Friday, July 13, 2012

Hello and Welcome to 6th Edition

Hello to all, another new blogger here. I'm Ryan, the Wellingtonian who often crashes the Horowhenua Wrythhold to enjoy some nerdy past-times. I thought I'd kick off my blogging with (half) a battle report from my first game of 6th edition with my bike army, my favourite army from 5th edition.

My Army:
SM Captain, Bike, Relic Blade, Artificer Armour, Combi Plasma
SM Librarian, Bike, Telepathy (rolled the Fearless one and took Shriek) 
4 Bikes, 2 Melta, Multimelta attack bike, Meltabombs 
4 Bikes, 2 Melta, Multimelta attack bike, Meltabombs 
4 Bikes, 2 Plasma, Multimelta attack bike
2 Typhoon Land Speeders
2 Typhoon Land Speeders
Vindicator, Dozer Blade
Vindicator, Dozer Blade

Opponent:
Librarian, Staff, Epistolary (rolled malediction and took prescience)
Brother Corbulo
10 Assault Marines, 2 Meltagun, Rhino
10 Assault Marines, 2 Meltagun, Rhino
10 Tactical Marines, Missile, Flamer
9(ish?) Death Company, PF, TH, Rhino
Stormraven, TLPC, TLMM
Death Company Dread, Claws.

Mission:
1500pt, big guns never tire, 5 objectives, normal 12”’ deployment across long edges.

Deployment:
I deployed first. One melta bike squad with librarian on my left flank with objective, 2 bike squads on right flank with captain and objective, vindicators in centre on objective with good lines of sight, speeders behind.


Opponent deployed split tactical squad on objectives and two rhinos in centre and one rhino on my left flank, dreadnought in raven in reserve. Assault squads also combat squaded but both squads stayed in the rhino. Opponent then seized the initiative.



Opponent Turn 1:
I thought I was the fast army! 24” moves from the rhinos (12” movement plus 12” flat out) meant he was right into my army before I moved. Tactical squad shooting did little. Centre objective was sabotaged! Other objective was a stealth generator thing so my opponent ran to the upper level that my bikes can’t get to.



My Turn 1:
Moved the librarian and buddies forwards on the left against his stealthed tactical squad, shriek and shooting doing nothing. Speeders and Vindicators move back a bit and target the rhinos and the death company along with the right hand bike squads, one of which advances to try and charge anyone who pops out. All three rhinos die and half of the death company are taken care of, though I lose a plasma gunner to overheating in the process of killing the last rhino.



Opponent Turn 2:
Stormraven Zoooooms on right into the heart of my army on left flank, destroying the main gun from one vindicator and stunning it with missiles and guns. Assault squads advance, firepower rather ineffective though.




My Turn 2:
Two IC’s split off and head for combat squads with sergeants, one bike squad heads around the back to another assault combat squad and the other to the last remaining assault squad. Captain shoots and Librarian shrieks, doing nothing, and all 4 bike units charge in leaving one out back. Death company are shot off the board by vindicator and typhoons, along with Corbulo leaving the Libby by himself. In combat both my IC’s challenge, thinking to only kill the sergeant and win in the opponents assault phase.



Opponent Turn 3:
Raven hovers, DC Dread jumps out, minces a bike squad in assault. Librarian joins combat with the other bike squad. Both my IC’s kill a few more but now marines don’t take fearless when sweeped so they stay locked. Tac squad does nothing. Firepower takes out one speeder from each squad.



Note: The Stormraven is still alive.

We ended it here as it was pretty late and our excessive dice rolling was probably keeping my flatmates up. I was pretty confident I could take out the death company dread with 4 missiles, vindicator, multimelta and plasma at short range, then I would try to kill the librarian with my ICs and deal with the rather ineffectual tactical squad at the back of the board. Still you never know. I decided to ignore the flyer in turn 2 and go for the scoring squads, having a better chance with them than downing the flyer while it zoomed, and the dread could only kill one squad after which I could shoot it.

Army changes I’ll probably go back to my codex powers as Null Zone is simply too good to pass up and the certainty of powers is worth more than the possibility of getting something awesome like Invisibility (2+ cover yeah). Avenger probably for the second power, used it to good effect in the past. I would like to fit a power fist on one of the squads to power through marines, as ATSKNF and Fearless are really going to bog me down in combat without my captain there, unless I can break and escape the sweeping advance. Power Sword/Axe/etc. are not great for bike sergeants as you don’t get the extra attack for having an offhand weapon.

