Force Z 2014 #2… I'm utterly confused!!!

Well after receiving some input into my Force Z list (you can find the list here) I have had a rethink on my list and thought I’d change things up a little. I’ve decided to throw in a filthy mutant in the form of a Primaris Psyker into my list for some interesting alternatives. Unfortunately this means my Veterans are no longer 4+ saves but have gained snare mines & camo gear. I’ve also lost my scout sentinel and gained a heavy flamer on my melta squad. I’ll keenly miss the outflank shenanigans of my scout sentinel but will have the ability to twin link my plasma squad or plasma tank.

So here’s what I’ve come up with. Please let me know if it’s an improvement on the last list. I can spend points more efficiently let me know as I’m pretty slack when it comes to “math-hammer”.

HQ

Lord Commissar

Primaris Psyker

Troops
Veteran Squad
+ Veteran Sergeant
+ 2× plasma gun
+ Forward Sentries
• Chimera

Veteran Squad
+ Veteran Sergeant
+ 2× meltagun
+ heavy flamer
+ Forward Sentries
• Chimera

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Battle Tank

Leman Russ Executioner

Force Z #1 in full swing!

Help me out Psyker users. I've never use one with my guard list and any advice would be great!

Force Z 2014 #2… The pointy end.

So since the new Astra Militarous Codex came out I've had to readjust my Force Z list a little and have settled on a some was similar list to the one I proposed last time (you can find it here). So basically what I'm taking is:

HQ
Lord commissar   
    Carapace
    Emperor Benediction

TROOPS   
Veteran Squad   
    Grenadiers
    2 x plasma
    Chimera
Veteran Squad   
    Grenadiers
    2 x melta
    Chimera

FAST ATTACK   
Scout sentinel   
    Autocannon

HEAVY SUPPORT
Leman Russ Battletank   
Leman Russ Executioner

Hopeful the 4+ resilience is enough to keep my men alive until they do their damage. I'm interested in seeing how reliable the Plasma-cutioner is now that it gets hot. Less than 3 weeks till i find out how reliable the new Codex is in battle, and no time to test it between now and then! Let me know what you think about my list, better yet if you can try it out for me that would be better!!!

Force Z 2014 #1

ANZAC Cup 2014 - The Games

As promised here is the run down on how my games across the weekend at ANZAC Cup went. Before I begin I’d like to take a moment to thank Ty again for a well-run and enjoyable event and all the players I met. I would recommend everyone to check out the WW40K site for information on the events they run. Check out my general overview of the weekend here.

Game 1:

Opponent: Dylan Close

Army: Tau Empire

Rough brake down: 3 x 12 man packs of Fire Warriors with supporting Riptide, Crisis Team with Commander, Broadside Team and Hammerhead Gunship.

Deployment: Dawn of War

Mission: Blood Feud – Primary; basically kill points, with bonus VP for every Infantry or Jump Infantry (other than Independent Characters) killed. Secondaries; Slay the Warlord, Fist Blood and Last Man Standing (the side with the most amount of units surviving gets an extra VP) No Night Fighting

Result: Lose (3/18)

Summary: Elements of Dylan's army did not need line of sight and/or ignored my cover saves it was hard to keep my units alive. I did make a few tactical errors causing me to turn over more VP then necessary. In the end an enjoyable a game as I can have against the fire power that Tau brings to the table. The upside I did manage to take his riptide out on turn 2, who then proceeded to stand by the side lines cheering on the Tau to victory for the rest of the game.

Game 2:

Opponent: Simon Golkovic

Army: Tyranids

Rough brake down: Tyranid Prime, Deathleaper, 3x Lictors, 2 Biovores, five teams of 5 x Genestealers with Broodlords all with support from a pair of Mawlocs.

Deployment: Search and Destroy (Table Quarters)

Mission: Shatter Strike – Primary; 2VP for each scoring unit in the enemy’s deployment zone at the end of the game. Secondary; Slay the Warlord and First Blood. Night Fight turn 1.

Result: Lose (1/2)

Summary: Lack of experience playing against Genestealers resulted in bad deployment. Throughout the entire game my battle tanks could not get a bead on Simon's Genestealers and I had hemmed myself in a corner expecting his forces to come on in his deployment zone and not infiltrate completely to my right. I managed to keep his Genestealers from having more than one scoring unit in my deployment zone but meant that I was not in a position to get to his. NOTE: after reading the mission while writing up this blog I can across this paragraph that I missed on the day: “Fog of War. After deployment and the placement of infiltrators, but before the game begins, each army can redeploy a single unit anywhere within in their deployment zone…” Well that just proves that you should always read the mission, if I had realised I could redeploy my Battle Tanks I think Simon would have had a harder time of getting into my deployment zone!

