Blog for the Beer God: July 2016

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Tactics from Commorragh: HQ & Elites

Calling all Archons and Haemonculi....Here I am going to lay out our codex and discuss what is good and what should be left behind when trying to play competitively with the Dark Eldar. Key word is competitive here folks. If you only play fluffy then you might want to turn back now and continue your raiding of the lesser races. This isnt for the faint of heart. I will run down in this post the HQ choices and Elites. I hope to get one section done every day over the next week and follow it up with a few list that I have run in the past. Hope you enjoy.

HQs

Archon:
At a base 60 points this guy is going to be the main HQ you will see if you want the goodies that a Dark Eldar HQ can boast. The only problem with him is his T3. With no way to get him eternal warrior it is very hard to keep this guy alive and allow him to kill things like he is suppose to do. If you do run him, I recommend the Huskblade and a shadow field. Providing him with the 2++ is going to be key as a 4++ from the clone field just wont cut it. A good use for an archon is taking the webway portal to drop in some battle brothers or blasterborne to shoot up something that needs to be gone.

Succubus:
At a base 75 points, the succubus is a HQ choice that I would probably leave on the shelf. With only a 6 plus save outside of Close combat and a 4 plus invul save in CC and at T3. She will most likely get double toughed out most of the time. She does swing at I8 with 4 attacks base. With the Archite glave she will be str 4 ap 2. The problem is getting her into combat. If she does...she could be a beast. But my verdict...leave at home.

Lelith Hesperax:
At 150 points Your getting a CC oriented HQ that boast a 4 plus save in any other phase and a 3 plus save in CC. Her blade ignores all armor saves and that is about it. She does get to reroll at failed to hit and to wound rolls but at str 3...not very good. Leave on the shelf.

Haemonculus:
At 70 points your getting a very underwhelming HQ that is more of a force multiplier then shooting or cc killer. His main uses are going to be in the Haemonculus coven books. The main use for him would be a Webway portal so you can drop in some battle brothers or other units from the Dark eldar.

Urien Rakarth:
At 140 points your getting a guy that really is just another buff to your units around you giving everyone with power from pain a plus one to the chart that is within 12 inches of him. His casket of flensing is a 12 inch range str 3 ap 3 assault 2D6 one use only. Not very useful in my opinion. Leave on the shelf.

Drazhar:
At 190 points you are getting a CC beast. With I7, 6 attacks on the charge at STR 5 ap 2. He does have eternal warrior which helps out but.....he has no invul save. He does boast a 2+ armor save. He also gets a bonus attack at the same initiative step for each to wound roll of a 6 in cc. His big downside......he has no GRENADES!!!! so if your opponent is smart...he will keep his units in terrain and get the attack off first.

Elites:

Kabalite Trueborn:
So at 55 points base for 5 guys, your getting a plus one to leadership and plus one attack from the stock warriors of 40 points. Your paying 15 points more for just plus one leadership. The one thing about these guys is they can take up to 4 special weapons or two heavy weapons. They can take a venom as a dedicated transport. A popular build with these guys is 4 blasters deepstriking in with a venom. I wouldnt waste your time with the dark lances because if you move with them...the dark lances are snap firing.

Bloodbrides:
This is going to be short but leave them at home. Not worth it. The models look awesome. They really do...but totally not worth it. They have a 6 plus armor save and only get their 4 plus invuls in the fight sub-phase.

Incubi:
At 60 points for 3 of these guys they are ok. I leave them at home because of one reason and one reason only.....NO GRENADES...most of the time they are swinging at I1 and because of that they die really quick to simple marines. They do boast a 3+ save but still....those fail at times.

Mandrakes:
Ive always wanted to run mandrakes and at 36 points a pop with stealth and shrouded as well infiltrate...I can see these guys sitting on an objective in ruins or on a 5 plus area terrain and instantly making it a 2 plus. So I can see the use in these guys.

Wracks:
All CC attacks have poison so great monstrous creature killers....but oh wait...no grenades...so swinging last if opponent is in terrain.....leave at home....(unless you are running them from the haemonculus coven)

Grotesques:
Now these guys can be of some use. Str 5 T5 with 3 wounds each. At 105 points each you get 3. This is a great unit to throw in a raider with an HQ of your choice and speed them directly at your opponent and let your HQ and these guys go to town. They have 3 attacks base with rampage and stock FnP. One model can be upgraded to an abberation making him a character to accept a challenge so your trusty archon can stay out and slay the chumps.

