You guys are in for a treat. As my introduction into 6th edition, this is going to be a comprehensive and detailed battle report. I will be providing an exciting and informative battle report against a very skilled opponent. I will also be sharing some of my thoughts regarding some of the 6th edition rules. First off, I'd like to introduce my opponent for the game.
Kevin (aka Janthkin here on dakka) is a very, very good tyranid player. Heck, he is a very, very good player. Period. He fields his tyranids like a surgeon with a scalpel - very precise and very tactical. People say that tyranids are a bottom-tier army in 5th edition. Well, you'd never think that when you went up against Janthkin. He just makes it look so easy running nids, but believe me, he milks his army for all they're worth. Without a doubt, he is the best tyranid player I have ever come across (though admittedly, I haven't played in too many tournaments). Every battle I've had against Janthkin's bugs had always been a tough fight, whether it was with my necrons or my Crowe-Purifier Grey Knights or my Draigowing or my Rune Priest-spam Space Wolves. I expect this battle to be just as tough, even with my very good wraithwing necrons.
As with any new ruleset, there probably will be mistakes in our game. We caught a couple already after the game. Maybe we'll find more from this battle report. Feel free to bring up any mistakes you see or think you see in this report. I think it will be a good learning experience for both the players involved and the readers as well.
Also, it'll take a little time to digest all the info and to write a more detailed analysis of our battle so please bear with me as this report will probably take a few days to complete. For those who would prefer to read the report in its entirety, I will post Completed in the title so you can check back then.
The way 6th edition works is that you win by having more Victory Points (VP's) than your opponent. The ways you can get VP's are:
Objectives - Worth 3 VP's each
Slay the Warlord - Each person has to nominate his highest LDHQ to be his Warlord. If you can kill that Warlord, then you get 1 VP.
First Blood - The first person to kill 1 enemy unit gets 1 VP.
Linebreaker - If you have at least 1 scoring or denial unit in the enemy deployment zone at the end of the game, you get 1 VP.
Mysterious Objectives - We rolled for objectives and got 4 objectives. Each objective has a special rule to be determined whenever a unit comes within 3" of it.
Night-Fighting - There is a possibility of Night-fight on Turns 1 or starting on Turns 5+. Night-fight now works differently than it used to in 5th ed.
Heavy Metal - All heavy support unis are scoring! They are also worth 1 VP each!
Deployment: New Dawn of War (This is bascially the old 5th ed. Pitched Battle deployment.)
Initiative: Tyranids (I actually won the roll to go first but gave it to Janthkin.)
Map of the terrain.
We played each of the 4 forests as Mysterious Forests and each of the 4 lakes as Mysterious Lakes. What that means is that when a unit enters the forest or lake, then something happens. To simplify the game, we will just roll once for the forests and it will apply to all the forest. Same with lakes.
So now in this game, we will have Mysterious Objectives, Mysterious Forests and Mysterious Lakes. Hey, it's new so we've got to try them out at least once.
Pre-game analysis (Tyranids): So many new rules to remember, so many old tactics lost, so many new tricks to try....
I knew going into this battle that I wanted to try out the new & improved Flying Monstrous Creature rules, and I figured that this would be a good time to try out the Parasite as well - Jump Infantry are some of the more reliable assault units under the new rule set. On the other hand, I knew Jim was going to be trying out the Flyer rules, and Tyranids didn't get a lot of help with respect to shooting down Flyers.
And then, of course, there is the fun of random terrain, plus random objectives.
As Jim has handed me turn 1, I know that I've got 2 rounds to do some damage before the Flyers arrive. I need to drop those Command Barges quickly, but it's not like the 15 Wraiths are easy to ignore, either. On the plus side, the portion of the Necron army that is starting on the board is playing to Tyranid strengths - poisonous, furious Gargoyles, especially buffed with Preferred Enemy, are nasty bugs. And new rules or not, Genestealers are still the final word in Assault.
The real question is whether I can stay on-task, while sorting through the new rules, or if the minutiae will distract me at a crucial moment. I can't afford those kinds of slip-ups against this Necron army.
(edit: I've fixed my list, above; very minor stuff.)
Necrons: There are several things that I want to try out in this game. I'll list them in order of importance (at least to me):
1. How well my wraithwing necrons will translate into 6th edition. Are they still competitive?
2. How have tyranids been affected by the new rules? Have they improved, got worse or stayed about the same? By how much?
3. How good are the necron flyers? Is scythe-spam a legitimate, competitive necron build or is it just too unbalanced?
4. Are chariots (the catacomb command barges) good or did the command barges get nerfed?
5. How good is rapid-fire gauss now? Hence the reason for the immortals in my list.
I feel that necrons are a very strong army in 6th ed. They can take on other flyers with their tesla-destructors and skyfire shots from their scythes. They can handle both infantry and tanks with the wraiths, and they've got the Overlords on chariots (command barges) to handle the tougher enemy units, monstrous creatures and heavy armor. They've got a lot of resiliency, excellent movement, decent shooting and good assault capabilities. Sure there may be some power combos by other armies out there that may give them problems, but then these power combos usually won't have an answer for the necron flyers. Though it may be a little early to make this claim, but all in all, I think necrons have just become a top-tier army in 6th edition.
Tyranids have also gotten better in my opinion thanks to flying monstrous creatures, the fact that fearless units now no longer have to take No Retreat saves, and a myriad of other changes. They are especially tough for my crons due to the fact that I lack power weapons and that most of my shooting will be AP-. Genestealers, while nerfed slightly in my opinion, are still a very dangerous unit especially when there's 20 of them all with poisoned attacks. Also, gargoyles have now become more dangerous than ever before with their Hammer of Wrath hits on the charge. But what is most dangerous in my opinion is that there is practically no downside to being Fearless. Now every unit of tyranid gribblies is a great tarpit unit. The threat of the tyranids in my mind is not that they will kill my wraiths and Overlords (though they certainly do have the capability to do so) but rather, that they will tie them up all game and render them useless.
The main weakness that nids have is that they can't handle massed flyers particularly well. Actually, that weakness is shared by most of the other armies, but assault-oriented armies like tyranids, daemons and orks are hit particularly hard. However, the upside is that massed flyers can't really take on horde armies well either (which is why I have the wraiths in my army). Overall, I feel that my crons may have the advantage due to the amount of flyers I have compared to the amount of flying monstrous creatures (FMC's) my opponent has, but from my experiences playing against Janthkin, I think it's going to be a close and hard-fought battle between us.
Note - I wil post rules commentaries in Italics and with a different color font.
Deployment:
Spoiler:
Map of the terrain.
We played each of the 4 forests as Mysterious Forests and each of the 4 lakes as Mysterious Lakes. What that means is that when a unit enters the forest or lake, then something happens. To simplify the game, we will just roll once for the forests and it will apply to all the forest. Same with the lakes.
We both roll for our Warlord Traits.
My Warlord gives his army Move Through Cover and Stealth (Conqueror of Cities). Woohoo!!! Just the powers that I wanted. Janthkin then points out to me that it only applies when you're moving through ruins.
Janthkin's Warlord gets Legendary Fighter (I believe). What that is is that for every character his Warlord kills in a challenge, he gets 1 Victory Point (VP).
We then roll to see if it is Night-fight and it is.
Tyranids deploy gargoyles with the Parasite and the tyrannofex to the right. Keep in mind that Heavy Support choices are scoring in this scenario.
He then deploys flyrant, both hive guards and tervigon to his left.
As his units are within 3" of his Mysterious Objective, we roll to see what the objective does and we find it to be Sabotaged! It then explodes but fails to hurt his T6 units (it explodes for a S4, AP- large blast around the objective every turn on a roll of 1).
Tip - since the explosion is centered on the objective itself, you can actually deploy 3" away from the objective and not be hit by the blast.
Ymgarls and termagants will be in reserves. Genestealers will infiltrate.
I deploy my 2 annihilation barges to the left (my left).
On the right, are my wraiths and surflords (Overlords on command barges). They are on an objective. I then roll for the Mysterious Objective and get a 2 - nothing.
I have to leave my night scythes in reserves as flyers have to start off in reserves.
Finally, Janthkin infiltrates his genestealers in front of his tervigon and hive guards as a screen.
Tip - had Janthkin gone second, his genestealers would be able to assault on Turn 1. The rule for Infiltrate denies you a 1st turn charge, however, unless it specifies otherwise, a turn only refers to a player's turn.
He then rolls for his Mysterious Lake special rule and get 6 - Iceblood. Basically, an iceblood pool is dangerous terrain but any unit that moves through or ends its move in it can re-roll failed armour saves.
Note - this is a huge buff to tyranids as Move Through Cover means that they automatically pass dangerous terrain tests. Thus there is no downside to him moving through the iceblood pool.
I decide not to seize the initiative and we begin.
Flyrant jumps into the pool for some re-rollable armour fun. Genestealers also move through the pool for the re-rollable armor buff. Tervigon advances and then FNP's his block of stealers.
I must say that this is a huge boon for tyranids. Due to the lack of AP1/2 weaponry in the necron army, the tyranids have become quite resilient now with re-rollable armor, at least against my army.
On the right, the rest of his army advances.
Also, both unit of hive guards move behind LOS-blocking terrain. However, his middle hive guards also enter into the Mysterious Forest so we roll to see what happens....he gets Ironbark Forest!!! This is the best possible result he can get as now all the forests provide 3+ cover!!! Sh*t!
Re-rollable armour saves and now 3+ cover in forests. Not good for my crons. Now I can't just rely on shooting his guys to death.
Tyranids then run. Tervigon runs into the pool for re-rollable armor as well. Genestealers try to screen out his flyrant from a possible assault.
Gargoyles run into the forest for 3+ cover.
Tyrannofex then shoots at my annihilation barge. I roll a 4 on my cover save and fail. The t-fex then blows it up.
We then remember that it is night-fight and my unit has Stealth as it is more than 24" away. The barge unblows itself up. Woooo.
Middle hive guards fail to kill a command barge and right hive guards drop 1 wraith from my far-right wraith unit.
Necron 1
Spoiler:
Now for some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that his shooting did minimal damage.
The bad news is that favorable Mysterious Terrain rolls have made this battle much, much tougher for my necrons.
I decide to ignore his right flank - the flyrant and genestealers - in order to focus on the gargolyes on his left flank and move my units accordingly.
Here I make a mistake tactically. I moved my right command barge 12" in preparation to assault his flyrant with my Overlord. Janthkin then informs me that my Overlord can't disembark if his ride moves more than 6". Doh! He was nice enough to let me redo my movement, but I decided not to. I always have a backup plan.
Talk about BS. Due to Night-fight, gargoyles and hive guards in the forest were getting 2+ cover!!! But my annihilation barges had no one else to shoot at so the only thing I could do was shoot at them (his gargoyles). Due to several of them being outside the forest (I believe 3 models), I manage to kill 5 gargoyles. It should have been more like 12 or so if not for those damnable Mysterious forests!!!
Tip - You can actually do what is called Focus-fire in the Shooting phase. I totally forgot about this and I think in this case, it wouldn't have mattered. But in certain situations, focus-fire can actually help you to ignore those annoying cover saves and kill more models.
My surflord than flat-outs 18" towards his hive guards. My strategy is to use my 255pt HQ as a decoy to draw his 340pts of stealers away from my main army. If he doesn't go after my Overlord, then I'm going to have free access to his hive guards and tervigon.
My surflord then charges his gargoyles. However, both units of wraiths fail their charge against the gargoyles!!!
His gargoyles then pile in. The Hammer of Wrath from the chariot's charge then kills 3 gargoyles. This, however, kills all 3 gargoyles in base with my chariot and since at normal initiative there is no one in base contact, the combat is effectively over. Damn! I was hoping to kill more more gargoyles with mindshackles and my regular attacks.
Note I - we actually played the Fight Sub-phase a little out of sequence. Janthkin piled in with his gargoyles before I did my Hammer of Wrath chariot attacks. It should have been the other way around - I do my Hammer hits first and then he would pile in with his gargoyles. But in this case, the end result ended up the same - his gargoyles couldn't pile in far enough to make it into base with my command barge and so the combat ends.
Note II - I make another tactical blunder here....I forget to issue a challenge to his Warlord, the Parasite of Mortrex. Now whether he could or would accept the challenge, I'm not sure. Still, it would have been in my favor to issue the challenge.
Edit - Never mind. You can't issue challenges from a chariot.
Tyranids 2
Spoiler:
This is a critical phase for tyranids. After my mess-up last turn, with both wraiths failing their charges against his gargoyles, Janthkin can really do some damage with his counter-attack. How well his counter-attack goes may well determine how the game will turn out.
His ymgarls come in from reserves in the forest where my wraiths are. His termagants also come in as well.
By the ways, reserve units now come in on a 3+ on both Turns 2 and 3. On Turn 4, they automatically come in.
They then move out of terrain and prepare to charge the closer wraith unit.
The new 6th Ed. rule is that you cannot assault on the turn you come in from reserves. However, the ymgarl's Dormant special rule overrides the basic rulebook (BRB) and allows them to assault on the turn they come in from reserves. To my knowledge, the only other unit that can assault on the turn they come in are Vanguard Veterans.
Genestealers move towards my command barge while hive guards move away from them. His tervigon casts FNP on the hive guards.
Gargoyles go after my wraiths as well. They only move 6" so that they can use Hammer of Wrath.
Tip - jump infantry has the Hammer of Wrath special rule, which gives them free hits when they charge an enemy in assault. However, in order for them to use it, they can only move 6" in the Movement phase.
The tyrant swoops 24" from one iceblood pool to another iceblood pool so that he can get his re-rollable armor saves. He opts not to perform his Vector Strike.
Swooping is a move only flying monstrous creatures (FMC's) can do. Basically, they have to move 12"-24" and cannot assault afterwards. However, the advantages are numerous. They get to perform a special attack called the Vector Strike over any 1 unit they move over, they cannot be assaulted and they are only hit on 6's by enemy shooting (unless the shooting unit has the Skyfire special rule, in which case they hit based on normal Ballistic Skill.)
His tyrant tries to cast Paroxysm on my right-most wraiths but I deny his power by rolling a ! Take that biotch!!! His flyrant, however, does manage to put maybe 1 wound on my wraiths with 1 set of twin-linked brainleech devourers.
Every unit now has a chance to resist any psychic power targeting them. They can Deny the Witch, or resist the psychic power, on a D6 roll of 6. If the unit has a psyker in it, then the chance to resist a psychic power increases.
His middle hive guards then shoot down 2 wraiths from the left unit and his gargoyles 1 wraith and 1W on another wraith from the right squad.
His tyrannofex fails to shoot down anything.
His right hive guards fail to damage my command barge.
Genestealers then assault my command barge.
Not only do they easily strip off its hull points, but they manage to explode it as well. The explosion kills only 1 of the genestealers but doesn't hurt my Overlord.
Janthkin gets 1 Victory Point because he draws First Blood by killing one of my units first.
