Bad day for Ultramarines

This is the army I played last night. You'll need army builder to open it.

So, what went wrong? Well, first of all, I didn't expect to win. I hadn't played marines for awhile. I was trying out the honor guard. There were a lot of reasons that this army shouldn't have worked.

Here's the thing though, I'm not convinced that my fatalistic attitude in playing the army contributed to the loss. I could have won.

I was fighting Eldar. Avatar, two wraithlords, warlock and 4 wraithguard, five harlequines decked out, five scorpions, five dire avengers, 2 big squads of guardians with star cannons, and a falcon.

Here's what I did. I held my Land Raider out of sight for the first turn. On the second turn, everything became available and I did deep strike with everything. That allowed me to surround everything, jump out rapid firing, and etc.. This was my tactic. I pulled it off, and it failed.

The problem in a nut shell is this, a bunch of bolters rapid firing is scary. That's true. But it's not scary enough. I couldn't, for instance, kill an entire squad. I couldn't kill the Wraithlords, I couldn't kill the Avatar. The Assault cannon on the dreadnought is nasty, but it's not going to destroy any of the aforementioned stuff, even in combo with two las-cannons on the Land Raider (one being fired by the machine spirit). The counter attack on all this is brutal. The avatar charges the dreadnought, the wraithlords charge the marine units (who cannot fight back with the lightening claws). It didn't help that the falcon got off a lucky shot destroying the land raider, but even if it hadn't, I'm not sure I could have turned the defeat into victory even with a squad of power weapons re-rolling misses. The problem is strength against a wraithlord, wraithguard, or the avatar, and four strength power weapons just aren't enough.

So, toe to toe, best of possible worlds, I failed horribly.

What should I have done? I think power fists instead of lightening claws for one. I'm not against the land raider (there are those who are), but as it was centralized, there wasn't a real "choose a target" kind of scenario. My new opinion is that I should have made each of the marines a formidable unit on its own--and not because of rapid fire. I should have then dropped them on hard to reach parts of the board opposite that of the land raider. This would have made his forces have to come after me. With a few heavy bolters or missile launchers that would have taken care of much of the problem. I think if you're going to do the whole, "charge out of the land raider" thing, you need to do it and do it quickly. No waiting for the perfect moment because there's just too much risk that the Land Raider will get popped--which is precisely what happenned.

Ultimately though, what I think I did wrong, was I fought the enemy rather than trying to achieve objectives, which I might have very easilly done given the extreme mobility of an all deep striking army.

Armor Cast

Armor Cast seems to be back in business!

Cities of Death- Where it's broke and how to fix it

I am intrigued by how bad the rules are in Cities of Death. They are so incomplete as to be shameful even by GW standards and anyone who plays them will notice quickly that a hand to hand army is likely to win every time and by a margin of victory that makes one wonder how they didn't notice this...flaw...in play testing. I'm going to guess that they didn't play test.

Some minor points that have come up in our games.

• Given the ammount of terrain on the board that's already difficult, is there any reason to put down 3-5 more strips. Come on. Can't we make razor wire do anything more interesting than that?
• Can vehicles just drive through building walls where no opening is indicated on the scenery model?
• Can troops just walk through building walls where there is no door, window, or hole on the scenery model?
• Can troops and vehicles shoot through building walls that look solid for all intents and purposes?
• Does height advantage allow a model to see further into shorter areas of rubble?
• If a hover tank is shot (penetrating) while hovering over a building and it doesn't have the rappelling lines stratagem, are the troops inside killed if forced to disembark?
• Why would anyone take all of the really crappy stratagems?
• Can jump troops land on any level of the building? Can they jump over a building regardless of its height?
• Can deep striking troops land anywhere or do they have to land on the top level of buildings?
• What are shooting troops supposed to do to protect themselves from hand to hand troops? (this one is less a rule thing and more a MAJOR FAILING ON THE PART OF ALL CITIES OF DEATH GAMES)

At a certain point, what can I say. I love City fight terrain, but man these rules suck and games played with these rules just really aren't that fun.

But I think I can fix the problem. Here goes:

First of all. I would require that at least one square foot of the terrain placed on the table be declared dangerous. That's starters.

Second, razorwire should be dangerous terrain for charging troops.

Third, I would litter the board with terrain. I think Cities of Death boards aught to be thought of in terms of paths through the rubble rather than spots of rubble. More rubble means less advantage to hand to hand troops. It's as simple as that. This would mean that you have to be more inventive about paths through the rubble. Overhead walkways and roads become key board features.

Fourth, while all rubble and ruined buildings are at the very least area terrain, I would say that they have this characteristic by default. In other words, if they are nothing else, they are area terrain. If they have walls, then those stand in to block line of sight or stop firing or movement. One cannot walk through walls, and vehicles moving through walls must make a dangerous test on 1 extra dice.

Anything over 6 inches in height is vertically impassible even to jump troops. Jump troops do not have to roll 3s to get up 3 inches or 6s to get up 6 inches.

That's starters. I'll think of more after tonight I'm sure.

To all Ebay Scammers

It's been a while, but then...I've kind of been busy.

So, over the last few weeks, I have learned that one of the major differences between ebay last year and Ebay this year is that the number of scammers has multiplied. So far, I have received four emails from people telling me that their stuff has mysteriously disapeared in the mail. Oh my! Has the federal government collapsed or something? No? Well, then I imagine people are still delivering mail.

The funny thing is that as soon as I say, "I have a receipt proving that I sent the package to you," I never hear from these people again. This is why it is good to keep those receipts.

In any case, listen to me, you various artists of the scam, I use the money I make on ebay to feed my baby. I want you to know that. I want you to have full knowledge that you are attempting to take food away from a baby. I don't know if you believe in karma or hell or cosmic justice or what have you, but believe you me, you are probably not in good with the powers that be for screwing with a child...

...and now you cannot claim ignorance.