RocketShip Games

Kiril and I got in a 1500pt game of 40k on Sunday, his Imperial Guard versus my Kingbreakers Space Marines.  The game was pretty taut, well balanced until the very end.  As Colin noted, this matchup between us is definitely becoming on ongoing grudge match.

Lists & Mission

I believe Kiril brought something like:

• Company command squad w/ Astropath
• Platoon w/ 20 man blob, 10 man squads?, Flamer squad, two Lascannon squads
• Platoon w/ 20 man squad, 10 man squads?, Melta squad, Al’rahem
• Veterans
• Two Leman Russes w/ Battle Cannon, Lascannons
• Primaris Psyker
• Marbo

I brought:

• Captain Angholan (as Vulkan)
• Sternguard x5 in Drop Pod w/ Combi-Meltas
• Dreadnought in Drop Pod w/ Assault Cannon, Heavy Flamer, CCW
• Dreadnought in Drop Pod w/ Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer, CCW
• Tactical Squad in Razorback w/ PF, Flamer, Lascannon
• Tactical Squad in Rhino w/ Meltagun, Missile Launcher
• Tactical Squad in Rhino w/ Flamer, Lascannon
• Squadron of two Landspeeders w/ Multi-Meltas and Heavy Flamers

We rolled for Seize Ground with five objectives (!), and Dawn of War.

Battle!

Four of the objectives wound up being deployed in a fairly tight quadrilateral on a half of the board splitting the long edge.  The other was fairly removed, off on the other side of the board along the main axis.  Kiril took first and deployed simply a Lascannon squad, in cover on top of the abandoned bunker overlooking the objectives.  I deployed a Tactical Squad in their Rhino, hugged tightly behind a wall near one of the objectives.  They wouldn’t be well placed for much shooting, but neither would they be able to get shot at much.

In the first turn, about half of Kiril’s Guardsmen came on, with most near the objectives quadrilateral and a small detachment moving toward the remote one.  Kingbreakers’ Dreadnought Drop Pods came down right on top of the abandoned bunker and one of the objectives while Landspeeders and the Razorback came forward in the cover provided by that wall of Pods.  Between the Heavy Flamers on the Dreadnoughts, Assault Cannon, and Razorback Heavy Bolter, the Guard’s initial Lascannon team was eliminated, probably an important result for keeping my vehicles moving.

In the following turn, Al’rahem’s squads come on along the short edge near the objectives quadrilateral.  This was risky for both sides—it exposed the bulk of the Kingbreakers’ vehicles to Melta fire, but also put those squads very close to an awful lot of firepower and assault capability.  One of the Leman Russes entered on the remote edge, supporting the detachment heading for the far objective.  Sternguard attempted to drop on top of the Russ and take it out, but a system glitch scattered them far toward the interior of the battle, well out of Melta bonus range.

The Kingbreakers weathered Al’rahem’s arrival reasonably well, losing a Landspeeder, a mission killed Dreadnought (immobilized with basically no line of sight possible), and Captain Angholan’s Razorback transport.  While the remaining Landspeeder’s shaken crew ran for cover, Dreadnought Slayer wheeled from his protected place amid the Drop Pods and righteously flamed the Guardsmen before barreling into them for the assault.  Angholan and Squad Scolirus ignored Marbo and charged the small squad protecting the Primaris Psyker, flaming heavily in the process and obliterating it.

Meanwhile the Guard advanced into the lightly defended table center.  Kingbreakers’ Sternguard were wiped out under heavy fire from the Leman Russes, both having now entered, and much small arms fire from the nearby infantry squads.  Angholan and his men charged into combat alongside Dreadnought Slayer, with the two of them together now carving wholesale through the ranks of the Guard.  The remaining Landspeeder, crew now recovered, moved valiantly to stem the tide of Guardsmen encroaching on the center objective, making good use of its Heavy Flamer.

With the end of the battle nearing, Squad Titus broke from cover in its Rhino and started moving toward the center objective.  This began one of the more dynamic portions of an already fairly active match.  The Rhino moved just short of the objective, while a large blob of Guardsmen sat on it on the other side, a heathen monument and crashed Landspeeder between them.  On Turn 5, the “safe” move was maybe to move the Rhino onto the objective with Titus inside, contest it, and hope that the game would end that turn with the Kingbreakers holding two other objectives and the Guard just out of place, only holding one.  Instead, Titus disembarked and ran around the monument to shoot and assault the Guard while the Rhino nosed onto the objective to contest.  With supporting fire from the Drop Pods and Dreadnought Slayer, the entire Guard blob was eliminated—the Kingbreakers actually had to hold of shooting a bit to ensure it remained in assault range.

Titus’s whole squad still intact, it consolidated on top of the objective.  Unable to get into cover from the assured return Russ Battle Cannon bombardments, the squad clustered tightly around the objective and prayed to their power armor to keep at least some alive and on the marker.  The game did in fact go on for another turn, and only two Marines survived the heavy shelling they received.  Both tried to clamber over the wrecked Landspeeder, but one got snagged and injured in the burning wreckage—a 1/6 fail on the difficult terrain check!—so only the meltagunner made it over, diving into the waiting Rhino for some much needed cover while holding the objective.

Potentially devastatingly, the game then went on to Turn 7!  The meltagunner’s Rhino was promptly smashed by sniping Lascannon teams and a Leman Russ, exploding in a shower of plasteel and electronics!  The rattled meltagunner inside survived purely by the Emperor’s mercy, tried to get as small as he could inside the resultant crater to stay out of sight from the remaining Russ.  His position in the crater then just barely managed to put him out of assault range from oncoming Guard flamers—the team rolling a 4 for difficult terrain, short by ~1 inch—to hold the objective for the final, dramatically arrived end of the game.

In sum, over the last three turns, that meltagunner had survived an assault on a 20 man squad, shelling by two Leman Russes, scrambling over a burning Landspeeder that claimed his only remaining buddy, the annihilation and explosion of the transport he was embarked in, and more shelling by Leman Russes, as well as flaming and near assault by a nearby Guard contingent.  All in all, definitely MVP of the Kingbreakers’ force in this match.

Meanwhile, in mopping up operations, Angholan and Slayer flushed the Guard’s Company command squad from its objective, while the remaining Tactical Marine squads moved to cement their positions on objectives.

Outcome

Kingbreakers win, three objectives to one, with one contested.  Both sides had plenty of units left; casualties were very light for the game, though a good number of Guardsmen had of course gone to meet the Emperor.  Life is cheap in the service of the Imperium.

Notes

One rules question we had was whether or not an Independent Character, such as the Primaris Psyker, can Outflank with the Platoon if he joins Al’rahem’s unit.  Notably, Al’rahem does not have Scout, which would be lost if an IC without Scout joins.  Instead, he simply forces his unit to go into reserve and Outflank.  We’ll have to look into this more, but we played it as the Psyker could join a squad in the platoon and Outflank.

