My First 8th ED Game - not what I was expecting

[PhilB]

Hey Everyone,

Had my first 8th ed game on the weekend. I had planned to do up a proper write up with pictures etc but it was such a crushing game (due to a massive tactical plunder on my opponent's behalf) that we only played two battle rounds, so I didn't bother.

Anyway, we played 'Big Guns Never Tire' Eternal War. My opponent chose Hammer & Anvil deployment, his side & also got to go first.
Just on deployment, it's pretty cool that you can delay putting units on the board during deployment if you've got units to put in reserve. Four times that game I got to say "xyz is being setup in the teleportarium chamber" lol.

We decided in advance to both use a Patrol Detachment and 1,850 points as we figured it would make us both use a lot of different things and learn how they work, my list below;

Belial - SB & sword
TDA Lib - SB & force staff
2 x DWTS - SBs, PFs, a/cannon & 1 c/fist
2 x 'Speeders - HB & TML
2 x Tact Sqds - 6 guys with plasma gun & plasma pistol
1 x Scout Sqd - missile launcher & snipers
2 x R/Backs - Twin HB & SB
2 x Predators - AC, HBs & SB

His list below;

Archon
Urien Rakarth
Sslyths - 3 thingys
Grotesques - 4 thingys
2 x Warrior Sqs - 10 guys each with dark lance & blaster
3 x Raiders - dark lances
1 x Venom - 2 splinter cannons
1 x Scourges Sqd - 5 guys with 4 blasters
1 x Mandrakes Sqd - 5 guys (I think)
1 x Talos Brood (?) - 2 Talos with haywire

1 x Ravager - triple dark lances

He goes first and moves everything forward, somehow without even considering it I've managed to spread my units out enough to stop his deep striking Mandrakes & Scourges getting into any kind of good position. All the kings’ blasters and all the kings’ dark lances weren't enough to pop anything and I'm mostly unscathed with only one Predator brought down to its next wound bracket (now hitting on 4s in shooting). This was mostly from the haywire on the Talos, which continues to be quite effective in 8th edition.

I had originally planned to 'port in my Deathwing on his side of the board to take and hold the objectives over there but I was pretty worried about the 2 melee units right (Gros with Urien & Sslyths with the Archon) in front my lines so decided to drop them in front of my Tacts & Preds. After the smoke cleared in my shooting phase all the Scourges, Mandrakes, the Gro's Raider & the Sslyths' Venom was gone and my Scouts even managed to slap a mortal wound onto Urien. Enter the massive tactical plunder from my opponent, when the Venom & Raider bit it he disembarked both their contents closer to my terminators, oh boy! So naturally Belial, the Librarian & 2 squads of the DA's 1st company barrelled right in there. After that initial assault only the Archon, Urien & 1 Ssyth was left standing. That command bubble from Belial was utterly amazing allowing rerolls both in the shooting phase and assault phase. I've never had shooty (or even assault probably) terminators clear out models like that before! ‘fists are pretty brutal against low model count multi wound units!

Playing out my opponent's second turn, his luck wasn't much better with his shooting removing a couple of tactical marines and plinking some more wounds off the various tanks I had. He charged into my terminators with his two Talos and decided it was a good idea to charge one of his Raiders into one of my Razorbacks then proceeded to hit with the Raider first. After we laughed about 2 tanks duking it out I blew 2 command points to fight with my terminators before his Talos could strike killing one and reducing the other to ~3 wounds, again Belial's command aura proved amazing.

After my second turn the only DE units left on the board was the Archon, Urien (who ate about 12 power/chain fist hits and didn’t take a wound!), a Raider and ~10 warriors. My losses were limited to ~6 Tactical Marines & 1 DW Terminator so we called it a night. It still took us well over 3 hours to do those 2 turns though, so much looking things up!

I have to admit I was pretty concerned going into this fight with how little I was putting on the board, this army in 7th ed was about 1,400 points from memory, the main increases being the R/Backs, Predators & Land Speeders (wow ‘Speeders are expensive in 8th!).

Couple of takeaways from the game;

Predator autocannons (!) – Freaking amazing – T6 transports with a 4+ save must be right in their sweet spot.
Command auras – I’ve said is a few times above, they’re amazing, just flat out the biggest thing that allowed the Deathwing to crush it in shooting and assault.
Storm bolters – rapid fire 2 is pretty good, they can dish out some hurt now hey.
Typhoon missile launchers – they’re a 50 upgrade and I was pretty underwhelmed with them in my first turn, then 1 ‘speeder nailed a Raider from full health with its TML – sexy!
Marines in cover – 2+ save vs small arms, they’re pretty tough now hey.
What psychic phase? – granted I only had 2 psychic phases I only successfully manifested 1 power and was after using a command point to reroll a peril, pretty bad luck.
Heavy bolters – I’m not sure about these weapons, they did do a pretty good job of removing the Mandrakes & Scourges but, yeah, they’re still quite weak.

How you enjoyed this read if you made it this far!

Thanks all.

 

edited for spelling.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Thanks for the report.

I would risk to say that it was "too easy" and other games won't be this easy, but judging by your game report and other games, DA will still have a decent power level and are definately not bottom tier.

[Chaplain Raeven]

Squads wielding 6 plasma rifles will take some getting used. Thanks for the write-up!

[Gillyfish]

Interesting stuff. How did you feel about the game mechanics overall?

[PhilB]

@ Chaplain Lucifer, definitely too easy, but that has nothing to do with the power level of either army. The game was handed to me when my opponent disembarked his models closer to my Deathwing and out of frustration, dumped his deep strikers in a poor position. I'm looking forward to more challenging games from the boys this edition as they were a little inexperienced during 7th and we all always offer each other feedback and advise on how we perceived each others decisions for 15-20mins after each game, so they're learning.

 

@ GreyRAvenC, pardon my condensed listing. That was 2 Tactical Squads of 6 marines each, with 1 plasma gun & 1 plasma pistol per squad. <wink>

 

@ Gillyfish, it's too early for me to say I guess, after 1 game with only 2 battle rounds under my belt I've still not had much exposure to 8th. The turns did flow well and make sense though, with the bulk of time spent looking up weapon and unit stats as they've changed quite a lot.

I really it like how your deep strikers come in at the end of movement phase now though instead of before. I was hoping for some kind of interaction between Ravenwing units getting into position then teleporting in Deathing, but I'll just have to wait to see if they do anything like that when the codex comes out.

Psychic phase is stripped right out and simplified, for the better in my opinion.

The shooting phase is much of a muchness, although army wide split fire is a big improvement and offers a heap more options and tactical flexibility.

To be honest I was surprised at the survivability of my army, chalk that up to the revised to wound table, armour save modifiers and amount of wounds some units have now in 8th.

Combat remains, intricate, I guess. You have to get down and micro manage everything, but it did feel more streamlined than the old inititive step system. Combat also feel a lot more brutal now too, much more punishing than in 7th and getting that charge or burning a stratagem is a big deal!

Then there's morale, at first I was livid there was nothing in the DA rules regarding morale for greenwing on top of 'ATSKNF' but then I realised a lot of the flavour of all the chapters has been stripped back, no doubt they'll do something that captures the stubbornness of our marines when the codex comes out. To be honest though, it you're taking marines in squads of 5 it's not really a big deal anyway.