Battle Brothers I - How I See It.

Battle Brothers I is over and I can safely say it was a tournament of two halves. Out of 119 Battle Brothers, Team Claws and Fists finished a rather surprising 29th, troubling the top 25% for probably the first time in the history of this blog. Was it a moment of tactical genius or were Gav and I taken over by extra terrestrial beings of immense power, superior table-top war-gaming ability and fabulous dress sense? You can decide for yourselves as I recount our experiences at Warhammer World this weekend with a report from each game every day this week (you lucky reader, you!).

To keep you tided over until the first one drops on Monday afternoon I thought I'd say a little something about the tournament in general.

Firstly, show me the money! These weekends are not cheep, at a little under £100 they are about twice the price of the independent tournaments (per head), so what do you get for your money? Well, the food's really good ... they give you a pen in the player pack, which is presented in a card folder ... and you get a plastic name badge ... erm ... they provide trays for your army. Oh and they run a 5 game tournament over the weekend. Joking aside I don't think it's terrible value for money but I am a little disappointed that there's not some prize support or just better trophies for all of the winners; let's be honest, the certificates they give to the winners (glass trophies for 1st place aside) are more than a little bit rubbish.

Secondly, random pairings. There was no "Swiss" system for the pairings, it was randomly done for every round. If I really think about this I've got to say it doesn't bother me greatly, it goes with GW's philosophy for discouraging serious competition which is fine, it is their game after all! However I do like the way that the Swiss system will typically put players of a similar ability together after a couple of games. That said, I think each methodology has it's place in the tournament scene, and if I go to a ranking tournament I would expect it to be a Swiss pairing system but for something where even if I win every game I'm still not guaranteed to win (more on that at the end of the week) then random pairings is perfectly fine. Thinking about it more, we play a dice game, we should all be comfortable with a reliance on the random.

I could go on but I'll just finish off by saying that this is not a tournament for players expecting to be rewarded for smashing each of their opponents out of the park. If you want to be judged purely on your ability to play the game, stick to the independent circuit. However, if you can get past the fact that your results may not transform themselves into a podium placing (or whatever your aspirations are) then you'll certainly enjoy tournaments like this. Not just because it attracts a very different spectrum of gamers from the indie circuit but because there's a slightly more relaxed mood in the room, or at least that's how I saw it.

Did anyone here also attend Battle Brothers this weekend, or have you been to a GW Doubles Tournament in the past? Let us know what you thought about the event in the comments below.

The Week That Was ...

I'm in a glass case of emotion!

26^th October – 1^st November

Chaos Win

Looks like I may have done well to avoid playing Mick’s Chaos list last week because I was roundly spanked by Gav’s Chaos Marines/Daemons list this Thursday. In fairness the list is something we’re working on together for the Battle Brothers tournament in January so Gav cannot be held wholly responsible for the giant slice of gorgonzola that he served up to me and, but for some poor dice and poor decision-making, I could have done a lot better. Before I spout off about the game here’s an overview of the lists:

1500pts - Purge the Alien/Vanguard

Marines/Daemons:

Huron

Great Unclean One of Nurgle

Flamers of Tzeentch (5)

2x Chaos Space Marine Squad (14) 2x Plasma, 1 Sgt w. Lightning Claw

Pink Horrors (5) w. The Changeling

Helldrake w. Baelflamer

Screamers of Tzeentch (5)

Obliterators (2) MoN

Tyranids

Prime w. 2x Boneswords & Deathspitter

2x Hive Guard (3)

2x Termagant (10)

2x Tervigon Crushing Claws, Cluster Spines, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, three 6^th ed Powers

Raveners (5) Rending Claws

Carnifex Brood (2) 2x TL Devourers each

I went second but due to Huron’s Trait I was basically deploying blind as Gav rolled a 3 for his number of units able to infiltrate. I set up a fairly balanced front but with the ‘fex/Prime unit  on my left flank in cover but within reach of his Oblits, and the Raveners dead centre. I also held both units of Termagants in reserve. Gav infiltrated his two large Marine Squads in cover to my right with Huron’s unit more towards the centre.

The first turn began with Gav getting his preferred wave so down came the Screamers, right in front of my Raveners, and the Flamers, right between my Carnifexes and a unit of Hive Guard. The Screamers turbo-boosted over my Raveners causing about 3 wounds and the Flamers took two wounds off the Prime and one off a Carnifex. Could have been worse! In my first turn I poured the Carnifexes into the flamers reducing them to two models and the two Cluster Spines and Hive Guard into the Screamers, reducing them to two models as well.

