Game 5 Recap - Orks

 So, i had my final game of the league the other week against Orks. It was a fun game even though we only managed to get to the end of turn 4, although turn 5 would have done nothing to the overall score, apart from give both of us a extra few victory points.

This game was one of the games i was hopeful of winning. There were a few big models, such as the deffdread, kill rig and the 40 wounds stompa!! There were lots of other orks but i was confident that if I could remove all these smaller orks, i could just ignore the really big models and just concentrate on objectives. This was slightly complicated by the fact i lost first turn. This was really big and i was worried I would have another repeat of the Eldar game and I would be hemmed in first turn and then not be able to get out of my deployment zone and get going. 

Guard deployment

One thing to note is the split deployment, i had castled up on the left of the board but i places two infantry units and a command squad, supported by a priest and commissar on the right to either move forward and take the objective or to draw some of the ork units across that side of the board and away from my main castle. 

The ork deployment

The orks went all in on their right flank and i though were going to ignore the guard on my right flank. However, with first turn the orks surged forward, pushing up across the board. The Deffkoptas went to take on the guards right flank, as i had hoped but the kill rig and wartrike came streaming down my left flank. All in all the ork turn went as expected, lots of firing but not that much dead. My opponent also made, what I consider to be his first mistake of the game, razing one of his objectives (we were playing “Burn and Raze), top left of the photo below. This netted him 5 points and let him move off the objective but also denied him more points in subsequent turns. 

In my turn I concentrated on the wartrike and kill rig, figuring that these were the most dangerous to me right now. Both were well up the field and the kill rig was loaded with orks. Unfortunately my hellhammer bounced some what, it did damage but not nearly as much as it should. The idea was to crack open the kill rig and then gun down the beast snagga’s inside. However by the end of the shooting phase, the rig was on 2 wounds but at least the trike was dead. So at this point i went for a bit of a Hail Mary and charge with everything i had, hoping to. E able to take the last two wounds in combat and with some good positioning, wrap and trap the model, thus killing the boyz inside. It didn’t quite go to plan however, as I only managed to take it down a single wound! I had to hope that it couldn’t kill enough of my models to form a gap big enough to disembark all the models inside. 

The failed wrap and trap!

Turn 2 started as expected for the orks, lots of noise but not many casualties on my side. There was some luck on my side of things as well. My opponent tried to bring in his deffdread by my castle but with where my models had ended up, there was just not enough space for him to drop in anywhere useful, so he ended up dropping in on the far side of the board, on my right flank to deal with the models there, this i think was his second mistake of the game, as it took the deffdread out of the game. If he had waited a turn longer to bring it in, he probably could have dropped it by my castle and done some damage. 

The three guardsmen in the centre that held up a stompa for TWO turns!

The other lucky break was the remaining guardsmen in the centre blocking the stompa from running through and challenging my hellhammer to a one on one fist fight. They died in a literal blaze of glory when the burna boyz got out of the stompa and toasted them, but they did their job and died gloriously for the emperor. Unfortunately in the fight phase, several addition units were able to get in to combat around the kill rig and with the combined might of the orks, they were able to clear space down one side, which would be big enough for the vast majority of the orks in the kill rig. I was however able top take the last wound off the kill rig in combat and the embarked boyz all managed to scrabble out unharmed in to a space that was literally just the right size! 

Loaded Dice!

At this point in the game i was getting seriously worried about where the dice gods were placing their favours, i was having a pretty terrible time with rolls, not horrendous but not great, my opponent on the other had was having a great time, rolling above (or below when needed) average on pretty much all his dice rolls!

My turn was spent trying to hold on to the castle with the limited models i had left. My hellhammer was down to just 6 wounds at the beginning of the turn and was not going to survive another turn of shooting, the stompa was going to i get it next turn if the deffkopters didn’t. I had lost my right flank by this point, with just a company commander and commissar left, but they moved up to block the stompa again. The hellhammer focused on all the orks directly in front of itself, and alongside the infantry that remained and could destroyed the majority of them. The scions dropped in on the back field, taking my opponent undefended home objective and destroying the boyz sitting on the centre objective. My plane also dropped in this turn, heaving been kept off the board turn 1. 

