IFL Game 5

Good Morning!

Earlier this week I played my IFL week five game vs. Ben. Unfortunately, we ran out of time so will need to rematch within the next few weeks. However, as we played a full 4 turns so I figured I'd post up what we had. His list is the last photo. Mission goals -  4 objectives, one in each corner, whoever controlled more won 2 points, a center objective worth 1 point by itself, and then points for linebreaker and slay the warlord. Deployment was hammer and anvil, no night fight, and I gave Ben first turn.

Deployment

 We deployed as thus, Ben is rolling his powers for the turn in this pic. His tervigons had a mix of iron arms and endurance. His flyrant rolled iron arm.

Ben moved forward two tervigons and some gaunt squads. He exhausted one or two Tervigons this turn rolling doubles for spawning. He moved his flyrant directly into my line shooting at the nurgle lord spawn, putting a wound on the lord and one spawn.

I moved forward and shot all my guns excluding the juggernaut lords pistol at the flyrant. Only one gun hit (soul grinder) giving him a wound, but he passed his grounding check. The juggernaut lord w/ his spawn multi-charged a gaunt squad and Tervigon which had strayed to close. Unfortunately I forgot it was iron armed so I only did 1 wound to it. I charged a maulerfiend into a smaller gaunt squad to prevent them from counter charging me on the following turn. I forgot to jump my plague drones in the assault phase..


Top of turn 2 - during reserves

 The picture to the left is the top of turn 2, Ben has started his reserves and the Doom of M'lanti has arrived right in the middle of my army. His Ymaryl opted to arrive from the middle piece of terrain, and then charge into combat with the juggy lord and his spawn. During turn 2, Ben flew his flyrant forward vector striking a maulerfiend, and then shot its rear armor, causing it to be immobilized. His tervigon continued to beat down my juggy lord giving him two wounds, taking none in return. The ymargyls rip up the spawn pretty good, but their high toughness and an armor save this round saves them from taking more than two wounds from them. Spawn kill two genestealers and a gaunt in return. The black mace lord and his spawn multicharge a larger gaunt squad and the gaunts locked in with the maulerfiend. As it turns out the multi-charge was unecesary as the maulerfiend clears his gaunts on his own. The black mace lord and company end up locked in combat with two fearless gaunts. Helldrake comes on from reserves, vector strikes the flyrant failing to do any wounds, and kills a gaunt squad. Plague drones hop forward, assault a tervigon (whose bubble wrap was removed by the dragon), and kill it. My soul grinder assaults the doom of m'lanti, killing it. Also one of my cultist squads came on and ran for the objective in the ruin.

Top of turn 3 during movement

Turn 3 ! Ben moves his flyrant next to the soul-grinder to charge it, and manages to pen it twice and blow it up on the charge! His gaunts in the backfield assault the plague drones and manage to lock them in combat. His hive guard shoot at the maulerfiend but don't have any effect. The tervigon kills the juggy lord on the top of 3(Ben's turn), but in return the spawn finish off the gaunts and genestealers in the combat. So fair trade, maybe? Ben also charges his free tervigon into combat with the nurgle lord after spawning gaunts to assist with it. Nurgle lord and he get locked in a challenge, neither side giving ground.
On my turn 3, the maulerfiend charges into the tervigon, killing it. Helldrake moves forward ineffectually. Red spawn + maulerfiend consolidate into middle ruins. Plague drones finish off the gaunt squad and consolidate into the ruins. Plaguebearers attempt to land on Ben's backfield objective but scatter off quite a distance (and promptly die to biovore shooting next turn)





Bottom of turn 4 when we called it

Turn 4

Ben moves his flyrant into position to either contest, or help the tervigon in combat as needed (as it was undetermined due to biovores not having shot at the plaguebearers yet). His trygon attempts to come in near my objective but scatters to far. (we forgot to roll his run move to see if he got back into contest distance, however we deemed him as contesting it becauase the store was trying to push us out the door, so that's why he looks out of position). His hive guard shoot at and wreck the maulerfiend. Tervigon gives the black mace lord a wound in combat, and black mace lord has now given two wounds to the tervigon (don't remember which turns). Spawns have killed the remaining gaunts and are hanging out as a dance party watching the lords duke it out. I assault Ben's hive guard + tyranid prime with the plague drones + nurgle herald. I wipe out all the hive guard and leave the prime with two wounds left i think.

So at this point, the dream wizards staff were insisting we pack it up and go. So we had to call it, bottom of turn 4. As pictured fairly well above. As the only troops left on the board was Ben's tervigon, who was not in a position to take the objective, and my cultists, one of which was being contested by a trygon, the others, needed turn 5 to make it to the objective, assuming they lived somehow through biovore shooting. Given that we would both had linebreaker, first blood was mostly irrelevant, and neither of us could claim any of the objectives on this turn effectively, and it was likely our warlords were both about to die, we called the game a tie, until such time as we get a rematch in.

Both of us got beat up pretty good this game. See  the pic below. I tallied up the VP's as I got a little excited and wanted to see game results.

 Ben had remaining a wounded Tervigon worth full VP, a more than half wounded Flyrant worth half VP, two biovore squads worth full VP, and a trygon worth full VP.

