6th Edition: Ten Game Challenge

[Chaplain Admetus]

As I mentioned in an earlier thread pre-6th edition, and taking a leaf from Mort's similar thread in the past, I've decided to run a 10 game challenge to try and get a feel for the Blood Angels, and how they work in 6th edition. I decided to take as many different units as possible, to get the best possible idea of what works and what doesn't, essentially aiming for some kind of 'ultra-balanced' list. Its not the list I'd normally use, but its similar enough that I know what I'm doing, I hope...

 

So, here's the list I intend to use, with explanations of why each unit's been chosen:

 

HQ: Librarian, Jump Pack, Epistolary - 175 points

Going to attempt to try out the new rulebook powers, as well as see what 6th ed. has done to the old ones. The idea is to use each discipline we have access to in 2 games, and use the BA powers from the remaining two

 

Elites:

Sanguinary Priest - 50 points

I normally run 2, the other one having a jump pack and power weapon, but with the furious charge nerf and feel no pain not being as relevant, I dropped one to give more stuff a try. We'll know if two is still good depending on how much I miss the other one

 

Troops:

10 strong assault squad with a thunder hammer - 220 points

Fairly standard unit for me. Large, mobile scoring unit, kept on the comparatively cheap side.

 

9 man assault squad, flamer, fist, rhino, searchlight - 218 points

Priest rides here. Need to see whether mech squads are better than, worse than, or about the same as jump pack assaulters. Cost is about the same.

 

10 man tactical squad, meltagun, fist, missile launcher, rhino, searchlight - 251 points

Another of my mainstay units. I know people don't like tacs as much in BA armies generally speaking, but its another scoring unit, and has no real weak areas.

 

7 man death company squad, fist, drop pod - 200 points

Not tried these guys out much since the new book, but 5 WS5 S5 attacks apiece on the charge is too good to pass up. None of mine have jump packs, and rhinos aren't as good, so it has to be a pod.

 

Fast Attack:

3 man bike squad, meltabombs, power axe - 110 points

Fast attack choice for The Scouring, and I've always wanted to give them a try.

 

Baal Predator with T-l assault cannon and heavy bolters - 145 points

Fast vehicle with lots of shots? Where do I sign. Can murder lightly armoured infantry units, and has a reasonable shot of popping a transport.

 

Heavy Support:

5 man devastator squad, 4 missile launchers - 130 points

A unit for Big Guns Never Tire, and adds some ranged punch to an army that was otherwise lacking.

 

Army total: 1499 (though in retrospect I could use my final point to stick a searchlight on the Baal)

 

I originally wanted to get an attack bike as well, but it was the casualty when trying to trim my list down to 1500 and I was 40 points over. I've got one of each of the 4 main units (tactical, assault, devastator, death company), and a bit of added BA seasoning.

 

I got game 1 in this afternoon, and those who have read previous battle reports of mine will be pleased to know I actually got pictures for this one ^_^. Game 1 to follow as soon as I figure out how to get the pictures off my phone....

 

 

 

*************** EDIT *****************

POST 10 GAME CHALLENGE THOUGHTS:

 

Ok, here we go. Now that I've done all 10 games, I'll post thoughts on the list overall, followed by some more general musings. I'll start at the top and work down.

 

Librarian: Never has a 50 point upgrade swung so much. The Epistolary upgrade is now a never-leave-home-without, especially since it allows you to pick from Telekinesis and Telepathy without having dead powers in the lore (the warp charge 2 ones, which you won't be able to use without an Epistolary). I may have failed in my intent to use the BA book powers, but that's because with the nerf to preferred enemy, prescience is just a strictly better unleash rage most of the time, and its a power you can guarantee. I'd still take powers on the list, as sometimes that cover save from Shield will be very important, but I think the rulebook powers just have that little bit more to offer (caveat: Mephiston should probably take codex powers otherwise he's going to be slow as tar, unless you stick him in a stormraven/rhino taxi, in which case Biomancy is painful, but it just feels a little unnecessary).

 

On that note, psychic powers: Big winners are Divination and Biomancy a close second. Telepathy and Telekinesis are too situational to guarantee getting the ones you would need or want, whereas Divination and Biomancy will always throw something useful. I noticed in the games where I had Telekinesis and Telepathy I wasn't casting nearly as much. My personal recommendation would be to roll up two powers from Div and Bio in whichever combination best suits the mission and opponent at hand (sometimes the re-rolls etc from divination won't be as useful...sometimes you're going to get spanked no matter how much you tool the librarian up with biomancy). Bio seems tailor-made for nids though, so if your opponent has them then that's what I'd expect.

 

Sanguinary Priest

The feel no pain bubble is on balance about the same as it was before. We get it against AP1 and AP2, and power weapons, but not a huge amount has that and isn't double toughness, the big one being plasma. However, I don't think running two is necessary as long as you're careful where you place the one you have, but if you take one alone make sure he has some degree of mobility and can cover most of the army.

 

Assault squad (jump packs)

An all-star. Yes, you'll find that random charge range can screw you on occasion, but we did technically get a slight boost to our charge range. Being able to use Hammer of Wrath and get a charge re-roll is also nice, if you're close enough (i.e. within 13" of your target)... 6" move, then needing a 7 on 2 dice with a re-roll should see you right. Any more than 14", and I wouldn't risk it. Mobile, which is what we need, fast, and fairly hard hitting.

 

Assault squad (rhino)

The ultimate low point. Not being able to charge on the turn you disembark is huge, and I found this out to my cost. They were always slow to get into the fight, and spent more time objective hugging than anything else. Frankly, a tactical squad would do this better as it gets the ranged shots. Their finest hour was either binning the Lone Wolf in game 4, or grabbing the relic in Game 2 and then legging it. Transports may still be a viable option in the form of land raiders or storm ravens (anything they can assault out of), possibly in razorbacks to get them cheap (even though they can't score from them anymore), but their place is definitely not in a rhino. Save that for...

 

Tactical Squad

Still solid. Being able to move 6 and still fire a single shot is useful. I'd be strongly tempted to take a squad in every list for a little added range support, and objective camping whilst our combat units take the fight to the enemy. A strong choice, but overall beaten out by the jump packed assault squad.

 

Rhino

Not as bad as some might think. Being able to turbo 12" means we can be right in the enemy's face on turn 1, but we can't assault out of it unless they're kind enough to break the rhino for us. Add the disadvantage of only being able to disembark after its moved 6", no further, and its not as good for shock troops. However, for taking tactical squads around as a taxi, its more than fine, and we can take advantage of our 12" move in the shooting phase to open and then close lines of sight to our ranged weaponry, which is probably the best use for them.

 

Death Company

Right... with Rage, DC now get 5 WS5 S5 attacks each on the charge. That's painful. However, if they -receive- a charge, that's only 3 WS5 S4 attacks each, which is a lot less impressive. So, in order to get the best use out of them, we need to get the charge. Looking over the games, they only got the charge at full strength in 3 of the 10. In 6 games they either got shot to bits, reduced by half or more, or charged first, and in one game they got stuck in terrain and never made it at all. This makes me feel that whilst a drop pod will get them into the face of the enemy, they're quite likely to be removed or have their teeth pulled before they get the chance to do much. An enormous distraction, but is that really the best use for a 200-odd point unit? It can buy a little bit more time, but I'm not sure its worth it. My vote for how to run DC would be Assault Transports>Jump Packs>Drop Pod>Rhino/Razor>Foot, with assault transports winning because JPs are so expensive, and a raider/storm raven is good on its own. I'm prepared to be wrong on that one though.

