Last year, shortly after the 10th edition of the game was released, I played my first game of Warhammer 40,000 and recorded my process, the battle, and my thoughts. I have no fancy White Dwarf style photos to go with this post, but I think it's interesting to see a game through a new player's eyes, so here it goes.
Mistake 1: Rulebook
I downloaded the free rules upon release, but as soon as I got to a Warhammer store I also purchased the hardcover book. The hardcover book is nice because it includes an overview of the lore, and also it's a physical book, it's actually not a necessary purchase.
In some ways, at least in terms of rules clarification, I'd say it was even a little bit of a disappointment. I'd anticipated a section on building armies, but there is no such section in the book. In fact, it tells you flat out that to build an army (which you absolutely need to do before you can play the game!), you need a book called the Munitorum Field Manual or the index for your faction.
This starts to feel like a chicken-or-the-egg conundrum, if you overthink it.
- How do I make an army list? Buy miniatures.
- Buy which miniatures? Make an army list.
If I had to do it all over again, I'd have just bought two Combat Patrol boxes (and probably will buy one, eventually, for games at the club).
Bottom line: If you're just getting started, buy a starter set or two Combat Patrols.
Mistake 2: Miniatures
I thought I had so many Citadel miniatures, but as I tried to assemble two armies, I realised I didn't have even one army. I have a bunch of miniatures from Blackstone Fortress and I can use some as character models in an army, but I don't have anything near a complete army. I could have proxied an army or two, but that gets confusing because none of the miniatures look like what they are on the index cards.
In the end, I just grabbed a handful of 2nd edition Warhammer space marines and chaos marines I had lying around. I was still doing a lot of proxying, but at least there was a vague resemblance between what was on the table and what appeared in the index. It wasn't ideal, though, and to make matters simple I just declared that all models in each unit had the same weapon, regardless of what they were actually holding.
Bottom line: Honestly, just buy a starter set or two Combat Patrols.
Index
As if I hadn't made enough mistakes already, I had decided to use the indices for each army off the mobile 40k app. It saves you $50 for a stack of index cards from Games Workshop, or saves you from having to print them yourself if you downloaded the PDF, but it's a lot of clicking and scrolling on a mobile phone. It slowed my game down almost beyond my tolerance.
Bottom line: If you do everything on a mobile device and are comfortable with that form factor, then the 40k app is a great resource. I prefer the physical devices, though, so for future games I'll buy the index for my army.
Battle report
I played the Display of Might mission on page 217. The game lasts for 5 rounds. There are 4 objective markers on the map, so siezing control of as many as possible is important. The 2 objective markers within no man's land, though, are considered "symbolic sites" and are worth extra victory points.
I used the Space Marines data sheets for my space marines, with Captain Octavius leading. In the army there's the Librarian Tantus, an Infernus squad of 5, and a unit of 5 Terminators.
I used the Thousand Sons data sheets for my chaos marine. The leader is Ahrak the Time Weaver, supported by 5 Scarab Occult Terminators and 10 Tzaangors.
Round 1
The game starts!
Command
Both armies accumulate 1 Command Point (CP), and both save it for later. Honestly, I didn't even bother looking at my options for CP, because I was just too eager to get moving. I figured I probably wouldn't regret having more CP to spend next round.
Movement
I forgot to roll for attacker and defender, so I just had the space marines go first. Solo play is weird for remembering things that normally would really matter. I didn't really care which army got to go first, because I'm playing both.
The Infernus unit, lead by Captain Octavius, moves forward toward the southern symbolic site, and the Terminator unit moves around the back of a painter plant pot (er, bunker) toward the northern symbolic site.
The chaos marine Infernus go straight for the southern symbolic site, which means they're rushing head on toward the space marines. At this moment, the game felt genuinely exciting to me. I knew who would reach it first, but I also know that because the space marines are going to reach it first, the chaos marines will be able to charge on their next turn and start melee combat. This was a really strong moment.
The Tzaangors apparently ignored the Northern objective and went straight for Librarian Tantus, who's guarding the eastern objective marker. Ahrak the Time Weaver stays on the western marker.
Shoot
Running top speed toward for the objective, head-on into a group of chaos marines, the space marines open fire.
And that's when the game came to a grinding, stuttering, faltering halt. Have I read this correctly? Combat requires not one, not two, but THREE separate rolls? One to shoot, a second to do damage but only after comparing attack Strength (S) to target Toughness (T), and a third to save. And all that over again for the named character, who's using a different weapon than the rest of the squad.