Gargoyles and ymgarls then combo-charge my right wraiths. Hammer of Wrath from the gargoyles kill off 1 wraith and I believe put 1W on another wraith (I wasn't rolling well against those S3 hits).
Not only do they wipe out my wraiths, but the Parasite of Mortrex also spawns 5 ripper swarm bases. That's an additional 15 wounds of fearless tyranids. Ouch!
Finally, his tyrannofex charges my Warlord's command barge. He forgets that I have Mindshackle scarabs as I make his t-fex attack itself. Mindshackles plus warscythe attacks from my Overlord manages to put 5W on his t-fex.
Overall, it is a good turn for my opponent as he blows up a command barge and then wipes out one unit of wraiths without any casualty on his part.
Necron 2
Spoiler:
I need my flyers (night scythes) to come in if I am to have any hope of winning this game.
Unfortunately, only 1 night scythe (with warriors embarked) comes in this turn. It moves 18" towards his genestealers in hopes to whittle them down before the inevitable assault on my Overlord. Overlord goes after his hive guards.
Note - moving flyers is kind of tricky and needs some getting used to. They can only turn once during their movement and that is a 90 degree turn before the move. When coming in from reserves, you choose a direction you want to come in from and you have to move straight forwards. No pivoting at the end of your movement to get better shots.
The weakened wraith squad (with only 3 guys left) go after the tyrannofex. The larger unit (with 4 models) go after his ymgarls and only move 6". Annihilation barges get out of the way for my command barge, who only moves 6" towards his flyrant so that I can assault it with my Overlord.
I make another mistake here. I forget that his flyrant swooped last turn and therefore cannot be assaulted. It's a good thing that Janthkin remembers as he points this out to me. So instead, I disembark my Warlord to go after his hive guards. My strategy has now changed from killing his flyrant to stopping his hive guards from shooting down my wraiths and vehicles.
Onto shooting. Combined shooting from the 2 annihilation barges kill 7 gargoyles. That number may seem low, but that is because one of the annihilation barges moved 12" (cruising speed). If a vehicle that is not fast moves at cruising speed, then it can only fire its guns in Snapshot mode, meaning it will only hit the enemy on 6's.
In other shooting, I believe my night scythe only kills only 1 genestealer due to re-rollable armor saves! WTF!?!
With my shooting done, we head onto assault. The wraiths charge his ymgarls. Because they only moved 6", I get to use my Hammer of Wrath attacks as well.
The smaller wraith unit charges his tyrannofex. They don't get their Hammer attacks because they had to move as jump infantry.
My Warlord assaults his hive guards.
And so does my other Overlord.
Wraiths kill all but 1 ymgarl. Damn Fearlessness! He (the lone ymgarl survivor) would have been dead due to No Retreat if this was last edition.
Mindshackle goes off but fails to wound his hive guards. My Overlord then kills 1 hive guard and put 1W on another hive guard. They are ok as they are within the tervigons synapse bubble.
Wraiths roll poorly as well against his tyrannofex and only manages to wound it once. Fortunately for me, his t-fex fails that single save. Finally, something goes my way.
Last but not least, I believe my Warlord maybe kills 1 hive guard only.
Tyranids 3
Spoiler:
Overview of the top of Turn 3.
As he is now within 3" of the objective, we roll to see what Mysterious power it has. Janthkin rolls a 5 and gets Scatterfield - +1 cover save to the unit that controls the objective. By the ways, this bonus is cumulative with both Stealth and Shrouding.
Tervigon spawns his first and only unit of termagants (he rolls 4, 4, 5). The tervigon then FNP's them.
His unit of 20 termagants then go after my Warlord. BTW, they are in that blasted 3+ cover ironbark forest!
Tyranid movement. His gribblies go after my wraiths.
Stealers go after my Overlord to the right.
Flyrant swoops behind the annihilation barge.
Janthkin makes a mistake here. In swooping mode, his FMC can only turn 90 degrees and then must move in a straight line (just like flyers). However, he did a 180 turn after his swoop move.
His flyrant then shoots my skimmer in the back. He gets 2 glances and 2 pens. Luckily, I make both of my 5+ jink cover saves on the 2 pens and only lose 2 hull points.
Note - skimmers have the Jink special rule. In any turn that they move, they get a 5+ cover against shooting.
Termagants and ripper swarms then combo-charge my wraiths locked in combat with his last ymgarl.
Gargoyles and the Parasite assault my other wraith unit as well.
Termagants charge my Warlord Overlord....
....and genestealers jump my other Overlord.
The results are devastating. Stealers wipe out my Overlord and then consolidate 6" to prevent him from returning via Ever-living.
Here, termagants cause 1W and my Warlord kills 1 hive guard.
The Parasite and gargoyles win combat here by 3, killing 1 wraith and putting 1W on another. They don't even suffer a single casualty.
Finally, my wraiths kill off his lone ymgarl and a couple of ripper bases. In return, he wipes out my wraiths.
Termagants and rippers then consolidate into the forest as much as they can. Also, if you notice, his termagants are within 3" of the objective, thus giving them +1 cover. Along with the 3+ cover from the forest, you're looking at 2+ cover for the gants again!!!
Overall, not a good turn for me at all. The only thing to go my way was my annihilation barge not getting wrecked by his flyrant.
Necron 3
Spoiler:
So I've lost 1 Overlord and the other one is tied up in combat with termagants probably for the rest of the game. I only have 2 wraiths left out of 15. Janthkin basically has almost his entire army still intact.
Flyers, I really need you to come in this turn.
At least they both come in.
The other scythe from reserves heads towards his stealers.
Out of desperation, I disembark my Immortals to try to take out his scoring termagants.
What I failed to realize, however, was that the closest termagants to my immortals were the ones in the forest with 3+ cover. I also forgot about the objective giving them +1 cover. Basically, I didn't realize it yet, but I would be firing at termagants with 2+ cover!!! And here I was thinking that I was going to wipe them out.
My annihiliation barges move away from his flyrant. However, one of the barges immobilizes itself in the iceblood pool near the objective!!!
My command barge moves towards his ripper swarms.
Wow...in shooting, my night scythe only kills 1 genestealer (and without the re-rollable armor buff)!
Thanks to 2+ cover, his termagants survive shooting from the immortals and 2 night scythes, though they do lose 10 gants.
I'm making mistakes all over. I could have easily mitigated the 2+ cover by either 1) shooting with my other scythe first at his termagants out in the open to hopefully kill enough gants and take him out of the +1 cover range or 2) Focus-fire. But alas, when we were playing the game, I was not aware that you can do focus-fire.
As if things weren't bad enough, one of the tesla destructors arcs and hits one of the night scythes (with warriors in it) and glances it twice, stripping it of 2 hull points!!!
My command barge then charges the rippers and insta-kills 2 bases with its Hammer of Wrath attacks.
Note - chariots can still charge for the D6 S6 Hammer of Wrath hits even if there is no rider in it.
In combat, wraiths put 1W on the Parasite and kill all but 1 gargoyle. In return, they take 1W of damage.
My Overlord kills another hive guard but takes another 1W from the termagants.
This turn I was hoping to do a lot more damage than what I actually did. I thought that I could possibly wipe out his termagants and ripper swarms as well as kill a few more genestealers. Instead, he's still got all his scoring units and I've also hurt my own transport. Now I've really got my back up against the wall.
Tyranids 4
Spoiler:
Rippers go after my immortals. Termagants stay under the shade in the forest.
Tervigon moves forwards. Genestealers go and take another dip in the iceblood pool.
Flyrant swoops after either my command barge or the damaged night scythe.
He then decides to shoot down my damaged scythe but fails to glance or penetrate it.
Hive guards try to shoot down the other flyer (with warriors in it) but fail to hit.
Scarabs charge my immortals. Overwatch fire by the immortals kills 1 base. I then kill the last ripper swarm in combat.
Note - Overwatch is a new feature of 6th edition. Basically what it is is that a unit who is being charged can shoot at its attacker before they reach combat, though they do so at Ballistic Skill 1 (Snapshot mode).
In assault, the combat rages on as the Overlord kills 2 termagants and puts 1W on the hive guard.
Finally, the Parasite kills off both wraiths. One of the wraiths then spawn another 6 ripper swarms! That's another 18W of models that the Parasite has just generated!
Necron 4
Spoiler:
I have a plan to try to get the draw.
The immortals re-embark back onto their transport and all 3 scythes move off the table. Because they are in Ongoing Reserves, they will automatically come in next turn.
I make a mistake here. At the time, neither Janthkin nor I was aware of it, but it wasn't until some time after the game that we found out that a unit cannot re-embark back onto a vehicle that is zooming.
My annihilation barge moves 12" and hides behind the LOS-blocking terrain.
Tip - you have to be careful when moving your flyers off the table, because if you have no more units on the board, then your opponent automatically wins. Thus, I hid my annihilation barge to ensure that I don't lose the game with my flyers in reserves.
Command barge goes after his Parasite and gargoyle.
If I can kill his Warlord - the Parasite - then I would get 1 Victory Point for satisfying the Slay the Warlord mission objective.
Shooting puts 2W on his Parasite. He takes 1W and then uses Look Out Sir! to transfer the last wound to his gargoyle, thus killing it.
My command barge then rams his Warlord.
I get 5 S6 Hammer of Wrath hits and kill him, thus giving me 1 VP.
Ok, as you've all probably figured out my plan by now, I moved my scythes off the board in order to try to contest all the objectives next turn.
However, what I didn't realize at the time was this....
Vehicles cannot contest objectives!!!!!
Tyranids 5
Spoiler:
Overview of the top of Turn 5.
As there isn't much for tyranids to do, they start going after objectives. Tervigon inches towards 1 objective and stealers the other.
His flyrant moves back in gliding mode.
He then shoots my command barge in the rear, taking off 1 or 2 hull points and destroying its gun (I did make 1 or maybe 2 jink cover saves).
Tip - tyranids got a slight boost in that now their AP- guns (the brainleech devourers) no longer gives a -1 penalty on the vehicle damage table.
Finally, the Warlord combat rages on. I kill another 3 termagants.
Necron 5
Spoiler:
It is here in my Movement phase where I realize my huge tactical faux pas. As I am moving my flyers towards the objective, Janthkin goes, "You do realize that vehicles cannot deny objectives, right?"
"Ehhhh....oh sh*t! Really?" *checks rulebook*
At this point, there is nothing I can do really. I've already committed myself last turn when I moved my flyers off the board. Now I'm forced to adapt to the situation and pray for a miracle. And now, I've got to disembark and expose my troops.
1 scythe comes in near his flyrant and drops my warriors off on the objective. By the ways, I believe that this is the objective that does nothing.
My damaged scythe goes and drops my warriors off at the upper-left (from my perspective) objective. My annihilation barge also moves there as it is a secondary scoring unit. I should have turned the AB around so that I can shoot at his flyrant, not that I was expecting to really do anything to re-rollable 3+ armor, though I was concerned that had I done that, that might have taken the barge out of claiming range of the objective.
So now I have troops on both objectives. This gives me some redundancy should he move his flyrant to try to take out a unit of troops or to contest.
I then move my last scythe towards the objective claimed by his stealers. I drop off the immortals.
Note - when you move at combat speed (that's 18" for flyers and 6" for others), you can then disembark your guys 6" away from the access point of your vehicle. However, if you move at cruising speed, then you can't disembark at all.
However, necron night scythes have a special rule that allows them to disembark even after they move 36".
Command barge moves and gets ready to charge the genestealers if necessary.
Immortal shooting and the night scythe tesla-destructor then kills off 9 stealers, taking them off the objective and giving it to my immortals.
Annihilation barge and warriors fire at his flyrant and strips off 1W.
Note - we forgot to test for Grounding for the flyrant. Basically, if a FMC that is swooping suffers 1 or more hits, then there is a chance for it to take a S9 hit and be assault-able by ground forces.
Night scythe then fires at his ripper swarms and insta-kill 4 bases.
Last but not least, in combat, gants finally overrun my Warlord. They consolidate such that I am not able to come back and my opponent gets +1 VP for killing my Warlord.
The lower-left objective is contested by his flyrant.
The upper-right objective is controlled by the tervigon.
And finally, my immortals control the bottom-right objective.
So I have 2 objectives to 1 (each objective = 3 VP's). My opponent gets +2 VP for slaying my Warlord and also for first blood. I get +1 VP for slaying his Warlord. I also get another +1 VP for killing his tyrannofex (because in this mission, Heavy Supports are scoring and worth 1 VP each). I don't believe either of us gets the bonus for having a denial unit in each other's deployment zones (though we didn't really check to see if his tyrant or my annihilation barge were actually in each other's deployment zones).
Despite the pummelling that I've been receiving, I am actually winning at this point 8 to 5. Now all I need for the miracle necron win is for the game to end before he wipes out all of my troops next turn.
Necrons: I'm going to split this up into 2 sections. The first part will be my analysis of the game. The 2nd would be an evaluation of 6th Edition so far.
Analysis of the Game - How Necrons Were Able to Pull Off the Win. The outcome of this game was totally unexpected for me. Yes, I did expect to win the game. I also expected to possibly dominate Kevin's army. What I didn't expect was to be dominated by his army....and then to be able to still win the game! There was a couple of factors that should have led to my downfall:
1) The Mysterious terrains. Their impact on the game was huge. Originally, I was planning on killing off his flyrant and genestealers first. You know, eliminate the biggest threats and then it would be an easy game, right? Wrong. Now with re-rollable armor saves and the fact that they were both supporting each other - daring my wraiths to charge them - it would be just too inefficient to try to kill them off, especially with a portion of my army in reserves. Thus, I had to scratch that plan.
Then I was thinking about shooting down his support units (gargoyles) and his ability to hurt my transports (the hive guards), Hello, 3+ (2+ with Night-fight) Ironbark cover! Now I couldn't even do that! Thus, I had to change my strategy yet again.
Basically the only way to kill his units (his gargoyles) was to combo-assault them with my command barge and wraiths. And then both wraiths fail their charges....
2) Inexperience with the rules. Had I been better versed in the rules, I wouldn't have made some of the mistakes that I made. While most of my rules gaffes were minor, 2 were major mistakes.
- Had I been more aware of how models were removed, I would have went after his termagants a little differently. I would have shot at the ones out of cover first to get them away from the objective cover-buff (Mysterious objective which provided +1 to the unit's cover save).
- I should have taken advantage of Focus-fire had I remembered about it.
- This one was a "cheat" mistake because we were not aware of it at the time, but I shouldn't have been able to embark onto the night scythe with my Immortals. How that would have affected the game, it's hard to say. With a veil-tek (Cryptek with Veil of Darkness), I could have still moved my immortals almost anywhere via teleportation.
- This rules gaffe was made by both me and my opponent and it ended up hurting my opponent more than it did me. We both failed to realize that Heavy Support choices were worth Victory Points in this mission. Fortunately, killing his tyrannofex was part of my "new" strategy and I was helped to it by my opponent forgetting about Mindshackles on my Overlord. On the other had, had my opponent know, he probably could have gotten 2 easy VP's by going after my annihilation barges.
- Finally, the huge mistake that I made was in thinking that I could deny objectives with my flyers! This could have been disastrous for me, and if Kevin hadn't said anything, I would have probably looked like the biggest fool on dakka. Lol. Just for this, I should have lost.
Now despite the beating I was taking and all the mistakes I made, I was carefully laying out the groundwork for a possible comeback win or draw. From my own experiences as a tyranid player, I knew that mobility was a weakness of theirs. Other than the flyrant, ymgarls, the gargoyles and outflanking stealers, my opponent didn't really have much mobility. And because he deployed his genestealers already, I knew exactly where they were and could use that to my advantage. Thus, a new strategy formulated in my head.
1. Go after his mobile units. His genestealers supported by his tyrant was just too dangerous. If I could get off the charge against them with multiple wraith units, I could probably win. However, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do so, so I had to find another way to deal with them (see below). As for his ymgarls, I knew they were going to come after me and that there's nothing I can really do about that, so no use worrying about them. Now the flyrant, I had to make a tough decision regarding him. I felt that it would take just too much firepower to shooting down a swooping flyrant with re-rollable saves and thus, I just decided to ignore him as well. So the only unit left that I wanted to go after....that I could go after....were his gargoyles.
2. Dealing with his deathstar - the genestealers. Now I know that if I didn't get the charge off against them, I wouldn't be able to beat them. I also knew that I wouldn't be able to get the charge off them, at least not on the 1st turn and probably not before they charged me. Also, his stealers were getting re-rollable armor saves as well as FNP. So instead of fighting them, I decided to throw them a "distraction" unit - my Overlord. I moved him as far away from the action as possible in order to draw his stealers away. I knew he would go after my lord because if he hadn't, I would have went after his tervigon next turn. Thus, I essentially took them (his stealers) out of the fight and out of position, though it would cost me my Overlord.
3. Take out his ability to hurt my flyers. Basically, he only had 4 units that could damage them - flyrant, 2 hive guards and the t-fex. The flyrant was just too tough to take out being hit on 6's and with re-rollable saves so I had to ignore him. Janthkin helped me out a little by sending his t-fex after my Warlord. After that, I knew my wraiths could finish him off so I sent my lords after his hive guards. And while I didn't kill his hive guards, I did manage to prevent them from shooting for most of the game. And although the far-right hive guards could shoot after the stealers "rescued" them, they didn't have many targets as they were way out of position.
4. Utilize my main advantage - my mobility. Even though my initial plan of contesting the objectives was flawed, what saved me was the ridiculous mobility of my flyers. Sure I couldn't contest, but I could still make it to the objectives. Now it just became a matter of trying to dislodge at least 1 of his scoring units off of an objective....and then pray that the game would end.
Thoughts on 6th Edition. So far, I like the new rules. It will take some getting used to, but I think that is normal for any new major rules changes. You just need to spend the time to "re-learn" the rules. Now keep in mind that the following opinions are just mainly my personal beliefs and preferences. Don't take them as absolute truths and please don't take offense if my opinions are different from your own.
Some of the things I like about the new rules are:
- The de-emphasis on mech. Mech was much too dominant in 5th to the point that it discouraged foot lists and variety. Well, now that mech is no longer king, I'm hoping to see more players try out a wider variety of different builds. Not only that, but I'm hoping to see people try out different armies that don't really rely on mech - armies such as tyranids, daemons and other foot-infantry builds. Hopefully people can get a glimpse of their potential in this game. Here we have tyranids, who many actually thought got worse in 6th, not only be able to compete, but to be able to dominate one of the more powerful armies in the new edition - necrons.
- Flyers. Flyers are awesome! Both vehicle flyers and flying monstrous creatures. They are strong....maybe even a little too strong against some armies....but they bring an element to the game that just opens up the game, both in terms of variety and in tactical challenges. They are a breath of fresh air. However, on the downside, you are going to see more and more armies migrate towards more flyer-based armies because they are a little too good. Also on the negative side, the meta has just shifted from mech to flyers.
- Mission objectives. I like the fact that there are more missions now. I also like the fact that there is more than 1 way to win that mission with Primary objectives and Secondary objectives. And the fact that so many missions are objectives-based will hopefully force people to build more balanced armies that can not only shoot or assault, but takes into consideration mobility as well.
- Removing the closest models. I actually like this. It adds a whole new dimension of tactical play to the game. Now it does matter how you move and position your models. Sure it's more complicated and sure, it slows down the game, but over time, once people get used to the concept, I think it will be almost second-nature. While some may disagree, I think that if the game forces you to use your brains (and hopefully, doesn't confuse you too much), then I think that is a good thing, especially for players who want to improve their game.
But we were fortunate that we were only playing with simple, homogenous units. Once we start getting into more complicated, mixed-save, mixed units with characters, then that may become a different story. We shall see when we cross that bridge.
- Chariots are fun! There's nothing quite like running over the enemy. Unfortunately for everyone else, the crons are the only ones to have chariots at this time.
- Overwatch and Snapshot mode. I actually like these new rules, even though they basically benefit shooty armies only. The only thing is that I think they should give assaulting units a slight buff to offset Overwatch because as it is right now, there is no downside to firing in overwatch mode. What's more, overwatch may even actually prevent a unit from charging if they lose the closest model to overwatch fire.
Now some of the 6E changes that I'm not too particularly fond of:
- Random charge range - I am not a big fan of the random charge. Whereas before, charging was guaranteed as long as you were within range. Now charging is anything but guaranteed. 1 failed charge could potentially lose you the game. Personally, I am not a big fan of randomness because the more randomness you have in the game, the more you take the outcome of the game out of your hands and into fate. It's enough that you have to roll to hit, damage, saves, morale and random game length but now you have to roll to see if you can make the charge as well? I guess there is the element of risk to making the charge, but personally I would prefer the risk to be in your strategy rather than on pure dice.
- Fearless. The absence of No Retreat have made Fearless armies very good now. Almost maybe too good. I prefer it when there was a more substantial drawback to such a powerful special rule. I shouldn't really complain because this rule has just made my necrons, daemons and tyranids that much better....but I will because I think it unbalances the game somewhat. But I must admit, it's still early. Maybe the improvement to ATSKNF will balance out with the new Fearless rule. I just feel sorry for those armies that are neither fearless nor have ATSKNF.
- Mysterious terrain. I don't mind if the effects they have are relatively minor, but in this case, some of their effects can be rather game-changing. It's ok to include the Mysterious terrain but I think they should have toned this down a little.
- Flyers. These units are a double-edged sword. It's fun to run them (including flying monstrous creatures) when your army has access to them. It sucks to play against them when your army doesn't and you can't reliably take them down. There is an inherent unbalance to flyers that will make some games more of a rock-paper-scissors matchup and that, in my opinion, is not a good thing. That's just something you have to be aware of when playing your army....that some armies will have trouble dealing with flyers just because they don't have the tools in their codices to do so.
Tyranids: Well, THAT was interesting. The entirety of my game plan essentially went out the window when we rolled up the random terrain, which was definitely a mistake on my part - I got too conservative at that point, and it led to some tactical mistakes. Not to mention the mistakes inspired by the new rules.
Here's what went wrong, in some semblance of order:
1) Misuse of the T-fex: This one was a rules mistake - at the time, I just completely forgot that he would be affected by the MSS of the Overlord on the CCB; I was too excited about charging a vehicle with him & hitting it really hard. In retrospect, this alone might have cost me the game - it would have been easy to screen him off behind termagants, and protect him. On a lesser note, I should have paired him more closely with the Tyrant; I'm not used to Preferred Enemy having an effect on shooting.
2) Misuse of the Hive Guard: While getting one or the other assaulted off the CCB was likely inevitable, there was no reason to allow it to happen to both units as early as it did. I was overly-dependent on the 3+ cover, and forgot the basic bubble-wrap philosophy that has worked for Tyranids so well since 3e. They were my best chance of dealing with the Flyers, after all.
3) Misuse of the Flyrant: Frankly, I'm just not sure what to do with him yet. Vector Strike is the best-available answer to Flyers...if you're in the right position to make use of it; and it's not really a "good" answer, either. Definitely some more practice required!
4) End-game Genestealer positioning: Not a lot that I could have changed here, but a note: in 5e, I could have arranged those 'stealers so that even the ones up front had 4+ cover saves. The "closest models die first" rule is going to take a lot of getting used to.
And in spite of misusing such a large portion of my army, I'm fairly sure I would have won had the game gone to turn 6. So, what went right:
1) Gargoyles! These are the champs - they soaked a lot of enemy attention, and still killed 2 units of Wraiths off. I'm not certain about the Parasite yet (yes, he made a lot of extra wounds, but those wounds didn't really accomplish anything), but Gargoyles are still a fantastic bargain for 8 pts/model, and a good answer to the random threat ranges of 6e.
2) Termagants: The end of "no retreat" takes these little guys over the top. They were already my preferred answer to 2+/3+ units like the Overlord or TH/SS termies in 5e; getting rid of "No Retreat" means that not only will they tarpit forever, they also have a better chance to eventually win. I may have to paint up some more - in some cases, they can take over some of the heavy lifting from Genestealers.
If I could stomach the idea of painting another 60 'gaunt bodies, I'd want to try out a Hormagaunt list. I think the removal of "No Retreat" was exactly what all Swarm-based Tyranid armies needed to really excel. They're also a good answer to Flyers - that many bodies can simply screen off objectives completely, and most Flyers don't have the firepower to dislodge them.
Very interesting lists... I'm glad ya'll are testing a bunch of stuff! Look forward to this! I'm personally going to be testing immotekh using Mephiston as an ally here in a week or so
As always, JY2 makes top notch battle reports and I am eager to see how good the necrons have gotten. I'm pretty sure they are now the "power army" and the mighty GK'll have to take a back bench now.
Really like the way this is made up as a battle report, It's brilliantly presented and well thought out . Looking forward to seeing whatever the results are.
Zid wrote:Very interesting lists... I'm glad ya'll are testing a bunch of stuff! Look forward to this! I'm personally going to be testing immotekh using Mephiston as an ally here in a week or so
Are they interesting in that they're practically our competitive 5th edition lists? As for allies, I was thinking about allying a farseer, 5x DA and holofielded falcon to my army....but then was bummed out when I saw that the crons and space faeries just couldn't get along.
sudojoe wrote:As always, JY2 makes top notch battle reports and I am eager to see how good the necrons have gotten. I'm pretty sure they are now the "power army" and the mighty GK'll have to take a back bench now.
Thanks! I think that the knights have taken a slight hit in 6th. Now, they're more inline with the rest of the armies, but I think everyone could see that it was coming. Every single power army has been nerfed somewhat whenever a new edition release comes out. Just look at Chaos Daemons and 8th edition Fantasy. Whether the crons are now the "power army", that remains to be seen, though I do believe they are a very good 6th edition army. I think the power builds will come from certain synergistic ally combos (i.e. eldar farseers, Fateweaver-chaos, fearless ork mobs + shooty armies, etc.).
Toban wrote:I'm sure this will be a tought game as alwais between you 2, of course the first of a new long series.
JY2, I don't see in your list a lot of 2000k pts double FOC shaenanigans. I don't see, in particular, any destroyer body Lord.
Have you considered some nasty combos like DLord + Deathmarks + dispairteck or even the easyer DLord + Wraiths?
Having an easy access to preferred enemy and don't use it looks a little as a shame no?
The 2K double FOC shenanigans will probably come at a later date. But then again, there is a reason why we are playing 1999 instead of 2K.
Actually, I'm trying to move away from pure assaulty deathstars in my balanced list. That is because you need shooting now more than ever in the flyer-dominated 6th edition. No amount of deathstars will be able to take on flyers unless they are a shooty deathstar (i.e. Farsight and his 7 dwarves).
The DLord is good but I chose the regular Overlord over him for a number of reasons: 1) slightly more survivable due to phase shifters, 2) command barges can still hurt flyers with their sweep attacks, 3) I have the flexibility of having 2 Royal Courts and 4) I've got an extra, independent threat. But don't worry. I will bring back the DLord in future games.
I haven't considered any deathmark combos back in 5th because I just didn't like their rapid-fire limitations. But now that they can fire their full 24" in 6th, I might have to give them a 2nd look again.
oldone wrote:Really like the way this is made up as a battle report, It's brilliantly presented and well thought out . Looking forward to seeing whatever the results are.
Budda 09 wrote:Always liked your bat reps, can't wait
SabrX wrote:I look forward to reading the outcome. Shame I couldn't stay to watch till the end.
Off topib, but what's your take on 6th ed and Necron Spyder Wall + mass Scarabs?
Scarabs are slower now (Swarms aren't Beasts), and they've lost Stealth. And they can't touch Flyers. On the plus side, no more "No Retreat!" helps them out, too. My painted Necron collection includes a mini-Spyder farm; I'll have to try it out soon.
Swarms have never been Beasts in general, but Scarabs are both. And Swarms are no longer slowed by Difficult terrain.
Scarab farm has gotten even nastier now, thanks to greater ease of cover saves for MCs, and No Retreat being gone. It lost a bit on cover saves for Scarabs, but otherwise has only gained.
SabrX wrote:I look forward to reading the outcome. Shame I couldn't stay to watch till the end.
Off topib, but what's your take on 6th ed and Necron Spyder Wall + mass Scarabs?
Scarabs are slower now (Swarms aren't Beasts), and they've lost Stealth. And they can't touch Flyers. On the plus side, no more "No Retreat!" helps them out, too. My painted Necron collection includes a mini-Spyder farm; I'll have to try it out soon.
They still have Unit Type: Beast so they move 12 in the movement phase and are practically immune to the effects of difficult and dangerous terrain. Random charge of 2d6" rather than a flat 12" sucks, but about breaks even with the other movement boosts they got. The biggest nerf to them was the loss of stealth.
Edit: Mann with the
As I've said before, a 2k+ double FOC Scarab farm list is terrifying to anything not running in flyers...and you can put your troops in Night Scythes to help deal with those.
Swarms have never been Beasts in general, but Scarabs are both. And Swarms are no longer slowed by Difficult terrain.
Scarab farm has gotten even nastier now, thanks to greater ease of cover saves for MCs, and No Retreat being gone. It lost a bit on cover saves for Scarabs, but otherwise has only gained.
Goes to show how much I've actually *used* my scarabs (that was Yakface's part of the team build).
Exalted Pariah wrote:Yeah, but with the new night-fight rules, they can get alot closer before being seen. I am extremely excited for this report.
Jy2- No wraith models yet?
I've got 12 actual wraiths, but I'm having Frontline Gaming paint them for me. They weren't able to finish in time for this battle report, though I should have them for my next one.
Nice! Both to hear about the Wraiths and first turn.
Those random terrain bennies are big.
