As we move from 2023 to 2024 Its time to look back on the year and the hobby resolutions I made almost a year ago. My track record with these things has been average at best and I suspect that this year will continue along similar lines, however, I do find that it is good at keeping things moving in generally the right direction. So what resolutions did I manage to achieve and which did I fail miserably?
Friday, 29 December 2023
2023 review
Friday, 8 December 2023
Imperial Guard Vs Tau - game 2
This was the last and final game I played in the run up to the Northern Invasion tournament. It was the second match I played against my son. This time around we decided to play a mirror match of sorts. My son took a Longstrike Hammerhead, Devilfish, Piranha, Broadside, two strike squads and a breacher squad, plus pathfinders. I took a Leman Russ Vanquisher, Chimera, a Scout Sentinel, two Armoured Sentinels, three Cadian Squads and Kasrkins.
While this isn’t an exact match, as Longstrike should have been mirrored by a Tank commander, but the cost of the tank commander meant this wasn’t possible. Another issue was the Piranha, as there is not comparable model in the guard, a Tauros might have been an option but I don’t have one, so a scout sentinel was the closest I could get. This is similar to the Broadside, the closest I could get in terms of firepower was two armoured sentinels. The last issue was the Strike and Breacher squads, as with the removal of shotgun vets, the only option was infantry squads. I could have chosen any of the battle line units, but went with Cadians in the end. So, while not an exact mirror, it was as close as we could get with the models we had to hand.
Tuesday, 5 December 2023
Imperial Guard Vs Tau - game 1
During the run up to the tournament my son and I played a few games of 40k to get him use to the basic rule for 10th, as although he’s played a few games of 10th with mates, he has always had some one to coach him through the turns, usually myself but sometimes other adults. So for these games, we were going to play and I wasn’t going to tell him anything, just let him play and then talk through stuff after, as it turns out, this might have been a bad idea!
This game was just a 1000 point game, both to keep things simple for my son to learn the game and also for time constraints, to get the game done before bed time!
The Tau list consisted of devil fish, hammer head, piranha, a couple of strike squads and a breacher squad, with a cadre fire blade. My ;list consisted of infantry and the flyer.
Friday, 1 December 2023
Imperial Guard Vs World Eaters - Tournament warmup game 2
This was actually the third game that I played, the second game was against my son and his Tau but they were played as eternal war type games rather than leviathan games and so the scoring system was different and they were not really tournament warm up games and more learning games for my son. This game was against World Eaters, the same player i played against in the tournament and who went on to win. This list was very similar to his winning list, with Eightbound, hellbrutes, rhinos and jakhals.
For this game, I ran a Valkyrie in hover mode, two chimeras with cadians, a Leman Russ with demolisher cannon and a big squad of guard on my home objective.
Tuesday, 28 November 2023
Imperial Guard Vs Space Wolves - Tournament warmup game 1
These are a bit out of time here but this is the first of four battle reports that I played before the Northern Invasion tournament. These were just small scale games of 1000 points to get my head around some of the rules changes for 10th before the tournament. This was the first game that I played, against Space Wolves, the same player I ended up playing against when I got to the tournament. The list i played against was pretty similar to the full tournament list, with some thunder wolf cavalry, blood claws, grey hunters and intercessions, with some eradicators, which didn’t make the final list. My list on the other hand consisted of the infantry, breachers in Valkyries and a Field Ordnance battery with heavy lascannons.
We played a leviathan mission, Sweeping Engagement, Take and Hold with scrambler fields. The scrambler field had no effect on the game, due to neither of us having strategic reserves. Take and hold should have been easy for me, but I really failed to take advantage of the mission.
Friday, 24 November 2023
Tournament list review
So with the tournaments all done and dusted, its time to have a look at my list and see what sort of changes I might make to it. It’s not just about making it more competitive, it’s also about removing units that proved to be useless or over costed for what they managed to achieve, and unfortunately there were quite a few of these units.
There is little I can do with certain elements of the list, such as the detachment or enhancements, as I’m still restricted by what’s available for me to use.
So, what would will remain unchanged and what would be dropped?
Detachment: Combined Regiment
+ Character +
Cadian Castellan: Bolt Pistol, Grand Strategist, Power Weapon
Cadian Castellan: Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon
Commissar: Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon
Platoon Command Squad: Platoon Commander: Death Mask of Ollanius, Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon, Plasma Gun, Master Vox, Medi-pack, Regimental Standard
Primaris Psyker
Primaris Psyker
The HQ section of the list worked pretty much as expected. The Castellans spread out across the board and the Platoon command squad anchored the centre, as planned. I think that some extra orders might have been worthwhile, as there were a few occasions that I would have liked to have one or two more orders to dish out but on the whole it wasn’t a problem. The psykers also proved their worth with their psychic powers, however, they would be something to drop if I needed a few extra points for the list change.
+ Battleline +
Cadian Shock Troops (10): Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun
Cadian Shock Troops (10): Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun
Cadian Shock Troops (20): 2x Grenade Launcher, 2x Plasma Gun
Cadian Shock Troops (10): Drum-fed Autogun, Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun
Cadian Shock Troop (10): Bolt Pistol, Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun
Cadian Shock Troop (10): Bolt Pistol, Grenade Launcher, Plasma Gun
Death Korps of Krieg (10): Medi-pack, Grenade Launcher, Meltagun, Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon
Infantry Squad (10): 2x Grenade Launcher, 2x Grenade Launcher. 2x HWT Autocannon
The battle line units also worked as planned, although I would make a few changes. The main one is removing the 20 man Cadian squad, as this was a mistake in the first place. I would probably go for another unit of DKoK, as their medic ability was useful, when i actually got to use it! I would have liked more Cadian but I am at my max number of units. As for special weapons, i would keep the Plasma gun but I am tempted to drop the grenade launcher for possibly a melta gun, but it does reduce the utility of the units.
