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So in a continuing trend of “It’s not scale creep, he’s just built that way” started on the big guy.

Helmeted or constipated?

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
Helmeted or constipated?

Helmet. No question. Not only do I hate painting faces, but the one in the kit is fugly as heck. The only question is if I try to add a romanesque crest to it. Might be a little much with the halos and such, I’ll see how I feel once I get closer to that point.

I’m on the fence about the big halo/backpack thing. It’s a bit overwrought. I know that’s the style, but wanted to look into options. There does need to be something back there though. Experimenting with a banner top.

Thoughts?

Can't wait to see how you tackle him!!

I have no input for the backpack, though - sorry!

The silly halo is growing on me. I might just prime both that and the banner top and see how they look painted.

He’s done being built now, need a new rattle can and a clear day before I can prime again. I should probably get the first before the second turns up though, decent sized pile awaiting primer at this point.

Need to download the pic of my camera as proof, but got a game in yesterday. 1k Eldar vs. DE. Well, mostly 1k. Sometime late in turn 2 I realized that I had taken my 2nd bike squad out of the case for my YTD picture, and never put it back in. So my 1k list was closer to 900 points. And I’m not good enough with them to give my opponent that kinda edge. So chalk up a loss to the pointy eared gits.

I didn’t have enough AV. It didn’t help that he was running 2 chonoses, a talos, and a raider. So lots of hard targets. I’m begining to think brightlances are overkill. Lots of stuff has invulns, so how much AP do you need? I think I might be better off with more massed shots. Not full scatter lasers, but maybe try out some star cannons.

Also, my rangers spent too much time in a hot car, and now have droopy gun syndrome. Need to straighten them out.

Edit: added pic

 Nevelon wrote:
Also, my rangers spent too much time in a hot car, and now have droopy gun syndrome. Need to straighten them out.

Noo!
I'm always conscious about that happening to me. But I guess it never gets hot enough in the UK to need to worry about it. It's inconvenient, but a quick fix, at least.
How are the DE stacking up in 8th? It's the one army in my club that isn't represented...

 Zambro wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Also, my rangers spent too much time in a hot car, and now have droopy gun syndrome. Need to straighten them out.

Noo!
I'm always conscious about that happening to me. But I guess it never gets hot enough in the UK to need to worry about it. It's inconvenient, but a quick fix, at least.
How are the DE stacking up in 8th? It's the one army in my club that isn't represented...

One problem with life right now is that if I want to hit the FLGS at a decent hour, I need to bring my army to work and leave it in the trunk of my car all day. Also, I’d left the army in the case for multiple trips, and never shifted them. So while in soft foam, the guns were sticking out over the edges of the cells, and being repeatedly heated/cooled, all while under soft pressure. So I’m not terrible surprised they got bent. Not to try to fix them without screwing up the paint.

Honestly I can’t give a solid report on the DE. My dice were on the cold side, I was playing at a 10% disadvantage, and my list was really living in 7th. The fact that most of his stuff had an 5+ invuln was powerful, and took the sting out the the brightlances that were my primary AV. His bikes were on the +T drug, and soaked a large amount of firepower. I killed them, but it took too long, and the rest of his army was in range when they died. Not as fast as I’d expect, but he was using a trio of monster things.

What did you think of the Talos Nev? I've used mine in 8th now a couple times and honestly I'm very disappointed with it's damage output. It lost some survivability to with no more FnP (+1 with a chronos which isn't a thing either now) and so I'm struggling to justify the points for it anymore versus things like the Razorwing or a Ravager. Did his Talos prove worthwhile in his list?

Sucks that you forgot some models too, hate it when that happens. In my case though I put them in reserve and forget to use them after that. Losses will be inevitable though, hopefully you win your next match. Silver lining though is that no matter who lost this match at least Aeldari won.

I was surprised the heat lances were S6, was expecting S8 like most melta/fusion guns. I was also expecting it to be more blendery as well. When a talos and 2 chronos slam into a squad of guardians, I expected bloody bit everywhere. They killed a lot, but not all of them, and they were already down due to some shooting. They seemed tough, but I was shooting the wrong weapons at them. No idea how point efficient they are, but I wasn’t exactly rocking a tight list myself. Seemed a kinda midling unit. Some shooting, some chop, kinda tough, but not really tanky. Good sort of thing to fill out a list to make it flexible, but not base one on. But that’s just my observation from one casual game from across the table, while playing an army in the new edition for the first time, so I hardly knew what my own stuff did.

