On Gaming and Me

There is a point while playing that you have to realize you are there to have fun.  The problem is that this point in time may not be a definite length of time and you may miss it.  When you play, is it to adhere to the rules?  If you find yourself and your opponent at a cross roads do you give in or do you stick to your point and continue to drive it home?

I found myself playing at the usual Monday night game and became very competitive.  I don't mean to imply that I am not normally competitive.  I think thats why the majority of us are drawn to the game actually.  Sure you have your painters and modelers who enjoy the work, or the few who delve into the story and feel that the fight on the table is an extension.  But I would say the majority of purchasers of GW merchandise are competitors.  Maybe they don't go to the tournaments, but they try to play games to win when they have the opportunity.

We had a rules question about a dreadnought and when he is destroyed.  I had my line of thinking and Matt had his.  As we are both strong willed men, we both became very heated in our discussion.  I still wouldn't call it an argument.  Matt's wife did and probably didn't appreciate it (sorry again, I know the Olympics were on.)  Eventually we spent a good 20 minutes looking up the rule and re-reading it to each other.  Matt ended up pulling the model just to get the game going but it didn't leave me with the satisfaction that I had won.  If anything it left me feeling pissed off that I couldn't understand a rule.  A rule in a book that has no real world application.  Even now Matt has posted a question on his website (Archangels), but hasn't had any answers.

I think we may have to institute a two minute rule.  After two minutes if it can't be easily answered or found in the book, then both sides just need to pick a fair outcome.  Whether thats a real world outcome or just one person giving in, I don't know.  It probably won't work because I doubt either of us will give in.  But it took a 2000 pt game, and turned it into a four hour mêlée.

Questions for the community and Battle-Rep 01-26-2009

If you arn't interested in the battle, please go to the end and read the questions I have asked, I am looking for feedback/answers.

So Matt and I have been trying to get in a game for the last two weeks, but with work and shift change, things have been difficult. For today's game we decided to up the Pts to 1500. The battle was capture and control and was spearhead. After choosing corners, I chose a tower and Matt chose a bunker as our objectives.



I went first, choosing to fully deploy. Matt went with a full reserve/deep-strike.

Round 1 and Round 2: Going first I had my first round and second to move before Matt could even show up.



Bottom of round 2: Matt's only gets one squad, the tanks fail reserves. His first move was to deep-strike a 5-man termie squad into my rear. At first he was hesitant, I have become good in bunkering my troops in, I hate his assault ability, and I now try my best to force him to come at me and not get into a cross fire situation. But I had left a small, 6"x"4 space behind the tower, and didn't occupy the tower (all my squads where 10 man squads, and wouldn't fit.) So Matt decides to chance his troops and land on the tower, but before he has to worry about dangerous, he scatters 4" and lands safely to one side. He shoots at a squad of warriors, inflicting 1 kill, but WBB saves him.

Round 3: At this point, if you have followed my battle posts or Matt's, you would know that I have bad luck with termies. Their 2+ reg. saves are grating and I don't have any power weapons that force him to use the 5+. So Matt's squad lands, and he has cover from his left but none in front. At this point I decided to just move some men back and then lay into him. Total shots, 62, of those 62, 42 hit, which resulted in 24 wounds. Matt had 5 models and failed 6 saves over all. It felt good to actually do some damage for once. But that was only the top of round three.

Bottom Round 3: Matt's tanks arrive, bringing Belial in the LRC and another squad in the LR. Matt takes a few shots at the monolith but for the most part round 3 is finished.



Round 4: Here is where the action starts. I fire a few rounds back but mostly keep my troopers boxed up. Matt cruises his tanks up to my troops and unloads Belial. Belial's squad assaults my Lord who I had left carelessly by himself. The lord is quickly dispatched.

Top of Round 5: There wasn't much to shoot at, most of Matt's models were either in cover or still inside a tank. So I decided my best bet would be to use the Necron Gauss rule and shoot at the tanks. I ended up taking out a few weapons but that was about it. Those troops that had shots on Belial failed to deal any damage.

Bottom Round 5: Matt turns Belial onto my Monolith. The 'lith had been stunned, so he got to have his way with it. at 23 total hits, 22 hit, with 7 weapon destroyed penetrations. The mono only has 6 eligible weapons, so the 7th pen became immobilized. Matt smelled blood but realized that this could be the last round, so he had moved his second LR back to his objective so he could claim it.

Round 6: Rolled and succeeded.

