Triple Tournament BR with the new Marine Codex, September 2013

Hello everyone, long time no see. I'm back to 40k after a five month StarCraft 2 binge. The following battle reports are from a local mini-tournament. It was my first time playing with the new vanilla codex.

1850 pts armies, rulebook missions. Three battles. My list:

STEEL SLAYERS STRIKEFORCE (IRON HANDS CHAPTER TRAITS)

Brother Manfred, Librarian – mastery level 2, telepathy

Tactical Squad RED – plasmagun, combiplasma, ml with flak, rhino

Tactical Squad YELLOW – plasmagun, combiplasma, ml with flak, rhino

Tactical Squad GREEN – plasmagun, combiplasma, ml with flak, rhino

Brother Hanz, Dreadnought – 2x twinlinked autocannon

Brother Shultz, Dreadnought – 2x twinlinked autocannon

Brother Herman, Dreadnought – 2x twinlinked autocannon

Land Speeder – multimelta & heavy flamer

Land Speeder – multimelta & heavy flamer

Multimelta Attack Bikes x2 (squadroned)

Vindicator – dozer blade

Vindicator – dozer blade

Predator – lascannon sponsons

Aegis Defense Line – quad-gun

A kitchen-sink list. The idea was to form a gunline and overwhelm opponents with threat saturation and cheap effective units. I would have preferred to replace the mm/flamer speeders with typhoon variants, and vindicators with additional predators, but I do not have the necessary models and don't want to proxy half my army. I considered taking a master of the forge, but decided to give the new librarian the benefit of the doubt. Flak missiles are overpriced, but seeing as I don't have any flier models they're my current go-to skyfire option. Sadly, godhammer land raider transport capacity was lowered in the 6^th edition vanilla codex, so it can no longer carry five terminators plus an HQ (for some reason, its price remained the same), which effectively invalidates my old playstyle (fuck you Cruddace).

FIRST BATTLE – PERA'S NECRONS

Vanguard strike deployment, four objectives, each worth three points. Useless warlord traits. Opponent's list consisted of a kitted-out lord, a destroyer lord, a mini-royal court, two units of immortals, three spyders, three scarab swarms, a unit of deathmarks in a nightscythe, a unit of wraiths, a triarch stalker, an annihilation barge, and a unit of flayed ones. Wardian necrons are at the top of my list of armies I hate playing against, mostly because everything in their codex is better and cheaper than what I have. Brother Manfred gets psychic scream and invisibility powers. My plan was to turtle and hope for a draw. The land speeders were deep striking, while the stalker, the barge, and the nightscythe with deathmarks and a cryptek went into reserve. I got first turn and opponent failed to seize initiative.

TURN 1:

Night fighting. Aside from some pivoting and repositioning, I don't move much. One of the dreadnought aims its searchlight at the flayed ones, and the rest of my army promptly wipes them off the table, earning me first blood.

The destroyer lord and his wraith entourage advance towards my lines, out into the open. Scarabs are born.

TURN 2:

Both speeders arrive, deep striking within flamer range of the wraiths and the destroyer lord. One scatters but doesn't mishap, the other is on target. My entire army unloads on the wraiths and, thanks to a ton of failed saves on the opponent's part, vaporizes the entire unit. The destroyer lord fails his reanimation protocol roll and is removed. Phew.

The stalker, the barge, and the nightscythe arrive. The cryptek and his deathmark buddies disembark within rapid fire range of the combat squad holding one of my objectives. The nightscythe is shot down by some rather fortunate quad-gun interceptor fire. So fortunate, in fact, you could say the nightscythe was blown away by how lucky my dice were. The stalker destroys one of my speeders, while the deathmarks wipe out the attack bikes. The scarabs rush across the goddamn LOS-blocking hill in the middle and charge my predator, wrecking it.

TURN 3:

My retaliation is swift and not as terrible as I have hoped. All but two scarab swarms are destroyed. Brother Manfred casts psychic scream and misses. Some of the deathmarks are taken out. One of the dreads shoots at and then attempts to charge the barge, but fails the distance roll. Even in death, Steel Slayers can't assault for shit.

Deathmarks advance over the defense line. The spyders, the stalkers, the remaining scarabs, and the two immortal squads also advance. The barge wrecks the dreadnought who tried to charge it.

TURN 4:

My entire army lets loose on the deathmarks and the scarabs, slaughtering them all. Brother Manfred casts psychic scream and misses, again. The cryptek reanimates.

Necrons keep advancing. Their warlord splits from his immortal entourage and strolls out into the open. The spyders reach the ruined wall close to my defense line. The barge wrecks a vindicator. The stalker puts an end to the remaining speeder.

TURN 5:

I move my empty rhinos and one combat squad out into the open, boxing-in the spyders to prevent them from reaching my objectives. The remaining vindicator blows up the stalker. One spyder falls. Brother Manfred casts psychic scream at the cryptek, hits, and doesn't inflict a single wound. The cryptek still dies to bolter fire... And then immediately gets back up again.

Both rhinos are assaulted and blown up by the spyders and the lord. Some marines die to shooting. Unfortunately, the game goes into sixth turn.

TURN 6:

Brother Manfred casts psychic scream at the cryptek, hits, and fails to inflict a single wound, again. The cryptek is then killed by tacticals, only to stand up for the third time. The vindicator lobs a demolisher shell into the necron lord's face, vaporizing the undead bastard and earning me slay the warlord.

The sacrificial combat squad is massacred by shooting and spydery nastiness. The spyders consolidate towards the aegis defense line. More marines fall to shooting. At this point, most of my combat squads are reduced to two or three members. Sadly, the game goes on for another turn, sealing my fate.

TURN 7:

Brother Manfred tries to cast psychic scream and fails his psychic test. Fuck you brother Manfred. I throw everything I have at the two spyders, but it's not enough and one survives. The cryptek, likewise, passes his saves. Having no alternative, two of my tacticals gang up on the cryptek to keep it from contesting the objective. I try to block the spyder's path to the objective, but don't have enough models to do so.

The spyder charges the marines holding the objective, contesting it. Game ends. Necrons win 7:5.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

A fun, close-fought battle. I made two mistakes. First, bad deployment rendered one of my vindicators useless for three or four turns – I should have placed them both near the center of my army. Second, I should have assaulted and bogged down the deathmarks with my dreadnought, rather than going after the barge. Still, I would have won if this game had ended before turn 7.

