Rules Debate: Necrons "Entropic Strike"

Morning folks,

I was planning on writing up my initial thoughts on the new Necron codex after my first game last night, then logged on to find BOLS talking about Scarabs and the "Entropic Strike" special rule.

This cropped up in my game last night, and I thought I'd discuss my point of view on it and how we handled it. On the flip side, if other MAWS members could read this and make a decision, we can add it our MAWS FAQ, until an actual FAQ is released.

So here's the quote from BOLS today:

Entropic Strike Timing
Now Entropic Strike is nasty, no one is disputing that.  The real question comes down to exactly HOW NASTY did Matthew Ward intend for it to be.  Here is the key rule quote in question:

"For each hit a vehicle or model suffers with this special rule, roll a D6. For each result of 4+, it immediately loses 1 point of armor value from all facings.  If a vehicle is reduced to Armour 0 on any facing, it is immediately destroyed"

So the million dollar question is: Exactly when does the reduced armour values go into effect - before, or after you roll for penetrations on the initial set of hits inflicted in assault?

Here is an example.  An innocent Land Raider is sleeping peacefully in a meadow when 4 bases of Scarabs slam into it.  They inflict 20 automatic hits (it was sleeping peacefully remember), ten of which activate the Entropic Strike ability on a 4+.  Do you:
a) Resolve the 20 hits at S:3+ D6 vs AV:14 (the Land Raider will live), then it's AV is immediately lowered to 4/4/4
b) Resolve the 20 hits at S:3+D6 vs AV:4 (the Land Raider is toast)

Either of these is possible based on whether Ward intends Entropic Strike to either a) weaken units so they will be crippled and easily picked off by later units, or b) be bloodcurdling to all vehicles in the game. Luckily this is an easy black and white decision, that needs to be FAQed one way or the other.

 Now. Here's the way I see it.

Step 1. You roll to hit the vehicle in question.
Step 2. Out of those "To Hit" rolls, roll that number and find out how many Entropic Strikes were successful (4+)
Step 3. "For each result of a 4+, it IMMEDIATELY loses 1 point of armour value from all facings". Quoted directly from the rule.
Step 4. Roll to penetrate against this lower amount with all the "To Hit" dice that succeeded.

True it's harsh if you're the one who didn't move your Land Raider or deal with the Scarabs when you had chance, but the key word there is "immediately".

The argument for me there is when exactly does the Entropic Strike get rolled for. To me, it's pretty straight forward, as soon as it's hit by an Entropic Strike, you roll to see whether the E.S. activates and then go on the modified armour.

It's not a case of "When does the reduced armour value kick in?", the real question is "When do you roll for Entropic Strike?", which - to me - is straight after a vehicle takes a hit from a Scarab base. If you've activated the Entropic Strike, then the vehicle immediately loses the armour values.

What do MAWS folk think about this?

Cheers,
SB

Toy Soldier Doubles - Afterthoughts

Ello all,

It's been a bit without a blog on here, the last one up was Angryman's write up for the Stockport "Toy Soldier Doubles" tournament we went to last weekend. So I thought I'd do one from Team Daemon's point of view. I can't remember most of the details, or the missions, so it's more of an overview.

Game 1:
First game we played against the worst list we could possibly face. Grey Knights and Guard. List was roughly:

Company Command w/ Plasmas

3 Ratlings

3 Vet Squads with 3 Meltas
1 Vet Squad with heavy Weapon?

3 Vendettas

Inquisitor Coteaz
4 or 5 Henchmen Squads in Psybolt Razorbacks
3 Dreads with Psy Autocannons

Luckily there were no actual Grey Knights in the list with Warp Quake to cause us issues, but with us dropping in with bad reserve rolls, we were piece meal targets to an army with a LOT of shooting. We had to take pot shots at units here and there and against 6 or 7 scoring units, we could only hope to tie some up. In the end, we lost 18 - 2.


Game 2:
Next game on the Saturday was against Jak, who had been to MAWS before and Rob. They played Dark Angels and Imperial Guard.

When we saw 30 tactical marines and a Dreadnaught, we were initially really scared, as that's a lot of rapid fire to deal with, alongside a walker which we couldn't really dent.

