Black Templars and Warhammer 40K 8th Edition first games

I got in my first two games of Warhammer 40K 8th edition over the last two weeks.

My first game with the new system was at a Games Workshop store in Tokyo (yes, I still never call them "Warhammer Stores", no matter what the sign on the shop says!). I thought it would be good to have a game with the staff to get used to some of the new mechanics, and to help refresh my knowledge of the game as I haven't played in months.

Before I went I spent some time putting together a Black Templars list using the new "Power level" system. This is designed to be a quick and easy way to put together an army without worrying about calculating the exact points value of everything. Each unit has a clearly marked power level, which is adjusted based on the number of models in the unit, but not on their wargear or accessories.

Overall, this system works quite well in specific circumstances, and I was able to pull together a bunch of my old Templars models with relative ease. It makes calculation pretty easy, and various list building apps have already included it. (I used Battlescribe and this seemed to work fine). In a few minutes of playing around I put together a 75 point army of Black Templars (50 points is about 1,000 points according to some sources). More on that later.

Black Templars bike squad zooms in.

++ Game 1: Black Templars v. Ultramarines ++

Here is the 75 Power Level list I used:

• Captain on Bike
• Chaplain Grimaldus
• Crusader Squad A (9 Initiates with Chainsword, 5 neophytes with combat knives, 1 Sword Brethren).
• Crusader Squad B (4 initiates with Bolters, x1 with Flamer, x1 with Plasma)
• Crusader Squad C (5 initiates with Chainswords, x1 Flamer)
• Dreadnought with Autocannon
• Land Raider Crusader for Squad A
• Razorback for Squad C

My opponent had about 70 points of Ultramarines. From what I remember:

• Captain on foot in Terminator armour.
• Venerable Dreadnought with Las cannon, Dreadnought power fist/ flamer.
• x1 smaller Unit of Primaris Ultramarines (x5?) on foot.
• x1 large unit of Ultramarines (x10, with Missile Launcher)
• x1 large unit of Ultramarines (x10, with Missile Launcher)
• Close combat Terminator squad. (x10 or so, brought in from reserve. Half with lightning claws, half with thunder hammer and shield.)

If I can, I'll put together a separate report in more detail, but the highlight of the game had to be my excitement at using Chaplain Grimaldus, only for him to kill himself in his first shot of the game when his pistol overheated and exploded in his face. 
Classic WH40K Bittersweet moment™!

My opponent was the underdog in terms of points, but his large Terminator squad pretty much made mincemeat of my troops. That, coupled with some bad placing of charging bikes on my part opened them up to a lot of attacks that overwhelmed them.

10 Enemy Terminators arrive (top right). The end is near (for me).

++ Game 2: Black Templars v. Tyranids ++

The Thin Black Line v. The Red Tide of Death...

In my second game (this time with a friend at home) my list was a little different:

50 Power Level Black Templars

• Emperor's Champion
• Crusader Squad (7 initiates with Chainswords, x1 flamer, x1 Sword Brother.
• Sternguard x5 (x4 vets, x1 Sergeant All with flamer combi weapons)
• Terminator Assault Squad (x Sergeant, x1 Storm Shield and Thunder Hammer, x2 with paired lightning claws)
• Landspeeder x1 (Typhoon missile launcher, Heavy bolter)
• Devastator Squad (x1 Sergeant with Plasma pistol,  x4 with Missile launchers
• Rhino

49 Power Level Tyranid army

• Hive Tyrant (Shooty) PL10
• Carnifex (kinda shooty) PL6
• Tervigon (kinda poopy - "releases" 10 Termagants every turn.) PL13
• Genestealers (x5) PL4
• Genestealers (x5) PL4
• Zoanthrope (x3 in a single unit) PL6
• Termagants (x10 on the table at first I think?) PL3
• Hormagaunts (x10) PL3

We played an "Open Play" game to get a hang of the basic rules, using just the Indexes. 

There were four objectives, and points for control of each objective were collected at the end of each player turn. There is no 8th Tyranid Codex available at the time we played, and I don't have the SM Codex. Even if I know the rules, I didn't feel it would have been right to have access to my Chapter Tactics if my opponent didn't have any info from a codex of his own, so we didn't use those.

