The Assault Phase

  I tried to get this guy as finished as possible to shoot up zombies in the recent Zombie fest held for the group.  This is the Forgeworld Inquisitor Hector Rex.  His left arm has been replaced with a psycannon from a Grey Knight terminator.

I painted the armor to be sort of that antique ivory color of many of the statues you’d see in a catholic cathedral.  He’s also basically an old and weathered man himself.

He stands on old runes of a shrine.  You can see the colors of an image of an inquisitor.  It was created with the tied and true cork board base painted with a transfer laid on top and some inking.

He served well in the 125 point zombie fight.  I ran a fluff squad based losely on the first Grey Knights novel.  He acted as Inquisitor Valinov with three Balurian guardsman and Cardinal Recoba acting as a Sage in the retinue.  Story and background fluff below along with my list below after the break….

It’s been a few months since the INAT FAQ has been updated.  This FAQ has become the standard for resolving rules disputes in many tournaments.  You will usually see it in use in the large tournaments not so much in smaller local ones.  So let’s dissect what makes up the Independent National Tournament FAQ.

First off, this document is huge, 115 pages at current running.  That’s a good 20 pages longer than the rules section of the Warhammer 40,0000 rule book.  There is also a 38 page appendix that includes FAQ for Apocalypse and Imperial Armor.  The FAQ includes not only rulings for general rules however, but also ruling for army specific questions.  It also contains any FAQ rulings that Games Workshop has already released in their FAQ’s.  So you only need to look in one place.

In the FAQ there are two main sections, Rulebook Queries and Codex Queries.  20 pages of the FAQ are dedicated to the rulebook.  The rest is for the various codex questions.

Personally I think that having a set FAQ is a necessity due to the number of questions that creep up during tournament play and cannot easily be decided on a dice roll without argument.  But maintaining a FAQ document can be a chore if you intend to cover every codex and rules question out there.  Big props go out to the several individuals involved in the rule council for this FAQ.

What do you think of the INAT FAQ and FAQ’s in general for use in play in tournaments and casual games alike?

DakkaDakka – Warhammer 40K Forums – INAT FAQ v4.1 (w/revised Blood Angel & Tyranid sections) now available! | You can never have too much Dakka.

 List Construction-build for 1st

            The topic of list construction is one that I think I have beaten to death here on TheAssaultPhase, but this is a slightly different spin on the topic and I think it’s worth mentioning. Some people can count themselves out of a 1^st place victory before they even roll their dice, because they have built a list tailored for minor victories(At this point in the article, you will need to open this link in a new window, listen to the song, continue reading and remember…there can only be ONE! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgpylExfL0c ) This was the essence of my Chaos army. This is how I played my Marines and Necrons as well. I built my list(army) to win the game. I didn’t build my army to win the main scenario objective, side objectives AND bonus points. There’s a huge difference. The way I built my army was mainly defensive with offensive capabilities. I played a denial game and it gave me wins, but no 1^st place tournament placing. This is a point that I really want to drive home with you guys, because a 40k tournament is not like a basketball game, or the superbowl or something. In the super bowl you can beat you opponent by 1 point and you win the whole thing. In a tournament you have to beat the scores of everyone else there.

In the future I want to write a piece on Actionary VS Reactionary play styles, but this idea that you build a list that works to dictate the pace of YOUR game is key in building for 1^st. Its not about building a army so you can handle whatever is across the table from you, its about building an army that your opponent wont be able to handle. My Ork Horde is a prime example of this. I have a hard time with skimmers, high AV armor and really anyone Mech heavy. BUT everyone has a hard time with 164 Ork Boyz, that only give up a few kill points/ cover the entire table/ can span multiple objectives with one unit/ and the entire army is a troops choice. When your thinking about your army, think about how you would go about killing it! I know I know…its hard to think about the destruction of your master painted 40K army of choice, but if you can quickly think of several units or models that you have no response to, then your setting yourself up for disaster. Every codex(some are better then others) has a unit or two that is a little bit better then the points that the unit cost, find the cheese in your codex and use it to your advantage, give your opponent something he has no answer to. The word “cheese” is something you hear mumbled and spoken like a dirty curse word in the gamming world. And I used to think the same thing, now however I feel like “cheese” is just the cry of the unprepared commander. “Cheese” is jealousy, its people wishing they had the unit/tactic/special rule/commander/special character/ model/ lucky dice role/ whatever you have that they want…and I don’t feel bad packing every single bit of cheesy 40k goodness I can into my tournament lists (please note how I said TOURNAMENT list). Here is a quick checklist that might help determining if you’re built to place 1^st at a tournament.

a)     Can you control and maintain several objectives.

b)    Do you plan on surviving with your force and playing a reactionary game, or commanding the pace of events?

c)     Could you completely wipe someone off the board in 6 turns?

