A YEAR IN REVIEW: THE META GAME

So the year has come to an end and we have seen all kinds of things in many different tournament settings.  I have done a little digging around and have found 20 different tournaments over the last year and I have looked at the winning list.  There are some serious similarities that lie in many of the lists, some of which are issues that we will not see again due to rules changes.  Now I will not go over the tournaments, the mission pack that was used, or even the specific lists used to win.  No, what I am going to be focusing on is trends.  What mechanic made the lists strong, and what the list exploited to make it even stronger.  Make no mistake, there were some serious exploitation.

Lets start with an easy one to talk about, something that we actually don't have to worry about as much any more.  That would be fliers.

No, not them...well, maybe them too.

In the earlier tournaments the winning lists were dominated by Stormravens.  Now it's not really hard to see why, the amount of guns it can take and the firepower it can dish out is astonishing.  Not to mention that they are also harder to hit, have 2 movement modes, and can carry and keep safe other units.  Several of the armies had over half their points dedicated to fliers and all of them were Astartes in nature.

As I said, that is not something we really have to worry about any more as the "Boots on the Ground" rule has made it so that fliers cannot hold objectives.

Our next common thread, found in nearly half of the lists, is Celestine.

So this is not exactly a theme, its not like a bunch of lists had other characters or units that operated just like her, 8 of the 20 lists actually had her in them.  Of course why the fuck would you not take her.  For 250 points you get 11 wounds, 12 attacks, a 2+/4++, with the ability to (essentially) regenerate 2 wounds per turn, and once she dies comes back to life and it all happens again.  Now Chapter approved did increase her point cost by 50 points, but it decreased the cost of the Geminae by 25 each.  I did not see a list in which she showed up alone, so the cost of the unit did not actually change at all and she would still be a solid choice at a higher points cost.
How do you deal with her?  Well I have seen her die twice in the same game to an Alpha Legion Lord on a Juggernaught with the Hydra Blade.  So a shit load of multi wound attacks, twice.  Not much help I'm afraid but she is scary as hell.

On to an actual theme that you will encounter in your upcoming games.  Re-rolls.  Half of the lists that used actual shooting as it's main focus for damage uses re-rolls to great effect.  3 of them feature Guilliman, who gives all the re-rolls, and while he is paired with a bunch of fliers in those particular lists, he can be teamed up with any huge firepower oriented army to great effect.  Yarrick shows up in a couple lists as Astra Militarum is really strong in the artillery game.  Chapter masters in general are another good choice for re-rolls, Shrike showing up once, and although Azreal doesn't show up in any of these lists I have no doubt that we will see him in the future.
It's not just these big important characters that are handing out all the re-rolls as there are several Astra Militarum lists that focus on Scions dropping in with plasma, they are accompanied by a Tempestor Prime who's handing out re-roll orders like they are Tic-Tacs so the suckers with the guns don't blow themselves up.
In most cases, there isn't really a way to stop the re-rolls from happening.  In the case of the normal characters like the Chaos Lord and Chapter Master you can potentially snipe them out, although that method is fairly unreliable.  You can rush them and get a charge off and hope to assassinate them but you will need to get past all kinds of bubble wrap and counter charge units and then you will still have to deal with the character himself, who in most cases is not going to be a pussy.

Sorry, but that's all I really got for you on that topic.  Best bet is to kill at the stuff that benefits from the re-rolling.

However, that topic did bring about 2 other top tactics found in first place lists, Alpha Strike and bubble wrap.