Poor decision #1 I did not spawn any ‘gants because this is a VP scenario and I did not want to contribute more VPs to the pool. However if I’d had the units available I’d have been able to mop up the remaining models in each unit giving me 2 VPs for the kills and an extra one for first blood. The ‘gants would have been in a relatively safe position and able to react to the next wave of Daemons to drop.

Poor decision #2 I charged the remaining Flamers with my ‘fex/Prime unit. The overwatch fire caused 3 wounds killing off the wounded Carnifex and the resulting combat only succeeded in killing 2 of the remaining 3 Flamers. This was largely caused by my decision not to shoot the remaining Flamers with the nearest unit of Hive Guard though as they could probably have finished them off!

Poor decision #3 Charging Huron’s unit with my Raveners, through cover, at a distance of 9”. Obviously this was unsuccessful and the overwatch fire took the unit down to 3 models. Not good!

Sure enough Gav got the Great Unclean One and the Horrors next, blocking the progress of my ‘fex/Prime unit with the big fella and putting the Horrors in my backfield to give me another reason to think twice before advancing on his juicy units of Marines. His shooting was effective, finishing off the Raveners in the middle and taking a wound off the Tervigon on the extreme right flank. My shooting phase, however, was much more productive ... for Gav! I chose to spawn two units of ‘gants this time and one of the units in reserve came on, from here on in I think the rest of the turn can be summed up as follows:

Poor decision #4 I chose to shoot at the Pink Horrors! Sure enough the unit of Termagants failed their leadership and shot at the recently spawned unit of ‘gants killing a couple of models. Then (less stupidly – but no less unsuccessfully) my Tervigon failed his leadership test and plonked his pie-plate on top of the depleted ‘gant unit finishing them off.

Poor decision #5 After charging the Great Unclean One (who was Enfeebled I might add) with a bunch of poisoned ‘gants I also piled in my Carnifex and Prime. If I’d rolled better this would have been fine but as it was I got stuck in combat for another 2 player turns eventually losing the Prime to a challenge and everything else along the way. Only taking the Great Unclean One with me thanks to a Warp Speed buffed Tervigon charging in a turn later.

The rest of the game was rather academic since I lost all three secondary conditions and was behind on VPs even without those. I definitely could have played it better but at least I’m seeing what I’ve done wrong and hopefully I can correct this in the future.

I’m not putting it all down to my mistakes either, Gav played a blinder (clearly still sore about Space Hulk the previous week), but I think that if I’d kept my wits about be and not been quite such a knuckle-head I could have given him a bit more of a game!

If I could do it all again I would have spawned ‘gants in turn 1 and not allowed the Daemons in my back-field slow my advance. Also I should have just tar-pitted the Great Unclean One with poisoned ‘gants, they would have killed him eventually and I think my Monstrous Creatures would have had a good chance at wiping the Marine squads if they’d been able to get there!

I think that playing Tyranids, more than any army I’ve used before, requires you to have a rock solid plan going into a game and a number of factors (some of which may be out of your control) can quickly wreck that plan making recovering anything from the game very hard work. Not to mention that if you plan poorly or make silly mistakes during the game, any chance of being competitive can very quickly go out of the window. This is undoubtedly a lesson that applies to all armies and it’s a testament to my lack of success at tournaments that I have not been able to learn this lesson to date. Perhaps my experiences with Tyranids will make a better player out of me!

And in other news

Overpowered units. When 6^th was brand spanking new, everyone was asking, “How are you going to deal with Flyers?”. I think that in most situations (even though this question still pops up more often than not) my answer is, “I’m just going to ignore them”. Admittedly it’s going to be very hard to ignore multiple Vendettas when playing a Monstrous Creature-heavy list, but in that case I will try to force them to Hover to make the most out of their Lascannons and at that point I need to be in position to jump on them with something killy! Perhaps this is a naive position but I’m going to drop shooting capability from my next test list and see how it goes.

