6th Edition Rulebook: Gamer's Edition Review

It took long enough, but my Gamer's Edition rulebook set finally arrived this past Saturday. The set contains a standard 6th Edition rulebook, a satchel for carrying it, and Gamer's Edition-only red Munitorum dice in a lasgun power pack tin. GW will be releasing more Munitorum dice in an identical tin, but these will be white with black markings; the red dice are exclusive to this edition. GW is also supposed to release Battlefield Objectives and Vehicle Markers in lasgun power pack tins, but these have all been delayed until the end of this month.

6th Edition Rulebook
I won't be reviewing the rules here (although I like a lot of the changes). However, let me say that the book is beautiful. It's full color and is filled with photos and artwork. I know that a lot of people balked at the $75 price, but having bought dozens of cheaply bound and less interesting text books for $100+ each in college, I feel like I'm getting a bargain.

Satchel
The leatherette satchel was the primary reason why I bought the Gamer's Edition since I've been carrying my books and other tools in a cardboard box for over a year. The embossing on the side declares it to be an Imperial Guard officer's signal satchel originating from Cadia. You can attach either an Imperial Aquila or the Chaos Star to the flap, both of which are heavy metal pins.

The primary pocket is ideally sized for the new rulebook and the secondary pocket is large enough to hold two to three codices with room to spare for templates. However, I'm guessing that the bag was designed with hardcover codices in mind, so I may have a lot less room in a couple years. Finally, there are three small pockets designed to hold the lasgun power pack dice tins (presumably one tin each for the Munitorum dice, Battlefield Objectives, and Vehicle Markers). I think the upcoming dice and tins are supposed to be limited edition, so I'm definitely going to have to order at least two more tins as soon as they're available to fill the remaining two pockets.

It's a shame that the Gamer's Edition and its satchel were so limited that they sold out of them within about four days. I think a lot more gamers would have bought the satchel over time if they had made more of them.

Munitorum Dice and Tin
Finally, there are twelve red Munitorum dice in the tin along with six servo skull dice holders. As I mentioned earlier, the tin is labeled as a lasgun power pack and has some fun fluff printed on it. It's listed as having a range rating of "19 megathule" but with the caveat to "Confirm compatibility with techpriest prior to using this power pack". While the satchel is from Cadia, the power pack says it's from Armageddon. The tin is easily large enough to hold all twelve dice and the six dice holders that come with it, while leaving some extra room. I'll probably fill one tin with Vehicle Markers, Battlefield Objectives, and as many holders as will fit, another with just Munitorum dice and some holders, and a third with my Chessex dice.

The dice holders are styled as tiny servo skulls that are just large enough to hold a single die. At first I thought the dice holders were a silly idea, then I realized that I accidentally snatch up counting dice at least once per game and my opponent and I then have to try to remember how many wounds are left, how many turns have passed, etc. Since we now have to keep track of vehicles' hull points in addition to everything else, I can see the need for the holders even more now.

And that brings us down to the Munitorum dice. The dice look great, with embossed gears, nuclear trefoils, hoses, and servo skulls behind the highly stylized numerals used in the 40K universe. But oh, how I wish I could say that the square corners and lack of indented pips make them well balanced. (I've discussed imbalanced dice here and here.) I was immediately suspicious when I opened the package and noticed how light the dice are. With square edges that reduce irregular rolling and without the deep pips that can affect a die's center of gravity, the only other major factor that can ruin a die's balance is porosity or internal bubbles. Lighter dice seem to suffer from such defects more often.

Since there were only 12 dice, I performed a chi-square test using 120 rolls per die instead of my usual 90. By increasing the number of rolls by 1/3, the chi-square test becomes a lot more sensitive and is better able to detect unbalanced dice. Although none of the dice failed, three very nearly failed the test and three more were suspiciously skewed. Interestingly, the six dice that appeared to be mostly balanced scored a lot better than most of the Chessex dice that tested relatively well. And since it's also possible that some Chessex dice that passed the test at 90 rolls would fail at 120, it's likely that the Munitorum dice are more fair than the much cheaper dice.

