Space Marine Codex Review: Part 1- Special Rules, Chapter Tactics, Warlord Traits

Welcome to the first part of my review for the new 8th edition Space Marine codex. This section will take a look at some of the special rules for the army, the Chapter Tactics and the new Warlord Traits in the codex. 

Special Rules

The codex contains the special rules for the forces of the Space Marines, one of which should make a big impact on the game going forward. 

And They Shall Know No Fear

The quintessential Space Marine rule has been updated for 8th edition. This rule allows you to re-roll all failed Morale tests.  

This is actually a pretty decent rule, allowing you to survive the worst effects of the morale phase for a number of your units. Previously, Space Marines were pretty much immune to the consequences of Morale in the game. They automatically rallied if they fell back and could not be wiped out in combat from a sweeping advance. 

Now, however, they are as affected as most other units in the game. The re-roll can be pretty useful to stop you from losing your expensive Marines to a poor morale roll. With a standard Leadership of 7, you need to lose at least 2 of your squad to fail a morale test. Having the re-roll improves your odds of not losing another squad member to an inopportune roll of a 6 on the test. With a Sergeant in the squad, their Leadership goes up to 8, further boosting the chances of passing the test. As most Marine squads seem to be run in unit sizes of 5, having the re-roll is great for keeping the last members of the unit alive, as you pretty much need to lose most of the unit to have bad odds of failing the Morale test. 

Defenders of Humanity

This is a great special rule and should have a big impact on missions in 8th edition going forward. This new rule is essentially Objective Secured from 7th edition. If your army is battle-forged, then all Troops units control an objective marker if they are in range, even if they are outnumbered by the enemy unit. If the other unit has a similar special rule, the unit with the most models in range of the objective then control it. 

Objective Secured was a key special rule for me in 7th edition, winning me plenty of games over the course of its use. Having a similar rule in 8th edition is going to be great, I think. I think this is a great addition to the army (and the game) and should help to balance out some of the more ridiculous armies that can be taken if GW are careful with which units such rules are applied (I don't think anyone want to see Conscripts or Brimstone Horrors gaining such a rule). I look forward to trying this out in my games and seeing if it is as effective as it has been in the past. 

Bunker War 3- Armies on Display

There were some great armies on display at the Bunker Wars tournament. Here are a selection of some of the forces present.

Warhammer Community Army Showcase- Graham's Death Army

As some of you may remember, my first Army Showcase post featured Graham's awesome Slaves to Darkness army. 

As if exposure on St Andrews Wargaming was not enough, Graham also decided to slum it on the pages of Warhammer Community with a showcase of his amazing Age of Sigmar Death army. 

Congrats to Graham on a fantastic achievement. Now, I'm not saying that his army featured on the Warhammer Community page because he was showcased here first, but you cannot prove otherwise! If you would like your own army to be featured on Army Showcase, please get in touch at corrm83@gmail.com to arrange it. 

Bunker War 3: Game 3- Deathwatch vs Tyranids

The final game of the Bunker War 3 tournament would see my Deathwatch take on Phil's Tyranid force. I had only played Nids once in 8th edition so far, and it did not go well. Hopefully, this game would be a lot closer than that last one.

The mission for game 3 was the Scouring, with Dawn of War deployment. We were playing on an industrial table with some of the awesome new Armageddon scenery taking up a fair portion of the table.

My army consisted of:

Battalion Detachment

Watch Master (W)

Watch Captain- Jump Pack, Pair Lightning Claws (W)

Kill Team 1- 5 Veterans, Vanguard Veteran with Pair Lightning Claws, 3 Frag Cannons, Storm Shield. (KT1)

Kill Team 2- 5 Veterans, 2 Missile Launchers, 2 Stalker Boltguns (KT2)

Kill Team 3- 5 Veterans, 2 Infernus Heavy Bolters, 2 Stalker Boltguns (KT3)

Kill Team 4- 5 Veterans, Meltagun, 3 combi-Meltas (KT4)

Kill Team 5- 5 Veterans, 2 Frag Cannons (KT5)

Rhino (R)

Drop Pod- Storm Bolter (DP)

6 Vanguard Veterans- 2 Pairs Lightning Claws, Power Sword and Bolt Pistol, 3 with Bolt Pistols and Chainswords (VV1)

3 Deathwatch Bikers- Power Axe, Power Sword (DB1)

3 Deathwatch Bikers- two Power Swords (DB2)

Corvus Blackstar- Auspex Array, Hurricane Bolter, Twin Assault Cannons, 2 Blackstar Rocket Launchers (CB)

Vindicare Assassin (V)

6 Command Points

The Watch Master was my warlord and had the Tenacious Survivor warlord trait. 