 I had left a regular spawn squad worth half VP, a nurgle spawn squad worth full VP, the plague drones + nurgle herald worth full vp, the helldrake worth full vp, a maulerfiend worth half VP and  two cultist squads worth either full or - no VP depending how how we wanted to play it out.

 

So, the net summary is, we are going to have a rematch to finish out the game properly with time.

IFL Matches, week 2 and 3

Happy Day to all!


So earlier this week I got my weeks 2 and 3 games in for the IFL league. 

I played VS. XV25 (Andrew) for my week 2 game. He was testing out  the new eldar and had taken a diverse quantity of models. Our game was objectives, with vanguard deployment.

I rolled at my warlord trait the d3 infiltrators, and ended up infiltrating plague drones and my soulgrinder. After deployment I set up my soulgrinder as pictured in the photo left, and Andrew then wisely blocked off the other place I was going to infiltrate with his infiltrating rangers (I didn't realize infiltrators alternate). I ended up placing my plaguedrones dead center.

So this game played out basically with Andrew shooting the crap out of me, and I ran at him full speed with all my tentacle and wobbly bits swinging. After several rounds, I ended up winning on the primary.

One hard lesson which was impressed on me from this game was to not forget what monofiliment does to my I3 models.

 

 

My next game was vs. Lbrady, also known as Lee.

Lee noted this was the first time he had ever played vs. a zerg rush type of army like mine, so thought it would be interesting to see how his army handled it. Despite it being his first time playing vs. this kind of list, he handled my army beautifully and came very close to wrecking me completely.

Our game was hammer and anvil, big guns never tire, with 4 objectives (2 in each deployment)

 

His army was, 2x warscythe lord on barge, 2 squads of warriors in transport barge w/ 2 destruction crypteks, 2 squads of immortals in nightscythes w/ 2x storm crypteks (haywire), 2 annihilation barges, monolith.

This is the bottom of turn 2. Monolith existed in the diced off area
the soul grinder is already dead from haywire shots

 I opted to go first, (never a wise choice vs. necron air, due to last minute contests), however I was feeling gutsy. I think the haywire crypteks also affected my judgement a bit, I didn't want them popping out and wrecking my maulerfiends turn 2 before I could charge with them. However, as it turned out, that was largely irrelevant, as Lee destroyed them both first turn w/ gauss and annihilation barges. So first turn, I ran at him, all my bits swinging. Came as close as I dared, without coming to close to the monolith portal. Lee spent turn 1 adjusting his line to block charges with his transport barges, and blowing up my maulerfiends.












Bottom of turn 5, right before Lee started shooting. The nurgle bike
lord in the bottom right was a blackened smear on the hill after the
annihilation barge was done with him.

Turns 2 - 4 consisted of beating each other up really badly. He killed my soul grinder with haywire, so helldrake took revenge and killed the entire squad  + night scythe, and then promptly was gun downed by Lees second night scythe. I charged at units and hurt them, he would shoot at me and exact terrible revenge.

There were two key pivots in this game from my perspective. His destroying of my maulerfiends and soul grinder removed a significant portion of my easy to use anti-tank, anti-vehicle, and particularly anti-monolith. So that crippled me from the start. Luckily, my nurgle lord melta-bombed the monolith on turn 2, blowing it up, so I dodged a huge bullet there. I also managed to nock a barge lord out of a transport, which as it turns out later was good, because Lee was not shy about using a fast transport to turboboost into my backfield and contesting / killing my troops with them. Something I had not pondered, but now will watch out for in the future. (see the second photo bottom left).

I had to chase Lee's barge lord all over the board this game.

So on turn 5, I am contesting his objectives with a nugle lord, and nurgle spawn. I'm holding my objectives with cultists, and plaguebearers. I win on turn 5 on the primary of objectives, if Lee forced it to go to secondaries, he wins on Slay the Warlod & First Blood.  I had to hope it ended on turn 5, otherwise Lee would be able to clear off my pictured bottom left objective, and take back one or both of his right side objectives letting him win on first or secondary objectives.

I was sweating bullets at this point as you might imagine. I did not want to roll to see if continued, so Lee rolled it, and it ended!

So victory! sort of .. kind of a shallow one for me given the beating I took (and was about to take).

This game was a lot of fun, basically just slugging away at each other. Every turn was devastating to both sides.

Huzzah Hobbies June results

Good Friday morning all! The weekend is soon!  Last Sunday we held our regularly scheduled RTT at Huzzah Hobbies. I know it was Fathers Day and the same weekend as killadelphia, but I decided stubbornly that consistency would be better. So as a reminder, every third sunday of a month will be 1850 40k RTT at Huzzah Hobbies. Prize support pool is based on attendance, so the more of you attending the prizes grow substantially larger!

Would also like to mention that Huzzah Hobbies has set Wednesday night as 40k nights, so show up 40kers! Get some games in.  Huzzah also has a good price on GW product, 10% off, which is always a good thing.