Some bad deployment on their part and their bad luck with reserve rolls, compared to our good luck with reserve rolls (I think everything of ours showed up on turn 2) meant that we could overwhelm what was down on the table.

Along with that, we knocked out their mobile units early in the  game (Guard Chimeras) and the rest we could pick off. I think it was 16 - 4 win.

Game 3:
The last win pushed us up the table a bit, and we came face to face with a Chaos Space marine and Chaos Daemon team. There was some disagreement at first over how in a doubles game our Daemons would deploy (Rulespack says if you share same codex, treated as same army. We had played entire force split, they argued 2 armies, 2 splits ) and the referee wasn't around at the time, so we split into 2. Unfortunately we both had the unfavoured sides show up straight away.

This was Capture and Control, and they went all guns blazing (literally) for our base, whereas we abandoned our base, hoping for a late deep strike to contest ours.

It went down to the wire with my Bloodcrushers managing to immobilise a late rhino rush towards the objective we held.

Unfortunately the only thing of ours remaining in Deep Strike was Fateweaver and it was a "Anything but a hit and he's dead" roll, which we failed and Fateweaver landed off the board. Thinking about it, we probably should have just bolstered the objective we held and not threw away 333 victory points.

However, one thing we learnt during this game is we go all in for our deep strike placements. The other Daemon player was very cautious and when we placed our units down was shocked to see how offensively we played them. It was pretty even on VPs, so this was a straight 10-10 draw. However, we could have nicked some extra points had Fateweaver lived.

After the game, we clarified with the referee and we had been playing it correctly in previous games. Our combined forces deployed as 1.

Game 4:
The first game on the Sunday was against 2 of the local players from the Northwest Gaming Centre, playing Imperial Guard and Crimson Fists.

I think this was our longest game of the weekend due to the fact they'd never played against Chaos Daemons before and also some confusion with rules clarifications (such as Kantor's "everyone is Stubborn" USR not affecting Guardsmen, as per the rulespack).

If I remember rightly, the game was Kill points and we went from 1 KP behind at the start of Turn 5, to winning by 4, due to some very, very lucky rolling. I got my winged Daemon Prince into a Leman Russ and anything other than a 6 for my Bloodcrushers assault into terrain and they would have been out of charge for attacking a Whirlwind.

I think we won 18 - 2 overall.

Game 5:
There was some controversy over the Sunday as a player who on the Saturday had been found to be using an illegal list because it wasn't submitted in advance (200 - 300 pts over what it should have, as well as other shenanigans) so it had an effect on the standings.

In the end the TO basically just said to people, play whoever you want to play, so figuring we'd get finished a bit quicker and not have to rush, we played Angryman and Col Straken from MAWS.

By this time, me and Sanguinius were shattered from a long weekend and after being told about the mess up with the standings, not bothered about what the result would be for this game. So we started off by making pretty daft Deep Strike placements. In the end, we started to even out, picked off a few of the easier kill points and think we lost by about 2. Which considering the 3 Dreads in the list as well as mobile units in transports, wasn't too bad.

Conclusion:
To sum up the tournament, I thought overall it was OK. I really enjoy doubles and team tournaments, much more than singles. It takes a lot of the pressure off me, means I don't have to worry if I need to make a phone call and also stops a lot of issues arising ("How far did that move?", "What unit is that?" etc.)

As I said a bit earlier, there was some contentious rulings, but the TO was let down late on by the person who was supposed to referee the 40k side of things. This meant stuff like dodgy list submissions by last minute players making up the numbers, as well as some other decisions.

However, a TO can't be held responsible for cheating in game. That's down to players. It's the 2nd time that the same person at a NWGC tournament has caused problems with cheating.

Luckily, the rules pack was very clear on the allies rulings, which sorted out a lot of problems from last time (Ork Warboss with Wyches in a Raider springs to mind), so I'd like to see that rulespack used again at some point for another doubles tournament.

Other than that, there's the list variety issue that a few people brought up on comments afterwards. I think there were 4 lists with 3 Vendettas, then 2 or 3 Grey Knight armies without a single Grey Knight in them (admittedly, 1 had some Termis). This is more of a commentary on where 40k is going at the moment, which I'm not too keen on and is putting me off attending other tourneys.