Top of Round 6: This round felt like a repeat. I had nothing else to do, so I shot at the LRC again, destroying all weapons. I just needed two more hits to stop it and destroy it, but alas, this was not going to happen. The 'lith was going no where, and the troops where stuck where they were.

Bottom of Round 6: Matt moves his LRC just in case there is a round 7, and then finishes off the 'lith with another 6 weapon pen's. That was more than enough to destroy it. Belial gains a huge 6" consolidation and moves into my squad of warriors. His other LR shoots into my destroyers taking 1 out.



Round 7: Rolled and failed.

Battle was a Tactical Draw.

We added up Victory Pts, and they came out 245 DA and 480 Necs. Had I been just a little more lucky , the LRC would have put Matt at 495. But once again neither Matt nor I will concede with Victory Pts, so the battle remains a draw.



What did I learn? This was my first time using destroyers. They were alot of fun, BS-7 to hit, all my units hit on 3's and the str of a regular destroyer meant I was wounding on 2's twelve shots was alot of wounds, I can see myself taking alot more destroyers. I also noticed that having more warriors and a full squad of immortals meant I was dealing alot of damage. As I noted before, killing off an entire squad was great to moral, but sense Necrons are almost soulless, it was just pleasing for me.

I think Matt and I both realized that we have along way to go in understanding the rules before the tourney in March. Its always the little things that end up slowing down a game that become frustrating.

Last thing, I have a few questions for the blogging community. Recently Jawaballs posted a comment/question regarding Lash and moving jump-pack troops in difficult terrain. Here is my ruling on this (which means spit but its how I see it.) jump-packs are only used when going more than 6". There, the end. If you arn't going more than 6" then you wouldn't turn on your jump-pack. Now that I have answered someone else's question, I have a few of my own.

In the Necron Codex, it states Gauss weapons penetrate armour on a 6 regardless of armour value. It counts as a glancing hit and you roll on the penetration table. Matt and I have decided (although I don't think he is fully convinced,) that the rule means you roll on the armour penetration table in the 5th edition book, you suffer a -1 for glancing and a -2 for non-AP weapon. that means that you need a 6 to destroy a weapon. Does anyone else do it like this? If not, do you use a different rule? And if so what. Also if you havn't thought about it and would like to comment, I would like to hear what you have to say. Just to give you a heads up, the armor tables and comments are on page 61 in the rule book. I would also like to state, that the rulebook specifically states that Codex's supersede the rulebook, so if its in the codex, then it comes first.

The reason I am asking this, is when we go to the tourney in March, I need to know if I need to bring heavy destroyers to deal with armor, or if I can rely on getting a ton of glancing shots. I know if I concentrate my firepower I can do it, so its not a matter of "if."

So please let me know what you think, any comments are welcome, but if your just going to hate on Nec's then keep it to yourself.

Our Number is Legion

Battle Rep 12-30-2008

1250 pt Necrons vs Space Marine Scouts

Army lists:

1 Necron Lord with veil/orb/warsythe

30 Necron Warriors

3 Wraith

5 Immortals

1 Monolith

Click on the link for the Spacemarines army list.

This is not your typical battle report, I am going to list things out of order, but as long as you go with the battle itself it will all make sense. At least it did for me.

This was the first battle on the new gaming table (as seen here at archangels.) This time Matt decided on a scout army as opposed to the termies that I have come to lothe. The battle is dawn of war annaliation. On roll off Matt choses to go second, a choice that we later find would be an error as first would give his scouts their scout move and then his normal first term move. All is not lost though as his landspeeder storm, dreadnought and Razorback all attempt to assault my monolith. But as I have the inital selection of ground, I hit the middle directly. And this royaly makes his choice difficult. The inflitrate rules back up the deployment rules of 18" while in line of sight or 12" out of line of sight. I placed my troops so he would have no choice to place them 18" and even with scout moves he still had to put them 12" away. I soon fire into the closest squads, but as everyone should know, DoW's first round is night fire. Only three of my units are able to make range and only to a measly 4 model loss. I have 30, yes count them, 30 warriors and 5 immortals. Thats a devistating barrage of 70 shots fired and a lousy 4 models are killed. BAH!

As the first turn advances I find my mono set upon. Matts landspeeder is able to use multi melta to stop the mono from moving, but as this is no worry, because the pylon will work reguardless of the state of the rest of the vehicle (much to my pleasure.) I soon find myself assaulted by the command squad of normal marines against my Necron lord with his detachment of 10 warriors, which for the first time in the history of my necron gaming, I whip to the man, and only lose one in the process (Necron warsythe ftw!!!)