So despite the adverse conditions, we still had a good turn out with several new folks in attendance, which is always a good thing. The range of armies was not super diverse this time though, we had a few necron players, a few daemons, a tau, and I think a space wolves player. The Deamon flying circus quickly found out why tau are basically eliminating them from being a viable army, at least without some super sneaky tactical play AND good LOS blocking terrain. Necrons did well as always, with two of our necron players squaring off in round 2 I believe.

Both necron players brought what i'd consider non-standard builds. One was using a monolith with two command barges, plus two of the transport barges. It's unusual to see a monolith, but even more so to see the lords on barges (they were super popular in 5th, I know, but not recently).

The other was using a list more like what Niel on the 11th company used to advertise, lots of squads veiling around the board to deep strike in and annihilate with overwhelming firepower.

One of these two won it all! Anyone want to guess?

So Collin won it all with Veil Necrons, with Lee coming in second place with his barge necrons, we had two guys tie for third, Peter and Lance, So I diced it off to see who would win as is appropriate.

Flying Circus Deamons vs. Space wolves

Tau vs. Flying Circus Daemons, Tau (Peter) won this one

 

 

 

 

 

Current Project: Painting Chaos Deamons

Greets,

I'll post up about the RTT later today, but for now, I just wanted to post up my current projects. An in-progress soul-grinder. He's about halfway done at this point. I need to give him a tongue of some sort for his mouth, and then finish all my highlights, touch-ups, and another wash for some parts.

The other project is nurglings! I bought two boxes of nurglings and I'm going to sprinkle them around my entire army on the bases and the occasional model. I think they'll add a bit of theme to the army and generally look cool.

Huzzah Hobbies RTT June 16th, 1850k 40k.

Good Morning All

Quick reminder. 40k RTT upcoming at Huzzah Hobbies this Sunday.  If you are attending I would appreciate a phone call in advance to mark you down. 703-466-0460. Entry is 15$ as normal, Please show up around 10am, we will start pairings at 10:30 and games will kick off shortly there after. If you are running late, just give us a call and we'll have you play the ringer for round 1 or set you up vs. another late arrival. So don't let that stop you from coming!
Space is pretty much unlimited, so come  come all!

Three round event, NOVA open format. Any questions let me know.

Huzzah hobbies offers 10% off of GW prices for product, so do some GW shopping there!


Also want to mention that the 11th company GT, and NOVA open GT, while a ways off, are very much so open for registration! Go purchase a ticket now before its to late!


Ok,

So this week being what it is, and work being how it's been, I haven't had time for any games this week but I'm still plotting like crazy for "uber" lists. I'm leaning towards Daemons currently. I've been painting my Chaos Sm/ Daemons army to enhance / finish remaining elements. My other side project is painting the other half of my dark vengeance box sets, which gives me a deathwing / ravenwing army set.  I could combine this with Tau so i have an answer to Helldrake / flyer spam. So several directions to go there. Can also re-work my orks possibly and give them another go. Havn't yet had my tester games, so i'll post those up as soon as I do.

So instead I found some funny demotivational posters that made me laugh.

Yes, sooooon. / Furious charge

Reference: Eldar and tau.

Eldar Air, once everyone realizes its pretty decent.

What GW thinks of us, I'm sure.

Huzzah Hobbies RTT June 16th, 1850pts. Battle Report vs. SM/IG

Good Afternoon all!

Let me remind everyone. Huzzah Hobbies monthly RTT will be held this Sunday June 16th! SHOW UP! woo! 15 dollar entry fee gets you lunch, a few drinks, and a chance at prize support! All money invested is returned as food or prize support.


Over the weekend I had a very pleasurable game vs. Matt with his Space Marines / Imperial Guard army.

His list:  Matt "Sigmar"   +++ (1848pts) +++

* Primaris Psyker (70pts)

* Guardsman Marbo (65pts)

* Infantry Platoon (240pts)
   * Infantry Squad (60pts)
     * Sergeant (10pts) Laspistol, Power Weapon (10pts)
   * Infantry Squad (60pts)
     * Sergeant (10pts) Laspistol, Power Weapon (10pts)
   * Infantry Squad (60pts)
    * Sergeant (10pts) Laspistol, Power Weapon (10pts)

* Platoon Command Squad (60pts)
   4x Flamer (20pts), Krak Grenades (5pts)

   * Vendetta (130pts) 2 Twin-linked Lascannons

* Librarian (130pts)  (And They Shall Know no Fear, Combat Tactics, Independent Character, Psyker) Force Dome, Null Zone, Storm Bolter (5pts), Terminator Armour (25pts)

* Dreadnought (125pts) Twin-Linked Autocannon (10pts), Twin-Linked Autocannon (10pts)

     * 5x Scout (90pts)  5x Camo Cloaks (15pts), Missile Launcher (10pts), 4x Sniper Rifle
      * Scout Sergeant (26pts)  Bolt Pistol, Camo Cloak (3pts), Sniper Rifle

     * 5x Scout (90pts) 5x Camo Cloaks (15pts), Missile Launcher (10pts), 4x Sniper Rifle
       * Scout Sergeant (26pts) Bolt Pistol, Camo Cloak (3pts), Sniper Rifle

     * 4x Scout (52pts) 4x Combat Blade
       * Scout Sergeant (53pts) Melta Bombs (5pts), Power Fist (25pts), Shotgun