I know there are a million and one different factors that play into each of those 3 checks above, but if you don’t think about this, then at least know someone else is. What do you guys think about the article and which checks can you mark off?

i wear my sunglasses at night...

Hold Up…

Wait a Minute…

Let Me Put Dark Eldar in it…

We are going to pause for a minute on the current Series “How to Win a 40k Tournament” for a quick look into the mind of me and what I think Dark Eldar are going to bring to the 40k meta game. This, of course is purely speculation and really just for funzies.

 Ok, so what do we know? We know we are going to see speed, lance weapons, poison everything, week AV values. We know the author of the codex(one of my personal favorites) and we have seen some of the new models. Here is what this means to me.

New models- the new models are awesome, plain and simple. They look great and great models have a habit of making their way from the shelf onto the table in short time. So we are going to see Dark Eldar armies forming and making their way into our competitions.

New Codex- the GW codex creep is something everyone understands by now and so I wouldn’t be surprised to see stuff in here that shift the style of play in hyper competitive tournament scenes( I.E. Ard Boyz, etc). BUT and that’s a big BUT! The real question is going to be one of point values if you ask me. The can have awesome models, amazing rules, but if the points values for the cool stuff is crazy high then that might deter people from playing them. HOWEVER! And that’s a big HOWEVER! We have to also keep in mind that they are Eldar and Eldar have always been on the cheap side of points per model world. AND GW is also a company who is in the business of making money and one way to ensure profits is to have people buy your stuff and one way to make sure people buy your stuff is to make it slightly better then everything else out there. So you never know.

Speed- this is a given. The Eldar are fast, but the Dark Eldar are stupid fast. And they are really built to utilize their speed in a way that the Eldar are not. Their speed is not a means of positioning it’s a means of attacking, the differences is subtle, but important.

Lance Weapons- By the sound of all the chatter going on the DE( Dark Eldar) are going to have lance weapons coming out their who-has. Meaning a possible shift away from Mech supremacy. THIS IS HUGE! Here’s the train of thought. DE wreck Mech hardcore- less Mech is used in comp settings- armies that didn’t deal well with Mech see a resurgence of popularity. ( foot slogging armies- infantry heavy- assault heavy armies, etc). This is just me spitting off the top of my head, but it’s a possibility.

Poison Weapons- Poison is the “bad day” of any high toughness tune. This with the high attack rate and initiative of the DE and we might see some nasty close combat taking place.

Weak AV- Good by Las hello Rocket Launcher. Where quality was the mantra of many generals, you might here them taking a que from their green brethren the Orks and opting for quantity to deal with the Alpha Strike nature of these pointy eared pirates.

            Ok Baby Birds, momma’s done feeding you for a while, but while you munch on this food for thought, here are some questions I would like to know from you.

1)    What would you like to see the new DE codex incorporate?

2)     With all the speculations going on about the new codex, what worries do you have for your army?

3)    How do you feel about the new models?

Bold title for an article right? First let me say this, this is not going to tell you how to win with your army in particular, this is going to be about the general principles behind how you win a Warhammer Tournament.

 1) Winning Big- The nature of a tournament victory.

Before we get to deep into this topic you must understand the specific nature of a tournament and how it differs from a normal game, because winning a tournament is not about winning a game (at this point in the article, please click on link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OvpzForHyU , let the song play, continue reading and enjoy getting pumped my friends). Winning a tournament is about winning each game you play AND winning big. That might seam like something simple, but the fact that you have to win each game “big” is a truth that eluded me for a long time. When I was playing my beloved Chaos Marine / Emperors Children A.K.A The Purple People Eaters army, I did a lot of winning, BUT I won very few tournaments at Parker Banner Kent and Wayne. And after about a year of this I finally realized that minor victories weren’t getting me to the place I wanted to be. Was I winning? Yes. Did I come away with prize money? No.

