Light Gaming

It's been a while since I wrote about video games. I have been playing a few things in the intervening time, though. Some quick thoughts:

Cube World - Yes, it finally released after many years of limbo and/or development hell. It's charming, but not all that interesting, after all.

Slay the Spire - This is a very cool deck-building card game crossed with a roguelike dungeon crawler. The only thing I don't love about it (aside from the art) is that your run of an hour or two can come down to sheer mathematics and you can lose for the mere want of a point of mana or damage. If only there was some kind of user tilt ability to call on in such times.

Assassin's Creed Syndicate - It's that year's model of Assassin's Creed games. This will sound like I am giving it short shrift, but I do actually enjoy these games and I am having a lot of fun with Syndicate, too. I do plan to buckle down and complete it, if perhaps not to go and find every single little collectible.

The Outer Worlds - It's like Obsidian wanted to keep making Fallout after New Vegas, but to reign in the scope some and improve some of technical aspects. I was having a pretty good time with the first few hours. I'm not certain I'll go back for more, but I may.

Wargroove - A solid strategy game but with an overly wordy and kitcshy pseudo anime storyline. These are so unwelcome that I'd honestly rather play a different solid strategy game.

I've been less concerned with video games in the last year or two, having discovered the Warhammer hobby. I would expect this to continue.

Last year I did make somewhat of an effort to find a GOTY candidate, but I really don't think I can be bothered for 2019. I might make a cursory nomination, but I've played so few new games it would be more of a de facto GOTY than a recommendation.

Astra Militarum vs Necrons 11/22/19

This game I played against an oddly-weighted necron force. It was 56 Power Level (to my 55), but 36 of that 56 was taken up by three flyers you will see below. The remainder was one 20-model unit of necron warriors, and then just a couple of characters that, from what I gathered, provided buffs to the troops.

I had played this person and these necron warriors before (minus the flyers), so I knew going in that the smart play was going to be to try to completely kill off the 20 warrior unit so that it couldn't attempt to regenerate models using it's Reanimation Protocols ability.

We were playing a mission from Chapter Approved 2018 where there were three objectives, one in the middle, and one in each player's deployment zones. You would score victory points at the beginning of your turn based on what what you controlled. The objective in your deployment was worth one, the one in the middle of the board was worth two, and the one in your opponent's deployment zone was worth three points, if I recall. 

I was running a Battalion, a Vanguard, and a Spearhead detachment, for a total of 10 CP. I spent one to take an extra relic, and another 2 to designate my Leman Russ Punisher as an Officio Prefectus Command Tank, basically giving it the Commissar ability to share it's (now) 9 Leadership in an aura out to 6". A normal Leman Russ has only 7 Leadership. Anyway, I was beginning the game with 7 CP to burn.

We were using Dawn of War deployment, and I deployed first, my entire army, after which he deployed his entire army, and then I took the first turn. He tried to seize the initiative, but failed.

Pics of deployment: 

To begin with, I considered using Preliminary Bombardment, but the stratagem doesn't actually seem all that good for a cost of 2 CP. You roll a die for each enemy unit, and on a 6, they suffer one mortal wound. Yeah, not that good?

So in my first turn I did some moving of guys up toward the mid-field objective. I advanced my Vostroyan squad deployed in the center up toward it, along with a platoon commander. Then I advanced my Cadians on the far right up toward the center objective point, also, and in the process built a line of them to screen my Leman Russ tanks from any potential chargers. Not that it was likely, but it's good practice, good doctrine. Along with them, the command squad and company Commander and Aradia Madellan all advanced up the board toward the center objective.

In the shooting phase, I issued a bunch of orders to buff shooting with rerolling 1s, along with a Move Move Move! order (move again, advancing, instead of shooting) to my Vostroyans to get them all the way to the mid-field objective. I also shot my heavy weapons squad of autocannons at one of his flyers, taking a wound off of it. My Leman Russ with the battle cannon was able to shoot into the necron warriors with its turret weapon, but the Punisher Autocannon was out of its 24" range. Both tanks could shoot with their heavy bolter sponsons and lascannon hull weapons, though. Together they took out a handful of the necrons, five or six, maybe. Aside from them, all I had left to shoot with were a few pistols that were all out of range. Everyone else had advanced. I realize now I could have given the appropriate order to shoot after having advanced, but I think I had given the Cadian's Move Move Move! as well... or something. 

I had forgotten to take a Psychic Phase this turn and only realized it after I was done shooting. With this, my first turn was done.

In the necrons turn, the warriors regenerated 2-3 models, and moved up to challenge my Vostroyans for the mid-field objective, and their flyers flew right up to where my Valhallans and heavy weapons teams were over on the left side.

