Showing posts with label how to play warhammer 40k. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how to play warhammer 40k. Show all posts

Hand Painted full size Blood Angels Chapter Banner






Here is some more pics! And below is the footage of my Warhammer 40k hand painted full size Blood Angels banner.



Jawaballs

Loose Ends: Mechanicon GT Game 5 Batrep

Hey guys, I hate to post old news but I wanted to wrap up this loose end cause guys have been asking for it.

Mechanicon Game Five for the win?

As most of you know, I took 3rd at Mechanicon. But in game five I was playing for the win! Stressful indeed.

Game Five:
Modified Victory Points Objectives.
Kill all troops for major victory
Kill Commander for victory

Opponent:
Nidzilla. 3 shooty carnifexs, 3 killy carnifexs, 2 shooty hive tyrants and 4 squads of Genestealers. Not a list most guys want to face... ever.

He knew I had to kill his two hard to kill tyrants and then mow down 4 squads of stealers for the win. To take me down, he had to kill my 20 marines and corbs. But to get to them he had to get through my armor! This was going to be a great game from the start.

He gave me first turn.

I deployed with all of my forces bunched up in the center of the table on my edge. I wanted to keep them away from the edge incase he outflanked his stealers. Corbs was in a rhino with a combat squad behind and the rest of the boys were set up with their weapons ready and the predators off to the side a bit to keep them out of terrain. He set up a wall of bug flesh. His carnifexs were in front with the shooty fexs behind and the tyrants behind them. I had to blast through a wall of death to get to the tyrants. My plan was simple. Blow a hole in the wall and then dump all my fire power into his tyrants until they were dead. Get the minor victory then run the hell away with my combat squad and corbs in a rhino and keep them alive. I had no delusions about killing his stealers. They were in reserve and if I did manage to kill three of the squads, he would just run the last one away. But I had the advantage when it came to commanders, him being unable to hide his, so I took it.

Turn One:

I advance my preds and attack bikes, I had 6, and opened up on carnifex one. With notihng to block LoS, he did not last long. That opened up a hole and angle where I was able to start blasting away at his Tyrants. So I took the shots. Killed one!

On his turn, he saw my strategy and adjusted. He only had to cover about 18" to get to me, so he would be on me no later then turn 3. He just had to weather the storm and get those carnifexs moving. He opened up on my bikes, killing a couple and hurting my shooty love.

Turn Two:

I had to take down a shooty fex this time to get at his second tyrant. One of my pods came in and I took the melta shot at the tyrant, as well as laying down more Asscannon and Melta law. It died. My plan was working almost to well? I think he was ill prepared for the fire power that I threw down. Taking down his tyrants was shocking to him for sure. He probably doesnt see that often. But that would be the end of my free shots. Next turn his Carnifexs would be in my lines.

On his turn, he advanced his big bugs again and brought on two squads of stealers. His shooting killed more bikes and stunned a predator. The stealers attacked my dread, landing something like 48 hits. When it was all said and done from that charge, and I frustrated the crap out of him by making him reroll about 10 rending wounds to my benefit, it came down to one last rend. It was a pen and he rolled a weapon destroy. High from all the luck, I decided to press it and made him reroll it. He rolled a destroy. I learned a valuable lesson that I would then carry over to the Battle for Salvation tournament. Always take the weapon destroyed against a Pen result on my ven dread. That is the best option.

So he destroyed my dread.

Turn 3:

My other pod came down. I got out and flamed a stealer squad and killed most of them. My tanks and bikes opened up on the nearest Big Bug and reduced it to one wound. I also layed down some fire on a shooty fex because it had the gun that could hurt my tanks and reach me as I retreated. He had two carnifex that would assault this turn and three shooty fex that would pepper my tanks and troops. Next turn, I would pull my move and fast move my rhino away. I just wanted to keep his attention away from it, plus I had to move my tactical squad out of the way without drawing attention.

He assaulted my second dread with three stealers squads. This one was a Death Co. dread and it actually won combat!!! Two of the squads fell back, but one managed to stay in so I could not sweeping advance. They would regroup and come back next turn.

He assaulted my last bike squad with a shooty fex, and the tough buggers would hold it up for two assault turns. He moved and assaulted one of my predators and killed it.

