RTT Breakdown

Long time no post - sorry about that.

Anyways - I had the opportunity to bring my constantly growing Guard army to a local Rogue Trader tournament on Saturday. The event was put together by a friendly local discount game store called Games by Gamers.

The list I brought looked like this:

HQ:
-Company Command Squad
(Astropath, Master of the Fleet, Chimera, Vox)

-Inquisitor Lord
(Psychic Hood, 3 Mystics, Sanctuary, Bolt Pistol + CCW)

Troops:

-Veteran Squad
(3 Grenade Launchers, Missile Launcher, Vox, Forward Sentries)

-Veteran Squad
(Shotguns,3x Melta)

-(3X)Veteran Squad
(3x Melta, Chimera w/hull heavy flamer and multi-laser)

Fast Attack:

-Vendetta

Heavy Support:

-2 Griffons

-2 Leman Russ Battle Tanks
(Hull heavy flamers)

-2 Leman Russ Battle Tanks
(Hull heavy flamers)


The first scenario was pretty straight forward. There was one primary objective, which was placed in the center of the table. Extra battle points could be earned by killing the opponent's most expensive HQ choice, controlling the most table quarters, and scoring the most kill points.

I should mention that the name of the scenario was "More meat for the grinder," and keeping with that theme there was one rather odd special rule. Destroyed troops choices automatically respawned on the controlling player's table edge at the start of their next turn. Perhaps not the most balanced special rule - but it definitely made things interesting.

My opponent was a newer Tyranid player. He was running a Hive Tyrant, two melee fexes, three zoanthroapes, a few broods of warriors, some ripper swarms, a couple units of genestealers, and a ton of gaunts.

The tyranids won the first turn - and ran forward at full speed. The only shooting was one less than spectacular barbed strangler shot and a few attempts to warp blast my armor, handily negated by my Inquisitor Lord's psychic hood.

The guard got comfortable, heavy flamers at the ready, and opened up with the artillery.

Fun fact: Bugs don't like pie. Two griffons and four russes bring a lot of pie...

It took a couple turns for him to get into assault range with anything, and the master of the fleet hurt the genestealers which he chose to outflank with.

When the nids did get close enough to assault the hull heavy flamers on the chimeras and russes opened up - claiming a good number of them. I was also able to take advantage of the scenario special rule by throwing my vet squads in front of his MCs doing a melta wound or two - enough to provoke him into assaulting them - then after they were wiped out in his turn they walked back on from my table edge (conveniently in melta range) and finished 'em off.

Other noteworthy events include:

-A vet squad surviving two rounds of combat with genestealers.
-The Vendetta showed up late despite the astropath, but made up for it by killing the hive tyrant in one shooting phase.
-The same Vendetta won me the primary objective by zooming over on to the objective on the last turn - vet squad in tow.

In the end I won the game 16-4.

Game two was spearhead deployment with two objectives - one in each players deployment zone. The catch was that the objective scattered 1d6" in a random direction every turn. Secondary objectives were the same as round one.

This time around I was matched with a veteran demon player. ...It was rough.
The game started out auspiciously enough when he ruled a two when determining which wave he got in his first turn.

I won the roll off for first turn, and unfortunately the scenario didn't allow me to choose to go second. So I deployed as defensively as possible. I deployed one Chimera empty in the front near the center of the table.The Inquisitor and mystics were placed right behind so they could hop in on the first turn and draw out a "do not deep-strike" zone in an attempt to funnel him through the other flank. On the other flank of my DZ I spread out my footsloggers in neatly spaced lines to try and create a deep strike danger zone. All of my tanks and artillery castled up in the backfield - heavy flamer chimeras in the front, then leman russes, then the Griffons hiding behind terrain.

On his turn he brought in a unit of bloodletters, demonettes, pink horrors, and a Keeper of Secrets on my flank with the footslogging vets - but he kept a safe distance. A soul grinder showed up on the other flank with the Inquisitor - but he kept his distance as well.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to throw up Sanctuary since I had to move the Inquisitor to get in the Chimera (it did pop smoke though) so he took some shots at it which were thankfully ineffective. He ran most everything else other than the horrors which put a dent in the first vet squad who promptly went to ground.

In my turn the Russes and griffons put a pretty big dent in the bloodletters (the only unit on the table at that point with an icon) and took out most of the horrors. The inquisitor threw up sanctuary - and kept it up for most of the game - effectively blocking that flank completely (it also happened to be where my objective was).