The Devastators...um...devastated (bottom left)

I ended up losing this game as well!

• The Hive Tyrant and Carnifex pretty easily shot my Devastators off the table in the first round of shooting, meaning I was out of massed heavy weapons that could have seriously dented his Tyrant, 'Fex and Tervigon. This was even with an improved saving throw due to being in cover.(I still had the Land Speeder with heavy weapon and Typhoon Missile launcher, but felt that wouldn't do the trick)

• The ability of the Tervigon in 8th edition to just add an extra 10 Termagants on the table without a chance of the ability stopping (as in 7th if I recall?) meant that the table quickly became full of little critters!

• This small Tyranid force still has 3 psychic units, who in the psychic phase managed to get off Smite a fair few times, as well as some tasty buffs and debuffs (The Horror, Catalyst and Onslaught). As it only takes a 5 or more to get off Smite, it isn't difficult to get off, but even 1-3 mortal wounds on a small unit in a game of this size is going to hurt over time. (Bear in mind that as I don't own the SM Codex yet, I wasn't using Abhor the Witch, which would have given me a 4+ Deny the Witch roll, even without any psychers of my own.)

This loss was my fault too though for sure, with plenty of bad choices on my part:

• I wasn't confident about driving my Rhino straight up to the Tyranids to disembark my Crusade Squad. It took me too long to do that, by which point there were lots of additional 'gants to deal with. They disembark now only at the beginning of your movement phase. If I had moved up within charge range, would the Tyranids have swarmed the raider and managed to simply take off enough wounds for it to explode? Once surrounded, the models inside have no exit point so simply die in that case? (My concern)! 

Because vehicles are more durable in 8th, being more confident about this is probably a key takeaway.

• I became too distracted by worrying about the units I had and should have paid more attention to the game objectives, and could have contested those in his back field earlier (using different vehicles such as the Land Speeder) to take pressure off my front line.
• I could have placed my devastators further back so they could have got one round of shooting off before being in range of the Hive Tyrant and Carnifex.
• It was a mistake not to try and whittle down the large number of Termagants that the Tervigon was throwing out. By the time I got into close combat there were too many of them.

It wasn't all bad news though! :-)

Having been slaughtered by some Terminators in my first game, I had put a small squad into this game and they worked quite well. Those 2+ saves make a huge difference, even under quite a weight of attacks. After his compatriots were struck down, the Terminator Sergeant duked it out with the Hive Tyrant and brought him down with a thunder hammer (only then to face the wrath of the Carnifex...)

Classic WH40K Heroic-Moment to Enjoy before Death™!

Terminator Sergeant alone, but not unbeaten!
In the next turn, he takes out the Hive Tyrant (at right.)

Another positive was to see how the Sternguard did with their combi-flamers. After moving up, they quickly crisped a unit of Genestealers with no problems (but then fell to all that dakka from the HT and Carnifex.) Flamers = Fun (although somehow, I miss templates...)

Two Sternguard fall to incoming fire, but the other three advance
and fire their combi flamers into a unit of Genestealers.

To finish, here are a few takeaways of main mechanics (mainly confirming what I have read elsewhere.)

Power Levels:

It won't satisfy players who like to carefully calculate everything, or gamers interested in "Match play" style games where opponents want very evenly balanced points, but for putting together a quick "pick-up list" it does the job...
...as long as you accept there will be imbalances.

Depending on the army, some decent war gear or other options will slip in, and according to some reports, these could make make for an actual points difference of a couple of hundred "match play" points.

Simplified Gaming:

Yes, the game is more enjoyable with simplified shooting, wounding and saving. It will make things faster and easier for most gamers, and especially casual gamers (like me.)

Flamers Sans Templates:

With my dice rolls, I feel like I need to take flamers en masse. The D6 automatic hits sounds good, but with just one in a unit, that could just be one hit (for me at least!) 

Dataslates:

Mixed bag! Great to have all the rules for a unit in one place. Not so great if you don't keep a close eye on where the dataslates are (or if you have an army with a load of units.)

Thanks to both my opponents for the games. I'm looking forward to using 8th edition more than 7th because I think the overall simplification of the game suits me as a gamer.