Now the overpowered unit label seems to have been applied to those troublesome Screamers and Flamers from the Chaos Daemons Codex and I have to say that they certainly do worry me, particularly as I’m probably not going to be carrying any significant shooting in the next few test lists. However if you play a list with a suitable amount of shooting in it, and as this is 6^th ed you really ought to be able to shoot, I can’t see these units being unmanageable. If you put fire-power into them they will crumble and then what has the list got? Probably some very poor scoring units with low survivability and a Monstrous Creature or two, this should be manageable. If a game is balanced you should not be able to win easily, it should be tough, it should be a challenge. And I really don’t qualify 27 Screamers and 27 Flamers as an “I Win Button”.

Let’s hear your thoughts, I’m sure you all have some!

The week that was ...

I don't know how to say this, but I'm kind of a big deal!

19th -25th October 2012

Chaos fail

My first taste of the new Chaos Marine 'dex was postponed this week because, quite frankly, Mick had bigger fish to fry. I'd put together a not completely hopeless 500pt Tyranid list to face him though so I hope we can reprise our game this week.

In the absence of a game against them, I took a closer look at the codex and decided that actually the "Typhus/Plague Zombies/anything else you like really", list does look good, does look like something I want to play and does look very reasonable cost-wise thanks to Mantic's release of the Corporation Zombies deal. Not so good for Battle Brothers but very good for the wallet!

Rumors abound

For those of you that don't follow Faeit 212, and why the hell don't you - do it NOW, there have been lots of leaks surrounding the pre-christmas release schedule. Most notable, in my 40K biased opinion, are the Wall of Martyrs, The Space Marine and Necron Mega Forces. In the past the Mega Forces have been pretty damn good deals so keep an eye on them because if they are for armies you like/collect this is probably going to be a good investment.

In other news, the on-again/off-again, maestro of SEO - Adam from The Space Wolves Blog appears to be back on the scene again and is threatening to unite all the Blogs disgruntled with BoLS's treatment of the common Blogger and to pick up where FtW's blog roll left off but with even more pazzaz! Colour me apathetic but I'll leave you to make what you will of it (Ed - Andy's opinions do not necessarily represent the opinions of Claws and Fists)

In other media

Some of you may know I'm a big fan of Podcasts. I'm currently listening to The Independent Characters and the 11th Company (never missed an episode of either) and I've picked up again with The D6 Generation (not a 40K podcast but an excellent general gaming one).

Over the last two episodes the Independent Characters have been reviewing the first Book in the Horus Heresy series from Forgeworld, "Betrayal". If you are in any way on-the-fence about this book, I strongly urge you to listen to the last two episodes as they are a really superb, in-depth review of the content, both fluff and rules, by a couple of guys who have a great understanding and enthusiasm for the project. In addition to this the Podcast is very entertaining no matter what aspect of 40K they are talking about so why not subscribe while you are at it.

The 11th Company are still doing what they have been doing sublimely for the last 138 episodes most recently they have delivered some very interesting insights into the world of Tournament Organisers in the US and some early (typically cynical) opinions on the Chaos Marines Codex. Though credit where it's due Neil "he's not going to lie to you" Gilstrap has managed to maintain a cautiously optimistic take on the new codex. I think it's important to remember that when you listen to these guys they are coming from a position of playing for wins in a highly competitive setting but if you're not that type of player this really shouldn't put you off listening to the podcast, it consistently provides fantastic tactical insights into play-styles and list building that I have not found anywhere else on the internet ...

... at least not since 40KUK went AWOL, just a little note here that I miss you guys and I hope that you get a new episode out soon; and please, for the love of god, sort out your sound quality. The content is epically good but I found the last one almost impossible to listen to!

And finally

I'm a pretty keen computer gamer as well as doing the 40K stuff, and recently X-Com has had me poised over the "add to cart" button on Steam. I keep telling myself I can wait until the Winter sale, where it's bound to be 25% off, but I'm not sure I have the self restraint to follow through. Fortunately my buddy Tee has been keeping me distracted with games of Dawn of War 2, Orc Must Die 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 (I'm all about sequels). These games are all excellent, particularly in the co-op multiplayer stakes but I'm not sure how long the distraction will continue to be effective. And really, why am I punishing myself about this ;)

Anyone else out there a keen PC gamer? What have you been playing recently?

What I don't like about 40K

I've been playing 40k for about 2 years now, I play pretty much once a week and I've attended about 12 tournaments over that period. I own well over 5000 points of Space Marines/Blood Angels, 2000 points of Orks and about 1750pts of Tyranids. I also read a large amount of blogs and listen daily to several excellent podcasts. I think it's fair to say that I'm fairly well immersed in the hobby, recently I think I've been able to put my finger on something that has been bothering me about the game.

