Warhammer 40K Tabletop XVI: "Terminator? I hardly know 'er!"

[bluntpencil]

Goddamnit.

I hate flyers.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/New_Stuf...RONAUTICA.html

[bluntpencil]

Crap, forum's still screwy. Half a dozen posts only visible on 'reply'. Didn't notice folks had already posted Aeronautica.

Did I mention I hate flyers?

[Squark]

Hm... What sort of build would you go for for a unit of Thunderwolf Cavalry?

I know the basic build in last edition (minus the meltabombs that were used for musical wounds) was;

2 Storm Shields
1 Power Fist
2 Vanilla

But do the changes in wound allocation mean more storm shields are needed?

Also, since there would be one leftover thunderwolf from the 2 boxes, I was just thinking of picking up a space Marine commander kit to make a Thunderwolf lord as well (If I decided to go with a unit of thunderwolves, that is).

A Possible Build
Thunderwolf Mount, Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer, Runic Armor, Wolf tail talisman, Saga of the Warrior Born- 265 points

[evisiron]

Originally Posted by Renegade Paladin

The grand review of my army:

That might be better off in the Modelling and Painting thread.

So, first big unsolvable question in our group is the Chariots in Combat Conundrum.
a) Can you attack the chariot itself or just the character riding in it?
b) If so, what happens if the chariot is destroyed? Is the character disengaged from combat and disembarks in the same way if people assaulting a transport manage to crack it, or does counting as being in Base to base make him consolidate into combat?

Anyone come across a solution to this?

[Cheesegear]

Originally Posted by Squark

Hm... What sort of build would you go for for a unit of Thunderwolf Cavalry?
[...]
But do the changes in wound allocation mean more storm shields are needed?

Typically no. Most units wont be shooting more than 1 or 2 Heavy weapons at you, so, two SSs are fine. Remember with your 12" move and re-rolls to Charge, you should be in combat fairly quickly. You'd need to play-test it.


Would Allocation is still a thing. It's called 'Look Out, Sir!' and it's amazing. If you have an entire unit of Characters (Paladins, Wolf Guard, etc.) if your unit takes 8 wounds, roll 8 dice. If you succeed in all of them, 1 model will take 8 wounds. It's totally bananas. And here's the best part, he still gets to make saves.

[Wraith]

Originally Posted by Cheesegear

Would Allocation is still a thing. It's called 'Look Out, Sir!' and it's amazing. If you have an entire unit of Characters (Paladins, Wolf Guard, etc.) if your unit takes 8 wounds, roll 8 dice. If you succeed in all of them, 1 model will take 8 wounds. It's totally bananas. And here's the best part, he still gets to make saves.

I'm kind of understanding how you get this to work, but where are you getting Paladin being a unit of Characters?
Codex: Grey Knights just lists them as "Infantry" - as opposed to Infantry (Character) that you see along side, say, Draigo - so wouldn't Look Out, Sir! only apply if a wound were allocated to the Apothecary?

Same question re: Wolf Guard, as Space Wolves specifically mentions that only the Battle Leader counts as a Character, and the rest are just infantry?

It'd definitely work if you took, say, 4 Rune Priests and made them into one super-squad, but I think I'm missing something from the other examples.....

[Penguinizer]

Originally Posted by Wraith

I'm kind of understanding how you get this to work, but where are you getting Paladin being a unit of Characters?
Codex: Grey Knights just lists them as "Infantry" - as opposed to Infantry (Character) that you see along side, say, Draigo - so wouldn't Look Out, Sir! only apply if a wound were allocated to the Apothecary?

Same question re: Wolf Guard, as Space Wolves specifically mentions that only the Battle Leader counts as a Character, and the rest are just infantry?

It'd definitely work if you took, say, 4 Rune Priests and made them into one super-squad, but I think I'm missing something from the other examples.....

In the back of the new WH40k rulebook, Wolf Guard and Paladins are listend as In Ch. Since the rulebook unit type takes priority over the codex because of the edition change it takes priority.

[Cheesegear]

Originally Posted by Wraith

I'm kind of understanding how you get this to work, but where are you getting Paladin being a unit of Characters?

Back of the rulebook.
Since you're Eldar. Warlocks are characters. And thus Seer Councils are entire units of Characters.

Here's the list of full-Character units;

Paladins
Wolf Guard
Chaos Terminators (if you upgrade them all, or just most of them should be enough)
Seer Councils
Necron Royal Courts
Nobs - but not Meganobz (don't ask me, it's the rules)

Precision Shots and Strikes for everyone!

