GW's War on Customers

As a paying Warhammer customer I'm pretty amazed by all the recent moves GW has been making with regards to 40k and their properties. I'd like to discuss it here. It seems to me that the company, although they are doing 'well', is on the path of self-destruction.

Counter-Necron

9 of the top 16 lists at Adepticon included this:

Lord,
3x Warriors + Night Scythe
3x Annihilation Barge

and 8 included at least 2 6-man squads of Canoptek Wraiths w/whip coils. These are purely to tie up and live through dedicated CC and heavy weapons units. They are also good at popping AV10 vehicles. They're a really good jump infantry unit because they ignore everything but impassable terrain so they can fly in a straight line towards whomever they wish to engage. They also have 3+/3++ and are thus very hard to kill even with just T4 and 2 Wounds. Thankfully they don't have power weapons. It'd be grounds to ban Necrons from tournies that is, combined with Night Scythes and Annihilation Barges. People think Heldrake is under-costed. Look at Annihilation Barge! 90 points! Heldrake should be 80 at that point-scale.

Anyways, ranting about poorly costed units aside how do you counter units like this? Because, to be honest, these guys can ally with damn near anyone, cost nothing and are going to be Top 16 of every competitive tournament so building lists purely to counter these will probably get you far. 

Necrons, Necrons Everywhere

Kept thinking about the ridiculous lists from Adepticon (and how some of them had to have won purely by dice flukes and by being matched against even worse crafted lists). The Dark Eldar/Eldar lists sticks out particularly to me as the main fighting capabilities are a 300 point unit of Warriors and a 275 point unit of Wyches (albeit 55 of each are venoms, which are known to be extremely powerful when you only take 2). And a 240 point beast unit. Very scary with an average toughness of 3 and no armor saves against bolters. Oh and 665 points worth of unique HQs. Oh and 9 Necron armies. They were all roughly this:

Lord
Warriors, Night Scythe
Warriors, Night Scythe
Warriors, Night Scythe
Canoptek Wraiths x a few
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge

Garnish as you'd like, win accordingly.

Adepticon 2013 Second Place list

I looked over the Top 16 finishers at Adepticon and I would love to post the second list because it is just the ticket for what might be good against the winning list. The list is SM/IG with 2 blobs, 3 flyers and Thunderfire Cannons. Which is really funny to me because I've seen Thunderfire Cannons get laughed at continually on the internet for being a waste of points and this guy took 3. List is below:

Adepticon 2013 1st Place List

Today I want to do an analysis of the winning list from Adepticon 2013. It's pretty easy to grasp list and can be seen below. I'm going to do an analysis of the army's capabilities and maybe show how tactically it's a really good, albeit cheesy-as-hell, army.

Review of the slew of FAQ Updates

In case you didn't see GW released a ton of new FAQs including one for Daemons and an update to the main rulebook. I'll review the changes here. First up the main rulebook:

Flyer Fix? Maybe.

Took a road-trip today so I had some time to think about 40k and what small fixes could be made to improve unit balance and I came up with a simple one: Shots at Zooming Flyers are resolved at BS2 instead of BS1.

I think this might be enough to really take flyers down a peg and bring them in line with other units. I got this idea thinking about Axis and Allies. In that game, any unit has a chance of shooting down a plane except for subs (deck guns can't do it). This includes infantry, tanks and other planes. In 40k this sort of real-world balanced units is not assumed nor enforced (hence blob armies) but it supposed to be mandated by the rules ie: not enforced but you have to. In this new edition instead of mandating varied unit composition with a semi-mechanized army they instead enforce buying Flyers. Literally that's all they do: buy Flyers. They aren't an instant win card, however, and still aren't that devastating to an enemy army except for the Heldrake and Necron Air armies. They will ruin opponent's armies without anti-air. You need anti-air just for those units. That's stupid. 

To correct for this just add "Snap Shots at Flyers are resolved at BS 2 instead of the usual BS 1". I think this will go a long way towards evening out that part of the problem.

Now about blobs...