From here it was essentially a game of "How many can I kill before it's too late?"

The answer: Not enough.

Before too long there was a bloodthirster running rampant in the back of my lines - and at that point there's just no coming back.

I made a tactical error in throwing my vendetta and its melta-cargo at the soul grinder who was really too far away to threaten much of anything. The Vendetta's lascannons failed to damage it - it turned around and punched it out of the sky. The vets popped out of the wreckage a little worse for wear and tried to melt it, missed two out of three melta shots, and then I rolled a one on the damage table for the one shot that penned it which the grinder ignored. Then it ate my vets.

Sad story.

In the end - he kicked the crap out of me. He won on every part of the mission except for my objective which, even with the wonky scatter rule managed to stay in the sanctuary zone of my inquisitor lord's chimera.
By the end of turn six my end of the board was filled with a bunch of burning wrecks, and two greater demons running amok.....and the remnants of my last veteran squad sitting on my objective. They were giving my inquisitor's chimera a big hug - staying just within the sanctuary zone.

So I'll take a small moral victory for that at least.

The demon player also went on to win 1st overall in the tourney – so I don't feel too bad about getting stomped on.

The last round was pitched battle deployment, and each player placed three objectives in their deployment zone.

This time around my opponent was playing a First Company Salamanders army using the Dark Angels codex for the ability to take terminators as troops. He took Belial, five squads of termies – all with storm bolters, one assault cannon each, and some chain fists mixed in here and there – and three Vindicators. He noted my Mystics and the master of the fleet and opted not to Deathwing assault in. The three Vindicators castled up in the corner across from most of my armor surrounded by three of the five termie squads. The other two squads including Belial and the apothecary hung back in a ruin, mostly out of line of sight -camping on an objective and making it obscenely difficult for me to get the secondary objective of destroying the unit with the highest point cost.

I got first turn and over reacted a bit to the triple vindicators. I moved up two chimeras and the vendetta, all filled with melta vets, and by next turn they had blown up two of the Vindicators and scored weapon destroyed and immobilized results on the third one.

Things went down hill pretty quick after that. The Griffons missed their intended target, and after using the accurate bombardment rule for a re-roll it scattered onto the melta vets which had just popped out of the a Vendetta, killing about half of them. Nearby terminators took care of the rest of them in the next turn, and an assault cannon to the rear knocked the Vendetta out of the sky.

Assault cannons and multi-charges did an admirable job of taking out most of my chimeras and the vets inside. With the loss of my melta guns and the vendetta I was completely out of AP 1 and 2 weapons, and I just didn't have the volume of fire to get past his 2+ armor saves. (Plus the apothecary negated two or three of the failed saves throughout the game which is handy.

He ended up winning all the battle points that round, and second place overall in the tournament.

Personally, while my battle points for generalship were less than spectacular I did pretty well in sportsmanship and painting. I placed fifth out of twelve overall – not too shabby I suppose.

The event was a lot of fun, all of my opponents were great, and I learned a lot about my army's strengths and weaknesses.

Overall I think the list that I brought performs pretty well against heavy mech and MEQs. All of the pie plates and heavy flamers work wonders on hordes (although I have yet to play against Orks with it.)

Against demons and small elite armies like Deathwing.....it needs some tweaks.

Mostly I just don't have the volume of fire to take out things like greater demons and terminators. This epiphany has me considering a hybrid Platoon/Vets list.

My colleague and frequent opponent Rob played in the tournament as well. Oddly enough he played the nid army and the demon army as well, and he had the foresight to take pictures - so if you want to see his take on them check it out here.

Sergeant Lukas Bastonne

Sergeant Bastonne, like his colleague Gunnery Sergeant Harker, is another unique character upgrade for Imperial Guard Veteran squads. Bastonne is kind of pricey, weighing in at 60 pts - so for the same points you get get another Chimera and for a bit more Marbo or a Hydra - but he brings some unique benefits with him. In addition to the standard veteran wargear Bastonne is equipped with carapace armor, a hot-shot laspistol, and a power sword (would have been better if he could have held out for a power fist -but whaddayagonnado?) Handy gear to have in some circumstances - but not jaw-dropping by any means. More importantly, Bastonne gets a leadership bump up to Ld 10.

