Awakening The Swarm: 1500 Point Tyranids

With all the rumours floating about, I want to set up a solid comparison. I'm excited to see the new codex, and build a hundred lists with brand new stats, units, and costs. That said, I feel it is very important to remember your roots, and think I can only appreciate the new if I remember the old. With that in mind, here's my baseline reading on a "competitive" 1500 take all comers list.

HQ
230 - Hive Tyrant - Wings, 2 x Scything Talons

Elites

150 - Hive Guard x 3

120 - Zoanthrope x 2

Troops

180 - Tervigon - Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands, Cluster Spines

180 - Tervigon - Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands, Cluster Spines

140 - Termagants x 10, Devourers, Mycetic Spore

100 - Termagants x 20

Fast Attack

160 - Gargoyle x 20, Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands

Heavy Support

240 - Trygon Prime

Total - 1500

Here's the plan:
I have a large mass of heavy duty models that can take a pounding while they storm across the table. With 3 dangerous monstrous creatures on foot (the tervigons make up for a lack of combat prowess with the added threat of spawning - I'd rate them very similarly to Trygons for target priority at the start of the game) to soak fire, my relatively few infantry models will be spared most of the heavy weapons fire. Turn 1 I'd likely deploy my Gargoyles and Flyrant behind the three big walking monsters, with a 2-man line of Gaunts in front to provide cover. Turn 2, My whole line will have run forward the previous turn, so this movement phase involves clearing my screen from in front of the Tervigons, so they can spawn 6", move those gaunst up 6", and go for the assault. Average threat range is 19", which combined with the average 9.5" move + Run from the previous turn should get some gaunts into combat. Combined with this are the Flyrant and Gargoyles, who are what I like to call my Hammer units. They are highly mobile units that get into combat, and whatever they assault first dies, either by mass attacks or by few, powerful attacks. These two Hammer units will have used the previous turn to use their extensive movement to position themselves to back the less manoeuvrable gaunts by picking out the enemy's counter assault units or heavy firepower and either killing them or weakening them so severely that even my weaker units (tervigons, gaunts) will have nothing to fear.

Of course I also have two scary and resilient elite choices that provide some ranged support and help to diffuse oncoming fire while restricting highly mobile enemies (skimmers, jetbikes, etc) from outflanking and moving into my army's blind spots.


Now, from you guys, I want some feedback. I'd like to see how you'd play against it, what you think would be hard counters, and what you'd change.

And as always, please Subscribe! Having some followers is the biggest reward for my efforts, and keeps me motivated. Thanks!

Tyranids: Moved To December, and why I am excited!

So, with news that a hive fleet is so much closer then we thought, my mind flies back to the bugs which got me back into 40k. First of all, I want to point out I am one of those players who thinks Cruddace did NOT give us a book that sucks. He didn't do the bugs justice, but in the game at the time if they'd been any better they would have been wildly over powered. In today's meta, powering up our favourite hive mind, and likely lowering the costs of upgrades rather then units (even Hormogaunts going from 10 points tooled up to 8 - making the upgrades 1 point instead of 2 each - would be a huge difference, essentially giving our 20 bug squads mycetic spores with the savings!) will bring our wonderful swarms in line with the powerhouses of Space Marines (3+ spam is pretty darn good now that they are so cheap!) and Tau and Eldar.

What I'm most Excited for:
1) Assault Bugs. I LOVE Hormogaunts. They're among my favourite units in the game, along side the humble Slugga-boyz. They are just the embodiment of the swarm, a ravenous tide of unrelenting fury that is damn near the perfect predator. Right now, they don't see as much use as they could, failing behind the Termagants due to, in my opinion, the "free" upgrades you get and free models when you bring a Tervigon. Seeing the book shift away from Termagant spam would really perk me up.

2) Tyranid Psychic Powers. I hated that ours were so good until we lost run + assault, and then generally better to swap for biomancy. Seeing an Eldar-style boon/curse would be neat, and giving us some cool mind-melting offence would just be gravy. Shadow In The Warp needs to be made better as well.

3) FULL PLASTIC KIT LINE UP! This is actually #1. Having every model available, viable or not, floats my boat. Having them all plastic just makes me rip my shirt off and howl at the heavens with joy. I really just cannot wait, even if the models don't change, I'll be putting some 300$+ into new kits on release day.

