[Shandathe]

It's that way for the same reason that Majority Toughness is used in rolling To Wound as well as other simplifications, because it saves a ton of time doing Wound Allocation over doing everything 'correctly'. We've had editions where Wound Allocation could take 10-30 mins just to work out who died, especially with people trying to take full advantage of the various ways of making things more complicated to keep important models alive/spread the damage equally over multi-wound models and keep them all alive.

 

[Knighty]

It's that way for the same reason that Majority Toughness is used in rolling To Wound as well as other simplifications, because it saves a ton of time doing Wound Allocation over doing everything 'correctly'. We've had editions where Wound Allocation could take 10-30 mins just to work out who died, especially with people trying to take full advantage of the various ways of making things more complicated to keep important models alive/spread the damage equally over multi-wound models and keep them all alive.

Every game i've done up until that one followed the idea that you do the wounds to all models under the blast and take em out that way. For instance if a small blast hit 6 models and the wound rolls does all 4 wounds then to determine who actually gets killed we'd assign a number for each model 1-6 varying upon that as needed and roll a d6 for each wound and that number means that model died. 4 is a heavy flamer so that guy is now dead, 5 was a Sargent so he takes it (not including look out sir etc) 2 being a normal troop unit and 6 being a pysker for example that way its not like you said being bullshit where people try to make it so only the ones they don't want to die stay alive while the others don't.

I mean i can understand how some people can be absolute 100% assholes with wound allocations and that shit but most of the guys i've played with have been pretty chill and got their own way of getting around that kinda stuff without scream fests on what hits what, what wounds what and what dies.

 

[darkreever]

most of the guys i've played with have been pretty chill and got their own way of getting around that kinda stuff without scream fests on what hits what, what wounds what and what dies.

Unfortunately, not everyone is going to be like that. General rule of thumb is to expect those people to be at tournies, and that you will go up against highly competitive lists. Now whether those people know what they are doing (assaulting after deep striking) is another matter entirely.

I am surprised that your tourny allowed someone to field a forgeworld unit with experimental rules and not have to explain it to you first. (Also what Tau weapon is a large blast, and is ap3?)

 

[Shandathe]

(Also what Tau weapon is a large blast, and is ap3?)

At least AP3 you mean. Might've been a Hammerhead with an Ion Cannon, but more likely it was the other big battlesuit mentioned - a Riptide's Ion Accelerator seems a likely candidate. Or he might have just gotten unlucky on the saves...

 

[darkreever]

At least AP3 you mean. Might've been a Hammerhead with an Ion Cannon, but more likely it was the other big battlesuit mentioned - a Riptide's Ion Accelerator seems a likely candidate. Or he might have just gotten unlucky on the saves...

Ah your right, most likely was the ion accelerator.

I'm rather curious to see the Tau and Grey Knight lists to be perfectly honest. The Tau list is rocking 415 points between the normal and Y'vahra riptides with only the ion accelerator upgrade, and the Grey Knight list is at 425 between a stock terminator squad and 2 dreadknights (535 when including the librarian with no upgrades.)

For your Tau opponent, its more a matter of wondering if he was fielding the correct number of points. I mean, between the two riptides, the compulsary crisis team, a stock strike squad, and a cadre fireblade your looking at 604 points. Thats 600 points with no upgrades except the ion accelerator, and no markerlights yet.

 

[Knighty]

I'll try to clear up what they had to the best of my memory (And knowledge of grey knight/tau stuff)

a Hammerhead with an Ion Cannon, but more likely it was the other big battlesuit mentioned

Yeah the one with the large blast was indeed a big battlesuit, unsure of what kind it actually was but it was either AP3 or AP2 Large Blast because it removed the armor saves of my marines which is 3.

I am surprised that your tourny allowed someone to field a forgeworld unit with experimental rules and not have to explain it to you first.

