Signals from the Frontline: Warhammer 40K and General Gaming News, Rumors, Tactics and Comedy!

Show Notes

5-20-14

Intro

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News

• Our 25% off pre-order special is still going strong trough the weekend! Get your order in to Orders@FrontlineGaming.org and save some money! You just have to order 1 thing form the new GW release.
• KublaCon is the next ITC event in South San Francisco! After that, is the Guardian Cup in Portland, Oregon! See everyone there.
• We are looking at kicking off DzC Thursdays in the next week or two. We’ve got a lot of folks buying into the game right now.
• Warzone shows off a lot of their new models! This game is really shaping up nicely and we should be demoing it soon in videos. We’ll also be talking to the North American rep, Jim, in an upcoming interview.

 

• Check out the Alaskan Battle Brothers Tournament, August 30th!
• Puppetswar releases some very cool new robot minis. They look about like Dreadnought size.

• Studio McVey releases a new miniature, looking very cool!

 

• New Forgeworld Goodies on the way! New Knights, AdMech units, tanks but most exciting, Mortarion Primarch of the Deathguard, and Vulkan He’Stan primarch of the Salamanders, but holy cow, Daemon Primarch Fulgrim!

 

• FW also released an Iron Hands Hoodie. Why in the hell haven’t they started doing this sooner? T-SHirts, Hats, etc. would sell really well.

Rumors: The Rumor Section is gathered from the web and is not in any way information we receive from  any manufacturer nor is it necessarily accurate. This section of the podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only.

• 10.)  Splitfire USR no longer needs a Leadership test to perform, it presumably just works like declaring normal shots.
  
  9.)  Unit Coherency adjusted to 6″ vertically presumably to account for precarious placements of assaulting models on Citadel terrain.
  
  8.)  Turn Sequence hinted at as Movement, Psychic, Shooting, Assault
  
  7.)  Each player starts with three? Tactical Objective cards, and can discard/draw one each turn.
  
  6.)  Introduction of “factions” for what can be fielded in what combination in “Combined Arms and Allied” Detachments
  
  5.)  New Detachments in Battle-Forged Armies called “Combined Arms and Allied”.
  
  4.)  Now groups of weapons resolve their fire (hitting, wounding, and making armor saves etc.) for each group of like weapons separately.
  
  3.)  Exploding a vehicle now happens on a d6 roll of “7” so bringing the big guns with high Armor Penetration values to bear may be paramount now for most lists.
  
  2.)  The new rulebook will contain the rules for Super Heavy Vehicles, Gargantuan Creatures, and Destroyer Weapons.  
  
  1.)  All Units in 40k are now scoring. However Troops taken in Battle-Forged lists get a new rule called “Objective Secured” that allows them to deny other scoring units, while scoring objectives themselves.
• Rumors about Xenos Terrain, finally coming out for Tau, Orks and Eldar? Cool. Also rumors of a destroyed Land Raider terrain kit.
• Orks, Dark Eldar and Space Wolves all rumored to be on the horizon before the end of the year, as well as Blood Angels, too.

Rant Session

•  Looks like the changes to 7th ed actually sound pretty positive!

Tactics Corner

Rules Lawyer

List Review

CORE LIST

Ultramarines Chapter Tactics

Chapter Master (plasma pistol, artificer armor, melta bombs, jump pack)

Librarian (level 2, jump pack – usually Biomancy or Telepathy)

6 Tactical squads – 10 marines each in drop pods

• One Squad with a Grav and Combi Grav
• Three with Melta and Combi Melta
• One with Flamer and Combi Flamer
• One with Plasma and Combi Plasma
• One squad has meltabmbs just to spend 5 points

Assault Squad in a drop pod with flamers and a Sarge with power axe and meltabombs

Stormtalon, no upgrades

So, basically the Chapter master and the Librarian hide behind LOS-blocking terrain and, in the first turn, the Librarian buffs the unit and they drop the Orbital Bombardment on someone.  The chapter master has never been killed on the first turn yet because I place a piece of LOS terrain way in my backfield, in a corner where he only takes a wound from time to time.  Then, when the rest of the army comes in, he jumps into a squad.

This list is built for keeping the pressure on and making sure my opponent is always on their toes, unsure of what to shoot at.

Of course, I combat squad ALWAYS even on games where kill points is one of the missions.  Win big or don’t win at all.

Now, the rest of the list, I’m trying to decide on two options:

OPTION 1 – Legion of the Damned Codex

4 Legion of the Damned Squads

• Two Squads with Meltaguns, Multimeltas, and Combi Meltas (one of these has a power fist)
• One Squad with a flamer and heavy flamer
• One Squad with a Plasmagun, Plasma Cannon, Plasma Pistol, Chainsword, and Animus Malorum relic

OPTION 2 – Storm Wing, Devastators, Tigirius

With this one, I use the Storm Wing Formation

Storm Talon with Skyhammer Missiles

Storm Raven with Assault Cannon, Multimeltas, and Hurricane Bolters – I love this configuration of the Stormraven as I feel it is the absolute most flexible configuration.  It can kill both tanks and elite infantry with relative ease, sometimes both at the same time thanks to Power of the Machine Spirit and that multimelta.

Scout Squad – 7 scouts with close combat weapons – Since the list is 2k or more, I make use of the double force org and these go in the storm raven for late-game scoring as a cheap unit that I won’t cry if it dies if the stormraven is destroyed, plus they pass all dangerous terrain checks

Upgrade Librarian to Tigirius

Swap Out Chapter Master’s Jump Pack for Shield Eternal

Devastator Squad (10 marines) with 4 Plasma Cannons

Tiggy and the Chapter Master basically form a Devastator-based ranged deathstar with Prescience, Perfect Timing, a tanking Chapter Master, and the ability to have relentless long enough to step out of cover and shoot four twin-linked ignores cover plasma cannons.  Probably not as good as Centurions, but cheaper and I also don’t own Centurions, so there’s that.  Also, with 10 to 14 Combat squads in their face by Turn 2, the enemy is likely to have more on their mind than the Devastator squad.