I like to think of myself as a fairly relaxed gamer, I would certainly not consider myself WAAC or even that bothered about winning. But despite that I do tend to come away from some games (wins and losses) with a sour taste in my mouth and, I am sad to say, that these can be both tournament and friendly games.

I think there are a couple of reasons for this, firstly rules interpretation. Sometimes I come away from games feeling that the winner has been decided by whoever stood more firmly behind their interpretation of a rule (or rules) or who was more willing to be relaxed about a particular call on a grey-area of the rules. This can and has gone for and against me in the past and it sours both wins and losses equally. Cover saves for vehicles are a perfect example of this, in the current meta-game vehicles are king and keeping them alive is crucial to many a game-plan, so getting cover saves can make or break a strategy. Proving that a vehicle is 50% obscured has surely lead to more arguments and disgruntled losers than any other part of the 40K rule-set. Conversely I know I've felt awkward after sticking to my guns on denying a cover save to my opponent and then blowing up his vehicle.

The second thing that bothers me is bad match-ups. OK, this is a big boy game and part of it is list building, you don't need to tell me that I love list building. What I am starting to object to though is lists that are so powerful that I cannot play the game I want to play and expect to have any fun doing it. This has been sparked by a list I have played a couple of times over the last few months and perhaps I'm just not used to it yet, indeed I used to think the same think about tri-Long Fang Wolf lists, but at the moment I just would not accept a game against that list. If I was drawn against it in a Tournament I would grin a bear it but it would put a cloud over my day. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally against comp restrictions in Tournaments, you should be able to play a list any way you want to. As with the issue I have with rules interpretation, I have also been on the right side of a bad match up and it doesn't feel good either.

So I guess you're going to be thinking something like “all right then genius, what do you propose to do to solve these fundamental issues which spoil the game for you?”. Well short of GW writing a perfect set of rules with no room for interpretation supported by codices which are perfectly balanced across the myriad of army builds they make possible, there's nothing to do really. As I said before I fundamentally disagree with comp restrictions, they are just someone else's interpretation of what makes the game fun. In my opinion, the only fair way to play the game is with the rules as written and make the best of the vagaries and power variances, if that's just not good enough for you then get out of the game and stop whining about it.

For my part I will continue to play 40K, though I'm not going to be playing as regularly as I used to. Perversely I'll probably stick to playing tournaments rather than friendlies, this is because I can pick the ones whose rules packs/philosophies I agree with and I care slightly less about feeling bad after playing someone I just met than someone I'm friends with. Also I resolve to stop concerning myself with my final tournament placing and just do my best to enjoy the weekend playing a game that has got me by the gonads!

Feel free to post below if you agree, disagree or have identified other things which bother you about 40K and let the readers know what you're doing to make the game more enjoyable for you.

All I ask is that it's AWESOME!

Codex reviews/unit reviews; I love them. I love to read them on people's blogs and I love to listen to them on people's podcasts. All of them inspire me to try out new units in armies I already play and many of them flip that little internal switch that triggers my “that's going to be my next army” gene. Often the reviewers come up with ways to use units that I hadn't previously considered and again that just makes me wish I played more often than once a week, and recently I've been struggling to manage even that!

Something which crops up consistently though, which is beginning to grate on me a bit, is reviewers suggesting ways to “correct” the “flaws” in a particular unit. For example “Those Grey Knight Terminators are OK but if they could take Storm Shields and assault on the turn they deep strike in they would be awesome!” or “Well, Coteaz is a solid HQ choice but for his stat line I feel he is rather over-costed.” … OK those are not real examples but it's not a million miles off some of the stuff I have read/listened to recently and to both of those and comments like them I say “Poppycock!”.

You heard me. People do still say that, look it up in the Urban Dictionary. No you don't get a link, it's your language, use it or lose it.

I'm not going to start stating the obvious stuff about how units compliment each other and compensating for a unit's weakness elsewhere in your list is one of the ways to build effective armies. I'm not going to go into this because the guys who do unit reviews usually put this in the paragraph after they wish-list how to make the unit perfect and,more importantly, because I'm not really any good at it. Have you ever read one of my lists? I'm not shy about posting them!

