Apocalypse at the GR Warroom

 An apocalypse game that we played in September at the GR Warroom.  We ended up with 3 no shows/cancellations, one last minute recruite, and played a 8 man game, 4000 pts a player with one ghost player to make even teams.  The mission turned out a bit odd, combined with one team having most their army in reserve after deployment resulting in a rather sparse looking table.  Not much to add, just sharing the photos up here for interested parties that might want a picture of their army on the table.

Sometimes 40K pisses me off

Below is a post I started probably a couple years ago after a frustrating game.  I'm sharing it now just because I can laugh at it now.  Foul Language warning.

This would be my first battle report with my new phone/camera, only the game was so pathetic that there is no point writing about it.  Here are some pictures of me losing again after even more pathetic dice rolling, list building, and deployment, and bullshit space marine bullshit.

I gotta say, this is two games in a row, in which I've either brought a friendly list, or at least tried to play friendly only to have a shitty game.  Do you wanna know how fun it is to play against an all Drop Pod/Flyer reserve army?  About as fun as it is to play against 3 Riptides.. At least riptides have to follow basic rules.  The fact that Drop Pods never Mishap pisses me off to no end.  "Oh, I scattered 5" onto your unit.. OOPS, no I don't, here let me park my dreadnaught right next to your unit instead.. Tee Hee"  The fact that 5 marines that lose combat, fail their leadership, get swept, then get to just rejoin the fucking combat like nothing happened.. FUCKING pisses me off.. Why do they even roll the god damn dice if it doesn't fucking matter weather they pass or fail?  It pissed me off all the way through 5th, and it pisses me off now.

See that Vindicare on the Ruin?  He's apparently only
in my list to give my opponent first blood, since he didn't
have anything to shoot at, and is an easy kill once my opponent
shows up on the board anywhere he wants with a bunch of
Drop Pods.. Yeah.. Still not FUN. 

Notice how I get to hide my shit in a corner so I don't
have some drop pod that never fails land behind me and shitwreck
my vehicles..  To bad it doesn't matter, cuz we rolled the Relic
and I'm just sitting in this corner playing with myself while my opponent
gets to deploy his whole army on the fucking objective with his fucking
all drop pod army.  Even if I'd deployed at the edge of my zone I'd have never
got near it.

Shot a Multi-Melta, Melta, and 3 Exorcists at the nearest
drop pod trying to clear my LOS too the Relic.  Two Exorcists
had prescience on them.  Out of all that, I only managed to strip
it's hull points after 2 pens at ap1..  No explosion.

DreadKnight rolled 1's to assault the marines and failed.  Of Course.

The dreadnaught got 7 wounds on the sisters.  Celestine was up
front so I should have been fine.  She rolled 3 1's out of those 7
hits and died.  Amazing.

The Necron flyer is a Stormraven really..

The Dreadknight Assaulted 6 marines.  Sgt challenged and
Died to hammer of wrath.. They failed leadership, got swept BUT NOOO..
Space Marines don't need any rules.. So they just locked my Giant
MC into assault..

Celestine did get up on turn 3 and the sisters ran from
the now imobilized dreadnaught.. Pathetically 2 Exorcists
couldn't kill it.  The other scored 2 hits on the Stormraven
thanks to prescience.. He evaded, but I only got 1 glance
so no chance to explode..

Turn 3 the flyer which had evaded went into hover mode
(is that even legal?) disgorging his command team.  They
assaulted (again, can you assault from a flyer that evaded on your
opponents turn?) his HQ with thunder hammer and Shield Eternal
Accepted my challenge.. I scored 2 wounds, he saved one with 3+ invuln
And because of the stupid shield giving him eternal warrior didn't die
despite being doubled out, by a force weapon.. Nope.. It's all good.. He
then put 4 wounds on my Dreadknight which only has a 5++ and failed 3 having
already taken a wound and died.  End of game bottom of turn 3 because I had
no way to catch the relic, and he had first blood for killing my vindicare who never
got a shot off due to his full reserve deployment..

Overwatching with More Than One Weapon

Picture included so the thumbnail when I share elsewhere isn't me

Is absolutely supported by the rules in WH40K!

So I don't have to keep saying so, anything red (or orange) the color is added by me for emphasis. I included bold for headings from the original text, but not necessarily in the body of the text to avoid confusion, sometimes I added bold for effect, usually in red.

From the introduction page of the rulebook: (I'm not quoting page numbers as I'm referencing the mobi version and would only be pertenant if you are as well)

As you read through the rules, you will notice some of the text is bold, like this. This highlights the most important elements of the rule in question and helps bring it to your eyes when skimming a page. This should not be mistaken for representing the whole rule though, as the surrounding text often confers context and relevant exceptions. Instead, it should be used as a quick solution to finding the essence of a particular rule. If a rule is short and concise, or is in bullet points, there will rarely be any bold text as the rule is already easy to find.

I reference this to explain my comment about there not being any fluff in the rules anymore (we had a conversation at my FLGS and this references a comment I made then).  Sure there is a whole book of fluff prior to the rules section, but according to the rulebook itself, all the text in a rule entry is relevant.

Think I'm wrong?  Consider this USR entry on Melta quoted in full with applicable italics etc:

Melta
Melta weapons are short-ranged heat rays whose wrath grows as they get closer to the foe. They are much prized by troops attempting to destroy enemy tanks or fortifications, for only specially formulated armour can withstand a melta weapon’s incandescent fury.

Ranged weapons with this special rule roll an additional D6 when rolling to penetrate a vehicle’s armour at half range or less. If the weapon is more than half its maximum range away, it rolls to penetrate as normal.