LOL! old 1st ed plastics are shorter than the more long lasting Marine plastics, and that Primaris is just,,,,,,,HUGE. Almost Ogryn sized! Good dialogue from the shorter old timer there!

Yup. Size is all over the place in my army. C’est La vie.



So super-secret supply drop arrived today. Well, was picked up from the post office, as it needed a signature and they couldn’t just drop it off in my mailbox. Parts for a few projects here:

1 - Jump packs for the 30k destroyers. That will eat 10/15 of them.
2 - A pair of apothecary bits. One will be mounted on a bike, for 40k use. The other will be magnetized for foot/jump use for 30k.
3 - 10 Salamander pads. I was going to keep it secret, but decided to just tell The Boy. I’m going to build 10 of my Mk. III marines as sternguard for him, and paint them up.

So that leaves 4 jump packs left. I might see if I can stick one on Cypher, for my moritat conversion. Not sure how much of the clutter on his back would interfere. Or how hard it would be to remove. If not, some spare packs for the bits box. Might decide to make some more vanguard some day, or want more HQ options.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekends. This one is hit-or-miss for me. Just dropped The Boy off for a family reunion for his mom’s side. Bit painful. But I’ll get him back tonight, and plan to hit the FLGS tomorrow for a 2k game with him. Ultras v. Eldar. He made his own list (with some advice) we’ll see how he fairs.

Also, Happy Canada Day to our northern neighbors.

 Nevelon wrote:

My vindicator got stuck in close combat first turn (missed it’s overwatch shots) .

Interesting that you got stuck in CC first turn. Hope it wasn't from any of the Deceiver's Grand Illusion units, since the rule states "Those units can not charge in the first turn".

nubsauce wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

My vindicator got stuck in close combat first turn (missed it’s overwatch shots) .

Interesting that you got stuck in CC first turn. Hope it wasn't from any of the Deceiver's Grand Illusion units, since the rule states "Those units can not charge in the first turn".

Yup, looks like he was playing that wrong. Although with a little minor tweaking, he could get a similar effect. He did have a monolith, and a warrior squad did disembark. One of the units he illusioned up was the monolith. And units disembarking from that wouldn’t have the “no first turn charge” problem.

Thanks for the Talos breakdown Nev, your observations on them actually flow pretty in-line with my own. Yeah heat lances have always been S6, they were S6 AP1 with both the lance and melta rule back in 7th edition. Lance will now make them AP-5 I believe this edition with the 8th edition melta rule tacked on. The S6 is more of a liability now (against their preferred targets) since they don`t get 2d6 penetration anymore and -5AP is a bit overkill against most things. They`re still a good choice but a bit pricy in matched points play for most players tastes. Many will go with dark lances and blasters instead to save points.

That aside that supply drop looks good, and that`s mighty nice of ya to start up a salamander force for your boy. Bonus is that since it`s a SM faction it`ll gel nicely with your force and there`s not a completely different set of stats and rules you need to learn to help him play. Will you be updating your work on the salamanders in this thread?

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Thanks for the Talos breakdown Nev, your observations on them actually flow pretty in-line with my own. Yeah heat lances have always been S6, they were S6 AP1 with both the lance and melta rule back in 7th edition. Lance will now make them AP-5 I believe this edition with the 8th edition melta rule tacked on. The S6 is more of a liability now (against their preferred targets) since they don`t get 2d6 penetration anymore and -5AP is a bit overkill against most things. They`re still a good choice but a bit pricy in matched points play for most players tastes. Many will go with dark lances and blasters instead to save points.

That aside that supply drop looks good, and that`s mighty nice of ya to start up a salamander force for your boy. Bonus is that since it`s a SM faction it`ll gel nicely with your force and there`s not a completely different set of stats and rules you need to learn to help him play. Will you be updating your work on the salamanders in this thread?