Unleash the Hounds! (A dream army)

This army that I'm going to write up cannot exist in the rules. I just want it to. But! If you are doing a 2v2 game I would suggest 1 side uses Daemons and Space Wolves. Each army will completely fill their Fast Attack slot with hounds. The rest I don't really care about so feel free to fill in (also I only have like 10 minutes to write this). Check 'em out:

In case you haven't seen them

Pictures of the new High Elves minis are out. I actually laughed out loud at their chariot.

Nope, I'm not moving. (A list you can't kill)

So I've decided to keep doing cheesy fun lists until I think of something else. Today I wanted to make a list that can take a blistering amount of fire and laugh. To do this I'm going back to CSM+Daemons only this time it's reversed as Daemons are primary and CSM are ally. Check it out:

I can fly! Time to get the most FMC's in a list

I haven't come up with many ideas of what to talk about today so I'm going to show you a list I thought up that attempts to cram in as many flying Monstrous creatures into a list possible. CSM+Daemons list obviously.

Too many Dreads (Blood Angels)

Came up with this list earlier when looking at 2250 point tourney lists. You're allowed double force org. Check it out:

Tau as Allies

Pretty simple idea: how to make Tau into an Ally force?

It's actually harder than it looks. Unless you're using 1999+1 you're going to be in trouble. Their troops are bad enough that no matter what you do with them you'll be wasting points. And, if you want to buff them, you have to get an Ethereal or a Fireblade which hurts the Ally slot because you can't take Signature Systems like a Commander can. The rest of the army has a lot of trouble standing on it's own so now you've got a much harder question than at the beginning.

Rolltide (Riptide builds)

The Riptide is seen as the new black by some now that the Tau codex is out. As game changing as the Heldrake/Dreadknight. These monsters pack a wallop with the Ion Accelerator's template. The Riptide works best in 3's and I'm going to put together two lists that should help emphasize their prowess.

Tau Codex Review: TL;DR version

Troops slot is bereft of threats and poor in camping power.
Elites is a fight between mobile and sneaky and big and scary.
Fast Attack has Pathfinders that you must take.
HQ's got a big buff but can all be one-shotted rather easily at T3 and no invuln for everyone but Commander.
Broadsides got a massive nerf and now have to take missile fists and velocity tracker to be useful making them nerf again because they'll cost 15 points more than last codex.
Hammerheads are gonna be needed for Ion Cannon or Railgun even though they are bad.

The army as a whole has a lot of synergy and you'll be able to keep your models without much change. The new style is going to be Markerlights + Pie plates. If you can effectively handle Dreadknights or MEQs your list should wipe Tau.

Objective missions are impossible for Tau and Kroot Troops should be taken because they can stay off the board and Infiltrate thus not getting wiped out early.

They're less viable as an Ally (Broadside nerf, can only take 1 Hammerhead and/or Riptide) than before and equally viable as a main army.

That just about covers it.

TL;DR of the TL;DR

Troops Bad
Broadside nerfed
Tau get fucked in most missions in the game
Riptide plates only saving grace

Riptide or Markerlights plus nukes = ?

I may have underestimated the Riptide previously. In most of my thinking I took the unit a s it was: a BS3 monster that has good options but isn't killy enough. Now, I also stated, correctly, that you will have Pathfinders in each army because. You need them to make your army killy and my dumb mind looked back at the Riptide and said, "Aww, too and he's BS3" and then moved on. Mistakes were made.

Tau Empire: Part 9, Concluding Comments and Sample Builds

Tau have become a bit better at what they used to do. A lot of misplaced nerfs and a lot of samey guns. I believe Tau now boil down to an Ally only army, as before, and cannot hold their own as a stand-alone army. Analysis continues after the break.

Tau Empire: Part 8, Heavy Support

The heavy support section used to be just Broadsides. Now it's just Broadsides but you're more depressed about it. The Broadside nerft to their Railgun is completely unwarranted and further hampers Tau ability to put the hurt on tougher units that they always had trouble dealing with. They now have almost nothing to stop the Land Raider and now have only 1 weapon that can Instant Death T5 models. The Hammerhead as good as it was before, it's just not as expensive. Still not impressed. Skyrays are pretty good at taking out flyers and possibly vehicles but you'll need some Markerlight help in my opinion. Sniper teams are not heavy support by any means and having a 50/50 chance to wound someone and a 1/6 chance of Rending a vehicle makes this unit exceptionally luck-based. I mean, sure, you'll hit a lot, but killing it is a total crap-shoot. So overall, another point at which Tau kinda flops but still useful when combined with other units in the army. Let's take a look.

