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Greetings,

I’ve been a little AWOL from the site of late (because of the harsh mistress that is real life). However, now I am back, and I am back with a new DE Codex and a new Escalation League upon which I intend to deliver mass amounts of carnage.

My goal is to try out a couple of different DE builds and try to get a feel for some of the new units, options, and shifts that have happened to our Codex. Each week I intend to post up a new batrep and pictures as I describe the carnage that I wreck upon my unsuspecting foes. This first post will be updated with links to each of the new batreps from the tournament.

=====================The Battle Reports===============================
WEEK 1 - 500 points vs. Orks
WEEK 2 - 500 points vs. Salamander Space Marines
WEEK 3 - 750 points vs. Imperial Guard
Non-Leage Game - 1000 points vs. Lorek's Tau

================================================================
Behind the spoiler tags you can find some fiction I’ve written to clarify why my Kabal is participating in this league.

Welcome to the first batrep (a fair bit of travel from the first post I understand) Behind the spoiler tags you can find some fiction I’ve written about the first week’s battle story. If you like that sort of stuff, great, read on! But for those who just want pictures and stories about the actual game you don’t need to wear out your scroll wheel moving past it.

The League started with us building a Planetary Empires map (pics of that will come next week – as we all had to paint up our flags ourselves – but that’s where we’ll be plotting who is conquering what)



=======================================================================================================

The rules of this week gave us 500 points to play with.
We could include an HQ who was going to gain experience (I chose a Haemonculi - Kirst’takiss) and that would be our ‘official’ HQ until either it died to death or the league ended. This is why she stars in all the fiction thus far.
No vehicles with total armor of 33+ (as though that worries DE)
Missions are selected via a matrix in our campaign guide – the Orks won selection and the mission was Waaaaaagh! (For those of you who lack the Battle Missions book; basically an objectives mission, Orks go first, and have an option to take an extended Waaagh effect at the cost of losing cover saves till it ends)

I win right of side selection.
I fail to seize initiative (Orks go first on a 2+ erk)
There are 5 objectives on the board – this won’t really matter, we’re Orks and DE, we wipe or are wiped .

Kirst’takiss’ Strike Force

Kirst’takiss Maerret (Haemonculous Leader of Army) – Scissorhands, Destructor (Liquifier)
5 man Warrior Squad w. Shredder in Raider (Haemy goes here)
5 man Warrior squad in Venom
2x Ravager w. 3x Disentegrator Cannons

Army thoughts – I’ve honestly only had my Codex for about a week and hadn’t really been following much DE conversation. Consequently – when building my first army I basically realize I’m building an army that was what I would have fielded with the old Dex. Ah, well, since when is skimmer transport and Ravager spam a bad idea?

500 points is a bit tighter for DE than it used to be – so I invest in one of those newfangled Venom things which is amazingly only 5 points less than a Raider (I foresee myself liking these and needing to do some sort of custom job to represent them – they’ll be the new cheap Gunboats methinks. The value of the splinter cannon weapon loadout paired with the ‘invulnerable for vehicles that is never explained in a rulebook’ upgrade is pretty sweet). I played around with a Hexrifle option for the Haemy, but opted to stick to the basic close range/assault threat. With the modified armor rules. Kind of nice getting the Ravagers for ten points cheaper than I used to – though I’ll sorely miss their low power firing option. Curses!

Travis’ Unnamed Filthy Greenskin Horde

Big Mek (chosen HQ) w. Shock Attack Gun
11 Lootas
2x 10 man Grot squad w. Herder (Big Mek attaches here)
3x Killa Kans w. various weapon loadouts (not a squadron)

====================================================================================================================

The Orks deploy themselves favoring one of the corners but with the Mek and Loota firebase separated out with the Kans anchoring the center.


The Ork deployment


You brought how many Lootas?




As both a DE and Ork general I’m well aware of what those gawdawful Lootas are going to do to my paper mache’ airforce. So I set up really aggressively and ready to go (or maybe I cower like a coward)



Probably in the most strategic advantage sense I should have hid the Ravagers and reserved one or both of my troop options. That said, I like being aggressive, and…hey, though the Orks can see my Venom I should have either cover or a 5++, yes?


