League Game #3

On the distant world of Xanthia Prime the Imperial mining colony came under attack from a despicable band of chaos warriors. Descending from the stars they murdered and rampaged their way across half the planet before help came from the Salamanders. Descending to the surface en masse, the 3rd company led the assault the foul sorcerer who led this motley band.

So today I got my third game in early. This time against Richard with his foul Chaos marines. Our mission was a simple kill points one with a pitched battle deployment. Maybe I was just over confident but Richard is one of those players who I rarely have any trouble defeating, and I figured this game would be no different.

As with all my games lately it has been really atrocious dice rolls on my part that hurt my game. I don't think there was anything I could have done differently. Or at least with the dice rolls it wouldn't have mattered anyway. He was playing heavy plasma spam in his list and his rolls were spot on. I think he lost one marine to a over-heating plasma gun and that was it. Otherwise his rolls to hit and wound were well above average. I lost three thunderhammer/storm shield terminators to four shots from plasma in one round of shooting. Just terrible. I evened out by taking down his sorcerer lord and terminator escort with ease.

I'm not going to grumble about how poor generic marines are in close combat but as with any time I play against chaos marines it was assault that wipes my units out. He did good targetting the rhino's, which promptly wrecked or exploded, and then assaulting the poor unit as it emerged.

However by turn 5 I had equalised our kill points, and then turn 6 jumped one ahead. Richard then equalised at the end of turn 6. The game went to the final 7th turn where I assaulted his remaining rhino destroying it in a nice explosion that killed the remaining terminator and gave him the winning KP.

Good game but frustrating.

League Game #2

Just before Christmas I got my second early league game done. Jon played his Ultramarine army. I'll edit this post tomorrow to include his list. Our mission was First Contact from the battle missions book with myself as the attacker.
Jon rolled for his random deployment and most of his army ended up deployed in one corner. He didn't do what I expected. I did expect a newbie move to place his units in the center of his sections auto holding the objectives. He didn't do this and instead deployed on the edge of the board. My units ended up on the same corner as his which was not helpful at all.

I didn't do too badly I think. Lysander went down under a series of thunder hammer blows and I did a grand job whittling units down, but the dice and an untouched land raider were all in Jon's favour. The game went to turn 6 if I remember right, and Jon won with three objectives to my one.

Was a good fun game but I still got mullered primarily by close combat. I just couldn't seem to make armour saves even on a 3+. So that's two losses so far. Not a good start. I have a reasonable list but it's causing me to have doubts now. Not that I even had a chance of winning.

Better luck next time.

More Chaos Legions rumours

As always take with a pinch of salt...

They're expanding the current story line greatly, and including much of the inner alliances, distrust and full fledged war within the 9 Traitor Legions. References to the Black Legion and their "arrogance" will help better paint the picture.

Models...interesting that a previous poster (i forget their name) mentioned Cult Terminator Shoulder pads...because i've recently been told that there is a NEWISH sprue to be released along with several boxed sets of Chaos Marines. The ability to build any Legion out of the basic NEW boxed set along with Legion specific sprue sets which are to include just heads and shoulder pads. I also hear that the Terminator version will also be available, but not sure if they'll come with power armor sprues. Suppose to be Direct Only.

I got a lil' more news on the upcoming Monstrous Creature...can have Marks of the Gods, but not all Legions can take it. Apparently Night Lords and the Alpha Legion prefer more subtle and stealthy approaches.

Death Guard gain a new ability (maybe Chosen squads only ?) that allows their poisoned attacks to ignore Armor Saves on a roll of a '6', much similar to Rending without the extra Armor Pen.

Daemonic Mounts actual are useful now! The undivided version will be "worth while" for the non-Marked Legions.

Thousand Sons will be VERY pleased with their new found speed.

Iron Warriors become "siege specialists" which equivalents to Tank Hunters and reducing cover saves on enemy units!

Word Bearers are "zealots" and benefit from Chaplains as well as Turn 1 Daemon Summoning. New Daemonancers models are suppose to be SICK looking, but I believe just unit champ upgrades.

Emperor's Children have a haughtiness to them, but prideful, which may give them counter charge (on top of their already higher Initiative). More heavy weapons upgrades per squad, and their Chosen will be...scary fast!

Alpha Legion apparently have the greatest access to Imperial style vehicles, as well as more of an unlimited Force Org slot selections, next to the Black Legion. Much of their Army will be able to upgrade to "Infiltrators".

Black Legion, aka Sons of Horus, aka Luna Wolves are tentatively stubborn, and have greatest selection amongst the units/vehicles. HOWEVER, they're not fully trusted, not sure how this works out in game terms.

World Eaters truly become the combat monsters they're story lined to be. Marked Dreads, and Daemon Engines will be a prime staple in most Armies...

