Yesterday (as of writing this) I visited Fraser over in Stockport, after our traditional "Wobble down to Element Games" we headed back to his to chat general shit and hobby.
A sobering moment was when we realised we'd been friends for nearly twenty years now...
He mentioned that he'd played a couple of games of 10th edition 40k and had found it enjoyable, then asked if I fancied a game and trying it.
So we booted up the Warhammer ap and he whipped up a couple of forces from his collection.
(Apologies for the unpainted miniatures, he's near blind and can only paint for half hour-hour at most, and I work full time and have my own stuff and his other projects to paint, so these will have to wait).
The World Eaters warband;
Led by ANGRON, a Lord Invocatus (on Juggernaut) and a Lord Executioner.
There were two units of ten Berzerkers, a unit of ten Terminators, a unit of ten Jakhals and then a unit each of Three Eightbound and Exalted Eightbound, finally my two Dreadnaughts:
Kaldor Draigo leading three Librarians, two units of ten Terminators, a strike squad of five Grey Knights and THREE Dreadknights:
Once we'd cleared the table and deployed the mat and terrain, deployment looked like this*:
Two Dreadknights decide to push on the flank facing the Lord Invocatus:
After getting shot up and killing an Eightbound, they promptly "forgot the ball***" and got stuck in:
In the center somewhere, the Terminators shot half the Berzerker squad away and forced them to run towards them**** ending up in combat, alongside them was all 415 points of thr big man himself, ANGRON!
Now here's where it gets interesting, Angron projects and Aura around himself which works on him and every world eaters unit up to 6 inches away. You get to choose from a selection of three, so I chose the option which let me re roll hit rolls.
With everything ready I used the Scout ability from the Lord Invocatus to push his unit of Eightbound and a unit of Berzerkers (that's all that was within his range) forwards six inches, then promptly lost the roll off for the first turn!**
I won't give a turn by turn account, just the highlights.
My fantastic dice rolling led to the Thirteen wound Dreadknight being still alive and on ONE WOUND.
In true fashion, the Juggernaut, the mount did more damage then it's rider. That's even with the rider having double the attacks of the mount and a special rule to reroll.
I forgot the Eightbound's special rule at this point.
This combined with the Blessings of the Blood God giving them lethal hits AND the relentless rage ability which they all having giving them +1 Strength and Attacks on the charge***** meant that i was rerolling everything which wasn't a "6" to try to fish for more "6's".
Given that ANGRON hits on a 2+ makes this worthwhile.
The Beezerkers did stuff at the end of the line, tagging two Terminators and a Librarian to fight them:
Some time later in the game, Kaldor Draigo and his unit of Terminators teleported in and managed to get the charge off to attack Angron.
SIXTEEN attacks from Angron later and thanks to Fraser using the stratagem "True Silver Armour" which negates armour save modifiers, the big guy had killed two Terminators and thr Berzerkers nothing...
CLOSE COMBAT ARMY!!!!!!!
(I am calm).
SKIPPING BACK OVER the Lord Invocatus and the last remaining Eightbound managed to kill the Dreadknight and moved to fight the second one following:
Dumping 7 of the 9 hits from my Berzerkers on the Librarian I forced Fraser to fail his save:
Whilst Draigo and unit fought first because they charged, I chose to play the stratagem ",Khorne Cares Not..." which reduced incoming damage from weapons on Angron, thus saving me part of the way through combat to hit back.
MANY dice were rolled, I mean MANY.
The Terminators had 40(!) attacks and then Draigo waded in with his attacks as well, leaving Angron on 3 wounds.
I hit and killed another two Terminators with Angron, but then he hit me back.
"You're going to need to make three 5+ saves"
"GODAMMIT!":
Afterwords with the help of YouTube F1 pundit 'RocketPoweredMohawk' I summed up the game with this image:
With Angron no more, my Berzerkers crumbling and aura buffs gone, I decided to throw everything in a deep striked my reserves onto the board.
Ten Khorne Terminators and Three Exalted Eightbound appeared and lined up for a charge into the center, needing Twelve to make it!
"GODAMMIT!":
The final Berzerker squad died to a man and the Lord Executioner took Draigo to his final wound, but I couldn't do enough damage against him:
So what did I think of 10th edition?
It's certainly a lot better then the cluster fuck that was 9th edition.
Positive thoughts:
- There is a lot less off table bullshittery going on then first expected.
- Aura's for buffs seem to be very important in this edition, whilst ANGRON is the big scary model, I think he would have been better served being surrounded by Berzerkers and buffing them constantly with rerolls, rather then wading in piecemeal.
- The fight phase and order of fighting is very good in my opinion as it gets both sides involved all the way through, rather then just being told which combat were doing now.
Negative thoughts:
- Every unit has a special rules, I mean EVERY UNIT, and true to form for GW, the same rule will have three or four different names because it HAS to be named this way for one army, this way for a second army, etc, ad infinitum.
- Character Deathstars are back as a thing.
- The game is still very "admin heavy" overall. A lot less then 9th edition where you would spend more time looking through the rulebook/codex, but it's still there.
- The competitive side of the community seems to be in control as usual and GW just seems to be making knee-jerk reactions to rules changes based on this.
Female Custodes.******
A few of my grumbles are because this was the first game and a learning game at that.
Fraser was happy that he didn't have to explain everything because I'd watched a few battle reports on YouTube beforehand.
Wrapping your head around the special rules per unit is still a bit much as they aren't the "Universal Special Rules" of old where you know instantly what Stealth, Furious Charge, Infiltrate were, because everything has to have a unique name.
Seriously the "Blood Surge" ability of Khorne Berzerkers is the same rule used for Black Templars, I just think it's called "Righteous Fury" or something...
I think that you'd have to get four or five games under your belt with an army to start to see a proper battle develop, as rules will start to slot into place by that point.
I enjoyed the game overall, mainly because I knew I lost because I messed up, not the game.
I should have clumped together around ANGRON rather then spreading out to cover the board to take advantage of the buff aura he projects. Deep Strike whilst powerful is a double edged sword, as I found when I failed the charge, so a huge chunk of points was sat there staring blank eyed.
If I manage to get the day off next week, I'm going to head over to Frasers again and have another game, faster this time hopefully as we'll have a bit of a grounding to start with.
Until next time, have nice day...
*And this is where I made my first mistake by spreading out too much. I should have clustered the main body of Berzerkers around ANGRON.
**This was to set much of the theme of the game.
***One of the all time classic quotes from Bloodbowl, the Chaos coach shouting from the sidelines "FORGET THE BALL, GET STUCK IN!"
****"Blood Surge: if a model is removed as a casualty, the unit runs D6 inches towards the nearest enemy unit and can end up in combat, counting as charging" great stuff and allowed me to get then in a turn earlier.
*****The Old "Furious Charge" ability. Because you do not get a charge bonus in 10th edition, so it has to become an army rule or a stratagem...
******The internet has lost its collective mind over this, and it's something which isn't important, but I have my own thoughts on it, which I will address in a future Blogpost.
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