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In general I'd like to know what the designers intended, since that does not always come through cleanly in the language - as I'm sure we all realize. There are only two specific notes that immediately come to mind:

That has been hotly contested for decades. since the designers are/were brits and originally did not design the game for hardcore tournament minded players there have been quite a few instances where things were interpreted in a way they even admitted they never considered in some interviews. the rule of thumb is generally-if it looks like the rule could be interpreted to give you an unfair advantage-do not use it in that way.

1. Does the Thunderfire Cannon have Barrage in 5E? Codex says no, but all publications afterwards in the 3E-7E paradigm say yes. Perhaps the change was only made after the 5E codex, but I don't wonder.

It depends on what version of barrage you are talking about-indirect fire or template flipping. rules wise in 5th edition it does not. codex always takes precedent for special rules. it is a heavy 4 blast meaning you roll for each shot/scatter separately (an improvement in my experience) but it cannot fire indirect.

2. How do No Retreat wounds (5E again) interact within multiple-combats? In a recent game of my Crimson Fists against my friend's Tyranids, there was an assault with two Tactical Squads vs. an Exocrine (we just use the 6E rules ported directly back) and a swarm of Genestealers. Marines did very poorly and lost combat by 8, using Combat Tactics to try and break away. Both units were caught by the Genestealers and so took 8 wounds apiece. RAW that seems to be how it works and is/was pretty nasty to be on the receiving end. The Red Book however does not do a great job making that clear, as we had to scour the Assault and Morale rules to figure that out.

If you look back at the first page i discuss how we also port new units back into older codexes, works just fine. a bit expensive at times but having chaos a helldrake with parasitic possession from the 3.5 codex makes it far more interesting.

They are all one big combat and the result effect all participants, however i think you are mixing up a different rule-no retreat applies to units that are fearless not units with ATSKNF (and they shall know no fear). it is a reason we house ruled fearless back to what it was in 3rd and 4th edition (and became again in later editions-the fearless unit just auto passes moral and keeps fighting without taking the extra wounds).

The order of the event you describe after combat is resolved should be-
.apply LD modifiers to the loosing unit(s) taking the highest LD value available in the combat.
.if the losing side fails the check (always passes on double 1s) or in this case chooses to fail with combat tactics- they fall back 2d6 inches or 3d6 for jump and bike units
.the winning unit(s) can try to catch the fleeing units by rolling a D6 + initiative (using the highest stat for each side). if the fleeing unit does not roll higher it is caught
.for any non-marine unit without ATSKNF they are immediately destroyed as they are cut down as they turn to run,
.for units with ATSKNF they turn and keep fighting as if combat was tied. they also do not make the fall back move.

In your situation it is still bad for the marines as being in CC with stealers and a monstrous creature is not a great place for tac squads, but they would not take any extra wounds/make saves for being caught.

Just consider the art itself in the codexes. I guess they used photos of minis when 6th came around.

Not just the art, i miss the grim dark feel of the older books. you always had liner notes and quotes-
take this excerpt from the witch hunters codex
++"Heretics crave the cleansing fire of absolution. they need not fear, for we shall deliver"++

 aphyon wrote:


That has been hotly contested for decades. since the designers are/were brits and originally did not design the game for hardcore tournament minded players there have been quite a few instances where things were interpreted in a way they even admitted they never considered in some interviews. the rule of thumb is generally-if it looks like the rule could be interpreted to give you an unfair advantage-do not use it in that way.

Not only that, but you had disputes between and within the design teams over the direction of the game.

By 1998, 40k was outstripping their flagship fantasy line of games and figures. It was popular, but a hodge-podge of official books, magazine articles and various official pronouncements. The focus of the game had also shifted, from very detailed squad on squad action (rolling scatter for every jump pack move, models hit with flamers could catch fire and move randomly each turn, etc.) to a larger-scale combat with less detail. There were tons of weird an complex mechanics, including mole mortars and the Thudd gun. A revision was desperately needed.

