A Goodbye Present

Here is a set of counters I made for Key Buildings Strategems in Cities of Death. From top right reading left, I made counters for the Ammo Store, Command Centre, Fuel Dump, and the Medicae Facility. On the bottom row, I made counters for Power Generator, Sacred Ground, and Observation Point. Print these out and glue them onto pennies or washers to make a quick way to remember what-building-does-what next time you are Cityfighting.

During my self-imposed "vacation" (read: my internet is getting turned off for a few days, possibly weeks) I intend to make up counters for darn near every stratagem that may require one. (Booby traps comes to mind, but I may have to just buck up and model those.)

I hope you enjoy these! I encourage you to get into Cityfights and Planetstrike games, as they will make for interesting and memorable games!

Until next time (for real this time, I swear!),
--FP135

Let's Talk Tactics: More Cityfighting

I've been having regular games with a player new to the hobby of 40k: My friend of 10+ years and now my newly-promoted manager at work. I got him into playing 40k recently when I gave him a 1500 point Space marine force to call his own (yes it was very generous, but I knew that is the only way I would get him hooked). Now, at least one night a week, we try to get together to have a game. We almost always play Cityfights because it purposefully unbalances the game. If we played the same 3 scenarios out of the standard rulebook, our games would stagnate quickly. To get to the point, my friend has brought a fresh pair of eyes to the cityfighting aspect, and has taught me a few things about successfully navigating the ruins.

The method is there for a reason-
It may seem ridiculous to follow all the rules for deploying a unit at a time, rolls for who chooses stratagems first, and so on. Soon, however, you will find that there a great deal of importance in following those mundane rituals. It is all about either anticipation, if you go first; or reaction, if you are going last. My friend is good at holding his cards close to his chest. I was not exactly thrilled, when declaring the last stratagem, that he declared he was taking Tank Traps. For that game, I was taking a heavily mechanized IG army, so Tank Traps really threw a wrench into my strategy I had been forming. Since he knew we were playing a High Ground mission, he cordoned off the streets leading to the objective building with tank traps so I would be forced to disembark. He was playing footslogging SM, so he had no trouble beating back any attempts on the building that were made by my IG on foot, allowing his squads to secure the building for 5 turns. I only barely forced a draw by bombarding the units into oblivion in the last turn.
If I had been able to react to what he was taking, I might have put a thorn in his side by putting razorwire or other infantry-inhibiting barriers on his side of the board, to counter his limiting of my mobility. Or I could have chosen something like Preliminary Bombardment, which might have either damaged/pinned enough units that I could have secured a foothold before he did.
When deploying, it is imperative to place your units carefully within your quarter. Since your Troops choices deploy first, they are the least able to account for other units you have to deploy. Most of his units that could seriously hurt my transports were in the Elite, Heavy Weapon, or Fast Attack slots. This allowed him to see where my troops were going to be deployed before he chose where to deploy his more specialized units. Luckily, the reverse is the same for me: I was able to see where the bulk of his troops were going to be and I was able to deploy my tank in a position where he could drop some serious hurt on them.
It's a balancing factor (one of few in CoD) to follow the pre-game method. Use your head, and try to force your opponent to go first when possible, so you can better react.

Cityfight Battle Report: 750 IG vs. SM

For the first time in recent memory, I finally remembered to take consistent pictures throughout a game. This was a 750 point pickup game against my baby's momma while our son took a nap. Essentially a Gamma-level game, but played on an extremely terrain-dense 4x4 board. We could have played a Omega level, if we had an extra two feet to add to the table.

The lists looked like this:

IG
Company Command Squad with Straken, Medipack, 2 Flamers, and a Vox
Veteran Squad with 3 Meltaguns, Chimera (with dozerblade, heavy flamer, and pintile stubber).
Veteran Squad with 3 Grenade Launchers, Chimera (with dozerblade, pintile stubber)
Leman Russ Battle Tank with Lascannon, Heavy bolter sponsons, pintile stubber, and dozerblade

SM
Chaplain in Terminator Armor
Tactical Squad with meltagun, missile launcher, in Rhino.
Tactical Squad with flamer, missile launcher, in Rhino.
Terminator Squad

We picked our deployment zones and stratagems. She picked Booby Traps and a Medicae facility (the center building). I then picked Combat Engineers and Demolitions.

