Two Recent RTT's - Super Brief Batreps

Well hello there everybody. I realize I’ve been gone for quite a bit but I should be mostly back now. A big part of it was that I hadn’t had time to play almost any 6^th edition and to talk about it without some hands on experiences seemed silly to me. Since I’ve recently played in two tournaments in the last two weeks and have another scheduled for this weekend as well as Nova the week after that I think I’m finally starting to get a feeling for 40k in 6^th edition. Not that I have it figured out by any means but I definitely feel better talking about now than I did 3 weeks ago J

New Daemons – New/Changed Unit Discussion & 2k Army Lists

Well most of us have seen that there are new daemons headed our way in the next few weeks. What makes this awesome is that it’s for some new units and also for some of the most fiddly of the current range. What makes it even more awesome is that in addition to some new units getting entries similar to the Storm Talon/Dakka Jet some of the old entries are being updated. Namely Flamers and Screamers. The only contention is going to be their invul saves but for a second let’s assume they’d have the saves the units would normally have in the Daemon book.

So why is this so awesome? How often do you see flamers or screamers currently? The change to 6^th might have boosted how often you saw screamers until vehicles started to drop off the scene but Fiends and Crushers have always been the babies of the elite slot. This means you rarely saw flamers due to cost effectiveness outside of a 3-man suicide squad. Well that’s changed!

Welcome to 6th: Daemons

This is the first in a series on armies and the changes 6^th has brought to them. We’re starting with Daemons because I think they got an enormous boost in this edition and will be a ton of fun to play.

My First Game of 6th

Well I finally got a game in and......it was quite fun even for a learning game. I played our local store owner when I got off early from work and we muddled out way through the rules pretty easily. My only sadness is that there were not vehicles or flyers since we're both infantry nuts.

I brought:

Flyrant w/2xDual Devs & Wings
Flyrant w/2xDual Devs, Wings, & Hive Commander
2x3 Hive Guard
20 Termagants
20 Dev. Gants
2xTervigon w/Catalyst, Poison, Adrenal Glands
2xCarnifex w/2xDual Devs in Spores

My opponent brought:

Warboss on Bike w/PK, Squig, and some other stuff
Big Mek w/KFF
3x15 Lootas
5x30 Shoota Boyz
3x3 Kannons

So you can see that we had around 250+ models between us before I even start pooping. It made for an interesting game and we managed to knock the game out in 3 hours with a new edition and interruptions (since he runs the store).

It was a pretty smooth game. Things I learned:

-Cover is interesting now since you get cover for your saves if the model taking the wound is obscured by 25% from any firing model in the enemy unit.
-Lootas are friggin crazy good if they roll 3 shots, even snap shoooting.
-Fearless change is definitely a good thing with overwatch. It allows you to pin units in place to hit with multiple other units. Without it boyz and nids would take a pretty massive hit charging into CC.
-Biomancy is pretty dang amazing
-Flying MC's are incredibly durable but 45 St7 shots can still hurt you.
-Night fight is huge and I really like how it works now.
-You have to clump up more with assault based troops now to ensure you make the charges after casualties. Blasts are going to hurt more.....
-5+ Cover means a lot more dying on models without an armor save.

Things I learned and my opponent did too:

-Always taking the closest model killed the screening conga line of boyz since he had one unit out of the fight for two turns as they tried to get back into coherency.
-Nobz are still essential. He wanted to try squads without them due to all the sniping possiblities nowadays.
-KFF isn't a requirement for foot armies like it used to be.

Overall it was a fun game with me deploying second after he had to spread his army across the table. I refused flank and the 2+ for reserves with Hive Commander is pretty ridiculous. We wound up playing relic and just pummeled each other. I got lucky that one of my Tervigons pooped out around 50 termagants before going out which kept me in the game. I'll try to start doing some batreps of baby steps in 6th. But I wanted to share a bit about my first impressions.

Traitor Guard w/Unearthly Allies 2k

I've been playing around with some ideas and this one struck me as fun. Should work pretty good against anything short of 6+ flyers but here is what I'm thinking:

Speeding Up Lookout Sir & Wound Allocation on Character units?