Another rules note that came up is that unexploded, destroyed vehicles become wrecks, which count as difficult and dangerous terrain (main rulebook, page 62).  I don’t think most people realize you can move over wrecked vehicles, though I’d definitely try to be reasonable about putting models on somebody’s painted vehicle.  In this game it was important because I placed one of the Landspeeder wrecks to block one of the Guard platoons a bit, but that came back to haunt me later when Titus’ remaining guys wanted to run back to their Rhino.  Going around the ‘Speeder was too far, but fortunately they were able to use that rule to move over top of it, though one of them—amazingly and almost calamitously—failed the dangerous terrain check and bought the farm.

There were several times when I had to hold back shooting in order to leave enough enemy models to ensure an assault.  In a couple cases though the overkill couldn’t be easily avoided, leaving my guys out in the open rather than able to assault.  I would have had to not shoot with every model in the unit, let alone not shooting with other units.  That’s something I’ll have to get a better handle on and try to think about more in the future.

Another interesting point is that one critical move occurred early in the game.  Dreadnought Slayer was facing a small squad of meltagunners in front of him, and a 20 man squad with a couple meltagunners behind them.  I needed to remove some of the front meltagunners, but really wanted to get into assault with the large blob behind and tie it up.  Fortunately, I was able to shoot the squad behind, placing the flamer template over much of the small front unit and hitting a cluster in the rear unit.  That removed a bunch of the front meltagunners, and left room for Slayer to assault the large blob, which he could do because that was the unit he declared shooting at.  I’m not sure it’s totally obvious to all players that you don’t have to choose to flame the unit directly in front of you in that situation.

In general I was happy with my loadout.  This game saw intense use of all the Kingbreakers’ flamers.  Kiril runs a troop heavy list, and with the Outflanking Al’rahem, occasionally winds up in pretty close contact.  The Heavy Flamer upgrades on the Dreadnoughts are definitely worth the 10 points.  Vulkan’s Heavy Flamer gauntlet also seems to come in handy much more often than I thought it would.  In general I’ve been pretty happy with Vulkan.  A little vulnerable in close combat against some units, but in general he’s pretty versatile at both close combat and shooting, and obviously his army-wide twin linked buff is huge.  The Assault Cannon on the one Dread is expensive, but its four shots paid off in this game against the hordes of Guard models.  Sternguard were basically a waste this time, but they rolled a ridiculous 11 for scatter on their Pod.  If they’d come down closer to the Leman Russ on the board at that point, things could have gone a fair bit differently.  Really my biggest disappointment was the Lascannons in the Tactical squads.  One spent the bulk of the game too hidden to shoot anything, and the other moving too much.  When they did get to shoot they invariably whiffed.  That said though, they’re pretty cheap in the Tac Squads, and would be more useful if there hadn’t been as much terrain between them and the Russes.  Their squads did also hold two objectives and that’s what wins games, so the squads as a whole did fine.

I think one of the big problems for Kiril in this game was that his Russes wound up without a ton of shooting opportunities.  They found things to shoot at every turn, but a lot of it wasn’t super critical.  Between the terrain and my Pods, there was just too much intervening material from where he brought them on.  Outflanking right onto my guys was also super gutsy, for which I give him credit.  In the end a lot of those units got rolled by just the one Dreadnought, Drop Pods, and Angholan’s squad, but if he hadn’t come on there I would have been left largely to my own devices on top of most of the objectives.

One other thought is that I was very satisfied to win the game after the extensive late-game action around Titus’ squad in the center.  I figured staying in the Rhino was a safer move but was basically playing for a draw, hoping to bunker down and contest the center objective.  By hopping out and attacking the oncoming large blob it was risking a lot more with the potential ruination of the squad under return fire, but it was playing more aggressively for a decisive win by clearing the center objective.  In the end it maybe didn’t matter as Slayer and Angholan were also able to contest the Guard’s home objective, but without Titus absorbing massive firepower in the last two turns it’s possible one or another of my other squads would have been wiped out and lost their objectives.

All around a solid game—pretty even for most of it, then up in Kiril’s favor, and then decisively for the Kingbreakers.  A few more photos are available in the Flickr gallery.

Company Commander Zvezdarov watched through his scanner as the incoming blips moved ever closer.  Turning to Al’rahem, Zvezdarov gave the nod and off 1st Platoon went, engines roaring along a wide sweeping arc around the field ahead…

Kiril and I got in two 1500 pt games pts at PAGE the other night.  Most notably, he decided it would be a good time to experiment with Al’rahem.  For those unfamiliar with the IG codex, Al’rahem is an upgrade character that takes the role of a Platoon Command Squad officer.  He has some interesting things, like a Power Weapon that inflicts Instant Death regardless of toughness (if only Librarians’ Force Weapons were that useful!) and the ability to give two orders, but his big effect is that the whole Platoon must then Outflank, so he grants a flanking move to potentially dozens and dozens of Guardsmen, Weapons Teams, Chimeras, and so on.  Kiril doesn’t sound too sold on it, but personally I thought the results were very interesting and favorable.

Game 1

We roll for Pitched Battle and Seize Ground, though we made a minor mistake and played it D3+3 objectives.  Rolling a big 3, we wound up with a hefty 6 objectives on the table.  I put mine fairly tightly packed into one corner and Kiril spread his out along a much longer diagonal in the opposite corner.  I wound up going first.  He put everything into Reserve and I deployed pretty much everything, with one squad strung out between two of the objectives I placed and the others shifted over a little to go grab the objectives Kiril placed.

Rushing forward in the first two turns, I quickly camped out on 4 objectives and had units near all 6.  Then almost everything of Kiril’s came in on Turn 2.  Al’rahem and his Platoon Outflanked almost directly on top of my original corner objective, completely neglecting the objectives he had placed and the tempting center cluster of objectives.  The Leman Russ, Colossus, and various Heavy Weapons teams walked or rolled on alongside the same table edge as Al’rahem, camping out in terrain close to their long table edge.

The effect of this was to basically rotate the table.  My one squad was very close to the incoming Platoon, but everyone else faced a long slog to get over to Kiril’s forces.  It seemed unlikely he’d be able to challenge two of my captured objectives, but it left my nearer two unsupported, with a lot of ground to cover by the ‘Speeders and Dreads, getting shot up the whole time.  I had assumed he was going to try and Outflank directly on top of the objectives he’d placed close to the board edge, and it sounded afterward like that was his plan, but my big push up into there made that pretty risky so given the choice he came on the other side, completely opposite the bulk of my forces.

At this point I probably made a mistake.  My Tactical Squad holding my two starting objectives started retreating.  As strung out as they were, if they assaulted or were assaulted by the Platoon, only a few were going to be able to use the reaction move to get into the combat.  I was worried that being under strength in combat would then start the unit getting chewed up piecemeal, swarmed by overwhelming numbers.  In reality I should have sacrificed the unit in order to tie up as much of that Platoon as possible.  In the event, after running away from that objective, Marbo came down next to the same squad and I was faced with a tough choice between trying to take him out or keeping on shooting and trying to take down as many Guardsmen as possible.  I chose the latter, and Marbo started finishing off the two squads in that quarter as the Colossus pummeled them.  As Marbo advanced forward the Platoon behind crept along and eventually by the very end of Turn 5, various squads had made their way onto the three objectives I had placed.

