7th Edition is upon us!

Well, I haven't purchased the new book yet and it will probably be another week before I do, but I have read a lot about the changes from 6 to 7 and here I want to discuss some interesting (to me at least) things.

Terrain-Specific rules
What I mean by this is apparently each piece of terrain that GW makes now has a corresponding set of rules to go with it as opposed to something more general.

I think this is also fine going forward so long as they still include some general rules for non-GW terrain as well as include rules for their new kits in the box with the model kit.

New Psychic Rules
The introduction of a phase is of course a big deal as I have said in a previous post.  This new phase and how Psykers and their powers work in 7th is beneficial to the game IMHO.

I at first didn't think this would be good, they were just copying and pasting straight out of fantasy battle and being lazy for some reason.

The more I have read and thought about it though the better it seems.

Having a Phase means all of the casting and dispelling happens at the same time during the turn.  And all of the rules should hopefully be on the same page in the rulebook.  Both of these things should speed up the game.  Unless you knew the rules by heart in 6th, it would take a while to page through the rulebook and FAQs to find out if say a witchfire could be cast out of a transport's fire ports or if a blessing would effect a unit inside the vehicle.
The blessings happened at the "start of the Psyker's movement phase" and the witchfire was in the shooting phase.  Splitting this up between phases meant that you would have to think more about positioning and go through the rulebook to find out if you could move and use the witchfire or not and whether it could be shot out of a hatch.
Also the phrase "start of the Psyker's movement phase" could be interpreted as start of the player's movement phase so before anything else happens or at that specific model's phase implying each unit or model has its own set of movement, shooting and assaulting phases.  This means that you could move a unit and then cast the blessing from the Psyker.

Now with one phase this is solved because everything happens in this phase, not spread throughout the turn.

The rules surrounding Casting and Perils of the Warp make it more likely that while the Psychic Power that you just need to cast will happen but it also makes it more likely that you and perhaps those around will die.

The dice pool is used to take as many dice as you want and roll them to get 4 pluses.  The more powerful a spell the more 4 pluses need to be rolled.  You take the amount of dice out of your pool that you want to try and take the test and roll them trying to get the amount of 4 pluses required.  This allows you to take as many dice as yyou want to ensure the spell works.  The problem is then rolling double 6 or double 1s increases dramatically.  So the possibility of dying is greatly increased.

I am encouraged by the new Psychic phase in addition to the following:

Objective Secured
Everything can hold objectives now.  EVERYTHING!  That means my 10 man assault terminator squad can, as can Scout Sentinels or Rhinos.
The best part about 7th however may be the Objective Secured rule.  It means that only a  unit (which if it has a dedicated transport also gets this rule) that has this rule can contest an objective held by another unit with this rule. Troops are the only units with this rule built-in.
Now I can hold the objective with my terminators, but if you grots show up and sit within contesting range of that objective they count as holding it NOT the terminators.

Wow, this rule along with the previous Psychic changes and this next rule:

New Vehicle Damage Chart and its Effect on Passengers
1-3 means almost nothing.  4 is again no big deal.  5 is weapon destroyed; again so what. 6 is Immobilized (possibly painful but again its not destroyed.) Only on a 7 is the vehicle exploded.

Also when an effect happens to the vehicle if the squad inside passes a LD check they are fine.
No no more having the passengers automatically do nothing the next turn because their tank got shot.

These two changes make vehicles much stronger and a fully mounted army is very viable and tougher than it was in 6th.



Combine the last three rules changes listed above and MSU is back and can compete against Deathstars or other super powerful 6th ed armies.

I am quite happy about this since my Minotaurs are essentially MSU.

Also my Iron Warriors may make a strong comback because of vehicles.

I am quite excited to get my hands on the new book!

Until Next Time.....

7th Edition Rules discussion continued and a Kickstarter

First of all, I usually don't do this sort of thing on my blog, BUT Ramshackle Games has started a kickstarter for some tanks:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/179741323/battle-dog-and-pug

I really like Ramshackle games and is one of the only 3rd party manufacturers that I have bought figs from to use in 40k and Book of The Arbitrator (modified Necromunda rules).

Here are three examples of their vehicles that I have painted up:

I really like the tanks that they have come up with for this Kickstarter and I wish them luck!

Now onto more 7th Ed discussion.

Allies
Supposedly all armies can ally with themselves as battle brothers.
I see this as fine as long as the 2000point limit is when you can take 2 force orgs.  Its not that big of a deal and I thought was kind of implied (or at least should have been) in 6th anyway.

Battle Brother ICs can join units from their ally and be embarked in a transport of that ally's army.
This should have existed before as well.  It made no sense for a terminator-armoured Inquisitor to be allowed to be joined to a squad of terminators but then not be allowed to jump in their Landraider.

The last rumor is Battle Brothers are Eldar/Dark Eldar; All Imperial Armies; All Chaos Armies.
The other levels of ally have not been released thus far as far as I know.

