IG Elites Breakdown 1/2

IG Elites...the worst of the best. They are all so much better than regular guardsmen, but you actually have to pay a non-cheesy amount of points per squad for them...pft.

Hey, folks, Kasrkar here, with another breakdown of sorts. Forgot the topic that I wanted to do, so I figured I'd look into IG elites a little more in this post. Again, it's been a little while, so forgive me. The Elites section has always interested me in that it sort of isn't amazing, unlike almost the entirety of the rest of the book. Anyway, let's start this little breakdown with the gentleman pictured above!

-Marbo- Summary: Where to begin...this guy is basically Rambo with a letter in his name swapped for another. He comes with a plethora of sneaky rules, including stealth, fleet, move through cover, fearless, and a mandatory lictor-like infiltrate deployment. He cannot join a squad, and has a fairly nice statline of WS5, BS5, S3, T3, W2, I5, A4. Also has a few little special wargear pieces, including a pretty useless yet awesome sniper pistol, a 2+ poisoned close combat weapon and a demo charge.

-Verdict: I've used him several times, and in each game he has really added a lot of fun and flair. While he isn't super potent/survivable and tends to actually blow himself up a lot, He can be a handy little distraction for 65 points. IG players, take him, atleast in fun games. You'll be surprised by how much he adds. I think that we IG players have had our fun annihilating people, and that most of us need to add a few more dinky units like Marbo into our lists.

-Ogryns- Summary: 40 points per model gets you WS4, BS3, S5, T5, W3, I2, A3. Yeah...wow. Each guy also comes with furious charge and a ripper gun, which is S5, AP- assault 3 12". I would honestly like to see ogryns on the table more, but I don't expect that since a single ogryn is 20 frakking dollars. Really, GW, is that really very necessary? Not cool at all, if you want a squad of 10 of these guys, good for you, but your wallet gets my sympathy.

-Verdict: I've only seen ogryns in action a few times, and whenever I do see them, they don't tend to do a lot. The most I've really seen 3 ogryns do is mow down 80 points of fire dragons, which isn't too difficult. I still think there's a lot of fun to be had with these guys, and 5 ogryns and Yarrick in a chimera sounds uber tempting. I really wouldn't advise taking these guys. Marbo is one thing because he's easy and fun to convert, but a $100 squad of 5 is too rediculous. Still, if you're feeling ogryn fever, just throw some ogre leadbelchers from fantasy on some round bases. They're actually half the price of ogryns, and don't look any more strange in an IG army than the ogryn models.

-Storm Troopers- Summary: So, basically a regular guardsmen with BS4, a 4+ save, an extra close combat weapon attack, krak grenades, and an 18" AP3 lasgun. That sounds like quite a bit more than it is, since these dudes each cost as much as a space marine. They come with deepstrike for free, and also have an interesting little rule called 'Special Operations'. This allows them to get one of the following: Scouts and move through cover, the ability to re-roll the scatter die when deep-striking, or infiltrate and having their weapons count as pinning the first time they fire. I will admit that they are bit overcosted, but I know a lot of players (myself included) that have kicked some ass with them.

-Verdict: First of all, the models are pretty darn cool, and not as expensive as some of the other elites. I have scouted these guys, deep struck them, outflanked them, and thrown them in a valkyrie. I can say with ease that the valkyrie option is the most effective. I've learned that these guys really aren't that bad for their points. Taking a bare 10 man squad with no upgrades has served me well, and they often can make up their points without much trouble. Proxy some of these guys. I've enjoyed using them a lot, and they actually have quite a bit of kill potential. With that, I add one more thing...how can a gun be S3 and AP3? It punches right through power armor, but it has trouble with skin.

Well, that wraps up this post. I discovered that covering all of the elites choices would reek of TLDRness. At some point soon I will be covering the psyker battle squadron and ratlings. I will try to post more regularly, and get some slightly more interesting content going. The breakdowns come easily to me, and with this I would like to try and get more IG players using storm troopers and such. Comment if you'd like, tell me if you want me to cover a certain army, or rant more on the mechanics themselves over armies. I intend to try and paint up my IG and get some decent battle reports coming in as well.

Goodnight folks, and have a nice week.

Dark Eldar alpha-strike army

Hello, all! Sorry for not posting lately, I've been on vacation for quite a while, but now I'm back, and another army list which people have talked about but not dared to make: The Dark Eldar Alpha-strike. So, let's look at what will go in it...

