The Arguments I Have – Discordian

When I play 40k I “try” and play the game we are supposed to all be playing. The major arguments I have usually start because I’ve stumbled into a game with someone playing the game they think we should be playing.

When I’m playing friendly games I do force myself to play by the rules, even the ones I hate, but I won’t be dead set on enforcing them on my opponents if they are honest mistakes. Sometimes if someone does something illegal I’ll even wait till the end of the game to bring it up and see what it was they thought they were doing. They’re responses usually help me gauge my desire to play them again.

Tournaments however are a different story. In a tournament you are saying yeah today's the day I play a lot of 40k and I better be good 40k. I play the game we are all supposed to be playing and I intend to make sure everyone else does too. And that is usually the point it gets heated.

Last weekend while I was in a little tournament, a recurring issue came up in regards to rules. The first time a TO was on hand and the matter got resolved quickly. The second no TO around and I ceased to care. I told the player he was wrong in probably not the nicest of ways, explained why, and then let the player cheat (didn’t matter the game was mine. Who brings two troop choices to a Tournament?).

After the fact the player didn’t bother to apologize he simply agreed I was right on the issues and that in the future we should agree to play differently……. I might not go out of my way to play him in the near future…….

Meanwhile back in the article I was writing, I did realize that the issues that came up weren’t because both players were trying to callously cheat me, but because they thought we were playing the game they thought we were playing and not the game we were supposed to be playing. There are dumb rules in 40k and sometimes even dumber rules explained very dumbly. We can all agree on that. But I find myself far too often having to track down rules in the magical “choose your own adventure” main rule book because someone didn’t take the time to understand a rule the first time around and it’s now cemented in their heads as some distorted mess.

I guess my main point is read a book and don’t assume things. And it might be helpful if patience is used because there is a chance the person doesn't know they are cheating you.

But I swear if I have to explain vehicle firing arcs in a tournament game one more time THERE WILL BE BLOOD.

Probably should change the last part "we're Jerks!"



Air Superiority Discriminatory – Discordian

So playing in 6^th edition brings with it certain aspects some of us wish where more flushed out. Old books still being old and unsupported, random wound allocation coupled with things like full squads of Reavers, a full description of what special power weapons really where at launch, allies’ matrix being imperial guard for everyone, and my greatest sore point and todays point of discussion FLYERS being FLYERS.

I could easily go on a rant about how unbalanced they are, but that’s not going to really help anyone or make me feel better because both you and I are stuck with Flyers as they are.

Kind of like that

It’s worth noting that flyers have dramatically changed the pace of the game. There has always been a reserve element in the past such as deep striking and outflanking to put pressure on your opponents deployment zone. But these thing have always had they’re weaknesses. Deepstriking left you in a very vulnerable blast formation and carried with it a risk of mishap. Outflanking could be avoided or simply you showing up on the wrong side of the map. Both of were on 4+ starting on turn two in 5^th edition, not anymore.

Flyers combined with the new reserve 3+ rolls (some armies in fact can easily make this a 2+) have introduced a level of certainty previously only reserved to a very select few things. With flyers you can put pressure anywhere on the table turn 2 with little to no repercussions. This is part of the reason I truly believe they implemented the whole “no assault out of reserve rule” the one the neutered outflanking units. They needed to allow people to make full use of their deployment zone without fear of being beta striked as it were.

If you've seen it like that guy who slept on the chair

  

The easy solution to fighting flyers is to use other flyers, some of the depressingly few units that actually have skyfire (Please ignore forge world, there rules not officially accepted by GW even though officially owed by GW). In flyer on flyer action you want to actually go second so your birds are shooting down the bad birds and not the other way around. I would never indorse this in regular practice because there are very few instances where deepstriking puts you in better situation than simply flying on, but if you deepstrike your AA flyers you get a chance at rear armor or you can misdirect your opponent into to make some movement mistakes. Make your opponents think this isn’t connect four guys.

Besides flyer on flyer GW has given every army the option for fortifications. Fortifications that come with guns that actually scare flyers …. Assuming your opponent just doesn’t kill them first turn. Intercept is a powerful thing which is severally underestimated. For example I played a game last week that was against a drop-poding space marine army. First turn he came down with combat squaded sternguard with the meltas hoping to pop the vehicle and the combi plasmas to roast the dudes inside. I intercepted the melta half and managed to kill one of the melta guns and come his shooting phase he missed with the other, he ended up wasting his plasma to kill my venom (he really doesn’t like them apparently).

One important thing to consider when buying fortification guns is who is going to shot it. Special rules like precision shots, Signum, Fast shot, Tank Hunter, and my favorite “I’ve been expecting you” get applied to the gun. So it’s important when list building to consider your options to make the most out of your guns.

The last method I recommend to dealing with flyer is to ignore them. A list that is spamming flyers runs into big problem if you think about it. First turn can be your playground. There are two neat 6^th edition rules you should look out for. The first one is only 50% of an army can be chosen to be put in reserve, things that have to start in reserve don’t count (for some reason choosing to embark something doesn’t count for this either). The second is if at the end of the game turn you have nothing on the table you lose. What this means is if you have a fast enough and hard hitting enough army you can knock the socks off your opponents unfortunate stuff stuck on the table. You can put the entirety of your army against your opponents unreserved half and it can be very deadly, especially if you go first giving you two turns of cage fight. I’m not suggesting it’s easy to table someone this way but if someone sees you going for this result they will deploy very conservatively giving you plenty of room to push deep into his deployment half somewhat nullifying the impact of flyers by screwing with his movement options.

WHERE'S YOUR FLYER NOW

SON OF.....

DAM IT!

Can you drop me off at a Popeyes?

Other options are stocking up on tons of shooting and tons of twin-linking, which in 6^th you probably already doing. Forge world can be an option if allowed in your play area but because GW screwed the pooch on the interaction between skyfire and intercept (Hydra being a prime example, almost all the forge world AA options have Intercept which while super good against flyers hinders things that are not flyer even more.

Here’s to hoping this random flyer supplement coming out next month doesn’t actually make me hate this game even more.



Dark Angels WIP - Schlemazal

With the new codex and models out, it’s time for me to get back to work on my army, starting with some new additions. I picked up a Nephilim and the Deathwing Command Squad/Knights kit along with my copy of the book (sadly, I was not expecting the Nephilim to be terrible), and I’ve been putting some time into building and painting over the last week.

First off, the Nephilim. When it comes to the rules for the Nephilim, I think it’s way overcosted for what it can do (which is basically just kill light vehicles and rear armour). Sadly, I’d already bought one and its alter-ego, the Dark Talon, is even worse, so I built it anyway. I was actually really impressed with this kit, if not with the rules behind it. I think the design of the fighter itself is rather nice. I was worried from the front-on pictures that the hull would be really blocky, but this turned out not to be the case.

One of the issues I often have with GW vehicle kits is that there is inevitably some warping on large pieces, which can be a real pain to deal with when constructing the hull. The Nephilim has an interesting way around this though – the engine pieces are designed to fit tightly around the assembled hull, holding them into place even with minor warping. Everything else fit together well and the whole thing was a breeze to assemble. I know it’s been a while since the last time I built a vehicle, but this was by far the easiest to build kit I’ve ever seen.

As for the weapons, I have to disagree with Discordian – the avenger megabolter is the way to go on the Nephilim. With the remainder of its weapons at S6 or less, the Nephilim is relegated to hunting light vehicles and rear armours (AV10-11). The volume of fire is much more valuable here, and the megabolter set-up will glance an AV10 or 11 vehicle to death on an average shot, if it doesn’t kill outright. It really isn’t worth firing at AV12 or better  even with the lascannon (~40% chance of a single penetrating hit, all other shots wasted), so I say go with what will do the best against AV10-11. If the Nephilim had S8 missiles, it would be different, but it doesn’t.

When it came to the terminators, I decided to build a new command squad. I really like the new Deathwing Knights, but having AP4 apart from a single round of combat means that they’ll be one-hit wonders most of the time. I think any Deathwing army would benefit from having a squad as heavy-hitters (plus they’re great against light vehicles and chaos), but I field a company list with only one or two terminator squads and I need those to have more versatility.

I really like the robed look for the terminators, which is why I got the kit in the first place. The only issue I had with this set was that the robe torsos were each designed to fit on only one of the leg poses comfortably, so if you want your terminators to have different poses you’ll have to do some modifying. There’s also only one thunder hammer in the kit, so I had to scavenge a second one for the above squad. Be warned when building a terminator command squad though – unlike every other apothecary in the game I’ve ever seen (even others in the same book), the Deathwing apothecary MUST give up his melee weapon, meaning no power weapon of any sort on your apothecary.

I’ve started painting this squad, so I’ll leave off with a few pictures of the one model I have finished. This is actually my first time painting Deathwing in a bone color, in the past I’ve used white drybrushed over black to simulate rubbed-on ashes based on one of the older stories for the origin of the color, but I felt that this would look better in the end. As for the robes, I think in the future I’m going to go a bit more extreme with the highlight colors, as I’m not satisfied with how much it stands out on the top part. Next up, the champion with halberd (or Sgt. McFartface as Gothmog would call him).

Genswick IG (Forge World) Heavy Mortars

So I got a little tired of painting this week, so I assembled these guys I had sitting around. A critical part of my Genswick army project. A really nice distraction and productive as well. I feel like these are more a set of dioramas than models. I tried to link them all with the extended comm network set-up. If you look, the cables run from one to the other when set up in the correct order and angle. Oh, and there is alot of glue and frosting on the base because of these cables. If it isn't bent perfectly, they can be a pain to force flat.

These are just Forge World Heavy Mortars with a whole bunch of Leman Russ stuff added to it. tarps, packs, shovels, pick axes etc. etc. The comms are normal LR comms and one from the Apocalypse command upgrade sprue. The cables are guitar string. As well, I Genswicked them up by hanging a chain with sheild from the Brettonian Men-at-arms command sprue on the front of each one.

Each just has the minimum crew of 3. If I ever want to add crew (max of 5 per gun), I am going to do two horse mounted crew with a towing yoke between them to make it appear as if they were horse drawn into position. I think that this would be very strong thematically and would be good for display, even if I never use the extra crew. I WILL be using these though. I think Artillery pieces are greatly under-rated, especially in 6th ed, and for 50 pts a pop, a S6 AP4 ordnance blast isn't bad, especially since it doesn't require LOS. With boots on the ground being the single most important thing in 6th ed. these mortars will effectively wipe average infantry off the table.

Anyway, enjoy the pretty pictures.

My single most hated thing in Dark Angels and all of 40k

I hate the Halberd of Caliban. This is the most unjust thing to be released in the DA codex IMO.

This guy (known as Sgt. McFartface henceforth) is a real dick:

NO! Not Eldrad. Okay, well Eldrad is a dick! But I reall mean this guy:

Brother Sgt. McFartface (McFart-fuh-say)

Yeah, him. Really, it is his halberd that ANGERS ME BEYOND ALL BELIEF! S+2, AP2, AND IT IS NOT UNWIELDLY! Meanwhile these guys can't shake a stick faster than a galapogos tortoise.

Lord Commander Dante. Only the single longest living Imperial Space Marine in existence and probably one of the greatest close combat fighters ever to walk the galaxy.

Astorath the Grim. High Chaplain of the Blood Angels and ALL SUCCESSORS. So basically the Spritual Leader of the largest and most proficient corps of loyalist close combat troops in the Galaxy.

So, I have said it before, and I say it again. GW has messed up here. I will not go on too much (read the linked article), but really? You are going to realize and undo the mistake you have done, but rather than undo it on the two most deserving characters, guys who are champions of a force DEDICATED to being the greatest CQB fighters in the galazy, you give it to Sgt. McFartface and call it a day. You even did your FAQs this month (JAN 13), and that was something you decided to leave for the worse.

Dante costs 225 points, and yet will be hit by an Imperial Guard Sgt. with an axe at the same time. Now along comes Danny McFartface (yes, DA are now Irish to me. Rants don't have to make sense. If you require logic, simply accept that DA are green and Irish stuff is too) and since he is a Space Marine, he can wield his super special close combat weapon FAST. But Dante and Astorath, each with Master Crafted weapons and probably somewhere closer to 2500 years combined experience (Dante was chapter Master long before Lysander was even lost in the Warp for 1000 years) still swing like they are playing t-ball. Niether of the non-BA selections are cost prohibative, but these awesome characters ARE, and suffer all the more for it.

Honestly, maybe it all is some ploy by Eldrad... or maybe...

hmmm...