Author Topic: 40k  (Read 12160 times)

Offline altpersona

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40k
« on: January 14, 2012, 10:19:06 PM »
my local gamer group is heavy into 40k.

i have never played it, but my boy has; and i have a basic understanding of how it works. (roll as many d6 as possible / roll high two or three times and win init)

so, we dont own any 40k. my boy is looking at ebay at x point armies...  :shakefist

other than not paying retail for the starter box, what is our hive mind knowledge of 40k?

any prevailing tactics above roll many dice / win init?

someone wanna edumacate me... / write a handbook?
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Offline oslecamo

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Re: 40k
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2012, 08:29:52 AM »
It's not really possible to write a consolidated handbook for 40K, since each army has its own book/codex, and they each play quite diferently.

But here's a "40K for newbies" intro if you don't know much about the game yet:

-The basic core of the game is two armies facing each other. Altough killing everything on the enemy's side will win you the match, you need to take in acount that a)there's usually other victory conditions like holding certain points of the map or simply making it to the other side and b)There's a limited number of turns, usually random, which means fully wiping out the enemy is actualy quite hard inside this time frame.

It's quite possible to have phyrric victories where your force suffered much more losses, but you're the one holding the objective in the end, or at least forcing draws by throwing your troops at objectives your oponent has whitout any hopes of actualy taking them, but still contesting them (if there's both enemy and allied troops in an objective, no matter the force disparity between them, it counts for no one).

-Victory conditions are usually decided at random by rolling d6. Then you can choose to deploy on the board and start first or deploy and starting second. Notice deploying first is a disadvantage as your oponent can then positions his units to counter your positioning more easily. Starting first however is a big advantage because you get to unload your heavy artillery in the enemy first, hopefully doing some serious damage. Some army leaders get to atempt to "steal the iniative", which allows them to deploy second and then start first anyway.

-Pretty much everything is decided by rolls of 1d6. Usually you roll to see if you hit an attack, then roll to wound/penetrate, then roll armor saves/vehicle damage charts. You roll a 1d6 for running, roll a 1d6 for dangerous terrain tests (nothing says 40K like your millenia-old god-king tripping over a wreck and breaking his neck). The exception are "mental" tests like morale, psyker powers, panic and giving orders, which are solved with 2d6. There's also the scatter dice, which randomize where area attacks and deep-striking units fall. Honorary mention for template attacks(usually flamers), that, exceptionally, auto-hit the enemy of your choice whitout any randomization, which makes them awesome even if they're quite short ranged.

-Armies are built with acertain amount of points, which you use to purchase units and upgrades from the army's codex. Each unit falls under the classification of "Headquarters, Elite, Fast Attack, Troops, Heavy Suport". You need to adhere to the "Force Organization Chart", which puts a limit to how much of each you can take (2 HQ, 3 elites, 3 FA, 6 troops, 3 HS), suposedly to enforce variety instead of just spamming the most optimal unit the codex has to offer. You also need a minimum 1 HQ and 2 troops. Notice that, barring exceptions only troops may claim objectives, altough other units can contest them, so you want at least 3 troops anyway.

-Units come under two main types, vehicles and everything else. Vehicles have Armor values for each of their facing, no leadership, their own movement rules, and their own damage chart table. Everything else has melee skill, ranged skill, Strenght, toughness, Wounds (aka HP, usually 1 except for heros, some brute units and monstruous creatures), Iniative, Attacks, Armor Save and Leadership and the same base speed of 6 inches. Monstruous creatures share the same stats as normal infantry altough they benefit from some extra rules like ignoring armor and dealing extra damage to vehicles, on top of having higher Strenght and Toughness. Scores of 3 are considered "average" for a normal human trooper, except for Leadership which is usally 7 (as it is tested in a 2d6, remember), Wounds and Attacks (which are usually 1) and Armor saves (which are kinda diferent. No score can ever go over 10, except for armor saves which can never go below 2+.

