Chaos Triumphant!

I have been playing 40k since late 4th edition. In all that time I have, maybe, played a dozen games. I am not a frequent gamer, to say the least. I also lose a lot. A whole lot. As in "Man, you really stink at this" a lot.

But I am getting better.

It started with Warmachine. We play small games about once a week on lunch hour, and I had a terrible record when we just lined up and beat face. My Khador opponent would regularly disassemble my poor Menites with gusto. We started playing with scenario rules, and my entire focus changed. Suddenly I am maneuvering to score VP rather than just weather the armored onslaught. Come to think of it, it probably started when I was playing Malifaux, the only game I've ever played where you can get tabled and still win. Your mindset is all about the VP in Malifaux. Anyway, my Warmachine opponent was shocked to see that I was actually starting to win games.

This Saturday I played my first game of 40k 6th edition, and won 5 VP to 0. I was playing my shiny new Nurgle/Slaanesh list against a plasma cannon heavy Dark Angels army. There was definitely some dice luck involved, especially since I stole the initiative and got first blood from his aggressive deployment, but I had a plan and executed it. The units that I intended for various jobs did them, for the most part. I suppose the dice luck went both ways... his making 9 power armor saves and 14 terminator armor saves in a row defies the odds.

I played a list very similar to the once posted here. Those zombies last forever against a regular Devastator squad. I can imagine a dedicated assault unit giving them a hard time, but when you only get 10 or 11 attacks against them it's a slow grind to kill them all. Typhus was worth taking just for that.

The positioning of models was a challenge for me. I was able to protect my Havoc heavy weapons just fine with the extra marines in the unit, but getting my aspiring champions into combat gave me problems. I was hesitant to put them up front for fear of removing them to shooting (look out sir notwithstanding.) I lost a whole unit of marines to sweeping advance without the champ taking a single power fist swing. Granted they were swept by terminators, which I pretty much know can't happen but I didn't feel like making the guy look it up since it was already late in the game and this fight was not in a crucial area of the board. I simply commented that normal terminators can't sweeping advance, but if Deathwing can then that's an awesome advantage over regular termies. Discussion over. He was already thinking about ditching his army by the end of the game ("Marines suck ass" I believe was his rationale) so I didn't want to add fuel to the fire. As it is, running out of hull points wrecking his land raider took him entirely by surprise. They're not nearly as unstoppable as in 5th, especially if you have a habit of rolling 1's on the vehicle damage chart like I do. I really tried not to be a jerk about winning either. I am a gracious loser, but have less experience being a gracious winner. Or any kind of winner.

So! Next game... when? Who knows? I get about four games in per edition it seems, so no hurry. I have my heart set on playing a friend's Blood Angels. My veterans of the long war look forward to their re-rolls.

Oh, and Warp Kittens cleaned up. Seriously. Whole squads dead before they could strike back. I love that  mark of Slaanesh,