New way to play?

I've had an apostrophe.

Lightning has just struck my brain.

While reading this thread, an entirely new way to play DE has occurred to me. What if, instead of trying to really kill the enemy at all, we focused on slowing them down, while a second, smaller force completed the mission objectives?

This playstyle would revolve around two army elements:

A speedbump force. Mostly a tarpit, although capable of damage. Designed to A) kill anything ObSec and then B) tie up units that could threaten your other force.
A scoring force. Small, numerous, mobile units that ideally have ObSec and a lot of evasive survivability. Their only job is to score Tactical Objectives or to swoop in late game and steal objectives.

I'm already calling this my Sarlacc list. (Because it's a pit with teeth.)

My initial idea was to run large numbers of wracks to tarpit people, maybe interspersed with reaver units with farseers to back up their survivability. Windrider Guardians seem like the best scoring units (maybe run them devoid of weapon upgrades to decrease the target priority), possibly with Venom warriors instead.

What do you guys think?

Quote :

I've had an apostrophe.

You can read minds?!

I like where your going with this although to me your pretty much talking about a tournament MSU style build. I endeavor to do similar with my lists currently although maybe your idea has more definition to it than what I'm doing idk.
Basically I try to build to play on two fronts.. always the mission and also to kill. Hmm let me throw out some ideas and we'll see where they land..

The first things that come to mind when you said speed bumps are lone sslyth and lone fiends clocking in at 25 and 30 pts each. Meant to cap nearby objectives (sslyth) or threaten weak scoring units and further objectives, these things also make great speed bumps and generally just clog board space when taken in numbers.

Then mandrakes and reavers are the other units I'd look into. Basically more dirt cheap utility units. A mix of these enables objective plays without taking hardly any pts away from the rest of the army. Reavers are also great for hunting opposing scorers obviously.

I agree on windriders btw, they are ideal for what you want. They were excellent last edition when taken bare, but this edition I can't see a good reason not to give them scatters honestly. Silly GW.

That said having played with both reavers and scatbikes pretty extensively I feel reavers are much closer in power than people give them credit for, and often superior. They definitely have the advantage when it comes to digging units out of cover and vs skimmers.


Anyway thats my initial take on some of the more niche support units you might consider looking into. Wracks I wanna like but the main use I can come up with involves camping them to take shots at wraith knights. Maybe consider a couple courts of the archon instead. Durable, scale-able, compulsory and with guns and fleet to boot. Pretty much perfect for speed bumps hunting opposing obsec and even throwing shots skyward if they have access to splinter racks.

Not much time atm but thats what I got for now

It seems oddly familiar to what I suggested against the Tau suit.

Never actually done it, but I designed a strategy based with large reaver squads and....wyches.

You use the large jetbikes squads to multiassault the most units possible, then, next turn, you drop your wyches and charge the already locked units. Then, you withdraw your jetbikes, and go lock another set of unit, for another raider of wyches.

I want to see it fleshed out more, especially since I don't think any other army in the game can do it like we could, since in my mind it relies on an explicitly elite horde army of which we are really the only one except maybe skitarii, the clowns, and the corsairs. Everybody else is either too soft or can't really field enough stuff.

My only real question is how are you getting there? How are you closing ranks on them quickly enough? Turn 2 mass deep strike? Okay how does the anvil you just dropped reliably survive being that close to them without getting shot to pieces during the 1 turn they have before you can assault? If moving from your deployment zone how are you getting there early enough to be assaulting before turn 3?

I guess additionally, but lesser questions would be what are you going to do about other drop pod/deep strike armies or walker based outflank armies? Can you do this effectively with 2 detachments?


This is actually very similar to what I do currently and why I pay for solarites and venomblades so I'd like to hear your take on those questions.

Jimsolo wrote:

I've had an apostrophe.

Punctuation is powerful. Use it wisely.

(Did you mean an epiphany?)

An epiphany

Yes. It's a movie reference. Watch the video.

Use this tactic against durable stuff like necrons and death stars while going for the kill against glasshammers like eldar jetbike spam. Had quite a success at the last tournament with it.

In the game against necron Decurion I killed maybe 30% of his army while loosing almost everything. However I had 10 more victory points in the end.

Want to take the strategy to the next level next time. So I want to field a speed bump consisting of 2 talos, a cronos and a grotesquery with 2x 3 Grots on foot. All bunched up to get 4+ fnp and behind a defense line with com relay.

