Wednesday 15 June 2011

Shadow Captain Kayvaan Shrike



I love marines, and even more than that I love Raven Guard, so when i decided to do them as an army naturally i chose the one character in the Space Marine codex who turns yout list in to a more Raven Guardy one.

However I soon found that creating and effective yet fluffy 'Hit and run', 'See but don't be seen' style army isn't easy. So I moved to the Blood Angel codex.

Now a quick bit of back ground, I've been thinking of an idea furthering GW's current idea of the character leading your army themes your army, but I don't think they go far enough. For example currently, a spacemarine captain on a bike makes bikes troops, and in the Dark Angels and Space Wolf codicies the terminator armoured character makes termies troops or at least scoring. I believe the war gear your captain (or named character) is armed with shoul theme your force. So...

A Bike = Bike squads as troops
A Jump pack = Assault squads as troops
Terminator Armour = Terminators as troops
Special issue ammo = Sternguard as troops

it wouldn't take up much more space on the page and would make setting an army to a theme much easier. (I know some wargears costs would need to be increased, and I think the captains equipment should affect the command squad too)

With all this in mind I have decided to rewrite Captain Shrikes rules.



So here goes;

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Shadow Captain Kayvaan Shrike

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
6 5 4 4 3 5 3 10 3+

Unit Composition: 1 (Unique)
Unit Type: Infantry
War Gear: Power armour; Frag and krak grenades; Bolt pistol; The Raven's Talons; Jump Pack; Iron Halo

(I have no issues with the profile, pretty standard captain rules, however its the special rules we're looking at)

Special rules:
And They Shall Know No Fear, Combat Tactics, Independant Character, Infiltrate.

See, But Remain Unseen;

Before deployment roll a D3, in addition to his own unit, shrike gives this many units in your army the infiltrate special rule.

Chapter Tactics;
If you include Kayvaan Shrike then all units in your army exchange the Combat Tactics special rule for the Fleet special rule. If more than one character in your army has the Chapter Tactics special rule, you must choose which verson will apply.

Winged Assault;

If you include Kayvaan Skrike Assault Squads, of ten models become troops, however you cannot take any Thunderfire Cannons.

Shrike's Wing; Shrike is usually accompanied into battle by vetrans from the Targus viii campaign. If you include Kayvaan Shrike, one command squad in army may be equipped with Jumppacks at +50pts for the squad.

Wargear
The Raven's Talons;
These are a pair of master-crafted lightning claw. They also bestow the Rending special rule on Shrike's close combat attacks.

Points: 220 (not much of an increase but enough to pay for the extra infiltrate)

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Hope you like, I'd do a few more of these but only Shrike seems relevant to the blog. Let me know what you think, or more specifically let miss Alyson Hannigan know.


4 comments:

  1. See, But Remain Unseen;
    At the start of the game roll a D3, in addition to his own unit, shrike gives this many units in your army the infiltrate special rule.

    Shouldnt this say "before deployment" as although we all know what you mean, if this made it into a codex it would soon become apparent that the author hadn't playtested it properly and the rule is all but unuseable, see Gav Thorpe and the ability to give possessed a scout move when they're in a rhino because you didnt know they had a scout move when you deployed them ;)

    Also, perhaps "makes assault marines scoring" rather than troops in the same way as Kantor?

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  2. poss as it does mean you'd take scouts but as korvadaye makes them troops figured it would be all good. Kantor would make them troops in my world.

    will change the writing of the rule ty

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  3. *cough* and allows command squads to be equipped with jump packs for +50pts *cough*

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  4. Lol in the ideal world the command squad would have that option, but you're right mark I'll add that in.

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