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Monday, July 30, 2012

Mustering of the Kabal - Medusae Prime a.k.a Count-as Farseer and a prototype Razorwing flock

Welcome back, and these past few days have been quite funky for me in regards to 40k!

First things first, Chaos Daemons update is awesome and I love how all my Tzeentchian stuff is buffed in more ways than one. Flamers are always the core of my mono-Tzeentch army, and now with the point reduction that means that I can put even more of those bastards into my army and make a flaming unit of doom! I always wanted to get Screamers and it is worth the wait as now they are epic in rules and plastic in material. Love the update so much.....

As for my Dark Eldar, I finally found the Razorwing flock that I am pleased with that is not stupid as expensive and stupid-looking like the GW one (but I will still get them in the foreseeable future as a collector, and only because I am a collector). Say hello to the Reaper Murder of Crows. They look very swarmy and they come with a cool base.


I found this baby when I was browsing for some stuff at Guardian Games and suffice to say I went 'ZOMG!!!MUST GET!!!!" and paid 6 bucks for it (bloody cheap things for their looks). 

I decided to convert them a little to make them all flying forward and I managed to pull it off.  In fact I was so excited that I decided to make a test scheme for my Razorwing flock. I decided to make them a little more ghostly and so far I like it. Will need a dash of yellow on their beaks and stuff to make them stand apart from their base work and paint the detail on the base. Dumb me....forgotten that my bases are also turquoise...*facepalm*

I went to Reaper and ordered another 9 more of these beauties.....can't wait for them to arrive.


In addition to the awesome Razorwing flock, I also managed to get my hands on a Medusae which I always wanted to get for my awesome idea; a Biker Medusae. After much chopping and Green Stuffing, I managed to make my Medusae. Honestly I just want to have a cool idea, but at the same time I guess if I were to use allies I would use this guy as a Jetseer. Just need to clean this guy up a little more before I go ahead and paint the dude....








Saturday, July 28, 2012

Daemons of Chaos Advance Order

Sweet models, finally I answered my question for my Warriors of Chaos Warshrine and also the dilemma of the broken flight stands of my Screamers.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Holistic Mumbo: Respecting each other's options


These days I tend to see that when people are facing off against the latest hype in netlists on the internet, they will just give up and say cheese to that netlist. Either that or I hear the bitching and the yapping about how the other guy is a OP son of a bitch while being a scrub themselves. And then....there is the other opposite of the pendulum; players who just netlists all the time without understanding the philosophy behind the lists and the disadvantage of taking such a netlist.

Whenever I see some obnoxious guy who believes that his netlist list is the best thing every created since himself or bacon and deploy and uses his forces in a way that belies his hubris and then loses to a guy who is using some list that is not considered as a norm in the internetz, the obnoxious guy will wonder what went wrong and have lots of swearing, etc etc. What is truly going on here?

Depending on the skills and the tool set of the players, I tend to use a term that is commonly used in the fighting game community when it comes to these kinds of situations; Respecting the options that a player has.



In the fighting game term, respect is basically the acknowledgement of your opponent's skill and tool set that they could punish you with those skills or tools. On the other hand, disrespect is to not acknowledging their skills and tools as a result of you having the perceived advantage of being a better player or just being in their head and believing that you will not be punished (or punished lightly) for it.
Note: This is not to be confused with playing for fun, as you can never play overly competitive all the time but even then you should not intentionally throw the game down by making truly horrible choices that runs contrary to your playstyle or cripples your options in the game.

With the terms out, what does it all mean to all of us?

Let's say if you are in the game for a long time, and know the armies inside out and the tactics and stuff. It might look as if by the virtue of their seniority and experience that they will outclass any unskilled opponent that they face. But this in itself is a very dangerous thought to have for there is always someone better and also the fact that the skills from being in the game and playing are at best an advantage. There are other factors that dictate the successes of your actions on the table. Some players are more vicious than others, while some are more fluid than others and so on and so forth. These traits are what separate the more docile players than the more dangerous ones. The quality is indeed a hard one to pin down, but it is a real danger on the table to face against. You are restricted to some level of abstractation and the true tenacity that a determined and vicious opponent express is not easily conveyed for a truly tenacious opponent will not give in to all but the worst setbacks where victory at all costs is the order of the battle.



