With Warpcon this coming weekend I wanted to take a look at the missions in the rules pack to just get my head round what’s needed to actually attempt to win some games.
I often find myself losing sight of the victory conditions and just wading in looking for as much death and destruction as possible. Whilst this is great, if you’re going to table someone, even then that doesn't guarantee a full win of 20-0.
The pack is pretty standard for the 40K Irish tournament scene with one exception, the introduction of a new rule, Nemesis.
Nemesis
The unit or independent character that achieves the first blood objective becomes the Nemesis, If the Nemesis is Removed as a casualty by the end of the game it is worth 1 VP to your opponent, If First Blood was Achieved, but not by a unit or character, then choose a unit, in your army and on the table, at random, to become the Nemesis.
Now I spoke at length about the First Blood rule being critical in 6th edition here.
With the introduction of this rule I think it really shakes things up and makes “core 6 th ed list building” not quite the same from my Point of view anyway. The emphasis on hiding squishy things is replaced by the idea of taking FB with something that is hardy and can hide out somewhere, but that’s a discussion for another time if this rule becomes more prevalent.
Anyway, on to the missions for the tournament:
Just to note the secondary for all of the Missions are:
Slay the Warlord, First Blood, Nemesis, Linebreaker. – These grant a VP each.
And VPs gained with the Warlord Personal Trait "Legendary Fighter" if rolled
The Secondary’s are calculated with +/- based on number of VPs each player earned.
Game one:
VANGUARD STRIKE deployment
Primary Objectives: Crusade (5 objectives) One objective is placed in the centre of each table quarter and one in the centre of the table.
This is what the table should look like, the triangles can flip sides but you will have 1 objective centrally with 3 roughly down the middle of no man’s land.
This is a pretty straightforward game to play, making sure you have three scoring units that are on objectives at game end, a fair bit of this will come down to deploying correctly and manoeuvring into position to take and hold.
Game Two
DAWN OFWAR Deployment
Primary Objectives: Purge the Alien
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| Artists Impression |
This mission is all about minimising casualties and maximising kills, it’s your standard Kill Points affair with not much to really think about.
Game Three:
HAMMER AND ANVIL deployment
Primary Objective: Big Guns Never Tire (3 Objectives worth 3 VPs each) Placed 12 inches apart and 12 inches from the board edge along the centre of the board between the two deployment zones.
Big Guns Never Tire means that your Heavy Support choices count for a VP when they are killed, this means that either I need to have 2 of 3 objectives and lose my Colossuseseseses OR them not die and I still get 2.
So two objectives need to be secured to take this one, with the Hammer and Anvil deployment it means that the Big guns can hide away at the back and still provide fire support.
Game Four:
DAWN OF WAR deployment
Primary Objective: The Relic
The Relic is an odd mission, the need to be swift to go and grab the thing is important, so is being able to shoot anything that can get near it as well. This will likely end up as a huge scrum in the middle, the main issue will be nippy armies that can infiltrate or zip onto it in the first turn and start running before I have a chance to close the distance.
Game Five:
VANGUARD STRIKE deployment
Primary Objective: The Scouring (3 Objectives worth 3 VPs each) One placed in the centre of the board and the others 18 inches either side, along a diagonal line through the centre of the board, between the two deployment zones
The Scouring makes all fast attack scoring and worth 1 VP when they are killed, problem with the Vendettas is that they are too high up on flying bases to score. The table will also be different depending on the opponent, as you can see form the diagram, it could end up with 1 objective in each deployment (red blobs) or with three up the middle (blue blobs). This could make a huge difference as this is the final game and favours fast armies with the potential to zoom onto objectives and have them captured quickly.
Overall the rulespack looks like it will work well with plenty of scoring troops, something that I have recommended before in 6th ed.
My list has a potential 8 scoring units, although none of them particularly resilient, they are guardsmen after ll. These can of course be reduced to bigger more resilient blobs and a lot of my games are going to be decided at deployment most likely. For anyone curious the list is here.
Regardless of what happens, this is one of, if not the biggest Wargames events in Ireland every year and also a great craic for all involved. I just hope that my social obligations do not end up with me under performing due to alcohol related performance reduction.
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| One man really knows about Gin. |
Hopefully I’ll see some people there who read the blog, if anyone actually does, I’ll be on the bottom tables getting smashed mostly, I imagine, but it’s all about having fun. And when I fail to do well, it’s the taking part that counts!
