Warhammer 40,000: Let's Play Filthy Casual - Encounter at Red Rocket

It is once again time for Warhammer 40,000! I've got my 500 points of Word Bearers and my Modiphius terrain; my opponent has 500 points of Grey Knights; we are ready to Filthy Casual.

**

We set up on my 4'×4' table, with some fairly ancient Necromunda terrain as well as my newer additions.

To keep things simple, we decided to play the Only War scenario, and placed objectives accordingly. As this was the debut of my Red Rocket station, my opponent decided the game would be called Encounter at Red Rocket. We made sure to place an objective marker by the coolant pumps.

My deployment was fairly simple: I decided the Berzerkers and Dreadnought would capture the Red Rocket, while the Cultists moved up the center of the table and grabbed the objective at the container stack.

My opponent's army consisted of (below, left to right) a Terminator squad held in reserve, a Librarian, a Strike Team and an Interceptor Squad, all deployed in cover behind some buildings.

The Grey Knights got the first turn, and immediately the space wizard fuckery started. The Interceptors zoomed over to capture the objective by the word wall, and the Librarian used Gate of Infinity to teleport the Strike Squad right onto my left flank.

Obviously I couldn't let this stand; I sent my Cultists around to attack the Strike Squad, with the Berzerkers rushing over to support them, while my Dreadnought lumbered over to secure the objective at the Red Rocket.

Since the Strike Team was in range and my Cultists were encouraged by the Dark Apostle's successful prayer, it was time to charge!

The Cultists immediately start taking hevy casualties, but they take a Grey Knight with them.

Here's the situation at the end of the first battle round:

The Grey Knights Librarian is literally hiding inside the little building at top left, next to the blue dice tray. My Dreadnought is under the Red Rocket canopy; the Berzerkers are making their laborious way toward the fight.

**

The Grey Knights opened the second battle round by teleporting the Terminators in to face the Dreadnought at the Red Rocket. The Librarian blasted my Dread with Vortex of Doom, doing the maximum possible seven wounds, of which my Legion trait let me save exactly none. He then hit the Dread with Fatal Precognition, meaning I risked additional mortal wounds if it did anything!

On the other side of the table, the Interceptors charged into combat with my Cultists and pretty much wiped them out - but not without taking casualties themselves!

When my turn rolled around, the Dreadnought tried to get to grips with the pesky Loyalist tormenting it - and dropped down dead!

Meanwhile, the Cultists were wiped out in the Fight phase. They accounted for one Interceptor and two Grey Knights, which I think we have to consider slightly heroic. All that remained of my army was the Berzerkers and Dark Apostle.

It was pretty obvious at this point that I had lost the game. My opponent could easily have run circles around my Berzerkers for the last three battle rounds, collecting enough victory points to win the game twice over. I said as much, and offered to concede. To his credit, my opponent wanted to fight it out, very sportingly bringing out the Interceptors to engage my Berzerkers so that I got to roll the absolute buckets of dice they generate in mêlée.

The Berzerkers made short work of the Interceptors and went on to wipe out the Strike Squad survivors as well. Meanwhile, the Grey Knights Librarian struck down my Dark Apostle.

Eventually, their numbers depleted by psykery and such, the Berzerkers were run down by the Terminators and wiped out.

And so the game ended with me being tabled. Hey, Khorne cares not whence the blood flows, and it definitely flowed.

**

In retrospect, it's fairly obvious that my biggest mistake was the deployment of my Berzerkers. They should have been right there with the Cultists in one great big blob of death, or alternatively they should have stuck to the original plan and stormed the Red Rocket with the Dreadnought. I also should have been more decisive with my Dark Apostle and gotten her into mêlée with the Cultists. So yeah, my deployment was bad and I was too indecisive.

This is to take nothing away from my opponent, though: he played very well and decisively outmaneuvered me, taking excellent advantage of my bad decisions and using his mobility and psykery edge to full advantage.

I will freely admit that I was not prepared for space wizard fuckery. I expected a deluge of mortal wounds; I did not expect all the flying around. The answer for my Chaos Marines is clear: more mobility. I have already ordered some jump packs.

