Rants and Raves: Online Conduct

I have been busy painting this week and haven't payed any games so this post is a bit of a rant about how we conduct ourselves in public forums.

Now this article comes with a disclaimer: most people are courteous and respectful in forums. If this is you, thank you! You are promoting a feeling of welcome within out hobby. I for one really appreciate it.

The first conduct issue is complaining. I get it. We all get those moments where we are frustrated and just want to get it out. The thing about doing this in a public forum is that it doesn't contribute anything to the hobby or community. In general I don't think it inspires people to interact with your post either, which is the reason forums exist. So instead of saying "GW doesn't care about the average consumer" "this new codex sucks" "this new unit is overpriced", turn that statement into a discussion and get the community engaged. "I think this. What do you guys think?" is a great way to turn it into a discussion and maybe it can help you to see a different way of looking at things.

The second conduct issue is bashing. This ties in directly to the first conduct issue. I see this all the time. A great thread with wonderful discussion suddenly turns sour when someone who disagrees with an opinion starts bashing someone else's character. Words like "idiot" "stupid" and "moron" inevitably turn up once the thread has gone the way of bashing. It's okay for us all to have differing opinions. We don't need to change anyone's opinion and we certainly don't need to take it as a personal attack if someone doesn't share our same way of thinking. So how do we deal with our emotions if we feel this need to defend our opinions? You can try saying things like "I see where you are coming from, I just have a different opinion," or state your opinion and walk away from the keyboard. How do you deal with someone who is bashing you? Well, this one is a bit tougher. You certainly don't want to bash them back, but sometimes you want to make sure he/she knows that his/her conduct is not acceptable. I would say if this is the case and saying nothing isn't your style then just be direct and honest while being respectful. "That kind of language/attack on my character isn't necessary", it's really just that simple. I have seen entire threads salvaged from the point of almost being completely lost just by saying that kind of thing. In most cases it is enough to snap a usually reasonable but now emotional person back to reality. This doesn't work in all cases, but if doesn't then you know you are dealing with a troll and perhaps a moderator is needed.

The last conduct issue is close to my heart: inclusive language and content. "This fan created picture of a busty female commisar in a g string is AWESOME!" Right click and save that bad boy and share it with your friends who will appreciate it. It honestly does not belong in a public forum where an already alienated female population is struggling to be taken seriously. If you do post something like that and people call you out for being insensitive it is NEVER okay to call them derogatory terms associated with their sexual orientation, gender, or moral ethics. The question I hear most often is "why don't women play 40k?" and this to me is one of two major reasons why. If you want a more diverse gaming community you have to conduct yourself in an inclusive manner that is sensitive to all members of society.

If we follow these suggestions we will make online forums friendlier and make more people feel safe while interacting with the community. More people contributing to the discussion means more content and a stronger hobby scene.

Why Chaos Space Marines Appeal To Me

This blog entry is in response to this video here that "theWarhammerLady" on youtube posted about a year and a half ago. Now this video is basically her response to the question "do women look at Warhammer in a different way than men?"

We women do usually look at the hobby differently, since we come from different places and have different experiences in life. I think that even among the female gamers, the outlook is very different; just look at how we all choose our armies. WarhammerLady chose Orks because the fluff appealed to her first. Other female vloggers have chosen certain armies because of how they look. This is a post about how I, as a woman, came to choose Chaos Space Marines.

When I first started dating my husband, he told me about Warhammer 40K and I knew I had to try it. I grew up with board games and Risk, and I loved strategy video games. If you could wear out a bluray, my copy of Civilization Revolution for PS3 would have been bought three times over. Since he had almost every army out there, we did a demo game. I played Tyranids I believe, and while he let me win(of course) I knew that was not the army for me. I thought the army looked really awesome but I couldn't handle moving a million models at the beginning of every one of my turns. I also played Eldar, Necrons and Orks, and again these armies all looked great but they just were not the right fit for how I wanted to play the game.

