Monday, June 20, 2011

Battle Tit Bits

Pask's Company has been actively lately.
On a face to face shoot off with Red's BA convoy the armored division consisting of 6 Leman Russes and 3 vendettas completely outgunned and almost annihilated the Astrates. The surviving space marines mentioned of needing bigger and more guns.

Against the enigmatic full Deathwing formation on 1500 pts, Pask's company was routed and scattered across the battlefield as conventional arms proved useless against terminator armor, the famous tank commander barely escaped with his life.



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Massive military drill of Purgation Lords first company Versus Grey Knight's finest took place in a 3000 pts each side no FOC engagement (mini apoc). A full quarter of the whole Purgation Lords first company took part in the drill, supporter by 3 landraiders, 8 landspeeders lead by Bysunder, Proximo and Kassius against 3 squads of Paladins lead by Draigo himself with a Grandmaster in support blazing into the field with 2 stormravens. The skirmish proved to be extremely bloody and brutal. Bysunder himself charged into the heat of the battle accompanied by 7 first company battle brothers clad in terminator armor and was the only person walking out of that engagement in single battle phase. The Grey knights was eventually overpowered but not before inflicting horrendous casualties.


Another drill took place in which a 1500 pts each side engagement was set up and Bysunder and Draigo faced off again in the battlefield. The result? "In Goo we trust" in is the name of the game as massive 'gooing' thunder hammers with storm shield proved to be the bane of Paladins.

Alternative Rules- Cato Sicarius

.. Meh I should be ashamed to myself that i been into blogging stasis for so long while leaving Wong alone to update it. Just been not having ideas to what to write.

This is series of some sort where i write alternative rules for unit in the game that i feel is seriously under power. This rules are simply experimental rules however feel free to play test it and do give me feedback of what you think of the new rules.

Cato Sicarius...................... 185 Pts

WS:6 BS:5 S:4 T:4 W:3 I:5 A:3 Ld:10 Sv:2+

Wargear
Talassarian Tempest Blade:
A sacred sword that pass down by generation of Talassari nobility. Its a single handed power weapon that grant its user +2 Strength in close combat.

Mantle of the Suzerain:
As only those who gain the title of High Suzerain of Ultramar is worthy to wear this armor. It is a Artificer armor that grant feel no pain

Captain Banner
Any unit that at 6" of Sicarius may reroll any fail morale or pinning test. Including any squad that attach to Sicarius.

Special Rule

Rite of battle
Any Army with Cato Sicarius may re roll when attempting to seize the initiative and when rolling for mission. Player must accept the 2nd roll even if the 2nd roll is not the mission the player wants.

2nd Company Tactical Space Marine
Any Tactical Space Marine may be upgraded with one of the following rules
Counter Attack...5 pts
Scout............5 pts
Infiltrate.......10 pts
Tank Hunters.....15 pts

Equipment
Talassarian Tempest Blade
Mantle of the Suzerain 2nd Company Tactical Space Marine
Iron Halo
Bolt Pistol
frag and Krak grenades
Captain Banner

Special Rules
Rite of battle
2nd Company Tactical Space Marine
And There Shall Know No Fear
Independent Character
Combat Tactics

Option
May replace bolt pistol with plasma pistol.....................15 pts

Comment
I figure that Sicarius failure lies in that he doesnt perform well in eitier a close combat role or a support role. Beside for the points he cost its like a better deal to eitier get Lysander for CC power house or 10 pts cheaper Vulkan Hestan who peform the support role and a pretty good CC fighter.

So i decide to buff his blade to up his CC skill(noted i took off Coup de grace to compensate)So he now a Str 6 with average of 4-5 attacks.

Another buff i made is how he upgrade the Tactical marine. Instead of a FOC individual upgrade. I made it like a squad upgrade but it need to pay for it.

I made his plasma pistol as an option so player choose to not get it and spend the points on other things or he can commit Sicarius into combat.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Nork for 110 points?

Hello everyone.


Last weekend while at Hobby Forge an interesting discussion came up at the FLGS. The question was "Why are some characters in 40K designed in such a way no one sensible will ever use them?"

Here we have exhibit A: Nork Deddog.
Why Nork? Well let's put it this way, the fella is nice on paper, fluffy and all that but there is a problem, the fella cost 110 pts to field.

