40K Physics: The Rhino Conundrum, a Corollary

Um.  Yeah.

Suppose I'd better explain the title.

(And be warned, this so-called 'article' - and the term is used only loosely here - wanders more than even the normal offering from Brent's Empty Digital Headache.)

Lately I've been working on a series of articles: first up is Daemons 2012, looking at evolving the list to face today's modern armies; then, following Brian's suggestion and our mutual aid society for Adepticon, I started work on the Generalist Necron Reviews.

(Brian:  It would have been easier to suggest a list, I know!)

The Daemons articles made fairly good progress, the ultimate goal being fine-tuning them and shipping them off to Kirby to complete a long-delayed promise.

(Kirby:  The dice are awesome!  Now I need some Kirby objective markers...)

(Sigh.)

Necrons Generalist Review Part II

Picking up where we left off last time...

So my man Nick (his mother named him Darkwynn, but that's because he's a superhero in his spare time) isn't so fond of Necrons.  In the comments, he double-downed on his opinion:

Daemons 2012 Part III

So what about the Fateweaver?  My view is, "I'm not a fan... but..!"

Let's just get that out of the way now.

* * * 

As most of my longtime readers know, "I'm not a fan."  Since taking on Daemons due to the machinations of Evil Homer in Exile and the Master Manipulator (every store needs one), I've had a few rules of thumb - developed due to hard experience - that served me well...

1. Bolt is a requirement
2. Fiends do the heavy lifting
3. Soul Grinders are a red herring
4. Fateweaver is too inconsistent

My motto is Competitive is Consistent.  I'm not out to win a game - my goal is to win four in a row.

Or more.

* * * 

Interestingly, it's one of those things I have a hard time explaining to the Client Pimp in Question, our local young prodigy-in-training.  There's a world of difference in my standard game and my wanna-win game... but in most of my standard games I'm exploring an idea or concept to test its validity.

Some of that's for this blog or that - such as trying out the Soul Grinders in our last local tournament - but most of it is working out strategies for 'wanna-win' games.  Not that I'm throwing games, but I'm not so invested that I care whether I win or lose.

The Client Pimp..?  He's in a different place.  I'd wager he knows exactly how many games he's won or lost, against whom, and if those were inside a tournament or not!

It's a phase; most of us have been there.  For my part, I no longer have anything to prove.  Frankly, it's the same for most of us at the FLGS...

...sadly, we're most of us firmly in middle age!

(Speak for yourself.)

All that said, that habit of mine has bitten me in the butt on more than one occasion, where I was sort of lackadaisical with a tournament list and was frustrated after getting blown off the board.  On one occasion, the Bugs! were swept by Evil Homer in Exile's Dark Eldar with nary a fight.  On another, more recently, I suffered through a last round matchup against Little Barrera.

And his Dark Eldar.  

* * * 

My thinking on this almost exactly matches Hulk's; check out this post from They Shall Know Know Fear.  He's also exploring Daemons at the moment, just like me and just like Goatboy.   Remember to check out the other blogs in the Read Up To Keep Up roll!

* * * 

"I'm not a fan... but..!"  So ol' Kairos the Fateweaver doesn't pass my primary test for tournament-list inclusion.  He's simply not reliable...

...over four games!  He can be incredible; of that, there's no doubt.  The Fate-Crusher build is rightly feared; if Kairos and the Crushers get the appropriate wave on the board, and if Kairos avoids too many leadership tests, then certainly this is a combo that can roll the board with anyone!

Lot of 'ifs' though.

From Wargamer Hub

In one-third of the games you won't get the Wave you want.  In four games, you have a very strong chance of losing Kairos to a failed Leadership test - and I've had Darkwynn actually run the math on that one!

But!  As a Codex gets older it requires aggressive play, sound strategy, sharp tactics, and a perfectly optimized army list to seize victory for itself.

More than anything, though, you'll need aggressive play:  take the initiative early and force your opponent to play the game on different terms!

As much as it pains me to say this, Kairos can be a route to all of this, making him - in my humble opinion - a more valid choice now than even a year or two ago.  Back then, balance and sharp play yielded better results.  Some of those tools are just no longer available.

(Bye-bye, Daemon Prince of Tzeentch!  I loved you long time I did!)

* * * 

Let's explore a list; is there something else beyond the Standard Fate-Crusher?  A Hybrid Build?

I'll leave it to you to decide whether this is an effective option or not, but personally I prefer it to the current Fate-Crusher ideal of three units of Juggernauts - largely due to the speed of the Fiends and their ability to nail down units from a distance and destroy multiple tanks on the charge.

I prefer the cheaper Herald in the Daemons 2012 list I developed - and will publish tomorrow - but the Skulltaker is almost a design requirement here.

Why?

Think anti-GK's and you'll follow the train of thought.  Dark Excommunication removes Gifts, but the Skulltaker's Rending isn't one, meaning even if he loses his Power Weapon he can still rend out Grey Knights with a 4+.  With less in our toolbox, he's more important in this build.

That's the thought, anyway.  I'd probably drop Skulltaker with the Hounds and the Herald of Khorne with the Crushers, but you can certainly double-up either way if the table dictates it.

Thoughts?

Daemons 2012 Part II

Click for the link!

Know this, up front: I'm a long way from there with these ideas.  Consider this a work in progress at best.

But it's good.

