One Page Rules Battle Report: Deathwatch vs Tau

 

For the second game on "Man Gets New Hat" weekend, we moved up to 2,000 points a side, and my loyal opponent decided to bring his Tau. I changed up a few units to make an actually legal list this time.

We had a whole bunch of miniatures that set up after the others, so first a big unit of Tau Battlesuits dropped into my lines.

I dropped my Vanguard Veterans to deal with the big mech, but they then got counter deployed by a unit of Stealth Suits.

I charged my Assault Intercessors into the big Tau Mech, and they caused a little damage, but it's tough armour really helped protect it.

The Assault Intercessors got shot and stomped to bits, but the Vanguard Veterans decided to ignore the Stealth suits and shank up the big mech suit. It turns out that Lightning Claws and Heavy Thunder Hammers are really rather good in this system, as it got thoroughly blended.

I made a gutsy charge across some open ground at one point, and this was the roll to hit on a 2+ with a fancy rail gun. My opponent's dice were incredibly treacherous this game!

With a handful of Tau models left alive as I solved problems with "charging and stabbing", the game ended up swinging to the Deathwatch quite decisively - but much of it was due to a good deal of luck. Because I didn't know how deadly the Tau shooting was, I recklessly ran at them screaming rather than advancing cautiously, giving them less time to shoot and no time to recover when they had a handful of unlucky rolls. It was a high risk strategy I took by mistake, and it happened to pay off this time.

Still, One Page Rules continues to be good fun, and I'm curious about giving it more of a go now I know it well enough to play a larger game.

Hobby Review of the Year

With UK lockdowns over, I managed to make it out to a few Infinity tournaments. It's important to remember Coronavirus has definitely not gone away and is still affecting many people. I'm certainly still making careful decisions about risk with what I choose to go to.

That said, I made a few Infinity tournaments over 2022, including St Albans Smackdown, the inaugural Red Star Blues tournament at HATE, and a return to EIC in Mallorca. I am still only OK at Infinity, but I'm having fun with the challenge of it.

I've also made it to a friend's house a couple of times to play One Page Rules Grimdark Skirmish, which has been great fun. We're having a nice little mini campaign, and while I still haven't quite got the hang of One Page Rules yet, it's good to be gaming with friends in a more casual environment as well as my competitive Infinity habit...

I did get a good bit of Infinity painted this year, playing a tournament with a full set of models I'd painted myself. This feels like a big achievement as even with 40K, tournaments I've played have had at least some models painted by someone else.

I was really pleased with how a few minis I painted this year came out. I got Candy as a present, and she's a mix of contrast paints and highlights, but for a simple paint job she came out disproportionately well and I'm happy every time I see the model.

The henchman from Otherworld, meanwhile, took forever for me to finish, because his backpack was so fiddly and full of details. That said, I was mega happy with how the face turned out, and I feel I'm getting much better at doing faces with practice.

Dagny the Viking Guard was a bit of an impulse purchase originally. I'm not as happy with her paint job as I was with a few of my other models - I think she's come out a bit dark - but getting her painted made me disproportionately happy for the effort it took.

I've done a few D&D models this year, including the Otherworld henchman above, but this rabbit folk by Reaper Bones turned out really nice for a simple contrast paint job. There wasn't anything special about the job in terms of painting her well or anything, I just really liked how she turned out for a quick tabletop quality paint job.

I also had fun painting some Battletech Mechs this year. It's a new scale I haven't tried before, but infuriating mould lines aside, they're nice simple sculpts that are really quite different to anything else I'm doing.

I've had three armies commission painted this year, and the mental load of getting that sorted by someone else has been really excellent for my general mood. First up, we've got the Deathwatch, which give me something other than my Imperial Guard to play 40K with. It will be good to get a game in with them as I'm curious how the current edition actually plays.

Its fair to say I've been AoS curious since it came out, but I've had huge trouble deciding on an army to play. In the end, cheap Stormcast deals meant it was easiest to get those painted up and ready to go. Maybe in 2023 I'll get to see what the fuss is about.

Meanwhile, I've gotten a good chunk of the options for White Company for Infinity commission painted as well. I took them to EIC and had fun, although I've not got in enough games with them yet to get the hang of their playstyle.

I got 85 miniatures painted over 2022, which is a pretty respectable number. I went over on buying models again, but nowhere near as bad as 2021! I'm feeling really positive, and have plenty of hobby plans for the coming year, which is probably the best place to be.

