How much can the change of a single rules mechanic potentially impact on a game? Read on and find out. Having assembled my army in conditions of the utmost secrecy, I turned up for my game with Big J to find he was basically reusing the same army from two weeks previous: possibly Couldn’t Be Bothered To Repack syndrome, to which I am often a martyr myself.
Big J had 2000 points of Deathwing: ’30 Terminators and a Dreadnought’ he cheerfully informed me, placing great emphasis on his habit of rolling 1s. Well, we would see. As a sometime Deathwing player myself, I noted his army was heavy on all the things mine isn’t: primarily Cyclone missile launchers and thunder hammers.
I’d brought Blood Angels, my latest attempt at combining a decent number of models with acceptable anti-tank capability. This particular list got tweaked after bad weather stopped me from preparing a few models for the table (or to put it another way – you’ll like this one – rain stopped spray). So there were two full Tactical Squads, one mechanised, a mechanised Death Company detachment accompanied by a DC dreadnought, a demi-Assault Squad with a Sanguinary Priest, a demi-Devastator Squad with two plasma cannons, some Sanguinary Guard accompanied by Astorath, a Dreadnought with a lascannon and a missile launcher and an Attack Bike.
The mission was Big Guns Never Tire with a straightforward deplyment option. The Deathwing deployed two squads in their righthand corner – I did much the same, but sticking the Devastators, fire-support Dreadnought and Bike down more to the left in the hope of getting some early shots. Knowing the Deathwing Dreadnought would be coming in on turn one by Drop Pod, I kept the jump pack units in reserve in order to avoid them being ambushed.
Well, the Deathwing kept the initiative and two more Terminator Squads teleported in close to their zone. The Drop Pod crashed down much closer to the Devastators in their redoubt and a Contemptor Dreadnought clambered out. This was novel. Still more novel was it opening up on the squad with two suped-up assault cannon, 12 shots at BS5: possibly I was a bit unlucky with my saves, but all five Marines were mown down. I started to get that feeling yet again.
However, on my first turn the Bike and Dreadnought were both in a position to shoot back. The multi-melta on the Bike predictably missed, but the missile launcher got through the ancient monster’s armour and spectacularly blew it to pieces. Elsewhere, the two rhinos rumbled forward, followed at a trot by the DC Dreadnought.
On the second Deathwing turn the massed Cyclones on their right flank blew apart the fire-support Dreadnought and Bike, pretty much clearing me off that end of the table. On the other hand, the Deathwing had no real presence on their left flank, leaving me in control of that end. Possibly this was why they dropped in a Chaplain and another Deathwing squad quite close to my units.
I decided to try and consolidate by popping the Guard and the Assault Squad down in the same region, but the Deep Strike Gods are still looking wrathfully upon me: for the third game in a row where I’ve tried to Deep Strike, an elite squad scattered into another unit and suffered a mishap, ultimately winding up in front of three Deathwing squads near where the first-turn carnage had occurred. Sigh.
Nevertheless, by the end of the turn I’d managed to set up an assault on the Chaplain and his squad from the Death Company, supported by the mechanised Tactical Squad. Under the new rules the Death Company are monstrous on the charge, but a 2+ save is a 2+ save, and it was down to the power axe and the thunder hammer to do the real damage.
My cheeriness at fending off the Deathwing advance down my end of the table was shortlived as on the next turn the massed Deathwing swarmed, zombie-like, over the Guard and Astorath. (It’ll be interesting to get a rules clarification about Astorath’s axe: is it I1 like a standard power axe? If so, he’s a significantly less handy character.) In 5th Edition, even receiving a charge, I would have expected to do significant damage to the Terminators, but – as in the previous combat – the fact that power swords (and thus, presumably, glaives encarmine) are now only AP3 was hugely telling and I barely killed a single model before the entire 490-point unit was handily pulped.
With both sides now fully committed I was aware that I was badly down on points: we both held two objectives, but Big J had killed two heavy support units, drawn first blood and killed my warlord, putting him four points ahead. I needed to deny him at least one objective and start killing his heavy support. The only one he’d actually taken was the Drop Pod, which I’d totally ignored: but now my sole missile launcher started plinking away at it, hitting but never penetrating.
The rest of my cunning plan consisted of loading one of the Tactical Squads into its rhino and ramming it at one of the Deathwing’s objectives to contest, while using the Death Company units to run interference and bringing up the Assault Squad (my only non-Fearless unit, thanks to Astorath) to retain another objective.
Well, once again the AP3 nature of power weapons and blood talons was telling and the Dreadnought only inflicted two casualties, one of those when it exploded at the opposition (not a recommended manoever). Nevertheless, they did the job of holding the Deathwing up long enough for the rhino to tank-shock into position (running over two Terminators in the process), even if they did get the zombie-mob treatment from the Terminators. It was the end of turn 5 – it seemed like everything hinged on whether we would continue! The dice said we would.
(I initially thought that ending now would have meant a draw at 6 VPs each – but the 3 points from an objective, together with two for killing Heavy Support, one for First Blood and one for Slay the Warlord would just have meant me losing 7-6. Hey ho.)
So the game continued, and the rhino with the Tactical Squad inside got thumped by the Deathwing, killing everyone inside. Both armies declined to move on the final turn, realising the game was pretty much decided. Turn 6 was the final one, and the final score was 10-6 to the Deathwing.
