Here are the four missions for Coastal Assault 2013.  All have Night Fight & Reserves rules as normal and are scored with Battle Points.  Each mission has 25 points from three victory conditions (primary = 13, secondary = 7, tertiary = 5) and 3 bonus points that were supposed to be for both players to score, but in many cases weren't.  One thing I'm unclear on at this point was if the scoring was considered as 28 points per game or 25 points max per game.  This is mainly just for reference as I'll discuss each mission in more detail in its own post with the exception of mission #2 since the victory conditions for the primary and secondary were linked.  For Primary & Secondary they are exclusive with only one player being able to score the points and nobody gets points for a tie.  The Tertiaries can be scored by both players including if they tie.  Also, all objective markers are placed by players with the exception of the Relic in mission 3 and the mission 4 tertiary objective which are both centered in the table.

Personally, I'm not adverse to "battle points", because even NOVA uses a version of them to set the pairing in the final brackets and, if some slots are open, to promote people to "higher" brackets.  For example, if there are two slots open in the 4-0 bracket then the top two 3-1 players (by NOVA's numbers) will get bumped up to contend for best general with the 4-0 players.  I do prefer straight win/loss tournaments for simplicity, but having multiple distinct objectives is fun also.

Played in my local tournament, Coastal Assault, this weekend.  Won all four games and came in sixth of thirty-six players.  Four games in a battle points format.  I didn't mark up one sheet, but it looks like I scored 75% of the possible points to get there.  As for the games themselves, they were a lot of fun to play and there were some great players there.  The biggest downside was two hour games at 1999 points and everyone it came up with expected a two and a half hour format.  Ended up with two three turn games and two four turn games.  I'll be breaking down the missions over the next couple of days.

I took a slightly modified version of my NOVA Necron list because of a time shortage and I didn't know I could bring unpainted models.  If I'd known that I'd have brought a slightly different Necron list that could have been fielded quickly or an IG/BT list if I'd had more time

In other news, my son was fastest of the Wolves at his Pinewood Derby race and third fastest in the entire pack.  Again running a "Templar Express", this time it was a somewhat Rhino look alike with the storm bolter Marine on top and BT vehicle bling on it.  I'll have a picture of that one later.

Here

Most everyone got a new one, although for Black Templars, other than the fact that you need only one EC and one Vow per army, no matter how many "detachments" you have (which is really covered in the rules... ), this is the only goodie we got.

Q: There is no Black Templars vehicles reference section at the back of the rulebook. Does this mean I should use the Codex: Space Marines vehicle reference section instead (meaning my Venerable Dreadnoughts are now Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill 5, for example)?
A: Yes

Wheeee

IMO, MVB is making a step in the right direction here.  Dropping the points to 1850 is a good thing for several reasons, but the stated one of worrying about "Internet chatter" is the weakest IMO.  First, it will stress the lists a bit more since the major difference between 2000 and 1850 points in most lists boils down to one unit.  Second, 1850 point games do play a little faster which will help on the time issues, as will the proposed 3/3/2 game format (Fri/Sat/Sun). 

I would have like to have seen how a double FOC would have worked out, but this works too.

Picked up the new codex and after reading it over, I'm a bit underwhelmed.  Don't get me wrong, there are some nice goodies in there, it seems fairly well balanced and has the potential for some nasty builds, but that gets offset by the selection of models & pricing of them from GW.  Waaay too much Failcast and Waaay too much overpriced plastic for models with cosmetic differences from existing models.

Fluff comes first, it is the fairly standard DA fare, which is always a bit cool since they are one of the Chapters that are circumventing the dispersal of the Legions (along with BT & SW, I suspect the Imperial Fists to some extent ("Sons of Dorn"), and I bet the Ultramarines have their own network set up, being the "sons of the politician").  There are a few new tidbits about the conditioning, levels of internal secrecy and arcane tech, including the one I find increasingly annoying...that all the "good" tech is gone and nobody can figure it out anymore anywhere in the Imperium.  If true, then there would be no more TDA after 10,000 years, let alone Dreadnoughts, Rhinos, Land Speeders, etc.  Probably no power armor either.  Now I don't mind the relics bit that are difficult to repair and the need to handcraft replacements while much is actually lost (small & cheap antigrav for jetbikes and Guard speeders), but the entire early "all Marines are fighting with 10kyr old gear" line is getting a bit old.  The 10k stuff is the things like artificer armor and master crafted weapons that have been worked over for centuries.

Think about it....20 legions of up to 10,000 Marines = 200,000 bodies roughly.  1000 Chapters of 1000 Marines = 1,000,000 bodies.  If they are using ancient wargear, then the story isn't how Horus turned to Chaos and betrayed the Emperor, it is the monumental stupidity of the Traitor Legions, Renegade Imperial Army and various xenos didn't destroy the mega stockpiles of gear lying around the galaxy during the Heresy and Scouring.

Merry Christmas & Happy 2013 to my visitors.  All busy down here on the southern front over the holidays.  Visiting family that stayed longer than expected, trying to get custody of a child pulled by the local department of "family" services (they pulled the baby, but left the elderly woman with COPD on a respirator there alone to die...literally), clogged sewer line, best friend going down with a stroke and heart attack for the New Year (he'll live for now, but the long term prognosis is not good, probably on oxygen and in a wheelchair for however long he has left) and other minor things.  Not one of my more stress free holiday seasons, I'll admit.

Of course, there is good news, I got a Grex airbrush and paint hood for Christmas, I just found out that the date for the local Pinewood Derby printed on the calendar before Christmas was wrong and I will be able to go to the local tournament (Coastal Assault) this year using my NOVA Necron list or close relative thereof, since my IG/BT list is still under construction and no way to get it finished in time.

In other good news, Dark Angels will be getting an updated codex this week, that will be fun to see since they have a nicely twisted backstory and although they don't have the Templars way with not publishing their numbers, they obviously maintain links between Chapters to have their own conspiracy.  They might be a fun break for a while, although I do have a four player free for all (1000 points each) coming up in a week or two that is probably going to be a BT list with a couple of triple plasma bike squads.  I'm trying to get them to use the rule about shooting into any melee that isn't involving your models....

Last but not least....ROLL TIDE!