Old Seers And New Tricks: Vypers

Apologies for my absence this month. I have been in the process of moving and its been a pain. I am now in the new lair. I am sharing a house with The Stormlord and his Royal Court. I am hoping this stirs the hobby bug as he has been cranking out models like crazy from his basement tomb.

I digress though. Last time we were talking vehicles. Or at least my take on them. I covered Wave Serpents and Falcons. Now I want to visit an old favorite of mine and their rather fast moving counter part. War Walkers and their flying equivalents, kind of at least in my mind, the Vyper.

War Walkers have not really changed much with the transition to 6^th edition. In fact they have not changed at all. They are still the mobile gun platform they have always been. Granted they may be a bit more important due to the weapons load outs they can take. They can pack a lot of strength 6 shots which is pretty handy, especially when you are dealing with bike armies. Given the preponderance of Raven Wing armies that are popping up you will need all the fire power you can get to down these guys.

The vehicle that has changed due to the rules that is forefront in my mind is the Vyper. Now I have used Vypers in the past as a secondary gun platform to support the War Walker units I run. They are fast so they can get extra daka on the scene pretty easily to help finish off units or soften units up for the War Walkers to really hammer into. I usually run them with scatter lasers or Star cannons. The latter as a clean up unit and the former as a squad softening unit. Granted you do have to deal with the BS of 3, but as I have said before I have come to terms with that. The real bonus to the Vypers now is that they can fire their full compliment of weapons while moving 12 inches. Its the same thing that made the Falcon a little more useful. Fast skimmers can fire 2 weapons at full BS when moving 12 inches.

I have 2 squadrons of Vypers currently. One with chin mounted shuriken cannons and one without. I may be changing the one without. Having a shuriken cannon along with a scatter laser makes them almost as effective as the War Walkers in terms of the amount of fire they can deliver. Granted you have 3 less dice and you have to be within 24 inches for the full weight of your fire to come to bear, but you can move a lot faster and get into optimal firing position much easier. Have a Farseer hanging back behind the unit on a Jet bike and you have the ability to guide the unit and doom their targets.

I plan on running a test list soon with the Eldar using Vypers in conjunction with War Walkers. We will see what, if any, synergy comes out of the combination.

Well Thats all for now. I will be much more active this coming month. I plan to finish talking about vehicles covering the Fire Prism and Artillery next time. I am also going to start the Aspects of Khaine series 2.0 updated for 6^th edition. I will also have some Adepticon Army Updates and be talking about my new obsession, Flames Of War. Which by the Way every other Saturday Morning at Evolution Games in Lansing the Flames of War players will be meeting up to play. I am usually there every Saturday afternoon regardless so I am always ready to play.

I will also be talking about the 3^rd annual Test Of Khaine. It is going to be April 13^th At Evolution Games.

Until Next time......................

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPORER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Old Seers Learning New Tricks

SO I was having some thoughts about the Eldar as I was writing the Combat Patrol blog the other day. Since 6^th edition came out and my grasp of the nuances of the game are growing I have been looking at our much outdated codex and trying to find things that an Eldar player can use to be a bit more competitive with the newer codexes. I was also corrected by a new Seer to the shop. George, who is a reader and I don’t know his blog handle, corrected me on some rules in a recent team game. Cvinton's Necrons teamed up with my Iron warriors to play The Judges Grey Knights and The Georges Eldar. Needless to say upon review I have to admit I was wrong. IN fact the group here at the FLGS has been interpreting a couple of rules wrong. Rather than pout I went back and started really reading the codex, the FAQ and the Rule Book. I have been stuck in the same way of doing things so long I did not really take the time to format my brain and relearn the game and my main army.

I have made a few realizations and found some new things that actually may re-purpose some units. As I have said before you have to try and get out of the old way of doing things. I am realizing this building and playing the new Chaos Marine Codex. I should have been really doing it with the Eldar. It just so happens you can teach an old Seer new tricks.

So first lets look at the vehicles. Many players, including the internet forum meta, denounces vehicles and says they are not as useful. In fact many go so far as to say that transports are dead and useless now. Although there have been some very successful tournament armies that are foot slogging, I think that the main reason they have been tournament winning is because people are still getting use to the game and are not ready for new and different things. I have to say that vehicles aren’t dead and transports are defiantly not useless. Lets take a look first at the Eldar's 2 transports. The ubiquitous Wave Serpent and the Falcon.

If it has done anything the new edition has helped out Falcons. The first thing that popped into my head is that you can actually fire all the weapons on the Falcon now. Moving the standard 12 inches most players move their fast skimmers, IE cruising speed, means you can fire both the turret weapons at full ballistic skill and snap for the chin mount. I would also like to point out that this makes Vypers more effective as fast moving fire support platforms. This means whatever squad you transport can make its way across the table faster and still have good fire support. The Pulse laser, the main gun for the Falcon, got a bit of a boost as a tank killer as well. Being AP 2 it now gets a +1 on the pen table.

So I ma going to dust off my Falcons and give them a new test drive.

The Wave Serpent has always been one of the best transports in the game. Although currently pricey they do full fill the role of both troop transport and battle tank. Thanks to the prow and side shielding it has a higher survivability probability than the Falcon or Fire Prism. Thanks to the new transport rules you can effectively deploy your units from the rather limited space at the rear of the Serpent. The slim rear profile of the serpent which makes hitting the rear armor harder for you opponent also gave issues to Eldar players because of the limited amount of deployment space given to them in 5^th edition. It usually meant units where ripe for blast and template weapons. Now you can move 6 inches out when you deploy. So you can spread out and deploy effectively. The energy shields as always help out against any weapons capable of slaying the Wave Serpent with a single hit. I am also taking a second look at holo-fields. 35 points is still a big investment, but with key vehicles it could help with the new pen table. I have not really done the math, but I think it may give you a better chance against destruction. Is it a chance worth 35 points. Probably not, but I am not ruling anything out.

Well next time I am going to talk Vypers, Fire Prisms and War Walkers. I am also going to cover Artillery. Apparently I have been using Vibro cannons wrong. Apparently they don't require line of sight.

Until next time.........

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPORER!!!!!!!!