            This is the first lesson in winning a 40K tournament. You have to realize that winning your game is not enough -you have to win big- because someone there IS winning big and if that someone is not you, then kiss first place good bye. Now this is not the only way to play in a tournament and it is most certainly not the only way to have fun. This is just the way I approach competitive environments in which I have a desire to win. This attitude of winning big can translate to most other areas of life as well, IF it is an area you want to be very successful at. I didn’t want to marry a girl I kinda liked I wanted to be crazy insane about my wife. I don’t want to make “B’s” in nursing school, I want first place! In fact I have told the people that I sit next to that I am “going to win this class” the girls look at me like I have a 3^rd eye, but the one other guy in the class heard me say that, gave me a glare and said “psssst…I’m winning this buddy”. I don’t like running, chess or World of Warcraft(anymore) and so I don’t care if I place top 10 or top 1000 in any race, chess match or guild run, but I like competitive Warhammer 40K and so I want to be number 1. This doesn’t mean that you have play like a jerk and freak out every time you roll a “1” on your 2+ invo save, it just means that when you think about tournament play you have to keep in mind the nature of a competitive tournament. So lesson 1 in winning a 40K tournament has to simply be a shift in your mental approach to the competition. Bring your -A- game, play to win big. This is the intro article, next we will get into specifics. But until I put that one up, here are some questions I have for you…

1)    How has your approach to tournament play changed sense you started the hobby?

2)    Look at you current view of your tournament play style; have you been playing to win OR to win big?

3)    Do you still view tournament matches like a casual pickup game?

 ZOMBIE FEST 2010

OVERVIEW

The valuable Imperial hive world of Romero V has been the site of a vicious conflict for a decade, with different races vying for control. The Nurgle Lord Typhus had enough and released the Plague of Unbelief, turning the majority of the human populace and alien invaders into mindless zombies.

Though a dark ritual he has also shrouded the planet in a powerful warp storm that has made communication extremely difficult, the survivors, human and xeno, have been running for their lives and searching for a way off the planet. The opportunity for that has just arisen. An Imperial shuttle making a last run to recover some important data has set down in the zombie infested hive Primus. Through intercepted transmissions the surviving military units have learned that the shuttle will be stuck planets side until some repairs are made. The units also learn that the Inquisition has declared the planet lost and ordered Exterminatus.

This Shuttle is the last means of getting off this planet of the damned. The options are clear, fight through a city of undead or lie down and die. Which option will you choose?

 SCENARIO SPECIAL RULES

• No Deep Strike due to the Warp Storm.  Chaos Daemons will deploy at startup.
• No Psychic Powers.  This excludes Force Weapons as well.  The power of the Warp Storm overwhelms any attempts to use the Warp for benefit.
• No retreat.  Leadership checks are made as normal but, because the units realize that there is nowhere left to run, ALL units may roll to Regroup if they are forced to withdraw no matter what (if they survive being run down in close combat of course).
• Any unit with the Scout or Infiltrator special rule will get a free Scout move before the beginning of the first turn. 

 UNIT DETAILS

• Units will be limited to 125 points of a single unit of infantry models only.
• No unit may have vehicles of any kind, even if it is part of normal unit requirement ala Tau Pathfinders with devilfish transports.
• No jump packs, jetpacks, bikes, jet bikes or beasts. As an example, you can take units such as Space Marine Assault Squads that are equipped with jet packs.  However, you cannot use the benefit of the jump packs.  They are simply out of fuel from the long battle for the planet.
• ALL units must be modeled on foot.
• We are using individual model points only, which means there is NO minimum squad size. You want to take a Grey Knight Terminator brother-captain and one other Grey Knight Terminator, so be it. This is to represent units stuck without support for a long time and through attrition this is all that is left. Special weapons will still be restricted by any unit restrictions, i.e. Space Marine players can’t add special weapons to Tactical Squads unless they have 10 models.
• The upswing though is, in keeping with the best traditions of all good (and bad) zombie dramas, shotguns and any model that wields a chain weapon (sword, axe, etc.) gains +1 STR against zombies. This is WYSIWYG; the model must be modeled with the weapon and legally able to take. SM scouts have a new reason to bust out their boom sticks and nail some Z’s. 