Turn 4:
At this point things are breaking down fast. Those two carnifexs are tearing me up. My dread lasted another turn against the stealers, tieing them up and but the rest of them were on the table and it would die soon. I layed down more fire on his carnifexs but was running out of options. I killed the fex that destroyed my tank, but there was another right there, and I was out of shots. My escape route was ready and on turn 5 I would get the hell out. I used my other rhino to block the carnifexs assault route on my escape rhino.

He assaulted my las cannon combat squad and killed it, and was sizing me up for a way to keep me from getting away, my plan now obvious.

Turn 5:
Time to go! I roll OCE on my rhino and score a 4, so It will get well away from trouble. But then travesty. My cursed ability to roll 1s rears its ugly head and I immobilize the rhino on terrain. For the love of god! Knowing that the best he could do would be to assault Corbs rhino and kill it forcing him to bail out, I panicked and disembarked him any way. I made a line of armor with the rest of my tanks and ran corbs to what I hoped would be safety behind a tank and out of assault range. My other dread goes down to stealer rends after killing his share and his shooty fex kills my bike squad. I assaulted his carnifex with another combat squad trying to slow it down, but he wiped them out.

On his turn it came down to his last shot. His assaulty fex was almost dead and would not last turn 6 if the game went on. (I should have kept corbs in the rhino...) He placed his big template, a str 8 ap 4 or 5 shot, I dont know what it was called... after the scatter, it clipped corbs. I had to make a 3+ save and have the game end. Die roll? A 2. Corbs is instant killed and a draw is born. The game ended turn 5.

It was a fun game! I killed a lot of giant bugs. He certainly felt the sting of the Baal Predator and it was this game where I learned the true value of the Venerable Furioso. Had I not taken that reroll which killed my first dread, he would not have had so many squads on my second the next turn. They likely would have both lived, and killed all the stealers! The second would have finished off the ones that assaulted it while the first tied up the majority of them, then the second would have jumped in to help. Instead he killed the first and piled onto the second. With all those rending shots, it is tough to survive.

I made my biggest mistake in my 40k experience so far though by disembarking Corbs. All I really had to do was keep him in that rhino. But I feared that he would kill the rhino and the game would go on, leaving corbs in the hands of a fex that he could not out run if I didnt get him some distance. I suppose it was more of him defying the odds then me making a mistake. He got a perfect scatter after all and I failed a 3+, but still. The game was mine to lose.

As it turned out, it was costly. I ended the game tied with Rob Baer who won best overall. He finished with 10 more points then I did. 8 of them he gained from a fluff quiz which I forgot to turn in, and two he gained from his painting score. I lost 2 points for now having a painted display board. (His army was exceptional though.) So would I have lost even if I won game 5? I think so. I would have had to kill his stealers I think. I would have needed a massacre to make up the 8 point difference Rob got from the quiz.

So there you have it! Interesting point here. Should fluffy 40k quizes be part of GT scoring? This particular one was very difficult, but they gave us about 3 hours of down time to do it. Rob only knew a couple answers and I had a few guesses, but as I found out, looking up the answers was ok. We were allowed to use rule books and codexs. Rob used his iphone! I could have used my laptop. Knowing that now, I don't see much value in the quiz above giving out door prizes. For the quiz to have a major affect on overall scoring, it should be a true measurement of 40k knowledge. We should have 5 minutes before game 3 to answer the quiz. In that case, you either knew the answers, or you did not. Regardless, he would have topped me any way because of the painting score which I could do nothing about. You want to bet that next year I am going to Mechanicon with every codex loaded up in my travel bag and my army will indeed be ready to earn max painting! Lessons learned. :)

Jawaballs

Jawaballs at Mechanicon GT Game Two Battle Report Blood Angels vs Necrons

Game two at Mechanicon brought me to the table against a kid I had met the night before, Brad. He had Necrons. Necrons you say? Game two bye right? Wrong. What can I say? The kid knew what he was doing and had a tough army.


Victory Points Annihialiate
1850 Necrons vs Blood Angels
Necrons:
Deceiver
Monolith x2
Immortals x10
Destroyers 2 squads
warriors 2 or 3 squads.

