8th ed 40k First Impressions (or I finally broke down and bought the damn thing)

Meh

Greetings folks,

Yes, I know this first impressions article is very late to the party, but frankly I haven't really given a damn about 8th edition until it started to be played regularly at the local shop. The new lore is frankly atrocious on many levels. Read any of the works of Dan Abnett, Graham McNeil, or the notorious ADB then read the new fluff and weep. That is a topic for another rant though. The rules didn't make a very persuasive case to drop a couple hundred dollars on new books either. The death of Warhammer Fantasy has very much poisoned me to GW releases and the cluster fuck of 8th didn't help that.

Just do yourself a favor and read all the Dan Abnett books from the Black Library

So what changed? Well, new Kill Team for one. The 7th ed Kill Team has been my defacto game for the weekly game night for the most part so the new rules looked good. We have also had some new blood at the shop who have wanted to play 40k so there have been actual games of 40k played for the first time in a very long time. So crappy fluff be damned and let the dice roll again. Recently Da Masta Cheef asked if I was up to an intro game knowing that I had finally given in to the new edition and I accepted the challenge. The Dark Angels would face the Rainbow Warriors in a 1000 point matched play game. Here are some of my thoughts on my first game of 8th.

Ways to Play and New Books
First of all, the new codex layout can kiss my ass. Trying to make a traditional army using only the book is a pain in the ass of page flipping and useless entries. Want to play 40k with points and force organization? Back of the book, kid. While I do appreciate the desire to add in more "casual" ways to play, the open play and power level based games just seem sloppy at best and ripe for exploitation at worst. I don't see myself ever playing these or using them to teach new players so I won't give them more thought.

New Stats
Meh. All they really did was make AP like Strength was in Fantasy by modifying armor saves and making Initiative redundant. The rolls needed for WS and BS are the exact same as the traditional values/charts. Leadership seems to have been lowered across the board to accommodate the unwieldy morale phase. Vehicles becoming creatures more or less is a very mixed bag. On the one hand, I do like the degrading mechanic as a vehicle loses wounds, on the other the removal of anything resembling a "realistic" damage mechanic is annoying. Look, I get it. Having your Land Raider or other big shiny tank go poof in one round of shooting sucks hard. The walker and monstrous creature mechanics for things like Dreadnoughts and Hive Tyrants never made much sense either. Is making them and tracked vehicles all the same the solution for this? No. Hull points for vehicles felt good enough. You could absorb a few hits without getting one shot most times, but if a tank got hit with a dedicated anti armor weapon from the side or rear you were going to pay for it. That is how armored vehicles should work in a game based mainly around infantry.

Characters
Welcome back, HeroHammer (sort of). Rather than reward smart placement of your important characters and leaders you get a catch all ability to not be targeted unless you are extremely clumsy and let your commander wander out front. Again, meh. The separation of Guard characters from command squads is a fairly large pain in the ass to my army though.

Strategems and Command Points
 Yo, dog. I heard you like to re roll 1s. So for the sake of simplification GW decided to make us pay for unit abilities that we used to get for free? In the context of the new rules these seem to be very strong motivation to make a battle forged army. It will take more games before I can decide if I like these or not, but they can certainly tip a turn or round in your favor if used correctly. Deathwing Assault for example lets my terminators dish out an obscene amount of fire when they teleport onto the table, but they used to be able to do that without having to pay for it.

Close Combat
Now here is a change I actually like. Charging units attacking first just makes sense and feels natural. I do also enjoy being able to use heavier weapons like power fists without having to go last.

Conclusions
In a word: meh. Not the best edition and not the worst. My first impressions are very underwhelming. More games will help shape a more nuanced understanding of the new rules and such, but I have a sneaking suspicion that 9th will be out before too long to serve as the $300 FAQ much like 7th was for 6th. With Kill Team just launching my enthusiasm for things 40k has yet again been rescued. More on this later. Until next time!

High Elf Battle and Catching Up

Neverness took this photo

Hey folks, long time no post. I am hoping to remedy that in the near future. What have I been up to you may be asking? Well, I have managed to get my High Elves for Warhammer Fantasy pretty much fully painted after having them in various stages for the past 15+ years. The painting bug has gotten a hold of me and hasn't let go. Mostly I have been playing games of Kill Team as 8th ed 40K really hasn't interested me. GW have more or less burned through my remaining enthusiasm for new editions at this point. Maybe now that it is sort of catching on at the local I will dip my toe into it. In the meantime I have a backlog of photos to upload of various projects, mostly Fantasy stuff but a little 40k . I also recently got a game in against Neverness with my High Elves against his Orcs. He did a battle report which you can find here. Its entitled Equis Tyranus as the humble war horse yet again stole the show from their riders.

