What I learned this week pt vi

Another Sunday, another trip to overlords HQ, and another game under the belt with the world eaters. Today, I played Johnny and his Death Guard (plus guard allies). From what I remember, his list looked something a bit like this:

Typhus

5 Nurgle terminators – with a variety of weapons, set of lightning claws, autocannon and melta combi among the,

7 Plague marines – powerfist and plasma gun; rhino

35 plague zombies

Auto las predator

Primaris Psyker

Vet squad – melta, plasma and flamer; chimera

Hellhound

Leman Russ – lascannon.

I took the normal list which can be found at the bottom of this post. We rolled up kill points and the annoying diagonal deployment then deployed roughly as you can see in the first picture (although the picture is actually from towards the middle of turn 1).

So an overview of the game would be this: I set up in a corner, using a ruin to give cover to the tactical plasma squad and devs. I dropped the furioso down turn 1 and laid into Jonny’s cultist squad (but even killing 15 was less than half). I then got a lucky shot with the landraider on his chimera and managed to blow it up which got me first blood and then the devs fragged what was left of the squad inside. So even from the start Jonny was 3 points down and it was a bit too much of an ask from that point onwards really.

There was a point in turn 2 went typhus and the terminators dropped in and things started to look like they could get a bit hairy again but I was able to plasma and lascannon a few of the terminators off before the death company took out typhus and the last retinue in an uncomfortably tight assault which lasted several turns (the reclusiarch and a powerfist death company made it out by the skin of their teeth).

And with that the game was more or less done, the lead was too big for Jonny to claw back. So where did it go right (or wrong, depending on which side of the fence you are sitting on, if either)? I won’t go as far as saying it was decided before the game started, but rolling kill points and then getting first turn was pretty massive for me, I got off a good (and fairly fortunate) alpha strike which gave me a 3 point lead and forced Jonny into making some difficult choices with increasingly fewer units.

In the previous edition people often complained (and probably rightly) by how important the vehicle damage chart was in deciding games), but it still happens and unfortunately Jonny was on the wrong end of it today. By the end of the game, the landraider, predator and furioso were all on a single hull point. Jonny managed to pen the land raider twice with lascannons and subsequently rolled 1s, whereas I rolled that magic 6 on his chimera and took first blood.  A bit of a swing in the luck and it might have been a very different game.

Tradition dictates its unit ratings time, so I shan’t disappoint (in this regard, for others I can make no promises).

 

Reclusiarch and Death Company: 6

Killed off Typhus and a couple of terminators so I shouldn’t complain overly but I was certainly glad I wore my brown underwear when they more or less bounced on the charge. If it wasn’t for the being able to kill 3 of the terminators before combat started, I have no doubts they would have lost.

 

Land raider: 9

Not often the hero of the piece, with its contents often taking the limelight but took out a chimera in turn 1, which allowed me that 3 point lead. Then seemed to be made of concrete as it made it through to the end of the game despite taking 2 pens from lascannons. Just goes to show, it’s not just a 250 point bunker; leave your crusaders at home, the godhammer original is still the real McCoy.

 

Tactical Squad w/plasma: 6

Had a pretty quite game as things go. Got a pair of terminators with the plasma guns which helped the death company win that combat, but the plasma cannon did manage to kill one of the death company, to much hilarity. More practice for that man.

 

Tactical squad w/flamers: 7

Took a charge from 20 odd plague zombies and managed to whittle them down over a couple of game turns. Took a kill point and kept their own so a pretty decent performance considering there was no objectives for them to go and grab.

 

Furioso: 8

Dropped in as unsubtly as is its trademark. Roasted half a squad of zombies then took down a squad of plague marines with flamers and fist and finally turned on a rhino that had heroically taken 2 hull points off it. Still happily stomping around at the end of the game. Bit of a hidden gem in the BA codex, and the longer it stays that way the better!

 

Devastators: 7

Probably didn’t have the best of games offensively, but did claim a kill point from the poor squad inside the chimera and chipped away at the zombie blob. Jonny seemed very keen to bump them off, but they did some heroic work with their cover saves (ironically) and made it through to the end of the game more or less intact.

 

Predator: 7

Spent every one of the games 4 turns in a auto-las dual with Jonny’s predator. Finally came out on top in turn 4.

