Join us for the live show on our Twitch channel by following this link! The show starts at 11am, PST. The podcast and YouTube video-cast air at 9am, PST every Friday.
Show Notes
Date: 9-25-19
Intro
- Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube! Join our Forums, too! If you would like to be a guest on the show, email Reece at Contact@FrontlineGaming.org
- We sell tabletop games and supplies at a discount! Hit us up for your next gaming order at Orders@FrontlineGaming.org or visit our webstore at store.FrontlineGaming.org.
News
- This week’s GW pre-order is Beastgrave! You can grab it and the associated accessories from Frontline Gaming at a discount from our web-cart with FREE shipping options.
- Next week we’ve got some cool releases coming out including the new Orruks and Free Cities Battletomes in addition to the small sized 40k rulebook.
- Jain Zar is on the way and she looks fantastic! Can’t wait to talk more about all that Psychic Awakening will bring to the meta.
Upcoming ITC Events
Upcoming 40k ITC Events
- Warhammer 40K 2000 Pts ITC Tournament, St. Petersburg, FL, USA, September 28th, 2019, Sponsor: Critical Hit Games
- Sketchy September Shuffle, Brimingham, AL, USA, September 28th, 2019
- Scifi City RTT, Knoxville, TN, USA, September 28th, 2019
- Algarve Meeting 3, Silves, Algrave, Portugal, September 28th, 2019
- Warhammer 40k ITC Monthly, Catskill, NY, USA, September 28th, 2019, Sponsor: Kirwan’s Game Store
- Saluki Con RTT, Carbondale, IL, USA, September 28th, 2019
- Recruits RTT, Lee’s Summit, MO, USA, September 28th, 2019, Sponsor: Peculiar Games & Hobbies
- 40K United’s 2nd Annual Back to School Event, St. Louis, MO, September 28th, 2019
- Warhammer 40,000 2019 Season ITC RTT #6 at Cataclysm Games, Machesny Park, IL, September 28th, 2019
- Warhammer 40k – Red Barn, Greenville, SC, September 28th, 2019
- GT: Co-war-king, Bath, UK, September 28-29th, 2019
- MAJOR: Iron Halo, Bartlesville, OK, USA, October 28-29th, 2019, Sponsor: On The Rock Ministries
- Eastcon 2019, Victoria, Australia, September 28-29th, 2019
Upcoming AoS ITC Events
- Ere We Go Again Ladz! AoS, Wichita, KS, September 28th, 2019
October 2019
- MAJOR: Crucible 8, Orlando, FL, USA, October 11-13th, 2019
- GT: NØRDCON: Tabletop 2019, Copenhagen, Denmark, October 12-13th, 2019
- GT: Michigan GT AoS Championships, Lansing, MI, October 12-13th, 2019
- October Sigmar Skirmish, Windsor, CO, USA, October 13th, 2019, Sponsor: Heroes and Horrors Games
- Spear the Rear- 1000pts Meeting Engagements, Poole, Dorset, UK, October 19th, 2019, Sponsor: Entoyment
- Age of Sigmar – Red Barn, Greenville, SC, October 19th, 2019
- MAJOR: Edmonton Onslaught, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, October 26-27th, 2019
- MAJOR: SoCal Open 2019, Del Mar, CA, USA, October 26-27th, 2019. Sponsor: Frontline Gaming
- Ere We Go Again Ladz! AoS, Wichita, KS, October 26th, 2019
- Age of Sigmar RTT, Ashburn, VA, October 26th, 2019
40k ITC Top 10
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Points | Events |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jim | Vesal | 1192.73 | 5 of 5 |
| 2 | Richard | Siegler | 1114.71 | 5 of 5 |