TIP: On objectives. Since you can always pre-measure your movement, you can choose to move to exactly 3" away from an objective to grab it. This way, if it turns out to be Sabotaged, nothing gets hurt, because the large blast is 2.5" in diameter.
You cannot issue or accept a challenge while on a chariot. Still, the only this I dont like about CC now is something like what happened with hammerhand, it just doesnt fit the cinematics that GW was going for...
Mannahnin wrote:TIP: On objectives. Since you can always pre-measure your movement, you can choose to move to exactly 3" away from an objective to grab it. This way, if it turns out to be Sabotaged, nothing gets hurt, because the large blast is 2.5" in diameter.
It's a good tip. I wasn't too concerned (T6 monsters aren't that likely to get hurt by the explosion), but I did spend the rest of game farther away from that particular objective.
Very good so far. Did you opt to shoot at the Gargoyles outside of cover with the new focus fire rule or did you actually blast through his super saves?
calypso2ts wrote:Very good so far. Did you opt to shoot at the Gargoyles outside of cover with the new focus fire rule or did you actually blast through his super saves?
From the angle in question, the out-of-cover gargoyles were (mostly) closer than the ones in cover.
It's going to take a few more games before moving to optimize who is in cover & closest becomes natural!
Looking forward to the rest of the report. Can't wait to see how it ends (though I did put on the poll that Janthkin would take it by a small margin). A few things to point out:
1. I do believe that when the term "first turn" is used it applies to game turn, thus disallowing any assaults from either player. I know that turn is referenced as a player turn unless otherwise specified but if you regard the night fighting rules it states that the first game turn is night fight on a roll of 4+. Then if you look at the Warlord Trait that automatically makes first turn night fight there is no such reference to game turn. Just my personal opinion on this one and I don't want the thread to become bogged down in a rules dispute, just something I wanted to point out. Perhaps I will put a thread up in YMDC.
2. As someone already said a Character on a Chariot can't do Challenges.
Another thing I think has the potential to be frustrating is the mysterious terrain and I think your bat rep shows it well so far. Mysterious terrain is cinematic as hell, but it sure can change games.
SabrX wrote:I look forward to reading the outcome. Shame I couldn't stay to watch till the end.
Off topib, but what's your take on 6th ed and Necron Spyder Wall + mass Scarabs?
I think the scarab-farm is still a good build. However, I wouldn't go with a maximized, 9-spyders scarab-farm list. I think that unbalances the army as you won't be optimized to handle enemy flyers or terminator and similar builds who will insta-kill your scarabs. Instead, I would run a mini-scarab farm with 1 unit of 3 spyders at most. Then focus the rest of my army around more shooty elements and/or wraiths.
Mannahnin wrote:Nice! Both to hear about the Wraiths and first turn.
Those random terrain bennies are big.
TIP: On objectives. Since you can always pre-measure your movement, you can choose to move to exactly 3" away from an objective to grab it. This way, if it turns out to be Sabotaged, nothing gets hurt, because the large blast is 2.5" in diameter.
Thanks for the tip. I will add it into my battle report.
Exalted Pariah wrote:You cannot issue or accept a challenge while on a chariot. Still, the only this I dont like about CC now is something like what happened with hammerhand, it just doesnt fit the cinematics that GW was going for...
Good to know. I missed that one, though if I had remembered to issue a challenge, I probably would have double-checked the chariot rules also to see how to handle it.
I will change my report.
calypso2ts wrote:Very good so far. Did you opt to shoot at the Gargoyles outside of cover with the new focus fire rule or did you actually blast through his super saves?
Focus-fire? Uh....totally forgot about that. We are still learning the rules so we aren't quite there yet.
Basically, now wound allocation is on a model-to-model basis and his 3 closest models to my annihilation barges were actually out of cover. After those 3, the majority of his gargoyles were with 2+ stealth cover. I'm not sure if any other models were outside the forest for the purposes of focus-fire.
I will also add this tidbit to my battle report. Thanks.
His gargoyles then pile in. The Hammer of Wrath from the chariot's charge then kills 3 gargoyles. This, however, kills all 3 gargoyles in base with my chariot and since at normal initiative there is no one in base contact, the combat is effectively over. Damn! I was hoping to kill more more gargoyles with mindshackles and my regular attacks.
This isn't right. At I10 the gargs die. Then at the Gargoyles' Init, they would make a 3" pile in before swinging. If, with that 3" Pile In, none of them can make base contact, THEN the combat would end. If both sides are attacking at the same Init step, BOTH sides attempt to pile in before you determine whether the combat has ended.
good report so far, and yeah, i'm sure mannahnin is right about the INT steps you took being wrong.
those terrain buffs are Item 00001 on the long list of what makes 6th ED "fluffy edition". going to be frustrating watching you try to kill all those fortune and shrouded-ish buffed nids.
His gargoyles then pile in. The Hammer of Wrath from the chariot's charge then kills 3 gargoyles. This, however, kills all 3 gargoyles in base with my chariot and since at normal initiative there is no one in base contact, the combat is effectively over. Damn! I was hoping to kill more more gargoyles with mindshackles and my regular attacks.
This isn't right. At I10 the gargs die. Then at the Gargoyles' Init, they would make a 3" pile in before swinging. If, with that 3" Pile In, none of them can make base contact, THEN the combat would end. If both sides are attacking at the same Init step, BOTH sides attempt to pile in before you determine whether the combat has ended.
Yeah, we caught that one a little late (as we were double-checking on the "combat ends" effect) - I did my 3" pile-in at the time of the charge, instead of waiting for I4. The outcome was the same (everyone who could reach btb was dead after HoW), but it's going to take a while to adapt to no "defenders react" move.
Lukus83 wrote:Looking forward to the rest of the report. Can't wait to see how it ends (though I did put on the poll that Janthkin would take it by a small margin). A few things to point out:
1. I do believe that when the term "first turn" is used it applies to game turn, thus disallowing any assaults from either player. I know that turn is referenced as a player turn unless otherwise specified but if you regard the night fighting rules it states that the first game turn is night fight on a roll of 4+. Then if you look at the Warlord Trait that automatically makes first turn night fight there is no such reference to game turn. Just my personal opinion on this one and I don't want the thread to become bogged down in a rules dispute, just something I wanted to point out. Perhaps I will put a thread up in YMDC.
No, there are many instances where GW use the phrase "first turn". For example, check out p.122 under First Turn. The rules just don't make sense if first turn is implied as first game turn. As for the Warlord trait, it says you can choose to use the Night-fight rules for the first turn. You then have to refer to the Night-fight section (p.124) to see how it is resolved and it is there where it tells you that NF takes effect during the game turn.
2. As someone already said a Character on a Chariot can't do Challenges.
Another thing I think has the potential to be frustrating is the mysterious terrain and I think your bat rep shows it well so far. Mysterious terrain is cinematic as hell, but it sure can change games.
Looking forward to the rest.
Yeah, I will edit #2. And the Mysterious effects may have a big effect on the game depending on what you roll. I am not too fond of them because they are another element that could potentially take the fate of the game out of your hands through a sheer act of randomness. So for example, you are winning but then on turn 5, one of the objective explodes and take out your scoring unit on it. Through no fault of your own, that just cost you the win. I think random game length is enough. We don't need to throw in more acts of randomness into the game that can completely screw a player out of a win.
His gargoyles then pile in. The Hammer of Wrath from the chariot's charge then kills 3 gargoyles. This, however, kills all 3 gargoyles in base with my chariot and since at normal initiative there is no one in base contact, the combat is effectively over. Damn! I was hoping to kill more more gargoyles with mindshackles and my regular attacks.
This isn't right. At I10 the gargs die. Then at the Gargoyles' Init, they would make a 3" pile in before swinging. If, with that 3" Pile In, none of them can make base contact, THEN the combat would end. If both sides are attacking at the same Init step, BOTH sides attempt to pile in before you determine whether the combat has ended.
Yeah, we caught that one a little late (as we were double-checking on the "combat ends" effect) - I did my 3" pile-in at the time of the charge, instead of waiting for I4. The outcome was the same (everyone who could reach btb was dead after HoW), but it's going to take a while to adapt to no "defenders react" move.
Totally understood; we're all still learning, and you guys are displaying some balls by putting it online. I don't think the outcome wouldn't be the same, though. Fewer models would have been in base contact at I10, thus fewer models would be killed by the HoW attacks, then the next set of Gargs would reach base contact on their Init, swing, and combat would continue.
i think there is some fairly fair (really?) balance in the fact that First Player Turn you can't assault but your opponent can in his first game turn.
You get to shoot first and get your flyers first. They get to assault first and make potential last turn objective grabs. You also get first crack at First Blood and they (in theory) would have an easier go in both scoring Linebreaker as well as denying you of it.
Yeah, some of that is going 1st vs. going 2nd but the balancing act is kinda there to understand between shooting first and assaulting first.
His gargoyles then pile in. The Hammer of Wrath from the chariot's charge then kills 3 gargoyles. This, however, kills all 3 gargoyles in base with my chariot and since at normal initiative there is no one in base contact, the combat is effectively over. Damn! I was hoping to kill more more gargoyles with mindshackles and my regular attacks.
This isn't right. At I10 the gargs die. Then at the Gargoyles' Init, they would make a 3" pile in before swinging. If, with that 3" Pile In, none of them can make base contact, THEN the combat would end. If both sides are attacking at the same Init step, BOTH sides attempt to pile in before you determine whether the combat has ended.
Yeah, what Janthkin said.
We actually made a mistake here, but the end result was correct. He actually piled in his units before I make my I10 Hammer of Wrath attack. We didn't realize this until after the combat.
Had we played it correctly, it would have gone like this: my chariot charges. It kills the closest 3 gargoyles with Hammer of Wrath. Then his gargoyles pile in 3" but still doesn't make it into base contact. Because the chariot is a vehicle, I don't get to pile-in and so the combat is still over.
And the reason why he piled-in before my Hammer attacks was because I forgot about them initially. Lol.
Painnen wrote:good report so far, and yeah, i'm sure mannahnin is right about the INT steps you took being wrong.
those terrain buffs are Item 00001 on the long list of what makes 6th ED "fluffy edition". going to be frustrating watching you try to kill all those fortune and shrouded-ish buffed nids.
I agree that it can add a little flavor to the battles. The reason why we tried them out was because we wanted to see how large of an impact they could have on the game. And in this particular game, the impact that they had was actually quite game-changing.
Mannahnin wrote:Totally understood; we're all still learning, and you guys are displaying some balls by putting it online. I don't think the outcome wouldn't be the same, though. Fewer models would have been in base contact at I10, thus fewer models would be killed by the HoW attacks, then the next set of Gargs would reach base contact on their Init, swing, and combat would continue.
No, there's no "kill zone" effect - the models just die in order of who's closest, and everyone who had range to get to BtB was dead.
Painnen wrote:i think there is some fairly fair (really?) balance in the fact that First Player Turn you can't assault but your opponent can in his first game turn.
You get to shoot first and get your flyers first. They get to assault first and make potential last turn objective grabs. You also get first crack at First Blood and they (in theory) would have an easier go in both scoring Linebreaker as well as denying you of it.
Yeah, some of that is going 1st vs. going 2nd but the balancing act is kinda there to understand between shooting first and assaulting first.
Also, another 2 things to consider.
Say you go second and infiltrate. I then move 6-12" and run towards your infiltrators. Now with just regular moving, you should be able to assault me on your turn. However, if Infiltrate disallowed assault for the game turn as opposed to just a player's turn, then now you wouldn't be able to assault me with your infiltrators whereas your regular guys can? That doesn't really make sense.
Also, in an aerial dogfight between 2 armies with flyers, the one who goes 2nd has a major advantage. You go first and shoot at some of my ground forces. I then come in and shoot down your flyers.
But mainly, I think it's mainly more advantageous to go 2nd due to most missions being objectives-based unless you are playing against a really shooty army. Then you may want to consider going first.
how long did the battle take? i've only built 1k, and 1.5k lists for 6th ED due to them looking like they'll take more time. add allies to that and i think any game 1850 and up will be full of craziness.
that eeks of "balance" as you can expect pretty much anything with that many points and so many allied combinations.
back on point, i just think 1500 is a terrific balancing point to keep most codex' pure. (not that i'm opposed to allies, just that i think combos can be unexpectedly bizarre).
wondering if you felt the same way after the first video I saw you post on your website.
Painnen wrote:how long did the battle take? i've only built 1k, and 1.5k lists for 6th ED due to them looking like they'll take more time. add allies to that and i think any game 1850 and up will be full of craziness.
that eeks of "balance" as you can expect pretty much anything with that many points and so many allied combinations.
back on point, i just think 1500 is a terrific balancing point to keep most codex' pure. (not that i'm opposed to allies, just that i think combos can be unexpectedly bizarre).
wondering if you felt the same way after the first video I saw you post on your website.
It took a little over 4 hours, maybe 4 1/2 hours. It's a little slow at first, but I'm sure we will pick up the pace once we get more familiar with the rules.
With the ally rules, it becomes really hard to prepare for any single army as allies can just throw everything off. But in time, I'm sure we will find out about the power combos out there.
I agree that 1500 is a good balancing point, especially for tournaments. Logistically, it also makes more sense, as a 2K battle will probably take at least 3 hours to complete and time is usually something tournaments are short on.
I never posted any video, unless you are talking about my last battle reports against Reece and Frankie from Frontline Gaming. They were the ones who posted the battle reports online, but those were 5th edition battles.
If you want your wraiths to be more killy you actually want to take the pistols now since wraiths count as having 1 ccw by default now adding the pistol gives you +1 attack for 5 pts.
greenbay924 wrote:Nice read, I can't wait to get back to the Game Kastle in August!
Cool. Always good to see more players here at the Kastle!
Tarrasq wrote:If you want your wraiths to be more killy you actually want to take the pistols now since wraiths count as having 1 ccw by default now adding the pistol gives you +1 attack for 5 pts.
I'm not so sure about this. The wraith profile never states that it has a melee close-combat weapon. Giving it a pistol doesn't mean it now has 2 melee cc weapons. If it did, then all tactical marines squads will have +1A just because they have pistols.
No +1. You only get the non-specific CCW if you have no other close combat weaon (such as a pistol). It's just there as a way of explaining why models with no listed CCW can still attack in CC.
As you said, if you got to add it to the pistol, every tactical marine would now have 2 CCWs and +1A.
Tacticals come with a pistol so they dont get the nonspecific ccw because they have one in their profile (the pistol).
Pg 51 of the BRB says "If a model is not specifically stated as having a weapon with the Melee type, it is treated as being armed with a single close combat weapon."
Pistols have the same profile in CC as the CCW described on pg 51 as well, so in the case of tacticals they do have a weapon with the melee type so they don't get a weapon for having no specified CCW and therefore no +1 bonus.
Whereas a wraith gets the CCW under the non specified rule, and since the particle caster doest replace anything you get to keep the CCW if you buy the pistol.
wow, these nids look strong, I think they've been quite lucky so far though, great read! The italics with notes on the new edition rules are helpful and informative
Yeah the terrain can really sway the battle. It could work for you or against you. I think that it's fun to play with, and really adds something to a good game. So what if it's not always fair. If everything in this game was 100% fair it would be no fun at all.
