I’ve recently become a fan of the universe and am wanting to get into the books. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions where I could get the most access to audio book and how I should go about the series’s (40k first vs 30k(Horus Heresy)). I’ve looked into audible but wanting to see if anyone has any better recommendations

LA - XVI: Sons of Horus - [3000Pts]

Allegiance: Traitor
XVI: Sons of Horus
Rite of War: The Long March

HQ [349Pts]

Centurion [110Pts]: (Chaplain) Master craft one weapon to represent a Crozius Arcanum, Chaplain, Power Weapon (Power Maul)

Centurion [82Pts]: Herald, Boarding Shield, Chainsword (Chainsword), Legion Standard

Praetor [152Pts]: Warlord, True Son, Boarding Shield, Paragon Blade, Astartes Shotgun

Elites [485Pts]

Contemptor Dreadnought [180Pts]: Gravis Power Fist with in-built ranged weapon, Gravis Melta Cannon, Combi-Bolter

Reaver Attack Squad [305Pts]:
• 1x Reaver Chieftain +Meltabombs, +Artificer Armour
• 1x Reaver +Legion Vexilla
• 2x Reaver + Meltagun
• 6x Reavers

Troops [1321Pts]

Despoiler Squad [275Pts]:
• 1x Legion Despoiler Sergeant: Hand Flamer, Power Axe, Artificer Armour
• 1x Despoiler: Hand Flamer, Power Axe, Legion Vexilla
• 3x Despoiler: Hand Flamer, Power Axe
• 15x Despoilers

Tactical Squad [213Pts]:
• 1x Legion Tactical Sergeant: Power Fist, Artificer Armour
• 13x Legionary: Chain Bayonet
• 1x Legionary: Chain Bayonet, Legion Vexilla

Tactical Squad [213Pts]:
• 1x Legion Tactical Sergeant: Power Fist, Artificer Armour
• 13x Legionary: Chain Bayonet
• 1x Legionary: Chain Bayonet, Legion Vexilla

Tactical Support Squad [165Pts]: Volkite Charger
• 1x Legion Tactical Support Sergeant: Artificer Armour
• 8x Legionary
• 1x Legionary: Augury Scanner

Terminator Cataphractii Squad [460Pts]:
• 1x Cataphractii Sergeant : Chainfist, Magna Combi-Weapon - Meltagun
• 2x Cataphractii: Power Fist, Magna Combi-Weapon - Meltagun
• 3x Cataphractii: Lightning Claw, Combi-Bolter
• 1x Cataphractii w/Heavy Weapon (1 in 5): Plasma Blaster, Chainfist
• 1x Cataphractii w/Heavy Weapon (1 in 5): Heavy Flamer, Lightning Claw
• 2x Cataphractii w/Lightning Claws: Pair of Lightning Claws

Heavy Support [845Pts]

Deredeo Dreadnought Talon [225Pts]: Hellfire Plasma Cannonade, Twin-linked Heavy Bolter, Aiolos Missile Launcher

Land Raider Proteus Carrier [220Pts]

Land Raider Spartan [400Pts]: Flare Shield

Hey everyone, welcome to my third tactica!

It’s been a while since I posted one of these, and this one is going to be a detailed deep dive of the unbreakable Phalanx Warders (specifically in stone gauntlet). 

“Knowledge is power.” 

The aim of these tacticas is to help both beginners and seasoned veterans through a discussion of the unit’s abilities, rules, strengths and weaknesses and counterplay, to overall reduce frustration and increase gameplay enjoyment. If you are experienced, there are definitely some parts it might seem like I’m stating the obvious, so feel free to skip any of the parts. 

Disclaimer: this is not a tactica on The Stone Gauntlet Rite of War, but if you read my other 2 tacticas, I have a tendency to go on tangents, so general tactics might end up slipping in. There is too much variation in list building to talk about the RoW so we will try focusing on the Warders themselves. 

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of 100 battles.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War. 

To prepare for this tactica, I convinced my friends to drag through 5x 3k point games (mixture of rulebook core and supplement core missions) with me piloting the Stone Gauntlet. Prior to deciding to write this, I’ve played 2 games vs Stone gauntlet and brought it 3 times, so total experience would be 10 games. (Yes, they are still friends with me :P)

The outcome of the games were interesting to say the least. I will talk more about my thoughts in the conclusion segment at the bottom. 

So without further ado. 

Phalanx Warders (Fast Attack, Troops in Stone Gauntlet RoW)

Summary: A tanky brick of a unit that sits on an objective and stands stalwart against all traditional forms of firepower. 

(Also known as a pain in the ass)

Goal: 

1. Move onto an objective, stand in formation and slowly grind the enemy down with above average shooting. 
2. Charge units that will lose a fight vs them, and prepare to tank charges from tasty opposing melee units. 

How does everything work?

Phalanx Warders base are pretty unimpressive - it’s a breacher stat block with a power axe that lives in fast attack for some reason. 225 points for 10, and they have options to take some different options per 5 models. 

They have 2 unique special rules: 

• Lock Step: +1 WS for the unit if they are charged. Applies to attached characters even if they don’t have the Lock Step rule. 
• Shield Wall: If a model is within base contact of 2 other models in the unit that have boarding shields, get +1 to their invulnerable save (to a max of 3+). Independent characters with boarding shields also get this bonus if there are at least 3 models with this rule in the unit. 
• Essentially This will put your phalanx Warders at a 4+ invul save if you cram them together. Your praetors will go to a 3+ invul save if you take a boarding shield, giving you an alternative to taking a storm shield. 

Breachers are already probably one of the hardest to use troops out of the big 4 as they are expensive, slow and still die to regular bolt rounds. Phalanx Warders enhanced the invulnerable save and are a little bit chunkier in melee, but lose line, still dying to bolt rounds that will go onto their 3+ armour. 70 points more. 

Now a new player might go: “Doesn’t seem that good, does it? The unit seems like a weird bodyguard unit for my Praetor that doesn’t like charging. Why does everyone hate it?”

This is when I speak the dreaded two words.

Stone. Gauntlet.

You won’t see Phalanx Warders much outside of the Stone Gauntlet Rite of War. And here is where the downward spiral begins.

• Stone Gauntlet makes Phalanx Warders troops and gives them Line. Ok, we now have an upgraded breacher unit that can take rhinos, cool.
• They have to be taken as compulsory troops - Ok, I was going to use them anyway.
• Units with Boarding shields can reroll their invulnerable save against shooting or fight sub phase attacks as long as they are within unit coherency of at least 2 other models that fit this criteria, and if they have not run, charged, sweeping advanced (in current turn) or is falling back. Wait what?
• Phalanx Warders are going to be in base contact with each other most of the time to utilise the Shield Wall special rule. So they will likely always be able to reroll their saves. 4+ save with a reroll will save against 75% of wounds, which is in between 3+ save (66%) and 2+ save (83.3%). The issue is, we are talking about an invulnerable save, the latter two are normally armour saves, which can be mitigated. There is nothing stopping ¾ of your shots pinging off the shield wall. Having 2 chances of rolling saves reduces the chance of luck screwing with you, which is often why rerolls often feel better than just 2+, because we’ve all rolled a bunch of ones before. The conditions for the rerollable save being lost are fairly silly. As a heavy unit, Warders can’t run. If you are doing a sweeping advance, the combat is likely already finished, which means we are really just looking at explosion wounds from stuff dying later. Falling back from morale mostly happens at the end of shooting, so unless they failed to regroup on their turn, this isn’t really a thing.Charging is probably the big one, and I will get to that in detail later in the counterplay aspect. 
• They get Heart of the Legion - we should all be familiar with this rule. +1 or 6+ fnp next if objectives. 
• This is where things start to become really scary, because Warders with an Apothecary on an objective can potentially block 87.5% of incoming damage. It’s a little bit less than 2+ armour and 5+ fnp, which comes to 88.9% saved damage, but once again the 2+ armour and fnp can both be ignored.  
• Oh and Boarding shield units get Hammer of Wrath (1) when they declare a charge, as long as they are within coherency of 2 buddies. 

What you are looking at is one of the, if not the, most difficult to get rid of line units in the game. (Medusan Immortals are also really hard to dig out vs shooting, but tend to crumple to longer melee combats).

The issue is, HH (and midhammer) weapons are typically either a large number of weaker shots, or high str/ap. Not both. You need lots of shots to cut through the save, but you need high str to ignore the potential FnP. Melee attacks can have both, but you hit much less reliably, and getting there is a challenge in itself. 

From Boltgun Shell to Turbo Laser Destructor, the shield wall will endure.

Or will it? Don’t worry, there will be a maths segment and a counterplay segment, but first, let me go on a detour on psychology. 

Why is this unit so controversial/widely hated?

I speak only for myself, but I find great joy when my guns or swords rip into the enemy lines, miniatures falling from both sides as the casualties mount up. Everyone loves a back and forwards close game. 

Phalanx Warders are a huge, boring shield wall that stands in front of you, not doing a lot of damage but stopping you from achieving your goals. It feels like shit to have your attacks all bounce off as your opponent rolls 3 sets of saves. 

Units that are a big brick of stats are often hated because they have a high skill floor, meaning that it puts all of the responsibility of dealing with it on the opponent, and not the player piloting the unit. 

To quote a fellow 30k sub user on a post I made a month back: “Stone Gauntlet is really strong enough that even the dullest player doesn’t need advice on tactics because the strengths of Stone Gauntlet + Warders are so good you can really just take what you want. It’s a flat buff to list building, not tactical flexibility on the game board.” 

So I guess we are screwed, let’s pack up our armies and go home. 

Unfortunately, I am also a Iron Warriors player, so I am obliged to put down my minis and stick it to those boys in yellow. I’ve yapped on about how strong Warders are for long enough, let’s look at their weaknesses. 

Weaknesses 

1. Slow - Phalanx Warders are really reliant on transports to move them around the board, as they cannot run and have a tendency to get clogged up by terrain. Unlike other melee units, they don’t actually always want to charge due to losing the rerollable save and being base WS 4 (Yes, Fafnir Rann exists, but he might not be in every game). Melee units generate a lot of movement by springboarding off charges, pile in and consolidation, which are movement options sometimes Warders may not want to access. 
2. Expensive - a no upgrade Warder Squad with a rhino costs 260 points. You can get 26 tactical marines with that, and as we mentioned, base Warders aren’t very good without the stacking bonuses and upgrades. A lot of the configurations I run sit at around 300-350 points, which is a big investment as you can get a pretty punchy ws5 terminator squad with that. 
3. Low damage output - for a 225 point unit, your damage output at base is 20 bolt shots and 11 ws4 power axe attacks. This can be mitigated with upgrades somewhat, but those cost points. They are very tanky, but they can’t dish it out. 
4. Phalanx Formation - in order to benefit from the rerollable 4+ invul save, Warders basically have to be in a clump, and cannot spread out. This makes them uniquely very vulnerable to blast templates, something I will talk in more detail about in the counterplay segment. 
5. Charge or not charge dilemma - Warders lose a lot of rules when they charge, but their shooting damage output isn’t the highest. With Horus Heresy objective rules, as long as a denial unit is also within range of the objective, you don’t control it until you push that opposing unit off it (mostly through killing). Warders can get put into an awkward position where they are trading blows with another enemy unit and nobody wants to charge, which is when the high point cost of Warders bites them in the butt. 
6. Leadership - Warders are slightly braver than marines at ld8 base, 9 with sergeant, but they do not have other rules that protect them from sweeping advance or getting ruined by fear. In fact, the fact Warders have to clump together makes them more easily affected by fear. Trust me, nothing worse than having a 300+ point unit running on you. 
7. Half of the core rulebook missions do not have objectives to trigger Heart of the Legion, which is a blessing.  

Common Configurations

The Shield bus - 10 Phalanx Warders in a Rhino with dozer blade. 

• This is your mobile objective grabbing choice.
• Really good for contesting midfield objectives and halting your opponent’s advance.
• You can’t charge out of the rhino, but as we have talked about, Warders sometimes don’t want to charge as they lose their rerollable save. 
• You can choose to not take a rhino, in which case you will be very slow. I don’t recommend this unless you know an objective will be near or in your deployment zone. 
• For upgrades - I like to take 2 special weapons (mostly plasma guns) and a single solarite gauntlet and artificer armour with the sergeant. It makes the Warders a tiny bit scarier in shooting, and you can punch a land raider in a pinch. Apothecary if you like for maximum unkillability. 
• You can also take a land raider, but 10 phalanx warders don’t do much damage in melee if you are charging by themselves due to WS4 and having little number of attacks, unless of course you are running Fafnir Rann. If you really want to support those boarding shield characters, consider the build below. 

The “Deathstar” - 15-20 phalanx Warders + characters of your choice. 

• This is a very expensive unit that relies on grinding out combat to a halt while your Independent characters do the damage.
• Goes well with Fafnir Rann as warlord because you do want to charge with this unit to get those characters in juicy melee. 
• Thunder hammers and solarite gauntlets go well with this build. Same with buying melta bombs for the whole unit. 
• This is one of the builds where a Spartan may be justified to provide mobility and an extra layer of protection. 

The Counterplay and Maths Segment

When I uploaded my first tactica on Lascannon HSS, someone replied and asked me to do the maths on how many shots it takes to kill a squad of Phalanx Warders. 

Well here I am, and the only reason I’m doing this is because it segues into the counterplay. High school maths is where I peaked in mathematical study so I apologise for any mistakes in my calcs ahead of time. (Hopefully there are minimal) 

**Counterplay part 1: ”**Raindrops pierce the stone.” 

The biggest takeaway here is that if Phalanx Warders are going to always have a 75% or 87.5% chance to block damage, we just need to do a lot of wounds to overload the numbers in our favour.

Some units commonly we might see: 

• 20 Tactical Marines standing still. 
• Heavy Support squads with volkite culverin or heavy bolters.
• Sicarian Punishers with full heavy bolter (Including Pintle) 
• Rapier batteries with quad heavy bolter 
• Fire raptors with heavy bolters and avenger mega bolter. 
• WS5 units with lots of melee attacks - Rampagers, Lightning Claw command squads, night raptors, reavers etc.

Let's run some numbers.

• 60 Boltgun shots - 5 models killed before apothecary, 2.5 models killed with 4+ fnp. Quarter to half of a squad gone just from marine fire. 
• 10 Volkite Culverins (with cognis signum) - 8.68 wounds after the invul saves, reduced down to 4.34 with Heart and Apothecary. Rounding up to 9 extra wounds for deflagrate (since it counts unsaved wounds, which damage mitigation goes after) the total number of dead models is 10.24 without 4+ fnp (5.12 with). That’s half a squad on average, which is pretty damn good.
• 10 Heavy Bolters (with cognis signum) - 5.56 wounds, down to 2.78 with fnp. Not shabby. 
• 4 Heavy Bolters and a Punisher Gatling - 5 from the gatling and 1.78 from the heavy bolters for a total of 6.78 (3.39 with 4+ FnP) dead. Good things come in pairs, so a pair of Punishers bumps that number up to 13.56 or 6.78 dead. They then have to take a nasty pinning check. I really like this option. 
• 3 Gravis Heavy Bolter Rapiers - These only cost 120 points, and push out a very efficient 3.56 wounds without fnp, down to 1.78 with. 
• The Fire Raptor (buffed by strafing run) - The heavy bolters will do 2.59 wounds (1.3 with the apothecary) and the avenger will do an additional 1.42/0.71 for a total of around 4 or 2 wounds. 
• There will be a segment below (skip down to part 4) for an exploration of melee vs Warders. 

The issue with this form of counterplay is that the apothecary really throws a wrench in the works by providing a third 4+ roll to ignore damage. However, there are definitely options to help with that. 

This leads to the next step which is,

Counterplay part 2 - “Ork Snipers”

You know that part of the War of Armageddon where the Celestial Lions Chapter (IF Successor btw) lost all their apothecaries from ”Ork Snipers”? It almost killed off the whole chapter. 

Yeah we are going to do the same thing here. That pesky apothecary is an absolute pain with his 4+ fnp protecting those Warders left and right. 

Except, apothecaries can’t take shields themselves. At most, you are looking at 2+ armour and the fnp. 

I once again find myself at the place where I glaze sniper units, but we cannot ignore how important they are as a check for so many things people hate. Artificer armour tanking? Gone. Augury scanners ruining your deep strike army? Shoot them out. 

You don’t have to only use recon marine snipers either, seekers are a fun alternative, as are things like sniper veterans with relentless. Easily splashable in every army, even if you aren’t playing vs stone gauntlet. You only need one rend to get lucky and suddenly that phalanx warder squad is a lot more vulnerable. 

Occasionally, you can also break the base to base formations using snipers, but this is very rare and should not be relied on when playing. 

Moving on to the next point of counterplay. You know how I said in HH, weapons either have more shots or more str/ap? Turns out, there is a particular family of weapons that vs Phalanx Warders tend to do both. 

Counterplay part 3 - Big Guns Never Tire.

One of the biggest losses in modern 40k is the loss of templates. Yes, there is always the risk of that guy at the LGS that always argues one less marine under the template, but templates provide so much flavour and visual flair to the game. 

When HH2 was released, people very quickly found out that GW quietly took good AP blast template units behind a shed and broke their legs, with the Scorpius being the only one lucky enough to be on holiday. The biggest nerf came in the AP department, with the second being in the points cost, and third being heavy unit subtype. The one saving grace these blast weapons have is that they continue to have good strength. 

But wait! Didn’t we say the biggest strength of Warders is the fact they completely ignore good ap weapons? And in order to maximise their defences, they have to clump together?

Bingo.

Now Warders are heavy, so against blast templates they get to reroll their armour save. This comes to 88.9% damage mitigation. Wtf, this is higher than 4+ x3? Sugardust, you raised my hopes just to tell me this? 

Let’s talk about the Demolisher Cannon.

Vindicators are in a weird spot currently. For every single midhammer edition, they’ve been a short ranged source of s10 ap1 large blast, mostly hampered by short range and limited mobility (5e Blood Angels cracked engines aside). 

HH2 made the unique choice of making them small blast, s12, ap3, brutal 3 and rending 6+. Everyone seems to think this is a horrendous nerf because they now bounce off terminators, don’t hit as many enemies and can’t explode vehicles. 

However, this makes the unit uniquely good at ruining the day of a clump of Phalanx Warders. Ap3 ignores armour save. S12 ignores fnp. Brutal 3 per wound means that you have a ¾ chance of slipping a wound through and sending that Warder back to the box. Because of base to base contact, you can get a good amount of hits (around 6) per cannon. 

There is a chance that a player will start tanking on artificer armour sergeant, so my recommendation would be to combine running this unit with sniper options to pressure the sergeant. Even if they do tank on the Sergeant, a single roll of 1 sends them home. 

So we have a good start here, but the Demolisher Cannon is small fry compared to the power of the Typhon’s Dreadhammer Siege Cannon, which is available in plastic and can be used at even 2000 points! 

