(I'm looking at you, James! Next tourney let's swap lists and see how it goes! :) )
So, the cheese I brought this time:
Fateweaver
3 units of 8 Flamers
3 units of 8 Screamers
3 units of 5 Plaguebearers
3 units of 5 Horrors (all had Bolt, one had Changeling)
Some overall things:
-I forgot Hammer of Wrath in every single game of 3 tournaments in a row. I suck.
-I forgot Fear in every single game of 3 tournaments in a row. I suck.
-I fired Warpfire instead of Bolt all but 3 times. Not because I forgot, I just wanted 3 S4 shots instead of 1 S8. Is it worth the points?
-Having 6 units of troops made games SO MUCH EASIER. I even squandered them...intentionally...and still had enough. Barely :)
-Fateweaver...ya know, having the Masque let me do some really entertaining things, but Fateweaver helps win games consistently. That's my vibe, anyway. More specifically, the combination of Fateweaver and Screamers, who can Turbo to get in range from damned near anywhere, is something I really enjoy. Far more than Masque.
-People really REALLY need to think more about what makes Daemons powerful and change their army and deployment choices accordingly. I mean no disrespect to anyone, but if you keep using the same list you used in 5e, and deploy your guys in neat little clumps, and fail to have a plan to mitigate the 6 threat units coming at you (more on that another time), then you've got no room to complain. Daemons are STRONG, but there are weaknesses. Ask me, I'll tell you what makes things hard for me! Believe it or not, Daemons DO lose games! Right, Sean? Right, Neil?
So this tourney was 2k points. The field had some great players: Sean Nayden, Bob and Ryan Sinnot, James Mahood, Chris Dubuque, and many others who I recognize and respect...but I'm old, blond, and have a horrible mind for names...forgive me, if you're not called out by name it doesn't mean I don't respect you, it just means I can't remember you name to save my life!
My first matchup was with Mike Morales and a terrifying CSM + Necron army:
2 Lvl 3 Sorcs with Axes...dirt cheap for so much Psyker goodness!
Giant Blob of Cultists with Autoguns and 3 Hvy Stubbers
Medium Blob of Cultists (just Pistol/CCW)
10 Nurgle Marines
3 Single Nurgle Obliterators
5 Nurgle Spawn
2 Heldrakes
Naked Overlord
Naked Stormtek
two units of 5 Necron Warriors in Night Scythes
Aegis with Comm Relay
Intimidating. I don't have a lot of experience vs. the CSM. I felt like if I could get the Screamers and FW on the board, run under the guns of the Fliers, I could eat the whole rest of his army. Flamers were insurance, and troops needed to man-up and deal with Necrons in the backfield.
But, and the reason I love playing Daemons, the dice didn't want me to be able to do that.
Mike won the roll-off, and had me go first. I chose The Meanies (Fate, Screamers, Flamers), and rolled a 2...Plagues and Horrors drop in.
 |
| Chaos castles up |
Mike had castled up, using the smaller Cultist unit spread out along the ADL to cover the bigger Cultist unit that was spread out surrounding the CSM. The Obliterators were dispersed amongst them.
I decided to put the Plagues back on the two objectives far away from him, while the third would try to snatch up the relic; while the Horrors put on a modicum of pressure to keep him in his table end for as long as possible. I thought if I could jam him up for a few turns, I could use my late-arriving stuff to help clear out the Drakes and Necrons that would be eating my backfield.
So the first drops go in, with the only significant scatter being the plagues trying to get Relic, that put them a long way off. Horrors started shooting up Cultists, and he went to ground behind his ADL for a healthy 2+ cover. This made me very happy...he was willing to stay where I wanted him!
His turn 1, he put a few shots on the Horrors, a few died, and the Beasts came rampaging thru his blobs and ate a Horror squad!
