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 aphyon wrote:
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?

That isn't quite the trade-off I was thinking of.

5e usually had a very clearly defined defender and attacker in any given game. The first player could choose their table edge, position for maximum firepower and aggression, and was almost always going to be first to act. The second player then set up to mitigate it, and the one in six seize was the wildcard that punished 'no plan B' kind of setups.

With a 50/50 chance of going first though setup is much more of a gamble. You don't know if you have the initiative until it is too late to do anything about it so setup becomes a choice of conservative vs risk - a bit like playing American Football and both teams have to send their quarterbacks out not knowing who the ref will hand the ball to until the play starts :p

 aphyon wrote:

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?

But why is it fun? Why does resolving who gets first turn by rolling 2D6 instead of a single D6 make it more fun? If rolling more dice is more fun then why not roll 3D6? Or 10D6? You aren't the first person who has used this weird sequence and I've never understood why anyone thinks it's worth doing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

A.T. wrote:
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.

I'm talking specifically about the roll for first turn followed immediately by a roll to seize. How it used to work was that you rolled for first turn, deployed the armies, and then rolled to seize. And yeah, the intent was exactly what you said: the 1/6 chance of not going first like you thought you would provided some incentive to not deploy 100% aggressively and be over-extended if your opponent rolled a 6, mitigating alpha strikes a bit. But what Aphyon is doing is rolling for first turn after deployment and then immediately rolling to seize, without anything happening between the two rolls. The seize roll is mathematically redundant and has no reason to exist at that point.

Last night I played a 2nd ed. game with my daughter, 1,000 points, she with Sisters of Battle, me with Da Orks. My group tends to use narrative play and structured scenarios so this was a meeting engagement (all units had to have transport, no leg infantry) and my mission was Dawn Raid while hers was Engage and Destroy.

It was a close game, and partly instructional for her (we haven't played in years), but still fun. The highlight was when she had her Seraphim drop down next to a packed Battlewagon and incinerate everyone on it - except the lucky one who fell out (which by rule meant he had existed the vehicle). He survived the fall, and made a sprint for the table edge but couldn't outrun the jet packs.

Since folks are talking about starting, I enjoy the way 2nd has fixed strategy ratings. In this case the Orks set up first due to their lower rating, but then had the edge when seeing who got the first turn because they double it for turn order rolls. Just a fun little quirk to reflect the relative agility of the various armies.

I'm talking specifically about the roll for first turn followed immediately by a roll to seize.

It is probably a more psychological thing. snatching first turn victory at the last second kind of thing.

We all like the older 3rd/4th ed roll to set up and another roll for first turn, they added the seize mechanic in there after they went to one roll to set up/go first and it kind of stuck.

It creates drama!

Nothing wrong with a little drama in your games.

Especially silly drama like Azrael shrugging off las cannons, plasma cannons, melta guns only to die to a hail of flashlights.

I'll probably make a dedicated post about this too.... but going back to a conversation from last year, there was a discussion about battle reports and how much fun they were (or not) to watch.

One of the points that stuck with me was that in a usual battle report video, there is a lot of wasted time watching die rolls and other stuff in real-time. There haven't been many cases of people going back to make videos that discuss the gameplay outcomes and decisions after the fact. I've also always struggled with typical video battle reports to get a sense of the actual BATTLE and what was happening where.

So the video my friend and I made (below) was an attempt to try something different. The video covers a rather large battle at the climax of our year-long map based campaign. It got a little longer than intended (but we also covered more up front stuff outside of the battle itself), and if we do this again we'll try to get more focused and tighten things up (also do a smaller battle).

Anyway, please take a look at the video we made. Any and all feedback on the format, presentation, style, approach, etc. would be awesome. We're curious where we can go with this format. Enjoy!

Warm up time tonight.

Did a little list change to my Admech force.

reduced the number of infiltrators to 7 so i could fit in 5 fulgorite electro priests to ride in the termite assault drill.

this is also my first outing with the station forge 3d printed dune crawler variant miniatures,



It was getting late when we started this game so we just went quick and dirt -2km 12" deployment kill points.

My friend was running his normal 3.5 iron warriors list.

As it always happens i did not kill a single one of his predators. took off weapons, immobilized them etc... but all that just grew back thanks to parasitic, and he ignored all the stunned/shaken results thanks to being controlled by a demon.

All 3 dune crawlers got immobilized on my side and my infiltrators failed their charge, getting deleted by the basilisk.

I did manage to survive all but one of his 9 obliterators. and the fulgerites were victorious against his marines.

I lost 3 units
.cataphron breachers
.assault drill
.infiltrators

he lost 5
.X3 tac squads
.X2 obliterator units.

