Battle record - 40k Tyranids Vs Ork Speeed Freeeaks - 23/10/25

I've been #PlayingWarhammer with a game of Warhammer 40k!We've been playing the darn game of 40k for 3 weeks now. Probably nine hours in already and although I was reluctant to finish it off we decided to.

We thought it'd be over pretty quick as we had very little left.

And then scenes of absolute dice chaos! 🎲

Three ones.

Followed immediately by three sixes and three threes.

Box cars when I absolutely needed it.

Box cars for Liam when he said he was going to 'roll like Dave'!

So we did have a lot of laughs at these insane dice rolls.

But despite some resurgence from the bugs, Old One Eye is an absolute must take. The Orks won the day. I think we had fun, but every unit feels like an unwelcome surprise when you come to use them. Again, rules were forgotten or overlooked and when you come back to them later in the game and realise it would have had an impact earlier on it just feels like you're stupid, rather than the game being overly complex. We not play again for a while but at least we had a laugh.

Meanwhile, Liam had been really busy at work so only had time to knock up a Vampire Counts army for Warcry! He's a nutter.

With an hour left in the evening he set up with Will for a 'quick game' but Will's Chaos Knights are absolutely rock solid. I'm sure we'll all end up playing it at some point. Might give me a reason to paint my Night Haunt... But I also have the Crimson Court too which I now have an idea of how I want to paint them, in a style very different to Liam's.

Battle record - 40k Tyranids Vs Ork Speeed Freeeaks - 16/10/25

I've been #PlayingWarhammer with a game of Warhammer 40k! After last weeks 4 hour gaming session on just the first turns we were all hoping to finish our return to 40k. We had agreed that we would come into this with open minds. We want to like 40k, I am addicted to it afterall. But to paraphrase Helmuth von Moltke 'no plan survives contact with the enemy'. 

Last week the Orks hadn't been particularly effective. 

The Tyranids however were more durable, seemed to kill whatever was put in front of them and their wealth of rules seemed disproportionate to the Ork buffs. 

As Ben and Liam started turn 2 this continued. 

Liam was lucky with his amount of shots, then many hits, but he couldn't seem to translate that into wounds. 

Even when they did, our high saves, or invulnerable saves left most of the bugs undamaged.

 As our turn started Ben and Liam had almost called it quits. Shadows in the Warp left most of the Orks battle shocked, adding to their woes.

But, when it came to our shooting and combat the dice failed us and we couldn't seem to thin the Ork Horde. The Norn Emissary, who was nigh unkillable failed to remove any of those that had surrounded him.

And with their ability to fall back, shoot and assault he was riddled with the weight of dakka.

Suddenly the game swung the other way but the damage had been done.

The game is depressing. Every unit came as a surprise and the wealth of buffs proved too much to ignore and just play the game. I couldn't enjoy our initial success while Ben and Liam felt overwhelmed. Then when the fates reversed I felt annoyed we'd gone through that complaining because all it took was some bad dice to put them in the lead. Ben admitted he too then felt bad because it was all going their way. Maybe with more games, familiarity with both the ruleset and the units may prevent the unpleasant revelations of "it does what?!" Put it this way, we only got to the bottom of turn 3 in another 4.5-5 hours. I wasn't interested in the scores but Liam checked and we were losing [just] 26 to 25. It was mentioned finishing it off next week but I have no desire because it wasn't a fun experience. 

In fairness I felt despite all the buffs there must be balance in the game for us to have been so close. We both had shocking runs of dice rolling that did very little and allowed the other players to come back into the game. So really it isn't that bad. It just brings out the worst in us, because the depth of rules and interactions gives the impression it's unbalanced. I don't want to go through a debate every time about a unit's rules and if it's OP every time we play. I didn't write its rules. As we have plenty of other game options that don't feel so overwhelming, and are more fun, so why play one that does? We may try it again sometime. It's just a shame we couldn't make it work for us.

