Playing 8th post 8th - is the game still even fun to play? Battle report to figure it all out...

Sup

Does 8th still exist?

One of the curious things I've observed post 8th on Twitter, forums and the like is this vibe that now GW doesn't support WHFB, the game isn't really worth playing and was/is a horrible mess that needs to be completely overhauled to even consider playing it. Efforts to re-vamp the game and make all the (as official as they get) tournament FAQ's part of the "real" rules (8.5, 9th age, or whatever) are under haste to make the game playable and give it longevity.

However, in a weird kinda way, GW was always right about one thing: the gamers are the ones who make it a game. Age of S(h)i(t)gmar takes this to an extreme that is beyond my personal preference (style and mechanics wise), but the wealth of comp packs and unofficial/official house rules have always existed (to the frustration of the purists who want GW to pass down from on high a water tight rule set, carved in stone etc) and thanks to the internet/experience they still exist.

Anywho, what I'm getting at, is that 8th still exists, and last time I checked, it is still fun to play with mates, and possibly even in a tournament like fashion.

So to that end....

3000 points EMPIRE vs TOMB KINGS

Ben sent me a txt "wanna game?" I said "sure - tonight?" he replied "3000pts, I'm using Tomb Kings".

In that little exchange 2 things happened:

1) A game was arranged the traditional way  of the modern era using an old, out of date, unsupported by GW rule set that is still fun to play; and
2) I was misled as to the power level of the game.

So I cranked up my Quartermaster app (gathering dust now we're post 8th) and whipped up a list.

I rocked up with:

Arch Lector: Waralter, charmed shield, Heavy Armour, Great Weapon, 4+ ward
lvl4: light, 5+ ward, dispel scroll
lvl1: light
lvl1: light
BSB: Fullplate armour, enchanted shield
engineer
engineer
40 Halberds: Full Command
40 Halberds: Full Command
5 Knights: Musician, Unit Champ
10 Archers
4 Demis: Musician
40 Great Swords: Full Command
Cannon
Cannon
Helblaster
Helblaster
Hurricanum

And found myself playing against:

Tomb King: Chariot, 4+ ward, Great Weapon,  (armour save stuff)
lvl4: tombking lore
lvl4: light
lvl1: light
lvl1: light
(feedback scroll, dispel scroll on the mages)
BSB: Chariot, Great Weapon, (armour save stuff)
7 Chariots: Full Command - re-roll charge banner
30 archers: Full command
16 archers: Full command
Warsphinx - breath
Warsphinx - breath
casket
hierotitan
4 Morghiest - halberds

We (I) rolled up Battle of the Pass and I panicked and checked that 120 infantry and 4 demis would actually be able to deploy width ways.

40 Zombies representing 40 Hallberds...they've died enough times over the years.

Things of note: casket behind the light holder thing, I actually managed to deploy my army across the board, and I resisted the urge to castle up in the corner and watch the Tomb Kings walk towards me.

The Tomb Kings went first and casually casketed off a cannon and 2 zombies died (again) to shooting. In return my army didn't move (GUNLINE!!!!!!!!!!!!). Banishment blew up some chariots, 1 helblaster took them down to the unit champ, and the other rolled triple missfire and did 3 wounds to morghiests (first time I've ever rolled this...kept the result like a boss). Surviving Cannon misfired trying to kill the casket.

Things looking good for the time being...

The Tomb Kings continued to slowly move forward and I started my turn 2 down this much artillery...

yeah who needs all that artillery goodness anyway when you have 120 118 infantry

So as the fluffy Empire player I am, I responded in the only way I know how: march stuff forward 8 inches, charge Demi's off into the distance to die a glorious death/win the game single handed, and use Knights as chaff.

