Kingbreakers’ Long Patrol and Standard Combat Landspeeders

Posted on 2010/02/18 by

Some time ago, my buddy Matt gave me a half-complete conversion project. He’d taken a Landspeeder, cut up the cab, and added some bedrolls, smoke launchers, and a Storm Bolter type thing on an extra wing frame. His aim was to build some sort of IG recon vehicle, but he decided it wasn’t going anywhere and handed it over.

With all the bedrolls and such I started thinking of it as a Long Patrol Landspeeder. The fluff notion became that the Kingbreakers employed a number of these on extended solitary patrols around Forestway, their home planet, and later in other systems as well. ‘Speeders intended for this purpose were grafted with extra sensors, lights, small weapons, comms gear, and provisions stores in order to sustain themselves for long periods, detect anomalies and enemies, and report back. Given the small size of the chapter and the reconnaissance oriented mission, these were manned with semi-automated guns so that a single Marine could take up the duty and potentially be unavailable for a good period of time. That practice only became even more important when the chapter was decimated in the tragic undoing of Forestway, a tale for another time. After that, many such recon units were further converted to have an armored cab so that a Scout could undertake those long range patrols and recce flights with relatively assured survival, helping to free all full battle brothers for deployment in front line combat.

Back in reality, at the time I finished putting the model together I didn’t have a ton of extra Marines to convert into pilots, and Matt’s were largely missing. I also liked the idea of a lonely Marine out on patrol; it fit in with the somewhat outdoorsy, quiet, solitary background mood of the Kingbreakers. Given that Matt had already added some packs, searchlights, and so on, it also only made sense to add some more doo-dads and really push it in that direction. In the end, I built up a little cab out of clay, a gun turret out of a Devastator squad Multi-Melta and the cone of a dead laser pointer, a nose mounted Heavy Flamer from a bits bag Jason traded me for some magnets, and a bunch of gribblies from random bits.

Last week I finally got around to painting that Long Patrol Landspeeder:

Kingbreakers' Long Patrol Landspeeder

I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. For some reason it’s a little shinier than I expected, even after dull coating, but not too bad in real life. Most importantly, the cab fits in with the body and with the narrow vision slit is even vaguely reminiscent of the official Tempest model, so that worked out reasonably well.

On that note, sometime earlier this winter I also painted up a standard Landspeeder model:

Kingbreakers' Standard Combat Landspeeder

On the construction side of things, I like the Landspeeder models a lot as they’re fairly straightforward to assemble, and quick to paint. Between these two I didn’t find a huge difference in painting before versus after assembly, but would probably do the former in the future. Really the slowest parts are the two Marine pilots, but they’re not too bad if done before assembly. The Kingbreakers icons are done with custom decals I made up. Like all my vehicles, these were base coated with cheap black spray paint. The main paint components in the Kingbreakers’ scheme are Privateer Press Paints’ Hammerfall Khaki, Ordic Olive, and Exile Blue, respectively washed with GW Gryphon Sepia, Thraka Green, and Asurmen Blue. The washes highlight the shapes of the components and provide a little bit of a weathered look I like, with basically no effort. I’ve found so far that really edging the lines on vehicles takes a ton of time and doesn’t really stand out on the gaming table, so for both these models I skipped that step in favor of getting them done.

I’m also pretty happy with how the bases on both came out. Given the large size and relatively visible nature of these on Landspeeders, they’re definitely worth spending a minute or two on:

Standard Combat 'Speeder Base

Long Patrol 'Speeder Base Front

Long Patrol 'Speeder Base Rear

Both bases were done quickly and easily. I built up the Standard Combat base with some greystuff blobs to give it a little bit of a smoothed rock texture. The Long Patrol base is textured with some hacked up balsa wood and bits from a toy race car. Both were sprayed black with the rest of their model, then painted Scorched Brown. They were then drybrushed to a greater or lesser extent with Snakebite Leather. The Standard Combat base was then also drybrushed with Bronzed Flesh, and the metal bits on the Long Patrol picked out in Boltgun Metal. The Standard base was then washed in Devlan Mud and the Long base in Gryphon Sepia. On both bases I then glued on some green flock, fake wheat grass, and fake lichen. Those elements were then randomly brushed again with the same wash as the base to darken them, tie them into the base, and add some color variation.

