Meet the Kill Team: Shears of Atropos

With the latest addition of Kill Team we've started into a campaign at one of the local stores.  Without a lot of lead time (got the book Saturday, started campaign Sunday) to make a team from scratch, I flipped through the book and looked at the models on hand, settling on a Chaos Marine team from my Endless Ones.  Above is the Leader, Abraxas.  In our opening game (a three-way against Ultramarines and Deathwatch) he took out the Ultramarines Leader in close combat to fulfill the mission objective.

8th edition 40K pre-game checklist

 

The new edition of 40K presents a lot of options on how to set up a game.  Of course we always had the option to play whatever kind of game we wanted, but having a number of options codified can make things easier (hey, let's pick one of these) but can also lead to confusion (what do you mean I can't use the same stratagem twice?) if players come with different expectations.  You should always have "the conversation" before a game to get on the same page. Perhaps something like this will make the conversation easier.

++Warhammer 40K 8^th edition pre-game checklist++

Who’s playing?

Where/When?

What time do we need to end by?

Do we need an extended break sometime in the middle (meal, etc.)? 

Will any player need to step away on a regular basis (smoke breaks, store owner to help customers, etc.)?

Who’s playing what?

Comfort level/experience of players?  Does any player need help? Does anything in any army need to be explained?

Is there a particular mission we are playing? (tournament test, custom narrative, special campaign mission, etc.?)

If not, what type of mission do we want? (Open War cards, War Without End? Crucible of War, Eternal War, Maelstrom of War, other?)

Battlezones?

             Night Fight? (p.252)

             Fire and Fury? (p.253)

             Psychic Maelstrom? (p.253)

             Planetstrike? (pp.254-7)

             Cities of Death? (pp.258-261)

             Stronghold Assault? (pp.262-265)

             Death from the Skies? (pp.266-269)

             Other?

Points or Power Level?  How many for each player?

Must armies be Battle-Forged?  Any restrictions on Detachments?

(Matched Play style restrictions)

Do armies need to allocate reinforcement points to summon daemons, etc.? (p214)

      

Psychic Focus? (other than Smite, each psychic power only once per turn) (p.215)

Strategic Discipline? (Same stratagem can only be used by same player once per phase.  Does not apply to those not used during a phase such as before the battle begins or at the end of a battle round) (p215)

Tactical Reserves?  (At least half of an army’s units must be set up on the table.  Any unit that has not arrived by the end of the third battle round counts as destroyed) (p215)

Sudden Death? (p.215)

Other Special Rules?

Any special terrain?

Is there anything we need to remember to track? (ex: for bonus tournament points or campaign effects)

Do we have everything we need? (models, books, dice, tape measures, terrain, etc.)

Any other questions/clarifications?

GAME ON!

Konor Weeks 4 and 6

Two more weeks of the Konor campaign, weeks 4 and 6.  The Word Bearers continue their erratic efforts in aid of the Death Guard's efforts in the system...or are they just pursuing their own goals?

Konor battles, new players, wacko chaos bike

After a few weeks on vacation, we made it back to the game store for some 40K and week 3 of the Konor campaign.  Here, 50PL of my Word Bearers try to make it past sonofsonsoftaurus' Ultramarines.

Terminators teleport in, fail to damage centurions with shooting, fail to charge, and soon fail to survive the Ultramarine return fire.

Garm and a squad of marines take out the Ultra terminators.

While Rhinos try to make it off the board.

One Rhino almost makes it before being torn apart by lascannons from the dreadnoughts.  I finish off the last centurion, giving me two points (terminators and centurions) but the loyalists ended with three (two rhinos and one CSM squad) and the win.

The Ultramarines got into another game, vs. marauding orks. (Leonard)

They used the Open War cards, with deployment zones right in each other's faces and a plummeting objective that would show up on the third turn in a random location.

With these guys leading the way, the orks had a bad day.

Elsewhere, Necrons clashed with more orks. (Connor vs. Terry)

While these later games were going on, I hung out with new player Matt and returning (from a slight 17 year absence) player Will while they got a small practice game in.  Matt brought his Dark Imperium Death Guard and Will dusted off some Praetorian Imperial Guard.