4) More viable units. Right now, I'm a little fed up with monobuild critters. I'm not saying there aren't list options, I just want to see new combos. Mycetic spore-pyrovore spam? Cool. Biovore barrage backed by elite Stranglethorn Cannon-MCs with spike rifle termagants "manning the line" would be so cool! A fast attack "swooping" army filled with Harpies and Gargoyles and such just because we can! Not only that, but we can have new biomorphs and new cool combos of them, rather then the same 2 cut and pasted under every entry, with Regeneration thrown in if you're really ambitious.

5) Finally, I want to see a big army wide change in rules in the form of a single, neat, unique concept. I want a "battle-focus" or "supporting fire" or "chapter tactics" that people talk about. I want a ravenous advance, where we may run and still charge with any creature that has the feed behaviour. Something that fundamentally changes OUR games, the way those rules do theirs.

Those are my thoughts, what are yours? Comment below, and as always please subscribe to keepthese coming!

Inquisition Codex: Warlord Table!

Without further Ado:

My Predictions:
Ok, my predictions:

1. Warlord and unit scoring. Maybe Warlord and RETINUE to reflect how cool as shit this codex is going to be.

2. Redeploy D3 units, I'd imagine

3. Warlord and Unit gain Furious Charge or Crusader or Zealot.

4. Preferred Enemy: Anything Not Human

5. No idea. Super psyched to see it.

6. Hatred. Maybe Zealot, if it turns out to be super mc-awesome.

By far the most exciting part of this is the fact this is ORDO XENOS! Which means 3 warlord tables?

What do you think?

Forgeworld Becomes Legal: What it means

Via Faeit212
via an anonymous source on Faeit 212
immediately afterward (codex Inquisition) we'll be seeing the Forgeworld forces of the space marines and inquisition to update all those rules as well. 

Also, while written to be polite, the sentence that says "while this should be considered official, check with your opponent" in the Forgeworld books is being changed. 

In the new forces of the SM and Inquisiton it says "these are official, but make sure your opponent knows the rules of any models chosen from this book." (quoting from memory so syntax may be slightly different)

So... Let's all welcome Forgeworld to the table.

This fundamentally changes the game. The fact that not just GW will be writing rules and army lists, even books, is a monumental shift in the landscape of 40k. Tournaments have often been the line in the sand, where Forgeworld was not allowed, and that may remain the case, but the argument of "this isn't optional, it is a part of the game now" will hold a lot of weight.

I'm not opposed to the change, because I believe more is better. We don't need Forgeworld to find dominant, broken combos, they exist in farseer jetbikes and missile/riptide spam. Hell, they exist in the Dark Eldar Venom Spam, especially deadly with a skyshield landing pad, where all that fire is protected by a 4++. Forgeworld will simply broaden the horizons of the game, and give us an opportunity to run units and models that we spent sometimes hundreds of GB Pounds on and hours painting and then had to proxy as something else, as the intended model. Provided they are more dilligent then GW in redoing their FAQ pages, I couldn't be happier.

What do you think? Are you anti-forgeworld or pro-registration forgeworld? Will this change your views on "competitive" 40k?

For The Emperor!

As my last post told you, I'm building up my Guardsmen, and I'm presented with a difficulty unique to my armies. Am I the good guy?

"Only the Emperor may judge those who defy the Imperium.

Only in death may they be judged."

-Mantra of the Clade Vindicare

My other armies, the Tyranids and the Dark Eldar, are such evils that need not ever question themselves. The Dark Eldar are a superior race that views other species as we view livestock - they exist only so long as they are useful, by amusement or food. The Tyranids simply exist. They face no concept of right or wrong, no crime or morality, they simply feed. The only difference between them and a scorpion is that the Tyranids are far better at it. The Imperial Guard, however, are humans, and boy, does that cause some headaches! 

Putting myself in the place of the Dark Eldar, I never have to question their motives - as fickle and fluctuating as they may be, even in Campaigns I only need to consider what is the best course of action for them. The Guardsmen however, have homes, family, lives. They have a comparable set of morals and motivations that I find are easy to empathize with. They're under powered and out-matched (in the mind of a Guardsman) no matter how good they are, and surrounded by enemies and aliens. When you think about it, it is amazing they even muster! So now that it is time to pick a colour scheme and list style, I'm faced with the question of how to justify my army. I'm thinking, due to some sales I've managed, I may put in an order for Death Korps quite soon, and as I'm sure you all know they are some cool looking cats.