Oddly enough, I think heavy Wraithwing in 6th Edition may not always be the best way to go. 6th Edition is very "shooty" and with a lack of shooty elements on the board, all Jy had to deal with those charging bugs was Wraiths. And while I think Wraiths are a great unit, when it comes to dealing with Genestealers and other nasty 'Nid lists, they just aren't going to hold enough firepower to stop a wall of nasty, especially not with some terrain rolls going in their favor.
More and more I think that more shooty forces, supported by some counter-attack CC elements might be a better way to run. I think Wraiths still have a strong position in that defensive and counter attack role, but I think running 3 full squads of them might not be the strongest play anymore. Time and time again I am hearing folks running CC units in our local area saying that they are just getting brutalized by shooting armies that are just gunning down CC squads.
Necrons were designed as a shooty army and I think we are now seeing why. For too long in 5th Edition Necron players were forced into using CC elements as primary attack method because it was so strong.
Also Jy, if you guys are playing allies and you have extra points, putting an Astropath w/ an IG Command Squad in your army might be worth it if you have 3+ flyers. Officer of the Fleet will help as well for delaying opponent's reserves.
Dozer Blades wrote:Very helpful batrep to learn the new rules. Thanks.
You're welcome. I try to be as informative as possible in this introduction report, though my future reports probably won't be as detailed.
Zid wrote:Like the format jy, helpful for everyone in this new age, and also helps you remember for next time
Thanks. Just wanted to make my 1st 6th edition report a little different and also to help introduce people to how 6th edition plays.
Exalted Pariah wrote:I think this'll be an example to everyone that alot of mysterious terrain can complelty change the outcome of a game....
To be honest, most of the effects of mysterious terrain isn't too bad. They are actually kind of situational depending on the power and the army. In this case, Janthkin's army totally maximizes the effects of the mysterious terrain since 1) most of his units can really use the improved cover and 2) re-rollable armor saves makes a huge difference against an opponent with little to no power weapons. Also, his flyrant was the perfect unit to take advantage of the terrain as he could just leap from pool to pool.
But yeah, I think the game would have been a lot closer and also a lot harder for my opponent had we not played those terrain as mysterious.
Necronboy wrote:Yeah the terrain can really sway the battle. It could work for you or against you. I think that it's fun to play with, and really adds something to a good game. So what if it's not always fair. If everything in this game was 100% fair it would be no fun at all.
I agree that it can be fun sometimes to add a little variety to gameplay. I don't mind if the advantages or disadvantages it creates were relatively minor. However, it's when the powers give a big advantage to one side where I take issues with. That just unbalances the game. Those 2 powers were just huge. Imagine if one was to bring a terminator army with re-rollable 2+ armor or an assault-based army take advantage of 3+ cover against a shooty army. Those powers there can completely win you the game.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
drakkenj wrote:Oddly enough, I think heavy Wraithwing in 6th Edition may not always be the best way to go. 6th Edition is very "shooty" and with a lack of shooty elements on the board, all Jy had to deal with those charging bugs was Wraiths. And while I think Wraiths are a great unit, when it comes to dealing with Genestealers and other nasty 'Nid lists, they just aren't going to hold enough firepower to stop a wall of nasty, especially not with some terrain rolls going in their favor.
More and more I think that more shooty forces, supported by some counter-attack CC elements might be a better way to run. I think Wraiths still have a strong position in that defensive and counter attack role, but I think running 3 full squads of them might not be the strongest play anymore. Time and time again I am hearing folks running CC units in our local area saying that they are just getting brutalized by shooting armies that are just gunning down CC squads.
Necrons were designed as a shooty army and I think we are now seeing why. For too long in 5th Edition Necron players were forced into using CC elements as primary attack method because it was so strong.
Also Jy, if you guys are playing allies and you have extra points, putting an Astropath w/ an IG Command Squad in your army might be worth it if you have 3+ flyers. Officer of the Fleet will help as well for delaying opponent's reserves.
The 6E meta has definitely changed. I myself will probably move away from my 15-18-wraith build to probably 12 wraiths at most (or maybe even less). It's true that shooting is a very important aspect of 6E. However, don't discount assault. The majority of the armies out there will still be ground-and-pound armies. It is here where assault will still thrive now that you can more reliably kill tanks with assault. The key for them, though, is resiliency. Assault-based armies that will do well are ones that can survive a lot of shooting. Of course it doesn't hurt when you have Ironbark forests all over the place.
Yeah, you will probably see more shooting in my armies. And I agree that in many armies, assault will probably be relegated to more counter-assault roles. I do, however, think that certain assault-based armies with some shooting for support can still do well (armies such as orks, tyranids and even daemons). The reason is that these armies can really control the board. In the predominantly objectives-based 6E, that is an inherent advantage they will always have. Bringing a flyer army? Good luck trying to capture an objective with 30 ork boyz or termagants on it, not to mention that you need to disembark your troops in order to capture it. Daemons are an exception as they can run a very good flying monstrous creature build (and with Fateweaver there, good luck trying to shoot them down).
About the crons, I too was somewhat puzzled as to how a shooty necron build can be really competitive in 5th. Now I see why in 6E. Yes, you will definitely see people returning to their roots with shooty necrons in 6th.
I don't think I will ally any IG advisors into my army because as Allies of Desperation, they can are never a scoring or a denial unit. Thus, you'll just end up paying probably 200+ pts for the reserves bonus.
Great report jy2! Very well designed and easily followed. Glad to see the inclusion of so many unique terrain features. I can see your point on them being game tipping in balance but I feel this was an extreme example ha ha. normally I would personally only treat a limited amount of terrain (1 maybe 2) features and make certain they are in neutral territory at game start. Fliers performed well, but much as I suspected foot armies need only to ignore them as they won't impact them nearly as much. I know this won't always be the case but with bugs or demons I feel like they should be less of a priority.
As for the game, it was a good display of the mechanics, most errors really would not have had a large impact aside from the re-embarking of the immortals. I feel that is really the only flaw the night scythe has and in this case I think had the immortals been left on the board it would have really reshaped last turn. You probably would have distanced yourself from assault but still fire on the stealers and the NS probably would have contributed but I am not sure you would have captured an objective with them. Not sure it would be very hard to pull out the win though IMO so for me that was the biggest error in regards to games result, but by no means would I consider it a huge rules mistake, for m the hive tyrant changing its facing on the spot was a bigger mistake. Either way edition change, rules practice, game results are largely unimportant. Learning is more the victory condition
Oh and in regards to the hive tyrant, he can still shoot 360 regardless of swooping so his front facing mattered more in regards of his future swooping movement. I was curious why he didn't try vectored strikes ever also btw, I was hoping he would target a NS maybe.
I don't think I will ally any IG advisors into my army because as Allies of Desperation, they can are never a scoring or a denial unit. Thus, you'll just end up paying probably 200+ pts for the reserves bonus.
Edited: I am more sure now that this wouldn't even work because of the Allies of Desperation. So yeah, nix that whole idea. Basically you have to be Battle Brothers to get any kind of "armywide" benefits like this across forces.
I don't think I will ally any IG advisors into my army because as Allies of Desperation, they can are never a scoring or a denial unit. Thus, you'll just end up paying probably 200+ pts for the reserves bonus.
Not to mention with you being considered an "enemy unit" to your allies, I doubt that you would be able to utilize the reserve bonus in the first place.
I don't think I will ally any IG advisors into my army because as Allies of Desperation, they can are never a scoring or a denial unit. Thus, you'll just end up paying probably 200+ pts for the reserves bonus.
Not to mention with you being considered an "enemy unit" to your allies, I doubt that you would be able to utilize the reserve bonus in the first place.
Edit: Checked and you are right. It is battle brothers only! Damn new editions.
Nice reading as alwais JY2, many complimets to both of you for this first approach to the new rules. Solid and pro as in all yours br, even with the little mistakes that are usual with new rules.
I have a question for both of you:
does the back-to-shooting mood of the game will push yours 2 army vs:
- Destroyer Lords, for some preferred enemy shaenanigans instead of the pricy Overlords on CCB? especially now that chariots aren't so interesting? D Lords, even if less resilient without phase shifter, may be more effective in collaboration with the rest of the army.
- Does Ymgarls still deserve their place? Does instead a third unit of Hive Guards cuold better compliments the needs regarding high ST shooting? Or even, does eventually some cheap unit of Biovovres? Even the Tyrannofex sound a little pricy if we consider how a Trygon could be better with the bonuses on reserves rolls.
Both of questions especially in 1500-1750 pts level? basically for the theoretical new tournaments medium level?
a little extra question for Kevin, I do liked how the Parasite had generated extra wounds on the table but do you think it's a very reliable investment? Especially as a Warlord?
Just wanted to point out, you dont have to hop out of a CCB to charge anymore, its a chariot so you can charge while still embarked. So sweep over the top then turn around and charge. The chariot gives you d6 S 6 Hammer of Wrath hits then they fight you then you come back with S7 AP1 hits toward anything in base contact with the barge.
Great report yet again jy2 I think you made a really minor mistake (not even anything to do with rules ) around turn by saying Scarabs rather than Rippers which confused me for a second, but other than that its really brilliant!
I completely understand why you decided to treat all the ponds/rivers and forests the same way but it did give Janthkin a really considerable advantage, knowing for certain that he could move freely between all the mysterious terrain with no risk whatsoever is massive. Even if my bizarre luck you did roll the same effect for every area, not knowing what could happen would probably have changed his approach
Thanks for writing all that up, Jim. (One comment, though - Mr. Flyrant didn't Swoop on turn 5, electing merely to Glide (which allowed him to flap over to the objective).) SabrX & I got in a game yesterday; I'll start on that battle report this evening.
Toban wrote:- Destroyer Lords, for some preferred enemy shaenanigans instead of the pricy Overlords on CCB? especially now that chariots aren't so interesting? D Lords, even if less resilient without phase shifter, may be more effective in collaboration with the rest of the army.
I have neither the experience w/my Necrons nor Jim's love for all things CCB, but I'd prefer the Destroyer Lord. I'm tempted, actually, to add him to a unit in a Night Scythe - fly in fast, disembark with a bunch of Immortals, and wander off the next turn to do scary things.
- Does Ymgarls still deserve their place? Does instead a third unit of Hive Guards cuold better compliments the needs regarding high ST shooting? Or even, does eventually some cheap unit of Biovovres? Even the Tyrannofex sound a little pricy if we consider how a Trygon could be better with the bonuses on reserves rolls.
Ymgarls are slightly better than they were, in absolute terms (Reserves arrive earlier than in 5e), and comparatively are fantastic - they're one of the (IIRC) two units in the game that can still Assault out of Reserves (along w/Vanguard Vets). And given the new emphasis on shooting, something popping up in your opponent's backfield to break up the gunlines could be very welcome, particularly as it is easier to hit vehicles in CC now. The opportunity cost is still painful, in that you lose the option of filling that Elites slot with more Hive Guard.
What I did wrong w/the T-Fex was a) charging the chariot (forgot that the character was going to Mind-Shackle Mr. Big Bug before I could swat down the vehicle); and b) not keeping him near the Flyrant for Preferred Enemy boosts to his shooting.
Both of questions especially in 1500-1750 pts level? basically for the theoretical new tournaments medium level?
TBD. Ymgarl do cost more than Hive Guard, but I suspect I'll keep them.
a little extra question for Kevin, I do liked how the Parasite had generated extra wounds on the table but do you think it's a very reliable investment? Especially as a Warlord?
That was my first experiment with the Parasite (should be obvious, given his not-painted state). I'll play around some more, but I suspect he'll be the first thing dropped to make a lower-point list. He's nice, but not essential. If I paint another 20 Gargoyles, he might return, or if psychic powers become more prevalent.
Tell you what. I actually dropped some Destroyers/H Destroyers into my list. Man, with the Triarch Stalkers, they are nasty and do a ton of damage now with the Preferred Enemy. Twin-Linked, BS 4, re-rolling 1s means you miss only on a 2. Roll that 2? You have to roll it again. So awesome.
drakkenj wrote:Tell you what. I actually dropped some Destroyers/H Destroyers into my list. Man, with the Triarch Stalkers, they are nasty and do a ton of damage now with the Preferred Enemy. Twin-Linked, BS 4, re-rolling 1s means you miss only on a 2. Roll that 2? You have to roll it again. So awesome.
Tarrasq wrote:Tacticals come with a pistol so they dont get the nonspecific ccw because they have one in their profile (the pistol).
Pg 51 of the BRB says "If a model is not specifically stated as having a weapon with the Melee type, it is treated as being armed with a single close combat weapon."
Pistols have the same profile in CC as the CCW described on pg 51 as well, so in the case of tacticals they do have a weapon with the melee type so they don't get a weapon for having no specified CCW and therefore no +1 bonus.
Whereas a wraith gets the CCW under the non specified rule, and since the particle caster doest replace anything you get to keep the CCW if you buy the pistol.
Red Corsair wrote:Great report jy2! Very well designed and easily followed. Glad to see the inclusion of so many unique terrain features. I can see your point on them being game tipping in balance but I feel this was an extreme example ha ha. normally I would personally only treat a limited amount of terrain (1 maybe 2) features and make certain they are in neutral territory at game start. Fliers performed well, but much as I suspected foot armies need only to ignore them as they won't impact them nearly as much. I know this won't always be the case but with bugs or demons I feel like they should be less of a priority.
As for the game, it was a good display of the mechanics, most errors really would not have had a large impact aside from the re-embarking of the immortals. I feel that is really the only flaw the night scythe has and in this case I think had the immortals been left on the board it would have really reshaped last turn. You probably would have distanced yourself from assault but still fire on the stealers and the NS probably would have contributed but I am not sure you would have captured an objective with them. Not sure it would be very hard to pull out the win though IMO so for me that was the biggest error in regards to games result, but by no means would I consider it a huge rules mistake, for m the hive tyrant changing its facing on the spot was a bigger mistake. Either way edition change, rules practice, game results are largely unimportant. Learning is more the victory condition
Oh and in regards to the hive tyrant, he can still shoot 360 regardless of swooping so his front facing mattered more in regards of his future swooping movement. I was curious why he didn't try vectored strikes ever also btw, I was hoping he would target a NS maybe.
Again great read! Thanks much!
You're welcome. Though it took a while to write up, I did have fun writing this report almost as much as playing it.
Yeah, the necrons not being able to re-embark could have made a difference in the game, but IMO it wouldn't have been as bad as most would think. The reason was that I had a veil-tek with them, meaning I could still move them almost anywhere on the board if I needed to. The only risk would have been a mishap onto an enemy unit had I teleported them too close to the objective.
As for the hive tyrant being able to shoot 360, yeah I was aware of that. The only impact would have been a more restrictive movement for him had we played it correctly.