 

Bike Squad

Perma-toughness 5 and FnP against anything S9 or under is great now. Hammer of Wrath, Relentless and Jink are all good selling points as well, and yet they seemed to underperform in all my games. The problem: numbers. 3 just isn't enough to get the job done. By all means run them because they're a great irritation unit, a decent scout, a reliable way to get linebreaker, and they're scoring 1/6th of the time, but I wouldn't run less than 5. I was never disappointed by them, but I always wished I had more.

 

Baal Predator

I can't speak for the flamestorm variant (I know there's a thread going around, so we'll keep the discussion there), but the dakka version is cool. 6" move and fire all guns, or 12" move, fire 2, and snap-fire the third is excellent. It can chew through 4+ save units, and is great for popping transports. Outflank is riskier in some missions than others (specifically, Vanguard Strike, where the enemy forces are more likely to be on one side than the other), but in Hammer and Anvil its amazing, as you'll be able to reach something worth shooting at no matter which side it comes on. A solid choice. It got removed in 2 games before doing anything (I like to think I was unlucky in the Necron game, and in the Tau one I was just careless), but in the other 8 it more than made its presence felt, and the speed with which it made its way up my opponents' "to kill" list makes it a solid choice.

 

Devastator Squad

Last, but not least, the humble 4 Missile Launcher devastator squad. Game against infantry and light-medium tanks. A solid choice, the only time its ever going to let you down is against an all-2+ save army (deathwing and sanguinary guard), redeemed a little bit against Paladins since a failed save will one-shot them. I'd be tempted to add a plasma cannon or two to the mix to help deal with the 2+ save issue, but when in doubt and for an all-comers list, the quad-ML set up is better against an unknown field.

 

BA as a whole

There's a hotly debated nerf/buff to FnP dependent on how you look at it. Razorspam seems viable, but Space Wolves can probably do it better. The furious charge nerf hurts us, as not going ahead of MEQ if we charge takes away a lot of our sting. I'm reminded heavily of a quote in the Codex - "Caution is not the Blood Angels way, and it cannot be yours". We're not going to win battles through combat superiority any more, because we don't have it. What we do have, however, is the second fastest marine army in the game, coming in just behind biker armies (Ravenwing or Codex Marines, take your pick). Before we could rely on furious charge to do the damage for us, but now we need to use our jump infantry troops, combined with 24" range rhinos, to get us where we need to be, and when we need to be there. Descent Of Angels also helps, as we can take our enemy to just one turn of shooting before we get to attack, and that won't always be enough.

 

The Missions

Crusade, Purge the Alien, and The Emperor's Will we all have coming out of our ears from 5th, so I'll leave those be to focus on the new ones. (If you're new to the game, then I apologise, but they're a lot more straightforward than the other 3, and don't require as much finesse).

 

Big Guns Never Tire - target the enemy heavy support choices first. They're normally threatening as it is, but now that they give up extra VPs then they're definitely worth a shot, especially if someone leaves them holding an objective. If you run devastators, be prepared for your opponent to bump them to the top of his target priority list if they're anywhere near an objective. Storm Ravens got a boost from this too. Also, remember that the vehicle can't take an objective if its immobilised, so if they have a land raider or something sat on an objective and you immobilise it, there's no need to waste your time and army trying to finish it off.

 

The Scouring - Overly complicated, in my opinion. Simply prioritise the high-scoring objectives. If chance screws you by giving the opponent easy access to the higher scoring markers, we've got the speed to mitigate that factor. Again, target fast attack first, especially since they're generally lightly armoured (land speeders, piranhas, other codices' assault marines which are generally only taken in small numbers) compared to the rest of the army.

 

The Relic - Bleh. Unbalanced, thy name is the Relic. First turn has a HUGE advantage, since the relic can only be picked up in the movement phase. Even if the second player makes the first player drop it, the first player gets first opportunity to pick it back up. Add first blood to that, and its an uphill battle. Since most of our troops choices can get it on turn 1, and we're fast enough to get it away quickly and put up roadblocks, this mission favours us. If you have a fast build, and first turn, its practically an auto-win, especially if you get the first kill (pick a really easy target, even if its not threatening. Rhino, land speeder, those 5 scouts that were just there because they had 80 spare points, anything). It may be horribly unbalanced, but we've got the edge, so take it if you can.

 

Secondary Objectives - First Blood makes turn 1 more important (though I've seen games where first blood didn't happen until the bottom of turn 2). And since it can't be claimed by both players, this matters more than any other. Slay The Warlord - matchup dependent. If they've got something hard as nails (Draigo, Ghaz, Bystander, Calgar) then don't bother. Especially painful if we're using support HQs (librarians are annoyingly easy to kill, and with Slay the Warlord in the mix people will be gunning for him). Linebreaker is a cool idea, and I like it. We should get it more often than not. There'll be a lot fewer draws with these around, and I like that they're only 1 VP each (specifically designed as tiebreakers, I imagine).

 

Warlord Traits - Not a fan. They're unbalanced. Some are really really good (an aforementioned combat monster getting an extra VP for characters killed in a challenge? Insane), whilst some are literally useless depending on your army and your opponents (what good is -1 to reserves if they have no reserves, or princeps of deceit if you're deploying second anyway?). The chance that one army could get a really potent one, whilst the other player gets one that has no bearing on the game, just seems to unbalance things to me.

 

Mysterious Objectives - Same with these guys. One side has guys camping with shooty units on an objective in a ruin with +1 to their cover save, whilst the poor scouts holding the other one have to put up with it periodically going boom. They're not as bad as the warlord traits, but add a bit of unnecessary complexity to the game, as its just one more thing to remember.

 

 

And that's about it, I guess. I'd like to offer my thanks to all my opponents for being so accommodating with me taking pictures and scribbling stuff down between turns, and for providing me with a wide variety of armies to play against (never played the same faction more than twice, and deliberately kept it 50/50 between power armour and non-power armour). I also thank everyone that's put up with reading the thread for the last few weeks, and everyone that's offered advice, queries, and constructive comments on the reports and list. If there's anything I've missed out, or if anyone has some specific queries, I'm perfectly happy to answer them. I hope this has been a useful thread, and its been of benefit to my fellow Blood Angel players.

 

Thanks for reading, may you all go out and bring the forum glory - for Sanguinius and the Emperor!

[Morticon]

Wow! Talk about a flash back to years past!!!

 

I'm looking forward to it matey!

 

 

Dont forget the pics.

[Darklighter]

That's a lot of stuff packed into a 1500 point list! I wish you luck and I can't wait to see what your thoughts are once you've finished.

[Chaplain Admetus]

Game 1

Mission: The Relic

Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

So, for the first game of the 10 game challenge, I was asked for a game by one of the younger ones in my FLGS this afternoon. Never one to decline a challenge, especially against some of the younger players (as the best way they can learn is to play against those with more experience, who can guide them throughout and after the game), I accepted. Note that being a kid doesn't necessarily make their list bad, as his was a fairly nasty Lash/Oblit spam army that I'm trying to do from memory:

Daemon Prince, wings, lash, Mark of Slaanesh

Sorceror on bike with lash, Mark of Slaanesh

3 bikes as a Sorceror bunker

3 x 3 Obliterators (yaaaaaaay)

10 (I think) Khorne Berzerkers in a Rhino

10 Chaos marines with some gear

Apologies if memory of the game is a bit fuzzy on the turn by turn bits...in my head it got split into 3 phases of "beginning", "middle" and "end", but I'll do the best I can.

Warlord traits/Psychic Powers: My Librarian took a gamble on the Command Traits table, and was rewarded with a 6, allowing all my units within 12" to add 1 to their charge distance. Nice. The Daemon Prince rolled a 5 on the Personal table, getting himself Feel no Pain within 3" of the relic. My librarian rolled a 5 and 6 from Divination, and I kept Scrier's Gaze (3 dice for outflank and reserves, pick what I want) and swapped Precognition for Prescience.