To further complicate my good-evil conundrum, I''m going with a loosely nazi-germany paint scheme. Horrible people, fantastic uniforms, and in the grimdark future the ominous and dark black storm-coat and grey fatiques look will really lend itself well to the gas-masked aesthetic. After all, it was the Commissar that drew me in in the first place, and with the arrival of my first Steel Commissar at my local store, I look forward to painting him up!

So there's my issue and thoughts, what about yours? Why do you play the good, the bad, the ambivalently ravenous? Tell me about your army!

And as always, please like and subscribe! My two followers are the main reason I keep posting! 

Imperial Guard: Another FNG

Hey there, this week I'm going to do a brief series on my latest endeavour: The Imperial Guard.

We'll start with the why. Why was I attracted to the Imperial Guard, a relatively average army among my list of Xenos and snowflake armies? In a word: Tanks. I love tanks. Artillery tanks, IFV "tanks", battle tanks, I love them all. I love the lumbering behemoth, scattering foes before its mighty gun! The very presence of a Battle Tank causes widespread changes on the battlefield, from deployment to shooting to assault, on a fundamental level. The concept of the Main Battle Tank is iconic and ingrained from the first time you hear the words world war 2. Battle tanks lead Germany to nearly conquer Europe, and then allowed the Americans to lead the charge back with the Sherman. Tanks are everywhere, the rulers of the modern battlefield, and I think no other models (besides a power armoured space marine) better captures 40k. It's almost a wonder I didn't start earlier.

One big downside (and this is the thing holding me back before now) is the cost. Not points wise, but currency wise. People tend not to sell large Guard lots used (which I view as an example that they stood the test of time!) especially not the coolest models (like elysian drop troops or steel legion!), and the idea of ordering several boxes, even at the relatively cheap costs offered by online 3rd party retailers, is daunting to say the least. Not to mention the assembling and painting (horde armies are terrifying, as my still unpainted Tyranids show). All in all, it is expensive and labour intensive, which I suppose explains the lack of large used lots on the cheap.

The plus sides outweigh the negatives, in my mind. They are versatile, playing as hordes, elite mechanized troopers, tank spearheads, gunlines, whatever you need to get your jollies, they have it. They have psykers, they have old school cavalry, they've got hovering fire-platforms, they have mortar teams that make hordes cry. They have some of the best vehicle choices in the game which, while expensive, perform roles that consistently match up with beating down the infantry-reliant meta. Not only does the versatility allow you to beat most, if not all army types when played carefully and when built with TAC in mind, but they give you a great many options when deciding how you want to play the game. Variety is, of course, the spice of life.

Rolling Dice: If This Is Your Plan, Stop!

Today's is a very short post on a problem I've noticed in the burgeoning local community: people don't plan beyond rolling dice. The movement phase and assault phase are all about getting to dice tossing. The entire game boils down to fistfuls of dice and a roughly even chance of whose army rolls better. I'm going to break my broad, sweeping advice into two segments: Strategy and Tactics.

Strategy

Strategy is often a broad term, so I'm going to narrow this down to my purpose and the context in which this post (and indeed this blog) will use it. Strategy is the overlying principle or principles which a player will use to design their army and set their goals. In essence, strategy is isolating what factors you are going to control in order to win battles, whether it is by having a rock solid defensive line which you will use to deny secondary objectives and control the board, and therefore at least some primary objectives or if it is by fielding a mobile, versatile force that will rely on denying the enemy access to the tools and opportunities they rely on for victory. Strategy is primarily the building of your list and the deployment of your army based on the set objectives of each battle.

The Practical Application: Strategy is about sitting down and deciding what it is you want your army to actually do. It is about thinking beyond "well, a battle tank is awesome so I'll take three!" and starting to look deeper, such as "with three battle tanks I can effectively deny an attacker line of sight and assault lanes to a large section of the field, and lay down a large area of heavy fire support to control my chosen area." It is planning units around more then just the damage they can deal, but around how, where, and when they can deal or prevent that damage and how you can use that to win.