[Issabella]

I have to check the FAQ, but I think, oddly, that Wolfguard are Characters when split into their "sergent" role, but when fielded as a unit, they are not, despite being listed as characters in the book. I wish I could access the FAQ but GW is a blocked site here at work...while GitP is not odly.

[Cheesegear]

Originally Posted by Issabella

I have to check the FAQ, but I think, oddly, that Wolfguard are Characters when split into their "sergent" role, but when fielded as a unit, they are not, despite being listed as characters in the book.

No. Read carefully.

Wolf Guard are Characters as per the Rulebook.
The FAQ states that "they become Characters in addition to their normal type."
Their normal type is Character.

[Sam cw]

Originally Posted by Cheesegear

Would Allocation is still a thing. It's called 'Look Out, Sir!' and it's amazing. If you have an entire unit of Characters (Paladins, Wolf Guard, etc.) if your unit takes 8 wounds, roll 8 dice. If you succeed in all of them, 1 model will take 8 wounds. It's totally bananas. And here's the best part, he still gets to make saves.

Uhh... Are you sure about that? The way I read it, you deflect unsaved Wounds, not Wounds that you still have to roll for. Reading over LO,S, it says "When a Wound (or unsaved Wound) is allocated", so I guess it depends on weather the parenthesis is a clarification or extra option.

As an aside, you can add Crisis suit teams with lots of shield drones to the list. Character is now a unit type and all drones have the same unit types as their owner.

[Cheesegear]

Originally Posted by Sam cw

The way I read it, you deflect unsaved Wounds, not Wounds that you still have to roll for. Reading over LO,S, it says "When a Wound (or unsaved Wound) is allocated" so I guess it depends on weather the parenthesis is a clarification or extra option..

Both. Since sometimes you don't get a save, and sometimes you do.

You allocate Wounds before you roll for saves. So Look Out, Sir! happens before saves.

Originally Posted by Sam cw

As an aside, you can add Crisis suit teams with lots of shield drones to the list. Character is now a unit type and all drones have the same unit types as their owner.

Why would you want to transfer wounds from Drones to your actual Suits? Sounds like a terrible idea.
Also, only two Drones will be Characters, as there's only one Character in a Crisis Team.

[Sam cw]

Both. Since sometimes you don't get a save, and sometimes you do.

You allocate Wounds before you roll for saves. So Look Out, Sir! happens before saves.

So its basically 5th ed on a 4+ then?

Why would you want to transfer wounds from Drones to your actual Suits? Sounds like a terrible idea.

Since the suits have 2 wounds, you can use them to stop your opponent from striping the shield drones with small arms before finishing the suits with ID weapons.

Also, only two Drones will be Characters, as there's only one Character in a Crisis Team.

True, I've gotten so used to all of my crisis teams having an attached commander (low point games plus small number of suit models that sometimes have to pull double duty as broadsides means I usually only have one squad) that I forgot to specify. My normal setup is a 2 man team with a team leader and 2 drones joined by my commander who also has 2 drones, making a seven model squad with six characters, which is what I was think of.

[SynissterSyster]

Okay all. I got my DE codex and am happy. Coming Sunday during the day I am heading to my shop to talk to the owner. Since Sunday is Warhammer day at the shop I can pick brains of those there. From what I have read on one other forum it seems that best bets are warriors for main troops, Hellions for FA and maybe some Reavers, with Voidravens for HS and bombing stuff. HQs are up in air but Drazhar seems to be a solid choice atm. I will go over this with owner tomorrow though any advice from you all is much welcomed.

[Cheesegear]

Originally Posted by SynissterSyster

From what I have read on one other forum it seems that best bets are warriors for main troops, Hellions for FA and maybe some Reavers, with Voidravens for HS and bombing stuff. HQs are up in air but Drazhar seems to be a solid choice atm.

Warriors are not good. They're made out of paper. It's highly likely whatever you've read was for 5th Ed. Warriors are 'good' insofar as they're only better than your other choices.

Hellions are good with the Baron. And only with the Baron. Otherwise you should be looking at Beastmasters and maxing that out since 'closest first' wound allocation highly supports mixed units like that.

Razorwings are the best Flyer Dark Eldar have.

Drazhar is fairly weak. Your best guy is a basic Archon with a Shadow Field.
EDIT; Rakarth is also good because he makes one of the new killiest units in the game as of 6th Ed. more killy.


