30k Terminator Tactical Analysis

Okay no whiny bitching here about losing a lot or how much cc sucks now. This is an article for big boys.

I should first mention that some people mistakenly think that the traitor Legions in the Forge World Betrayal book are Chaos Space Marines but in fact they are all still technically 'Imperial'. In fact except for the Primarchs and units (Apocalypse) from the Lords of War section the book is very much like a Space Marine codex plus there are more units to choose from when designing an army. You have the option to play your army as loyalists or as traitors. In fact there are special characters for each Legion that are either loyalists or traitors (e.g., Loken versus Abbadon).

The period for the Betrayal book is around the time when the Primarchs from four of the original Legions (i.e., Death Guard, Emperor's Children, Sons of Horus and World Eaters) have decided to turn traitor on the Emperor. There are no daemons or other such things from the Warp. A purging of these Legions takes place on the planet Ivstaan III where they kill all the Marines within their rank and file whom are still loyal to the Emperor. The third novel in the Black Library Horus Heresy series covers these events in great detail. Galaxy in Flames describes the virus bombing of Istvaan III and the Warmaster Horus' fall, which resulted in a galactic civil war where brother fought brother. In the virus choked wasteland of death and destruction that was once Istvaan III's Choral City, loyalist elements of the Luna Wolves, World Eaters, Emperor's Children and Death Guard Legions fight against the traitors of those Legions in a final display of defiance as the first part of the Heresy played out.

I finally got to play a couple games this weekend with my new Sons of Horus (SoH) army. I decided to use the trait that allows you to field veteran squads as troops so I can run a pure terminator army much like the conventional 40k Deathwing or Loganwing armies. Here is one of my current builds for a five man Legion terminator squad:

Sergeant - grenade harness, power axe, combi bolter
1x pair of lightning claws
1x power axe, heavy flamer
1x power axe, combi bolter
1x power fist, combi melta

Land Raider Phobos (dedicated transport - 2x twin linked lascannon, twin linked heavy bolter) - dozer blade, auxiliary drive, extra armor, ceramite plates

Notes
1) grenade harness counts as assault grenades for the squad
2) auxiliary drive ignores immobilization on a roll of 4+ on 1d6
3) ceramite plates - enemy melta weapons only roll 1d6 on armor penetration

The land raider also has a Machine Spirit and clocks in at 285 points, so you're definitely paying for the goodies.

One of the special rules for a SoH army is that each surviving model in their units get an extra attack at the end of each assault phase, however this does not count for unwieldy weapons such as a power axe. The terminator unit I posted above does not benefit much from this special rule except for the terminator armed with a pair of lightning claws. I prefer to take the AP2 melee weapons. So for my army this special rule is not all that beneficial. Many 40k armies have lots of special rules so I don't see this as overpowering. Just look at all the fantastic special rules for the new eldar and Tau in comparison.

All of my terminators wear suits of Cataphractii armor which confers a 4++ invulnerable save plus the Slow and Purposeful special rule. While I do like the better save I chose this type of terminator suit since it strictly adheres to the Legion's background as opposed to say a suit of Indomitus terminator armor.

I chose the heavy flamer as their special weapon since the main role of this terminator squad is dedicated to melee. You're going to score more wounds with the S5 template charging out of the land raider as opposed to either a plasma blaster or autocannon. The combi meltas help bring down tough multi wound models such as monstrous creatures and provide backup if needed to crack open an enemy transport so they can charge the contents.

Versus a squad of Canoptek Wraiths and a Destroyer Lord during my second game a squad of Legion terminators held them up at least three turns of melee, killing some of the Wraiths and wounded the Destroyer Lord before finally being swept. The terminators inflicted enough damage that I could shoot down the remainder of the enemy unit following combat. I chose to ignore the challenge from the Destroyer Lord in hopes of inflicting some AP2 wounds on The Lord and managed to inflict one. It is important to note that none of the 30k MEQ/TEQ units from the Betrayal book have And They Shall Know No Fear and can be swept if they should lose combat, so it's best if possible to first soften up a tough enemy unit with some serious shooting prior to charging them. In this particular case I was not in a good position to shoot a lot first prior to the charge since the enemy unit was hiding behind a large ruin with high line of sight blocking walls. I needed to hold them up to prevent them from charging my land raiders which the Destroyer Lord could have easily shred with his Warscythe... Thus the reason why I chose to charge the enemy unit when I did. So far I have found this terminator squad able to get the job done but you must wisely pick your targets and shoot a lot first.

My next article in this series will cover Justearin terminators.

My First ATC...Ouch!!

