Some basic tactical principles in Infinity

Last article I wrote down some basic list building guidelines. This time I thought I'd list some basic tactics that I have assimilated.

I've got three core principles I'd like to discuss here:

Imperial Service Sectorial List-Building at 300 points

It was going to cost me about $400 to buy all the stuff I needed to play the Warhammer army I wanted at the big convention, and the TO wanted me to do some modelling for WYSIWYG that I thought was stupid (like apparently my fusion pistols aren't kosher as combi-bolters on bikes, so I need to model combi-meltas onto their legs or some such), so I'm playing in the infinity tournament.

For some reason, the organiser of that tournament has also opted not to play the rules as written (even though the best thing about infinity is that it plays great straight out of the box). The mission selection is the five missions that favour killing your opponent rather than scoring objectives - annihilation, quadrant control, frontline, seize the antennas and supplies. Furthermore, everyone counts as a specialist except TAGs and skirmishers (though many skirmishers get specialist status by being one of the specialist classes) for the purpose of pressing buttons, they just need to spend a long skill to press a button whereas specialists only need to spend a short skill. Even furthermore, there is no roll for pushing buttons. To me, this seems to take the game straight back to when TAGs lieutenants (one in particular) just mowed everyone down and stepped over to the button to press it. Yes, the specialist heavy missions reward one faction (Ariadna camo spam) more than others, but going from one extreme to another is not a solution. The organiser claims that making primary objectives count for a bit less and classified objectives count for two each resolves this issue. He seems to forget that anyone can claim 'secure high value target'. I suspect every second list will be Combined Army with an Avatar, half of the rest will be Pan-O with a cutter and the rest will be a grab bag, including me.

Here is what I am play-testing at the moment:

A better comp list?

So I was thinking that maybe you can actually get the White Scars rush to work within the limits of the comp, it will just cost you 6 (I was desperate to stay under 5). The White Scars rush is absurdly brutal because if you can't get the scout thing going you can just outflank your entire army and come on later to grab objectives at your leisure. The constraints here as far as the community comp goes are as follows:

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Working with Australia's Community Comp System

There is a big tournament here in late January. I was planning on playing but then in the last 6 weeks or so I've dramatically lost interest in Warhammer. The game is just a bit too much of a headache to figure out these days. This tournament uses Australia's community comp system, which is basically a panel-determined comping system where certain units and combinations of units and/or equipment cost a certain number of credits. Each player gets to spend up to 20 credits, and the more you spend the more it hurts your comp score, which is typically 50% of your overall score (the other 50% is battle points). Most people I've seen on the local Forums are running lists in the 8-12 points range. The cookie-cutter Necron harvest list is a minimum 12 points. Ravenwing struggles to get in under 15. The system moves in 5 point increments, so that up to 5 points doesn't hurt you much, but 6-10 is a bit of a burn, and anything above 10 points really starts to sting your comp score. On the one hand this stops people taking bullshit cheese. On the other hand this is a really laborious way to manage comp, which bugs me a bit, and it can break in places. So I wasn't going to play. But then I built a list that I think breaks the system (you can break any system with marines because there are so many options), so now I might, I just need to borrow some models because I don't want to give GW anymore money at the moment. Alternatively I might try to sell some of the stuff I am definitely never going to use, like my poor Orks, to finance the completion of my Marine collection. Anywayz, here is my list:

Infinity list building in 200 points

We play 300 point pick-up games of Infinity in my club, but last year's tournament (one of the few in our city) was 200 points, so I've been mucking around building lists at that level. The points limit is a pretty intense restriction, making it difficult to cover all your bases. In particular, getting orders and still having decent units to spend them on is not easy, and having answers to most shenanigans like smoke, drop troops, impersonators and camo shell games is tough. Below is a list of list-building principles I've brought from 300 point games and some suggested lists for Yu Jing/ISS

Infinity Yu Jing Notes

So I have started playing infinity. I really like this game. The aesthetic is not my favourite, though it is slowly moving away from the anime vibe it started with and towards a grimier sci-fi look. It's the gameplay that has won me over, and the entry fees. Everything except the models in infinity is available for free on the internet - rules, counters, army builder tools, everything. The models are also pretty cheap - $12 for a blister, unlike the insane $40+ you pay for a blister from Games Workshop. And because you only need about 15 dudes to have almost an entire collection, your wallet is breathing easy.

New Blood Angel's list

I played a game. I have made some changes.

I felt like I needed a few more bodies, and I really want to try the flak cannon furioso dreadnought (assault 2, STR6 rending template!). I was reminded of how shit Storm Ravens are - not enough DAKKA! I also thought Dante needed cheaper ablative wounds.

For Next Year - Blood Angels!