Game 3:

Opponent: Hamzah Simmonds

Army: Chaos Marines

Rough brake down: Chaos Lord, 10 Bikers, 15 Raptors 2 Vindicators and 2x 10 man Chaos Marines in Rhinos.

Deployment: Ambush (one side deploys in the centre and the other side deploys at either end with staggered deployment starting with heavy support and ending in fast attack)

Mission: Onslaught – Primary; one objective in each deployment zone, capturing the opposition’s objective 5 VP. Any enemy unit destroyed in the first game turn is worth 1 VP. Secondary; Slay the Warlord and Attrition (the army which has destroyed the highest number of enemy units at the end of the game gains an additional Victory point). Night Fight turn 1.

Result: Draw (6/6)

Summary: I deployed in the middle having my tanks face back to back to protect their sensitive rear armour and my squishy blob to the centre. Hamzah employed a pincer movement and deployed his Vindicators and Raptors to one side and his Bikers and Marine Rhinos to the other. In the first turn my Executioner decimated his bike to three models & my Devil Dog went on to taking out one of his Vindicators and later in the game my Melta Veterans taking out the other. My plasma Veterans made a beeline to his objective with the game eventually ending with each of us holding an objective and splitting secondaries.

Game 4:

Opponent: Peter Marshall

Army: Space Wolves

Rough brake down: Logan Grimnar, Wolf Guard pack in Terminator armour, 3 x Grey Hunter Packs, a Dreadnought all in drop pods and a Long Fang Pack holding his back field.

Deployment: Vanguard Strike

Mission: Dominion – Primary; D3+2 objectives each worth 3VPs (we had 4 objectives). Secondary; Slay the Warlord and First Blood. Night Fight turn 5.

Result: Draw (4/4)

Summary: After deployment Peter dropped a steady rain of drop pods on my lines. I managed to take out his dreadnought before it could do too much damage. His Warlord and Grey Hunters got into combat with my Lord Commissar and blob who held their ground, ended with both of us holding an objective and contesting one too and splitting Secondaries.

Game 5:

Opponent: Eddie Duncan

Army: Imperial Guard

Rough brake down: Command Squad with Master or Ordnance, 3 x Veteran Squads, 2 x Chimeras, 20 man infantry blob with Platoon Command Squad, Devil Dog, Leman Russ Battletank, 2x Leman Russ Executioner and Aegis Defence Line with Quad-gun.

Deployment: Search and Destroy (Table Quarters)

Mission: Extermination – Primary; variable ‘Kill Points’ with different force org slots having different VP depending on their importance. Secondary; Slay the Warlord, First Blood and Linebreaker. No Night Fight.

Result: Victory (5/4)

Summary: This was basically a mirror match and the layout of the board did not help much with movement. The table was known as the sky table and had impassable areas and bridges for infantry. Unfortunately we both came to the conclusion that our tanks could not cross the small bridges. In essence we sat in our corners and lobbed shells at one another until the game ran its course. Now this might sound like it wasn’t a fun game but on the contrary it was the most enjoyable game of the weekend. We were both reduced to the fundamentals of playing guard and relying on our long rang fire power to knock out the others units. In the end it came down to me taking out his battle tank that made the difference. I look forward to playing Eddie again back in Toowoomba.

At the end of the day I was very happy with my 6^th placing especially at the calibre of players attending on the day. Till the next event…

Codex: Astra Militarous – at a quick glance.

Well I’ve got my hands on the Imperial Guard Codex and this one is a double edged sword. Overall I’m impressed and excited at most of the changes, but I’m a little saddened by a few.

First off let’s talk about the quality. I’m not a big fan of these hardcover books purely from a logistical point of view. As a Guard player I have a trillion models, templates and dice to move to, from and around tournaments and I found my flexible paperback codex so much easier to stick in a bag or pouch. It would fit in tight spaces with a little encouragement! The new book is a little, well, rigid. Now is this a trade off to a gorgeous full colour book, absolutely! From cover to cover this master piece has style and pizazz. There are some new illustrations and a few of the best have been reused, which is OK by me. There is a healthy fluff section at the beginning, which I haven’t had a chance to read yet, followed by Regimental Colours the show case of the Citadel range for Astra Militarum and finished with the Hammer of the Emperor a comprehensive army list and a handy foldout quick reference guide at the back (that doesn’t get all bent up like the early hardcover books). Overall quality is there in spades. My only real criticism is that I expected it to be a little thicker for $83AUD retail, for a models company GW do charge a lot for their books.