From the start I knew I was in trouble. I played him the night before, and barely won in a similar mission. My goal was to drop my dreads and take out his deceiver and monoliths. It was my only hope. I could not phase him out because I lack the intense assault power to do it. I had to rely on my hard hitting dreads and my torrent of fire to do the job.

Turn 1:
I deployed first and set up to shoot. I had to stay out of his range and try to hurt him, and hopefully get some high strength shots at his deceiver and drop it before my pods came down. My first shot immobilized the Monolith that was blocking his Deceiver from LoS. Good start. But that would be about all the luck I would see all game. No other shooting from me would do any thin this turn.

On his turn, he advanced the other Mono and brought out his deceiver behind some cover. That would be my opportunity! I had to make use of it. He did some shooting at my preds and glanced two of them. This would happen all game too, he did just about all Necrons can do against tanks, and kept them from shooting most of the game.

Turn 2:
Time to play! I dropped both my pods, boxing in his other monolith. Then I fired every thing I had at his Deceiver, scoring a few wounds on it. I had hoped to kill it so it would not be assaulting my dreads. :(

On his turn he kept supressing my tanks, and assaulted and killed one of my dreads with the deceiver. Thats about it!

Turn 3:
This game was turning into a chess match now. I began shooting at his troops to try to take em down. I had the immortals down to just one model but failed to wipe it out. He would then suck them through his monolith and bring them all back. I assaulted his other monolith with my dread, ignoring the deceiver since he would be assaulting my dread any way and going first. I did take more shots at it though, wounding it again. It would be more of a fair fight this time. My dread exploded his monolith and prepared for the charge.

On his turn, Brad did more cursed supressing fire. How totally effective against my army! He tried running away with his warriors and charged my dread with his deceiver... He failed to hurt the dread due to Venerable status, and my boy got his licks in, killing the deceiver! Now I had just two turns to get over to the other lith and take it down.

Turn 4:
Much of the same. I unloaded on a Destroyer squad this time, brought it down to one model, and he sucked it back through the monolith and brought them all back. Then he destroyed my other dread with Destroyers from behind! That would eliminate my chances of a victory. And in fact, turn the game into a win for him!

Turn 5:
I did all the shooting I could do. I reduced another squad to just one model, but he brought it back with the monolith. He killed most of my bikes, and my death company rolled snake eyes jumping into terrain and died. Ugh.

At the end he would have 400 more victory points then me and score the morale victory.

My biggest mistake was to keep my two tacticals in full squads of 10 and not move them. All game all they did was shoot their damn Lascannons instead of moving up and assaulting. This is what cost me the game. Had I combat squaded them, I could have gotten into his face and finished the jobs my Predators started but could not finish themselves.

Oh well, this game set me down a few tables, and paired me up against Brads friend Nick and his Tyranid army for game 3. More to come.

Battle Report: Mechanicon Game 1 Blood Angels vs Dark Eldar




Hi from West Chester PA! Mechanicon is underway and what an event so far! Friday night started with open gaming and I got in two games. Batreps on those to follow. The boys at Mechanicon have it wright so far. There is a bar right in the convention room! The tables are beautiful, with actual GW terrain, along with some they made up, like one piece that has parts from the Millenium Falcon all wrecked. They have been on time so far and right on top of things. Tony, Jeremy and the guys are friendly and open. Definitely the way to be when running an event like this. There is nothing worse then surly event staff that ignore you unless you are one of the recognized 40k mainstays.

The highlight of Friday night was the guy dressed up as a Blood Angels Death Company trooper! He had a suit of armor made from resin, a power weapon and a bolt pistol and he looked fantastic. Pics to come as well as video.

The boys at Mechanicon have developed a pretty good scoring system. The first game was broken down by Victory points. You earned certain victory points for completing objectives, like 500 for each loot counter your own, 500 for your HQ surviving etc. The max for game one was 4k victory points for each player. Then there is a scale. It is a little complicated, but the best game resolution system I have seen so far. On the scale, the winner is decided by comparing Victory points. If you scored 1000 more then your opponent for example it is a Victory. What I see from this scale is a lot of drawn games. That is not a bad thing in tournament play becaue it levels the playing field.