Tau Empire: Part 7, Fast Attack

The army really flops here. Think about the CSM codex, you have a few units that can be taken. Obviously everyone wants to take the Heldrake because it's ridiculously powerful but Bikers are fine (Nurgle bikers), Raptors and Warp Talons are pretty good too. Spawn, in my opinion, are bad and supposed to be so that you aren't happy when you roll them on the Boon Table. But look at the slot as a whole: good units, each of them changes the way the army plays and most importantly can be taken individually and not diminish the rest of the army. What I mean by that is, if you take Nurgle Bikers, your unit of Havocs is not worse off for it. If you take 3 units of Warp Talons, your cultist blobs do no lose effectiveness. If you have Heldrakes galore, your basic troops are not now weaker than if you had taken another unit.

Now look at the Tau Fast Attack slot. They need Pathfinders. The rest of the army relies on shooting and Pathfinders are an army-wide buff to that. If you don't take them you are severely diminishing every unit. But Tau are one of the armies that can't do blobs or semi-mech (tanks are wickedly expensive in this codex and they suck. What.) so they need flyers to support them. How are you supposed to do that with just one?

Another thing you'll notice is Piranhas and Vespids. Vespid Stingwings are nowhere near as good as Chaos Raptors but cost a point more each. They have no options other than a near mandatory upgrade and they have weirdly specific stealth too. To get both Kroot and Vespid stealth you'll have to fight in Machu Picchu apparently. Regardless aren't Vespids insects that live on a gas giant? What the hell in that cultural upbringing gave them Stealth (Ruins)? The fluff in this book is almost completely moot in the army rules it seems. Regardless Vespids are bad and expensive which segues perfectly into Piranhas  40 points to start off? A Rhino has 1 more BS 1 more side AV and 1 more HP and it's 35 points. Does fast and skimmer really count for that much? Is the burst cannon that much better than the combi-bolter? What about gun drones? Are they what tip this unit over the charts on points? Clearly not as those drones are just wound sinks that aren't able to perform that job for the vehicle. What can this unit do outside 18''? Nothing. Unless you want to dump more points into it but then you'll need Pathfinders for the smart missiles you just bought. Oh woe is thee.

Well, I should do a proper analysis of these units anyways but suffice it to say: you need two pathfinder units and you'll want a Sun Shark Bomber even though you'll need 2-3 of those too. Too bad you can't split units like MEQ or, you know, take support systems like some units. Like, I donno, Target Lock? Velocity Tracker? Drone Controller? But ah, whatever, Pathphinders are so good anyways it's not like they set up your whole army right? Let's take a look at Tau Fast Attack.

Tau Empire: Part 6, Elites

Here is where you'll be spending the majority of your points. It's realllly unfortunate how much your troop size is limited (3 Crisis for a slot or 1 Riptide). Oh and 6 stealth suits but who cares. Not really impressed by the burst cannon. It's just two pulse carbines. On Firewarrior that has stealth and shrouded. I'm mind-blown. Anyways before I rant I'll show you how the Elites are the only thing that makes Tau a good Primary but also, at the same time, are hurt by their unit limit when taken as allies. Let's begin.

Tau Empire: Part 5, Troops (They're still bad :/)

Sadly, the troops section of the army remains poor and the maximum limits of these units are strange and seemingly haphazard. They aren't much changed from last edition where they were never a threat and aren't changed by much from the last codex where they weren't effective.

Tau Empire: Part 4, HQ's (They're actually good now!)

Seeing the new Tau HQ's

The new Tau HQ's are awesome. They have awesome 12'' auras, cool gunline properties, extra equipment that can buff a large unit, they're good. Which is totally different from before where you wanted to limit your point exposure to the HQ's and you're no longer forced to take a battlesuit in each army (no more 1+ rules!).  Now you might even be interested to know that battlesuits can be more than just a few gun placements with a bodyguard: they can buff things (Helloooo Puretide Engram Neurochip)! Now, to be fair, they aren't necessarily amazing choices like you'd get in other armies (GK and Space Wolves come to mind) but they are definitely great to have and you wouldn't be a total doofus taking two Ethereals. So let's take a look at the changes.