In the necrons' shooting phase, the warriors killed all my Vostroyans to take the mid-field objective, and the flyers killed my whole heavy weapons squad, all three teams, and blew up my Leman Russ with the battle cannon. It even exploded, dealing mortal wounds to several units nearby. I lost a couple guys from my command squad, a commissar, a couple of Cadians, and my company commander and Aradia Madellan each took wounds, as well. 

This was a pretty disastrous turn early in the game.

I wasn't done, though. In my second movement phase, I used the Valhallan stratagem (my whole army is counted as Valhallans) Send In The Next Wave! to bring back my heavy weapons squad, this time with perfect line of sight to the necron warriors.

I remembered to use Psychic powers this turn, getting in Smite from Aradia and Psychic Maelstrom from my anonymous Primaris Psyker on the necron warriors. I think they took out 4 models, combined.

In shooting, I issued a bunch of orders (turns out I tripled up on my Cadians when I should have only been able to issue them a single order... oops), and then I was able to use my Leman Russ Punisher (now in range), my heavy weapons squad, the remaining Cadians, Yarrick's storm bolter, and the Valhallan squad on the left to target the necron warriors, who were spread out pretty wide due to being a 20-model size to begin with. I killed quite a few, such that they went down to only five left on the field. 

Then, hoping to finish the job, I charged my Cadians into the warriors. Unfortunately they didn't kill any, but neither did they get killed in the fighting back. In the end it was the morale test that finished off the necron warriors, but I am counting that as the main victory of this game.

In the enemy's second turn, all they were left with were the three flyers and two characters. However, he accrued more victory points for controlling the middle objective, and had also previously gotten first blood, so he was ahead of me in those terms. 

From the state of the board here (ignore his warriors he placed in the upper right; they're dead and and should be off the table), I think I would have had it wrapped up, but who knows. It may have been a close fight if his flyers were able to stay on the board... I think they may have had to fly off, though. And I would have easily killed his two characters, either way. 

But alas, we were playing at the store and had to pack up at 8:00. Unfortunately we didn't get started until probably 6:20ish, since he had been playing another guy before, and there wasn't anyone else there to play.

Broken Alliance

This is the first game of 40K I have ever played with more than one opponent. We had three people wanting to play, and a full size table available, so we decided to look up a three-player mission, and found one from an earlier edition of the game, called Broken Alliance. The scenario is that three armies are meeting to agree to a truce, with three leaders in the center of the map meeting at an objective point, and each army at a base camp around the edge of the board, spaced out away from each other and the center objective. 

Something goes wrong at the meeting of leaders, and it comes to blows, and the battle is on! Each force must maintain control of its base camp and try to control the middle objective to win at the end of five battle rounds. Players roll off, and the winner deploys their whole army, followed by the second highest roller, and then last. Then, to determine turn order, players roll off again, and play proceeds in that same order. But, starting with the second battle round, the player who went first last round goes last, and the other two roll off for which player goes first. So, this allows for players to have back to back turns if they end up going last one round and get first in the next, which happend twice in this game, actually. 

There are a few other rules, like close combat can only ever be between two of the forces, while the third can then shoot into that combat, since they don't really care who they hit! When the third force fires into combat of the other two, they choose the target unit, but for every successful hit you then roll a D6, and on a 4+ the target unit is hit, but otherwise other enemy force's unit is hit! 

My opponents were another Astra Militarum player heavy on Militarum Tempestus and with a couple of Leman Russ tanks, and my usual opponent who plays Blood Angels. Here's what deployment looked like:

I had Yarrick out in the middle as my Warlord. He was joined there by the Blood Angels' Smash Captain, and a Tempestor Prime.

I got to go first, and so moved most of my stuff up to get firing angles on the other forces, keeping a tank on my base camp, which is the piece of ruins terrain in the bottom right here. Yarrick moved way from the objective back toward the rest of the army.

I tried Smite, but it didn't go off, even with a Command Re-roll. I also did some shooting with all my stuff, killing a couple of Blood Angels Scouts with that. I forgot to issue any orders with my Commander or Yarrick on this first turn.

Next it was the other Guard force's turn. He did some movement, and also engaged some scouts that the Blood Angels had in forward cover.

Then, on the Blood Angels turn, The smash Captain  charged into this large mass of stuff. He can't be fired upon in Overwatch, due to a relic he is carrying.

The Blood Angels Biker Smash Captain also charged my Cadians. I could fire Overwatch here, but I don't think it did anything. Maybe one wound at most.

The Blood Angels' Phobos Librarian also moved to engage the other Guard force.

In Fighting, the Blood Angels chose to fight the Bike Captain first, so I played Counter-Offensive to jump the line and fight with Yarrick before the Jump Pack Smash Captain could fight him. Yarrick Did a couple of wounds on him using his trusty Power Klaw. The Captain would fight back, taking Yarrick down to 1 wound, then fight again with Honour the Chapter, to finally kill Yarrick.

