Redcap’s 2000pt Tournament

Posted on 2014/06/22 by tjkopena

Redcap’s June tournament was the first for 7th edition. Unfortunately it was very lightly attended, probably mostly due to the start of summer. In particular the two adjacent colleges, Drexel and UPenn, just went on summer break. Pat and John volunteered to team up to make an even four contestants and enable a round robin tournament. We bumped the points up from the planned 1850 to 2000 to make list rebuilding easier for them.

Otherwise this was a straight 7th edition tournament. Benn and Jake made up some new bonus battle point conditions and elaborated new details on the more exotic terrain pieces (Radiation! Tesla Towers!) but the missions followed Redcap’s existing format based on the 5e/6e/7e core missions. Notably, this already includes a simple alternate scoring scheme. For objective control missions you can optionally score one victory point each cumulatively at the start of your turn rather than three VPs each at game end. In annihilation you can opt to score a victory point for every 200pts killed rather than one per unit. No limitation was placed on detachments, unbound armies, allies, or anything else. Unfortunately no one showed up with anything super crazy, despite our hopes.

More photos are available in the Flickr gallery.

Stay on target!

Army

The least traditional army composition actually wound up being mine, which featured a big stack of five source books: Space Marines, Astra Militarum, Inquisition, Stronghold Assault, Imperial Knights:

Combined Arms Detachment: Space Marines (Salamanders)
- Captain Angholan—Vulkan
- Ghost Squad Harmon—Sternguard x5 w/ 3x Combi-Meltas, Poweraxe, Drop Pod
- Squad Scolirus—Tacticals x10 w/ Vet Sgt, Powerfist+Boltgun, Flamer, Multi-Melta, Drop Pod
- Squad Titus—Tacticals x10 w/ Vet Sgt, Chainsword+Bolt Pistol, Meltagun, Missile Launcher, Drop Pod
- Scouts x5 w/ 5x Camo Cloaks, 5x Sniper Rifles
- Squad Harbinger—Devastators x5 w/ Chainsword+Bolt Pistol+Signum, 2x Plasmacannons, 2x Heavy Bolters
- Akil—Predator w/ Autocannon
- Justus—Predator w/ Autocannon
- Imperial Bunker w/ 2x Void Shields
Combined Arms Detachment: Astra Militarum
- Commander Higgenbotham—Company Command Squad w/ Plasmapistol, Flamer
- Veterans w/ Flamer
- Veterans w/ Flamer
- Armoured Sentinel w/ Plasmacannon
Inquisitorial Detachment
- Inquisitor Coteaz
Imperial Knight Detachment
- Knight Errant

The Predators were last second additions to bump to 2000 pts. Given more time to prep I would probably have kitted up another Drop Pod of Tacticals for more deep striking objective grabbing and camping.

One reason for that particular Guard structure is to have two Combined Arms detachments and together with Coteaz have three options for my warlord:

Vulkan if a bonus point condition warranted it;
Coteaz if I faced daemons;
The Company Commander otherwise.

I wound up using the Company Commander each time to get access to the BRB traits but they did not matter.

In each battle I took all of Coteaz’s powers from Divination as I really only cared about Prescience. Despite this list being a bit all over the place, I’m a big fan of keeping things simple, particularly new elements. I wasn’t planning on spending brain cycles debating between multiple powers. In addition, with two mastery levels I generally wouldn’t have enough warp charge to cast multiple powers.

This was the first time in quite some while that my army wasn’t pretty much entirely painted. That was a bummer, but I decided it was worth it in the spirit of trying new stuff for 7th edition. Unfortunately much of that army I had essentially no experience with. Coteaz I’ve used once before. Guardsmen I used in our January Apocalypse battle but they just sat around in a bunker. The Knight I just assembled this week; I actually had to buy the codex while signing up for the tournament yesterday.

All that said, despite its many parts and source books, for a 2000pt battle that doesn’t seem like an obnoxious list to me and is actually pretty balanced and fluffy. Unfortunately it seems like it would be banned under the restrictions some of the major tournaments are gravitating toward. More on that in a future post.

Let’s do this thing!

Round 1

First up: Carl and his Tau, featuring a Commander, some Broadsides and Marker Drones, a Skyray, 2 Riptides and 18 Crisis Suits. The mission was Crusade (4 objectives), long axis deployment. We both picked alternate scoring. I deployed first and went first.

Fight!

On the drop I wasn’t able to land my Sternguard out of line of sight and they got hammered by Riptides on the intercept, yielding First Blood, a 2 VP swing as it also denied me First Blood on the Skyray. Tacticals though came down to contest Carl’s home objective. With all his Crisis Suits reserved and the army preferring not to move out aggressively, that left Carl scoring little in the early going. In contrast the Kingbreakers spread out all over the board and ran up an early lead.

As usual with the alpha strike though and particularly against Tau shooting, the momentum slowly turned and the thinly spread Kingbreakers got rolled back across all quadrants. Exacerbating the issue, the Knight was taken down right in the locus of the army, generating a catastrophic titanic explosion that crippled a number of units. Eventually the bunker’s void shields were broken through and the battlements started taking casualties, notably yielding Slay the Warlord when Commander Higgenbotham and his veterans got fragged by a cover-ignoring blast.

Look at me, I’m so awesome!

Outcome

Kingbreakers hold out for the win, 9 objective points versus the Tau’s 3 objective points, Slay, and Blood. Tragically the endgame death of my warlord deprived me of a crushing victory by putting Carl just above half my points.

Analysis

I think Carl’s big issue here was that he incorrectly decided very early on that he would have to table me to reclaim victory from my initial points lead, and he focused entirely on that. Among other things, that’s a risky strategy if you’re not totally sure of the clock; between my infantry movement and his extensive shooting + movement—the many assault jumps in his army take quite a bit of time, effectively adding an entire second movement phase to his turn—this game only went 4 turns. Particularly with those assault jumps giving so much mobility, if he hadn’t lost sight of the objectives he would have been easily able to start cranking out objectives points very soon after his Crisis Suits arrived from reserve.

Random meetings in a dark alley in the 41st millenium.

Round 2

Next up: John and Pat with their Clan Raukaan and Imperial Fists team-up, both using their respective codex supplements. Core elements included 3 lascannon Devastator Centurions, 3 grav-amp/hurricane bolter Devastator Centurions, two Librarians with various relics, a Stormtalon flyer, a Thunderfire Cannon, a collection of Drop Pod Tacticals and Sternguard, and of course meltaguns and lascannons everywhere. The mission was Purge the Alien (annihilation), very much a rarity at Redcap’s. Deployment was 12″ long edges. I chose alternate scoring, they went for normal. I deployed first and went first.

Fight!

