EXTREY EXTREY! Read all about it. 8th edition game played. Met expectations- -First game of 8th edition played. Laughs and fun had. Minimum expectations met.

-First game of 8th edition played. Laughs and fun had.

Introduction

Kevin and I got together for a game Saturday night, pitting my newly assembled Raptor’s Nth company marine army against his mothballed Craftworld elder army.  Heading to Kevin’s house, I realise I had played Kevin in a 1 on 1 game, for 7-8 years.  The game was great fun and it made me realise I could not let it go so long again without playing one of the most fun and most tactically skilled players in D-Company. 

Before the game we sat and discussed out reflections on the game so far.  We’re both pretty excited about the game for the most part.  We had already built our Power level 75 army lists. I had seen most battle reports were focusing around 50pt and I wanted a game sized more typical of what we usually play (which would be around 100 power level). Kevin was a voice of reason and negotiated us down to 75pts.  Given this was our first game and that the crappy PDFs we had in hand made navigating our lists and rules harder than need be, I was later glad he had talked us down.

The events below are approximate and might not depict the exact play (though key items in more thorough detail are likely correct as those are stronger memories), as it is 2 days later and the game was a lot of culture shock, learning and a bit exhausting.

You’ll also noticed that while we each had 6 command points, we never used any. Kevin certainly could have benefitted from rerolling late in the game, but both of us had forgotten about them until the last turn.  We both vowed we would just ignore command points for this game and mine sat unused as well.

Armies

Raptor Chapter Nth Company expeditionary force

unit	Wargear	Power Level
Marine Captain	Master Crafter Boltgun,  Relic blade	5
Imperial space marine	Combi-distingrator, disintigration pistol	3
Tactical Squad A(10)	Grav Cannon, Grav Gun, Sgt with boltgun and grav pistol	9
Tactical Squad B(10)	Heavy Bolter, Grav Gun, Sgt with boltgun and boltgun and Power Sword.	9
Tactical Squad C(10)	Heavy Bolter,plasma gun, Sgt with Power Sword and grav pistol	9
Tactical Squad C(10)	GravCannon,plasma gun, Sgt with Combi-Plasma	9
Scout (5)	Camoeline cloaks, 2 sniper rifles, Rocket launcher, Sgt with Combi plasma	6
Rhino	Storm bolter smoke Launchers	4
Rhino	Storm bolter smoke Launchers	4
Rhino	Storm bolter smoke Launchers	4
Rhino	Storm bolter smoke Launchers	4
StormHawk Interceptor	Icarus StormCannon, Skyhammer missile launcher, 2 assault cannons, Infernus halo launcher	9
	Total	75

The return of the Eldar!

unit	Wargear	Power Level
Farseer	Doom Guide	6
Avatar		13
5 eldar rangers	sniper long rifles	5
10 dire avengers	Avenger Catapults, exarch with power glaive and shimmer shield	6
10 dire avengers	Avenger Catapults, exarch with power glaive and shimmer shield	6
Wraithlord	Bright lance, 2 flamer, wrath sword	7
Frie prism	prism cannon, shuriken cannon, vectored engines, Crystal targeting matrix.	9
10 Striking scorpians		10
5 dark Reapers	understrength. Exarch with a better reapear missile launcher	9
	Total	71

I put together Kevin’s list from memory.  It seems like Kevin was down a few power level points, but it’s possible I forgot a unit or missed something else.

We both had adhered to the

Mission

We played the Retrieval mission I think using a standard long edge deployment.  4 objectives were placed on the board and worth 3pts at the end of the game. Slay the warlord, first blood, and line breaker were also in effect.

I chose table edge and opted for the only obvious piece of cover(a ruined Chimera and bunker).   (we later determined that other pieces of terrain would count as woods, so that Kevin would have some cover too.  I forget the important step of discussing the game board before the start of game. 

Kevin had first turn and I was unable to seize the initiative.

Deployment was pretty unpotable, both of use line up along our edges. The elder had focused their forced on the side with my ruined Chimera.(which a battle squad  fire base containing a grav cannon and plasma gun resided in).

I had 2 rhinos and my Stormhawk interceptor on the opposite flank. So it was clear how the manure game would play.  The scorpions waited in reserve so they could later spring at me using their dreaded shadow deployment.

Turn 1.

The dire avengers, Avatar, and wraithlord moved forward while heavy weapons and snipers of the Eldar laid back and laid down deadly support fire. The A made all Eldar within 12” immune to morale checks,  so he was positioned to give most of his infantry the bravery of the eldritch!

His first shooting phase was brutal.  A dire avenger loosed a storm of catapult fire into the entrencthed combat squad and quickly I found 3 of the marines lie dead.  The sergent shout to his Grav Cannon gunner to hold the line.