The last thing to point out to me is the painting system. I'm not one to say to people "You need to have spent X amount of hours painting this model" but I think the 3 colour system is too easily abused, if not completely ignored. A Grey Knight army had it's 3 colours being Chaos Black spray, an extremely quick drybrush, and then a few small white lines. I understand the time, patience, skill and cost involved in nicely painted armies but I think the 3 colour system taken to an absolute minimum like that, is a bit extreme.

Anyways, that's just my gripes for the weekend. I'd like to get involved in some other doubles and team tourneys rather than singles stuff, but we'll see what's actually around.

Cheers,
SB

Silly puppies - 40K doubles

Hi all,

Angryman here.  Following on from Col Strakens post regarding the recent tournament we attended, here is the link to the final results

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=95141

We finished 7th out of 12 teams and scored 53 out of a maximum 100 tournament points.  Considering there was 10 points between 4th and 8th place (7 between us and 4th) I'm very happy with where we finished.  There is also an 'alternative' 40K table on the link, I'll explain why.  One of the teams had an extra 200 points worth of models over the 1800 point limit.  This only came to light on the 2nd day of the tournament after 3 games had already been played.  There were various debates over whether this was blantent cheating or 'absent mindedness', considering it was the same person in the last doubles tournament we attended at Stockport and the shit he was pulling there I'd go with he was a complete and utter cheating bastard who was caught out (he walked out of his 3rd game when it came to light how many points he had and didn't show up for the 2nd day).  We finally have a new player term, there is noob, competitive, WAAC and now CAAC (cheat at all costs - or bellend as we know him as).  now the rant is over with I'll explain why the alternative table is there.  After the final positions for the 5th game had been decided and everyone knew about the cheating, every team who had played him on day 1 had there scores amended to a 20 - 0 win against him, this drastically altered the positions in the table so it meant that some teams where playing 'weaker' opponents in the last game when they should have been playing teams of equal ability etc, this also meant that in games 2, 3 and 4 the rankings where wrong.  despite all this the tournament was very enjoyable.

At the start of the tournament I was dreading playing a Grey Knight army with Psyfileman Dreads or 3 Vendetta / Hydra spam Guard list, guess what we played......

Game 1

We came up against a Space Wolf and Imperial Guard army (3 vendettas).  This games wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, we couldn't destroy a Vendetta to save our lives but managed to get a losing draw (tied on objectives but lost on victory points).

Game 2

We fought a Grey Knight and Imperial Guard army (2 Vendettas and 2 Hydras).  This game swung back and forth during the turns.  If the game had ended on turn 5 then it would have been a draw (we may have  lost on victory points)  but unfortunately for us the game went to turn 7 and we lost.

Game 3

We were paired against a Tyranid army (my favorite) I cannot remember these guys names but they are really fun to play against.  because of the deployment their synapse was spread right across the board and we had deployed in the right hand corner, by turn 3 all their synapse had been destroyed so on the 4th turn they conceded.  There were no bad feelings at all, it was a great game, we gave them a few tips on how to use their Tyranids in the future so they can get more out of them.

Game 4

We played a Grey Knight (3 or 4 pysfileman dreads) and Imperial Guard army (3 Vendettas).  This list i had tipped for winning the tournament, it had a LOT of high strength fire power.  We managed to destroy 2 Vendetta's and a Dreadnought (finally our shooting did something).  The mission was kill points and at this point we were losing something like 6 - 5 so the game turned into chess, our guns were the same range as theirs so they moved out of range of ours but because we had to kill more units to draw or win we tried a risky move but it didn't work out for us.  We lost the game on kill points but it was a very enjoyable game.

Game 5

We finally played Suicide Badger and Sanguinius who were using their Chaos Daemons.  This was a great game, we pissed about all throughout the game, had a good laugh and luckily won the game (kill points mission) even though an ironclad couldn't kill off the last wound on the last bloodcrusher for 4 rounds of combat (yes it did had both C.C. arms still).

All in all it was a good tournament, we played against 8 Vendettas, 2 Hydras and 3 or 4 Psyfileman Dreadnoughts but didn't do as badly as i thought we would against them.

Lessons Learnt??

Don't take a power fist on the tactical squad's sergeant if I'm taking melta weapons, that way I can afford to change my basic Dreadnought into a 2nd one (gotta love those guys!!!!)