This year I really wanted to play a Ravenguard scouting Rhinos MSU spam list at our club tourney but I was thwarted by rules changes (Ravenguard no longer have scout on troops). Next year, assuming no major rules changes, I'm planning to run Blood Angels. They are at the right power level for the event (i.e. v. low), I can make a sweet display board for them, and in playing with them so far I think they can actually be quite devastating but they require heaps of finesse. A good challenge to work around over the coming year. Here is the list I am play-testing at the moment:

Club Tournament Battle Report

I won! Best theme...again. I went 2-1-2 (2 wins, 2 losses, 1 draw), which I think means that my army was at exactly the right power level for the tournament, or that I suck. I don't recall making any major mistakes besides forgetting a rule. Rather, I recall Lysander failing 7 charges in the first 3 games. All the games were close: I lost by 3, I drew, I won by 5, I lost by 3 and then I won by 3. So 2 points overall! I finished at about 10/22, which I am satisfied with. Next year I might bring something a little bit more aggressive, but I was pretty happy with the list overall. Here is what I took:

Playtest games with Imperial Fists

I've had two more games with my fists, which I am now 80% confident I will be taking to the club tournament at the end of October. The first game was against Guard and the second against Space Wolves. Battle report with pictures herein:

What I want in the new Chaos Space Marines codex

Rumors are a CSM codex is due to be rolled out shortly (along with a new Tau Dex). This is great news because CSM absolutely suck, especially without Forge World. Below I've listed some of the things the codex is lacking and some of the things I would like to see changed/included.

HOBBY: Meltagun bikes and Apothecary

I finished painting a few things that I thought I would share:

Hobby: Rhinos and Razorbacks (Stowage)

I'm really proud of my transports. They look different to everyone else's, they fit my fluff, they look cool and to get them looking the way they do I had to overcome some creative challenges. 

                           

The one above is older and having just completed a razorback I realise I have to go back and do some more highlighting. And looking at this photo as I write this I realise that I still need to do the muddy wheels on the new razorback. Dang it! Before all that though let's just talk about a few things...

Play-testing battle-reports!

We played three games of Warhammer today: Imperial fists vs. Tempestus Scions, Fists/Scars against a Dark Angels battle company and Blood Angels vs Tyranids. These were all practice games for the club tourney so the lists were fair but not friendly. You can find my lists here. This is what went down.

Hobby: Death Company

As promised, this is the second of my hobby related posts. I will be describing how I paint my death company marines:

Final playtesting session this weekend!

The tournament has been moved so I can play! Huzzah! As a result I have scheduled an entire Saturday of gaming with a mate so we can practice a few different lists and decide on one for further playtesting, mad painting and display boarding. This is what I'm going to try out over the weekend in descending order of power:

The Deathwing!

I discovered this past week that I will be out of a town for a mate's 30th over the weekend of the club tourney. I am devastated. However, this means I can move away from tuning a list and instead just bring random (often bad) 1500 point lists to our regular game nights for people to practice against. This week I was playing an opponent who uses weak CSM lists so I thought I'd bring something a bit more funky as well: The Deathwing!

Playtesting the mediocre demi-company

Sup y'all. I've played a few games with my battle company list and thought I'd document the results. My first game was against Eldar and I made a mess of things strategically. I won my next two games against Tau and space wolves. Drop pods really hurt my list. Here's what I've been using:

Hobby Time: Chapter Master on bike

Sup y'all? Time for a hobby post. Today I am showcasing my 90% finished chapter master. The fluff for my chapter (the emperor's ghosts) is that their bike company have a different colour scheme (crows on tombstones) to the rest of the chapter (metal armour with white faces). This is because the chapter eschews ridiculous ancient warfare tactics like charging around on bikes (fluffy ghost armies use a lot of planes and mechanised infantry). The Chapter Master, brother John Smith, utilises the typical colour scheme, except that when he mounts up he gets on one of the crow-wing bikes. That is what you see here.

Playtesting lists for the next 2 months

I have narrowed down my list for my local club tournament to the following two battle company lists, which I will be playtesting over the next two months. There is a warm-up tournament at the end of August and then the main event is at the end of September. I will be posting a lot of pictures as I prepare my lads and my display board because I realise I don't do enough hobby articles on this blog, more below:

Bay Area Open results confirm what we already know

In the past 12 months 4 armies have come out that were all considered broken when they debuted: daemon summoning, the Ad-mech war convocation, the Eldar 7th edition Codex and the Space Marine battle company. Three of them are busted because they just give you a lot of free points - what a complex mechanic! The Bay Area Open (BAO) this past week confirmed that these four builds are indeed super powerful, dominating the top 16 lists. You can see fantastic coverage by Pablo at Frontlinegaming.com, and the top lists at bloodofkittens.com.