SECOND BATTLE – ZUBOR'S TAU

Kill points, 12” deployment. Useless warlord traits. My first game against the new Tau. His army consisted of an ethereal, a commander (I don't know what their commanders are called), a railgun devilfish, a riptide, two units of fire warriors, a unit of kroot, a deep-striking unit of mecha tau with shield drones and plasmaguns that don't overheat, a deep-striking unit of (I think) stealth suits with two meltas, a unit of markerlight drones, two units of commandos with markerlights, and an aegis defense line. Brother Manfred gets psychic scream and some other worthless power. Needless to say, his army contained a lot fewer kill points than mine. The good thing was, he didn't have much long-range shooting, so I thought I might be able to slowly whittle him down. My plan was to keep my head down until his deep strikers arrive, kill them, and then, depending on how things went, maybe leave the dubious safety of my defense line. No night fighting. I get first turn, and opponent fails to seize the initiative.

TURN 1:

I shoot at the fire warriors. They all go to ground behind their own defense line, so only one of them dies.

He throws a bunch of markerlights at me, removing my cover saves and making his riptide BS15 or something ridiculous like that, then blows up brother Manfred's rhino and strips a hull point from one of my vindicators. Manfred and co fail their pinning test and go to ground.

TURN 2:

Both speeders arrive and they both attempt to deepstrike within melta range of the devilfish. One mishaps, gets placed at the other end of the table, and is instantly murdered by the riptide's interceptor fire. The other fires its multimelta and plinks off a hull point. I spend the rest of the turn shooting ineffectively.

The plasmagun-wielding mecha arrive from reserve. They deep strike behind my remaining speeder and wreck it. Tau shooting sees the leftmost rhino destroyed and another hull point or two stripped from my vehicles.

TURN 3:

My strategy doesn't seem to be working out, so I decide to advance with the vindicators, the attack bikes, and the rightmost tactical squad. In the ensuing shooting phase, one unit of markerlight commandos is disintegrated by a demolisher shell, the other is mostly destroyed by rapid firing tacticals, the devilfish is finally wrecked, and the mecha squad is reduced to a pair of mecha and one shield drone.

The meltagun tau arrive, deep striking in front of my attack bikes. They destroy the rightmost rhino, rendering me officially rhinoless, but only manage to take a hull point off the vindicator. One of the attack bikes is killed by the fire warriors, while the other suffers a wound.

TURN 4:

I turbo-boost my remaining attack bike, hiding it behind LOS-blocking cover. I pull my hurt vindicators back behind the defense line before eradicating the last of the markerlight commandos and inflicting righteous vengeance on the melta commandos, halving their numbers. At the leftmost side of the table, a tactical squad destroys the last of the mecha squad.

The melta tau retreat into terrain. More shooting ensues but nothing is destroyed.

TURN 5:

More useless shooting happens. The rightmost tactical squad assaults the remaining melta tau, slaughters them, then moves into the opponent's deployment zone to grab linebreaker.

The combined shooting from the fire warriors and the kroot wipes out the entire tactical squad. Game ends. Tau win by like one or two kill points.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

One of the most boring battles I have ever played. I knew nothing about the new tau, so I didn't have any idea what I should be doing. If I had a rematch, I would probably just rush towards their lines and try to overwhelm them in close quarters. Also, I would use those speeders to roast his infantry. This game sure made me miss my assault terminators and their land raider.

THIRD BATTLE - No1'S IMPERIAL GUARD

12” deployment. Four objectives, each worth 3 points. As always, useless warlord traits. You may remember No1 from older battle reports, where his guardsmen were accompanied by Blood Angel allies. This time he brought a pure IG list. His army consisted of a command squad in a chimera, a veteran squad in a chimera, a pair of leman russes (squadroned), a plasma and an executioner leman russ driven by Pask (also squadroned), a basilisk and a colossus (squadroned), a big platoon of guardsmen led by a commissar, and a vendetta. Brother Manfred gets psychic scream and hallucination. I intended to rush his lines with everything I had and take the leftmost of his objectives (the one in the ruin). His vendetta wasn't carrying any units, so I was fairly certain my own objectives would be safe as long as I could get rid of that colossus quickly. He got first turn and I failed to seize the initiative. Night fighting was in effect.

TURN 1:

His shooting immobilizes my command rhino, reducing it to a single hull point.

My vindicators and two of my rhinos surge forward, popping smoke. The attack bikes turbo-boost forward, keeping themselves hidden behind the big train. The command rhino repairs itself and recovers a hull point thanks to It Will Not Die. Half of my army shoots at the colossus while the other half fires at the chimera, plinking off some hull points.

TURN 2:

The vendetta remains in reserve. One vindicator is wrecked. The veterans leave their chimera and move into the ruin housing the objective.

A speeder deep strikes in front of the leman russes, fires its multimelta point-blank, and misses. Rhinos, attack bikes, and dreadnoughts keep advancing. The vindicator scores a direct hit against the two leman russes, but fails to inflict any damage. The rest of the army unloads on the colossus, wrecking it.

TURN 3:

Vendetta flies onto the table and is immediately forced to perform evasive maneuvers, losing one of its lascannons and getting reduced to a single hull point. The speeder gets wrecked, an outcome that surprises exactly no one. The remaining vindicator takes a lot of heat, but endures without lasting damage. The rightmost rhino is torn to pieces. The disembarking marines fail their pinning test.

The second speeder arrives. It scatters 12”, too far from its intended target (the leman russes), so I turbo boost it behind the ruin. The vindicator shoots at the leman russes for the second time, scores another direct hit, and once again doesn't do jackshit. The shooting from my predator and my rightmost dread wrecks the basilisk. My leftmost combat squad disembarks from their rhino and, together with the attack bikes, kills some veterans and wrecks their chimera.

TURN 4:

My forces take a pounding. The vindicator is destroyed and so is the command rhino. The executioner and the plasma leman russ destroy the attack bikes. The veterans shoot at the combat squad threatening the objective, killing two marines and causing the rest to flee. The guardsmen rapid fire the combat squad right in front of them, felling another two marines.

