Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

To view the previous report in this series, click here. To view the next game in this series, click here. To view more battle reports in The Hand of the King series, click here. To view the tactical overview for this report, click here.

"Oh!" the medic said bumping into Melchoir "Hey, I'm so totally sorry, sir."

Melchoir turned and could barely see the medic, even though he had just bumped into him. It was nearly pitch black out, only the light of one of the planet's moons provided any visibility whatsoever, and it was waning, and scarcely visible through the thin clouds fleeting across the sky.

He turned and looked back into the inky blackness. Slowly, shapes began to creep out of the night. The men of Melchoir's group began to form up around him.



The officer took a deep breath and collected his thoughts. When he had to, he put his body on the line to save the mission. His many decorations for valor might have spoken to this fact. That said, he was never actually a big risk taker, by personality, and this was often missed by those who didn't know him. His job, he felt, was to have to put his body (much less anybody else's) on the line as little as possible. A well-thought-out plan could decrease time required, and could cut casualties in half.

But that required clever planning, which often meant risk. This time was no exception.

Melchoir had been tasked with taking a water purification plant. The plant itself wasn't all that well guarded, but it was well within enemy territory, and the enemy would likely strike back hard once Melchoir had captured his objective. He had proposed a daring night raid, getting in under cover of darkness unseen, capturing the plant with little resistance and then defending it from well-fortified positions the next day.

But it all relied on stealth. The officer had managed to get a few vehicles set up to run as quiet as a russ could reasonably be expected to run. It was a risk, but he would need armor support to hold the base once he took it. For everything else, darkness was his only ally. He could only pray that his forces remained unseen.

So far, the plan had worked, and he had been able to sneak in over two miles to get to their final destination.

Melchoir silently walked amongst his raiders, setting them up for the attack, and counting their numbers. Miraculously, his entire party had managed to make it to the rendezvous point, despite complete silence and near total lack of visibility. The officer was glad that he had worked his platoons through at least a couple of training sessions in night time operations.

He looked out to make the final push. Movement caught his eye. He looked, but it was gone as fast as it was there.

Then again, movement. Something was moving, and moving quickly. Whatever it was, it wouldn't be friendly, and it would have to be dealt with.

"Armor!" Melchoir shouted to the russ commanders, "Let's get some lights out there."

One by one, massive searchlights on the tanks popped on, their light slowly fading up as the filaments began to heat. Four beams of sunlight began to slowly sweep through the darkness.

It was completely silent.

Then suddenly they struck, straight into the lights. Enemy flying craft put their engines to full and charged Melchoir's lines.

"Open Fire!" Melchoir shouted.

And boy did they. The exterminators quickly began pumping shots down range as the spotlights continued to sweep for the enemy. Directly behind him, the punisher began to stir. Heavy bolters began spraying the darkness while a strange, hollow, clicking sound began to start as the cumbersome punisher cannon began to rotating. The clicking went faster and faster until, in a few moments, the sound and the barrel were alike a whir.

And then it fired.

A white-hot laser of half-molten lead exploded out of the lumbering behemoth. The still night air was annihilated by the shock of the ripping blast. Melchoir instinctively ducked in a way that he had long learned not to against artillery. Far from the landing of shells, the punisher sounded more akin to two trains broadsiding each other. One endless long, horrible, screeching, blasting sound. He could feel the sound hammering into his brain.

Melchoir turned and looked at Sanario, who was trying to shout something at him.

"WHAT!?" the officer shouted back, scarcely even able to hear his own words. The priest, desperately trying to cover one of his ears pointed up into the air. The flicker of light from the guns and the immediate explosions of the enemy vehicles glanced up into the sky, reflecting off of some unknown flying terror in the night.

Melchoir looked downrange at the enemy, hopelessly broken in front of him, and ordered his tanks to redirect up towards the new threat.



Searchlights desperately swept up into the sky as the turrets traversed. Suddenly the hellhound next to them exploded in a violent ball of fire, scattering flaming promethium everywhere.

Melchoir quick stubbed out the small bit of flames that had managed to glob onto his boot, but he could see other of his soldiers running around and screaming in the inferno.

Just then, one of the searchlights found its target. An enemy aircraft swooped down upon them.

"Take it down! Take it down!" the officer shouted frantically as the punisher swung its massive gatling cannon up towards the sky. A cloud of casings flew out of the turret as rounds were thrown by the fistful of thousands at the vehicle. The flier began to pitch and buck violently against the torrent of steel.

It quickly banked up and to the left out of the spotlight, but not before releasing a pair of missiles down into the ruins.

"Incoming!" Melchoir shouted just before the missiles impacted.


***

Three vendettas stalked quietly through the night, the hollow drone of their engines ripping through the oily blackness around them. It had been a good mission for the vendettas, and they were bringing their Kingsguard back to base.

The copilot was scanning the ground for threats as the aircraft neared their drop off point. A massive fireball erupted below and off to the right.

"Did you see that?" the copilot asked over the vox. "Affirmative," the pilot replied. He instantly began to bank the vendetta. The other aircraft followed.

"This is Air-Cav Beta Rigo Three to unidentified Imperial officer, do you read?" the copilot spoke over the longwave as the pilot informed his passengers that they needed to get ready for action, and in a hurry. The stormtroopers inside affixed their gear and loaded their weapons.

"Alright," the sergeant barked at his men, "we just bought one, now it looks like we get one free! Let's move!"

With practiced speed, the Kingsguard got ready, quickly affixing their repelling hooks to the overhead line. The large door out the rear opened into a howling night breeze. Not a moment passed, before the vehicle slammed off to one side.

The pilots had begun their maneuver to land, when suddenly a spotlight illuminated an enemy fighter swooping down towards the guardsmen below. With no notice, it had suddenly banked up and away, coming straight at the vendettas on a collision course. Frantically, all four pilots involved took evasive maneuvers desperately trying to get out of the way of each other.

The enemy fighter passed between two of the vendettas sideways, missing only by a razor margin. The two vendettas swerved uncontrollably. When the fighter had passed, one of them jerked over and tapped the other aircraft on the wing.