Loyalist marines were also out. I just really can't play "the good guys". I knew that my army, whichever one I settled on, would be very nasty. Also I knew I needed an army that could shoot and assault. I love the assault but as a fan of first person shooters I love guns too. So after all was considered, I decided to give Chaos Space Marines a try. I loved their game play. They were fast paced and allowed me to run up and force the action. I then got a copy of "Blood Gorgons" from the Black Library and I was fully hooked. The fluff made me just as excited as the game play, so I knew it was the right fit.

The rest, as they say, is history.

I am focusing on my CSM currently, but I am thinking about a second and third army. I want Chaos Daemons because I love the Dark Gods, and I want a Necron army because of my love of the Terminator movies and science fiction. But these are things to cover next year.

Army List Option #2: Dark Apostle

So having another game under my belt made me tweak my list a bit. Here it is, 1750 points.

Dark Apostle
    -Burning Brand of Skalathrax
    -Veterans of the Long War

20 cultists

5 Chaos Space Marines
    -1 plasma gun
    -rhino with havoc launcher

5 Chaos Space Marines
    -1 plasma gun
    -rhino with havoc launcher

5 Chaos Space Marines
    -1 plasma gun
    -rhino

Daemon Prince of Slaanesh
    -wings
    -power armour
    -black mace

Defiler

Heldrake with Baleflamer

Heldrake with Baleflamer

3 Chaos Spawn
    -Mark of Nurgle

Aegis Defense Line
    -Icarus Lascannon

Chaos Predator
    -Twin Linked Lascannon
    -2 Heavy Bolsters
    -Havoc Launchers
    -Warpflame Gargoyles

The Dark Apostle is going in the Aegis Defence Line with the cultists and the Predator will be behind them.

What do you guys think of this setup?

Chaos Space Marines vs Iron Hands 1750 pts

There's a whole lot of proxy going on. As we are trying to determine what to bring to the tournament, my opponent and I have decided to proxy in things we don't have yet. If you don't like  proxy and you don't like unpainted armies, then I'm sorry, but this is going to happen anyway.

You can find my Chaos Space Marine List here.

Iron Hands 1750 points:

HQ - Chapter Master, with Artificer Armour, Shield Eternal, Bike, Burning Blade
TROOPS - One unit of 8 Bikers, 1 Meltagun, 1 Flamer, Attack Bike with Multimelta
TROOPS - Two Tactical Squads of 10 marines with 1 Missile Launcher, 1 Meltagun all inside a rhino
TROOPS-  One unit of 10 Scouts with 9 Sniper Rifles and 1 Missile Launcher
FAST - Two Storm Talons, One with Typhoon Missile Launcher, and one with Skyhammer
HEAVY - Stalker
HEAVY - Thunderfire Cannon
HEAVY - Centurion Devastators with Grav Cannons and Grav Amp

Mission: The Relic
Deployment: Dawn of War

Warlord Traits:
Iron Hands: Strategic Genius
Chaos Space Marines: Flames of Spite

Iron Hands deploy first and I was not able to steal the initiative.

Iron Hands Tech Marine attached to Thunderfire Cannon Bolsters Defenses on the Ruins that held the Scout Unit. Chaos Space Marine Warpsmith uses Shatter Defenses to bring it back down to 4+ cover save.

Iron Hands Deployment

Chaos Space Marines Deployment

Turn one saw me lose my cultist meat shield that was protecting the rhino that held my HQ, and a wound caused to one of my spawn (thanks to the thunderfire cannon). That gives first blood to Iron Hands. One of my rhinos lost a hull point, I lost one Havok with an Autocannon(Being proxied by Chosen).

My Havocs tooks out two bikes. My defiler only got one.

Iron Hands rolls reserves and one Storm Talon enters the field.

Turn two and my Daemon Prince is taken out by the combined efforts of the centurions, Stalker, Storm Talon, and Scouts. The bike squad destroys a rhino, and wounds one more spawn which the Thunderfire Cannon finishes off. The Cannon also takes out my Havoc Champion.

I roll reserves and one of my heldrakes enters the board.

My heldrake destroys the storm talon and takes out 7 of the 10 scouts. My two havocs left in the Aegis defense line take out one more bike, with my Warpsmith in the rhino getting two more. My defiler takes out an entire unit of tactical marines that were hiding in a crater. My Chaos Spawn runs into the bike squad, And does no wounds but is promptly killed by the Chapter Master.

