Category Archives: Peter Holland

Army Lists, Games Workshop, Peter Holland, Sci-Fi, Warhammer 40k

Combat Patrol: Blood Angels – Beginners 1,000 Point Starter Army

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Following the success of the first article in this series on the Sisters of Battle, I decided to dip my foot in and attempt another. This time on my own favourite army the Blood Angels. So like last time we’re going to start with the Combat Patrol box and then build this up to 1,000 points that will hopefully prove to be a fun introduction to what I think is the most characterful of Space Marine armies.

The combat patrol box is packed with goodies and like the other factions they’re a fantastic way to start a new army as they often give you a wide range of units.

Combat Patrol: Blood Angels


In the Blood Angel Combat Patrol box you’re given;

  • Primaris Librarian
  • 5x Incursors
  • 5x Intercessors
  • 3x Aggressors
  • Impulsor
  • 2x Blood Angel upgrade frames

All of that for £85, which is bought separately would cost roughly £150.

On top of this we’ll add the following units;

  • Sanguinary Guard (2 packs) £60
  • Space Marine Captain (Free!) – you can kitbash one from the upgrade sprue and Sanguinary Guard.

This will cost you an additional £60, alongside the cost of the Codex (£30) and Blood Angel Supplement (£17.50) the entire army will set you back £192.50!

However! If you sign up for SCN Hobbies mailing list you’ll receive 25% off Games Workshops recommended retail price and 15% off web only miniatures. Meaning including postage the army and codex would cost £152! That’s a saving of just over £40!

To sign up to the SCN Hobbies mailing list, email Sarah on scnhobbyworld@outlook.com.

The list above brings us with upgrades to 1,000 points and the list will be as follows;

Vanguard Detachment (3CP)
Adeptus Astartes: Blood Angels

HQ
———-

Captain (Warlord) -140 pts
– Angel Exemplar (-1cp)
– Jump Pack
– Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
– Relic: Gleaming Pinions
– Warlord Traits: Speed of the Primarch, Gift of Foresight

Primaris Librarian – 95 pts
– Quickening

TROOPS
———-

Incursor Squad – 115 pts
– 4x Incursor w/Occulus Bolt Carbine
– Incursor Sergeant w/Occulus Bolt Carbine
– Haywire Mine

Intercessor Squad – 100 pts
– 4x Intercessor w/Auto-Bolt Rifles
– Intercessor Sergeant w/Auto-Bolt Rifle

ELITES
———-

Aggressor Squad – 120 pts
– 2x Aggressor w/Flamestorm Gauntlets
– Aggressor Sergeant w/Flamestorm Gauntlet

Sanguinary Ancient – 110 pts
– Angelus Boltgun and Encarmine Sword

Sanguinary Guard – 202 pts
– 4x Sanguinary Guard w/ Angelus Boltgun and Encarmine Swords
– 2x Sanguinary Guard w/ Angelus Boltgun and Power Fist

DEDICATED TRANSPORT
———-

Impulsor – 115 pts
– 2x Storm Bolters
– Ironhail Heavy Stubber

CAPTAIN

Credit: Reddit User u/l0te

With your Captain you can kitbash this model from parts of the Sanguinary Guard (using the legs, body, backpack and head) plus the upgrade sprue – replacing the chainsword for a Thunder Hammer (ask a friend if you don’t have one of these, same for the storm shield).

Make this chap your Warlord and give him the relic Gleaming Pinions which will allow the captain to withdraw from combat and then charge again, as well as giving him the ability to re-roll fail charges. This guy will be an absolute beast for you. He’ll have five attacks on the charge with the Shock Assault rule (six if your in Assault Doctrine thanks to Savage Echoes) hitting on 3’s and wounding anything up to strength 7 on 2’s thanks to The Red Thirst.

With flat three damage which also has -2 AP, this guy can bring the pain. Plus if you give him Speed of the Primarch he’ll always fight first in the fight phase. By giving him Angel Exemplar for 1cp you’ll be able have an additional Warlord Trait as well, so why not give him Gift of Foresight to allow him to re-roll one hit roll, wound roll and save roll each turn?

