An article by Dr. Craig McCann for the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right caught my eye and, sadly, not in a good way. CARR is an excellent resource, but I am surprised that they published something like this – not because I object to criticism of anti-fascists[1], but because it’s done in such a ham-fisted way.
Continue reading “In response to Craig McCann”Author: David Landon Cole
Councillor Cole
As no election was called to fill the late Cllr. Trish Shrapnel’s seat representing East ward on Huntingdon Town Council, it was filled by co-option and I’m delighted (and frankly surprised) to be able to say that I was co-opted last Thursday evening and, once I’ve completed the relevant paperwork and declarations, will be the new councillor, at least until the elections next May.
I am having a bit of a think about exactly how I want to approach things. Obviously, I want to do as good a job as I can, but there is not much time left in the term. I think one of my priorities is going to have to be to let people know that I am their new representative on Huntingdon Town Council. The obvious way to do that is social media, but I need to work out some rules for myself before I start doing that. I’m going to speak to the Clerk and a couple of other people to work out how to do it in a way that is useful, doesn’t waste time, and doesn’t send my or anyone else’s blood pressure through the roof. Of course, social media has its limits, not least that not everyone has it, so I’ll have to think of something else, too.
I’m going to rework this website, too – this incarnation comes from when I was doing my PhD and was considering a career in academia – and so I might move things around a bit to make it more useful for constituents who want to contact me.
It has been a busy few days since I was co-opted, not least with the Remembrance Sunday service this morning in which I laid a wreath on behalf of the Labour Party, and it’s only now beginning to sink in. I often say on social media, when people are criticizing politicians as feckless and self-serving, that the vast majority of the politicians I’ve met are decent, hard-working people who are trying to do the best for their communities, even if I happen to disagree with them and the systems of government aren’t ideal. Having talked the talk, I now need to walk the walk. Beyond that, Huntingdonshire District Council are starting a process of consultation on the future of Huntingdon and, in particular, the high street and I hope I can play a useful role in that, both myself and in communicating the views of my constituents.
It’s going to be a busy few months.
Cashino on Huntingdon High Street
Unfortunately, the gambling arcade on Huntingdon High Street is going ahead. I think it’s the wrong decision, though I understand why the DMC reached the decision. As the law stands, you have to have what are called ‘material considerations’ – basically, something in planning law. As I understand it, that’s because the DMC is essentially carrying out a regulatory function. My impression is that several councillors who voted for the application did so because, although they did not actually want the thing to go ahead, they felt that there was no planning reason to turn it down. One of the other problems with planning law is that decisions can be taken to appeal and often – too often – planning inspectors side with developers. Care has to be taken in giving reasons for decling a proposal as otherwise it can be overturned by the planning inspector, sometimes with costs awarded as well.
Continue reading “Cashino on Huntingdon High Street”Some stats based on the 2021 Wiwijury
The Eurovision season starts in earnest for me when Wiwibloggs start releasing their jury videos. I love the discussions between all the panelists, and by the time the videos are coming out I’ve listened to the songs enough to have opinions on them. At the end of the video, they give an average of the scores from the jurors. The average* (strictly speaking, the arithmetic mean) is a great indicator of how popular a song is; generally, the higher the average, the more popular the song. However, Eurovision is won by people voting for you, not rating every song.
We can see how the average loses some of the detail by taking two fictional countries, Megalomania and Ruritania. Megalomania’s entry, ‘LovePanther’, is a pretty generic pop song, while Ruritania’s entry, ‘Loud Screaming for Peace’ is a divisive ethno-techno-metal number. If the entry from Megalomania received a six from every Wiwijuror, it would receive an average of six. If half the Wiwijurors gave the song from Ruritania zero points, while the other half gave it ten, it would receive an average of five. Based on the average, Megalomania would beat Ruritania. However, the people that really like ‘Loud Screaming for Peace’ would vote for it, while Megalomania might not receive any votes because, while no-one objects to it, they’d be voting for their favourites instead.