"It's Up to Us Lads!"
What makes Bastonne so potentially useful is his ability to give one order to his unit after all other orders are given. Even better, Bastonne has access to all of the Company Command Squad and Platoon Command Squad orders. This ability is potentially huge, as most Guard players acquainted with the new codex will know. And did I mention that his leadership is higher than your typical company commander?
(Though in my test game with him I still brought along a vox-caster. Good thing too since on two occasions I rolled box-cars when attempting to order the squad. One of those times was when using "First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire!" on a group of Fire Dragons in rapid fire range, and the last thing you want your vets to do in a situation like that is to stop what they're doing and stare into space like confused Ogryn.)


"Never Give Up, Never Surrender!"
Bastonne's other special ability is "Never Give Up, Never Surrender!" This rule essentially turns Bastonne and his squad into Space Marines!
.....Well, Strength 3 Toughness 3 Space Marines, with crappy armor and flashlights instead of bolters....
What I mean by that is as long as Bastonne is alive the squad will always be able to regroup, regardless of squad strength and other restrictions.
This is potentially handy, but here I really have to agree with Stalek's analysis. The unit is really too fragile for this ability to make much difference, and unfortunately the unit can't regroup when they're dead.

Potential Uses:
The only way that I've used Bastonne thus far is with three meltas and deployed in a Vendetta. This is especially useful assuming you can get first turn - scout the Vendetta up 24", move up to 12" more, pop out the veterans with meltas and "Bring it Down!" for some extra killy first turn vehicular homicide. Then you just have to hope that they survive the ensuing explosion (There's a potential use for "Never Give up Never Surrender!")

Carapace Armor could be useful in cases such as the one outlined above - but I think that doctrines in conjunction with upgrade characters are cost-prohibitive. (ie: 195 pts for a vet squad with Bastonne, 3 Meltas, Vox, and Carapace Armor - for the same points you could two vet squads with two meltas and some change left over)

I must admit that I am tempted to give Bastonne's unit "Demolitions" for the ability to have a twin linked Demo Charge (although for the order to work it would have to be targeting a vehicle or MC,) but I think that's more of a case of "Holy crap that would be awesome!" rather than an effective (and cost-effective) option.

Overall, I like Bastonne. He's an especially effective tank-hunter("Bring it Down!") and last minute objective grabber ("Move, Move, Move!") but his utility varies substantially depending upon the composition of the rest of the army. Playing a static gun-line? Leave Bastonne at home. In a Chimera or Valk though he can make an excellent forward assault element.

The (Mostly) Finished Vendetta

I snapped a couple photos of my (mostly) finished Vendetta before a game against Rob's Eldar earlier today.

Overall I'm pretty happy with it - it still needs some touch ups/detailing which I imagine I'll get around to eventually. The cockpit glass is tinted red in part to hide a modeling mishap - but I think it gives it a Chaosy, demonic possession look which works well for Traitor Guard.

Modeling Fail!

Argh. Earlier this evening I managed to spill a mostly full beer on to half of a squad of freshly-painted forgeworld Chaos renegade guardsmen. THEN, while trying to clean up the resulting mess I managed to knock over the tub of static grass which I was using, and of course, the lid was not securely in place.

:(

Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium

I've been on an Imperial Guard kick lately in terms of gaming and fluff. I'll just blame it on the new codex. Regardless, I've made my way through the entirety of Dan Abnett's excellent "Gaunt's Ghosts" series as well as a few one-shotters such as Gunheads. Recently I've picked up the first Ciaphas Cain omnibus, penned by Sandy Mitchell. I have to admit that I was skeptical about this release, mostly because I am skeptical of every Black Library release by an author which I am not already familiar with (Dan Abnett FTW!) However, Mr. Mitchell has proven that my reservations were unfounded.

I am only about half way through with the first book, but I already feel compelled to write about it. I find Mitchell's satiric take on the grim darkness of the 41st millennium refreshing. Too often Black Library authors tend to take themselves and their creations far too seriously and the results are unengaging plot-lines and overly stiff, boring, under-developed characters. Mitchell on the other hand has a narrative voice reminiscent of such notable literary figures as Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and Jonathan Ames(Minus the perversion.)

