In running this year's Origins events, we had a number of interesting rulings come up, as you might expect.  Most of them we ruled correctly on, a few we got wrong, and one in particular I WISH I had gotten wrong, but didn't.

I'm talking about dedicated transports.  The problem is, the main 40k rulebook just doesn't have much to say about them.  They're a squad option now, other units can use them but not start the game mounted up in them, and (thanks to the GW FAQ) we know they count as separate units for purposes of shooting.

But what about victory points or kill points?  Or unit cohesion?  Well apparently, they leave that up in the air.  The rulebook just doesn't address it.  Some of the newer army books do (the ones written since 5th Ed), but the older ones (and their online errata/FAQ's) do not.

So here's the problem, an actual case study from the Origins RTT...  Daemonhunters army, an Inquisitor and Retinue (150 points) picked a Land Raider (250 points) as their dedicated transport.  At the end of the game, the character and retinue died to a man, but the Land Raider was unharmed.  And the game was decided on Victory Points.

Now Codex Daemonhunters (print or online PDF), being a 4th Ed army book, does not say anything extra about dedicated transports, so we go to the 5th Ed Rulebook to figure this out.  The transport isn't listed as a separate unit, so it counts as an option purchased for the squad.  So the opponant who killed the inquisitor and retinue but not the Land Raider has inflicted 50% or more casualties on the squad, but has not wiped it out.  So according to page 300 of the rulebook, he gets 50% the total value of the squad, which is 200 points.  (Half of the character and retinue, and half of the undamaged land raider, because it is a purchased squad option.)

But any 5th Ed Army book will say in the description of the dedicated transport that it doesn't take up a force org slot BUT OTHERWISE COUNTS AS A SEPARATE UNIT.  So not only is unit cohesion crystal clear on that one (thanks guys!), but Victory Points are back to the classic way of doing it.  The 150 point squad with a 250 point dedicated land raider in the above scenario is worth 150 victory points.

But the real problem... is that we are counting victory points differently depending on which Codex the army is from.  Same body count, Codex Daemonhunters gives up 200 VP while Codex Space Marines gives up 150 VP.  (Codex Tau Empire, for example, is in the same boat as Daemonhunters, so don't assume it's just the PDF-only army books that are subject to this.)

The solution... would be for GW to insert one sentence on page 67 of the rulebook, either in an errata or an FAQ, the same sentence they're putting in every new army book.  "These vehicle choices do not use up any force org selections but otherwise count as separate units."

And if GW hasn't done this by next year's Origins RTT, expect a house rule to that effect.  Victory points should never be calculated differently depending on the army being used.  That way madness lies.

Ron over at From the Warp has asked we members of the FtW Blogger Group to talk about what unit in our army (or, in my case, my favorite 40K army) is the "must have" we can't live without.  As you can tell from the title of this post my must have are Dreadnoughts -- for my Deathwing army, naturally.

Admittedly, when it comes to the Deathwing you don't have many choices to begin with (at least if you want to stay "pure"), but with that said dreadnoughts are clearly my "gotta have" unit. 

The basic reason is simple - Deathwings need firepower.  At first glance that may not seem like that big of a deal given that we are talking about a terminator force, but heavy weapons are in fact hard to come by (especially after GW decided that apparently terminator squads already had so much extra dakka the only fair thing was to reduce them down to a single heavy weapon).  With Dark Angels stuck using the defective Cyclone Missile Launchers dreadnoughts are the only real way to get effective anti-vehicle boom, most obviously via a twin-linked lascannon.  Still, any extra firepower is more than welcome.

Dreadnoughts are also the only real vehicles you can take with the Deathwing.  Sure, you can take a land raider but in most regular games you won't want to.  One, they are quite pricey and, two, they can't deep strike and thus you could easily have it lumbering on to the field far away from the real action.  By comparison, even in the DA codex dreadnoughts can arrive using (admittedly over-priced) drop pods.  That in turn allows you to take advantage of the one bit of mobility that the Deathwing enjoys - dropping right where you need them rather than having to hike across the board.

Dreadnoughts are also tough.  With a forward armor of 12 and the bonuses that come with being a walker (remember, you have to hit them on their front armor in close-combat) they are hard to kill even without making them venerable.  With their dreadnought melee weapon they can take on pretty much anything and have a reasonably chance of winning.  Of course, you can also take them with two heavy weapons if you like and just sit back and blow things up.  Either way, they give you staying power that even terminators lack.