Read more…

Location: Parker Banner Kent Wayne, 8301 Magnolia Estates Dr, Cornelius, NC 28031
Time: Oct 2nd.  Registration begins at 10am, games begin at 10:30am
Entry Fee: 10.00

Now for the details!
1850 Points or less (no more than 1850)

This is not a Games Day.  It’s a punch in tournament.  Come prepared wit your hardest list.  Games will have a strict 2.5 hour time limit.  There will be 1 hour between the 1st and second game, 30 minutes between the 2nd and 3rd game.  Prizes will be awarded to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishers and one random prize.

You must have a clean written army list with you to show your opponent.

We will try to post the scenarios online prior to the tournament.  Check back at least the day before to see the scenarios.

You can help us plan by preregistering at Parker Banner Kent and Wayne before the event.

Tournament Missions

The notion of analyzing problems to find the best solution is something that I enjoy doing. I think there is something in every guy that finds this interesting and fun. And I think this is an aspect of War-Gamming that we often do when we are playing but don’t think about in terms of problems and solutions.

            Here is what I mean…When you are creating a list for your army or trying to decided what unit and HQ to include, don’t look at it like a simple model or troops choice, but instead look at it like a possible solution. Every game and battle we face and play in has its own set of problems. I.E. the mission objectives, the terrain, your opponent, your teammate…coughcough..Simon cough, deployment, etc. Now look at your army and tactics as the solution. Hopefully this will put a slightly different spin on the game. Now when looking at a unit in your army, think of it as a solution to a set of problems you might face on the battlefield.

            This can be a very helpful approach to someone trying to make a competitive army or really anyone desiring to win in tabletop war games. So when you look at your army list think about all the different problems you might face in battle, if you don’t have a solution for them, then I would expect defeat or pray to the dice gods for a match up you can handle. 

            The better of a player you are the more you will be able to incorporate into your solution when figuring out how to beat your opponent. For a beginner, their solution will be found by looking at their army for an answer to the problem of “how am I going to win this game”. They will see the mission objectives and look at their Army list for how to achieve them. The intermediate player will begin to look beyond their army for solutions. They will incorporate terrain and deployment and think about how to use the field itself as a means to achieve victory. The most competitive players will go even further. The will intentionally use not only terrain, deployment and their army as solutions, but they will also use turn and time control (this means playing for the turn you will actually be ending on, so if you know the game is 2 and half hours long and you will probable only make it to turn 4, realize you have 4 turns to win or loose). They will use their opponent as a weapon against himself, goading him/her into making mistakes in order to capitalize on the laps in judgment. This just gets more and more complicated.

            No matter where you are in your War – Gamming carrier the principle is simple. Problem/Solution. The problem is “how am I going to win this game and get the most points possible”, the solution is found in what army and experience you bring to the table.

Joshua

A lot of the time when I think about memorable games I have had in my 40K career, I think of moments in time that something awesome happened on the battlefield of the 41^st millennium. This past week I caught myself reminiscing while I was painting some models. The time I played Mark and his Lootas kept my Daemon Princes at bay with their range. The time I played Dave and we moved our tanks and units around the board like chess pieces, that game came down to the last roll and left me with a well deserved headache. The game against Scott in which I received my first and only loss with my Ork Horde. The list goes on and on.

As I pondered these 40K milestones I began to realize a pattern…in almost all of the games I fondly remember…I ended up loosing! This made me think about how I have defined my 40K value as a player. I consider myself a good player, I have played the game sense the end of 2^nd edition. I was there when Marines actually threw their grenades, Necrons were awesome and mysterious, and Dark Eldar ran threw a table of infantry in one turn. And yet with all the tournaments and games I have played the ones that stick out as being turning points for me are the ones in which I tried my very best and still lost. I think the reason I remember these games over any past win’s I have received is because these are moments in my hobby when I have had an experience that improved my ability as a player.

The point of this article is really to encourage all those out there who might feel like they are in a slump in their gamming lives. When you are in a dip in your hobby or really in any area of life, the important thing to remember is that like any dip, slump, valley or low you must keep in mind that it is positioned between two hills. The high that you experienced when you first started is most certainly going to be followed by a low when you realize you aren’t as good as you thought you were. But that is just before you get the first big win and feel like a champ again. The key is not giving up when you’re in the time between the mountaintops.