-Now each stat works in slightly diferent ways, but you usually want them to be high and roll high. For mental tests you want to roll low as you need to score under your leadership score to suceed (double 1s auto-pass), and for armor saves, the smaller the better, since you need to roll over your score to suceed. So 2+ termie armor works 5/6 of the time, while crappy 6+ ork armor only works 1/6 of the time.

-Guns have their own rate of fire, Strenght, and Armor Piercing. It's worth noting that either guns automatically pierce armor (if their AP is equal or lower than the armor) or they can bounce off. Most weapons in the game are AP 5 or better, so 5+ armor is rightly called paper armor. AP 1 also deals extra damage against vehicles. On the other hand, if you're standing behind obstacles, you may take a cover save instead of an armor save against shooting. How a little folliage can stop lazers able to melt trough adamantine and rocket launchers, we'll never know. Template weapons ignore cover, but usually if you're close enough to use them, the enemy is close enough to charge you in melee.

-Ah, melee in 40K. Even with all the high-tech ranged weaponry, jumping at your enemy and bashing away with pointy sticks can be quite effective! That's mostly because of a series of retarded rules to make melee viable
a)Altough tecnically cover also grants some protection from melee, it's easily ignored by cheap(if not free) assault grenades.
b)It's much more easy to increase your number of melee attacks than ranged attacks. While your suposed rapid-fire weapons are only shooting once a turn until the enemy is really close, your typical melee dude will easily lash out with three attacks once they close the distance.
c)Once you're locked in melee, not only you're unable to use ranged weapons (altough pistols can be used to club your enemy), you cannot voluntarily atempt to get out (unless you have a special rule for that). If you're beaten and panic, the troops will atempt to flee, but then your enemy gets an atempt to wipe them out in one go as they run, and even if they don't get them, your unit may just run out of the board and count as a casuality anyway.
d)Neither can uneganged ranged troops atempt to shoot in a group locked in melee. Yes, it doesn't matter if that's the enemy leader and his honor guard, and he's beating in completely expendable troops of your own side, and fluff-wise both your forces are a bunch of psycopaths, you're still not allowed to nuke them at the cost of friendly fire.
e)Finally, altough ranged weapons can be quite nasty, melee weapons are usually nastier. Power weapons automatically ignore all armor, power fists/klaws ignore both armor and double your strenght, and they're relatively cheap.

So, stay in cover, and shoot melee enemies on sight unless you have the mobility to keep away from them (easier said than done).

-Pretty much all of the above can be found in the 40K "core" book that has all the rules the armies share, including universal special rules that are tied to a key word (altough each codex inevitably makes up some special rules of their own).

-So your usual match goes something like "player going second deploys in cover, first player shoots things down, both armies aproach the center to claim objectives, end up locked in nelee or shooting each other's face at point-blank range". Sometimes, it may be worth it to charge an enemy with your ranged specialist just to lock their best ranged weapons.

-Deep-striking is one of the most infamous abilities of 40K, where troops burrow/teleport/fall from space anywhere into the battlefield. Is, however, also quite risky, since not only they arrive in a random turn, they'll usually scatter, being automatically wiped out if they touch any enemy unit (or they may just die instantly if you're unlucky enough). Drop pods, homing beacons and some other fancy choices make deep striking safer, but then points costs start to increase significantly. I've still seen players lose because they heavily invested in a deep-striking unit that ended up only arriving by the end of the game, when most of the rest of their army had already been defeated.

-Now that we've covered the gameplay basics, one must be pointed to keeping things cost-efficient. Giving every possible upgrade to your leader, then giving him a squad of pimped bodyguards and a pimped tank to serve as their transport may look look, but won't be very efficient. Usually you'll want to specialize units for a job. Give them the tools for said job and nothing else. On the other hand, it's allright to deviate a little for cheap all-purpose upgrades. A SM tactical squad is a ranged unit no matter how you look at it, but if you give the sergeant a power fist, it's a small points investment, and suddenly the squad is a viable threat to heavy units that get too close or an enemy hero that atempts to charge them alone.