Here's the board, pre-deployment:


She picked the corner with the large industrial tower, and I got the opposite quarter that included the Astartes Shrine. We had rolled a "5" on the mission type, so we both nominated our single objective buildings. She chose the industrial tower, I picked the shrine. They were the most obvious choices available to us. By now I already had a pretty good idea of my game strategy.


Turn 1:
This is what it looked like after we deployed:


She rolled highest for deciding the first turn, but she passed it to me. First things first, I disembarked my grenade-vets at the base of the shrine. My Melta-vet's chimera sped down a alley way, and my Leman Russ situated itself at the corner of the shrine, preparing for my plan to execute. Straken and his command squad moved through the ruins, heading towards the Temple of Skulls.

For her turn, the SM disembarked a squad from a rhino, while the other rhino moved up parallel to a ruin. The terminators marched forward.

Turn 2:
Here's the beginning of turn two:



For my turn, I moved up my melta-vet's Chimera towards her rhinos. My Grenade-vets climbed to the upper level, and Straken's squad moved through a building with a decent difficult terrain roll. The shooting phase is where it got interesting... My demolitions roll was successful, and the center building went up in smoke, leaving a large area of difficult terrain, along with her hopes of using it as a key building. To make matters worse for her, my Leman Russ now had line-of-sight to her tactical squad that had disembarked. A large pie-plate later, and the squad had been reduced to a couple marines. A lascannon shot further picked off an unfortunate marine. My melta-vets popped the empty rhino, and it exploded. Nothing of further note happened in my turn.

In her turn, she moved up the 2nd squad's rhino and the terminators. She blasted at my chimera, but failed the to-hit roll with the meltagun. Not much else she could do in this turn.

Turn 3:
Here's the beginning of turn 3:



My grenade-vets reached the top of the building, and the empty chimera traversed some difficult terrain to circumvent a booby-trapped sandbag barricade. The melta-vet chimera sidled up closer to the surviving rhino and pointed its front armor to it. Straken and his squad continued their slow foot advance. The 3 vets popped out the top hatch and vaporized the rhino with well-placed melta-gun fire. The Chimeras themselves tried to thin the ranks of the exposed squad, and the Russ missed with its template completely. The tactical squad suffered some casualties.

She started by moving her decimated tactical squad that had only two members remaining (despite me pointing out the pointlessness of moving the missile launcher). She brought up the terminators a little bit further, and launched right into the shooting phase. She let my chimera really have it, and it exploded, causing a few casualties to the squad inside. They fell back to the rubble of the destroyed building.


Turn 4:
Here's the top of turn 4:


In my turn, I moved my melta-vets back through the rubble to get within range. The empty chimera moved forward to support, and Straken's squad moved up alongside. The Russ made a slight move. The meltas picked off a few marines, and my russ eradicated the remnants of the gray tactical squad.

In her turn, she moved up the tactical squad to provide room for the terminators to move up. she blasted my vets into oblivion with a fusillade of bolter rounds from both the blue tactical squad and the terminator squad behind.

Turn 5:
Here's the top of 5:


On my turn, Straken's command squad rushed to the sandbag wall. The chimera also inched forward. At this point, the end of the game was closing in so I decided that I had to eliminate her ability to score. Shooting phase went fast; my russ put a pie-plate on the terminators that failed to cause any wounds. My command squad torched the armor of the tactical squad, but failed to cause any wounds as well. My plasma pistol on straken didn't fare any better. Now was as good a time as any to test the effectiveness of my assaulty-command squad. Straken led the charge, getting his furious charge bonuses. The defenders reacted, and the battle got underway. When the dust settled, the command squad had inflicted 2 casualties while suffering 1. The space marines failed their morale check and fell back, but Straken's squad was unable to sweep-advance them. The marines fell back 12 inches, which turned out to work in my opponent's favor. I consolidated back along the sandbag wall for cover.

