Plamo: New Continent Machines Adventure (Alphamax)

I will admit to not really knowing what this was at purchase, and indeed, now. And that this article got pushed back a lot. In so far as I have been able to gather, New Continent Machines is an artist led project, a designer going by the name of Moi, featuring distinctive mecha of about half the size of a gunpla. The novelty of this is what attracted me; the art has maybe a bit of the Syd Mead about it. Its something I wouldn't find out of place in Turn-A Gundam, or the more esoteric bits of The Witch from Mercury. The Adventure is a stocky machine with a large torso, and proportionally skinny limbs. I suppose you could call it bird-like, especially in the legs. It also features a shield and gun, which gives it grunt vibes, and there's a parts-swap feature advertised in the box. I do like things that are that little bit different, while staying within genre.

 

The actual build was a similarly odd mix of fresh and old fashioned. You get several nicely laid out sprues, with minimalist but concise instructions. There are no polycaps or mixed materials in general, but what was there worked effectively, with maybe a bit of the old Revoltech about it. A definite highlight is the included stand. There are however downsides. Its entirely cast in yellow, for example. While snapfit, the parts-fit isn't great, the outward shoulder joints are fixed/decorative, and there are reasons why this style of friction joint went out of fashion. Then it hit me. No, not the kit. A realisation. While this kit definitely has its charms, the deeply-disappointing Duel Gundam does the several things better than the Adventure here, while being bigger and in a comparable price bracket. And that one's outdated by at least fifteen years. This may be a function of a price point, economies of scale, or simply the company making it. As it turns out, Alphamax has done a few mecha things on occasion, including Optimus Prime at one point, but more normally does 18-rated waifu figures. Robots and finely engineered kits does not seem to be their bread and butter, but in fairness there’s merit here. It goes together quickly and easily. But its not great for posing, liking to separate when doing so, and then you need to paint it.

Realising that I was possibly too harsh in that comparison above, I decided to treat this more like a 28mm project and paint it like a tank. You can't really expect a more boutique example to match the market leader. I took a moment to fill the gaps, before breaking out the spraypaints and weathering techniques. These are simple tools, but they worked on this kit, and I think I’m pretty good with them now. Of course, the joints did not like this. Truthfully though, I didn't feel like doing anything fancy here

I want to like this model more than I do. I respect the look, and the whole artist-led aspect. Unfortunately, it sits in an awkward place where its too ambitious for its own good. I feel it would have been better off as a fixed pose kit that cost maybe 15% less, or maybe keep the price same but scrap the stand in favour of better fundamentals. Either way, I’ve built worse, but this Moi individual may have to rethink a few things.

New Year’s Special: The Chem-Dog Unit Review

So, I’ve been playing 40K again for a while now. Not something I ever really expected to do again, if I’m honest. And, inevitably this leads me to want to write about game tactics. That’s self-indulgent, I know, but I have a blog, and its added variety. Of course, I'm not a tournament player, but I suspect you aren't either. This is more of a summary of my experiences so far than The Art of War. All things considered, its been a bit of an up and down year too. Maybe I’m just getting old, but GW’s quarterly attempts to balance the game was an adjustment for me. Its much better than their historical habit of leaving a rulebook untouched for several editions, but I did start writing this way back in July, before eventually making it a new years thing. And then a huge update happened on December the 11^th, far too late for me to fully appreciate. And most likely my comments here will be invalidated by the forthcoming codex. That’s a bummer. Anyway, I’m gonna talk a bit about each unit I’ve fielded, before summing things up with some general advice at the end. I’ve even organised it into sections alphabetically. Enjoy.

HQ and Bigwigs

Commissars: An inexpensive but otherwise unimpressive character model I’ve proxied a couple of times. Whom is 30 points and thus can do mission stuff. I call him Commissar Action-Monkey. There, that’s the tone set.

