League Game One: Me vs. Furlong's Chaos Daemons

I didn't do a full battle report, given that some of my models are barely assembled nevermind painted. It was against Furlong's Daemon Army, consisting of pink horrors, a frickin' huge unit of Screamers, three units of flamers, a winged daemon prince, Lord of Change and Fateweaver.

I got creamed. Tabled, in fact.

The main problem was the presence of Flying Monsters. Fateweaver is a powerful model, and I was keen to blast him out to deny the inv. save that he was providing. But with no real Skyfire, other than my Inquisitor manned Quadlaser (which wasn't enough) I had a problem. I layered wave after wave of fire into those guys and barely got anywhere. At one point I managed to crashland the git into the ground and my Purifiers managed to assault him but, no, he survived that. *Three* flying daemons just proved too much to take. I just couldn't handle it. And in laying in fire against them, I was ignoring things like the Screamers and Flamers, who decimated me.  In retrospect I'm thinking I should've ignored them more, and paid more attention to the Screamers which mowed through Terminators and vehicles like nobody's business.

My Leman Russes were less effective than I'd hoped. My Imperial Guard troops far more so! I bought them thinking that they could sit on my back ranks, holding objectives and that sort of thing, and because there'd be so many units of them it'd be hard to kill them all. Mal, in conversation, worried that they might not be that long-lived. Surprisingly, they were, and - whilst I was tabled - they managed to last three turns against the onslaught of numerous greater daemons. Simply having multiple units of them really gave them a long lived property. Indeed, massed lasgun fire was fairly effective, and the mortars gave me a range of options so that they could interact with activities on the other side of the battlefield quite effectively. If it wasn't for the fact that my Grey Knight vehicles and Grey knights troops were being eliminated in quick form, that support might've come in useful. But, the poor Leman Russes, weren't effective against an army that has inv. saves, is immune to instant death and fields small units. Ah well. It's not, like, as if HALF THE LEAGUE IS MADE UP OF CHAOS DAEMON ARMY LISTS!

So, a humiliating beginning to the League. And, whilst the dice gods certainly weren't with me, they weren't far against me (Furlong had very bad luck getting his reserve rolls.) So I'm not looking forward to the next FIVE matches I have to fight against Daemon armies. You'd have thought your Grey Knight troops would be well equipped for that. But, no, as the daemons had long range low AP weapons, inv. saves and all non-horror troops could screw me in close combat, it was a bad deal all around. Maybe next time I'll ignore the Flying Monsters, and see how I get on?

LWA League List

LEAGUE GAME ONE

So, the LWA back in Liverpool has started an 1800 pt 40K league. I've knocked up a list:

Penmarch 29th Armoured Cavalry: Sackcloth Company
List Type: Grey Knights with Imperial Guard Allies
________________________________________
HQ (Grey Knight)
‘Inquisitor Tuck’ Ordo Malleus Inquisitor
‘Three Dead Men Walking and a Git with a Shield’ 3 Acolytes w/ melta gun and 1 Crusader
Dedicated Transport: Chimera
Troops (Grey Knight)
‘Brother Hamley’s Parade Unit’ 5 terminators w/ psycannon, one hammer, one halberd, one sword and the Justicar with hammer.
‘Adriar Leesh’s Squad’ 5 man strike squad w/ psycannon
Dedicated Transport: Razorback w/ psybolt
Elite (Grey Knight)
‘Anston Jondy’s Squad’ 5 man Purifier unit w/ two psycannon, one halberd and daemon hammer for the Justicar
Dedicated Transport: Razorback w/ psybolt
Heavy (Grey Knight)
‘Brother Mack’ Psydreadrifle: Dreadnought w/ psybolt ammunition and two autocannons.
‘The Leibugill’ Land Raider w/ searchlight
Fortification (Grey Knight)
‘The Sackcloth’ Aegis defence line w/ quad laser
________________________________________
HQ (Imperial Guard)
‘Chef d’escadron Samuel Sardou’s Company Squad’ Company Command Squad w/ mortar
Troop (Imperial Guard)
‘Sous-lieutenant Lachance’s Squad’ Platoon Squad
‘Maréchal de Logis Avant’s Squad’ Infantry Squad w/ plasma gun and mortar
‘Maréchal de Logis Dupré’s Squad’ Infantry Squad w/ plasma gun and mortar
‘Brigadier Dautin’s Mortier Squad’ Heavy weapons squad w/ krak grenades
Heavy (Imperial Guard)
‘Les Revanchers’ Unit of 2 Leman Russ Battle Tanks

After the destruction of Penmarch during the 27 Year Seal, the 29^th Armoured Cavalry of Penmarch turned to worshipping chaos. Their corruption was discovered by Inquisitor Tuck of the Ordo Malleus, who had their taint wiped out in the Battle of Tonic 922.

Whilst the people of Penmarch had no planet, they still had a mobile Imperial Guard force. From the ranks deemed pure, Tuck arranged for the reformation of the 29^th so that the Regiment could rescue its name and honour in the eyes of the Emperor. Guided in these tasks by the 2^nd Brotherhood, the new 29^th Armoured Cavalry fought a campaign for four years alongside their Grey Knight allies, knowing full well that when they parted ways their sacrifice would be completed at the end of an Astartes’s storm bolter. This list represents Sacklcloth company near the end of its career, when many of the Regiment had already died in battle, and the Knights almost numbered as many as they did. Samuel Sardou has just been promoted to Chef d’escadron (replacing the previous Company Commander who passed away from blood poisoning contracted from a rusty nail in the Fleet laundry room whilst he hand washed his favourite shirt.)

It was shortly after this series of conflicts that the 2^nd Brotherhood were recalled to Titan and the survivors were led out to the barren fields of Wreckside, and everyone shared a final prayer before Leesh’s company ensured the purity of their souls by ceremonially executing them.

