Turbulence in Segmentum Tempestus

Life in the 41st millennium is not one of ease.  The single truth is that the notion of peace is never a lasting one, and sooner or later war is all we know.  The story you now read is no exception to this truth.  ~ Colonel Hans Steinweg

This is the opening act of another tale from the Imperium of Man.  On the eastern fringe of the Segmentum Tempestus lies the planet of Bakka, a long standing Imperial naval base.  As this planet lies on the very edge of the galaxy, it is no stranger to war.  The vastness of the Imperium has many planets and assets that lie undermanned and ill-equipped to defend themselves.  Unfortunately, Bakka would be one that soon recognized this terrible truth all too well.

Holidays!

 

From all of here at Rite of Battle, we wanted to wish you guys and girls happy holidays.  Keep your bolters bolty and your choppaz choppy, and we'll see you all again next year!

Cheers!

Chill With the Penguins!

Hey Guys!  The Penguins are at it again raising money for charity!  They're hosting a live stream of their Zelda Marathon as we speak!

Don't miss it!  Jump in!

Monitoring the Percentages

"Zeus has been around since the earliest days of the Gaming Grid.  By Necessity, he has to monitor all the percentages.  All the angles..." ~ Castor

 After some time spent rounding up rumors about the upcoming Black Templar re-release supposedly scheduled to drop sometime around March of 2012, I have stumbled upon some interesting rumors regarding some changes 40k will experience in 6th edition.  I myself am looking forward to each, as they both stand to gain from updates.  However one thing stuck out to me when I read through some of the 6th ed. rumors floating around.

Guest Article: Playing My Way

We received an article from ZerkeX today, and it looks like December is a hot month for Tactics.

Check out his article on how to make your opponent play by your rules.  I must say I enjoy the theory behind forcing your opponent's hand in their decision making by using well planned and often times brutal tactics.

Make it count

So in response to Heretic's Maniple method, I thought I would write up a quick article to define the approach I take to the battlefield which I have no real name for, I simply call it "Making it Count."  I don't mean to undermine the Maniple in any way, this is just a different method to think about.

Man(iple) Up! Part 4

Ave,

Last time I talked about the role of tactical squads in my maniple mindset marine army. You may have noticed that I sidestepped explaining how my tactical squads that were armed to the teeth would fit into a mindset where troops choices survive until the end of the game by being non-threatening to your opponent. I could drop the weapons from my tactical squads to make them less threatening, though at that point they begin to lose their utility beyond light anti-infantry support and scoring. Today's article is about why the combat squads aren't threatening in comparison to the distraction units in the army.

Man(iple) Up! Part 3

Ave,

Last time we talked about how to build a list that could imitate the maniple both in its organization and its adaptability. We talked about how distracting units can add to the survivability of troops choices and how the survival of those troops is essential to winning most games. Now that we've looked at the basics of this mentality, we need to look into how it can be applied by looking at an example army and some of the tactics used by that army. I've been developing an army list to implement these ideas and wanted to explain why I chose these units so I can explain how they fit in the maniple mentality and how I intend to use these units. Now for the list:

An Updated Look and Feel

Hey everyone.

Just letting you all know the site will be undergoing some maintenance.  After a long time standing, I will be doing some much needed revisions to the behind the scenes works for Rites.  I am hoping to utilize some new features like Page Jumps (the read more features) as well as some additional pages.  We on staff appreciate your patience, and we hope to bring you the best quality we can.

Cheers!

Man(iple) Up! Part 2

Ave frater,

Last time we talked about the history of the Roman maniple as a short introduction to this series of articles. There are multiple ways we can interpret the lessons of the maniple and apply them to our game of 40k, both strategically and in the story of the universe. Because we have different armies we will be looking at different applications of different principles all shown in the maniple system. This is going to take a while, so settle in and I hope you enjoy my ramblings.

Stop Motion Project

Hey guys. I had a creative project I was working on for a professor which ended up using some of my 40k models. It is a crude first attempt as this is indeed my first attempt at a stop motion piece, but i thought it turned out alright. Hope you guys enjoy it. Usually use YouTube, but this will suffice for now.

Man(iple) Up! Part 1

This article is going to be a bit longer than I thought, so I'm breaking it up into a few segments. The first thing we need to understand is the historical and tactical background of the terms I'm using to understand how it can be applied to 40k. I'll be looking at one of the most successful armies of antiquity, the Roman army, and why the formation they created, the maniple, was so devastating.

Plug and Preview

Good day everyone and Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all had a good time celebrating with your families and that you survived the commercial carnage of Black Friday. I'll be trying to write more, as I've been busy for the last few months, but before I jump into an idea on army composition I'd like to give a little plug to some friends of mine who are opening a new game shop.