One way of capturing this spread of votes is the standard deviation. This gives us an indication of how ‘controversial’ a song is (in the sense of people disagreeing about its merits). A low number means more agreement, and a high number means less agreement.
| Country | Standard deviation | Country | Standard deviation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Switzerland | 0.76 | Australia | 1.61 |
| Malta | 1.04 | Azerbaijan | 1.61 |
| Sweden | 1.17 | Latvia | 1.63 |
| Croatia | 1.27 | Finland | 1.69 |
| San Marino | 1.27 | Spain | 1.71 |
| Belgium | 1.28 | Poland | 1.75 |
| Israel | 1.31 | Austria | 1.78 |
| Iceland | 1.37 | Slovenia | 1.84 |
| United Kingdom | 1.38 | Estonia | 1.84 |
| Ireland | 1.40 | Ukraine | 1.84 |
| Greece | 1.42 | Serbia | 1.97 |
| Moldova | 1.44 | Portugal | 2.01 |
| Romania | 1.48 | Italy | 2.03 |
| Russia | 1.48 | Bulgaria | 2.07 |
| Cyprus | 1.50 | Norway | 2.09 |
| Lithuania | 1.51 | Germany | 2.12 |
| North Macedonia | 1.55 | Netherlands | 2.16 |
| France | 1.58 | Denmark | 2.21 |
| Albania | 1.58 | Czechia | 2.23 |
| Georgia | 1.59 |
However, controversial doesn’t mean good. Franc and Albania are equally (according to the Wiwijury) controversial in that they have the same standard deviation. However, Barbara Pravi’s ‘Voilà’ is a masterpiece of composition, writing, and performance that is pushing for the very top, while Albania’s Balkan ballad is, I fear, going to struggle to get out of the semis (sorry, Anxhela!). I’m slightly surprised that the Netherlands has such a high standard deviation, but I can easily see that the naff lyrics and Melfest-machine-feeling of Benny Cristo’s ‘Omaga’ from Czechia would be divisive, as would the eighties styling of Fyr & Flamme’s ‘Øve os på hinanden’; for some reason, there are people who look back at the eighties fondly. ‘I Don’t Feel Hate’ by Jendrik from Germany is also divisive, which makes sense; some people like the wackiness, while some people just see it as lyrically annoying and preachy and musically too many things mashed together.
I’ve been trying to think of a single number to capture both central tendency and dispersion (average and standard deviation), but I just don’t think it’s possible. The best I could come up with was average plus one standard deviation, but that is basically pulled out of the air – about two-thirds of votes come within one standard deviation above or below the mean in a normally distribution (though, as we will see, not all the songs’ verdicts from the Wiwijury are normally distributed).
A better alternative than trying to boil everything down to one number is, I think, to represent it graphically.
The fat bit just before 7.5 indicates where lots of votes went for Croatia, with a few higher and a few more lower. Croatia has an average of 6.73 and a standard deviation of 1.27. Basically, there’s a lot of agreement that is a really good, but not spectacular, song, with a few people rating it higher and a few lower. The highest score was a 9, while the lowest was a 4.5. The curve suggests what the distribution might be if there were more people in the Wiwijury.
On its own, though, that doesn’t tell us much. Let’s put them all together and see what we get.
This list is sorted by average, which actually suggests that the average is a pretty good indicator of how good a song is – remember, the fatter a section is, the more Wiwijurors went for that score for that song. However, it does provide some possible insights for how songs close to each other might do.
Let’s start at the top. France and Malta are an interesting pair to consider and raises a really interesting question about how we interpret these graphs: how far from in from the right should we go? If we were just looking at scores of ten, we would clearly rather be France than Malta. Because France has a longer tail, though, there comes a point at which Malta has more high scores than France. If we say that votes from the Wiwijury of 9+ translate to points from the public televote and the professional juries, France is in the better position. If it’s 8+, they’re probably very close. If it’s 7+, it’s probably Malta that will edge it.
