Killing Seer Councils

I have been busy and have gotten behind, so it is time to catch up!



E-mail in! (I have always wanted to say that)

Magilla Gorilla wrote:

I have been following your batreps on Dakka for awhile, but I have never seen you having to deal with a mounted Seer Council. Mounted Seer Councils are the range where I play and there are no less than 2 Seer Council Eldar players at every local tourney the FLGS has....So, the question is this? How would you deal with them?



You are right! In all of the batreps I have posted, I have never posted a batrep with a Seer Council. There is one big reason why I have never done it is because I have never faced one.

The Seer Council has had a lot of popularity in the UK for a while now, and it seems like only in the last year that it has made its appearance on these shores. Since it is rearing its ugly head more and more, it would behoove people to learn how to take them out.

Now there are 2 kinds of Seer Councils, Jetbikes or Wave Serpents as mobility.

Jetbikes have a stat boost from the bikes as well as turbo-boosting, and serpents can fly across the table in one turn and they are both formidable.



The Seer council gets a ton of its durability from Fortune. Without it the Jetbikes have the same stats as Thousand Sons: Toughness 4, 3+ save. 4+ Inv save, and the walking variety just has a 4+ inv save. But what make them a pain is the re-roll. So whenever you catch them without Fortune, you must unleash hell upon them. There are a few ways to get them to drop the fortune.

#1. First strike!

If they start on the board and go second, they will not have Fortune up for the first turn and if you can get some fire on them, hit them with everything that you have. If they choose to be kept in reserve then the first turn that they come on the board they will not have fortune up either, then shoot them with as much as you can (though most of the time they will have turbo boosted, so they have a 3+ cover save so you need volume of fire).

#2. Cancel Fortune with Wargear

This will be harder that most people think because the Seer Council normally has a Warlock with Embolden in it meaning that they can re-roll failed Leadership Tests, so things like Shadow in the Warp and Stones of Warding will not help much, and not only that, there are so many races that do not have access to anti-psychic wargear. But there are a few codexes that have access to wargear like Psychic Hoods. Although the Hoods have less than 50% chance to shut it down, when you can stop it, all you need is one round to hit them with everything that you have. If you are a Marine Player you should also have Null Field to also cancel Fortune. You can also purchase an Inquisitor with a Null Rod will ignore Fortune, which is nice.

Remember, any round that they do not have Fortune up that is when they are vulnerable and hit them with everything that you have. You may not be able to stop them, but you will reduce them to more manageable numbers.

#3. Luck!

If they roll an 11 or 12 on three dice taking out the highest with a re-roll on their psychic test it will not go off. If you manage to do this, then the Dice Gods smile upon you and you must go out and by a lottery ticket because you have a better chance at winning that then having Fortune not go off do to a failed psychic check.



General Tactics

If they are in a Wave Serpent they will have to get close to assault. So what will happen is that they will cast Fortune on the Wave Serpent and fly across the board with Star Engines and get into your face. Since they are moving over 18" they get a 4+ obscured save, and with a re-roll for fortune, good luck taking that down, but if you can, try to destroy it, because a walking Seer Council is not much of a threat. If they do fly that close to your lines, and you have units near them (and you should have since they are planning on assaulting you), then you should have units close enough to assault the Wave Serpent. Now you are not planning on taking down the Wave Serpent, but all you want to do is block the back hatch. Since they only have one exit port, you can block it and they can't get out and assault, so that will buy you some time.



What can't Seer councils kill?

Elite infantry. If you have some throw it at them. Since they lack power weapons, they can't kill things with good saves. That means Terminators, Plague Marines, etc. Anything that has a good save they get tarpitted with. It they get in a fight with Marines they will have trouble killing them, because a 3+ save is your friend. Be careful of what you attack them with though, because a high toughness does not matter to them, only saves.



What kills Seer Councils?

A lots of firepower will take them down, especially if you can get it strength 6 and above. Lootas should be blasting them every chance they get. War Walkers with scatter lasers and even rapid fired bolters will help in a pinch. Remember that nothing really kills them, but you want to reduce them to a reasonable number so when they assault you they don't do much damage. Also try to keep your army together. They want to assault where they can't be counter attacked by large numbers, but when you hit them, you will need to throw a lot of units at them. Note: This is only good if you have a good save. If you have a poor save then they will kill a lot and you will have to take massive leadership checks on your army. If you have a bad save you want to spread out so they will slaughter a unit and them you can shoot them some more.


Here is a good example of a Seer Council in action. Lazarus's army at the Necro last year. When I saw it I thought it was a very formidible army, and wondered how I would beat it. Read his batreps and see what they can do. Yriel+Eldrad is a tough nut to crack.

Blood of Kittens Word Association

I do a project over at the Blood of Kittens blog were several of us write a quick column about various 40k topics.

The authors that contribute to it is Miggidy Mack from the Dice Like Thunder podcast, JWolf from BoLS and his own blog, and Nathan Fluger who is a
player from the Seattle area.

We get one word and have to write about it. Here are the topics and posts so far:

Eldrad

Balanced Lists

Comp Score

Thunder Wolf Cavalry

Black Friday

One of the reasons why I started with the pre-heresy Thousand Sons is that I thought it would be cheap since I have almost everything already.



Boy was I wrong! I just spent over $200 at the war store and I still have not bought any vehicles yet.

I did buy all of the bases though, and they should be here soon. I found a good tutorial on how to paint them here:

http://www.chestofcolors.com/cofc-postnuke/index.php?name=Sections&req=viewarticle&artid=45&page=1



One of the big stumbling blocks is the transfers. Here are the 2 decal prints that are already done for the Thousand Sons:


Thanks to Tubal over on the B&C for this




This is from BoLS

As everyone knows, home printers don't print white, so I have a couple of options. The first is to have them professionally done which will cost $50-$100. The other option is to print them on white decal paper, and cut each symbol out individually. This is the long and tedious option, but it will be a lot cheaper. I ordered some white decal paper to see if it will be feasible.

Some more about comp

When I was writing about comp I forgot my favorite saying back when comp was all the rage several years ago:


 
A fluffy army is Space Marines.

A cheesy army is anything that can beat Space Marines.

Thousand Sons update

I have been collecting bits and pieces of my Thousand Sons for a few years now and I am finally getting around to putting them all together.

I did an inventory and I was surprised with what I had. I thought I had everything that I needed, but when I laid them all out I saw just how much I was missing. I collected all of the rare pre-heresy parts that I needed like the chest pieces and the heads, but what I found out was that I am missing all of the backs of the chest, and all of the legs. So I need to start to order a bunch of bits so I have everything for a complete marine.



While I am waiting on the bitz/bases in the meantime I will throw a couple of spawn together incase Ahriman goes nuts with the Gift of Chaos.

What are the top tier armies?

There is an interesting post over on Dakka. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/266407.page

That asks the question what are the top lists?


 
In the past I would put them into 3 tiers (good, bad, and ugly) and listed the most competitive builds. But after some thought, I no longer do this, and the reasons why is that I think you can win with any codex. The codexes that I thought were in the bottom of the tiered system were Necrons and Demonhunters and I think that I can win with both of them.


 
I will make the argument that what everyone thinks are top tier lists are just easier to play, and not necessarily better than the other codexes. And don't get me wrong by thinking that what I am saying is that you can win with any units, and that any 1500 points is the same and any other 1500 points, but each codex has enough good units that can work together well enough to where you can build a successful winning army.


