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.

Problems with Rough Riders

I'm a fan of Rough Riders which is why I'm currently converting a unit from Cadian's and Empire Knights. However I struggle to see how effective they will actually be on the table and after reading through the codex I'm wondering what GW were thinking when they equipped them.

For example, in the fluff it says that they use Lasgun's but they can't even take Lasgun's. They have the option of either a Laspistol or close combat weapon (CCW) to go with their Hunting Lance, not both. Why? Surely it would make sense that they would have a pistol or CCW holstered for use after the initial charge. It would also make them a little more effective because after the Lance has been used they are Initiative 3 with 2 attacks on the charge which is very poor. If they were a little more effective then maybe more people would use them.

Another problem now is that Hunting Lance are AP3 meaning they cannot reliably kill Terminators and other 2+ armour units. The Sergeant can take a Power Axe but will be using his Hunting Lance on the initial charge. It could be useful for finishing of a 2+ armour unit provided he is not challenged by a model with a higher Initiative.

Why would a Rough Rider exchange his Hunting Lance for a Special Weapon? Surely they could exchange their Laspistol or CCW.

And now in 6th Edition they can't charge from reserve and with only 5+ armour saves your relying on cover  and screening vehicles to get them where they need to be.

It's not all bad though. One advantage from the current FAQ is that they can now gain an extra attack from having a Lance and pistol/CCW as the sentence that said they could not has been removed and the lance is a 'melee' type weapon. Unfortunately, this will obviously only work for the first round of combat. Also, Mogul Kamir is now better due to the changes to the Rage and Fearless special rules.

I'll be taking them for a few games to see how they do. Also, it should be fun, and not too difficult, to convert them.

So does anyone use Rough Riders in 6th Editon? Are they worth it?

First Impressions of the Chaos Codex

I finally got my first couple of games in with the Chaos Codex at the weekend and I was very impressed. I had two games, both against Dark Angels, and both finished with me wiping out my opponent.

The Heldrake was just as good as I had expected, wiping out whole squads of marines at a time. The Deathwing Terminators were a bit of a problem though but were eventually beaten to a pulp by my Khorne lord wielding the Axe of blind Fury (AoBF). In the hands of a Chaos Lord the AoBF is amazing but unfortunately rebelled twice causing a wound. I am currently considering a Juggernaut to carry him to battle as it would make him even more survivable and it would mean that I could dust off my Spawn and use them as a bodyguard unit.

The great thing about the Chaos Lord is the amount of competitive builds there is in the codex. This means that you are unlikely to see everybody run the same HQ’s as happened with the previous codex.

The other unit I was impressed with was my Forgefiend. I ran it with just the Hades Autocannon’s to keep it as cheap as possible and found it to be excellent for snap-shotting flyers. It shot down two Darktalon’s over the two games, killed 4 Ravenwing bikers and destroyed two predators. Its biggest drawback was the Autocannon’s AP, which overall was ineffective against marines, and lack of combat prowess. It was assaulted in my first game by Terminators and quickly destroyed. The Daemonforge ability was useful but not exactly game changing.

Overall the army seems to be a lot more fun to use than with the previous codex but having read through both the Dark Angels and Tau codex’s I can’t help but feel that Chaos got screwed again by GW.

For example:

No Eternal Warrior for Daemon Princes and a huge points increase due to power armour and wings being must buy options. May your chosen god help you if you play against Tau regularly as their strength 10 weaponry will make mincemeat out of Daemon Princes.

No units with Interceptor and very little access to Skyfire. Compare this to the Dark Angels that can get Flakk missiles in their troop choices.

10 man strong Chaos Space Marine units needed to access Heavy Weapons whereas Dark Angels only need 5.

Obliterators can’t shoot the same weapon in subsequent shooting phases, are no longer fearless and have Leadership 8.

Most units have to pay for Veterans of the Long War but almost all Dark Angels seem to get Preferred Enemy (Chaos Space Marines) or Stubborn for free.

Khorne Berzerkers have Rage and Counter Attack instead of +1 Attack which might not seem too bad but they have pass a Leadership test to Counter Attack (failed mine at the weekend) and if they don’t wipe out a unit in the first turn of combat they are no better than normal Chaos Marines with Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons.

Defilers cost too much, most likely to make people buy the new Daemon engines.

Cultists with Autogun’s cost the same as a regular Guardsmen despite being worse. The Autogun’s should have been a free upgrade in my opinion.