They used the basic book scenario, and ended up with four end-of-game scoring objectives and extra points for slaying the warlord.

Along with his old school guardsmen, Will had some nice old school Ogryn.

"Sgt. Major sah!  'eretics at 100 yards!"

The Plague Drone took a lot of fire and killed off two squads before being finished off and exploding in a fountain of filth that covered the nearby troopers.  On the other side, Poxwalkers make a ton of Disgustingly Resilient rolls and move up towards Imperial lines.

A few manage to make it to combat, but with the Praetorians falling back the remaining Poxwalkers are gunned down.  The Death Guard pull back and claim two objectives and nearly shoot the IG off of one more.  Nearly.  The IG manage to squeak out a win with killing the Chaos warlord and narrowly making their final leadership roll.

John W.'s CSM also got a match in with Leonard's orks.  John's biker lord (or sorcerer?) caught my eye, a very over the top, very cool, very chaos conversion:

"Sorry sir, there were other bikers closer; we just couldn't pick the leader out."

"..."

I wonder if he was inspired by that recent Monster Trucks movie? 

Fourth War for Armageddon: Planetfall

We had our next mission for our Armageddon campaign, a modified Planetfall mission (power level 75).  Chaos and Ork forces rain down from orbit upon the beleaguered Imperial defenders.  Above, some of sonsofsonsoftaurus' Ultramarines take up positions.

My early pictures of my own game seem to have disappeared.  I played against John W's Deathskulls. Bastion in the middle with a squad inside, squad and officer outside, squads and tanks spread out behind.  He brought an all infantry force aside from a dakkajet, and descended with a vengeance.

Fourth War for Armageddon - Escape!

After the initial surprises and setbacks from attacks against better prepared than expected orks and surprise assaults from traitor forces, the Imperial forces fall back towards Hive Acheron to regroup.  Unfortunately their foes have cut off most avenues of retreat, and small forces try to punch through where they can.

This week we were playing the Ambush mission from the new rulebook, with a few modifications to fit the intention better (restrictions on value you get from deep strikers or flyers escaping).  I played against Cory's orks.  Given the mission I took an armored spearhead (command russ, other russ, hellhound, armored sentinel, two chimeras with infantry squads and a platoon commander).  Cory was also all mounted, with warboss in batlewagon with boyz and a big mek, and two trukks with more boyz.  Power Level 50.

Fourth War for Armageddon, Day One

We started up our Fourth War for Armageddon campaign, with small (Power Level 25) games.  We played a modified Patrol mission, with the Imperial forces rolling out in clearing operations against resurgent Ork concentrations.  Along the way, many are ambushed by Chaos forces that have infiltrated on-world, as above.

8th ed test games picture dump

Over the past few weeks, like many around the world, our shop has been shaken by a plethora of 40k 8th edition games as people try things out.

Above vs. Bjorn as part of an epic rampage by the primarch in a three way game, smashing through a number of Space Wolves and Alpha Legionnaires, making a knight run away and being a general terror before finally succumbing to mass fire. 

This week we start up a campaign on Armageddon, stay tuned! 

Initial 40K 8th edition impressions

I've played one game of the new 40K so far, ran an intro event and have seen parts of several games.  If you have seen a lot of videos or cruise forums regularly (I don't) I'm sure a lot of this may be old hat for you, but here's my initial take.

Is it fun?  Yes.  Like any edition of 40K or any game in general, it depends on who you play with.

Does it feel like 40K? Yes.  Things generally do the kind of things you expect them to.

Are there some odd things?  Yes.  With any abstraction there will be some things that some feel go too far that way, and some odd rules interactions.  Given that so far they have limited the rules interactions, there are less of those, but that usually seemed to be GW's rules-writing weakness anyways - rule A is fine, rule B is fine, but confusing when A and B both apply.

Impressions - again, some are likely old-hat if you've read a lot elsewhere, I doubt I'm the first, and consider my limited experience at this point.