 
Take for example, what everyone thinks are a top tier chaos list. You have tough demon princes, plague marines that just sit around and take damage, and oblits. It is a pretty easy army to play. You can also look at what people think are top tier Eldar builds of Mech and Seer council. Mech Eldar armies work under the principle of if your opponent does not have enough anti-tank you win, if they do then you are in trouble. The seer council just has a very durable unit that just heads to the opponents, and assaults. Not much brain power required. Both those builds are super easy to play.


 
Necrons vs. Imperial Guard.

A lot of people think that Necrons are one of the worst armies and at the bottom if the tiers. If you look at the results of the UK GT heat #2 Necrons did well with one person coming in at 8^th place (higher than any Space Marine player). Why was that possible? Because you can win with Necrons. The army plays similar to my Eldar do because they are able to shoot a lot of strength 6 shooting, and they are quite durable. Here is the problem with them, they are bad in assault, so what players have to do with them is think 2-3 turns ahead and plan accordingly. This is the same as the 4^th edition IG codex. You had to plan your moves and think ahead several turns to win with this army. Now that the 5^th edition IG codex is here, there is a lot less thinking that you have to do with Vendettas, Valkyries, and all of the different HS choices that the army is now on "easy mode" and requires much less thought.


 

I need to hurry on my Thousand Sons!

It looks like I need to get going on my Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons. I was planning on having it ready for Adepticon, but with the release of the new GT Tournament Circuit, I have to change my time table and get a move on!


 
ConQuest GT

The ConQuest GT is in only 2 months away and they have a lot of points for painting and conversions. You get 100 points max for battle, and 50 points for painting/conversions.

http://www.con-quest.com/

If I can get my army really, that would be a good way to score a lot of points, but I do not think I can make it in time. I am a slow painter already, and to make a full 2000 point army from scratch will take a good long time. I am on the fence about going to this event, so a lot will depend on how far along my army is to getting done.


 
Broadside Bash

It looks like it is the same thing with the Broadside Bash, where they have 100 battle points possible with 33 points coming from painting, 36 from player scored comp (argh!) and sportsmanship. So out of a possible 200 points, only 100 point will be battle points, and the rest are player judged. I told myself that I was not going to go to The Broadside Bash again, but I think I will give it another chance. The problems with it last year was that the area was really cramped together, it is a 2000 point tournament and they said that they had 2.5 hours a round, and it came out to be more like 1.5.

http://www.broadsidebash.com/rules.php


 

 
So I need to finish my Thousand Sons and fast so I can try to max out on the paint scores. I have been waiting on the War Store's Black Friday sale so I can pick up a lot of these bases:

http://www.thewarstore.com/MASTempleBases.html

I am off next week, so I will try to do some work on them.

GT Circuit Events for 2010

Well, it looks like GW released the tournament circuit events for 2010.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=&pIndex=1&aId=14700053&start=2


I plan on going to the events below:


January2010Conquest Slaughter15th-17thSeattle

February2010Broadside Bash12th-14thLos Angeles (I did not like it last year, and I was not going to go, but now it looks like I will go and a lot of others will as well)

March2010Adepticon26th-28thChicago

April2010Slaughter in SpaceTBDLos Angeles

June2010ConQuest Invasion26th-27thLos Angeles? (Never heard of this event/convention)

July201040K 'Ard Boyz Finals17thChicago (If I make it to the finals)

July2010Bolscon29th-1stAustin

August2010Socal SlaughterTBDLos Angeles





It looks like a lot of trips to LA for me. I might go to more or less events depending on how well I do.

Comp Part II

In my comp article I wanted to say that I was talking about 40k. Fantasy is a mess right now, and they may need some kind of comp system because they have 3 army books that are overpowered compared to of all of the others. I know that GW wants a little bit of codex creep to sell new figures, but they are doing a very bad job of balancing Fantasy right now.


 
For the most part I think 40k is in good shape as far as balancing goes. To give an example of this here are the results of the Heat #2 of the UK GT that took place last weekend. Remember that this is a 1500 point, no comp, bring the hardest armies you can make:


 
1) Mark Burstall - Orks
2) Simone Di Tomaso - CSM
3) Kiam Reddy - Eldar
4) Felix Porras Munoz - CSM
5) Ricardo Bacelo Polo - Orks
6) Andrew Church - Blood Angels
7) Alexander Fennell - Imperial Guard
8) Manuel Andres Fernandez - Necrons
9) David Fairweather - Daemons
10) Gianni Vacca - Imperial Guard


 
We see that there are 7 different armies in the top ten. That is pretty good. Not only that but Necrons* who everyone says are a bad army had a good showing. Also I am glad that I sold my Heat 2 ticket to Alex so he could place 7^th. J


 
If I have to point a finger at the imbalances in 40k have more to do with certain units instead of armies in general. When 5^th edition rolled out, it made previously mediocre units very powerful. Nob Bikers, Seer Councils, Mech armies, etc. So I would say that if you were going to have comp, it would be to limit certain units, and not really punish armies.


 
*I like Necrons, they kind of play like my Eldar army. They can chuck a lot of strength 6 shooting down-range and they are fast and durable. At the Wild West Shootout I won a Necron army and I am tempted to play one, but I told myself that I need to cut my armies down to only 5.

The death of comp

Comp? I hate comp!
And this is coming from someone who is pretty much comp friendly. Chaos is my main army, and I only own 3 Obliterators, no Plague Marines, and I took 1 Lash for the first time at the Adepticon Gladiator last year.



To first talk about comp we have to figure out what is comp? Comp is a way of handicapping armies so that they are all equal. Since Games Workshop makes codexes that are not equal in power, comp is a way to try to make all of them equal. There would be no need for comp if GW balanced their codexes better, but they are either unable or unwilling to do it.



Balancing the codexs seems like a good idea, but it is impossible to achieve.

The first problem is that what codexes/units need balancing? If you ask 5 people you will get 5 different answers, so now one can even agree what needs to be fixed.

The second part is how do you even balance them?



I have played in many comp systems and they are all bad…very very bad.

Let's take a look at a few of the different comp systems:

Player judged comp:

Player judged comp is bad because everyone has prejudices that sometimes are not based on reality. At the Baltimore GT in 2008 I played SoB and my opponent did not like my army because I took 3 Exorcists. He did not like me spamming any one unit for all of my heavy support choices. Never mind that Exorcists are the Witchhunters only ranged anti-tank, and the only way they can deal with Mech armies, and lots of Oblits etc. The funny thing is that he had 2 Land Raiders, and there was no way that I could deal with them without the Exorcists.

Check lists:

I played in a 5 game GT style tournament in Sacramento a couple of years ago and they had a long laundry list of items that you get penalized for. They wanted you to take a lot of troops, no AP 2 weapons, etc. The problem, not all armies fit in to a check list. I brought a Thousand Sons armies that people think was pretty tame, and most people thought were one of the weakest armies, and I got the worst comp score. The Thousand Sons have very few but very expensive troops, so when you make everyone take more troops than other selections in the army, they are penalized. Same with armies like Tau. Why should I get penalized when I am playing a weak and fluffy army? Some armies are not meant to have a ton of troops, and not every army has access to weapons like missile launchers that can take the place of lascannons. When you make a list of what you can do and what you can't then all that happened is that some armies get penalized unfairly, and others get through that should have some limits placed on them. Here is that comp system that was changed for 5^th edition and it is not as bad as it was, but still hurts some armies;

http://www.greatescapegames.com/ContestofChampions/40K/COC%20Comp%20Scoring.htm



Here is a hybrid comp score from Da Boyz GT that combined 15 points of check list, and 25 points of player judged.

http://www.daboyzgt.com/gt09/Final%20Comp.htm

Judge Scoring:

This is an ok way to go, but you are still open to what the judge thinks is cheesy and what is not. Also when you travel around to RTTs, the locals always get much better scores than the out-of-towners, for a couple of reasons. One is that they are friends with the judges, the other is that the locals know what armies and units are cheesy in that area, and what are not (it is strange to see how much local variance to what is considered cheesy). To give an example of this I brought a Tyranid army down to an RTT at Game Empire in San Diego and my comp score was horrible. It seems that one of the best players down there played Tyranids, and they all hated the army because he was crushing people with it. It is funny how the local perception was so distorted from the national thoughts on the codex because a very good player played that army, so they thought that the army was cheesy, and everyone who used it was cheesy as well.