The vendetta barely managed to control itself, but the sergeant reacted in an instant by instinct. He shouted for the men to go, and they charged out the back hatch as the aircraft struggled to stay upright in the pitch blackness. The landing was hard. Too hard.

The sergeant looked up at the other vendetta that was spinning wildly out of control. The pilot hadn't slammed on the brakes, and stormtroopers began to fly wildly out in every direction at high speed. Third vendetta only narrowly avoided hitting the first two. It swooped off just above their heads and banked to the right, getting ready circle back around. It's green and red wing lights quickly became the only thing visible as it disappeared into the darkness.

The sergeant quickly tried to take stock of his situation. Where was he?



"Enemy vehicles!" one of his boys shouted "There everywhere, it's a trap!"

The enemy couldn't help but see the near collision right above their heads and were already moving to counter. The sergeant knew nothing. No idea where he was, or the disposition of the enemy. It was complete chaos everywhere around him.

He saw a few vehicles moving to counter to his right. He turned and saw a barricade to his left. "Everybody, take cover!" he said, pointing towards the fortification.



It was too late.

The enemy were everywhere.


***

Melchoir lifted himself to his feet. The missile blast had sent everybody to the ground, reeling.

He could see tiny bursts of crossfire sneaking around the ruins, sending gossamer points of light sparkling around him. Eldar weapons!

The officer looked to the right, there was more movement in the darkness and a steady stream of enemy fire pouring onto his exposed flank.

"Armor!" Melchoir shouted, "Shift fire right!"



The massive tank turned its weapon down and to the right, cutting a white hot scar across the night sky before descending on its targets. An enemy vehicle got caught in the relentless hail of heavy weapons fire and imploded like a steel can crushed beneath a tank tread.

"Right flank!" Melchoir shouted to no one in particular "prepare for enemy assault!"

"Come on, Sanario, we've got work to do."

The officer turned and looked at his priest. He wasn't there.

"Sanario?" he called out over the noise of the punisher cannon. "Sanario!?" He shouted again.

Beneath the muzzle flashes, he saw the priest slumped down on the ground, back propped up against the front of a now ruined exterminator. He didn't appear to be conscious. He looked around and could only find the standard bearer and one of his snipers. It looked like he'd have to handle things by himself.

It wouldn't be long in coming, as a silent threat sprung through the moonlit darkness.



Melchoir and his forces sprung forward, and almost bumped into each other in the darkness. A nearby officer issued a cry of alarm (and surprise), and his men dutifully lit up the sky with great, billowing blasts from their flame throwers. Melchoir was temporarily blinded by the light, but turned and charged forwards. He got ready to punch open some faces, when in front of him, there were none.



The officer looked around, confused. Where did they go? He had somehow managed to lose his enemy.

As his night vision returned, he could see the foul xeno darting towards the ruins to finish off what few of his men remained to him.

"Charge!" the officer shouted as the xeno turned and took aim.



He quickly overtook them, slamming full forward.

The eldar in front of him quickly dodged the officer. He moved practically instantly. The officer quickly lost track of his foe's swift movements in the pitch blackness. He clumsily swung his power fist at the foe. The attack connected. Nothing happened.

In a panic, the officer realised that he hadn't actually started up his power fist. He desperately fumbled for the clutch when he felt the knife enter his body...


***

The third vendetta swung around and dropped its storm troopers onto the side of the hill.

The Kingsguard inside quickly deployed and opened fire at the nearby enemy squad, easily shredding them to pieces with precision lasfire.



One of them threw a grenade into the mix, finishing off any survivors. The stormies quickly took the fortification.

It didn't take them long to realise they were alone. Very alone. In the darkness.

Slowly, a few enemy vehicles began to approach them, floating gracefully up to the barricade. A cruel laugh split over the cold night air as the warriors inside hunched over the gun rail and opened fire.


***

Good stuff again Ailaros. Always look forward to reading these. Although, I was surprised to see you taking GRENADE LAUNCHERS on your PCS?

Good write up Ailaros. Sorry to hear that the men of Folera took another shot on the chin.

The fact that you had most of your troops wiped out again made me think about my own experiences in 6th edition so far and how the results have been very polarized.

Out of the 7 games I have played 4 of them ended with a tabling. I have beaten face twice and had my face beaten twice. The outcome of these games was decided by turn 2. Not so

So my question is, have other people found this to be true? Has the nerfing of assault and cover resulted in shooting duels that are more likely to lead to uneven results depending on the match up and luck?

 Barksdale wrote:
Good stuff again Ailaros. Always look forward to reading these. Although, I was surprised to see you taking GRENADE LAUNCHERS on your PCS?

I know, I know. I REALLY needed the 5 points, though, and that lascannon wasn't doing very much, and what else was I supposed to do with them? I can't remember, but I think I might have actually dinged a wound off a venom with one of them...

bogalubov wrote:The fact that you had most of your troops wiped out again made me think about my own experiences in 6th edition so far and how the results have been very polarized... The outcome of these games was decided by turn 2.

Yeah, I've actually really noticed this as well. It seems like the games are decided really early on. What's telling is that this is the first game of 6th edition that I've actually finished all the way to the end of the game.

With the other four, someone has conceded by the end of turn 4 or the mid-point of turn 5. This game was actually close until the end, but most games, it's a done deal by the end of turn 3, and it's just a matter of deciding how much longer you want to play it out.

Which is strange, because I'm pretty sure almost every game of 5th edition went until the end with only a few of them ending in concessions.

Bad luck this game Ailaros. Your army selection is closer to what I take and i realy enjoyed seeing how it performed in this game.

I cant help but feel that an important part of creating a great army is for the player to use units which are unique to their codex.

In your army I like your HS choices and I cant help but feel as though they are significant for an IG codex. Their use in this battle was good but i still believe that they need to be used as rolling cover (admittedly this is hard against DE).

Your storm troopers are still good. As they are dependent on the luck of a scatter roll (and a reroll) then you have to expect games like the one you played. regardless of this, It irritates me that if you choose to use them, you almost need to rely on luck for such a large % of your list.

Your troops are how i see them being most effective at this moment of 6th ed and I think that as your list stands, this is a good balance between fodder and guns.

The one area that i disagree with your list is in your HQ. I realise that you want some combat aspects to your list so that you are not just stuck with a gunline army but i just dont think that you have the appropriate response yet.