Platoon Command Squads: Two topics here, the unit itself, and the whole matter of Capital O Orders. The unit itself is an adaptable support unit, providing a selection of modest but non-trivial buffs. You can certainly do worse than use one of these to add a Medpack and some guns to a battleline unit. Orders are a big picture thing, and Platoon Command Squads are competent and inexpensive and this regard. I am however trying to find the sweet spot with respects to how many orders I need and which are worth doing when. While Orders can benefit a lot of units, you can’t just spam them, Its more of a precision tool. The best one is probably Move! Move! Move! for objectives, closely followed by Take Aim! and maybe Duty & Honour! for more objective stuff. A Master Vox and Grand Strategist combo is largely mandatory here as a key link in your chain of command, although if you have several Officers you can vary things up. Yes, I am aware of Lord Solar Horse Lord, but I’m not that into special characters. I would not be surprised if this unit was retired with the new book, but honestly its not gonna be hard to make them the Cadian equivalent or whatever.

 

Tank Commander: This one was a bit of a white elephant when I started playing, and a little beyond the resources I had or the size of battle I played. It does the Order thing, and has access to all the weapons of the other variants, and thus is most commonly seen as a Leman Russ Demolisher. This struggled with some keyword oddities which meant it couldn’t order itself, or benefit from the Born Soldier rule, until the October Dataslate revamped it. If you’re going heavy on tanks, you’re gonna need at least one of these as a force multiplier, but its a quite capable fighter by itself. Its expensive though, possibly too expensive for the 1000 point games I usually play.

 

Battleline

Cadian Shock Troops: I recently fielded this unit for the purposes of this article. Yep. Nowt wrong with them, but they lack a compelling reason to take them versus the other battleline units. Hopefully the new codex will give them some spit and polish...

Catachan Jungle Fighters: OK, a theme of several units here will be how easily a change of 10 points shift dramatically the usefulness of a unit. For the vast majority of 10th edition, these guys seem to have been popular mainly for their Scout move and resulting board control shenanigans. I concur. Their melee rule doesn't seem to do much, and otherwise these found use as the most inexpensive of the battleline options. TBH, if any Guard unit is gonna get a complete rewrite, its these guys, although GW seems to have forgotten them. Guard battleline generally doesn’t do impressive things, they are disposable light infantry by and large, whose main talent is standing on objectives. Catachans stand as well as any, and their Scout move gets them to their objective faster than the other options. There’s also decent synergies with Scout Sentinels and Chimeras. These aren’t my first choice for holding the home objective, but their mobility and low cost kept them in my lists. BUT THEN: their price went up ten points, which isn’t unreasonable, but it makes them less of gimme. Sargent Harker isn’t bad either, but I’ve not used him enough to have an opinion.

Death Korps of Krieg: I’m gonna have to build more of these, aren’t I? Anyways, I came to these loonies relatively late, and I’m inclined to call these the best overall battleline unit, something that the December dataslate largely enforced. They do suffer from that “I’m a kill team with lots of awkward options” problem, but if you want to be aggressive with your armydudes, this is the way to go as they carry the most dakka. Their ability to regenerate versus their increasing lethality as the squad looses models is a very fun dynamic, and works well with big units. Downsides? Well, they still die like guardsmen, they invite the addition of characters that put their costs up, and they are rather fiddly.
 
Infantry Squads: This is probably the unit I was most wrong about, and had to do a major rethink on. I found myself struggling to reconcile my old school view of Guard with how the rules actually work. I kinda want multiple squads of 10 arranged for defence in depth. The functions of Orders and Stratagems however reward big blobs of about 23 models, and actual play has discouraged taking too many of them. Infantry Squads also tend to be more defensive in use than the other battleline choices, as they are the only one with heavy weapons, if at the cost of reduced access to special weapons versus the Cadians or Krieg. So, yes, an Infantry Squad with a lascannon in it is going to do work and demand a (likely terminal) response from your opponent, but everything else in the squad is gonna be incidental unless you are facing comparable T3 models. I find myself most often using these squads as deployment zone objective holders, using mortars to trigger stratagems like Fields of Fire. So, not something you necessarily want to spam, but you do need a few of these in your inventory, because, well, objectives. Have one with a mortar, add a Platoon Command with a mortar & Master Vox, consider making it a double size squad in larger games. At time of writing, these currently are cheapest battleline, which makes sense, but I strongly suspect this unit will be retired in the new codex, so... we’ll see.

