Easter Update, SAGA and some 40K

Hey guys, Peakwargamer Aaron here and here’s an update for the blog, which admittedly I have been rather neglecting thus far. Since my last blog I have had plenty of games, entered into a painting competition and started collecting for SAGA (basically Vikings vs Saxons).

Mostly I have been playing X-Wing and Antares these last 2 months, in X-Wing I have been playing plenty of varied lists with great success, from flying 3 Aces to the Falcon with a mini swarm for support. As for Antares, I discovered a common trait that is responsible for my many losses in that any 40K, I have chosen what I consider to be the coolest army, which currently needs the most effort to win a decent sized game. If I haven’t mentioned already I am devote follower of Chaos in 40K.

A quick introduction to SAGA, I got introduced to this at my local gaming club and it is set in the times when Vikings were invading England. The starting factions are Vikings, Anglo Danish, Normans and Welsh. The ruleset is incredibly simple and still allows for a great number of tactics in the game. I’ll leave you guys to read into this further elsewhere on the internet until I have gotten some games in with this. If you need getting into the mood for the setting, I highly recommend reading/watching The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell.

I have spoken a fair bit about new games that I have recently come into, but how about the game that brought me into the hobby? That’s right, Warhammer 40K. I currently own roughly 7’000pts of Chaos Space Marines and 2’800pts of Chaos Daemons, I don’t get many games in currently, but I figured for this blog I would start posting my own tactical advice for Chaos Marines, given I have more experience here than anything else I’m currently talking about.

I’ll get started with the Chaos Sorcerer

Despite playing Chaos, a codex that is full of random tables, I prefer to know what weapons I’m taking to the battlefield. As a result, I often take a shooty Sorcerer, as you can guarantee that the Sorcerer will get 2 Witchfire powers if you choose Biomany and Telepathy, as you get to swap to Primaris if you don’t like your result. It’s up to you what happens with the third power. To add to the Sorcerers firepower, I add the Burning Brand of Skalathrax on top. Now you have a Sorcerer that burns everything around it.

So now he/she can put out some damage, what about keeping him alive? Well given that the options above work best between 12”-18”, this is a rather important factor. Usually you’ll see Terminator Armour, a Bike or even a Disc of Tzeentch. But how about the humble Rhino? This thing can move fast, shoot, transport a 9 man squad (the sorcerer is staying inside) and protect the guy that’s shooting out of the firing point. The Sorcerer will be immune to S4 weapons for 35pts, I’d say that’s quite a good deal considering everything else the Rhino does for you.

As for the other upgrades, the Spell Familiar is a must. Now regarding the Invulnerable Save, I don’t think you should bother purchasing one. Think about it, you zoom up the board alongside a couple other rhinos, start shooting, pop some smoke when you start receiving lots of fire and eventually the rhino goes BOOM! When this happens, those Lascannons & Meltas will move onwards to the other armoured targets and you’ll get shot to death by the standard firearms, e.g. Boltguns. Even when this happens, I’d expect to have a nearby squad of Chaos Marines to move and join the Sorcerer to add wounds. 

So think about it, maybe this will be different in your meta, but will you need to pour points into an invulnerable save that you may not even roll?