So it was this stores second time hosting a warhammer 40k tourney so they are still working out what they can/will/want to allow and what they'll restrict. For instance the Skitarii got some restrcitons from memory they had to do with the amount of warlord like traits they got or something along those lines (sorry if that makes no sense i don't remember the skitarii related stuff, never fought them so it never came up again). As for the forgeworld unit with its special rules, well i wasn't aware it WAS forgeworld until i asked about the walker because it looked great, He never endeavoured to explain its rules/abilities and i never asked, didn't know they had a shit ton of custom rules thought they ran based of existing 40k rules with only slight modifications. The guy running it was aware it was forgeworld but allowed it (bare in mind this isn't a dedicated 40k store so that's why stuff isn't quite as relegated as you would normally expect).

I'm rather curious to see the Tau and Grey Knight lists to be perfectly honest.

Ask and you shall receive, this is again based of what i remember so any formations/squads that don't add up either is cause they cheated or i'm wrong.

Tau:
He was rocking two large battlesuits, the forgeworld one and the other looking something akin to this (http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net...esuit_2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130603120203)
Neither suit had drones attached. He had a crisis suit squad with his commander attached. He also had 4 marker light drone squads (4-5 drones each potentially 1 was a gun drone). He then also had another suit squad, might of been crisis but yeah that was his list.
So to sum up
2 Big Battlesuits
1 Crisis suit squad w/ commander attached
4 Markerlight drone squads (4-5 drones one might of been a gun drone)
1 other troop unit, likely a crisis suit


Grey Knights:
He rocked 2 Dreadknights with the massive swords and psy cannons
1 Librarian
1 Chapter master, had a sword and thunder hammer
1 Grey Knight Termnator Squad (1 dual swords and storm bolter, One sword and psy cannon, 2 storm bolter and sword and 1 Sargent with storm bolter and sword)
He had a small list.

So thats the best my memory can do, idk if any of those combos are wrong or just right up illeagle but most of what i wrote is what they had barring the few exceptions where i wasn't sure of exact details.

 

[darkreever]

Yeah the one with the large blast was indeed a big battlesuit, unsure of what kind it actually was but it was either AP3 or AP2 Large Blast because it removed the armor saves of my marines which is 3.

It was a riptide with ion accelerator then, thats in the Tau Empire codex.

Tau

This was a combined arms detachment and the drone formation. I'm very leary on this one because crisis suits get expensive fast.

How many crisis suits were there in total? What kind of weapons did they have?

Even if I assume the second squad was only 2 strong, and all suits had plasma rifles and missile pods his list would have been over 1000 points.

Grey Knights:

HQ:
Grand master
Daemonhammer
195

Grey Knight Librarian
Mastery level 3
135

Troops:
Terminator squad
1x Falchion, 1x psycannon
189

Heavy Support:
Dreadknight
Nemesis Greatsword and heavy psycannon, personal teleporter
205

Dreadknight
Nemesis Greatsword and heavy psycannon, personal teleporter
205

Total: 929

This is the Grey Knight list based on what you said, theres likely something missing but regardless this would be extremely tough for your deathwatch to deal with. It can get in your face very quickly and dominate in the psychic phase with 9-14 warp charges per turn.


So of the three lists you faced, Genestealer Cult is tough for everyone in general, the Grey Knight list was the rock to your scissor, and that Tau list might not have been legal or else it was super competitive.

 

[Knighty]

I'm honestly not too sure about their weapons on the suits, i think they only ever shot once and even then it missed so i never paid much attention to the name of the weapons, also was more thinking along the lines of "holy shit 3/4 of army is already gone" XD.
I believe the commander was attached to a squad of 4 and the other might of been 2-3, can't really remember too well. If next time he's using that stuff again i'll be sure to check his rules and points myself (and other players too) cause i just didn't understand my enemy well enough though if it was an illegal list that kinda sucks ass, pretty sure he came in third for the whole thing


As for the Grey Knights i agree it would be tough, if i was aware that he couldn't in fact assault me right after teleporting and i managed to get that one more 6 to deny it, i'm not sure how it would of ended in the end, i could of just kept slamming shots into him from range whil he tried to close the distance, though i'm assuming he still would of got in front because of the teleporter. i did also manage to take a dread knight off the table straight up by just slamming everything i had and bad saving rolls by him and his terminators were still troops and i had a furor and malleus kill teams so asides from the two HQ i had the two kill teams that countered everything else. If he didn't charge me after teleporting in front of me i think i could of killed 2 terminators maybe the third with the furor nearby and slam the rest with the squad in front. It always sounds must more hopeful in post when you have time to think about what could of been, could of been done.

Also the Grand Master had two melee weapons. I know he counted it as two because he used the sword(Think it might of been either a relic or a power sword cause i had to do invul rolls so it was something that was ap2) in his melee so he could attack me first (with the hammer being unwieldy and all).

 

[darkreever]

Yeah, then he might be new-ish to his army because the grand master only gets 1 close combat weapon, he can't exchange his storm bolster for a second one.

And even if he could, the hammer is a specialist weapon and the sword is not, so he would not get a bonus attack from having the two. He'd have been better off with a halberd in my opinion.

 

[Shandathe]

Agreed on the Halberd. +1 boosts him to S5,and he can try for Iron Arm when rolling powers if he doesn't think that's enough. His basic Nemesis Force Sword is great for fighting Deathwatch (Knighty: Think Power Sword with Force special rule).

He likely grabbed the Hammer and didn't realize he was replacing it, rather than adding to it ("may take items from the Melee list" sounds like it, until you actually read the text above the Melee list).

Unfortunately, calling mistakes like this one requires a lot of knowledge of your enemy's codex and even then you'd rather have the Codex on hand...

 

[Knighty]

Well uh yeah the halberd sounds heaps better then the sword and thunder hammer combo, only thing i can think of is he screwed up when making the model and just stuck with it, he did say specifically that he would attack me with the sword and not the hammer so he'd still be a higher initiative.

Curious as well what's you thoughts on Deathwatch landraiders? was thinking can make up a souped up melee squad and temy with heavy flamer or some other combo and take em right up to the front line where the enemy are, deploy em blast em with flamer and charge in with heavy thunder hammers, storm shields and xenophase blade kinda thing. or deploy another kill team from them. And with the lascannons, storm bolters and assault cannons i got some more options for anti tank and some anti-infantry capabilities
(And would the xenophase blades rule for re-rolling invul saves apply to any wounds taken by the unit or just the sword)

Or even drop pods

Cheers as always

 

[Shandathe]

The main problem with Deathwatch Land Raiders is that the things tend to attract large amounts of anti-tank fire, especially when they're filled - and Deathwatch costs enough points that you can't really field enough OTHER vehicles to take advantage of that. Worse, if the Land Raider actually gets killed the squad inside can't assault their next turn. That doesn't mean you can't make it work, just that you need to have a ready Plan B

Drop Pods are probably the transport of choice for Deathwatch, as playing Deathwatch is very much about having the right unit in the right place. They're cheap and a relatively safe way to get a squad exactly where you need it. Always take an odd number to take advantage of Drop Pod Assault, possibly bring the Beacon Angelis with the first wave. It will let you guide in reserve Drop Pods and redeploy one of your units on the battlefield as well (Surprise Land Raider! Just remember Deep Strike means no immediate Assault).

Re: Xenophase blade, a weapon's rules only apply to attacks made with that weapon. The Xenophase blade's entry even specifically says so

One small exception: A model with two close combat weapons (such as the Librarian, who has a Force Weapon and a Bolt Pistol) gets an extra attack from having two CCWs. He needs to choose one to attack with, and will only get the rules from one of them. He will obviously go with the Force Weapon as it's just plain BETTER than the pistol which counts as a 'normal' CCW. The bonus attack for having two CCWs ALSO uses the Force Weapon rules (despite presumably being from the pistol).

 

[Knighty]

Ah okay, you're right land raiders are large targets. i ask because my uncle has two and is sending them my way so i have them as an option if needed. you make a good point though the deathwatch are incredibly expensive as it is an adding land raiders to that would hurt it (depending). If they had anti tank that would screw up that plan so it'd be a situational thing.

Wow i am blind it does too well rip i did think it was too good that success invul re-rolls applied to the unit ah well.

I must say i've never heard of this drop pod assault thing before but that whole idea/tactic is a very amusing idea, especially the surprise land raider (chuck in a squad with it for extra shits and gig's) and you get 4-5 squads all where, barring deepstrike mishaps land right where you want with an added land raider in front as well (imagine doing that with the torrent flamer weapons my god good bye hoard armies)

Also thats new for me with that combat rule so thats good

 

[Shandathe]

A Land Raider can shrug off a surprising amount of fire, though you'll want to keep an eye out for particularly dangerous anti-tank weaponry (Melta/Armourbane/Lance). For infantry-based heavy weaponry like Devastators, Stalker Boltguns are your friend, aim Precision shots at the people carrying heavy weapons as they (usually) aren't characters and thus can't be Look Out Sir'd Only 50% chance to help against the sergeant in the back with the Meltabomb though...

If you use drop pods, try and be the sneakiest horrible bastard you can be about abusing enemy deployment, as your own positioning is key. Best case you can find a way to only fight part of his army at once, and defeat the enemy in detail.

 

[Knighty]

One particularly horrible bastard i did see at the tourney was a Space wolves player who dropped 3 drop pods onto all 3 objectives and deployed his dreadnoughts from them, completely ruined a guys chances who was relying on mobility (I called his list the mad max list as the guy fighting the space wolves had literally all Space marine bikers and 1 storm raven gunship).

Wouldn't it be more economic to just shoot the squad? due to most squads being 5 guys get a squad of 4-5 stalkers and you for 8-10 shots slamming into the squad, haven't seen too many 5+ devastator squads, make that squad a furor (add a 2 frag cannon for the awesome impact, or Infernus) so be like a 7 man squad for 244pts which really for deathwatch is pretty small and provides some pretty big damage or do the 5 man with 3 stalkers 2 Frag/infernus for 180pts which again pretty point economic for the damage output.

Worst comes to worst if a particularly nasty squad is about to his the land raider with power weapons/melta bombs i can always surprise! and charge out my own squad to combat.

This idea with the drop pods honestly sounds great, i'll try and get a couple of em sometime soon because as you said makes alot of sense and allows me to take map control and deploy them right where they are needed which is important.

One thing though this drop pod assault rule does it require 3 drop pods or can it be done with less?

 

[Shandathe]

Wouldn't it be more economic to just shoot the squad?

Yep, but as they're usually in cover and you can't ignore both their cover AND armour saves... a better chance for a guy in the back is always nice.

One thing though this drop pod assault rule does it require 3 drop pods or can it be done with less?

It's right in your Codex at the Drop Pod entry. Half your Drop Pods rounded up show up immediately, so if you take 1 it'll be there Turn 1. It will at the very least force him to deploy to take that into account. Note you still get to move the squad a bit out of the drop pod, so get into cover against the army parts the squad can't immediately shoot (the drop pod can serve as cover if nothing better is available!).

You want to take an odd number so the 'rounding up' works in your favor... if you take two, you'll still only get one Turn 1 and have to roll for the other. If you take 3 you get 2 on Turn 1 - with the last one having to be rolled for normally, and so on.