* Stormtalon Gunship (145pts) (Aerial Assault, Escort Craft, Hover Strike, Supersonic)
Typhoon Missle Launcher (35pts)

* Stormtalon Gunship (145pts) (Aerial Assault, Escort Craft, Hover Strike, Supersonic)
Typhoon Missle Launcher (35pts)

* Stormraven Gunship (261pts) (Assault Vehicle, Ceramite Plating, Power of the Machine Spirit)
Extra Armour (5pts), Hurricane Bolters (30pts), Searchlight (1pts), 4x Storm Strike Missile, Twin Linked Assault Cannons, Typhoon Missile Launcher (25pts)

* Thunderfire Cannon (100pts)

* Thunderfire Cannon (100pts)


Matt watches The Regular show, and thus gets UBER props right off the get go. The only person I know who watches it is my buddy JP who is an outstanding human being.

Ok so I forgot to take a game 1 photo. The mission was Killpoints. Matt opted to let me go first.

I deployed directly across with a very spread out line. A maulerfiend and lord on both sides, plague drones in the middle with the soul-grinder. Turn 1, fastest turn ever, i just ran at him like a crazy man.

Turn 1- Matt used his T-Fires to great effect to put a wound on my juggy lord, kill 3 regular spawn, and one nurgle spawn. He also tried to puppet master my soul grinder, which unfortunately failed to hit (as its a witchfire), for lolz, we rolled it out to see what would have happened in hypothetical, and as it turns out, the soul grinder would have shot his ordnance, which boomeranged back onto him, blowing himself up.... Sooo I dodged a bullet there!

As photographed, this is the top of turn 2. All i've done is bring helldrake onto the table. I rolled my reserves and got everything. I continued my charge across, setting setting up for Plague Drones, Nurgle Spawn, and juggy lord to hit the blob guard squad. The maulerfiend to hit the auto-cannon dread, and the maulerfiend on left to hit the scout squad in the far corner.

After this, helldrake killed 3/5 members of the scout squad. The maulerfiend in that corner failed its charge. Juggy lord + spawn failed their charge. Black Mace lord + his spawn + plague drones make their charges into the blob. Maulerfiend charges dreadnought. Soul grinder fires his cannon ineffectually. The maulerfiend blows up the dread for first blood. The plague drones + mace lord slaughter their way so well into the IG squad that we actually end the round out of the 6 inch move distance to keep combat continuing! So my guys end the round all standing around.

 

 

 Matt's Turn. All his reserves pop on. He focuses a vendetta and storm talon on killing helldrake, which unfortunately fails. He focus's the storm raven and other storm talon on killing the soul grinder, which also is not successful. This was to be a repeated theme, not for any lack of trying on his part, but an amazing amount of 5+ saves were made. The IG blob guard regroups and shoots down more spawn from juggy lords squad. The T-fires once again unleash upon my lines. Marbo blows up an entire cultist squad by himself.

 My end of Turn 3 Helldrake tries to vector strike a storm talon but fails. Flames a techmarine ineffectually. Soul-Grinder fires at a storm talon and fails. Maulerfiend + plague drones focus on the remains of the blob guard. At the end of it, only the SM Libby is left standing, and he manages to escape without running off the board, to rally and cause havoc on Matt's turn. The juggy lord and spawn park themselves in the primarus psyker + scout squad where they hang in CC for several turns. The maulerfiend on the far left finally makes his charge into the two remaining scout squad guys wiping them out. The black mace lord heads over to the far left ruins with his spawn so he can send them after the techmarine sitting on the top level of the ruin (as its in-accessible to both the bike lord + the maulerfiend). I shoot marbo with 10 las pistols, and somehow miraculously managed to kill him. Matt spends this turn trying to kill the soul grinder, by launching a meltabomb assaulty squad out of the storm raven at it, while shooting the snot out of it and killing more of my troops with a  storm talon. The second storm talon moves to try and kill the maulerfiend on far left.

After two rounds of combat, the soul grinder has killed the squad sent to end him, and only has 1 hp remaining. Matt blows up my maulerfiend on the left with a combination of storm talon + vendetta shooting. All of my troops are evaporated except for 5 plaguebearers by command squad flame throwers and a storm talon. My helldrake vector strikes said storm talon in revenge and explodes it. Maulerfiend parks himself in combat with the SM libby, who actually holds his own for several rounds but eventually goes splat. Nurgle spawn assault the techmarine, and eventually die to him /sadface! Plague drones + herald kill the techmarine on the far right.

 Soulgrinder failing his assault vs. the hovering stormraven who blows him up next turn.
Helldrake revenges himself on the command squad with his flamer. Plaguebearers hide like wimps. Maulerfiend fails his charge, but juggy lord makes it, stunning the storm raven allowing the maulerfiend to blow it up the following turn.

Going for kp, Matt moves the vendetta and las-cannons the juggy lord to death. He shoots the storm talon at something else, killing it I think. My helldrake then vector strikes the second storm talon out of the sky, while the vendetta (which had to hover to get shots off at the juggy lord) is assaulted by the plaguebearers + maulerfiend and dies. Over on the far left, the black mace lord just barely manages to kill the techmarine in CC after several rounds.