The ATC has come and gone.  This was my first year to play in it and it was an interesting experience.  It brought a lot of things home for me that have been bubbling deep down in the bottom reaches of my brain.  The issues that I am gonna discuss are varied and I am going to state multiple times how much this is NOT the fault of the ATC.  The ATC just happen the be the tournament that really opened my eyes to how bad things are right now in the game for me.

So here we go.  Let us take a little journey together.  First is my list.

Khan,with bike.

Command Squad on Bikes, 4 LC’S, 1 TH, 4 SS’S, 4 Flamers, 1 Apothecary.

10 Man Bike Squad w/ Melta, Plasma, M. Melta.

5 Man Bike Squad w/ Melta, Plasma, M. Melta.

5 Man Shooty Terminators with Cyclone Missile Launcher

1 Storm Raven w/ Lascannons, M. Meltas

1 Rune Priest in TA.

8 Grey Hunters w/ a Melta gun and wolf banner and Drop Pod

1 Space Wolf Land Raider (Godhammer) with Extra Armor.

I designed this list to be fast, to be in your face and to play maneuver as needed.  Its drawbacks are obvious.  Only three scoring units, heavily reliant on reserves/ outflanking and it can wilt against sustained fire.  So getting the Tau paring three times on the day one was not what I was looking for.  That being said I thought I could give Tau a run for their money.  I could get to them, I could deal with Riptides fairly decently with the Rune Priest and the command squad is just brutal against the little chicken tasting xenos.  All I needed was for reserves to work in my favor right.  WRONG. 

I will go on record as this being the worst time I have ever had playing in a tournament.  And it had nothing to do with tournament.  It is 6^th Edition.  I really hate this edition and it is only getting worse for me.  Nothing I enjoy playing is worth a darn and everything I enjoyed about the game does not work anymore. 

Now I had visions of a drop pod list but in my ignorance of how the reserve rules work I did not think I could get it to work.  I would have been a lot better off.  So why such a bad time.  I came in to this after actually having done a lot of research.  I knew that I could not play a lot for practice so I watched a ton of battle reports and listened to a lot of podcasts who did shows talking about their prep work to the ATC.  Very enlightening.  Then reviewing our lists against some of the other lists in the tourney, I really thought we would have done a little better.  My dice were not even horrible.  They failed a couple of key times but overall they were not bad.  I only had to buy one new brick.

The problem was nothing seemed to work in our favor.  If we got the match up we wanted it ended up on a table that was not good and gave the advantage back to our opponent.  This happened in both of my first games.  I wanted the Tau but with wide open tables I had nothing to even try to hide behind.  This was something I had not put a lot of thought in and was really hard to overcome in game.

The death of assault.  I am stubborn and persistent and I just have not excepted that assault is dead.  BBF wrote an article on this very blog and I could not disagree more with it.  It is especially dead against the Tau.  Their rules for overwatch make assaulting the last thing you want to do and for me it is the first thing I want to do.  Miserable.

Winning and losing in a tournament is not that important.  I want some good games.  If I lose and it is close and fun then do not care much.  I try to make at least the top half as I think that represents the club.  We have good players and are a respected group around the southeast.  So I want to represent.  Chris and Shane cannot put on a bad event.  Anything they do you know it will be done right.  Could they do things to improve or tweak…yes.  Will they?  Yes.  So I do not want this to be ATC bashing.  This format in 5^th and I am in hog heaven. 

So no more tourneys for me.  I cannot justify taking time off and missing games and stuff with the kids to go to a tournament and not get to play a fun list that is reasonably competitive.  If all you want in a game is sit back and shoot or build a list that just moves forward and takes shots then keep on playing in them.  I hate that.  I simply refuse to spend money on tournaments when the edition hates me.  So I gonna settle for my occasional night at the Keep.  Gonna try to hit the Boro and play there some.  Gonna work on my marines and add some of this new coolness that is coming out.  Painting, building and what not needs to be done.

Maybe 7^th Edition will love more.  

Sixth Edition Melee

This article is tactical in nature and focuses on the assault phase. I am not going to argue that a melee army can beat any other army. What I can say for sure is that a melee army can definitely be a spoiler at a tournament. I am very interested to see what GW has in store for us with the upcoming new eldar. I've seen pictures of the assault Wraithguard... It made me chuckle but you never know, maybe they will be the first true sixth edition deathstar.

Assault has and always will be my favorite phase of the game. My best armies have always been very shooty with a couple of strong counter assault elements but I like pure assault armies the most. Sixth edition is all about bringing a balanced army and that means the best armies must have some melee. Let us quickly examine the new Tau as an example. They are obviously so good at shooting it's down right scary. Pure Tau have some serious problems though moving outside their deployment zone and that is their proverbial Achilles' Heel. I have seen my fair of batreps where the new Tau try to set up shop in their deployment zone and literally shoot the opponent off the the table. They can almost do it but versus sage opponents they never seem to and end up losing at the end. Sure Kroot are able to infiltrate into key positions but they aren't going to hold up a squad of enemy assault terminators charging out of a land raider (i.e., worst case scenario). Tau can bring to bare so much fire power for cheap it's easy to team up and field a strong ally that could be their counter assault element but for whatever reason so far this doesn't seem to have much appeal. I don't know, maybe people would simply rather field another Riptide and just roll more dice in the shooting phase. Sure that is fun but it's not the most competitive option either.


How to Beat the Uber Shooty Armies
I learned this the hard way in fifth edition back when I played Tyranids. Versus Imperial Guard the best way to win was to beat them on objectives. This meant having a lot of patience and playing straight to the mission - no heroics, none at all. This might seem like a boring approach but it worked quite well for me. I would primarily focus on killing their troops and eliminating their mobility to prevent them from moving chimeras onto my objectives late in the game for the win. You really have to out think your opponent in these type of matches and have a lot of patience. Armies such as Imperial Guard in fifth edition were so easy to win with that often opponents would make little seemingly innocuous mistakes throughout the game that accumulate (without even realizing it)... It could and did often end up losing them the game.

Über shooty armies must wait until towards the end of the game to move onto objectives since their troops are not resilient enough to sit on top of an objective for several turns. Deployment is another big key to success since you must box them in and eliminate their lanes of movement... Force their scoring units to all come through the same path. Invariably they will end up in the way of each other which impedes their overall movement.


The Ever Changing Effect of Fortifications
Tau have neutralized the major benefit of cover in sixth edition and this ends up as a major detriment to shooty armies. No longer is going to ground behind an Aegis Defense Line and snap firing a good ploy. You might say that Tau are in fact too good at shooting... That is too much of a good thing. Kind of funny to me and my way of thinking.

I have noticed that the Sky Shield Landing Pad has gained some popularity since the release of the new Tau and for good reason. If you stop to think about it the Sky Shield Landing Pad is solid versus Heldrake spam since your units gain an invulnerable save versus the sudden plethora of ever ubiquitous 2++ cover save. I am not a fan of purchasing cover for my army but if I were to field a fortification it would definitely be the Sky Shield Landing Pad.


How to Assault in Sixth Edition
So now we come to the crux of the subject matter... What is the best way to assault now? I have been playing pure Chaos Space Marines a lot as of late. Chaos Space Marines are a bit overcosted for what you get but overall I find the extra points to still be worth their weight in gold. So I will simply focus on Chaos Space Marines to illustrate my points since that's what I know best in regards to this edition.

Here is my typical 2250 point list. Note that I have a convergent list for 1850 points since that seems to be the most popular points level now. I can scale back my army and it still fulfills all of the same functions inherent to the parent 225o point list.

Abbadon
7x Berserker - Icon of Wrath
Champion - lightning claw & power fist
Chaos Land Raider - extra armor, dozer blades & dirge caster

Kharn
8x Chosen - 2x power axe, power sword, flamer, Mark of Khorne, Icon of Wrath
Champion - lightning claw, boltgun & power fist
Chaos Land Raider - extra armor, dozer blades & dirge caster

7x Berserker - Veterans of the Long War & Icon of Wrath
Champion - lightning claw, power fist, melta bombs & Boon of Chaos
Chaos Land Raider - extra armor, dozer blades & dirge caster

2x Chaos Spawn - Mark of Nurgle

Chaos Contemptor Dreadnaught (300 points) - extra armor, heavy conversion beamer, Havoc missile launcher, dreadnaught close combat weapon with built in plasma blaster & Dedication to Khorne

This is a spammed army list with three land raiders. I have lost some close games but tend to win more often than not. Obviously you can't afford to make a lot of mistakes and I've only got three scoring units that must kill enemy troops and hold objectives... It's not easy.

What I have learned is the three land raiders must support each other. A pair of land raiders in position to launch an assault is more than twice as hard for the enemy to handle and greatly reduces their options to counter them. I like to hold back the land raider ferrying the Berserker squad; that way there is less chance they'll have to bare the brunt of the initial assaults and will be in a better position to hold an uncontested objective. The dreadnaught is a deterrent to enemy units attempting to engage the land raiders plus the pie plate goes a long way towards softening up enemy units in the open. I like to place the pie plate on top of enemy fire support units such as Long Fangs and Pathfinders. The dreadnaught cannot fire his heavy conversion beamer if it moves but often I find its better to forgo one to two turns of shooting so the dreadnaught can match pace with the land raiders. The two spawn support the dreadnaught in a similar fashion and they are expendable.