I realise that it appears as though im dragging back a conversation which you may not want to get into again (and if so just say so and ill drop it) but maybe consider allies?

As discussed previously, I could see you using some SoB squads in your list. Specifically Switching out your storm troopers with a 10 man squad of seraphim's (is that their name?) This unit would give you a fast response super shooty unit which can (theoretically) do combat (or at least tie a unit up). This would reduce your requirement to depend on your horrible luck with dice and it would also give you access to a type of unit which would support your army concept.

If only your luck had been better for those stormie scatter rolls...

Great battle report as always. Particularly good narrative with the vendettas and the stormies unfortunate time of it!

TheMicah25 wrote:
Bad luck this game Ailaros. Your army selection is closer to what I take and i realy enjoyed seeing how it performed in this game.

I cant help but feel that an important part of creating a great army is for the player to use units which are unique to their codex.

In your army I like your HS choices and I cant help but feel as though they are significant for an IG codex. Their use in this battle was good but i still believe that they need to be used as rolling cover (admittedly this is hard against DE).

Your storm troopers are still good. As they are dependent on the luck of a scatter roll (and a reroll) then you have to expect games like the one you played. regardless of this, It irritates me that if you choose to use them, you almost need to rely on luck for such a large % of your list.

Your troops are how i see them being most effective at this moment of 6th ed and I think that as your list stands, this is a good balance between fodder and guns.

The one area that i disagree with your list is in your HQ. I realise that you want some combat aspects to your list so that you are not just stuck with a gunline army but i just dont think that you have the appropriate response yet.

I realise that it appears as though im dragging back a conversation which you may not want to get into again (and if so just say so and ill drop it) but maybe consider allies?

As discussed previously, I could see you using some SoB squads in your list. Specifically Switching out your storm troopers with a 10 man squad of seraphim's (is that their name?) This unit would give you a fast response super shooty unit which can (theoretically) do combat (or at least tie a unit up). This would reduce your requirement to depend on your horrible luck with dice and it would also give you access to a type of unit which would support your army concept.

A unit of seraphim wouldn't be the greatest choice as a response unit. They don't have access to very good weapons and they are not very good in close combat without Celestine. I suppose you do need to take an HQ for allies so you probably would take her anyway, but the guard codex has access to much better linebacker units. Plasma vets in chimeras would clear out the back field of terminators and the like much better than seraphim.

Seraphim would be a good support unit for the stormtroopers if you deep strike them. But then you have 4 deep striking, non-scoring units that are eating up 700 points of your army.

The final note on them. A unit of 10 will run you at least 70 bucks on ebay. With the hard to find Celestine, that's about 90 dollars on one unit.

Great report Ailaros but your deployment continues to baffle me. I don't understand the point in bringing bolter boat Russ's just to leave them at he extreme rear of your army. In each of your reports you have lumped up in a corner with your infantry in front of your tanks. IDK but it just seems crazy to expect different results from identical play. Yea you mixed up a few guns here and there but largely your strategy has remained the same from your deployment through turns 1-3. The best use of the leman russ in your type of list is to advance, this is what forces your enemy to react to them and protects your troops.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also as a side note I think if you are going to continue daring drops with the storm troopers then it's safe to say they will not survive to claim line breaker. Have you considered a cheap penal unit to outflank into their deployment and hide solely for the mission of getting line breaker? I would suggest other wise taking a five man storm trooper unit to do this but I can understand wanting to bring the full 30 to strike areas hard and to the death.

Red Corsair wrote:Great report Ailaros but your deployment continues to baffle me. I don't understand the point in bringing bolter boat Russ's just to leave them at he extreme rear of your army. In each of your reports you have lumped up in a corner with your infantry in front of your tanks. IDK but it just seems crazy to expect different results from identical play. Yea you mixed up a few guns here and there but largely your strategy has remained the same from your deployment through turns 1-3. The best use of the leman russ in your type of list is to advance, this is what forces your enemy to react to them and protects your troops.

I was going to do that this game, but seriously, dark eldar.

The only reason my tanks managed to survive into turn 3 was because they got cover saves from the infantry in front of them. Furthermore, by placing them in front it caused him to hang back a bit and shoot at my infantry (which I had plenty to spare), rather than just instantly liquefy my russes, abandoning the infantry to their fates.

Red Corsair wrote:Have you considered a cheap penal unit to outflank into their deployment and hide solely for the mission of getting line breaker?

My list is already strained for points. I can't possibly consider carving 70 points out just to include 10 squishy guardsmen with no killing power. Plus, as you can see by this report, I need every man on the objectives I can get on them.

TheMicah25 wrote:Your storm troopers are still good. As they are dependent on the luck of a scatter roll (and a reroll) then you have to expect games like the one you played. regardless of this, It irritates me that if you choose to use them, you almost need to rely on luck for such a large % of your list.

... but the entire game is based on luck. It doesn't matter if I'm showing up in the backfield with stormtroopers or if I'm shooting at something with a russ, the entire game is determined by dice.

TheMicah25 wrote:The one area that i disagree with your list is in your HQ. I realise that you want some combat aspects to your list so that you are not just stuck with a gunline army but i just dont think that you have the appropriate response yet.

Shooting leaves stragglers and gives cover saves. Chopping is decisive and it doesn't. This is really important, especially in a poor force concentration army like guard.

I've just been really unlucky with them so far (two failed 4" charges in 5 games, and a LOT of 1's to wound), otherwise they would look better.

Why deploy your Russes against Dark Eldar during Night Fight? You've got range for days, and by going second, the Punisher and Exterminators will get to tee off on the Razorwing and Void Raven without having to weather the fire of the Ravager, Voidraven, and the suicide blasterborn.

I've got searchlights.

On turn 1, my russes blew up two venoms. On turn 2, the punisher nearly took down the void raven, and if my dice had been anywhere near average, would have opened up a raider to get horribly flamered by my stormies.

Had I started in reserves, the first one wouldn't have happened at all, and the second would have been seriously disrupted. Given that the tanks did 2/3ds of their damage in the time frame where some of them might not even have made it onto the board, I think deploying them was the right decision.

