So I played a GK game with the 6th ed 'leak'...

[Zeratil]

So I got a chance to try out the supposed 6th ed rules this past weekend in a 1500 point match against a mate and I thought I'd give some impressions. The battle itself was fairly one-sided (my mate had a deep striking jumper BAngel list and I had warpquake) but it gave a good feel for some of the rules and how it plays. The was objectives and the rules state that you have 5 objectives for a 1001-2000 point game. 3 were centrally placed and one on each flank.

 

My list was approx

 

10 GKSS in Rhino

10 GKSS in Rhino

5 GKSS in Psyback

5 GKT in LRC

Libby

5 Interceptors

1 Callidus

 

Overall I like the ruleset, however IF it's legit I really hope there are some changes. I don't like the bidding/strategem mechanic much. In this game we rolled off to choose deployment zones, my friend won and picked his. Then we began the betting for first turn, my mate started the bid at 0 and I upped it to one, he bailed out and chose to have the re-roll. We then went through the rules for deployment and found that the person who wins the deployment roll deploys first, regardless of how the bidding went. So he would deploy, then I would, and then I would get the first turn as well (Seize has changed obv). He chose to reserve most of his army (Dante, some sang guard, drop pod with BT dread, some assault marines and some scouts) with only a vindicator and a rhino full of assault marines on the table as well as a 5 man death company squad.

 

I deployed centrally and as far foward as I could and took my first turn, I had a land raider crusader full of termies+libby which I rushed up the field towards the ruin the vindicator was cowering in and tucked my rhinos in behind it to block LOS. Warp quake went off to protect me from the Blood Talon dread. The only shooting was the LRCs MM at the vindicator hitting on 2s. I hit, penned, he failed his 5+ cover save and I rolled a 3. AP1 negated his 'Tank' rule so he suffered -1 multitargeting. When we looked up the rules for this it wasn't as good as I had hoped. Under the 5th edition rules an end result of 3 would destroy the vindicator's cannon, one of the reasons they don't get taken much. However now the end result was while the vindicator could not move and fire, it could still turn and fire it's weapon. Not as good as I hoped, but I was happy enough.

 

BA Turn 1, first thing first his reserves come on. These consisted off a Blood Talon death company dread in a pod and some scouts (the new scout rules allow you to deep strike first turn). Both came down just over 18" away from my force so they didn't scatter (he didn't want to risk scattering into the new scary warp quake bubble). The dread moved up and took a shot at the LRC with its melta and failed to pen while the scouts shot a krak rocket into the backside of one of mr razorbacks and immobilised it. The vindicator took a shot at the land raider (the only thing it could see), now here is a big change in these rules. Blast weapons now roll to hit like a normal weapon, if you hit the blast template stays wher it is. If you miss, then you roll the scatter dice and move the marker the full distance, using the small arrow on the hit symbol if needed. So blast weapons are a hell of a lot more accurate now and vindicators are much scarier than they used to be. He hits (2+ again) glances the raider and knocks a multitargeting off, not so bad for me as land raiders have multi-targeting 3 + POTMS (so they can move 6" and fire all their weapons). The rhino moves up towards an objective and smokes (5+ cover now).

 

GK Turn 2: I roll reserved and the callidus comes in (damn), I decide to send her after the scouts, as they're the only troops on the board not in a transport. The polymorphine strike kills one scout and I decide to avoid chancing his defensive fire (4 sniper rilfes and one rocket launcher) by deep striking out of LOS within a ruin the scouts were hiding behind. I move the land raider up and spread my 2 GKSS squads out to maximise my warp quake bubble. One rhino stays still to pour psycannon fire into the approaching dreadnought.

Now for the assault phase, the callidus charges the scouts and kills all but one, he fails to hit her (I was hitting on 2s, and he was hitting on 6s due to WS8 vs WS3) and then he dies due to no retreat. the callidus consolidates back into the shadow of the ruin. In the shooting phase the LRC let loose, there are no defensive weapons in the new rules, so I'd purchased Psybolts for it - the ass cannon and the multi-melta shot at the vindicator and wiffed while one of the hurricane sponsons shot at the death company running towards it and killed one. A stationary rhino full of GKSSs shot at the dreadnought and killed it.