Fighting Fantasy

I’ve neglected this blog too much recently – alas, work and (shock horror!) a social life got in the way. As some may have noticed, it’s been relabelled, to greater encompass my geekery and not be merely limited to Warhammer. And the first extension of this geekery is to Fighting Fantasy gamebooks.

Having attending a seminar held by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson at the Birmingham Games Expo (it was on their favourite games and was, to be clear, very interesting and informative. And also made me realise how cool Livingstone is. Seriously cool is the answer) Mal decided to buy Warlock of Firetop Mountain as he’d never played it. This resurrected my interest in the genre and I recovered my old books from my parents' house and picked up a handful more from some secondhand bookshops. To be honest, as a kid I never really played them. I always wanted to play them, but the actual act of sitting there, rolling dice and reading the various paragraphs, never seemed to really take place. I remember trying Citadel of Chaos multiple times and getting nowhere. And playing the first Sorcery! book one weekend (I had a pack of rolos and whenever my character – I named him, RPG style, as Salohcin Maghniffe for obvious reasons – ate a provision I ate one too; this particular prop rule lasted ten minutes before I devoured the entire pack.) I never completed them. (I did play Tunnels and Trolls gamebooks, although I only ever completed the Gamesman of Kazar book – they’re pretty naff in many ways, such as being grossly unbalanced in places if you’ve just generated a character as they seem to have trials that only higher level characters could compete. I also played Arena of Khazan many times over in the hope of spawning it and getting a Bronze Bodkin.) So, in many ways, playing them as an adult is a whole new experience.

So, how does it hold up years later? So-so.

The first gamebook I tried was Trial of Champions. I gave up after 26 attempts. That’s right, TWENTY SIX. Most of those took place in the start of the book. This sounds kinda frustrating, but in many ways was a blessing. One of the problems with F&F is how nuts the game system is. Rather than starting with a set character, and the book being aimed in difficulty at that level of difficulty, you randomly roll your characteristics. Trust me, if you have a SKILL of 7 it’s a whole different game  from when you have a SKILL of 12. On those occasions that I went through with SKILL 12, it was a lot easier. Hell, sometimes I didn’t even pick up the dice for a battle (for  I could immediately defeat a SKILL 7 opponent.) Now that means that you might get a fair way through the book, and then kark it because of your low stats. That’s gotta suck (although House of Hell (q.v.) claims this isn’t an issue if you play it right.) Trial makes your first 30 or so paragraphs a big set of challenges that are fairly difficult for any low SKILL character to survive. So, by the time you get to the dungeon, you’re pretty much assured of having a decent SKILL because of natural selection.

I still think just having a better game system would’ve been a better idea.

Anyhow, whilst many of the remaining attempts were fun, I eventually gave up when it became clear that you had to follow a very, very specific path in order to win the book. So I’d get a little bit further through the book each time, before realising that I didn’t have a purple cloak, gold coin, magic sword etc. that was somewhere in the previous locations, and promptly died because of it. This eventually sucked the enjoyment out of the game for me, especially as I didn’t really feel like there was much more to figuring out how to win than playing through the various arbitrary decisions – it’s not as if I felt that the decisions were particularly guided by clues, or demanded intellectual engagement etc. (I've been informed that sometimes clues are in the pictures, but I never spotted any.) So I felt I was randomly picking options out of the bag and seeing where they took me. A little element of that ain’t so bad, but if it continually results in your death (the vast majority of in dungeon deaths were just the result of such choices, with me getting to an instant death paragraph) it’s less fun. When I realised I might be sitting through another bunch of such random choices, I called it a day. Lesson: Trial gave me lots of choices that, at first, gave me the illusion of free will. But if only one set of those arbitrary choices is the required set, you have no free will. 

I then tried House of Hell. There was a similar affair in this one, although I only played it four times (I intend to try again.) Certainly it was more fun, and I died once or twice via slow attrition of stats like STAMINA and FEAR (House of Hell has a special FEAR stat to cover your being afraid and scared to death) which somehow seemed a more justified demise than those I suffered in Trial. I’ve also picked up and played through, just the once, Appointment with F.E.A.R. which was a far superior book  given that I seemed to stay alive a lot longer. Even if I have to do a few play throughs in order to get all of the clues (etc.) that I need to win, it’s somehow more appealing to do those play throughs if, unlike Trial, I’m not just retreading the same steps each time and then maybe getting one extra paragraph or two further each time before discovering that I needed the random widget of doom that I could have had if I’d immersed my hand in the boiling water that you clearly shouldn’t be immersing your hand in etc. Gah. You can see I’m slightly bitter. (But, also, slightly addicted.)

I might follow others from the blogosphere and recant my steps through the books I play in a humorous fashion such as http://fightingdantasy.blogspot.co.uk/ and http://turnto400.blogspot.co.uk/ But before I finish this post, I will briefly dwell on the system. As I say, the way its set up in the books is kinda sucky – the difference between SKILL 7 and 12 is huge and makes a marked affect on the game experience. With SKILL 7 you may as well just not bother; with SKILL 12 the random element of the book is greatly reduced (and the random element was, I guess, meant to be a fun thing to include otherwise why else include it? So excluding it is surely a bad thing just because you scored high on the initial roll.) But what works poorly, I think, in the gamebook actually looks set to be an excellent overall game system for a role-playing game.

That’s right: I’m defending F&F as a serious RPG system.

