The Future of My 40k Hobby

*opens the door slowly with a creak noise, finding all the lights off* Hello? Any one home? *flips on the lights to find all his old 40k models and blog posts right where he left them*

It's been a long time since I've been posting, aruging on forums, and playing the 40k table top game. I did as my last post indicated, run a Dark Heresy RPG campaign with my friends, which went off pretty well. They encountered Necrons (they had to cave in some ruins in time or they would die to flayer fire) and heretical cultists that were kidnapping people to turn into super soldiers of their own. Good times had by all and in the mean time we're playing other RPGs, but I plan on either returning to DH or going balls to the wall and play Death Watch. In addition to this, I'm excited for the general IP with the upcoming PSN title "Kill Team" which a friend and I plan on buying and co-oping, as well as getting Space Marine for PC. The more I see video of SM (from this past month's E3 conference) I'm more excited for it and believe Relic can pull it off.

I also got my RP group to try out some wargamming on Sunday. We did 2 v 2 with Kill Team rules, so 400 v 400 points. I had 9 ASM and my friend that had never played this before had 5 Stern Guard and 5 scout snipers vs 2 Tau suits and some rail-rifle troops and a team of Eldar Banshees and Dire Avengers. Honestly, I've never fought Eldar before, even in my local tournament they never made an appearance, and they were pretty scary. I know the Banshees are built as anti-marine units, but general their speed and initiative was devastating. I basically sacrificed myself to kill off all the ranged characters so the Banshees would have to run across the board and take a hail of AP 4 weapons that pierce their armor. In the end we got the other team down below 50% first so they had to take like 4 leadership tests and passed em all, and then we killed all their units down to just a suit and we failed our 2nd leadership test or something. Kinda crappy result with our upper hand and all, but oh well, everyone had fun and hopefully we can do it again sometime.

I of course have only been back into 40k for a day now and I see the 6th Edition rumors flying about and I'm already feeling like hanging it up since I hate change. Plus all the hate for GW from basically everyone online for the way they handle customers and such. Eh, I dunno, all that is on the back burner and I'll just stick to the video games and RPG and painting.

Area Terrain and Embarrassment

I was sitting around procrastinating from painting my Blood Angels and noticed a pile of styrofoam I've been saving for some terrain. I decided to make up some area terrain for my board since it's a simple enough project and hard to mess up. I created two pillars, one having some damage from some ancient battle and some stone walls to provide cover and a boundary for the terrain. The base is a heavy cardboard so it wouldn't flex when moving around or rip apart. I threw on a couple extra Dark Angels icons because I bought a whole slew of em when I first started my marines last year. I based it with black spray paint, then a layer of rough-texture spray that gave it rocky feel. I then painted it with watered down Codex Gray. The icons where painted with Dheneb Stone foundation and then covered with Gryphonne Sepia wash. I hit the edges of all the bricks and pillars with the wash as well to make an aged look from a lot of dirty rain fall. I edged around the stone with PVA glue and flock to give it a bit more character.

(Click for bigger pics)

On another note, I played another Kill Team vs my friend Jason who is still new to 40k. He fielded 7 Necron Immortals and I fielded a squad of normal marines with a Priest and a Razorback with a LC-TL PG. This isn't optimal in the least, but they are part of my 1500pt list and I have never fielded a RZB before. Boy was this one sided. He is blessed by the dark gods of the dice. He consecutively rolled 6s to glance me and 5s on the dmg charge to take off my PGs first, then my LC, then finally immobilize me. My RZB literally did nothing.  He could have had an armor rating of 5+ and still won the game. He was rolling 5 and 6 about 75% of the time, and i was rolling mostly 3s.... And charging T5 units without power weapons is terribly hard. Average to hit, below average to wound, and then they have an average shot to get back up, and of course he was hitting those numbers, but I wasn't. It came down to me only have 3 guys left and he had 5, all of us in assault, and I was rolling low and him high, so we just called it. I knew Immortals could be bad ass, but this was crazy lopsided. I could have taken my normal Kill Team load out of DC with all power weapons, or maybe a Furioso for easy wounds, but that wasn't the point of the game. Right now I'm just worried about the performance of normal marines and RZBs... We'll keep playing and eventually get up to 1500pt games where the real testing can begin.

