Custom Scenario

So, just for fun I decided to write a custom scenario involving a certain battle that took place between Greeks and Persians at Thermopylae. If that didn’t help you realize what the scenario was about, maybe this will:

THIS IS SPARTA!

That’s right, my own version of 300.

Two armies. Army one (Spartans,)  always sets up first, and moves first. The game always lasts for 6 turns. Army 2 (Persians,) cannot steal initiative.

Spartans: The Spartans take 300 points of elites, (any army works, space marines are pretty good, fluff-wise,) but no troops, fast attack, or heavy support. In addition, they may take a single HQ of up to 100 points. When setting up, they may also place 4 barricades in their setup zone, to represent the fact that they prepared for this battle. If the Spartans kill all of the enemy units on the board, (ALL of them,) or if at least one of them survive to the end of the game, they win. If every Spartan is destroyed, they lose.

Persians: The Persians have every disadvantage, set-up wise. However, they have many more warriors. They may not take any units that deep strike, infiltrate, outflank, or scout. In addition, they may only take troops and one HQ. On turn one, they bring in 500 points of models, (including the HQ.) Every successive turn, they bring in 300 more points of troops, but those must be deployed as normal, so they always start within 12″ of the board edge. In addition, they may not have weapons with a range of greater than 36″ (If they do, they automatically count as 36″ range.) This is so that the Persians cannot simply blast away at the Spartans, they have to get pretty close. The Persians win if they kill every Spartan before the game ends.

Any tips or comments, feedback is appreciated.

Anti-Titans: Eldar Revenant Titan

The Eldar Revenant Titan isn’t actually that hard to kill on it’s own. For 800 points, it is actually pretty fragile. However, it has three things that make it really hard to kill:

First, the guns. Four destroyer shots with 60″ range. And while that is not the highest range, it is enough to cause massive damage to most enemies.

Secondly, the holo-fields. A 4+ invulnerable save, whether hit with a S6 weapon or a SD weapon.

Lastly, the mobility. This thing is nearly impossible to get in combat, because of it’s mobility. If it want’s to, it can move 36″ in the movement phase, with no penalties that may cause it damage.

So what do we do about it? The destroyer weapons are too powerful to ignore, and it is difficult to lock it in combat, so I say shoot it. Blow it to pieces. Deffkoptas, once again, work great against rear armor. Five deffkoptas will destroy 1 structure point in the shooting phase, and half of the time the deffkoptas will also destroy a weapon, or cause a drive damaged result. It is best to use 2 deffkopta units, though, each a certain distance apart, so your enemy will have a harder time hitting rear armor. Also, any S8+ weapons nearby will help. However, don’t ignore the rest of the army. If the revenant titan is not much of a threat, (If both weapons have been destroyed, maybe,) focus your firepower elsewhere. No need to waste bullets.

Battle Reports: Orks VS Black Templars

So, yesterday I played a couple game with a Black Templar’s army. I thought I would share how that went.

The game was 2500 points:

I had Ghazkull Thraka and Mad Dok Grotsnik, meganobz, regular nobz, (with really up-graded wargear,) Kommandos, (Who I forgot to use,) 10 Stormboyz, 30 ard boyz, 30 boyz, 5 Deffkoptas, (who I outflanked,) and 2 battlewagons which were transports for the nobz and meganobz. Not the most competitive list, but still pretty deadly and really fun to play.

He had the Emperor’s Champion and High Marshal, 6 Terminators, 2 land raiders, 10 Assault Squad marines, (the ones with jump packs,) an elites squad, (can’t remember what, but they were hard to kill,) 2 drop pod dreadnoughts, and a several units of 5 troops with a lascannon in each unit.