Yup. I’m a one-blog kinda guy, so everything gets lumped together here. Even started painting them:

Just kidding. That’s The Boy’s first attempt. I’m keeping that pic as a benchmark. Sure it’s sloppy, but it came to him pre-primed blue, glued together, with no cleanup work done. Plus he’s 11 and it’s his first work. Better then my first minis, and I started later then him.

And his first list. With only minimal advice from me:

Vs. some pointy eared gits:


I know, what kind of monster takes eldar vs. a new player? Me, that’s who!

Mission was the relic. We line up on the edges. He puts his scouts in the same central ruin the relic is in, I put my rangers in my own line to block a gap he could DS into.



He goes first. Drops the terminators + CTDA captain onto the relic turn one. Moves up aggressively with the bikes and rhinos, shooting takes a big chunk out of the falcon with the dragons, but doesn’t kill it.
My turn the dragons disembark before something terminal happens to their ride, and get up close to the bikes. Hunter flits over to the LR. Hawks land to spam wounds onto the CTDA captain. All my assorted firepower does a whopping 3 wounds to the LR. All the bikers but the sarge evaporate. I peel a bunch of wounds off the captain (3?) My nightspinner wins the artillery duel with the TFC (He shot my falcon with it)

Turn 2.
He deathwatch get out, as do the assault marines (they were in the LR) He finishes killing the first falcon, deletes the dragons, and the bike captain and sarge go and finish off one of my bike squads. His terminators just hunker down on the relic. While wasting their CC prowess, I don’t have a huge amount of infantry in my list, so as long as he can keep a boot on the relic, he can win. Most of the hawks get show down.
I disembark the DAs, doom the deathwatch (The Boy has a newfound hate for that power) and then light them up. Takes most of my firepower, but they die. I also blow a chunk off the LR this turn. I charge the DAs into the AMs, just to avoid being out in the open. Some of each squad die, but we remain in combat.

Turn 3.
His tac squad gets out, shoots at my serpent (shaves a few wounds off) then assaults the DA (who dies, barely). LR blows half the CH’s wounds off. TFC gunner patches up the LR a bit. Bike captain and sarge try to mug the autarch, He stabs the captain back a few times. Lots of blood, no deaths.
I fall back out of combat, the last of the bikers get shot to death. I start pouring fire into the terminators. Going is slow (only psychic power I got off was to smite the bike captain) LR gets blown up. Bikes on the side take the CTDA captain down to his last wound. Guardians deploy to help with weight of fire.

Turn 4.
CDTA captain has had enough of the bike’s harassment, breaks cover, heads over and blenders them. Tac squad moves to help shore up the relic, kills some guardians, wounds some tanks. Rhinos are putting around spraying things with paired stormbolters, like they’ve been doing all game. They caused a chunk of damage overall, just nothing noticeable. And I never dedicated the firepower to deal with them. Remaining assault marines charge the guardians. Kills some (they loose 1 to morale, but the squad remains)
I kill all but the last terminator on near the objective, 7/10th of the tac squad in shooting. Crimson Hunter kills the final captain. AM are reduced to just the sarge. I charge his last terminator on the objective with my WS to pin him in place. I charge the last 3 tac marines with my autach. The plan was make them (especially the ML guy holding the relic) consolidate away from the terminator. Instead I kill them all. Woops. TDA still has his boot on the relic.

Turn 5.
His assault sarge falls out of CC to head to the objective. TFG gunner who had been heading to the front gets close enough to pop the last of the hawks. He shoots up the guardians with what he has left, I tank the wounds with the brightlance platform, which takes a hit, but lives along with 3 guardians. Those 3 guy are all I have left who can take the relic.
My WS falls back, opening up his last terminator to fire. In an impressive act of marksmanship (and abysmal saves) my rangers clear his (doomed) scouts off their perks on one volley. 5 kills from 4 shots, quite impressive! (they do an additional mortal wound on a to-wound roll of 6, he failed the 3 normal 2+ saves, and then had to eat the 2 mortals from me rolling 6’s). He continues to roll 1’s and the last terminator drops. The techmarine soon joins them. My guardians are now in control of the objective, screened by my remaining units to keep the rhinos off. It’s getting late, so we forgo rolling for another turn. Victory for the Eldar. But a close game.