The ugly side of comp:

If you try to institute comp, and all comp does is shift what the cheesy armies are that work within the comp system. To use a Fantasy example, at The Tides of War 2 day tournament that was held in Mesa, AZ last month, they had a comp restriction. Fantasy arguably needs comp because their army books are way out of whack, so what they did was put restrictions in to make their games more comp friendly. So what everyone does is look to find what the most powerful builds that can fit into what ever comp system they are using. So what happened is that beastmen were the best army that got by the comp system and ended up with a good showing because of it.

Comp makes you soft. At the UK GT they were wondering why all of the Italians and the Spanish always do very well in their heats. Why is that? There are a couple of reasons, if you are flying to a major event you are there to compete and have a good showing. Also the UK for the most part (other than the UK GT) is very comp friendly and that has made the English soft when they go up against the other Europeans who do not play with comp.



Here is another thing that is awful about comp. Here you are being Mr. Nice Guy and bring a nice fluffy list, and here comes TFG who totally ignores the comp rules and takes the nastiest list that they can and crushes everyone. In that Sacramento GT there was a guy who brought an armored company and with all of the restrictions on bring heavy weapons for everyone else, he was crushing people. In round #1 he phased out a Necron player in turn #1 before he had a chance to move. Sounds like fun?

So when you go to a GT that does not have comp you will need to deal with it, and not complain about other armies that are taking advantage of it.


Let's us all understand that comp is dead, and that we all have to fight it out without it there to protect some armies.

Demonhunters for the Conquest GT

So I am thinking about heading on up to the Conquest GT in Seattle next Jan. I thought I would play my Demon Hunters and this is what I came up with for a list:

HQ

Inquisitor w/Psycannon, Null Rod, Emperor's Tarot, Psychic Hood.

2 Sages

3 Mystics

1 Familiar

3 Warrors w/2 Heavy Bolters, Plasma Cannon

Land Raider



Grey Knight Brother Captain w/Psycannon



Elite
Callidus Assassin



Troops

5 Grey Knights w/2 Psycannons

1 Grey Knight Justicar



5 Grey Knights w/2 Psycannons

1 Grey Knight Justicar



5 Storm Troopers w/2 Melta Guns

Chimera



5 Storm Troopers w/2 Melta Guns

Chimera



Heavy Support

Land Raider

Dreadnought w/TL Lascannon

Dreadnought w/TL Lascannon, Missile Launcher

I prefer a shooting style of Demon Hunters. Lots of TL lascannons, and strength 6 Psycannons.

ETC

Well, I was talking to some people about being part of the USA contingent to the 40k European Team Championships where teams of 8 players from different countries play for national pride, then I get this e-mail:

"You recently signed up for both the 40K Gladiator and 40K Championships at AdeptiCon 2010. Since you registered we have added some information regarding the European Team Championships. Participation in both the above mentioned events is required to qualify for ETC consideration. If you are interested in being considered a potential candidate for the ETC, simply respond to this email stating your participation and we will add you to the list.

Additional information regarding the ETC can be found here:
http://www.adepticon.org/10rules/etc.pdf "


 
I have been trying to get a team to go to the ETC for a while, but I was unable to get any traction.


 
What people don't understand is that you are talking about a 16 hour plane ride (not including the 3 layovers) at the cost of $1500 for a few games of 40k. And that is just to get you in the door. Then you are talking about lodging, food etc, not to mention that summer is the peak tourist season in Europe, and Germany is one of the most expensive countries, and the list goes on. People have trouble going to Adepticon, and you want them to travel across the world to play? I would think that it would be best to find 8 bodies that want to go rather than being too picky about who you have going.


 
To give you an example of this, they have been trying to get a second Dakka Dakka team to Adepticon and they always have people fall out, and things come up, etc. To get people to Germany not only do they have a huge logistical problem, but who of us can really say that we can do anything as far away as August? People get laid off, they get into relationships, they run into fanatical problems, lose interest in 40k etc. and that is with plenty of warning. Then they want to invite 2 people in April to see if they can go? Right now my work is bidding on vacation time for 2010, so I would need to know now if I was on the team, not in April.

IMO they are going about it wrong, and they just need some commitments from people, and not worry about everything else. England could not go because they could not get the people 2 years ago and for them it is a 2.5 hour flight at $250, and they are not the only team that has had these problems.


 
I don't know, I wanted to go and make a European vacation out of it, but the audition process has turned me off. I have a feeling that I could be at the bottom of the standings at Adepticon and get an invite since they can't get anyone else to go. The whole process makes the UK GT that much more appealing.

Army list tinkering

I was doing some thinking about Pre-Heresy armies and I came to the conclusion that they look really nice, but they are very boring on the table top.

Take everything that is at least a little interesting in the Space Marine codex and Chaos Codex and throw them out, and what you have left is a Pre-Heresy army.

You do have a great looking army thought because you have Jetbikes instead of bikes, turbo-fan back packs instead of the regular assault marines, and the unique look of the earlier space marine armors.

But underneath the look you have a very basic army.

I have changed around some things so here is the army so far:


 
Ahriman

Dreadnought

10 Chaos Space Marines

10 Chaos Space Marines

Rhino

9 Thousand Sons

5 Oblits

Land Raider

I traded the havocs for a land raider. I did this for a few reasons. Some armies just do not have an answer for Land Raiders. Also it is mobile and can move troops around while Havocs have a little better firepower, but they are very static. The good news is that it means that I have to do 10 less marines, and will have an interesting model to work on. Sure makes the army rather small though which is both good and bad. If I was not so interested in the look of the army and wanted to go for more power I would drop Ahriman and the dreadnought and up the firepower and maybe some terminators for counter assault.

A quick update

A little news:

 

BoK contacted me to do a little work for them. They have an interesting 40K blog so if you have never checked them out before you can find them here:

http://bloodofkittens.com/?p=1880

 

Also there was some talk about doing a full in depth battle report. What I mean by that is not just writing down what happened, but a full tactical breakdown of every little movement. I am thinking about it, but it will be a lot of work.

Adepticon

I just signed up for Adepticon.

I told myself that I was going to take it easy for next year, and not do the Gladiator, but I ended up signing up for it anyways. If they had some better games or seminars I would skip it.



So once again I find myself doing the Iron Man of 4 Gladiator Games, 4 Team Tournament Games and 3 Championship games.



I love being there, but at the end of the weekend I am burned out, and I am glad to come home.

I also added a painting seminar from Chris Borer. I normally I am playing in tournaments and can't take a seminar, but I am glad that they scheduled one after the Gladiator so I can go. Of course it ends at 12 midnight, and I have to wake up at 7:00am or so for the Team Tournament, and I am already jet lagged, so that ain't going to be pretty.