For this kind of battles, you will also need to be tenacious but it should not be the primary focus of the player as fighting fire with fire will only burn everyone up. A Pyrrhic victory is the worst kind of victory in my opinion, and generally it is considered as such in a true military sense. 

The thing about combat in general is that any fight always begins before it really starts and both sides will have to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing party and conclude that they are not completely outclassed. Of course sometimes you will have to fight battles that sees to it that you are outclassed in most things and thus you will have to use every trick in the book (and outside the book) to get to the conclusion that you want. If you find a weakness in the opponent, take it. But sometimes this can also mean to find their strength and take it to the ground.

A particular example of this duality of taking down your opponent is to imagine that your opponent has that hammer unit while his other units are way weaker. Do you take out the weaker units? Or do you take out the stronger hammer? The situation would dictate which unit should be slaughtered, and you can see it crumble very quickly. There are also situations where some armies may look strong on the table (IG blobs, Dark Eldar Mech), but once you puncture and crack that armour they will crumble.
The next thing to consider is that one should always engage with a calculated intensity, where you use, for wanting of a better word, a cool rage against your opponent. Strong emotions can be tempered to power ourselves up without succumbing to the emotional numbness that interferes with our rational thoughts. Thus in any battle, the discipline of the mind is the most important thing to consider when facing off against an equal or someone more powerful than you are. If you are seeing a wave of Orks or Imperial guardsmen bunkering down, never give in to the despair. That will only numb you. A good player will always have this mindset in play whenever he plays anyone.

Another thing to consider is to know what you are truly capable of. It is always good to know that you have the series of techniques to kick some ass, from the bag of tricks to the repertoire of your list and this will always help you in any situation. Indeed the use of knowledge with focus and discipline will always be the true source of any player's power.  Keep in mind however; simply being aware of a technique is not the same as being part of the arsenal.



As Bruce Lee once said, " I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times" and what this means that despite knowing that some players will only have a small plethora of tactics in any situation, but if the player is really good or have considerable proficiency in those small plethora of tactics he is still a big threat. In any situation if it is simple and can be executed all the time as compared to a smexy complicated thing that is executed poorly, the former will always beat the latter.

How does this translate in general?

Let’s take one of the games I have played in 6 th edition and put this ideal to the test.

In this particular game, I have taken my 1500 pts Dark Eldar army and my opponent has opted for a biker-based army with some considerable firepower.The mission is Capture and Control (1 objective each(and honestly I do not remember the new name for this mission)) with the Vanguard Strike deployment zone.

My Dark Eldar list consist of
1 Archon
1 Haemonculus
1 squad of trueborn in Venom
8 Wyches in Raider
2 squads of 5 warriors in Venom
1 squad of 5 warriors in Raider
2 Ravagers
1 Razorwing

My opponent's list consist of
Biker Captain
Techmarine
2 squad of Bikers
2 Squads of Scouts
1 Land Speeder
2 Predators

Both of us are comfortable with our own lists, and both of us have the mobility to do hit-and-run stuff against each other. His advantage is that he is able to have a greater number of resilient scoring and contesting units than I do, while I have the edge in firepower. In this regard, we are both equally matched.




But what separates us from here on out is how we approach the game and our expectations. In this game, he underestimated the capabilities of my units and thus moved a number of his units out to try and catch my forces with his speed in the open and then rush towards my objective. In return , he lost fully half of his bike forces to my units while my other forces went on to prevent them from entering into my deployment zone for that 'disrespect'. 



