A TDC Blog: strategies , unit analysis, batreps, observations, tactics

egorey wrote:

So break down the court for me J. Are you using it as a bodyguard for your Archon or does it get fielded as a solo unit? Is it primarily for AI or AT. It obviously has some durability and damage output. Lhaweman's for only ten points get yoiu a couple of 2+ shots. So okay for ten points. Medusae are hit and miss. They can be devastating but they can be fail also. Ur-gul is tough with a lot of attacks but you take these guys for the SSylth. I( know that. But in a vacuum these guys are only majority T3 and kabalite armour. Sure they have FNP and access to a transport.

So why are they better than the Archon/Incubi killing machine? Why are they better then the uber-tough Grotesques? How are you fielding them? What do you see as their role on tjhe table? Break it down for the rest of us TDCers, J.

 
Sure DuckofDeath.
 
I'm taking them in a Raider so I can only take 10.  I have decided on a strategy of flexible deployment with the Archon.  So what will happen is the Archon will travel with a DIFFERENT unit from the Court of the Archon.  This allows me, if i want, to get more members into the Court of the Archon.
 
Now the three hammers in the force will all be pushed upfield hard and fast.  The Archon will then be blown out or just step out of the Raider and join the Court if they are most in need of him, OR stay where he's at OR join the third hammer of the force.  The enemy will dictate that, but either way the Court is allowed to be a little more tough and voluminous.
 
I am using 3 Sslyth, a Lhamaean, 2 medusae, and 4 Ur-Ghul.
 
The list is abandoning the typical use of Lances and the occasional Haywire Blaster to kill armor.  Why?  Because it takes too many of them to do the job in general and absorbs an inordinant amount of units to cause the damage you need.  The idea here is to concede this point and realize that against less armor-centric lists, the hammering blows in melee have considerable impact and the Dark eldar speed of delivery for that power is very good.  
 
In my list the Grotesques are already incluided.  So is a Clawed Fiend BeastPack.  I was looking for yet a third hammer.
 
The Incubi, for all their virtues do not have the strength to harm vehicles.  They simply lack the ability to pop armored hulls that the list needs.  The Court isn't there to pop vehicles exclusively but unlike the Incubi, they can actually do it.  Also unlike the Incubi, they bring with them a devastating fusilade at close range.  The Court of the Archon is perhaps underestimated in that regard.  2 medusae firing STR D6+1, AP D6 flamers is a scary proposition for plenty of units.  Seraphim can show you why even sTR 3 flamers can matter, and these can be up to STR 7, so again, vehicle killing ability.  The Sslyth carry Shard Carbines and the Archon and Lhamaean are of course shooting 2+ poison pistols (not overly exciting but true).The Incubi cannot do all that shooting and must tackle units that are much more prepared to take that charge than the ones the Court of the Archoin hits.
 
More Grotesques would be okay but they are not cheap and without a nigh indestructible Urien to lead the unit, I dont think they are nearly as good as they are with him.  I do have the models for another Grotesque unit.  However, my overall feeling is that the Court of the Archons shooting gives me an assault unit with an element that cant be reproduced in a second Grotesque Squad.
 
Another Beastpack is entirely viable.  I have models to do a Razorwing flock unit.  However, doing a Razorwing flock is high risk because unlike the Clawed Fiend Beastpack, AND the Court of the Archon, they will never be more than Tough 3 and so Multilasers, plasma and a storm of otherthings can reduce a Razorwing flock in size extremely rapidly.  God help anyone they descend upon.  60 STR 3 Rending attacks is nothing short of amazing, averaging 5 Rends when at full strength.   But thats when its at full strength.  No Raider hull to protect it, no high toughness, and at lower numbers, not nearly as scary.
 
If I invested in a Beastpack of a different sort, like Khymerae, I again lose some speed, I lose shooting for the most part and I lose a lot of vehicle killing ability.  They are survivable but not really as impactful as you'd like and they REALLY need a character attached or it may not be on the board long.  Investing another character that can keep up leaves you one solution (The Baron) and of course, once you go down that road, he's not leaving that unit.  He just cant.  The Archon allows me to adjust according to the enemy by joining the unit that makes the most sense.  The Baron cant do that.
 