HQ
Well, there's only one elf for this job: Asdrubael Vect! In the Dais of Destruction, he comes in at a hefty 440 points, and that's before his retinue (stripped-down wyches). Still, however, there's one more piece of the puzzle left, and that's why I'll also add the Baron. Why the baron? Because he's incredible, that's why. 105 points, but mostly, re-roll to see who goes first, which is imperative for an Alpha-strike army. Coupled with Vect's ability to seize the initiative on a 4+, that means you have an 87.5% chance of getting the first turn, pretty good odds in my opinion. So, for HQ, we have a total of 545 points. Hefty, but necessary.

Troops
So for troops, what will we take? Well, the answer is of course, lotsa darklight weapons! One unit of 9 wyches with Hydra gauntlets will accompany Vect, as his mandatory retinue. Then 2 further units of Warriors with a dark lance, both in Raiders with darklances, gives you 4 more strength 8 lance shots. Why no blaster? Well, in a perfect world, you'll want to be going first, with your army all deployed, ready to kill, and seeing as in a standard mission no-man's land is 24", that 18" range suddenly doesn't look so scary. Finally, the mandatory unit of Hellions to go with the Baron. 1 unit of 15 (Ala GoatBoy) should be sufficient for our purposes, aka, killing things in Close Combat.

Fast Attack
2 units of 6 Reavers with 2 blasters apiece. Why? Well, for extra lance shots, of course, but also for their speed. Finally, 1 unit of 5 with one blaster.

Heavy Support
Finally, 3 Ravagers. Not much to say about these, but 9 more dark lance shots is invaluable. also, coupled with an affordable 315 for the lot, it's pretty nice.

So, the final list looks like:

Asdrubael Vect w/ Dais of Destruction, 9 Wyches w/ Hydra Gauntlets

The Baron

x2 10 warriors w/ Darklance, Raider

15 Hellions

2x 6 reavers w/ 2 blasters

5 reavers w/ blaster

3 Ravagers

total: 1,999 points.

I wouldn't take this list to a tournament, certainly, but with 21 Lance shots hitting the enemy turn 1, It's certainly not weak, either. Leave any comments or additional tactics, they will be appreciated!

IG Artillery Countdown!

So, hey folks, Kasrkar here.

I was running through my IG list recently, when I started wondering about replacing my colossus with something else. I then noticed how many artillery tanks that the guard have, and figured I'd make a post on it. Most of the variants are good, and it seems like a new person could easily make list mistakes because of how they can be compared.

I liked the format of my post on russ variants, so I figure I'll make it into a countdown similar to that. So let's begin!

#6=The Deathstrike

So, I've never personally used the deathstrike, but its stats say enough. S10 AP1 D3+3 blast doesn't sound too shabby, right? Well, it isn't but this guy only gets one shot per game, and takes up one of IG's precious heavy support slots. Also, the turn that it shoots is random, and there's a possibility that it will not ever get to launch the missle. Frankly, any smart enemy will just blow it up before it can fire. Its price tag of 160 points also makes it a harsh investment for something that likely won't get to do anything. I want to say it's good, but it simply isn't reliable enough to be better than any other heavy support the IG has. It also cannot be put in a squadron.

Tactics: Just be sure to protect it, and hopefully it will get to fire and make some stuff go boom.

#5=The Basilisk

Oh, how the mighty has fallen. I remember when every single IG player considered one of these boys a mandatory investment. So what happened? The basilisk now costs 25 points more, and has a crazy minimum range of 36". It also just doesn't quite stand up to the other artillery pieces anymore. I must say, it's been quite a while since I've seen one of these on the table. The basilisk may be put in a squadron, however.

Tactics: I'd say definately throw it in a corner to try and kill as much as you can before the enemy gets within 36".

#4=The Griffon

Honestly, this is actually a very good tank. Same AV as any other artillery piece or chimera, and with a twin-linked S6 AP4 large blast barrage. Here's the kicker, it's 75 points! If you want a lot of large blasts, get 9 of these little guys. In truth, though, I'm fairly sure that 3 manticores will do better most of the time. The primary reasons that I gave this tank #4 is the fact that it's an easy kill point, it won't reliably kill much other than light infantry, and there's no GW model for it. Unless you know a guy, or you're decent at converting, it may be difficult/expensive to get your hands on one of these.

Tactics: Get a lot of these, bubble wrap them with other tanks and infantry, and blast away!