From my table edge looking forward, there were some ruins near the back along with some wreckage, then some rock spires on the left and a few craters on the right, both towards the centre of the board (the dead centre with the relic was clear), then some rocks and another set of ruins towards the back. I outflanked the Baal, deployed the devastators near the rock spires, put the assault squad on the centre of my zone, with the tactical rhino next to them, then the bikers, then the assault rhino on my right flank. He deployed everything fairly far forwards. Zerkers in the rhino, bikers opposing mine, a unit of oblits on each flank, the third in reserve, and the Chaos Marine squad on the rocks. We rolled Night Fighting for turn 1, and the chaos player then managed to seize the initiative.

Turn 1: Chaos

Almost everything advanced forwards. The berzerkers deployed out of the rhino, and were within range to pick up the objective. Night fighting saved me from the worst of the damage, losing a devastator and a hull point off of the tactical rhino. Despite having a Mastery Level 2 librarian in the unit (so 4+ to deny the witch), the assault squad was lashed TWICE, dumping them away from the objective and over near the Devastators. <_<

Turn 1: BA

The death company drop pod drops from the sky, aiming for near the chaos marines/'zerkers. In a spectacular display of precision targeting, it scatters 12" directly away from the centre point of the table, towards my opponents edge, landing in the ruins. Fantastic. Not to be outdone, the assault marines come out 12" back and are prepared to have a go. Fortunately my opponent decided to move them at an angle rather than straight back, so they're only 9 or 10 inches away from the berzerkers. With the command trait, that's actually a makable charge. The tactical rhino advances and vomits some marines out into the cover, where they can open fire on the berzerkers. The bikes and assault rhino advance a little on the right flank. Shooting sees the death company drop a solitary chaos marine, but fortunately the one with the meltagun was closest, and some berzerkers fall to the tactical squad thanks to Prescience. My rhinos illuminate the opposing rhino for my devastators to fire at, but they could only take away a single hull point. The assault marines try for a hail Sanguinius pass, and make it into the Berzerkers! Result. My bikers also make it in. I lose 4 assault marines and a bike, but its worth it to remove the berzerkers from play (and reduce my opponent to 1 scoring unit), but more importantly, a victory point for First Blood.

(I think this is the end of turn 1, possibly 2). The bolter/backpack on the base is the relic. You can just see the dozer blade on my assault rhino in the bottom left corner; there are some obliterators just out of shot to the right of the crater.

Turn 2: Chaos

Obliterators turn up, deep striking near to my devastators and the ruins. Stuff advances... my Assault Squad gets lashed yet again by the daemon prince, into flamer formation for the oblits. A further attempt at lash, and the witch is FINALLY denied. Memo to the armoury: better psychic hoods please. The chaos marine squad and obliterators to the back left hose my death company down to one remaining model, and the ones on the crater shoot and kill both my bikes. I get reduced to 2 guys and sergeant in the assault squad, and the daemon prince charges, my sergeant issuing a challenge to keep the librarian alive.. Bikers charge my tactical squad, I lose a lot of guys but reduce the squad to the aspiring champ and the Sorcerer.

Turn 2: BA. Baal turns up, and hoses a lot of the chaos marines, the last remaining death company runs and hides in the ruins out of LoS of everything (the plan now is to kill all scoring units, use the DC as a denial unit, somehow kill the Daemon prince, and win it via secondary objectives). The assault rhino moves, and the squad hops out, hoping to do something useful (like take the relic). My shooting doesn't accomplish a huge amount, killing a few chaos marines. The DP challenges, but this time my librarian declines, chumping the two Assault marines and holding the DP up for one more turn.

Turn 3: Chaos. The bikers continue to fight the tacticals. A unit of Obliterators charge them, whilst the other Oblits advance towards the centre with the two closer units, and the third goes for the Baal. Unlucky multi-melta shots sees him reducing it to 1 hull point and ripping off two guns. My librarian finally falls in combat, giving him a "slay the warlord" point. I take down the sorcerer, but at the cost of my tacticals.

Turn 3: BA. The Baal limps in to deliver a few more shots, taking down another chaos marine. Now that the DP is out of combat, the devastators open fire and take down two of his wounds. The assault squad advances further, planning to hopefully take him down with the fist. Bolt pistols fire for the sake of it, and to everyone's surprise the Daemon prince fluffs enough saves to go down. Assault squad, however, has the objective, but there are some chaos marines who want it, and two units of pissed off obliterators.

Turn 4: Chaos. Both units of Obliterators charge my assault marines. The other obliterators can't do a huge amount, mostly due to us both forgetting their existence thanks to a rapidly expanding dead pile. I lose a lot of marines, but the powerfist does the job by offing a pair of obliterators.

Turn 4: BA. Carnage continues. I know I have this won if I can finish off those chaos marines, but more importantly I just need to stop them from getting the relic. With that in mind, I use the rhinos to block them from reaching it in their movement phase, and shoot down a few more. Combat sees him reduced to one unit of two obliterators, and me to my power fist and priest.

End of turn 4:

Turn 5: Chaos

The disembodied hands are my opponent moving his rhino to start his turn, which immobilised itself on terrain at the top of T5. The havoc launcher kills a devastator, but the oblits you can see at the back explode my rhino. Kills nobody though, but the oblits finish off my guys at the cost of one of their own.

Turn 5: BA

I can't really do much other than concentrate my fire on the chaos marines, and bring them down. No more scoring units, the relic is completely useless! Apparently the backpack and bolter weren't -that- important :P

We roll for the next turn, and the dice comes up a 2. Game over

As you can see, that's a bloody end to the game (we moved the crater for some reason, think it was an exploding thing). At the bottom, in my DZ, is my very sizeable dead pile. All thats left is the rhino, a battered Baal, his immobilised rhino, 4 obliterators, 3 devastators, and waay in the back you can see my drop pod, and the black smudge in the doorway at the far end is my death company guy's arm.

Total Victory Points: Chaos - Slay the Warlord - 1VP

Angels Sanguine - Slay the Warlord - 1 VP, First Blood - 1 VP, Linebreaker - 1 VP (as Death Company aren't scoring, but there's nothing that says they aren't a denial unit).

So, overall, a 3-1 win for the Blood Angels, a good start to the 10 game challenge (hey, I can't get whitewashed :D ). Stars of the match were the power fist assault sergeant, killing 3 or 4 obliterators on his own, and the Devastators. A big fat 0 goes to the Death Company for turning up nowhere useful and almost immediately dying, and the librarian for deciding that denying the witch was something other people could do. If anyone has comments on anything (the list, the game, or the battle report), I'm grateful for feedback. I normally get games in on Tuesday and Saturday, so I'll update the thread on Tuesday with Game 2!

[Morticon]

Im just keen to see your observations to date.

 

What are you noticing playing differently?

 

I like your list as far as mission meta is concerned and Im keen to see where it does well/poorly.

How were the drop DC? Hows that pricey libby?

[Chaplain Admetus]

I miss the initiative bump a lot. That, and having to disembark my assault marines the turn -before- I need them, but that'll come with practice. The drop pod DC haven't had much of a chance to shine yet, I played them in another couple of games earlier in the week (different list) and they keep getting shot to bits the turn after they come down, people are scared of them. I think that running them with Jump Packs may just be better, but I'll have a better idea of whether the pod works after the next few games.

 

The pricey libby varies dependent on what powers you get. Sometimes you're wasting the 50 points, but sometimes the ability to use two powers a turn (like my game against Wolves where I got Precognition and Misfortune, an absolutely disgusting combination), or a power that requires warp charge 2, which for us would be Invisibility and Hallucination out of Telepathy, and Vortex of Doom from Telekinesis, is invaluable. It just so happened that that game one of my powers (Scrier's Gaze) was next to useless, and as such the 50 point upgrade went the way of the dodo. I'll try not using divination next game, and see where that gets me.

