Foot Lists: Why They Do and Don't Work

So BoLS did a couple articles on foot lists- or perhaps I should say that Goatboy did them (here and here, respectively.) He has the core of a point- in a mech-heavy environment, a foot army can have advantages by virtue of opponents being unprepared to face it properly. The problem, however, is that he makes the mistake of not going for foot lists that have all the critical advantages while avoiding disadvantages. There is a reason mech is king: it provides these advantages relatively easily. In order for foot to do well, it needs to likewise use them. This also has to do with BoLS' understanding of the game and believing in a metagame. Pure mech and foot lists have an advantage over other lists (particularly foot lists) as some of their weapons are essentially useless. Mech has this to a less extent than foot as there are always some foot elements to a mech army, you just have to get them out of their transports. Anyway, a lot of readers there seem to believe that taking non-mech is going against the 'meta' and gives them an advantage. Against lists 'metagaming' (i.e. tailoring) against mech lists, yes this gives them an advantage but against balanced lists? Not so.

Number one is mobility- missions in 5E want you to move about to take (and contest) points; getting into better positions to dictate charges, take side shots, bypass cover, etc, are all important factors. If a list doesn't have mobility, it is doomed. Mobility can be more than just moving over 6" per turn- it includes the list's overall ability to take points and get to the enemy as well as its reach/threat and deployment options.

Number two (WHO DOES NUMBER TWO WORK FOR??) is protection. When you're inside a metal box, you can't be hurt. Period. Obviously foot lists can't duplicate this, but they need a way to increase resilience above just "3+ armor/4+ cover". There are lots of ways to work this, including MSU options, resilience through numbers, etc, but you can't just be a bunch of bodies on the ground.

Doublewing: Now viable?

The quick and easy answer for pure Deathwing is no. Ya sorry, no. 30+ TH/SS Terminators which can score and have can put out 12+ missiles a turn is very scary and very easy to avoid. It basically becomes a tactic of moving into midfield and sit and hope your opponent doesn't force you to fail 30+ 2+/3++ saves or that my 12+ missiles a turn can do some damage. The real power of these terminators is getting into assault but that's just hard to do on a consistent and effective basis, even with 30+. Without any true mobility people will throw sac units at you and look to pin you in midfield and rush objectives late game in BRB missions. In tiered missions it will be about forcing the game onto a tier the opposing army is comfortable with. What about if we add in, oh I don't know, some support? Ravenwing or the new Typhoons sound good and there are Dreads, Veterans, Preds, etc. to go around! Let's see then if we can come up with anything.

The theme of the day is scoring Terminators and now with 3++ they are actually quite survivable in every game. Before they were also pretty survivable but against anything with some low AP firepower or ignored lots of saves in combat they cried. Now with a couple of 3++ mixed into units your squads are a lot more survivable and thus a lot more scary. Add in the ability to take a cyclone missile launcher and the unit can actually damage and suppress things on the way in. From there they can camp midfield or push into the backfield which the CML and SS allow but by having support elements around the Terminators, they are also capable of sitting in midfield and gaining a win due to the increased firepower across the board. So the basic setup for a squad is going to be five strong (obviously), with a cyclone missile launcher, a couple of TH/SS terminators and a couple of chainfist/stormbolter terminators. Whilst the CF/SB termies aren't as survivable they do help with anti-infantry output and in opening up tanks in combat and those anti-infantry shots at range can be pretty important. You can run pure TH/SS + CML but you can have some issues with anti-infantry. I would run the squad like so:

Email in: Final night of the Flesh Eaters

I've just replied to a quite a few e-mails which I would normally post on the blog personally as I was quite behind on my replies thanks to holidays and the FAQs taking up a bunch of space. With this e-mail I'm up to Jan 12th and have just under 20 remaining so if you've sent me an e-mail, don't worry! it's coming.

"Hi

Ever since RT I kind of dug the Flesh Eaters (I was a kid back then and liked the fact that the marine had "Pray for death" scribbled on his armour). In the new BA codex they got undone by the flaw. Perfect. Really. I liked it. So I started thinking, I could start a small Flesh Eaters army, all Death Company to illustrate their final days as a chapter. Astorath shows up and leads this bunch of raving madmen (not advertisement kind) and their chaplains to their doom. Yeah, that would be cool.

Enter problems. All DC means no scoring units. So I need to wipe the table to win. With the high points cost per model and some what problematic delivery with the black rage and all, wiping the table should be hard. But DC have access to all dedicated transports and I wouldn't mind adding a Stormraven or two even if they aren't DC. And when the DC hit close combat they pretty much destroy anything they charge.

