Managed to get a game in against a friends BA tonight, my first with my Deathwing since February and also my first 40k game since 6th ed dropped. I have to say it was an interesting experience.
My list was basically Belial, a Divination Librarian, 3 Deathwing Squads, two Vindicators and a Land Raider. His list off the (top of my head) consisted of Astrorath, Death Company and DC Dread in a Stormraven, a Tactical Squad, an Assault squad and the rather surprising addition of some Devastators with Plasma Cannons. Can't remember the name of the mission we played (not owning the 6th
ed book yet to check) but it was the one where Fast Attack become
scoring (like that helped me, being the one slot Deathwing never use) and the value of the objectives were
randomised.
After a closely fought first four turns, whittling down his force and pretty much neutering his plasma squad with shooting and driving him back towards his table edge, losing only my Vindicators in return. Then the victory got whipped out from underneath me when he managed to turn the tide quite nicely when the Stormraven finally arrived from reserve, with the Redeemer of the Lost pretty much taking out Belials squad and another Terminator Squad single-handedly
I gave him the game at the end of turn 5, what with me having only a single squad left and having to dash off to catch a train, but it was a good game. Despite being cut short, I took a lot from this game. Here's a small list:
-Terminators, even Tactical ones, are awesome now. They're ridiculously tough in combat,although little has changed at range
-Fliers are scary - his Stormraven was a game changer, mainly due to the fact that i knew I had nothing to shoot it down with. I need to tackle this problem or get some of my own.
- Wound allocation is a little weird. I had no choice but to let Belial die to the Death Company shooting before combat, as all wounds are are taken on the closest model until he dies. Very unrealistic that all shots happened to hit the commander, leaving his squad untouched
- DA Librarians are useful again, especially Divination ones giving out re-rolls. I'm also looking forward to trying out a Pyromancer one in the game against Orks I've got scheduled for next week
- A HQ with an Axe is a scary scary thing - Astorath doubly so.
- Vehciles are fragile, but still useful in a Deathwing list to draw fire away from the Terminators by providing a massive threat if not dealt with
- Combats involving characters suck, as apparently you can't pick them out in combat unless you challenge them, which majorly sucks for DW, not having tough characters to take them on with. This seems a little weird to me, but we were running out of time so I didn't press the issue. I'll look it up at some point
All in all I rather like 6th edition. The game seems to flow quite nicely, seems to have got more balanced and is great fun to play too. I'm looking forward to seeing what else this edition brings. As i mentioned, I have agame against Orks next week. It should be fun, although I think I'm going to have to rewrite my list to include some Cyclones, or else have a serious think about my anti-horde capability. I'll post up my thoughts soon....
Did you not look out sir! some wounds away from Belial? Being indepedent, he suceeds on a 2+. it's actually difficult to kill characters in units unless you let it happen.
ReplyDeleteAs for characters in assaults, it's even worse than not being able to pick them out. if you somehow get wounds on them, they can still look out sir in close combat.
Forgot to LOS, it would've saved Belial from the Infernus Pistol to the face. At the cost of the Apothecary though, who was the only one in Belials squad left alive by that point
ReplyDeleteThat's quite insane. It seems that 6th ed is the 'Terminators, Fliers and Herohammer Edition'. It's probably a push to sell more Character models by GW. Not sure what I think of it all, but I'll probably feel a lot better about it once they've given Belial an Iron Halo and Adamantine Mantle equivialant in the new codex.
Terminators are now very worthwhile. Standard shooty terminators might even make an appearance now.
ReplyDeleteAt the moment fliers do dominate. If you've not played against them before you will have trouble. But that will change as the codexes come out.
Wound allocation is really silly. GW should have stuck with what they had or gone back to the 4th ed way of dealing with it.
Librarians have now got really good. Now I don't use the codex powers I take the disciplines which I find far more useful.
I'm thinking going for a shooty list against Orks next week, I'll let you know how it goes.
ReplyDeleteOnce they start giving out Flak (or however it's spelt) missiles to codices, it'll help balance things. If this dragon rumour comes true for CSM's too it may well spell a premature death for fliers
Can't remember how it worked it 4th, but they seemd to have failed at wound allocation in both 5th and 6th
The powers have certainly given a boost to the lower tier codices. DA had pretty much worthless powers, but now they're epic. I can still see myself using the Space Wolf codex powers though
In 4th it was roll wounds against an average Toughness, and then roll saves based on the average save. Defending player then removed the models of his/her choice.
DeleteWhat it did was allow a player to keep the important models alive for as long as possible. At the moment no one picks up the better gun that his mate had next to him.
The argument that the design studio had when they got rid of the 4th ed system was that it was unrealistic for the sergeant, special and heavy weapon guys to always be the last ones alive. You bring up the point that they'd pick up the weapons, but those weapons normally needed specialist training to use or were wired to the carrier, like certain heavy weapons or Power Fists.
ReplyDeleteI liked 5th ed's system, as under heavy fire there was a chance you'd lose your specialist weapons, but it was far too open to abuse. wound allocation in 6th is weird and doesn't solve the problems that wound allocation had in 5th
a few tweaks to the 5th ed system would've been the way forward i think, just something to stop people from cheesing out multi-wound units like Paladins, Thunderwolves, Nobz, etc
I can see the argument but it was a fair system for wargear you were paying points for. 5th was a fine one and only needed some tweaks I think. 6th is just irritating and I can see people just agreeing to be more freeform with it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with colin here, 5th worked best, and if the special weapon did die, you could just say it blow up or something, but taking hits at the front is something I dont like, makes sense for Orks or Guard but not Marines :D
ReplyDelete