The Adeptus Custodes have always been intriguing, an army of golden armored peerless warriors striding the battlefield. Sadly, their last codex ended up as an army of forge world dreadnoughts whose only plan was to tank hits from your opponent for five turns. Well, the new codex is out and boy does it mix things up. I'm Jack from the Art of War and I'm here to talk about the facelift our favorite boys in gold have just received and to give the aspiring shield captains out there a...
Ossiarch Bonereapers are not in a great spot at the moment. Our analysis shows that despite having a roughly 50% win rate, this win rate is very heavily weighted towards beating armies that are also at the lower end of the pile and only being in a winning position in a very, very few tournaments. Other analyses show the army performing even worse, but fortunately, Games Workshop seems to be paying attention, releasing Tome Celestial updates in White Dwarf for factions that at least have the appearance of struggling....
With the release of Kaldehim Wizards effective (re-)introduced the concept/mechanic of "spell trample" and it's one that, as a design space, I really like. It fits really well with red, and having it on more spells would really shore up a weakness for red, which is that frequently spells deal "too much" damage, and it seems kind of wasteful. In some sense, it doesn't really matter, if you cast terror on a creature with 4 toughness or 3 toughness or 7 toughness it dies, if you cast a lightning bolt at a 2 toughness creature it dies, and you're trading one care for one card, just like with the terror. But it feels wasteful. I also think the idea of dealing excess damage over what's needed to kill a creature to a controller makes sense, though I'm sure in standard it would be extremely problematic and push red as an archetype really far.
For commander, I think it would increase red's viability to have less wasteful ways of doing damage. Some great Red board clear and mass damage cards like Earthquake or other staples become lackluster because white (and black) have multiple "destroy all creatures" spells which simply don't care...
Epaulettes. They're a thing you put on your shoulders when in a uniform that makes your shoulders look wider. They have a fringe, and a flat bit, and lots of details if you're doing it right. They attach to the uniform in complex, mind bending, possibly even quantum-entangled ways. Their presence, or absence, makes and breaks the historical accuracy of a Guards Army. They are, and apparently will continue to be the bane of my existence as a new Napoleonics player.Over the last couple of weeks (Part 1 of the Road to Austerlitz was pre-Christmas in my time), I have painted about 150 Epaulettes, in addition to tassles, pom-poms, belts, other kinds of belts, and boxes with an N on them. Napoleonics are fancier, and more complicated, than it is possible to imagine. Getting these done, readers, has been a whole big thing.
Please note, for your consideration and my massive relief, 63 Chasseurs a Pied of the Imperial Guard, mostly - after taking advice from the comments of Part 1 - with the correct colour of epaulette. After the initial six painted in a flurry of excitement, I settled down into a rhythm and got them painted up quickly...
G’Day Goonhammer readers! Tournaments are back in Australia and the pre-eminent event when it comes to Kings of War is Clash of Kings Australia. This tournament is held in the little-known capital of the Antipodes, Canberra; a location that sits somewhere between the major cities of Melbourne and Sydney, meaning folks from across the eastern coast of Australia can get there with relative ease (i.e. drivable).
Considering the impact of pandemic restrictions on the 2021 tournament scene, we were incredibly keen to be a part of the biggest Kings of War event in Australia. What’s a 7 hour drive compared to the fun of cramming 6 games into 2 days? Worth it!
The Event
The Clash of Kings Australia 2022 will be held on the 22nd and 23rd of January in the Canberra Technology Park. There will be 3 games per day, for a total of 6 games, at 2000 points. Each round is set to 60 minutes per player, which at 2000 points is more than enough (plenty of time for pictures).
There are the typical awards for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place based on tournament and paint scores, as well as Best Painted Army (both non-Mantic and Mantic) and Most Sporting...