Wednesday 29 August 2012

Apocalypse Review






Now, I love the look of the new Chaos models in this set but I do find myself wishing that they would go back to how Chaos Marines looked under 1st ed (Rogue Trader). They weren't just spikey marines they looked like these new guys, all twisted and mutated by their devotion to the dark gods.
That last one... GW did a whole range of heavy weapon CSM at the time, and most of them had mutations. I had one that had a skull head on a long neck with a flamer of tzeench's body. Another had three arms, one of which was a tentacle holding the base of the heavy wepaon. These were much better than the spikey marines they do now. The look of the DV box CSM remind me much more of the 1st ed marines. I hope they keep this design with upcoming releases.

IG vs Marines

A couple nights ago I played my friend Matt in what is supposedly our first ever 40K game together. Not going to cover the report as it has largely slipped around in my head and his blog does it more justice.

You can read it here.

I expected tank heavy and was not dissapointed. Despite that I decided to stick to my current standard list even though I didn't think it would do much to several tanks. I have never done well against Guard. Far too much concentrated firepower for marines to survive and some awesome cross table heavy weapons that wreck my Rhino's and Land Raiders. Under 6th they are exactly the same.

My biggest problem when facing Guard is that I find myself unable to properly coordinate target priority. For example, in this game I really wanted to do away with his heavy weapon teams but by the time my Redeemer got there I had already decimated the lascannon threats and then what? But then I don't play against Guard often enough (only two Guard players locally) to develop a proper play style against them.

I lost the game partly because of that and also because the mission where the objectives have different values, and Matt started with two high point ones in his deployment right behind an Aegis line.

A very good game. One of the more enjoyable of late.

Saturday 25 August 2012

Dark Vengeance



I wasn't going to bother but I may just get this for the models. It would be nice to have a small Dark Angels and Chaos Marines (Word Bearers) army. Will see once it comes out.

Friday 24 August 2012

Rumours

I've been reading through some rumours today for 40K. First up is a converstion kit for Sternguard. Resin bits including (and about time too dagnamit!) a combi-flamer. Finally. Only taken you how long to do that GW? But could be a nice handy dandy kit to get.

Secondly is the idea that the soon to be released DA codex and general FAQs will be giving missile launchers the anti-air missiles but by replacing the standard missiles. That makes no sense at all. I can see a points upgrade to have them as a third option but replacement just seems dumb. No one would bother since it makes the missile launcher guy far too specific.

Something else that has been bothering me lately is how the progress of the game is going to influence the use of flyers. At the moment flyers are proving to be a nice addition to the game. 6's needed to hit them but they are not so good that they unbalance the game. The problem that I can see is that as soon as all this anti-air hits the shelves, everyone is going to take it and suddenly flyers will not be worth playing anymore.

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Forge World: Horus Heresy


And so it begins (again), and (again) a trailer that shows you nothing useful.

Friday 10 August 2012

Battle Report

Last night at the club I played a friendly game against Joel. His first game of 6th edition. I played my 1500pt default list of marines, and he played a Tyranid list. I was expecting to face Eldar with wraithguard and wraithlords so this was kinda nice.

The deployment was the awful table corners (I forget the name) and the mission was three objectives. We both put an objective in our table corners and I had the third which I put as close to my side as I could hoping to keep them from the oncoming horde.

With his initial deployment of guants and a tervigon I was a little concerned but ultimately it didn't prove as irritating as it used to under 5th ed for some reason. First turn was night fight so I just tried to knock some wounds off his tervigon and he just crept forward.

Turn 2 and I continued to pour fire into the gaunts dropping loads of them and holding him back. His turn saw a winged hive tyrant, trygon and two zoanthropes (mycetic spores) drop out of reserve. The Trygon fires bioplasma and drops most of my scout squad guarding my main objective. The hive tyrant destroys one rhino leaving the marines standing in a crater pointing their guns at him. Zoanthropes knock a HP from the land raider redeemer.