Jink Saves
A unit must declare that it is taking a 'jink' save.  If it declares that it is doing so then the next turn that unit can only snap fire.
I really like this.  It makes units like Wave Serpents and Bikers now less uber awesome.  They can still get the great protection a jink save provides but it now comes at a cost of reduced effectiveness in shooting the next turn.  Its a nice cost-benefit thing, it adds a level of complexity.

Skyfire
A gun with snap fire can only shoot at flyers with its full BS even if it has Interceptor.
This potentially makes Missile Launchers with Flakk missiles much less useful unless the bearer can shoot frag and krak at ground targets and use its normal BS, we shall see.

Things like the Icarus Lascannon or Quad-Gun on the Aegis Defence Line are also negatively impacted.  Before if someone didn't have a flier these guns were still useful, now if they don't have a flyer you might as well never even shoot the damned things.

Battle-Forged Troops have Scoring Priority
Troop units from Battle-Forged armies (armies made using the traditional Force Org chart) can control objectives even if other units are in contesting range (unless those other units are also Battle-Forged troops).

This is big for playing against Unbound Armies. In 7th Ed everything Scores except Zooming Flyers.  Because of this Unbound Armies can actually possibly win games without eliminating the entirety of their enemy's army.

One reason you would play with a Battle-Forged army (which uses force org) compared to an Unbound Army (which is anything can be put in the army) is that the if troops from the Battle-forged army control an objective the Unbound army can't simply move and contest the objective, in fact they can never contest an objective that has a Battle-forged troops unit on it.

I think this is great and fluffy and can help encourage using the force org which we all know and love.


Well this is all I got for now.  I am getting really excited to pick up the new 7th ed rules.

Until Next Time...

7th Edition: What we know and what I think about it.

7th Edition is right around the corner.

Unless you have been living under a rock and have not been paying attention to anything 40k for the last few weeks you will know that 7th Edition is apparently being released or will be available for pre-order on May 24th.

I at first was rather annoyed by the news.  I still feel that I have not mastered 6th yet.  I know most of my friends haven't mastered it yet.  A lot of my friends have barely even played it.

I have also been running tournaments regularly.  I feel I have a good grasp of the 6th Edition rules and now with 7th I have to learn new things.  I am putting an indefinite hold on the tournaments until I have a feeling for how the rules play and where the community is going in terms of tournaments.

My tournaments have been Bay Area Open style but with no Forgeworld and played at 1850 points. Depending on the new missions in the new rules I may or may not continue to follow the Bay Area Open format.  They may also change their format with 7th edition, who knows.

On to what we know about 7th edition:

There will be a Psychic Phase.
This is pretty big news.  This is a whole new PHASE to go along with the Move Shoot and Assault PHASES.
There hasn't been a Psychic Phase since 2nd edition in the 1990s.

This could be good or bad.  I am leaning towards good.  While adding a Phase is a big deal and it implies that it will have the same significance as the other three phases, I believe it will impact the game less than the current way Psykers and their spells influence the current game.

I have not played Fantasy Battle since 4th edition of Fantasy in the 1990s, so I don't know how the current Magic phase works in the current Fantasy battle game, but if spells are cast by using a pool of dice and anyone can dispell them by using their own dice and bad things can possibly happen.

It seems to me that having a phase may be better and it may be harder to cast psychic powers.  It may run counter to what people think.  Psychic powers even though they will have their own phase now, may not be as powerful as they are in 6th currently.

New Missions along with New Objective Cards
I am excited for this.  I can't believe my group of friends never thought about something like this before.  I don't know if this is how it will work or not but if you have a stack of cards, each one has an objective on it and you flip it over and try to accomplish it, once you do you then draw a new new card.

This is an awesome idea.  I don't know how the cards will be dealt out, if it is random or if each player selects the cards before the game or if they share or have separate decks but it sounds cool.

Grounding Checks
Flying Monstrous Creatures (FMCs) now only take one grounding check per turn.  This is a HUGE boon for FMCs.  Before you could basically kill them with lasguns, now they will probably just blow them off and not care.

FMCs, in particular Tyranids, just got a lot better and scarier.

Difficult Terrain
I heard that it is now -2 inches to movement.  If this is correct then it makes the movement part of the game less random, which is great.  It will help all units: on foot or in vehicles, unless vehicles are treated differently.

Sweeping Advance.
If the rumors are true and you are able to consolidate (or Sweep) into another unit after you wipe out one unit in CC, even if the new unit gets to over watch you, it will be huge for assault armies or just units.

Basically having a unit of assault marines in a land raider or the equivalent will be quite useful again as once they get into combat they will not be shot at as much after they initially charge.


Well these are some of my thoughts for now.

In just a few days we will have the new edition in ours hands and I can see for myself if these things are true.

Until Next Time....

Minotaurs Vs Marines Errant 2000pts. Part 2

For part 1 click:  here


The Minotaurs continue to surround the central building which houses the Relic.

The Librarian jumps out of the back of his Rhino along with a squad of Sternguard and opens up on a Marines Errant Marines squad, killing several.

The Marines Errant then push back against the Minotaurs moving forward and....

Destroying a rhino and a landspeeder along with numerous Space Marines of the Minotaurs Chapter.