I hate to break it to, but, of everyone, Dark Eldar have been hit the hardest by the edition change. Orks went from bad to worse. But DE went from one of the best armies in the game to slightly playable.

[SynissterSyster]

Cheese, I am very sure what I read was for 6th edition. The posts were given by someone whom played several games. Now I am not going to disagree that DE were hit hard but saying they are slightly playable makes it seem like they shouldn't be given a chance. Now I know this sounds biased as I am getting into the game and I don't want to spend another $30+ at the moment for a new codex. I am going to not throw in the towel just yet.

[Cheesegear]

Originally Posted by SynissterSyster

Now I am not going to disagree that DE were hit hard but saying they are slightly playable makes it seem like they shouldn't be given a chance.

Oh, of course. By all means. But if you're searching for Dark Eldar tips, there's a number of places that will be saying that Dark Eldar are one of the most amazing armies in the game. I'm just trying to point out that that's not quite the case anymore.

[lord_khaine]

Paladins
Wolf Guard
Chaos Terminators (if you upgrade them all, or just most of them should be enough)
Seer Councils
Necron Royal Courts
Nobs - but not Meganobz (don't ask me, it's the rules)

Hmm, this might make Necron Royal Courts a viable pick again, combined with lower cover safes making their AP3 staffs better, and flying transports to get them into shooting range of viable targets.

[Issabella]

Given the Necrons returned status of vehicle killers, the haywire staff seems almost redundent, but freaking Haywire(4), assault weapons...jeez that just hurts.

[Wraith]

Originally Posted by Cheesegear

Back of the rulebook.

Ah yes, the one place I didn't look. You'd think they would mention something about it under the rules for Characters or Look Our, Sir! rather than hide it away in a little table on page 412. Thank you

Since you're Eldar. Warlocks are characters. And thus Seer Councils are entire units of Characters.

I haven't yet made up my mind whether this is a great overall improvement or not.
s9 is distinctly better than s3+Armourbane. Similarly, Precise Shot isn't of particularly big help to a guy with a Shuriken Pistol and is of no use at all for Destructor.

Look Out, Sir! shenanigans aside (I know there's a difference between RaW and RaI, and I'm fairly sure one guy jumping in front of 8 wounds at the same time isn't part of the latter ) 6th Ed. essentially just gives Precise Strike to a 25pts-plus-Powers-each, A=1 model. It's.... less than I was hoping for, I'll be honest with you!

Swooping Hawks are still awful, though, if ever we need something reassuringly consistent from book to book.

[lord_khaine]

Swooping Hawks are still awful, though, if ever we need something reassuringly consistent from book to book.

Yeah, i was hoping that the buff to Haywire grenades, and their intercept ability would have made them a viable counter to flyers, and worth picking up for the first time since second edition (where it really were just the exarch you wanted).

Given the Necrons returned status of vehicle killers, the haywire staff seems almost redundent, but freaking Haywire(4), assault weapons...jeez that just hurts.

Yeah, the staff has a really short range though, but it might be worth placing in a unit of Tesla immortals.

Also, if Zandreck gives a unit of Immortals tank hunter, then their tesla weapons should have a decent chance of glancing most flyers down, this might be one of the better ways for Necrons to handle flyers, unless you can slice them in half with a Death ray?

[Provengreil]

gah, rulebook's taking a long time. can someone explain to me how "ook out, sir" works, exactly? because if paladins and wolf guard packs can load all the wounds they take onto one model, doesn't that make them absurdly hard to kill?

[The_Final_Stand]

If a wound is allocated to a Character in a unit for whatever reason (was at the front of the unit, sniped by snipers, precision strikes in close combat and what have you) then another model in the unit can go "Look Out, Sir!" and takes the wound himself on a 4+. Independent Characters get a 2+.

The trouble arises when you have an entire unit of characters, such as Paladins, Wolf Guard, etc. You can be shot 8 times, but since the target is a character, they are entitled to Look Out Sir on a 4+, allowing you to move all 8 wounds onto a single model.

On the other hand, this strategy is dependent on making 8 4+ rolls, so on average, half of them will still hit the intended target.

[Cheesegear]

Originally Posted by Provengreil

gah, rulebook's taking a long time. can someone explain to me how "ook out, sir" works, exactly? because if paladins and wolf guard packs can load all the wounds they take onto one model, doesn't that make them absurdly hard to kill?