Plus, I'd hate to think what would have happened if I would have had wyches running amok in my guardsmen...

Nice battle report, try your foot vets next!

Also i have a request, would you kindly take an overview picture (you dont have to add text in) after every turn in the same way you do so in the deployment phase for the tactical overview as it would really help show the scale and course of the battle.

Thanks a lot and keep making these great batreps

Ailaros, after reading this battle report I am reminded of your 4th edition battle report series in which the Guard fought against the Dark Eldar. You did the same turtling maneuver, and you lost this one too: http://www.ailarian.com/folera/batreps/public-game/public-game-41.html

Compare this, from the 4th:


To the tactical overview of this game:


Just saying.

The reason why is ludicrous Ap5 spam. It only got worse with the new DE codex. A squad of warriors in a raider can easily wipe away an infantry squad per round of shooting if my infantry is caught in the open. Hell an empty venom can accomplish this with splinter cannons.

DE shooting, as far as my guardsmen are concerned, is the same as space marine shooting, except they have twice as many guns, and can fly them anywhere on the board and still shoot them all. To do anything BUT castle against them is pure suicide now, unless my opponent builds a anti-mech list and then plays it timidly like this game.

I mean, really, what would you have me do, advance with the infantry? Put my tanks in FRONT against all those darklights and blasters?

Plus, I'd note that the main reason I lost both of these games had to do with insane luck. The one in this case is obvious, while the one in 4th ed was my opponent's archon passing some 24 shadowfield saves in a row, while getting perfect consolidations (my troops only held their ground on my opponent's turn, making it hard for me to shoot at him).

It's actually the reason I include the results of the dice in my game. I don't want to make potentially faulty decisions based on a small sample size of random events.

dakka farta wrote:Also i have a request, would you kindly take an overview picture (you dont have to add text in) after every turn in the same way you do so in the deployment phase for the tactical overview as it would really help show the scale and course of the battle

As mentioned before, that's not going to happen. It slowed games down, and it added like 3 hours to to the time of putting together a battle report.

Plus, I no longer see 40k as a proper tactical exercise. Nit-picking everything with a fine-toothed comb at a resolution of detail WAY higher than the basic mechanics of the game (six sided dice) doesn't make sense to me anymore.

 Ailaros wrote:

TheMicah25 wrote:Your storm troopers are still good. As they are dependent on the luck of a scatter roll (and a reroll) then you have to expect games like the one you played. regardless of this, It irritates me that if you choose to use them, you almost need to rely on luck for such a large % of your list.

... but the entire game is based on luck. It doesn't matter if I'm showing up in the backfield with stormtroopers or if I'm shooting at something with a russ, the entire game is determined by dice.

While everything is determined by luck, some things hinge more specifically on certain rolls than others do. The Law of Large Numbers holds that the more samples one has, the more likely the final distribution is to approximate averages. For this reason, while "the entire game is determined by dice," some units are atypically influenced by them. A good example of a unit that is extremely luck-based is the Codex: Space Marines Vanguard Veteran Squad. The fact that they have to deploy using Deep Strike, give up their ability to shoot, and then make a successful charge in order to work effectively ensures that they are heavily luck-based and therefore unreliable. Whether or not your unit is effective can be determined by the roll of a single Scatter die.

A good example of a unit that is not as luck-based is the Leman Russ Punisher. This tank is relatively reliable at doing what it does because it rolls very large numbers of dice relative to other units, and therefore the Law of Large Numbers tends to indicate that the Punisher will behave more reliably than other units in an army, which roll fewer dice.

It is thus possible to design an army in a fashion that mitigates much of the impact of luck on the battlefield. Indeed, many of your complaints about 40k being largely luck-based are, in my view, largely thanks to the fact that your army contains many units that are unusually luck-influenced.

 Ailaros wrote:


Plus, I no longer see 40k as a proper tactical exercise. Nit-picking everything with a fine-toothed comb at a resolution of detail WAY higher than the basic mechanics of the game (six sided dice) doesn't make sense to me anymore.

This is ironic as you are doing nothing but nit picking solid advice and critism. Sorry, not trying to be rude just pointing that out.

Back to the main discussion, I can't agree with your reasoning to protect expendable leman russes with invaluable scoring units. DE can not simply tear through LR battle tanks, it takes an insane amount of dark light weapons to kill one at the expense of getting close. He had one ravager for gods sake! and compairing splinter weapons to bolters is a joke too, they wound you on a 4 instead of a 3 which is huge, again at the risk of getting close. His army is not kitted for CC, or shooting, in fact5 that is the worst DE army I have seen in a long time. He has minimal AT, poor CC and he hasn't maxed out his splinter canons.

By using the Russes as cover you basically invalidate his venoms almost entirely. It's 6th edition he can't assault your russes with his wyches nearly as quickly or consistently, aside from the fact he only has two min sized units. All the while it's simply baiting them in if they do as now he has sacrificed two scoring units to kill to HS choices, which is how you lose objective missions.

As for the penal squad, I fail to see how 70 points for a stubborn unit that gets you line breaker automatic and can even grab an outlying objective is a waste. Their armor save is based on target priority, if they allocate the time and resources to grab them then they are wining you the game. Its all about making your opponent make tough decisions. Do I let the Russes continue to block my army? Obviously not, so do I send two scoring units alone to kill them? No so I should send in the blaster born. Guess what? You just drew his units out allowing your cheap outflanking penal squad to survive. Oh whats that, he has flyers, well if he wants to waste those 300 points on a 70 point unit dug into cover then I am happy again.

Kingsley wrote:The Law of Large Numbers holds that the more samples one has, the more likely the final distribution is to approximate averages.

The law of large numbers is a joke at this small sample size. I fired 24 shots with my exterminators (a "large numbers" version of the russ). That's a tiny number. Furthermore, I've got an army that's rolling a lot of dice. Anybody who plays any form of space marine is necessarily rolling further from large number averages than am I.

What we're looking at here is a matter of longer vs. shorter odds. Its a matter of being riskier for bigger rewards or bigger losses compared to being less risky for smaller rewards and smaller losses. In the case of the stormtroopers, it's been paying off, even when it hasn't.

