Mobile Oppression Denied: Dealing With Tough Ships

Hi all! SeerK here to talk about defeating ships that just wont die.  Everybody has an opponent who is the bane of there fleet.  They have that one ship or squadron of ships that seems just invincible.  Today we are going to look at methods of destroying vessels in the non traditional way, that is trying to obliterate it with your ships main weaponry.  Direct fire is not always the best way to make a ship a non combatant.  I have had issues with some of the tougher vessels in the game.  Tarakian Battleships, Terran Shield Cruisers, Terran Tyrant Battleships, the list goes on.  So lets look at some methods of attack versus some of the common issues players run into. The real key is to know thine enemy.  Your method of attack should exploit a weakness that your opponent may not know exists.

Every ship has a weakness.  Your opponent may or may not know it has it.  You have to know the weakness of the ship.  Look at the MAR's the ship relies on.  Look at its Crew points and Point Defense stats. What are the optimal of maximum ranges on the main weapons?  Many players will rely on one particular aspect of a ship.  Terrans rely on their shields.  Relthoza rely on the Cloaking Shields. You have to exploit this reliance to your own advantage.

Terrans: Making Long-Range Work

It's Dreadbeard with a alternative way to play your favorite rock'em sock'em spaceships.

Breaking The Meta: KIlling Riptides And Trying New Things

Well I went 1 and 2 at the primer at Flatland games prior to the GT. Bill Kim laid waste to my army despite

my best efforts to wipe his troops from the board. My win against Dreadbeards Tau in round two did not prepare me for a more optimized Tau tourney list in round 3. I went 2 and 4 in the GT actual and once again the Tau gave me issues when Riptides were involved. Needless to say I hate Riptides. IN fact I have been putting a lot of thought into the Riptide. Mostly how to kill one quickly and efficiently with the tools I currently have in the codex. The real issue is killing multiple Riptides. As it seems the current meta makes facing 2 to 4 Riptides a forgone conclusion.  On the note of Meta, I have been putting a lot of thought into the current one as well.  I think its really time to explore the codex and try some new and different things.

Many tournament lists run more than one Riptide and therein lies the challenge. The amount of fire needed to bring down one Riptide can eat up a lot of your firepower. When you are dealing with more than one it gets tricky. You need a cohesive plan and very good fire discipline to take down more than one. You of course can ignore the Riptides and take out the players ability to score, which is pretty minimal when you are running 4 Riptides, but its hard to ignore the damage multiple riptides can do. So first lets look at the Riptide and see if we can find some chinks in its armor.

If we look at its stat block we can see it has the usual Tau weaknesses. A WS of 2 and a base BS of 3. It is T6 though with 5 wounds and a 2+/5+ save. When it comes down to it they are a big tough terminator with character like wounds thats lackluster in close combat. Its nova generator allows it to be fast, have a 3+ invulnerably save and overload its weapons. It can only do one at a time though and they have to do it in the movement phase. Lets look at what the Eldar have to kill Riptides on an individual basis before we move onto fighting groups of them.

Ranged Combat

This is an area that Tau excel in. You cant out shoot them with Eldar. Yes we have the Wave Serpent and they can bring massed fire, but as soon as you start taking casualties the amount of fire you can bring drops off quite a bit. In addition the real combo that makes them effective, scatter laser and shield, only has a range of 36 inches. Despite the mobility of the Wave Serpent force, Tau heavy weapons can range them in easily and take them out fairly quickly, especially when the shields are down. Combine this with tournaments moving towards making the shield a weapon that can be destroyed and you find yourself in a pickle quickly.

Massed fire can bring down models. Quality fire, the AP 2 kind, can bring down Riptides more quickly. So what do the Eldar have that gets the job done. They have more than you think. Bright Lances are the first obvious answer. Rate of fire is an issue with the Bright Lance though. Falcon's and Crimson Hunters, and War Walkers can bring several to bear, in the former two cases the pulse laser can be lumped in with the lances. The faithful Star Cannon is my personal choice. My War Walkers have become packs of Riptide hunting wolves. Three Walkers Armed all Armed with Star Cannons and the ability to out flank help put them in position to hit Riptides hard in their own backfield.

There has been some discussion among the Craftworld writers about how to best deal with the Tau. The consensus is that bum rushing them and weathering the fire is a viable tactic. This tactic also brings probably the Eldar's most deadly weapons to bear. Distortion weapons.

Wraith Cannons and D-Scythes are close range power houses. A squad of Wraith Guards can easily lay waste to a Riptide when they are within range. The real trick is getting them there. This of course means doing something contrary to current Eldar tactica. Not dropping shields on your Wave Serpents and moving them flat out into the jaws of the enemy. This same tactic is viable with Fire Dragons as well. Massed Fusion gun fire has a similar effect. Although the Distort rule does have the edge as it can kill a Riptide with a single hit.

AP 2 weapons are an obvious choice in dealing with well armored targets. The Eldar have other tricks though. Psychic tricks. Running deep with Warlocks and Spirit Seers gives you a decent chance of getting the Protect/Jinx power from the Runes of Battle. If you run Bike councils or Foot Councils, which I am trying to make work once again, you will get this power at least once.

