X-Wing Review

Hold on tight, prepare to read.

There are 5 things that makes X-Wing one of the best miniatures games I've ever played.

Simple and Clean

X-Wing has one of the smoothest rulesets I've ever played in a minis game.  There's only a few phases in the game and generic special rules that you have to follow and that's pretty much it.  Movement is completely dictated by visual aids and helped along with pre-determined measurement sticks.  Everything that you want to do is printed out, provided and helped along on the tabletop so you clearly see what's going on at all times.  I find this to be the future of miniatures gaming in general.  Warmachine has battle tokens to symbolize exactly how many Focus a Warcaster has, and if he casts something, you place the corresponding spell token down on the table.  Warhammer recently came out with magic spell cards that you can put near a unit being afflicted by a spell.  Anything that helps the player visually is extremely important in speeding up gameplay as well as keeping the game itself organized.  X-Wing takes it one step further in that you don't need a ruler to play the game.  You simply pull out a flight stick and move the distance in your speed dial, or measure with a range stick how many dice you can throw in attack.  It's simple, clean and effective.

The game itself is easy to setup and plays fast.  You can play most games no matter how grueling in under an hour.  Part of this is because there's no ruler to calculate every single inch or half inch, and everything is in front of your face so it's impossible to forget.  This is extremely attractive for the modern gamer because you can build a list, put your models on the table and get to playing right away.  It plays smoother, faster, and you can fit more games in the same time you would another minis game.  To make things even easier, you don't even need to paint the minis because they come pre-painted.  I checked out some of the minis in person recently and they're pretty damn good for the price you pay for it.  You can always re-paint them if you don't like how they look after all.  X-Wing, in this regard, is more than just a miniatures game, it's the Steam-equivalent of what miniatures game should be in the modern era.  I don't need to construct or paint anything, I can simply open up the box of minis and put them straight onto the table.

Personality and Depth

When I say the game is simple to play, I don't mean it's shallow.  One of the biggest concerns that I have with any game going in is the skill cap.  If I'm going to be invest time, effort, and most importantly, money into a hobby, I want it to be worth my time.  As a hardcore gamer, the hobby side of things is already taken care of so I'm thankful the minis I put on the table won't look like ass.  With that out of the way, I can focus on the core gameplay mechanics and rip it apart from top to bottom.  Out of the five games I've played so far, there is a huge amount of depth lying underneath the easy to learn ruleset.  This, my friends, is how you know you got a winner.

One of my favorite games ever created is Pokemon.  On the surface level, it's easy enough that even a child can understand it:  Fire burns grass and water puts out fire.  A lot of people stop right here and that's perfectly fine.  If they want a game that they can go around and collect Pokemon with their friends, good for them.  However, if they really want to dig into the game and find out the inner workings of it, they'll find something so alien and unfathomable that it'll be like playing something completely different.  Now enter the world of competitive battling:  Tiers, EVs, IVs, natures, breeding, and specific movesets that shapes and molds an entirely different metagame.  To me, this is where the game really begins.

X-Wing is no different in that regard.  Despite having a remarkably simple ruleset, there's a near infinite level of possibility and customization.  We all know there's several different kinds of ships that's used to shoot down other ships.  What we need to realize is that there's several ranks to these spacecraft with different pilot skills, different ships have different maneuverability, unique pilots have their own special rules, modifications, weapon upgrades, elite pilot skills, the list goes on.  All of these elements come with built-in or added points costs, so list design is very thought-provoking and fun.  In a standard tournament point range of 100 points, you can do virtually anything you want with the options presented to you.  This is where the game truly becomes challenging as you're customizing your playing experience based on your personal preferences.  No other minis game in the last decade presents itself this way in my honest opinion.  This game truly exemplifies the meaning of "easy to learn, hard to master."

Action and Reaction

I'm not going to lie when I say this, but I'm pretty done with the my-turn-your-turn ideology of gameplay.  It's an awful system to begin with and one of the reasons why games like that don't sing to me the way they used to.  As an competitive RTS player at heart, I enjoy live action where you can make important decisions in real time.  Since you can't really do it in a miniatures game, you have an action/reaction system instead.  When your opponent does something to you, I want to be able to answer back instead of just pulling models off the table.  This is just a method of gaming that I like and I understand that it is not the same for everybody.  Infinity has a similar system via AROs and honestly, that's the only thing I like about that game.  In short, there's nothing more insulting than watching your opponent total you without being able to do anything in response.  That's one of the reasons why I've shied away from Warmachine and one of the reasons why I think Seize the Initiative is the worst thing to happen to 40K.  Sure, you can do the same thing to your opponent, but that's no way to enjoy a game.

One of the best gameplay features from X-Wing is how it incorporates Pilot Skill into how players act and react in a game.  When the round starts, pilots with the lowest skill moves first, followed by the pilots with higher skill.  Whether or not this shows the rookie's inexperience and eagerness for battle is up to your imagination.  The fact is, this happens to the entire board and both players activate their pilots in corresponding order.  Because the action phase happens immediately after a single pilot makes his move, the higher skilled pilots can react to how aggressive the lesser skilled pilots are and adjust their actions accordingly.  If a lower pilot overextends, a higher skilled pilot might want to kill him right away.  Should the pilot who moved first anticipate this, he might want to Evade during his action phase.  When it comes down to the combat phase, the pilots with the highest pilot skill shoots first before going down the skill tree.  This not only portrays the experience of the pilot, but it helps maintain the fluidity of active gameplay.  Regardless of how you look at it, both players are constantly moving their ships around during the movement phase.  This makes the game much more enjoyable for both players because they're both actively playing the game.

Prediction and Bluffing

Going back to Pokemon, one of the most difficult things to master in that game is prediction.  Prediction is a skill that only experience or instinct can leverage and once mastered, will give you an edge over your opponent.  If I predict my opponent will switch out his Pokemon right now, I'll be able to setup this ability that'll allow me to sweep his team.  Does he go for it?  Only experience will tell him what to expect, and sometimes he will guess wrong and it'll mean his downfall.  This is a chance that every competitive player has to take, but he'll be able to make more educated guesses the more he plays the game.  At the end of the day, prediction adds another layer of strategy where lesser game systems don't provide it at all.

Now enter X-Wing, where the entirety of the Planning Phase is based on prediction, anticipation, and guesstimation.  Every single move you make on the battlefield before your pilots even start turning is made with a movement dial placed face down.  Each type of ship has its own movement dial and thus, every ship's ability to maneuver is different.  An X-Wing will not be able to pull off the same maneuvers as an Tie Fighter and that's something both players will have to learn.  The best example I can give here is that: You have two Tie Fighters closing in on your tail and you're down to your last hull point.  Your ship is already turning soft left, so do you want to hard bank right to try to throw them off?  Maybe if you fly straight ahead you can gain some distance between them.  What if you preform a Koiogran Turn right now and go out guns blazing?  Now imagine the same situation with different pilot skills on the table where movement actually happens in ascending order.

The morale of the story is:  The X-Wing decided to bank hard right and the Imperial player predicted he would.  Not only did they go in the right direction, but they closed the distance and ended up with +1 attack dice for being in range 1.  Hmm.. gg wp.

Fun and Immersive

Probably the biggest draw that any game has going for it is simply; how fun it is to play.  This is incredibly subjective and normally compounded over several different things.  For me, I think the game is awesome.  The ruleset is easy to learn, but the game itself is hard to master.  Prediction is one of the key driving forces to how movement is dictated and it can either be a boon or fatal flaw.  I love skirmish style games and having the ability to play multiple games in the span of a single WHFB game is very appealing.  The buy in cost is also fantastic, although I do hope that FFG put out more stock (stuff literally flies off the shelves, I wonder why).  This is the only game I've played in a while that I can literally go from box to table in a span of a few minutes.  I love the fact I can play with regular pilots as well as the more famous pilots that we see in the movies e.g. Vader and Luke.  I love the customization options and the ability to customize my ships with the pilots that I like, and have them behave exactly how I want.  Most of all, I love the alternating gameplay where both players are immersed in the fantasy that is flying around the galaxy with starfighers.  As a hardcore gamer, this is the perfect game for me.

My friend and I talked about how this game translates the fantasy onto the tabletop, and I think it's near flawless.  A lot of the unique pilots have skills that fits them very well in their each unique way.  This gives them personality, character and the desire for players to make them want to succeed on the table.  I just love how Imperial pilots are more about the individual skill of the pilot themselves and how synergistic the Rebel pilots are with each other.  Sure, a Tie Swarm will look pretty epic, but so is Biggs' heroic sacrifice so Wedge ends up killing everyone.

The best way to describe it is:  If you took a photostory of a game of X-Wing being played and played it back without hands, rulers or dice, it would look like a scene from Star Wars.  In that respect, I think this game nailed it.

Dark Elves: Unit Review

What did the horse say?

Competitive unit review of the new Dark Elves book.  This review will focus on how Dark Elves will preform from an external balance point of view.

LORDS and HEROES

Malekith - 2/5
Just way too expensive for what he does.  The guy is 510 points and is basically a lesser version of Teclis and a lesser version of Tyrion mixed into one character.  This lack of focus and the fact his primary abilities are kind of gimmicky makes him a poor choice overall.  Oh, you can also take him on a his dragon for an absurd amount of points if you really want to.