New BA Sprues and a Weekend of Kill Team

 Well I got my legit codex, box of Death Company and new Baal Pred in the mail on Friday! Gotta say, the quality of the new parts are excellent! So much bloodly blood drops and skulls and chalices and more blood references everywhere on these guys. Each DC will be magnetized as each one will be a Sgt for my assault squads and can take normal CC weapons, power weapons, the new Infernus pistols, or even the mighty Thunder Hammer. The kit comes with all those options, and even both Jump Packs and Power Packs, so I can take them in either a JP or Mech list in one simple switch. Since they will never carry their bolters I can sprinkle their ornate bolters into my normal Tac squads so it isn't such an obvious difference between ASM and Tac units in terms of bling. The should pads that come with are also amazingly detailed and over the top in variety. As for the new Baal Pred it includes the two normal sprues that all Rhinos use, and one additional sprue that has a billion pieces on it it seems. Two cannon choices, two sponson choices, and BA icons, all detailed and seems redesigned a bit. The sponsons look a bit more beefy than normal Pred choices and the TL-AC is plastic finally. The directions for both are also a bit more pro, which seems necessary for the level of detail and options they are giving us.

The weekend was also full with some Kill Team missions amongst a number of my friends and armies. The first was my BA vs some Tau fielded by a friend who hasn't played since 3rd Edition. I brought my Death Company as usual and he took a number of Warriors and a single Crisis Suit with plasmas and a Marker Light Drone. One of my guys was equipped with a power fist and fleet, who was singling out his suit. I was able to fleet and get that suit, which saved me a big headache, but it still wasn't a cake walk. Since everyone has to slog it to assault the Warriors and his drone consistently got a marker light on one of my guys, increasing a shot to BS 4 each turn. He got me to half strength before I got him and I failed my first leadership test (8) but we continued playing, at which point I was able to wipe him from the table, but he still got the official victory.

I also got a friend that has never played before to play against a different 3rd Edition friend to play another Kill Team game of my Necron Warriors vs Space Marine scouts and a Dread w/ MM. The scouts stayed in cover and took pot shots all game while the Dread advanced. The new guy, Jason, pulled off the incredible rolling a single to-hit, a six to glance, and then a 6 to immobilize the Dread in the middle of the board. With it relegated to a stationary turret, the main threat of assault was gone and he preceded to shoot out the scouts for a victory! Finally, on Sunday those two guys teamed up on me for a 2 on 1, 400pt Kill Team battle royale, where I also got double the Force Organization to be fair.

The SM player took normal Termies at an even 200pts and the other repeated his 10 Warriors. I took a Furioso with Frag Cannon (mostly to test this baby out) with fleet, a 5-man Sternguard all with a combi-melta and one being relentless, and 4 Death Company with 3 power weapons, one being preferred enemy. They won roll off and gave me first turn, so I deploy closest to the edge of the deployment zone, ready to open fire and assault. And again, Jason pulls it off with a '1' roll, which steals initiative in Kill Team. This leads the Termies to assault me first instead of the other way around. I lose FC and one attack in this case, but I still strike first in combat, so not all was lost. He charged a Sternguard and two assaulted a DC in range, the others did not make range or specifically avoided my preferred enemy DC. He cut down the Stern, but I took out one of the Termies with the other DC before he was punched to death. My PE DC fell back for a turn or so but then got assaulted by two termies. I split my attacks between them, and was able to cut down both! He then assaulted the Termie Sgt that carried a power sword and FC to gain the upper hand. Since I still got to go first with an extra attack and strength, I cut him down as well, making that DC my MVP. My Furioso Frag Cannon also proved to be valuable, taking down 3 Necron in one blast and then another 2 a turn later. No AP and I never rended, but putting two wounds per model is a sweet deal. The only other thing of note was using the Vengeance rounds on my Sternguard that resulted in blowing away a Necron and then failing a save for Gets Hot and killing myself. Oh well, the price of AP 3 weaponry. And I actually whiffed in assault against a single Necron with a DC, letting him attack back with 1 shot, and Jason actually hitting and wounding me! I failed my armor, but then was saved by FNP; a very close call to embarrassment on my part.