In her turn, she auto-regrouped the tactical squad and shimmied it up the side of the industrial building, onto the roof. She rolled excellent on her difficult terrain roll, and hid on of the marines out of LOS behind the tower, but on the roof. She now held an objective. She then blasted my squad with a volley of bolter-rounds from the terminator squad, but failed to kill anybody.

Turn 6:
Here's a pic of the beginning of turn 6:


In my turn, I knew I had to do everything to annihilate that two-man squad. I shifted my chimera to get a better angle, and moved Straken's squad to within assaulting distance of the terminator squad. I dropped the russ template on the two-man squad on the roof... and hit! Unfortunately though, I rolled a 1 on the to-wound roll for one of them. Drat! That lone marine passed his leadership test too, darn it! She had him safely nestled back out of sight behind that tower, so I couldn't shoot anything else. I took out my anger by charging Straken into close combat with the termies, and even managed to inflict a wound (at the cost of my two flamers). Straken's squad held his ground, and didn't suffer any wounds from being fearless.

In her turn, all there was left to do was stay out of sight, and wrap up the close combat. The chaplain inflicted the first wound on Straken, but the grizzled colonel remained fighting. Straken managed to take out a terminator with him before being clubbed down by multiple powerfists, along with his chief medic.

Game's End:
Here's what the end of the game looked like:


I had managed to keep my objective in force, but failed to totally remove the last vestiges of scoring units from the enemy objective. I probably should have just gone for the contest of the objective with Straken's squad, but I had thought the chimera and the russ would have been able to pick off two simple space marines. I guess that is what I get for underestimating a Marine!

Some bonus footage of the battle:






Well, I hope you enjoyed my first battle report with pictures! Later I'll analyze the tactics I used and what worked in a CoD game. Also I am still putting together the special character showcase post, so be on the lookout for that as well.

Until next time,
--FP135

Let's Talk Tactics: IG in Cities of Death

The next scheduled tournament next month is slated to be a Cities of Death tournament, at 1500 points. I am tickled pink, as I consider this to be my specialty! On ebay I saw two of the old-model Demolishers going for cheap, so I picked them up. I also have been constructing various ICs of differing kinds, and for this tournament I figured Straken would be appropriate.

Let's get into the meat and potatoes of the issue: IG are primarily a "shooty" army, right? So how in the sand-heck are they supposed to contend in a game that places emphasis on tight-quarters battles? Well, I have a few ideas to throw down-

Imperial Guard are PRIMARILY shooty, but they have plenty of options to be more effective in close combat. For example, Colonel Straken lends models within a certain distance of him to have the Counter Attack and Furious Charge special rules. This is in addition to his effectiveness as a combatant himself. As a WS 5, T 4, and S 6, he is not to be taken lightly in assaults. Heaping on the special rules he has access to, he truly becomes a monster in close combat. Thus, I considered him absolutely essential to a cityfight game.

Sometimes, the best way to approach a problem is not from the front, but from the sides! IG are not Space Marines; they don't need to bash their way through opposition all the time. Therefore, using units that have the ability to outflank can prove invaluable at hitting from an angle that one does not expect. There are several ways you can accomplish an outflanking maneuver- A) Take some scout units such as Scout Sentinels, and an Astropath to help ensure they make it on the side of the board they need to go on. B) The special character Usakar Creed lends the outflank ability to any single unit in your army. An outflanking Russ squadron or entire Infantry Platoon is pretty scary. C) Alternatively, if you take the SC Al'Rahem, any part of his Infantry Platoon MUST outflank. I see this as being the worst of the three choices, because it does not leave the decision to outflank up to you.