Meanwhile, along the other long table edge, I was left relatively powerless.  The Sternguard came down aggressively, but there were just too many Guardsmen around to make much dent in the horde, and too many of them making a buffer around the Leman Russ and Colossus for the Sternguard to dispatch either.  Having advanced all my units forward and out to grab objectives, they faced a long slog to wheel around and get into position to really hurt the IG line.  In addition, the Tactical Squads couldn’t really do much without vacating their objectives.  A lot of my forces were therefore left either quietly sitting on objectives for the battle, or running toward the IG gunline.  Also in the last turn, as the IG ran for the objectives I had placed, Tactical 2’s remaining Combat Squad decamped from its Razorback hideout and strung out between two fortuitously placed objectives to claim both.  The hold was tenuous, several were killed by the pounding they of course took in Kiril’s last round of shooting, but the game ended at the bottom of 5 before they were forced to abandon an objective to move back into cohesion.

By the end not a lot of Guardsmen died, had but they also hadn’t really been in a position to hurt much more than my two post-rotation leading Tactical Squads, and most of the damage inflicted on them came from the Colossus.

Recap

The general flow of the battle, or close enough; the pictures roughly but not quite correspond to turns (some things have shifted up or down to ease narrative), and I might be off on the countless numbers of Guard foot squads:

Results

Draw, 3 objectives each.

Thoughts

Marbo is a pain in the ass.  Not a game breaker, but definitely annoying.  You have to shoot him or he’ll just whittle away your guys, but he’s also not really worth shooting at when you have juicier targets around.  Personally from a design standpoint I think that’s a good unit, with interesting tradeoffs imposed on the opposing player and has good utility to the Guard player.  Either he does a fair bit of damage, or he rather cheaply takes up some decent amount of shooting if he can get some cover.

Once the IG rotated the table, I should have vacated the leftmost objectives I had taken and come to those in the center of the table.  This would have exposed my guys to more attacks, but if they survived they would have potentially prevented the Guard from moving forward toward and onto those objectives.

The Outflank could have gone quite worse.  If Kiril had rolled to come on via the short edge directly by my guys, things could have gone pretty bad pretty fast for that Platoon.  That is a big risk at these point levels and how Kiril was playing it, where that Platoon was the bulk of his army.  However, I thought it was a pretty good tactic.  Outflanking units have a 2/3 chance of coming in on the table edge you desire, even without taking an Astropath and getting a re-roll on that.  At this point level, Al’rahem’s one Platoon could make up a substantial part of your army.  This potentially lets you set up all those forces far away from the opposing player, giving plenty of time for you to shoot them up.

Where I think that move might suffer is on boards with a fair amount of high terrain that blocks LOS.  In some ways that will work well, as the IG has a number of effective indirect fire weapons like the Colossus that will ignore the blockages, while many army builds will be stymied (how often do you see a Whirlwind out there?), yielding the perfect mix of cover for your own guys but still plenty of shooting opportunities.  On the other hand, most of the Heavy Weapons teams and so on will also be blocked in their shooting by the terrain.  It could also be problematic if the opponent stays castled up near the center then moves to attack after the Guard arrive, rather than trying to camp out objectives early like I did here.  Probably worse, that Outflank move seems vulnerable to highly mobile units.  Fast BA Rhinos, Dark Eldar Raiders, and so on could all deliver their units pretty quickly directly on top of the gunline.  But, that’s maybe not really any different than usual.

Also, I made a mistake in putting the Rhino with full Tactical Squad on the left edge.  With the way things turned out, it would have been better suited than the Razorback with Combat Squad to string out and claim the two center objectives as happened in the end game.  However, I was concerned about the whole platoon coming down on that one left objective, so I wanted a whole squad in that Rhino ready to pop out and wreak havoc.

Game 2

The second game proceeded similarly, although we rolled for Annihilation instead.  Expecting and receiving mostly the same tactic, I moved most of the Kingbreakers up close to the centerline of the table.  A few Ratlings and a small squad tried to create a distraction in the far corner, but they were quickly dispatched.  The rest of the Guard bunkered down, tucked tightly into a far edge.  From there I had to rush across 3–4 feet of pretty open ground, with a large number of Autocannons and Lascannons working on my vehicles while the Colossus went to town on my footslogging troops.

Results

Kiril won by one or two Kill Points, basically an extra popped Rhino and Landspeeder in the final round of shooting.

Lessons

This is exactly the kind of game where you really really want a Whirlwind, with a ton of closely bunched Guard Infantry.  It’s just a shame they’re probably not the most cost effective unit against other armies and situations.

More Lascannons in my army would be useful.  It’s just too difficult to cross that much ground without giving away too many models in order to swoop in for the Melta kills.  I’m starting to believe that 1) Meltas have been over-emphasized in the metagame, and 2) my early learning experiences have bent me to worrying more about hordes than I should.  Either way, I should start fielding more Lascannons, though I unfortunately don’t particularly like the model.  The range is just so short on Meltas that it can be pretty hard for many armies to deliver them reliably.

Importantly, the Kingbreakers wound up just a bit too far to the left after the first couple moves.  I shifted them off center a little in order to tuck in behind some terrain in case some of Kiril’s units came in directly in front of them.  However, I should have just risked absorbing that shooting in favor of coming in right on top of the centerline and being able to rush either way more quickly.  I also popped smoke too early, defending against that straight ahead shooting that didn’t come.  That cover should have been reserved for the charge across open ground to whichever table edge the Guard did come in on.

The Colossus is a real threat.  Wounds on 2s on most things, indirect fire, pins, and ignores Marine armor and cover saves.  It did the bulk of the killing in both games.  Notably, Kiril did a good job tucking it away.  Not only was it as far as possible from anything I had that could hurt it, but there was also a pretty good wall of troops around it preventing units, such as the Drop Podding Sternguard, from getting too close.  Hence the need for Lascannons.

Conclusion

All in all a good time, and two interesting and close games.  More and higher res photos are available in the Flickr gallery.  I’ll have to think more about how to do better against this approach.

PAGE CC got its Apocalypse on again yesterday—12,000 points and two titans per side of Imperials and Chaos slugging it out in a 9 hour grudge match!

Rules, scenario, and notes for the match are available here.  Everything wound up running incredibly smoothly.  The various restrictions, declarations, and negotiations made things very balanced and clear.  A good talk about terrain at the start, as well as adhering to some very simple rules for it, made table movement also very straightforward and non-controversial.  We also did a great job adhering to schedule.  Rapid deployments put us back on schedule after a sluggish start, and everything ran like clockwork after that, with the night ending exactly 15 minutes early since the last turns went pretty quick—few units were left standing!

A battle report and more thoughts will come later, but I wanted to post photos highlighting some of the awesome models found out on the table.  Jon, Lorenzo, Steve, and Tom in particular had some amazing painting, conversion, and scratchbuilding on display, and most of the other armies were well painted as well.  Many many many more photos are available in the Flickr gallery, but the following are some of the highlights.

Again, many more photos are available in the Flickr gallery.  Look for more writeups over the next couple days!

Some photos from last night’s gaming:

More photos in the Flickr gallery.