 

BA Turn 2: the large assault squad arrives and comes down near the callidus (we fluffled up the rules here and he didn't roll scatter as he forgot the callidus was within 18" - we decided to leave it as is) so the callidus got to use a defensive fire action with her neural shredder, with the 3 inches or extra range template weapons now get the could hit all but one of the marines (my friends face was showing he was regretting the decision to leave the squad there) aaaand the callidus completely wiffed the wound roll with only a single 4+, still, it was one dead marine. Still defensive fire can be really really deadly, odds were he should have lost half the squad before he even got to use them! The death company move towards my rhino thats near an objective and his rhino shoots past my land raider towards a second objective.

Assault! His assault squad engages the callidus, she goes first and kills 4 marines before they stick lots of chainswords in her and kill her. His shooting phase sees the land raider lose another point of multitargeting.

 

GK Turn 3 The land raider deposits its terminator cargo and turns to shield them from vindicator fire, one rhino moves to engage the assault squad that had just murdered the callidus, while the second rhino unloads its GKSS squad onto an objective and within range of the death company. I'd mostly been concentrating on killing his army so far and negleting objectives (mostly because two of the objectives were within range of the vindicator). Only disembarked troops choices can claim objectives in these rules, so at the end of my movement phase I scored my first point (victory points are 1 per objective at the end of your movement phase from turn 2 onwards).

In the assault phase my terminators assaulted the rhino that had just cruised past the LRC, all the psychic powers went off and the rhino swiftly exploded. Now we got to see the new destroyed explosion rules and boy are they lethal! each model that was in the transport rolls a D6, on a 1 they suffer a critical hit (inv saves only) and 2 models died. In the shooting phase the terminators and the nearby rhino poured fire into the same squad and wiped them out. The land raider shot at the vindicator and got another weapons destroyed result, finally neutralising it. The disembarked GKSS squad shot at the death company but only managed to kill 1.

 

BA Turn 3: Dante and his sang guard buddies finally show up, they come down on the opposite flank to his assault squad just over 12" away from my GKSS squad and his 3 remaining death company. They moved into a nearby ruin, the death company assault my 10 man squad and the assault squad move onto the closest objective.

In assault the death company kill one marine before being chopped to into tiny bits. The vindicator tries to ram the LRC but does nothing (ramming a vehicle bigger than you is a bad idea, you're quite likely to do nothing now). Nothing much else happens that I recall in his turn.

 

GK Turn 4: My interceptors finally arrive and I teleport move them onto the board and position them to charge the assault squad next turn (or force him to move off the objective to charge me). The terminators move onto an objective, the GKSS squad near Dante run backwards as fast as they can and the second rhino continues heading for the flank to support the interceptors. Nothing happens in assault and shooting sees dante lose a wound and one sang guard die.

 

BA Turn 4: Its looking pretty hopeless for my friend now and he concedes. Dante is still around but is now out of charge range (18" now for jump infantry) and if he comes towards my main force he's just going to get shot off the table while I hold 2 objectives there and his remaining under strength assault squad has to tackle an interceptor squad and a 10 man GKSS squad in the next turn.

 

 

 

 

Some thoughts on my units:

 

Callidus Assassin: Now worth it, she didn't come in at the best time - I would have liked her to come in after Dante to thin out his sang guard but she did kill an entire scout squad and half of an assault squad unsupported. If she had made one of her saves she could have used hit and run to disegage and use her neural shredder on the rest of the assault and maybe killed a couple more.

 

Interceptors: My plan for these guys was to use them as a counter assault unit, because units that assault into a locked combat get I 10 for the first round, they have a lot of potential jere with an 18" charge, 3 attacks on the charge and AP2 CC weapons. As it turned out they got drafted in as bait to draw assault marines off an objective and likely would have been killed to give the GKSS a clear charge, but the principle is sound I feel. Again another unit that has become a lot more useful.