The Biker Smasher could only kill so many guys, because he only had so many swings. I should note here I'm not losing much of anything to morale, because my army is all using the Valhallan regimental doctrine, where they halve the number added to the morale role (guys lost that turn). Also, they're close to the Commissar, who can lend them his 9 Ld characteristic.

Blood Angels roll well and get back-to-back turns, so they go again. Scouts move up a little.

Other scouts move up a little, and Terminator Cpt deep-strikes in. Both are at 9" intending to charge.

The Phobos Librarian charges into some storm troopers.

The next pic is a bit later on, after my white tank has been charged and dealt a couple of wounds, and I've been able to fall back with it. My Cadians are all gone now, and my Valhallans have also fallen back away from the Jump Pack Cpt.

Another POV

Action on the far side of the table. He has moved up his Leman Russ tanks to fire on both me and the Blood Angels

By this point my white tank has taken out the Biker Cpt. with the combined 40 Punisher Assault Cannon shots, two heavy bolters, and its lascannon. After that round, the Blood Angels had to leave the battlefield for pizza on their battle barge, so it came down to just my regiment and the Miltarum Tempestus across the table.

I began to move my Vostroyans up toward the point, casting Psychic Barrier on my white tank, because it would likely be a target for his two tanks, and also buffing it's ability to hit, rerolling 1s via an order from my Company Commander.

The opposing Guard did some shooting at me, and I lost a couple of my Vostroyans heading up to the objective.

Another POV.

My Vostoryans made it to the objective, and my tanks remained in range to deal as much damage as they could to his units.

At this point, the traitor Guard conceded the field to me. 

This was a really fun way to play. I neglected to get photos of some of the stuff in the middle, but it was a pretty relaxed game, with the Blood Angels splitting their attacks between the two of us others, and the other Guard force mostly concentrating on fighting them, like I was, until they quit the field and left us two Guard forces roughly equally battered, to fight each other.

As I mentioned before, both other players ended up with back-to-back turns, which can really swing an armies fate, whether it's them that get it, or its them that is on the receiving end of back-to-back shooting phases. This mission was really easy to adapt to 8th edition rules, even though it was originally published for Fifth, by what I was reading. I found a link to it on Reddit. I'll have to have a look through all my other books for more multi-player missions. I know Kill Team has a couple, at least.

White Scars vs Blood Angels 70 PL

This was shaping up to be an interesting game. My opponent and I both made some mistakes and bad calls, and that was leading to a could-go-either-way mid-game, but we called it after the second full battle round because there likely wouldn't have been time to do a complete third one. I got caught up in playing this game, and so took fewer pics, especially during my turns, but I'll illustrate what I can here.

We were playing at 70 power level, or approximately. I think his list may have been closer to 65, which mine effectively was only 66, because I had a unit (Reivers) that never came in from deep strike limbo.

He was playing what he has settled into as his Blood Angels list, which is a lot of Scouts and Eliminators in cover, and a trio of smash captains. He also brought along a Vindicare Assassin this time, as well. I was playing a Batallion and Vanguard for 9 CP, but I spent 2 on an extra Warlord Trait for my Chaplain, and an extra relic for my Ancient.

We elected to play on a full 6x4 size board, using Dawn of War deployment, and a mission from the core 40K book, but I forget the title. It uses four objective points, though.

Deployment. These shots are actually from a little bit into the first turn, but not too far to see where things began.


Over on my far left, I put a unit of Intercessors to advance up to a nearby objective, then a little to the right of them a unit of Terminators, then to the right of them behind the shipping crate I had put my Scout Bikers and Khan on Bike, then past the shipping crate, another unit of Intercessors, my Librarian, Lieutenant, and Chaplain, then continuing right into the ruins, a Tactical Squad of 10, my Primaris Ancient, my Assault Terminators out front of the ruins, and finally far over to the right flank, my last unit of Intercessors on the yellow Mechanics thing. I set up my Reivers in deep strike, planning to bring them into play near where he had set up a unit of Eliminators and his Vindicare, in order to stab and cut them down as one does.




From the pic of his deployment, you can see that he set up like four units of Scouts in the middle of the board on an objective there, then put Eliminators in a few high spots in cover, a unit of Aggressors in the middle third of the board in some ruins, two smash captains in cover (one in deep strike), and the tall ruins on his left flank where more Eliminators and the Vindicare were.

After deployment, I won the roll off, so I went first.