The battle does not fare well for an entire squad of warriors who become over run by the bike squad. I felt this was a great loss, but that was until I lost all 3 Wraith before they could even strike a single blow! I used them to freely and moved them before my warriors, and even with their +3 saves I could not bring them back from the brink. (We would later go on to proxy our troops to see what the assault phase looked like, and even fudged that up because I forgot they have the +3 inv, but I at least took the squad to 3 troops before losing my last wraith.)

As things went, I stormed my warriors forward in revenge for the wraith. Squad of 10 Necron warriors vs squad of 10 Space Marines, by the end of the game I had put that SM squad down to two, and my necrons were at 5. Thats not to say I won, far from it, for you see, I made a grave error. In an effort to be clever, I used the Veil of Darkness to transport my lord and his squad of 9 warriors into my enemies rear. But I scattered, and my choice of ground was poor. Result... I rolled off the table :( . This threw my game out the window, with the phase now being so low, it was just a battle of attration. My mono lived up to its potentional though, and even though it would eventually be immobilized, I still destroyed the Dreadnought and Razorback, both in firey explosions that damaged the scout squad that had assaulted my immortals. Soon it was last man standing and I was odd man out.

Over all it was a good battle, and I think I had a good chance if my lord had not gone. But since neither myself nor Matt concede what might have been, the result was a phase out once more from the necron forces. The battle ended with 5 warriors and the monolith still standing. We would go on to roll a 6th, imiginary round, in which his landspeeder with multi melta would destroy the mono and the remaining warriors would be crushed from a second squad of 10 scouts, but that also never happened so its a phase and nothing else.

What have I learned... SM are just strong in general. I am begninning to understand placement alot more, giving myself more options. I need to stop allowing my enemy to place his models where they can not be placed. I gave him the benifit for the bikers, but that only lead to loosing an entire squad of troops. Maybe they would have done more damage somewhere else, but the result was still crushing. I can win CC if I press the advantage. And the last thing I have learned. My table is so much better than anything in that gaming store and I am quite proud to have finished it.

Here are a few pictures, they arnt much as we got into the battle and forgot to photograph but they give you the basic idea.

The Awakened Arrive

Welcome all,

I plan on making this my main blog about the new Warhammer 40,000 Necron army that I am building. The army will be based off a Flying Circus design and will be painted in an white/blue theme, giving the aspect that my Nec's have been asleep on an ice planet and have just awoken.

I hope to have many pictures up soon. They will consist of the build/painting process and the campaigns that I attempt. There currently is only two people that I know personally in my area that play, one fielding Space Marines (in various forms) and the other Chaos. The SM has a large number of models and has many years of experience, so that's where I expect my greatest challenge to come from. The Chaos player is brand new to the game, just bought the starter box and has yet to game with us but should be ready to field 500 Pt's soon if not 750 Pt's.

A little about my 40k experience:
I started playing 40k in 2003 with a Eldar army. I designed it after the Biel'tan cast using the Avatar of Kaela Mensha Khaine as the leader and a cast of Aspect warriors. I used this pretty well against Imperial Guard, Tau, and Orcs'. I ended up selling this army off the army in 2006 due to lack of use. I was not pleased to sell them but I was short on cash and since almost everyone who played graduated college there wasn't anyone to game with. Then came the new job and at with that several people who play. I decided that I didn't want to play Eldar again (although after the 5th edition rules answered all the problems that I wanted seen too,) so I picked the Necrons. Little did I know, that I picked one of the most jacked up armies to pick. The Nec's are in need of a major overhaul. They only have one troop, and their Close Combat ability is non-existent (Don't think you can tempt me with your flayed ones, they are not up to snuff.) As of right now, I have only played 500 Pt, 750 Pt, and a few 1000 Pt matches. All have been against an SM player who has tried several methods against me. What I have learned is that if he closes with me, I am screwed, the end. So I have to have enough units on the board to keep his separated and allow me to shoot into them while they move to close with other units. Basically I have to sacrifice someone at this point in time. Now some of you may read this and have several strategies, well until I get everything built, I am limited in my unit choices, so no Flying Circus just yet.

That is just the start of what I hope will be many posts yet to come. Here is a link to my friends blog where he has posted several battle reports on a couple of our encounters.
http://emperorsarchangels.blogspot.com/

Our Number is Legion