This is a very versatile theory that generally consists of things that can kill other things very well very quickly.  They don't have to be durable, mobile, or good at anything else because the premise is that there is nothing left once the alpha strike has struck.  There are a lot of pieces to this puzzle and they each perform a slightly different way of killing shit.
The fliers, mentioned above, can deploy at the very back edge of the table, in relative safety, and move long distances to show up where they need to be on the table and hit what ever needs to be hit.  However because they have a large footprint, and they do still need LOS to hit you, it is possible to hide from them and mitigate their landing spots.
Massed Taurox Primes also seem to be pretty popular, a vehicle that can put out an incredible amount of firepower for it's relatively low cost.  This is a potentially mobile vehicle, but because of the shooting penalty when it moves, it's much more effective when it stays still.  Again LOS issues plague this rather static firepower and if you can get close and force them to move then they loose their effectiveness.
Solving that LOS problem, several of the lists had artillery.  Big guns that don't need to see what it shoots at.  Mortars and Wyverns were the most popular as infantry can hide much easier than larger vehicles or monsters, but Manticores made a decent showing as well.
Another solution to getting around LOS blocking terrain is Scions with plasma guns.  They put out very potent damage and with them starting in "deep strike reserves" they are both safe and able to arrive nearly anywhere.

So how do we protect ourselves from these?  Abilities that increase the hit requirement help a lot and, as was mentioned, LOS blocking terrain.  Really any kind of terrain that can give you a boost to your armour is a huge boon.  Even mortars and Wyverns have a hard time punching through a decent armour save and if they can't hit you they can't hurt you.  However, you can't really hide from drop plasma, which bring us to another very common theme found in 2/3 of the lists...

BUBBLE WRAP

Bubble wrap is a tricky thing to do just right, but the theory is simple.  Use cheap ass units as cannon fodder and protection.  How do these units protect you you ask?  By creating a bubble of "no drop zone, keeping those pesky scions on your front lawn instead of smashing in your back door.  The last tournament I played in I was able to use 3 units of 10 cultists to completely protect my back field preventing anyone from dropping anything behind me.  Keep in mind that you can actually have an 18" gap in between your units and enemy units can't drop in that space as it's 9" from each of your units.  The rule of 9" is not not fool proof because there are a few unlikely units that don't abide by the 9" rule like the Mawlock and a Warptimed Magnus/Mortarion so you will have to plan accordingly.
Another method is against an assault heavy army, you layer the large units of bubble wrap so that charging units have to kill one at a time, giving you time to fall back and shoot the crap only before they crash into the next line of chumps ready to die in droves.  Keep in mind that you need to keep at least enough distance between units so that the enemy cannot pile in or consolidate into the next layer of wrap.
There is another dirty trick that Alpha Legion Traitor Astartes can pull, kind of a reverse bubble wrap where instead of wrapping their own units in a layer of cultists, they can spend 2 CP and place a unit of cultists on the table before the first turn starts.  This mean that they can take a 40 man unit and completely surround your army preventing you from being able to move out of your deployment zone.
Conscripts are the most common, due to their super cheap cost and large numbers they are ideal, at least until the Chapter Approved adjusted their cost and unit size.  Time will tell whether or not they are still worth taking as they are now the same cost as a regular guardsman.  So the thought now is to take 2 units of 10 guardsmen instead of 1 unit of 20 conscripts.  However cultists and brimstone horrors are used in the few cultist units and the couple ork armies just use more orks.
Dealing with them is pretty straight forward, kill them.  Kill the fuck out of them.  They are typically pretty damn squishy so they should fall like wheat to a scythe.  Now you just need a scythe...

Our last common thread that shows up in half the armies is...

SMITE!!!

...and when they use Smite they go fucking hog wild on that shit.  The biggest offenders are the few Chaos lists which include Magnus, Horrors, and the Forge World Malefic Lord.  However the Imperial version includes a bunch of Astropaths and Primaris psykers, and we can't leave out the mass of Wierdboys the orks use.  The use of this "tactic" is fairly simple, place your models where they will do damage and have them Smite til they die.  Mortal wounds are becoming more and more prevalent in the game and are nearly guaranteed to hurt something.
So how do we stop them?  Well you can either have an ass load of your own psykers to counter some of the casting attempts AND smite them back.  You can also use bubble wrap units to eat the smites and take all the damage just as they are meant to do.  As a third option, you can use "chaff" units to draw the smite powers.  Those of you who played old school Warhammer Fantasy will understand the idea of this unit and it works similar to bubble wrap.  Since the psychic phase takes place before shooting, and because smite automatically targets the closest enemy unit, you can rush out a couple swift moving and cheap units that can take a couple smites before dying.  As a Traitor Astartes player I find that spawn work well for this, but anything that's fairly cheap and able to get out front of your other units and take the hits will work.  Even things that are not that cheap, but expendable when it comes to losing something else to the power of smite, a Necron destroyer, an Ork kopta, Space Marine attack bike, a crisis suit, all of these could be an acceptable sacrifice.
The biggest problem is that most of the things that cast smite are characters, so killing them is tricky as you can't target them unless they are the closest target.  Of course unless you have access to snipers.  Most people pooh-pooh sniper scouts and ratlings, but I have to say that if you can pick off a couple casters (who tend to be rather weak) over the course of a game then that makes them worth it.