Peek-a-boo, Orks see you

So the Orks blow up my Venom first turn.
The only “new” unit I’m even fielding. Son’uv’a!



The Big Mek fires and scatters off the board, the Killa Kans start sloggin’ and running towards me.


Time to pop out the Ravagers for triple plasma lovin’

Moving flat out to plot vile death for those Orks next turn, just in case the Ravagers whiff.


The Ravagers do their work quite well, and shred apart most of the Lootas. The remaining boyz decide all is not well and scamper off board. The now footslogging unit of Warriors hunkers down in cover, ready to scramble for an objective late in the game if needed.

On his turn the Kans keep rushing for me and the Mek fails to pen one of the Ravagers.







The next two turns are basically his Kans trying to close with me and my unleashing a hail of firepower into them and slowly breaking them down.





The Killa Kans are sawed up and the Ork Big Mek either keeps missing or managing weak splash hits that fail to do anything to the Ravagers. The two Ravagers do pretty much all the heavy lifting (though in true DE fashion my HQ and her Raider slip out of their safe sniper spot to finish off the last Killa Kan (via the Shredder of all things).

The Ravagers roll up on the Grots and just drop plates on them till they are no longer an issue. The Game ends and the Big Mek scuttles off, vowing revenge and an assurance he’ll show up again with some more boyz to sort out our pale elfy backsides.

The big turning point in this game was just the first turn – if I killed the Lootas then life would be easy, if I didn’t then they’d kill another ½ of my vehicles. Dice favored me on scatter and with the Loota firebase gone he was a shooting army that couldn’t outshoot me and his Kans were just too slow to effectively corral the much faster and more maneuverable DE forces. Once again, speed kills.


Though in my opponent’s defense I should probably note that this was not an unusual roll for him. That was his cover save for his Grots vs. my Dissies – yeah

Other stuff to look forward to;

This is a DE player vs. an Eldar player. I’m happy to see the Eldar are represented in this tourney, and amazingly enough I think we have no less than 3 or 4 DE players (awww, I’m no longer unique). Of note, this DE force opted to include Lady Malys, which will be his HQ of choice – will be curious to see how that works for him as I thought she looked pretty good. I’m probably more excited by that Serpent fellow though.


My buddy John’s amazingly painted Chaos forces. His Prince racked up 7 exp. Points (by way of comparison my opponent earned 2, and I earned 3-4, I forget). I’m looking forward to attempting to kill John to death sometime this league.

The batreps should also be well seasoned – I think we have representatives of every ‘dex out there except the Grey Knights, Sisters, and Blood Angels.

Nice report, but I have a question. Are you playing Disentegrators correctly? They were nerfed pretty strongly in the new codex.

AdeptSister wrote:Nice report, but I have a question. Are you playing Disentegrators correctly? They were nerfed pretty strongly in the new codex.

They were nerfed, but they are still very good.

I was going to ask what you meant, then I realized I'd noted the Dissies as Str. 7 in the army roster discussion. That was because I wrote that up first and hadn't noticed the Str 5 shift till the day of. I'll correct it to avoid confusion.

Other then that - the batrep stands and I did play them as Str 5 weapons and I don't consider them really nerfed at all. The loss of the low end fire option is the big hit, but the Dissie Ravagers were always troop killers, and at Str 5 they still do that exceedingly well.

I think the confusion stems from your description of templates when talking about the Disintegrators from the Ravagers. They used to be template weapons; however, now they're 3 shots...

On a side note...I don't think in any way they were nerfed...hell, when I see 9 S5 AP2 shots coming downrange to me...I cry a little on the inside and get ready to pick up models...

Good lord - that I actually did do wrong - I was running them as pie plates, not Heavy 3. I now owe a man a beer. Blargh - reminds me why I'm doing this experimental phase.

That said, I do think I agree with Martyr, usually you can do better damage to a player with 9 shots than with 3 small blasts - because of how armies can be spread out.

This is interesting, ought to change some thoughts for the next game I play.

