And on the Seventh Edition, the High Lords did get it so right. At least thats my thoughts after the first game 7th edition 40k I've had. For the first game, myself and the Alun took a trip to the Crow Valley Crusaders to face an Imperial Guard/Dark Angels army commanded by Byron and Gareth. Alun took his Dark Eldar, where I took mainly Imperial Guard with some Space Marines. 2k each, and we used the new mission set in the rulebook to see what our objectives were. Contact Lost was rolled up, and six objectives were placed.Vague report ahead as this was played a week ago!
Having to capture objectives to gain new tactical mission cards to gain those all important victory points works insanely well and creates a really fluid game as each army are racing around to capture or at least contest objectives to get those lovely cards. What this does is challange the player to be ready to adapt during the heat of battle, as it should be. This brings so many new decisions and options that I can't wait to play more of the new missions.
Myself and Alun went first, Aluns Dark Eldar racing across the field to
capture an objective in front of the opponents battleline. Aluns
shooting was pretty dire, and mine wasn't too effective either. The
return fire did some damage but we were able to weather it.
After the 1st turn we had control of a couple of the objectives, although our enemis had got the upper hand acheiving a couple early on and getting first blood. Sometimes the objective cards will be kind, sometimes not so much! They vary from capturing certain numbered objectives to killing certain units or making them run off the board. As the game went on both sides built up points in this way, and it seems a really good way to play a game.
Aluns Dark Eldar faced off against a lot of Byrons army, and highlights include a Vanquisher rolling a six to try and blow the DE flyer out of the sky, but only stunning it, and Aluns Wyches being abysmal at using Haywire grenades and leaving the Wyverns unmolested.
I had a lot of the Dark Angels to take on, and was able to keep them mostly at bay. His bikes where slowly whittled down before they took out most of my Tactical Squad and a Rhino, and even stripped a hull point off my vendetta. I slowly advanced down the right flank and the Banewolf took out some DA devastators before being stunned and stopping me from doing much else with it!
I then had to contend with Deathwing, which the Executioner did beautifully, killing most of them. Using an Enginseer was great too, adding some survivability to a Leman Russ but also POTMS the Russ to fire its weapons at one thing then the battle cannon at another, very useful! Combat erupted between the DE and Byrons Guard over the objective, and it was brutal. The DE were shot up and unable to cope up with the numbers the Guard flung in. Then we got to fire at the Guard and almost wiped them out, but there were soooo many tanks left!
As we got to the end of the game we totaled up the vp's and me and Alun had pinched it 11-8, such a close game! The psychic phase was a bit of fun too, I had taken 2 primaris psykers and also Tigurius just to see how it went, and pretty much got 1 or 2 powers off each turn, much less than I expected but its a much more fun experience than just rolling under your leadership and trying to remember which phase each power should be cast. I think it makes psyker heavy armies a little less scary to face, especially those tricksy eldar! Whether the Daemons will be over powered is another thing, but I actually like the idea of a warp rift spewing forth daemons and trying to take them on!
The star of the show however has to be the objectives. I can see some games being really difficult if you draw cards that are hard to acheive, but challanges should be accepted and relished on the tabletop. I'm already looking forward to my second game, this time against my partner in crime and his Dark Eldar! Scares me a little, as they're fast moving so I know he'll be able to capture a lot of the objectives so I will have to concentrate fire well!
As for the Astra Militarum, heres the vehicles I have so far! The chimera on the left isn't in the best shape but it does the job for now. I'm not gluing weapons on yet as I want the ability to switch between options to see what works well, and against different opponents I can choose the nastiest combos! I've got some infantry to get done too and need to add more. Some heavy weapon squads would be nice too!
Expect posts to pick back up a little more soon, the route to self employment is about to pick up huge soon, so I'll be very quiet for a few weeks but hopefully I'll have more time to post and do some batreps. Getting a couple of tables also means more games as theres room at the studio to do so! Huge thanks to Byron and Gareth for the game, always a pleasure lads. I've not played near enough games of 7th so this will get remedied soon. More thoughts on 7th edition to come soon, and also possibly a post on much I'm swooning over the new Ork Flashgitz. THEY'RE GODDAMN NOICE!
