Warhammer 30K at 12,000 Points

Large games of 30K are a blast, but they require some planning and preparation to go smoothly. I’m going to use an example of a game I played earlier this month that was 12,000 points a side with 3 players per team. We divided up into Loyalists and Traitors (per the norm) and planned out 6 hours to play our game. So if you want to gather up all of your friends for an epic battle, here are some tips that can help.

1. If you have more than one person a side, it’s a good idea to delegate someone as the team captain. This person will help determine the mission, table setup, scenario rules in use.

In our game this helped because the team captains helped streamline the setup of the game, which can take a lot of time. Setup time reduces the amount of fun to be had so why not speed things up? We decided to do away with mysterious objectives so there wasn’t so much book keeping involved, we also choose our mission instead of rolling because we wanted to already be familiar with the objective. Our table size was 6’ x 8’ with pre-arranged terrain. We did roll random on deployment, which didn’t take away from the game and added an element of uncertainty.

2. Have prepared army lists before you arrive.

Come on. This is a no brainer here.

3. Allow for some out of sequence actions in order to keep people involved and the game moving at a good pace.

We tried to keep things moving as much as possible. If one side of the board was done moving, but the other side was still pushing models around we would allow some shooting phase actions to occur like running or shooting at units far away and unaffected by those other side of the board units. The psychic phase bogged us down a bit since we had a Thousand Sons player on our side. I couldn’t find a good way around that, but at least our efforts to speed things up elsewhere made a difference.

4. Set a reasonable time limit or a turn limit.

We originally planned for a random game length battle, but ended up calling it on turn 4 since we were approaching our 6 hour time limit. I felt we still got a good game in, but it would have been nice to at least have one more turn in. Some feedback I got after the game is to maybe scale things down a little on our next big game, 10K instead of 12K should allow us to complete a game in 6 hours.

 5. Play a practice game or two leading up to the big game.

This was helpful for me in getting familiar with the rules again. There are times where I can go months without playing a 30K game so a refresher can help me work out rules in my list that I forget about or misinterpret. I think a 1500 point or 2000 point game is ideal. They are quick enough to do even with the occasional rule lookup.

Fulgrim managed a charge on turn 1 from his Spartan and proceeded to wreck face

Early game set up

The loyalists hit our flank with a large portion of their army via deep strike and outflank

Just in case you are wondering who won, the Loyalists did. We had 5 primarchs being taken out of 6 total legions. The Emperor’s Children, Iron Warriors, and Thousand Sons on one side while the Space Wolves, Ultramarines, and Iron Hands were the Loyalists. The traitors were doing well for most of the game by leading in victory points, but suffered a few hardships like losing Magnus plus retinue to a deep strike mishap. I can also of course blame those few horrible rolls that came up at the most inopportune times!

Warhammer 30K Team Game and the Magnus Death Star

In my latest 30K game I teamed up with my brother who plays an Ultramarines drop assault army. We faced off against an Iron Warriors and Thousand Sons duo. The game size was 5000 points a side with each player running an Age of Darkness Legion Astartes detachment and each side had one super heavy. I had a knight errant and my opponents had a legion typhon.

Bottom of turn 2. Ultramarines and Emperor's Children flank attack

The game fluctuated back and forth between who was holding on to the most objectives and it looked like the Emperor’s Children/Ultramarines duo would come out ahead. We had pushed really hard on the right flank which had the most valuable objectives. I think the turning point for my team was when Magnus entered the fight with his 10 man Terminator bodyguard. With the right psychic powers they are able to turn into the toughest nut to crack in the history of 30K. Each terminator can achieve a re-rollable 2++ save. If Magnus gets a chance to shoot he can fire as a D weapon most of the time. This allowed him to smoke my Spartan and knight errant back to back. It didn’t take long for my army to fall apart after this and my Ultramarine ally wasn’t faring much better either.

Eidolon makes a last stand with the remainder of his assault squad

My marines hopelessly defend the objective marker against Magnus's onslaught

In the end my team lost the battle due to my team not being able to handle psychic powers very well. What is one to do? I think I need to bite the bullet and find a way to write in the Sisters of Silence into my army. I have wanted to go fluffy with my list, but I have been stomped by the Magnus Deathstar one too many times now. I think psychic power heavy lists in 30K don’t have many counters other than the sisters so I feel compelled to try an allied unit in my next game and see how it goes.