Red Corsair wrote:This is ironic as you are doing nothing but nit picking solid advice and critism. Sorry, not trying to be rude just pointing that out.

I think you missed my point, here. The little X's back in the day really just showed you the results of luck, as all kills are based on dice. I don't see taking exact data to be useful when the future utility of any data is going to be passed through a rough mechanic in future games. I mean, should I make some change to my list because there was one more or one fewer X on the picture?

As for movement, that's easy enough to just describe. It only matters for getting on objectives and getting weapons into range, which is pretty easy, especially with pre-measuring now.

Red Corsair wrote: I can't agree with your reasoning to protect expendable leman russes with invaluable scoring units. DE can not simply tear through LR battle tanks, it takes an insane amount of dark light weapons to kill one at the expense of getting close. He had one ravager for gods sake! and compairing splinter weapons to bolters is a joke too, they wound you on a 4 instead of a 3 which is huge, again at the risk of getting close. His army is not kitted for CC, or shooting, in fact5 that is the worst DE army I have seen in a long time. He has minimal AT, poor CC and he hasn't maxed out his splinter canons.

By using the Russes as cover you basically invalidate his venoms almost entirely. It's 6th edition he can't assault your russes with his wyches nearly as quickly or consistently, aside from the fact he only has two min sized units. All the while it's simply baiting them in if they do as now he has sacrificed two scoring units to kill to HS choices, which is how you lose objective missions.

Okay, let's take a deep breath, and look at practical reality here.

My opponent brought 12 blasters, 8 darklances and 2 of the super darklance cannon things. Let's even ignore the wyches with haywire grenades for a moment. That's a lot of BS4 anti-tank to stare down, even with three russes. If the russes fold, I can't break up the transports. If I can't break up the transports, I horrifically lose PISs to wyches, and I horrifically lose PISs to gun rail BS4 Ap5 massed small arms fire.

If I were to have charged up the field, my opponent would indeed have had to get close to my stuff to fire his small arms, but he could have done so gladly (he in fact did this to my stormies), because he can get into range before I can with his transports, and then it's BS4 Ap5 small arms massacre.

Really, safety for my scoring units was going to come from going to ground in ruins and blowing up my opponent's transports. I don't see how either risking my anti-transport weapons or risking no cover saves would have been a better plan here.

Now, if, as you say, this is the worst DE list ever seen, then this only proves my point more. What if my next DE opponent brings even more anti-tank? What if my opponent spams splinter weapons even harder? What is the golden strategy that I'm missing that would have brought me an easy victory?

Red Corsair wrote: As for the penal squad, I fail to see how 70 points for a stubborn unit that gets you line breaker automatic and can even grab an outlying objective is a waste. Their armor save is based on target priority, if they allocate the time and resources to grab them then they are wining you the game. Its all about making your opponent make tough decisions. Do I let the Russes continue to block my army? Obviously not, so do I send two scoring units alone to kill them? No so I should send in the blaster born. Guess what? You just drew his units out allowing your cheap outflanking penal squad to survive. Oh whats that, he has flyers, well if he wants to waste those 300 points on a 70 point unit dug into cover then I am happy again.

Once again, let's look back at the tabletop, rather than the world of paper.

Penal legionnaires do not automatically get line breaker. They do not automatically claim objectives. They only do these things as long as they are alive and the objectives are undefended. If the penal legionnaires are going to be giving me enough points to win, then my opponent is going to spend efforts to kill them (which will be pretty easy). If they kill them, and I thus lose the points, it is not a "waste" for my opponent to kill them, it is the smartest move he can make.

Furthermore, the idea of "tough decisions" is largely a myth, given that your opponent can see everything on the board, knows its statlines, and has time to make rational decisions before acting. It's really just a game of resource allocation and luck here.

Once again, to be practical, if I had taken penal legionnaires (at the cost to the rest of my army), they would have showed up next to one of the objectives and either gotten wiped out by massed splinter fire from the warriors and nearby warriors in a raider squad, or they would have shown up on the other side and would have been wiped out by the Duke and wyches (and perhaps said other warrior in a raider squad). These units were already doing nothing but holding objectives. It wouldn't have made even the smallest dent in my opponent's offensive plans.

Penal legions are really terrible abstractly speaking, and they're not looking very good when I consider what they would have done in my actual games played.

Have you considered that as cool and awesome as 30 Stormtroopers are, it's near 550 points in 30 models that are even less resilient per point than regular Guardsmen. I know the firepower on target is awesome, but can you thin those guys a bit and bring more power to bear? Making them 7 man squads frees up 144 points, which is about 20 more guardsmen on foot or a pretty solid gun on wheels.

Alternatively, I think you should try looking back at Ogryns. You could keep two Stormtrooper squads at 10, but drop one which would be enough points for Ogryn if you dropped some of your HQ's close combat upgrades. Here's a fun thought, Ogryn also add to your anti-flyer power, they work about like half a Punisher for anti-air purposes. Anyway, the Ogryn let you make real headway, I think. They give cover, they provide firepower, and they provide close combat power. They also give you a role for your PISs: Support the Ogryn. What do the Ogryn need help dealing with locally? Outfit your PISs to take care of that.

EIther way, conscripts by themselves are pretty terrible, even with a re-roll, they probably break with Ld. 5. Those points could go to something more useful (maybe the Ogryn, maybe another PIS).

The problem is you are the one analyzing things in a vacuum. As an example you haven't played a single game with a blob squad, and have written them off claiming it isn't necessary fior you to try them to know they don't work. I play guard, blobs are definitely not as dead as you believe. BUT, ignoring that I still try and humor having a tactical discussion with you as it is a good healthy exercise that I believe, in the greater scheme of things, will help us all as guard players.