| 3 | Mani | Cheema | 1109.19 | 5 of 5 |
| 4 | Nick | Nanavati | 1100.83 | 5 of 5 |
| 5 | Chris | Blackham | 1097.65 | 5 of 5 |
| 6 | Tj | Lanigan | 1095.57 | 5 of 5 |
| 7 | John | Lennon | 1056.95 | 5 of 5 |
| 8 | Nicholas | Rose | 1055.77 | 5 of 5 |
| 9 | Matthew | Allee | 1044.85 | 5 of 5 |
| 10 | Mark | Perry | 1020.98 | 5 of 5 |
40k ITC Hobby Track Top 10
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Points | Events |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jim | Vesal | 1107.21 | 5 of 5 |
| 2 | Paul | Winters | 953.02 | 5 of 5 |
| 3 | Lou | Rollins | 929.25 | 5 of 5 |
| 4 | Matthew | Bodnarchuk | 906.71 | 5 of 5 |
| 5 | Thomas | Byrd | 887 | 5 of 5 |
| 6 | Jason | Byrd | 868.41 | 5 of 5 |
| 7 | Colin | Sherman | 838.34 | 5 of 5 |
| 8 | Conrad | Carriker | 834.04 | 5 of 5 |
| 9 | Alexis | Putt | 824.54 | 5 of 5 |
| 10 | Dominique | Carette | 819.83 | 4 of 5 |
AoS ITC Top 10
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Points | Events |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Matthew | Pashby | 868.14 | 5 of 5 |
| 2 | Christopher | Bergman | 848.93 | 5 of 5 |
| 3 | James | O’Brien | 824.3 | 5 of 5 |
| 4 | Alex | Gonzalez | 824.05 | 5 of 5 |
| 5 | Joe | Krier | 823.76 | 5 of 5 |
| 6 | Rahul | Pereira | 810.06 | 5 of 5 |
| 7 | Edgar | Hernandez | 792.49 | 5 of 5 |
| 8 | Jeremy | Veysseire | 756.19 | 4 of 5 |
| 9 | Jack | Ballard | 747.61 | 5 of 5 |
| 10 | Matt | Obringer | 741.92 | 5 of 5 |
AoS ITC Hobby Track Top 10
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Points | Events |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rich | Waters | 332.64 | 2 of 5 |
| 2 | Matt | Beasley | 308.87 | 2 of 5 |
| 3 | Jordan | Duncan | 258.29 | 2 of 5 |
| 4 | Rahul | Pereira | 250.71 | 2 of 5 |
| 5 | Jack | Ballard | 220.23 | 2 of 5 |
| 6 | Mike | Simeon | 217.85 | 2 of 5 |
| 7 | Joshua | Pound | 203.66 | 2 of 5 |
| 8 | Jordan | Watt | 200.85 | 2 of 5 |
| 9 | Ricky | Fischer | 192.87 | 1 of 5 |
| 10 | Matthias | Krushel | 190.89 | 2 of 5 |
Shadespire ITC Top 10
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Points | Events |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ivan | Cho | 609.41 | 4 of 5 |
| 2 | Tony | Field | 457.03 | 3 of 5 |
| 3 | Jonathan | Kolson | 440.84 | 3 of 5 |
| 4 | Philip | Santa Maria | 419 | 3 of 5 |
| 5 | Scott | Driessen | 408.61 | 3 of 5 |
| 6 | Kevin | Cruz | 401.64 | 3 of 5 |
| 7 | Corey | Sullivan | 397.67 | 3 of 5 |
| 8 | Daniel | Velazquez | 389.92 | 3 of 5 |
| 9 | Robert | Schuchardt | 348.94 | 3 of 5 |
| 10 | Matthew | Martine | 345.67 | 3 of 5 |
Kill Team ITC Top 10
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Points | Events |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alex | Torbert | 613.58 | 4 of 5 |
| 2 | George | Rollins | 562.83 | 4 of 5 |
| 3 | Janis | Gilham | 541.48 | 4 of 5 |
| 4 | Michael T | Holy | 492.09 | 3 of 5 |
| 5 | Matt | Hoell | 486.5 | 4 of 5 |
| 6 | Frank | Dalykas | 453.18 | 3 of 5 |
| 7 | Duane | Boyd | 419.33 | 3 of 5 |
| 8 | Tyler | Hill | 417.79 | 3 of 5 |
| 9 | Ryan | Hebb | 409.28 | 3 of 5 |
| 10 | Mary | Newton | 383.2 | 3 of 5 |
Tactics Corner
- Space Marines discussion.