Here are a few shots from my High Elf army feature post coming soon (probably)

Catching Up

Hey folks,

It is time again for me to emerge from my blogging seclusion and post up some random things while the whim to blog lasts. I actually like doing articles, but when it starts feeling like "work" I tend to jump ship for a while. So what have I been up to you may be asking? Well, on the hobby front I have been all over the place as usual. 40k 8th edition has gone over with extreme indifference/hostility at the local hobby shop (and personally) so Kill Team and Shadow Wars continue to be the lone GW games being played. My own little act of dissent against 8th was purchasing the intro box to Warlord Games Beyond the Gates of Antares. I haven't managed to get a game in of it yet, but I like the looks of the rules. In a first for me I had the opportunity to paint a "commission" of sorts. The local Hobby Town got a store copy of Know No Fear and I offered to paint it. I will do a dedicated post about it but I have included a few pictures. Lastly, the release of Total War: Warhammer II got me fired up to dust off (literally) my High Elf army and do some painting. In a rare spurt of productivity I have managed to get around 50 models painted over the past few weeks including a 25 elf Sea Guard regiment and roughly 30 Spearmen and Archers. This has gotten 3 entire regiments completed which is without a doubt the most progress on Fantasy that I have had in a very long time.

High Elf Units

Know No Fear for Hobby Town

Concord and Ghar for Antares

Scout Squad

If you want to see some of the battles I have taken part in head on over to The Neverness Hobby Chronicle and Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop for some battle reports. Until next time, folk! Happy hobby! 

Total War: WARHAMMER 2 – Announcement Cinematic Trailer

'nuff said

Kill Team Game

Greetings folks,

Bob here with a small update. Recently Nevrerness and I got in a rare Saturday game of Kill Team in. I decided to test out my Deathwatch against his Dark Eldar (check out the battle report here). Kill Team has really brought new life to 40k which was largely dead at the local shop (for dubious reasons). After the battle I decided that I needed to get some more paint on the Deathwatch so I moved them up to the main painting spot. So far I have only 1 "finished" with the other 9 models at the 75% mark. Here is the completed Raven Guard with Stalker bolt gun.

After I get the rest of them finished I will do a large picture dump of them and other projects I have been working on over the past months.

Happy gaming!

The Hunt for Cypher Round 2

Greeting folks,

Its been a while since I posted anything so I would like to jump back in with a battle report. Recently Neverness and I got around to fighting the second round of our Dark Angels vs Cypher saga (part 1 here).

Mission

We decided to do another mission from the Cypher data slate. This time we  went with the mission Turn the Tide. In this mission Cypher and his cronies are backed into a corner with a superior force closing in. Cypher's forces are split in 2 with the primary group deployed normally and a reinforcing element auto arriving on turn 4. Victory Conditions are fairly simple. Cypher's forces get 6 points if they can survive until their turn 4 with the opposing force scoring the same points for destroying Cypher's primary force before reinforcements can show up. Secondary objectives are 1 VP for each unit completely destroyed. No line breaker or any of the normal ones.

Cypher gets a corner with the enemy forces deploying in the remaining 3 with a 12 inch gap between enemy forces.

Forces

1500 point game

Dark Angels

Company Master: Bolt pistol, Mace of Redemtion

Deathwing Knights (5)

Deathwing Squad (5) assault cannon

Deathwing Squad (5) plasma cannon

Tactical Squad (10)  Sargent, missile launcher

Tactical Squad (10) Sargent, plasma gun, missile launcher

Ravenwing Bike Squad: Sargent, attack bike with multi melta, melta gun, 3 Ravenwing

Land Raider Crusader



Cypher and Company

Waiting on Neverness to send me


Set Up

Cypher and his cowardly Fallen started off in the Land Raider with the Vindicator and 2 squads of Chaos Marines deployed around the center of the ruins. The Black Legion squad in the center also contained a Champion. The Khorne Berzerkers and Lord on the Juggernaut remained as the reinforcements. My Deathwing remained in reserve to deploy against Cypher when he came out of hiding with the Knights inside the Land Raider Crusader to deliver a hammer blow. The Tactical Squads and Company Commander deployed to move into the ruins and the Ravenwing set up against the Land Raider.