Make sure you keep him within 6″ of your Sanguinary Guard and Ancient as they’ll benefit from a plus 1 to their attack hit roll. Perhaps consider keeping all three units in reserve and deploying them later to counter punch against the enemy.

This guy also has a 2+ save thanks to the Storm shield along with a 4+ invulnerable save, so he’ll be hard to shift without your enemy focusing on him.

PRIMARIS LIBRARIAN

Primaris Librarian

This fellow comes inside the Combat Patrol box, and is our second HQ unit. You can make him tasty in combat by giving him the psychic power Quickening which will allow him to re-roll advance and charge rolls as well as adding D3 attacks to his attacks characteristic giving him the potential to dish out up to nine attacks on the charge thanks to Shock Assault and Savage Echoes. Plus with The Red Thirst you’ll be adding one to your wound rolls.

The draw back is his speed, he won’t be able to keep up with your Sanguinary Guard or Captain, but he can move up the field fairly quickly with the re-rolling of advance rolls. Your opponents will be surprised by his melee capability, hitting on 3’s with a strength five weapon that also provides -3 AP and D3 damage.

INCURSOR SQUAD

Incursor Squad Credit: Alex Heap

The Incursor Squads are great and fit into the Blood Angel theme perfectly. Equip these guys with a Haywire Mine which will cause D3 mortal wounds to an enemy within engagement range on a 2+ (flat 3 wounds if the target is a vehicle).

These guys have Concealed Positions allowing them to deploy anywhere on the battlefield more than 9″ away from the enemy deployment zone or enemy units.

They also benefit from the Occulus Bolt Carbine which removes cover benefits for enemy targets.

Plus as with all Blood Angel units they’re tasty in hand to hand as well, with two attack each (three for the sergeant), and an additional one on the charge courtesy of Shock Assault, they can push out 3 attacks each (four if in Assault Doctrine, again thanks to Savage Echoes).

Buy another box of these when looking to expand your force in the future!

INTERCESSORS

Intercessors

Again, a solid unit and although only five man initially they still benefit from some solid gains though the Blood Angels special rules in the same way that the Incursors do.

Plus if you use the space marine stratagem Rapid Fire for 2cp you’ll be able to fire these boys for a second time at the end of the shooting phase. Rapid firing them on both occasions gets the most out of them. If you give them Auto-Bolt Rifles as well and use Rapid Fire then they could kick out 30 shots in a turn.

AGGRESSORS

Aggressors

These chaps are slow with only a 5″ movement, meaning they’ll be outpaced by the vast majority of units in the game. That being said with D6 shots from their flamestorm gauntlets once they close to within 12″ these guys will each kick out a serious number of hits which are great against large units such as Orks or Astra Militarum conscripts.

With three attacks (four for the sergeant) base these guys will also smash face in the fight phase, remember to charge and you’ll be kicking out 16 attacks for the unit with Shock Assault and Savage Echoes. Remember that Red Thirst will give you +1 to your wound rolls as well meaning they’re wounding most things on either 2’s or 3’s if it’s toughness 8 or above.

Also remember that you can use the Space Marine codex stratagem Unyielding in the Face of the Foe which, for 1 cp allows them to add +1 to their armour saves against weapons with damage 1.

SANGUINARY ANCIENT

A Sanguinary Ancient with Sanguinary Guard

The Sanguinary Ancient and the Sanguinary Guard will be your close combat specialists in the army, and that’s saying something for the Blood Angels when as we’ve seen even librarians can dish out up to nine attacks.

Keep this guy within 6″ of both the Guard and your Captain so that they gain +1 to their attack roll for being near the captain and +1 to their roll for having the Chapter banner nearby. This plus if any Sanguinary Guard or the Ancient are destroyed by an enemy model on a 4+ they’ll be able to make a final attack (shooting or melee) before being removed.

With Angelic Visage the enemy also suffer a -1 to hit roll on their attacks in the fight phase.

SANGUINARY GUARD

Sanguinary Guard

Much of what was mentioned for the Ancient applies to the Guard as well. Keep them within 6″ of the Captain and the Ancient and you’ll have one big scary melee ball of pain.

