Saturday, May 22, 2010

'Ard Boyz

Well a couple of friends and I went to our local gaming store for the 40k 'Ard Boyz prelims figuring at worst we get in 3 games at best we sweep the top spots...

Who are we kidding, we were happy not to take the bottom places. My Dark Eldar which I have been playing less than a year took 15th out of 16 by scraping a draw in the opening round, major loss in the second, and massacred in the final game.

The draw I was able to pull off with a little craft world Eldar trickery I learned from Fritz at http://saimhann.blogspot.com/#/ .(note this is from his websites and youtube vids not from him in person)Which is this posts connection to skimmers,going flat out last turn to contest objectives is the best way to win objective missions. I had a raider of wyches coming on from reserve and a raider from a warrior squad left at the final turn for us which was 5. The wyches got 12" assault so they came on 12" from the board deployed 2" from the raider fleeted 5" and assaulted 12" to nearly wipe out a kroot squad holding an objective contesting it. The empty raider went flat out contesting the other held objective. Final result was a draw with him claiming all 4 bonus points and 2100ish VPs, me 780is VPs


Game 2 had me up against a foot chaos build with Kharn and a Lash Sorcerer and 20 lesser daemons and a greater daemon and normal marines and havocs. He ended up getting a major victory as I had to go to him instead of us meeting each other like we would with a mech build. This guy tied for second but could of had second by himself because he did not declare a chaos marine squad onto a contested quarter instead of a quarter he was controlling.

Game three had me against a Space Marine army that did not have Vulkan or Pedro. (yes those do actually exist and I was as surprised as you are) this just went downhill after he seized the initiative but on the upside he Imobilised his Land Raider driving through terrain

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Adding Skimmers to Your Army

Every Codex has access to at least one option for a skimmer-type unit. Marines have land speeders and Jump Packs, (yeah, I know jump packs are not skimmers but they have the same function of moving fast over terrain). Tau have jet packs and their vehicles,and Dark Eldar have Raider Transports and Jetbikes. There are many others these are just cover the main bases and the priciple is the same.

Now when adding units to your army start by slowly adding them. Like when switiching from foot to mech it is better to add a transport to unit A, play some games then add a transport to unit B, etc. That way your playsyle slowly adjusts instead of a complete 180 where you get massacred every time and then stop using your new units.

Now with non-transport units like ravagers, land speeders and hammerheads more is better once you learn to use them and their special rules. Like Fritz always says one can be avoided or killed easily but three is something that must be dealt with. Every shot spent killing your killy stuff is not going towards your troops which will win you the game come turn 5 and objectives are counted.

Jetbikes and jump infantry are something to be taken sparingly unless building your entire army around them. For the most part all they just have the ability to move faster than normal troops, but do not score, are more expensive, and are more likely to be shot at. How ever when taken en masse certain codexes can use them effectivly, namely normal Eldar since jetbikes are troops for them and have a 3+ save as opposed to a normal 5+ but they are quite a bit more expensive than and do not get the heavy weapons that normal guardians have.

Any comments can be posted below.

Asdrubael Vect

As opposed to most other blogs I will not waste a post on a welcome to my site, so I can get right to the Meat and potatoes of my blog.

When I first started Warhammer 40k I was flipping through my codex and when I got to the back I saw Asdrubael Vect looked at his stat line had know idea what the stats meant but I knew he was good because the numbers were high.

With WS6 BS6 Str4 AV 11 11 10 I7 A5 and AV 14 against shooting, a dark lance, two disentegrators, and three Splinter Pistols, all on a fast skimmer Chassis, Vect looks like a bargain at 277 points. However his stock goes down when you remember he is open topped and is squished by powerfists and mostrous creatures.

On the upside since he the pistols count as firing from a unit on a open-topped transport you may fire them seperately from the big guns. For example, a carnifex and a squad of gaunts are near by, instead of wasting the lance on the guants and tring to wound a carnifex with pistols you can fire the lance and disentegrators at the carnifex and blast the gaunts with the pistols.

Also since Vect counts as a Dreadnought in Close Combat grenades only hit him on a 6, so even marines with the entire unit coming stock with Krak grenades are only able to do minimal damage after 5 power weapon attacks go through, and eldar haywire grenades do not affect him unless he is immobilised

The possibilities for him are endless, need to stall a land raider for a turn, destroy a command squad in a chimera? the nearly autohit lance and dissentegrators open it up, then open with pistols ont the guys inside and charge. Other guy reserved? Just move Vect flat out, assuming no loaded dice it will be hard to take out an AV14 vehicle with a 4+ cover save.

Just leave your comments below, and if you have any topics you want covered let me know I will try to post battle reports soon.