Finally, dreadnoughts are just cool.  The idea of an nigh eternal warrior trapped in a mobile sarcophagus fighting the Emperor's foes has got to stir the imagination.  You also have a lot of different possible weapon choices and the option of making them venerable (too bad DA can't take an Ironclad).  Add in what you can do with conversions and you end up with a unit that is both fun to play and to paint.  Who could ask for anything more (well, at least if you play Deathwing)?

Once more a Warhammer 40K codex has appeared in your local gaming store and this time it’s the Space Wolves, something which the long suffering – “What, was our codex written in the 19th century?” – Wolf players no doubt appreciate.  Yet, just how good is the codex and what does it mean for the rest of us who don’t play space puppies?

The first thing one notices about the codex even after a brief examination is that it certainly has a sufficiently high coolness factors to catch your interest.  That is, you flip through the book, read a few choice rules, and say to yourself, “Wow!”  That in turn means that you have a reason to dig further and see just what gems you can find.

And, there are certainly some to discover.  While there is only two new units – Thunderwolf Cavalry and Lone Wolves (although the latter is more of a technicality) – all the rest tend to have important changes that both make it more interesting and, arguably, more effective.  Options are still varied, but more straightforward.  You can still take wolves for your characters (even as mounts!), a wide assortment of Viking-styled talismans and weapons, and you can arrange your force as much as always.

All Space Wolves come with Acute Senses, Counter-Attack, and – of course – “And They Shall Know No Fear.”  The middle ability is especially nice as it means you get extra attacks whether charging or charged.  True Grit is gone, but that’s okay since there are still plenty of ways to make ‘Wolves close-combat monsters.  In fact, they are now clearly the best hand-to-hand Marine force around – sorry Blood Angels.

There are still only two troop choices – Blood Claws and Grey Hunters.  They are near duplicates of their previous incarnation.  The Blood Claws have less skill, but the same old bonus to charging.  Likewise, Grey Hunters represent the backbone of any ‘Wolf force.  They cannot take any heavy weapons, but can take two special weapons if you take a full sized squad.  Both troop choices can take a power weapon and a few other abilities that add close-combat potency.  For instance, the Mark of the Wulfen gives you d6+1 rending attacks!

Space Wolves otherwise have much the same units and vehicles as straight Space Marines – minus the Thunderfire cannon and such – but with classic Wolf adjustments that manage to make them different even as they seem the same.  The Leman Russ Executioner is gone (big surprise), but all the variations of Land Raiders, Drop Pods, and Razorbacks have been added.  One rather odd fact I just don’t understand is that Space Wolf Land Raiders have gone back to only carrying ten models – what, do they buy them at the Dark Angels surplus store?  Is GW trying to be annoying?  Is this a dumb misprint or can they not make up their minds?  Sheesh!

In my opinion the best unit in the codex are the Wolf Guard.  There are a bunch of highly effective tactics you can use with them, especially if Logan Grimnar comes along.  In fact, the Guard comes with so many interesting possibilities that I want to devote a whole article just to them and how they can be used as an alternative means to play Deathwing. 

Speaking of commanders – in this case the special character type – bar none the Space Wolves have largest group of bad asses in the Imperium.  Their costs average above 200 points and two of them allow you to alter the design of your army – Logan can let you use World Guard as troops while Canis Wolfborn lets wolves be troops.  That allows for two fundamentally different army builds right there.  Maybe they are good, maybe they are bad, but at least they are interesting.  Regardless, the Space Wolf Characters are just impressive.  Expensive also to be sure, but when it comes to Chapter bragging rights it’s more power and skill than some game mechanic that matters.  So, if you aren’t playing the new straight Marines or these new wolves your special character marines just became second best.  Plus, he fact that Wolves also get Sagas puts them highest on the Imperial power scale (while adding a bit of role-playing).

Generally speaking Space Wolves come off as a close-combat army – really, the best – with a range of the standard Space Marine units to provide proper steel and fire.  So, my task next time will be to work through the units within the new codex and go in deeper to just what they can do.