Things for 6th edition particular to my army:
Bikes and speeders with jink saves are awesome. Only have to move to get a cover save so I have more freedom in moving around the board.
Armour saves against dangerous terrain is fantastic, makes terrain less of a death trap for me so I can go through it for the close melta shot or focused fire location.
Hammer of Wrath is a nice bonus, but not going to make my bikes win any combat except for extremely depleted enemy units. Though it is in effect two attacks for free against most things with the automatic hit part acknowledged.
Combat tactics got a huge boost. Now you can always attempt to flee combat if you lose and worst case scenario you end up locked again. With no 6” escorting of enemy units it is great to use against enemy shooting also, almost certainly denying that charge with 3D6”. Just make sure you have enough room to your board edge.
I’ll stick to heavy bolters on my Typhoons. Yes you can shoot that multimelta now in addition, but you have to close to within 24” and that means everything can shoot you back which equals death for your land speeder. The 48” range is the best asset of typhoons and I bring enough melta elsewhere.




Wraiths at FoB 2012

Last weekend was the fantastic Fields of Blood tournament.

First off a big thanks to Pete Dunn for running the show, it was a top notch event as always. The venue and projecter technology made the event even better than before and more smoothly ran.

Thanks to Ryan for hosting myself and Cody for the weekend and as always good to catch up and talk hobby with Jimmy, Wes, Blaise and Hagen(and hugs).

Mr Bullet Magent and his mates

My odd little Eldar wraith list went to battle against a good variety of opponents and armies as follows.

James with the token Space Wolf force - after knocking me about early on I managed to trash 3 tanks in Kill the Fast Ones, leap into the lead and hold it for the rest of that game. 10 point Win

Blaise with mech Blood Angels. Poor Blaise had only started playing the army that day so it was a little uphill. Some good punch ups but with Wraithlords assaulting small squads and the Wraithwall trucking up the centre I won. We were table of the round too so scored some dice. 12 point Win.

Jack with Dark Eldar - ahh crap - the match up I did not want. You can't beat maths and Jack simply hosed down my force with his numerous splinter weapons completely nullifying the high toughness of my army. Still a very entertaining game and no Eldrad Fortuned cannot soak 200 shots over a couple rounds ;) Loss 0

Josh with mech Blood Angels - now I admit I thought I had this game. I kept a lot of his vehicles suppressed with stunned and shaken. I used the terrain to block his fire lanes and minimise shooting against my forces but lo and behold my Harlequins cant roll more than 1 rend a round over a couple rounds of combat with some FNP marines - boo you suck clowns. After a full 7 rounds Josh got the win by 1 point, if only I could kill 1 marine. Loss 2 points

Brendon with IG - Didn't really know how I would go against the armoured might and many shots of the Imperial Guard but with a snappy redeployment of forces by Eldrads divination I thought I would be on the front foot then... Brendon siezes the Initiative, uh oh! The wraithwall and co take a heavy number of hits without fortune in the first round but I persevere and take the crashed ship once it arrives but alas mass fire from Vendettas, Manticores and his many troops saw a diminished Eldar force lose to two contesting Vet Squads in Vendettas. Got the secondary though for a Loss with 5 points.

Last game and hoping for a win so I go 50/50. I got Jordan Green with his Chaos Marines on the freakin amazing terrain table. A massive structure dominated the middle of the Realm of Battle board with highways and landing pad attached. Most of the terrain was smoking and blocking LoS so I used this to my advantage and marched my whole force up a very narrow fire lane towards Jordans spread forces. Some good run rolls and wraith cannon shots brought down Chaos units each turn and other than being having my Jetbikes harrassed by deep strinking Obliterators I got a good win. Win 15 points.

Overall pretty happy with the results just sneaking into the top half with 25 out of 52. I knew the army would be hit or miss due to a low model count and the weight of fire the top 3 books can bring, but for the end of 5th not too bad. All my opponents were great guys and I honestly enjoyed every game where in some other events there would always be one which didn't sit right. The wraithwall did well soaking a lot of fire and Eldrad is an auto include. The Wraithseer while being fun to have the opportunity to use was the biggest bullet magnet I have used in a while. I think he survived 2 games and Perils of the Warped himself 5 times over the 6 games but when he did work he did it oh so well

I got 3rd in Best Presented with Jack Dunn's fantastic Dark Eldar getting second and Luke Forrest taking first with his amazing Tyranids. As Pete said I have used the same army for a while now ;)

Again thanks to all I played against and Pete, Tom and the others for putting on a great tournie. Congratulations to Charlie St Clair for the top place with his Necrons.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Finished Grey Knights for FoB

Finished Cody's Grey Knights which he will be using this weekend at Fields of Blood in Wellington. They are based on Secret Miniatures Bone Fields bases with a couple layers of wet effects added.

I will touch up the power armoured marines force weapons before Saturday but other than than they are good to go.

Just have to do some final touches on my own Wraithseer for the same event.