This is a re-post of a long note on a DakkaDakka thread about gaming stores that spawned some discussion about gaming clubs.  It talks about some things I’ve been meaning to write about regarding PAGE:

Chiming in on the clubs sub-thread: I help run a club (PAGE CC) in Philadelphia (east coast US). For those sort of clued in about the area but not quite, it’s about 40 minutes from Mikhaila’s store. Just close enough that a couple guys go there from time to time, but probably just far enough to be slightly different “markets,” particularly when you figure many in our club are true downtowners who rely on public transit, walking, etc.

The club meets once a week (Sunday evenings) in a building downtown owned by a long standing philosophy/activism organization (Philadelphia Ethical Society). The traditional club focus is on boardgaming, but miniatures and particularly 40k are a large and increasing aspect, and definitely currently the most energized.

Although small by many standards, I think the club’s actually fairly successful. The big thing is that almost everyone can find people to game with. On any given week, you will find a variety of boardgames to hop into. On the monthly 40k convergence, you’ll find a bunch of different armies and a good number of players (generally 12–17 players), and the club members work together to provide and transport terrain and so on, which many people don’t have or can’t get there.

In many ways it fills many of the roles of a good gaming store, which I see as including at least:

- Providing space to play. I think most people will happily play games with a larger set of people than those they would like to have traipsing all over their house. On top of that, public space can often run a lot more games. Especially in a dense urban area like ours, space at home to run more than a table or two is rare, let alone space to run the 12 or so we routinely run at the club (e.g., our recent pattern of 7–8 40k, 1 or 2 Warmachine, and 2–4 boardgames). Having that kind of space to all get together is great because it helps you meet new people, catch up with guys you may not be playing on a given night, suck in new players (”Wow, what are you guys playing?!?!”), and build an event atmosphere.

- Expose people to new games, systems, armies. Despite loving and following the fluff, I might never have gotten into actually playing 40k if I hadn’t kept seeing a couple guys playing it at the club. Having a large pool of people bringing in games, armies, etc., really increases your level of exposure to the hobby, letting you find that next great thing you really love.

- Teaching and recruiting new players. A lot of our guys are happy to lend out armies for people to try playing, and a lot are super supportive of new players. Part of the reason I started playing 40k a lot is basically a couple of the guys gave me a lot of their unused models once they saw the gleam in my eye… Having that large group also keeps new perspectives coming in, so people learn a lot more about rules and tactics then they would playing the same couple people all the time. Ditto on painting and modeling skills and ideas.

- Providing terrain and other support. Myself and a couple other guys love building terrain, have space to store it, and can transport it to the meetings. Other people don’t. Playing at the club provides a lot of our guys much better options in this regard then they would have on their own.

- Giving a community in which to geek out. Even though the club only meets once a week and 40k basically once a month plus the odd game here and there, there’s a lot of chatter about games and specifically 40k on our listserve. A lot of people get that from great forums like Dakka as well, but it’s cool to then actually see those people and get in a game with those people.

- Run special events. Especially for 40k, we have a pretty reasonable stream of stuff going on, whether it’s the club outing to ‘Ard Boyz or other external tournaments, our own relaxed tournaments, themed narrative nights, Apocalypse games, or whatever, people really get into that and having the club provides a larger pool of players and, critically, potential organizers.

In any event, such clubs definitely exist in America and I think have an important position in the gaming community.

Another point is that people are totally willing to pay for all of those features I list above (we basically charge $4/night to cover rent), so it makes no sense for anyone to argue that people playing at a store shouldn’t be supporting that store in some way. Whether it’s memberships to use store features or buying merchandise, I think that’s a completely reasonable expectation. Even within our club, which runs a pretty decent periodic bulk discount purchase, all of the core 40k guys definitely put out and evangelize the perspective that if you’re playing in a store, you should buy something. I admit that I hesitate to buy big stuff at full price, but myself and a bunch of the guys are all too happy to buy codexes, small boxes like Command Squads, etc., at local stores.

On that note, I think clubs and stores can definitely exist together. We’ve been unfortunate that there haven’t been gaming stores right in downtown Philly in a while, but recently we’ve been slowly building up a relationship with a new store on the western edge of Center City (Redcap’s). For an example of how they complement each other, one thing I think we’re finding is that it’s obviously easier for them to host small groups at weird times. They’re a store, they’re open basically all the time, and they have pretty good gaming space. You can reliably count on popping in with a friend to play a match and finding a table. Our kind of gaming would have to get a whole lot more popular for the club to justify paying that kind of rent (it’s worth noting though that Philadelphia and most cities have many bridge, poker, and other full time gaming clubs). On the other hand, in some ways it’s easier for the club to host less regular big events. We don’t have to worry about things like crowding out all the cash-money Magic players with a large crowd of comparatively space-required-per-$$$ inefficient 40k players. So, I’m hoping we can work together with symbiotic events and efforts to continue growing 40k in Center City.

Lots of miniatures gaming at PAGE tonight.  First up, Colin and Anthony played out their match for the second round of the 40k Combat Patrol Tournament:

We also had seven people playing Battlefleet Gothic!  This was by far the largest showing for BFG so far at PAGE, and especially noteworthy as none of the Harmons, our regular fleet commanders, were involved.  Steve Smith and Matt Lechtenberg provided the models, but I think they made several converts for future fleet admirals!

I really could have sworn I took more photos of Matt’s fleet and amazing space board, but I guess somehow I whiffed on that.  Probably too focused on getting hammered in my own game.  Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!  Literally… Some of the first damage in our 3-player game came when a torpedo shot made its way around the sun, my Infidel escort narrowly escaping early game disaster, but my Hades cruiser boosting full speed ahead, directly into the torpedos!  Blindsided by the shot across the sun, the ship was wracked with explosions, but they only served to auger its wrath further!

Although I’d read the rules some time previously, this was my first game of BFG.  Initial impressions were very favorable.  It’s pretty streamlined and seemed to have a good amount of tactics.  I could believe it will also become even more strategic with a larger fleet—we kept things very simple for a first time out, merely a cruiser and an escort each in my game.  My biggest concern game-wise is that it’s fairly fiddly with models.  As facing is important, and straightline trajectories critical for many aspects, precise movement and measuring is important.  Measuring stem to stem is also frequently a bit more difficult to spot than simply base to base.  But, among friends, those are minor qualms, and the speed slowdowns are recouped by the relatively low numbers of models.  Although backlogged on models and going into a typically busy period of the year with little gaming, I’m looking forward to playing this again and perhaps building up a small fleet.

Finally, in closing, boardgaming also happened!  Perhaps most interestingly, Kurt and Jeff continued knocking out round after round of playtesting for their new WWII commandos game.

More photos from the evening are available in the Flickr set.

Robin and I played our match for Round 2 of the PAGE/Redcap’s Combat Patrol tournament.  He elected to continue using the 4th Edition Tyranid book for the moment.  The new book changes a lot of things, making many units unavailable in Combat Patrol, so several of our players are for the moment sticking with the old book until they can figure out some new 5e Tyranid small-games lists.

