Terror in the Baneblade

 Just as an update: A few weeks ago my father-in-law was suddenly hospitalized and remains in the ICU since, well over a month of being on the edge. In the middle of that *I* ended up in the ER with a serious health issue that I am still recovering from. Gaming, blogging, and writing have been pretty disrupted and I apologize.

On Memorial Day we switched from another session of Seaward and, instead, made new characters for Only War and I GMed the PCs as crew of a BAAAAAAAANEEBLAAAAAAAADE!

The PC's Baneblade is the 79th Super-Heavy Company of the 27th Benrei Super-Heavy Regiment. The Regiment is set up with Only War rules as a standard armored regiment but with combat drugs: recaf. The background is the planet Benrei is a major recaf hub, growing and exporting some of the finest recaf in the Imperium of Man. Flush with cash they purchase super-heavy tanks and train crews so that they can meet their conscription targets while minimizes population loss - after all, a regiment of super-heavies takes 40 men from the recaf fields while an infantry regiment takes thousands away!

The players made an officer type (the Honored Lieutenant, commander of the Baneblade), an enginseer, and a commissar. The rest of the crew were comrades.

The mission is part of the Night of 1,000 Rebellions arc and their task force is focused on subduing the planet Lamanarr where the troops in the middle of a levy rebelled, meaning the rebels have 3 PDF armies and a fully-equipped (if inexperienced) Imperial Guard army as part of their forces. The Commodore is dedicated to preventing this force from joing the Chaod fleets in the area. The task force's primary goal is the destruction of the rebel troops - all else is secondary.

79th Company is detached to the 6th, 7th, and 8th Regiments of the Zamaran Mechanized Infantry and the 1515th Combined Mechanized Infantry Regiment for a total of 60 chimera, each with a squad of infantry. They have been dispatched to engage and destroy a force intelligence believes to be 2 regiments of infantry, a regiment of mechanized infantry, and a regiment of Leman Russ armor. The commanding colonel was very accomodating tot he Honored Lieutenant with a Baneblade and allowed the PC to set up the formation.

The terrain was massive fields surrounded by centuries-old hedgeros that even a chimera would struggle with criss-crossed by roads wide enough to easily fit 4 chimera wide formations, but 2-4 meters below the level of the surrounding fields. The PCs had a screen of 4 chimera in front, then the baneblade, then a column of the rest of the chimera behind. Then they started the 600 kilometer road march.

Shortly after Noon a pair of hellhounds (that had somehow evaded the auspex systems) attacked the rear of the column as 3 Leman Russ tanks (also suspiciously unseen beforehand) opened fire from the front in a classic attempt to fin the column. The PCs (asting as force commander NPC, as well) ordered 10 chimera per flank to climb the embankment and establish a perimeter while the teriary gunner engaged the hellhous and the primary gunner engaged the Leman Russ still 1.5 klick ahead.

The sponson lascannon both hit the closest hellhoud (which was blocking fire on the other) and caused it to explode, which set off the other hellhound. And the combined explosion caused the closest chimera to explode. And those explosions caused ANOTHER Chimera to explode. Then that stopped, wheew.

The leman russ company was closing at their usual stately battlefield speed but their battle cannon shots were bouncing off the baneblade's glacis.The baneblade cannon took 4 shots to destroy two of the leman russ (unlucky rolls) but the third was taken out in 1. The baneblade took a few points of damage, but it was the eequivalent of scratching the paint.

The chimera that went to flank engage 5 enemy chimera per flank and a merry brawl of chimera and dismounted infantry was going on in the surrounding fields as the baneblade annihilated the enemy armor. In the end the Imperial task force lost 6 chimera (10% of forces!) in the ambush.

The PCs put out a scout screen for the remainder of the day's movement. As sunset approached the colonel sent a recon patrol then the task force laagered for the night with the baneblade the center of a circle of chimeras. Watches were set and the taskforce bedded down.

About 2 am local the XO woke the commander about an echo on auspex. Soon the commissar, enginseer, and commander were in the command deck looking at what looked like a patrol approaching. The enginseer burned some incense, splashed oils, and uttered a chant causing the auspex to show - cattle in a field. Just as the players were relaxing 20 krak missile hurtled toward the baneblade as 10 more ripped into the encircling chimeras. The surviving chimeras facing opened up quickly and the baneblade soon joined in, ending the fight rather quickly.

