Orks in 6th: Elites

Orks have some cool choices for Elites (and some not so good). Thankfully, with a bit of FOC manipulation (Warboss making Nobz troops) it open ups a few slots. Up until now the obvious choice has been the Lootas since it's the only long range anti-tank shooting orks get. If not very reliable it still got the job done. Let's see if this has changed in 6th or as people say, the more things change the more the stay the same.

Orks in 6th: Nob bikers

In the transition from 4th edition to early 5th and later on in the same edition we saw Nob Bikers going from good to amazing to meh. Quite the sine graph there! While I never run an army with two Nob Biker Deathstars, I always had a smaller unit of these and it really helped in my games. As long as you kept their point cost low enough so you could  include other needed stuff in your army they were a must have. They were a resilient, hard hitting, scoring and fairly reliable unit. Very useful in any ork army. The only downside is that they always needed a Warboss on a bike to baby sit them because Leadership 7 would see them running off the board more often than not.

In the MSU meta environment of the mid to late 5th edition (after the Imperial Guard codex came out and especially after Grey Knighs) Nob Bikers just didn't cut it any more. Almost everyone was packing enough high Strength weapons to sent them home and even if they reached enemy lines, charging a rhino or a chimera didn't mean much. So let's see how all this changes in 6th edition.

Orks in 6th : Battlewagons

I want to start talking about the Orks since (at least for me) they seem easier to comprehend how they function in 6th edition. I also want to start from specifics before I move on to any general conclusions.

So, the mighty Battlewagons. They've been a staple for my army for a while now and I've been relying on them to deliver my Boyz in to the enemy lines. They gave me mobility (almost a guaranteed second turn charge) and they were very durable if you tagged along a Mek with a Kustom Force Field for the ride. So how has this changed with 6th edition?

Adressing some of the comments concerning Necrons

I got a plethora (Greek word, look it up) of comments regarding my last few posts regarding my thoughts on the new Necrons, especially my initial list. They will require some extensive answers so I'd better do a new post and try to answer them. Here it goes then:

Necrons and Night Fight

Curses, foiled again! I was going to write about Solar Pulses, Night Fight and Imotekh today but I got ninjaed by Kirby.Go read his article over here. It's very good as always and I share all his views (albeit a bit more strongly). I wanted to say this since I first read the codex (I call Leonidas for a witness) and I guess it doesn't really matter sincer anyone with half a brain would come to the same conclusion.Stay here for mine now, my comical broken English are much more fun to read anyway (read in a voice somewhere between Super Mario and Christopher Walken in "The Continental").

Troops: A talk of Bikes

A long awaited sequel has finally arrived!

Today we will be discussing the 3 bike troops choices available (imperials of course).

The 3 Codexes that have the ability to field bike troop armies are as follows:

-The Dark Angels, The First Legion, The Sons of the Lion

-The White Scars, The Hunters of the Wicked, The Riders of the Hunt

-The Space Wolves, The Wolves of Fenris, Children of Russ

So lets start by looking at the stat line:

Should I be scared of Grey Knights? Well, maybe...

Another day, another MEQ army (okay, can't really complain since I jumped on the Greek Orthodox Easter Eggs Blood Angels bandwagon). There's been a trend for the last one and a half years. New codices released for power armour clad supermen that push them into shooty MSU lists for competitiveness. It's a kind of oxymoron. Aren't Space Wolves, Blood Angels and now Grey Knights supposed to be close combat monsters (at least fluff wise but then again I'd be the first to admit I don't know much about Space Marines)? Shouldn't they be brandishing chainsword and cutting down all the foes of mankind in brutal hand to hand combat?  Watching these musclebound behemoths running around inside their little metal boxes and firing their weapons from hatches can be a bit disheartening. What lists  for competitive play are we talking about though?

Chaos Daemons: Possible alternative for Chaos fanatics? Or not..?

Some time in 2009, I realized I had quite many Daemon Princes, so I thought "buying a couple of Greater Daemons and some lesser Daemons should get me a Daemon army". And so, I bought a Balrog (Bloodthirster), a Keeper of Secrets and some Plague Bearers. I was aiming for a "Daemonzilla" list, comprising of 2 Greater Daemons, 3 squads of 7 plague bearers and 3 Nurgle Daemon Princes. The plan was that the T6 monstrosities would withstand a lot of shooting and survive, making a counter-attack right on enemy armour, thus disabling the enemy's big guns.