-Always give an invulnerable save to your heroes. They may be used as armor saves, usually with a worst sucess chance but they can work against everything.

-Despite the setting, there's such thing as overkill. A heavy bolter has the same chance of killing a guardsmen as a lascannon, but the lascannon is not only costlier but also fires slower. You'll want lots of attacks for dealing with infantry, and high strenght attacks to deal with vehicles and monstruous creatures.

-Plasma guns are awesome for high Str, being rapid-fire and AP 2, for usually a cheap cost.

-Melta guns are also awesome for being cheap with even higher Str and AP 1, even if they're somewhat shor ranged, making them better at vehicle hunters, but work just fine for frying heavy infantry if they get too close.

-As of the last edition, transports have got quite better. Cheap, reliable, expect to see several of them in most armies. Thus anti-tank of some sorts, either in a mobile unit or with big range, is completely essential.

-Space Marines are the poster boys for 40K. While all other armies get 1 codex, space marines have currently five (not counting chaos marines)! Ok, you tecnically can't share anything between them, but still, it means expect to see a lot of marines-equivalent, aka dudes with 4 on most of their stats and Armor 3+, armed with bolters (also Strenght 4, AP5).

-The current edition is 5e, but some armies are still using codexes from older editions. Meanwhile 6e rumors have started circulating. The core rules may change yet this year!

And that's it at the top of my head.  Hope it helped!

« Last Edit: January 15, 2012, 08:36:56 AM by oslecamo »

Offline altpersona

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Re: 40k
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2012, 10:25:10 AM »
yip,

thanks

i have watched a few hours of game play, so iv seen the mechanic in action.

wasnt sure if a points optimization existed or not...

sounds like i need to pick a codex to memorize...

and piece mailing an army may be better than buying the box set, except for spare parts and included books, i guess
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Offline littha

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Re: 40k
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2012, 11:07:37 AM »
yip,

thanks

i have watched a few hours of game play, so iv seen the mechanic in action.

wasnt sure if a points optimization existed or not...

sounds like i need to pick a codex to memorize...

and piece mailing an army may be better than buying the box set, except for spare parts and included books, i guess

It is generally cheaper to buy the sets, they often contain units you will have to buy anyway too.

For example: space marine Battleforce: £60
Space Marine Tactical Squad (includes 10 Space Marines), Space Marine Combat Squad (includes 5 Space marines), Space Marine Rhino, Space Marine Scout Squad (includes 5 Space Marine Scouts) and Space Marine Assault Squad (includes 5 Space Marines).

Individually:
Space Marine Tactical Squad: £23
Space Marine Combat Squad: £15.50
Space Marine Rhino: £20.50
Space Marine Scout Squad: £15.50
Space Marine Assault Squad: £20.50
Total: £95

And you are most likley to use all of those models. I know several people who started an army by buying two battleforces and some sort of hq unit.




One thing to be noted about 40k is that there is a serious power creep, the new (5th edition) codices are miles superior to the previous ones (personally not fond of the new format but they are definitely stronger). If you want to win a lot you want to play one of those armies.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2012, 11:10:06 AM by littha »

Offline johnboy069

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Re: 40k
« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2012, 12:51:28 PM »
My wife and I just got into 40k last year. We started with the Assault on Black Reach set (comes with a mini rulebook that has all the rules and no fluff, alot cheaper than $60 for the hardcover book), she took the Orks and I took the Space Marines and we expanded from there. She got into Daemons, then Space Marines so we got another AOBR box set (the Marines just snap together, but I glued mine for stability) and I took the Orks. Now, I have 500 point forces for Orks, Blood Angels and Imperial Guard, with around 1000 points of Marines (go Sergeant Telion lol). She has around 1000 points of Daemons and Space Marines and 500 points of Orks.