New Year's Destruction!

++Black Templars beat(en) down++

So I headed over to one of my local Games Workshop Warhammer stores for a New Year's game of 40K. This was my first trip to the Harajuku shop in Tokyo, and I enjoyed stepping into a GW as it is something I rarely do - even rarer that I play a game on site.

My opponent and I had previously agreed 1,500 points. I decided to take Black Templars, and he brought Daemons. Not having played a game in ages, I took a very standard list that I had read about online as it matched the models that I have (and I really didn't have any idea about my opponent's models or list).

TL:DR
In a game of Purge the Alien I got crushed and we called it at the 5th.

• Enemy VPs: 12?! (2 from destroying my independent characters. 7  from eliminating my units, 3 from Firstblood, Linebreaker, and Kill the Warlord)
• My VPs: 2 (1 from eliminating a unit, 1 from an enemy Deepstrike mishap)

Lessons learned:

• Templars yearn to get up close and personal. Let them! (I let my Tau gene rule my head and tried to rely on firepower from the back. Didn't work!) Otherwise you are just wasting the (limited) Chapter Tactics we have that come into play when advancing or getting into close combat.
• It is one thing to have Adamantium Will, but Daemons bring SO much psychic power to the table you should expect to just eat it. 
• With dedicated transports/ vehicles giving up Victory Points, fragile skimmers and flyers are easy points (and a lot of psychic shooting will take them down!)
• Space Marines are of course going to go down to massed flamers.

First, my list:

+++ Black Templars 1500 pts  +++

+ HQ +

• Chaplain [Bolt Pistol, Crozius Arcanum]
• The Emperor's Champion

+ Elites +

Sternguard Veteran Squad

• x2 Veteran [Combi-Grav]
• x2 Veteran [Combi-Melta]
• x1 Veteran Sergeant [Bolt Pistol, Chainsword]

Venerable Dreadnought [Assault Cannon, Powerfist w/ Built-in Storm Bolter]

Drop Pod [Storm Bolter]

+ Troops +

Crusader Squad [Rhino]

• Sword Brother [Boltgun, Boltgun, Melta bombs]
• x3 Initiates [Boltgun]
• Initiate (Heavy Weapon) [Multi-Melta]
• Initiate (Special Weapon) [Flamer]
• x2 Neophytes [Space Marine Shotgun]

Crusader Squad

• Sword Brother [Chainsword, Melta bombs, Power Fist]
• x6 Initiate [Chainsword]
• Initiate (Heavy Weapon) [Multi-Melta]
• Initiate (Special Weapon) [Flamer]
• x6 Neophyte [Chainsword]

Land Raider Crusader [Extra armour, Multi-Melta]

+ Fast Attack +

• x2 Land Speeder Typhoons [Heavy Bolter, Typhoon Missile Launcher]
• x1 Stormtalon Gunship [Twin-Linked Assault Cannon, Typhoon Missile Launcher]

Created with BattleScribe (http://www.battlescribe.net)

The plan was simple:

1. Put the big Templar squad and the Emperor's Champion in the Landraider.
2. Keep the smaller squad with the Rhino back field for objectives.
3. Deepstrike everything else, using the Landspeeders and Stormtalon to harass anything on objectives, or threaten my opponents back field.

(Edit) My opponent's Daemons list (1,499 points)

Daemonic Incursion detachment:

x1 Lord of Change (Exalted Reward)

x1 Daemon Prince (Lvl 1 psyker)

x1 Daemon Flock of 8 Chaos Furies

Warpflame Host

x1 Herald of Tzeentch (Lvl 3 psyker, Exalted locus, exalted reward, paradox)

x2 Exalted Flamers of Tzeentch

x11 Pink Horrors

x11 Pink Horrors

x11 Pink Horrors

x11 Pink Horrors

x3 Flamers of Tzeentch

x3 Flamers of Tzeentch

x3 Flamers of Tzeentch

So what went wrong?

a.) I didn't get stuck in and stayed on my side of the board with my LRC and big CC squad, effectively wasting them for most of the game!

b.) Relying on my guns to whittle down the enemy was a mistake. Sure I had plenty of Typhoon missile launchers and cannon support from the LRC but I just didn't manage to finish off some units.

c.) Without taking advantage of the Black Templar Chapter tactics, a regular Crusader squad is going to struggle in CC, and a Chaplain is no wrecking ball!

d.) Multiple flamers make short work of Space Marines.