“Infantry” Specialists

Field Ordnance Batteries: I’ve only used the Bombast Field Gun, but it does reliable dakka. The nearby presence of an Officer is however largely mandatory, in order to trigger its Sustained Hits ability. As mentioned, there’s been substantial changes to the functions of Indirect Fire this year, which makes artillery units like this more a harassment thing than a kill button, although Guard still do artillery better than most. Telling this unit to Take Aim! maxes out the possible accuracy, adds in Sustained Hits, and presents a threat to anything likely to be hiding from your guns or parked on an objective. It won’t do much to vehicles, mind you, the heavy lascannon might be good for that, but damage 2 will help cull targets with the Feel No Pain rule. Unfortunately, my models started leaking resin, and pending new models I’ve retired the unit.
 
Heavy Weapon Squads: Definitely a bumpy ride with this one. For the most part these have suffered from being a fragile, high priority target. This is the reason why mortars are a popular choice for them, as this keeps them out of sight, but those aren’t spectacular weapons if I’m honest, especially after the changes to Indirect Fire. Their recent October price-drop made me experiment with them again, as it’s largely impossible to get more dakka for less. You either pair these with something scary to force dilemmas on your foe, or you use them as disposable blocking troops. They aren’t bad for overwatch, and its an easy way to spam lascannons, but don’t rely on these for ranged firepower. It will be interesting to see how those new Krieg versions compare.

Ogryns: These are a unit I want to like more than I do. There is an obvious appeal in a trio of beef mountains armed with automatic shotguns. But these chaps attract more attention than they can sustain. They may work better mechanised, or I just need more than 3.

Rough Riders: OK, these were the same basic experience as the Ogryns, i.e. a target. There is potential though, definitely. They are quick, have decent melee chops with lances, and actually end up as somewhat durable by guard standards. On the other hand, I’m not playing Guard to do melee. Melee is something I work around. I may come back to these, but I’m not prioritising them just now.

Tempestus Scions: A surprisingly necessary part of my forces, Scions are very useful for their deep strike rule. They are better equipped and more skilled than battleline options, but they are a precision tool. These have done solid and reliable work parachuting on to the mission objective, and are great value for 50 points. Now its 60, but that’s not bad value.

 

Vehicle Pool

Basilisk: I only started fielding one of these in November, and the initial comparison to Bombards was mixed. Basilisks do less damage overall at a higher price, but with a functionally unlimited range, the Earthshaker ability, atop a vehicle platform. Its much more of a technical/precision piece than the Bombards,as you use it slow down dangerous infantry as much as blow shit up. Its definitely worth having one along, especially in a vehicle-centric list, but I’d point to Bombards and/or Leman Russes as things you buy first. Artillery in general has a been a bit up & down with the changes to Indirect Fire, but the Basilisk is and was a classic for good reason.

Chimera: While I probably needed at least one more to get the benefit, my Chimera has proved to be reliable workhorse. Much like the Hellhound, its useful brick and HK missile caddy, with a grabbag of dakka. Its not especially durable, but its a lot more durable than the average dismount. Using one of these as a mobile bunker for a Platoon Command Squad also makes a lot of sense. Its not hard to see why the price went up. If I ever get more of these, I’d probably leave the multilasers at home in favour of two heavy bolters. This simplifies its attacks, and ties in well with the (current) Born Soldiers rule.

Hellhound: A fun modelling project that had initially struggled to find good targets in my local meta. The chassis is however sound, and there's a certain appeal to running several of these, possibly with melta weapons. Its a 2+ save brick, and you can use it to deny targets the benefits of cover. Time that right, lay a few Stratagems/Orders on, and even big nasties will suffer. Otherwise, it will happily burn things all day, acting as a de facto melee unit. It doesn’t gain much from the Born Soldiers rule if you’re gone for full arson, but that’s OK.

