Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XLII: The Dice Make Fools of Us All

[Cheesegear]

Warhammer 40,000 in the Playground

I'm new to the hobby. How do I start?

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The best and most obvious way to start is either the Elite- or Command Editions of the starter set. This will get you a solid and relatively cheap start on either an Adeptus Astartes* army, or a Necrons army. If you aren't starting the game with a friend, you can almost always offload the 'other side' that you don't want to recoup some of your money back. If you don't want to play Adeptus Astartes or Necrons, you will almost definitely want to look into Combat Patrol boxes - with a few exceptions.

*Due to how GW uses the same Astartes models across several different Chapters that all play very differently, some of the models will not be suited to the Chapter of Space Marines that you might want to play. Be wary. When buying the starter sets, they really lend themselves towards playing:

- White Scars
- Space Wolves
- Black Templars
- Blood Angels / Flesh Tearers

And are non-specifically 'just okay' when playing with:

- Iron Hands
- Salamanders
- Raven Guard
- Deathwatch

Generally, you'll want to outright avoid buying the starter sets if you play:

- Dark Angels
- Imperial- or Crimson Fists
- Ultramarines (yes really)

However, just having models, isn't really enough to play the game. The Core Rules are free and/or downloadable. But the 'main game' is found outside the Core Rules, which means that you're likely going to need to pick up a Rulebook at some point. Unfortunately, only the Command Edition starter comes stock with a Rulebook. So, if you don't end up getting the Command Edition, you'll probably want to spend even more money grabbing a Rulebook, too.

Also, you'll need Terrain. If you don't have terrain on the board, the game vastly swings to playing a certain way, and all other units that don't play that way, are terrible... You don't want that. The Command Edition comes with some not-very-good terrain - but at least it's a start to making your board not just a flat surface.

Additional Resources that you will want:
Battlescribe. Battlescribe is a free App for Mobile and PC (however, you can pay for it to remove ads). It's incredibly useful as it contains all the rules for all your units - including points costs. This greatly increases your ability to play the Matched Play version of 40K, as all's you need to do is plug the units you have, into the App, and you get given an army list complete with rules. However, do be aware that in the real world, when playing a real game, most people don't want to read rules from your phone - however, running it from a tablet, or printing it out, is almost always accepted. Battlescribe is for you, not for your opponents.

[Faction] Datacards. If you don't have a Codex, well, Battlescribe doesn't have rules for Stratagems. Your Faction's Datacards provide all the rules you need to run your chosen Factions' Stratagems and Psychic Powers. However, do be aware that it's really simple to just make your own, as well as print out cards with reminders for all your Characters' abilities that you might forget.

Open War Mission Pack. Open War is exceptionally useful for newer players as it gives you rules for Missions you can play, without having to buy the rulebook. Because of the random nature of the cards - like Maelstrom - you can have a variety of experiences depending on how the cards draw. The rules for Open War also allow for what happens when player has more Points or higher Power Rating than their opponent. Which can sometimes act as a balancing factor. However, those 'extra rules' can be very swingy depending on the units or army you have, so the better idea is to simply try and even out the points costs and ignore those rules.
While Open War cards aren't required to play the game (GW offers the Core Rules for free), they will give you a decent experience of the game until you can get your hands on the rulebook and/or the most current edition of Chapter Approved.

Spin-down Dice. What? Okay, Magic: The Gathering (and others, but M:TG is the most obvious) produces spin-down d20s. These are d20s where the numbered sides are consecutively next to each other, which makes them incredibly useful as Wound counters, Victory Point and Command Point trackers, additionally, they can't be accidentally picked up when you need more d6s to roll. They come in several different colours, just in case. GW themselves, sells 'Wound Trackers', but, they are in fact, just regular d10s and not quite what you want.

...Points? ...Power Rating? What's the difference?

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Both units of measurement are ways of keeping the game balanced. If one player's army is vastly superior to their opponent's, that's not a very fair game, is it? If you think that you're just going to 'put down everything you have on the table', well, that might work for smaller games. But once you get larger collections, what you have, and what your opponent has, may be very different collections and just...No.

Power Rating. Power Rating is the easiest method to play the game. Your unit is always Rated the same, regardless of what wargear it has. Whether your model has a Chainsword, or Thunder Hammer, still costs the same. This makes it incredibly easy to make army lists because you just put down your unit without regards to wargear. However, if everything costs the same, then the Good Stuff, costs exactly the same as the Bad Stuff, so why isn't everyone taking the Good Stuff all the time? Power Rating is incredibly abusable and all's it takes it a slight desire to start winning games and then the whole thing is ruined.

Points.; Points are exclusively found in your Factions' Codecies, Chapter Approveds (and Battlescribe). The way this works, is that everything has a points cost - even wargear. This means that Bad Stuff costs less points, whilst Good Stuff, costs more points. So, if you - or your opponents - want to start winning games, they're even further limited in what they can take. This is vastly more fair than using Power Rating to decide how to build your army. You're going to want to pick up the most recent edition of Chapter Approved, which GW releases annually. Which is the downside. In order to keep it fair, points need to keep being re-balanced.

So, what's a good start then?

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Stater Editions
[INDENT]- Recruit Edition.
- Elite/Command Edition.

[COLOR="#B22222"]Start Collecting!s and Combat Patrols
To be updated.

SC! - Astra Militarum. Not good.
SC! - Militarum Tempestus. Good.
SC! - Adeptus Mechanicus. Fine.
CP - Blood Angels. Good. Even for non-Blood Angels.
CP - Deathwatch. Decent...But not for Deathwatch.
CP - Space Wolves. Decent...Even for non Space Wolves.
SC! - Space Marines. Very bad.
SC! - Vanguard Space Marines. Decent.