Match Rules

The second scenario is a simple breakout mission.  The campaign defender is trying to escape the encirclement and alert primary defenses, while the campaign attacker is trying to prevent that.  The writeup is available on the tournament page, but the key point is that the defender is trying to exit half his units off the attacker’s table edge.  The campaign attacker absolutely needs to prevent that; their units are more or less expendable toward that goal…

Armies

I believe Robin brought:

• 28 Gaunts, split into 3 squads, all with Flesh Hooks and Without Number.
• 6 Warriors with a variety of weapons, split into 2 squads
• 2 Lictors

For my Kingbreakers I brought:

• 5xSternguard w/ 2 Combi-Flamers with Razorback
• 10xMarines w/ Powerfist, Flamer, Missile Launcher with Rhino
• 10xMarines w/ Chainsword, Flamer, Missile Launcher, with Razorback
• 2xLandspeeders with 2xHeavy Flamers each

Game 1

Sergeant Scolirus hung slightly out of the exit hatch of his Rhino, holding on by the tips of his Powerfist.  He gazed into the distance, watching the tops of the trees sway and crash to the ground as the horde of massive beasts made their way toward his position.  After a long moment he looked down at Captain Angholan and stretched out his hand.  The captain’s exquisitely crafted armor glittered in the sun as he reached out and clasped his arm to Scolirus’ forearm.  “No matter what, get the warning through,” Angholan said quietly, then paused and in a deeper voice closer to his battle speech added “Till tomorrow or the Emperor.”  Scolirus shook his friend’s arm tighly, then swung back into his vehicle.  The captain pivoted on his heels and leaped into the hatchway of his own Rhino, his dark blue robes fluttering in the breeze.  Scolirus could hear his battle brother already issuing orders at rapid pace.  A flight of Landspeeders thundered by just meters overhead as the captain’s Razorback throttled into high gear and jumped after them, the battle begun before the captain had even secured himself in his transport.  Scolirus’ Rhino roared to life and dove into place in the column behind Angholan and the Landspeeders, ready to follow the linebreakers through to whatever may come beyond…

We placed a fair amount of terrain, a mix of craters, forests, rocks, and a large ruin that really choked up the board.  I rolled to choose and opted to deploy and go second.  Robin spread his forces out to cover both basic approaches, and I tried to stay in the center to not reveal too much about what direction I would take.  Sternguard, Tac 1, and Tac 2 all climbed into their transports.  Tac 2’s Combat Squad with the Missile Launcher deployed just to the left to give some cover fire.  The Landspeeders nestled in behind the transports, hoping for some coer if anything should manage to get a shot off at them in Turn 1.

To recap the game quickly by major thrusts: Landspeeders dispatched left and right to try and tie up both opposing forces.  All of the transports shifted left and drove pretty hard to try and concentrate force on a single point of the enemy line.  The Landspeeders devastated the Gaunt squads, and tore up the Warriors as well.  Sgt Harbinger’s Razorback got hung up on difficult terrain, as did a Landspeeder, but his Sternguard simply piled out and provided cover fire to finish taking down the Warriors on the left side and the Lictors that arrived alongside the exit route.  Scolirus and Titus revved their transports, flying them over the debri and escaping to sound the alarm, driving at full tilt amidst groups of fleeing Gaunts scattering into the forests.

Result: Major victory for me by getting half my units (round down) off the board, and both bonus points (enemy Patrol Leader dead, my Patrol Reader ok).

Game 2

I rolled to choose and opted to go first.  I wanted to go second so I could deploy in response to Robin’s positioning, but chose first so I could move aggressively and try to push the conflict as far forward on the table as I could.  I hoped that even if I couldn’t stop everything, hopefully I could slow it down far enough back on the board that they wouldn’t make it off the table in time.  Tac 1 went to the far left to cover the paths along the edge.  The Stenguard’s Razorback also went left, but they settled down among some rubble on the right to better cover the more open approach.  Titus’ Razorback and Tac 2’s Missile Launcher Combat Squad also settled down on that side.

Robin responded by puting two thirds of his Gaunts in a cluster around his Warriors in the center of the board, obscured by the ruins.  The other Gaunts and Warriors deployed left somewhat, as a combo diversionary and flanking maneuver.

Recapping: My vehicles advanced quickly, hoping to push the line forward.  The Landspeeders, emboldened by their survivability in the first game, moved aggressively into enemy territory.  The Sternguard and Tac 2’s Combat Squad, meanwhile, sniped away at the bigger monsters on the left.

Unfortunately, the Landspeeders did not hold up nearly as well this game.  Both were effectively mission killed early in the game by massed Gaunt fire rolling just enough hits to take out weapons and shake or stun the crew.  This enabled the Tyranid clusters to move up safely without being harrassed and with relatively little regard for bunching up.  The flanking Marines eventually whittled these down, but not quickly enough.  The central Warriors jumped onto the ruins and put some heavy casualties on Tac 2’s Combat Squad.  Literally every Kingbreaker unit on the board fired at them, hoping to take them down while in that exposed position.  It was not to be, however, as one Warrior made it through the hail of fire with one wound intact, and slipped down into the rubble.

Meanwhile, the Lictors popped up deep in my backfield and quickly simply ran off the table to alert the Hivemind and meet the mission objectives.  On the left side, the Warriors there also survived just enough to make it through and tie down Harbinger’s Sternguard in close combat.  Between that, the Landspeeders being out, and spending too much time slaughtering gaunts with the other units, that left no unit in position to stop the central Warrior, which burst from the rubble a turn later and quickly left the board in pursuit of the Lictors.

Result: By getting three units off the board, Robin took a Major Victory.  We both got a bonus point for keeping our Patrol Leaders alive—Robin’s was the sneaky Warrior that slipped through the rubble and snuck through to freedom.

Lessons

These were actually a couple pretty good games.  I was very happy with the first one, less because of the result, and more because I came in with a plan—take second, concentrate force on one point and drive through to break the line—that worked pretty well.  The second game I made a few mistakes and it came down to a couple different die rolls that really could have changed the outcome, so it was a good time.

