Well, it's all done and dusted, the smoke has cleared and the cannons have been stowed. So what happened at Blog Wars?
Well, the field was a little tougher than I had expected if I'm honest - yes, I know it's a tournament, but Blog Wars started as a hobbyists tournament. It still is for the most part, but there are a few competitive spirits about it has to be said. Then again, it had been 2 years sine my last Blog Wars, so perhaps for everyone else it has been a more gradual adjustment and was more surprising for me. I would still recommend it as a fun day and a friendly atmosphere... however I'm thinking my crazy project armies may not be taken again.
Yes, those crazy project armies like the Star Wars guard and more recently Pirates Vs Ninjas. Taking an army and deliberately working from a self restricted codex to fit a theme, picking units that may serve no particular tactical purpose other than giving you a chance to do a cool conversion (I'm looking at you Beastmaster and Razorwing flocks) and then entering it into a competitive environment, not the best. The Star Wars guard, with my years of Guard experience, I managed to overcome a lot of their inherent flaws and still finish a respectable mid-table. The Dark Eldar army, being only my second game with that army outside of four games of combat patrol, I didn't have that experience to fall back on. I didn't come last... a victory in the final game, the fight for the wooden spoon, avoided that fate. But 36 out of 38 is still rather poor. The Star Wars guard went in for the wooden spoon fight in the final game of the last Blog Wars, but I stonked my opponent so convincingly I ended up mid table. Not so this time. I kept away from the spoon and managed to put one more person in my wake, but that is it.
This taking of bad armies can best be summed up by the reaction of one of the other gamers, who I overheard admiring my army at the army judging table. Sure there were comments about the cool conversions, but what pricked my ears up was the comment "Wow he brought Mandrakes, he should get a bonus point just for that!" Now given Mandrakes are gorgeous models, I didn't think his "pity point" had anything to do with the look of the army. It's chances on the field of battle on the other hand...
So let's look at those Mandrakes. They're a cool idea, they've got a nice little shooting attack before running in to finish off the survivors. One problem... they need a pain token to use the shooting attack. Something they need to kill something to get. And chances are, by the time you've run these guys through a round of combat, there won't be many left to enjoy the shooting attack anyway. I sent one squad after an easy target in the first game, a squad of scouts. I outnumbered him 2:1, I was an assault unit, all he had in his favour was cover, meaning I'd be Initiative 1 for the first round of combat. I thought I could handle that. Several turns later my 5 surviving Mandrakes fled from the combat having killed 1 scout, and were promptly gunned down by the rest of his army, which by that point had tabled me and were waiting for me with itchy trigger fingers. Once they have a pain token they become immeasurably better, so starting them with a haemonculus would be a good idea. Except if you do that, they now can't infiltrate. Gah! About the best I could do with them was have the Cronos hurt something, toss the resultant pain token to the Mandrakes, then they could fire. That little trick was handy, and if I was going to expand the army I may repeat it... but the Cronos can't infiltrate, so is playing catch up with the mandrakes it is supposed to be supporting from the get go.
How about Khaerendahahahakkahak or whatever his name is? He starts with a pain token, is beefy in assault, and he gets to arrive Marbo esque wherever you like, preferably (according to the codex) with an evil chuckle. I can imagine him appearing, leering at his target, and whispering "I'm going to cut your head off... Next turn." At which point the target simply turns and shoots Kharendekekeheke in the head. Having a unit that is primarily designed for assault turn up and not charge is pretty useless. I mean, at least Marbo (lord rest his redacted soul) would turn up and throw a demo charge... this guy turns up and throws two str 4 ap 4 shots. Woo. If they gave this guy IC status it would make him AND Mandrakes miles better. Have a couple squads of Mandrakes advance on the enemy, when this guy becomes available he deploys and JOINS a squad. They then have a pain token. Sure they can't assault this turn because he just arrived from reserve, but they can then all bloody shoot. Two str 4 ap 4 shots isn't that impressive, but twenty two might make a dent... It would also give Kherwhatsisface some ablative wounds so that, god forbid, he may make it into combat. The only time I got him into combat this tournament was when a unit of Mandrakes tied up some marines for several turns (with pain token from Cronos to keep them in the fight) and I hid him behind a unit of Wyches that Mephiston duly slaughtered... freeing the way up for K-K to go bail the mandrakes out of the shit they were in.
So what about the actual games? Well first up I was against a Space Wolf/Space Marine list that included 7 drop pods... the marine contingent being a Stormraven and Stormtalon. This was over as a contest by turn 2. His drop assault on me took out my ravager (and 3 of only 7 strength based weapons in my entire army) and I remember looking at the situation and thinking "I could maybe just about deal with all of this... IF this was it. But no, there's more..." My overzealous scourges picked off a drop pod for some easy points, the resultant explosion killing four out of the five. Just felt like it wasn't going to be my morning. It was over as a contest by turn 2. My opponent seemed willing to accept my concession, but we had plenty of time and for tournament integrity I played on. I had a quad gun, Kharededeekeke and 5 mandrakes locked in combat with some scouts. I basically hoped I may pick off some scouts for some bonus VP. Couldn't even manage that. Tabled by turn 4.
Game 2 was against Tau/Space Marines, a squad of White Scars bikers providing some fast moving aggression that complemented the Tau gunline nicely. I hoped to get First Blood after putting 10 wounds on a 5 man pathfinder squad, but seeing him pass 8 of the 10 5+ cover saves was somewhat galling. Especially when those pathfinders, that hadn't even had the decency to go to ground, markerlighted my mandrakes and stripped cover from them, allowing them to be annihilated by the Tau firepower. I also hoped my wyches may tie up his riptide in combat (shardnets reducing it to a single attack per turn, the 4+ dodge keeping me alive as long as possible, the agoniser wounding on a 4+ hopefully picking at it... I didn't expect to win, just to stop him from shooting a few turns) but after enduring the firepower from several Tau units I then failed a 6" charge, with fleet. FFS. This was over as a contest by turn 5, but I kept playing again for tournament integrity, hoping that my solitary suriving model may kill the marines in his turn so I could charge his firewarriors and contest one objective in my turn. My opponent was hoping I'd kill the marines in my turn so that his entire army, sat on objectives and pointing their guns at my back, could finish the tabling. It was not to be... I couldn't kill the sodding marine. Was going for the instant kill on the bike commander, the sole survivor. Missed with Smash. Failed to wound with Smash. Missed with Smash. Failed to wound with Smash. Then hit... wounded... passed his bloody Iron Halo save. Which was largely irrelevant as this was turn 7 and game done anyway. So this game was an improvement... I had yet again given away maximum VP, but at least this time I was one wound from being tabled, instead of tabled.
Game 3 was the fight for the wooden spoon. Ken asked after, if I was tempted to throw the game so that I got something, and I said no. I didn't really want to finish last, and I felt it would ruin tournament integrity to deliberately throw a game... particularly just for a spoon and a £5 gift certificate. If the Imperial Knight that was the top raffle prize had been for coming last, then perhaps I may have wavered... which would have made for an interesting game as two armies tried to avoid landing near objectives whilst trying to accidentally give away FB/StW with failed dangerous terrain rolls!
Anyway, this was a good matchup for me, as I had been worried in this mission that someone could blast away my scoring units easily, then sit at their leisure and rack up Tournament points while I had bugger all I could do about it. My best hope was that my opponent would let me get into a nice protracted fight near the objectives with my scoring units. Which my assault marine blood angel opponent duly did. This was an interesting mission with objectives scoring every turn, which meant that by turn 3 I had built up enough of a lead (and reduced my opponents scoring units such) that he didn't think he could catch me. I agree he'd have struggled, though he could have done far better earlier on, when consolidating from a combat he won, he moved for his next turns charge... he should have moved to score a point off the objective, then deal with next turns charge NEXT turn. You're jump infantry, I'm not gonna outrun you! A few times I saw he could have claimed/contested objectives from consolidate moves but didn't. He also left his scouts awaiting their fate at the hands of the mandrakes for far too long... he should have run them out towards the objective. The extra distance alone would have delayed my assault, possibly even long enough for his Sternguard to chew up my Mandrakes before I reached him (they certainly chewed them up AFTER I'd killed them)
Anyway, a few mistakes from my opponent, and some careful play on my part, meant that my bedraggled force of idiots managed to claim one win before they are confined to my display shelf. Good for them. Though it has to be said, I'm glad it was a 5 turn game... he had a unit of Sternguard and half a squad of Sanguinary guard left, in control of MY quad gun. Oh, and a drop pod. I had two immobilised scratched raiders (pointing in useless directions I might add) and one ravage left alive. I think if it had been standard random game length, I might well have been tabled if it had gone to 7 turns. Maybe, maybe not. But I certainly could not have tabled my opponent... 2 turns to kill three targets (totalling 10 marines and a vehicle) with 3 shots per turn. You do the math.
As for the Pirates vs Ninjas, I was a little disappointed that I didn't get ANY votes in the best army contest... but to be fair, I have a cool theme, and am proud of my conversions, but the full title is Best PAINTED Army, and there were other works of a far higher standard than my own, so I cannot really complain. Though it was a little irksome when my opponent for game two was surprised to see my army and asked why I hadn't entered it into the contest... I told him I did and said where I'd put it... and he hadn't realised there was a second table, he'd have voted for me otherwise. Gee, thanks! I don't think this would have made much difference in the longrun, even if several people made the same mistake. It perhaps would have cost the beautiful tyranid army on the same table a critical vote or two (came second by one vote) but to me it would have made little difference. Ah well, I shall have to simply enjoy the many compliments my army got throughout the day.