Mortahi - 3/5
Not the greatest character, but for her points, she's not bad at all.  She's basically a Supreme Sorc that has more lore flexibility and can fight on her Dark Peggy.  The fact she's packing some powerful weaponry, an innate 4+ ward and MR2 (2++ vs. magic missiles), and she has everything built in nicely for her cost, I say she's a solid choice.  If you want to go the flying route, I know I would rather have Mortahi over a standard Supreme Sorc because of her extra special rules.  At 375, if you're going for the peggy spellcaster, there's no better option.

Hellebron - 4/5
The reason why I don't rank her higher is because she has absolutely nothing defensive about her anymore.  She lost Parrying Blade and gained some useless S4 backlash in return, but the damage and toolbox has increased dramatically.  Coming in at 310 points, she packs 5 base + Super Frenzy + D3 attacks for a total of 10 possible attacks at WS7 I9 ASF Poison S10 with re-roll 1s to wound.  If that's not crazy, I don't know what is.  She comes with Warcry which is super Fear on -3 Ld., Witchbrew which makes her and unit of Witches get super Frenzy (+2 attacks), and Rune of Khaine which is what gives her +D3 extra attacks.  Hellebron also gives magic protection in her unit in an rather unique way:  All magic spells targeting her unit gets +4 to dispel, so if you have a Supreme Sorc in your army you get +8 to dispel on the unit.  Not bad per se, but I would rather see MR3 personally.

Malus Darkblade - 2.5/5
Not really that great, especially for his points cost.  The reason why is simply because more competitive options exist via the Dreadlord and their damn Sea Dragon Cloaks.  I mean, he has one, but his points cost vs. a regular Dreadlord is a little shoddy, and you know for sure the dude you build isn't going to go berserk and cut down your own guys.  Plus, aside from the 1+ AS, he doesn't have much protection.

Dreadlord/Master - 4.5/5
These guys are basically better versions of the High Elf equivs in every way.  You have ASF, the same stats, but now you have re-roll 1s to wound in CC and have the Sea Dragon Cloak.  In case you guys don't know yet, SDC gives the bearer 5+ Scaly Skin which can be stacked with armor as usual.  This means you have 1+ AS for Heavy Armor, Shield and just being mounted, otherwise you're running 2+ AS for being on foot.  This makes the Dreadlord a much better fighter than their HE counterparts in almost every combat scenario and magic item combination.  For example, you can easily run a 1+ AS with re-roll, Giant Blade and OTS on the same guy, which is not possible for a HE Prince.

Supreme Sorc/Sorceress - 4.5/5
In terms of sheer flexibility, the Dark Elves are incredibly strong now.  All of their mages can take all the book lores as well as having their own Dark Magic.  This itself unlocks a huge array of tactics and strategies that otherwise wouldn't exist.  Where the arcane item selection doesn't stand out like the Book of Hoeth, a few pieces here and there are still pretty noteworthy.  That, and the fact that Dark Magic packs its own test-or-die spell makes DE mages some of the best in the game.

High Beastmaster - 2/5
This guy is pretty much the Anointed of the DE book.  He's very gimmicky in the fact that he can ride a Manticore for free, but his points is already very expensive for someone with Light Armor and Sea Dragon Cloak.  The only way someone is going to run something that costs 300 points before upgrades is if he really likes the fluff or model.  Having +2D3 extra attacks on the Manticore sounds like a lot of fun, but it's a Manticore and it's going to die just like Griffons do to cannons and other dangerous artillery pieces on the battlefield.

Black Ark Fleetmaster - 1/5
He's basically a 3-wound master with a huge gimmick:  Kill someone or stay alive in a challenge and your unit gets Unbreakable for the rest of the turn.  OK sure, I refuse the challenge.  Now you're left out to dry (lol get it?!) with 50 points of magic items that you can spend trying to get a weapon you'll never use or a AS that doesn't matter.  Garbage.

Shadowblade - 2/5
This guy is a shadow (LOL, lovin' it) of his former self.  He can hide from unit to unit and on the turn he comes out, he's falling on you with 4 S8 attacks with +1 to wound and KB.  Too bad he's expensive, is a one-pump chump, and is sure to die after he makes his attacks.  Honestly, you're much better taking a cheaper Assassin.

Lokir Fellheart - 3/5
Not too bad actually, and the funny part is, Lokir has a better chance killing a mage in a bunker than Shadowblade is.  Lokir has something called Daring Leap that allows him to swing at any enemy character model in the same combat.  Since he's a piratelord, he also has Show No Weakness which then allows him to give the unit Unbreakable if he kills them.  With 4 attacks, S4 and re-roll wounds, he can easily kill an unarmored mage just by being in combat with them.  The 2+ AS that he sports ontop of Regen and Terror gives him quite a bit of durability as well.  A better assassin than the greatest assassin for cheaper, that's just sad.

Kouran Darkhand - 2/5
Great stats, ItP, Stubborn, Eternal Hatred, ASF, S6 alway, man, he seems great right?  No.  Not for the points, not even close.  You want fighters to stay alive so they can actually do the fighting.  In an edition where Stepping Up is an actual thing, you don't want to be a fighting character character with little to no armor.  Unless you're bringing the pain like Hellebron, you're going to be overshadowed and frankly, quite useless.

Tullaris Dreadbringer - 2.5/5
Same deal for this dude, except the fact he gets to give Executioners Frenzy.  He's still paper thin, is pretty expensive and doesn't bring anything to the table but killing a few models and dying in return.  Keep in mind that this is a game about points.  You want to maintain a good KDR where you can say with confidence:  This model killed X amount of points back and that's why he's great.  This isn't going to happen if you get hit back and you die horribly, especially when he's not packing ASF to go with that lovely 5+ KB.  The only thing I like about him is that he gives Executioners' Frenzy, which can be good and bad depending on situation.

Death Hag/Cauldron - 3/5
This is going to be a slightly longer one because it has to do with two separate entities.  For the Death Hag herself, I see her simply as a tax so you can access the Cauldron.  She's actually quite terrible herself, having no save of any kind but allowing you to give any unit you want Frenzy or activate Cry of War.  Even though she can take magic weapons, I would just keep her as cheap as possible while getting some utility out of her.  She's going to die, even if the Cauldron is there so why even bother.

The main thing about the Cauldron is that while it is decent, it's really expensive. If it was a stand alone choice, I would definitely consider taking it, but as of right now, you're subject to the Death Hag tax. If you're going to take a Death Hag, you're essentially 85+ points to something that's going to be drastically expanding your unit of Witches. From my experience, this leads down a very slippery slope. If you take the Cauldron, you want your unit of Witches to be big. You also want to give the Death Hag the BSB because you don't want to pay extra for a Master, and some gear/tools to prolong her existence. Before you know it, you're spending a crazy amount of points to get things going.  If the Cauldron gave the girl on top a 4+ Ward, some form of strong MR, or abilities like last edition, I would strongly consider it.  Even if you were allowed to re-roll wounds for all units with MP and NOT models within 6", I would strongly consider it.  At its current, the Cauldron is simply another player option, but not a must-have like other people are calling it.

Also, I'm currently playing the thing with re-roll all wounds in CC only.  Despite my powergaming roots wanting me to take it with 4x RBTs, I just can't do it anymore.

Assassin - 2.5/5
Just give the guy a Potion of Strength and extra hand weapon and call it a day.  He's not going to survive prolonged combat, and S7 should be enough to make a dent on anything.  Too bad most of his targets are going to be 300+ tooled up lords that's going to smack him in the face and end it all right there.  While the stats are insanely impressive, he's not exactly in the throw-away zone with all things considered.  If ASF canceled with ASF and then followed Initiative order, the Assassin would be stronger.  Unfortunately, going at the same time with a Chaos Lord is not going to do anything but get yourself killed with very little chance of actually killing him.  Frankly, I wish there was a backstab option that'll allow these guys to swing with no fear of retaliation for one round.  Maybe then they'll be worth something.

CORE UNITS

Dreadspears/Bleakswords/Darkshards - 2.5/5
These are your standardized Elven core infantry units.  They can either use their Spears, hack at things with swords, or shoot at things with RXBs.  The Darkshards' Repeater Crossbows now cost 12ppm so the price is a little up there.  I don't expect to see many big units of these anymore, but a few MSU units of 10 might still see use, especially when they can take the Flaming Banner.  As for the Dreadspears, I expect to see them more over the Bleakswords simply because they get more attacks that can re-roll those 1s due to Murderous Prowess.

Corsairs - 3/5
I would take these guys over the above options any day in the week.  They can sport 4+ AS due to their Sea Dragon Cloaks and you can give them 2x hand weapons so they have more attacks.  The 4+ AS is the best armor any field infantry has seen so far and that's one of the reasons why these guys are good.  At 11ppm with AHW, they will fight with Witches over who's the better core unit.  More on that later.

Dark Riders - 4.5/5
The best Fast Cav in the game currently with the option for 4+ AS without movement penalty, RXB, M9 and ASF Spears.  These guys can be anywhere they want, threaten a large array of enemies with good rolling, and are downright the most cost-effective Fast Cav Core to be seen.  The fact that they cost nothing due to Core allowance makes them absolutely superb:  More drops, provides shooting and Fast Cav status on Dark Steeds means DE heroes will be able to travel with them.

Witch Elves - 4/5
Amazing statline for Core with the exception of being Frenzy.  Frenzy can be a good thing and a bad thing, but in the case of Witches I think this is more good.  Having 3 attacks a piece with I6 ASF Poison is kind of ridiculous, especially when you can take a Razor Standard in the unit and getting that nice Armor Piercing damage.  Having innate ITP also makes these guys great monster killers, and as long as you win the chaff war vs. good opponents, you will not be led astray too much.  This is why it's absolutely pivotal Dark Elves have a strong shooting phase.  You want you units to be able to charge the units that they want and not have to worry about damage in return.  One of the best choices for Core in the meta, as the sheer number of wounds you inflict will make them dangerous to everything in the game.