End of turn 2

The Castle holds

And a new castle is built

Turn 3 and this is the turn that my opponent, in my opinion made his biggest mistake, he turned the stompa around to go after the scions and flyer in his deployment zone, leaving my hellhammer alone. The stompa did do some damage to the scions but not wiping out any single unit and he wasted a lot of firepower on the flyer. The deffkoptas bounced on the hellhammer, chipping a few wounds off, but after the techpriest had repaired it last turn was not destroyed. Choosing to wipe out the commander and commissar in combat rather than charge the hellhammer, also left them open and vulnerable. Although this probably was the better option in terms of gaining victory points from blood and guts. 

In my turn 3 i moved up on to the central objective and positioned myself to take out as much of the remaining orks as i could, taking down the last of the boyz, all but one deffkopta, the deffdread and the stompa, who was still on 36 wounds at this point!

End of turn 3

The remnants of the castle

The new castle digging in!

Turn 4 and due to time it was our last turn. There was not much for my opponent to do by now, the stompa decimated the units in the centre, and the deffkopta moved up to add its firepower and also charged in to try and finish off the unit of DKoK that had dropped out the flyer. At the end of the turn, 4 guardsmen remained out of the 16 or so that had started the turn stood on the objective. The scions 4+ save and take cover order helping to keep them alive a lot longer than they should have. The deffdread by now had moved up on to the objective on my right flank but was completely out of the game now. There was a little scuffle that had been going on for a while between a single ork and some guardsmen and an ogryn at the other end of the table. It had lasted a full turn already and was still going on!

Turn 4 finish

In my turn, i played only to the objectives and cards, pulling back to allow me too finish the deffkopta and claim the objective for the end game, i also raze the objective in my opponent deployment zone, as i wouldn’t need it for turn 5. The final boyz was killed off in combat, it only took 3 rounds of combat for a model to die!

End game

At the end game, the orks had a stompa on around 30 wounds (the dice got knocked and we couldn’t remember) and a deffdread on full wounds hiding in a corner, i had a hellhammer on just 5 wounds, a flyer down just a couple of wounds and about 25 infantry.  While it might look like i had a significant advantage in numbers i really didn’t have the firepower or durability to take the stompa down next turn but given the ork shooting there was little chance of him being able to take out all of my remaining forces. Even though we had to call the game at the end of turn 4, looking a head to turn 5, there would have been little change in the situation. My opponent would have struggled to score many more points, gaining 5 for the primary for holding one objective and looking at they cards he would have drawn, may have managed 5 more from secondaries. However, the complete lack of infantry was hampering him, as i had hoped it would when i targeted them over his other units. In my turn 5 i would have scored 10 for the primary and looking at the cards I would have definitely scored 5 more secondaries, maybe even 10 if i had been lucky with my dice rolls. This would have left the scores about 85 to 60 or there about, not changing the overall result or within the tournament results.

As it was the game finished as a victory to the guard after a hard fought battle. I really did think that i was going to loose this one after turn 1 and the orks charge and even after turn 2 i was not convinced that i was going to be able to pull out a win. I had a really enjoyable game and it was really nice to finish on a high. Ill write up a review of the army list and lesssons i learned, just in time to forget all of them for 10th!

A game against my son

 Im on a roll with games at the moment and while I had my board set up and ready to go, my son asked if we could have a game. We went for a tempest of war game as I'm getting quite familiar with them now and I also decided to stick with my guard list as I had it all to hand. He was keen to play his new tau models, even though he's still waiting for me to sort out magnetising the various weapon options. 

Guard deployment

Tau deployment

As with previous games the 4 buildings in the middle are obscuring, so while the ghostkeel on the tau left might look exposed, it's actually hidden behind the building. The tau deployed very aggressive with said ghostkeel on one flank and stealth suits on the midfield objectives. The pathfinder squad also moved up pregame. I played fairly aggressive with the guard, mostly the Hellhammer, as I pushed it right up as I feared that it would take a lot of punishment turn 1 and needed to try and get something out of it. 