 

Other observations: I need to learn to hold my phone steady, and to take pictures more than once every two turns :)

[Bloodsurfer]

Chaplain Admetus,

 

I have given myself a similar objective in that I am currently in the middle of my ten game challenge however I have had much less luck with my lists. Granted they are far fewer points for the most part I have run into similar issues. Death Company tend to get shot up as people are scared of them and I have found that I must place a greater emphasis on Plasma guns in my assault squads and units with 2+ saves. Anxious to hear how the rest of your challenge goes.

 

Bloodsurfer

[Ushtarador]

Nice report! You really should try to roll Hallucination, I got it 3 times in 2 games now, it's disgustingly effective :)

[Chaplain Admetus]

Game 2

Mission: The Relic (again...)

Deployment: Dawn of War

So, game 2 of the 10 game challenge. Its the relic again, but with old-school 12" deployment zones, and instead of Chaos I'm going toe to toe with Eldar. His list:

Farseer w/runes of warding, Guide, Doom

Avatar

10 guardians with missile launcher and warlock

2 units of 5 Pathfinders

6 Fire Dragons in a Wave Serpent

Wraithlord

2 Fire Prisms

2 Vyper Jetbikes

My Librarian took Divination again, rolling up Foreboding and Scrier's Gaze...without reserves I swapped it out for Prescience. A roll on the Warlord table left me with Inspiring Presence (his leadership for all units within 12"). I won the roll and elected to go first.

Deployment. Out of shot to the left of the assault squad is the rhino carrying the tactical squad, and the Baal. There's a forest halfway up the left flank where the second unit of pathfinders are sitting. Both Vypers are in reserve.

Turn 1- AS: Drop pod arrives and disgorges the Death Company up near the Pathfinders on the right, spreading out so as not to be utterly humped by Fire Prisms. The Bikers move forwards to the halfway mark, and the Baal advances along the flank, being careful to stay out of effective Fire Dragon range. My troops charge down the middle, the rhino assault squad disembarking to claim the Relic. Devastators open fire, and score 4 hits on the visible Fire Prism, but fail to do anything more than scratch the paintwork. The death company and bikes take down a few pathfinders, and the Baal makes short work of 2 on the left hand flank.

Turn 1 - Eldar: Everything advances. One Fire Prism focusses through the other to fire onto the death company, but a bad scatter roll means that it misses completely, but manages to take a hull point off the drop pod. Bullet well and truly dodged there. The remaining shooting leaves my army mostly intact, but I lose the tactical squad's rhino to either the wraithlord or the avatar, earning the Eldar first blood. The Pathfinders try and drop the tactical marines, but the nearby priest works overtime and I don't take a single casualty.

AS- 3 VPs, Eldar - 1 VP

Turn 2 - AS: The Baal makes short work of the remaining Pathfinders on the left flank. 1 troops choice down, two to go. The Librarian casts Prescience on something, and gets it past runes of warding. The death company make their intentions known to the pathfinders by moving up next to them, whilst the foot assault squad gets back on the rhino with the Relic. The rhino moves flat out (only 6") in the shooting phase down the right side towards the ruined tower, along with the assault squad. Devastators rip two hull points off a visible Fire Prism, and stun it in the process. The bikers move forward, and manage to assault all the way into the guardians, losing one to snap fire on the way in. The death company somewhat predictably butcher the Pathfinders.

Turn 2 - Eldar: Most things advance towards me, trying to chase the Relic. One of the Vypers turns up on the hill near the Death Company, whilst the stunned fire prism runs for cover on the left hand side of the table. Shooting trims down a tactical marine and 3 assault marines. In combat, one of my bikers dies, but there's still one there hammering away at them.

Picture shows the start of turn 3, I've just done a bit of movement then remembered to snap a pic.

Turn 3- AS: Death company get into position to charge down the hill and help the bike. The Relic gets moved even further away, at this point I'm getting hammered on Secondary objectives but still have the relic, so I'm going to hide it behind the tower and pray my army can hold him off. Librarian tries to cast something but perils, and that's him (effectively) out of action for the rest of the game, as I don't want to risk casting anything else until the Farseer is gone. Baal and Devastators shoot at the Wave Serpent and Avatar, Wave Serpent goes down to its last hull point, and the Avatar laughs. In combat, the Death Company just make their 8" charge into the Guardians. Farseer challenges and manages to kill my bike, but I rip a few guardians down. Just a few to go...

Turn 3- Eldar: Wraithlord turns back to help the Farseer, otherwise he's going to be torn to shreds. The Fire Prisms wreck my Rhino, but the Relic carriers bail out and into the safety of behind the tower. The other Vyper turns up, but doesn't do much. The Avatar assaults my tactical squad, and my sergeant challenges to hold him up. He dies, but the squad holds. The Wave Serpent moves as far as it can over towards my assault squad with the Relic, making a play to get me to drop it next turn. The Death Company are onto a loser here, kill the guardians but can't finish the farseer. Wraithlord takes them down to a few left.

Turn 4 - AS: The librarian's unit comes towards the Serpent, as the Baal unloads into the back and explodes it, killing some of the Fire Dragons and pinning them. The remainder are assaulted and killed by the Assault Marines. The devastators open fire and manage to bring down the Fire Prism. Avatar wins combat despite fluffing his attacks, but the Tacticals break and are caught, so combat continues (new ATSKNF is awesome). Wraithlord finally kicks in the last of the Death Company, and it and the now wounded farseer advance to the shelter of the building.

Turn 4 - Eldar: The Vypers come out to play, shooting down some assault marines and devastators. The remaining fire prism pops out and slams the Baal, exploding it. In combat, the Tacticals are reduced to 4 men and break, and make it away this time, and the Avatar advances towards my squad.

Carnage at the end of turn 4; we roll for night fighting but the lights are still on as we go into turn 5

Turn 5 - AS: Librarian splits and hides behind the building as well, whilst the other assault marines head off to try and take a Vyper. He's got first blood, he's got linebreaker, I'm not getting linebreaker, and I can't see the farseer to shoot it, so I need to keep my warlord alive to win the game. Tactical marines rally, and move to form a barricade around the Avatar (he can't get round to get near the assault marines now, he'll have to waste a turn going through). The Devastators open fire on the Fire Prism, taking it to its last hull point and removing a gun (random roll now, took the not-nasty gun). I assault and manage to wreck the Vyper with the Thunder Hammer on the assault squad.

Turn 5 - Eldar: The remaining vyper and wraithlord move out to take pot shots at my assault squad, thinning them down to 2. The Fire Prism moves round to have a go next turn at my assault squad. Predictably, the Avatar murders the tactical marines, and is now perilously close to the assault squad cowering behind the tower. We roll for turn 6, and roll a 1.

That's all that's left. Well, all except the Farseer, cowardly Xenos is still behind the building in the centre of the table. Not like the noble Angels Sanguine would take to cowering behind a building... :)

Overall thoughts - it was a good game, nice to play the Relic again and have it actually matter, as last game just turned into a match based around First Blood and staying alive. Death Company finally proved their worth this game...was disappointed with them last game, and the few I tried them out before the 10 game challenge, because they died to quickly. What this game did was demonstrate WHY they have to die quickly, otherwise they'll just rip straight through things. The Priest finally woke up and started doing things, I barely failed a Feel no Pain save in the first few turns, which gave me an early edge.