This brings us onto Switzerland. With the caveat from the paragraph above, I think we might actually expect, based on Wiwijury ratings, France and Malta to do better than Switzerland, even though their averages are lower, as they have more of the highest scores. That’s best seen with France – it has a long tail to the left of people who aren’t as keen on the song, which drags the average down. However, you can’t vote against songs.
On a similar basis, I think we might expect Italy to do better than the average would suggest. I’m a little worried about the UK; James Newman is piling up the sevens, but few scores higher than that. Of course, a fantastic stage show would help, and the gaps between verses and lyrics, and the refrain of ‘light up the room!’ suggest that there’s going to be fireworks from Blighty, figuratively and possibly literally.
Portugal have entered another song that I love that no-one else seems to (I still listen to ‘O Jardim’), but the bulge to the right of its ridgeline suggests they might do better than the average suggests (unless those are all the Wiwijurors who know the story behind the song). You can see how controversial Germany is with how wide its distribution is. I think Ukraine might do worse than its average suggests (which makes me sad, as I will almost certainly be voting for GO_A on the night) as it has a peak at around seven and a long tail to the right. Austria might be above where the average would indicate, and so on.
I might look back at previous years and see how well something like mean plus standard deviation, or mean plus interquartile range, of Wiwijury results ranks performances against their actual results. Of course, the Wiwijury results don’t take into account stage performances, national voting patterns and so on, but it’s interesting nonetheless. I suspect that there’ll be a score that effective translates into votes/not votes, and that will answer some of the questions above. Another alternative would be to use a Borda count to rank the songs, as we know how each juror voted.
* Wiwibloggs drops the highest and lowest score when calculating their average to deal with bias; I don’t think there’s a good statistical reason to do that, so I don’t do it.
Papa Nurgle’s blessings
The arrival of the blessings of Papa Nurgle mean that I’ve not played in person for over a year, but I have been playing a bit on Tabletop Simulator. It’s not the same, but it does mean you can try various lists before buying and painting the models.
The list I’ve run a few times lately is 2 company commanders, a tank commander with demolisher cannon, 6 infantry squads, 3 squads of seven bullgryns with slabshields, 2 Ministorum priests, 2 full payload Manticores, 2 Chimeras, and a Vindicare assassin.
I think the core of the list – lots of squads, lots of bullgryns, lots of Manticores – works. I do quite well on primary objectives, and can effectively prevent deepstrikes, by virtue of just having so many bodies. The Manticores provide somewhat unpredictable amounts of damage, but at effectively unlimited range and without needing line of sight.
The issue I’ve had is with secondary objectives. I’m generally going for engage on all fronts and raise the banners high, and then picking another one. The assassin is there to try, obviously, to get the assassinate secondary objective. I suspect I’m not playing the assassin effectively, but combined with another problem with the list, it leads me to rethink things a little. The tank commander is generally destroyed on turn one or two. That in and of itself isn’t a bad thing – it’s soaking up an awful lot of damage – but it does mean that it’s not worth investing points in sponson weapons or, indeed, making it a tank commander instead of a regular Leman Russ. I’m thinking I might be better off ditching the tank commander and the assassin, and running two Leman Russes instead. That would provide more high toughness wounds, and hopefully divert attention away from everything else.
An alternative variation is to drop the tanks altogether along with two of the squads and have Scions and Valkyries flying around.
I’m going to keep playing around with different lists and I don’t want to buy loads of models yet, but it does seem that I’m going to be running 60+ infantry, a lot of bullgryns, and a couple of Manticores as the core of my army.
League 1: the 6P principle
A teacher of mine at junior school told me once of the 6P principle – proper planning prevents pathetically poor performances. Unfortunately, the officer commanding the Neotian Saints did not prepare well and the performance was, well, predictable.