Ghosts on the drop managed to wound the Raukaan Librarian despite his Centurion bodyguards soaking up wounds. This paved the way for the Librarian to die from Perils of the Warp and yield First Blood and Slay the Warlord. Tactical 1 had little impact on the drop and took heavy casualties but Angholan eliminated the Thunderfire Cannon before expiring to overwatch fire. Most of the Imperial Fists spent the game engaging the Knight Errant en route to their encampment, eventually taking it down as it thrashed through ruins. The Stormtalon buzzed about strafing the bunker’s void shields to hopefully expose it for random lascannon potshots. Everybody else spent the match in a drop pod furball mirror match, with Raukaan and Kingbreakers going blow for blow throughout the trench works and ruins across the board.

Barbarians at the gates!

Outcome

Kingbreakers prevail again by a slim margin, 5 kill points plus First Blood, Slay, and Linebreaker versus 6 kill points plus Linebreaker. This was a really great game, with tons of different activity going on all over the board. Not only was it extremely close but it was super hard to quickly gauge the score throughout. Nobody had any real idea who was up or down until the final tally, though I think they thought they were much farther behind than they were.

Thoughts

One notable local meta thing is that Redcap’s reworked their cathedral/dockyard ruins set up quite a bit. It’s now visibly more open, though there’s still a ton of ruins for cover and straight out line of sight blocking. I liked the board a lot before even though its very limited firing lanes hampered me, but the new version is much smoother for 40k play, particularly at the larger end of the points spectrum, and more fair to more armies.

No doubt important in this game was the Sternguard more or less successfully going after the Raukaan Librarian. Him taking a Perils wound was huge, but it was a big deal that the Sternguard got at least one wound on him beforehand. The guy’s tough to kill: Can’t be insta-gibbed by double strength, has a 3+/3++ save, Feel No Pain, and typically hangs around with some 2+ save Centurion bodyguards. Even without the Libby going down though, taking out two grav-amp Centurions in that first turn was a big mental boost. John did come in with Invisibility known to his Librarian, but with two of them down I was much less worried about him being able to shield that unit even before he expired prematurely.

Skeletor says: Protect me, you fools! With your lives if necessary! And maybe even if not!

Alternate Scoring

This was the first I’ve seen Redcap’s alternate annihilation scoring, and it might actually have been its first appearance. It was pretty obvious for Pat and John that they should take normal scoring as my list featured a whopping 21 possible kill points, even before any combat squadding. Much of that was also fairly squishy.

On my end, choosing alternate scoring was a mistake that very nearly cost me the round. Glancing at John & Pat’s army they didn’t seem to have a ton of units, certainly an underestimate. None of it seemed super squishy either—not many Rhinos or such, and a bunch of hard targets like Centurions and a flyer. My logic was that alternate scoring would defeat a core strength of Marines: Having a bunch of single dudes or pairs hanging around doing nothing but not yielding up a kill point for wiping their entire unit. This is precisely a big part of how I snuck in the win: By the end I had four near-dead but persistent Space Marine infantry units—3 Tacticals, 2 Tacticals, 1 Sternguard, 1 Scout. Thinking about it more clearly though, 200 pts per Victory Point in alternate versus a straight-up unit per point in normal scoring is too high a tradeoff. For example, you’d have to kill an entire 10 man Tactical (140 pts + upgrades) as well as their transport (35 pts) for that point, versus two under normal scoring, three if they combat squad.

So, under the current Redcap’s rules, my new heuristic is I should all but always choose alternate objective scoring and almost always choose normal annihilation. Alternate annihilation only possibly makes sense if facing an extremely dense Terminator army or such, and even then only if they have large blobs (not the standard 5 man squads) or very expensive kit-outs. I think that logic holds for most armies, so both sets of alternate scoring conditions probably warrant some tweaking, one for being universally better and the other universally worse.

All these void shields and no one brought a fly swatter?! Damnit!

Round 3

Final match: Colin and his Blood Angels/Dark Angels deep striking bonanza. He brought close to what he announced he would: Belial, 15 Terminators, a Reclusiarch, 2 Furioso Dreadnoughts, a Death Company Dreadnought, Assault Marines, Death Company Tacticals, and Scouts. The mission was Crusade (4 objectives) and table corners deployment. We both went for alternate scoring. I deployed first and went first.

This was probably the most thought I’ve seen put into objective placement under the new 7th edition rules. I placed mine as hard as possible into diagonally opposed corners, hoping to curtail adjacent deep striking surface area. Colin placed both of his near the center, in opposite directions along the long axis.

Deployment.

Fight!

The Inquisition detects a group of Blood Angels Scouts skulking about outside a continental capital and decides to bring them in for questioning about suspected mutations within their geneseed. Captain Angholan takes this charge a bit too zealously and accidentally flames the initiates to a crisp for First Blood. Hearing their dieing calls for help, equally suspicion-clouded Dark Angels in the sector drop in alongside more Blood Angels to avenge their barbecuing. Kingbreakers call in reinforcements, and before long nobody can back down from the fighting throughout the shanty town surrounding the city.

Far from the Kingbreakers outpost, Belial precision deep strikes in tight quarters and wipes out Squad Titus. The Kingbreakers’ Knight ally is mobbed by Furiosos and assault cannon Terminators, with Angholan nearby but unable to break through copious slum detritus in time to assist before it is detonated. Ghosts make a desperate landing into a massive vat of highly corrosive industrial waste, taking heavy casualties as the veterans struggle to not sink under the weight of their power armor. Their sacrifices are awarded however by perfect positioning and the outright kill of a fearsome Death Company Dreadnought before joining the ongoing firefight echoing down the main avenues.

Up and down the alleyways, Devastators and Predators trade fire with Terminators, screaming balls of plasma charges and pounding autocannon thumps rebutted by the continual chittering of assault cannon hits across the scrap metal structures. Heads tucked low, the Forest Guard charge forward in all directions to reclaim ground for their fallen battle brothers but are repulsed by the raging Blood Angels Reclusiarch and caught short working their way through ruined Drop Pods.

Stick ’em up! — I can’t! This is as much flexibility as I have!

Outcome

Dark-Blood Angels win convincingly, 8 objective points and Linebreaker to 1 objective point and First Blood.

Through turn 3 we were tied, neither of us scoring much on objectives as nearly all were contested. After that though Colin had swept my Troops off and gotten more of his on, quickly racking up the points with three objectives scored on each of turns 3 and 4. Nearly all his army consists of troops, including the Dreadnoughts and Drop Pods, and in several cases trumped my Predators and other units to claim objectives out from under them.

Both of us screwed up and forgot to take a moment to punch a building when we had nothing else to do, and thus gave up a cheap bonus battle point. Always stay on top of your bonus points!