Each model is able to dish out three attacks base, and like all of the other units the Guard will benefit from Savage Echoes, The Red Thirst and Shock Assault. All this means is that each one will make four attacks on the charge (five when in assault doctrine). You can increase the potential by +1 on your attack roll if you use the Stratagem Descent of Angels on the turn which they arrived from reserve.

Plus with the Stratagem Upon Wings of Fire, once they’ve mulched their target in the next movement phase you can place them back into reserve and do it all over again.

Thanks to the Ancient and the Captain means they’ll always be hitting on 2’s and with the encarmine blade giving them +1 strength they’ll be able to wound anything up to T4 on 2’s and T5 targets (looking at you greenskins) on 3’s. With AP -3 and flat 2 damage these guys are great against any infantry opponent, and if you equip a couple with power fists they’ll take on tanks as well.

IMPULSOR

Penitent Engines

Ideally it would be nice to equip this with the Bellicatus Missile Array (allowing you to fire S8 missiles) as without this you’re just relying on the Heavy Stubber and Bolters. But, that being said it can still be useful for transporting your Intercessors and Librarian around the field at a quicker pace.

OTHER POINTS

With Blood Angels, it’s remembering your special rules when you charge and are in combat. The opponent won’t always remind you that you have Savage Echoes, The Red Thirst, Black Rage and Shock Assault so try and get into the habit of learning these if you are going to collect the Blood Angels.

The other thing to remember is that the Blood Angels are a close combat army and so you want to be getting up the field quickly and in the opponents faces as much as possible, but pick your fights well. Don’t throw away your units without possibly whittling down the enemy a little with your boltguns on the Intercessors. Target priority is always key with any army you play, look at your opponents army before your begin, work out the biggest threats and how you can use your units to counter them. Would it involved dropping the Guard, Ancient and Captain nine inches from the horribly big tank? Or perhaps you should kick out those 30 shots that the Intercessors can give on that Ork horde that’s approaching before charging with two or three of your close combat units?

If you like close combat, then these are the Marines for you. Plus who doesn’t love sculpted nips and abs on armour?

WHERE NEXT?

As I mentioned earlier I would probably look to be including more Incursors in the larger builds of this list alongside some of the other more well known Blood Angel units for flavour such as Mephiston and Death Company.

I hope you enjoyed this, please let me know in the comments below how you would build a 1,000 point list from the Combat Patrol Box and why not also let me know what you think to my list. There may well be aspects of the codex or units that I have not included that you think should be, so why not let us know in the comments below.

Peter

Games Workshop, Peter Holland, Warhammer 40k

Yet Another 40k Book to Buy….

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Don’t get me wrong I love 40k, always have done and always will do but with the announcement of Warhammer 40k Seasons on December 28th, I’m beginning to tire of the amount of books needed to play a game.

In 1992/93 when first entered the 40k world all the books you needed were the books in the 2nd edition boxed set (of which there were three) and your armies codex (once it got released).

As a way of comparison looking at the Blood Angels, you need the Rulebook (core rules are free but what about all the other bits you may want such as Crusade) for £40. Then you need the Space Marine Codex (£30), followed by the Blood Angels Codex supplement (£17.50). That’s a total of £87.50 without any models.

Now if you want to take part in tournaments and the Warhammer Seasons (which will change every six months) you’ll need Chapter Approved for a further £25 followed by the seasons book which I imagine will be another £25. That brings you to a grand total of £137.50 plus £25 every six months.

This is becoming tiresome. Especially compared to other games companies out there.

Peter Holland

Woehammer Painting Competition

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It’s finally time to announce the winner of our painting competition who, with thanks to SCN Hobby World, will walk away with a start Collecting! or Combat Patrol box of their choice.

There were so many great entries to the competition and I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to take part and also to my fellow judges, Sarah, Ed, Declan and Rhys.

Here is the full list of entries:

Christine Coram
Justin Jackson
Jack McQuiggin
Joseph Isham
Li Bryan
Nicky Rod
Steve Milford
Titusz Skoflek
Wayne Cooper
Antonio Rodrigo
Ian Tomlinson
Nick Munro

Marks were awarded out of ten for each miniature by each judge on the panel, and it was a very close run contest!