Librarian Ampelios unleashes a Psychic storm that destroys several Marines Errants.  The combined fire power of the Predator, the Sternguard and the regular Minotaur marine squad kills the rest of the Marines Errant squad.

A Minotaurs combat squad charges into a Marines Errant Dreadnought hoping against hope that they can destroy it, but knowing truly that they will act simply as a speed bump to the Dreadnought.  After one round of combat only the Sargent remains.

The Minotaurs move forward to surround the objective.

The Marines Errant continue to advance, the two forces now able to see the white of their opponent's eyes.

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Lord Robert Baratheon moves into the ruins ready to strike at the Marines Errant.

A combat squad fires its meltaguns into a Dreadnought blowing it sky high.

Baratheon makes short work of the combat squad in the ruins and the tide begins to turn.

A Minotaurs land speeder drops behind a Predator and blows off its sponson.

The Dreadnought of the Marines Errant gets destroyed by a lucky shot and the Minotaurs continue their advance.

But it seems that this may have all been a ploy to lure in the Minotaurs to be crushed by the Marines Errant.

Marines Errant advance on the Minotaurs right flank and blow away a combat squad.

The center of the blue and white marines' line opens fire and kills Baratheon's squad around him, leaving him in a pile of dead and smoking bodies.  With grim determination he trudges on.

Librarian Ampelios and Lord Inquisitor Robert Baratheon close on the Marines Errant Devastator squad.

As the game ends,the Minotaurs have a combat squad controlling the Relic.

While Chronos put the pedal to the metal to cross the board for Linebreaker, he couldn't quite make it.

The Minotaurs emerge victorious, but only just.

+++END TRANSMISSION+++

There are two more battle reports from this weekend so stay tuned.

Until next time....

Minotaurs Vs Marines Errant 2000pts Part 1

So this past weekend I travelled across the state to visit my friend Pen Dull.  We had all day Sunday to play 40k, so we got 3 games in.

I brought my Minotaur Space Marines along with my Imperial Knight and an Inquisitor.

He had his Marines Errant Space Marines.  The Marines Errant are an Ultramarines Successor Chapter so they use the Ultramarines Chapter Tactics.

We have had this battle before and lets just say there is some bad blood between these two chapters.

According to the fluff, in the past the Minotaurs have not been shy in their dislike of the Ultramarines and have come to blows with Successor Chapters of theirs.

They have also insulted Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines and have subsequently been banned from the Ultramar System.

And thus begins our story......


Several years ago a Dataslate was found with the following information:

++ A communique is sent to the Marines Errant informing them that the Minotaurs under the command of the Ordo Malleus request passage through the JYLN cluster. ++

++ The Marines Errant refuse to allow passage. ++

++ Leading a force of Minotaurs, Inquisitor Lord Robert Baratheon, descends to the planet in terminator armour ready to smash the Marines Errant for not allowing their fleet safe passage through the system. ++

Since Baratheon is an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Lord, he will lead this force as the Warlord.

Here is my army (2000pts):

HQ -

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor in Terminator Armour, with three Servo Skulls

Librarian Lvl 2

Elites -

5 Assault Terminators

Dreadnought with Multimelta

6 Sternguard in Rhino

Troops -

10 marines missile launcher, melta, combi-melta
in rhino

10 marines missile launcher, melta, combi-melta
in rhino

10 marines missile launcher, flamer, power sword

10 marines missile launcher, flamer, power sword

Fast Attack -

Land Speeder multimelta, heavy flamer

Land Speeder multimelta, heavy flamer

Land Speeder multimelta, heavy flamer

Heavy Support  -

Predator Autocannon 2 heavy bolters

Predator Autocannon 2 heavy bolters

Here is his army:

We decide to do a straight up random dice roll to find out what mission we will be playing.

We roll up Hammer and Anvil deployment along with the Relic.

The Relic:

The Board setup:

 Deployment:
The Servo Skulls are in No Man's Land and Robert Baratheon and his Terminator scout forward thanks to his Liber Heresius.

The Minotaurs Deployment:

The Marines Errant Deployment:

Inquisitor Baratheon leads his Terminator retinue forward, scouting towards the center building which houses the Relic.

The Marines Errant begin moving towards the Minotaurs.  This tactical squad will move into the ruins in front of them shortly.

The Marines Errant Dreadnought moves into the ruins but is too large to ascend to the second floor and grab the Relic.  Meanwhile the terminators led by the Inquisitor move around the outside of the ruins preparing for an assault.

The rest of the Minotaur forces move forward.  Some vehicles were damaged by the Marines Errant's shooting and were unable to move forward.

Two of the Minotaurs' vehicles pop their smoke launchers.

The Minotaurs' Terminators move in for the kill but choose to run instead of charge.

Sensing an opening, the Marines Errant move forward, disembark and fire at the terminators.

The Venerable Dreadnought that was in the central ruins leaves them and walks around the side.  After the Marines Errant are done shooting, Inquisitor Baratheon is left standing alone outside the ruins.

The Marine Errant continue to close on the Relic.

The Minotaurs, however also continue to close on the Relic.

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion ....

Until Next Time.....

Part 2 is: Here