Game ended on a roll of 2 at the end of 5. i probably would have lost had it gone on, but still a fun game.

First report tonight was a little training game i assisted in-

A new player who tried one game of 9th earlier in the night and decided to give oldhammer a try using the 3rd ed armored company list

The game was 2K IG on IG. the other guard player had run an armored company earlier in the night (report on that next) so he decided on a more "normal" guard army.

The game was 2K points, king of the hill center objective with table quarters deployment.

Creed was on the non-red side and decided to let one of the 2 macharius's outflank from reserves.

It actually took quite a while to wear down all the infantry. the game went to turn 6, with the armored company list parking 2 russes on the objective which by this time was hard to dislodge given the reduction of the other guards play AT units.

The new guy really liked the old hammer rules with a decided dislike of stratagems from his earlier test game. he had to really think over his movement this game weighing his firing arcs VS vulnerabilities in facings. overall though he had a good game and pulled off a victory.







The first game was slightly larger by 120 points with 3 objectives and end to end deplyment.

It was a different armored company list VS an admech force.

My admech force-lucius forge world with macharius support-



This game could have swung either way. the admech is a pretty hard counter to armored company especially with all the cataphrons carrying either the haywire guns or the heavy grav cannons.

I actually managed to destroy the bane blade turn 1 with cascading damage. but since we are using the old FW rules he managed to make a save with his onboard tech priest to save the last structure point....so i proceeded to spend the rest of the game immobilizing it and ripping off weapons. by turn 5 my outflankers had caused havoc in his back field destroying his russ punisher, an armored fist squad and his medusa.

By turn 5 it was a tie leaning in my favor with first blood and linebreaker, it went to turn 6 and he managaged to turn in around and take the lead on objectives. giving him a narrow victory.

a very close game, the best kind-

We had a new group come in last week playing 9th age and some one page rules grim darkness. they found out how we play old hammer and wanted to come back, unfortunately only one made it back in as the others got sick or otherwise had life happen.

silly life getting in the way of gaming.

So we got a game in of 4th ed tau VS 7th ed admech.

The game

2K points, table quarters deployment with 5 objectives.

The table







the game started out a bit slow, neither of us killed much turn 1 with a few stunned vehicles and a few infantry killed....then dice happened. even without marker lights his tau were shooting extremely well (including overwatching my fulgerites)....and i was failing my saves in comparative dice rolls.

the other big problem for me was having 2 of my outflanking units come in on the wrong end of the table...turned out it wasn't all bad his kroot made the mistake of trying to take down my sicarian infiltrators and i locked his command squad of crisis suits in CC eventually destroying them.

But those were the only 2 bright spots for me, a very strong tau victory holding 3 objectives to my 2 (and nearly tabling me) when the game ended.

Dice rolls aside it was a really fun game and we were both in good humor. the way 40K should be played.

Had a regular tau opponent late in 4th and though the half of 5th that was always fond of early turn devastation from broadside units but struggled to back them up when the distance closed.

IIRC bare bones flamer crisis suits worked surprisingly well.

Is there a library or collection of the army boxes from 3rd edition? Or that time in general? Always found their esthetics appealing.

You might be able to find the art you are looking for here-

https://warhammerart.com/product-category/warhammer-40000/

Bit of sillyness tonight, teaching a player to use his necrons in the 5th ed rule set. 5th ed codex. VS the 7th ed admech codex.

We only did 1,750 and he was a bit tired near the end but we got through 5 turns....

chewing through a horde infantry army that keeps getting back up takes time and guns....more guns than i had

It didn't help that i lost the set up and my cataphron destroyers ended up on the other end of the table from all the infantry they needed to fight.

My sicarian infiltraitors did finally make it in and did some good damaged to the mob of warriors but they passed their LD check and didn't run away.

A solid win for the necrons.

Next time were are planning a full 2k game, with some FW goodies from the orpheus book for the necrons to play with.

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

Yep. You could also designate to shoot only once per dice and not roll a single sustained fire dice thus avoiding any jams.

Some crazy person did a list of every 40k release by date. The Eldar are... old. Baharroth's wings might be the oldest thing GW produces at this point.

Link here.

 Strg Alt wrote:

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

Yep. You could also designate to shoot only once per dice and not roll a single sustained fire dice thus avoiding any jams.

That was one of the cool things about that edition - you could decide how much you wanted to press your luck.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Some crazy person did a list of every 40k release by date. The Eldar are... old. Baharroth's wings might be the oldest thing GW produces at this point.

Taking over from the long time champion - the 1989 terminator inquisitor.