Finally, both have been constructed to disassemble, enabling easier storage, representation of battle damage and destruction, and swappable nose weapons:

Disassembled Standard Combat 'Speeder

On the Standard Combat model I cut off the tip of the flight base and simply glued on a 1/8″ magnet, with a corresponding partner sunk into the hole the base usually inserts into, after it had been slightly enlarged. The standard ‘Speeder model is light enough that this basically works if set level—it swings around easily, but is super stable when picked up or set down on the table. The Heavy Flamer similarly has a 1/8″ magnet sunk into it, and a matching one in the nose gun mount.

I had no base for the Long Patrol speeder, so I used a wood dowel rod supported by a balsa chunk on a cutout piece of plasticard. With the extra weight of the cab, the model was too heavy to sit readily at the somewhat more dynamic angle I cut the support rod at with just the magnet holding it together. To counter that, I added a sheath around the magnet on the ‘Speeder body that the base dowel fits into. Between that and the magnets it’s rock solid, even when set to pretty crazy angles. The Heavy Flamer was done similarly as the Standard model, just offset to the side a bit on the body.

One note about magnetizing like this is that it’s really hard to bind magnets to most surfaces with glue, so I usually wind up using greystuff or greenstuff to set them in place.

In game terms I play both of these simply as standard Landspeeders, usually outfitted with a Multi-Melta and Heavy Flamer in an all-comers list. All in all, I’ve come to view Landspeeders as one of the bright stars in the Marines’ lineup, and one of their definite advantages on the battlefield. More thoughts on their tactics will have to await another day, but suffice to say it’s become pretty rare for me to leave home without these, even for very small games, and I expect to build more for this summer’s ‘Ard Boyz.

More and higher res pictures of both models are available in the Flickr gallery.

Combat Patrol Tournament/Campaign Design Notes (Part 2)

Posted on 2010/02/11 by

Recently, Pangloss and Equinox have been having a pretty good discussion about Combat Patrol in 5th Edition:

In an earlier post I talked a bit about some of the reasons I like Combat Patrol, namely accessibility, faster games, and reduced rock-paper-scissors effects, which can be dramatic in low points games. I’ve also talked a bit in the past about general issues in small 40k games. I thought I’d add on to my earlier points with some more thoughts on revising the rules to better accommodate the current codexes and rules.

The Zoanthrope says: "You best get good at rolling Leadership Tests!"

As a case in point for why revisions are necessary, consider the new Tyranid codex. Due to the restrictions to 2 Wounds and 4+ Invulnerable saves, there are no Synapse Creatures permitted in Combat Patrol under the new book. For those unaware, without coverage from Synapse, almost every Tyranid unit has to pass a Leadership check. Otherwise it either storms toward the enemy or hides. That severely hampers playing the new book in Combat Patrol, unless you field purely hordes of Genestealers, who are not subject to Synapse, but have no ranged weapons. That also gets a little boring after a while. This essentially eliminates a very popular army from playing, a substantial problem.

Points Limits

I agree that 750pts is pushing the upper bound for Combat Patrol; beyond that it’s too constricting and should generally be played as a standard game. But I think a good set of rules could work well over ~250–750 pts, and create a game atmosphere that feels different from standard 40k but is similar enough to just sit down and go. Like Equinox said, that’s an important goal.

A major determinant in what points levels work depends on what armies are used. A friend and I regularly play 250pts. That’s probably the lower bound without true skirmish rules, but we have fun though pushing models around at lunchtime. It works because he’s running Chaos Marines and I run Space Marines, and that’s just enough points to both have some choices and field some variety. Other armies really struggle at even 400pts; Necrons are the classic example, Grey Knights are another. Viable points levels depends a lot on who’s playing.

I think the set points clearly depends on what people what to get out of it, and there isn’t a need to be too strict about what is “Combat Patrol” and what’s not. For example, one reason we’re running 750pts in our tournament is because it allows a good number of units, which in turn enables more varied mission scenarios. At 400pts a lot of armies basically field only two units, so it’d be hard to have objectives and other special scenario goals. Asymmetric scenarios, played with alternating roles, were also something we liked the sound of. But, we also wanted people to be able to play after work. The 750pt limit supports those competing goals, while also being a slightly longer match than 400pts. We have, however, applied the Combat Patrol rules rather than just limiting the points, largely in order to prevent rock-paper-scissors list making issues. Similarly, 400pts is very fast to play, very accessible, and a lot of fun in its own right. There’s clearly a place for both.

