New Edition, New Dark Eldar, New Orks, New Daemons and New CSM

Greetings Realspacers,

It has been ages since I have blogged, but that is due to several sequence of real-life events and also 40k burnout. In fact for almost the entire year of 2016 till the dawn of 8th Edition, I have been just staying away from 40k. 7th edition is a mess of rules and often times I feel that I am studying for an exam rather than enjoying the game. So during the interim period of a year, I have been playing a little more Blood Bowl (Awesome btw) and also some MTG Commander.

Fortunately GW in many ways realized the stupidity of it all and decided to revamp the rules in such a way that everyone is now a blank slate once more. Lots of whining from many people, but personally I find it refreshing that the rules are easily accessible.

For some reason, I find that 8th edition really reminds me of 4th edition, with the way assault, target priority and leadership works. In many ways I am adapting much better to 8th than most people and
with this edition, I have returned and I have brought my armies from 8th edition alongside an army that was always in cold storage due to it often being collateral in my Daemon expansion; My Night Lords.

Before I move on to speak about my experiences with 8th edition, I have to speak about what is essentially my most freshest army; The Night Lords. These guys somewhat came along a while back during the time where I am just adding on to my Tzeentch elements and they are kinda the extras. Before long, more and more of the abandoned models slowly came into my home, and with Cataphractii terminators, Tartaros Terminators, Raptors, Predators, Vindicators and other such fell units of the CSM joining my pile I literally have around a few thousand points of Night Lords.

In a way the CSM came into my life the same way most of my Orks and Dark Eldar came into my life; being adopted as a result of their owners abandoning them in droves.

Due to the way I have procured them, my Night Lords is more or less a very infantry heavy army and with the way 8th edition reserves work they are essentially the closest thing I have to a Null Deployment army as the list that I have decided to run with my Night Lords consist primarily of Terminators and Raptors. So far they have did very well due to the changes on how shooting works and also the way close combat works (Combi-plasma, Meltas and power axes for the win). They are essentially the army that I bring around as my main secondary army due to how compact they are.

My Orks on the other hand is hands down my most effective close combat army as the prospect of having 6 attacks on the charge for normal boyz with the right stacks really pushed me towards a battlewagon heavy list with lots of boyz in them, supported by lots of auras and also psychic gifts. On the note of psychic powers, the Weirdboyz are utterly amazing and I have pulled out enough tricks with them that I have reserved a spot for the Weirdboy. Also with how everything is just basically a sack of wounds, punching everything with boyz and klaws are amazingly viable and perhaps as always, the best  way to play Orks is the simplest way; move fast, charge hard.

My Tzeentchian daemons are untested, but that is due to me sending them over to my good old friend Carl Lum for his paintworks, and they would take a while to come back to me. But based upon how it goes, it would be a very FMC heavy list with lots of chariots. The pic that adorn this post is the first batch of my whole Tzeentch army that was completely painted.

As for my Dark Eldar, they came off to a bad start for 8th Edition gamewise, but that is due to me underestimating the reduction of damage output of a Dark Eldar blaster and also my opponent and I did so many mistakes (from miscalculating the point cost to forgetting vital rules). However I have learned a lot and now have decided that I would be taking out blasterborns and also normal 5-men kabalites with blaster as I am now focusing on the weapons that truly matter for the Dark Eldar; Dark Lances and Splinter cannons. Of course, Splinter cannons are nerfed when it come to firing its maximum amount of firepower at range, but the nerf is a little better for my style of play due  to my preference for medium ranged firefights. My army composition will have more dark lance and phantasm grenade launchers, and the blasters will be reserved only for Archons.

On the note of the archon, they are just priced amazingly, and for the same build in 6th-7th edition, I would be paying more than twice the cost of the current Archon. Only gripe I have is that there are no middle-ground HQ for Dark Eldar. I personally would appreciate the Dark Eldar equivalent of a Space Marine Captain. Dark Eldar vehicles as a whole are generally more durable, which is a nice thing for me but I wished that they were a little faster than Eldar vehicles (and no, assault weapons does not make it faster).

Nonetheless, with this, I can finally go about with my proper fluff setting for my Kabal which is originally a trueborn Kabal to begin with.

Only stickler is just that the way my army works, it appears that Ynnari is the best option for me in order to optimize my firepower generation but the true Dark Eldar in me is saying 'NOPE'.