SC! - Chaos Space Marines. Decent.
SC! - Daemons of Khorne. Fine.
SC! - Daemons of Nurgle. Good.
SC! - Daemons of Slaanesh. Good.
SC! - Daemons of Tzeentch. Fine.
SC! - Thousand Sons. Good.

SC! - Craftworlds. Bad.
SC! - Drukharii. Not good.
SC! - Genestealer Cults. Fine.
SC! - Orks. Fine.
SC! - T'au Empire. Good...For T'au.
SC! - Tyranids. Good.

Terrain - you mentioned it before. Talk about it, now.

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Terrain...Is good. It slows down Melee armies from destroying you on Turn 1 or 2, and it increases your defense against Shooting attacks so you don't automatically lose on Turn 1 against a gunline. Wargaming terrain is an extremely fun hobby project where you can find hundreds of tutorials online to scratch-build almost anything you want. If you want to be even more creative than that, you can even theme your terrain to your army!

A good rule of thumb is that anywhere between 33% and 50% of your table space should be covered in terrain.

Not only that, but you'll also want (trust us) terrain with the Obscuring and Dense terrain rules (in the Core Rulebook). It's also a good idea to create terrain that partially blocks Line of Sight. That is, some of the terrain, you can't see through, but other parts, you can. A good example of this might be a shelled-out Ruin. Where the foundations of the Building are intact, and thus, built like a wall. While the upper levels of the Building have been hit by explosive attacks like an air raid, and thus the walls are not so intact and you can see through them.

If your community has a gaming hub (such as a gaming store, or club), if those places are any good, they should have enough terrain for all of their gaming tables, and you don't really need to worry about this. If your local hub doesn't have enough terrain for its tables - or its terrain is just...Bad, and for example, doesn't block LoS - see if you can get involved in your community and organise a terrain building hobby day, or a challenge month or something, where terrain made is donated to the hub. More, better and diverse terrain in your hub benefits everybody, and your community manager should be on board for such an idea.

Obviously, you can simply just buy Games Workshop terrain. But then you kind of only get to use what they can sell you, and it gets very expensive. If that's what you want, well, it's less work than making your own terrain, that's for sure.

I've heard about Crusade. What's that about?

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Crusade is a way of 'gamifying' how you build and progress your army, as you play more and more games. This keeps you invested in the idea of playing games, and staying in the hobby. The idea that you have or will develop a personal stake in your army and your collection, will make it less likely for you to abandon the hobby, as opposed to playing a few games and then quitting once you get bored and/or lose your first few games and realise that the game/hobby isn't for you.

Pros. You develop a personal attachment to your army, as the Crusade format uses RPG-like mechanics to drive the impression that you are collecting and building your army.

Cons. There are strict zero-sum rules in how you can build your collection. Sometimes this might feel like you have no control over what you buy, because you'll only be allowed to use what the format lets you use.

This is so expensive!

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...It is. You'll be wanting to make sure that you get a lot of games and get the most out of your hobby that you possibly can. Sorry. There's just no way around it.

Wait...So you weren't kidding, there actually is 'Bad Stuff' in the game?

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Unfortunately...Yes. The good news is, what's bad or good, depends on your meta. It's always useful to check out what other players are playing, and build to your meta.

Build to my meta?

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What works for someone on the other side of the world, or Hell, just 200kms north of you, might not work for you, because their local meta, is different to yours. The only person who truly knows what you need to buy for your army, is you, and you only learn that, by talking and engaging with your other local players. Of course, you can build to the meta, and run some or all of the best units in the game. But, if your meta is even slightly reasonable, there's a good chance that you don't need - or probably even want - to run the best units in the game because your opponents don't play their armies that way.
...But, of course, they might, too.

So what am I here for?

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Other perspectives and opinions. A lot of people play the game a certain way that they enjoy - it's a hobby, after all. That means that even if you talk to people in your meta, the advice you get given will only be relevant to their skill ceiling and knowledge base. If no-one in your meta plays Necrons, it's probably fair to say that not many people in your meta have experience playing with or against Necrons, and thus, their advice will be limited. There's a chance that you could ask everyone in your meta for advice, and get no helpful directions.

It's also pretty fair that if you ask your opponents how to beat them, they're not going to tell you - why would they? It's also pretty fair that if you're asking your local store manager how to build an army, that your manager will make recommendations that end up with you spending the most money possible. It's a ****ty thing to do, but it is realistic.

Mostly, the internet is for looking for competitive advice. If you are looking to win games, the internet will tell you how. Mostly, the internet will talk about the meta. That is, objectively, there are units in the game that are more suited to playing to the win conditions of the game, than other units. Internet discussion usually revolves around either taking those units, or taking units that counter those units, sometimes with a third 'meta-buster' build that is reasonably good against the unit and counter-unit.

Now, if your meta, doesn't have people running those units, then talking about the meta, only goes so far. However, even taking 'sub-optimal' units, can still win games. A unit that's rated 8/10 is still pretty good, even if it's not 'the best' and will still cause problems given the chance.

If you're having fun, playing what you want to play...Then talk about that.

So can I take sub-optimal units that I like the look of, and still win games?

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That's the elephant in the room...And the answer, at best, is only 'Maybe.'

If having fun and doing hobby is what you care about, no-one can tell you how to have fun. No-one can tell you not to have fun - especially if you don't know them 'cause they're some dude on the internet and who cares what they think anyway? If you're having fun doing whatever it is you're doing, then you keep doing it. If, by some miracle, you're winning games while also taking like, units rated 5/10, 4/10 or worse, then who cares? You're playing with models you want, and you're winning games. Keep doing exactly what you're doing.