HQs

A great number of HQ units definitely seem potentially unbalanced at these point levels, or not in the spirit of the missions if you care about that sort of thing. I think you can keep out “crazy” HQs by keeping some sort of restriction against uniques, but let in the “regular” HQs by drifting the allowable wounds up to 3. That enables IG Company Commanders, Tyranid Warriors, Space Marine Captains, etc., all of which are reasonable to me, but cuts out Abaddon, Marneus, etc., whom I think present problems. More on “Uniques” later.

"Outflanked again, Sgt Jericho? This never would have happened if Captain Angholan had been permitted to join the patrol!"

In any case though, I don’t think HQs should be required. Too many are glass jaws to force them at this point level. For example, a Space Marine Captain is actually a tough sell. I wouldn’t say that they really bring in their 100+ pts on average; ditto Librarians—sometimes they come up huge, but a lot of times they don’t. Chaplains also essentially force a unit to lose Combat Tactics, which is unfortunate. All are solid selections in a full list with other units to synergize with and many other models on the table, but I wouldn’t want to be forced to take one with so few points available. Conversely, I wouldn’t want them disallowed either. For this week’s tournament mission, I would have strongly considered a Captain and Command Squad—the first time I’ve ever seriously thought of the latter—but the Captain is out due to the traditional 2 wounds restriction.

Heavy Supports

In my opinion, Armor Value restrictions keep out sufficient HS. I wouldn’t ban HS completely and eliminate Devastators or Havocs, they don’t seem out of line for the feel of the game.

I also don’t see the traditional restriction against Ordnance as being necessary. If someone wants to field a Basilisk, Predator, Whirlwind, or something, I’d be ok with it, and think it’s reasonably fluffy—a lone vehicle making its way to a new position with its escort or some such. Especially on a smaller table, they’ll be prone to assault or concentrated attack, and the armor value on this units is not particularly higher than the transports; I don’t think they’d be dominating choices.

At 750pts I’d actually lift the armor restriction a bit, maybe to 34 total points rather than 33. In that size army you can field enough options to have some reasonable anti-vehicle plan, and could work to take down more heavily armored vehicles. I would probably not say this at 400pts though; the environment is just very different. In particular, my experience has been that Dreadnoughts are devastating and frequently unstoppable at that point level.

Either way, even at 750pts I’d hesitate to let in a Land Raider, Monolith, or similar vehicle. It’s true that they would be a huge points risk that might be taken out relatively easily—I’ve had Sternguard take out even an entire Baneblade by themselves in the first round of shooting, and Landspeeders can regularly do the same for Land Raiders. But I think these are just too much of a rock-paper-scissors risk at these point levels for my taste. Those also have accessibility issues for newer players trying to compete.

One idea that came up in our group is to have a total limit for the army. Something like you can field any vehicles, but the combined armor across all of them must be less than 100 (or something). That would let you use one or two big vehicles, or a couple smaller vehicles, or a mix. It might be just as easy though to say “One vehicle with armor up to 34 (or 35, etc) and any number with armor up to 33.”

Elites and Fast Attack

Tight limits on FA and Elites are also problematic. I think a squad of Sternguard and a couple Landspeeders is fairly fluffy for combat patrol. Landspeeders, Rough Riders, and Sentinels all also provide for all-FA lists very much in keeping with the spirit of Combat Patrol. Appropriate mission rules probably counter any problems here. In our tournament, you could bring a ton of Elites, FA, etc., but many of the missions have objectives, so it behooves you to bring Troops, just like standard 40k.

General Unit Restrictions

Like Pangloss said, I also think Equinox’s proposed 200pt maximum per unit restriction is too tough, although the intent is good. As noted, a squad of Marines is 170pts. Add a Rhino or a Powerfist and a Plasmagun and they’re over that limit. The problem with saying they can just take five man squads is then they don’t have access to heavy and special weapons. Cheap weapons are one of the primary advantages for Space Marines compared to many races, and their main anti-horde and anti-vehicle counter abilities, so robbing them of that would really hinder them unfairly.

These Termagants haven't realized yet that they're supposed to be Lurking...

Lifting the permitted wounds to 3 is essentially required, if only to enable Tyranids a few viable Synapse Creatures. It also permits the generic Space Marine Captains and Chapter Masters (and consequently Command Squads), IG Company Commanders, and many other units that don’t seem unreasonable.

