1st Game of 6th.

So I had my first game of 6th Edition last week as the start of my project for which the outline can be found here.

I played against Mike Leach who is an experienced tournament player and is (according to Rankings HQ at least, lol) one of the top Space Marine players in the UK. He bought a Grey Knights list he'd been working on modelled as Custodes which suited the purposes of the test as it had some annoying flying things in it for me to attempt to kill.

I'll do this as a brief battle report with any relevant 6th Ed. observations inserted as appropriate.

My Army was some of my 'Night Reapers' 2nd Company counting as Blood Angels...
1x Librarian c/w Combi-meltagun and Shield of Sanguinius and The Sanguine powers,
2x Tactical Squads c/w Plasma Cannon, Meltagun and Combi-Melta in Assault Cannon Razorback,
3x Assault Squads c/w Meltagun, Infernus Pistol and Meltabombs in Assault Cannon Razorback,
1x Baal Predator with Heavy Bolter Sponsons,
1x Predator with Heavy Bolter Sponsons,
2 x Predator with Lascannon Sponsons.

Mike's army was...
1x Grandmaster c/w Psycannon and Halberd,
1x Vindicare Assassin,
2x10 man Strike Squads c/w 2x Psycannons, 7x halberd, 1x Master Crafted Daemonhammer and Psybolt ammo,
1x 5 man Terminator Squad c/w Psycannon, Master Crafted Daemonhammer and Psybolt ammo
2x Flying Bastards* c/w Personal Bastard Teleporters

*They were Dreadknights with some upgrade which meant they could fly and which also apparently made them invulnerable to all forms of weapon fire**
** I'm not bitter about that at all by the way...well not much anyway...

We rolled some daft mission whereby Heavy Support were scoring but also Kill Points (or whatever they call them now) and we had four objectives. Mike won the roll off to go first and promptly made me swap table sides as the one side had easier initial access to two of the four objectives and was closer to a third...

Off we go then...

Gmorts Deployment Picture 1

My Intention was to shoot the crap out of the unit on objective 1 but not bother to attempt to claim it (unless I cleared it early enough to drive one of the scoring tanks onto it) and also to torrent to death anything that might be wondering onto objectives 3 and 4 before rolling some Transports onto it/them.

Gmorts Deployment Picture 2

As I was going to use my Librarian to get me a 5+ Cover save I saw no need in creating too much of a 'parking lot' as it's entirely possible for a front rank of wrecks to get in the way of the rest of my units and due to 6th Edition Cover Save changes I wasn't going to be able to get a 4+ save anyway.

Mike's Deployment

Mike Deployed on one objective and in walking distance of a 2nd. His Terminators appeared to be planning on walking onto the objective marked as 4 on the first picture while his Flying Dreadknights occupied my army. A pesky Assassin was perched in a building ready to take pot shots at whatever he damn well pleased. Mike was going first and I failed to seize the initiative.

He then remembered that we had to roll for night fight which we did. As it turned out night fell...which probably helped me more than Mike as it happened.

Some of his units moved forward and the Dreadknights decided to fly straight towards my fire support and I promptly fired everything in my army at them...

Here they come...

Bastard...

I slightly damaged one of them...

6th Edition - Note 1
Things that fly are annoying as hell. I was hitting on 6's and against the pitiful few hits I actually got I was wounding on 4's (Assault Cannons) against which he was getting a 2+ save on all but the rends. I'll work out the maths later (another article in the making, perhaps?) but I can't see me doing much better against 'Flying Circuses' either. The solution is either more shots, something that can deal with Flyers without having to hit on 6's or perhaps some higher strength shots to make wounding more likely once I actually hit...

Mikes other shooting made a bit of a mess of one of my transports and to be fair a statistical improbable amount of saves made courtesy of the Librarians 'Shield' power is all that stopped this from being a crippling of my army.

The turret mount indicates where the vehicle was as I had no craters available.

6th Edition - Note 2
Vehicles are much more delicate than in 5th. Glancing hits that would normally have been shrugged off managed to gradually chip away at my vehicles Hull Points. I have a few options for dealing with this.

1) More vehicles
2) Better protection for vehicles
3) Some thing of a higher (or more immediate) target priority to draw shots.

I'm as yet unsure of which solution I'll go with...

At this point Mike has two objectives to my one and has got the point for 'First Blood' so is safely in the lead at this point.

Mike's shooting and punching then maims my fire support and further chips away at my vehicles. The ability to pre-measure helps Mike to put his units in perfect range to kill what he wishes to kill and the fact that a I forgot that the closest model is removed first costs me a few models I'd rather not have lost. The only bright side is that I could now shoot at the Dreadknights without needing 6's to hit...unfortunately it took all my armies remaining shooting to do so and thus I was unable to do much to inconvenience the objective holding units.

At this point Mike has three objectives to my one and has the additional 'First Blood' point. It is at this point that Mike reminds me that Heavy Support choices are Kill Points as well as Scoring but these losses are evened out by my killing of his Dreadknights.

Some clever use of measuring and some strategic 'Look out sir' rolls mean that I only manage to kill three Terminators.

6th Edition - Note 3
The 'look out sir' rule combined with the 'closest model removed' rule is going to be seriously open to abuse especially when combined with the ability to pre-measure. I can see some people falling out over this one...

Just the boss left...

Where the hell are you going...

After some exchange of fire between the two of us I reduce this unit to the Grandmaster who promptly withdraws to a more strategic location. In true Night Reapers fashion I shoot him in the back while he's running away ;-)

MINE!!!!

Things begin to look a bit more hopeful at this point as I have managed to get rid of the Terminators threatening the middle two objectives and I have torrented one of the Strike Squads off an objective. It's too late for me to get an objective holding unit to it but fortunately it's too late for Mike to get one to it either. My point for killing his HQ evens out the one he got for scoring first blood, we're equal on Heavy support kills and I now have two objectives to his one. Unfortunately I'm running low on troops and the one objective that will probably decide the game is being defended by a squad of one and a combat squad with an attached Librarian and I'm less than confident about their ability to hold off the nine remaining members of the Strike Squad especially with the assassin in support.

Mike's Assassin is apparently highly trained in the destruction of vehicles but is a bit shaky when it comes to killing people and manages to roll a one followed by a one and therefore kills no-one this turn. Then as occasionally happens in a game with dice even a terrible roll can sometimes benefit you. In this case Mike's above average shooting combined with my below average saves results in my entire unit dying from shooting giving Mike's unit nothing to charge...this leaves one guy holding the objective and giving me a narrow and quite probably completely undeserved victory...

So what have I learnt?
Vehicles die more easily, things that can fly are a pain in the fucking arse and now that you can pre-measure I should really remember to do so.....I also made a few silly mistakes (as did Mike I think) because we were unsure of some rules and spent more time checking the rules than planning our next move. A re-match is probably in order ;-)

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.