Those are general ideas that benefit the army strategically, but let's look at tactical decisions you can make in your list based on the units that are available to you:

Veterans can really come into their own in the dense confines of a city table. Melta-vets need short distances to be effective against armor anyway, so having terrain-dense boards like those that are frequently seen in Cities of Death can give them something to hide behind while they close for the kill. If Chimeras don't do much more than add a killpoint for you, then take them out and give the squad either Carapace or Forward Sentinels doctrines. The abundance of cover makes this one of the few instances that you would actually use the Forward Sentinels doctrine, mainly for the cover buff the stealth cloaks give. If you still prefer to have them safely tucked inside a Chimera, then I suggest adding the dozer-blade wargear to the transport for a mere 10 points. That may seem like it would add up, but it is far more costly to risk losing a Chimera to a poor Difficult-Terrain roll.

Now the fun kinds of tanks start showing their worth, as well. Demolishers, Executioners, and Punishers all have a higher rear armor value than any of the other Russ variants. Since assault attacks hit against the rear armor value, that one point makes a HUGE difference in a Cities of Death game where the enemy can be in assault range before you have a chance to fire. Additionally, the shorter effective range of these tank's main armaments make these better suited for this kind of fight.

Fast Attack slots are in high demand as always, and if you have the models, it is pretty much garunteed that the lowly Rough Riders or Sentinels are going to lose out to Vendettas, Valks, and Hellhound variants. The ability to simply cruise over the terrain with a Valk or Vendetta is an obvious advantage, and the amount of firepower those fliers can put out is pretty staggering as well. Add in some suicide Vets with Demolitions, or even Storm Troopers with Meltaguns for a quick grav-chute insertion, and you have a pretty top-notch contender for those FA slots. Your pocketbook might say otherwise, however... the Hellhound variants are slightly cheaper, and no less deadly. They lack any sort of transport capacity of course, but the array of short-ranged weaponry they mount is brutal. The one I am drooling over is the Devil Dog, or the Melta-hound as it is referred to by some. It sports a special kind of meltagun that spits out a blast template up to 24" that is truly terrifying. Another popular variant is the Bane Wolf, or Chem hound. It has an AP3 template, that wounds on 2+ automatically due to being a poison weapon. This has "MEQ-killer" written all over it. It definitely wrecks somebody's day, given the chance to get within template distance. The standard Hellhound seems to be less popular these days, as it's S 6 and AP 4 template are not quite as good as you would expect for a main-armament weapon. It's template, however, can be placed up to 12" away from the weapon's muzzle, making it one of the most range-effective of the 3 variants.

Artillery has been referred to as the "King of Battle" before, and in Cities of Death this becomes even more apparent. The advantage of firing while remaining out-of-sight is pretty obvious, but the real trick to the artillery is matching the power of the weapon for the job you need it for, as well as ensuring that the range contributes to that role as well. For example, the standard Basilisk might be fine for normal games that take place on a 4x6' board, where the high-power and long range are better utilized, but on a smaller 4x4' board that is the city-fight standard for Alpha and Gamma level games... the minimum range of 36" basically renders this artillery piece as a glorified gun emplacement: needing to shoot what it sees. In a Cityfight, the best bang for your buck is going to come from one of two artillery pieces, in this author's opinion: either the Medusa or the Griffon. The Medusa does not suffer from a minimum range due to not being an barrage weapon. The only weapon that comes close to the power of a Medusa is the Basilisk, which suffers from a massive minimum range requirement. If you are going to have to shoot over iron-sights anyway, it may as well be with the bigger gun, right? The Griffon is one of my preferred artillery pieces for a Cities of Death game, because it has a very short minimum range and it has the Accurate Bombardment special rule that allows a re-roll of the scatter dice. At S 6, AP 4, it is still going to threaten infantry as well as light armor (because remember that barrage weapons resolve hits as if they hit the side armor, to represent the weaker top armor), but deliver its payload much more efficiently. At a maximum range of 48", that is more than enough for Alpha and Gamma level boards.