So, we were playing Dawn Of War, and Seize Ground. Which happened to be perfect for my army. I left my ‘ard boy unit surrounding the objective on my home field, and used the Meganobz and Ghazkull as the other troops choice and HQ. I used the one boyz unit to sit on the objective for the entire game, and used the majority of my remaining force to kill his warriors. (A note, we used two buildings in the game, one on both side, each one with the objective on top. Both were AV12.) On turn 1, he destroyed my Meganobz battlewagon with a lucky Lascannon shot. (He rolled 3 6’s in a row.) I moved my guys closer. On turn two, my stormboyz killed his assault squad, a mid-air clash. He then killed my stormboyz and the Ork Horde that had Mad Dok Grotsnik inside. (But not after losing the High Marshall to a PK attack.) On turn three, I called a Waaaagh! and completely surrounded the building that he had his objective in with my meganobz, then blew it up. And since the people couldn’t deploy, they were destroyed. I left my meganobz there to hold the objective, (Ghazkull made them troops,) and sent old Ghazkull off to fight some marines. His two Drop Pod Dreadnoughts landed next to my objective, but I outflanked my Deffkoptas, and used their rokkits to immobilize and stun one of them, (Making it worthless, a couple turns later I killed it.)  I assaulted the other dreadnought, and destroyed it’s CC weapon after it killed two boyz. (Allowing me to keep my 4+ armor save, since they were ‘ard boyz.) By the fifth turn, I had killed it, and I used my consolidation move, (6″ yeah!) to get the objective. However, he had used his terminators and other Elite squad to kill my stormboyz and the boyz that were with Mad Dok, and I only had 15 boyz protecting the first objective. (and they could still be shot at by the drop pods.) I used the Nobz to kill his first elite squad, but the terminators were heading towards my objective, which I only had 4 meganobz protecting. His terminators would probably win in combat against them, since they had lightning claws and would get the charge. Then… the game ended. Another turn and he might have killed the Meganobz, making me lose an objective and getting him one. His Drop Pod could have forced my boyz horde to run off the edge, making me lose another objective. It was a very close game, one more turn and I could have tied, though not lost. (He didn’t have any troops left, and he could not have held an objective.) But as it happened all of my objectives were too far away from his terminators for him to kill me. On a side-note, he was a really good sport, and was really fun to play against. It was the first time for both of us playing with buildings, and we both had a great time.

On a side-note, I am about 2/5 of the way done with my Gargant, pics soon.

Apocalypse: The Emperor Battle Titan

Click to access m2440056_Imperial_Datasheet_-_Emperor_Battle_Titan.pdf

Odds are, the closest thing to this you will ever come across is the Warhound. Maybe a Warlord. But on the off chance you do, here is a strategy about how to kill it:

Did anyone notice that you could take up to 14 Destroyer weapons on this thing? 8 of them are 7″ blast and 6 of them are 10″ blast. Have fun with that. If any opponent takes that option, you are pretty much dead. And, since it is a super heavy vehicle, you can’t lock it in combat unless you have a super-heavy vehicle or a gargantuan creature. Wait a minute, that gives me an idea…

Take 6 stompas. It is costly, but it their combined total is still 400 points less than that of the Warlord. Make sure you have no big mek stompas. Make sure  you do either take a Big Mek with a Kustom Force Field, or (slightly riskier, but slightly cheaper,) take a Dred Mob formation and give a stompa a KFF. My suggestion is to do both, so you will have a backup. That and Grot Riggers+big mek within 6 giant machines can be handy. Possibly even 2 big meks, all with Grot Oilers, so you can repair the Stompas weapons. (Though the Dred Mob formation force field has a larger radius of effect.)

But all the force fields are just for protection till you get to the enemy. As soon as you can, to avoid destruction, get in combat with the Warlord. You will probably lose 2 of your stompas by the time you get into combat, but with 4 stompas charging, you will destroy, on average, 8.5 structure points. That leaves only 3.5 remaining. Gotta love those Titan Close Combat weapons. The warlord will cause 1 structure points worth of damage, and maybe a little other weapon here or there. (We will assume there are only 3 working TCCW’s remaining for the next example.) Next turn of combat, you take the same amount of damage, but you will kill the Warlord. Even if you lost 3 before you got into combat, you would nearly kill it by turn 2, completely killing it by turn 3. (Of combat.)

Of course, there will be other factors involved. You will have guns firing at the Warlord before combat, and they will be firing back at your stompas with other units before you get in combat. But that provides another advantage. While your enemy focuses everything on the Stompas, you can use the rest of your army to kill everything else while the are distracted. For instance, you could use ‘flank march’ to bring in 180 boyz on the enemy’s border, and assault them to death. Or, you could bring in a couple of fighta-bommas, and blow them to pieces.

