You May Not Believe This, But...

...I finally got my first game in playing Ultramarines under the new codex.

Oh I can just hear the consternation now! "But Joe, damn it, your blog is entitled 'Ultramarine Blues'. You went nuts trying to track down the new marine codex before it was released! You love Ultras...how can it have taken you MONTHS to play under the new codex?"

Well, two things contributed to this, actually. First thing is real life. Between my job, moving to a new place, and getting everything done for my upcoming wedding (Jan. 31 is the big day!) I've had precious little time to get much playing in, especially with the painting/modeling projects I've been working on. The second thing that happened is the Macharian Crusade. I got a chance to play in a BoLS campaign and you bet your sweet ass I took it, even re-arranging my work and personal schedules to play one a week. It was an absolute blast playing in and I definitely don't regret the time and effort I had to put in arranging things to be able to participate in it. The problem with playing in it, though, is that I was playing Chaos Space Marines (as Ultramarines weren't involved in the Macharian Crusade). That meant pretty much since the release of the new marine codex, I've been focused on playing a different army.

...an army that I've grown to love, actually. So much so that I stripped the models (or am in the process of stripping them) to repaint them with my "Army of The Crowing" scheme. Making this happen has certainly taken up the majority of my available "hobby time" lately.

So, now you know the why. I'll get on with it, then. :)

I was going to post up a battle report but truth be known, the game itself was a little skewed. There was a local player that posted up a request to "learn not to suck" and I thought I'd try and give a little back to the community which has been so very good to me over the last year and a half, and help this person out.

We threw down a 1,500 point game, she playing Tau against my Boys in Blue. The final result was a solid victory for me, because I set up some last-turn objective-grabbing "traps" that would ensure I would be at least contesting 2 objectives and controlling 1 (there were 4 total).

During the game, I did a little light coaching the player on what to do, and why. This led to some things that made it harder on me -- such as losing my Land Raider on turn 2 to Hammerhead railgun fire. Keep in mind, though, that this wasn't supposed to be a "real" game so much as a learning experience, and I think in those terms it worked out well. I covered the concepts of prioritizing your targets, and why. Movement and "staying focused on the big picture" were the other two concepts I tried to cover (this is why I laid the last-turn objective-grab "traps"...even though I'd lost over half my army, I still won because I planned on controlling/contesting objectives, even though it meant some of my units didn't see any action once I got them into place).

Finally, I did want to mention that the only "new" unit I used were Vanguard. I took a squad of 8 of them with minimal kitting out (no jump packs, only a couple of power weapons), stuck my captain with them and loaded them up in the Land Raider. Y'know, the one that got destroyed in turn 2? Yeah, that one. So, when the smoke cleared, they were between a rock and a hard place...or, more truthfully: between a big unit of Fire Warriors, a 3-model Crisis Suit team, and nowhere productive for them to hide. It was at this point that I made a very hard decision: I needed to get the heat off a pair of tac squads and a unit of terminators that were busily making their way to objectives on the other side of the board. The Vanguard were on their way to assault the Fire Warriors, but I knew they wouldn't survive the remaining 14" or so on foot, not with so many Tau guns pointed at them. So, I sacrificed them. Ran 'em right out into the open and forced my opponent to deal with them or quickly lose her two FW units. It worked -- The unit drew the fire of eveything she had that could shoot at them. Did they die? Oh my yes, to the man. At the end of it, only the captain was still alive...but that was one less turn of shooting inflicted on my tac squads -- one of which, BTW, claimed an objective for me in the end. Sure, not the most noble and heroic of deaths for my Vannies, but ultimately they served the purpose I tasked them with (even though it wasn't what I had orginally planned on doing with them) and in doing so, helped contribute to the overall success of my army/strategy/plan. I call that success in any book.

Afterward, we had a detailed discussion on what was done right, what was done wrong, and how to do things differently. I thought it was important to do as the final part of my "coaching" gig. All in all, I think it went pretty well. I also pointed out some of the better players that happened to be in the store that night and advised her that she'd do well by herself to seek out their tuteledge. :)

Have you every done any coaching for another player to help them better understand the game? What did you do? Do you think you really helped? Would you do it again?

Vanguard Vets (re-)Visited

I have a confession to make. There's a little power-gamer lurking in me that wants to find something broken and crush my opponents with it in a relentless onslaught. I'm not proud of this, mind you, and in fact I'm not terribly happy making this confession, but there it is.

Part of me thinks that maybe it comes from living in Austin. You see, I've heard from several sources that Austin has a very -- how shall I put this? -- competitive gaming community. I believe it. There are some very, very good players here, and you either learn to play, and play well, or you learn to lose. A lot. I still lose a lot. :) But that's OK, because I feel lucky to live in a city with such a vibrant, active gaming community. I feel like I'm becoming a better player in the long run because of it. I don't mind losing, because I feel like every time I lose, I come away with more knowledge of how this game is played, what my army can do, and how I can become a better player.

What does that have to do with Vanguard Veterans? Well, it started a couple of nights ago. I was playing my CSM army and unloaded a unit of 10 Khorne Berzerkers out of a Land Raider and charged with them. They did what they do best -- they wiped out the squad they assaulted and that was that. I made the comment, "Oh yeah, Khorne Berzerkers, they're the reason I wanted to play Chaos in the first place. I think -- point for point -- that they're the best CC specialists in the game." Abe, one of BFG's employees piped up with, "One of the best. But point for point, I think the best CC specialists are Vanguard."

Hmm. This got me to thinking, "Vanguard Vets? You mean those over-costed, super-expensive models in the new marine codex? Bah. Marines don't get effective CC specialists, never have, never will." Since I try to never make decisions based on opinions when there's some facts to be had, I thought I'd run some numbers and consider some options.

First off, I'm still of the opinion that Vanguard with Jump Packs are simply too darned expensive.

But you don't have to give them jump packs.

In fact, where Vanguard really shine is in the other options you can give them.

Let's take your bog-standard unit of 10 Vanguard Vets, no upgrades: 225 points. For those 225 points you get 30 attacks -- 40 on the charge -- of which 3 (4 on the charge) are power weapon attacks. That's not too shabby. For comparison, let's consider 9 Khorne Berzerkers and a Skull Champion with a power weapon: 240 Points. Granted, for 15 points more you're getting WS5 and Furious Charge -- and that means that on the charge, the Berzerkers are definitely going to be the better unit. However, without the charge, they're nearly even, and 15 points cheaper.

Now let's make things really interesting.

What makes the Vanguard special is the options you can give them. Consider that you can give every model in a Vanguard unit a power weapon. For 10 Vanguard with a power weapon, you're going to shell out 360 points -- certainly not cheap, but for that extra 135 points, you're getting 30 power weapon attacks (40 on the charge), and this is something that Khorne Berzerkers don't even have the option to do. Run Pedro Cantor with these guys and you've going to get 50 power weapon attacks on the charge. That's officially a wandering band of close combat rape.

Want to make the ultimate band of roving CC slaughter? For a cool 1065 points you can field 10 Vanguard Vets, all with a pair of lightning claws, Pedro Cantor, and a chaplain with Crozius and Power Fist riding to the slaughter in a Land Raider Crusader with EA. That will net you 59 power weapon attacks on the charge that re-roll to-hits, with 50 that re-roll to-wound (with a paltry 47 attacks without the charge, 40 of which re-roll to-wound). Crazy? Yes. Expensive? Oh my yes. Worth it? Probably not. But the fact remains that you can do it.

The only problem I can see with the 10 model unit all armed with power weapons is they'd probably be a little too good at what they do: charge, kill everything in sight, and then be sitting there, power-armored buttcheeks flapping in the breeze, ready to take a turn of fire from probably every available unit your opponent has. This will result in a large pile of very dead -- and very expensive, points-wise -- Vanguard. They do, after all, die like normal marines.

I'm thinking a much more reasonable configuration would be to give half of them power weapons. The sergeant comes with one, so upgrade 4 of them with power weapons and you're looking at a more-than-reasonable 285 points. That nets you 15 power weapon attacks (20 on the charge) and you're only coughing up 45 more points than you would for 9 Berzerkers and a Skull Champ. Toss in a LRC with EA and your total comes up to 550 points -- again, reasonable, for what you're getting. Consider that I used to field a command squad that cost way more than 285 points and got less attacks and less power weapons, I'd say this isn't a bad deal.

I'd like to hear your thoughts and opinions on Vanguard -- or any other close combat specialists you'd like to compare and contrast them with. I'm interested in how they compare with, say, Harlequins...