All comments welcome

Toy soldier doubles 40k 2011

Angryman and I attended the above tournament this weekend, and we had some fun games and a lot of close ones.

Our first game was against a space wolf and guard combo. They had three vendettas, surprise surprise, and a smattering of troops. We had expected this sort of list so with a melta dread, an assault cannon dread and an ironclad dread all in pods, along with two units of missile long fangs, and a few other meltas lying around we thought we would have a good chance. But after shooting every weapon at two vendettas we managed to shake one of them. That is then how the rest of the game went on, we managed to scrape a draw with some late game objective grabs and contesting.

The second game was against guard and grey knights. This had only two vendettas along with two hydras and a land raider crusader. Again we thought we would be able to cope, but again we couldn't seem to do more than shake the vendettas. On turn 5 we had managed to grab a draw with some lucky positioning again, but unfortunate the game carried on until turn 7 and we were left with a solid loss.

Game three we were paired up against a couple of lads we played at the last stockport doubles tournament where we took tyranids. These two had taken tyranids then as well and had once again. We always have a good laugh with these two and after giving them a good hammering for the third time we all left in high spirits from the game parting with a few tips and tricks to try and help them out in their games ahead.

Our fourth game was once again guard and grey knights, but this time three vendettas and three "psyflemen" dreads. We knew we had to kill the vendettas first and then the dreads so that our superior range would work for us. In turn two it looked like that was going to happen. We had killed two vendettas, immobilised one, and blew up a dread. But our opponents were still one kill point ahead. By turn 5 it was a stalemate with them out of our range but still a point ahead. We tried a last ditch attempt to even out but luck was against us and we ended the game 2 kill points down.

Our last game was drawn against the Swarmlords from game three, but free much confusion we ended up against mishap impossible (sanguinius and suicide badger). We began the game just messing about as both our teams were mid-table from a couple of bad luck games. It soon heated up and it ended a lot closer than anyone expected with us winning 7kp to 5kp.

So at the end of the tourney we had a good time excluding a couple of people. Angryman will post a more in depth review along with our actual position at the end.

From the side of a maternity bed,
Col.Straken signing out!!!

Badger's Log - Drop Pods and Ravenwing Bikes

Ello,

Over the last week or so I've been trying to make a push on my Dark Angels stuff, freeing up my December to be spent Christmas shopping, doing odd jobs around the house and able to buy and paint some Dark Eldar or Necrons.

In the mean time however, I've managed to get 2/3 of my Dark Angels backlog complete this week. Firstly, the last of the Ravenwing (for now) - 6 Ravenwing Bikers.

You can't really see in the picture, but I tried to start outfitting my units with as much plasma as possible. So the Biker squad has 2 plasma gunners, along with a Sergeant (guy with actual Ravenwing bike banner).

When I start to paint Black armoured models, I always think it'll be super fast because it's the same colour as the undercoat. Then I realise it's more or less the same amount of work because I have to repaint all the armour after I've drybrushed or done other areas!

Either way, these guys were pretty quick. I think there's 4 colours (Black, Boltgun, Red, Dheneb Stone) but with the Ravenwing stuff, I didn't want to take too much time.

Then over the weekend I made a start on my 2 Drop Pods, since I realised I had 2 Dreads painted, but nothing to get them close in Multi-Melta firing range.

I wasn't sure whether the Dark Angels drop pods for Venerable Dreads would be Deathwing bone coloured or normal green. So in the end I went for the green choice, since I figured they could double up for transporting a Tactical squad if needs be.

After this, I've got 20 Tactical Marines and a Commander left to paint. The Commander I'm planning on using as Azrael since the model looks a bit like him, I just need to make myself a Watcher to tag along with him.

As for going forward, completely wishlisting, I would like to replace the flamers and missile launchers in my Tac squads with a Plasma Gun and Plasma Cannon and also have a 4 man Plasma Cannon devastator squad.

However with things the way they are, money low and various other more shiney temptations, that probably won't happen any time soon.

So yeah, not long to go for the Dark Angels. The tactical squad progress has been halted momentarily because I've run out of Chaos Black paint, but once that's sorted I'll crack on with them.

