alright, so prepare for a rant!
So earlier today I was discussing army backgrounds with a friend of mine. He has never really played 40k before, and is buying an army for christmas. Now, he has everything planned out. Except for background. And when I asked him, he responded with a statement that someone else would come up with it. Disgusted I regaled him with tales of my regiment. Down to food preferences for some of my men. Yeah, I write books on the guys, Maybe someday you will read them from the black library :D (yeah right they don't accept books, just short stories) anywho so I was explaining it to him, and dare I come to the realization that he wasn't enjoying himself. D:
So that out of the way, that made me think, that people really don't look at this game like I do. For them, its exactly that a game. What else is it? to me it's something deeper. To me its a window into a world that I love to visit. For the tales of glory, and the fights for humanity keep me going back for more. There isn't a game I play that doesn't have deep narrative. I love campaigns for that reason. and every turn I see the explosions, shrapnel and blood, the screams of the dying the cheers of the victorious! and I revel in it!
But to others its tiny models on the table, and statistical probability of victory. V.V that makes me sad inside. That someone would spend as much money as we do, to only have the feeling of victory and competition. Yeah I enjoy that too, but that's only like 5% of why I game. honestly if you want that, there are cheaper ways to get that, and more fun ways to get that. I mean there has to be a little narrative in there! come on just a little!
Deep down I cling to warhammer, not because it's cool, not because I'm any good at it, but because its everything I want in a game. As much realism and creativity as I can cram into 28mm scale. And I eat it up like I do cake (though not any more, I'm losing weight for boot camp, but that's irrelevant).
anywho after all this ranting I am left no wiser, and only with a craving for cake. v.v
Monday, December 20, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Siege Rules
One of the things I've been toying with is the idea of guardsmen defending a strongpoint to the last. Not really original I know. But with a few rule modifications and whatnot, I could see this being really cool.
The biggest rule changes here are in deployment, and in falling back. All of the defenders deploy in the center of a massive board, the floor is really your best bet here. and the defenses should be multi-tiered. Meaning outer wall, inner wall, and keep. Defenders must deploy within the outer wall, no exceptions, no deepstrike, no reserve, no outflank, no scouts, this is it. The enemy may deploy as normal, but infiltrators must be in cover, no matter what, representing them having moved out under the cover of the previous night.
Now for the doozy, falling back. Instead of the normal rules, all units fall back to the next level, and to make it more useful, any defenders who are in close combat may choose to fall back, but they do have to endure one round of CC as per the hit and run special rule. Once a unit has reached the keep (the final wall), they not only become fearless, and gain the counter attack special rule, but count as having scored one extra wound in closecombat, but only for combat resolution. This may stack with the same rule for the Imperial Guard or any other banners, for a max of an extra 2 wounds in combat resolution.
Sound crazy? it should.
So in this world of defenders with special rules, what do the attackers get? well, for starters, they may deploy from any side they choose, how big the board is, is up to you, if you really can't come to a conclusion about 3 feet from the outerwall at any point is a fine marker for the deployment zone.
Also you may give up to three units grapnel hooks, so they may treat the walls as difficult terrain, instead of impassable. The unit you give these to may roll 3 d6 for scaling the wall, as they have been preparing for this moment. Other units may climb the wall after them, so leave a marker in the general area they climbed over the walls. The units climbing after them must treat it as difficult terrain also, and do not get the extra d6.
The attackers may use the special siege towers, up to three, and these siege towers, ideally, are just towers on tank treads, which also act as transports. They are free, have no guns, but may transport up to three units for a total of 25 infantry and allow your units to disembark over the walls. their armor is 12 in front and sides, 8 in rear. Attacking infantry inside may assault the turn they disembark. And the siege towers don't count as killpoints, and in the force organization chart they count as dedicated transports.
Once the attackers breach the outer wall, they smell victory and for that turn have the furious charge rule, and for the remainder of the battle, the counter attack special rule.
Now you can assign armor values to the walls and whatnot, use your imagination, the walls I have are decent, but they don't look impenetrable, so I give them a value of 13.