If the units or models you like are Not Good, and potentially contributing to you losing every game - and that matters to you. Well, that sucks. The units you like, are bad, they don't perform, and you have to buy new models. What you have doesn't work, you should probably replace it. Or, at the very least start cutting up the models you do have and start giving them new wargear. Everyone understands that this feeling sucks, and it sucks even harder that you've potentially wasted a lot of money. That's why making sure you know what you want to buy, before you buy it, is so important. That being said, GW can just nerf what you like into the ground and then what do you do?

At the end of the day, the important point you should know is that 'I want to have fun,' and 'I want to have fun...And win games,' are quite often different conversations.

So, are some Factions are better overall than others?

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Again, the answer is 'maybe', or 'kind of' or 'it depends'. Any Faction can win games, provided that the player takes the right units, in the right combination, and then makes the right choices during the game. No matter who your opponents are, the rules and win conditions of the game, are still the same. Any given unit is be more- or less-suited to winning games than any other unit. Which means there are definitely some sub-optimal and outright wrong choices you can make, when making your army.

Factions aren't bad. Units are bad. Many bad units in combination, make a bad army. But that doesn't mean the Faction is bad, necessarily. It just means that in any given Codex or Supplement, the Faction might have less 'good units' in it, than another Faction, which means that in order to win games - or sometimes even play games to a reasonable standard - your army must include a number of specific options and choices.

The more 'must-have' and 'auto-include' units your Faction has, the worse it is, as you - the player - are given less choices and less agency in what goes into your army. If your meta is full of people who are playing cutting edge, top of the meta lists, there's a pretty good chance that you wont be able to just put down any unit you like and still have a good game...And that sucks.

I can't paint.

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Like any skill worth having, you get better if you practice. 90% of a good paint job is just brush control - how much paint you put on your brush and where you put it. The other 10% is just colour theory (yeah, it's a thing). The most important tool this author has is a $5 Colour Wheel.

Wraith has put together how you can go about Painting your army without losing your mind.

WarhammerTV (YouTube) has several beginner guides on how to paint almost any model that GW sells. Other YouTube channels also do painting tutorials, there are a whole bunch of blogs that also occasionally talk about how they painted their models. If you want to learn how to paint something specific, there's almost definitely a guide for it, somewhere.

If you want to get better at painting, full stop:
a) Make sure you have different sized paint brushes for different tasks - not every brush is useful, all the time.
b) Develop your fine motor skills. It takes practice. You wont be good at it for a while. Don't worry about bad paint jobs. When you get better, just strip them.

GW also has a Contrast Paint range, which is very helpful for getting people who don't want to paint, to paint. If painting for you is too hard, or too time-consuming, then make sure to look those up. Though, there are a number of stories where at the higher end of the painting scale, when you start getting good, Contrast Paints don't actually save you time, and are harder to use than normal paints (e.g; Once you learn drybrushing, it is both quicker and easier than Contrast).

Here are a number of Guides put together by the GitP 40K Community...

Helpful Army Building Guides

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Guides to Space Marines (Adeptus Astartes):
Detachment and Army Abilities - Core Units and Characters - Non-Core Units

- Ultramarines - Rapid Fire and Assault weapons
- White Scars - Melee and Assault weapons, favours Bikes, but not really.
- Iron Hands - Heavy weapons, favours Vehicles, but not really.
- Deathwatch - Anything you want
- Blood Angels - Melee weapons, favours Jump Packs.

Crusade Guides

- The 'basics' of building your Roster
- Playing a Mission
- Guide to Adeptus Astartes

All of the following use 8th Ed. books, but are currently out of date.
Adeptus Custodes Out of date
Adeptus Mechanicus Out of date
Astra Militarum by LeSwordfish Out of date
Chaos Space Marines by LeSwordfish Out of date
Craftworlds by Forum Explorer Out of date
Dark Angels Out of date
Death Guard by LeSwordfish Out of date
Drukhari by Gauntlet Out of date
Grey Knights Out of date
Necrons by Requizen Out of date
Thousand Sons by Wraith Out of date

Index: Inquisition (White Dwarf, Nov '19) Out of date
Index: Officio Assassinorum (White Dwarf, Mar '19) Out of date
Index: Sisters of Silence (White Dwarf, Oct '19) Out of date

Previous conversations to search through...

Previous Threads

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* Warhammer 40K Tactics
* II: Tactics for the Tactics God
* III: Hats for the Hat Throne
* IV: The Enemy of Your Enemy is Still Your Enemy.
* V: Everyone Is On Fire. Some Moreso Than Others.
* VI: Chaos Bringing Eternal Darkness? I brought my flashlight.
* VII: Common Sense is not RAW.
* VIII: You're Gonna have To Face It, You're Addicted To Maths
* IX: "Mech Is King? I Never Voted For It!"
* X: "Everybody expects the Inquisition!"
* XI: "More Threads than your Tactical Squad has Room for!"
* XII: "Now in Rapid Fire range!"
* XIII: "Ironclads, Furiosos and Soul Grinders, oh my!"
* XIV: "Pray for 6s!"
* XV: "More People Should Be Punched In The Head."
* XV: "Terminator? I hardly know 'er!"
* XVII: "Tyranids Don't Have Friends."
* XVIII: "Fortune Favours the Careless!"
* XIX: Understand the Gravity of the Situation
* XX: Barrage is the new Precision Shot
* XXI: Preferred Enemy (Dice)
* XXII: I C'Tan Has Cheese?
* XXIII: I Do Not Like Green Tides and 'Hann
* XXIV: ...And They Shall Know No Fluff.
* XXV: Friends Are Better Than Wraithknights
* XXVI: Frequently Asked, Frequently Ignored
* XXVII: Tyranids Finally Found a Friend
* XXVIII: Drasius Can't Have Nice Things
* XXIX: Ro, Ro, Ro Your Boute
* XXX: Imperium After Dark
* XXXI: Haters Gonna Burn
* XXXII: I Got 99 Guardsmen and Morale Killed One
* XXXIII: Only in Nerf Does Duty End
* XXXIV: Situation Normal, All FAQ'd Up
* XXXV: 4 Pages of Rules, 46 Pages of Pointless Bickering
* XXXVI: If it Ain't Broke, Nerf It
* XXXVII: Highlighting the Contrasts
* XXXVIII: toy soldiers r srs bsns
* XXXIX: Miracle on 39th Thread
* XL: Bloated Rules
* XLI: Secondary Opinions

Here's a bunch of Battle Reports for you to read. Plenty of army lists in there.