So I think a lot of people are misunderstanding how these mechanics work and are making this into a bigger issue than it actually is.

Here is what I’m thinking as I’m pretty sure I understand the mechanics behind how Lookout Sir and wound allocation work. And from what I can tell it’s no slower and might be faster than wound allocation in 5^th. Now this is just an idea and if I’ve got a mechanic wrong or it doesn’t make sense let me know. I was a little wrong in how I initially interpreted it but with some help from the guys at the YMDC over on Dakka we think we've worked out a way to speed this process up (and so massively speed up the game)

Nova and 6th Edition, I’m Totally Torn!

Oh I'm not torn on using 6th edition but on my army. As a fair few of you who read here have probably heard by now Nova is going to be the first national level GT event (i.e. over 100 players) to run 6^th edition. Which is awesome! But since I’m playing in the Invitational as well as the Open and have less than 2 months to build, paint, and practice with an army I have to get started pretty much now. Which leads to the point of this post; I’m torn between 3 different armies right now with a sound idea list as I get familiar with the rules for all of them. Oddly, all Xenos J

So….How bout them Tyranids?

I’ve seen a ton of screaming around the internet about more “nerfing” by GW when it comes to Tyranids. Well I want to take a look at Tyranids myself to get a feel how one of my favorite armies (right beside orks) is actually going to perform in this new edition. Bear in mind this is all without extensive playtesting of the ruleset at this point and no tournaments to speak of yet. Though I will be playing a couple of games this week to get the hang of the system and have 2 RTT’s lined up in the next few weeks.

6th Edition, My Initial Thoughts & And Stand Out Rules

Like dozens of other bloggers I’m going to give my first impressions of 6^th edition. Like almost everyone else in the 40k verse I bought my rulebook this weekend (Saturday since my LFGS was afraid to sell it Friday J) and I spent a fair amount of time reading up on it on Saturday and on my breaks on Sunday (yay for overtime). Outside of the fact that the book could kill my dog if it fell off my coffee table onto her let’s get started J:

I like it. Granted I haven’t played any games yet and it could totally fall apart on me but I really, really like it after reading the book. Just like in the change from 4^th to 5^th there is going to be a lot more mobility in the game now.

I’m on the fence about combat. In some ways it got a hell of a lot better but in others it got a hell of a lot weaker.  It’s going to be seriously tricky till you get the hang of it and model placement/movement is going to be even more unforgiving.

Kickstarter Shoutout: Sedition Wars!

Well with about four days left I'm going to pimp this a little bit too. This is a kickstarter project for a board game with over 50 Miniatures that Studio McVey and Rob Baxter (from PP) are putting out. It looks amazing and I figured I'd spread the word in case you missed this.

If you're not familiar with Mike McVey he used to be a big time painter at GW for years and his studio has been creating (with the help of some amazing sculptors) some truly great mini's for the last few years. You can find his blog here: http://www.studiomcvey.com/

This is also a kickstarter which, if you aren't familiar with it, is basically an crazy pre-order that nets you tons of extras. It's the only Kickstarter I've supported as Mike and his wife Ali have an excellent reputation in the community and to be honest the models are so pretty I couldn't help myself.

Kickstarter Link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/sedition-wars-battle-for-alabaster

Book this weekend!!!!

Means I'll actually be writing again on Monday :) Till then friends!

6th Edition, Army Building, and Travel 40k

I know I've been quite lately. It's equal parts busy life and the pre-new edition apathy that sometimes overcomes us.

Let's start by saying I'm super stoked for 6th edition. Now that we have a pretty solid release date (6/30 or 7/6) it's just a matter of waiting to see what 6th is going to be like. It does make it a bit pointless to talk about tactics and strategies though.

This does leave me a little light in the drive department for building and painting though. I don't want to commit to to many new models or conversions if whatever I decide to play with might become much less viable but at the same time I'm a bit of a hobby nut. So where does this leave me?

