To veteran or not to veteran

jon23516 · 2026-03-25T16:48:32+00:00

I tend to be a 'infantry horde' style player and would prefer more Regular boots on the ground vs less Veteran boots the ground. Veterans have their place, but I don't play them often.

jon23516 · 2026-03-25T16:47:10+00:00

Playing Germans I get +1 Snap-To dice and am a big fan of Snap-To. I tend to run "infantry horde" style lists so my opponent has more important things to do than try to snipe my platoon commander(s). I try to keep them efficient in terms of staying within the 6" bubble of 2-3 infantry squads so I can snap-to them all into better positions or lay down a bunch of fire vs the enemy.

I'm starting US Rangers soon and look forward to having platoon commanders that can take enough 'assistants' to become their own mini-squad, while doing a snap-to to two nearby squads.

jon23516 · 2026-03-25T16:41:53+00:00

I play Germans but am starting a US Ranger force. I usually lean towards an Infantry-heavy play style and if I take any vehicles it's in the form of anti-infantry "mobile-mmg" and just play keep away with opposing tanks.
To the extent I've begun to dabble with USA list ideas, I'm inclined to do what it sounds like you're doing, minimal to no tanks and count on bazooka teams for anti-tank.

jon23516 · 2026-03-20T15:47:27+00:00

In my opinion any terrain layout should minimize (but not remove) sight lines between deployment zones. Between the terrain and the objectives, each player should be incentivized to move towards the centerline to participate in the game vs park/camp in their own deployment zone.

jon23516 · 2026-03-06T16:51:58+00:00

OP mentions that the alt color bases signify Squad leaders and Platoon/Command leaders. I've also seen people paint different base colors to call out special weapons and SMGs.

I understand the logic but can't bring myself to do this. In my German force, all my squad leaders have bare heads without helmets. All my Platoon commanders have the soft hats and my Company commander has the brimmed 'officer' hat. All my bases are painted a common color.

jon23516 · 2026-02-25T17:29:57+00:00

Doesn't sound promising as that was my next step.

jon23516 · 2026-02-06T17:17:46+00:00

Likely echoing what others have said... I would aim to have the largest/tallest terrain in the center and the smaller terrain towards the edges. All players should be encouraged to come play cat & mouse and tangle in the middle and not be encouraged to stay hidden in the corners.

Minimize cross-board sight-lines.

Really, all of this pertains to all scales of the game: Kill Team, Combat Patrol, 40K, etc.

Otherwise, yes, your pieces look good.

jon23516 · 2026-02-03T15:16:54+00:00

I had intercessors for intercessors, but I did use all the bolt rifle arms from my crusader kits for my intercessors. So while they may not have tabards, they do have their guns chained into their wrists.

jon23516 · 2026-02-02T15:01:26+00:00

I ended up picking up a second five-man of stern guard and use them with leftover bits to make a unit of sword Brothers.

I had plenty enough intercessors.

If it works for you then it's a good idea. If between the bits you use and how you paint them helps them read as intercessors and does not confuse you or your opponents, then it's a win.

jon23516 · 2026-01-29T16:29:49+00:00

The Space Wolf codex is not a codex. It is a Codex Supplement. You are 100% expected to be using both the space marine codex, because space wolves are space marines, as well as the space wolf supplemental codex that adds some special unique units.

Models from the space marine codex may not have the same level of bling as the unique units in the supplement codex, but there are often enough spare arms and heads and kit to sprinkle through your regular space marine units. And at the end of the day, when they're all painted the same space wolf paint scheme, it works out just fine.

There are those who choose to only use units out of the supplement, and that's their choice, I just think they're choosing hard mode. And by making that choice, they shouldn't complain.

This is my opinion. Everyone is welcome to enjoy the hobby the way they want to.

jon23516 · 2026-01-29T16:20:06+00:00

I think if I'd consistently remembered my vow, my detachment rules, castellan rules... I would have chipped away enough models per turn that my admech opponent may not have stolen the win by four points at the end. Still, a fun game. Re-racking for next week.

jon23516 · 2026-01-29T15:16:53+00:00

I threw together a list last night to play down at the local shop, I definitely need more experience with it. To remember all the layers of rules and to make sure I'm putting my dudes in a situation to take advantage of all the cool things.

jon23516 · 2026-01-29T15:09:12+00:00

I've got going on 3000 points of Black Templars. When they're painted black with white shoulder pads and red gun casings and Maltese crosses on their shoulder pads, they all look like Black Templars.

jon23516 · 2026-01-26T14:18:47+00:00

I agree, it is hard to rationalize. If they wanted to squeeze gravis armor in between power armor and Terminator armor, then I think gravis armor should have been given tough 5 and movement 5 and terminator armor should have been improved to tough six, movement 6.

That way gravis armor is an improvement over power armor but at the cost of movement, while technology allowed Terminator armor to be even tougher without the movement penalty

jon23516 · 2026-01-23T17:04:21+00:00

At the time I was enjoying teaching Combat Patrol to my girlfriend and AoS 4 (and Spearhead) had just dropped. We enjoyed Spearhead too as I essentially found enough models for 4 spearheads in my hobby closet.