Commissar Cain proves to be an intriguing departure from the standard fare of Black Library protagonists. His cowardice, which is consistently misconstrued as heroism due to an unusual series of events, leads him to ever greater fame and glory within Imperial circles. For example, early in his career Cain finds himself fleeing from a horde of termagaunts, leaving a comrade to be ripped to shreds in the process. However, while running from the gaunts Cain finds himself headed straight for a particularly angry Hive Tyrant. So, in the interest of his own self-preservation he turns tail and heads for the lesser of the two evils - the relatively wimpy gaunts - cutting a number of them up with his chainsword (and seemingly risking his life to rescue a low-ranking trooper) before he and his comrade are rescued by supporting fire which annhillates the Tyranid threat. Of course, his perceived penchant for glory causes him to be assigned to increasingly dangerous assignments- quite contrary to Cain's personal wishes.

Excellent stuff so far.

Gunnery Sergeant Harker

Gunnery Sergeant Harker is the ultimate bad-boy of the Imperial Guard codex. Well, second to Marbo anyways. The chief difference between the two is that while Marbo is stuck out on his own, Harker is an upgrade for a Veteran Sergeant - thus he is substantially more survivable most of the time. (Marbo's demo charge doesn't particularly help with the whole survivability thing.)

Harker gives his unit a number of pretty substantial benefits. First and foremost, the unit gains the universal special rules infiltrate, stealth, and move through cover. The squad also gains a heavy weapon in the form of Harker's heavy bolter, and since he is relentless it does not slow the unit down. He also has feel no pain, something I have a hard time remembering when I use him, but that is unfortunately not passed on to the rest of his unit. :(

Harker costs 55 points, the same as a chimera, which sounds kind of steep for a veteran sergeant, but when all of his benefits are taken into account I think he's a steal.

What initially attracted me to Harker was my frequent use of the "Forward Sentries Doctrine" in my objective sitting vet squads. The doctrine is 30 points and the benefits are the "Stealth" USR and defensive grenades. For 55 points Harker nets you Stealth, (30 points) a BS 4 Relentless Heavy Bolter (10 Points*), Infiltrate, and Move Through Cover (both priceless.)

My first inclination for using Harker was in much the same way that I used my Camo-Cloaked Vet Squads, essentially a camping heavy weapon squad that is extremely difficult to dislodge thanks to their (potentially 2+ when gone to ground) cover save. My first couple builds for Harker's squad included three snipers and a missile launcher. With that build you've got a solid mixed-use unit able to take on light armor and infantry that's extremely difficult to dislodge from cover. Harker's ability to infiltrate also allows you to give them the best possible location to utilize their strengths.

Overall, it's not a bad use of the guy - but I admit it's not optimized.

I'm thinking that in order to take full advantage of all of Harker's benefits he needs to be mobile - not slowed down by any heavy weapon teams. I'm thinking that a veteran squad with Harker and three flamers would make perfect infantry hunters. Infiltrate makes them superb for taking out light infantry that likes to hang around the backfield and depends upon cover such as Ork Lootas, Eldar Rangers, Tau Pathfinders, and the like.

It is also worth considering dropping them in a Chimera with a hull heavy flamer for an additional 55 points (though this makes them pretty pricey at about 195 points.) Since the Chimera is a dedicated transport the "Infiltrate" USR is passed along to it - allowing for outflanking Chimera-flamer BBQ time! An astropath in the Company Command Squad can make this especially worthwhile, pretty much ensuring they come in where you want them. Also, since Harker is relentless he can fire his heavy bolter out the top hatch of the Chimera so long as it doesn't move more than 6" - AND since (according to the most recent 40k rules FAQ) the vet squad and the chimera are two different units they do not have to fire at the same target. So given the right circumstances the chimera could ruin someone's afternoon with it's hull heavy flamer and Harker and company could put the hurt on someone else entirely.

So, that's my take on Harker. I'd be interested to hear others' opinions of him as I haven't seen a whole lot of discussion on him yet. Probably as he's been overshadowed by Marbo, Al'rahem, Chenkov, Straken, Nork, and the like.

Veteran Sniper Conversion Brainstorm

The picture is from an article on Games Workshop's website about kitbashing guard infantry. Available here.

I've been inspired by the gentleman on the left who is kitbashed with bits from a Baneblade crewman and the arms from the WHFB Empire Handgunners kit. I'm thinking that I could use that method with some of these gents to make some snipers for my veteran squads:



It could make for a unique looking unit. Now to get the bits for a test model....