Bunker War 3: Game 2- Deathwatch vs Ultramarines

The second game of Bunker War 3 would be the No Mercy mission with Hammer and Anvil deployment. This could be a tricky one for me, as very little of my Deathwatch army frequently survives the game in 8th edition. This game would see me facing David and his Ultramarines. 

My army consisted of:

Battalion Detachment

Watch Master (W)

Watch Captain- Jump Pack, Pair Lightning Claws (W)

Kill Team 1- 5 Veterans, Vanguard Veteran with Pair Lightning Claws, 3 Frag Cannons, Storm Shield. (KT1)

Kill Team 2- 5 Veterans, 2 Missile Launchers, 2 Stalker Boltguns (KT2)

Kill Team 3- 5 Veterans, 2 Infernus Heavy Bolters, 2 Stalker Boltguns (KT3)

Kill Team 4- 5 Veterans, Meltagun, 3 combi-Meltas (KT4)

Kill Team 5- 5 Veterans, 2 Frag Cannons (KT5)

Rhino (R)

Drop Pod- Storm Bolter (DP)

6 Vanguard Veterans- 2 Pairs Lightning Claws, Power Sword and Bolt Pistol, 3 with Bolt Pistols and Chainswords (VV)

3 Deathwatch Bikers- Power Axe, Power Sword (DB1)

3 Deathwatch Bikers- two Power Swords (DB2)

Corvus Blackstar- Auspex Array, Hurricane Bolter, Twin Assault Cannons, 2 Blackstar Rocket Launchers (CB)

Vindicare Assassin (V)

6 Command Points

My warlord was the Watch Master with the Tenacious Survivor warlord trait.

Bunker War 3: Game 1- Deathwatch vs Aeldari

Welcome to the first battle report from my recent trip to the Bunker War tournament, held at Battle Bunker in Sunderland. 

This tournament was a one-day, three-game event, featuring armies at 2000 pts. The games would be three random Eternal War determined on the day. Due to time constraints in playing with my other armies, I took my Deathwatch to the tournament, as they were the only army I had really had much experience with in 8th edition. 

My army consisted of:

Battalion Detachment

Watch Master (W)

Watch Captain- Jump Pack, Pair Lightning Claws (W)

Kill Team 1- 5 Veterans, Vanguard Veteran with Pair Lightning Claws, 3 Frag Cannons, Storm Shield. (KT1)

Kill Team 2- 5 Veterans, 2 Missile Launchers, 2 Stalker Boltguns (KT2)

Kill Team 3- 5 Veterans, 2 Infernus Heavy Bolters, 2 Stalker Boltguns (KT3)

Kill Team 4- 5 Veterans, Meltagun, 3 combi-Meltas (KT4)

Kill Team 5- 5 Veterans, 2 Frag Cannons (KT5)

Rhino (R)

Drop Pod- Storm Bolter (DP)

6 Vanguard Veterans- 2 Pairs Lightning Claws, Power Sword and Bolt Pistol, 3 with Bolt Pistols and Chainswords (VV1)

3 Deathwatch Bikers- Power Axe, Power Sword (DB1)

3 Deathwatch Bikers- two Power Swords (DB2)

Corvus Blackstar- Auspex Array, Hurricane Bolter, Twin Assault Cannons, 2 Blackstar Rocket Launchers (CB)

Vindicare Assassin (V)

6 Command Points

This army is based on a review of my previous tournament Deathwatch army. There were a few modifications based on the models that I had available. 

The Vanguard Veterans had lightning claws, power swords and chainswords. I had hoped to have them all armed with pairs of lightning claws, but didn't have the models available. Also, I planned to take two units with two Missile Launchers, but two of them hadn't arrived yet, so I substituted them for a couple of Infernus Heavy Bolters. 

Hobby Sunday 06/08/17- Deathwatch with Missile Launchers

This week's hobby Sunday features a few models that I had to get painted up for this weekend's North West Open tournament. I managed to get the models painted on Wednesday and Thursday night, the closest run I have ever had to completing models for a tournament.

I decided to purchase some Missile Launchers from ebay after my Deathwatch army showed a serious lack of anti-tank punch in the shooting phase. I put these models on some spare Deathwatch models that I had waiting to be built. I painted them up using my standard Deathwatch scheme.

North West Open this weekend!

Tonight I will be heading over to Southport for the North West Open tournament, held at the awesome Wargames. This will be my first ITC tournament, so I am looking forward to trying out the changed mission styles in the tournament pack. 