If your defenders and attackers are even in points, ideally the defenders should have fewer points, by about 15 to 25%, but if they are even consider giving the attackers preliminary bombardment, which gives them D3 large blast templates, fired at BS 2 and still scatter 2d6 on a direct hit, and 3d6 on a scatter
Well thats it for rules, keep in mind this is in no way a super competitive match, but instead the telling of an epic story, and should be played in good fun on a slow afternoon. If you have the models, and hell even if you don't look in the apocalypse rulebook for some extra oomph rules wise. as long as everyone's happy and enjoying the narrative, that's what matters.
No get out there! and man those walls!
The biggest rule changes here are in deployment, and in falling back. All of the defenders deploy in the center of a massive board, the floor is really your best bet here. and the defenses should be multi-tiered. Meaning outer wall, inner wall, and keep. Defenders must deploy within the outer wall, no exceptions, no deepstrike, no reserve, no outflank, no scouts, this is it. The enemy may deploy as normal, but infiltrators must be in cover, no matter what, representing them having moved out under the cover of the previous night.
Now for the doozy, falling back. Instead of the normal rules, all units fall back to the next level, and to make it more useful, any defenders who are in close combat may choose to fall back, but they do have to endure one round of CC as per the hit and run special rule. Once a unit has reached the keep (the final wall), they not only become fearless, and gain the counter attack special rule, but count as having scored one extra wound in closecombat, but only for combat resolution. This may stack with the same rule for the Imperial Guard or any other banners, for a max of an extra 2 wounds in combat resolution.
Sound crazy? it should.
So in this world of defenders with special rules, what do the attackers get? well, for starters, they may deploy from any side they choose, how big the board is, is up to you, if you really can't come to a conclusion about 3 feet from the outerwall at any point is a fine marker for the deployment zone.
Also you may give up to three units grapnel hooks, so they may treat the walls as difficult terrain, instead of impassable. The unit you give these to may roll 3 d6 for scaling the wall, as they have been preparing for this moment. Other units may climb the wall after them, so leave a marker in the general area they climbed over the walls. The units climbing after them must treat it as difficult terrain also, and do not get the extra d6.
The attackers may use the special siege towers, up to three, and these siege towers, ideally, are just towers on tank treads, which also act as transports. They are free, have no guns, but may transport up to three units for a total of 25 infantry and allow your units to disembark over the walls. their armor is 12 in front and sides, 8 in rear. Attacking infantry inside may assault the turn they disembark. And the siege towers don't count as killpoints, and in the force organization chart they count as dedicated transports.
Once the attackers breach the outer wall, they smell victory and for that turn have the furious charge rule, and for the remainder of the battle, the counter attack special rule.
Now you can assign armor values to the walls and whatnot, use your imagination, the walls I have are decent, but they don't look impenetrable, so I give them a value of 13.
If your defenders and attackers are even in points, ideally the defenders should have fewer points, by about 15 to 25%, but if they are even consider giving the attackers preliminary bombardment, which gives them D3 large blast templates, fired at BS 2 and still scatter 2d6 on a direct hit, and 3d6 on a scatter
Well thats it for rules, keep in mind this is in no way a super competitive match, but instead the telling of an epic story, and should be played in good fun on a slow afternoon. If you have the models, and hell even if you don't look in the apocalypse rulebook for some extra oomph rules wise. as long as everyone's happy and enjoying the narrative, that's what matters.
No get out there! and man those walls!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
.... Nuke em.
Alright, lets address something that hardly anyone even considers... the manticore missile launcher and deathstrike ICBM. Alright lets dispel some bullshit. Deathstrike missile launcher can have a 12 inch blast, why? because its not d3+3 inch diameter, its d3+3 inches radius. that 8 to 12 inch blast is str 10 ap 1 and denies coversaves and no center of blast. It also has a 960/unlimited range
(it gives two different values I'm going to say unlimited because its a fucking ICBM). Now the manticore does not have 4 blast templates, it has 4 shots that each give off d3 blasts. So in theory you could have 12 str 10 ap 4 large blasts in one game!