Finish!


So this was a great game. Matt had a really good sense of humor which made this a lot of fun.

We both had an interesting situation on our hands in this game. On the one hand, my army excels at ground assault, it's good at running around fast and killing in assault. It pretty much sucks at taking on air or ranged shooting though if it can't reach it fast enough. Matt's army on the other hand, had no substantial assault elements, but plenty of difficult to touch shooting and good firepower. Had I not managed to pass so many 5+ saves with my vehicles earlier on (esp with helldrake/soul grinder), this might have had a very different outlook as Matt could have then focus fired on every unit that wasn't a plaguedrone (as lets be honest, those guys do not really die to shooting if there are ruins on the board), probably eliminating vast swaths of my army fairly easily. Marbo dying to las pistols was also kind of bad, he should have lived longer I think and probably would have gotten another KP for Matt.

IFL - Road to NOVA league, more meta thoughts, demise of orks in the current GT meta.

Greets all


So I decided to toss my hat into the IFL's road to NOVA league.  (scheduling here ) I figure it will help me find a list I want to play at NOVA, as well as give me some much needed practice. Lists had to be finalized last saturday, so I ended up with.....

HQ's
Chaos Lord - Khorne, Meltabomb, Sigil, Juggy, Axe of BF - 175
Chaos Lord - Nurgle, Bike, Sigil, Blight Grenade, Meltabomb, Black Mace - 180
Herald of Nurgle - Palanquin, Lesser Reward x1, Greater Reward x1, FnP Locus

Troops
1x PlagueBearers
2x Cultists

Heavy Support
2x Maulerfiend - magmacutter
1x Soul Grinder - Slanesh, Phlegm Bombardment

Fast Attack
1x5 Spawn - Nurgle
1x5 Spawn
1x bale-flamer helldrake.
1x4 Plague Drone - Plaguebringer, Greater Gift, Deaths Heads, Venom Stings


Now I'm aware this isn't the best list, but I figure it'll be fun if nothing else! The soul grinder gives me a small bit of anti-air firepower, some decent anti-crisis suit / MEQ firepower as well, and provides a third fast assaulty vehicle to throw forward. Black mace lord and axe lord are still devastatingly assaulty provided they can reach their targets. Plaguebearers are meh with so many ignore cover weapons, but I don't have other deamon troops painted, so plaguies it is.

I don't think I'll have much of a problem vs. anyone except the new tau/eldar. At least, no more than the normal list problem solving. Tau and Eldar are going to break my knee-caps hard if my opponents are smart and have solid lists. Barring the potential I've grossly over-estimated the effectiveness of the eldar/tau shooting of nocking out my spawns (highly unlikely), this will probably be the last time I use them for anything competitive. Plague drones continue to be good, as forcing opponents to use marker lights to remove cover is always positive, not to mention a 5+ default invuln is always win.

Eldar are a great army, that book is just as good as all the other recent releases. I know a bunch of us were very sadface that howling banshees are not epic-sauce, but as a whole the book gained a lot! Swooping hawks are actually really good now! Who'd have thought that? Eldar Serpent Shields make a mockery of spawn-tide and many other lists lists due to S7 ignore cover shots at 60 inches. (Beware all you other chaos/high toughness reliant players) They make GK psybolt dreads look like a joke.  Due to silly twin-linking shenanigans, they are also reallllly good at downing enemy fliers. Don't expect helldrake to save the day.

Tau and Eldar represent full on meta-killers of what we saw at Adepticon. New meta elements such as: swooping hawks, serpent shields, marker lights, wraithknights, missle spam broadsides, interceptor/skyfire fusion blaster squads and SMS, all will force substantial changes. Necrons will have to revise their strategy of relying on night scythes to turn 5 contest. Deckchair scoring units which were previously super effective will see to their auto-inclusion in many lists ending. Blob guard looks like it will no longer be king of durability either.

 Honestly I always thought blob guard was a bit retarded, but hey, what do I know. I've only rick-rolled every guard blob I've ever fought against. (Not the same as winning the game).

Assault armies are giong to be much harder to play effectively as well. Long range high S firepower that ignores cover is always really bad for assault armies. Previously in the meta, we were well off because a majority of the armies in the game being played relied on firepower in the short to mid-range game. If they could shoot us, we could assault them. No longer the case.

I expect tau and eldar to bandwagon realllll hard.

B-Wagon orks are still sad btw, gun platforms that can move 12 inches, fire ignoring cover S7 shots, mean side armor shots are super easy to get. So, most likely hardcore face palming to continue there. GW game testers / designers, if you read this, give ORKS a good delivery system please! Also recommend lowering post costs of ork models a bit, not by much, but a point for boyz, and about 10 points for meganobz, and 5 for nobz. It would let ork players keep up the model count needed to not just get shot off the board. However, as that means ork armies would probably number about 200+ models on average (rather than just being the occasional green-tide player), it would be better if you just provided us with a better delivery platform.

Change KFF to invuln save, its now completely worthless. Orks only had cover going for them, and when your opponent can put out oh say, 36 to 150+ AP5/AP6 shots a turn that ignore cover, that ork army can disappear reallll quick like.