Secondary objectives become MUCH more important in the Relic than anywhere else. All three secondaries only equal 1 primary objective in most games, but when there IS only one primary objective, that matters a lot. I was forced out of using Psychic Powers because doing so would have risked losing my librarian, giving my opponent the Slay the Warlord point and with it the draw.

This is the first game I've seen where Hull Points have really come into play. Both Fire Prisms had holo-fields, and I guarantee I'd have had a much tougher time taking them down in 5th than I did today. It also means that battle tanks are likely to survive a single barrage of anti tank fire, but are very unlikely to survive a second one. The bikers weren't too impressive, but having a very large effective threat range makes them the perfect nuisance unit - they did very little on their own, but managed to hold the guardians long enough for the Death Company to get there.

Tactical squad didn't do much, the Baal killing all the pathfinders (despite a good up cover save) denied them the duty I'd intended for them, so I fed them to the Avatar as a speedbump. The mid-range firepower is good though, and good to have in concert with the Baal, which is amazing at chewing through infantry and light tanks.

So, those are my thoughts after game 2. Got game 3 in today as well, but I'll post that either later tonight or tomorrow. As a teaser, it has a pair of shock twists :P . As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated, and thanks for reading!

[Red Fury]

Thanks for the nice batrep! Nice win too!

 

Look forward to reading more.

[Chaplain Admetus]

Game 3

Mission: The Relic The Emperor's Will

Deployment: Dawn of War

Rolled Relic for the THIRD consecutive game but my opponent was kind enough to consent to re-rolling the mission since I was fed up of it, and we got 5 instead. For this game, I'm up against the forces of the Inquisition - Grey Knights:

5 tooled up Paladins

Draigo

Stormraven

10 man Purifier squad (I think? The fearless ones) with 4 psycannons, 5 halberds, and a hammer, with a Rhino

Two 5 man Strike Squads (or one 10 man one that split, can't remember) with some gear

5 Interceptors with an incinerator. I won the roll and elected to deploy first

The assault rhino is just peeking in on the right hand side, and the Interceptors are out of shot on the left by the hill. My combat squad is on the objective, with the other half of the tac squad in the rhino. He's got two 5 man squads near his objective, and the purifiers have split into two combat squads in the rhino purely because they can. 1 has the hammer and psycannons, the other has all the halberds. Draigo, Pallies and Raven are in reserve. We check for mysterious objectives - his does nothing, and mine periodically explodes (which it does precisely once all game, and does no damage). My librarian gets the extra d6 pick the highest for running trait, Draigo gets Feel no Pain when within 3" of an objective. Uncool. Oh, and Grand Strategy makes the entire army scoring... I decide to mess around with Telepathy and get Invisibility and Terrify.

Turn 1 - AS: The Death company lands near the pair of strike squads in the rocks, and everything else advances. I cast invisibility on the assault squad for a lack of anything better to do. My devastators manage to blow up the Rhino (first blood), and 1 of each squad dies in the explosion (the hammer goes from the psy squad). Lucky shooting manages to take down one of the strike squads.

Turn 1 - GK: The interceptors make their shunt move to get right near my combat squad on the objective. Psycannons take out my rhino, and the purifiers assault the combat squad that was inside. The incinerator opens up on the objective camping combat squad, and kills 3, but the remainder hold. In combat, the purifiers roll really badly, only inflicting one wound, and that's saved by my priest. In response, my combat squad kills two of them.

State of play at the start of turn 2

Turn 2 - AS: the surviving rhino moves up and disembarks the squad in front of the 4 purifiers, and the death company get dangerously close to the strike squad. The bikers turn around and come back to help the remaining 2 tactical marines on the objective. Shooting sees luck from me and appalling dice from my opponent, as the entire purifier squad with psycannons dies to bullets from the assault squad. With nothing better to do, Krak missiles from the devastators take down 2 or 3 of the interceptors. In combat, the remaining purifiers once again fluff their attacks and die to the combat squad. taking a few guys with them. The death company assault and butcher the strike squad, and the bikes take down the interceptors.

Turn 2 - GK: With nothing on the board, my opponent rolls for his Storm Raven....and gets a 2. Nothing on the table at the end of the turn = game over. Victory to the Angels Sanguine!

Except that would be rubbish, so we decided to just continue as if the Raven had successfully turned up. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from the remainder of the report. The Raven flew on and piled some shots into the Baal, stunning it and removing 2 hull points, and mindstrike missiles forced a perils on my librarian.

Turn 3 - AS: I can't shoot down the storm raven (stupid flyer), so its a very quick turn.

Turn 3- GK: The Raven moves down towards my objective, and Shadow Skies dumps the lot of them out back, where they proceed to remove my squad on the objective.

The game went to turn 6, with the paladins camping my objective, and Draigo flying back to contest his. I eventually killed him with a combined charge from half my army (Death Company hit him on turn 5, followed by the assault squad and bikes joining in on turn 6). Power fist in the DC took care of 3 of his wounds, and he lost the last one to hammer of wrath from the bikes. I managed to shoot down the Raven once it had the decency to stop dicking around in the upper atmosphere and come down and fight. Its worth pointing out, though, that without killing Draigo I would have lost the game, and had the game ended on turn 5 that would have been the case (both had linebreaker, I had first blood, he'd killed my librarian, he had an objective and I didn't, killing Draigo was a 4 VP swing!).

Unfortunately didn't learn a huge amount from this game. Didn't get much use out of the psychic powers, I just know I didn't use them as well as I could in the first few turns. Death company again were superb, I think -where- you bring them down is key. You need to put them somewhere where they'll get a charge on turn 2, but not where they'll get shot to ribbons. Flyers are a pain to bring down without Skyfire, I couldn't get anything through to it until it started hovering. The Storm Raven duffing its reserve roll is a warning to low model count armies...if you have over 50% of your army (pointswise) not turning up til turn 2, you run a real risk of getting gunned down and defaulting due to the "no units on the table" rule. Oh, and paladins are still unkillable, since they can use LoS to dodge bullets onto each other, and shift around inside the unit so that the wounded ones aren't closer to what's shooting them.

[Kabal_of_Baal]

This is great, man. I've been debating pods, jump packs, or a rhino for my death company for a long time, and this is helpful to read. You said earlier that you might think jump packs are simply better; is that still the case after a few more games? Or are pod, if used cleverly, doing the job? Do you not find that the death company is a bit slow, having to walk once they've landed?

[terminatorAM]

How's the assault squad in Rhino doing? I really want to put an assault unit in my list with a cheap transport, but the new disembark and hull points rule are making me hesitate. It is good to know that a drop pod can be an alternative to having to buy (w/ points and $) a storm raven.

 

I have yet to play a game in 6th ed. but really like your dedication to the 10 game trial. It will inspire me to do the same before buying new stuff. Thanks for the reports

[Emperors Immortals]

Very useful reports, keep 'em coming ;)

 

Sofar it looks like a podded DC with PodTacs might be seriously worth looking at, also my favourite TacTermies could be a new addition and well worth consiering for the VP denial role at least.

 

Do you think SG would have helped at all? I really want to like the unit but i always take an HG instead for plasma death.

 

So far im pleased with 6th, LS, bikes, and tacs (of all stripes) are my favourite units and they look mighty good now :devil:

[John_f]

This is an amazing source of knowledge! Keep up the good work and keep posting these batreps. One small note; take the pictures from the same angle, it's easier to see how the battle is developing that way.

[Chaplain Admetus]

Thanks for the replies, guys :D. I've got a game tentatively lined up for this afternoon vs Space Wolves, so hopefully that'll be making it on soon.