Now that we have that cleared up, lets talk about the downsides. First of all, the deathstrike has a possibility of never firing. Thats never good, especially for a 160 point unit. But thenagain, if it does fire, whatever its aiming at, is probably going to die. If fighting space marines, you could wipe them off the board, landraiders, terminators, tac squads all wiped away from the table. However, by the time it fires, (maybe turn two. Maybe never) it could be too late, meaning the terminators, landraiders, tac squads and such have already done their damage and are now too scattered across the board for you to have a hope of doing anything worth while. but again if you reached that point 160 points would really have made too awful much of a difference, not to mention its something that probably drew his fire away at least a little.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, from one megablast we go to a dozen smaller but still very lethal ones. The manticore is your answer to hordes. Absolutely devastating against large numbers of anything short of a space marine. At it's worst it will get 4 shots, at str 10 large blast with high range and everything, so it's about as good as a basilisk at worst. At best you get the ever devastating 12 large blasts. Now when you use this, keep in mind that you will probably only get 4 shots out of a basalisk or any other artillery/missile launching piece, before it gets blown away or becomes useless in some other manner.
So against hordes are there better options than the manticore? yeah.
Against space marine armies, or tank spam armies, are there better options than the deathstrike? yeah.
so why take em? who doesn't love them some bigass explosions? yeah, that's right, you know you do! and come on, it adds suspense and wonder and a whole lot of surprisingly orky fun to an army that is known as a pretty "safe bet" kind of army.
(it gives two different values I'm going to say unlimited because its a fucking ICBM). Now the manticore does not have 4 blast templates, it has 4 shots that each give off d3 blasts. So in theory you could have 12 str 10 ap 4 large blasts in one game!
Now that we have that cleared up, lets talk about the downsides. First of all, the deathstrike has a possibility of never firing. Thats never good, especially for a 160 point unit. But thenagain, if it does fire, whatever its aiming at, is probably going to die. If fighting space marines, you could wipe them off the board, landraiders, terminators, tac squads all wiped away from the table. However, by the time it fires, (maybe turn two. Maybe never) it could be too late, meaning the terminators, landraiders, tac squads and such have already done their damage and are now too scattered across the board for you to have a hope of doing anything worth while. but again if you reached that point 160 points would really have made too awful much of a difference, not to mention its something that probably drew his fire away at least a little.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, from one megablast we go to a dozen smaller but still very lethal ones. The manticore is your answer to hordes. Absolutely devastating against large numbers of anything short of a space marine. At it's worst it will get 4 shots, at str 10 large blast with high range and everything, so it's about as good as a basilisk at worst. At best you get the ever devastating 12 large blasts. Now when you use this, keep in mind that you will probably only get 4 shots out of a basalisk or any other artillery/missile launching piece, before it gets blown away or becomes useless in some other manner.
So against hordes are there better options than the manticore? yeah.
Against space marine armies, or tank spam armies, are there better options than the deathstrike? yeah.
so why take em? who doesn't love them some bigass explosions? yeah, that's right, you know you do! and come on, it adds suspense and wonder and a whole lot of surprisingly orky fun to an army that is known as a pretty "safe bet" kind of army.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
The Road To Ruin
So Beasts of War recently put up a video on roads. It was shallow, but nonetheless brings up a great point. Why no roads homes? The long and short of it really is, for most I think, how do you make a road? and what do you do with it?
Lets start with how to make a road.
Materials:
a base (foamboard will do, I will be using tempered hard board myself.)
sand (any old sand will do, preferably store bought in this case, as it looks more like asphalt) glue (duh)
and a bit of black paint, water, and a brush to paint it on with.
styrofoam (the kind that comes in regular packaging with the open celled stuff)
small rocks
kitty litter (un-used....at least I hope so.... >.>)
and dirt from your yard
So what on earth do you do? cut the base into strips, approximately 5 inches across and about 12 inches long. Make 8 of these. 8 what am I ever going to do with 8? the more terrain you have, the better, and if you make it now, it will not only match more, but you will never get around to making the same terrain twice, trust me. So what you are gunna do to all your road surfaces is liberally add watered down glue. Then pour your sand over it, let it dry for at least 5 hours if you live in a very humid place. if not, just let it dry longer than you think you should. Next you're gunna want intersections probably, and maybe a few winding roads. If you're gunna do an intersection, I recommend liberally adding rubble. Just break off some styrofoam and cut it into any shape you want, and glue small rocks and kitty litter everywhere. instant rubble. Its important to do this after you add the sand. Next slop a ton of watered down glue onto your rubble and anywhere you want to add dusty effects. Then pour the dirt from your yard over it. This is very fine grain more than likely, and makes fantastic mud for world war one, or in this case dust. This dust will fill in the holes of the open celled styrofoam while also leaving the rubbly feel of it. after allowing time to dry (which can take very long sometimes) Remove excess dirt and whatnot that didn't stick to it. Next add a bit of water to your paint, it should be really watery but also hold the black color. Then paint on as much as you want, if you only add a bit, it will give your roads a worn and gray hue. If you add a lot, a more dark and more gritty look. Now why add the water at all? Put simply, it gives you more and it gets in all the little nooks and crannies without a problem. Side effects may include but are not limited to, WARPING. if you add way too much (something I am often guilty of) then your base could warp. However, I am not one to mind this awful much, its never really that big of a deal.