The merits are fairly straightforward. It’s exceedingly simple, meaning that most things can be resolved quite quickly. You’d have to tack on a skill system  as, say, Advanced Fighting Fantasy does. However that system strikes me as creating a very cut down D&D-esque experience (as, indeed, the core SKILL/STAMINA/LUCK system of the basic books is intended to be a cut down D&D esque combat system.) And I don’t think that F&F suits that. Part of the joy of things like D&D (and Pathfinder) is lots of things of complexity so that (i) the mechanical parts of the game, like climbing, picking locks, sneaking past monsters etc. can be determined by extended dice rolling and so require some level of engagement; (ii) the rest of system dovetails with that complexity so you can have items and skills that, say, make you ever-so slightly being better at being a thief in one regard versus being ever-so slightly better at being a thief in some other regard (e.g. varying whether one boosts sneak versus boosting pickpocketing) and by having lots of variation in numbers – rather than that afforded by a d6 – you get room to give rewards like magic items at every stage in a campaign and have a continual reward process of building power. Similarly, this level of complexity also affords you what I call a ‘Magic the Gathering effect’ of players figuring out cool ways to combine rules (and items and powers etc.) in some unforeseen manner (which is always fulfilling); (iii) as combat and such things play such an integral role to the system, you want them to be drawn out a bit – it is, after all, what you’ve turned up for. F&F could be tweaked to meet (i) and (ii) but never (iii). Being dead simple, and allowing combat resolution quite quickly, is what F&F does. Change that, and you may as well be playing a different system. So why even bother trying. DON’T think D&D; DO think storyteller-esque systems.

That’s right: I’m defending F&F as a serious storytelling RPG system.

At least, I am if you stuck on a relatively straightforward skill system. I would suggest something like this: you have a list of skills (Seduce, Pickpocket, Sneak etc.) and if you have a skill you can do it, and if you don’t have it then you can’t. You can even have it that you get some Hero Points such that if you attempt to do something the GM may say you can only do it if you expend the Hero Points. You earn hero points by completing adventures etc. Done: a simple storytelling system whereby the GM can control the action, but (with Hero Points) the PCs can control the action as well, taking it away from some pre-plotted storyline to avoid the problem of your GM being merely a frustrated author.

But I digress. Where, you might ask, does the F&F bit come in? After all, that system can be tacked onto any system. The F&F part is, basically, just the vehicle for combat. The joy is this: it’s simple and it’s quick. Better, and this is crucial, at every stage in combat you have a chance to make a CHOICE. When struck by a weapon you can choose to use LUCK to avoid damage or use LUCK when hitting someone to make your own blows cause more. Using LUCK lowers it, thus making it harder to use later on, so you don’t always have a no-brainer decision of using LUCK for, of course, you might need to make a LUCK roll later (to avoid the falling statue, to seduce the princess etc.) or, obviously, use it in some later combat. So the choice is always there, and is always one buoyed with downsides. Always. That is what is called genius. Unlike other games, where there are no combat choices, or the ‘choices’ are always illusory (e.g. because there is always some better choice, even if it takes ages to figure out what that best choice is because of the complexity of the system – something I’ve seen in all sorts of systems, such as 3E where taking the weapon destroyer feats and shattering every weapon you come across was frankly a game breaker as it was always a good idea to do it, even though it might not have occurred to you when reading the rules the first time around) there is almost never an illusory choice to be made with F&F combat. So it’s a good system, and the speed of it fits a storytelling game quite well.

Defence rests. I hope you enjoyed my first non-40K post. 

The Swansong Game

I've not been playing 40K that long. Indeed, I’ve been playing it for about 18 months and started by buying a second hand cheap copy of 4^th edition from Wayland Games in Birmingham. So when 6^th edition comes out in two weeks, it’ll be the third edition I’ve bought in a year and a half. It’s a little weird.

Anyhow, with the end of 5^th edition on the horizon, it’s a chance to have a farewell game, so Dave came around with his Dark Angels. I made a totally new list, to make use of those models that I just never used before. This would, after all, be their last chance to get a look out in 5^th edition (it’s a shame I couldn’t fit the Mawloc in!) Here’s my list:

TYRANID 1500 POINTS

Hive Tyrant (Leech Essence, Paroxysm) and one Tyrant Guard

2 Hive Guard

2 Zoanthropes

Venomthrope

10 hormogaunts

3 units of 5 stealers

10 Devilgants

Tyrannofex with Shreddershard beetles and rupture cannon

Unit of 2 Carnifexes with strangelthorn cannons

My plan was to attack Dave’s two Land Raiders with the Hive Guard, Zoanthropes and T-fex, and stun them to hell long enough for my MCs to run up and smash them, and the Deathwing, to bits.

But Dave didn’t bring Land Raiders.

Frankly, changing your army list from week to week is a form of cheating. That’s my line, and I’m sticking with it (obviously, this doesn’t apply to me…)

DAVE’S DARK ANGELS

Belial

Deathwing Squad (Cyclone, banner bearer, apothecary)

Deathwing Squad (Cyclone)

Deathwing Squad (Cyclone)

Landspeeder Typhon

Landspeeder Typhon

Landspeeder Typhon

Autolas Predator

Autolas Predator

Vindicator

So that’d be a shed load more vehicles than I was expecting, and not something I was particularly well suited for. Oh well. Best laid plans of mice and men and all that. Well, best laid plans of ripper swarms and Tyranid Warriors…

DEPLOYMENT

We set up with my nice new terrain, including the gorgeously painted (if I do say so myself) Temple of Skulls, my Khorne mound, the barricades and the Vernon (which is the hut in the corner, so named after the pub our club frequents back in Liverpool – I’ve even painted the name onto it.)

We ended up with Spearhead and Capture and Control. Here’s where the objectives went:

Dave won the toss, and deployed first. His Predators had a perfect firing line onto my quarter, which was to be used effectively throughout the game. One squad of Deathwing went into reserve ready to deepstrike. The Land Speeders set up on the flank.

  

Me? I set my Nids up in a splodge. 