Orks with a flier platform that would be an assault vehicle would be totally lolz and make sense. Could even have special rules for stormboyz involving them. I hope someone there considers it.

So I guess I actually just talked myself into thinking orks are still unplayable currently. It's not that orks are unplayable per se, its that if you compete in big GT's, people are going to bring these kroot-storm lists, or the 6 wave serpents with serpent shields + swooping hawks + tau allies ect. You'll hit that, and suddenly your army is going to evaporate. You might get lucky and dodge those matches, but unfortunately those lists are quite good and unlikely to get knocked out until the end.

Well, maybe, I'm actually going to playtest my orks here in the next few days just to see if those matchups play out how I think they will. Maybe I'll happily come back and post I was wrong.

I do so love my orks.

Bols, Assault Stuff cntd, Also comments on eldar rumors

Playing Assault.

 I saw someone on BOLS posted up an article about melee in 6th. Made me wonder if the guy had read my post and decided to do his own take on it. If so, Hi guy! I read your stuff too!

If you didn't read it, let me save you time.

Synopsis: Take units that can get across the board, play to the mission if you are seriously outmatched, and oh hey, look at my Chaos-SM tri-land raider list and how great it is.. at 2250 points... a points level no one really uses for competitive large GT's at the moment. Also its a bad list, at 2250 any semi-decent list designer can bring plenty of tools to blow three land raiders and some marine bodies out of the water...

But the article itself wasn't bad.

I really dislike BOLS, and to be more specific, my dislike is caused primarily by the vast majority of people who comment on their posts. I also feel that often the articles leave something to be desired and lack a real clarity of purpose. Its like a love-hate relationship. I browse their website daily because every so often I see something I really like or is insightful or more rarely, inspiring. I end up reading all their posts to make sure I'm not just maligning the site/posters in my head without giving them a fair chance. I usually leave the site vexed or if I read the comments section - mad.

It's really aggravating how many people there are who bitch about competitive 40k game play, and then if you read their other comments, see how they brag about their "good old days", when their wonder-voodoo army of (fill in the blank) used to rape face but totally wasn't OP. It actually becomes funny when you see them brag about how they beat up on their local group of friends. UGH!

It's one thing to be annoyed at an author of a post because he says something I disagree with, or seems to be very self-promoting or lacking any intellectual output. On some level, I actually appreciate that the person put themselves and their thoughts out there. But man, those commenter's are downright vicious to the point of becoming vile. It really make me what dark hole some of them crawled out of.

Sorry, now I am rambling..

So assault armies.

Anyone who read my previous posts knows I play as my standard fare, Orks, Chaos SM, and Chaos Daemons. I may mix it up other times and play other things, but generally that's about it. Lets touch briefly on the state of their "meta" for Orks. Note, I'm aware eldar are coming out in two days and require their own additions to this. I'll post up something new then.

Orks

Orks have some real problems atm with Tau, so much so I'm not playing them currently, in particular with a very specific Tau build, which I'll label "Kroot Horde". (if you go to whiskey and 40k you can go see MVB's version of it which he has a name for / components of the army) Imagine facing an army that has almost as many bodies on the board as you do, and can outshoot you, ignoring your cover and armor, plus have a ton of really nice high S low AP shooting to back them up. You might begin to see the problem.

How can orks mitigate this? Tried and true suggestions I've made previously of Battlewagons, but you'd better be damn good at maneuvering and knowing when the right time to charge is if you want to play them.

If you are not facing kroot horde, then your next worst match up will be Fire Warrior Horde. This actually isn't nearly as bad, as they can't put out as many bodies. But, again, without Battlewagons forget about it, you won't make it across alive.

If you are facing anything else for Tau, and followed my previous posts on ork unit reviews, you'll probably be well equipped to handle them.

What about some of the other current builds?

Necrons - Orks still don't have to much of a problem with necrons. While it can be difficult to sweeping advance them due to comparable initiative, they'll be most likely running away from you after every combat. You can mitigate this with PK's and make sure your squads have nobz in them for the slightly higher initiative for sweeping. Meganobz are fantastic vs. the near-existent AP of necrons. Lootas /dakkajets are good at nailing their fliers. You should be ok here.

Dark Angels - No one really talks about dark angels, it's like the codex that got skipped over / lost in the cracks. Bolter Banner ravenwing is actually a horrifically powerful army, provided they are not playing helldrakes. I imagine they'll emerge from the rocks they've been hiding under as the meta shifts away from helldrake spam (though those of you hoping helldrakes are going to disappear, forget about it). Dark angels require you to be cagey. You really need to be careful setting up charges into 24 + shots twin linked. With the MM attack bikes, they'll probably be blowing up your wagons, so you'll have to target prioritize to remove them first if possible. Keeping in mind they can also scout move is big, take an extra moment think about placement during deployment, you don't want them to scout 12, move 12, and then blow up all your wagons turn 1. Due to the points cost of this army, they'll have about 35 to 45 models. You can just dakka the crap out of them and then assault. It'll work.

If they are using tri-land-raider bolter banner, this is actually better for you. Deffrolla them if possible, if not, surround and assault with PK's. You'll lose a lot but they won't have a lot to begin with.