Thoughts:
I put scatters on the falcons. They didn’t do a whole lot. Not impressed with them.
Night weaver spammed wounds like a boss. And with the rending on a 6, can cause some real harm. Worth including, did better the the fire prism.
Farseers are mean. Guide/doom is a sweet little combo.
Autarch re-roll 1’s within 6” was money in the bank. Stabbing things with the laser lance was just gravy.
DAs did OK. Dragons did fine, Hawks were OKish. Overall the aspects pulled their weight.
Guardians are cheep bodies. Sometimes you need to get a little muddy to grab the prize. They hid in the WS so they didn’t get shot up early, but in the open they have a low life expectancy.
Crimson Hunter packs a nice punch. The -1 to hit it kept it in the sky. Pricy, but got the job done.

The LR put out a chunk of firepower. Tough, lots of wounds, but not invulnerable.
Deathwatch were total glass hammers. He probably should have split their fire to get the most of the one turn they got to live. Because under no circumstances could I allow them to survive.
Bikes died to mass melta fire. But at lest they ate it, not the LR.
Sarges with powerswords are nice, but low volume of attacks limits how good they can be.
CTDA can soak a load of firepower. Gunned up ones would have been better for what he was using them for, but they held until the last turn.
The TFC never got a real good showing. Can’t hold it against him though. The gunner got to shine a little.

Sounds like a really solid game! I honestly love the tone of your battle reports Nev, they keep it interesting enough to want to keep reading, yet concise enough to not be too wordy.

His first model is much better than my first model too, he's off to a good start. He's also got you to help guide him along so he'll be improving at an exponential rate compared to those of us who had to be self-taught the whole way through.

Battle looked like it was a fun one, some decent back and forth and he got to try out a good smattering of different units.

AUGmaniac wrote:Sounds like a really solid game! I honestly love the tone of your battle reports Nev, they keep it interesting enough to want to keep reading, yet concise enough to not be too wordy.

Thanks. I keep meaning to take more pictures of my games, but I don’t want to slow things down to break out my phone/camera. The hard part of these reports is remembering what turn what happened. For example, I had to backtrack to figure out exactly when my guardians and his tac squad got out of their respective transports, and who died when. Not that it’s a huge deal, but I try to keep things accurate. If I can’t recall the exact timing of something, it probably wasn’t critical.

Inevitable_Faith wrote:His first model is much better than my first model too, he's off to a good start. He's also got you to help guide him along so he'll be improving at an exponential rate compared to those of us who had to be self-taught the whole way through.

Battle looked like it was a fun one, some decent back and forth and he got to try out a good smattering of different units.

My main worry with him painting is that he picks up my bad habits. That and his general reluctance to push his comfort zone. He’d rather do the simple thing that’s kinda “meh” then experiment and try to do something neat. Not that I’m the best at that myself, but I want him to be better then I am; that’s what parenting is all about.

The game actually felt close the whole time. Which is impressive. Normally once one side starts to fold, it cascades from there. We were both causing some harm and erasing units. I like that the relic could only be claimed by infantry. We had roughly equal amounts in out lists, but he had more, and tougher ones. I had more firepower. It was a constant worry every time a pair of boots was shot off the table. Would I have enough to claim the objective at the end? Eldar in the open have some serious issues living.

His list building was a fun exercise. As I was fielding Eldar, he had full range of what to pick.

I suggested he work off a batalion, just to give him a framework.

First he picked troops. Sniper scouts and 2 full tac squads in rhinos.
He then wanted the CTDA captain and blender squad, based on how well they’ve done in the games he’s seen.
For a second HQ, he picked my bike captain (he likes the model) and decided he wanted a relic blade. I gave him the stock spiel I give over in the army list section about choosing a role for your HQs, make sure they are geared for it, and have a place to be. He took the melta bike squad to hang out with the captain.
TFC, I think because of the slamander nature of it, was another of his early picks.
He wants the LR. OK, not a problem. What to put in it? Deathwatch. He likes the look/lore of them. Not going to fit in the points remaining. But all the troops don’t have to be ultras, so we drop a tac squad (re-jiggering gear slightly) I suggest that the LR might be better served with an assault unit. Points are kinda tight, so he sticks an assault squad in there.

And that’s 2k points.