Glad I could prove my worth! Yeah, if my Plasma Cannons fired 3 shots of S7 AP2 I'd be happier than the blast most times.

Thor665 wrote:That said, I do think I agree with Martyr, usually you can do better damage to a player with 9 shots than with 3 small blasts - because of how armies can be spread out.

Disagree. Small Blast against 3 shots, small blast anytime.
I m pretty sure he wouldnt have lost that much lootas if you had played it correctly.

Davicus wrote:

Thor665 wrote:That said, I do think I agree with Martyr, usually you can do better damage to a player with 9 shots than with 3 small blasts - because of how armies can be spread out.

Disagree. Small Blast against 3 shots, small blast anytime.
I m pretty sure he wouldnt have lost that much lootas if you had played it correctly.

He still should have killed enough to cause a morale test, which is what resulted in the Lootas running off the board.

18 S5 shots against the Lootas in cover would have been 12 hits, 8 wounds, four unsaved by cover. The unit started with 11, would have been reduced to 7, causing the morale test. The Ork player probably should have GtG, but probably wanted to risk the morale test so that the Lootas would have a chance to fire the next turn.

you used them as pie plates? Heh, you owe him two beers

Naw, its easy to get things confused when you where used to them being run a cerrtain way. Good report though.

The mistake about the blast markers sucks, but as Saldiven said, thankfully it probably didn't matter too much with the lootas.

Looking forward to more!

Davicus wrote:

Thor665 wrote:That said, I do think I agree with Martyr, usually you can do better damage to a player with 9 shots than with 3 small blasts - because of how armies can be spread out.

Disagree. Small Blast against 3 shots, small blast anytime.
I m pretty sure he wouldnt have lost that much lootas if you had played it correctly.

I disagree, Davicus, as to your pie plates > single shots. I agree with you when the enemy is bunched together, but even under the old dex I would very often fire my Dissies on low power because it was more likely to cause more wounds than using the pie plates. A small blast marker, used on a properly spaced unit, generally wants to scatter a little bit in order to hit more than one (maybe two) targets.

Consider the above math Saldiven showed - 18 shots equates to 12 hits and 8 wounds.

Let's say I fire three small blast pie plates, two hit dead on and hit...let's say 5 bunched guys under each of them. The third shot scatters off.
That's 10 hits, which is less than the single shots (the third shot, if it scattered, would need to hit *three* models to do better than the single shots, and two just to tie). So all three pie plates need to hit and achieve 4 models under them in order to equal the average hit of the single shots. How often do you get 4+ models under your blasts and hit with every single one? Statistically the single shots are superior barring some really bunched up targets and that's why I do prefer them, I actually feel better about the Dissies now than I already did.

@AdeptSister - hey, I don't like him *that* much Thanks for the kind words.

@Mannahnin - thanks, weekly updates will be held to, and I'll probably get them up either Friday or Saturday. I've also still got to get my flags painted up - if they come out nice I'll include a picture of them as well. (if they don't come out nice I'll just lie and claim they did, natch)

Um, except the math was for 9 Disintegrators, not 3. You only need an average of 1.33 hits per blast to get the same results.

Looking forward to watching your progress, though.

Wish there was this kind of campaign where I live. Looks fun. Don't know why your opponent didnt split up those Lootas though.

Thor665 wrote:I disagree, Davicus, as to your pie plates > single shots. I agree with you when the enemy is bunched together, but even under the old dex I would very often fire my Dissies on low power because it was more likely to cause more wounds than using the pie plates. A small blast marker, used on a properly spaced unit, generally wants to scatter a little bit in order to hit more than one (maybe two) targets.

Consider the above math Saldiven showed - 18 shots equates to 12 hits and 8 wounds.

Let's say I fire three small blast pie plates

18 shots and 3 small blast? Sorry, you are not comparing properly.

Thor665 wrote:
Let's say I fire three small blast pie plates, two hit dead on and hit...let's say 5 bunched guys under each of them. The third shot scatters off.
That's 10 hits, which is less than the single shots (the third shot, if it scattered, would need to hit *three* models to do better than the single shots, and two just to tie). So all three pie plates need to hit and achieve 4 models under them in order to equal the average hit of the single shots. How often do you get 4+ models under your blasts and hit with every single one? Statistically the single shots are superior barring some really bunched up targets and that's why I do prefer them, I actually feel better about the Dissies now than I already did.