Pro Hurricanum placement right there

My battle line was set: the warkittys didn't have much choice - either double charge Great Swords and get sandwiched, or split up and hope for the best. Magic is scrolled, but the helblaster does 2 wounds to a warkitty. Demi's A) lose a model from the forest, b) get poison attacks, and c) actually win combat!

yeah winning combat and stuff

But of course it can't all go my way. I let through a casket on the war alter (saving dice for banishment - which I stop). BSB in range, ldship 9. I roll a 13...and then re-roll to a 14 (AVERAGE IS 11 ON 3 DICE GRRRRRRRR). All allocate onto the alter (oh no...) and I fail 4 ward saves. 1 billion s3 shots later and the arch lector is dead (had taken 2 wounds the turn before from banishment) and the war alter dies to costing me hatred against the warkittys who had thundered into combat.

In Age of Sigmar this wouldn't be too bad a dead pile. No where near 50% casualties...

Stuff happens and I hold combats and then the counter attack begins at ws10, I10 with +1 to hit!!!

Gotta love it when you feel a decisive moment is in the air...

Flanked kitty dies a horrible death, but crucially manages to skewer my BSB who can't pass armour saves. The Halberds then (naturally) fail the overrun test and the stranded unit (now general-less and BSB-less thanks to some horrible rolling my me) panic, and also panic my mage bunker.

Oh yeah, Demis die and Great Swords now trapped

Rolled FTW...and failed. BUT THERE IS HOPE as the Morghiests fell into my carefully laid trap and (foolishly) charge my Halberds

Great Swords waiting patiently

How foolish you ask? Well, first of all, I may suck a 4+ wards and rolling under the average on 3d6, but I am the undisputed king of ldship 7 tests ESPECIALLY when my units are getting wailed on by a much superior opponent and there is no BSB. Heck the fact that my lvl 0 dispel phase resulted in the chariots effectively coming back to full strength, and the morghiests getting loads of unnecessary buffs actually made it easier to hold on for a whole extra round of combat. Also the warkitty died to awesome Helblaster awesomeness.

The trap was sprung perfectly...my 5 knights all died to s5 impact hits (sigh) and the chariots rear charged the halberds...

what n00b walks into this obvious trap?

And kills them all (as I planned)

Ben realised a little too late what he had walked into

In charge the Great Swords...boosted by the hurricanum that smashed into the Tomb King points bunker as well

All I need to do now is roll lots of 3+ followed by lots of 3+

So after rolling plenty of 1' and 2's I won combat...but BSB + Morghiests + fluffing to wound rolls meant the chariots were still there...

sigh

and I'm sure you all remember how 8th works and can figure out how turn 6 went. Pro tip...I'm great at ldship 7 tests...ldship 8 tests I'm still working on.

Result: Loss Moral Victory

End Result is that this particular battle was "lost", HOWEVER given that this was a delaying tactic in the wider war, it in fact enabled the main forces of the Empire (which had all the usual Empire tools...Karl Franz, stanks, knights etc) to out flank the Tomb King lines and win the war. So in actual fact is was a "win" in the wider sense of the word and history will remember this battle as the crucial moment of the war that swung the tide against the Tomb Kings.

Also this game was a good reminder of just how important including double stank and a Karl Franz bus (with Ghul Maraz) is. In no way are the Empire workable without them. this loss moral victory had nothing to do with some unlucky dice rolls and Ben carefully and successfully targeting the threats early and all to do with not taking a cookie cutter list.

Was it fun/did 8th still work as a game unsupported by GW?

This to be honest was my main concern. Against the odds I still managed to have fun lining up my halberds and Great Swords. I even had fun despite leaving the "good stuff" at home.

The odd thing? The rules still worked even though GW don't support them any more. This was very confusing and will require further investigation when my Empire return to the battle field slightly better equiped to handle morghiests and stuff.

So I encourage you all (the 3 of you who read this) to pick up some dice, dust off the 8th rule book and keep playing games. It is (surprisingly) still really fun to play.

Ultramarines and post WHFB :(

Hey hey hey

BIG break in anything hobby related really as life got in the way.

Age Of Sigmar

Nothing of any note gaming wise has occurred. I was going to attend the cool awesome event in Melbourne that everyone looks forward to, until I had to pull out sick with a massive head cold...super annoying...ESPECIALLY as it was probably in hindsight the last actual 8th event I could have attended :(

The good news is that I know a few guys who are happy to continue playing as if nothing happened as there are still a bunch of events in Oz to come up. After then? Who knows.