Manfred casts hallucination at the huge guardsman unit, rendering them useless for a turn. The dreads and the quad-gun shoot at the hovering vendetta, but fail to hurt it. The tacticals regroup and move in on the objective. The speeder roasts the veterans, reducing the squad to four models. The tacticals then charge the remaining veterans, killing half of them and sweeping the rest.

TURN 5:

These two marines are immediately murdered by the combined shooting from the leman russes, while the speeder looses one of its two hull points. My last rhino is wrecked by the vendetta.

I've pretty much already won at this point. My opponent can no longer contest both of his objectives and has no chance of contesting either of mine. Brother Manfred casts psychic scream at the guardsmen, hits, and doesn't inflict a single wound, thus ensuring I never take telepathy again. I give up trying to harm the leman russes and just shoot at the infantry, killing like ten guys. Game ends. I win with two objectives to his one.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

My dice were terrible throughout this game. My main mistakes were not sending more marines towards the objective in the ruin and not dedicating more of my firepower to whittling down the big guard squad.

OVERALL AFTERTHOUGHTS:

I had a lot of fun at this tournament. The battles were fast-paced, close-fought, and entertaining, and I'm looking forward to the next one. That being said, although playing a gunline list does have its appeal, I really missed the thrill of seeing a land raider full of angry dudes rush across the table. I also missed the twin-linked lascannons of that same land raider and their inherent flexibility. Flak missiles didn't do anything, but then again I'm not sure having my trusty plasma cannons would've done much either. Oh and, telepathy can go sit in a corner, as far as I'm concerned. It may not be apparent from these battle reports, but Iron Hands chapter tactics saved my units on more than one occasion, and I'm looking forward to using them with a killy HQ. Unfortunately, both loyalist marines and mech armies seem to be going extinct in my local metagame, which is a shame.

THOUGHTS ON THE NEW VANILLA CODEX:

Bland and disappointing. It's hard for me to think of it as a new codex, since it didn't add anything of note. No relevant new units, no unusual armory entries, no significant FoC-changing options (for some reason, vanilla remains the only marine codex that can't field a pure 1^st company list), no fresh predator/dreadnought/land raider/speeder variants, not even a centurion HQ. Also, why the hell can't vanilla land raiders take dozer blades?!

At a glance, it might seem point values have gone down. In reality, this either comes at a cost (for example, by not taking a veteran sergeant you save up points, but your marines are ld8) or things that have gotten cheaper are garbage you would never take anyway (extra armor, storm bolters, whirlwinds, venerable dreads, assault marines, scout bikers, deathwind missile launchers, etc.). The good stuff is actually more expensive (sternguard, hammernators, vindicators, multimelta attack bikes, lysander, etc.), while some other units have gotten worse and retained old prices (ironclads, godhammer land raiders, foot command squads, vulkan, etc.). Librarians are super-cheap now, but since they lost null zone and the old psychic hood, and they can't access divination, I can't see them being used outside of cheap allied detachments. The good news is that vanguard vets, honor guard, power armor bikers, and legion of the damned are all much more affordable now.

Warlord traits are underwhelming. 1 and 5 might come into play once in a blue moon, 2 and 3 are good, 4 is decent, 6 has an extra chromosome. Oh well, I guess they are still better than the ones in the rulebook. Chapter relics suffer from a severe case of internal imbalance. The plasma sword and the shield are superb. The chainsword is an improved relic blade and well-priced to boot. The armor and the boltgun might as well not be there. The banner is cool but it costs as much as a librarian, is limited to command and honor guard squads, and is carried by a single wound guy, so thanks but no thanks.

I don't really have an opinion on centurions, except that they seem overpriced and that I'm glad the pilot isn't riding inside a baby carrier. I need to see them in action before I can make a judgment call. The new Stalker anti-air tank might have been useful if it could be taken in squadrons, or if it was fast attack. Its retarded twin brother, the Hunter, is gimmicky and crippled by its own overspecialization. With stormtalons and stormravens taking care of the anti-flier department – while also being overall great units – my guess is that Stalker/Hunter kits won't be the most lucrative of GW's products. They should've scrapped both tanks and just made icarus stormcannon array and/or skyspear missile launcher available to whirlwinds as additional weapon upgrades. Grav-weapons don't make much sense to me, as they appear to be same as plasma, only without gets hot! or the ability to harm vehicles. That being said, White Scars armies with lots of grav-weapons are going to be scary.

Chapter Tactics are awesome. They're the only fresh thing in this thinly-veiled moneygrab ploy GW calls a codex. They're not without flaws, though, and internal imbalance is only one of them. In theory, taking chapter-specific SCs will now be an option, rather than a necessity. In practice, everyone who plays Salamanders is still going to take Vulkan, all White Scars lists will include Khan, Imperial/Crimson Fists will want Lysander/Pedro etc., because their special rules complement their chapter tactics so well it would be foolish not to take them. Still, it's a step in the right direction.

Overall, this codex is a letdown. 

Two Tourney Battles, 30th May 2013

Hello people, long time no see!

The reason for the lengthy delay between BRs was that a tournament I was supposed to attend during the first days of March was canceled. It's highly unfortunate. Players from Slovenia and Romania were supposed to be attending, which would've resulted in a massive clash of metagames, plus I was really looking forward to meeting some actual vampires and their gypsy servants (FACT: Romania is a country populated exclusively by these two personality types), but alas, it was not to be. At least I finally took the time to finish painting my vindicators.

The tournament format was the usual. 1850 pts armies, 3 battles, a mix of rulebook and ETC missions, standard bonus rules + Nemesis rule (whichever unit scores First Blood becomes worth 1 victory point to the opponent). My list:

STEEL SLAYERS STRIKEFORCE:

Captain Dolf Hummerdgern (Lysander counts-as)

Tactical Squad RED – flamer, combiflamer, plasma cannon, rhino

Tactical Squad YELLOW – flamer, combiflamer, plasma cannon, rhino

Tactical Squad GREEN – flamer, combiflamer, missile launcher, rhino

5 Hammernators

Land Speeder – multimelta & heavy flamer

Land Speeder – multimelta & heavy flamer

Attack Bike – multimelta

Vindicator – siege shield

Vindicator – siege shield

Aegis Defense Line - quad-gun

TOTAL: 1850

I didn't even have a list when I arrived at the tournament and had to write one up right at the spot. The reason for this lack of vision was that I was too busy getting high on StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm to spend time thinking about 40k lists. I just included whatever models I had with me and called it a day. Not much to say about the tactics here. Rush at MEQ/gunlines and murder them. Auto-lose against fliers and hordes.

