Ard Boyz

Apparently we have the rule set. Its more than quite obvious that they just cut and pasted last years rules into this years. (note the wrong dates listed in there). Which is all fine and dandy. Who really cares. What does bug me though, is that adepticon was not addressed. Last years finals in Chicago used them, and it was not mentioned whether or not they were going to be use this year throughout the tournament. No matter your take on adepticon, it would still be nice to know one way or the other. Since it was not mentioned, I am going to assume that adepticon is not to be used in the prelimary round.

My advice, call the store you plan on playing at, and make sure you know if they are using these rules. It does matter.

It looks like one week ahead of the tourny we are looking at receiving the mission lists. That should mean that approx. May 8th we should see something.

Seize the Inititive

One of the things that can destroy an army, and give you a serious loss or tabling is when someone Seizes the inititive on you. You might think that this doesnt happen that often, but in truth, it happens enough that you had better figure out what you can do to survive it.

First lets look at what advantages it gives your opponent against you. It allows your opponents the best of two worlds, responding to your set up, and still going first. If you set up in the open to advance quickly or take advantage of going first, this can hurt you the worst. Second, is that even though your are caught with your pants down, his reserves will also be coming in much faster. This often means that you get hit hard round one. By the time you are able to respond, reserves are coming in hard. Its like getting punched in the gonads, leaving you curled over holding yourself so that your opponent get can take a good shot at punching you in the face. ( I think that explains the feeling of being seized pretty well.)

The next thing to consider is what type of armies can really take advantage of seizing the inititive. Armies that use drop pods are some of the worst to be seized by on the recieving end. The second would be alpha strike lists. Alpha strike lists should leave their opponent reeling if they sieze. The same goes for drop pod assault armies. These are the two army types that mostly concern me, if I am seized against. It also goes to reason, that if you have an army like this, seizing can be an occasional "I should win this one".

How do we deal with being seized upon. This is the big issue. One thing for sure is that your deployment should always take into consideration the fact that you might be seized upon. Deployment is key here. This could also take into consideration going second if you win the toss, or going all reserve against some army types.

What it comes down to is.... Always think that your opponent will seize against you if you decide to go first. Deploy knowing this, and then you wont be suprised so badly when it happens. That doesnt mean dont try and take advantage of going first, but that being prepared for the worst is better than just hoping it will never happen.

In fact, I have been seized upon more times that I care to count. I do count though, and I had a run of 4 out of 6 games I was seized on. It doesnt mean I lost those games, in fact I won every one of them. Mostly by deployment and the durability of the armies I play. Getting hit though by drop pod armies on seizes seem to be the worst for me personally.

Seize the inititve is not an auto win or loss. Give your army deployment and list some consideration on what would happen if you get seized, and you will have a better chance to survive it, and even win against it.

Side note..... Last two games played. I seized on my opponent, and was seized upon the next game. When I seized I was really able to take advantage of it, and when I was seized on, it took a couple turns, but was able to pull off a victory. So definetly do not count seize out, as it does occur more than you think, and always be prepared for it, or it will hurt.

Prepare for Battle!!!!

Ard Boyz rules pdf are out. Check GW site, and search "ard boyz". Here they are. Figure out where you are going and sign up!!! In case you dont know, May 15th is the date, 2500 pts the cost. Missions will be released 1 week before tournament dates.

Redundancy. Extremely good article from Stelek.

This is very well written and thought out on several of the topics going on here. http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2010/04/analysis-redundancy.html

Control the field of battle

Battlefield control. Especially now with the coming of 5th, (remember I missed 4th), controlling the battlefield has become an important battlefield tactic. Ive found that often if I control the battleline, fields of fire, etc. my enemy is working uphill the whole battle and is prone to making costly mistakes in order to advance. While most players end up doing this without thinking, some dont. Its a topic worth discussing so that when we take the field, we are more direct and aware of what we are doing.

Controlling the field, is taking an important area, and denying the enemy the chance to move into this space, or slow them down drastically. The most important thing with control of the field, is that now the enemy is responding to you, and has to work hard to push into the area.

