Club Night 20th July

I met up with Matt and Mike to try out the new 40k 6th edition. Like many gamers I get frustrated by the constant changes, but I understand the need for it as a business. They key thing however is that the rules must be a genuine improvement, and not change for changes sake. From what I had read they had taken a few elements from fantasy battle, which should be good, and tweaked the vehicles rules so hopefully we will get more bodies on the ground again.

I took a force of Eldar, with some allied Tau, to try out the allies rule and to get some more varied troops to experiment with. However my first problem was that I was facing Necrons and Orks. Now in all fairness they had told me that and I remembered as soon as they said, but I had forgotten when I picked the army and was expecting Grey Knights and some kind of Imperial allies. Never mind. Lets see how the rules work and how my mismatched army fairs.

I deployed the Tau on the flanks, fire warriors on one and sniper drones on the other, while the Falcon, dire avengers and war walkers held the centre. I then planned to advance on the flanks with Jet bikes and warp spiders on one and Jain Zar and her banshees on the other. Against this I had a mass of large war machines on one flank with some ork boyz, a mass of Necron warriors in the centre and more Orks on the other flank.

On my left flank my fire warriors deployed but were quickly overrun by the Ork mob, while the fire from their support saw off the Warp Spiders and forced the Jet bikes back and eventually destroyed them.

On the other flank the sniper drones pinned down the Orks enabling the banshees to charge them and avoid their snap fire and wipe them out.

In the centre I poured fire into the advancing hordes but seemed to be having very little affect. When the mega-armoured Nobz smashed through in their truck I knew I was in trouble as they smashed through my centre, which was also be attacked from the flank where the Tau had been overrun. However not everything went their way, although the Scarabs had taken weakened the Falcon allowing it to be taken down, they were destroyed by the Banshees sweeping in from their victorious flank. They were then all mowed down by the Necrontyr, except for Jain who single-handedly attacked, broke and wiped them out.This however was the end of the game and I had been soundly beaten, A combination of spreading too thin, some poor dice rolling and really the wrong tools for the job. Having said that, the Banshees were my best unit by far and would probably have been the last unit I would have picked if I had remembered who my opponents were!

The rules seemed good. I think I need to get my own set, although hopefully for less than the £45RRP and have a good read of them and then play some more games.

Club Night 17th February

I played new club member Dan (yes, another new club member, we have gained three new members since the start of the year, which is great) in a game of 40K. Dan is still learning and getting going and had played some smaller games against Mike last week, so we decided to play a 1,500 point game, with him using my Tau and me my Blood Angels.

The Tau army I provided was fairly balanced, a commander and his bodyguards and another unit of crisis suits, backed up by two fire warrior squads and some pathfinders in devilfish, a sky ray and two units of sniper drones for some serious anti-marine fire-power. Against this I used the same list as I sued for the club league as it was fairly balanced, and other than a couple of landspeeders is all jump pack equipped which makes for a terrifyingly fast attack force.

We set up the terrain with a big ruined fort in the middle at an angle with small hills, a crashed ship and some palm trees scattered around the outside. This reduced lines of fire, but not too drastically and also should restrict where I could deep strike, so should be an even set up. The mission was take and hold with objectives in opposite towers if the fort, one in the supply dump in the middle and one on the crashed ship. With diagonal deployment, Dan choose to gab the zone with two objectives in it and one near it, leaving me with the opposite one, with an objective just outside and having to hunt down the rest.

Dan deployed a unit of fire warriors on each flank supported by a unit of sniper drones, with the pathfinders in the middle and the sky ray set back for fire support. The battle suits loitered more centrally, but could easily move to support wither flank or attack in the centre. In my zone I set up just two full strength assault squads with sanguinary priests and a supporting landspeeder, each group hugging cover to avoid being shot up by the Tau. But then Dan had his first bit of bad luck, I seized the initiative and was able to start advancing before he had been able to deploy into a firing line. Each of my groups moved out to the opposite flanks, continuing to hug the cover. Dan then started to deploy the Tau warriors and moved the battle suits forward centrally.

This fortunately played into my hands as it meant that I was able to engage the Battle suits in melee and avoid getting shot at. A quad attached each unit, the Tau commander falling relatively easily over a couple of turns, but the other quad proved much more troublesome. As my reserves began to arrive I started to overwhelm the Tau warriors on close combat, taking relatively light casualties and demonstrating the ferocity that the Blood Angels are renowned for.

With Assault squad rolling up each flank and the Death Company and veterans chewing through the centre, Dan conceded the battle. This was a fun game, although quite a steep learning curve for Dan. I gave him as much advice as was sensible, and he really only made one small mistake in putting the battle suits where I could charge them. The only other thing that really cost him was my seizing the initiative, which is the first time I have ever managed to do this. I look forward to my next game with my Blood Angels who I really enjoy using. There is even a rumour that Ken has been painting figures for his Grey Knights...!*

*Ken is known at the club for owning masses of figures for his Grey Knights, but only having a small army painter, which I did for him about 8 years ago!