We got hooked fast lol, she is thinking about starting Dark Eldar lol. We usually play around 500 points for quick games and our shop had plenty of players that were willing to teach us without beating our faces in with netlists and such. There are a lot of forums for 40k, some are race specific like bolterandchainsword.com (Space Marines), the Imperial Guard message board, etc; but there are also some that are for every army like Dakka Dakka and librarium online. They have a lot of useful information/tactics for every army and even have pictures of other people's armies so you can get ideas for paint schemes and conversions.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2012, 12:57:37 PM by johnboy069 »
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Offline oslecamo

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Re: 40k
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2012, 01:46:15 PM »
On the box set, orks vs marines can be quite cost efficient-if you plan to actualy play either orks or vanilla marines!


For any of the other factions, you're better off buying them piece-mail. Or convert stuff. A grey knight basic terminator can be easily turned into a brother-captain HQ, which would otherwise would be quite costly.

Plus, if you look on e-bay you can certainly find people willing to sell their old stuff on the cheap.

If you want, I can tell you about each of the armies, but what kind of force would you rather have? Waves of mens with pointy sticks and axes? Waves of mens with guns? Elite heavy infantry? Even elitier heavy infantry? Zombie robots? Tank rush? Spave elves? Space drows brimming with poison? Mobile suit gundam communists? No, none of those are jokes.

wasnt sure if a points optimization existed or not...
There certainly is. Some options are clearly better than others. Some stuff is basically auto-pick, some stuff is utter trash, in particular when it comes to special characters.

One thing to be noted about 40k is that there is a serious power creep, the new (5th edition) codices are miles superior to the previous ones (personally not fond of the new format but they are definitely stronger). If you want to win a lot you want to play one of those armies.

Close, but not completely true.

First, the latest codexes to come out have been Dark Eldar, Grey Knights, and Necrons, but Blood Angels, Space Wolves and Imperial Guard are the three top ones right now, and the old ork codex still packs a lot of power. Daemons of Chaos is unstable but can roll over pretty much anything but warpquake spam if the deepstrike rules don't kill you outright. The eldar codex still offers a couple quite strong builds. Black Templars are still suprisingly effective specially with the vow of Abhor the Witch with all the psykers around. Only tau and Witch hunters are really feeling the weight of age right now.

Second, it's not much as power creep, but GW going "We're changing what's good and what's crap to force you to buy new models trollol!" So in the previous edition SW bloodclaws were awesome and grey hunters were so-so, but come the 5e codex and grey hunters got better and cheaper while bloodclaws goth both nerfed and costlier, meaning suddenly you're forced to buy grey hunter models and have little use for your old bloodclaws. Same for necron heavy destroyers being nerfed while immortals are the new top unit(back from being one of the worst units on necrons), while pariahs were completely removed despite being one of the most unique units on that army, replaced by fancy new vehicles which force even old necron players to shell out their wallets for new models.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2012, 02:06:28 PM by oslecamo »

Offline altpersona

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Re: 40k
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2012, 02:17:30 PM »
not looking forward to memorizing a dozen books just to see what type of army to get into.   :banghead

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Offline oslecamo

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Re: 40k
« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2012, 03:58:25 PM »
not looking forward to memorizing a dozen books just to see what type of army to get into.   :banghead

That's why I asked you what kind of army you wanted. Here's some short descriptions:

Space Marine vanilla (Codex Marines, SMs): elite shooty army, altough they have some quite nice melee units as well, in particular the infamous hammmenators (terminators with 2+ armor and 3+ invulnerable wielding thunder hammers that can squash pretty much anything). Best morale in the game between And They Shall Know No Fear and Combat Tactics (escape from melee nyah!). Special characters allow you to swap Combat tactics for other minor bonuses. Pack a good array of both long and short-range guns and have solid vehicle and psyker suport as well, in particular with dakkapreds being obscenely cheap point-wise and bringing three heavy weapons, and ironclad dreadnoughts don't hurt either.


