Ish

GW gives more feedback and interaction with their player base than most gaming companies do. It could be better, sure, but it’s above average in comparison to the rest of the industry.

Man, the mobile website version of this page totally borked my formatting...

I thought it was a good mission, you had to either commit to a strong offense and hope you could clear them out or a strong defense and hope you could hold the line. I tried to do both and succeeded at doing neither. It’s a mission I’d like to play again.

Let’s play everyone’s favorite “parse the language” game! Yaaaay!

Two Words: Tater. Titan.

It’s an Invulnerable Save, Lyraeus was making a joke. But, believe it or not, it is possible to run Orks without a KFF Mek! I know, I know... I didn’t think it was true either. 😁

Baby steps.

Corvus Blackstar as land vehicle. I love the look of this! I think it needs a tiny bit of tweaking (the assault ramps, as is, can’t open 🤔 ), but damn it just looks mean.

Which would be well into the “it became problematic” period. I’m saying it was something acceptable in the Nineties, something I could put up with in the early 00’s (if only out of inertia), but definitely something annoying in the later 00’s. Post-2010 it was wholly unacceptable for them to continue the old “just figure it out yourself of wait for the next edition” attitude. Compound that with their Cease and Desist letter-writing campaigns, zero social media presence, and indifference (if not hostility) towards fan-organized events and GW was in a bad place 2008-2012. They’ve turned it around and I think it’s worth recognizing.

Which was an acceptable practice in the Nineties when the Internet wasn’t a thing and publishing cycles were lengthy... But it quickly became problematic in the mid-2000’s when internet access became all but ubiquitous.

One got shot to bits Turn One (Dreadnought softened it up, Hellblasters finished it off) and the second one then booked it to the roof of a four story building.

Yep, the entire squad gets one of their three plasma incinerator variants, a bolt pistol, frag and krak grenades. The Sergeant has the option to swap out his bolt pistol for a plasma pistol... That’s it. Can’t even give Sarge a bloody chainsword, let alone a power weapon or ‘fist. I probably shouldn’t have used them at this points level, but seeing Leman Russ tanks on the table at 500 Points last week made me nervous! “Always fighting the last war,” I guess. They definitely need a “bodyguard” unit, some Aggressors nearby or even just a unit of Intercessors screening them will probably be an important part of my plans for them.

Don’t misunderstand me, even though tonight’s game was a Loss (and barely), I’m still very happy with my army choice. It plays in a fashion that meshes with my play style, they have some solid Chapter specific Relics and Traits, and dammit I like the Chapter Tactic! I strongly suspect most of the people on the Internet just aren’t playing games on tables with appropriately dense terrain and/or are playing mostly against other Space Marines. Most Tau, most Guard, most GSC, some Eldar, some Tyranids, and some Orks all rely on cover pretty extensively. Denying them that strategy is useful, I don’t care what “the meta” says.

Mathhammer says my Dreadnought should have put ~6 unsaved wounds on them in one shooting phase... But that’s the Dice Gods for ya.

To be fair, this was only my third game with this army. I’m still trying to figure things out. I like Agressors, even if the one game I used them saw them plagued by bad dice rolls on offense. (The Dice Gods were kind to them on the defense, the weathered a ridiculous amount of incoming attacks.) One game isn’t enough to draw conclusions, but I think they’ll prove to be a personal favorite. Intercessors with assault bolt rifles seem lacking. I used a five-man squad of them last week and they did great — ten 4/0/1 shots on the move is handy. Problem is that the bolt carbine available to Reivers has the exact same profile and Reivers are better suited to the role. Grappling hooks, shock grenades, leadership rebuff... Still, I’ve got a full ten-man Intercessors with assault bolt rifles squad built. I plan to keep experimenting with them. Haven’t gotten to use Inceptors. Yet. Plan to get at least a five-man squad of them (at present, I only have two) all equipped with assault bolters. Plasma might be better on paper, but I like the idea of dropping them into my opponent’s rear echelon (especially if they have a “Loyal 32” camping on an Objective) and using the Bolter Drill Stratagem (6+ to hit procs another shot).

Fast-moving fusion blasters wasn’t something I felt safe ignoring, making the Piranha a priority target. Not sure if this was tactically sound on my part or if I got baited by the “Distraction Carnifex” nature of them... Probably should have used my Redemptor Dreadnought on your Firewarriors instead. He was loaded for chewing up infantry, not vehicles. Even as lightweight as the Piranhas are, S5/AP-1/D1 only does so much, even by the bucketload. I think Dal’yth / Farsight is a good combo. The vast majority of the time, you’ll get full advantage of the Dal’yth cover-camping shenanigans since not too many armies have the ability to ignore cover bonuses. After all, Imperial Fists are considered one of the weaker Chapter Tactics, for some reason. (I think people are just scared of painting yellow!)

As predicted, this one was a real knife fight. Brutal, nasty, and short-ranged. Had a great game against Paxmiles. Those Tau Crisis Suits are nasty little critters, I’m really starting to feel hampered the lack of mobility of Primaris Marines... I needed a way to get more of my men across the table, en masse, to put pressure on him. God damn it, I wish I had Rhinos!

Maybe have Kroot HQ, but with the requirement that he cannot be your Warlord unless the detachment is solely composed of Kroot units?

The Kroot Shaper is an Elites-slot unit, if I recall correctly.

I always just sort of default to 2,000... The Kustom Stompa is 1,100± and the Stompa is 950±... So that rules out a Super-Heavy Detachment, which requires three Lords of War. Hmm. Has Forgeworld ever released Eighth Edition rules for a Gargant?

Seems like their should be some sort of “Kroot Chieftain” model...

I wonder what the lowest possible model-count for a Battle-Forged Ork army is...

Always nice to see a windmill where the map-maker remembers that they need to rotate.

I know that’s been the case for a while now, doesn’t mean I like it!