So that is how I settled on the Court of the Archon.
 
On the charge, you're getting 31 STR 5 attacks from the Court of the Archon, plus the Archon, Lhamaean and of lesser importance, the Medusae close combat attacks after you shoot, and if the Archon joins, you have Assault and Defense Grenades.
 
That is a fairly solid attack and it will take out a Vehicle Squadron, averaging almost 7 damage results.
 
Does that answer the question?

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t9676-list-building-competition-v2-foot-sloggers-r-us-list-for-1500-points

read and enter. once again there will be a decent prize.

So J. That was very interesting. Your blog is replete with ideas that are not 'net' approved. Unteractions and units that make people mutter 'WTF' is that. I mean who uses the court of the Archon? Who footslogs ten Meganobs? Who tries to break Illic? It's funny. I remember the early days when Ordosean was touting the beast[ack and the net community was questioning his wisdom. Then he began winning with it and suddenly - oh yes - the besastpack is good. Despite your stellar record with your meganobs every time you mention them some people scoff. Well, you 'can lead a horse to water' right?

So I leave you with a list that is a big 'WTF' type list ...

From Da Red Waaagh Campaign book:
1) Mogrok's Bossboyz
- Requires: 3 Big Meks, 1 Warboss, 1 Lvl 2 Weirdboy
- Big Mek Mogrok: The controlling player must nominate one Big Mek in this formation to be his Warlord (Mogrok). Mogrok
always has the Kunnin’ But Brutal Warlord Trait.
- Very Kunnin’: Before deployment, the controlling player can nominate up to D3 friendly Ork units; these units gain the Acute
Senses and Outflank special rules. The controlling player also adds +1 to any attempts to Seize the Initiative.

- Morgrok's Bossboyz -
MegaMek Mogrok Telyporta Blasta Da 'Finkin Kap (warlord)
2x Big Mek SAG Gitfinda
Warboss Headwoppa's Killchoppa BP
LVl 2 Weirboy
-  455 -

- Ork Horde Detachment -
2x Lvl 2 Weirboyz
Painboy
5x 15 Grots Runthereder Prod
3 Battlewagons Zzap Ram
Burna Bomba 2 Scorcha Missiles
- 975 -

Aegis Defense Line Comms Relay
- 70 -

Now you tell me - how does this list function?

Holy crap, that's awesome. The Burna Bomba is kind of an odd ball add in. Not sure if it adds a ton? I mean I assume its the token anti-air but wouldnt the artillery be cheaper and more assured of success?

Other than that, man. I Do love that formation

In fact, although the bomba is odd it does have ignore cover and few nifty rules. Traktor guns are more reliable BUT the idea was to have a really random list. I have AT in my weirdboy powers, my Zzaps etc. If you look closely there are NO Pks in an Ork list, lol. I am relying heavily on the SaGs to do some damage as well. There are THREE. And if I get vortex - woot. The Weirboyz can also roll a lot of high S AP2 powers as well. Random, yes. Fun, yes.

As for AA - I ignore it. If you can position your flyers with that many models on the table to do a lot of damage - good luck. At 1500 I have over 100 models flooding the table. But I like the Bomba the best.

But why do I like this list? I can outflank units and push the BWs forward ans still hold backfield objectives. This is the kind of flexibility ythey lose a turn of firing. . I can also just keep them behind the Aegis ... see options. Now you could drop the burna bomma and give mega armpour to those Meks ... now they could move in the BW and fire. Options.

THIS BEARS REPEATING -
Against mechdar or any mech list for that matter you know they will try to often shoot Orks and stay back as they are aware if the orks get to close they die, so they have to sit back away, but by doing so they are letting the Orks hold the objectives and win. They try not to get to close. This lets Orks grab the objectives and play the mission. And now Orks have options with some very fast rush units and outflank/infiltrate. Orks are random. Maelstorm is random. You can win with Orks. The game is about board control and holding/grabbing an objective.