Land raiders are very rugged now in sixth edition plus the ability to move another 6 inches flat out means that in most missions they can launch assaults as early as the second turn. Six twin linked lascannons are really good too, even when forced to snap fire. The dirge caster is one of the big keys to success for this list and it makes the Tau cry and nerd rage. It's something no other army has and is extremely useful for assault armies.

It's important to move the land raiders in such a manner so as to take full advantage of cover whenever possible. The return of dozer blades as an option for Chaos land raiders is another key to success along with the dirge caster to make this a viable army.

If you are able to move a pair of land raiders into position to launch an assault then you'll probably find you've got some options in terms of what you can assault. The Icon of Wrath pretty much assures you'll be able to reach base contact with enemy units (i.e., third key to success). Often you'll have to decide whether or not to multi assault. Versus an army such as Tau you'll obviously want to launch a multi assault so you can kill as much as possible in one clean sweep. Versus an army such as Space Wolves it might be better to target one powerful enemy unit such as Wolf Guard with an attached character so you can take full advantage of all your charge bonuses.

Of course it's not always going to be the case that you can assault simultaneously from two land raiders for whatever reason. That's one of the reasons why I prefer to keep my heavy hitters up front. Both Abbadon and Kharn are total beasts, especially the former. Abbadon is an army of one! I had one game where he eradicated an entire squad of mega armored nobs on the charge... It's crazy. He is your go to guy for Chaos Space Marines. The champions are there to issue challenges so Abbadon and Kharn can quickly mow through the fodder.


Across the Spectrum
So it's no surprise to me that Chaos is currently the king of melee. They are very strong in the assault phase. Yes they are a bit overcosted but then again they have all the right tools. There are other armies such as Necrons that are more balanced and have some strong melee units... You've seen some of my Necron army lists here. I am very interested to see what the future holds and I think the new eldar could quickly answer that question. If the bright lance becomes popular again that will help to create a better counter to land raiders.


Conclusion
I've demonstrated how one particular army can excel in the assault phase and win games. Of course there are other armies that can do so as well. Maybe you can take some of my ideas and incorporate them into your armies. I'd love to hear what's working for other people.

Necrons and Grey Knights capture Sarasota

Hi everyone !! Your friendly neighborhood Blowfly here to brighten your day again with a local 40k RTT report. This tournament was three rounds - 2250 points with double FOC and allies but no Forge World. Some buddies and I drove down leaving early in the morning since it's over an hour away. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at McDees via the drive through. This is one of the local FLGS that likes to run larger events and I always try to make these ones since I love big games.

Sorry but no pictures this week. I am in the process of buying a new digital camera so hopefully I will have some nice pix for the next batrep.

Here is my abbreviated army list:

Necrons - Primary Detachment
Destroyer Lord - mindshackle scarabs, 2+ armor (attached to Wraiths)
4x Canoptek Wraith - whip coils

Overlord - warscythe, mindshackle scarabs, phase shifter - Catacomb Command Barge

6x Immortal - Tesla carbines - Night Scythe

5x Warrior
5x Warrior
5x Warrior

Doom Scythe
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge

8x Canoptek Scarab

Grey Knights - Allied Detachment
Level 3 Librarian - master crafted warding stave (attached to Paladins)
5x Paladin - 2x psycannon, 4x daemonhammer, master crafted warding stave - psybolt ammo

10x Grey Knight - 2x psycannon - psybolt ammo


Army List Analysis
If you follow my articles on this army you'll know that in the past I used Coteaz attached to a full squad of Purifiers with lots of neat toys for my deathstar unit. I have been wanting to test out Paladins over Purifiers and at this point level I could also take a Librarian in place of the Inquisitor... So I was very interested to see how overall the army would perform with these changes.

I recently played in an 1850 point GT over in Orlando - the army list here is much the same noting the changes above plus the addition of the Canoptek Wraiths to form a retinue for my Destroyer Lord. I did well at the GT and was the only undefeated player going into the final sixth round so I know this army is well tested and has always performed quite well. Ironically I narrowly lost in the final round to the only other Necron-Grey Knight army in an epic low scoring match that knocked us both out of contention for an award. Oh well at least it felt great going into the final round.