I can't say that the Thousand Sons basic troop will get heavy weapons per say, but their new psychic upgrades will pretty much "counts as".

Chaos Daemons review

League Game #1

The hated Eldar have appeared from nowhere and swept through the Coronas sector, obliterating Imperial holdings on every planet they reach. World after world has fallen. The local system governor sent an urgent call for assistance. The Salamander's second company responded and set down to halt the alien advance.

Since my friend Joel and have had handed in our tournament lists we decided to help speed things up a little and played our league game early last night. Our mission was Black Crusade from the battle missions book, a mission that neither of us had ever played before. A learning experience for us both. Special rules were that any non-vehicle units that are destroyed return to reserves and can come in again, non-fearless units are stubborn and everyone has preferred enemy. Kill points determine the winner. Neither of us had lists that favoured this mission but my opponent's choices gave him the edge here.

Enemy forces:
Eldar - Iyanden

HQ
Eldrad Ulthran (counts as).

Troops
10 Wraithguard, Spirit Seer with Conceal.
10 Wraithguard, Spirit Seer with Conceal.
10 Dire Avengers with Exarch, extra Avenger Shuriken Catapult & Bladestorm.
With dedicated transport - Wave Serpent, Spirit Stones, Twin-linked Shuriken Cannons & Shuriken Cannon (replacing Catapults).

Heavy Support
3 War Walkers, 2 Scatter Lasers each.
Wraithlord, 2x Flamers, Bright Lance, Eldar Missile Launcher.
Wraithlord, 2x Flamers, Bright Lance, Wraithsword.

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A very tough game for me. The mission certainly favoured close combat armies and I didn't have that sort of list. Neither did Joel but the toughness of his forces worked in his favour to even that out. I lost my predator tank first turn before it got to do anything, and I went through my terminators about four times and I don't how many times my tactical squads were recycled.
After the match Joel and I talked about the game as we packed it all away, and I don't think there was much more that I could have done. Joel thinks his list is just a fun list and hardly competative, and he may be right, but it's going to be a tough list for most players in the league to take down.

My opponent won with 13 kill points to my 4.

The Imperial forces were decimated under the relentless Eldar attack. Then as suddenly as they had appeared, the war host vanished leaving a trail of devastated worlds in their wake. It is unclear at this time what the reason for their attack were, but the survivours of the Coronas sector watch the skies fearful that they may return.

Battle Report

Every Wednesday evening my mate DonRemus comes over and we have a 40K game. I have a mission list of about 69 missions and we are playing them in order being able to adjust our lists each week to accommodate the mission and anything we want to try. He plays Black Legion and I my Salamanders. At the moment I am testing my tournament list ready for January.

Last night was Urban Assault from Cities of Death, though we are using Planetstrike stratagems rather than the poor ones in CoD. DonRemus pulled out Abaddon the Despoiler for this game. I was quite pleased as I haven't had the opportunity to play against him for over a couple years. None of the local CSM players seem to want to play this awesome character for some reason.

I knew from the moment that he pulled out the 60-odd chaos marines that I had no hope in Hell of ever winning this game. With that in mind I decided to play exclusively for the draw. Sometimes you know that that is your only option. We both had terrible dice rolls and that helped me out, as did my drop pod deviating into a narrow gap preventing his rhinos from getting where they wanted. Emperor's guidance I like to see that as.  I had to sacrifice a couple units to slow the advance but it worked. Didn't even get the opportunity to disembark kantor and the 5 TH/SS terminators either.

Turn 5 and the game ended. I might have managed to last turn 6 but I doubt it, and if it had gone to turn 7 I would have lost definitely.

So at the moment, our tally stands at a poor show of:

14 wins to DonRemus, 1 win to me, and 1 draw.

6th ed Chaos Rumours

6th Ed Wishlisting

Space Wolves codex review

Tournament list

In preparation for the major 2012 40K league at the Primarchs starting in January I am getting some practice in with my potential list. Subject to change but this is what I am currently testing out.

Pedro Kantor.
10 man tactical squad with meltagun, multimelta, and sarge with power weapon and plasma pistol. The unit has a drop pod.
10 man tactical squad with meltagun, multimelta, and sarge with power weapon and plasma pistol.
10 man tactical squad with meltagun, missile launcher, and sarge has chainsword and plasma pistol.
5 man terminator assault squad with thunder hammers and storm shields.
5 man terminator squad with assault cannon.
Land Speeder with multi-melta and Typhoon missile system.
Predator with lascannons.
Land Raider Redeemer.

1745pts.

So far it has drawn against the new Necron codex and lost the Chaos Marines (only because I could not kill off two obliterators!). Tonight I am going up against the chaos marines again in hopes that this time I might be able to do something.
What I really want to do is find a way to include a rhino for the other (non-missile launcher) squad. The drop pod is fine but for potential objective missions it's too foot slogging. Marines do not make good groundpounders.