Now I see we have to get back to basics, something that has troubled me is you have said that upgrades are the single greatest way to improve a units potential. This is not always true, in fact it is also the easiest way to add unessential pojnts to a tissue paper unit. I see pounds of fat in your armies. Example, why arm PIS with an auto canon and a melta gun? Those weapons are in direct conflict, one is an assault weapon with 25% the range of the other, meant only for AT. This is a waste of points. Why are there two snipers in your command squad? That's 10 points, plus you now no longer need the extra bodyguard bringing the total to 25 points of fat that will not pay for itself. Especially since you have kitted your command for combat! why take hull mounted las canons on exterminators? That is 30 points in fat, those tanks should be moving and shooting every turn making its hull gun largely useless. Not to mention yet again you are increasing the damage it needs to cause to justify its cost. And by the way, it again is in conflict with its main gun, which is suited for anti personnel and light armor. Then their are those grenade launchers, another 15 wasted points, a single auto canon would be more useful here as well and costs 5 pts less. Then conscripts, twenty for 80 pts and only leadership 5. Your enemy only has to kill 5 to make a check which probability says you fail even with a standard. What costs 80 points? A 10 man penal squad, who not only is safe turn one, AND saves real-estate cover for your other units, but also is ld8 and stubborn meaning those same five deaths will not force them off the table. They also do in fact have insane potential to grab linebreaker. I also play DE and that unit with the duke costs 318 points minimum, naked, as well as the raider. if you think that someone will allocate 318 points to an 80 point penal unit then your probably alone. Even forcing them to use a venom squad is such a waste of resources as it requires both the venom and the unit inside to move toward the penal squad. It's hard to tell the exact waste because on your main blog you haven't listed any upgrades in the DE army.

Red Corsair wrote:you haven't played a single game with a blob squad, and have written them off claiming it isn't necessary fior you to try them to know they don't work. I play guard, blobs are definitely not as dead as you believe. BUT, ignoring that I still try and humor having a tactical discussion with you as it is a good healthy exercise that I believe, in the greater scheme of things, will help us all as guard players.

We're all trying to have a reasoned discussion here. I don't think tiny subjective data sets should be used to inductively guess at truth appears to be the only difference between us, given the above statement.

Red Corsair wrote:Example, why arm PIS with an auto canon and a melta gun?

The meltaguns are there to serve as a melta hedge. They keep vehicles away. A few games ago, I had one take down a flier, because fliers have a hard time staying out of range of them. The autocannon is there to remove the requirement that my troops must advance or be completely useless, firepower-wise. It also cracks open transports in the early game (which is rather important against mech lists, like this game shows), and are also useful for pestering fliers.

You see horrible waste. I see a way of adding a lot of versatility for not that many more points.

Red Corsair wrote:Why are there two snipers in your command squad? That's 10 points, plus you now no longer need the extra bodyguard bringing the total to 25 points of fat that will not pay for itself.

The snipers are there because I had 10 points to blow, I'll admit. The bodyguard is there to make sure my opponent can't just snipe the officer out straight-away before he gets a chance to swing in close combat. Plus, he also adds another FNP wound to a rather fragile squad.

To be fair, though, my snipers have actually killed stuff, what with being BS4 and with access to orders.

Red Corsair wrote:why take hull mounted las canons on exterminators? That is 30 points in fat, those tanks should be moving and shooting every turn making its hull gun largely useless. Not to mention yet again you are increasing the damage it needs to cause to justify its cost. And by the way, it again is in conflict with its main gun, which is suited for anti personnel and light armor.

Once again, this is a difference in vision. I don't see 4 autocannon shots as being all that serious of an anti-personnel weapon. The reason I'm bothering with exterminators at all is because they throw down 3 S7 hits, which, in a world of glancing vehicles to death is murder to transports and fliers. If AV10-12 targets are the reason I'm taking the exterminators in the first place, then it makes a lot of sense to take a lascannon to support this role.

Red Corsair wrote:Then their are those grenade launchers, another 15 wasted points, a single auto canon would be more useful here as well and costs 5 pts less.

That's somewhat doubtful. My fire lanes are already clogged enough to not hold out too much hope for a single autocannon to do much. Take the relative utility of 3 grenade launchers and compare it to the utility of a single autocannon. The two aren't that far off in killing power and aren't that far off in price. There isn't a substantial difference here. It's not spending 10 points for an autocannon and 15 points for literally nothing. Plus, even if you're right, it's still five whole points of "waste" in an 1850 list. You're just nitpicking here (along with basically everything else).

Red Corsair wrote:Then conscripts, twenty for 80 pts and only leadership 5. Your enemy only has to kill 5 to make a check which probability says you fail even with a standard. What costs 80 points? A 10 man penal squad, who not only is safe turn one, AND saves real-estate cover for your other units, but also is ld8 and stubborn meaning those same five deaths will not force them off the table.

This game, I spent 80 points to give a bunch of guardsmen out in the open near my objective a 5+ cover save. They took 10 casualties and ceased to exist.

Those same casualties would have wiped out penal legionnaires entirely. If they didn't, you're talking about what is very likely a Ld7 check with no rerolls compared to a Ld5 check with a reroll. In this case, the conscripts are more likely to stay on the board.

Both the penal legionnaires and the conscripts are likely to get wiped out basically the first turn they can get shot at. Neither of them have a great situation to be in with morale. Neither of them will win a close combat. Neither will likely do that much damage in shooting.

Both of them get butchered hideously. The difference is that penal legionnaires do it at twice the price per model.

At least the conscripts gave cover to a unit on an objective before they died...

Red Corsair wrote:if you think that someone will allocate 318 points to an 80 point penal unit then your probably alone. Even forcing them to use a venom squad is such a waste of resources as it requires both the venom and the unit inside to move toward the penal squad.

This seems so bizzare to me.

I show up in the backfield, gaining a VP if the squad survives, and perhaps 3 more from snagging an objective. If the squad survives, I win the game. If it doesn't, I don't (or it becomes much more in question). My opponent already has stuff in the backfield securing his objectives. Stuff that can easily wipe out a squad of 10 guardsmen. Stuff that was probably doing little more than hanging out in cover, with nothing much to shoot at.

But you know what? Nah. My opponent would be stupid to bother shooting at those penal legionnaires.

... this makes no sense.

Biophysical wrote:Have you considered that as cool and awesome as 30 Stormtroopers are, it's near 550 points in 30 models that are even less resilient per point than regular Guardsmen. I know the firepower on target is awesome, but can you thin those guys a bit and bring more power to bear? Making them 7 man squads frees up 144 points, which is about 20 more guardsmen on foot or a pretty solid gun on wheels.

