Wargaming: Sore Losers

I'm sure all wargamers have come up against a sore loser before. That person who throws their toys out of the pram (and sometimes models off the table) when things aren't going their way. I personally find this to be the single thing most guaranteed to ruin a game. Sure you can have bad dice rolls, everyone does from time to time, but there is no need to mope about it, you can't win every game.

I have suffered from many bad dice rolls, sometimes spectacularly so, but I try not to let it spoil the game for me or my opponent. I will sometimes get worked, up as many wargamers do, but this is usually down to frustration. What I never do is treat my opponent badly. If they beat me then kudos to them. I will always shake their hand after a game unless they have been consistently cheating and acting up.

I had this problem whilst playing at the weekend against an opponent with Tau and an allied detachment of Eldar. I was using my Chaos Marines with Imperial Guard allies and the mission was Purge the Alien with Hammer and Anvil deployment. He got first turn and seemed overly sure of victory but within two turns I had wiped out all of his Eldar, got first blood and destroyed a Devilfish. This is when he started to turn sour and began whining and arguing every time I tried to do anything. The game slowed to a snails pace due to having to constantly check the rulebook and codices to show him rules.

He called my Heldrake, which didn't arrive until turn four, and Khorne Lord (armed with the Axe of Blind Fury and Burning Brand) cheesy and broken because they stopped his cover save shenanigans. At one point he charged my Lord and a unit of Berzerkers with a Farseer and 4 Warlock's and didn't think it was fair when they were cut to pieces! What did he expect to happen?

Every time I had a bad roll he made a point of going over to a nearby table to point it out to other people and try to rub it in. It didn't bother me but seemed completely unnecessary. When my Lord passed his invulnerable save from a Railgun he complained again saying it wasn't fair.

In the end he refused to play on having only 3 Fire Warriors and a Riptide, who was on a single wound, stuck in combat with my Lord so the game was ended early with a 15-3 victory. When someone came over to ask him how the battle went he sighed and said 'As expected. His army's full of cheese'. What? So much for the confidence he had at the start of the game.

If my opponent had persevered and gone for some easy kill points then maybe things would have been a bit different but he instead decided to give up and complain about everything. In the end I had a Rhino and a Chimera that could have earned another two easy kill points for my opponent but he had decided to spread his fire against my army, rather than focus on taking down troublesome units.

This was the same guy who had beaten my Imperial Guard with his Tau due to continually passing his disruption pod saves and made sure to gloat about it afterwards. I found out after reading through the Tau codex that he had been cheating which made this victory all the better.

Ultimately though, it wasn't a very fun game and that's what I play wargames for. It left me with a bad feeling about my opponent (who is older and has been playing 40k longer than me) and the game overall. Going out of your way to make your opponent uncomfortable and frustrated doesn't make anyone want to play against you again.

It is just a game, win or lose, it doesn't matter as long as you had fun doing it.

Image source: Unknown

Games Workshop Announces Support for Android Devices

Games Workshop (GW) has announced that they will be supporting digital publications on Android and Kindle devices. The first five publications that have been announced are the opening instalments of three new series:

• Warlords of the Dark Millennium
• Munitorum
• Index Astartes

Warlords of the Dark Millennium is about taking a closer look at the characters in the 40k universe, Munitorum is about the weapons in 40k and Index Astartes focuses on the Space Marines. These will also be available on iBooks.

Even better, GW have said that all of the codices and rule books, both for 40k and fantasy, will eventually become available on Android, Kindle and iBooks.

Its great to see GW finally picking up their heels with this as a vast majority of the population, me included, have Android devices so have been left out of the digital releases.

photo credit: imjustcreative via photopin cc

Why You Should Play to the Mission

I got my first game against Tau using the new Chaos Space Marine codex at the weekend and it went mostly as I had expected. I allied in some Imperial Guard for objective holding and to provide fire support in the form of a Vendetta, Manticore, Veteran squad with 3 Flamers and a Lascannon and a Company Command Squad with 4 Melta’s and a Chimera. My opponent rolled for deployment and got Hammer and Anvil. I rolled for mission and got Crusade. There were 5 objectives and my opponent got first turn.

The problem for Chaos is that they are mainly an assault army and Tau are a shooty army. This makes it very hard to get assault Troops close enough due to Rhino's only having front armour 11 and foot slogging being suicide. There is also the issue of once a unit disembarks it cannot charge for another turn even if the transport does not move. This means that you’re looking at a turn 3 charge at the earliest and when you’re playing Tau that gives them even more time to shoot your assault troops off the board. There is always the Land Raider but it is hideously expensive considering Railgun's will glance it on a 4+ and most of the time destroy it with the first penetrating hit.

Then there is problem of the Tau's uberwatch. If you actually manage to get into assault range you have to put up with not only the unit that you are assaulting firing Overwatch but also other Tau units that are within 6" of the target. This can be mitigated somewhat putting a Dirge Caster on vehicles but I doubt that there will be any left by the time you've managed to get into assault range. In fact, at the weekend I actually hoped my Rhino’s would get destroyed so that I could get a turn 2 charge.

The other option is to try and out shoot the Tau which is highly unlikely to work.

I didn't expect to beat my opponent at the start and as the game progressed my army was cut to pieces. The most valuable unit was the Manticore, not a Chaos unit! The Vendetta got me Slay the Warlord and the Veteran squad held my objective until the end and ultimately won me the game 4-2. My opponent had got First Blood and Slay the Warlord. He would have also got Linebreaker but the Manticore shot his Outflanking Kroot and pinned them. The only Chaos unit that came out of the game with any credit was the Forgefiend. Even the Heldrake got shot down!

How did I win despite losing nearly all of my army? I used the Manticore and Forgefiend to remove my opponents scoring units and sent the Vendetta straight at his Warlord. Essentially, I played to the mission. That is what is most important in many games and why I have won similar games despite taking horrendous casualties. It is a piece of advice I give to many younger gamers who are often too focused on killing their opponent’s army. It is also something that more experienced gamers can often forget and should keep in mind, especially when playing against a superior foe.