Dashofpepper: Still Alive, Updates, and Necron Rantings

Hey folks!

I’ve been incommunicado for a couple months now. I had back surgery near the end of the year – an old injury suffered while playing Army Rugby at West Point has been continually spiraling downward over the last decade, to the point where I could hardly walk, and every game of 40k played hunched over a table left me a debilitated mess (which had no small influence on my decision to booze it up as a measure of pain control).

I can walk again! I can’t lift anything heavier than 15 pounds for the next couple months, so my retinue of Imperial Titans converted into heavy duty cyber-stompas is going to have to collect dust a bit more. I joke; I don’t particularly like Apocalypse games.

In terms of 40k, a few notes:

1. I’m sitting this GT season out. I’ve asked Hulksmash (in December) to find a replacement for me for Adepticon this year, which was the biggest upset – we had a fantastic team planned, accepted, and confirmed. Literally, four immense juggernauts of 40k together on the same team. I’d been working it for a year….bribes, hookers, models, the works. I used up most of my vacation sitting at home recuperating from surgery, so I don’t have much to play with this year. As an aside, I don’t feel like I have anything to prove anymore. I performed consistently excellent this past year, went to a ridiculous number of events around the country, and winning Best Sportsman at the Nova Open really was the top quality buttercream icing on the cake. I have no doubt that I’ll still get bad votes here and there in the future as I run into tardcakes, but I’m at peace on the Sportsmanship issue.

2. I haven’t actually played 40k since the Nova Open in August. In fact, I haven’t been doing much at all in my free time; although since December I’ve been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. If any other gamers are out there, you can stop in onto the Krayt Dragon server and say hello to Munchi and Crunchi (my wife and I respectively).

3. I did buy the new Necron codex when it came out and gave it a thorough reading. Hulksmash and I discussed a couple of list ideas that I had, but never went much further than that. I haven’t been on Dakka in a long time, so I don’t even know what the “metagame” looks like, or what people are running for lists. As I’ve always been a fan of wraith-wing, my inspiration runs towards 2 units of wraiths, one unit of scarabs, maxed tomb spyders, the Lightning Strikes guy….and my gusto petered out when I realized that I couldn’t take a Destroyer Lord in a Royal Court.

4. Specifically, unhappy about the new Necron Codex. I was unhappy with the new Dark Eldar codex because I liked the old one just fine, but I adapted, built something competitive….but the Necron book simply pisses me off for a variety of reasons. Monoliths getting gimped is upsetting. Wraiths getting gimped is upsetting. They gained a second wound, and you can spend points to make them rending and stuff, but that doesn’t offset losing Initiative 6 and a 4+ WBB. The whole POINT of wraiths was to zerg into close combat, dish out a swath of attacks at I6, and count on your low model count to make sure that you win close combat, with creative deployment and combat engagement to make sure that all three of your wraith units aren’t threatened at the same time, while being available for WBB and/or hopefully being destroyed and ideally fully reconstituted into the next unit down. Three dead wraiths, and suddenly POOF! Six live wraiths, and no models lost. Adding a second wound doesn’t make them better. They’re gimped.

5. Moving to #5 to prevent #4 from being a wall of text. Warriors are cheaper…but don’t have a 3+ save anymore. Warriors were never any good, and only an addition to my armies because I was forced to take them. Well, they still suck. If you take a transport with them, you can now restock their ranks (if the transport lives), but that’s not a guarantee…and I still maintain that every point into this crappy troop choice is a point you’re not spending on combat effectiveness.

6. C’Tans: My poor Deceiver. L No longer a walking battlefield target, able to bounce in and out of combat at will during the enemy assault phase to charge into another unit, kiting entire sections of the enemy around the battlefield while carving through invulnerable saves likes a power sword through the boneless arm of a motionless Chaos spawn. They’re elites, and they’re STILL bloody expensive….but what gave them flavor and uniqueness is gone. Replaced by other abilities to be sure…but the shards pale in comparison to the Deceiver.

7. In short, they rebooted the codex, rebooted the fluff, started from scratch…and I’m completely unimpressed with the results. There’s NOTHING WRONG with having special rules. Bypassing invulnerable saves, ignoring melta and lance weapons, being a God, bouncing between combats….codices should be unique works of art, not different flavorings of the same dish. I haven’t played the new book, and I’m honestly not sure that I will. They do have some Necron specific stuff, but I abide by the old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Necrons *were* weak; no argument there – and needing some tweaking to bring them in line with newer codices. But GW didn’t tweak Necrons – my implacable, unstoppable mindless soul-hating robots. They destroyed them and replaced them with a codex full of robots that are subsumed by the same petty jealousies, intrigues as other books. They killed my fluff, they killed my wraith-wing, and I’m pissed.

8. As everything in life is a cycle, so too are preferences; and I think that I’m hearkening back to my Orkish roots. My buddy is disenchanted with his Orks (He plays a Kan-wall) for its inability to perform competitively, so I’m hoping to take his army to the next local tournament and get the TO’s permission to either play his army for him while he watches, or preferably let him play his army while I coach. I’ve done this offline for some practice games and against friendly opponents, specifically in his games against me….but the most apt description that I could put to the issue is that he’s simply not cutthroat enough to win. J That sounds awful, but there’s a lack of precision in his play. Not checking LOS before placing models to see if the shot is there, not evaluating carefully enough what targets to shoot at...the little things make the difference in the end. I know there are some staunch enthusiasts of the “40k is a game of dice and luck” but that’s a load of hogwash. 40k is a game of precision, and how carefully you apply the forces available to you to the situation at hand. But in terms of Orks, I’m starting to feel the itch to Waaaaugh!

9. Grey Knights. I ground my teeth when 50% of all my opponents were Space Marines. I clenched my fists when 50% of all my opponents were Space Wolves. And now I blink in disbelief that 75% of all my opponents are Grey Knights. To put it simply, it sucks, and I hate all of you. It is simply not fun to play the same version of the army over and over and over and over in the hands of different people. I will admit; Grey Knights are a tough matchup for DE – and it compounds the problem. I *do* believe that Grey Knights are over the top. If Fortitude were taken out of the codex, I wouldn’t mind the army at all – but it’s one straw too far. It wouldn’t be so bad if I had to deal with a tough matchup like this on occasion – but it’s EVERY FLIPPING GAME that I have to play against Grey Knights. Seriously. You all need to die in a fire. I hope all of your models getting stolen simultaneously, tossed into a fire to burn on live television while you all scrape out your eyes in anguish as your screams unite into a singular beacon of terror that penetrates the warp like the Astronomicon, sending a signal to the planet Noob so that they can send their flagship, “S.S GK FANBOI” to pick you all up and take you home.

10. Seriously, hate you guys.

That’s all for now. J I’ve been tracking the discussion on here while I’ve been out of commission, although I haven’t contributed much. Since I haven’t really been playing, I have been out o