Battle Report

Nova Prime.
Tyken Sector.
The dissapearence of a Salamander battle barge in the Nova system has a relief force dispatched to find out what has become of them. A system recorder is located on the surface so a force drops to the surface to investigate. Upon arrival, the company is set upon by a force of Dark Angels. What would turn brother against brother?

So, Saturday night I played my nephew Benjo under his first game of 6th edition. Though he plays Blood Angels, Tyranids or Sisters of Battle he wanted to see how Dark Angels played so he went with a proxy army.

At first we had a conflab because he wanted to play a couple Forge World models, the Dreadnought drop pod and the Stormeagle. The Stormeagle I didn't have a problem with but the Dreadnought drop pod is really just silly and a little broken. But to stop him grumbling I agreed this once.

We rolled the Relic mission with the Hammer & Anvil deployment. A mysterious forest was placed in the centre with the Relic in the middle, and to one side we put an Archeotech Artifact. He was jammy and managed to seize the initiative.

Straight away the DDP descended, and on turn 1 before I got a chance to do anything he had assaulted my land raider redeemer and caused it to explode! My point made really. Everything else of his just moved forward.
On my turn 1 my librarian moved forward with with one of the new Pyrmancy powers sent Benjo's dreadnought straight to Hell with a nice melta power. Vengeance was mine! Everything else moved forward.

Turn 2 and Benjo dropped Azrael and some terminators from deep strike close to my lines. Otherwise his turn was ineffective.
My turn, and I had the librarian join my terminators (with terminator chaplain) and surged towards his terminators. My 5 man squad climbed down the ruin they were in with plans to reach his deployment zone.

Turn 3. Benjo got his Storm Eagle in, it zoomed in and took out one rhino. His shooting was dire again.
On my turn, the squad that had been in the wrecked rhino lept out and into the forest, disturbing a razorwing nest. The alien beasts did nothing. That squad ran and grabbed the Relic. The other Rhino reached the Archeotech Artifact and was protected by a 4+ invulnerable save due to alien technology within. Yay! I also assaulted the DA terminator squad.

Turn 4. Storm Eagle hovered and unloaded everything into my rhino but the alien shielding protected it from everything. A plasma cannon also targetting the rhino was stopped. Benjo was not a happy bunny. Terminators vs terminators dragged on. Azrael took two wounds despite having a 2+ armour save!
My Legion of the Damned finally arrived! I dropped them down by the plasma cannon squad and dropped two of them with bolter and lascannon fire. The squad in my rhino lept out, and the squad with the Relic jumped in.

Turn 5. Benjo finally dropped the last of my terminators and consolidated towards my rhino with the Relic. Again, his shooting was foiled by the alien energy field though the Rhino did lose a storm bolter.
My turn I drove the Relic back into my deployment zone and got the remainder of my 5 man squad into his deployment zone.

We asked Mike to roll the dice and the game ended. Victory to me.

Me: 3 for the relic, 1 for his warlord and 1 for linebreaker = 5 vp.
BJ: 1 for the warlord, 1 for first blood and 1 for linebreaker = 3vp.

There was much grumbles from Benjo on how he hates this system and much arguing on rules. I do have to give him one bonus point for correcting me on something I missed under Look Out Sir! Fair do's.

This game I enjoyed a lot more than the last two I had. I didn't feel quite so under pressure and so could relax. Thankfully we agreed to ignore challenges as they do not work very well. Benjo went away grumbling and it will remain to be seen if he bothers to play under 6th edition.

Battle Report

Wicker's World.
Tyken Sector.
The Salamanders chapter have spent three weeks scouring a Genestealer cult from this industrial world. At the last, a contingent of infected PDF made a heroic stand against the Imperium's finest. Unfortunately due to a malfuction in the communications system, the allied Space Wolves were not aware of the final situation. Sensing that the Salamanders were opening fire on loyalist forces, they struck from the skies and engaged their fellow space marines.

So, a club game against Fish (Space Wolves with IG allies). Basically a kill point mission with standard 12'' deployment.