Visual Highlights (and lowlights)

Brother Marius drops in and takes a stand, by good fortune blocking the board.

Dreadnought Brother Marius had a fortunate Drop Pod arrival, not going where I wanted, but still managing to block the center of the board and take down a fair number of daemons before being destroyed.

Brother Marius faces the Daemon horde alone.

A squad of Sternguard drop onto the table to high ground, but their poisoned weapons fail to do any damage to one of the larger Daemons (bad luck? Or was this ordained?)

5 Sternguard drop onto the Flyer pad, overlooking the enemy below.

A Chaplain makes his final stand, his squad all but obliterated by Flamer and Close Combat.

When I decided to disembark my big Templar squad, I intended to move into close combat and then leapfrog from that into the next Daemon unit. However, I failed the charge miserably, leaving the squad out in the open.

Big Crusader squad takes to the field...felt good.

This allowed them to be surrounded by flamers. A unit of three appeared....

...until Daemon flamers turned up to turn this into a barbecue party. Three at right.

 ...then one more at top (a big one!) and the remaining flamer from another unit (at bottom.) Under all of these flamer attacks, the squad got roasted!

...and another flame attack from below, and ALSO from top left. Voila! No Templars!

Stormtalon v. Flying Daemon Prince? That is a one way ticket to hell for the flyer!

Despite being tabled, I had a good time. My opponent was friendly and patient, and we had some good laughs at fate and dice rolls (I rolled x4 ones at least once, but some other good rolls too).

Happy New Year!

p.s. If you are ever in the Harajuku area, don't hesitate to drop into the Warhammer store there. Although very small, it has very friendly staff, a decent selection of items, and a small gaming area in the main shop too. (Also, it is only a few minutes walk from the station.)

Games Workshop Crusade Case

After some years getting back into the hobby, I've been finding the urge to tidy up my tiny workspace and better organize my armies for storage or battle. 

As mentioned before, I have a variety of storage options, from GW (the old, flat cases) to Battlefoam (Pack 1520 - no longer in production) to recently throwing together some homebrew solutions (plastic boxes stacked and transported in a suitcase). 

For a previous storage wars post, I asked people to share how they store their miniatures. Here is the updated information as of the other day:

After 187 votes the results, in order of popularity:

1. DIY/ Made it myself: 36%
2. Games Workshop: 27%
3. KR Multicase: 16%
4. Battlefoam: 15%
5. Sabol Designs: 6%

This Christmas, I decided to try out the new GW cases. The army I have wanted to tidy up has to be my Black Templars. They have a good mix of infantry, bikes and larger models (x2 landraiders, air support, speeders, Predator tanks and Rhinos/ Whirlwind launchers). To date, I have kept the infantry in a smaller GW case, and vehicles in cardboard boxes.

The size of the army meant that if I was looking at GW as an option, it had to the Crusader case. This was the largest. 

So what do I think after one month of trying to fit stuff into it?

Overall Build Quality:

Good. 

The plastic feels tough, the ribs serve to strengthen the case, and strap feels solid, with metal clips. The clasps could be bigger and chunkier, but so far I have no reason to think they are going to break or flip open unexpectedly (although the old GW cases had larger, tougher-looking clasps)

A nice touch is the little depressions around the case that help to make the unit stackable with other crusade cases.

The "Channel Foam" itself is of a good quality, but like some other foams it can rip and tear, or have parts gouged out of it.

Storage:

My first impression was that the case is a bit...small! 

That could just be compared to the Battlefoam 1520, but I was surprised at the relatively compact size. 
Width: 19" (48.5cm)
Height: 9" (23cm)
Depth: 12.5" (32cm) including the lid pins

That isn't necessarily a bad thing - for the vast majority of players a 1,500-2000 point game is probably the norm, and I think that this case should carry that number of points without any trouble. I'm not embarrassed to lug this around town on the train.