[Cheesegear]

Last time in the Eternal Darkness...

• Leaks and Reviews of the Drukhari Codex are out. It looks...Middle tier.
• If 40K is so broken, why do you play it?
• If 40K is so broken, can it be fixed?
• What is 'fun'?
• Can there be light in the Eternal Darkness of a bad game?

...We now return you to the Darkness.

[Blackhawk748]

I remember a time back in 5th, or maybe it was 6th (not like it matters in the context of this story) when my buddies Triarch Praetorians crashed into my Flash Gitz. Except that he forgot that, while shooty units, Flash Gitz are still Nobs. And they had the bog standard Cyber Ork upgrade and a Painboy hanging out with them.

Cue three turns of them wailing on each other to little avail, though the Gitz hedge out a win eventually, while across the board by Grotsnik Bomb of Slugga boys is continually crashing into a Deep Striking Warrior Brick led by Obyron.

It was hilarious.

In HoR Kill Team, I had a Terminator Lord who just walked through most kill teams, constantly racking up Chaos Boons and getting hilarious amounts of stats.

[Renegade Paladin]

So the fact that one of the new players here is working up a Deathstrike conversion using a model kit that's WAY too big to be on the Chimera chassis has me returning to thoughts of Apocalypse again, namely the two table scenario that was intended for last year's game that didn't happen for obvious reasons. This was the idea for the second table, but of course this was written under 8th edition using the Planetstrike rules from CA 2017 as a base.

Spoiler: Silence the Big Guns

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Silence the Big Guns
The xenos menace has seized the garrison, the Temple of the Emperor Ascendant, and perhaps most importantly the mess hall and entire supply of chili! As the Imperial armies muster for a counterattack, the Imperial Guard sets up a rear line artillery firebase that threatens to pound the heretics and xenos to death from afar. Their only chance to avert this threat is a daring planetstrike…

The Armies
The players choose armies as described on page 33 of Chapter Approved 2017 to a limit of 2000 points. The Attacker is the player on the Defender team in the accompanying Apocalypse game, and the Defender is on the Attacker team in the same. The Defender receives several artillery pieces and a Bastion to represent their Fire Control Center without paying any points for them, but see Fire Mission and Fire Control Center below.

The Battlefield
The Defender creates the battlefield; they start by setting up the Fire Control Center in the center of the battlefield. The Defender then places all their other Fortifications anywhere on the battlefield. They then set up all other terrain on the battlefield however they choose to create a defensive position. Once the Defender has created the battlefield, the Attacker chooses one battlefield edge to be their landing zone – this is where their non-orbital Reserve units will arrive from.

Next the Defender places six objective markers. One objective marker must be placed inside the Fire Control Center. One other objective marker may be placed inside of each Building. Any objective marker not placed in a building must be placed in the immediate vicinity of an artillery piece so long as it is not within 6” of the center of another objective marker, any building, or any battlefield edge.

If a building containing an objective marker is destroyed during the battle, the Defender must place the objective marker where the building used to be.

Deployment
The Defender now sets up all of their units, anywhere on the battlefield. The Attacker’s units do not start the game on the battlefield, but use the Planetary Assault rules described on page 33 of Chapter Approved 2017.

Firestorm Attacks
The Attacker rolls a D3 and adds 1 to the result for each Fortification that is on the battlefield (add 2 instead of the fortification is a Building). The total is the number of Firestorm attacks (pg 33, CA 2017) that the Attacker makes.

First Turn
The Attacker has the first turn.

Fire Mission
At the start of each Attacker shooting phase in the accompanying Apocalypse game, the Attackers in that game may call upon the artillery in this game for fire support. The Defender in this game reports the number of artillery pieces that are still intact and that have not been used to fire on the Attacker since the last call for a fire mission, and the Attackers in the Apocalypse game may make shooting attacks using the profiles of the artillery pieces, ignoring range limitations.

Fire Control Center
The Defender does not need to take Morale tests for any of their units that are within 6” of the Fire Control Center. While the Fire Control Center is still on the board, the Attackers in the Apocalypse game may add 1 to all hit rolls made using the Fire Mission special rule.

Battle Length
The battle continues for six turns.

Victory Conditions
At the end of the game the side which has scored the most Victory Points wins a major victory. If both sides have the same number of Victory Points, the Defender wins a minor victory. Victory points are achieved for the following:

Secure the Guns: At the end of the game, each objective marker is worth one Victory Point to the side that holds it. A side controls an objective marker if there are more models on their side within 3” of the center of it than there are enemy models. If an objective marker is within a Building, count all the models within 3” of the building and all the models garrisoning it when determining who controls the objective marker. Additionally, each artillery piece is worth 2 Victory Points to the Attacker if destroyed, or to the Defender if still intact. The Fire Control Center is similarly worth 3 Victory Points to the Attacker if destroyed, or to the Defender if still intact.