On with the Batrep!

Mechanicon Game One:
Blood Angels vs Dark Eldar
1850
Dawn of War
5 loot counters

I won the roll to place the counters, and set up the standard diamond plus one formation with a diamond on one side of the board and a single objective far removed. This kept all of the fast moving DE right where I wanted them.

My opponent won the roll and went first.

Turn One:
He deployed a squad in the middle of the table on an objective in cover in the diamond formation, and one at the back on the lone objective. He placed an HQ with the one upfront. I placed two 5 man combat squads with lascannons on my side in cover and attached Corbs to one of them.

On his turn, he brought on all of his Skiffs and attempted to shoot my Las team with Corbs, but nothing could reach.

On my turn I brought on every thing except for my Dread pods. Of course, both of my rhinos rolled 1 for terrain tests and got immobilized. Damn me and my cursed ability to roll ones. It got worse. Almost every thing got range on his squad in the middle, and I killed all but one of them. The last model made its morale and stayed. It would last to the last turn!

Turn Two:
On his turn, he moved his skiffs up, deployed and got ready to assault my Death Company distraction. (I moved them up as far as they could go looking to tempt him out into the open by assaulting them.) He layed down a lot of fire, reducing my Lascannon team with Corbs down to just the las, and wounded cobs. He knocked the Ass cannon off one of my preds. The one with the angel wings. Dante's favorite tank. It is not good to anger the Blood Angels Eldar scum. My death company died in the assault, and his witches ran for cover after. My ploy failed. Oh well, they would get cover saves. And they would need them.

My turn came up. Both of my pods came in and I dropped them right into the middle of his stuff. They got out and opened fire. One missed, but the other destroyed two transports with melta and heavy flamer fire! The resulting explosions killed a lot of guys and pinned even more. Then the rest of my army opened up. It was not good. I exploded or destroyed all but one of his skiffs, and killed a lot of troops in the process. At the end of the turn, most of his squads were hurt and hiding in wreckage. The dreads were foaming at the mouth with so many targets in range, and Corbulo was confidently giving orders from the rear. Dante would be proud.

Turn Three:
With most of his armor dead, and his troops hiding or pinned, he tried to deal with what he could... the dreads. He opened up on them with str 8 weapons, but failed to hurt them. The Venerable upgrade was a HUGE buy. They were each destroyed 2 times, but the reroll reduced that to shaken! Beautiful. He would then assault my Death Company dread with his HQ squad, fail to hurt it and take 4 losses in return... But they made their leadership test.

On my turn it was back to business for my guns. One of my rhinos rolled a 6 for repair, and fixed itself! Woohoo it would be able to move and take an objective next turn. My bikes got into position to take out the rest of his armor, and my preds began shooting up his troops. All but one of his ships were destroyed now and my preds mowed down most of his troops. At the end of the shooting there were just a couple clinging to life. He was lucky enough to get one of his squads out of assault range for my dread by removing the closest models. That just made him mad. In the assult, my dread would take no wounds from his HQ and only killed 2, but that was enough. They failed leadership and broke. Already dangerously close to the edge of the table, he rolled low and lived, but did not get away from my dread.

Turn Four:
The game was all but over. Now Jeff was playing for pride. He assulted a bike squad and killed it with a couple of witches and shot at the dread chasing his HQ but missesd. The HQ still did not run off the table however.

On my turn I would complete the massacre. First of all, it was time to move onto objectives. My single las cannon moved to claim an objective. A combat squad left their immobilized rhino to run for the center objective about 15 inches away. My other las team moved to claim, and my other rhino? A 1. Thats right. Immobilized again. Frag. The guys got out and hoofed it. In this game I had to claim as many objectives as I could to get victory points and score maximum. So I had to get my boys onto those objectives! In the assault, my dreads mopped up the stragglers. One assaulted the HQ and they died because they were falling back. The other assaulted the last two in cover on his objective and killed them.

Turn Five:
With him removed from the table, it was time to run my boys through all the wreckage and score objectives. I had to difficult terrain and run checks on all 4 of my combat squads. Some were pretty far and I would need 5's to reach... but the emperor was with me and my Blood Dice, from Army Dice, came through.