Now let's talk about Infantry Platoons... In this game, you need to make a choice with your infantry platoons. Are they going to be mobile, and take objectives? Or are they going to be stationary, and lay down covering fire down open avenues? If the former, then you are going to want to take assault weapons (i.e. flamers and whatnot). If it is the latter, you will want to outfit some squads with Heavy Weapon teams such as lascannons, missile launchers, autocannons, or mortars. This is one of the few game types where the mortars can come into play rather effectively, so I like to add a squad of them to tuck out-of-sight to harass the opponent's infantry. For my squads, I kit them according to what weaponry I think my army is missing... usually Lascannons or Missile Launchers. If you are keeping them mobile, blob them together and have your flamers lead the way, putting enemies to the torch. If you are static and using gun-teams, then you have the choice of blobbing them for extra-padding for the gun teams, or keeping them separate to take different firing lanes. Either way you run them, you can use your PCS accordingly. The PCS can either stay close-by for order support, or it can do its own thing. Be forewarned, however, and take note that a PCS is only half the size of a single squad and has many less soldiers to use as ablative wounds. It is considerably more fragile than your other units.

And lastly, I like using Storm Troopers. True, they are a lot more expensive than vets and they are not scoring, but consider this: they have better armor, better standard weapons, the same ballistic skill, and they also have the benefit of their Special Operations rule. This allows them to do whatever you think will suit your strategic plan best- infiltrate and cause pinning on the first round of firing, reroll your scatter dice on a deepstrike, or move-through-cover and scout. This allows a great amount of tactical flexibility. I prefer to deepstrike them accurately in the opponents backfield, distracting him and causing his advance to falter. He has to make the choice of doubling back to defeat this threat quickly, or hoping that the Storm Troopers won't kill everything if he doesn't outright destroy it right away. The more special weapons you have in this squad, the harder it is for him to ignore... 2 meltaguns make them definitely not a unit he wants deepstriking behind a squadron of Leman Russes or an ordinance battery. And of course, the AP 3 hot-shots are tailor-made for puncturing Space Marine power armor, or those Tau suits. Sure its still only S 3, but think of how many wounds you would get with those regular lasguns if your opponent wasn't allowed to roll all those saves... And if your opponent has power armor troops, chances are he isn't making them stick to cover that much. Most SM or CSM players get used to not needing the cover unless faced with heavy weaponry, so it is likely that a deepstriking unit that can puncture their armor will catch them unaware.


Finally, we come to Stratagems. If you haven't already, pop over to GW's website and look up their stratagems specifically released for the IG in CoD. I'll just go over some of my favorites:

First up is Forward Spotters. This can give you a theme to your army by itself... basically any unit that has a voxcaster can "spot" for ordinance weapons... meaning that if a vox-equipped unit has LOS to the target of the barrage, then the barrage weapon can re-roll the scatter dice as if it is twin-linked. This stratagem can be a huge help to armies that rely on mortars and ordinance batteries. It can even be of use to a Master of Ordinance! It is listed under the Dirty Tricks category.

Second is less useful, but a neat idea for conversionists or kit-bashers. It's called a Killdozer Tracked Ordinance device, and it is under the Armory category. Basically its a bomb on wheels that can escort "an elite infantry unit" and be used to blow up a single city ruin. I could see where this could have its uses, but it wouldn't be my first choice.

Third up is a Key Building, called a Voxbooster. If an officer is inside the building, this device adds an extra 12" inches to his command range. Can you imagine Creed giving orders up to 36" away? Especially on a smaller 4'x4' board, this could be invaluable.

Fourth is another Key Building, called a Communications Relay. As long as a friendly unit occupies it, the Array grants the player the ability to re-roll any of his reserve rolls he wishes. It says that nearly word-for-word on the website, so I see that this might be interpreted differently, but to me it is pretty clear that you only should get ONE reroll of a reserve roll per turn.

Fifth is definitely unique... but it would take some uniquely-converted miniatures to pull off. Its called Lascutters, and it is part of the Armory category. It allows any infantry unit to be outfitted with a single Lascutter, which in turn allows the unit to move through an impassable terrain feature to the other side by treating it as difficult terrain, with the condition that the entire unit must roll a high enough difficult terrain test to move through it in one turn. No stopping in the middle! Again, the rules are kind of vague, but I am sure you can't use the cutter to move through an impossible water feature! Using your head and playing fair, not being "That Guy", and generally being a good sport will show its valor here.