As the battle ended the auspex picked up a single space marine speeding offf via jump pack. The laager opened and the baneblade drove to the area of the fight to inspect and looed for clues. After discussion the dismounted baneblade officers realized both ambushes must have been "pre-set" to engage and slow any attack along the only real access to the defenders. They were probably in total radio blackout to avoid detection by the fleet and ground-based auspex, and just followed orders, baneblade or no. The two ambushes had alreadt inflicted 20% losses to the mechanized infantry on the *first day of travel*. Without the baneblade the task force might have been mauled enough to be forced to await reinforcements.

In a bit of roleplaying the baneblade officers invited the infantry officers to join them on the outer hull of the super-heavy tank on a set of camp chairs to enjoy recaf and lho sticks and watch the sunrise. The players were talking among themselves (we were also enjoying a bit of whisky and cigars in Real Life) when the discussion went something like this:

Jack/Tank Commander: "Odd. The enemy is a bunch of green Imperial levies but they keep camoflaging themselves enough to ambush a baneblade."
Nick?Commissar: "And their discipline is very high. The night ambush was foot infantry with missile launchers but they kept firing against APCs and tanks."
Sam/Enginseer:" And a lone space marine? It must have been a chaos space marine, but why did he risk using a jump pack at night in the open? It guaranteed we'd see him and we almost took the shot. Not even a chaos space marine wants to get hit by a lucky shot from a baneblade cannon. Really weird."
Jack: "Chaos space marines that are good at stealth? Chaos space marines that are good at stealth! COLONEL< I NEED YOUR MEN!"

soon an entire squad of infantry, two with meltaguns, are scouring the inside of the baneblade with the crew's help. In the bunk area they find - an Alfa Legion Chaos Space Marine! Initiative was rolled; attack rolls were made; and in a case of astounding luck the two NPC guardsmen with meltaguns both hit and, combined, killed the CSM.

A thorough search revealed that the lascannons had been rigged to explode the next time they were fired, the commander's chair had a grenade rigged to go off the next time he *stood up* after sitting in the chair, and the air scrubber had been turned off. The players talked about how it would have looked the next day - all day every hour or two another crewman would just - vanish until only the driver or someone was left, then the traitors would have an intact baneblade!

That's right, they thwarted my attempts to stage the movie Alien inside abaneblade.

We all had a ton of fun and will continue this side arc over discord during the weeks ahead.

In the Grim Darkness of the Future There is a Lot of Roleplaying

The Lads and I play a lot of RPGs and we like to toss in side games in new, unusual, etc. systems to mix things up. At Christmastime my father-in-law picked up a set of books at a FLGS/used book store and we ended up with FFG's D% system Warhammer 40K core books and a few splats. Nice guy, my father-in-law.

  Sam started running Dark Heresy and immediately enjoyed the 'beer & pretzels' feel of the game and system. The setting is so loveably over the top, the mechanics that perfect combination os 'dead simple idea' combined with '40,000 weird options to complicate things', and the bodycount so freakin' high that all I could think of was playing a Call of Cthulhu setting with Paranoia rules. I adored the Void-born psyker with an hysterical paranoia about open doors and such deep hypno-conditioning that under stress he is forced to recite the Litany of Pressure Sealing Bulkheads I started with so much I almost felt bad when he finally rolled Perils and blew up, taking a room full of cultists with him. But I did laugh.

  After a few games of Dark Heresy Sam tossed in Black Crusade. If you ever wanted to play a villain so cartoonishly eeeee-viiiiil that a mocking laugh while he twirls his mustache is restrained, play Black Crusade: it does to Chaos Space Marines what Mel Brooks does to Nazis. 

  After about 7games over 5 months I decided to throw my hat in the ring and broke out Only War (or, as we call it, Purely Cannon Fodder) and run a regiment. Deciding that the Grim Derpness has been causing a lot of chuckles I made a Penal Battalion that has everything going for it you'd think: Light Infantry, perpetually understrength, and green. Really embracing the setting the lads made a bunch of gonzo characters with Promethium Bill, the religious fanatic who volunteered for the regiment in hopes of using his personally-purchashed flamer on heretics, pretty indicative of the level of seriousness.

