Mini 40k battle report: first game of 10th Edition

I’ve gone from painting and not playing to, at least for now, doing a fun amount of both. It’s great!

On July 2nd, Shay and I kicked the tires on 10th Edition with an old-school combat patrol game: half-size map, 500 points a side (rather than the new bespoke Combat Patrol mode in 10th).

Here’s how this one went:

Blood Angels return to their waiting voidship, ready to be anointed with sacred oils.

Battle-brother: Brother Dolos, you’ve returned victorious! How went the battle against the foul xenos?

Brother Dolos: Actually, they were Dark Angels.

Battle-brother: You do know we’re on the same side, right?

Brother Dolos: […]

Battle-brother: No doubt they had fallen to chaos. Such a tragedy! And where is our beloved chapter master, Commander Dante?

Brother Dolos: Feigns shock. You mean he’s not here? He was right behind me a moment ago, that’s so weird.

Shay fielded a squad of Deathwing Terminators led by a Captain in Terminator Armour, and two squads of bikers.

My goal was to field as many units I hadn’t tried yet as possible, so I rolled out with Commander Dante leading Squad Adamo, Assault Marines with Jump Packs; Squad Cain, Scout Snipers; Squad Dolos, Infiltrators; and the Rhino Relentless.

We got a few things wrong, notably placing two pairs of objectives that were too close together.

Despite him dying in what was essentially a skirmish of no strategic import, I was thoroughly impressed by Commander Dante. He’s more expensive than some entire squads, but his pistol, Perdition, and the Axe Mortalis both put in some serious work.

We called this game for time. It was a ton of fun, just like our previous match.

40k app thoughts

I tried using just the app for this game — no hard copy reference material at all. While it was great for building my list, it’s pretty bad for referencing most units during play since it doesn’t truncate their options down to the actual wargear you selected. Every weapon profile appears on the unit, and that can lead to a lot of scrolling back and forth.

The rules reference is pretty solid, although finding one specific thing can be a challenge. About half the time I looked something up, it would have been much faster to be flipping through a book.

Since BattleScribe looks like it’s never going to update to 10th Edition, I need to find a way to solve these two issues for my next 40k game. I might print out and coil-bind the free core rules, print this awesome quick reference from Reddit, and then print out my datasheets and annotate them with my wargear choices.

Given the current state of the 40k app, the availability of free datasheets and points, and the simplicity of list building now that unit sizes are fixed and wargear options are simplified, I wouldn’t pay a subscription fee for the app as it stands now. If they address how army lists work as a play reference, I’d consider it depending on the pricing.