As for me, I have underestimated how his little scoring scouts went on to take the objective without any resistance as I am dealing with his bikers. Combined with their camo-cloaks they are almost impossible to remove, and thus forced me to return back to my own objective to take the objective with a squad of 5 Kabalites in a Mysterious forest that almost wiped them out. In the end, the only thing that prevented me from losing is the First Blood secondary objective that I have achieved earlier on in the game. In this aspect. I have 'disrespected' his scouts by assuming that they are a minor threat but during that final turn, it bit me enough. 

In this game, we both have underestimated the elements in the list that could be used against us; my firepower against his bikers and his almost invulnerable scouts sitting on the objective through my firepower. In fact if it was not for the charge of the wyches against that biker squad on the far fight, and he would have just boosted into my deployment zone just took away my only advantage just like that.

In conclusion, the message is quite simple and clear: never underestimate, never overestimate, and never give up.

Faeit 212's Chaos Marine QnA Event Compilation


Well here to spread the good word around about the voices of Chaos. From the looks of it, I will still be using my Death Guard the way I like it and more. :P



From Faeit 212
Here is the latest and greatest on the QnA, organized and hopefully easy to read. I am tired, and hopefully got all the information down. 

Please thank our special guest for taking several hours out of his evening to answer our questions, I know he got to as much as he could. Also great job guys, everyone was at their best, and that is what makes an event like this work. I hope to get things like this in the future. This one was as much of a surprise to me as it was to you.


Chaos Space Marine Codex
As of July 25th, CSM book is set to release in September along with the starter (though not the same week). 


General
Having not had an extensive amount of time with the rules, from what I have read so far, there seems to be a theme of if you want it, you can have it, but you have to pay.

Basic CSM squads actually end up cheaper than a tactical squad if they take only 2 special weapons and their aspiring champion has bp/ccw.

It's possible, however, to clear 400 points on a 10 man squad with a transport.

There does seem to be a ton of possible army lists that can be built out of it though, and that's really exciting, but at the end of the day they're just marines and nothing has jumped off the page as 'wtf...OP' (yet)



There are no CSM squads that can combat squad.


Does the codex promote a mixed army, or mono god armies?
You can get away with a mono-god list, but at that point you should be using cult troops most likely.

If you're adding havocs to your berzerker army, there's no real point in giving the havocs the mark of khorne for instance. In that sense you're varied.

It's not like 3.5 where we'll see thousand son troops with nurgle vehicles to min-max.

Undivided armies are a lot cheaper than cult marines. A lot. Playing undivided gives you many more bodies.


Marks
The only impact on Marks is that HQ models make corresponding cult units Troops.
You can mix/match Marks and Icons.

+1T/FnP isn't as good as a Plague Marine, they're worth their points.

HQ unlocks corresponding cult troop.

Marks are the same.
-Undivided still reroll morale tests?
-Khorne still Rage
-Tzeentch still +1 invuln save
-Nurgle still +1T
-Slaanesh still +1I 
Marks are the same, except Khorne which is Rage, not +1 attack and has a point decrease.

Undivided Lords get Inspiring Presence command trait, and improved reserve manipulation.

Dedicated transports get the mark of the unit they're bought for, for free. Only units with the same mark can ride in it, (so be careful).


Undivided vehicles can transport anyone.

Other vehicles may buy them. An example would be the mark of khorne on a predator, which gives it a dozer blade at no additional cost, and allows it to roll d6 wounds on a unit it tank shocks
 



Yes icons prevent scatter


Marks are bought per squad

CSM/Havocs/Raptors/Chosen pay the same cost. Termies pay more.


Psychic Powers

There are 2 debuff spells in Nurgle and Slaanesh, 2 buff spells in Slaanesh.


Psychic powers are rolled, not bought specifically

Eye of Gods 
The "eye of the Gods" table is actually several tables. First you roll to see what table you roll on, then you roll what you get after winning a challenge, killing a monstrous creature or walker, or annihilating a unit in close combat.





One of the tables is Daemonic Gifts.

The chart is 6 charts of 6 options.


Units (General)
CSM and Cultists are Troops


Cult units become troops with the right mark on your warlord.