Not discussed so far is if the traditional Combat Patrol restriction to no better than 3+/4+ saves should be relaxed. I am torn on this. One argument I see for relaxing it are Zoanthropes, an important Synapse Creature option for Tyranids. However, if permitted wounds are bumped up—basically a requirement, I think—Tyranid players can cover Synapse via at least Warriors. I also don’t see a reason to cut out Techmarines. However, I have mixed feelings about Terminators. They’re admittedly super hard to take down and could cleave through another army, but even at 750pts they would be a significant fraction of a list to invest in just a few models. They also don’t generally score, so the mission scenarios will enforce some sort of natural balance. Including them would also enable Dark Angels players to use their preferred codex and existing units. One plausible option might be to allow 2+ armor saves, or 3+ invulnerables, but not both. This would permit Zoanthropes, Captains in Artificier Armor, Honor Guards, Techmarines, etc., but not Terminators.

Similar to Equinox, I also don’t have issues with upgrade characters like Telion or Harker. They just don’t seem that unbalancing; they’re useful, but they’re a bunch of points as well. The key here is the wording, enabling these guys but keeping out crazy HQs. Toward that end, I think the wording should be “No Unique Independent Characters, Unique Monstrous Creatures, or Special Characters.” The rationale behind this specific wording is based on:

Space Marines: Telion does not technically say Unique (he has a special rule limiting him to 1 squad), but Chronus does; neither are Independent Characters. The fancy HQ characters are of course all Unique Independent Characters.
Chaos Marines: All named characters are Unique Independent Characters.
Orks: Snikrot and Zagstruk are not Independent Character, nor technically Unique, and hence would be allowed. The few named HQs are Unique Independent Characters.
Tau: Aun’va, Farsight, and Shadowsun use the old terminology and are listed as Special Characters, not as Uniques.
IG: Yarrick is a Unique Independent Character; all the company commander characters and other upgrades are Unique, but not Independent Characters. Marbo is also Unique Infantry and would be allowed.
Chaos Demons: All the named demons are Unique Monstrous Creatures, not Independent Characters. Interestingly, Fateweaver is a Unique Monstrous Creature with only 3 wounds so it would not otherwise be covered by the rules without this wording.
Tyranid: Most of the named characters are Unique Monstrous Creatures, though Parasite of Mortex is Unique Jump Infantry and Deathleaper is Unique Infantry and would be allowed.

I think that wording strikes a reasonable balance, permitting these manageable, colorful upgrade characters and a few solos, but disallowing the real heavies.

Rules Suggestions

That makes my current thinking on revised Combat Patrol rules something like:

Missions should set army lists at no more than 250–750 points.
Armies must include 1 Troop unit and may have up to 2 HQ, 6 Troop, 2 Elite, 2 Fast Attack, and 2 Heavy Support units.
No Unique Independent Characters, Unique Monstrous Creatures, or Special Characters are permitted.
No model may have more than 3 wounds.
Any model with a 2+ Armor Save may not have an Invulnerable save.
Any model with a 3+ Armor Save may not have better than a 4+ Invulnerable Save.
In a 500pt or below game, no vehicle may have total armor value (Front+Side+Rear) greater than 33.
In a 501–750pt game, no vehicle may have total armor value (Front+Side+Rear) greater than 34.
Units which don’t occupy Force Organization slots, such as Dedicated Transports and Retinues, are permitted caveat the other rules.
Before deployment, each player must declare one model in their army to be their Patrol Leader. There must not be a model in the army with a higher Leadership value. Note that this implies the Patrol Leader is not a vehicle.
Missions should be played on 4’x4′ tables.

The Patrol Leader isn’t important for standard mission setups, but I think it’s a handy designation to have in writing custom scenarios given that there’s not necessarily an HQ in each list. For example, in our tournament preserving or killing Patrol Leaders has been worth Bonus Points on several occasions.

Glancing through the codexes I have and the main rulebook, these rules seem to disallow the following for 750pt games; in general, no named characters are permitted except as discussed above regarding “Uniques”:

Orks: No Battlewagons.
Chaos Marines: No Terminators, Oblits, Daemon Princes, Greater Demons, or Land Raider variants.
Chaos Demons: No Bloodthirsters, or Soul Grinders.
Daemonhunters: No Grand Masters, Brother Captains, Terminators, or Land Raider variants.
Tau: Broadsides, Crisis Shas’O Commander, Hammerheads, or Sky Rays.
Black Templars: No Emperor’s Champions, Terminators, Land Raider variants.
Space Marines: No Drop Pods, Terminators, or Land Raider variants.
Necrons: No Wraiths, or Monoliths.
Imperial Guard: No Leman Russ variants.
Tyranids: No Swarmlord, Hive Tyrants, Tervigons, Zoanthropes (3+ Inv), Doom of Malantai, Carnifexes, Old One Eye, Trygons, Mawlocs, or Tyrannofexes

