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.

If you have a unit of five terminators, and you need to make five saves, rolling five sixes isn’t better than any other saves.  There’s no bonus for it.  You don’t get any tougher, even though you rolled on the highest end of the probability chart.  However, if you roll five ones… ouch.  Goodbye unit.  Harsh.  And remember, even if you are very lucky make your saves with high numbers, you don’t gain any real long-term benefit.  So ouch.  Each time we roll a set of saves, there’s the possibility of rolling on the bad end, and losing everything, or rolling on the high end and gaining nothing.  And each time we roll we’re opened up to the possibility of the crappy end of the curve.  It’s a crappy gamble, and a gamble that keeps getting made as long as the unit is alive.

This is why veteran players talk about units that “unlock” at certain points levels… what they’re talking about is the smallest points level where a bad round of rolling that decimates an elites unit doesn’t also decimate your army.  Having Sanguinary Guard is great, but if you brought them in 1000 points and you lose three to bolt pistols, you’ve just lost a very significant portion of your army to a bad roll.

In fact it’s worse than just the bad roll, because elite units have a deceptively high cost.  To be effective, they can’t just be running free on their own, they need support.  That’s why a five man Assault Terminator squad isn’t really 200 points… it’s more like 500+.  You need terminators, you need a delivery system (which is either very risky free teleportation or the very reliable but expensive Land Raider) and you need the support that will crack open transports so your terminators have something to actually fight.  If we lose an elite unit to a bad roll when we’ve brought 25+% of our list based around it, that’s crippling.

It’s easy to get seduced by shiny toys and “super units”, but before you commit, ask yourself if that unit is worth gambling your army on.  Reliability and effectiveness are the 2 big things to consider when taking a unit.  This isn’t to say that elite units are bad, (though they do tend to be in a surprising amount of cases) but rather that they need to be taken in very small doses and only if their impact on the lists construction is minor.  (IE the support they need is already in the list.)

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.

A force multiplieris a strategic concept.  Basically, the idea is that a unit contributes more than its nominal value.  This is most easily seen when you have two units that help each other.  For instance, a Psyker Battle Squad is normally an okay unit, it has decent offensive power, but it really starts to shine when coupled with other units.  A PBS and an artillery unit can easily pin enemy units, which can be much more valuable than killing a few with soulstorm.  A PBS can be used with infantry, lowering moral and making dangerous enemy melee units retreat from a few casualties instead of murdering your forces, and allowing those same forces to bring their increased offensive power to bear.  The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Alright, so what units fit what list?  Here’s where it gets complicated, so lets break it down.

You have three kinds of units in any list:

1. Key units.  These are troops in objective games, or (typically) your most offensively powerful units in annihilation.  They are the units that NEED to be able to do their thing, or you cannot win.
2. Offensive units.  You need to be able to kill the enemy, and that is what these units do.  Without offensive power you can’t push the enemy around, and you can’t win.
3. Support units.  These units are there to help other units perform better.

It’s easy to build a list with a lot of key units (just bring a lot of troops) and with a lot of offensive units.  What’s difficult is figuring out what support units are required, and how much of each type of unit to bring.

This is where our strategy comes in.  Remember in 40k, only one thing matters: the mission, the mission, the mission.  So when you build your list,  start with that concept in mind: what am I going to be doing on the battlefield?  Am I building a fast attack force that is made to throw the enemy off balance and keep them there?  Am I building an aggressive “rock” list that brings hard close-range units that cannot be ignored, while the rest of my army accomplishes objectives?  Am I building a ranged list that relies on heavy firepower and movement blocking to eliminate the enemy?  Each of these lists has very different demands, and gets very different utility out of units.

So to start, we need good core units.  If we can’t achieve the win conditions, what good is anything else?  When we look at core units, we want three things: they need to be resilient, they need to be mobile and they need to be capable of handling general threats.  Resiliency can mean several things.  It could be that the squad has a good armor save, in the case of space marines, or that they can remain out of combat until they are needed to score, like many eldar units.  The point is that they need to survive.  Mobility is simple as well: transports are your friend.  Scoring is of no use if the squad is stranded away from an objective!  Finally, the squad does need some kind of output: if they can’t fight anything, then they don’t contribute to the army much as a whole, and they can be easily tied up/wiped out by enemy forces, though some cheap and quick squads can get away without this.  Which core units we choose is very much dependant on the strategy of our list: fast lists demand very fast core units, defensive list demand very resilient core units, assault lists demand a mix of cheap backfield scoring and hard assault core units.