If a weapon has both the Melta and Blast special rules, measure the distance to the centre of the blast marker after it has scattered. If this is half the weapon’s range or less, all hits caused by the blast marker roll an addition D6 when rolling to penetrate a vehicle’s armour. If the centre of the blast marker is more than half the weapon’s maximum range away after scatter, roll to penetrate as normal.

See the Vehicles rules for more details on armour penetration.

Now, if we disreguard the italicized portion of this USR as fluff, then melta would have no effect on buildings, as no where in the USR does it mention buildings other than that "fluff" paragraph

On to my actual point.  From the "Weapons" descriptions section 3rd page (in the mobi book):

MORE THAN ONE WEAPON
Unless otherwise stated, if a model has more than one shooting weapon, he must choose which one to shoot – he cannot fire both in the same Shooting phase... (cut out non pertinent entry on melee wpns)

As indicated during our discussion (see previous comment about said discussion), per the rulebook, if you want to maintain a strictly RAW inerpretation, then you're only limited to firing one weapon in the shooting phase, not any other phase because it specifically mentions "the shooting phase", just like Monstrous creatures, or crisis suits multi-trackers mention "the shooting phase".  I don't think that is the intent, and only mention it if you want to get hung up on the "in the shooting phase" phrasing, as RAW it doesn't then matter if the others have that phrase as the limit uses the same terminology and you could fire every weapon your're equipped with any other time you make a shooting attack anyway (overwatch, intercepter, w/e).  Not my prefered interpretation of the rules btw.

From the "shooting phase" section of the book under "select a weapon" which is the 3rd step to making a "normal" shooting attack:

First, select a weapon that one or more models in your unit are equipped with. The selected weapon cannot be one that the unit has shot with during this phase. All models in the unit that are equipped with the selected weapon can now shoot at the target unit with that weapon. If a weapon can fire in more than one mode, or can fire more than one type of ammo, select a weapon mode/ammo type – treat weapons firing different modes/ammo types as differently named weapons. If a model can shoot with more than one weapon in the same phase and it is equipped with two or more identically named weapons, it shoots with all the same named weapons when that weapon is selected.

ALSO from the shooting phase "select a weapon step":

Typically, a model can only fire a single shooting weapon in the same phase, although some models, such as vehicles or monstrous creatures, can shoot two or more. Once a model has fired its maximum number of weapons, it cannot fire again that phase.

Strictly speaking in a purely RAW context this wouldn't be true, as the Shooting phase is the only phase which has that stipulation as indicated above.  Though we know that's not the intent of that particular rule and comes back to my statement that if you replace the phrase "in the shooting phase" with "Makes a shooting attack" in all the rules, multi-tracker, monstrous creatures shooting more than one weapon, and the multiweapon rule mentioned above, then it all works out just fine in every instance without needing further clarification.  Also we could add crisis suits, broadsides (riptides are covered under monstrous creatures) to the list of models that can shoot two weapons as the multi-tracker is standard equipment on those suits and not an option anymore. 

Lastly the Entire entry on Overwatch: (remember per the rules, none of this is fluff) and none of it is even in italics unlike the so-called "fluff" portion of USR's.

RESOLVE OVERWATCH
Few warriors sit idly by when an enemy horde descends upon them, but let fly with every weapon at their command (this is the entry I was looking for and not finding in the Ipad version during our discussion). Though such shots are often inaccurate (there’s not much time to aim, and there’s something distinctly off-putting about the onset of a bellowing foe), each has a chance of felling an enemy and altering the balance of the ensuing melee before it even begins. In fact, a particularly lucky burst of Overwatch fire can rob a charge of so much momentum that it comes to a stumbling halt!
As soon as a charge has been declared against one of your units, that unit can immediately fire Overwatch at the would-be attacker – it doesn’t have to, but it’s often a good idea.
An Overwatch attack is resolved like a normal shooting attack (albeit one resolved in the enemy’s Assault phase) and uses all the normal rules for range, line of sight, cover saves AND SO ON. Unlike a normal shooting attack, Overwatch cannot cause Morale checks or Pinning tests. Any shots fired as Overwatch can only be fired as Snap Shots. Therefore, weapons and models that cannot fire Snap Shots cannot fire Overwatch.
Overwatch Restrictions
It is worth pointing out that units that are locked in close combat cannot fire Overwatch – we can assume that other events have their full attention. Also note that a unit being charged may only fire Overwatch once per turn.

Now, it's worth observing that the overwatch rule states that it's resolved like a "normal" shooting attack and uses ALL the normal rules for range, line of sight, cover saves AND SO ON.  That is it's not limited to just the mentioned rules, it uses ALL the rules.  A shooting attack which occurs in the shooting phase follows 7 steps, and the overwatch attack follows all those steps, as it is a shooting attack (albiet one resolved in the enemy's assault phase).  It still uses ALL the rules for shooting attacks.  Now when a space marine makes a shooting attack, is it resolved at BS 2 like an Ork Boyz shooting attack?  Nope.  So we must check the shooting units profile to make a shooting attack.  Does a Space Marine fire a Slugga like an Ork Boy?  Nope; so apparently what constitutes a "Normal" shooting attack is somewhat dependent on what unit is doing the shooting.  As mentioned above (in the shooting phase rules), some models fire more than one weapon, and only when they have fired their limit of weapons are they done making their shooting attack.  Since it is mentioned in the rules for making shooting attacks in the shooting phase, it is a "normal" shooting attack for those units.

That, in a nut shell, is my position.  What constitutes a normal shooting attack, as with the space marine and ork boy (actually their example, not just being facetious) is partially dependent on what unit is doing the shooting.  Any model that normally fires more than one weapon in the shooting phase, also does so in any phase when making a shooting attack.