Yes and no. Sure, one model will be forced to make so many saves. But that only works 50% of the time. It's better than actually dealing 8 unsaved wounds to your opponent and have him remove no models, as you used to do in 5th as each model had to be allocated a wound.

So, on the one hand you deal more wounds to fewer models. On the other hand, you actually get to remove models and decrease the effectiveness of the unit where you weren't able to before - in the case of multi-wounds, that is.

[Erloas]

Originally Posted by Cheesegear

No. Read carefully.

Wolf Guard are Characters as per the Rulebook.
The FAQ states that "they become Characters in addition to their normal type."
Their normal type is Character.

I'm pretty sure this will change in the errata later. The intention seems to be when they are taken as commanders of other units they get LO,S, but not when they make up an entire unit by themselves. The erratas, if it runs anything like Fantasy did, will go through a lot of revisions in the first couple months.

Originally Posted by SynissterSyster

Cheese, I am very sure what I read was for 6th edition. The posts were given by someone whom played several games. Now I am not going to disagree that DE were hit hard but saying they are slightly playable makes it seem like they shouldn't be given a chance. Now I know this sounds biased as I am getting into the game and I don't want to spend another $30+ at the moment for a new codex. I am going to not throw in the towel just yet.

Well one thing to keep in mind is that Cheese often talks in extremes, everything is almost always super amazing or absolutely worthless from what he says. At least on first pass, but as it gets discussed more what he real means is in general its better/not as good as other options, not that said army/unit doesn't have situations where it does well. And of course the people you are playing have a big influence on what works and how well it works.
At at least last edition Tau and Orks did a lot better locally then what "the internet" says they can do and I have yet to see a guard list laying waste to everything and being almost unbeatable as some claim. And the Eldar list I run is completely against all the advice I've ever seen online for Eldar but that hasn't stopped me from winning with it very consistently and often pretty much wiping my opponents every game.

[Zorg]

HERO's Gameblog has some good articles up at the moment for getting the most out of Dark Eldar in 6th.

And I second Erloas' advice on not listening to the internet too much - there's just so much local variance that while someone could claim X is true, and it be true for them it could be a complete fabrication for me.
For example in 5th 'mech was king' so load up on meltaguns and be prepared to fight walls of vehicles... in my area most people were surprised to see fully mechanised lists, defying what everyone on the internet put forth.

[Renegade Paladin]

Originally Posted by Zorg

For example in 5th 'mech was king' so load up on meltaguns and be prepared to fight walls of vehicles... in my area most people were surprised to see fully mechanised lists, defying what everyone on the internet put forth.

My area was surprised to see them too when I first started, largely because of sticker shock. Then I proceeded to dominate the metagame until people did load up on meltaguns and lascannons, at which point I fell back to about a 50% win rate. Mech is beatable if you're prepared for it. If you're not, it isn't.

[Tome]

Originally Posted by lord_khaine

Also, if Zandreck gives a unit of Immortals tank hunter, then their tesla weapons should have a decent chance of glancing most flyers down, this might be one of the better ways for Necrons to handle flyers, unless you can slice them in half with a Death ray?

Necrons don't have problems with fliers, thanks to having their own. All fliers can by Skyfire whenever they want, and I believe that both Necron fliers have effective anti-tank weapons on them.

[LeSwordfish]

Thanks for the advice! I'll stick with what i've got just now, but will swap the Vindicare for a trio of Rhinos or a pair of Chimeras later on, once i've bought them, and maybe trade in one of the melta-squads for some more guardsmen?

I accept that Stormravens are probably useful, but I have this horrible bias against them: they look like thrown bricks, and cost as much as a Vendetta and a guardsmen/Henchmen squad to crew it.

Some more knights and Vendettas is my current thinking for the next expansion.

Also: Deep strike/scout the Vendetta, and hope I can kill the worst of the anti-tank off before it arrives: Bad Idea, or merely Poor Idea?

[The_Final_Stand]

Something I've been considering. Hover allows a Flyer to move like a Fast Skimmer. However, since it isn't Zooming, does this mean that it can be shot at with full ballistic skill, even without Skyfire?

That said, Skimmers automatically get Jink if they move, so the Flyer can fire to its hearts content if it moves up to 6" and still be irritating to shoot down.

EDIT: It specifies Zooming Flyers cannot be assaulted. Therefore, presumably Hovering Flyers can be assaulted.