My first big mistake was putting my Tank Commander – a Leman Russ with the Hammer of Sunderance – front and centre. It was destroyed immediately by a charging Helbrute. Until the Greater Good came out, I was in the habit of running a Tank Commander with a Punisher gatling gun, which has a ran of 24″ and so it would generally sit there to deal with any infantry rushing up the board (or, frankly, with forty gatling gun shots and nine heavy bolter rounds, anything at all rushing up the board). As currently equipped with the Hammer of Sunderance, though, it has a range of 72″. It can reach across most of the battlefield and blow stuff up from a great distance. Given the investment in points and that I was planning to pour command points in to make maximum use of the big gun on top, losing it first turn was a big blow.
That leads me on to the second and third points. One is that I didn’t have a backup plan for losing such a bit asset. There’s no good way or time to lose something so valuable, but it’s likely to happen. The other is that I really didn’t think in advance how I could spend my big stack of command points. Part of that is that I forgot to bring my reference cards – it sounds stupid, but having a stack of cards is a big help and rushing around to get ready to head out meant that I forgot to bring them. Even so, I should have had an idea of what I was going to be spending them on and, indeed, what I could spend them on. Normally, I wouldn’t use the stratagem to automatically pass morale tests as it wasn’t worth the CP, but it changes when you’re halfway through a battle and you still have eight left.
My opponent did well, aside from some confusion with the rules, and both made the opening and then took advantage of it. The Armoured Sentinels performed well again. I needed to move them and a line of infantry forward more aggressively; I lost the match 13-4 because I wasn’t taking the objective markers (obviously). I’m going to need to rethink how I’m deploying at the start of the game. All the above said, my troops held on pretty well. The Scions didn’t last that long – I may actually start with them on the board and see how they do instead of dropping them in from orbit.
I have a friendly game before round 2 of the tournament, so I’ll try tweaking a few things.
Task Force Carabid
My local 40k group is starting a league and I’m taking part. Over recent weeks, I’ve been running variations on a minimal guard battalion with an assortment of tanks, artillery, Scions, bullgryns, and Starstriders added on, and I’ve come up with some thoughts on what my list will be.
Whenever I’m working out whether the points cost of a unit is worth it, my question has become if I’d rather have the equivalent points value of standard infantry. Particularly as I’m usually running three artillery pieces, I need plenty of infantry to screen them before I even think about taking objectives. More than once, I’ve had to do a hurried redeployment as something gribbly starts coming towards one of those big hitters and, even if it works, it’s inefficient. Bullgryns are great, but three isn’t enough and, at 40 points a model, they start becoming expensive. The Elucidian Starstrides are a huge amount of fun, and potentially work as a sort of distraction carnifex because no-one’s seen them, but their best use is sitting on an objective and being really difficult to shift. The Valkyrie isn’t worth the points cost unless you’re doing an alpha strike; it doesn’t put out enough damage to warrant its inclusion, and it doesn’t add anything to the Scions’ deep strike ability except arriving on turn one.
Given the above, I’ve decided to run a brigade formation. Between the points spent on the extra troops and the fast attack choices needed to run a brigade, it means that I have to take one less ‘fun’ thing – the Valkyrie, bullgryns, Starstriders, etc. – but it means that I have a more coherent force and, crucially, lots of command points to spend each match.
The fast attack option I’m taking is three Armoured Sentinels. I ran them as a single unit in a battalion in my last game and, well, they’re tough little buggers. There’s a stratagem from Greater Good that allows particularly accurate shooting in the first round, allowing them to run up the battlefield and pop off a few shots, that was particularly good. However, it only applies to a single unit, and I’m having to run three units of one Sentinel. The ideal would be to have them in a single unit to maximise the effectiveness of the stratagem, perhaps with Rough Riders taking up the other two fast attack slots. However, I don’t have the Rough Riders built and I do have a second Leman Russ tank built.
That stratagem comes from the new Greater Good book. There’s another stratagem in there that, along with the Hammer of Sunderance from Vigilus Defiant, makes for a Leman Russ that kick out an enormous amount of damage – 6 shots instead of D6, and 3 damage instead of D3 damage. If the tank it’s on moves less than half speed, it fires twice, so that’s a potential thirty-six wounds flying out of the barrel. It does require a couple of CP a turn to use the stratagem, hence the attraction of the 12CP from the brigade detachment.
