Shadow War experiences so far

[Stercus]

I have enough scouts to make at least two kill teams already, and this game is giving me an excuse to build models I otherwise might never have bothered with. I've so far built two veteran IG squads, a load of chaos cultists, a GSC team with all possible special operatives, and I'm waiting on the mailman for orks, skitarii and two types of Eldar. If I'd stuck to 40k I'd likely have never bothered painting up these models, so what's not to love?

(And what's even sweeter is that if you play straight out of the box, it's historically fixed in time so there's no chance of those derpy primark-marines turning up to spoil my fun)

[Sister Alessia]

Sorry you had such a rough start Commodus. You didn't really have much chance against that setup of armies, but well done for giving it a go anyway.

 

Nice work on your Arbite Dr R and thanks for the battle report! I've just re-watched dread lately, so really digging your Arbites :)

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks Alessia!  Glad you liked both the battle reports and the arbites.  I hope you watched the remake of Dread (which I've seen and thought was quite entertaining) and not the older one with Sylvester Stallone (which I haven't seen but am told not to). :)

 

Hope to see some more reports of your own, which I enjoyed. :)

 

Inquisitor Psychologis Ruminahui

[BrotherAtrox]

...the older one with Sylvester Stallone (which I haven't seen but am told not to).

 

It is very, very 1980s. If you can enjoy movies like Cobra, Predator, Delta Force, etc. - you can enjoy Stallone's Dredd.

[Beams]

I feel it's fairly balanced, with a few armies being a little better. It's by no means perfect, but definitely not unplayable.

 

My group has: Space Marines Scouts, CSM, Orks, Guard, Inquisition, GSC, and Sisters, and the only faction that's had a rough go is Sisters. They went guns before nuns, and keep rolling high on bottle tests.

 

As for the chemical slick, it just means that there's a chance that running doesn't work out well. So you plan your moves and don't run as much.

 

My advice is make sure you have a lot if terrain on your table, because the game doesn't seem like it should be played on a half empty table.

[Schlitzaf]

So in your all opanion, quantity or quality. Current running an Inquisition List and cannot decide between 5 Acolytes with Autogun or 4 Acolytes with Bolters? The list is centered around a Storm Bolter wielding Inquistor. Supported by Two Crusaders.

 

Also as an Inquisition player why would I ever use Hot Shot Lasguns over Bolters?

Edited May 26, 2017 by Schlitzaf

[Morovir]

You can buy lasguns first, and then later upgrade them with hot-shot, meaning that you can start with more before upgrading them later, spreading out the cost over multiple battles.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Definitely quantity over quality - even if you aren't wounding, you are still pinning, which is very important.

 

Inquisitor Psychologis Ruminahui

[Arkeo Nox]

Hi guys !

 

We have a lot of fun with our campaign but we also have some issues; arlequins. The 'no pinned' rule combined with '-2CT while running' is a little bit too hard... no ? Are we the only ones with that problem ?

Edited May 26, 2017 by Arkeo Nox

[BrotherAtrox]

Harlequins have definitely ruffled some feathers but in my local campaign we've noticed them dropping off in performance - even with their advantages they can't avoid casualties, and casualties are really hurting our player here as the game advances. They were terrifying at first but they've only become more manageable.

[Chaplain Raeven]

Harlequins have definitely ruffled some feathers but in my local campaign we've noticed them dropping off in performance - even with their advantages they can't avoid casualties, and casualties are really hurting our player here as the game advances. They were terrifying at first but they've only become more manageable.

 

Would poisoned rounds be a good counter then? Bigger chances for them to get killed in the long run.

[Sister Alessia]

Yes it was the remake I watched :) Karl Urban <3

[Ordo Xenos Inquisitor]

This is one instance where I don't feel guilty about proxying my own Kill Team. I fielded me a Deathwatch Force using the Space Wolf Scouts rules in the book and I am playing against my friend who plays Eldar. We tried a one-off game last week just to get a good feel for the rules. Today, we played our first campaign. It was actually quicker than I anticipated. And way more enjoyable than Kill Team. 