• Flamer List: This list seemed to do pretty well against the ‘Nids, and I assume will hold up well to the 5e upgrade.  There’s no real way to take Vulkan at these point levels even if special characters were allowed in Combat Patrol, but otherwise he’d be a clear choice.  Faced with a mostly power armor based target environment I don’t use flamers much, but here I pretty obviously had to go with it, and it largely paid off.
• ‘Speeders: These guys did awesome in the first game.  In the second they really took too much firepower and became too crippled too fast to really do a ton.  Normally I’d be all about units soaking up firepower like that, but in this case my other units were expendable—the mission objectives put very little priority on campaign attacker units surviving—and I really needed the super mobile flamers on the Landspeeders to chase down any escaping bugs.  All in all I’ve been pretty happy with my Landspeeders, and tonight was no exception.
• Sternguard: These guys have always been one of my MVPs, and they continued to carry that line tonight.  One interesting point is that I used the special ammo a lot more than I have previously.  In almost all previous games I’ve mostly only had occassion to use Hellfire rounds; maybe occassionally a Kraken or Dragonfire shot, but the Hellfire has been far and away the most useful.  Here I used all three of those alot—to snipe from a distance, to work around the large amounts of cover, and to pummel units caught exposed in the open.  This was really neat, although it almost felt like cheating—of course, of course they’ve got an ammo type that just happens to be perfect for this situation!  No, that’s not written in my book in pencil!  Good stuff though.  I liked them abandoning the Razorback that blew tracks on the rocks, running alongside the remainder of the convoy and sniping away at the Warriors on the roof above them and in the rocks ahead, helping the Landspeeders to clear a path.
• Luck: Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.  In the second game once the Warriors jumped up on top of the ruins, I poured in literally all my firepower.  If something’s worth shooting, it’s worth shooting a lot.  I was really hoping to basically end the game there by taking away the only Synapse creatures in position, crippling the movement of the remaining Gaunts, and stopping the fastest units on the board (they had wings).  It wasn’t to be, however,  That one last guy just shook it off, dancing through the cover.  There was a very thematic moment of him roaring in rage on the rooftop, shots pouring in from all over, and then diving into the ruins for cover, the escape basically complete at that point.
• Position: That said, I should have been able to cover for that.  I waited too long to bring back my forward Rhino and Razorback.  They were hanging out devastating the Gaunts, but really they should have moved back earlier once the aggressive line broke a little, and been in place to cover the Warrior escaping through the central ruins.
• Position II: Similarly, not protecting the rear crater was a huge mistake.  I didn’t put a unit into it originally because it had no line of sight so it would have been basically wasting a unit.  When I deployed I also wasn’t thinking about the Lictors coming down and just running off the board.  I was much more concerned about them coming down immediately on the sides of my lines and taking them on.  Sadly, I had spent some time on the way over to the game thinking about exactly this kind of move.  However, I had been thinking about it only in terms of whether or not I should have written the mission scenario to eliminate it (I decided not).  I never really thought about it in player terms, and that game back to cost me a good number of points.
• Deployment: I probably should have also taken second turn again in the second game.  I didn’t because I really wanted to push the line forward before the bugs got to move, but those extra inches weren’t worth it.  Much better would have been to go second and see where Robin deployed, just like in the first game.  In this case it would have let me see he really wasn’t going to go down the left side, and I could have pulled at least the far flanking Rhino and Tac Squad and put them somewhere more useful, buffing up the right flank or covering the rear crater and center path.
• Vehicle killing: Without their big units, old Tyranids really struggle at combating vehicles under Combat Patrol rules.  Not having really seen it, the new book nonetheless sounds a lot more balanced between assault, shooting, and psychic abilities.  I could believe there are many more options for managing vehicles; hopefully some are available in Combat Patrol.
• Tarpitting: In the second game I was stuck in the usual Tyranid mindset of hanging out in vehicles and avoiding close combat.  That was silly; survival of my units had very little to do with meeting the mission objectives.  Everybody should have move forward then dumped and spread out, doing a better job at physically impeding the bugs’ progress.  Even if a few units got chewed up, it really wouldn’t have mattered as long as they’d been slowed down enough.  Vehicles just can’t bog down units and impede there progress like infantry can, even if the latter are going to die…  I let my fear and standard tactics get the best of me, and didn’t think well enough about the particular mission objectives in play.
• Dozer blades: On the way over I was seriously considering dropping the combi-flamers or something in order to buy dozer blades for the Razorbacks and Rhino.  Given the directions to place more terrain than usual, and the mission requirement to basically hustle across as fast as possible, this seemed like a good chance to actually use them.  In the end I didn’t because I don’t have any modeled on and wasn’t convinced it’d be worth it.  That decision was more or less reasonable, though it could go either way.  I did hang up the Razorbacks on terrain a couple times, but mobility of my tanks seemed mostly ok.  My Landspeeders on the other hand were repeatedly immobilized landing on difficult or impassible terrain.  Robin’s winged warriers also took a lot of wounds from jumping into cover.  If only there were some upgrade to help the speeders with that; it would probably be more worthwhile than dozer blades for tanks…

So, two interesting games.  Early feedback from Jason and Steve was that the campaign defender’s objective of crashing through the line and exiting the board was crazy hard and couldn’t be done.  If nothing else, I think tonight’s action showed the mission is reasonably balanced, all else being equal, and whether or not it’s doable in each match will depend on what all else is not equal—other armies, play styles, etc.  They also left me looking forward to seeing what’s different in the new Tyranid codex; should be a challenge!

As announced earlier, I am currently running a multi-week 40k Combat Patrol tournament here in Philadelphia.  We just finished Round 1, and things are going fairly well.  Sixteen people have joined the party, and there’s a decent mix of armies.  The only really surprising omission is the lack of Imperial Guard, but it sounds like several of the guys with new IG armies haven’t graduated them to their tournament faction yet.  Last week we had a really good group session with twelve people playing at Redcap’s Corner in West Philadelphia.  This coincided with their grand reopening after expanding the store, and it was a great time.  The new space is awesome and many good games were played.

One of the plans I have for the tournament is to take the campaign oriented mission writeups, package them up with my notes on running the tournament, and post them up afterward for other groups to use in running similar events with minimal work.  Toward that end, I’m going to record some of my design notes and observations here as we go along.

Combat Patrol

Perhaps most fundamentally, there are some mixed reactions to the Combat Patrol rules.  Our restrictions follow fairly faithfully from those in the 4th Edition rulebook but at 750 points, and feelings are positive but a few issues have come up.

On the positive side, this setup has four big advantages going for it:

• The tournament is more accessible.  Running at a low points scale and with mostly only core units allowed, more players will be able to jump in.  As a bonus, it also means more players will have fully painted armies, a nice side effect.  I will note though that this has had only mixed success; we did not pull in quite the crowd of new people I was hoping to.
• Games only require 4×4 tables, which means you can fit a good number of matches into a small space.  We have a lot of room at Redcap’s and PAGE, but 4×6 tables are a limited supply at the latter and the former is contested by card players (mostly Magic).  Physically fitting more games just makes things easier at a lot of venues.
• Small games like these can be played in 90–120 minutes.  I’ve taken advantage of that to set up asymmetric missions where a match consists of two games with players alternating rounds.  At 750 points that can easily be done in three hours, and therefore still works well for people to get together and play after work.
• Perhaps most importantly though, and most conflicted, the restrictions generally keep crazy and specialized units out of the game.  This also helps accessibility, leveling the playing field a great deal: You know you won’t go up against someone who’s invested in a handful of Landraiders or has every model on hand to pick and choose from for an optimal list.  I don’t have a problem with that at all, but it can be discouraging to new people.
  What also happens is that the restrictions take some of the tactics out of list construction and puts them back onto the table.  Since everyone’s forced to focus on core, common units, it’s a lot more predictable what people will have, and the forces are a lot more similar.  I certainly don’t have a problem at all with good list construction, and really enjoy that as a key aspect of the game.  However, at these low point levels it’s very susceptible to rock, paper, scissors effects, where a game’s outcome is dominated by good, bad, or unexpected list selections.  Given that small games have advantages otherwise, reducing that effect is a good thing.

However, the restrictions also raise some problems.  Some people are turned off by the lack of crazy units, and don’t see big gains in board tactics focus or value in reducing the rock, paper, scissors effect.  That’s basically a style choice; I think the former is just different, not better, but the latter is important for games of this size.