If its drop pod bolter banner, play cagey, dakka then assault.

If its any other build, don't worry so much!


Chaos SM - Most of the effective builds involve either plague marines, spawn, maulerfiends, some beat-face lords w/ black mace or epic axe, or helldrakes.
These matchups will require a bit of finese. Black Mace Lord and the Axe Lord are going to wreck entire squads of boyz by themselves. They'll also wreck your Nobz in challenges. You need to be  careful how you commit. Meganobz are a good answer to the black mace lord, he's unlikely to wound you, and you'll carve him up super fast. However, meganobz will die a horrific death to the axe lord. Axe lords are best handled with lots of dakka or S10 deffrolla hits. If you don't have the opportunity to do either of those, you need to figure out how to up a situation where a full squad of boyz can cheer lead a mega-armored cybork warboss. The boyz will let you re-roll failed saves on the warboss, he'll need 4's to hit you, and 3's to wound you. So you should live, and if any of your attacks make it through, strength double toughness for the win... Not a good answer,  unfortunately. The only other option is to attempt to swarm the squad with enough boyz to shoot / wipe out the spawn on the charge, accept you'll lose a nobz in a challenge (or if you are careful with positioning as per previous articles, you can keep them out of harms way). Then widdle down the axe lord through volume of attacks. If you go this route, make sure at least one squad is going to be fearless at the end of the round so the whole business doesn't get swept.

Most of the time those lords are running around with spawn packs or similar. So they'll be look out siring, like crazy. Thus just charging in a squad of megaboz to an axe lord and some T5 spawn, will only result in some spawn dying, and all of the meganobz getting squished.

Maulerfiends can be removed by normal PK assaults.

Plague marines are a tough match. Just always over-commit to eliminating a target. Don't send / set up shooting with just one boyz squad, do two, or three! Focus on removing entire squads. Don't try and tie them all up, you'll end up losing. Meganobz again, here, are wonderful at eliminating plague marines.

Helldrakes - Try for rear armor shots, or do your best to ignore them by staying in your battlewagons or locked in CC. Dakkajets and lootas might nock them down, just don't count on it.




Eldar

So if the rumors/ leaked screenshots are true... Wow that new eldar mega-walker / mini-titan is kind of disappointing. Having a 3+ save and no default invuln save, is kind of utter sadface.

Why is this bad?
 That means missile spam will knock it out as readily as a wraithlord, and with its increased size, the probability of it having at least a cover save is really diminished. *edit* Being in area terrain will provide cover, but given that not everyone plays area terrain, or a lot of it, which means it will be diminished cover probability vs. other smaller MC's.

I'm really sad, I wanted it to be at least as much win as the Riptide / dreadknight.

It does look like some of the upgrades provide a 5+ invuln, so that at least is decent. 

Now I will say that it being a JUMP MC, is good. Very very good. It will be fast as it comes across the board at people. I can see the weapons on it have the potential to be really devastating. It will require people dumping firepower into it because its going to be so damn threatening. So it may be worth it for that alone. If it does actually make it into CC too...

I really expect that guy to be a wrathful god in CC, and if played right be devastating there.

Now I've heard GW is play testing their stuff now for balance, so maybe the thing was too OP with a 2+ and thus it got the 3+ for a reason. We'll see.

 I'll probably still buy one regardless for the cool factor.

I really wanted it to be epic /cry

That disappointment aside, I see lots of other things I like. Shurikean weapons getting mini-rending is great. It fits their fluff and means their basic weaponry has some real teeth. The warlock powers - while now random, are overall fairly good. Default power - Shrouded, is hilarious. I'm predicting right now, lots, lots, lots of jetbike armies running around with 3+ armor, 3+ cover.

While we don't know the exact disbursement / points costs of weapons in the codex, looking down the meele / ranged weapon list, I see LOTS of toys I like. There is so much AP2 AP3 on there, it really makes me wonder if GW is trying to get people to stop playing marine armies.

I am saying now that any armies which depend on fortune (looking at you jet-seer), should probably start thinking about other ways to mitigate damage. Yes with two Psykers, you can probably get it, but it's going to really suck those few games you don't.

Assault Army thoughts and Chaos Daemons

Hola


Chaos Daemons: Wonky rules, randomization out the ass, and sometimes the models even look downright silly, and probably the most powerful assault codex in the game ATM.

If you love assault armies, you should be looking real hard at Chaos Daemons.

Gunline players, need to know what's the worst case coming at you for charges? Same thing.


So Chaos Daemons have been out a relatively long time now, why mention them? Tau have come out in the meantime and have clear win capability, why still talk about Daemons?

Well anyone who reads this blog knows I love assault. All my armies are based around assault capabilities. Assault is one of the few areas you can evaporate enemy units without allowing them the dignity of even rolling a saving throw (sweeping advance), they mess up peoples carefully laid plans of (shoot the hell out of someone, cross fingers they fail saves), and generally are just fun!

Some things you do need to factor into your assault army.