No bonuses for Sacred numbers

No one comes with icons by default, cult troops get marks by default.


Khorne
Skull Champions can take collars that give the squad and any vehicle it's embarked in a 5+ DtW

Kharne strikes at initiative 5, and he gained armour bane which I guess is new. He's AP3, but for every model he kills (not wound inflicted) he makes an additional attack at initiative 1.

Not quite the same as warrior born as it doesn't keep growing, but it's very devastating for someone with 8 attacks on the charge. 

Kharne has a 2+ Deny the witch
Kharne still hits friendly models.

khorne berserkers are AP 5
Berzerkers are 105+21/berzerker
berzerkers are 2 attacks, rage, furious charge, frag and krak grenades, bolt pistol / khornate weapon (ap5 in close combat).
They're 5 attacks at str5 ap5 each on the charge.
They can also upgrade to have chainfists in the form of 2 handed chain-axes.
5-20 in size.

Noise Marines
Noise marines are overall a little bit cheaper. Sonic Blasters are 36" salvo now. Aspiring champions have access to a whip that prevents enemies from denying challenges. Other weapons are the same




Plague Marines
They are 120 for 5, + 24 for more.


Poisoned only in melee. Can throw their blight grenades to reduce enemy movement speed to 2d6 pick the highest, or if already rolling d6 for whatever reason (i.e. cover, charging) pick the lowest.


Plague marines are now poison in CC. Can throw blight grenades


Thousand Sons
Thousand Sons come with an Aspiring Sorcerer in their basic 5 before adding more Rubric marines.
150 points for 4 Rubric marines and 1 Aspiring Sorcerer, He gets a roll included..

Unit size 4-19. 20 points per Rubric. Still slow and purposeful, unless the sorcerer is alive then relentless.

Rubric marines are 1W, 4++

Thousand Son squads are rank 1

HQ sorcerer are rank 1, can be upgraded to 2.

Mark of Tzeench on an HQ is +1 (so you can upgrade all the way to rank 3)

There is a piece of wargear that lets you reroll up to your mastery in dice after you have rolled, but only each dice once.



Ahriman is mastery 4, can cast multiple powers per turn, gets access to almost all lores and has a default psychic attack much like smite but longer range that he can use in addition to his normal psychic powers per turn.


Characters
Most named characters are the same, but overall a point reduction. Abbadon is the same points and does not make terminators troops.
There are no new named characters.


I haven't read any special character adjusting the allies chart.



Abadon is AP2, Daemon Weapons are AP3



Daemon Prince


Kicks ass and takes names, but otherwise no army wide bonus's are granted
Daemon princes are jump if they have wings.




Chaos Space Marine
70 for 5, 14 for each additional marine.



Aspiring Champion is a 10 point upgrade.

Come with bolter/bp/ccw

For every 5 models in the squad you get a special weapon. If the squad is 10 or more, one model can exchange a flamer(5 pts) for a Heavy Bolter, meltagun(10 points) for an Autocannon or Missile Launcher or a plasmagun(15 points) for a Lascannon.

Marks range from 10-50 points, Icons range from 10-40 points.

Cultists


Cultists are 4 points each and come in squads of 10-30. They can have any combination of autoguns (str3 ap-) or auto pistol ccw (str 3 ap-)



They can take special weapons, but not heavy weapons.

they respond very well to dark apostles getting an extra benefit when one is in their unit.

Zombie cultists aren't scoring and cannot be joined by Characters (even with the mark of nurgle)

No traitor guard. Just cultists.
cultists cannot platoon, but you can take up to 30 of them in the first place.

Terminators
Will Terminators be able to be given both marks and icons to essentially be cult terminators?





Yes, but it's expensive. Taking both increases the cost of the second and Terminators pay more in the first place.

Terminators pay 50% more for marks. Taking an icon if you already have a mark costs an extra 20 points


Possessed
Possessed get to buy (not roll) up to 3 boons from the  Eye of Gods table.


