It seems IMHO that 6th edition is just not a competitive game suitable for tournaments and that some serious issues exist with the missions and their lack of balance. Scouring the internet and looking at the various tournament packs that have been developed it appears that a variety of attempts to make it a tournament game are working to some extent. The Nova Open format seems to have created NovaHammer with its quarters missions, The Bay Area Open format seems to favour Deathstars/Flyers, while locally the tournaments here are sticking pretty closely to the rulebook while still trying to provide the Primary/Secondary mission variety that the ETC inspired rulespacks had established in mid/late 5th edition. Having not played in a tournament yet myself I can't say exactly which I prefer but I know that nationally we will go with pretty much whatever the ETC favours, although I do hope some organizers looks outside of that and perhaps adopt another format for variety.
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| Saber Defence Platforms - Supposedly not all that bad |
Across in the UK it appears that there is much gnashing of teeth etc over 6th ed and its suitability for tournaments. Points limits, time, mission/deployment selection and Flyers all appear to be issues that TO's are having to deal with. Interestingly it appears that Forgeworld is been giving a much larger look in across in the UK than in Ireland with the GT qualifiers and other tournaments have allowed "40k Approved" Forgeworld models (which saw a spate of proxy/counts as AA defence models spring up everywhere) which completely altered the balance in terms of Flyers. Perhaps not unsurprising the ETC captains in the first draft of next years tournament pack have voted against the introduction of FW into competition.
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| The Hyperios Defence Platform - every Space Marine's best friend |
One positive thing that I can say is that nationally not a single tournament has had the same rulepack/mission combo in operation. This is a good thing in my opinion as it is keeping us as players sharp and forcing us to adapt our armies to the evolving game. Indeed this weekend is Gaelcon, one of the largest 40k tournaments in the country, and I will be interested to see how it plays out with many of Ireland's top 20 players involved.
So with various TO's trying various ways to balance out flyers I have found myself in a quandary personally. As I previously mentioned in the last post I was eagerly building up a Space Wolves/Necron force. While I got the Grey Hunters built, I haven't managed due to various reasons to get my Necrons finished. So my last months playtesting was a modification of the original idea with some Space Marine Battle Brothers allied in. Why this? Well I quickly found out that foot wolves why they have resilience in numbers against flyers, suffer horribly against one of the armies of the moment - Tzeentch Daemons. I have never been tabled so quickly in my life, as against 17 Flamers, 6 Screamers and infiltrating Thousand Sons with Ahriman - 3 turns was all it took in the first game. In the subsequent games I have spaced out deployed less aggressively and been the recipient of bad reserve rolls by my opponent and still only manged to squeek out a loosing draw with VP's horribly skewed in their favour. Indeed even Nullzone didn't make that much difference against the 2 wound updated Flamers and Screamers. The reality is that until Daemons loose the Eternal warrior rule they are going to be tough to deal.
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| A really good choice for Daemons and Chaos Marines |
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| For 25pts they are excellent - especially with there slash attacks and 4+ on the turn they deep strike |
So I am at a bit of a quandary as to how to proceed with my wolves. So I am considering the following options:
- Mech up in Rhino's to prevent the toast and slash on the turn the Daemons deep strike in
- Ally in some Grey Knights strike squads with Coteaz for Warp Quake bubble
- Ally in some Eldar to get Eldrad for Misfortune/Prescience/Perfect Timing
- Ally in Guard for Blob/Manticore/Psyker Battle Squad
- Ally in some Necrons for Flyers/Wraiths/Annihilation Barges
Rhino's would be great but they die so quickly and are a bit rubbish especially when "First Blood" secondary mission is in operation. The Grey Knights will help with the Daemons but aren't going to offer a lot of solutions to Ahriman and the Thousand Sons, although the Eldar would help there by making Ahriman more likely to fail and offer Jetbikes for last turn contesting. Guard are obviously a great choice especially with PBS doing the number on Fateweaver and Manticores being even better. Blobs are also great for being home to Mortars for the Barrage sniping one needs to help pick out those important bits of squads. Lastly Necrons as I previously mentioned but that is less to do with Anti-Daemon and more to do with generally being quite good - Night Scythes, Wraiths and Stormteks - but being desperate allies they can be ignored as they cannot score or contest.
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| Dead but still good! |
I also know that I will not get much gaming in before Moo8 so it will be most theoryhammer before I head on down. Also it has been brought to my attention that the new Chaos codex has proved to be a less than thrilling codex with not that many folks jumping onto the bandwagon. So I am guessing that it will be the usual mix of Guard/Grey Knights/Necrons with some smatterings of other forces like Chaos, Daemons and Tau.
So onto my SW/Eldar list that I am currently favouring:
1 x Rune Priest with Chooser (Jaws/LL)
3 Wolf Guard - 2 Combi Melta, 1 Stormbolter
3 x 10 Grey Hunters with Standard and 2 Plasma Guns
2 x 5 Grey Hunters with Melta in Rhino/Dozer
1 Aegis Defense Line with Quad Gun
2 x Predator with Heavy Bolter Sponsons
1 x Vindicator
Eldar:
Eldrad
5 x Fire Dragons, Exarch with Crack Shot/Tank Hunters, Dragons Breath Flamer
3 x Jetbike
3 x Shadow Weavers
Naturally Problems exist with Flyer defense being limited to only the Quad Gun but what can Wolves/Eldar really do. Also, Eldrad will make my Rune Priest quake in his boots about using Psychic powers but I don't fancy any of the other choices except perhaps a Wolf Priest but he can't prevent infiltrating but he does confer other benefits. I understand some folks will wonder why I don't have Long Fangs but the MSU nature of there squads means they fold so quickly and often don't offer the value they did under fifth. That is Why I am going for a mix of AV13 to hide behind the defense line and gain that 4+ cover save and to give me a variety of long range fire. The Eldar are there for psychic defense, last turn contesting, quad gun manning and barrage sniping. So if anyone has thoughts or tried something similar, let me know how crazy I am and what I should change!
Right this has gotten longer than intended so thoughts on 6th Edition and the Chaos Codex will have to wait.
Also here is my "shout out" to some great blogposts that I have read recently do yourself a favour and read these:
DGG/TLC massive Apocolypse game report:
The New Irish 40k ETC Captain telling us the cold hard truth:
http://warhamsandwich.com/2012/10/22/basic-anti-air/
Local Gamer/Painter/TO thoughts on Chaos:
http://blog--hammer.blogspot.ie/2012/10/purple-legion.html
One of Ireland best players thoughts on 2 special characters in Chaos:
http://touchedbygreatness.blogspot.ie/2012/10/kharn-betrayer-ideas.html
http://touchedbygreatness.blogspot.ie/2012/10/ahriman-ideas.html
Great FOW blog with loads of great ideas and linked resources:
http://citadelofwar.blogspot.co.nz/
Tzeentch Flamer tactica by the Traitorous Stowe:
http://midnightclad.blogspot.ie/2012/09/chaos-daemon-flamer-tactica-part-1.html