Now another puzzle for you guys. I maintain that this is one of the best builds for the current Cahos codex:

Juggy Lord, MoK, Axe of Blind Fury, Sigil, VotLW 175
Huron Blackheart 160

3x 5 CSM, Flamer, Rhino 345
16 Khorne Berserkers, Champion, Power Axe, GoM 339

5 Chaos Spawn, MoN 180
5 Chaos Spawn 150

2x Maulerfiend, Lasher Tendrils 270
3 Obliterators,  MoN 228

- 1850 -

Now you tell me why I think it is powerful.

Duck of Death asked me to write little analysis about Shadow council that I’ve been using lately. I intended to use next weekend’s tournament as an example how it can be played. The 36 player tournament is using Maelstrom missions with everything (Unbound/LoW/Forge) allowed system. It also features skill level bracket system of 4 different levels for first two rounds (I’m in no. 1 with seven of Finland’s ETC players). In 3rd round there’ll be two brackets and the second day’s two games are purely swiss system.

In the 6th ed I used Khymerastar with two Farseers and a pair of WK:s at 1850 so something similar is easy choice for me. So this is my list to the event:

Baron the Getawayticket 105 (WL)
4 Spiritseers, Shard of Anaris 320
5 Wyches hwg, Venom 125
5 Kabalite, Venom 110
5 Avengers, sl Serpent, 185
10 Guardians, sl Serpent 210
3 Beastmaster, 14 Khymerae 204
Wraithknight 240
Total 1499 points

Telepathy is the new Divination.
Shadow council became a viable choice with 7th edition and its changes to rulebook spells, especially new invisibility and psychic focus. All Spiritseers get two roll from ether Telepathy or Runes of Battle. Both of these disciplines benefit the Khymerae a lot. There is two possible source of shrouded (2+ cover in terrain), +1S (S5 khymerae), Heal (for WK) and of course the Invisibility. My list would like to have two different invisibilities but can manage with one and is not totally lost without one ether. The Telepathy primary has a lot of potential. One seer can shoot different target in magic phase with a shot that can potentially wipe annoying enemy troop from cover and charge entirely different target in assault phase. In this list I have taken 10 guardians instead of just 5 Dire Avengers so that I have an alternative place for Spriritseers in case I get that double invisibility or other great spell.

The beasts are not supposed to charge head on to enemy T1 but hang back a bit to keep those seers alive. Normally nobody wants to close with beasts so it keeps the midfield clear of enemy. That way 6” movement is not a problem. Also I like to have beasts at the center of the board as long as possible because it is a long way across the board if you are at wrong end of the board on T4. Spiritseers can also keep WK alive a lot longer with 6” shroud bubble and Heal. If Enemy gets close they can also point targets to Wraithknight so it can reroll 1’s to hit.

I would have liked to have second Wych squad but couldn’t find the points anywhere. Any comments on the list and tactics is welcome as I’m not perfect player (yet ) I hope I manage to posts tournament report after weekend how it worked out.

Also ETC/ESC list need to be returned for inspection during the weekend so next week will be busy analyzing close to 300 different lists .

Vasara wrote:

There is two possible source of shrouded (2+ cover in terrain)

This actually isn't accurate with the shadow council. When using the Iyanden supplement, which is what allows you to take the shadow council, spiritseers get a different primaris than normal for runes of battle. It's called voice of twilight: a warp charge 2 power that gives wraith troops battle focus and furious charge, which is basically useless in your list.

That, however, doesn't change the usefulness of runes of battle TOO much. But I personally prefer sanctic powers for a beastpack to the runes of battle. In sanctic, you get +2S instead of +1, an improved invuln save instead of armor save(And khymera are invuln-based), and significantly better witchfires.

In my opinion, your list would be best served by going for 3 main powers: Hammerhand, Sanctuary, and Invisibility, with invisibility being lowest priority. The reason being, all of the sanctic powers will be useful to your beastpack, whereas the majority of the telepathy powers are going to be worthless(Why get shrouded if you've got 3+ invulns?). So if you don't get invisibility, it's really not that good at all.