Next we have offensive units.  If you can’t push your enemy around, you can’t fight a war.  Offensive units do one thing very well: damage in large, quick doses.  Artillery, heavy tanks, and especially elite assault units all excel at this role.  These units have the opposite mission of your core units: instead of trying to stay alive to claim objectives, they are there to control the battlespace.  It doesn’t matter if an offensive unit dies if it means that you control the tempo of battle and your opponent is thrown off balance.  Which offensive units you want also depend on army strategy: a gunline army should invest in tanks, a fast attack army should invest in hard melee units.  The most important thing to consider when taking offensive units is this: when I engage with this unit, how close will the rest of my army be?  If the answer is “not at all”, you probably want to skip that unit.  One land raider rushing forward while the rest of the marine army sits and shoots is not an offense, it’s a joke.

Finally, we have our support units.

Generally, you can eliminate any unit that doesn’t fit your armies overall theme.  For instance, if you are a fast attack army, don’t take slow units.  Duh.  What isn’t so obvious is what support units you need to bring, and how they may differ from the standard units you are already bringing.  For instance, a Space Marine bike army benefits greatly from the presence of a Bike Command squad kitted out for melee combat.  Initially, that’s a little weird: a hard melee unit in what is otherwise a very fast and ranged army.  It’s better than it appears, however, because it gives the army the ability to deal with something it previously couldn’t: enemy melee units.  Instead of simply giving up a squad every time they get charged by one of these units, they can now be saved.  The Bike Command Squad is an excellent support unit, because it allows the rest of the army to function more efficiently by covering a major weakness.

An even more obvious example is any unit with an autocannon.  Autocannons are not good for killing infantry, they are not good for killing tanks.  They only excel at one area, and that’s killing transports.  They don’t score or murder armies, but they demechanize the enemy, allowing for the offensive units to prey on the squads inside and your core units to escape and maneuver with their now superior mobility.

This also ties nicely into last weeks topic: distraction units are excellent support units.  By messing with the enemies ability to react, your own battle plan will go much smoother, even if those units aren’t actually killing anything.

The easiest way to find the good support units you need, I have found, is to approach the list without point values in mind.  This will enable you to find the areas you want to cover, and then substitute cost-appropriate units in to fill the role.  For instance, lets say I am making a space marine “counterattack” army, that is primarily ranged based and built for a rapid forward rush during the last few turns.  Call the point value 2000-2500, but I’ll ignore that for now, it’s just a baseline.  I want tactical squads in razorbacks, (with heavy weapons sitting outside) heavy damage units of some kind (probably vindicators in this list) heavy weapons to bust transports and stun heavy tanks (Devestators) and an HQ that will assist in the counterattack.  (default HQ for marines should be librarian.)  Hmm, it would be great, however, if I could have something that could reliably kill hidden artillery and entrenched infantry with heavy weapons.  Assault squads are great at that, so lets assume that too.

Now, we can look at point values.  Tactical squads have to be there, so good.  Vindicators can take ‘em or leave ‘em, but they’re pretty cheap and we only need 2 if it comes down to it.  Uh oh, but devastators are very expensive for heavy weapons, and we don’t really have heavy support slots to spare.  Luckily, there’s another option in our ‘dex: Sternguard can take 2 heavy weapons in a five man squad at very reasonable prices, and are elites to boot.  Since we’re now taking Sternguard in significant numbers, Pedro is a pretty good HQ choice, and his +1 attack aura is extremely valuable when we charge the squads we weakened with firing during our counterattack.  Finally, we have assault marines.  They’re terribly expensive, but we can sub reasonably with Land Speeders.  We won’t be as good against entrenched infantry, but hopefully we can hurt them a bit, and we pay less for a broader range of utility.

Now, we have something that looks a bit more like a competitive army.  It may be a bit lacking in the strategy department (it relies on an opponent that will come towards you) but at least what it does it will do very well.  This is how good players find good units: by not taking the obvious choices and looking for units that will fill the same role for less points than their traditional counterparts.  After a lot of list building, and a lot of trial and error, a few units rise to the top time and time again as the really good buys.  Some units are just too good to pass up.  (Lookin’ at you, Long Fangs!)

