One particular combination I have found in the new Eldar codex is just plain lethal.
You take an Aspect host. This can be any three aspect warrior units and they all gain bonus ws or bs. This is really strong.
You can also take an Engines of Vaul formation, of three Falcons.
Combine these two together and you can create this;
6 Fire Dragons, inc exarch
6 Fire Dragons, inc exarch
6 Fire Dragons, inc exarch
3 Falcons
Put them together and you get a unit that deep strikes without scattering, delivering a massive amount of melta guns with pin point accuracy. Not many players would thank you for this.
Showing posts with label Codex Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Codex Review. Show all posts
Wednesday, 20 May 2015
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
Eldar Codex Review: The Avatar
The first none aspect warrior unit I am reviewing is the Eldar Avatar.
Anyone familiar with Avatars knows it traditionally comes with certain rules. You know, Molten Body, Wailing Doom, Daemon etc.
Predictably, it still comes with these. No sign of the "Court of the Young king" unit that I saw posted on various rumours websites. Perhaps these will come out with a Biel Tan expansion.
So what changes does it have over a 4th edition Avatar. I am sure this is why you are all here.
Well it has a good stat line. Four stats hit 10, and I bet you can guess which ones they are! It lost a point of invulnerable save and gained a wound, which is exactly in line with what Chaos Greater Daemons have in terms of protection.
It is very similar to a Bloodthirster, but considerably cheaper. However it can't fly. It does however have Battle Focus and a fearless bubble making it an ideal focal point for assault based armies.
You can interestingly buy it Exarch powers. I think Fast Shot is a good buy here to fire Wailing Doom twice. For the second power you will maybe find a few different combinations working. Monster Hunter and Disarming Strike could be plain nasty! Crushing Blow looks fairly pointless on an Avatar to me.
The only real kicker with the Avatar is it seems to have gone up in points by around 33% for a base model. When you start factoring in upgrades in Exarch Powers it is approaching Land Raider and Bloodthirster costs.
Anyone familiar with Avatars knows it traditionally comes with certain rules. You know, Molten Body, Wailing Doom, Daemon etc.
Predictably, it still comes with these. No sign of the "Court of the Young king" unit that I saw posted on various rumours websites. Perhaps these will come out with a Biel Tan expansion.
So what changes does it have over a 4th edition Avatar. I am sure this is why you are all here.
Well it has a good stat line. Four stats hit 10, and I bet you can guess which ones they are! It lost a point of invulnerable save and gained a wound, which is exactly in line with what Chaos Greater Daemons have in terms of protection.
It is very similar to a Bloodthirster, but considerably cheaper. However it can't fly. It does however have Battle Focus and a fearless bubble making it an ideal focal point for assault based armies.
You can interestingly buy it Exarch powers. I think Fast Shot is a good buy here to fire Wailing Doom twice. For the second power you will maybe find a few different combinations working. Monster Hunter and Disarming Strike could be plain nasty! Crushing Blow looks fairly pointless on an Avatar to me.
The only real kicker with the Avatar is it seems to have gone up in points by around 33% for a base model. When you start factoring in upgrades in Exarch Powers it is approaching Land Raider and Bloodthirster costs.
Monday, 1 July 2013
Eldar Codex Review: Shining Spears
The third of the fast attack aspect warriors I am reviewing are Shining Spears.
As I mentioned in other articles, they have dropped quite a few points. Perhaps not as many as I had initially claimed, but they are around 60% of their previous points cost. They also do not seem to have changed at all in their abilities.
You may around 7 points a model on top of a jetbike and you get an aspect warrior with the same gun, same save, and same BS as a guardian. So far, nothing impressive.
You also get the laser lance and skilled rider. Skilled rider improves your units cover save, which is always a good thing.
Laser lances are as far as I can tell exactly the same as before. They are good on a charge against anything not in terminator armour. They are pretty dire should they not get to charge or get stuck in combat. They can still shoot.
So you want an Exarch. He wants hit and run. He might even want a Star Lance, which turns him into a credible anti tank threat and should make short work of most walkers in close combat with it.
Oddly in the Iyanden expansion, it mentions there is a Phoenix lord of the Shining Spears, but that hes gone missing. I am a bit disappointed that none of the "new" aspects, such as Spears, Spiders and Crimson Hunters get a Phoenix Lord.
As I mentioned in other articles, they have dropped quite a few points. Perhaps not as many as I had initially claimed, but they are around 60% of their previous points cost. They also do not seem to have changed at all in their abilities.
You may around 7 points a model on top of a jetbike and you get an aspect warrior with the same gun, same save, and same BS as a guardian. So far, nothing impressive.
You also get the laser lance and skilled rider. Skilled rider improves your units cover save, which is always a good thing.
Laser lances are as far as I can tell exactly the same as before. They are good on a charge against anything not in terminator armour. They are pretty dire should they not get to charge or get stuck in combat. They can still shoot.
So you want an Exarch. He wants hit and run. He might even want a Star Lance, which turns him into a credible anti tank threat and should make short work of most walkers in close combat with it.
Oddly in the Iyanden expansion, it mentions there is a Phoenix lord of the Shining Spears, but that hes gone missing. I am a bit disappointed that none of the "new" aspects, such as Spears, Spiders and Crimson Hunters get a Phoenix Lord.
Saturday, 22 June 2013
Eldar Codex Review: Warp Spiders
The second Aspect Warrior I am reviewing are Warp Spiders.
Ill start with this. Warp Spiders are insanely fast. Absolutely incredibly fast. I don't think there is a unit of infantry in the game with this speed.
Lets look at the nuts and bolts of this claim.
They can deep strike
Move 6 because they are jump jet infantry in the movement phase
Run/shoot or shoot/run a further d6 inches rerolled.
The either move 2d6 as jump jet infantry or 6+2d6 with a warp jump in the assault phase.
In theory they can move a whopping 30 inches in a turn. The best any other infantry unit can move is 18.
Armour wise, they come with heavy aspect armour, which is the best available for Aspect warriors.
They keep their guns from 4th edition but have a slight tweak. Mono-filament rule makes them kind of rending, and against low initiative, or indeed no initiative opponents their guns gain a point in strength.
So basically they got better.
Now the exarch can get a twin spinner or a spinneret rifle. I think the rifle is the best bet here. Its got a better range than before, indeed its quite decent range for such a low AP gun on a Unit champion. He is probably a better buy than the hawk exarch, because he adds quite a lot of value to the unit. Power blades are nice, but not really needed, but they may possibly get you out of a pickle.
These along with Swooping Hawks and Shining spears are vying for the most improved Aspect Warriors in this edition. All three of these fast attack choices are good.
Ill start with this. Warp Spiders are insanely fast. Absolutely incredibly fast. I don't think there is a unit of infantry in the game with this speed.
Lets look at the nuts and bolts of this claim.
They can deep strike
Move 6 because they are jump jet infantry in the movement phase
Run/shoot or shoot/run a further d6 inches rerolled.
The either move 2d6 as jump jet infantry or 6+2d6 with a warp jump in the assault phase.
In theory they can move a whopping 30 inches in a turn. The best any other infantry unit can move is 18.
Armour wise, they come with heavy aspect armour, which is the best available for Aspect warriors.
They keep their guns from 4th edition but have a slight tweak. Mono-filament rule makes them kind of rending, and against low initiative, or indeed no initiative opponents their guns gain a point in strength.
So basically they got better.
Now the exarch can get a twin spinner or a spinneret rifle. I think the rifle is the best bet here. Its got a better range than before, indeed its quite decent range for such a low AP gun on a Unit champion. He is probably a better buy than the hawk exarch, because he adds quite a lot of value to the unit. Power blades are nice, but not really needed, but they may possibly get you out of a pickle.
These along with Swooping Hawks and Shining spears are vying for the most improved Aspect Warriors in this edition. All three of these fast attack choices are good.
Friday, 21 June 2013
Eldar codex review: Swooping Hawks
Now I have to say, at first read, I was fairly disappointed by Swooping Hawks. They didn't seem all that good.
The reality is blindingly different.
For a cost of three points more than a Dire Avenger you trade in your Avenger catapult for an assault 3 Lasgun. While this is not massively impressive, the numbers back this up as being as effective against anything up to toughness four as a storm bolter, and better if their armour saves are worse than power armour.
The unit arrives by deep strike and does not scatter. It throws a grenade with the same stats as a plasma missile with either a small or large blast depending on squad size.
It can also skyleap as before, allowing it to do this multiple times per battle.
Hawks also have haywire grenades and plasma grenades, meaning they can assault dreadnoughts better than any other unit in the eldar book. While plasma grenades are not great, they are better to have than not.
I am unsure just how useful the Exarch will be to the squad, but he can add some harrassment value if he has one of the two upgraded guns. One makes the three shot gun s5 and the other gives it blind.
As with other eldar units, you gain increased speed with battle focus allowing this unit to dance about at extreme ranges if needs be, and the wings along with skyleap allow full redeployment of the unit to where it is needed.
A very flexible unit in a codex full of units which only do one thing well. I think Swooping Hawks have gone from a terrible unit in 4th edition to a top unit in 6th. Their only real competition comes from Warp Spiders who do a similar thing, and will be reviewed by me another day.
For anyone following my blog, you will notice a trend that the Eldar are appearing to be better and better as I get better understanding on just how they work.
The reality is blindingly different.
For a cost of three points more than a Dire Avenger you trade in your Avenger catapult for an assault 3 Lasgun. While this is not massively impressive, the numbers back this up as being as effective against anything up to toughness four as a storm bolter, and better if their armour saves are worse than power armour.
The unit arrives by deep strike and does not scatter. It throws a grenade with the same stats as a plasma missile with either a small or large blast depending on squad size.
It can also skyleap as before, allowing it to do this multiple times per battle.
Hawks also have haywire grenades and plasma grenades, meaning they can assault dreadnoughts better than any other unit in the eldar book. While plasma grenades are not great, they are better to have than not.
I am unsure just how useful the Exarch will be to the squad, but he can add some harrassment value if he has one of the two upgraded guns. One makes the three shot gun s5 and the other gives it blind.
As with other eldar units, you gain increased speed with battle focus allowing this unit to dance about at extreme ranges if needs be, and the wings along with skyleap allow full redeployment of the unit to where it is needed.
A very flexible unit in a codex full of units which only do one thing well. I think Swooping Hawks have gone from a terrible unit in 4th edition to a top unit in 6th. Their only real competition comes from Warp Spiders who do a similar thing, and will be reviewed by me another day.
For anyone following my blog, you will notice a trend that the Eldar are appearing to be better and better as I get better understanding on just how they work.
Thursday, 13 June 2013
Eldar 6th Edition Codex Review: The good units
So far my previous two articles on the Eldar Codex have given it a complete battering. I have read the rules through three or four times now and I think I may be coming round to the idea they are not quite as terrible across the board as I had initially thought.
First of all, there are good units in the codex. That is, out and out, value for money units compared within their own book, and even across the other codexes out there.
Farseers.
These are very good value for their points cost. Come in at the same cost as a Marine captain in the 5th edition book, are level 3 casters with access to Divination, Telepathy and Runes of Fate. You want Runes of Fate, and you might want Divination. I wouldn't personally consider Telepathy a useful use of their time.
They have access to Runes, Ghosthelms etc which are all slightly changed, but not significantly so from what they did previously. Singing Spears seem better. No longer specialist weapons/Two handed so as far as I can tell you have no reason not to find the small amount of points to upgrade. I believe its the same as in the 4th edition book in cost. Still not Force Weapons.
I think one Farseer is nigh on mandatory. The Eldar book needs the buffs they provide to become viable and drag some units to become competitive. In fact there is only one reason I can think, in a standard FOC setting when you wouldn't want to take two.
The reason is the Spiritseer
Spiritseer
A cut price, two wound Farseer. I believe he is a level 2 psyker too with same Lore access as the Farseer. Comes with a witch staff. What you include him for is making Wraithguard and Wraithblades scoring Troops rather than Elites. So good for Iyanden Craftworld armies. If you are including a unit of Wraithguard or Wraithblades, take a long hard look at this character, expecially if you haven't ear marked the second HQ slot. Compared to the other troops choices, Wraith units are very hardy. No longer any requirement for ten either to be scoring.
Jetbikes
These are cheap. I believe they got a price cut of around 5 points and have the same options as before. Tough and fast scoring units with jink to throw in a cover save. Guns are short ranged as ever, but good for winning the movement phase. Expect to see a lot of these. The only real downside is the old model. The same jetbike exists from when I started playing in 1994. I have no idea when it came out, but it was nearly two decades ago.
Shining Spears
Got a huge points reduction. Nearly 20 points a model cheaper, or half price I believe! Same stats as before, but are now reasonably priced. No longer do laser lances seem an over priced piece of tat and the one attack on the stat line doesn't annoy me so much. Come with a whole range of abilities to keep them alive. Skilled Rider is nice on them.
Striking Scorpions
Not the unit as such. I don't like how mandiblasters became far more complicated. As I mentioned in my previous posts, they now function like a permanent Hammer of Wrath attack, rather than giving the model a bonus attack. The effects of this are that the strength of the hit is lower, because it doesn't use the chainsword. but it does automatically hit. I have not run the exact numbers at this time, but I suspect they may actually be more effective now.
No, the main reason for the inclusion of the Striking Scorpions on the good list is this. The Scorpions Claw wargear item for the Exarch. It is simply insanely decent. It gives the same stat bonuses as a regular old powerfist, you know like it used to be in 4th edition, and has a built in Shurican catapult. Now I am not a fan of the new weapon on Guardians and Dire Avengers, but as a backup weapon to the main combat weapons, it is fine.
The truly great part of the claw is that the scorpion exarch can stack with an exarch power, making his fist the same strength as a marine using a powerfirst. However the best bit is it is not a specialist weapon, nor is it unwieldy. This means he hits nearly everything first, and gets a bonus attack from his chainsword, making up for losing a fist attack to the mandiblasters.
Wave Serpent
It has to be said, I didn't see why this was so good. But it turns out the actual "shield" on the tank can be fired, and it seems exceptionally good when combined with laser lock. It may make all of the other eldar tanks redundant given it doesn't take up slots and it also carries the most troops into battle.
First of all, there are good units in the codex. That is, out and out, value for money units compared within their own book, and even across the other codexes out there.
Farseers.
These are very good value for their points cost. Come in at the same cost as a Marine captain in the 5th edition book, are level 3 casters with access to Divination, Telepathy and Runes of Fate. You want Runes of Fate, and you might want Divination. I wouldn't personally consider Telepathy a useful use of their time.
They have access to Runes, Ghosthelms etc which are all slightly changed, but not significantly so from what they did previously. Singing Spears seem better. No longer specialist weapons/Two handed so as far as I can tell you have no reason not to find the small amount of points to upgrade. I believe its the same as in the 4th edition book in cost. Still not Force Weapons.
I think one Farseer is nigh on mandatory. The Eldar book needs the buffs they provide to become viable and drag some units to become competitive. In fact there is only one reason I can think, in a standard FOC setting when you wouldn't want to take two.
The reason is the Spiritseer
Spiritseer
A cut price, two wound Farseer. I believe he is a level 2 psyker too with same Lore access as the Farseer. Comes with a witch staff. What you include him for is making Wraithguard and Wraithblades scoring Troops rather than Elites. So good for Iyanden Craftworld armies. If you are including a unit of Wraithguard or Wraithblades, take a long hard look at this character, expecially if you haven't ear marked the second HQ slot. Compared to the other troops choices, Wraith units are very hardy. No longer any requirement for ten either to be scoring.
Jetbikes
These are cheap. I believe they got a price cut of around 5 points and have the same options as before. Tough and fast scoring units with jink to throw in a cover save. Guns are short ranged as ever, but good for winning the movement phase. Expect to see a lot of these. The only real downside is the old model. The same jetbike exists from when I started playing in 1994. I have no idea when it came out, but it was nearly two decades ago.
Shining Spears
Got a huge points reduction. Nearly 20 points a model cheaper, or half price I believe! Same stats as before, but are now reasonably priced. No longer do laser lances seem an over priced piece of tat and the one attack on the stat line doesn't annoy me so much. Come with a whole range of abilities to keep them alive. Skilled Rider is nice on them.
Striking Scorpions
Not the unit as such. I don't like how mandiblasters became far more complicated. As I mentioned in my previous posts, they now function like a permanent Hammer of Wrath attack, rather than giving the model a bonus attack. The effects of this are that the strength of the hit is lower, because it doesn't use the chainsword. but it does automatically hit. I have not run the exact numbers at this time, but I suspect they may actually be more effective now.
No, the main reason for the inclusion of the Striking Scorpions on the good list is this. The Scorpions Claw wargear item for the Exarch. It is simply insanely decent. It gives the same stat bonuses as a regular old powerfist, you know like it used to be in 4th edition, and has a built in Shurican catapult. Now I am not a fan of the new weapon on Guardians and Dire Avengers, but as a backup weapon to the main combat weapons, it is fine.
The truly great part of the claw is that the scorpion exarch can stack with an exarch power, making his fist the same strength as a marine using a powerfirst. However the best bit is it is not a specialist weapon, nor is it unwieldy. This means he hits nearly everything first, and gets a bonus attack from his chainsword, making up for losing a fist attack to the mandiblasters.
Wave Serpent
It has to be said, I didn't see why this was so good. But it turns out the actual "shield" on the tank can be fired, and it seems exceptionally good when combined with laser lock. It may make all of the other eldar tanks redundant given it doesn't take up slots and it also carries the most troops into battle.
Wednesday, 5 June 2013
Eldar 6th edition Codex Review in more detail
I have had a proper read through this now. Here are my thoughts.
Im pretty sure at best the Eldar are the worst 6th ed codex. Perhaps even worse than Chaos marines in terms of useful units.
HQs
Farseer and Spiritseers are the only decent HQs. Pretty much all the special characters are over priced. All the relics are rubbish, beyond some possible uses for the wing thing that allows a super run.