 My list looks something like this for 2500 pts which can be Dark Eldar or Ynnari(which is the usual game size for 8th in my area);


CP: 7 pts
Spearhead Detachment
1 Archon with Agoniser, Blaster and Phantasm Grenade Launcher
3 Ravagers with 3 Lances and Shock Prow

Spearhead Detachment
1 Archon with Agoniser, Blaster and Phantasm Grenade Launcher
3 Ravagers with 3 Lances and Shock Prow

Vanguard Detachment
1 Archon with Agoniser, Blaster and Phantasm Grenade Launcher
2 squads of 8 Trueborns with 2 Dark lances and a Dracon with agoniser
1 squad of 5 Trueborns with 2 Dark lances

Dedicated Transport
2 Raider with Dark Lance and Shock Prow
1 Venom with 2 splinter cannons

Vanguard Detachment
1 Archon with Agoniser, Blaster and Phantasm Grenade Launcher
3 squad of 5 Trueborns with 2 Dark lances

Dedicated Transport
3 Venom with 2 splinter cannons

Yes, I know that that is a hell a lot of Dark Lances, but with the way the edition is going about I would need to dish out enough nonsense to get even with my opponents and the way my meta is forming up. Also, I personally hate Wave Serpents and they deserve to die painful deaths.

Also of note is that due to prolonged usage of my vehicles, a number of my raiders and ravagers have literally crumbled and would warrant me to get a whole new set of vehicles just to replace the ones that crumbled. This also gives me the chance to finally get sets of Kabalite Sky Splinter boxes as those boxes are now value city for me due to the needs of more bodies to put my Dark Lances on and also more Raiders.

With that it appears that my armies are more or less set for the first few months of 8th Edition.

See ya next time!

Evolution of my Dark Eldar for 7th Edition: The Dawn of a Realspace Raid

Heya all and welcome back to the Webway!

After playing a few games with my Dark Eldar, my list is slowly evolving to something a little more destructive than anything else due to my area's tendencies to have hard hitting units, no matter what they are. So for me, that means I am facing off against Obliterators, Riptides, Wave Serpents, Knights, Flyrants, IG Blob and any other units that loves to hit hard. Also my area is slowly progressing from 1750 pts armies to 1850 pts armies, which means even more firepower.

In addition, due to our store's mutual agreement to not go dual Combined Arms Detachment (as this can be fulfilled with Unbound, which warrants its own consent between players), I find myself a little bit outgunned to handle all the nonsense of 7th edition. Since the majority of the most effective units of the codex are in the Fast Attack slot, I decided that I will forgo the Objective secured advantage and go full ham with the Realspace Raider Detachment.

The next process in this new list building is that I need to crack anything that I see, and be sneaky about it as per the Dark Eldar ways. For that I realized that having a simple plan of speed, poison and lance is still the bee's knees.

In the end, to make for a balanced list that can hold up against the rest of the tough crowd here is the list I concocted;

Archon with Blaster, Haywire Grenade and Webway Portal
1 squad of 5 trueborn with 4 blasters in a Raider with lance and enhanced aethersail
4 squads of 5 Kabalites with a blaster in a Venom with two Splinter cannons
2 Razorwing Jetfighter with 2 lances
3 squads of 5 scourges with 4 haywire blasters
3 Ravagers with three lances

Now I know that this list is a little spammy, but given the meta of my area and my reluctance of allying with Eldar I came up with this list. The main reasons for my choices are as follow

1) Ravagers: Even with the nerfs, the Ravager is still in the running for being part of my Heavy Support as a result of its unique role as a mobile lance platform

2)Venoms:They are there just to fill up on my anti-MC/long-range infantry capabilities

3) Razorwing Jetfighters: For added added lance and also anti-horde weaponry. It is also a decent anti-air unit.

4) Blasterborn and Archon: To give myself an unit that can be where they want to be when they are needed.

5) Scourges; they complement my army in so many ways. After a decision between the Haywire blasters and the Blasters, I decided that I will arm my scourges with blasters.

Haywire blasters are awesome, do not get me wrong, but given that I might face off against a MC list gives me a little food for thought.

In many ways, when I am making this list, I am adhering to my ideals that a Dark Eldar list is like that of a shark; fast and deadly, and able to react to any smell of weakness from the opponent's confused ranks

Given that my list is concocted from several theoretical assumptions, I decided that I will have to test this list out against some of the nastiest armies that could neuter me in one turn. My army of choice for this list will have to be a Tau list, as they can kill every darn thing with ease and is a hard counter for generally all Dark Eldar. The mission is The Scouring, but I can not take these objectives without taking out all of his heavy hitters.

My first test run of my list is against a Tau army with the following composition (I only remembered the most notable gears);

Buffmander
Commander with two missile pods and artifact of Arthas Moloch with skyfire and interceptor
2 Riptides with Ion accelerator with skyfire and interceptor
1 squad of 3 crisis suits with two missile pods each (farsight troops)
1 squad of 3 crisis suits with two fusion blasters each with skyfire and interceptor
2 squads of 6 fire warriors
Tau Firebase Support Cadre (1 Riptide with Heavy Burst Cannon, skyfire and interceptor, and two squads of Broadsides with skyfire and interceptor)

I must admit that his firepower is brutal and he does not really need markerlights to put a dent to my forces, but thanks to several gambits and also selective firing, I managed to take three riptides, 6 broadsides and 5 suits down in three turns. It helps that I managed to start first and also managed to get the warlord trait that allows me to re-roll my reserves from the Strategic Traits.