Thanks for reading. If you have any thoughts or disagreements, let me know in the comment section. I am always down to get other ideas and opinions.

~Beer Apostle~
Beer For the Beer God

Ork Tactics - "Da grot's guide to krumpin"

Welcome to the beginning of a new WAAAGH!

First of all, welcome to our blog: "Blog for the Beer God"! I'm da Mekboss, and our group's resident Ork player/fanatic. I'm not big on the small talk so let's get down to the nitty-gritty. A lot of you gits out there, even the most devoted of warbosses, believe that Orks suck. The codex sucks, the supplement sucks, it's not competitive and only good for casual games, blah blah blah. That's all a load of squigsh*t. Gork (or maybe Mork) is thinking about thumpin' your hoomie-lovin skull. In this blog series I'm going to be discussing making Da Boys into your opponents worst nightmare. More specifically, getting the mobs into tournament shape. It's not for the delicate git, so strap in Boyz and let's get started.

Da Konseptz

More than anything, embracing the lore and the spirit of the Orks has been the most fulfilling and rewarding part about building competitive lists. The spirit of the WAAAGH! is the most fun part about playing an Ork army and can be broken down into a few basic ideas:

We don't do subtlety. It's not who we are. That translates to bringing an epic and overwhelming amount of a specific (or even your favorite) Ork unit. Abandon balance, sanity, and clear thoughts from your Orky mind. Pick an idea, a theme, and then run absolutely wild with it. Do you love Lootas? Bring 90. Trukk boyz? Bring 8 trukk-loads of em and belly-laugh as they roar across the table, because even if half of them don't make it the enemy is still in for some krumpin. Mix in a few Warbosses in mega armour with the boys and pile on the pain. Love bikers? Bikestars? I think you're getting my point.

Do what we do best. Those other codices have a bunch of fancy toys and witchcraft and all kinds of other nonsense, so what do we have? We have choppa, and dakka, and a belligerence found only in the underdog. Fancy battle plans are great and all, but remember the Ork mindset: get stuck in and start smashing things. Optimize your mobs, be frugal with the points spent on fancy gadgets and doodads, and spend your points on more choppa boyz, dakka units, or a way to get the boys to the enemy as rapidly as possible. Da boys love a good scrap, and a good warboss ensures they get it. Overwhelm them with numbers, or with speed. We do both remarkably well. More specifically, think about those units in the Ork codex that really get the most bang for their buck. Warbosses are absolute monsters with klaws. Stick them on a bike and their's the stuff of nightmares. In mega armour they're absolute terrors if you can get them to the fight. Boys, the lowly, simple boy, is the best 6 pt model in the game. t4 and 4 x s4 attacks on the charge? Shenanigans.

Mucking about. Testing out your wacky ideas is integral to building an effective competitive list. Ask yourself: did I bring enough choppa? Dakka? Did I go fast enough? Think Orky thoughts, think outside the box, and think about the look on your opponent's face as their fancy-shmancy meta list gets pummeled by da boyz. Stay motivated, and keep it fun (for you at least). It's easy to get discouraged playing da Orks. I like to remember that it's less about winning, and more about da fightin' itself that matters. Get yourself good army building software and build some ridiculous lists. I recommend battlescribe for you smartphone users. Then try em out next local tourney. Have some fun with it.

Lot's of talking about em, now let's get to the squig and fungus of the matter. What the hell am I talking about?

Sample Tournament List (ITC legal):

+++ SPEED FREAKS (1847pts) +++

++ Orks: Codex (2014) (Combined Arms Detachment) (435pts) ++

+ HQ (235pts) +

Warboss w/ Mega Armour (110pts) [Gift: Da Finkin' Kap, Mega Armour, Power Klaw, Twin-linked Shoota, Warlord]

Warboss w/ Mega Armour (125pts) [Gift: Da Lucky Stikk, Mega Armour, Power Klaw, Twin-linked Shoota]

+ Troops (200pts) +

Boss' boyz - Boyz (100pts)
····Boss Nob [Choppa, Slugga]
····9x Boy [9x Slugga]
····Trukk [Rokkit Launcha]

++ Orks: Codex (2014) (Combined Arms Detachment) (762pts) ++

+ HQ (220pts) +

Warboss (110pts) [Power Klaw, Slugga, Warbike]

+ Troops (200pts) +

Boss' boyz - Boyz (100pts)
····Boss Nob [Choppa, Slugga]
····9x Boy [9x Slugga]
····Trukk [Rokkit Launcha]