Eldar: strengths and weaknesses

So, today I am going to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of Eldar, from my experience.

The Eldar can be a very effective army, if played well. One of their guns (nightspinner, I believe,) can pin an enemy unit, and then cause even more damage in the next turn. (First, it causes damage, and then the next time that unit moves, it is going through difficult and dangerous terrain.) They have a high number of barrage weapons, great firepower, and still have some units that are good in close combat. (Avatar, anyone?) However, they do have a couple of weaknesses which are easy to exploit:

First off, they tend to lack high strength/armor piercing weapons. Like all armies they can take some, but they cannot take a lot. That means well armored units, such as Nobz or Meganobz, are very difficult to kill, because small arms fire is rarely effective against them, due to good armor and large amounts of wounds. And it also means that tanks with good armor, such as Battlewagons, (Or, in other armies, land raiders, monoliths, and other super-tanks,) will be difficult to kill. Rear armor will help, but the tanks will have several turns more than an army such as Dark Eldar with a dozen brightlances. (On a side-note, every time I have used Nobz, Meganobz, or both against Eldar, I have won spectacularly.)

Nearly all of their units have either/both WS4 or BS4, so they are pretty elite in what they do, but they only have S3 T3, so they are not exactly marines. (Armor isn’t great most of the time either.) Anti-infantry weapons work very well against the. (Big shootas wound on 2’s and penetrate, bigbomms wound on 3’s and penetrate, even grot blastas wound on 4’s, so one unit of grots will kill 6-7 of them in a single shooting phase.)

The elite units that they have are either expensive or low in numbers. Not unlike most other elite units, but in this case they also have bad armor most of the time. There are exceptions, but for the most part a gun will kill the elites just as easily as the troops. So, killing them first, before they can cause much damage, is always smart.

One of my friends, (Hey, Patrick!) Always takes the Avatar, so I am going to put a word on him here:

The hardest part about killing the Avatar is that ork boyz hit on 5’s and wound on 6’s. And, not many weapons are good against him because they either don’t wound easily, don’t penetrate, or have a low number of shots. The one unit I have found effective is one you have heard of from me many times before. It isn’t deffkoptas, it isn’t ork hordes, and it certainly isn’t Mad Dok Grotsnik. I even mentioned them earlier in this very post! It is decked out Nobz. With a Waaagh! banner, they hit on 4’s instead of 5’s. With big choppas, they wound on 3’s or 4’s, depending on the charge. (Even regular choppas can wound on 5’s, if they charge.) With power fists, they wound on 2’s and remove the armor save, (so it is a 4+ invuln instead of 3+ armor.) And they are still effective against other units. Also, this unit is really really fun to play. And, since the Avatar is only S6, he doesn’t cause instant death, so he will have to cause 10 wounds to remove a model, if you assorted your wargear well enough.

Custom Units: Doctor Who Codex

So, recently I have become a big fan of the British television show ‘Doctor Who.’ So, just for fun, I decided I would do a write up for a Doctor Who codex. Now, it is not split up into ‘armies,’ so much as separate groupings of ‘units,’ but anyways, enjoy:

Good Guys:

The Doctor:

WS4, BS4, S3, T4, W3, I5, A3, LD10, Sv 5+

Wargear:

Sonic Screwdriver: Every turn, The Doctor may chose to use one of the following abilities:

Automatically inflict D6 + 3 glancing hits on a vehicle within 24″.

Add 3 to a friendly units Armor save. If they have a 2+ armor save, add it to their invulnerable. (So, a 4+ armor save would become a 2+/5++. A 3+/6++ would become a 2+/4++.)

Automatically remove 4 from an enemy unit’s armor save. If it has an invulnerable save, remove that first. (So, a 3+/6++ would become a 6+. A 2+ save would become a 6+ save.)

Tardis Key:

At the beginning of every turn, the doctor may chose to summon the TARDIS directly to him. If he does so, the TARDIS does not count as moving at all, and may do everything as normal.

Special Rules:

The Doctor is immune to instant death.

TARDIS:

BS4, AV14, 14, 14.