The thing to watch out for, when building and playing like this, is that you avoid falling into a pattern.  If you find the “best” units in your codex and only play those, you miss out on a lot of opportunities and ultimately weaken your game.  Remember, synergy is more important than simple point cost.  Units that aren’t great in some lists really shine in others, because they fulfil a distinct niche.  Nob Bikers weren’t found because a bunch of people pored over the rulebook, found them and declared them great, and then everyone used them.  No, they exploded out of nowhere because some guy gave them a shot, figured them out and then blitzed a bunch of tournaments.  Now people are used to them and they aren’t really a threat.  Same deal with the “Leaf Blower” guard list.  It’s good, but it’s common knowledge now, played against by almost everyone constantly, and is now average.

It turns out that the best units in a codex will only carry you so far, and that taking an army with good synergy is superior to taking one made up of only the best units.  There are many units which are suboptimal in many players traditional experience, yet shine when given the right circumstances.  You can’t find all these units and combos by looking at online lists and knowledge, you have to go play!  If you only follow the knowledge of the net, you end up one step behind what is actually happening.  By taking new units and exploring new strategies you broaden the way you play, and trip across effective, and unknown, combos.

That’s what really makes a unit good.  When it wins you games.  It doesn’t matter if it’s expensive if you won.  It doesn’t matter if it’s traditionally thought of as “bad” if you won.  Nothing else matters, except for the mission, the mission, the mission.  So look at your units, find the ones you need to build a winning strategy, and streamline it.  You’ll be building brutal lists in no time.

Part 1 was yesterday, you should read it first.

So now, back to my original question: what makes a distraction unit good?

1. The unit needs to be able to reliably perform its duties.

2. 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?

The opportunity cost in this one is obvious: whatever portion of your army you send away will not be present to fight at the main battle. Therefore, you want to send an amount of your army that will draw away a greater percentage of the enemy than the men you sent. If you send 5% of your forces, and the enemy sends 8%, that’s a win and you have improved your circumstances. If they send equal or less than you have, then you have not benefited at all.

This is why Land Raiders make poor distraction units. A Land Raider is usually around 250 points, or 12.5% of a 2000 point army. That is a very significant chunk of your force right there. In fact, losing it severely damages your force, probably more than losing whatever it died to protect, say a tactical squad that is worth 170 or 8.5%. Losing 12.5% of your army to protect 8.5% is a crappy trade. On the other hand, losing a Multi-Melta/Heavy Flamer Land Speeder (3.5%) to protect that same 8.5% tactical squad is a great deal.

The same deal applies when using a vehicle to block line of sight, or stacking heavy vehicles in front of lighter ones. We are preventing the enemy units from completing their objectives, losing them valuable resources while maintaining efficiency in our own army.

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Alright, enough fancy talk, let’s look at a couple actual units and see why they may not be all they’re cracked up to be.

To start, we have the supposed ultimate “distraction vehicle”, the Vindicator tank. Cheap(ish), offensively powerful, and begging to be shot on the side armor, the Vindicator is the first thing most people will shoot at when they see it across the table. It is often hawked for this very reason: the opponent will shoot at it instead of the rest of your army.

The first problem is that a smart opponent will still target the important bits of the army, Vindicator or no. The Vindicator cannot “force” itself on the opponent and force him to target it. It relies on an unreliable ruse and so it fails the first of our criteria, in that it can’t reliably perform its duties.

The other problem is that the Vindicator tends to die fast, and really isn’t cheap enough to trade for a few anti-tank rounds. In fact, they die so quickly to concentrated fire that most people recommend taking at least 2 (preferably 3) or none at all. In addition, it will only really protect other tanks that are not an offensive threat, which isn’t a lot in a Space Marine list. (Remember, Rhino’s are very offensively powerful because they ferry marines.) It fails criteria 2, because it probably isn’t cheaper than whatever it’s trying to stop, if it can stop it at all.

Our next unit is the Imperial Guard “blob” squad. For our purposes, we will assume a 40 man combined infantry platoon with a commissar, and five power weapons. It comes in at a cool 285 points. Ouch. Well, lets see if it’s any good, at least.

First off, can it reliably perform it’s duties of distraction? Well… yes. Yes it can. 40 men can spread to cover a lot of area, can prevent close deep strikes to the guards expensive tanks, can block a large portion of the line from assault (especially enemy fast first-strike assault units) and tends to tarpit any unit that actually stops to engage it. In addition, it is a scoring unit, so in objective games the opponent cannot afford to try and ignore it. It gets an A on our first criteria.

