Shadow War experiences so far

[Ordo Xenos Inquisitor]

 

Story of my Deathwatch Kill Team so far:

 

The Deathwatch received orders from their commanding officer to act as the clean up crew and pick up items that can be salvaged back at their Watch Fortress. Unbeknownst to the them the Eldar were eager to take them back as some of the technology used was of Eldar origin and the fact that the mon-keigh are seizing their hands on them disgusts them to their very core. The Deathwatch held their ground, unfortunately, the Eldar got to the equipment first and escaped with one casualty:  Brother Zephon of the Imperial Fists as he bravely tried to get the last of the salvage but was taken down by the enemy Exarch. He was recovered, of course. However, he harbors a great grudge against the Exarch that bested him. And he makes an oath of moment to ensure that when they next meet, the Exarch will die. Sargeant Raziel appreciated his newfound resolve and let him borrow his chainsword and pistol to see if that resolve can give him strength in the next mission. 

 

[Dragonlover]

So I played my third game and lost, with four or six Chaos Marines taken out. On the plus side they all recovered, with a couple of frenzy results being the worst of it. My autocannon guy got +1 Toughness, and I bought three Cultists with autoguns as cannon fodder.

 

There are several things that bug me about the rules for this game, to the point I may not take part in future campaigns, but I'll see how it goes now I have meatshields.

 

Dragonlover

[Dr_Ruminahui]

No gaming this WE, but thought I should show you guys some newly painted terrain that will predominantly be for SWA.

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a396/Dr_Ruminahui/Terrain/IMG_1385_zpswcustun6.jpg

 

I'm pretty happy with it.

 

It's meant to go along with a water tower I had previously built out of a gum ball machine.  The tower is a fair bit more reddish, but otherwise they match pretty well.

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a396/Dr_Ruminahui/Terrain/IMG_1368_zpsohdpge7u.jpg

 

Inquisitor Psychologis Ruminahui

[Chaplain Raeven]

For anyone that hasn't managed to snatch a copy of the boxed game, Hexy makes some very nice markers & tokens for Shadow War.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Played 3 games against my friend's orks last night, wrapping up our 2-man campaign.  I, as always, played my Imperial Guard killteam, which by now is all in carapace and most have hotshot lasguns with telescopic sights and have frag grenades - in other words, I've maxed out may gang, have 3 specialists (one grenade launcher with both types, one plasma gun and one flamer).

 

Unfortunately, last game 2 of my guys (my flamer guy and a guy with a shotgun) were captured.

 

First game was rescue.  I had 4 would-be rescuers, my friend had 8 or so defenders (his yoofs, nob, rokkit and big shoota).  I snuck forward, trying to get good lines of sight for my opening round.  Unfortunately, my opening round of shooting was very bad, taking one ork and pinning another (despite it falling 9 inches).  His downed ork quickly got up with a flesh wound, and he was able to down two of my guys, at which point I withdrew.

 

My close combat arbite (who held off 2 orks in melee) got the cat fall skill, and I used my 100 points to buy a new guy with carapace and a shotgun.  My friend bought 4 yoofs to bring his band to 20 models.

 

 

Second game was hit-and-run, with me rolling (hidden from my opponent) that I needed to take his nob out of action.  I got 5 attackers, and I don't remember how many defenders my friend had, as it ended up being irrelevant.  He placed his nob and another ork kind of seperated from the rest (to be truthful, everything was kind of separated from each other, as he spread his models all over the battlefield).  I was able to find 2 tiny deployment areas (I had to be 12" away from his models) in the corners by the nob.

 

The fIrst turn went well - I was able to get all my guys into range and LOS, and took both the nob and the boy down.  Unfortunately, however, my friend then got 4 reinforcements on the table edge by all my models, and charged all my models (1 ork charged two guys), taking out 4 of them.  I voluntarily bottled my next turn.

 

Two models (my plasma gun and close combat arbite) were out for the next game, with one getting frenzy (which he already had) and the other getting hatred.  My grenade launcher, who held off an ork in melee, got the survivor promotion.

 

 

Third game was a straight up fight... by with 8 models versus his 20, I knew I was in a tough spot.  As such, I chose the short table edge with some pipes for cover, so I could make a gun line and have the orks come the long way across the table without much cover.