As I was typing that up, I had some thoughts on list building in 8th. Why not deathwatch in a LR? Assault transports used to be a rare and precious thing, not to be squandered. Now, every transport can do that. The lack of fire ports is a non-issue, as they are basically gone from the marine motor pool. Is there a downside of putting an expensive shooty unit in a tough transport? It’s a bit all-your-eggs kinda thing, but LRs are tough. They can take the hit.

It was kinda good to have the AMs with JPs in there. He geared them with flamers, and if they had deepstuck and been out in the open, I would have snuffed them before they got to light me on fire. And they has an impressive charge out of the box.

OK, that’s enough rambling for now. Enjoy your 4th if I don’t post again before the holiday is over. One nice thing about not grilling this year is that I don’t need so subject myself to crappy mainstream American beer.

Why is American beer like sex in a canoe?

(apologies to all the numerous great small breweries, I’m just poking fun at the big mass-market ones)

There's definitely some major changes to list building in 8th and I find for the most part it's quite freeing and fun. At 11 years old making a 2000 point list is no small feat, none the less playing a full game with it. I've got adult friends who struggled with the game at only making a 500 point list.

Hope you have an awesome fun 4th of July, Canadia day was pretty fun here, I quite enjoyed myself. Do not suffer through bad beer, it's so not worth it. I'm very lucky we have some decent independent breweries close enough to home that I'm able to enjoy the good stuff more often than not.

Many updates. SoundsI keep you'require getting a decent number of games of 8th in. Liking the game breakdowns .

EDC

Yup. While I don’t make it down to the FLGS as often as I like, I am getting a decent number of games in.

Lovely day out here. Went for a walk, enjoyed the great outdoors. Well, the loop around my neighborhood. Then hit Home Despot for a rattle can. Because the only thing better then a gentle summer breeze is one tinged with paint fumes. It’s not like the whole country isn’t going to smell like gunpowder residue tomorrow anyway.



So that’s the last of the built pile. I should actually sort out the primed stuff; lots of it is still jumbled in the boxes I moved in. Next to build will be the primaris marines and the Salamander sternguard.

And some paint. This month’s challenge is “fun and games” where part of the concept is play aids, including things like terrain. So out comes the old crashed lander.


And some early basecoats:


I’ll probably put some snow scattered on it a little, but the thought was to have it be a fresh crash, so mostly churned and burned earth.

So far the 4th has been a nice lazy day. My plans for the evening involve beer, bratwurst, and a Captain America marathon. Stay safe everyone, remember you need those fingers for painting, try not to blow them off with fireworks!

OK, here is the main primed pile. There might be some odds and ends in boxes. In fact I know there are, but this is the bulk of what’s on-deck.


Box 1:
Stromhawk
10x 30k Destroyers
Stalker/hunter/command tank
Land Speeder
Guiliman
3x old metal assault marines
2x old metal veterans
1x old metal captain
3x LotD counts-as
5 scouts
Techmarine
Primaris LT
12x RTB01 bolter brothers

Box 2:
6x bikes
bike warlock/seer
8x Eldar guardians
1 weapon platform
Warp Spider
Homaguant
3x marauders
2 D&D minis
1 Sister of Sigmar
chaos familer
Asst. battlefield debris
Asst. spare weapons/vehicle parts
Asst. spare marine arms

Box 3:
LR/LRR/LRC with all the fixins.

The warp spider was a recent gift. I was chatting with one of the guys at the FLGS about how he was liking the new Eldar, and admiring his old school army. I asked if he had any spares he would be willing to trade, as I’m a guy short on a few squads. He just gave me a spare spider he had in his case, as he had more then he needed for his squads. I’ve got 3 painted on the shelf, and an exarch that needs to be primed, but with that spider I’m good to field a squad of them. I need to drag some stuff down to offer him next time I see him, or just pay it forward to someone at the shop.

I also need to find where I packed up my friends minis I was painting for him. After sitting out the last edition, he’s making noises about getting back in, and even picked up the rules. So a few random SoB or guard might show up again in the blog.

Hope everyone enjoys their weekends.

Oh, crap! That's a huge primed pile! Enough to keep you going for a long while.

Cant wait to see the finished terrain

 Zambro wrote:
Oh, crap! That's a huge primed pile! Enough to keep you going for a long while.