As for another crazy project? Well despite this one going very long and me having to force myself to finish, the first thing I thought when I did finish was "What next?" Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. However, I need to study 7th a bit more, there's an Ork codex round the corner, much to decide. And after the pirates dismal showing, perhaps I should design an army first and jerry rig a theme round it after this time? Or at the very least, stick to a codex I know well. Hell, I could even pick an army and just try to do a nice, high quality paintjob on it, rather than going for wacky outlandish pop culture references. All sound ideas in theory, but I know me, I'll probably do something silly at some point. I may try to postpone the crazy urges by painting some UCM Dropzone Commander forces to look like Aliens Colonial Marines, apart from the scout buggies, which will be in the desert colours of Dark Knight Rises (except one which of course comes in black...)
In the meantime, watch this space, and if you can make it to a future Blog Wars, do so. I won't be at 8, too much going on at that time of year, but I can perhaps make 9...
Showing posts with label 6th Edition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 6th Edition. Show all posts
Sunday, 15 June 2014
Tuesday, 27 May 2014
I see you took my advice about theatricality a bit... literally...
Taking a few snaps of the ninja contingent of my Blog Wars force and the quote used to title this post sprang to mind...
Ten more Mandrakes and Kharakhadakakaeshashaka or whatever his name is to go. The throaght clearer is built, needs undercoating. Half the remaining Mandrakes are waiting to be built, the other half I had to take back to the shop as they'd put the wrong sprues into the box they sent me - At first glance I was like "Cool, bonus extra mandrake" until I realised the missing sprue that had a solitary mandrake also had the squads left arms with him...
Ten more Mandrakes and Kharakhadakakaeshashaka or whatever his name is to go. The throaght clearer is built, needs undercoating. Half the remaining Mandrakes are waiting to be built, the other half I had to take back to the shop as they'd put the wrong sprues into the box they sent me - At first glance I was like "Cool, bonus extra mandrake" until I realised the missing sprue that had a solitary mandrake also had the squads left arms with him...
Wednesday, 21 May 2014
Blog Wars Appears on the Horizon...
Ken and I shall be attending Blog Wars in a few short weeks, and he came down to visit for a couple of days for some practice games. We figured we'd get used to our armies and the missions and such.
Well.
I played one mission with my Blog Wars list. It was such a MASSIVELY crushing defeat that I thought it best to break out the guard so that Ken had something to actually TEST his army against, rather than just club baby seals. It's not that ken has done a power list - it's effective, don't get me wrong, but there's nothing hideous about it. It's just that my army... well... kinda sucks. Ken tried to polish a turd by saying Tau were a bad matchup for it, but I think I will really struggle in the upcoming tournament. Mission 3 I think just REALLY is not going to suit my army at all unless my opponent does something drastically stupid, and on the other two missions I am VERY reliant on going first to close the distance so that only half my units die before reaching combat, instead of all of them.
The problem? I can't change my list. I haven't designed this list with Blog Wars in mind, nor any tournament. Hell I barely put any thought into playing games with this army. I have designed it purely to theme... and it does as well as you might expect given that is the case. Now my Star Wars Guard army was also to theme, though 14 years of Guard experience carried me on that one to a mediocre record of wins/losses. Playing an army I played for the first time yesterday... I doubt this will end well.
On the bright side, there is a £5 gift voucher for coming last, and a certificate nd a spoon. So I may not leave the venue empty handed after all...
So, onto the list. Obviously I'm not particularly after advice or feedback here, I haven't the time or the models to change anything even if I was inclined to. I'm just putting it all out there. I'll start with the list from the codex, so you can all see what I have. I'll include details where necessary to clarify. Then I'll follow it up with the background info on the army, so that the eclectic collection of units may start to make a little more sense...
The List
HQ - Warlord. Special Character. Duke Sliscus - 150
T - 20 Kabalite Warriors, inc Sybarite and 2 Splinter Cannons - 210
T - 10 Wyches inc Hekatrix w Agoniser, and 2 wyches with Shardnets and Impalers. Squad Haywire Grenades. - 170
ded tran Raider, enhanced aethersails, grisly trophies, flickerfields - 80
T - 10 Wyches inc Hekatrix w Agoniser, and 2 wyches with Shardnets and Impalers. Squad Haywire Grenades. - 170
ded tran Raider, enhanced aethersails, grisly trophies, flickerfields, torment grenade launchers - 85
FA - Beastmaster w power weapon, 2 flocks razorwings - 52
HS - Ravager, enhanced aethersails, grisly trophies, flickerfields - 125
F - Aegis Line with Quad Gun - 100
HS - Cronos Parasite Engine, spirit vortex - 100
HQ - Kharadruakh - 140
E - 10 Mandrakes inc Nightfiend - 160
E - 10 Mandrakes inc Nightfiend - 160
FA - 5 Scourges inc Solarite and 2 heat lances - 144
Total - 1846
For clarification;
Agoniser - Power Weapon that always wounds on a 4+
Shardnet and Impaler - reduces attacks of any enemy in base contact
Enhanced Aethersails - Vehcile can move an additional 2D6" but no shooting or disembarking allowed
Grisly Trophies - A friendly unit within 6" of the vehicle can reroll LD tests
Flickerfields - 5+ inv save
Torment Grenade Launcher - Any enemy unit within 6" is at -1 morale. They must also pass an LD test to assault the vehicle.
Dark Eldar units have Power through Pain - each time they kill a unit they gain a pain token, giving them increasing bonuses (Feel No Pain, then Furious Charge, then Fearless)
So, on to the reasoning behind all this...
Several years ago, Ken and I regularly attended a doubles combat patrol tournament. We did some cool theme armies (such as xbox inspired Halo Marines) and we struck on the bright idea of doing Pirates vs Ninjas. Well I set to it with wild abandon, only for them to change the campaign pack from the previous year... my army was not legal. So we took something else, but I always had it sat on my shelf looking at me. Eventually I expanded the two combat patrol forces into the Pirates working with Ninjas list that I shall be taking to Blog Wars.
Funnily enough, these aren't really accurate Pirates... they are somewhat inspired by popular culture of Pirates/Ninjas, and therefore are rather heavily influenced by Pirates of a Caribbean nature it has to be said...
So, to flesh out the bare bones of the above list...
HQ - Warlord. Special Character. Duke Barbosa - 150
He may have taken the Kings shilling for now, but he has his own designs. He is an expert in poisons and knows how to get to the edge of the world... and back...
T - 20 Men of the Crown, including Staff Sergeant and 2 Weapon specialists - 210
Provided to Barbosa for his quest
T - 10 Scurvy Dogs mad enough to sail into the abyss! - 170
ded tran The Pearl, full sail and full rum stores! For now... Keep a weather eye out for Elizabeth - 80
The fastest ship around, with a crew half mad according to Mr Cottons Parrot...
T - 10 Souls doomed to stalk the seas in service to Davy Jones - 170
ded tran The Dutchman, full sail, plenty of rum, and a terrifying sight to behold! - 85
Striking fear into seamen everywhere, the Dutchman will ask a question... do you fear death?
FA - Cap'n Jack. Riding a couple of roped sea turtles and surrounded by a whole menagerie of creatures. - 52
With human hair, I might add... from his back...
HS - The Dauntless - 125
Its said she's the power in these waters...
F - The old Sea Wall and Harpoon - 100
I doubt we shall see the likes of the White Whale again, but we may be able to nap something...
HS - The Grox and Maiden - 100
If this place scares you, then NEVER go to Singapore...
HQ - Ronin - 140
He lacks a master, and stalks the shadows in pursuit of his own ends...
E - The League of Shadows - 160
They seek justice... in the most violent way...
E - The Division of Darkness - 160
In much the same business as The League of Shadows and the Conference of Shady Places...
FA - BATMAN. And some friends. - 144
Don't worry, he's given them something better than hockey pads...
Total - 1846
For clarification;
Agoniser - It looks like a big whip!
Shardnet and Impaler - It's a net, looks very nautical
Full sails - They're sails, I HAD to include the upgrade...
Rum supplies - The sight of spare rum will keep the spirits of any pirate up...
Flickerfields - 5+ inv save
Torment Grenade Launcher - The Dutchman is terrifying to behold, therefore... Any enemy unit within 6" is at -1 morale. They must also pass an LD test to assault the vehicle.
Pirates(and begrudgingly Ninjas) have Power through Rum - each time they kill a unit they have a drink, making them increasingly inebriated (Deadened Pain Senses, Increased Aggression, Invincibility... hell, we've all been there)
The Cronos/Grox and Maiden will be able to hand out Pain/Rum tokens to units if it kills anything with it's "spirit" weapons...
The Cronos/Grox is the biggest issue in the army. It is the centrepiece, and is FAR larger than a Cronos should be, in order to make it look as I wanted it to look. To represent the template weapon I have an ogre firebelly, who has clearly had too many flaming Sambucas. To represent the Spirit Vortex, we have a bartender who can choose to start lobbing Molotov Cocktails if he feels like it. The Firebelly is stood on a table, that is th size of the base the Cronos should be on. I will measure any of my weapons/area of effect powers from THAT table, so as to gain no advantage from my modelling. I will allow my enemies to target any part of the model if they wish, so as to give no possible disadvantage to them. if they wish to play to how the model "should" be, then the firebelly on the table should be a fairly accurate height/size to represent the Cronos.
