and replace it with a Missile Launcher. Nothing new here.

Here's where things change. The one vow that almost every Black Templars takes with their Emperor's Champion is "Accept any Challenge, No Matter the Odds". This gives all infantry units Preferred Enemy (rerolling to hit in assault) The last line of this rule states that it also aplies to Dreadnoughts. Rerolling to hit with a Dreadnought in Assault is nothing to over look. Rerolling some Str 10 attacks if you have the DCCW is pretty freaking AWESOME.

Now for 20 points you can upgrade to a Venerable Dreadnought. The Black Templars version of Venerable still give you the option to make your opponent reroll a penetrating hit roll, but it does more than that as well. You can also take a Veteran skill for 10 additional points. The only 2 options are Furious Charge and Tank Hunters.

Lets touch Furious Charge first. The only benefit I see from it is the +1 to Initiative. If you have the DCCW your already at Str 10 so the +1 Str doesn't apply. The +1 to Initiative might be useful against high initiative units (Eldar, Dark Eldar, Noise Marines, etc..) but I think if you go the veteran skill route your better off with the other option...

Which is Tank Hunters. Oh the joys of having an old codex! So Tank Hunters basically give you a +1 to your roll against vehicles. So against vehicles your Assault Cannon is now Str 7, Missile Launcher is Str 9 (krak missiles) and that Twin Linked LasCannon is Str 10!!!! Correct me if I'm wrong but this is the only Str 10 LasCannon in the game.

Personally I always take Venerable with Tank Hunters. If you have a fire support Dreadnought (Las and Missile) it costs 160 points which gets you Venerable, Tank Hunter, TL LasCannon and a Missile Launcher. Granted you can only shoot at 1 unit with this Dread, but it sure does bring the pain with a Str 10 and Str 9 shot against vehicles. I also take Venerable with Tank Hunters with the standard load out.

As for the best uses for the Black Templars Dreadnought there are 2 ways I normally use it. The first is the Fire Support role with all the goodies I just mentioned. It's mobile, hard to take down, and can still hold it's own in Assault. The second is the standard load out with Venerable, Tank Hunters and a drop pod (or as Rich and I call it, the DDASS). 4 Str 7 rending shots is nothing to scoff at and the Venerable will make it that much harder to kill you. You can also exploit the Black Templar Drop Pod rule that allows for the Drop Pod to shoot the turn it comes in by taking a Deathwind Missile Launcher. That's a lot of firepower that originates from basically any spot that you choose.

So moral of the story is Old Codexes still have a few tricks up their sleeves!