Mordians Vs Tau

Right took my Vet IG army vs my friend's Mech tau. He had 2 HQ crisis suits (one with a bodyguard), a hammerhead, a skyray, 3 devilfish (each with 6 man squads), 4 stealth suits, and 2 piranhas.

We played Annihilation with the Dawn of War set up. I managed to steal the first turn, and proceeded to do some decent damage on rounds 1 & 2. After that, my luck kinda went downhill until turns 6 & 7. I'd penetrate his vehicles, but fail to do anything. I blew up 1 vehicle all game. I even had a squad with a grenade launcher and 2 rapid firing plasma guns against an AV10 open topped piranha. Nothing.

In the end I managed to sneak a win with kill points: 6-8. Mainly I got lucky in killing his Shas'o in melee and through a judicious use orders. All in all, I really like the vets. It's kind fun playing a BS 4 army after years of regular IG. Other wrap-up thoughts in no particular order:

• Carapace is nice. Being Tau, there was a lot of AP5 shot being hurled around, and being able to still take armor rolls was nice.
• Have I mentioned I hate the 5th ed wound allocation system?
• Orders are interesting, with some upside & some downside. I made good use of Bring it Down (reroll hits vs vehicles) and Fire on My Target (enemy rerolls succesful cover saves). The latter especially let me win the game because I could put a hurt on his guys hiding behind his skimmer. The downside is the fact you have to do the orders first. More than once I'd have a unit in range for an order that I'd actually like to fire after something else because depending on how that other unit did would depend on what the order-receiving unit would shoot at. But since I'd have to allocate the orders first I essentially had to decide my shooting for the whole turn at once.
• Those Tau Disruption Fields (or whatever makes them always count as obscured) are insane. 5 pts to carry around your own cover is just nuts.
• The Officer of the Fleet is a good 30 pts. My friend forgot to roll for his stealth suits on turn 2 (not that he needed them), but the Officer of the Fleet penalty to his reserves kept him out of it the next turn.
• The camo netting is coming off the basilisk and russ. There's just not enough cover out there to be worth the 50 pts.
• The powerfists, at least 45 pts worth, are coming back in. I ended up being close that if I'd wanted to, I could've charged a couple of times. And there was certain his Shas'O that gave me troubles with his pop up attacks.
• 3 special weapons and a heavy weapon in a BS 4 squad with a 4+ save is really a nice change of pace. (I know I said that already, but I occasionally repeat myself for emphasis) Really like playing a whole new army.
• And my Chimeras live down to their cursed reputation. One chimera fired at a crisis suit unit for 3 turns, with both a heavy bolter and multilaser, without inflicting a single wound. It wasn't until turn 7 that I finally got the sumbitch.
  

Orks & Mordians

So I've settled on a couple army designs for my IG, and I've decided to shelve the Orks. This edition of 40K just isn't that favorable to footslogging armies that can't fleet. I've had my Orks torn apart a couple of times and I beat down Trent's Nurgle marines enough to know that with the scenarios out of the book, the way transports, blast templates, and terrain work, that footsloggers just get hosed in this edition.

I supposed I could change up the Ork army a bit, but frankly, I don't want to. Anyone who's seen my Orks knows I put a lot of work into conversions. So for the moment, they go on the shelf to await the pendulum swing of a new edition.

But the IG are the big winners so far. My Mordians feel quite nasty at the moment. I've devised two lists:

The first is the usual Mordian 442nd that you know and love:

Command Squad:
Commander: power weapon, plasma pistol
4 Veterans: standard, plasma gun, lascannon
Officer of the Fleet

5 Ogryns

6 Ratlings

Blue Platoon
Command Squad: autocannon, 2 grenade launchers
Squad: autocannon, grenade launcher
Squad: autocannon, plasma gun
Squad: missile launcher, plasma gun

Green Platoon
Command Squad: autocannon, 2 meltaguns
Squad: autocannon, plasma gun
Squad: lascannon, plasma gun
Squad: missile launcher, plasma gun

Veterans: lascannon, plasma gun
chimera: multilaser, heavy bolter, extra armor

Veterans: lascannon, plasma gun
chimera: multilaser, heavy bolter, extra armor

Banewolf: heavy flamer

7 Rough Riders

Leman Russ: hull & sponson heavy bolters, extra armor

Basilisk


Pretty straight forward, added the banewolf and the officer of the fleet, which is actually pretty in fluff for this army: a 40K version of a British Empire, with a high degree of coordination between fleet and the MEF (Mordian Expeditionary Force).