Since 2/3rds of all games are objective based controlling access to these areas with troop choices has made the battlefield a new and exciting place. Area denial, and punishing those that force themselves into your kill zones is not only a ton of fun, but extremly efficient use of your forces, as what little gets into you, most of your army is able to destroy.

Here are some examples.

Drop pod walls to slow down enemy advances, followed up and reinforced by a heavy wall of armor 13. This was from a recent game of which 4 rounds were spent by the enemy trying to punch through. This was with a test blood angels army, so it was backed up by assault squads, which was able to mop up (the cleaning crew) what ever was trying to punch through the battleline I had formed. It was 8 armor 13 vehicles/dreads, 3 drop pods to form a wall, and razorbacks etc able to destroy whatever came through. The battleline was protecting the winning objective, and the enemy really had no chance to break into it.

Slowing down land raiders..... Nothing like parking chimeras/ rhinos, 1" away on front and both sides of it. Nothing says "stop quite like it" besides maybe blowing it up.

Kill zones. Ive discussed this in detail, so I wont hit it again. almost 19"'s for meltas in transports 26 1/2" for rapid fire plasma, landraider assault termies again at almost 19",etc....

Before the game starts... Infiltrators are fantastic at this. They are able to control the battlefield, and help slow down scout army lists, and other fast armies. Great distraction also.

Alpha strike, heavy gunlines. These tend to control firing lanes along their arcs of fire. Great for fire suppression, and blowing up transports to stop the enemy in their tracks. (vital now in 5th).

Unmovable mobs. The hordes move out and just swarm over objectives.

There are lots of ways to control the field, and often it just takes a little consious thought before and during your game. Each army has their own methods, as does each general have his ideas on how to do this.

Deployment take 2

Couple posts back I was discussing deployment in 40k. My main point was to know what you are going to do before hand, (minor adjustments are easy), diagram it out, and practice your deployment.

I apparently had left something out. Missions. Learning what to put into those tight board quarters and standard 12" deployements. Here is an example

I played a game, where we were deploying into board quarters. This is was tough for me, becuase there was alot of terrain where I was setting up, and I had to fit in 16 chimera hulls into this space. I purposely armored up on the one side of my quarter with lots of chimeras, and left very little room along my other flank, and only left any real good drop spots pretty close to the board edge. Not to mention it was the only area that wasnt easily protected by my anti deepstriking squad (mystics). What this did, was force him to a hard drop, which my opponent failed and went off the board edge destroying his dreadnaught and drop pod with locater beacons. It was a risk on my part, but I had close to a 50% of him going off the board edge I figured. I had controlled his drop pod assault to where I wanted it to come in. If they had hit, the damage would of been minimal as well, as full veteran squads with plasmas, and meltas in chimeras within striking range.

The rest of the game went poorly for him, as he kept attempting to reach that flank. Two mishaps later, he had lost about 25% of his army becuase of deployment. The rest of his army i had set up to disable quickly, and the game limped on for him to the end of round 4. This is one of those games as well, that he also had siezed the initive on me, or would have been worse for him.

So, prepare your deployments for each deployment mission type. Be prepared, becuase a good set up can quickly turn the game in your favor really fast, often before the first shot is fired.

The Battlefield

I cant tell you how many times Ive looked at certain stores tables and said..."That table screws me over", "Dont want to play on that one". The issue comes down to poor table layout. A game should not be won or lost on the table. It cannot be set up in a way, that has so much terrain that it cannot be fielded upon. (yes ive seen this alot) The rulebook puts table terrain at 25%. yet ive often seen 50% the standard.

So your setting up a table. How? Measure out the terrain pieces, and go a little over or a little under the 25%. A table should never be at 50%. We only have a few rounds to play this game, do we really want to handicap the carnage? Unless we are really playing city fight, lets not have them in standard games for tournaments. Lets not have empty fields either (I so rarely see this).

Big do's and don'ts for fair play.