The ninja contingent was the toughest part of this task. I decided early on the Mandrakes were a good choice, but how to paint something that was half skin so that it looked mostly black was a real tricky proposition for me. And if I did do them in mostly black, would I give them different bases to the Pirates? Would I then make a display board with different areas for my forces to sit on? In the end, with time running out, I won't be doing a display board, so will assume the ninjas have broken from the shadows and are running across the sand with the pirates. Besides, the contrast between the bright base and the dark model looks good...
Anyway, with only 40 infantry an aegis and a Grox and Maiden to paint in the next three and a bit weeks, I'm not sure how many posts I'll have time for between now and Blog Wars... I shall endeavour to keep you all updated, but if I have time to post I should probably be painting!
Well.
I played one mission with my Blog Wars list. It was such a MASSIVELY crushing defeat that I thought it best to break out the guard so that Ken had something to actually TEST his army against, rather than just club baby seals. It's not that ken has done a power list - it's effective, don't get me wrong, but there's nothing hideous about it. It's just that my army... well... kinda sucks. Ken tried to polish a turd by saying Tau were a bad matchup for it, but I think I will really struggle in the upcoming tournament. Mission 3 I think just REALLY is not going to suit my army at all unless my opponent does something drastically stupid, and on the other two missions I am VERY reliant on going first to close the distance so that only half my units die before reaching combat, instead of all of them.
The problem? I can't change my list. I haven't designed this list with Blog Wars in mind, nor any tournament. Hell I barely put any thought into playing games with this army. I have designed it purely to theme... and it does as well as you might expect given that is the case. Now my Star Wars Guard army was also to theme, though 14 years of Guard experience carried me on that one to a mediocre record of wins/losses. Playing an army I played for the first time yesterday... I doubt this will end well.
On the bright side, there is a £5 gift voucher for coming last, and a certificate nd a spoon. So I may not leave the venue empty handed after all...
The List
HQ - Warlord. Special Character. Duke Sliscus - 150
T - 20 Kabalite Warriors, inc Sybarite and 2 Splinter Cannons - 210
T - 10 Wyches inc Hekatrix w Agoniser, and 2 wyches with Shardnets and Impalers. Squad Haywire Grenades. - 170
ded tran Raider, enhanced aethersails, grisly trophies, flickerfields - 80
T - 10 Wyches inc Hekatrix w Agoniser, and 2 wyches with Shardnets and Impalers. Squad Haywire Grenades. - 170
ded tran Raider, enhanced aethersails, grisly trophies, flickerfields, torment grenade launchers - 85
FA - Beastmaster w power weapon, 2 flocks razorwings - 52
HS - Ravager, enhanced aethersails, grisly trophies, flickerfields - 125
F - Aegis Line with Quad Gun - 100
HS - Cronos Parasite Engine, spirit vortex - 100
HQ - Kharadruakh - 140
E - 10 Mandrakes inc Nightfiend - 160
E - 10 Mandrakes inc Nightfiend - 160
FA - 5 Scourges inc Solarite and 2 heat lances - 144
Total - 1846
For clarification;
Agoniser - Power Weapon that always wounds on a 4+
Shardnet and Impaler - reduces attacks of any enemy in base contact
Enhanced Aethersails - Vehcile can move an additional 2D6" but no shooting or disembarking allowed
Grisly Trophies - A friendly unit within 6" of the vehicle can reroll LD tests
Flickerfields - 5+ inv save
Torment Grenade Launcher - Any enemy unit within 6" is at -1 morale. They must also pass an LD test to assault the vehicle.
Dark Eldar units have Power through Pain - each time they kill a unit they gain a pain token, giving them increasing bonuses (Feel No Pain, then Furious Charge, then Fearless)
So, on to the reasoning behind all this...
Funnily enough, these aren't really accurate Pirates... they are somewhat inspired by popular culture of Pirates/Ninjas, and therefore are rather heavily influenced by Pirates of a Caribbean nature it has to be said...
So, to flesh out the bare bones of the above list...
HQ - Warlord. Special Character. Duke Barbosa - 150
He may have taken the Kings shilling for now, but he has his own designs. He is an expert in poisons and knows how to get to the edge of the world... and back...
T - 20 Men of the Crown, including Staff Sergeant and 2 Weapon specialists - 210
Provided to Barbosa for his quest
T - 10 Scurvy Dogs mad enough to sail into the abyss! - 170
ded tran The Pearl, full sail and full rum stores! For now... Keep a weather eye out for Elizabeth - 80
The fastest ship around, with a crew half mad according to Mr Cottons Parrot...
T - 10 Souls doomed to stalk the seas in service to Davy Jones - 170
ded tran The Dutchman, full sail, plenty of rum, and a terrifying sight to behold! - 85
Striking fear into seamen everywhere, the Dutchman will ask a question... do you fear death?
FA - Cap'n Jack. Riding a couple of roped sea turtles and surrounded by a whole menagerie of creatures. - 52
With human hair, I might add... from his back...
HS - The Dauntless - 125
Its said she's the power in these waters...
F - The old Sea Wall and Harpoon - 100
I doubt we shall see the likes of the White Whale again, but we may be able to nap something...
HS - The Grox and Maiden - 100
If this place scares you, then NEVER go to Singapore...
HQ - Ronin - 140
He lacks a master, and stalks the shadows in pursuit of his own ends...
E - The League of Shadows - 160
They seek justice... in the most violent way...
E - The Division of Darkness - 160
In much the same business as The League of Shadows and the Conference of Shady Places...
FA - BATMAN. And some friends. - 144
Don't worry, he's given them something better than hockey pads...
Total - 1846
For clarification;
Agoniser - It looks like a big whip!
Shardnet and Impaler - It's a net, looks very nautical
Full sails - They're sails, I HAD to include the upgrade...
Rum supplies - The sight of spare rum will keep the spirits of any pirate up...
Flickerfields - 5+ inv save
Torment Grenade Launcher - The Dutchman is terrifying to behold, therefore... Any enemy unit within 6" is at -1 morale. They must also pass an LD test to assault the vehicle.
Pirates(and begrudgingly Ninjas) have Power through Rum - each time they kill a unit they have a drink, making them increasingly inebriated (Deadened Pain Senses, Increased Aggression, Invincibility... hell, we've all been there)
The Cronos/Grox and Maiden will be able to hand out Pain/Rum tokens to units if it kills anything with it's "spirit" weapons...
The Cronos/Grox is the biggest issue in the army. It is the centrepiece, and is FAR larger than a Cronos should be, in order to make it look as I wanted it to look. To represent the template weapon I have an ogre firebelly, who has clearly had too many flaming Sambucas. To represent the Spirit Vortex, we have a bartender who can choose to start lobbing Molotov Cocktails if he feels like it. The Firebelly is stood on a table, that is th size of the base the Cronos should be on. I will measure any of my weapons/area of effect powers from THAT table, so as to gain no advantage from my modelling. I will allow my enemies to target any part of the model if they wish, so as to give no possible disadvantage to them. if they wish to play to how the model "should" be, then the firebelly on the table should be a fairly accurate height/size to represent the Cronos.
The ninja contingent was the toughest part of this task. I decided early on the Mandrakes were a good choice, but how to paint something that was half skin so that it looked mostly black was a real tricky proposition for me. And if I did do them in mostly black, would I give them different bases to the Pirates? Would I then make a display board with different areas for my forces to sit on? In the end, with time running out, I won't be doing a display board, so will assume the ninjas have broken from the shadows and are running across the sand with the pirates. Besides, the contrast between the bright base and the dark model looks good...Anyway, with only 40 infantry an aegis and a Grox and Maiden to paint in the next three and a bit weeks, I'm not sure how many posts I'll have time for between now and Blog Wars... I shall endeavour to keep you all updated, but if I have time to post I should probably be painting!
Sunday, 28 July 2013
Micromanaging the Apocalypse
Or GM-ing a test game of Apoc to see what works
So today opportunity presented itself for a quick test game of Apoc. Far sooner than I anticipated, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. With the short notice nature of the game not many people could attend, and we ended up with just three players, playing roughly 7000 points per side. Classic Chaos versus Imperials match up.
Unnatural Disasters
We firstly eliminated some options from the table. We didn't have the spare daemons for a warp rift, nor did we want the LOS block it would bring. I do think we could do the Zombie Apocalypse game, as we have a load of Z-company zombies from when we ran the Get to the Choppa scenario. However I'm trying to keep things simple for now. And one of the gamers had played some apoc on Saturday and found that after he'd pissed off an inquisitor there wasn't much left on either team come turn 5...
That left three, and the random roll gave us the Seismic Table.
Now this was quite a fun little table. The first turn it created a line of dangerous terrain, but unluckily for the Imperial side the effected units had Move Through Cover so ignored it. In the second turn, it did far better, destroying two Bastions, knocking a point of armour off the third, and obliterating the skyshield landing pad (along with a dread, half a vanguard squad, and forced a plaguemarine squad to bail out fast) Turn three it took some more armour points off the last surviving Bastion. As we only ended up having time for a short game this was all it could do, so even if we'd allowed Exterminatus to be a possibility, it wouldn't have got out of hand. Course, if we'd managed to get through the turns a little quicker and get to the turn 5 I had envisaged, then the chances of anything surviving this far would have been unlikely in the extreme...
Finest Hour
These allowed for some fun little tricks, although the idea of making a warlord particularly epic for a short spell didn't really happen. Most of the finest hours were more strategic in nature. They do also make the calling warlord something of a target, and I will admit to falling at fault here in advising the Imperial side - my first thought had been to throw everything at the finest hour daemon prince, but in the end I suggested throwing a couple squads of Legion of the Damned at Abaddon. Get the Warmaster point and PREVENT him from calling his finest hour. Sadly it was not to be. His terminator bodyguard was wiped out, and the daemon prince was taken down to 2 wounds. Shows the my old guard way to be true, if you want something to die throw statistically twice as much as you need to kill at it - just to be sure.