+ Fast Attack (342pts) +

Warbikers (162pts) [9x Warbiker]

Warbikers (180pts) [10x Warbiker]

++ Orks: Codex (2014) (Ork Horde Detachment) (650pts) ++

+ HQ (300pts) +

Warboss w/ Mega Armour (100pts) [Mega Armour, Power Klaw, Twin-linked Shoota]

+ Troops (350pts) +

Boss' boyz - Boyz (100pts)
····Boss Nob [Choppa, Slugga]
····9x Boy [9x Slugga]
····Trukk [Rokkit Launcha]

Boss' boyz - Boyz (125pts)
····Boss Nob [Power Klaw, Slugga]
····9x Boy [9x Slugga]
····Trukk [Rokkit Launcha]

7 Warbosses with s10 attacks. 70 choppa boyz. 20 bikers. Losing a unit doesn't hurt. Remember that the boyz pay dividends in the assault. Stick the mega-armoured bosses in the 100pt trukk units. The biggun with the Lucky Stick goes at the most dakka-heavy target. Turn two, when the enemy is cornered, be sure that when you hop out of the trukks to charge you place the megabosses in front to tank some of the overwatch with that 2+ armour. AP2? "Look Out Sir", I mean "Boss". Use the embedded Boss Nobs to soak up those pesky challenges so the Warboss can lay waste to everything else for a turn. The bikebosses go with the bike units on the flanks or in front of the trukks for cover saves. Everything drives straight at the enemy, everything moves 24 inches with turboboost Turn 1. 3+ cover saves for the bikes if they jink. Da Finkin' Cap is a bargain at 10pts, as it gives you an additional strategic warlord trait. Imagine for a moment that your bikes and boys have move through cover (ruins), stealth (ruins), or inflitrate (shorter distance to the gits). I think you get the picture. Bring a bucket of dice for the dakka that the bikes dish out (they're pretty handy against light armor and flyers). Bring two buckets of dice for the inevitable 2nd turn assault that's coming. Swarm expensive star units.

No frills, no chill. Keep it basic. Keep it Orky. Just roar across the table cackling to yourself as the opponent frantically tries to prioritize targets.

I challenge my fellow warbosses to fight the meta. Let's teach them to fear the green again.

As for the army list, I dare you to try it out. Till next time.

Cabal Star tactics

Beer Apostle here and this evening I have decided to write a little bit about the largely talked about Cabal star. The Cabal Star can be built a few ways but mainly consists of Flesh hounds from the Khorne Daemonkin book and the Cyclobia Cabal from the CSM Black Legion Supplement. Before I use to run just a CAD of KDK to take a juggo lord and about 20 fleshhounds but I have moved on from that. Now I run the Gorepack along with the Cabal and another CAD that I will discuss later....Muahahaha

Gorepack

So in my Gorepack, I leave the two mandatory biker squads with no upgrades.

Bikers: I have found they either get killed really quick or are just great back field objective holders or denial units. One thing I have found I can do with the bikes is charge the unit my cabal star does so my champion can issue a challenge instead of my sorcerers giving me a bloodtithe point for dying in a challenge and another if the entire bike squad gets kill. Khorne wins either way. I have also found in a more recent game...they are great from blocking enemy units from charging my cabal by blocking with them.

Fleshhounds: Now here is the meat and potatoes of this list. I run 4 squads of hounds. 1 squad being a 20 man squad and the other 3 being a 5 man squad. The 20 man squad is obviously the stars squad and the other 3...well I use them just like the bikers. They are there to block my opponent from charging me and denying my opponent objectives.

How I envision my Fleshhounds!

Cyclobia Cabal

So I usually run 3 sorcerers in my Cabal and no more.

Sorcerer 1:
ML 3, Spell Familiar, Bike, Unmarked, Force Sword, Bolt Pistol, and Melta Bomb

Sorcerer 2:
ML 3. Spell Familiar, Bike, Unmarked, Power Fist, Bolt Pistol

Sorcerer 3:
ML 3, Spell Familiar, Bike, Unmarked, Power Fist, Bolt Pistol

Sorcerer 1:
So the idea for my first sorcerer is that he is my monstrous creature killer. With Force turned on and some psychic buffs...he will make light work of many of the monstrous creatures in the Grim Dark. With his psychic powers I roll on daemonology santic....why santic? Well for hammerhand and sanctuary of course. With both being one warp charge the buffs to the unit are unreal. Plus 2 str to the unit...making the dogs str 7 on the charge and the power fist str 10. Sanctuary will boost the dogs to 4 plus invuls. Although it does make other daemons treat everything within 12 inches dangerous terrain, the dogs being beast make them ignore that. You will see a little later why I wont care much about that.