However, if your primary goal is to store large numbers of large vehicles AND infantry, a Crusade case alone may not meet you needs.

In my case (geddit?), I was able to get the following in, in varying combinations:

Top Trays: 94 models

Left: x48 infantry

• x16 Sternguard
• x1 Chaplain Grimaldus and x4 servitors with relics (all prone)
• x1 Helbrecht (prone) 
• x8 Assault marines
• x18 Tactical Marines

Right: x46 infantry

• x1 Chapter Master
• x1 Standard Bearer
• x1 Emperor's Champion
• x10 Neophytes (Scouts)
• x33 assorted infantry (Sword Brethren, Initiates)

Middle Trays:
Left:

• x1 Predator (with separate turret)
• x6 Terminators (including Chaplain)
• x8 Bikes with separate

Right: (Airwing)

Black Templars airwing

• x1 Stormtalon (with separate base)
• x1 Dreadnaught
• x4 Landspeeders with separate bases

Bottom Trays:

x2 Landraiders

OR

x1 Landraider and x2 Drop pods

(Tip: you will be better served by this case if don't glue vehicle turrets in place. I have a couple of Predators with fixed turrets and commanders. This seriously impacts the storage as the layers above won't fit on top of the lower layer properly)

x2 Landraiders

x2 Drop pods

Foam Quality

The "Channel foam" as GW calls it definitely has some pros and cons. 

The Landraider at right shows just how much this foam will flex!

On the positive side:

+ You get a LOT of flexibility, both literally and figuratively (see what I did there?). The foam is very flexible, and deforms a lot without tearing or ripping. It will mould itself neatly around your models, compress them, and keep them snug.

+ This foam takes the worry out of trying to plan and get custom foam and all the hassle that can be on vendor's websites. I have spent literally hours and hours on sites like KR Multicase and Battlefoam trying to work out what trays I need, and invariably I gave up. (NOTE: this is not always a problem with those sites - I just don't have the patience)

However, be aware that there are negatives:

For infantry in particular, you have to play around a LOT to get stuff in the way you want it. What do I mean?

- For maximum numbers of models (e.g. you want to store everything) some of them will rub against each other if you pack them in. Remember, each individual model is not completely walled-in (as you might find with custom foam or compartments.) This is especially true for infantry. 

- Packing and unpacking can be a long and finicky process. You might think it would be faster with foam that works with everything, but as you don't have a special size slot for a model working out where it will go actually takes longer!

- For maximum protection, be aware that models may still move around a fair bit. You will need to spend time making sure you get things just the way you want them to protect certain special models.

Cost performance

The Crusade case is 75.00 Pounds on the GW website (14,500 Yen or approx 80 GBP in Japan). You will find them at online retailers for around 65 GBP if you look. 

Should you buy this case? 
If you are in the market for a hard plastic case and don't want to make your own, then I think this is a reasonable price for what you are getting and seems competitive with other manufacturers. The quality is fine for everyday use, the foam works well and it will store quite a large number of figures. Other manufacturers have many more case styles and options to suit all budgets, but I don't think you can go far wrong with this.

Cheers,

Back in Black!

Well, it certainly does sound as though the Black Templars have come out of the new Codex quite well.

Chatter over at the Bolter and Chainsword points to a whole lot of excitement around some units that hadn't been that widely used in the previous codex simply because there were other more effective options, and which I happen to own but didn't use before! (always a nice bonus to realize you have a model to put on the table!)

But now...

The Emperor's Champion really is a Champion!

My Emperor's Champion

Now with x3 attacks at Strength 6, AP2, instant death on a 6 AND re-rolls in a challenge? Sounds pretty good!  The EC has always been an interesting part of the fluff - gifted with a vision and a big sword - now he might just actually perform as a Champion on the table, as well as in print.

See "The Emperor's Champion is a Big Winner in the new 'Dex"

Grimaldus, now new and improved...

Methinks you will be joining my next crusade...

Not only has his points cost become a bit more reasonable (150) but he (his servitors) now grant Feel No Pain to UNITS within a 6 inch bubble. I think previously that rule only granted FNP to Models within 6 inches, so this significantly ups the game for units around him. (Stick him a Landraider Crusader and units around the Crusader will be affected?)