But what about cost? 285 is a lot of points, and we scoff at people using a 250 point Land Raider as a distraction, but… the comparison is not quite the same. The blob squad is a lot better at it’s job of distraction, for one thing, and for another it provides a lot more protection while doing it. That squad can cover the majority of an army, and prevent an enemy from closing with important but vulnerable support units. In addition, it takes a lot of any kind of firepower to kill the blob squad, while the raider is vulnerable to any single high-strength attack. So, even though it is expensive, it also gets an A on being cheaper than what it’s trying to stop. (In this case, fast assault and close anti-tank units that are trying to get at our really valuable stuff.)

This isn’t to say that a Vindicator should never be included in a list, and the “blob” squad should always be, it’s a matter of how the list is constructed and played; which dramatically affects how well the unit can act as a distraction.  An infantry platoon, for example, is a terrible choice for an army that is built to be fast and go for the throat; it will be left behind and be unable to perform its function.  (And now it starts failing criteria 1…)  That being said, there are some distraction units that are so good for their cost (Land Speeder, anyone?) that not taking them is almost a criminal offense against your list.

So how can you tell which units are good for your list?  Unfortunitly, the only advice I can offer here is “experience”.  Try out different units, see what can reliably work, and always, always keep an eye on what you’re giving up.

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You’ve got the idea now, so put it into practice! The top players are all masters of distraction units, knowing what to sacrifice and when is perhaps the most important skill to master in 40k.

See you next Tuesday!

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.

There is, however, another layer to this. That layer is one of cost. To understand this better, let’s delve into economics for a moment. Economists like to use the term opportunity cost; and it’s the opportunity cost of a distraction unit that determines if it is a good choice for the role. Opportunity cost is a very simple concept: the opportunity cost of something is what you give up to get it.

You are already very familiar with this concept as a 40k player, you take it into account every time you build an army list. (Or at least you should!) You are limited in the number of HQ, Elites, Troops, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support options in your army. An army which is especially pressured by this concept is the Imperial Guard in their heavy support section. Guard have a lot of good heavy support choices (the Leman Russ, Demolisher, Executioner, Hydra Flak Tank, Basilisk, Medusa, Colossus, and Manticore are all deadly) but they only have three heavy support options available to them. So, when a guard player chooses to take a Manticore, and 2 Hydra Squadrons the cost is really more than the points. The opportunity cost is the Leman Russ tanks and artillery that he can no longer select. If he had taken Leman Russ tanks instead of Hydra’s, he the opportunity cost would be artillery and Hydras, as well as whatever Leman Russ variants he did not bring. What this opportunity cost means in practical terms is that you can’t bring everything. Your powerful units are not only limited in number; each one you bring also limits their contemporaries in number. At an even broader level, opportunity cost is simply this: anything you spend points on means that you can’t buy something else.

However, opportunity cost doesn’t stop there, it is present on the tabletop, throughout the entire game. Whenever a unit does (or doesn’t) do something there is a cost there. The easiest to see is the choice of running: either you can shoot, or you can run. The opportunity cost for each is the other. When you move a squad, the opportunity cost is firing a heavy weapon. Sick of me beating this concept into your head? Good. That means you’ve got it.

This is more important on the tabletop than most players realize, because the simple fact of the matter is this: every action has very large opportunity costs. 40K is played with a very limited set of resources, even more limited than it first appears. Each unit is not only restricted by point values, but it is restricted in action as well. There are only 5-7 turns in a standard game, which means that each of your units gets 5-7 moves, 5-7 shooting phases, and 10-14 assault phases. (Though that seeming number discrepancy is something to discuss at another time.) Each time a unit is not utilized in a phase is wasted resources. The timer is ticking, and the opportunity cost is high.

This brings us full circle back to the original point of this article: distraction units. Remember our definition? “An obstacle to attention.” Now, we can really see why these units are so useful: they drive up our opponents opportunity costs!

Take, for example, the common event of a Tau Piranha jumping in front of an assault unit (we’ll call them Khorne Berserkers) to stop them from smashing into some fire warriors next turn. Usually, the Chaos player doesn’t much mind, takes out the Piranha (or runs around it) and gets at the fire warriors next turn. Sure, he takes one extra round of shooting, but that’s not so bad, after all, the fire warriors will probably only kill about 2.