 

@Kabal - I think the drop pod is better if there's nothing that will reliably hammer them the turn they land (see: Oblits, Fire Prisms that aren't chronically unlucky, Vindicators, Battle Cannons, Incubi, that sort of thing). If they're shooting with small arms fire, then that's a lot of stuff that is pounding the part of my army that actually does stuff. They are a bit slow after they land, yes, but they normally drop into the enemy's battle lines, which reduces the risk of them being shot on the way in...I guarantee that the enemy will only get 1 turn of shooting before they charge. I'd definitely give them packs or a pod over sticking them in a rhino.

 

@terminator - The assault squad in the rhino was one of my favourites last edition, but its not so good in 6th. Only being able to move 6" and disembark, and not being able to assault out of a stationary one, really changes the dynamic of how it works. Formerly I had no problems with blasting it 18" across the table on turn 1, in preparation for a turn 2 charge, but I can't do that any more. And since a unit with packs comes in cheaper (just about), I think those are the way forward... the flying one is definitely more manoeuvrable. If I had to pick, I'd say tacs go in rhinos, and assault marines go with jump packs, but we'll see if this changes any in the other games.

 

@emperors immortals - Podded tacs could work. Drop them on an objective and just try to hold it. I used to run podded sternguard, 7 with a fist, 3 combi meltas and a regular melta, but I took them out to try the DC. With First Blood looking really important, I want to put them back in, but don't know where to find the space. Tac termies look excellent, not from personal experience but from watching others use them. Sanguinary Guard I used in a few games at the tail end of 5th/start of 6th (before this). I played a 2k game vs Chaos and got annihilated, but Dante and the Sanguinary Guard were bouncing around treating the board as their own personal pinball table, and were within an inch of giving the Chaos player an aneurysm before a Defiler got them. I'm waiting to see if the Dante/SG axe issue gets resolved before I use them again though.

 

@John_f - thanks ;). And the photo tip's appreciated, I'll try and do that for the rest of the games!

[Chaplain Admetus]

Game 4

Mission: Crusade

Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

So, it turns out that the Space Wolf player I played against last week is on a gaming group a couple of mutual friends set up, and we'd played without knowing it, and he'd been looking for games in the area against decent opposition. Naturally, I answered his request for a re-match made this morning, leading to a game this evening. Nice and simple, 4 objectives, and lengthwise deployment, which is actually starting to grow on me. I decided to make a point of taking photos at the end of every game turn, so it should be easier to see what's going on.

His list:

2 Divination Rune Priests with Master of Runes, one with a wolf tail talisman (only got myself to blame for this, it was our game that made him notice how good a level 2 with divination was...)

A lone wolf in termy armour with chainfist and storm shield

Several Grey hunter squads (2 of 8, one of 10, one of 5) with various Grey Hunter attachments, most had meltas, each unit had a wolf banner except the 5 man one, which had a wolf guard with termy armour and a cyclone missile launcher. 10 man was in a rhino

6 long fangs with 5 missiles

6 long fangs with 5 missiles and a wolf guard

Aegis defence line with a quad gun.

Warlord traits: His warlord priest got the one that made me use my lowest leadership, my librarian got the extra run dice. The warlord priest got the re-roll hits spell and ignore cover, whilst the other one took the re-roll hits and the 4+ Invulnerable. I decided to mess around with Telekinesis, getting the sig spell (S6 beam with strikedown), and Gate of Infinity. I won the roll and elected to take first turn.

The green diamonds mark the objectives. The devastators are hiding behind that rock spire (you can just see them), his Longfangs are behind the Aegis defence line sections, with the warlord priest near the longfangs in the centre. Tacs have combat squadded to take both objectives, and the rhino is empty. My Baal is being sneaky and outflanking. Mysterious objectives: his was a skyfire nexus (so useless), the one in the centre we discovered late in the game was nothing, and the 2 I deployed on were both sabotaged. I have a really bad tendency to roll 1s for mysterious objectives, but fortunately none of them blew up. The bikes succumbed to the red thirst, and the initiative was not seized. Angels Sanguine, move out!

Turn 1 - AS: Everything charged forwards. Bikes and assault squad in rhino move down the right flank taking cover behind the ruins. Drop pod lands right in his face, practically on the Aegis defence line. The librarian manages to strike down a member of the grey hunter squad in front of the lone wolf in the centre. The Devastators fail to live up to their name by doing jack all to the rhino, so the Death Company decides to show them how its done and explode it with a krak grenade, killing some models and pinning the squad that was inside! Score!

Turn 1 - SW: Things in front of the defence line advance, nothing else does. The rune priests get all their spells through. Shooting at the bulk of my army is mercifully brief, taking down 2 tacticals on the left, and 3 or 4 assault marines in the centre. Most of his time is directed at trying to remove the death company, and he takes down 3 of them. The 5 man grey hunter squad attempts to charge through terrain, but fails.

The end of turn 1

Turn 2 - AS: Things are going well. The Baal decides to turn up on the right hand flank, and gets ready to hose some grey hunters. The bikes come around the side of the building to line up a combined charge with the death company. My big assault squad moves down the middle in a support role, and the rhino mounted assault squad moves and disembarks, as its not going to get a better shot at the central grey hunter unit. Shooting sees a lot of bullets hitting the grey hunters that are across the table, killing several and forcing morale tests for both. The one on the far left passes, but the central one take exception to being flamed/pistoled/generally abused and leg it all the way back to the defence line. The Baal takes down several of the grey hunters sheltering where the rhino used to be, and the death company charges this unit whilst the bikers have a go at the other, smaller squad. The DC flub their attacks and only kill a few, and I lose them all. The bikers lose a man to attacks, but the sergeant with his axe takes care of the wolf guard terminator with power axe in a challenge thanks to being T5 and hard to wound!

Turn 2 - SW: The Grey Hunters rally, and start coming back. Shooting is again brutal thanks to the re-roll miss power, and sees a hull point taken off the assault rhino, the Baal exploded thanks to the ignore cover spell (and I positioned it stupidly), and the same fate befell the tactical rhino. The lone wolf charges, and I decline a challenge having my fist sent to the back. I lose 2 assault marines but wound the lone wolf, and pass morale. The grey hunters that took down the DC charge the bike, and the sergeant with a fist trades with my biker sarge with his axe.

Turn 3 - AS: The assault squad fly off to the left, but only 6". This leaves them 8" away, but I have re-rolls to charge and hammer of wrath attacks, don't think the odds are too against me. Shooting is negligible for the most part, though my missile launchers whittle the central grey hunter squad down to their last man, a meltagunner. The librarian casts assail on the squad he's about to assault, knocking a few down. The lone wolf again challenges, I again refuse, and get taken down to 3 marines, the sergeant, and the priest. I make my assault into the grey hunters on the left thanks to the re-roll (4 the first time, but the re-roll gave me a 6 and a 2, just enough). I forget that I managed to strike some down with the power, so they should have been striking last, but its not too important. He issues a challenge with his power fist sergeant, my librarian accepts and smacks him around with the sword. I win combat but not by much, he flees but I catch him and we stay locked. The lone biker does nothing, but doesn't die.

Turn 3 - SW: The longfangs take exception to my missile launcher combat squad, and with a volley of cover ignoring, miss re-rolling krak missiles, manage to blitz the unit off the table, knocking me off one of the objectives. The meltagunner opens up on the drop pod, but only succeeds in inflicting an immobilised result, knocking it to its last hull point. I lose one of my devastators to fire from either the quad gun or the other longfangs. In combat, the power fist decides he's had enough of dossing around at the back, and sacrifices himself but taking down the lone wolf in the process. The assault marines whittle the other GH squad down to 1 man and the priest, and Sergeant Thunder Hammer pops them both. Both assault squads consolidate towards the closest enemy. The biker finally manages to kick the lone grey hunter in the head, and turns his attention to the slightly larger squad that he's in combat with.