[Lysimachus]

So, another couple of games played between my Void Pirates and my brother’s Genestealer Cult! I’d decided I’d try and take some pics to go with the report, so to start here’s a couple of pics of the table and my team:

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd11/simoncherylm/Inq28/IMG_1191.jpg

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd11/simoncherylm/Inq28/IMG_1192.jpg

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd11/simoncherylm/Inq28/IMG_1193.jpg

Then I put my camera to one side so we could get started… and promptly forgot about it until after we’d finished the second game and packed everything up!

Never mind, maybe next time!

Anyway, we rolled off for our fifth game and got Scavengers again. Didn’t go great for me on the whole. My team relies quite heavily on shooting but I lost the deployment roll and ended up with pretty poor LoS. My bro also did a swap round of weapons since the last game so that his trooper with Infiltrate now had a Hotshot Las and other shooting kit and was able to move up to a commanding position before the game even started. I played my Ogryn again, but I think I still need to learn to play S.O.s more aggressively to get the most of their abilities in the one game. Anyway, I got a few team members pinned, took a few casualties and since it was fairly obvious the opposing GSC was going to get the majority of the loot counters I decided to bottle. So a loss, but all my downed/out fully recovered so not a big deal, plus my Trooper who advanced got +1 BS, making him a decent second sniper! Used my Recruit cash to bring in another Trooper, bringing my numbers up to the full 10.

Game 2 we decided to go for something a bit different, doing a one-off Lone Operative ‘A Legend is Born’ Mission outside our campaign. I stuck with my KT and my bro took an Eversor (played as a Broodlord with some kind of ranged bio-weapon to count as the combi-pistol!)
I rolled quite well for number of KT members, getting my Leader plus 4. First turn looked good as the Eversor somehow missed his first shot, but then very disappointingly my sniper also missed her toxic round shot! Next turn, the Eversor was in range to charge and easily dispatch the sniper who I’d hoped would play a key roll in bringing the assassin down (by auto-wounding). I figured that was going to be it, but then I got decent rolls over the next 2 turns for bringing in reinforcements and managed to pour on enough shots to knock him down to a single wound! At this point, my bro gave up on working his way through my team (he’d taken my Leader down to a single wound and then out with Needle pistol fire), made a ridiculous 18” run move that suddenly brought him to within 1” of my Stash counter, close enough to place a Melta Bomb and easily destroy it, achieving his secret mission. I attempted to pull it back before he could escape back to his deployment zone, pouring even more fire into the assassin. I got lots of annoying misses and fails to wound, but about 4 hits that wounded, each threatening to remove that final wound and bring him down! It was not to be though as somehow he made every one of the 4+ Inv saves required! Another crazy big run move in his next turn brought the game to an end.
What can I say in conclusion except that unpinnable, CC-deadly models with 6” move and Sprint are truly, truly nasty!

So, game over and I was truly glad we’d already decided that the game wouldn’t count towards our campaign, because when I rolled for Serious Injuries (figured I might as well see what would have happened) my Leader would’ve got a 1 and a 3 and been dead! Phew!

There we go, 2 more games played, leaving my brother leading our campaign 8-6 Promethium Caches. Next games will probably be a ways off as I’m going on hols and my bro is moving house in the next few months, but we’ll see!

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!
 

[Sister Alessia]

Glad you enjoyed it OrdoXi I've played more games of Kill Team, but I prefer SWA too. Hopefully Kill Team with be better under 8th.

 

Thanks for the pix and battle report LySi :D Love your killteam, so much character!

Edited May 29, 2017 by Sister Alessia

[Dragonlover]

Things that have happened so far:

 

The Tau player shot his own guy in the head and knocked him off a six inch ledge.

