40K Doubles Sept 2012 - Aftermath

Matt and I once again teamed up under the name of "Titanic Fenrisians" and headed to Warhammer World in Nottingham for the 40K doubles tournament. According to the organisers this will be the last 40K doubles in this format. They were pretty cryptic about it but hopefully there will be some sort of doubles event run by GW next year.

Anyway, you may recall that we also attended the doubles in June this year and suffice to say we weren't particularly happy with the scoring system. The other problem we had was that because we performed well we ended up on table 2 for our final game and played the most miserable game of 40K I've ever participated in even though we won it! Basically, our every move was questioned, measurements had to be rechecked, rules were argued over. It just wasn't any fun. However, we had only ourselves to blame as we took the most disgusting list we could think of that had a sickening number of S8 shots that not much could stand up to. 

This time around we were determined to do things differently. I'd persuaded Matt that we should take something that was fun to play first and competitive second. We tried out various combinations such as Tau and Orks, SW and IG, Tau and GK and even GK and DE! However, the night before the tournament, when we'd decided to go with SW/IG, Matt called me and said he really wanted to take two dreadknights. I was fine with this as they're certainly fun to use and with my thunderwolves they'd be pretty scary for any army to deal with! Here's what we ended up with:

Titanic Fenrisians - 2x 750pts

Rune Priest (JotWW, LL)

8 Grey Hunters (Melta, MotW, Standard) - Rhino

10 Grey Hunters (Flamer, Plasma, MotW, Standard) - Drop Pod

4 Thunderwolf Cavalry (Storm Shield, PF)

Coteaz

5 Purifiers (2 Psycannon, 1 Halberd, 1 KotF Halberd)

3 x 4 Warrior Acolytes 

2 Nemesis Dreadknights (Personal Teleporter, Heavy Incinerator)

The idea was that Matt had taken really cheap troops so that he could squeeze in the two dreadknights. In contrast to our list from June we had next to no high strength ranged shooting. In fact the only things we had were the two psycannons in the purifier unit (on foot) and living lightning from the rune priest. If we wanted to take down vehicles we'd need to do it in combat and frankly we'd got no chance of taking out flyers!!

Our hope was that this list would be pretty hit and miss. We'd have some games where we trounced our opponents still because some armies just can't deal with dreadknights/TWC but we'd also have games where we couldn't deal with a lot of flyers or couldn't bring down heavy mech lists. Essentially the point was that we'd end up in the mid-tables for most of the tournament and therefore play mostly friendly people not total dicks!

Now, I'm not saying we went into games with the intention of losing. Far from it in fact. We would be playing every game to the utmost of our ability but we anticipated that there'd be some games we simply couldn't win thus preventing us reaching table 2 for game 5 again and having a miserable end to the weekend.

Games Workshop again decided to employ their nonsense secret secondary missions system but we couldn't do many of them so were largely just ignoring them. They were also doing the Favourite Game votes again but with a more interesting list than last time and a less competitive attitude we hoped we might get at least a couple.

That's all I want to say for now so you'll have to check back later in the week for the battle reports to see how we got on. Incidentally, we don't actually know where we finished because we had to leave early and GW haven't put up the results yet. Therefore, if anyone is reading this who went to the tournament this weekend could you get in touch with me via the link on the right and let us know where we came. Hopefully GW will publish the results soon though.

New FAQs Live on GW site - Highlights

Today GW launched the first set of FAQs for the new rulebook. There's also updated versions of the FAQs for all the codexes too. Check them all out here. Here's some of the highlights for me based on the armies I use.

General Rulebook FAQ

First off they've clarified the rules for Look Out Sir which should make things a bit more straightforward. Crucially it's now the closest model to the character that takes the wound instead of any within 6". This will change the way the wounds are allocated in a big way. 

Vehicles now lose a hull point if they immobilise on difficult terrain. Seems a bit daft to me but whatever. They've clarified that fliers move 18" at Combat Speed and UP TO 36" at Cruising Speed. Makes sense and should stop those people who thought it was 18" or 36". It also moves the exact number of inches it moved if it suffers locked velocity (so keep an eye on your opponent!).

Paladins, Wolf Guard, Crisis Shas'vre and Nobs are no longer characters! This will really upset people who were planning all sorts of wound allocation shenanigans. However, when leading a unit these guys are still characters. Bit of a shame for nob bikers but for everything else it makes sense.

As we thought nothing can modify snap shots to anything but BS1. The Death Ray can't hit flyers which is what I was saying all along but got shouted down for! 

You can now tarpit dreads again with units that can't possibly hurt it. They've clarified that power fists Pile In at I1 and not at the model's base initiative. Feel No Pain weirdly works against Perils of the Warp even though an invulnerable save doesn't!

If your vehicle blows up in the enemy turn you can't then charge out of it in your turn (unless it's an assault vehicle). Bit frustrating since it's already difficult enough to charge from a vehicle. Flyers with locked velocity can't switch to hover mode.

Aegis lines must now be deployed in a single unbroken chain so no sneaky deployments across the entire field. If you've got a load of flyers in reserve and the rest of your army dies then you lose!

The flakk missile thing has been clarified - you only get them if it says so in the codex! We all knew that though right? You can't use reserve modifiers on your allies i.e. no using an astropath to help your stormraven come on (looking at you Matt!). 