Tactics

Tactics, unlike strategy, do not revolve around a cleverly written list and the over-arching plan to win. Tactics are smaller-scale, and based upon the use and manipulation of individual units to gain immediate advantage in the battle. So, for example, strategy is planning to have your troops near the opposing side to go for Line Breaker at the end, while a tactical decision is moving your predator down the flank to get side armour shots should the enemy advance. This is the part of the game that most people focus on, and while easier to achieve competence with, it is just as difficult to master. Planning your movements and assaults around a coherent strategy is important, just as making sound tactical decisions as you implement that strategy  is important. Some basic tactical decisions that should be coming up every game, and actually taking a moment to think them through is what makes the difference between my decisive victory or head-shaking defeat:

• Use of Cover vs Retaining Mobility
• Maintaining Force Coherency (not stretching too thin)
• Comparison of Weights of Fire (ensuring my forces will apply more pressure then theirs)
• Use or Denial of Objectives (don't just focus on one or two,have a plan for all of them!)
• Controlling Assault (using mobility and planning to decide when and where assaults occur)

Long story short, go into every battle with a plan, and then don't lose sight of that plan in favour of a quick strike at an inconsequential target. Find your strategy, and hone your tactical awareness to ensure you don't inadvertently threaten your own plan. Too many warlord get cocky, advance too quickly and get good models killed for vainglorious bloodlust!

Terrain Density and You

Terrain: How Much, and What Does It Mean?

I was given a topic by a reader, and it was interesting enough to make me want to write about it: terrain density and how it affects the game, both in balance and from the perspective of what I view to be the primary goal of the game (fun!). Firstly, terrain density is broken into two sections for me: line of sight blockers and cover saves. The former affects what targets are available and the latter affects how resilient any given target can be. Both dramatically affect game balance and the way various armies will interact, lending natural advantages to certain army types and stripping advantages away from others. Starting off, let's look at the basics.

Terrain Density

We've all shown up at a tournament (or at least seen pictures) and seen the three trees, one hill and a mid-sized ruin off to the side and wondered if the tornado that carried all the terrain off is going to come back. Likewise, I can think of a few times when I showed up and thought "my land raider needs a dozer blade" because there are no clear paths wide enough. The range of how much terrain people place is huge, and there are certain advantages and disadvantages to both. One point to consider is that highly dense terrain heavily favours two types of armies: assault armies such as Tyranids, and armies with less resilience then space marines. In both cases, the abundance of a cover save gives the entire army a better chance to survive against the shooting that is almost inevitable, and it makes it very difficult for the opposing team to properly counter move and bring up counter assaulting units to where they are needed most. It is also far more forgiving towards a poor deployment phase, it softens the blow of going second by mitigating the advantage of first turn, and makes reserves less of a risk as your units on the board are far less likely to evaporate under plasma fire and artillery.

On the other hand, it dramatically changes the balance of the game. Deep striking units no longer have great swathes of area to appear in, leading to the mechanic being purely detrimental, especially for large and expensive units like the wraithknight and monolith. Highly mobile units like jump packs, bikes, and mechanized infantry (infantry in transports like rhinos) must risk the ever present dangerous terrain tests simply to use the advantage they have over regular infantry. Armies designed with the standard low density table in mind are punished, while less carefully designed armies tend to have a lesser disadvantage to overcome. Further, specialist armies, such as a blood angels assault company, daemons with their deep striking, and any mechanized force that didn't spend 5 points per vehicle to mitigate rolling through terrain. This is a good thing for friendly games, or for those who wish more of a skirmish style game, but for competitive play equalizing specialist armies is the opposite of what you want to be doing.

Line Of Sight Blocking Terrain 

This, contrary to some belief, is not directly tied to density, and offers advantages and disadvantages very different to the above section. This terrain includes things like statues, hills, impassable scenery, and other pieces of terrain that don't simply fill the board with labels of 5+ and 4+ but actually change where the battle may be fought. You can have a very sparsely covered board, but still emphasize tactical thought and force players to plan their turns. Most people tend to think "more terrain, more tactics and strategy" but as I pointed out above, this is not always the case and often the opposite. The difference between changing how the battle is fought and where/when it is fought is important.

By keeping to the standard of 25% terrain (which is a surprisingly dense board coverage) but replacing much of the standard open door and window ruins with solid walls, statuary, and terrain that restricts sight lines, you can have your cake and eat it too, allowing specialist armies to use their advantages, but allowing softer lists to make use of the battlefield to mitigate their disadvantages. This sort of a field places the stress on how you use the terrain, while a swathe of cover saves simply changes when you use it - that subtle difference can make or break your gaming.

Lastly, I want to touch on a topic that doesn't fit neatly into either, but does dramatically change the game: movement through terrain. The generally accepted standard is to simply "melt" through anything not declared impassable, but how different would your games be if any ruin that isn't a door frame was impassable? The tactical impact of blocking movement lanes can't be overstated, so this is something both players need to think about before every game, and tournament organizers need to specify!

