Guardsman, guardsman, guardsman...
Monday I am playing a game, but do not yet know who my opponent will be. Chris has promised Stu a game of fantasy if he gets his Warriors of Chaos ready in time, if he doesn't Rich will bring High Elves to face him. Whoever doesn't play Stu is playing me at 40K. Which means I could face Tau, Tau, Chaos, Chaos, or marines. In the chaos sense there are the options of a Tzeentch force, a Nurgle army, or if I play Rich a nurgle plus Lash Prince and probably Tzeentch as well just for shits and giggles. If marines it's Raven Guard, often a drop pod marine army. Led by Vulkan Hestan and Tygerius (obviously they've been transferred from the Salamanders and Ultramarines respectively... guess they got the Dawn of War bug.)
Anyway, I decided to draw up my army now. As far as I know none of them read this blog, so it should be a surprise. I decided to go for what the imperial guard is all about. The common soldier. And lot's of them.
So, here's a basic run down of my army.
HQ: Command Squad, led by Straken again (I like the guy what can I say) set up to assault any gribblies that get in my lines as best they can. Officer of the fleet, and a couple bits to improve their cover save and give them feel no pain (in case someone decides quite wisely that they should shoot the commander first.)
HQ: Another Command Squad, equipped with power fist and the same upgrades to try to minimise the chance of them getting pasted first. Again an officer of the fleet (knowing my potential opponents make use of the dreaded drop pod marine army and annoying deep strike straight into assault lesser daemons I figured it was a wise investment. If I face Tau I expect it'll be an unwise point sink, and I wouldn't put two in a balanced army. But in this case it's worth it.
E: Sly Marbo. Plenty of fun and cheap, and again it's a character I've missed from the old Catachan codex.
T: Infantry Platoon 1. Command with vox. 5 infantry squads with vox and meltagun. 2 mortar heavy weapon squads, 1 lascannon heavy weapon squad.
T: Infantry platoon 2. Command with vox. 5 infantry squads with vox and meltagun. 1 lascannon heavy weapon squad, 3 missile launcher heavy weapon squads.
T: Penal Legion Squad
T: Penal Legion Sqaud
I've included the penal legions as they proved quite useful last time, and I want to see how they perform with more chance to get a variety of results. This is a test case. I went with plenty of heavy weapons, and I'll build a bastian around the command squads so I can get the best effect from the orders system. Another thing I noticed. It specifically states in the codex, in the infantry platoon heading "Each Infantry Platoon counts as a single Troops choice on the force organisation chart when deploying, and is rolled for collectively when rolling for reserves." I may have to ask in GW what they think that means in the Dawn of War scenario, it would be interesting to put down over 100 troops as my starting force.
The final thing up for evaluation will be the value of voxes. A double 6 that renders the orders phase over is a ngihtmare to be avoided at all costs, and that is where the vox comes in. But thus far I have noticed that most of my orders have been to heavy weapon squads, which can't have vox. In the last game the only other squad I ordered was a penal legion, and they can't have vox either. I think I'll keep a track in my next game how many times I actually get a re-roll. This army has spent 70 points on voxes. If I only get a couple of rerolls in the game, that 70 points may be better spent on yet another squad of infantry. Not entirely necessary in THIS list perhaps... but an interesting test of whether voxes will be mch use to me in future.
Anyway, a review of this will come on Monday evening. As for the weekend, payday has arrived so I shall be heading to the workshop. I intend to get a Catachan command squad, and the first of many Valkyries. I also want to pick up a box of catachan troops to utilise more of the command squad sprue, and may pick up a couple more sentinal models, as they just made my favourite model even cooler. Gotta love payday :oD
Anyway, I decided to draw up my army now. As far as I know none of them read this blog, so it should be a surprise. I decided to go for what the imperial guard is all about. The common soldier. And lot's of them.
So, here's a basic run down of my army.
HQ: Command Squad, led by Straken again (I like the guy what can I say) set up to assault any gribblies that get in my lines as best they can. Officer of the fleet, and a couple bits to improve their cover save and give them feel no pain (in case someone decides quite wisely that they should shoot the commander first.)
HQ: Another Command Squad, equipped with power fist and the same upgrades to try to minimise the chance of them getting pasted first. Again an officer of the fleet (knowing my potential opponents make use of the dreaded drop pod marine army and annoying deep strike straight into assault lesser daemons I figured it was a wise investment. If I face Tau I expect it'll be an unwise point sink, and I wouldn't put two in a balanced army. But in this case it's worth it.