First Blood - Lots of people take first blood seriously, its often a mission objective. Where I live, NOVA tends to run king, and its not as important, but its still something to be considered. Think of a way to at least TRY for first blood. This may be a token powerful shooty unit, overly resilient assault units that are unlikely to get blown off the table in a turn, or a way to diminish your opponents first round targets of opportunity.

Staying Power - The army needs a high enough toughness to weather a lot of firepower, or enough bodies to soak up casualties and keep at it. This unfortunately is a bit out of your control because your opponent could fluctuate to double blob guard w/ Space marines of some sort, to triple helldrake, to necron air.

Speed - No assault army wins by being slow. Turn 2 assaults are now the name of the game. If you are not assaulting on turn 2, something is wrong and you are in a good chance of losing. If you have slower assault units, give them a speedy transport or make sure you have fast units to tie down opponents until they can make it.

Reduce ability of your opponent to mitigate damage - Start thinking about ways to expand your units to remove armor saves, cause instant death, or lower leadership of your opponent. All of these things help tremendously. When I played my orks, I can't tell you how aggravating it was to have 20 to 30 boyz charge, and only kill a single marine due to epic 3+ saving. The PK helps mitigate it in that case, but its still an issue. Don't rely on your opponent rolling statistical averages, remove that option for them. Take things that ignore armor or inflict quick demise.


All of that applies to shooty armies too, but assault its more important to not get bogged down in assaults. Clear opponents out, remove their effective counter punch for the following round, and move on.

Chaos Daemons do all of these things very well.

The infamous slaneshy build, lots of seekers, daemonnettes, and heralds of slanesh on steeds, all squads take upgraded sarg's with gifts to get AP2 weapons and banners if you wish. Locus's to control challenges + re-roll hits are a must. You won't get first blood but you'll be fast, mitigate your opponents armor saves, and if you deploy / move properly, you'll probably only get hit hard one turn and then be in assault the rest of your time. This list will evaporate quickly though to heavy anti-infantry fire, more so than most, so be VERY careful about your movement and play.

Mosterous Creature Spam -  The list usually involves the keeper of secrets, lord of change, and various daemon princes equipped for flight and fight!  This army satisfies the ability to mitigate damage, generally provides speed, and actually has a potential for first blood with the shooting output it can do. It's real drawback is that it suffers in durability. If you make a few bad rolls or move to the wrong spot, your guys can fall apart and losing them is quite painful.

Khorne flesh hounds and blood crushers are quite viable with the new change. There are a number of people upset about the changes to blood-crushers, but they are still a 3 wound, Ap3, fast moving and throwing lots of attacks model. Expensive perhaps, but if they do get into combat, quite effective. Flesh hounds seem to be the new go to- cheap and with a solid dedicated herald to make them even scarier. Khorne dogs benefit even more with scout, people always seem to forget that if you are going second, you can still assault even if you scouted. Moving 12 up someones flank where their firepower is minimal, combined with other must shoot-at targets, can be very effective.

Nurgle and to more specific, Plague drones are probably the least well represented from the new chaos book for net-lists. On paper these guys don't seem very effective. Expensive and unable to sweeping advance, the plague drone seems to be a bad choice. However in practice, they are extremely effective at killing any S4 or below infantry, with upgrades on the sarg to grant instant death or an Ap2 weapon, they can chop through squads very effectively. At their heart though, I consider them a jack of all trades unit. With shrouded and defensive grenades, they can soak up firepower. Their 4+ poisoned swords  with touch of rust (all 6's cause glances automatically), they effectively have a chance at killing any other unit in the game. If you equip them with venom stings for instant death attacks, you find a good all-rounder.

So lots and lots directions you can go for assault, those aren't even all of the units/ builds, those are just a few i thought of just off the top of my head.


Skull cannons by the way are win. It's a relatively cheap unit that can give you a potential for that first blood. A BS5, S8 gun that ignores cover is pretty nice. I've yet to regret having one in my games thus far.


I'm still exploring to see if soul grinders are worth it. We'll see....

I've been running lots and lots of games lately with just pure chaos daemons to see if i can find something i like. As with most of the next codex's, I find I always feel like I'm coming up shorts to really "take" what I want. I guess that's balance that people keep refering to.

I have yet to decide if I'm going to run Chaos SM w/ daemons, chaos SM w/ tau, or raw daemons for NOVA....

more thoughts to come.

Great RTT at Huzzah Hobbies on May 19th

Greets all,

So I haven't updated my blog at all since last posting about the RTT / NOVA signups to just leave a continuous message about both. Now that the RTT has past, its time to updata-a-rama! Woooo

I would like to announce that Huzzah Hobbies has very nicely decided to host an 40k RTT every Third SUNDAY of each month. Signups are not necessary, but appreciated. So start showing up 40kers!

Huzzah hobbies is a great store, anyone who has not been there should really check it out. They are also trying to start up 40k on Wednesday nights. So show up peoples!


So moving right along, this month's event was won by Kevin Ferrel, playing TAU. No not that crazy skytide list posted by mvb that's probably nigh-unstoppable. Just a more normal regular list.

Our second place was actually tied, so i flipped a coin to decide who got second and who got third. So.. that was that!

Here are some shiny photos!

And tomorrow! Thoughts on my current games.