The first thing I did was to declare Devastator doctrine, then get a Litany going (buffing charges), then move my left side Intercessors up to the nearby objective, move my Terminators up to take shots at the Eliminators up on the AoS terrain piece, move my Khan and Scout bikes up close to the mid-board forest packed with Scouts and his Phobos Librarian. I also moved my Lieutenant up to a spot where he could buff as many units around him as possible, then advanced my Assault Terminators toward the mid-board pack of Scouts, along with my Primaris Ancient, though this turned out to be unnecessary, and I would later bring him back. I had a couple of Intercessor squad and my Tactical squad remain still to shoot at range with Bolter Discipline.



During my Psychic phase, I used Smite and rolled double 6, suffering 3 mortal wounds to Perils of the Warp, but then doing 4 mortal wounds to his nearby Eliminators, removing two of them off the bat. Nice! If I recall correctly, I used a command re-roll on the D6 to determine wounds dealt, because I had rolled a one, which is crap on a D6 Smite! Down to 6 CP.

In Shooting, nothing much of substance happened. I am not certain any models were removed, but I think I may have done a wound to his Eliminator squad on the right side of the board in cover.

Charge phase, I got my Khan, Assault Terminators, and Ancient into his forces in the middle of the board, but sadly my Scout Bikers failed their charge! I was out of range of the Chaplain's buff for them, as well...

When combat began, my Khan  and Terminators pasted one squad of Scouts, and all but one model of a second. Consolidation brought his Librarian into the fight, which he then fought back with, along with the remaining Scout. I used Honour the Chapter on my Khan, to knock a few wounds off his Librarian. Down to 3 CP.



After that it was his turn, and when he attempted to Fall back with his Librarian, I played Butchered Quarry (down to 1 CP), to give all my Terminators a free swing at him, and killed him. Rock! He also fell back with that lone Scout still in combat there. He did some other moving stuff around, namely bringing his Aggressors out of the Ruins they were in, and his Biker smash captain and some scouts up to my left-side objective with my Intercessors, and playing his remove-then-deep-strike strat with his jump pack smash captain:



Here I played Auspex Scan but had no luck with it. Down to zero CP!



In Shooting, he threw everything his Aggressors had at my Scout Bikers but didn't do a single wound. I have no idea how this happened, but there you have it. These are Boltstorm Guantlet and missile pod type ones, mind you. T5 for the win?



His Scouts over on the left side conversely did some work with their Bolt Pistols, accounting for two Intercessors!



Then he shot some Eliminators at my Scout Bikers and missed again!



Next used his Eliminators and Vincidare and shot and killed both my Khan (Executioner rounds from the Eliminators) and my Chaplain (Vindicare with the escalating rolling for mortal wounds garbage)




Then it was Charge phase, so he brought in his Smash Captains:



Honestly, neither the jump pack or biker one did a ton in their first round of fighting. My Lieutenant only took one attack of the five or six aimed at him, so he survived. My Intercessors lost two guys to his biker. My fighting back I think resulted in a wound or two from my Leiutenant, but nothing from my Intercessors. He'd declared charges against my Librarian and other Intercessor unit also, and they had Piled In, and maybe done a wound or two to the jump pack smasher, who was tough to kill though because he had a 3+ invuln and 5+ feel no pain, rerolling ones on that.

Then it was my turn again, and I forgot to change the doctrine, and I forgot to bring in my Reivers, but I did move my Scout Bikers and Terminators over to the left to help out my remaining Intercessor to smash through his Scouts and engage his Biker captain:



In Psychic, I casted Smite on his jump pack smasher, and I think did one wound, which he was able to roll a FNP for. I also put Storm-Wreathed onto my 10-man Tactical Squad thinking that would result in enough Mortal Wounds (potentially one per charging model, on a 6) to finish off the jump pack smasher.

Shooting was uneventful, because many of my units had fallen back out of combat (in order to charge back in for Shock Assault). I don't think any models died in this phase.

I Charged everything back into his smashers. (The pic above and this below)



I finally managed to bring down the jump pack smasher, only just, with everything around him. The Biker was still living, with like four wounds to go yet, if I recall correctly.

And, I charged my Assault Terminators into his Aggressors!



I lost a single Terminator on that charge to his 2x Overwatch, but then in Fighting they killed two of the Aggressors. He fought back with the one, but didn't do anything. His biker smasher fighting back killed my unit of Scout Bikers, I believe.

This is about where we called the game, but he had also brought in his Terminator smash captain at some point, which was near the middle of the board, but that I guess I never got a pic of.

In a final tally of victory points, it came out to 9 to 8, in his favor, though he said he felt like I would have won if I'd moved my Scout Bikers to the middle point instead and kept control of it. Also we both felt the game could have gone anywhere from this point, but alas we had to pack up and leave.

I was a little frustrated by not remembering to advance the doctrine and to bring in my Reivers in my second turn. I guess that's just part of being a good general and being good at the game, though--remembering to do everything.