In conclusion, I remind everyone that the most important part of a fun game is to discuss this sort of thing with your opponent before dice start rolling. Having everyone on the same page prevents anyone from feeling like they just got suckered in the gribbly bits and keeping everybody involved makes them feel invested in the narrative, not fighting against it.

I now ask you all: how do you play? Do you feel that the tournament standard of sparse terrain needs to change? How much is too much? Should more people look into line of sight blockers, or should there be a hard rule on terrain as a whole?

Target Saturation: How to do it, how to beat it

So we'll start with the simple question that needs to be answered for this to be a comprehensive post: what is target saturation? Target Saturation is the idea of having so many high priority targets that your opponent is unable to properly address all of them, leading (often) to panic and confusion, and an inconsistent goal. An example would be a Tyranid list featuring three Tervigons, a flyrant, and a smattering of trygons. The opponent must choose between shooting the resilient and very important baby-makers to prevent the board from flooding with troops, taking out the devastating and fast flyrant, and the combat monster trygons that will devastate his lines. Few armies have the sort of firepower or close combat punch to reliably take all of these things out before they wreak havoc, which puts whoever is facing them in a position of trying to do too many things at once, and leaving only a slew of bad options.

So, the first segment: How to do it?
It largely depends on the army, but the basic principles apply to every single one. For starters, you must have that ever important basis of boots on the ground. Most games involve scoring, or at least getting linebreaker, and for that you need some infantry to get you the points for winning. My general policy is to dedicate 1/3 of my points in smaller games or 1/4 in large games to putting raw, basic troops with no upgrades on the table. So, in a 1500 point game, I would take 325 points and cover the basics, bringing 25 Necron Warriors or 20 Immortals. The beauty of this system is the simplicity: Having covered troops, I now have a dedicated points allotment of 1175 to simply bring as many deadly units as I can. In Necrons, I may bring 2 Annihilation Barges for anti infantry and flyers, a Monolith to provide a tough, dangerous centrepiece, two squads of six wraiths for a fast moving multi-threat squad that is very difficult to wipe of the board for 800 points. Now imagine trying to determine what you're shooting at with that list, with 5 separate targets that are all too dangerous to ignore. Complement this by spending the remaining 375 to fluff out your core, put in a Destroyer Lord for counter-assaulting, add some extra troops to a squad and maybe a resurrection orb for stiffening gives your backfield a sturdier foundation and some much needed counter-assault from the fast movers, and perhaps some scarabs for the ever valuable invisible assault.

The second key component to using this kind of list is playing it well. All of these powerful options present huge threats that must be dealt with, but how do you stop them from being dealt with? The key here is to push equally hard with all your options. Don't rush forward with your wraiths, putting them and them alone in the dangerous focus of enemy heavy fire. Rather, advance them a turn or two behind your monolith, or use the serious speed of them plus the frightening rush of scarabs to outflank, forcing your opponent to shuffle and lose firepower instead of focusing and eliminating one target at a time.

Now how to beat it?
The first step is to ensure you are building the right lists. If your army is one that focuses on long range death-dealers like tau, ensure you have enough units capable of dealing damage. Now that doesn't mean weapons, because we all know how well a crisis or broadside team can deal with almost anything. This means you must have enough separate units capable of dealing severe enough damage to be registered as a threat to split your opponent's attention, and to dish it out to multiple enemy units each turn. This means not investing too many points into any single unit, which prevents you from properly distributing potential across your whole army. Tempting as a 250 or 300 point riptide or crisis team can be, the difference in effectiveness between a 300 point riptide and a 200 point riptide is nowhere near as big as it needs to be to justify the extra cost. A good rule of thumb is 200 points per unit capable of destroying or crippling one vehicle or infantry squad per turn. Yes, this is almost identical to the above segment, because good list building is important no matter what.

Now, the play. Against powerful assault lists, unless you're tau with supporting fire, DO NOT CASTLE. Castling (a static, overlapping deployment causing attackers to have to go through layer after layer of troops before reaching the juicy center). Castling causes meat grinders like Daemons and Tyranids to drool as they surround your small army and simply feed your poor soldiers into sausage. Against assault lists, it is important to control how they move, draw the strongest and fastest enemies into overlapping fields of fire and perform a fighting retreat - deploy along your front edge, then move back with all your infantry and vehicles while maintaining a fusillade of fire to keep the opposing front rank declining. This constant mobility, even at a mere 6" a turn, can deny the first assault by 1 or two turns, and since your strength is their weakness this is key!