 

I did manage to take 5 orks down, forcing my opponent to take bottle checks, but as the nob had a reroll from iron will, I wasn't likely to win that way.  I knew things were pretty much over when his nob and a mob of about 5 orks were close to charge range, and his rokkit took out my grenade launcher (over the course of the game, my friend made a statistically unlikely number target number 8 shots).  I did manage to put one wound on the nob, but needed another to take him down.

 

In the end, the orks downed about half of my team with shooting, with the nob making it into combat and taking out one more.  Even with 2 of my team getting back up with fleshwounds on the my second last turn, the writing was on the wall and I threw in the towel.

 

Still, it was a fun game, with some entertaining moments:

 

- his nob took out one his yoofs by shooting him in the back the head.

- after an entire campaign with no guns exploding, we had 2 in the final turns.  First, my sarge had his plasma pistol blow up when he wounded the nob, but it failed to wound him.  Then, the yoof with the nob who hadn't been shot in the head had his slugga blow up, taking him out of action.

- a yoof ran behind a baracade, hoping to shoot over it.  No such luck - if he'd been a boy, he would have been tall enough, but my friend used gorka morka orks for his yoofs, which are a fair bit smaller.

- for the one and only time in the campaign, an ork shot at my team needing only a 4+ to hit... I think he did so, but my carapace saved me, about the only time in the whole campaign (well, second time - it saved me in melee once) that it actually made a difference.

 

After that game, my friend would have had at least 15 promethium, to my 11.  I know by the rules he needed to win 1 more game to win the campaign, but it was pretty much a forgone conclusion so we called the campaign there.  My take aways:

 

1.  I need friends who roll worse.  The number of 8+ shots my friend made, and the number of wounded orks he had get back up with flesh wounds was statistically improbable. :)

 

2.  Boys before toys.  IG teams are strong in the early game, but as soon as they get outnumbered they really struggle.  Didn't help that at the end of the campaign, when my friend was still buying more orks for his team, I was basically forced to put points into things that really didn't give much value... given the choice between another guy with a lasgun, or carapace on 4 guys, the right call is the extra guy... and this gets even worse when forced to take more marginal gear like sights or frag grenades.

 

3.  The game is fun, but the factions certainly aren't ballanced - though it might be better in a campaign with more players.

 

 

Anyway, those are likely to be my last games in a while (my friend and I are likely to play 8th ed instead when we game together), but I look forward to reading the stories of your own battles - and I will continue to post my SW:A terrain here as I paint it. :)

 

Inquisitor Psychologis Ruminahui 

[Sister Alessia]

Evening all! I just played my 4th game of Shadow war, this time against the Inquisition. I feel really bad, but I tabled my opponent, without taking any casualties 

He just couldn't deal with power armour and lots of sustained fire storm bolters. It did feel really good to get my heavy flamer, cooking heretics like the good old days. Took out 3 acolytes in one turn. How I miss templates :)

 

Does anybody have any advice for Inquisition teams? They seem really week compared to the others.

[NTaW]

What was the Inquisition list? On paper I always thought they looked pretty good.

[Sister Alessia]

He was running:

Inquisitor: Power Armour, Bolter, Power Sword

Crusader: Power sword, Storm Shield

Acolyte: Sniper

3XAcolyte: Shotguns

1XAcolyte: Auto pistol, Chainsword

I can't remember the specifics, but he had some red dot sights.

 

He is a really good player too. He nearly always beats me.

[Hod]

He was running:

Inquisitor: Power Armour, Bolter, Power Sword

Crusader: Power sword, Storm Shield

Acolyte: Sniper

3XAcolyte: Shotguns

1XAcolyte: Auto pistol, Chainsword

I can't remember the specifics, but he had some red dot sights.

 

He is a really good player too. He nearly always beats me.

 

I'm no expert, but I'd say the Inquisition team problem is that the Acolytes don't have any good weapons (besides the Sniper rifle). IMO all the Acolytes should be running Storm Bolters with a few having Plasma pistols for the multiple wound guys. The Acolytes strength is the range of good guns they can take, so you need to take advantage of that and get them to be dangerous and not just a meat shield.  