The other big change from Greater Good is custom regiments; instead of choosing a regiment that gives you a couple of bonuses, you can choose two bonuses from a list. Taking a custom regiment instead of one of the standard regiments isn’t a no-brainer; there are some really good options amongst the standard regiments that aren’t available from the custom list, and they also bring some unique stratagems and characters. However, the combination of longer rapid fire range for the infantry and healing wounds for the vehicles seems too good a combination to pass up for a mixed infantry and artillery brigade. There are also new regimental doctrines available for Scions.
The ‘fun’ bit I am including is a battalion of Scions. They don’t last long, but they provide mobility to what can be quite a static army and they can deliver a real punch when needed. I do just love the models and the flavour of them. I’ve reconfigured the squads a bit, and they’re not getting any vehicles. I hope it all works. The doctrine I’m taking gives them an extra six inches of range, and so an extra three inches of rapid fire range. That means they can deep strike and immediately be in rapid fire range.
Here is the list for what I’ve named Task Force Carabid. The Carabidae are the ground beetles, which includes bombardier beetles; it felt appropriate for the amount of artillery.
Task Force Carabid – Order of Battle
- 267th Neotian Saints Brigade
- Regimental Doctrine
- Disciplined Shooters (Rapid fire within 18”)
- Jury-rigged Repairs (Vehicles repair each turn)
- HQ [248pts]
- Tank Commander [188pts]: Battle Cannon [22pts], Emperor’s Fist, Heavy Bolter [8pts], Heavy Bolters [16pts], Relic (Emperor’s Fist): Hammer of Sunderance, Up-armoured, Warlord
- Company Commander [30pts]: Chainsword, Laspistol
- Company Commander [30pts]: Chainsword, Laspistol
- Troops [240pts]
- Infantry Squad [40pts]. 9x Guardsman [36pts]. Sergeant [4pts]: Laspistol
- Infantry Squad [40pts]. 9x Guardsman [36pts]. Sergeant [4pts]: Laspistol
- Infantry Squad [40pts]. 9x Guardsman [36pts]. Sergeant [4pts]: Laspistol
- Infantry Squad [40pts]. 9x Guardsman [36pts]. Sergeant [4pts]: Laspistol
- Infantry Squad [40pts]. 9x Guardsman [36pts]. Sergeant [4pts]: Laspistol
- Infantry Squad [40pts]. 9x Guardsman [36pts]. Sergeant [4pts]: Laspistol
- Elites [67pts]
- Astropath [21pts]: Telepathica Stave [6pts]
- Commissar [16pts]: Bolt pistol [1pts]
- Master of Ordnance [30pts]: Relic: Kurov’s Aquila
- Fast Attack [9 PL, 120pts]
- Armoured Sentinel [40pts]: Plasma Cannon [10pts]
- Armoured Sentinel [40pts]: Plasma Cannon [10pts]
- Armoured Sentinel [40pts]: Plasma Cannon [10pts]
- Heavy Support [491pts]
- Basilisk [108pts]: Heavy Bolter [8pts]
- Leman Russ Battle Tank [10 PL, 137pts]: Battle Cannon [22pts], Heavy Bolter [8pts]
- Manticore [8 PL, 133pts]: Heavy Bolter [8pts]
- Wyvern [6 PL, 113pts]: Heavy Bolter [8pts]
- Regimental Doctrine
- 43rd Iotan Dragons Battalion
- Regimental doctrine
- 43 Iotan Dragons: +6” to range of rapid fire weapons
- HQ
- Tempestor Prime [35pts]: Hot-shot Laspistol
- Tempestor Prime [35pts]: Hot-shot Laspistol
- Troops
- Militarum Tempestus Scions [114pts]. 5x Scion with Hot-shot lasgun [35pts]. 4x Scion with Plasma gun [72pts]. Tempestor [7pts]: Chainsword, Hot-shot Laspistol
- Militarum Tempestus Scions [114pts]. 5x Scion with Hot-shot lasgun [35pts]. 4x Scion with Plasma gun [72pts]. Tempestor [7pts]: Chainsword, Hot-shot Laspistol
- Militarum Tempestus Scions [3 PL, 35pts]. 4x Scion [28pts]. Tempestor [7pts]: Chainsword, Hot-shot Laspistol