And here;s how the table looks:

TURN ONE

I fail to steal the initiative. Frankly, me failing the initiative is another form of cheating by Dave, I’m sure. It’s not that I think the die is loaded, or Dave is fudging it, it’s just that I think the manual should read ‘Dave must always have the initiative stolen from him.’ I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for when I read 6^th ed.

The Land Speeders sweep around. That’s movement done. Around now I look at my splodge, and then think ‘Doesn’t that Vindicator fire a mother fucking huge template?’

Dave shoots me with a mother fucking huge template. It scatters, but splats two termagants. The Cyclone missile launcher fires into the Devilgants as well, hitting ten, of which only one saves. The second cyclone blasts the stealers, hitting five of them. Now, I um and are. Five of them is a lot. I could go to ground, claim the 3+ save, and then use that unit as the unit that crawls onto my objective to protect it. I mull it over, but decide not to hit the deck. Fortunately, they all save anyhow.

The Predator tank starts on the stealers as well, but they save the one wound it inflicts. The second Predator does likewise, and manages to pick one off.

Now over to the Land Speeders on my flank – they, too, open fire on a stealers unit on the flank side. With a minor scatter, everyone saves except for a single hormogaunt. The next speeder massively scatters, picking off only one more hormie. 

Right, so it's not looking too bad! Just look at my splodge! It's still fairly splodgey! Over to me. I move everything forward in normal Nid fashion. I need to close the distance as fast as possible, and take out that Vindicator! The Hormies leg it for 5” on the run roll, and tantalise me with whether they’re in range of Belial’s squad or not. I’m also not sure if the Hive Tyrant is in range or not, so the two remaining termagants fire on the closest squad so I can see how far away they are. The termies fail to do anything, but I see the Tyrant is well within range. Now, I’ve never really had a chance to use him. Having faced Eldar, he’s both been too slow to catch up with anything, and those runes of Warding have prevented him from effectively using his psychic powers. I probably should’ve ran him, I really should, so he could assault the next turn. But I settle on Leeching the terminators. The bastards save, though. Storm Shields are a form of cheating!

Whilst some things run around, getting closer, the T-fex fires on that Vindicator. And misses. I remember how this goes… So it’s over to the Hive Guard, who manage to hit it so it can’t move or shoot. That’ll have to do for now.

The Carnifexes turn their beady eyes on the Speeders and fire. They hit one speeder dead on, but the other scatters. However, it scatters *perfectly* on the other unit! Bonus! I annihilate one, and the other can’t fire. Can’t say fairer than that!

Over to assaults, as the stealers charging towards the speeders got caught on terrain and had a bum run roll, they’re out of range. Here they are, failing to charge:

Similarly, the hormies are about half an inch away from Belial. I swear that 6 inches -being 6 inches rather than 6 and a half is a form of cheating… And here they are:

TURN TWO

The speeders blast away from the incoming stealer horde (I instantly give up on getting them – I’ll be damned if I run around chasing fast skimmers, being shot at and dragged away from the objective!) The Terminators oblige me by advancing forwards, so probably not an issue that I didn’t run the Hive Tyrant.

The Speeders open up and kill a stealer. Missiles from the terminators pepper the Hive Tyrant, inflicting a saved wound, whilst the scatter hits the Zoanthropes (they save) and the termagants (they save.) The other missile blasts the stealers and kills three of them.

Over to the Predators. One fires on the Zoanthropes, to no effect. The other manages to wound them once. Belial then charges into the Hormogaunts. They manage to do dick all to the Deathwing, but Belial kills four of them before his mates finish the little blighters off. They consolidate in front of the other unit, making it harder for me to assault anyone other than Belial, but for what I’ve got planned that’s not too bad.

Here they are, having just finished off the hormogaunts:

Over to the Hive Mind. The stealers on the flank naff off – I will, indeed, leave the speeders to it. Instead, they turn their attention to Belial. The Carnifexes think likewise. The Hive Tyrant shuffles to the right, ready to assault the unit Belial just moved in front of. The little squad of two devilgants weave in and out of the army, and I run them to ensure I get an easy avenue towards the tasty space marines. The Hive Tyrant again leeches for nothing (damn Storm Shield saves!) The Zoanthropes blast Belial’s squad, but they save (damn Storm Shield saves!) The T-fex shoots that Vindicator. It hits with one! Which then fails to penetrate. I mean, seriously, can that T-fex do anything?

Next the Carnifexes. If I shoot then, I worry I might sheer off my own face with the stranglethorn cannon. But, heh ho, I didn’t buy those cannons to not fire them! So I shoot. Both shots scatter onto my own stealers. It hits two sets of three. The first set amazingly fails to wound with three 1’s, but the next set are blown to smithereens leaving a mere 2 stealers to fight. So we assault! The two units of Stealers move in on Belial, the venomthrope gets on in there, and then the Carnifexes come on in. (Meanwhile, the Hive Tyrant and his Guard attack the other unit.) Here's that massive combat:

The Stealers are first, and pile in on the squad (I decide to ignore Belial as the squad have 15 attacks to deliver to me…) I manage to kill only one, but that one is the standard bearer! The squad immediately lose their extra attack! Good work fellas! Belial, lightning claws swinging, knocks off a stealer. The Venomthrope then comes in, but his three wounds are all saved. Then it’s down to the simultaneous resolution on I 1. The Deathwing split their attacks, killing two stealers and instant killing the venomthrope, ensuring they rack up the wound count for when it comes to the morale test. The Carnifex manage to jump on the squad, and get a Storm Shield dude. I lose by two wounds, so everyone has to take two hits. This takes out two more stealers (man, multi-combat assaults are brutal if you’re the loser.)

