Delta Star

The delta is a Greek symbol for the triangle - three sides formed together - in ancient Greece this was also a symbol for defense. The center is protected on three sides all interlocking. The star is four spears tied together at their ends, this was an ancient symbol for offense. No army can prosper over a protracted war unless it has both good defense and offense. Defense is integral to survival while offense is integral to winning. If you are protecting what you already have taken then defense is enough but if you want to expand your borders them you must also have a good offense. Both the ancient Greeks and Romans were masters of war using basic shields and spears to win time and time again. The shield is defense while the spear is offense and the two were always paired together. Eventually the Roman Empire fell to heavy cavalry. The Germanic tribes were the first to use barding on their warmounts and they wore heavy armor as well. Calvary strikes with the blunt side of their swords using the speed of their mounts to break bone and advance through the perimeter. The fall of the Romam Empire brought about the dark ages which lasted for several centuries - western Europe fell into a state of disorder.

40k is much the same to me. Every army should have both a good offense and a good defense; there must be a balance as well. Mobility is a key to success and is a fundamental cornerstone to both. The Romans eventually lost as does everyone. Their great empire fell because they were too slow to adapt to the change. Time and time again the shield and spear was more than enough then there came the day that it no longer was what it had once been. If you are successful and become set in your ways the world will change around you. Therefore it is vital to keep an eye on change and plan accordingly... Even the best laid plans will eventually fail.

G

Team Championships France- Game 2

Game 2

The first game was under our belt as a team and at the end of the day was not too bad. As a team we came out with a draw. What we discovered was that the majority of teams actually had a draw the first game. The reason for this was the four man team concept. Five people to a team would have seen a lot less draws, but the TOs felt it was easier to bring four people together than five.

Our next opponents were from the local area and had the following armies: Blood Angels, Marines, Tyranids, and Eldar.

Mission- basic seize ground with five objectives and the secondary objective was on odd take on one I had seen in many tournaments. Where as before you had to get as many of your units in your opponents deployment zone. This mission called for you to have more of your units in your deployment than your opponent. So you would have to simultaneously go on the attack to seize objectives but hold back enough units to achieve the secondary objectives. Interesting turn for an old mission objective.

Pre-game strategy session- looking at the four tables I noticed right away which table I did not want to play on if at all possible. The reason was because one of the tables had four of the five objectives already placed on pieces of terrain that my bikes just could not reach (objectives were placed by TOs on all tables prior to game). I quickly pointed out to my captain that I really had to stay away from that table. As for my opponents I listed Marines/Eldar/Tyranids/Blood Angels as my preferred opponents.

The captains roll off and we lose both the initial and the “trade list” rolls. In addition I end up playing on the table I wanted at all cost to stay away from and my opponent was to be the Eldar.

Eldar Army list

1. Eldrad
2. 2 Fire prisms
3. Falcon (fire dragons)
4. Falcon (dire avengers)
5. warp spiders
6. Dire Avengers (wave serpent)
7. 3 units of 3 each jet bikes
8. war walkers
9. Dire avengers(wave serpent)
10. Wraithguard
    

Deployment-

Eldar

The deployment zone was slightly different than standard. You measured 10 inches back from the center of the table and that was your deployment zone, so basically reverse of pitch battle with an added few inches.. The Eldar player won the roll and selected to go first and pick his side. The majority of his army was deployed near the back of his deployment zone and he had a fire prism on each flank. In reserve was placed the three jetbike squads and the war walkers outflanking. Wraithguard were deployed in a building, center of his deployment zone with Eldrad.

Marines

Ok yes I was feeling slightly screwed at this point. Not only was I playing a mission on a table that completely was in favor of my opponent. But he also had enough speed to achieve all his objectives while with a smaller force I would be forced to make some hard choices. Looking at the table I could really only achieve one objective on my far left flank because unlike the rest it was at least in dangerous terrain( great right...). I could probably not even deny the other objectives from my opponent because most of them were up on the 3^rd floor of buildings. Yea my terminators could contest but he had the mobility to pick where he wanted to strike. So I decided on the big gamble. I needed to attempt to table him. I deployed my entire army up to the front edge of my deployment zone and combat squaded everything I could. Everything was spaced so that I would not take to many hits from fire prisms but once I got though the first turn of fire I should be ok.