As for the apparently unbalanced Munitorum dice, whatever small manufacturing defect is present in them caused most to preferentially roll twos or fives. One die rolled a five 31 times out of 120; the expected number was 20. This behavior is different than what I've seen in Chessex dice, which tend to roll ones and twos when they're unbalanced. In the end, I removed six out of the 12 limited edition dice from my collection.

Oh well, when life gives you lemons, and all. The dice really are nice, I do need to be able to keep track a lot of things under 6th Edition, and I have six dice holders, so I'm going to mark the unbalanced dice and use them solely as counting dice. As farfetched as it may seem, I'm hoping that the delayed release of the other Munitorum dice is due to the discovery of balance issues and that the next release of dice will roll fairly. Being the sucker that I am, I will of course be buying the new dice and testing them too.

[Update 7/15/12: See my later post where I find that even a 120 roll test can be misleading.]

Spending More Money

I've neglected to cover the past couple Cabal games or to even discuss my recent modeling efforts (including my experience with some of the new Citadel paints). However, I thought I'd mention another little purchase I made today:

That's right, I bought the Gamer's Edition of the new 40K rulebook. Officially it can be pre-ordered on June 23rd. Obviously they meant June 23rd in England since my calendar still says the 22nd.

The Gamer's Edition comes with 12 red Munitorum dice that are supposed to be unique to this set. I've already seen scans of the recent White Dwarf showing that similar bone-white dice will be available on June 30th. Although the only limited aspect of these dice is their color, I had intended to buy 24 dice anyway, so I might as well have half of them in limited edition red and the other half in off-white. The dice are square edged and have printed numbers instead of indented pips. Those who have performed chi-square tests on GW and/or Chessex dice with round edges and compared the results to tests on square edged dice have found that the latter are a lot more balanced. Obviously I'll be testing that claim myself.

What really sold me on this edition was the nifty satchel. It's designed to carry the rulebook in the main pouch and has a second pouch to hold codices and templates. Three small pouches immediately under the satchel's flap are sized for the lasgun power pack-shaped tins that hold the Munitorum dice. I've gotten tired of lugging my books, dice, and templates around in a clumsy little box and liked the idea of a themed bag.

Dice Testing, Great Service, and Colour Primer

Chi-Square Testing New Dice

Last time I discussed at length how I tested the balance of my 36 dusty blue and copper dice. This past week my blue and white dice arrived and went through the same test. This time every die, not just the suspicious ones, were rolled 90 times. The outcome was interesting.

While four of the dusty blue and copper dice failed the chi-square test, not a single blue and white die failed. Instead of having a few obviously faulty dice, the blue and white set seemed to have a larger number of slightly imbalanced dice. This might be due to the fact that each blue and white die was rolled 90 times. Half of the dusty blue and copper dice were rolled only the minimum number of 30 times, which decreases the sensitivity of the chi-square test and makes it less likely to find imbalances. It's probable that my first dice set would have shown a similar degree of imbalance had it been as thoroughly tested.

As I did with my first dice set, blue and white dice with a result greater than 6 were removed from the collection (11.070 is considered the cutoff for dice that are statistically certain to be imbalanced). Additionally, I removed several dice with results less 6 due to obvious signs of imbalance. For example, two dice with results of 3.2 and 3.6, respectively, produced ones 22.2% of the time and twos 17.8% of the time. Statistically, those two dice would make a power-armored Space Marine fail an armor save or miss a shot (i.e., they rolled ones or twos) 40% of the time instead the expected 33.3%. In the end, I removed 12 dice, or 1/3 of the total, from the set.

Great Customer Service
I have plenty of models to work on and had no interest in buying more until I had made a dent in my current pile. However, when GW announced the upcoming price increases last month, I took advantage of the money I had saved up for 40K models and made a $373 purchase from TheWarStore.com before the cost of that Land Raider Crusader I wanted went up by about 15%. Unless I'm making small purchases (e.g., a single Scout box or a few paints), I usually go through TheWarStore due to their standard 20% discount on GW merchandise and their flat shipping rate.

I ordered a number of sets that I had heard were going to increase the most in cost, as well as a few that I intended to get sooner or later. Among these sets I purchased another Assault Squad box (despite being irrationally points-heavy, I'm looking at building a ten man Vanguard Squad). When the shipment finally arrived last week, a note inside said that GW hadn't shipped them any Assault Squad boxes that week. Instead of telling me to wait until they got one in, they had opened up a Battleforce box and sent me the relevant sprues. Although I was given the exact sprues I wanted, just not in the box, TheWarStore staff also "threw in" some extra bits. And not just any bits: they sent me an extra heavy bolter for a Land Speeder (which may have actually changed my mind on how I'm going to equip my Land Speeders) and a number of Space Marine power weapon arms, including my favorite power sword arm from the Commander box and two rare right-handed power fists.

It's obvious that TheWarStore employees put some care into the bits they "threw in". It seems like they looked at my order, saw what I was working on, and gave me appropriate parts. All told, the bits they sent me would probably sell for about $25. Honestly, had they merely given me the loose Assault Squad sprues I would have shrugged and thought little of it. But to include those extra bits because they couldn't send me the sprues in the box is truly going the extra mile.

Kevin has also had a good experience with TheWarStore. When he ordered his Dark Eldar sets last year, they accidentally sent him a Venom instead of the Ravager he had ordered. When he reported the mix up, they apologized and gave him the Ravager for 50% off.

It's rare to find good prices and excellent customer service in the same place.

Army Painter Colour Primer

This past week I primed a number of vehicles. Although I prime all my troops with black spray, I use Ultramarine Blue Army Painter Colour Primer for my vehicles. My local games store never consistently carries this color, so I bought two cans for $11.99 each at TheWarStore, (it normally retails for about $15). Until recently, I didn't actually know how many models I could prime with the spray since I had used nearly 2/3 of my first can on my Vindicator in a desperate attempt to smooth out the sandpaper-like coat left by a black primer. Don't ask me why I used two primers.

I used the end of the first can on two Razorbacks and was dismayed to find that the coat it left was slightly rough. Fortunately the surface wasn't nearly as rough as that of the Vindicator and has proven to be an easier fix. I used about 2/3 of a new can on a Predator and two Drop Pods and was a lot happier with the results. I sprayed parts that aren't primarily blue such as tank treads, heavy bolters, and Drop Pod engine parts with $5 Rust-Oleum Camouflage spray I buy at Walmart. I have never been disappointed by this spray, which always goes on smoothly and extremely flat. I'll be priming smaller pieces such as smoke launchers and storm bolters (i.e., the parts that fly away when you try to spray them) by hand with Citadel's new Imperial Primer.

Since I effectively used one can during my marathon of priming, I found that I could prime two Razorbacks, one Predator, and two Drop Pods with a single can. That's about $215 worth of models (GW's new prices) primed with about $12 worth of paint. I also found that the last 1/3 or 1/4 of a can of Army Painter may leave a rougher surface that will need some work to clean up. I'm just glad that it was the Razorbacks that ended up with the rougher hulls. If any of my vehicles should be rougher than others, it should be those vehicles that tend to get closer to the enemy; e.g., Vindicators and transports like the Rhino and Razorback.

Uncovering Warp-Tainted Dice

I've mentioned before that I've had some pretty horrible luck with my dice. In the past few months I've failed four out of about seven 3+ cover saves, failed five out of six 3+ armor saves immediately after failing five out of six 3+ cover saves, rolled absurd numbers of ones and twos during two out of three games, and, in last week's game, rolled multiple snake eyes, failed to wound three out of five Orks after hitting them with a strength 10 Demolisher Cannon, and failed three out of five artificer armor saves. As a Space Marine player, I spend a lot of points for awesome armor saves and a high ballistic skill, all of which can be completely neutralized by an excessive number of ones and twos. Space Marine armies simply aren't large enough to tolerate that kind of rolling.

Being paranoid doesn't mean
that they aren't out to get you

At first I was willing to believe that I simply perceived the rolls as being skewed due to the human tendency to selectively remember extraordinary events. After a while, I started testing my dice, repeatedly rolling each die in my box of 36 dusty blue and copper Chessex dice (yes, I chose the dice to match my army). I averaged the results for each die respectively and found that they usually produced a result close to the expected 3.5. This seemed to confirm that I was selectively remembering the bad rolls.

After last week's game, I came home convinced that something was awry with many of my dice. After a Google search, I came across several blogs and websites claiming that mass-produced dice such as those made by GW or Chessex can be irregular enough to produce skewed results. This is particularly true of the d20s that various RPGs use. Many of these unbalanced dice will tend to produce huge numbers of opposites; a die that produces too many ones or twos can often produce too many fives and sixes as well. I soon realized that my initial tests were worthless; an unbalanced die that favors mostly ones and sixes will tend to have an average roll of 3.5. As a Space Marine player who usually needs only 3+ and 4+ to do what I want, I don't want dice that will produce an unusual number of fives and sixes (which are overkill) but also give me a ton of ones and twos (which represent failed armor saves and missed shots). Instead of making the expected 66.7% of my armor saves or to hit rolls, extremely skewed dice could give me an armor save and to hit rate of nearly 50%.

I eventually came across this D&D blog, which described using a Pearson's chi-square test to validate whether or not a d6 or a d20 is fair. This test has the advantage of detecting when individual numbers come up too often or not often enough rather than depending on averaging results. The equation for a d6 is:

Σ[(O-E)^2/E] > 11.070

Where "O" is observed frequency and "E" is expected frequency. The value of 11.070 is the chi-square value for a system with five degrees of freedom; i.e., the number of possible results (six for a d6) minus 1. The equation essentially says that if the result of the equation is greater than the chi-square value, then the claim that the die is fair is probably false.

To use this equation you roll a die a certain number of times and record how many times each side shows up. For each of the six possible die results, you subtract the expected frequency that the side should appear from the observed number of times that the side actually showed up. You divide that value by the expected frequency and then add up the resulting numbers from each of the six possible results. If the sum is greater than 11.070, it is statistically probable that the die is not fair. Although 30 rolls (with an expected frequency of 5 hits for each side) is considered to be a minimum, the same D&D blog noted that a 30 roll test is likely to miss slightly unbalanced dice. A better test would use more than 100 rolls per die.

I decided to apply this test to my own dice and started by placing them in a grid and assigning each die a letter and number designation from A1 to F6. I'm crazy, but not crazy enough to roll all 36 of my dice over 100 times, so I started with just 30 rolls per die. I put the data into a spreadsheet that executed the equation and also calculated how often the die gave a result of 2+ (e.g., a Terminator armor save, the usual value needed to kill infantry with anti-tank weapons), of 3+ (e.g., a power armor save, the value needed for a Marine to hit), and of 4+ (e.g., a Scout armor save, the value to wound with most sniper weapons). I used the conditional formatting feature to automatically color code results that I thought were suspicious. After crunching the numbers, I found that none of my dice failed after only 30 rolls, but that several were close. The blog's warning about a 30 roll test being insufficient became apparent when one die failed to roll a single 1 but was still able to pass the test (although just barely).

Those dice that were close to failing or that I found suspicious (18 out of the 36) were given an additional 60 rolls (90 total rolls with an expected frequency of 15 hits per side). The additional results showed that a few of the 18 dice merely had a bad series of rolls earlier and that they were relatively well balanced. However, four dice outright failed the chi-square test. The worst offender would roll a one more than a quarter of the time (27.78%) and would make a 3+ armor save only 53.33% of the time versus the expected 66.67%. Another die would only roll a 4+ 33.33% of the time rather than the expected 50%. Of the four failures, only one rolled unusually high.

I would call this one "The Widowmaker" if Astartes had widows

Some would call this one "lucky". I retired it, too.

After more than 2,000 individual dice rolls, I decided to "retire" the four failed dice as well as five others that gave results greater than 6 (a little more than half of the chi-square value). And yes, I also removed the high rolling die, which had the second highest degree of bias. In short, I removed 1/4 of all my dice from my set based on this test. Fortunately I play Space Marines, so I don't really need all 36 dice anyway. Oddly enough, I can't bring myself to throw out the biased dice. They're segregated in their own little Ziploc bag labeled with dire warnings.

I would recommend the above test for any player who thinks his dice are giving him a raw deal. I was somewhat relieved to find that, although a lot of my bad luck may be a matter of perception, a significant amount of it may be due to biased dice. And if your dice don't turn out to be biased, then at least you have mathematical proof that it's all in your head.

I guess the question is, what can a tabletop gamer do about the problem? There are a variety of dice companies that promise balanced dice, but they charge as much for five dice as Chessex does for 36. Plus, Chessex sells a greater variety of colors and styles that are great for those players who want to match their dice to their army. I've simply decided to order a second box of Chessex dice (blue and white to match Ultramarine veterans) with the intention of performing another set of chi-square tests to weed out the biased ones. The test takes me about as long to finish as two long games of 40K. If that saves me from any more dice-sabotaged games, then it was worth it.

Space Marine Stormtalon

So Games Workshop finally released some of the flyers they've been promising for quite a while. I love the design of the Ork flyer; it looks like an Orky Korean War-era fighter. The new Necron vehicle, on the other hand, could be called the "Doom Croissant" (not my joke, I'm not that clever). Obviously, the flyer I'm most interested in is the Space Marine Stormtalon Gunship. I've already seen a lot of hatred directed towards its design, but I actually like it quite a bit. I admit that the chin turret with the twin-linked assault cannon looks a bit oversized, but the Imperium in general, and the Space Marines in particular, aren't known for their subtlety.

Stormtalon with twin-linked lascannon

I was originally concerned that the Stormtalon would take up a Heavy Support slot. The leaked sketches of the gunship showed that it has some significant weaponry, but if I had to choose between bringing the Stormtalon and taking a Predator, Land Raider, or Vindicator, the new flyer would be out of luck. However, once a few clear photos of the model were leaked, it became obvious to the eagle-eyed that the crossed double-headed arrows on its hull and wings meant that it was destined for a Fast Attack slot. Photos of the June White Dwarf pages that list the rules for the gunship have confirmed this.

The base points value is 130, for which you get a twin-linked assault cannon and a twin-linked heavy bolter. You also get the Aerial Assault rule (you can fire all weapons even if you moved at cruising speed) and the Supersonic rule (you can move 36" when moving flat out). This non-upgraded arrangement makes the Stormtalon a glorified Tornado-pattern Land Speeder, which can have a heavy bolter and an assault cannon in a slightly slower and less armored chassis for 90 points. I really can't see myself fielding a standard Stormtalon, but the upgrades make the gunship more attractive. For 20 points the twin-linked heavy bolter can be exchanged for a twin-linked lascannon (I wish it was that cheap to upgrade a Razorback). For 25 points the heavy bolter can be upgraded to a Typhoon Missile launcher or the new Skyhammer Missile launcher (strength 7, AP 4, heavy 3). Although the new missile's strength and AP are inferior to those of Krak missiles, the new launcher gives you more shots with missiles that have a range of 60". At that distance only the Imperial Guard and the Tau could possibly reach you.

Stormtalon with Skyhammer Missile launcher

My only worry about this vehicle is that it's heavily armed but only has armor 11. The best description for this arrangement would be "fire magnet". While the Skyhammer Missile launcher might be able to keep your vehicle out of range of most enemies, it could take a long time for three strength 7 shots per turn to pay for your shiny 155 point flyer. However, I'm banking on the Escort Craft rule to make the Stormtalon worth it. This rule allows the gunship to be assigned to a unit that is arriving from reserve. When the reserved unit arrives, the Stormtalon automatically arrives within a short distance. Unfortunately, early assumptions that it could escort deep striking units were premature; the White Dwarf rules specifically prohibit it. Now, if the gunship were to escort an outflanking unit, then your opponent could find quite a mean little force suddenly appearing much too close to his own lines. The Stormtalon may last only one turn, but it could end up being one very effective turn.

I've started to incorporate the Stormtalon into a few theoretical army lists, particularly those that make use of outflanking units. The most effective arrangement I can think of involves Captain Sicarius, a Stormtalon gunship, a Razorback, and the close-combat oriented half of a Tactical Squad that's been divided into combat squads. With Captain Sicarius' Battle-forged Heroes rule, the Tactical Squad can be given the Scout or Infiltrate special rules. With one or the other rule, the Squad is allowed to outflank. Since the Razorback is a dedicated transport, it can also be part of the outflanking maneuver as long as the Squad is embarked in it at the time. Thanks to the Escort Craft rule, when this outflanking Razorback arrives with twin-linked heavy bolter or lascannon blazing (and containing a Space Marine captain with artificer armor, feel no pain, and a plasma pistol, as well as five power armored Marines with various weapons intended to breach armor and wreak havoc), the Stormtalon will also appear with its own twin-linked assault cannon and twin-linked heavy bolter, twin-linked lascannon, Typhoon Missile launcher, or Skyhammer Missile launcher blasting away.

Of course, you'd have to hope that the tactic is immediately successful; the following turn is likely to see a downed Stormtalon and/or a burned-out Razorback.

40K Cabal Tournament

During our previous game night, Bryce, Carl, Jon, and I played a four way free for all that lasted for four or five hours. Although we all had fun, by the end we were completely exhausted. Of course Bryce, who has played 40K since he was young, is the fastest player in the group. Hoping to improve our speed, Bryce set up a mini-tournament for the Cabal this past week. It consisted of three games organized as follows:

Game 1: A 500 point army with at least one unit of Troops and one of Elites.
Game 2: A 750 point army with at least one HQ, one unit of Troops, and one of Elites.
Game 3: A 1000 point army that meets standard force organization requirements.

We were allotted only 15 minutes to set up (this is a lot less time than us newbies usually take). The 500 point and the 750 point games were limited to one hour each while the 1000 point game was allowed to go for an hour and a half. To provide a variety of settings, Bryce pre-arranged scenery on the group's 4'x4' table and on the two sides of our 4'x8' table, which had been partitioned into two playing areas.

In the past we've tailored our armies for a known opponent, usually producing our final list only after arriving at Bryce's house. This time he required Kevin, Carl, Jon, and I to design our lists in a vacuum and submit them before the competition. As usual, Kevin was to play his Dark Eldar, Jon was going to play his Orks, and I brought my Ultramarines. Carl, who usually plays Grey Knights, decided to play the Cabal's Daemon army this time around. Bryce served as moderator and judge.

Game One (500 points):
Bryce assigned the Orks and the Ultramarines to one table and the Dark Eldar and the Daemons to another. I didn't follow the Dark Eldar/Daemon game at all, but I know that the Daemons won handily. The Soul Grinder that Carl was generous enough to add to the army proved to be unstoppable. It's hard to match that monster's front and side armor of 13, an immunity to stunned and shaken results, and its immensely powerful array of ranged and close combat weapons.

As for the Ultramarines/Orks game, as can be expected for a 500 point match-up, Jon's army vastly outnumbered mine and had a lot more variety. In my opening move, I tried to hit Jon's Lootas with my Vindicator and came up one inch short. The 10 man Tactical Squad was too far away to hit anything and my five Sniper Scouts rolled very poorly. My only hope was to send my multi-melta Dreadnought into his mob and attempt to tie it up for a few turns.

Unfortunately, one of Jon's Killa Kans hit the Vindicator's side armor and destroyed over 1/5th of my entire army with a single shot. The Lootas wiped out the Scouts in a single salvo (not a single one made its cover save) while an Ork mob charged towards the remainder of my rapidly dwindling army. Although my Dreadnought was able to engage the mob, it was destroyed within a couple turns by a power klaw.