Second turn, I got 2 Flamers and a Screamer unit in only. Continuing with my plan, I dropped the Screamers in back aways, and turbo'd them back so they'd be out of Baleflamer range. One Flamer unit tried to drop in on top of him, but scattered back aways, landing near my Horror herd. The other Flamer I tried to drop at midfield, but they scattered off to the middle of nowhere, which was actually a fine spot, as I wanted them to be available later as things loosened up a bit.
Horrors and Flamers all shot at Spawn, I believe leaving only a single wounded model.
 |
| Plagues hide, while Screamers lurk...waiting for a target! |
 |
| The "Left" side, where most of the action was! |
He didn't even need his Comm Relay to get all his reserves on bottom of 2! They came on all in a clump, moving min 18" and unloading on Horrors and Flamers with the whole army. All said and done, 3 Flamers lived, but they were Terrified and Pinned from Hallucination. Noteworthy was that all his infantry stayed home...which is where I wanted them.
Top of 3 and my army finally shows up...Fateweaver and the other Screamers come in. I get Fate and Screamers up right underneath where his Fliers could go so he'd have to overfly them...or even better, hover those Drakes! Another unit of screamers ended up at the other side of the table opposite the Coca-Cola factory at mid-table. They were left less protected (being away from Fate), but I liked having the pressure coming from both sides. The last unit of Flamers came in, and I decided to be risky and gamble with them. There was a smallish window to drop them in off around the side of his army. I knew they'd attract all his attention, but that would complete the gameplan of keeping him at home while I snatched up the Relic. The Flamers scattered a very small amount, landing safely but out of Flaming range. They shot up some more cultists, actually killing a few as there was little cover for them! It's fun when you get to kill stuff!
 |
| Plaguebearers say, "Oh shit!" |
Bottom of 3, and as expected the Fliers all flew over the Screamers and Fateweaver. Vector Strikes were done on some Screamers, damage mitigated from Fateweaver. All 4 fliers shot at one unit of Bearers, killing them all, of course.
 |
| Flamers gamble and win! |
We realized we were low on time so started playing a lot faster, and took no more pictures...sorry.
So, top of 4, and I actually get to start doing stuff! One unit of Screamers turns around and shadows the Drakes. He has to either fly off the table, or Hover to kill more of my guys...if he chooses the latter I want to make him pay. Similarly, a unit of Flamers falls back with them to keep the pressure on the Warriors that might get out to snatch up my objectives. Fateweaver and one unit of Screamers fly over his ADL and kill off the last of the smaller Cultist unit. The 2-man Flamer unit hides out of LOS where they could kill/contest when the CSM finished off the Flamers in melee...which never happened.
Bottom of 4, his Drakes Hover...they kill 2 of the Plagues with the Relic, and several of my backfield Flamers. One Nightscythe moves next to an objective so the Warriors can get out next turn to contest. The other took an inexplicable turn away from an empty objective, shooting at the fleeing Screamers. The CSM/Flamer pillow fight continued. He Terrified and Hallcinated my Screamers with Fateweaver, so they could strike no blows in Melee...and charged them with the Obliterators! Damage was minimal to the Screamers, but they were as stuck as could be with no way to kill the Oblits!!
Top of 5, we're out of time but we'd decided to play thru lunch as this was such a chess-match game, we were both really digging it.
I'd hoped to charge in to the cultists with Screamers, but had none to do it with: One unit was fleeing; one was tied up with Obliterators; the other was in my backfield. It was looking like I'd need things to go to 6 to have a chance, as I has no good way to contest his objective...so Fateweaver stepped up and went to work! He Glided over to the Cultists, turned their Champion in to a Spawn and Charged! I also had Flamers go at a Heldrake, did 3 Glances that were all saved! So I managed to work out a multi-assault where I got 4 screamers on each of the Heldrakes, and killed them both, though just barely!
Fateweaver's charge was intended to pull the Cultists down off the Objective, but it didn't quite work...but I challenged, his Sorc had to accept (since I'd turned the Champ in to a Spawn), and Fateweaver Smashed and killed him in one blow! Awesome! A point for Warlord and far less Psychic shenanigans! The Obliterators put a few wounds on the Screamers, too, but no big deal. The Flamer/CSM Pillowfight continues!