Tau Rumours

I'm not sure whether it will be Black Templars or Tau next (probably Templars as GW likes to alternate between Imperial and Enemy codexes) but there are some new rumours out and about for the Tau.

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New Heavy support platform. Basically immobile deep striked! heavy weapon and crew. Rail and Ion Cannon, and missile launcher are all obvious options here, but nothing solid with the rumor.

Assault Skimmer. Something between size of piranha and hammerhead, fast skimmer open topped, assault on disembark.
Update: Yes, its assault after a flat out move, and has the "drop troops along path" option similar to the storm raven. its supposedly a dedicated transport option for one new unit. (I dont place faith in this last bit, its very rare in current GW systems to see a vehicle kit limited to one unit/role...if GW is trying to sell them they will be available to more than one unit, or be a separate entry unto itself.)

New Drop ship. Not the FW one, but something new. Holds a boatload of fire warriors, or a few battle suits.

New battle suits. Not sure if these are the "next gen" suits or just heavy suits redone with out metal bits.

All current metal sets to be plastic (Pathfinders, Krootox, Vespids). New plastics are completed for Crisis Suits, Stingwings and Pathfinders.

Plastic Barracuda as well as a new unit choice, which will be a new alien race (insert your fantasy here).

Battle Suits - plug and play system. Essentially streamlined. Pick two guns and a skill or two skills and a gun. New models with interchangeable arms similar to Killa Kans?


Rule Changes

HQ and Troops
HQ choices are used to unlock units for troops, so a commander in a Crisis Suit unlocks Crisis Suits as troops, an Etheral unlocks Fire Warriors, Shaper unlocks Kroot.

Crisis Suits
Mostly same stats but now 3 wounds, come with every gun option and you can choose what weapon systems you fire every round. Max squad size x 5

Broadsides
Can take Network Markerlights instead of the missiles on their arms

Hammerhead Railgun
Draws a line across the table hitting everything under it. Multiple penetration through vehicles, only stopped by a glancing hit.

Shield Generator
Only team leaders can take a shield generator. The shield generator functions exactly like the DE Shadowfield. 2+ invulnerable save until the first failed save at which point it ceases to work.

Drones
No longer bought as Wargear. They are bought as a unit and then divided as you see fit at the start of the match. You can mix your drones when bought for the point cost needed. This caters for Drone Squadrons as an option.

Markerlight
One markerlight can fire the seekers off one model. Seekers replenish and are no longer one use items. Skyrays will only be able to fire one seeker per round.

1. Kroot HQ is in the works!
2. Kroot to get own transport (Devilfish will no longer be able to transport Kroot)
3. Kroot will get light armor saves (6+)
4. Kroot shaper will allow for the unit to have a special genetic trait.
5. Firewarrior carbine to get a grenade launcher (either explosive or EMP)
6. Vespids reworked and getting a Heavy unit
7. Firewarrior BS increased to 4
8.Crisis suits will get “hit and run” ability
9. Various changes to Firewarrior equipment
10. Various changes to Crisis suit equipment
11. New Prototypes
12. 4th edition prototypes now “standard” equipment for all suits
13. All HQ’s can act as a commander
14. New type of “Heavy” Battlesuit (new prototype of the Broadside)
15. Stealth suits will be changed to a advanced scout unit similar to Pathfinders
16. Pathfinders will be changed to act as a type of Tau Commando infantry

and now we have:

General Codex rumours
Not the next book, but probably after Black Templars

Author may be Phil Kelly

Army has 4 basic HQs and 3 basic troop choices excluding changes made by any Special Characters if there are any

Return of 4 old SC, plus 2-4 new ones

No Court of the Archon/henchmen type mixed units

New Tau models
New SC "Iceheart"

Crisis suits have been completely redesigned (not just recut sprues and ankle tweaks), less boxy and including a 'morphic weapon'

New sniper suit

Shas'O get a stealth armour option, may be an experimental suit like Shadowsuns, or the experimental suit might be a third option

Allies and Auxiliaries

Vespids get two slots (unknown if this is an additional two, or two overall). Kroot get an additional unit

No Knarloc riders,though perhaps something big (new WFB monster-szied) for the Kroot

Maybe minor psychic powers for Shapers or Shaper like character this is something Ghost has heard from other people and not stated directly

Demiurg have 1 HQ, 1 troop and maybe 1 else. Presumably the Elite choice mentioned elsewhere

Demiurg ancients are a thing Probably HQ, but could also be the elite unit

Possible Demiurg elite choice

Demiurg are "equal to banshees without the scream" so presumably anti-armour close combat, or at least have that as an option. This might also be elite unit rather than the troop one, or be a unit that does both - like a kit that would let you make Boyz and Ard Boyz (or Dwarfs and Longbeards). An elite unit, but being an upgrade to a troop slot to keep out the way of the battlesuits

Demiurg and one other new race join the army, the latter being something bizarre or at least something we've not seen before.

