My first game with 7th edition

This might interest you. I've just played a game against Eldar using the new rules. The short version is that new Jink rocks, Not Exploding rocks, and psychic powers are not too much trouble. We played the 'Cleanse and Control' mission.

The Eldar had:

2 x Sightseers on Jetbikes (one of them the Warlord)
2 x Warlocks on Jetbikes
3 x Dairy Vendors (x 6) on 3 x Wave Serpents with Scatter Lasers and Shoryuken Cannons
2 x Wendy Jetbike Riders (x 6) with Shoryuken Cannons
1 x Fire Prius w/ Prius Cannon and Shoryuken Cannon
1 x Falco w/ Pulse Laser and Scatter Laser
1 x Streaking Scorpios (x 6 plus eggsarch)
1 x Woop Spiders (x 6)
1 x Vapor Squadron with Scatter Lasers and Shoryuken Cannons
And everything had Hollow-Fields on it

I had:

Belfrit (Archon) and Grotesques (x 4) on a Raider
Morbith (Haemonculus) and Wyches (x 9) on another Raider
2 x Kabalite Warriors (x 10) on 2 x Raiders
Wracks (x 5) on a Venom
Wyches (x 5) on another Venom
Trueborn with blasters (x 4) on another, different Venom
Ravager with dark lances
Talos
Cronos
2 x Reaver Jetbikes (x 3)

I got Night Fighting, and the Eldar had the first turn.

On Turn 1, with all that shooting (count it! 7 scatter lasers and 9 shoryuken cannons, plus stuff!) he managed to wreck, but not explode the pink candy pack's raider (kabalites) and the tangerine madds raider (wyches), and kill a single pink candy packer. This got him 1 point for First Blood and 1 point for the Overwhelming Firepower mission.

I got Secure Objective 2, Secure Objective 1, and Overwhelming Firepower. The Pink Candy Pack happened to get shot down right on top of Objective 2, and I sent a group of Reavers to land on Objective 1 on the landing pad on the other side of the table. I also killed the Falco. The tangerines went into the bastion. So, it's 3 me, 2 eldar.



On Turn 2, they picked on the Blue Candy Pack and the Pink Candy Pack. The blue candy pack raider exploded BUT they had to shoot a Serpent Shield to do it, and even then they got lucky. As usual, half the pack died in the explosion. Then they shot at the survivors with Dairy Vendors, Bikes, and Psychic Powers, and finished them off. They shot at the pink candy pack with the prius, the vapors, another wave serpent, and the woop spiders, but 3 pinks survived. The other wave serpent contested objective 1 from my reavers and killed one of them. So, since they were holding Objective 1, 3, and 5 and I only had Objective 2, they got D3 points from the Supremacy mission (they got 2), and also 1 point for holding Objective 5.

I got the two remaining 'Secure Objective 2's' and a 'Secure Objective 4'. The pink candy pack was still on 2, so no problem, and the tangerines just came out of the bastion and onto the bridge and took 4. The wave serpents decided not to jink when I shot at them and they ended up with 2 hull points less each (just short). 6 me - 5 eldar

On Turn 3 they shot down Belfrit's raider and the snow madds venom exploded. Belfrit's was my own fault: I forgot to say 'jink!' before they rolled to hit. The snows' venom was just a very, very lucky shot, but 3 of them actually survived. That was my last raider, and the first venom to go, but only 2 explosions. The Dairy Vendors tried to kill the 3 reaver jetbikes that had arrived from reserves, but they just jinked out of it. Their jetbike squad and sightseer finally got the pink candy pack. They got D3 points for Ascendancy (hold at least 3 objectives), and 1 for objective 2.

I got Psychological Warfare, Objective 5, and Hold the Line. My reaver jetbikes had jinked the turn before, so their shooting was pretty bad, but they and the Talos charged the dairies anyway. I don't see anywhere that says that you can't Jink against overwatch, so they made it easily, although the Talos didn't make it. The wyches on the bridge finished off that wave serpent. The trueborn on the pad killed every dairy vendor there *but* one, and he passed his Ld test. Morbith killed 3 jetbikes with her soupifier gun, but they passed Ld too. The 3 snows from the exploded venom finished off the other wave serpent, and more dairies came out. The reavers won the assault against the dairies in the ruins, and they failed their morale test! That gave me psych warfare and objective 5 in one go (because they were sitting on it). Me 8 - Eldar 8.