FIRST BATTLE – RIDJI'S TYRANIDS

12” deployment. Five objectives, each worth 3 points. One in the middle, one in each quarter. Useless warlord traits. Opponent had a horde army. Three tervigons, a bunch of gaunts, two venomthropes, two units of three hive guard, and a unit of three carnifexes with devourers. We deployed across each other. I combat squaded everything. My plan was to crush his right flank and take the objective in his right quarter, while somehow holding his left flank on his half of the table. I got 2^nd turn and failed to seize initiative.

(I forgot to mark the central objective, but you can see it on the photo)

TURN 1:

Night fighting. Tyranids advance. Tervigons buff the fexes with run-and-shoot and feel no pain. A rhino is shot and blown up by the hive guard, scoring first blood. One marine perishes in the explosion.

I move my LR, a rhino with a combat squad, and the attack bike forward. The right-side hive guard unit is illuminated by the rhino's searchlight and one hive guard is killed by quad-gun fire. Overall, my shooting is inefficient.

TURN 2:

Tyranids keep coming. Tervigons spit out a crapton of gaunts, blocking the path of my LR. A vindicator eats up a ton of fire, but eventually succumbs to devourer spam.

Things already look as hopeless as I expected they would be. I manage to wipe out the right-side hive guard unit, gaining nemesis. Some wounds are inflicted here and there, yet it's not enough.

TURN 3:

More gaunts are born, creating a huge screen in front of my LR. The attack bike gets eaten by a swarm of devourer beetles. The remaining vindicator's demolisher cannon is blasted off by the hive guard. The combat squad manning the quad-gun is shot up and only sergeant Jurgen is left standing. He promptly fails his morale check and almost runs off the board.

The LR plows directly through the gaunts, getting into range of the objective. The gun-less vindicator moves forward to serve as mobile wall in face of the nid advance. Jurgen regroups and – being really pissed off at the tyranids for critically injuring his best buddy, gunner Albrecht – rushes back to the quad-gun and mows down two out of three of the hive guard. The combat squad on the far right side disembarks and roasts some 20+ gaunts with flamer fire, avenging the attack bike.

TURN 4:

The tervigons crap out more new gaunts than I've managed to kill in the previous turn. Fuck my life. The said gaunts shoot up and then assault the combat squad on the far right side. The tervigon assaults my LR, but only manages to plink off two hull points. The rest of the swarm moves in on the poor tacticals in my deployment zone.

I barbecue some gaunts, just for the laughs. Then I murder the tervigon with Lysander & the hammernators. Needless to say, the battle is effectively over for me, so I surrender.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

My list wasn't able to deal with a horde army. Even if I could've forced my way through all those gaunts, I still had no hope of taking down the bucketful of T6 wounds on his MCs and hive guard. Vindicators are great vs MEQ and vehicles, but they're sadly lacking vs multiple wound models they can't insta-kill. The positioning of the objectives exacerbated the problem, while the fact he got first turn was the final screw in the sarcophagus for me.

SECOND BATTLE – IGOR'S TAU

Table quarters deployment. Big guns never tire. Useless warlord traits. Three objectives, two of which ended up in my deployment zone. I only ever faced Tau once before, and that was back in 5^th, so I knew nothing about them except that their shooting can give you testicular carcinoma. The opponent's army consisted of two units of 12 fire warriors, an aegis defense line with a quad-gun, one piranha with a meltagun, two large skimmers (one with a railgun, another with a plasma that doesn't frickin' get hot, as well as constant 3+ cover saves, screw you xeno scum), a unit of deep striking tau commandos, a big unit of kroot, a trio of heavy mecha with railguns and shield drones, a mecha commander, and a squad of mini-mecha with plasmaguns and a small army of shield drones. I deployed my stuff with the intention of reaching his objective as early as turn 2, to which he responded by ignoring his objective and deploying everything on the other side of the table. I got to go first, and he failed to seize the initiative.

TURN 1:

Night fighting. I advance with my LR, vindicators, and attack bike, while the rhino with a combat squad moves in to take the opponent's objective. Shooting is negligible.

Opponent re-positions a little and uses marker lights to lower my cover saves, but no relevant damage is inflicted.

TURN 2:

Both speeders show up. One scatters into terrain and gets immobilized. The other scatters 12” and ends up right next to the fire warriors. LR, attack bike, and a vindicator rush forward. The center vindicator abandons cover and drops its pieplate on the squad of mini-mecha, scoring a direct hit... Which kills a few shield drones. A bunch of xeno troops are roasted alive and their quad-gun is left unmanned.

The commandos and the kroot arrive. The commandos deep strike close to tau objective and wreck the combat squad's rhino. The kroot outflank at my table edge and plink a hull point off a rhino there. Railguns blow up my LR and the center vindicator, while the piranha wrecks the immobilized speeder. The other speeder takes a bazillion hits from the fire warriors and the big skimmers, yet somehow remains unscathed.

TURN 3:

Payback time. The kroot are mowed down by combined plasma, flamer, and bolter fire, reducing their unit to a single model. The commandos are likewise reduced to two models, as well as pinned. The remaining speeder hops forward and shoots the big railgun skimmer into the ass with its multimelta, destroying its missile launcher and incinerating a few fire warriors in the process. Lysander & the hammernators charge the enemy quad-gun and break it, earning themselves quite a bit of extra movement.

Piranha turbo-boosts close to my table edge, while the mini-mecha advance and try to vaporize the rhino behind my aegis defense line, but it makes its cover saves. The hurt big skimmer levitates away. Terminators are shot up and three of them fall. The last speeder is wrecked.

TURN 4:

I finish off the commandos and the kroot, securing two objectives. Lysander & the remaining two hammernators advance. More shield drones are taken out. The right-side combat squad in the rhino rushes to the aid of their buddies at my middle objective.