Scoring
I thought the scoring system was good. It was fairly even at the end of session 1, though at the end of session 2 chaos were firmly in control and took the lead. Of course with the Imperials having the last turn they had the opportunity to sneak the win with objectives now being worth 3 points a pop. The imperial side got close, but with some tenacious plague marines holding out against everything that could be thrown at them, and one chaos held objective too far from ANYTHING that could get there, they couldn't capture the 5 they needed. The alternative route was killing Abaddon and the super heavy, but with Abaddon locked in combat the two squads that charged him were a forlorn hope... a forlorn hope that was made irrelevent by the epic fail of the match.
Epic Fail of the Match
Two vanguard veterans, both armed with power fists, having survived their timely intervention that destroyed one super heavy, took stock in the lee of a building. A crackle of communication came through from their leader... they were being ordered into an all out attack. Using every ounce of power their jetpacks could give them, they burned till their fuel cells ran dry. They soared across the battlefield, covering several times the normal safe jump distance. Despite a rough landing for one, they survived and found themselves sat on an objective, taking control of it from the enemy Baneblade. Seeing the Baneblade was already the worse for wear, they charged up to it and with an epic feat of strength, managed to TOSS the baneblade!!! Sadly as the two heroes were high fiving each other it got dark... funny, there wasn't meant to be an eclipse today...
As the chaos forces surveyed the wreckage of their super heavy that had once been guarding the objective, they wondered what had killed it... and why whoever killed it hadn't taken control of the objective as the battle reached it's zenith... and what the hell was that yellow foot doing sticking out beneath the wreckage of the baneblade?
Divine Intervention
In this game, the divine intervention was easy to keep track of - the requirements for both sides were the same. However, the Imperial side didn't reach the threshold to call on the Emperors assistance till the final turn. By then the fearless and Furious Charge were fairly meaningless. It does look like a fun mechanic, and as long as you keep track of things that die as they happen, and know in advance what the threshold is, there is no reason why this cannot work in a non-GM game.
Strength D
We didn't have that many strength D weapons around, so the OP nature of this weapon didn't really come into it. I'll have to leave that test for another time.
Super Heavies
Something I like about this, is the super heavies keep on ticking till they are dead. It makes things a lot easier not having to balance different coloured dice on different guns to represent different effects. Plus with the new damage results you won't get one lucky melta shot 666ing your arse to death in one hit, which is a bit of a relief.
Super Heavy Walkers
Now a query did come up with this one. SH Walkers are treated as walkers in all respects, which means they can pivot in the shooting phase. Not an issue with a walker, it pivots, shoots, job done. It assaults what it shot. However with a super heavy walker, if it pivots to shoot one target, can it then pivot around and shoot something else? I was dubious about this - I felt that as a Baneblade declared all it's shooting and then resolved them all technically simultaneously, then the super heavy walker should also resolve it's fire simultaneously - ie, while facing in the same direction. However the players made the case that the Super Heavy Walker in question, the new Khorne monstrosity, had an upper torso that looked quite a bit more mobile than it's belly gun. Not liking the idea of an abuse of rules where you could fire a big gun at one target then turn to shoot something else to protect (relatively) vulnerable rear armour, I ruled that while they could engage different targets in different directions, the vehicle facing would end up towards whatever the belly gun shot at. I'll look into this a little more to see if I can get anything clearer on it before the next game.
Orbital Strike
This was the biggest bone of contention in the game. One of the players was absolutely adamant I was wrong in this ruling and argued the point forcefully, to the point that the other two players accepted my ruling and carried on gaming while we continued to debate the point. As GM, I forced my way on this one. This solution won't be available in every game, so we will need to investigate it further.
Basically, it comes down to the strategic asset, orbital bombardment. It states that "a friendly warlord makes a shooting attack with the following profile" which is for an apocalyptic mega blast with infinite range and a juicy str D centre. The background is that he calls upon a ship in orbit to take a shot at a target he nominates.
Now there were a few points of contention here. First, LOS. Is it required? It doesn't say it's required. However if you can nominate any unit on the board, why bother mention a warlord making a shooting attack? Why give an unlimited range? Why not just say "pick a target unit on the board" if you can shoot anywhere? My rationale behind this is that the ship in orbit can't exactly tell what the biggest threat to the tactical situation is on the ground. They require the commander on the ground to give the order to blast the living shit out of the corner of grid 7 to prevent a flank being overrun.
However, once we had agreed to use a warlords LOS there was then the issue of scatter. I believed the warlord chose the target, but the firing was done by some lackey on a cruiser miles above the surface - why would they use his BS to modify the scatter? I used the older rules from the Space Marine Codex and the Guard codex to back me up here - the models that can call down bombardments don't get to modify the scatter by their BS. It isn't them shooting, they are just saying roughly where to shoot. And this is where we came to the disagreement. It doesn't say anywhere in the asset that it doesn't use the warlords BS for scatter - he is firing therefore he get's to modify. It's as if the gun is being fired by him. Now under read as written I think my friend has a point, but under read as intended I think it is ridiculous. To illustrate my point, a warlord using read as written can not only modify the scatter, he could potentially fire UNDER scenery - killing the enemy he can see hiding under a skyshield landing pad, while leaving the troops on top unscathed. Now please do tell me how in the hell a battleship in orbit is supposed to pull off that particular trick shot?
Anyway, we eagerly await an FAQ on that one, as I don't think either of us is going to convince the other on this one. Any thoughts anyone?
And Finally
Just scrolling through some apocalyptic pictures to break up this essay a little, I found this beautiful model...
However, there's just something about that pose... I want to get one, and convert it so the hands are on the hips...
Then the pelvic thruuuuuust....
So today opportunity presented itself for a quick test game of Apoc. Far sooner than I anticipated, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. With the short notice nature of the game not many people could attend, and we ended up with just three players, playing roughly 7000 points per side. Classic Chaos versus Imperials match up.
Unnatural Disasters
We firstly eliminated some options from the table. We didn't have the spare daemons for a warp rift, nor did we want the LOS block it would bring. I do think we could do the Zombie Apocalypse game, as we have a load of Z-company zombies from when we ran the Get to the Choppa scenario. However I'm trying to keep things simple for now. And one of the gamers had played some apoc on Saturday and found that after he'd pissed off an inquisitor there wasn't much left on either team come turn 5...
That left three, and the random roll gave us the Seismic Table.
Now this was quite a fun little table. The first turn it created a line of dangerous terrain, but unluckily for the Imperial side the effected units had Move Through Cover so ignored it. In the second turn, it did far better, destroying two Bastions, knocking a point of armour off the third, and obliterating the skyshield landing pad (along with a dread, half a vanguard squad, and forced a plaguemarine squad to bail out fast) Turn three it took some more armour points off the last surviving Bastion. As we only ended up having time for a short game this was all it could do, so even if we'd allowed Exterminatus to be a possibility, it wouldn't have got out of hand. Course, if we'd managed to get through the turns a little quicker and get to the turn 5 I had envisaged, then the chances of anything surviving this far would have been unlikely in the extreme...
Finest Hour
These allowed for some fun little tricks, although the idea of making a warlord particularly epic for a short spell didn't really happen. Most of the finest hours were more strategic in nature. They do also make the calling warlord something of a target, and I will admit to falling at fault here in advising the Imperial side - my first thought had been to throw everything at the finest hour daemon prince, but in the end I suggested throwing a couple squads of Legion of the Damned at Abaddon. Get the Warmaster point and PREVENT him from calling his finest hour. Sadly it was not to be. His terminator bodyguard was wiped out, and the daemon prince was taken down to 2 wounds. Shows the my old guard way to be true, if you want something to die throw statistically twice as much as you need to kill at it - just to be sure.
Scoring
I thought the scoring system was good. It was fairly even at the end of session 1, though at the end of session 2 chaos were firmly in control and took the lead. Of course with the Imperials having the last turn they had the opportunity to sneak the win with objectives now being worth 3 points a pop. The imperial side got close, but with some tenacious plague marines holding out against everything that could be thrown at them, and one chaos held objective too far from ANYTHING that could get there, they couldn't capture the 5 they needed. The alternative route was killing Abaddon and the super heavy, but with Abaddon locked in combat the two squads that charged him were a forlorn hope... a forlorn hope that was made irrelevent by the epic fail of the match.
Epic Fail of the Match
Two vanguard veterans, both armed with power fists, having survived their timely intervention that destroyed one super heavy, took stock in the lee of a building. A crackle of communication came through from their leader... they were being ordered into an all out attack. Using every ounce of power their jetpacks could give them, they burned till their fuel cells ran dry. They soared across the battlefield, covering several times the normal safe jump distance. Despite a rough landing for one, they survived and found themselves sat on an objective, taking control of it from the enemy Baneblade. Seeing the Baneblade was already the worse for wear, they charged up to it and with an epic feat of strength, managed to TOSS the baneblade!!! Sadly as the two heroes were high fiving each other it got dark... funny, there wasn't meant to be an eclipse today...
As the chaos forces surveyed the wreckage of their super heavy that had once been guarding the objective, they wondered what had killed it... and why whoever killed it hadn't taken control of the objective as the battle reached it's zenith... and what the hell was that yellow foot doing sticking out beneath the wreckage of the baneblade?
Divine Intervention
In this game, the divine intervention was easy to keep track of - the requirements for both sides were the same. However, the Imperial side didn't reach the threshold to call on the Emperors assistance till the final turn. By then the fearless and Furious Charge were fairly meaningless. It does look like a fun mechanic, and as long as you keep track of things that die as they happen, and know in advance what the threshold is, there is no reason why this cannot work in a non-GM game.