 

My wife's Deathmark, lovingly referred to as 'useless Deathmark Tim' sniped a Tau guy, knocked him off a ledge into two more Tau guys, one of whom promptly also fell off his ledge and hit a drone.

 

The Tau player has decided his team isn't getting reinforcements due to their sheer ineptitude and once they all die he's bringing some form of Eldar instead.

 

I lost due to bottling against Orks, at which point my downed gunner got an advance as his injury roll and is now rerolling to hit with the autocannon.

 

In short, this game is amazing. I'm up against my wife's Necrons tomorrow, which should be fun.

 

Dragonlover

[NTaW]

Loving how positive all this has been. I'm chomping at the bit to play a match soon, though I've spent all my hobby time building a table as opposed to building kill teams. First matches will be Sly Marbo vs. Necron Immortals whenever I can.

[Kilofix]

My buddy's Plasma Gunner has vaporized his own teammate like 3 times now. Last game, he got a Gunner advancement. So I guess all that practice shooting at his teammates has paid off....

[Chaplain Raeven]

It's a joy to read all about the matches you guys played. The hilarious situations and fights against the odds sounds awesome.

 

Played my first 4 games too. I played with a mate that hasn't played anything from GW before (except maybe Space Hulk). Strangely enough he had the hang of it as soon as I did, which was after the second game. It was a ton of fun with happy and bad accidents, which is bound to happen when someone is playing Orks. My mate is just starting with his orks, so he had only 2 models to play with. In the pictures below you'll see some Dark Angels as count-as, at least the colour was already correct.

 

My first game was against a couple of boys with Shoota's and 4 Yoofs with pistols and choppa's. I got slaughtered. My shooting did NOTHING at all. Guardsmen hit easily, but their lasguns struggle against T4 orks. One half of my guardmen got chopped up and shanked while the rest was unconcious from his Big shoota and Kombi-shoota. His only casualty was from a stray shot from his own guys.

 

I performed better the second time. My sniper and plasma gunner managed to get a nice vantage point at one map corner, taking potshots at everything that came into view. A team of lasgunners came around the other corner. He stacked his units close together, so pinning/downing a couple of Orks made them break morale quite often. Especially his spannerboys ran often when I pinned their meatshields. His bottle checks failed eventually too. I won that round by simple outshooting him.

 

 

http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p553/GreyRavenC/DSCN3158_zpsvupcaeto.jpg

http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p553/GreyRavenC/DSCN3159_zpsdvyumezs.jpg

http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p553/GreyRavenC/DSCN3160_zpsmlprt1ox.jpg

 

The third round was ambush. This was a fun game, even if I won in the very first round. Orks were defenders, I placed my sniper, sarge and plasmagunner on the same high building as before and some guys on the other guys to flank. He placed one team one floor beneath my snipers. When I stared my turn, I managed to down his boss and spannerboy, the ork nearby broke morale and ran. My second team shot from the other side of their hidingplace. I pinned one and made his neighbour break morale as well. This second team also had sight on the orks under my sniper. I managed to lob a grenade in there, downing one and breaking morale on his neigbour. He bottled out before even doing anything. We were laughing from start to finish, cowardly orks!

 

http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p553/GreyRavenC/DSCN3161_zpsg2dlbmsq.jpg

http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p553/GreyRavenC/DSCN3162_zpsek2keikw.jpg

http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p553/GreyRavenC/DSCN3163_zps2ts2xdxa.jpg

 

The last game was a bit of a dud, we had to capture 3 loot tokens, but my opponent messed up with the placements, so he essentially gave me 2 of the 3 tokens first turn. His shooting missed everything, while mine brought disaster on his guys. He bottled next turn, although I would have won next turn even if he made his roll, since I just had to walk back to my table edge with my loot.

 

The games were usually one sided for one or the other, but it were fun games nonetheless. His Orks that break morale, my grenade launcher than always fails his ammo rolls, my lasguns that never wound or my opponent's ability to hit so often on 6+ and 7+ throws.