Cheers,
SB

Armimius

Hi all,

Angryman here, 2 weeks 2 tournaments.  This weekend I'm teaming up with Col.Straken for a 1800 doubles tournament (see previous posts for details) but the weekend after I'm attending a 1 day 3 game 2K event in Merseyside with 2 club members (Pete and Mike).

The link to the tournament is here

Arminius

Hive Fleet Tattybojangles will be gracing the tables again with a few changes from their last 2K run out.

HQ

Hive Tyrant

Leech essence

Paroxysm

Old adversary

Tyrant Guard x3

Lashwhip x3

Tyranid Prime

Twin boneswords

Elite

The doom of malan’tai

Mysetic spore

Total

Hive guard x3

Hive guard x3

Troops

Warriors x4

Lash whip and bonesword x4

Toxin sacs x4

Termagant x10

Termagant x 10

Tervigon

Cluster spines

Adrenal glands

Toxin sacs

Catalyst

Tervigon

Cluster spines

Adrenal glands

Toxin sacs

Catalyst

Heavy

Trygon

Trygon

I've dropped the Dakka Fex, the Zoanthropes and 4 Termaganuts, in their place I've taken another unit of 3 Hive Guard another Trygon and a 3rd Tyrant Guard along with the 'old adversary' upgrade for my Hive Tyrant and Lashwhips on the Tyrant Guard.  Also my Warriors and Warrior Prime are no longer taking Devourers, they will be using Scything Talons to make them more effective in combat.

I found that having to take 3 psychic tests then having to roll to hit EVERYTIME you wanted to shoot the Zoanthropes to be a pain in the arse so for 30 points cheaper you get 6 S8 (no LOS needed) shots hitting on 3's, with 2 units in my army its a no brainer!!!  The loss of the Dakka Fex was for the same reason, it didn't have fleet so was mainly running unless there was something to shoot at and came with 4 T6 wounds.  The trygon can fleet and has 6 T6 wounds.  By adding in the the 3rd Tyrant Guard I'm making my Tyrant and his squad into a 10 T6 wound unit, all with 3+sv.  Having lashwhips on the Guards means anything in base contact with that unit is going last and 'Old Adversary' on the Tyrant means he, his unit and any friendly units within 6" all benefit from 'preferrred enemy' (re-roll all missed hits in combat).  The Warriors and the Prime taking Scything Talons means I'm re-rolling 1's to hit in combat and with the Primes WS6 conferred to that unit of warriors i'm hitting most things on a 3 so provided i don't roll a 2 in combat I should hit with most attacks.

Thats my reasoning behind the changes, all comments welcome

Doubles Tournament

Hi all,

Angryman here,  next weekend there is a doubles tournament at Marurder games in Stockport.  1800 points split between 2 forces.  I'll be teaming up with Col Straken, we had thought about a few combinations but ultimately it boiled down to what we had painting.  We'll be using Salamanders and Space Wolves, here are the lists.

HQ
Rune priest

ElitesDreadnought
Heavy flamer
Drop pod

Troops10 Grey hunters
Flamer/melta
Power fist
Rhino

9 Grey hunters
Flamer
Power weapon
Mark of the wulfen
Wolf banner
Rhino

Heavy
5 long fangs
4 missile launchers
5 long fangs
4 missile launchers

HQ
Vulkan
Elites
Ironclad
Heavy flamer
Drop pod

Dreadnought
Drop pod

Troops
10 Space marines
Multi-melta
Meltagun
Powerfist
Razorback with Twin linked Lascannon

Fast attack
Land speeder with multi-melta and heavy flamer

Attack bike with multi melta

For 2 small armies it packs quite a bit of punch

All comments welcome

Badger's Log - Ravenwing Land Speeders

Morning folks,

After finishing off my Dreadnaughts last week, I decided I'd make a start on some of the more mobile parts of my Dark Angels army with the Ravenwing. I also thought these would be pretty quick to paint, being mostly black plating.

So I started off with the 2 Land Speeders I had, both armed with Typhoon Missile Launcher and Multi-Melta to try and give me some sort of (semi) reliable anti-tank fire.

So yeah, there you are. 3 colours make up the majority of it all, Black, Boltgun Metal and Mechrite Red, with a few splashes of Dheneb Stone, Knarloc Green and Tallarn Flesh dotted around.