Actually, the chaos player has lost a lot more than just a few men to shooting. His Berserkers didn’t get to engage, and he lost a full turn of close combat and movement. In a six turn game, that means that those Berserkers just lost 17% of their damage and movement potential, in a trade for… potentially a cheap skimmer. Ouch. Bet our Tau player’s happy.

Of course, it’s unrealistic to think in terms of these numbers all the time, but it does get the idea across. If we can delay our opponent’s units from doing what they’re good at, there’s a massive return.

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Part 2 is tomorrow, see you then!

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.

Equally as important as the release of IG have been all of the armies since then. Thanks to minimum-sized Wolf Guard squads, Space Wolves can do Razorback spam better than anyone else via the Maximum Overdrive template, variants of which can end some games almost before they begin. Tyranids often prefer the first turn not just with assault-based builds (for obvious reasons), but also when integrating more shooting units due to their naturally short range. And while Blood Angels have access to a huge number of capable assault units, perhaps their greatest assets are their fast-moving gun platforms. Many of the most effective builds from the last four consecutive army releases want to either move or shoot first by default–whether this is an intentional shift in game design or mere coincidence, getting the first turn is becoming increasingly important.

When do you want first turn?

It should be noted that even when you’re running one of the army archetypes singled out above you don’t necessarily need or even want the first turn. The scenario always takes precedence as does the build of your opponent’s army. Dawn of War deployment without Night Fight rules, such as in the third ‘Ard Boyz scenario at the 2010 semi-finals, would prompt most people to take second turn. Similarly, players traditionally want first turn in Annihilation missions unless someone is making extensive use of reserves. Objectives missions are where things get a little more tricky.

To decide if you want to take the first turn take a look at your army.

• Can your assault units take an extra turn of shooting as they cross the board?
• Do you have copious long-range firepower?
• Is your army reserves-based (ie, drop pods, webway portals, outflanking)?
• How well can you make use of the terrain in your deployment zone?
• Are you planning on pulling a turn 5 Fritz maneuver?

Now look at your opponent’s army:

• If his army is packed with durable units but not a lot of long or medium-range firepower then it would be worthwhile to consider taking the second turn. Without lots of ranged weapons you don’t risk much by being shot and you simultaneously deny him the opportunity to ninja cap objectives on the bottom of turn 5/6/7. Also, if you’re not able to eliminate his more durable units, such as Terminators, you can instead bully them with your vehicles. What you can’t kill, tank shock.
• Is he rocking 10 Razorbacks or half a dozen Vendettas? Take first turn to prevent being forcibly disembarked (or gunned down) in your deployment zone. If he holds his guns in reserve it will deny them at least a full turn of shooting while you can target other things and take the opportunity to pop smoke, take cover, and move forward.
• Is he using relatively frail units that rely on being transported (IG, Orks)? If you’ve got what it takes to blast those transports and make him walk, do so.
• Are you going up against a Seer Council? Farseers need to be on the table at the start of the turn to cast their psychic powers. Going second puts Eldar players in a tough spot because it means they will need to suffer a turn of shooting without Fortune. Use this opportunity to shoot small arms fire into the unit and kill off a few hundred points of Warlocks and force a leadership test.

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

On January 20^th, 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 5^th 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:

Q. Picture this: My Grey Hunters unit including Ragnar Blackmane is assaulted and makes a successful Leadership test to Counter-attack. Do they then benefit from his Furious Charge ability (+1 S and +1 I)? Also, can the original assaulter then deploy defensive grenades to rob the Space Wolves of their Counter-attack bonus.

A. The Counter-attack special rule states ‘all models in the unit get the +1 assault bonus to their attacks, exactly as if they too had assaulted that turn.’ Therefore Ragnar’s unit does indeed benefit from Furious Charge. Also, we think it is a bit rich for an assaulting unit to get the bonus for attacking and defending, so no, defensive grenades cannot be used to negate the bonus attack from counter-attacking.

The question of whether or not Counter-attack triggers Furious Charge has now been definitively answered: yes. One small step for gray Vikings, one giant fucking leap for man-eating bugs.