Maulers (Elites)
str5/t5, 2+/5++, Once per turn can combination of 2:
power weapon, power fist, lightning claw

Each mauler chooses individually.

1-3. Maulers cannot deep strike, but are not slow and purposeful.


Dark Apostles
Yes daemons can be summoned to your CSM icons if you have a dark apostle.

War Smiths


war smiths who can restore hull points


Chaos Dragon (Fast Attack)
The only flyer in the codex
Dragon Takes out other flyers with a ranged attack
its 12/11/10    170pts
Fast Attack

the flyer you get is retardedly good at blowing up things that are zooming.

Bikes
Bikes get nothing new, just CSM on bikes with combi-bolters instead of bolters.





Raptors
Raptors still have access to special weapons, only the aspiring champion can take special melee weapons. They are reduced in points.

The Night Lord's raptors are a lot like vanguard (they cannot charge on deep strike though), but they have 2 attacks base + dual power weapons (ap3) with the shred special rule and are 35 points each.

Dreadnoughts
They can take marks
The mark of khorne for instance gives it Rage and a unique weapon option much-like blood talons except it's a giant rotary saw.

Obliterators (heavy Support)

Predators
No new turret options for predators.

New Siege Engine (heavy support)
The siege engine has a melta blast template.

Defilers
They're the same except they have the Daemon special rule, 4 hull points and a 5+ invulnerable save.

Havocs
Havocs, CSM and chosen squads can take autocannons


Vindicator
Daemonicly possessed vindicators I think will be in every list, with their ability to potentially regenerate destroyed weapons at start of the chaos player's turn 

Vehicles


There is a sound-based vehicle upgrade but it's more of a Word Bearers item than Slaanesh.


There is a sonic upgrade for tanks, but it's not a noise-marine thing.



no chaos razorbacks, just combi-weapons

No drop pods 

There is a new land raider, it's a lot like a crusader.
12 capacity for the basic, 16 capacity for the new one.

New Land Raider can ram fortifications and you can launch an assault on the occupants, except that you don't consolidate at the end, you remain locked in combat.
If the enemy unit flees they immediately exit the terrain. If the door is blocked (by your land raider for instance), they count as having been caught ala Sweeping Advance

Fortifications


There are no new fortifications but there is a unique upgrade to fortifications.


Misc.


 don't know about upgrades being finecast. I know that there is intent to upgrade the basic CSM box to support all the cult troops to be able to achieve any of the weapon combinations from the entries (including everyone having soundblasters).

Daemon Weapons are AP3 and pretty different now, you still wrestle with them. I think its a matter of preference.

The "Hatred: Space Marines" rule....is it ALL Space Marines (Chaos and Loyalist), just Loyalist, or just Vanilla?
Just imperial loyalist.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Is it me or.......

I noticed this a few days ago. Cut the top-knot off of the helmetless Chaos Space Marine head and putty a strip of leather on his head and.....





Voila!


I wonder who would like to take on the challenge of modelling Bane as a Alpha Legionnaire.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Daemons of Chaos leaked White Dwarf video

Honestly I got no idea what is he saying, but still the pics from the new White Dwarf made me very excited. Now my Tzeentch Daemons will have some stuff to be expanded on once I am able to go back and expand upon it and my Death Guard will be able to have some new friends to play in the playground.

It is interesting to know that the way they go about updating the Fantasy side of Daemons.....will this be replicated in 40k?

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Space Marines idea - Barracudas

Throughout my entire 40k gaming life, I never really played as the good o' Marines unless you count Death Guard as Marines (which in my books they are not as they are super evil ones). The reason why I did not venture into the territory of playing Marine armies is because of one simple fact; I tend to not like the usual space marine play as it can get unusually boring in a sense. The only exception to the rule is a full biker army with teleporting terminators to complement them a.k.a Dark Angels style.

But if I ever want to start a Marine army, I always love to try out a particular idea that I have always held dear in my heart; The Barracudas.