3rd Place – Antonio Rodrigo & Justin Jackson

The judges just couldn’t separate between the two miniatures with both receiving the same scores across the panel. So both Justin and Rodrigo will walk away with a £10 Games Workshop voucher.

2nd Place – Joseph Isham

In second place and winning £20 of GW vouchers in Joseph Isham who submitted this awesome Space Marine Chaplain conversion.

1st Place – Steve Milford

In first place and walking away with the inaugural Woehammer Painting Competition top prize is Steve Milford and his excellent Relictor.

As I said before the standard really was very high with only 6.5 points separating the top six positions!

I hope you have all enjoyed taking part, and again I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Sarah and SCN Hobby World for sponsoring this event and providing the top prize!

Games Workshop, Peter Holland, Rogue Trader, Sci-Fi, Warhammer 40k

Rogue Trader Collection – 06/01/21

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A little progress this week, and I’ve decided to stick with the rug which I’ll now paint up and get ready.

I’ve also found an original Rhino model, albeit heavily converted that I’m considering painting up fully.

Unfortunately it is missing the hand rails (as all of them eventually break off), but it’s in fairly good condition otherwise and just needs a good paint job.

I’m hoping next week I’ll have gotten a lot further with Marneus and have the diorama somewhere near finished. Still need to create the flags though…..

Games Workshop, Peter Holland, Sci-Fi, Warhammer 40k

Datasheet Review – Astra Militarum Manticore

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In my summary post of 2021 I promised that we would be posting more tactica and army lists in the coming year. What better way to start that than with a kit I received for Christmas?

So the first question is what should you build? As with all tank kits I personally feel they’re way to expensive to build as a single kit with set loadout so like with all my other kits I will be magnetising the kit to make both the Manticore and the Deathstrike – I’ll post a how to once I’ve figured it out myself! 🙂

Manticore

Courtesy of the GW 40k app and Warhammer+

The Manticore is almost a standard go to unit for competition Militarum lists, with board wide range not needing line of sight and 2D6 shots hitting at S10. You only have four rockets per game, but on average a single rocket can deliver 3 hits and will wound T5 targets on 2+. But you’re probably not going to want to expend your ammo on troops, but the enemies much loved tanks however are a different kettle of fish. This will wound most tanks on 3+ meaning out of your seven shots, two to three will wound on average, with one or two of those likely to get through the targets armour after the -2 AP. With D3 damage per hit which can be improved to a flat 3 damage if you give Tank Aces: Full Payload, this will mean you’re taking on average between two to three wounds off your target in the turn (or 6 with Full Payload).

Target Toughness/SaveAv ShotsHitsWoundsUnsaved
T6+ with 3+ Save73.52.31.5
Up to T5 with 3+ Save73.52.91.9

Now that doesn’t sound ground-breaking, but remember that’s average, if you’re rolling well and you have Full Payload equipped the tank will do a further three wounds for each unsaved hit, that’s some serious punch.

The drawback is the Militarum ballistic skill, with 4+ only half your shots may hit your targets. You can improve this, firstly with an additional five points you can purchase an Augur array which will allow you to re-roll a single failed hit roll per battle for that Manticore, well worth the points if successful.

For one CP you can also use the Direct Onslaught stratagem from Psychic Awakening: The Greater Good. This allows the Manticore to add 1 to its hit roll if it can see it’s target.

I would take two Manticores in any list where I’m looking to include them. Keep them out of sight and just use them to bombard enemy high toughness targets. You’re taking two for redundancy options as your opponent will soon destroy them once he realises what they can do.

Make sure you include the 5pt Hunter-Killer missile for the single S10 shot that’s AP-2 and can do D6 damage (or flat 6 if you have Full Payload equipped). Worth the points! I then choose the Heavy Flamer and Stubber for defensive purposes in case anyone decides to charge it.

Manticore (160 points)
– Augur array
– Heavy Flamer
– Heavy Stubber
– Hunter-Killer missile

Peter Holland, Rules Writing, Sci-Fi

Writing a Sci-Fi Tabletop Wargame – Part 6

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Our past posts:

So the results of last weeks votes are as follows:

Factions

Now we’ve got most (if not all) of the basic information in place for our game we can start getting our hands dirty with some of the nitty gritty stuff. Firstly, should we have pre-made ready to go factions or should players have options to construct their own units for their own faction? This would make the game miniature agnostic but it would also require players to take the time to build a faction from the ground up, i.e. this is a leader unit it needs this particular weapon, with this armour and these special rules.