As it turned out I was very lucky and got to go first, moving my Hellhammer right up and hitting as.mucj stuff as I could including taking the ghostkeel down to.just a couple of wounds which I them removed by charging in the tank. Luckily I rolled high enough to go around the ruins as I couldn't fit between them! This did however leave my tank very exposed to return shooting.

The return shooting however was a bit of a washout. The hammerhead Railgun fired, missed, rerolled, missed. It's speaker missile then missed, as did the devilfish seeker missiles. Lastly the broadsides took their turn and promptly missed with both seeker missiles. The rail rifles did hit and wound, as did a couple of the pathfinder rail rifles, kicking the tank down to less than half wounds. 

The tau also went aggressive on the other flank, with the crisis suits and commander dropping in, using the stealth suits homing beacons. The tau started to push hard right from the off.  

The guard Countered by dropping in behind the tau and doing damage to the tau castle, removing a number of units and characters. However, not all the "big" units were dealt with. The hammerhead, although crippled survived, as did the devilfish and a broadside. Enough firepower to be worrying. 

The guard reserves drop

The wording was justified and the Hellhammer was destroyed with relative ease. Unfortunately it didn't explode, as I would have loved it to go nova right Infront of the tau! Apparently it only does that when in its own lines though.

At the end of turn 2 things were still quite tight and we were actually even on scores, with the tau holding the majority of the board, but only loosely, as their deployment zone was mostly devoid tau units. They still had some bite left but I was confident I could handle what was left.

We took a break at the end of turn 2, as it was getting late. One advantage of the new dinning room is that I can leave the game up overnight and play again the next day.

As we moved towards the end game I took some calculated risks, which did actually pay off this time around. Rather than go for quick points I went for the long game, advancing up to claim objectives rather than shooting, with a lack of firepower on the tau side, especially in the back field, I was certain it would pay off. 

The tau responded in pretty much the only way they could, and kept pushing, hoping to keep chewing through my castle and they did a pretty good job, the firepower of the Breachers, crisis suits and commander taking down pretty much everything they looked at. That broadside that I failed to destroy and the hammerhead also crippled my flyer, just about managing to take it out but only with the additional mortal wounds caused by the railguns, something we initially forgot about! With the flyer now gone, my scions way out of position in the rear, I was actually starting to wonder if I had enough firepower to drop all the crisis suits and the commander. 

The guard turn 4 was basically taken up shooting the commander and crisis suits trying desperately to chip off wounds. I did finally manage to kill the suits but failed to kill the commander, so everything that could charged did charge but even that wasn't enough to destroy it.

By this point it was obvious that the tau had lost, and we were running out of time as well, so we decided to call it here. The tau had only a few units remaining and not enough firepower to really kill off the remaining guard before they too would have been destroyed, so the tau commander sounded the retreat, hit the power button on the jet pack and jumped away to safety. 

Despite the board being quite devoid of tau units, the score was actually a lot closer that you'd think. I did look at the cards for turn 5 if we had of played and we theory hammered out the turn and we recon that it would have ended at about 90 to 80, as I would have been able to get a couple of cards but no more objectives and Thomas would have only been able to get a single card but gained another objective.  

I really enjoyed this game and I think it's one of the best things about the tempest cards, you never know what your going to get and so it really levels the playing field. My son made a few mistakes but nothing that cost him to dearly, I also made some but mostly as I was playing quite freely, more so than I would have in a tournament game. After four games of thinking every move through, it was nice to just relax a bit and play for fun. I've really got to get that last tournament game sorted!

10th edition

 Its been a little while but we got a big reveal at Warhammer Fest a few weeks back and we've had a number of other previews since then, however, I just wanted to have a little look at the release box and talk through the various indices and codices that we'll be getting. 

Firstly the started box, Leviathan. This looks like another great release box, full of new and exciting units, exciting for someone else that is. While I appreciate the models and box value, it just doesn't do it for me. The new space marine models are generally very nice, I really like the new terminators, as with some of the other recent Imperial releases, they keep enough of the classic look but updated in keeping with new range. The flamer dudes and dreadnought don't do it for me. Mass flamers don't shout marines to me and the dread just looks odd, too long legs for the beefy body. The whole marine side is just a bit disjointed as well, terminators with two terminator characters, a gravis character with no gravis squad and a Phobos character with no Phobos squad. Plus two normal armour squads with no characters to join either of them. 