Avatar is over costed and nothing special. Greater daemons without wings are a bad idea. Autarch is kind of okay, nothing spectacular. He will die horribly vs any proper melee Lord. The only real use I can see is give him a jetbike and either a fusion gun or a reaper launcher.
Warlocks I kind of like. Since you get free powers and don't need to pay for them. However you do have to cast them now. On fairly shoddy leadership.
Ancient doom is kind of poor. How many slaanesh armeis are out there? Battle focus is possibly good, possibly average. Its certainly not bad.
The Warlord chart is bad. Absolutely nothing stands out as good. A lot of it is lame.
Troops
Dire Avengers are MORE expensive, despite being worse. No the false rending on the guns is not great. If they had their ability to increase rate of fire as well, then maybe they might be acceptable. I suppose the clue is in the name.
Guardians. Well they got better BS and WS and I think Initiative. They did not get Tau fire warrior better, and they cost the same. However they are less terrible than Dire Avengers and get at least reasonably costed heavy weapons. The combat guardians are still bad.
Jetbikes are good. Cheaper and same as before from what I can tell.
Rangers seem awfully expensive for t3 models with sniper rifles, and cost even more when path finders. Did GW not learn from over pricing Waywatchers? Clearly not.
Wave Serpent is kind of a battle tank and not a transport now. Ive seen suggestions it should be using its shield to attack, but then it will open itself up to dying a lot more. Seems very pricey but I suppose it does now have the improved BS along with all the other guardians.
Elites
Wraithguard. I like. They got cheaper and now have weapon options for something which appear to be d-cannon flamers. Expect to see a lot of these, more so if the Iyanden suppliment is any good.
Wraithknights. "Combat" troops with 1 attack base. For more than chaos terminators. I think not.
Scorpions. I kind of think these got better. Mandiblasters got turned into hammer of wrath that works every round, where as the Scorpions claw is decent expecially with the strength boosting exarch power.
Banshees. Still too low strength to reliably kill power armour. Not as good as scorpions at all. Banshee masks now worse.
Harliquins. A bit odd. Veil of tears is back as it was in the old codex, but you need to cast it. Still expensive. Will die in droves should you fail to cast the spell or the enemy gets to shoot them. Not as good as scorpions.
Fire Dragons. Huge price increase. Improved saves. Still good value in all honesty.
Fast Attack.
Wow, finally got to a slot where there is competition for slots!
Swooping Hawks. Became better, and cheaper. Still have haywire grenades, fly and their guns are slightly better.
Warpspiders. I think they also became better. Against tanks their guns are better. The only real downside is most units can now "jump" away with the shoot/run option so their own gimmick is not so good.
Shining spears. Became considerably cheaper. I think otherwise they are the same. A very decent unit now.
Vyper. I think they are too expensive for how fragile they are. They can however use the laser lock rule, but since their other weapon isn't very good, I don't see many of these being used, especially given the other fast attack options are good.
New aircraft. I know one isn't in fast attack slot, but I am including them here for completion. Both are the lowest armour in the game going and will die. Too expensive by half. The Crimson hunter Exarch has perhaps something going for him, but hes really quite expensive. The Wraithfighter thing, I really just dislike. Terrify power is nothing special.
Heavy Support.
Dark Reapers. I quite like them. They are slow and purposeful and can have krak missiles. In some absurd fashion they are unable to take skyfire missiles, unlike marine and chaos marine devastators. Reaper exarch will need a mortgage to buy his gear and skills as per the last edition.
Warwalkers. I like. Powerfield makes them a bit tougher, and they can get some mileage from the laser lock.
Falcon. Probably the worst battle tank now. Out classed by the Wave serpent that doesn't take up a slot.
Fire Prism. Its pretty good, but pricey for a one gun tank. Due to deaths from glancing, rather than penetrating hits, the prism cannon will likely survive with its gun in tact. A solid choice.
Wraithlord. Still good. Can now take two heavy weapons without having to twin link them. Honestly I think this is better than the Wraithknight.
Wraithknight. Stupidly expensive jumpjet monster. Has high toughness, the same as Wraithlords, but will need to sacrifice one of its two big guns for a shield for a much needed if quite poor invulnerable save. Oddly you can't choose a mix of weapons, you have three combinations and that is all you can pick from. Can take two identical shoulder heavy weapons. Wants to take scatter lasers, so you can use laser lock on the main gun you have left with the shield.
Night spinner. Became worse I think. I don't really like it. Just take a fire prism.
Support platforms. Still good. D-cannon is expensive, but possibly very scary. All D-weapons are very decent.
Im pretty sure at best the Eldar are the worst 6th ed codex. Perhaps even worse than Chaos marines in terms of useful units.
HQs
Farseer and Spiritseers are the only decent HQs. Pretty much all the special characters are over priced. All the relics are rubbish, beyond some possible uses for the wing thing that allows a super run.
Avatar is over costed and nothing special. Greater daemons without wings are a bad idea. Autarch is kind of okay, nothing spectacular. He will die horribly vs any proper melee Lord. The only real use I can see is give him a jetbike and either a fusion gun or a reaper launcher.
Warlocks I kind of like. Since you get free powers and don't need to pay for them. However you do have to cast them now. On fairly shoddy leadership.
Ancient doom is kind of poor. How many slaanesh armeis are out there? Battle focus is possibly good, possibly average. Its certainly not bad.
The Warlord chart is bad. Absolutely nothing stands out as good. A lot of it is lame.
Troops
Dire Avengers are MORE expensive, despite being worse. No the false rending on the guns is not great. If they had their ability to increase rate of fire as well, then maybe they might be acceptable. I suppose the clue is in the name.
Guardians. Well they got better BS and WS and I think Initiative. They did not get Tau fire warrior better, and they cost the same. However they are less terrible than Dire Avengers and get at least reasonably costed heavy weapons. The combat guardians are still bad.
Jetbikes are good. Cheaper and same as before from what I can tell.
Rangers seem awfully expensive for t3 models with sniper rifles, and cost even more when path finders. Did GW not learn from over pricing Waywatchers? Clearly not.
Wave Serpent is kind of a battle tank and not a transport now. Ive seen suggestions it should be using its shield to attack, but then it will open itself up to dying a lot more. Seems very pricey but I suppose it does now have the improved BS along with all the other guardians.
Elites
Wraithguard. I like. They got cheaper and now have weapon options for something which appear to be d-cannon flamers. Expect to see a lot of these, more so if the Iyanden suppliment is any good.
Wraithknights. "Combat" troops with 1 attack base. For more than chaos terminators. I think not.
Scorpions. I kind of think these got better. Mandiblasters got turned into hammer of wrath that works every round, where as the Scorpions claw is decent expecially with the strength boosting exarch power.
Banshees. Still too low strength to reliably kill power armour. Not as good as scorpions at all. Banshee masks now worse.
Harliquins. A bit odd. Veil of tears is back as it was in the old codex, but you need to cast it. Still expensive. Will die in droves should you fail to cast the spell or the enemy gets to shoot them. Not as good as scorpions.
Fire Dragons. Huge price increase. Improved saves. Still good value in all honesty.
Fast Attack.
Wow, finally got to a slot where there is competition for slots!
Swooping Hawks. Became better, and cheaper. Still have haywire grenades, fly and their guns are slightly better.
Warpspiders. I think they also became better. Against tanks their guns are better. The only real downside is most units can now "jump" away with the shoot/run option so their own gimmick is not so good.
Shining spears. Became considerably cheaper. I think otherwise they are the same. A very decent unit now.
Vyper. I think they are too expensive for how fragile they are. They can however use the laser lock rule, but since their other weapon isn't very good, I don't see many of these being used, especially given the other fast attack options are good.
New aircraft. I know one isn't in fast attack slot, but I am including them here for completion. Both are the lowest armour in the game going and will die. Too expensive by half. The Crimson hunter Exarch has perhaps something going for him, but hes really quite expensive. The Wraithfighter thing, I really just dislike. Terrify power is nothing special.
Heavy Support.
Dark Reapers. I quite like them. They are slow and purposeful and can have krak missiles. In some absurd fashion they are unable to take skyfire missiles, unlike marine and chaos marine devastators. Reaper exarch will need a mortgage to buy his gear and skills as per the last edition.
Warwalkers. I like. Powerfield makes them a bit tougher, and they can get some mileage from the laser lock.
Falcon. Probably the worst battle tank now. Out classed by the Wave serpent that doesn't take up a slot.
Fire Prism. Its pretty good, but pricey for a one gun tank. Due to deaths from glancing, rather than penetrating hits, the prism cannon will likely survive with its gun in tact. A solid choice.
Wraithlord. Still good. Can now take two heavy weapons without having to twin link them. Honestly I think this is better than the Wraithknight.
Wraithknight. Stupidly expensive jumpjet monster. Has high toughness, the same as Wraithlords, but will need to sacrifice one of its two big guns for a shield for a much needed if quite poor invulnerable save. Oddly you can't choose a mix of weapons, you have three combinations and that is all you can pick from. Can take two identical shoulder heavy weapons. Wants to take scatter lasers, so you can use laser lock on the main gun you have left with the shield.
Night spinner. Became worse I think. I don't really like it. Just take a fire prism.
Support platforms. Still good. D-cannon is expensive, but possibly very scary. All D-weapons are very decent.
Tuesday, 4 June 2013
Eldar 6th Edition Codex Review first impressions
I have the new Eldar codex. If I had to pick one word to describe it, I would say, disappointed.
Now, lets start with the good. Farseers and the new Spirit Seers are both solid choices. The Runes of Fate lore is very similar to the old Eldar spells from the 4th edition book, but with two new powers.
Warlocks are now very similar to Royal Courts. You buy them as one unit, and split them off. Some debate exists on whether you generate spells before or after splitting them up. There is also an absurdity where a jetbike warlock splitting off counts as being an infantry unit. I expect that to be errataed.
Swooping hawks became better. Their guns became marginely better and they became a bit cheaper. In fact, most of the improved units, are improved by virtue of being cheaper. Shining Spears, Guardian Jetbikes and Wraithguard also feature in this section.
All shurikan weapons got a kind of false rending. Guardians got a boost on WS and BS. Still got pistol ranged rifles. Not sold. Their heavy weapons became cheaper though and they can take more than one in a unit.
They have some nifty run/shoot or shoot/run option available to most of the living eldar units. Time will tell if this is a gimmick, game breaking, or more probably something in between. I suppose its kind of like having the jetpack rule, but better. Will need some games to decide if I like this. Dark Reapers can even use this.
Dark reapers can have the option for krak like missiles, but no skyfire, unless I misread something. Huge opportunity lost.
Exarches have similar upgrades and maybe better powers than before. Again, its something that will need to be played.
Scorpions claw is not a powerfist and doesnt strike last. With the exarch being able to up his strength on exarch powers, he will be quite good.
Eldrad can run and is the same toughness. Thats something I guess.
I think that is about it for improvements.
Downsides, where do I begin?
Avatar, is a whole bunch more expensive, gains a wound, reduces his invulnerable save to the daemons standard. Oh and he can buy options.
Phoenix Lords. Terribly over priced. Pretty much across the board. They are all the wrong side of 200 points.
Guardians. Yes they are better. No they are still not very good. Same price as Tau fire warriors despite being considerably worse.
Guardian defenders. An even worse unit than they used to be. Can for some unusual reason take two with power swords, but no champion.
Dire avengers are more expensive, probably due to the false rending ability. They may be possibly acceptable, but they are only one point cheaper than a dark angel tactical marine.
Banshees are utterly lame. Mask has been nerfed into a slaanesh like reduce the enemy initiative ability.
Mandi blasters are now basically the same as hammer of wrath in every round. Not as good as before.
Reaper exarch lost his ultimate killing ability with the tempest launcher and crack shot, unless I am missing something.
Fire dragons went up in points, by a fair amount and gained slightly better saves.
Thats it for now. Please find the other articles written on this subject below;
6th Edition Eldar in more Detail
6th Edition Eldar the good units
6th Edition Eldar Swooping Hawks
6th Edition Eldar Warp Spiders
6th Edition Eldar Shining Spears
6th Edition Eldar Avatar
Can Howling Banshees be competative?
To Exarch or not?
Now, lets start with the good. Farseers and the new Spirit Seers are both solid choices. The Runes of Fate lore is very similar to the old Eldar spells from the 4th edition book, but with two new powers.
Warlocks are now very similar to Royal Courts. You buy them as one unit, and split them off. Some debate exists on whether you generate spells before or after splitting them up. There is also an absurdity where a jetbike warlock splitting off counts as being an infantry unit. I expect that to be errataed.
Swooping hawks became better. Their guns became marginely better and they became a bit cheaper. In fact, most of the improved units, are improved by virtue of being cheaper. Shining Spears, Guardian Jetbikes and Wraithguard also feature in this section.
All shurikan weapons got a kind of false rending. Guardians got a boost on WS and BS. Still got pistol ranged rifles. Not sold. Their heavy weapons became cheaper though and they can take more than one in a unit.
They have some nifty run/shoot or shoot/run option available to most of the living eldar units. Time will tell if this is a gimmick, game breaking, or more probably something in between. I suppose its kind of like having the jetpack rule, but better. Will need some games to decide if I like this. Dark Reapers can even use this.
Dark reapers can have the option for krak like missiles, but no skyfire, unless I misread something. Huge opportunity lost.
Exarches have similar upgrades and maybe better powers than before. Again, its something that will need to be played.
Scorpions claw is not a powerfist and doesnt strike last. With the exarch being able to up his strength on exarch powers, he will be quite good.
Eldrad can run and is the same toughness. Thats something I guess.
I think that is about it for improvements.
Downsides, where do I begin?
Avatar, is a whole bunch more expensive, gains a wound, reduces his invulnerable save to the daemons standard. Oh and he can buy options.
Phoenix Lords. Terribly over priced. Pretty much across the board. They are all the wrong side of 200 points.
Guardians. Yes they are better. No they are still not very good. Same price as Tau fire warriors despite being considerably worse.
Guardian defenders. An even worse unit than they used to be. Can for some unusual reason take two with power swords, but no champion.
Dire avengers are more expensive, probably due to the false rending ability. They may be possibly acceptable, but they are only one point cheaper than a dark angel tactical marine.
Banshees are utterly lame. Mask has been nerfed into a slaanesh like reduce the enemy initiative ability.
Mandi blasters are now basically the same as hammer of wrath in every round. Not as good as before.
Reaper exarch lost his ultimate killing ability with the tempest launcher and crack shot, unless I am missing something.
Fire dragons went up in points, by a fair amount and gained slightly better saves.
Thats it for now. Please find the other articles written on this subject below;
6th Edition Eldar in more Detail
6th Edition Eldar the good units
6th Edition Eldar Swooping Hawks
6th Edition Eldar Warp Spiders
6th Edition Eldar Shining Spears
6th Edition Eldar Avatar
Can Howling Banshees be competative?
To Exarch or not?
Sunday, 14 April 2013
Tau 6th Edition Troops Review, aka Firewarriors, Firewarriors, Firewarriors
This is a really really straight forwards review. Lets start with this. Tau Firewarriors are probably the best troops choice in the entire game. You can probably ignore Kroot entirely, since they are no longer a combat unit.
Let me explain my thoughts. Tau firewarriors went down in points to less than ten points each, the same points as Daemonettes, Plaguebearers and Pink Horrors.
For the low, low cost of 99 points, you can get 11 Fire warriors. If they shoot at 7 Dark Angel tactical marines, which come to 98 points, in a book also written by the same author, then you can see what I mean.
11 Firewarriors at long range kill 2.39 Tacticals. In rapid fire range they kill 4.79. This is the equivelent of 33.46 points killed at long range and 67.06 points killed at short range.
The 7 Dark Angels only kill 1.57 Fire Warriors at long range, and 3.14 at long range. In terms of points killed, at long range Dark Angels kill 14.13 points and at short range 28.26 points.
So yeah. They are 2.37 times more points efficient at killing the cheapest marines, than the marines are at killing them back.
Let me explain my thoughts. Tau firewarriors went down in points to less than ten points each, the same points as Daemonettes, Plaguebearers and Pink Horrors.
For the low, low cost of 99 points, you can get 11 Fire warriors. If they shoot at 7 Dark Angel tactical marines, which come to 98 points, in a book also written by the same author, then you can see what I mean.
11 Firewarriors at long range kill 2.39 Tacticals. In rapid fire range they kill 4.79. This is the equivelent of 33.46 points killed at long range and 67.06 points killed at short range.
The 7 Dark Angels only kill 1.57 Fire Warriors at long range, and 3.14 at long range. In terms of points killed, at long range Dark Angels kill 14.13 points and at short range 28.26 points.
So yeah. They are 2.37 times more points efficient at killing the cheapest marines, than the marines are at killing them back.
Friday, 15 March 2013
Chaos Daemon 6th edition troops review
Now I know I said I wouldn't review the whole codex, and I don't for a minute think I will get time to look at everything. However what I will do is have a brief look at certain units and even add some maths to make everything more fun!
Bloodletters
First up, Khornes troop choice. Bloodletters took a battering, losing a point in toughness and attacks. Their leadership, much like every other Daemon unit is the same as basic guardsmen and champions don't add a bonus to it. So far, so bad. Like other daemons they all became much cheaper.
Name one other book where you get a ws5, furious charging, s4 power sword armed troops choice for a very reasonable amount of points?
You can't because they don't exist. This is essentially all you are buying.
Bloodletters have the poorest defensive stats, on par with Daemonettes, with guardsman toughness and the daemon rule providing all the defense of a wet paper towel. They are however dirt cheap. A full unit, with the Banner of blood to help charges, is only 235 for 20 models and all the upgrades. It is probably worth finding a few points for an etherblade for the unit champion, so he can at least hit things at ap2.