This power can be major when facing the Riptide. Hitting a Riptide with a Jinx makes it way more vulnerable. Especially to Dark Reapers. A decent Sized Squad of Reapers and level a Riptide with Starshot Missiles. I know this can be a little tough to pull off, especially when the Tau player is running the Farsight Enclave book with that stupid amulet. The real key to that will be discussed in a future post about tactics. Namely it involves order of fire and target priority.

Next time I am going to talk about hand to hand combat. This is an area that the Eldar can really hurt the Riptide and the Tau in General. You just have to play it smart and not get shot to pieces while trying to assault the Tau lines. Therein lies the challenge.

Until Next time......

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

They see me spinnin they be hatin: Night Spinner tactics.

Games Workshop saw fit to give Eldar players a new tank a few months ago. The Night Spinner was received with mixed feelings and much lamentation by forum trolls. I of course went out and bought one not to build another Fire Prism but specifically to Build a wave serpent. I now find myself scouring eBay for turrets. I really like this tank and in the 3 games I have used it in it has been very effective.

The consensus seems to be that this is a lackluster attempt at a new tank. I just say you are using it wrong. The Night Spinner is an excellent support tank. This is especially true for armies that are in a rush to get to your lines and assault you. Being strength 6 and having a large blast will wound just about anything pretty easily. Add in the Rending and you have a very nice weapon. Add in the fact anything touched by the template is treated as moving through difficult and dangerous terrain you can have some real fun.

Deployment is important. You want to keep the Spinner as far from the enemy as possible. This means moving around. Stay hidden. Since the Death Spinners are ordnance barrage weapons you can fire indirectly. Stay moving and hug terrain to make it difficult for deep striking units to land close. I guarantee they will try as soon as you start laying into enemy units.

To start off my fire I always target units that I know are going to advance. Close combat units, units with short range weapons and the like. This will make your opponent thinks twice about moving them and might even take a few out. Large units are a good target choice as the more dice you roll the better the possibility of a failed dangerous terrain test. Affected units also must take pinning tests at a -1 since its an ordnance barrage. This will keep units out of action and allow you to position your units for maximum effectiveness. Concentrating fire on units that have been affected by the Death Spinner will force leadership tests with enough casualties. This may force them to move and take dangerous terrain tests. If you are lucky and inflicted enough kills it may bring a unit below 50%.

Coordinated fire and fire discipline is key. Hit units first with the Death Spinners then regular fire. Force saves, pinning checks and leadership tests. You can slow down the momentum of an army, especially a close combat oriented one, by hitting key units. Despite the chance being slim you would be surprised how often players will not move units for fear of taking dangerous terrain tests. One thing to remember is not to fire on units you know are not going to move. If you can target multiple units do so. Your opponent will be forced to spread out and this hurts the using units and vehicles as cover strategy. Remember cover is determined from the center of the blast template so you can bypass cover easily. Vehicles and infantry are equally affected. I squared up against a plague marine heavy army this past week. He army was bunched up and ponderously advanced towards the bulk of my forces in the corner of the table. The Night Spinner was positioned behind some walls. Every turn I rained down monfiliment web on the advancing group. The template was hitting three or four units at a time. Every turn one or two plague marines died. It earned it points by slowing the advance and nickel and diming the enemy units to death. To my opponents credit though he still moved forward. Inexperienced players will freeze and not know what to do. Experienced players will wade through so you cannot rely on the Night Spinner to stop the enemy in its tracks. This is where coordinating your fire comes in.

SO I love this tank. I plan on using at least one in my Adepticon list. I have version 3 of the prototype list done for testing. I went from a tie with version one against Old School Terminator Tyranids to a 12-4 KP victory over a Plague Marine Army with version two. I look forward to testing version three this coming Wednesday.

I will be adding an author to the blog soon too. A very good friend of mine is starting into the hobby and wants to share some thoughts and ideas about 40k and Fantasy battle. So I guess its time for me to break out some high elves.

Until then..........

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

The Art of War: Eldar Tactics pt 2

I keep emphasizing mutual support and using your units in concert so your whole army acts like one entity rather than just the individual parts. All your units working together and achieving greater results than they could alone is called synergy. Synergy, in general, may be defined as two or more agents working together to produce a result not obtainable by any of the agents independently.

The term synergy comes from the ancient Greek word syn-ergos, meaning 'working together'

I am having a feeling of deja vu. Me thinks Old School Terminator had some things to say about this as well, but in regard to his Tyranids over at Dark Future Games.

So how do you use your units together to achieve greater results. It sounds simple, but it really is not. As any seasoned Eldar player knows, a vast majority of your units are really good at one thing. The problem is that you must make all these specialists work like a well oiled machine and not have the whole army fall apart when one unit is destroyed. This is why many player give up on Eldar. They just cannot make it work.