* * *

So Goat called yesterday and we got in a conversation about Daemons.  He had some interesting ideas I hadn't thought of - and I'm not sure how!  How did I overlook it for so long?  It's so simple!

Why not drop the Herald of Khorne with a unit of Flesh Hounds?

Darn it all!

What, you aren't following?

Okay, a Herald of Khorne can be a monster close combat threshing machine.  The problem has always been the delivery system.

The first step is Chariot or Jugger... and there is only one good answer.  No, it's not 'chariot.'

Afternoon Quickie: Necrons and the Movement Phase

Ah, Necrons!  I have to admit, these silver automatons have captured my imagination.  I've rarely been this excited about a new Codex.

Hard Boyz Round One, Game Two

Yes, yes, yes - I'm perfectly aware that I've not been updating Strictly Average enough... but have you listened to the weather? The heat wave over the midwest is unreal, and my place of residence in North Texas is breaking all manner of records. Between that and working double duty at the hospital, I've been flat worn out.

 Which isn't to say I haven't been working on stuff; rather, I just haven't been blogging about it yet! I've got a ton of material, just waiting to use. For now, let's roll in to a quick battle report.

Pretty awesome, right?  Game two was against Vulcan marines.  Objectives were the key, and my opponent's army is a good counter to my bad intentions.  He has the Godhammer hang out in the center, where it'll be a lot of work to break through AV 14, and his two Iron Clads can hold my army up for days if I don't deal with them carefully.

Necrons: Entropic Strike, A Discussion

I'm a Bug in the Machine!

(This was going to be my comment on Bell's latest Necron's rumors post, but since it would probably just get lost I ported it over here.)

Taking the Bait: Dishing 'Advice'

I started the new job this week - yea me.  The money is okay but the benefits are unreal.

Yes, I sold out.  Big Brother is watching me.  I work for the State.

Strictly Average is taking a bit of a backseat this week since it'll take me a bit to develop new blogging routines, but I did want to take a moment to address some questions.  The last post was one of those awesome rarities: the comments were far more interesting than the article.

Not because articles are universally great but because comments are hard to come by.  People live busy lives; they'll read your stuff, but they're probably not slowing down to chat about it - that's true of every blog.

By the way... King: You're always free to comment with whatever is on your mind!  I know where it comes from, so don't sweat it, my man. 

Sharing the Pain: Tactica

Having the actual Dark Eldar Codex makes it much easier to read than the...

...er, um... other option.

The... er, um... 'other option' I've had access to for weeks now.  Which I unwittingly failed to share with the locals, assuming in one case that I'd sent it and in others that they had it already.

I faced an icy reception at the FLGS on Friday!

I figured it out when I asked Gauthic, the resident Dark Eldar player, why he was acting like he'd never read the rules before.  Well, because he hadn't.

Uh, oh.  In my defense, I'm thoughtless, not mean.

Anyway, getting a good read-through today allowed me to solidify the build I'm planning - a Urien Rakarth Wrack and Grotesque build, if you're curious - but it also clued me in to some dirty tricks we should expect to see.

For example, the Share the Pain rule.  Basically, an IC joins a unit and they pool the pain tokens.  If both have one, then the combined unit has two.

Feel No Pain and Furious Charge are nothing to sniff at.

If the IC leaves, the pain tokens are split as evenly as possible, with the odd tokens going to the unit the Dark Eldar player chooses.  Obviously, this has it's uses.

An IC can steal Pain Tokens outright.

You're smart: you see the potential, don't you?

A Warrior Unit has a Token; the IC joins in one round and takes off in another, with the Token.

A Warrior Unit has two Tokens; the IC joins in one round and takes of with one Token in the next.  It has to be split evenly.

A Warrior Unit has two Tokens; an IC with one joins the unit in one round and takes the extra Token in the next, leaving the Warrior Unit with one token but making off with two to Join a group of Incubi.

It goes on and on.  Why would you make use of this?  Two reasons I can think of.

1)  The unit with the extra Token can't make best use of it.  For example, it's a dedicated shooting unit so the 2nd 'Furious Charge' Pain Token is wasted.
2)  The unit is almost destroyed, so the Dark Eldar plays the double-knuckle shuffle (heh) to safeguard the valuable Pain Token.

Advanced Uses

An IC with a Token joins a unit with none, leaving it behind in the next round to 'borrow' the Pain Token of another unit.  The reasoning here is the IC divests himself of the Pain Token first, freeing himself to steal the second unit's Token... otherwise he'd leave with an equal split.

A unit with an IC has 3 Pain Tokens.  The IC leaves with one prior to a suicidal, softening-up combat, so the unit won't be Fearless.  If the unit does well, it will probably stick around; if not, fleeing combat might preserve it for use later.

In Closing

There are only so many rounds in a game and there are only so many Independent Characters available to utilize these tricks.  They are tactics, not strategies.  Even accomplishing this tactic once or twice in a game could prove useful.

I see this happening more often in Haemonculus-lead armies, simply because of the number of IC's.

I'm planning on building that... coincidence?

Lastly, I haven't seen Sharing the Pain discussed elsewhere in this fashion, but there are a lot of sharp talking-heads out there, so it may well have been.  I say this because I rarely choose to write Tactics articles since inevitably someone has done it before, or because most people pay lip service to improving their game but rarely do so.

And no, the pictures aren't Dark Eldar, but I hate posting without giving you something to look at!