Replicating your method once more, it should be 20 v.s 12 hits.

Good Job, you have proven yourself wrong.

Hesperus wrote:Um, except the math was for 9 Disintegrators, not 3. You only need an average of 1.33 hits per blast to get the same results.

Looking forward to watching your progress, though.

Well - you're right and wrong here. He did the math for 6 Disentegrators (3 shots each)
So it would be vs. 6 plates to get 12 hits. Each needing 2 hits to equal what the single shots do. The 1.333 is presuming every hit from a blast would wound, which is incorrect.

@Taoofss - splitting the Lootas probably would have been a good idea. MSU is all the rage for a reason. If the Ravagers hadn't done their work than the Raider and Haemy would have dealt with the Lootas - but if he'd split them up and my Ravagers had failed I would have had a much more difficult time trying to shut him down.

@Davicus - well, I was wrong, but above I'm right, and I still stand by my conclusion. Barring serious clumping single shots of three per Dissie is competitive/superior to a blast template.

One Ravager - 3 Disses vs. Toughness 4
9 shots, 6 hits, 4 wounds.
3 blast markers would need to hit 2 models each (or 3 each if one scatters off) to equal the single shots. That is not dramatically superior unless you can start hitting 3+ models with each blast and that is not always easy to do. Against clumps you'll do better, against opponents who know you have blasts you'll do worse. On average the 3 single shots vs. small blast would outperform them as their average would be much more stable. That's probably why I like them, I enjoy the stability factor of single shots as I can have an easier time predicting how much damage I can cause. You probably like the blasts for the absolute carnage they can cause in a tight clump of enemy figures - but that's not as reliable of a thing to count on which is why I consider the single shots superior.

Thor665 wrote:One Ravager - 3 Disses vs. Toughness 4
9 shots, 6 hits, 4 wounds.
3 blast markers would need to hit 2 models each (or 3 each if one scatters off) to equal the single shots. That is not dramatically superior unless you can start hitting 3+ models with each blast and that is not always easy to do. Against clumps you'll do better, against opponents who know you have blasts you'll do worse. On average the 3 single shots vs. small blast would outperform them as their average would be much more stable. That's probably why I like them, I enjoy the stability factor of single shots as I can have an easier time predicting how much damage I can cause. You probably like the blasts for the absolute carnage they can cause in a tight clump of enemy figures - but that's not as reliable of a thing to count on which is why I consider the single shots superior.

Realizing you are wrong and now you are changing your method of calculation totally? Well, we can never come to a conclusion until you make up your mind.

Thor665 wrote:3 blast markers would need to hit 2 models each (or 3 each if one scatters off) to equal the single shots. That is not dramatically superior unless you can start hitting 3+ models with each blast and that is not always easy to do

That's your one sided view, which I disagree completely. It is definitely not difficult to achieve an AVERGAE of more than 2 hits per small blast.

Fair enough.

With all the Lances and Blasters available all around for you now, do you feel comfortable running with 2 3x Disintegrator Ravagers?

Just thinking that 9 S5 Ap2 shots will make Thunderwolves cry foul, and well 18 would just wipe the unit. Be interesting to see them play out.

Anything which makes Thunderwolves cry sounds cool to me!

Unholy_Martyr wrote:With all the Lances and Blasters available all around for you now, do you feel comfortable running with 2 3x Disintegrator Ravagers?

Just thinking that 9 S5 Ap2 shots will make Thunderwolves cry foul, and well 18 would just wipe the unit. Be interesting to see them play out.

Well, at 500 your army will always be better at some things than others - and my choice of Dissies was originally intended to be a mid-point compromise (able to hurt infantry and vehicles). That said, I was pretty content to go in with a anti-troop army build as some of the nastier builds at 500 tend to include either MSU of troops or giant mobs of Orks/Nids.