Still, this was a fun game played in a great spirit, even if I was left scratching my head as to how to counter so many Terminators. My plasma cannons were Big J’s top priority, as he happily admitted, with my multi-meltas close behind. I couldn’t see a Vindicator lasting more than a turn or two against so many Cyclones, and the same goes for Furioso Dreadnoughts or Death Company Dreadnoughts with blood fists, the only assault units capable of cracking Terminator armour that don’t strike at I1 (well, I suppose there’s Tycho, but he’s just one man). I can see quite a few armies with the same problem; the simple shift to AP3 power swords makes massed Terminators an exceptionally tough prospect for armies without lots of low-AP shooting, massed Rending attacks, or cheap and numerous monstrous creatures.
The Contemptor Dreadnought was also potentially a nightmare and I suppose I was lucky to get it off the table on Turn 1. I don’t know how many points this bugger costs, but with armour like a Furioso, a 5+/6+ invulnerable save, 12 assault cannon shots at BS5, a built-in AA option and its parting gift of a 2d6″ explosion, I hope it is a significant amount. Tasty though one of these would be, I find myself suddenly dubious of including this 30K stuff in a standard army – are we going to see Space Marine jetbikes making an appearance in standard lists now? What about Angron in Chaos lists? I’m sure a semi-official ruling on this sort of thing can’t be far off.
Anyway, a very enjoyable game even if I suspect that to beat this army I would have to be very lucky or completely rejig my list to be a low-AP gunline. The latter is hardly practical at the moment, and the former would not be the most satisfying kind of victory. Still, I’ll take whatever I can get right now…
(PS If you’ve got this far, you may well be interested to know I’ve started contributing to a dedicated gaming blog entitled Plastic Crack – for the time being the battle reports are going up on both blogs, but there should be some PC-exclusive stuff from your correspondent as well as writing from some other folk on various topics too.)
No Chic. Just Geek. 
Hello Awix, Mr603 here.
The latest GW FAQs answer a few of your questions. For example, Glaives Encarmine are as modelled – the ones that look like axes are AP1, I1.
Dante and Astorath both have axes that strike at initiative 1 too, which does nerf Astorath a bit (unless you’re playing a full on DC army).
Against Deathwing, Dante is a good bet, along with a squad of axe-wielding Sanguinary Guard. They can drop in, chew through and move on.
That said, I use buckets of dice. Full Assault Squads with meltas and a Sang Priest. If you throw enough wounds at the buggers, a few have to fail.
Got to ask though. Why BA Tac Squads? I have one, and it’s done nothing but sit at the back, holding the odd objective.
Taking your points in reverse order: parts of this army weren’t initially bought knowing it was going to be BA (for quite a long while I was mulling over Mortifactors, Fire Angels, Celestial Lions, etc). Also, you get a tactical squad in the BA battleforce! I’m fully aware of the received wisdom that an assault squad in a rhino is a better choice than a mechanised tactical squad, but what can I say? It doesn’t feel right not to take a unit which, according to the background, makes up the majority of the chapter: it’d be like taking White Scars with no bikes or Brazen Claws with no dreadnoughts. I suppose I’m just in thrall to the fluff…
The problem for me with power axes against terminators is – okay, they’re ten points cheaper, for which you’re usually wounding on a 3 rather than a 2, but the I1 thing is the killer: sure, your squad swoops in, unloads bucketloads of attacks and chops down the terminators – but they’re coming back at you at I1 with their power fists too, so a fair chunk of your (probably quite pricey) squad is probably going to get pulped at the same time, unless you’re extremely fortunate. If you’re playing an army running a single terminator unit then that would be a reasonable trade-off, but against Deathwing you really need something that can hit, kill, and move on, ideally taking minimal casualties along the way.
Or just the ability to shoot them a lot, hence my comment on the gunline army. It feels terribly counterintuitive, but a four-heavy bolter devastator squad might have things in its favour against the Deathwing now. It would at least be less of an obvious target than plasma cannons.
First off, I think you fail to adequately address the incredible dice your opponent had in the initial turns. At least the one round of shooting I saw there were an abundance of 6s to hit, 6s to pen, and 5s on the damage chart.
Secondly, while I won’t claim to be a 40k expert, I will still throw my 2p in: perhaps the tactical squad could take a plasma cannon from your dev squad, then you have a plasma/combi plasma in your rhino (or upgrade to razorback), combat squad and zoom up and zap termies and light vehicles. It means you still have some static firepower, but you have some mobile anti-terminator gear without sacrificing a ridiculously expensive unit like sanguinary guard. Razorback would be a decent option as you can get a las/plas, giving you plenty of firepower that is good vs 2+ saves and light vehicles. I think if you’re going to take tactical squads you have to get the most out of them you can.
Either that or it’s time to convert some of your deathwing termies to blood angel ones and give them a taste of their own medicine.
Hum, not sure about the lucky shooting thing: he only managed to kill one dreadnought by shooting at it, although I was possibly a bit unlucky to lose all the devastators on the first turn (more a case of bad saves there though).
One thing that did occur to me was how little the tactical squads contributed overall – plinking at the drop pod from one squad and one dead terminator from the mech squad’s combi-melta. All the heavy lifting last night, with the exception of the dreadnought killing the contemptor, was done by the death company.
I suppose there’s a danger of getting fixated on killing what is, after all, what they used to call a nemesis list (a fancy name for a one-trick pony). I think I’ll play a few more games against different opponents and see how this type of list holds up before rejigging things like squad composition.