After 5 turns, I managed to reduce his fighting strength down to two Fusion Blaster suits and 2 fire warriors as compared to my force of 3 venoms, 19 warriors, one Razorwing Fighter and 3 scourges. He conceded before I began my 6th turn, as his army was literally neutered and I was about to focus my remaining firepower upon all of those forces. The victory is further sealed by me having First Blood, Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord, and also getting the objectives worth 4 points, 2 points and 1 points for a total of 10 Victory Points to his 4 points.

In many ways, this list is a true trial by fire for my list, as it allows my list to turn from a theoretical concept to practical concept that could be used against most armies. In addition, with the capabilities of flexible deployment and maneuver, this list offers more possibilities than my older lists before the codex came out.

Of course I am still sad that my archon has been relegated to a blaster caddy, but given that in return for this sacrifice I get this prodigious firepower I am willing to swallow my pride regarding this matter.

Now I will have to test this against Eldar, and see if I can manage to kill at least two serpents. If my list can kill two serpents in one turn, I will consider that my list is competitive enough to hold against almost all armies. Now this may be a bit of a weird thought to have when building a list, but I noticed that in any match, a person who can kill off two serpents out of 3-5 Serpents in a Serpent Spam in one turn will cause the Eldar army to drop significantly in effectiveness and allowing the other army to gain an upper hand in the attrition firepower war.

The next army I plan to find will either be an Eldar army, Guard army or a Drop Pod army.......

Wish me luck against these foul meta list!

Spartan Games Ascension Tournament 1500 pts overall review

 Heya all and welcome back to the webway!

Today I have participate in a local tournament in a store named Spartan Games Arena, as a result of several factors, but primarily due to the prospect that I may meet some people I know and also due to the beckoning of my current gaming group. Here's the pic of my army;

My army list is quite simple;

Duke Sliscus
1 squad of 9 Kabalites in a Raider with Splinter Racks, Grisly Trophies and Flickerfield
1 squad of 10 Kabalites in a Raider with Splinter Racks, Grisly Trophies and Flickerfield
3 squads of 5  Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venoms with two  Splinter Cannons
1  squad  of 9 Reavers with 3 Heat  Lances and an Arena Champion with Venom Blade
2 Ravagers with Flickerfield
1 Razorwing with Flickerfield

The list that I am using is done as a result of me being unable to secure my Eldar allied detachment models in time for a true WYSIWYG, thus forcing me to use a less powerful list for the tournament.

For this tournament there are 20 players in total participating, with a surprising mix of armies. The main thing I noticed is the fact that there are a total of three Dark Eldar players and this oddly enough made us one of the largest Xenos contingents alongside the Tau. Chaos is ever present, with the Daemon presence being rather strong as compared to the CSM side. As usual Marines of every heraldic colour were present, and some lonesome armies. This brings us to the next surprising element of the tournament; no serpent spam and no Cronair. This actually made me rather happy in a sense.

However, quite a number of top players are in the event and I am honestly a little intimidated by their presence despite the fact that I once played with a majority of them on a regular basis.

The two pics below are when the players are gathering at the store and also the TO's of the tournament. One of the TO is actually my Deepstriking guru, which already made my day that much better. Also to my surprise, I managed to meet a number of my old gaming buddies from my ex-LGS (including in this rank of players is Mr.Chaos of painting fame (yes, I know him in real -life)).

Here are the pics of my gaming group's armies.

Top to bottom: Redeye's Tau, David's Ravenwing, Wong's Flyer spam/Tiggy Combo and Chris'  Farsight/Tau Empire army. 

As you can see, my buddies actually came in with some rather brutal lists for the tournament, while my list is relatively weaker in comparison. Below are the armies of my fellow GC comrades from a long time ago (I see them from time to time, but not on the tabletop).

From top to bottom:  MrChaos' Orks, Kadir's Khornate host, Dann's Haemonculi coven and Joe's Daemons

Personally, I tend to notice that my roots as a balanced player comes from my days as a GC gamer, and it is from these people that I learned my approach to battle. That and having thematic armies. MrChaos went on to win Best Painted Army and also Best Sportsmanship, while Joe went on to becoming 2nd place in the tourney while Kadir won the biggest lucky draw of the day; the starter set for Dropzone Commander.

