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Tuesday, 11 February 2025

NI24 Army review - Guard

 The guard did well at the tournament, they mostly performed as intended and I felt that there was not a lot 8 could have done differently on the day. However, there were some units that just didn't pull their weight and some that really did better than expected. 

Many units, mainly the DKoK and the scions did exactly what I expected them to do, with the DKoK moving up to hold objectives and weathering the inevitable storm that followed, and the scions dropped in behind, picking up secondaries and causing problems. The Mortar heavy weapons squad also did their thing, holding the home objective and dropping random annoying shots on things. These units formed the core of the army and worked well, something else that worked well was the Deathwatch.

These units worked well in the test games and I had a good feeling for them going in to the tournament, however, one unit proved really good, the other not quite as good. The combat unit proved to be really effective, doing what was asked of them in all three games. I would have liked for them to be more resilient than they were, but a extra storm shield could solve that a little. The shooting unit were good, but another combat unit would have been more useful I think. I don't have the models to form another combat unit though and I don't think that I will look at getting another as I have a different use for the points, Grey Knights. A full unit of 10 marines plus the Rhino come in at over 250 points, which could easily pay for the 5 man unit of Grey Knight Terminators. 

On the other end of the spectrum was the Leman Russ Vanquisher (LRV) and the Armiger Warglaives. The LRV had trouble hitting anything, especially with the HK missile and even when it did it either failed to would or it was saved. I think in all the games it did only a handful of wound and generally proved pretty useless. With a tank commander or multiple Vanquishers, the effect could have been reduced, but with only one, it was not a great unit. The Warglaives were also pretty underwhelming as well, with the melta failing to hit multiple times and even when wounding failed to really do much damage. The chain swords were equally useless. Having played against a knights army running multiple Helverins, and seeing the damage done by their autocannons, I think that switching the two Warglaives for Helverins would be a better option, as well as saving points! 

A lot of the ideas for what to do with this list are however a bit of a mute point, as the guard codex is due out anything, and hopefully, I should even have my limited edition codex by the time this post goes live! (didn't get the box, just eBay'd the codex and cards). I have some ideas of what I might do, but I really need to study the new codex and units to see what I have and what I'm going to get and then I can see how the new version of this list will look.

So to finish off, here are some (not very good) photos of the army in all its glory.

The armies there somewhere, I promise!












Friday, 7 February 2025

NI24 Army review - Necrons and Tau

With the tournament over it's time to look back over the lists and see what worked and what didn't. 

We'll start with the Tau forces. Overall the force worked as intended, and there isn't much that needs to be changed or altered. There were a few options that needed tweaking, partly because the wrong option was taken on the submitted list but also because a few didn't work as well as intended. The rampagers were very hit and miss but taking a full size unit would make a big difference, to room for 3 extra models needs to be found somewhere, possibly by dropping the strike team and devilfish. However, I think that next year my son will be taking Orks, provided he gets it all built and painted.

As for the Necrons, there will be some significant changes. The young man has some tomb blades that were not built at the time of the tournament, and while at the tournament he acquired a Doomsday arc. Combine this with the Silent King he received for Christmas and you have a very different list.

The trouble is, what do you get rid of? First up would be the wraiths and technomancer. While these are good units for holding up the enemy, they lack much punch. Replacing these with the tomb blades keeps a fast unit, faster intact, but also gives greater firepower. Additionally dropping the scarabs and the spider frees up some points. Now scarabs are useful for rear screening but in terms of output and versatility they are now lacking due to 0OC. Using the pints towards the silent king or Doomsday arc would be better I think. Additionally, removing the flayed ones and deathmarks frees up some points. The flayed ones were useful for grabbing some points turn 1 in a few games but in general I think the points could be spending elsewhere, the same applies to the deathmarks, as their shooting output is not great although they were useful deep striking for secondaries. 

There is still quite a while between this tournament and the next and there will be at least 2 if not 3 balance data slates plus we can expect a whole new mission deck around June this year, all of which will have an impact on the lists. 

Here are some parade photos of the necrons













Tuesday, 4 February 2025

NI24 - Necrons games

 This post will be quite a quick one, as I don't have any pictures or even score cards for these games. I did speak to the young man about his games so have a little I can say about them all.

The first game was against Tyranids and a player well known for being quite cut throat during games, and this was true during this game. However, he was an absolute gentleman, and was giving lots of advice and encouragement during the games. There were some interesting moments in the game as well, including a saving throw needing 5+'s off 8 dice and making everyone of them including about 6 sixes. Overall it sounded like a good game, even if he was soundly beaten, he had fun, learnt a lot and it was still a good introduction to tournament play. 

He next game was probably not such a great introduction. This was not down to either player but the fact that it was a game between two very new players, both having only played a handful of games between them. This means lots of rules questions and double checking, combined with both sides having infantry heavy armies, resulted in the game only getting to turn 2. Unfortunately this lead to the young man loosing, as his Necrons are slow to start and by the end of turn 2 they are only just getting on to objectives and scoring secondaries. If this game had gone further I think he had a good chance of winning, even another turn could well have turned the score sheet in his favour but we’ll never know for sure. 

Two losses put him up against another player who had lost two from two, me! There is an another post already up on this game, so there is nothing else to add here. 

Overall I think the young man in question had two good games and one average game (only due to lack of experience on both parts). I also think that’s the whole weekend was a positive experience and there was lots of talk about next year, but I’ll cover that in a separate post.  





Friday, 31 January 2025

NI24 - Tau games

This time we'll have a look at my son's games and while he had the same win to loss ratio as me (1W-2L) he actually did better than me in then overall standings, placing towards the middle of the table (9th of 16 I believe). However, he didn't have as much fun as he had hoped, mostly due to his opponents, not the actual opponents but rather their chosen army. Before we even left, his hopes for the tournament included not loosing every game and not playing knights. Well, he won one game, the only game that he wasn't playing knights! Yep, out of three games and 16 players he played both (and only two) the imperial knights players and even though he lost both, they were both close games.

Hi first game was against one of the better players and it was the only game that went to 5 turns for all three of us. He played the game well but struggled to hold on, taking the early game and building up a lead before the knights came back in the late game and clinched the win. He opponent was very impressed and also said that this was probably the game he had to work hardest for the win. 


Game two, and he was up against his only non-knight army, in the form of the Death Guard. This game.only went to turn three and he was starting to gain momentum that would probably have built a bigger lead by the end of the game. His opponent in this game was a relatively new player and it was interesting to see the young man taking the lead for once. 


After the victory in game two, it was back to playing knights. This game was against my opponent in my game two but he was definitely doing better than me. It would have been interesting to see this game go the full turns, as I think he would have had a good chance of winning but unfortunately the cards weren't going in his favour. 


So after three games he was sitting pretty nicely mid-table and despite playing knights twice he was in good spirits. None of the games he lost were significant losses, being only 9 and 5 points losses. Again, as with my games, most games only go to turn 3. This is probably something that we will need to work on for next year. 

I think he enjoyed the day and was talking about returning next year before we had even made it back to the hotel. Although, I think he's planning on bringing his Orks next year, if he gets them ready in time.