Thoughts

Everybody else chose to go second against Colin so the Deathwing and Pods would come down and they’d have a chance to shoot at him on their first turn. I went first so I could claim First Blood against the Scouts and setup my guys on objectives to hopefully claim points on turn 2. I think that was a reasonable decision, though I have to think more about whether it was best. Among the downsides were letting Colin basically optimally target all my dudes rather than forcing him to go after some objectives blind. It put a lot of pressure on me to instantly build up effective defenses around those objectives to score at least once or twice before probably getting wiped. Compounding the basic challenge there is basically everything in his army having Objective Secured. It’d be a lot easier to do when looking at opposing Sternguard or regular Terminators coming down. All in all, not a ridiculously poor strategy, but a tough road.

In practice though I poorly bubble wrapped the far objective with disembarked Tacticals. In my head I was trying to get a couple shots on the opposing Scouts just in case, and to bubble wrap the Drop Pod a bit. The first of course was completely unnecessary, and the second a lesser priority. That line of thought wound up skewing my deployment around the objective and Belial’s squad was able to contest it, preventing me from scoring it on turn 2. In reality with how my Pod came down I should have been able to deploy those guys to force Belial far enough away from the objective to score that critical point at least once.

Mid-game.

Somewhat similarly, despite me placing my objectives in the corners, I opted to not build my castle there. That left my control over that objective much much more tenuous, and in fact Colin got a lucky break when my combat squad holding it broke from shooting casualties and ran out of place, costing me another point. Otherwise though my whole castle group would have had extremely limited firing options.

Instead I placed the fortification where the Devastators would have somewhat reasonable firing lanes on both the central objectives, and they did wind up doing a lot. The fort was also then positioned for the Guardsmen to run at either my corner objective or the closer of the central markers.

Unfortunately I wound up not actually executing that well and used my Guardsmen poorly. Timing is everything and I misgauged a bit. I also didn’t utilize my orders well, just through inexperience. Moving toward the corner objective, if my Guardsmen had charged Colin’s Assault Marines a turn earlier instead of rapid firing I might have been able to stall the Blood Angels just long enough for my Predator to score it once. Similarly, I started moving my other squad of Guardsmen toward the central objective late, partly out of neglect and partly fear they’d get shot up too early. I then compounded that by not using my orders to have them shoot + run, or even better to run faster, and potentially get onto that objective to score once.

Stop kicking me! Stop kicking me!

Outcome

Despite the crushing loss at the end, I still wound up apparently winning the tournament, though I confess I don’t fully understand the rankings. Carl actually wound up with more battle points than me, with John and then Colin in 3rd and 4th. I’m assuming that whatever scoring was used in Torrent of Fire to run the round-robin—not the way most 40k tournaments are usually done—bracketed me ahead for beating Carl and John, Carl beating both John and Colin, and John beating Colin. Carl also won the painting raffle so I think he came out ahead on loot regardless.

Either way and despite the low attendance, I was pleased to continue my streak of not finishing worse than 2nd this year. The loss to Colin was a blow as I had tried to kit out my army specifically to fight his, but I think with just a bit better play I might be able to swing at least a close game.

Army Thoughts

Scouts continue to be particularly useful in 7th to infiltrate onto objectives way out in no-man’s land. That’s going to be increasingly important through the combination of the new objective placement rules with increasing focus on cumulative and other scoring mechanisms not simply applied at game-end.

Even with my inexperience and some misplay, the Guard contingent did a good job. The bubble wrapping was useful and they actually did some damage in shooting. That core of Company Command + a Veteran Squad or two is basically the cheapest setup for an Allied or Combined Arms detachment, respectively. Taking an Infantry Platoon would incur another ~40 points, trading off the Vet Squad surcharge for a required Platoon Command Squad. This scheme also basically matched the models I had on hand, though I still had to build four plain Guardsmen the morning of the tournament as my others all had obvious special weapons and such. I would definitely consider bringing more Guardsmen just to sacrifice for bubble wrapping both the bunker and the Knight.

Two Combined Arms detachments would also enable both a bunker and a Void Shield Generator. That’s definitely something I’m thinking about, caveat that I think castling up is going to be less and less viable with the newly developing objective placement rules and scoring mechanisms.

No castles, only attack! Attack!

The Knight was somewhat disappointing, though not a blowout. It didn’t actually manage to kill hardly anything, but everybody saw it as a huge threat and devoted significant focus toward bringing it down, in and itself a useful thing. I was torn beforehand but currently think the Errant with its melta blast is indeed the better option, compared to the 2x large blast of the Paladin variant. It’s a tough call, but the second blast is probably overkill and the melta bonuses more useful.

With Drop Pods and such increasingly back in vogue the Knight can really stand solid bubble wrapping to stand off melta weapons. It also needs to be kept away from terrain to have maximal impact. Somewhat oddly it moves a very fast 12″ over open ground but apparently—the intent is unclear—moves in terrain like a typical model with Move Through Cover, at most 6″. Note that this is a big debuff for super-heavy walkers versus other super-heavy vehicles, which move 12″ regardless of terrain and can’t immobilize. Given the fire that will concentrate on the Knight, I think you really want it running forward as fast as possible to smash some enemies in assault before it goes down. Just as importantly, that will help ensure the catastrophic super-heavy explosion happens in their lines and not yours.

Seventh

Although a small tournament, this was a great day with a bunch of good players and tight games. It was unfortunate there wasn’t a wider variety of armies to see more of what’s possible under raw 7th edition rules. We also did uncover a whole bunch of things that are either ambiguous or deceptively substantial changes in the rules. But I remain really optimistic about the core of this edition, and am currently as excited about 40k as I was at the start of 5th, which is quite a bit.

Again, more photos are in the Flickr gallery.

You gonna die, boy! — Aw, leave me alone, you guys don’t even score! Seriously, you’re like the only thing in the game that doesn’t anymore! Just let me have this, it’s all I do! Aauuguguh!

40k: Redcap’s Doubles Tournament

Posted on 2014/02/23 by tjkopena

Redcap’s February tournament yesterday was a doubles event, 1000 pts per player/2k per team, no allies other than your partner, and no Escalation or Mega-Bulwarks. Doubles is, quite rightly, a particularly popular format so a good bit more players came out than usual. There was a pretty good mix of factions across 10 teams/20 players: Eldar, Grey Knights, Chaos, Guard, Necrons, Tau, Tyranid, and Space Marines from all of their codexes.

With this tournament, Redcap’s has started using Torrent of Fire. ToF’s signup process doesn’t make a ton of sense and their web interface is awkward—nothing seems to be where or flow how I would expect—but it’s kind of neat to have a detailed leaderboard. Previously I usually had to scramble to steal or take a picture of the final printout to get any final record. It was also cool to be out at dinner and people be able to look up post-2nd round rankings as soon as Jake posted them.