Piranha goes in, shoots its melta at the rhino, and the rhino passes its smoke cover save. The mini-mecha eschew shooting for the sake of rushing forward as fast as possible, intent on denying my objective.

TURN 5:

Lysander finally gets into combat, decimating the depleted fire warrior squad. I shoot everything I have at the mecha and the piranha, resulting in more dead shield drones, but little other benefit.

The last two hammernators die to tau guns, leaving only Lysander with 2 wounds. The mini-mecha jump forward to contest the objective. The piranha blows up the incoming rhino, killing one marine in the process and pinning the remaining four.

TURN 6:

I tank-shock the mini-mecha unit with my last rhino, pushing them away from the objective, then charge them with a combat squad. The tac squad looses the fight, but is stubborn and doesn't flee, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Lysander charges the big plasma skimmer. The outcome of this assault adhered to statistical expectations, ie. a disintegrated skimmer.

Lysander takes more shots to the face and gets reduced to a single wound. The piranha tries to take out the vindicator, to no avail. The mini-mecha remain locked in assault with the last remaining member of that combat squad. Game ends. I win with 3 objectives.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

I had a lot going for me in this match. Not only were two out of three objectives in my deployment zone, the placement of opponent's objective ensured I could safely take it without him being able to do much about it. Getting night fighting and first turn helped immensely. I made the mistake of assuming my opponent would deploy around his objective, whereas I would've been better off putting my LR and vindicators into the middle. The battle itself was quite satisfying. For once, I didn't feel like a runt trying to survive in a world of big hungry dogs, my army played like an actual marine force rather than some weird power armored gunline. Even my tactical marines were pretty reliable, fending off threats and doing their job without needing specialist units to babysit them. Feels good man. 

THIRD BATTLE – LUKA'S DAEMONS

Kill points. 12” deployment. He had two units of plaguebearers, a bunch of khorne dogs, four flying MCs, and a great unclean one. It was basically the same list as what Nenad, the daemon player who steamrolled me twice before, tended to field, only weaker and more boring to play against. Seriously, not only did deployment take forever, we also had to spend about 10 minutes rolling for a bazillion different lesser, greater, exalted etc. gifts for his MCs, and then every turn each one of his MCs had to cast 2-3 buff spells and then I had to roll separately for all of my units to see if it would suffer a syphilis outbreak or something. Opponent also managed to seize the initiative and zoom into my no-skyfire face on turn 1. It was so pointless I conceded on turn 3. The entire battle can be summed up with this picture:

OVERALL AFTERTHOUGHTS:

This was kinda depressing. 6^th edition is imbalanced to the point where I literally have no idea how to beat certain armies without resorting to stuff like mass fliers or spam-laden gunlines or other such obnoxiousness. Whatever balanced all-comers army I come up with, even with allies, ends up being hard-countered by certain other common list types. I find I enjoy the game a lot when I play against Imperium/CSM armies, yet the entire ruleset turns into rock-paper-scissor-rapetrain as soon as I find myself facing xeno/daemon dexes, with both me and my opponent playing on autopilot towards a predetermined outcome. Combine this with the cost of new models, the fact I already have a ton of unpainted stuff, and StarCraft being a lot of fun at a much lower expense, and I can't see myself expanding my 40k army much in the foreseeable future.

Don't take me wrong, I'll still keep playing 40k, reading Black Library novels, attending local tournaments, and writing battle reports. It's just that sometimes the flaws become so glaring they take a heavy toll on the fun factor, and even the most devout space marine commander finds himself beset by doubt.

THOUGHTS ON THE NEW DAEMONS CODEX:

Short version: Flamers and Screamers got nerfed. Best day of my life.

Long version: Looks like a stillborn to me. Nothing in the book strikes me as anything other than mediocre, subpar, gimmicky, and/or boring. It kinda reminds me of 4^th ed Tyranids; a bunch of expensive MCs supported by a mass of fast expendable infantry... Except now the MCs can fly and you can't customize anything. Maybe they're gonna be putting out some strong balanced lists, but I doubt it (except of course the mass flying MCs lists, which are going to be the bane of all-comers armies in much the same way cronair and other such stuff already is). The new chariots share the same basic design as Land Speeder Vengeance, which is to say they're glass cannons that will at best get a single shot off before they're wrecked. Unlike the Vengeance, however, they look awesome and are quite affordable points-wise so we might actually see them on the tabletop.

As for the randomness... I shit you not I puked a little in my mouth when I saw the warp storm chart and all the random weapons/powers people are supposed to keep track of. 6^th edition already has craptons of dumb rolls that rarely have any effect aside from slowing down the game (Remember that time when you actually used the mysterious objective bonus that allows the unit holding it to reroll to hit rolls of 1? Yeah, me neither.) and now you get to throw a die for every unit on the table, pretty much every single turn, and then, if one or more of those is a 6, you get to roll some more to scatter/wound/save. In other words, not only does it make the shooting phase a drag, this totally random, totally unavoidable, totally godawful table is as likely to cause your daemon opponent's units to self-terminate as it is to completely ruin your day, and there's not a thing you can do about it.

Nevertheless, this book is a good thing. Daemons are no longer playing a different, easy-mode version of 40k. In other words, they now have to worry about fundamental game mechanics such as deployment, cover, instant death, and getting their expensive close combat dudes neutered by an empty rhino with a big “HAHA I JUST DELAYED YOUR CHARGE BY ANOTHER TURN, BITCH” sign on it. This means they'll require a lot more skill and forethought in order to be successful, especially if their units are as underwhelming as they seem at first glance. Keep in mind that, if I'm correct and they turn out to be a weak dex, it's still better for the game to contain a few garbage books that have a hard time winning, than it is to sport a couple super-duper-broken armies that everyone has to play/ally with in order to stand a chance in a tournament.

THOUGHTS ON STARCRAFT 2: HEART OF THE SWARM

The long awaited first expansion for SC2 has finally arrived and it's a truly fine piece of software. Aside from all the usual content (terrains, units, maps, achievements, campaign, cinematics, improved graphics, etc.), it also provides unranked matchmaking system as well as a vs computer matchmaking. These are designed to instantly put you up against opponents of a skill level roughly equal to your own, but without actually affecting your league placement. This makes it an excellent option when it comes to getting back into the game or testing new strategies before applying them on the ladder. There's also a leveling system, meaning you gain experience points from killing and building units, which is a fun mechanic similar to achievements. Oh and, we can once again see our win-loss record in ranked matches.