And he didn't vector strike the scythes because there wasn't any in range for him to do so. Even had he moved 24", he wouldn't have been able to move over them as his flyrant was out of position and I had flanked my flyers.
Toban wrote:Nice reading as alwais JY2, many complimets to both of you for this first approach to the new rules. Solid and pro as in all yours br, even with the little mistakes that are usual with new rules.
I have a question for both of you:
does the back-to-shooting mood of the game will push yours 2 army vs:
- Destroyer Lords, for some preferred enemy shaenanigans instead of the pricy Overlords on CCB? especially now that chariots aren't so interesting? D Lords, even if less resilient without phase shifter, may be more effective in collaboration with the rest of the army.
- Does Ymgarls still deserve their place? Does instead a third unit of Hive Guards cuold better compliments the needs regarding high ST shooting? Or even, does eventually some cheap unit of Biovovres? Even the Tyrannofex sound a little pricy if we consider how a Trygon could be better with the bonuses on reserves rolls.
Both of questions especially in 1500-1750 pts level? basically for the theoretical new tournaments medium level?
a little extra question for Kevin, I do liked how the Parasite had generated extra wounds on the table but do you think it's a very reliable investment? Especially as a Warlord?
I will probably give the Dlord another go again. I think the main advantage of my Barge lord, besides the resiliency due to the 3++, is that he can hurt flyers with his sweep attack. The Dlord has no way of hurting a flyer that isn't hovering. Also, Dlords mainly buff up wraiths or destroyers. But if your focus shooting-wise are tesla-destructors, then he doesn't really add too much to the army besides making the wraiths more deadly in combat.
I think Ymgarls still have a place in this game. They are quite a good unit. Their only drawback is that they can't really do anything to flyers. Frankly, I'm more of a Hive Guard person myself and normally run 8-9 hive guards in my standard 5E 2K list.
Biovores are awesome. You'll see soon enough how barrages can bypass stupid wound allocation on some units. In my older 5E list, I actually ran 6 biovores to drop pie plates on guys disembarking from transports that the hive guards cracked open.
Dragoon65 wrote:Just wanted to point out, you dont have to hop out of a CCB to charge anymore, its a chariot so you can charge while still embarked. So sweep over the top then turn around and charge. The chariot gives you d6 S 6 Hammer of Wrath hits then they fight you then you come back with S7 AP1 hits toward anything in base contact with the barge.
Yeah, I know. The reason why I got out of the transport was:
1. I wanted to hit multiple units. Wraiths on t-fex. Lord on hive guards and command barge on gargoyles. With just 1W left on the t-fex, I felt confident that that wraiths would be able to finish him off despite his 2+. And my lord would tie up his hive guards and prevent them from shooting at my tanks next turn. If my lord charged the t-fex, I would have killed it, but then the wraiths would most likely be unable to reach the hive guards and I definitely didn't want to assault the gargoyle swarm with them, at least not until I've weakened the gargoyles substantially.
2. If I had swept a unit, then I would have had to move at cruising speed to be able to go over them. If I did that, then I wouldn't have been able to disembark my lord.
3. I was concerned about his gargoyles surrounding my barge and then his tyrant wrecking it. That would have meant that my lord would be dead as he wouldn't be able to disembark.
Reecius wrote:Great report, Jim and Kevin! Good to see you guys working through the rules, it helps to bring us all up to speed.
Thanks! Yeah, it's going to take more games like this before we get up to speed, and even then we'll probably make mistakes until some of the grey areas get FAQ'd.
We should get a game going next time I go to pick up my wraiths. I think Frankie wants revenge for the way I disrespected his DE last time.
Gorechild wrote:Great report yet again jy2 I think you made a really minor mistake (not even anything to do with rules ) around turn by saying Scarabs rather than Rippers which confused me for a second, but other than that its really brilliant!
I completely understand why you decided to treat all the ponds/rivers and forests the same way but it did give Janthkin a really considerable advantage, knowing for certain that he could move freely between all the mysterious terrain with no risk whatsoever is massive. Even if my bizarre luck you did roll the same effect for every area, not knowing what could happen would probably have changed his approach
Really? Ok, I'm go back and fix it. I'm so used to the term "scarabs" while no one hardly ever uses the term "ripper swarms". Lol.
With 4 forests, 4 pools and 4 objectives, it's going to get overly complicated trying to remember what each of the 12 mysterious objects do. Thus, we just simplified it by grouping the forests together and the pools together. Kevin's army, with Move Through Cover, was really able to take advantage of these buffs. It was just a case of the right power for the right army in the right position at the right time. And it definitely altered both of our strategies.
Hahaha, yeah, he does want revenge, but then, you may want some for the last time my Nids beat your Wraiths up and took their lunch money! haha. That was the only time I beat you though!
But yeah, we're all going to be making mistakes until 7th comes out, it doesn't bother me.
Yeah, vehicle not being able to contest objectives is a huge blue to mech armies. Transports are nothing more than mobile terrain pieces with guns and occasional tank shock. Infantry inside can't contest or control objectives, so it's much more difficult for last minute contests.
Re-rollable saves from mysterious terrain can be a game changer.
Without no retreat from 5th ed, fearless hordes are annoying Tarpits. It's even better for Nids because Tervigon can cast FNP on them, making them more resilient to power weapons or low ap shooting.
One of these days, I'd like to see hordes of Nids go up against Scarab Farm. Two fearless units duking it out.
Thanks for the great battle report. I really enjoyed all of the detail you put into it. It was a fun read that would be on par with many video reports I've seen. And also, kudos to you guys for putting yourselves out here when you're still learning. Plenty of chances for silly mistakes, so it's great to see you did a full fledged write up. Also great to see what lessons you both learned in the notes
Don't know if it's been brought up, but you didn't tally the victory points for heavy support units.
Janthkin wrote:Thanks for writing all that up, Jim. (One comment, though - Mr. Flyrant didn't Swoop on turn 5, electing merely to Glide (which allowed him to flap over to the objective).) SabrX & I got in a game yesterday; I'll start on that battle report this evening.
Ok. My bad then. I've changed it.
Yeah, SabrX kind of mentioned your game and but he didn't devulge too much information other than the fact that flyers....wow (in his words).
I've got a game set up with him also. Think flying monsters versus flying saucers. I think it's going to be an interesting game.
Mannahnin wrote:Really nice. Thanks very much.
You're welcome!
drakkenj wrote:Tell you what. I actually dropped some Destroyers/H Destroyers into my list. Man, with the Triarch Stalkers, they are nasty and do a ton of damage now with the Preferred Enemy. Twin-Linked, BS 4, re-rolling 1s means you miss only on a 2. Roll that 2? You have to roll it again. So awesome.
Sigvatr wrote:No re-rolling rerolls.
Right. With Preferred Enemy, the buff that the destroyers are getting from the Triarch Stalkers are minimized since the effects of PE and twin-link do not stack.
But while destroyers got buffed up, I question their survivabiltiy to missiles, lascannons, etc. now that their cover save would only be 5+ standard (not counting any Ironbark forests that they hide in) ).
Thanks guys for the great battle report!
Jim... why did you choose to disembark your lords? The only reason I can see it to get them tied-up in combat so they can't be shot, but shooting goes against the vehicle.
It's a good reminder though that the CCBarge can still Hammer of Wrath when riderless!
Hahaha, yeah, he does want revenge, but then, you may want some for the last time my Nids beat your Wraiths up and took their lunch money! haha. That was the only time I beat you though!
But yeah, we're all going to be making mistakes until 7th comes out, it doesn't bother me.
Let's get that game in for sure!
Ouch! I hope I've grown older and wiser the next time we meet. And next time, I'm bringing my own lunch.
Actually, I think mistakes in this case is actually good. It helps to educate the public on how to play the game and also what some of the grey areas are. So I encourage you to make more mistakes in our games.
SabrX wrote:Congrats on the victory jy2!
Yeah, vehicle not being able to contest objectives is a huge blue to mech armies. Transports are nothing more than mobile terrain pieces with guns and occasional tank shock. Infantry inside can't contest or control objectives, so it's much more difficult for last minute contests.
Re-rollable saves from mysterious terrain can be a game changer.
Without no retreat from 5th ed, fearless hordes are annoying Tarpits. It's even better for Nids because Tervigon can cast FNP on them, making them more resilient to power weapons or low ap shooting.
One of these days, I'd like to see hordes of Nids go up against Scarab Farm. Two fearless units duking it out.
Thanks for sharing!
My pleasure!
Yeah, the entire 6E was meant to nerf mech armies (with the exception of flyers). I think GW wanted to return to the basics of the game, which is foot soldiers vs foot soldiers instead of bumper cars. Because in any real war, infantry still plays a vital role. Because of this, you will see a resurgence of the horde army and in particular, the xenos armies.
Horde nids vs scarab-farm will be an interesting battle. Though I think the winner will be the dakkarant and his TL-devourers. Now that they no longer have stealth and cover is only 5+, a lot of scarabs are going to die from those devourers which may just give tyranids a slight advantage. Of course, this is not taking into consideration what other units are in the necron army.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Son 0f Dorn wrote:Thanks for the great battle report. I really enjoyed all of the detail you put into it. It was a fun read that would be on par with many video reports I've seen. And also, kudos to you guys for putting yourselves out here when you're still learning. Plenty of chances for silly mistakes, so it's great to see you did a full fledged write up. Also great to see what lessons you both learned in the notes
Don't know if it's been brought up, but you didn't tally the victory points for heavy support units.
Oops! No, we didn't count the VP for the Heavies. I was not aware (that's what I get for skimming parts of the book) and I don't believe Janthkin was aware either. Otherwise, he'd probably go after my annihilation barges until they were dead.
Thanks for pointing it out. I will go back and fix that in the report.
My "lessons learned" will be coming out in my Post-game a little later today.
CaptKaruthors wrote:Janthkin should try experimenting with the Biomancy powers from the rule book with his tyranids. It really buffs FMCs and Tervigons.
I think we will get to that in due time. This first game was just to get a feel for the game. As we get a little more experience, I'm sure we are going to use a lot more of the new stuff (i.e. psychic powers) from the book.
Anpu-adom wrote:Thanks guys for the great battle report!
Jim... why did you choose to disembark your lords? The only reason I can see it to get them tied-up in combat so they can't be shot, but shooting goes against the vehicle.
It's a good reminder though that the CCBarge can still Hammer of Wrath when riderless!
For the following reasons:
1) To be able to charge multiple targets and to hit the units I wanted. If I stayed on the barge, I could only hit 2 units. When I disembark, I can now hit 3 units because the barge can charge a separate unit.
2) You have to be very careful when playing against swarm armies. Had I stayed in the barge, this is probably what would have happened. Gargoyles surround the barge. Flyrant then assaults it and very likely wrecks it. Lord has no where to disembark and so he dies.
I agree, mistakes we make in these formats help to educate everyone, which is awesome. So many things have very subtly changed that is takes a close eye to detail to see some of it.
After reading all the comments and all the post game analisys-update-update again and again it really pop out how a new ed. can fastly confuse even the finest players. Imagine an occasional, I'm more a modelling hobbist, like my self.
Again thank for the very useful battle reports, extremely funny to read non the less.
Continue this way guys.
I'm looking for your first new-ed GK battle report jy2, I'm curious to see how you'll try to adapt your purifiers (paladins will require some changes but anything huge I think).
Necrons: I'm going to split this up into 2 sections. The first part will be my analysis of the game. The 2nd would be an evaluation of 6th Edition so far.
Analysis of the Game - How Necrons Were Able to Pull Off the Win. The outcome of this game was totally unexpected for me. Yes, I did expect to win the game. I also expected to possibly dominate Kevin's army. What I didn't expect was to be dominated by his army....and then to be able to still win the game! There was a couple of factors that should have led to my downfall:
1) The Mysterious terrains. Their impact on the game was huge. Originally, I was planning on killing off his flyrant and genestealers first. You know, eliminate the biggest threats and then it would be an easy game, right? Wrong. Now with re-rollable armor saves and the fact that they were both supporting each other - daring my wraiths to charge them - it would be just too inefficient to try to kill them off, especially with a portion of my army in reserves. Thus, I had to scratch that plan.
Then I was thinking about shooting down his support units (gargoyles) and his ability to hurt my transports (the hive guards), Hello, 3+ (2+ with Night-fight) Ironbark cover! Now I couldn't even do that! Thus, I had to change my strategy yet again.
Basically the only way to kill his units (his gargoyles) was to combo-assault them with my command barge and wraiths. And then both wraiths fail their charges....
2) Inexperience with the rules. Had I been better versed in the rules, I wouldn't have made some of the mistakes that I made. While most of my rules gaffes were minor, 2 were major mistakes.
- Had I been more aware of how models were removed, I would have went after his termagants a little differently. I would have shot at the ones out of cover first to get them away from the objective cover-buff (Mysterious objective which provided +1 to the unit's cover save).
- I should have taken advantage of Focus-fire had I remembered about it.
- This one was a "cheat" mistake because we were not aware of it at the time, but I shouldn't have been able to embark onto the night scythe with my Immortals. How that would have affected the game, it's hard to say. With a veil-tek (Cryptek with Veil of Darkness), I could have still moved my immortals almost anywhere via teleportation.
- This rules gaffe was made by both me and my opponent and it ended up hurting my opponent more than it did me. We both failed to realize that Heavy Support choices were worth Victory Points in this mission. Fortunately, killing his tyrannofex was part of my "new" strategy and I was helped to it by my opponent forgetting about Mindshackles on my Overlord. On the other had, had my opponent know, he probably could have gotten 2 easy VP's by going after my annihilation barges.
- Finally, the huge mistake that I made was in thinking that I could deny objectives with my flyers! This could have been disastrous for me, and if Kevin hadn't said anything, I would have probably looked like the biggest fool on dakka. Lol. Just for this, I should have lost.
Now despite the beating I was taking and all the mistakes I made, I was carefully laying out the groundwork for a possible comeback win or draw. From my own experiences as a tyranid player, I knew that mobility was a weakness of theirs. Other than the flyrant, ymgarls, the gargoyles and outflanking stealers, my opponent didn't really have much mobility. And because he deployed his genestealers already, I knew exactly where they were and could use that to my advantage. Thus, a new strategy formulated in my head.
1. Go after his mobile units. His genestealers supported by his tyrant was just too dangerous. If I could get off the charge against them with multiple wraith units, I could probably win. However, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do so, so I had to find another way to deal with them (see below). As for his ymgarls, I knew they were going to come after me and that there's nothing I can really do about that, so no use worrying about them. Now the flyrant, I had to make a tough decision regarding him. I felt that it would take just too much firepower to shooting down a swooping flyrant with re-rollable saves and thus, I just decided to ignore him as well. So the only unit left that I wanted to go after....that I could go after....were his gargoyles.
