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| by Sir Biscuit | July 27th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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Is that they aren’t always nice.
Or rather, the high-value returns tend to not be as good as the low-value returns.
Confused yet? Lets make sense of it!
First, lets take a look at what happens when you make a save. The two obvious solutions are either passing the save and nothing happens, or failing the save and losing the unit. We have two possible returns here, but they aren’t equal. If we get our good return, then we get to survive, but there’s no bonus beyond that. (You could make a case that the return is that you get to keep their offensive power, but you haven’t actually gained anything.) If you fail, the unit is gone forever, no second chances.
This dichotomy isn’t a big deal if you’re dealing with a massive horde unit, as you rely on having a massive number of cheap wounds as your defense. A bad roll isn’t going to matter much. However, as your save gets lower and your unit gets more and more expensive, this difference matters more and more.
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| by Sir Biscuit | July 20th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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It’s something I’ve always had a hard time trying to quantify. I’ve been making lists for a long time, and it’s become sort of instinctive for me: this element needs fire support, this one needs melee protection. It’s always better, however, to know the logic behind your thoughts. Knowing your thought processes and yourself is essential to growing as a 40k player. (Not to mention as a person!)
To understand what makes a unit good in a given list we need to understand two things: what strategy is, and what a force multiplier is.
Strategy contrasts with the similar concept of tactics. Quite simply, a strategy is the overall battleplan, while tactics is the movement of individual units. The general idea of refusing the flank and concentrating your forces on one side of the board to roll up the enemies flank and take their initial objective while contesting the midfield ones is a strategy. It doesn’t account for the minutia of movement and engagement on anything but the broadest scale. The actual movements of models in that game is tactics.
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| by Sir Biscuit | July 14th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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Part 1 was yesterday, you should read it first.
So now, back to my original question: what makes a distraction unit good?
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The unit needs to be able to reliably perform its duties.
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The unit needs to be cheaper than whatever it’s trying to stop. (IE opportunity cost!)
Number one is pretty self-explanatory. If it doesn’t work reliably, it doesn’t have a place in a list.
Number two benefits from a little explanation. We are not just talking about the points cost of a unit here, we are talking about its utility to the army. Imagine this:
You are a general, and you have a mixed force under your command. You are going against an enemy and are at a disadvantage. You know the enemy is easily distracted, so you send out a force far away from the battlefield, to distract the enemy and lure some of them away. How much of your army do you send? Read the rest of this entry »
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| by Sir Biscuit | July 13th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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It’s not uncommonly heard. I’ve blown up more than my fair share of expensive units, only to have my opponent tell me that they were a distraction/all part of the plan/suicide unit. I smile and play along, sure guy, your 250 point Land Raider was a distraction. Whatever. It’s obviously ludicrous.
But then I got to thinking, what is a good distraction unit in 40k? What am I looking for when I talk about that nebulous support role? I needed a definition. The one I like best is also very simple:
“an obstacle to attention”
Aha! That’s a good one! The important thing to realize about this is what we mean by “attention”. We aren’t just talking about the opponents attention (though anything that can grab that is indeed a bonus). We’re talking about the attention of units. At it’s simplest level, this is putting a more durable unit in front of a less durable one to ensure survivability, in the way that Rhino’s are often found behind heavier tanks. More subtle players recognize the value of those same Rhino’s ability to function as a “moving wall” that can be used to block enemy line-of-sight. I’m sure most of us are aware that Land Speeders are excellent for zooming in front of enemy units and blocking assaults; this is the same idea. Anything that diverts an enemies function and mission is a “distraction” by our definition.
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| by Danny Internets | June 26th, 2010 - 10:50 am
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When Jawaballs and I were still preparing for ‘Ard Boyz we discussed how valuable Brother Corbulo could be in his army, not because he’s a slightly more effective Sanguinary Priest, but because of his ability to greatly increase your chances of going first. Jawa was using a firepower-oriented list at the time with loads of Razorbacks and Predators so it was very advantageous to be able to go first and destroy or at least temporarily neutralize more threatening targets such as Vendettas, Stormravens, Predators, etc.
Early on in 5th edition going second was all the rage, but more lately there’s been a shift towards first turn favoritism. I think it started with the release of the IG codex. While Space Marines are (and always were) capable of fielding huge numbers of guns, most people are too tempted to run Assault Terminators and special characters for their brute strength. These units can be and often are excellent, but they are built to endure and don’t fit into the whole “shock and awe” alpha strike theme. Dark Eldar and Tau can also put scary numbers of guns down on the table, but both are rare enough to have a negligible impact on the game’s overall play style. It wasn’t until the new Imperial Guard was released and Vendettas got built that first turn meant so much. When 390 points worth of models can reliably cripple 3 targets from the very start people start to re-think their tried-and-true strategies.
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| by Danny Internets | March 16th, 2010 - 7:17 pm
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Hi Dan,
I was really intrigued by your Salamanders 1750 point list and how it works, I’ve been looking for a nice competitive list at the 1750 point level because I’m tired of spending money on mistakes…my first and most glaring was a 2k point Deathwing army.
I was interested in maybe adopting this list because I like the idea of a close range shooting army with a fast delivery system on top of putting that crucial sliver of psychological doubt in the opponent in the second turn. I also have always loved the lore of the Salamanders and so before I saw this list I knew I wanted to use Vulkan for a new project in some way already.
My question is how do you use the Vindicators when the rest of the army is engaging in close range actions, isn’t there risk of wandering template syndrome? Or do you use them as out flankers to take care of isolated units?
Additionally, do you include Vulkan in one of the drop pods to ensure he comes in on the first turn? And if so do you worry about him getting destroyed with the tac squads?
Any info on this would be great!