His turn, the Plaguebearers with the Relic are on Fire from the Soulblaze from the Drakes, and 2 of the 3 die! One lonely guy alive! One unit of Warriors get out of their Night Scythe and contest, shooting kills only 1 Plaguebearer. CSM/Flamer Pillowfight continues, Screamers are no longer Hallucinated, so kill one Oblit. Fateweaver gets charged by the third Oblit. If he dies, I lose. I live! Fateweaver had been Terrified, too, so just losing combat could have been disastrous...but I took no wounds...and did none, for that matter.
Mike rolls for it, and the game ends!
Mike had one 3-point objective (Fateweaver didn't pull them off far enough); Linebreaker; and First Blood...
I had one 4-point objective; Linebreaker; and Warlord...
6 to 5 win! What an awesome game! This was a really rewarding game for me. I got to make an 'on-the-fly' plan, stick with it when things were looking sour early in the game, and come thru with some fun moves that made me feel really good! Mike was a blast to play, I'm looking forward to more games with him on Vassal...he's on almost as much as I am! Thanks for the great game, Mike! And...to make it even better...we weren't even late for lunch!
A quick bite of Duchess (the worst fast-food in the universe!), and off to round two! I found myself facing a young man I'd not seen before, playing Mech Eldar.
Farseer with Fortune and Doom;
Karrandras (spelling!?)
2x 10 Dire Avengers in Wave Serps
10 Striking Scorpions
3 War Walkers
2 Vypers
big unit of Jetbikes...10?
2 Fire Prisms
I must admit to being concerned. Once bitten twice shy, I guess...last time I faced an Eldar list I thought was a good matchup for me I didn't read the mission and lost. I didn't want to underestimate this guy, so decided to be conservative and safe and just take what he gives me and play the Objectives.
This mission was a combination of Kill Points and Scouring, where there are 6 fixed-points objectives pre-placed on the table. Dawn of War deployment.
He won the roll, and decided to go first. He deployed with some DA in a ruin/trench thing in the middle of his deployment. The other DA with Farseer were in their Wave. The empty Wave and one Prism were in the back left corner. The other Wave, Vypers, and Walkers were in the back right corner. Jetbikes in reserve. The Scorpions infiltrated and deployed right in the middle of my deployment zone, along with Kararndras.
Well, going with the "take what he gives you" approach, I decided to drop around the Scorpions and take them. I chose Fateweaver, 2 flamers, 2 screamers, and a Plaguebearer as my preferred...conservative. The Powers were pleased, and rewarded me with my preferred wave. One Flamer scattered far away from the Scorps, the other mishaped back in to reserve. Between Flamers' Warpfire, Fate's shooting, and Screamer fly-overs, only a handful of Scorpions remained.
 |
| Scorpions are not pleased with their fate... |
His turn 2, he shuffled some vehicles around, took a few shots at things that did very little, and charged screamers with the surviving Scorpions. I took a few wounds and wiped the unit.
 |
| Eldar battle line... |
Rest of the game went as I'd hoped. I was able to push up one side, screening 2 Screamers and Fateweaver with the big LOS blocker in the middle. I charged in and killed all the vehicles on my left turn 3. Flamers dropped in and killed the DA on foot with their alphastrike. Rest of the game was me pushing in to his stuff in the back right corner. Plagues tied up Avengers and Farseer for a few turns after Flamers wrecked their ride; Screamers ate all the Walkers and Vypers; Jetbikes ran around but got shot by a lot of warpfire, only 3 lived. Game ended in 5 with him having some DA and Farseer fighting Plagues and Screamers, and Jetbikes zipping around trying to score a point.
