Wednesday night gaming - how to I cheated my way to victory

Yup. That's right. On reflection I'm pretty sure I unintentionally cheated at game club this week. We'll get to that, see if you can spot it on the way through. 

 

Nom nom nom

So on Wednesday I played topher at 40k, and in a habit that happens after every 40k tourney I played with my salamanders, because I like them, but they just aren't as competitive. Here's the list I ran:

Vulkan He'stan 190
Librarian 65

4 Tactical Marines: flamer; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant (power weapon) 90
• Drop Pod 35
4 Tactical Marines: flamer; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant (combi-flamer) 85
• Drop Pod 35

4 Assault Terminators: 4× thunder hammer and storm shield; + 1 Terminator Sergeant (thunder hammer and storm shield) 225
Venerable Dreadnoughts
• Venerable Dreadnought: power fist (built-in heavy flamer) 135
• Drop Pod 35

1 Thunderfire Cannon: + 1 Techmarine Gunner 100
Land Raider Redeemer: multi-melta 250

Inquisitor Coteaz 100

Callidus Assassin 145

1,490 points

So a pretty fun, pretty non competitive list. Toph had lots of big tyranids, 2 flyrants, a tervigon, a big squad of zoanthropes, some squads of gaunts and squads of gargoyles. 

The mission

We played an interesting mission which I've never played before but thouroughly enjoyed. Basically, there are 6 objectives evenly spaced on the board. 3 on each side, with them 16 inches on and 18 inches apart. They also 18 inches in from the sides. You score one point for each you control in your turns only but right before scoring them you roll a d6. The number objective that this corresponds to moves 2d6 plus scatter. If it's a bt symbol you choose the direction. If they go off the table, tough. It's really fun! And also means you can't camp your shoot stuff on them turn 1. 

The game

I got first turn, and deployed basically nothing. Just the land raider (with terminators and vulkan) and the thunderfire cannon. Chris deployed evenly opposite me, with lots of horde everywhere, supported by bigger scarier things. 

In my first turn I burnt some gargoyles (scoring me first blood) with my drop pod marines and moved the rhino up. Then Chris basically charged me with everything. I was surprised not to loose everything, although I think this was in part because i was invisible on one of my squads. Because Chris had charged his gaunts into both small squads it was one massive combat that involved a flyrant, tervigon, and a big squad of gaunts. 

 

They were picking on Coteaz and the one remaining marine so I duly obliged and charged in the assassin and thunder hammer terminators. This combat lasted for a good long while, probly 2-3 game turns. It was eventually won by me, with the Eversor using his fleshbane&shred&power weapons to basically kill everything. 

Whilst his was going on Vulkan had tried to kill the 2nd flyrant and got stomped on. In return im used my multimeltas to fry the big bug before it got away. By the time the combat had finished there wasn't a whole lot left on either side. My thunderfire cannon was chasing objectives unsuccessfully and the zoanthropes had zapped my land raider. 

 

The assassin, Coteaz and two thunderhammer terminators proceeded to slog through the cornfields towards the zoanthropes, and reached them locking them in combat (Although coated blew his own head off on the way in). The mawlocs contained to try to Sarlec pit my poor marines and assassin, but failed miserably. One of them did charge the assassin who over two combat ohases efficiently sliced all his wounds away using power sword+fleshbane+shred. 

The game ended with the 2 remaining zoanthropes locked in combat with an assassin and thunder hammer terminator whilst my dreadnought claimed objectives. I think one of the mawlocs may have been burrowing around somewhere. I rolled out a 12-8 victory on the evening. 

The mission

I actually really enjoyed the mission, it's a lot of fun without being to much hassle. I might reccomend it to Alex if he's looking at new style of game for double trouble. 

Where did I cheat?

Where did I cheat? Well, if you've read all the way through you may have figured it out. The Eversor has a power sword, and a weapon that's fleshbane with shred. But not a weapon that's both! So I'm pretty sure I should have been choosing one or the other. Instead I was wounding, with a re roll and not allowing a save! Rematch needed. Sorry toph! 

Double trouble: 8 weeks and counting!

Double trouble is only 8 weeks away! Have you bought your ticket yet?!  f not, why not? Of course,my  potential excuse for that would be that the last time I played 40 was February, but we can't all use that. And I have bought my ticket. 

I've been musing on what to take, and I'm torn between two armies. The first, as you can no doubt geuss by this photo, is Space Marines. Howling Griffons to be exact. I really fancy some bike based shenanigans, as you could take two full bike squads and a bike command squad before breaking any of the comp rules. 

Taking a HQ on a bike gives you interesting options as you can take bikes as troops. Combined with the combat squads rules it gives you interesting opportunities to have lots of small units. You could couple this with some scouts in a land speeder storm, and maybe even throw in a thunderfire cannon. 

It would also give me an excuse to finish painting this guy, who is one of painting goals for this hobby season. I'm not sure of how competitive the whirlwind is really (it's completely not). When you compare it to the thunderfire cannon, or imperial guard wyvern it doesn't match up favourably. 