Chaos Space Marines (Chaos Marines, CSMs): space marines that worship the chaos gods instead of the rotting corpse the space marines follow. This results in them having multiple special infantries, each tied to one of the chaos gods. Khorne bersekers are melee specialists at the cost of ranged power, Plague Marines are extremely tough against everything but the best weapons just at the cost of some iniative, Thousand Sons get an invulnerable save, AP 3 bolters and psyker sergeants and Noise Marines are shootier and better iniative. Also all fearless, but all those fancy abilities bring an expensive price tag attached. Can also bring basic chaos marines that cost basically the same as normal marines, not having Combat Tactics or And They Shall Know no Fear but having close combat weapons which make them better in melee. Vehicle suport kinda sucks and they also lack fancier weapons, but they can bring daemons and daemonic blessings (including the defiler, a daemoninc machine) to bolster their forces. Obliterators are tough as nails and can change their heavy weapons for free every game turn to adapt to the situation. Daemon Princes are wicked cool leaders and efficient to boot. Mostly infantry focused army, good at range and melee, but stuff gets expensive quickly point-wise. Special characters are mostly combat machines.


Tyranids: space bugs. No vehicles, but plenty of monstruous creatures and hordes of saller cheap bugs. Works around this mechanic of "synapse" where the big bugs keep the nearby smaller ones in check, otherwise they may get out of control. Some of the most elite bugs don't have snypase of their own but can act just fine, in particular the genestealer that specialize in infiltrating behind enemy lines and tearing the enemy in melee, altough very vulnerable to shooting. That actually describes the nids quite well since whitout vehicles and few if any invulnerables, your enemy guns will wear you down quickly. Mostly melee army, but some ranged specialists are necessary so you don't get kited to hell and back, in particular Hive Guards with their long-range high Strenght weapons that don't need line of sight to work. Some of the units can produce even more tyranids for free when you're already in battle! Special characters are mostly killing machines, except for the Swarmlord that grants some quite nice bonuses to your whole army.

Eldar: Space elves! Fast and squishy. Their basic troops kinda sucks, but has excellent transports, elites and heavy suport. Farseer HQ isn't that good at fighting infantry, but can drop some pretty nice buffs and debuffs with her psyker powers while busting tanks in melee. Wave serpent is tecnically a transport, but quite durable and can pack a lot of firepower togheter with mobility. Fireprisms hit hard against everything at excellent range while being mobile. Fire Dragons are basically a full squad of melta dudes. You can also go a "monster" route with the wraithlords, wraithguard spam and Avatar of Khaine. Mostly ranged army (altough their monsters do hit hard in melee), altough their best weaponry is usually short ranged.

Dark Eldar: faster than the eldar, and somehow squishier. Has this Power From Pain mechanic that makes your troops stronger for killing stuff and then they can share said pain with allies to boost them as well. Drugs and Poisoned weapons everywhere (aka you laugh at enemies with high toughness). Raider transport spam is essential because otherwise your troops will easily get shot to pieces (and even the raider themselves are basically made of paper), but they move so fast your oponent will only get one turn at best to react before you set your forces in their targets. Strong at both melee and range, the most glass cannon army out there, but quite good if you know what you're doing. No psykers, but lots of fancy wargear for special effects.


Tau: Mobile Suit gundam communists. Excellent shooting, horrible melee. Their main selling point is the crisis suits that are highly mobile Elites bristling with weaponry that can move twice per turn. Their leaders are the same but better (they tecnically can pick ethereal HQ, but don't, he's awfull). Railguns are the best ranged weapon in the game. They can bring some alien allies, but besides the kroots as cheap melee cannon fodder, not really that good. Also have some nice tanks, but no psyker powers.

Chaos Daemons: Remember chaos marines? Well now you only have daemons! This is the most distinct army in the game, since daemons follow slightly diferent rules than everybody else, mainly that they all must deepstrike and they all have invulnerable saves which means you laugh at your enemie's special weapons. Fateweaver special character greatly boosts the army by allowing you to re-roll failed invulnerable saves on everyone around him (including himself). Can potentially bring a lot of psykers, but no vehicles or guns whatsoever. Greatly shines in melee.