By comparison upgrading your senior officer to Lord Castellan Creed or Colonel Straken won't even cost that much, although these 2 examples does "replace" your generic senior officer so to speak.

But that is besides the point for a sensible player will simply ask the question of what does he or she get out of the bargain and for the same amount of points what else is available?

Lets us see now, for the same cost of Nork an IG player can get:



Either; a vanilla valkyrie with 2 Hellstrike missiles (72", str 8 ap 3 Ordinance)  and heavy bolter sponsons.



OR, 2 Chimeras with 2 primary weapons each.



Grots! Must Charge!

Sadder still, the "benefits" which you can get by fielding Nork can mostly achieved by other means ... with less points cost and better results! Want CC prowess? Well Col Straken strikes better (WS5) and harder (s6), ignores armour saves and does 2D6 against vehicles. Nork give you stubborn USR? Straken gives you fearless. Feel no Pain and body guards? Well Nork out cost 2 body guards and a medic upgrade by close to twice the amount. Nork's advantage of being T5 doesn't even come into play most of the time as he is bunched with a group of humans all the time. You can argue Nork could eat a krak missile and still do the feel no pain, well by that logic something is really wrong should a competent opponent decides to shove high str AV rounds into your command squad.

Also from the same codex we have exhibit B: Mr. Mogul Kamir. For almost 80% the cost of an entirely new squad of rough riders you get Mr. Kamir to take over as the squad leader of your rough rider squad but by doing so you lost control of the squad as they gain rage USR. So let us get this straight, you can spend a lot of point to make your rough rider squad always angry... so angry in fact they will charge out into open field and get shot to pieces because they have lousy stats (T3 and 5+sv, any one?), thus totally nullifying their place as the counter assault unit, what gives?

++++++++++++++
The "Nork syndrome" is buffling in the extreme because it DOES NOT:
1. Help GW sell more models, for they cost high points and eats into the army budget in question
2. Offer "codex creep" factor to subtlety encourage power players to switch to IG
3. Serve to further popularize heroic charactesr in the 40k universe.

The only hypothesis I can come out with is that there are a bunch of executives are making questionable decisions inside GW, and my money is on the same bunch of people who authorised Ultramarine The Movie. Why do you think?

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Best Leman Russ Configuration for Knight Commander Pask?


I was going into the Leman Russ R&D lately and trying to figure out the best configuration to fully exploit Pask's capabilities. Here are what I came out with:

Leman Russ Exterminator with hull mounted lascanon, plasma canon sponsons and pintle mounted heavy stubber + squadron in with any tank you see fit (But for myself I choose a vanilla battle tank with no sponsons and hull mounted heavy bolter, just to save point.)

On paper the Pask's ride is a beast, when dealing with hostile vehicle as long as the tank is staying still, benefiting from the crack shot rule it can dish out 4 x twin linked str 8 shots, 2 plasma canon shots at str 8 and a str 10 lascanon shot at BS4.

When dueling with Monstrous creatures, my Hand of Steel can dish out 4 twinlinked str 7 shots, 2 plasma canon shots at str 7, 1 lascanon shot at str 9 and 3 shots heavy stubber at str 4 all at BS4 with the ability to reroll to wound, not too shabby.

Clocking at 265 pts this Hand of Steel is one heavy investment but one shot of stunt or shaken will knock it off for a round, nulling all your investment which is why I highly recommend putting another tank with it to benefit from the squadron rule, in which case you can always assign the glancing or penetrating hit to the "red shirt" tank while Pask continue to dish out damage.

I took it out for a spin last week and gotta say I am liking it, alot. A few reminders though:-
> At such a heavy investment Pask's squadron will have incredibly high agro value, take extra precausion on opponent's possible suicidal attack attempts on it.
 > Crask shot only works if Pask stayed still, so take a really good look as where to deploy the fella. The longer he can stay put and put his fingers on trigger instead of steering wheel, the better.

That's all for the moment, feel free to comment and if you have better ideas or interesting experience with Pask, let us know!




Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Tissue Paper Cloak on Scout

redeye said...
Does it work on Space Marine Scouts?   Oh, yes.. this one is done with tissue paper, which turned out much nicer. And special thanks to Guarder22 on this thread for the tissue paper tip.