Of course we could always have a mixture of both pre-made and create your own. But what do you think?

Turn Order

This is about how the players determine who goes first. There are many options for this, but I’ve narrowed this down to two or three, but bear 🐻 in mind these can also have vary to some extent. For example, while AoS is a UgoIgo system it also implements the turn priority in terms of a dice roll before each turn.

I Go You Go

This is the first and possibly most common option used. Players use a mechanic to determine who goes first and then play is simply alternated between the players until the end of the game.

Draw

Players use coloured dice or chips to represent their individual units on the table e.g. one players units are represented by red dice while the others are blue, when a red dice is drawn the red player chooses a unit to activate. This system will be familiar to those who have played Warlord Games Bolt Action.

Initiative

This could either be an army wide initiative rating or individual initiative ratings for units to decide what order they act in. For example, elite units may have a much higher initiative than conscripts meaning they’ll always act first.

Bidding

One of my personal favourites is using bidding systems to determine who acts first. This can take various forms such as rolling a number of orders each side can take on two or three dice then giving up a number of those orders to try and claim the priority that turn.

So which is your favourite? Perhaps there’s one I’ve not even thought of, I’d that’s the case why not add a comment below?

Peter Holland

Woehammer Painting Competition

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So the deadline has closed and the judges are reviewing the miniatures and giving their scores. We will announce the winner on Friday 7th January where they’ll be asked which Combat Patrol or Start Collecting box they would like as their prize.

This has all been made possible thanks to our amazing sponsor SCN Hobby World, where you can get up to 25% off your miniature orders!

Stay tuned!

Peter Holland

Woehammer Facebook Group

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Did you know that Woehammer have a Facebook group? Why not head over there and post some pictures of your miniatures, we’ll include them in monthly hobby summary alongside our own.

Peter Holland

Woehammer in 2021

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I’ve seen a few others post their blog stats and as a massive geek I always find stats interesting. So for those like minded individuals here’s our first few months as stats!

We started posting in July this year with one or two posts, which then picked up in August until we were then getting to the point of posting once a day (sometimes more).

Views by Month

  • July – 74 Views
  • August – 1,378 Views
  • September – 3,021 Views
  • October – 5,907 Views
  • November – 12,049 Views
  • December – 29,767 Views

For me this is staggering, in September I was over the moon with 3k views and had the personal aim of a 6% improvement month on month, however we’ve smashed that by essentially doubling the views we get each month.

I’m fully aware that this will not continue into 2022, but to come off a month where we achieved almost 30,000 views after only being around for a little under 6 months is great!

What’s also pleasing is that when we do get a visit to the site people are more than often viewing another article after their initial visit, with the average visitor viewing 1.65 articles each.

What’s being Read?

By far our most popular posts are the Top Three lists for competitive tournaments. These fill out five of the top right posts. So be assured you’ll see more of these in 2022.

Where are the views coming from?

This is possibly the most interesting part for me as initially a lot of the traffic in the first few months was driven by posts shared on Reddit, Twitter and Facebook. In August our top traffic source was Reddit (144 views) followed by Twitter (47 views), and while these continue to contribute major traffic sources for us, they have now been overtaken by search engines with the WordPress Reader App also contributing a large chunk of traffic.

Traffic Sources for December

This is likely to be due to us posting an article once a day and the various search engines starting to show these more regularly purely due to the amount of content we now have.

Who reads us?


It’s no surprise that we appeal to the English speaking world primarily, though we do have a high readership from many of the other European nations (yes, I consider us to be European despite the catastrophe that is Brexit).

So what next?

Well we already have plans to improve upon our top three lists postings with more in-depth analysis of the lists. We also have numerous tactic articles planned out as well as beginner army suggestions for each faction in AoS and 40k. As well as this I’m hoping to improve the look of the site itself as well as getting one or two more regular writers.

Either way, I wanted to thank all those who have visited us and my fellow Woehammerers Declan, Ed and Dave a Happy New Year, and here’s to an even better 2022!