SPECIAL UNITS

Cold One Knights - 3/5
At 30ppm and S6 on the charge, these guys got better I think.  The ASF really helps guarantee those S6 hits and the fact that Cold Ones now have 2A a piece makes this unit very good.  While not as precise and brutal vs. standard line infantry as Dragon Princes, COKs' access to S6 makes them more effective against a broader spectrum of enemies on the battlefield.  Fear is still there as is Stupidity, but having a unit of 5 on the flank is never a bad idea.

Black Guard - 3/5
In another time period, these guys were the king of the battlefield.  Now at 15ppm and S4 with virtually no protection, these guys can't stand toe to toe with anyone.  Remember, this game is all about points in relation to KDR to how units preform on the battlefield.  Being ItP and Stubborn is a great thing, as is re-rolling to hit with ASF and S4 re-roll 1s, but the fact that a Skaven Slave can run up and chop your ass down and remain Steadfast means that fodder will be grinding it out with DE elites.  These guys basically dropped into Sword Master status in terms of cost-effectiveness.

Shades - 4/5
Probably one of the best things to transition over from the previous book.  S5 GWs as I5 is a very welcome addition to Shades considering they've lost nothing in terms of shooting.  BS5, great coverage vs. any unit, Skirmishers who can scout and harass the enemy for days.  If they ever get in a house, these guys will make your life a living hell as no one wants to take a hail of accurate RXB shots to the face.

Cold One Chariot - 3/5
A good priced S5 T5 chariot with 3+ AS and 4W is very welcome for this army book.  Simply put, these guys make Lion Chariots look like dog crap, especially when you factor in the fact they have Scythes and RXBs as extra bonuses.  A very solid pick for cheap.

Executioners - 4.5/5
The best special unit for Dark Elves right here.  High WS, Ld.9, threatens everything in the game with Killing Blow and re-roll 1s to wound with S6 striking at I5.  At 12ppm, these guys don't get any better than this.  Sure, they fall over to a slight breeze, but their kill potential and range of damage is what keeps these guys in the game.  Smack a SoDiscipline on them and they'll hang tight by matching kills with the opponent's best units and remain equal on KDR.  The fact that DE can now take any lore in the game makes these guys even stronger, since you can buff them to godly levels via magic.

Repeater Bolt Thrower - 4/5
You need these to be a competitive army, simple as that.  I can't say the same for High Elves due to their enormous threat coverage from the Frostheart, but these are an absolute necessity for any competitive DE player.  With so many good units running around with Frenzy, or wants to be Frenzy, picking your charges and negotiating the battlefield via movement is king.  Repeater Bolt Throwers help clear the field of chaff, thus allowing you to move around freely so you can pick your combats.  Having S6 no AS D3 wounds at BS4 also puts the fear of death into popular flying Daemon Princes, who would otherwise be a nightmare to face otherwise.

Harpies - 1/5
Invalidated due to Dark Riders being so amazing.  I guess you can keep a few of these guys around to fly around and be annoying, but there's much cheaper chaff out there so you might as well take the superior Dark Riders.  Plus, you're Dark Elves and you should be shooting in every phase.

Scourgerunner Chariot - 1/5
At 150 points, I don't think so.  Good movement with Elven BS is nice, but suffering the move to hit with long-range penalties is pretty garbage.  Sure, S7 is great, but it needs to hit first and if you're not moving, you're no getting into a good position to make it happen.  I know I'm probably going to regret the day I ignore one of these and eat a bolt to the face, but I'll take my chances and so will other players.  Whenever I see one of these on the battlefield, I know my opponent could of spent points elsewhere that'll be more useful, and guaranteed to do stuff.

War Hydra - 3/5
Alright, I'm going to put these guys as a 3 for right now.  I'm particularly hard on these guys because they're in a very tricky place balance design wise.  Last edition, these guys were the most underpriced monsters in the game, packing a S5 breath for every S and ripping it up with 4+ Regen on top of it.  Now, you got to be very careful how you use Hydras on the battlefield because their play mechanics have been completely redesigned.  Since you can apply a cannonball to a Hydra and have him die instantly, you know for sure he'll be drawing warmachine fire that's otherwise meant for more.. dangerous targets.  Don't get me wrong, the Hydra can still be dangerous because he'll have a buttload of attacks, a S4 breath you can buy, and a potentially annoying regeneration ability (end of your turn, restores a wound for however many wounds lost on a 4+), but Ld. 6 and less protection will see him killed a lot sooner.  This could be a good thing in some cases, but it often results in 160+ points lost with no accomplishment.

RARE UNITS

Doomfire Warlocks - 4.5/5
One of the best things in the army book right here.  These guys have a ridiculous statline and even more ridiculous abilities.  Fast Cav M9 with WS4, ASF, 2 attacks Poison, and comes stock with a 4+ ward (except for Slaanesh).  No Mus or Standard for these guys, but who cares when you count as a Lv.2 Wizard (+1 level for each additional rank) and come with Doombolt and Soulblight.  Being a wizard means you can channel, throw big versions of the spell you're using, but being unique in the fact that when you miscast, you take D3 wounds that can be negated with your ward save.  Their speed, power and potential makes them excellent toolbox units that will see play in every DE army.  Essentially, two in every army will give you more magic missile utility, Soulblight as a toolbox spell, and more channels than you deserve.  At 125 for 5, every competitive player will have two.  And every cheese player will have a big unit with them with a Dreadlord and BSB in tow (until they get 6-dice Choir'd in a tournament and never play again).

Bloodwrack Medusa - 1/5
I'm giving these a pitiful score because they're in a very odd place in the book.  You want them because they do solid damage to low-I, armored units like Mournfangs or the Frostheart Phoenix, but their pitiful range makes them exceptionally bad for that.  Because their ability is only useful against low-I units, this makes them very specialized in their role as well.  With only T4, 3W and no saves of any kind, you can't exactly go about throwing 90 points away for little gain.  I can see what the author was going for, but the points cost is way too steep for what this Ld.2 creature brings to the battlefield.

Kharibdyss - 3.5/5
I mean, why have the Medusa when you can rock the K-Beast.  I've pretty much given up trying to spell and say the name, so I'm defaulting to K-something in all my articles going forward.  Regardless of how you say the name, 5 WS5 attacks at I4 S7 Poison is pretty good.  If you hit a single model with all of your attacks, you get a free D6 extra hits at S7.  All in all, this guy is what you want when you want to punch through heavy armor.  If your Witches or Executioners can't kill their given target and need a little more oomph, you send this dude in to scream slimy death into their face.  Abyssal Howl makes it so you have to re-roll successful leadership tests on any unit engaged touching the K-Beast.  This can be pretty good when taking the Terror test and especially helpful if your opponent is forced to break.  In that case, if either test succeeds, Howl will force a re-roll and your opponent won't be able to use his BSB.  At T5, 5W and 4+ AS for only 160 points, I think he's very worth it.  Just gotta be careful about his Ld.6.

Bloodwrack Shrine - 1/5
This is an overpriced piece of garbage with very little battlefield application.  You would think that giant mirror behind the Medusa will amplify her abilities in a BIG way, but no, the rules have to suck.  The only thing this 175 point unit does is give DE MODELS within 6" of it +1 to their leadership and -1 to enemy MODELS within 6" -1.  Sorry, but that's trash beyond belief, even if you're going for some super gimmicky fear-bomb with Cry of War.  I've never been more disappointed in such a beautiful model going to waste, oh wait, there was the Mutalith Vortex Beast.

Sisters of Slaughter - 3/5
Pretty good unit that has to be used like a swift scalpel.  This is one of those units that are very hit or miss depending on matchup.  Vs. armies that have a lot of shooting, these girls are going to die pretty horribly and not be worth the 15ppm you're spending on them.  Against armies with very little, limited or no shooting, these guys can be fantastic.  Whenever they get in combat with someone, they lose their ability to parry and rank bonuses for the purposes of combat resolution.  In addition, if they have higher WS or S than you, you automatically gain +1 to hit and wound.  I would of like this much more if they had higher S than 3, but a good sized unit of these guys can actually grind it out with Nurgle Halberds due to their 4+ Ward in close combat.  Not as reliable as Sisters of Averlorn because they're running around naked and their save only works in CC, but they can be extremely powerful on a flank since all it takes is one sister to negate all ranks.

WHFB Review: High Elves

Long live the Asur!

High Elves were my first army in WHFB and I've played them for 12 or so years now.  I will tell you right now that this is the best book they've had in the last 3 books.  As for the review itself, it will be written with Overall Design, Internal Balance and External Balance in mind.  Check out this earlier post if you don't know the meaning of these terms.

Overall Design

The game design for High Elves is a tricky one.  You have an army filled with T3 5+ dudes but you somehow need them to be "elite".  This poses a problem because the only realistic way of getting this done in a points-based system is by having them be expensive.  You can't have cheap High Elves, it just doesn't make sense.  Their entire fluff is that they're dwindling, everyone else is getting stronger and the only way they can compete is with superior units.