Unit type: vehicle (skimmer)

Wargear: Atmospheric Controller

Instead of moving, (But not teleporting,) the TARDIS may chose to cause an Atmospheric disturbance. (A storm.) Any units within 18″ of the TARDIS, (including the TARDIS itself,) gains a D6+ cover save. (So a roll of 3 would give you a 3+ cover save.) A roll of 1 counts as a 2+ cover save, but the distance covered by the storm is increased by 6″. (For a total of a 24″ storm radius.)

Transport capacity: 30

Special rules:

The TARDIS is immune to melta/lance. In addition, if the TARDIS has been immobilized and has no weapons, it still cannot be wrecked by a glancing hit.

Every turn, during the movement phase, (either before or after moving, it doesn’t matter,) the TARDIS may teleport. Roll a D6. On a roll of 2+, the TARDIS may be placed anywhere on the board, and any people inside are also moved. They may then disembark, move, shoot, and assault as normal. On a roll of 1, there has been a slight mistake as to the time of arrival. Roll another D6. If the roll is equal or higher than the turn being played, (for instance, a 5 while on turn 4,) then the TARDIS is removed from the board until that turn (unless it is the same, in which you teleport as normal.) When that turn comes, place the TARDIS anywhere on the board, as per a normal teleport. If the roll is lower than the current turn, they have caused a Paradox. Remove the TARDIS and all of the models inside.

Jack Harkness:

WS4, BS4, S4, T3, W2, I3, LD9, Sv4+

Unit Type: infantry

Wargear:

Laser Blaster: Range 36″, S6, AP3, Special: Assault 4

Special rules:

Never die: Jack Harkness is immortal. Every time he is killed, (takes 2 unsaved wounds, or is hit by a weapon causing instant death,) place his model on its side. The controlling player may not use him on his next turn, but once the controlling player has finished the Assault phase, Jack Harkness may be placed upright, counting as an unwounded model.For the purpose of killpoints, if he is ‘dead’ on the last turn, he counts as a killpoint.

Bad Guys:

Dalek Leader:

WS2, BS5, S4, T5, W3, I3, LD10, SV 2+/4++

Unit Type: Jump Infantry

Wargear: Dalek Blaster

Dalek Cannon: Range 48″, S10, AP1, Special: Assault 2, Melta

Special Rules:

Fearless

EXTERMINATE!: In close combat, rolls to hit may be re-rolled.

Dalek:

WS2, BS4, S3, T4, W1, I2, LD10, Sv 2+/4++

Unit Size: 5-10 Daleks

Unit Type: Jump Infantry

Wargear: Dalek Laser

Dalek Gun: Range 24″, S8, AP1, Special: Assault 1, Melta

Special Rules: Fearless, EXTERMINATE!

For every five Daleks, one may be upgraded to a Gun Dalek

Gun Dalek:

WS2, BS4, S3, T4, W1, I2, LD10, Sv 2+/4++

Unit Type: Jump Infantry

Wargear: Dalek Cannon

Dalek Cannon: Range 60″, S9, AP1, Special: Assault 1, Large Blast, Melta

Special Rules: Fearless, EXTERMINATE!

Cyberman:

WS2, BS3, S3, T4, W1, I2, LD9, Sv3+

Unit Size: 5-20 Cybermen

Unit Type: Infantry

Wargear: Laser

Laser: Range: 24″, S5, AP3, Special: Rapid Fire

It is not complete, but it is a start. If you have any ideas, feel free to comment!

Kommandos: Tactic

So, today I am going to write about Kommandos.

Anyways…

Kommados have, in my opinion, two major advantages over ork boyz:

1. They can start/outflank very close to the enemy, which means they will have less time being shot at and more time killing.

2. They can take 3 ‘support’ weapons in a single unit.

They also have the ability to move through cover better and stuff, but that is really just trivial.

However, there are also two disadvantages:

1. Since they start close to the enemy, they will be within range of nearly all enemy guns, meaning they will be killed quickly.

2. They cost as much as ‘ard boyz, without being any more durable.

Out of these two disadvantages, the one that is most harmful is the first one. However, outflanking can take away from that somewhat, and even if they are shot at, that is a lot of firepower not going into your other elites.

