The Magic of the Multi-Melta

A commonly fielded unit in my marine army is a multi-melta Devastator unit. I have considered them a fairly effective unit and they have usually performed admirably. They have usually acted in the deterrent role because of their ability punch through armor, so my opponents would typically give them wide berth or present lower armor targets.
This new edition has vindicated my faith in the multi-melta, but it has made this unit a bit of a fire magnet. In my first 5th edition game Bulwark, of Bell of Lost Souls fame, made a b-line towards this unit and allowed my Devastators a single turn of firing. By turn two he had managed to tie them up in close combat and dispatched them in subsequent rounds.
The lesson learned from this game is that Devastator multi-meltas are a liability because they tend to draw unnecessary attention and in one turn a large portion of anti tank firepower can be removed. This event caused me to wonder what role, if any, would the multi-melta play in future game of 5th edition. Then it occurred to me that my error was in fielding them as Devastators. I decided that more wasn’t better with these because one usually accomplished the job.
My new paradigm is multi-meltas are best in tactical squads, and since I play Dark Angels, they will come into their own with combat squads. They will excel in Combat Squads because they will be able to use the run rule behind the cover of my armored fighting vehicles (AFVs.) Once they have moved up they will have a decent command of the field and will be able to deliver effective anti tank firepower. The new run rule also increases their flexibility by allowing them a chance to take up a decent field position.
What excites me most about multi-meltas is their armor penetration of 1, and what that does in this new edition. Admittedly, they are a poor man’s lascannon, but there aren’t many AV 14 targets in the game. This is what will make these weapons feared and will cause many players to re-examine their tactics. I am fairly confident that here in the near future this weapon will become as common as the lascannon.

The Last Gasp of 4th ED: A Tyrus Campaign Battle Report

So, the group has been playing in a campaign for the last few months. It was decided that since we’ve been playing it in 4^th edition rules and the campaign is close to being finished, we would finish the campaign in 4^th Ed. As it is a map based campaign loosely based on some of the ideas in Mighty Empires, it involves flags of various sizes running around and sometimes bumping into other flags of various sizes.

Last night’s campaign battle was a 1000 pointer pitting my own army, the Ancient and Glorious Astramalleus (Space Marines) against Rachael Storm’s Anger Sharks (Blood Angels). Of course, real life conspired to keep this report from happening. My digital camera died so I couldn’t take pictures. :( But, then again, that’s why every cellphone in creation has one! I didn’t get as many pictures as I might have liked in the quality I might have liked, but if you can forgive that, you’ll see we had a rocking time!

The Astramalleus holds firm. They will not be moved! Or will they?

Warmaster Wen Dunnigan, Hero of Jhantor

(Force Commander with Terminator Honors, Artificer Armor, Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol, Iron Halo and Meltabombs)

Tactical Squad 1 – 10 Marines (Sergeant w/Power Fist & bolt pistol, Heavy Bolter, Meltagun)

Tactical Squad 2 – 10 Marines with Rhino (Sergeant w/Power Fist & bolt pistol, Heavy Bolter, Meltagun)

Devastator Squad – 10 Marines with Rhino(Missile Launcher x4)

Drednought (Assault Cannon & storm bolter, extra armor)

The Anger Sharks come. And they will not be stopped! Or will they?

Lemartes, Guardian of the Lost (Jump pack, Frag and Krak grenades, Death Mask, Bolt Pistol)

[he was kind enough to substitute another Chaplain figure for GWs horrid one]

Death Company – 9 Marines (Jump packs, Frag and Krak grenades, Furious Charge)

Assault Squad 1 – 9 Marines (Sergeant with Power Fist & bolt pistol, Plasma Pistols x2, Frag and Krak grenades)

Assault Squad 2 – 9 Marines (Sergeant with Power Fist & bolt pistol, Plasma Pistols x2, Frag and Krak grenades)

We glared at each other from across the field…

AST Turn 1

There was little movement. The Dred moved from behind cover to take up a flank position and a Rhino moves from behind a building. The Devastators fired at Lemartes and the Death Company, killing 3 in the process.

Shark Turn 1

Lemartes took the Death Company to try to outflank and take advantage of cover while the two assault squads moved forward out of the building.

AST Turn 2

While Dunnigan and TAC1 made a minor adjustment to the right, TAC2 rushed up to flank ASS2 and lit into them supported by the Devastators. ASS2 lost 5 men but made their LD check.

Shark Turn 2

ASS1 charges TAC1 causing 6 kills (forcing the loss of my power fist!) and losing 2 but TAC1 holds, ASS2 shoots TAC2, TAC2 fails LD and falls back 8 inches. Lemartes and Death Company close…

AST 3 Turn 3

Rhino moves forward to pen and fire on ASS2 while TAC2 advances and fires. ASS2 wiped out. Devastators kill 3 more D Company. Dunnigan and TAC1 close to fight and Dred joins battle. ASS2 loses 3 men but holds out, power fisting the Dred’s CCW away.

Shark Turn 3

Lemartes and 3 man D Company assault. They and ASS1 do two wounds to Dunnigan and that’s it. Dunnigan, TAC1 and Dred do two wounds to ASS1.

And the Anger Sharks called the battle. Glory to the Astramalleus!!! He had no scoring units. I had two and was about to assault him with a unit with a power fist. Good game, Anger Sharks!

