Vraks: A Farewell to Templates

Today Scott came over with his Death Korps of Krieg and we played a 2500pt a side Vraks slugfest, partly as a farewell to 7th edition.  And man, it's good that blast markers are going away in 8th edition because I think we wore ours out in this battle!

We had been working our way through the actual Imperial Armour 5-7 missions, originally intending to play through the whole Vraks campaign, but that fell by the wayside after the first 3 (?) scenarios.  Instead we went with this, with his DKoK against my renegades, represented by my Scythiak Usurpation and assisted by sonofsonsoftaurus commanding my Steel Legion/Merkan 76th figures towards the top of this pic (chaos right flank) (renegades using regular IG rules).  With the Death Korps loaded down with artillery pieces, our only hope was to swarm across no man's land as fast as we could and close with the guns.  The whistles blew and we were off!

Formations and special detachments - good or bad?

A topic that I'm sure has been discussed before, but I'm just getting into seriously considering using formations and alternative detachments.  My armies were pretty much built in the olden days of one force organization chart to rule them all, and even newer ones have been built with that mindset.  I had considered a Khorne Daemonkin army using their special detachment and formations before deciding to just do more regular CSM instead.  I have some other ideas floating around that may fit better with some of the special arrangements out there than a regular combined arms detachment, so I have been thinking more about the idea behind current ones.

Welcome back to Warhammer 40K 7th edition

I never played this, but apparently a rubber hose is an unwieldy AP2 weapon.

So, you're coming back to 40K after a long absence.  The last time you played was 5th edition, maybe earlier.  What's different?

Oh boy.  You'd better sit down.

7th Edition 40K Turn Sequence Revisited

A year ago, I put together some turn sequence charts.  You can see those posts HERE and HERE.  

I originally meant to do more with it, but it fell by the wayside, and the avalanche of releases over the past year discouraged me from really trying to make it comprehensive.

But I was recently contacted by Sjap, a reader from Amsterdam who had been working on his own version.  He has a D&D blog which currently features the adventures of a hard-rockin', hard-partyin' pan-flute gnome rock (and rock gnome) band and if you're in the area and in the market for someone to poke your skin with needles to make pretty pictures, look for House of Tattoos in Amsterdam.  He's a Dark Eldar player, so you might need to be careful once he has you on the table...

As a Dark Eldar player, he noticed that with the DE book, he pointed out that they have a warlord trait that should put warlord traits before night fight determination in the pre-game sequence.  There are other warlord traits that influence that as well I believe, so certainly makes sense.  Below is the version Sjap has been working on:

Pre-game

1.    Set up terrain

2.    Determine mission

3.    Place objectives

4.    Determine deployment map

5.    Roll off for table sides

6.    Generate warlord trait

7.    Generate Psychic Powers

8.     Night fight?

9.     Roll off. Winner decides who will deploy first and who will deploy second

10.  First player deploys

11. Second player deploys

12. Deploy infiltrators

13. Scout moves

14. The player that set up first can choose to take the first or second turn.

15. Seize the initiative attempt

Forge the narrative

BEGIN OF TURN

Own turn: Draw tactical Objective card(s)?

Reserves 3+ (auto arrive on turn 4).
Blood Tithe? (Daemonkin)
Power from Pain (Dark Eldar)
Instinctive Behavior? (Tyranids)

MOVEMENT PHASE
Begin of movement phase:

One Eye Open?

Units falling back take regroup tests before moving

Flying Monstrous Creature change flight modes
Vector strike

Canoptek Spyder Scarab Hive:  (Necrons)

End of phase:

Interceptor

Grounding tests, Blind tests, 25% casualties?

PSYCHIC PHASE
End of phase:

Grounding tests, Blind tests, 25% casualties?

SHOOTING PHASE
Begin of  phase:
Warp Storm (Chaos Demons)

During phase:

Ask about jinking:  yes/no?

End of phase:

Grounding tests, Blind tests, 25% casualties?

ASSAULT PHASE

Start of Assault Phase:
Possessed mutations (CSM)

Spawn mutations...(CSM)

Start of Fight sub phase.

Issue/accept/refuse challenges

(Own Fight sub-phase): Glorious Intervention?
Fear tests

Jet Pack thrust moves

Eldar/Dark Eldar jetbike move

End of phase:

Grounding tests, Blind tests, 25% casualties?

END OF TURN
 Each player turn: Soul Blaze

 Own turn: IWND
Own turn: Regenerate  (Tyranids)
End of Own turn: Stand up go to grounders.
End of each player turn: Sabotage.  (Mysterious  Objective).

Own Turn: Discard Tactical card

Turn  5 variable game length continues on 3+, Turn 6 continues on 4+,  Turn 7 auto ends

Forge the narrative

The "Forge the narrative" bit at the end is a reminder to create a story with the game.

I hope that it proves useful to some readers! 