The chapter symbol that I wanted to use is this symbol which I actually will admittedly will say I will rip out from Arlong's Pirates symbol from the manga 'One Piece'. The symbol is cool, and there's no need to improve on something if it is not broken. Now I know that it is more of a swordfish than anything, but the name 'Swordfish' does not scream Space Marines at all and the name Barracudas sounds more kickass (And the latin name for swordfish does not sound any more convincing;  Xiphias gladius  which just means sword (for both the former and the latter parts of the scientific name)).



The way I always imagined this chapter to be is that of a fleet-based chapter, but instead of the usual Black Templars-style fleet chapters (which I later found out to be the Crusade-pattern fleet chapters), I instead opted for a more nomadic style fleet chapter that scavenges its stuff. Surprisingly the Imperial Armour 10: Badab War 2 actually has a chapter with the exact style that I always envisioned my chapter to be called the Carcharadon Astra a.k.a Space Sharks. But of course I thought of the idea around 2007-2008 which is way before the books ever came out. But rant aside, my chapter will be a Nomad-Predator pattern fleet chapter.

Gameplay-wise, I think the Dark Angels Ravenwing/Deathwing playstyle would suit the army as it would fit with the style that I am fond of and also the fluffy stuff of them being a nomad-predator pattern  fleet chapter. Besides they could also keep the hunting style of their namesake to boot as well. Besides, after playing with a number of vehicle-based armies the vehicles will get to you somehow.



The colour scheme of the chapter will be a combination of black and orange for a very visually pleasing army while also making it simple for painting. Black is always cool, and orange is a cool colour than people rarely use en-mass but of course a muted orange is much more stylish than a bright orange scheme. The picture below is how I would paint my beakies; . 


The ideas are nice and all, but still the main question for me is this; what will it take for me to plunge into the Marine side of things? I think too much like a Xenos whenever I play my games and frankly the Xenos and Chaos side of things always interest me more than the Imperium forces.

A question for the soul indeed......



Friday, July 20, 2012

Mustering of the Kabal - Razorwing Fighters and Reaver Jetbike prototype scheme

Heya, it's been a while since I posted anything about my painting. As a reward for my annoying term in university this spring, I decided to get another two more Razorwings to add to my growing Dark Eldar Air Force. And here is some pics that I managed to get the other day with the lead Razorwing which I affectionately call 'The Duck'.




 The whites on these things are annoying to paint, but with the new Ceramite White, my job have become so much more easier.  The White accent is just what I need to make the jets have the 'rule of cool'. Not to mention the flying and pew pew pew sounds that I would make with them.....



After painting my Razorwings, I figured that the colour scheme may be the key in painting my Reavers as the Dark Eldar fluff did say that Razorwing fighter pilots used to be Reaver bikers. So with that I decided to try out the scheme on my long-ignored Reavers and voila! Here is the end result. 





Need some touch-up, but suffice to say that I actually felt that I finally nailed the colour scheme that I wanted with the Reavers. The way I painted the leather is taken from how I painted the leather on my wyches.


And now to paint the whole 11 other reavers, and any other nonsense that I can find in my bitz box that are already assembled (somehow....) and ready to be paint. 

Monday, July 16, 2012

Nasty Lash of Submission Combo

Heya and welcome back!



Just two days ago while I was reading my rulebook in the friendly neighbourhood LGS, I stumbled upon another way in which units could get down from ruins without needing to roll for difficult terrain, albeit a much more dangerous route. The text that are bolded will come into play later

As stated in page 99 of the BRB;

A unit that is not falling back and descending through a building can always elect to Leap Down to a lower level, rather than making a Difficult Terrain Test. However, all descending models in the unit must take an Impact test (see page 95).


And what is an Impact test? For this we refer to page 95 of the BRB;

To resolve this, choose one model from the battlements and place it anywhere wholly within 3" of the base of the building that is at least 1" away from enemy models, and not in Impassable or lethal terrain. That model must then take an impact test. This is exactly like a Dangerous Terrain test, with a -1 modifier for every full 3" the model has dropped. Unlike ordinary Dangerous Terrain test, armour saves cannot be taken against Impact test. Jump INfantry and Jetpack models must still take impact test but they ignore any modifiers from falling 3 or more inches


If the model is slain, choose another model and try again. If the model survives, resolve the same sequence for all the other models in the unit, taking care to remain in unit coherency. Any models that cannot be placed for whatever reason, are removed as casualties with no saves of any kind allowed.

It was then that I realized something kinda evil too, as I remembered the wording of Lash of Submission  from the FAQ but just in case I went ahead and talked about the terrain test in itself first, and allow one of the LGS staff who is knowledgeable about 40k to somehow spark the idea. And soon enough he told me about the thought that I have out loud; you can definitely lash people from ruins down to their deaths.

This in itself makes the Lash of Submission quite a deadly counter to all those happy campers up on the ruins as they will be forced by the player who move the unit on whether they will walk down or jump, and obviously with such a deadly effect, the moving player would elect for the unit to jump down. Any type of test that could kill people off is not pretty, and with such modifiers to the test you could kill quite a few people off too. And this is before the pain of the enemy shooting comes into being and other nonsense.

Nasty, nasty, nasty........

Saturday, July 14, 2012

My Dark Eldar/Eldar list 1999 pts list and thoughts behind it

Heya and welcome back to the webway!




Just had my first 6th edition game and suffice to say I really enjoyed myself with the game. But nonetheless while I was playing the game I could see that the psychic powers, new objective grabbing rules, shooting and assaulting rules will have an effect upon my force in more ways than one.


For one, I can no longer let my troops sit in the transport and just zoom towards an objective. Now I have to get out and take it for myself. In addition the way assault works now, it is quite a high-risk, high-payoff kind of thing as your distance is increased but in return it is random and the enemy units can fire on you like in Fantasy as a response to your assaulting. The Nerf to power weapons in general also made me wonder if the good o' days of tarpitting is the wisest thing to do. And then there are the psykers, and although the psychic powers from the rulebook is random, but they could be very powerful. And flyers.....enough said.


But in return for this weird nerf, the shooting phase is a very nasty and powerful phase as I am allowed to snipe models and kill them off with careful positioning and also Focus Fire. In addition the idea of ignoring Night Fighting is freaking amazing for Dark Eldar, as now the new rules for Night Fighting and Night Vision means that Dark Eldar can play a more aggressive game while having great defenses. having the Strategic Warlord trait to take advantage of stuff also helps in the long run. Challenges in close combat will also be a way in which Dark Eldar players could bully people and/or save our own ass against stuff that we do not want the rest of the squad to face. Last but not least, wound allocation with the Archons will always be fun as their 2+ invul laughs at the allocation quite well.


With these things in mind, I noticed that my playstyle would have to incorporate even more killing power to eliminate opposing scoring units while also have psychic defenses to prevent my forces from being screwed over. Like a shark drawn to the scent of blood, I went about looking in the rulebook to see if I could somehow do this to help myself and suffice to say my solution is actually simpler than I thought it would be; Allies.




And among all of them the most obvious choice for me is the humble Farseer with Doom. Doom as a power is quite ally-friendly as it states that any unit that was targetted by the power allows any hits on that unit to have re-rolls to wound. This is big as it increases the killing power of the army by whole lot. Re-rolling to hits psychic powers are really nice, but they tend to be too short of a range for me to be comfortable with and Doom has a very good range to boot. Besides with my list, I tend to worry about the wounding rather than the hitting. Rune of Warding is the best psychic defense in the game and will shut down anyone wanting to cast their powers while Rune of Witnessing allows me to trigger my power much more easily. And just for shit and giggles the Singing Spear is a good anti-tank weapon.


In addition, if I so feel that Doom may not be as helpful, I can always substitute it with something from either the divination psychic powers or the Telepathy to improve my play (but highly unlikely as Doom is so good already).


In order for the Farseer to keep up with the rest of my army which is monstrously fast, I need to put it on a Jetbike to allow my Farseer to keep up. But to take the Farseer, I need a troop choice from the Codex Eldar, and what better choice to take for the troop choice than that of a Guardian Jetbike squad? Not only it is fast, it can also protect my Farseer as bodyguards of sorts. And just for the fun of it, putting a Shuriken Cannon on one of the bikes will allow for the unit to have some sniping moments and help in the glancing of vehicles. Last but not least, they are also scoring units that are not in vehicles.


Of course, by taking the requisite slot this allow me to take some units from the Eldar codex that would complement my army in more ways than one. As I looked in the book, I noticed one unit that stands out above the rest; War Walkers.


Not only are they quite affordable and survivable, they are also able to dish out some hate in the form of two scatter lasers each and also piss everyone off by outflanking to the sides and target units from unexpected corners. This would also help me in some form of anti-air as well as the number of shots would allow me to at least do something to some flyers if my Razorwing is not up to the task.


So with that my allied contingent would look something like this






Farseer with Doom, Rune of Warding, Rune of Witnessing, Singing Spear and Jetbike - 138 pts
3 Jetbikes with one Shuriken Cannon - 76 pts
3 x War Walker with 2 Scatter Lasers - 180 pts


For a total of 394 pts, I actually solved a number of problems that my list face somehow. I solved psychic defense, objective grabbing and anti-air in one nice swoop.


With that I decided to take out some things from my general list and incorporate the first-hand experiences with 6th edition into this particular list (do note that I am going for the 1999 pts + 1 format, as the true 2k format is very ridiculous and I would be maxing out some slots more than others);


Dark Eldar/ Eldar list 1999 pts


Dark Eldar 
Archon with Agoniser, Venom Blade, Haywire Grenade, Combat Drugs, Shadowfield - 130 pts
Haemonculus with Venom Blade and Liquifier gun - 65 pts
4 Blasterborn in a Venom with two splinter cannons - 173 pts
3 Blasterborn in a Venom with two splinter cannons - 146 pts
8 Wyches with Haywire Grenades with Hekatrix with Agoniser and Haywire grenades in Raider with Nightshields - 196 pts
5 Kabalite warriors with Blaster in Venom with two splinter rifles - 125 pts
5 Kabalite warriors with Blaster in Venom with two splinter rifles - 125 pts
5 Kabalite warriors with Blaster in in Raider with Nightshields - 130 pts
5 Kabalite warriors with Blaster in in Raider with Nightshields - 130 pts
Ravager with 3 Dark Lances and Nightshields - 115 pts
Ravager with 3 Dark Lances and Nightshields - 115 pts
Razorwing with Twin-linked Splinter Rifle, 2 Dark Lances, 4 Monoscythe missiles and Flickerfield - 155 pts


Eldar Allied


Farseer with Doom, Rune of Warding, Rune of Witnessing, Singing Spear and Jetbike - 138 pts
3 Jetbikes with one Shuriken Cannon - 76 pts
3 x War Walker with 2 Scatter Lasers - 180 pts


Total pts for list: 1999 pts


In order to incorporate the Eldar stuff for my list, I decided to take out one Wych squad and a Haemonculus as I no longer want to tarpit if possible and decided against another blasterborn squad in Venom as the third blasterborn unit does not truly improve upon my playstyle.


In general the gameplan for the list is quite similar to my older Dark Eldar list of killing everything first and capturing objectives later but instead my list now has a more effective controlling factor into the equation. In addition, with my style of play, I tend to snipe and kill it overwhelmingly and Doom + Dark Lances/Poison shots = WINZ is definitely a good start for that kind of play. The Wych squad is there just in case I need to do some assaulting and/or tossing grenades at something and also act as a sort of bait for the rest of my forces to do their thing.


I would definitely try to test the list soon to see how viable this idea would be. But based upon my experiences with Eldar weaponry and powers, I can safely say that it is a very good compliment to my army.


Well this also gives me the reason to go about converting even more stuff for my Dark Eldar army so I am really stoked to get this list up and running. See ya all soon!