Worse though is that the Combat Patrol rules aren’t holding up well under the 5th Edition codexes.  Just like we bumped the points to 750 to better suit codexes with expensive units, such as Necrons, with the additional restrictions there are just so many units barred from play that it’s a little overkill.  I was really, really sad to realize my Drop Pods would not be legal, and neither would my Captain.  I don’t see either of those as unstoppable at this point level, but the loss of the Drop Pods especially has really changed my play style, and forced me to scrounge together some Rhinos—in complete contrast to the goal of enabling people to play with anything they have on hand.  Similarly, I don’t see huge problems in allowing in an IG Company Commander.  Tyranid players also seem really cramped by the rules, with very few permitted unit choices in the new book.  The newer books seem to trend toward having more wounds, armor, and so on floating around, frequently making previously available units forbidden in Combat Patrol.

I can see some value in keeping out Landraiders, Terminators, special characters, Chaos Sorcerors, etc. at this point level and game style.  But, I think in the future I would relax the restrictions, probably allowing 3 wounds, 36 armor, and possibly 2+ saves.  I would definitely even consider letting anything go; at 750 points these kinds of balance issues are less of a problem than at the standard Combat Patrol 400 points, and a lot of it is self balancing.  Yes, a Landraider could be hugely dominating.  But a couple Sternguard could also drop it in Turn 1 and wipe out a third of your points…  I certainly foresee spending a good bit of time revisiting this issue for future events.

New Codexes

I expected the new Tyranid codex to drop in the middle of the tournament and wanted to afford players some flexibility.  People might not be able to get it quickly, it might invalidate their models, and so on.  I therefore put this in the tournament rules:

Current codexes must be used. However, players of armies with codexes released during the tournament may opt to use either the latest or previous codex, declared before a match begins.

However, what I really should have said was:

Current codexes must be used.  However, players of armies with codexes released during or up to two weeks before the tournament begins may opt to use either the latest or previous codex.  They must inform their opponents which book they are using when arranging a match, and once they upgrade to the newer book they must not switch back to the older book for their remaining matches..

This won’t actually be an issue for us because we have a good group with the right attitude, but it addresses a couple potential issues:

• More leeway is needed for when the book comes out; it being released the day before the tournament starts versus the day after doesn’t really change the core issues such as book availability and reworking models or lists, but in the original wording everyone would technically be forced to upgrade.
• The original intent was definitely that opponents could plan around which book would be used but the original wording didn’t actually quite say that, so it is spelled out better in the second version.  Not that I think it’s a huge issue at this point level and with these restrictions, but it’s definitely the more sporting approach so it may as well be formalized.
• Similarly, allowing people to switch back and forth between books in some attempt to tune to the mission or opponent seems very gamey and unsporting.  The second wording encodes that intent and eliminates that problem.

Starting & Registration

The tournament is being run in a multi-week format with only a fixed date for the climactic, dramatic final round(s).  In the interim, players schedule their matches as they please to fit their schedule.  This is working out well so far in enabling people flexibility to participate, but it has made the start a little awkward.  For example, I still don’t have contact information for some people who were registered by their friends.  It’s working—they’re making their matches and so on—but it’s a little cumbersome.  In the future I would definitely consider having a mandatory session for the first round as well so that I can physically collect all the contact information, registration fees, etc., and then roll from there rather than trying to play catchup with people for a couple days or weeks.

In any event, so far so good, and I’m looking forward to a bunch of fun, tough matches in the next couple weeks.  More details on games and notes on the tournament and campaign to come!

To properly kick off the new year of gaming at PAGE, I got in a round of 40k tonight with Kiril, a guest visiting from Bulgaria.  He said there are so few players where he lives, he had to bring an army to the US and look for some games while here for winter break!  Hopefully he’ll return at some point, a great guy and a good player.

Rules

We tried out the first scenario for the upcoming Combat Patrol tournament.  Army rules are on the tournament webpage, but are the usual Combat Patrol constraints except at 750pts rather than 400.  In this scenario, a lonely listening post has been struck by the leading edge of an incoming assault!  The Defender player must hold the outpost long enough to make contact with command and relay the warning.  The Attacker must overrun the base and prevent that from happening.

• Goal: A single objective is placed along the central axis, 12″ from the Defender table edge on a 4′x4′ board.
• Deployment: Defender deploys 16″ from their table edge; Attacker deploys 8″ from the opposite edge.
• Play order: Defender deploys first; Attacker chooses to go first or second.
• Other notes: Standard mission rules (end game, Reserves, etc).

The match consists of two games with players alternating as the Attacker and Defender.

Armies

Kiril brought an infantry oriented Imperial Guard contingent, roughly consisting of:

• 40 regular Guardsmen; in the first game they were in 4 squads but in the second he grouped them into 2
• Veterans with 2 meltaguns and a heavy flamer riding in a Chimera
• Autocannon and mortar teams
• Platoon command squad with 2 flamers
• Company command squad (violates Combat Patrol 3 wound rule, but not a huge worry for these games)

The Kingbreakers in turn brought out:

• 10xTactical Squad w/ Powerfist, Plasmagun, Missile Launcher, Rhino (240pts)
• 10xTactical Squad w/ Meltagun, Plasma Cannon, Razorback (220pts)
• 5xSternguard w/ Power Sword, 2xCombi-Melta, Razorback (190pts)
• Thunderfire Cannon (100pts)

Battle 1

Kingbreakers begin the assault on a heretical hive city, accused of conspiring with the Xenos Tau to gain advanced weaponry, by storming the outlying listening posts!

The Kingbreakers’ Thunderfire Cannon and Combat Squad Jericho with his plasma cannon bunker down behind debris on the outskirts of the base, hoping to rain plasma and shells down on hapless Guardsmen in the hills around the bunker.  Razorbacks with Tactical Squad Titus and Captain Angholan [proxying a Sternguard Sergeant] with Sternguard Squad Harbinger move to advance up the west and into the bordering foothills.  However, the transports are shredded to disassembled components by heavy incoming Guard missiles and the squads find what cover they can behind the burning ruins.

Meanwhile, Tactical Squad Scolirus leverages the heavy fire poured onto Titus and Angholan to race deep into enemy territory.  Their transport is destroyed as wall, but not before delivering their vengeance directly into the enemy mortars pummeling their now-exposed battle brothers Titus and Angholan.

Regrouped from the explosive loss of their vehicle, Angholan leads the  Sternguard clambering over the rocky foothills into cover but are surprised by a group of Imperial Guard veterans dashing into the battle in their Chimera.  The firefight is brief but lethal; Angholan and his men are eventually brought down by sheer numbers and profligate quantities of fusion blaster [melta] fire.  Harbinger’s only solace as he barely escapes after being critically injured is having flushed the conspiracy into the open, reporting the fusion weapons as sure evidence of traitorous pacts with the diminutive xenos!

Meanwhile, Sergeant Titus leads his squad in a running gun battle with the Chimera and many supporting heavy weapons units.  Though tougher to break than expected, the Chimera is eventually destroyed in a dangerous close action krak grenade attack.  Its burning hulk provides meager shelter by which Titus, the sole survivor, attempts a daring lone assault on the objective command post.  Alas, it is too much, too far, even for that mighty warrior of the Imperium, and he is unable to brush off its defending crew and prevent successful transmission warning of the Kingbreakers’ imminent main assault…

Game 2

For reasons unannounced and unclear, an Imperial Guard unit assults a small Kingbreakers outpost!