Tau Empire: Part 3, Unique HQ's

The Unique HQ's in this codex have always been a point of contention. Hardcore Tau players have always loved their heroes regardless of how much actual tabletop use they have. Aun'va was always a running joke as undoubtedly the worst Unique HQ in the game. He actually loses the title, in my opinion, of worst unit in any codex (the title could probably be split between Norc Deddog and Parasite of Mortex). You know you screwed the pooch when you have to add new rules to a unit and reduce its cost by half to make him good. Honestly, if you haven't read the old codex I suggest you do. Aun'va had the amazing power to get 1 shotted by anything bigger than a plasma gun and once he died he had a second astonishing power: he caused his entire army to take a leadership test or flee. Also he was 205 freakin' points. But you got Preferred Enemy and Furious charge if you succeeded which means you get smoked to high heavens in close combat by everybody. Unlike before where you all died with no kills back you get like 2 kills back now. Wow.

Anyways, just like the Catholic Church the Tau have a new Pope and he's waaaaaay better. Not sure if I would take him but he's no longer a straight awful option now. So..yay? Let's check out the 'new and improved' Tau HQs.

Tau Empire: Part 2, Ranged Weapons (aka too much dakka)

The Tau love guns. It's a fact. They may even love guns too much.

Example of Tau pornography

But they use that love as a catalyst for their expansion. The Greater Good is actually just a ploy to spread across the galaxy to find new Dakka to fire. It's an addiction, and one they battle with constantly. I'm going to go over their repertoire of weaponry and show you which weapons you might want to take.

Since a good chunk of these weapons are only available on one or two units and their specific BS's may differ I'll do the math for both to show which is more useful or more worth the points. Let's begin.

Tau Empire: Part 1, Melee Weapons

I'm seriously doing this.

There are 3(!) melee weapons in the codex that can be taken by a total of 2(!!!) units. For some reason you have to spend points to take two of them even though neither of them are power weapons or good. Honestly why would you spend points on them?

Tau Codex Review: Part 0, Army Rules

Time to grab another beer and read-up the new Tau codex. I've been gone for a few days so I apologize for not updating the blog. We now get to the newest in a line of $50 codexes. GW has apparently decided to release a codex every 15 seconds for 6th edition without proofreading or playtesting to see what the author has done so it's up to us players to run the gamut, question the decision making and generally tear apart every new 'Dex. Here goes!

March Madness Challenger Edition: Finale (Loser's Finals and Winner's Finals)

Skarbrand 2/1!/Dead

Draigo 0!/2!/Moves on (Ahhhh! So close! Draigo rolled 4 3’s in the first round which means he missed every attack. In the second round he just barely passed his force weapon check. Poor Skarbrand, no Eternal Warrior.)

Moving on to the Grand Finals is Draigo. One can only hope that someone can last two rounds against him and kill his stupid face.

Drazhar 1/3/Moves on

Ghazghkull 2/Dead (Ghazghkull never had a chance without his Super Waaagh! Unfortunately I only let people activate powers in initiative order so he never got to it.

Typhus 0/Dead

Swarmlord 1/Moves on (No Eternal Warrior, fail harder Typhus.

Grimnar 2/3/Moves on

Asurmen 1/0/Dead (Even with the changes to Frost Axe making it just a power fist now Grimnar doesn’t seem to care and swings for the fences. In case you haven’t seen the FAQ Frost Axes go instead from S6 AP2 at init or S8 AP2 at init 1 to both at init one. Why this change was made is beyond me.)

Mephiston 0/0/1/Moves on

Asdrubael 0/2/0/Dead (Mephiston blitzed himself with a Perils but got double 1 success anyways. Vect needed to fail 1 invuln to die and voila, he’s dead. Unfortunate that he’s lived for millennia (I believe) and doesn’t have Eternal Warrior yet.)

Next round of Loser’s:

Drazhar 2/0/Dead

Swarmlord 2/3/Moves on (Drazhar has no invuln :’( too bad.)

Grimnar 2/Dead

Mephiston 2/3/Moves on (And thus fall the Space Wolves. Does anyone think it’s weird that Mephiston has no invuln? He’s 250 points!)