Kinda sad when I've spent the last wee while perfecting the 2400/2500/2600pt Empire list.

As to AoS? It doesn't look appealing, and TBH if I want to play a skirmish game = Mordheim/Kill Team FTW. I was kinda excited before the rules dropped when the pics of the epic Dark Elf vs High Elf battle came out because I saw a few things:

• Epic big battle
• clear battle lines
• what looked like COULD be formations

Formations (both like 40k and as in individual unit actions) was the key for me to enjoy a skirmish large style game where combat is the crucial phase. By this I mean creating a shield wall/calv lance/phalanx/skirmish harassment etc. WHFB was always odd in that the deeper a formation was = the more robust it was, when my amateur understanding of old school battles was that the wrap around from being WIDER was key. A skirmish formation usually means wider = better as trying to get more attacks in by achieving a wrap around. 

What could have been huh? Lining up your shield wall, outflanking with Cavalry, line breaking with elite units, creating gaps with chariot charges, harassing and ambushing with loose formation etc etc Throw in Magic and Dragons = awesome. 

Instead we get "mash models in the middle, role 4+ FTW...oh and no rules/guidelines around creating an army to push this into dumb. My Empire army is falling into a state of disrepair (needs some gluing TLC)...and will most likely stay that way for a long time to come sadly. 

Ultramarines

So the good news is that my 40k project is ticking along nicely. I'm loving the new Space Marine book and all the options it has. Some painting:

Bike Squad

First off I LOVE that the new codex is 1 box = actually 1 unit, so 103pts gets me a bike squad (troop choice thanks to Mr Chapter Master) with 2 grav guns and a combi grav on the serg (red helmet). Oh and I also get 3x TL boltgun on top to give a nice multi functional unit with objective secured. 

My 2nd unit is still in need of a serg as I picked up 6 ravenwing bikers + attack bike in a 2nd hand bin, but one of the guys is wearing robes - so will be a mounted Librarian. So 1 extra box to get, which will give me a serg, an apothecary for potential command squad options, and a 2nd librarian. 

Grav and combi grav guns where found on Ebay from some "almost but not quite" alternative resin guns thing, 

Assault Squad 1

Assault Squad 2

Assault Squads for the SKYHAMMER formation! Yup. Not being too d*ckish with this one as you can easily spend over 1000pts on the formation where I'm aiming for more around the 460pt mark. 125pts of Assault marines nets a sweet little unit with an eviscerator, 2 flamers, and meltabombs on the sergeant. Ie does a bit of everything, and does those things well. Dropping 4 flamers down will thin out some hordes, and I can pop tanks with the meltabombs/eviscerator  + tie stuff up with my general choppyness. 

Assault Marine Sergeant

A close up on some detail. His head is from the Centurian set and yes his Mohawk has rivets, so is a piece of armour...You can't quite see it but under his left arm is a melta bomb. Modelled with plasma pistol and power sword because it looks cool, but will 99.999% of the time simply have melta bombs. I wet mixed the power sword using the recommended GW Dark Eldar Incubi colour scheme (Kandtor Blue, Kabalite Green, Sybarite Green, Ubshanti bone). Basing is also the GW texture paint Blackfire Earth washed with Agrax Earthshade which is a lot of fun to use. I'll add some static grass once I find something suitably dead looking...might even put some water effects on it too so it looks gross and muddy...then I need to get powders to mud up the boots etc etc etc it never ends!

Mr Chaplain

And finally something I painted for fun. I bought the Reclusium command squad box so I would have the bitz from the command squad, a razorback and this guy. He's been painted with a green shoulderpad and purple seals so he can align with either my Salamanders or the Ultramarines. Mainly so I have the option of a demi company down the road + a very cool looking model. 

So that's me for now. 2 Boxes of Devastators, 1 box of Tac Marines, 2 drop pods, and a 40k basing kit are in the post. Now to paint up my Mounted Librarian :)

Painting update - Ultramarines!