Cant wait to see the finished terrain

As I spray prime, I do like to keep a decent stock of stuff on hand. Helps keep be busy in the cold a/o rainy months. I want to add at least one or two major prime loads before fall hits. Hopefully at least one side’s worth of marines from the 8th box, the SG I’m building for The Boy, and anything else I pick up. The pile of shame is getting pretty deep, and I’d like to get the bulk of it at least built. I’ve still got the centurions I picked up NOS. and no idea how to build them under the current edition. Handful of other things like that.

So some (slow) WIP on the lander:


The little wing fragment should be just about done. Not sure if I’m going to add snow effects or not. That will probably be a last minute decision. Sloppy basecoats on the other two sections. Some more detail on these guys, so they will take longer.

So I got to steal The Boy for part of the weekend. Got a game in. He wanted to do Ultra Vs. Ultra, so that’s what we did. 2k lists. I gave him first dibs on the shelf. Here is what he took:
All my CC terminators, 2x tac squads, asst. honor guard, apothecary, captain. some snipers. And all my rhino-hulled transports.

You want all the rhinos? Time to try the drop pods out!


As I put this list together and thought about it, I felt increasingly dirty. Not that I think it’s overpowered, but a bit tighter then what The Boy built, and has the mobility to capitalize on his mistakes. Oh well, he can learn from them.

We roll randomly for deployment zones, and get the long edge with the peaked middle. Mission is big guns. The only HS on the table is his LR.

Top of turn 1. I finished deployment first, but he seized with the help of a CP.


I’m basically tucked away in one corner, he’s smeared all over his deployment zone. We had perviously had a conversation about bubble wrapping, but I think he took it too far. The CTDAs were basically deployed as an advanced spoiler to keep me from DSing on that flank. His tac squad also disembarked early to keep me off that side. His shooting is mostly out of range, but the LR does blow a big chunk out of the LSS. Not much else happens.

I decide just to cede the objective near the capheracts. They are slow enough he’s not going to impact the rest of the game with them, and I figure I can roll up the other flank. Which I start doing. I drop the melta tacs and the sternguard on that back objective, with the tacs hiding from the LR behind the bastion. The SR zooms across the table right near to the LR. Speeders move up, but can’t get too close. My fire is pretty solid, killing the exposed tac squad, and blowing their rhino and the LR down to about half wounds each.

Turn 2
His rhino and razor rush over to help, but the distance they have to go is pretty long. CTDAs shamble towards the objective. Assault termies disembark. His shooting shaves a few wounds off the SR, not much else. I get lucky and pop a terminator on overwatch, they pile in and kill 3 marines. I got a bit lucky there.

SR dumps it’s cargo, turns right and move just past the rhino/razor. Sternguard move towards the center. Speeders move up. I keep the last (grav) pod in reserve for now. No good spot to land. Shooting finished off the LR/rhino from last round, blows half the wounds off the razor. I charge the VVs, chaplain, and captain into the terminators. When the smoke clears, a vanguard is dead but the TH/SS sarge from the TDA squad stands defiant. Ironclad is out of position, as the LR he wanted to tear into died to shooting.

Turn 3
His Razor full of goodness deploys behind the bastion, next to the dread. His tacs push out around the other side towards the middle. CTDA consolidate around their objective. His shooting shaves a few more wounds off the SR, dropping it down a wound class. The chapter champion drops the ironclad like a punk with his TH. Ouch.

I drop the last pod and deploy the grav to hose down his command element. VVs, Chap move up to engage, as do both speeders. Sternguard clear the angle around the bastion and draw a bead on his tacs. SR swings over to the CTDAs. Shooting takes out the apothecary and champion, drops a few wounds into the captain and one off an HG. Sternguard blow 7/10 of the tacs away. I’m in the process of erasing the terminators when I remember I’m down BS from wounds on the SR. I re-do the shooting, and end up only killing one, rather then the 4 I had before. CC sees the captain finished off, at the price of one VV. Sternguard remove the last of the tacs in assault.

Turn 4
We call it at this point. He’s got his scouts on the central bunker, a wounded HG and Ancient, and a massively out of place terminator squad. It’s pretty obvious I’m going to mop up the remnants and win on VPs.