He had a decent 5e mech eldar list that didn't generate enough ranged shooting to worry me, and he squandered his only melee unit, which if supported well could have wiped out whole units of mine at a time! He made decent choices on the table, but it was just a horrible matchup for him. Daemons require a whole new list building paradigm! Be prepared!
 |
| Daemons press in! |
 |
| Left side of the table is cleared! |
 |
| Fateweaver guides his forces to destroy the pansy space elves! |
 |
| Not many Space Elves left... |
Third and Final game...Ryan Sinnot! I LOVE playing Ryan, I have a super great time! We spend more time goofing off and talking shit and playing jokes on each other (I loved the look on his face when I told him Fateweaver had a rule that when an Ork opponent called the Waaagh! all his units had to take Ldr or take wounds...he was aghast, but I couldn't hold a straight-face! :P)
This mission was the triangley deployment, 5 objectives, where the 2 in our deployment were worth 4 points the others worth 3.
I won the roll and chose to go first...I wanted him packed in that little triangle! Pack in he did! His army is massive...I'm told certain parts of his anatomy are too, but I have to take him to dinner to find out which!
Big Mek with KFF
4x 29 Boyz (I think 2 Shoota and 2 Choppa?) with Nob with PK
3x 10 Lootas
2x 3 Lobbas
ADL with Quadgun
and 10 Deckchair Grots
He packed things in pretty tight, and left one whole unit of Boyz in reserve, along with the Grots.
Then all hell broke loose! I got the Flamers, Screamers, and Fateweaver. The Flamers all went as close as I could get them to each of the Boy Mobs....and none of the Scattered. Fateweaver scattered a hair, but the Screamers didn't scatter either! Ryan checked my scatter die for hax, but I passed the test!
Shooting wiped out about 15 boyz from each mob...Screamers and Fateweaver ran/turbo'd up in to the center ruin, ready to assault turn 2!
 |
| Those big empty areas in front of the Flamers used to have Orks in them... |
 |
| Those big empty areas around the Boys used to have Flamers in them... |
 |
| The Lonely Flamer...I was hoping he'd be the hero and kill off all those boyz...but...yeah... |
 |
| Those big empty areas around the Screamers used to have Boyz... |
His turn 2 and he got a Jet and the foot troops. He put them far away from Flamers :) Jets shot up some Horrors, and the surviving Boyz that had killed Flamers ran off to head towards my table edge.
 |
| Orky reserves come on...those Jets put out some fire! |
Things went pretty quickly from here. Jets zipped around blasting my soft troops, his small surviving boyz walked across the table, and with jet support killed some Plaguebearers to claim a 3-pt objective. My Screamers and surviving Flamers killed all the Lootas and Lobbas.
Game ended at bottom of turn 3 (we both played really slow cuz we were being so silly!) I had 2 4-pt objectives, a 3-pt Objective, 2 heavy choices (Big Guns was in effect), Warlord and Linebreaker for 15...he had 2 3-pt objectives, linebreaker, and first blood for 8!
This game was hilarious...Ryan is super fun to play with. I think at one point he literally threw dice at me...rightly so, I deserved it!
Frankly, I think things would have gone a lot better if he'd worn his cool hat the whole time and yelled Waaaagh! more.
Another great event by Brendan...which I tried my damnedest to screw up by not being available to bring down terrain! Next time I'll bring some, Brendan...sorry! I really like Brendan's missions and the laid-back social atmosphere the tournament seems to espouse. I'm hoping to get some Warmachine events going down there sometime soon too!
So Thanks to Brendan for the expert organization, Gaming Etc for being good hosts, Eric & Rod for coming down to visit, Tim for driving, and most importantly to Mike, Eric, and Ryan for three great games!
The FAQ: Load of Shit
There were new FAQs released yesterday. I stopped reading them when I got frustrated.
The Heldrake thing is unprecedented. No other vehicle measures from a base, no other flier has 360 vision/arc of fire. When combined with no cover from Vector Strikes (why not? Folks can't cower in fear under a boulder when the giant mechanical dragon swoops in?!), Drakes just became an extremely potent force that few can withstand.