Well, that's it in a nutshell.  Alpha strike, bubble wrap, smite, and re-rolls.  If you can find a way to deal with ALL of those while not taking all of them, (cause that's what your opponent it thinking) then you might stand a chance at winning a game or two.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.

Now for the mandatory plugging...

So that escalation league they got going is up to 40 players.  Even if they get half the games each month that is pretty damn awesome.  This weekend they had a mega battle ice breaker event for the first month of the league and decent showing turned out.

He also sells stuff!  Comics, action figures, card games, pick a table top miniatures game he's got it, and loads of other geeky shit.  Check out the web page and Facebook page, I've got them both linked in the sponsor's section on my front page.  There are other leagues going on too, Magic the Gathering, Shadespire, Necromunda plus the monthly hobby seminars that always draw a crowd.  People that don't even play table top war-games find themselves in there with a free mini they can paint and take home, all supplies are supplied.

MAXX COLLECTIBLES ESCALATION LEAGUE BATTLE REPORT

Emperor's Children VS Catachan

My local gaming store, and sponsor of this blog, is putting an escalation league.  Games start at 500 points and I got my opening game in last week against Karl.  I had never met Karl before, which is a big reason why I love playing in leagues/tournaments, the new people you meet.  And guess what, Karl is a really nice guy!

I was playing Traitor Astartes, and with such a small number of points my list was pretty small.  I wanted to try out bikes on a larger scale, so I had a unit of 5 with 2 meltaguns and a combi-melta on the champ.  I wanted to combo that with them shooting twice(spoiler, I never did) so I needed to take the Mark of Slaanesh.  I decided that I would just give it to everything so I might as well play Emperor's children.  My Lord had the Slaanesh elixir relic, giving him +1S and A, with a power axe, a combi-melta and the Warlord trait that gives him an extra attack.  To break that down he has 6A at 6S, hitting on 2's re-rolling 1's, -2AP, and with DthFE I'm getting extra attacks on hit rolls of 6 in combat.  I had a unit of 5 marines in a rhino and rounded out the Outrider detachment with 2 single units of spawn.  I was kind of slip flopping on what legion I wanted to use and had originally though about just taking a renegade chapter so I could advance the bikes and still charge.  I'm glad I didn't though because bikes are not really all that deadly in combat, it's their mobile fire base that makes them so dangerous.

Karl was trying something very new compared to his typical play style also.  He had a Vanguard detachment with 2 units of Vets with flamers in Chimeras with Harker and Strakken.  His idea was to rush me, jump out turn 2, burn me, and smash what was left.

We played one of the new missions in the Chapter Approved, Ascension, which was pretty well balanced and simple.  One objective in the middle of the table, and each player places one on the table for a total of 3.  At the end of your turn you score a point for each objective you hold.

Karl gets to deploy first, finishes first, and gets the first turn which he spent rushing his 2 Chimeras full of promethium spraying goodness straight up the middle.  He advanced so he didn't have anything else to do but sit on an objective.  Chaos - 0, IG - 1

I had lots to do.  My bikes moved up, my Lord jumps out and joins the bikes looking to take out the Chimera on my right.  My marines got out and moved over to the left a bit to start work on the Chimera on the left.  Both spawn moved up to hopefully get to his back objective...eventually.