Massed fire from the dark reapers and some other fire pelted a rhino on the same flank.  It burst into flames and 4 of the 6 models inside (5 boltgun combat squad led by the IMPERIAL SPACE MARINE!).  The surprise volley was brutal and unexpected to the rhino driver and the vehicle burst into flames, 4 of the marines succumbing to mortal wounds!. The Imperial marine knew dratic action need  ot be taken and strode ahead of the smoking wreck( which melted away into the ground  in video  fashion.) the lone trooper sat out in the open a few paces behind him.

A rhino on the the opposite flank took hits, and was crippled, but sputtered onward.  I had lost approximately 25% of my army before I had even moved. 

In my turn, My strong flank rhinos moved forward towards the advancing wraithlord.  The Stormhawk interceptor flew overhead (I did not realize how important this one unit would be in my army, as I had not unit that have true firepower wallop it had.  Except for this flyer, my fire power all lay in the traditional fire power for of Marine Tactical squads.(which is certainly good, but FEELS inadequate after you received a strong volley of heavy weapons and reaper missiles the first turn!)

The Firebase squad opened up on the Avatar, as did the Imeprial space marine, causing significant damage.  The Avatar is an terrifying angry god and was not slowed at all at the carnage inflicted.  The scouts split their fire at the avatar but had little effect.  The Stormhawk was an Aircraft killing monstrosity with 14 nasty shots per turn (half of its weapons gaining a +2 to hit a model with the FLY keyword).  The Fire Prism has the FLY Keyword, so I took my opportunity to hit on 2+ and I quickly crippled the eldar hover tank with missiles and Stormcannon rounds (Note: I did forget to take the -1 penalty to hit with moving heavy weapons, but the only weapons effected were the duo assault cannon which only did a single point of damage.  

At the end of the turn, I had lost 25% of  my models.  Kevin had only lost 1 or 2 dire avengers but his tank and avatar had both been severely hurt.  It was probably even, but I silently felt this was going badly for me.

Turn 2.

The eldar continued their assault, the assaulting units moved into close on my army. 

What’s worse, The Scorpians faded into view in the middle rear of my deployment zone. 10 elite Close combat troops were had caught my fire base by suprise!.  The eldar on the far flank shot and assault the beleaguered combat squad.  The Avatar and a fresh Die avenger squad moved forwards, launching a great attacks, supported by eldar ranger fire ALL at the brash little Imperial Space Marine.  He was no slouch and was a hero of the line. We went to ground in a small patch of cover, and shrugged this off with only a single wound taken (he has 4!)

The fire prism and dark reapers, loose great volleys at the StormHawk intercepter, crippling it down to 4 wounds left.  The wraithlord shot at and assaulted one of the rhino of my strong flank, reducing it to a single wound, but leaving the troops inside untouched.  The long Grav Cannon gunner survived both shuriken fire and an assault and fell back to the top of the terrain piece where he would make a last stand for 2 fight  phases before he would eventually fall to numbers

In my portion of the turn, I quickly began disembarking the marines on my strong flank. I needed to bring every gun I had to bear on the wraith lord and the supporting hover tank.

The Stormkhawk veered towards the middle of the board because flyers have compulsory movement still.  In old editions, this compulsory movement strongly limits where and how you can deploy firepower from fighter craft. In 8^th edition, my forward mounted guns still were allowed to fire at the fire prism (now at the flyer’s 7 O’clock position),  and loosed its crippled fire power into the fire prism, knocking it down to 3 wounds (making the hover tank VERY CRIPPLED).  The disembarked tactical and combat squad fired onto the wraithlord (with at least one krek grenade thrown in for measure), augmented by the scouts sniper rifles and krak missiles.  I’m not sure if the wraith lord die this turn or in the next, but this mass of fire power was able to feel this wraith bone monstrosity in 1-2 shooting phases, with the boltguns playing a healthy role in it.(rolling 5’s to wound make massed boltgun fire scary against all but the toughest foes). A full Tactical squad in the middle disembarked and had a mass of Grav weapns that would fire at the Avatar, while the boltguns began putting fire on the Striking scorpions.

The Imperial space marine held his own and shot is distingrator into the Avatar.  ( I think this brought him down to a single wound, but it might have been something else.  STILL, the Avatar fought like it was unscathed.  It’s a monster! Tactical fire from one full and one combat squad cut the scopians numbers in half.

Turn 3.

The  Eldar were relentless in their advance. I could not put any significant fire on their read echelon units (aside from the fire prism, so Kevin had a potent fire base in the rear the entire game and Dar k reapers are nothing to scoff at.)