Yeah, they're expensive, but they're actually DOING stuff. 20 more guardsmen would get me more durability, but probably not that much more killing power compared to storm trooper insanity. The stormies also allow me to take the initiative, practice denial, and give me a lot of strategic options. More guardsmen wouldn't.

The vehicle thing is another matter. I don't know if it's much of a deal right now, but once I collapse down to 1250 or 1500 point games, that will become rather more of an issue.

I think long-range support, solid troops, and high-damage disruption is going to be the unsteady tripod that my list tries to balance on for the next few months.

Biophysical wrote:Alternatively, I think you should try looking back at Ogryns. You could keep two Stormtrooper squads at 10, but drop one which would be enough points for Ogryn if you dropped some of your HQ's close combat upgrades. Here's a fun thought, Ogryn also add to your anti-flyer power, they work about like half a Punisher for anti-air purposes. Anyway, the Ogryn let you make real headway, I think. They give cover, they provide firepower, and they provide close combat power. They also give you a role for your PISs: Support the Ogryn. What do the Ogryn need help dealing with locally? Outfit your PISs to take care of that.

Umm... hmm..

As mentioned, I feel like there's this tripod going on, and I don't really know where ogryn fit. They add firepower, but not nearly as much as either exterminators or stormies. They keep my troops alive, but as well as ending the threats at range? They show up in my enemy's backfield turn 3, but so do my stormies.

I'm going to run a quick experiment on infantry durability by scrapping my platoons altogether and replacing them with carapace vets. If that doesn't wind up working out, perhaps the ogryn will have to make a comeback.

50- Aegis DL

65- CCS with standard

105- (5) Stormies with 2 melta
105- (5) Stormies with 2 melta
105- (5) Stormies with 2 melta

40- PCS with Auto C
65- PIS Plasma G
65- PIS Plasma G
65- PIS Plasma G
65- PIS Plasma G

40- PCS with Auto C
65- PIS Plasma G
65- PIS Plasma G
65- PIS Plasma G
65- PIS Plasma G

75- HWS (3) Auto C
75- HWS (3) Auto C
75- HWS (3) Auto C
75- HWS (3) Auto C
75- HWS (3) Auto C

125- Basilisk
160- Manticore
160- Manticore

1850


This is what I mean by less fat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
All PIS are useful while mobile or static and I have now split up your auto canons from the PIS so you don't have to pick which role. I've given you better cover then conscripts with the Aegis, which can't die and costs less. Oh yea and I doubled your head count.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also I don't want you to think I am being a douche, I really am trying to help. But honestly using the whole luck factor is all that matters in 40k line kind of irritated me. So I am sorry if my tone was unpleasant. I do appreciate your reports and our discussions.

Heavy Weapon Squads are objectively bad.

You're right about the Aegis Defense Line though. Ailaros spent 80 on a worse, and killable, save and declared it to be the only reason he took them. That's a bad buy.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Heavy Weapon Squads are objectively bad.

Care to explain? I tend to disagree, personally I think that if your numbers are insufficient then they are bad, but if you bring a horde of guardsmen they are fine. It's target saturation at its finest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also this is a list to appeal to Ailaros play style, so I had to restrict myself from taking vets and chimeras. Pretty much tanks outside the heavy slot had to be avoided from what I gather as he doesn't have the inclination or the finances to take vendettas or dedicated transports.

Red Corsair wrote:Also I don't want you to think I am being a douche, I really am trying to help. But honestly using the whole luck factor is all that matters in 40k line kind of irritated me. So I am sorry if my tone was unpleasant. I do appreciate your reports and our discussions.

As do I.

In reference to the luck thing, I know it's hard for a lot of people to hear, but I've yet to come across any convincing argument that would point to 40k being any other than game where skill is limited to how you play the odds in a dice game. You can bring stronger lists, and you can play the game better, but this starts having diminishing return, especially vis. a vis. your opponent. Once you get to the point of two pretty good lists played by two pretty good players, any improvement by either player is a tiny advantage compared to the coarseness of the dice you roll (aka luck).

Of course, humility is not an excuse to end discourse...

Red Corsair wrote:...1850

I keep acid testing this, and it keeps out coming clean, so to speak. I also like the style. I especially love the S7 spam EVERYWHERE. That said, I'll have to apologize for not exactly being bowled over.

Basically it suffers from a problem that hordes have always suffered from, except worse, that of force concentration. If you took all of the units in that list (except the stormies), and packed them in at a near-suicidally close 5 square inches per model (and the appropriate margin for heavy weapons bases and vehicles), the army you've presented takes up 715 square inches. On a deployment zone that's 6 feet by 12", there are only 864 possible square inches. That's 5/6ths of the deployment zone. That's practically the entire deployment zone packed to bursting with guys. Guys just BEGGING for some blast templates to be thrown their way.

Once the couple of pieces of AV12 are shut down (or, well, enough of them), and a few of the HWSs picked off (which is really easy), the killing power is about as concentrated as a gallon of blood in a swimming pool. A gallon of blood sounds icky, but you'd scarcely notice it over that much space. An opponent that spent his time focusing in any one place would easily be able to gain fire superiority. The multiple squad thing would help, but still...

There's also the movement problem. That packed of a DZ doesn't exactly giving you maneuvering space on the one hand. On the other, it would take so long for something on one side to get over to support the other (causing even more problems against blast weapons in the process), that the enemy really does have time to take it apart piecemeal. Furthermore, it has some very nice staying power in the DZ, but I hesitate to think how well it would do on the offense. 80 guardsmen is a lot, I'll grant you, but I've seen that many guardsmen taken down in just a couple of turns before.

Put another way, this seems very unwieldy.

Had I the models to do this (I don't have all those extra autocannons or plasma guns just lying about), I might actually want to give this a try, and at lower points I might, as this does seem to be a way of doing a more classical version of foot horde guard. If I've learned anything over these last few games, though, it's that I'm not entirely certain that the classical foot guard actually works anymore.

I'd love to see a few, proper battle reports, but it seems like the main problem with foot guard at the moment - the crippling lack of durability, especially on a by-unit basis - is still a problem here.

When asked for the overview pictures I just meant for them to be plain and without any edits, X's etc. But Its fine if you don't want to take them.