Here is a list that I like to take:

8-10 Kommandos, PK bosspole nob, 3 Burnas. Total, 165-185points.

Any more kommandos, and the unit becomes too expensive. Any less, and it will die to quickly. What is great about this unit is that it is a very good tournament unit. It is equally good at taking out tanks, (Power Klaw,) Troops, (Burnas/assaulting,) or MEQ’s and TEQ’s, (burna in CC.) Against a tank, you will cause 2 penetrating and 2 glancing hits on the charge. Against a unit of Termagaunts, you will cause 11-12 wounds shooting and then cause 8 wounds assaulting, while taking 2 wounds (For a total of 20 wounds, if the Gaunt unit does not run after shooting.) Against a unit of terminators, you will cause 3 wounds and take 3. Next turn, you will cause 2 wounds and take 2. So, no matter what army you face, there is almost always a use for these guys.

Another option, (That I don’t like, because of the lack of PK and high cost,) is to take 15 kommandos, 3 rokkits/big shootas, and Boss Snikrot. This is a decent list, because it can outflank with an HQ, and it comes in reliably from any board edge, (Slightly better than normal outflanking.) The disadvantage is that you don’t have AT capacity, and it costs 265 points, which is a bit expensive, for the survivability of this unit. 250-265 points.

All in all, kommandos are a good tourney unit, but not as effective during 1on1 games that you have to plan for a specific army. They are not specialist units, which means they are extremely well rounded, but that comes at the cost that they are not incredible at any one thing.

Apocalypse: Killing Titans

One of the most challenging parts about Apocalypse games is managing to take enough firepower to take down Titans. Titans are so powerful that they always take a lot of firepower, but there is one trend I have noticed:

So, you are getting ready to play Apocalypse, and your opponent decides to take a Titan. Now, you decide to take a Titan, and maybe a couple of tanks, just so you can kill his titan before it causes much damage. He sees that, and in order to kill your titan and tanks, he takes another titan and even more tanks. Now, you need to stop that, and so you have to take even more tanks and Titans and Super heavy vehicles. What I am saying is that in Apocalypse, tanks, (Not just super heavies, but also a lot of them,) are far more prevalent than troops or HQ or anything like that. So, you need to take enough weapons to kill all of them. Here is a 2-step process for killing titans:

First off, take a lot of S6-8 weapons. Not something really expensive or valuable, just make sure that they have a lot of shots, and they are S6 or higher. This is for taking down the Void fields. Any glancing or penetrating hit will make them collapse, so you just need to have a total of 12. Take enough of these to collapse 3-4 Void fields a turn, and shoot the power fields down.

Then, take a lot of anti tank weapons. I am talking round after round of S8+ weapons, and as many SD weapons, as you can. Anything AP1 is also valuable. Pretty much like you were killing 3-4 tanks at once. Because, thanks to structure points, you pretty much are. Simply tear down the Void fields, then hit as hard as you can. Once again, Deffkoptas on rear armor, Supa-rokkits, maybe even using a lifta-droppa to ram a regular tank into the super-heavy. Something that causes automatic glancing hits is fine too. Just anything that hits hard.

This works pretty well against most super-heavies. However, if you are facing something like a Warlord Battle Titan, you will need something more. A Stompa can cause massive damage, if you can lock the Warlord in CC. 5 SD attacks on the charge, hitting on 3’s. That is a little over 3 penetrating hits with a +1 on the damage roll. That will get rid of 2 structure points, and possibly a Primary weapon or a Drive Damaged result. Of course, you will take 1 penetrating hit, and take damage, but it is a 600 point walker attacking a 2500 point walker. The only problem is getting the Stompa to the Warlord. Flank March is very effective for this.

Ork Transport Tactics

It was pointed out in a comment that it should be ‘Carnifices’ not ‘Carnifaxes,’ but I think that will be okay. I am still going to do written posts, but this format will also show up sometimes.

You have got to see this…

So, I am a big fan of ‘Irondog Studios.’ Well, I just saw this image on his website:

It is two custom-designed Orks on top of Mount Whitney. That is right, orks at the highest elevation in America.  Around 11,000 feet in the air.