Now I need to make a 2250 point Gladiator army. I am not a big forgeworld guy, but I told myself that I will bring something with some structure points this year. Maybe a Silver Tower of Tzeentch, or a Brass Scorpion or maybe I will just run a regular army.

Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons part II

Taking the units from the previous post, here is the preliminary list:



HQs

Ahriman-Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons

Ahriman -250 Points



Elites

Kargori Dreadnought

Dreadnought w/Multimelta, Extra armor -115 Points



Troops

Jafari Tactical Support Squad

9 CSM w/Lascannon, Plasma Gun, IoCG -225 points

Aspiring Champion w/Power Weapon



Pa-Siamun Tactical Squad

9 CSM w/Lascannon, Plasma Gun, IoCG -270 -points

Aspiring Champion w/Power Fist

Tu-Amun Rhino

Rhino 35 points



Ankhu Anen- Thousand Sons Guardians of the Great Library

8 Thousand Sons -304

Aspiring Sorcerer w/Bolt of Change

Tu-Amun Rhino

Rhino



Heavy Support

Sobek-Heavy Support Squad (Missile Launcher)

8 Havoc Marines w/4 Missile Launchers, IoCG -225 Points



Rehahti Magnus's coven

3 Obliterators -210



Uthizaar's sect

2 Obliterators -150



1749 Points.

Strength:

It has 8+ units that can shoot strength 8 shots. Lot of people look at the amount of the shooting, and don't realize that you need a lot of units that can shoot at different targets. Although some of the shooting is strength 8 AP1 is only 24"

Weakness:

Assault. Ahriman is the only model good in assault, and he is just ok. They have nice pictures of the Thousand Son's assault squads and I might do a squad of them since I found a company that sells the resin pre-heresy turbofan backpacks.

Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons

He begining

I am a long time Thousand Sons player and I would like to re-visit them. I have been in the hobby for a while and I took most of 2^nd edition off when I lived in Utah, and when I came back into the hobby near the end of 3^rd and I did it with the Thousand Sons. Even though everyone said that they are a bad army I loved the look of the army and the fluff for them. In fact, they have the best background story in 40k. So when I started playing them I started to win a lot of RTTs. So when I posted my batreps I got the same reaction from everyone that I do now winning with an army that the "group think" says that you can't win with.

I tapered off a bit with 4^th edition with them because of the use of scoring units. My army was so small to start with that by the end of the game my units were all chewed up. I killed more VPs then my opponent did, but they still had more units than me and were able to win the game. Then the 4^th edition chaos codex came out and that was the end of a real Thousand Sons army. I still play a combination of my Word Bearers with my Thousand Sons, and I try to keep to the fluff, but it is just not the same. To mix it up a little I took my 3^rd edition Thousand Sons army to Adepticon last year and I even went 2 for 2 in the Gladiator but only 0-2-1 and against the hardest lists I have seen at the Invitational.


 
Building a winning army:

When you are building a pre-heresy army you really have 2 codexs to choose from, Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines. I debated back and forth, and even though the Space Marine codex has things like Land Speeders that the Chaos list doesn't I still am going with the Chaos Codex.

Now the chaos codex is ok, and I have played a lot of games with it, and made it work without lash and 9 oblits, but you almost have to take out all of the good units of the codex to make it a pre-heresy army. I already started out handicapped when I played a Thousand Sons based army so that means that I could not take any other marks other than Tzeentch, but when you make it a pre-heresy army you also can't take any good units like Demon Princes, Oblits, etc. and that really neuters the army.

So let's look at what I can take.

Here is a list of the units that appear in the Horus Heresy Visions of War books:

HQs

Ahriman-Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons

Uthizaar Librarian-Sorcerer

Phosis T'Kar Librarian-Sorcerer

Hathor Maat Librarian-Sorcerer

Brother Amsu

Apophis Command Squad


 
Elites

Sekhmet- Terminators


 
Kargori Dreadnought


 
Troops

Prahotpe recon squad

Prahote recon Squad

Tolbek Tactical Squad

Jafari Tactical Support Squad

Pa-Siamun Tactical Squad

Tu-Amun Rhino


 
Fast Attack

Amunis Assault Squad

Resenmut Assault Squad

Menkaura Assault squad

Qaa Land Speeder


 
Heavy Support

Sobek-Heavy Support Squad (Missile Launcher)

Kalid Heavy Support Squad (Heavy Bolters)

Nebmaetre Heavy Support Squad (Plasma Guns)

Amensos-Heavy Support Squad


 
Unknown

T'Kaar Cabel

Uthizaar's sect

Rehahti Magnus's coven

Ankhu Anen- Thousand Sons Guardians of the Great Library

The scarab occult


 
Now let's take those units and see if we can distil it down to a working army.


 
HQ

Ahriman-Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons

I would like to take Ahriman to give the army some panache and he had been upgraded a little bit this edition; (it was odd that the most powerful librarian in the universe couldn't even use a power/force weapon and they finally got around to giving him one). He is not worth his points, but he is a matter of style over substance. I thought about adding another sorcerer right now, and if I take the list up to 2000 point I might, but for now, just Ahriman will have to do.

Elite

Kargori Dreadnought

Chaos dreadnoughts are a bit of a loose cannon, but they have their uses. They are great at tying up assault units that do not have high strength, like bloodcrushers, etc.

Troops

Tolbek Tactical Squad

Jafari Tactical Support Squad

Pa-Siamun Tactical Squad

Tu-Amun Rhino


 
Normal Chaos Marine squads are a must haves and are good all-around shooting and assault units.


 

Heavy Support

Sobek-Heavy Support Squad (Missile Launcher)

I like havoc squads. Missile launchers are good all-around heavy weapons that are good at killing vehicles, hordes and MEQs.


 
So with that I have the core of my army. But that is not enough, and that army is so boring and vanilla *yawn* looking at those units long enough and it will cure your insomnia.


 
So what I am going to do is take some creative license and step out of the pre-heresy box and have a little fun.


 
Ankhu Anen- Thousand Sons Guardians of the Great Library

These guys are a bunch of sorcerers that have a headdress similar to what the Thousand Sons have now. I am going to turn them into a squad of Thousand Sons. It will give me an added sorcerer and what is a Thousand Sons army without a Thousand Sons squad?


 
Rehahti Magnus's coven

Uthizaar's sect


 
These guys are Sorcerers in Terminator armor, so I will have them be Obliterators. When I first play tested a pre-heresy army I found out that I desperately needed Oblits. I just lacked the firepower necessary to beat certain armies.

A great take on Stelek crowd vs. Blackmoor part II

Clay went on to say:


 
Clay
@Frank- No, you don't have to be the Champ to recognize this, but re-read a lot of posts on this blog. Those not from Stelek.....

I stand by my point. Why aren't these guys, who run their mouths in the US about the state of the game, and the competition out there crushing the very guys they like to bad mouth? At least Stelek tries to get games in with those other guys, or invites them to his house, things like that. A lot of the "sheep" though, are just internet bullies with no intention of ever showing up in a competitive environment.

If they do/did, they certainly aren't going to come back here and post how they got smashed using these Best Of lists, I know that for a FACT. I know people who do it, but there is no negative feedback. There is no, "hey guys, I got smacked around using this list, here are the Battle reports, what did I do wrong" posts, have you seen any?

So that means 1 of 2 things are happening, either 1. They aren't losing(not true at all), or 2. They are embarrassed for losing, and due to the tone of Stelek's advice, they are afraid to post that they lost, cause they don't want their bandwagon friends stabbing them in the back and slamming their poor play.

Which do you think it is? So again, I ask. Why aren't they crushing us, there are more than enough of them. I'd love to see any one of them come in and destroy the tournament scene in Atlanta. It would drive the competition higher, and to me, thats a good thing. Sad thing is, the guys who have tried, haven't succeeded yet. I am not going to speak for those guys, but I wish they would post some battreps here and ask for advice on how to use the army they copied from here instead of just taking a beating over and over.


Clay


 
Blackmoor: Well said Clay. Why are these all of these "best lists" not dominating the tournament scene?

We have seen 3 major 40K events in the last few months (BolsCon, 'Ard Boyz, and Wild West Shootout) and they are all won by armies that Stelek and his clones hate. So I have to ask, where are these best of 5th edition lists that everyone over at YTTH love?

Do you know what my theory is? That people who depend on the hardest lists to win are often a little deficient in the skill arena and they use those lists to make up for their short comings. So what happens is that they win by over powering their local opponents and they don't learn good fundamental tactics so when they get to large tournaments they end up getting out-played by people who are better players.

A great take on Stelek crowd vs. Blackmoor

Over on Stelek's block Clay wrote this:


 
Clay
Ya know, I come to this blog for several reasons.  There are some good lists here, and I like to argue, and at those times, it's pretty easy to find something I disagree with here and start into something.  But.....

There are lots of zombies/sheep/monkeys/whatever you Stelek clones call yourselves that bash every list, and battle report, all while promoting the ideas that are placed in your head.  That's all fine and dandy, but aren't you guys spread out over the country?

In the Atlanta area, we have several(5+) guys who believe the Stelek mantra, and they consistently show up with lists from here.  Would you like to guess what they have in common?  Other than ZERO tournament wins?  Oh, nothing I guess.  My point is, that there seem to be enough of you that just running your mouths here on this blog seems a waste.  Why aren't you out there DOMINATING the tournament scene?

Soft scores?  Where we play, we use checklists.  There is no COMP, and the painting and sportsmanship are checklisted.  Our lowest Sportsmanship in our last event was a 28 of 30.   While I am not here to debate if this is the right way to do things, it certainly makes Battle points king where we play.

Why aren't you guys out there kicking in heads and crushing all the naysayers?  There are like I said, 5+ living in Atlanta, and they don't win, well, EVER.  They win games, but they don't win tournaments. 

What I keep reading here, is; "So and so won blah blah blah event, but his list sucked and any one of us could have crushed it with our 5th edition lists"  So my question/challenge to you is, why werent you there?  Why arent you EVER there?

Get some T-Shirts, yes, really.  Get out there, show us what you mean.  The tournament scene isn't competitive?  Show up and win some events then, should be relatively easy from what you SAY on this blog.  Not a lot of bit behind that bark from what I've seen though.

Not a slam at all, but a challenge, yelling something on this blog about how great your lists are, and how good you are doesn't mean anything to me because skill is all relative.  Winning in (insert FLGS here) is all well and fine, but surely some of you are out there where these big tournaments are being held and can show up and play right?

Even if soft scores somehow hose you, you should finish high on the battle points chart, maybe some Best General awards?

This is not directly pointed at Stelek,  because I know where he lives, and traveling all around the country doesnt work for some.  But mainly you other "sheep", show up at some big events, win some stuff.  Specifically, come down to Atlanta, if you are near here, or post and let me know where you play that is near Atlanta, and I will try and attend those events as well.


Rant over.


Clay


 

 
Blackmoor: Well said Clay.

Blackmoor vs. the World

Over on YTTH blog I found this post that was in response to me challenging everyone who thinks that they can beat my list, to come and try. I was calling out everyone who is writing a check with their mouth that their play skill can't cash. It is easy to talk big on the internet, and hard to back it up on the table top:



Drkmorals

Hold on a second, I think if everyone doesn't take this personally and steps back a bit there is a great opportunity here. This blog's goal is to better people's playing ability and this fits right in line with it.

We have Blackmoor who won with this elder list that is causing this back and forth debate about how good the list is or isn't. What we seem to actually have is someone willing to play any and all challengers who want a shot at his tourney winning list. So some battle reports of a throw down between his winning list against some other players could be a great learning tool. It will open the floor to open discussion about theory vs actual playing. In the end no matter who wins or doesn't win this is a win for the community in general. We could get some good content out of this that could lead to some great discussion about the game. PEOPLE COULD LEARN FROM THIS. All we need are some actual volunteers and for people to step back and not be all personal about it.

We also need some other things like non tailoring, bring a all comers list that you would normally bring and have a tourney style game with the man. Make a battle report, don't be an ass with something to prove. Show up and play like you would at a tourney, and let's get comments from both sides. A series of these reports if Blackmoor is game could like I said be really good for the community as a whole.



Drkmorals is right, and this could be a good learning experience for everyone.

I am not angry at people who say my list sucks, I find it rather amusing. I offer to drive to where you are is not out of nerd rage, but because I am new to Phoenix and I like to drive around and see some sights and go to different game shops.

I am always up for a game and a challenge, and I would like to post some batreps against tougher lists, and really test my play and my army and see how they stack up against them. Right now in tournament play I am 12-1-1 with that army and my one loss was only because the game ended on turn 4, and the tie was because it was a capture and control mission where my opponent just turtled up on his objective.

We can finally see if "Stelek-approved" lists can really beat a good tournament list. We can find out on the table top who will win in a matchup of theory hammer vs. proven lists.



A couple of notes: I will change my army around a little bit, but the core will remain the same.

I will also be at Empire Games Turkey Bowl RTT on Nov 14^th-15^th in Mesa, AZ, which will be a 5 game tournament, so if you want to play me anonymously, this is a good chance for you to do it.

Stelek vs. Blackmoor round II

I just have a few things to say to Stelek in response to these,

http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2009/10/pot-meet-kettle-kettle-meet-pot.html

http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2009/10/i-love-you-too-blackmoor.html

He finally gave a breakdown of why he does not like my list, which is a lot better than saying that it was a 4^th edition list.



#1. You can only beat the armies that they put in front of you. Everyone says that the armies that I faced were not the best armies that people can build. They are right, but I have no control over the armies I faced. There were not the hardest lists that I have ever seen, but they were played by good players who had respectable win-loss records up to that point. At the Wild West Shootout they had Vulcan lists, dual lash lists; other mech guard, etc. and the type of list that people think of when they think of the top tier armies, but somewhere along the line they lost, and it just happened that I didn't play them. Take for example Shep's first game. He played a Nob Biker army and took it out.

#2. To do well at any tournament you need to get lucky. There are so many factors in 40k like the rock-paper-scissors aspect of 40K, that you need to need a little luck with the match-ups, the scenarios, and the right dice rolls at the right time. If you get unlucky with any of them, you might stumble.

#3. I know my lists might not be as powerful as I could make it. Heck, I have even dropped Eldrad most of the time because I think he is too powerful. Why do I not take the most powerful list I can? I like to challenge myself. I feel that using the most powerful units in the codex are a crutch that a lot of players lean on, and I like to see if I can win without them. I made my Eldar army the way it is on purpose, and I felt like I was cheating bringing a Falcon because I wanted to win without any skimmers, but I crumbled under the pressure of a large 5 game tournament. If I wanted to I could do what everyone is telling me to do and bring a bad-ass Mech Eldar or Seer Council and kick some butt, but if I did win with one of those armies, then everyone would just say oh, Seer Council won and dismiss my victory thinking that my list won by using the most overpowered units, and not do to any skill. As a side note, I own 4 Wave Serpents for over 3 years and all they are all partially assembled and primed, and never used.