E: Sly Marbo. Plenty of fun and cheap, and again it's a character I've missed from the old Catachan codex.
T: Infantry Platoon 1. Command with vox. 5 infantry squads with vox and meltagun. 2 mortar heavy weapon squads, 1 lascannon heavy weapon squad.
T: Infantry platoon 2. Command with vox. 5 infantry squads with vox and meltagun. 1 lascannon heavy weapon squad, 3 missile launcher heavy weapon squads.
T: Penal Legion Squad
T: Penal Legion Sqaud
I've included the penal legions as they proved quite useful last time, and I want to see how they perform with more chance to get a variety of results. This is a test case. I went with plenty of heavy weapons, and I'll build a bastian around the command squads so I can get the best effect from the orders system. Another thing I noticed. It specifically states in the codex, in the infantry platoon heading "Each Infantry Platoon counts as a single Troops choice on the force organisation chart when deploying, and is rolled for collectively when rolling for reserves." I may have to ask in GW what they think that means in the Dawn of War scenario, it would be interesting to put down over 100 troops as my starting force.
The final thing up for evaluation will be the value of voxes. A double 6 that renders the orders phase over is a ngihtmare to be avoided at all costs, and that is where the vox comes in. But thus far I have noticed that most of my orders have been to heavy weapon squads, which can't have vox. In the last game the only other squad I ordered was a penal legion, and they can't have vox either. I think I'll keep a track in my next game how many times I actually get a re-roll. This army has spent 70 points on voxes. If I only get a couple of rerolls in the game, that 70 points may be better spent on yet another squad of infantry. Not entirely necessary in THIS list perhaps... but an interesting test of whether voxes will be mch use to me in future.
Anyway, a review of this will come on Monday evening. As for the weekend, payday has arrived so I shall be heading to the workshop. I intend to get a Catachan command squad, and the first of many Valkyries. I also want to pick up a box of catachan troops to utilise more of the command squad sprue, and may pick up a couple more sentinal models, as they just made my favourite model even cooler. Gotta love payday :oD
I think that GW intend for you to be able to deploy two entire platoons as two troops choices for DOW games. As you said they do point out they are deployed as a single troops choice. Which answers that question.
ReplyDeleteI think the orders system sounds like fun. However if you are giving out orders obviously i'd give things like "first line fire" out to the squads with voxes before "shoot the big un" to the heavy weapons squads. I think they intended this to try to even out the effectiveness of orders.
Checked in at GW today, they agree entirely with me. Given this was written AFTER 5th ed it seems clear they put that in to tidy up any DOW related questions.
ReplyDeleteThere are two problems to your "tell the lasguns with voxes first" idea. actually three.
1. you have to do orders in strict order. command platoons first, THEN infatry platoon commands. Infantry platoon commanders don't have the "shoot the big frakker" order in their repertoire. They do have the "shoot lots and lots" order. Thus if you want those heavy weapons to twin link, they're gonna need to go first.
2. as demonstarted in my game against Rich the extra lasgun shots came in handy, once i'd pegged his rhino and the marines fell out. Until that point all the lasguns could have done was laser mark the rhino like a kind of targetting system. Admittedly, once the missiles had destroyed the rhino they proceeded to laser mark the marines with much the same effect as they would have had on the rhino, but at least the marines had the decency to look puzzled by the sudden outbreak of optical measles.
3. Given a double 6 stops the orders, I'd rather do the more important ones first. Sure you can argue that I'm less likely to end up with a double 6 on a squad that can re-roll, though it's still not beyond the realms of possibility. Thus, like battlefleet gothic, you do the more important orders first.
All in all i would say the orders system feels a lot like battlefleet gothic. So at least you know what I'm on about in general. (If you remember that far back :oP)
I was agreeing with you on your deployment for DOW.
ReplyDeleteI do like battlefleet gothic. Kind of got a little dull with playing against you when you could easily optimise your fleet to defeat mine and i didn't have that capability.
We needed more people to play. I'll have to see if I can get some interest at the club some time. They "seemed" interested in blood bowl but then no one went out and got teams. It's possible I may be able to generate more interest in this by suggesting linking it in to 40K campaigns.
ReplyDelete