Turn 1 – I seized the initiative!! Ha this helps a lot but will not win the battle if I play this timid. If you go for a table win you need to commit everything to the attack. So my whole army turbo boosted turn one. The terminators walked/ ran (shooting) and the stern guard rhino went 12 inches and pulled into some ruins.

Eldar- Vehicles moved to get LOS and warp spiders jumped to take shots at my command squad. Fire Prisms/ Warp Spiders / Wraithguard/ Missile Launchers and Dire avengers opened up on my bikes and command squad. Guide and Doom was being used against my command squad. My bikes and command squad were taking losses and so were my terminators but everything passed leadership.

Turn 2 – Like the movie The Light Horsemen where the Australian Cavalry finally gets under the guns of the Turkish artillery. I felt relief, it was my turn. My bike squads pushed forward. Attack bike sections went after the fire prisms and bike squads went after the fire prisms and wave serpents. Terminators continued to run forward. Pretty much every transport or Eldar tank was disabled/immobilized/destroyed this turn (melta is great for eldar vehicles and everyone of my squads has them). My bike troops were able to chase down dire avengers after the assault and the command squad ran over the warp spiders. Only thing left out of combat was Eldrad with his Wraithguard who climbed up to the third floor of the building they were in and fire dragons that I was not able to assault after I destroyed their Falcon.

Turn 3 – None of the reserves came in for the Eldar. He moved the grav tanks that could move but not fire and tried firing on my terminators with the fire dragons (all that was in range). Eldrad / Wraithguard fired on one of my bike squads and cut down 4 bikes but that was it for the turn.

On my turn I finished off the rest of the Eldar army( Terminators came in and hit the wraithguard hard) that was still on the board and than positioned myself for the reserve rolls of the jetbikes and war walkers.

Turn 4 - Two units of jetbikes make it on the table. Probably wishing they were somewhere else or at least a close web way portal nearby. They try to move out of range of my bikes.

My bikes chase them down.. The rest of my army I deploy on both flanks waiting on the war walkers and the final squad of jetbikes. I felt a little like Eldar skeet shooting at this moment. I could almost hear someone yell “pull” and out flys the eldar as my bolters open fire.

Turn 5- Without going into the gruesome details. The Eldar finally lose the game on this turn with nothing left on the table.

I get full points for the game. However as a team we had another draw. Albert beat the blood angel player with his chaos and David lost to another tyranid player with his necrons. Our blood angels lost to a marine stern guard army.

As a side note. My opponent was the first player I had played since I have been in Europe that spoke no English. However, being a long time Eldar player we had no real problems and again there were enough people around to help explain any points of interests.

Overall it would have been nice to pull a full victory for the team on this round but losing the second roll allowed the other team to match their tyranid player to our necrons. This gave them a good chance for a win and a overall tie. Prior to the second roll we had concluded that we should be able to get two wins / 1 tie and a loss but overall the win for the team.

However we are still upper third as the tournament goes so surprisingly still hanging tough.

Terrain in 5th Edition 40K

So, I read a little article over at a site called Yes The Truth Hurts - a place that is always good for a little controversy and entertainment.  The author there was talking about terrain in 40K.  How having terrain big enough to block line of site to things like Land Raiders and Valkyries was a bad thing for the game.  Thought I'd post my own thoughts on the subject.

Personally - one of the things that I think has really hurt the game with 5th edition is the lack of Line of Sight blocking terrain.   Gone is the ability to stage your army, position it utilizing terrain, then launch an assault from it.   Truly using TACTICS to play - vs lining up and rolling dice.   You still had fire lanes, fire control bases, high ground, etc - but you had to place them strategically.   All that was in good old 4th edtion.   Now - with the terrain you see in most clubs (and our club has some AWESOME terrain - but still mostly 4th edition style)you can pretty much shoot almost everything from anywhere.

But at the crux - a good general should be able to adapt his army to whatever terrain conditions he's faced with in a game.   Stating that Having or Not Having blocking terrain is the ONLY right way to play 40K is really just making excuses for why you can't win in a certain situation.   I fall into this myself from time to time.  I Have my preferences - but in all honesty to myself - I need to adapt to what the game board has in place.  That's the RIGHT way to play the game.

My opponents can remind me of this when I start whining in a game.  Although I will stick to my time honored excuse of my dice sucking - because in that category I AM a statistical anomoly.  :)

Team Championships France

Not long ago I played in the Team Championships near Lyon, France. Sixteen teams participated with at least 2 teams coming from Switzerland. It was nice to have team mates that spoke and read French because they had to explain the missions of each game to me and they were slightly complex at times. It was a five game format over two days.

The Basic rules:

1. Only one special character per army.
2. 2000 point army build
3. No triplicate of units. Example: cannot have three units of TH/SS terminators
4. Four members per team and each member must take a different army selection.
5. ETC style format- For those who do not understand what this is than I will explain. Each team member will play individual games. Before the game starts the Team Captains roll a dice. The loser than places an army list on one of the four tables. The winner of the roll matches one of their team lists to the one placed on the table and than places a second list on a different table. This continues until all tables have match ups. Before the game starts the Team Captains roll again and the winner is allowed to swap one army list.
6. You received extra points for having a painted army, good composition and turning in your army list on time. All army lists had to be turned in to the TO basically one month in advance.
7. Win is worth 3 pts, Draw 2 pts, Loss 1 pt and you can gain extra points by achieving secondary objectives.
8. Individual games points are totaled and the team with the highest point total at the end is declared the winner/draw/tie which determines your next match up.
9. Five Games over two days.
10. Winner of the tournament is the team with the most points from: Battle Points, Painting and composition( you also received a few points for getting your army lists in on time and paying the tournament on time)

“Team Genève” brought the following armies.

Brian – Space Marine Bike army (me)

David- Necrons

Greg- Blood angels

Albert- Chaos Marines.

Game 1 – our opponents were Orks, Blood Angels, Tyranids, and Marines. We lost both the dice rolls by our team captain and I found myself playing against the opposing team captain who was the Ork player.

Mission- Capture and Control- except the objectives had to be placed 12 inches from the center of the table and they moved random direction 2d6 each player turn. Secondary objective was killing the enemy commander.

Deployment – Pitch Battle.

The Ork player army list is pretty close to the following.

1. Unit Nob bikers
2. Unit of Nobs in truck
3. Burna boys in a truck
4. Nobs in a truck
5. Gretchen
6. Mech boy
7. 2 couple more units of boyz in trucks.

My army list

1. Khan
2. Chaplain
3. Command Squad on bikes
4. 2 Full Squads of bikes with meltas and multi melta
5. 9 Terminators TH/SS
6. Stern guard in a Rhino
7. 2 units of attack Bikes.

Deployment- Ork player won the roll to go first and deployed his entire army with the exception of his Gretchen. I deployed my entire army in the center of my deployment zone. My terminators were in the center set up in cover.

Turn 1. The ork objective moved toward his table edge 8 inches (note: don’t let an ork player use a squig as an objective marker. Dang thing kept moving towards his lines!!!) and my objective moved towards the ork's edge (this was annoying). The majority of the orks moved forward with the Nob bikers extending to the flank.

I extended my flank with the command squad and moved the termies forward. Attack bikes spread out to look for shots on the trucks next turn.

Turn 2. Ork objective moved another 9 inches toward their side of the board and my objective was wandering around in the middle. The ork player moved his nob bikers back toward the center and both burna boys and nobs toward the center. He is looking to try and get the overlapping charge on my termies. But he is worried about my command squad which is hanging around the flanks.

I move my attack bikes in and was able to bring down one of the boyz trucks. My terminators stay in cover but continue moving forward. I am looking at getting charged by at least 3 possibly 4 units of orks. Not happy about this situation but with my terminators in cover they will be giving out a lot of pain before they go down. In addition I had moved my attack bikes in close to my termies hoping they will get charged. I did this for a couple reasons. 1. Three attack bikes gives me 6 more attacks against the orks. 2 The high toughness of the bikes will draw away some of the attacks and wounds against the termies.

Turn 3. Of course ork objective moves back toward their lines and is almost at the end of the table. At this point I am thinking the secondary objective of killing the ork general is what I need to achieve. My objective stays in the center. The ork player is ready and commits to the charge. Hitting my termies and attack bikes with four units. The marines cause 12 wounds with the nob bikers and burnas taking up most of the wounds. In return the orks kill all the termies and my attack bikes. But it came down to the last ork power claw killing my last terminator. If this did not happen I probably could have passed the moral check.

On my turn my bikes converged on the orks. Stern guard dismounted and command squad moved in. The orks suffered a bunch of twin link bolters shots and the meltas from the stern guard hit the nob bikes. The command squad than hit the nob bikes and were joined in by the rest of the bike squads. The orks took a beating but were not finished.

Turn 4. Gretchen come in and basically walk up to the objective. The close combat continues in the center with more orks getting committed to the carnage. My marines hold the line and give better than they are receiving. Khan pulls the command squad out of combat with the hit and run rule and circles back towards the nob bikes which are stuck in combat with marine regular bikes. The orks had lost combat but during the assault phase had called the waaagh.

Objectives on my turn continue their movements with mine in the center and the orks staying with the 20 Gretchen ( this is just absurd lol)

The Command Squad sounds the charge again and hits the ork nobs bikers with Khan cutting off the Warboss’s head with his special attack. This time the orks cannot take the punishment and flee with 3 units getting chased down.

Turn 5. Yes yes ork objective stays with the Gretchen and my objective continues to move toward the orks.

Ork player commits some boyz to slow down my bikers. After shooting they assault my bike squads. Not much happens but during my turn I have to commit my command squad to free my bike squads to capture my objective. I was hoping to get some attack bikes in range of the ork objective to contest but they were a little to short on distance.

Turn 6. The game ends with both of us holding objectives but I get the points for the win because I had killed the enemy commander. So while I complained that you should not have your ork player use a squig as an objective. I think the real thought maybe is don’t let an ultramarine player use a drunken smurf as their objective!!!

Overall “Team Genève” had a draw against our opponents. Albert with his chaos won against marines. But the Necrons(David) lost to Tyranids and Blood Angels lost to Blood Angels. My opponent knew a little English and I am picking up a few words like fusion is melta and energy stick is a power weapon. But with the team format it is nice because my team mates are around to help with any explanations. But overall what I have been finding is that if the player is experienced than you really need very little explanation from either party. You just kind of get what the other guys is doing even though you may not understand completely the language.

We started learning a little about the tactics of the list placements. At the beginning of the game (strategy phase before captains roll for lists) each of us looked at the other teams armies and gave our captain an idea on what would be a good match up for them as an individual. Our first thought was to try matching lists that our army would have a challenge against but not a rock / scissor game. The first round we tried matching up power list against power list and it resulted in a tie for the team. Our learning coming out of this round is too look for the mismatch next round and worse case put a power list gamer against a power list gamer for maybe a tie. But in order to do this you need to have confidence you can pull wins in the other games.

The next interesting challenge though is once you get your first placement of lists there is the second die roll made by the army captains. This is almost as good as stealing the initiative because than you can change one list placement and this give you that “advantage” hopefully for a win. I actually like the second die roll because it adds an interesting tactical challenge to your thinking because you also have to plan what would change if you had the opportunity.

Well that’s it for now. I will write about my other games shortly….