Tuesday 4 June 2013
6 Nations 40K ETC 2013
So,
On a slight side note from normal Brighton warlords related 40k stuff
I'm the Captain of the Mercenary team 'The Forgotten Legion' for the coming 6 nations ETC in Belfast.
I was asked to find a team for the event as 'Team Wales' could not attend due to being in Dubai on a practice weekend the week before...lucky buggers.
As a small minority of people will know for the 2012 season I played for Team England as pretty much the 1st put forward list. So I invariably played against prey lists designed to get maximum points from me.
To say it was a bit of a rush, challenge to gather a team of 7 other players was certainly true. Though I did not want to dissapoint loads of people. Luckily we had a lot of interest but due to costs issues mainly people dropped out. So thus I did not have to let people down. Luckily...
So The team: Me; Flesh Tearers. Rob Madeley; Necrons. Lee Brown; Grey Knights. James French; Orks. Paul Croghan; Space Wolves & Tau. Chris Dickinson; Tyranids. Michael Pike; Tau & Eldar. Scott Nicholls; Daemons.
Organising has not been that troublesome. As we all got our plane tickets & booked a hostel. So only cost me personally £126 roughly for flight & accomodation
We are all Tournament players & will hopefully not get smoshed each round.
I have done a matrix for each player. This is the norm for ETC style events. Each player gives an indication of how we will expect to do v each list. Red, Yellow, green
Ireland we have our mosts reds though.
Round 1 will be v Northern Ireland. So I shall update after the event to see how we got on & how my games went
Cheers
Peter
Sunday 19 May 2013
Second thoughts on deamons - or how I was wrong
I'm running a 750pts 40k league at our club at the moment, just started last week. It's based on the old 40k in 40 minutes rules with the aim of getting newer players playing lots of games and learning the rules and it seems to be achieving that so far which can only be a good thing. I'm afraid i'm not that great at teaching others the game and playing with lists/in a way that give a good game without throwing a game or crushing someone. Still I had a great game with my first opponent last week. I think i'll try to give an update each week with what i've learnt about the deamons.
I was wrong about the pink horrors. A couple of people made the point in the comments on the last post about the effect of synergy on this unit, getting loads of high strength shots and using heralds to buff up the unit. I ran a unit of 12 without a herald or anything else. But even that actually performed well. As much as the possibility of giving a feel no pain save is annoying, the possibility of doing an extra d3 wounds no saves allowed when they fail the toughness test is well worth it. They are a complicated unit in terms of rules and if this happens then and if that happens then, but when i get my head fully around them I think i'll enjoy using them.
As others have been saying on the internet (specific I know!) flesh hounds seem a great unit. They are fast because of their beast status and fleet. The fleet rule really makes you confident of making a charge. I ran them with a herald on juggernaught with the locus that gives the unit hatred. To cut a long story short they killed everything they came into contact with and the herald was tough enough to split off on his own and attack small units. Although they don't have low AP attacks, they get a good number and with hatred and furious charge they do well enough wounds to overcome good saving throws.
Plaguebearers were good as I expected them to be with a 3+ cover from shooting when behind cover. I've not seen others mention this but when within 8 inches of an enemy their defensive grenades mean that they get stealth as well as shrouded meaning a 4+ cover save in the open when within 8 inches!
I love the 5+ invulnerable save. I know this has been said before but it means that 33% of ALL damage will simply disappear. I used to use these deamons in fantasy and always felt bad when I rolled those 5s and 6s for the ward save. Now I think there is something more important than the merely statistical theoryhammer aspects of how many fewer wounds you will take as a result. There is I think a psychological factor which can demoralise your opponent. A 5+ feels to people like it really should fail more often than not whereas in reality it will pass 1 out of 3 times. Because there is nothing your opponent can do about your 5+ invulnerable save every time that 5 or 6 comes up it's noticed, it feels like a cheat, it's frustrating. People start feeling like they just can't kill your stuff and it puts them off their game. I think the value of the 5+ invulnerable is as much it's effect on your opponent as the amount of models you save by having it.
There's my latest thoughts on the deamons - I'm looking forwards to playing them more specifically using some of the bigger creatures such as the bloodthirster.
What are your experiences of the deamon units?
What do you think is the value of the 5+ save?
I was wrong about the pink horrors. A couple of people made the point in the comments on the last post about the effect of synergy on this unit, getting loads of high strength shots and using heralds to buff up the unit. I ran a unit of 12 without a herald or anything else. But even that actually performed well. As much as the possibility of giving a feel no pain save is annoying, the possibility of doing an extra d3 wounds no saves allowed when they fail the toughness test is well worth it. They are a complicated unit in terms of rules and if this happens then and if that happens then, but when i get my head fully around them I think i'll enjoy using them.