- Regimental doctrine
1499 points
Command points
Battle-forged +3
Brigade +12
Battalion +5
Emperor’s Fist Tank Company -1
Tank Ace -1
Imperial Commander’s Armoury -1
Total 17
Big guns never tire
I’ve still not had time for playing or for the hobby, but I’ve been thinking about lists. In the last game I played, against Colin’s Genestealer Cults, I ran a mixed Imperial Guard/Adeptus Mechanicus army with my Elucidean Starstriders. Running three factions was just too much. The Elucidean Starstriders are effectively one super-squad, so didn’t cause that much of a problem, but I’m not familiar enough with either the Guard or the AdMech to run the lists quickly or effectively. In the end, the game was a narrow loss because of a tactical mistake on my part, but I’m sure I’d have been in a better position if I hadn’t been desperately trying to remember everything.
The other realisation from that game was that Leman Russ tanks aren’t all that. For the points, they just don’t last long enough. The Punisher variant is genuinely good against light infantry, but I seem to end up relying on bolters on the hull and sponson mounts to damage anything with any armour instead of the big weapon on top.
So, I’ve come up with a pretty simple artillery brigade.
- HQ
- 3x Company Commanders
- Troops
- 6x Infantry Squad (9 Guards and 1 Sergeant)
- Elites
- 2x Bullgryn Squad (2 Bullgryns and 1 Bullgryn Bone ‘ead all with slab shields and Bullgryn mauls)
- Ministorum Priest
- 2x Master of Ordnance
- Fast Attack
- Armoured Sentinel (Lascannon, chainsaw, hunter-killer missile)
- Armoured Sentinel (Heavy flamer, chainsaw, hunter-killer missile)
- Armoured Sentinel (Plasma cannon, chainsaw, hunter-killer missile)
- Heavy Support
- 3x Basilisks
- 2x Wyverns
- 1x Manticore
The original idea was to have three Basilisks and three Wyverns. In the end, though, I thought I was better off spending the extra points elsewhere – going from a squad of 5 Bullgryns to two squads of three, an extra Master of Ordnance, and putting more weapons than just the stock multi-laser on the Sentinels.
Combined with what I already have, it would offer me quite a lot of flexibility, and I think it would work reasonably well as a defensive army. Where it might struggle is seizing and holding objectives. It would be fun, though.
Taking it as an Emperor’s Wrath Artillery Company might be effective – for 2CP, one of the artillery pieces can shoot twice. With the warlord trait, 6s to hit gain -1 AP, while the heirloom ignores cover. The Masters of Ordnance allow re-rolls to hit. The Catachan doctrine allows rerolling to determine the number of hit dice.
In terms of playing the army, I see all the artillery in one or two blobs, with extensive bubble wrapping from the infantry. The Sentinels and Bullgryns will be at the front to deal with whatever comes forward, with a couple of infantry squads and a commander moving forward to help out as needed.
The Brigade of Scions
I’ve been getting back into 40k lately. The past few months haven’t given me much time to play, but I have been thinking about how I want to develop my army from its current, small beginnings. I’ve rather fallen for the Militarum Tempestus Scions. I have a couple of squads that I would use with my Imperial Guard, and frankly had more fun and use out of them than regular guardsmen. That may well be lack of experience and skill on my part rather than anything else, but I started to want more Scions to put on the field when Vigilus Defiant came out and I could use the drop squad specialist detachment.
