Hybrid Tau + Boyz

So with the changes to Tau vehicles making them...well really good again, I thought I'd throw up a post of what a Hybrid Tau + Boyz army might look like. I'll do a metatransition post later, this is just for you to sink your teeth into and get discussing.

Losing firepower without the Big Guns and 10 Crisis (down to 7) but gaining some extra firepower through Hammerhead and some added durability to army with AV13 with a 3+ cover and two mobile AV12s with 2+ cover when going Flat-Out to block LoS to your army.

Potentially a different army for Allies with more firepower since there is an added defense layer here could work... Anyway, list below.

Barrage Weapons – The Vehicle-Wrecking Super-Snipers of 6th Edition

Barrage Weapons – The Vehicle-Wrecking Super-Snipers of 6th Edition

In a prelude to the Heavy Support part of my Imperial Guard review, I am going to have a look at the way the rules governing Ordnance Batteries, Barrage Weapons and Indirect fire have changed. There are a lot of subtle changes, but what they add up to is a range of tanks that have become the Vehicle-Wrecking Super-Snipers of 6^th Edition.

The focus of this article is on the best of the Barrage weapons, so it is very Imperial Guard-orientated, but many of the rules also apply to Whirlwinds and simlilar units. Whether you use IG as your primary force,  are considering allying in some Ordnance Batteries or are just likely to face them, you need to know these rules.

New: Includes the IG 1.1 FAQ  changes

Metatransition - Scarab Farm

BoLS

Necrons on the whole transferred pretty well so most of their builds can be assume to have transferred well. Let's look at how the infamous Scarab farm did.

The Scarab farm was all about taking tiny amounts of Scarabs and turning them into huge units with nine Spyders. This provided really large Scarab units which could molest even moving vehicles and leave points free for other Necron goodies. In 5th edition it had a few flaws though - Scarabs would hit vehicles, drop them to paper thin armor, destroy them and then turn around and die. Scarabs were a great unit when supported by extra firepower but by taking nine Spyders, one would often lose a key support unit in the Annihilation Barge. Imothek was also common with Farm lists which meant Necron shooting was impacted negatively as well - what are Necrons good at again?

New FAQ's!

Inturrupting our regular post timings to keep you up-to-date.  CHECK THE COMMENTS FOR STUFF I MISSED/EXCLUDED.

NEW FAQ'S OUT.  For everyone!

Some highlights, brief comments from me in blue:

MAIN RULE BOOK

Page 26 – Assault phase, Look Out, Sir
Change the fourth sentence of the first paragraph to:
“Determine which model in the unit is closest to the character,
and resolve the Wound against that model instead.”
Combo with:
Page 410 – Reference, Profile, Codex: Grey Knights, Paladins.
Change unit type to Infantry.
Page 411 – Reference, Profile, Codex: Space Wolves, Wolf Guard.
Change unit type to Infantry.
Page 413 – Reference, Profile, Codex: Orks, Nob.
Change unit type to Infantry and add the following Designer’s
Note:
Page 413 – Reference, Profile, Codex: Orks, Warbiker Nob.
Change unit type to Bike.Page 413 - Reference, Profile, Codex:
Tau Empire, Crisis Shas’vre
Change unit type to Infantry (Jump).

Page 413 - Reference, Profiles
Add the following Designer’s Note:.
Designers Note: Wolf Guard, Nobz, Nobz Warbikers, and Crisis
Shas’vre that lead a unit (for example an Ork Nob leading Ork
Boyz, a Wolf Guard leading Grey Hunters) have the unit type
Infantry (Character).
No more wound allocation shennannies.

Thoughts on 6th edition List Constructs

So with NOVA over and some feedback from others going on, let's look at what's been kicking around my head lately in terms of list constructs for 6th edition. This is by no means the be all and end all, it's just things I've noticed throughout practice games.

Death or Glory 40k Podcast Episode 3: Psychic Powers

After a slight absence we are back with podcast number 3! This week are are talking all about Psychic powers, filthy witches and the state of mind bullets in the great game of 40k.

I'm afraid that our resident techpriest Rupert is away touring a formerly compliant territory that turned its back on the Emperors Grace, so forgive me for not posting a timeline of the podcast as usual!

We are currently working on getting the podcast onto iTunes and we will update you all when that's done. In the meantime the podcast can be listened to here.

We have tried to keep the episodes quite short and this one comes in at just over an hour. As always all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Battle Report: Grey Knights vs Grey Knights

A mirror match! This is an exercise in non-ally 6th edition as there is a non-ally tournament coming up in Australia - where else? Randomly rolled mission and we thankfully got Hammer & Anvil - something I've been meaning to play more of and thus the battle report online. We also got Scouring, Night Fighting and two useless Warlord traits. I won roll-off for objective placement/side and put as many in midfield as possible - I had the advantage in terms of raw numbers and with GK v GK, this meant a more aggressive approach could work. I then won roll-off for deciding who went first and gave it to him.

Three 1750 no Ally lists for tournament

I have a 1750 no Allies tournament coming up - good old Australia, so am trying to decide between a couple of lists. We've got ye good old stand-bys, Tyranids, Blood Angels and Grey Knights.

Getting more from your Squadrons - Splitting by Immobilisation

Today's topic will be about getting more use of the new Squadron rules, firstly because it seems a lot of players are still unaware of how much more user-friendly they are (it's almost as if GW want you to buy more models!) and secondly because I'm going to be showing how you can exploit them to their full potential. And yes I do mean 'Exploiting' the rules, but I don't have even twinge of conscience over it since it may help combat the Necron Flyer spam lists that are currently causing a lot of people grief.