The single-player campaign has awesome gameplay. Each mission has its own gimmicks and unique elements, while the between-missions evolutions and dialogues on board the leviathan are entertaining, useful, and overall far better executed than that Hyperion crap from Wings of Liberty. Multiple choice missions have been done away with, praise the Omnissiah, characters follow the quality over quantity philosophy, and the annoying newscasts have gone the way of the squats.

The story itself is an unbelievably god awful mess. Even if you're the sort of moron video gaming enthusiast who isn't bothered by inconsistent characterization, plot holes so numerous and massive a fleet of battlecruisers could fly through them, or the kind of frustrating retcons that make a mockery of established fluff for the sake of throwaway missions, you still can't help but be annoyed by the sheer amount of Hollywoodesque cliches, deus ex machinas, and terrible writing on display. If there's one positive thing that can be said about HotS story, it's that it at least has a character arc and a meaningful progression, unlike the schizophrenic filler-laden clusterfuck that was WoL narrative. Seriously though, that's like saying Revenge of the Shit is better than The Phaggot Menace, or that AIDS is preferable to cancer. It's probably true, but you still wouldn't want it on your worst enemy.

In case you're foolish enough not to take everything I say as gospel, here's a fantastic article on WoL story, as well as a great (if a little soft around the edges) post about the shortcomings of HotS narrative. And another one. The internet is also full of people pointing out inconsistencies and plot holes, so do some googling if you feel like making yourself sad.

Mini-Tournament 16.2.2013. Vulkan Ownage!

Greetings my fellow 40k-ers, here's another triple battle report for your viewing pleasure.

Before I begin, let me say how thrilled I am about the “Death From the Skies” supplement. Seriously, stormravens not only make vanilla more competitive, they also make close combat dreadnoughts and stormtalons a lot more desirable because they provide them with reliable assault transport and awesome target saturation, respectively. This not only opens up a variety of new lists and tactics, it actually turns vanilla into a nice ally option for other armies. For example, a nullzone libby, a tac squad, a stormraven, and perhaps a stormtalon or 5 hammernators strike me as a neat addition to armies who lack their own (good) fliers, such as space wolves, tau, eldar, dark angels, etc. Also, skyhammer stormtalons that cost the same as rifleman dreads are insanely good. Food for thought.

1850 pts armies, rulebook missions + the nemesis special rule. The nemesis special rule states that any unit who scores first blood is automatically worth one victory point if destroyed. My list:

Captain Adolf von Klinkerhofen (Vulkan counts as)

Tactical Squad RED – flamer, combiflamer, plasma cannon, rhino

Tactical Squad YELLOW – flamer, combiflamer, plasma cannon, rhino

Tactical Squad GREEN – flamer, combiflamer, missile launcher

5x Hammernators

2x multimelta Attack Bikes

Land Speeder – heavy flamer & multimelta

Land Speeder – heavy flamer & multimelta

Land Raider Godhammer – multimelta

Vindicator – dozer blade

Vindicator – dozer blade

Aegis Defense Line – quad-gun

TOTAL: 1850 pts

The plan (short version): turn 1 – rush towards the enemy, turn 2 – kill everything. The plan (long version): I definitely want to get first turn. Tactical Squad Green sits behind aegis defense line & mans the quad-gun and maybe holds an objective, while plasma cannon combat squads camp in terrain. Everything else turbo-boosts forward. Bikes move 24" in front of the vehicles to give them cover saves. If opponent has barrages or something else that negates standard cover, tanks move 12" and pop smoke. Speeders deep strike. Turn 2, everything comes in 6-24" range and makes someone's mother cry.

FUN FACT: I'll forever hold Vulkan close to my heart because he's the first HQ I have ever fielded and the one I took my baby steps with. When I started 40k in early 5^th edition, all my lists typically consisted of Vulkan & hammernators in a LR, with three tactical squads with MLs, flamers, combiflamers, power fists, and rhinos. 1500 pts armies were the standard back then. Needless to say, there weren't many points leftover for other stuff, so I tended to lose whenever someone immobilized or destroyed my LR early on. However, due to the fact I was one of few mech players back then (and mech was overpowered in 5^th) and that my regular opponents were tyranids, ultramarines, world eaters, necrons, and blood angels, I actually managed to win the majority of my games. I even believed I was an awesome general. Good times.

FIRST BATTLE – LUKA'S SPACE WOLVES

You may remember this guy from the goddamn LOS-blocking hill battle report. Guess what, we ended up playing on a table with the same oversized hill again. The good news, however, was that he was fielding a pure drop pod list, so the hill wasn't going to come into play. Four of his five pods were full of wolf guard with combiplasmas and combimeltas, plus two terminators, one with assault cannon, another with hammer & shield. The fifth pod carried Logan Grimnar, Arjac Rockfist, and three more th/ss termies. The mission was four objectives (each worth 3 VPs), 12" deployment. He wins the roll-off and decides to give me the first turn. I deploy in a defensive position to make it hard for combimeltas to get into 6" range. My plan is to basically be a rock and let him break against me.

TURN 1:

I spread out and pop smoke with all my vehicles.

Three drop pods, one of them containing Logan & his hammernators, arrive. The left-side rhino is blown up by meltas. The right-side vindicator is immobilized by Arjac's hammer.

TURN 2:

Both speeders arrive. One scatters off the table, resulting in a mishap that has it placed in the upper right corner. Undaunted, its driver steps on the pedal and turbo-boosts back towards my deployment zone. Lots of shooting occurs, killing plenty of wolf guard and one of Logan's terminator buddies. Hammernators try to charge Logan & co, but roll poorly and fail their charge. The centermost wolf guard squad is assaulted by Vulkan, who kills four of them. They inflict two wounds on him, lose combat, and manage to flee, leaving him in the open.