The tyranid side of the box is equally as nice looking bit just feels far more cohesive. I say this but i have absolutely no idea about tyranids and so it could be a complete mishmash of units as well. From my perspective there are a couple of bug bugs, some medium bugs and a number of smaller bugs, just how i always imaging a tryanids list looking. 

Overall i think that this box is a really good box though, with tons of value (the the rumoured price tag is right) especially when you include all the books and stuff. However, i will not be buying the box, as it just doesn’t offer anything to me. The only exception to this is the Sternguard.

I really like these guys, however, they appear to be single pose mono build and i think if i want to have these in a force, i would want a very different weapon load. I really wanted a couple of small squads of these in my first born armies, a squad each with combi-flamers, plasma and melta. Looking at these guys, you don’t get that choice. If the individual kit for these is realeased and its a proper MPPK or Multi Part Plastic Kit, then i may well have to get to and put them into one of my primaris forces, which I don’t know. Anyway, this one kit is no where near enough of a reason to buy the whole box.

One thing i will be looking at buying when 10th drops are the data card packs for my various armies. There are quite a lot of them here that I want, i know that they are on line free and so some will just be downloaded and used from my phone, but there are several that i want actual cards for. These are the Astra Militarum, Blood Angels, Imperial Agents and Deathwatch. The ones i will just download are AdMech, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Space Marines and possibly Imperial Knight. 

The Astra Militiarum cards should be fairly obvious, as will the Blood Angels (as my Eagle Knights) but the Imperial Agents and Deathwatch might not be. I really like the idea of an Imperial Agents force, just a collection of units around my inquisitor, just for fun really. The deathwatch is an odd one out, as I don’t have any of the current codicies but i have a 1000 point force ready to role. Of the others, i have various forces that i can play but font really and so I don’t have a need for buying the new data cards for these forces. I have an AdMech force of 1000 points ready to play and i do intend to try and play this more in 10th as i hope their rules will be significantly simpler.

Talking of codicies, we do actually have a road map for the next nine months to a year, and none of my forces are on it! The Astra Militarum, having only just been released for 9th will have to wait at least another year for anything from 10th. It’s ok, were use to waiting! The Blood Angels are not listed either, however i could run it as a standard Space marine army as I don’t have any BA specific units in my army and unless they release any primaris specific units with the new codex, then i won’t. 

So the new edition is shaping up nicely. I was initially sceptical of the new edition and the return to indices so soon after the release of the latest AM codex, however i am becoming far more enthusiastic for the new edition. I am likening the new system and slimmed down rules. We have yet to see the full rules but so far, so good!

Game 4 recap - Eldar

 So after a win against the Sisters i was feeling confident about playing the Eldar, another T3 army. With most of the Eldar setting up in reserves however, i was a little bit more nervous, as it could mean that turn 2 i was just overwhelmed by a vast horde of Eldar. However, i need not have worried, as I was pretty much overwhelmed turn 1!

Turn 1 and right from the off things went down hill. I lost the roll for first turn and the Eldar did there pregame stratagem move and moved their units right up to my lines and applied pressure right from the off.

Turn 1 assault

The guard castle

I was castled up quite nicely and i thought i had plenty of defence in depth to keep my tank safe, which did actually work out in the end. However, i did loose pretty much all of my screening units and more crucially i lost my flyer to the Shining spears. In the previous games i have started with my flyer off the table because under the Arcs of Omen rules, flyers have to start off the table, however, as it was pointed out to me, we were only playing the AoO detachment and not the rest of the rules, which is actually true, hence why were still started with 12 CP and not just 6. So, i decided to start the flyer on the table and i payed the price for bad placement and not thinking about the fact that the shining spears are flyers and can charge other flyers! Anyway, lessons learnt, start with flyers off the table!

Turn 2 and while i had cleared the last of the Eldar out of my pained last turn, i had left myself open to the turn 2 advances of the Eldar. And advance they did, right up in to my lines again. Some of the reserves dropped in, mainly swooping hawks and warp spiders but the big blob of guardians stayed off the table for now. 