The bikes and Lord managed to wreck their Chimera, they needed all the bolters and VotlW to pull it off, which is a little disheartening but they pulled it off.  They then failed the charge to wipe out the juicy bits that got out, losing a bike to overwatch.  The marines did nothing in the shooting phase, but managed to make their charge into the Chimera and deal a total of 2 wounds, which was actually done by the spawn.  Chaos - 2, IG - 1

Things went a little south for me as the Chimera drove it's ass out of there leaving behind the aforementioned flamey goodness of the Catachan jungle fighters and Strakken, who wiped out the Marines and spawn.  I made a bit of a mistake as I could have used my pile in move to get the spawn around to the front of the tank which may have been able to prevent it from leaving combat.  I did pile in the marines accordingly, which is how I got that one so close to the objective.  On the other side there was a little more trouble taking out the bikers as their 5T and 2W went a long way.  Chaos - 2, IG - 2

Before shooting

After shooting

Pile in

My second turn and things are not looking particularly great.  The right side is a meat grinder, with a bunch of guardsmen engaged with the bikes.  I decide to leave the bikers in combat since I probably have the edge with my higher T and S.  He does have a power fist in there, but he isn't doing much damage as he only hits on 5's...at least he doesn't this turn.  My left flank has completely fallen apart and it's up to the Lord to go and straighten shit out, and he does so in spectacular fashion jumping into the unit of guardsmen and cutting down 8 of them, then Karl pulls the power fist to Morale.  Things start looking up for me.  Chaos - 2, IG - 2

Karl is in a bit of trouble now and needs some magic to happen.  He charges his Chimera into the Lord, hoping to at least hold him in place so he can't go over and punch Strakken in the face.  I split my attacks and fail to kill the last guardsman but manage to take a couple wounds off the chimera.  The Bikes loose a man, they are down to 2, but they manage to chop up a couple more Rambos.  Chaos - 2, IG - 3

My turn see's some pretty cool shit happen.  His power fist, on the right side, manages to take out the last 2 bikes and the last 3 guys from that side of the table are finally free.  I put another couple wounds on the Chimera, bringing it down to 2, and finally kill the last vet, who happens to have a Vox Caster.  Well, if you happen to remember from my Astra Militarum review, there is a stratagem that costs 3CP and when the last model removed from a unit is one with a Vox caster you can roll a D6 for each unit within 3" of him.  On a 4+ he deals D3 mortal wounds to the unit, that's why he pulled the power fist off from the morale check if you were wondering, cause I was.  Well, he manages to hit both the Lord, taking off 2 wounds, and the Chimera, taking off it's final wounds.  It would have been amazing if the Chimera then blew up, but it didn't.

Turn 5 ends up being the last turn, and we are both down to our last legs.  I have my Lord and a Rhino left, and he has Strakken, Harker, and 2 guardsmen left.  Harker and the 2 guardsmen move to the right side hoping to get to the objective next turn, and Strakken takes some cover and lines up a supercharged plasma pistol shot at the Lord, who would have died had he not made his 4+ Sigil of Corruption invulnerable save.

I wrap up the game by charging Strakken with the Lord and dealing 7 wounds to him.

Poor Strakken

I charge my Rhino into both Harker and the Guardsmen which will prevent them from making it to the objective next turn as they needed to be able to advance to get there.  Chaos - 4, IG - 3.

This was a real nail biter of a game and it came right down to the end.  Thanks a lot for the super fun game Karl, I look forward to a re-match when our armies are a little bigger and there is more stuff to die.

After the game we chatted about a couple things, some changes he could make to his army, some ideas for mine, and how you can't rely on dice.  That last one I already knew.

With a big focus on flamers, he would have probably been better off swapping out one of the veteran squads for 2 squads of special weapons teams with 3 flamers each.  The only difference is their BS and flamers auto hit so taking 2 units that end up costing about the same with twice as many flamers is probably the better way to go.  We also discussed giving the vets actual special weapons to benefit from their 3+BS.  Yes those guns are more expensive on 3+BS models (at least they are in the AM book), but it makes up for the need to take multiples for similar damage output.