Terminator Captain with Auxiliary Grenade Launcher is in this folder:

https://ibb.co/album/41vTnG

A game that is so very 40K, ordo hereticus (inquisitor lord Karamozov 3rd ed witch hunters) allied with 7th ed admech VS ordo malleus-a storm trooper themed demon hunter army.

A single center objective, 2K point game.

He had 50 storm troopers at the start of the game with 5 chimeras in addition to a dreadnought, some grey knights and a grand master with terminator retinue. he also brought along a vindicare assassin.

I ended up bringing along the Culexus assassin in my force. i was hoping he could come in and abuse the GKs but he came on the table from outflank against the storm troopers.

The vindicare on his side was more in luck managing to pick off my tech priest dominus before he went down.

I also lost my breachers and assassin, but i managed to kill 45 storm troopers and 2 chimeras with the remaining 3 in various states of damage. it came down tot he bottom of turn 7, if his remaining storm troopers sitting on the object ran, i could win via tie breakers as i had first blood, line breaker and slay the warlord VS his slay the warlord......but they passed and stuck around giving him the main objective.

Fun game. he needs to tweak his list a bit, but overall a good fight.

Just had this pop up on my YouTube feed, and I figured it’s well worth watching.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Just had this pop up on my YouTube feed, and I figured it’s well worth watching.

That's neat! I wonder how far that channel will take things.

He’s only got the one battle report video, and three others.

I say we give him a push, as I like his presenting style.

Lots of love going on here-

Brand new guy stopped by last week and found out we played old hammer 40K and said he would come back, and he did. He brought his dark eldar with him this time (apparently he has many different 40K armies to choose from). he started with a smaller game against some iron hands and then we got a game in.
We did a 1,500 point game with 3 objectives and standard deployment just get him re-familiarized with the rules.

Since i was running a cataphron themed ADMECH army his poison 4+ weapons really helped him deal with my across the board T5 army.

I ended up pushing him hard on the left flank and that is also where my sicarian infiltrators showed up taking that objective, but i didn't fair so well on the right. where both his characters got into CC with my dominus and his squad. he took the game 2 to 1 on objectives.


He also is super happy he can play with us and really enjoy 40K again since he can use all his old armies in his favorite edition and not have to chase the meta of constant updates from GW. He was also not a fan of the direction of the game with 8th/9th ed.







Interestingly we now have 2 regular players who play dark eldar, rather odd considering how rare the army was to see back in 4th and 5th edition when it was current.

I think part of their former scarcity wasn’t just a dated and somewhat lacklustre Codex, but a Really gakky Model Range.

Well they did miss out on codex updates between several editions. the 4th/5th ed one was actually quite good and is the one we like to use. but i do agree they did not get much love from GW when it came from model options.

Speaking of old things 40k, this popped into my feed yesterday and I thought I'd share it as this was literally the first GW product I ever bought:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Speaking of old things 40k, this popped into my feed yesterday and I thought I'd share it as this was literally the first GW product I ever bought:

^I've got that set! It was one of the things that inspired me to make my all-old-Warrior Nid army. It's also one of the reasons I keep my models on 25mm bases

Many moons ago, when I decided I wanted to get Space Hulk, and had to get it on eBay (both 1st and 2nd Ed, including both of 1st's expansions), one of the auctions I won (yes, back in the days before Buy It Now) contained an entire Tyranid Attack set, including a double lot of miniatures. Don't ask me how, but it's how I ended up with so many old-style plastic Tyranid Warriors. Not nearly as many as you, but certainly enough for a good sized force.

The best part is that those big Tyranid Attack tiles are completely compatible with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Edition Hulk tiles. You can make some very big layouts with those things. Great for the various 40k RPGs.

So I'm finally dusting off some Ork Nobs that have been in my "to do" list for...a long time, and plan to build them based on the 4th edition codex. Any thoughts on fun loadouts for them? I don't need min maxed optimal, but I'd also rather not build it out to be complete trash either.

I'm figuring Painboy (which since this is out of one of the old Start Collecting sets I just have one of the models for), 1 power klaw for some oomph while not breaking the bank, and then ????. I kind of like the idea of Big Choppas to make them into a bully unit vs low toughness enemies and maybe puncture the odd vehicle on the charge, I'm just not sure if the extra costs for them is worth it considering how pricey the unit is in the first place.

Are any of the gun options really worth it on them? Seems like a risky use of points considering BS2, except maybe the twin-linked shoota - but even then, that is 1/4 of the points of a whole extra Nob.

Like I said, I don't mind suboptimal, I just want to avoid complete trash essentially.