Part two coming soon…

1)  I am putting off finishing the English Civil War series so that I can take some time to do a proper investigation of the new Space Wolves Codex.  The week I originally picked for the Civil War stuff turned out to be busier than I thought and those History in Gaming articles are harder to do and therefore take more time (I thought the first two were some of my best articles and I want to keep up the level of quality).

Sooooooo, that means...

2)  This is now Space Wolf week as I go through the various units, vehicles, and special characters.  I also want do a special report on how well you can mimick a Dark Angel Dealthwing using the new Space Wolf Login Grimnar + Wolf Guard rules.  I hate to say it, but yet again you can argue that it works better to do Deathwing with another Codexes' rules than the Dark Angel book.  <ugh>

For those few of you that don't know, Games Workshop came out with an updated FAQ for Imperial Guard recently.  Here are some random thoughts on it (in no particular order):

• Many of the new clarifications were clearly meant to stop pure cheddar from over-running the battlefield.  Come on -- using a mortar to range in your off-the-board barrage from the Master of Ordnance?  Those are the sorts of tricks everyone should know are bad sportsmanship.
  
  
• That loud collective moan you are hearing are all those Storm Trooper players who suddenly can't use "First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire" with Hotshot Lasguns.  I guess this is a reasonable limitation as the guns are AP3, but then again Storm Troopers are as pricey as space marines now (but without the power armor and great stats).
  
  
• I'm not sure about limiting the effect of multiple Astropaths or Officers of the Fleet to a single +1 or -1, respectively.  I can see how having two Officers could really mess up an opponent if you know they are going to rely heavily on reinforcements.  Otherwise, bringing one might not be worth it let alone two.  Astropaths are more likely to be useful since you can obviously design an IG force to utilize their talents, but again is a +2 really that cheesy over a +1 when you are talking IG?  Maybe, which is why I won't say I flatly don't like this new clarification, but it certainly means you'll pretty much never see two Astropaths and maybe not even a single Officer of the Fleet.
  
  
• I can see why they limited Penal Troops with the gunslinger ability under the "First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire" order to three shots at just 12" for game balance, but it does violate the letter of the rules.  The point of assault weapons is that they can fire at full range even while the troopers move, but here gunslingers still only benefit from the order at half the assault weapon's range.  Not a biggie, but considering that you can't guarantee that your penal scum will have the gunslinger ability there wasn't a significant game balance issue anyway.
  
  
• The clarification as to what inducted Guard you can take in your Inquisition armies is quite welcome and will help 'Hunter players avoid arguments.  However, I do have minor beef with the 0-1 Leman Russ choice only being the vanilla Russ and no variants.  One, the price on those other types are pretty high anyway which limits their appeal, and; Two, why give people yet another reason to not play Inquisition?  Giving 'Hunter players the bonus of taking one of those cool new LRs variants would have been a nice reward for sticking with an otherwise rare force.  Oh, well -- at least being able to take appropriate IG special characters with your inducted Guard helps makes up for this.
  
  
• Nice to see that Grey Knight terminators can't hitch a ride on a Valkyrie/Vendetta, but there is nothing about not being able to carry power armored Grey Knights or Sisters of Battle.  I take back what I said about not encouraging people to play Inquisition -- Grav chute Gray Knights here we come!

Here is a quick description of what you’ll find in this issue of White Dwarf (in order of appearance):

New stuff this month – The new Space Hulk edition, the new Colonel Straken and Sergeant Harker Catachan models, the new Azhag the Slaughterer model (extremely impressive!), and some more modeling supplies including the return of a Warhammer Basing Kit (no skulls in this one, though).

Pages 14-50 are a Space Hulk extravaganza with a whole bunch of material on the upcoming game.

Pages 14-21 are a Designer Notes on Space Hulk that give a basic outline of the game, some basic fluff, and a couple of pages of pictures of the models gloriously painted.  All of the Blood Angel models are shown – every single one is unique and all look great.  They are entirely festooned with BA regalia, however, so converting them into something that doesn’t use a lot of blood drops or chalices in their symbolism is going to be a pain (at least they are plastic).  Sadly, not all of the genestealer models are displayed, but I assume that is because there are some duplicates (let’s face it – it’s harder to have ‘stealers look unique compared to marines).  The new Broodlord is one of the pictures and he’s pretty impressive, although not as distinct from the other ‘stealers as the current 40K version.