So I hope you enjoyed the crappy maps and even crappier pictures. Next time I do this, it’ll be 5^th ED, I hope!!!

5th ED is out!!!!!

So, I'm sure that a lot of you out there already got it at the midnight events and such. I'm in Longview this weekend so I have to drive to Tyler this afternoon to get mine. I know some of us have already seen the rules and all that and there's much more commentary on all that on other sites. What I want to know from you all is what do you all think of the book itself? What do you like about it? What do you dislike? Is it worthy of a whole new edition? And, most importantly, what do you think is the best thing GW did this time around?

The floor is now open for discussion!

Thunderbolt WIP

I was so excited about completeing the air frame of my Thunderbolt that I had to get these Pics up. The template I used was from Table Top War. These templates were more for paper, but with creativity and Evergreen Sheet Styrene I turned out the basic frame for my Thunderbolt. The materials ran about $10, which will allow me to do more than one project. (Before anyone extols the virtues of "For Sale" signs at The Home Depot; all I will say is that The Home Depot doesn't provide any helpful hints on scratch building models like the local train/ model shop.)

This is stage one. I still have gap filling, body work, and weapon systems to do. Overall I am happy with how this turned out since this is my second scratch built vehicle that I have ever done. Here are some more pics I hope you enjoy.

Crossposted at: The Tactical Rock.

Tourney Talk

I begin this with an apology to every opponent I have ever played in a tournament where I dragged my feet and not allowed the game to complete all rounds of play. Mind you I have usually lost those games anyway, but I am now severely cognizant of the annoyance that this can cause. Now that has been said I will say that the preceding informs the rest of my Saturday tourney experience.

Round 1
Dark Angels vs. Dark Angels
Result: Massacred
Mission: Fire Sweep
Lesson Learned: Pay Attention
Game Time: 40 minutes for 5 complete rounds (I threw the towel in.)

I played against my good friend Frank. I started out real strong with my Preliminary Bombardment affecting 3 units. On turn one I punished his units with withering fire, and I was well on my way to a victory. Right up until the turn 3 assault where I had a complete lapse of reason and reacted to my opponent instead of responded. Failure to dog-pile his assault unit and poor casualty pulls completely cost me the game.

Round 2
Dark Angels vs. Necrons
Result: Draw
Mission: Urban Assault
Lesson Learned: Dragging your feet is annoying to your opponent
Game Time: 60 minutes 3 complete rounds played

This time I played against an opponent that I have never played before. His name was Joe and, from the looks of it he was freshly getting into the hobby. He fielded 2 Necron warrior squads, 1 Destroyer Squad, a Tomb Spider, a Monolith, and as always a Necron Lord with the ever popular Orb. His turn 1 took him 20 minutes to do and all he did was wound a marine. On Turn 1 I popped his Monolith, wiped out his Destroyers, and put a wound on the Tomb Spider. (All in less than 5 minutes.)

His turn 2 he charged a 5 man Tactical squad with a Tomb Spider and two scarab swarms, killed two marines, but I put two wounds on him also. His shooting once again managed to do squat. My Turn 2 I brought his squad within the target building down to below half with shooting (they would recover to just above half at the start of his turn.) I was able to assault the Tomb Spider with my master and the squad that the master was in. This time the Scarab swarms were evaporated with a power fist and the master’s power sword.

On his turn 3 he charges the center of the board with his under-strength warrior squad. I make short work of the tomb spider but now am locked with the warriors because they passed their morale check. My turn comes around and it is announced, “Finish the turn you are on.” I shake my head then wipe out the warrior squad in Melee and then consolidate into the target building. Thus I forced the draw.

One more turn I would have charged him, he would have phased out, and I would have had a Victorious Slaughter. The morale here is: Please, be considerate to your opponent and don’t drag your feet.

Round 3
Dark Angels vs. Tyranids
Result: Minor Loss
Mission: Urban???
Lesson Learned: Dragging your feet is annoying to your opponent
Game Time: 60 minutes 3 complete rounds played

I have played bugs countless times I’m not going to rehash this fight because like all bug fights I was charged on turn 1 and had no hope of reaching my objective in his deployment zone by end game. Every round was like pulling teeth because every time I measured range to something or placed a pie plate down he insisted to look at it himself. Normally this would not be a problem, but he took his damn sweet time lining things up and contesting every shot. In the end after spending a minute or two he would agree that what I said was actually what happened. I would file this under the fine art of chewing up your opponent’s time to hide the fact that you are actually the one wasting time.

In the end it was ruled because he had a scoring unit in my building (even though I had three scoring units engaged in melee with them) and I had none in his that it was a minor win for the bugs. (FYI where I come from that is a draw.) This caused me to tie with last place and we rolled off for the third place prize. I lost, of course. Oh well at least the Necron player was able to build his army a little more, and maybe we can see more folks at the Lair.

Lessons for the Future
First if I ever host an event where objective only missions are used I will make sure that the term draw and win are firmly defined before the event, so that there are no crazy spot decisions. Next finished games will be part of the scoring system. Finally I will have a defined way to decide final rankings where players have identical scores. Identical ranking scores could be decided via who had more painted, or maybe via the crazy sportsmanship score.

The Big Question
Did I have fun? Well I can say I mostly had fun. Game 1 was a hoot. My other two opponents weren’t much to write home about. I feel that really if I help build the Lair Community that we will start getting a better stock of players.

Next Tourney: Can we say possible Codex Ork Preview?