Several 40k Games, First thoughts on new Chaos

Sorry for the lack of post the last two weeks.  I was traveling for work last week and my evening have been busy with family stuff every night this week.  So this is the first chance I've had to sit down and right up a blog post.

Over the last two weeks I've had the chance to do a handful of games to try to test out some of the afore mentioned armies that I was looking to tweak into 6th edition.  Here is a quick summary of how things went.

2k Tau vs 2k Bugs-  This game was a killpoint game which really helped me I think.  Basically I just shot little bugs for a few turns and eventually the big bugs made combat and wiped the squad they charged.  Then I just shot the big bugs dead.  Not everything worked the way I hoped but the farseer came up clutch on shutting down iron arm right when I needed him to do so.

2k Tau vs 2k Harliestar- This was a practice for Feast of blades and had essentially 4 objecitves.  I poured a ton of fire into the Harlies that did pretty much nothing, but in return he failed two charges.  Finally I whittled down that unit before they made combat, but could never get rid of them by the end of the game.   A lot of shots might have been better directed to his scoring units.  The Kroot infiltrated on an objective and managed to hold it all game.  Stealth suits also infiltrated but damn fire dragon exarch has krack shot and downed enough for a LD that they failed and never recovered.  In the end the game was a draw.

2k BA vs 2k Harliestar- Another Feast of Blades practice with 6 objectives but you could not take the 'close' ones.   This game looked ugly early but the turned in a big way for me by turn 3 when the harlie/vect unit went down hard.  I had a few 'solo' guys running around holding up his last troop choice and in the end was able to claim two objective while tying up his last troop on another for a win!

2k Orks vs 2k Harliestar- Another Feast of Blades mission that was a fancy kill point game.  My first time out with the Mad Doc and it wasn't as bad as I thought with the 'must charge nearest unit' rule.  Maybe in a objective based game I would have preferred him to sit around.   Essentially that unit just devoured his backfield, and while the harliestar was eating my backfield it was essentially 8 to 3 in my favor when we called it in 5 realizing he would never be able to claim but one or two more units in any remaining turns.

So there you have it.  I'm not sure that is quite enough of a sample to have any giant take away on any of the list but it was fun to get these armies into the rotation and see how they fared.

Beyond that obviously there has been a lot of Chaos stuff popping all over the internet.  A lot of things look really cool if you were just going to start yourself up a new Chaos army.  I think making a Iron Hands army where you flood the field with AV 12 could be really cool!  But in the end I think that horde CSM is going to be a real winner.   A few cutltists blobs backed by advancing CSMs with Havocs with flakk missiles in the back field is going to be deadly!  A Typhus army with lots of cheap FNP/Fearless zombies seems ridiculously hard to shift!

But for a lot of old school CSM owners there is a bit of angst over what to do.  Many of us were mono god oriented and are looking to continue in that theme.  I think the new rules certainly allow for it (just have to take a HQ marked as such for cult units to be scoring) but I still think it might fail to be as competitive as the above mentioned lists.  Zerkers now desperately need the charge.  Noise Marines can ignore cover with the sonic blasters but lose the ability to move and shoot.  Pms seem pretty much untouched, and with the above mentioned Typhus/Zombie horde is probably going to still be the winning 'faction' of Chaos.

Then there is my lovely 1ksons.  On the plus side they seem to be cheaper if we don't have to pay for powers and we also seem to have lost 'the sorcerer commands rule.'   It is looking like you have to buy the Soulblaze upgrade, which if it were free would be neat but I don't know that it is worth the points.  Overall these are all nice perks, and with the overall changes to 6th edition I would say they are better than they were in 5th.  It doesn't seem that we get the relentless rule as rumored with the sorcerer which would have been nice for the sake of overwatch.