Leman Russ: Tanks are pretty important. Who knew? You need tanks to do the heavy killing, and take the damage. The Leman Russ is good at that sort of thing, and while obviously having the weaknesses common to tanks, the myriad variants are solid and well-priced. The vanilla russ, equipped with multimeltas, heavy stubber and HK missile, is my go-to. It benefits from Orders, but doesn’t need them. Its fairly flexible, and excels at killing foes on objective markers. There are other variants that do stuff better or cheaper, at least for now, but its hard to go wrong with this. Its self-contained in a way that a lot of guard units aren’t.

Leman Russ Demolisher: While I initially favoured the Demolisher, I find myself mainly using the basic Russ so far. The reroll-1s-sometimes-full-reroll rule the standard Russ has simply more varied applications at a lower price than the Demolisher, even if the latter is a pretty conclusive answer to most things that wander into range. And is largely unconcerned if something tries to engage it in melee. But, also counting against the Demolisher is the existence of the Tank Commander, which can have the same weapon fit.

Leman Russ Vanquisher: I gave these a go in December, and while I used them quite badly against a vehicle-lite force, I do see the use. At present, it does most things less well than the stock Russ, but its notably cheaper, and can on occasion one-shot an opposing tank. If you just need the tank to A) be there, and B) be cheap firepower, the Vanquisher is great at that. I do however still prefer the stock Russ over this, as with the Demolisher. I may very well field these in future 2000 points lists alongside their kin, but I’m holding off to see how the codex treats them. I would not be shocked if these were overhauled so they are better at their stated job, and thus cost more...

Scout Sentinel: These do an awful lot, and were a regular feature of my lists, at least until I started experimenting with the Basilisk and Heavy Weapon Squads. Its good for buffing artillery, has a lot of keyword synergies, has a Scout move, and offers good infantry support. Its not necessarily brilliant by itself, but there’s usually something for it to do if you have the points spare. Give it a lascannon and HK missile it becomes a decent tank-hunter too. Put on the chainsaw just because.

Big Picture Stuff
If you find yourself putting together a 1000 point Astra Militarum force, possibly because you have a similar selection of brain worms to myself, I’d like to suggest a few basic tips so you don’t necessarily make the same kind of mistakes I did. New mistakes, ideally.

You need something that take objectives in the midfield: Look, the mission is gonna require you moving out from your deployment zone, and inevitably, there’s gonna be a bit of a brawl in the middle of the board. You are probably not going to be as good in that brawl as your foe, unless you are playing seriously against type with Bullgryns or Rough Riders or similar. You need to have a means to claim that objective, even if its just something like “blast them off, then run some guardsmen in.”.

You need something to take objectives in the backfield: OK, you may be sensing a theme here. A significant number of missions are gonna be about taking objectives, I.e. nearly all, and the vast majority of those aren’t gonna be on your side of the table. You need something that can cross that distance with some reliability. Deep strike units are your friend here, although anything with a scout move or a good movement characteristic can help. Remember you can put things in reserve and have then come on from other board edges...

You need something to anchor your deployment zone: While there are different styles of guard army, the overall theme is one of ranged firepower. Often, this will mean a solid wedge of something to hold your deployment zone while raining death on your opposition. Just lining up guns isn’t enough though, you aren’t a T’au player with no imagination. You need redundancy and the capability to move if you need to.

You need a lot of tanks, but not exclusively tanks, because infantry do the objective things: Given that the Guard tends towards fragile light infantry, the presence of various tanks is highly desirable. These focus the attention of the enemy, physically protecting the troops on foot, and that’s something worth having a few of. Tanks however can’t really hold objectives, tend to die in close combat, and feature diminishing returns against non-vehicles. That’s why you need infantry still.

Yes, you do still need some artillery: Yes, I keep mentioning that Indirect Fire got changed. The thing is though, the Astra Militatum is about ranged combat, and an efficient way for a foe to counter that is to simply stay out of sight. Artillery is a good answer to that problem, although this may be substituted with paradropping Scions and such if you like that better.

Wow, this was a long one. Bye for now.