Oof, and I thought D&D combat was clunky.
Well, practise makes perfect, so the attacks are made, and one Thousand Sons Terminator is obliterated. It was easy to do, because I forgot to give him a Saving Throw.
When the Thousand Sons attack, it's misses all around.
Nobody's close enough to charge or fight this round, so on to the next round.
Round 2
Each side controls an east or west objective.
- Space Marines: 5
- Thousand Sons: 5
Command
Each army gains 1 CP.
Movement
Space marines spend 1 CP on Duty and Honour, which allows Librarian Tantus to leave the east objective but still claim control over it (until such a time that the enemy controls it).
Everybody advances! Terminators get closer to the south objective, the Tzaangors get closer to the north objective, but so does the Infernus squad. Librarian Tantus advances, too.
On the Thousands Sons side, Ahrak the Time Weaver is stuck on the objective marker. I'm realising now that leaving a powerful warrior like that guarding an objective that likely isn't going to be hotly contested anyway is probably mistake. I may have to change that strategy later.
Shoot
The combat is starting to feel a little more natural already. Lots of dice rolling, and sometimes seemingly impossible odds, but I'm already remembering the rolls required and the values to compare.
The space marine Terminators deal no damage due to some very good saves. The Librarian Tantus deals no damage due to a lucky Tzaangor save. Given these failures, and given that a horde of TEN Tzaangors are rushing toward the Librarian, I decided that the Infernus squad in the north needs to take action. They're just within the 12" range to fire on the Tzaangors with their pistols, so they all take a shot. One Tzaangor takes 1 wound, which kills him, but most importantly which places the Tzaangor unit out of range to shoot back or to charge!
The Thousand Sons deal 3 damage to Captain Octavius, who even spends 1 CP to re-roll his save and fails.
Charge
I screwed this up.
At the start of Movement, I got confused and saw that the Scarab Occult Terminators weren't in range to Charge, so I thought I'd miscalculated. What I failed to realise was that AFTER their Movement, they were within range. So they didn't charge.
The Tzaangors had strategically been kept from charging, so that was satisfying, at least.
No Fight phase for now.
Round 3
Each side controls an east or west objective, but Captain Octavius is within 3" of the southern objective!
- Space Marines: 20 (+5 for controlling one objective, +5 for controlling two objectives, +5 for controlling a symbolic site)
- Thousand Sons: 10
Command
Each side gains 1 CP. I have no idea what to do with these Command Points.
Movement
Space marine Terminators and Captain Octavius advance to surround the southern objective.
Librarian Tantus moves closer to intercept the horde of 10 Tzaangors running toward him.
Space marine Infernus squad spreads out to block the Tzaangors from running past them toward the eastern objective (which is still controlled by the Space Marines thanks to the Duty and Honour stratagem).
The Thousand Sons Terminators finally clash with the Space Marine Terminators, also surrounding the southern objective. This is exactly what the OC attribute is for!
The Tzaangors advance, and Ahrak the Time Weaver moves just within 3 inches of the western objective. He still controls it, but is that much closer to Librarian Tantus, who I imagine he wants to take down.
Shoot
I didn't see anything in the rules to suggest that you can't make ranged attacks when you're within Engagement range (that's wrong, which I'll discover later), so I had everyone attack everyone else.
Captain Octavius, who saves on 2+, was shot twice by the Thousand Sons (using up 1 CP for a re-roll) for 0 damage.
Librarian Tantus did 0 damage with his successful Smite — focused witchfire attack, but the Infernus squad managed to take out one Tzaangor.
Ahrak the Time Weaver used his Screamer invocation — witchfire attack, which has the Torrent keyword, meaning it hits automatically. It still has 2D3 listed as its Attack die, though, so I rolled 2D3 to determine Wounds. Librarian Tantus saves on 2+, so he negated one wound but took the other.
Charge
Finally, I remember to charge. The Tzaangors spread out in front of the Infernus squad and Librarian Tantus. Tzaangors focus their charge on the northern objective, though, because each Tzaangor has OC 2.
Fight
Melee combat at last! Because I'm proxying, I'm just blithely pretending that all miniatures are also holding melee weapons. As I understand it, WYSIWYG would normally apply, and only miniatures equipped with a melee weapon have melee.
Anyway, the Terminators both suffer losses: one from each unit.
The Tzaangors lose one model, and manage to deal 1 wound to a Space Marine.