Meanwhile, the assault of the Hive Tyrant on the Termies results in me wiping two of them out. Good work! But the comeback is three wounds. I decide that I’d rather stick them on the Hive Tyrant, as that’d leave him with one wound, and then I’d get the attacks from both of them on the next attack. But, alas, that means I lose by a wound and, so, have to take a save. I do so, fail it, and the Hive Tyrant dies. Aha.


Here's a shot of the table. Notice the Hive Tyrant shaped absence on the right hand side where the hill is...

Not having an invulnerable save is, basically, the naffest thing ever about that Hive Tyrant. This leaves me with just the Zoanthropes as synapse. When I made the list, this did occur to me, but I thought ‘screw it’. I wonder if Dave’s noticed…

TURN THREE

The remaining terminator unit still doesn’t turn up. Clearly their teleporter is on the blink. The Speeders move around again, getting a bead on the army. The Vindicator fires on the Zoanthropes, but they both make their invulnerable save. One Predator, however, manage to finish them off with instant kills from the las cannons – one for each of them!

No.

More.

Synapse.

Right, well, this will be interesting. As I realise that my army is about to switch to ‘automatic’ I have a sinking feeling.

The other predator manages to knock a wound off of the T-fex. Whilst the Speeders shoot the Hive Guard. This kills one, and so generates a moral test. So the damn bastard legs it!

Where’s!

My!

Synapse!

Here's a picture of that fleeing Hive Guard:

Over to assault, the one remaining genestealer leaps on the face of the Apothecary and bites it off. Belial carries out revenge, concentrates his attacks on the stealer, and kills it. The remaining Carnifexes make short work of what remains, and instant kill Belial with some of that S9 action. But the other unit of terminators finish off the Tyrant Guard, and consolidate onto the hill. 

Over to the Hive Mind. Wait, the Hive Mind is now far, far away, and hoping that the Tyranids can dimly hear it… The T-fex fails its instinctive behaviour test so, rather than shooting the dangerous Vindicator with its AP 4 gun, shoots the terminators. Funnily enough, they save. The termagants fail their test as well, so lurk in the middle of nowhere. They shoot the terminators for, funnily enough, no effect.

The fleeing Hive Guard manages to rally, turns and blows a Land Speeder to smithereens. He’s moved onto the objective, which provides cover for the genestealer – one of my three remaining troop models – that scurries up behind and hugs his leg. Scared little devil… Over to the assault phase, my Carnifexes charge the terminators on the hill, killing one of them but taking two wounds in the process.

TURN FOUR

The deep striking terminators finally come in. However, they scatter and, disturbingly, come close to the table edge. Another two inches… But this means they’re far, far away from the objective. It dawns on me that I might, conceivably, win or draw because of this fact. As I plot it out in my mind, the Land Speeders zoom along. The Vindicator moves up, and shoots the Hive Guard / Stealer love in near the objective, but it misses on a scatter. The Predators took bead on the T-fex and shoot it up for three wounds. Dumb bastard! It’s just standing there being shot at! Lumbering, blind, can’t shoot for shit lummox!

The newly deep struck terminators and Land Speeder manage a wound a piece on the Hive Guard, killing him and leaving the stealer in the middle of nowhere… Fortunately, there’s nothing else to shoot, and we’re over to the assault phase where one Carnifex falls to power glove action, but takes a terminator with him.

Here's a photo. note the terminator squad near the table edge on the far right, just above the Khorne banner.

And here's that heroic combat between the Carnifex and the remaining Storm Shield Terminator:

Over to my scant remaining troops. The stealer hops onto the area terrain next to the objective. The T-fex AGAIN fails its instinctive behaviour test but at least shoots the speeder I want it to shoot. It manages to blow it to bits. FINALLY IT DOES SOMETHING USEFUL! Those two scared termagants again fail their test, and so shoot the Vindicator. Although, this is not so bad as if the Vindicator was out of range they’d have run away from objective and onto the Temple of Skulls which would’ve made winning almost impossible (and, heck, at this point it was very difficult indeed!)

Over to the assault, and the Carnifex kills the terminators, consolidating a mere inch towards the Vindicator.

So, I’ve got one objective and very, very few troops left. I think those last three models are going to have to try very hard to stay alive. 

TURN FIVE

The Terminators move up, and the Vindicator fires on the unit of two termagants. They go to ground, which kills one of them as the other saves on a 6. I point out to Dave that they’ll likely fail their morale test, and flee onto the objective. So he shoots them with the Predator. It does two wounds, and I only save one of them. Damn plucky little termagant! But it’s dead from lascannon fire. The other Predator shoots the Carnifex and does a wound.

And the terminators? They shoot the lone genestealer, which goes to ground for the 3+ cover save. But, alas, it’s not enough, and I’ve now lost all my synapse AND all my troop units. 

Over to me. Fortunately, the T-Fex makes the instinctive behaviour test. The only way this can go is a draw, and I fear that with only a small number of wounds on my poor MCs, even that will be hard – Dave might not get any troops on the objective, but he might annihilate every model on the table! So I run the T-fex behind the Vernon. The Carnifex fails its test, so assaults the Vindicator. It manages two penetrations. I need ANY roll other than a 1 or a 3, as then the vehicle won’t be able to move, and I’ll get a cover save for the Carnifex from the Predator tanks. I get two 3’s.

Damn.

We roll for game end – if it ends here, I score a cheeky draw.

It’s a 4.

Damn.

TURN SIX

The Vindicator trundles out of the way, leaving the Carnifex open to Predator fire. One fires on the T-fex, managing to see a sliver of the poor beast. It gets shot to death. The other Predator fires on the Carnifex, but the lascannons fluff and it manages to save the autocannon fire! Go boy, go!

The terminators move forward and run, but only get a single inch! STILL NOT ENOUGH TO GET ON THE OBJECTIVE!