10 basic bloodletters vs 10 marines
Charging bloodletters kill 8.978 marines! Not bad for a unit worth just over half the points...
10 basic bloodletters vs 10 terminators
Charging bloodletters kill 1.526 terminators. Not great.
10 basic bloodletters vs 10 guardsmen
Charging bloodletters kill 11.112 guardsmen.
The numbers prove the theory. Bloodletters are very good vs power armour. Elsewhere they are not very cost effective. Just imagine Bloodletters are dirt cheap howling banshees. They are virtually identical in application.
Daemonettes
The only other combat infantry in the troops section are Slaaneshs Daemonettes. These suffered far less of a battering, losing only an attack and an initiative. They are still initaitve 5 and have all the bonuses of being a daemon of slaanesh. Coming in at a point under that of bloodletters, they are faster than them, equally fragile, with less strength.
However they do have rending, so this helps somewhat and they can therefore tackle terminators which Bloodletters will struggle with. As before, you probably want an Etherblade on the champion, ideally paying for a greater one, to improve the models strength. The banner is quite nice, but daemonettes already have better WS and initaitve than anyone they are likely to fight, so I can't see it being used over much. A full command unit of 20 with the banner comes in at a very reasonable 215 points.
Due to rending, this table is somewhat more confusing!
10 basic daemonettes vs 10 marines
Charging daemonettes rend 3.32 marines and kill 1.105 for a total of 3.425 dead marines
10 basic daemonettes vs 10 terminators
Charging daemonettes rend 2.22 terminators and kill 0.553 for a total of 2.773 dead terminators
10 basic daemonettes vs 10 guardsmen
Charging daemonettes rend 3.35 guardsmen and kill 5.561 guardsmen for a total of 8.911 dead guardsmen.
These numbers surprise me quite a lot when compared to Bloodletters, which are miles better at killing marines, as expected, but I thought daemonettes would be better at killing guardsmen. It seems the low strength of daemonettes really hurts them in this respect. They are however nearly twice as good at killing terminators, and with rending they can damage most vehicles.
Pink Horrors
I have to confess, I have read quite a lot of varied reviews on this unit. Some reviewers think this unit is universally terrible, some think it is still quite good. I am in the later camp. For the same price as daemonettes you get more or less a humans profile, with +3 leadership for casting psychic powers. Sure they lost their shooting attacks and their 4+ invulnerable save, but you know what, none of that matters.
Who wouldn't want to get a 10 wound psyker, who scores for less than 100 points? This is what Pink Horrors bring. Forget that they are no longer a shooting unit, that is the past. This is the now. I recommend always taking the Primaris power, and try to get into the 16-20 model range. This will give you an impressive 4d6 s5 shots spell. Attach a Herald with the right locus, and this becomes 4d6 s6 shots, combined with Divination spells and indeed his own Primaris power, the unit can throw out a tremendous amount of shooting. I think the Herald is near mandatory for this unit, which bumps the price up, but it is a very capable unit. You really do want the banner upgrade, as it allows a decent amount of hits on overwatch, something you otherwise can't do.
As before, I will run the numbers for 10 basic horrors, but this time, casting spells. In all cases I will assume they have 7 shots, as this is the statistical average of 2d6. However, as the power improves by 50% for just adding 10% to the cost of the unit, I really can't see many players using just 10 models. The cost of this unit is identical to that of the Daemonettes.
10 basic pink horrors vs 10 marines
Spell casting pink horrors kill 1.87 marines.
10 basic pink horrors vs 10 terminators
Spell casting pink horrors kill 0.940 terminators.
10 basic pink horrors vs 10 guardsmen
Spell casting pink horrors kill 2.905 guardsmen.
Please note a successful deny the witch will negate the horrors ability completely. Certain armies will have better psychic defenses than others, eg Tyranids, Space wolves and Eldar, so be warned. The numbers are not massively impressive here, however they can guard an objective and still shoot. Something the next unit in the list can't do.
Oh and warpflame. This is pretty bad as special rules go. I think it will get an errata at some point to clarify it.
Plaguebearers.
The only non t3 unit in troops, they also have shrouding. No more toughness 5 and feel no pain, although an attached herald can bring feel no pain back if you want. Personally I think this unit functions best running bare bones and guarding objectives while in cover.
You are not going to kill hordes of things with plaguebearers. Please understand this. However they do have the ability to always glance a vehicle on a 6, so they can make reasonable anti dreadnought units if the need arises.
Stick them in a ruin for a 2+ cover save on an objective. This is all this unit should be used for, however here are the combat numbers.
10 basic plaguebearers vs 10 marines
Charging plaguebearers kill 2.25 marines
10 basic plaguebearers vs 10 terminators
Charging plaguebearers kill 1.125 terminators.
10 basic plaguebearers vs 10 guardsmen
Charging plaguebearers kill 5.561 guardsmen.
The numbers really are not that good. But remember, you bought these to survive being shot at, so lets look at some numbers for this.
10 marine boltgun shots vs lesser daemons in the open.
Daemonettes/Bloodletters lose 3.007 wounds
Pink Horrors lose 2.758 wounds
Plaguebearers lose 2.245 wounds
10 marine boltgun shots vs lesser daemons in a ruin/aegis line
Daemonettes/Bloodletters/Pink Horrors lose 2.245 wounds
Plaguebearers lose 0.536 wounds
So the lesson learned here is that you want your Plaguebearers in ruins! That is pretty much all there is to them.
Nurglings
Last, but hopefully not least are Nurglings. With a pile of attacks and wounds, they cost 50% more per base than Bloodletters, but a unit of 3, the minimum size is less than 50 points. Nothing wrong with that. I have scoured the rulebook, and I can't find anything in the rules that prevents swarms from scoring in 6th edition. With a small unit footprint and 4 wounds per base, they could provide an alternative roadblock and cheap scoring unit to plaguebearers. Interestingly they also have the ability to infiltrate, so deploy them in cover for a more than respectable 2 or 3+ cover save!
Running the numbers is a bit more complicated. For the purpose of this, I will assume you bought 6 bases as this makes the unit the same price as 10 daemonettes/horrors/plaguebearers.
6 basic nurglings vs 10 marines
Charging nurglings kill 1.64 marines
10 basic nurglings vs 10 terminators
Charging nurglings kill 0.817 terminators.
10 basic nurglings vs 10 guardsmen
Charging nurglings kill 6.25 guardsmen.
Again, you are buying them for survivability. In the open they take the same number of wounds as daemonettes and bloodletters, so 3.007 wounds lost vs 10 bolters. However in cover they get nearly all the advantages of being a plaguebearer, except the toughness. So in cover they only lose 0.7631 wounds.
Conclusion
Pretty much all these lesser daemons are useful. You just need to pick the right tool for the job. Hopefully these numbers will be of some use to gamers.
Bloodletters
First up, Khornes troop choice. Bloodletters took a battering, losing a point in toughness and attacks. Their leadership, much like every other Daemon unit is the same as basic guardsmen and champions don't add a bonus to it. So far, so bad. Like other daemons they all became much cheaper.
Name one other book where you get a ws5, furious charging, s4 power sword armed troops choice for a very reasonable amount of points?
You can't because they don't exist. This is essentially all you are buying.
Bloodletters have the poorest defensive stats, on par with Daemonettes, with guardsman toughness and the daemon rule providing all the defense of a wet paper towel. They are however dirt cheap. A full unit, with the Banner of blood to help charges, is only 235 for 20 models and all the upgrades. It is probably worth finding a few points for an etherblade for the unit champion, so he can at least hit things at ap2.
10 basic bloodletters vs 10 marines
Charging bloodletters kill 8.978 marines! Not bad for a unit worth just over half the points...
10 basic bloodletters vs 10 terminators
Charging bloodletters kill 1.526 terminators. Not great.
10 basic bloodletters vs 10 guardsmen
Charging bloodletters kill 11.112 guardsmen.
The numbers prove the theory. Bloodletters are very good vs power armour. Elsewhere they are not very cost effective. Just imagine Bloodletters are dirt cheap howling banshees. They are virtually identical in application.
Daemonettes
The only other combat infantry in the troops section are Slaaneshs Daemonettes. These suffered far less of a battering, losing only an attack and an initiative. They are still initaitve 5 and have all the bonuses of being a daemon of slaanesh. Coming in at a point under that of bloodletters, they are faster than them, equally fragile, with less strength.
However they do have rending, so this helps somewhat and they can therefore tackle terminators which Bloodletters will struggle with. As before, you probably want an Etherblade on the champion, ideally paying for a greater one, to improve the models strength. The banner is quite nice, but daemonettes already have better WS and initaitve than anyone they are likely to fight, so I can't see it being used over much. A full command unit of 20 with the banner comes in at a very reasonable 215 points.
Due to rending, this table is somewhat more confusing!
10 basic daemonettes vs 10 marines
Charging daemonettes rend 3.32 marines and kill 1.105 for a total of 3.425 dead marines
10 basic daemonettes vs 10 terminators
Charging daemonettes rend 2.22 terminators and kill 0.553 for a total of 2.773 dead terminators
10 basic daemonettes vs 10 guardsmen
Charging daemonettes rend 3.35 guardsmen and kill 5.561 guardsmen for a total of 8.911 dead guardsmen.
These numbers surprise me quite a lot when compared to Bloodletters, which are miles better at killing marines, as expected, but I thought daemonettes would be better at killing guardsmen. It seems the low strength of daemonettes really hurts them in this respect. They are however nearly twice as good at killing terminators, and with rending they can damage most vehicles.
Pink Horrors
I have to confess, I have read quite a lot of varied reviews on this unit. Some reviewers think this unit is universally terrible, some think it is still quite good. I am in the later camp. For the same price as daemonettes you get more or less a humans profile, with +3 leadership for casting psychic powers. Sure they lost their shooting attacks and their 4+ invulnerable save, but you know what, none of that matters.
Who wouldn't want to get a 10 wound psyker, who scores for less than 100 points? This is what Pink Horrors bring. Forget that they are no longer a shooting unit, that is the past. This is the now. I recommend always taking the Primaris power, and try to get into the 16-20 model range. This will give you an impressive 4d6 s5 shots spell. Attach a Herald with the right locus, and this becomes 4d6 s6 shots, combined with Divination spells and indeed his own Primaris power, the unit can throw out a tremendous amount of shooting. I think the Herald is near mandatory for this unit, which bumps the price up, but it is a very capable unit. You really do want the banner upgrade, as it allows a decent amount of hits on overwatch, something you otherwise can't do.
As before, I will run the numbers for 10 basic horrors, but this time, casting spells. In all cases I will assume they have 7 shots, as this is the statistical average of 2d6. However, as the power improves by 50% for just adding 10% to the cost of the unit, I really can't see many players using just 10 models. The cost of this unit is identical to that of the Daemonettes.
10 basic pink horrors vs 10 marines
Spell casting pink horrors kill 1.87 marines.
10 basic pink horrors vs 10 terminators
Spell casting pink horrors kill 0.940 terminators.
10 basic pink horrors vs 10 guardsmen
Spell casting pink horrors kill 2.905 guardsmen.
Please note a successful deny the witch will negate the horrors ability completely. Certain armies will have better psychic defenses than others, eg Tyranids, Space wolves and Eldar, so be warned. The numbers are not massively impressive here, however they can guard an objective and still shoot. Something the next unit in the list can't do.
Oh and warpflame. This is pretty bad as special rules go. I think it will get an errata at some point to clarify it.
Plaguebearers.
The only non t3 unit in troops, they also have shrouding. No more toughness 5 and feel no pain, although an attached herald can bring feel no pain back if you want. Personally I think this unit functions best running bare bones and guarding objectives while in cover.
You are not going to kill hordes of things with plaguebearers. Please understand this. However they do have the ability to always glance a vehicle on a 6, so they can make reasonable anti dreadnought units if the need arises.
Stick them in a ruin for a 2+ cover save on an objective. This is all this unit should be used for, however here are the combat numbers.
10 basic plaguebearers vs 10 marines
Charging plaguebearers kill 2.25 marines
10 basic plaguebearers vs 10 terminators
Charging plaguebearers kill 1.125 terminators.
10 basic plaguebearers vs 10 guardsmen
Charging plaguebearers kill 5.561 guardsmen.
The numbers really are not that good. But remember, you bought these to survive being shot at, so lets look at some numbers for this.
10 marine boltgun shots vs lesser daemons in the open.
Daemonettes/Bloodletters lose 3.007 wounds
Pink Horrors lose 2.758 wounds
Plaguebearers lose 2.245 wounds
10 marine boltgun shots vs lesser daemons in a ruin/aegis line
Daemonettes/Bloodletters/Pink Horrors lose 2.245 wounds
Plaguebearers lose 0.536 wounds
So the lesson learned here is that you want your Plaguebearers in ruins! That is pretty much all there is to them.
Nurglings
Last, but hopefully not least are Nurglings. With a pile of attacks and wounds, they cost 50% more per base than Bloodletters, but a unit of 3, the minimum size is less than 50 points. Nothing wrong with that. I have scoured the rulebook, and I can't find anything in the rules that prevents swarms from scoring in 6th edition. With a small unit footprint and 4 wounds per base, they could provide an alternative roadblock and cheap scoring unit to plaguebearers. Interestingly they also have the ability to infiltrate, so deploy them in cover for a more than respectable 2 or 3+ cover save!
Running the numbers is a bit more complicated. For the purpose of this, I will assume you bought 6 bases as this makes the unit the same price as 10 daemonettes/horrors/plaguebearers.
6 basic nurglings vs 10 marines
Charging nurglings kill 1.64 marines
10 basic nurglings vs 10 terminators
Charging nurglings kill 0.817 terminators.
10 basic nurglings vs 10 guardsmen
Charging nurglings kill 6.25 guardsmen.
Again, you are buying them for survivability. In the open they take the same number of wounds as daemonettes and bloodletters, so 3.007 wounds lost vs 10 bolters. However in cover they get nearly all the advantages of being a plaguebearer, except the toughness. So in cover they only lose 0.7631 wounds.
Conclusion
Pretty much all these lesser daemons are useful. You just need to pick the right tool for the job. Hopefully these numbers will be of some use to gamers.
Monday, 11 March 2013
How to land a Daemon bomb in 6th
Having read the latest codex daemons book several times, something has struck me. How exactly do you land your daemon models from deep striking.
Now I know this is by no means something you have to do in 6th, as daemons are capable of deploying normally like everyone else. However you are likely to want to get your daemonettes and bloodletters to the enemy unscathed as much as possible, so you want a unit capable of planting an Icon.
Having looked at the various options, it seems there are three main candidates fulfilling the basic criteria of being fast and capable of bringing an Icon. Lets take a look at them.
Blood crushers
How the mighty have fallen. This used to be the premier assault unit in the daemon book, until the errata took its teeth and the new codex kicked it while it was down. From a strictly combat perspective this unit is not great. However, we are looking at it from the perspective of shoving an icon down the enemies throat as quickly as possible.
First notice, the unit is now cavalry, not infantry. This improves its movement considerably, allowing it to move fairly rapidly towards the enemy 12+d6 inches on turn one. It is still toughness 4 with 3 wounds and has the standard daemon invunerable save. No sign of the power armour of yester year. Three models and a banner will set you back around 150 points if you get a champion with an etherblade. You might as well.
Not a great choice, but they will allow other khorne units to deep strike without scattering.
Plague Drones
I have to admit, when I first read the unit, I couldn't see past using them as a Tau Battlesuit style jump forwards, shoot two grenades a pop then retreat type unit. However, the role of deep strike delivery actually suits it very well. Toughness 5, three wounds, shrouded and an invulnerable save all contribute to being the toughest of the three units. They pay a premium on their Icon, but you will want this. Chances are you also want a champion with an ether blade as before, to give the unit some teeth.
On turn one this unit can move a considerable distance. 12+shooting+2d6. The only real downside is that you don't really want to drop Plaguebeare units off close to the enemy, and those you might drop, like Beasts and Nurglings should probably already be deployed to attract fire away from your delivery units. Like above, this unit is around 150 points and is considerably faster, tougher and move maneuverable than Blood crushers, but nowhere near as capable of combat. It is therefore likely your units will scatter still, even with the Icon being held by them.
Seekers
The cheapest of the bunch. For the low cost of 70 points, you get a very rapid moving, very low toughness icon delivery system. To make this fair though, I will compare roughly 150 points of these against the other two. So you can get 11 of these, plus an Icon for just under 150 points. As these have rending, and are not especially tough, there is no point in buying a champion or an etherblade. You get 11 wounds at toughness 3 and the standard save. So by far the easiest to kill, even with more wounds. Each wound also removes a model, reducing its combat effectiveness.
On the plus side, they move like lightning due to being slaanesh daemons. Move 12+6+d6 on turn 1 is outstanding. They also work well with Daemonettes, Fiends and Chariots all of which are not very resilient and want to arrive unscathed. You also have the option of taking two units of five, both with Icons for a mere 140 points. The only reason I can think of not to do this, is that it eats into your fast attack slots, and fast attack for Daemons are vastly improved, and probably better than Elites and indeed Heavy Support now.
Tzeench
For some reason, Tzeench gets no units that can move fast and carry an Icon. Neither Flamers or Screamers have the option. Which is a shame really. On the plus side, Pink horrors want to stay far and away from the enemy.
Conclusion
The three options are fairly competitive, in that none of them is substantially better than the rest. Bloodcrushers are the slowest, fairly dangerous in combat, but lightly armoured. Plague Drones are the toughest, and most flexible, but also are expensive, poor in combat and only have short range shooting. Seekers are the fastest and weakest, but slaanesh has the largest amount of low toughness assault troops.
Now I know this is by no means something you have to do in 6th, as daemons are capable of deploying normally like everyone else. However you are likely to want to get your daemonettes and bloodletters to the enemy unscathed as much as possible, so you want a unit capable of planting an Icon.
