My Second 6th Before My 1st Fifth

I love Scotch. Scotcha scotcha scotch!

Fifth like "fifth of scotch." Never mind. I've gone into super-saver mode anticipating the coming move and one of the casualties is booze-a-hol. I miss Scotch so much. Warm and rich with just an icecube or a little soda water in it. It is like taking a nap in the warm May sunshine but in your belly.

I'm getting off topic with my lust for Scotch.

I had my second game of 6th Edition today and it went really well. I lost, but I had a blast doing it. This is a key concept in 40k that I think is lost on Win at All Costs (WaAC) gamers. Losing can be fun!

Today's game was against new friend Keith. Keith has played 6 games of 5th and 3 games of 6th. He plays a bare bones Space Wolf army that has a lot of bodies in it. From memory he had 4 squads of Grey Hunters sprinkled with Wolf Guard. Keith gave them two Razorbacks with Heavy Bolters to cruse around in. Leading his team is a Rune Priest and he is backed up by a Long Fang unit loaded with 4 Missile Launchers and a Las Cannon just for the extra punch.

My list was perhaps the cheesiest I've taken in a while. There were three Razorbacks which is the most I've had out in a long time. In 1,000 points, that is a lot of Razorbacks. The lead Razorback had my Reclusiarch Chaplain and his 5 Death Company buddies driving around and looking for trouble. No upgrades to that unit aside from a Thunder Hammer which I regretted later. I said that I put a twin-linked Heavy Flamer on that Razorback, but it never got fired (See where this is going?). The other two Razorbacks had Assault Squads. One had a Powerfist and the other had Power Weapon and Melta Bombs. Both had a melta gun in them. Rounding out my list was a Death Company Dreadnought and a Vindicator.



The game started out going for me. I had first turn and the Vindicator lobbed a shell at two Razorbacks but could not hit anything. Really, it did not hit anything all game but it did soak a lot a fire. I dropped the Assault Squad off on an objective on one side of the board and zoomed off towards another objective with Death Company and the other Assault Squad on the other side. DC Dread did what DC Dreads do and ran screaming at the enemy. The new Fleet rules allow him to reroll run and charge distance. The first time I rolled a 3 and rerolled a 2. The second time I rolled a 2 and rerolled a 1. Damn. At least the Razorbacks put a hurtin on his Razorbacks and Immobilized one.

He kind of stalled out over the next few turns and I thought that the day was mine to lose. The turning point was in turn 3 when he KOed my DC Dread AND the Vindicator at the same time. At that point, Death Company was finishing off his 10 man squad but his melta Marine and Rune Priest ran off leaving them stranded in the open only to be picked off by Bolter fire. It was arough turn.

At this point, I was looking at my Chaplain and two small Assault Squads and thinking that I had massively misjudged the mission. He had more bodies on the board and was covering more objectives not to mention the two VP he got from completing the secondary objectives. Now that the game was pretty much lost, I decided to grow a pair.

I ran the Chaplain at what was left of a 10 man squad only to roll snake eyes on an easy charge. He was then shot to hell with the lone melta gun from the squad he helped to maul. The squad that was hunkered on one of the objectives was shot to hell  from the Long Fangs and a Grey Hunters unit while the other decided to go on the offensive and got back in their ride. They zoomed up the side and assaulted a 5-man Grey Hunter pack on an objective and mauled them. That was the powerfist squad and that one upgrade carried that fight.

In the end, I lost hard 3 VP to his 6. It was a pretty close game despite the score. It could have gone my way but 6th is a different beast when it comes to vehicles, assaults and damn near anything.

I have my reworked list posted up to the right. I dropped the transports in favor of jump packs. Then to take up the slack, I had to add in some Devastators for some AT punch but had to keep them cheep. Knowing what I know now, I would have Deep Struck that DC dread right in front of his Long Fangs and tried to hide behind the Drop Pod so they could not shoot me and hope that melta gun (you know, the one that killed the Chaplain) misses or is out of super melty range. While he is concerned with that, I would have driven the Vindicator forward 12" and dropped a template. All of the jump troops would have just gone right at him and damn the torpedoes. I could have hooked one unit around a building and set up for a nice charge on turn 2 and hidden one behind another building. Now he has one anti-armor squad and his LOS (hopefully) blocked by the Drop Pod with a DC dread threatening him.

I don't know if this would have been enough. SW have Counter-Attack which means with an easy Leadership test, they get +1 Attack even when I charge them. They also all have BPCCW which means they match me attack for attack no matter what I do. The only thing that gives me an edge is that he does not seem to like giving his Sargents power weapons.

1000 points is just too few points for me to really get my grove on. Even 1,250 is too damn small. I would really like to fit a Land Raider in there to add in some resilience and also give me an assault vehicle. Maybe Keith will build up his force some and we can play bigger games.

I want a rematch!