So I have one model, with one wound, but Dave still has no objectives. As it falls to my turn it fails its instinctive behaviour test, charges the Vindicator and manages to seriously smash it to bits. 

So all I need now is the game to end.

We roll.

It’s a 5.

Damn.

TURN SEVEN

The terminators move onto the objective, line up the remaining model, and fire, killing it and leading to Dave’s conclusive tabling of my Nid horde.

Birmingham Games Expo Tournie

So, a few weeks ago I went to the Birmingham Expo 40K tournament. It’s been insanely busy at work, plus I was playing RuneQuest, so I’ve not had time to write it all up. Here it is in short form: I didn’t have a chance to take photos (there was a tight deadline to work to for the games!) It was 1500 points, and I was running the Grey Knight list I used for the LWA tournie (two psydreads, two small PAGK in psyrazorbacks, a librarian, 10 termies and a chimera loaded with melta wielding Inquisitorial henchmen and an ape.)

Game one was against some lad running a Necron army. The terrain was tightly packed, blocking most LOS and preventing my Knights from effectively shooting. Never having played Necrons before, this was all new to me. I figured that I should just dive on in, and at least I’d leave the tournament with some idea of how a Necron army worked. It was a give objective match, dawn of war style, and I think I reserved everything. I sat off, shooting Necrons at long distance. Boy do they take some shooting! After turn one I quickly became acquainted with their ability to come back from the dead and figured that the best tactic – the *obvious* tactic – is to obliterate a unit in one turn. That worked relatively well, and my boys managed to take the shooting back. My foe deep struck his Monolith which, in the tightly packed environment resulted in a mishap. I got to place it wherever I wanted, and opted to place it right next to my melta unit and demon hammer wielding librarian. This proved to be somewhat of an error as it didn’t half lay down some firepower and he teleported some of those close combat fighting Elite necrons through the monolith portal and, it turns out, they could easily go toe to toe with my termies.

I should’ve lost. Near the end I had one objective, with two dudes charging towards another objective, with a unit of his men were sat off about 8” away in easy striking reach of both. He had a boatload of boys in between two objectives which could easily congo line between the two, whilst the boat could’ve swooped on in to contest one of the objectives I had. In the end, he just simply didn’t do any of this (he was, to be fair, about 15/16? Something like that?) So he had one objective to my two, and that was that. In this sense, it was underwhelming. His knowledge of the rules also marred the game somewhat, and I’m still not convinced those necrons were being used quite correctly.

Game two was a spearhead two objective game against Imperial Fists. The guy running them was dead nice. His army was one of the named ICs, some thunder hammer/storm shield termies in a Land Raider, a 10 man (well, 2 combat squadded 5 man) tac marines in a landing squad, a scout squad and a Contemptor dreadnought from Forgeworld. Oh, and two Thunderfire cannons. He won the first turn and took the side with the terrain. This kinda screwed me as this meant I was deploying in the open, and going second. After umming and arring I settled on just deploying, taking the pain and working from there. Frankly, that bit of the plan worked out just fine. I deployed and he blew a gun off the Razorback. No biggy! This, however, was as far as my luck lasted. His Raider rolled on in, and dropped off the termies, distracting me from my plan of just blowing away his troop units. And they took the pain. All saves were being made, and my guys were just failing theirs. It was so unfortunate. His dreadnought landed in a pod, and between the lot of them they mauled my army to oblivion within four turns. Tabled. He had a better army list, played better and the dice gods were clearly well pissed off with me that game. Fortunately, he went on to win the Tournie, which at least gave me some comfort.

So, let’s Segway into a discussion about Forgeworld by talking about that Contemptor. It’s easy to see why the tournie allowed FW models. It was meant, and was, a friendly bash about and why, then, *wouldn’t* you want to get those models out. But is it gamebreaking? I think the answer is ‘no’ but ‘it’s still a helluva lot better than the other condex stuff’. That DN came in at 175, the same cost as a venerable. It didn’t get the venerable reroll power, but it did get 1 extra point on its front armour; fleet (fleet! It’s a frickin’ DREADNOUGHT!); *way* more options as to what weapons it can take (you can give it BS5 for Emperor’s sake!); and has a 5+ inv save in shooting and 6+ in close combat. I think the inv save alone makes up for losing the venerable reroll power, so I think it’s *way* underpriced.

Shocking, eh?

Game three was against a 12/13 year old lad. He was running a Guard list of 5 flying vehicles: a medley of Vendettas and Valkyries, loaded up with units of melta wielding guardsmen. The aim of the game was to get our units into the foe’s deployment zone. I asked Mal what he thought I should do against flying gunship spam, and he said he thought I was unlikely to win. I set up my dudes, fired at the ships from afar, but unfortunately wasn’t wholly successful. The problem was that I was grounding the ships, but not destroying them, so they kept firing at me. But I think near the end there was only one left. I timed legging it to the other side of the field at about the right time, sending a termie unit, and two PAGK units charging across the battlefield to get into his DZ. The lad had it all wrong: by this time, his vehicles were down and only one could transport guys in, although one more unit had managed to sneak on in from a crashed gunship – they had taken the pain, though, on the way in and were fortunate to have survived. Whereas I was doing a sprint to the other side, ignoring everything in between (and I mean *everything*), he was still lining up gun lines and firing at me at a point in the game when that was too late to make any real difference. Alas, my run rolls failed me and at the end of the game two of the units were ¼” out of his DZ with only one in. If it’d gone to another turn (it lasted 5 turns, with a 50/50 chance of turn 6 under these tournie rules) I’d have managed to get all three in, and the chimera on the back could’ve obliterated the already under-strength unit sat in my DZ. But them’s the breaks. This was a really fun game. The lad had a good idea of how to play (unlike player one), knew all the rules (ditto), and it was close as hell (unlike game two.) He was also very pleasant.