Against shooting armies, you actually want the opposite. You want to cluster as much of your firepower into as small a part of their line as you can, ideally on a flank, while presenting a strong enough appearance on the weak flank to draw the enemy into defending it. By dividing your opponent's forces, you allow the statistics behind your superior force to deal enough damage to their weakened counterpart to give you the advantage when the rest of the armies wheel and reform. This is easier for highly mobile armies, like Dark Eldar, who can re-position and change the match ups with frightening efficiency.

Finally, fighting what I call spoiler armies. These are ones like the Dark Eldar, who simply can't be caught in conventional traps by virtue of their unique builds - in this example the insane mobility of a purely fast skimmer army. These you must play on a case-by-case. Dark Eldar fear Castles, because they need to pick off flanks, and with only one knot of resistance they're forced into a straight up fight - their worst nightmare on the field. The Necron Air Force is another, they are simply too much of a niche for many armies to face. The over-saturation of flyers and the inability to account for so much unique threat leaves armies with little to no skyfire out in the cold.

Hopefully this was helpful, please leave some comments below!

BangBang's Batreps: Episode 1: Necrons vs Iyanden

Here's the first of three I have filmed, the other two require editing and I'm still playing with conversion software to prevent the lagging and the poor quality. My new software I'm doing Episode 2 with will hopefully fix these issues!

Please do enjoy, and feel free to leave comments below!

My Dirty Secret: Tyranids

<p>&lt;p&gt;I have a mildly guilty confession: I'm really a bug-lover at heart. They were my first, real army when I got back into warhammer after a long, long hiatus, and I just fell head over heels. The fluff, the models, the variance in gameplay from never ending swarm to elite, precision strikes and units that put full, specialist squads to shame. That, and damn near everything is plastic, and cheaply bought used. These things dragged me in, but the hassle of stripping and repainting a horde bugged me, so I decided to get out of them. Just as I sell them, a new codex gets announced and I get a smoking deal on three tervigons, two trygons, six hive guard, several boxes of gants, and a flying tyrant all in box. So I am back, and slowly building and painting the swarm a squad at a time, and starting to think tactics using what I have learned running the doomtrain with the screaming claws. Here are what I've started coming up with.</p>
<p>1) Board Control.<br>
The dark kin do it well with mobility and firepower. Tyranids have the wonderful capability of pouring models into every nook and cranny, and neatly snipping off my opponents options with a knife of expendable units. Tervigons will serve a pivotal role in this regard by reinforcing my extended lines, replenishing the troops, and providing a hardy synaptic node to keep the line from folding without a significant push. In games with short edge deployments, I can make a concerted effort to cover the whole four foot battleline, and literally sweep the opposition.</p>
<p>2) Objective Control<br>
The screaming claws are wonderful, but they win by killing. Holding anything isn't viable, the low toughness and lack of armour makes them too susceptible to low grade fire to be viable control units. Tyranids suffer the same weakness in gants, but counter it by halving the squad costs, replenishing troop counts with tervigons, and making everything fearless. I can actively play a game of out-controlling my opponent, by putting mcs, mass termagants, and warriors on any objective I want.</p>
<p>3) Assault Swarms<br>
The screaming claws put more pressure on more flexible targets then any army I have seen, including a circus. What they lack however, is a viable assault line. Wyches are good, but expensive for their fragility. The army lacks tyranids ability to simply use numbers as a means of victory. Fearless hordes of poisonous strength four attacks make tyranids unbelievable at close range. Add in the number of psykers with buffs and the options for truly elite units like the swarmlord or bonesword lashwhip warriors/prime, and you have in my opinion a top tier assault army. Adepticon featuring two nid lists in the top sixteen supports my opinion.

Archon Khasirdeth Dryear'Khyuath, Lord of the Screaming Claws

So, having touched on the basic fabric of the Dark Eldar, and what I view to be one of the best troop choices in the game, I now bring us to another perfect example of the Glass Cannon: the Archon.

I named mine using an Eldar lexicon and some creative license, but it translates to The Herald of Eternal Dusk, with his House name being the Champions of the Crimson Lance. I plan on modeling him using the old pewter Archon with a flayed face pinned over his own and the great claw on his right hand, however I'll be snipping off the pistol arm and replacing it with the first really cool lance I find, possibly one of the plastic ones from the Venom or Raider kits with an assortment of bits and chains.