If you succeed in getting your prime 3 powers, you have a beaststar that can only be hit on 6s in shooting or CC, is S6 (Baron S8 on the charge!), and has 3+ invuln saves to any snapshots that manage to hit them.

That's what my beastpack goes for anyhow. To each his own, though.

Thanks for the insight. I don't use Iyanden for the simple fact that I don't own it. So my Spiritseers keep the conseal/reveal spell.

I haven't tested sanctic powers at all because I allready have trouble with perils with telepathy and Battle. But I'm sure going to try those as well.

Like you said sanctic would be better but that shrouding grants my beastherd 2+ cover in terrain. (5+ base +stealth from baron and the shroud-spell)

I need to look both in to Iyanden book and Sanctic powers!

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

That, however, doesn't change the usefulness of runes of battle TOO much. But I personally prefer sanctic powers for a beastpack to the runes of battle. In sanctic, you get +2S instead of +1, an improved invuln save instead of armor save(And khymera are invuln-based), and significantly better witchfires.

In my opinion, your list would be best served by going for 3 main powers: Hammerhand, Sanctuary, and Invisibility, with invisibility being lowest priority. The reason being, all of the sanctic powers will be useful to your beastpack, whereas the majority of the telepathy powers are going to be worthless(Why get shrouded if you've got 3+ invulns?). So if you don't get invisibility, it's really not that good at all.

If you succeed in getting your prime 3 powers, you have a beaststar that can only be hit on 6s in shooting or CC, is S6 (Baron S8 on the charge!), and has 3+ invuln saves to any snapshots that manage to hit them.

Firstly, I'd disagree that the majority of Telepathy powers are worthless. Invisibility is obviously the goal here (and certainly not the lowest priority - ever!) but Psychic Shriek, Dominate, Terrify and Shrouding are all excellent powers and even Mental Fortitude can be situationally useful if one of your troop units has broken and you need it to rally. Hallucination is kind of meh but even that can be a killer in the right circumstances.

Whilst I would agree that the Sanctic powers are mostly pretty good and useful for the beaststar, the risk of perils on any double is significant, especially as you'll be looking to cast all 3 powers pretty much every turn. Plus the primaris is pretty much worthless to you unless you happen to be facing daemons.

With 4 Seers I'd probably have two of them roll all Telepathy, one roll all Runes of Battle and maybe one roll all Sanctic. That way you benefit from having all 4 Seers with 3 powers each (including the primaris) and a decent chance of getting Invisibility, 2 useful Battle powers and 1 or more decent Sanctic powers.

I run sanctid with my Ork list for my weirboyz and it is a crapshoot with perils. Of course hammerhand grots are hilarious if you get it. Sanctuary is nice too but Orks have no inv - still I can save a model here and there. I did roll vortex and was successfull - no doubles which was really lucky but again this is very risky when PotW powers are so nice with a lot less risk.

Vasara wrote:

Thanks for the insight. I don't use Iyanden for the simple fact that I don't own it. So my Spiritseers keep the conseal/reveal spell.

So what rule are you using then to allow you to use 4 spiritseers? As far as I know, that rule is only in Iyanden.

Count Adhemar wrote:

A. Firstly, I'd disagree that the majority of Telepathy powers are worthless. Invisibility is obviously the goal here (and certainly not the lowest priority - ever!) but Psychic Shriek...stuff

B. Whilst I would agree that the Sanctic powers are mostly pretty good and useful for the beaststar, the risk of perils on any double is significant...

C. With 4 Seers I'd probably have two of them roll all Telepathy, one roll all Runes of Battle and maybe one roll all Sanctic. That way you benefit from having all 4 Seers with 3 powers each (including the primaris) and a decent chance of getting Invisibility, 2 useful Battle powers and 1 or more decent Sanctic powers.

A. I wasn't saying telepathy is a worthless discipline. If you've read any of my other threads, you'd know I'm a huge fan of psychic shriek, terrify, etc. However, it's not very useful to a beaststar. Making 14 khymera with 42-56 attacks in CC S6 instead of S4 is extremely useful. That goes from can't hurt lots of vehicles, to melts most vehicles in one round of CC. Obviously invisibility is useful, and that's why it's one of the 3 powers I'd go for. But starting out, you have double the odds per roll of getting what you want on the sanctic table than on telepathy. Once you've gotten either hammerhand or sanctuary, technically the odds are equal again and you could roll on telepathy first before trying to get your 2nd sanctic.

B. Eldar generally don't care about perils. 5/6 perils, you take a wound, which eldar can prevent with their ghosthelm. 2/6 results can have something worse happen in addition if you fail a subsequent leadership test(unlikely). And 1/6 gives your psyker a major buff. (Just looked again, spiritseers don't get the ghost helms like I thought they did, but still, most of the perils results aren't devastating. Basically, take a wound.)

C. Yeah, it would depend, for me. If my primary purpose for taking psychic powers was to buff my beaststar, I'd take sanctic first, just because there are 2 large buffs in that chart that I'd want. If I managed to get the buffs right off the bat, I'd probably move on and roll on telepathy until I was out of rolls or got invisibility.

But ultimately, I probably wouldn't even be running spiritseers to buff my beaststar. If it was my list, I'd likely be running farseers/eldrad, who are both: 1. better at getting the psychic powers you want, and 2. better at successfully manifesting their powers without perils.

Spiritseers are better for spreading primaris powers like psychic shriek throughout your entire army, if using the iyanden supplement. Otherwise, they're really just good for making WG troops.

I played against a Chaos Daemon army that pumped out as many as 35 Psyker dice in a round last night. let me just say: not the most awesome time I've ever had playing. Took six damn hours to play that game. In a tournament, how the HECK are these armies EVER going to not make their opponent angry or their owner disappointed (one or the other)? I can just imagine the complaints of slow play coming in now. "We only made it toround 2"...

I can't even tell you how much I wanted that Psyker phase to end. Because it was Maelstrom, the effects of those dice were much less than in regular games. I've noticed that about Maelstrom Missions. Even summoning three Lords of Change like he did didn't really hurt me as much as just the sheer volume of time it took for him to hmm and haw through his phase.

I was playing Grey Knights ironically and it took me all of 3 minutes to do my phase with 11+Dice to throw. I was basically chucking 6 dice at a time just to have a chance to get ONE power off against him. And I failed most of the time and now that Force Weapons have to be activated like that, opposed by that many dice... It was pretty not fun, on so many levels.

I had the game won but it went to turn 7 and you really can only take on a summoned onslaught of monstrous Creatures for so long. Ended the game and lost 17-16 with a single unharmed Dreadnought left on the board. Wanna know how he won? He Peril'd and rolled the 6 (armourbane, great!) right when he needed to tear my Vindicare Assassin out of a building which, by the way, was his only shot at winning. He earned it and the game, despite all this comentary was actually entertaining in the WAY it went. But the drudgery of dealing with that many dice, rules interactions and placing models and futzing with things...

Ugh. Even the Perils went well for him; and with 5 wounds, what Daemon Prince even cares about perils. They'll just manufacture more Princes. Lol.

Anywho, I need a vacation after that game. I was DRAINED, even though I was winning til the end. That perils of the Warp sunk me but to be honest, I was just happy to see it come to an end.

I repeat: ugh.

After buying Iyanden book I realize my mistake. My list needs to be Iyanden.