This was quite a good but throughly tough game. The Imperial Guard allies were what really did the damage with massed firepower and AP3 shots. As usual though my bog standard guys were smashed apart in close combat (oh how I hate how good CC is in this game). Saying that I didn't do too badly over all and am pleased with the flow of the game.

I won't go into the stupid challenges again but I am glad that I got to try them now rather than suddenly in the middle of a future campaign.

Good game to Fish.

So, so far under 6th my marines have played 2 and lost 2.

Awkward update

Played a game of 40K tonight against my mate Fish at the club. 1500pts of Salamanders vs 1500pts of Space Wolves with Imperial Guard allies. For most part it was a really good and enjoyable game. However it drove home two elements of 6th that I cannot stand and have had to change.

1. Wound Allocation. Under 6th this is stupid and utterly pants! It really makes no sense.

Mallik the space marine takes a shot to the head and falls over. His battle brother Gallik looks over and says "Gee. I wish I knew how to pick up and fire my mates meltagun. I was trained to do so when I become a space marine. It would be really useful, but sod it."

Makes. No. Freaking. Sense!

So from here, I will only play games with the 5th ed wound allocation system.

2. Challenges. This is what really forced this tonight. It was no fault of Fish's but we tried out the challenges system. Hated it. Especially when my terminator chaplain ended up out base contact with the Wolf Lord he had been challenged but was in base contact with another SW terminator, and yet wasn't allowed to swing at him. WTF?

No. I hate these rules.

Though it will cost me potential games and drop me from future club leagues/campaigns, I will not play without the above changes. To do otherwise would ensure that I was playing a game that I did not enjoy.

Thankfully at least one other player is willing (more than willing) to go along with that.

6th ed Battle Report

When a trio of Necron tomb ships manifested in orbit above Nobilitae, capital of the Tyken sector, the local planetary defence forces understandably paniced. For three hours the tomb ships bombarded a tiny section of the planet's surface before deploying a scout force. Thankfully a battle barge of Salamanders marines was close by and able to divert to the planet's aid. The Necrons were searching for something in the ruins. Whatever it was, Librarian Malfes wasn't about to let them have it.

So, my first ever game of 6th edition Warhammer 40K. My opponent was Mulch and his necron horde led by Nemesor Zahndrekh. Points was a simple 1500. Neither side fielded allies or fortifications.

Deployment was the awkward new table corners one and the mission was to grab as many of the four objectives as we could. In order to try out the new terrain rules we had a mysterious forest (that wasn't used), a mysterious river (normal), and an Archeotech Ruin (some weird time generator).

This was not a good game for me. We were in combat almost immediately. One tac squad held up three Wraiths for the duration of the game, and another was reduced to four men by Zahndrekh and his escort. The C'tan shard shreded my librarian but was crushed to death by my terminator chaplain and the TH/SS termies. As usual, the scarab swarms ate my land raider in seconds. I was not happy.

In an odd move at the end of the game, when Mulch held two objectives and was close to taking one from me, he teleported Zahndrekh and squad away back to his own lines. Not sure why, maybe just because he knew he had won (damn those secondary objectives!). And win he did, with the game ending on turn 5.

--

Ok, 6th seems an ok system when you play it but I really hate the new wound allocation rules. They just bog the game down to crawl. The 5th ed wound allocation made more sense. if it wasn't for the fact that people are going to want to play the rules as is, I would suggest playing the old style way. But hey.

Secondary objectives are going to be irritating. Where as before you could play defensive and try for a draw, these stop that. You need to be much more aggressive now than you used to be. As a player who prefers to play defensive this feels quite counter to my regualr play style.

Really need a couple more 6th ed games before I can comment much more.

Battle Report

A series of worlds along the newly formed warp tear known as Tyken's Rift have fallen to Chaos. Cultist uprisings and daemonic manifestations have seen the sector commander request aid from the Inquisition. A sizeable detachment of Grey Knights arrived within weeks. The Salamanders chapter sent a company to assist in the campaign.
After several weeks of heavy fighting the Chaos threat was eliminated but the Grey Knight commander felt that the possible corruption was too severe to allow the human population to live. The Salamanders who had fought hard to defend the civilian survivors were not about to accept that judgement and though it went against everything he knew, the captain of the first company refused to lay down his arms and walk away.