Bikes are pretty good.  They are among the fastest units in the game with a move of 14", and the chaos ones can auto advance 6" (not sure about others).  After that they can still shoot meltaguns or flamers, giving them a pretty huge threat range.  However I learned that they are really a mobile fire platform instead of a combat unit, unless of course they are definitely going to win the combat.  Against 10 guardsmen they need a little more punch to wade through the bodies so they can use their guns again.  Paired up with a combat Lord on a bike will keep them from getting bogged down.  I had considered taking Renegade Chapter traits to let them advance and assault, but changed my mind last minute as I was hoping to have them shoot more than they did.  I feel that maybe plasma might be better on them, with a larger range it will keep them out of combat more, but losing one to an overheat would hurt more.  I'm thinking I'll keep them with the meltaguns and keep a Lord nearby to help with getting bogged down.  My marines ate it hardcore, so I'm thinking I either need a bigger unit, or don't bother with them.  I'm trying to figure out if an equal number of points worth of Cultists would be better than the marines and rhino, which would be about 30 cultists.  I'm thinking the cultists would be the better choice.

Thanks for reading and hope you learned something.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.

CHAPTER APPROVED: A CHAPTER THROUGH THE AGES

Boy ooh boy is it ever essential.  There are a handful of things in here that are absolutely necessary in order to continue to play in any sort of competitive setting, even if that setting is of a more relaxed nature.

However, before we get into that I want to take a minute to get into the "Wayback" machine and have a real brief look at the last Chapter Approved, release in 2001.  Yes, I may be dating myself, but I had this book and played Warhammer when it was relevant.

The very first thing I want to point out for you is under the Miscellaneous Rules heading, there is an article named Crux Terminatus.  This is a full page article, written by Andy Chambers, discussing some of the fundamental issues with Terminators at that time, being that they only had a 2+ armour save.  Power weapons simply ignored armour saves, ork choppas turned any save better than 3+ in to a 4+, and AP2 was becoming more prevalent.  So basically from this point on they would gain a 5+ Invulnerable save.

Doesn't that kind of feel good?  Seeing that a company, that you have a solid investment in, show some sort of acknowledgement to their product not working as it should, and them making changes to rectify it.  There is also an article that adds Chaos Cultists to the Chaos Space Marines roster, and changes the Daemon Prince entry in the Codex.  There are so many fundamental changes in this book that it completely changes the game

Now, as they made the terrible joke several times that this was going to be an annual thing, they promptly fell flat on their face and the 2004 edition will be the last one we see until now.

Once again this book is full of new armies, rules, erratas, Q&As whether they be trial or official changes.  This is the spored place of the Feral Ork army list, the Kroot Mercenaries, and a set of Trial Assault Rules.  These trial rules clarified some things and made some changes to others, but were not official until the 4th edition of the rules were released.
As the years went by, several of the rules, FAQ's, and errata would remain the same as this was a compilation of all the changes before the internet was a widely accessible thing.  Many articles would be repeated with possibly slight revisions to the Q&A or errata section.

You may be asking yourself "Why is this old todderring fart taking about ancient times when this is the 21st century?  Get with the times grandpa."

Well, I mentioned the previous editions of the Chapter Approved because these were my keystones of comparison for what I am about dive into, and it will give you some insight into my thoughts and feelings.  Ugh, feelings...

#REMEMBERHORUS

I want to start my review by saying that this book is necessary, or at least a couple pages of it are necessary, to just about every player in the game.  Except for Blood Angels and Dark Angels players whose books came out shortly after this one.  This is not really an uplifting thought because only 2 or 3 pages will be necessary per player per army.  I will only need to reference about 2-3 pages in this book in order to play my Chaos Space Marines and Death Guard armies.  Not exactly a great return on investment.  If it was not for my love of missions and narrative play, I would not buy this book and just get the required rules in a less savoury way.

Thanks to my wonderful sponsor, I didn't have to buy the book at all!

As with most of my other posts, I try to keep the conversation to a somewhat competitive nature, so I will not be talking about the missions, except to say there over 1/4 of the book is dedicated to them.  From Planetstrike to Apocalypse, every play style got a boost in how you play the game.  The 2 big things that have added actual value to the game, and some of the codex less players are the new faction specific rules and the points adjustments.