Now the losers from the last round of Winners get bumped down to face the last two losers finalists. This will then determine the final two and from that the last one who’ll face off against Skarbrand for the right to take on Draigo.

Swarmlord 1/Moves on

Bloodthirster 0/Dead (Instant-death is hilariously effective against every HQ. It’s pretty ridiculous. Swarmlord only hit half his attacks and just got 1 wound off but re-rolling 5++ spelled the end for our errant Bloodthirster.)

Lucius 0/Dead

Mephiston 0/1/Moves on (Ahhh the ol’ lack of Eternal Warrior. It’s really the difference between who’s left and who is dead. That and the ability to cause instant death which is very related.)

Swarmlord 2/Moves on

Mephiston 0/Dead (What’re you supposed to do without invulns or Eternal Warrior. Mephiston pretty much killed everyone who was like him in the game.)

This whole contest is coming down to Instant Death and Eternal Warrior, also bad luck in the case of Lysander. Looking like Swarmlord might be brought low by the Sultan of Smack Skarbrand.

Swarmlord 0/Dead

Skarbrand 3/Moves on (No chance, no chance whatsoever. Now we get to watch Skarbrand lose to Draigo again. It’s too bad Draigo never got to fight someone like Drazhar. Maybe next year.)

Round 2

Skarbrand 4!/Moves on!

Draigo 0/Dead! (Holy crap! 1 round of combat and Draigo failed 4/5 3++ saves. Here’s what’s unfortunate though: Draigo gets a Round 3 since everyone gets 1 loss)

Round 3

Skarbrand 2/1/Dead

Draigo 2!/2/Moves on (Damn! What a close fight. Draigo failed his Force Weapon check and perils’d himself giving Skarbrand an extra wound. On 6 wounds Draigo managed to make 5 saves though, securing his victory. If he had failed but one more the winner would be Skarbrand)

Your winner for the March Madness Challenger Edition is Draigo. Congratulations you OP bastard. 

March Madness Challenger Edition: Part 7, Round 4 to Losers and Winners finals

Winners

Bloodthirster 0/Dead

Skarbrand 3/Moves on (Did anyone expect otherwise?)

Lucius 0/2/0/Dead!

Draigo 0/0/1/Moves on (Ahhh so close! Lucius had to make an invuln every turn and  if he failed that was it. He made a good showing in round 2 but sadly the performance was not repeated)

The new winners bracket is thus:

Skarbrand

Draigo

Oh snap! We’ll see if Draigo manages to survive Skarbrand’s attacks but it honestly doesn’t look good for Skarbrand. He’ll need to kill Draigo round one of be insta-killed due to lack of Eternal Warrior. We’ll see!

Losers

Drazhar 3/Moves on

Imotekh 0/Dead (I really hope to see Drazhar get farther but without invuln ugh! What can he do?)

Typhus 3/4/Moves on
Marneus 1/1/Dead (Typhus used his Destroyer Hive during the first round but it didn’t matter much as his Daemon weapon is baller. Also Typhus’ T5 saved him from Marneus’s powerfists. On the Boon Table Typhus got 35 or Mechanoid which ups his armor save by 1 but unfortunately his is already 2+ so no effect. )

Grimnar 0/3/1/Moves on

Avatar 1/0/0/Dead (The wolves survive! He has pretty much everything you need to win except unwieldy [frost axe changes blow].)

St. Celestine 0/2/1/0/0/Dead

Mephiston 0/0/0/0/2/Moves on (Mephiston Perils himself and failed to wound with 7 attacks in one round due to power sword fail. She almost won but Mephiston only needed to hit her once to win.

New losers bracket:

Resurrection

Drazhar

Ghazghkull

Typhus

Swarmlord

Grimnar

Asurmen

Mephiston

Asdrubael

March Madness Challenger Edition: Part 6, End of Round 3

Ghazghkull  1/1/1/Dead

Bloodthirster 1/1/0/2/Moves on (Wow! Really close fight! If Bloodthirster hadn’t done as well last round Ghazghkull was almost guaranteed to win by attrition. He used his super Waaaaaagh round 3 but Bloodthirster missed two and failed to wound with ¾ of the remaining attacks so it didn’t really matter)

Skarbrand 3/Moves on!

