Ish

Cyberrats would make an awesome alternative Genestealer Cult...

Goonhammer recently had an article on this very topic. I’d suggest embracing their idea for removing the Increase Supply Limit requisition and then having it “automatically” be awarded to all players every couple of weeks. Start the campaign with everyone having a 50 PL / 1,000 Points Order of Battle. But have everyone play up to three 500 Point missions for the first month; In month two, everyone adds +15 PL / 250 Points to their Order of Battle and plays up to three 750 Point missions; and so on and so forth. Maybe something like this: • Month One: 1,000pts Order of / 500pts Missions • Month Two: 1,250pts Order of Battle / 750pts Missions • Month Three: 1,500pts Order of Battle / 1,000pts Missions • Month Four: 2,000pts Order of Battle / 1,500pts Missions For the question of randomly rolling versus players choosing their own battle scars and upgrades, my vote is to split the difference between choice and roll. Instead of just rolling one die or just picking, everyone should roll 2d6 and keep whichever one they like. If you roll “doubles,” so be it, the Dice Gods hath spoken. Ideally these rolls would be done in front of someone else from the league, but we can just rely on the honor system I think.

I just like being precise. I’m a pedantic jerk, even towards myself. I’d prefer to just go with straight Power Level, but I seem to be distinctly in the minority on that front. But having everyone’s Crusade Order of Battle be based on PL and individual missions be played with Matched Play Points does seem like a good compromise.

The “Golden Gitz” have had their list tweaked to reflect the new CA2020 point values. I also swapped out the jetbike squad for a dreadnought... Because giant stompy robot > zoom-zoom flying bicycle.

I like to do quick little crafty projects in between the bigger jobs. Retouching the paint on the Land Raider was easy, but the assembly and painting the Achillus was a lot of work... Fun work, but I still needed a “quick win” to reset myself. I decided to do a quick bit of arts and crafts and protect my new BattleFoam case from the machinations of Chaos that claimed my last one by backing up my basement drain...

Bigger Trouble in Little China Although, apparently, there is a comic..

Thousands of tons of armor and guns,Making it's way through the sand.Our panzer battalion is back for revenge!Artillery sweeping the land.–Sabaton, ‘Panzer Battalion’ So, it’s only seventy-two tons of armor and guns, but I think it’s close enough. Bought this lady of war second-hand from our dear friends @pretre and Mindtaker Miniatures. The bones were solid, the paint job was table-ready, and the Machine-Spirit longs to return to the field of battle. I’m giving it some touch-ups here and there, but it was 80% complete when I bought it. Not sure when a she’ll see the table, since even by Custodes’ standards she’s a lot of points, but it’s been a fun, quick, easy painting victory.

This weekend is actually pretty bad for me... What about during the week?

7,000 charge en masse. Turn the tide of the attack, And force the enemy to turn back. And that's when the dead men are marching again. –Sabaton Now available with 90% more bling!

Too bad the Albedo Combat Patrol miniatures game only has mammalian species in it...

Cue the music.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, as a faction the Adeptus Custodes loooove the idea of a densely terrain’d and relatively small table. Especially since our only transports are all 300+ Points (and, except for the Land Raider, require selling a kidney to Forge World). It’s like... I prefer a red-head to a blonde, but I’m not going to turn down a night out with Charlize Theron.

But it means that maneuver isn’t as important. GW seems to be pushing for a close-up, in-their-face, chainswords a’swinging style of game... and if that’s the goal, they‘ve nailed it. I’ve had a lot of fun with the two games of Ninth-ish Edition I’ve played and am looking forward to many more. But I kinda liked small platoons of infantry stalking each other in the gothic ruins of Space Stalingrad... Or figuring out the best path for my tanksand IFV squadrons to advance into the enemy’s trenches without getting too hammered by their artillery. Ahh well, I guess I’ll just need to continue to wait for them to bring back Epic 40,000 for that.

I haven’t seen it in anything official, but various reliable sources like Goonhammer and the like have been repeating it whenever discussing the impact of terrain on a new edition. 18-24 pieces of terrain isn’t that bad, when you remember that this counts everything from a 1” tall bit of barbed wire on a popsicle stick to a 16” tall ruined gothic hab-block. But the general push does seem to be towards denser tablescapes.

“We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company postal service.”

The new terrain guidelines are one terrain feature per square foot of table space and everyone seems to think the suggested minimum table sizes are the required maximum table sizes... So it might be tricky to use a lot of drop pods given how dense the table is gonna be.

Objective Secured, or whatever your codex calls it these days, is helpful with the contesting. But, no, it’s not a plan you can use every game... “[N]o plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.” –Field Marshal Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke, ‘On Strategy’ (1871) years

Hold One, Contest Two is a viable strategy. Hard to pull off, but if you can do it, it’s a hard game plan to overcome.

I paid for my signature to be on there. Not the driver’s.

Just received another shipment of joyful nerdy stuff from BattleFoam. Product is perfect, shipping was speedy, prices were more than fair... and UPS screwed the pooch on delivery. Paid extra for “signature required,” since I’ve been having a lot of packages stolen off my porch lately. I happened to be out in my yard when the driver pulled up. He refused to let me sign for it, insisted it was perfectly reasonable for him to sign on my behalf, and was just generally an obnoxious git. Phoned UPS customer service, they gave me the run around for over an hour, until eventually telling me, essentially, “DILLIGAF.” Called BattleFoam. The customer service rep practically tripped over herself in order to be helpful. Promised to fix the issue and have a talk with their UPS rep about it. I freakin’ love BattleFoam. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

I’ve gotten two games in with my Custodes now, one crushing loss and one narrowly eked out victory. Tough units that can hold objectives are vital, but I don’t think it is necessarily the case that you need to have tough units be the ones that take the objective. Everything in the Custodes list is tough, but I think other more normal factions would be well to practice having units operating in “sweep and keep” pairs. A fast moving, hard-hitting unit that can knock the enemy off of an objective followed up by a tough unit that can squat on it. Assault Marines followed by Tacticals in a Rhino; Plasma or Melta Vets followed by an Infantry Squad (or three); Biker Nobz backed up by a horde of Boyz... But that’s just Primary Objectives. Proper selection and execution of Secondary Objectives is going to be the “x-factor” that will separate the top tier players from the rest of us.

Grant Imahara (October 23, 1970 – July 13, 2020) electrical engineer, roboticist, television host, and the best damn actor to ever play Sulu (even if it was in fan-films and never official), and table-top gamer. If he isn’t in the afterlife right now surrounded by Angels dressed as Trekkie Bunny Girls, then there is no justice in the cosmos.

That’s always been an potential downside to being a retailer of a product that is also sold directly by the manufacturer of said product. So this isn’t a new issue.

I plan to be there with my Custodes.