2. Dealing with his deathstar - the genestealers. Now I know that if I didn't get the charge off against them, I wouldn't be able to beat them. I also knew that I wouldn't be able to get the charge off them, at least not on the 1st turn and probably not before they charged me. Also, his stealers were getting re-rollable armor saves as well as FNP. So instead of fighting them, I decided to throw them a "distraction" unit - my Overlord. I moved him as far away from the action as possible in order to draw his stealers away. I knew he would go after my lord because if he hadn't, I would have went after his tervigon next turn. Thus, I essentially took them (his stealers) out of the fight and out of position, though it would cost me my Overlord.
3. Take out his ability to hurt my flyers. Basically, he only had 4 units that could damage them - flyrant, 2 hive guards and the t-fex. The flyrant was just too tough to take out being hit on 6's and with re-rollable saves so I had to ignore him. Janthkin helped me out a little by sending his t-fex after my Warlord. After that, I knew my wraiths could finish him off so I sent my lords after his hive guards. And while I didn't kill his hive guards, I did manage to prevent them from shooting for most of the game. And although the far-right hive guards could shoot after the stealers "rescued" them, they didn't have many targets as they were way out of position.
4. Utilize my main advantage - my mobility. Even though my initial plan of contesting the objectives was flawed, what saved me was the ridiculous mobility of my flyers. Sure I couldn't contest, but I could still make it to the objectives. Now it just became a matter of trying to dislodge at least 1 of his scoring units off of an objective....and then pray that the game would end.
Thoughts on 6th Edition. So far, I like the new rules. It will take some getting used to, but I think that is normal for any new major rules changes. You just need to spend the time to "re-learn" the rules. Now keep in mind that the following opinions are just mainly my personal beliefs and preferences. Don't take them as absolute truths and please don't take offense if my opinions are different from your own.
Some of the things I like about the new rules are:
- The de-emphasis on mech. Mech was much too dominant in 5th to the point that it discouraged foot lists and variety. Well, now that mech is no longer king, I'm hoping to see more players try out a wider variety of different builds. Not only that, but I'm hoping to see people try out different armies that don't really rely on mech - armies such as tyranids, daemons and other foot-infantry builds. Hopefully people can get a glimpse of their potential in this game. Here we have tyranids, who many actually thought got worse in 6th, not only be able to compete, but to be able to dominate one of the more powerful armies in the new edition - necrons.
- Flyers. Flyers are awesome! Both vehicle flyers and flying monstrous creatures. They are strong....maybe even a little too strong against some armies....but they bring an element to the game that just opens up the game, both in terms of variety and in tactical challenges. They are a breath of fresh air. However, on the downside, you are going to see more and more armies migrate towards more flyer-based armies because they are a little too good. Also on the negative side, the meta has just shifted from mech to flyers.
- Mission objectives. I like the fact that there are more missions now. I also like the fact that there is more than 1 way to win that mission with Primary objectives and Secondary objectives. And the fact that so many missions are objectives-based will hopefully force people to build more balanced armies that can not only shoot or assault, but takes into consideration mobility as well.
- Removing the closest models. I actually like this. It adds a whole new dimension of tactical play to the game. Now it does matter how you move and position your models. Sure it's more complicated and sure, it slows down the game, but over time, once people get used to the concept, I think it will be almost second-nature. While some may disagree, I think that if the game forces you to use your brains (and hopefully, doesn't confuse you too much), then I think that is a good thing, especially for players who want to improve their game.
But we were fortunate that we were only playing with simple, homogenous units. Once we start getting into more complicated, mixed-save, mixed units with characters, then that may become a different story. We shall see when we cross that bridge.
- Chariots are fun! There's nothing quite like running over the enemy. Unfortunately for everyone else, the crons are the only ones to have chariots at this time.
- Overwatch and Snapshot mode. I actually like these new rules, even though they basically benefit shooty armies only. The only thing is that I think they should give assaulting units a slight buff to offset Overwatch because as it is right now, there is no downside to firing in overwatch mode. What's more, overwatch may even actually prevent a unit from charging if they lose the closest model to overwatch fire.
Now some of the 6E changes that I'm not too particularly fond of:
- Random charge range - I am not a big fan of the random charge. Whereas before, charging was guaranteed as long as you were within range. Now charging is anything but guaranteed. 1 failed charge could potentially lose you the game. Personally, I am not a big fan of randomness because the more randomness you have in the game, the more you take the outcome of the game out of your hands and into fate. It's enough that you have to roll to hit, damage, saves, morale and random game length but now you have to roll to see if you can make the charge as well? I guess there is the element of risk to making the charge, but personally I would prefer the risk to be in your strategy rather than on pure dice.
- Fearless. The absence of No Retreat have made Fearless armies very good now. Almost maybe too good. I prefer it when there was a more substantial drawback to such a powerful special rule. I shouldn't really complain because this rule has just made my necrons, daemons and tyranids that much better....but I will because I think it unbalances the game somewhat. But I must admit, it's still early. Maybe the improvement to ATSKNF will balance out with the new Fearless rule. I just feel sorry for those armies that are neither fearless nor have ATSKNF.
- Mysterious terrain. I don't mind if the effects they have are relatively minor, but in this case, some of their effects can be rather game-changing. It's ok to include the Mysterious terrain but I think they should have toned this down a little.
- Flyers. These units are a double-edged sword. It's fun to run them (including flying monstrous creatures) when your army has access to them. It sucks to play against them when your army doesn't and you can't reliably take them down. There is an inherent unbalance to flyers that will make some games more of a rock-paper-scissors matchup and that, in my opinion, is not a good thing. That's just something you have to be aware of when playing your army....that some armies will have trouble dealing with flyers just because they don't have the tools in their codices to do so.
Well, THAT was interesting. The entirety of my game plan essentially went out the window when we rolled up the random terrain, which was definitely a mistake on my part - I got too conservative at that point, and it led to some tactical mistakes. Not to mention the mistakes inspired by the new rules.
Here's what went wrong, in some semblance of order: 1) Misuse of the T-fex: This one was a rules mistake - at the time, I just completely forgot that he would be affected by the MSS of the Overlord on the CCB; I was too excited about charging a vehicle with him & hitting it really hard. In retrospect, this alone might have cost me the game - it would have been easy to screen him off behind termagants, and protect him. On a lesser note, I should have paired him more closely with the Tyrant; I'm not used to Preferred Enemy having an effect on shooting. 2) Misuse of the Hive Guard: While getting one or the other assaulted off the CCB was likely inevitable, there was no reason to allow it to happen to both units as early as it did. I was overly-dependent on the 3+ cover, and forgot the basic bubble-wrap philosophy that has worked for Tyranids so well since 3e. They were my best chance of dealing with the Flyers, after all. 3) Misuse of the Flyrant: Frankly, I'm just not sure what to do with him yet. Vector Strike is the best-available answer to Flyers...if you're in the right position to make use of it; and it's not really a "good" answer, either. Definitely some more practice required! 4) End-game Genestealer positioning: Not a lot that I could have changed here, but a note: in 5e, I could have arranged those 'stealers so that even the ones up front had 4+ cover saves. The "closest models die first" rule is going to take a lot of getting used to.
And in spite of misusing such a large portion of my army, I'm fairly sure I would have won had the game gone to turn 6. So, what went right: 1) Gargoyles! These are the champs - they soaked a lot of enemy attention, and still killed 2 units of Wraiths off. I'm not certain about the Parasite yet (yes, he made a lot of extra wounds, but those wounds didn't really accomplish anything), but Gargoyles are still a fantastic bargain for 8 pts/model, and a good answer to the random threat ranges of 6e. 2) Termagants: The end of "no retreat" takes these little guys over the top. They were already my preferred answer to 2+/3+ units like the Overlord or TH/SS termies in 5e; getting rid of "No Retreat" means that not only will they tarpit forever, they also have a better chance to eventually win. I may have to paint up some more - in some cases, they can take over some of the heavy lifting from Genestealers.
If I could stomach the idea of painting another 60 'gaunt bodies, I'd want to try out a Hormagaunt list. I think the removal of "No Retreat" was exactly what all Swarm-based Tyranid armies needed to really excel. They're also a good answer to Flyers - that many bodies can simply screen off objectives completely, and most Flyers don't have the firepower to dislodge them.
jy2 wrote:
Now some of the 6E changes that I'm not too particularly fond of:
- Random charge range - I am not a big fan of the random charge. Whereas before, charging was guaranteed as long as you were within range. Now charging is anything but guaranteed. 1 failed charge could potentially lose you the game. Personally, I am not a big fan of randomness because the more randomness you have in the game, the more you take the outcome of the game out of your hands and into fate. It's enough that you have to roll to hit, damage, saves, morale and random game length but now you have to roll to see if you can make the charge as well? I guess there is the element of risk to making the charge, but personally I would prefer the risk to be in your strategy rather than on pure dice.
jy2 wrote: Now some of the 6E changes that I'm not too particularly fond of:
- Random charge range - I am not a big fan of the random charge. Whereas before, charging was guaranteed as long as you were within range. Now charging is anything but guaranteed. 1 failed charge could potentially lose you the game. Personally, I am not a big fan of randomness because the more randomness you have in the game, the more you take the outcome of the game out of your hands and into fate. It's enough that you have to roll to hit, damage, saves, morale and random game length but now you have to roll to see if you can make the charge as well? I guess there is the element of risk to making the charge, but personally I would prefer the risk to be in your strategy rather than on pure dice.
Amen to this. I agree with you 100%.
*shrug* To each their own. I like the random charge distances, both in Fantasy & in 40k. There are actions you can take to mitigate the risk of failure (both on the tabletop and during list generation), and it holds open the door for improbable success. And as has been previously observed, we've dealt with random distance for charges through Difficult Terrain for more than a decade.
I'll point out that jy2's two failed charges here on my Gargoyles were both charges that were impossible under the old rules - the Wraiths started the turn more than 18" away.
I understand that some people like it and some don't (me being one of those) and that is just the way it is going to be.
I just don't find it to be a fun mechanic at all, in fact I find it to be the opposite of fun. But that's just me.
In the last game Frankie and I played, we failed 4 charges under 6", one under 3". It was really frustrating. I could have lived with a charge of 5+D6".
Just a quick note re: flying MC's - they can fire 360 so doesn't really matter which way they're facing when they're shooting.
Yeah, we know. It wasn't so much the shooting as it was the limitation on his movement when he swooped again.
Toban wrote:After reading all the comments and all the post game analisys-update-update again and again it really pop out how a new ed. can fastly confuse even the finest players. Imagine an occasional, I'm more a modelling hobbist, like my self.
Again thank for the very useful battle reports, extremely funny to read non the less.
Continue this way guys.
I'm looking for your first new-ed GK battle report jy2, I'm curious to see how you'll try to adapt your purifiers (paladins will require some changes but anything huge I think).
Tob
Yeah, most of us are still in the 5th Edition frame of mind. I think that's very common. The newer rules that you don't know or don't remember, you instinctively think about the 5th edition rule for it.
Ironically, the people who aren't as familiar with 5E rules wil probably adapt better to 6E.
And my next battle report is going to be a real treat - GK versus the Necron Air Force!
Janthkin wrote:
Reecius wrote:
jy2 wrote:
Now some of the 6E changes that I'm not too particularly fond of:
- Random charge range - I am not a big fan of the random charge. Whereas before, charging was guaranteed as long as you were within range. Now charging is anything but guaranteed. 1 failed charge could potentially lose you the game. Personally, I am not a big fan of randomness because the more randomness you have in the game, the more you take the outcome of the game out of your hands and into fate. It's enough that you have to roll to hit, damage, saves, morale and random game length but now you have to roll to see if you can make the charge as well? I guess there is the element of risk to making the charge, but personally I would prefer the risk to be in your strategy rather than on pure dice.
Amen to this. I agree with you 100%.
*shrug* To each their own. I like the random charge distances, both in Fantasy & in 40k. There are actions you can take to mitigate the risk of failure (both on the tabletop and during list generation), and it holds open the door for improbable success. And as has been previously observed, we've dealt with random distance for charges through Difficult Terrain for more than a decade.
I'll point out that jy2's two failed charges here on my Gargoyles were both charges that were impossible under the old rules - the Wraiths started the turn more than 18" away.
Like I said, this is more of an issue of personal preference. Some people will like it. Some just won't. It just gets kind of frustrating when you fail a charge, especially if it's a charge that should have been automatic under the older rules (less in 6" and not in difficult terrain). It's true that my wraiths would have been out of range to assault under the older rules, but knowing that, I could have done something like stick them in terrain or possibly even try to make it into the pool in preparation of the gargoyles charging. Yeah, being able to charge 2D6" is pretty cool. Failing that charge roll isn't.
jy2 wrote:Like I said, this is more of an issue of personal preference. Some people will like it. Some just won't. It just gets kind of frustrating when you fail a charge, especially if it's a charge that should have been automatic under the older rules (less in 6" and not in difficult terrain). It's true that my wraiths would have been out of range to assault under the older rules, but knowing that, I could have done something like stick them in terrain or possibly even try to make it into the pool in preparation of the gargoyles charging. Yeah, being able to charge 2D6" is pretty cool. Failing that charge roll isn't.
But you had a choice. You still could have stuck them in terrain, or tried to make it into the pool. The 2d6" charge range added another tactical option. Risky? Sure is. But I think something that gives more options is positive, at least in some ways.
I think it's still early yet, under the old rules you wouldn't have known you were over 18" for sure and may have attempted the charge anyways, thus still failing. So from where I am viewing it, it was all a cost benefit ratio and you took the gamble rather then going for the sure bet in the terrain strategy you were weighing. This is what I feel justifies an argument that the random charges still take player skill. Only now it takes more form in risk management and judgement.
I have to say I agree with janthkin at this point because as he said, you can mitigate the cost and risk in your list building. Now assault marines aren't such a stupid choice gaining HoW and re-rolling that charge. Same with bikes, give it time and I am sure each book will have a consistent assault build, just don't expect it to look the same as it did in 5th
I want to note I am not trying to convince others or say their your opinion(s) is(are) wrong, heck maybe in a month I will see it from your stance but for now I think it needs a fair chance and some more time is the only remedy to that.
I know Reece has said they have played a dozen games or so, but heck, the rules are still new and even if you doubled that number it doesn't mean you are grasping the rules fully or making 6th edition decisions. I would argue that champions of 5th will have the hardest time making the shift. I can speak from my own experience that the rules may be understood easy having 15+ years under my belt but the strategy is the hardest to develop and breaking old habits and tricks takes time.
Chaospling wrote:What was it that made the Genestealer's consolidate move in turn 3 negate the Overlord's ever living rule?
Ever living characters leave a token where they die. If they succeed in their roll, they can get up anywhere within 3" of the token, that ISN'T within 1" of an enemy model.
By consolidating in a spread out formation, the nids made it impossible to place the Overlord within 3" of the token without it being too close to an enemy.
Net result: Overlord has to be removed.
"If the returning model cannot be placed, for whatever reason, it is lost and does not return"
Necron codex p29
I agree on the random charge distance, and while people say it's the same as in fantasy, I'd like to point out that fantays has very VERY little shooting, comparatively, fewer objective-based missions, and they add their movement value to their charge range.
