Playing With Myself: A 40K Solo Play and Solo Learn Experience

I made a few mistakes early on by looking at the wrong stat sheets.  I need to make it more obvious what one I’m looking at.  Perhaps add a pic of the unit somewhere?  Gluing them to card might also be nice.  I also often forgot to take the The Horror psychic ability in to account when the Grey Hunters were attacking.  The big mistake I made which I didn’t realise until 2 days later was that I completely forgot to even look at the Warlord Traits, or the Hive Fleet adaptation.  That might have changed things.

I plan on playing a game or two more at this points level to help get everything straight in my head and running smoother.  I need to either keep the Termagants back this time or swap them out for Hormagaunts, assuming they are better in melee.  Once i’m a little more comfortable I can build some 1000 point lists.

Thoughts at this time

• Tactical Marines are powerful (Or Termagants are poop?).  They have high defences and good attack.  Rolling 5+ 3 times in a row to hurt them doesn’t let much get through at all.  The Nids need something to deal with that
• The Rhino appears more useless than I thought when not acting as a transport
• I can’t roll over a 6 on Psychic tests
• Volume of attacks is a thing.  Heavy hitters that only roll 1 dice might be shiny and expensive, but then they live or die on the mercy of 1 dice
• When I rolled the scenario and 3 objectives vanished I was convinced the Tyranids had a huge unbalanced advantage.  I was sure the scenario was inherently unbalanced.  The competative player in me hated it.  How can the game be competative when it just hands a victory to one player before the game even begins?  But then I stepped back and thought about it from the viewpoint of this game not being competative and decided that it created an interesting setup and a fun challenge, so long as neither players “fun” mattered on trying to win.  This game could be enjoyed by looking for ways tocrack the tyranid nut, rather than looking for a fair shot at winning.
• Once the sides clashed and everyone was involved in melee the game really seemed to bog down.  There were no choices left to be made.  The game essentuially played itself without me and I could have been replaced with a very small shell script.  This doesn’t make for a fun experience.  Perhaps with more models on the table more options will become available, or fights will end sooner, or the melee guys will just act as a screen for my guns behind them?
• more to come perhaps?

Questions:

• How big should an objective be? Google-Fu suggests 30-40mm but no hard and fast rules.  Apparently Chapter Approved says 25mm is fine, but opinion is 40mm is best
• Can models see through and pass through an objective, or does it count as a model or terrain? – I’ve seen reference to people stood on top of objectives?  Unless I see or hear otherwise I think I’m going to play objectives as just a point in space without mass or volume for now.
• How was my terrain setup?  About right, or any comments or suggestions for more balanced and interesting games?
• If multiple models charge the same target in the same round can the target shoot the second charger, or just the first? – From Google-fu charges happen one at a time so once engaged you cannot overwatch a second charging unit
• How many ranged weapons can be used at once?  I know it says all of them, but does that include all the grenade options too?  If Bob is carrying a sniper rifle, a bolt pistol, a bolt gun, a melta bomb, a krak grenade, a frag grenade and a nuke can he really fire them all in one round? – From Google-Fu These rules are clarified elsewhere in the book.  Its All Pistols or all guns, but not both.  Once per turn one model per unit can forfeit its shoot to throw a grenade.
• The opposite appears to be true for melee.  If I am conjoined twin octopi with 16 limbs and a different blade or club in each and a bite attack, but an attack stat of 2 I can still only make 2 melee attacks and I’ll probably use the same (best) weapon twice to do so and ignore the rest.  Is this correct?
• Can any pistol also be used in melee, or just the ones that mention it on the stat profiles? – Pistols can be fired during the shoot phase by models whose units are with 1″ of enemy models.  They must be fired at the nearest enemy unit.  Nearest to itself or its unit?
• Are tanks as manoeuvrable as people, or did I miss the rules covering how much they can turn?  I assume they don’t have arcs of fire given the side guns on the predator fire together meaning they can both hit a target to its right even though the left turret would have to shoot through the body to do so
• Smite: is the D3 damage to a single model only or can it be spread over a unit? – From core rules Mortal Wounds always carry over to a new model
• Are there limits on who can control an objective? – It appears anyone can score, but different scenarios have different rules, but its usually down to model count within 3″ so lots of grunts can be good
• Is there any way to leave melee combat and still have an action, even if you take damage to do so?
• How about for tanks?  It makes no sense that a mouse could engage a Land Raider in melee and the land Raider can’t move until after its killed the mouse.  It should be able to ignore it and keep going, and just casually crush it beneath its tracks. – From google-fu, Seems tanks are trapped in melee and need infantry screens to stop this happening
• If I have a unit of 40 Termagants spread out and Captain Bob moves up and gets 4 of them in his melee range can the Termagants 5-10″ away in that unit use their guns while their mates are engaged?  I’m assuming not, but it makes sense that they could.
• Can you shoot a model in melee? – No, unless you use a pistol and are part of the unit engaged in melee with it
• And maybe more as I think of them?

Advice, comments and constructive criticism gratefully accepted with respect to any aspect of this project, my writing, or the games played within it.  I’ve never written a battle report before and I don’t usually read them either so I’ve no idea if this reads well, or makes sense to others.  The lighting is not the best in my games room.  It is fine to play by but I know it doesn’t lend itself well to great photography with my phone.