Swarmlord 0/Dead (Whoops! Forgot Swarmlord didn’t have Eternal Warrior. He stood no chance.)

Asurmen 0/1/0/0/Dead

Lucius 0/1/0/2/Moves on! (Man what a close fight! It looked like Asurmen was going to get a wound every turn but Lucius kept making the save. What did he roll on the chaos boon table? 56 which gives him +1WS bringing his total to 8. He retains his instant killing ability from before.

Asdrubael 0/Dead

Draigo 1/Moves on! (Amazing, was waiting for a Draigo 1-shot. Hammerhand gave him S6 which puts his attacks into the instant death territory for FX. Unfortunately Vect does not have eternal warrior and thus dies the instant he fails and save and the only wound he had to save he failed.)

Winners round is showing how much Eternal Warrior is needed on expensive killer heroes. Without it they are exceptionally vulnerable to other heroes. Except for Skarbrand because he always goes first and kills the first round. Ahh well, maybe Draigo will finish him off 2 rounds from now. New winners bracket:

Winners

Bloodthirster

Skarbrand

Lucius

Draigo

We no go down to the resurrection bracket :

Drazhar 1/Moves on

Sliscus 0/Dead (Drazhar makes quick work of Sliscus. He used the bonus strength mode of his blade to cause instant death on Sliscus who does not have Eternal Warrior. He hit with every attack and wounded with every attack and Sliscus had to save everything or die. He failed.)

Azreal 0/0/0/1/0/Dead

Imotekh 0/1/0/0/1/Moves on (Neither of these guys can fight. Especially against models with a 2+ armor save.)

Typhus 3/Moves on

Eldrad 1/Dead (Eldrad failed ¾ 3++ saves which immediately killed him. A bit unexpected rolls for him. Typhus now gets a roll on the Boon Table! He got 26 or +1BS. Super useful. Hey who knows, he may win next round and become a Daemon Prince.

Marneus 0/1/2/1/Moves on

Lysander 0/0/1/0/Dead (Marneus made freaking almost every save possible. At a 5++! He must have talked to Vulkan in between rounds. These Space Marines just have tons of luck on their side.)

Grimnar 3/Moves on

Sanguinor 1/Dead (The rematch went even worse than the first round for Sanguinor. He was destined to lose to a wolf apparently.)

Avatar 2/1/Moves on

Vulkan He'stan 0/Dead (Soooo apparently Vulkan took off his cloak because he failed every save. Nice turn-around, too bad it didn’t happen for Kharn. Single tear.)

Ragnar 1/0/0/Dead

St. Celestine 1/0/1/2/Moves on (Whaaat? Celestine managed to win a stand-up knockdown fight? Badass, guess the Emperor is on her side.)

Sammael 1/0/Dead

Mephiston 1/4/Moves on (How does a 250 point HQ have no invuln save? Riddle me that Mephiston, he’s a monster in CC but once you get past his 2+ he’s done for. I believe this fight also means Dark Angels are eliminated.)

So the resurrection bracket had a few surprises again. The new bracket is:

Resurrection

Drazhar

Imotekh

Typhus
Marneus

Grimnar

Avatar

St. Celestine

Mephiston

And next round they will be joined by:

Ghazghkull

Swarmlord

Asurmen

Asdrubael

That's it for today. I'm very interested in seeing who wins this in the end. Skarbrand and Draigo are getting closer together and things have turned south for Lucius as he's now against a 2++ Eternal Warrior. Things that could ruin his chances.

March Madness Challenger Edition: Part 5, End of Round 2

Now I realized that Typhus would get an extra 2 rolls on the Boon Table for his participation in the mini-bracket. To make it fair I've given him one (his and Lucius's first round were both 'no reward', too bad). He recieved the reward Stubborn, so nothing changed in his combat. Here's the fights!

March Madness Challenger Edtion: Part 4, Mini-brackets

To fix the discrepancy of the number of champions not being a power of 2 it became necessary to devise a way to bring the number of champions down to 32 at one point. To do that I'm making 2 new mini-brackets that randomly select 4 champions from both the Winners and the Resurrection bracket to compete against each other. They are as follows: