New Vanilla Codex, Triple Battle Report (with pics)

[Giga]

Hello everyone, welcome to my 6th tournament battle report.

 

Three battles, 1850 point armies, new vanilla dex in action. 

 

http://giga40k.blogspot.com/2013/09/triple-tournament-br-with-new-marine.html

 

Hope you enjoy it. :] 

[Polythemus]

nice battle reports. always a great read and this one was no different. I will say though, sometimes i get the feeling reading these that you get a little intense while playing, Brother Mandrake's model is in danger of being smashed by a hammer is what it sounds like. 

I personally haven;t read the new SM codex, a few DAngel folk wished they had acess to some of its stuff (relevant flyers and grav guns) but im interested by your assesment. maybe it will grow on you? did you get to practice much with the army before playing in your tournament?

[Giga]

Nah, I never get "model-breaking" intense. I sometimes get excited over what's happening and I occasionally I get depressed (when my dice really really suck, or when I play against brainless overpowered armies/lists), but on the whole I welcome a little emotion in my 40k. If I wanted to be totally analytical and cold about my gaming, I'd play chess. ;]

 

I agree that vanilla sure has better fliers than the DA, and that grav-guns will be good on bikers. That being said, nothing really changed. We don't have awesome wargear options like force fields, 4++ saves on librarians that also blind opponents, etc., no awesome new units, no cool new variants of old stuff (I was hoping for forgeworld predator variants (conversion beamer, plasma, etc.), shooty land raiders (without transport capacity), improved combat dreadnoughts (with rules like BA blood claws, libby dreadnoughts, HQ dreadnoughts etc.)). Basically it's all just same old stuff updated a little to fit 6th edition. Even the supposed lower costs are illusory for the most part. It's a really bland codex.

 

Only chapter tactics are a really new mechanic, and even they are copied from 4th edition.

 

EDIT: Oh and the overall power level of the codex didn't really change at all. A couple lists like bikes will be stronger, but that's all. I don't expect to see any difference in the overall metagame, and I especially don't expect to see vanilla suddenly placing high in tournaments. Like DA, we might see them win a couple big tourneys at the beginning, then people will figure out how to deal with 8 flier lists and grav-gun white scars, and that'll be that.

[Ming]

Next time try the psychic power set that has two "iron hands like powers" - the one that crushes, the other that basically hurts vehicles.  More flavorful for what you were doing.  I don't have the rulebook in front of me or I'd call out the right set...even pyromancy is a better collection to roll on than what you used....

 

Overall, I enjoyed your battle reports, but, would like to see more on how being Iron hands actually worked for you, and in the sense of what an Iron hands chapter is supposed to operate like, how well did that work (even right down to naming the warlord trait rolled). 

 

And yes, as typical, the named characters in the codex buff their intended chapters in a very cost effective way.  I heard that the next codex supplement will be imperial fists, hopefully iron hands will get one in the future.

[Giga]

Frankly, I'm still not sure if my chapter is an iron hands, ultramarines, or imperial fists successor, so still deciding on that.

 

I didn't spend much time elaborating on how the chapter tactics worked because it's boring and not helpful to the narrative. "Guard rolls 6 wounds on 3 marines, I fail 4 wounds, then I roll 3 lucky 6s on FNP roll" is only a good thing to put in a BR if those 3 marines would then go on to win me the game. Likewise, keeping track of hull points is generally pointless in a BR, unless the vehicle's survival itself is going to be pivotal later on. I'm probably fielding a terminator captain in the next tourney, so we'll see how well IWND works with him. ;]

 

With how unpopular and underrepresented iron hands are in fluff and in rules overall, I'd be surprised to see a supplement based around them.