Strength D
We didn't have that many strength D weapons around, so the OP nature of this weapon didn't really come into it. I'll have to leave that test for another time.
Super Heavies
Something I like about this, is the super heavies keep on ticking till they are dead. It makes things a lot easier not having to balance different coloured dice on different guns to represent different effects. Plus with the new damage results you won't get one lucky melta shot 666ing your arse to death in one hit, which is a bit of a relief.
Super Heavy Walkers
Now a query did come up with this one. SH Walkers are treated as walkers in all respects, which means they can pivot in the shooting phase. Not an issue with a walker, it pivots, shoots, job done. It assaults what it shot. However with a super heavy walker, if it pivots to shoot one target, can it then pivot around and shoot something else? I was dubious about this - I felt that as a Baneblade declared all it's shooting and then resolved them all technically simultaneously, then the super heavy walker should also resolve it's fire simultaneously - ie, while facing in the same direction. However the players made the case that the Super Heavy Walker in question, the new Khorne monstrosity, had an upper torso that looked quite a bit more mobile than it's belly gun. Not liking the idea of an abuse of rules where you could fire a big gun at one target then turn to shoot something else to protect (relatively) vulnerable rear armour, I ruled that while they could engage different targets in different directions, the vehicle facing would end up towards whatever the belly gun shot at. I'll look into this a little more to see if I can get anything clearer on it before the next game.
Orbital Strike
This was the biggest bone of contention in the game. One of the players was absolutely adamant I was wrong in this ruling and argued the point forcefully, to the point that the other two players accepted my ruling and carried on gaming while we continued to debate the point. As GM, I forced my way on this one. This solution won't be available in every game, so we will need to investigate it further.
Basically, it comes down to the strategic asset, orbital bombardment. It states that "a friendly warlord makes a shooting attack with the following profile" which is for an apocalyptic mega blast with infinite range and a juicy str D centre. The background is that he calls upon a ship in orbit to take a shot at a target he nominates.
Now there were a few points of contention here. First, LOS. Is it required? It doesn't say it's required. However if you can nominate any unit on the board, why bother mention a warlord making a shooting attack? Why give an unlimited range? Why not just say "pick a target unit on the board" if you can shoot anywhere? My rationale behind this is that the ship in orbit can't exactly tell what the biggest threat to the tactical situation is on the ground. They require the commander on the ground to give the order to blast the living shit out of the corner of grid 7 to prevent a flank being overrun.
However, once we had agreed to use a warlords LOS there was then the issue of scatter. I believed the warlord chose the target, but the firing was done by some lackey on a cruiser miles above the surface - why would they use his BS to modify the scatter? I used the older rules from the Space Marine Codex and the Guard codex to back me up here - the models that can call down bombardments don't get to modify the scatter by their BS. It isn't them shooting, they are just saying roughly where to shoot. And this is where we came to the disagreement. It doesn't say anywhere in the asset that it doesn't use the warlords BS for scatter - he is firing therefore he get's to modify. It's as if the gun is being fired by him. Now under read as written I think my friend has a point, but under read as intended I think it is ridiculous. To illustrate my point, a warlord using read as written can not only modify the scatter, he could potentially fire UNDER scenery - killing the enemy he can see hiding under a skyshield landing pad, while leaving the troops on top unscathed. Now please do tell me how in the hell a battleship in orbit is supposed to pull off that particular trick shot?
Anyway, we eagerly await an FAQ on that one, as I don't think either of us is going to convince the other on this one. Any thoughts anyone?
And Finally
Just scrolling through some apocalyptic pictures to break up this essay a little, I found this beautiful model...
However, there's just something about that pose... I want to get one, and convert it so the hands are on the hips...
Then the pelvic thruuuuuust....
Friday, 1 February 2013
Vinds ov Var 13
So, with Winds of War 2013 just over two weeks away and Ken now on holiday, it's down to me to make sure the late arriving army (Curse you Total Wargamer) is built and painted on time. My own force has just been completed, and Ken has done his Razorwing as a guide for me to work from.
Here's our list.
Army List 1 - Kenneth Morley
Razorwing w Flickerfield - 155
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 warriors - 45
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 warriors - 45
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
Total - 500
Army List 2 - Ian Connolly
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
Total - 500
The background for our army?
Vince had been looking forward to some pillaging and drunken high spirits, with possibly some sneaking around for good measure, however a minor technicality put paid to his plans. So he climbed into his jet, and summoned his flock - vengeance was on his mind!
I think this nicely reflects our feelings about having our pirates vs ninjas idea thwarted by a minor change to the rules since last year, while also covering the basics for what we're bringing.
And the team name?
Vazorwing Vince vith his venomously vainglorious vigilantes vindictively vaging a vendetta vith vicious vectors of vice and villainy.
If nothing else, I shall have my revenge against the TO by giving him a fit trying to pronounce our team name right :-P
Just call me V...
Here's our list.
Army List 1 - Kenneth Morley
Razorwing w Flickerfield - 155
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 warriors - 45
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 warriors - 45
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
Total - 500
Army List 2 - Ian Connolly
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
5 Warriors, Blaster. - 60
ded tran - Venom, dual splinter cannon - 65
Total - 500
The background for our army?
Vince had been looking forward to some pillaging and drunken high spirits, with possibly some sneaking around for good measure, however a minor technicality put paid to his plans. So he climbed into his jet, and summoned his flock - vengeance was on his mind!
I think this nicely reflects our feelings about having our pirates vs ninjas idea thwarted by a minor change to the rules since last year, while also covering the basics for what we're bringing.
And the team name?
Vazorwing Vince vith his venomously vainglorious vigilantes vindictively vaging a vendetta vith vicious vectors of vice and villainy.
If nothing else, I shall have my revenge against the TO by giving him a fit trying to pronounce our team name right :-P
Just call me V...
Sunday, 30 December 2012
Santa Klaws Rulez...
As promised, the rules I came up with (and by now should be using in an apoc game) for Santa Klaws and his Sleigh...
UNIT
OR FORMATION NAME: Santa Klaws POINTS: 250
DESCRIPTION:
Oi
get your choppas out,
'ear
the umiez cry,
Giv
em all a clout,
and
watch em all die...
Santa
Klaws is coming, to WAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
SANTA
KLAWS:
|
|
WS
|
BS
|
S
|
T
|
W
|
I
|
A
|
Ld
|
Sv
|
|
Santa
|
5
|
2
|
5
|
5
|
3
|
4
|
4
|
9
|
6
|
Santa
is equipped with Power Klaw, Eavy Armour, Cybork Body, and Santas
Sack of Prezzies, Santas Sleigh.
Santas
Sack of Prezzies.
At
the start of the shooting phase, choose one Ork unit within 12” of
Santa, and roll on the following table.
|
D6
|
Result
|
|
1
|
Lumps
of Coal. The boyz have been bad. The unit cannot do anything this
turn except cry.
|
|
2
|
The
unit gets shiny new choppas and sluggas but no tactical change
|
|
3
|
As
above, but these ones are snazzier, so the orks feel even better.
No tactical difference, but they're happy.
|
|
4
|
Lotsa
Ammo – Santa has given out extra bullets, all guns get +1 shot
this turn
|
|
5
|
Wooly
jumpers – The extra thick layers give +1 to the armour save this
turn
|
|
6
|
Med
Packs – The unit has FNP this turn!
|
The
effect of Santas Sack lasts for one turn only. No unit can receive a
second gift from the sack. That wouldn't be fair.
SANTAS
SLEIGH:
|
|
BS
|
Front
Armour
|
Side
Armour
|
Rear
Armour
|
|
Santas
Sleigh
|
2
|
11
|
11
|
10
|
Fast,
Chariot, Open Topped, Red Paint Job, 2 twin linked dakkaguns, Exhaust
Cloud, 4 Joy Seeking Missiles, A very Special Task. The sleigh has 4
hull points.
Joy
Seeking Missiles.
Read
out the name of the missile. Whoever has the biggest smile (friend or
foe) is the target. That players most expensive unit is targeted.
Range
unlimited, no LOS required. AP2 One shot heavy 1 hits on 2+. All are
fired at once. Str variable*
*If
the person is upset at this turn of events, the missiles are Str 6.
If they are ok with things, they are Str 8. If they find the whole
episode hilarious, Str 10.
A
very Special Mission
If
this unit is being used in December, it can choose to be a flyer
during any turn. It must be a flyer for the complete turn. As a flyer
the rider can vector strike instead of doing his sweep attack.
If
the flyer is shot down, the unit that shot it down is immediately
targeted by the nearest unit (friend or foe) and an out of sequence
shooting attack is directed against it, as everyone is mad at them
for spoiling Christmas. Furthermore, all units on the board
(including the “friendly” ones) have preferred enemy against THAT
unit for the remainder of the game. Whichever player ordered the unit
to shoot down Santa can expect to receive abuse from all other
players for doing the most callous thing since Alan Rickman called
off Christmas...
Friday, 21 December 2012
Cities of Death in 6th Edition
In the new year I plan to run a Crusade of Fire based campaign at my local gaming club. As any battles fought over Hive City tiles require a Cities of Death game to be played, I thought I'd have a look over the rules and bring them in line with sixth edition.
For starters, I'd say we need to take into account the rule changes sixth edition has brought. To that end, there are some basic rule changes to clear up first.
NOT all units are scoring, nor does it matter how many survivors there are in a scoring unit. Troops only score, others deny, and unit strength is irrelevent.