Merkan 76th Imperial Guard vs. Sisters of Battle

The Thin Green Line

Got a game in with Doug's Sisters of Battle, 1850pts, Maelstrom of War mission.  Not a terribly tactical game, me shooting, moving up a bit towards some middle objectives but trying not to do so too early and get massacred, him moving units up to get his flamers and meltas into range while trying to knock out anti-air guns with his exorcists.  The mission we played had you start out with six cards and the max you could have went down one each turn.  In theory this would have you be very aggressive early, in practice it meant I scored a couple points for objectives I was on initially, then was stuck with cards for objectives across the table with no real prospect for changing them out.  Yay, Maelstrom.  This was certainly not the army build for a Maestrom game, especially when it ended up as hammer and anvil deployment.  Still had a fun time and had some good moments in-game, but after the first turn and seeing the cards we both had I was not expecting to do well.  Tels sont les jeux.

 

I set up first, and spread bodies along the flanks to keep outflanking immolators coming up on the sides of my tanks.

7th Edition Turn Sequence - Part Two

2.01 Shut up  2.02 Dance 2.99 The Police Come

Following up from the basic version yesterday, here's a more complicated version which includes Dark Angels, Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Orks, Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Daemons and Eldar.  Input welcome.  If folks want to go through some other books, please email me (profile on the side) with things that go special places in the turn sequence - tell me what the rule is called and when it happens (ex: "Nids do Weird Thing" at end of Assault Phase) and I'll see about making an even more complete list.  Enjoy!

7th edition 40K Turn Sequence - Basics

I've long complained about the lack of a real, comprehensive turn sequence for 40K.  Each new book comes out with various things that happen at the start of this phase or the end of that, and the company doesn't seem to care about helping to keep track.  Here's a start.  

This is just based on the basic rules.  I tried to put things that happen at the same time with the same number, and things that happen at the end of a particular phase will have an x.99 designation.  Later I'll post the list including the books I have/went through, and will welcome emails with more info from other books/dataslates/etc.

Playing with a full deck

I was looking at making some home made cards for 40K, and a quick trip to Dollar Tree led me to a couple of useful decks to use as backs.  On the left a deck of 36 "War" cards (packaged together with a Rummy deck).  Also a nice 49+card deck of standard cards with a back advertising the Imperial Palace, which is apparently on a world called Las Vegas, not Terra as most people think.  Both looked pretty 40K appropriate to me!

Psychic Phase - beyond dice buckets and daemon factories

While a lot of the attention with the new 40K psychic phase has been focused on generating as many dice and daemons as possible, the new phase inherently brings about some important changes that I haven't seen discussed yet (it may have been, I just haven't seen it).  

Endless Ones: Into the Unknown -- Campaign Test Battle - Chaos Marines vs. Daemons

I was going to wait on 7th edition.  I wasn't sure about how the rules would turn out, so didn't pre-order it or rush out on release day.  But the more I heard it mostly sounded fine, and the local Games Workshop had a nifty summer campaign revving up that got me interested.  One gift card left over from my birthday later I had a new rulebook in hand and took a quick flip through it during lunch.  Then off to the store!

Can Daemonology save Chaos?

It's a bit early to make sweeping generalizations of course about how 7th edition 40K will affect various armies, but the potential for the daemon-summoning and boosting abilities of the new Daemonology powers is interesting.

A moment of Drama on 7th ed in general.  It could be The Bomb or it could be Bitter Wine.  We don't really know yet until we Bite the Wax Tadpole and see the whole thing instead of the snippets we're currently getting.  To truly see the impact we Must Have More.  Despite my problems with 6th edition, a two-year release cycle is Fast and Frightening, not to mention expensive.  It sounds like they're keeping some things I don't like (such as challenges) but who knows, maybe the total package will give me a Wargasm.  But personally I think I'll pass on the initial book release and wait for the updated DV rulebook before I get back Off the Wagon and back heavily into 40K gaming.

Back to Daemonology.  My Lost and the Damned loving teeny black heart likes the idea, hearkening back to the days of more intimate working relationships between daemons and mortals on the table.  Being able to have a CSM/IG army summoning Bad Things from the Warp really helps Fuel My Fire.  I like how with the conjuration they're tied a little more closely to the summoner, similar to old icon versions.  And with the "Cursed Earth" power giving a boost to models with the Daemon rule if they're close enough to the psyker acting as a Freak Magnet, it will make guys like Warp Talons and Possessed a little more sturdy.  You might even see them on the table from time to time!  

Game-wise, the powers seem to offer a lot of flexibility, with crazy choice of what you bring in, assuming you have the models.  Imagine if a Tervigon had a choice of making Termagants, Hormagaunts or Gargoyles each turn, and when almost dead could turn itself into a full-power Hive Tyrant, Mawloc or Tyrranofex.  Crazy.  I do wonder if there will be some fluff restrictions built into the Chaos errata, like if you have a mark of chaos only being able to summon daemons from the same power, instead of seeing Tzeentchian sorcerers bring in waves of Plaguebeaers or a Herald of Khorne as a Lackey.  For that matter, what's up with sorcerers/psykers summoning Khornate daemons in the first place (for a purpose other than killing the psyker themselves)?  I guess as a Khorne player you can take an unmarked sorcerer and call him a "Blood Priest" or something instead and use him to summon whatever blood-spawned Monster suits your fancy.

 

On one level, I'm a little disappointed in seeing more "free" unit generating things in the game, which can really skew lower point games when they work. In general though I'm happy for the possibilities and look forward to seeing the forces of the dark powers Livin' Large on tabletops soon.