Now, let me come out and say that I thought army-wide ASF via Speed of Asuryan was the best thing to happen to High Elves in 7th Edition.  Please keep in mind that I'm talking about the 7th Edition High Elves book being played in 7th Edition and not 8th.  The reason why this is so is because you can outright justify an expensive army of elite units.  The rule was simple, elegant and rightfully justified the cost of the army to be high.  A lot of people looked at SoA in 8th and blindly hated it because it turned High Elf units into blenders. Well guess what?  That's not what it was originally intended to be.

The 7th Ed. book was designed in 7th Ed. where SoA was meant to be a damage buffer.  It was something that stopped incoming damage so the limited amount of High Elf models can cheat death and stay alive in close combat.  High Elves can't have the resilience of Dwarfs, or the numbers of Skaven, this is just not their way.  The elite units of Asur needed something else to mitigate damage and that was through striking first, killing the enemy before they can strike, and thus reduce that unit's damage.  The coming of 8th's Steadfast, stepping up, and the fact that a Skaven Slave can take down a White Lion meant that the book desperately needed a rewrite.  Well, that and the fact that High Elves sell pretty well.

Enter the new book.  What has changed exactly?  Mat Ward kept ASF on all the units and gave them all Martial Prowess (fight/shoot in one extra rank).  ASF now cancels with the ASL of Great Weapons so units like White Lions and Sword Masters are no longer the blenders that they were the previous book.  Because of these changes, Ward continues the ideology that the High Elves should be few in number, elite, and are a naturally defensive army.  You can see this through Shield of Saphery (High Magic's lore attribute) especially since each successful spell from High Magic increases your ward save by +1.  If you don't have one, you gain 6+ ward.  With a heavier reliance on High Magic to obtain defensive bonuses, players will need to take full advantage of their magic to negate that damage.  Works for me.

I give Overall Design a 4.5/5.  The main philosophies of the High Elves have all been translated smoothly onto the table:  Small in number, superior in skill, reliant on magic, and naturally defensive.  I even read the fluff and checked it for Draigo nonsense.  NP, all clear.

Internal Balance

In the previous book, High Elves had 3 Core choices:  Archers, Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard.  Now in the new book, High Elves get Ellyrion Reavers and Silver Helms as well.  This suddenly opens tons of player options and so far, no list I've seen looks the same.  There is no obvious choice to make in Core and this is something every player loves.  Books should be made where the options are viable and every choice a difficult one.  There should be no auto-includes.

As we advance through the book and check out some of the old units, you will see plenty of old favorites.  Many of the units haven't changed at all, and for the units that got worse, their points cost was decreased.  For the units that either got better or haven't changed in usefulness, their points didn't move.  Finally, for the units that suffered previously, their points were lowered while their stats were improved.  All of these were done with only minor adjustment in points, no large leaps or uncalled for moves.  Teclis has been brought down in power but saw his points decreased slightly, and Book of Hoeth now has new functionality for a more affordable price.  Even units like the Sword Master gained the ability to Deflect Shots with his sword because you know, it's fluffy.  For the first time in a long time, I haven't seen game balance this good in terms of unit layout and pricing.

When we look at the new units, we have to evaluate how they fit in comparison to other choices in the book.  There is quite a bit of uproar on many gaming forums right now because no one can agree upon a single list.  Every new unit in the book seems to be balanced out nicely in points vs. their abilities.  The Anointed is a more expensive Prince with good unit buffing stats, but he's not as good in melee and lacks the Ld.10 a Prince can offer.  The Loremaster is a Lv.2 who knows all 8 signatures with the stats of a Noble, but he can't ride a barded steed or cast as well as Lv.4.  There is literally no obvious choice and that's something very rare when it comes to an army book.  Even the mighty Frostheart Phoenix who can give units -S and ASL have to compete with the havoc it's fiery brother can cause, especially when an Anointed can take him as a mount and erupt come back on a 5+ instead of 6!

Internally, this is the best book I've seen in 8th Ed. by far.  Not only will people have a different list, but they'll have a different list layout as well.  Different core, different special choices, and even different rare.  The only thing stopping me from giving this a perfect score is the fact that some magic items are "off": 4.5/5.

External Balance

Overall, I'd say this book is good and will probably fall into the middle-high tier with 8th Ed. books in mind.  There's a ton of options to make viable and competitive builds, but there are some definite hits and misses.  For one, the Banner of the World Dragon has the community in an uproar.  While not overpowered in the sense that it's just too good in all match-ups, it's a poorly designed item.  The BotWD can be taken on almost every Special choice because of its price, and it gives the entire unit a 2+ ward vs. magical spells, attacks and weapons.  Against someone like Daemons of Chaos who all have magical attacks, this one item basically shuts down their entire army.  Sure, spells like Dwellers Below still gets around it, but the fact that it's utterly imbalanced vs. some armies and useless vs. others makes it the one hit and miss in the book.

High Elves, in short, will go back to their roots with this new book in terms of external balance.  I can personally see 4 main archetypes rise up from the ashes sort of speak and these are it:  Monster mash with a Prince on Star Dragon, multiple Phoenixes and maybe even a Noble on Griffon.  Magic heavy lists running an Archmage or Alarielle, with special infantry blocks and Phoenixes as support.  Cavalry-centric lists with Silver Helms, Ellyrion Reavers, Dragon Princes led by a Prince on barded steed.  Lastly, we might see shooty heavy lists with Archers, RBTs, Sea Guard, Lothern Sky Cutters, and some other units.  Sure, we might see some cheese builds arise such as Alarielle in a unit of White Lions with the Banner of the World Dragon spamming High Magic, but realistically, you'll probably just get kicked in the throat.

Other than that, I'd say the book's designed well to compete vs. the rest of the 8th Ed. books.  That's basically what I'm looking at these days as the golden age of balance.  You can't really compare the book to something like Dark Elves where you triple their magic items at a quarter of the cost.  That's just a byproduct of an era of gaming no one wants to remember.  3.5/5 from me - with the Banner of the World Dragon docking a whole point.  What were you thinking Mat?

Conclusion

The best book of 8th Ed. so far in terms of the solidity of design, great internal balance and decent external balance.  Questionably Mat Ward's best work ever.. which makes me question the outcome of the last Daemons book even more.  Have it at folks!

6th Ed. CSM book review

Ready for Eternal War!

Originally posted by me on BoLS.

I'm just going to go out and say it, I love Phil Kelly.  This man has brought us many great works and the new Chaos Space Marine codex is no different.

He leaves his trademark design elements in the codex because he allows you, the player, the ability to customize your army as you see fit.  The best thing about all of his books is that he gives you options.  Options that can be kept cheap, so you can field of what you love, and options that can gear your army out to the teeth but at a competitive price.  This is why I believe Phil Kelly is the best GW designer.

+++Disclaimer+++
This is long!
Be prepared to read :)

This review is not going to be a direct compare and contrast of the old CSM book.  I will still compare a little bit here and there, but the reason I'd like to avoid this is because this is the first codex to be written in 6th Ed.  If we think back to what GW designers did with 8th Ed. Fantasy, we might assume that this codex is what's going to determine the scale of power and direction that future 40K books will be written.  Whether or not this is true is unknown until the next couple of books come out.

Let us explore some of the options in the new CSM book shall we?

The first thing I'll talk about are some of the unique special rules that the Chaos Marines come packing with.  Champion of Chaos is one of the more interesting things about the codex.  Just like Warriors of Chaos, anyone that has this rule MUST issue and accept challenges whenever they can.  This is good because it gives you more rolls on the Dark Gods table, but bad because the rules for challenges for 40K kinda suck.  Champions can literally challenge your badass Chaos Lord out of combat, so that means that every unit you take better have a Champion in there to accept in your lord's behalf.  The last thing you want is some measly little fodder tanking Abaddon's full range of attacks.

Another cool thing about Chaos Space Marines is that they have their own Warlord Traits table.  Almost all of these results are useful and some of them can really cause dramatic game effects.  The most prominent one is Black Crusader which gives the Warlord and all units within 12" of him Preferred Enemy towards Space Marines.  Veterans of the Long War is another thing that comes stock on some HQs and can option that you can buy per model for some units.  This gives you Hatred vs. Space Marines.  Space Marines have been defined to be all existing flavors of marines, so when you combine this with the fact that 70% of the armies out there are packing loyalist power armor, this is huge.

One of the most reoccurring themes running through this codex is that everything has a use.  Phil Kelly made the entire Dark Gods table practical, minus the random degradation into a Chaos Spawn.  All of the underpriced and unused units from the last book has been dropped in price, made significantly better, or given new upgrades.  In fact, most of the units that were used a ton last edition either got a tad bit more expensive, or didn't go up in points at all, or in some cases, even dropped in points but with some changes made to their character.  The best example of this are the Plague Marines and Obliterators.  Plague Marines got a point more expensive, lost a point of Leadership but gained Poisoned Knives (4+ Poison).  Everything else stayed the same minus the fact that there's no more no-scatter Icons but all Champions get the right to take Gift of Mutation.  This is actually quite good because for a measly amount of points, you pay for a chance to get something good before the game even starts!  Since you roll for everyone with this rule before the game actually gets rolling, this might be a little bit of record-keeping that can bother some people.  But hey, it's an option and not something you must take.

Moving at Oblits, I have something very exciting to tell you.  They still keep their 2+/5++ but they do so in the form that they have Fleshmetal and are considered Daemons.  This means they cause Fear as well and have the Bulky USR.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that they no longer have Terminator armor.  They still have all the fancy weaponry that they're known to have and they even gained the Assault Cannon as one of their new weapons.  The kicker to this is that they can no longer use the same weapon in two consecutive turns.  That means you'll have to Lascannon one turn and Plasma Cannon the other or something.  Either way, this isn't a huge turn off for me because they are now cheaper.  Not just that, but they can be marked, so for a whole 1pt more compared to last edition, they can be made T5 Oblits with all the gunbells and whistles.