In the beginning, I was hearing that Daemons are a very strong army. After seeing every "zilla" list played by others getting crushed to a pulp, I reconsidered. After my 5 first battles (with a newer list, more on that later), I reconsidered even more..!

Practise games and learning from your mistakes.

After reading this awesome article in House of Paincakes by Mr. Νικηφόρος ,I decided to drastically change the paradigm concerning playing 40K with my gaming buddies. You see, I'm at a point now, with certain people, that there is nothing to be gained for my (or their) gaming experienced battling them on a normal setup. We know each others' lists pretty good as well as our playing style. Going against each other on a random mission/deployment has nothing to teach us and winning or losing at these games is quite unimportant. So, we  started doing practise games instead.

Placing Objectives for the Guard

Usually, I take my time thinking about my strategy and tactics for Warhammer. Constantly tweaking my lists and try to resolve worst case scenarios in my head. Deployment, target priority, possibilities, movement etc. These are all things that I constantly consider before and during a game. Although I want to believe I plan my games quite meticulously, in reality there is phase that I didn't really care enough until recently. That is, placing the objectives on the battlefield. I think this step is as important (if not more) as any other aspect of successful competitive play.

Guest Article : A different analysis on the new Dark Eldar Codex

So, this is the first guest article for this blog. Exciting stuff (at least for me)! My friend Leonidas (aka Moskitokiller) has been into Space Dark Elves for quite a while now. He had some very interesting insights about their new codex. I asked him if he could put down his thoughts in an article that I could post here. The guy is a university professor and he approaches his game the same way he does for his science. Meticulously and with a lot of serious thought. He is also strong willed and opinionated and I always consider his advice even if I don't have to necessarily agree with it. So I hope you enjoy this in-depth article and hope you get many things from it.

I present an analysis on the characteristics of the Dark Eldars according to their latest Codex. Based on those characteristics I attempt to probe the strategy and techniques, suitable for this new army.

Let me first state that this is not the usual analysis one might find on the Net. No unit by unit presentation, no personal favourites, no list of suggestions either. This is left to the player. My intention is to express some of my thoughts and to present a set of principals, a framework if you will,  in order to help the DE player to build his army and to develop his techniques.

Officer of the Fleet : asset or liability?

It seems mandatory that you include an advisor in your command squad, these days. I never liked the Master of Ordnance since he would force me to keep my unit static. I play with a mechanised army so I rely on mobility. The Astropath could be very good in certain builds but since one of my armies assets is a strong Alpha Strike, I don't like to put anything in reserve. So including an Officer of the Fleet seemed like a good idea when I was building my list.

Defeating the Orks

I was surprised when I found out how many people from my gaming guild still think that the Orks are a menace. They call me cheesy and beardy for using a battlewagon spam list because they think it's too strong. Even players with a good grasp of the game mechanics believe that the greenskins are overpowered.  In reality orks are an average army at best, and every decent 5th edition list should beat them, in theory. So I decided to do this post and give some insights of how to win when playing against them and the pitfalls you should avoid during your games.

Battlewagon Tactics: Killing Stuff

After all this trouble setting up, moving and keeping alive our units we should make sure they actually kill some stuff. Obviously the armies strength lies in the assault phase but getting in close combat is not as straight forward as it seems.

Battlewagon Tactics: Development

I like to compare deployment to a chess opening. The pieces are placed at vantage points in order to optimize their movement and their ability to attack enemy units later in the game. Development is the next step. Now, using the strengths of your army,  you must overwhelm your opponent and ultimately win the game. These are the most important factors  should be take into account when playing with this list:

Battlewagon Tactics : Deployment

One of my precious Battlewagons

So here is the list I'll be using for the upcoming Greek GT (unless I figure out something better or someone convinces me that it really sucks). But how am I going to use it and try winning some games? This is the ways I figured out how to play the army after a year of using similar lists.

For the deployment part the principles are simple enough. If you win the dice roll at the beginning then give first turn to your opponent. On the other hand most people tend to go first so this works for you if you lose the dice roll. It might sound a bit suicidal but hear me out. This list is very good for flanking your enemy and directing the game on the side you want. So you must know where and how he sets up his forces. If you don't know where he is going to deploy his units then you totally lose that element and you are going to be in for  a few nasty surprises. You'll probably end up chasing fast skimmers across the board. After all you'll have 1/6 chance to go first after all.