Dropping the permitted vehicle armor values to 33 at 500pts further eliminates:

Orks: No Deff Dreads.
Chaos Marines: No Predators, Vindicators, Defilers, or Dreadnoughts.
Space Marines and other Imperials: No Dreadnoughts, Predators, Vindicators, or Dreadnoughts.
Imperial Guard: No Hellhound variants, Death Strikes, Valkyries or Vendettas,

Those rules also eliminate some wargear and combinations, such as Storm Shields combined with Artificer Armor. Interestingly, Mycetic Spores have only 3 wounds and a 4+ save, so Tyranids would always have their Drop Pod. For Synapse they would be able to choose from Tyranid Primes, the Parasite of Mortex, and Zoanthropes.

Conclusion

I had sort of thought the forthcoming 40k Missions Book from GW would have material along these lines, including revised Kill Team or Combat Patrol rules and missions. The part of me that refuses to accept that they don’t playtest or think about a lot of their design products nearly as much as the community does was actually hoping for that. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Of the suggested rules above, I feel pretty comfortable with the vehicle restrictions. The armor and invulnerable save restrictions however might be too permissive however. I’ll have to think about them more. As always, comments are welcome!

Battle Report: Combat Patrol 750 2010/02/02

Posted on 2010/02/03 by

I track my games played on BoardGameGeek, so I am happy to report that tonight I played my 50th game of 40k, ever. I started playing in the spring of ’08, so that seems reasonable when you figure in a majority of them are small games—250pt Lunchhammer, 400pt and 750pt Combat Patrol, etc., with multiple games played in one normal length session. At this landmark I have to say I’m pretty happy about it. My few months playing 4th Edition yielded many many frustrations with a poorly written rulebook. I’m glad to say most of those issues have been resolved in the new core rulebook, so hopefully the ongoing problems with rules writing and so on in the codexes will be resolved in the next edition! I’ll also say that as I’ve learned to play better I’ve found the game increasingly tactical and strategic, particularly with the increased mobility and other improvements in the 5th Edition rules.

As for tonight, Alex has unfortunately had to unexpectedly drop out of the PAGE/Redcap’s Combat Patrol Tournament due to a commitment with the reserves, so Buford, Lorenzo O, and I got together so I could proxy his match with Buford. In summary, we’re handling byes/defaults in the following way: The odd player out is guaranteed two Minor Victories. However, if a proxy match can be set up, they can earn more points. This seems to strike a reasonable balance between not giving away too many points for the bye while also not penalizing that player either.

Match Setup

Rules were the same as my report last week, and are up on the mission page: The campaign defender is trying to break through and alert primary defenses on the incoming invasion. The campaign attacker, of course, wants to stop this.

Buford brought out his Space Wolves in a matchup with my Kingbreakers. This chance to replay this mission was particularly interesting to me as in my last 7 or so 40k games I’ve played all Imperial Guard or Tyranid. I definitely had to get back into an anti-power armor mindset. Toward that end, I loaded up on plasma cannons, meltaguns, and heavy bolters:

6xSternguard w/ Power Sword, 2xCombi-Melta, Razorback
10xTactical w/ Powerfist, Plasmagun, Plasma Cannon, Rhino
10xTactical w/ Meltagun, Plasma Cannon, Razorback
Landspeeder w/ Multi-Melta, Heavy Bolter

Buford brought the Space Wolves equivalents of roughly:

5xScouts
6xTactical w/ Powerfist, Razorback w/ Lascannon, Plasmaguns
6xTactical w/ Powerfist, Razorback w/ Lascannon, Plasmaguns
4xBike Squad w/ 1 Attack Bike, Heavy Bolters, Melta Bombs
Chaplain on Bike

Game 1

For the first game I took the campaign attacker role, defending against the rush. I rolled to choose and selected to deploy and go first. Again I was hoping to push forward and stop Buford down on his end of the table, making it harder for any units to make last minute rushes for the table edge. However, this did force me to spread out across the table to try and block all approaches. I also had to keep in mind that his Space Wolves Scouts would quite likely enter via my table edge and then immediately run off, so I needed to be prepared to hit them if possible. Unusually for my recent games, I also broke up both Tactical Squads, with the two Plasma Cannon squads sitting in cover ready to fire away.

