First 7th ed. game observations, The new book in action!

[Sammy the Squid]

I had my first game with the new book today and wanted to share some of the points ive picked up on. My list was a more traditional Moulder/Horde style, and can be found in the Army Lists subforum

Warlord and BSB with Clanrats: These guys really surprised me. I had kind of expected them to do ok, especially with 2 dominant characters in the unit, but they really excelled and even defeated a full unit of Chaos Warriors. The fact that they are so much cheaper just sweatens the bargain!

Rattling Guns: Toned down alot, and against T4 opponents are nigh on useless. Should be saved for flank protection against smaller units where you can get away with only rolling 3 dice for number of shots... Do not rely on them wiping out entire ranked units anymore!

Rat Ogres: I ran them in both packs of 2 and 4. Despite frenzy, you still cant rely on their combat ability, as their low WS really hurts them. On occasions they may be fantastic, but they are just as likely to go appallingly and run after 1 round. The potential champion upgrade seems well worth it, particularly for the extra point of WS it provides...

Slaves: I was tempted to try them out on the flanks, to take charges from Fast Cavalry and such units. With 3 ranks, they should be able to hold for a few turns before scattering, which would be particularly effective against smaller light units. But, I now consider that useless, as playing with the new Giant Rats proves that they are good enough to protect flanks with ease. Slaves should be goaded forward and killed!

Rat Swarms: They die. I goaded them forward, took the enemies charge and died. But this left my clanrats in the perfect position to counter-charge. Ofcourse any slave or Giant rat unit could perform the same roll, but with the swarms there is no risk of a fleeing unit interfearing with your fresh charges... Swarms could also be well used as flankers, since they no longer skirmish...

Doomwheel: Fun. It may not always be that effective, but its so insanely random that it will always amuse! I plan to never leave home without one!

Well, thats basically my gained knowledge after 1 game with the new book. Im very pleased with how the new book played, BUT I did purposefully avoid taking alot of the busted new stuff...
Oh, and I won by the way. Very narrowly, but a win nonetheless!

- Sammy

[therat]

I had two battles today. The doomwheel was definitely a good time, although I am a little disappointed in its ability to fire only 3 shots.

I gave the mortar and doom flayer a try, both did pretty well, although in the 2nd battle my friend realized he needed to turn the mortar into a pincushion. The doom flayer would've done much better against something with a little less armor (I fought Bretonnians), I'll definitely be taking it often.

All of my clan pestilens troops performed marvelously. The upgraded censer bearers were amazing and the plague lore was beautiful. T1 questing knights? Yes, please! I can't wait to get my furnace...

[carcharoth]

I had a battle at my local GW to commemorate the new release, against WoC.

Doomwheel compleyely failed. Killed a grand total of 2 warriors in combat, fled through a clanrat unit, crushing 6.

i tested out my abomination conversion. It was charged by chaos knights. they did 3 wounds, but the abominatio wiped them out in two rounds of combat.

I really like priests now. got off wither on a unit of warriors, allowedhim and his big unit of monks to tear them down pretty quick.
and censers now rock beyond belief.

[myemofriend]

My first battle with the new army book overall I was very happy. My doomwheel got charged by a black coach where I took 3 turns to kill the coach so I hope to see it do more in future matches, but my hellpit abomination got the charge on a unit of ghouls with a vampire in it killed the vampire right out and took another 2 turns to destroy the rest of the ghouls, then proceeded through his corpse carts like they were paper
My hammer unit of plague monks with furnace and the new plague banner performed very well. would have been more impressive had they not stood head to head with his bunker unit of skeletons (about 60 at this point) 3 vampires and banner of regeneration. Won a battle between these two units by close to 30 and his regeneration saved 18 from crumbling.. thats insane.
The poisoned wind morter did decently although its not the best weapon close range (shoot 8 inches at a unit to have it scatter 10 back at you and get your own units is not ideal.

[bakfire the experimenter]

i played high elves - the banenr of dripping death and the banner of the under empire were amazing and deffinately turned the game for me - i didnt have a doom wheel at the time but now own 2, cant wait to try them out

[Warpfire]

Played a game saturday with the new book against vampire counts
most of the army preformed the way I expected. (Abomination's included which failed this game)
But my 3 Warpfire throwers were the stars of this game turning the game into a draw. (most likely since we needed to stop)
in total they did 5 wounds total to a pair of varghulf's, killed about 50 skeletons in a rapidly regenerating skeleton deathstar (don't you just love the skull staff), Manfred who failed his look out sir in that unit and I believe fried a unit of 3 fell bats.

my conclusion: no more partials is awesome for template weapons.

[deathmaster riddick]

i played a game with a sixth edition army, but included the abomination. i don't really like seventh edition that much, but this thing seemed too cool to pass up, and i was playing against a seventh edition opponent, so i needed the extra kick.

i must say the random movement was a real pain, just when i got it into a ten inch charge range(roughly average movement for it), i rolled a four. i never did get the darn thing into combat, but my opponent was so frightened of it that he diverted his whole battle line away from it(i mentioned the complete rules to him before hand), and allowed me to flank the living daylights out of his army.

[Kievien]

Hehe! I tried about 7 games since I got the book and have had a great time though it gets quite annoying when you buy 2 Doomwheels and they have never reached the enemy in 7 games.

To give an example: I moved the Doomwheel 7 " forward, misfired, got a wound from it, failed my Out of Control roll and ran TROUGH a piece of terrain to my left into a Steam Tank, which I should have shot with my lightning bolts. And so on, and so on.

I can laugh about it tough, most misfires have been hilarious including the above. We even had a doomrocket failing to explode and landing in a bottleneck resulting in 2 armies not daring to move trough it.

All in all I can say the new book is quite a fun book to play with and against in my opinion.

Grtz. Kiev