In the errata department there is very little they actually changed.  They have a paragraph about targeting characters, understrength units, boots on the ground, and the limits of the re-roll stratagem.  Which can now no longer be used on anything "mission specific", this includes rolling for first turn, when the game ends, choosing deployment zones etc etc.  I assume that this would include rolling to seize the initiative which is something that several you tubers are missing as I still see re-rolls on seizing.  With the exception of the last item, none of these are all that surprising.  We all knew about them well in advance and no one likes the 5 Stormraven bullshit anyway.
There was one thing that I noticed that was introduced in a very different way.  Everyone has known that the Chapter Approved was going to introduce a +1 to your roll when rolling for first turn if you finished deploying first instead of automatically getting the first turn.  This is not a general rule that they implemented for matched play, but something they added to the 12 matched play missions that are in the Chapter Approved.

All right, all you guys without codexes now have a couple extra rules to throw around, so lets take a closer look at that.

Nuns with guns and boob armour.  I can't believe that is still a thing...

Adepta Sororitas get a kick-ass blade, the Blade of Admonition, a +2S, -3AP, and 3D.  It replaces a power sword, and I would say it's nearly as good as Celestine's blade.  Their warlord trait is very underwhelming though, re-rolling failed morale tests.  This is sort of pointless since you can take a Dialogus for the same results.  Plus, you may want to take a bunch of extra characters because when one dies, you can use a CP to activate the new Martyrdom stratagem that will let a unit in your army preform an act of faith at the end of the phase in which the character died.  Keep in mind each unit can only use an act of faith once per turn.  This look pretty good with a large brigade army fully loaded with heavy/special weapon toting Retributors/Dominions, tons of elite characters and tons of CPs.  Finally, their Shield of Faith just wasn't cutting it when it came to psychic power defence, so they got a stratagem that lets them deny a power on a 4+.

Soo angry

The Deathwatch warlord trait really depicts their hatred for big baddies, giving him a re-roll on failed wound rolls against vehicles and monsters which is not limited to any particular phase.  They also get a stratagem that deals D3 mortal wounds to  a vehicle within 1 of the watch master, on a 2+, at the start of the fight phase.  Their second stratagem gives them an extra attack on a hit roll of 6+ against vehicles that don't have Chaos, Imperium, or unaligned keywords.  This could make your Watch Master an absolute vehicle slayer.  Watch out killer kans.  Their relic is a fancy teleport that can move a unit from anywhere on the table to a spot wholly within 6" of the bearer, but still 9" away from enemy models.

Pointy poisoned pokers probing private places

The Drukhari find themselves with 3 new warlord traits.  Wych cults get 3 hits for each hit roll of 6+ in the fight phase which makes them absolutely deadly in combat with a fancy combat weapon, Haemonculus regain D3 wounds at the start of each turn, and the rest get to re-roll hit and wound rolls of 1 in the fight phase.  The stratagem they get is to put 1 unit (1CP), or 2 units (3CP), of infantry, bikes, or beasts, in reserve and "deep strike" in.  Pretty good for keeping certain units alive while getting close to assault, and great for peekaboo mass-blaster Trueborn units.  Their relic replaces a splinter pistol with a 2 shot pistol that wounds on a 2+, has -2AP, 2D, and gives a wound back to the wielder when it kills a model.  Not bad when wading through chumps and staying alive.

An extra arm?  Now I can play video games AND jerk off!

The warlord trait for the Genestealer cults is an interesting one, very flavourful though.  All infantry units within 6" of the Warlord can perform a heroic intervention.  This can really come in handy if you happen to get pulled out of position and get your warlord assaulted while there are still some nearby chumps.  They can fling their bodies into the fray and hopefully eat up some of the attacks that were intended for your warlord.  Return to the Shadows is pretty much like it was except it now costs a CP, and for another CP you can roll 2D6 when rolling for that Cult Ambush.  Then to top it all off, you can give an Iconward a fancy icon that gives friendly genestealer cult infantry within 6" +1S, which could work pretty well when combined with heroically intervening infantry.  All in all, a pretty good set up of abilities added to the cult's roster.