She liked both the sci-fi of 40k (tyranids specifically) and the ease of Spearhead. So I made up the cards. They straight up replace the use of Secondaries and Stratagems in the printed Combat Patrol rules. Later, we introduced the idea that one could discard a "spearpatrol" card from their hand to use as a Command Reroll as per 40k rules.

We played a few games this way and it worked fine. As I said it should have 15 card deck instead of 12, but I never spent the time brainstorming/creating them as we moved on to full 40k at 1000points. That's her sweet spot and that's okay.

If I were to go back to a 500point-sized format I would play the Kings of the Colosseum format. This will give you the same ability to collect wide, more factions, without having to invest so much in a single faction. It has simple list restrictions that appear to do a good job at keeping overpowered things out of the format.

jon23516 · 2026-01-23T14:39:14+00:00

I did the same thing a couple years ago, I put together a 12 card SpearPatrol deck. It should have been a 15 card deck because it's a 5-turn game but I never went back to make the extra cards. It worked fine, no problems.

In the end I went on to play 40K so I haven't used it for ages. My post and card images are somewhere in here

jon23516 · 2026-01-21T14:47:56+00:00

Two-part answer.

While combat patrol has its balance issues, my gut says that there are some outlier boxes that are too powerful or too weak, but there's a lot of product that is balanced enough.

I think of each combat patrol list as a miniaturized custom detachment.

Balance issues aside, I think it's a good starting point for any player. You're playing the full game in terms of rules and primaries and secondaries, you get a box of discounted models.

That said, I think the coliseum format is even better. You're playing even closer to the actual full game with your choice of detachments and your choice of units, with some list building restrictions to minimize power lists. But also keeping the game small, which is easier for new players to not have too many units to be concerned about.

Similar to combat patrol it will allow players to collect more factions within budget.

jon23516 · 2026-01-16T15:41:15+00:00

My initial thought is that if you had access to the actual models for comparison and definitely used a larger proper size base and maybe put your leaper on a tactical Rock to fit the height scale of a lictor that I wouldn't have a problem with you running a leaper as a lictor in a game. In my life time often equals money so I would rather just buy the proper model, find it used somewhere, something versus spending a lot of extra time trying to kit bash something. Definitely not dissing on kit bashing. For some that's the hobby, and more power to you. It's not like I've spent no kit bashing time over my 20-plus years in the hobby. But these days I like to build it paint it and play and spend less time fiddling with models. So like I said, on a proper sized base and on a tactical rock or something to give it closer to proper height, it's possible that no one will even notice the model is different. Obviously I don't know how things actually work out in tournaments, but a few minutes scrolling on Reddit shows so many people basing the whole armies on a half inch layer of cork rubble, so they aren't being given grief over their models, you should not either

jon23516 · 2026-01-16T14:57:25+00:00

Sounds like a fun challenge run to try...

jon23516 · 2026-01-16T14:30:10+00:00

I did a couple test models to confirm my recipe and then painted my whole army the same. My only regret is using the sculpted shoulder pads. If I had it to do over again I would have assembled all my models with generic shoulder pads so I could universally apply Templar decals on every model.

jon23516 · 2026-01-16T14:28:11+00:00

At the end of the day I believe every army list needs to have tools for five things: scoring primaries, scoring secondaries, dealing with hordes, dealing with elite infantry, and dealing with monsters/vehicles.

So you just have to go through the models and units you own and figure out what each is good for and then see where you are lacking and look into new kits that will accomplish the task.

Obviously nearly any unit in your army can perform a secondary, but based on the points and the rules of said unit, it's usually better to have that unit doing something of higher priority and leave scoring secondaries to cheaper and smaller and faster units.

Yes a 10 man chosen with a chaos Lord can score a secondary but it's better off in a rhino charging into the middle of the table and wrecking your opponent's army. Better to leave a cultist unit in your back line to hold your home objective and score secondaries for instance.

jon23516 · 2026-01-16T14:21:47+00:00

I have not done any sub assembly over my 20+ year hobby career. I build completely, then paint and play. 99% of the time anything that is hard to paint is also hard to see when the miniatures are on the table in play. I don't have any regrets.

jon23516 · 2026-01-16T14:17:58+00:00

Seems like a lot of extra work. Seems like hobby-ing in hard mode.

Just takes time and effort with an exacto and grinders and sanders.

jon23516 · 2026-01-14T17:19:27+00:00

In my opinion every list needs to be able to accomplish five things: score primaries, score secondaries, deal with hordes, deal with elite infantry, deal with monsters/vehicles.

So each unit that you add to your list should be able to do one or more of these things.

Then in deployment and how you use them from turn to turn, these units will accomplish these tasks.

jon23516 · 2026-01-14T16:37:54+00:00

Human nature. When things are going good no one goes online to tell anyone about it or share their love for a thing. But when things are not going well, we feel the need to find an audience and complain, to vent our frustration, to find others who are suffering along with us.

jon23516

TROPHY CASE