            This, in my opinion, is important to longevity with almost everything. So here are some tips I found helped me out of my 40k valleys.

1)    Don’t look at the dip like a flook, don’t blame it on dice. Evaluate how you got there and you will be able to find a better way out. I used to actually keep a 40k notebook of my wins and losses. I know that is a bit crazy, but it really helped me to see why I was loosing, and I didn’t make the same mistakes twice. I would write down my opponent, what army they played, the army list they used and how they beat me.

2)    Make sure you really understand why you’re playing the game and keep that at the forefront of your mind. For me, the reason I am playing is because I love the awesome models, I love strategy war games and I love the comradery of playing and competing. This has absolutely nothing to do with winning and loosing. If you are in this hobby to win, then I would suggest you stop playing.

3)    Spend time exploring the many different aspects of this hobby. If you hinge all of your experience with this game on one aspect of the hobby, it is easy to loose interest or become dispassionate for your hobby as a whole. Example: if you only like to paint and you find someone who paints better then you, you leave yourself open for frustration. If you only like playing and you go on a month long loosing streak you leave yourself open for frustration. If you like modeling and someone comes along with a totally customized army, you leave yourself open for frustration. Take time investing in the hobby as a whole you will never regret it. Learn about all the 40K fluff, we have the best background in town with books and books written by actual authors. Take pride in every model in the army. Name your HQ’s and hero’s. As soon as I named my three Trigon’s, “Emperor’s Bane”, “Mr. Tickle” and “Boo Radley” AKA “The Party Starters”, I started winning and having more fun with them.         

 Do what works for you. And have fun with your hobby.

 Joshua

Hello friends…long time no chat.

         Well this month is going to be fun for me, because as of right now I am going to get to come and play in the 40K team event. Because of that I have been thinking about how to best formulate a list and a few tactics that might come in handy when playing with a partner.
         When I was working for the school system here in charlotte I heard several people tell me over the years a simple and annoying solution to problems I would bring up at work. They would say, “well maybe you should think outside the box”, and I would say “well maybe I should kick you in the ear”….not out loud, but I said it all the same. And you know what, I came to a resolution when thinking about this supposed “box” I was being told about. And that’s that everything outside the box doesn’t matter, cause you have absolutely no control over it whatsoever. Not even a little bit. And if you think you do, then you my friend are living in a little place called Delusion, which I think is at the corner of Fantasy and NiceTry. But what does this have to do with 40k Joshua? I’m glad you asked Assaultphase readers. A team tournament is something in which there are a lot of elements that are going to be out side of your box. Who will you be paired with? What type of army will they have? Will they bring troops or all heavies? Should I bring assault units or my big guns? What if they all deep strike? Should I bring reserves? What if I roll all 1’s the whole day and a black warp tears down the fabric of time and space and all my dice get sucked into the time warp and then pop back out a second later BUT they’re all showing 6’s now! Is that CHEATING! IS IT!YOU KNOW THAT COUNTS! (then we all turn into orks)WAHHHHHG!
Sorry, all I am trying to say is, that when thinking about how to play in a game that already has a lot of random whosits and whatsits gallor, the best way to handle the unknown thing-a-ma-bobs is by keeping it simple.
          1) Stick to what you know. If you have a unit that you rock face with, use it.

          2) Make a balanced list, that way no matter who you are teamed up with you can complement their list to help their strengths AND you will be able to fill in where they are weak.

          3) Attitude. I hate harping on this one, but there is going to be a lot of unknowns and crazy 40K Shenanigans in a team event, so don’t freak if the two heavy hitters in the event get paired together, crap happens. You might get paired with your nightmare bizaro-world teammate OR you might get the guy (or girl, I’m looking at you Mrs.Nid) of your dreams. Either way, the picking of your teammate is outside of your control (outside your box) so don’t freak y’all.

         4) Have fun trying for crazy combos you have never had the chance to get. I.E. the Tau player who gets paired up with the Ork Mob OR the Daemon player who is fighting WITH the Grey Knights! Weird….yes, possible…likely.
Either way, enjoy the day the best you can because Team events at this level of play don’t happen often. So savor battles, relish running hand in hand with your sworn enemy for the afternoon and……with your powers combine(the rest is up to you).

Josh