Cool guys don't look at explosions

The Harlequin warlord can re-roll all to hit rolls of 1, while they also get the webway stratagem that the Drukhari got.  They can also get a 3+ invulnerable save for 1CP on a unit that advanced that turn. Their relic is sort of garbage though, boosting their Ld by one while handing out a -1Ld penalty to enemies with in 6".  While the relic might be a little meh, the rest are a pretty welcome set of abilities.  Anything that can get these guys in your face is a scary prospect as they will absolutely tear you a new one once they hit your lines.  They are already really fast, being able to put 2 units in deep strike and get them right in your face with our having to buy transports for them will save you a couple hundred points.

Say hello to my little friend!

Well, I guess these guys are a faction too.  For a warlord trait, they can get an extra attack.  That's good I guess, but really Knights don't really hurt from being able to kill stuff so an extra attack is not really going to break the bank.  Their stratagem gives them a plus 1 to invulnerable saving throws for the phase.  If it was for the turn, or for all saving throws it would be better, but as a knight army already has limited command points, this doesn't do enough for knights.  As for their relic, they can re-roll hit rolls of 1 with their giant ass chain sword, which no one takes, and this with titanic feet a thing, this does not really do enough to make it a must.  Not that knights are much of a stand alone army anyway.

beep boop beep beep boop

The Necron warlord trait is a bit of a double edged sword.  On one hand, it reduces the damage that a weapon deals to him by 1, but on the other hand, no one is going to supercharge their plasma at you again.  I always liked watching enemy models die to their own weapons 01101000 01100001 01101000 01100001 (HAHA).  Both of the new stratagems cost 2CP, one lets you give reanimation protocol to a Canoptek unit, the other lets you re-roll ALL reanimation rolls of 1.  Those are pretty good, especially if you happen to have a handful of beaten up units.  Of course if that the case you're playing a moron, you need to target Necron units till they are dead.  No offence.  Lastly, their relic is the good old Veil of Darkness which lets you pick up your non-C'Tan character and a unit within 3" and "deep strike" them as per normal means, with the second unit fully within 6" of the character.  You can only do it once per game, but damn is that some serious sneaky shit right there.  A pretty good set of rules making them more mobile and even more durable.

WAAGH MOTHER FUCKER!!!

Orks got a bit of love, their warlord trait give them +1S, which I believe will put them at S7, meaning S14 with a Klaw.  This is awesome for smashing down some of the bigger monsters and the majority of vehicles.  But in all honesty, you don't want a Klaw, you want Headwoppa's Killchoppa at +2S, -2AP, and d3D this thing is wrecking face.  It replaces a big choppa and in addition to it's souped up stats, it changes it's damage to D3 mortal wounds on a wound roll of 6+ and does not incur a -1 to hit rolls like the Klaw.  Now for the stratagems, and I love these.  First off, for a single command point you can "mob up" and join 2 units of infantry together, as long as they are chosen from the same data sheet and one unit has 10 or more models and the other has 10 or fewer.  These 2 restrictions are super smart keeping units simple and from getting to be 60 boys large then jumping them across the table.  The other stratagem is also 1CP and the infantry or biker unit of your choice can make an extra attack for each hit roll of 6+.  Now this one isn't going to break the game, but if you have a big unit that is going to pump out a shit ton of shots, it's worth using the 1CP.  Orks doing what Orks do best, roll buckets of dice.