As others have been saying on the internet (specific I know!) flesh hounds seem a great unit. They are fast because of their beast status and fleet. The fleet rule really makes you confident of making a charge. I ran them with a herald on juggernaught with the locus that gives the unit hatred. To cut a long story short they killed everything they came into contact with and the herald was tough enough to split off on his own and attack small units. Although they don't have low AP attacks, they get a good number and with hatred and furious charge they do well enough wounds to overcome good saving throws.
Plaguebearers were good as I expected them to be with a 3+ cover from shooting when behind cover. I've not seen others mention this but when within 8 inches of an enemy their defensive grenades mean that they get stealth as well as shrouded meaning a 4+ cover save in the open when within 8 inches!
I love the 5+ invulnerable save. I know this has been said before but it means that 33% of ALL damage will simply disappear. I used to use these deamons in fantasy and always felt bad when I rolled those 5s and 6s for the ward save. Now I think there is something more important than the merely statistical theoryhammer aspects of how many fewer wounds you will take as a result. There is I think a psychological factor which can demoralise your opponent. A 5+ feels to people like it really should fail more often than not whereas in reality it will pass 1 out of 3 times. Because there is nothing your opponent can do about your 5+ invulnerable save every time that 5 or 6 comes up it's noticed, it feels like a cheat, it's frustrating. People start feeling like they just can't kill your stuff and it puts them off their game. I think the value of the 5+ invulnerable is as much it's effect on your opponent as the amount of models you save by having it.
There's my latest thoughts on the deamons - I'm looking forwards to playing them more specifically using some of the bigger creatures such as the bloodthirster.
What are your experiences of the deamon units?
What do you think is the value of the 5+ save?
Friday 10 May 2013
First Impressions - Chaos Deamons for 40k
So i'm behind the 8 ball on this one, but hey I've only just got round to looking at the new Chaos deamons codex for 40k. It's the first hard back full colour one I've looked through so I thought i'd put some of my thoughts about the book down in no particualr order.
This book remined me why I loved playing Deamons in Fantays, they had variety, lots of colours and shapes and different types of troops. Reading the fluff I recalled how Nurgle is actaully pretty funny, there's something joyus about the way Nurgle's followers go about enjoing themsleves. I must admit that a lot of the scene setting general background type material was full of obsure words and metaphore which in the end didn't make much sense and just made me feel tired. I get that the warp is a complex place but they don't need to say the same sort of thing about it in ten obscure ways.
I think my dissapointments were that I was expecting a book where you'd get variety each game within your list, what with the reward tables you can roll on. However looking in more detail at the reward tables I realised that I doubt I'll be taking lesser or exalted rewards much as most of the options are the kind of thing you forget you've even got. This book and these tables is a bit like the warlord traits system on steroids - You roll a dice (or a load of dice) and then you maybe get something game breaking or you get something like adamantium will which you look up in the rule book and then shrug - it makes very little real difference. Sure there is Chaos and randomness but most of the time I reckon you'll pay points for things you won't even remember to or have oppertunity to use.
I also didn't like the blue Horrors. Maybe i've understood this wrong, but basically the unit seems to get to manifest 1 witchfire power a turn and doesn't have any ordinary shooting weapons. Using the normal marine equivalent to test this out versus a 10 man unit taking the primaris power I came out with the following:
Assume you pass your psychic test because you get +3 for being Tzeench.
Assume they fail thier deny the witch (though in a 6 turn game expect them to have one turn where they do no shooting at all do to a passed deny the witch roll.
Roll 2d6 and get average 7 hits.
Roll 7 to wound and get (lets say above average) 4 wounds versus the toughness 4 marines.
Marines fail 1 save, maybe 2 then lickely pass thier toughness test and get a 6+ feel no pain.
Over 6 turns you'll kill (assuming no deny the withc rolls pass) 4-6 marines and the marines will pass 4 of thier 6 toughness tests giving them a 3+ feel no pain.
I may not be an expert on detailed statistics and theoryhammer, but to me that seems a total joke on several levels. First, they might just do nothing for a turn if someone denies the witch, second they giv the opponent feel no pain probably in exchanged for a couple fo models.
Maybe i've missed something but it seems to me that Horrors will never be seen. I guess there's probably some combo to make thier strength better etc but even so I just feel bad paying points for a unit that's poor in assult, has a average save and may completely fail to achieve it's primary purpose of shooting based on deny the witch.
I like the look of the greater deamons. I think they'll be great fun to play and for me a refreshing change from the relatively squishy marine characters i'm used to. Nigh unkillable great unclean one and rock hard combat in the form of bloodthirsters - Yes please!
The John Blanche artwork in the book does get a bit tiresome after a while, I don't know why they didn't get more variety of artists in to do the pictures. I'd have like to see more of the old school black and white drawingslike this one. I can't find any of Deamons on Google but hopefully you know the kind of thing.
In terms of table top army I'm thinking about either going mega horde (30 models for 300 points in the troops section) or monsterous creature heavy with two greater deamons and three heavy support deamon princes.
What are you're thoughts on the new book?
This book remined me why I loved playing Deamons in Fantays, they had variety, lots of colours and shapes and different types of troops. Reading the fluff I recalled how Nurgle is actaully pretty funny, there's something joyus about the way Nurgle's followers go about enjoing themsleves. I must admit that a lot of the scene setting general background type material was full of obsure words and metaphore which in the end didn't make much sense and just made me feel tired. I get that the warp is a complex place but they don't need to say the same sort of thing about it in ten obscure ways.
I think my dissapointments were that I was expecting a book where you'd get variety each game within your list, what with the reward tables you can roll on. However looking in more detail at the reward tables I realised that I doubt I'll be taking lesser or exalted rewards much as most of the options are the kind of thing you forget you've even got. This book and these tables is a bit like the warlord traits system on steroids - You roll a dice (or a load of dice) and then you maybe get something game breaking or you get something like adamantium will which you look up in the rule book and then shrug - it makes very little real difference. Sure there is Chaos and randomness but most of the time I reckon you'll pay points for things you won't even remember to or have oppertunity to use.
I also didn't like the blue Horrors. Maybe i've understood this wrong, but basically the unit seems to get to manifest 1 witchfire power a turn and doesn't have any ordinary shooting weapons. Using the normal marine equivalent to test this out versus a 10 man unit taking the primaris power I came out with the following:
Assume you pass your psychic test because you get +3 for being Tzeench.
Assume they fail thier deny the witch (though in a 6 turn game expect them to have one turn where they do no shooting at all do to a passed deny the witch roll.
Roll 2d6 and get average 7 hits.
Roll 7 to wound and get (lets say above average) 4 wounds versus the toughness 4 marines.
Marines fail 1 save, maybe 2 then lickely pass thier toughness test and get a 6+ feel no pain.
Over 6 turns you'll kill (assuming no deny the withc rolls pass) 4-6 marines and the marines will pass 4 of thier 6 toughness tests giving them a 3+ feel no pain.
I may not be an expert on detailed statistics and theoryhammer, but to me that seems a total joke on several levels. First, they might just do nothing for a turn if someone denies the witch, second they giv the opponent feel no pain probably in exchanged for a couple fo models.
Maybe i've missed something but it seems to me that Horrors will never be seen. I guess there's probably some combo to make thier strength better etc but even so I just feel bad paying points for a unit that's poor in assult, has a average save and may completely fail to achieve it's primary purpose of shooting based on deny the witch.
I like the look of the greater deamons. I think they'll be great fun to play and for me a refreshing change from the relatively squishy marine characters i'm used to. Nigh unkillable great unclean one and rock hard combat in the form of bloodthirsters - Yes please!
The John Blanche artwork in the book does get a bit tiresome after a while, I don't know why they didn't get more variety of artists in to do the pictures. I'd have like to see more of the old school black and white drawingslike this one. I can't find any of Deamons on Google but hopefully you know the kind of thing.
In terms of table top army I'm thinking about either going mega horde (30 models for 300 points in the troops section) or monsterous creature heavy with two greater deamons and three heavy support deamon princes.
What are you're thoughts on the new book?
Sunday 14 April 2013
Imperial Blog - Post Campaign Thoughts
Luke here. The Brighton Warlords tournament has been over for a week now and it's given me a chance to reflect on my army.
Wednesday 6 March 2013
The savior of Armageddon part 2
Sunday 27 January 2013
The saviour of Armageddon
Back when I first got into 40k GW used to run global campaigns one of which was the war for Armageddon. I’ve always loved the Comissar Yarrick character so having inducted some imperial guard allies into my space sharks I needed a model to use. With that in mind I came up with the below:
Friday 25 January 2013
Imperial Blog
Luke here. A break from WFB league games has given me the chance to focus a bit on my Imperial Guard. This was going to be all about the transition from 5th edition to 6th but I feel that whole thing has been done to death on forums all over the place.
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