My first game of 40k...

[Berserker Boy]

So I've been a lurker on these forums for quite some time now. I have gotten inspiration and valuable information from the community here and I would like to express my gratitude.

 

Last night I had my first real game of 40k and it was with my deathwing(mostly). I stopped by my FLGS and met some really nice fellas. I asked for a friendly beginner game and immediately got set up with an opponent that was playing his first game with his Daemon army. He was a veteran player but this would be his first outing with his Daemons.

 

So here is what I fielded at 1000 points. I used Sammael to help me hit the 1k mark for lack of other models.

 

Deathwing

 

Belial w/ LCs

Sammael on Jetbike

 

Deathwing Squad, Sgt w/ PW, Assault Cannon

Deathwing Squad, Sgt w/ PW, Assault Cannon

Deathwing Squad, X3 LCs, X2 Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield

 

My opponents's Daemons from memory:

 

Daemon Prince w/ Wings and flamer power

Greater Daemon of Khorne w/ Wings

 

2 Squads of Plaguebearers

1 Squad of Tzeetch Flamers

1 Squad of Bloodletters

 

So for set-up I deployed my 2 shooty squads in some ruins on either corner of my table-edge. Sammy was hiding behind one squads ruins and Belial was attached to the other. I reserved my assaulty squad for a deepstrike later.

 

My opponent didn't deploy anything to my surprise which kind of had me worried at first. He let me know exactly how Daemons work and gave me first turn. So I basically stayed put until he put something on the board.

 

His turn he rolled and his Daemon Prince and two plaguebearer units showed up. The Daemon Prince landed in the middle of the board equal distance from my 2 shooty squads and one plaguebearer unit landed right next to my shooty squad on the left side. The other one landed to the right of the Daemon Prince about 12 inches in front of my shooty squad on the right. He ran in his shooting phase to spread them out a little but that was pretty much it for his turn.

 

My 2nd turn Sammy popped out from his hiding spot and lined up his plasma cannon on the DP. My other 2 squads remained stationary. Shooting saw Sammy get a hit on the DP and take a wound. My left squad shot up the plaguebearers a few inches away killing 5 with combined stormbolter and assault cannon fire. My right squad only got a couple with combined fire thanks to their feel-no-pain rule. For assault I charged my left squad into the remaining plaguebearers and killed all but one with no wounds in return.

 

My opponent rolled for reserves but nothing showed up. His Daemon Prince flew close to Sammy to set up a charge and the plaguebearers on the right moved closer to my squad to do the same. Combat saw Sammy and the DP each take a wound from each other leaving the DP with one left. The plaguebearer squad on the right charged my termies and Belial and got smacked down to 3 total remaining. The other combat on the left saw the last plaguebearer dispatched with my squad unscathed for their troubles.

 

My 3rd turn I rolled for my assaulty squad...no dice. I moved my shooty squad on the left to spread them out. Combat with Sammy and the DP was lopsided in the Daemon Prince's favor and Sammy was cut down. Lesson learned there. The other combat was a bloody affair with me losing a terminator and his 3 remaining models getting skewered on Belial's lightning claws.

 

The dice starting showing my opponent some favoritism this turn and his Greater Daemon and flamers squad showed up. His daemon landed about 24" away from my closest squad and the flamers landed fairly close to my squad on the left. He moved his DP closer to my squad on the left in hopes of a charge this turn. His shooting phase was very effective as he was able to score 10 hits with his flamer unit on my shooty squad killing 2 of them. Thankfully his DP was just out of charge range on the 3 survivors.

 

My assaulty squad showed up on turn 4 and landed in between his greater daemon and Belial's squad. There was very little movement this turn. Belial's squad moved a little closer to the Greater Daemon and my other shooty squad just turned around and opened up on the flamers killing 2 out of 3. Belial's sighted in on the Daemon Prince and mowed him down with combined stormbolter and assault cannon fire. My shooty squad on the left charged the remaining flamer and sent it back to the warp.

 

My opponents bloodletters finally showed up and he made sure I was aware that the have the furious charge rule and they all have power weapons. I was not aware of that...thanks for the intel! So his assaulty squad of doom landed close to my shooty squad on the left that just downed his flamers. His Greater Daemon used a ranged power to kill 2 of my assaulty squad before he charged them and cut down another one for a wound in return.

 

So its the top of turn 5 and my opponent has a Greater Daemon and a squad of bloodletters left. I have 10 termies total and Belial. It could go either way. I move Belial's squad closer to the Greater Daemon combat and my shooty squad openes fire on the bloodletters killing a couple. I had intended to create some distance with them during movement but my opponent was nice enough to inform me that it would be better to charge the bloodletters instead of them charge me. So nice this guy was! So I took his advice and charged them. I killed 2 bloodletters and he wiped my 3 termies out. On the other side Belial's squad joined the melee with the Greater Daemon and they were able to take him down.

 

So at this point my opponent called it because it would have been an uphill battle for his bloodletters and time was short. Overall i would say I had a great first game. My opponent was very patient with me and made it a point to walk me through every round and even his actions so I could understand exactly what was going on and what was being rolled. I learned alot from my numerous mistakes and left with a feeling of complete satisfaction. I'm frickin stoked for my next game!

 

I'm going to replace the assaulty squad with another shooty squad and add a couple landraider crusaders to hit 1500. Oh and i'll replace Sammy with and Interrogator Chaplain in termie armor or a librarian in terminator armor.

[LokisSword]

Congratulations on your first game and victory brother!

I remember my first game (a loooong time ago) was in a local gaming group, not store.

People there weren't so friendly to new players and I left feeling a little low... I think I was 9 or 10 lol.