 

Land Raider Crusader: I mostly fielded this because I'd just built it but it did fairly well and had recieved a buff from the new rules. Relentless units can rapid fire at 18" instead of 12" and with the multitargeting rule you can take psybolts and fire all your weapons when moving 6". However the redeemer has recieved arguably a bigger boost with the new flamer rules.

 

Some thouhts on the rules:

 

Attacking vehicles in CC is now much, much easier, any unit with a daeon hammer is likely to pen a transport and if you've engaged (6" assault move) instead of charging you can still shoot whatever pops out.

 

Blast weapons are much scarier, I think plasma cannon devs amonsgt others will see a return. I was really worried the vindicator would just annhiliate any troops I disembarked, and it's more survivable than ever now.

 

Everything is more lethal generally, when the rules say they make for quicker games this will in part be because things die faster, mistakes are going to cost you more, even in marine armies.

 

Directed hits are scary, didn't see much of them in this game but BA sarges with furious charge and power weapons will be very dangerous, as they can assign their wounds directly to your models, so watch out daemon hammer sarges and psy-cannons. Hidden fists and imperial blobs with hidden power weapons are going to dissappear if the rules stay as is. Any character with high initiative and a cc weapon that is not 2 handed or coarse (thunder hammers, power fists etc) is a danger here.

 

Genrally the rules were reasonably simple to understand and use, I'm sure we made some mistakes but one whiskey fueled eveing is not the best time frame to learn a new ruleset.

 

 

Obviously take everything with a large dose of salt, the rules could still be fake and I think some things may well change even if this is a legitimate test copy. Blast weapons, defensive fire and directed hits jumped out at me as things that could use some tweaking.

[Gentlemanloser]

Now for the assault phase, the callidus charges the scouts

 

I don't recall anything in the leaked rules that would allow the Cally to Assault after her deployment? She still deploys using the Deep Strike rules.

 

If she can assault, I'd consider using her. If she can't she's even worse off than before (is it only units with overwatch that can shoot you if you DS too close?), and I don't think I'll ever touch her again.

[Drachnon]

Wasn't charging after deep strike standard now?

[Gentlemanloser]

Hmmm. Rereading it, it's a badly wored section.

 

You might be able to make an 'Engage' move, which would let you assault on a turn you DS (if you're within normal movement distance). Of course, DSing that close, you'd have to live thorugh the defensive fire now, which every unit in range would get. >_<

 

It's a shame you can't assault after a 'teleport move' though.

 

And Homers can't be used if the mini is embarked. :)

[Zeratil]

Yeah, she used an engage move after DSing out of line of sight of the scouts. She's pretty good now and the Vindicare has gotten worse because of the cover save changes - he really needs to steal a transport now. I doubt she'd make many tourney lists, but she's an effective unit if you can position her to avoid defensive fire.

[Gentlemanloser]

:P

 

Back I go to my Deep Striking Mordrak, Strikes and NDKs list idea!

 

Now with more Incinerator!

[Zeratil]

Defensive fire will be your only problem there, plus any army that can will be inside transports, it's still just as hard to open up cans that have moved. If you have lots of LOS blocking terrain then it won't be so bad as you can deep strike rounf a corner then jump out and yell 'SURPISE!'

[RedemptionNL]

Callidus Assassin: Now worth it, she didn't come in at the best time - I would have liked her to come in after Dante to thin out his sang guard but she did kill an entire scout squad and half of an assault squad unsupported

You can actually delay your reserves in the new rules by not allocating any dice from your reserve pool.

[Zeratil]

Yah, didn't realise this until afterwards, as the game turned out it wasn't so bad as she took down a good number of Bangels before dying.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I had a land raider crusader full of termies+libby which I rushed up the field towards the ruin the vindicator was cowering in and tucked my rhinos in behind it to block LOS.

 

It's totally cool that you did this and spent the time to write such a detailed battle report. It's a lot of words and I'm tired so I didn't do anything more than skim the first three paragraphs, but it was totally worth it for this one quoted bit. This is a shining exemplar for anyone who would write a battle report for how to turn a phrase when describing the difference between how your unit does the exact same thing as the enemy unit except much more heroically. Subtle but pointed, and, most importantly humorous. Bravo, sir. :tu: