My background story for GW Newbury's Tale of Gamers

WAAGH ZOGSMASHA

REPORT FROM INQUISITOR BALKHAUSEN, ORDO XENOS

Date : 972.M41.157

Location : Alendry IV

I continue to investigate the activities of Warboss Zogsmasha.  Until now his motives were unclear, even to myself.  There seemed to be little pattern to his vicious attacks on various agricultural facilities and jungle worlds across fourteen systems.   However, our glorious Emperor has proved beneficent in enabling me to capture and interrogate a so-called ‘Painboy’ of Zogsmasha’s Blood Axe tribe during the successful defence of the main grey-algae production vat complex on Dreah.  This action was undertaken by the heroic Mitorian XIII supported by elements of the Howling Griffons’ 9^th Company Ancorae Mancorae, under the overall command of Captain Leomar Adler.

My interrogation of this creature, which refered to itself as ‘Skabrippa’, quickly revealed that Zogsmasha is deliberately attacking worlds in the path of  hive fleet Thanatos.  After my initial scepticism at this seemingly suicidal strategy, Skabrippa was then persuaded to reveal that Zogsmasha has heard tell of a mythical greenskin called ‘Grom the Flabby’.  (I initially believed this name to be in the correct form, although I have always been wary of xeno-linguistic servitors).  According to Skabrippa, this Grom creature is said to have gained remarkable healing powers by consuming parts of other beasts with regenerative abilities.

(After exhaustive research I was able to uncover a reference to a similarly named ‘Grom the Paunch’ in the heretical tome [CENSORED BY ORDER OF THE IMPERIUM])

It appears that Zogsmasha is attempting to gain similar powers by capturing and dissecting one of the larger Tyranid organisms with the capacity to self-heal.  His quest represents a significant threat to the Imperium in a number of ways.  Were Zogsmasha to be successful, an unkillable warboss could see the rise of a large Waagh.  If this ability could be passed on to the entire Waagh, they would require significantly increased firepower to resist.   Even if Zogsmasha  is unable to locate a suitable organism or his painboys cannot perform the required procedures, the prospect of Thanatos absorbing the biomass from a sizeable Waagh is even more dangerous.

I request the assignment of a Deathwatch squad to eradicate Zogsmasha and his currently small group of followers believed to be en route to my location in the Alendry system, before his Waagh regains momentum.  Only his toughest warriors survived Dreah, but they will surely grow in number again, if left unchecked.  I know that Brother Elias, formerly of the Salamanders chapter would welcome the opportunity to bring his weapon known as the Wyvern’s Breath to bear against these foul xenos.

Thought for the day: Power resides in the will of the Righteous

by M.Hewitt

Warboss and Nobz - work in progress

Beating an Imperial Knight

My Howling Griffons played in a quick 1000 point game against George's new Imperial Knight tonight. He was using it allied to his FW Sons of Horus army, using the Chaos codex. We knew this combo was not official, but it was just a trial game.

The rest of his army was 3x10-man squads with 2 plasma guns each and a terminator sorceror, all of which he had also just finished assembling.

I reasoned that if he was using a super-heavy, I would use my Stormwing formation, along with a 10-man tac squad, a 5-man tac, 5 sniper scouts, a rifleman dread and a basic librarian.

We played Big Guns with 5 objectives on a 4'x4' board. I got to place 3 objectives and also deployed and went first. Even so I did very little first turn, as I just hid in my deployment zone out of range or sight of his units.

George advanced his units first turn, but the Knight couldn't see the tactical marines and failed to kill any scouts either, as they went to ground for a 2+ save with their cloaks.

Luckily my formation turned up turn 2, so I put the Raven in front of the Knight and the two talons either side.  Of course the Ion Shield went up facing towards the Raven. I knew the Stormtalons weren't facing it with their Skyhammers, but fortunately their assault cannons can fire 360°. The Ion Shield saved him from the multi-melta but the assault cannons took off 3 HPs.

George's outflanking squad from his warlord trait then arrived on the scouts' side of the board and also started trying to shoot the young marines off their objective.  Again the 2+ cover made the snipers hard to shift.  He also backed off the Knight, so I couldn't get all 3 flyers shooting armour 12.

Turn 3 I unloaded my dread and meltagun combat squad from the Raven and then hovered all the flyers circling the Knight to make sure I could use all their weapons.  In the end this proved to be overkill.  The Ion Shield went up towards the Raven and one Talon, but the meltas, autocannons and the other Talon accounted for its last 3 HPs.  First blood to me, although I did get worried the apocalyptic blast would catch the hovering flyers, but they were quite safe.

At that point we both had two objectives and linebreaker, but my first blood meant I was 8-7 ahead.  We called it there, as our time had run out and George couldn't really do much against my flyers, beyond some lucky plasma shots.

Knights can't touch flyers with armour 11 or more unless they hover, so really need protection with some anti-air allies and a more balanced army to guard their flanks and rear from multiple threats.

It was very satisfying to kill off the Knight, but it did feel a bit like playing rock-paper-scissors.

Space Marines Battle Company (and new Space Marines incoming)

Having been working on my Howling Griffons all summer I now have enough figures to field a full company.  Not only that, I can either field a standard Battle Company (6 Tacticals, 2 Assault and 2 Devastator) or a full Devastator Company (10 Devastator).

As I'm saving all the devs for Armies on Parade, I took the Battle Company formation to GW Newbury for an all-day Apocalypse game yesterday.  It was a long day but great fun.  The result was a very close 19-20 loss for my side, which was the only downer.  My partner had a Leman Russ company and one super-heavy.  Our opponents had Wolves, Eldar and Tau and 5 super-heavies.  As new players arrived during the afternoon we were allowed to recycle units to keep things balanced.  One plucky marine was all that survived from my original deployment to the end.  He will be getting a promotion soon!

Of course, as a Space Marine player, I'm also looking forward to getting my hands on the new codex.  The Tactical and Sternguard sprues look particularly promising.  I'm even impressed with the Vanguards and all their plastic Thunder Hammers.  However, as I've spent the last few weeks assembling and painting all that power armour, I'm not planning on painting much more in the near future. I may get a Stalker for my Armies on Parade board, but I already have to finish painting the board, scenery and a Storm Eagle (which has taken me a good few days just to assemble...!)

First of Sixth

I finally got my copy earlier - my preciouss...!

So what are my first impressions?  Well the production quality is very good, especially the artwork on the Holy Terra and the Space Marine Monastery foldouts, which are extremely dark and evocative of the whole grim future theme.

As for the rules, a few things have caught my attention.

I had misunderstood the changes to Rapid Fire.  Moving models can't fire twice to maximum range, but can now fire once at least.  Shooty armies will still like this.

The rules about snapfiring Heavy Weapons, either when moving or charged, will also be fun.  A Devastator Squad used to be a relatively soft target for assault, but they can now defend themselves a little better.  In particular, with the closest model being hit first, it will be the tooled-up characters leading the charge who could now get a faceful of lascannon!  I think this will also make flamers a lot trickier to employ.

There were a few comments in GW Newbury about the Allies matrix.  It's a shame Tyranids can't ally with anyone, but fluff-wise it make sense.  However, vanilla Space Marines now consider Tau to be trusted Battle Brothers, whereas the Inquisition are merely Allies of Convenience.

I had hoped you could buy more terrain than just fortifications, as part of your army, such as a morale-boosting statue.  However, the sheer variety of potential mysterious terrain on the board means you are unlikely to get any particular roll.  We will just have to improvise more.

The new Big Guns Never Tire and The Scouring missions each seem to encourage you to take Heavy Support and Fast Attack choices respectively, as each one counts as scoring in these missions.  However, as they are also worth a Victory Point for your opponent, this could make them less attractive.

My next personal objective is to make sense of the psychic powers, so I can start using the spell, sorry psychic power, cards I also got today.

Tuesday will be my first chance to try out the new rules set, and I can't wait!