Pages 22-23 are a Space Hulk retrospective displaying the previous two versions and the new one.  The only practical visual difference between the 1996 edition and the current one is the level of detail.  Otherwise, they appear identical.

Pages 24-43 are an extended Space Hulk battle report complete with many, many pictures.  This includes diagrams of the game board itself.  The report goes into fairly good detail on the game.  Hey, overwatch is back!  As I’m sure you suspected the genestealers in this game are more powerful than those in 40K, something that I’m not sure makes me envious or not.  Having better genestealers would be great (and might even be mandatory for the new codex), but the higher cost that would come with them wouldn’t be.  And, no, I won’t tell you who wins the battle.

Pages 44-49 are a really nice in-depth explanation of how to paint the marine Space Hulk models bit-by-bit-by-bit.  This is stuff that anyone into painting their miniatures is apt to find useful.  Highlights include how to paint gems, faces, and a power sword.  Too bad there is nothing on painting ‘stealers.

Pages 52-61 cover the ongoing studio “Rok of Ages” 40K campaign as a way to show off Planetary Empires.  In the process they created two different “planets”, one representing an Imperial world and the other a huge Ork rok.  The campaign write up includes examples of regular and large games, including an Apocalypse showdown featuring titans.  If nothing else the article is inspirational.

Pages 62-67 are a description of a Warhammer Doubles tournament and by extension competitions in general.  Mostly a lot of text meant to show off the fun to be had at Games Workshop events (odd considering there were no U.S. Grand Tournaments this year).

Pages 68-71 feature the “Heroes of Catachan” otherwise known as the new Sergeant Harker and Straken models.  I have to say that they look good.  The Straken model is especially nice, which is a pain for me as I recently painted my old-style Straken model.  The detail on him is hands down better than the one I have now, though.  The article also gives some pointers on how to use both models in battle.

Pages 72-74 are a write up on Azhag Slaughterer, including a spectacular paint job on his miniature.  It’s truly excellent work.

Pages 76-95 consist of a long and detailed Warhammer battle report (that’s two for this issue) between 2250 points of Orks and Dark Elves.  The first is a pretty standard force (if on the small side if you ask me) while the pointy eared army consists of among other things a manticore (using a sweet elf dragon conversion) and three hyrdras (well, not really – two of the hydras are actually nifty chariot conversions)!  It also only has four core choices, three of them being rather modest (why does WD always seem to include armies heavy on the non-troops or core?).  Regardless of how well balanced either army may be they do look impressive.  As for the battle report it’s something best read rather than described.  I can say that it comes with the usual effective diagrams and plenty of pictures.

Pages 96-99 include one of Jarvis’ editorials, this one talking about a brand of scenarios he calls “Battlefield Challenges”.  Not surprisingly the next page includes one such “challenge”, namely a Warhammer scenario called “Forced March”.  This one uses a gimmick where you have to balance being able to go first with possibly not having all your troops beginning turn one.  Not sure how this would play, but I typically cringe at scenarios that require a lot of dice rolling to determine who shows up when.  Been burned too many times playing such games, I guess.

Pages 102-103 are an army showcase, in this case James Karch’s Ultramarines.  Needless to say they look great.  I especially like the paint job on the Black Reach dreadnought – it demonstrates who you can get great results even with something a bit “inferior” to the full price dread.

Beyond this there are the usual pages of Games Workshop ads and game material listings.  The last page does hint at the upcoming Space Wolves, but without offering anything we haven’t seen before.

Last time I described the events of the actual RTT at Origins this past June, but now I want to go into greater depth about the ideas and difficulties behind actually designing a tournament.  It’s a subject that might at first seem straightforward, but which ultimately has a surprising amount of complexity.

Generally speaking there are a possible four factors that go into determining the winner of a tournament:  Army Composition; Painting; Sportsmanship, and; Battle Results.  Let me talk about each in turn.

Army Composition:  Of the four this is probably the most contentious and the hardest one to nail down successfully.  This is so much so that many tournaments just drop the concept altogether (including the last Origins RTT).  This is partially due to its highly subjective nature.  On the one hand you have the question of just what is a “fair” army design and on the other you have deep philosophical differences of just what role Army Composition should have in a tournament setting.  After all, don’t the rules themselves represent the acceptable range of possible army designs?