Of course there are also some other players as well, with a significant presence from Legio Malaysia, the premier gaming club in the nation. Things have changed since my day, and I am personally a ronin these days so fuck being part of a specific club (Lawl). Nonetheless here are pics of some of the other armies;

 My overall performance in the tournament is well beyond my expectations; I managed to earn the maximum amount of points for my first two games and managed to be one of the main contenders for winning the tournament while my buddies have rather mixed results in their games. Quite the irony when one consider that my list is perhaps the weakest among my buddies.

Top to Bottom: 1st Game: DE vs Dark Angels, 2nd Game: De vs Draigowing, 3rd game: De vs DE/Eldar 

 My first game is essentially my army doing a divide and conquer upon all his forces and I totally annihilated his army within the 5 turn bracket.  My second game is a much more annoying prospect as 20 Paladins is a pain in the ass, especially with 8 psycannons and tons of storm bolters shooting at me but I managed to win by the virtue of having a scoring unit within his deployment zone.

However, it was in the third game that I met my match, and the Serpent is arguably the MVP of my opponent as it does as it pleases against my army. I had a chance to kill it off with  haywire grenades and also killing another Ravager in turn, but alas the dice gods decided that this battle will be where I fall hard. Thus I was almost annihilated as a result of the Serpent raping my stuff left and right. Unfortunately for me, this also means that I lost my chance of becoming the tournament champion, as my last battle is the battle between the two highest scoring generals. Due to the crushing defeat, I am pushed down to 7th place out of 20 players. Nonetheless as a result of the number of players, I am still one of the top players in the tournament at the time.

The top three armies for the tournament are;

1)Dark Eldar/Eldar
2)Daemons
3)Tau

Other than the Dark Eldar/Eldar, the other armies' position are consistent with the current meta of the game.

My overall experience in this tournament tells me that as a pure force, Dark Eldar has a lot going for them but to really win the tournament I must ally in some Eldar stuff to become a force to be reckoned with. In addition, I find myself a little too rash in some of my decisions which may work for me or against me. Some form of temperance is needed in my method of war.

Also, I am rather surprised in my performance today as this is one of my better runs in a tournament with my Dark Eldar. This makes me rather glad that I came for this tournament, as I am able to test the waters for the tournament in Malaysia and allow myself a little bit of knowledge of some of the top players in the nation since I have left the country.

Last but not least, I got some goodies for participating. For a fee of 10 USD, I got myself these few things as part of the goody bag. Trophies are overrated in my opinion, but things I can really use in real-life is much better for me.

And now for me to lick my wounds, and enjoy its dull sensation of pain and ecstasy..........see ya all next time!

A summary of the 2 vs 2 with my gaming buddies - Dual Wraithknight and Eldar/Eldar Venomspam vs Tau Riptide/Farsight bomb Spam and Eldar/Deathwing

Heya welcome back to the webway!

This Saturday I was asked by my Eldar friend to team up with him to fight against two other players buddies of ours, and essentially the idea is to bring 'cheesy' lists to the table. They requested me to bring a Venomspam list (but I one-up them with a farseer and some bikes just for psychic powers and I took the Baron) and I complied. As for my teammate, he was wondering what he should bring, and I said bring a Seer Council and two Wraithknights supported by three Wave Serpents. He took the idea and we said to ourselves that our plan is simple; kill them all.

One of our opponents brought a Farsight bomb with three Riptides with two skyrays and one hammerhead, while the other brought in lots of War Walkers with some allied Deathwing terminators, Belial, and a Tactical squad.

Suffice to say, there is a lot of murder on the board as my team was able to get the first turn (thanks to the Baron), reducing their reserve roll by 1 (My warlord trait), and nightfighting. I have forgotten my friend's warlord trait as he rolled from the Iyanden book, but it was also delicious from my memory.

The mission was The Relic, and we deployed using the short table edge. As you could see from my team's deployment, we are essentially using the combination of cover provided by the ruins and also the Serpent's Shield and also Wraithknights. In addition, all my stuff have Nightshields so their guns would not be able to reach us.

Our opponent's failed to seize, and the game begin with the Wraithknight jumping forward and using its Heavy D-cannons killed the first Riptide by instakilling it. Lots of firepower was brought forward during the first voley, and whatever that could not shoot turboboost.

As you could all see, we essentially took control of the relic within the first turn and also occupy the sweet spot of our armies.

Sadly for our opponents, their next two turns are horrible as the combination of bad luck and also my warlord trait failed to let them have their reserves to come in to save them. By the time of our third turn, two riptides are already dead, and we are on our merry way with the relic. My force bore the brunt of the opponent's shooting, and thus a few vehicles were slain as a result of this.

Amazingly thanks to Protect/Jinx, the Deathwing that arrived had a 3+ armour save rather than their 2+ and thus with that my Venoms came in and with a cast of Doom from both of us (Yes, both my friend and myself managed to get Doom for one of our powers) we killed them mercilessly. The Farsight bomb that came did not fare any better as they too suffered the same treatment.