• Multi-wound models (like 2 or 3 wounds each) feel fragile for their cost.  Great against small arms fire, and potentially a chance against things like demolisher cannons that used to kill them outright, but the mid-power weapons that used to bounce off or plink away one wound now has them often taking worse saves and a good chance for multiple damage from one hit to kill htem outright.  Add in a variety of ways to take mortal wounds (which bypass all saves, including "invulnerable" ones) and expensive, well-armored units seem like a bigger risk.  
• On the flip side, those well-armored guys are very hard to shift out of cover.  Small arms fire against marines in cover faces getting through effectively a 2+ save.  Before depending on what you were fighting, well-armored units could consider cover an afterthought, but now it can benefit them greatly.  You want to use heavier weapons to dig well protected units out of cover, which does feel appropriate.
• Things have a lot of shots, but that can be deceptive.  With twin-linking giving double the old shots, being able to fire multiple weapons even if you moved, etc. there are probably more shots heading downrange than ever before.  However for some units that comes with a price - if you're using Heavy weapons, in many cases you don't ignore that -1 penalty for moving and shooting it, so those marines are hitting on 4s, guard on 5s.  I think it can be easy to overestimate the effectiveness of mobile firepower (of course some units and weapons ignore that penalty).
• Hordes seem to be a thing.  At least with the games I've seen, it seems hard to thin them out quickly, and there are currently a number of mechanical bonuses that encourage larger units, like for ork boyz and some tyranid units, where they get bonuses with 20+ models.  With some missions having control of objectives based on number of models within range of the target, that's another benefit for the living carpet.
• Deep strike, etc. is very reliable, but also gives less benefit without additional boosts like Warptime letting them get closer.  There is less risk, but less opportunity to take a risk in hopes of a reward.  With the general 9" away rule, a few spread out units can deny a huge area.
• Flamers are great on overwatch, but not if you charge from over 8" away (or outside of whatever the auto-hit weapon's range is).  Of course less likely to make the charge, but one possible way of getting stuck in with those multiple flamer units.
• Vehicles seem pretty survivable compared to before, with a lot less worry (at least for those that start over 6 wounds) about a one-shot kill.  Facing them, you definitely need to focus if you want to bring them down.
• Terrain - while the very basic rules has terrain all working effectively the same, the more advanced rules and types of games can have different things working differently (Cityfight, etc.).  Be sure to review that and discuss with your opponent.
• No cover from other units, both friendly and enemy.  Can still block LOS, but no getting cover for your tanks from an infantry screen, etc.
• Everything overwatches, including tanks.  Watch out for that Russ with three heavy flamers.
• Can move out of combat, but can't move through other models, so possible to get surrounded/surround the enemy and trap them.
• Characters charging into combat seems difficult.  Since you're not attached to a unit, you don't charge with them.  Seems like either the unit is in front and charges first, then character tries, but a) starts further away and b) may not have a clear path anymore with friendly unit in the way so may be left alone in the open to get shot next turn, or character is in front and risks getting shot up, and risks making the charge while friendly unit fails it, leaving him fighting alone.
• LOS from vehicles, firing arcs etc. are gone.  So your sponsons can see through to the other side, etc.  This opens up some conversion/counts as opportunities while staying WYSIWYG without messing with rules, like making a Leman Russ with battlecannon in the hull and a turret with three heavy bolters.  Chaos and Ork players especially take note.
• Focus attention.  Aside from the horde bonuses mentioned earlier, it can be worthwhile making sure a larger model gets taken down a step in effectiveness, or enough wounds are done to a unit to give it a more serious morale check.  
• Hit modifiers seem to work poorly with things like overcharged plasma weapons.  Modifiers are done to the actual die roll, not the target, so it looks like an overcharged plasma cannon shooting after moving that has a -1 to hit will kill itself on a roll of 1 or 2.  Add in that it's per shot, and that plasma cannon that does d3 shots is likely to die if overcharging.  So think very hard about overcharging plasma while shooting flyers or other things that give you a to hit penalty.

Overall I've enjoyed it so far, and look forward to more games and trying out more missions.

Preceptors of Vertex

Enter the Preceptors of Vertex!  With 8th edition 40K on the way, I have been working on a force that I wouldn't mind leaving at the game store for others to use to try out the game or use while they are building their own armies.  Using old Space Rangers as Space Marines and some old foam vehicles a friend of mine carved years ago.  I went with yellow and brown as their main colors mostly because those would work well with the wood stain shading I planned on using.  Dirty urban ruin bases to fit in with a lot of the ruined buildings we have at the store.