Hey all,

Not up to much hobby wise - having to work evenings and Saturday has really put a dampener on things.

BUT I have managed to do the odd bit of paining to keep me engaged.

WHFB painting is on hold until I have a better idea of what 9th has in store. On that, I had a 2600pt game the other day: Empire vs the Undead...basically Grave Guard VC + a Lich priest lvl4 and casket with 4 of the Morghiest things. This game was unusual in that we both had infantry (Graveguard and Ghouls + 3 units of zombies vs  my 40 Halberds and archers WHO ENGAGED IN COMBAT) supporting our hammers (Morghiest, VC blender lord vs Demis, Karl Franz bus). Kinda took me back to pre Elfpocolypse 8th...the golden years! The game involved manoeuvring infantry into place, getting the charge off (weird I know)...and a bit of good 'ol fashioned Static Combat Res. Best part was Karl Franz + bus avoiding Grave Guard + Blender Vamp all game!

Needless to say it was a resounding victory for the Good Guys. The Undead menace was held back (again) and plenty a-zombie was hacked and pecked to death and Ghul Maraz was wielded in anger smiting a Wight King. All it cost was a regiment of Halberds (squished and blended), 2 captasus who had their souls removed Raiders of the Ark styles and and engineer or 2 who valiantly manned their Helblasters before sacrificing themselves to delay the hordes...I'm sure the Empire will recover.

Painting!

I have been busy starting an Ultramarine force. (check out my super budget on the fly "too lazy to set it up properly = spend more effort DIYing it" light box)

Actual Tigerus

The Auto Include Eternal Warrior Chapter Master on bike with Thunder Hammer of Goodness

Tubturian unit #1

Main body Armypainter Blue spray, Thunderhawk blue dry brush with Lothern Blue edging. Red is Mephiston Red, Nuln Oil wash, Mephiston Red. Gold is hashut copper, Druchii violet, shining gold.

I havn't decided what to do with the basing...ideas appreciated.

On the table: 5 Bikers: combi Grav, 2xGrav. 1 Attack Bike: Multimelta. 1 Guy on bike with cloak and sword...not sure what he will be...all bought for $50 thanks 2nd hand table in LGS.

Theory behind army

The theory behind army is that in current 40k one needs to maximise multishot, high strength stuff. This may be a bit "duh", but recent books have really emphasised this due to monstrous creatures becoming more common. Traditional marine shooting has emphasised 1 really good shot (ie add extra guns = usually twinlink) which is great vs tanks...but not great vs monstrous creatures. Sadly, the only real marine answer to this is grav - hence going to be running 2x3 grav/hurricane bolter tubturians, 2x5 grav bikers. This gives enough bolter shooting to deal with hordes, and lots of counters to scary stuff. Add in Tigerus, chapter master, and the Blood Angel formation to give the tubs droppods = awesome :D...then add an Imperial knight because they are cool = army done...in about 1 year. Thanks Glen for the list idea :D

However in the meantime I'll be getting Scouts and Landspeeder storms to allow me to play smaller games (1200pts). Grav + scouts = fun right?

Painting Update Seahelm and Dragon!

The wife was taking pics of boring stuff with her fancy camera. 1 Hot chocolate later and a couple of my latest models made it into the lightbox and the pics converted into a format my crappy computer understands with free software!

Fluff

Before the End Times started I was getting a lot of stick for not really engaging with the "Fluff". So I went out of my way to find something I liked about the High Elves other than "they have dragons" (...and army wide ASF). Earlier I had (kinda) themed my high elves around the idea of Saxon shield wall (using Whitelions)...but meta changes and all that (+ new book) kinda ended that.

Anywho...after much reading of the Army book (or "cannon" as fandom's refer to these things) I actually kinda liked the idea of the SeaGuard...guardians of Ulthuan...+ naval stuff (who doesn't like ships???).

+ it helps that the seaguard models are very pretty (and not always useless in the game...)

