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 2nd
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 5th,
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. 6th
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 4th
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. 6th
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.
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