40k is a Shooting Game? Pt. 2

First off thank you all for the particiaption in the last post. There were some good thoughts but this is one I wanted to address directly as it King does a good job at stating why he perceives the games as slanted toward shooting. This is naturally open discussion. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I'm not cutting or slamming TKE. I felt I should point that out as, while I'm sure TKE knows it, I wanted to make sure other readers did too.

TheKingElessar wrote:

Vis-a-vis a shooting game, however, I have to disgaree that the two are perfectly balanced in the core rules. The fact that you hit vehicles on the Rear is poor compensation for hitting them on 4+ or 6s virtually any time you catch up to one you haven't already damaged, only getting a single strike from Grenades, Melta Bombs not being AP1, and then the myriad issues with time constraints, distances, blocking, bubblewrap, and the fact that (barring Kharn) it will always be easier for skilled shooting units to hit and thereby have a chance to inflict damage than for combat units* - there are a great many more limiting factors to inflicting melee damage than shooting damage.

Is the gap as wide as perhaps it is sometimes asserted? No. However, if hyperbole is the only way to get people to pay attention to the debate long enough to see for themselves the inequality, then I have no qualms with that.

* - For anyone who doesn't already realise, this is two-fold: the fact that you can hit on a 2+, and often with a re-roll built in, shooting, but can't in CC; but also because shooting rolls to hit are based only on your own ability without the comparative process for Weapon Skill. A Shooting unit will always be exactly as good at hitting in any circumstance, but a combat unit is inherently less reliable, despite the variation being small and unusual, but they also variably take damage BACK, a much more important factor as they can hit things that kill them much more easily than they'd like.

The Nova, Terrain in 40k, and 40k is a Shooting Game

So…..lots of stuff in that title J

This post is going to be long. It might be a bit ranty here or there and might be a bit holier than thou in some places but I feel some of it needs to be said. Also I’m going to try and intersperse it with photos to break the text wall and entertain you with boobies (images stolen from my buddy Spags at TheBack40k cause I'm at work and looking might not be a good idea).

We’ll start first with NOVA. This part is a little gushy. This is the event that started a firestorm. There was a cry for a while for a more competitive format (in terms of clearly defined winners based on record) and Mike Brandt stepped up and took on the challenge of creating a tournament to provide it. His ideas influenced quite a few events in one way or another and normally in a good way.

Clarification: Now to be clear I’m not saying that Nova is the only or best format but I do feel Mike’s openness in his approach and his general urge to reach out to the community has helped create the environment we have on the circuit. Right up there with the guys from Adepticon, WargamesCon, and newly on the scene Reece’s group over there at Frontline Gaming.

And this format is Mike’s baby. He’s constantly tweaking and playing with it. He takes in ideas on how to make it better from the community and builds on it. In other words he’s a great TO. Some of you might be wondering why I’m blowing smoke up Mike’s ass. It mostly has to do with the fact that, as an event that is often considered the flagship for competitive 40k (even if all 40k is competitive in its own way), Mike takes a lot of hits from parts of the community and that can be draining on a person. Especially when the heat he catches is primarily from a small subset of people who consider themselves a big part of the competitive community. Most recently it’s been about terrain which segues nicely into the second part of the title.

The Source GT May 19-20 - I'm Going

Well I can't help but support another local GT that's coming up a week from Saturday. It does include re-rolls which since I've signed up so late I'm not going to get but that's ok. I'm just down for playing some more games. That being said I'm breaking out my Daemons for the event. I'm currently painting the 12 new fiends I've built and the 2 heralds of khorne. Here is the list I'm taking.

HQ

HoT in Chariot w/Bolt & Master of Sorcery
HoT in Chariot w/Bolt & Master of Sorcery
HoK w/Juggernaut, Icon, Rending, Blessing of Khorne
HoK w/Juggernaut, Icon, Rending, Blessing of Khorne

Elite

6 Fiends
6 Fiends
6 Bloodcrushers w/Rending & Musician

Troop

5 Horrors w/Bolt
5 Horrors w/Bolt
5 Horrors w/Bolt
5 Horrors w/Bolt & Changling
5 Plaugebearers

Fast Attack

12 Fleshhounds
6 Screamers