My last game of 5th edition was against Brian and his Grey Knights. I have never played Brian before nor do I think I have played against Grey Knights so this was going to be an interesting match. Mission was rolled as Annihilation (kill points) and deployment was table quarters. I am thankful that we did not get Dawn of War deployment or I fear the damage to my marines would have been severe.

I did not attempt to seize the initiative as I wanted the GK to move forward so I didn't have to do the hard work. Somewhat annoyingly due to an orbital strike and a squad that can shoot through terrain, I lost my vindicator and and an imobilised whirlwind turn 1! Unfortunately for Brian as the game went along his orbital strikes seem to become less and less effective.

Turn 2 and everything of his came in except one squad of troop GK. Nothing badly deviated so I found myself staring down at two dreadknights, an assassin, a squad of terminators and a strike squad. The assassin took out one scout squad and then spent the rest of the game trying to move up through a ruin to the second scout squad,

Things turned around after that for me as both my rhinos were loaded up with sternguard. Leaping from their rhinos they opned fire with the AP3 rounds taking down an entire squad with no casualties to themselves, which is a wonder. The TH/SS termies with Kantor lept into combat with one dreadknight which went down far too quickly, and then mopped up the terminator squad. On the next turn the other dreadknight went down to bolter and assasult cannon fire. The game had turned in my favour somehow.

By turn 5 Brian had nothing left that could hurt my tanks and just had his HQ left. Victory was mine.

That was a fun game. Neither side took it too seriously and we had a good time. There are certain people that I don't like playing and people I really enjoy playing against. Brian is definately a player I would enjoy playing against again.

End of an Era?

So, with 6th edition 40K coming out in a couple days tonight may well be my last game of 5th edition. My opponent tonight is Brian who plays Grey Knights. I've not had much luck against GK it must be said but I am trying a new list idea out. I will try to do a battle report for it and posit it later tonight.

Wish me luck.

On a seperate note I only have two codexes left to review - Imperial Guard and the Tau Empire. I will try to get them done tomorrow and then do a 6th ed review over the weekend.

Victory!

For many years now I have played 40K against my friend Joel. He's a bit of a power gamer and official GW tournament player so he always plays top notch lists. I can understand it since he is a tournament player but it can make the game a bit irritating as I am a casual player. But last week I managed to finally defeat him! Yay!

Now I can't claim it all as I had made a small error in points. Joel had said that we play 1500pts but I thought we were playing slightly more. I basically had 150pts more than him. I was happy to remove some stuff but Joel said no, it would be a nice challenge so we played. He had brought an Eldar force and I was playing my Salamanders. We rolled an objective based mission (3 objectives) with a pitched battle deployment. Two objectives were on my side and one on his.

It was an awesome game. The dice were in my favour the whole game pretty much and that helped me devestate his harlequins on turn one. That made a huge difference for me. After that I was able to maintain a hold on the two objectives I had and the objective on his side was contested by an immobilised land raider.

The extra points made little difference as it was the cost of my dreadnought which was tied up in combat the whole game by the elder farseer and neither of us could kill the other (though I lost my close combat arm).

The game ended turn 5. If it hadn't I think Joel would have swung things.

Battle Report: Salamanders vs Ultramarines

My friend Jon came over tonight for a 40K game tonight, in preperation for taking up a Planetstrike mission in the league shortly. Would I win a game on home soil? We shall see.

After running through the rules for Planetstrike with Jon he set the table with three bastions and plenty of surrounding terrain to hamper any deep strikes I may make, which made me decide to walk everything on instead.

This was a good fun game. First turn I declared my stratagem which was teleport barrage. A rather successful use reduced a ten man marine squad in one bastion down to one. Unfortunately I was not able to get close to disloging that one marine. But that was about it. Jon then managed to wreck my predator and start whittling down my forces.

We both had seriously shifting dice. We'd have a run of 6's and then a shedload of 1's and 2's. As the game crept along I felt that I was going to lose. I need more bodies in my list as my tanks were obvious targets. Predator, land speeder and then my LR: Crusader fell in short order.

