Returning - First Couple of Games in 10th

[horushoruseverywhere]

Hello there, lads.

 

I've been out of the hobby for ten years, before that I was in the hobby for a good ten years also. I think I played my last game when seventh season came around. Life sorta happend, put everything in boxes and did other things, among them education and starting to pay my own rent. And after moving two or three times, telling myself every time that I moved I'd start sorting my Warhammer stuff in the basement, finally my hand was forced in a way; had some moisture coming up through the cellar walls. An old building.

 

But architectural problems aside, in the attempt to ascertain what's still alive/usable from the old collection, I ended up putting together unopened boxes / decked out old models with bits from the WG Termi and Grey Hunter box I got the other week because clearly I was trying to clean up and not make the pile bigger? Anyway.

 

Since I quit before Primaris models ever came out, I don't wanna mix my old wolves with new models, Ragnar excluded. I've set up a couple of starter games into 10th edition at a local club. My first match is gonna be on Monday. I got no idea what my opponent is bringing, he knows I'm a returning 'veteran,', so it's not like I gotta relearn the basic concept of the game.

 

I'd love some thoughts on my list and I'd be happy to repay any advice with a little run-down of the match.

 

Ragnar

leading 10 Blood Claws [2 Flamers; PL with Fist and Plasma]

riding in a Land Raider Phobos

 

WGBL [TDA, Stormbolter, Fist, Bolter Discipline]

leading 10 WGTDA [2x CML, everybody's got a Bolter and Fist/Hammer]

 

5 Grey Hunters [2x Plasma Gun, 1x Plasma Pistol, Chainswords; PL with Fist]

led by a WGPL [TDA, Chainfist, Assault Cannon]

 

5 Grey Hunters [2x Plasma Gun, 1x Plasma Pistol, Chainswords; PL with Fist]

led by a WGPL [TDA, Chainfist, Assault Cannon]

 

Attack Bike [Multimelta]

Attack Bike [Multimelta]

 

That comes to 1320, so it'd be a perfect fit to include Bjorn. I guess I'm low on the anti-armour anyway. The brick of terminators is a lot of points in one place, so I was wondering if it wouldn't make sense to double down even further and add a Captain in TDA for the CP magicks and for the FNP of the WGBL to kick in.

But that would mean no Bjorn. I could also not use the WGPLs on the Grey Hunters to save some points there, but it feels like they're quite a steal for 40 points and getting some assault cannons in there.

 

That's my post, half an army list, half a life story.

 

Cheers.

 

 

[Apokalypsi]

If you are wanting more anti-tank, go for a full squad of Long Fangs. The list would be 1500pts on the nose then. Bjorn is always a good option. Another good option might be splitting the WGTDA into two 5-man squads and add another WGBL to the second squad. That would give you more field coverage.

 

Regardless of how you go, we're glad to have you back!

Edited September 25, 2023 by Apokalypsi

[horushoruseverywhere]

Thank you!

 

I ended up going with a TDA Captain, let's call him a Wolf Lord. Cause I have not yet gotten a feel for stratagems and battle tactics myself, it felt like it'd give more of a comfort zone in regards to CP and trying stuff out. Also getting the FNP from the WGBL for other characters in the unit didn't get wasted that way. The remaining points, I grabbed a pack of three bikers. Two melta and a fist. Maybe that should have been another attack bike and a couple of Fenrisian wolves instead.

 

Anyway.

 

The first game tonight was 1500 points versus Grey Knights; the vibe on my end was mostly to get a feel for things, see how the missions play out and all that. It certainly felt a lot more strategic and objective-focused. Do you even table people anymore? Maybe that was an especially highlighted observation, since the guy had a lot of teleporting units that never seemed to present a static front.

 

He ran:

 

Libby leading 5 Paladins [Enhancement to teleport in reaction to shoot/charge - or some such]

Libby leading 5 Paladins

 

10 Terminators with an OC banner and an Apothecary

5 Strike Squad

5 Strike Squad

5 Strike Squad with the teleport backpacks

 

Dude was really nice and took his time to explain what's important and what his units can do. Overall a pleasure and never any gotcha-moments or attempts to one-up for a quick victory. I'm not super firm on the mission names yet, so basically I'll try to keep it simple. We deployed along the short table edges which gave a lot of distance between our armies but also a boxed in middle. The terrain was pretty mirrored, with three LOS blocking ruins in each deployment zone and a couple of craters and boxes in the middle. I had an objective in the center ruin of my deployment, so did he. Three objectives were in a central line across the middle of the board.