In 40k if you fail your charge, you are now in very real danger of just being gunned down in the following turn, rather than just charged yourself. And since many a game has ended by charging the enemy to get the extra distance to contest an objective, that changes everything. Also, having SOMETHING to add to the 2d6 would be nice, just to avoid the failed charge from 3" away.
Plus, it's happened twice now, an overwatch with a meltagun that blows up a walker. I really see a lot of walkers disappearing, unless a lot of melta disappears as well.
You mentioned that other fliers disembark if they move 18", but I believe this is false. As far as I know zooming fliers can't disembark troops at all, and hover-mode fliers act like any other skimmer, wherein they can only disembark if they move 6" or less.
Of course the only other flying transports I know of are the valkyrie/vendetta and stormraven, both of which have special rules that allow a deepstrike out of them - which has been FAQ'ed to say that anytime you're moving more than 6", any disembark will be via the grav-chute or skies of blood rules.
However, here's some things you can do with that that you couldn't before.
Say you have a squad of CC Scouts 11" away, and a squad of TH/SS Termies 5" away from, say, a Shootaboy mob. You could have the Scouts 'charge' first, and soak up the Overwatch fire, possibly failing (probably, actually) so the Termies can go in unmolested. Or do the same with Assault Marines, or whatever. Use the 'disadvantage' to your advantage.
jy2 wrote:Like I said, this is more of an issue of personal preference. Some people will like it. Some just won't. It just gets kind of frustrating when you fail a charge, especially if it's a charge that should have been automatic under the older rules (less in 6" and not in difficult terrain). It's true that my wraiths would have been out of range to assault under the older rules, but knowing that, I could have done something like stick them in terrain or possibly even try to make it into the pool in preparation of the gargoyles charging. Yeah, being able to charge 2D6" is pretty cool. Failing that charge roll isn't.
But you had a choice. You still could have stuck them in terrain, or tried to make it into the pool. The 2d6" charge range added another tactical option. Risky? Sure is. But I think something that gives more options is positive, at least in some ways.
Yeah, I know, but it still sucks to fail a charge. It sucks less when that charge is 7-12" away but anything 6" or less and it's like going to get a root canal...but without the novacaine! Fail it more than once in the same game and you just want to take your gun out and shoot someone!
It's just a phase, and it'll probably pass after many more games with 6th, after I get 5E out of my system.
Red Corsair wrote:I think it's still early yet, under the old rules you wouldn't have known you were over 18" for sure and may have attempted the charge anyways, thus still failing. So from where I am viewing it, it was all a cost benefit ratio and you took the gamble rather then going for the sure bet in the terrain strategy you were weighing. This is what I feel justifies an argument that the random charges still take player skill. Only now it takes more form in risk management and judgement.
I have to say I agree with janthkin at this point because as he said, you can mitigate the cost and risk in your list building. Now assault marines aren't such a stupid choice gaining HoW and re-rolling that charge. Same with bikes, give it time and I am sure each book will have a consistent assault build, just don't expect it to look the same as it did in 5th
I want to note I am not trying to convince others or say their your opinion(s) is(are) wrong, heck maybe in a month I will see it from your stance but for now I think it needs a fair chance and some more time is the only remedy to that.
I know Reece has said they have played a dozen games or so, but heck, the rules are still new and even if you doubled that number it doesn't mean you are grasping the rules fully or making 6th edition decisions. I would argue that champions of 5th will have the hardest time making the shift. I can speak from my own experience that the rules may be understood easy having 15+ years under my belt but the strategy is the hardest to develop and breaking old habits and tricks takes time.
Kevin's used to it. I believe he plays Fantasy as well. For those not used to the new charge rules, it's going to take a little time for them to get the 5E out of their systems.
DexKivuli wrote:
Chaospling wrote:What was it that made the Genestealer's consolidate move in turn 3 negate the Overlord's ever living rule?
Ever living characters leave a token where they die. If they succeed in their roll, they can get up anywhere within 3" of the token, that ISN'T within 1" of an enemy model.
By consolidating in a spread out formation, the nids made it impossible to place the Overlord within 3" of the token without it being too close to an enemy.
Net result: Overlord has to be removed.
"If the returning model cannot be placed, for whatever reason, it is lost and does not return"
Necron codex p29
Thanks for chiming in while I was away.
So RP isn't so broken if you know how to counter it. The problem with 5th is that too many people brought MSU 5-man units so that even if they had beaten the lord, they couldn't stop him from getting back up because they didn't have enough bodies to consolidate all over.
Deathshead420 wrote:Good batrep. Thanks.
You're welcome.
Spellbound wrote:I agree on the random charge distance, and while people say it's the same as in fantasy, I'd like to point out that fantays has very VERY little shooting, comparatively, fewer objective-based missions, and they add their movement value to their charge range.
In 40k if you fail your charge, you are now in very real danger of just being gunned down in the following turn, rather than just charged yourself. And since many a game has ended by charging the enemy to get the extra distance to contest an objective, that changes everything. Also, having SOMETHING to add to the 2d6 would be nice, just to avoid the failed charge from 3" away.
Plus, it's happened twice now, an overwatch with a meltagun that blows up a walker. I really see a lot of walkers disappearing, unless a lot of melta disappears as well.
You mentioned that other fliers disembark if they move 18", but I believe this is false. As far as I know zooming fliers can't disembark troops at all, and hover-mode fliers act like any other skimmer, wherein they can only disembark if they move 6" or less.
Of course the only other flying transports I know of are the valkyrie/vendetta and stormraven, both of which have special rules that allow a deepstrike out of them - which has been FAQ'ed to say that anytime you're moving more than 6", any disembark will be via the grav-chute or skies of blood rules.
Right. The 2 main drawbacks of this system:
1) May fail to reach objective when before, at 6", it would be guaranteed.
2) Will be stuck out there for the entire enemy's army to gun down.
That meltagun overwatch incident is quite brutal, though he only has a 1 in 6 chance (or 1 in 3 if the unit's packing 2 meltas) hits. Still sucks, though I can see Overwatch as a balancing tool for the extra charge distance.
As for disembarking from flyers, Necrons have been FAQ'd that they can disembark from the night scythe even if it had moved 36"!!! The only thing is if it goes over 24", then the disembarking unit can only fire in Snapshot mode.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anvildude wrote:However, here's some things you can do with that that you couldn't before.
Say you have a squad of CC Scouts 11" away, and a squad of TH/SS Termies 5" away from, say, a Shootaboy mob. You could have the Scouts 'charge' first, and soak up the Overwatch fire, possibly failing (probably, actually) so the Termies can go in unmolested. Or do the same with Assault Marines, or whatever. Use the 'disadvantage' to your advantage.
Yeah, that is a good tip, though I don't know if I would sacrifice a scoring unit to do so.
The long and short of any game that changes editions... you need to roll with the changes and figure out how things can work to your advantage.
I'll add to anvildude's example. My Wraith unit is made up of 3 with Whipcoils and 2 without. Guess who's in front when I charge?
Or what about charges with Scarabs and Spyders? Even a small unit of Scarabs getting the first charge on a squad of terminators won't do much, but the three Spyders safely following up will really ruin his day!
Spellbound wrote:I agree on the random charge distance, and while people say it's the same as in fantasy, I'd like to point out that fantays . . . add[s] their movement value to their charge range.
You do that in 40k, too - it's called the Movement Phase. The random charges in 40k are far more versatile than in Fantasy - a) you can move in one direction, then change your mind later and assault in a different direction, e.g., if your Shooting Phase causes you to reconsider a particular charge; b) you can use your Movement phase to circumvent terrain that you'd have to charge through in Fantasy; c) you can shoot before charging, especially if you're shooting at a Transport; and d) you can still multicharge all over the place.
I think the scout and terminator is a bad example for comforting those that come from 5th, though decent for advice for those learning 6th.
See as a 5th player, I'm used to both units making it without getting shot, so saying "well only one gets shot!" isn't much consolation. Not to mention if the scouts flub their assault move, the shootas could shoot again at the terminators. And if both fail their charges I gave them two rounds of shooting with one unit and now it's their turn to shoot and charge!
That's what we call a real reversal of the game, and it can happen at almost any time.
Spellbound wrote:I think the scout and terminator is a bad example for comforting those that come from 5th, though decent for advice for those learning 6th.
See as a 5th player, I'm used to both units making it without getting shot, so saying "well only one gets shot!" isn't much consolation. Not to mention if the scouts flub their assault move, the shootas could shoot again at the terminators. And if both fail their charges I gave them two rounds of shooting with one unit and now it's their turn to shoot and charge!
That's what we call a real reversal of the game, and it can happen at almost any time.
Incorrect, a unit is only ever allowed one overwatch a turn so when you declare the assault with the first unit they have a decision to make shoot then or hope they fail and wait for the next unit. It is just a meta shift and there are many solutions to all the problems people claim to be having.
I hear alot of grief regarding DE and wyches. My strategy with DE wyches has been to break off the attached Haemonculus (who is a must) in the movement phase leaving his pain token and charging him in first fallowed by the wych unit. They can overwatch him, or risk him making it into assault, either way they won't shoot my wyches and instead are shooting at an expendable T4 character who usually survives but was purchased for his token anyway. I like overwatch as it prevents units from using the stagger of turns to hide in assault and continue mincing other armies unrealistically. Why would they sit there and let them charge in from unit to unit with no reaction?
Anywho that is just my 2 cents and you know what they say about opinions...
Spellbound wrote:I think the scout and terminator is a bad example for comforting those that come from 5th, though decent for advice for those learning 6th.
See as a 5th player, I'm used to both units making it without getting shot, so saying "well only one gets shot!" isn't much consolation. Not to mention if the scouts flub their assault move, the shootas could shoot again at the terminators. And if both fail their charges I gave them two rounds of shooting with one unit and now it's their turn to shoot and charge!
That's what we call a real reversal of the game, and it can happen at almost any time.
Incorrect, a unit is only ever allowed one overwatch a turn so when you declare the assault with the first unit they have a decision to make shoot then or hope they fail and wait for the next unit. It is just a meta shift and there are many solutions to all the problems people claim to be having.
I hear alot of grief regarding DE and wyches. My strategy with DE wyches has been to break off the attached Haemonculus (who is a must) in the movement phase leaving his pain token and charging him in first fallowed by the wych unit. They can overwatch him, or risk him making it into assault, either way they won't shoot my wyches and instead are shooting at an expendable T4 character who usually survives but was purchased for his token anyway. I like overwatch as it prevents units from using the stagger of turns to hide in assault and continue mincing other armies unrealistically. Why would they sit there and let them charge in from unit to unit with no reaction?
Anywho that is just my 2 cents and you know what they say about opinions...
I'm definitely NOT telling the DE player at my FLGS...
Red Corsair wrote:
I hear alot of grief regarding DE and wyches. My strategy with DE wyches has been to break off the attached Haemonculus (who is a must) in the movement phase leaving his pain token and charging him in first fallowed by the wych unit. They can overwatch him, or risk him making it into assault, either way they won't shoot my wyches and instead are shooting at an expendable T4 character who usually survives but was purchased for his token anyway. I like overwatch as it prevents units from using the stagger of turns to hide in assault and continue mincing other armies unrealistically. Why would they sit there and let them charge in from unit to unit with no reaction?
Anywho that is just my 2 cents and you know what they say about opinions...
That's a good tip.
Too bad I don't really get to use this strategy too often as my characters are usually independent and off on their own (Overlords, Crowe, Swarmlord or tyrant, Greater Daemons).
Traceoftoxin wrote:Out of town and don't have my rulebook handy, I thought with overwatch you got to choose which assaulting unit you shoot at?
However, your opponent gets to choose which unit he wants to move (charge) first. So he charges his haemoculi. Don't want to Overwatch him? Fine, he makes it into assault (assuming his random charge roll is successful) and now your unit is locked in combat and can't shoot. He then charges in his wyches. Thus, if you don't do overwatch on the first unit that charges you, you won't get the chance to do it on subsequent charges unless the first charge is unsuccessful.
6th ed brought in a lot more strategy than before. Now we have to think placement of models closest to enemy units, which unit to shoot for overwatch charge, factoring in random assault range.
Of course the only other flying transports I know of are the valkyrie/vendetta and stormraven, both of which have special rules that allow a deepstrike out of them - which has been FAQ'ed to say that anytime you're moving more than 6", any disembark will be via the grav-chute or skies of blood rules.
Just a random aside but the GK storm raven doesn't have the same disembark rules as the blood angel one. Technically even the valkyries on the IGFAQ doesn't say it correctly as it still restricts disembarking if you go flatout by RAW since it specifies that:
"If a Valkyrie or Vendetta moved flat out the passengers may still disembark" (1st page, 2nd bullet)
Page 79 restricts you from disembarking normally if you go 6' or more. Flatout is now done in the shooting phase as a seperate move that prevents shooting even with power of the machine spirit.
So far only the BA and necron FAQ's fix this problem With available rules and without resorting to RAI of BA codex, IG and GK can't technically get out unless their flyer goes to hover mode or flat outs which is just wierd.
SabrX wrote:6th ed brought in a lot more strategy than before. Now we have to think placement of models closest to enemy units, which unit to shoot for overwatch charge, factoring in random assault range.
Yeah, then there's challenges, allies and flying units as well.
But mainly, it's the small changes between the 2 editions that we have to get used to. Things like heavy weapon units can now move and fire, how you shoot is determined on a model-to-model basis as opposed the the entire unit and the fact that you can't assault after disembarking and you can't even disembark after moving at cruising. Those are the things that end up biting you.
sudojoe wrote:
Of course the only other flying transports I know of are the valkyrie/vendetta and stormraven, both of which have special rules that allow a deepstrike out of them - which has been FAQ'ed to say that anytime you're moving more than 6", any disembark will be via the grav-chute or skies of blood rules.
Just a random aside but the GK storm raven doesn't have the same disembark rules as the blood angel one. Technically even the valkyries on the IGFAQ doesn't say it correctly as it still restricts disembarking if you go flatout by RAW since it specifies that:
"If a Valkyrie or Vendetta moved flat out the passengers may still disembark" (1st page, 2nd bullet)
Page 79 restricts you from disembarking normally if you go 6' or more. Flatout is now done in the shooting phase as a seperate move that prevents shooting even with power of the machine spirit.
So far only the BA and necron FAQ's fix this problem With available rules and without resorting to RAI of BA codex, IG and GK can't technically get out unless their flyer goes to hover mode or flat outs which is just wierd.
Good to know. Another miniscule change that you have to remember....that flat-out is now done in the Shooting phase as opposed to the Movement, thus making some of the rules obsolete without a FAQ.
We're going to find a lot of these "technicalities". Hopefully, Ver.2 of the FAQ's will iron some of these out when they come out.
This is the best possible result he can get as now all the forests provide 3+ cover!!! 
! 
As for allies, I was thinking about allying a farseer, 5x 