Completed Commissions
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
“Europe still doesn’t use magic boxes”
That’s kinda putting the cart before the horse. Maybe that would help in the short-run, but ultimately no amount of weird, giant LoS-block atrocities or magic boxes, or LoS-block house-rules will infinitely stem off the escalating lethality of the game.
From the very first Codex in 2017, each Codex seems to dial up the offensive output far more significantly than the defensive abilities of armies. More re-rolls, more double-activations, more, +1 to hit/wound, more shots, more exploding 6s …
… and nowhere near the equivalent re-rolls for saves, -1 to hit (yes, not enough, despite Alaitoc)/wound, -1 activations, exploding saves, etc.., etc..
At the end of the day, (GW internal) playtesters need to sit down and re-balance the game so that .. dunno, a mono-Kroot army or a footslogging Bloodletter horde or whatever can fight a nu-Ultramarines Aggressors list or that Iron Hands Repulsor castle on a “White Dwarf Battle Report”-table with GW terrain rules in a straight up GW mission (e.g. EW pure end-of-game-scoring or whatever) and come out with roughly 50% wins over .. dunno … 100 games or so. And also both armies should have a handful of units turn 6 and 7 to play the game on average.
Tournaments building ever more silly terrain and ginormous LoS-blockers might extend the edition’s live span a little bit, not quite unlike FLG Faqs extended the life span of 7th Ed. a little bit. But ultimately, it’s fighting the symptoms, not the illness and not sustainable.
I think you have a misconception of what a magic box is. Size has no bearing on it, it’s just a ruin with four walls and a roof. The point is that it hides you from all angles and some units can’t get at you inside of it. It allows for a way to totally hide from many units and it does help mitigate the lethality of the game, 100% which is why we use them. They really do help.
It’s a ruin that blocks LOS. (4 walls or not).
A ruin kinda “by definition” has holes to look (and shoot) through. If it’s an “unruined” buildings with walls intact, it’s not a ruin.
It’s a terrain-type created by using “un-ruined” LOS-blocking terrain GW doesn’t sell as “ruins” (but since its not GW terrain, it doesn’t come with rules such as Bastions or other non-ruin terrain GW sells).
Which is fine. If it helps curb some of the game’s problems for now, it’ll do. The ideal from a game design perspective should still be to have the game playable as presented in, say, the White Dwarf and the Rulebook, e.g. with GW ruins build per instructions and un-converted using the RAW rules.
As it isn’t, sure, people resort to all kinds of workarounds. Non-GW FAQs in 7th. Non-GW terrain in 8th. But that’s not addressing the core-problem.
But yeah, choosing to use the “ruins” rules for those types of enclosed (and intact) buildings FLG sells (among others), and not, say, the “bastion” rules or whatever, is kinda arbitrary at the end of the day.
Eh, we’re getting lost in the weeds here. Semantics aside, if you had a building you classified as a ruin per the BRB and it had four walls and a roof, that is exactly how it would be played RAW. Using fortifications in a matched play game would be a bit silly as they cost points, etc. I see your point but I think the fairly obvious answer is to use the ruins rules.
Regardless, they do help. Flyer spam becomes less crazy, things like Knights and vehicles such as Repulsors, etc. have their power curbed considerably. You can charge units without getting overwatched, etc. etc. They add a level of tactical depth that really improves the game and increases unit diversity, IMO. It also makes some unit types not an auto-include as they may find themselves in a situation where they can’t dominate the table in every single game, which is good. It discourages spam.
Flyer spam _really_ isn’t the problem with the game right now. I don’t think it’s a top-8 level list at this point.