 

I went first. Left flank had a pack of Hunters, the Raider with Ragnar and Claws between two ruins, the Wolfguard in the basement of the central ruin and another pack of hunters right behind, plasma gun and assault cannon on the WGPL on the balcony for scenic shots. The right flank was left to its own devices, the Attack Bikes and Swift Claws screened my backline, thanks to his rundown of the teleport magicks.

 

His deployment had a scouting Strike Squad trying to get behind a ruin on my left. A central block of Terminators and Strike Squad opposing my Wolfguard brick in the center. And the teleporter guys with a fall back and shoot ability on the right. Overall he didn't bring any cars, so not grabbing the Long Fangs proved not a disaster.

In editions past I would have just rushed forward, trying to put a lot of pressure on him, but with his ability to just move all over the map with up to two units a turn, I tried my best to secure my deployment zone.

 

Turn 1 - SW

Hunters on the left advance and manage to see the Strike Squad on the left. Assault Cannon and plasma kill one. Three boltguns kill another one. As you do. Attack Bike on the left moves up a little to shoot 24" at the Strike Squad, only for me to realize MMs are now 18". Oh well. The bikes fan out a little to keep my left and center deployment secure with the help of the central Hunters. The WG squad crashes through a wall and I manage to see a couple of GKs of the hurt Strike Squad. The CMLs and a couple of bolters gun the rest down. Ragnar rolls up, but stays inside. The Godhammers, which feel really :cuss:ing good, snipe two GK Terminators on the other side of the central ruin that were just visible.

The mission cards, which I'm still trying to really absorb, weren't do-able on my turn.

 

Turn 1 - GK

He drew investigate signals, so the remaining Strike Squad and the Interceptors (I think?) went to the corners, to investigate. The Terminators walked around the left of his central ruin, the Paladins with the Librarian around the right. The Apothecary brought a Terminators back and he fired some shots at my Wolfguard. The Psicannons or whatever it was bounced off the WGBL with the FNP. Hope that wasn't illegal, to put the saved on him. Dude didn't think it was illegal.

Big moment for me was when the Libby tried to Vortex of Doom a couple of WGs and blew himself up by rolling a one followed by a six. Runic talismans of old, I guess. One Paladin unit was either in reserve or behind one of the walls. I don't remember.

 

Turn 2 - SW

I resist Ragnar and the Blood Claws, they stay inside. I oath the Terminators and advance my Wolfguard. I pop Devastator Doctrine to get them all in rapid fire range. I think I drew signals too, and killing units on objectives -- which  I couldn't. So the attack bikes zoomed into the corners to score, bikes kept on shuffling in the backline.

Wolfguard and the Leaders gun down half the terminators with bolter drill. Lethal hits and sustained hits is kinda disgusting. I think I did like 35 wounds. Couple of more shots from the central Grey Hunters, overcharging plasma guns (nobody died) -- four terminators left. No charges since I mostly advanced all my units.

 

Turn 2 - GK

The Incepts teleport out of their corner and attack the lone bike on the right. I pass my armour saves. The Paladin squads and Terminators walk up to the middle of the board which the Wolfguard had called theirs in my last turn. I overwatched as a reaction to the terminators' movement and killed two more. Two left, counting the revive. The deepstriking unit of Paladins failed the charge on the Wolfguard despite a command rerolll and the Libby-less squad attack. The Lord ate a couple of wounds, I lost two WG. He used a strat that gave him devastating wounds. I killed all but one in the backswing, but I gotta say. They had minus one to wound if the strengt is higher than their toughness, so even with 20 fist attacks or so I only wounded on fours. And even then it's not really very killy with fists at AP2. Or that's what it feels like anyway.

 

Turn 3 - SW

Time was running out a bit, so we said we'd do one more turn each. I no doubt slowed things down with a lack of experience in the new edition, but the guy was a chap about it. I disembarked Ragnar and the Blood Claws to get rid of the last two Terminators. Ragnar's 10 or 11 attacks did all, horrible roll. But the guys died anyway to the fist and the chainswords. The Captain popped tactical doctrine to fall back, shoot the big squad of Paladins, which I oathed, to then charge them -- he teleported into reserves with a CP. so the lonely Paladin left over from melee was gunned down. The Raider on the left took a few pot shots at the Interceptor Squad and that was it. I had my home objective, the central one, and the left one. He had his home and the right one.

 

Turn 3 - GK

He brings his unit from the teleportarium, plops them behind the Wolfguard to make a charge that would put him in a position in which he could get more models on the objective. He shoots a WG, but fails the charge. At that point we call it and I think it's like 27 to 24 in my favour. If he had made the charge, it would still have depended on how well he could have rolled. I still think he would have needed a lot of hard rolls to really wrestle all my terminators down with his five or-so paladins.

 

I don't know how much shenanigans he could have pulled in the last two turns, but I feel his paladins would have died to Ragnar, the Raider, and two Grey Hunter squads. Question is, I guess, how much points he could have scored, and how fast I could have yeeted up my bikes to maybe grab some more secondaries. I really don't know, it's gonna take a couple of games to get a feel for that.

 

Picture: That's a Land Raider Phobos, can't you tell? The other one is in another box. This was like end of turn one - GK; Ragnar waiting his turn, Wolfguard about to walk up and unleash some bolts after grouping around the central objective (the statue).

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by horushoruseverywhere

[Rune Priest Jbickb]

11 hours ago, horushoruseverywhere said:

It certainly felt a lot more strategic and objective-focused. Do you even table people anymore

 

Haha not as easy as it used to be to do so that's for sure. And honestly it is technically possible to table someone and still lose. Though it is unlikely as you get to play out the turns left and you should be able to score well unopposed. But the game is definitely "play the objectives" not "kill the stuff" these days. 

 

Sounds like a good intro game, glad you had a good opponent for jumping in

[Apokalypsi]

15 hours ago, horushoruseverywhere said:

Do you even table people anymore?

You actually do! Per pg60 in the core rules under Determine Victor, "If, at the end of the battle, one army has been destroyed, the player commanding the opposing army is the victor. Otherwise, the player with the most Victory points is the victor (in the case of a tie, the battle is a draw)."

 

One mistake I noticed that will be good to know in future games, You can't take wounds on a character/leader before the unit it's attached to is eliminated (pg 39 in the Leader section). So the FNP from the WGBL is more to protect the characters from Precision attacks and such.

 

Sounds like you had an awesome learning experience with a great opponent! Hopefully you enjoyed yourself and will stay this edition.

[DemonGSides]

Victor is determind by the mission; tabling someone doesn't automatically achieve victory, except for in the singular mission provided in the big rule book, Only War.

[Apokalypsi]

3 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

Victor is determined by the mission; tabling someone doesn't automatically achieve victory, except for in the singular mission provided in the big rule book, Only War.

Wow, you're right. I've been reading that wrong the whole time. Only War is the only one where you can table your opponent.

[horushoruseverywhere]

Thanks for catching that bit with FNP and leaders, I wasn't sure myself and my opponent didn't think it was illegal. But it feels more honest, I suppose. 

 

In regards to tabling people, I guess I said a bit rhetorically in response to feeling that from my memory, in the past, the game was a lot more static. You knew were your opponent was, you knew where you had to go. And in the end, you'd kill them. In later editions you might have killed them on an objective marker, but you killed them all the same. 

 

This Edition with the screening and random nature of which secondary objective might pop up, it feels you're not so much trying to hit your opponent with that backbreaking attack, rather you try to deny areas, as to not expose yourself by stretching out. Or maybe that's just my first impression which wasn't helped by the opponent's ability to teleport all over. 

[DemonGSides]

1 hour ago, Apokalypsi said:

Wow, you're right. I've been reading that wrong the whole time. Only War is the only one where you can table your opponent.

It almost bit me on the ass in one of my earliest 10th games using the Leviathan Deck.  I was just like "Lemme murder this army and move on." cuz it was relatively low model count.  Nuh uh.  Gotta play for those points!

[horushoruseverywhere]

So, I've got two more games coming up. 500 points on Saturday against Khârn and the Boys, and 1000 points on Monday against Blood Angels. Still trying to reconnect to the local gaming scene, so I'm taking what I can get, even though I prefer the games 1500+.