The mathhammer is a bit hard to crunch. Assuming 10 hits under the template in a direct hit vs squad of 10. Average 8.33 wounds. 

• The chances of an individual warder passing 4+ rerollable invulnerable save against 4 wounds is an unlikely 31.6%. 
• Assuming average dice, you're looking at killing around 5-6 Warders/10 per shot, but this is extremely prone to swings. 

At the end of the day, it’s much less reliable than 50 volkite shots, but has the significant potential of spiking big, which can turn a game around for you. 

You can also use stuff like volcano cannon, accelerator cannon, turbo lasers and melta cannons, which tend to kill around 2 ish models (assuming you hit 10) which really isn’t very efficient. Lot of times those are mounted on fairly more expensive superheavies. The scorpius is a cheap option, but can be swingy rolling 4+ to rend. 

Counterplay option 4 - “Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword.” 

So there is one thing that HH (and midhammer) has over modern 40k is how easy a melee combat can delete a non inexorable/stubborn/fearless squad. 

You just need to win combat … which is a bit hard vs Phalanx Warders. 

• Melee units innately like to charge to gain a variety of benefits, most commonly +1 attack, but other special rules like furious charge, rage, legion rules etc trigger on charge. Phalanx Warders punish this by making themselves ws5, which in HH2 is really scary as they make ws4 hit on 5+, immediately reducing the potential incoming damage. 
• Their damage output is rather poor due to having few attacks, but it’s still a power axe at the end of the day, which is very proficient at killing marines. An 10 man assault squad or despoiler squad crashing into them won’t do enough damage. 
• You basically need a ws5 unit that spits out a lot of attacks. Lightning claws are a good option, as are mass thunder hammers pressuring Warders with brutal 2. Because AP doesn’t matter, even the humble chainsword or chainaxe is a solid choice, though many people don’t like equipping ws5 units with chainswords since it’s a bit of a waste. As long as you win combat, you can potentially sweep, and none of the Warders’ defensive profiles work against being deleted with a sweeping advance. 
• If the Warders are not escorted by independent characters, challenging out the apothecary/sergeant can be an option to weaken Ld, reduce damage output (if they refuse) or getting rid of that FNP. 
• Dreadnoughts have the positive of brutal 3 but have little number of attacks, meaning that you often end up killing 1-2 Warders on the first turn. It does progressively get easier as you go into the second turn of combat, but there is the chance the Warders took melta bombs/solarite gauntlets, which the point about them being low damage is somewhat mitigated. Power axe only Warders however will eventually be ground down. 
• Be careful with the bigger 15-20 squads with character support, because a lot of times people will include some form of Ld protection, be it Sigismund, Chaplain or Herald. Unless you have a primarch that can pick out the character protecting the ld (or sniped them out), there’s really not a lot that can break that unit. 

If there is a case where you do not have any of the tools above, you are left with my final trick. 

Counterplay part 5 - “Gorilla Tactics” 

The Goal of Horus Heresy is to achieve the mission victory conditions while simultaneously preventing your opponent from doing the same.

The most common way this is done is by killing your opponent’s units so they cannot achieve the victory condition. The “War” in warhammer decrees this. 

But what do you do if nothing you have can reasonably kill your opponent? In my contemptor dreadnought guide, I talked about killing the line units instead, but Phalanx Warders are the line themselves. 

“Detect the intent, and move to stop the action before it happens.” 

What you need to try is preventing them from reaching objectives and fight every step of the way to make achieving their game goal difficult. 

How do we do that? 

• Cripple their transports - a rhino has the resilience of a rice cake. Easy to get rid of. A lot of times people tend to ignore them and go shoot more juicy stuff. DON’T. It is imperative the Warders do not make it to objectives early. The Spartan + huge Warder Deathstar is super expensive and really gets slowed down by losing their transport. 
• Grav and Phosphex - both create circles of difficult and dangerous terrain. Dropping Warders to movement 5 is really really useful and they can’t take their ridiculous 4+ rerollable invul vs dangerous terrain wounds in the movement phase. 
• Deploy as many objectives far away and in difficult terrain as possible. 
• Kill the supporting cast around the Warders and drop denial units on the objectives the Warders are holding, force them to push you off their points rather than you killing them. 
• Stall small units of Warders with things like dreadnoughts. Kite the big squads of Warders so they find it difficult hitting the targets they want. No matter what the size of the unit, it can only hold one objective. 
• Pinning - telepathy librarian doesn’t care for all the saves Warder have. Just make the unit sit down for a turn and they won’t be going anywhere. 

I’m of the opinion that a victory won by positioning and strategy can be just as rewarding as a dominating victory on the table. 

In conclusion

Phalanx Warders in Stone Gauntlet are no doubt an extremely powerful, playstyle defining unit choice that can be used in an effective manner fairly easily. 

They take the role of a sturdy backbone or foundation for an army, providing simple reassurance that you will be very good at holding onto an objective and start winning the game from there. 

They are resistant to most forms of shooting and aren’t very appetising to charge. Their weaknesses are low damage output and relatively low mobility. 

As the most defensively capable unit in the game, it has found itself reasonably hated and maligned as a “broken” unit choice, with some people automatically having the impression a game against Stone Gauntlet will turn into a grindy snooze fest. I fully acknowledge the unit is very frustrating to deal with, and the negative reputation Stone Gauntlet has is somewhat deserved. 

It is reassuring to see that direct unit based counterplay options do exist, though they tend to involve multiple units working in tandem. It is extremely hard to kill Phalanx Warders without the optimal weapons. Fortunately, there are a few commonly used counterplay choices that will not cripple your army against regular matchups, so putting them into your army shouldn’t be too hard. 

An important note is that Phalanx Warders will not be operating at their optimal capacity every single game. In my run of games, many games did not have objectives, meaning the Warders were operating at 4+/4+/5+. Snipers shooting out apothecaries is a common issue, and the Warders have had moments of completely being neutered by failing Ld at the wrong time. Quite a few times they were outmatched in melee by WS5 deathstars that took advantage of the Warders’ miniscule damage output. In one game they died to a large block of reavers, the other they got knocked out by Firedrakes. 

In at least ⅗ games in the recent batch of games I played, I can confidently say that the 2x10 Warders in rhinos I ran could have been replaced by 40 tactical marines and the outcome of the game would not have been different. They would have still made it onto the objective and be able to hold it. Most of the weight of those games was pulled by the supporting cast who did all the killing. 

When we do mathhammer, the numbers can seem very demoralising. Despite what average numbers suggest, the actual games you play will have you seeing all kinds of dice swings and variations. This is where theory-hammer in its core falls apart, because it always assumes optimal play and average dice. Real Warhammer games are fun because of the lack of optimisation/innate randomness, and you’ll always remember that game where your Primarch died to a bolter (or something similar) 

The Wall can be broken, and even without, you can still achieve victory. 

Personal thoughts

To finish up, a controversial opinion of mine is that Phalanx Warders provide a very important role in the game, which is to challenge people to appreciate the often overlooked tactical aspect of the game - mobility and denying movement, positioning, when to engage and when to avoid engagement etc. 

Since 2022 once this edition came out, I’ve played with a decent number of beginners, many who have continued to grow in their own hobby adventure. A close friend recently told me they only started figuring out their own game plans around 6 or 7 games in, while previously they were only reacting to what I was doing on the board, which often didn’t go well. Many beginners hear that Lascannon heavies/dreadnoughts are good and think purely by running them they will win the game, without appreciating the unspoken aspects of the game like deployment, setting up lines of fire, target prioritisation etc. 

Against an unprepared player, the Stone Gauntlet Phalanx Warders are an unscalable wall. But just like climbing Everest, it is doable with preparation, knowledge and a game plan, as well as some adaptations on the fly. 