What I'm not sure about are these powers.  The primary power is a blast that seems like it might be nice for anti horde which has been something I've struggled with in the past.  The Boon table is neat but I'm not sure I'm willing to try to spam it and pay for the 'start the game' power to try to get a DP (which isn't as great as I would have hoped anyway).  Bolt is nice as always but then the sons aren't shooting at units which they need to be doing.  And the template of death is also nice though might be situational.

So the primary power is likely going to be the default for the aspiring sorcers.

I'm definitely going to give Ahriman a try now.  The Infiltrate warlord power opens up so intersting options with infantry options (1ksons, oblits/maulers, termies).   The three witchfire powers a turn I'm less excited about.  I'm assuming he still can't do three of the same so... you're going to need to do three differnt witchfire powers?  Well that's going to be tricky/situational at best.  Maybe I'm missing something that makes this better than I'm thinking.   Either way while not having Divination blows I'm thinking Biomancy and Ahriman could be pretty crazy.

Beyond that I kinda need to see how the rest of the book shakes out to figure out what to do.  Obviously I'd like to make an army that is competitive but this was always about being my 'pretty army' and I'm not looking to do a lot of dumping of units. 

So right now the lesser daemons and the DP are out, and Ahriman, and Aegis, and cultists are probably all going to be in the new list.  The question is how do those points shake out now?  Do I just drop the old Dread (now Hellbrute)?  The termies look to have a lot of new configs so how does that shake out now?  Do I need rhinos?  Since my 'oblits' are the sorcerer lords do I try those out as Maulers?

Another week and we'll have a pretty good idea of where to start!

My Tau Army in 6th Edition

So the next of my armies that needs to be looked at is Tau.  The Tau of languished for most of 5th edition so it would sure be nice to get them back on the table and not be horrible.

The biggest problem Tau had in 5th edition was the troops.  They just are not survivable and you really needed the most from other slots to kill vehicles.

Now there are a lot of changes to 6th editions that affect how good Tau can be.

+ Shooting is generally better (rapid fire at distance, overwatch, random charges).
+ You can regroup a bit easier.  It isn't much, but for Tau that are prone to LD failings it is pretty big.
+ Tau Vehicles can essentially have a 3+ jink save.
+ Stealth suits get shrouding and stealth, meaning in light cover of 5+ they have a 2+ save.
+ Allies can fill gaps.
- Can't score from inside vehicles, nor contest with fast moving Piranha.
- Can't assault out of reserves, which was an option for Kroot (that usually did not go well).
+/- Cover is generally worse.

So it looks like more pros than cons, but there are lots of qualifiers I'm unsure of in there.  For instance it is great that moving Tau vehicles can get 3+ cover saves, but they are arguably expensive for what you get.  Would I rather have a Hammerhead with one rail gun or a Broadside with Shield Drones and save 70ish points?  Sure the hammerhead can drop a big blast... but can't I get anti infantry shooting elsewhere?   Devilfish add nothing but some mobility to troops, but are still 85 pts to not contribute to the firepower so desperately needed.

Pirahna are the one skimmer I'm unsure about keeping or not.  The fast vehicle is great for getting that melta up close quickly, and it is AV 11 with that 3+ save (2+ if you go flat out!).  That is pretty tempting.  At 75 points it is still reasonably priced but you still likely only really get one shot.  You are still AV 11 and open topped with two hull points.  If you aren't going first these are possibly the easiest first blood target in the army.  So for now I'm going to drop them and see if I can manage enough anti tank elsewhere.

So if I'm not going to go with vehicles that leaves me with a Foot Tau army.   That means I'm going to need to load up on troops.  Right now I'm leaning towards units of 8 Firewarriors + Shas'ui w/ Blacksun Filter (BSF ignores nightfight).  So that means killing 3 before a LD 8 test and possibly being able to shoot turn 1 if there is night fight and range.

What about the kroot?  Well I still like them, and they do provide some options, but I think the small 10 man pillbox units of yesteryear are gone.  I think take a big unit of 20 kroot with 12 hounds.   I think you drop them behind the aegis with the HQ and just make people shoot them over and over or have to charge them eventually.  Alternatively they could be used to infiltrate against a deep strike army (Daemons, Drop Pods) or a Necron Airforce type army.