My other choice would be humanities true protector in its hour of greatest need. The Imperial Guard. I strongly believe that they function really well at lower points values. After all, for 200 points you could get 40 of them! There is however, something that we need to discuss. 

I may have a bit of an imperial guard sized problem. Which may seem trivial to you, but it really isn't to me. I mean, in a 750 point game, which heavy weapons do you take? If we pan out on the previous photo, we can see that I really do have a conundrum.

All these heavy weapons together would work, right!?!  My main problem with Guard is that they are to squishy, and don't really hit hard. Eldar and thier darker kin are both really squishy, but both hit a lot harder. Guard are much more about being the sum of the parts. Which is why I think they could be good for double trouble. 

One of the reasons they wouldn't be good for double trouble is that it's very objective based. And sure, they can swarm around, or mount up, but my guard army isn't very speedy. Unless I break out the old X-wing vendettas. Which I could, they haven't seen play in a while. But something about the fix bayonets, and "win by having more men than they have bullets" approach really speaks to me. Plus I could take mortars!

Love these guys. They're so cheap and not really that useful. 

Overall I can't decide. I really like the guard idea, but it's more characterful than competitive. I've spent my time in the trenches with fluffy lists in the past and they are fun. But I do like the bike idea. That's one I've not tried yet. So I'll see! I don't have to paint a thing to take the guard I don't think, so that would be nice! Thanks for stopping by! Until next time, Let me finish by asking; Have you bought your ticket yet?!

Double trouble 2: Space marines

Hello reader! Continuing our musing on what to take for double trouble l, I thought I'd address what is probably the elephant in the strike cruiser. The skyhammer formation. 

Alex has updated the page since last I posted about this, and there are a couple of interesting things that both encourage and discourage me to take it. I don't quite know how well it will work in teams, where as I am sure that in the 3rd deployment type it would be awesome. That's because each 750 starts in a different corner, allowing you and your team mate to gang up completely on one side.  In a later post I'll discuss my thoughts on the mission. 



Tickets and attendance

Happily, I've already achieved first place at this tournament! Check out the link here: http://fromthefang.blogspot.co.uk/p/double-trouble-doubles-with-difference.html?m=1 to see who got ticket number 1! At the moment only 4 of the tickets have sold, I'd really encourage people to buy tickets if they can make it, Alex's events have always been well run and the vibe is usually excellent. If you're reading this and you're a Leicester sabre, ask me about it - we can always take a couple of extra ppl in the cars. Otherwise, get on board!

Skyhammer Draft 1

As you may or may not be aware, a fully decked out skyhammer formation comes in at around 800 points, so it's not hard to reduce that to 750. Let's take a look at my first stab at it:

 

9 Assault Marines: flamer; eviscerator; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant (combat shield) 175

5 Assault Marines: flamer; eviscerator; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant (combat shield) 119

9 Devastator Marines: 4× multi-melta; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 180

• Drop Pod 35

9 Devastator Marines: 3× missile launcher; lascannon; + 1 Space Marine Sergeant 205

• Drop Pod 35

749 points

The main thing to note here is that the assault marines aren't big enough to both combat squad, with only one being 10 men. The devastators however are, making handy use of thier 3d6 morale check rule.  To stick to the format, here and some of the brief pros and cons.

Positive 

1. The special rules that this formation gets. All turning up turn 1? Yes. Relentless devastators and assault marines charging on turn 1? Yes. 
2. Board Control. Deploying my entire force after my oppenant is almost guaranteed. Not 100%, but most of the time I will get to choose the engagements, overwhelming specific flanks or areas. 
3. Mission types. Good for objectives in the first few turns, but even better for collapsing your opponent. 
4. Other deep strike armies. This combos nicely with other deep striking units. Got some swooping Hawks? Another skyhammer even?

Negative

1. It's only 35 marines. Not a lot of men so you'd need to be careful with them. One loose battle cannon shell and you're done for!
2. Anti armour. I'm not sure how well it would do against Knights. I've got eviscerators and multimeltas I suppose, but no grav, and no plasma for terminators. 
3. Hordes. Tyrannids and orks would love you to drop right in front of them and maybe kill a unit or two. 
4. Fearless. One of the hidden strengths of the skyhammer is the pinning effect the devastators can have. If your oppenant is fearless, that strength is taken away. 
5. Other skyhammers. Or people just reserving their stuff. It's then almost the battle to go second!

I am honestly unsure as to how competitive a taking a Skyhammer would be. As you can see from the negatives, it basically fails on paper against most things. Im not convinced that it would play very well in maelstrom missions either. Part of the game here is to make your opponent do something different and make a mistake because of what you're presenting them with. It would also had much more of an impact at 1500 than 1850, especially when everything has the potential to be much more disjointed.


I think for me overall, the skyhammer will still make your oppenant sigh as they look at your army, even with 30k, knights and other things all being allowed. So do I want to be that guy? And just as importantly, can I be bothered to paint 15 assault marines (that are pretty useless apart from this formation!) Its the trap that Games Workshop try to get you with all the time. Most of the time, I'm ashamed to say, they get me hook line and sinker. We will have to see. I might start getting some practice games in my local club now Alex has released the missions!


Until next time!