A larger question was how to approach the rules themselves. Was GW going to create a standard, refined and long-lasting rules set or do something different? In fact, I don't think any game company before or since has embraced their concept of planned obsolescence. D&D has been around far longer than 40k and has half as many revisions (ironically the latest bring it closer to its original edition than any since).

This is the biggest obstacle to a geezer like me getting "current," because I'll only be current for a three years before the next iteration comes out. At least by playing Oldhammer I know what I've got, and the edition I chose was big enough that I still haven't explored it fully, which says a lot about the scope of its design space.

 aphyon wrote:

In general I'd like to know what the designers intended, since that does not always come through cleanly in the language - as I'm sure we all realize. There are only two specific notes that immediately come to mind:

That has been hotly contested for decades. since the designers are/were brits and originally did not design the game for hardcore tournament minded players there have been quite a few instances where things were interpreted in a way they even admitted they never considered in some interviews. the rule of thumb is generally-if it looks like the rule could be interpreted to give you an unfair advantage-do not use it in that way.

Hence my desire for access to old errata and FAQs. Surely there is some documentation somewhere, as I remember in my youth seeing such documents, that would be a start for clearing up some of the uncertainties. If you go too far in creating your own version, there comes a point where you may as well be making your own game - a la ProHammer.

 aphyon wrote:

1. Does the Thunderfire Cannon have Barrage in 5E? Codex says no, but all publications afterwards in the 3E-7E paradigm say yes. Perhaps the change was only made after the 5E codex, but I don't wonder.

It depends on what version of barrage you are talking about-indirect fire or template flipping. rules wise in 5th edition it does not. codex always takes precedent for special rules. it is a heavy 4 blast meaning you roll for each shot/scatter separately (an improvement in my experience) but it cannot fire indirect.

Yes, I know the 5E codex does not list Barrage on the Thunderfire, that was the point of the query. Later codices do make the Thunderfire a Barrage weapon. As the Thunderfire Cannon was introduced in the 2008 5E Space Marine Codex I am wondering whether it was supposed to have Barrage from the first, as it was obviously changed to be so in time. An errata document might answer the question.

 aphyon wrote:

2. How do No Retreat wounds (5E again) interact within multiple-combats? In a recent game of my Crimson Fists against my friend's Tyranids, there was an assault with two Tactical Squads vs. an Exocrine (we just use the 6E rules ported directly back) and a swarm of Genestealers. Marines did very poorly and lost combat by 8, using Combat Tactics to try and break away. Both units were caught by the Genestealers and so took 8 wounds apiece. RAW that seems to be how it works and is/was pretty nasty to be on the receiving end. The Red Book however does not do a great job making that clear, as we had to scour the Assault and Morale rules to figure that out.

If you look back at the first page i discuss how we also port new units back into older codexes, works just fine. a bit expensive at times but having chaos a helldrake with parasitic possession from the 3.5 codex makes it far more interesting.

They are all one big combat and the result effect all participants, however i think you are mixing up a different rule-no retreat applies to units that are fearless not units with ATSKNF (and they shall know no fear). it is a reason we house ruled fearless back to what it was in 3rd and 4th edition (and became again in later editions-the fearless unit just auto passes moral and keeps fighting without taking the extra wounds).

The order of the event you describe after combat is resolved should be-
.apply LD modifiers to the loosing unit(s) taking the highest LD value available in the combat.
.if the losing side fails the check (always passes on double 1s) or in this case chooses to fail with combat tactics- they fall back 2d6 inches or 3d6 for jump and bike units
.the winning unit(s) can try to catch the fleeing units by rolling a D6 + initiative (using the highest stat for each side). if the fleeing unit does not roll higher it is caught
.for any non-marine unit without ATSKNF they are immediately destroyed as they are cut down as they turn to run,
.for units with ATSKNF they turn and keep fighting as if combat was tied. they also do not make the fall back move.

In your situation it is still bad for the marines as being in CC with stealers and a monstrous creature is not a great place for tac squads, but they would not take any extra wounds/make saves for being caught.