Problem is that we all know there are particular, otherwise artificial army concepts – A Slaaneshi Chaos Lash force anyone? – that are powerful on the table but otherwise violate the 40K good housekeeping seal of approval.  Playing within the setting of the game is important to those of us who tend to cringe at the sight of an army clearly designed with only the intent of winning, which in my experience is most players.  The natural impulse in reaction is to institute some sort of additional guidelines – that is, Army Composition – that attempt to put a limit on the cheese and encourage fluffy armies.

Of course, just what is “cheesy” and “fluffy”?  Have an overly restrictive Composition design and you get cookie-cutter armies, but not have one at all and the result can be bad feelings and a ruined tournament.  Most of us have an internal definition of “fair” that we automatically apply to our own efforts and which we subconsciously expect – within reason – the other guy to follow. 

Yet, a tournament is ultimately about winning, not per se having a good time.  You hope that the two will nicely align, but is it really unfair for your opponent to have gone all out (within the rules) to come up with a kick-ass force?  In fact, for some people they expect to face iron-hard armies and will be a bit offended if they don’t – and will resent the hell out of an opponent who attempts to “shame” them into feeling bad that they actually want to win.  Going into a competition facing cheese can even be a bit liberating in that you can simply discard the whole idea of worrying about such things.

However, the difficulty for those running tournaments is that they are faced with the not always compatible requirements of offering good competition while making sure everyone has a good time.  No one is going to return to a tournament that was as much fun as a root canal, yet no one is going to respect a tournament that only provides limp, watered down battle.

I’m not really sure what the answer to this conundrum is, but I don’t think it is a problem that will just go away.  When designing the Origins RTT I crossed my fingers and hoped no one would bring the Cheesefest Marines (or Craftworld) and fortunately no one did.  However, I may not be as lucky next time.

Painting:  Again, this is more of an issue than you might think despite the fact that there are fairly good guidelines and examples out there as to what a good paintjob really is.

For one thing there is still a measure of subjectivity involved as judging painting quality is ultimately, well, a judgment call.  Yet, a bigger problem that this is the fact that many people may lack the skill to even know what a good paint job really is.

Let me tell you a story.  Last decade I went to a number of Grand Tournaments in a bunch of different cities.  I hadn’t been playing or painting for all that long, so when I came back from my first GT with a mediocre painting score I wasn’t surprised.  However, the fun I had did inspire me to try to do better.  Thus, I set about constructing my Vampire Counts army.  I converted everything and overall spent three times the effort painting up the force.  Accordingly, I go to the GT the next year expecting a substantially higher painting score.

Instead, I received the exact same result.  As you might expect I was more than a little miffed.  I had spent all that extra time and got nothing for it!

However, over the years as my painting skills and experience have improved I’ve come to realize the score was pretty much exactly right (although the system they were using at the time did tend to grade on a curve that pushed results into a bland middle ground).  Despite my efforts I hadn’t really improved my level of expertise and no amount of conversion work can make up for the same old mediocre paint job.  Point is that at the time I didn’t really comprehend the limitations of my painting abilities.  It took long experience to realize what goes into a good paint job and how difficult various techniques really are to do.

Now, what if I had been my earlier self and gone to the Origins RTT?  I probably would have thought the judges were uncommonly tough, maybe even unfair.  Funny thing is that I was undoubtedly the harshest of the painting judges for the tourney.  On a scale of 0 to 20 I frankly wouldn’t have given anyone there better than a 12 or 13, but not because the paints jobs were so terrible, but because to my mind the scale should be accurate and uncompromising.  A 20 represents a Golden Demon winner and I personally think my best work is maybe a 15.  Thus, on that scale even a “mere” 10 represents a pretty darn good army more than worth having pride in.

Still, getting a “mere” ten is usually going to be interpreted as a poor result by a player just because it is so far from the best possible (after all, since when is 50% more than a grade F?).  Likewise, mediocre scores can all too easily be seen as reducing the value of a good paint job.  Why go to a lot of trouble on your army if it only gets you a few extra points?  In fact, you might need to have a Painting award just to make sure that people bother trying hard at all.  Even then many people may just conclude they don’t have a chance of winning it anyway and just ditch the whole thing.