Once the rules are in-hand, I will sort out some forces at various point and power levels and leave those as well with some sheets on the unit stats.

I had started them before a lot of the info dribbles started coming out.  They are big enough to probably pass for Primaris marines, so I may go ahead and also see how they could be arranged as Primaris.  I may need to paint up a second HQ as well to fit them all into one of the the new force orgs.

We have so far:
Captain with plasma pistol and power sword
2x10 man tacticals with plasma gun and lascannon, sgt with plasma pistol and power sword
4x5 man tacticals with plasma gun, sgt with plasma pistol and power sword
5 man devastator squad with four lascannons,  sgt with plasma pistol and power sword
2xRhinos
Whirlwind
Vindicator

We have met the enemy and he is primarus

So these guys are coming.  Upgraded Space Marines, bigger, better, with better gear.

From a background standpoint, this is a huge can of worms being opened.  Some of the worms I can see resolved more easily than others.

Developed in secret for 10,000 years?  I can maybe see that with the AdMech.  Perhaps Guilliman made Cawl program himself to not reveal the project until Guilliman told him to, and then G goes into stasis for a few millenia.  Oops.

How will the other Space Marines react to being the old model?  I wonder how many remember stories about the Thunder Warriors. I would expect for there to be significant friction between these new marines that are added to existing chapters and between older chapters and these new Primaris foundings.  This could be an opportunity for a lot of interesting storytelling as the Grimdark reasserts itself, but I doubt they will go down that route.

New foundings of Primaris Marines.  How exactly does that work?  A whole unit of rookies?  When they found chapters, don't they bring in leaders from other chapters to run the show for the first generation at least?  Are they going to have old marine chapter masters, captains, chaplains and such and Primaris line troopers?  Or somehow enough of the Primaris have distinguished themselves enough to immediately go to leadership roles, even without experience?  Again, could be fertile ground for stories, as the theoretically elite run into problems with a lack of practical experience to draw on.

Logistically, it seems like a nightmare.  Different armor that all the old chapter serfs and techmarines don't have experience with, weapons that will require different maintenance and ammo, troopers that may have radically different physiology that Apothecaries will have to adapt to.  Will they need different drop pods, transports, etc.? Why not just take all this effort spent on this project and just make a few hundred extra chapters of old marines instead?  Or why not just give all marines the new bolt rifles?  There are bound to be logistic chokepoints and problems.  To an extent this feels like some of the 1980s toy/tv show combos - manufacturer is coming out with new toy, you guys figure out how to feature it in the show.  Yeah, I know the other guys are robot cars and these are robot dinosaurs.  Make it work.

Chaos.  So, Guilliman broke the legions into chapters to limit the power available to any one commander, then forms chapters that are more powerful than the old ones.  And at some point, someone will say the Primaris aren't bound by the Codex restrictions on size.  Some of these guys are bound to start falling to Chaos, creating problems for the Imperium, and another layer of narrative issues as super-renegades start muscling their way around in heretic circles.

Speaking of Chaos, this really makes Fabius Bile look like a chump.  He's been struggling to make better marines all this time, while Cawl had done it already and was just waiting to pull them out of the drawer.  And other experiments like the Cursed Founding went on to disaster while Cawl already had succeeded?  Or perhaps that will be retconned into being part of Cawl's project, with the final perfecting of the process happening afterwards?

I could see them doing a lot with these guys that could be interesting, but I doubt it will happen.  Of course they could surprise me and explore these things or handle them in a different way that works.  It's still early, we have just had a brief reveal, as more comes out some of the holes may fill in. 

Despite all of my trepidations narratively...gosh those guys look nice.  And with heads and pads being the same size, they could be beakies, or altered with a multitude of alternative heads and pads, both GW and from other companies.  I look forward to seeing the primaris versions of assault marines and other things.  I'm tempted to start a force of primaris, one of these brave new chapters in a Second Great Crusade.  I expect to become part of the "problem".