40K (40K)

I got one 40K game in today. I was planning on more, but my 3 year old was sick most of the night so I was pretty exhausted. My one game today was against space marines (played by Frank). It was an elimination game, which is really bad news for imperial guard since the way kill points are calculated goes against their army structure.

After two and a half hours, we completed four turns and called it a draw. A large number of space marines died in combat, but because of the way kill points work, my loss of a basilisk, a chimera and my infantry platoon command team resulted in a tie. I really should have lost the game, as the scenario and army combination was stacked against me.

Plasma guns made the difference in most combats. I was debating about these before. The las/plas combo is the "default" for those who know imperial guard. I was using melta guns, which have cool fluff, but have very short range. After three games of never hitting anything with a melta gun (got 3 shots off), I decided to switch to plasma. In this game, plasma guns killed maybe half a dozen space marines, with zero overheat casualties on my side.

The way I looked at it, with the number of squads I have (5), multiplied by the number of turns in a game (average of 5), and the number of games played (3), gave me a total of 75 potential shots with the meltas. Getting 3 shots off means they're only employed 4% of the time. In this game, I estimate I got a plasma gun shot off about 80% of the time. Who cares if a gunner dies in combat if he's only useful 4% of the time? Yes, the fluff is goofy for plasma, but it makes statistical sense to use them.

We're also talking about opening up the league so people can play each other during off-league hours. We would create a method of making challenges on the BDG forum. I'm much more able to play three games conveniently scheduled within a two week period than three games on one Saturday, every other week.

Also, Michael and his girlfriend are working feverishly to paint the new Assault on Black Reach 5th Edition 40K starter so we can put that on display. It got a lot of attention at the store today as everyone ogled over the very well done models. The models are very easy to assemble, yet they've maintained dynamic poses. The Deff Koptas especially made me want to play orks. The set is $60 for about $300 worth of models. Customers are encouaged to pre-order -- some are pre-ordering more than one!