Anywho

Seahelm BSB

Very, very nice model to put together and paint. I was a little worried about the banner, but conveniently a dab of glue on the edge of the helmet = 2 contact points. Having moved to Melbourne I had to restart my paint collection so this is painted entirely with the "new" paints. This does mean he is a billion times brighter than the rest of my collection, but meh - it looks pretty :) I still dont own any water effects stuff so I need to finish the gems (and probably paint in the eyes...) but I'm happy with the result so far for "table top" quality.

Seahelm Dragon

I was a little suspect about this conversion. I've always liked the Black Dragon and for this "theme" approach it works as it has a nautical feel to it. What I wasn't sure about was the use of a dragon for the seaguard (theme)...then I remembered the one off game that no one bought...Dreadfleet...

...yup that's some dragon's with a fleet = legit for fluff.

I do plan to re-do the basing to look like it is perched on a rock in the sea...but I'll leave that for another time!

Cancon 2015: broken broken Skycutters

Hey

Long time no post. Long weekend in Australia for comfortably racist/patriotic day = epic road trip up to Canberra for Cancon. 3 days of Warhammer goodness in a massive events centre with hundreds of fellow nerds in 30+ degree heat and no air con.

Tried to think up a witty pun but I couldn't...this is the closest I got

...con

Anywho:

120 players Swedish comp needing to score between 12-16 with 15pts per 0.1 of difference to the "softer" list.

My Epic 15.3 High Elves

Prince: Stardragon, Heavy Armour, shield, Dragonhelm, Talisman of Preservation, Warriorbane
Mage lvl2: Ring of Fury, Shrieking Sword, Sceptre of Stability
Noble BSB: Dragon Armour, Shield of 4+ parry, Sword of Anti Heroes
Noble: ASF/AP Eagle, Dragon Armour, Enchanted Shield, Starlance, potion of foolhardiness
27 Seaguard: FC - shields
6 Reavers: spears and bows, champ
6 Reavers: spears and bows, champ
Skycutter: Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
Skycutter: Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
Skycutter: Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
Repeater Bolt Thrower
Repeater Bolt Thrower
5 Sisters of Averlorn
Eagle: AP
Eagle: AP

So for the astute amongst you I have themed the list around the Seaguard...defending the shores of the (now sunken) Ulthuan. Now days I don't even know how to fluff justify. This is what happens when I attempt to get involved and caught up in the fluff...BAD THINGS.

For the first time in AGES I actually got in quite a few practice games in with the list before the event. During the practice games I played the list the opposite of how I designed it to play. This may sound crazy, but I wrote the list to win 12-8, but I needed to test it's ability to win 16-4+, which meant understanding the limitations of aggressive combat orientated play.

The Event

Now I'm not going to bore you with "and then I rolled a 6" style battle reports, but I'll give a run down of how I felt the event went for me and stuff.

First of all the tables. 60 tables = I can understand having no cloths over the wood (bouncy dice all the time!) but having this on tables...

Yup...that's printed cardboard for terrain...

For an event I was lead to believe was THE premier Aussie tournament was a little bit of a downer. Maybe Fields of Blood events have spoiled my expectations, but I 100% believe that this hobby is a visual one, so stuff like this is a little disappointing...with nothing to add about TLOS implications! But at the end of the day given the "competitive" nature of events I am grateful there was ample terrain on the tables to allow for tactical deployment etc.

But other than that niggle the event was super well run...if not dominated by Kiros one-up-man-ship What was interesting was that both players had to present to the TO table together at the end of the game to get scores entered. This made things efficient, but if I actually wanted to sports hit someone (and not simply because my opponent had the gall to buy, assemble, paint, submit, and bring a dwarf list to an event as I usually do) it would have been a little awkward...

