Dusldorf

I very much regretted the introduction of Knights and other super-heavies into 40k, but now I've come to enjoy it. I guess there is room for a new size of battle in between what used to be regular 40k and Apoc battles. On the other hand, I think it's a good thing that there's yet another style of army that people have to prepare for when building an all-comers list. It adds variety to the game. I think it remains to be seen whether the FAQs and Chapter Approved move balance in a good or bad direction, but the most recent one holds a lot of promise.

8 minutes ago, Ish said:

Personally, I think a lot of the problems with WH40k all stem from the scope of the game having grown too large for the 6' x 4' tables we all play on. Alpha Strikes, First Turn Assaults, Death Stars, and so forth... The forces on the table contain so many troops and war machines; the two sides are deployed in such close proximity; and there's a ton of maneuver-enhancing options available to everyone... It's just nuts.

Back in Second Edition, when the game shifted focus from Rogue Trader's story-driven skirmish system (with a Game Master and everything!), into a proper wargame, it was meant to focus on the platoon level. The default game-size was 1500 Points and a lowly Imperial Guardsman cost 10 Points and a basic boltgun carrying Tactical Marine cost 33 Points. Once you factored in equipment costs, a supporting tank or transport, and maybe something "exotic" like a Dreadnought you'd rarely see more than thirty or so Space Marine infantry on the table. Maybe fifty to sixty Imperial Guard or Space Ork infantry because they were the "horde" armies.

Here we are in Eighth Edition, we've grown waaay past the platoon level. It's common for Space Marine players to have a demi-company on the field, with ample supporting elements, up to and including squadrons of aircraft. Hell, if your careful, you can easily field a full Battle Company of Space Marines. Imperial Guard players are routinely putting entire battalions on the table... and god help those crazy "Green Tide" loving Ork players who need snow shovels to push their infantry mobs across the table. 

Warhammer 40,000 has become Epic 40,000 in terms of scope, model types, and troop quantities. But a 6' x 4' table is a lot more relative real estate for a 6 mm tall model to fight across than it is for a 32 mm. 

I think the Warhammer 40,000 community has got to either move to larger tables (6' x 6'?) or move to smaller point games (1500?).

Chess clocks, sir. Until it's impossible for two people (who are extremely familiar with their armies and the rules) to finish a game in 2.5-3hrs, the answer is chess clocks. And 8th ed has improved speed play by a ton.

3 minutes ago, Ish said:

"Lieutenant Decimus, you will lead Tactical Squads Philopater and Sextus, along with Devastator Squad Varus to engage the enemy in a ground assault. Sergeant Agrippa and Sergeant Labienus, your squads will remain aboard the strike cruiser to deploy by drop pod. When Decimus gives the signal, you'll drop into the enemy flanks and give them hell."

"Yes, Captain." 

tl;dr- the squad "gives a signal".

welp, better make sure every single space marine unit held in reserve uses the summoning rules, since they're all "getting signals" for when to join the battle, too

/s

5 minutes ago, paxmiles said:

I feel like Drop Pods should be "summoned" rather than put into reserves. Like have a SM loyalist character roll to summon them instead of moving, not unlike chaos characters summoning daemons. Just seems like a more practical way to have them function in-game. 

Besides the fact that I don't think this would help drop pods, how on earth would this work thematically? It's not like drop pods need a homing beacon...

1 minute ago, Ish said:

They’re not going to be very useful capturing objectives (which has always been my primary use for them) if they must arrive by Turn Three.

They're not going to be very effective at disrupting enemy positioning and maneuver if the enemy knows exactly when they’re going to arrive.

Stop thinking in absolutes and you might have more success.

By turn three there's often far less on the board that can mess with where you put your reserves.

Psilence hit the nail on the head. It's an extremely versatile tactical option.

22 minutes ago, Ish said:

If the Reserves must show up in Turn Two or Three, then they aren’t really acting as a reserve force are they?

They certainly are in the sense of not being immediately available at the start of the game.

10 minutes ago, spagunk said:

I wasn't referring to null deploy 🙄. the new rules means that NONE of your reserves can come in turn one at all. So there doesn't seem to be any advantage to even putting a single unit in reserve even as an "Oh [big bad swear word]" button if someone breaks through your main line or threatens you immediately.

@Dusldorf Been playing since 1999 so yes, I know how it used to work. I've spent all of 7th edition basically being able to do jack all with Blood Angels so going backwards to previous editions shouldn't be something we should strive for from my perspective.

The fact is that 8th was supposed to make it better/easier for every army and I've been sitting here seeing more and more options removed from an army advertised as an assault oriented force. I have all these assault tools at my disposal but none of them are particularly effective besides shooting. Telling me to get over it shouldn't be the catch all everyone crowds to and is really friggin toxic.

God damn it, I should have known better than to post here.

The salt is real lol

2 minutes ago, spagunk said:

My favorite part (sarcasm) so far is that all reserve units cannot enter the board at all, even in your own deployment zone. So if you reserve something you can't even bring it on board on your first turn to help repel a 1st turn rush from your opponents. So much fun! 🙄

You do realize that this is how 40k worked for years, right? Makes it into a real decision whether to reserve something and, as motivated GW in this latest faq, it's more thematic.

4 hours ago, Nathanvoodoo said:

Just seems to me that people should start moving away from these ‘matched play’ rules... eh?