Just finished a series of games against daemons myself.. brought a friendlier list than my usual beast star centric lists, hinging losely around swooping hawks, shadow weavers, and this unit:

4 grots, aberration- flesh gauntlet, liquifier
raider- torment gl
haemonculus- liquifier, crucible
fuegan- splitfire

Game 1 longboard deployment so no refused flank shinanigans.. top of turn 1 everything goes perfect for daemons with 2++ scouting hounds, invisible keeper, shrouding 2++ rerollable jinking screamers all in my face.. gotta do something now so make a suicide call to put the grots in harms way as a speed bump with the crucible in range. Fuegan split fires into a grinder. Bottom of turn 1 hes down 2 lvl 3 psykers and a grinder. Bye bye grimoire, cursed earth, etc.. grots then died but it was worth it. Another highlight game 2 was roasting then assaulting away a whole unit of flesh hounds packing axe/geb khorne herald, having a daemon prince try to tilt the combat by assaulting and challenging fuegan who then FNP'd up to S10 eventually and killed it.

Anyway hadn't tried this setup before and I gotta say I'm having quite a bit of fun with it so I thought I'd share.

How did Fuegan get FNP? Do pain tokens work on him too? I was nor sure about that.

He comes stock with it, and since it is expressly not a save its great for increasing his str/atts.. if a little risky. Plus he's a straight pirate.

egorey wrote:

How did Fuegan get FNP? Do pain tokens work on him too? I was nor sure about that.

He has FNP anyway but yes, pain tokens now work as stated in the codex, ie for the whole unit. The FAQ entry that disallowed this is no longer there.

Tournaments done and here is a short report on the games. First two games were against hard core tournament players as we had four different skill level brackets.

My list again:
Baron
4 Spiritseer/shard
5 Wyches, Venom
5 Kabalite Venom
5 dire, Serpent
10 guardians, Serpent
3 BM, 14 khyms
WK

1st game: Orks, with Stompa and three trucks with boyz. Lost the roll to go first but deployed still to the front of Vanguard strike. Stompa came towards getting first blood from Serpent. Beast lost only couple of models or so. In my turn I spread my forces all over the board so that Stompa cannot kill them all in cc. In the end my invisible beast had most of his Orks and he had killed most of my other models except the seerstar with beast. 10-10.

2nd game: TAU, 2 Iontides, Missilisides, 2 skyrays, buffmander with marker drones and bastion. Lost again the roll to go first but deployed so far to the corner so that my opponent gave me the first turn. Prety much nothing happened during the first turns. After my second turn my beast are well on their way to his side with sanctuary and invisibility successfully on. In his next shooting phase first Skyray managed to get a marker light on the beasts. Same with second Skyray. Next his marker drones fired on my beast with BS3 getting 5 hits out of 6 shots. Then Missilesides opened up. After that unit I had left 3 seers on my own deployment zone with 3 Khymera. So much for that game. In the end I was able to hang in the game with lucky card drawing from Maeltrom missions only losing with 9-11.

The guaranteed hard games are behind and next opponents should be easier as we were paired with players from 2nd bracket. My 3rd game opponent was a GK player but his list was “a bit” soft with 20 Terminators, Grand master, Librarian and a Dreadknight. After some bizarre rolling (my getting yatzy with 1’s) on both sides and both ways game ended as a wipe by turn 3. 20-0

in the rest of the games all 40 of us were all in the same bracket. My opponent had a mech Tau list with 2 Skyrays, Hammerhead, 2 Devilfish, 2 Tetras, 1 Codex flyer (Remora?) and two Forge stealth Droneflyers. Lost the roll to go first with Baron fourth time in a row but managed to steal this time. I went head on towards opponent and managed to get 5 points in mission where you get fewer cards every turn but not killing anything in the night. In return I lost a Venom and WK that was about the get in to his lines. The beast made it to his side but didn’t kill a lot in the first charge. Farsight deeped in to my deployment zone with 3 melta guys. Zero hits to my empty serpents. One Venom was again destroyed. In the end I managed to keep my lead and beast wrecked those Tau skimmers except hammerhead that was staying on top of impassable terrain. I tried to kill it with vortex crenade spell but got perils on sixes and no other 4+ so it stayed alive the whole game. Guardians, Dire Avengers, and Kabalites killed Farsight By Turn 4. I didn’t even try to down those airplanes. 15-5 for me.

Game 5. Orks again. Unbound list with 8 single deffkoptas, 5 rokkit single buggies, 3 big units of lootas, 3 “battlecannon tanks” and a battlecannon bunker with reroll 1’s ammo for lootas. Finally won the roll to go first and he didn’t steal. 1st turn 1 unit of lootas was wiped by the Venoms and Serpents. 2 Koptas got charged by invisible beast. The game went pretty much me controlling everything except those 1 model unit fast objective scorers. We were forced to end after T3 and it was a 10-10 tie at that time. A very good list for Maelstrom missions. I couldn’t kill so many models with my beasts so they managed to score a lot of points the whole time.

In the end I was 7th/40 and quite satisfied with results. Winner was Eldar list with 4 serpents and 2 WKs with 3x5 Spiders managing to beat 3 Imperial knight list in the final in just three turns. A list with Revenant, 2 WK’s and a Farseer on a bike was the most hated list.

The list worked pretty well and was satisfied with it. Telepathy is great but if your opponent has a lot of vehicles those psychic shrieks are going to waste. Sanctic was better than Runes of Battle even though I didn’t make the roll for Vortex in that 4th game.

During the weekend was also ETC/ESC lists submission time. My ESC list was pretty similar to the one I used last weekend.

5 Spiritseers, shard (Wl) 390
Baron 105
2x 5 Avengers, serpent 2*185
2x 5 Kabalite, Venom 2*110
4x Beastmasters, 19 Khymerae 276
2x WK 480
Biggers beasts, second WK and full complement of seers. The a bit odd possibility to cast same spell from one unit with different seers is a big boon to this list. But the possibility to use paintokes as FNP source is not available.  That’s 5 games with skilled international players. I’m pretty excited about it.

I worded that badly. Yes, Fuegan has FNP - I was wondering if the FNP carried over to Eldar ICs too. Apparantly it does. Have you considered using Urien in that squad instead of a haemie? Would seem a very good fit with two very powerful ICs that are hard to kill.

Vas - Interesting to see that Orks now seem to be getting more competitive. Gives me some hope ...

egorey wrote:

I worded that badly. Yes, Fuegan has FNP - I was wondering if the FNP carried over to Eldar ICs too. Apparantly it does. Have you considered using Urien in that squad instead of a haemie? Would seem a very good fit with two very powerful ICs that are hard to kill.

Vas - Interesting to see that Orks now seem to be getting more competitive. Gives me some hope ...

Ah gotcha, round here we play pain tokens only effect DE models. I had not considered urien honestly, mostly because pts are tight and I wanted the crucible. I'm still working on tactics with the unit but I like leaving the haemie embarked to move 12" and replace his snapfire with the crucible against psyker heavy lists. The unit is definitely not as strong as a fully tooled beast pack but its unexpected and still performs decently.

I think 7ed is redefining what can and might win at tournaments. A white scar list WITHOUT a cent star wins. It is not even considered to be tier one anymore. There are a slew of dark horse lists out there now. People have written off Tau but skyrays are awesome, battlesuits are still one of the best overwatch units in the game, they can play MSU. DE are still a great spoiler army. CSM have another dark horse in the chaos spawn/maulerfirnd, DSing oblits rush list. Come unprepared and lose. J has proven hoe good CSM are. Read his batreps and reports.

The fear over IKs is subsiding. They just are not winning like they were supposed to. Hardly OP. The fear of GK centstar allied forces ( coteaz and msu troops) never really came to fruition. I expect to see a lot of dark horse tournament winners in 7ed. This is good for the game, btw. No I do not think my Orks will take over, lol. But even Orks are significantly stronger now. So yes, Eldar, Necrons, and Cent Stars are still the looked at as the cream of the crop but do not mistake that for an autowin button.

Now Brom was just fooling arounf with his Fuegan star but really even a tantalus list could win a tournament ... get creative guys. Ordosean has been winning with foot Dark Eldar for four years! It is possible.

Foot Eldar are also a thing in my opinion. Not just foot Dark Eldar. My Spiders dont need vehicle help. they pop most of them the round they show up, as do a couple other units and before you know it the enemy is five tanks lighter and iM way over yonder.