Thanks
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| by Danny Internets | January 13th, 2010 - 8:50 am
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ARTICLE UPDATE:
On January 20th, a new version of the Space Wolves FAQ was released that reversed the ruling made regarding the combination of counter-attack and furious charge. The reversal now concludes definitively that the counter-attack does NOT trigger the bonuses associated with the furious charge universal special rule.
Presumably, this was done because of the unanticipated side effects that the ruling would have both for Tervigon swarms and IG Straken infantry blobs. It’s a good ruling that’s consistent with how most people play the game and settles the issue once and for all. I’ve decided to leave the article up because the Tervigon mathhammering is still applicable, and because the unit remains the premiere selection in the codex.
On the eve of the 5th edition Tyranid codex release, it looks like GW is poised to drop their third top-notch quality codex in a row. While I don’t think the Tyranid book will throw them into the same competitive level as IG and Space Wolves, anything that improves upon the crapfest that is their current army is a giant leap in the right direction.
A few weeks ago, a scanned copy of the new codex leaked from stores in Germany and perhaps the first stand-out unit apparent to everyone was the Tervigon. In addition to being an affordable monstrous creature that can count as Troops and spawn new units, the Tervigon also serves as a potent force multiplier for all nearby Termagaunt units. With the appropriate loadout, these beasts are giving counter-attack, synapse, Ld10, furious charge, and poisoned attacks to an infinite number of critters, albeit within a small radius. Sounds good? Yes, it does. But that’s not the half of it.
Last week, GW released an extremely comprehensive FAQ for their last codex release, the Space Wolves. In it they included the following gem:
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| by Danny Internets | October 30th, 2009 - 9:49 pm
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In order to examine the differences between players concerned with winning and players concerned with competing it is necessary to take a look at the various paths towards victory in Warhammer 40,000. I categorize these methods into 6 inter-connected domains: (1) Strategy, (2) Tactics, (3) Match-up, (4) Mistakes, (5) Luck, and (6) Cheating. This article examines the first four.
Strategy
Strategy is your over-arching framework, your master plan from the point of conception of your army. Strategy begins with list building which in turn determines what assets your army will have at its disposal and, by extension, what you can or cannot hope to accomplish. Your choices will impact how you play 40k and they should always be made with fulfilling mission goals in mind. Each and every selection will affect the vital balancing act that is army composition.
Because mission goals are normally unknown at the outset of each match, whether rolled for randomly in a pickup game or kept secret prior to tournament rounds, strategy has a necessary fluid component. Based on the scenario presented to us we must be able to evaluate the abilities of our list, the abilities of the opposing list, and commit to a course of action that will lead to fulfillment of the victory conditions. This often involves identification and leverage of strengths, but can also include psychological elements, such as misdirection and surprise. Some strategies are geared towards combating a list and others towards combating an opponent—both are valid, effective, and can be employed concurrently.
An example of a employing a strategy would be building a mechanized, Chimera-based Imperial Guard list and pushing your tank line forward to establish a line of scrimmage on the enemy’s side of the board. In an objective-based mission this would ensure that you have control over the battlefield and, hopefully, the majority of the objectives. Leveraging your mechanized strengths (durability and volume) you can make it very difficult for the enemy to break through your line and reach objectives in later turns.
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| by Danny Internets | July 6th, 2009 - 12:09 pm
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Over the holiday weekend I managed to get the first 2 of 3 planned practice games in with my Troopzilla list in preparation for the ‘Ard Boyz tournament on Saturday. I would have liked to get more in, but real life has been calling and my fiancé will kick my ass if I don’t answer (we all need a good ass-kicking from time to time).
On Friday morning, Charlie brought his boards over to my apartment and we squared off against each other in the Drawn and Quartered mission slated for game 3 of the upcoming tournament. The scenario is a modified version of Capture and Control using Spearhead deployment and kill points as a secondary objective to determine the extent of victory (massacre/major/minor). I can’t help but think that the title of the scenario is a good-humored jab at the writers of Capture and Control, which is frequently referred to as the “draw” mission. The modifications are great though, and it is hands-down my favorite of the first round.
I played my Troopzilla list with some slight modifications, swapping out extra armor and heavy flamers for twin-linked lascannons on both Chaos Dreadnoughts and trimming some fat from the CSM units.
Charlie’s army used the Space Marine codex as its primary, but made heavy use of Daemonhunters allies. He was rocking the following list (roughly):
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| by Danny Internets | June 23rd, 2009 - 11:35 am
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For 32 points, an allied (Daemon Hunters) Ordo Malleus Inquisitor and 2 Mystics is a no-brainer for most competitive Imperial Guard armies. This seemingly insignificant throw-away unit can make a properly outfitted army virtually unassailable via deep striking units. Because my Salamanders army is entirely reliant on the deep strike rules, figuring out how to overcome Mystics has become a chief concern, and Imperial Guard are hard enough to beat as it is.
The Inquisitor + Mystics combo is indeed powerful, but, like any strategy, it has weaknesses that can be exploited by a savvy opponent. As always, the first step to beating this tactic is to understand the rules that come into play.
Expect the Inquisition: Know the Mystic Rules
A single Mystic allows the inquisitorial unit to fire upon any unit which deep strikes within 4D6″ after it lands but before it takes any actions. Pretty pointless unless you take Warrior henchmen with special weapons.
The real nastiness is when you take 2 Mystics. Taking two allows any unit within 12″ of the unit containing the Mystics to fire on a unit deep striking within 4D6″ (of the Mystics’ unit). Keep them within a foot of a Leman Russ Executioner and anything landing near your army is deader than dead. It’s especially deadly because the shots are fired before you can use the Run rule to spread out.
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