So I've mentioned the preference to Broadsides, and I think going 3 units of 1 is my current plan.  With the key upgrades of two shield drones, Target Array (BS4), and BSF clocks in under 120 pts and lets you pretty much still spread out lanes for long range anti tank shots.  I'd love to add plasma guns, multracker, but that's 20 more points x3 that I'm not sure I'll need.  It's great for killing marines as they close but I think the Broadsides are best focused on the Heavy Armor.  Advanced stabalization would be great too so you could overwatch in that config, but I think the TA for BS 4 is probably still better.  You have to make sure these guys are landing hits!

Which brings us to the suits section.  5th edition was all about Crisis suits, stealth suits just didn't have a place.  I'm not sure if they do now either.   I think you have two options if you are taking stealth suits.
- Take a big squad, infiltrate into cover on a flank and just harrass the hell out of the army.
- Take a min squad with a fusion (melta) and either try the above or Deep strike into cover and get that one melta shot off and then get killed.
I'm going to try out one big squad some more and see how it goes.  The one 6th edition game I played was against a Deathwing list, so I would have rather had the melta, but at least they netted me line breaker.

Which leaves two crisis suit teams.  I usually always went Plasma/Missile as it gave a good option for range and light vehicles.  Twin linked missiles were a good point saver and more accurate but I often found myself wanting plasma.  With fliers out and about the twin linked sounds tempting.  So for now I'm going to try a squad of each.

In the HQ section there is also debate as to what to do.   Previously I would generally never from straying from a cheap Crisis commander.  Clocking in at 100 pts he was basically just a slightly better Crisis suit.

However with Warlord now being a big deal I'm wondering if it is better to look into some of the many flavorfull bits of wargear that we'd currently never look at taking.   You can get FNP, 2+ armor (though now a D6 in the assault instead of 2D6), and a 4+ invulnerable.  Plus shield drones which are great.  The downside is this all adds up to a pricey 200ish point HQ.  Is that better than two cheap HQs, probably not from a killing power stand point.  Still I'm going to try him out and see if all this extra crap actually helps keep this guy alive/suck up wounds for another unit.  I'm even going to try out some of the special weapons (cyclonic blaster and airburst) and see if the blast/rate of fire way is the way to go.

Of course I'm taking an Aegis and quad gun.  Defacto choice for a gun line.

Which leaves the maligned fast attack slot.  I'd love to take pathfinders but I don't want to pay for the Devilfish.  Why that isn't just an option is just beyond words.  I've aleady mentioned the Piranha debate, I'm passing on them for now and hoping my crisis and broadsides can handle the anti tank.  Gun drone squads are still horrible and useless.

Which leaves Vespid.  Vespid are always one of those 'man they are fast and that gun is great' units that sounds tempting, but then you look at the points cost, range of the gun, and their save and it gets bad in a hurry.  The only thing I could think to do is Deepstike a large squad in close to marines and blast them, you reroll any dangerous terrain tests and get that cover save... but you still probably get blasted to death.  I think for the same points spent on that big squad the full stealth team offers more flexibility, range, and survivability.   Assuming the 11 vespid did land close enough to shoot marines in the open they kill 3-4.  The stealth team should kill 3, but get to probably end the turn 20-30" away.  That's a big deal.

The only thing left to talk about is allies.   Tau have some great allies in that battle brothers can be marines and eldar, and have options for everybody else but bugs.   Even just looking at marines and eldar give them some great options.  Marines in particular bring some more durable scoring bodies.   Eldar can bring mobility and fantastic psychic protection.

For me I'm leaning toward Eldar.  I think taking a Marine Captain on a bike and two full squads of troop bikes is a GREAT option.   But at that point, why not just play the bikes which have proven to be a great army already?  So I think the jetseer with the min jetbike squad is what I'll try first.