Love that old artwork

Space wolves get the Emperor's Children treatment and their warlord can always go first in combat, unless there are other "firsters" in which case you take turns starting with the player whose turn it is.  At least you'll get to swing your cool sword that's +1S, -4AP, and 1D.  Yeah, 1 damage.  I sincerely feel that unless you deal mortal wounds or something, a relic needs to be a weapon that does multiple damage, you can re-roll failed wounds, so that helps I guess.  Back in the day Space Wolves had a rule called True Grit that let them use their bolters as an extra close combat weapon giving them an extra attack, now you can pay a CP and your bolter (and various other bolt type weapons) become pistol 2 for that phase.  That is pretty damn awesome, especially if you happened to get tar pitted in some cultists or orks.  For another CP you can set up an infantry unit in "outflank" and it can join the battle at the end of the movement phase holy within 6" of a table edge and more than 9" from the enemy.  Cunning but brutal... or is it brutal but cunning?  Space Wolf players hate it when I say that.

Coming in hot!

Tau get 2 warlord traits that are pretty good but seriously depend on how you build your whole army. You want static firepower, your warlord can re-roll all failed hit rolls as long as you have not moved this turn,  if you moved you lose it until the start of your next turn.  That's so that you can't use it during overwatch if you moved in your turn, cause you don't move during your opponent's turn, pretty smart GW.  The other allows you to advance and shoot as though you have not moved.  Staying away from that guy with the shiny sword is a good thing, being able to shoot while doing it is a great thing.  They only get a single stratagem, but if you hit with a marker light you can spend 1CP and it counts as D3+1 marker light hits.  Their relic is ok, giving the bearer a re-roll on a few specific rolls once per battle, but it also allows you to regain a CP on a 6+ each time any player uses a stratagem.  These items can be huge in a game as both players will likely use several stratagems throughout a game.  Getting back 1 or 2 CPs can make a big difference at the right time.

Walk like an Egyptian

So the Thousand sons get some goodies too, first being able to re-roll failed deny the witch tests.  That is a pretty good one with how prevalent smite spam is becoming.  Speaking of psychic powers, something they seem to be pretty good at, they get a new one.  Tzeench's firestorm has an 18" range and a casting cost of 7, roll 9 dice and the target suffers a mortal wound for each 6+ rolled.  Now, if you're worried about getting denied, just take the new relic.  If you roll any doubles, your enemy cannot deny that power.  Top off the psychic power bonanza with a 1CP stratagem that give the caster +2 to psychic tests if he is within 6" of 2 other Thousand Sons psykers.  There seems to be a theme here, but I just can't figure out what it might be...

Finally there are the points changes.  Things went up, things went down, I'm not going to go over everything but I will talk about a couple big changes and some particular ones that affect me personally.

First up, just about every Primaris unit got cheaper, Inceptors dropping by 20 points each.  Robute and Celestine each increased in points which everyone seems to be so proud of GW for, but both of these are a joke increase and let me explain.  While Celestine went from 150 to 200, her min-me's that follow her around dropped from 50 -25.  So a unit of the 3 did not change in points cost overall, and I have NEVER seen Celestine without the 2 sidekicks.  And Guilliman's increase of 25 points is completely negated more than twice over by taking a minimum sized unit of Inceptors.  Even a couple units of intercessors will make up the point increase.  With the amount of army boosting goodness that Guilliman does, combined with the fact that you can't target him unless he is the closest enemy, and his bitch'n ass sword, he should be closer to 425 and you would still see him all over the place.
While somewhat pointless, as it turns out, none of those changes are big surprises, but I am surprised that the Primaris Psyker in AM only increased to 38 points while the Malefic Lord is now 80 points.    They are fairly identical in their ability to spam Smite, and with the proper arrangements are not a danger if they die from perils, which is not as prevalent as you would believe.  I don't really see what makes up that 32 point difference.
Some of the big things like Tzeench's super chicken and the Tau supremacy suit doubled in points, but again, not really shocking.  These things were wiping out armies single handed.
Defilers dropped nearly 50 points, and a Helbrute's second fist now only costs 10 points.  Making both of these much more viable.  Vindicators also dropped in points to 125, and Deathshroud terminators to 35 points each.  I know that will make my buddy Donny happy to see.

I'm gonna to leave it here, have a look at the book.  It's definitely worth the investment if you love to run campaigns and have a variety of missions you would like to choose from without writing your own.  There is a ton of content in here, but I feel for the competitive player, it's mostly just the last couple pages you will be interested in.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.

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