No Gue'vesa unit or models

No Nicassar

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Ok, so basically I am holding my breath in the hopes that the Demiurge do make it as the "other" race and that you can technically field an entire army of them. It's the only way I am going to get a Squat army. I am also hoping that we see a plastic Knarloc. The idea of Squats with dinosaurs would rock.

Blood Angels Codex review

Necron Battle review

I've had one game against the new Necron codex now. 1750pt game vs my Salamanders. Pitched battle and 4 objectives.

The result was a draw with one objective each but only because one of my tactical marines refused to die no matter what was thrown at him. He has since been promoted to squad sergeant.

Ok, so what did I think? I was expecting a game where I was really on the backfoot but I found the new army to be a good challenge without being too silly. If some of the new units had been involved then things may have been different. The reanimation protocols proved to be just as irritating as it used to be when it was "We'll Be Back" but at least now I can react to it better. Some things seem to be weaker than they used to be. Destroyers, I'm looking at you, and the monolith wasn't the threat it used to be thankfully.

I think the new codex is nice but thankfully not as powerful as it could have been.

Necron Codex Review

Competitive or Casual

New Necron Units

For some reason I can't post the vid standard but heres the link for a good preview. Thoughts?

Necron Preview Vid

Old Missions Revisted part 2

RECON.

This mission attempts to represent a stalemate conflict where both sides desperately need information on enemy deployments and strengths. Both armies send a small force to reconnoitre across no man's land into enemy territory to test their defences.

Deployment.
The table is divided lengthways into two halves, by drawing an imaginary line through the middle of the short table edges.
The players roll off and the winner chooses to go first or second. The player that goes first then chooses one of the long table edges to be his table edge. He then deploys his force in his half of the table, with all models more than 12'' away from the table's middle line. His opponent then deploys in the opposite half.
Deploy any infiltrators and make any scout moves.

Reserves.

Any units not initially deployed on the table must be placed in reserve.

First Turn.
The player that chose his deployment zone first starts the game.

Objective.
Both players must attempt to get as many scoring units into the enemy deployment zone as possible. The player with the most scoring units in the enemy’s deployment zone at the end of the game is the winner.

Special Rules.
Night Fighting rules are in effect for turn 1.

Old Missions Revisted part 1

An old classic that I am shocked didn't appear in the 5th edition codex.


CLEANSE.
This mission represents the calm after a major planetary invasion. The enemy has been scattered into the surrounding countryside and must be hunted down before they can regroup for a counter attack.

 

Deployment.

The table is divided into four quarters, formed by drawing two imaginary perpendicular lines through the center of the table. 

The players roll off and the winner chooses to go first or second. The player that goes first then chooses one of the long table edges to be his own table edge. He then deploys his force in one of the two table quarters on his side of the table, more than 12'' away from the center of the table. His opponent then deploys in the diagonally opposite corner.

Deploy any infiltrators and make any scout moves.

Reserves.

Any units not initially deployed on the table must be placed in reserve.

First Turn.

The player that chose his deployment zone first starts the game.

Objectives.

The objective is to control as many table quarters as possible. To control a table quarter there must be no enemy units (scoring or otherwise) and at least one scoring unit of your own in the quarter. A unit can only occupy one quarter – if one is spread over two quarters roll randomly to see which they are attempting to hold. The player who controls the most table quarters is the winner.

Special Rules.

None.

New necrons leaked

Sisters of Battle codex review

A review of the new Sisters of Battle codex that came out recently in the White Dwarf magazine.

Space Marine and Ork codex reviews

This is my first review, and I chose space marines because (a) I play them and know them very very well, and (b) being part of the Black Reach set I figured it made sense. I get pretty scathing on this codex but I think it's fair considering.

Then we have my Ork review, also to go along with Black Reach.

A few weeks back I made a video for Youtube as an introduction to 40K. Figured I may as well post it up here. As I go along I plan on doing some more video reviews.

Playing for fun

A couple of days ago a friend and I had the afternoon free so decided to meet up around his house for a friendly 1500pt 40K game. I was playing my Salamanders and he was playing Chaos Space Marines. The outcome of the game was a victory for my opponent but it was one of the best, if not the best, game of 40K I have ever had. What made this game so special? Simply, it was played for fun. Neither of us fielded a powerful list and we didn't go all out to win at all costs. In fact my opponent made a conscious decision that could have cost him the game but took that play because it was fun and made in-game sense.

It has made me wonder why more players don't play for the fun of the game, rather than to win at all costs? In my experience even if a player isn't a WAAC type, they still play very competitive. I think the game would be better if games were far more friendly and less competitive. Play for the fun of it rather than to crush your opponent.