Lets Get Up Close and Personal: Close combat

I have been contemplating some things. After my recent games VS Papa Nurgle and Old School Terminator I have been really contemplating close combat. My Dark Eldar lists have been leaning towards wych cult as of late. This means lots of close combat. The obvious weakness inherent to Eldar is the fact they are only strength 3 base. Barring weapons that increase strength the Eldar always wound on a 5 or 6.

The Craftworlders can deal with this handicap, usually only really a handicap vs high toughness critters or space marines, by using Doom rather liberally and choosing your targets carefully. Careful target selection is very essential for squads of Wychs and Hekatrix Blood brides. You have some staying power thanks to high initiative and an array of weapons. The 4+ invulnerably is also nice. The problem lies in going more than 3 rounds of combat. This is especially true if you have no pain tokens.

I ran into this problem when I was mired down by plague bearers. Toughness 5 is pretty rough when you are only strength 3. So in response to my recent games I have really looked at close combat strategy with my wyches.

Choosing Targets

You must be very selective about the units you assault. Running a whole squad into a big bad because you have an agonizer does not make sense unless you know for a fact you can deal enough wounds to kill said big bad with extreme prejudice. I am guilty of this myself. You really have to stop and think, is this worth possibly giving up a unit? This is doubly true if its a scoring unit. Everybody knows I am stickler for kill points. I like to minimize them to a bare minimum and still have a very functional list. Getting into combats that have little chance of success is basically like handing a kill point to your opponent.

You must be aware of your surroundings. Try and look at things a turn ahead and predict what you opponent will do. If you have a nice soft unit to assault look at what is near it. Hitting a squishy unit of termagants is all well and good until you realize there is a winged Hive Tyrant within reach of the squad. You also have to look at the terrain. Hitting units close to terrain can be very advantageous as you have cover to consolidate to. Wychs only have a 6+ armor save so you better consider where they are ending up after a combat. Nothing sucks worse that loosing a whole squad to rapid fire because you were not thinking and out of position.

Transports

Unless you are jump infantry, transports are essential. Dark Eldar have an advantage, one of the few with open topped vehicles, that they can move 12 inches and still jump out and assault. With the 2 inch deploy and the 6 inch charge this means a squad of wychs can get into combat with an enemy unit that is within 20 inches. Not to bad especially since this is conservative given the variability of a run move. This also includes Incubi kids given that they are fleet now. Since 5^th edition is all about mechanized forces, which is funny to me considering I have played mechanized armies in every edition, You have to have your close combat units in a transport. They will get shredded otherwise.

For my wych Raider I like to really out fit them. I give them Torment grenade launcher and Grisly Trophys and keep the Raider within 6 to bolster the unit. The -1 leadership to the enemy and a re roll on failed leadership is nice. I also give them Flicker fields and Night shields to help get them to where they need to go. Enhanced Aether sails are not a great option though as they cannot disembark in the same turn you use them. SO this gives the enemy time to light you up with the big guns.

You can obviously use the raider to pop any potential targets as well with the dark lance. I personally like to give the wych Raiders Dizzy's. This helps you thin the heard a bit. Strength 5 AP 2 is nice to clear out some of the ablative wounds in a squad so the Wychs attacks are spread on less targets. This is also one of the reasons why I only run 2 Dark Lances on My Ravagers. Its a trade off for a mix of anti tank and anti infantry.

OK so this was a good start. I have some more thoughts to gather on the subject. I am in the process of moving and transferring to a new job so things are a bit hectic. I also promised a video blog, but alas the camera did something funky and it was not useable. So I have to try again. Next time more close combat talk and I start to pimp my tournament in March.

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

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

Thoughts on Lady Aurelia Malys

Well I have only two losses so far with the “Lelith Fair” list as I write this. I had a game last night with Old School Terminator and his Tyranids. This took place before we were set to record the first issue of my Podcast “It Came From the Webway”, but sadly The Stormlord backed out at the last minute. He had the equipment. I will cut him a little slack, he is an older guy like myself and just started a Master's program at Michigan State. We did record a video blog though where we discuss the new GW releases. So look for that soon.

So the biggest change I have made to my list is the addition of a Ravager and the Addition of Lady Malys and a retinue of Incubi. Lets take a look at the Lady that makes this a true chic fest of an army list.