I haven't actually built enough larger armies in the new codex to figure out how my play will shift on my Ravager loadouts. I usually fielded 2 Dissie Ravagers and 1 lance Ravager as I used mini sniper squads and all my Raiders and blasters as my anti-vehicle. Blasters are still great and easy to spam, and Raiders remain awesome - plus we have some of those tasty new options like the Razorwing and those ridiculous blast pistol things. I might need to get back to you on this thought because I don't have a secure feel yet for if my army will need more anti-infantry or anti-vehicle. I'm almost suspicious that with the inclusion of all the poison weapons that the new DE will need the Ravagers to become pure tank hunters and will just allow the warriors to gun down the troops inside, but I'm not sure as the AP on the Dissie is still a thing of beauty for dealing with harder units like Termies, Thunderwolves or Nobs..

Well after experiencing Dash's Triple Lance Raiders today as well as blaster toting Trueborn, I have to say that those trueborn with Blasters are a downright steal.

I think the 2/3 split of Ravagers might actually get it done; however, if you start to run more venoms as Dash did, keeping pure Lance Ravagers could be necessary.

I question the wisdom of your opponents army. At 500 pts, I really don't think 11 lootas, 3 killa kans, and a Shokk Attack gun are the way to go. Especially agains DE where their shooting can pretty easily pop the Kans 11AV. I would think that a green tide type army would do better. At 500 pts, you can get about 50 boyz and a warboss. That would be an awful lot to handle. Or, if you'd prefer, take a squad of 5 Lootas and fill in the rest with boyz. It just seems like the Ork army was way to easy to handle.

@Unholy - it doesn't surprise me that Dash is running with Venoms - I think they are one of the best tools we've been given in this codex. I'll have to remember to ask him about his Trueborn build - that's a potent potential unit, but I'm still toying with how best to use them.

Madmax1 wrote:I question the wisdom of your opponents army. At 500 pts, I really don't think 11 lootas, 3 killa kans, and a Shokk Attack gun are the way to go. Especially agains DE where their shooting can pretty easily pop the Kans 11AV. I would think that a green tide type army would do better. At 500 pts, you can get about 50 boyz and a warboss. That would be an awful lot to handle. Or, if you'd prefer, take a squad of 5 Lootas and fill in the rest with boyz. It just seems like the Ork army was way to easy to handle.

I agree - vs. my army his was not an optimal build. Against the footsloggin Ork build you describe, his army would have mauled it easily. That is some of the beauty (and annoyance) of the game - especially at 500 points where it's all very paper/rock/scissors. I do think my list would have handled 50 orks pretty easily as well - sit back and shoot 11 poisoned shots from 24" with my Venom, 18 Str 5 shots from my Ravagers, and then ride up flamer/assault them with my Haemy squad once they were weak (presuming I needed to)

i think your small Loota build is the better list for him (especially against DE) if he'd opted for boyz and Warboss instead of grots, SAG, and Kans and had split the Lootas into two groups of 5/6 I would have had a lot more problem with him because he would have robbed me of my mobility quicker and I probably couldn't have stopped the Loota threat in one turn like I did.

From what I remember it was something of the following:

H.Q.
Baron
Hamonculus

Elite
4 Trueborn, 4x Blasters, Venom with 2x Splinter Cannon

4 Trueborn, 4x Blasters, Venom with 2x Splinter Cannon

4 Trueborn, 3x Blasters, Venom with 2x Splinter Cannon

Troops

Warriors 5x, Blaster, Venom with 2x Splinter Cannon

Warriors 5x, Blaster, Venom with 2x Splinter Cannon

Warriors 5x, Blaster, Venom with 2x Splinter Cannon

Warriors 5x, Blaster, Venom with 2x Splinter Cannon

Warriors 5x, Blaster, Venom with 2x Splinter Cannon


Fast Attack

Beastmasters with 5x Chimera and 6x Something else.

Heavy Support

Ravager 3x Lances

Ravager 3x Lances

Ravager 3x Lances

It was not fun to see that many vehicles.

That is nearly my exact 2000 pt list...thats crazy!

Thor I look forward to seeing you adapt your army to the new DE!

Greetings,

Week Two of the Escalation League is underway! Behind the spoiler tags you can find some fiction I’ve written about the second week’s battle story. If you like that sort of stuff, great, read on! But for those who just want pictures and stories about the actual game you don’t need to wear out your scroll wheel moving past it.





Here are a couple of pictures of the work I did on my battle flags as well as the board for the league (my properties are along the bottom left corner in a straight beeline towards a hive city (controlled by John – he of the fearsome Daemon Prince from last week’s report. I shall be claiming that prize soon enough)


Lots of squinting and some (semi) steady hand work gets the symbol of the House of Marret onto the flags.

An example of the House's emblem at "full" size.

The Cerulean Storm claims a Spaceport in their initial lightning raid on the planet’s surface.

Pointing towards a desired goal?


The Lay of the Battlefield

Some other players were coming in to claim their territories later in the week – which allowed those of us there on time a bit of premium real-estate selection. I didn’t roll well enough to claim either of the Hive City tiles, but I did roll well enough to lay claim to a spaceport. Also, I had one of the best resource rolls I could have asked for and immediately invested my points in buying a Manufactorium (+10% to my army – that is broken!). Controlling a Spaceport also allows me to threaten other spaceports and to bring in allies if I wish (I established a tentative alliance with the other DE player since all I’d want to bring is more Dark Eldar to the board anyway.

I challenge a few players this week but some (*cough*John*cough*) duck me because they want to have a higher point total for their CSM forces before playing my DE (which makes a lot of sense, quite frankly). I also wanted a piece of one of the IG players, but they all ducked out for food. Thankfully I found a Salamander player who was also eager to get a game going that night (the shop is 30-45 minutes from my house, so I prefer to get my game in on the same night we do the maintenance/upkeep rounds)

550 points vs. 500 points of Space Marines

The rules of this week gave us 500 points to play with.
I control a Manufactorum for +10%
My Haemonculi - Kirst’takiss currently has 4 experience and was going to be fielded again to gain more this week

Kirst’takiss’ Strike Force

Kirst’takiss Maerret (Haemonculous Leader of Army) – Scissorhands, Destructor (Liquifier)
5 man Wych Squad w. Hexatrix w. Agoniser in Raider (Haemy goes here)
5 man Warrior squad w. Shredder in Venom w. Splinter Canon upgrade
Ravager w. 3x Disentegrator Cannons

Army thoughts – This is not actually the original force I was planning to field, but I decided to play around with it just to try out some Wyches and be a little less pure Gunboat (since I’m sure I’ll do that enough later). The sniper squad is not the value it once was, whereas the Venom is a superior value compared to the old cost of building a comparable Gunboat build (though it is more anti-infantry focused than the old Gunboats I used to field)

All in all I’m pretty sure I’ll be fielding more mobile and more shooty squads than my opponent is likely going to be able to.

Unnamed Salamander Detachment

Chapter Master
2x 10 Man Tactical Squad w. Sarge, Flamer, and Missile Launcher
Rhino

He won mission type and the matrix declared we would be fighting a mission wherein a single objective was placed in the middle and the Marines had to hold it vs. my DE assault. This is pretty much what I would call a ‘worse case’ scenario for the Marines as my army is more shooty, is much faster, and can basically encircle him at will and pick him apart while he tries to desperately hold onto an objective that (whoopee) makes him fearless when near it.

His forces are deployed around the point in a required 12” bubble (hello shooting fish in a barrel). I deploy the foot sniper squad in an advantageous location and also drop the Venom in a safe spot nearby.





He combat squads one of his Tac squads, leaving half in the Rhino and deploying the other half (with missile launcher) into a nearby building.



As I was taking this picture he noted the dark lance and decided to put his Rhino somewhere else – but this still shows the commanding fire lane I had. The objective is a plug for Bolter Beach .


Soon to be joined by the Chapter Master

His opening actions included trying to move his Rhino (which immediately suffered an immobilize from terrain – and later failed to repair) and also dropping some missile shots and bolter rounds on my sniper squad while doing no damage with either of them.




On my turn the Venom skimmed around the building and fired into the Combat squad, as did the sniper squad. The damage was telling as his dice abysmally failed him when it came to saves (and you can’t let that happen with over 20 poisoned shots slamming into only five guys) Pretty much only the missile launcher survived.