  After just 2 sessions Jack has us rolling up guys for Rogue Trader because we figure that the 4th-5th characters in each setting will be part of a massive crossover fairly soon.

  

Warhammer 40k Roundup: Other Guns and Stuff

From Jack

In a recent article, my father gave his summary of our recent Warhammer 40,000 gaming, and the takeaways about the game that he derived from it. I agree about some of his points, and disagree on others. Now, obviously, neither one of us is an expert or veteran player (in particular, I think I'm the worst player in my group), so these insights are probably going to nearly all be some combination of wrong and obvious. 

To restate what was covered in the prior article:

     There are four of us who play. I settled on the forces of Chaos as my army pretty early, but whether I favor Daemons or Chaos Marines remains uncertain, and I plan on playing the Sisters of Battle as a secondary army once they're finished. Dad plays all Imperial forces, but mostly the Guard and the Mechanicus. Sam plays T'au and Thousand Sons (he's the lore player in our group). Nick still hasn't settled on an army, but mostly favors the Tyranids, and, to a lesser extent, the Necron so far.

     We've been playing for less than a year. We use tokens and chits to mark models that we don't yet have. We cycled through various armies and builds early while trying to find what suited us. We use a variety of terrain and missions, put probably still aren't quite playing "normal" games. We were never exposed to editions prior to 8th, but have vague information about their rules.

Now, my points:

Places where I agree with my father

Board control matters

...but not for the reasons he listed. In a game with objectives, and especially a game with tactical objectives, being able to seize a portion of the board quickly, or prevent your opponent from doing so, can decide the game. Leaving 10 cultists with a heavy stubber way in the back field in case they need to advance on an objective, or sticking 5 flayed ones in deepstrike in case you suddenly need a unit in the opponent's deployment zone, is key. Preventing deepstrike and reacting to enemy assault is also nice, but not as important as scoring.

Strength is everything

The way the math works out, every possible strength or toughness value is totally different S3, S4, and S5 are all totally different values, and they're not even close to the disparity between S7, S8, and S9. Lasguns and boltguns may be the same against a gorkanaut for some strange reason, but they're radically different against yer comm'n boyz. Similarly, S9 is one of the most valuable things you can get. Higher is always better. Get as much strength as you can.

Places where I disagree with my father

Real world tactics don't win

Early on, my instincts were to treat this like a real war, where ordinary infantry in a combined arms assault win nearly every engagement, while special assets are off doing special things. But this ain't a real war. Tactical marines serve a purpose, but they are incapable of finishing the enemy off. A balance of real-world forces is often effective, but sometimes a mix of disposable swarms and magic super-weapons is much better. The effective thing to do is always to maximize your number and proportion of really good super-tactics, regardless of how this would look in real life.

Cool and good go together

One of my favorite things about Warhammer is that they really do bring fluff and crunch into line, at least in 8th. Sure, there are some things that should be better than they are, like Necron Monoliths or Heralds of Tzeentch, and some things that are better than they should be, like Ogryn, but overall, things that are cool in lore are cool on the tabletop, and vice versa. Assault terminators? Daemon princes? Avatars of Khaine? Onager Dunecrawlers? All awesome in fluff and in crunch.

My own points

Probability is on your side

One of the beauties of the 40K rules is that they're highly dependent on very random rolling, but you roll so many individual dice that averages usually prevail. This is good, because it means that there's minimal variation in overall effectiveness, so your 30 boyz or your wedge of guard tanks should have similar performance every game; but there's also room for cool swings of fortune, like your Space Marine Captain surviving a daemon prince's charge and killing him in the ensuing duel. You can have cinematically random moments in your otherwise standard game. Most of the time, anyway. Also, this breaks down in certain situations, such as very small games, or games featuring lords of war.

Get your money's worth

As far as I can tell, the path to victory is to make sure you get the maximum return on your points invested in each unit. If you buy a gun, make sure you shoot it, shoot it well, and shoot it at the right target. If you buy a bike, make sure it carries you to the objective, the enemy's heavy support, or both. Don't buy anything you don't use, at least in matched play terms.

So, what do you think? Am I right? Am I playing the game wrong? What do we have left to learn? Let me know!