#3=The Medusa

I used to take one of these, and it would typically not do very well. Honestly, it is a great tank. A 36" demolisher cannon is very scary. So scary, in fact, that most people target it first. It doesn't have the survivability of a vindicator, but at 135 points, it's a good enough investment. You can squadron it, however, so it doesn't take away as much from your force org chart as other tanks may. The medusa can also take special shells, that make it more of a tank hunter. They reduce the shot to small blast, but make it AP1 and roll 2d6 to pen. I've playtested these, and they work well enough. Frankly, I find the rounds somewhat redundant, as you already have a S10 ordnance shot, but oh well.

Tactics: Yay, no minimum range! Bubblewrap it and shoot anything with decent armor (vehicles or infantry) before it explodes.

#2=The Colossus

I use one of these in my current list. I take it for a reason, and fear is that reason. If you plop this guy out of LoS, you can just sit tight and watch as the enemy rips their hair out over it. It is S6 AP3 large blast, making it a dedicated marine killer. The nice thing is that it ignores cover, and always fires indirectly. The unfortunate thing is, it has a minimum range of 24", and it always uses the full 2D6 for scatter unless you get a hit.

Tactics: This one may not seem very good, but it can be quite crucial to winning objective games. The reason I take it (other than for dealing with long fangs...) is to deal with that last pesky unit sitting in cover on an objective. One lucky hit from the colossus, and that unit is gone. It is also nice for dealing with units out of reach of your heavies. It misses a lot, and a determined enemy will almost always kill it, but it is very good at scaring the enemy into making mistakes with their units. These mistakes can be the difference between a loss and a win.

#1=The Manticore

Woh! Big shocker there, right? Honestly, what else could've been #1? These things are amazing, they get D3 S10 AP4 pie plates. Again, minimum range of 24", but it's artillery for crying out loud. Or atleast I consider it artillery, it has the same purpose. Getting back on track, this will annihilate any tank, and any infantry squad with a 4+ save or worse. Also, don't be shocked if it kills more than one thing per turn, it will do that pretty often, really. Same as the medusa or colossus, though, it's scary, so it will get shot. It's a wee bit expensive at 160 points, and it cannot be put in a squadron, but it's worth it in my opinion. One more thing, it only gets 4 shots per game, but to be completely frank, it probably won't live past 4 turns. Mine dies pretty much every game, but only after it blows up about half of the enemy's army.

Tactics: Well, bubblewrap it, as always. Fire it at tanks, or giant packed in squads. Chances are, you won't be unhappy with the results.

Battle Report! Chaos vs. Wolves

Kasrkar here, coming to you with yet another battle report!
Now, I completely forgot to post this about a month ago, so my memory of the game is a little bit rough. I myself was not in this game, it was between The Verderer's chaos and a friend of ours that will be referred to as Grandpa Rhino. Grandpa Rhino doesn't has only very recently thought of a paint scheme, and so his proxy-heavy space wolves appear as rainbow marines.

So, the game was annihilation 1500 points. Pitched battle was the deployment. Grandpa Rhino won the roll to go first, and took the first turn.

As much far as I can remember, the lists were...

Chaos:

-Sorcer w/ mark of slaanesh and lash

-10 berzerkers, 1 champion w/ power fist

-10 berzerkers, 1 plasma pistol

-10 Plague Marines, 2 meltaguns

-3 Rhinos with daemonic possession

-Vindicator

-2 obliterators

-2 obliterators

Wolves:

-Rune Priest, random funky stuff, jaws, termy armor

-5 grey hunters, melta, mark of the wulfin

-5 grey hunters, melta, mark of the wulfin

-5 grey hunters, melta, mark of the wulfin

-Razorback, lascannon/TL plasma

-Razorback, lascannon/TL plasma

-Razorback, lascannon/TL plasma

-5 wolf guard w/ terminator armor, 1 cyclone

-5 wolf scouts, meltabombs

-5 wolf scouts, 2 meltaguns

-Land Speeder typhoon

-Land Speeder typhoon

-Vindicator

-Vindicator

The Verderer reserves everything, Grandpa Rhino spreads out slightly.

Top of Turn 1: Rainbow marines advance! Land speeders rush to the left side to try and box the Verderer in.

Bottom of Turn 1: Nada.

Top of Turn 2: Advanced even more, and popping smoke with vehicles in preparation for The Verderer's army to show up.

Bottom of Turn 2: A unit of obliterators deep strikes in, both rhinos with berzerkers and a sorcerer come in. Obliterators whiff, and fail to hurt the vindicator they teleported next to (see top picture). This would be the first of 3 snake eye rolls The Verderer would roll to penetrate with meltas that day.

Top of 3: Neither wolf scout units come in. Grandpa Rhino pegs one of the obliterators with a meltagun, but misses with his vindicator. Random shooting shakes/stuns both of the Verderer's rhinos and blows the bolter off of the one with the sorcerer.

Bottom of 3: The rest of The Verderer's army comes in. The lonely obliterator takes the weapon off of Grandpa Rhino's vindicator, some stuff misses, and the other obliterators take down a land speeder after coming from the flank.

Top of 4: Wolf scouts come in, the meltagun ones epic fail and miss, the meltabomb ones manage to destroy a weapon on the vindicator and immobilize it. Grey hunters melt the remaining obliterator. Razorbacks wreck the plague marine rhino and the one without the sorcerer. The sorcerer's rhino is immobilized.

Bottom of 4: Both squads of wolf scouts die to counter charges, yet another land speeder crashes to the obliterators.

Top of 5: Grandpa Rhino's shooting is ineffective, not much happens. Plague marines just barely dodge a demolisher shell.

Bottom of 5: Shooting is ineffective.

Game ends.

Score is Grandpa Rhino: 3, The Verderer: 4. Victory for chaos!

Very close game, and if the game had gone on, it could have gone badly. Talking to Grandpa Rhino about the game, he says this: "Never ever take wolf scouts ever."

Hope you enjoyed!

Chaos is for fighting...?

Hello, everyone, The Verderer here with some interesting tactics that you may have thought of...But probably not. It all comes down to this: Chaos is considered to be a "fighty" army. Khorne Berzerkers, Demon Princes, Chaos Terminators, etc. are all very fighty, and are therefore seen on a lot of gaming tables. But does it have to be that way?

The current metagame calls for lots of high-strength, low AP shots, and plenty of vehicles. As you can guess, this is not Chaos Space Marines' strength, which leads to many people assuming that they are useless, and either selling their models or proxying them as Wolves or Blood Angels. However, I believe that Chaos can keep up with the metagame. Not with Lash, not with Berzerkers, but with shooting power.

So, in a list like this, you will, of course, look straight at Obliterators. They are an obvious choice for shooty lists, seeing as they have lascannons, and, more importantly, the ever-feared plasma cannon. Two units of these are invaluable in a list like this. Why only two? You shall see...

Next up is troops. You're going to want troops who can shovel out an incredible amount of shots, at pretty long range. Solution? Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters. A unit of 7 can send out an impressive 21 shots when standing still, or 14 shots while on the move, both at 24" range. That's not even mentioning the Blastmaster, which can pin enemy units, giving you another round of firing. Very good in my book, we will want to load up on these.

Next up is HQ. Who to lead a shooty army? A Tzeentch demon prince immediately springs to mind, but the enemy is probably going to reach your line at some point, let's face it. Therefore, you will need something to counter attack with. My solution to that is simple: Chaos Lord with a Demon Weapon, perhaps with some terminators or Berzerkers for a counter attack. Cheap and effective, just the way I like it.

Now, with some points left, lets look back at the Heavy Support section. With one slot left, I see one last obvious choice: A Defiler. This beast will be able to take out entire marine units with one shot, and handle itself well in combat. And, if the battlecannon should be destroyed, you can use its secondary weapons, or use it as a wall to block enemy units.

So, piecing it all together, the list would look something like this:

Chaos lord w/ Demon Weapon, Terminator Armor

5 Terminators w/ Icon of Slaanesh, Reaper Autocannon, chainfist

8 Noise Marines w/ 7 Sonic blasters, blastmaster

8 Noise Marines w/ 7 Sonic blasters, blastmaster

8 Noise Marines w/ 7 Sonic blasters, blastmaster

8 Noise Marines w/ 7 Sonic blasters, blastmaster

Defiler w/ Havoc Launcher

2 obliterators

2 obliterators

total: 1,750 points

Pretty much, castle up! The noise marines should be in front, then the terminators behind them, and then finally the defiler and oblits. In the case of objectives, advance slowly, and keep firing, and/or Deepstrike oblits.

Well, that's all for today. Leave any questions or such as comments!

