7th edition early games etc...

So I played a game today with a friend and we tried out some more of the new edition fun stuff.

He played a daemon army using:
3 FMC Tzeentch princes
lord of change
4x heralds of tzeentch
3x11 pink horrors

I played:
Eldrad
5xSpiritseer
5x3 windrider bikes
2x wraithknights
Baron Sathonyx
1x5 kabbalite warriors in a venom w/ night shield, grisly trophies, and an extra splinter cannon
5x beastmaster w/ 20x khymerae, 2x razorwing flock

We played a big guns never tire mission, had 4 objectives, used dawn of war deployment, and night fight.
I won the roll to go first (thanks to the bonus from Baron as usual!) so I set up first and then redeployed with Eldrad and chose to still go first as well. To preface the game, we used ALOT of terrain and we had 4 12x12inch based ruins that we called the whole thing the new kind of ruin so just touching the base gave you the lovely 4+ cover save. We also used two large forests which we used the new GW forest so it still granted a 5+ cover for being in it. Lastly we used two large hills which we called difficult terrain on top so they would grant a 6+ cover for standing on top and as a hill it would give a 5+ if it obscured you. (If any of these terrain ruling seem wrong please comment!)

So we have two armies here with LOADS of psychic potential. The daemon army clocks in at 30 warp charges and my eldar army starts with 14. So I am severely outclassed in total casting power right off the bat. We both rolled for lots of telepathy and daemonology powers. I used spiritseers to roll on telepathy until i rolled an invisibility (I got it on the 5th roll and then I rolled straight daemonology stuff) I got 2 possessions on spirit seers, an incursion, and I ended up with 3 spiritseers with the summoning. Eldrad rolled on runes of fate and got crap powers...so he didnt do much all game. My daemon opponent had a solid mix of all the daemonology powers and he also had an invisibility and a smattering of biomancy powers (one endurance I believe).

I am not going to go into extensive details of the game itself as we only played 3 turns (we spent alot of time discussing rules and making sure we did everything as close to right as possible, so we wasted ALOT of time) but I don't actually think the game takes longer to play than before. What I mean is that although we have an extra phase...those players who used psykers before already had that phase it was just split between shooting and beginning of turn casting. So for me (I have been playing seer councils...) it is not a huge extra time sink. If anything its actually nice to have all the powers happen at once in such a clearly structured way.

So we had some interesting situations arise. The first to discuss is that denying powers is hard. Sometimes it feels damn near impossible. But thats not a bad thing IMO. The reason is that in 6th edition unless you played space wolves you flat out period, could do NOTHING about my casting blessings and as Torrent of Fire was kind enough to share, I had about a 90ish% chance to cast my power. In most cases now I have found that honestly, I fail powers. Several times I tossed 6-7 dice at a warp charge 2 power and failed. I also had a number of times I failed to cast a daemonology power and suffered a perils for my trouble. Rolling 8 dice, getting all 1's, 2's, and 3's is rather sad. But it happens! I also had an instance in my game where on turn 2 my spiritseer turned into a lord of change and then on turn 3 I had forgotten about the "One Eye Open" rule and I ended up rolling a 1 for my Lord of Change so he sat and did nothing all turn. I doubt many players will make that error, but sometimes you cant avoid it. If you are using these new powers and you are not daemons then at times you will just scatter badly and then you will have to take those checks.

I also came to the conclusion that windrider jetbikes are very good at killing pink horrors :D I had 3 units go over and kill 11 pink horrors and 2 heralds of tzeentch between shooting and charging.  Now what was a bit annoying was that we both had invisible units. Two invisible units fighting it out in close combat is a bit silly. So in some regards this kind of match up is just about who gets their powers off. But that is more our fault as players. We both chose to bring this style of list. I actually feel we had some really cool psychic battles going. Now I have yet to really try a game using my psychic style list vs a non psyker oriented army. I fear it will feel one sided, but I am also a bit fearful that honestly that army might slaughter everything else in my army other than my one beefed up psychic unit.


So I look forward to more test games with this edition. On a side note has anyone considered this:

So due to come the apocolypse allies you cannot deploy within 12 inches. When you deepstrike you are told to "deploy your models" but you have to per the daemonology tree deepstrike within 6-12 inches (power depending)...but being unable to deploy like this does not cause a mishap. So if you summon...does this mean you cant summon unless you scatter out? Or is this some sort of accidental error? I am (for now) assuming that I can summon freely and just suffer the One Eye Open rule if on my next turn I am still within 6 inches of those units. The reason being is that this specific (not allowed to deploy) is not listed as a thing that can cause a mishap. Also my view is that the not allowed to deploy statement is meant in reference to beginning the game. I see how I could be wrong..but again then it seems odd as it is impossible for anyone but Daemons or CSM to use the conjuration powers. If that is the case...then that does seem a bit unfair if only those two armies can use those powers.

Thats all I have so far guys...

-Farseer Tsarith

7th Edition impending in 24 hours....

!?!?! 7th Edition!?

So tomorrow afternoon/evening many people will have hands on the new rule book. I know so far we have loads of confirmed rumors and even pictures of books from notable names such as Kirby over at 3++. But I will be holding most of my thoughts close to the chest until I have looked at the book with my own eyes (hopefully tomorrow afternoon).

However looking at what is confirmed so far...

It seems that psychic armies will be even more of the hotness, well at least those psychic armies with access to loads of psychic units and more than a few mastery level 3 units (Daemons and Eldar?). It sort of seems that we will have basically Eldar and Daemons taking psykers and few other races will bother as they will just see their powers constantly denied unless of course some mechanic for limiting the amount of dice you can use to deny powers comes into play. However given how many books are out there already and that NO ONE has said anything about something like that...I am assuming that there will just be "have" and "have nots" as far as powers go.

I am happy about how battle forged troops will get benefits to scoring (uncontestable accept by other troops or units with objective secured) but it will be nice that if all my troops are killed I can potentially score with my non troop choices as well. I also particularly like what I have read a few times about FMC's not being able to score while swooping (I am not sure if this was debunked or is confirmed it was just something I remember reading on the many sites I frequent). But I do personally think that FMC based armies needed a bit of a nerf as far as how easy it was to bully an opponent with 4-5 flying 300 point monsters. I think the power inherent in playing tons of them (loads of mastery level dice) and the addition of the daemonology tree (summoning....) should balance that out for those players so they wont feel their army got nerfed to death...it is more changing. Honestly I think it might be even more powerful than before it will just play differently. I expect Belakor will be making more appearances since invisibility is pretty boss now (consider putting it on an FMC who switches modes so it still can only be snap fired at accept....skyfire wont matter as far as shooting at that particular guy). But all of those kinds of wonky strategy will be quite risky assuming the psychic phase happens after moving...well you have to decide if you want to drop out of flight mode and risk failing that crucial psychic power.

I am expecting that my style lists (Eldar Seer Council and Eldar/Dark Eldar Beast Pack) will remain strong if not gain a bit of strength as the armies that I will now fear are an even smaller pool (just other equally psychic beefy armies). And things like O'Vesa Star are effectively dead (no joining FMC's with IC's should kill that list nicely, although Tau will still be strong, riptides are quite powerful even if they dont get loads of special rules).

I sure am glad I built/painted those Daemon prince's a few weeks ago...I forsee them getting alot of play time in the future.

Well thats all I have for now..but I expect I will be posting again in a few days once I have my book!

-Farseer Tsarith