Slay the Warlord: If the enemy Warlord has been slain during the battle, you score 1 victory point.

Aftermath
Once the game is over, it continues to affect the Apocalypse game.

If the Attacker is victorious, the Fire Mission rule ceases to apply.

If the Defender is victorious, the Fire Mission rule continues to apply for the duration of the Apocalypse game, using the state of the artillery as of the end of this game (i.e. if there are two guns left and the Fire Control Center is still intact, the Attackers could make attacks with both surviving guns and add +1 to the hit rolls at the start of each of their Shooting phases). In this case, the Apocalypse mission gains the Counterbattery Fire rule, below. In either case, both players may join the Apocalypse game by putting their armies in Strategic Reserve to arrive at the start of their respective next Movement phases.

Counterbattery Fire
Once this game has ended, if the Fire Mission rule is still active, the Defender in the Apocalypse game may still attempt to silence the battery via counterbattery fire. In the Defender’s shooting phase, any units with a weapon with a range of 48” or greater that may ignore line of sight may forego its shooting to make a counterbattery attack. Resolve its weapons fire against one of the artillery pieces left on the table in this game using its normal weapons profile.

[LansXero]

We played a narrative campaign in a made up system called Gorgonzola (home of the gorgonytes, if you dont get the reference I pity you). Every mission was very plot centric, and you could win by holding objectives or performing special actions, and there were special bonuses around the map like extra CPs or re-rolls for the round. Started at 500 points.

Us being the cute little group we are, one guy entered with 3 Vertus Praetors in 500 points. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. They circled a ruin and then murdered my elf party, because a farseer can't tank so many attacks and reapers just bounce off 4++.

Cue the 750 point bracket. and he tries to pull the same ****. Except instead of a shooty list, he ran into a Warlock council on jetbikes, and my Autarch. Back then Autarchs could use better gear than they can now, so between his reaper launcher, jinx from the warlocks and mortals from the farseer, the Autarch avenged his dead friends on the Custodes boys. He died at some point, but then remembered all the young promising aspect warriors that landed on this world to get speared by Imperials, and something inside him lit up. A blaze of fire surrounded him and at that point he saw into the eyes of his mentor; that old farseer was channeling some of her life force to bring him back! (I popped Phoenix Gem and the only model in range was my own Farseer :v). With renewed determination he went and made a mockery of the vaunted Custodes resillience.

That Autarch didnt die for real for the entire campaign. he kept racking up kills, almost always in duels with other named / HQs. Ahriman went down to a Reaper Launcher shot (back then Autarchs could snipe). Wolf Lords, Tank Commanders, a freaking Ares gunship, his kill count was impressive.

Sadly, he met his untimely demise being dragged down by a mob of poxwalker. The exhausts on his bike were jammed from all the muck and phlegm, and even his usual firey spirit couldn't burn away the blight long enough before it grew again. But in his final moments he saw his friends capping the scenario's comms tower to get evac back to their wraithships. His last sight was his mentor spearing a Nurgle Daemon prince as everybody else run into the teleportation beam back to safety. It wasn't a bad sight to take with him into the darkness :'(

[Cheesegear]

We played a narrative campaign in a made up system called Gorgonzola (home of the gorgonytes, if you dont get the reference I pity you).

I'm getting a strong guess that this was in a previous edition*, ideally one where Catachans were good - needs more Chip Hazard.
*I'm getting a strong vibe that all the stories in which people have fun are from previous editions...Not this current one.

Currently, my favourite format of the game is teams of 2*1000 Points.
- Unique characters are still unique.
- Your partner's units are treated as enemy units that you can't attack.
(e.g; [Aura] affects friendly [Faction] units. Your partner's units are not friendly - though they can be the relevant Faction.)

Each, individual player only has 1000 Points to play with. There's a few broken things you can do. But no-one can go all out with spam - it's rare that two people will bring identical lists to their Team, though I have seen it.
Each Team has 2000 Points. So it's still a big game that's worth showing up to, and it doesn't take longer to drive to the venue than it does to play the game.
Each Team has to actually converse and strategise with each other, because it's not just one person making all the decisions during the game - although sometimes it is.

You can't be a douche and just say "Oh, I brought two, 1000 Point armies, that's cool, right?" ...No. Make a friend. Learn to social skills. Also, we know for a fact that your 'Two, 1000 Point armies' are designed to work together. As opposed to two, individual players, each with their own collections, working together. Sometimes their armies will be purpose-built to work together. A lot of times, especially with new(er) players who want to play 2000 Point games, but don't have 2000 Point armies, their armies will just have to 'figure it out'.

It effectively doubles the amount of people participating in a game, and so doubles the social aspect of the game.**
**However, I maintain that if the social aspect of the game is one of the driving forces of you playing the game...Just take your friends and do...Anything else. It will probably be just as much - if not more - fun, and almost definitely less time-consuming or expensive.

Allows for dumb **** like "Drukhari and Space Wolves team up to fight Tyranids and Imperial Fists." Uhh...Okay. That's certainly something. Forge a Narrative! (Holy ****, remember that phrase?)

[Aliess]

Most memorable moment for me will always be when my friend from school shot my terminator librarian with power field... With a grot.
Granted the librarian was on his last wound but this was second edition so needed something like a six to hit, six to wound, double one on the terminator save and a further one on the power field save.