And I managed to convince my mate to start a small force of 20 guys, something he would NEVER have considered before. This game is truly a powerfull asset to the hobby, it's a shame the initial support from GW is so weak.

Edited June 5, 2017 by GreyRavenC

[Dragonlover]

So I decided to use my promethium from the last game to buy a nice kitted out Tzeentch Marine, bringing me to six Marines as my kill team. After my next game I'm gonna burn a promethium for three Cultists with gear, so that I can stop taking break tests at the two casualty mark. I refuse to buy two Cultists with one flail between them, and I also refuse to buy any Cultists before they'll have an actual tangible effect beyond 'blocks one shot a turn'.

 

Dragonlover

[Kilofix]

Though, blocks one shot a turn is exactly how I use my Cultists.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Got a game in yesterday.

 

Here's my gang before the game:

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a396/Dr_Ruminahui/Imperial%20Guard/IMG_1336_zpsdsfvwqow.jpg

 

Sarge with bolter, plasma pistol, power weapon, carapace & camo.  Hates the ork Nob.

Specialist with flamer, las pistol & carapace. Has +1 T & hates my friend's Rokkit.

Specialist with grenade launcher (frag & krak), lasgun & carapace.  Has the medic skill.

Specialist with plasma gun, las pistol, carapace, camo & clip harness.  Has Ammo hound skill.

Vet with shotgun & camo.  Has Evade skill.

Vet with shotgun & carapace.

Vet with lasgun (with hotshot), frag greanades, carapace & camo.

Vet with lasgun (with hotshot), frag greanades, carapace & camo.

Vet with lasgun (with hotshot), carapace & camo (used to be a newbie).

Vet with las pistol, & chainsword.  Has + 1 A and Frenzy.

 

Once again it was against my friend's orks on a rescue mission to free the yoof I captured last time.  Again, he rolled max for attackers, but this time I rolled the same for defenders (6), rather than the 1 defender I got last time.

 

Can't remember the exact details, but it was a blood bath.

 

My defenders were pretty much set up as in the photo, with his orks coming in from the top.  The captive is at the top of the tower.

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a396/Dr_Ruminahui/Battle%20Report%201/IMG_1363_zps9lcjct6y.jpg

 

He run & snuck his orks to the bottom of the copper coloured tower before he got spotted by my guy with the chainsword.  My shooting hit, but failed to wound any of his orks... which was pretty much the trend for much of the battle... that and rolls of 6 to hit forcing ammo checks.  And his guys getting up from being down by rolling flesh wounds.

 

The 5 inch height of the platform posed a real challenge for him - the 2 inch height difference from the necromunda terrain levels is huge.  He tried running up the stairs on the tower (they circle the interior wall), but found that he shouldn't have, as it was much longer than going a bit farther to the ladders up to the platform.

 

Highlights:

 

- My sergeant failed his ammo roll for his bolter on the first round.  He then used his plasma pistol for a couple of rounds, tagging an ork at the top of a ladder, failing to wound but knocking him off for a 5 inch fall... which also failed to wound. And then he failed the ammo test for that as well.  He ended up charging the orks that made it to the top level, winning 2 separate combats (by 1 each) and taking out the downed rockit as well.

 

- My being excited when the rokkit ork got to the top of the ladder, I expected to be able to charge the ork with 5 attacks from my vet with frenzy.  Instead, the ork hit with his rokkit and knocked my vet off the platform.  The next turn, the ork took out my flamer guy... the 2nd time that has happened in the 1/2 dozen games we've played.  Neither +1 T or carapace doesn't help against a rokkit, unfortunately.

 

- My grenade launcher catching his nob and 2 boys with a grenade and taking down the 2 boys.  He later hit his big shoota with a krak grenade, taking him out of action with 3 "flesh wound" results (on top of the one the ork already had).