Warhammer 40K Roundup: Guns and Stuff

  Starting a series on my insights into Warhammer 40k.
  To start with, please understand that to a lot of hardcore Warhammer 40K players my insights will probably seem ridiculously obvious -we've only been playing less than a year and we largely avoid online forums, etc. This is much more of a "newbie learns the obvious" series I am starting, not a "deep delve into forbidden lore" series

Weekend Mania
  Over the weekend we played 4 games, all at 1,500 points-

• Adeptus Mechanicus vs Space Marines
• Imperial Guard vs Necrons
• T'au vs Chaos Space Marines
• Orks vs. T'au

Battle Report: Warhammer 40K, Guards v. Orks

  As we continue the odyssey of learning W40k live Jack and I fought mano a mano where he had Orks and I had the IG.

We decided to leave doctrines and stratagems off the table one more time.
Rough army breakdowns-

Orks:
2 groups of 30 gretchin
a runt herder
3 war bikes
a boss on a war trike (warlord)
3 x groups of 20 Boyz and Nobs
2 battle wagons

IG:
Platoon Commander (warlord)
Commisar
Astropath
Techpriest Enginseer
5 Taurox
Heavy weapons squad with lascannons
Hydra
Wyvern
4 squads of infantry
2 squads of ratlings

We started by alternating terrain and ended up with forest at each end of neutral ground and some low walls in a far corner.

Knowing the Orks had initiative I deployed with all troops inside Tauroxes - 3 tauroxes, the wyvern and the hydra on my right flank, the other 2 tauroxes on the left.  The orks set up with their mobs, runt herder, and a battle wagon opposite my left everything else opposite my right. One group of Boyz was on foot, the others were in battle wagons.

Jack had initiative and did everything in his power to get his bikes to the wyvern immediately, juuuuust barely pulling off a charge to engage it. Everything approaching heavy he had he fired at ome of the tauroxes on my left, then everything else in range after the mobs moved up fired at it, too, damaging it.
  The Wyvern withdrew with no damage, a squad deployed, and a taurox charged the war bikes and the Ork warlord, tying them up. The other two tauroxes on the right moved forward and fired on the opposing battle wagon, chewing it up with autocannons.
  On my left the characters and heavy weapons piled out of the heavily damaged taurox, the other one also deployed its squad, the general shooting began. the hydra got lucky and tore up one group of Boyz; infantry did well against the Orks; the ratlings annihilated the runt herder; the astropath smote the leftmost mob; and the heavy weapons squad began a legacy of missing with every shot.
  The taurox on the right that charged actually damaged a warbike. The one on the left managed to charge into the mob of Gretchin and squish one before they fell on it with meat cleavers. It took its last wound and with a shout of,
  "For the emperor!"
  It exploded, causing a surprising amount of damage to the two gretchin mobs.

  The Orks then had a ton of fun - the rightmost battle wagon deployed one group og Boyz and the one I had been shooting embarked on it. They shot up one of the untouched tauroxes on the right and the gretchin kept coming. The warbikes and chief pounded on the taurox tying them up and, with a shout of,
  "For the emperor!"
  ...it also exploded, killing a bike, wounding another, and wounding the war boss.
  Assorted fire from Orks took out a trooper and damaged a vehicle or two.

  On the right another squad deployed and fired into the Boyz, hurting them. The three surviving tauroxes poured fire into the battle wagons, crippling one. The troops on the left (plus the ratlings) were cutting down Gretchin like wheat. The Wyvern got a shot off and TORE UP some Boyz.

  The Orks were undaunted; the bikes and chief again engaged the Wyvern  and the Hydra; the Boyz on foot charged the deployed infantry in the 'northeast' and wiped them out in a single rush (although not without casualties). The gretchin mobs swarmed the troops and leaders on the left, taking out a fair number of troops and wounding a heavy weapons team (although gretchin vs. chainswords, servo arms, etc. was not in their favor!)

The ratlings did better than expected vs. the leftmost battle wagon, but not good enough. More troops deployed on the right and the tauroxes fired, finally destroying a battle wagon. The infantry squad near the hydra and wyvern charged the bikes - and took two of them out!!