 

So overall a very fun game to play, although this may have been more down to Jonny’s ability to take it on the chin and have a laugh, so thanks to him and hopefully we will get to see him down the club more often in future. The more I play with the list, the more I like it as it has something to do in every phase of the game with a decent amount of shooting and assault. So perhaps I won’t be in such a hurry to sell it off after all.

Happy gaming!

What I learned this week: pt v

I played another game down the secret bunker this afternoon. Unfortunately, I had a camera of neither the still nor moving variety so I don’t have any pictures or videos to help with a blow by blow batrep. In light of this and the fact that I would have to write a couple of thousand extra words to make up for the pictures I don’t have, I would rather talk about my first experience of the new Dark Angels codex as Paul was using his Deathwing.

Firstly, we rolled up normal deployment and that strange mission with the 6 objectives that are worth different amounts. I took my normal blood angels/world eater’s list (1500pts) and Paul took something along the lines of:

Belial

Command Terminator squad with feel no pain banner

2 x 5 man deathwing units – storm bolter p/fists and an assault cannon

5 Deathwing knights

Nepahlim Jetfighter

Whirlwind.

That was about it, it doesn’t seem like a lot but there are 21 2+ saves there which can be a lot to deal with. The very quick synopsis is this: the random reveal of objectives went badly for me, and I was left sitting on a 1 and a 2 pointer, Paul started his command squad and knights on the table and deep struck his deathwing squads in to get to grips with my army. I think this was a mistake as he only had 2 scoring units and rather than use them to take the higher objective value objectives they ended up getting shot and chopped up before shift my units off the objectives. So in the end the result was fairly comprehensive,

In truth, I think (at least in hindsight) I would have done things differently, perhaps using the command and knights squads to keep my occupied in midfield and used the terminators to sit on objectives, where it would have been pretty hard for me to shift them. But it does illustrate a weakness of the all death wing army in a lower points game, that being that your scoring units are very expensive and that ‘deck-chairing’ an objective can seem like a bit of a mundane use for a very capable unit.

Secondly, I’ve got to say that I wasn’t hugely impressed with the deathwing knights. T5 in close formation is a nice option to have, but there are still weapons that (plasma, lascannons) that just don’t care about that, and I think they suffer a bit with their weapon option. S10 AP1 is amazing, but only being able to use it once was a bit handicap in our game. When the unit charged my furioso and failed to kill it (only 1 mace was left by this point due to the attentions of the frag cannon), they were not able to hurt it and just had to sit there and take an (admittedly slow) beating until another unit with a chain fist arrived to bail them out. Plus, if needs be I would have been able to hit them with the death company and not been too worried about them taking away my armour save. Just seems a bit much for 46 points per model.

Lastly, it was my first game against flyers with my BA army and at 1500 points generally.  I have to say I wasn’t too impressed with the DA flyer. At 180 points it just seems very expensive. It turned up turn 3 and manage, I think, to glance the land raider. It then shot up a couple of my devastators and in turn 5 forced the flamer tactical squad to run off an objective (although they rallied and got it back next turn). There was always the temptation to take a pot shot at it, but overall it was pretty ineffectual in the game and took away from boots on the ground. If those 180 points had been sunk into a tactical squad it may have been a very different game.

 

So you know the drill by now, here are the match ratings for my army:

 

Reclusiarch and death company – 7

Did the business again today, weren’t quite as killy as they have been known to be, but chopped up a terminator champion in CC (depriving Paul of his second and last scoring unit) then took a charge from Belial and managed to kill him (although he was slightly wounded before he got in). Overall just a very reassuring unit to have around in the knowledge there’s not much they can’t handle if it gets too close.

Land Raider – 6

Kept the death company safe for most of the game plus was probably responsible for taking down a few terminators with its lascannons. Did get chopped up by a chainfist but in doing so still allowed the DC to get a charge off.

Tactical Squad w/ plasma – 8

Unsung heroes of the day, combat squaded and held 2 objectives and the plasma guns and plasma cannon reliably took down terminators throughout the game.

Tactical Squad w/flamer – 6

Dropped in and took another free objective, superfluous in the end but decent insurance if things had gone awry in my deployment zone.

Predator – 5

Should have done better with the amount of free shots it got off at terminator models, managed to miss with both lascannons twice in a row – luckily the rest of the army did well enough so it didn’t matter.