Now let’s look at what’s missing. And there are a few omissions that will sadden people, but there always is lately.

Guardsman Marbo from the Old Codex

First up we have Guardsman Marbo. Rambo of 40K has bit the dust it appears. This doesn’t faze me too much, but I had just converted up a model for a counts as which I’ll have to shelve till I work out what to do with him. This is a interesting move on GW part as they do have a current model for his rules. So this may point to two things; Data Slate: Marbo with new model or Marbo is truly gone for good.

Next we have Penal Legion. These guys didn’t have current GW models to support their funky rules but I thought they were cool, I’ve fielded counts as a few time. As sad as this is on reflection it’s not surprising. With the ‘legal issues’ GW has had over the last couple of years it’s understandable that they have caned these guys as there a few third part manufacturers out there that make magnificent Penal Legion models, Victoria Miniatures is one.

Then we have the loss of almost the entire artillery entries, only leaving the Basilisk. This was a bit of a shock as even though they didn’t have GW model support, Forge World had these entries well and truly covered. People with these models will now have to rely on the AI books to run the suckers. Alternatively a couple of Guard players I know are going to run their Griffons as counts as Wyvern Batteries.

Here’s the positives; Orders! There are new orders and they are fantastic. Obviously I haven’t play tested them yet but these new orders open up some interesting possibilities that will be a thorn in the side of many a player. I especially like the look of 30 man blog of guardsman in rapid fire with precision hit! The way I run my blobs that works out to be 39 lasgun/laspistol, 6 plasma & 6 auto cannon shots all allocated to the most sensitive models. Of course the other orders have there some very interesting possibilities like being able to shoot and then run would give your heavy weapon squads some mobility while still shoot at full ballistic. Nine orders in total give some great flexibility to our Guard.

Bullgryns. Well these are ‘interesting’. Not sure if I’ll take them in a competitive lists but these as

well as Ogryns will make an appearance in my social lists from time to time. Unfortunately they are still ridiculously over points costed so they probably won’t see much lime light.

Wyvern Battery

Wyvern Batteries. These bad boys are the new ‘tank’ for the Guard and probably a replacement to all the lost artillery. Just having a glance over them they don’t look too bad, in the long run I’ll probably pick up at least one of these suckers probably 2.

Then there is all the new Militarum Tempestus stuff (better known as Strom Troopers). The only difference from the Codex: Militarum Tempestus that I could see was that they have justly been relegated to the elite slot. This will change up how I run my Storm Troopers and I will miss the Special Operations rules they had, but still looks cool.

Tank Commanders; with a side of orders. I haven’t thoroughly read these rules but at a glance it looks like you could possibly run a full Leman Russ squadron with a Tank Commander as a HQ choice and then run three full Leman Russ squadrons as Heavy Support options, that’s a total of 11 Leman Russ tanks (points permitting) in a single force org chart. And the Tank Commander gets tank specific Orders. More tanks anyone?

A few other change ups include:

Ratling now have the Shoot Sharp and Scarper rule, enabling them to shoot and then run in the shooting phase. Handy

Astropaths are now level one psykers that take a power from Telepathy.

Officer of the Ffleet can now both add +1 to your reserve roles or -1 to your opponent’s roles, after the Officer passes a leadership test.

Chimeras now only have 2 fire points but gain the Lasgun Arrays rule, basically allowing an embarked Veteran Squad to fire 2 special weapons at their ballistic skill and 6 lasguns at the chimera’s ballistic skill.

There is a tone more in the book but I haven’t gone through the codex thoroughly enough to give it justice so I’ll leave the codex there and end on a review of the new Orders Cards.

Well the Orders Cards are a waste of money in my opinion. The quality is downright dreadful. The Trimming is not even centred properly, the cards are too big to be practical they could have been two thirds the size maybe even half the size and still have room for ‘all’ the information. I got a pack on a whim and I certainly won’t be getting another pack. I recommend steering clear of these suckers.

Finally if you think I’m on track here or gone off the rails let me know. I welcome all your feedback.