Tyranids finally learn how to work with others…

Rob W and I teamed up for this campaign, the Kingbreakers joining his Fyrehaus Battalion to try and enforce some order in a sector apparently full of Necron and some very confused Grey Knights and Dark Angels. Ultimately we finished 2nd after one team was disqualified in the final round for not having a Forge World book for one of their units. All three of our games were super tight and really really good, claiming a draw-win-win and just enough bonus points to edge out 3rd place with an identical record, the guys we tied against in Round 1.

Photos are up in the Flickr gallery, this time including a fair number of the other armies around the store.

Army

Rob and I immediately settled on an alpha strike+castle strategy, splitting focus by offense/defense rather than left/right or a truly integrated combined army. He loves his IG Colossus and I love my Drop Pods, so it seemed reasonable. After playing a scrimmage against each others’ halves last weekend, he brought:

Company Command w/ 2x Snipers, Missile Launcher
Platoon Command w/ 4x Snipers
Veterans w/ Lascannon, 3x Snipers
Infantry Squad x10
Infantry Squad x10
Conscripts x30
Vendetta Gunship
Vendetta Gunship
Colossus w/ Heavy Flamer
Imperial Bunker w/ Quadgun, Comms Relay, Void Shield

Kingbreakers fielded:

Capt Angholan—Vulkan
Librarian Rorschach—Generic Librarian (ML 1, Power Armor)
Squad Harmon—Sternguard x5 w/ Poweraxe (Mastercrafted) and 3x Combi-Meltas in Drop Pod
Squad Scolirus—Tacticals x9 w/ Vet Sgt, Powerfist(Mastercrafted)+Boltgun, Flamer, Drop Pod
Squad Titus—Tacticals x10 w/ Chainsword (Mastercrafted)+Bolt Pistol, Meltabombs, Meltagun, Multi-Melta, Drop Pod
Landspeeders x2 in squadron w/ Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer

One of Rob’s heavily converted snipers.

And an amazing Colossus barrel scratchbuild.

One change I would consider to Rob’s list—though admittedly without having a super tight handle on how it played out—would be more heavy weapons, probably swapping out snipers to do so. On my end I’d drop the Landspeeders. Originally I was going to play 10x Sternguard with no Speeders, but swapped in the latter at the last minute because I was worried about not having hardly any special weapons once the alpha strike fizzled out. In practice though, with Rob camped out in our rear and all my army forward, the Landspeeders were alone in the midfield and got wiped out before they could have much impact.

A Landspeeder demonstrating the Kingbreakers’ new “Explosion” camouflage…

The Librarian’s primary role was to be a cheap buff to the Conscript blob, hanging out with his IG buddies in the backfield all day and giving that unit And They Shall Know No Fear. My impression was that this was generally pretty useful, keeping those guys from being swept or running off the table at several key points. With that defensive positioning, Rorschach again assumed the role of Warlord so Angholan could strike forward and throw his life down for the Emperor without giving up a victory point. Obviously this would of course then be the one day were Vulkan’s Warlord Trait, +1 to combat resolution, would have been hugely helpful in tipping the balance of several interminable assaults… Damn it!

Round 1

First up were Harrison and Joel with their Necron and Tau in Crusade (4 objectives) and Hammer+Anvil (long table). They chose sides and went first, but via the Emperor’s grace we seized the initiative.

Kingbreakers prepare for a real bad day.

Castle Fyrehaus detects an intruder!

With a number of ruins on the table, Kingbreakers were able to drop on important targets without being intercepted by the disappointed Riptide. Angholan and Squad Scolirus flamed an entire unit of Firewarriors off an objective, while Harmon’s Sternguard popped Imotekh’s Ghost Ark, claiming First Blood. The Tacticals got decimated by Broadsides and Wraiths. Eventually Angholan took care of the latter and wound up in an interminable, boring close combat challenge with the Tau Commander in an Iridium Suit (2+ save). On the upside, that kept him from being shot at and tied up the Broadsides from doing anything. The remaining single Tactical ran and hid nearby in hopes that Vulkan would win out and clear the objective to be claimed. Meanwhile Squad Titus dropped, again sneaking in without being Intercepted, and wiped out another unit of Firewarriors on an objective.

In our backfield, the IG spent a bunch of turns hanging out. Imotekh effectively suppressed that entire half of our army by keeping the game in Nightfighting. Eventually they got some real action when a Nightscythe arrived and dropped a unit of Warriors off near an objectives. Unfortunately our two Vendettas got slagged by an Annihilation Barge, two whole squads of Guardsmen dying in the flaming wreckage. Combined with the terrain and nightfighting crippling the Quadgun, that dramatic loss enabled the Nightscythe to slip through. Harried for a few turns previously by a deep striking Tau suit popping in and out of cover nearby, the Conscripts and Platoon Command didn’t maneuver in time to physically cordon off our second objective tightly enough, enabling the Warriors to run through and contest it. The Colossus did eventually pound the Necron on their home objective, but didn’t have enough turns without nightfighting to clear them off.

Yep. That’s not helpful.

Also not helpful.

Outcome & Analysis

The game finished a tight draw: 1 objective each, with us claiming First Blood, them Slay the Warlord, and both Linebreaker.

All in all, Alpha striking the Firewarriors definitely worked out. It forced half the Necron troops to stay in their home base to hold it, though they basically would have done so anyway once their Ark transport was popped. More importantly, that eliminated all of the Tau troops, granting us a bonus point. We wound up only beating Harrison+Joel by 2 points in the tournament, so tagging the troops rather than more deadly targets was doubly worthwhile. The Ghost Ark though in hindsight I have mixed feelings about. It would have been good if the Necron troops and HQ moved forward and could have been better shot at by the IG, while leaving nothing behind to claim their home objectives once all the Firewarriors were gone. Taking out the Annihilation Barge instead would have also prevented it from wrecking our Vendettas. On the other hand, with all the terrain and its armor, the Ark would have stood a really good chance of dropping those guys off directly in front of our castled objective, which could have been a huge problem.

The Imperium stands its ground.

Round 2

Next came Byron & Max and their Necron (damn it!) and Grey Knights (WTF?), hugging it out with the Fyrehaus-Kingbreakers in Purge the Alien and Vanguard deployment, bonus points for 1 Troop at full strength and if each player has a unit in the opposing deployment. They chose corners and went first.

Damnit, this guy again?!

Ready for action.