Unit Interaction

So how do you make it work? The first thing you must do is give your units a job and make them stick to the job. The dire avengers are going to hold the objective. The Dark reapers are going to support the Dire Avengers by eliminating threats and approaching units. Giving a unit a job is basically tasking them with the one thing they are good at. If you re-task a unit every turn you loose efficiency and you potentially throw off the flow of the army. By re task I mean using the unit in a different capacity. Going from anti infantry to anti vehicle with dark reapers and not really supporting another unit. Fire Discipline must be maintained. You must resist the temptation to throw everything you have at one target. If you sacrifice support fire to take down a target that is not an immediate threat you risk loosing a n important unit or a unit holding an objective.

One of the most important forms of support is how you use your Seer Council or Farseer. As psychic powers are one major advantage the Eldar army has, you need to use them effectively and efficiently.

I Ideally like to have 2 Farseers. I use Eldrad Ulthran a lot as he is the best psyker in the game and he is a bargain at 210 points. This allows me to run an inexpensive second Farseer. Mobility is important for the second seer. I usually give the second seer only 2 powers and mount him on a jet bike. Fortune and Doom are your best power options. If there are lots of low leadership models I also give him Mind War. Mind war is an excellent way to deal with heavy weapons squads and specialists. You can remove specific models to assist your other units.

So basically to sum up you must stay on task and keep your eye on the prize so to speak. You will run into instances where a unit will get into a situation it is not equipped to deal with but this is why you must make sure you can support that unit with another that is good at that particular situation. Your opponet may strike at opportunity targets or just fire at the big shiny units they deem a threat. You must keep one thing in mind. If the game is objective based you must make the entire task and mission of the army as a whole to take and defend the objectives. If its a kill point mission then you must systematically eliminate each enemy unit one at a time.

Well there is my two cents. It may not be exact and may even be vague but that's what happens when you play Eldar. You have to essentially learn the army. They are not forgiving and easy to play like marines. Next time I am going to talk about how to approach different army types, IE shooty armies, deep striking armies and so on and so fourth.

Until then....

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

The Art of War: Eldar tactics pt 1

Well its time to get down to business. I may not be the greatest Seer out there but my Win record is pretty good. So its time to share my thoughts and tactics I have used to win battle for the glory of Ulthwe.

When fielding a War-host in battle you cannot think of it as individual units. You must think of it as a single weapon. The individual units are nothing without the others. You cannot rely on a single unit to carry you through the battle, no matter how awesomely powerful it is. One of the first hurdles for a Seer is to determine the deployment of your force.

Deployment

5^th edition has lead to mechanized forces being almost the norm for any game you play. With the Exception of Tyranid and Daemon armies, which have many ways to Deep Strike, out flank and otherwise get in your face really quick, you are going to be facing units dug into cover or advancing in a transport. When I deploy my War host I have 3 “layers” to the force. The first layer is my units that are mounted up in wave serpents. These form the main attack force. Depending on the number of units this is and if I have any units deep striking I will keep one or 2 of these units in reserve as a relief force to keep momentum up in an attack. Keeping back a Unit of Dire Avengers or a Jet Bike Squad in reserve is a good way to keep your troop choices safe for some late turn objective grabs.

The second layer is composed of the long ranged support troops such as Dark Reapers, support platforms, Rangers and Night Spinners. Fire Prisms can be in the first or second layer depending on your strategy. I personally like to keep them in the second layer to support the advancing forces and supporting the units holding objectives. Ranger are great for holding objectives in cover. I will talk about objective placement in the next section as it will help determine your deployment.

The second layers whole job is to support the advancing force and keep enemy units from the objectives. Attacking units should not be pulled back as this will force a loss of momentum in your attack which gives your opponent time and opportunity to strike back hard as you redeploy your army.

That said you must make sure that your second layer is dug in. You must set up units in cover and make it very costly for your opponent to get them out. Giving your Rangers and Dark reapers a good vantage point of the battle field is important. I favor buildings, but I like to put them on a mid level rather than on the top. This prevents barrage weapons from targeting them indirectly As they can only hit the top floor.

The third layer consists of your deep striking and out flanking units. These reserve troop are essential to continue the push by the first layer or back up a faltering second layer. The whole key, as I have always said, is all the units working as one and mutually supporting the others. Fire discipline is key. Identify targets with the most threat and the ones he needs to complete the game. Laying into a killer unit it all well and good until the troops choice you were ignoring waltzes in and takes the objective.

Set-up

Strait up kill point games are pretty strait forward. Objective games have some nuances. Objective placement is going to help determine where and how you are going to deploy your troops. You must guard your troops choices so that they can take objectives and defend them. This means Wave Serpents. I almost always use Dire Avengers as my objective holders as they are good all around troops and can dish out some pain. Their weapon range is also good.

Objectives should be placed in cover. This way the units holding them can benefit from a cover save and it mucks up assaults for enemy troops. You also want the objectives you place to be in your long range support troops line of sight and range. Overlapping fields of fire are important as this means you can more effectively defend the objectives.

SO theirs a start. I will continue this nest time. I must prepare for tonight’s campaign game. I have another rematch with the Judge and the Archon has one last chance to prove himself.

Until then..........

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