So you've got an army...

Week 2

Apologies for the delay, I've been away and busy, but here's my round up of our second week trying to learn Warhammer 40k.

An omission...

I want to start off with something I neglected to cover in the first week's blog.  So where were we?  I'd just completed the construction of my Necron starter collection.  However, this doesn't tell the whole story.  

As I noted with the contents of the box there are a couple of options presented that I needed to review when I made my models;

• Annihilation Barge or Command Barge?
• Immortals or Deathmarks?

Being fresh to the game without a full comprehension of the intricacies and implications of gun choices, I did make my decisions a little blind, albeit with some sense checking on online forums.  I thought it would be worth seeing what the general consensus of the community was.

This amounted to doing a quick well known search engine check on;

What is better, Annihilation Barge or Command Barge?  The popular answer seemed to be the Annihilation Barge.  I liked the idea of the extra firepower from the twin tesla destructor and went with it.  It also meant I had a Lord as a separate model having not accommodated him in a Command Barge.  

Next up was choosing between unit choices of Immortals or Deathmarks.  Again to the search engine;

What is better, Immortals or Deathmarks?  The opinion on this one was mixed but Immortals seemed to take the edge on being a bit more heavy hitting.  Again I liked the sound of that so decided to go with them.  Ok sorted.  Or was I?  Turned out I then needed to choose between Gauss blasters and Tesla carbines!  Back to the web and carbines seemed to take it, so again I went with the popular opinion. 

I guess what I am trying to illustrate is that the way that Games Workshop produce their squads is to provide you with similar models with options.  Depending on the style you want to mould your army in should determine the choices you make.  I say should, because I went in a bit blind and I'll make a point a little later on that illustrates this.

(I will add that I am playing some catch up here, being a few weeks into the journey, so there are a couple points about the above to revisit!).

Here's what my 'Start Collecting...' boxset came out looking like;

The artistic stuff...

One of the first things you'll notice if you go in to a Games Workshop is how cool everything looks.  They're likely to have a game table or two with sprawling scenery and models laid out in action.  All immaculately painted and bringing the war of the 41st millennium to life. .

So there-in lies the challenge.  How do you make your own models look as cool as that?  Not easily, that's for sure.  Though for however deeply you want to get involved you can do.  As I mentioned when trying to look at how to learn to play there is an abundance of material online for painting tutorials.  If, like me, you just want it to be straightforward then navigating bases, layers, highlights, dry brushing, washing etc is a bit of a minefield.

Fortunately for me though I have a Necron army.  What I've found is that providing a white primer layer and then using a Citadel Leadbelcher base layer gets me most of the way there!  I intend to work on highlights and layering, but as pure metallic terminators the models do look pretty cool.

Playing with a manufactured plastic look army doesn't quite bring the fantasy of the game to life in the same way as a painted army does. 

 I chose a relatively cheap primer from my local hobby store.  The idea is to give a thin layer to apply a good base coat to.  Living in a ground floor flat with no garden I've been spraying in batches outside and placing on the side (next to the wide open door!) to dry.

As I mentioned above the ideal for Necrons metallic terminator look is a base of Leadbelcher.  I got the Citadel spray from Games Workshop and applied to the majority of my units to start breaking down those fantasy walls to the 41st millennium and give that robotic feel to my Necrons advancing across the battlefield.

Our first lesson!

If you're reading this because you're thinking about getting into Warhammer or just starting out and weren't already aware, your local Games Workshop should put on lessons for anyone who wants to learn.  It's great, take everything you need to play (models, tape measure, dice, datasheets/Codex) and you can set up on one of their tables and they'll take you through it.  When you start looking at datasheets and reading the rules it can all be a bit much so to have someone break it down for you makes it so much more accessible.  As per week one's blog it was definitely a daunting game to learn that out off my much younger self from learning. 

The guys at the store break it down in to three sessions.  To go straight in to everything would probably be mind blowing enough to make you feel like you'd been victim of Smite!  (I'm actually quite proud of that joke as a beginner!).  The first three sessions are;

• Moving & Shooting
• Charge & Fight
• A full battle that they call 'Bringing it all together' 

We booked ourselves in one Saturday afternoon for our moving and shooting session and decided of the three of us, I would play my friend Moody.  My other friend would spectate and take it in.  So there it was a small force of Necrons in a toolbox ready to face off against a small force of Ultrmarine Space Marines in a Tupperware box.  

We set up on the battlefield which was an apocalyptic industrial wasteland with broken down walls and piping for terrain.  The moving side of the game is pretty simple to be honest and even I could learn it without having it explained to me.  You move as per the distance stipulated on your datasheet (M) and it's measured in inches.  Obey the laws of physics i.e. you have to move around physical objects, unless you can fly or have anything otherwise that would exempt it.  The only real thing to remember is to make sure that your unit stays in cohesion and together.  That is to say that models within a unit must be within 2'' of each other or 6'' vertically.  Vertically being for example that a model is up on a platform in cover and other members of the unit remain on the ground behind it.  The model on the platform cannot be more than 6'' higher than the ground units.  

Shooting is where the true nature of table top gaming comes in.  There's an assortment of rules to learn, which I won't go through here.  This is mostly tips and lessons learnt as we learn how to play the game, rather than outlining exactly how to play.

Mostly you just need to learn your weapons, what's the range on them?  Do you have line of sight?  How many shots do you get? Are you in range for rapid fire?  (I.e. double shots), have you moved and does that effect your heavy weapons?  Then after that it's what is your ballistic skill to hit? (BS) *Roll the dice* How many hit?  What do you need to roll to wound? (Toughness Vs Strength of units and the machinations that causes - same, more/less than, more/less than double?  Wait, are there any special rules that change the rolls needed?)  *Roll the dice* Did you wound?  What's your opponents save (SV)?  What do they need?  Do they have any special rules that affect it? Are they in cover? *Opponent rolls the dice*  What did they get?  Did they survive?  Is it a wound?  How many wounds does that model have?  Is it dead?  It is dead?  Does it explode if you roll a 6?  

It's crazy!  There is so much to remember and so many things that influence what is needed.  A great way to learn is to watch the battle report videos on YouTube.  There's so much content to see and always some interesting scenarios.  

One of the key lessons learnt here is special rules!  Now being a n00b and just looking at basics I wasn't looking at the rules so much.  Therefore in this opening skirmish between my Necrons and the Ultramarines I didn't activate my Annihilation Barge's Quantum Shielding rule.  This is a cool rule where is I take damage I can roll and if my roll is lower than the damage I can ignore it.  Completely missing this, the Ultramarine's rocket launcher dude took it out sharpish and that was my heavy firepower.  

One cool thing I love about Necrons though is Reanimation Protocols!  I have a unit of 10 Necron warriors.  Throughout a turn they might get cut down by my enemy's fire.  Let's say that I theoretically lost four models from the unit.  As  Necron player I get to place a wound counter of four next to the unit then on my next turn I get to roll a dice for each dead model and on certain numbers (special character effects/rules dependent) they have the chance of coming back to life!  Amazeballs. 

However, long story short, my Necrons got pounded and lost their first foray on to the battlefield, but it was a lot of fun!  Another thing I did discover though is that I needed to really start to look at my load-outs, what models had I built, what weapons had I given them?  More importantly though, what models could I buy that would counteract those guys that killed me? 

The point I alluded to earlier after the difference between Immortals and Deathmarks is this.  When fighting the Ultramarines I learnt that my friend had a Captain tucked up behind the unit that let him re-roll 1s in certain scenarios.  His rolling sucked on a few occasions and he quite often got two bites at the proverbial cherry.  How could I possibly get round that, as it was super annoying?  The answer seemed to be that I should have gone with the Deathmarks.  A standard rule is that you cannot fire at a character unless they are the closest model that you can see, any unites between you and it have to be disposed off first.  Unless you have Deathmarks!  I am sure this is the same for some units in other armies, but the Deathmarks have an ability that allows you to target a character even if they are not the closest model.  So, although Immortals can hit hard they left me open to the re-rolls and ultimate pummelling I received.  

It highlighted the need to ensure your army has a little of everything to deal with whatever you may come up against.  So again, what models would I need to get?  More on that next time! 

Next week...

I have some catching up to do(!), so I won't leave it so long until the next week's entry.  I'll take a look at our second lesson, charging and fighting and as I mentioned getting extra units.

Feel free to comment, ask any questions or let me know if there's any particulars you'd like me to cover.

Thanks

Steve.