So, while I was on the moon, fighting against the nids, I was a little curious on how the whole thing played out with this.
Well I have two issues from MegaBattle, in how things were executed not so much in things that happened. Firstly with the double Ambush asset. In 6th edition, wounds are put to the model not the unit. Therefore a unit of 100 models that comes on the table, if you are hitting it with two Ambushes, each model should have two shots put on it, not the unit having 200 shots put on the unit. I argued this point at the game and was overruled, but I still think this was applied incorrectly.
At first when I heard about this I was a little curious, horrified and I admit I giggled a little at the silliness of how effective one (or two) assets could be. What struck me the most was how it was handled. While it's always fun to troll people, making someone place all 100 first, without telling them what is about to happen can be a little less than gentlemanly. You know, so you can decide to not place everything just to pull it all off again.
The next, on to the rules idea. It seemed odd to me about how it was executed in terms of simultaneous shooting. I guess since they were both declared they both happened simultaneously?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but let me run through the events as far as I understand it:
1. Orks walked on to the field via flank march asset
2. Ambush was declared by 2 different order players
3. 200 dice were rolled against the unit
4. 95 orks died and were removed from the table
Things that leap out to me that need clarification (far more than power axes vs. power swords)
-6th edition dictates that you must roll against the closest model. Where does the shooting of the ambush come from?
-If it comes from anywhere, how does it interact with cover, etc.
-iirc, 6th edition rules say you remove the closest model and then keep rolling wounds until all the reachable models are killed.
Now, from the receiving angle, how do you think it could have gone differently considering how 6th edition wound allocation happened and the lack of direction of the shots?
The bigger issue is, that this shouldn't have happened in the first place. That unit was supposed to be on the table from the get go, partially protected by the sweet night provided by the Ork's Necron allies. Since most of the Necron codex was banned/then not banned, it forced our Necrons to revamp their list and drastically change our tactics right before the game. In a game where the rules are already set up heavily in favor of Space Marines (yes I know that that is GW's cash cow and so I accept and understand why that is) that right before hand that rules where ripped out of the game that gave non-space marine armies a way to compete. The one turn of night fighting by the "Lords of Twilight" asset didn't really hamper the order side all that much considering all their vehicles have ways of dealing with night fighting already. Supposedly it isn't "fun" to make imperial players have to deal with night fighting, but it is apparently "fun" to have non-power armored players to set up 100 models, then to immediately take off 100 models with zero die rolls on their part. It still annoys me that I lost 1/4 of my army and I had no die rolls to do anything about it, because we had to change tactics because major abilities of our side were banned.
I know this feeling well. I can tell you that the forums on the order side were quiet on this. We found out later that some necron dude was banned. Then he was unbanned. I was unconcerned for two reasons, 1) on the moon so it didn't affect me directly 2) well... unsurprised in some ways.
It was unfortunate that this was all an issue, since for me it soured an otherwise great event. It was a great deal of fun and a lot of cool things happened. I will post some of those later, I just wanted to get this out of my system.
I hear you. Seriously. All the armies of the Imperium have some tricks and when combined with datasheets and each other become down right crazy. It's always overshadowed by the obviousness of things. I mean, on a powerscale, you don't get more obvious than a banelord or An'ggrath. Then everyone forgets about the Assault terminators, thunderwolves and other derpy units that just crush things and are from the original codecies. Never mind that titan hammer squads which... if read a certain way are absolutely ridiculous.
I mean, we played on the moon against a bunch of nid players. Now they brought some big stuff to bear, but so did we. Across 32,000 points only 1 d weapon on the table. Why was there only 1 d weapon on the table? Because we already were at an advantage based on general codex strength.
40k as a game, rules wise, is inherently unbalanced. As a thematic, story driven game it is wonderful. It requires a lot of "gentlemen's" agreements otherwise it's too easy for the boat to tip in one direction.