Battle record - 40k Tyranids Vs Ork Speeed Freeeaks - 09/10/25

I've been #PlayingWarhammer with a game of Warhammer 40k! You read that right, actual 40k that I am supposedly an addict for. We had a full shed of Otty, Ben and Liam. Ben brought his Speeed Freeeaks, which was supposed to be 2,000 points, but due to balance updates was now around 1,780. I managed to combine Otty and my own Tyranids and bring it down to 1,735 [the 2,000 point list looked awesome]. Even so when Liam and Ben set up the plethora of vehicles with so many still in reserve it felt like we were severely outgunned. Anyway, we lost first turn and managed to weather the barrage of fire, mistakes were made and progress was painfully slow. I think we just managed one turn each! Our counter-attack was much more effective and quite a few vehicles were trashed. But aside from the mistakes and bad luck I actually think when we finish it off it will be close and challenging for both sides. We have the advantage but if the game turns then it could prove interesting for us all, which is the most important thing. We want to like the game but if it's no fun then what's the point when we have more pleasant game to play instead?

#BattleReport - 1,000pts Imperial Knights v Orks

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity we've been playing #new40k in our last game we'd rolled Divide and Conquer we didn't even bother to keep track of score for game two - we were just playing fast[er]. The only variable we changed was I went first.

I moved up to secure an objective, my shooting was relatively successful - killing the Wartrike at least. I'm not sure how I'd split my fire but I know I debated it ad nauseum. The Preceptor's Las Impulosr is relatively short range so I think it may have taken out the Trike. There is the Capacitor Charge Stratagem that makes it Heavy 6 instead of Heavy D6  and he would have been within 18".

Unfortunately one vehicle down just wasn't enough with Ben calling the Waaaaaargh! This time with Ghazgkhull leading the charge. The Lancer was down to 19 wounds going into combat

And then suffered another 14 taking it to just 5.

I'm not entirely sure what this roll is for - it could be Ghazgkhull's damage roll on my Preceptor, or it could have been a saving throw but as he can only take 4 wounds it wouldn't be hugely significant him passing most of them. 

Regardless, the Knight fell and I was just left with the Lancer and the Warglaive.

The Lancer did not last long and in an act of charity Ben suggested we finish with Ghazgkhull versus the Warglaive, based on the premise he had in fact suffered 4 wounds already. In which case the Warglaive had to cause 4 wounds in shooting and 4 in combat.

Which he just managed to do, even with Ben re-rolling his invulnerable save. Ghazgkhull was dead but the rest of the Orks butchered the Knight for its audacity killing their leader.

Tabled again. So much for my cockiness. We had quite the discussion afterwards about the game and the experience we've had of 9th edition so far. If you haven't gathered, it isn't particularly positive. We can't seem to pin down yet, what is making it feel so one dimensional. Is it the size of the games, the armies we've got, our inexperience [both of the rules and tactics], the discrepancy in age of Codex, the terrain setup or even the board size. It's a topic for a post on its own, when we've played a couple more games. We're planning a bigger game - 1,500pts in the hope that might change the dynamic a bit. We'll use the bigger table to do so, but I'm not sure how that will change anything as the 'no-man's' land is still the same distance. 

But we're going to persevere, but it says something that with 4 wins under his belt Ben does not feel happy about the outcome. We've had fun and plenty of exclamations and drama but when that is purely on the outcome of a lucky or unlucky dice roll why do we need the figures or terrain? We need to feel like tactical choices have had a bearing on the game. So far it's just me being swamped, but maybe that's how Orks play?

#BattleReport - 1,000pts Imperial Knights v Orks

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity we've been playing #new40k [is that hashtag still valid?]. Ben and I decided to go for a bigger game this time - 1,000pts. However, an Incursion battle is still the small board, which looked very odd them's the rules. I brought some terrain and it may look like there is too much, in fact a lot of it is utterly redundant aside from it making the board difficult to traverse, which was the point. I thought it'd be interesting to have us forced into choke points, neutralising some of the advantages of my Knights and also the speed of the Orks - would it work that way though? We'd rolled Divide and Conquer as a mission and we spent ages choosing our Secondaries but I won't go into detail as we quickly abandoned any effort to keep track of score.

I had a Preceptor, my Lancer and a Warglaive. I thought I was really clever with my Heirlooms and traits. The Preceptor had Armour of the Sainted Ion for a 2+ save and Ion Bulwark for a 4+ Invulnerable save. The Lancer had Knight Seneschal for +1 Attack [giving him 6!] and Mark of the Omnissiah for minimum 2 Wounds back each turn thanks to the Sacristan Pledge. I was feeling pretty cocky and elected to go second.