About the cluttered DZ's don't think that Al rahem is becoming more of a viable choice, with his ability to declutter deployment and achieve some line breaker points together with the usual disruption of the enemies forces.

In addition have you given mortars any thought, you have said before that to many HWS give you crappy fire lanes, mortars solve that problem with indirect fire. I know they suck but having 9 mortar shells raining down on an enemy will cause some destruction, plus you have an opportunity to glance some vehicles to death.

Glad to know we can cut through the red tape at times and stay in good standing!

Yea I was very inclined to put Al'Rehem in one of those platoons so that the DZ issue would be alleviated, then add a coms relay to the Aegies or take an astropath. It would take some shuffling but it would be easy enough. It would be great to know more or less what you have for models at your disposal. ie special weapons/HW, total grunt tally? I think either way I am getting better at finding what appeals to you.

One of the key perks of this style actually is the ability to flood your deployment zone though. It saturates the enemy with so much redundancy that aside from some bad match ups its almost impossible to cripple with one lucky turn of fire. I mean try to get the objective from that mess in emperors will, lol, or line breaker. remember there are no restrictions on placing the Aegis in your deployment zone as well, so you can set it up in two or even three pieces between terrain (it only states it must touch other Aegis, not that it is contiguous). Also placing it up field 6" past your deployment so turn 1 you can run up and fan out the front units. Again though if you don't have the SW/HW there are obviously other ways to go.

 Ailaros wrote:
In reference to the luck thing, I know it's hard for a lot of people to hear, but I've yet to come across any convincing argument that would point to 40k being any other than game where skill is limited to how you play the odds in a dice game.

You can bring stronger lists, and you can play the game better, but this starts having diminishing return, especially vis. a vis. your opponent. Once you get to the point of two pretty good lists played by two pretty good players, any improvement by either player is a tiny advantage compared to the coarseness of the dice you roll (aka luck).

Shouldn't the fact that the same group of players tend to consistently do well in high-level tournament play indicate that those players are either somehow way better than everyone else or that skill plays more of a factor than you give it credit for?

 Kingsley wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
In reference to the luck thing, I know it's hard for a lot of people to hear, but I've yet to come across any convincing argument that would point to 40k being any other than game where skill is limited to how you play the odds in a dice game.

You can bring stronger lists, and you can play the game better, but this starts having diminishing return, especially vis. a vis. your opponent. Once you get to the point of two pretty good lists played by two pretty good players, any improvement by either player is a tiny advantage compared to the coarseness of the dice you roll (aka luck).

Shouldn't the fact that the same group of players tend to consistently do well in high-level tournament play indicate that those players are either somehow way better than everyone else or that skill plays more of a factor than you give it credit for?

I bolded some things there, since he already said what you think your being revelatory about.

I don't think so. Most players at a GT are already at the "pretty good" level. The fact that there are people who do consistently quite well in high-level tournament play against other players who are at least "pretty good" indicates, to me, that the skill ceiling is much higher than you think. Despite the fact that there are many opportunities for luck to play a role in a game of 40k, good players can adapt to luck and still win.

A good example of this is the game "Battle for Wesnoth." This game is strategic, but also has a good deal of luck. One nice feature that it has is a tracker that indicates how much someone's luck has deviated from average-- both in terms of damage taken and damage received. I am not a great player at Wesnoth, but I'm pretty good, and I have won games where my cumulative luck has been 25% worse than average or even worse.

Only bad players rely on lucky results. Only average players rely on average results. Good players, on the other hand, can "play around" a good deal of luck and win anyway.

Kingsley wrote:Only bad players rely on lucky results. Only average players rely on average results. Good players, on the other hand, can "play around" a good deal of luck and win anyway.

This makes no sense at all.

No matter your skill level, the results of any given action you take (outside of moving across clear terrain) are going to be determined by die rolls. The only way a "good" player is able to "make" things better is if player skill referred to how well you were able to load your dice, or some clever way of throwing them.

Player skill lets you play the odds, but its random die rolls that determine outcome. I don't want to labor this topic, so I'll just link you here and here.

As for tournaments, you're playing, what, 5 games tops? In each of them there are a few random elements that determine the outcome. It is VERY possible to win that few games in a row with pure luck even if you were a terrible player. With good players, the difference in skill being very small, you only need to have small abberations in luck to determine the winner. It's very possible for a person to be a little bit lucky 5 games in a row. It's also possible to be a little lucky over the course of a couple of dozen games in a tournament career. If you don't believe that luck can track, look at some of my other battle report series. If it is possible to have very bad luck several games in a row, it's possible to have slightly good luck several games in a row.

You just might not notice it without meticulous calculation because, as mentioned, the deviance can be pretty small amongst roughly evenly matched players. Of course, if you're biased against this theory, you might miss the data altogether. If you're picking up a bunch of dice and thinking "isn't it great that I'm so skilled in this game" before rolling them to see what the results of your actions are... well, that's a little strange.

Red Corsair wrote:Yea I was very inclined to put Al'Rehem in one of those platoons so that the DZ issue would be alleviated, then add a coms relay to the Aegies or take an astropath.

So, I'm set on my next game being with vets, but it's actually making me take a look at vet special characters now. For example, a squad of carapace vets with 3x plasma and Harker's heavy bolter would be able to deploy outside of the DZ (and, depending on my opponent's deployment, possibly very far in the backfield indeed), and then turn one pop forward and fire 3 S7 and 3S5 attacks into the side of something for first blood.

The fact that they infiltrate, rather than merely outflank or scoot up a bit is suddenly strangely intriguing to me for some reason...

dakka farta wrote:In addition have you given mortars any thought, you have said before that to many HWS give you crappy fire lanes, mortars solve that problem with indirect fire. I know they suck but having 9 mortar shells raining down on an enemy will cause some destruction, plus you have an opportunity to glance some vehicles to death.

Umm, not really. I mean, I have 9 mortar teams just hanging out that I built in preparation of starting 6th ed, but looking through my most recent battle reports it still feels like they'd be of somewhat middling use.

More importantly, what do I cut to include them? My tanks and stormies have been doing me well, and I'm a bit loathe to cut any more points out of my infantry.