Turn 2 carnage

It was at the end of my turn 2 that things really took a nose dive for me. The avatar had come wheeling in to combat in my opponents turn but had somehow manage to bounce against the Hellhammer. Don't get me wrong, it did damage but it didn't manage to destroy it. However, in my fight phase things went a little more explosive, and by little I mean big, very big. The avatar struck at the tank and took it out and they thing went supernova, big style. 

Before the Big Bang

I can't remember the exact role but basically every unit in the picture got hit when the tank brewed up. The psyker was only on one wound, thanks to perils of the warp turn 1, but I then managed to roll 4 or higher for the priest, techpriest and commissar and not much lower for anything else! In total I think about 30 mortal wounds were dished out!

After the big bang

The only good point of the whole thing was that the avatar was hit for 6 mortal wounds, just enough to take the beast out. Had he survived it would have been very hard to take him down, probably requiring all my firepower to the exculusion of all else. Writing this up I realise I made a mistake here as I played vengeful salute to hit the warp spiders. I shouldn't have done this as you can't use it when a vehicle explodes. I don't think it would have made much difference, as the warp spiders didn't have a huge impact on the game as they were holding an objective for the next two turns.

In response to all this I dropped my scions and tried a risky play that didn't work out. I had their chance to take two objectives, one in no mans land and one in my opponents deployment zone. I managed to get to the one on the centre of the board but failed the charge for the one on the deployment zone, despite a re-roll. This left me both units open and with the guardians coming in next turn, highly likely to be destroyed in reply. By this point in the game i was really on the back foot and it was going to be a serious up hill struggle to win.

In Turn 3 the guardians dropped in and did what i expected them to do, however, it did have an upside. In order to get range on the three different scion squads, they needed to drop quite far back and even with an advance next turn they would still not be in range of my castle until turn 5, if I didn’t move back from my current position. My turn three was basically taken up up shooting at everything i could shoot at, which wasn’t much!

Turn 4 and 5 were very quick, as there really wasn’t a lot on the board by this point. I cleared out the last of the elder on the centre objectives but i was unable to do anything to the guardians or the swooping hawks hiding at the back. On his side he was unable to do anything to the remaining units in my castle as they were out of range of the majority of their weapons. 

Survivors

At the end of turn five, I had managed to survive and even though i had lost the battle, i hand managed to avoid a major defeat. In terms of overall points scored the primary points scored by both sides was fairly even, at 26 to 22. It was the secondary points that really tell the tell, as 45 to 20. My opponent could have actually scored more on his secondary, at least 5 more, possibly even 10 more (we stopped checking) as he had maxed out his score before he started turn 5. I on the other hand struggled to get out of my deployment zone to be able to score points. It all stems from the first turn charge of the elder and the destruction of my hellhammer. After this point i just didn’t have the bodies or firepower to both hold my line and move up to claim objectives. 

It was a really close game though, as at the end of the game i had a command squad and half a infantry squad left but my opponent only had his guardians (17 left) and 4 swooping hawks. He did have the numerical advantage over me but i had the range and also had a greater close combat ability, with my command squad and bullgryn. I think that if we had played another round or two he would have eventually tabled me though., there were a few meistakes that i made, the biggest was with my flyer, i should have kept it off the board, secondly was with the scions, i should have gone conservative, dropping them on the far midfield objective,, all together and not have tried to go for the two charges turn two, or i should have kept them off until turn 3 and used them to counter the large blob of guardians when they dropped in and played the long game rather than rick it all for a few points in one turn. 

Again lessons were learned and i will look to take these forward too my last game against the orks. This could be a fun game as I’m going up against a Stomper!

Guard faction focus

Warhammer community have started doing a series of faction focus posts and we recently got one for the guard, so i decided to have a look at it and give my initial thoughts. There are some positives and some negatives to what we've seen but on the whole I think it's mostly positive and I'm looking forward to getting more information. I'll not go through the whole article word for word but will just pick out the bits that I think are important or I want to say something about.

We'll start at the top of the article and work our way down, the first section, the overview contains a few little bits and pieces, such as confirmation that LRBT's will be getting tougher, alongside Bnaeblades and one assumes Rogal Dorms as well. We also get our Frist tease of double size guard squads!

Within the Faction Rules we learn a little bit more about orders. It says that we are getting 6 orders but doesn't specify if these are all the orders or if these are just the infantry orders. I suspect that they might be all the orders were getting for the moment, given that they talk about command squads, Castallans and tank commanders, so we will have gone from 9 core plus regiment orders (6 more?) To the 18 core orders down to just 6 in about 6months.  

Move! Move! Move!, Fix bayonets, take aim and take cover are pretty much as expected give the dropping of AP and  reducing stratagems. Duty and honour was introduced in to the commissar orders, and comes to the main orders loosing suppression fire! which was a bit useless and I never used it. One piece of information we got here as well is that battle shock will nullify orders. The question here has to be, are orders issued before battle shock tests in the command phase? Given the way it's worded I suspect that it might, which could be interesting.

In the Unit Spotlight we get a closer look at two units, the Cadian shock troops and Baneblade. Both of these have some interesting point of note on them. 

The Cadians have an ability called Shock Troops which grants you the sticky objectives ability, being able to hold objectives even if you move off them. This looks like the other squads will also get similar abilities, although under different names I guess, why they didn't just create a universal special rule for this I don't know. The second thing and possibly more important thing is that they can be taken in squads of 20! It's an either or thing, so 10 or 20, not 10 to 20. I like this, as I always use to run my fire base units in 20 man squads and I will do so again. Hopefully the rules will also be the same, so infantry squads can have 2 heavy weapon teams in a 20 man squad. Alongside these points and the confirmation that all the troop options are returning, we get some weapon rules and there are some interesting changes.

The majority of weapons stay the same, lasguns, las pistols, bolters and flamers but a couple have changed. Plasma has had a minor tweak, with the standard shot only being -2ap rather then -3ap the same as the overcharged option. Melta guns have gone up to S9, which seems standard now. The Cadian special drum fed auto gun, (which I realise I've been playing wrong as a 3 shot weapon rather than rapid 2) is now just 2 shots, no rapid fire or any other rules, a bit of a nerf if you ask me. The big changes are to grenade launchers though, with both profiles changing. Before Frag was assault d6, S3, 0ap, D1 but is now just blast d3 but S4, 0ap, D1 and Krak was assault 1, S6 -1ap, Dd3 but is now 1 shot, S9, -2ap, Dd3. Now if I remember right, blast give you an extra shot per every 5 models, so you could still get 6 shots when firing at a unit 15 models or more but mostly you'll be getting only +1 or +2 shots at most, meaning your looking at 3 shots most of the time. Being S4 is also good, meaning that if the wounding rolls stay the same, you'll be wounding marines on 4's rather than 5's and T3 models on 3's. Krak jumping to S9 and -2ap is now really good and actually makes it worth shooting rather than just using Frag for everything. Against marines, Krak will now be significantly better that Frag. Lastly vox casters are useless again. They might now get you a few CP over the course of the game but really they are not an auto include like they were. It's a real shame that you can't use them to bounce orders around like before.

Next up is the nightly Baneblade and there are several changes that jump out right from the off. It's dropped wounds, 30 down to 24, but it has gained toughness, going from T9 to T13. It's also not quite as quick as it was, loosing an inch of movement off the top end but with no degrading profiles it should be quicker over the course of a game. It's leadership, as far as I can tell, is actually worse as well but still seems standers for guard. 

One good rule here is the Rolling Fortress ability, meaning any units behind it gain the benefit of cover, which makes sense, it's a pretty big boy. The weapon profiles have changed a lot and one thing that really jumps out and surprised me was that they are all BS4+. After only a short time, we have lost the turret weapon rule, a rule that I thought was quite good. Most 9f the weapons have got stronger, with the baneblade cannon, autocannon, demolisher cannon and lascannons all gaining strength with the lascannon also gaining damage but the main gun loosing a point of ap, down to -2. I guess this is in-line with the whole reduction in ap across the board. It's disappointing to see the armoured tracks drop across the board though, even with the increase in WS. Going from S9, -2ap and D2 to S8, 0ap and D1 is quite a drop in output, even though getting run over by this guy's should be painful.

In  the Weapon Spotlight section we get a look as the Battle cannon and volcano cannon. The Battle cannon is a staple of.many guard lists or at least should be, mostly I think it's dropped in favour of the demolisher cannon. 

While the strength has gone up to S10 from S8, a lot has been lost. With reduced range, 48"  instead of 72" and only -1ap instead of -2ap, I'm not sure that this is an improvement overall. If the improvements from the baneblade demolisher cannon carry over to the LRBT, then I don't see many people swapping their demolishers of battle cannons.

The volcano cannon ISA other weapon that has seen more nerfs than buffs, dropping 24 inches of range and 2 shots and with the loss of turret weapons, a point of BS (even though it's a heavy weapon, you have to stay still now to gain this). The only bonis is that strength has gone from 18 to 24. Personally unless this gets some additional rules, like ignoring invulnerable saves or something, I don't really see this as a good options.

 Lastly We have the Stratagem Spotlight and we get quite a good one, one that I have been wanting for quite sometime. 

Returning a destroyed unit is very narrative, you just got to keep feeding units in until the problems solved. Being able to use this on a large range of units is great to, from infantry squads, scions, heavy weapon squads, field ordnance batteries, roughy riders or sentinels. This means we can be less worried about throwing a unit of sentinels or rough riders up the field early to cause as much chaos as possible before they are inevitably destroyed, as we can just bring them back and play a little more cautiously with them second time around. I suspect that this will get played on my Scion units most often after having dropped the HS volley\plasma squad in a death or glory move then bringing them back to support the castle.

At the end of the article we got "a word from the Studio" and there were a couple of quotes that caught my eye. 

Firstly "the Born Soldiers Detachment rule, which confers Lethal Hits on ranged attacks made by units that Remained Stationary." So if we stay where we are we get auto wounding shots again but only if we stay still. 

And secondly we got a couple of enhancements mentioned, with "Drill Commander to lend your stationary units Critical Hits on rolls of 5 instead of 6". Now I got a little confused by this. Critical hits are just dice rolls of a 6, but have no meaning other that that right? But Lethal hits means that a roll of a 6 auto wounds. So are the terms interchangeable or do they actually mean different things? Is he basically saying you'll get auto wounds on a 5+ rather than 6'samd they've messed up the wording?

Anyway,  "the Death Mask of Ollanius, which sees the Objective Control characteristic of the bearer’s unit drop only to 1 while Battle-shocked, rather than 0." This is clearer and a nice one, meaning that you can still hold or contest an objective, even if you fail battle shock, which guard are likely to do! So drop this on a character at the back with a 20 man infantry squad and your pretty much guaranteed to hold your home objective.

Overall I am positive about the guard going forward. After my initial disillusion with the idea of returning to Indexes and loosing my only recently arrived codex, I'm actually getting quite positive about 10th, although I won't be buying the launch box, as there is very little in there that I like the look of. 

Games 3 recap - Sisters of Battle

 So after a bit of a break, mostly due to our family holiday, i got my third league game in. This was the first game where i though i might have a good chance of actually winning, as although the sister are a power armoured army, they are only T3 and so my lasguns would actually have a good chance of wounding them. However, being a game of both dice and cards, you can never be to sure about the result.

The game started well for me though, with a good draw on the mission and the deployment, being hammer and anvil, so keeping the sisters at range for the first turn or two. The fact that i also got to go first made a big difference as it meant i could get the first blows in. 

Guard deployment.

Sisters deployment

The table

As you can see the table was nice and symmetrical, so no side could claim an advantage early game. The big building in the centre, formed from the pair of building ruins, are obscuring terrain, blocking line of sight for everything but my Hellhammer. 

Priority targets

My first turn, and first turn of the game, was focused on taking out some of the main threats to my army. In this case it was the Sisters predator (Castigator??) and the rhino containing the Repetia. I would have liked to hit the paragon warsuits with their multi meltas, but I couldn’t see them. With some lucky shooting from the hellhammer and some supporting fire from other units, i managed to take down both these targets but targeted little else.

Sisters push early

In response to my tentative start, the sisters pushed up hard, with the repentia advancing and charging all the way in to my forward lines. The big damage however was done by the sisters with their melta guns (celestians??), who scored only two wounds but did a massive 12 damage. With all the chip damage down by the other squads, the hellhammer was crippled. The Paragon warsuits only managed to do a couple of wounds luckily, otherwise the big lad would have been gone turn 1 again. 

Sisters turn 1

The repentia slicing and dicing guardsmen

Turn 2 and the hellhammer took some modicum of revenge on the sisters, throwing out shots left right and centre to take as much down as it could before its inevitable demise. Unfortunately it wasn’t as effective as i would have liked, as the paragon warsuits managed to survive with very little damage done. As it was, it was the “not penitent engines” engines that killed the hellhammer in combat.

Sisters eyeing up their target

By this point, the bottom of turn 2, i was starting to get a little worried. I had done damage but the sisters were not getting up into my lines and i was in damage of being folded up from one side to the other. My big anti armour unit was gone and others were not in a position to take on many targets, so the last sisters vehicle, the Immolator, was pretty much free to just go round burning stuff at will, which it pretty much did until the end of the game. 

Sisters in my lines

By this point, Turn 3, i was slightly worried, however, i had one advantage i could play. The Scions had dropped in the back last turn and now i had units to the front and back of the sisters, meaning there were few places they could hide and i could advance on their home objectives. The scions really came in to their own in this game, with ap-2 against T3 units they were actually killing sisters at a significant rate. 

The trap closes.

However, i had a minor problem i had to deal with. A paragon warsuit was right up in my line, slicing guardsmen to bits with impunity and so it had to die and die it didn’t! It took 2 turns of throwing several squads and my warlords command squad at it to kill it off and it was only on one wound for most of that time!

Necrons appear on the flank! 

Ignore these, they are my youngest child’s, he just wanted to join in.

By now we're in to turn 3 and were trying to put the squeeze on the sisters. Unfortunately, they were not going to roll over without a fight. The immolator was busy toasting characters over in the corner but I had managed to take out a chunk of the other models. It was at this point that Morvenn Vahl stepped up to the plate and started munching squads. 

End of turn 3

In turn 4 the flyer finally died, taken out by Morvenn Vahl's missiles and bolter, in-between munching squads with her blade. I did manage to put a few wounds on her but not nearly enough to kill her. However, by this point I don't think it really mattered, I had the advantage and was doing what I could to keep it, even if that meant feeding units to be munched.

Morgen Vahl ripping through the scions

End of turn 4

At the end of turn 4 it was clear that I had won but there were still points to play for. The paragon warsuit was still causing me bother in the backfield, refusing to die no matter how much I hit it! In turn 5 there was little for me to do, I finally managed to take out the immolator, just! And I finally took down the paragon warsuit! This one model and Morvenn Vahl were responsible for the majority of my infantry deaths I think, with Vahl claiming two Scion squads,a Scion command squad and a character (plus the flyer) all by herself and the paragon warsuit killing off at least a squad and a half of infantry as well. There was little for the sisters to do in turn 5, with just one model remaining. However, Morvenn Vahl claimed the last of her vistims, a priest before moving into take on a platoon commander. Unfortunately for her the battle ended before she could claim his scalp.

The battlefield

In the end, there was very little left on the table for either side. The Sisters were the worse off but the guard didn’t exactly come through  unscathed. 

The survivors

The sisters ended the battle with just Morann Vahl and the guard ended with less than 3 guard squads and a command squad. Points wise I don’t think there was much in it. 

The guard castle still holding firm!

In the end 

In the end the game was really good fun and I’m so happy that i managed to pull out a win. The guard were just able to keep pushing and the cards came out in my favour this time. I think that i was lucky to win by such a margin but I’m glad that it wasn’t a major win (winner has twice the VP of the looser) as i think that wouldn’t have been a true representation of the game. Again, the Hellhammer did a sterling job and really shined with the T3 enemy models. Next up were the Eldar and i was hopeful that i could pull out another win.