Looking at our alpha strike options, we had a couple dilemmas. Known heretic and huge jerk Coteaz encamped in a Chimera with Psykers and Plasmacannons created a large bubble we couldn’t drop into without being wrecked. Both flanks also presented important targets, with a phalanx of Annihilation Barges on one, and Draigo + Imotekh and troops on the other. Fortunately for us their army spread out too much in its first move, giving us effective places to come down outside the Coteaz bubble. Sternguard attacked the Barges to only partial effect, but took one out in close combat the next turn. Squad Titus though melta dropped a Ghost Ark for First Blood. Enraged at the loss of his pimpmobile, Imotekh lead his new BFF Draigo and some warriors to crush them. That kept them in the backfield and away from Coteaz though, enabling Angholan and Scolirus to drop nearby and wind up in a grueling game-long combat with Draigo.

In the opposite corner, Guardsmen pretty much spent the whole game shooting at 3 Knight Paladins that teleported directly onto our castle. Eventually the Fyrehaus was reduced to throwing shoes at them, but they turned out to be allergic to leather and died just in time. Of particular danger here was how hard our castle was crammed into the corner, meaning that any morale failure stood a good chance in units running off the table. The Librarian’s conditioning and leadership kept the blob alive, though the game did bog down at one point in a healthy debate and TO decision about whether or not a Guardsman’s toe had slipped off the table edge. Despite the bubble wrap working overtime to keep the Colossus alive, Imotekh kept nightfighting going until a whopping turn 5, yet again stymieing the IG artillery. Vendettas arrived just in time to trade kills with the Annihilation Barges as they made their way onto our ground.

Yeah, you go give those Paladins a piece of your mind, Bill. We’ll… cover you from here. Yeah. Go get ’em!

In the closing moments of the battle Angholan won the epic whiff-fest against the xenos-allied heretic Draigo, swinging us by 3 full points (Draigo, Slay, Linebreaker). In retribution for the crippling Nightfighting, Angholan rushed forward to flame some cowering Immortals, dropping one and blocking their full-troop bonus point.

Outcome & Analysis

For several turns the Fyrehaus-Kingbreakers pulled ahead to a substantial lead. The Necron-Knights held tough though, pulling even in midgame. After that the score swung back and forth wildly with big gains on each side as crippled units were finally eliminated, Drop Pods gaussed to death, and so on. Eventually we came out ahead though, 13 to 9, including Slay and Linebreaker. We also claimed a critical bonus point for a full troop by keeping a unit safely ensconced in the bunker.

A couple opposing moves would have dramatically affected the game. Most importantly, their army should have kept tighter to Coteaz. As-was they moved too far from his protective bubble, leaving them prone to the Drop Pod strikes. I’m not sure what benefits Draigo gets as Warlord, but putting him in a very aggressive posture alone on the leading edge as the Warlord risks multiple victory points in Purge missions with Sternguard Pods around. Similarly, the Barges maybe should have ignored the Sternguard and just kept moving forward. They probably would have outpaced the Sternguard, who had no effective ranged attacks on them after the combi-meltas were spent, and better supported the Paladins against our castle. Though the Sternguard only took down one, baiting the others in this way to stay behind a turn was probably worthwhile.

Kingbreakers set a trap for Draigo.

Round 3

Finally we faced Brett and Toby with their IG and Dark Angels in Big Guns (4 objectives) and Dawn of War, bonus points for claiming two secondary objectives and both opposing Warlords eliminated. I was particularly excited about this as Brett and I haven’t played in some time. Toby’s army is also really well done, especially considering he’s only been playing and working on it for a couple months.

Toby’s biker sergeant.

Notably about deployment, Brett dropped two Vengeance Batteries with Battle Cannons on opposite sides of the table, right on the half-line and covering our entire deployment zone. Combined with his Leman Russes and Toby’s Plasmacannons, it was unfortunate for us to draw this match on one of the more open tables. Though it came on anyway, despite our frustrations at prolonged Nightfighting in the earlier games, we were prepared to invoke it via my rolled Warlord trait in order to give some shelter the first turn. Ultimately the Guard’s searchlights though mitigated this.

Sternguard made a super tight landing inside bubble wrap around the Leman Russes but again whiffed on the meltas despite Vulkan re-rolls. Fortunately they were able to hide from serious retribution, literally in a crevice between a rock (an actual rock) and a hard place (their Drop Pod), and tied up a Dreadnought for the game. Angholan and Scolirus flamed a Company Command Squad for First Blood and Slay. Angholan quickly wound up in single combat with Azrael for literally the entire game with zero wounds scored, tying up the DA leader and a blob of troops well away from an objective. The other Tacticals came down to explode a Russ, finish the Dreadnought, and threaten an objective, tying up a Techmarine and his Servitors’ heavy weapons in the process.

“I can do this all damn day!” “Well so can I!”

Back home, Fyrehaus took out the Vengeance Battery directly in front of their castle before it could have much impact. Afterward they spent the game in a running engagement with Deathwing Terminators teleported onto their flank and supported by bikers sweeping around. This was a close cut thing. The Terminators eventually died but the bikers literally ran circles around our castle. Though not impossible, claiming one of the two home objectives in the endgame would be difficult with this unit around, and two was definitely out of the question. In the end the Emperor again helped out, ensuring the remaining traitorous Dark Angel biker crashed and died trying to jump the flaming wreckage of the Colossus.

Figure 1: Cheap, expendable troops make excellent bubble wrap.

Actually a surprisingly good defense: Setting your own tanks on fire.

Fyrehas Vendettas meanwhile swept in to take out a Leman Russ, then deposited their troops to work toward the two opposing objectives before turning around to assist in home field anti-Terminator defense. One squad died in a valiant headlong rush into Dark Angels plasma Tacticals, while the other was lost to a man in cut-throat ruins combat with an opposing Platoon on the objective near table center. Their sacrifices however bought time for a Vendetta to hover back around and blast the Unforgiven off their objective, securing the victory.

Just in time.

Outcome & Analysis

The false Imperials were vanquished, with each side holding 1 objective, Slay, and a Heavy Support kill, but Fyrehaus-Kingbreakers also taking First Blood, Linebreaker, and an additional Heavy Support kill. We additionally took another Bonus point for claiming two Secondary Objectives. This was another super close game that swung back and forth. For a while we were up, then the game was close, then things looked grim, and finally it pulled out at the last possible moment.

One mistake on the opposing side was they forgot about the remaining Vengeance Battery for most of the game. I chalk this up to simple unfamiliarity with the IG army in use. On our side, one mistake was that after destroying the Dreadnought I could have gone toward either of the opposing objectives. I went toward the more heavily defended one, hoping to break through the Techmarine unit and contest with the Dark Angels. The Techmarine is too survivable though and slowly picked off my Tacs. In contrast, my Marines could have easily assisted our own IG in sweeping the Infantry Squad on the other objective and then easily sat there holding that.

Huddle up, boys, we gotta figure out what we’re doin’ here!