This picture above was taken before the Farsight bomb was murdered down to the last man. So much for Shadowsun's super shield thing. By about this time, the last Riptide and the Spiritseer warlord was also murdered by the two Wraithknights. By the end of their 3rd turn, they conceded as both the Wraithknights are poised to shoot and charge the Tau firebase. while my Venoms are poised to kill their infantry units as well.

With several linebreakers in their lines, their warlords slain, and the relic in our deployment zone, we won this very convincingly and brutally. It was hilarious to see our opponent's reactions when we told them about all the Eldar trickery that we could pull off. A good game overall, but the only regret I have is that I do not remember too much about anything else to write a battle report about this and will have to do with a summary.

Dark Eldar units in a Footdar concept

Hellow and welcome back to the webway!

With the idea of Footdar being quite viable due to the new Eldar codex. I was wondering if the army as a whole could benefit from the inclusion of Dark Eldar units. The reason why I suggested this is because I noticed that as a whole the Eldar codex lacks an efficient close combat unit. In addition, it appears that Footdar lists requires that alpha strike as well in order to prevent themselves from being wiped out.

With this in mind, I decided to look around for an unit that serves this purpose for the Eldar army, and I have found a few interesting ways in which units could be buffed. Now do note that I did not include the ideas of Venoms in the army, as I find that Venoms are best taken in units of 4 or more, and for blasters I find that you do not need blasters in a Footdar army. Lances maybe, but if you have only limited lance shots, then why bother?

Now the main unit that you will be taking in this Dark Eldar detachment is Baron Sathonyx. He is cheap, he is effective and he provides something that Footdar really needs; creating a higher probability of having the choice to deploy. By having that +1, you can choose to go first or to go second depending on the list, and this also means that you can choose a better setup for your entire footdar. The phantasm grenade launcher would help in buffing certain units, and due to his speed, he could be attached to faster units if you so desire. Combine this with Eldrad and you can have countless possibilities for deployment and redeployment

There is also another reason why the baron is chosen; he helps you unlock other close combat options in the form of Hellions. They are troops due to the Baron and they do provide a mean punch that can be used to support the Warp Spiders as they rampaged on. I know that to use Hellions effectively, taking them in a large blob of 15-20 is a must and this could be annoying but think of it in this manner; Here I have an unit that can keep up with the Jetbikers, Warp Spiders and Farseers on Jetbikes and with the baron, they get stealth and other goodies and they can bash the brains out of most units without too much worry. It is a viable option that is underestimated.

This brings us to the other support for close combat units, I would say that taking in the Incubi and/or the beastmasters would be beneficial for Footdar. Incubi are essentially a mix between Scorpions and Banshees, and they complement both units beautifully and providing one of the few means for Eldar to counter Terminators in close combat. As for the beastmasters, the large ocean of beasts would also provide a very large and scary distraction that could take the pressure off the main Eldar detachment, and also provide a very formidable close combat element. The Baron can also sit with either units, depending on your choice and just be a happy sailor.

Of course, this brings us to the troop choices which must be filled. As I have stated before the Hellions is a viable option, but if the unit is not what you want then there are only two other options; Wyches and Kabalite Warriors. Wyches helps in the close combat department as well, and they are scoring troops. Combined this with Haywire grenades and you can have a very flexible unit that can help patch the weaknesses of Eldar. Kabalites Warriors could also be a solid troop choice for their capability to be a large blob of troops with poisoned shots that can deter many monstrous creatures from charging your lines.

Nonetheless, it must be noted that with every ally option, their inclusion is utterly dependent upon how they can synergize and also cover up the inherent weaknesses of the list. Doesthe parent list aims to spam as many guns as they could? Are they inherently mobile enough to not need counter-assault elements? This is also another issue of allying Dark Eldar units in a Footdar army, as some units may cause some inconsistencies in the way a Footdar list works. For example, if your army is comprised of Jetbikers in your foot list, then footslogging Incubi will be utterly foolish.

Another problem with Dark Eldar units in a footdar army is that quite a number of these units can actually be expensive, and sometimes you would want your allies to be cheap. For example the cost of a squad of wyches could cost about the same as two small squads of jetbikes or Rangers. Thus you will need to understand what you really want to do with the allied choice when you pick them for the job and how the cost justify the unit's role. In this capacity, I find that choosing Dark Eldar elements to support Eldar units needs to be a careful and deliberate choice, just as one would choose any unit in an Eldar codex.

In conclusion, I believe that Dark Eldar can be complimentary to the overall idea of Footdar, especially in the close combat department but one have to be careful not to dilute the list too much or you have a very weak list.

First round of playing with the Dark-Eldar Eldar alliance

Heya all and welcome back to the webway!