Then many stingy units who may start in reserve with 3x3 jetbikes, 3x 3 mandrakes and the rest ob sec units.

Jimsolo wrote:

I've had an apostrophe.

Dude! You migh have had a great idea, but people can still see us.

What about this idea: Coven + craftworld.

Craftworld brings an autarch and jet bikes for scoring and reserve manipulation

Coven brings a dark artisan that you deep strik behind his main force with WWP as soon as possible.
Meanwhile you boost up a covenite fleshcorps getting ready to multi assult.
If you have the points bring a grotesquerie either on foot with a WWP to add to the backfield distraction or in raiders to plug holes.

As long as the haemy survives the wracks have FNP4 and if they hook up with the cronos they will get it even when he dies.

pretty dependent on LOS blocking terrain to get you there, and it would not be as good agains a full mech list or fast MSU or Orks or...
but TAU would hate this, no?

Jimsolo wrote:

Thanks for clarifying, I'll leave my remaining snarky comments undeployed.

The idea is interesting to me largely as a distillation of a way many people play already, and because it invites a reexamination of Mandrakes.

I don't get the hate anyway. If you don't fight against Tau or keep out of flame range they are awesome.

CptMetal wrote:

I don't get the hate anyway. If you don't fight against Tau or keep out of flame range they are awesome.

In assault their only option is to die screaming. They are cheap though. Good "shooting tarpit."

They are excellent holding objective in cover while most of the ennemy army is locked in combat.

They have move through cover. You have to fall back if close combat guys get close. And if they aren't dedicated close combat units and power from Pain already kicked in, you can kick in their teeth.

Once, I used them to kill a wave serpent in close combat!

Isn't this the usual way we play?

Most of the time DE lack the firepower to reliably kill the other army anywas. It was for me always zooming around and sticking to the objectives while trying to hold the enemy at bay..

I thought about a list of reavers with autarch (for fearless and no overwatch) with a cronos and Urien Ina grotesquerie. 3+/4+ on reavers turn two and the grots are a durable camping/cc unit. But what to fill out the rest with?

Even more grotesques!

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

Isn't this the usual way we play?

Most of the time DE lack the firepower to reliably kill the other army anywas. It was for me always zooming around and sticking to the objectives while trying to hold the enemy at bay..

This is interesting. No, I don't play this way, and never really have.

With my DE, I try for a big hit out the gate, then play conservatively for the next few turns until my units are stronger (through PFP) and ready to retaliate.

Usually I focus on units that can seriously hurt me (ignores cover weapons and the like), or kill units that can be wiped out with an Alpha Strike. With a highly mobile army I can 'duck and weave' until another opportunity to come back surfaces.

If I'm playing a Freakshow, the tactics boil down to: pop the vehicles, Psychic Shriek the guys inside. (Shoot whoever's left.) ((Then assault any stragglers.))

So, for the Dark Artisan, it seems to me the best build is a Spirit Probe on Cronos, Ichor Injectors and TL Heat Lance on Talos, and a WWP on the Haemonculus. Is BS3 Twin-Linked worth it?

Also, MSU is the way to go against Tau. There are 2 tau players in my club, and both are cheese-mongers. I just do not get the concept of having 1 unit shoot so that another unit can shoot. It is fun to golf clap and "congratulate" my opponent for having 2 units shoot at a single venom, markerlights then crisis suits, only to glance it to death and have Fearless Wracks tumble out. Venoms, Reavers, and a few lightning rod/speed bump units that won't be ignored. I like to Take a Scarlet Epicurians formation, and deploy a unit of 15 Wyches. Tau never ignore an assault threat, so the Wracks, Wyches, and Reavers will draw fire, but Scalpel Squadrons are great at taking out pathfinders and their markerlights.

First time i heard this tactic formulated in precisely these words was in chaos space marines youtube blog, Fritz40k.

He had built an army entirely with this focus - some maulers fiends, zerkers, cultists, lords on juggernaught rushing forward to pin enemy at place, while rest of the troops claims objectives.

If you're looking to tarpit units, would Wyches be terrible?

Ya pretty much. Khymera do it better in my experience using both in the same list in multiples.

Calyptra wrote:

If you're looking to tarpit units, would Wyches be terrible?

Despite the fact that they suck out loud, they are on my first experimental list as my mandatory DE troop units.

How will you equip Wyches for the proposed tactic?