Having looked at the various options, it seems there are three main candidates fulfilling the basic criteria of being fast and capable of bringing an Icon. Lets take a look at them.
Blood crushers
How the mighty have fallen. This used to be the premier assault unit in the daemon book, until the errata took its teeth and the new codex kicked it while it was down. From a strictly combat perspective this unit is not great. However, we are looking at it from the perspective of shoving an icon down the enemies throat as quickly as possible.
First notice, the unit is now cavalry, not infantry. This improves its movement considerably, allowing it to move fairly rapidly towards the enemy 12+d6 inches on turn one. It is still toughness 4 with 3 wounds and has the standard daemon invunerable save. No sign of the power armour of yester year. Three models and a banner will set you back around 150 points if you get a champion with an etherblade. You might as well.
Not a great choice, but they will allow other khorne units to deep strike without scattering.
Plague Drones
I have to admit, when I first read the unit, I couldn't see past using them as a Tau Battlesuit style jump forwards, shoot two grenades a pop then retreat type unit. However, the role of deep strike delivery actually suits it very well. Toughness 5, three wounds, shrouded and an invulnerable save all contribute to being the toughest of the three units. They pay a premium on their Icon, but you will want this. Chances are you also want a champion with an ether blade as before, to give the unit some teeth.
On turn one this unit can move a considerable distance. 12+shooting+2d6. The only real downside is that you don't really want to drop Plaguebeare units off close to the enemy, and those you might drop, like Beasts and Nurglings should probably already be deployed to attract fire away from your delivery units. Like above, this unit is around 150 points and is considerably faster, tougher and move maneuverable than Blood crushers, but nowhere near as capable of combat. It is therefore likely your units will scatter still, even with the Icon being held by them.
Seekers
The cheapest of the bunch. For the low cost of 70 points, you get a very rapid moving, very low toughness icon delivery system. To make this fair though, I will compare roughly 150 points of these against the other two. So you can get 11 of these, plus an Icon for just under 150 points. As these have rending, and are not especially tough, there is no point in buying a champion or an etherblade. You get 11 wounds at toughness 3 and the standard save. So by far the easiest to kill, even with more wounds. Each wound also removes a model, reducing its combat effectiveness.
On the plus side, they move like lightning due to being slaanesh daemons. Move 12+6+d6 on turn 1 is outstanding. They also work well with Daemonettes, Fiends and Chariots all of which are not very resilient and want to arrive unscathed. You also have the option of taking two units of five, both with Icons for a mere 140 points. The only reason I can think of not to do this, is that it eats into your fast attack slots, and fast attack for Daemons are vastly improved, and probably better than Elites and indeed Heavy Support now.
Tzeench
For some reason, Tzeench gets no units that can move fast and carry an Icon. Neither Flamers or Screamers have the option. Which is a shame really. On the plus side, Pink horrors want to stay far and away from the enemy.
Conclusion
The three options are fairly competitive, in that none of them is substantially better than the rest. Bloodcrushers are the slowest, fairly dangerous in combat, but lightly armoured. Plague Drones are the toughest, and most flexible, but also are expensive, poor in combat and only have short range shooting. Seekers are the fastest and weakest, but slaanesh has the largest amount of low toughness assault troops.
Tuesday, 5 March 2013
Codex Daemons first impression
I have not posted in a good while, been distracted with other things.
However I do have a brand spanking new copy of Codex Daemons that I had a
brief look through.
I am not going to say I will write a full codex review, since I am unlikely to finish it. However I will go through important changes and other bits I have picked up.
Firstly, no more daemonic assault. The army deploys conventionally, but every unit appears to have deep strike. Icons work as before, but as your army can deploy on the table, this is far more effective. Substantially cheaper too. Musicians, previously all but worthless allow other units to deep strike in without rolling if the unit with the musician passes the test. Pretty handy if you have a greater daemon in reserve.
Psychic powers are back. Most of the daemonic HQ choices, and Tzeench in general gets spell casters. Different lores to Chaos marines, but obviously similar theme. Horrors have brotherhood of sorcerers special rule and can get to have three warp charge with a big enough squad. This replaces their shooting.
Flamers were nerfed badly. Flamers now ap4 and have no real ability vs tanks. No surprise here. Bloodcrushers lose their 3+ save, replacing it with a 6+ and they are no cheaper. They are now cavalry though. All bloodletters remain ap3 in combat.
Screamers oddly seem to have kept their overpowered abilities from the white dwarf write up.
All lesser daemons are dirt cheap. All the four main types are ten points or under a model. Statistically they are worse than before, but due to price cuts, I don't think that is a big deal.
Heralds are four to a HQ slot. They can buy loci's which upgrade their attached unit.
All unnamed HQs can buy daemonic gifts. Three levels, costing a variety of points. You then get to roll on a chart to determine what you have, but can default to a weapon.
No Keeper of Secrets special character. Masque got nerfed. No real love for Slaanesh with one special character. Nurgle has two, Khorne and Tzeench three. Tallyman got nerfed. Fateweaver got changed substantially. Tzeench characters get access to Diviniation, which is great.
Greater daemons become greater. Biggest change is they all seem to have an additional wound, but worse saves than before. Daemons get their abilities the same as in Codex Chaos. They are mostly cheaper, with better upgrades. Leadership maxes out at 9.
Daemonic Instability is very random. Same as it used to be to an extent, though a double 1 heals dead models and a double 6 kills the unit out right.
There is also a random chart you roll on per shooting phase. It can hit your own units, but if you take one god exclusively you minimize these risks. Otherwise it is fairly balanced by shafting you, and hurting the enemy.
Plague drones are jump jet cavalry. A totally unique unit in the game at the moment.
I am not going to say I will write a full codex review, since I am unlikely to finish it. However I will go through important changes and other bits I have picked up.
Firstly, no more daemonic assault. The army deploys conventionally, but every unit appears to have deep strike. Icons work as before, but as your army can deploy on the table, this is far more effective. Substantially cheaper too. Musicians, previously all but worthless allow other units to deep strike in without rolling if the unit with the musician passes the test. Pretty handy if you have a greater daemon in reserve.
Psychic powers are back. Most of the daemonic HQ choices, and Tzeench in general gets spell casters. Different lores to Chaos marines, but obviously similar theme. Horrors have brotherhood of sorcerers special rule and can get to have three warp charge with a big enough squad. This replaces their shooting.
Flamers were nerfed badly. Flamers now ap4 and have no real ability vs tanks. No surprise here. Bloodcrushers lose their 3+ save, replacing it with a 6+ and they are no cheaper. They are now cavalry though. All bloodletters remain ap3 in combat.
Screamers oddly seem to have kept their overpowered abilities from the white dwarf write up.
All lesser daemons are dirt cheap. All the four main types are ten points or under a model. Statistically they are worse than before, but due to price cuts, I don't think that is a big deal.
Heralds are four to a HQ slot. They can buy loci's which upgrade their attached unit.
All unnamed HQs can buy daemonic gifts. Three levels, costing a variety of points. You then get to roll on a chart to determine what you have, but can default to a weapon.
No Keeper of Secrets special character. Masque got nerfed. No real love for Slaanesh with one special character. Nurgle has two, Khorne and Tzeench three. Tallyman got nerfed. Fateweaver got changed substantially. Tzeench characters get access to Diviniation, which is great.
Greater daemons become greater. Biggest change is they all seem to have an additional wound, but worse saves than before. Daemons get their abilities the same as in Codex Chaos. They are mostly cheaper, with better upgrades. Leadership maxes out at 9.
Daemonic Instability is very random. Same as it used to be to an extent, though a double 1 heals dead models and a double 6 kills the unit out right.
There is also a random chart you roll on per shooting phase. It can hit your own units, but if you take one god exclusively you minimize these risks. Otherwise it is fairly balanced by shafting you, and hurting the enemy.
Plague drones are jump jet cavalry. A totally unique unit in the game at the moment.
Saturday, 20 October 2012
Chaos Codex review Part 2 - HQ Special Characters Part 1
Following on from part one this one will look at special characters. I know many people on the internet will tell you that you can't compare units from one book to another but that is exactly what I am going to do. I am going to compare units from their 4th edition incarnation to the new 6th edition one. Something really strange is going on this didn't post in the correct formatting!
Abbaddon the Despoiler. The big bad. Mr Chaos himself, the 40k Archeon. Lots of different names, lots of special rules. Lets look at how he measures up to his old self. First thing to note is that his statistics line is more or less identical to before. The only difference comes from his wargear. He now costs ten points less, which noone will complain about.
Equipment wise he has lost his personal icon, but keeps his combi bolter, the Daemon sword Drach'nyen and the Talon of Horus. He now differs in that you will need to choose which weapon to use in combat. Before he combined both weapons to be a mighty whirlwind of destruction. Now you either choose to kill terminators and use Drach'nyen, or for anyone in power armour or worse, the Talon of Horus. While you can still use the Daemon weapon against other units, since it adds a whole bunch of extra attacks, it has a chance of injuring its wielder. I would personally recommend using the Talon of Horus unless you really like running a risk.
Special rule wise, he has the same rules as before, with the addition of Champion of Chaos and veterans of the Long War. These rules will be looked at later on, but suffice to say they are both beneficial special rules. He is still in possession of Mark of Chaos Ascendant which does the same as before. He comes with a fixed Warlord Trait, which in this case is Black Crusader, a good special rule against Space marines, but does nothing against anyone else. He has a special rule which allows him to take Chosen as troops, but I don't see this being used all that much. Would have been far better to have Black Legion terminators as troops, but I surpose you can't have everything.
So the question is, should you use him? The answer is it depends. While cheaper, he is still very expensive. In no way is he worse than he was in 4th edition and he is cheaper to boot. For all intents and purposes he is the most powerful character in the book, but he only influences a small area of the table. His ranged abilities are somewhat limited. You will want to build your army around him, in a unit of chaos terminators ideally.
Rating: 4/5
Huron Blackheart
In what appears to be a direct copy of Abaddon, Huron has the same statline and is ten points cheaper. He has the same special rules as before with the addition of Veterans of the Long War. He loses his personal icon. His warlord power is pretty good and allows you to infiltrate some units. The biggest difference here is what the Hamadyra does. Before it gave Warptime, now you have to randomly generate a power every turn from three spell lore’s. I would say this is not an improvement. You may end up with a power you can't use.
The Tyrants claw has changed almost completely. It is no longer a powerfist with built in heavy flamer, but instead it is a unique power weapon with built in heavy flamer. It has the strength bonus of the maul combined with the ap of the sword, along with special rules like shred and armourbane making it a good utility weapon. Is it better than before? Yes, except against terminators and monstrous creatures. Importantly it doesn't strike last.
Should you use him? Well I don't see why not. He is not massively expensive, and the Tyrants Claw is a very effective weapon. It is a bit of a shame it isn't a daemon weapon but I surpose you can't have everything!
Rating: 4/5
Kharn the Betrayer
Wow, a character with a different stat line! Kharn loses an attack from the 4th edition book, he also only becomes five points cheaper. So not a good start. Special rules wise, he is fairly similar to before. He also has the same equipment, except Gorechild is strictly improved. Not suffering the ignominy of striking last, his power axe hits on initiative and has armour bane for cutting through tanks. Not too shabby!
His warlord power grants him and his unit hatred, which is always good! Being a Khorne lord he moves Beserkers into troops choices. Blessing of the Blood god is slightly worse, now requiring a dice roll to prevent psychic powers affecting him and his unit rather than being immune. Mark of Khorne will go someway to remedying his missing attack, but as per every other marked character, to get the full advantage of the gods ability you need to be in a unit with an icon. Speaking of which, The Betrayer special rule has changed, where other friendly models in combat can also be hit, so there is no advantage for separating Kharn from his unit any more. You might as well keep him with them.
So is he worth it? He has taken a hit on some of his more exceptional abilities and doesn't appear to have gained anything overly spectacular. Indeed most of his gains seem to be there to offset his reductions, eg in attacks. I still think he is a very strong character, very few enemy HQs will be able to stand up to him, unless they strike first. The advantage is, most HQs who strike before him, won't have the AP to get through his armour, protecting him from his fairly poor invulnerable save.
Rating: 4/5
Ahriman
Same stats as before but with a twenty points price cut. So nothing to complain about with that so far. It is beginning to be a trend this! Special rules wise, he is more or less the same, has veterans of the long war like all of the special characters so far. His warlord power is the same as Hurons allowing infiltration.
Wargear is the same as before, except the Blackstaff has changed. Due to casting rules changing in general it is perhaps not as potent as before. It just allows the casting of up to three witchfire powers, but you have no guarantee you will even have three witchfire powers. Its combat usefulness is limited because it is a force staff. You get four spells, from either Tzeench, Biomancy, Pyromancy or Telepathy decks, which is the same selection as a normal Tzeench sorcerer. No Divination which is really annoying given he should have this lore!
So is he worth it? Probably not. On paper he is very good, but you can field a level three sorceror of tzeench for a considerable amount less points, with better equipment options and same access to spells. However he can, with the right spells cause a massive amount of destruction with three witchfires per turn. He also has a better stat line than a normal sorcerer.
Rating: 3/5
Abbaddon the Despoiler. The big bad. Mr Chaos himself, the 40k Archeon. Lots of different names, lots of special rules. Lets look at how he measures up to his old self. First thing to note is that his statistics line is more or less identical to before. The only difference comes from his wargear. He now costs ten points less, which noone will complain about.
Equipment wise he has lost his personal icon, but keeps his combi bolter, the Daemon sword Drach'nyen and the Talon of Horus. He now differs in that you will need to choose which weapon to use in combat. Before he combined both weapons to be a mighty whirlwind of destruction. Now you either choose to kill terminators and use Drach'nyen, or for anyone in power armour or worse, the Talon of Horus. While you can still use the Daemon weapon against other units, since it adds a whole bunch of extra attacks, it has a chance of injuring its wielder. I would personally recommend using the Talon of Horus unless you really like running a risk.
Special rule wise, he has the same rules as before, with the addition of Champion of Chaos and veterans of the Long War. These rules will be looked at later on, but suffice to say they are both beneficial special rules. He is still in possession of Mark of Chaos Ascendant which does the same as before. He comes with a fixed Warlord Trait, which in this case is Black Crusader, a good special rule against Space marines, but does nothing against anyone else. He has a special rule which allows him to take Chosen as troops, but I don't see this being used all that much. Would have been far better to have Black Legion terminators as troops, but I surpose you can't have everything.
So the question is, should you use him? The answer is it depends. While cheaper, he is still very expensive. In no way is he worse than he was in 4th edition and he is cheaper to boot. For all intents and purposes he is the most powerful character in the book, but he only influences a small area of the table. His ranged abilities are somewhat limited. You will want to build your army around him, in a unit of chaos terminators ideally.
Rating: 4/5
Huron Blackheart
In what appears to be a direct copy of Abaddon, Huron has the same statline and is ten points cheaper. He has the same special rules as before with the addition of Veterans of the Long War. He loses his personal icon. His warlord power is pretty good and allows you to infiltrate some units. The biggest difference here is what the Hamadyra does. Before it gave Warptime, now you have to randomly generate a power every turn from three spell lore’s. I would say this is not an improvement. You may end up with a power you can't use.
The Tyrants claw has changed almost completely. It is no longer a powerfist with built in heavy flamer, but instead it is a unique power weapon with built in heavy flamer. It has the strength bonus of the maul combined with the ap of the sword, along with special rules like shred and armourbane making it a good utility weapon. Is it better than before? Yes, except against terminators and monstrous creatures. Importantly it doesn't strike last.
Should you use him? Well I don't see why not. He is not massively expensive, and the Tyrants Claw is a very effective weapon. It is a bit of a shame it isn't a daemon weapon but I surpose you can't have everything!
Rating: 4/5
Kharn the Betrayer
Wow, a character with a different stat line! Kharn loses an attack from the 4th edition book, he also only becomes five points cheaper. So not a good start. Special rules wise, he is fairly similar to before. He also has the same equipment, except Gorechild is strictly improved. Not suffering the ignominy of striking last, his power axe hits on initiative and has armour bane for cutting through tanks. Not too shabby!
His warlord power grants him and his unit hatred, which is always good! Being a Khorne lord he moves Beserkers into troops choices. Blessing of the Blood god is slightly worse, now requiring a dice roll to prevent psychic powers affecting him and his unit rather than being immune. Mark of Khorne will go someway to remedying his missing attack, but as per every other marked character, to get the full advantage of the gods ability you need to be in a unit with an icon. Speaking of which, The Betrayer special rule has changed, where other friendly models in combat can also be hit, so there is no advantage for separating Kharn from his unit any more. You might as well keep him with them.
So is he worth it? He has taken a hit on some of his more exceptional abilities and doesn't appear to have gained anything overly spectacular. Indeed most of his gains seem to be there to offset his reductions, eg in attacks. I still think he is a very strong character, very few enemy HQs will be able to stand up to him, unless they strike first. The advantage is, most HQs who strike before him, won't have the AP to get through his armour, protecting him from his fairly poor invulnerable save.
Rating: 4/5
Ahriman
Same stats as before but with a twenty points price cut. So nothing to complain about with that so far. It is beginning to be a trend this! Special rules wise, he is more or less the same, has veterans of the long war like all of the special characters so far. His warlord power is the same as Hurons allowing infiltration.
Wargear is the same as before, except the Blackstaff has changed. Due to casting rules changing in general it is perhaps not as potent as before. It just allows the casting of up to three witchfire powers, but you have no guarantee you will even have three witchfire powers. Its combat usefulness is limited because it is a force staff. You get four spells, from either Tzeench, Biomancy, Pyromancy or Telepathy decks, which is the same selection as a normal Tzeench sorcerer. No Divination which is really annoying given he should have this lore!
So is he worth it? Probably not. On paper he is very good, but you can field a level three sorceror of tzeench for a considerable amount less points, with better equipment options and same access to spells. However he can, with the right spells cause a massive amount of destruction with three witchfires per turn. He also has a better stat line than a normal sorcerer.