I've interested these guys to play a bit more often, especially Kill Team for it's small scale and ease of use. After they get used to 5th Edition more, I'll try some other Battle Missions and then get them up to 1500pt battles again. Overall a good time was had by all.

Battle Missions: Kill Team First Impressions

I was hoping to try out my new BA 1500pt lists this weekend with my friend Seth, but timing and space didn't allow it at his place. Instead, we opted to try out the new Battle Missions, specifically Kill Team. If you don't know the basics, it's a max 200pt game, played on a 4x4 or less table space. Every model acts independently and up to 3 different models can receive a different USR, to give the impression this is an elite scouting party or something. No HQ or HS choices are allowed, but you can be tricky to get HQ/HS type units into play with the new codexes like BA that have an Elite Librarian via the Furioso or the Fast Attack Baal Predator. For my first outing I tried out the Sternguard, as I've always heard they are awesome but I've never played them or seen them in action. I was able to fit 8 men on the board versus 11 genestealers, one of which was a Broodlord. Since range was king, but the board was a bit smaller than 3x3, I cornered up and let him come to me over the various buildings and walk ways we set up as terrain. He claimed cover where ever he could, but I always opted for the cover ignoring rounds, which was amazingly helpful since it still is AP5. Then when they are not in cover I can switch to the poisoned rounds that wound on 2+ and are still AP5. The only thing that was tricky was the Broodlord, where I can either wound on a 2+ but he gets his saves, or I wound on a 5+ but no saves allowed. It came down to a mass of both ammo types and a failed Psychic roll to take him down. But in the end, he was able to catch me with a loss to me. For schnitz and giggles I said "one more time" and put down a Librarian Furioso with a DCCW and HF and extra armor (equals 200 exactly). I did it so I could negate the Broodlord psychic powers and the front 13 armor in CC. I was able to assault the lord by himself and obliterate him first and then the swarm hit. It was basically an exercise in rolling dice then, as he immobilized and took off the force weapon before I eliminated all the genestealers.

The final game was his Plague Marines vs my Death Company. It was 7 vs 8 and one of his was a Champion. I took 3 power weapons and an Infernus pistol. I gave the Infernus Hit and Run, a power weapon guy Fleet and another one Preferred Enemy, and just a normal guy with a weapon to spread it out. I couldn't reach full potential since he had defensive grenades, but still with FC so I could wound on a 4+ instead of 5+ was handy. A bit of it came down to the fact he had 0 power weapons and I had 3 and a pistol that could pop armor as well. The increased WS also helped me inch forward as well in CC. He took me to half strength but I passed my Leadership test and then when I got him down to half he failed his first test and I won. I said let's play it out, but in the next assault phase I killed another 2 models, leaving 1 for the next phase so we called it for good.

All in all, the games only took a few minutes, tho a lot more checking for LOS and cover is done since you're trying to save as many models as possible from certain death. This is a quick and easy way to get some 40k time in, but not need to move your whole army to a friend's house or rush things. It felt like a 3D, brutal version of chess, having to move each piece in certain ways to get or avoid a charge, rapid fire range, etc. I also found it an easy way to check the abilities of a particular unit without having to give into a big commitment. It doesn't speak to how well it will work as part of a larger army, etc, but more to see if it has the abilities you like and are up to snuff or not worth it. I could see playing this a bunch more and using it as a way to get someone accustomed to 40k rules without saying "here's 1500pts, now try to remember every ability and stat while we play".