Furioso – 8

Dropped in and managed to kill 4-5 terminators with its templates turn 1. Then took a charge from the remaining deathwing knights plus Belial and survived killing another. Also got another from the command squad that came to bail them out. Finally got punked by a chain fist, but had tied up a huge amount of points for the first few turns and dragged them out of position nicely. Didn’t last the course but was probably a big factor in winning the game.

Devastators – 5

Deprived of targets for a large portion of the game. Managed to get a couple of frags off on a terminator squad on turn, and may have killed one or two but lost most of its missile launchers to a strafing fighter. Not really the tool for the job today.

 

So there it is; another game down the overlords. Thanks to Paul for an enjoyable game and letting me get a look at the new dark angel codex.

The Collegium pt X: Tinker-bell (end?)

If you watched the batrep between myself and Andy (skew) on the youtube channel (and if you haven’t you can find it here) you might have noticed that during the post-match run down we had a pretty interesting (I thought) discussion about the effects of changing your list frequently in search of that winning formula.

Jokes aside about his misinterpreted comment that I am at an advantage by playing less (by which he meant I am less inclined to change things around), there is a pertinent question about when it is appropriate to tinker with your list and when it is better to stick with what you know.

Dark angels first thoughts: pt 1

Last time I tried to do a piece on my first thoughts on a new book it turned into a 4 or 5 part unit by unit break down based on absolutely nothing other than what I could see on the page without any sort of first hand playing experience. And that still might happen this time around, but yesterday I procured (through means unspecified) a copy of the dex so today I’m going to talk (very broadly hopefully) about what I thought of the book.

 I should probably preface this by saying that this book excited me the least out of all the releases since I returned to the hobby (around the time of the DE release).  I’ll try not to turn this into another rant about why painting your ceramite a different colour means you should have your own codex but I will say that of all the flavours of marine, this is the one that I think could most easily be folded into the standard vanilla dex (which becomes relevant a bit later in the discussion).

 Aesthetically, it doesn’t quite have the pazzaz factor of the Chaos book but I think this is just because it’s come second to the party. I still think £30 is a lot especially if you want it just for reference. Overall, I am pretty disappointed but then I was quite disinclined to be generous towards it in the first place. Perhaps it would have been better to disregard my own dislike for the concept when writing this but this would probably present an inaccurate barometer of my feelings.

This is the reason I don’t like this book: it feels like they’ve had to try too hard to justify its independence from the standard marine book. The ‘green’ parts of the book are necessarily close to what we might expect in C:SM, with some bits taken out to make space for some of the jazzier units waiting in the wings (pun intended). Looking at the HQ section and it’s the same old culprits: captain (renamed), chaplain (reclusiarch), librarian, techmarine, you get the idea.

I’ve heard people argue both ways that it’s either too much or too little dedicated to the 1^st and 2^nd companies but I say that it needs to be, if it isn’t then what’s the point of it being there at all, 8 of the companies of the DA are to all extents and purposes green ultramarines. The only difference between the more codex chapters and the DA is in the death/raven wing and even here I don’t think the differences are enough to justify their own book. That’s the reason I think we’ve been given elite terminators and elite bikes, just to pad out the parts of the codex which can be different to C:SM.

Which brings me on to the next part of my rant. If you want to black or beige leaving out the green (and I expect a lot of people will), then you have to take a special character so you can take bikes and/or terminators as troops so you are pigeon holed  into taking a special character which is something I have a bit of an issue with. I thought we had seen the last of this, following its omission from necrons and a more generic system in CSM, with normal lords and sorcerers changing the force org.

I think what I’m basically saying is that the codex pushes you to take one of 3 special characters to let you build your army the way you will probably want to build it and this just sits quite badly with me. I suppose there can be a case made for the way it is; after all there is only 1 master of the deathwing and that is Belial, unlike a numerous nurgle lords who
would necessarily have a coterie of plague marines. But I was really hoping the codex would give us a generic captain who makes terminators troops, using a counts as just isn’t the same. Plus we know the Dark Angels have successor chapters, and not all the commanders of their terminators will be necessarily so good at deep striking, or precision striking with their storm bolters.

I’ve been observing some initial impressions on the dakka dakka tactics forum and as we all know this particular website tends to attract the more list centric/beardy (delete as appropriate) player. As might be expected the discussion placed a greater emphasis on the competitiveness of book and unit, but (and herein lies perhaps the only compliment I will give it) there does seem (fingers crossed) to be an absence of uber powered units, and its poor, oft ignored relation, unter power units. Which is a wordy way of saying it looks to be pretty balanced.

