Champions of the Fang

On the Recent 6th Ed Rumours….

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2012/04/40k-rumors-on-chaos-marines-and-6th.html

The sort of compiled list of the various rumours on BoLS seems to suggest more of a move towards Fantasy style organisation and magic/psykic powers.

First off, lets get the random psykic powers thing over and done with. Firstly, all but 3 of the armies in 40K currently use psykic powers (specifically Dark Eldar, Necrons and Tau) and Orks never see their psykers used in competitive lists. Why? Because every turn you have to randomly determine which psykic power the Weirdboy uses, thus leaving far too much room for things to go wrong.

Now imagine if you chose a psyker, for instance a Rune Priest, and rolled Thunderclap and  Fury of the Wolf Spirits. You just spent 100 points (150 if you made him a Master of Runes) on a total dud HQ choice. That’s 10% of your points gone in a 1,500 point game. Suddenly every psyker is an Orky psyker. In fantasy this works very well in my view because you take half a dozen cheap wizards and allowing them all to have the same stupidly overpowered spells is just asking for trouble. So randomly giving them spells means you have to bear this in mind before choosing vast numbers of wizards. In 40K, however, psykers are VERY expensive by comparison. They’d suddenly disappear from lists altogether, and although Grey Knights and Blood Angels would receive a very handy nerf, a lot of other players who don’t use Matt Wards armies will cry foul. 

Now adding the “standard lores” that all psykers can take is an interesting idea. This will either add a whole new dimension that will suddenly make psykers far more interesting to the armies that can play them or, alternatively with the above randomness, be a waste of 6 pages in a giant rulebook. Chances are you won’t get the powers you want (1 in 3 in fact if you have two powers you want) and the traditional codex psykic powers will likely be better anyway.

However, seeing psykers in armies like the Iron Warriors or the Iron Hands taking powers that reflect their biotic instincts (such as a psykic lore of metal) would be awesome. I can see Eldar Farseers becoming versed in two or more of these lores from the off when their new codex comes out, which would be in line with the fluff. But equally I’d have problems with a Grey Knights player suddenly throwing a giant hurt ball of a psykic power at me when they already have stupidly powerful ones.

To conclude my thoughts on this rumour then, I like about 25% of it. The other 75% just makes no sense to me at all in a game that has so far revolved around psykers being rare in the armies that can take them.

On the force organisation chart element I foresee two problems:

Unlike 7th Edition Fantasy, the force organisation chart works extremely well. It allows players to construct varied balanced lists. Sure some armies rely more heavily on particular parts of it than others (Space Wolves Long Fangs are in virtually every list, often in 3 units of 5 missiles), but otherwise it means you always have a backbone to your force and from then on, you can do whatever you like. Changing it would surely complicate matters too much. The fantasy system works because Lords and Heroes are virtually the same, meaning that 25% of the force can consist of them, troops, specials and rare units quite happily. But where do you put Elites in that chart? Fast Attack and Heavy Support could replace Special and Rare, but Elites are not like the Heroes of fantasy, and that leads to massively complicating a relatively simple system.

If the organisation chart completely disappears I suspect what we’ll see is a different style of game types. One could be “Two armies face each other across an ancient battlefield. You must choose 1 HQ, 2 Elites, 3 Troops, 2 Fast Attack and 1 Heavy Support choice” whereas another could be “The heroes of both sides have brought their bigs guns to bear, you must choose 2 HQ, 3 Troops and 4 Heavy support choices”. This would probably make some players annoyed, since some armies rely on certain elements of their codex (like the aforementioned Space Wolves) but equally it could open the door to a much wider range of tactical lists. You would also have to scale the games depending on the number of points you want to play, which is again complicating a relatively simple system. And of course, you can’t prepare for the game easily beforehand, unless they remove the “roll off” element of choosing a game type, and you just get to choose.

To conclude then, I like this idea more than the random psykic idea, but only just. Probably about 30%. There are certainly ways of improving on the Force Org chart, especially as the current edition of the game is starting to create very standard lists, but I can’t see why you’d go down the fantasy route of percentages.

The results of the battles at Warhammer World

Over the course of the last few days, I went up to Warhammer world and played a whole load of games. I didn’t lose to either of the friends I went up with, continuing my unbeaten record against them at Warhammer World, but I did lose to a couple of other opponents.

My Necrons also won 1, lost 1 and drew 1, which I think is a respectable result for a botch job army (particularly as the win was quite substantial, an 8-4 annihilation game against a heavily mechanised Imperial Guard army). The two games I lost were against a veteran Eldar player as my Necrons (got my arse kicked) and to a completely Terminator Dark Angels force, which was a much closer affair.

I also played in a very short doubles game with my friend who plays Dark Eldar, with me using my Space Wolves. It could not have been a more one sided affair, with us taking 4 kill points to our opponents 1 by turn 2, and they had lost any possibility of gaining momentum. One member of the opposing team then had to leave, though there were no complaints as to the likely result. I have to commend my partner for his excellent dice rolls, which not only allowed him to save his various transports with Flickerfield saves every time but also allowed his court of the Archon to survive an entire turn of combined Eldar and Imperial Guard shooting, including a Bladestorm and Eldritch Lightning.

Our tournament worked in the following way:

For each game we played against each other we got 1 point for a loss, 2 for a draw, and 3 for a win. For each game we played against anyone else at Warhammer World that result was doubled.

In the end the results were 45, 37, 19, with us all playing a similar number of games.

So I won! Woop! My Space Wolves won most of their games, and managed to salvage a draw from a position that I thought was on the way out in the final game. A unit of Grey Hunters all but destroyed a Court of the Archon, and they were unlucky to be killed in the next round of combat.