1. Do, measure out the terrain. + or - 25%

2. Don't Always put a huge block in the center of the battlefield. its divides the game into two.

3. Do, put some cover on both sides in deployment zones, and board quarters.

4. Dont. No cityfights for normal games unless your playing for fun. (tournaments should never have this table unless its really sparse)

5. Do. consider when putting out terrain (for tournament organizers) what the terrain will be counted for. Less arguements if its easy.

6. Do. Make the battlefield interesting. Have a theme if possible. "the Ice Fields", "Moonscape", "the ruins of" etc.

There are several things a tournament organizer wants to take out of the complaint section. The First is "I lost becuase the table was horrible."

Ive gathered a few pics here of various tournaments tournaments. Ard boyz or Adepticon etc. So here they are. I will post a few more that I've taken or gathered a little later. Ive started a new category called The Game Table.

Effective Range

Something I have to keep explaining often when I am talking 40k tactics is effective ranges. Its basically common sense, its what range is your unit effective at. Knowing this will help keep your list efficient, meaning less time just moving and more time being effective.

Look guys/gals, you only have 5 certain rounds of play and sometimes less if armies are held in reserves. Lets make sure we know the effect ranges of our units and keep them in the battle for as much of the game as possible.

Lets look at a typical transport with melta's. Rhino/chimera moves 12" deploys melta troops at almost 3". (2" and 11/16" or something like that). Then your effective melta shot is 6". So far we have an effective range of just under 21". That is this units death zone. It kills incoming heavy armor that comes into this range.

Land Raider..... Moves 12" deploys almost 3", and then assault 6". yes its the same.

Plasma Gun squads. move 6" shoot rapid fire 12" or single shot at 24"

Furioso Librarian dread. "wings of sanquinus 12" move, 6" assault=18"

Often times, its simply the range of shooting. Remember that a flamer template is 8" long

The fact of the matter is, know the effective ranges of your units, and what is coming at you. This might be common sense but I see alot of people just not paying attention to it.

Baal Predators

Like wow. Everything I was trying to do with banewolves in my guard army, I can do better with blood angels. Here it is.

Imperial guard take Creed as their commander and give a single unit scout. Well, nothing better than a ap3 flamer that always wounds on a 2+. What this does is puts a flamer vehicle right up in the opponents face that has to be dealt with. No one likes getting hit with an 8" flamer template, that takes away all your power armor saves, and you get no cover. Before round 1, scout move 18" across the board, and place yourself 12.1" away from the enemy or their transport. Then simply during your first turn, if you go first, drive up 12 inches to 1" away from the transport, or unit you want to vaporize and flame away.

Blood angels. I dont have to get Creed. Saves alot of points, since Baal Predators come with scout! Use them the same way except oh yea...... armor 13 in front! Yes I know this means shoot me from the side please becuase i have armor 11 sides, but who cares. for a whooping 115 points you get this vehicle with a flamestorm cannon, str6 ap3. 130 points for a banewolf without scout. Im taking the Baal Predator at getting that extra power weapon into my assault squad. So expect to see the Baal Predators that are on order for me finished up and posted up very soon. I dont think I will be able to leave home without them. So much in fact that I havent read the other fast attack options blood angels have.

Preparing for Blood

Well, its here, and we've all had time to go over the codex. As luck has it, I will be starting my first space marine army with the Blood Angels. Im very excited about, and have been working out the details of how I want to play this army. By the looks of it, there are some very very devastating and fun things to do here.

Ive spent the hours already going over lists, cutting and pasteing. While I have finally come down to something I might like, Im not sure if its something that will go into a main list for myself.

Things you will not see in my lists are..... Death Company, unless its just to get death company dreads, or sanguinary guard.

Things you will see, are furioso dreads, especially librarian dreads. You will see sanguinary priests, probably corbulo, honour guard, assualt squads, and baal predators.

I will be posting more on this army, as its going into production very very fast. Also please note that I just had a baby, so my posts will come out a little slower over the next few weeks.