So my conclusion is this: I spent half an hour reading through the book getting a general feel and was pretty disappointed with the whole thing. Admittedly, I was pretty prejudiced against it from the start but I was hoping it would do something to convince me that it was a worthwhile endeavour. It’s a small distinction but it feels like a codex which is trying to justify its space on the shelf rather than one which is justifiably different enough to know it deserves its own codex. What Vetock has done here could easily fit into a white dwarf C:SM addendum.

No doubt there will be people out there who have been sleepless in anticipation of this release; such will be the way with any codex or another. But for the rest of us have to ask this question: Is what we have been given worth the 4 month delay to Eldar and Tau?

No… no, I think that it is not.

 

What I learned this week: iv

I finally managed to make it down to overlords HQ after a month or so away due to exams and Christmas and whatnot.

I got a game in against Skew and his traitor marine blood angels (meaning strangely, that we both took BA, but neither of us actually took blood angels). I’m going to dispense with the normal game synopsis as we recorded a video battle report which was pretty cool and helped Inquisitor Steve out with his youtube content addiction.

This means I can get straight to the meat of my post and do my usual unit ratings rundown. (I should probably say that I am writing this a few hours after the game but won’t post until the video is released so I don’t spoil the ending). The video batrep can be found here

As seen on youtube!

My army is now as seen on TV (well video at least) as Inq Steve has uploaded an armies on parade featuring my World Eaters. This also coincides with the beginning of the pre-bay period where anyone interested in giving them a home can contact me (probably best to do it on the overlords facebook group, as i don’t often check my emails) before it is put onto ebay proper

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REJ1ILsJWrE&list=UUs97dUGq_HAEXGYVvOjVx4w&index=1

 

Word Up ptiv: Choice-n of the Gods

There is such thing as too much choice. And perhaps this is a mantra that applies to the chaos codex. Today I’m pondering terminators and how to go about equipping mine. Firstly with any unit there is a question of how many, this is pretty easy for me as the answer is invariably 8 (see my last post about my self-imposed rules). The next thing to think about with chaos is what special rules you want to give them; the word bearers are undivided so another easy one there and veterans of the long war makes sense fluffwise as well as in game terms (hatred against most armies I will face and a leadership boost for a unit that will not normally have a character, plus it is very reasonably costed).

So far then, we have 8 terminators with no mark and VOtLW. This is where the real fun starts for chaos as the wargear section is pretty extensive. So who gets what?

[I should preface this with saying these are my first thoughts on build, without any experience to back it up. I would like to say I will magnetise the arms but I think its more likely I will take the less fashionable option of gluing them badly so I can rip them off later if needs be.]

The champion will probably stay barebones-ish. It’s a point of contention but I would say he has to take his wargear from the character wargear list which puts a huge premium on weapons which normal terminators can take much cheaper. Considering there is no stat line difference between a champion the rest of the squad, it just seems to be a bit of a ripoff. There is still the question of which power weapon to take; I think we can all agree that the lance is straight out (if we even remembered it in the first place). There will be times when you’ll be grateful for a power maul (perhaps if you’re fighting orks) but if you do take one I think more often you’ll be rueing not taking something to chop through power armour.

The choice then, for me at least, boils down to a straight choice between axe and sword. Both are decent options, with the basic trade of being – is +1s and AP2 worth swinging at I1. I would probably say that overall it is. The reason is that a terminator has a 2+ save, so almost every weapon that can ignore your armour in CC is also going to be striking at I1. Of course there are a few exceptions, warsythes for example where a sword might be more useful, but if the necron overlord also has a 2+ save your not much better off. It also seems that fewer people are taking powerfists on models which can be challenged, marine sergeants etc, as they are worried about being power sworded before they get to swing. If the current meta is pointing towards power swords, then the terminator champion only has to bounce a couple of 2+ saves before chopping up the marine. But taking the axe means that if you come up against another 2+ save you won’t be AP3 impotent.

I suppose for a champion, the long a short is this. Your armour keeps you safe from AP3, hopefully surviving to strike at I1. If your opponent brings AP2, he won’t be able to kill you without you at least getting to attack (and hopefully killing him).