Luck in Wargaming

So, today, I'm going to talk about a subject that's very close to my heart, and I'm sure it's very close to many of yours. That subject is: Luck.

Luck is 50% of wargaming. That is what must be excepted right off the bat. You can make up the best tactics, the cheesiest army list, or exploit as many loopholes as you want, but if the dice aren't with you, then there's nothing you can do about it.

There are two schools of thought on this subject: The first one is the logical, sane one. First off in this is that the dice, despite what the demotivational poster above might say, do not hate you. They are simply little cubes with small dots indented in them. They might roll a 5, they might roll a 2, it's completely down to chance.

As it happens, this theory is not very fun, which leads to the second theory, which involves contact between wargamers and fate. Every wargamer I know has some sort of superstition . Kasrkar, for instance, thinks that putting his super ugly pink dice around a unit in the movement phase will make them roll well in the shooting phase. I, on the other hand, regularly sacrifice spare HQ models to the dice gods, in the hopes that they will take pity upon me, and bless my dice with 6's galore.

Another belief that those in our gaming club hold is that some gamers are predestined from birth to either roll badly, or well. There are two branches of this, as well. The first branch deals with the extremes of dice rolling. One person I know, Sam, is the only person I have ever met who can roll 18 dice, and have 14 of those come up as 1s. Carter, on the other hand, can roll 5s and 6s like you wouldn't believe. On the downside, however, if he loses a combat, his unit almost always fails the subsequent Morale check!

The other branch is more exact, that players roll better or worse for different dice rolls. For instance: I will seize the initiative from you. Every time. There is nothing you can do about it. I also cannot make Power Armor saves to save my life. My poor chaos marines have a bad habit of dying to lasgun fire, because I can't roll above a 2. Xander, on the other hand, makes 3++s like nobody you will ever see. He believes that this stems from his yelling of "Bob Marley!" before making an important dice roll.

Well, that's all for today. What kind of rolls do you make well?

Dark Eldar: Obscure characters.

Happy new year, everyone! For my first post of the year, I would like to look at some of the Dark Eldar characters who are getting overlooked with all the scary stuff like Haemonculi and Lelith.

Lady Aurelia Malys:

At first glance, she looks decent, with an Archon's statline and a less dangerous Djinn blade. But it's when you compare her to a basic Archon that you see the magic. Firstly, she and her unit are immune to psychic powers. Personally, I would take her for just that. With all of the scary Lash of Submission and, even worse, Murderous Hurricane psychic powers that are floating around out there, she can lead her unit through all of those purple glowing whips and tropical storms. The regular Archon doesn't even have an option like that.

Then you come to the 4++ invulnerable save. Quite honestly, I almost like this more than the Shadow Field, seeing as I always fail that 2++ as soon as I possibly can. Add this to the fact that you can redeploy up to three units before the game, even putting them in reserve, you can really bait an enemy and leave them stranded.

So to compare her to an archon:

Archon w/ Djinn blade, Ghostplate armor - 90 points

Yeah, for 40 points more you can get the Lady? I'm going for that.

Baron Sathonyx:

A little less impressive than the Lady, still very good for only costing just over 100 points. He even has a shadowfield! The way I see it, he's sort of like Belial, in the fact that he, in himself, isn't terribly amazing, but for his points he's great, and he makes already good units troops, that being Hellions in the case of the Baron.

So, what does he have? Well, he gives his unit at least a 6++ cover save at all times, though for the baron himself, he has his shadowfield. On the charge, he will also have 4 strength 6 attacks, not including combat drugs, so he will be rather effective against vehicles as well as light infantry.

Also, a note on the Bones of the Seer: Choosing deployment zones isn't great, but it can help, if you want your wolfpack of fast vehicles some extra cover.

Finally, we come to Kheradruakh the Decapitator. At ten more points than Lady Malys, he isn't as good of a choice, not in the same way, at least. He is meant to be a character hunter, and no mistake, but he may actually be better used to destroy MSU armies, with a power weapon and Strength 5. Another thing that helps him is that he has the Baleblast and starts out with a pain token, so that's 2 strength 4 shots per turn already.

A word on deployment: Kheradruakh must always be kept in reserve. However, he can deploy anywhere on the battlefield, at least one inch away from an enemy model. I would personally put him in cover, and then fleet out and kill an unwary small unit, before shrinking back into cover again. This is especially good if you want to take down that Manticore in the enemy's backfield, or the long fangs, and so on.

So, that's all for today! What do you think?