To cut the story short (too late!), I eventually got 3 more points plus linebreaker. I got the Kingslayer mission and Belfrit did kill a Sightseer and his group of jetbikes in close combat, but it turned out to be the wrong Sightseer. I shot the other one with Morbith's soupifier, the wracks' venom, and all four trueborn with blasters, but I couldn't kill it  

Meanwhile, he got the Supremacy mission, which is to hold all six objectives. The last surviving dairy vendor on the landing pad had (1), the vapor squadron had (3), the prius had (6), a sightseer had (2) (before Belfrit kicked his arse), so he made a big push to kick me out of 5 and 4. The Last Wave Serpent and 6 dairy vendors shot at my reavers on (5) with everything, and in the end the wave serpent had to shoot the serpentine shield again, but they did it. On (4) both sightseers hit the tangerines with psychic powers and killed them all, and their warlord sightseer and a warlock charged the wracks' venom.

They couldn't kill it, but here I cheated a little. I told him that it was okay because wracks aren't Troops anyway, so (4) was his since he had Troops on it and I didn't. Of course I know that wracks are Troops when I bring Morbith, but it seemed fair to conveniently 'forget' that this time.

So he won, 14 to 12.

But it was a massive difference, having my transports survive for a couple of turns and the passengers survive the destruction of their transports. Psychic powers are a pain when you can't do much about them, but he failed to cast a lot. I only managed once to deny his witch, although I think I had really bad luck there, but very often he just wouldn't make the cast. No perils of penelope though.

And even though New Jink is absolutely great against almost everything, things that have 'Ignores Cover' still suck just as much as they did before. Flickerfields help... just as much as they did before, which means 'pray you get lucky'. I didn't take Night Shields, and I think maybe I should have.

Still, much, much better!

Thanks for the report! What did you think of the new tactical objective cards? They seem like fun.

Lovely report there! It is a shame your raid returned unsuccessful but you have learned and once the Haemonculi do their work you'll be back to win the next round

I had my first game of 7th today as well: 2k vs CSM and Daemons. I was too busy being a 7th Ed noob to do a report, but here's my quick thoughts to compliment BA's:

(we played the new Maelstrom rules, he got Night Vision WL trait so the Night Fighting did nothing)

1) Daemon summoning is not a big problem. Seriously. It's a joke. My opponent had 11 levels of Malific Daemonology on the board and it wasn't really an issue for me. A few heralds, some troops and one Bloodthirster were what popped up.

2) Vehicles are awesome. I had 3 Raiders and 4 Venoms that all died and only two exploded! That's 2/7!

3) Jink is great, but I'll still have Flickerfields on everything. Nice to get that 4+ if you really need it though. I also had Nightshields on everything and that will continue, especially with Night Fight being nerfed.

4) Tactical Objectives are amazing. We played it so that the objectives are secret (not face up like the rules) and it was a completely different game. Absolutely killer. And brutal as hell. At the end of the game I had 1 Wrack on his own (with 3+ FNP, thanks Tzeentch!) and another unit of 4 Wracks while my opponent had 1 Horror and a Portaglyph. This was tail side of Turn 7.


Overall I won the game 16 - 11 and was leading from the get go, but one of my opponents turns saw the points go from 11 - 6 to 11 - 11.

7th is a beautiful game so far. Will see whether this outlook keeps up after more games!

Summoning not an issue? Depends on the gamer I guess, here's what Frontline Gaming cooked up. 35 ML vs 3 on the imperial side.

MyNameDidntFit wrote:

1) Daemon summoning is not a big problem. Seriously. It's a joke. My opponent had 11 levels of Malific Daemonology on the board and it wasn't really an issue for me. A few heralds, some troops and one Bloodthirster were what popped up.

I've not looked at the Frontline battle report yet but I've been saying for a while now that daemonolgy is a big thing if you build your army around it. 11 Mastery Levels won't get you very far when all the summoning powers are WC3. Expect to see most daemon armies with 30-40 MLs and ending the game with more points on the table than they started with.

Trystis wrote:

Thanks for the report! What did you think of the new tactical objective cards? They seem like fun.

They are! You have to move, instead of just sitting at range and sniping away at the enemy. You don't have to score missions right away, but if your opponent is scoring points and you are not, it's going to be difficult to catch up.

Reaver jetbikes and Aethersails rule, but you also don't just want to whoosh them onto an objective right in the middle of a death zone - you have to support them. Or maybe you do, and when they die, at least they scored the necessary points. It's a decision!

They're unpredictable. Sometimes you get freebies and sometimes you get toughies or even impossibles. It's basically down to luck!

Count Adhemar wrote:

I've not looked at the Frontline battle report yet but I've been saying for a while now that daemonolgy is a big thing if you build your army around it. 11 Mastery Levels won't get you very far when all the summoning powers are WC3. Expect to see most daemon armies with 30-40 MLs and ending the game with more points on the table than they started with.

I honestly can't see anyone wanting to do that. Even what little summoning we had was tedious and my opponent said he found it mostly unenjoyable.

Maybe I just play in the wrong environment for this to be an issue.

Hopefully, I watched that report and even though the victory points didn't reflect it the daemons had the upper hand from the get go and come turn 4-5 it was just ridiculous. The Imperial player basically rolled godlike and draw lucky objective cards. The knight also helped stomping the little daemons, but I think by the end of turn 5 there were somewhere close to 4000 points of Daemons on the table, starting with 1850... let that sink in for a minute.

Still I think the more I learn about the new rules the more I like them for non-tournament play. The new objectives seem fun and while we took a few big hits, I think we'll hold out okay until a new book drops at least.

Thanks for the report! The changes do seem to favour our assault units greatly (which is awesome). Good to see that 7th is looking positive for us. Also what the hell happened to TDCs token doom and gloom wych? What have you done with her?

DingK wrote:

Summoning not an issue? Depends on the gamer I guess, here's what Frontline Gaming cooked up. 35 ML vs 3 on the imperial side.

Aside from massively over the average rolling on the first turn in that report. It Makes a big assumption that horrors can use daemonology, I doubt they will be able to after the FAQs. Also as summoned units are not bought as part of your primary detachment they do not have the objective secure rule!

Mushkilla wrote:

Thanks for the report! The changes do seem to favour our assault units greatly (which is awesome). Good to see that 7th is looking positive for us. Also what the hell happened to TDCs token doom and gloom wych? What have you done with her?

DingK wrote:

Summoning not an issue? Depends on the gamer I guess, here's what Frontline Gaming cooked up. 35 ML vs 3 on the imperial side.

Aside from massively over the average rolling on the first turn in that report. It Makes a big assumption that horrors can use daemonology, I doubt they will be able to after the FAQs. Also as summoned units are not bought as part of your primary detachment they do not have the objective secure rule!

White Dwarf from a couple of weeks ago, whilst talking about summoning a Greater Daemon, said "you can choose the Lore of Daemonology for your new addition and keep using Summoning (only more safely)" so it looks like it's working as intended and took about three and a half seconds for a lot of people to realise that this is massively OP and potentially gamebreaking before 7e even hit the shelves.

Mushkilla wrote:

White Dwarf from a couple of weeks ago, whilst talking about summoning a Greater Daemon, said "you can choose the Lore of Daemonology for your new addition and keep using Summoning (only more safely)" so it looks like it's working as intended and took about three and a half seconds for a lot of people to realise that this is massively OP and potentially gamebreaking before 7e even hit the shelves.

GW play testing like a boss! To be fair if someone is bothered to paint 100+ horrors just for summoning then I think he deserves to be able summon them all. After all you can only summon the models if you actually have models to place. Is it really going to be practical for tournament players to bring 200+ models (an assortment of all the models that work with summoning) in addition to their army to a tournament. Hell even lugging that to a gaming store is going to be a pain, it's like a whole additional carry case?!?! The reason flying circus was popular was because it was affordable and easy to transport. Same with screamer star.

Not letting your opponent proxy units when summoning will shut down most power gamers in their tracks. Or house rule that horrors can't use daemonology. Aside from horrors summoning horrors summoning horrors, daemonology isn't game breaking. Now that flying circus is finished and smash attack got nerfed daemons are not as strong as they were (they can't deal with armour anywhere as readily as they used to).

At least that's my experience so far.

I agree, flying circus is now pretty much dead or at least considerably nerfed and through that daemons went down in power overall. Then again, the summoning thing is ridiculous.

Mushkilla wrote:

Thanks for the report! The changes do seem to favour our assault units greatly (which is awesome). Good to see that 7th is looking positive for us. Also what the hell happened to TDCs token doom and gloom wych? What have you done with her?

Ha! I've been saying for ages that wyches needed all the help, and now they're getting a little help. It's not all the help, but it's better than it's been in ages. Maybe when the next Codex comes out, they will get the rest of it! In the meantime, I'm really going to enjoy riding around in transports and not dying

Thanks for sharing, Barking Agatha and MyNameDidntFit, sounds like much fun was had!

Question, did the score line from the Tactical Objectives feel reflective of your games? Or was there an element of 'huh?' that made the VP outcome seem slightly at odds with the flow of the battle?

I'm hoping to play a game for myself next Saturday, but would be interested to hear your thoughts.

Creeping Darkness wrote:

Question, did the score line from the Tactical Objectives feel reflective of your games? Or was there an element of 'huh?' that made the VP outcome seem slightly at odds with the flow of the battle?

Pretty much. In the first few turns, someone may get an advantage due to luck, putting the pressure on the other player, but it evens out after. You won't get any situations where you kill almost the entire opposing army except for two meringues, Kairos Funcheater, and a Heldrake, and then those two guys alone wipe you out and you lose anyway! *ahem*

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t8674-kairos-fateweaver-and-heldrake

Now, that is a 'huh?' moment!

Thank you BA for the awesome batrep/discussion/tactics post!

I played my first match of 7th today, running my CSM vs my friend's Tau. Deadlock mission.
I brought 6 Psyker Levels to the party, and have come to understand that psyker potential has been cut hard. Managed to get off Invisibility once, a 1-Warp Charge witchfire twice, and The Summoning once, all game long. The Pink Horrors summoned proved extremely useful, but they also represented > 50% of my army's shooting capabilities. Wiped half a fire warrior squad and 4 pathfinders with flickering fire, then critically tied up a unit of missilesides in CC for 2 whole turns before dying gloriously.

I had a similarly positive experience to BA, though I managed to squeeze a 12-11 victory due to a lucky roll on a D3 victory point strategic card. I likely would have lost if continuation was rolled; I had been shot down to 1 Maulerfiend, 1 CSM sarge, and 1 Noise Marine, whereas he had upwards of 800pts of his Tau. But dogged pursuit of my tactical objectives won me enough points to scrape ahead.
7th seems to run rather well, assuming you aren't trying to break the rules over your knee.
This was one of the more enjoyable games we'd played in a while we feel largely due to the tactical objectives rules.

I agree with basically everything Agatha has said. Summoning isn't going to be a huge issue unless the person builds a list specifically around it (as per the frontline gaming vid), and if so they'll run out of friends soon enough.
But I think the frontline guys played it wrong. Codex trumps rulebook, and the Chaos Daemons codex specifically states "Pink Horrors generate their powers from the Change discipline." Not that they have access to regular rulebook powers, only that they must generate their powers from Change. p.28 of the rulebook says "Psykers with the Daemon special rule can manifest Malefic powers as they would any other psychic power...", which for Pink Horrors is to say Not At All unless it comes from Change.
So no Malefic powers for them.
Also, Brotherhood of Sorcerers rule on p.159 of the rulebook states "if no mastery level is shown, then that unit has a mastery level of 1." They may get extra warp charges in 6th with increasing squad size, but they definitely don't get increasing Mastery Levels, which is what grants warp charge dice in 7th. So I'm pretty sure his list clocked out at 28 Mastery Levels, not the 35-40 it seems he's running.

FAQ needed.

Laughingcarp wrote:

But I think the frontline guys played it wrong. Codex trumps rulebook, and the Chaos Daemons codex specifically states "Pink Horrors generate their powers from the Change discipline." Not that they have access to regular rulebook powers, only that they must generate their powers from Change. p.28 of the rulebook says "Psykers with the Daemon special rule can manifest Malefic powers as they would any other psychic power...", which for Pink Horrors is to say Not At All unless it comes from Change.
So no Malefic powers for them.
Also, Brotherhood of Sorcerers rule on p.159 of the rulebook states "if no mastery level is shown, then that unit has a mastery level of 1." They may get extra warp charges in 6th with increasing squad size, but they definitely don't get increasing Mastery Levels, which is what grants warp charge dice in 7th. So I'm pretty sure his list clocked out at 28 Mastery Levels, not the 35-40 it seems he's running.

FAQ needed.

Whilst I agree that a FAQ would be good I think FLG got it right on both counts. As you yourself point out, Horrors generate extra warp charge. The rules say "If a rule tells you to add or subtract Warp Charge points, you add or subtract the appropriate number of dice from your pool." so you add this to the total generated from the D6 + Mastery Levels. Also, the section you quoted from the rules "Psykers with the Daemon special rule can manifest Malefic powers as they would any other psychic power..." specifically allows them to add Malefic to their normal powers. I'm afraid you've simply interpreted it wrong.

Of course, all this could have been avoided by simply preventing summoned units from summoning any further units.

Creeping Darkness wrote:

Question, did the score line from the Tactical Objectives feel reflective of your games? Or was there an element of 'huh?'  that made the VP outcome seem slightly at odds with the flow of the battle?

Definitely. While there is big potential for a player, who seems to be losing, to get the upper hand through the right objectives and smart play, the game definitely felt right. It definitely felt better than being able to win or lose a game based on who managed to shoot the first transport!

Laughingcarp wrote:

This was one of the more enjoyable games we'd played in a while we feel largely due to the tactical objectives rules.

This! Those cards have reinvigorated the game amazingly.

Ooooh.
I missed that sentence on my read-over, about Warp Charge points = to Warp Charge pool dice.

Still don't think Pink Horrors are allowed to use Malefic. I won't really argue that my interpretation is correct over yours, since I've explained why I believe it so and you (fairly enough) find my explanation lacking.
But as I believe this to be an issue of Codex specificity trumping Rulebook, would you mind elaborating as to why you read it to mean Horrors DO have access to Malefic powers?

At least summoned units can't cast conjurations on the same turn they arrived. Small blessings, right?  

MyNameDidntFit wrote:

While there is big potential for a player, who seems to be losing, to get the upper hand through the right objectives and smart play, the game definitely felt right. It definitely felt better than being able to win or lose a game based on who managed to shoot the first transport!
...Those cards have reinvigorated the game amazingly.

Truth, couldn't have put it better myself! When games were being won or lost with something in the realm of 3-9 victory points, from an objective or three and the secondaries, something like first blood mattered a lot. But with the Maelstrom game types there is plenty of opportunity to get upwards of 10 VP each; while 1 point still makes a difference it isn't game-breaking. These changes help push people towards playing to the mission instead of forcing a tie on mission and winning on secondaries, which I feel some armies definitely have an advantage or disadvantage at. Secondaries feel like secondaries again, not like necessary game-changers.

@ Barking Agatha; in your match today, even with the swing of VP back and forth a bit, how did you feel the rules helped balance out armies from different editions with rules that (at least previously) clearly favoured the newer Codices? Did you feel like you had a better or worse than usual chance in this game, considering the specific Eldar vs Dark Eldar matchup?

Personally I have found tactical objectives (four games with them) to be too unpredictable. It's way too easy for a player to snowball ahead when another player gets some unplayable card draws. It's way too dependant on what you draw, it's not tactical, it's random. Not to mention they slow the game down to a crawl. So personally, i'll be following throne of skull rules.

Now that all units are scoring combined with the way objective secure and objectives being placed before determining table sides, has made the eternal war mission really solid.

Mushkilla wrote:

Not to mention they slow the game down to a crawl.