It also gave me an insight into how one can vary the mission variables to get something new and interesting. I’m hoping that the new edition of 40k has more missions in it, to monopolise on these sorts of variations  (I’m somewhat sick of the ‘capture objectives’ and ‘kill points’ missions AND NOTHING ELSE – and I know we could make stuff up, but it’d be nice to have some missions that were playtested for competitive play.

Game four.

Oh god. Game four. I don’t want to think about it, so I’ll keep it brief. To avoid reliving the experience I’ll give it to you in powerpoint-style  bullet points.

* Young girl, maybe 12, with a Tau army. Even though we were playing the Swiss system I was paired with her even though her points allotted was a lot lower than mine.
* Didn’t know the rules. At all.
* Units often shot twice. When Deep Striking, she’d roll the dice and *then* pick where they were coming in. She made numbers up when asked for the wounds, toughness etc. of her guys (and every time we consulted the codex there was a fraught argument.) All kinds of rules were made up, such as ‘I can’t move towards a unit without making a Night Sight roll.’ It was like hell.
* Took ages to do anything.
* At the end you had to calculate which unit near the centre had the highest point value. I had a 10 man termie squad at ~400 points. She had a Devilfish and some dudes. She claimed it was higher. I asked for the army list. She DIDN’T HAVE AN ARMY LIST! She just picked up the book and went through every option for the Devilfish and the associated unit, claiming that she’d given it everything. This went on for five minutes before I despaired and pointed out to her what she was doing. Worse, when we calculated victory points she told me the unit in question was only 80 points.

This was a hellish experience, and not fun at all. Especially as she’d lost every game and REALLY WANTED TO WIN. I mean REALLY. I was like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y77n--Af1qo&feature=related

If we’d actually played a game, I’d have probably given her it. Really, I would. But I couldn’t forgive the fact that it was such a blatant collection of made up rules and outright cheating. Maybe that makes me a bad man (I *did* judge my four year old nephew for cheating in Ludo one Christmas – he could grow up to be Idi Amin, but – dammit! – I don’t want the guy to cheat at games!) Whatever: I never want to think of it again. And just look! I tried to keep it brief, but said more about this game than the others.

Overall, I came in 19th out of 35, falling a gnat’s breath away from those above me. If only I hadn’t have got wiped out in game two, I might’ve placed around 14/15. It was kinda enjoyable, but playing against so many kids was deeply unfun and the last game really removed the sheen off of it for me. But the middle two games were good, and I could easily imagine going to more organised tournies. Although I *think* I might need to rethink my army. The Grey Knights were fun and all, but they really can’t hack the hacked lists – anything remotely designed to monopolise on a codex’s good points proved problematic for me. C’est la vie!

Grey Knights versus Deathwing: 1500 Points. Again.

This write up was also done before the tournament I played in Liverpool. Again, I didn't post it as I didn't want people to see the list I was using.

So, we played two games in preparation for the tournament. I carried on playing the same list:  

HQ

‘Leor Kypri’ Ordo Xenos Inquisitor w/ combi-melta, bolt pistol, power armour and psychotroke grenades 

‘Krise, Lord of Thorpe’ Librarian w/ Sanctuary, Quicksilver, Shrouding, and Might of the Titans. 

Elite

‘The Vernon Brigade’ (Motto: ‘We’re with the ape.’) Inquisitorial Henchmen: 3 Servitors w/ multi-melta, three warrior acolytes, mystic and Jokaero Weaponsmith.

Dedicated Transport: Chimera w/ heavy bolter and multi-laser 

Troops

‘Brother Hamley’s Parade Unit’ 10 Terminators w/ psybolt ammunition, 2 w/ psycannon (and sword), 2 w/ daemon hammer, 2 w/ halberds and 4 w/ swords. 

‘Sharn Donagh’s Squad’ 6 man strike squad, w/ warding staff for the Justicar and psycannon

Dedicated Transport: Razorback w/ psybolt ammunition and dozer blade 

‘Adriar Leesh’s Squad’ 6 man strike squad w/ psycannon 

Dedicated Transport: Razorback w/ psybolt ammunition

Heavy Support

‘Brother Mack’ Psydreadrifle: Dreadnought w/ psybolt ammunition, and two autocannons.

‘Brother Sando’ Psydreadrifle: Dreadnought w/ psybolt ammunition and two autocannons. 

Dave, meanwhile, changed his list slightly, swapping out the assault cannons on the dreadnoughts for a plasma cannon. He ended up with:

Belial

Interrogator-Chaplain in Terminator armour. Combi-melta

Dreadnought, plasma  cannon, heavy flamer.

Dreadnought, plasma cannon.

Deathwing squad, cyclone missile launcher.

Deathwing squad, cyclone missile launcher.

Landraider crusader.

Landraider crusader.

We set up as follows, rolling Annihilation and Spearhead.

Deployment


I won the roll off and, this time, decided to go first. I placed the Chimeras and Razorbacks side by side. Worried that the Dark Angels might seize the initiative, I placed the Psydreads behind the ruin wall (so you can't see them.) I stuck my terminators in reserve, ready to deep strike in. Dave settled on placing his Land Raiders opposite, loaded up with his termies rather than Deathwing assaulting. It was fairly clear that this would be a straight up slog fest in the centre of the map.

Good.

Turn One


I raced my dreadnought through the ruin wall, although the other one failed to make enough distance to clear the ruin wall. The tanks zoom forward onto the hill, and pop smoke. A quick turn, but hopefully effective.

The Dark Angels stay put, with the Dreadnoughts moving around behind them a little. The Land Raiders, sensing the melta danger, open up on the Chimera. There's no effect, and everything bounces off or it makes the (shrouded) cover save at 3+. The Dreadnought fires its plasma cannon, but wildly scatters. The other one has manoeuvred  itself behind a treeline and can't see me to shoot.