Sorcerer 2 and 3:
So these two are my superheavy or gmc killers. With hammerhand off...my power fist are at str 10 ap 2. At WS 5...they are hitting most Super heavy walkers and GMCs on 3's. What power do I roll on for these guys?? Well here I am now looking for endurance from Biomancy. Warp Speed on a power fist is also a plus because who doesnt like getting plus 3 attacks with a power fist??? With Warpspeed and on the Charge the power fist would have 7 attacks!!! If I get endurance with the first sorcerer I then get greedy and roll on telepathy for invisibility.

One thing that is smart to do when rolling your psychic powers is to roll your dice one at a time. If you manage to get the powers you want then go ahead and move on to another chart. For Biomancy...I dont really need smite and for santic...I really dont need banishment so getting a psychic focus from rolling on one chart isn't necessary.

Optional builds to complete the list

Like I mentioned in the first paragraph, I use to run a CAD with a juggalord and 20 fleshounds. You can still do this and save yourself from points from the tax of bikers but you lose Hammer of Wrath on the dogs and preferred enemy psyker.... But If I were to take a Juggalord...I'd make the CAD a crimson slaughter detachments so I can give the Juggalord a daemonheart. A 2 plus amour save is money when you will most likely be throwing him into challenges. I would also give him the axe of blind fury and of course make him Khorne. (I write this as the GW FAQs are not official and I play in alot of ITC tournaments that dont play with the GW FAQs so taking two relics is still cool) The axe of blind fury are 2+ str and with hammerhand on...That will be str 8 AP 2....lets think about this....The axe is a daemon weapon...so you get to roll for extra attacks....you also get rage...So just based off that alone...You have 4 base attacks for the juggalord. Plus one for CC weapon and pistol. (axe of blind fury isnt specialist) and plus 2 for rage. That is 7 attacks before you roll for your daemon weapon boost. That is 7+ STR 8 ap 2 attacks swinging at Init 4! Holy moly!!!

I have also seen other people running Traitor Guard but as I dont know much about Traitor Guard...I wont write about them.

You can also take an allied of Chaos Daemons so you can possibly get Grimoire and pink horrors to boost your psychic dice or summon better.

What I bring with my Cabal

Now I am either gonna lose credibility once I share this or help some people out. I run........Eldar Corsairs......Being desperate allies doesn't bother me much as I can easily move quickly with my corsairs. I run a corsair prince...who I make my warlord and 6 units of 3 man scatter bikes. They are Objective secured and great at zooming across the table to capture objectives or getting into position to shoot someone off an objective. sorry...not sorry.....

So that is my tactics and tricks the the Cyclobia Cabal...leave some comments...let me know what you think..negative or positive...I really dont care....

~Beer Apostle~
Beer For the Beer God

BAO Recap

With BAO happening two weekends ago for me, it is only fitting I finally give my recap on what I played, who I played against, and the overall feel of the tournament. So lets begin.

So I played a double Cyclobia Cabal list with a Gorepack. The Cyclobia Cabal comes from the Chaos Space Marine Black Legion book and the Gorepack is a formation that comes the Khorne Daemonkin Codex. I had 3 sorcerers in each Cabal. All with Mastery level 3 and and Spell Familiar on bikes. Two in each Cabal had a power fist while the other sorcerers had a force sword and melta bomb. In the Gorepack I had 2 20 man fleshhound squads with 3 sorcerers going in one and the other 3 in the other 20 man squad. The two mandatory bike squads from Gorepack had no upgrades. Alot of people asked me....that's it?? That is your entire army. Yes and no. With the 6 mastery level 3 sorcerers I had the ability to summon in daemons if I need be. The trick was to get heralds of tzeentch out if need be and let them do the rest of the psychic summoning if need be. But I really didnt need to summon all that much at BAO.

Round 1: Flyrants strike

Which was probably the worst match up for me during the entire tournament was about 7 flying Tyranid monstrous creatures. The only thing I could do was to keep using my Cabal's special psychic power called shroud of deceit and shoot at them with my opponents other units. It was a quick first game yet enjoyable. My opponent buzzed around me and shot me with all his Tyranid goodies while I tried to flee. Oh...if your wondering why I didnt buff my dogs with psychic shenanigans....well chaos didnt feel like giving me anything useful at all....I mean not even shrouding.....no plus one to invulnerable...nothing...