End of turn 3. I've got my opponent down to 5 scoring models across 2 units, but he's got me down to 9 over three units. I still haven't made a dent in the longfang battery that's been plaguing me all game.

Turn 4 - AS: Shooting from the storm bolter and the drop pod brings down the lone meltagun grey hunter. Just 3 left. Shooting kills a few longfangs from the main unit (by the defence line). The assault squad goes for the left-hand longfangs, and strikes them down with assail. The rhino assault squad makes it over the defence line and goes to help the biker. In combat, both assault squads charge. The flying squad takes the unit down to just the wolf guard, who promptly legs it. I consolidate back behind the defence line to try and find cover. The assault squad and biker kill a guy between them, for no casualties.

Turn 4 - SW: The wolf guard comes back for another go at the assault marines. The long fangs split fire, with the quad gun knocking over a tactical marine on the objective. The missiles go at my assault squad, after the ignore cover spell is cast. My librarian is second closest, and fails his LoS, giving my opponent the Slay the Warlord point. The wolf guard charges, but does nothing to the 2 remaining assault marines, who fluff and can't kill him either. Combat over on the other side is uneventful, with nothing happening.

Unfortunately, the store was closing and we had to call it there. However, my next turn would have been to move the rhino to completely block LoS to my tactical squad, meaning he'd have been unable to knock me off it until turn 6 at the earliest. The assault marines should take care of the wolf guard, and were then planning to go back for the central objective. If the priest, assault marines, and biker STILL hadn't killed the last few grey hunters, they were at least contesting, and being denial units. Essentially, for my opponent to win he'd have had to remove all my denial units from his DZ (or win two combats heavily in my favour) without losing the grey hunters, and take the tacticals off my objective, which was an extremely unlikely proposition in the time available. We did the theoretical dice roll and the game would have ended on turn 5... we called it a win for the AS as I was winning when time ran out and the chances of him pulling it back were very unlikely, but not impossible.

Lessons: Telekinesis is alright, I was looking forward to cheating with Gate (since it uses the deep strike rules, my JP unit would only scatter 1d6 if I read it right), but never got the chance. Death Company would once again have been amazing, had they not fluffed their attacks biblically on the turn they charged. Phenomenal distraction unit though. I have a new respect for bikers, as one of mine charged on turn 2 and was still there at the end of turn 4, 8 combat rounds later. Divination rune priests are brutal, and should be priority number one if you're facing them.

My biggest take away from this game, by a long way: Unit Positioning. I really messed up twice in the battle. First, the Baal coming on and immediately getting shot thanks to the rune priest's ignore cover spell. If I'd placed it differently, I could have blocked line of sight completely with the drop pod, and had it for at least another turn being a major thorn in his side. It would have gone after the long fangs next, and that would really have tilted the game heavily in my favour, being able to gun some down from behind the defence line, and forcing them to deal with it before it got horrific. Error 2 was leaving the librarian near to the long fangs...yes, he has a 2+ look out sir, but there was no need to take the risk and have him drop like happened to me, I should have stuck him furthest away from the missile launchers.

Space Wolves really are nasty this edition... we've had a chat, and he's going to try and get a drop pod into his list to give him some extra mobility. I won the game primarily by forcing him to march across the board to get near the objectives, which meant going through my combat units, whilst I sent my fast movers to harass the only objective in his deployment zone. Bunkering the objectives deep in my DZ gave me a really strong edge, and I had too much pressure to ignore. Hammer and anvil is great for outflanking things, as they get a massive choice of where to come out, and sneaking in right behind the enemy is very doable unless they castle along the back edge. That's all for tonight folks, I'll hopefully be back with more on Saturday, and I'm going to try and wheedle my opponent into letting me try Vanguard Strike, as I've played about 8 6th edition games now and have yet to get that deployment.

[Sinful eyes]

Dude, before I started reading your battle reports I was a little disheartened with Blood Angels in 6th. I felt that the things setting us apart in a good way got nerfed big time, whilst the things that got boosted got the same boost everywhere else (SW do "tactical" marines so much better than we do). However, you have given me hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel; we just have to figure out exactly what the light looks like in the form of minis ^_^ Thank you!

[Morticon]

He deployed the Aegis illegally mate!! Best be calling that stuff :) :P

[Chaplain Admetus]

@sinful - thanks :unsure:. I'm actually hoping I lose a few of these, since a) you generally learn more from a loss than you do from a win, and B ) if I win all 10 people are going to start calling a fix :P

 

@Mort - thats what I thought, so I did call him on it. Turns out that the defence line has 4 long and 4 short sections, and the only rule for deploying them is that each section must be deployed in base contact with at least one other section. Ergo you can have 1 big line of 8, or you can have as few as 4 segments, each consisting of two bits. Makes the defence line a little bit stronger in my opinion, definitely giving it some consideration now.

[Zedrenael]

But wouldn't that make it when you deploy a single section in base contact with another you would have to deploy the next one in base contact with one of those two??

 

-Zedrenael

[Chaplain Admetus]

Not if they're all deployed simultaneously. As he had them, everything was in base contact with one other section and hence, legal. One for the OR forum if its causing dispute though.

[Morticon]

Wow- I see what you mean. Interesting idea then for the aegis.

[Emperors Immortals]

Not if they're all deployed simultaneously. As he had them, everything was in base contact with one other section and hence, legal. One for the OR forum if its causing dispute though.

 

 

huh? nice call, might give it a look.

[Chaplain Admetus]

Game 5

Mission: Big Guns Never Tire

Deployment: Vanguard Strike

We're back against Grey Knights...different player than Game 2, and a -very- different army (smallest model count possible for a 1500 point army!) Vanguard strike was chosen by mutual consent as neither of us had played it yet, and we rolled Big Guns for the mission. His minimalist list:

Draigo

Level 3 Terminator Librarian with the mind-grenade-thing

2 solo Paladins (both the most expensive possible...apothecary, master-crafted warding stave, that sort of thing)

Techmarine with the funky grenades (rad or psychotroke, whichever one rolls on a d6 table and bad things happen)

2 Nemesis Dreadknights with Personal Teleporters, S6 flamers and massive psycannons.

Yes, that is a whopping 7 model army. However, my army has trouble with dreadknights, and its all 2+ saves and mostly FNP. Blergh. The 4 objectives do nothing again (2 2s, a skyfire nexus with no fliers, and a sabotaged objective that refuses to explode). His librarian takes various powers, getting the fire cloak thing from pyromancy, the signature divination spell, and misfortune. I'm trying out Biomancy, and roll Iron Arm and Warp Speed, arguably the 2 best spells in the lore. Warlord traits: Can't remember what Draigo had, but it never came up. The librarian got furious charge within the enemy deployment zone, so naturally his unit fell to the Red Thirst and got it anyway. I won the roll and elected to go first.

Deployment after my Baal's scout move. The green stars once again denote objectives. GK librarian, techy and paladin are hiding behind the rock spires, Draigo and his friend behind the building. Grand Strategy affects one Dreadknight, giving it re-roll 1s.

Turn 1 - AS: Pod comes down near Draigo and his Paladin, Death Company pop out and head that way. Everything else advances, with the exception of the ML combat squad and devastators, who are quite happy where they are. The assault rhino takes shelter in the ruins, whilst the tac rhino moves next to the Baal. Flying assault squad and bikes move to support the death company. Missile from the tac squad can see a lone Paladin near Draigo so I risk a pot-shot, but he makes his saves. Devastators do nothing, whilst the Baal takes 2 wounds off the buffed dreadknight, and boltguns from the bikers ping a wound away from Draigo. The Rhino moves in front of the Baal to block the Dreadknight's psycannon.