I have designed this army to be as completely balanced as possible. It has lots of shooting, plenty of speed plus lots of very strong dedicated melee units. To be competitive in sixth edition it's all about building very balanced armies that excel in all three phases. The Necrons tend to do most of the heavy lifting while the Grey Knights are a razor sharp scalpel. They work very well together and don't have to lend much support to each other except for overlapping focused fire. I don't use any fortifications as I typically move most of my units around the entire game. I also tend to place objective markers in the middle of the table to force opponents to have to come out of their deployment zones to get them.


Mission Summaries

1st Round vs. Blood Angels
The mission had five objectives with DoW deployment.

The Blood Angels army had two land raiders (Crusader & Redeemer) plus two Storm Ravens. There were two full assault squads with jump packs and one had a Priest. The Crusader had a squad of Death Company lead by a Chaplain. The Redeemer had a full assault squad (sans jump packs) lead by a Captain and another Priest.

I felt confident going into this match knowing that Necrons have lots of answers to AV14 plus the barges are really good versus flyers in general.

Highlights
•Anni barges shot down both Stormravens
•Scarabs and Destroyer Lord cracked open both land raiders

Only one Death Company Marine was left at the end for a full massacre (18 points). I ended up only needing to hold one objective.

2nd Round vs. Ork Horde
The mission was Big Guns Never Tire with Hammer and Anvil deployment. There were three objective markers.

My opponent had well over 150 greenskins including Ghaz with a big Nob squad, two battlewagons, looted wagon, some killakanz and Lootaz. I was able to pop all four enemy HS units (destroyed both battlewagons my first turn... Scarabs and Gauss FTW). This game I pulled 16 out of a possible 18 battle points for the win. Ghaz never made it into melee so I couldn't get Slay the Warlord and I needed the Immortals to late game grab one of the uncontested objectives so no Line Breaker either.

3rd Round vs. Tyranids
The mission was The Relic with Vanguard Strike for deployment.

Another horde army with over 200 models - not the typical Internet meta list we see all the time now but this was definitely my toughest game. My opponent had over six scoring units - including two big broods of devilgaunts, two big broods of hormagants, some genestealers and two small Warrior broods. He had a walking Tyrant and the winged jump infantry character for his HQ. There was also some Zoies, Raveners and a Trygon Prime. Definitely a target rich environment !!

There was a big turn out so there were quite a few undefeated players going into the last round. I knew I would need a big win to come out on top. It just seemed like it would very hard to control the Relic versus all those large scoring units and it wouldn't be easy to score any bonus points either.

I got to go first but my opponent seized the initiative - sheet ! This actually worked out to my advantage though since a squad of hiding Warriors popped out to grab the Relic at the end of the last turn. The Tyranid player's dice were smoking hot and mine were below average most of the time but I still managed to pull out the win with 17 battle points out of a possible 18 (he got First Blood because one gaunt in a 20 man brood managed to live taking the full brunt of almost my army's entire shooting - he cast Endurance on them and Denied the Witch when I cast the Misfortune malediction on them).

It wasn't an easy game to say the least... Destroyer Lord with Wraiths and Librarian leading the Paladins were definitely the MVPs this game. The Destroyer Lord and his Canoptek friends took out the Tyrant (MSS FTW) then held off an entire brood of hormagants to prevent them from swamping the area around the objective. My Librarian got Prescience and the Divination psychic power that lets the unit shoot at full BS on Overwatch which allowed them to totally annihilate a big brood of charging Raveners. It was a tight game but everything came together in the end.


Post Tourney Analysis
It was very interesting to play two really large horde armies and the last two games only made it to a third turn... What can you do ? I don't think either of these opponents intentionally slow played but they just didn't seem to manage their time wisely which ended up hurting them a lot more than me... Heh heh . The squad of Immortals in the Night Scythe was a big advantage for late game objective grabs and Line Breaker. So knowing you probably won't be able to get in a full game ahead of time you have to adjust your strategy accordingly. In the past I've gotten frustrated but I was well prepared this time. ; )

I definitely prefer the Paladins over Purifiers... Eight psycannon shots every time with Prescience and sometimes Misfortune and/or Ignore Cover is very powerful (I got all three of these versus the Blood Angels by the way). I found the level 3 Librarian a bit stronger than Coteaz, mostly due to the extra psychic power but I'd only use him over the Inquisitor in games at 2000 points and above.... It's also nice to have the option to deep strike them.

So I ended up in a tie with one other player for first place and we split the store prize support. One of my buddies who down came with me ended up losing to the fellow I tied with for first place in the last round. It was a great day and I liked all my opponents... No problems whatsoever. I used the prize support to get some paints and weathering dust for my World Eaters army I will bring to WarGamesCon for the Heresy campaign.