Buford basically split his forces between the bikes and the Razorbacks. The bikes repeatedly turboboosted their way along the one, rushing for the edge, while the Razorbacks advanced more slowly. I was very happy to see this turboboost attack as in writing the mission scenario that had seemed like a clear, dangerous strategy people would try.

Mid-game, the turboboosting bikes are ready to rush off the board, while the Scouts have entered in the Kingbreakers rear area to cause havoc...

I harried the bikes a bit with Plasma Cannon and Landspeeder fire, but neither accomplished much. In the end the gambit was stopped by driving Tactical 1’s Razorback across from the middle of the table in its swing position blocking that lane, then assaulting the bikes. I figured this would result in the death of Tactical 1, which it did, but it held the bikes up for a few turns and killed a few models. After that they were weakened, held up, and bunched together, ripe to be finished off by the remaining Plasma Cannon and Landspeeder.

Sgt Scolirus fights to stall the escaping bikes as long as possible...

Meanwhile, the Plasma Cannons traded shots with one Buford’s Razorbacks, crippling it early in the game. Definitely the most useful shooting I’ve had with the Plasma Cannons against vehicles. In a heroic move, however, the Scouts Outflanked directly behind one of the Plasma Combat Squads and obliterated four its Marines in a single impressive round of Bolt Pistol shooting. The scouts then assaulted the Plasma Cannoneer and then ran off the board, the hit and run attack ensuring I could not get a Major Victory.

The Space Wolves' Razorback is worse for wear after several rounds of Plasma Cannon pummeling.

On the other side of the board, the two pairs of Razorbacks traded fire with the Kingbreakers’ machines immobilized fairly early. This left Sgt Titus to carry out one of his typical actions, running directly into the oncoming enemy to successfully destroy the inbound enemy transport. This resulting in several waves of melee, with his squad eventually wiped out by the Space Wolves, only for they in turn to be caught up in the Sternguard’s counter attack. Although costly, these assaults ensured there was no time for the Space Wolves to slog through on foot to exit the table.

Game 2

The second game had to be called due to time after the third round, but I was quite comfortable according Buford the victory. Buford won the deployment roll and opted to go first. Between that and his strong anti-vehicle components in the Lascannon Razorbacks, he was able to set up a solid pincer scheme with his units. Most of my army made it pretty far across the table, and some would have escaped, but the vehicles were all stopped just short of where they needed to get to. The Meltaguns and Combi-Meltas all failed to take out the opposing Razorbacks in time, leaving the Kingbreakers exposed to heavy shooting as well as the predations of the very mobile bike squadron. My Landspeeder also died early, assaulted and brought down after rushing headlong into the enemy.

The Kingbreaker advance grinds to a halt.

Lessons Learned

I was pretty happy with my army in the first game, defending against the rush. Some mistakes were definitely made for the second game though, attacking. My heavy reliance on transports was simply shut down by Buford’s Lascannons. A group of Assault Marines jumping across the table definitely would have been better in many respects.

I also should not have rushed my Landspeeder forward as quickly. I simply discounted how many attacks he’d be able to bring to bear on it. Although its Flat Out cover save protected it against all shooting, and nearly every close combat attack failed, one got through, and it only took one. That was a big loss because it gave me little long reach capability to take out the Lascannons.

More to the point, it was probably a mistake to take only one Landspeeder. I dropped one because they start getting hard to fit in the list when kitted out with Multi-Meltas and another weapon—70 points for an MM and Heavy Bolter. Although useful against the bikes, it probably would have been better to drop the Heavy Bolter and a Sternguard or whatnot to put two Landspeeders out there with Multi-Meltas for vehicle hunting.

Even more generally, I probably shouldn’t have advanced so quickly. I was hoping to quickly book for the table edge and exit, but it probably would have worked better to advance more slowly. The Lascannons are simply too lethal to Rhinos and Razorbacks when exposed for mulitple turns. Buford’s bike squad was also a significant problem as its high speed enabled it to quickly move around hitting any critical problem areas. A single Landspeeder just can’t do much against a good sized bike squadron, particularly after it’s quickly dispatched by them, so I really could have used more units with mobility to counter act them.

All in all though, a couple goods games, and a great time finally meeting Lorenzo O and Buford!

More photos are available in the Flickr set.

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