Lady Aurelia Malys is the Archon of The Kabal of the poisoned tongue. She is a youngin by Eldar Standards at only 1200 years old. She is a former consort of Vect and has a mind like a steel trap. Thanks to some Webway alien mojo she has a power similar to Eldrads Divination power. She can place units in reserve though. She lacks the usual Shadow field, but still benefits from a 4+ Invulnerably save. She is armed with what is basically a Djinn Blade and an additional close combat weapon.

Her big claim to fame though is the fact she is immune to all psychic powers and also bestows this ability to any squad she joins. This makes her quit the added bonus to a unit that has killing power. Adding her to a unit of Incubi or even a unit of Grotesques can really make the unit that much more nasty, especially if it has pain tokens.

The drawbacks as I have come to find with her is she is only strength 3. Like Lelith she gets a raw ton of attacks in close combat, but still is only strength 3. She does not have combat drugs also so there is no chance of a strength boost. This was a Major thing in the last two games I have played. The big issue was against Old School Terminator as he defended the Honor of Dark Future Games with his Tyranids. Although she was immune to any shenanigans from big Tyranitus , his Hive Tyrant, she and her Incubi got spanked due to the inability to wound it effectively. It would have been better having an Archon with a shadow field, agonizer, soul trap and Djinn blade and you have some staying power with some better potential killing power for only 10 points more. Granted you don't have the psychic immunity. This is really situational though. There are ways of dealing with psychic powers that don't involve blowing an HQ slot. I, for instance, should have kept my distance from Old Schools tyranids and just Dark Lanced the big critters until they died. Note to everybody, blast the hive tyrant first. I was also surprised to see she does not even have a splinter pistol so not shooting for the Lady.

All in all Lady Malys could be a good addition to a game in which you know psykers are going to e a major issue. I think I may be swapping her out for a regular Archon. We will see. I may keep her in just to keep the theme up and work on my strategy a bit.

Well next time I am going to cover some tactics. Namely Eldar in close combat. I have had some revelations after my past two games that I wish to share. Also look for my video blog in the coming days. Its my first so I apologize in advance if it seems rough

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

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

Changing the LIneup: "Leltih Fair" Evolves

The list I call “Lelith Fair” has gone through some development. I have gotten in 5 games with it and it has a 4 and 1 record. My only loss so far is to Inquisitor Lord Vogrin and his hellacious Imperial Guard army. I swear his Manticore is like the hobby project of the Fabricator General of Mars. It is uncanny in its ability to fire 3 missiles a turn. Once again its the sheer weight of tanks overwhelmed me. That and Vogrin uncanny ability to seize the initiative. So far I have squared up against 2 Space Wolf armies and beat them soundly. I have also beaten codex marines. I still need to figure out my issues against Imperial Guard.  I really think it has more to do with the way I deploy rather than the force make up.  The sheer number of tanks is what is getting me down.  Usually I just send in the Seer Council and watch the tank commanders panic as I smack the tanks with Witch Blades.  I can almost do that with Wychs armed with Haywire Grenades.  I am packing a lot of dark lances but I need to really work on deployment and target priority.  The target priority thing is hard when even a bolter can bring down my transports and most heavy weapons glance on a 2 or even just by rolling a dice.  I do have to say though there is really no bad roll on the combat drug table.  All of them have helped, granted the pain token right off the bat is nice.  You all may have also noticed in the comments on my blog and DFG there are a lot of Dr Rockso references. I blame combat drugs.  Wyches love their combat drugs as much as Rick James loved Cocaine.  This lead to me making Dr. Rockso jokes as I played my Wych lists.  Needless to say it lead to some sound beatings as Old School Terminator uses it to get me going and charge headlong into his Tyranids.  Won't make that mistake when I play him with this list.  Lelith Fair has beaten everybody Except Vogrin so far.  I have to play Old School and Farseer Re-Rolls yet.  Should be interesting.

The “Lelith Fair” list has changed only slightly. It has morphed and developed after every game. I dropped Harlequins in favor of Beast Masters. After my Game with CSVinton I dropped the Beast Masters and Hekatrix Blood Brides in favor of Hellions. Now After my Game with The Judge recently I dropped the Hellions and Void Raven. I needed a power unit to deal with power armor and psychic powers. SO I added a Ravager and now it is a chic fest because I also added Lady Malys to the mix.

I am hoping this will give me some killing power to deal with those pesky Rune priests and Librarians as well as dealing with terminators and tough units. I ran into Terminator trouble against both the Judge's army and CSVinton's. Especially CSVinton's as he had a 12 man death star of Terminators that included a Librarian and Vulcan. There is a question though that I pose to the readers. Lady Malys special rule says she ans the unit she joins are immune to all psychic powers.