So what does my new 6th edition army end up shaping up to look like?

HQ: Commander Shas'o + Airbursting Fragmentation Projector 2 + Cyclic Ion Blaster + Hard-wired Multi-tracker + Iridium Armour + Stimulant Injector + Shield Generator + 2 Shield Drones
Elite: Crisis Battlesuit x3;  Missile Pod + Plasma Rifle + Multi-Tracker
Elite: Crisis Battlesuit x3; Twin Linked Missile Pod + Targeting Array
Elite: Stealthsuits x 6
Troops: Fire Warrior x8 + Shas'ui, + Hard-wired Blacksun Filter
Troops: Fire Warrior x8 + Shas'ui, + Hard-wired Blacksun Filter
Troops: Fire Warrior x8 + Shas'ui, + Hard-wired Blacksun Filter
Troops: Fire Warrior x8 + Shas'ui, + Hard-wired Blacksun Filter
Troops: Kroot Carnivore Squad x20, Kroot Hounds x12
Heavy Support: Broadside Battlesuit + Hard-wired Blacksun Filter  + Targeting Array + Team Leader + 2 Shield Drones
Heavy Support: Broadside Battlesuit + Hard-wired Blacksun Filter  + Targeting Array + Team Leader + 2 Shield Drones
Heavy Support: Broadside Battlesuit + Hard-wired Blacksun Filter  + Targeting Array + Team Leader + 2 Shield Drones

HQ: Farseer + Runes of Warding + Runes of Witnessing + Eldar Jetbike +  Doom 
Troops: Guardian Jetbike Squadron x3

Aegis Defence Line + Quad Gun

The Aegis is missing from the picture but I obviously have it.  Not for the first time to I wonder why GW hasn't put out any Xenos fortifications.

There are a few bits I'm missing but one Crisis suit pickup fills that out and means I don't have to use one of my HQs as an elite Crisis.  

The army is mostly painted, though it was my first 'done' army and looks really sad to me now.  I've never liked the kroot paint job and I'm tempted to replace them before starting on the hounds.  But it is hard to see committing time to this army beyond a few tweaks to make it playable. 

But is it any good?  Sure it looks like it has a lot of bodies, but I'm still suffering from lackluster LD so I risk running or being pinned (and can't bring myself to add an ethereal).  It is an awfully static army really, and the jetbikes are the only mobile scoring unit.   The army will crumble once engaged in CC.

Unless the army performs amazingly or the current meta shift dramatically, I think this will be a fun army to bring out once in awhile, but nothing I'd want to take to a tournament.

My Ork Army in 6th Edition

Next on my list of 6th edition fixer uppers is my ork army.  My first army has long had a special place and it has served me well over the last edition.   It wasn't necessarily always #1 but I did very well at some events and felt like they were always a great army.  Plus it is nice to have a xenos army to bring out in marine saturated environement!

However I've been struggling with the orks in 6th edition.  Right off the bat here are big changes to orks that affect my old 5th edition tactics
-Pro- Fleet is nice for the waagh with the rerolls on the charge.
-Con- Ghaz is bad now.   First he doesn't give fleet, and instead gives an auto 6" run.  If he gave fleet (which MUST be just bad faq from GW) he might still be worth it, but even still I'd like to see him give an auto 6+D6" charge.
-Pro- no fearless saves in combat for losing.
-Con (Pro?)- overwatch
-Con- combat is generally just not as good as shooting
-Con- Snik is useless
-Con- KFF is not as good.

I'm sure I'm forgetting more things that have been troubling, but let's take a look at what I've play tested last.