Unusual lists winning is indeed highly encouraging. My 1500 Grey Knight force which I concede is one of the few lists I play that is in and of itself clearly very tough but tied a game against what is probably an elite Necron list at 1500. The same Necron list in 6E was doomed. No jinking before they move? The game woulda been shorter. A lot shorter. So that matchup evened out because he was able to fend off my firepower with excellent saves without moving an inch. BIG change.

So yeah I totally see the point here.

The notion that a footlist cannot work in 7ed is quite erroneous. I've played a few. Take this for example ...

Fuegan
Haemonculus Liquifier Gun Venom Blade Crucible of Malediction
5 Grotesques 1 Abberration Flesh Gauntlet
- 510 -

2x !4 Wyches Haywire Hexatrix
- 356

2x 3 Windrider Jetbikes Splinter Cannons
- 122 -

10 Scourges 4 Haywire
- 260 -

8 Warp Spiders
- 152 -

2x Talos TL Liquidier TL Splinter Cannon
- 210 -

Wraithknight WraithCannons
- 240 -

This list has a plethora of AT, a hard hitiing deathstar, 3 MCs, etc. It has enough speed to grab early points in maelstorm too. So I really thin some evaluation can be done when playing DelDar in 7ed.

2 x 14 blood brides eh? cool.

Unorthodoxy wrote:

2 x 14 blood brides eh?  cool.

They're not blood brides. Just wyches with a Hekatrix upgrade and HWG.

Misunderstood.  oops.
 
I am struggling with the Crucible.  I have tried and REtried to figure a way to get the Crucible and Haemonculi in but it would require a second CAD.  And that could blow the lists synergy up?
 
The expendable item in the list is the Jetfighter.  It lays damage on thick and fast.  People will use up resources to kill it if they can sure, but as with all flyers, only certain units can REALLY hurt it.  If you play it smart the round it FIRST comes in, you should be able to nix the enemy anti-air before it can hurt the jet.
 
To be fair, the list deals with infantry pretty well on its own.  So the Jetfighter isn't STRICTLY speaking necessary and its the element I drop when I change to 1850 games.  
 
The (somewhat) iffy anti-Psyker ability of the Crucible is pretty cool when coupled with the Torment Grenade Launchers.
 
So if I did trade out the Jetfighter, there would be no guarantees the enemy HAS Psykers worth the effort to kill AND no guarantee they fail their rolls anyways.  But it shores up a potential weakness and I cant argue against that fact.

So using a second CAD and the tradeoff would be the 165 pt Jet.  In return:
 
30pts  3 Wracks
 
30pts  3 Wracks
 
85pts  Haemonculus (Crucible of Malediction, Liquifier gun, Venom Blade)
 
Adding Torment Greanade Launchers to all 4 Raiders
 
The Wracks would become backfield type reserves.  The Haemonculus would no doubt accompany one of the Primary Detachment's Wrack units.
 
With this setup, you gain two objective secured units of highly dubious quality (but EASILY hidden in terrain once they come on, so I mean its not a total non factor), you gain the anti-psyker ability of the Haemonculus and the Haemonculus itself. If no Psykers exist/are important enough, it DOES both protect the Wrack unit he's assigned to with the Liquifier gun AND make the Wracks he's with a suddenly quite potent saturation target to force enemy choices (two Liquifier guns is never a joking matter when they are on your door step turn 1).
 
You lose the amount of resources the enemy would normally waste on the Jet, you lose the massive horde killing output that it can utilized UNANSWERED (in other words, the jets payload will definitely get off without fail whereas the Liquifier package of the new Haemonculi may never fire).  
 
There are pros and cons to both ways of looking at this.  But the Crucible with LD stealing Torment Grenade Launchers can spell the end for certain very influential models in a crucual situation...
 
With the style of list I'm using the Crucible option DOEs work because though the enemy wont want that thing going off, and theres just so MUCH pain coming in round 2... They will have VERY hard decisions to make.