Turn 1

As the attacker I went first. The Tactical Squads advanced in the ruins along with the Crusader doing some Mass Effect Mako all terrain fu to get in closer in preparation to unleash the Knights. The Ravenwing maneuvered closer to the Land Raider in order to get maximum firepower from the melta weapons. Unfortunately the range didn't matter as the dice weren't with me this round. Between all the bolters and the assault cannon the Black Legion squad was killed to a traitor with the Aspiring Champion legging it for the safety of the table edge.  

The return fire from Nerverness saw both Tactical Squads suffering some casualties. The Vindicator thankfully couldn't hit the broadside of a barn and only a few marines fell to the pie plate of doom. The Ravenwing didn't get so lucky as all but the Sargent and Attack Bike falling to the fire of the Land Raider and Cypher's guns and Fallen. The Ravenwing fell back from the onslaught to hopefully call in the Deathwing on Turn 2

Turn 2

Luckily both Deathwing arrived at the top of Turn 2 and deployed to confront Cypher and the Land Raider. The Tac Squads continued to advance into the ruins in hopes of killing the remaining Chaos Marines and the Vindicator. The firepower of the Deathwing proved too much for the Fallen to withstand as they were gunned down to a traitor with Cypher suffering a wound as well. 

The Traitors weren't out of the fight yet though. Again my Tac squads took casualties for return fire. Yet again the Vindicator scattered wildly. The Ravenwing Sargent fell to the fire of the Land Raider but the attack bike stuck around to fight on. Cypher, seeing which way the wind was blowing after his squad got vaporized, wisely got back into the Land Raider for protection as it retreated back before killing the Sargent.

Turn 3

Turn 3 saw my forces advancing towards the remaining traitor forces. The attack bike finally rolled well with the multi melta and the Land Raider was no more. Cypher stumbled from the wreckage unscathed. The Vindicator suffered a hit from a Krak missile and was destroyed. The Tac squad in the ruins again shot at the traitors opposite them reducing their ranks even further. 

On Neverness's turn he moved the surviving Traitor squad over to Cypher in hopes of surviving to his turn 4 when reinforcements would arrive. 

Turn 4

Barring some truly heroically good or bad dice rolling (depending on who you have been cheering for) it was all over but the crying. All I had to do was pray to the dice gods and stay in their mighty favor and kill the remaining traitors with the seemingly overwhelming preponderance of firepower I had to use. Defeat has been snatched from closer victories though. Cypher fell to the Deathwing and was duly captured by the surviving Ravenwing. The remaining traitors fell to the firepower of the Deathwing and Tac Squad that had been moving in from the rear. With that the game ended with the Unforgiven making a clean sweep of Cypher and his forces while suffering relatively few casualties in return. Now lets hope that Cypher stays captured this time (yeah right).

Conclusion

And with that Cypher is once again on his way back to the deepest, darkest interrogation cell on the Rock. I don't feel this win was really down to superior generalship on my part, but rather to Neverness's dice failing him miserably. My dice were pretty hot too. I generally dithered with the Land Raider Crusader and didn't deploy the beat stick of the Knights. Being forced to make up the points that the Terminators should have occupied was a wrench in the works for sure for Neverness. The Berzerkers and Lord would have been a potential world of hurt had they arrived and the points would have been a lot closer had they shown up. As always I really enjoyed the game. Neverness is a great opponent. Our Kill Team games have been a blast and very close run (we have tied on all of them so far). Until my next emergence from the aether, happy gaming folks! 

Bolt Action with Neverness part deux

Greetings folks

Bob here with another tale of game of Bolt Action with Neverness. Hit the link to check out his battle report of the days events. As most all of you know by now 2nd Edition is out in the wild and yours truly got the new starter set and free box of infantry (Warlord rocks).

I've been building the contents of the box and so far I am pleased with the new US Airborne plastics. May end up picking up a full box of them when they release. I'll write up a little review of the box and my thoughts on the rule changes. I have managed to get a game in using the new rules and my initial impressions are positive.

Recently I completed my first attempt at painting terrain. I have to say that I am fairly pleased with the results. Hit it with the air brush then washed and dry brushed it. Fairly simple process. Here is the final product

Until next time, happy gaming!