The Return of the Mycetic Spore and it brought friends!!!!!

Hello and welcome back to the webway portal!

By now the internet is filled with the loud screams of happiness and despair over what is considered to be the 'hero' of the Tyranids; the Tyrannocyte a.k.a Mycetic Spore.

I personally welcome this changes, as it allow Nid players to diversify and also allow them to use some otherwise very questionable units more regularly. But as a Dark Eldar player, I am quite aware of the threats of a pod that could bring in 20 Gaunts or a Monstrous Creature crashing down upon my realspace raids. To make matters more interesting, the kit allows one to make two other units that could affect how Dark Eldar players play the game against Nids.

Let's start with the most obvious; the Pod itself.

Now, this is no stranger to players who have played in 5th edition against the Nids, as it is considered one of their more powerful units. For the new ones, the Tyrannocyte is essentially a biological drop pod.

This unit has been buffed based upon the rules that was used here, as the toughness value is increased from Toughness 4 to 5, and now it is armed with a lot more weapons. In addition, it now hovers around until it touches something or is in range to shoot something. This is perhaps one of the most annoying attributes of the new Nid pod as it will put a wrench upon some armies' battleplan.

Nonetheless, the scariest thing about the pod is not the pod itself, but what slot the pod takes in the Nid codex. The answer? NONE. This means that as a non-dedicated transport, you can flexibly put anything into the pod depending upon the threat of the opponent?

Worried about a Riptide? Slap in a Dimachaeron from Forgeworld (this one is brutal) or an Exocrine and let her rip. Worried about that Serpent? Slap in some Hive Guards or Devourer Gaunts and let loose the fire power. Want to score an objective? Put a Tervigon and watch as it breeds and hold that objective forever (figuratively). Want to prevent vehicle movement/block LOS? Just drop it empty.

I will see at least two pods in each list, and depending on whether they are playing a Null Deployment playstyle, I will see more of them.

As for the second unit that could come out from the book, they essentially gave us what is perhaps the first unit that can assault flying monstrous creatures and flyers; the Mucolid Spore Cluster. I can see some of them being played to deny flyer-heavy armies such as Cronair or Heldrakes from dominating the skies as it will go about blowing itself up for the Hive Mind. Also it can also control opponent's ground movement due to it being a rather large model and a floating bomb.

No one likes being nuked for no other reason that being close to it. Nonetheless this one is dependent upon the playstyle of the Nid player. If the Nid player does not invest itself heavily to Flying Monstrous creatures, I can see a lot of these guys floating around to support the army.

Thirdly, we get what I consider as the first true Nid fortification, the Sporocyst. It can infiltrate, it can harrass, and it can throw out Spore clusters and even the Mucolid once per game. To add icing to the cake, it increases the range of any Synapse creature near it by 6". This is huge for nids, as with their PRimaris, you can get a whole lot of range for their synapse thus allowing the Nid player to spread out and have a greater board presence.

However, it takes up a heavy support slot, which is sucks a little as quite a number of the Nid heavy support is really good and they help a whole lot as compared to our dear friend here. Of course depending upon the list of the player, these things might see some action.

Among all of this, I find that the Pod outshines the other slots solely because the possibilities with the Pod is just too amazing, and it essentially one-up the book from being decent to being very competitive. Never have I seen a single release that salvages an entire codex like this, and for that I will give this unit my due respect. From being able to boost low-tier units such as Pyrovores to something akin to being useable to allowing units such as the Exocrine to become amazing backfield harrassers,

I seriously can't wait for all the combos that could be pulled off with the Pods and the other units!

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!

Dark Eldar and Me: Initial impressions

Heya and welcome back to the webway!

Now that I get to sit with the Dark Eldar codex, I will be talking about how this book will affect me as a Dark Eldar player. In addition, I am also looking ahead for this book with the shifting meta and the context of 7th edition.

I guess I should start with the stories first.

Now I will say that the art and direction for the fluff parts is a good direction, with the book looking more like a supplement than the previous few codices before it. Deep enough with the story, and the art is utterly gorgeous. Even my Marine and Eldar friends are complaining about how this book utterly trumps their book in that category.

