The game system like most GW/Warhammer games needs time to learn the rules, has no set index for quick rules referal, many rules are covered throughout the book over a number of pages and you need to keep jumping from onwe page to another - a lot. Okay that was pretty much the down side.

Well the rest of the things you need to understand is GW want to sell stuff, so many of the good usefull minis are mixed with not so useful unit types, and you do not get as many as you want, so then need to buy another box. Theey offer larger army boxes, but the good units are again not in a good enough supply in them, and GW will not release just a box of missile launcher infantry, or a box of just Leviathan dreadnoughts with a choice of weapons, you get half in the yuk weapon option and half in the I want that weapon option.I myself had to turn to a local 3D printer and source some STLs in order to try and save money and get the missile launchers I needed for the army. I am now trying to source other priority units that do not come in a mixed support or heavy vehicle packs.

But once you have a few formations built with exactly the units you want in them, you can start to have some real fun. The game has a core army contingent say Astartes or Auxilia or soon to be released, Mechanicum, and these must make 70% of the armies points total. The rules also require 1 formation per 1500 points. You many have a formatoin from an allied contingent say Auxilia titan, knight or mechanicum to support the astartes. One formation for each core formation, and these may be from an different contingent. Example 2 core formations of Astartes and an auxilia formation and a titan.

The core of the army might have an alpha legion formation and an emperor's children formation, but each can only use its own legions special rules, and can not share these with other formations not of their own legion. The allied contingent if it is astartes must be from only one legion. You can even mix and match loyalist and traitor legoin formations in the core army group as some companies chose to go against their primarchs choice. Unless you take a formatoin of renown which generally is either loyalist or traitor only. If you do this, then no loyalist legions if may be taken with a renown traitor formatoin and vice versa.

I found Legoin builder APP available to use on PC and mobile phones is easy to follow and allows you to save a printable PDFs of your army. Yiou can also save a quick tick damage box sheet to keep track of casualties and break points for the formations.

The game rules and turn sequence are simplistic, with some special actions that occur out of order incurring negative modifiers for their to hit rolls, etc. The list of special rules and weapon special rules is overwhelming, and they try to put them into 2 sectoins to make it easy to follow. However you will find that your rule book has a lot of post it notes on it with catch words on them to quickly find rules and unit stats.

As to unit and formation cards, they are a help, but with some units, the rules tell you that the Kratos has 2 x of the hull mounted weapon taken, but the card does not tell you it has 2 of the weapon.
then not mixing them up with old editions of the rules such ae Epic Armageddon, or with special rules that are similar for specific legions and so on, makes for you sometimes giving the enemy a better save or benefit.

Thankfully we have a few player who are rules gurus in my local monthly group, and I would recommend joining one as they can provide support, swap minis people have in excess, give you a base of opponents to play against and gain experience.

Locally GW has not supported the Austraian and NZ markets well when it comes to resupply of much needed box sets and units. I have fallen back on some 3rd party minis which are just different enough to avoid the IP Hammer of grandma wendy, and thankfullly are in pewter, or find some STLs which are decent and where I can find someone to print them off for me. However I just found a company who seems to have bought up a massive ammount of the stock I was looking for. Where Astartes infantry box sets have not been on the Australian warhammer online store for well over a year, I found 5 packs of them in this store. And they are at discount price - WOW. I went and made a wish list.

However the really bad thing is that with every gaming system out there you can not control the roll of the dice (unless you cheat and use loaded dice - this will get you banned, you have been warned). So on the weekend, my Alpha legoin army faced a raven guard army with 5 objectives on the table. 2 points for oyur own, 7 points for the enemies, 4 each for the 3 in the middle but if you hold 2 and one is the centre on it is now 8 points. I went for the objectives, using my armour and infantry in cover to try and clear the enemy off the table. He had twice as many heavy tanlks and ground based AA, as well as aircraft. I had more infantry, and more dedicated anti- armour units.

End of turn 1, I had lost 1/3 of my tanks, most of my Sicaran Arcus (aa tanks) and all my xyphons. but I had 17 points to my opponents 2. Turn 2, I had lost my remaining sicarans (twin Autocannon) and last arcus, the opponent had lost 2 aircraft with 2 remaining. I had killed of an entire infantry detachment, one of his quad launcher dets, and one of his hyperios squadrons and 4 orf his Kratos. I had 34 points to his 4.

Turn 3 and 4, we traded shots toe for toe and slowly whittled each of our opponents forces down. But on turn 4 he took my left flank object ive in the middle. I had a tactical det with commander (lost 2 bolters), anther tactical det (lost 4 bolters), 4 predators, 4 assault marines and 7 rhinos left on the table. He had a single kratos on 1 wound, 4 predators, a tactical detachment with 3 missile launchers in it, 3 hyperios tarantulas in the middle of some woods, 4 assault marines that took the left objective. Points were 64 to 12.

We decided to call it there.

The next game although my tactics were sound the enemy had an auxilia army, and he had a lot of demolisher weapon, ignores cover weapons (flamers, cyclone missiles on heavy sentinels, thudd guns and demolisher guns in malcadors and banebledes, etc). I ended up having my infantry slowly being chipped away in cover, my aricraft were wiped out on turn 1,with 5 of my 6 arcus tanks as well. My own kratos lasted 2 turns, and the rhino tanks which I used as a cover against his targeted shots against my arcuses meant he had to take his time wiping me out. However the dice gods abandoned me and when I had to roll for 4 saves at -1 AP, dropping my save to a 3+, I rolled really badly with nothing over a 2. The same can be said for my to hit rolls, with me rolling 8 dice for frag missiles (4+) and hititng only once. My oppomnent rolled a 6 and saved his butt.

The rest of the game went that way, and I ceded the fiield at the end of turn 2. I had 3 missile launchers in 1 tact det, a commander and 4 missile launchers in another det, 5 rhinos only left on the table. He outnumbered me 6 tanks, a SH tank, 2 aircraft, 3 hyperios, 3 detachments almost completely full of core troops, and a mostly intact velatarii squad and 2 commanders.

Oh that game was fun, but my I need to sacrifice more old Epic armageddon or plastic 40K loyalists to the dice gods next time.

Maybe make a tallarn table with lots of hills, some dense rubble areas some ruined buildings lots of smale buttes and mesas scattered and some brown grassy lands to around to block line of site and make it more thematic.

I have really found that the more WAAC people tend to choose 40K, or 30K heresy (32mm), so I have found those learning can start off and collect and learn without being disheartened, while those who want a more challenging time of it, can simply weaken their army or drop the points value they take.

Plus I love the painting of the minis. They come up so sexy. I am not with some place like imgur or similar as I have dropped all pay for photo sites, so can not upload pics to link on here.

but if you look on the legions imperialis NSW facebook page you will see some of my and fellow gamers armies. Out solar auxilia player (thousand sons allied) looks brilliant.

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6mm wargaming is just like 25mm wargaming with more units fitting on the same size table. Thus bigger games to get lost in and avoid the hassles of everyday living, and offerings for the dice gods.