Sadly you have to pick to either use a runic weapon cancel or a deny the witch. You can't have your cake and eat it! Finally, you have to swap all or none of your psychic powers. No keeping Jaws and picking a Divination power :(

Space Wolves FAQ

An independent character that joins a wolf scouts unit can Outflank. Is it just me who's thinking of attaching a thunderlord? Logan can now pick between Frost Blade and power fist so he get's his I5 again. Everything else isn't very exciting except....

Here's the biggy - wolf standards allow re-roll to hit and wound for Overwatch! For 10 points why wouldn't you take one?? 

Tau FAQ

Markerlights can ground flying monstrous creatures. Disruption Pods now give Shrouded but still aren't worth bothering with in my opinion. Basically it means you still get a 5+ save if you don't move. Drones aren't characters like people thought. Markerlights don't work for snap shots. Nothing else exciting except.....

The big deal here is that TARGET LOCKS ARE BACK!! With the combination of Night Vision and splitting fire Tau are going to be awesome!

Dark Eldar FAQ

Klaives are now AP2. Still can't see me taking Incubi though. Pain tokens are no longer instantly effective but instead apply from the end of the phase. Bit of a shame and don't see why they've done that. You can also use Enhanced Aethersails AND go flat out! Now that's fast!

The big deal for me here is that bladevanes are now done by random allocation rather than directional. Shame they didn't make them like the daemons screamers attacks :(

So there we have it. A few interesting changes and a few things that were pretty obvious to most people but needed clarifying to stop the asshats. Here's hoping GW release FAQs more regularly in 6th edition.

6th Edition Concepts - Vehicles

Continuing my look at the way the new rules will change our beloved game it's now time to look at vehicles. When people first read the rules and started to play their first games there were cries of "mech is dead" and "it's infantry 40,000". Frankly that's nonsense, let me explain why.

Hull Points
To start off let's examine why people reckon we'll see a lot more foot slogging lists in 6th edition. The first and most obvious reason is the introduction of Hull Points. In 5th edition it was quite common for your typical AV11 transport to seem tougher than the bastard offspring of a land raider and monolith's dirty weekend together. I've often lost games because despite having loads of anti-tank weaponry I simply can't roll on the bloody damage table. I know I'm not alone! The hull point mechanic takes some of that difficulty away. Essentially as long as you at glance most vehicles a few times they're toast. This has three significant effects. Firstly, vehicles die A LOT quicker. Secondly, a vehicle can take glancing hits and still perform at 100% effectiveness and finally, high AV won't save you because I'll just glance you to death. Let's not talk about gauss weaponry here because I'll only get angry. I'm sure people feel the same about my wyches haywire grenades mind you!

Anyway, the point is that vehicles are a lot easier to kill now. If your opponent has any sort of volume of S5/6 shooting then you can expect your rhinos to die on turn 1 or 2. I'm here to tell you that this is a perfectly reasonable thing for them to do. The rhino is an APC. It's function is to get troops to the front and maybe redeploy them if it survives that long, that's it! It's the same story for venoms, trukks, etc. Get your assault guys to the front and let them run riot.

On the subject of venoms I actually find that having hull points keeps the venoms alive longer. In 5th edition the first glancing shot still had a good chance of wrecking the vehicle (if not blowing it up). These days they can shrug off the first glancing hit. I think this makes them harder to take down not easier. In addition it's more likely that vehicles will be wrecked now than blown up and that has to be good for Dark Eldar. I'm thinking this is the reason that Open Topped vehicles now inflict S4 on occupants like everything else.

Disembarking
Here's the next problem though, a vehicle can now only move 6" if passengers want to get out. The guys can then shoot at the enemy but can't charge unless it's an assault vehicle. To compensate for this the range of disembarkation has increased to 6". Realistically this is only a couple of inches more than before but it's still a bigger range. This helps you get close to the enemy to get those rapid fire guns in range. It also has the advantage of letting your spread your unit out a bit more. Gone are the days when you got a squad out of a rhino and rapid fired, only to regret it when an enemy flamer/blast weapon targetted you. Let's not forget you can premeasure too and make sure that a large blast won't hit more than a handful of models.

The big problem is that you can't assault straight out of a transport by keeping it still. I think this is main reason people think the rhino is dead. Now if you agree, by all means try it but now think about the new shooting mechanics. Losing the front row of guys means it takes you longer to reach the enemy. That transport suddenly looks like a reasonable choice again.

The Need for Speed
All vehicles got faster in 6th edition. My Dark Eldar raiders can now go a sickening 30" and rhinos can move 18" in total. This adds to the idea that transport vehicles are an A to B option not an A to B to C to D to E etc. Turn one you can be within 6" of the enemy deployment zone. Rhinos should nearly always be blasting the full 18". Of course you can't use your smoke launchers if you do but with only a 5+ save now it's not that big a loss.

The general push of 6th edition 40K seems to be to get the armies into each other's faces quicker. Nearly every unit in the game got faster. This means there's going to be less driving around and more killing stuff which has to be a good thing.

Conclusion
The general consensus seems to be that mech is dead in 6th edition. I'm saying that mech will just be used differently. Get your troops to the front as quickly and cheaply as possible and then let them do what they do best. A rhino shouldn't be so indestructible.