That would be bad as painting is a fundamental part of the hobby that needs to be encouraged as much as possible.  Yet, at the same time it can’t be too much of a factor in tournament scoring or else you just end up with a Grand Demon contest.  I’d like to find a happy medium that would integrate painting more fully into a tournament, but I am not sure what that may be.

Sportsmanship:  This is an important qualification that is a staple of most every GW-themed tournament out there.  It is also in a way the most subjective.  The reason boils down to the question of what just a good sportsman is and how people can confuse it with other things.
In theory a good sportsman is one who knows the rules, is polite to his opponent, is reasonable in his judgments, and does what he had to make sure the game itself is successful.  However, it is easy for people to confuse this was general charisma and the other guy’s ability to entertain you outside the confines of the game itself (say, he tells great jokes).  You shouldn’t have to be an outgoing entertainer to get a good sportsmanship score.  Yet, people have a tendency to see likeability as being the equivalent to a good sport.

The other problem with sportsmanship – one which threatens to make it meaningless – is that players tend to give others perfect scores by default rather than judging people as the tournament rules suggest.  It’s an unsurprising human reaction.  Most of us don’t want to anger those we play needlessly or fail to give him the benefit of the doubt.  Worse, in a situation where everyone is getting perfect scores to actually not get one can easily seem like a slap in the face.  It can also be seen as the difference between a “good player” and a “bad player” as in “What, that guy only got 17 points out of 20 when most everyone else got full points?  Boy, he must be a jerk.”

Of course, if everyone does get a perfect score then what is the point of having sportsmanship at all?  You might as well just give everyone the same score from the get-go and avoid any possible recriminations.  The basic question then is whether sportsmanship is worthwhile as a tournament concept or whether you can come up with a way for people to be more discerning when grading it.

Battle Scores:  By far the single most important factor in tournament scoring, battle results are what really determine who the grand champion will be.  In the Origins RTT all by itself it represented 60% of your final score and there are many instances where the ratio is even higher.

In one way this makes sense as ultimately the main point is to play the game and see who wins.  On the flip side such a dominating position within the scoring scheme tends to make other considerations less meaningful if not meaningless.  That may not sound so bad, but it could have the result of discouraging anything but cutthroat tournament play, including ignoring things like painting which are fundamental to the game(s).

It also has the secondary effect of making each game (especially in a three round tournament) vitally important.  Lose even one and you are effectively out of the running for grand champion.  That can lead to players losing enthusiasm over the course of play or even ditching out early to go do something else.  The last thing a tournament organizer wants is to lose half his players before the final round.   Fortunately, the vast majority of players are more respectful than that, but still knowing you are out of the running after the first game is still something of a downer.

Indirectly this emphasis on battle results has the additional effect of making scenario design paramount.  It should be anyway since it is key to having a good time at the tournament, but when it comes to battle points even a slight bias or misstep in scenario design can give players an unfair, crucial advantage.

Take for example what happened to me a few times at earlier Grand Tournaments.  There were a few games – on both the 40K and Fantasy side – where winning literally came down to a single die roll at the start of the game.  Namely, were you the “defender” or the “attacker”?  I couldn’t find anyone who won as the second.  What could be worse than having something like that happen first thing and destroying any chance for ultimate victory?

But, you don’t need something so extreme to still skew results.  For example, a tournament that that gave mobile armies inherent advantages due to scenario design – even for a single round – could ruin the chances of Imperial Guard or Tau players from the get-go.  You can mitigate this effect by providing other rounds that reverse the advantage, but the balance is very tricky, especially given most tournaments have an odd number of rounds.  It’s also easy to give an advantage without knowing it to certain armies if you aren’t careful, the result being that halfway through the tournament you realize you made a fundamental mistake and can’t do anything to fix it.  In such a case hopefully the players don’t notice!

Ranillon has already covered the flow of the game itself.  He mentioned having help from a teammate that flank marched into the enemy's rear?  Those were my marines, and this is my take on the battle.

FLANK MARCH

On setup, I found our force setting up opposite a player who brought a MASSIVE imperial guard tank company, complete with superheavy tanks and backed up by a Reaver titan and a Warhound titan.  While my own Reaver Titan set up on our side with space marine scouts as screening troops in cover around it's ankles, my space marine battle company was able to come in en masse over consecutive turns behind the imperial guard player, thanks to a distinct lack of jamming or chaos covens in his area.