Yesterday at my game store, fully half of the players are all playing Eldar in many incarnations (including myself playing them as allies) and I must say that there are a lot of things that sparked my interest.While I was waiting for a game, I managed to take a sneak peek at some of the capabilities of the Eldar against IG and Dark Angels Greenwing Dakka banner line.

I saw how two Wraithlords ignored an IG gunline and just bashed their brains out senseless while in the other game I saw how the scorpions literally shred the Greenwing lines before they could even strike back, collapsing the entire formation. Also in both of those games I saw how amazing Warp Spiders were as they jump, Battle Focus, and then jump some more and how Wave Serpents literally became the bane of transports with their weird shield weapon + scatter laser combo. So far I have not seen any of the new toys except the Spiritseer, and even then I can see that the Spiritseer could work in certain builds.

As for my own experiences with Eldar; 

1) Prescience and Guide are the shiznit for Dark Eldar! in my game against a Footdar, I never seen my ravagers shot so beautifully, and 24  BS 4 twin-linked scatter lasers is just outright brutal.

 2) Scorpion mandiblasters are a very big annoyance towards my Incubi squad. Those things could potentially whittle me down little by little as the combat drags on. Luckily for me, I managed to kill two squads of 10 -men scorpions with my squad of 6 Incubi and kitted-out Archon with a venom blade.

Unfortunately attrition is such that only my Archon is left with a single wound and three pain token.The main reasons why I survived the way I did is all thanks to the pain tokens and the fact that my Incubi strike at the same initiative as the Scorpions, but with a better WS and a Str 4 AP2 weapon.  The FNP bonus from the Haemonculus' pain tokens also helped in surviving the Mandiblaster shots. Have to be more careful when facing against Scorpions again.

3) Battle focus makes Footdar even more viable than before, and makes harassment tactics even more painful than before. Throughout my game, my War Walkers and my Eldar opponent's Warp Spiders have been harassing each other's flanks to hell and back.

Allthough I feel that the book has some issues with external balances, but overall the book is good for Dark Eldar if you know what you really want from your allied detachment. In my case, mine is more to have a force-multiplier to make my Dark Eldar function in a more consistent manner. I will be testing it out further to create a fun but at the same time strong list.

The Dark Angels in Progress

Heya all, and welcome back! Well my semester is starting out with a bang, and there is so much to do, but it is a much more enjoyable semester (so far). Whenever I have some free time or something, I have been assembling some Ravenwing. And now, with the exception of the special weapons (which I do not have) and  some wargear decisions, I am done assembling the bulk of my Ravenwing force.

It looks pretty impressive once I put them on the table. Now the question is to see how this army will work, and also to try and get a few more models to make this army functional (more or less).

Holistic Mumbo: A Guide for Mobile Warfare for the new guys

Heya all, with all the new guys entering into the hobby and such and some Dark Eldar players to boot, I decided to revamp my old article about mobile warfare that I once wrote for Tau Online Forums (writted around the early days of 5th edition, where I correctly predicted that Mech list will kick ass for the rest of the edition while the rest of the world say that Nob Bikers will kick ass) for 6th edition. To be honest nothing much changed, save that of flyers and thus the guide is still very much relevant in our 40k games today.

With 6th edition we can see that they are taking 5th edition's essence and putting it up a notch for 5 out of the 6 missions are objective missions. If you stick around, you will not be able to take those objectives to win and there's even a secondary objective where if you have a scoring or contesting (denial) unit inside the opponent's deployment zone you will get a bonus Victory Point. Mech may be hampered by the new edition of the rules, but the general rule of the game still applies. So come along and and explore the interesting world of Mobile warfare.

Background

Since time memorable, methods of warfare revolves around two principles; Maneuver warfare and attrition warfare which are the focus when it comes to achieving victory upon the battlefield either by killing or capturing an objective. Maneuver warfare understands that both attrition and also maneuver are both important elements of warfare and this principle is pushed forward by militaries which are smaller, more cohesive, better trained, or more technically able than attrition warfare counterparts.

Mobile in 40k
Now in 40k there are several types of mobile armies, and they are

1) Vehicle – eg: Flyer Necrons, Mech Dark Eldar
2) Infantry – eg: Jump Pack Blood Angels, Biker Armies
3) Hybrid - eg: Mech Tau

And their abilities can be broadly categorized into;

1)Shooting
2)Assault
3)Hybrid

Now I would like to explain how I categorized them and their strengths and weaknesses so here goes.

Major subtypes
In a Mobile Vehicle army, This means that everything is either vehicles or are in vehicles. Mech Dark Eldar belongs here, and so do other kinds of vehicle heavy mech armies. The advantages of a Vehicle Moblie army is that with their armour value, they are able to negate most anti-infantry weapons and also negate any close combat elements, but in return, they will often lack in numbers and if the vehicle is down, their effectiveness are cut down rather drastically.