I recommend you check the 5E Codex again, because Space Marines do in fact suffer No Retreat losses when ATSKNF kicks in vs Sweeping Advances. I cannot speak to 3E, 4E, or etc. but in the 5E 2008 book it very clearly says so on page 51 under the ATSKNF heading: "If this happens then the unit is subject to the No Retreat rule in this round of close combat..." Personally I prefer this wording of ATSKNF and Fearless, as it makes such Special Rules not complete invalidations of the Morale penalties for losing in close combat. When certain factions, such as Space Marines, Tyranids, big mobs of Orks, 3.5E CSM, and so on broadly ignore Morale in many circumstances it can feel as though you are playing two different tiers of the game with some clear winners and some clear losers.

In the aforementioned situation, the SM lost combat by a total of 8 wounds and merely used Combat Tactics to auto-fail the Ld. check rather than risk passing and being forced into another round of combat. Being caught by the Sweeping Advance, both SM units took 8 wounds due to No Retreat as previously said. The difficulty of the situation was in ascertaining that yes indeed both units took a total of 8 additional wounds each (rather than the 8 wounds being somehow divided between them) because Combat Results are shared universally across all friendly units within a multi-assault. Be cautious with your multi-assaults is the lessen, as you can lose to a much greater degree than you might expect.

I recommend you check the 5E Codex again, because Space Marines do in fact suffer No Retreat losses when ATSKNF kicks in vs Sweeping Advances.

We solved that problem entirely by removing the mechanic from our games by going back to 3rd/4th ed rules. fearless units auto pass, stubborn units take no LD modifiers, ATSKNF just stay locked and keep fighting.

Surely there is some documentation somewhere

As to their idea of rules as intended? i do not think such an explanation exists.

The only time i have seen that is when they did personal interviews at events.

looking though the combined 5th ed IG FAQ/errata
The FAQ side just answers a few questions like can multiple advisors stack modifiers?
the other side just fixes typos like pointing out in the rules the Valkyrie has 3 access doors not one (even though we clearly know that by looking at the model).

Later codices do make the Thunderfire a Barrage weapon. As the Thunderfire Cannon was introduced in the 2008 5E Space Marine Codex I am wondering whether it was supposed to have Barrage from the first,

Very clearly NO, it doesn't matter what they changed it to later, the 5th ed codex takes precedent if that is the book you are using for your army it is a heavy 4 small blast. granted your group can choose to make it barrage if they so choose. again as an older edition there is no GW police coming to tell you you cannot play it how you like if you all agree. just like removing the no-retreat rule above.

 Colonel Bork wrote:
Both units were caught by the Genestealers and so took 8 wounds apiece. RAW that seems to be how it works and is/was pretty nasty to be on the receiving end. The Red Book however does not do a great job making that clear, as we had to scour the Assault and Morale rules to figure that out.

This is correct under 5th edition rules - both units take wounds equal to the combat result against them, saves allowed, as per no retreat on page 51 of the marine book (and page 41 of the 5e rulebook).
In this instance the marine unit would not move.

Under earlier edition rules the marines would have fallen back the full distance and any unit that caught up to them would have been treated as charging them, but with no more casualties inflicted.

 Colonel Bork wrote:
This is likely the best place to ask, but do any of you fellow past-edition appreciators have access to the 5th faqs & errata? I play that edition mostly with my pals anymore, but we have none of the ancillary documents, only our physical books plus a few Imperial Armour pdfs.

I've sent you a PM for my old errata dropbox archive, 3rd to 5th edition.

 aphyon wrote:

Very clearly NO, it doesn't matter what they changed it to later, the 5th ed codex takes precedent if that is the book you are using for your army it is a heavy 4 small blast. granted your group can choose to make it barrage if they so choose. again as an older edition there is no GW police coming to tell you you cannot play it how you like if you all agree. just like removing the no-retreat rule above.

When we initially shifted back to 2nd, there were a certain amount of "orphaned" gear that we had to account for. Most of it translated okay because there were equivalent weapons available. Over time, however, it was easier to either retrofit the models or sell them and buy edition-appropriate replacements.

The latter option was quite profitable since people were dumping 2nd ed. stuff for cheap and the constant price increases kept the secondary market booming. It also solved the problem of weapons systems that only worked in a 3/4 edition environment. The Land Raider Crusader was bristling with shooty weapons to compensate for the reduced effectiveness of missile fire. In the 2nd ed. environment, it got an insane amount of sustained fire dice, which meant it got to shoot at full effect once per game.

After that it was clearing jams. Same with the Baal Predator. Six sustained fire dice and then...clearing all the jams.

I'm sure the new owners are quite happy with them.

As per the 2nd ed rules, you did not have to use ALL the potential Sustained fire dice.

aphyon wrote:

Later codices do make the Thunderfire a Barrage weapon. As the Thunderfire Cannon was introduced in the 2008 5E Space Marine Codex I am wondering whether it was supposed to have Barrage from the first,

Very clearly NO, it doesn't matter what they changed it to later, the 5th ed codex takes precedent if that is the book you are using for your army it is a heavy 4 small blast. granted your group can choose to make it barrage if they so choose. again as an older edition there is no GW police coming to tell you you cannot play it how you like if you all agree. just like removing the no-retreat rule above.

I think you're missing my point. I know that the 2008 Codex does not list the Thunderfire Cannon as Barrage - it's right there in black and white. I was merely wondering if any of the FAQs/errata documents from that time made such an adjustment, since in all later publications (6E/7E) the weapon does have the Barrage rule. The question was whether that was originally intended for the 2008 book, or if some designer made the decision later. As A.T. has helpfully provided me with the FAQs/errata I was looking for, I can now confirm that the latter was the answer.

A.T. wrote:

 Colonel Bork wrote:
Both units were caught by the Genestealers and so took 8 wounds apiece. RAW that seems to be how it works and is/was pretty nasty to be on the receiving end. The Red Book however does not do a great job making that clear, as we had to scour the Assault and Morale rules to figure that out.

This is correct under 5th edition rules - both units take wounds equal to the combat result against them, saves allowed, as per no retreat on page 51 of the marine book (and page 41 of the 5e rulebook).
In this instance the marine unit would not move.

Under earlier edition rules the marines would have fallen back the full distance and any unit that caught up to them would have been treated as charging them, but with no more casualties inflicted.

Yes, this is the eventual conclusion we reached in the game, though it took us a bit of time to determine that. I think my opponent may have been pitying me as, he maintained that it worked differently and each unit took only as many No Retreat wounds as they individually lost the combat by! Suffice to say, the Marines did not fare well, but that is fine.

A.T. wrote:

 Colonel Bork wrote:
This is likely the best place to ask, but do any of you fellow past-edition appreciators have access to the 5th faqs & errata? I play that edition mostly with my pals anymore, but we have none of the ancillary documents, only our physical books plus a few Imperial Armour pdfs.

I've sent you a PM for my old errata dropbox archive, 3rd to 5th edition.

Thank you again, this is just what I was looking for.

 Insectum7 wrote:
As per the 2nd ed rules, you did not have to use ALL the potential Sustained fire dice.

Nope, but given the whole point of these things was a ludicrous rate of fire, not using them was somewhat of a waste.

As I said, over time it made sense to shift to the edition-specific versions simply because they were optimized for that rules set.

I've been slowly rebuilding my general dark angels centered around the 3.5 mini codex.

with everything i have i am up to around 3,800 points. with a big chunk being in land raiders...back when i used to own all the variants that were available at the time.

I am also trying to stay with old school theme of swords and plasma weapons. i was given a squad of guardians of the covenant so i am toying with adding more successor representation.

 aphyon wrote:
I've been slowly rebuilding my general dark angels centered around the 3.5 mini codex.

Nice. Are those metal or plastic dreads? I know bases subsequently became "a thing," so it's hard to tell.

I was big into dreads back in the day and they were a mainstay of my 3/4 marines. I see some razorbacks, which were also the backbone of my force.

No photos yet, but I'm about done with the squad of Noise Marines for my 2nd ed. force and I'll update my thread on the scratch-built Chaos Rhinos soon. One annoying thing about scratch-builds: you forget stuff. We had nice weather two days ago, so I primed and base coated them and then realized that I needed to add a few bits. That doesn't happen when you've got instructions!

Helios and a Prometheus. Nice.

And that Venerable is metal. The rest are plastic, based on the searchlight/autolaunchers.

Indeed, i have owned many of these minis since around 2001.

I love the old FW spaced armor, long since discontinued.

The metal venerable dread would really hurt if you got hit with it.

I am running the deathwing terminator squad as Azrael's command squad so i got an apothecary and techmarine in there. fun things you could do back in the day.
The prometheus specifically i am running as the named personal land raider of the supreme grand master from the Vraks book-Angelis Imperator as a relic vehicle i thought is should remain in old legion colors.

 aphyon wrote:
Indeed, i have owned many of these minis since around 2001.

I love the old FW spaced armor, long since discontinued.

The metal venerable dread would really hurt if you got hit with it.

All four of my space marine dreadnoughts are metal. Indeed, that army is largely "frozen in time," in terms of model vintage.

It looks great. I had a lot of fun with 3rd ed., but it did wear me out in the end. Plus, knowing I'd have to buy new books all over again at a time when I had little kids and a million other expenses caused me to bail out.

I'll cop to being ignorant on the plastic dreadnought features since I never had one and I'm also prone to mixing and matching parts from all over the place. I've got surplus metal smoke launchers tacked onto all sorts of scratchbuilt stuff.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

I'll cop to being ignorant on the plastic dreadnought features since I never had one and I'm also prone to mixing and matching parts from all over the place. I've got surplus metal smoke launchers tacked onto all sorts of scratchbuilt stuff.

Yeah the only noticeable difference between the metal and plastic Dreadnoughts is the auto-launchers. For some odd reason they decided to make them much smaller (and much inferior, imo). I have all plastic Dreads but I managed to get them all hooked up with the metal auto launchers to look right.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Yeah the only noticeable difference between the metal and plastic Dreadnoughts is the auto-launchers. For some odd reason they decided to make them much smaller (and much inferior, imo). I have all plastic Dreads but I managed to get them all hooked up with the metal auto launchers to look right.

Can the plastic ones pivot at the waist? That's one of the things I like about my metal ones - I can turn the torso various ways and - if it gets blown up - split it in two with "smoke" coming out.

Most (but not all) of my scratch-built stuff can pivot their weapons at least, but doing the partial disassembly thing is beyond my patience. At a certain point I want to just play with the toy already.

The waist of the plastic ones is a ball-and-socket, rather than the "plug" of the metal, so it's more poseable, but likely to tumble off . . . Unless you employ the magic of magnets! All of mine (3) are magnetized.

 Insectum7 wrote:
The waist of the plastic ones is a ball-and-socket, rather than the "plug" of the metal, so it's more poseable, but likely to tumble off . . . Unless you employ the magic of magnets! All of mine (3) are magnetized.

Oooh. Fancy.

I thought about making working running gear for my Chaos Rhinos but failed my saving throw vs laziness.

They will have rubber tracks, so I will take pride in that.

All my old dreads are glued together at the waste, it wasn't until mid 2008 when i started building my salamanders successors for 5th ed that i discovered the magic of magnets. of course, all the arm sets are peg/hole so they just pop on and off no problem.

In which Da Black Ork Cav and the 1991 Blood Angels 3rd Company square off for a 1000pts of 2nd Ed...

https://skinflintgames.wordpress.com/2022/11/30/the-armageddon-diaries-game-1-the-blood-angels-hit-the-table/

So did a combination of 2 versions of the game this weekend.

I broke all my epic armies into legal 2k points 5th ed style armies and we played a 10 turn center objective battle with ranges and movement halved.

The other player wanted to use the 3rd edition IG armored company list. i randomly rolled off to choose his opponent. he got the admech 7th edition list.

all those breachers glanced him all over the place and managed to kill several tanks. in the end it was to no avail as we were both pushed too far away from the objective to win outright. so, we had to go to tie breaker. he won that with first blood.

Quite a bit to post tonight-

First off both our games were using our hybrid 3rd-7th ed rules.

The first game was against a guard armored company courtesy of the 3rd edition chapter approved-8 leman russ's of various loadouts and 2 baneblades.

My side ran craftworld eldar for iyanden with a farseer on a jet bike, 3 squads of wraithguard/spirit seers in wave serpents, 3 fire prisms, a linx, revenant titan and 3 crimson hunters.

We both brought the tools to hurt each other and even with all the damage we were doing it was a bunch of turns (the game was set at 10 given the scale) of basically knocking each other around but not killing anything. fortunately since we allowed snap firing there was still loads of action.

The eldar seemd to be behind for the first half of the game and slowly started killing or neutering guard tanks near the end, but it wasn't enough to pull them ahead. i only took 2 structure off one baneblade and one off the other but i did manage to destroy both demolisher and baneblade cannons. it was a very fun game, and it really didn't take very long to play.


















Now for part 2-

Standard scale 2k game blood angles 5th ed VS dark angels 3.5 ed.

this was a test game for the blood angels. with a few stand in proxies

BA
astorath the grim
X3 5 man death compay with power fist/infernus pistol in assault cannon razorbacks.
.5 man scout sniper team
X2 baal predators
X3 vindicators
X1 deathcompany dread with claws in a lucius drop pod.



VS

.azrael
.interrogator chaplain in terminator armor
.deathcompany command squad
in a land raider crusader
.2 squads of plasma pistol/gun/cannon in las/plas razorbacks
X3 venerable dreads (2 plasma/2 assault cannon) 2 lucius pattern drop pods.



Dark angels managed to go first, with turn 1 being a bit lackluster, only immobilizing one vindicator and killing some scouts.

It was actually a pretty good fight, i was surprised how long my razorbacks lasted...the land raider not so much. the death company dread super overkilled the tactical squad it assaulted but then got immobilised by overwatch fire when it tried to assault a razorback. the back and forth went on like this for a while.

when the dust cleared the blood angles had a narrow 2 point lead when the game ended turn 5 with a roll of 2.

Tonight's game was an interesting mix. a DIY chapter using the 4th ed trait system that felt like a mix of raven guard and alpha legion, heavy on the infiltration and close combat VS my 3.5 dark angels.
The game was 2K, with 5 objectives.

His force had-
.captain
chaplain
.X4 tac squads (2 half sized W/razorback)
.devastator squad W/razorback
.2 ironclad dreads
.X1 venerable dread

I ran the same list for the dark angels that i used last time......and i actually made the roll to "hunt the fallen". his tech marine was designated as the character holding the information.

I managed to win the roll for first turn. i savaged both his infiltrating 10 man squads. forcing one to break and run then, get stuck in CC for a turn with one of my podding dreads.

There was a whole lot of me making my cover saves, my las cannons not being able to roll above an 11 for armor pen and a few instances of vehicles getting stunned and shaken.

I did manage a moral victory by slaying the tech marine in CC giving me 2 extra victory points. however, the game ended on turn 5 with him using troops to OBSEC away a contested point giving him 4 VP to my 3. it was turn 5 where i started to actually do damage killing 2 of his dreads. if i had another turn i think i would have turned it around.

A tough game to the wire.

Next time we are planning a silly game using a combination of the death company rules (blood angels 5th ed) with blood frenzy (3.5 khrone berserkers), righteous zeal (4th ed black templar) and a couple other silly rules to make a proper "angry marines" army list. i am looking forward to it.

Purge the unclean!

The dark angels came out one more time before i rotate them out.

tonight's game was against imperial guard. why may you ask would the emperors finest strike a blow against the guard? why when they consort with abhumans of course. specifically storm troopers of the catgirl variety.

The game-
2k points, 4 objectives 12" deployment.

Dark angels side 3.5 codex
.azrael
.X2 plasma cannon/plasma gun TAC squads in las/plas razorbacks
.X1 missile/flamer TAC squad+flak ammo
.X3 venerable dreads (2 with plasma cannon/1 with assault cannon)
.X2 lucius pattern drop pods
.land speeder tempest
.landraider helios w/hyperios AA missile upgrade.

IG side-5th ed codex
.company command
.lord commisar
.pask in a leman russ executioner
.X2 vet squads with melta
.X2 storm trooper squads
.X1 infantry squad
.autocannon squad
.X2 chimera
.griffon mortor
.armored sentinel
.standard leman russ
X2 vendetta gunships.


DA won the first turn and managed to take down the normal russ and take the main gun off Pask's executioner. the melta squads got revenge on the podding dreads in the following turns, including a lucky melta hit in overwatch. . Azrael was taken down to 1 wound but managed to bring the emperors wrath to the feline troopers one they showed up. he managed to shrug off hits from las cannons, plasma and melta.....but not the wall of flashlights,

Both vendettas were taken down by the land raiders las cannons. one after it had dropped off it's passengers, the other took a catastrophic visist to the ground at high speed.

When the smke cleared at the end of turn 5 both sides were holding a single objective.

the tie breakers were.
.slay the warlord-to the guard.
.first blood and linebreaker to the Dark Angels.

Giving a narrow victory to the 1st.

Loss wise

Dark angels
.azrael
.14 marines
.2 dreadnoughts
.1 razorback
with
one razorback immobilized with no weapons.

Guard
.leman russ
.X2 vendetta
.X2 storm trooper squads (20)
.infantry squad (10)
.autocannon squad (3/6)

With
.one chimera immobilized.
.Pask's exterminator missing its main gun.
.the armored sentinel was immobilized.

Rough start for the IG taking so much damage on the Russes from so few lascannons.

Do you play the old style of first-turn player deploys first, or alternating deployment?

It was just one las cannon on Pask the other russ ran afoul of the podding dreadnought. although i only did have 2 regular las and 2 twin linked. the darn chimera (the green one not the tan one) was indestructible. it shrugged off so much fire thanks to low dice rolls or cover saves.

Set up wise we go really old school with a slight modification. 1-roll to see who gets to choose to set up first or second (effectively letting you choose table sides VS seeing where the enemy deploys), then you set up your entire force, 2. then we roll off to see who gets to go first (keeps it interesting) and then 3. the seize the initiative roll for the looser.

 aphyon wrote:
2. then we roll off to see who gets to go first (keeps it interesting) and then 3. the seize the initiative roll for the looser.

Why do this when it's mathematically identical to skipping the seize roll and just rolling off for first turn? The seize roll only exists when you do something between rolling for first turn and rolling to seize.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
2. then we roll off to see who gets to go first (keeps it interesting) and then 3. the seize the initiative roll for the looser.

Why do this when it's mathematically identical to skipping the seize roll and just rolling off for first turn? The seize roll only exists when you do something between rolling for first turn and rolling to seize.

Because we think it is fun. isn't that enough?

 aphyon wrote:
It was just one las cannon on Pask the other russ ran afoul of the podding dreadnought.

Combination of bad luck and positioning then. One in three to hit, one in twelve to penetrate past cover, 50/50 to do meaningful damage thereafter. Guard have the range and bodies to try and castle-out drop pods - i'm assuming it was an underslung meltagun.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Why do this when it's mathematically identical to skipping the seize roll and just rolling off for first turn?

If i'm not mistaken it's functionally a 4+ seize unless you choose to not contest the first coin flip. I suppose incentive to not set up in the ultra-aggressive vs ultra-defensive style of 5th.

Combination of bad luck and positioning then. One in three to hit, one in twelve to penetrate past cover, 50/50 to do meaningful damage thereafter. Guard have the range and bodies to try and castle-out drop pods - i'm assuming it was an underslung meltagun.

Pask failed his 4+ cover and i managed a weapon destroyed result, don't remember if it was a glance or pen.

The other russ had not moved so a dread coming out of a lucius pattern drop pod for turn 1 assault against side armor with 3 auto hits at S10 is a pretty high chance for damage. He got his revenge though with the vet squads. it was a really close game that was decided by tie breakers so it wasn't like it was one sided.

Close games are always the best in my book.

I suppose incentive to not set up in the ultra-aggressive vs ultra-defensive style of 5th.

It is a tactical trade off assuming you win the roll off.
-do you really want one side of the table VS the other or do you want to know where your enemy is deployed?