I can understand (though disagree with so far) your other objections, but I found that the cards added maximum a minute to each turn (10-15 to a game, tops).

Perhaps if you're using the D66 roll I could see it slowing down the game?

Laughingcarp wrote:

@ Barking Agatha; in your match today, even with the swing of VP back and forth a bit, how did you feel the rules helped balance out armies from different editions with rules that (at least previously) clearly favoured the newer Codices? Did you feel like you had a better or worse than usual chance in this game, considering the specific Eldar vs Dark Eldar matchup?

In 6th edition half my army wouldn't have survived his first turn, and I wouldn't have lasted more than three. So I felt that I had a much better than usual chance this time!

Basically it's 3 Wave Serpents, a Falcon, a Fire Prism, and 3 Vypers against 4 Raiders, 3 Venoms, and one Ravager. 8 fast skimmer vehicles v. 8 fast skimmer vehicles. The eldar ones are still very, very difficult to shoot down, and they get a 3+ Jink if they want it (because of hollow fields), and they can bypass our own Jink with their serpentine shields. There's no question that eldar are still better, but the 'penalty' isn't so harsh any more. Does that make sense?

Mushkilla wrote:

Personally I have found tactical objectives (four games with them) to be too unpredictable. It's way too easy for a player to snowball ahead when another player gets some unplayable card draws. It's way too dependant on what you draw, it's not tactical, it's random.

I don't get that. Why would you want games to be predictable? In tournaments sure, maybe, but all the time?

As for 'unplayable' card draws, that is more likely to happen if you have a very specialised army with a specific strategy in mind (such as you might find in tournaments!). It punishes 'competitive' lists and rewards 'fun' lists. It might happen that you draw Demolition and there aren't any buildings for you to demolish, but it's really, really unlikely that it would happen so much that the other player snowballs ahead!

Errata/FAQ posted: http://www.blacklibrary.com/faqs-and-errata.html
Pink Horrors definitely get access to Malefic powers. So here we are.

Props BA, I'm hoping for a similar level of success in my first DE 7e match!

If you're saying the new rules are doing a decent job of balancing out some power discrepancies in different armies, then yes it makes perfect sense!

And truth. Unpredictability makes it more fun. Part of what helped me stay in the game in my first match of CSM vs Tau was because of my warlord trait; I got #4 on the tactical table, got to discard my first hand of 6 objective cards and pick a new one that happened to suit me much more.

I had my first 7th ED game this weekend and I am positive as well.

With 6th ED I though that you win games in the moving phase.. in 7th I know that this is true With out incredible mobility, claiming objectives is awesome.

One example: the game I played had tactical missions and on turn 3 it was line breaker for me (1 pt for one linebreaker, w3 points for 3 linebreaker). It wasn´t very difficult to zoom 3 units over and claim those points

I hope to get another game in soon and then I will write a Batrep.

Had my first game of 7th as well, we were not playing the tactical missions as we didn't bother rolling all the D66 things out, since none of us had the cards. It was Emperors Will, standard deployment vs. Necrons.

I brought a Talos which I normally don't do and I have to say it won the game for me, multicharging a Ghost Ark and Warrior unit and subsequently blowing up the Ark, killing some in the explosion and then running the warriors down. Necron vehicles, especially with new jink are really hard to down otherwise, they've gained a lot, and snap firing doesn't hurt them as much on their Tesla-stuff either. I don't feel much has changed if you're not playing tactical missions, however I noticed that our vehicles are far more survivable only exploding on 7 and having the new Jink. A very important thing to learn though is when to Jink and when not to. I ruined 2 of my Ravagers shooting phase by Jinking when I really shouldn't have which made the game a lot harder. A definite to do: crunch some numbers and analyze real threat levels enemy units pose to my vehicles to not cry "JIIIINK" when anything sneezes in my general direction.

What I noticed though is that the new Chariot Rules and Necron FAQ (which is missing out on some key points to clarify the whole "Ever Living" thing) makes the Catacomb Command barge ridiculously good. Over the course of the game I got a single glance through on it, the other things were jinked away or tanked by that stupid Phase-Shifter Lord on top. Fast Skimmer and immune to immobilize means it will get there and punch things dead eventually.