Grey Knights: marines that are even more elite. Expensive as hell, but lots of fancy wargear. Almost every damn squad is a psyker as well. Despite their force halberds/swords/falchions, they really shine in shooting with psybolt ammunition boosting the strenght of their shots and psycannons being the most undercosted heavy weapon in the whole game for what it does. You'll probably have less models than anybody else in the game, but between purifiers and incinerators you have plenty of anti-horde, and anything that survives your shooting will probably cut down. Lots of special grenades for some random reason. Also spanish inquisitors and assassins just because. They however lack several of the special weapons other armies take for granted like plasma guns and meltas, and again low body counts.

Space Wolves: the most cost-efficient marines when it comes to infantry. Also wolves everywhere. Worst vehicle suport than vanilla marines, but you can take freaking 4 heroes and plenty of troops to suport them. Good at both melee and range.

Blood angels: twilight-vampire marines (aka all angst and carve for blood even if they don't really need it)! Can take assault marines as basic troops and better deepstriking rules.  Sanguinary priests grant Feel No Pain to nearby troops which is just nasty. But where it really shines are in better vehicles, between freaking psyker robots and faster tanks. Definetely more melee focused than ranged, with their special character Mephiston pretty much raping anything in melee, their Death Company deadly in close combat, and potential Furious Charge everywhere.

Imperial Guard: the mundane fighting men and women! Sucks at melee (still better than Tau), but can pack lots of troops and tanks all blistering with heavy weapons. Leaders can issue orders every turn to boost troops. Has this platoon system where you can divide your basic infantry in lots of cheap small squads to literally swamp the field with bodies. Lots of artillery and shooting. Some psyker potential.

Orks: horde melee army. They have this mob rule that makes their leadership equal to the number of members in the squad which means they're usually fielding big blobs. Very strong in melee, with lots of good quality attacks or some very hard-hiting attacks with power klaws, even the ranged specialists punch hard! The problem is geting there since they have little mobility boosters and their transports are either expensive or extremely fragile. One of the special characters can help you a lot with this. Can actualy pack quite a punch in shooting since they have lots of cheap guns despite their horrible acuraccy, but lack reliable high Strenght long range weapons to bust heavy tanks from afar. Tecnically has a psyker unit, but it's horrible.

Necrons:undead robots. Expensive but durable and hard-shooting. Pretty much every dude has a 1/3 chance of geting back up after being shot down (provided the unit wasn't fully wiped out). Their gauss weapons always have a chance to at least glance vehicles.  Also tough by themselves, in par with marines, but overall sucks in melee and lacks reliable long-range weaponry, meaning they must get in medium-range and deal with the enemy before they close in melee. Most tanks have this "Quantum Shielding" which means their armor drops drastically as soon as anyone gets a good shot at them, except for the Monolith that has Max Armor on all sides but is somewhat lacking in the shooting deparment. Some crazy special wargear like bringing a temporary night, re-rolling any dice, or a good shot at automatically removing one enemy model, some even crazier special characters (both in good and bad sense). No psykers tough.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2012, 04:06:56 PM by oslecamo »

Offline littha

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Re: 40k
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2012, 07:05:33 PM »
Black Templars are still suprisingly effective specially with the vow of Abhor the Witch with all the psykers around. Only tau and Witch hunters are really feeling the weight of age right now.
People take vows other than Accept any Challenge? I play templars and most of my combat punch is derived from those rerolls to hit... Witch hunters got a update in white dwarf and went from one of my favorite armies (they had some strong stuff) to near useless. I want to find the person at GW who decided that it should be more difficult for sisters to field lots of flamers than blood angels... Compare the immolator to a Razorback with its free heavy flamer...