 

I'm returning after a long break and I feel like it's all new again, with lots to learn.

I'll post my report when I actually get a few more units painted up and get to my local GW for a noobie session.

 

Once again, congrats!

 

LokisSword

[Berserker Boy]

All the guys I met were very friendly and informative. I had been contemplating my first actual game for some time before i finally got the nerve to actually do it. I was hesitant because I'm 30 now and I'm just getting my feet wet with the hobby. I wasn't too sure how I would be received by my local store as its not a games-workshop. I'm kind of a lone-wolf as I got interested all on my own.

 

Having actually played now I am more motivated ten ever to actually take the time to put some quality time into my deathwing and get them at least up to a decent table-top standard.

 

I'd like to here some thoughts on other people's first game of 40k?

[the akratic]

Congrats on your first game! You can now proudly claim that you've won every single game you've played! Sitting at a 100% win rate is pretty sweet lol.

 

My first game was with the battle for McCragge starter set against the guy that i split the box with. Needless to say, neither of us knew what we were doing so it wasn't nearly as fun as your first experience.

 

As a fellow Deathwing player, perhaps i can lend some advice if you don't mind. . . You mention that you want to acquire some landraiders to make up 1500 points. That's a great idea, land raiders are disgustingly cool. But, keep in mind if you're going to mount the terminators in the land raider, they're far better off keeping their assaulty set-up instead of shooty. Remember, they won't be shooting from inside the raider, and you can pretty much rely on them being able to assault what they want, when they want.

 

My suggestion: Keep the assaulty unit to put with Belial in the land raider. And maybe consider instead of a pair of raiders, get a chaplain and a cheap bike squad. The chappy will make you landraider mounted assault squad extremely brutal on the turn they charge. And remember the bikes are scoring because of Sammael. Don't forget to read up on how 'Deathwing Assault' works, along with the teleport homers on the bikes!

 

Good luck!

[Berserker Boy]

Thanks for the advice! I read up on the teleport homers and the deathwing assault but I think I'm gonna try this shooty theme out and see how it goes. The reason being is that the range of all my weapons to include the LRC would be 24". I could try and stay at that 18-24" inch range for a couple turns with my terminators disembarked close to their transport and unleash ALOT of firepower. Regular terminators are still decent in assault and if the enemy closes in I'm thinking all that firepower would have softened them up enough for me to finish them off.

 

I think I would still be able to move the LRC 6" and still got alot of shots seeing as how the hurricane bolters count as defensive weapons. And if I get lucky enough to get within 12" with them then the hurricane bolters get to double their shots. With 2 LRCs and 2 shooty squads focusing on one unit per turn thats a total of 28 bolter shots & 16 assault cannon shots. And if the LRCs are within 12" my bolter shots bump up to 40!

 

If i'm facing an opponent that has alot of ranged nasties then I'll just stay mounted up and pray my LRCs make it to their lines intact so I can get a charge off. That would be the plan at least haha! However, you know how the saying goes, "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy."

[Tanhausen]

Congratulations on having fun playing :blush: Its always a good sign!

 

As you say yourself, when playing (regardless of how knowledgeable you are) I think the most important thing is learning what mistakes you have made and testing new ideas (and defending proven results!).

 

I'd suggest you reflect on your shooty-theme DW: termies are very expensive points (and Euro) wise... for every terminator, you could field 3 marines. So if you want to concentrate in shooting, I'd rather go for a greenwing.

 

That said, at 1.500 points you can easily go with a list like:

 

Belial (claws)

2 x Sgt + Heavy Flamer/Power Fist +Storm Bolter/ Chain Fist + Storm Bolter/PF + Claws. <- these are assault oriented squads. Also, 5 different versions allow for wound allocation (VERY important)

1 x CC termi squad + LRC

 

Here you already are at some 1.200 points

 

Its usually not easy to use efectively 2 HQ at 1500... so I'd suggest you get some mass: 20 marines, with a plasma or melta rifles, would go for some 350 points...

 

You could always get a shooty dread or maybe a predator...

 

I would not suggest double wing at 1500, I think its VERY difficult to deliver with so few points and model count.

 

As for my first game... It was just when Maccrage went out, I played something like:

 

Chaplain with retro (jumpack) and plasmagun

2 x 7 retros, with sgt w/PF and PG

2 x 5 devastators with 2 ML

2 x 10 marines with plasmagun

1 x Predator Full laser

 

I think that was pretty much it... hehe, its hard to remember THAT list after so long thinking of termies hehe

 

I played a tournament with that list...and learned THE HARD WAY how bad it is to DS with the retros on difficult terrain xD

 

And how you can get bogged down by necron swarms... though that game was sweet: 2 Missiles to the Monolith, 1 hits, 6 for a glancing, 6 and boooooooooooom That was turn 2... that was NIIIICE haha

 

Enjoy learning slowly, this game is SO MUCH more about learning and sharing that having the uber list... IMHO

[Gillyfish]

Welcome to the Rock!

 

Congratulations on your first win too! It sounds like you had a good opponent, which certainly helped.

 

Deathwing have a reputation as being one of the harder armies to play. Simply because, if you make a mistake, you don't have the bodies to replace those you have lost. That means you have to play with your army like a miser with his gold - seek to minimise your losses and make your opponent pay for every terminator you do lose.

 

My first game would have been back towards the end of first edition. Up to then my main game had been epic. But I went round to a friend's house. He and his brother both had armies. I was given charge of the Crimson Fists and my opponent the Eldar.

 

From what I remember it was a lot of fun. This was back in the days when marines weren't as potent as they are now, but I still managed to make some good decisions - charging his banshees before they could charge me - and some bad ones - charging his avatar. Mostly I remeber it being lots of fun!