Initial thoughts

Played my first game with the new Space Marine codex yesturday against my friend Muffin and his Dark Angels. Now I don't have any of the new units yet so I can't say what they are like just yet.

So, what did the new book do for me? Well, the points reductions throughout the book helped me take a command squad for my captain and a second dreadnought. This means that in a 1750pt game like we played I could in theory fit another marine unit in somewhere which is what I have been asking for for quite some time.

Secondly, I proxied some plasmaguns for gravguns to test them out (I was expecting to play against his CSM not terminator heavy DA). I hadn't been impressed with these too much in the book but by jingo they were awesome. First turn, one gravgun took out half a bike squad, and the other dealt a crippling strike to a unit of terminators which struck in on the second turn. They more than made themselves worthwhile and will be seeing future use in my army. But saying that, they are great if you know you are facing MEQs but random pick up games make them a poor choice.

In the next couple weeks I am planning a trip over to GW for some of the new toys and I can give my thoughts on them after play.

EC WIP

My Emperor's Children marine with sonic blaster. Can't wait to start painting him.

Space Marine Warlord Traits

Yay!

My copy of the new Space Marine codex arrived late this afternoon. An initial look through seems ok. I may have been sold on the Centurian Devastators but we'll see. I'll try and get a review up by the weekend.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this book is better than the last.

List Tailoring

Reading a topic today over at 40K Forums about list tailoring got me thinking why don't more people do it? That probably sounds very odd to most of you but to me list tailoring makes far more sense both thematically and practically.

When our club first started we set list tailoring in motion accidentially. The first campaign I ran for them used the Mighty Empires tile set and a varient of those rules. Players knew what codex their opponents were using and to promote store sales and to prevent repetitve lists players could change their lists for each game. Thus knowing who you faced meant that better lists were drawn up, often with units or options that didn't normally see the light of day. Since they were built to defeat a specific codex we saw much more balanced and fun games being played.
When I see games where players turn up with no knowledge of who or what codex they will be playing against, it is usually the same old basic generic lists which are horribly mismatched for the game. I look at that and see it as much less fair than list tailoring.

The only time I see a problem with the list tailoring is where one player has much more of a collection to draw upon compared to another, but that hopefully helps Games Workshop / Independent Store generate sales and promotes players adding to their armies.

Thoughts?

Good bye old codex

Last night I played my last game under the current Space Marine codex. I wanted a fun, non competative game and called up my friend Danny to challenge his Dark Eldar. We forgot a couple things and made some mistakes but it was such a close fun game that it didn't matter. It was exactly what a game of 40K should be.

My list was:

Master of the Forge with conversion beamer.
10 man tac squad with flamer and missile launcher. Sarge had plasma pistol and power weapon.
10 man tac squad with flamer and heavy bolter. Sarge had plasma pistol and power weapon.
10 man tac squad with flamer and heavy bolter. Sarge had plasma pistol and power weapon.
5 man terminator squad with assault cannon.
5 man assault terminator squad with thunder hammers and storm shields. Sarge had a pair of lightning claws.
Stormtalon with heavy bolters and assault cannons.
Dreadnought with multi-melta and heavy flamer in drop pod.
8 man devastator squad with four plasma cannons.

Knowing DE I decided that I would not go the vehicle route and instead focus on a defensive gunline (which I still don't think is all that viable under 6th) and up to a point it worked. What ultimately proved to be the winning unit was his jetbike squads which mullered two tactical squads through the use of dangly chains and hooks, before I could gun them down.

We wrapped up turn 6 as the venue had to close. I may have been able to snatch a win had we played to the 7th turn.

All in all a very good send off for this codex.