Thursday, July 3, 2014

Now that the shock and abject horror has passed...

...lets see what we can do with our new lousy codex (vs. the old lousy codex).

We were properly prepared, why do I say that? Note: the tissues on the shelf in the background...lol.
Thus, Da Long Ways Dezert Groop took on the Fem Fa'Tau last night in their new codex battlefield debut. Unsurprisingly, they lost but truth be told, da boyz fared better than I expected.  The dice went thru periods of good and bad on both sides, though my GF is getting tired of the 'you can't roll any higher than a 2' syndrome her dice have been addicted to for quite some time now...that said, she rolled a whole slew of 6+ disruption field saves at the end!

Anyways, a few things I noticed during the game...

First up, Ork Witchfire psychic powers. Yeah, great. I need to cast and not perils (perils was my 1st wound suffered in the game), not be denied (and there she goes with those 6's again), and then have to roll to hit with a BS of 2??? BS indeed, thanks for that GW. The only spell that managed to work during the (short) lifespan of my Wierdboy was 'da jump' which tellyported da shoota boys across the table. They summarily gunned down the Pathfinders only to be pie plated into oblivion shortly thereafter. So that was a wash.

Basic Meks get all sorts of cool weaponry, but only ever get a 6+ save. So why would I ever put a 30 point killsaw on one of those? One Mek manned the Kannon (and the grots managed to hit a lot with said kannon, damage however...), one Mek disappeared in the a hail of burst cannon fire (more on that below), and the other died the first time he pulled the trigger on his Kustom-Mega-Blasta. Yes apparently the option of putting eavy armor on cheap characters was, like so many other things, too much to ask for.

Speaking of eavy armor, it felt like a knee-jerk reaction to put it on every boy that could get it, but that's exactly what I did. So spread across the army, eavy armor costs almost equaled the price of a Landraider (gulp!). That said, when the outflanking hordes of stealth suits, Shadowsun, and Kroot showed up, it was a godsend! Instead of having mobs simply evaporate (like the attached mek did), they actually absorbed a good bit of damage and were able to stay in the fight! Indeed, that's the only reason I had any troops left after turn 2! Would have been nice if GW discounted that a bit on regular boyz though. :-(

I added a nob and another grunt to my Tankbustas this week, bringing the mob up to 10 boyz.

Da Tankbustas. They did good, if not too much overall. Tank Hunter was not only long overdue,  but works well (though unfortunately, so do disruption fields). The mob of 10, in a Battlewagon, with a grot rigger, and a mek w/KFF and Gitfinda was something the tau could not crack (thankfully). Only used the gitfinda once when the wagon stayed put, but I in turn hit a Hammerhead 8 times! (3 disruption field saves later and we're moving on to another subject now...).

Stupid Mob rule!
Da Mob rule. Ah yes, the 800lb Gorilla in the room. Luckily, my boys were rolling low on their LD checks, and I didn't have to roll on that damned chart till the bottom of the last turn (we ended on turn 4 as I had to get up early for work). Yes the boss pole is essential as it saved my ass (I have more on order from ebay), and thanks again to the eavy armor, my warboss only managed to kill 1 of da boys whilst restoring order.

So in conclusion? Meh.

Aside from the eavy armor buff, and tankbustas not being entirely useless, i think my army is in much the same place it was before with the old dex. One thing of note, after building my army and looking at what was left out of my list, I have a lot of orks (and that's not even counting the equally massive Eleet Grot Mountin Duvishun)!

10 comments:

greggles said...

As you probably already know... this is only a half complete codex. The other half is in the ghazkull supplement.

When you combine the two, you get a very powerful set of tools to setup the ork army in a variety of ways, of which some are very competitive.

Taken by itself, the ork codex is definitely meh. But combined with the supplement and the formations? It's fantastic. If you haven't see the formations yet check them out. It'll make you feel much better.

Quick examples:

Meganobz with fear, fearless and +1 WS. (3x5, formation slot)

Five battlewagons which come with scout (formation slot)

Dread mob, in which all the walkers gain D3 hammer of wrath hits, and ere we go (can waargh, and reroll 1 charge dice).

Deep striking stormboyz with 3 powerclaws, who only scatter D6, all with shredding hammer of wraths.

Four groups of commando's, with ambush, and 2+ rerollable cover saves.


greggles said...

I hear you! They still have another book coming out too (the red waagh), which will probably have even more stuff in it.

Pretty much all the rules of the new supplement are floating around on the web. Don't even need to go crazy looking for them. GW even posted two of the pages straight on their website!

http://www.games-workshop.com/resources//blogs/2014/07/02/4xlWG.jpg

Da Masta Cheef said...

Make me feel much better? lol, no.

This was my fear when so-called 'supplements' were first released, i.e.: that the main codex would suck w/o the supplement doubling the already outrageous cost of the original codex. We went from (in recent times) $30 a codex, to $50 a codex, to (now apparently) needing to spend ANOTHER $50 so make the 'new and improved' codex work effectively.

Sorry, I can't afford to spend $100 on a rule book every time I turn around, especially as given the ridiculously short shelf-life of the 6th ed rules (which came in a $100 boxed set).

Not to mention, that with that codex I neither want, nor can afford to spend $190 in meganobs, or $265 in additional Battlewagons, or any make of the other extravagantly expensive purchases to make the new codex 'work'.

'Pay to win' is not a game I want to play. My decade+ love of the hobby is being crushed under the GW-Marketing-Demands of BUY MOAR!!!!

No.

Makes a note to see if the Russian PDF pirates have the supplement up yet...

greggles said...

It's orks. Don't have to buy any of the kits if you don't want to. Just throw some excessive plates and plasticard on some nobz to make meganobz. (and a larger base). Easy peasy.

Battle wagons can be almost anything.

Though I agree it is a bit crazy how the limitations of the codex are without the formations...at least they have the formations...and they didn't split them into three painfully slowly released data slates (poor nids).

But yes, they are milking this as much as they can, no if's or butt's about it.

Only choice is to rage, or just find your own solutions to their greed.

Da Masta Cheef said...

I'll be honest, an idea that's been in my head for awhile now is to box the whole Army up and mail it to GW HQ in Nottingham to the Attention of Marketing, the CEO, the so-called design team...with a note that says: After 20 years of gaming, you've made it so I can't afford to play this game anymore. So FUCK YOU for ruining my favorite hobby.

THAT would be worth the $50 and is sorely tempting...

greggles said...

They'd sadly just strip the models and repackage them to sell for 500 dollars as a bundle deal.

neverness said...

You're review was far more positive than I thought it would be. I think you need to play a few games against a few Marine armies to give these rules a more proper shake down.

neverness said...

...*facepalm" "You're review" really? Ugh...

Unknown said...

Cheef, I'm with ya on some of it. I feel like you when I paid $50 for Iyanden, and am scared to see what they do to my beloved Dark Eldar.

On the other hand I agree with Greg at the fact that Orks are haphazard and ramshackle. Cut here. Glue there. I've seen your bitz box... you got this. Just got to get creative.

Da Masta Cheef said...

Well I'll have them out in force again tomorrow, so we'll see...