There are a few more, but they are not my favorites, so go on over to the site and check them out.


So, to Recap:
You can gear you're army to have more assault-proficient units.
You can opt for avoiding direct confrontation and approach from the flanks
Keep in mind that the units you choose will be fighting in closer quarters and at shorter ranges, and that line of sight will often be obstructed.
Also keep in mind there will be abundant cover, and to utilize it to your advantage.
There are a wide variety of stratagems available to Guard players, as written on GW's website article "Imperial Guard: Cities of Death Tactics."

Well, that concludes this in-depth look at Imperial Guard and their uses in Cities of Death games. Did I leave anything out? Feel free to add to this post by commenting!

Until next time,
FP135

Let's Talk Tactics: Creating SM Lists for Cities of Death FAQ

There is a tournament at my friendly local gaming store (FLGS) this weekend, and it is a 1500 point cityfight competition. It will be battle points only, so we will skip painting considerations and dive straight into the tactics!

In Cities of Death, most game types require you to "occupy" a building in order to get the win. Buildings themselves become the objectives, and you will find your units battling fiercely to repel attackers as well as furiously throwing themselves upon defenders. With the advent of 5th edition, the mechanics of these city-fights have changed somewhat. Before 5th, there was a complicated list of scoring units and stipulations on what units could occupy buildings for the win. Now, only troop choices can occupy buildings as scoring units, and only other scoring units can contest a building's occupancy.

Begin the FAQ mode:

Q: What does this mean to your army list?

A: Troops. Lots of them. For some of the veteran players, that prefer to minimize troop choices and take the max in elite, fast attack, and heavy support, this method of list building can be contrary to what they are used to. For us SM players, it means either a lot of scouts, or a lot of tactical squads. Leave your bike lists at home, as the limited maneuvering room will limit their effectiveness in this kind of battle.

Q: So we now know to take tactical troops. Can you be a little more specific?

A: Yes, I can! Take your tactical squads in the full allotments of 10 troopers per squad. Using combat squads can double the number of scoring units, and give you greater flexibility with their combat roles. For example, you can delegate your flamer or meltagun to one combat squad, and your heavy weapon to the other. Do NOT use combat squads in killpoint games, however, because you double the amount of kill points for each squad.

Q: What special/heavy weapon options do I need to take with them?

A: Take weapons based on your opponents list, if you have that information available. Meltaguns/multimeltas work fairly well against armored lists in the tight confines of a city board. For anti-horde work, nothing digs troops out of cover better than flamers. For anti-horde heavy lifting, try a heavy bolter. If you want more general-purpose weaponry, if you don't know what list you will be facing, I suggest flamers/missile launcher combos. The missile launcher can be effective against either light armor or infantry hordes, and the flamer is best for negating cover saves. Additionally, the flamer/missile launcher combo does not cost any additional points to a full 10 man squad, making it the most cost effective option.

Q: What other units work well in city fights, to support my troops?

A: I like my SM cityfighting lists to be infantry heavy. It is kind of hard to get your vehicles around in cityfights, and there are various stratagems that can make it even harder on you (i.e. anti-tank obstacles). With infantry, you can slow them down but rarely stop them. I like to take dreadnoughts for heavy hitting power and tough armor. The multi-meltas really work well in the city fight environ for taking out armor, but they have enough assault capability to dislodge units from buildings. Taking a flamer instead of a storm bolter is helpful to that end. Assault marines really shine in cityfights too, where their advanced mobility and lots of cover lets them get real close without taking a lot of fire beforehand. Terminators are my last choice, but sometimes fit the bill for some heavy shock troops to dislodge tougher opponents holed up in buildings or ruins. I rarely deepstrike units, as this can lead to epic failures with all that terrain scattered about.

Q: What's your cityfighting list look like now?

A: I'm still working out the various kinks and numbers, but I'll post that later today if I get time.

Q: Why do you ramble on about this junk so much?

A: Just trying to help!

Q: You suck at this.

A: That's not a question!


What other tips do you SM players have to add to this?