Of course as with every codex, the main reason why people bought the book is so that they could play with their stuff well. In that regards, I am always open to the concept of my book becoming something that I am no longer familiar with and thus I actually do not give a darn about the people who are sore about some things that they used to have that are nerfed and things that no one used became better and even becoming the meta.

My first notice is that the Power From Pain rule is turned from an active mechanic that is isolated in units to a field-wide effect mechanic. Despite me not being fond of the first two turns of the mechanic, but otherwise it does give me something that allow me to have an end game exit strategy. Everytime I play, I noticed that my army becomes significantly weaker as I lose my juice and they can't do much. In particular, I am always desperately in need of some troops that could hold their ground during the final turns for those desperate clutch wins. With the new Power From Pain, I can do just that. It is an improvement in many ways and it provides the dudes with some means of stubborn resistance.

Secondly, I noticed that the army now has an emphasis upon deepstriking with Webway portals (pure win by the way) and also all ground vehicles being able to deepstrike. I will admit that playing the Duke a few times had taught me that deepstriking Dark Eldar vehicles allows for different vectors of attack. This in my opinion is a welcoming change, as I really do not comprehend the idea that Dark Eldar will deploy themselves readily and be honest about it (which is what most Dark Eldar players do by default due to not having units that could infiltrate and deepstrike unless you have the Duke).

The Realspace Raid Detachment is in my opinion one of the best detachments in the game, but that is only because most of the Dark Eldar's best units are in this slot. I really do not care too much about the additional rules, for I just want to get those additional fast attack slots. The Covenite Coterie and coven formations are also interesting to say the least as it does complement nicely with the dark eldar codex.

Another thing I noticed is that Raiders and Venoms have lost some things, but in essence got a slight boost. Venoms in particular have it going for them, as their power level did not change at all. Combined with the cheaper kabalite warriors and also some changes in some of the vehicle wargear, they can hold their own against most of the forces there. 

Now I will admit that I am still sore from the Wave Serpents, but due to the 7th edition deepstriking rules and passenger firing rules, I believe that it will not be as bad as the previous codex. Sadly enough I must also talk about the Ravager's nerfs, as now I really can't move them fast enough and press their unique advantage. However, I can see myself deepstriking them to get those back armour if I needed to.

Sadly enough, I also noticed that the book killed many Wych-based armies. Mass Haywire grenades on wyches are gone, and so are the BeastStar builds. Then there are the hellions......sad day indeed for them. I will honestly say however that I am never a fan of wych units (except the Reavers) and clearly do  not feel the sting other than losing one of my more reliable anti-tank unit.

On that note, I am still unsure about Reavers as they are the only unit I noticed that does not have grenades, but at the same time could mitigate this weakness via their new bladevane and cluster caltrop rules. With their cost reducing and also being able to take up to 12 in a squad means that this unit is an unit that was meant to ram themselves into any target that they see fit and rip it apart via HoW to minimize enemies that will strike them back in assault from behind cover. They also can kill vehicles with those HoW attacks.

However, the Scourges are now the new hotness as not only are they more reliable than Wyches to deliver haywire weapons, but they could do so at range. I know that these guys will be one of my most heavily used units for this edition for they assist me in one of my greatest problems with Dark Eldar; anti-tank.

The aircrafts are in my opinion awesome, and I personally like to use the Voidraven Bombers as they help me with my anti-tank and also horde problem on the fly. Razorwings are of course awesome for their point cost and also that they are moved to the fast attack slot which frees up my heavy support. I just love the Vodraven bomber too much, and I will be playing with two of them for the time being until something convinced me that it is a bad choice.

Talos and Chronos are really good for what they do, and I see no problems with them now that they could be taken in a squad of three. They were alright before, but they competed heavily with the Ravagers and other goodies. Now with the changes done, these guys might get to see the light of day once more.

However, with this book I find myself asking myself if GW is really wanting us all to become collectors rather than gamers. I personally do not mind as I am from a collector's background but for the competitive gaming junkies, this means that they need to grow larger than they wanted to be with very beer and pretzel rules. Their army hopping days are slowly unravelling as there is no way for anyone to predict the meta. As for collectors they will buy less models but they will have soo much options that by default they will have competitve builds for the armies without even trying.

With these thoughts, I will take my dark eldar with a happy stride across the battlefields of 40k. 

The Raven Cometh!

One word: Sweeeeet..........