Rating: 3/5
Saturday, 13 October 2012
Chaos Codex review Part 1 - Marks and Icons
Before I start to review the units it is worth looking over what exactly the Marks and Icons do for the new 6th edition codex. They do exactly the same, regardless of unit, so it should come as no surprise that some marks are more useful on some units than others.
In the 4th edition Codex the Marks and Icons did more or less the exact same thing, with Icons bestowing the Mark of chaos and a teleport homer on a unit of normal chaos space marines. Very few other units could take marks. This has all changed.
In 4th edition which we are all familiar with, the marks did the following;
Khorne: +1 attack.
Tzeench: +1 invulnerable save, or a 5+ one if they didn't have one.
Nurgle: +1 toughness, but didn't count for instant death.
Slaanesh: +1 initiative
Icons as explained above, gave a squad the mark, and the ability to act as homing beacon for teleporters and chaos daemons. The only exeception was th Icon of Chaos Glory which gave the unit a reroll on morale checks, because Chaos Marines didn't get "And they shall know no Fear" like loyalist marines. In the vast majority of cases squads didn't bother with Icons, except occasionally the Icon of Chaos glory as cult troops were available in the Troops section with better equipment options and statistics, such as Plague marines and Khorne Beserkers.
Fast forwards to 2012 and the new Chaos Codex is out for 6th edition. The Marks of Chaos have changed considerably. The new Marks of Chaos give the following rules.
Khorne: Rage and Counter attack
Tzeench: +1 invulnerable save to a 3+ maximum, or 6+ if they don't have one.
Nurgle: +1 toughness
Slaanesh: +1 initiative
Those marks which can take psychic powers have to take at least one spell from their patron god. As you can see, most of the marks havn't changed all that much. Khorne changes slightly, but charging it is as good as it used to be.
Icons now add something extra on top of the Marks. Most of them are limited to squads which already have a Mark of Chaos. They now add +1 to the combat result, like the marine and guard standard equivelents.
Icon of Wrath: Furious charge and rerolling charge range. Khorne only.
Icon of Flame: Bolt weapons have Soul Blaze. Tzeench only.
Icon of Despair: Fear. Nurgle only.
Icon of Excess: Feel no Pain. Slaanesh only.
Icon of Vengeance: Fearless.
The first and most important thing to bear in mind is that the Icon of Vengeance is a much improved version of the Icon of Chaos glory. Not taking morale tests is far better than rerolls.
Looking at the Mark and Icon combinations, Khorne looks to have a very good combination, although in a lot of ways the Khorne Beserkers unit needs these to restore them back to their 4th edition capabilities. This will be looked at in more detail in the Elites section.
Tzeench seems very similar to before. I don't think the Soul Blaze rule is especially good as a rule, a 50% chance of landing a couple of extra flamer hits really doesn't do anything for me. However the Mark of Tzeench is very good on certain units, like Terminators, or those with the Daemon rule.
Nurgle mark is worth having, every unit can benefit from toughness increases. Fear on the other hand is just not worth the points. So many units will be fearless or otherwise immune that it is more or less a joke special rule.
Slaanesh is interesting. While the mark isn't anything great on the face of it, it does boost the normal marines to a higher initative than loyalists, so terminators with lightning claws for example, benefit by being able to strike first with lethal effectiveness. The best reason to upgrade to Mark of Slaanesh is to have the Icon. I expect these to be very common, as Feel no Pain is an exceptionally good special rule. Terminators with this will be very strong, as will any units with the Daemon special rule.
In the 4th edition Codex the Marks and Icons did more or less the exact same thing, with Icons bestowing the Mark of chaos and a teleport homer on a unit of normal chaos space marines. Very few other units could take marks. This has all changed.
In 4th edition which we are all familiar with, the marks did the following;
Khorne: +1 attack.
Tzeench: +1 invulnerable save, or a 5+ one if they didn't have one.
Nurgle: +1 toughness, but didn't count for instant death.
Slaanesh: +1 initiative
Icons as explained above, gave a squad the mark, and the ability to act as homing beacon for teleporters and chaos daemons. The only exeception was th Icon of Chaos Glory which gave the unit a reroll on morale checks, because Chaos Marines didn't get "And they shall know no Fear" like loyalist marines. In the vast majority of cases squads didn't bother with Icons, except occasionally the Icon of Chaos glory as cult troops were available in the Troops section with better equipment options and statistics, such as Plague marines and Khorne Beserkers.
Fast forwards to 2012 and the new Chaos Codex is out for 6th edition. The Marks of Chaos have changed considerably. The new Marks of Chaos give the following rules.
Khorne: Rage and Counter attack
Tzeench: +1 invulnerable save to a 3+ maximum, or 6+ if they don't have one.
Nurgle: +1 toughness
Slaanesh: +1 initiative
Those marks which can take psychic powers have to take at least one spell from their patron god. As you can see, most of the marks havn't changed all that much. Khorne changes slightly, but charging it is as good as it used to be.
Icons now add something extra on top of the Marks. Most of them are limited to squads which already have a Mark of Chaos. They now add +1 to the combat result, like the marine and guard standard equivelents.
Icon of Wrath: Furious charge and rerolling charge range. Khorne only.
Icon of Flame: Bolt weapons have Soul Blaze. Tzeench only.
Icon of Despair: Fear. Nurgle only.
Icon of Excess: Feel no Pain. Slaanesh only.
Icon of Vengeance: Fearless.
The first and most important thing to bear in mind is that the Icon of Vengeance is a much improved version of the Icon of Chaos glory. Not taking morale tests is far better than rerolls.
Looking at the Mark and Icon combinations, Khorne looks to have a very good combination, although in a lot of ways the Khorne Beserkers unit needs these to restore them back to their 4th edition capabilities. This will be looked at in more detail in the Elites section.
Tzeench seems very similar to before. I don't think the Soul Blaze rule is especially good as a rule, a 50% chance of landing a couple of extra flamer hits really doesn't do anything for me. However the Mark of Tzeench is very good on certain units, like Terminators, or those with the Daemon rule.
Nurgle mark is worth having, every unit can benefit from toughness increases. Fear on the other hand is just not worth the points. So many units will be fearless or otherwise immune that it is more or less a joke special rule.
Slaanesh is interesting. While the mark isn't anything great on the face of it, it does boost the normal marines to a higher initative than loyalists, so terminators with lightning claws for example, benefit by being able to strike first with lethal effectiveness. The best reason to upgrade to Mark of Slaanesh is to have the Icon. I expect these to be very common, as Feel no Pain is an exceptionally good special rule. Terminators with this will be very strong, as will any units with the Daemon special rule.
Monday, 8 October 2012
Chaos 6th Edition Codex review
So my first codex book of 6th edition has arrived. As I have five armies in 40k, this is the first of hopefully five new books in the next couple of years.
My plan is to review as a contrast to the 4th edition book, as well as looking at the units in the context of the game. This page will be a holding page with links to each of the sections as they get written, but some of my first thoughts are included below from a quick flick through the book. I will be starting on HQs.
First of all, let me say the new hardback book is very nice to look at. Perhaps a little pricey but you can see that this increased cost has been spent on making it considerably more durable and it is full colour.
On the face of it the new book doesn't seem to have any real powerhouse units. A lot of the codex has had units shifted around, with cult troops moved away from troops and into elites. This however can be played around with, depending on what HQs you pick.
Existing chaos players will probably have to alter some models. The changes made to terminators equipment is very annoying. I will need to rip arms off nearly all of my terminator models to make them legal.
Thousand Sons Sorcerers do not get access to Divination discipline which is not right. Both Magnus and Ahriman display clear divination in the background of the Thousand Sons legion, as well as in every piece of Heresy writing, yet it is not available here! Even if the majority of sorcerers didn't have this, Ahriman should have had it.
Noise marines have gone from totally useless to a lot better. Sonic blasters are now worth it vs GEQs and Blastmasters are lethal to marines because both weapons have ignore cover special rule now. Good news for me with my largely Emperors Children based chaos army.
A lot of the units which were poor before, such as spawn, dreadnoughts and bikers have had an overhaul as well, you may well see considerably more of these in lists.
Codex review pages:
Part 1: Marks and Icons
Part 2: Special Characters Part 1
My plan is to review as a contrast to the 4th edition book, as well as looking at the units in the context of the game. This page will be a holding page with links to each of the sections as they get written, but some of my first thoughts are included below from a quick flick through the book. I will be starting on HQs.
First of all, let me say the new hardback book is very nice to look at. Perhaps a little pricey but you can see that this increased cost has been spent on making it considerably more durable and it is full colour.
On the face of it the new book doesn't seem to have any real powerhouse units. A lot of the codex has had units shifted around, with cult troops moved away from troops and into elites. This however can be played around with, depending on what HQs you pick.
Existing chaos players will probably have to alter some models. The changes made to terminators equipment is very annoying. I will need to rip arms off nearly all of my terminator models to make them legal.
Thousand Sons Sorcerers do not get access to Divination discipline which is not right. Both Magnus and Ahriman display clear divination in the background of the Thousand Sons legion, as well as in every piece of Heresy writing, yet it is not available here! Even if the majority of sorcerers didn't have this, Ahriman should have had it.
Noise marines have gone from totally useless to a lot better. Sonic blasters are now worth it vs GEQs and Blastmasters are lethal to marines because both weapons have ignore cover special rule now. Good news for me with my largely Emperors Children based chaos army.
A lot of the units which were poor before, such as spawn, dreadnoughts and bikers have had an overhaul as well, you may well see considerably more of these in lists.
Codex review pages:
Part 1: Marks and Icons
Part 2: Special Characters Part 1
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Tyranid Codex review Part 4
Tyranid Codex review Part 4: Elites Part 2
Part 4 is the conclusion of the elite choices.
Zoanthrope
This is a synapse creature, with psychic powers designed to hunt marines and tanks. So far, so good. It has a marine like stat line, but with lower ballistic skill and initative and maximum leadership. In terms of equipment it comes with a 5+ save and claws, so nothing especially useful here. However much like other psykers its true value comes from its powers.
In terms of biomorphs, it comes with Psyker, Synapse, Shadow in the Warp and Warp Field. As Warp Field is the only one not covered earlier, it is the only one I will go into any detail on now. Essentially this gives the Zoanthrope a 3++ save, which is as good as a Storm shield. Nothing to complain about here, although volume of small arms fire is still a worry due to the lowish toughness.
It has two psychic powers built in for free. The first is Warp Blast, a marine killing gun with the same strength and AP as a Eldar Reaper Launcher and a small blast. Has the same range as a bolter too. Being move and fire like everything else in the book, its pretty decent. The second power is Warp Lance, a maximum strength single shot AP 1 Lance shot. Quite probably the most lethal lance in the game, and comparable in terms of penetration as a melta weapon. Shorter range than the Blast, this is the primary reason for including Zoanthropes
This also has access to a Mycetic Spore for deep striking. This could come in handy due to the relative short range of the powers on the Zoanthrope, and you can take 1 to 3 in a brood.
Conclusion:
This is a serious competitor for the Elite slot anti tank, along side the Hive Guard. Unlike the Hive Guard, the Zoanthrope can cause serious damage to marines and heavier tanks, but at the expense of volume of fire, toughness and indirect fire abilities. It also has to pass a psychic test, which can be an issue against some defences which can cancel powers out.
The Doom of Malan'tai
Doom is an unusual creature, unlike pretty much everything else in the game. Its stats are not all that impressive, with it resembling a marine in most ways, except better wounds, attacks and leadership. This is not good for a model that costs more than 5 marines.
I think it is a special character Zoanthrope though this isn't made explicit in the rules. It has the same claws, 5+ save and 3++ Warpfield, along with Psyker, Shadow in the Warp but oddly isn't Synapse. It also gets the Cataclysm psychic power, which is a bolter ranged shooting attack, which hits at the strength of the number of wounds it has left, which could be a lot depending on events in the game (see below) This is a large blast and AP1, so quite probably very fatal for most things stood underneath, even at its basic strength. The downside is you take d3 wounds, with no saves of any kind, before gaining wounds back when this power is cast, so try not to use it when you have less than 3 wounds left, or you could see it killing itself.
Spirit Leech makes every non vehicle unit in 6 inches take leadership tests on 3d6. For every point they fail by they suffer a wound with no save allowed. This is pretty decent, and against lone characters could be fatal. Obviously most expensive things have good leadership, but 10 is the highest you can have, and 10.5 is the average on 3d6 so this should kill a couple of models per turn.
In combination with Spirit Leech is Absorb life. For every wound Doom inflicts, it adds one to the creatures total wounds. This works in tandem with Psychic Strength which matches the strength to the total wounds. I have to wonder why these two rules are separate, they could easily be covered by the one single rule, but its hardly the end of the world that they dont.
This also has access to a Mycetic spore, it could help get into range to use its power, but there are better units to use the spore on
Conclusion:
A relatively random, possibly completely lethal, special character. You need to be careful early on to ensure it doesn't die, picking on units clumped together. With the very good AP of the power, it can demolish units of pretty much anything. Just be wary about spending wounds if there isn't at least four wounds left on the model, or it could die. Avoid close combat like the plague, just use its power to shoot at the enemy units from range.
Pyrovore
This should be a short entry. This unit is terrible. Really, really terrible. Getting that out of the way, in the interest of objectivity I will look at why I think this is the case. You pay nearly as many points as for a hive guard, but you have below average weapon skill and ballistic skill, terrible initative followed by only two wounds, a 4+ save and marine strength and toughness. This is incredibly easy to kill.
Its special rules are as follows. Flamespurt is a heavy flamer, not even a good one like a hellhound, just a regular heavy flamer. So you need to be on top of enemy units with a unit which is utterly terrible in close combat. Acid Maw gives it ignoring armour save abilities in close combat, but as mentioned, it has one attack, terrible initiative and low weaponskill, it is highly unlikely to ever get to use this. Volatile means it explodes 50% of the time should it die. This is fairly likely to happen but unfortunatly more likely to happen when near your own troops than in combat with the enemy. Acid blood means if it is wounded in combat the enemy might take wounds, but it only has two, its not realistically going to win you the combat, you are still going to be dead. You can if you should desire buy 1 to 3 of these and put them in a spore.
Conclusion:
Don't use this please. It really is bad. Its only use is an expensive suicide unit, which is likely to go off amongst your own troops.
Ymgarl Genestealers
These are a special unit of elite Genestealers. Less of an assault force than their more common cousins, these are a specialist unit designed to wipe out small support units and characters hanging around at the back.
So the main question is what do you get over regular Genestealers, which are troops and not in the ultra competitive elite slot. You are paying nearly 50% more points per model for these and on stats only get +1 armour save, taking them to 4+. So you best get some value from the equipment and special rules, or these are a no starter.
They come with rending claws as weapons, with no options for Scything Talons, Adrenal Glands or Toxin Sacks. So far, so bad. No option to take a Broodlord either.
They have Fleet, Move through Cover and Brood Telepathy as the regular Genestealers do. Brood Telepathy is pretty good as it means the unit doesn't need to take any tests for Instinctive behaviour if out of synapse range.
So what you are paying for must be covered in the two special rules they have, which normal Genestealers don't. Lets look at them. First up Dormant. This ability means you nominate a piece of terrain and then write it down after both sides have deployed. The unit are in reserve, but when they arrive they are placed in it, don't scatter and can move and assault normally. This is a massive ability as you can put them in a building with enemy heavy weapons etc and they won't have a chance to defend themselves from your charge. Being Genestealers they are more than capable of wiping out most units they charge. Unit size is 5 to 10, which is fine, you probably only want a small unit as you have to deploy within the boundaries of the terrain you have chosen.
Dormant works nicely along side their second ability, Alter Form. In every assault phase they can pick either +1 Strength, +1 Attacks or +1 Toughness. There is a trick to this that any long time Wood Elf player will be familiar with. What you need to do is choose the ability which will most likely result in you winning in your opponents turn, allowing you to move and assault again in your next turn with no danger of being shot. If the enemy only have a handful of devastators, you should choose +1 toughness to limit how many kills you inflict. If however you are charged, and you need to win, you should choose +1 attack. Strictly speaking +1 strength is worse than the other two as you are relying on rending to kill power armour rather than slightly easier to wound rolls.
Conclusion:
This is a unit which competes with the Lictor, more than Genestealers. Its abilities are very similar to the Lictor, being about to appear and cause havoc. The difference being that Genestealers have far more offensive output and can charge on the turn they appear. Of the two, I would be more tempted to field these Ymgarl Genestealers simply because they don't rely on surviving a whole turn of firepower before being able to charge.
Overall Elites Choice Conclusion:
The elites choices are basically split into two camps. There are the anti tank Zoanthropes and Hive Guard, and the utility units which covers everything else. To make a competitive army, you will want at least two slots with the anti tank options. It doesn't matter which you pick really. You can then take one of the other units in your third slot, or indeed another of the anti tank ones if you should wish. You can probably drop one anti tank if you have a Tyrannofex with a Rupture cannon, but I would never drop both. As long as you avoid taking the Pyrovore, the other choices are okay support elements, it really depends on what style of play you want to do. A large gaunt horde charging across the table might want Venomthropes, but a more specialised army could get more out of a Lictor style disruption unit.
Zoanthrope
This is a synapse creature, with psychic powers designed to hunt marines and tanks. So far, so good. It has a marine like stat line, but with lower ballistic skill and initative and maximum leadership. In terms of equipment it comes with a 5+ save and claws, so nothing especially useful here. However much like other psykers its true value comes from its powers.
In terms of biomorphs, it comes with Psyker, Synapse, Shadow in the Warp and Warp Field. As Warp Field is the only one not covered earlier, it is the only one I will go into any detail on now. Essentially this gives the Zoanthrope a 3++ save, which is as good as a Storm shield. Nothing to complain about here, although volume of small arms fire is still a worry due to the lowish toughness.
It has two psychic powers built in for free. The first is Warp Blast, a marine killing gun with the same strength and AP as a Eldar Reaper Launcher and a small blast. Has the same range as a bolter too. Being move and fire like everything else in the book, its pretty decent. The second power is Warp Lance, a maximum strength single shot AP 1 Lance shot. Quite probably the most lethal lance in the game, and comparable in terms of penetration as a melta weapon. Shorter range than the Blast, this is the primary reason for including Zoanthropes
This also has access to a Mycetic Spore for deep striking. This could come in handy due to the relative short range of the powers on the Zoanthrope, and you can take 1 to 3 in a brood.
Conclusion:
This is a serious competitor for the Elite slot anti tank, along side the Hive Guard. Unlike the Hive Guard, the Zoanthrope can cause serious damage to marines and heavier tanks, but at the expense of volume of fire, toughness and indirect fire abilities. It also has to pass a psychic test, which can be an issue against some defences which can cancel powers out.
The Doom of Malan'tai
Doom is an unusual creature, unlike pretty much everything else in the game. Its stats are not all that impressive, with it resembling a marine in most ways, except better wounds, attacks and leadership. This is not good for a model that costs more than 5 marines.
I think it is a special character Zoanthrope though this isn't made explicit in the rules. It has the same claws, 5+ save and 3++ Warpfield, along with Psyker, Shadow in the Warp but oddly isn't Synapse. It also gets the Cataclysm psychic power, which is a bolter ranged shooting attack, which hits at the strength of the number of wounds it has left, which could be a lot depending on events in the game (see below) This is a large blast and AP1, so quite probably very fatal for most things stood underneath, even at its basic strength. The downside is you take d3 wounds, with no saves of any kind, before gaining wounds back when this power is cast, so try not to use it when you have less than 3 wounds left, or you could see it killing itself.
Spirit Leech makes every non vehicle unit in 6 inches take leadership tests on 3d6. For every point they fail by they suffer a wound with no save allowed. This is pretty decent, and against lone characters could be fatal. Obviously most expensive things have good leadership, but 10 is the highest you can have, and 10.5 is the average on 3d6 so this should kill a couple of models per turn.
In combination with Spirit Leech is Absorb life. For every wound Doom inflicts, it adds one to the creatures total wounds. This works in tandem with Psychic Strength which matches the strength to the total wounds. I have to wonder why these two rules are separate, they could easily be covered by the one single rule, but its hardly the end of the world that they dont.
This also has access to a Mycetic spore, it could help get into range to use its power, but there are better units to use the spore on
Conclusion:
A relatively random, possibly completely lethal, special character. You need to be careful early on to ensure it doesn't die, picking on units clumped together. With the very good AP of the power, it can demolish units of pretty much anything. Just be wary about spending wounds if there isn't at least four wounds left on the model, or it could die. Avoid close combat like the plague, just use its power to shoot at the enemy units from range.
Pyrovore
This should be a short entry. This unit is terrible. Really, really terrible. Getting that out of the way, in the interest of objectivity I will look at why I think this is the case. You pay nearly as many points as for a hive guard, but you have below average weapon skill and ballistic skill, terrible initative followed by only two wounds, a 4+ save and marine strength and toughness. This is incredibly easy to kill.
Its special rules are as follows. Flamespurt is a heavy flamer, not even a good one like a hellhound, just a regular heavy flamer. So you need to be on top of enemy units with a unit which is utterly terrible in close combat. Acid Maw gives it ignoring armour save abilities in close combat, but as mentioned, it has one attack, terrible initiative and low weaponskill, it is highly unlikely to ever get to use this. Volatile means it explodes 50% of the time should it die. This is fairly likely to happen but unfortunatly more likely to happen when near your own troops than in combat with the enemy. Acid blood means if it is wounded in combat the enemy might take wounds, but it only has two, its not realistically going to win you the combat, you are still going to be dead. You can if you should desire buy 1 to 3 of these and put them in a spore.
Conclusion:
Don't use this please. It really is bad. Its only use is an expensive suicide unit, which is likely to go off amongst your own troops.
Ymgarl Genestealers
These are a special unit of elite Genestealers. Less of an assault force than their more common cousins, these are a specialist unit designed to wipe out small support units and characters hanging around at the back.
So the main question is what do you get over regular Genestealers, which are troops and not in the ultra competitive elite slot. You are paying nearly 50% more points per model for these and on stats only get +1 armour save, taking them to 4+. So you best get some value from the equipment and special rules, or these are a no starter.
They come with rending claws as weapons, with no options for Scything Talons, Adrenal Glands or Toxin Sacks. So far, so bad. No option to take a Broodlord either.
They have Fleet, Move through Cover and Brood Telepathy as the regular Genestealers do. Brood Telepathy is pretty good as it means the unit doesn't need to take any tests for Instinctive behaviour if out of synapse range.
So what you are paying for must be covered in the two special rules they have, which normal Genestealers don't. Lets look at them. First up Dormant. This ability means you nominate a piece of terrain and then write it down after both sides have deployed. The unit are in reserve, but when they arrive they are placed in it, don't scatter and can move and assault normally. This is a massive ability as you can put them in a building with enemy heavy weapons etc and they won't have a chance to defend themselves from your charge. Being Genestealers they are more than capable of wiping out most units they charge. Unit size is 5 to 10, which is fine, you probably only want a small unit as you have to deploy within the boundaries of the terrain you have chosen.
Dormant works nicely along side their second ability, Alter Form. In every assault phase they can pick either +1 Strength, +1 Attacks or +1 Toughness. There is a trick to this that any long time Wood Elf player will be familiar with. What you need to do is choose the ability which will most likely result in you winning in your opponents turn, allowing you to move and assault again in your next turn with no danger of being shot. If the enemy only have a handful of devastators, you should choose +1 toughness to limit how many kills you inflict. If however you are charged, and you need to win, you should choose +1 attack. Strictly speaking +1 strength is worse than the other two as you are relying on rending to kill power armour rather than slightly easier to wound rolls.
Conclusion:
This is a unit which competes with the Lictor, more than Genestealers. Its abilities are very similar to the Lictor, being about to appear and cause havoc. The difference being that Genestealers have far more offensive output and can charge on the turn they appear. Of the two, I would be more tempted to field these Ymgarl Genestealers simply because they don't rely on surviving a whole turn of firepower before being able to charge.
Overall Elites Choice Conclusion:
The elites choices are basically split into two camps. There are the anti tank Zoanthropes and Hive Guard, and the utility units which covers everything else. To make a competitive army, you will want at least two slots with the anti tank options. It doesn't matter which you pick really. You can then take one of the other units in your third slot, or indeed another of the anti tank ones if you should wish. You can probably drop one anti tank if you have a Tyrannofex with a Rupture cannon, but I would never drop both. As long as you avoid taking the Pyrovore, the other choices are okay support elements, it really depends on what style of play you want to do. A large gaunt horde charging across the table might want Venomthropes, but a more specialised army could get more out of a Lictor style disruption unit.
Monday, 30 April 2012
Tyranid Codex review Part 3
Tyranid Codex review Part 3: Elites Part 1
After the mammoth entries last week, I am onto Elites choices now. These will be in places a fair amount shorter than the previous entries, simply because a lot of these units only do one or two things really well.
Hive Guard
These are an anti tank unit sporting a very good two shot Impaler Cannon, which is basically a +1 strength autocannon, but with half the range. On the plus side the gun is assault, like all tyranid weapons and doesn't need line of sight to fire. Most of the creatures actual stat line is fairly irrelvant, but it does have a marine level ballistic skill, combined with monstrous creature toughness and a 4+ save, meaning they can be quite difficult to shift. A couple of wounds completes the package nicely.
You will probably want to use of these to dispose of transports. The gun is fairly effective against most armour values, but 13 and upwards may be pushing it. They are not especially points efficient being used against infantry, as the AP isn't good enough to worry marines. Just concentrate on shooting either tough things with low armour saves, or tanks in the armour 10-12 band and they will be fine.
Conclusion:
They have no options to talk about beyond picking 1 to 3 in a brood, they are what they are, light tank hunters, and they come in at a bargain price. One of the best units in the codex, I have no doubt.
Lictor Brood
Ahh the Lictor. In the past, the Lictor was a feared unit causing havoc and being virtually impossible to see and hit. These days it is far more conventional, but has a few complex rules to look into. First lets consider its stat line. What first jumps out at me is its high weaponskill, strength and initative. It hits marines on 3s, wounds them on 2s, but not being a monstrous creature it has to rely on rending to kill things. That is a bit disappointing. The problem is that it only has a marine level toughness, three wounds and a guardsmans armour save to protect it from being hit back. Its Weapon Skill is not good enough to prevent 99% of things hitting it back on a 4+. It will struggle to kill more than one power armoured model a turn, but for every 6 marine attacks back, it will take one wound on average.
You can take 1-3 of these in a brood, which might be needed if you want them to attack squads. Even fairly weak units like devastators, which should be its ideal targets, will likely inflict one wound on it in combat.
It comes with, and can't change or upgrade, a 5+ save, Rending Claws and Scything Talons. Not great, but it is what it is.
Chameleon skin is effectively deepstriking, anywhere outside of 1 inch from the enemy without scattering or risk of death. Unfortunately no option to charge, so you are stuck either shooting, or running. As you don't scatter it is unlikely you will want to run, simply because you could have chosen to deploy pretty much anywhere you could actually run to. So for shooting, what do you have?
What you have are flesh hooks. The range is the same as a pistol, but due to deployment rules that shouldn't be an issue. You have two shots at strength 6 and rending. So effectively a two shot Assault cannon if being fired at tanks. On the plus side, you can appear behind the tanks, and shoot at their weak rear armour. This is a good use of the ability, as a Lictor brood can rampage through a parking lot of tanks, shooting and assaulting if it survives one turn of shooting.
It comes with a selection of special rules, with stealth and move through cover being very handy, as should it appear in cover, it has a very good 3+ cover save to protect it. If it is engaged in a combat it cant win, it can always use hit and run to escape, and with its high initiative, it should manage to do this.
Lastly Pheromone trail. This could have been good, if the words "on the board at the start of the movement phase" were removed from the ability. This gives the tyranid player a bonus +1 to reserve rolls when he is on the table. The downside is, the Lictor has to have arrived the turn before, or it doesn't do anything, which means it needs to have passed its reserve roll a turn or so before. You don't even have the option of deploying it normally or infiltrating. Think of this as an occasionally useful, but probably hardly ever used ability and you wont go far wrong.
Conclusion:
This is a utility unit, specialising in disruption of the enemy and tank destruction. I would avoid any infantry units unless they are heavily depleted as even relatively poor units can take wounds off them. If you can shoot a tank or dreadnought in the rear, you should hopefully be able to do something, stay in cover as much as possible. The good news with this is that the tank may need to turn round to shoot you, and if it does, hopefully its weaker armour is facing longer range guns on your side. If you do get engaged in close combat, use hit and run to escape.
Deathleaper
This is a Lictor special character, costing just over the price of two ordinary Lictors. So it better be pretty good, as it is nearly as expensive as the HQ options! Lets look at what you get on top of a Lictor statistic line. Well standing out for me is the incredibly high weapon skill, the same as the Swarmlord. This means that marines only hit you on 5+, which is a big thing. Same poor save and average toughness, but a point more initiative, although that will only really help vs halberd armed grey knights and some eldar units. You also get an extra attack, nice but by no means does this make it competent in close combat.
It has exactly the same biomorphs and weapons as a Lictor as well as the same Fleet, Move through Cover, Pheromone trail, Stealth and Hit and run rules. In addition it has a couple of unique special rules.
"Its after me" is very decent, it is perhaps the sole reason to actually include the Deathleaper. This reduces one enemy HQs leadership by D3. Best used on psykers. Ability stops should the Deathleaper die, so keeping alive is important.
"What was that" reduces enemy movement in difficult terrain by one dice, down to a minimum of one dice, provided the enemy are in pistol range. Could potentially stop you being charged.
"Where'd it go" Allows the Deathleaper to disappear if it is more than 1 inch away from the enemy, then return back to the table by Chameleon skin deployment. Can be incredibly useful for redeploying and keeping yourself alive. It has the added bonus that should you go second, that you could redeploy on turn 4 and reappear contesting an objective on turn 5 when the enemy can't kill you.
The final special rule is Killing Strike, causing both its combat attacks and Flesh Hooks to rend on 5+, which is quite nice, and makes it quite a lot more reliable at tank hunting.
Conclusion:
Much like the normal Lictor, this is a disruption unit. It is actually better at its job than a unit of two lictors, due to the variety of special rules it brings to the table. I would therefore suggest including the Deathleaper should you ever be tempted to field more than one normal Lictor.
Venomthrope
Another utility unit, of a totally different type to the two Lictors. The Venomthrope is primarily a support unit. The statistic line is not exactly impressive, sporting a marines strength and toughness as well as ballistic skill, despite having no ranged attacks. It has a poor weaponskill, only two attacks, low initiative and only two wounds.
In terms of weapons, it comes with lashwhips, making its initative somewhat better and a 5+ save, which isn't brilliant. It also comes with Toxic Miasma biomorph, perhaps the only time you will see this in a game. However you don't really buy this creature for its statistics, you buy it for its special rules.
First up, Toxic Touch, meaning all its close combat attacks wound on a 2+. Not bad, but really it doesn't have the stat line to be wanting to be in combat, two attacks and a poor weaponskill, coupled with a poor armour save, do not make this a combat beast. So this probably isn't the reason you are taking this.
Second, and most importantly, is Spore Cloud. This incredibly handy ability does a couple of things. Firstly it gives all units on your side within 6 inches a 5+ cover save. This protects everything, including Hive Tyrants etc, who are within range. All units within this range also count as being armed with defensive grenades should anyone assault you. Unlikely, but it is there. An unusual and probably unforeseen side effect of this is that units which are normally strength 3 or lower will benefit assaulting tanks, as defensive grenades give you strength 4, allowing you to target rear armour of things. Units wishing to charge units taking advantage of this cover must take dangerous terrain tests. All these bonuses are lost should the Venomthrope die.
This is the first unit which has access to a mycetic spore. This is essentially a drop pod but will be discussed in further detail in the troops entry where it appears in the codex.
Conclusion:
The Venomthrope brings a lot to the table, in terms of keeping your horde alive when crossing the table. The only real problem is keeping it alive as a single krak missile hit and that is probably it. Its cover save bonus is far more useful to the units around it than itself. With this in mind, you really need to keep it out of line of sight, preferably behind one of the giant new plastic tyranids, be it a Trygon, Mawloc, Tervigon etc.
That concludes the elites part 1 of my review of the Tyranid Codex. Click here for part 4.
After the mammoth entries last week, I am onto Elites choices now. These will be in places a fair amount shorter than the previous entries, simply because a lot of these units only do one or two things really well.
Hive Guard
These are an anti tank unit sporting a very good two shot Impaler Cannon, which is basically a +1 strength autocannon, but with half the range. On the plus side the gun is assault, like all tyranid weapons and doesn't need line of sight to fire. Most of the creatures actual stat line is fairly irrelvant, but it does have a marine level ballistic skill, combined with monstrous creature toughness and a 4+ save, meaning they can be quite difficult to shift. A couple of wounds completes the package nicely.
You will probably want to use of these to dispose of transports. The gun is fairly effective against most armour values, but 13 and upwards may be pushing it. They are not especially points efficient being used against infantry, as the AP isn't good enough to worry marines. Just concentrate on shooting either tough things with low armour saves, or tanks in the armour 10-12 band and they will be fine.
Conclusion:
They have no options to talk about beyond picking 1 to 3 in a brood, they are what they are, light tank hunters, and they come in at a bargain price. One of the best units in the codex, I have no doubt.
Lictor Brood
Ahh the Lictor. In the past, the Lictor was a feared unit causing havoc and being virtually impossible to see and hit. These days it is far more conventional, but has a few complex rules to look into. First lets consider its stat line. What first jumps out at me is its high weaponskill, strength and initative. It hits marines on 3s, wounds them on 2s, but not being a monstrous creature it has to rely on rending to kill things. That is a bit disappointing. The problem is that it only has a marine level toughness, three wounds and a guardsmans armour save to protect it from being hit back. Its Weapon Skill is not good enough to prevent 99% of things hitting it back on a 4+. It will struggle to kill more than one power armoured model a turn, but for every 6 marine attacks back, it will take one wound on average.
You can take 1-3 of these in a brood, which might be needed if you want them to attack squads. Even fairly weak units like devastators, which should be its ideal targets, will likely inflict one wound on it in combat.
It comes with, and can't change or upgrade, a 5+ save, Rending Claws and Scything Talons. Not great, but it is what it is.
Chameleon skin is effectively deepstriking, anywhere outside of 1 inch from the enemy without scattering or risk of death. Unfortunately no option to charge, so you are stuck either shooting, or running. As you don't scatter it is unlikely you will want to run, simply because you could have chosen to deploy pretty much anywhere you could actually run to. So for shooting, what do you have?
What you have are flesh hooks. The range is the same as a pistol, but due to deployment rules that shouldn't be an issue. You have two shots at strength 6 and rending. So effectively a two shot Assault cannon if being fired at tanks. On the plus side, you can appear behind the tanks, and shoot at their weak rear armour. This is a good use of the ability, as a Lictor brood can rampage through a parking lot of tanks, shooting and assaulting if it survives one turn of shooting.
It comes with a selection of special rules, with stealth and move through cover being very handy, as should it appear in cover, it has a very good 3+ cover save to protect it. If it is engaged in a combat it cant win, it can always use hit and run to escape, and with its high initiative, it should manage to do this.