Okay, the second list is me going "hey, I can take all veterans if I wanted!"

Command Squad:
Commander: power weapon, plasma pistol
4 Veterans: carapace armor, standard, meltagun, lascannon
Officer of the Fleet

5 Ogryns

8 Ratlings

Veterans: carapace, lascannon, 2 plasma guns, grenade launcher

Veterans: carapace, lascannon, 2 plasma guns, grenade launcher

Veterans: carapace, missile launcher, 2 plasma guns, grenade launcher, powerfist sgt.

Veterans: carapace, missile launcher, 2 plasma guns, grenade launcher, powerfist sgt.

Veterans: carapace, autocannon, 2 meltaguns, flamer, powerfist sgt.
chimera: multilaser, heavy bolter, extra armor

Veterans: carapace, autocannon, 2 meltaguns, flamer, powerfist sgt.

8 Rough Riders

Leman Russ: hull & sponson heavy bolters, extra armor

Basilisk


I had to drop the bane wolf and a chimera to get carapace on everybody, so we'll see how that works. I use the chimeras mainly to shoot anyway, but I'll keep the one so that I can use that squad as my active response team. Or I can give it to the Ogryns.

The last two Vet squads have been coined my 'Come Get Some' squad. I found that against Trent, charging in would deprive me of some needed rapid firing with plasma guns and heavy weapon. So I gave the CGS squads assault weapons and autocannons, which wouldn't pop 3+ armor anyway.

The carapace on everybody is a bit of a stretch, but I find as I play more and more that I simply don't give a fuck. Especially when most the people who'd whine about it a) don't have painted armies themselves and b) are just whining little pissants.


Anyway, got a game set up for Thursday against a buddy's Tau. I'll be paring the Vets down to 1500 pts, which is basically dropping the Ogryns, ratlings, and rough riders. I also skimmed a few items here and there to put camo netting on the Russ and Basilisk. I just want to see if they're worth it.

Post 20 Games Thoughts:

So I'll send you to Trent's Blog for a summary of us playing 20 games from Friday night (technically Saturday as we started at like midnight) to 3:30pm Wednesday. We included several games of Bloodbowl and a pair of 40K games, on which I can comment.

The 40K first: in the two games I took the Veterans list I drew up. Essentially, it's six units of Veterans kitted out with special & heavy weapons, with 4 powerfists and 2 chimeras thrown in there. My random thoughts:

-The list is a little stronger than I thought, but also I was playing against Trent's nurgle marines on foot. And foot mounted armies are just the punks of this edition.

-The wound allocation rules for 5th ed are dumb.

-the big weakness to the veterans is, as I expected, they're still in flak armor. My guys are Mordians so it didn't feel right. Still if I played this list in the future, I'd give them carapace.

-power fists probably get dropped. If I gave them all carapace it might be worth it, but at a 5+ save they don't go on veterans. Often I'd die to a man before I could get to Init 1.

-Ogryns rock again. The pendulum swings.

-The wound allocation rules for 5th ed are dumb.

-Ratlings are fun again, with the sniper rifles being rending. They might've been rending in 4th and thus even better, but I honestly don't remember. Played like 10 games of 4th ed.

-The template weapon rules are weird. It makes my Russ and Basilisk more accurate because the deviation is reduced by BS and the tempate's big enough I'll probably still hit something. But the flip side is my grenade launchers seemed less accurate when firing the frag grenades. That's not true I know, but it felt that way.

-Oh, and: The wound allocation rules for 5th ed are dumb.


While playing at the store, we happened to be playing next to That Guy. He felt the need to explain to me that he hated guard and always rooted for the other player on the table when Guard were on the table. A direct qoute from our conversation:

Him: "Even when I'm playing my marines against Guard, I root against Guard."