Some randoms tagged along, including a green tide list (wow!) that made it through to the top 8, and a hard-counter army with four Heldrakes (that didn't make it past the round of 16, because the only hard counter to these lists is another of these lists). Rounding out the rest of the top 16 were Tau firebase cadre lists - another thing everyone said was broken when it dropped. A battle company and a daemon summoning list was in the top 4 at Wargamescon the week before as well. I find all this somewhat ironic because of the number of people who said 'these aren't broken - there are easy counters' when each of these mechanics debuted.

There are certainly other viable builds. A funny list with Tigerius, a librarian, two ironclads in pods, 2 devastator centurion squads in pods and 40 scouts was in the top 4 at WargamesCon. Lictor shame is presumably still strong if well played. Necron lists are around, but almost always Wraithstar with either canoptek harvest or scythes. And I suspect Ravenwing will soon make a debut.

So I suppose it's not all bad - there are still multiple viable builds and skill is certainly a factor. But surely people see that this is lame. This armies are absurdly powerful and take almost no skill to design. Battle company lists write themselves, as does the 40 scout + dev cents lists, as do Decurion lists, as does the war convocation, as do double black knight speeder formation Ravenwing lists, and the Eldar warhost lists. Formations and special detachments like the Decurion make strong units and strong builds incredibly obvious, leading to cookie cutter list building. I suppose this makes the emergence of a meta pretty straightforward, but it also takes most of the skill and creativity out of list building. lame.

1500 point demi company lists

I'm experimenting with some lists for the club tournament this year. Our club tournament is meant to be social but not narrative. There are separate prizes for best general, best painted and best theme (I won theme last year!). There is also a comp system (point 1-5) and a 'no dick lists' clause where a panel can reject lists outright that they think are not going to be at least a little bit fun to play against. Some examples of how this works in practice. Last year a list with a Greater Brass Scorpion, 2 maulerfiends, 2 defilers and a helbrute was rejected  by 2 of the 5 panelists. It got through but comped 1 which meant that even if it had gone 5-0 it wouldn't have won. Another instructive example is that Chapter Masters on bikes with storm shields are generally considered totally fair play, whereas chapter masters on bikes with the shield eternal are not (because of EW). Lists that don't spam things (including, for example, equipping each of your bike squads with different special weapons) is rewarded. It's little things. Also, we played straight book maelstrom last year and I suspect it will be the same this year. That format requires a lot of tools to play well and with a 1500 point limit all the lists end up having some weaknesses. Overall I think it makes for a nice balance of contest of skill and fun had by all.

First thoughts on Space Marine list building contours in 7th Edition

Been working on some lists. It's pissing me off a bit that everyone is writing off the demi-company because it doesn't have enough guns. If you use Rhinos instead of Razorbacks then yes, you have less guns. If you don't bring command squads full of grav then yes, you have fewer guns. If you captain and chaplain are on foot with no upgrades then yes, you have no guns. If you bring assault squads instead of bikes and attack bikes then yes, you have no guns. If your scouts aren't rocking combi-gravs for their precision shot Alpha strike then yes, you have no guns. If you aren't bringing a chapter master then yes, you have no guns. Finally, if you aren't bringing Khan then yes, your opponent may actually be able to blow you off the table by the end of turn 7.

The sky falls further - Codex Space Marines 7th Edition

The new space marine codex seems a little out of hand (full codex leak with pictures at bloodofkittens). If you take a demi-company your army can use tactical doctrines once each per game (effectively giving you ultramarines chapter tactics, only better this edition). If you take 2 demi companies you can take razorbacks, drop pods and rhinos for free! Demi companies grant everything ob-sec, including HQ choices and the like. White scars are the same but now their infantry can also re-roll run and Khan's leadership trait is a 12" LD bubble. So for the grand price of 1850 points you can get:

Just a quick battle report for the lols

At slow grow the other night my incredibly bad CSM army played against perhaps the most tooled up Eldar army you can possibly make at 750 points. My opponent was also WAAC, but he's only just started playing so I forgive him for bringing such an approach to a hobby league. In any case, the match-up went comically badly for me and I thought I'd share the details with ya'll.

My army:
Chaos Lord with Mark of Khorne, power axe
6 Beszerkers of Khorne; champion has a power fist, Rhino
10 Cultists with close combat weapons
Helbrute with multi-melta and power fist
Defiler with t/l flamer, hades autocannon and 2 fists
Vindicator

So yeah, probably one of the worst lists you can make from the Chaos Space Marine codex, but I'm using this league as an excuse to paint stuff that has been sitting on my shelf for literally years (and I use chaos to practice painting styles so the army is very motley), and it's kind of fun playing knowing that you are almost definitely going to lose.