Deep Strike, Reserves, Dusk and Dawn, Random Game Length, Infiltrate... these are all basic parts of the game now, so anywhere that says "If these rules are being played" can be ignored. Likewise anything that let's that rule be played is fairly irrelevent.
Anything that talks about determining Line of Sight can be ignored, we use True Line of Sight now.
I will also suggest using the secondary objectives that we have come to know in sixth edition.
All good so far? I can see you're enthralled!
Moving on, deployment. Now Cities of Death missions all used table quarters deployment. I did consider updating this to 6th ed deployments, but with the fact that Cities of Death had it's own different deployment when it was released and it isn't updates that have left it looking different, I will stick with table quarters. There will not be a specific order to what you deploy or alternating deployment - player 1 deploys their forces in their quarter, not within 12" of the centre. Player 2 then does the same. Player 1 gets first turn, unless player 2 siezes the initiative.
A couple of other specific changes to the rules as listed in the book.
Page 9 - Rubble is listed as a 4+ cover. This needs to be a 5+ to bring it in line with 6th ed.
Page 34 - Command Centre - the secondary option for this is in relation to the long out of use Target Priority Checks. Best just to ignore this secondary power and stick to the primary power if you use this strategem.
Page 40 - As mentioned earlier, deep strike and infiltrate are now part of the game, these strategums are redundant. The sewer rats strategum is still useful though.
Page 45-46 - All rules are in line with 6th edition, these pages can be pretty much ignored.
The Missions
Firesweep
At the end of the mission each planted flag counts as 3vp.
High Ground
The objective building is worth 3vp to the side that claims it.
Domination
Each occupied ruin is worth 3vp to the holder.
Maximum Attrition
Each unit destroyed is worth 1vp to the opposition.
Urban Assault
Each objective building is worth 3vp to the holder.
There are also some special missions, but they're different enough in their own special rules that they don't really need modifying. Just use a little common sense and you'll be fine.
Hope all this is useful to someone, and I will be blogging about the campaign over on my personal blog when it all starts off, and will try to keep the writeups both characterful and also useful to anyone who wishes to run their own Crusade of Fire campaign in the future.
Sunday, 7 October 2012
Sixth Edition Initiation Game
About 4 months after the rest of the internets I have finally got round to playing my first game of sixth edition. Unfortunately it was at rather short notice. So I rocked up at Ginges house today and borrowed his Ork army for my first game of sixth against his necrons. Essentially playing Orks for the first time against an army I have never played against using a game system I haven't yet played.... so didn't expect to win, however I wasn't expecting things to go quite as badly as it did. So I'm going to use this more of a run down on my feelings of sixth rather then a battle report.
Mission and Deployment
We ended up playing Big guns never Tire with Vanguard deployment type. Not necessarily my ideal deployment type for this game but no matter. I won the roll for deployment and decided to go first. I was hoping to be able to hit Ginges' lines without having to take too many turns of shooting. Didn't quite work out that way though.
Charging:
I think that charging has become a far bigger risk now in 6th edition. With random charge length and overwatch shooting. Frankly, charging large squads in cover with a squad of Orks is more or less pointless. I lost so many models from overwatch fire, by the time I had struck last in combat, the orks were causing less casualties then the crons. Removal of the nearest models doesn't help this either, as trying to thin a squad out prior to charging with shooting just means you have to charge further, making reaching combat less likely, while still having to face a round of overwatch shooting (even if you don't roll high enough to reach combat!?!). This is made even worse in the case of necrons with the nearest models dying, then making their ressurection rolls and resurfacing further away from the assaulting squad, while still being close enough to provide rapid fire overwatch shots.
Challenges:
Frankly, probably the worst army to face challenges against, mind shackle scarabs vs a low leadership army are brutal. Meaning you have a choice between not participating in a combat with your hard as nails Ork, or killing yourself in the second round of combat. Though even if you challenge in the first round of combat (negating the MSS) chances are the lord will just stand back up and either kill you or get you to kill yourself the following combat. Not exactly the cinematic effect GW were aiming for in this case.
Hull Points:
Necrons strip hull points from tanks with grim efficiency, half a squad of shooting would have been slagging land raiders with Ginges rolling in this game. No vehicle survived past the first thing to shoot at it. Frankly it's pointless even talking about it.
Aircraft:
Proved to be entirely ineffective this game, with two dakka jets putting about 18 wounds on a squad of necrons (though Ginge had cleverly placed his lord with 2+ save closest to where they would enter play) meaning he lost about 2 necrons and a single wound on his lord (which the 2 crons just resurrected). When shot at by Ginges annihilation barges they just dropped out the sky. Although needing sixes to hit, with twin linked weapons that score 3 hits for every six rolled, and me failing all the jink saves, well they didn't last long. Against armies that don't have such efficient AA weapons, I can see flyers being hugely effective. Though my inexperience proved to be there downfall more then anything though.
Overall:
I quite enjoyed my first game of sixth, frankly given the circumstances of this game (and Ginges' insanely lucky rolling, I think he probably won't roll another 6 for a good few months) despite it being a complete whitewash I still had a fun time.
I think the game overall has shifted to more of a shooting game, even more then 5th. Which is going to be a pain for my Tyranids (though the loss of no retreat wounds, means they should last twice as long in combat).
I think I will have to try out my Tyranids and Tau next.
Thursday, 27 September 2012
Super Heavies Scalped by Sixth?
Having played my first apocalypse game of sixth edition on Sunday (with no str D weapons in any army, so no chance to test the idea of making D less the auto win gun) I have discovered that super heavies are not all they once were...
Sure, they're still durable as hell. You can still chain reaction one to death if you're lucky, but the odds aren't good. Being able to whittle them down a little by gradually glancing away the structure points makes them easier to deal with (slightly) though you can of course use techs and meks to repair some of those hull points. No what I found was that they were far easier to effectively take out of the game.
For the uninitiated, super heavies used to have their own damage table. low results would stun a gun or the driver. mid table would knock off a gun or give a half-immobilised result. And the high results would take off structure points. The big guns, your primary weapons, had a 4+ save against stunning and damaging. The enemy would generally shoot at the big thing and when you failed a 4+ on the big gun they may think "ok that will do that's a lot less damage it can do to me next turn, I can finally shoot something else"
Move forward to sixth, and they use the same damage table as basic 40k. The only difference being immobilised is drive damaged (so half immobilised, takes two to stop it) and that explodes is remove a structure point and roll again, without modifiers. For killing the things it seems to be on a par with before. A succession of 6s can instant kill, but it's unlikely. But for shutting the super heavy out of the game, all it takes is one penetrating hit. You roll and get a crew shaken or stunned result, and your job is effectively done! Why? Because it effects ALL the guns at once. You still get a 4+ save for primary weapons, but taking the baneblade as an example, you've just lost your demolisher cannon, your two lascannons are hitting on 6s, the 3 twin linked heavy bolters likewise (though weight of shots and twin linked means they aren't as effected as the lascannons) and you're one bad dice roll from losing your mega cannon. Statistically two hits and all you have is a bunch of heavy bolters for 450 points. The enemy doesn't have to chuck masses of firepower at them anymore... as soon as it's shaken they can move on to other targets. Part of the benefit of super heavies would be their nature as bullet magnets, allowing the rest of your forces to advance unmolested. Will this still be the case? It also puts more of an onus on the first turn - if you go second you may never get chance to fire your super heavies... at least going first you have chance to fire them at least once!
I have no solution to this issue, and I am not looking for one. I can just see the nature of apocalypse mutating to make super heavies far less effective than they once were. Are Games Workshop going to rely on people rarely playing apocalypse and thus not noticing? It seems unprecedented for them to make a massive kit like the baneblade less effective than it used to be, unless they are relying on people just simply wanting one without thinking about when or if they will ever field it...
Do note, that this does not affect my previous article on Str D weapons. That was about balancing the warhound options out to make viable choices of all weapons and I stand by it. If anything this issue makes the new rules for Str D better as they'd still be able to fire while snap firing - a titan armed with plenty of old str D and nothing else may find itself easy to shut out of a game.
Sure, they're still durable as hell. You can still chain reaction one to death if you're lucky, but the odds aren't good. Being able to whittle them down a little by gradually glancing away the structure points makes them easier to deal with (slightly) though you can of course use techs and meks to repair some of those hull points. No what I found was that they were far easier to effectively take out of the game.
 |
| Assuming you aren't snap-firing... |
For the uninitiated, super heavies used to have their own damage table. low results would stun a gun or the driver. mid table would knock off a gun or give a half-immobilised result. And the high results would take off structure points. The big guns, your primary weapons, had a 4+ save against stunning and damaging. The enemy would generally shoot at the big thing and when you failed a 4+ on the big gun they may think "ok that will do that's a lot less damage it can do to me next turn, I can finally shoot something else"
Move forward to sixth, and they use the same damage table as basic 40k. The only difference being immobilised is drive damaged (so half immobilised, takes two to stop it) and that explodes is remove a structure point and roll again, without modifiers. For killing the things it seems to be on a par with before. A succession of 6s can instant kill, but it's unlikely. But for shutting the super heavy out of the game, all it takes is one penetrating hit. You roll and get a crew shaken or stunned result, and your job is effectively done! Why? Because it effects ALL the guns at once. You still get a 4+ save for primary weapons, but taking the baneblade as an example, you've just lost your demolisher cannon, your two lascannons are hitting on 6s, the 3 twin linked heavy bolters likewise (though weight of shots and twin linked means they aren't as effected as the lascannons) and you're one bad dice roll from losing your mega cannon. Statistically two hits and all you have is a bunch of heavy bolters for 450 points. The enemy doesn't have to chuck masses of firepower at them anymore... as soon as it's shaken they can move on to other targets. Part of the benefit of super heavies would be their nature as bullet magnets, allowing the rest of your forces to advance unmolested. Will this still be the case? It also puts more of an onus on the first turn - if you go second you may never get chance to fire your super heavies... at least going first you have chance to fire them at least once!