The meat and potatos of this codex is the Chaos Marines in my opinion.  Although the Cult units are just as nice (I'll get to them next), I think the normal Marines will be a go-to option for players.  First, they're incredibly cheap compared to every other marine in the game.  If you want, you can give them an extra hand weapon for a few more points.  In addition, you can give them the option to take a normal Tactical layout of Special Weapon + Heavy Weapon, or you can give them 2x Special Weapons if you have 10 guys in the squad.  They can take Icons, they can take Marks, and they can take Veterans of the Long War.  I'm not joking you when I say these guys are what real Tactical Marines should look like.  They're incredibly flexible, easy to manage and customizable to world's end.  Being a Death Guard player myself, I'm really looking forward to 16pt T5 bolter-holding Marines.  Of course if you're a Khorne player, you will love the fact that for a few more points than a standard Marine, you get someone who can have 2 attacks base, Rage and Counter-attack, and if you really want, Hatred vs. all loyalist Marines.

Cult units are in the codex and I think they're better than before.  Khorne Berserkers are one of the cheaper options and they can be given AP4 Chainaxes as an upgrade.  They only have 1A base now, but the fact they have Counter-attack and Rage makes up for it IMO.  Their damage is still awesome with Furious Charge and WS5, but their biggest boon is the fact they're so affordable.  Plague Marines I already talked about above so I won't get into it, Noise Marines got cheaper and better because of the alternations to their Sonic weapons.  Sonic Blasters are now 2/3 Salvo and Ignore Cover, and the Blastmaster is S8 AP3 Blast and Ignores Cover as well.  The only bad thing is that they need 10 guys in a squad in order to take a Blastmaster now, but that's what you get for getting the option to take 15 more Noise Marines in a squad (many Cult units can be taken in great numbers).  I guess if you take a bunch of these guys and put them behind a Aegis Defense Line, you can have one hell of a firing squad.  Thousand Sons seem to be the weakest choice of the codex because they're pretty much unchanged minus the fact they come stock with Veterans of the Long War.  I just wish Soul Blaze was actually better.

In terms of HQs, I think CSM hit gold.  Not only are their Special Characters pretty good, but their normal HQs are great!  For example, both the Sorcerer and the Chaos Lord start off dirt cheap.  Smack a few upgrades on them from the Chaos Armory and all of a sudden, you've got yourself a total badass.  Sorcerers are extremely cost effective as you can take a Lv.3 Sorc for a little more than a standard Librarian.  Not just that, but the lores for Nurgle, Slaanesh and Tzeentch are all pretty good I think.  Lords, given a respective Mark can unlock Cult units as Troops for the game (Sorcs with MoT unlock Thousand Sons).  Not just that, but they can be given loads of upgrades, gifts and wargear that'll remind of you a codex made long long ago.  Warpsmiths do what Techmarines do but a little in reverse.  This mainly comes with their ability to Shatter Defenses (basically an inverse Bolster Defenses) and ability to repair.  Daemon Princes got a huge buff to their statline, can take Wings, Power Armor and must be upgraded to a specific Daemon.  If you're a Khorne, for example, you automatically gain Hatred towards Slaanesh, but you'll gain Furious Charge.  Tzeentch Daemon Princes can re-roll all saving throws of a 1.  Keep in mind that these are different than marks, because a Nurgle Daemon Prince will not have the +1T like you would think.  Also, to my dismay, but it doesn't look like Daemon Princes have Eternal Warrior either.  Lastly, we have Dark Apostles.  They're pretty much the same as a Chaplain but they have a different set of abilities.  Dark Apostles still enjoy the same Chaplain statline and 4+ invul, but they can re-roll results on the Chaos Boon table after deployment, and make other friendly units around them Ld.10 just like they are.

As for Special Characters, I'm fairly pleased with what I see.  Abaddon is still a badass and he a choice between a AP2 Daemon Weapon or a x2S AP3 Talon of Horus that has Shred and strikes at I6.  The two Specialist Weapons gives him 5 attacks base and his Warlord Trait is Black Crusader automatically.  He comes with Eternal Warrior and also makes your Chosen troops.  That's just pretty ridiculous.  Where Abaddon is pricey, you have someone like Kharn who's just a one man wrecking machine.  For the cost, I don't think there's a character out there that has WS7, 5 attacks base, 7 on the charge with Rage, 6 on the Counter-Attack, always hit on 2s with Hatred (re-roll hits).  The best part of it all?  Gorechild is +1S AP2 and strikes at his I5 normally.  With Furious Charge and Armorbane, he's basically tearing through everything in the game that he can get his hands on.  Ahriman shows up to the party as the first Mastery Level 4 Psyker.  He can give D3 of your units Infiltrate and cast 3 Witchfire abilities per round.  I'm not sure if he's worth the 230 price tag, but he's definitely an iconic Thousand Sons HQ choice.  Last, I'll talk about Typhus.  He's a tad more expensive than before, but his statline is now normalized with a SM Captain and is definitely better than before.  He still has his Manreaper, which is a Daemon Weapon, Force, Unwieldy +2S and AP2, but his biggest boon is the fact he can make Plague Zombies!  Any Cultist unit that the army can take turn into Fearless, FNP and Slow and Purposeful scoring units.  Sure, they lose some attacks and can't take any upgrades, but you'll be hard-pressed to remove 35 of those suckers from anywhere.

Other characters such as Huron Blackheart, Fabius and Lucius are still in the game, but I don't think they'll see much play compared to the others.  Huron might because he pretty much has Master of Deception just like Ahriman (D3 units Infiltrate), and Fabius maybe because he can buff a unit with fearless and +1S (imagine making this unit like Khorne Berserkers), but I honestly can't say much about Lucius.  Once again, for 3 straight books in a row, Lucius is just terrible.  AP3 Sword at base S, you get Shred and a cool special rule that makes your attacks equal to your opponent's WS in a duel, but come on.  What is AP3 going to do to a 2+ character who challenges you?  Is it that hard for GW to make his armor 2+?  Maybe that way he can take advantage of passing his armor saves and making the opponent take S4 AP2 No Cover hits for each save he makes.  For now, he'll find himself chilling back on the shelf.  Again.

Now that that's out of the way, it's time to check out some of the new stuff.

First, I'll talk about the new Dreadnought aka Helbrute.  He's not bad.  The first thing you'll notice from the Crazed special rule is that Phil Kelly removed virtually all downsides to him killing your own units.  No one liked when Fire Frenzy would blow up your Land Raider, and it makes more sense to have him shooting twice at your opponents instead!  The Mutilator warpy close-combat Obliterators are pretty cool, but with a price tag of over a Space Marine Attack Bike each, I'm not so sure.  I think it's a little bit of a fail on GW's part because if they wanted to sell new models, they should of made them amazing.  Sadly, no grenades, expensive marks and the heavy price tag will probably be the death of them even before they hit the field.  So what about the Warp Talons?  They're OK, but I'll probably rate them the same as Vanguard Veterans.  Maybe a little better because they have 5+ invuls due to Daemon (and thus also have Fear), and come stock with Shreding Lightning Claws.  The fact that they can be marked makes it cool, but then you're looking at Vanguard Veteran prices.  The one thing that really stands out about them is that when they come in, they Blind everyone within 6" of their drop zone.  That means if you thread the needle at the right time, it can be devastating for your opponents next turn as they're technically combat ineffective.  This, however, depends on how reliable your opponents are at making their Initiative tests.  Unfortunately, more chances than not, most people will pass just fine.

I'm not sure what to say about the Helldrake to be honest.  I loathe the model so I'll probably never own one, but I can see how it can be good.  For 170 points, it comes with Daemonic Possession and a Hades Autocannon.  The one thing that really stands out is that it's a Daemon so it enjoys a 5+ invul, comes with AV12/12/10 and 3 HP, but has the It Will Not Die USR.  Being a Flyer, this makes it quite a bitch to kill when you math it all out.  I personally would just take it with the Baleflamer because you can take it for free because it's a S6 AP3 Torrent, Soul Blaze template that will kill MEQ like crazy.  As if you need more ways to kill loyalists right?  Oh, and before I forget, the Heldrake has something called Meteroic Descent.  This allows him to Vector Strike while Zooming dealing S7 hits.  Not bad.  That's fine and dandy, but most people around my neck of the woods are talking about the metal dogbeasts:  The Forgefiend and Maulerfield.  One is geared towards CC and the other delivers respectable long-range firepower.  The Forgefield is capable of laying down 3x S8 AP2 Get Hot Blast templates on someone like a pseudo Executioner, or it can sit back and unleash 8 S8 AP4 Hades Autocannon shots since it has two of them.  He's only BS3, but statistically, your range to inflict more damage can be higher when compared to a GK Rifleman.  The Maulerfiend, on the other hand, has Magma Cutters (that deals with armor) and two Power Fists to get all up in the enemy's face.  You can also upgrade him with Lasher Tendrils to decrease your enemies' attacks.  Since the Maulerfiend has a special rule that allows it to move 12" ignoring terrain, it can surprisingly move up the field very quickly and charge targets from a very respectable distance.  Both metal doggies have Daemon, Fleet and It Will Not Die, so it's going to be pretty annoying to with when you start rolling those 5+s.