If you are going to the event, be sure to pop over and say hello. Hopefully, my Deathwatch won't be embarrassing themselves on the tabletop too badly. Last time I went to Wargames, I ended up winning the tournament. Based on recent performance, I don't think that will be happening again! Maybe I can skew my win rate in favour of above 50% this weekend, stay tuned for the upcoming battle reports to see if this occurs. 

Army Showcase- Graham's Slaves to Darkness

Welcome to the first in what will hopefully be a new series on the blog, the Army Showcase. 

St Andrews Wargaming gives me the opportunity to show off my own hobby work to the blogging community, and there are many other great blogs out there to showcase their own hobby work and amazing armies. However, there are plenty of fantastic armies out there from hobbyists and players that do not have their own blogs, and I hope to help bring you some of these in the coming year. 

So before we get started with the first army showcase, I am putting the call out to all the readers out there. Do you have an army that you wish to showcase on the blog? It doesn't have to be a Golden Daemon winner, just a painted force that you are proud of and want to show to my regular readers. If you want a chance to showcase your own army, please get in touch (corrm83@gmail.com). All you need are some decent quality photos of your force (cameraphone is fine) and to answer a few short questions based on the army to get a flavour of why you chose the force. 

Today's inaugural army is Graham's Slaves to Darkness Chaos force. Graham's models have appeared on the blog before. I first met him at the Newcastle Warlords gaming club and was amazed by his Age of Sigmar armies that he uses. He does some amazing work, frequently wins painting competitions and has even had the opportunity to use his armies in live stream games on the Warhammer Community channel. You can find more of Graham's excellent work on his twitter page (@PaintedbyG) and his facebook page. 

Guest Post: Assault on SYGTIR-2 an Infinity battle report

Today we have a guest post from previous contributor Chris, this time sharing with us an awesome Infinity battle report. Chris has previously written about how great Infinity is and why he started playing. If you are interested, check out his previous post to get an overview on how Infinity works as a game before reading his battle report. Even if you don't know Infinity, Chris does a great job in the report of explaining what certain actions do and how the game plays, so be sure to check it out!

Over to Chris. 

Assault on SYGTIR-2 - an Infinity battle report

Chris Rhodes

G'day dear readers of St. Andrews Wargaming!

Chris here, the avid reader turned guest writer that offered you a glimpse into the world of Infinity in fall last year if you remember (http://standwargaming.blogspot.de/2016/09/guest-post-infinite-patience-or-long.html). I'm mighty pleased to be able to contribute another small piece to this magnificent blog and, fittingly, this will be about Infinity as well. 

Before we get to the actual battle report I want to give you some very basic information about Infinity and how it works. If you're already familiar with the game, feel free to skip this bit. 

Infinity is a skirmish game set in the year 2200 (the rules are free to download by the way). The various factions on Earth have merged into different constellations. For example, the state empire of Yu Jing that comprises most of the Asian nations, or PanOceania that includes, well, all the rest of the world. Of course, the various factions are still squabbling as they are today, but there's no open warfare going on, only mostly clandestine work. So far humans have made contact with 2 alien races - the Tohaa, which are seemingly benevolent, and the Combined Army, which seeks to conquer all races they encounter. A few new planets have been settled, too, and we have researched the technology of "jump gates" to facilitate travelling large distances. One such jump gate is the "Wotan Gate" which basically connects two planets, one being Paradiso, and the other being Svarlaheima. Paradiso is already being attacked by the scout forces of the Combined Army, which now try to make a push through the Wotan Gate. 

Gameplay-wise, an Infinity game has 3 turns, similar to Warhammer 40K in the way that the players alternate moving and shooting with their respective armies. One of the interesting differences is that there's always an active player (whose turn it is) and a reactive player. When the active player moves or shoots with a unit, the reactive player gets to shoot back (but less powerful than in his active turn), or dodge with his models. A mechanic that makes Infinity games quite engaging, as there's almost no downtime. 

The second big difference in the game play mechanics, and one that took some time getting used to, is that in Infinity you can move and shoot with a unit several times in your turn, by consuming "orders". Orders are supplied by each of your models in your army, one order for each model. This is balanced out by the fact that even expensive elite units are still relatively fragile, so unless something goes really wrong, there won't be a single unit Rambo-ing through the whole opposing army. This does open up a world of tactical opportunities though, as you can freely spend your orders on several models or just one troop model in any order you wish. 

So a few months ago, Corvus Belli, the Spanish manufacturer of Infinity, started a global summer campaign ("Strikezone: Wotan") with 3 stages that is now complete. In this campaign, the various factions got to fight over strategic locations in the space around the Wotan Gate, for instance, a space station or various orbital defense platforms, and the results will advance the storyline of the game. This is one of the battles I played during this campaign, and the most memorable for me.