Update: Just a few days after this article was published GW in their infinite wisdom change the immobilistion rules in FAQ 1.1; if a vehicle suffers an immobilisation result it now also loses a Hull Point. With this change, it becomes a lot less viable to use the tactic of purposefully immobilising vehicles in order to split up a squadron into individual components, and the Hydra is probably the only case where it might be even worth considering.

Discussion: Army Constructs for 6th

So with NOVA out of the way I want to see what are the major thoughts on army constructs. For example, last edition was primarily MSU mech with the 1+1 (unit and fighting transport) taking precedence over most other lists. There were other strong lists often involving Hybrid elements, some foot armies (Loganwing), etc. but the primary aspect was generally MSU.

Has this changed? I have a few thoughts on this which I've been going through with my posts and seeing more and more in playtesting but would like to see other opinions and what people have found before I do a few exploratory articles. We're still not likely to nail down the exact construct for a while as things continually evolve and new books are released - MSU mech didn't take off right away for 5th remember, but this discussion and following articles should lead us somewhere closer.

So, begin! And remember to be nice to people with contrary opinions to yours.

Vehicles in 6th: Damage Table & Cover

The damage table in 6th edition has also been changed. Last post we looked at a new type of damage for vehicles: hull points but this post is looking at something we should all be used to by now (assuming we've played the game before). In 5th edition gone are the different damage tables - there is one table to rule them all and depending what weapon and what type of damage you did to the vehicle would provide positive or negative modifiers to this table. For all intents and purposes this construct is the same - base table and modifiers however are different.

Vehicles in 6th: Hull Points

GMorts

New series  - well an extension of the Articles in 6th series! Vehicles were huge in 5th so how they transfer to 6th is obviously a very important topic. This series will look at a bunch of the rules which affect vehicles and their transition across editions. This will allow a summary post at the end which should hopefully make an easy reference point for future recollection.

Hull Points are one of the biggest changes for 6th edition and it really has one major impact: destroying vehicles is more RELIABLE. Repeat this to yourselves over and over as this is the key point of understanding the impact of hull points on vehicles.

Space Marine Deimos Pattern Predator Review

Had a few questions about these new Predator variants we are seeing from Forgeworld and since we can expect to see one in the upcoming Dark Angels release, thought it might be a good idea to look at them. The Predator is a very nice gun-tank platform with AV13 so good additions to the Predator which might see trickle-down use are good signs...

Allies, Fluff & It's Cinematic

Reader's beware: not a happy post :P!

It's Cinematic. Forging a narrative. It's the 6th edition catch phrases and of course we love applying them to everything. Want to know what it's best applied to? Allies. The universe we all love and enjoy is bloody vast. We've all read lots of fluff background, books, stories, etc. and we've seen lots of crazy combinations. Off the top of my head I can remember Eldar & Imperial Guard allying, Space Marines & Tau, Blood Angels & Necrons, etc. I can remember Grey Knights allying with anything. And then killing them once their task is done.

Back-to-Basics: 6th edition 40k Acronyms

Okay guys, we've updated the Acronym page with everything you've given us and some more we could come up whilst editing the post. Here's all the listed ones currently so let's see if we cannot fill it out a bit more for all the new guys coming through.

General Rule Acronyms

6th edition starter set Dark Vengeance - preorders

So the shiny 6th edition start set of DA & CSM is finally a week out so pre-orders are up. And to eek that extra bit of moneys from you all, there's a limited edition which gets you everything normal and this...

Ally Template: Ork Green Tide

CSM, Necrons, Imperial Guard & Tau can all take Orks as Allies of Convenience and with Fearless not being a liability for hordes in close combat now, Orks aren't a bad choice as your Ally at all. In this post we're going to look at the 'Green Tide' for Ork allies where those large Boyz units are going to come to play. This is a great option for shooting armies and with three of the strongest shooting armies in the game available as Allies (Necrons, IG & Tau), this should be a good plug-in to protect those shooting elements with more aggressive units.

Tyranids in 6th Part 4: Cut to the Quick (Fast Attack)

Fast Attack is a slot that went from being usable, if not exactly impressive, to being excellent. You can't call it the best in the codex because Elites still has your tank-hunters, but it's an excellent place to find (surprise, surprise) fast assault units to keep the enemy busy. Unfortunately, that's only true for the top couple of units in the slot- from there is goes downhill VERY quickly, bottoming out with some of the worst units in the codex (though admittedly still better than the poor, benighted Pyrovore.)

Gundam Boyz - Tau & Orks

Dakka

So I've been playing around with the basis of Gundam Tau and trying to find an Allies fit which I think works best at 1750 points (the commonly played points level in Australia currently at tournaments). The problem was, even cutting back a bit on the suits there weren't that many points to play with for getting 2x10x MEQs + goodies to support the Tau in midfield and provide mobile scoring options. You could do it but it always felt stretched at 1750 and worked much better at 2000. Orks didn't have this issue however and thanks to Fearless changes, are a lot scarier in combat now since they don't fold like a wet paper bag.

Battle Report: Grey Knights + Deathwing vs Space Marines

So today got a game in with Vince so decided to take some pictures. Acotez + Deathwing against Lysander Marines. We rolled a random mission and got Relic with Vanguard deployment. Night Fight in effect Turn 1, Warlord trait useless for Vince, Move Through Cover within 12" of my Warlord. Lists are below.