Lastly Pheromone trail. This could have been good, if the words "on the board at the start of the movement phase" were removed from the ability. This gives the tyranid player a bonus +1 to reserve rolls when he is on the table. The downside is, the Lictor has to have arrived the turn before, or it doesn't do anything, which means it needs to have passed its reserve roll a turn or so before. You don't even have the option of deploying it normally or infiltrating. Think of this as an occasionally useful, but probably hardly ever used ability and you wont go far wrong.
Conclusion:
This is a utility unit, specialising in disruption of the enemy and tank destruction. I would avoid any infantry units unless they are heavily depleted as even relatively poor units can take wounds off them. If you can shoot a tank or dreadnought in the rear, you should hopefully be able to do something, stay in cover as much as possible. The good news with this is that the tank may need to turn round to shoot you, and if it does, hopefully its weaker armour is facing longer range guns on your side. If you do get engaged in close combat, use hit and run to escape.
Deathleaper
This is a Lictor special character, costing just over the price of two ordinary Lictors. So it better be pretty good, as it is nearly as expensive as the HQ options! Lets look at what you get on top of a Lictor statistic line. Well standing out for me is the incredibly high weapon skill, the same as the Swarmlord. This means that marines only hit you on 5+, which is a big thing. Same poor save and average toughness, but a point more initiative, although that will only really help vs halberd armed grey knights and some eldar units. You also get an extra attack, nice but by no means does this make it competent in close combat.
It has exactly the same biomorphs and weapons as a Lictor as well as the same Fleet, Move through Cover, Pheromone trail, Stealth and Hit and run rules. In addition it has a couple of unique special rules.
"Its after me" is very decent, it is perhaps the sole reason to actually include the Deathleaper. This reduces one enemy HQs leadership by D3. Best used on psykers. Ability stops should the Deathleaper die, so keeping alive is important.
"What was that" reduces enemy movement in difficult terrain by one dice, down to a minimum of one dice, provided the enemy are in pistol range. Could potentially stop you being charged.
"Where'd it go" Allows the Deathleaper to disappear if it is more than 1 inch away from the enemy, then return back to the table by Chameleon skin deployment. Can be incredibly useful for redeploying and keeping yourself alive. It has the added bonus that should you go second, that you could redeploy on turn 4 and reappear contesting an objective on turn 5 when the enemy can't kill you.
The final special rule is Killing Strike, causing both its combat attacks and Flesh Hooks to rend on 5+, which is quite nice, and makes it quite a lot more reliable at tank hunting.
Conclusion:
Much like the normal Lictor, this is a disruption unit. It is actually better at its job than a unit of two lictors, due to the variety of special rules it brings to the table. I would therefore suggest including the Deathleaper should you ever be tempted to field more than one normal Lictor.
Venomthrope
Another utility unit, of a totally different type to the two Lictors. The Venomthrope is primarily a support unit. The statistic line is not exactly impressive, sporting a marines strength and toughness as well as ballistic skill, despite having no ranged attacks. It has a poor weaponskill, only two attacks, low initiative and only two wounds.
In terms of weapons, it comes with lashwhips, making its initative somewhat better and a 5+ save, which isn't brilliant. It also comes with Toxic Miasma biomorph, perhaps the only time you will see this in a game. However you don't really buy this creature for its statistics, you buy it for its special rules.
First up, Toxic Touch, meaning all its close combat attacks wound on a 2+. Not bad, but really it doesn't have the stat line to be wanting to be in combat, two attacks and a poor weaponskill, coupled with a poor armour save, do not make this a combat beast. So this probably isn't the reason you are taking this.
Second, and most importantly, is Spore Cloud. This incredibly handy ability does a couple of things. Firstly it gives all units on your side within 6 inches a 5+ cover save. This protects everything, including Hive Tyrants etc, who are within range. All units within this range also count as being armed with defensive grenades should anyone assault you. Unlikely, but it is there. An unusual and probably unforeseen side effect of this is that units which are normally strength 3 or lower will benefit assaulting tanks, as defensive grenades give you strength 4, allowing you to target rear armour of things. Units wishing to charge units taking advantage of this cover must take dangerous terrain tests. All these bonuses are lost should the Venomthrope die.
This is the first unit which has access to a mycetic spore. This is essentially a drop pod but will be discussed in further detail in the troops entry where it appears in the codex.
Conclusion:
The Venomthrope brings a lot to the table, in terms of keeping your horde alive when crossing the table. The only real problem is keeping it alive as a single krak missile hit and that is probably it. Its cover save bonus is far more useful to the units around it than itself. With this in mind, you really need to keep it out of line of sight, preferably behind one of the giant new plastic tyranids, be it a Trygon, Mawloc, Tervigon etc.
That concludes the elites part 1 of my review of the Tyranid Codex. Click here for part 4.
Friday, 27 April 2012
Tyranid Codex review Part 2
Tyranid Codex review Part 2: HQs part 2
This is the second part of the Tyranid codex review which will cover the remaining three HQ choices that are available for Tyranid players. The first part can be found here Tyranid Codex Review Part 1
Tervigon
This is the first of the new units. Perhaps uniquely, this is a HQ unit that can be fielded as a troops choice, as well as it being a monstrous creature. This only costs 10 points less than a tryant but has considerably inferior statistics, with a below average weaponskill, meaning marines hit you on threes, and only three attacks. It does come with a 3+ save and the usual high toughness of a tyranid monstrous creature. Its strength is however not brilliant.
It comes free with a 3+ save, claws and Stinger Salvo.
Lets look at the upgrades:
May take either Scything Talons or Crushing Claws. I think the claws are strictly inferior to the talons, mostly due to the points cost difference, as they should not cost five times as many points. Scything talons might be worth it, they are a small points investment.
It has the same biomorphs as the Hive Tyrant. However in this case both Toxin Sacks and Adrenal Glands are worth taking as he passes on the bonuses to termagants within 6 inches. More on this later. The only other biomorph worth considering is again regeneration.
May replace Stinger Salvo with Cluster Spines for free. You want to do this. I can't really see the point in Stinger Salvo, it is virtually always worse than Cluster Spines.
It comes with the following Psychic power, Dominion which can increase its synapse range by 50%. Pretty good for a free power. It may also purchase two additional powers at a reasonable cost. Catalyst that can give a unit within 12 inches feel no pain and Onslaught which allows a unit to shoot and run in the same turn. Buying both powers for all Tervigons may be quite an expensive thing though, so just buy them if you need to have them. You probably don't need all three on all your Tervigons.
Now lets look at his special rules. The first and most important one is The Scuttling Swarm in the Termagants entry. This allows you to take one Tervigon as a troops choice per unit of termagants. This means you can include up to 5 Tervigons in an army, two HQs and 3 troops choices. You will probably want to field Tervigons as troops, to take advantage of all the benefits of being a scoring unit.
It is a synapse creature, psyker and has shadow of the warp, like the Hive Tyrant before it. I won't cover these rules again here. It does however have a couple of unique special rules which pretty much are the main reason to include one, apart from being made scoring of course.
First up is Spawn Termagants. This rule is fairly self explanatory, it gives you free Rermagants. They come with just a fleshborer and no upgrades. It spawns 3d6 worth but any doubles means it has run out for the rest of the game. They have to be placed close to the Tervigon. You will probably need to own around twenty spare Termagants per Tervigon, although less per model will be needed if you have a lot of Tervigons. You don't need to spawn them every turn, so you can hold them back inside their "transport" until they are needed.
Secondly, Brood Progenitor, which was covered earlier, it allows the Toxin Sacks and Adrenal Gland upgrades on the Tervigon to be passed onto Termagants within 6 inches, they can also use its high leadership for tests they are required to take and it also gives Termagants counter attack special rule. The downside is if the Tervigon dies, it inflicts 3d6 hits wounding on 4+ against every termagant unit within 6 inches. The obvious issue with this is that your units only get the advantages being within that range, so be wary of this occuring.
Conclusion:
The Tervigon is an important creature. It can be included as both a HQ where it is averagely useful or as a Troops choice where it is considerably better. While you can build your entire army around them, you are heavily limiting other choices that you can take, and this is not always a good thing. I would recommend taking no more than three, and if you do that, you probably want one of them to be a HQ choice, as to not limit your troops too much.
Good Options: Toxin Sacks, Adrenal Glands, Regeneration, Cluster Spines, Dominion, Catalyst, Onslaught.
Bad Options: Crushing Claws, Acid Blood, Implant attack, Toxic Miasma, Stinger Salvo.
Tyranid Prime
This is the cheap option for a HQ. Its base price is less expensive than any marine HQ by 20 points, and it is about 50% cheaper than any of the other Tyranid HQs, this choice is a good one for keeping HQ costs down, as well as playing wound allocation games. We will go into this later.
Looking at its statline, it is something between a tyranid warrior and a hive tyrant. It basically has +1 in every statistic apart from Leadership over a tyranid warrior. Nothing really to complain about here.
It comes free with a 3+ save, a Devourer and a set of Scything Talons. Not bad, but you will probably want to take advantage of some of its upgrades. Lets look into them.
May replace Scything Talons with either Rending Claws, a pair of Boneswords, or a Lashwhip and Bonesword. Prices go gradually, but you probably want to take a Lashwhip and Bonesword for the utility function of the Lashwhip.
May replace Devourer with Rending Claws, Spinefists, Deathspitter or Scything Talons. You probably want to either take Rending claws to increase your usefulness in combat against tanks and dreadnoughts, or a Deathspitter if you are in a shooting unit. Spinefists are laughably bad and you probably want something better than Scything Talons.
For Biomorphs it can take Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacks and Regeneration. All three are quite useful. Regeneration comes into its own when the Prime is attached to another tyranid unit so it can exploit the wound allocation rules. It can join broods of Carnifexes which benefit quite a lot from this ability, as the Prime gets Regeneration incredibly cheaply.
It has the following special rules, Synapse, Shadow in the Warp, Independent character and Alpha warrior. Alpha warrior is unique to this unit, and allows the Prime to share its weaponskill and ballistic skill with any warrior unit it joins. Most useful for its ballistic skill, because warriors already have a higher than average weaponskill.
Conclusion:
Being an independant character it can join any unit which has a maximum unit size over one. This allows it to join broods of Carnifexes even if there is only one in the unit. It is however best placed within a warrior unit to pass on its statistic bonus. The main reason to include one is if you are trying to keep HQ costs low.
Good Options: Toxin Sacks, Adrenal Glands, Regeneration, Deathspitter, Rending Claws, Lashwhip and Bonesword
Bad Options: Spinefists
The Parasite of Mortrex
A jump infantry special character, which can join units, probably either Shrikes or Gargoyles. It has a fairly unimpressive statistics set for its points value, with lower toughness than any of the other HQ choices. It costs the same base points as a Tervigon.
It comes with a 3+ Save, Implant attack, Rending Claws and Wings. No weapon options, so you are stuck with rending rather than being able to ignore peoples armour save. Not brilliant so far.
The only other things this model has is special rules. So we might as well look at them. It is a Synapse creature, so it comes with Shadow in the Warp. It is an independent character which allows it to join units. Nothing overly exciting so far, certainly nothing to justify its high price tag. Lets look at its unique special rules.
Host Organism: This allows ripper swarms in 24 inches to ignore taking instinctive behaviour. Considering Ripper swarms are not a great choice, this isn't an amazing power. However you need to consider the next special rule before disregarding it completely.
Implant Parasite: Every model killed by the parasite in combat has to take a toughness test. Any failed tests create new ripper swarm bases. So this gives Host Organism ability something useful to do.
The Sarg is Acting strangely: Every outflanking unit takes a single toughness test. If it is failed, one model of the owning players choice dies and a unit of d6 bases of rippers spawns.
Conclusion:
Quite a niche character, it allows you to spawn lots of rippers. It is reliant on the Parasite killing things in close combat, and it is quite vulnerable to being killed in close combat, as powerfists etc will instant death it. You will need to pick your targets and play quite a canny game to get the most out of it.
This article is continued in Tyranid Codex Review Part 3
This is the second part of the Tyranid codex review which will cover the remaining three HQ choices that are available for Tyranid players. The first part can be found here Tyranid Codex Review Part 1
Tervigon
This is the first of the new units. Perhaps uniquely, this is a HQ unit that can be fielded as a troops choice, as well as it being a monstrous creature. This only costs 10 points less than a tryant but has considerably inferior statistics, with a below average weaponskill, meaning marines hit you on threes, and only three attacks. It does come with a 3+ save and the usual high toughness of a tyranid monstrous creature. Its strength is however not brilliant.
It comes free with a 3+ save, claws and Stinger Salvo.
Lets look at the upgrades:
May take either Scything Talons or Crushing Claws. I think the claws are strictly inferior to the talons, mostly due to the points cost difference, as they should not cost five times as many points. Scything talons might be worth it, they are a small points investment.
It has the same biomorphs as the Hive Tyrant. However in this case both Toxin Sacks and Adrenal Glands are worth taking as he passes on the bonuses to termagants within 6 inches. More on this later. The only other biomorph worth considering is again regeneration.
May replace Stinger Salvo with Cluster Spines for free. You want to do this. I can't really see the point in Stinger Salvo, it is virtually always worse than Cluster Spines.
It comes with the following Psychic power, Dominion which can increase its synapse range by 50%. Pretty good for a free power. It may also purchase two additional powers at a reasonable cost. Catalyst that can give a unit within 12 inches feel no pain and Onslaught which allows a unit to shoot and run in the same turn. Buying both powers for all Tervigons may be quite an expensive thing though, so just buy them if you need to have them. You probably don't need all three on all your Tervigons.
Now lets look at his special rules. The first and most important one is The Scuttling Swarm in the Termagants entry. This allows you to take one Tervigon as a troops choice per unit of termagants. This means you can include up to 5 Tervigons in an army, two HQs and 3 troops choices. You will probably want to field Tervigons as troops, to take advantage of all the benefits of being a scoring unit.
It is a synapse creature, psyker and has shadow of the warp, like the Hive Tyrant before it. I won't cover these rules again here. It does however have a couple of unique special rules which pretty much are the main reason to include one, apart from being made scoring of course.
First up is Spawn Termagants. This rule is fairly self explanatory, it gives you free Rermagants. They come with just a fleshborer and no upgrades. It spawns 3d6 worth but any doubles means it has run out for the rest of the game. They have to be placed close to the Tervigon. You will probably need to own around twenty spare Termagants per Tervigon, although less per model will be needed if you have a lot of Tervigons. You don't need to spawn them every turn, so you can hold them back inside their "transport" until they are needed.
Secondly, Brood Progenitor, which was covered earlier, it allows the Toxin Sacks and Adrenal Gland upgrades on the Tervigon to be passed onto Termagants within 6 inches, they can also use its high leadership for tests they are required to take and it also gives Termagants counter attack special rule. The downside is if the Tervigon dies, it inflicts 3d6 hits wounding on 4+ against every termagant unit within 6 inches. The obvious issue with this is that your units only get the advantages being within that range, so be wary of this occuring.
Conclusion:
The Tervigon is an important creature. It can be included as both a HQ where it is averagely useful or as a Troops choice where it is considerably better. While you can build your entire army around them, you are heavily limiting other choices that you can take, and this is not always a good thing. I would recommend taking no more than three, and if you do that, you probably want one of them to be a HQ choice, as to not limit your troops too much.
Good Options: Toxin Sacks, Adrenal Glands, Regeneration, Cluster Spines, Dominion, Catalyst, Onslaught.
Bad Options: Crushing Claws, Acid Blood, Implant attack, Toxic Miasma, Stinger Salvo.
Tyranid Prime
This is the cheap option for a HQ. Its base price is less expensive than any marine HQ by 20 points, and it is about 50% cheaper than any of the other Tyranid HQs, this choice is a good one for keeping HQ costs down, as well as playing wound allocation games. We will go into this later.
Looking at its statline, it is something between a tyranid warrior and a hive tyrant. It basically has +1 in every statistic apart from Leadership over a tyranid warrior. Nothing really to complain about here.
It comes free with a 3+ save, a Devourer and a set of Scything Talons. Not bad, but you will probably want to take advantage of some of its upgrades. Lets look into them.
May replace Scything Talons with either Rending Claws, a pair of Boneswords, or a Lashwhip and Bonesword. Prices go gradually, but you probably want to take a Lashwhip and Bonesword for the utility function of the Lashwhip.
May replace Devourer with Rending Claws, Spinefists, Deathspitter or Scything Talons. You probably want to either take Rending claws to increase your usefulness in combat against tanks and dreadnoughts, or a Deathspitter if you are in a shooting unit. Spinefists are laughably bad and you probably want something better than Scything Talons.
For Biomorphs it can take Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacks and Regeneration. All three are quite useful. Regeneration comes into its own when the Prime is attached to another tyranid unit so it can exploit the wound allocation rules. It can join broods of Carnifexes which benefit quite a lot from this ability, as the Prime gets Regeneration incredibly cheaply.
It has the following special rules, Synapse, Shadow in the Warp, Independent character and Alpha warrior. Alpha warrior is unique to this unit, and allows the Prime to share its weaponskill and ballistic skill with any warrior unit it joins. Most useful for its ballistic skill, because warriors already have a higher than average weaponskill.
Conclusion:
Being an independant character it can join any unit which has a maximum unit size over one. This allows it to join broods of Carnifexes even if there is only one in the unit. It is however best placed within a warrior unit to pass on its statistic bonus. The main reason to include one is if you are trying to keep HQ costs low.
Good Options: Toxin Sacks, Adrenal Glands, Regeneration, Deathspitter, Rending Claws, Lashwhip and Bonesword
Bad Options: Spinefists
The Parasite of Mortrex
A jump infantry special character, which can join units, probably either Shrikes or Gargoyles. It has a fairly unimpressive statistics set for its points value, with lower toughness than any of the other HQ choices. It costs the same base points as a Tervigon.
It comes with a 3+ Save, Implant attack, Rending Claws and Wings. No weapon options, so you are stuck with rending rather than being able to ignore peoples armour save. Not brilliant so far.