I have no solution to this issue, and I am not looking for one. I can just see the nature of apocalypse mutating to make super heavies far less effective than they once were. Are Games Workshop going to rely on people rarely playing apocalypse and thus not noticing? It seems unprecedented for them to make a massive kit like the baneblade less effective than it used to be, unless they are relying on people just simply wanting one without thinking about when or if they will ever field it...
Do note, that this does not affect my previous article on Str D weapons. That was about balancing the warhound options out to make viable choices of all weapons and I stand by it. If anything this issue makes the new rules for Str D better as they'd still be able to fire while snap firing - a titan armed with plenty of old str D and nothing else may find itself easy to shut out of a game.
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
The Problem with Strength D
 |
| The gun that can do anything... |
 |
| An unfamiliar titan... one with a variety of guns! |
In discussion, we thought that it might be best to take away the blast rule to make the weapon less effective against infantry. My friend said that in his opinion, the only reason it was blast in the first place was so that it would be better at hitting larger vehicles than small ones - a large blast can feasibly miss an ork truk, a land raider is a harder thing to miss, and a baneblade damn near impossible to miss! So to try to keep that effect in place, I suggested increasing the BS when shooting at larger targets. After all, you can't say that a solitary guardsmen would be as easy to hit as a baneblade. So perhaps +1 BS against vehicles (and monstrous creatures too?) with a further +1 (that stacks) against super heavies and gargantuans. Meaning a Baneblade is still practically impossible to miss, a land raider the odds are you're gonna hit it, while a guardsmen you just fire in roughly the right direction and hope to hit near enough to fry the guy.
Consulting with a friend who actually uses titans (and therefore my theoretical hard sell on this issue) he said that he wouldn't want to see the Str D completely useless against infantry, but could see we had something of a point. He agreed that having to make a tactical decision between the different guns would be more interesting than just taking Str D as it does everything. He came up with the rather good suggestion of two fire modes - focused or dispersed, similar to the Tau Hammerhead shooting mode.
After haggling between the three of us I decided the following would be a good new profile for Str D weapons
focused mode - Str D, NO BLAST, +1 BS against vehicles, +2 against super heavies/gargantuan
dispersed mode - Str7, AP2, Large Blast.
The dispersed mode would still wound most things on 2s, but allows cover saves. It doesn't instant death T4, or disregard FNP for T4. Basically, it'll still kill marines in the open, but if it's a tough unit (Paladins, nob bikers) it won't brutalise them.
I need to look into it a little more to be sure - I believe there may be one or two Str D weapons out there that currently don't have blast (the daemon shell strategic asset springs to mind, though don't quote me on that I need to check) and I don't want to GIVE them an anti infantry capability they aren't designed to have, they can stay as they are. But I may try experimenting with it as a house rule to see how it takes.
There is an upside for the titan lovers... with it no longer being blast, you can potentially snap fire. Those pesky flyers you've been unable to touch? sure they'll be tough to hit... but if you do hit them, bye bye...
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Dogfight Fail
So the other day I took the opportunity offered by Forge World units
and the new dual FOC list at 2k to play something I've always wanted to
try - an aircav guard army. I had one vet squad to act as forward
spotters, the rest of the army was a command squad and vets riding
valkyries and vendettas, with two twl punisher cannon vultures plus a
thunderbolt and lightning (very very frightning galileo galileo figaro)
as heavy support. It didn't go as well as I'd hoped, due to me not
spotting one small rule in the aircraft section - ALL aircraft can
choose to use skyfire if they wish.
Now in the old apoc rules for flyers everything hit them on 6s, even other flyers. This made sense - if a ground based gun struggles to hit me as I zoom by at 200mph then how the hell are two fighters passing each other at a combined speed of 400mph gonna be more likely to get a better shot off? Unless of course they are dedicated air superiority fighters. As such the thunderbolt, a ground attack fighter, laden with bombs plus some autocannons and a lascannon, could barely touch other aircraft. The air superiority fighter lightning had the AA rule for it's guns, meaning it hit on normal BS and was good at taking out other flyers. This all made sense. Of course, with ALL flyers having the ability to have skyfire if they choose to, air superiority fighters become useless. The bigger and heavier the plane the better - it's less likely to get taken in one, and more likely to have the firepower to punch you out in one. Which is what happened to me. A solitary stormraven took out most of my airforce. It would boost up to one and multimelta plus two missiles to the face... while the assault cannon would be machine spirited at a separate target. The head on attack usually got the job done, while the assault cannon would certainly clip the wings of the other target.
Disagree? Take the following example.
In todays world, putting the following two against each other with equally skilled pilots should have a clear winner.
The apache will kick arse out of ground targets, but the fighter should nail it easily enough. I consider the 40k equivalent to these to be the Vulture and the Lightning.
Now my vulture with twin linked punisher cannon comes in at 155. My lightning, including 6 skystrike missiles for true anti air prowess, comes in at 205. I'll even give the lightning first shot. Now i'm not normally one to math-hammer, but just run the averages here. Assuming head on, as we will have entered from own table edge.
Lightning fires autocannon, twin linked lascannon, and two missiles. Hitting on 4s. So one autocannon hit, the reroll should see the lascannon hit 75% of the time, and you'd certainly have one missile hit with a 50% chance for a second. I'll round up and say they both hit. That's 3 str 7 and 1 str 9 hits. Front armour of vulture - 12. So a 3+ to damage with the lascannon - let's call that a pen. a 5 to damage with the rest. Call that 1 glance. Then of course there's the possibility of a jink save which might get rid of one of them. Even if we choose to ignore that, unless we get a good roll on the pen hit, that's still a live opponent.
Vultures turn, with it's anti infantry gun. 20 shots, hitting on 4s, twin linked. So 15 hits. Glancing on 5s. That's 5 hp. Even with the jink save, 3 should still go through. Which is one more hp than the lightning has even before any penetrating hits are rolled.
I consider the vulture to be ground attack. The stormraven likewise, and my vultures and vendettas. They're the helicopter equivalent, for fire support and troop carrying in support of ground operations. They should fear the dedicated flyer. Not swat it like an annoying insect. This is the first thing I have not liked about sixth edition so I'm not gonna toss my toys from the pram over it. But while it seems to be encouraging us all to take flyers, it seems which flyers you take could be key... and the stormraven seems like a rock solid top choice so far. Oh joy, Grey Knights have yet another of the best toys.
*Cross Posted From Need More Tanks*
Now in the old apoc rules for flyers everything hit them on 6s, even other flyers. This made sense - if a ground based gun struggles to hit me as I zoom by at 200mph then how the hell are two fighters passing each other at a combined speed of 400mph gonna be more likely to get a better shot off? Unless of course they are dedicated air superiority fighters. As such the thunderbolt, a ground attack fighter, laden with bombs plus some autocannons and a lascannon, could barely touch other aircraft. The air superiority fighter lightning had the AA rule for it's guns, meaning it hit on normal BS and was good at taking out other flyers. This all made sense. Of course, with ALL flyers having the ability to have skyfire if they choose to, air superiority fighters become useless. The bigger and heavier the plane the better - it's less likely to get taken in one, and more likely to have the firepower to punch you out in one. Which is what happened to me. A solitary stormraven took out most of my airforce. It would boost up to one and multimelta plus two missiles to the face... while the assault cannon would be machine spirited at a separate target. The head on attack usually got the job done, while the assault cannon would certainly clip the wings of the other target.
Disagree? Take the following example.
In todays world, putting the following two against each other with equally skilled pilots should have a clear winner.
The apache will kick arse out of ground targets, but the fighter should nail it easily enough. I consider the 40k equivalent to these to be the Vulture and the Lightning.
Now my vulture with twin linked punisher cannon comes in at 155. My lightning, including 6 skystrike missiles for true anti air prowess, comes in at 205. I'll even give the lightning first shot. Now i'm not normally one to math-hammer, but just run the averages here. Assuming head on, as we will have entered from own table edge.
Lightning fires autocannon, twin linked lascannon, and two missiles. Hitting on 4s. So one autocannon hit, the reroll should see the lascannon hit 75% of the time, and you'd certainly have one missile hit with a 50% chance for a second. I'll round up and say they both hit. That's 3 str 7 and 1 str 9 hits. Front armour of vulture - 12. So a 3+ to damage with the lascannon - let's call that a pen. a 5 to damage with the rest. Call that 1 glance. Then of course there's the possibility of a jink save which might get rid of one of them. Even if we choose to ignore that, unless we get a good roll on the pen hit, that's still a live opponent.
Vultures turn, with it's anti infantry gun. 20 shots, hitting on 4s, twin linked. So 15 hits. Glancing on 5s. That's 5 hp. Even with the jink save, 3 should still go through. Which is one more hp than the lightning has even before any penetrating hits are rolled.
I consider the vulture to be ground attack. The stormraven likewise, and my vultures and vendettas. They're the helicopter equivalent, for fire support and troop carrying in support of ground operations. They should fear the dedicated flyer. Not swat it like an annoying insect. This is the first thing I have not liked about sixth edition so I'm not gonna toss my toys from the pram over it. But while it seems to be encouraging us all to take flyers, it seems which flyers you take could be key... and the stormraven seems like a rock solid top choice so far. Oh joy, Grey Knights have yet another of the best toys.