We are really fortunate to have a game where the majority of the units we have available are viable and have some form of niche, not just being flat out outclassed numbers wise by others.

So, I hope you enjoyed this discussion, learnt something and enjoy your games in the future. 

The link to my Google drive with the other two tacticas can be found here: My tactica tidbits

If you like these, I’m very open to suggestions of new topics in the comments below. Topics I’ve considered are: 

• Whirlwind Scorpius - Artillery's last dance
• Are Vehicles really bad in this edition? 
• Building a balanced take all comers army for beginners
• The Art of Pressure - Playing the Melee vs Ranged Matchup. 
• Starting a new legion at 2000 points. Age of Darkness box vs alternatives.

Haha im not even done this is just its good angle 🫠 (gap fill/fixing and then time to NL it up)

How do chapters work in 30k I can’t find a decent explanation online on how they work within the legions? And how I can do painting schemes. I have ultramarine for the heresy.

Was debating this with some friends. They all think that the drop site massacre was much more tragic and impactful than the Istvaan III atrocity. I completely disagree. The fact that the last thing that most planet side astartes would see is their own ships raining death on them is heartbreaking. They came to crush an insurrection, not die for their loyalty to the imperium.

He swears he’s not walking the eightfold path

First official 3k army list! I wanted to dive into the chemical warfare aspect but try to make sure I have enough anti-tank, which I have no idea if it's enough for typical HH. Otherwise it's a walk forward, shoot, get into template range army!

Traitor w/ Creeping Rite

HQ

Centurion w/ Siege Breaker, Power Fist, Jump Pack (YOLOs around giving Sunder until he charges a tank to die)- 150

Cataphrat Praetor w/ Paragon Blade (Warlord, goes w/ Grave Wardens)- 150

Elites

2 x 10 Destroyer Assault w/ 20 x Hand Flamer, 2 x Power Maul, Power Scythe - 280

10 x Destroyer Assault w/ Melta Bombs - 230

Troops

3 x 14 Tac Squads w/ Hand Flamer Sarge - 426

2 x 10 Tac Squad w/ Hand Flamer Sarge - 204

10 x Grave Wardens with 5 Chain Fists - 500

Heavy

10 x Heavy Support w/ Lascannons, Aug Scan - 285

10 x Heavy Support w/ Autocannons, Aug Scan - 235

10 x Heavy Support w/ Autocannons, Aug Scan - 235

I am working on a legions imperialis army and want to ally my troops with crimson fists. Can I do this and be sort of lore accurate?

How easy would it be to convert mkVI marines into mkIV? I think I could sand the legs a little and sculpt the knee protection but the torso may be the most challenging part, due to the slight overhang of armor on the back side of the marine. I'm thinking of making a Thousand Sons, Emperor's Children or a Death Guard army and all of them use mkIV power armor a lot, DG not as much but as the other two. but some artwork do depict them using mkIV but mkIII predominantly. Also how common was mkIII armor in the TS and EC?

Finally got round to adding an apothecary to my (slolwy) painted Dark Angels Legion, he'll be joining a 20 strong squad of breachers eventually but I needed a break from painting black

So I was wondering if I could paint my veteran SGT in the dusk Raider color scheme.not the whole army just a lone veteran SGT. I figure some in the leigins would be proud and keep Thier pre heresy vokors

I sent across my list for tomorrows game and the feedback is I got back was I’m paying for two Power Daggers on the principle.

The main issue - I can’t find the original rules but I’ve always paid for the daggers for the Unit and again for the principle (it’s 5 points so really not the end of the world) as I always took it as the 25 points for daggers covered the squad members and any upgrades for the Leader were separate.

The argument I was given by another player - covered HHS squads - but they are costed individually but you do get one cost Melta Bombs for a squad.

I’m taking the power dagger regardless, but we can’t get a consensus within the group and it will come up again at some point.