Quote
while pariahs were completely removed despite being one of the most unique units on that army

They were also utter garbage, sure they had warscythes but they had poor combat stats for an elite unit and cost as much as a some vehicles each.... and they don't come back from the dead

Offline oslecamo

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Re: 40k
« Reply #9 on: January 15, 2012, 08:02:44 PM »
Black Templars are still suprisingly effective specially with the vow of Abhor the Witch with all the psykers around. Only tau and Witch hunters are really feeling the weight of age right now.
People take vows other than Accept any Challenge? I play templars and most of my combat punch is derived from those
rerolls to hit...
When your meta is filled with lash princes, SW with 4 rune priests, grey knights and blood angels with psyker dreadnoughts and mephiston, and the ocasional eldar, Abhor the Witch is extremely useful (and also cheaper). Mind you, Acept any Challenge is also quite good, but also the most expensive.

Pretty sure there's some irony that one of the Black Templar vows is specially effective at fighting their suposed brethern.

Witch hunters got a update in white dwarf and went from one of my favorite armies (they had some strong stuff) to near useless. I want to find the person at GW who decided that it should be more difficult for sisters to field lots of flamers than blood angels... Compare the immolator to a Razorback with its free heavy flamer...
There's no such thing as the white dwarf WH update!  :shakefist

But yeah, GW seems to be in a sister hating spree. Space wolves butcher them for the lulz in the fluff. Grey Knights bathe in their blood in the fluff and stole their Hereticus Inquisitors. Blood Angels now replicate their melta/flamer spam better than them. And that "update" basically butchered all the nice things they still had . I miss 2+ invulnerable save cannoness :(

They were also utter garbage, sure they had warscythes but they had poor combat stats for an elite unit and cost as much as a some vehicles each.... and they don't come back from the dead
They were the only thing in the game that could reliably kill hammernators (iniative 2 is just good enough to go before hammers and they slice right trough their invulnerables), and that alone was enough to make them solid. In particular because they're actualy cheaper than hammernators. And aren't that bad at shooting with BS4 assault 2 S5 gauss weapons.

Plus they had that nifty anti-morale and anti-psyker aura which may be usefull now and then.

Compare to the truly utter crap that is the new lychguard, which are not only considerably more expensive, can't shoot, don't lower enemy morale, no anti-psyker, and whose weapons will harmlessly bounce out from storm shields, and then get wiped to a man, meaning they don't come back from the dead anyway. Power creep? What power creep? :rolleyes
« Last Edit: January 15, 2012, 08:07:34 PM by oslecamo »

Offline altpersona

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Re: 40k
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2012, 12:52:25 AM »
thanks for all the descriptions.

not sure what i wanna play.

i like artillery and its collateral damage, but what ive seen on the practical side tells me that melee has lots of win.

i guess fast movement / long range weapons.

i dont recall seeing anyone work out people vs vehicles up close, not sure how that works....
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Offline littha

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Re: 40k
« Reply #11 on: January 16, 2012, 10:51:56 AM »
You probably want eldar or dark eldar if you are going for fast movement and heavy firepower. There are some interesting DE lists involving loads of transports filled with basic troops that just sit in their nice mobile bunker and shoot at you.

This really screws me over as I have rather a lack of anti vehicle firepower but I have yet to see what happens if someone with any decent long ranged fire works against this.

As far as vehicles in melee, they are exceptionally hard to destroy for anyone other than a monster of some sort or a specially equipped unit. you have to roll your S+1d6 vs their armor... most troops are S 4 or 3 and 10 is the absolute minimum armor available.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: 40k
« Reply #12 on: January 16, 2012, 12:19:38 PM »
On the other hand, assaulting a vehicle in melee allows for hitin it on the rear armor, which is 10 for almost every vehicle in the game.

Plenty of units also have anti-vehicle grenades they can use in melee instead of their normal attacks, and marine squads usually pack power fists/thunder hammers while ork squads pack power klaws, either of which can easily crack most tanks in melee.

Tanks however get the harder to hit the faster they moved last turn (but if they didn't move, they're hit automatically nyah!)