I'm just going to skip ahead a bit here. The bike unit finished off my Warpsmith with CSM bodyguards. This gave Iron Hands Slay the Warlord. Turn three saw a lot of units die at the hands of the stalker, and turn four is when the magic happened. Both sides rushed rhinos with five troops into each other's deployment zone effectively ensuring that linebreaker wouldn't be the points that decided the winner. Both sides let out their troops to try and make a run for the relic. My cultists started walking towards the relic in turn three and continued with this in turn four. My two units made a run in turn four instead of shooting. This brought the cultists to the bottom of the temple, and a dismal 1 on the CSM run meant they pretty much stayed where they were. I rolled my rhino right up in the way of the Iron Hands bikes to ensure my marines an extra turn to grab the relic.

Turn five left the loyalist and chaos marines shooting it out in a last ditch effort to stop the other from stealing the relic. While neither side was very successful due to the lack of line of sight, the Defiler shot the Battlecannon in hopes of clearing out those loyalist space marines. It hit dropping that unit down to one model. The game ended on turn 5, and this is an aerial view of the relic (which is the green cthulhu) at the end.

So my final thoughts. I really do think putting small units in Rhinos is the way to go. How could I have done better? Easy, put that Aegis Defense line in my deployment zone and deploy the Havocs in it right away so they could start pumping out the firepower in round one. This was a HUGE mistake on my part; one which I realized after the end of turn one. Also, I will take more plasma weapons next time as those Centurions and Chapter Master mean business. This was my first time playing them and they lived up to what I had read. All in all, it was a pretty close game and I learned a lot about what works in my list and what doesn't. Now I can take this knowledge and be better for the rematch.

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Army List Option 1 - Chaos Marines in Rhinos

So here it is: the 1750 point list to see how my marines fare in Rhinos.

HQ-Warpsmith
      -Burning Brand of Skalathrax
      -Aura of Dark Glory

HQ-Daemon Prince of Nurgle
     -Wings
     -Power Armour
     -Black Mace

TROOPS-3 units of 5 Chaos Marines each
              -Close Combat Weapons
              -in Rhinos
              -with Dirge Casters

TROOPS-2 units of 10 Chaos Cultists each

HEAVY-5 Havocs
           -3 Auto cannons
           -1 Lascannon
           -Combi-bolter(asp. Champ)

HEAVY-Defiler

FAST-2 Heldrakes
        -Baleflamers

FAST-3 Chaos Spawn
        -mark of Nurgle

FORTIFICATION-Aegis Defence Line
                           -Icarus Lascannon

Now let me explain a bit here, this list plays "MSU" style (multiple small units). I have purposely kept my troops in small numbers. The theory is this, in the current Meta where shooting is so heavy, that by splitting them into multiple targets you get a few more rounds out of the suckers. By placing them in rhinos I'm hoping to get them at least into round two. If I get them into round two I will be happy. If they get to round three I will be laughing maniacally.

The Warpsmith will be in a rhino, and able to fire dual flamey overwatch if the rhino doesn't make it.

The Havocs will be in the Aegis Defence Line, the Icarus Lascannon being manned by the champion.

So out of the people I have showed this list to, 50% think its great and the other 50% don't. I have played a similar list before to good results, but what do you guys think? Feel free to comment below.

Public Service Announcement: Nerd Rage

I wanted to take a moment to talk about, what we in the hobby affectionately call, "Nerd Rage" and what it is doing to the community.

We have all been there, GW is raising prices, our favourite codex was rewritten horribly (hello, Adeptus Sorotitas), "OMG THE SCREAMER-STAR!", etc. We get upset. We are all humans, it is bound to happen. But nerd rage is a completely different beast. That is where we go online to the forums, or to our game group and we decide to vent. This venting soon turns to name calling and down right overwhelming negativity. Heaven forbid someone disagrees with our opinion while in rage mode. That's when the inner troll comes out.