Victory Ultras! Not that there was any doubt; one of the perks of playing against your own army.

Thoughts:
OK, I was primed for pods to just suck. Sure, they are pricy, but they still get you close. While my melta wasn’t in range for the bonus, they still got wounds in on the rhino on the drop. Sternguard are fine at 9”, as is grav. Being able to call in the exact time was nice. On turn 2, his wounded rhino was still projecting a large no-drop bubble on that flank. Once it was out of the way, I had a clear LZ. Just in time to turn the chapter champion into a little wadded up ball with massed grav fire.

SR is worth the price of admission. Not that it happened, but it’s no more dangerous to ride one into the ground as any other transport, so I’m more OK with loading it up. And it starts on the table, and can get almost anywhere in a round. Then you can pop out for a turn two assault. The loads of guns and hard to hit are nothing to snear at either. Sure, it’s pricy, but I think worth it. Need to paint up it’s hurricane bolters. 8 points for how much dakka? Yes please!

I was pissed about the changes to sternguard special ammo. But I think I’m going to be OK with the new bolters. Extra range is nice (would be better if I remembered to use it ) and AP-2 is amazing. Heavy flamers are probably only going to come out if I’m riding on the ground. Not that they are crazy expensive, but can’t be used on the drop. Sad, I liked the burning.

I was going to try to fit a TML/HB speeder into my list, but couldn’t work out the points. 150 for them, ouch. The classic tornado MM/HF did OK. The -1 with the MM is a little painful, but OK I guess. I think running a 2xHF, or maybe a HF/AsC might be better. Still need to try the typhoon, but they are not as economical as they used to be.

The drive-bye scouts were kinda “meh” partly due to bad rolling. Not going to write them off yet.

The Boy picked up a pot of paint while we were there, and I got him the new “welcome to the game” booklet/free marine. $8 for the basic rules, army overviews, what looked like a copy of the new paint WD (which I already owned, but is a very nice thing for newbies) and a free primaris marine. When I was dropping him back home I sat down and helped him assemble a razorback. He had done one on his own, but had trouble aligning the hull. Got this one good and solid for him. Quality time.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekends.

--Nev

Sounds like an amazing day. You obviously have an advantage over The Boy, but after a while, when his skill level raises, you'll have a harder time. Then you'll come back here and read these battle reports and think "...If only I could have an easy game...".

 Zambro wrote:
Sounds like an amazing day. You obviously have an advantage over The Boy, but after a while, when his skill level raises, you'll have a harder time. Then you'll come back here and read these battle reports and think "...If only I could have an easy game...".

Once he starts to get a bit better, I’ll stop teaching him tricks and secrets. I do post battle Q&As with him now, asking what he thought of each unit, what could have done better with it, what the high points were, why things happened they way the did, etc. With wargaming, you are going to lose, and lose a lot at the start. But if you learn from your mistakes (and your opponent’s mistakes and tricks) then you can improve.

Right now he also has a bad case of shiny model syndrome. I’m trying to gently focus him on actually finish building and painting the stuff he has before amassing his own pile of shame.

Sounds like you had a blast in that game. How old is the Boy? I know you probably said earlier, but I didn't want to search through pages and pages to find it. It's very cool that you're passing on our hobby to the next generation!

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Sounds like you had a blast in that game. How old is the Boy? I know you probably said earlier, but I didn't want to search through pages and pages to find it. It's very cool that you're passing on our hobby to the next generation!

He turned 11 last March.

I had fun in the game, and am glad he seemed to enjoy it. I suspected I was going to win as we were packing up our armies. When I saw how he deployed, I knew I had it. There were things he could have done to help, like castle up for mutual support, but he didn’t. I’d feel worse, but literally the night before, after pulling his army from the shelf, I demonstrated how to use a pair of flanking rhinos and a forward deployed scout squad to keep deep strikers away from LRs you don’t want locked in CC and softer high-value targets like razors full of command units. An example bubble wrap deployment with the units he was taking. With the additional note that if he was really worried, he could combat squad the tacs and use a 5 man bolter squad as another outlying screen.

So it’s not like I just introduced him to the wonders of drop pods by evaporating half his army with no warning.