Alright, if you skipped that section shame on you, but I understand. Now how to use roads. My advice? stay off of them. It's a very easy place for things to go south, and I can't imagine a scenario where the road is heading where you want your vehicle to be going. That said, they make fantastic elements in a campaign, where they can really give some narrative to a battlefield, so use them even if no one has vehicles or if no one is going to use them. Now if your enemy is the type to use roads, there are many things you can do to ruin his day. First, don't shoot the lead vehicle until you're ready. It will get them off the roads and let them out of your control. If you have a unit with demolition charges, melta bombs or a powerfist, sneaking them into a ruin along the road is a good idea. Lastly while you are setting up the battlefield, have a stretch of road with plenty of ruins on each side. Then if possible hit the lead and rear vehicle. Then they are trapped. and risk immobilization in the ruins if they get off the road. It only takes a glancing hit, and odds are the vehicle is going to stand still for the rest of the turn, therefore they all will. Objective placement is also key here, if you keep your objectives just out of reach of the roads, then you will force your opponent's men in the transports to forgo a turn of shooting to run for the objective. So in short, don't use roads yourself, but do use them to know more about your enemy, and predict his moves. Good luck and happy tank hunting!
Lets start with how to make a road.
Materials:
a base (foamboard will do, I will be using tempered hard board myself.)
sand (any old sand will do, preferably store bought in this case, as it looks more like asphalt) glue (duh)
and a bit of black paint, water, and a brush to paint it on with.
styrofoam (the kind that comes in regular packaging with the open celled stuff)
small rocks
kitty litter (un-used....at least I hope so.... >.>)
and dirt from your yard
So what on earth do you do? cut the base into strips, approximately 5 inches across and about 12 inches long. Make 8 of these. 8 what am I ever going to do with 8? the more terrain you have, the better, and if you make it now, it will not only match more, but you will never get around to making the same terrain twice, trust me. So what you are gunna do to all your road surfaces is liberally add watered down glue. Then pour your sand over it, let it dry for at least 5 hours if you live in a very humid place. if not, just let it dry longer than you think you should. Next you're gunna want intersections probably, and maybe a few winding roads. If you're gunna do an intersection, I recommend liberally adding rubble. Just break off some styrofoam and cut it into any shape you want, and glue small rocks and kitty litter everywhere. instant rubble. Its important to do this after you add the sand. Next slop a ton of watered down glue onto your rubble and anywhere you want to add dusty effects. Then pour the dirt from your yard over it. This is very fine grain more than likely, and makes fantastic mud for world war one, or in this case dust. This dust will fill in the holes of the open celled styrofoam while also leaving the rubbly feel of it. after allowing time to dry (which can take very long sometimes) Remove excess dirt and whatnot that didn't stick to it. Next add a bit of water to your paint, it should be really watery but also hold the black color. Then paint on as much as you want, if you only add a bit, it will give your roads a worn and gray hue. If you add a lot, a more dark and more gritty look. Now why add the water at all? Put simply, it gives you more and it gets in all the little nooks and crannies without a problem. Side effects may include but are not limited to, WARPING. if you add way too much (something I am often guilty of) then your base could warp. However, I am not one to mind this awful much, its never really that big of a deal.