+ Infantry +
Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Mortar
Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Mortar
Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Missile Launchers
Tempestus Scions (5): Plasma Pistol, Power Fist, Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Vox-caster
Tempestus Scions (5): Plasma Pistol, Power Fist, Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Vox-caster
Tempestus Scions (5): Plasma Pistol, Power Fist, Hot-shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun, Vox-caster
The other infantry units also proved themselves during my games. The mortars were not the greatest at taking out power armour but against lower save units they absolutely proved their worth. The missile launchers were equally as useful, although both suffered from the unpredictability of the dice. The scions also proved themselves and were useful both for scoring points, forcing my opponent to split their force and gave me a lot of movement options.
+ Vehicles+
Valkyrie: Hellstrike Missiles, Lascannon, Heavy Bolters
Valkyrie: Militarum Multi-laser, Heavy Bolters, Multiple Rocket Pods
This is where there is going to be a lot of changes. The planes, while useful and fun to play with, really didn’t do anything for me. The MRP equipped Valkyrie was more useful and did do some chip damage, but the other Valkyrie was pretty much useless. The single shot lascannon and hellstrike missile was basically useless, missing far more than they hit and wounding even less. I was not even able to remove a rhino in one turn of shooting even when both actually hit. The heavy bolters were the best weapons on both platforms. Even though I took these because just because I wanted to, both of these will be dropped from the next iteration of the list as they just don’t do anywhere near the damage or provide anything that justifies their points.
+ Allied Units +
Imperial Navy Breachers: chainfist, demo charge, heavy shotgun, power weapon, Navis las-volleys, Bolt pistol and power weapon
Imperial Navy Breachers: Meltagun
Inquisitor: Bolt pistol, Inquisitorial melee weapon, Psychic gifts, Warlord
Vindicare Assassin
The dropping of the Valkyries also means the dropping of the Navy Breachers, which isn’t a bad thing as they didn’t really do much in the game, the bleacher with demo charge was fun and did do some damage, it still didn’t justify the 105 point cost of the unit. Even if the Valkyries weren’t being dropped I would drop the navy breachers anyway. The Vindicare also failed to live up to expectations. I think this is mostly because it’s taken a real hit in this edition and is no longer the character slayer it once was. I would probably look at switching this out for the Eversor assassin for its combat abilities. The Inquisitor was the best choice out of this lot, even though it didn’t do masses, it did enough to justify itself in the list, plus its all part of my fluff to have an inquisitor in my lists.
So, if i remove the Valkyries, the Breachers, Vindicare and 10 cadians, I would currently have 730 points to play with. With these points I would look to add a Tank commander and additional Leman Russ, with an Enginseerer in support. I would add in an Eversor Assassin as well. I would then use some points to up the number of Scions in the units to 10, doubling the number of troops and special weapons. This means that I would be using 690 points of the 730, leaving me 40 points spare for the moment, to either adjust for points adjustments or to add extra units nearer the time.
I’ll have to try this list out at some point to see just how it might fare but I suspect that there will be a number of changes points wise before next years tournament.
Tuesday, 21 November 2023
Tournament review
The Northern Invasion Tournament has been and gone and despite the enforced hiatus due to Covid and some other logistical and technical hurdles that needed to be overcome, I would have to say that it was a huge success. There were 16 players there on the Saturday and a number returned for a more casual day of gaming on the Sunday. There was more than 40k going on as well, with magic featuring prominently on both the Saturday and Sunday, with a whole host of board games going on on the Sunday, including Hero Quest, which myself and my son played several games of.
The 40k tournament itself was not an overly competitive tournament. There were a number of people there who were playing to a competitive level but there were also a number of people there to just play some games and have fun, after all, how many competitive players bring a 3 model army consisting of two Knight Desecrators and a Warhound Titan.
Friday, 17 November 2023
Northern Invasion game 3
Despite this, it was a very good game and I really enjoyed myself. So after 3 games on the Saturday, I found myself ready for game four to decided who came 7th and who came 8th. Oh, and I was to play my son. So all the way south, to play my own son!
Tuesday, 14 November 2023
Northern Invasion game 2
Game 2 and as soon as i heard the draw I was resigned to loosing this one. The game was against a World Eater list that I had faced part of during my warm up games (which I will write up at some point) and that game was a resounding defeat. This is probably one of the main hard counters to my list, a pure close combat army with the ability for turn 1 charges across the board. Unlike this my warm up game, where I went very conservative with the deployment, i went aggressive and pushed up as far as I could, hoping for first turn to be able to push further up and try and claim some board control from the off. This didn’t happen and turn 1 went to the World Eaters and it was down hill from there on.
The list itself was quite compact, thanks in part to Angron, alongside two Masters of Execution, Jakhals, two Berserkers, two Exalted Eightbound, two Rhinos, Two Hellbrutes and a Maulerfiend.
I wasn't bothered by the Jakhals or the Rhinos, everything else however, I was. Not this was possibly the worse matchup I could have. I want to push forward for board control and he wants to just charge stuff. What made things worse was the fact that my opponent got first turn and with his blessings of Khorne got the advance and charge. It was at this point I knew that my game was definitely over and it was now a case of trying to minimise the loss.
As you can see the game ended 32 to 90 but if we had played the game correctly, it would have ended up just 32 to 75, still a crushing defeat but not quite as crushing!
The main issue, apart from playing the mission wrong, was that I just couldn't get out of my deployment zone and even with deep striking units and the reinforcements stratagem I just couldn't claim any real board control, which is what I need to do. The other point to note about this game is that my opponent went on to win the tournament, so can't complain to much about getting beaten here!