End of 2nd Wargames Gallery: Salamanders test the Iron Without

Continuing the End of 2nd Wargames Gallery, this is the turn of the Iron Warriors against the Salamanders (in an apparent prelude to third edition perhaps?!). 

The Iron Warriors pour out of the Land Raider and make ready to charge into the Salamanders Praetor and assorted Isstvan survivors. The Salamanders have a handy reaction on their side though and will shoot back at full strength before the Iron Warriors make their lines.

Whittled down by one terminator, the Iron Warriors make quick work of the squad, but the Praetor stands firm and counters with his thunder hammer and (after more than this turn) is the sole survivor of this encounter. 

A larger scale overview of the situation can be seen in this second image. There's an Iron Warriors plasma support squad pumping volleys into a dreadnought which is about to exchange fire with an ordinary tactical squad. 

The tactical squad doesn't stand a chance and is readily partially eliminated and routed. 

Toward the end of the game the Iron Warriors support squad is the only one remaining whilst (a very burned and battered) dreadnought and the (rather sliced up) Praetor remains for the Salamanders after destroying the Land Raider. The game ends up a tie overall. 

End of 2nd Wargames Gallery: Corax Smashes World Eaters

Corax smashes into the World Eaters ranks to deliver a severe blow to those who would think the Raven Guard a spent and dead force. 

[I kept the scenic base on Corax here at it fitted so beautifully well!]

The second image shows a slightly wider angle, including the scene from last week, here. 

Victory in this battle went to the Raven Guard who were able to overpower both the long range firepower from the World Eaters dreadnought and dealt with the close combat threat via their Primarch moving very swiftly across the field of play. 

More Leaks Than Fishnets: Horus Heresy 3rd Edition

Yes, I saw the leaks before they were removed from Reddit. 

Its clear that some people already have the goods and are perfectly willing to post such things. I don't have a copy, nor would I post if I did. I don't have to either: there's more leaks than fishnets. 

But then some of the information was duplicated on Warhammer Community. Including the Force Organization Chart. 

On the one hand, I am rather disappointed by the fundamental changes that they have wrought. There won't be any more division of HQ-Elites-Troops-Fast Attack-Heavy Support. This has been with us for an exceptionally long time and the introduction of newer categories certainly feels very strange and unfamiliar at this particular point. 

Yet on the other hand, there certainly seems to be possibilities for new forces to be constructed without losing too much about current armies. If anything, more HQ selections (champions!) will need to be included in order to field certain arrangements. For myself, it probably won't make too much difference for my established armies and I'm grateful for that. But for the more specialised armies that I know friends have collected, I am antagonised on their behalf. 

As for the lack of glancing hits stripping hull points any longer, its certainly an interesting move. I can see how it isn't so bad though as we can still strip the hull points with repeated negatives for vehicles. The option of removing vehicles entirely instead of leaving wrecks is not in keeping with how anyone really plays the game, so I can see everyone agreeing (and tournaments ensuring) that wrecked vehicles will always become cover. 

Its shaping up to be a very fundamental re-write of the rules, not merely the "version 2.1" that the community was really hoping for. 

Warhammer Store: Metro Centre (Gateshead)

It has been a very long while since I wrote one of these pieces. Largely because my travels have slowed down a bit in recent years, coupled with the fact that I seem to visit the same old places all of the time! But lo and behold - a new place was visited recently! This time, my travels took me in the direction of Newcastle, UK. 

The Metro Centre is not even ten minutes by train away from Newcastle train station. It is a large out of town shopping mall containing lots of common UK high street stores, all under one very large (and multi-level) roof. The Centre is physically well served by rail and very regular bus connections, alongside masses of car parking space. It is a wonder more people don't come here instead of going through Newcastle itself - although I think this is at least in part the main attraction for many of the customers. 

The Warhammer store here is in the blue zone, on the upper level, and is located in "The Village" part of the centre. Handily, the Blue Zone is also where the rail and bus interchange are which makes it very accessible to those using public transport. The Village in turn is a rather salubrious part of the mall and very well appointed. 

Physically, the store is not the smallest known to humankind, but is not much bigger. The stock has a range of exactly what you might expect including paints and the basics. The staff here are very friendly and attentive and I rather enjoyed visiting and talking about Horus Heresy and 40k. Highly recommended - a very nice store, well appointed, and in a great location. Not much not to like overall!

Wargames Gallery: Targets Acquired

The World Eaters leviathan made a bit of a mess of a previous squad that tried to crack open its shell. These Raven Guard are all armed with melta weapons though and are in a suitably short range to hope to do something about the target that they've acquired. 

[Part of "Goodbye to Second Edition" -- a recurring Wargames Gallery over the next few weeks!]

Horus Heresy 3rd Edition Weapon Stats

More updates via the Warhammer community came out about the third edition this week, including today's focus on the array of modifiers that weapon stats are getting. 

The new weapon stats do away with Brutal as a rule. I see this as very good stream lining. However, what they also seem to be doing is adding some extra crunch with rules like Heavy. Instead of not moving but firing at full ballistic skill, they now get added bonuses for not moving. Such as a bonus on the number of attacks a weapon gets for staying still (like the heavy bolt gun getting 4 attacks for being stationary instead of 3). Does this mean full ballistic skill at all times? I'm deeply unclear, but it seems so. 

The modifiers to initiative and strength are nice enough, but I need to remember the acronyms which are curiously hard for me to grasp! One thing that stands out is that the power fist is now S+4 rather than Sx2 as the multiplier. That feels very peculiar!

Finally the "Gets Hot" rule now seems to be "overloaded" unless I'm reading things incorrectly. So the disintegration rifle risks disintegrating your own troops on a misfire. Bit of a risk, but I think the AP=3 and D=2 stat more than makes up for this risk. I don't quite like power axes as much as I once did though since they are just getting breaching 5+. I will need to run the math hammer on that unless someone has already beaten me to it. 

We also had the tactical statuses examined earlier in the week. In short, it looks like Routing and Running Away are all still under Leadership. But the rest of them are basically Cool tests (Pinned, Suppressed, and Stunned). Interesting here is that flamers are explicitly getting Panic which can cause routs. 

Buried in all of this is a bit of a give away that Reactions will still exist in third edition since "Stunned hampers your reactions" - or at least I have interpreted it this way. It could, alternatively, mean that you get some kind of initiative penalty. Who know.