Rules Questions

Not surprisingly, several questions about how doubles work did come up. A minor one is whether or not I could take actions in the shooting phase before Rob issued his orders. Though disadvantageous to us, we strongly assumed not.

More important are the army-wide effects. I didn’t really think about it until Colin pointed it out, and don’t believe it would have affected our game much, but I don’t believe the Necron+Tau combo were rolling Imotekh’s lightening against the Tau. Tthe Necron+Grey Knights combo though was super eager to roll lightning against their own guys for the sheer chaos of it…

A more general question was about Imotekh’s lightning against fortifications, i.e., units embarked in buildings. Clearly though don’t hit the embarked unit, just like a transport. But does lightning strike the building? I believe Imotekh’s Storm is worded as hitting all enemy models, which I would argue does not include fortifications. A different but connected question is whether or not the lightning hits Void Shields when striking units on battlements. We all assumed it would.

Imotekh: Making problems in every possible way since before your god was born.

General Analysis

Rob and I each made a significant tactical error around objectives that would have been a big boost: Fyrehaus not blocking off a home objective against the Necron in Round 1, which would have converted a draw to a win, and Kingbreakers going for the wrong objective at the end of Round 3, which would have converted a win to a crushing victory. Other than that we played well and I’m happy with the result.

One thing we did underplay throughout the tournament was the Librarian. He was definitely useful giving passive buffs (And They Shall Know No Fear, his high leadership) to the Conscripts, but there were a few important times we forgot to use his powers when they would have actually been useful. Rob of course doesn’t usually field Librarians and the model wasn’t really in his army, and on my part I was basically handing him over to Rob for the backfield defense and then forgetting about him, so we blew it a couple times.

Given that I usually play Drop Pods and generally close range shooting, I’ve never really appreciated just how strong is Imotekh’s enforced Nightfighting. In the first two rounds here though it was really crippling for the bulk of each game. The Necron+Tau combo is particularly powerful due to that, with the Tau and their Darksun Filters ignoring the Nightfighting.

Forget this whole thing of “Crash to earth in an exploding pod and then stand around getting shot at.” Next time we’re bringin’ one of these sweet chariots.

As noted up top, this was a rare occasion I didn’t play Angholan as Warlord, and I could have actually really used Vulkan’s Warlord Trait of +1 to combat results. For once he didn’t actually die at any point, and instead spent each game in ridiculous combats featuring characters with 2+ saves swinging AP 3 swords at each other. In some ways that wasn’t bad, each time he tied up entire units and contested or defended objectives all by himself. But it would have been nice to win some combats and force opponents to retreat or be swept. That trait would have made a big difference in Round 1 in particular, greatly boosting his chances to sweep the Tau and allowing a remaining Tactical to claim an objective.

Also as above, 5 more Sternguard with 3 combi-meltas would have been a good swap for the Landspeeders. However, another interesting idea would be to exchange for Scouts in a Landspeeder Storm! I’m dying to get one of those in play, and this would have been a good place for it. With the Comms Relay re-roll and the Storm’s fast movement, we could have potentially kept them back until mid or late game, then flew on to shore up an objective in the endgame.

Wait for it… Wait for it…

That in turn would have addressed a basic problem of ours. As always, the tradeoff with an alpha strike is that once it runs out of steam you’re going to be struggling to hold onto the lead you hopefully built up. A late arriving cheap Troop unit could have helped with that. As-was, you could really see this in each of our games. For the first couple turns it would look like we were way up, but then as my guys got eliminated the games would draw much closer and then it’d be tough & nail. The first two games it was particularly funny: With the Nightfighting from Imotekh, Rob would be really crippled to do anything for a couple turns while I was fighting heavily on the front. Then my guys would all be dead or in combat, leaving me with little to do, while he would be super busy defending our backfield.

The Guard await their turn.

Conclusion

All in all, this was another excellent day of gaming. Rob and I have a similar mindset to the game, and our two armies and play style complemented each other well here. Our opponents were also great, and each game was really close and super fun.

Again, more photos are in the Flickr gallery.

Pew pew pew pew!

PAGE Apocalypse 2014: The Defense of Kimball Prime

Posted on 2014/01/05 by tjkopena

With the fall of Caldor IV and Rittenhouse Hive, yet another of Abaddon’s years-long black crusades continues to build momentum. Gazing deep into sector holomaps, Kingbreakers’ leadership decides to make a stand on Kimball Prime. Great works begin as the planet is made into a fortress world, with bunkers, shield generators, and innumerable weapons batteries built from the ice wastes of the poles to the sweltering jungles of the equator. Here the traitor’s tide of war will be blunted, or the incursion will rage through the sector unstoppable.

Despite a snowstorm shortly before and a variety of other hiccups, most of the PAGE crew got together for its much planned 2014 New Year’s Apocalypse this weekend, to smashing success. Brett, Colin, Lovell, Steve, Tom, and Warren joined armies to form the Forces of Discord. Akil, Jason, Justin, Owen, and myself made up the Forces of Order.

Lots more photos are in the Flickr gallery.

The battle underway!

Listen, we could spend all day rollin’ butt loads of dice, or you and me could just Rochambeau right now and get a beer?

Armies

After extensive ad hoc rebalancing for missing players—presumably caught in the Warp—the two teams came out to about 20,400 points each, from an originally planned 24,000, including all Titans, superheavies, and gargantuan creatures. The armies of Discord brought a variety of Chaos Marines, Daemons, Cultists, Traitor Guard, and Necrons, supported by a Reaver, Warhound, a Baneblade chassis, Greater Bloodthirster of Khorne, Great Brass Scorpion, all lead by Abaddon. The Forces of Order brought together many allies, including Space Marines, Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Tau, and Imperial Guard, supported by a Reaver, Warhound, and three Baneblade chassis, lead by Librarian Rorschach.

The planet writhes in flames as the war grinds on to near stalemate. Finally all the hosts come to a head in a single line of battle stretching across half the planet. Desperate times at hand, the great heroes Grimnar, Belial, and Creed together with legendary commander Farsight hurl themselves into combat at the head of great columns of men and vehicles. Awaiting them lies a brutal gallows roll of all the mightiest foes of the Imperium, from blackest Abaddon himself to the greatest daemons of the Warp, with even the machined strategist Imhotekh and all his advisors rising from a newly awoken Tomb Citadel to throw in his lot with the bid to take down an Imperial sector. The last push begun, Captain Angholan clasps gauntlets with his battle brother Rorschach and embarks to the front, leaving the latter and his Council of Librarians to divine the Emperor’s light and guide the forces of order.

This planet is ours now.

Party’s on the other side of the table, boys!