HQ: Mega-armoured Warboss + Bosspole + Cybork Body
HQ: Big Mek + Kustom Force Field
Elite: 9 Lootas
Elite: 9 Lootas
Elite: 9 Lootas
Troops: 4 Meganobz+ Shoota/Rokkit Kombi-weapon x1+ Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon x2
      1 Battlewagon + Deff Rolla + Big Shoota x1
Troops: 18 'Ard Boyz, 'Ard Boyz Nob + Bosspole + Power Klaw
Troops: 29 Choppa Boyz, Boyz Nob + Bosspole + Power Klaw
Troops: 29 Shoota Boyz, + Big Shoota x3,  Boyz Nob + Bosspole + Power Klaw
Fast Attack: 1 Warbuggy + TL Rokkit Launcha
Fast Attack: 1 Warbuggy + TL Rokkit Launcha
Heavy Support: 1 Battlewagon + Deff Rolla + Big Shoota x1
Heavy Support: Big Gunz 3 Kannons
Heavy Support: Big Gunz 3 Lobbas
Aegis Defence Lines + Quad-gun

So from 5th edition I've dropped Ghaz for the cheaper warboss, dropped Snik for more lootas, dropped kanz and other upgrades for more shoota boyz and big gunz, and added the much needed Aegis and quad gun.

So how did it work?  Well I played a space wolf drop army and that was pretty tough.  The BWs managed to still survive the drop but large swaths of boys died on the drop.  The Lootas really could only shoot marines and they didn't do so great.  I failed a 4 inch charge.  The meganobz died in a hail of combi plas/melta death.   The rokkit buggies are now basically a 'hey do you want first blood?' unit.  The big gunz didn't do me a lick of good.

Right off the bat lets cut the buggies and the big gunz.  That gives me 205 points.

The real question is what to do with the Mega nobz.  It feel like I did better in 5th with them, but I think that was largely due to Ghaz.  In a similar situation to what happened in 5th I would have called the waagh, ghaz goes 2+ invul, and he would have made most of his saves.   I could add Ghaz back in and just live without fleet, but even then Ghaz has to be IN FRONT which is a lot harder to do against a drop list like I faced.

The quick fix would be drop the KFF mek and and Mad doc.  Mad doc would give the unit FNP and cheap cybork upgrades.  That is a pretty big boost to survability (meltas and fists less so but still helpful).  Sure the Wagons will go down a bit faster, but the big problem is the Mad Doc himself.  He makes your unit HAVE to move and charge the closest unit.  This sounds like it can be disastrous, but I'm tempted to try it out all the same.  -85 for the KFF Mek, +160 for Mad doc, net +15 for cybork armor on mega nobz.

I could add Mad doc to the Ard boyz in the current config also.  So I have a little flexibility in that I could 'spread' survivability across two units and not have one super uncontrollable death star!

But I've got 105 points left for 2k.  I could add a min Gretchin unit just to sit behind the wall and shoot the gun since I've given up on the big gunz.  I could bump them to 19 gretchin to try to give them a little more surviability from shooting at range, and drop in another mega nob.  What's that look like now?

HQ: Mega-armoured Warboss + Bosspole + Cybork Body
HQ: Mad Dok
Elite: 9 Lootas
Elite: 9 Lootas
Elite: 9 Lootas
Troops: 5 Meganobz+ Shoota/Rokkit Kombi-weapon x1+ Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon x2 + Cyborks
      1 Battlewagon + Deff Rolla + Big Shoota x1
Troops: 18 'Ard Boyz, 'Ard Boyz Nob + Bosspole + Power Klaw
Troops: 29 Choppa Boyz, Boyz Nob + Bosspole + Power Klaw
Troops: 29 Shoota Boyz, + Big Shoota x3,  Boyz Nob + Bosspole + Power Klaw
Troops: 19 Gretchin, 1  Runtherd
Heavy Support: 1 Battlewagon + Deff Rolla + Big Shoota x1
Aegis Defence Lines + Quad-gun

So the wagons are more likely to go down and the Death Star is a bigger point sink but more survivable and killy, but I don't get to choose where it goes.

It sounds like fun, but probably will be disastrous.   The upside is I have a Mad doc body (missing arms) and really old gretchin I can use.  So I can try this out and only have to proxy the one Mega nob.