You can't lock vehicles in melee, they can tank shock you out of the way, altough if they do so you may atempt a Death Or Glory attack at their front armor to try to take them down. If you're fail you're squashed instead of just moved out of the way. The infamous ork battlewagon can actually crush units under its deffrolla in melee when tank shoting regardless of the oponent atempting DoG or not. Vehicles may also atempt to ram each other.

Walker vehicles like the dreadnought however use their front armor in melee and can strike back, having their own weapon skill and iniative, but they're also lockeable in melee. Grenades are much less efficient against them, so it's not unheard off for adreadnought to fully lock an enemy squad for the whole game.

Also seems like you want Dark Eldar or Eldar. I'll highlight the diferences:

-Eldars get psykers, more durable tanks,  (slightly) better armored troops. Their main long-range weapons would be the prism cannon and missile launchers on wave serpents. They can pack a lot of other firepower, but it's much more short ranged like wraithguard and fire dragons or inneficient, like guardian heavy teams. Bashees, striking scorpions, avatar of Khaine and wraithlord lead into melee.

-Dark Eldar can spam dark lances everywhere, one of the best long range anti-tank weapons in the game. Their vehicles and troops may be squishier but are also cheaper and hit just as hard, if not harder. Kabalite warriors can pack two long-range heavy weapons with good acuraccy, wyches are excellent melee assaulters (but melt to any kind of shooting). Their transports get dark lances by default.
 

Offline littha

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Re: 40k
« Reply #13 on: January 16, 2012, 01:43:56 PM »
Necrons can also move rather fast and their shooting is also rather deadly. Tau used to do hit and run attacks with their battlesuits but as of late I would avoid them for balance reasons.

Offline altpersona

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Re: 40k
« Reply #14 on: January 16, 2012, 01:46:03 PM »
if its relevant, our game boards are probably not often bigger than 5 feet.
The goal of power is power. - 1984
We are not descended from fearful men. - Murrow
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Offline littha

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Re: 40k
« Reply #15 on: January 16, 2012, 01:49:06 PM »
Most boards should be 6' x 4', other sizes will need modifications to the rules.

Offline CaptRory

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Re: 40k
« Reply #16 on: January 21, 2012, 11:51:33 AM »
Every army can be competitive, while the "most competitive" usually depends on who has the newest codex. Melee can be exceedingly powerful, but is somewhat blunted by the fact that many armies do melee well.


Here's the 40k Online forums . I'm Bert_the_Turtle over there. They have tons of information.


The Imperial Guard is the King of Artillery. And a list built around artillery usually sacrifices Mobility for Range. If your army can shoot the far corners of a decent sized room you don't really need to be there in person, just show up at the end of the fight to claim objectives.

The Eldar and Dark Eldar would be the Kings of Mobility, though the Guard do have some options for getting around. I play the Imperial Guard if you hadn't guessed ^^

Offline littha

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Re: 40k
« Reply #17 on: January 21, 2012, 03:08:42 PM »
Last time I played a heavy artillery guard army they only killed about 5 of my marines... It was funny watching the guys face as all of his big guns bounced off my land raider crusaders. He was desperately unlucky though, by all rights they should have been scrapped but failing to get above a 2 on your damage rolls does that...

Raiders drove up, marines charged out, bloodbath against the troops and then tank popping with meltas. He also made the mistake of putting Commesar Yarric in combat with the Emperors Champion...

Offline Nachofan99

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Re: 40k
« Reply #18 on: January 22, 2012, 07:31:27 PM »
I have *ridiculous* knowledge of tricks in Warhammer 2nd edition.  Unfortunately this knowledge is only 9 years and 3 editions out of date.  I really didn't like the direction they took the game in 3rd edition and that only continued in 4th.  5th is actually sort of a return to the older stuff in a variety of ways.  I would prefer a 6th edition that keeps the game streamlined, but reintroduces all the flavor that was culled from the last few editions.

Offline Soundwave

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Re: 40k
« Reply #19 on: March 14, 2012, 05:19:32 AM »
I play tau myself. Just got back into the hobby a few weeks ago. Havent played since 04'. 5th much different then 4th?