See "Grim just got cheap enough to be worth runnin"

Kids these days...
...actually can shoot fight worth a damn. 

Black Templar Neophytes (Templars in training) being Space Marine Scouts, have had their Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill improved back to WS4 and BS4, the same as a regular marine. I guess they will be more expensive then previously, but from a BT game point of view (where they could make up around half of a Crusader Squad to bulk up the squad to a large size and act as meat shields) this is interesting...

...but not without controversy from a fluff/ game point of view.

"If they are a Space Marine in training, then they shouldn't have the same stats as Space Marines"
or
"In game terms, making more and more units WS4, BS4 is getting ridiculous!"

See "How do you feel about WS 4 BS 4 Space Marine Scouts"

Looking forward to learning more as the new Codex gets devoured and tested by more experience players than I.

++++++++++

In other news, I will be naming a squad in honour of Christopher Lee, who sadly passed away last week...

...RIP to a man who played Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, Count Dooku, Frankenstein, Saruman, Scaramanga, and many more...
...and who also happened to be (probably), a secret agent, and (definitely) an actor who out-Bacons Kevin Bacon in any game of "6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon" 
...and an award winning Heavy Metal artist.

If you think you are man enough (and can handle the feeling that you are by comparison a pathetic loser), read more about Sir Lee here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Lee 

(TL;DR: "22 Incredible Facts about the Life and Career of Sir Christopher Lee".)

Metal for the Metal God!

Tampering with the Templars?

Hmmm, interested to see a post today over at Bell of Lost Souls with a snippet of BT information from the new Space Marine Codex, this time about Chapter Tactics in the new book. Looks like some changes?

Holy Crusaders?
Lost Librarius?
Righteous Zeal?

If nothing else, it is good to see the Black Templars listed there.

There was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth in the run up to the last Marines book, with everyone wondering what would happen - would the Templars disappear entirely? That turned out not to be the case, despite some changes. Although I have only used them a few times, they are turning into one of my favorite armies. That COULD be because I only started with them in the most recent edition so the changes didn't make much impact on me. The way I see it though, even if there are some rules changes, you still get to kit them out with with chainswords and run (or wheel) them across the field.

Looking forward to getting my hands on the Codex...
... The printed version that is!
(I won't make the same mistake I did last year in getting the PDF version. It simply wasn't as accessible as the iBook/ Apple version, sadly.)

Tau v. Black Templars, 1,500 pt Battle Highlights

The very same afternoon my Skaven got beaten up, I played a 1,500 point game of 40K using my Space Marine Black Templars against Tau. For the sake of time, this used exactly the same list I had some success with against a Tyranid force in a previous game. 

Basically:

- a layer or two of cover-ignoring template death from afar (Whirlwind Missile Launchers)
- a dash of tracked, high-powered pew-pew (Lascannons on x2 Razorbacks)
- a pinch of backfield harassment (Sternguard in drop pod)
- a slathering of airborne support (Stormtalon)...
...all of this wrapped around a sweet core of Xenos-squashing, chainsword-wielding fanatics (blob squad in a Land Raider crusader).

My opponent brought a shooty, Tau foot-slogging list (is there any Tau list that isn't shooty?). 

- A couple of Broadsides with rail weapons and plasma.
- Crisis suit unit.
-Commander with bodyguards.
-Kroot unit with sniper rifles.
-Two units of Firewarriors.
-Two units of Pathfinders.
- A unit of Stealth suits with drone markerlight support.

At this point, you might be thinking...

"...wot no tanks?"

Yes, as a former Tau player, I was initially surprised to see a complete lack of heavy armour or flying transports, but as it turned out, my opponent had no option but to bring a foot list, as he hadn't been able to find his tanks before coming over...

Even so, I was looking forward to my first game against Tau in this edition. Also, my first 40K army was Tau and I still have a soft place in my heart for the minions of the Space Pope. 
AND, it is always great to see Kroot on the table!

The game:

Game type: Keeping it simple, we went for a VPs game.