The bulk of the Kingbreakers on hand rapidly assemble a basic gunline defending the outpost perimeter.  Squad Scolirus leads the charge to take the fight to the enemy, rushing to outflank the enemy and directly attack its supporting units in the rearguard, his transport zig-zagging and popping smoke furiously to avert heavy incoming fire.

Unperturbed by the swift reaction of the Kingbreakers, the Guardsmen move quickly, rushing forward through the foothills to the west of the outpost in an attempt to avoid incoming Thunderfire and plasma cannon fire.  Mechanized Veterans rapidly deploy, moving with all haste to engage Jericho’s plasma cannon contingent lurking outside the outpost.  The Veterans are quickly withered though by Squad Jericho, the plasma cannoneer blasting away at full tilt to dangerously close minimum distances in a successful last ditch effort to break the experienced shocktroopers’ thrust.

Shielded behind the Chimera and heroic lead of the Veteran squad, dozens of troopers run in their tracks.  Officers bray commands and drive their men on at full speed but, alas, the foothills hinder their mobility too much, leaving them moving forward at agonizing speed, too slow to breach the outer outpost defenses.

Meanwhile, mortar and autocannon crews in the rear fight furiously to pin down Harbinger’s Sternguard overwatching the outpost, and clear a safe path for their comrades bravely, foolishly rushing up through the Kingbreakers’ primary field of fire to assault the bunker.  Their work is undone however as the mortar crews are cut to ribbons by bolter and chainsword as the flanking Scolirus reaches their position, and the autocannon teams are forced to evacuate their position by the precise, unperturbed sniping of the Stearnguard.  Unsupported by any suppressive fire, the main assaulting group is left exposed in the center field and is decimated by Thunderfire Cannon shelling.  As Squad Titus sweeps in to pick off the survivors of the shelling, the outpost is all but secured from the sudden, maniacal foot assault.

Results

Battle 1: Kiril’s IG successful held off the Kingbreakers’ attack.  The Marines suffered many casualties, and were not in place to contest the bunker at the endgame.

Battle 2: The Kingbreakers kept the IG at distance, gutting their lead forces and leaving no one in position to charge the outpost in time.

Notes

This was a great battle.  I had not previously played against someone very comfortable with the new IG codex, and it was a lot of fun.  The army feels very different to fight than many others.  It has a soft underbelly, at least as soft as the Tau, with men going down rapidly. However, it has a distinct horde quality and puts up a fiercesome amount of firepower, even without many vehicles.  A lasgun may not seem like much, but when a dozen or two of them are shooting two or three shots each at a group of Marines, odds say someone’s going to take some wounds.  It was also really neat watching the orders fly around and really change the action of the force.  Kiril made heavy use of Run, Run, Run!, Take It Down!, and especially First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire!, all of which worked to great effect.

I don’t think I played the first game very well, splitting up my forces too much and not having clear goals.  Instead of trying to sweep the sides and take out the supporting units, I should have just rushed right onto the bunker and parked a couple squads on it.  That way I’d at least be contesting it, and putting him back on his heels instead of waiting for me.

The Combat Patrol rules also really hurt my style of play.  Without my Drop Pods I was at a total loss, and relatively unfamiliar with the Rhinos and Razorbacks as more than portable bunkers and fire points. At several key points I forget to pop smoke and other similar things. How to use these is something I’ll have to think about before the Combat Patrol tournament really starts up.  That said, one neat thing in the second game was having Titus rush out in a Razorback to clobber some units, then popping back in to drive over and quickly block another incoming squad.  You can’t do that in a Drop Pod!  At least, you know, without an AdMech lifter or something… …

Similarly, I’ll have to think about how to use the Sternguard in this context, if at all.  I think without the Alpha Assault aspect of them in Drop Pods, they loss a lot of oomph.  That said, their variety of shots was still useful in parking them down as a mini-gunline around the objective.  That fit very much in with the fluff in the codex and worked reasonably well, though it’s not how I usually use them.

The Thunderfire Cannon again had mixed results, though it certainly killed a lot more models than in previous games.  I think I would gladly trade two, maybe even three of its four shots for it to use a large template rather than the small.  Making it a barrage weapon and/or giving it indirect fire would also be a huge boon and make it slightly less tepid.  The range is a big plus, even on the shorter table, and it It did kill a fair bit of things, but I’m still iffy on it.  Not enough to drop it completely, but more than enough to make me really question it against the power armor I am sure to face in the tournament.

One other interesting aspect of the game were the IG’s mortar teams, of which Kiril had 3.  These didn’t really kill a ton of guys, but they kept a lot of units pinned down.  Although useful, the Sternguard were severely crippled for much of the second game by being pinned by mortar hits.  I’ve never rolled so many failed Leadership checks in my life—and it really hurt—but I’ve never had to roll so many before either.  Probably because of my frustration it was actually really neat to watch; it’s exactly the sort of role you can really envision real mortars playing (or, at least, real movie mortars…).

All in all, two great games.  Between the orders, mortars, and general fragility but massed firepower, the IG really seemed a lot more like a real army as portrayed in a movie than the Marines and most other armies do. Definitely really fun to play against, and I’m only more tempted now to start up my own group of Cadians…

More photos of this battle are in my Flickr set!

Just put out on the PAGE Center City listserv:

40k players,

I’m happy to announce a special event we’ll be running this winter: A 750pt Combat Patrol tournament league.  Hopefully everybody can and will join in, I think this will be really fun.  We’re going to be pushing this out to the players at Redcap’s as well as Internet forums, hoping to reach out and find even more players around Philly.

Details are online, but basic scheme is: Reg is $3, all going toward prizes for the winner.  The tournament will run for 5 rounds.  For the first 3 rounds, pairings and mission rules we be posted.  Players will then have 2 weeks to meet up and play their matches, either on their own or at PAGE or Redcap’s.  It’d be great to have everyone get together at Redcap’s to play on Saturday, Jan 16, but it’s optional.

The final 2 rounds will be held at PAGE the last week in February, Sunday the 28th.  If we get a bunch of non-PAGE people to sign up it could be a really big night of 40k, and we might make the final missions pretty dramatic and exciting to match!

Pretty standard Combat Patrol rules apply, caveat a 750pt limit rather than 400pt.  All those details are on the web.  Missions will be narrative oriented, following a storyline through the tournament. Most will have asymmetric scenarios—matches will be two games, with players alternating roles.  Should take about 3 hours total.

Let me know if there are questions, and start getting your strategery on!  Jason and I have already started whipping up 750 pt lists so we can ensure we get all our preferred units painted! In addition, Redcap’s just happened to have 750pt 40k gaming on their schedule for this Saturday (Dec 19th) at noon.  That’d be a great chance to start trying out your list.  I’ll be there, and it’d be great to see some other PAGE players there as well!

Thx

Hopefully the missions and rules may be of use to others outside the Philadelphia area, and it’d be great to meet any Philly area lurkers out there!  Expect bat reps, narrative updates, and mission scenarios to show up on this blog as they develop.

More Info!