The only other things this model has is special rules. So we might as well look at them. It is a Synapse creature, so it comes with Shadow in the Warp. It is an independent character which allows it to join units. Nothing overly exciting so far, certainly nothing to justify its high price tag. Lets look at its unique special rules.
Host Organism: This allows ripper swarms in 24 inches to ignore taking instinctive behaviour. Considering Ripper swarms are not a great choice, this isn't an amazing power. However you need to consider the next special rule before disregarding it completely.
Implant Parasite: Every model killed by the parasite in combat has to take a toughness test. Any failed tests create new ripper swarm bases. So this gives Host Organism ability something useful to do.
The Sarg is Acting strangely: Every outflanking unit takes a single toughness test. If it is failed, one model of the owning players choice dies and a unit of d6 bases of rippers spawns.
Conclusion:
Quite a niche character, it allows you to spawn lots of rippers. It is reliant on the Parasite killing things in close combat, and it is quite vulnerable to being killed in close combat, as powerfists etc will instant death it. You will need to pick your targets and play quite a canny game to get the most out of it.
This article is continued in Tyranid Codex Review Part 3
Thursday, 26 April 2012
Tyranid Codex review Part 1
Welcome to the first part of my in depth Tyranid Codex review.
Tyranid Codex Review part 1: HQs Part 1
Hive Tyrant
First up, the traditional Hive Tyrant. This is a monstrous creature, with good statistics, a large choice of biomorphs, weapons, synapse creature and a selection of prepaid psychic powers and upgrades. Shadow of the warp is always a good bonus to have, limiting enemy psychic powers.
This sets you back close to 200 points without taking anything. So it isn't cheap. This is important to bear in mind, as the other HQ choices bring quite a lot to the table meaning the Hive Tyrant is not quite the same auto include unit it was in previous editions.
It comes free with a 3+ save, a lashwhip/bonesword combo and a pair of scything talons. Not the best of the available combinations, but not terrible. Lets go through the options as they are presented in the codex;
Replace Lash whip and Bone sword for an extra pair of scything talons. This is a so so choice, and can work on a budget tyrant build. Will allow the tyrant to reroll all his "to hit" dice in close combat. Its free but you sacrifice the lashwhip and bonesword. This is bad against armies like grey knights where the whip comes in handy for striking first and it is also good vs dreadnoughts. The bonesword is good for dispatching multiwound creatures, but these are relatively rare so the loss of this isn't all that important.
Replace any set of Scything talons with either a twinlinked Deathspitter or a twinlinked Devourer with brainleach worms. Both cost exactly the same price, but the devourer has twice as many shots and at a higher strength. This is a good option. Twinlinked Deathspitter is pretty much worse in every way, except having a slightly better ap value. Two sets of Devourers can turn you into a gun platform with 12 shots at strength 6, but this means not casting one of your psychic powers. All in all a good anti infantry choice, and not bad against light armour and rear armour in general.
Replace one set of Scything talons with either a Heavy Venom Canon or Stranglethorn cannon. In this case the Heavy Venom cannon wins hands down. It is an effective tank supressor as it has high strength and with a small blast can be used somewhat usefully vs infantry. The Stranglethorn cannon is an anti infantry weapon but unlikely to be more useful than a twinlinked devourer. I beleive the Heavy Venom Cannon is a strong choice, as it can be used with a psychic power, where as to get the most out of the Devourer you really want a pair.
Take any of Hive Commander, Old Adversary or Indescribable Horror. Ignore Indescribable horror, for the points it really isn't worth it. Hive Commander is very useful if you plan on using reserves, infiltrators or deep strikers and Old Adversary is exceptionally useful if you don't have scything talons and keep your Tyrant near other units which can take advantage of the rerolls. That said, the rerolls are probably worth the points on just the tyrant on its own, but if it happens to be hanging around units that don't have rerolls built in, then that is all the better. Gargoyles can take the most advantage of this to increase the amount of blinding venom hits, and they should be hanging around a flying hive tyrant anyway.
Now lets look at biomorphs. Some of these can be ignored without too much looking into them. First up Adrenal glands. Do you really need to be strength 7 and initative 6 on the charge? Thought not. Toxin sacks. Do you want to wound on a 2+ or swap that for a 4+ rerolled and pay points for it? Again, thought not. Acid blood could be entertaining against a low imitative combat army but I can't see it being especially useful as you have to lose wounds, so I am not sure it is worth the points. Implant attack is not terrible, but if you have a bonesword it is probably not needed. Toxic Miasma is probably better than Acid blood and could kill quite a lot, but it doesnt help towards combat result. I would probably avoid all of these biomorphs. Regeneration is however useful. It is cheaper here than elsewhere in the book and it could keep the tyrant alive longer.
Psychic powers can be seperated into good and bad quite easily. Lets go through these. Horror requires you to pass a psychic test, so they can take a moral test and then if they fail they fall back, fearless units are immune. Lets not be wasting time with that. Leech Essence has the same range as Horror, but inflicts d3 low strength, low ap hits, which can heal you. Yes please. Paroxysm has the same range as the others and reduces the targets weapon skill and ballistic skill to 1. A very good choice and a key reason to include a Hive tyrant. Finally another poor choice, just incase you didn't realise you should be taking Paroxysm and Leech Essence, up steps Psychic scream. Enemy units take leadership tests and lose one wound per point they fail by. Just not as useful as the other powers, and certainly not as useful as actually shooting them with one of the available guns.
Finally the upgrade that determines what your tyrant will be doing. The choice is essentially do you want to fly, or walk. If you want to fly, you will need to sink a large amount of points into Wings. Please note if you do this, and you need to have WYSIWYG, the new plastic kit forces you to replace one of your weapons sets for the wings with built in scything talons. I suggest converting this, as it really isn't a good build to have just one set of talons.
If you plan on walking, get the Armoured Shell for a 2+ save. Don't bother with the Thorax swarm, it really isn't as good as the other options.
Conclusion:
The Hive tyrant can be customised into pretty much every role you can think of, provided you are willing to pay a substantial amount of points to include him in your list.
Good options: Lashwhip/Bonsword, Twin Devourers, Heavy Venom Cannon, Regeneration, Wings, Armoured Shell, Hive Commander, Old Adversary, Paroxysm, Leech Essence
Bad options: Twin Deathspitters, single set of Scything talons, Toxin sacks, Adrenal glands, Thorax Swarm, Horror, Psychic Scream, Horror
Swarm Lord
This is the special character Hive Tyrant choice. So for 110 points more than the basic hive tyrant, what do you get? Looking at the statistics, you gain a point of Weapon Skill, which takes you to the threshold where a lot of basic troops, such as marines in all flavours only hit you on 5s in combat. This is a massive advantage. However it won't make a great deal of difference against enemy characters. You also gain another wound, which is always nice, and a point of initiative. The initiative is effectively worse than the regular tyrants against elite eldar and grey knights with halberds due to the lack of a lashwhip, but for most opponents, you won't really notice any difference.
The bone sabers inflict instant death regardless of toughness, which isn't bad, but a regular Hive Tyrant can get this built in with Implant Attack without sacrificing its weapon slots. It comes built in with synapse and all four psychic powers as well as Shadow in the Warp, which is useful against a lot of armies. It gets more out of this because it can cast two powers a turn, but it needs to be able to, in order to counter the lack of shooting attacks. The increased synapse range is also very useful for a foot tyrant.
Its four swords give it a 4+ invulnerable (4++) save in close combat which will go a long way to keeping it alive against other armies. No tyranid creature has a ward save, so this is about as good as it gets.
The Swarm leader special rule is okay, the option for furious charge and acute senses will probably not be as useful as taking preferred enemy, but since furious charge on the Swarmlord itself makes it initative 7, this could come in handy on some of the occasions mentioned above.
Alien Cunning is similar to the Hive Tyrants Hive Commander ability, but trades off outflanking a unit of troops for re rolling the side an outflanking unit appears on.
Conclusion:
So we reach the point when we determine if he really is worth including. The Swarmlord comes with a fair amount of special rules, good statistic increases and a 4++ save in close combat, but at quite an expense. Notice there is no option for wings or armoured shell, which doesn't fill me full of confidence in his abilities. Taking everything into account, the Swarmlord can be a competitive choice, but it is perhaps not an optimal one. He just doesn't have the flexibility of the standard tyrant.
Tyrant Guard
Any hive tyrant and indeed the Swarmlord can include a tyrant guard unit of one to three models.
These are expensive costing the same price as the wings upgrade and offer a fairly reasonable statistics line. Above average weaponskill, strength, toughness and attacks, along with two wounds and 3+ saves they are fairly formidable in close combat.
They come for free with scything talons and rending claws, but can trade the talons for either a lashwhip or a bonesword. The entire brood must take the same option. Depending on what you gave your hive tyrant, and if you took Old Adversary, this may or may not be a good idea. Remember the idea with close combat is to be able to kill an enemy unit in their close combat phase, so you can consolidate, then charge again in your next turn. You really don't want to be out in the open in their turn. So with this in mind, you probably don't want to include the boneswords, but you might want lashwhips.
Conclusion:
A unit with strong statistics, but expensive. If included will bring the price of a foot tyrant up to that of a flying one, with nowhere near the speed, but a better close combat ability due to extra attacks. Due to how the unit works, the tyrant cant be picked out by shooting, but as an independant character suffers from wound allocation and can be attacked specifically in close combat. If you buy the tyrant regeneration you can put a wounding hit early onto the tyrant in the hope that you recover it through regeneration and leech essence. I would include one or two of these for a foot tyrant, but none for a flying one. Swarmlord will want his armed with lashwhips.
This is continued in Tyranid Codex Review Part 2
Tyranid Codex Review part 1: HQs Part 1
Hive Tyrant
First up, the traditional Hive Tyrant. This is a monstrous creature, with good statistics, a large choice of biomorphs, weapons, synapse creature and a selection of prepaid psychic powers and upgrades. Shadow of the warp is always a good bonus to have, limiting enemy psychic powers.
This sets you back close to 200 points without taking anything. So it isn't cheap. This is important to bear in mind, as the other HQ choices bring quite a lot to the table meaning the Hive Tyrant is not quite the same auto include unit it was in previous editions.
It comes free with a 3+ save, a lashwhip/bonesword combo and a pair of scything talons. Not the best of the available combinations, but not terrible. Lets go through the options as they are presented in the codex;
Replace Lash whip and Bone sword for an extra pair of scything talons. This is a so so choice, and can work on a budget tyrant build. Will allow the tyrant to reroll all his "to hit" dice in close combat. Its free but you sacrifice the lashwhip and bonesword. This is bad against armies like grey knights where the whip comes in handy for striking first and it is also good vs dreadnoughts. The bonesword is good for dispatching multiwound creatures, but these are relatively rare so the loss of this isn't all that important.
Replace any set of Scything talons with either a twinlinked Deathspitter or a twinlinked Devourer with brainleach worms. Both cost exactly the same price, but the devourer has twice as many shots and at a higher strength. This is a good option. Twinlinked Deathspitter is pretty much worse in every way, except having a slightly better ap value. Two sets of Devourers can turn you into a gun platform with 12 shots at strength 6, but this means not casting one of your psychic powers. All in all a good anti infantry choice, and not bad against light armour and rear armour in general.
Replace one set of Scything talons with either a Heavy Venom Canon or Stranglethorn cannon. In this case the Heavy Venom cannon wins hands down. It is an effective tank supressor as it has high strength and with a small blast can be used somewhat usefully vs infantry. The Stranglethorn cannon is an anti infantry weapon but unlikely to be more useful than a twinlinked devourer. I beleive the Heavy Venom Cannon is a strong choice, as it can be used with a psychic power, where as to get the most out of the Devourer you really want a pair.
Take any of Hive Commander, Old Adversary or Indescribable Horror. Ignore Indescribable horror, for the points it really isn't worth it. Hive Commander is very useful if you plan on using reserves, infiltrators or deep strikers and Old Adversary is exceptionally useful if you don't have scything talons and keep your Tyrant near other units which can take advantage of the rerolls. That said, the rerolls are probably worth the points on just the tyrant on its own, but if it happens to be hanging around units that don't have rerolls built in, then that is all the better. Gargoyles can take the most advantage of this to increase the amount of blinding venom hits, and they should be hanging around a flying hive tyrant anyway.
Now lets look at biomorphs. Some of these can be ignored without too much looking into them. First up Adrenal glands. Do you really need to be strength 7 and initative 6 on the charge? Thought not. Toxin sacks. Do you want to wound on a 2+ or swap that for a 4+ rerolled and pay points for it? Again, thought not. Acid blood could be entertaining against a low imitative combat army but I can't see it being especially useful as you have to lose wounds, so I am not sure it is worth the points. Implant attack is not terrible, but if you have a bonesword it is probably not needed. Toxic Miasma is probably better than Acid blood and could kill quite a lot, but it doesnt help towards combat result. I would probably avoid all of these biomorphs. Regeneration is however useful. It is cheaper here than elsewhere in the book and it could keep the tyrant alive longer.
Psychic powers can be seperated into good and bad quite easily. Lets go through these. Horror requires you to pass a psychic test, so they can take a moral test and then if they fail they fall back, fearless units are immune. Lets not be wasting time with that. Leech Essence has the same range as Horror, but inflicts d3 low strength, low ap hits, which can heal you. Yes please. Paroxysm has the same range as the others and reduces the targets weapon skill and ballistic skill to 1. A very good choice and a key reason to include a Hive tyrant. Finally another poor choice, just incase you didn't realise you should be taking Paroxysm and Leech Essence, up steps Psychic scream. Enemy units take leadership tests and lose one wound per point they fail by. Just not as useful as the other powers, and certainly not as useful as actually shooting them with one of the available guns.
Finally the upgrade that determines what your tyrant will be doing. The choice is essentially do you want to fly, or walk. If you want to fly, you will need to sink a large amount of points into Wings. Please note if you do this, and you need to have WYSIWYG, the new plastic kit forces you to replace one of your weapons sets for the wings with built in scything talons. I suggest converting this, as it really isn't a good build to have just one set of talons.
If you plan on walking, get the Armoured Shell for a 2+ save. Don't bother with the Thorax swarm, it really isn't as good as the other options.
Conclusion:
The Hive tyrant can be customised into pretty much every role you can think of, provided you are willing to pay a substantial amount of points to include him in your list.
Good options: Lashwhip/Bonsword, Twin Devourers, Heavy Venom Cannon, Regeneration, Wings, Armoured Shell, Hive Commander, Old Adversary, Paroxysm, Leech Essence
Bad options: Twin Deathspitters, single set of Scything talons, Toxin sacks, Adrenal glands, Thorax Swarm, Horror, Psychic Scream, Horror
Swarm Lord
This is the special character Hive Tyrant choice. So for 110 points more than the basic hive tyrant, what do you get? Looking at the statistics, you gain a point of Weapon Skill, which takes you to the threshold where a lot of basic troops, such as marines in all flavours only hit you on 5s in combat. This is a massive advantage. However it won't make a great deal of difference against enemy characters. You also gain another wound, which is always nice, and a point of initiative. The initiative is effectively worse than the regular tyrants against elite eldar and grey knights with halberds due to the lack of a lashwhip, but for most opponents, you won't really notice any difference.
The bone sabers inflict instant death regardless of toughness, which isn't bad, but a regular Hive Tyrant can get this built in with Implant Attack without sacrificing its weapon slots. It comes built in with synapse and all four psychic powers as well as Shadow in the Warp, which is useful against a lot of armies. It gets more out of this because it can cast two powers a turn, but it needs to be able to, in order to counter the lack of shooting attacks. The increased synapse range is also very useful for a foot tyrant.
Its four swords give it a 4+ invulnerable (4++) save in close combat which will go a long way to keeping it alive against other armies. No tyranid creature has a ward save, so this is about as good as it gets.
The Swarm leader special rule is okay, the option for furious charge and acute senses will probably not be as useful as taking preferred enemy, but since furious charge on the Swarmlord itself makes it initative 7, this could come in handy on some of the occasions mentioned above.
Alien Cunning is similar to the Hive Tyrants Hive Commander ability, but trades off outflanking a unit of troops for re rolling the side an outflanking unit appears on.
Conclusion:
So we reach the point when we determine if he really is worth including. The Swarmlord comes with a fair amount of special rules, good statistic increases and a 4++ save in close combat, but at quite an expense. Notice there is no option for wings or armoured shell, which doesn't fill me full of confidence in his abilities. Taking everything into account, the Swarmlord can be a competitive choice, but it is perhaps not an optimal one. He just doesn't have the flexibility of the standard tyrant.
Tyrant Guard
Any hive tyrant and indeed the Swarmlord can include a tyrant guard unit of one to three models.
These are expensive costing the same price as the wings upgrade and offer a fairly reasonable statistics line. Above average weaponskill, strength, toughness and attacks, along with two wounds and 3+ saves they are fairly formidable in close combat.
They come for free with scything talons and rending claws, but can trade the talons for either a lashwhip or a bonesword. The entire brood must take the same option. Depending on what you gave your hive tyrant, and if you took Old Adversary, this may or may not be a good idea. Remember the idea with close combat is to be able to kill an enemy unit in their close combat phase, so you can consolidate, then charge again in your next turn. You really don't want to be out in the open in their turn. So with this in mind, you probably don't want to include the boneswords, but you might want lashwhips.
Conclusion:
A unit with strong statistics, but expensive. If included will bring the price of a foot tyrant up to that of a flying one, with nowhere near the speed, but a better close combat ability due to extra attacks. Due to how the unit works, the tyrant cant be picked out by shooting, but as an independant character suffers from wound allocation and can be attacked specifically in close combat. If you buy the tyrant regeneration you can put a wounding hit early onto the tyrant in the hope that you recover it through regeneration and leech essence. I would include one or two of these for a foot tyrant, but none for a flying one. Swarmlord will want his armed with lashwhips.
This is continued in Tyranid Codex Review Part 2
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