I think all in all, it took me about 2 hours to paint and base both of them, which is pretty good going I reckon - and it bodes well for my Biker squad who are due on the paint table next.

Cheers,
SB

Badger's Log - Venerable Dreads

Morning folks,

Last night I finished off 2 Venerable Dreads for my Deathwing army. They're the standard AOBR Dreadnaught models, painted in a Deathwing colour scheme, to indicate their venerable status. I'm not too knowledgeable on the current Marine codex, but in the Dark Angels book it's just a points upgrade to make them Venerable, so I figured it's worth spending the points.

The thing I enjoyed most about these models was the speed at which I could get them painted. I drybrushed everything with Boltgun Metal, then went over the armour with Dheneb Stone. Lastly I touched up some detailing with Red and Green and then used Tin Bitz to colour the Melta gun barrel.

So yeah, quick to paint and hopefully extremely useful in my army (the only things that have a Melta gun!) next I need to make a start on my Drop Pods for these guys to use.

Next on the paint desk however are 2 Land Speeder Typhoon's ready to go. I'm hoping that since the majority of the Ravenwing is black, they'll also be pretty quick to paint and can add some more Missile shots from those in a support role.

Cheers,
SB

Rumours rumours rumours

Hi all Angryman here,

It's been a while since I've posted anything, there are various reasons why, shit at work, shit at home, can't be arsed and my brain couldn't think of anything to write.

Now I'm over that I wanted to start my posts again with a rumour update regarding new codex releases.

all thanks goes to warseer for these

Regarding Tau:

...the demmiurg are there as are a bizzare race, the vespid get 2 slots, and the kroot get an aditional

...well if you insist, 1 hq 1 troop and possibly 1 other unit

...the preliminary rules make demiurg equal to banshees in combat?... without the scream thing though


...ok one more the demiurg ancients , think of them as cranky old wise men who saw the imperium in its infancy they had seen the eldar come n go, n thought it was another decadent empire... though they normally take hundreds of years to make a decision... the tau have something special the demiurg like

Regarding Chaos:

...the first thing i have to say is that there are 2 chaos books planed
one more renagade based the other legion based the legion one will be that, dudes who are 10000 years old kicking ass n taking names

there "may" be a inquisitor who's gone bad but really expect new guys in the renegade one. its lost and the damned influenced... but it has other options....

..."Chaos Legions as an uber-elite army, probably comparable to Grey Knights in that regard?" -  YES

"and a second book that deals with Chaos Renegades, that includes Chaos Guard, or might even focus on non-marine chaos?" - YES

I hope to christ these are true, i cant get my Tau out again and NOT be called beardy or cheesy for taking the newest codex out.  I'm sick of grey knight, blood angel, space wolf, dark eldar and imperial guard spam armies that are everywhere.  mainly because i refuse to buy one and sppend all that money on an army that 1000 other people already have.

I really like the 2 chaos books way of doing things, I've got a CSM army and i've not given them as much love as they deserve because the current codex is crap compared with a lof of others, other than oblitorator and lash spam lists there is nothing else worth taking.

rants over - all comments welcome

Badger's Log - Deathwing Completed

Morning all,

I planned to do this blog yesterday but was pretty busy all day. I had quite a productive hobby weekend (and last week) for my Deathwing army.

Across the week I did the armour on the 25 Terminators, which I had been moaning about for a while, and then on Friday, did most of the detail work on the gun barrels and insignia etc. Then across Saturday I washed and based them.

Then I remembered that it couldn't really be an army, as I had no HQ units. So Saturday night I undercoated Belial, my Chaplain and Librarian conversions and then over Sunday got them painted up.

Then, while I was on a roll, I decided that I would do all the bone coloured armour at the same time as everything else. So I dragged out my 2 Venerable Dreads. They're just normal AoBR Dreadnaughts, but they'll be painted in bone armour, to "Indicate they're serving with the Deathwing" as per the Codex description.

So here's an in progress shot:

I've got the second one up to the metal stage, but haven't started on the bone armour yet. They're pretty quick going, I reckon once I've painted the bone armour on the other, it's just a few red and green details and a wash, then they're good to go.

That's all for now, but when the Dreads are completed I'll be doing a vote on here on what I should paint next, so keep a look out for that!

Cheers,
SB