Now this is not meant to be a criticism of the guys who review Codices. I love your work, keep it up, it inspires me even though you are pushing me closer to bankruptcy on a daily basis. But please lets just consider how boring the game would be if every unit in every Codex was tuned to perform it's job to absolute perfection. Assault units would all rock power weapons, have 3++ saves and access to re-rolls across the board. Anti-infantry fire support units wouldn't get out of bed for anything less than a 24”, assault 2 S6 rending weapon that ignores cover.

I think we can all agree that would be pretty boring.

However with all that said there are still units out there which are widely recognised as being so devoid of use that they NEVER see the light of day. In the spirit of this article, have you ever found an effective use for one of these units? For example have you managed to come up with a use for the Pyrovore beyond being an unattractive paperweight? Or have you employed Mandrakes and never once wished that GW had just given Dark Eldar Genestealers? Please leave comments below.

A Gaming Dad.

It's a Thursday night and I'm sat at home in front of my computer instead of down at Warhammer World laying the smack down upon my fellow “Claws&Fistians”. Of course I assumed that they would all think I was glued to my old/new addiction (World of Warcraft) and while I will pop on in a bit I thought I'd write a blog post to let them know I've not gone completely over to the dark-side … yet.

The reason that I'm at home is because my wife asked me if I'd mind skipping my weekly gaming night-out because she's not feeling well and would like some help with the baby. Now there's any number of things that are wrong with this excuse, particularly the fact that Dan goes to bed at 7:00 and sleeps like the dead so he really isn't any trouble. But my missus is extremely cool about me disappearing off to play 40k every Thursday so when she asks me to miss a week I know better than to say anything other than “Sure, no problem.”!

Obviously keeping the wife on-side is an important part of being a Gaming Dad but the thing that I probably worried about most before Daniel arrived was the impact that he would have on my free time. With a year's worth of experience under my belt I can look back and feel a bit stupid about that. It's not that becoming a Dad doesn't soak up a lot of the free time that you had before but it's more about the fact that I can't think of anything I'd rather do than spend time with my son. It's probably a bit of a cliché but becoming a Dad changes your priorities.

Don't get me wrong, I still love to play games, 40K, WoW and any number of PC and board games. Spending time with your child does not mean having to neglect any of your hobbies it's not even a balancing act, it's just something you settle into naturally. I guess it's much easier though with a partner who gives you the support you need to be able to do it so I have to say that I am a lucky man in that respect.

So it's at this point where I might say something like so far so good but it's going to get more demanding the older he gets, but if I said that then I would have learned nothing over the last year. In fact I'm sure that as Dan gets older things will change but only for the better, at the very least I'll get to massage my win-loss ratio for a couple of years.

Any other gaming dads out there? Please comment below.

That guy?

You hear a lot about “that guy”, he pops up in podcasts, people write blog posts about him and GW have even made reference to “that guy” in White Dwarf. However I can't say that I've ever had the displeasure of bumping into “that guy” at a tournament, maybe that's because I spend most of my time playing far away from the top tables but I don't think he's necessarily a top table fixture. Maybe I've just been lucky but I think there's more to it than that.

I think a player's own outlook can greatly affect how he perceives the person across the table from him. So perhaps “that guy” is just a reflection of certain people's perceptions and expectations? A little harsh and certainly not the whole story but I do think that there's a good chance that some people will meet “that guy” more often than others will.

This may also partly be down to the fact that I expect everyone defines “that guy” slightly differently. Someone may see a MSU Space Wolves player and immediately label him “that guy”, alternatively it may take another player to have to cheat or do something blatantly rude before his opponent would remember him as “that guy”. Is “that guy” a win at all costs gamer or someone who is just genuinely unpleasant?

For me “that guy” is just someone who I really didn't enjoy playing against, not because I lost or because he played a tough list but just because he didn't make the game any fun for me to play. I expect this is a common definition for “that guy” but what makes an opponent fun to play against is a personal thing and is going to be different for different people hence my comment above about him being a reflection of a person's own opinions.

So after all this pontificating I think I must conclude that “that guy” doesn't exist, he's literally a figment of your imagination. I'm a firm believer that you are in sole control over your own emotions so your opponent shouldn't have any effect over your enjoyment of the game. Play it how you want to and make sure you enjoy it!

Uh oh! I'm doing the BOLS “change-the-colour-and-ask-the-audience-a-question(tm)” bit. Have you ever met that guy? Do you think there is such a gamer? Tell us about your experiences and how you cope when you do face off against “that guy”.