Scenario

The board was 6′ x 17’4″, with teams each taking a 2ft long-edge deployment zone. Chaos won zone selection in a roll-off, and then took first turn as well after bidding 5 minutes’ deployment. The Imperium, expecting such a low bid from the heretics and having significant foot and vehicular forces to field, bid for a full 30 minutes of setup. Discord placed a dual set of Void Shield Generators and Vengeance Battery fortifications, with a Necron Tomb Citadel nearby. Loyalist fortifications included multiple Imperial Bunkers, Vengeance Batteries, and a Void Shield Generator creating a 12″ protective bubble over their central position.

Heretics placed one home objective in the Citadel, another safely ensconced within the overlapping Shield Generators, and targeted an immensely important fir tree among the ice caves on the Imperial flank for their opposed objective. Kingbreakers declared their central command buildings as tightly clustered home objectives, while the Dark Angels and Tau targeted a critical defensive wall in the jungle temple on Discord’s far right flank as the breach point through which to break the crusade.

Table setup and deployment; click for larger view.

We followed standard 6th edition Apocalypse scoring for the match: Killing superheavies, gargantuans, and the designated supreme Warmaster are each worth a point; objectives are scored at multiple times and progressively increase in value, in this case after Turns 2, 4, and 5 (game end), and for 1, 2, and 3 points per objective each time.

Let’s do this thing! Steve’s scratchbuilt Warhound Titan.

Battle

How quickly shift the tides of war!

Major axes of movement & reserve arrivals; click to enlarge.

Turn 1

Combat began hectically, with the defensive Imperials in particular rushing to activate all of their comparatively numerous models and ultimately skipping a fair bit of shooting when time ran out. Chaos declared a Trophy Kill objective on Grimnar on the Imperial right flank and began pursuing it with a massive Traitor Guard armoured spearhead combined with Abaddon himself and his Terminator bodyguards. Innumerable daemons spawned into existence, anchored to the Materium by a host of greater daemons bursting forth from the Warp at each corner of the battle and shrouding the field in their Tetragon of Darkness. A massive Necron Pylon came into existence in the very center of the combat, while Necron Sentry Pylons also beamed into place around the Discord objectives. Discord claimed a Baneblade chassis while Imperials killed the Pylon to gain one point each through the course of the first turn.

Necron, Traitor Guard, and Abaddon, what could go wrong?!

Turn 2

The Emperor’s light shone brightly in the next round as the Great Brass Scorpion approached Imperial lines but fell to massed multi-melta and lascannon fire. Chaos’ foul Tetragon was also quickly broken, with several greater daemons assassinated at their anchor points. Imperial shooting also took out a Baneblade chassis, and all this without giving up a kill point themselves. Further, Discord discarded their previously earned point to enact the Lies of Tzeentch Strategic Resource and temporarily control the opposing Reaver, forcing it to friendly fire and obliterate a number of Dark Angels Terminators. Fast moving Necron Destroyers rushing from their recently awoken Citadel did manage to contest the Space Wolves’ objective, leaving Order only 2 points on objectives versus the Discord 3, but the Imperials and allies still came out ahead after Turn 2.

Ohmygod, we’re so behind schedule; I need to take a break…

Turn 3

Quickly though the clouds darkened over the Imperium. Abaddon and friends bested Logan Grimnar in personal combat, achieving a Trophy Kill strategic asset and claiming 3 points. Simultaneously the traitor Reaver and tank columns took down a loyalist Baneblade chassis for another point, the earth shaking crunch as its flaming pieces hit the ground second only to that of Grimnar. These combined losses in the polar fighting left the Space Wolves distraught and open to systematic decimation in the coming turns.

Ongoing tremendous amounts of heavy shooting also did little to stop the inexorable flanking march of the Greater Bloodthirster onto the Imperial’s command bunker. Only sustained sacrificial delaying tactics and careful positioning of many Space Marines, Imperial Guard, and Tau vehicles and infantry continued to keep it from reaching the Kingbreakers’ encampment and cracking open the critical Void Shields. Ultimately Order gained no points and ceded its lead in the planet-wide battle royale.

For the greater good! Blood for the Blood God!

Turn 4

Approaching the endgame, the match pitched into a grinding battle of quarter inches and small chances. Discord caused a cataclysmic explosion on the jungle flank by exploding the Imperial Reaver. More damningly, the raging Bloodthirster, chosen warrior of Khorne, achieved his primary objective and crushed in a single blow the Imperials’ Void Shield Generator, exposing the command bunker and both objectives previously under its aegis.

Recovering from their mounting losses though, Order achieved several critical successes. Hulking in screaming victory over the savaged ruins of the Shield Generator, the massive Bloodthirster was yet again lit up and wracked by fire from every possible weapon across half the field of battle and finally succumbed, sent back to its blood god at the very door of the Imperial command bunker. The great warmonger Abaddon was similarly forced to flee the battle in the face of mounting personal injury, yielding Order 2 points for these kills.

Significantly, the Dark Angels’ long battle through the heart of an equatorial jungle temple paid dividends. With the bulk of the Chaos flank guards tied up by the Unforgiven, the Tau, Imperial Guard, and Kingbreakers were able to sweep the targeted strategic breach point. At the same time, Kroot reserves and Imperial Guard bombardments arrived to reinforce the Space Wolves struggling under massive combined assault and help prevent further Necron and Traitor Guard incursion. These actions denied Discord a third objective for the second round of scoring, which awarded two objectives each.

Air cav inbound!

Turn 5

In its last moments the epic battle for Kimball Prime reached a fever pitch of critical moves, last-chance shots, and final coups de grâce. Resurrecting the courage of Russ, Space Wolves squadrons regrouped into secure positions overlooking the bizarrely anonymous Discord objective in their midst. Charged thrusts from elite soldiers and fast attack vehicles of the Tau, Dark Angels, Imperial Guard, and Kingbreakers also swept away the straggling Chaos Cultists and lesser daemons attempting to resecure the breachpoint, the nearby traitor Warhound stomping in rage at its inability to stop the loyalist troops swarming about its feet.

These are not the droids you’re looking for!

But even as the Forces of Order prepped for these advances on the flanks, Discord piled all of its remaining heavy shooting onto the Kingbreakers’ command headquarters, the Bloodthirster’s suicidal, singleminded, successful mission to cripple the Shield Generator having rendered it exposed for the first time in the battle. With the points near tied and Discord’s two home objectives safely held but the third stripped away and Order claiming its own flank objective, everything came down to the two on the bunker complex.