So does this include force weapons? The entry in the rule book says that force weapons give the user an additional psychic power that is usable in close combat. It also says all the normal rules for psychic powers apply to the use of this power. This means one power per turn unless they can cast two.

So from my interpretation this makes her immune to the instant killing power of a force weapon. Putting her in with a squad of Incubi makes the unit a very effective psyker killing unit. You can deal with most everything standing between you and the Psyker and Those nasty force weapons can't wipe her out. This would even allow you to walk unmolested, no difficult or dangerous tests, to a rune priest and give him a good smack.

So opinions are welcome. Well I know I promised some battle reports vs The Judge and CSVinton, but I have not had time to write them and to much time has passed for me to remember the details. I am however finally doing my first podcast on Wednesday. I will be joined by The Stormlord of Chaos Kingdoms. Since its our normal 40K night at the FLGS I imagine some of the Dark Future Games crew will be present to make some statements and banter a bit.

In a related note Inquisitor Vogrin and I played in the “Bound by Blood” team tournament at Evolution games this past Saturday. There was very stiff competition, but we emerged the victors. The Craftworlders lead by Eldrad and the Imperial guard of Inquisitor Vogrin took the top prize. In fact we had a grudge match against the same team we faced in round 3 of the “End Of Days” tournament this past summer. Go check out Vogrins report on Dark Future Games. Needless to say we dominated and spanked the team that beat us last time.

Until next time......

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

More Forgeworld love

Well looks like we are seeing some love from Forgeworld.  These would appear to be some test rules and models we will see in the upcoming Imperial Armor 11.

First up we have the Warp Hunter which is a Heavy support choice.  Not only is this guy packing a d-cannon it has a special fire mode that uses the flame template.  Based on the venerable Falcon / Wave Serpent chassis this is a nice addition.  I am a big fan of distortion cannons and I have always felt they needed to be used more.  More pics and the rules pdf can be found here

The models I am real excited about is the guys to the right.  The shadow Specters are a new Aspect warrior shrine.  As I suspected when I saw them they are packing miniature versions of the Prism cannon.  its a strength 6 AP 2 cannon with a 12 inch range.  They can combine beams to increase the range and strength and give the beam the Lance rule.  The Exarch has powers that allow re-rolls to hit and Hit and Run.  Did I also mention these guys have jet packs, not jump packs.  The Exarch can also be armed with a Haywire Launcher.  They have a 5+ invulnerable save along with the 4+ armor and they can deep strike.  I see a lot of unit falling victim to these guys.  They are expensive though.  Granted I think I would pay 35 points for these guys over wraith guard anyday.  I really like these models and I love the rules as they stand.  I will be purchasing a couple units of these guys very very soon.  Simon Egan has really out done himself with these models.  I am really looking forward to what Imperial Armor 11 has to offer, especially since we will be getting the Phantom Titan.  Check out more pics and the rules for the Shadow Specters here

Well I am in the midst of writing a battle report vs CSVinton and I will be playing Vogrin using my "Lelith Fair" list.  Will I go 4-0 Vs Dark Future Games?  We shall see.


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


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

Unleash The Beast: Dark Eldar Beast Masters

Recently I played against Captain Obvious of Dark Future Games fame and his Daemons. This was the second game using my “Lelith Fair” list. In this incarnation of the list though I had dropped the Harlequin squad and added a Ravager. I also added a squad that I have previously never used. The web forums and blogs are a buzz with how awesome this unit is as well. This of course is the Beast Master pack.

The battle with Captain Obvious was quite the carnal house of slaughter. If it had went to turn 6 He would have been tabled. The rolls were going my way and I was pretty much in full control of the direction of battle. I won't go into details with a full battle report as I am pretty sure Captain Obvious's pride is wounded enough after the brutalizing his Daemons took at the hands of the Wych Cult of Strife. One of the lynch pins of the battle was the Beast Master pack. Lets delve into this unit a bit as it has changed quits a bit since the last incarnation.

The Beast Master pack occupies a Fast Attack slot. You can have up to 5 Beast Masters in the unit. Each can have up to a certain amount of beasties. This means that the unit can get very very large and has quit the mix so you can benefit from a little bit of wound allocation cheese. So first we will look at the Beast Masters themselves and then the beasties.