So what about the other 7? Chaos terminators aren’t qiute the meatheads that the loyalist versions perhaps are, lacking the beatstick combo of thunderhammer storm shield. What they do have is access to a greater variety of close combat and ranged weapons. All terminators need some sort of power weapon so here is a good place to start. Once again lances are probably out. Power mauls are perhaps a bit more viable here, as they make up a third of the freebie triumvirate. Str6 is pretty nice against vehicles meaning you could probably get away with fewer power fists. Mauls and swords also strike at I4, so  you will be able to get a couple of attacks in at normal initiative and then take those models off as casualties during the strike back, meaning you aren’t taking off the more powerful I1 weapons before they get to do the damage.

Swords fulfil much the same role, although you swap +2 str for the AP. In the case of swords however, they is a cheap and viable alternative. The single lightning claw comes in a 3pts and allows rerolls to wound in CC which is pretty nice. It is also comparable to the axe in terms of ability to wound. Ignoring VotLW this  is how many wounds per attack they cause (on average), assuming a WS4-8 enemy.

 

Wounds                             T3                   T4                   T5                   T6

 

Axe                                        .41                 .33                 .25                 .17

Claw                                     .44                 .37                 .28                 .15

Sword                                  .33                 .25                 .17                 .08

 

The stats don’t look too impressive either way, but inevitably half of the attacks will miss. (Factoring in rerolls to hit, a claw against T3 rises to .67 wounds per attack). The choice between claw and axe essentially boils down to AP2 I1 vs AP3 I4. Its also pretty easy to see how much better a claw is than a sword, definitely worth the 3 points in my opinion unless you are taking ablative wounds in which case I may be tempted by the maul.

A pair of claws costs 7 points compared to a single claw at 3 points, in this case I would be tempted to take 2 single claws than 1 dual claw. The following shows the number of wounds caused by 2 terminators on the charge against a WS4-8 enemy of varying toughness [ignoring VotLW], the top line shows 2 terminators with a claw each and the second a pair comprised of a terminator with dual claws and another with a sword.

 

Wounds                                                     T3                   T4                   T5                   T6

 

2 single claws                                        2.64              2.22              1.68              1.02

Dual claw + sword                              2.71              2.23              1.63              0.84

 

Overall it seems that the 2 single claws is a better option. There’s very little to choose between them in terms of wounds caused but there’s a point to be saved (I know, scrooge) plus you get the benefit of retaining an extra combi bolter.

Thus far I’ve sussed this: take the champion barebones with an axe, it’s probably wise to go for some I4 in which case have the ablative (a relative term) wounds take mauls and try and stretch to a lightning claw upgrade if you’re thinking sword claws should be spread out rather than put on a single model.

Next up the perennial favourite, power fists. To my mind they are competing with axes for the heavy hitter role, and the decision comes down to points. For a terminator a power fist is better than an axe in every circumstance, they strike at the same initiative, both are AP2, there is no bonus attack for having a pistol as termys don’t have one but the fist has +3 str. The cost of this is 7 points. If there are 4 heavy hitting slots in a unit of 7 I would probably suggest not all of them need to be fists, I will just feel the pain more when they die. I think I would personally prefer 2 axes, 1 fist and 1 chainfist (for a 5point premium in case I run into a AV13 dread or landraider).

 

And now finally onto the ranged weapons. Chaos terminators are unique in that they can take combi weapons as standard (and pretty cheaply). As my unit will be deep striking I think it is important that they have something to do the turn they drop, so I will be going for a mixture of flamers (to scare foot lists) and meltas (to hopefully take out high AV targets). I will be running with 3 combi meltas (I don’t think 2 is quite enough to be sure of killing a land raider even within 6) and a single combi flamer backed up by a heavy flamer which hopefully should help me thin out hordes and help a little with overwatch. Unfortunately I don’t see a role for the reaper autocannon as I plan on using the unit aggressively but all in all it seems a pretty good jack of all trades weapon.

 

So those are my initial thoughts, I wanted to put a bit of thought into it to get the build as good as possible first time round, but time will tell whether it is up to the job. And this is how I will run the squad:

 

*Terminator Champion

Power axe, combi bolter

 *Terminator

Power axe, combi melta

*Terminator

Power axe, combi melta

*Terminator

Power fist, combi melta

*Terminator

Chain fist, combi bolter

*Terminator

                        Power claw, heavy flamer

*Terminator

                        Power claw, combi flamer

*Terminator

Power maul, combi bolter

329 Points