The Avenger shuriken volleys were as scary as my boltgun volleys(but even worse since they counts as -3 AP on To wound rolls of 6) .  they will scare Land raiders in their tracks as any shiruken weapons that wounds will pierce land raider armor on a 6+!!. They also counts as hitting on 5+ in overwatch, so any thoughts I had to ever assault these troops were thwarted if I couldn’t bring massive numbers to bear (which my army could not as I had built it).   I would play a classic game of fight and displace. The Mantra of My tau army? Hmm… is it possible that these Time Travelling Space marines MAYBE work with my Tau Secret subsect who also TRAVEL THROUGH TIME?!

Turn 1 had been slightly unlucky for me, but from turn 3 on, it seemed like I had bribed Kevin’s dice. Kevin had launched 4-5 assaults  with superior troops and numbers.  Only the Single wound Avatar had a decent turn, annilating one of the full tactical squads (7 died to shooting and melee, and the remaning died in morale even with ATSKNF.)  the single Grav Cannon gunner fended the undamged Dire Avengers yet another turn and the Imperial space marine absorbed everything the other Dire Avenger could dish out (taking 1 wound, but losing 2 ancient eldar in the process!).  Even the mighty Stricking scropians bounced off of their combat squad target, reduced to  wounded exarch while 3 space marines still stood.

The crippled storm hawk continued flying lengthwise down the field, all the while putting his guns on the fire prism in his rear view mirror.  Finally, the great eldar hover tank grew silent

 I found pistols interesting. Twice I used pistol in the shooting phase in place of falling back to finsh off crippled units.  This results in a dead scropian exarch from a sergeants unassuming grav pistol! ( I think I tried this on the avatar later with a different sergent, but if I recall correctly, I missed and that sergeant briefly stared up at the looming eldritch god and gulped.

Turn 4-5.

The Eldar offensive was stalled in failed melees.  The giants of the eldar army mangled or destroyed. All the while, half of my army was gone. It was still a close game.  Each play had decent hold of 2 objectives, Kevin had claimed first blood.  We couldn’t tell who would edge out the other’s army, but it was going to be close either way!

Kevin’s firebase  could not finish off the stormhawk despite Farseer powers aiding the dsheer fire power of these eldar elite heavy weapons. They would spend the rest of the game inflicting little to no damage on the crippled interceptor.  The laughing god seemed to be laughing at his children.  The flanking dire avengers moved into my deployment zone to secure a line breaker. And the avatr followed.  This seems to be the decisive mistake in the game, as it made it nearly impossible to claim one of the middle objectives Kevin required to stay in good standing. I think the game went from Kevin slightly winning to Kevin slightly losing.

I shored up a marine squad on an objective in Kevin’s deployment zone, shield by 2 rhinos (one only having a single wound).  I moved a combat squad and the scouts up into the open to lock in another objective (kevin’s snipers dropped my scouts to 2 models.

Turn 6 and (theoretically 7).

Random game length had the game go past turn 5.   Very little changed at this point as few units were left and those

Conclusion

We didn’t do strong math, (we skipped learning whether Linebreaker was a per unit or once per objective, and neither of us cared at the time.  I think the results was both had line breaker, no commanders were killed (I think the farseer war the warlord).  I had 2 objectives to kevin’s 1. Which left an end score of 6 to 4.  I know this is probably called a win, but I consider this a draw or indecisive victory. It seems like the points can sway greatly with just a bit of luck or one bad decision, just like it always can in the grim darkness of the 41^st millenea.

These were general feelings I came away from the game with.  It was mostly positive experience.  It should be.  It’s a game I love and a hobby I have adored longer than some D-Company member have been alive. 1987 has me at 30 years…) It was very unlikely this beloved hobby would have me cursing and hating it.  The game was also not without faults and some feel significantly worse to me. Some of these rule changes I’m unlikely enjoy as much as I liked it’s previous edition as counterpart. How things.

Some of these are rehashed from a facebook post I posted on D-Company.

1). Using Leaked PDF files:   the game is not meant to be played using 2 small photo captured leaked PDF files for your introductory game (LOTS of time spent slowly scrolling through pages) having books (or official ebooks) should make this much more tolerable.

2). Some new Good things:   There were some neat new things that came up and things I liked (or needed) in the game.  My Best fire power in the game was my flyer Interceptor which had plenty of big guns. In previous flyer rules, I would not have been able to keep it’s fire focus on Kevin’s Fire Prism because of fire arcs and its long compulsory moves. I NEEDED to do (he had too many big gun

I like the Save Modifier system and the weapons used so far seem interesting and balanced within that system.  I had somewhat expected the ASMs to look more similar to 2nd edition or Necromunda (where Boltguns and lasguns had an ASM of -1). These weapon profiles seems more scaled back. The fact that most Basic arms have no Save Mod make initial armor value relevant (power armors make 3+ saves against basic arms and weapons like the Heavy bolter only put a small nick in your saving roll.