Alright, if you skipped that section shame on you, but I understand. Now how to use roads. My advice? stay off of them. It's a very easy place for things to go south, and I can't imagine a scenario where the road is heading where you want your vehicle to be going. That said, they make fantastic elements in a campaign, where they can really give some narrative to a battlefield, so use them even if no one has vehicles or if no one is going to use them. Now if your enemy is the type to use roads, there are many things you can do to ruin his day. First, don't shoot the lead vehicle until you're ready. It will get them off the roads and let them out of your control. If you have a unit with demolition charges, melta bombs or a powerfist, sneaking them into a ruin along the road is a good idea. Lastly while you are setting up the battlefield, have a stretch of road with plenty of ruins on each side. Then if possible hit the lead and rear vehicle. Then they are trapped. and risk immobilization in the ruins if they get off the road. It only takes a glancing hit, and odds are the vehicle is going to stand still for the rest of the turn, therefore they all will. Objective placement is also key here, if you keep your objectives just out of reach of the roads, then you will force your opponent's men in the transports to forgo a turn of shooting to run for the objective. So in short, don't use roads yourself, but do use them to know more about your enemy, and predict his moves. Good luck and happy tank hunting!
Friday, December 3, 2010
A word on Air Cav
what use is the valkyrie and vendetta other than popping tanks and generally being hard for the enemy to kill? its a transport, but a half assed one. In order to have true air cavalry you would need a lot of things. and before I delve into the list of all the stuff that would be necessary lets take a look at what makes Air Cav decent... despite the incredible cost :(
So what exactly is Air Cavalry? flying horses? basically its when all your troops, generally light infantry, have a very mobile helicopter, or in this case a valkyrie. Typically the major advantage to this is real warfare, is that you can get to important places quickly, and well ahead of the enemy. However in Warhammer 40k, we don't have to worry about moving the troops around, because we are all gentlemen and totally shake hands that we will stand in massive lines and whatnot. So what advantage is mobility to a guard army in 40k? not a whole lot... if you wanna run this, its probably best you rely mainly on the power of your valks and vendettas. However, if you run vets with demolition charges, meltaguns, shotguns, and you have Harker and Bastonne as well as stocking up on one Colonel Straken, you don't have a plan that will necessarily suck. and you get the fun of fielding a badass air cavalry unit. Not to mention, you would have a lot of flexibility, and it would come in very handy in an apocalypse game, where you can just zip around securing objectives where necessary.
Really, there is a decent strategy against any type of army. your opponent relies heavily on tanks? zip over or deep strike disembark lads and pop em with meltaguns. Fighting an assault heavy army? take out their big guns and then shoot them from a distance playing the Tau game of fire and retreat. Fighting an army relying on a gunline? fly up there blast em with the valks, and hit em with the shotguns and meltas.
All in all, its probably not the best kind of army to run with. Not to mention you won't have a lot on the table, and your men will still be regular guardsmen with crappy 5+ saves, and toughness 3. and the biggest kicker for me is, in order to do this you would need like 8 valkyries, which clocks in at $500. HOWEVER. your men will die with incredible style, and people will be jealous of how cool your Vietnam War themed army is... not recommended, but doable and loved by dog faced soldiers everywhere.
So what exactly is Air Cavalry? flying horses? basically its when all your troops, generally light infantry, have a very mobile helicopter, or in this case a valkyrie. Typically the major advantage to this is real warfare, is that you can get to important places quickly, and well ahead of the enemy. However in Warhammer 40k, we don't have to worry about moving the troops around, because we are all gentlemen and totally shake hands that we will stand in massive lines and whatnot. So what advantage is mobility to a guard army in 40k? not a whole lot... if you wanna run this, its probably best you rely mainly on the power of your valks and vendettas. However, if you run vets with demolition charges, meltaguns, shotguns, and you have Harker and Bastonne as well as stocking up on one Colonel Straken, you don't have a plan that will necessarily suck. and you get the fun of fielding a badass air cavalry unit. Not to mention, you would have a lot of flexibility, and it would come in very handy in an apocalypse game, where you can just zip around securing objectives where necessary.
Really, there is a decent strategy against any type of army. your opponent relies heavily on tanks? zip over or deep strike disembark lads and pop em with meltaguns. Fighting an assault heavy army? take out their big guns and then shoot them from a distance playing the Tau game of fire and retreat. Fighting an army relying on a gunline? fly up there blast em with the valks, and hit em with the shotguns and meltas.
All in all, its probably not the best kind of army to run with. Not to mention you won't have a lot on the table, and your men will still be regular guardsmen with crappy 5+ saves, and toughness 3. and the biggest kicker for me is, in order to do this you would need like 8 valkyries, which clocks in at $500. HOWEVER. your men will die with incredible style, and people will be jealous of how cool your Vietnam War themed army is... not recommended, but doable and loved by dog faced soldiers everywhere.
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