Beast Masters

The Beast masters are the only part of the unit with the Power From Pain rule. This means only they benefit from pain tokens according to the newly published FAQ. They are armed with a close combat weapon and a Hellion Skyboard. You can upgrade one of them to have a special weapon. I prefer to give them an Agonizer just to have a power weapon in the mix that does not rely on strength. You can also give them a power weapon or Venom blade.. You can have up to 5 Beast Masters as part of the unit. Each can one type of beast up to the limit set on the beast type. You can have 0-5 Kymerae, 0-1 Clawed Fiends and 0-2 Razor Wing flocks. The number of beats masters is important because this limits how many beasts you can have. They also give the unit the ability to shoot. The Skyboards have the Splinter pods equipped so you have a poison 4+ assault 2 weapon with an 18 inch range. Not to bad for a close combat unit. This lets you soften up your targets and at the same time measure a charge range on the sly. Granted a 12 inch charge range will get you there pretty easily, but it never hurts to be sure.

Kymerae

Kymerae are the classic Warp Beasts from the last codex. They are quick and strong with a decent number of attacks. They also have a 4+ invulnerable save. This lets you wound allocate the high strength and instant kill weapons away from your multi wound models. These guys will strike with the Beast Masters at initiative 6 . I like to take 5 of theses just to increase the survivability of the unit.

Clawed Fiend

The Clawed Fiend is a bruiser. With a toughness and strength of 5 he can dish out a nice number of wounds and take hits as well. The fiend starts with 4 attacks and gets an additional one per wound it has. This maxes out at 7 attacks as it has 4 wounds. This guy can take the high strength wounds the Kymerae can't take. Its beneficial as you gain attacks when you put wounds on it. Despite the 40 point cost I take at least one to round out the unit and add in yet another type to help with would allocation.

Razorwing Flock

The Razor wing flock is a wound sync. At 5 wounds it can take some punishment, just as long as its not strength 6. The flock also has 5 attacks that are rending. Each beast master can take up to 2 flocks. I load up 3 of them with Razorwings for a total of 6 bases. Thats 30 rending attacks, 36 on the charge. These guys will make up the bulk of your unit unless you are going for an invulnerable save wall.

There are a couple of obvious weaknesses to this unit. There are also a couple not so obvious. The first real blatant weakness is the fact the best save in the group is a 4+. The second is that all but one of the beasties is toughness 3. This means you really have to watch your deployment. This is one of the not so obvious weaknesses. This unit is big. In fact its huge. It takes up a ton of room in the deployment zone and is prime for blast templates. It is defiantly a unit you want to deploy via web way portal or hold in reserve. You also really have to watch what you engage. Remember they only have a leadership of 8. Given the amount of wounds this unit has it is easy to forget that it can be easy to loose a combat to a very tough unit like terminators or plague marines. If a unit has awesome saves and FNP you must choose your battles very carefully. There is no real option, if you want the unit to be unhampered, to raise their leadership. Be careful about close combats near the edge of the board as well. With a retreat move of 3d6 you will loose them if you are to close to the board edge.

Now the unit is, pardon the pun, a beast. The sheer number of attacks you get is in the crazy range. Combine this with its ability to shoot at a good distance and move fast across the board you have a very lethal unit. It takes some finesse to use though.

So there is my take on Beast Masters. I should have my battle report against CSVinton and his Salamanders up later in the week.

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

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

Power From Pain: Rule Resolved?

The new Dark Eldar codex was released with much fan fair. It introduced a lot of new rules and reworking of how the army functioned as a cohesive fighting unit. The Power From Pain rule was the biggest change. The rule reads;

“Whenever a Dark Eldar Unit with this rule destroys a non-vehicle enemy unit, it immediately gains a pain token.......Each pain token confers a special rule to the whole unit.”

The first token gives the unit Feel No Pain, the second Furious Charge and the third makes the unit Fearless.

This is all well and good. It has made the survivability of the units better and at the same time has made them more lethal. There is a question that popped up in my mind though. What if a character joins a or a unit that is mixed that has components in it that have Power From Pain gain a token. Does it mean the whole unit now benefits from it? For example Lelith Hesperax joins a Harlequin unit and kills an IC or the unit in question. She gains a pain token. Does this mean the Harlequins now have FNP. A better example is the Beast Master pack. If the unit kills another unit and the Beast master themselves, who have Power from pain, gain a pain token does it affect the beasties as well, which do not have the rule.

The beast master entry specifically states only the Beast Master have Power From Pain. The Description of the rule though, especially how the second line reads infers it affects the whole unit, not just the generators of the tokens.

There seems to be some ambiguity here. For guidance I checked out the Inet FAQ. It says that the whole unit does indeed gain the ability even if some portions do not have the Power From Pain rule. So this is how it will run at Adepticon. This seems to go against the way the rule was intended though. The trouble is arguments can be made for both sides. The unit gaining the rule despite not everybody having it and not gaining it because they don't have the rule.

We also have GW finally weighing in as well. The new FAQ from GW is up and it states power from pain only affects those models that have the rule. So will this change the Inet FAQ and will it change how its run at tournaments?

What is your opinion.? Lets discuss a bit even though its pretty much been clarified from GW's end.

Next time we talk about Beast Master and a Battle report Vs CSVinton of Dark Future Games.

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

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

Make Them Know Fear: Killing Space Marines SeerK Style pt 3

Despite the codex creep occurring, the Eldar are still some of the best psykers in 40k. They do have attack powers, but their strength really lays in how they bolster the other units in the army. One of the major thorns in an Eldar players side is when they face up against a Space Marine army fielding Librarians. These Imperial psykers can throw a mon-keigh wrench in your well laid plans. So here is how to kill them with impunity.

One of the key things when dealing with librarians is containment. This can be an issue when they are equipped with the Gate of Infinity power. Of course Craftworld Eldar have a few options. The major one that many overlook is Runes of Warding. I see many tournament lists that leave off the Runes of Warding and I have never really known why. This can hamper a librarian quite a bit. In fact I remember a game where two Rune Priests were only able to really use a power every other turn and even just giving up after taking perils of the warp twice in one turn. Since Runes are a passive ability that cover the whole table it is the only defense the Eldar have Vs librarians. Granted Perils is not as scary when you have a storm shield. Granted only Codex Librarians can do that, broken as it is, but this means you have to deal with the librarian with just plain brute force. Perils still denies the use of the power though.

This is one Aspect of containment. Denying the librarian the ability to reliably use his powers every turn can really cause havoc in strategy. This is especially true when you are faced with the hellacious powers of the Blood Angels and Space Wolves. Eldar are graced with high initiative so powers like Jaws of the Werewolf are next to useless, except on the random roll of a 6. This is especially true of Dark Eldar. Since Wyches have a base initiative of 6 they rarely fail.

It will also help if you deploy in such a way to deny effective targets for line attacks. Keeping the Librarian occupied and pinned down is the next step in containment.  This was very important in my recent game against CSVinton and his Salamanders.   Keeping the Librarian in one spot allows you to travel the board and stay out of Psychic Hood range. This is why you should not attempt to use powers directly on the Librarian. Doom and Mind war have an effective range that is inside psychic hood range. Granted if you are facing a Daemon Hunter or Grey Knight army you are faced with Psychic Hoods that blanket the board. In this case you must hit the owner hard and fast with high strength weapons to get the instant kill.

Even if the Librarian is in Terminator armor you can kill it easily using the Terminator killing tips form our last segment.

Dark Eldar have a little harder time with Psykers. The Crucible of Malediction is only available to Haemonculi and is not a real reliable way to deal with Librarians. Remove from play weapons are effective though. As are Dark Light weapons. Hex rifles and the like will remove a model from play. This is also where a shattershard is effective as it allows no save. If you know for a fact Librarians are going to be an issue Lady Malys and a retinue of Incubi are a good way to effectively deal with and occupy a Librarian. As long as Lady Malys is in the unit you need not fear force weapons. Remember the instant killing ability of the Force Weapon is a special psychic power. Lady Malys herself is immune to all psychic powers as is the unit she joins. This make for a very effective anti psychic unit. Using single wound models also blunts its effectiveness. You also must always remember that Runes of Warding affects this roll as well.

Ultimately you must keep the Librarian from your core units and make sure you hamper his ability to use his powers effectively. This means deploying your force in such a way as to facilitate this. Keep your killer unit shielded and your psychic units on standby and out range of any hoods.

So my two cents about the Librarians of the Space Marines. They can be a bugger, but as long as you keep your cool and don't freak out about them they are an easy kill just like any other unit.

SO next time I will be talking about my new favorite unit. The Beast Master pack I added to “Lelith Fair” was very instrumental in my victory over Captain Obvious. I will talk about this unit next time.  I will also be posting a battle report against Dark Future Games CSVinton and his Salamanders.  Vulkan and his boys did not fair so well as Lelith continues her murderous rampage through the store  Also look for my first Podcast next week. “From The Webway” Premiers next week.

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

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