As someone who definitely doesn't play competitively and has only once played a pick up game (I hated it) here are my top two tips for anyone who wants to play around with the game system. You don't have to use them all the time, but if you're after something a bit different one evening then give them a try.
- Alternating Activations. Insert your favourite system (if you're not familiar with these then check out Titanicus, Age of Sigmar, Dystopian Wars, Anyaral World of Twilight or many many others!). Sure it can cause issues for very low model count armies, but since it's not something you're likely to spring on someone at the start of the game it can be easily planned around. We find this just makes the game far more engaging as there's far less downtime between turns.
- Steal Scenarios. There are hundreds of scenarios out there for various systems, in source books in older editions and White Dwarfs In most cases it's very easy adjust the victory conditions, if you need to at all, and it brings a lot of variety and new challenges to your games. I just don't recommend the old mentioning ones unless you want half your army to spend the battle back home at base :)

[LansXero]

I'm getting a strong guess that this was in a previous edition*, ideally one where Catachans were good - needs more Chip Hazard.
*I'm getting a strong vibe that all the stories in which people have fun are from previous editions...Not this current one.

Not quite, its from 8E. Background was Necrons were about to awaken so Eldar were there to do Eldar stuff, and pulled a Hive Fleet splinter into the system, but since Tyranids dont care for tomb worlds they also eased Chaos warbands into the Imperial worlds so they'd deploy the IG and fill the system with delicious BIOMASSS. Just standard elf warfare, which obviously backfired horribly :D.

For the first three point brackets we also added Zone Mortalis missions in case you wanted something smaller; there was a Watch Fortress on a barren moon at the edge of the system; they saw the splinter comming and the first early engagements were so tiny because the sector fleet was engaged fighting it off. ZM missions revolved around warning / intercepting the warning about the tyranids to Sector Command or retrieving anti-necron / anti-tyranid stuff.

Currently, my favourite format of the game is teams of 2*1000 Points.
- Unique characters are still unique.
- Your partner's units are treated as enemy units that you can't attack.
(e.g; [Aura] affects friendly [Faction] units. Your partner's units are not friendly - though they can be the relevant Faction.)

We run doubles at 2500 per team, max 100 points gap between players. This is due to 1250 being sort of a weird point limit, but also to let people be 20 - 30 points over / under cap. We also let Auras and whatnot affect allied units for weird combos and interactions to happen. One of the tournaments was won by Ork/Tau alliance :D (we figured the Tau got zog'd right after winning and now there is an ork warband running around in looted riptides and hammerheads).

Each, individual player only has 1000 Points to play with. There's a few broken things you can do. But no-one can go all out with spam - it's rare that two people will bring identical lists to their Team, though I have seen it.

We make Rule-Of-Three apply to the team, not the player.

Each Team has to actually converse and strategise with each other, because it's not just one person making all the decisions during the game - although sometimes it is.

The planning phase alone is huge. And then, back during Maelstrom, building a proper deck (we allowed both players to put in faction objectives) was also key.

[Avaris]

For the first three point brackets we also added Zone Mortalis missions in case you wanted something smaller; there was a Watch Fortress on a barren moon at the edge of the system; they saw the splinter comming and the first early engagements were so tiny because the sector fleet was engaged fighting it off. ZM missions revolved around warning / intercepting the warning about the tyranids to Sector Command or retrieving anti-necron / anti-tyranid stuff.

Did you use any extra rules for Zone Mortalis? I know there were a few rules packs floating around for it during 8th, but I often felt they added complexity where it wasn’t necessary: having a small game in a confined space already changes things up a lot through LoS limitations, without adding specific rules in beyond things like ‘no flyers’. What would you suggest as an approach to that sort of game?

[LansXero]

Did you use any extra rules for Zone Mortalis? I know there were a few rules packs floating around for it during 8th, but I often felt they added complexity where it wasn’t necessary: having a small game in a confined space already changes things up a lot through LoS limitations, without adding specific rules in beyond things like ‘no flyers’. What would you suggest as an approach to that sort of game?

There was a wound limit per model and a base size / hull size limit iirc, to prevent abuse like sentinel spam. Scenarios were designed with hazards in them, based on the tilesets we had available: acid pools, broken enginarium, hallways full of gas, places with rubble, etc. It should still be somewhere, but in spanish, so not much I could share directly.

The thing is that while it indeed is a departure from the normal game, it was an option alongside regular 40k missions. You could play as much as you wanted on any phase, but only your first 3 games counted for your faction's progress (which decided the plot for the next phase, and the plot decided the missions) so you could try and cheese into easy ZM wins, except exploiting the board and playing to the mission, specially in such claustrophobic, hard to move around in maps was a lot more effective.

Edit: This was the event for 500 pts.
https://web.facebook.com/events/386922222002654/

[Avaris]

There was a wound limit per model and a base size / hull size limit iirc, to prevent abuse like sentinel spam. Scenarios were designed with hazards in them, based on the tilesets we had available: acid pools, broken enginarium, hallways full of gas, places with rubble, etc. It should still be somewhere, but in spanish, so not much I could share directly.

The thing is that while it indeed is a departure from the normal game, it was an option alongside regular 40k missions. You could play as much as you wanted on any phase, but only your first 3 games counted for your faction's progress (which decided the plot for the next phase, and the plot decided the missions) so you could try and cheese into easy ZM wins, except exploiting the board and playing to the mission, specially in such claustrophobic, hard to move around in maps was a lot more effective.

Yeah, that sounds like the sort of limits I would want around it, without getting into anything more complex. I'm kind of surprised GW hasn't tried pushing a ZM ruleset lately, given the terrain now available for it via Necromunda. It would potentially be a good way of having small, quick games, and would be easy enough to have included in the main rulebook as an option.

[Cheesegear]

I'm kind of surprised GW hasn't tried pushing a ZM ruleset lately [...]
It would potentially be a good way of having small, quick games, and would be easy enough to have included in the main rulebook as an option.

Why include it the main rulebook when they can sell it to you as an extra, in Kill Team?
Then reduce the amount of terrain found in Killzone sets and increase the price!