I liked pointing the army via Power level as I thought I would (Lazy).  I do think that the power gaminess might worse than expected though as there seem to be more common army building sceanrios that affect unit potency without affecting power level of a unit. Vehicle upgrades are a very interesting case. These is no reason not to take ALL Vehicle equipment upgrades provided to a unit which are not incorporated into the power level value. There is not reason not to have a HK missile on your Rhino (other than you don’t have it modeled and the knowledge that historically few rhinos take them).  These might be protected by WISIWIG requirements. There are other vehicle kit that have no commonly modeled equivallant (Eldar and Tau Vehicle gear fall heavily into this camp) where wargear historically is Commonly used and have no WISIWYG basis.  Kevin used haf vehicle optinos he was allotted and I had no issues with this as Fire prisms typically had Holofields, spirit stones, and some other kit that was always taken.  This is a case where I have no issue, but MIGHT if I see some player suddenly modelling new fleets (or worse new whole fleets of units that have no modellig needs)  with MAX wargear. It will always be based on what I think the oponent’s intent is and how much I feel they are gaming the system. This is admittedly a very subjective judgment I make on someone and the more familiar I am with them helps govern how I feel about this. Game play wise, the other guy will be able to do whatever, but it may affect how I perceive you if I don’t play against you often or know you well.

3).Some Bad new things.  I don’t hate the use of wounds in place of vehicle armor.  It played well enough, (though the game now feels VERY video game RTS to me complete with Wall-hacking fire arc on vehicles.  I still don’t like it and am unlikely to think it’s a positive change over the previous system. It is also a less immersive feeling system of a game where we had wrecked vehicles on the table and had thematic smoke indicating vehicle damage. Simplification-1, immersion -0  

I don’t like the limited effect of terrain on maneuver. It seems necesary with the shorter game length (5 being the new standard game length it seems), but I found that it abstracted the mobility of troops too much and that for the most part, terrain just doesn’t matter.

3). Flyer Rules:  Flyers have and always will have a strong place in my heart. I loved them before I even had a flyer.  I hated the original FW flyer rules compared to what they evolved into, but after that hiccup, it was a steady change that was easily integrated into the corerules.  From what I got to study so far, flyer do not seem over/underbalanced, despite their radical changes. They awesome(frustrating based on your perspective) flyer rule durability is mostly kaput, but they seem to have attributes similar to some ground light vehicles, so this loss of rules is not overtly detrimental. I still don’t like them and don’t see how they will have more than a cosmetic feel on the game.

4). Rule confusion: Cover. We had an issue with both of us having different understanding of how cover worked and both had referenced different places in the rules (Cover in Core Rules vesus in the “advanced” rules.) The fact that the Terrain Advanced rules were still nothing more than thinned down versions of what had been basic rules in the previous editions, this points to Simpification for simplification (not elegance)sake.

5). Basic Weapons pretty usefull:  if all you have is boltguns, you can make Boltgun-ade and still do pretty well. I had very few heavy weapons in my army, and I leaned heavily on the boltgun’s ability to wound everything in Kevins army on no worse than a 5+. This added up over time.

6). Morale Phase:  I did not dislike the morale system despite my general feel that 40k has a poor battle field psychology system. (it does, but I may just have to come ot grips that the grim darkness of the 41 millennia does not have room for the true horrors of war).  This is likely something that I don’t like, but will succumb to not caring about the more I play. I could respect it’s elegance since old psychology rules were always underwhelming to me from a design perspective.

8). I liked the Fight phase.  Assaults in our particular game were short single unit engagements, so we didn’t see any of the more complex happenings, though I *THINK* I wil like the system in more complex engagements as well.

10). Luck! It is clear that I owe Kevin’s dice a drink due to their mid game betrayal!

13). Game Size: I expect that a common play value (based on how most games we play in the past would make Power Level 100 seem standard fare.  (but not while we all still have our training wheels on.)

Well, that’s what I came away with.  My minimum expectation for a game based hobby is that the game would still be fun.  My expectation from a company building and supporting my (hopefully fun) hobby should see that as NOTHING LESS that the minimum requirement they are committed to providing, so I’m not going to pat any GW personel on the back for meeting what I consider to be the minimum requirement for making a living off of my dollar playing with their flashy toys.

If I have to put a single rating on the 8th edition game so far is:  It meets minimum requirements and is still fun… but it used to be better.