I think it's time to wrap this up.  Let me finish by saying that a lot of the bread and butter units got a huge facelift.  Havocs are now as cheap as standard CSM, can take marks for the same cost, and have much cheaper heavy weapons.  Oh, and they're also the first Dev unit in the game that can take Skyfire Missiles (although you have to pay extra).  Chosen are still there and are still great, although they lost their ability to Infiltrate.  I say they're great because they can still take a ton of special weapons and their price is very attractive.  Possessed are good, Raptors are cheaper (comes with Fear!), Bikers are fantastic, and the Spawn is cheaper, and better.  Basically, everything got cheaper and better, and full of customization options like marks, veterancy and cool little chaos gifts.  The main one from that list to look after is the Bikers, man.  To put it into perspective, you can get 3 bikes with 2 Meltaguns for under a hundred points.  Then, you can add up to 7 more bikes for a measly 20ppm.  And yes, you can mark them and give them Veterans of the Long War as well.  If I didn't hate bike models so much (long story), I would take a huge unit of 7 Nurgle Bikers (T6!!!) with 2x Meltaguns and a Fist and call it a day.

Vehicle wise, everything stayed the same, but got cheaper.  The Predator Annhilator is also cheaper than their loyalist counterparts.  Sadly, the Chaos Land Raider can still only take 10 max models, and only sport one variant, but the army-wide points reduction sure makes up for it.  I guess the only loser here is the Defiler as it got more expensive, but it gained the same properties of the other Daemon-machines so its hard to say if its a bad buy or not.  It was probably too cheap last book anyway.

There are some things in the book that bother me though.  I already shared some of my complaints above, but I'll go over some of the new ones.  The first is the Chaos Icons.  The reason why I never brought Icons up before is the fact that they're still given to one model to hold.  If that one guy dies.. and that's really freaking easy with 6s to snipe, Focus Fire and all that chaos that goes on the battlefield, the entire unit loses the Icons abilities.  It doesn't matter if you pay a big expensive Icon of FNP on your Slaaneshi units (yes, Slaanesh, not Nurgle), you lose it of your model gets picked out.  For this reason alone, I will never take a Chaos Icon.  My second complaint is the Chaos Artefacts that you can pick from.  I really liked how Daemon Weapons worked in the last book where different marks gave you different effects, but now you have Chaos Artifacts kinda like how 8th Ed. Warhammer Fantasy books have 8 or so unique items.  One part of me is excited because this can possibly mean more unique flavorful items for newer books to come, but the other part is sad that I can't take a Blissgiver anymore.  Some of you will be happy with the new unique weapons though, although I think I'll probably just take Abaddon if I needed something more badass.  On the plus side, Daemon Princes can run around with them, so that's pretty cool.

I guess the new Chaos Artifacts have to do, I can't go into too much detail, but my eye is set on two in particular:  The Dimensional Key and Burning Brand of Skalathrax.  When I first read the Dimensional Key I thought it was a misprint, but apparently, when the bearer kills an enemy model in an assault, the key unlocks.  From then on, all enemy models within 12" of the keybearer treat all terrain as both Difficult and Dangerous, this includes attempts to charge as well.  On top of that, anyone coming in from DS near 12" of the key don't scatter.  Sounds really good does it?  It does to me!  As for the Burning Brand, it's basically a S4 AP3 Flamer with Torrent and Soul Blaze.  Yum.

My last complaint is probably something that all Legion players share, and that's there's not enough Legion representation.  You know what?  That's what Horus Heresy is for.  Legions are clearly extinct in the new book although they did give you some new units.  Cultists are for the Alpha Legion players, Dark Apostles for Word Bearers, Warpsmiths for Iron Warriors, and Warp Talons are for the Night Lords.  That's great and all, but I think we can at least do something with the Sacred numbers.  If Thousand Sons can take a free upgrade to make their Aspiring Champion a Sorcerer for every 9 they would take, I bet good money that they'll take that.  At least give the Noise Marines the ability to take a Blastmaster at 6!  You know, small things like that can make a big difference.

But hey, you know what?  Who am I kidding?  I think the book is great.  I rate it a solid 8/10 in terms of Internal Balance, External Balance, Fluff and Playability.  There's tons of great options that you can pursue; from keeping everything cheap and spamming the hell out of cultists and normal marines, or you can go quality with full marks, icons and chaos gifts.  The point is:  You can do whatever you please and you will probably still field a fun, viable army for many years to come.  This is the hallmark of a good book, a keeper, a timesake.  Players need something that can fiddle around with for the next couple of years and I think they will be very pleased with this one.  When Phil Kelly wrote the Space Wolves codex, I prayed to the Dark Gods that one day, all marine books will be like that.  A hell of a good way to start a new edition I'd say.

Played some Dust Warfare today

I finally got to test out Dust Warfare today and I'm quite pleased with the result.  The game was very brief for 150 points on both sides and it gave me a pretty good idea of how the game functions.

Here are my thoughts:

• The game runs very smooth.  The dice rolling is very straight forward, the model rules are very straight forward and the weapon rules are... very straight forward.  There's special rules to remember, but the easy rolling keeps everything moving at a good pace.
• With that said, we were able to play a 150 point game in a short amount of time.  There were 4 units on each side with 1 Light walker for each player.  We were both pretty familiar with the rules from reading them over, but we were still new at playing.  I think more experienced players can play a 300-point tournament game in ~2 hours without a problem.
• To go with the above, the ~2 hours of playing will be highly interactive, engaging and will not be boring for either player.  The reason this is so is because of the reactions (and therefore, decisions) the opposing player gets to make when you do something.  E.g. There was one time a unit of allied close combat troops (flamers and shotguns) got too close and I reacted by moving away.  Even though that's one less action for me, it prevents them from tearing me up damage wise.
• Another time that keeps the game moving is lethality and damage.  Damage in this game is no joke.  If your infantry is marching out in the open and you get lit up by a unit with multiple machine guns, you're done.  Lethality is similar to that of Infinity (and therefore realistic damage) where you best be jumping from cover to cover if you're planning to live.  Using LoS blockers such as buildings and wide flanking attacks will serve you much better if you don't want your units being shot up.  You should only lose infantry if you're charging in heroically and giving your other units a chance.  Things really get busy once you hit the 16" range.  Weapons start opening up, units start dying and the battle really starts moving forward.
• Suppression is also super important and love the idea of it.  By shooting your opponent's units, you are limiting his options in the next few phases.  You are putting a strain on his troops and forcing him to make decisions to keep his units combat effective.  Since this game is reactionary, each and every action you make as a player is important, even the ones that inflict no "real" damage.
• Now that I've seen 150 points, I want to see 300 points immediately.  I want to start buying models, I really do.  I'm almost begging FFG to take my money, but the fucking dipshits don't know how to properly release a full-fledged miniatures game.  I want to buy Markus, plain and simple.  The same reason I want Heavy Laser Grens and just Totenmeister by herself.  Why don't I have the option to do this?  I'm practically begging FFG to take my money but they're not giving me the option to do so.  I find that to be utterly, and I mean utterly ridiculous.

I'll add some more thoughts tomorrow if I come up with any, but overall I want to play again.  Now.

Some thoughts on Dust Warfare

Let's do this.

Happy Memorial Day everyone!

I was reading through my Dust Warfare rulebook today and I just wanted to share some thoughts on the book.  I will talk about the gameplay design, the units, initial thoughts on unit design/balance, some theorycrafting and some random shit that'll probably pop up in my head as I write this review.  Keep in mind this is not a gameplay review.  I have not played the game yet but I'm hoping that I'll be able to this coming Tuesday because my friend's got an assload of minis.  This review will primarily capture what I think of the rules.  Alright, let's begin.

I read the background fluff on this once and I was decently impressed.  Historically, it's got all the right pieces in place with some major alterations done to fit the theme of this alternate reality WWII world.  I'm not a huge fluff fan, but I'm a huge historical buff.  In terms of connecting major historical events with the storyline, kudos to FFG for not fucking it up too badly.

Now that my review of the fluff is done, let's talk about the gameplay.  From what I gather, the game looks pretty easy to play.  By easy, I'm strictly talking about playability.  It's not a shitstorm to read through like Infinity and a lot of the combat system is streamlined.  For example, everyone gets dice that says you hit (or rather, Combat, or "do shit") or you don't.  If you don't use their Dust Warfare dice, you will just use 5+ on a standard D6.  Pretty easy right?  Yes it is.  When you get into some other features, you'll notice that some weapons or special abilities will let you count the misses as hits instead (for damage purposes, or something else), so if you needed 5+ to hit, now you need 1-4.  That makes for a very easy system to wrap your head around, but I'm not too impressed with the statistical flexibility of the game system itself.  Since I'm a old-time GW fan, 2+, 3+ and the like up to and including bullshit Pendant of Kaleth Inverse Ward saves are all too familiar.  From a dice standpoint, that's just one thing I noticed.

Sorry, I ranted a bit on the 5+ to hit system (I'll go back to this later), but back to game playability.  When I said easy, I actually mean what I say.  I rarely had to read rules over and I understood most of the rules perfectly.  There's Initiative where the player with the fewest models normally has the chance to go first in a turn.  This is done by rolling Hits (5+, just going to say Hits for now) for the # of units he has left on the table.  The fewest goes first.  Second, there's a Command Phase, and most importantly, the # of Orders he can issue during this phase.  Keep in mind that this game is an "interactive" minis game; meaning, you go, I go kind of thing.  One player starts it off and then players trade Command Phases, followed by Unit phases, in combination to opposing players being able to react during the active player's turn.  This makes for a very enjoyable and interactive playing environment.  No more of the you go, watch me get my shit blown to pieces and I go with nothing left on the table kind of deal that you see in 40K sometimes.