The remaining two drop pods arrive. Vulkan is plasmaed to death. The surviving two wolf guard from the squad Vulkan charged rally and assault a plasma cannon combat squad. Hammernators are shot at by combiplasmas and two of them go down. They then fail their leadership test and run off the board. Logan & co assault and wipe out a combat squad. I'm hating life.

TURN 3:

I turbo-boost the right-side rhino with a combat squad inside into the midfield, so it can grab an objective in the opponent's deployment zone and score linebreaker. The left-side vindicator turns to face the wolf guard squad between it and the LR, and in a moment of true beauty pays for itself and probably for its twin brother by vaporizing 7 out of 8 of them with a single shot. My tacs, attack bikes, speeder, and LR mop up, opening fire on the remaining wolf guard, but failing to wipe them out. My combat squad kills the last wolf guard in combat and consolidates.

Opponent moves his surviving wolf guard squad up and attempts a multiple assault, but shoots too well and ends up taking out his primary target. Logan & co assault the quad-gun crew and the immobilized vindicator, with predictable results.

TURN 4:

My left-most combat squads gets epic terrain and run moves, managing to reach the other objective in the opponent's deployment zone. The rest of my army takes out a drop pod as well as the last few wolf guards. The mishapped speeder finally arrives and joins the fun.

Logan & co charge the closest combat squad, stomp them into the ground, and move into midfield.

TURN 5:

I point all my guns at Logan's unit. The last two terminators are turned into molten slag. Both Arjac and the Great Wolf are reduced to a single wound each. At that point I'm pretty confident I'm going to win. Logan & Arjac are stuck in midfield, far away from the two objectives I hold, and unlikely to be able to do anything meaningful. Then, to my horror, they fail their morale test, resulting in a 11" retreat + 3" regroup, which enables the two of them to...

...Get close enough to assault one of my two remaining combat squads, decimate them, and then seize the objective, possibly resulting in a draw thanks to a single failed leadership test. Thankfully, the match goes on for another turn.

TURNS 6 & 7:

The left-side vindicator moves into terrain, shoots at Arjac and Logan, and scores a direct hit, mowing both of them down and winning me the battle. Overall, that one 120 pts tank took out 700+ pts of deathstar/wolf guard during the course of the match. It's almost as if Lando himself was piloting it.

The rest of the 6^th turn and all of the 7^th is spent wrecking drop pods, resulting in me winning by tabling the opponent.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

I botched up my deployment and first turn, allowing Arjac and combimelta wolf guard to get within 6" of my LR and right-side vindicator. I also had the disadvantages of going first and getting the table side with a single objective, but I dealt with it well, if I do may say so. My dice rolls during the first couple of turns were depressing, what with hammernators running off the board and Vulkan getting shot up like a total chump. Logan & Arjac failing a ld10 roll and getting a free 14" move that almost won/tied them the game was frustrating.

SECOND BATTLE – OTA'S ORKS

Nob bikerz list, the first one I've ever faced. Two big units, each with a powerklaw warboss, boss pole, painboy, cybork bodies, two powerklaws, big choppas, and combiscorchas. Also, a unit of four outflanking deffkoptas with rokkits. Three objectives, one in the middle worth 3 pts, one in your deployment zone worth 2 pts, the one in opponent's deployment zone worth 4 pts. Diagonal/table quarters deployment. He gets first turn and night fighting is active. I place my objective on top of a wrecked building, preventing him from being able to contest it. The central objective is inside the middle ruin. I put one combat squad with a rhino in reserve. My plan was to shoot most of his nobz to death and then go medieval on the remainders with vulkan & th/ss termies, at which point I would grab either the objective in the middle or the one in his deployment zone with the reserved combat squad.

TURN 1:

The bikers advance. The left-side unit remains rather far back though.

I smell blood and go all out on the right-side bikerz unit, determined to wipe them out fast. They're pretty close, so the LR leaves the safety of the defense line in order to disembark my th/ss termies into 2-3" range of the closest nob. Regrettably, my shooting ends up being too effective, killing so many nobz that my terminators remain too far away and fail their charge.

TURN 2:

Deffkoptas stay in reserve. The right-side warboss leaves his unit and assaults the attack bikes, wiping them out. The three surviving bikerz pull back to contest the objective in their deployment zone. The other biker unit shoots up the terminators, killing 3, and then multiple-charges them and the LR but, to my misfortune, fails to wipe them out, meaning they're locked in combat and safe from my shooting. The LR is stunned.

Speeders arrive from reserve, both of them deep striking around the opponent's objective, both scattering too far to be able to use their flamers. I move one of my rhinos up, creating a mini-wall to prevent them from getting more charges off in the following turn. The warboss who slaughtered the attack bikes is shot to death. During assault phase, the two terminators finally die.

TURN 3:

Deffkoptas are still in reserve. The three bikerz at the opponent's objective move down and destroy the speeder. The big nob unit in the middle shoots like crazy, but fails to destroy the rhino. They then assault the LR and the rhino, stripping another two hull points off the LR and exploding the rhino.

Rhino combat squad arrives from reserves and rushes towards the opponent's objective. I open fire, killing and wounding a bunch of nobz as well as injuring the warboss.

TURN 4:

Deffkoptas arrive and blast the combat squad rhino to pieces. The three bikerz then assault the combat squad and, although they suffer some wounds from overwatch, they manage to decimate them without any casualties. The warboss keeps hitting the LR, failing to do anything to it. The middle nobz multiple-assault the quad-gun combat squad and the nearby vindicator, destroying them all.

I shoot my depleted guns at the nobz, killing some, but it's not enough. Furthermore, I assault the warboss with Vulkan, hoping to strip his last wound before he gets to swing. Vulkan's dice suck, however, and he ends up getting powerklawed by the warboss.

TURN 5:

Middle nobz are pulled back to contest the middle objective. Warboss assaults and destroys the second vindicator.