[Lysimachus]

Agreed. Acolytes given the +1BS, Sniper Rifles with toxic rounds, plus RDS and photo visors when you have the points, are very nasty! Given that these aren't limited to Specialist slots, Inq can bring very capable shooty warbands to the tt.

[Rangeltoft]

(Repost from offical rules forum)

Hello!

 

As I have been playing Shadow War Armageddon with a friend, a few rules questions has come up:

 

- The Entrance/Promethium tank - Can they be destroyed by shooting at them?

 

- When you charge a Sentry, does the alarm go off once you are inside thier iniativ value?

 

- Armour modifiers in close combat, lets say we have a Scout Sergeant with a combat blade, now from what  I understand the armour mod will be -1 for S4. How does that work with lets say a power sword, would the mod be -3 as per the weapon profile or would it be a totalt of -5 due to the weapon aswell as the strenght bonus? Same thing goes for Power Maul, do you get the armour mod for strenght or do the enemy get full armour?

 

- Does camo gear effect the short range on the weapons? lets say I have a laspistol and that Im inside 8", do I get the +1 to hit or do I need to be inside 4"?

 

These are just the ones that came up in my head atm, more will surely follow.

 

/Cheers Rangeltoft

[NTaW]

He was running:

Inquisitor: Power Armour, Bolter, Power Sword

Crusader: Power sword, Storm Shield

Acolyte: Sniper

3XAcolyte: Shotguns

1XAcolyte: Auto pistol, Chainsword

I can't remember the specifics, but he had some red dot sights.

 

He is a really good player too. He nearly always beats me.

As others have pointed out, stormbolters and sniper rifles are a good way to go. Two snipers for overlapping fields of fire and as many stormbolter wielding Acolytes as points allow accompanying the Inquisitor about the board is how I would play them.

 

As much as I love the idea of a Crusader, as well as the modeling opportunity, they don't seem quite worth their points unless maybe you under equip them at first and build them up over a campaign.

 

EDIT: Just tossed a list together of what I suggested,

 

Inquisitor w. power armour, bolt pistol, power sword

 

2x Acolytes w. sniper rifles

 

5x Acolytes w. stormbolters

 

All Acolytes take the BS origin bonus. Upgrade away after the first match, add a Crusader later if you want though you would have to burn a cache to get the requisite points.

Edited July 1, 2017 by NTaW

[Sister Alessia]

Thank you so much for the tips and list, Ntaw and Lysi! I will pass all your advice on. As nice as it is to win, Im more interested in a close fight and everyone having fun. :)

[Commander Dawnstar]

So tonight I finally had my first game of Shadow Wars ... and pretty much everything went wrong, albeit in a tame fashion.

• My opponent made two 6++ Red Dot saves
• My Heavy Bolter ran out of ammo on the first shot of five
• I failed two tests at Leadership 8 and bottled it at the first time of asking

Not exactly the best introduction but I suppose it's always good to get all the bad luck out of your system ASAP.

[battle captain corpus]

What are everyone's experiences running Chaos renegade/marine warbands?

I have potentially a couple of games lined up and have a small Black Legion force to use...mostly as its the only one painted -wince-

Anyway...the force is left over from a small foray into Chaos from a couple of years back, so I wont be changing the line up at all but I do appreciate any general feedback from other players of the Dark Four.

 

BCC

[Lysimachus]

What are everyone's experiences running Chaos renegade/marine warbands?

I have potentially a couple of games lined up and have a small Black Legion force to use...mostly as its the only one painted -wince-

Anyway...the force is left over from a small foray into Chaos from a couple of years back, so I wont be changing the line up at all but I do appreciate any general feedback from other players of the Dark Four.

 

BCC

I haven't actually run them yet myself, just planned out a starting warband. What I've seen though suggests that low numbers can be an issue for them so meat-shield cultists are very important. Although the Marines armour save and toughness are good - so you aren't likely to get as many injuries - it's not hard for a KT with lots of members (Orks/GSC) to pin them in place with lots of shots, which stops you shooting back and they can easily outmanoeuvre you for the win.

 

If I ever get round to house ruling it, I'd actually be inclined to give Astartes in PA the rule that makes them immune to pinning, as a kind of ATSKNF equivalent (or at least a chance of it, maybe a 4+ roll to ignore pinning?)

Edited October 20, 2017 by Lysimachus