On his turn he failed to repair again and the two missile shots at my sniper squad only slew one warrior.

At this point my opponent actually purchased some new dice.


New and blue, though not borrowed.

The shamed old dice are ordered to sit on the bench.

On my turn the Venom moved flat out to try and get to the large Tac squad, while the sniper squad finished off the combat squad and prepared to start sniping at the other foot squad (the Rhino’s deployment position had left it hidden from my los)




His turn involves only a missile shot which does nothing of note.
On my turn both of my reserves show up. The Ravager spins in by the large squad on foot, and the Wych Raider streaks up to use its lance to open up the can of Rhino. The Venom moves up as well and immobilizes itself on some terrain (admittedly this was my third terrain test with that Venom, so I’ve no complaints)






The Ravager and Venom unload a stream of firepower into the large squad and cut down about half of them. The Wych Raider pops the Rhino open, causing the combat inside to spill out.

On his turn he drops his orbital bombardment (missing) and though his missile launcher hits the Ravager it fails to penetrate.

By this point it’s all pretty much written on the wall. The Venom and the squad inside of it fire into the weakened command squad, wiping them mostly out. The Ravager fires into the disembarked combat squad, killing four (perfect mathhammer!)



Kirst’takiss disembarks from the Wych Raider and assaults the sergeant in order to get the extra experience of killing/routing a squad. A dark lance to the Chapter Master finishes the battle.

I’m overall pretty pleased with the DE’s capability in low point games (and strangely enough I still feel we’re weaker than we used to be at that). The Venom is looking to become one of my new favorite things ever – the Gunboat style has always been up my alley, and to have a ‘Raider’ that is all about shooting 12 poison shots, while carrying guys who can shoot, and having a built in 5+ save is practically a wet dream come true. I’m going to have to do some conversion work and come up with something to specifically represent them (as currently all I have for them is a flat Raider – not the most optimal ‘counts as’).

Still haven’t seen the assault elements of the Codex at work, but that should be coming soon enough.

Next week the battles go to 750 points.

Until then you can also look at some other pictures from the ongoing league.
Some air cav IG stomped on the other DE player (look forward to playing both of those guys).
John’s CSM tore up some Orks.
Those were the only other games that happened that night.

Just out of curiosity how do you like this style of campaign? I am currently organizing the planetary empires i believe its called for my local gaming group and any suggestions on what to do to make it as smooth as possible would be greatly appreciated. Also looks like loads of fun good luck in the following games i'll be watching intently.

harshr3ality wrote:Just out of curiosity how do you like this style of campaign? I am currently organizing the planetary empires i believe its called for my local gaming group and any suggestions on what to do to make it as smooth as possible would be greatly appreciated. Also looks like loads of fun good luck in the following games i'll be watching intently.

On a purely competitive nature I'm pretty disenchanted - a few of the armies have some markedly superior options/advantages available to them whilst others will suffer, and some of the upgrade options out there are just shockingly advantageous to have. Plus, each and every battle will have a lot of different doo-dads going on that will help occlude the actual generalship of the two players.

Stepping back and looking at it as more of a fun way to ensure I get a game or two every week and get to try a lot of my new Dex options I'm pretty darn pleased with it.

The big goal for the organizer is to be on top of things and try to make it as clear to the players as possible what's going on. Make sure you know all the rules and that you are prepared for whatever is happening that week. Our organizer, for instance, dropped the ball in week one when he didn't have the tiles or flags ready to go which effectively cost us one week of invasions. (Also, just from a modeling perspective I would highly encourage you to do a basecoat and drybrushing of the tiles and buildings - even that basic step will really help make the map pop and get the players a bit more excited about which territories they're conquering).

Probably the biggest piece of advice I can give is do your best to stay connected with the players. I'd get emails or maybe setup a Facebook page and do weekly updates of relevant information for them - if I was running one of these I'd definitely do some sort of weekly update with some pictures and fluff to help play up the fun side of the campaign which is the biggest draw for it (especially if you have some newer players).