What, lol?
First and second place at LGT: Flyer Spam.
First at LGT invite: Flyer Spam.
Final table at NOVA invite: Flyer army.
Future major problem: Iron Hands flyer army.
So basically exploity/overpowered lists are what’s needed to compete with space marines. The solution given is more terrain, then more and more terrain.
But what if the space marine army uses the terrain to their advantage too? How does that make things balanced?
Most of the units people are worried about right now with Marines cannot go into a ruin: Flyers, Repulsors, etc. So yes, they would help.
If playing vs. say White Scars? Not so much but they’re a MUCH easier army to deal with.
Wow, isn’t AP doing what he accuses me of doing?
“Uh… what’cha talking about, my army, isn’t that good, honest… uh… super recent major wins and top 8s are flukes… heheheh….”
At least the things I advocate for don’t win anything except maybe a 3rd place once a year on a random GT if it’s a skew list with favorable match-ups.
If I were doing what you do, I would be complaining that every unit in the Craftworlds codex is completely unplayable and that mathematically, any price above 34pts for the Hemlock Wraithfighter is completely unreasonable and impossible.
I’m aware flyers have taken some tournaments recently. I don’t think that will continue to be the case once Space Marines actually take their place in the meta. Maybe I’m wrong, but I see no reasonable way for Eldar Flyers to beat a good IH or WS list- and they already have problems with several other matchups that are currently popular.
See, I am of the opinion that the IH Air Force will be the really powerful build. It will be a mixed army, but their flyers are insanely good.
IH may very well be, but that’s an army that functions wildly differently than the Eldar version and has access to a completely different set of tools. Magic boxes don’t really mitigate Space Marines because they have access to the powerful infantry units needed to clear them.
They mitigate the main problem child units, though. That’s key as it gives you some way to counter-play them.
Possibly odd question: does the roof come off so someone can place the models inside, or are they on top? If on top, how is it distinguished that they’re inside instead of…on the roof?
Typically by agreement with the opponent, i.e. “I’m putting these models on top but they are on the second floor, I just don’t want to deal with reaching down into there. Does that work for you?”
Zweischneid is really right and the community is really feeling it right now. Power creep is out of control and the quality of the gaming experience is degrading fast.
Time will tell on that. Remember, this edition has seen TRULY dominating armies come and go already and it continues to grow and thrive. Give the Marines time to settle in, the majority of them aren’t even out yet. I agree that IH will be an issue but the others will be manageable, IMO. Time will tell but there’s a lot of Chicken Little syndrome going on right now.
Much better episode this week – Pablo and Jason were a little down the doom and salt hole last week and I had to turn off the episode. Even though I like both of them.
Glad you liked it =)
I feel like the seize the initiative thing is another that depends on how intensely you play the game
At higher levels the removal of random aspects always seems to be preferred
However the mechanic itself stops people deploying overly aggressively as there is a chance they may lose their first turn advantage. Especially alpha strike lists.
Not everyone who attends events spends weeks deploying and playing first turn and then re-racking to optimise their deployments
And generally when I win my seize roll I take full opportunity of that
Going first is still very powerful
Fair point but I seriously have never seen anyone, competitive or casual, that has enjoyed being seized on, lol. There’s never been a moment of: wow, that sure was fun!
It’s just a bad mechanic, IMO. Playing without it was so much more enjoyable.
People don’t enjoy failing saves, either, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have to roll saves for your units.
My point was people talk about it being cool in theory but no one enjoys losing a game because of it.I honestly don’t think it adds anything good to matched play games.
Hey Reecius! Thank you for shoutout! It was great to finally meet you and you and Pavel both looked like you were enjoying the game! Great to have a beer with you man 🙂 Cheers!
Indeed it was a pleasure to meet you as well!
Played my White Scars in a tournament at the weekend. You are right Reece, turn 3 onwards is brutal with them! I really did not expect them to be that strong with the combat ability, but it was incredible in my games.