I don’t mean to rant but it just stinks of GW not wanting any other army to be able to challenge the Space Marines. The Tau got a significant boost with their new codex and they are Battle Brothers with them also. The saving grace of this codex is the number of possible builds which will keep it fun, if not entirely competitive.

Faeit212 Has Disappeared



The big news in the Wargame's blogging world is the disappearance of Faeit212. This is apparently due to the blog displaying unreleased images of content from the White Dwarf magazine.

April 22, 2013

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pages in the body of the blog post infringe.

As copyright owner, Games Workshop also has the rights to first release of
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Taken from chillingeffects.org.

I can understand GW's point of view but I don't think this will do anything for their already tarnished public image. Interestingly, it appears that Faeit212 has not been the only blog targeted by GW, with Apocalyse40k amongst others also receiving a DMCA complaint. BoLS also went down but it is thought that it was probably due to a Google error.

The question is what/who will GW target next? They seem to want to destroy their own company by firstly forcing customers to buy direct from them and now slowly shutting down the internet community that supports their products.

FAQ's April 2013

The new FAQ's are up so it's time to see what's changed for my armies.

Imperial Guard

Page 56 / 101 –
Valkyrie Assault Carrier – Scout Valkyrie Assault Carrier – Scout
Remove Scout from the Special Rules section of both the
Bestiary and Army List entries for the Valkyrie Assault Carrier
and Vendetta Gunship.

A minor update. The Scout rule didn't do anything anyway.

Page 71 – Other Equipment, Camo Cloak
Replace the second paragraph with “A model wearing a camo
cloak adds +1 to its cover save”.
Nothing new here.

Q: What Mastery Level is a Psyker Battle Squad? (p47)

A: Mastery Level 1.

Finally GW have decided to give PBS's a Mastery level. Unfortunately there is nothing about being able to take powers from the rule book. Thankfully they already have excellent powers anyway. It's a shame that each psyker doesn't count as Mastery Level 1 because then they might find a way into my lists more often. Imagine a Level 9 PBS!

Q: If an Imperial Guard army includes both Captain Al’Rahem and

Commander Chenkov, and a unit of Conscripts that is part of

Al’Rahem’s Infantry Platoon has purchased Commander Chenkov’s

‘Send in the Next Wave’ upgrade, does it re-enter play using Outflank

as per Captain Al’Rahem’s ‘Stalk the Enemy’ or move on from the

player’s board edge, as per Commander Chenkov’s ‘Send in the Next

Wave’? (p64/65).

A: In this instance, neither rule takes precedence – therefore

simply roll a dice for which rule applies as per ‘The Most

Important Rule’ on page 4 of the Warhammer 40,000

Rulebook.

Finally an answer to this question. I was going to write a blog post about it but looks like GW beat me to the punch. Why it's taken so many years for an answer is beyond me. The IG codex came out in May 2009!

Blood Angels

No update.

Dark Angels

Page 28 –

Warlord Traits, Courage of the Lion

Change rule to “The Warlord, and all friendly units chosen

from Codex: Dark Angels within 12” of him, roll an additional

dice when taking Leadership tests (except Psychic tests),

discarding the highest”.

Only Dark Angels can benefit from this now and Psykers no longer benefit at all. 

 

Page 61 –

Stasis Anomaly

Change to read “Every model in a unit hit by one or more

weapons with this special rule suffers a -1 penalty to their

Weapon Skill and Initiative, to a minimum of 1, until the end

of the turn.”

Added 'to a minimum of one', so no change really.

Page 61 –

Vast Stasis Anomaly

Change to read “Every model in a unit hit by one or more

weapons with this special rule suffers a -3 penalty to its Weapon

Skill and Initiative, to a minimum of 1, until the end of the

turn. This replaces any penalty inflicted on a target by a Stasis

Anomaly (see left).”

Also added 'to a minimum of one'.

Page 64 –

Power Field Generator

Add “If the bearer is embarked upon a Transport vehicle, the

power field’s effects only apply to models embarked upon that

vehicle”.

I'm glad I didn't buy a Land Raider and Techmarine to abuse this rule as it will no longer work. A massive debuff to anyone who was building their army around it.

Page 55 / 92–

Asmodai, WargearAdd “Bolt Pistol” to Asmodai’s wargear.

More lazy proofreading from GW.