The pistols of the gretchin hurt; the vehicle on vehicle combat continued; The last 'northeast' sqaud took casualties, but dished two out on overwatch. The northeast squad also went down in initial impact. The standard sqaud on the left made them pay, but only the sergeant survived melee. the leaders types prevailed and the surviving heavy weapons squad was actually freed from fighting hand to hand. The last men on the right went down and a mob of Boyz assaulted the damaged taurox. With a cry of,
  "or the emperor!"
  It actually freakin' exploded, wiping out one of the groups of Boyz nearby (they'd been mauled by squads, melee, and taurox fire already).

  he Boyz turned and fired at another taurox, then charged it. The gretchin kept fighting, killing the lone sergeant and getting everyone in command to wounded pretty badly. The wyvern and the war boss were still fighting, as were the last biker and the hydra. The ratlings were still pinging the lone, damaged, smoking battle wagon.
  The Guard fought back and the few survivng gretchin finally broke completely. Firing and fighting were almost anti-climactic, at this point.

Results:
Jack won handily on points, having control of the objectives.

Stuff Jack Learned, per him:
- Orks are stabby, not shooty. He was so frustrated with Orks trying to shoot things he doesn't think it is worth the effort. They are very good at stabbing however....
- Toughness matters more than newbies think.
- Speed matters more than newbies think
- gretchin mobs are exactly what he thought - damage sponges you can't ignore
- Orks are cool

Stuff I learned
- the Guard is shooty, not stabby.
- Flak armor works
- Sweet merciful heavens I now love the taurox.
- Keep people away from your artillery.
- concentrate your infantry.
- ratlings in cover are amazing

Two key mistakes I made were not deploying infantry immediately and letting the Orks get to the wyvern. Jack is convinced if the wyvern had been free he would have lost. Also, the three turns they were free to fire my heavy weapons team missed with all nine lascannon shots; very, very bad luck.

The entire family had a ton of fun. Next is more of the same but with doctrines, stratagems, etc.

Back from the Holidays: Battle Report for Warhammer 40k

Hi!
I am busy writing my own AD&D 1e clone book: it is going very well and we are having a ton of fun. But with 5 kids, a new business (taking off! we did our first payroll this month!), close friends getting married, and the holidays, I took some time off from blogging.

A New Interest
At Christmas my darling wife bought some Warhammer 40k books (Imperial Guard and Space Marines) for the boys who asked for them. I used one of the gift cards to buy the Core Rules.
We read them. The last time I read the rules was version 2, we got 8th ed.
By Thursday we had purchsed about all the Codices (mainly as PDFs)! We got the dining room ready and we played a game this last weekend, our first as a family.

Warhammer 40k Battle Report
From Jack

"After finding the starter rules free online and receiving the Imperial Guard Codex as a very welcome Christmas present, two of us, me and Sam, decided to try our hands at a game of Warhammer 40,000.

 For our test game, we used simply tokens in place of painted models (don't judge us; we're new), and did a more-or-less matched play game at 500 points with no stratagems or army doctrines, on an empty field with no terrain modifiers.

We planned and reviewed for several days, then fielded the following forces:

 Me: using a
    Platoon Commander as warlord
    2 infantry squads, each with a lascannon team.
    A command squad, with regimental banner and voxcaster, all armed with pistols and chainswords.      A team of 3 ogryn. A commissar.
    A minimum size wyrdvane psyker choir.
    3 armored sentinel walkers, each equipped with a missile launcher.

   Sam:
   Techpriest as warlord
    4 servitors, 2 with heavy bolters, accompanying the Techpriest.
    A commissar.
    A command squad.
    2 scout sentinel walkers, each with a multilaser and a sentinel chainsaw.
    An infantry squad.
    A minimum size wyrdvane psyker choir.
    A Leman Russ battle tank, with 2 additional heavy bolters.

   My plan was to use the sentinels to counter any deployed vehicles while the rest of the force moved up so the ogryn and command squad could close to meele combat.
  Sam's plan was to use a storm of heavy bolter fire and the tank's battle cannon to obliterate opposition, while the Techpriest kept the vehicle alive.

  This was complicated by our using the scenario Only War, and rolling that the objective was a relic, which was on the other side of the field from where our lines were drawn.

 I won initiative by a single point of power and mostly stuck to plan, moving my force up and doing good damage with lucky initial infantry fire, although I diverted one of the missiles to a scout sentinel, doing brutal damage to it but leaving the Leman Russ only moderately wounded.
  Sam countered with scathing fire, which suffered from an initial bout of bad luck that rapidly evened out, and used the Techpriest to continuously repair the tank, leaving it in the fight for the whole battle.

