The stuff I’m writing about.

Evolution games in Lansing Mi will be trading bits on Saturday September 8 at 4pm to close. Buy, sell or trade! Cash!

http://darkfuturegaming.blogspot.com/2012/09/bring-out-your-bits-evolution-games.html

Now that I have had time to digest 6th edition a little bit I am really starting to like allies more and more, not really for the power combinations(although that is handy but for the ability to play the list I want.  With most of the space marine books being battle brothers it allows you to more accurately create the chapter that you want.  For the ravenguard now you can take two units of assault marines as troops from the blood angels.   Iron hands are also a good one to combine with blood angels, getting that FNP to represent bionics while still retaining the tech of the SM book.  Take samael and run two units of ravenwing in your biker army to represent an elite squad while not hurting your ability to be competitive.   It really opens it up in that regard.

With the change to the power level of psykers that we have seen in recent codi(?) it is important to have some ability to resist psychic powers.  Dark eldar and tau namely had no effective resistance.  Now they can take a small detachment of eldar to help shore up their defenses, as well as provide some nice support(super guide from divination as well as sniper covering fire/character targeting)

For everyone else that do not have battle brothers there is always a cost.  My necrons rely on other elements of the army for synergy.  Having a large chunk of my points that don’t benefit from my army just decreases the value of those force multipliers.   It is a trade off that must be taken into account if you want to run allies.

Just a quick thought, I hope to get more up once I start to really get a feel for the rules and continue posting on my preparations as nova gets ever closer

 

We started a new Facebook group called Michigan Gaming Group. It’s a new way to stay up to date on events and people looking for games as well as where they are playing. Check it out and join in order to get updates on whats happening locally.

Twas the night before 6th ed, when all through the house
Not a Army was built, not even Grey Knights.
The receipts were stored in the wallets with care,
In hopes that their pre-orders soon would be there.

The gamers were nestled all snug in their chairs,
While visions of grim dark danced in their heads.
With wives in their beds, and GF’s at home,
They sighed at our sight and settled for a nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
They sprang from their chair to see what was the matter.
Away to the window they flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon shown on the lawns below
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But my bros in a car shouting “Midnight release is here”.

With a designated driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment we would need to be quick.
More rapid than orks with RPJ, We whooped and whistled, and WAAGGHHEEDD, to all those that were near

“Now Smurfs’s! now, Bluies! now, Space Elves and Greenies!
On, Robbits! On, Bugs!, on Demons and Sisters!
To the top of the pile! to the top of the tier!
Now dash away! Dash away! You will be cheese by next year!”
When meet with an obstacle, the gamers did cry.
So to the internet the gamers did fly,
With a hardback rulebook, and a new sprue or two.

And then, in the night, The forums did fly
as new ideas blew the roof sky high.
As I grabbed my keyboard, and began to type,
The doomsaying began to abound.

From Australia to America the cries could be read,
with threats of fire turning the books to soot.
A bundle of armys on ebay were found,
And it looked like mechdar was leaving the pack.

But amongst this chaos, the mods blew a whistle,
And told people to chill before closing the threads.
But I heard them exclaim, before the hammer did fall,
“Chill the hell out and play some 6th first”

Happy 6th edition to all, see you all soon

 

Friday the 29th a bunch of us will be meeting at BC Comix to play our last games of 5th edition.  Come on out and join us Bob will be selling the rule book at midnight and there will be 5-6 tables available for games!

While I was discussing the use of chronometrons for the necrons I came across people who could not understand what I call the investment in rolls. Now all rolls will follow a pyramidal structure(outside of tesla) in that at each stage there will be fewer and fewer dice getting rolled. As such each dice represents a further investment to get that far.  So if you have two wounds from your space marine you typical hit four times. This would require an investment of 6 shots towards this result. Now the chronometron allows one re-roll per phase the point here is that it is better to save the re-roll for later in the phase when it is more likely to make up for more of the investment you have into the current results.

For an example here is a standard Necron Lancetek.  He has a strength 8 ap 2 shot.  Now he is firing at a Armor 11 vehicle

He hits 2/3s of the time so from 3 of his shots he can expect two hits.  he needs 2 hits to get a penetrating result on the table.  This requires to hits to achieve.  Now it takes about 3 results on the penetrating table to get a destroyed so that requires about 6 hits to reliably get that many results and to get 6 hits requires 9 shots.

Now what if we save the chronometron for the end?

Now he only needs 2 penetrating hits as the chronometron will allow him to re-roll any non destroyed results.  2 penetrating requires 4 hits.  4 hits required 6 shots.   So now it goes from requiring an investment of 9 shots to destroy a vehicle to an investment of 6 shots.

Now this is different for firing on most creatures, as you need only a 2 to wound with no further rolling required it becomes better to invest in the initial to hit roll.

If a lancetek wants to get a wound on a normal infantry man he will wound 5 out of 6 times so an investment of 6 hits will give him 5 wounds.  Now to get those 6 hits requires 9 shots.

or approximately 75% of his shots will wound.  This means that an investment of 4 shots will result in 3 wounds.  So it will require 8 shots instead of the 9 for the 6 wounds.

I know this is very basic math and it will skew a little more in one direction or the other when you get to real statistics but it is something to consider for all re-rolling and if it is worth investing in or not.

So taking the lessons I learned from the first game and making a few minor tweeks I faced the Mechdar again I realized that the CC lord was not going to help me win combats.  At best he was going to help me tie, but against a dedicated CC unit my guys were dead anyway.  So for that reason I thought that it would be better just to prevent being in close combat in the first place.  So I replaced the lord with a tremortek with crucible.  If this unit is in difficult terrain it is ridiculously hard to assault them.   I decided to give Anrakyr another shot as well as dropping the nightmare shrouds from the veilteks.   This freed up enough points to raise my immortal units to 7.

Doom Stalkers

Nemesor Zahndrekh

Overlord with Weave, warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, and a Command Barge(Dreadnaught proxy)

2x 5 man warrior unit

2 x destruction cryptek, pulse

7 man immortals unit(1) – Gauss

Despair cryptek with veil

Tremortek with Crucible

7 man immortals unit(2) – Tesla

Despair cryptek with veil

cryptek with chronometron

2x triarch stalker (1), (2)

1x doom scythe (Storm Raven Proxy)

2x doomsday ark

Mechdar

Yriel

Autarch with fusion gun

2x 6 man rangers squad

3 man guardian bikers with suriken cannon

5x dire avengers in wave serpent

9x fire dragons in wave serpent Exarch with fire pike

2x fire prism, holo field

5x harlequins in transport

3x warwalkers with scatter lasers

Mission Goals

Primary was Table Quarters, secondary was Objectives, tertiary was Kill Points.

Deployment

Mechdar

Eldar win the roll off and elect to go first.   Everything Deploys but the Avengers Wave Serpent is in regular reserve and the two pathfinder units infiltrate 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doom Stalkers

I decided to take advantage of the table quarter deployment and castle up, I placed my immortals(1) in reserve, because I knew that it would be important for them to take the bottom left table quarter, also their was a strong likely hood that the rangers were going to end up in that piece of terrain.  If they weren’t I could still veil straight from reserves anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

Turn 1

Eldar

I pulse, he advances and tries to get a shot on my vehicles, however nothing is in range

Necrons

Nemesor removes stealth from the pathfinder unit and gives the Doom Scythe Stealth

I pretty much remain stationary.   Stalker (1) blows up the transport containing the fire dragons and Yriel.  They fail their pinning check.  Stalker two fires on the Warwalkers, killing one and twinlinking the rest of the unit.  Lanceteks fire, both sets miss, however they both get re-rolls thanks to the twin linking and manage to finish off the rest of the squadron

Doom Ark fires at the un-stealthed pathfinders and manages to kill 4, they run and being below half are off the board.

Turn 2

Eldar

Pulsed, they advance trying to get more shots

Fire prisms combine shooting and take out Stalker(1)

Necrons

Scythe gets tank hunter, other pathfinder unit loses stealth

Scythe kills Fire Prism and stuns to shaken the wave serpent

 

Turn 3

Eldar

Eldar destroy the doom scythe(all is as it should be Go one shot weapon) with the autarchs fusion gun

Stalker(2) killed by long shot fire pike from fire dragon exarch

Necron

Remove Stealth from Pathfinders, give Lancetek unit tank hunter

Immortal(1) Arrive and move towards the objective that unstealthed pathfinders are resting on

Immortal(1) Wipes out pathfinder unit with shooting

Doom Ark Kills two fire dragons

Doom Ark and Immortal(2) wipe out 4/5 harlequins

Ahnrakyr Misses with everything for the second turn in a row

 Turn 4

Eldar

Fire dragons load up in wave serpent

Autarch joins avengers that disembarked from their wave serpent

Fire Prism immobilizes ark on a pen, removing shielding

Necron

Traveler Wrecks wave serpent with fly over attack

Both Fire Prism and Wave Serpent are shaken

Bikes sitting on back objective take a wound and run off the table

Fire Dragons are wiped out by Immortals one

At this point the Eldar Concede

Victory to the Necrons

Post Game

I played my immortals much more conservatively this game and it really payed off.  Having them both alive at the end of the game really opened up my options for taking table quarters and objectives.   I think this list will function quite well, however the traveler continues to disappoint.  I feel that without a chronometron he is just not likely to get his powers off.  I have considered dropping his barge and throwing him in with the veil cryptek unit.  However his status as an IC as well as the ability for him to be killed as a result of the unit taking heavy casualties is enough of a deterrent.   One thing I have considered is dropping a Ark and some upgrades for a unit of 6 wraiths that would funtion as a shield for my army as well as a strong counter attack force.  Will try it in my next game to see how the loss of fire power is made up for with the cover saves and close combat potential.

So as I continue my preparations for the NOVA open I am asking my friends to help me play test and modify my lists as necessary.  I am finding that this process is very helpful as I usually go to a tournament with little to no preparation, and it shows on the battlefield.  This time I am play testing a list, making modifications as necessary and trying to kick some ass.  So here is my current incarnation of the list

Doom Stalkers

Nemesor Zahndrekh

Overlord with Weave, warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, and a Command Barge(Dreadnaught proxy)

2x 5 man warrior unit

2 x destruction cryptek, pulse

6 man immortals unit(1)

Despair cryptek both with veil and nightmare shroud

lord with warscythe MSS

6 man immortals unit(2)

Despair cryptek both with veil and nightmare shroud

cryptek with chronometron

2x triarch stalker (1), (2)

1x doom scythe (Storm Raven Proxy)

2x doomsday ark

Mechdar

Yriel

Autarch with fusion gun

2x 7 man rangers squad

3 man guardian bikers with suriken cannon

5x dire avengers in wave serpent

8x fire dragons in wave serpent

2x fire prism, one with holo field

5x harlequins in transport

3x warwalkers with scatter lasers

Mission Goals

Primary was Objectives, secondary was kill points, tertiary was table quarters.

Deployment

Eldar win the roll off for first turn and elect to go second.  I deploy and as expected he reserves everything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn 1

Necrons

I knew he was not going to show up till my turn two, I also know that I will not get assaulted the first turn his units show up as they are all in transports.  For this reason I veiled immortals(1) towards his left objective with Immortals(2) nearby.

 

Turn 2

Necrons

Turn two go really quickly, my CCB and Doom Scythe go flat out to protect themselves with Nemesor giving the Doom Scythe stealth. Nemesors unit teleports towards the middle to sit on the center objective, making all their dangerous terrain test.

Eldar – Pulse is in effect

Everything but the bikes and dire avenger units show up

War Walkers outflank on my right everything else shows up on his back table edge.  Fire dragons disembark to fire on the Catacomb command barge.

Fire dragons cause the CCB to explode, however the necron overlord is not pinned

Scatter lasers open fire, dropping warriors(2) to one unit of warriors reducing them to a lone harbinger of destruction.    He then passes his leadership test to not run, however the other cryptek fails to get up

Turn Three

Necrons

Nemesor gives the Doom Scythe tank hunter and takes away stealth from one of the pathfinder units.

I move to make the most of the shooting available to me.  Immortal(1) teleports over to try and take out the pathfinder units on the right side of the table.  During my shooting phase my Doom Scythe manages to kill the fire prism, and shook the wave serpent.

Warriors kill the walkers through a combination of lances as well as immobilized results from the warriors

Shooting only manages to kill one ranger

Doom Ark shoots at fire dragons, scatters and puts a wound on my overlord

Overlord charges the fire dragons, killing 4 in close combat and making them run off the table.

Eldar

The dire avengers in a wave serpent and jetbikes come in.

Doom Scythe is killed by Bright Lance

Prism Shoots Veil immortal unit without lord, wiping out all but the cryptek.  The lord gets back up

Stalker (1) becomes immobilized, Yriel disembarks and assaults nemesors unit.  He uses his large blast attack, wiping out the unit.

*I made two big mistakes this turn, I forgot about the second prism, I should have ran with my immortals(1) so I could spread out and deal with the rangers with shooting next turn.  the second was forgetting about Yriel being in the transport and not moving nemesors unit back.   However this was a good lesson, if ANYTHING is going to assault you next turn veil away.

Turn 4

Necrons

Stalker(1) kills Yriel

Doom Ark(1) immobilizes harlequin transport

Doom Ark(2) kills two bikes, they pass their test

In assault Overlord kills wave serpent in close combat, dire avengers pass pinning check

Lord and cryptek assault ranger unit 1, killing four and chasing them off the table

Eldar

Wave Serpent kills doom ark(1)

Dire avengers kill overlord as he fails two out of three 2+ Saves

Prism Kills Lord + Cryptek Unit

Everyone fails to get back up

Turn 5

Necrons

Doom Ark(2) moves in an attempt to get a shot on the remaining bike camping the objective

Stalker(2) and Cryptek move to try and contest the objective next turn, trying to get into a different table quarter in the process

Lances blow the cannon off the prism

Eldar

Stalker(1) survives fusion gun from Autarch

Game does not end

 

Turn 6

Necrons

Doom Ark shakes prism

Stalker(1) kills autarch who missed with fusion gun

 

Eldar

Fire Prism flatouts to contest my objective

Rangers pin warriors after causing one casualty

Harlequins and dire avengers charge stalker(1).  Manage to result it to death barely, allowing them to consolidate onto the objective

Game does not end

Turn 7

Necrons

Cryptek fleets to contest.

Gauss Flayer kills fire prism with immobilize result, dire avengers make all their cover saves

Remaining triarch stalker runs and makes it in contest range of the middle objective

Eldar

Lone cryptek contesting the opposite right objective gets shot down

Contesting Stalker is assaulted by harlequins and is wrecked

 

Eldar win on all three objectives

 

I made a lot of little mistakes during the game, that really cost me in the long run.  IF I had moved Immortals(1) and Immortals(2) then it would have been a completely different game.  Sorry about the poor pictures, the placement of our gaming table makes it hard to take good pictures, especially with the blinds in the backround having a lot of light showing through.  I will also try to take better notes during the game for the next battle report.  Still learning how to write these so I hope to improve.

So I tried out the other list and I must say it is starting to go better. I am still having trouble getting my target priorities right for the stalker before firing. I found that 3 wraiths was really not enough as they got bogged down in assault with a unit of attack bikers for 3 rounds and this was with average or slightly above average rolls and rending. Really it needs to be 6 or go home. I also lost because of a poor mobility and not paying attention to the objectives correctly. I had him by one kill point, however in NOVA you need to win by three kill points.  We then tied on objectives and he had more table quarters.  If I had been thinking I could have easily taken two table quarters at which point victory points would have been the next order of business.

