For BT...

It’s been a looooong time since anything was posted here, but I was able to actually play a game so I figured I had more than 141 characters worth of thought.

BT stopped by and we played with our plastic/resin men.  It was a game of firsts, my first game of 7^th (as sad as that seems) and my first game of 30k (again, another sad statistic based on the amount of time and energy I’ve put into my models in the past year).  My pre-game impressions of 30k were that a). it would be quicker and deadlier and b). it would be more a more balanced game than 40k.  One game isn’t exactly a fair test of these theories, but it seems like they held fairly true.  On paper the balance is much stronger since everyone is drawing from the same base list, it’s the rites of war and legion specific units that add spice.  I would guess that BT agrees with the deadlier part.  Our game only lasted till turn 3 when it became apparent that he just couldn’t capture enough of the objectives to turn the tide.

My deployment

While I won’t get crazy with the details, here’s a quick overview.  We played 2000 points, I played Death Guard, BT took his Emperors Children.  We set up 6 mysterious objectives and used the tactical objective cards.  Each of us started on two objectives with two more objectives in the middle of the table (we played short side deployment, I have no idea what its called now).

Tactical Squads holding tactical objectives...tactically.

BT’s army was a mix of tactical squads for objective holding and a gigantic bike squad that contained no less than 43 HQ choices.  For my Death Guard I took some tactical squads and support units, a contemptor, a few tanks and a big squad of Grave Wardens with Typhon.  My tactics were simple and death guardy.  I would slowly advance on the middle objectives while shooting the piss out of BT’s tactical squads.  My rite of war was my style, the reaping, a slow, unrelenting advance.  My tact squads stayed back and held the objectives while everything else moved forward in a big line.

my slow advance

The Sicaran distributed large amounts of "pew-pew"

Things pretty much went 100% my way.  BT lacked long range shooting which allowed me to nearly eliminate 1 of his squads and hamper a few others in the 2 turns of shooting I got in before our lines clashed.  On top of that I got a decent hand of tactical objective cards and it helped swing the game in my favor even more.  The game took a turn when my Grave Wardens were able to destroy a tactical squad in one turn and in the next hold back BT’s giant bike unit.  The bike unit  (the one with 2 praetors, 7 stylists, a photographer, 17 librarians and a few apothecaries) did lots of damage and hit like a brick but it couldn’t crack my terminators 2+ save.  After two rounds of combat and despite losing half the Grave Wardens (and Typhon) the bikers broke from combat.  That gave me 4 objectives to BT’s 2, by then it was apparent that BT had lost too much ground and far too many fancy-pants purple armored warriors (perfect my ass!). 

My Grave Wardens vs. the Tactical Squad

Reapin'

Grave Wardens vs. Bikers

My main take away from the game was the tactical objective cards and how they function.  They make 7^th edition a totally different game and are a blast.  I’m really anxious to try a few mores games with them (and see how my Necrons work in the new edition with their new codex).

Making a list and playing a game of 30k has made me realize a few shortcomings in my collection.  I still need more tactical marines, just a few to flesh out some units but it seems that having at least 30 tactical marines is where you want to be.  I could also use some more sergeant type guys armed differently, currently I just have two, that’s not going to cut it.  All in all it was a great game and really got my appetite wet to try some more games of 30k…not just because I have about 6000 points of pre-heresy Death Guard fully painted. 

My Death Guard...no, I don't have a problem, why do you ask?

Speaking of painting, I’m still working hard at it.  I’ve gotten into a rhythm of painting most mornings for about 30-40 minutes before I head into work.  That has allowed me to average around 1 completed unit every 2-3 weeks.  Currently I’m working on some Mechanicum forces to go with my Death Guard.  In addition I’ve been tempted to try my hand a painting a few different legion colors for fun, but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.  I will try a test model of Emperors Children for BT, but no promises, purple is a tough color.   Besides that, I’ve got a few Necron models to finish up and now that Tomb Blades are actually useful I’m more motivated to try and paint them.  That should do it…maybe if I get some more games in I make another post in 6 more months.