During this round, I realised I wasn't using any of each unit's special Abilities, so during the Fight round a few re-rolls and other bonuses were applied based on some Abilities and Cabal Points (a point sub-system the Thousand Sons have). I can see how this could very much affect combat, so maybe that's why combat has so far seemed so impossible.
Round 4
We're over the hump now. This is the penultimate round.
Score so far:
- Space Marines: 35 (+5 for controlling one objective, +5 for controlling two objectives, +5 for controlling a symbolic site)
- Thousand Sons: 25 (+5 for controlling one objective, +5 for controlling two objectives, +5 for controlling a symbolic site)
Movement
The Scarab Occult Terminators decide to make a mad dash for the eastern objective. They have no hope to control the southern one, so I figured it would make sense for them to try to steal the eastern objective from the Librarian's lingering influence. It's definitely a Hail Mary, but under the circumstance it makes sense, I think.
This also gave me the chance to try the Fall Back action, and the Desperate Escape action. Because they're moving past an enemy and out of Engagement, each Scarab Occult Terminator has to roll to make a Desperate Escape, where a 1 or 2 results in instant death! Lucky for them, they all passed.
Nobody else moves this round.
Shoot
After noticing that I wasn't using some of the attributes listed on my weapons, I re-read some of the rules. It's fair to say that I've been doing combat entirely wrong. No wonder it feels so ineffective.
My first mistake is that weapons have an Attack (A) attribute, so my dice pools should have been exponentially larger. Five dice for five models seemed low to me, but I thought it was because I was playing with Combat Patrol and not a 1000 point army. No, I was just wrong, and I should have been rolling 6 D6 for each Terminator, and something like 2 D6 for each Infernus, and so on.
Too late to change it up now, so I'll continue to play with nerf guns.
Next, I was wrong about Engagement, which I discovered by reading the Pistol keyword description. Pistols can be used for a ranged attack "even within Engagement range", which is an exception to a rule. Yes, it turns out there's a rule within the Ranged Attack section of the rules that specifies that you cannot make a ranged attack when you're within Engagement Range (1 inch from an enemy). Except with a pistol.
The Thousands Sons lose a Terminator (shot in the back by Captain Octavius, no less), They can't fight back because they took the Fall Back action.
Charge
The Space Marines fall in so that everybody's got a Tzaangor to hit during the Fight round.
Fight
The Space Marines manage to remove another Tzaangor. But the Tzaangors have OC 2, so they still control the Northern objective.
Round 5
This is the final round!
- Space Marines: 50 (+5 for controlling one objective, +5 for controlling two objectives, +5 for controlling a symbolic site)
- Thousand Sons: 40 (+5 for controlling one objective, +5 for controlling two objectives, +5 for controlling a symbolic site)
Command
Blah blah command points.
Movement
The Scarab Occult Terminators continue their mad dash toward the east objective, and by making an Advanced Move they're able to close the distance, siezing control of the objective!
HOWEVER...
Shoot
The Space Marines Infernus squad by the northern objective manage to take out three (that's three, even in my I'm-playing-it-wrong combat mode!) and sieze control of the symbolic site.
The Thousand Sons manage to wourd Captain Octavius, mostly out of spite, but he's left standing with 1 Wound remaining.
That's pretty much the game. I could do some melee, but it wouldn't change the balance.
Final scores:
- Space Marines: 65 (+5 for controlling one objective, +5 for controlling two objectives, +5 for controlling a symbolic site)
- Thousand Sons: 50 (+5 for controlling one objective, +5 for controlling two objectives)
First game jitters
I had a lot of fun with Warhammer 40,000. It's obviously not a solo game, but playing a solo game was a great way to start to internalize some of the rules.
The combat felt clunky at first, but the more I played and the more I thought about what each roll was representing, the more I saw its value (and double that after I realised I was rolling far fewer attacks as intended).
What I loved about the game, and this the solo play wasn't able to diminish, was the power struggle between the two armies. The Space Marines started out strong, but by Round 3 when the Tzaangors reached an objective, the tide turned. The OC mechanic is awfully clever. Had the Infernus squad had worse luck against the Tzaangors in the final round, the Thousand Sons would have won, thanks to the last minute dash for the east objective.
I'm looking forward to playing against somebody else later on. Now that I've experienced Space Marines in combat, I feel like I want to go build a Space Marine army! But I've got a bunch of unassembled Adeptus Mechanicus models on my shelf at the moment, so first thing's first!
All images in this post copyright Games Workshop.