Enough about mine, let's talk about yours. The archon is one of the few hq choices in the game that is this versatile. He can become an incredible tarpit with an electro corrosive whip and some shardnet bloodbrides, and a clone field, or he can run the train of doom over almost anything with a huskblade and soultrap. He can run blasters, agonizers, he can take a 2+ invulnerable, he is just a fierce beast on all fronts. The real thing to remember is that he can do many things, but you should only concern him with one.

I run Khasirdeth with a huskblade, shadowfield, phantasm grenade launcher, soul trap, and incubi. Sometimes drugs if I have the leftover points. This build compliments the incubi ability to run terminator units into the dust quite well by taking characters down with ease. Ideally, use him to kill a sanguinary priest, or wolf guard, or a member of the necron royal court to give him strength six and allow him to become the bane of any multiwound models your opponent has left. The downside to this unit is that hordes, by which I mean any unit that puts more then five or ten wounds on the board, will slaughter them. For example, a unit of twenty termagants. The four incubi would account for likely five or six, the archon another two, and then they would take three or four casualties, by statistics. With this in mind, running him with wyches may be the best course. A clonefield archon with drugs (which almost all help greatly) is resilient, virtually immune to sergeants and power weapons, only at risk from select special characters, is a massive asset, and a bargain at 125 points.

Kabalites: The Bread and Butter for successful raids

As the title suggests, I'm breaking down Kabalites. For starters, these guys are just cool models. The spikes and blades are elegant on them, black with silver highlights look amazing, and proper blood effects can take a fairly under the radar unit and make them a centerpiece. Add in the glowing trim (the green of the Black Heart, for instance) and you have a truly stunning set of models. The downside, of course, is that they are cheap and many, and fragile, so you can sink a tonne of effort into some models that see half a turn of field time, and that is discouraging to me.

Now, aside from the aesthetic value, these guys form the core of your army in two ways: they give you a cheap, accessible scoring unit that can, for a measly 540 points, put six ten man scoring units on the board. That said, this is foolish, because it ignores the damage dealing potential and strengths of these models. They have a phenomenal statline for their points, with 4 WS and BS, I5, and the potential for feel no pain. Toughness 3 causes problems, and the weak armour saves mean bolters rob you of it. They wield splinter rifles, wounding on 4's always due to poison, with 24" and rapid fire, and 1 out of every ten may take a dark lance or splinter cannon, which gives off heavy 6 or assault 4 also poisoned shots, and allow you to take a blaster or shredder. This poison gives you a huge advantage, because it will cause approximately the save number of wounds on ANY target, and in your tactical thinking it makes it easy to simply allocate wounds in your head without worrying that toughness will change results - for instance out of every 15 shots, 5 should miss, and 5 should fail to wound, so you can simply allocate each shot as 1/3 of a wound when determining where to lay down your fire.

So, we know they are cheap, fragile space marines, with bolters that are worse against low toughness but better against high toughness. Now my three breakdowns of use - subjectively - are maximized splinter shots, infantry swarms, and the Mr Clean (all purpose). These are not mutually exclusive, for example an infantry horde lends itself well too massed splinter fire and if you're putting so many points into one unit then you're best served by making that unit able to deal with many different situations. My personal use is the massed splinter fire most often, as I find that a 10 man squad in a raider with a splinter cannon, sitting at 170 points with nightshields on the raider, is a force to be reckoned with. A dark lance gives you rhino popping power or an instant death weapon on lonely characters and the fact it is on your transport means you can pick one target then allow the troops within to target a group of infantry. Being both Fast and open topped, this allows your troops to all fire, fire powerfully, and make maximum use of the speed and jink save to give your paper plane some survivability.

Firestorms are great, with 20 kabalites able to put out a massive 30 shots per turn at 24" or an insane 48 at 12" or in overwatch. Throw in a Haemonculus and put them in cover and you have a 250 point unit with dual saves and huge firepower. This is a good squad to put the Duke in. This squad is a good reserve choice, since it is most lethal at short range and despite some survivability it can be whittled down quickly and while not expensive, they aren't cheap. They also don't have the Dark Kin mobility I wax eloquent about. Just follow that golden army rule about synergy and this can be a devastating tool.

Finally, the all purpose. This is, in my opinion, best used in small games where you cannot afford to put enough specialist squads on the board. By all purpose, I mean they can pose a viable threat to anything on the board, at least in enough quantity that your opponent must take them into account when planning. Commonly this is a squad of ten with cannon or lance and blaster, with a sybarite wielding a power weapon or agonizer for close combat stiffening or else an independent character, mounted in a raider. These squads are expensive, but the versatility allows them to very quickly tally up their points in kills. These guys are the doom of mechanized lists, and they can function well against heavy points cost units like terminators and warlords with entourage, the forced saves and the removal of good saves (2+) allowing them to give that edge to another unit. I tend to run these squads in mid-field, using mobility and firepower to finish the jobs my heavier offensive units start. They mop up small units of elites very well, and are great at taking the last hull point or wound off a tank or monstrous creature.