 

[Knighty]

Wow i am very much blind when it comes to gems of cheese like these in my own army, this'll be something to use for sure

 

[Knighty]

So uh the store is now doing a kill team campagin, looking at potential lists with the rules to consider make it a rather small one. Decided to post it on through this seeing as its still DW List related XD

Thus far my current idea for a list consists of:
190pts
1 Vet sqaud
- 2 Infernus Bolters
- 2 stalker Bolters
- Bolter

1 Biker

Hard enough making a 1k list but geez 200pts more painful XD, i was gonna add a terminator but remembered the whole nothing with a 2+ armor save so that ruins that idea, might swap out the stalkers though because their heavy it'll mean they only fire snap shots when moved right? so that'll limit their usefulness, though having said that the boards will be fairly open. I could also swap the two infernus for two frag cannons which would make 200pts even. I got the biker so i can make the unit a aquila kill team as that'll be the only kill team i can form with 200pts and other restrictions, i would of prefered to use furor but without terminators it's not possible.

 

[Shandathe]

First things first: Don't worry about a Deathwatch Kill Team Formation, as you have to adhere to the Kill Team Detachment for which a Kill Team Formation does not, alas, qualify.

For Deathwatch, this pretty much means 'grab 6 Power Armour models and gear up to taste'. Deathwatch is expensive pointwise to start with and 6 is prolly the max you can get and still get some gun upgrades. A biker for the sixth is not a bad choice - faster and tougher makes him a good harassment choice.

This means fully half your team will be Specialists, plus a fourth will be Leader. Pick them wisely.

On weapons:

Unless you're looking at an 'indoor' mission with no open field, Stalkers aren't a bad choice. Table shouldn't be more than 4x4, your shortest range on a Stalker is 24" and everything else (so every shot that doesn't absolutely need to go through 3+) is longer, so find your Stalker-armed marines a sniper perch somewhere mid-forward in your deployment zone and just shoot from there.

You need at least one Frag Cannon I think, for anti-vehicle duty. Getting a Meltagun in range gets iffy... Vehicles with 33 or less total AV are not just Rhinos, you might meet such niceties as a Razorback(11/11/10), Immolator (11/11/10 again, particular favorite of mine), Chimera (12/10/10 with a multilaser and heavy bolter as standard issue), a squadron of Armoured Sentinels (12/10/10, comes with a Multilaser and can pick up a Missile Launcher that'll go straight through your armour save for 5 points more)... and that's just the basic Imperium vehicles.

Good news, Mission Tactics will be invaluable because the enemy's only going to have one (MAYBE two) battlefield roles in play, so you won't be missing much. Not much to worry about Gets Hot when firing Vengeance rounds.

Not so good news, you're going to be outnumbered, as per usual. 6 models (you can lose 4 before taking break tests), 6 wounds total... which isn't very many at all given that some of the other armies can easily put four times that on the table. Worse, if you're not outnumbered, you're probably looking at something like 6 Wraithguard, as nobody told the Eldar they could not bring D weapons (You could take those, though...).

 

[Knighty]

When you say i could take those do you mean the wraithguard or D weapons? didn't think deathwatch had any if so.

So i can't use kill teams at all in this only mission tactics? Seems kinda redundant when the name of the formation is literally kill team lol.

As for anti tank i actually looked around and though of going with a vanguard vet with a power fist over the biker, can jump and move alot faster than everyone else and can pound through the armor with relative ease. I didn't think too much about armor as i didn't think many people would be able to field them but yeah it's stupid to rule that out.

If i was to take in a frag cannon it'd mean taking out the additional biker/vanguard so my list would look like either of these combos:

6 Vets
2 Stalkers
1 Frag Cannon
1 Infernus
2 bolters

5 vets
2 stalkers
1 Frag Cannon
1 Infernus
1 Sarge /w SS and xenophase blade

5 Vets
2 Stalkers
2 Infernus
1 Frag Cannon

9 Vets
9 Bolters

7 Vets
1 Infernus
1 Frag Cannon
5 Bolters

5 Vets
1 Sarge SS Xenophase
1 BS, SS, Heavy Thunder Hammer
3 Bolters

I'm sure there are plenty of other combos but those are the current ones i can think of

EDIT: Just realising that there is actually a kill team thread... probs should of posted it on that ahaha ah well