**

On a broader note, we were left with two strong impressions. First of all, Filthy Casual is just fun, especially with smaller armies. Having said that, I'll quote my worthy opponent, who said, after the game: "There's a lot to remember." There certainly is. Even without secondary objectives or stratagems, and playing a very simple mission, datasheets and rules to hand, we still found it a struggle to remember all the particular rules and exceptions. I still feel that 40k is far too strongly designed for tournament play by people young enough to memorize huge rulesets, and even though 10th edition promises to simplify everything, well, I'll believe it when I see it.

Even so, I certainly enjoyed myself, and I'm full of ideas on what kind of army to build for the rematch!

Mission tactics at sea

For future reference, I want to record this outstanding example of mission tactics / Aufragstaktik / whatever you want to call it. I've been thinking about World War II and specifically naval warfare in it, so I'm re-reading Correlli Barnett's excellent Engage the Enemy More Closely. There's a lot to disagree with in Barnett's account, and David Edgerton has done so, at length. I still think that much of Barnett's criticism of British grand strategy in the war is fundamentally correct, and I think I'll want to return to that later.

For now, though, here's a quote from Barnett's narrative of the Second Battle of Sirte in 1942, where a Royal Navy cruiser squadron under Admiral Philip Vian drove off a considerably superior Italian force.

"His own flagship Cleopatra had been hit in the bridge early in the action, killing fifteen and temporarily knocking out her radio. But, wrote Vian in his memoirs, "The damage sustained was of no importance. The leaders of the divisions of the striking force were well aware of my intentions, and communication, for the time, was unnecessary.""

That's command for you.

Warhammer 40,000: 500 pts of 9th Edition Word Bearers

I've been threatened with a 500-point game of Warhammer 40,000, so I'd better get my army ready.

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Since my last game, the 9th edition Chaos Marine codex dropped, and changed quite a lot of things. First and foremost, it destroyed the MVP of my previous games by capping Cultists at 20 models per unit and nerfing Tide of Traitors completely. However, it gave my Word Bearers a useful legion trait as well, so win some, lose some, I guess.

I'm still bringing my old Necromunda Escher gang, even if I can only have twenty of them. I painted these Escher juves:

And added these Brother Vinni Jungle Fighters.

Finally, here's two fairly ancient Sisters of Sigmar I found to round out the unit.

That makes 14 models and the champion with autopistols and close combat weapons, because I'm hoping I can swamp some Marines in close combat again. That leaves five more, and since I can now have two grenade launchers in the squad for no cost, and I arguably have the models, why not? That leaves three autogunners.

**

I wasn't that sold on my Chaos Lord last time around, so this time I'm bringing back my favorite 8th ed. HQ choice: my Dark Apostle. She now automatically comes with two Dark Disciples, and I have a Davidians Command box from Raging Heroes (which I used earlier to make an Enginseer for my machine cultists); it occurred to me that they would also make nigh-on perfect Slaanesh Dark Disciples.

**

Last time, I had a Vindicator that got very little done and blew up. This time, for a little taste of Gladius, I got myself a Chaos Dreadnought.

This was a fun model to assemble, with lots of weapon options. I went for the Gladius loadout of reaper autocannon and power scourge, but magnetized everything so I can swap them out if I want. The gun arm was easy: I drilled a hole and slotted in a magnet.

The model has been done quite cleverly so that all the various weapons fit onto the shoulder joint, and with a matching hole and magnet on the weapon, it fits perfectly.

The left arm is different, with each mêlée weapon having its own shoulder, so I put a magnet on the body and another one inside the power scourge shoulder.

Here's the finished article:

The dreadnought is wearing the same dark green and silver livery as my Chaos Lord, and I kinda like it. Now that most of the weapons don't cost anything, though, I built myself a multi-melta.

**

I also wanted to bring my Berzerkers, Faciebam Deum Ex Sanguine. In their debut, they were gloriously wiped out in close combat, carving their way through several characters and a conscript blob. They were also the stars of our third game, where they were nearly destroyed beating up some loyalist vehicles and Knight Armigers. I love my Berzerkers, and I've managed to paint them as well.

I will again register my disappointment that they no longer get any meaningful wargear choices. I don't like this new 40k at all.

**

Here's the list:

HQ - Dark Apostle - 95 points 

Troops - Cultists Mob (20) - 100 points [195] 

Elites - Helbrute - 105 points [300] 

Elites - Berzerkers (8) - 176 pts

+ Mark of Khorne [15], Berzerker icon [5] = 196 points [496]

And here's the army.

My strategy is very simple: I'm going to run at the sniveling loyalists and beat them up.