In a Mobile Infantry (Not to be mistaken with Starship Troopers), this means that there are a lot of very mobile infantry units coupled with very little or no vehicles at all. Pure Biker armies are perhaps the best example for this.The advantages that one can get from a Mobile Infantry list is that they are able to utilize cover and terrain better, have numbers on their side and they in effect negate anti-tank capabilities of an opposing army. However their main weakness are often anti-infantry weapon and also they are exposed to the elements like any infantry does, which in this case close combat weaponry and the likes.

In a Hybrid Mobile, this means that there are fast infantry alongside many vehicles. Mech Tau belongs here. The hybrid mobile army is like any other hybrid army, takes the best of both worlds of the mobile list and be a more balanced mobile list.

Abilities
Now, as with all Mech armies they optimized upon controlling the movement phase. Some of you might wonder what is the point of controlling the movement phase as the killing are all in the other phases? This is because the movement phase is the only phase where it does not rely upon chance, or in our case dice rolls and thus can be considered the most reliable phase that we can depend on. Now that we covered the basic fundamentals as to why Mech armies dominate the movement phase, now we have to understand that movement alone is not enough. I mean you want to kill and or capture objectives, and for that we need the other two phases; the Shooting phase and Assault Phase. Now the question is what phase should the Mech army dominate in?

For some armies, the shooting phase is a more powerful phase as more often than not the assault phase is their bane. Necrons and tau fall into the shooting mobile armies due to their low initiative, and their shooting are prodigious to say the least. As for others, the close combat phase is a more powerful option due to the fact that their shooting is not very good and/or their close combat weaponry are way superior. Nob Biker armies are perhaps the main army that utilizes this mechanic.

For some, they are so balanced with their close combat and their shooting that they can do both at once, thus able to be very balanced in almost all phases of combat. Mech Dark Eldar belongs here as the army is able to hit hard in all phases of combat.

Now that we know what kinds of mobile armies are there in 40k, now we will go to the fundamental elements of mobile warfare.

Application of mobile warfare.
I bet by now you are quite overwhelmed by all the different types of mobile that I have brought forth right? Do not need to worry, for they all have a similar framework that they work with.

Now contrary to attrition warfare, which is defined by Webster as "the act of weakening or exhausting by constant harassment, abuse, or attack", the basic premise of maneuver warfare is basically to keep an enemy off-balanced by gaining an advantageous position relative to the enemy.

In Maneuver warfare, there are several important elements to keep in mind when one is to understand the whole idea of maneuver warfare. War theorist Martin VanCreveld identifies six main elements of maneuver warfare:

* Decentralized command
* Flexibility 
* Combined arms
* Surprise
* Schwerpunkt
* Tempo 

And thus with these points, I will explain the certain aspects of maneuver warfare, and I will start first with Decentralized command, followed up by the rest.

1.Decentralized command

In the simplest term, this means that all elements of an army must know the overall intent of the entire battle plan, as the constant changing battlefield will often out pace communications. With this maneuver warfare seeks that one must be fast enough to adapt to the ever changing conditions of a battlefield and thus able to act independently while achieving the main goal.

2. Flexibility

According to VanCreveld , flexibility means a military must be well rounded, self contained and redundant. Flexibility in warfare is of paramount importance as this enables a fighting unit to adapt to the ever changing battlefield ans is able to fight against any adversary without the need of slowing down the entire efforts of the entire army. However, this is not to say that the unit will be standing up against the opponent alone, for they need the support of other units to achieve perfect synergy, which will be explained further in combined arms.

3. Combined arms

Combined arms is defined as an approach to warfare which seeks to integrate different arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects. Though the lower-echelon units of a combined arms team may be of homogeneous types, a balanced mixture of such units are combined into an effective higher-echelon unit, whether formally in a table of organization or informally in an ad hoc solution to a battlefield problem.

Here every unit is not alone in their struggle, as infantry protecting the tanks, the tanks protecting the infantry since they would need one another to fight effectively and ultimately, survive the day.

This is due to a principle called the Lanchester Square Law (which holds true for all types of warfare), which states that the combat power of a combat unit relative to the relative combat power of an enemy of a given size, all other factors being equal, is the square of the number of members of that unit.From this it is derived that twice as many tanks will quadruple the relative firepower — relative that is, to the amount of firepower the enemy has per member of the friendly unit; one could also express this by saying that their relative punishment from enemy action is reduced four times, which is the same thing — as not only their own absolute number is doubled, but the number of enemies relative to each of their own, is thereby halved also. Thus, concentrating two divisions into one point and attacking generates a far greater force than is achieved by spreading two divisions into a line and pushing forward on a broad front.

In simple proper English,  it goes like this and I will use the tank example for it is easier and more in line with the topic;

A single tank is as combat effective as another tank of the same type, but two tanks are not twice as effective, but instead it is 4 times as effective. The reason being that a single tank will not only outgunned an opponent by twice, but also will be able to kill twice the number of enemies, hence it being squared. In addition, the enemy's ability to counter the threat is reduced by 4 times, hence their anti-tank ability square rooted.

In even simpler internetz speak: Spam is good. This is why most armies have duplicates of two or more units.

However, even though the units are all working together, if they are faced by a force that are equal or superior to them in anyway, they will have a hard time fighting as well. Thus in order to defeat a force that are equal or superior to them they need to have something up their sleeves that will enable them to bolster their considerable combat strength and that is when surprise comes into play.

4. Surprise

Whoops wrong surprise!

The element of surprise is always an important part of warfare, whether it is just introducing a new unit or doing something very unconventional. This is because something that the opponent did not expect will always give you the advantage straight on, as they will have a hard time countering your ‘surprise’. This can do alot of things as it enables you to gain the advantage.

However surprise alone will not win you the day, for once the surprise is sprung, it will be very hard to surprise the opponent again and if the; a) The force used in the surprise is unable to do lasting damage and/or b) Doing it at the place where the surprise element will be severely negated, you can be rest assured that it is another way of saying that your plan backfired.

5. Schwerpunkt

Schwerpunkt, translated as focal point is an aspect of warfare first explored in the Blitzkrieg where the basic premise is to focus everything at a single point and well, break it with superior force. Remember the physics law by Newton (guy who revolutionized physics due to a damn apple dropping on his head?)? Well, for those who have not remembered their high school physics, they are;

1.A physical body will remain at rest, or continue to move at a constant velocity, unless an unbalanced net force acts upon it.

2.The net force on a body is equal to its mass multiplied by its acceleration

3.For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

A schwerpunkt works in a similar manner. With an objective in mind, once you started moving it, you can never stop in warfare, for any moment of hesitation will kill you. And with that momentum gaining up, it will achieve a greater penetration force as a result of Newton law #2. Thus a Schwerpunkt is akin to the first two laws of Netwon’s, for a Sckwerpunkt is a point where you focus the strongest force to break it down.

The goals of this were the deepest possible penetration and minimal engagement, while avoiding an enemy counterattack. This often means that the focal point is often the decisive movement of all maneuver-based armies, as it means that you throw in whatever you have into the point and never give in, because if you break through, the enemy will crumble while if you fail, you will be dead within seconds. It is a much more elegant way of saying ‘get rich or die trying”.

However, most people who achieve this breakthrough tend to forget Newton’s third law; For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Most often than not, everyone have a back-up plan for this kind of things, and they can counter the momentum of the blitz with a beautifully executed counterattack. 'GODAMIT!!!!!!!' would be what some of you will be saying right now once you heard about this downer ending.

Wait a second everyone! This is when we go back and look at the element of surprise. Why let him countercharge when you can counter-countercharge? This will give him another surprise and thus bring the whole pace of warfare back to you.

This finally leads up the final part of the 6 elements of maneuver warfare, which is tempo.

6. Tempo

Tick tock.....play to the beat

Tempo in this case refers to the similar to the idea of tempo as it is used in trading card games, as well as to the chess concept of initiative where a player can gain the advantage by setting the pace of the game. With mech, it is important that you get this and earn this pace. You ca do it by mainly two ways;

1)You force your opponent into following your pace

2)You break the opponent’s pace of battle

For the first one, maneuver warfare gives you this advantage as you can choose where and when you want to fight. Compared with a static army,who often have to rely upon the actions of an opponent, a maneuver army have to be a little more decisive and aggressive from the head-start, even when they are on the defensive. If a fast and mobile army is negated from its speed, it will often have a fight that ultimately it will lose. If you are stuck into a corner, you have to break out and gain back the momentum of your speed as speed and maneuver is your forte. Besides who does not like controlling their opponent?

Yeah, I tend to make any armies that oppose me my bitch.... :-P

As for the second point, most adversary whether they like it or not, often have their own pace that they adhere to. With that they expect that any type of warfare would be waged at their level where they feel most comfortable. However, when you are playing mech, you can not slow down, and for that you need to break the adversary’s pace and thus force the adversary to follow your pace of battle. Most often than not, most people will not be able to adapt that fast and thus will often be at a disadvantage.

However, this can also be used against you as well, as they will try to maximize upon their strengths while minimize upon their weaknesses. So with these this is the basic concepts that you have to remember for any type of mobile warfare.

Conclusion

Well, I hoped that you enjoyed this guide to mobile warfare. For the new ones into the hobby, I hope I have shown the fundamentals of using a mobile army, and for the vets I hope I have widen your knowledge upon the matter.

No matter what kind of mobile platform you want to be, the fundamentals of a mobile army is the same; speed is power.