When we finally got to it, I had lost my terminators to shooting and then an envelopment of terminators and tactical marines. I had reduced two bastions to just having one man inside, and the third was protected by a dreadnought that caused me some problems.

I cenceeded at the end of turn 5. I had hoped to get a draw at the very least but I made a couple mistakes that cost me. I need to remember that while Rhino's can be made mobile again during combat it's not likely to happen. Need to footslog those guys and let the transport catch up later.

Awesome game though. Looking forward to the next time.

Battle Report

Last Friday evening a small group of us gathered to play a couple league games away from the club. Out of the players gathered my Salamanders and I only had to face down Mike and his Space Wolf drop pod list in a Planetstrike mission (Desperate Assault).

As the defender he set up the table in a nice fair manner. He placed a Fortress of Redemption down in the centre and declared the three sections to be separate bastions as the objectives. Three squads started with one in each and he had used a stratagem to place a battle cannon on the central section. I launched my Firestorms and wrecked two bastions including the one that had the battle cannon. So, not a bad start and I was feeling hopeful.

First turn everything of mine except the Predator arrived but as my first stratagem was night fighting I just couldn't hit anything. On Mike's turn a shedload of drop pods came down and walled me in against my side of the table and the amount of melta shots he poured into me took out my redeemer and most of my terminators.

Second turn was basically a massacre. My Predator arrived but did nothing. His marines fired and then assaulted my units taking them down under brutal close combat. My advance has stalled before it even got going.

Turn three and all I had left was a land speeder, my captain, and two tactical squads in rhino transports. My captain died valiantly fending off a rune priest. His turn he destroyed the land speeder and was turning his guns on my rhinos.

At this point I felt I had no chance of succeeding at my mission with just two squads and their rhinos. Mike still had most of his army intact including units in the objectives. I conceded and gave him the win.


Looking back on it I don't think there was much I could have done differently. I really wanted to go second but the mission had me launching the attack. Things may have been different had it been the other way around. Mike's drop pod list hasn't done that well in recent games but it worked spot on this time and there was nothing I could do. Better luck next time.

League Game #4

A couple days ago I met up with Aven my next opponent for the league so I could crush his Dark Eldar. Our mission was Cut & Run from the battle missions book, with Aven as the attacker.

His list was:

Archon 60pts, huskblade 35pts, haywire grenades 5 pts, combat drugs 10pts, shadow field 30pts, webway portal 35pts

Incubi 22pts x5 (mounted in raider 60pts (with archon), with darklance, flickerfields 10pts, retro fire jets 5pts)
Incubi 22pts x5
Incubi 22pts x5

Wyches 10pts x8, hydra gauntlets 10pts, haywire grenades 2pts x8, hekatrix 10pts, agoniser 20pts
Wyches 10pts x8, hydra gauntlets 10pts, haywire grenades 2pts x8, hekatrix 10pts, agoniser 20pts
Kabalite warriors 9pts x5 (mounted in raider 60pts, with darklance, flickerfields 10pts, retro fire jets 5pts)
Kabalite warriors 9pts x5 (mounted in raider 60pts, with darklance, flickerfields 10pts, retro fire jets 5pts)

Reavers 22pts x 3, heat lance 12pts, cluster caltrops 20pts
Reavers 22pts x 3, heat lance 12pts, cluster caltrops 20pts

Talos 100pts, chainflails 10pts, add close combat weapon 15pts, twin linked haywire blaster 5pts
Razorwing 145pts, splinter cannon 10pts, flickerfield 10pts
Razorwing 145pts, splinter cannon 10pts, flickerfield 10pts

He set up his forces first but I chose to keep everything off the table thus forcing him to remain on the table for at least at extra turn. Fortunately for me the majority of my army came on in the first reserve roll and I managed to get a couple kill points for dropping a pair of raiders. For the duration of the game the scores were pretty close with both of us securing the lead but ultimately Aven managed to claim the victory.

This was an awesome game. Very close all the way through. Aven didn't power play and took the game casual. I really wish more of my regular opponents played the same way.

Annoyingly though we played a friendly game afterwards randomly determined from the rulebook and I managed to crush Aven 9 kill points to 5. Why can't I do that in a campaign game? LOL!

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.

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.

---

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.

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.