[Renegade Paladin]

I'm getting a strong guess that this was in a previous edition*, ideally one where Catachans were good - needs more Chip Hazard.
*I'm getting a strong vibe that all the stories in which people have fun are from previous editions...Not this current one.

That's not a hard guess, considering that most of the world hasn't been playing many games since 9th dropped for unrelated reasons.

As for doubles format, the way I've done it (which has proved crazy popular) is 1k points per player/2k points per team, each list must be a 1000 point battle forged list on its own (making the Rule of 3 the Rule of 2), unique characters are still unique, and your ally's models are considered friendly and can benefit from auras and such but must have the proper keyword. That last point presents a choice, and one that's meaningful judging by tournament results (though I haven't run enough of these to have a viable dataset for statistical purposes); you can either synergize through abilities (double Ultramarines, ho!) or combo different factions' strengths but not both.

[Avaris]

Why include it the main rulebook when they can sell it to you as an extra, in Kill Team?
Then reduce the amount of terrain found in Killzone sets and increase the price!

I'm surprised they haven't done Zone Mortalis as a direct way of playing 40k itself, even as a supplement. Kill Team is very different: although both would be small and quick, ZM could be more of a 'here's a way to use your army in smaller engagements' rather than 'make a smaller more detailed force of specialists'.

[AdmiralCheez]

Here's a model building question for the group - when you have a model that has a gun in one hand, and the other hand is designed to hold that gun, do you glue the hand to the gun, or just make sure the arm doesn't drift when drying?

I've done it both ways, and gluing the hand makes the bond stronger, but risks losing detail, while not gluing the hand risks an awkward gap between the hand and gun, so more attention is needed.

[Renegade Paladin]

Here's a model building question for the group - when you have a model that has a gun in one hand, and the other hand is designed to hold that gun, do you glue the hand to the gun, or just make sure the arm doesn't drift when drying?

I've done it both ways, and gluing the hand makes the bond stronger, but risks losing detail, while not gluing the hand risks an awkward gap between the hand and gun, so more attention is needed.

I typically glue the hand to the gun, but I'm running Guard infantry; if I put all that much work into detail I will never get anything done.

[Grim Portent]

I generally glue the gun to the hand, but I usually try to use as little glue as I can for the purpose. Had a lot of my old chaos marines lose wrist definition because glue overflowed from the left hand grip.

[Destro_Yersul]

Here's a model building question for the group - when you have a model that has a gun in one hand, and the other hand is designed to hold that gun, do you glue the hand to the gun, or just make sure the arm doesn't drift when drying?

I've done it both ways, and gluing the hand makes the bond stronger, but risks losing detail, while not gluing the hand risks an awkward gap between the hand and gun, so more attention is needed.

I've tried a few different ways. The one I think was most effective was to glue the arms and gun together as a single subassembly, and attach them to the torso after painting. It's pretty easy to hide gaps under space marine shoulderpads, less so near the hands.

[Cheesegear]

I'm surprised they haven't done Zone Mortalis as a direct way of playing 40k itself, even as a supplement.

I'm not. Zone Mortalis is Forge World. GW-proper has nothing to do with it.

Here's a model building question for the group - when you have a model that has a gun in one hand, and the other hand is designed to hold that gun, do you glue the hand to the gun, or just make sure the arm doesn't drift when drying?

Use a brand of glue with needle gauge so you actually control how much glue you put on the model with precision. Same as how you don't just slather your models in paint because you're supposed to use a smaller brush for smaller areas.

Hold the weapon and weapon-hand in your thumb and forefinger. Press each arm together into the torso using your middle fingers. Easy. I put together a bunch of Grey Knights that way.

I've done it both ways, and gluing the hand makes the bond stronger, but risks losing detail...

It only risks losing detail if you use too much glue.
Have you tried not using too much glue?

[Renegade Paladin]

I'm surprised they haven't done Zone Mortalis as a direct way of playing 40k itself, even as a supplement. Kill Team is very different: although both would be small and quick, ZM could be more of a 'here's a way to use your army in smaller engagements' rather than 'make a smaller more detailed force of specialists'.

To elaborate on Cheese's point, GW will only do Zone Mortalis if they're selling the terrain for it. They're not, and Forge World discontinued it some time ago so unless they start again they won't publish it either. Games Workshop does not publish rules for models they don't make; it's also why all the terrain rules are for specific terrain kits they sell (though 9th with its keyword system is less bad about that than 8th, which literally did datasheets for GW's terrain range and that's all the rules we got).

[Forum Explorer]

One of my favorite moments in the past editions was ramming my Wave Serpent at max speed into Land Raiders, crashing, and my Fire Dragons getting out and blowing up the Land Raider as a result. You could only do that specific thing in one edition, but it was so much fun while I could try it.


Another memorable game was one game where my opponent ran a bunch of demon engines, and had nothing but meltas and flamers for anti-tank, and my Avatar basically walked through his entire army since he literally could not hurt it at ranged, and in melee my Avatar would go first and kill his demon engines. A horrible mismatch, but hilarious.

[Cheesegear]

One of my favorite moments in the past editions was [...]
ramming [...]
nothing but meltas and flamers [vs.] my Avatar

I can't say enough good things about Ramming being a viable tactic. Dozer Blades and Shock Prows 4 lyf.

Just another reason why 9th Ed. isn't like other editions.
The game is literally less adaptive.