At the end of the game, I held 4 objectives. It was a complete massacore for me.

I scored 20 points out of 20 and Jeff scored 6.

The MVP of the game? Dawn of War. His inability to reach me in turn 1 was key, plus it kept him clustered when he did come on. In turn two and three I was able to lay down the law. The co-MVP was my bike squads. Their multi meltas were getting +2 on his transports and exploding them like it was their job... because it was. I felt bad for the ruthless victory, but all is fair in hate and war. Jeff understood. He was a fun opponent and gracious in his failure to achieve victory. I wish all opponents were like him.

So there we go! Round 1 has me with 20 points in a difficult scenario to score 20. I will be surprised to see more then a few players equal that.

The overall makeup of the tournament looks like mostly marines, with some nids and orks thrown in, and just a few IG mech lists. Most notably is Ork Boy Rob from Thewarstore. He has a beautiful IG army, made up of orks. I'm not too crazy about him using orks as IG, but they look good, so it is forgivable.

More to come!

Jawaballs

How to play warhammer 40k. 40k for Noobies: Dealing with Independent Characters in Close Combat


Ash asked a question about my last post and brought up Independent Characters. How do you deal with them? There are a few tricks that I pull. I will go over them now.

Ignore them! If you are charging a squad that has an IC attached to it... ignore the IC! Put all of your attacks against the squad. If you have a higher initiative, even better since you can wipe them out and they cannot hit you back. I do this all the time with my assaulters since I use Corbulo who grants them Furious Charge (+1 initiative and Str). My guys go first most of the time. So, if I am running 10 assault marines up against a squad of marines with an IC attached, I put all of the attacks against the squad and ignore the IC. Now, hopefully I will kill the squad out right, or at least do a lot of wounds. Yes, the IC will nail me back... but hopefully I do so many wounds to the squad, that I still end up winning combat. This will force the squad I attacked, and the IC to make a morale test modified by the number of kills I won by. Hopefully you won by a lot and the IC will fail his morale test... If he is a non space marine, you can kill him with a sweeping advance having never even laid a finger on him. If he IS a SM, he will fall back. You have the choice, do NOT choose to sweeping advance since that will just force him to remain in combat. You want him to run. Let him go.

What you do now is simply follow him off the table. Do not assault him again... Space Marines automaticlly regroup, but NOT if there is an enemy squad within 6" of them. He will not be able to regroup, and you can just follow him until he is off the table edge. Of course if he is fearless that is another matter.

Another option: REALLY ignore him.

Sometimes you will find yourself in the position to completely ignore the IC. What I mean is that the squad he is attached to is so big, or other circumstances like terrain prohibit him from getting into Base to base contact no matter which way he goes. For example, a huge squad of Ork Boys has a Warboss attached. He is leading the charge. Jump your assault marines to the back of the squad and assault... he will probably not be able to get into base to base since he can only move 6". Just make sure your guys are 6" away from him but still B2B with the orks. He will still be in the combat, but unable to attack, and will still be forced to make a morale test if you win combat. And orks ARE vulnerable to Sweeping Advance. Win that combat by 6 or 7 kills, and he is done. (Orks are fearless until their squad is reduced below 11... do a lot of kills.)

Use force against force.

Do whatever it takes to get YOUR IC into B2B with his. Hopefully you are packing a bigger punch and will kill his IC with your own. OR if you have a weak chump almost dead IC with one wound left, sacrifice him. Send in your IC against his. He will be too tempted to not kill him. He has to choose between your IC and your squad. He lays his 8 attacks down on your IC and kills him. That is still only 1 wound towards combat resolution. Your squad attacks his squad, wipes them out, you win combat, the IC has to make a modified leadership test. If he is not a marine, you can sweeping advance and kill him. If he is, again, chase him off the table.

So, when dealing with enemy IC. Look at the bigger picture... or 5th dimension. If he is attached, slaughter his squad and force him to make a test. If he is not attached, send one model to assault him and drag him in, but focus the rest of your shots on the squad. If you have a more powerful IC, let them fight it out, maybe even help him with the squads power fist or sword. If your IC is a chump, sacrifice him. Kill the squad, force a test, kill him in Sweeping Advance or chase him off the table.

Jawaballs!