Tau Deployment:
Pathfinders went on either flank (assuring nice interlocking fields of Markerlight fire!). 
One broadside took up position in a bunker, anchoring his two units of Firewarriors on either side. One was in the open, the other clustered around an old bunker.
On the far hill, another Broadside was supported by a second unit of Pathfinders.
All the crisis suits, Kroot and Stealth suits stayed in reserve.

Black Templars deployment:
A line of black, tracked boxes...
Subtle eh?

Razorbacks stacked opposite the Broadside on the hill, with Whirlwind Missile launchers in the centre, and Landraider on the opposite flank. I hoped to take a chunk out of his Firewarriors with my missile launchers, while rushing my LR down a flank.

Game Highlights.

Early on in the game, the Landraider faces a unit of Pathfinders. A round or two of cannon fire would take them down to 1 man, but not destroy them entirely.

Tau Stealthsuits come in, accompanied by Markerlight drones. 

It isn't long before the Razorbacks go down. Hmmm, massed Firewarrior Pulse Rifle fire sure does glance those hull points down pretty quickly! The Crusader squad makes it out alive, but is now staring down a whole load of Tau firepower...

After a couple of turns, the BT left flank is now a mass of destroyed hulls! (See image below) One Razorback and a Whirlwind has been destroyed. To make matters worse, a unit of Crisis suits manages to deepstrike in the back field, right behind another Razorback.

Fortunately for me though, my Stormtalon has come on. Although it isn't equipped properly for this fight (no enemy flyers upon which to unleash my Skyhammer missiles) the pilot still makes use of his cannon on the Tau infantry around the table.

Now this next image is what we (Black Templars) like to see! 
Noting that the Landraider won't be able to make it around the side of the table in time, the Black Templar blob squad disembarks, hoping to foot slog to glory (and the juicy Tau Firewarriors in the centre field...)
...meanwhile the Landraider continues to whittle down the Kroot with cannon and bolter fire.

The Tau have done a jolly good job of taking out the Whirlwinds and Razorbacks , but the Stormtalon looks like it may dominate this side of the field, as evidenced by its ability to take a few wounds at a time from the Firewarriors.

The Stormtalon zooms towards one of the Firewarrior units.

...and although I don't have an image of this, that same Tau Firewarrior squad manages to defeat a small Crusader squad in close combat!


Unfortunately we didn't have time to finish the game, but at this point, the game was even (in terms of points won by either side). It would have been an interesting second half though:
-The big BT squad with Captain heading towards the Tau (will the unit of sniper-round Kroot nearby take them out?)...
-The Sternguard and Drop pod still to come in (can I take out his Warlord?)...
-The Landraider Crusader barreling down the flank...
-The Tau commander and his bodyguards still to come in from reserve.

Thanks to my opponent for a fun game - really great to see Tau on the table - makes me want to fight for the Greater Good again!
:-)

Black Templars v. Tyranids Battle Presentation

Black Day at Bad Rock

This was a 1,500 point battle against Tyranids, with a few "firsts" for me:

1. My first game in the new edition of 40K.

-Psychic shenanigans (at least if you are a Tyranid!)

2. First time using these units:

-Whirlwind missile launcher(s)

-Stormtalon Gunship

-Razorback(s)

-Sternguard with Grav Guns

-Drop Pod

3. First time for me to write up the battle report in Google Slides. 

Frankly speaking, it took AGES because I decided to not just include photos, but also try to show movement and shooting via animating the slides (a little...it isn't going to win any awards!). 
I haven't done a voice over, so it is just the slides (but you can click on a link in the presentation to open some background music if you want in a new window - there will be an ad and you might have to then switch back to the presentation.)

So, here you go. The presentation below should give you a sense of how things went (note that this was a friendly game, so I was using a fair number of "counts as" models.)

It was a close battle, but I came out on top. Things might have been different if my opponent had made a few different choices (there were a few abilities that he forgot to use for example, as he is as new as I am to this edition.) Also, a shout out to the guys over at the Bolter and Chainsword for helping me to get up and running with a list that made good use of the models that I have.

I must say, it felt great to use my Black Templars in anger - and a big change to be able to rush into assault (not really an option with my Tau).

All constructive criticism welcome!

Cheers,