Email in: DA list (needing to be submitted by Jan 31st)

"Hi Kirby (and team)

I think you are really really awesome and like lords of the internet or something. No really, I think your blog's fantastic.

The reason I'm writing is that I built (and painted) a 1750 DA list for tournaments this year. I literally just finished painting last week. My build was -
Belial,
Command squad, (2x melta guns, 1 x apocathary, 2 x power weapons)
6 x terminator squads. (one squad with wound allocation and apocathary, 4 squads with assault cannons).
All of the squads had sarg with powerweapon, and every one else (except for apcoathary squad) was storm bolter and p/fist.

The generaly strategy was to use the two apocathary's to cover the army (and each other) allowing me to ignore 2 failed saves each turn (via the old feel no pain rule, which had a 6' radius and just ignored one wound in this radius per round). This mean that I took very very few casualties until I reached the 12' range. One (or two) squads hung back on my objectives and went to ground. I'd played a number of test games with this army and I really liked it.

Technical Issues

So a few of you will have noticed the chatbawks has been on the fritz lately. This has been sorted out with chatango as they had some server issues which ours was located on so it should be fine as of now. Intense Debate has also been having fun eating comments a bit lately and whilst if I find them I can manually fix them, this is time consuming and I don't catch them all. I've contacted their support service and they are asking me to keep a record of any that don't show up and to not fix them so they can identify the problem. If you notice one of your comments is missing please let me know so I can make a note of it and this problem can get resolved quickly!

Sorry for any annoyance this causes :(.

Email In - Space Wolves 1500pts

HQ:
Logan Grimnar
Rune Priest (Terminator Armor, JotWW, Living Lightning, Chooser of the Slain)

Troops:
Wolf Guard Pack x5 (1 Terminator Armor with Cyclone Missle Launcher)
Wolf Guard Pack x5 (1 Terminator Armor with Cyclone Missle Launcher)
Wolf Guard Pack x5 (1 Terminator Armor with Cyclone Missle Launcher)
Wolf Guard Pack x5 (1 Terminator Armor with Cyclone Missle Launcher)
Wolf Guard Pack x5 (1 Terminator Armor with Cyclone Missle Launcher)

Heavy Support:
Long Fangs x6 (5x Missle Launcher)
Long Fangs x6 (5x Missle Launcher)
Long Fangs x6 (5x Missle Launcher)

Essentially the point is to overwhelm early with lots of missle shots.  If set up correctly (and with a bad set up from the opponent) you can put 25 ML shots first turn - whether Krak or Frag it is going to do a lot of damage.

But you guys are the experts.  Wanted to run it by you since a lot of other sites have people who respond with things that make no comprehensible sense.

Dark Eldar Codex Review: Part 2: Transports

There are two transports for Dark Eldar: the Venom and Raider. Both are open-topped, AV10, fast skimmers which really limits their survivability but makes them very fast and capable of dropping off assault units which can then assault. This speed is a defining factor of the Dark Eldar army as these vehicles make up the core of any mech or hybrid list (not that the other DE vehicles are any different). The ability for all passengers to shoot from these transports can also help Dark Eldar infantry survivability whilst maintaining offensive effectiveness but obviously limits their mobility to 6”. The open-topped factor also decreases the damage Dark Eldar take during an explosion but are still likely to lose 1 model per 3 on-board. The trade-off between minimised damage done during explosions, the ability to assault after disembarking and firing all of your models when embarked and having paper-thin armor is a fine line between being too weak and balanced. It is important to therefore not expose your transports to unnecessary firepower and maximise this ability during your movement phase. One of the major relationships between Dark Eldar and their transports is they are unable to buy transports if the original unit size is larger than the transport capacity. This minimises the 1+1 concept and some flexibility when list building.

So... the Venom and Raider. Both are excellent options both are obviously best suited for different roles. The primary differences between the two can be boiled down to transport capacity, weapon load-out and upgrades allowed with the most important one being transport capacity (obviously). We will look at each transport separately and then analyse the upgrade options between them.