My games

Game one: vs Hellebron Dark Elves Dawn Attack
Hellebron did not make combat. My speed gave me a very important edge as I was unaffected by the deployment. Stardragon killed 2 RBTs. Final Trans killed my BSB. Mage spent 5 turns as a frog. Won the shooting battle and with that 12-8

Game two: vs Warriors of Chaos Battleline
Usual sort of list. I won the shooting war, because Hellcannon kept rampaging. My opponent was a little new to the game so didn't really know how to handle double flee. Final Trans killed by mage. Stardragon and Eagle Noble tag-teamed a block of Tzeentch warriors, the BSB and then a Chimera. for a 16-4

Game 3: Ogres - meeting Engagement.
I had 1 chariot off the board, he had 2 units of 3 guts and his kitty. T1 I took off 1 unit of 6 leadbelchers. T2 the other unit died. Stardragon took out 5 Maneaters and 1 of the gut units whilst using big LoS blocking hill in middle to dodge the ironblaster 14-6

Game 4: OnG - Battleline
End of t2 the game looked like this:

I just avoided the blocks and killed everything else with shooting. Stardragon ate a Rock lobba and t6 killed 13 Orc Big Uns with his breath weapon for lolz, Eagle noble killed a bolt thrower and the doom diver. Foot of Gork killed 5 Seaguard and sniped by BSB with a failed LOS! OnG MVP was a Boar chariot on 1 wound that survived 2 turns of my shooting and magic, casually charged my seaguard and sniped my mage before an eagle charged into break and run it down. 12-8

Game 5: Woodies - Blood and Glory
Basically I got first turn and took out a unit of Gladeguard. Seaguard hid in combat vs a Treeman with a late game saving charge from Eagle noble and Stardragon to sneak the points. He cleaned out my easy points while I killed anything that got near me (scouts). Probably my favourite game of the event. 10-10

Game 6 Dark Elves - Battleline
This list had a dragon, manticore and only 2 units of Xbows...yet somehow his shooting was more effective than mine! Seaguard died to riderless dragon in front and manticore in rear. RBTs were useless. Skycutter charge finished off the dragon a turn too late. Stardragon and Eagle noble ate a unit of coldones, the BSB, a unit of 30 corsairs (Failed terror test with run down BOOM!), and cleaned out a unit of 30 Executioners. Somewhere in between the Eagle noble managed to also get a unit of xbows for a 16-4

Game 7 VC - Battle for the Pass
Zombie dragon? 2 Vargulfs??, Undead Orc themed? Won best painted for the 2nd year in a row = This game had it all going for it. His terrorgiest pops his nose out...DEAD to shooting. Sisters casually flee a vargulf charge...seaguard bunker fails a re-roll ldship 9 panic test and run 11 inches off the board t3? yeah...game went from "I have this for a cheeky 11-9/12-8 to "how do I not lose this big" fast. Stardragon and Eagle noble killed a unit of doggies and a unit of zombies in their break through to safely. Rest of army (2 RBTs, 12 reavers, 3 skycutters, 2 eagles) managed to kill 2 fell bats and do 3 wounds to a vargulf in their noble sacrifice to keep my dragon alive...yeah expected better boys! lose 5-15

Game 8 Woodies - Battleline
Beautiful Halfling woodie army. Got my best sports vote. He got first turn and killed my reavers. In response I kill 1 wildrider from each of his 2 units BOOM! Yeah. Trueflight FTW in this game. Eagle noble in a moment of super lazy completely unforced error kinda way casually took the sisters in the rear (BEHAVE), held with no wound taken, turned around, won combat and ran them down...yeah. Stardragon was 3 turns short of surviving the entire event when 2 skewed magic phases in a row = 4d6 searing doom total to take him out followed by 40 trueflight shots to kill the prince. I could have held him back, but I needed to press his army back to stop the trueflight wrecking me (more than it did). Skycutters did  their only triple charge into 6 wildriders and wiped them out with impact hits. Seaguard won a combat rear charging the other unit! Mage firey convocated 6 glade riders and killed them all! Losing General - lose 8-12

Overall result:

I ended up on 92 Battle points...8 short of my goal. Vs ETC opponents (game 5 and 7) I held my own = nice and encouraging. Only getting 13pts on the final day really hurt. Overall I ended up 31st out of 120 players. getting my goal of 100 battle points would have been good for 15th, so I wasn't that far out of the race given first place was dirty Kiros on 119.

The Shirts Off Crew I travelled up with all placed in top 50 with 2 top 10 placings and a 2nd best painted award too. Not bad for 6 hungover nerds in singlets!