Wow

49 minutes ago, Skkipper said:

GW games are about fun and enjoyment. The rules always could be broken. People who need to break them don’t belong in the hobby. Beer and pretzels. If accpect more you are in the wrong game.

Different strokes for different folks. Even though I agree with the idea that gw games are about fun and enjoyment, I'd say that people who tell others what kinds of fun and enjoyment are acceptable are the real ones who don't belong in the hobby.

5 hours ago, DisruptiveConduct said:

These changes make my Genestealer Cult very very sad.

I find zero reason to play them now. They were already a "win turn 1 or lose turn 2" army.

Now they are an "always lose" army.

GW acknowledged this and said appropriate buffs will be coming in the codex.

Nice, optimistic review of the FAQ here: https://nightsatthegametable.com/blog/2018/09/28/the-big-faq-and-you/

One per battle round is the new restriction

2 minutes ago, Prophecy said:

How will an Autarch from Ulthwe work?

What do you mean?

3 minutes ago, spagunk said:

"If the datasheet for a model says it can FLY, then during the Movement phase it can move across models and terrain as if they were not there."

Well okay then. Thanks.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic since it's a huge nerf no longer being able to do so in the charge phase lol.

Faq says buildings can hold objectives though, which is pretty cool

Sure, but no single rule will ever balance all the armies. I think it's a great step in the right direction.

Prepared positions I think is the most game changing thing in the faq. Essentially provides a big incentive for going second, since many units in one's army wouldn't otherwise be able to get cover, and having the bottom turn helps a lot for tournament objective scoring.

Also means that one can deploy aggressively AND get cover, which will otherwise never happen.

Think about the implications of prepared positions for things like mech lists and rhino rush. Normally chimeras and rhinos have a 3+ save that's difficult to improve, but this rule means you can deploy aggressively going second and have a 2+ save on a horde of T7 vehicles. This is huge!

I played the above list on Sunday at the kick-off event for my new challenge league (see the topic, "Just Dusldorf Things" in the Artificer's Forge section); the league uses the ITC Champions Missions Pack. First game was against necrons and I won by just a couple of points because poor deployment of my Leman Russ allowed his destroyers to kill it at the top of turn 1. My Seraphim were chasing them down the whole game, one model miraculously surviving each turn so that another could be resurrected with an Act of Faith. Second game was against a triple-Knight list with some AdMech thrown in, and I won that one too by four points. On the first turn he overextended with his melee knight, allowing my jump troops and bikers to surround and kill it without threat of retaliation from the other two. Second turn I was able to speed back and kill the other, non-Castellan knight while also spreading out across the board to kill his AdMech objective holders. For the last couple of turns the Castellan was the only thing left on the table and I just ran around avoiding it while racking up objective points. MVP that game was the Armor of Russ relic, which ensures that his Knight always fights last against my biker blob. Normally a knight player would spend 2CP to interrupt in the fight phase after one of my guys finished his attacks. He can still spend 2CP to interrupt, but the Armor of Russ means that he can't choose the knight to attack until all other models in that combat have attacked, so the stratagem becomes useless. I'm realizing that the biggest threat to my list is getting charged by two big baddies in one turn. Anyway, great event, here are some pics (fourth pic shows the necron player during our first game, and the fifth pic shows the knight player on the left facing off against daemons):

Today I built something community-related: a ladder board for the new challenge league that I started at my local club! The full rules can be found here.

The Carcosa Club is a member-owned gaming space in Brooklyn. It's easily the best place to play wargames in NYC, and I encourage any of you who visit to check it out.

To make the ladder board, I laser cut two pieces of MDF and glued them together. Besides looking and feeling better with some added heft, the added thickness was necessary to prevent the screw-hooks that hold the player tags from protruding out the back. The title around the border and the club logo in the center were engraved via rastering.

You might have noticed that the ladder rules discuss five tiers, while this board only has four. Well, that's because Tier 1, the bottom tier, is just a pile of player tags in a baggy somewhere nearby 😛. The tiers on the board are the ones that really matter, and each one accommodates only a single player.

Finally, the collections of shield and helmet tags to the bottom left and right will allow players to display that they are currently benefiting from either the "plot armor" or "juggernaut" rules.

The black triangles are just to show where player tags can be hung, and to improve readability of the clear acrylic player tags that I made. Here's what a tag looks like when it's on the board:

The league kicks off this Sunday with 11 players - just enough to completely fill the challenge board! I will feel bad for the one player whose tag gets left in the Tier 1 baggy 😀. Wish me luck!

1 hour ago, SPaceORK said:

Depending on how well glued the missiles/fur are on the manticore, you should be able to take them off relatively intact.  After that you can use various lengths of pipe to make the barrel. Cut out two triangles of  plastic, round the top corner, and you have the supports. then add some rivets and other bits to give it a more 40k look and you should be good. 

I would totally do that, thanks, but I remembered that my Manticore turret is a 3rd-party sculpt that could count as either, so I'm all set 🙂 (will post a pic later).

celestine is a divine saint, and her geminae angels. battle sisters are mortals.

Don't need to keep your hair out of your eyes when you're guided by the light of the Emperor, heretic scum.

yeah i mean, look at the male space marine heads...nothing out of the ordinary here.