Dark Eldar video: Wracks and Haemonculus

Warhammer 40,000: NEW Dark Eldar: http://youtu.be/pncGcM_Bqds

Coven, Coven everywhere......

Hello and welcome back to the webway!

With the new Dark Eldar codex around the corner, the seeping pain from my wallet has finally begun. 

Now I will be honest, I hated the old new haemonculus as I really hated the darn crucified Jesus look, and preferred the older models (I am fortunate to get enough of them). And I always asked myself, why did GW even approved the idiot?

He was one of the models I really hoped they would remake but I really doubt that it will happen. And then this happened......

And my reaction was......

I mean look at the details and also the aesthetic......this thing is exactly how I imagine a Haemonculus to be. Not too much on the armour and bondage, but more flesh and also less retarded pose and weird spider arms. This model has the right amount of everything.

Suffice to say, despite my general abhorrence to single model plastic, I will make an exception for this guy.

Along with the Haemonculus, came what is perhaps one of the most requested models to be turned into plastic for all Dark Eldar players everywhere; Wracks.

 Now this guys.....I always loved them, and indeed I bought like 5 boxes of them while they are in finecast. However, my experiences with them when it comes to building material is more or less iffy as they are more fragile than even the normal Dark Eldar plastics and that stopped me from buying more. I knew that if GW wants to take our money, they better make these guys plastic.

Suffice to say I am quite happy with this decision.

They are a subtle kind of upgrade to the Finecast wracks and indeed for a person who have no idea about these guys, they looked the same. However to a Dark Eldar connoisseur, there are a few differences that could be spotted right away. For one, the masks have a little more variety now, and also the boney racks are quite different from the Finecast ones. I also noticed that they now have a little more variety on their clubs as well.

Now we move on to the more obvious things.....
 

 Weapon-wise, I knew this would have to happen and being plastic means having a new weapon option, and the name of this baby is the Ossefactor. For some reason, I have a hunch that it is a weapon that wounds depending upon toughness value or something that affects that. Hearing that they could get power mauls also interests me, as I really wonder what would be the true benefit of that. It is nice, but I really am rather fond of the poisoned weapons. Scissorshand is now in plastic, but I think it would not truly have a grand difference in the game (unless they make it like a flesh gauntlet).

Another fun thing I noticed is that now they gave you the parts to make Wrack pilots and gunners, which is a nice thing for all the coven players out there.

The White Dwarf also gave us a weird new mini-game to play with, but I really don't bother too much with this.

 There is also a weird new spray that will be coming with these releases, and I kinda have a feeling I know what would the colour be. Nonetheless it is a nice thing.

However my greatest nergasm is about to come, as this is shown at the end of the book;

I reallllllly want the darn Voidraven, and I really want it to be a dual kit like the Stormfang/Stormtalon, and I know I will get 3 of each if that happens! I am a dumbass that way, but hey I love Dark Eldar!

Gamewise, I am honestly not too bothered with the soon-to-be changes as I really have a stupidly large Dark Eldar army that I know will withstand the test of time.

I am pleased so far with the releases, as it captures the feel of the Covens the way I always imagined them to be. Now if only they release those Grotesque in plastic.......but that is a tall order of a dream for now.

Dark Eldar Coming!

Heya all, it has been a while since I posted anything, but this time there is a true reason.

Dark Eldar is coming!

So far from what the rumours are chirping about, I am seeing a Voidraven, a new Vect on Dais, and a weird book called Artifex. No idea what the hell the book is supposed to be, but I must say that times are good for a Dark Eldar.

The reason why I actually did not game too much with my Dark Eldar recently is because, I find my book suffering from Old Codex Syndrome. I mean, the book is well armed for 7th edition in many ways, but at the same time the book does not have answers to things like gargantuan monstrous creatures, an affordable annti-air unit and last but not least, Wave Serpents. I can confidently kill three of them, but in the end Serpent Spam usually have five of them, and the last two will kill me off. If it was an all-comer list, I can definitely handle  but given my anal attitude about trying to make things casually competitive, I know that I need answers to those things.

I have been playing with my Orks a little, but I found that I still miss the brutality of my Dark Eldar and its speed.

All I can hope for is that the Dark Eldar will have some answers to those units I mentioned and for those who hate psykers, an answer against them too.