My next army will be pre-heresy chaos and I will limit myself because of that. I will not use Lash, Demon Princes, Plague Marines or any of the good stuff (I might sneak in oblits though.)



When Stelek did get around to breaking down my list he explained that Thunderhammer-Storm Shield Terminators would kill my Avatar and my Harlequins. First off, those Terminators give everyone trouble. They are one of the most powerful assault units in the game and responsible for hunting Nob bikers into extinction.

Now it is easy to say that they Terminators will kill my assault units, but it is very hard to do. How are you getting them even into assault? Land Raider? Generally what I do is I screen my Avatar and my Harlequins with Guardians, the cannon fodder of the Craftworld so they can't even get to them. So they end up charging my Guardians, and when they assault they end up doing so many wounds, that the ones that are still alive die because of the "no retreat" rule and then that leaves them open to fire from my army so I can just kill enough of them to soften them up to be finished off by my counter assault. And here Stelek was saying that fearlessness was bad in assault, but it helps to clear out any brave Guardians that might want to keep on fighting. I don't want my Guardians to be heroes.

In reply to this:

Stelek-"I'd like to note how bad both my DH list and your DH (I think? Please correct me if I'm wrong, coulda also been WH?) with it's horrible mish-mash of units, which you documented on Dakka and thought it too was competitive. I did better than you, in a larger more national 'pool' of players yes? I'm not tooting the Stelek horn, just saying I had a crap list but you at least had some vehicles (I had none) and I broadcast as loud as I could what I was bringing long before I showed up."



It was a Witch Hunters army with a lot of Demonhunter units allied to it. And you just said that I documented it on Dakka, so I would say that I broadcasted my army list as well.

Remember what I was saying about needing to get lucky to do well at tournaments? To give an example of this I give you Stelek's batreps from the 2008 Las Vegas GT:

Stelek's Game #1 of the Las Vegas GT

Stelek's Game #2 of the Las Vegas GT
Stelek's Game #3 of the Las Vegas GT

Stelek's Game #4 of the Las Vegas GT
Stelek's Game #5 of the Las Vegas GT

All I will say is take a look at those batreps and see if fortune did not smile on him.


Then he goes on to say how bad my Witchhunters army was, and that he did better than me in Vegas. The problem is that two peoples GT experiences can be totally different. Because of Stelek's slow start (he tied his first 2 rounds) he was in the shallow end and down with the bottom feeders, and I ended up massacring my opponents, and I was playing at tables much higher than him, and I ended up playing the heavy hitters like Shep who I tied while he steamrolled all his other opponents on his way to getting 81 battle points:
Game #2 of the Las Vegas GT, Blackmoor vs. Shep

…and I lost to Scott Simpson who won Best General at with a perfect battle point score of 100 at the Baltimore GT a few months before the Vegas GT.

Game #3 of the Las Vegas GT, Blackmoor vs. Scott Simpson

So yes, I scored 68 battle points to Stelek's 73. Of course the Vegas GT was the first time I played that army and the first time I played 5^th edition, so overall I thought I did very well. I then made improvements to my list and then a couple of months later at the Baltimore GT I scored 78 battle points which had me at the 8^th highest score out of 148 players. Not bad for a list Stelek calls a "horrible mish-mash of units".

Tactica: Anchor units

Tactic Level: Beginner


Overview

In objective based missions, you need a durable troop unit that will hold objectives in or near your deployment zone.
Concept

When you are playing objective based missions, as everyone knows, troops are important to hold them. You need several of them but throughout a game they move around, get killed, and end up out of position.

Now if you have a mobile army or an assault army you will find yourself scrambling to get back to the objectives that you left behind in your deployment zone at the end of the game. Sometimes you make it, sometimes you don't, but what an anchor unit does is make it so that you do not have to worry about any other objectives that that are close to you, and it lets you focus on taking/contesting the ones in the middle of the board and in your opponent's deployment zone.

So this is article is to try to get you to think of taking a hard and resilient troop unit that just sits on an objective and holds it for the game.

Anchor units

Most armies have a form of anchor units and have troops with some special rules that help them stay alive and hold an objective during a game.

In general if you have terrain, you have a pretty durable unit. With most terrain now being a 4+ cover save in 5^th edition, going to ground means that all units can have a 3+ cover save. It is hard to kill anything at over 12" if it has a 3+ cover save.



Now we are going through some units that make good anchor units:



Tau: Most people think that Tau do not have any durable troops that can hold up to fire, but that is not the case. Kroot make an excellent anchor unit. You place them in woods, and when they do go-to-ground they have a 2+ cover save.

Eldar: 10 Wraithguard are durable, but they are too expensive to just sit back and hang around. What makes for a good anchor unit is Pathfinders. They have a natural 2+ cover save, and if you want to get the same cover save without spending the points you can get Rangers, but to get a 2+ cover save you have to lose a turn of shooting to go-to-ground.

Space Marines: You take some Scouts and give them camo-cloaks and they have a natural 3+ cover save, 2+ when you go to ground.

Orks: Although they do not have any units that are hard to kill in cover, they do have dirt cheap gretchin that can sit in cover, and hide for a game while your heavy hitters head to over to the enemy to do some serious bashing.

Tyranids: Just take a unit of spinegaunts and stash them in the rear. You will not have to worry about synapse if they do not move and you can just lurk while your opponent has other things to worry about coming at him. If you do worry about them getting killed, you can also take Without Number so they can just run back to where they just died.



So this is just something for you to think about when building your armies to add a unit that will stay at home and claim that odd objective that is behind your army.



Pre-game set up

There are 2 things that you have to do to make sure that your anchor unit will be successful:

#1. If you are placing terrain at the beginning of the game, you have to make sure that each deployment zone has a good or at least reasonably sized piece of terrain in it.

#2. In an objective based mission, you have to place an objective at least near a piece of terrain in the deployment zones.


A few things to remember: When you are placing terrain and objective markers you do this before you know which side of the table you will start on, so keep in mind that you will need to place a piece of terrain and an objective marker in both deployment zones to be sure of getting the proper set up. Also if you are playing in a tournament you have had a chance to look over your opponents list be sure to check to see if he has units that outflank. If he does have outflanking units, you will need to place the terrain away from the short table edges so you do not get hit by outflanking units coming on from reserve.



Set up

This is the easy part after bringing the correct unit, and placement of the terrain and objectives. Just plant your units in there, and you are good-to-go! Just remember when you get hit by any serious firepower, duck and cover and go-to-ground.

Welcome everybody!

I want to say thank you to all of the new people who are visiting my site.

I will do some updates to the blog the weekend and work on the formatting and try to make it look more professional. Also, I have some tactic articles in the works and I should have the first one posted tonight.

I hope you become regular visitors, and I welcome all comments both positive and negative. I want this blog to home to good discourse about 40k.

-Allan

My next army project

Every year I start a new army to give myself something to do between the Baltimore GT and Adepticon while the tournament season slows down and it recharges my engines for the Warhammer 40K hobby. Of course there was no Baltimore GT this year, but this is still time to work on something new.


After reading this thread about Darth Diggler's 'Ard Boyz army:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/257828.page
It made me think of working on a chaos equivalent. This leads me to my Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons idea I have had kicking around for a few years. Not only that, but it seems that there is a renewed interest in them with the re-launch of the Space Wolves, and with the Black Library's Horus Heresy books focusing on them with the upcoming releases of Prospero Burns and Thousand Sons. So I think I will revisit my favorite army for next year's tournament season.



To build this army I cracked open the The Horus Heresy "Collected Vision" book for the look and feel of the army, and after going through it all I have to say is that it will be a ton of work to capture that look! Not only that but painting red is my personal kryptonite.

The ignorance of Stelek

When YTTH resident blowhard Stelek does not like an army, or understand how it works, he calls it a 4^th edition army. This is a way that he can quickly categorize and demean an army that that does not meet with the Stelek's seal of approval, and then he and all of his sheep can dismiss it.

http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2009/10/wild-west-shootout.html
So now I see him and his clones calling the army I won the Wild West Shootout a 4^th edition army. I find that funny since you never found an army like mine in 4^th edition. Now if I had 3 falcons and 18 harlequins I can see his point, but my army is built for 5^th edition butt-kicking.



Here are some examples of why my army is built with 5^th in mind:

1. With 5^th edition's prevalence of 4+ cover saves, the high strength, high AP weapons have gone out of favor. My army has a massive amount of firepower so it pretty much ignores cover saves with shear volume.
   
2. With people's love affair with Mech armies, every unit I field can take out a tank.
   
3. On the other side of the coin, armies built to counter builds with a lot of vehicles have a lot of anti-tank and melta and those have little effect on my army.
   
4. In 4^th edition you had no use for troops, and you can just take 2 squads of 5 Dire Avengers and call it a day. I have 30 Guardians that are hard to kill in 5^th edition in their fearless bubble and cover saves, and Jetbikes that can turbo boost and fill all kinds of roles.
   
5. The funny thing is that I tried the War Walker army in 4^th Edition and it did not work. There were things running around like 6 man Las-Plas squads, Tank-Hunting Auto-Canons and a vehicle damage chart that smoked my War Walkers like a fine Cuban cigar. Only now in 5^th edition is the War Walker build viable.
   

Blackmoor's upcoming events

These are the major tournaments that I am thinking about going to next year:

Conquest NW: Seattle WA. Jan 15-17. Still iffy about going, but will know by Dec. 15^th.

Broadside Bash: Los Angeles, Ca. Feb. 13-15. This one is easy for me to go to, but I had a bad experience last year with it. Poorly run in all facets.

Adepticon: Chicago, IL. March 26-28

BolsCon: Austin, TX Unknown?

ETC: Munster, Germany Aug (If they can get an American team together)

Heat 2 of the UK GT: Nottingham England Nov

I might go to other events, but we will see what other tournaments are coming up next year.

And of course you can find me at any other 40K tournament within 100 miles of Phoenix

My Eldar List for the Wild West Shootout!

I have had a lot of people ask me about my list that I won the Wild West Shootout with, and wondering why I did so well with it. So I will try to de-construct my list to try to shed some light on how it works, and why I did so well with it.



My design philosophy

When I build and army I ask myself if I can take on common builds, and if I am able to beat the "arch types" (Shooting, Assault, Combo) of the most popular armies? If not, then I tweak the army until I have an army that I think will win against a lot of them, and a chance against others.

With that design concept in mind, what units I gravitate to are units that can fill several roles. That is why one of my favorite heavy weapons is the missile launcher. Not only is it good against hordes with the frag. missile, but against MEQs with AP3, and against vehicles with Strength 8.



Here is my list:

HQ

Eldrad

Avatar



Elite

5 Fire Dragons

Exarch w/Dragon's breath flamer



6Harlequins w/5 Kisses, 2 Fusion Pistols

Shadow Seer w/Kiss

Troupe Master w/Power Weapon



Troops

10 Guardians w/Brightlance

10 Guardians w/Brightlance

10 Guardians w/Missile Launcher



3 Eldar Jetbikes w/Shuriken Cannon

Warlock w/Singing Spear, Destructor



Heavy Support

3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers

3 War Walkers w/Scatter Lasers

Falcon w/Missile Launcher, Shuriken Cannon, Holo-Field, Spirit Stone, Star Engines, Vectored Engines




So here is a breakdown of my units and their roles:

HQ Units

The Avatar

• Fearless-The Avatar is the glue that keeps my army together. His fearless bubble is needed to keep LD 8 troops from running off the board each time they lose a few guys. He is important for just this role, and if he did just that, it might be worth his points.

• Assault- This guy is a killer in assault. Think of him as a flightless Bloodthirster. WS 10 (WS4 needs 5s to hit), Strength 6 and 4 attacks means that he is putting a hurting on whatever he is on b-t-b with.

• Anti-tank- He gets with other greater daemons don't…a melta gun. At BS5 his threat radius is greatly improved. He can also assault. Now that you get to ago against back armor, and gets 2d6 armor penetration dice for being a monstrous creature and he can tear vehicles apart.

• Hard to kill- The Avatar takes an incredible amount of damage before doing down. He is immune to Flamers and Melta which can't be overstated in this current anti-orks and anti-vehicle builds. Try going up against a Vulcan based army and see what they have that can hurt him. He has a toughness of 6 so he will shrug off most assault and small arms fire. But what makes him really durable is his 3+/4+ save. If you have a Farseer and can Fortune him, then he will easily save what few wounds get through. In fact, it takes almost a whole army shooting at him for a couple of turns to go down, and if they are shooting at him, they are not shooting at anything else.


Eldrad

• Redeploy- When you go first, your opponent gets to set up second and react to your deployment. This ability neutralizes a lot of that counter-deployment giving you a huge advantage when you go first.

• Psychic Powers- Since Eldrad is the only one who not only gets to use all of the Eldar psychic powers, but 3 a turn he is a gigantic force multiplier. I can't stress this enough. The ability to lay down Doom, Guide and Fortune where you need them as well as Mind War and even Eldritch Storm is huge.

• Defense- A 3+ inv save means that he is hard to kill and very survivable. You are not afraid to throw him into an assault or take the odd wound or 2 that his squad takes.

• Offence- Eldrad is a lot better in assault because not only does he wound on a 2+ but his attacks are power weapons.



Elite

Fire Dragons

• Anti-tank-They do one thing and they do it well, killing vehicles. Since 5 Fusion Guns should be enough to kill what they are shooting at

• Anti-infantry- The Exarch gets a Dragon's Breath Flamers so when you are fighting armies that do not have a lot of high AV vehicles, or monstrous creatures you can at least BBQ some Hordes.



Harlequins

• Anti-Tank-They have Fusion Pistols so that they can kill every vehicle, and rending in assault to take down everything but Land Raiders and Monoliths.

• Assault- This is where they shine. With their stats, they can kill almost every assault units out there including most armies' best assault units. Giving the troupe leader a power weapon means they can kill the tough armored units like terminators.

• Defense- They do have an Inv. save, but it is only 5+ so you do have to be careful assaulting large units that get to swing back. But they reason why they are the best counter assault unit is Veil of Tears. You do not have to worry about them being shot up, or taken out before you need them. The ability to roam freely around without worrying about getting killed before you need them is very important.



Troops

Guardians

• Anti-Tank- They are armed with Brightlances to take out the heaviest of armor at range. Alternatively they can be armed with Missile Launchers to give them added range.

• Anti-Infantry- What people underestimate is the destructive power of massed Guardians. Ten Guardians will do 10 wounds to T4 opponents with the correct use of Guide and Doom. When you have them grouped together, they can devastate your opponent. This short range killing is often overlooked.

• Speed- They can move and shoot a heavy weapon. This makes then able to move around for the best shot, and they are able to move to objectives and not loose any firepower, and come on from reserves and shoot at full effect. They also have fleet if you need to assault for some reason.