Round 2: Eldar....dirty dirty Eldar

So round two I played an opponent that had an Autarch on a bike, two scat pack squads, some warp spiders, a Skathatch Wraithknight, 2 Warp Hunters, and 4 hornets. After explaining to him what my two Cabals can do with their shroud of deceit, my opponent elected to keep everything but his vehicles and a few warp spiders in reserve. Including his Skathatch...which was probably smart......and then my dice decided to fail me....so top of turn 2...I made and epic multi charge with both dog squads...I had all of his hornets and all of his Warp hunters in cc with my dogs. It was a nice charge..with about 5 dogs on each vehicle.....my dogs rolled to hit great....then came to wound...at str 5 and rear armor ten...I failed to put a single hull point on any of the vehicles....*sigh* All was not lost...my opponents stuff came in from reserve but I still managed to stay in control of the game. I was winning by holding the relic and we were neck and neck on maelstrom. Turn 5 came around and he pulled away with the maelstrom but it looked like I had it with bonus objectives...well I made a dumb move and charged his wraithknight with my warlords dog unit...or what was left of it anyway.....he got some really lucky rolls on the stomp table...and killed my warlord.....that ended the game for me..and he won by a point. was an awesome game vs. an awesome opponent.

Round 3: The metal scourage

Round 3 was against and opponent I had played before in a local tournament and it is always fun playing this certain opponent. He was playing Necrons with lots of warriors and a mini lychguard star. It was bound to be bloody. I managed to lock his lychstar in combat with one of my dog squads while the other went and wreaked havoc on the rest of his army. By turn 4 I had enough blood tithe points to summon a blood thirster...so I did just that. It was at that moment that my opponent surrendered to me knowing that he was going to lose. Overall it was a great game.

Round 4: Dante is a beast!!!

So round 4 was against a Blood Angels player who had some Dark Angel allies as well as a skyhammer added in. We both played timid because we were worried about each other charging each other....so eventually my opponent decided he was going to bite the bullet and put his Dante star close to one of my dog stars. My dogs pounced...my dogs ended up doing 21 wounds..............Dante....only took 2 wounds and lost a bike from his star.....I lost the game...end of story.....but really though...It was fun...blood went flying...Khorne was happy.

Round 5: The Cabal opened the Warp

Round 5 I played a Daemon/Ork army. The Daemons consisted of a great unclean one, two daemon princes of nurgle with wings...and about 2 squads of pink horrors. The orks had two traktor cannons and an imperial bunker with a warboss in mega armor and about 20 boyz. He was trying to summon but with just the shear amount of warp dice I had he couldnt really summon much. My dogs swept through his army so quick that it was looking dire for him. His only hope was to go for the tie at the end and try and contest me on the primary and bonus objectives. He tried to psychic shriek a dog squad but me denying the witch on 3's due to having a sorcerer with them and collar of khorne...and about 20 psychic dice...he couldnt get it off. He needed to do that to kill one dog that was keeping him from contesting the objective.

Round 6: Someone call the Imperial Guard???

Round 6 I played some Imperial guard with a Culexes Assassin....( I hate the Culexes)....There was an oopsy part in this game as I did not know his Earth Shaker cannons were vehicles as they were manned with troops so I used the Shroud of Deceit on them multiple times to fire with them. The SoD rule states non vehicle units only. So....ooops....I did use the earth shaker cannons to hit his Assassin and take it out....the game was close and in the end ended in a tie because I once again......gave up slay the warlord....

So overall I went 2-3-1 at BAO. I felt that I couldve easily gone 5-1 at BAO if I had played the missions a little better and paid attention to what I was doing with my warlord. I had a great experience at BAO and I definitely learned a lot. I look forward to next years event as it should be another good one. Go ahead and comment with questions, remarks...let me know what you think...if you went to BAO..how did you do?

~Beer Apostle~

The very first post

Welcome to the very first post by Beer for the Beer God. We are a small group of nerds who love everything 40k. The general idea of this blog is just to share our thoughts on the current state of 40K, talk about projects, games we have played, and events we have all gone to. We are all new at this and just like our podcast, (yes we have a podcast to) we will have many bumps in the road. So bear with us and enjoy the content. Drink Beer and play 40K.