But that's not the worst part. The weapon range snafu, though...that's got me very agitated.
I'll start by saying I've never liked the aspect of 40k that models outside a weapon's range can be killed by that weapon. It's always been, to me, an over-simplification that's never quite sit right with me.
But those were the rules, they were meant to be light and fast, so I can handle it.
Then, they give us this:
Q: When making a Shooting attack against a unit, can Wounds
from the Wound Pool be allocated to models that were not withinrange any of the shooting models when To Hit rolls were made (i.e.
half the targeted model are in the shooting models’ range, and half
are not)? (p15)
A: No.
This...
hell, I can't even communicate the rampage of emotion-laden thoughts here...
Where did this come from? To me, and I'm not alone here I think, there was no inkling anywhere in the 4e, 5e, or 6e rules that limited wounds to MODELS within range of those weapons...it's always been UNITS. If I can shoot one guy in your unit, I can shoot them all.
Now, and maybe this is just worded so poorly that it doesn't mean what it makes us think it means, there is suddenly a vague and non-specific restriction that applies this restriction.
Now, my boltgun that shoots 24" can only kill a model that's within that range. Fine...I like that...I think it is a great rule...but...it's not a rule, it's a vague thing in an FAQ that doesn't even really reference a rule.
So...what is it? Why is it there? If they want to make a rule that says a wound can only be allocated to a model that is within range of at least one model firing a weapon with that range, they should write one, make it an addendum, and FAQ the questions that arise from it.
They've skipped the rule and gone straight to the FAQ, leaving us wondering what we're supposed to do.
Not only this, but they've made up this rule...what...six months after 6e was released? If the intent is to force weapon range restrictions on wound allocation, that's kind of a BIG DEAL, and many folks will feel the armies they've put together will be to some extent or another adversely affected by this, rightly so!
Flamer-hate aside, this means that when I drop in a handful of Flamers, and they can only get 4 guys under the template, then only those 4 guys can die! This is a significant change to how Flamers work.
What about an army that emphasizes the use of a particular range of weapon...say Grey Knights with 24" ranges. They survive by staying right at maximum range firing 2 shots while staying at a distance that would prevent the enemy from firing 2 shots (an oversimplification, yes...you get the point). What are they to do when their 240 point unit now only tickles an enemy unit killing the few models that are in range?
No, this is potentially a HUGE change that dramatically affects the way we play.
Moreover, there are no rules to tell us how to do it other than a really vague FAQ answer to a question that nobody I know had ever asked.
And here's the REAL kicker.
They left a giant loophole in this FAQ "rule" that allows folks to "game" this system by including a longer-ranged weapon amongst the unit firing the shorter-ranged one.
Yes, "ANY of the shooting models". Many people (I love you, Mike!) are interpreting this to mean that by including a Heavy Bolter amongst your mundane Bolter firing Marines, you now can allocate wounds to target models that are outside the range of the Bolters being fired! Congratulations, Hvy Bolter guy...you just became a lot more popular!
Or, one Flamer firing Warpfire suddenly allows the wounds done by the Breaths with an ~8" range to be allocated to models up to 18" away. How? Why?
Do any of you guys that encourage this interpretaion of this rule really think this is how the game designers intended it to work?
So, they answered a question for a rule that doesn't exist, thereby enforcing we adhere to the answer despite there being no rule to adhere to...
...and they fucked it up so there's a giant "Bizarro 40k" loophole that we will all follow because that's the RAW.
Sigh
I'm kind of in a wait-mode here. I can already see where "the community" is going, though I dislike it. I have to admit, I'd be pretty pleased if the rule as I think it's intended were clarified and implemented. I know it really screws over lots of folks who have a lot invested in armies that would most definitely have to be changed, and I empathize and sympathize....but I'd really rather kick up the complexity a bit for what I think would make a better game.
Any thoughts?
No comments:
Post a Comment