• Durability- They are durable do to their numbers. They are fearless so you have to kill them to a man to stop them shooting their heavy weapon. With proper positioning, they should be able to benefit from a 4+ cover save. Another thing is that most anti-infantry weapons are close range, and short of heavy bolters and the like, it is very hard to kill them outside of 12". Also they are so far down on the target priority that they are almost never shot.

• Troops-They are Troop units for holding objectives, and that is always a good thing.



Guardian Jetbikes

• Speed- Jetbikes are fast. Not only do they move 12" in the movement phase, but they move 6" in the assault phase, and when they need to they can also turbo boost 24".

• Anti-Tank- They have a Shuriken Cannon for strength 6 side shots, and a singing spear for strength 9 shooting and assault.

• Anti-Horde- The Warlock has Destructor for anti-horde and the squad has Shuriken Cannons and TL Catapults to help out.

• Troops- They are a fast moving troop unit, needed to get to objectives in a hurry.

• Durability- They have a 3+ save and a 4 toughness which is good by Eldar standards. They ability to turbo boost for a 3+ cover save, and their 6" Eldar Jetbike move in the assault phase helps them to get out of rapid-fire and assault range, or to duck behind cover.



Heavy Support

War Walkers

• Anti-Infantry- This is the role where they excel. They can blast away at anything and before long they will go away. They do not care about you standing in cover, because you get an armor save anyways, but through shear volume of fire, they can decimate your opponent.

• Anti-Tank- Although not their primary role, they can chew up enemy armor. Besides the high army value you find in some heavy support choices, most vehicles are armor 12 and less. War Walkers get so many shots, that even glancing hits on AV 12 will do damage.

• Durability-War Walkers are a squadron so you can normally allocate the hits to one chewed up walker. Also they can be obscured for a 4+ cover save and shear number of them makes them hard to silence.



Falcons

• Speed-The ability to move 6" and shoot all of your weapons, 12'" and shoot one weapon, 12 and more to get an obscured save is nice. Also the total move of 24"+12" with Star Engines makes it get to where you need it to be.

• Transport-The ability to carry 6 models is great on such a fast moving tank. If a guardian squad gets chewed up you can embark it to not only save the guardian squad, but to make your Falcon scoring. Also you can get a 6 man Harlequin squad and transport them for assault and short ranged anti-tank, and then the Fire Dragons for vehicle removal, or to flame some infantry.

• Anti-Tank- I use my Falcons as a gunboat for the most part. They are a fire platform that can shoot 2 strength 9 shots and 1 strength 8 shot. They can move around for some strength 6 shots to.

• Anti-Infantry- Although not a specialty of the Falcon they can also do an ok job of shooting infantry. They can shoot the pulse lasers, and frag grenades and still move 12". 6" and under they can shoot the pulse lasers, the missile launchers, and the shuriken cannon to do some damage.



So as you can see everything has an anti-tank role, and an anti-infantry role. Depending on whatever army I am up against, everything can be used against it. Mech, Infantry, or a combination of both, I have the tools to deal with it.



Now there are some weaknesses in my list. I can't take out a chaos army that has a lot of oblits. To kill them you need a lot of strength 8 AP2, and my 4 shots at BS3 leave me at a huge disadvantage.

There are a few different strategies with building a good take-all-comers list, and I like this kind of reactive army.

Blogwars!!!

The controversy

It looks like there is a lot a talk on the blogs about the list/army that won BoLScon.

The list was posted over at the BoLS blog for everyone to see and then everyone reacted to the list.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2009/08/40k-bolscon-overall-winners.html

To save you the trouble of clicking on the link, here is the list:



Super Winged Choppy Tyrant

Foot Tyrant, Dual Devourers and 2 Guards

3x 20 Improved (WS, Str, In) Hormagaunts

8 Spinegaunts, Without Number

Lictor

3 Zoanthropes

2x Carnifex – Barbed Strangler / Venom Cannon



A lot of people have different reaction to this list. Over at the YTTH blog the infamous Stelek berated the owner of the list, the whole BoLSCon because a list like that won. He went on in his usual style questioning the quality of the competition, and how the local armies would beat that list.

http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2009/08/re-lol-bolscon.html

The thing you have to know about Stelek is things are either black or white with him. There is no grey. Units and equipment either work or they don't and he dismisses it. There was a player that did well with Tau in his local 'Ard Boyz tournament and he dismissed his whole list and my association the player because he had flamers on some models. Stelek has made up his mind and flamers are bad, and nothing can change his mind. Stelek's narrow viewpoint is close-mindedness of different units and tactics are one of his weaknesses.

Then The_King _Elessor also went off on this list on The Mind War blog:

http://hobbyinfobythekingelessar.blogspot.com/2009/08/screw-it-ill-be-honest-and-say-what.html

He made Stelek seem calm and dispationate, that that is saying something!

Then of course The Blood of Kittens (Whom I am starting to enjoy) then jumped on The_King_Elessor, and there was a big argument about this army.

http://bloodofkittens.com/?p=1062

The_King _Elessor backed down a bit when engages by the BoLS crew here:

http://hobbyinfobythekingelessar.blogspot.com/2009/09/apology-to-mkerr-and-whole-load-of.html

But there is no doubt that a lot of people were underwhelmed by the winning Tyranid list.



My Thoughts

Do you know what I thought when I saw this army posted? I could win with this army.

The army has a lot of strengths. Let's look at the core: Hormagaunts.

He upgraded them to uber-gaunts by giving them the only upgrades that matter…WS, STR and INT. So want you have is a pack of 60 gaunts that can charge between 19"-24" and hit hard because of the upgrades. Let's look at the gaunts offence. On the charge you get 60 attacks per unit, which means against marines they will hit first, the gaunts will then hit 40 times doing 20 wounds and killing around 7 marines. Not to shabby at all and that is without the Lictor who I imagine is there for the most part to add his feeding tendrils, but I will leave him out.

Now let's look at killing them. Gaunts are fast. So fast and you will not have a chance to kill them without a great deal of trouble. The reason why is that you can't rapid fire them, or hit them with any real damage unless you have some big blasts.

The other units are things that you need to make the army work. You need synapse for the gaunts. You have 2 hive tyrants and 3 zoanthropes to give you good coverage. Hormagaunts do have the habit of running forward and out of synapse, and they have a winged hive tyrant to try to keep up with them, but with the 5^th edition morale rules, but once they launch there assault they should do a lot more damage in assault and do not have to worry about running.

Lictor? I barely knew her! Although a bit over priced, he has a lot of good rules that compliment the army. He has feeder tendrils to have the Gaunt re-roll failed rolls to wound, and he can tie up shooty units in that are hiding in the back of the board and kill those pesky vehicles that are giving you trouble. They have improved in this role in 5^th edition because most of the tanks in the rare are stationary, and you hit rear armor, they have gotten a big boost.

Carnifexs are always good. You shoot vehicles and although they can't kill them like they use to, they can keep them stunned which is all you have to do for some armies. Then they can also assault with strength 9 and 2d6 penetration.

The Zoanthropes are good for synapse because they are a lot harder to kill that you would think, and also they are good for shooting a few random shots down field. I think using them for the psychic choir has kind of died down in 5^th. As far as the synapse goes, there are a lot of people who go gaunt heavy and forget about synapse and so what I do is just go after synapse and if I can't kill it all, what is left starts to head for cover, and they can't do what they want to do.

So over all, I think the army works. I would not mind taking it to an RTT and seeing what would happen.