The big issues with the Militarum Tempestus is their very limited unit choice. They only have three distinct units from which to choose – a squad of five Scions, a command squad of four Scions, and the Tempestor Prime. They do have access to other units, but they’re shared with the rest of the Astra Militarum and, indeed, Imperium in different ways. Assuming you stick with Scions, it’s only possible to field a battalion, as there just aren’t the units to fill out other detachments. I also want my Scions to benefit from the Militarum Tempestus doctrine, which they can only really get if they’re in a detachment by themselves.
However, I also like the idea of fielding a brigade, both from a flavour point of view – a combined arms unit that isn’t just squads and squads of soldiers – and because it builds in flexibility that is useful in the game. It would look pretty amazing, too. So, the plan is to build a brigade in terms of units, even if it doesn’t give me the nine extra command points.
A brigade requires 3 to 5 HQ choices, 6 to 12 troops, 3 to 8 elites, 3 to 5 fast attack, 3 to 5 heavy support, and up to two flyers. For each unit choice, there is a detachment that specialises in them – battalion for troops, vanguard for elites, outrider for fast attack, and spearhead for heavy support.
Dealing with the troops is straightforward. In a battalion detachment, there will be three Tempestor Primes (Tempestors Prime?) and six squads of Scions. The Primes will have command rods, so an order is possible to each squad.
The elites are a bit more complicated. Ideally, I’d have three Scions command squads in a vanguard detachment; however, you have to have a Tempestor Prime for each Command Squad, and a vanguard only allows two HQ choices. I could put the Command Squads in the battalion, but then I’m losing out on orders from the Tempestor Primes. I think I’m going to go, then, for two Tempestor Primes, two Militarum Tempestus Command Squads, and another elite. I’m sure Commissar Severina Raine would happily deploy with the Scions.
Onto the heavy support. While the Leman Russ in all its forms is loved for good reason, I don’t think it fits an army based on mobility and the look just isn’t right. Instead, I want to go for the faster, lighter Carnodon (which also has gold bits, which the Scions will love). The big loss is Grinding Advance. To make up for this somewhat, I’m going to make the detachment Tallarn, allowing them to move and fire heavy weapons from vehicles without penalty. Loaded up with volkite weaponry, they should be able to move forward and still deal out damage. The HQ would be a Lord Commissar.
Next up is the fast attack. The plan is to kitbash together some Scions with some of the Genestealer Cults’ Atalan Jackals motorcyclists to count as Rough Riders. I’m hoping that I’ll just have to use the heads and torsos from the Scions, but we’ll see. I’ve seen similar ideas using Space Marine bikes, and regular Astra Militarum with Atalan Jackals, but not Scions and Jackals, so it might be a bit unusual. The HQ would be a Primaris Psyker.
The last bit is some transport. Depending on points and budget, I’ll put in a couple of Valkyries (to drop people from) and Taurox Primes. Both are great for mobility, soak up and dish out a surprising amount of damage, and, in the case of the Valkyries, do some wonderful things with the Drop Force rules.
The army would look something like
- Battalion
- HQ
- 2x Tempestor Prime
- Troops
- 6x Scions (4 Scions and 1 Tempestor)
- HQ
- Vanguard
- HQ
- 2x Tempestor Prime
- Elites
- 2x MT Command Squad
- Commissar Severina Raine
- HQ
- Spearhead
- HQ
- Lord Commissar
- Heavy Support
- 3x Carnodon
- HQ
- Outrider
- HQ
- Primaris Psyker
- Fast Attack
- 3x Rough Riders (4 Rough Riders and a Rough Rider sergeant)
- HQ
- Flyer
- 2x Valkyire
That comes in somewhere around 1400 points, so I have plenty of room with which to play.
Cambs4Corbyn and anti-Semitism
I am proposing the following motion to Huntingdon CLP regarding the Cambs4Corbyn Facebook page. The reasons for it are obvious if you read the motion’s text and particularly if you follow the links at the end. I’ve added what I said in the meeting at the end of the motion under ‘remarks’.
Continue reading “Cambs4Corbyn and anti-Semitism”