   The resulting battle was a meat grinder, as is to be expected from new players. The bulk of our forces met in the middle, where concentrated fire from both sides eventually killed everyone after my poor understanding of the charge rules coupled with Sam putting his commissar in exactly the right space blunted the ogryn's charge.

  By the final round, only our two commissars were left on the middle of the table surrounded by a lot of dead infantry. The commissars fought in an epic duel in which mine won the final fight phase with only 1 wound remaining.

  Meanwhile, the Techpriest's prayers and Sam's constant shouts of,
  "Praise the Omnissiah!"
  kept the Leman Russ alive in spite of constant missile fire.

  Too late did I realize that I should've targeted the servitors immediately; they are weak units, but their heavy bolter fire chewed through my infantry ranks, and taking them out of the fight might've saved me.

  Meanwhile, Sam realized too late that with our sentinels set up facing each other head on, the obvious move was to have the scouts charge. Once they did, my armored sentinels were occupied and could no longer fire, crippling my heavy weapons capacity.

  Contrary to our expectations, even a team of 3 wyrdvane psykers, basically the weakest psychic unit in the whole game, seriously influenced the flow of battle. Their ability to deny the witch meant that they largely neutralized each other, but well placed smites did take out some of my infantry and contribute to downing one of his scout sentinels, with fascinating effects on the flow of gameplay.
 Moreover, a lucky roll that nightshrouded the Leman Russ on turn two took its survivability from high to outright guaranteed.

  Finally, by pivoting and sending one of my squads to hold the relic, where they miraculously made every morale check even outside of the range of all my officers, I was able to hold the objective the whole game. On the final turn, heavy bolter fire finally wiped them out, but by having the platoon commander advance by himself to its position, I won on a technicality. With my armored sentinels tied up, the Leman Russ near full health, and my officers scattered, Sam would've certainly won if it went even one more turn, so in the end, we called it a tie.

   Everyone involved, even the spectators, had no prior experience in the game. With that in mind, a few notable things leapt out.

In no particular order:
    1) The game is actually very simple. The rules are straightforward and easy to understand. The only trick is that the correct sequence needs to be followed. If you get the firing process and the flow of melee combat in order, it's not a difficult game at all.
     2) The dynamic between ranged and hand-to-hand combat is fascinating, and probably a big part of the longevity of the rules. Ranged combat gives you much more tactical flexibility and adaptability, but not only does going hand-to-hand kill models faster, but it locks the target down so they can't do anything else. The dynamic this puts between ranged infantry, melee infantry, ranged vehicles, and melee vehicles is enormously deep.
     3) On that note, the dynamic between infantry and vehicles is enormous in and of itself! I hesitate to make further statements until we're experienced in other armies, since the Astra Militarum are so vehicle-focused.
     4) Contrary to our fears, setup and gameplay were both fast. There are plenty of tabletop games where just getting ready to play is an investment, but this is not one of them. Furthermore, while the actual gameplay does take a while, it's downright short compared to even a quick game of D&D. I can definitely anticipate slipping in a game after work on a weekday!
     5) Characters are actually quite survivable. Even without the fact that they can't be targeted normally, they're tough enough and good enough hand-to-hand that they tend to survive. This is good, since so much of any given strategy revolves around them.
     6) Perusing the other codices, it really seems like most overall judgments should be reserved for now until we can play more with other factions. As near as I can tell, one of the best things about this game is that every army has its own unique feel and playstyle without being pigeonholed into a single strategy, and I can't wait to make use of that.

   In any case, we very much liked the game, and are looking forward to playing it more. Some of us have since fought small battles of Necron vs. Space Marines and Necron vs. Thousand Sons, but I wasn't really there for those, and can't vouch for them (it doesn't sound like they went as well, anyway).
  [Note from Rick: we were trying out the unusual rules to see how they worked on the table, so - not much to say.]

  I've got Orks vs. Imperial Guard, Imperial Guard vs. Space Marines, and Orks vs. Space Marines all lined up with different members of the family, so we'll see how that goes. Right now, it seems like Space Marines aren't good enough to justify their high point cost per unit, but only time will tell if that holds true in gameplay.

  More reports to come! Wish us luck!