TIME OF ENDING?

Hello again gamer’s and welcome to another post here on the hallowed pages of Games-Knight. We continue the Space Marine coverage with a battle report where I used the new Space Marine Codex for the first time. I wanted to try a little experiment with this, I fielded a Space Marine army I would use in 5^th edition and wanted to see if it benefited from the 6^th edition Codex.

Forces of the Imperium.

Primary Detachment –

HQ Slot 1 - Captain Lysander, nominated Warlord and had the Champion of Humanity Warlord Trait.

HQ Slot 2 - Space Marine Captain (Deathwatch captain proxy) Plasma pistol and lightning claw.

Troop Slot 1 - Tactical Squad, Sgt upgraded to a Veteran Sgt with a grav pistol and teleport homer.

Troop Slot 2 - Tactical Squad, Sgt upgraded to a Veteran Sgt with a teleport homer.

Fast Attack - Bike Squad, Sgt upgraded to a Veteran Sgt with a power sword. 1 Space Marine with a melta gun the other with a plasma gun.

Heavy Support – Vindicator with a siege shield.

Elite Slot 1 – Dreadnought with multi-melta and power fist.

Elite Slot 2 – Sternguard squad (Fielded as a Deathwatch Kill Team)

Allied Detachment –

HQ Slot 1 – Coteaz

Troop Slot 1 – Inquisitorial Warband.

My Imperial Fist / Ordos Xenos themed army was pitted against a Chaos War band known as The Warp Wyrms led my Gravius (yes he is still alive!). The mission was The Scouring where no less than 6 objectives were placed on the table to fight over. All Secondary objectives, Slay the Warlord, First Blood & Linebreaker, also applied. Gravius deployed a very strong Chaos list featuring Raptors, Heldrake and a Maulerfiend. My game plan was a gamble but one a thought was worth taking. I would leave Lysander in reserve and teleport him in once Gravius Warlord was in a good position then I would defeat him in a challenge and gain the D3 extra victory points the Champion of Humanity Warlord traits offers.  Once these victory points were secured I would dig in and go on the defensive……

Epic Fail.

I say this is a battle report but in truth the game was over by turn 3 and cut a long story short a combination of bad dice rolls by myself, Chaos being ridiculously overpowered in my opinion and good tactics by Gravius saw me off in good time. I have included some photos of what little of the game was played so you can see the excellent painted models by Gravius.

 

THE MAULERFIEND BATTERS THE VINDICATOR ASIDE....

AND THEN SMASHES THE DREADNOUGHT IN A TITANTIC DISPALY OF STRENGTH.
 

So what do I take away from this game? Well apart from needing some new dice a pretty sour taste was left in my mouth I have to be honest. I have a serious issue with Heldrakes, they are stupidly overpowered for the point’s value they are! For me they are an Apocalypse only model just like a Baneblade is Apocalypse only, especially when uber cheese Chaos players are fielding 2 of them at a time. Chaos seems to get more and more powerful every edition of 40k we progress and It is something I tire of along with the over saturation of Ultramarines in Space Marine Codex’s.  I think it is time Tyranid's became the prime threat in the 41^st Millennium on and off the table or even the Tau but, for me, Chaos being the main threat is a little old hat now.  As for my experiment it is clear that for the new space Marine Codex to work you need the new units to feel the benefits (well played GW accountants). A Hunter Rhino variant will take care of any aerial threats and kitting Tactical and Sternguard squads out with Grav weapons will be crunching special characters and hull points alike.

Games-Knight Verdict.

So after this 3 week focus on the new Space Marine Codex what do I think? I think I am happy to concentrate on playing 40k with my Grey Knights in the main but I am going to put together a new Space Marine army based on the Death Spectres Chapter. In this new army I will be including a Hunter tank and some Centurion Devastators, Heldrakes you have been warned! In a whole I think Space Marines are just a cash camel for GW now which is why they are becoming less and less useful on the gaming table unless you fork out in excess of £100 to get what I a call ‘win-listing units’. This also means Space Marine players are forced to buy and field certain unit types just to be competitive on the gaming table as opposed to building and fielding the models they want and that for me is very sad.

I am hoping that my comments and opinions have stirred some of your own and I would welcome you to share them with me by either posting a comment below or email me direct – contactgamesknight@gmail.com, till next week take care, Ciaran.