My opponent's army:
Farseer on jetbike with speer
4 jetbikes with scatter lasers
3 jetbikes with scatter lasers
3 jetbikes with scatter lasers
Wraithlord with sword
5 fire dragons in wave serpent with bright lance

Ouch. This is a photo of us setting up. It's a 4x4 table because it's only 750 points. Because jetbikes have 36" range on scatter lasers he can actually stay out of range of my vindicator even on this table! There is also a defence turret in the middle that was part of the mission for the day. At the end of each movement phase it does D3+3 STR6 AP- hits on any units within 12. It was really nasty. Otherwise the mission was Maelstrom #1.

Some thoughts on what Chaos Space Marines needs to be more competitive

I've been playing Chaos recently. A slow grow started at a fantastic new store here in Canberra (Jolt Games) and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to paint up some models I had idle. Playing CSM has really driven home something everyone knows: they suck. Why and what could make them better?

What I do and don't want in codex space marines

I might as well write on of these seeing as I haven't written anything in ages and the Codex comes out in the next fortnight or so. I'm am writing this as though Codex Eldar wasn't an absolute beat stick. As it stands, I think bikes will need to stay as cheap and awesome as they are now otherwise Eldar will crush all that stand before them. Drop pods might need to come into fast attack and formations might need to be a little bit stupid. Let's just assume all that away.

Fixing Eldar for social play

So I've played a few games against Eldar and have been reading as many bat-reps against the new codex as I can. Here are my suggestions:

Getting ahead of the Meta: how to beat the new Eldar

I thought I'd write up some thoughts on how to beat the new Eldar codex before I rage-quit. I'm so upset by this Codex. It's already cost GW $150 odd dollars because my insecurity about whether I would keep playing meant I declined to buy the new Assassins game. I've put all my purchases on hold for the next 2 months until I get some games in against this codex. This codex is so busted I can't even imagine having fun casual games against it. I would need to bring a very powerful marines list to combat just about anything the Eldar Dex can put out. I basically can't play Deathwing against it, weak Ob-sec spam will get beat by better ob-sec spam jetbikes, and anything remotely social will get totally dominated by aspect warrior builds or the guardian host. That leaves drop pods and bikes, which aren't exactly social. I won't be buying Knights anytime soon because of D, which also means I won't be starting a Skitarii army anytime soon.

Scout shame

A list sporting a tonne of scouts came second at the Las Vegas Open and then did very well at Adepticon. These are big tournaments, and the list is really cool, so I thought I'd profile it.

7th edition was glorious and then....GW - thoughts on the Eldar Codex

So the Eldar codex is out and things don't look good. At the end of 6th edition I was starting to consider moving to another game. My club is fast transitioning to Infinity and as much as I hate the pewter models and don't really dig the fluff, I love skirmish games and game balance, so I was this close to moving over. 7th edition stopped me. Formation, detachments, unbound and infinite CAD are heaps lame, but the 7th edition codexes all seem to be written with an eye to powering down the game. The nastiest codexes - Eldar, Marines, Necrons and Tau (though they aren't so nasty since Ob-sec became a thing) were primed for fixes this year. The new Necron dex is very strong, especially with Decurion, but at least Decurion forces people to play a variety of models, and the absence of ob-sec and few ways to ignore cover makes hard counter armies like lictor-shame and scout-shame quite easy to produce. Eldar serpent spam lists on the other hand...ugh, especially at the club level. So I was really excited about the re-doing of the Eldar dex. Unfortunately, it seems the design studio just couldn't resist.

Azrael-wing

I've played a few games with that Ravenwing list. It's great for Maelstrom and Eternal War. Shocking at kill points. Indeed, I rarely kill more than 3 or 4 of my opponent's units in a whole game, and my tactical squads and Rhinos die pretty easily as the game goes on. Book Maelstrom doesn't have kill points so you're sweet in that format. One other thing I wanted to note: first turn stealth on Rhinos thanks to chapter tactics combines really nicely with smoke launchers - you can 4+ cover with you wherever you go. I had a battle against a combined Eldar/Deldar list recently that I will write up a report for in a little bit. In the meantime I want to talk about my game from last night against Tau using my 1850 points Azrael wing list:

Finally playing some games with Raven Guard

Sup y'all

I've been travelling for about three months and so only played my first two games with the Ravenguard over the past fortnight. Here are some quick thoughts. Short story: it's a great list!

Do you like my car-park?

7th Edition and the evolution of 40K

Warhammer 40000 has changed a lot in the last two editions, and some people are very pissed about it. I'm not so sure. I want to discuss a few things: allies, game balance (Ward codexes and TauDar etc) and the new detachments/formations rules.