Anyways, the Initiative phase is when the player with the lowest # of orders rolls Hits.  Lowest # of hits means he goes first, but the Hits also represent the amount of Orders he has to issue in his Command Phase.  Command Phase happens with the player that has Initiative and he pays these "Orders" to make his units do stuff that the opponent can't react to.  I may move, I may shoot, but which ever of these I choose, I must spend a Order.  In addition to this, if I do something in this Command Phase, it takes up one of my actions in my Unit phase.  Every normal unit gets 2 actions during his Unit phase.  These actions can be.. move and then shoot, shoot and then move, or spend 2 actions to Sustained Attack (re-roll hits) or march (double move).  Simple right?

The big thing here is that when you do something in the Command Phase, your opponents can't react.  Player reaction is very important because once something you control gets within 12" of an enemy unit, they can pay an action to do something (considering this is the normal unit phase).  You can choose to fire at an enemy coming close to you and pay an action point on your unit on his turn, or you can choose not to fire at the enemy and on your turn, you can Sustained Attack him for more damage.  This also means you can choose to move away and gain some ground, or you can stand close to draw him into more fire.  What is this?  Both players have to think on the same game turn?  This makes for some great mindgames, tricks, bluffs, and a general asston of gameplay-related tactics.  Another thing to note about the Command Phase is that whoever is barking these Orders have to be in-range of a unit to give them.  This actually makes unit formation important as certain strategies can only be executed within the right range.  Another reason to bait various units out of formation ho ho ho.

I guess the next big thing to talk about is Suppression.  So let's say one of your units gets shot.  Which by the way, is an incredibly easy system in this game.  Everyone hits on 5s right?  So let's say you have a gun that has 1/1 vs. Soldier types 1 and 2 but not 3 or 4.  That means he shoots once, (and if he hits) for one damage, and it only works on Soldiers with an armor grade of 1 and 2.  He can't hurt 3 and 4.  Pretty easy to understand.  So if that number reads 2/1 on Soldier 3, it means he can shoot twice at Soldier 3 for damage purposes.  Yeah, that's basically how combat is done in a nutshell.  Back to Suppression:  If any unit gets hit (doesn't even matter if he's doing damage), he gets a Suppression counter on his unit.  He can get more Suppression markers if say, 3 units shot (and hit) his unit, but for the purposes of actual suppression, nothing really changes.  A unit with one or more suppression markers cannot make reactions and get 1 less action during the Unit phase.  That means if I Command Phased shooting at one of your units, and you can't react to it, I can pin one unit down completely if I shot it with 2 units.  Likewise, if you only have 1 Suppression marker on the unit and you chose to do something with that unit on your Command Phase, you have no more moves with that unit during your Unit phase.  What really matters is that a unit with more Suppression markers than it has remaining dudes in the unit has to fall back.  Suppression makers can be removed though so its not the end of the world.  When a unit is activated, the controlling player can roll a combat die for each Suppression marker on the unit.  For each hit (5+), a marker is removed.  Also, at the end of the turn, each unit that has a marker on it removes one.  To really get a unit's shit back together, you can Order them to "get it together", also known as a Regroup Order.

Sorry, I know I'm jumping around with this, but they're all connected.  Back to combat really quick:  Say a Soldier 2 gets hit by that rifle that did 1 point of damage to it.  Being Soldier 2, that means you have 2 chances to save for your squad.  Roll 2 dice, if any are 5+, the damage is resolved.  If it goes through, one of your dudes take a damage.  There are units in the game that can take multiple hits (beefier units and Heroes for example), but the vast majority only has 1 wound.  The combat system works the same for vehicles and their bigger guns, as do the range of their weapons measured in inches.  The only difference for vehicles is that there's a vehicle damage chart that you roll on depending on how much damage your vehicle has already taken.  Much better from the 5th Ed. 40K rules where a LR can get stunned 40 times (note that I said 5th Ed :o).  There's also cover in the game denoted by Soft and Hard Cover where Soft Cover automatically saves one of your wounds.  Take 2 wounds cause from failed armor saves but is in Hard Cover?  No problem, no damage.

There's a bunch of other shit in here that has to do with special rules on units, weapons and Heroes, but I'm not going to spoil too much.  The books cheap as fuck for a BRB, so IF alternate reality WWII is for you, I'd suggest picking it up.  However, I must say I do have some suggestions/complaints.  First, checking out the units and trying to decide why you want to take them must be the biggest pain in the ass I have ever seen in a minis book.  For example, I want to take a Heavy Laser Grenadier squad and I'm looking at the unit entry..  I see a special rule that takes me back 50 pages so I can read WTF it does.  Not only this, but did you know the weapons they're carrying also have a special rule associated with them but is NOT listed under the unit's Special Abilities?  Now I have to go back to see what Laser does (in some other section of the book, "USRs" are all spread out).  There's tons of examples of this throughout the book, but it makes army construction a pain because I have to skip around all the time.

Second, some of the things here doesn't make sense necessarily.  This is kinda hard for me to explain, but the best example would be:  When you roll the Combat dice for results, you don't actually "hit" your target despite the giant crosshair, it just means Combat.  Otherwise, it doesn't makes sense that your MG fires more times at a lesser armored target than a heavily armored one, or why your 17 Pounder gun would shoot 7 times at a Armored 1 vehicle.  Think of the Combat dice strictly as a possibility generator and use your imagination to derive everything else.  I mean, it's confusing because even the combat system: hitting first, then armor saves modified by cover saves, denotes the concept of "hit" when it actually doesn't.  I don't know, it's just something my GW-spoiled brain hasn't wrapped around fully yet.  Whatever, 5+ equals Good.

Third, the concept of Fearless troops vs. merely "confident" troops.  You know, something like Flames of War.  I want the concept of morale and motivation to actually mean a little more in this game.  Imagine a Space Marine wearing a suit of Terminator Armor being "suppressed" the same way as a Guardsman in Flak armor.  Is that fucking outrageous or what?  Well you know what?  It's this game.  Units only need to be "hit" to be forced the Suppression marker regardless of what they got going on.  To make matters worse, because more elite units are smaller in unit size, they actually have a greater chance of running away from being overly suppressed.  Talk about nonsense!  Take this into consideration fluff where the Axis troops are supposed to be borderline fanatical and have the best veteran troops in the world (seeing nearly a decade of war) and I find this prospect highly ludicrous.  I might need to houserule some shit in for this, because this is just something that needs fixing, or is overlooked due to time, or Andy Chambers never heard of Flames of War, in which case I question this entire book.

Last, and this is strictly from a theory standpoint, but what if you purposely take smaller units to gain Initiative advantage while playing within 16" of the enemy units?  You get to go first, maybe inflict serious damage and if you keep your distance outside of 12", your opponents will never get to react.  You could potentially devastate your opponent's army before he can do anything and all of a sudden, you'll be playing a GW game.  I don't know, but it seems like something good players can accomplish with pre-measuring and a good army list.

Overall, just from reading the book and not having played a game, I'm really excited to test this game out.  I love the setting and environment, the idea of interactive turns, and facets of deep-decision making on a simple to use game system.  Sure, there's some kinks, but I think the game is well worth a try.  I've heard a thing or two about the miniatures being kinda rubbery and prone to bent gun barrels, but honestly, in a time where a Land Raider costs 80 bucks because GW has nothing better to do, I don't give a shit.  When you can buy the biggest thing in this game for less than half that cost, I think it's time to experiment.  The most your going to lose is a few bucks and a couple of hours of your time because this game plays fast, keeps you engaged and you know you're not going to be bored.  Here's to hoping the SSU will be out soon (3rd faction) and continued product support will be on its way.

TLDR: MUST TRY, even if it's just for the game mechanics.

Empire Review Podcast

This is my first attempt making a podcast and I did it on the fly.  By fly, I mean I just turned on the mic and started speaking into it with no rehearsal or cuts, so pardon my hesitation (and cursing) at times.

Click here for the download.

Please leave any feedback you have for me here!  I was doing the talking with the old Empire book opened and the new one as well, so I was going back and forth.  Don't worry though, the emphasis is still on the new book.  I was going to mention that even though Light and Heavens Wizard Lords can ride on the Luminark and Hurricanum, they are still available in the Rare choices for all.  Somehow, I managed to forget mentioning that in the podcast.

Enjoy!

WHFB Review: Empire

The coolest guy in town!

In the last couple of days, I've seen the majority of the internet shit a brick over the upcoming Empire book.  By this, I mean that they were dreading the latest creation by Robin Cruddace.  Given the fact that Cruddace doesn't have the best track record, and the fact that the majority of the core units for the army has been increased, I can see why people have been crying virtual tears.  However, not all is doom and gloom.  There is a lot of flavorful changes in here and I think this army book will be fine for 8th Ed. standards.  By that, I mean a fun and balanced book.  Let's begin.