*Cross Posted From Need More Tanks*
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Some thoughts on 6th edition - Part 1
Having had a read of some of the new rules I thought it would be interesting to start a bit of a debate on the latest edition and to share my thoughts on it. In this part I will look at what I think are the key changes in the basic rules for moving, shooting, assault and morale.
The movement phase seems to have somewhat thinned down but nothing overly noteworthy appears to have happened here. The shooting phase is a different kettle of fish!
The first, and my favourite rule is the change back to the second edition style of play whereby only models in a squad that actually move count as moving, allowing half a squad to redeploy to counter a threat whilst still allowing heavy weapons to fire. I also like the addition of the snap shot rule allowing non-blast/template weapons that are normally move or shoot to fire at BS1 on the move.
The new wound pool method of allocating wounds to the closest model until it dies should be quite interesting as it means multi-wound squads such as Tau battle suits will become slightly less survivable as they get forced to take break tests quicker than they would have done before. I think it will only be a matter of time before people start to counter this by clever deployment of models within the squad to protect more valuable troops; although it does produce a slight quandary over where to position meltaguns!
The assault phase has had some positive inclusions, such as AP on close combat weapons, although I still find it amazing that a guardsman's rusty bayonet is just as like to slip through power armour as a chainsword swung by a superhuman augmented warrior! I also don't like the fact that pistols are not taken into account for AP but hey-ho at least it's a step in the right direction. More on weapons at a later date however...
I also love the idea of over watch fire allowing the defending unit to snap shoot at the attackers as they come barrelling towards them, that conjures up some great images of brave guardsmen hastily shooting at a rampaging enemy under the command of rock steady officers!
However, I do believe they have made a right hash of the basic rules of the assault phase. Firstly they have made the highest initiative strikes first massively over complicated, especially with introducing the pile in moves part way through. My opinion is a simple statement as per fifth edition of models strike in initiative order was fine and adding in the pile ins will just make it more complicated.
The other new rule I can't abide is the everyone rolls 2D6 for charge range! Not only does this mean an army like a BA red flea army can be in combat in turn 1 it also makes them horrifically open to failing a charge at a crucial moment. I really struggle to see how in a group of highly trained jump-packed warriors Bob trips as the unit charge and so the whole squad stops to pick him up and brush him down in the face of the enemies guns?! The converse to this is that a bunch of lumbering terminators can somehow cover a quarter of a standard battlefield in one charge! Come on GW that rule is just daft! I could understand it before when units charged through cover but having to do it every assault will seriously discourage me from taking an assault orientated army!
I also don't like the disordered charge rule, how can a unit that is charging all pent up and ready to unleash hell somehow looses this advantage just because they happen to engage two units?
Morale seems to have changed very little between editions, with the exception of the introduction of a rule allowing you to shoot at BS1 as units fall back. I think this is a great addition representing the need for units to provide cover fire in a disciplined fall back manoeuvre or just the sheer blind panic spray and pray attempts to cover one's own backside in a rout!
That's all for a fairly text heavy post, next time I'll start to look at some of the more advanced rules. Over to you for your thoughts and comments!
The movement phase seems to have somewhat thinned down but nothing overly noteworthy appears to have happened here. The shooting phase is a different kettle of fish!
The first, and my favourite rule is the change back to the second edition style of play whereby only models in a squad that actually move count as moving, allowing half a squad to redeploy to counter a threat whilst still allowing heavy weapons to fire. I also like the addition of the snap shot rule allowing non-blast/template weapons that are normally move or shoot to fire at BS1 on the move.
The new wound pool method of allocating wounds to the closest model until it dies should be quite interesting as it means multi-wound squads such as Tau battle suits will become slightly less survivable as they get forced to take break tests quicker than they would have done before. I think it will only be a matter of time before people start to counter this by clever deployment of models within the squad to protect more valuable troops; although it does produce a slight quandary over where to position meltaguns!
The assault phase has had some positive inclusions, such as AP on close combat weapons, although I still find it amazing that a guardsman's rusty bayonet is just as like to slip through power armour as a chainsword swung by a superhuman augmented warrior! I also don't like the fact that pistols are not taken into account for AP but hey-ho at least it's a step in the right direction. More on weapons at a later date however...
I also love the idea of over watch fire allowing the defending unit to snap shoot at the attackers as they come barrelling towards them, that conjures up some great images of brave guardsmen hastily shooting at a rampaging enemy under the command of rock steady officers!
However, I do believe they have made a right hash of the basic rules of the assault phase. Firstly they have made the highest initiative strikes first massively over complicated, especially with introducing the pile in moves part way through. My opinion is a simple statement as per fifth edition of models strike in initiative order was fine and adding in the pile ins will just make it more complicated.
The other new rule I can't abide is the everyone rolls 2D6 for charge range! Not only does this mean an army like a BA red flea army can be in combat in turn 1 it also makes them horrifically open to failing a charge at a crucial moment. I really struggle to see how in a group of highly trained jump-packed warriors Bob trips as the unit charge and so the whole squad stops to pick him up and brush him down in the face of the enemies guns?! The converse to this is that a bunch of lumbering terminators can somehow cover a quarter of a standard battlefield in one charge! Come on GW that rule is just daft! I could understand it before when units charged through cover but having to do it every assault will seriously discourage me from taking an assault orientated army!
I also don't like the disordered charge rule, how can a unit that is charging all pent up and ready to unleash hell somehow looses this advantage just because they happen to engage two units?
Morale seems to have changed very little between editions, with the exception of the introduction of a rule allowing you to shoot at BS1 as units fall back. I think this is a great addition representing the need for units to provide cover fire in a disciplined fall back manoeuvre or just the sheer blind panic spray and pray attempts to cover one's own backside in a rout!
That's all for a fairly text heavy post, next time I'll start to look at some of the more advanced rules. Over to you for your thoughts and comments!
Saturday, 30 June 2012
6th Edition Arrives
Well, here it is. I almost missed out! Somehow I thought the release date was next weekend, so I missed out on the limited edition sets but manage to pop down to my local secondary retailer and nabbed the last copy of a standard rule book.
First thought is what a weighty tome! 432 pages, 1924g (according to our kitchen scales!) or 37mm (1.5" for those who still use imperial) of hobby goodness. Ripping the cellophane off is not quite as satisfying as tearing open a new boxed set game but you still get a good whiff of newness from the book!
The rules, including the terrain you can purchase, the allies matrix and 6 missions comes to a total of 131 pages leaving the rest of the book devoted to the fluff and hobby information and the index. The game summary at the back seems to be much more rigorous than previous editions, perhaps this is an indication that things have become more complex!
The whole book is now colour, rather than just the hobby section, which is nice and the illustrations are, as normal, of excellent quality. You now also get a handy ribbon marker!
On the whole it looks interesting and I can't wait to read it thoroughly; as it says in the introduction "A new era is coming..." let us hope it's a good one!
First thought is what a weighty tome! 432 pages, 1924g (according to our kitchen scales!) or 37mm (1.5" for those who still use imperial) of hobby goodness. Ripping the cellophane off is not quite as satisfying as tearing open a new boxed set game but you still get a good whiff of newness from the book!
The rules, including the terrain you can purchase, the allies matrix and 6 missions comes to a total of 131 pages leaving the rest of the book devoted to the fluff and hobby information and the index. The game summary at the back seems to be much more rigorous than previous editions, perhaps this is an indication that things have become more complex!
The whole book is now colour, rather than just the hobby section, which is nice and the illustrations are, as normal, of excellent quality. You now also get a handy ribbon marker!
On the whole it looks interesting and I can't wait to read it thoroughly; as it says in the introduction "A new era is coming..." let us hope it's a good one!
Thursday, 28 June 2012
Allies in 6th edition
One of the huge changes to the game for 6th edition will be the inclusion of rules for allies in normal games (in the grim darkness of the far future, there are only hugs :-P), while the internets have been all a flutter with this potentially breaking the game and making some armies unstoppable with the combination of special rules and units available.
I am slightly more optimistic though, while sooner (rather then later) powerful and nasty combinations are bound to get out and be abused, due to the ever evolving nature of the online community, these lists will spread like wildfire, then be demolished by the next abusive list or countered through tactics and rewritten army lists. On the other hand, there are some people looking at this in another light, looking for that something extra special to add to their fluffy armies, or their themed armies. Such as my Halo themed space wolf army. This was a 500 point force for a doubles tournament and I had a great time painting and converting the models and was really pleased with the result.
However with the two squads of Grey Hunters, long fangs and Razorbacks, I was swiftly running out of options for expanding the force while sticking to the original theme. With the inclusion of allies, this ceases to be an issue. I could expand this force to 1750 for taking to blog wars 5 (I'm hoping this will happen :-P) or up to 2000, using Guard or vanilla marines and selecting units that are similar to their Halo equivalent. All these projects could see themselves increased to full army status.
What do you guys think, will allies be a good or bad thing for the game?
I am slightly more optimistic though, while sooner (rather then later) powerful and nasty combinations are bound to get out and be abused, due to the ever evolving nature of the online community, these lists will spread like wildfire, then be demolished by the next abusive list or countered through tactics and rewritten army lists. On the other hand, there are some people looking at this in another light, looking for that something extra special to add to their fluffy armies, or their themed armies. Such as my Halo themed space wolf army. This was a 500 point force for a doubles tournament and I had a great time painting and converting the models and was really pleased with the result.
What do you guys think, will allies be a good or bad thing for the game?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)