One Page Rules: Grimdark Future - Deathwatch vs Genestealer Cult

 

For the second game of One Page Rules: Grimdark Future, I decided to try some more specialist units - I took a Librarian, Aggressors and Bikes to try out.

I had to deploy my units first, because the Genestealer Cult in Grimdark Future pretty much all get to deploy later and get a free move . . .

So the Deathwatch fanned out through the underhive, searching for the Xenos uprising . . .

The first sign of trouble was a (newly painted) Genestealer sniper, taking pot shots and the Hellblasters.

Genestealers started rushing towards the Intercessor squad, which was quite a worry... 

Swarms of Genestealer squads were starting to show up now . . .

A squad of hybrids led by the Magus advanced, although their mining laser shot wide of their target. The Aggressors moved forward and the unlucky squad simply vanished in a wall of flame, including the Magus . . .

The Genestealers charged into the Intercessor squad, causing absolute carnage.

The Kelermorph gunslinger who was slinking around taking pot shots at opportunistic targets decided that maybe it was best to avoid the Aggressors and snuck away to a different corner of the battlefield . . .

The shotgun armed hybrids moved down a walkway to pepper the Hellblaster squad with shots. With few armoured targets on the Genestealer side the Hellblasters didn't have much of value to shoot at . . .

The Aggressors stomped up to the central hybrid squad, and once more, in a wall of flame, the Genestealer centre just vanished.

The surviving Purestrains, having wiped out the Intercessors, sought revenge of the Hellblasters, but weren't able to cause much damage before the end of the game. This time, the field was in the control of the Deathwatch.

With two games of One Page Rules - Grimdark Future under out belts, what were our thoughts? We both had fun, and the alternating activations helped a lot with making sure that there weren't any horrible "shot off the board before you get to do anything" experiences.

The elite powerful units certainly felt that way, and there's clearly units that are better at dealing with tougher units than others. There's probably quite a bit of tactics here, but we've not learned enough just yet to know what they are.

It was good to get back to some in person gaming, although it does still feel a little strange to do. I definitely want to go back again and get some more games in, as it was an enjoyable time and well worth the trip. Thanks to my opponent for a really fun weekend!

One Page Rules: Grimdark Future - Deathwatch vs Word Bearers

 

This weekend, I managed to dodge the storms to cross London and visit a friend to get some in person gaming in. We decided to try out One Page Rules, a miniatures agnostic set of wargaming rules. We were playing Grimdark Future, a game that is well suited to using existing Warhammer 40,000 units in it.

First up, we chose to play a 1,000 point game pitting my Deathwatch against the vile forces of the Word Bearers. I started off by having my Infiltrators deploy on the right flank and advance up to claim an objective opposite some cultists.

One Page Rules uses alternating activations, so early on I moved my Hellblasters forward to shoot at the Helbrute. They managed to get a couple of wounds off it, but I was worried about the counter attack.

Meanwhile, a Chaos Marine squad advanced towards the Intercessors on my left flank.

The Chaos Cultists charged into the Infiltrators to try and take them out.

Meanwhile, the Reivers, led by the Chaplain, charged into the Helbrute with an obscene number of attacks. However, with the level of its armour and the number of hits it could take, it was still going!

The Chaos Marine squad, named the "Havoc Brothers" by default in One Page Rules, charged into the Intercessor squad. We decided they were clearly in the style of a 90s heel tag team, facing the Prime Brothers face team.

The fight went back and forth, with the Prime Brothers taking some early casualties. They nobly fought back and took out a handful of the Havoc Brothers, before falling to the overwhelming attacks. The upgraded weapons in the Havoc Brothers squad in particular gave them a solid edge.

The Helbrute ripped the Reiver squad apart, and I managed to fail the morale check for the Chaplain, meaning he was captured and removed from play. We felt he was pushed to the floor and ground into the dirt, unable to escape with his armour broken and locked up.

The Helbrute then charged over to the surviving Hellblasters and cut them down.

With the rest of the battle lost, the Infiltrators managed to cut the cultists down, holding a single objective.

The Chaos champion charges into the Infiltrators, but neither side is able to get an edge. With the rest of the battlefield in the hands of Chaos, we called the game there.

We had a chat and felt that One Page Rules looks really promising. The Helbrute was an absolute beast, and would need some serious firepower to remove. The elite units felt worth taking and were able to do quite a lot.

It also didn't take very long at all to play, so after a quick break, we settled in for a second game . . .