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.