It’s been a while and I’ve been a little remiss in posting. Mostly I was obtaining rhinos and razorbacks for my Templars and just giving them a litte love. They still are in desperate need of a solid finish and some of them are in real need of stripping back.
I was also getting ready to give Guild Ball a look. I’ve printed out all the rules and made every miniature as a standee and made all the templates. Got to love having access to a laser. I was really looking forward to getting in my first game too.
Last Friday I got to lay some games. My first game was 40k and I stood there aghast as my friend lay out his forces. He’d warned me he was going with total cheese so I was expecting his new Sicarus and the return of the Scorpius tanks. What I wasn’t expecting was a grand total of 10 troops, 1 carefully chosen warlord (a Master of the Forge so he could take ll the relic tanks), 2 scorpius tanks, the sicarus and then this backed up with an allied Knight and a Lord of War superheavy choice; a Typhon Heavy Siege Tank! To top it off he chose to play his Wolf Legionnairres as Iron Hands so all his vehicles healed damage!
I thought I’d gone cheesy, I was wrong. My force was actually quite a playable force and I was very happy with it. For my part I went with a Captain with the Teeth of Terra and the Shield Eternal (a squad killer – unfortunately my opponent had very little in the way of squads) leading a command squad all in a standard razorback, a crusader squad of 9 marines and a sword brother equipped with bolters in a standard rhino, a 5-man scout sniper squad, a vindicator and I finally(!) got to use my Spartan assault tank loaded up with a 7-man Terminator assault squad (6 with Thunder-hammers and Storm Shields, the other with lightning claws) led by a chaplain in terminator armour.
I managed to secure first turn without my opponent stealing it. The quad lasers of my Spartan opened up on his Typhon and would continue to do so whilst the Spartan existed. Ultimately it would take off a fair few hull points but the fact the Typhon could laim a bunch of extra rules, being a super heavy, kept it in the game and able to shoot no matter what. My snipers killed a couple of marines before being exterminated by the Sicarus and knight. My razorback made it most of the way across the table, just about in one piece, before being obliterated by the Sicarus, the command squad being wiped out by the sicarus in the turn it blew up the razorback. My Captain was on one wound and was left being accompanied by the apothecary. The captain wiped out one of his squads (the apothecary died en route) before being killed off by the sicarus. On the opposite side of the table the rhino made it across the field, deposited the 10 man crusader squad who finished off his warlord and his other 5-man squad before being wiped out of existance in one turn by the pair of Scorpius (Scorpii?). The rhino was left on one hull point and almost drew the game for me, claiming an objective.
The middle of the table saw the Typhon and Knight slowly take chunks out of the Spartan until the terminators assaulted out the front 6 inches away from the front of the Typhon ready to charge. Unfortunatley I rolled a 3 on the charge and they stood in the open ready to die. The lightning claws marine died in a salvo from the Typhon. The knight charged the rest and killed only 1 terminator! Over the course of 3 turns the knight rolled 9 to hit rolls, needing a 4+ to hit. Only 2 of the 9 scored hits and both were saved. All terminator deaths from the knight were from stomp attacks rather than the d-weapon. In the end, amazingly, the terminators won the dual and destroyed the knight! The inevitable explosion killed off more terminators and the last two weren’t enough to survive what was left of my opponents tanks – all of them!
And the vindicator? Destroyed in my opponents first turn having fired a single shot!
But it was fun. It was almost a draw and would have been had it ended in turn 5. Unfortunately (althought rightly) it went into turn 6 and I conceded to my opponent. I had 1 rhino, on one hull point, holding an objective but unless he suddenly couldnt hit for toffee the game was over.
So I had my first experience of Lords of War and Super Heavies. The only thing I found was I wish I knew before hand. I was lucky I had my Spartan full of terminators or the game would have been null. I’m not sure about the rules for Superheavies. They already have lots of hull points and high armour. I’m not sure ignoring results on the penetrating hits table is entirely justified. But, what it’s really left me with, is a desire to own my own Superheavy 🙂 (And a sicarus!). I’m not sure I’ll get to use one but it’s a lovely idea. Also I shouldve fielded a knight but thought at the time that would have been unfair! (lol – good ol’ hindsight).
So then we tried Guild Ball. Once I began to understand it I really got into it. But it is a game where I would advise both layers to have read the rules first. There is also information missing from the rules unfortunately which impacted negatively before we even managed to start. The intro game is played on a 2×2′ field but there is no information on how to set this up like there is with the 3×3′ field. I found the kick off rules very vague too and this, I think, put my opponent off before we even got into the game. He certainly never seemed to settle into the game and, choosing the engineers, didn’t particularly enjoy his team either. He’s not keen on denial tactics and this seemed to be their thing. I played as the butchers and very much liked the play style. We ended early, I believe my opponent just wasn’t enjoying the game unfortunately (although he did say he’d like to try again with a different team). I’m looking forward to trying again in the near future.
The week ahead promises some gaming too, maybe infinity, 40k or even Guild Ball!
pritalus 