But this just makes me think orks are going to fall into the 'fun but not competitive' category without really starting the army completely anew.

My Blood Angel Army in 6th Edition

Thinking or Failing?  Answer: Yes

So I've continued to think about my different armies and how they work in 6th edition.  I think I've played them all at least a few times with the exception of my CSM.   I don't really see the point in investing much play time with them right now as the dex is close enough to just put them on the back burner for now.

I've also played my Imperial Fists and my Bikes a bunch now and both armies I believe are fun and competitive.  I certainly can do some tweaking and have to get more practice with these but I think they are basically my two 'tournament options' at this point.  I'd just need to commit more time to getting their painting up from 'looks good' to 'looks great' which I think I could do if I committed a few weeks to doing so.

However that leaves several other armies collecting dust and I'd sure like to figure out what the best configs I can build for them would be for 6th edition.  I'm always a sucker for new projects and all, but with the above 3 armies probably needing the bulk of the painting time the later part of the year I'd like to keep these other armies to a bit of 'fixing' than complete overhauls.

Despite the fact there may no be fixing this.

So this is the remaining armies we're looking at upgrading to 6th:

Blood Angels
Orks
Black Templar
Tau

Today I'll tackle my Blood Angels.  The big problem with my BA in particular is that I build a specific Descent of Angels list and that has been blown up with 6th edition.  You can only place half of your army in reserves, so the idea of having an entire force (or most of it) landing on turn 2 on a flank, pin pointing your attack and then weathering return fire is gone.

So option one is just to run the same list as before and decide what 'half' you drop.  So for the sake of argument here is what my 5th edition DoA army looked like.

HQ: Commander Dante
HQ: Librarian in Power Armour + Jump Pack
Elite: 2 Sanguinary Priest in Power Armour+ Jump Pack + Combi-Meltagun
Troops: 5 Sanguinary Guard+ Chapter Banner + Infernus Pistol + Power Fist
Troops: 9 Assault Squad with 2x Meltagun, Sergeant + Infernus Pistol + Power Sword
Troops: 9 Assault Squad with 2x Meltagun, Sergeant + Infernus Pistol + Power Sword
Troops: 9 Assault Squad with 2x Meltagun, Sergeant + Infernus Pistol + Power Sword
Fast Attack: 10 Vanguard Veteran Squad with Jump Packs, 6 SS, 2 TH, 2 PW

It was pretty simple and provided lots of options.  The Vangaurd usually combat squaded and charged the nastiest thing on the table.  The assault squad combated up to melta vehicles.  Then the Dante/Libby/Priest/SangG would drop safely in the middle to provide support.  It worked well... but in 6th edition there are major problems.

So first of all I'd like to still have that 'drop of death' but obviously that is impossible in 6th edition.  That means at best I am going to get a few choice units down on turn 2.  For the sake of trying to keep the core of the army the same let's say it's the Vets and the Sang Gaurd squad.

So in theory that is:
Dante + Libby + Priest + Sang Gaurd
Vang Vets
Vang Vets

That is 6 units I want to put in reserve.  What does that leave me on the table?
Priest plus Assault Squad
Assault Squad
Assault Squad

So 4 units, which of course can easily be made up to 6 by combat squad two units.  But there is now a lot of waste in those assault squads.  For one the sarg load out doesn't seem so effective.  I think you have two options here, tool out the sarg for close combat or run them naked.  Since these guys are going to have to start on the field and try to weather fire and hang around to score I'm going naked with them.  If furious charge still gave the +1 Init, but with that gone and combat being what it is... I don't think that is these guys first choice of 'what to do.'  That's -90 points right there.

The next big problem is anti flier.  Running around with melta guns is not going to cut it in 6th edition.  I've toyed around with adding a Stormraven (or two) but the easiest answer is the Aegis Defence line with the quad gun.  The bonus here is there is now some nice cover for the squads on the table to start behind.  That's +100 pts.