How exactly does this impact Tyranids? Refer back to the Tervigon and notice that the model is capable of granting not only Counter-attack and Furious Charge, but also Ld10 to ensure that the Counter-attack leadership check is passed. Relative to the points they cost, that’s a truckload of hurt coming your way. Oh, and they’re armed with S4 AP5 assault weapons.

Let’s go over the math of bugs getting charged by MEQs:

That’s a FIVE-FOLD increase in offensive power in addition to the less quantifiable but equally valuable benefit of killing attackers before they’re able to strike (I5 versus I4 from Furious Charge). Jack that up by another 50% by throwing in a Hive Tyrant with Ancient Enemy to get the Preferred Enemy bonus and revel in the uberness of your free throwaway Troop units.

And just how many bugs can you expect to create with a Tervigon anyway? With 10.5 Termagaunts spawned on average per attempt and a 44% chance to burnout, the answer is a lot:

Rounding to the nearest bug, you can expect to generate 23 Termagants over the course of a game for each Tervigon that you can keep alive, which shouldn’t be exceedingly hard to do given their T6 W6 Sv3+ profile and the ability to grant Feel No Pain. With 5 Tervigons on the field you will generate 112 free models (+30 more bought as Troops) all of whom can claim objectives and wreck face in the presence of a Brood Father and/or Hive Tyrant.

Now that’s not to say that a 5 Tervigon list will be effective, but it has a brutal and overwhelming appeal to it. It’s a gimmick list like any other and is unlikely to fare well in an all-comers tournament environment, however it is also incredibly hard to beat in Sieze Ground scenarios. Perhaps the biggest challenge will be Capture & Control due to the fact that mobs of infantry do not move quickly across even open terrain.

As for myself, having recently playtested a 4 Tervigon list against Brother Captain James, who has been very successful in local tournaments, I’m leaning more towards taking 3 and investing the leftover points in more mobile units that can hope to contest home base objectives that inevitably find their way into a corners of the board. 100 furiously charging, poisoned gaunts is still nothing to sneeze at.

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.

Tactics

Complementary to the broadly conceived master plan are the details-oriented tactics which are used to ensure the plan is carried out. Tactics are micro-strategies grounded in a low-level application of the rules. The best plan in the world is useless if you can’t figure out  how to make it work. Similarly, being detail-oriented without direction is equally doomed to fail. If you expect to beat competent opponents you must be capable of both coming up with adaptable plans and have the tools to set them in motion.

When I say “tools” I am really speaking of rules knowledge. Warhammer 40,000 is a game composed entirely of complex interactions between large numbers of rules pertaining to physical objects (models). Yes, the game is an approximation of science fiction warfare, but it is only that: an abstraction. Knowing how things function in real life has no bearing on how things play out in a game where evil robots and space aliens alternate turns murdering each other with laser cannons and psychic powers. However, understanding basic logic and knowing the individual rules gives you a distinct advantage of those who do not. It’s important to note that both of these traits are universally available to everyone with average intelligence and the willingness to put forth a even a modicum of effort. Because everyone is capable of developing this competency, exercising it becomes a fair part (in fact, integral part) of the game.

Continuing with the example put forth previously, let’s say one of the Chimeras on the end of the tank wall suffers a Vehicle Destroyed result by an assault-oriented unit shooting it at close range. The unit embarked must now disembark within range of the rear access point, however there are any number of ways that this unit can now be positioned even within the two-inch bubble. Knowledge of the rules becomes invaluable here as many players are unaware that the models each individually must be within 2”, but only partially so. Using this knowledge, the IG player can place the unit wholly on the side of the wrecked Chimera furthest from the attacking unit, outside of its 6” charge range. Not only does this prevent a charge, but it guarantees that the unit will be targetable in the following Shooting Phase.

Match-up

In any game system featuring distinct factions there will naturally be some that are better than others across domains. Even in a perfectly balanced rules set it is impossible to completely eliminate the rock-paper-scissors factor. Obviously, Warhammer 40,000 is not perfectly balanced and there are many match-ups which are heavily weighted in favor of one side winning over the other, even with all others factors being equal. For instance, take Necrons. Take them and drop kick them right out a third story window.

The hypothetical IG army suits our purposes again. Mechanized Imperial Guard excels in games versus opponents that struggle against vehicles, especially those who need to use assault troops as their can-openers. With players of equal skill, equally powerful lists, and equal luck, the IG player should be able to take out most Daemon and Ork armies with little effort. Likewise, well-built and well-played Dark Eldar (i.e., dark lance-heavy) will utterly crush IG armor spam.

Match-up is somewhat distinct from luck, but there are overlapping considerations. Most of the time our opponents are not selected at random, and we always have the discretion of turning down a match. In tournaments we have less control over who we face, especially in the first round where pairings are usually random. While all armies have good and bad match-ups, one of the most important features of a “good” army list is its ability to compete with a wide variety of opposing forces. Poorly designed lists (by virtue of being one-trick ponies or just plain sucktastic) will either have more direct counters or will be countered more efficiently. Consequently, more often than not, what players attribute to bad match-up luck is really rooted in bad army list design.

Mistakes

We all make mistakes, which are distinct from poor decisions. A poor decision is assuming your IG list doesn’t need any assault units; a mistake is forgetting to fire your Vendetta during the Shooting Phase. A poor decision is taking heavy flamers on your Crisis Suits; a mistake is forgetting that the unit you’re about to tank shock has three meltaguns in it. Often, a single mistake can determine how an entire game plays out, especially if that mistake is made at the game’s outset or during a critical turn.

You can minimize mistakes by exercising your 40k muscle (i.e., practicing), but, being merely human, you’ll never completely eradicate your own propensity to screw up. Just try and make less mistakes than the other guy.

(On deck: Part IV – Lucky You)

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):

Grand Master – Psychic hood, psycannon

Chaplain

5 Grey Knight Terminators (retinue) – Incinerator (x2?)

10 Grey Knights – Psycannon x2

10 Grey Knights – Psycannon x2

10 Tactical Space Marines – Lascannon, meltagun, Rhino

10 Tactical Space Marines – Lascannon, meltagun, Rhino

3 Attack Bikes (one squad) – Multimelta x3

Land Raider

Land Raider Redeemer

Land Raider Redeemer

I don’t have pictures of the game, so instead I’ll just cherry-pick some of the important parts in order to highlight the worthwhile tactics.

Deployment

I won the roll and chose to go second, with the intention of attempting to steal the initiative (which I failed to do).

My army has no fast elements apart from the bikes, and they’re just suiciding meltaguns so I don’t expect them to survive past turn 3. Because of my speed (or lack thereof), I need to commit my units early on and in response to what my opponent places. This was especially important for this game because S6 Grey Knight Terminators + Grand Master have no way of dealing with AV12 walkers. By allowing him to go first I risked eating 4 lascannons plus whatever the Redeemers could throw at me, but I needed to know where those GKT’s were going before I set down my Dreads and Defilers.

Charlie spaced out his LRs evenly with the standard variant in the center, set further back. The LRR with GKT’s was on my left while the other LRR with standard GK’s was on the far right. Noting this deployment, I set up all 5 walkers opposing the GKT LRR, with the intention of rushing it and then making the Grand Master + expensive retinue useless. I also stuck a unit of Plague Marines + Sorcerer and Chaos Space Marines on this flank to secure the objective. The Berserkers and everything else went on the right so they could overwhelm his outnumbered forces and at least contest the second objective through prolonged MEQ combat.

The Game (briefly)

Charlie’s first turn of shooting was uneventful, save for exploding a single Defiler. He advanced both Redeemers and moved the bikes up 12″, out of LOS (turbo-boosting would have required an 18″ move, which would have taken him right into Defiler charge range).

I opened my turn with what was probably my smartest play of the entire game. I moved one of my bike squads up 12″ directly towards his Attack Bikes and then managed to get a charge off on them around the corner of some terrain. Charlie had expected me to go after the LRR since the unit had 2 meltaguns, but I knew that neutralizing the bikes would convey a much larger advantage.

From the start of the game, I knew the bikes would be a pain in the ass. S8, AP1, 24″ range means they don’t even need the 2D6 penetration to reliably kill 1 vehicle per turn, and there’s no way I’ll be able to charge them. Charlie is an excellent player, so I knew he’d be smart enough to keep them on the flank and force me to dedicate units to killing them, which would reduce the amount of support I could lend to the real action. By tying them up I could extend the movement of my walkers via assault moves and prevent myself from being shot. Better yet, Charlie couldn’t do anything about it without letting out his full GM+retinue to deal with the threat, which I would then slaughter with Defilers and Dreadnoughts.

On Turn 2 Charlie decided it was time to get the hell out of dodge, so he took his LRR over to assist the other LRR, which was about to get hit with a whole lot of melta. Shooting was fairly ineffective again, with a few stun/shaken results against Defilers and Rhinos alike. I then popped his LRR, lashed the GKs inside, then killed a bunch with a battlecannon shot. The unit went to ground, but still took heavy losses.

Charlie retaliated by bringing his GM+retinue to bear on my Chaos Space Marines and bikers who had taken out the LRR. He easily dispatched both units, then took a counter-charge from both units of Berserkers. The Chaplain+GKs joined the fray soon after, but I was ultimately victorious, leaving me with about 7 Berserkers left (in 2 different units).

During this time Charlie’s other GKs mounted up in the LR (they had been deployed on foot to shoot their psycannons at Rhino) and moved toward my left objective, with my Defilers, CSM’s, and PM’s waiting. His Rhinos remained in the backfield just firing lascannons, which was a serious blunder. Had they moved up and supported his GKs they might have been able to level the playing field against the exposed Berserkers.

We had to end the game a little early due to a prior engagement of mine, but the outcome was pretty clear by the end of Turn 5 and my opponent conceded defeat. We were both playing these lists for the first time, and it was a well-played game overall.

Charlie is easily one of the best players in our club. His only weakness is perhaps confidence in his abilities, which probably stems from his lack of tournament experience. Fortunately, our club has some very capable players, so he’s a lot better prepared than he thinks. While I think previous iterations of his list were superior, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Charlie placing in the top 3 on game day by virtue of his tactical acumen.

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.

Making things worse is the fact that you can embark the Mystics in a transport, which means that the 4D6″ is now measured from the hull of the vehicle, thereby increasing its range. (Using a Valkyrie for this is pointless because the height of the model subtracts several inches from the range, which is, on average, only 14″.)

How to Beat it

Having 5 plasma cannons thrown at your deep striking units before they can do anything can really ruin your day, but there are always ways to counter the counter.

Firstly, in order to maximize coverage by a unit of Mystics it is crucial to castle your army intelligently. 4D6″ will yield an average 14″ radius of coverage. A circle 28″ in diameter can seem like a lot, but the space is filled very quickly by a mechanized Imperial Guard force, and a buffer must be kept to prevent precision deep striking just outside the area of effect, but still within melta range.

Smart opponents will keep important, vulnerable targets (namely Heavy Support) and objectives well within the predicted Mystic range, however most 40k players aren’t that savvy. Identifying errors in deep strike defense is crucial for any army that makes use of the rule, particularly when Mystics are involved. Look for targets of opportunity on the fringes of the 14″ zone and drop near them, but on the side opposite the Mystics.

Do not make the mistake of getting baited into attacking unsupported units on the flanks unless you’re willing to sacrifice one unit for the other. IG players can stand to lose some cheap infantry sitting in a Chimera if it means his opponent will drop 220 points worth of Space Marines far from the real action, thus taking them completely out of the game.

It is also important to note that any unit shooting using the Mystics’ rule must obey the normal restrictions on shooting, namely range and line of sight. The unit that fires cannot pivot or move in any way, so they need to be able to see their target. Use terrain and even other enemy units to your advantage! Deep strike aggressively and position your units so that intervening models block line of sight. With so many vehicles on the board it will be difficult to deny you cover saves, if shots can even be taken against your unit at all.

Remember that the sponsons on a Leman Russ only have a 90 degree arc of fire. If the unit you want to hit with your deep strikers is covered by a Russ then try landing to the side or behind, which will deny at least one of the sponsons from shooting at you. The turret, unfortunately, has 360 LoS, so use intervening models and terrain.

If using Drop Pods, consult the Daemon Hunter codex FAQ. This document states that either the pod or the unit disembarking can be targeted, but not both. This means that you should always combat squad the disembarking unit. This yields 3 targets from which the IG player must pick to shoot at. Be sure to deploy your men the full 2″ from the pod otherwise you risk a smart player targeting the Drop Pod, but positioning the templates so they catch both the vehicle and your infantry.

Finally, it’s important to remember that 4D6″ is random. Deep strike intelligently and in cover. Expect to be shot at. When your opponent gets a crappy roll you’ll be pleasantly surprised. When he doesn’t, you’ll at least mitigate your losses, and hopefully still have enough left alive to be effective.