With nearly all other long range shooting eliminated or crippled, the traitor Reaver and Warhound Titans combined fire to strip away the bunker’s internal Void Shields and then pummel it with the most powerful weaponry ever fielded. They were prevented though from directly targeting the most critical troop units and the bunker itself by a well placed Shield Generator Strategic Asset, carefully saved for exactly a deeply dire moment such as this. A precious few Forest Guard platoon members survive the incoming blasts, even as nearby Kingbreakers Tactical Squads rush in to shore them up. The Forces of Order continued to hold their two home objectives.

The last of the flanking Obliterators dead and Skarbrand sent back to the Warp, Captain Angholan pauses to survey the battlefield and catch his breath. His muscles all clench though and his eyes yield to horror as he turns just in time to watch a final massive overcharged plasma blast from a retreating tainted Reaver slam into the newly unshielded command bunker, instantly obliterating its top ramparts and engulfing an extraordinary area in blazing gouts of flame. Sprinting into the blinding rockrete dust, he calls on all his decades of steely training to choke back surging memories of the fall of Forestway and his own long entrapment in the collapsed capital building. Armor servos shriek in protest as he rips apart nanobar and flings away huge chunks of rockrete. Finally tossing aside an entire interior wall, he falls to his knees. Ahead of him is a large energy bubble supporting all the tremendous rubble of the upper levels. Huddled inside are a few all-but-dead yet still living Guardsmen and Space Marines. At the center is his great, troubled friend Rorschach and the Kingbreakers’ Council of Librarians, eyes closed and faces a rictus of concentration from the inconceivable effort of maintaining the telekinetic shield. With Angholan frozen in relieved shock, Squad Scolirus finally catches up and slips around their Captain to begin carefully extricating the survivors. The battle is won.

Kingbreakers dance in the flames!

Results

The Forces of Order break Discord’s Apocalypse winning streak!

Reap the tallyman, Nurgle!

Order claimed 5 of the 7 possible kill points offered by the Discord forces by tagging the Pylon, Scorpion, Bloodthirster, Baneblade chassis, and the Warmaster (Abaddon), leaving the Warhound and Reaver on the table. Order also held two objectives after Turns 2 and 4 as well as three after game end, for a total of 20 points.

Discord claimed 3 of the 6 possible bonus points offered by the Order forces by eliminating the Warhound and two Baneblade chassis, leaving the Reaver standing. It also claimed 3 more in achieving a Trophy Kill on Grimnar, declared as one of their Strategic Asset selections. However it spent 1 to enact Lies of Tzeentch. Discord also held three objectives after Turn 2, as well as two after Turn 4 and game end, for a total of 18 points.

Final disposition; click to enlarge.

Game Thoughts

In a game like this there’s a thousand big and small things of note that happen. These are just a couple very top level notable observations.

Range and Formations

It was really helpful to have Owen, a newcomer to our Apoc fights, be able to make the battle. That made a big difference in equalizing the 6th edition experience levels across the two teams, helping Order play both better and within the time limits. Tactically speaking, it was particularly helpful that he plays Guard and has played a few large battles before as he thus brought a significant increase in Order’s long range, heavy shooting. On an 18′ long table even the normally impressive 48″ reach of a lascannon just doesn’t amount to much. Without that we would have been in real trouble. I was really counting on some of the missing players’ armies to provide the ability to go out offensively and hit things at distance, but the Guard shooting at range probably present a safer way to do that anyway.

Sometimes you just gotta call in the veterans.

Despite the story text above, my Librarians were yet again a huge, huge disappointment. At this point I’m pretty used to how limited in appeal they are for normal play. But I had high hopes for the Apocalypse formation I fielded, basically 5 Librarians potentially tossing out a D weapon large blast every turn. Literally nothing walked into their line of sight and range though that wasn’t immediately swept away by much less risky shooting. One consequence of having two redundantly Void Shielded, heavily armed encampments staring at each other across a relatively open expanse was that almost nothing ventured into what became a completely empty dead man’s land across the desert terrain. I thought about having them disembark the bunker to get better sightlines, but even then not that many targets wandered close enough, and our little Warmaster would be out running around with giant Greater Bloodthirsters and such running amok in close quarters. I love the models & concept so much, but…

In stark contrast to the Kingbreakers’ flaming self-entombment, the Necron basically stand around all day just talkin’ about how awesome their fortress is, not even noticing it blasting stuff on its own.

The general point there though is that the Apocalypse formations are basically dumb. They’re either (1) incredibly hard to field, (2) very brittle, or (3) have limited effect. To (1), of the Space Marine formations, the majority involve fielding a full company of troops or a weird collection of very specific HQs. On (2), a great many of their effects can be easily defeated, e.g., no one walking within two whole feet of my Librarians, or Brett’s Tetragon of Darkness being popped almost immediately. For (3), due to the extra points available with the missing players Justin did actually field and use a Space Wolves Great Company. But despite the large number of models and points that entails, I couldn’t tell you that I noticed the benefits. Similarly, I actually fielded the requirements for a Space Marine Predator Assassin Squadron. But I didn’t select the formation because it seemed more limiting than useful.

Hey, hey, buddy, don’t start nothin’, won’t be nothin’!

Balance

Obviously critical to the success of all of our Apocalypse games is the effort put beforehand into balancing the headliner models. Coincidentally but unfortunately, the Forces of Discord have many more Titans, superheavies, and gargantuans at hand than Order. Fortunately though they have so many that there’s enough—and they’re more than willing—to share them around and balance things out.

But, to that need to put a lot of effort into balancing things, D weapons are pretty dumb. Since they’re so strong against everything, they make everything else all uniformly worthless. With no protection of any kind being allowed against them, there’s no reason to field anything but the cheapest possible options and put all the points toward your own D weapons. Given that they’re both equally dead if tagged, and equally unable to strike back at the shooter, why field 14 point Marines when a 5 point Guardsman is just as useless? A ~250 point Landraider versus a 55 point Chimera? Previously I had mixed feelings about the recent expansion of D weapons into the regular game. Watching them up close again though has really pushed me to be very concerned.

Yep… Good luck with that axe, buddy!

Similarly but in the other direction, the new Void Shields fortifications are probably also a problem. I don’t have as much of an issue with them because ultimately they don’t directly remove models, and they’re somewhat readily countered on their own as well as much more internally balanced—you do what the Bloodthirster did: Walk right in, get protected from remote shooting by the Void Shields themselves, and then smash them. But they’re almost certainly too cheap though for such a massive buff to a potentially large number of units.

Conclusion

Beyond that, I’m going to save for another post some thoughts on organizing and executing Apocalypse battles. Ultimately we all collectively put a lot of thought into crafting a good plan and come at the game with the right mindset, and that all paid off in overcoming near disaster with multiple missing players and instead having a truly great day of gaming.

Again, more photos are in the Flickr gallery. Till next time; the Emperor protects!

Huh… I guess he’s really good with that axe? Sergeant Harmon contests the Discord flank objective!