Starting with the special characters, lords and heroes, I'd say I'm pretty pleased.  Most named characters have been buffed in terms of special rules and their point costs have been decreased.  For example, Karl Franz is now slightly cheaper and his Leader of Men special rule carries all the way out to 24" if he's on Deathclaw or a Dragon.  Deathclaw now comes with Bloodroar (basically a built-in Screaming Banner) and Karl Franz comes with Hold the Line!.  Hold the Line! is a new special rule that makes it so any Break tests taken in the unit that General (or Captain) is in rolls 3D6 and uses the two lowest.  Yes, Empire is now the new Lizardmen, but not green and with more guns.  Since this awesome rule now exists, the Generals and Captains saw a minor points increase.  Kurt Helborg is now cheaper and still the same, plus there's a new count called Marius Leitdorf who's literally crazy.  He's a little too random for me to be good, even though he has a decent gear (including a Runefang) and Hold the Line!.

Both the Archlector and Warrior Priests are cheaper now and the bound spells they carry also affect detachments within 3".  For Battle Prayers, there is now Hammer of Sigmar (re-roll to wound), Shield of Faith (5+ ward vs. close combat wounds), and Soulfire (WP and unit gains Flaming, enemy models in BtB takes S4 hit, S5 if Undead).  If you take the War Altar, the Hatred that the Archlector gives his unit now spreads to all Empire units within 6" of it.  On top of that, all Battle Prayers also affects all units within 6" as well, not just detachments.  This is the main difference between the Archlector and the Warrior Priests now.  They can still channel PD and DD, but they can no longer spam the battlefield with free dispel dice (which is a good ting).  The War Altar also has a built-in Bound Lv.4 Banishment and can take an upgrade that gives it Terror.  With T5, 5W and 4+ Ward, Stubborn, I think the War Altar will see a good amount of play.  Volkmar the Grim is now cheaper and you can choose to take him on foot or on the Altar.  He has 5+ regen and casts Battle Prayers with a +1 bonus.  Luthor Huss got crazy buffed because now he has all the Battle Prayers plus Unbending Righteousness which gives him and his unit Stubborn.  He is now cheaper, and has Chosen of Sigmar which allows him to roll a dice once a game to gain +D3 to his WS, S, T and A.

The Grand Master got a points hike for no reason, but the other heroes made out pretty decent.  The Wizard Lord got slightly cheaper and they can now take unique mounts such as the Celestial Hurricanum and Luminark of Hysh.  Since these are new, let's go into them right now.  The Luminark of Hysh is a Large Target chariot, 5+ armor, T5 with 5 wounds, pulled by horses.  He gives 6+ ward to everything within 6" of it and adds +1DD to your dispel pool.  For powers, he has a innate bound spell Lv.4 called Solheim's Bolt of Illumination which is a 36" magic missile.  It causes a S8 hit, D3 wounds, Flaming and goes through ranks like a bolt thrower with no armor saves allowed.  If you're hitting Undead, you get to re-roll wounds.  Next in line is the Celestial Hurricanum.  Same defensive stats as the Luminark but adds +1PD to your power instead.  The biggest plus here is that all friendly units within 6" gets +1 bonus To Hit in close combat.  It's innate Lv.4 spell places a small template within 24" and scatters on D6.  It rolls on a chart and on a good day, it drops a S8 Meteor on your head for D6 wounds.  It can also spawn a Iceshard Tempest that makes all units touched by the template suffer -1 to hit in shooting and close combat, or a Raging Tornado that spins the unit around randomly.  Pretty fun stuff here.  The biggest kicker is that you can only mount your Wizard Lord on these is if you're Heavens (Hurricanum) or Light (Luminark).  If you're Lore of Beasts, you can even ride a Griffon!  Sorry other dudes, no real bonuses for you, but you can still take these wacky contraptions for Rares.  Both of these new models are really cheap too, costing about the same as the new cannon.  Balthasar Gelt is also cheaper in the new book.

Next, let's talk about the Witch Hunter.  He's new, can accuse someone of Heresy and gain re-roll hits (both shooting and melee) and Killing Blow against the target.  Another plus is that shooting attacks made by him has the Sniper rule and he comes stock with MR2 to give to the unit he's in.  Due to his really low price and the ability to take a Brace of Pistols with BS4, I can see a couple of these guys making enemy Wizards/BSBs very nervous.  Against wizards and Undead, he also re-rolls To Wound.  The new Special Character Monster Hunter has a 30" bow with BS5 re-roll hits Volley Fire that wounds monsters on 4+ and has D3 wounds.  His cost is decent and you can even upgrade other Huntsmen with ITP and convey his Monster Hunter rule for re-roll hits.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about changes to the units.  As most of you know, the prices have been increased for most of the core units.  However, there are some good stuff in here too.  Regimental  (Parent) and Detachment units share the same battlefield psychology.  For example, if a Handgunner Detachment is within 3" of a unit of Great Swords (who are Ld.8 and Stubborn) and is forced to take a Break test, they will take the test on Stubborn Ld.8.  Supporting Charge is gone, but Support Fire and Counter Charge is still there.  Support Fire now suffers the standard Stand and Shoot reactions though (so -1 to hit). Knightly Orders is still in as core and you can upgrade one unit to Innner Circle Knights for +1S like usual.  A new unit of Knights appear under Specials named Reiksguard Knights and they're basically Inner Circle Knights with Ld.8 Stubborn.  Kurt Helsborg can join them to make them Immune to Psychology and then you've got yourself a 1+ armor save party.  The other new unit is the Demigryph Knights and they're pretty good I must say.  They're Inner Circle Knights with full plate armor, barding, shield, lances on a WS4, 3 S5 armor piercing attacks, fear-causing Demigryph with 3 wounds a piece and 1+ armor saves at M8.  The entire unit can also choose to replace their lances with halberds for free.  I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty satisfied with them, even though they cost near 60ppm.

Flagellants are still in the game and they're still good unlike what other people say.  Slightly more expensive, Frenzy, Unbreakable, WS3 (over 2), and d6 martyr rule.  On 1, you get re-roll hits, 2-3 gives you re-roll hits and wounds, 4+ gives you +1T and the previous bonuses.  Someone mathed out what these guys can do despite their costs increase and they pretty much annihilate things with some decent rolling.  They are definitely still worth the points.  Pistoliers and Outriders are still in at the same cost but no more Hochland Long Rifles for them.  Only the Master Engineer gets them with the same cost as well.  Mortars and Cannons got a points hike and that's perfectly fine with me.  The Mortar is S2(6) Armor Piercing with D3 wounds on a large round template unlike what other cryers have been saying.  Helstrom is now 3(3) Armor Piercing D3 small templates with a minor points increase.  You know what?  I'm perfectly fine with this.  Artillery was way over the top last book and so was the DD spam from the naked WPs around the battlefield.  This was a step in the right direction to bring 8th Ed. books in line.

Last, but not least, I want to talk about the Steam Tank and magic items.  The Steam Tank is now T6 (down from the ridiculous T10), 10W, 1+ armor save Large Target.  Of course it still has Terror, Unbreakable, random movement and runs off of Steam Points.  Speaking of which, Steam Points work like this:  Start of turn, generate 0-5 Steam Points.  If the artillery die result (you roll) is greater than your ST's current number of wounds, or if you roll a misfire, roll a D3 and then for each Steam Point the tank has, add 1 to the result and follow the mishap table.  Steam Points can be used to power the Steam Engine, the Steam Gun or Steam Cannon.  If you use 3 points to move, you can go up to 3D6 (or 2D6 for 2 points).  If you strike a target at full power, it hits get for D6 +3D3 (3 steam points) Impact hits at S6.  You can still grind units down in combat as well.  Otherwise, you can fire the Steam Gun (which is a S2 breath weapon) and pump points into it until it's a S4 breath weapon. Unlike other breath weapons, you can do this once a turn.  Lastly, there's the Steam Cannon:  S10, 12/24/36" depending on the Steam Points and D6 wounds upon impact.  TLDR:  The Steam Tank is now T6 and is cheaper to field.

In terms of magic items, I'm pretty satisfied with the selection they chose.  Runefang and Mace of Helsturm are both down a few points while keeping the same functionality.  Mace is now D3 wounds instead of D6, but it's cheap enough you can field it on a Captain.  Armor of Meteoric Iron has been changed to be more expensive, but it has a built-in 6+ ward now.  Helm of the Skavenslayer is a good buy because it gives you +1AS and Fear.  Against Skaven, you gain Terror but they all Hate you in return.  White Cloak of Ulric is a Talisman that makes all enemies in BtB -1 To Hit and gives you a 5+ ward/2+ vs. fire.  Van Hortsmann's Speculum is still in the game, but it no longer swaps Weapon Skill.  Rings of Volans takes a spell (roll like a Lv.1 Wizard) from one of the 8 lores of magic in the beginning of the game and the spell is cast on that bound level.  Griffon Banner is still in and Steel Standard is now slightly different.  Steel Standard moves any negative Movement penalties for Barding and the unit re-rolls 1s to charge, flee and pursue.

Overall, I like the book.  Keep in mind that I like to compare the book to other 8th Ed. books in terms of power and functionality.  There was a few disappointments, but I very much enjoy the new stuff that Empire get to play with.  The Griffon saw a buff and a points decrease and so did many of the other elements of the army.  Some prices went up, but overall they were compensated with buffs elsewhere.  From what I see, the book looks diverse, balanced and full of flare.  You can choose to go for a balanced list with state troops, elite Knights or an all cavalry army.  You can choose to field the new stuff or you can choose to play the same way you've been playing for years, it doesn't matter.  I don't see any no-brainers in the army yet and I think that's the best thing any educated player could ask for.  Overall, I give this book a solid 8/10.  Empire is now something more than DD spamming gunlines.