Gamer Woes

[Grenadier]

Hey folks. I'm new here obviously. But I've been into Warhammer 40,000 going on 15 years. Problem is, I live in a place where there the Emperor's light doesn't shine. Long ago a random stranger had some models on a table at a local festival and there my love for the game begin. But he moved out of state. And it took me years to get a friend of mine into the game. But when I did he also got two of his friends into the game. Sadly my friend is moving out of state very soon as well. As did one of the others. And I've never played the other guy. And it's likely I won't get to. And so it's back into the dusty shelf for my models as I wait for the day they can see battle again some day.


In fact, I just fought what may well be my final battle against my friend. We tend to go with an Apocalypse approach. Primarily to avoid pesky force organization restrictions.

The mission was relatively simple. I'm the Imperial Guard defending two bridges spanning a river. The bridges connect our deployment zone while the river is essentially a no-man's land. His objective is to capture the bridges. For the mission we developed a very simple win trigger: a bastion is placed in my deployment zone centered behind the end of the bridges. It's basically controlling the bridges. Whoever has the most scoring units in, on, and near the bunker at the end of the game wins.

Here's the funny part:

I used my entire Imperial Guard collection. A meager 7000 points give or take a few.

My opponent brought almost all of his Dark Angels coming in at 11,000 points.

That's right: he had 4000 points more army than I did. And his army is heavy on infantry and tanks. In fact, in terms of infantry models he had more than my Guard had! Plus he always brings every single Dark Angel's special character and a bunch of other bells and whistles. Including some hinky stuff like using that lovely new Blood Angel's dreadnought with magna grapples. It gave one of my Leman Russ tanks quite the scare when it latched on and began reeling it in. If not for the timely intervention of it's partner the tank would have been lost!

It seemed the deck was stacked against me. But not so. I won. And I won big time. I actually lost only one vehicle: a Sentinel. I did lose quite a few troops. 4 of his Terminators ripped through an entire squad of infantry with ease. I lost an entire heavy weapons squad as well as all my conscripts who I sent onto one bridge as fodder.

He might of won if had he made some better tactical decisions which would have let him cross the bridge faster, or even bypass it entirely.

And so now my friends my Imperial Guard are forced into early retirement. My friend is soon to move away. And no more opponents are around. Still, not a bad way for my army to end its career eh?

As for my Black Templar army:

Do any of you know if there will be an updated codex for them in the near future?

It bugs me that a vanilla army chapter master has better stats than even High Marshal Helbrecht! Seriously, this army is centered on hand to hand fighting. Yet their stats suck compared to the vanilla stats. And now there are nice new units that would be perfect for the Black Templars like the Honor Guard or Vanguard Squads. In the past I made the mistake of revamping my army because the latest vanilla codex was better than theirs. Especially that one with the chapter traits system. And then it was completely invalidated by the latest codex. Should I overhaul my Templars and go with the new codex for vanilla marines? Or just bide my time until such a time as my Templars are updated? Any advice?

[wkz]

Can you provide your general location (City/State/Country)? BolS being global, there's BOUND to be someone in here that's relatively close to your location...

[Astartes]

In the back of a White Dwarf there is a directory of Hobby Stores where 40k is played. They're organized by State, so you just find your own and then search the list for one in a town near you.

I'm lucky, around me there are 3 so I have a choice of where to go for games (if not my own basement). What else is nice is each store has it's own meta, based on the armies of the local players.

[Bigthunda]

I would say wait until the Templars are updated- you will be disappointed if you don't, they are bound to have a way better codex and will probably get cool new models. It would suck to tailor your force to C:SM and possibly buy new stuff then have an amazing new codex full of stuff come out that you COULD have had instead!

[Lord Inquisitor]

You should probably look into their current codex. After the FAQ update they are really not that bad right now. One example is that they can give their Vindicators Power of the Machine Spirit, craziness.

[Grenadier]

I live in Cumberland, Ky. On the border with Tennessee and Virginia. The closest place to me I'm aware of to buy models and or play battles is a nice shop in Kingsport, Tn called "Dwayne's World" some 2 hours driving from here.

Vindicators with POTM? That's crazy indeed. That's a tank I've never cared for though.

I would hope they get new models. The Black Templars are an odd choice for me. As a player my least favorite part of the game is the close combat phase. Yet I chose an army who focuses on that. Also, my favorite unit in a Marine army, aside from the Dreadnought, are the Devastators which they don't get in the Templars. This army choice is totally counter-intuitive to my playing style. Yet I use them well nonetheless. I was drawn to them because of their character and fluff.

And on rare occasions they've teamed up with my Guard in Apocalypse battles. They work perfectly together. The Guard provides the firepower and the Templar provide the slice and dice!