Turn 1 - GK: Draigo takes the bait and heads over to have a go at the death company. One of the Dreadknights uses its shunt to get over towards my tactical squad and devastators, and the other advances towards the rhino. Shooting wrecks my rhino for First Blood and a few death company die to Draigo. The other dreadknight hoses some devastators. In assault, Draigo and the Pally cut my DC down to 1 guy, sniping out the power fist in the process, and the Dreadknight assaults my combat squad that was in the rhino, killing 3. Unfortunately, I hold so I won't be shooting it.

End of turn 1. Not looking good, and I really need to deal with those dreadknights.

Turn 2 - AS: I move everything where it needs to be on the right flank, mostly the priest in the rhino to where he'll have an effect. Librarian buffs himself, rolling a 6 for the D3 effect on both warp speed and iron arm. Shooting accomplishes precisely nothing, and I chuck the assault squad and bikes into combat. Hammer of Wrath attacks have some effect, but not much. I lose all my bikes in the fight and wound Draigo in return, no break tests since both squads are fearless. My power fist challenges the dreadknight and dies, and now the meltagunner breaks and runs off, leaving the dread free to wreak havoc.

Turn 2 - GK: The Dreadknight in my lines advances on the tactical combat squad, and the other one goes for my Baal before it starts being a problem. The 3 terminators move round the other side of the rock, to get closer to the action. The dreadknights shoot, taking a hull point from the Baal, and killing 2 combat squad marines. In combat, the Baal gets blown to ribbons, and the other one takes the combat squad down to 1 tactical marine, who irritatingly holds again (so I can't shoot the thing). In combat with Draigo, not a lot happens... I lose, but I take Draigo down to 2 wounds.

End of turn 2. Dreadknights wreaking havoc everywhere, AND they're scoring...

Turn 3 - AS: Not a huge amount of shooting. The meltagun misses the dreadknight that blew up my rhino. Devastators try to ping off a librarian/paladin/techmarine, but can't get through the armour. In combat, my lone tactical marine bites the dust, leaving the dreadknight free to consolidate. The hammer accepts the challenge, and thumps a wound off of Draigo (and making him I1) before dying, and I ping the paladin, taking both him and Draigo to their last wound.

Turn 3 - GK: The Dreadknights hose the meltagunner and the devastators. The Paladin splits from the squad and goes after the objective, whilst the librarian and techmarine come towards the combat, with fire shield in effect. The dreadknight fails its charge on the last devastator, and my assault squad finally does the damage, killing Draigo and the Paladin. Slay the warlord point for me...shame there's two dreadknights near objectives that I don't stand a hope in Hades of getting rid of ^_^

End of turn 3. If you look closely, you'll see that the one death company marine that survived Draigo and the Paladin in turn 1 is still there, angry that he's been denied a glorious death. Soon, my friend, soon...

Turn 4 - AS: A last shot from the devastator bounces off the dreadknight (2+ save MCs are ridiculously tough). The assault squad and DC advance on the librarian and techy, with the rhino squad bailing out and shooting too. The techmarine dies, but the librarian is absolutely fine. I charge, losing some assault marines to the fire shield, and the DC burns up on the way in. I take him down to one wound, and lose a few more in return.

Turn 4 - GK: Dreadknights sit on objectves. The librarian takes me down to my last 3 assault marines and librarian, and I can't get that last wound.

End of turn 4. Looking grim.

Turn 5 - AS: I make a move with the assault squad, hoping to take it to Turn 6 or 7 and wipe that paladin out and get the draw (2 objectives each, his first blood, my slay the warlord, both linebreaker), until I realise that I lost the devastators. I can't draw as-is, and I'm going to need to take one of the dreadknights to even salvage something. New plan: wait til turn 6 (hopefully), buff the librarian, sneak a wound through and force weapon one of the blighters. Shooting accomplishes spectacularly nothing, and in assault my librarian declines the challenge, and the assault marines pick off the librarian. I consolidate back near the objective.

Turn 5 - GK: My opponent decides that, and I quote, "Dreadknights wouldn't sit on stupid yellow dice when there's still enemies out there" and come barrelling at me, one using its shunt to get near the central objective. That's not a development I anticipated, especially since it frees up the paladin to come marine hunting. Shooting kills a few assault marines, the paladin assaults my foot squad and kills several, and the dreadknight assaults and wipes out my jumpers, leaving me with a librarian. We roll for turn 6, and the dice gods decree that I've suffered enough.

Game over...Grey Knight victory by (by my count) 8 Victory Points to 1.

Well, that was harsh. We agreed that the mission was always going to be an uphill struggle, since the dreads being scoring anyway left Draigo's Grand Strategy freed up for other things. Characters, particularly an entire army of them, are brutal to face, as challenges can really be made to work in your favour. I'm fully aware that the list is -too- balanced, in a way... I really struggle against high toughness MCs, and 2+ saves, and Dreadknights really are kryptonite for this force. Found a couple of irritating rules loopholes...rolling to wound against majority toughness in shooting and combat, if a tie pick the highest, means that Draigo with another paladin made them both T5 with feel no pain. Biomancy was great, or at least it would have been had I not been facing an entirely 2+ save army... in retrospect I should probably have swapped one for Smite.

So, the halfway point. By this point I'm beginning to get a feel for the units and new rules, so here are the overarching thoughts so far:

Deployments: Vanguard Strike is fiddly. Hammer and Anvil is really starting to grow on me, as we're fast enough to get a denial unit into their deployment zone, and we can bunker objectives and make our opponents wade through our shock troops to get there, whilst reliably dropping nasty units on them. Pitched battle is the same as it always was.

Missions: Relic is awkward. Can lead to one-sided games. Secondary objectives are extremely important in The Emperor's Will, especially first blood. Secondaries will make more difference here than anywhere else. Big Guns varies depending on your list and your opponents, and the number/survivability of the Heavy Support choices in question. Jury's still out on scouring, but its definitely the most complicated of the 6.

The units: The jump assault squad has been really good in all the games. Definitely liking them. The Death Company are better than I initially thought, but not fantastic. Leaning towards packs being a better option than pods. The bikers are ok, but I think a bigger squad than 3 is necessary to get decent use out of them. As it stands, their only real purpose is as a denial unit, or scorers in the scouring when I eventually get to play it. The Baal predator is amazing, its been stellar in 4 games out of 5, and here it was the only thing that scratched the dreadknight. Its early death against the Space Wolves was entirely my fault, and it should have done more damage. Definitely gets an A, and its scoring 1/6th of the time. Tacticals and devastators are solid, just as they were in 5th. Nothing phenomenal, but the tacticals got a boost thanks to being able to move 6, disembark 6, and then shoot 24. The big losers here are the rhino assault squad. They've been the worst unit in the army in 4 of the 5 games, and even though they won me the remaining game by picking up the relic on turn 1 and hiding with it, any other troop unit could have done that so I don't think it really counts. I think a second unit of jump packs would contribute more for their points cost.

Vehicles: I like hull points. Means the irritating stunlocks and glancing hits being ignored/weakened are gone now, but makes it harder to survive a concerted effort to get rid of an irritating tank. Flyers are a bit much until we get used to them and get skyfire missiles. Transports got hit with the nerf bat pretty hard.

Psychic powers: I've had a play with all of the lores now. If I had to rank them on experience, I'd put Divination top, followed by Biomancy, Telepathy and Telekinesis in that order, since Telekinesis is generally too situational. Biomancy is harmed by the fact that most of the buffs only affect the psyker himself, but against non-2+ save armies that's almost good enough, allowing librarians to chew through entire units (rolling the powers I did made him a mini-Mephiston). It'll be interesting to see how these change over games 6-10.

That's all for now, I'll be back with game 6 during the week!