However it seems silly to think the assault squads are going to stand there manning a gun all day.  So it's got me thinking about what to change out.  I could drop a tactial squad back there in lieu of the assault squad, but I think I'd like to look a dev squads.  One squads with 3 missile each is 120 points.   4 would be nice but it isn't like I can shoot at different targets like long fangs (bastards).

Or I could use this configuration... GENIUS!

The other thing I've been feeling like I need is an anti horde unit.  So what I'd like to try out is an honor gaurd squad loaded with flamers.  I can cut one of the solo priests and get that chalice in this squad with 4 flamers for 185 points with jump packs.

A few other tweaks and this is what I've got:

HQ: Commander Dante
HQ: Librarian in Power Armour + Jump Pack
HQ: 5 Honor Gaurds + Jump Packs + 4 Flamers
Elite: 1 Sanguinary Priest in Power Armour+ Jump Pack
Troops: 5 Sanguinary Guard+ Chapter Banner + 2 Infernus Pistol
Troops: 9 Assault Squad with 2x Meltagun, Sergeant
Troops: 9 Assault Squad with 2x Meltagun, Sergeant
Fast Attack: 10 Vanguard Veteran Squad with Jump Packs, 6 SS, 2 PF, 2 PW
Heavy Support: 5 Devastator Squad + Missile Launcher x3
Aegis Defence Lines+ Quad-gun

Starting on the table now:
Priest + Assault Squad
Assault Squad
Dev Squad
Honor Gaurd?

So I still have to split both Assault squads to get my reserve working but it is good to have more targets on the field.  The honor gaurd may start with the guys on the board, or if I really feel the need to land a number of flamers I could drop them with Dante and keep the Sang Gaurd/Priest/Libby on the board.  The army has a reduction in troops by 10 marines, but more importantly it went from 7 possible scoring units to 5.  So I'm not sure how that will work out really.  Maybe in Big Guns and Sourging I'll be helped a bit by the units in the list.

The good news is that I probably have all the bits to make the devs and honor gaurd, so this is not really a costly change.  It has some options to scale downward, probably having to lose half the vang vets to just get down to 1750 and ALL of them to get down to 1500.  Or maybe cut out the dev squads and some other trimmings for 1850, or cut dante and the SG... but there are at least some options.

I think it isn't horrible, but I think it lacks the ability to do the serious alpha damage that it could in 5th.  Plus it can possibly be tabled in turn one for a loss though I'd hope that would be AWFULLY hard to do, and any army that I think could do that I could of course just start on the table as well.

So I'm going to go do some bits rummaging and hopefully add this updated army into the queue for play testing.

Celesticon 40k Reflections

So it was a fun couple of days of 40k this past labor day weekend out at Celesticon.  I played in two events and had fun playing against some tough lists and generals!

I don't feel up to doing battle reports for these games though.  For one I'm exhauseted, two I took very little pictures to help me remember, and three I was drinking during most of the games!

So here is a brief run down of how it went.

The first day was the 2000 point Lazy Boy tournament.  I took my Imperial fists complete with 700 pt deathstar of Lysander/Libby/terminators.

Game 1 was against a local transplant from Sac, Pierce, who brought grey knights with a Bastion.  My biggest concern were outflanking Dreadknights so I castled in one corner and 'Thunderbubbled' around my defences.  One Dreadknight came on the wrong side, and since they can't assault out of reserve the other got mobbed.   My bigger problem was with the Bastion which I really just had no answer for at all.  In the end he had his unit in the Bastion, the Bastion, and his HQ left.  I was in pretty good shape.

Game 2 was against Justin who I've played twice before at different events.  He is a great dude and we laugh a lot (and drink a lot) during our games.  He played DE/Eldar which was largely a big troop blob + venom spam.  This was a really close game but it ended up going one turn too long for me and he snatched the win and the overall victory for the day.

The next day was the 1750 event and I brought marines again but this time the bike variant with the Eldar allies.