So, all in all, a very successful time up there for me, learnt a lot about Necrons (I’m very happy with how my strategy worked against the Imperial Guard in particular) and my Wolf Lord continues to rack up kills on his ThunderWolf.

The Setekh Triumvirate awakens

Right… For the first time on the blog i’m writing up my complete Necron army. It’s also, rather handily, the 1500 point list I shall be using when I play my friends today, as I’m using every available model.

First and foremost the HQ choices. I had to choose between 2 Characters on this one because for the price you can get the characters in the Necron codex they are vastly superior to a standard Overlord with trimmings. In this case, it was a choice between Nemesor Zahndrek and Imotekh the Stormlord. Imotekh is one of the most cost effective characters I think I’ver ever seen in a codex. He’s excellent in close combat, and is also an excellent support choice. Zahndrek is the opposite. He is very much a support based character, with some abilities that are deadly when used in combination with his bodyguard, Vargard Obyron. In the end I chose Zahndrek because of a lovely combo I think I’ve discovered. Giving a Cryptek a Nightmare shroud and putting him in Zahndreks units allows that unit to teleport. With Obyron that effectively means I can reliably get two units right in the enemies face at the very start of the game, which is vitally important when your lacking a big backbone of Troops. Pop another Cryptek with Harbinger of the Storm and a Voltaic staff in Obyrons unit and there’s a very nasty first turn tankbuster right there.

So my HQs look like this

Nemesor Zahndrek
Vargard Obyron
Cryptek with Harbinger of Destruction and Eldritch Lance
Cryptek with Harbinger of the Storm and Voltaic Staff
Cryptek with Harbinger of Despair, Abyssal Staff, and Nightmare Shroud

My Elites are defined by my models (a C’tan Shard and a unit of Triarch Praetorians/Lychguard) so I chose to take advantage of the damaged potential of a Shard by making it into a relatively cheap ranged monster. I chose Triarch Praetorians instead of Lychguard primarily because I wanted to have the option of Voidblades to take down Leman Russ tanks. Their particle casters are also capable of taking down the light armour of Dark Eldar transports the other opponent I shall be facing over the next three days.

So my Elites look like this:

C’tan Shard with Pyreshards and Moulder of Worlds
5 Triarch Praetorians with Voidblades and Particle Casters

My troops are also based entirely upon models I got for Christmas. There aren’t enough of them, which is why I’ve been forced to think up bizarre strategies. The only thing I will say is that it became obvious to chose Gauss Blasters after I realised I could give the Immortals relentless with Zahndreks special rule.

10 Necron Warriors
5 Immortals with Gauss Blasters.

My fast attack is just 3 Scarab Swarms. I’ll come onto them later when I discuss my Canoptek Spyder

Heavy Support consists of an Annihilation Barge, which is very useful against the much larger number of troops I’ll be facing compared to my own, a Monolith, whose primary role is to come in from reserve and cause as much havoc as possible, and a Canoptek Spyder, which will move up with my Scarab Swarms and hopefully act as an annoyance. So my Heavy Support looks like this:

1 Annihilation Barge, with Tesla Cannon and Twin-Linked Tesla Destructor
1 Monolith
1 Canoptek Sypr

So there you have it. I doubt I’ll win many games but I think this strategy is as good as its gonna get….

Long time no post…. Also Monolith

Thanks to my job, I haven’t been able to get much painting or gaming done in the last few weeks. The last post was more than a month ago, but in that time I’ve managed to work hard enough to get an increase in hours on my contract only two months after starting. This means I can buy more Warhammer, so can only be good for the blog.

My latest completed model is a Necron Monolith. I started painting the sides in Scab Red, filling in the gaps with Boltgun Metal in the same way as I did with the Catacomb Command Barge a couple of months back. After taking a break and walking back into the room, I realised that this technique had given the Monolith’s sides an almost brick like quality. So, seizing upon sudden inspiration, I decided to paint the edge and corner plates in Elf Flesh. Had the sides been orange, it would probably look like a Victorian workhouse (only pyramid shaped) so I’m glad Scab Red is so dark. In the end it looks like an ancient brick building that has been scorched by the heat of a powerful sun.

So, enjoy the picture and I’ll try and get my ThunderWolves finished soon in order to blog again :)

Lack of Posts

To Math-Hammer, or not to Math-Hammer…

Recently I entered in a discussion about so called “tailored lists” on a Facebook group. I’ll be playing my first game with my Necrons against a Dark Eldar player who has specifically built his list to be good against Necrons. Some people saw a problem with this.

A little while back I realised I could put this in a simple maxim: 

“A generals strength is determined by lists he can create and his guile is determined by his ability to adapt on the battlefield.” 

It’s possible for a wily general to beat a strong one and vice versa, getting the perfect balance makes for the best general. But they still won’t win every time, because a list could be really strong or a general particularly adaptable.

Now, I accept the argument that when someone is restricted by models that may seem like you’ve given yourself an unfair advantage (it often does) but a good player doesn’t see that as a problem, they see it as a challenge. Because it’s a game, and everyone knows that starting a new army often results in you losing the first few games before you get to grips with things. So you shake hands, grab a drink and remember the time that missile scattered back and hit your Long Fang in the face.

It’s something to enjoy, not get argumentative about the details. I really enjoy making army lists, trying out new strategies to beat certain opponents. What I really dislike is stagnation, keeping the same list over and over. So I might try a troop heavy anti-Ork army one game, then switch to a heavily mechanised army. The beauty of the more recent Codecies is that they give you a huge amount of choice in this regard.