Ben had got rid of the Boyz, had more units of Bikers, two more vehicles and a Wartrike and Ghazgkhull was behind the Sanctum Imperialis on the right.

Turn 1 and Ben called the Waaaaaargh! with Trikes and Bikes surging forward.

Everything fired at the Lancer, it even took 4 wounds off thanks to Shoota fire!

By the time the Trike got into combat the Lancer was down to 8 wounds from 26. The Bikes also multi-charged the Preceptor a muddy little combat may have taken place and I may have interrupted [I really should write these the day after].

As the dust settled the Lancer had fallen, despite rotating Ion Shields for a 3++ save in combat. Alongside, the Preceptor had taken 4 wounds. Only the boss of the Bikers remained of the Ork push.

But he couldn't survive, either by attack from the Knight or morale.

With the Orks gone the second wave of the green tide were free to push forward. Again, more shooting from the Scrapjet and other Speed Freeks whittled away my wounds and left the Knightsw even more vulnerable. Despite prioritising mostly defensive Relics and traits they just couldn't shrug off the weight of fire.

Even the Goffs incredibly bad shooting was eased by 6's causing two hits. Ghazgkhull himself has crazy rules with his guns that mean anything that fails to hit and wound can be re-rolled. Add to that he can take no more than 4 wounds per phase and there was no way i could kill him in a turn as I don't have any Psykers to dish out wounds in the Psychic phase - there's a point Imperial Knights need a Psychic unit - like a court mage. The Adeptus Titanicus have Psi-Titans why not Knights?

So, there we go, tabled again. At turn 2 it was 25:6 in Ben's favour but being dead it was all over for me anyway. It was relatively quick for a 1,000pt game so we had time to set it up again. I did have a Preceptor and 4 Armiger list instead, but the only variable we changed in game 2 would be I went first...

#BattleReport - 500pts Imperial Knights v Orks

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity it's been a long time since I've done a 40k battle report - February 2019 in fact at the Last chance Open and now here's two! Having had the Tyranids trounced I had brought some Armigers, I was able to fit two Helverin and a Warglaive list. There wasn't really time for a second battle, all I wanted to do was see what the two Helverins would have done against the bikes, so started to roll the dice, without the figures on the board... Next minute we had this!

 

We weren't playing any objectives, it was just kill everything. By this stage there was just the Nob biker left, my Warlord Helverin was down to 1 wound thanks to the Scrapjet and bikers and falling back, which left the last biker exposed and ultimately doomed. The Scrapjet fell to my Thermal Lance but the Warglaive was down to 5 wounds too.

The Weirdboy and Boyz set their sights on the Warglaive and undamaged Helverin.

Charging in, the Warglaive couldn't stand the weight of numbers and was cut down/smited before he got a chance to swing his chain cleaver. I think he did blow up though, wounding the Weirdboy and killing some of the Boyz. The Helverin was less successful. He did amazingly well with saving throws but just could not kill the Boyz because he doesn't have a dedicated melee weapon - it's why I prefer the Warglaive.

My last ditch was to charge the 1 wound Helverin into the fray but again he couldn't do very much thanks to his wounded state. I couldn't fall back to shoot as the Orks would catch me up and I didn't have the combat weapons to tip the balance

In return the Orks didn't have the strength and AP to damage me, but they had weight of numbers and we slowly chipped away at each other, with the Warlord Helverin falling to Smite.

The Weirdboy somehow got removed and all that was left was 5 Boyz and the Helverin on 5 wounds. I possibly should have the advantage for Toughness and saves but I think it was 15 attacks versus my 4...

and weight of numbers will out in the end. A somewhat disappointing outcome ultimately. I had hoped he'd survive and be rewarded for his tenacity but not to be.

Subsequently I've had a bit more of a look at the Knight rules and thanks to them being spread over 3 books now there are additional stratagems that would have helped, although we weren't keeping too close a track on CPs. But I was also able to recoup a wound per turn, which might have made a minor difference. It's a learning experience though and failures like these force you to debrief and learn more about your army so you can do better next time. All in I think it took an hour to play this out and we'll look to have a 1,000pts next time, which I have two Knight armies I want to try out 😉 See if we can get two games in again.