Page 95 –

Deathwing Command Squad, Options

Change the fifth bullet point to:

“• Any Deathwing Terminator can replace his storm bolter and

power fist with:

- a pair of lightning claws ……………………………….free

- a thunder hammer and storm shield ………….5 pts

Changed 'all of his weapons' to 'his storm bolter and

power fist'.

Page 96

– Ravenwing Command Squad, options.

Add:

“• The Ravenwing Command Squad may purchase up to two

additional Ravenwing Black

Knights……………………………………………..40 pts / model”

Change the first bullet point to:

“• One Ravenwing Black Knight may take a banner from the

following list:

- Ravenwing Company Banner*...........................................

15 pts”

- Revered Standard................................................................

25 pts”

- Alternatively, the may take a banner from the

Sacred Standardssection of the wargear list.”

The command squad can now take additional bikers for increased survivability and the 'Relic banners' typo is replaced with 'Sacred Standards'.

Page 99 –

Deathwing Terminator Squad, Options

Change the second bullet point to:

“• Any model can replace his storm bolter and power fist

with:

- a pair of lightning claws ……………………………….free

- a thunder hammer and storm shield ………….5 pts

Changed 'all of his weapons' to 'his storm bolter and

power fist'.

Q: Do units deploying via the Deathwing Assault special rule count

toward the limit of units you are allowed to keep in Reserves at the

start of a battle? (p44)

A: Yes.

A debuff for the deathwing that makes it even harder to do a pure Deathwing army.

Q: The Standard of Devastation states that ‘all friendly Codex:

Dark Angels units within 6” of the standard treat their boltguns as

Salvo 2/4 weapons’. Which boltguns does this apply to? (p66)

A: This applies to the standard boltgun (24” range, S4, AP5,

Rapid Fire), twin-linked boltguns on bikes, the bolter

component of combi-weapons, and hurricane bolters.
Confirmation that this works with hurricane bolters which is awesome. Unfortunately though, it looks like storm bolters don't get the bonus.
 

Chaos Space Marines

Page 42 –

Obliterators, Obliterator Weapons

Change the final sentence to “An Obliterator unit cannot

choose to fire the same weapon in two consecutive shooting

attacks”.

I guess this is because of the Puppet Master psychic power which makes you shoot at your own units.

Page 57 –

Abaddon the Despoiler, Mark of Chaos Ascendent

Add the following sentence “If Abaddon rolls Spawnhood or

Dark Apotheosis on the Chaos Boon Table, re-roll this result

(and any further results of the same). The Despoiler is not

meant for Daemonhood just yet!”

I like this because it makes sense fluff wise and if you've spent all those points on Abaddon there could be nothing worse than to see him turn into a Chaos Spawn.

Q: If a model rolls Spawnhood or Dark Apotheosis on the Chaos Boon

Table, does it retain the effects of any Chaos Boon Table rolls that have

been applied to it so far during the game? (p29)

A: No.

This is a bit annoying but probably won't affect a game too much.

Q: If a Helbrute that is already Immobilised rolls Fire Frenzy, does

it lose an additional Hull Point? (p56)

A: No.

Phew! This helps out Helbrute's a bit. Hopefully we will see more of them on tabletops soon but I won't hold my breath. They are competing with  dirt cheap Terminators and cult troops in the elites slot.

Q: Is a model equipped with the Scrolls of Magnus that does not

begin the game as a Psyker, considered to have become a Psyker once

they acquire one or more additional psychic powers from the scrolls?

For example a Dark Apostle with the Mark of Tzeentch. (p69)

A: Yes, the model has the Psyker rule from that point

onward, and is considered to have Mastery Level 1.

The psyker now has Mastery Level 1 whereas in the previous FAQ they were just a psyker.

Dark Eldar

Page 49 – Lelith Hesperax –

The Penetrating Blade

Change the second sentence to “Her close combat attacks

ignore Armour Saves”.

Added 'close combat'.

Q: When allocating Wounds caused by a unit of Reaver Jetbikes

making a bladevanes, cluster caltrops and / or grav-talon attack, from

which direction is the attack considered to have originated? (p29)

A: Use the final position of the Reaver Jetbikes for Wound

allocation.

This makes it much easier than doing random allocations. As a guard player I can say that when you have massive squads that you have to randomly allocate wounds to it can get very annoying and slows the game down.

Final Note

Unsurprisingly the new Tau codex has been FAQ'd already. Sort it out GW! Learn to proofread and play test properly!

FAQ information taken from Games Workshop FAQ's