In yet another run of fantastically bad luck, I consistently rolled ones and twos for both shooting as well as armor saves. An army with only one tank, a walker, 10 Marines, and 5 Scouts can't tolerate too many rolls like the ones I was making; my army was wiped out halfway into our allotted time.

Game Two (750 points):
The second game matched up the Ultramarines with the Dark Eldar and the Orks with the Daemons. Although I saw little of the Ork/Daemon game, I know that the Soul Grinder again did its job. Additionally, Carl's luck with rolling was the polar opposite of my own. Fives and sixes turned up a little too often for the Daemons, with at least one roll of four dice resulting in nothing but fives or better. And thus the denizens of the Warp consumed the Green Horde.

...and the Greenskins were messily devoured

My 750 point list was somewhat experimental in that I forewent the Tactical Squad and used a Telion-led six man Scout Squad as my sole unit of Troops. I then spent much of my points on a seven man Sternguard Squad with two missile launchers. Since my Tyrannic War Veteran-themed Sternguard isn't quite ready yet, I proxied seven standard Marines for a Sternguard Squad. (Yes, I know that the only visible difference between Sternguard Marines with bolters and Tactical Marines with bolters are the white helmets, but I try to keep my army strictly WYSIWYG.) Also in the army was a Venerable Dreadnought with an assault cannon, a Vindicator, and a Captain.

As usual, Kevin embarked all his forces into several Venoms and a Raider. Hoping to take advantage of his night shields, which take 6" off an opponent's range, he placed all his vehicles into a far corner of the table. While this temporarily hampered the Venerable and the Vindicator, it couldn't save him from the Sternguard's two missile launchers or the Scouts' missile launcher that benefited from Telion's ballistic skill. Fortunately for me, the Emperor chose to smile on the Ultramarines during this game (or, at least he thwarted Tzeentch and allowed them to roll averages), and the Dark Eldar skimmers started coming down. Although Kevin's Venoms made an amazing number of 5+ flickerfield saves, they couldn't keep up with the number of Krak missiles that hammered them throughout the game.

The embarked Dark Eldar and their vehicles could put out an considerable number of shots, but most of the Marines were actually able to make their saves. My Scouts, on the other hand, again had the misfortune of failing a huge number of 3+ cover saves (I really don't know why this happens so often). Although the Vindicator was eventually destroyed, it didn't go down before landing its strength 10 AP 2 pie plate on an unfortunate group of Dark Eldar who had been spilled from their vehicle. Despite the effect of the Wyches' shardnets, the Captain was also able to whittle down the number of forcibly disembarked Dark Eldar.

Being a Space Marine captain means going into battle in style

Eventually, the Venerable Dreadnought got within range of the Venoms and threatened to do some serious damage with its assault cannon. A lucky blaster shot penetrated its armor and Kevin triumphantly announced a "vehicle destroyed" result. However, Kevin got to know the pain of fighting a Venerable Dreadnought when I said (with as kind a smile as I could muster) "Venerable rule: re-roll the damage result". The "vehicle stunned" result he rolled definitely wasn't what he wanted, especially when a missile stunned his Venom and its blaster-wielding crew in my following turn. The last of the Venoms went down to the Venerable's assault cannon while the remaining Dark Eldar were unequipped to fight a walker. The Ultramarines scored a narrow victory with a Venerable Dreadnought and two Sternguard Marines left standing.

It was during the 750 point game that Bryce held the painting competition, which was judged by his wife. Since we're still fairly new, we were judged on a best figure rather than best army. Kevin entered one of his Wyches, Jon entered a Nob, and I entered Sergeant Telion. The Daemon army wasn't eligible since it was originally painted by an eBay seller and was finished up by Bryce. It turned out that Jon had unknowingly stacked the deck; he paints a bloody wolf paw print on the back of each of his Orks and Bryce's wife is a dog lover.