Me: "Uh. . . if you're playing, wouldn't you always root for yourself?"

(later...)

Him: "I don't cheese out and play to win. I take weird stuff nobody takes. Like I put my command squad on bikes and then take an apothecary so my commander has Feel No Pain."

Trent: (Later when we got home) "Yeah cause nobody does that."

(I wish he'd said it at the game store. He's too much of a nice guy.)


Anyway, part of That Guy's lecture were how people move the Valkyrie onto the board 6" and then fire all 3 TL lascannons. His words: "the model's too long, so that a 6" move won't get it on the table."

So I asked Trent to build me 2 custom flying stands for my Valks. The first will be low to the ground with the access hatches 2" from the ground so my storm troopers can get out. The second will be like 8" tall and angled so a 6" move will get the thing on the table from nose to wingtip. If someone's gonna get chincy I'll politely ask him to point out where in the rules is says that a skimmer can't fly at a vertical angle.

Seriously, don't be a douchebag because GW built a model not compatible with its own rules. And don't say they built it that way intentionally, to balance the Valk. You're giving GW too much credit.


So, onto Bloodbowl: played 3 games with my new Desert Dogs (using the Norse rules). They're fun, very much my team. They can throw the ball pretty well and thump people pretty good. But there's going to be a lot of whack-a-mole with them. Going from AV 9 Ogres to AV 7 norse is a rough transition...

We also playtested two new pitches for Kublacon: Moot Bowl and Ulthuan Bowl. Moot Bowl has the Halfling building little hidey holes that people can run through bypassing enemies. Essentially they're teleport pads. They're fun, but the rules needed a bit of work.

Similarly Ulthuan bowl needed some work. The elves demand TDs and if you don't score quick enough they start zapping your with a wizard's lightning bolt. Again, we hammered out some details and I think people will like them.

Huh...a whole month

So those following my other blog know where I've been lately: finishing my book. That's why the lack of anything to post.

Last week was the first time I touched my minis since painting the blood bowl team. I've started assembling the Martian SRO. Believe it or not, this is the first time I'd assembled any of the plastic Cadians. When the last codex came around, I bought a box and promptly gave it away a couple years later. I had my mordians, I was happy.

Anyway, so over a couple days I put together 5 vox guys and 5 regular grunts. No pictures or anything at the moment, because, well, it's just some assembled cadians. Maybe when I get the entire infantry core painted up I'll post it. Actually, not a bad idea. Everytime I paint a squad I'll pull them all out and take a picture. It'll be this sort of "time lapse" photos of minis being painted.

Blood Bowl team finished

Right, here's some semi-blurry pictures of the BB team. I'm too lazy right now to bother taking good pictures, so here's what I've got. The team will be fore next year's Kublacon:

8 Linemen
2 Throwers
2 Runners
2 Berzerkers
1 Ulfwerener

3 RRs, FF 2, Apothecary, 2 Asst. Coaches, 2 Cheerleaders.

The Ulfwerener is the big burly dudes (I painted both of them in case I do well and can add another into my team). The Berzerkers are the dervish-looking guys that're bare chested with their arms in the air.

Anyway, here's the pics.

New Blood Bowl team

You know eventually I'll get to the Guard army (aka "the whole reason I started this blog"). But I succumbed to the gamer's arch nemesis: New Shiny Syndrome. I saw them at Game Kastle and after pondering, realized I could run these guys as Norse. Plus Mer has another long week at school (end of year) leaving me with Jocelyn for 12+ hours a day. The small blocks of rest (aka "Jocelyn's Naps") are strictly decompression periods. So a infertile soil for writing, but the perfect time to paint.

And here's the results, my first four test models:

Just some pictures

I didn't get a chance to take pictures of my finished Tau before Kublacon, so here here they are. I love the Micro Art bases, and I like the paint jobs. They could've been done a bit better, but by the time I realized it, Kubla was like 2 days away.





Also, I have some conversion work to do for my Orks and my IG. The Powerfist sergeants for my IG was the quickest, so they got done first.