I had intended to shoot up his transports and then assault the troops inside, so my marine company would have an assault to hide in during the IG player's next shooting phase.  But I discovered to my horror that the 16 or so Chimera transports he had brought were in fact EMPTY.  It seems he only had so much room in his car, so he'd left all the actual infantry at home!  While this seems a very odd thing to do for an unlimited-points game, it quite nicely left my space marines stranded behind a sea of battlecannons, and only his desire to shoot my tanks first saved my marines' ability to fight.  Krak grenades, melta bombs, and the odd powerfist or meltagun did most of the work.

HOT REAVER-ON-REAVER ACTION

Let's face it... no matter how you arm these monsters, a reaver titan is pretty much capable of savaging another reaver titan unassisted in 2 turns.  With the sort of help you find in an apocalypse game, even a Reaver titan stands up to only one turn of firing.

My Reaver went first, assisted by a squadron of my predator tanks who downed a few void shields.  An apocalypse barrage launcher stripped the remaining shields from my opponent, and I savaged him down to 2 structure points and a lot of engine hits with a Turbolaser and a stratch built Volcano Cannon.  Sadly, I inflicted no weapon hits and no "cannot fire next turn" hits, which I was counting on to slow his counterattack.

The IG player's reaver went next, preceded by a tremendous amount of battlecannon and lascannon shots from an approaching company of Leman Russ tanks.  They stripped my shields, and while his vulcan megabolter could not harm me, his plasma cannon inflicted some engine hits while his single shot Vortex Missile ripped through my titan like a hot knife.  His Warhound titan joined in and finished me off with a Turbolaser shot.

STERNGUARDS FOR THE KILL

I had two squads of sternguard veterans in the IG player's backfield at this point.  In an unlimited-points scenario such as this, both 10 man squads were fully equipped with Combi-meltas, and each squad had a librarian attached to them.  The librarian's job was to give the veterans a 5+ save and, more importantly, teleport them around at 24" per turn.  Though an enemy psychic hood was limiting the effectiveness of this tactic, one sternguard squad managed to teleport in behind the enemy reaver titan and unload with it's remaining 7 melta shots.  The damaged Reaver titan went down quite easily to this tactic, freeing my surviving predators and razorbacks to unload on other things.

80 PERCENT CASUALTIES FOR THE WIN

Doesn't seem like much of a win, but I did sweep the IG player off the board (Minus his superheavies, which Ranillon was dancing with) and claimed an objective marker or two in the process.  Oddly, about 1/3 of my marine casualties came not from incoming fire but rather from exploding tanks.  With so many krak, meltabomb, and powerfist hits each turn against densely packed IG tanks, I was losing marines at a steady rate to 6's on armor penetrations when they killed a tank.  One unit of assault marines in particular was reduced to a single model without ever being fired upon, due to 5 successful assaults with melta bombs.

LESSONS LEARNED

1 - For their points and/or cost in Assets, Orbital Bombardments are useless against tanks.  Even strength 10 ones.  Quite often, you'll just inconvenience a tank or two.  If you get them free as part of a formation or as an ability from your army codex, fine.  But don't waste an asset on them, and don't aim at tanks.

2 - Teleporting Sternguard Squads with combi meltas.  A squad is pretty much guaranteed to kill a superheavy target and then rough up any infantry they see on the way to an objective marker.  Even after they're out of combi weapon shots, they still have krak grenades at no extra cost!  If you're not limited by points and you have an asset that allows all your units to be scoring units, then there is no reason not to overload on these as much as you can.  Mine are represented by Deathwatch marines, since there are no current rules for Deathwatch.

3 - A Titan, any Titan, must endeavor to engage the enemy line from OVER 60" away, and use it's 96" or 120" range guns.  If it cannot do this for any reason (physical limit of table size), it will attract fire and die on turn 2.

4 - Psychic Hoods are normally wonderful for cutting down on the dirty psy stuff the enemy is pulling on you.  But a Psychic Hood has a limited range, and in Apocalypse it is easy for an enemy psyker to be out of range.  A DARK ANGELS Psychic Hood, on the other hand, HAS NO MAXIMUM RANGE.  One Dark Angel librarian with a psy hood can interfere with each and every enemy psyker in an Apoc game, no matter where he stands or how large the board.