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Hi Stelek,

You don’t approach 40k in quite the same way as I do, I am much more of a friendly game gamer and do not expect to play tourney style any time soon.

Having said that, I love your work! Learning about the power list approach has hugely increased my understanding of 40k generally and in particular the mechanics of 5th Edition. I particularly like your new analysis section and I would like to see more of this in the future.

I will admit that initially I found the tone of some of your emails/posts challenging, but I am very used to it now and I find reading your blog a bit like reading about a character in a great story, sometimes I feel your pain, sometimes I am annoyed with you and others you make me laugh……..it is compelling and I come back everyday.

What I would be interested to hear more about is your view on how to put together a balanced game with 2 forces of roughly equal power that do not fall foul of the paper, scissors, stone issues I often see on forums. AOBR is a great starter set but when introducing new players to 40K I would love to run a fairer game that doesn’t end in a debate about who had it easiest. What purchases/units can you add to turn AOBR into a fairly balanced beginner’s game?

Best wishes,

Tom

Reply out:

Well Tom, thank you. Let's see here...

I've often found the difference between "friendly" play and "tournament" play is not being friendly or dickish, but playing by the rules and making your opponent do the same.

I'm glad to analyze anything people want--they just have to ask. Try to keep it in reason. Like a unit comparison or one single choice. Analyzing an army book is quite an undertaking!

I am indeed challenging. lol

For Assault on Black Reach, well...you can buy approximately 5 boxes and make 2 marine and 1 ork army out of it. You will probably want to run a Speed Freaks army and buy some Trukks.
I did this myself. I got a Black Templar army out of it and a normal Marine army, plus an Ork army.

Adding stuff might make sense, but what you can add usually costs more than what you can get out of that box set.

Definitely for marines, anyway. For Orks, well...their half of the box is shall we say, subpar. Not because there aren't a bunch of figs--but because they cost so little, even 80$ of plastic for 'free' is still worthless when you have to spend 500$ to get an army out of it.

Marines can make quite a few lists with tacticals, dreads, and terminators. The Orks are rather constrained by what is available in the box, which by itself ain't much.

I hope that helps some.