Sadly, Telion also lost the swimsuit competition

Game Three (1000 points):
We finished out the night with an Ork/Dark Eldar match and an Ultramarines/Daemons competition, both of which were played on the partitioned 4'x8' table. Once again, I was so involved in my own game that I didn't see the results of the game happening immediately to my left. Although neither army was able to annihilate the other within the allotted hour and a half, the Orks finished with the most points left.

Unfortunately, Carl's amazing luck continued while the luck I had during the 500 point game came back to haunt me. Let's just say that five Sternguard firing wound-anything-on-a-2+ Hellfire rounds can't do much good when three of the five miss the shot while their opponents are consistently able to make their 5+ saves.

The Vindicator was actually able to damage the Soul Grinder, disabling the walker's primary weapon, but that didn't eliminate the walker's ability to assault the tank. An attempt to prevent the Soul Grinder from destroying the Vindicator by deep striking my Terminator Squad behind it backfired when the only damage result I could roll was "stunned" (a.k.a., "ignored") and the squad was quickly engaged by Pink Horrors. After the daemonic machine had dispatched the Vindicator, it joined in the fight with the Terminators, whose rolls to hit were plagued by ones and twos.

I soiled my armor I was so scared!

On the other side of the table, a unit of Daemonettes and a Daemon Prince deep struck a short distance from my Tactical Squad and Sternguard. With time for only one turn of shooting between their appearance and their assault, I really couldn't afford all the ones and twos that I was rolling. The Marines were quickly overwhelmed.

They're tougher than they look

A couple feet away from the Tactical Squad, my Sniper Scout Squad found itself under attack by three Flamers of Tzeentch. Three of the Scouts survived the initial attack and returned fire, to little effect. This was one of the worst tactical decisions I made that night. Flamers of Tzeentch have an amazing shooting ability, but aren't particularly adept at close combat. I choose to have my Scouts fire their sniper rifles at them rather than to fire their pistols and assault them. The return fire did very little and allowed the daemons to kill two more Scouts. By the time I got into close combat, I had too few attacks to do anything.

After having previously snacked on Dark Eldar and Orks, the Daemons finished the night with 1000 points worth of canned Space Marine.

Conclusion
At the end Bryce handed out the awards: Best General, Most Valuable Model, Best Painted Figure, and Best Sport. Best General obviously went to Carl and the Daemon army for handily defeating all comers. Most Valuable Model went to Kevin's Venoms, which made an unlikely number of 5+ flickerfield saves in all three of his games. Best Painted Figure went to Jon's Nob with the bloody paw print. And Best Sport went to myself for not throwing things despite having the most appalling luck.

Ultramarines Blue vs. Altdorf Guard Blue

I was recently requested to compare Ultramarines Blue to the new Altdorf Guard Blue. To do this I simply pulled out an extra Rhino top hatch bit leftover from my Vindicator and painted the two colors side by side. Since this was a quick comparison, I didn't undercoat the hatch and I laid the paint down pretty thickly. This left quite a few brush strokes, especially in the Altdorf Guard Blue. Here are the results:

Left: Ultramarines Blue. Right: Altdorf Guard Blue

Ultramarines Blue is on the left and Altdorf Guard Blue is on the right. At the top of the hatch I painted a small streak of Altdorf into the Ultramarines and at the bottom I painted a small streak of Ultramarines into the Altdorf.

The Altdorf appears to be slightly darker, but It's similar enough that I doubt I could easily tell the difference between a model painted with Ultramarines Blue and a model painted with Altdorf Guard Blue, especially if a generous wash were used. The most noticeable difference is that Altdorf is most definitely a "layer" paint. The Ultramarines Blue covered the gray plastic with only two or three coats. The Altdorf Guard Blue, on the other hand, required four or five coats before it completely covered the gray. Altdorf should probably be painted over a blue base coat for best results.

For my Ultramarines I've primarily used Mordian Blue for the power armor and reserved Ultramarines Blue for highlighting. However, I use Ultramarines Blue on my vehicles so they contrast slightly with the Marines. Given how much Altdorf Guard Blue was needed to cover a color other than blue, I'll definitely be priming my vehicles with Army Painter's Ultramarine Blue spray rather than a black or gray undercoat.