Game 1 I played Pierce AGAIN!  This time he had his just gorgeous Daemon army.  I thought for sure he would win best painted.  However a nurgle chaos took that honor, but Pierce would go on to get the best overall award.

This was a fun game but it was also a little weird.  Weird in that for three turns nothing went his way and everything went great for me.  Then, as if somebody had hit a light switch the exact opposite happened.   He had horrible scatters the first three rounds and he spent most of those turns nearly tabled due to my hot dice.  Then his scatters  and flamers went to town, he got two Changelings 'shoot your own guys' LD tests off on me, and I could not roll well to save my life.

In the end I only won due to First Blood.  So a very narrow victory.

Game two was against Alex's bugs.  I played Alex in game 7 a the BaO (he ran marines there) and he is a really nice guy.  He had been up late the night before so was hurting a bit for our game, and I feel bad about our game.  Not necessarily because of what happened on the table, but my attitude was pretty negative the back half of the game.  It is a horrible habit I fall into and I've spoken about it before on the blog.  I was watching things fall apart (again) and Alex was encouraging to play it out until the end.  I even shook his hand after the top of 7 and he still said 'roll these last dice, you can still win this.'  I had totally forgotten that Krak grenades work against Monstorous Creatures.  My lone biker locked in combat with a Tervigon on an objective managed to knock off his last wound and that won me the game.

Crazy.

But now I felt like a complete douche.  I apologized profusely.  I know better and I still have to work on it.  Alex took it all in stride.

My last game was against another Dan with orks!  I was interested in how orks were being run and how they were doing.  He had obviously won two games, and on table one next to us another ork army was playing necrons.  I made sure to not let any negativity enter into this game and we had a lot of fun since we basically knew we were not going to get 'best general' due to victory points.

I had first turn and I shot him up pretty good.  The last few turns I was running out of room though and on turn 5 it was really anybodies game.  I made him make some tough choices, and if one combat had gone better for him he would have won it.  I was pretty sure it would not, and was hoping the game would end.  It did for once!  Had the game gone on it was still anybodies game but essentially line breaker and first blood won me that game.

So how did I do overall?

Essentially three of us went 3-0 but because I just eeked out wins I had low Victory Points which were only used for tie breakers I landed 3rd for Best General.  I got a middle-ish sports score (not horribly surprising) and there was no real paint score, just a favorite army vote basically.

So I can't be too unhappy with my overall gaming this weekend.   I still feel a bit dickish for my poor attitude in the game with Alex but I'm sure we'll play again and I will go the extra mile to make sure I return the positive attitude.

Beyond that the Aegis defence line and quad gun are worth their weight in gold IMHO.  Even though they got over run in several games they downed fliers and put wounds on MCs that reserved which was great.  I'm not sure they are 100% needed in all lists but currently I think I'm putting it in every list I am writing until more anti flier units are available.

I think the biker army is probably my best army in 6th edition.  I think perhaps I need to be more prepared for that 'late game crumble' for this army.  I run out of room to move, units get creamed in combat, and options start getting slim.  Clearly the army can win despite it, but it is shocking to go several turns unscathed, dishing out tons of damage, to just get out right murdered the last few turns.

The Eldar allies were ok.  Doom worked out great, but the overall anti psy protection did not come up very big.  It is useless against Daemons and orks, but can potentially be huge against bugs.  However he only failed one test, and he didn't shy away from trying.  So I'm going to build up my own unit, but I'm considering bouncing it in the 1500 pt list in favor of the aegis and scouts.

The Imperial Fists were a ton of fun.  I just don't know what to trim out lower than 2k points.   Probably the entire deathstar and just rely on lots of hulls.  But it just doesn't feel very... threatening, nor interesting to play really.

So for now I can just muck around with lists for friendly games I'll hopefully be getting in the next few weeks.  There are no tournaments on the short term calendar, so I think painting is going to be a little slack as I wait to see the Chaos dex drop.