Turn 3 and my Stormtalon turns up and blows the snot out of the trygon, and the scouts drop it to 1 wound remaining. Stormbolter on a rhino forced the winged hive tyrant to make a check which it failed, falling to the ground and taking a wound. The squad just a few inches away unload everything and slay the beast! Yay me! My captain and TH/SS terminators leap from my land raider and assault the zoanthropes who die far too easily.
His trygon assaults the scouts and kills them with ease, and the gaunts try to assault but three squads of them fail to reach even average distance and just sit there. At this point I think the game is likely to be a draw as we both hold an objective, he has first blood and I have the warlord kill, with the third objective likely to be contested.

Turn 4 his gaunts surround my terminators and assault them in huge waves, and the other squads leap onto the squad in the open. My second tactical squad retreats to hold my primary objective. Predator shots kill the trygon, and the Stormtalon hovers and opens fire onto the one gaunt squad it can still fire at.
His shooting takes out the Stormtalon which was irritating, but it had done well enough that I'm not complaining. His turn was pretty much just combat slowly whittling away at the two squads he's fighting.

Turn 5 was more combat and then finally he took out my captain and terminators and consolidated into my deployment zone. Matt rolled the dice and the game ended giving Joel the 1vp he needed to win.

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For some reason which I can't quite fathom this game was much easier than any other game I've had against tyranids. The only thing I can think of is that the overwatch and random charge helped me keep them back long enough to give me extra turns. Also, the trygon and hive tyrants have never been so easy to kill. Perhaps it was the plasma rather than meltas that helped?

Joel is not an easy opponent and he takes his fairly lengthy time but that was a good game.

Wednesday 8 August 2012

Stormtalon




Spent this evening working on the Stormtalon for my Sons of Tantalus chapter. She iswn't finished but the base colours are in place. Rakarth Flesh is a nice colour but it needs two or three coats to do it right where as one was fine for my captain. I'll be finishing her off probably over the weekend and then it's working on two tactical squads.

Battle for Tyken's Rift - 2013 Leagues


1. All games have a maximum limit of 1750pts.

2. The league will be split into two leagues of equal size. League #1 is for codex only games, and league #2 is for Forge World games. Each player will play each other player in their league once. Each round will (hopefully) be on a fortnightly basis (week 1 is league A, week 2 is league B, week 3 is league A, for example).

3. If you do not think for any reason that you cannot commit to the league schedule nor stay committed to the end then respectfully, please do not sign up.

4. At the start of the league each player specifies one codex that they will be using for the duration. Lists are not fixed and can be changed between rounds once players know who their opponent is and what the upcoming mission is.

5. Missions will be core rulebook and Battle Missions, using the Ultimate Challenge method. Missions 1-1, 1-2, and 1-3 will be the equivilent Death World missions (Battle Missions expansion) from White Dwarf #388 (April 2012).

6. Missions will be known in advance, giving players a fortnight to plan their list around their opponent's codex and the mission.

7. To update the Battle Missions scenarios to 6th edition, the following changes are being made:

* All objective missions will use the VP method, with objectives being worth 3VP.
*Secondary objectives will be used in all games.
*Night fighting and reserves rules from the 6th edition rulebook override those in Battle Missions.
*All objectives in objective missions will use the Mysterious Objectives rules.

8. Each game will have D2 random special terrain (table has been drawn up, see below) plus a Mysterious Forest.

9. If your army receives a new codex during the run of the league, you must do your best to upgrade as quickly as possible.

11. League scoring is 3vp for a win, 2vp for a draw, and 1vp for a loss.

The start date is currently the first week of February 2013

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Random special terrain generator

1. Ammunition dump.
2. Comms relay.
3. Fuel reserve.
4. Shield generators.
5. Warp storm. Page 367.
6. Minefield.
7. Archeotech artifact.
8. Shrine to chaos.
9. Imperial statuary.
10. Gun emplacement.
11. Lightning storm. Page 367.
12. Seismic cataclysm. Page 367.