Shooting from combat squads finally strips the warboss of his last wound. The remaining speeder moves in on the three nobz at the opponent's objective and sends all three of them to green heaven. Game ends. Opponent wins 5-4.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

I've made serious mistakes in this match. Getting greedy and disembarking my hammernators on first turn was by far the worst. If I had managed to pull that charge off, I probably would've been able to wipe out the entire unit and keep my attack bikes, but failure to do so would result in my LR & termies being left in the open to die, effectively stripping me of my counter-charge unit early on, which is exactly what happened. It was an unnecessary gamble, and it ended up biting me in the ass. I would've been much better off keeping my vindicators and LR further back, and bubble-wrapping them with a pair of flamer combat squads. Speaking of which, I should've kept pulling my left-side vindicator back during turns 2 & 3, instead of leaving it vulnerable to a multiple assault. Reserving that rhino combat squad for a late game objective grab wasn't such a bad idea, but it relied on me being able to quickly take out at least one of the two nob units. Aside from all this, it was my first time facing a nob bikerz list and to be honest I have underestimated them. A lesson well learned.

THIRD BATTLE – BOCA'S BLOOD ANGELS

6 objectives, one in the center of each 1/6 of the table. Objectives in your deployment zone are worth 2 pts, the ones in middle 3 pts, and the ones in opponent's deployment zone 4 pts. Annoying table-sides deployment. His was a weird list. It consisted of a minimal sniper squad, Dante, a small unit of sanguinary guard, 10 assault marines with meltaguns and a sanguinary priest, a stormraven, and ~20 tactical terminators with assault cannons. He had first turn. I was expecting him to combat squad and deep strike everything while hiding the scouts behind terrain, only to be surprised when he placed his termies on the table and infiltrated his scouts on top of the central building. I responded to this the way any self-respecting ultramarine successor should when faced with a band of bloodthirsty power-armored mutants: by deploying in a massive gunline. I had no intention whatsoever of going for his objectives, or even the ones in the middle.

TURN 1:

His terminators advance towards me, rolling 1s and 2s on their run rolls. Snipers shoot, but being scouts they don't do crap.

A rhino illuminates the left/upper terminator squad with its searchlight, and a couple are killed by shooting. The other rhino illuminates the scouts and the rest of my army shoots at them, killing three. I spread out my infantry and bikes behind my land raider and vindicators to make it harder for the incoming meltas get into range.

TURN 2:

Dante arrives with the sanguinary guard, deepstriking behind my lines. Assault marines appear right in front of my LR. Terminators advance. Assaulters shoot at the LR, yet their meltaguns are impotent. Dante fires his melta pistol at a vindicator, but his gun is no match for its indomitable rear armor. Just kidding, it blew up like Christian Bale on the set of Terminator 4.

Both speeders arrive. One attempts to roast the scouts, only to scatter out of template range and roast the termies instead. The other is placed behind the upper terminator unit so it can provoke them into wasting shots or even assaulting it, but it too scatters too far to use its flamer. Still, it manages to snipe the assault cannon guy. Vulkan & the combat squads disembark and burn the crap out of assault marines, leaving only the priest alive. Hammernators disembark so they can charge Dante & co, but it's unnecessary, as my shooting is more than sufficient to vaporize the entire unit. Lastly, empty rhinos turbo-boost forward to block the path of the incoming terminators.

TURN 3:

Stormraven still refuses to arrive. Sanguinary priest assaults the speeder in the middle, and fails to do anything to it. Terminators do some more walking.

Vulkan & the hammernators return to the LR. I try to move the middle speeder up to take out the scouts, but it fails its terrain test and is immobilized. My combat squads move forward to serve as bait for the incoming terminators. The sanguinary priest takes a bolt to the face. For some reason, I try to tank shock the lower terminator unit, resulting in a successful death-or-glory and a disintegrated rhino. The vindicator tries to move over the aegis defense line and manages to immobilize itself despite having a dozer blade. Oh well, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

TURN 4:

Stormraven arrives and tries to dislodge some of my combat squads at the objectives. One terminator unit takes the bait and assaults a combat squad, killing four marines and putting themselves in perfect assault range of my hammernators. The other advances and shoots a bit.

I disembark my hammernators. However, once again they don't get to kill anything because my shooting destroys the offending terminators before they can charge. As for the other terminator unit, all but one are gunned down. The speeder turbo boosts to the top of the central building so it can succeed where its twin failed ie. killing the snipers.

TURN 5:

Stormraven keeps attacking the combat squad at the lower objective, but they go to ground behind the defense line and it fails to wipe them out. Scouts assault the speeder, to no effect.

Sergeant Jurgen & gunner Albrecht pump the stormraven full of quad-gun bullets, blowing it to pieces. Hammernators charge the last remaining blood angel terminator, and the resulting combat is as one-sided as you can imagine. The speeder opens fire on the two scouts, killing one. Game ends, with just one scout standing between me and a victory by tabling.

AFTERTHOUGTHS:

I had many things going for me here. My dice were incredibly good, my opponent's list was far from optimized, the deployment was the best I could hope for, and I even got to pick my side. From then on, it was a matter of withstanding his 2^nd turn alpha strike and then retaliating with overwhelming firepower.

OVERALL AFTERTHOUGHTS:

I really enjoyed this tournament. Opponents had cool in-yo-face armies, resulting in close-fought matches and plenty of epic moments. Also, taking Vulkan out for a ride had a lot of nostalgia value for me. I ended up getting 2nd place on the tournament and winning a box of blue GW dice. Yay!

Strange thing I noticed: unless I'm playing against imperial guard, I always end up turtling while my opponent tries to bash my skull in. This happens even when I bring out assault/short range armies such as this Vulkan list or the Lysander list I fielded in my first battle report. I have no idea why this is so. Maybe my lists are imbalanced in favor of passive play. Or maybe my opponents are more offensive-minded than me. Or maybe the vanilla dex can't really support a truly aggressive playstyle. Or hell, maybe I'm just a pussy.

Sadly, although Vulkan is a pretty cool guy, I can't justify fielding him in 6^th ed. The loss of combat tactics is a considerable liability, and so is his price tag, while meltas & flamers are just not all that hot in this age of plasma, feel no pain, T5, and footsloggers. To top it all off, he's just a 3 attack captain-equivalent with an AP4 template, an AP3 spear, and no eternal warrior. A list with plenty of plasmagun/combiplasma tacticals, in las/plas razorbacks, led by a naked null zone + avenger librarian, just seems like a superior all-comers option, especially since my local metagame is almost 100% MEQ. Come to think of it, Vulkan is so expensive I could easily replace him with a naked libby + an allied DA libby with a power field generator. 4++ vindicators, anyone?