 

- Except for with my sarge, when the orks got into melee, it hurt... I lost my plasma gunner and one of my carapace hotshots that way.  Incidentally, my plasma gunner also would have run out of ammo but for his ammo hound skill.

 

Eventually, with both of us having 6 guys down or out, he finally had to start taking bottle rolls, which he made the first round thanks to the reroll from his nob's iron will, the second round with his nob down (due to a krak grenade from the grenade launcher) from good rolls, then the 3rd round, despite getting his nob back up with a flesh wound, from rolling a 9 then rerolling a nine.

 

What a meat grinder.

 

Here's a pic of the orks going up the tower - shows how it was actually the long way up...

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a396/Dr_Ruminahui/Battle%20Report%201/IMG_1366_zpsisw60cjv.jpg

These were the two downed by the grenade launcher... one then crawled to the bottom of the ladder up to the ring, then went out of action.

 

For my friend, the wound rolls were kind for him - 2 "what doesn't kill you" (1 on a youff, which is a bit of a waste), some hatred's and 1 captured.  For me, my plasma gunner got frenzy, and my grenade launcher, flamer and carapace shotgunner all got captured (so, all 3 of my arbites) - I traded my grenade launcher for his captured guy, but will need to try to rescue the other 2.

 

I gave my advancement to my sarge, due to how ace he'd been in melee, and rolled the Iron Will skill, which is about the best thing I could have gotten.

 

As he failed to rescue his youff, I got an extra 100 credits... which I really wished I could save for when I fail to save my two guys and need to buy some replacements.   As that isn't allowed, I bought my hotshot lasgunners and my plasmagunner telescopic sights, and got some more frag grenades.  Oh, and I upgraded my chaisword guy to have carapace, so I could use this model:

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a396/Dr_Ruminahui/Arbites/IMG_1340_zpsiodysw1o.jpg

 

So, lots of fun, but we only got one battle in instead of our usual two as it was a real drawn out nail biter.  One thing I did learn was that carapace makes it hard to spot attackers on rescue/raid missions, and that it doesn't really help in melee when outclassed - the enemy is getting enough hits on you, only one of which needs to get through, to make any armour protection kind of moot.

 

Inquisitor Psychologis Ruminahui

Edited June 5, 2017 by Dr_Ruminahui

[CommodusXIII]

I played my second and third games last weekend, and they went much better.

 

Game #2 was Ambush against the Tyranid kill team.  One of his three Warriors was out of action from the last game, so we decided he could be the hunter.  At the end of the game, three of my Arbites were taken out of action but he bottled out when both of his remaining Warriors were taken down to a single wound each.

 

My grenade launcher specialist was captured, so I opted to run the Rescue mission immediately afterwards.  This time, I had a surplus of caches so I took my Ogryn with me.  I gambled and lost, raising the alarm earlier than I'd hoped.  The Ogryn ran up and untied the captive, who was immediately downed by a Venom Cannon shot.  The Orgryn failed his break test and started sprinting towards the board edge.  Another fire team of three Arbites tried to cover him, but one was also taken down and the other two broke themselves.  Since the captive was technically rescued, I bottled out and took my chances with the injury table.  Everyone's OK!

 

All-in-all, this was quite a bit more fun than that first debacle.  I've come to two conclusions:

1. I really enjoy shotguns with red-dot sights.  i was stymied by their range in the first game, but this time I managed to get into a sweet spot and chip off a large number of wounds in a short period of time.
2. I haven't managed to pass a single break test, so I'm looking into conversion options for a Commissar.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Glad to hear your more recent games went better, Commodus.

 

Which faction of guard are you playing?  If break tests are a problem, try to give some advances to your leader allowing him to roll on the ferocity chart and hopefully get iron will.

 

Inquisitor Psychologis Ruminahui

[CommodusXIII]

I'm running my Arbites as Steel Legion.  It was something of a snap decision, as I didn't notice that Guard had different Regiments until I was working through the after-game activities of the first match.  I'll have to remember that for this week's game.