 

For the game against World Eaters, I want to keep it pretty basic and have a strong infantry core.

 

Ragnar leading 10 Claws with 2 Flamers, 1 Fist/PP

WGPL in TDA, Cyclone/Bolter/Fist leading 5 Hunters with 2 Plasma Guns, Plasma Pistol, Fists, Chainswords and Bolters where they fit

WGPL in TDA, Cyclone/Bolter/Fist leading 5 Hunters with 2 Plasma Guns, Plasma Pistol, Fists, Chainswords and Bolters where they fit

 

That's like 480. I could remove one of the WGPLs in TDA to get two in PA, have one of them lead the claws, for that added punch, one of them in the Hunters, which then I'd throw forward alongside the Claws.

But I feel like I'd really miss the second cyclone? To the point where I'd much rather have the twenty points left over.

 

Or I could rebase an old wolf model and run it as a cyberwolf? But are they even worth it? Can they perform actions?

 

 

Against the Blood Angels, I'd keep the core of the list and add:

 

Vindicator

10 Blood Claws

Bjorn

 

[Apokalypsi]

So, yes, a cyberwolf can perform actions. Anything can this edition unless it says it can't. Unfortunately, you HAVE to attach it to Fenrisian Wolves. You can't run it solo anymore.

[horushoruseverywhere]

That's good to know, thank you.

 

I ended up bringing two TDA WGPLs on the Hunters to the 500 points game, twenty points short. What can you do?

 

Had called the local gaming club for a tour of the facilities and an introduction game. There might have been a misunderstanding, cause I ended up in a 500 points game against one of the guy's kids, moderated by one of the guys. The step by step explanation of the very basics slowed us down quite a bit, but sometimes you gotta be a good sport. And the kid showed me his collection of Orks after the game was cut short; our master of ceremony had to leave after two hours or so.

 

No need to get into details, other than it being a game versus Death Guard. That kid's gonna be a God of War, completely rolling like bloody-handed Khaine. Grey Hunters shoved forwards on the flanks, Ragnar and the Claws in the middle. Some 20 cultists, 40-60 plague zombies and Typhus to chew through. Turn two had two units of plagues run into a unit of hunters and they killed four, while the hunters killed one. Four powerfist hits resulted in one wound, both of which the kid FnP'd.

Failed the Battle Shock too, good thing for the reroll.

 

Not to brag or anything, but we called it a draw.

 

I like it there, I'm gonna join. A converted appartment with a couple of tables, the right kind of setting to get back into gaming on the regular.

 

Here's a question that came up: One of the plague units charged the Grey Hunters, they were pretty close and frontally positioned. Then MC instructed his padawan to swing around the Hunter's flank. (He'd rolled a charge distance of 11 inches.) By the end of it, a couple of Hunters in the front hadn't been engaged b2b, but it rather looked like a huge plume of plague zombie only in b2b with the two hunters on the very right. From my understanding of the rules, he would have had to engage the hunters in the front? Not necessarily first, but after the guys that went around the flank could no longer reach anybody in b2b there? Not that you have to move directly toward the closest opponent this edition, you can do that walk around, but you still gotta create max b2b?

And then as a follow up, unit coherency is broken for the charge move, do you

- charge with model A, then charge/put B in coherency with A, before charging with model C, and so on [...]

- or do you charge, break coherency where-and-whenever, and are fine as long as every model is coherency at the end of the charge move?

 

I hope that made sense.

[Apokalypsi]

For charging, you do not HAVE to end on the same side that you charged from. The unit must end within engagement range (within 1"), but MUST be within b2b as much as possible. Same is true for piling in. as you said, you have to create MAX b2b.

 

For coherency, the unit must end the charge in coherency. So it's not checked until after all models have moved. Otherwise, the charge fails.

[horushoruseverywhere]

That's what I thought, thank you. It's one thing to read the rules after not having played for ten years, but it's all coming back. I've had a couple of games already and it's been good times. One match at 2k versus World Eaters, in which the Wulfen performed madly. And another game against Orks which was only won by one point scored in the last turn, and only cause I drew some kill point secondaries.

 

I really like Wulfen with the shields, and to my shame, I gotta say: I've never been a fan of Björn in ANY edition because dreadnoughts are just a rich man's TDA. But I've given him two chances and he's :cuss:ing performed every single time.