Next someone's gonna point out something bizarre and wacky that happened because of the:
- Daemons' Warp Storm Table,
- Shockk Attack Gun Nonsense
- Khorne Daemonkin getting their Blood Pool to '8' and going crazy.
- Perils of the Warp
- Leadership and Morale rolls
- Vortex Grenades
- Empryean Brain Mines
- Attacks generating extra attacks generating extra attacks
- Destroying a unit, consolidating into the next unit, consolidate into the next unit, etc.
- Null-Deploying which allows a horde of Kroot to deploy on their opponent's table edge, means that their opponent can't arrive on the board, means they auto-lose.
- Musical Wounds creating an unkillable unit that demolished your opponent's entire army
- Barrage being more useful than Precision Shot (hey, that's an old thread title!)

As Lans very rightly pointed out; The randomness and uniqueness 'fun' was torn out of the game, somewhere around the middle of 8th Ed., and then obliterated with the creation of 9th Ed. and the ITC (and 'competitive YouTube') appearing to call the shots behind the scenes in some capacity. This was intentional, in order to create a more balanced and more coherent experience. Not 'balanced and coherent'. Just...More balanced and coherent than it was. Which means less random. Which means shots can be called ahead of time, for the most part. Up to including calling the shots during list-building.

'Fun' isn't in the rulebook - nor is it in the rules. Allegedly it was going to be in Crusade. But I wont poke that bear again so soon.

'Fun' is something you have to make for yourself.
Not every game is going to be 'fun'...Because 99.~% of the time that Craftworlds Ranger should die in Melee. In 9th Ed., most games are going to go the way you think they're going to, because randomness and gotchya'ing your opponent has been more or less phased out of the game, explicitly to create a less random - and therefore more competitive - experience.

[Avaris]

To elaborate on Cheese's point, GW will only do Zone Mortalis if they're selling the terrain for it. They're not, and Forge World discontinued it some time ago so unless they start again they won't publish it either. Games Workshop does not publish rules for models they don't make; it's also why all the terrain rules are for specific terrain kits they sell (though 9th with its keyword system is less bad about that than 8th, which literally did datasheets for GW's terrain range and that's all the rules we got).

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB...And-Walls-2020

This is why I’m confused: GW recently put out a load of new ZM terrain for Necromunda, which is sold from the main website, not Forge World. They produce the terrain, but it is exclusively marketed as Necromunda, despite there being clear crossover to main 40k, as with all other Necromunda terrain.

[LansXero]

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB...And-Walls-2020

This is why I’m confused:

Necromunda requires you to buy cards, gangs and stuff. ZM is basically 40k, with a rulebook at best, so you just use your regular stuff without buying anything else.

Im not entirely sure it even had actual 8E rules. It didn't matter, the concept was obvious and we could work from there. Would we have liked an updated ruleset? Not particularly, it wouldn't likely add anything too important, or would've overcomplicated things for the sake of sales.

[Avaris]

Necromunda requires you to buy cards, gangs and stuff. ZM is basically 40k, with a rulebook at best, so you just use your regular stuff without buying anything else.

Im not entirely sure it even had actual 8E rules. It didn't matter, the concept was obvious and we could work from there. Would we have liked an updated ruleset? Not particularly, it wouldn't likely add anything too important, or would've overcomplicated things for the sake of sales.

Exactly: GW could have easily included it as a way to play in the main rulebook, and so used it to drive sales of the new terrain. Perhaps in place of the current Combat Patrol rules? I suspect small games would work much better in ZM style set ups than an open field! It’s an obvious concept that doesn’t need much rules tweaking, so it’s really surprising GW hasn’t leapt on it alongside producing the new ZM terrain.

[Wraith]

They likely haven't recreated Zone Mortalis for 40k and offered Necromunda-style playmats and scenery because if they did, it would cannibalise Kill Team. If you can play a small game of 40k, on a smaller table, with custom tiles and set-piece scenery.... Why would you buy KT: Arena? Or even just the KT rulebook? Or - if you're using your up-to-date Codex - why would you buy KT: Commanders either?

And frankly, Kill Team needs all the life-support it can get.

Or, just as likely, because they also want you to buy the Necromunda boxed set for the scenery and thus get invested in ANOTHER secondary game, too.

[LansXero]

Kill Team is so wrong and yet something very much needed.

An skirmish variant of the game? Great. 2D only? Sucks. Complicated rules? Sucks more. It should be redone from the ground up, make everything flow smoother and heavily restrict / increase what units can be brought. Commanders was a neat idea, but I really would like to see something like Heroclix' colossals: You can pay very few points for a huge Galactus or whatever mini for your team, except they dont move and dont fight, just provide an aura or passive buff or unique 1-round use ability. So they're more of a terrain piece than an actual mini, and yet you get to place your big scary toy in there.

[Gwynchan'rGwyll]

They need to rework Kill Team to run on rules more distant from 40k. Like how Warcry or Underworlds runs differently. Especially give us 3D terrain rules! I want rules for Purebread Genestealers jumping from the second story without taking any damage! I want a game where my Terminators will kill and won't be killed, but other models can with clever movement completely avoid the Terminators by kiting them through the terrain and using other levels of terrain the Termies can't reach!

Edit: tl;dr, I want a totally new 40k skirmish game! They can even run it like Warcry or Underworlds to give us new "mini-factions"! *sigh* a boy can dream.

[LansXero]

Edit: tl;dr, I want a totally new 40k skirmish game!

Same, but this is missing "using the 40k miniatures I already have"

They can even run it like Warcry or Underworlds to give us new "mini-factions"! *sigh* a boy can dream.

And.... no, now thats called Necromunda.

[Gwynchan'rGwyll]

Same, but this is missing "using the 40k miniatures I already have"



And.... no, now thats called Necromunda.

Both! Use minis you already have, or more "Kill Team: Rogue Trader" mini-packs (or like the War Cry chaos teams)

But basically yeah, Necromunda but able to add your existing range of minis.