I am getting better at playing to the mission, however in a game like this with three tiers of objectives I saw how easily it could go down to the third tier. So I made some adjustments trying to increase the mobility of my units to help with both table quarters and objectives.  I also think that I need to make a spreadsheet that I can fill in as the game goes along, just to make sure that I am keeping track of everything from victory points and kill points to table quarters.  I also think making a cheat sheet with strategies and ideas, as well as some basic 2d6 probabilities as well as vehicle damage probabilities would be helpful.  I find that one of my biggest problems is that I have a strategy and then without really thinking about it modify it on the fly(mainly cryptek placement), forgetting why I put them in that spot in the first place.  So writing it down and having it with me will help prevent these types of errors.

Nemesor Zahndrekh

I need to start thinking further ahead with his powers instead of just doing it on a whim. I need to factor in my opponents turn as well instead of just banking on what will happen this turn. I am starting to see how good he is more and more, but I need to start using him better,

Overlord -  Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, Sempiternal weave

Anrakyr has been a bit of a letdown. Tachyon keeps doing nothing reliably, unfortunately that is mainly my dice and so I should not base him entirely on that, however I am also waiting to see how he gets FAQed in regards to mind in the machine from a transport and if he can’t they much of his use gets restricted. The fact that I am missing out on mindshackle scarabs and Semipiternal weaves is really limiting for him.

Catacomb Command Barge – I have to remember that it has a gun, being able to reliably kill one marine equivalent per turn is not something good to forget.

Triarch Stalker

Triarch Stalker

I need to start getting better with target priority. The plus one on the chart is very powerful from the melta and worse case it can move forward, heavy flamer, and then bog down a unit for a long time.   I also want to try out heat ray to see how it compares.

5 Warriors
1 Harbinger of Destruction – Solar Pulse
1 Harbinger of Destruction

Solid ranged Anti-Tank as well as shutting down shooting for a turn

5 Warriors
1 Harbinger of Destruction – Solar Pulse
1 Harbinger of Destruction

Solid ranged Anti-Tank as well as shutting down shooting for a turn

5 Immortals
1 Harbinger of Destruction
1 Harbinger of Eternity – Chronometron

Nemesor will go with this unit most of the time. The chronometron helps the lance by giving it a re-roll at some point, gives them good survivability against heavy ranged weapons and run in the shooting phase, combined with the monolith they also make a solid table quarter grabber.

9 Immortals
1 Lord – Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs
1 Harbinger of Despair -  Nightmare Shroud, Veil of Darkness

I bought the nightmare shroud because it has good potential. If it works on a unit, I can follow up with 25% casualties making the unit auto run a second time, hopefully putting it off the board. If they are already running use it and the target will auto run again.  With a 27% chance of failing on leadership 8 and 18% chance on leadership 9, not bad for 10 points.  Also it is not a shooting attack and so can be used on a target separate from the rest of the unit.  Mindshackle lord is for assault defense, makes it so if they get charged by regular troopers they have a chance.

I plan to castle up with most of my army, leaving these guys apart.   If my opponent ignores them, great table quarter and objective is mine.  If he does not I teleport away and leave those units flapping in the breeze.

Doomsday Ark

Doomsday Ark

These guys are good, it is just the fact that last game I averaged a 6 inch scatter after BS was factored in.  I am getting better at their placement however and my opponent is finding it more difficult to maneuver safely.

Monolith

I want to try it because it is very durable.  It also will enable me to reposition my army and get units out of trouble areas.  If i can get good at placing decoy units I will hopefully create a tactical dilemma for my opponent as if he goes after them but cant destroy them they get away and he is in a bad position.  Also if I feel the need to put my warriors in reserve I can determine when they are going to come out reliably this way, makes the trek across the table much safer. And reactive deep strike with Nemesor would be handy if it works.

 

Over all a lot of my army is based around limiting my opponents options in movement and shooting as well as forcing him to make choices that I can usually reliably counter either one that could be made.  Unfortunately I am not a good enough general yet to pull this kind of list off, however I hope to get some good practice in over the next few months.