Now this is something that has to stop. It's poisoning our community. It ruins the atmosphere of our online forums and it makes people really step back from you and the point you are trying to make. Now I love a good discussion about controversial things, but it has to be a discussion and not a flame war. You need to encourage people to join in the dialogue. That's how the hobby grows and gets better.

And here is the biggest thing for me: what are you actively doing to deal with the things that enrage you? Models are too expensive?  Do you still buy them? If you do, you are proving to GW that their prices are reasonable. Is a broken codex grinding your gears? Maybe house rules are the way to go or return to fifth edition(which also saves you money since you don't have to buy new items). You don't like broken combinations? I would suggest talking to your opponent. Maybe both parties can agree to not use certain units.

It is up to us to create a warm and friendly gaming atmosphere for everyone. We need to encourage civilized discussion. If you are looking for a safe online community in order to discuss and share your love of warhammer 40k I suggest:

www.thewarmaster.com

I am an active member and we would love to have you join us.

My Most Feared Unit to Play Against

So, I'm listening to my favourite youtube content creator the other day, Fritz40K. I was watching this video in particular:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW45ouQ9bWE

and while he raises a good point about the small blast templates being way less effect then their larger counterparts, it did made me think about the Thunderfire Cannon.

As of late I have been playing against a lot of marine lists. In every single list there is at least one Thunderfire Cannon (sometimes two). This particular unit just devastates my front lines. I usually play 1000 points which I laden with tonnes of cheapies (yay! cultists!). But the Thunderfire cannon is tailor made to kill my poor zealots. I don't cry about it though because that's what my cultists are there for, right? Soak up all that barrage for hopefully two rounds to keep that thing from destroying my more expensive and powerful units before they get a chance to do anything.

So here is the thing, as I go up into the higher points in preparation for the tournament do I get rid of some of my cultists in order to take more chaos space marines in rhinos? Or should I just keep my cultist blobs? I'm going to write two lists in the next couple of days to test out each scenario, and then hopefully play them out against some Imperial Fists or Iron Hands. Do you think the Thunderfire Cannon is overrated? Do you think I'm completely off the mark? Feel free to comment and tell me your thoughts, I would love to hear what you have to say.

Attack-X Warhammer Tournament and Thoughts on List Building

So here is the link for the tournament I am working so hard to prepare for:

http://www.attack-x.com/

Guaranteed, I will be the greenest player there. But that's okay, because I'm not really going just to win. I'm not a WAAC player. I'm not a narrative player either. I'm somewhere in the middle.  So why go to this tournament in the first place? Well, to prove to myself that I can do it and hopefully to make some new friends. My small town doesn't have a lot of players, and in fact, I play the same person over and over. It will be nice to see some different playing styles, and also to experience a WAAC player with an OP army.

So then, I was thinking: should I play the flying circus (For those of you who are new to this whole 40k thing, that's daemon prince and helldrake list spam)? My ultimate decision was No. That wouldn't be fun for me at all. Making my own lists is half the fun. I don't want to play someone else's idea. I want to find the synergy within my army.

Also, screw the Meta: assault isn't dead. It is my favourite part of the game so I want a list that focuses on that.

Welcome

Hello, and welcome to the Play 40k Like a Girl Blog.

My name is Tanya, and I play 40k(specifically Chaos Space Marines). I'm a relative new comer to the hobby. I have only been collecting for about 18 months and I have about 13 games under my belt. I am the first to admit that I am no expert, and because of that I belong to a few forums, I follow some bloggers, and I frequent batreps and tactics banter videos on YouTube.

Sadly, I feel like women do not participate in many of these discussions. It really is a shame since we have so much to offer. That leads me here today, to this very first blog post. I want to show other women that you CAN think tactically, and you are welcome in the hobby.

I do paint, but I feel like the women we do hear from in regards to 40k have the painting aspect covered. I will share my painting from time to time but in general I want this blog to cover tactics, rumors, batreps, content showcases from other bloggers, etc.

My short term goal for this blog is to follow me as I prepare for my first tournament. You will see me tweak my 1850 point list and sweat to paint my army in time. You can also read my batreps as I try to out match my opponents while learning all the rules of the game.

So, join me as I show the world what it means to play (40k) like a girl.