Turn Three


My terminators, guided by the mystic in the Chimera, teleport in right in front of the tank line. The PAGK disembark their razorbacks. One dreadnought immobilises a Land raider, whilst the terminators psycannon off the melta. The Razorbacks shoot the Dark Angel dreadnought on the right, so it can't shoot next turn.

Over to Dave. His Land Raider moves over the minefield (no explosion, my bad luck...) Belial and his unit of terminators get out, and the Chaplain and his unit do likewise. The Dreadnought previously caught behind the treeline makes its way through the forest.

Right, now down to the horrible business of shooting. The dreads let rip with plasma, killing two of my terminators. The Land Raider follows up but, after a LOT of dice rolling, I save every shot. The other Land Raider follows suit. The melta hits! This is quite a change for Dave! It kills two more swordsmen. The Deathwing fire, to no effect, whilst Belial's unit fire, but on the rightmost unit of PAGK, inflicting a single wound and killing one.

Over to assaults. My librarian throws up his Sanctuary, so on the charge the Chaplain's unit loses one man as they charge the terminators and Belial's loses two as they multi-assault the PAGK unit and the razorback. My terminators die in droves, and another four drop dead whilst I only take one with me. They flee back towards the hill, whilst Dave decides to consolidate his Chaplain and remaining men back towards the Land Raiders. Belial takes all of the PAGK. They inflict a wound, force weapon it and kill him.  The other termies manage to take down two more men, with the warding staff saving another. As its a draw, there's no morale roll.

KILL POINTS: The Pure Grey Knights 1; the heretical Dark Angels 0.

Turn Three


My men shuffle around a bit. One of my Psydreads immobilises the Dark Angel Dreadnought on the far right, whilst the other one wrecks the Dreadnought in the woods. Everything else starts firing. The Chimera wounds the Chaplain and kills the cyclone launcher terminator with its bolter and multi-laser whilst the Psyback wounds the Chaplain as well. Meanwhile the meltas inside the Chimera fire on the Land Raider. PHOOM! I replace it with a large crater as it's melted into a blob. The Pyscannon from the terminators shakes the other Land Raider.

So we move to the assault phase. The Dark Angel terminators roll particularly poorly, and inflict only one wound which the warding staff saves. It's a draw. Over to the Dark Angels.

KILL POINTS: The Pure Grey Knights 3; the heretical Dark Angels 0.

The Chaplain and the other terminator decide to cut their loses and get inside the shaken, immobilised Land Raider. The immobilised dreadnought on the far right plasmas a unit of PAGK, getting two of the buggers and forcing them to retreat.The immobilised Land Raider kills the Psycannon terminator which AGAIN causes them to flee backwards. COWARDS! (Actually, this was just doing me a favour and moving them out of harm's way and away from the enemy by such a distance that they could easily regroup.)

Now it's time for that assault again. I manage to take down another Storm Shield wielding Terminator, whilst they do nothing to my guys because of that lovely little warding staff.

Turn Four


Right, I decide to try out Might of the Titan and so move the Chimera forwards. The damn thing scuppers itself on the crater edge, so everyone disembarks ready to charge next turn. All my guys open up fire on everything they can see, although they only manage to blow off the plasma cannon on that immobilised dreadnought. It's making me WORK for my kill point.

Over to the assault. I manage to take out another Storm Shield, but in return he finally manages to sneak one past the invulnerable save on my warding staff, killing the Justicar.



Now to Dave and his Angels. He fires at the henchmen with his Land Raider. They get a superb save behind that tank, so he only manages to kill two servitors and an acolyte, and does a wound to the Librarian. We then swap to the assault phase. There's just my guy and his terminator. Wiping blood off of his helmet, my man swings and pounds the remaining terminator into the ground. I win!

KILL POINTS: The Pure Grey Knights 4; the heretical Dark Angels 0.

Turn Five

I autocannon and psycannon the remaining dreadnought to pieces, whilst the henchmen move in on the Land Raider. The Inquisitor and the Librarian break off and head through the crater. So, and this is funny, the Librarian uses Might of the Titan on the henchmen (which goes fine) and the Inquisitor. Which rolls double 6's and suicides him. So that's Dave's first kill point there... They bash in on the side, but after 12 blows and 5 hits, they only manage to knock off the assault cannon. I probably should've just sat in the Chimera and blasted the bugger...

In retaliation, the Chaplain and the terminator get out. The Land Raider shoots, hitting the lone terminator on the other side of the battlefield to no effect. The Chaplain then shoots the henchmen, and kills an acolyte. Poor guy. He had a family. And a daughter named Millie. AND THEN THE FASCIST SPACE MARINE KILLED HIM! I hope you feel guilty Dave, I HOPE YOU FEEL GUILTY. They then charge on in against the henchmen and dual assault the inquisitor. 

My psychotroke grenades do nothing (oh, and did I mention my Jokaero rolled a 6 followed by a 6 and a 1 for his weapon engineering roll for a fat load of sweet FA?) No wounds come in on the terminators. The Chaplain comes back with three hits. He rolls three 1s for wounding. Nah mind... The Inquisitor gets mashed to pieces by the power glove, though, and this causes the henchmen to flee, swiftly followed by the Chaplain and his boys.

We roll for game end, though, and he won't have a chance to catch them as the game comes to a finish.

KILL POINTS: The Pure Grey Knights 5; the heretical Dark Angels 2.

Here's some game end shots:

Here's my henchmen charging across the crater, followed by the rampaging Chaplain who, in a fit of spite, is trying to kill the monkey and his lawyer mates (I think they must be lawyers from the suits they're wearing...)