Dark Eldar: The One-Shot Cannon

Dark Eldar, in my experience, are singularly powerful in their ability to dish out focused punishment. Even tau and leafblower guard can have trouble matching the concentration of force that the mobile, fast, and deadly Dark Kin can bring to bear. Note, that I know a vehicle heavy guard list can put down more high strength hits then anyone else, but Dark Eldar can put all of their hits exactly where they want them to be better then anyone. I'll break down the three keys to success in my raiding force style of play.

1) Mobility
The Dark Eldar have two main assets in this regard: The Venom and the Raider. Both are fast open-topped skimmers with a powerful weapon. The raider boasts 10 man transport capacity and a Dark Lance, capable of cracking transports with ease and giving you a 50-50 at taking a point off a tank. The Venom carries only 5 men, but brings 2 splinter cannons - or 12 poisoned shots at BS 4 - to bear on anything within 36" even after it moves 12. My favourite part, however, is that unlike rhinos and razorbacks, these transports don't render your powerful shooting units (a kabalite squad with splinter cannon lays down 15 BS 4 Poisoned shots at 24") useless while inside. You can bring squads right where you want them, focusing the power of your full force against a fraction of the enemy's without sacrificing turns to pure movement. That ability to stack the odds to ensure your force is always overpowering compared to the forces that may be arrayed against them is one of the things that makes the Dark Eldar so tough to face.

2) Firepower
At 170 points, a Kabalite squad of 10 with a splinter cannon and a raider can fire a dark lance at one target (a transport, in the case of a mechanized list, or a tank if there are exposed infantry) in order to free up a target that the 15 poisoned shots coming to follow can ravage. Math wise, they put out 5 wounds to be saved, regardless of toughness, or 8 if in rapid fire range, which is damned impressive for the cost. Add that they have a 30" potential movement if their transport flat outs, are scoring, and gain feel no pain if they kill anything, and you have my MVP.

For less points, you can drop four Trueborn with Blasters in a venom for a similar cost, which while more fragile (once the transport is gone these are just waiting for any kind of attention before falling over) allows you to put out a similar number of poisoned shots (12 at 36") but gives you more tank stopping power with 4 dark light weapons. I use them as tank hunters, targeting the venom at either the occupants of the transport my dark light took or an infantry target of opportunity. Regardless, open topped vehicles loaded with hungry warriors lays down a huge curtain of fire for cheap.

Our heavy support, which I only bother counting as Ravagers, Razorwings, and Voidravens, put down huge swathes of hits and wounds, the specifics of which I'll leave to the big guns tactica upcoming. All of our army shares the same trait with few exceptions: they lay down huge amounts of fire on the move.

3) Initiative
This is what I call the ability to control the battlefield and proactively direct the flow of battle. That is to say, you can decide when and where combat, predominantly assaults but you may also control how and when shooting happens. This is done through the combination of the two above traits, but I feel it is important enough to count on its own. Ensuring your mobile fire platforms are positioned for an aggressive move towards a portion of the opponents field, or defensively to make sure that if they have first turn you can minimize their potential damage and maximize your maneuverability in the following turn, if the key to keeping the initiative in the battle. This is especially effective against static armies, like gun lines, and against medium speed assault armies, like infantry blobs (tyranids come to mind). Both allow you to move around the battlefield and focus your forces in such a way as to give your army the advantage in any combat that unfolds.

Welcome to the Kabal

Just in case you couldn't tell, I've decided to start a blog.
The basic elements of what my blog is going to be about are as follows:
1) Predominantly Warhammer 40k tactics and strategy
2) Battle reports of my fairly common matches, rendered in vague detail until I get a system down
3) Observations and commentary on trends I notice in the gaming community of Ottawa and online
4) Random thoughts and ideas surrounding the hobby
5) My slow, arduous journey as I try to take my hobby beyond the battle and into the sculpting, painting and actual craft that makes this game so much more then dice.

This will be interspersed with occasional posts about my merely mortal life, school, excuses as to why I don't have all the shiny new things, and other such unrelated nonsense.
Enough with this, on to the first post!