Venom:

The venom has the smaller transport capacity, maxing out at five-strong. This excels it towards MSU play or delivering small squads. However, Dark Eldar are very weak and are extremely vulnerable to torrenting with T3/5+. Having such small squads can often lead to easily dead squads or multiple squads breaking and running away. The Venom therefore specialises in delivering or protecting small crack squads such as Incubi, Warriors or Trueborn which are not going to rely on their numbers to truly be effective. Incubi have the survivability to not need numbers unlike Wyches/Bloodbrides whilst still maintaining their offensive effectiveness. In fact, too many Incubi can often lead them to wiping out squads or being a huge target priority for your opponent whilst smaller squads are less threatening and more likely to stay locked in combat during your opponent's turn all the while maintaining a significant offensive impact. Warrirors and Trueborn are capable of taking multiple special weapons at a small squad size (with no gains as the squad size increases) and aren’t too expensive and can thus be taken in multiples for survivability through saturation and increased fire potential. The ability for them to fire from the transport and after the transport has moved 12” for an impressive threat range of 24”-33” for Blasters makes them effective tank hunter units.

Foot Templars - Back to 4th Ed?

So Kirby gave us a lengthy post earlier regarding the new options that have opened up following the new FAQs. As I'm a little more familiar with the codex (sorry Kirby it's true), I'll first take a look at how the FAQ has changed things for us BT players, and also what hasn't changed.

Righteous Zeal - As Kirby mentioned in his earlier post, one problem with foot lists is the risk of your Ld8 crusader squads not wishing to stick it out and turning and running. For shooty squads on your board edge, this is a problem. The new FAQ reads,

Page 23 –Righteous Zeal

Change “that is not pinned or falling back” to “that has not gone to ground or is not falling back” in the first sentence of the second paragraph.

Email in: Competitive Gladiator Tyranids?

Guys:

I've been banging my head against the keyboard over the holidays trying to come up with a Tyranid list for the Adepticon Gladiator tournament in April. I've just gotten a Forge World Hierophant/Bio-Titan (not built yet) and would like to build a list around him (at 1250 points, the list definitely would have to fit around him). This year's rules are 2250 points total; a 1750 main group plus one of two 500 point "sideboards" (for lack of a better term) determined after the opponent provides you his main group list.

So far, what I've come up with (not worrying about sideboard construction, yet):

Hierophant 1250
Tyranid Prime (LW/BS, TS) 105
Hive Guard (x2) 100
Hive Guard (x2) 100
Tervigon (AG, TS, Cluster Spines, Catalyst) 195
Tervigon (AG, TS, Cluster Spines) 180
Termagaunt (x10) 50
Termagaunt (x10) 50
Zoanthrope (x3, Mycetic Spore) 220

Hybrid Black Templars: post-FAQ

Right so Black Templars. One annoying thing with the codex FAQ is no updated Rhino/Razorback costs or weapon options. However, the ‘armoury’ updates and the maintaining of Black Templar ‘uniqueness’ such as two weapons for five man strong squads has led Black Templar to run even more effective foot lists. Pre-FAQ Black Templars were a decent but not terrible or fantastic army; run of the mill if you will (excuse the rhyming). Like Dark Angels and to an extent Chaos Space Marines, BT suffered from being over-priced compared to the newer SM books whilst not really having a truly unique build that was far more effective than anything the other books could put down whilst also being highly competitive. How exactly does the FAQ help this though? First, Black Templars are now capable of running a bit more offensively based lists in terms of aggression. BT Assault Terminators were always scary in combat with furious charge and preferred enemy but without the new 3++ storm shields, suffered when struck back by other combat units. Furthermore, Typhoon and Cyclone missile launchers are now two shots which gives BT more effective anti-tank on the move; something which they suffered with before (tank hunting CML < tank hunting assault cannons).

So what does this mean for BT? Are they viable again in the tournament scene? To an extent. These changes open a few builds (and improve a few others) in terms of competitive play but you’re not going to have as much flexibility as the newer books obviously. So let’s take a look at a quick list using the new FAQ…

Black Templars have quite a few unique advantages remaining for them compared to the newer books. The most obvious one is veteran skills for their Terminators and the ability to take two heavy/special weapons in five man squads. Add in the ability to gain preferred enemy on an army-wide basis and when the opponent shoots you, you generally run to them (this can both be problematic and a good thing) and Black Templars can be an effective mobile shooty force. However, their mech is quite expensive and previously ‘relied’ upon old smoke to improve their survivability. With this in mind Black Templars are able to make quite effective foot lists as their Terminator firepower can move and shoot whilst also being effective in combat but are also capable of running Hybrid ‘thunder bubble’ styled lists. Let’s see what we can do with this concept in mind…