Overall metagame summary?

[Warp Angel]

Check my sig for some links to the kinds of units/kinds of capability that you need to have in an all comer's army.

 

I can honestly say that my core build of my C:SM army hasn't had to change much despite the new codecies. Part of that success is because my units allow for flexible deployment options and apparently "must kill" units to handle the specialized lists. They either have no way of countering what I'm capable of before I am able to execute or see the greatest threat to them as the only threat they have to deal with and end up playing to my maneuver and strategy... and the depth of the build.

 

Another reason an all comer's list works is because, at least in my case, I'm invested in it, know every nuance and weakness, and have played it to exhaustion against a number of opponents.

 

I will almost never get the "wipe the enemy off the table" points that a lot of hard core tournaments have as additional victory points, because I don't run a list with the "alpha strike" capability you need to do that, but I can generally be a long way towards victory by the end of turn 3 with my opponent struggling to play for a draw.

 

If you want to win tournaments with all the alternative scores for margin of victory, you almost have to play the rock-scissors-paper game of the alpha strike armies.

 

And if I were to do that, I'd play Blood Angels with Storm Ravens, filled with lots of evil things, backed up by tactical squads and rhinos. With Marines, speed kills.

[Consul of Scorpions]

Alpha Strike is general parlance for "FIRE EVERY :cuss THING" it applies equally to shooty or stabby armies, though, IMO, the shooty alpha strike came first and best, not that the 40k rules agree with me, but I like my guns and I'll stick by them.

[Ryjak]

Something that's important to address is the terrain meta-game as well. An alpha-strike army is great if you're playing on Planet Pooltable... not so much if you're playing in Death Valley, the Amazon Rainforrest, or a true Urban Jungle. "True LOS" rules mean most terrain doesn't impead incomming rounds in any way, which is why Alpha-Strike lists are fairly common online.

 

Bring that (or another "typical" tourney list) to my planned Urban Jungle, where the only way you can see more than 12" is out on the streets, jump pack troops can jump from roof top to roof top without injury, and Ordinance can potentially drop entire buildings on your guys, and we'll see who can adapt quickest.

 

Or maybe we'll just play King of the Hill on a terraced hill taking up 8 square feet of gaming space, and tall enough that multiple land raiders can hide behind it... you know, an actual hill, instead of a small bump in the ground.

 

There's also the 'Scenario' metagame to consider. If you limit yourself to the 9 possibilities in the main rulebook, of course certain armies will come to the fore... If you use the Battle Mission book, with 30 additional missions, themed to each army, and you'll find it much harder to win without an "all-commers" list.

[Warp Angel]

Ryjak's right about terrain making a huge difference. 4th Ed had a suggestion of 25% terrain, which I still try and use in friendly games, but when you get to a store table, you might be fighting in the McCadidan McPlains of McFlatland with a ruin, two trees, and an obelisk.

 

If I remember correctly, 5th says "mutually agreeable", and if you're not interested in playing on the Mesa of Mediocrity, insist on different terrain or more of it.

 

I really don't suggest more than 25% coverage though unless you and your opponent both want it.

[Corby]

Tyranids can put out over 40+ T6 wounds in a 1750 game with amazing long range/mid range firesupport with decent cc capabilities. They can be quite a scary army to play against under such circumstances.

[Ryjak]

My general rule of thumb is to have 25% of the board covered with area terrain. Things like hills don't count, because that's topography, nor do small walls, fences, or hedges count, because those are obstacles. I also don't use the "True Line-of-Sight rules", because you can't play with a forrest you can't see through... it's just a big impassible column you'd have to physically destroy to place models within.

 

I just realized I should play that all obstacles cost 2" of movement for normal infantry to cross, make you initiative 1 if you assault across it, Monstrous Creatures and Walkers ignore any obstacle which cannot provide them a cover save, and Vehicles count them as Dangerous Terrain. Or, vehicles can ram them as if they were AV 10 vehicles, and any result of 3+ on the damage table removes an obstacle section. Vehicles with a bulldozer blade or siege shield get some kind of bonus so that they can reliably remove an obstacle if they move slowly through it... maybe any vehicle with a blade can remove any obstacle it moves through, if it moves 4" or less.

[Debauchery101]

so does anyone know how anything about the new dark eldar codex?

 

one type of list that i havent seen mentioned is the fateweaver based demon lists. theres various formations but most include fateweaver, 1 more greater demon, 3 demon princes, a couple of plague bearer units for scoring and the rest of the points put into a crap ton of blood crushers. ive used lots of fiends and flamers instead before since they are cheaper both in points and to model.

 

but i will say im still new to using demons and if anyone knows some other popular tactics please post them.. maybe i hvent seen them and i wouldnt mind trying them out. even if they are one of the rock paper scissors type lists.

[Brother Captain Josef]

so does anyone know how anything about the new dark eldar codex?

 

Yeh our store has a customer open copy and DE are looking like they could be THE EPITOME of alpha strike lists... VERY fast (36" move) open topped transports armed to the teeth with dark lances to open up your transports and assault what's in them.

 

Not that this is their only option - grotesques, talos, and funny little monster base creatures could all be used as a base for a relativly slow but very tough army led by hemonculi.

 

All splinter weapons are poisoned (4+) and they have a character that can bump this to 3+. Splinter cannon is either assault 4 or heavy 6 for added badassery. They even have a weapon that's name escapes me at the moment but it benefits from the LANCE AND MELTA RULE!!!! So that would be a maximum of needing to roll a 5 on TWO DICE to penetrate almost any vehicle.

 

Their big army wide this is pain tokens though. some units start with them and they can be transferred about by independent characters but when a DE unit kills a unit it gets a pain token - a cumulative bonus to a max of 3. 1 = furious charge 2 = FNP 3 = Fearless. remember that's cumulative... (I think the actual bonuses are right. 3 = fearless defo is).

 

Helions can have a kind of grapple man catcher thing which STEALS AN INDEPENDENT CHARACTER FROM THE SQUAD AND THEN ASSAULTS HIM...

 

Some of their characters are just sick in combat.... Lelith hesperax for instance is WS 9 I 10(!) and for every point your WS is less than hers she gets another attack... She starts with 4....

And don't even get me started on Vect... He can be on foot or mounted on what is basically a landraider dreadnought that has like a brazillion power weapon attacks in combat

 

I can't remember his name but there is a special character who steals the initiative on a 3+

 

What they can't out-combat they will out shoot and vica versa. The poisoned weapons thing is going to be murder for tyranids...

 

I expect them to be the new uberlist codex for highly specialised lists but they are extraordinarily fragile. bascially if you can get the jump on them (admittedly hard) you will smack them about with relative ease - their transports are AV10 all round and open topped so even a bolt pistol might manage it. they do have defensive upgrades for vehicles though, I can remember one which reduces weapon ranges by 6 inches - doesn't sound like much until you consider they move 36" a turn and it basically nullifies melta weaponry.

 

Thier final advantage is cost... they are very cheap for what they can achieve and so their fragility can be countered by numbers - once the initial rush of DE alpha strike lists has died down after people figure out how to counter them a well balanced DE army in the hands of a canny commander will be very difficult opponent to best.

 

just my two one hundredths of sterling...

[Debauchery101]

Thanks for the dark eldar info... Sound pretty much how the list was before. Super mobile and deadly but if you can get the jump or shrug off the hay maker punch they are gonna get crunched. So how many deep striking units are there? Are there webways they use?

[minigun762]

It really reinforces the idea of a "defense in depth" balanced approach.

 

Either that or it will lead to a bigger game of "paper, rock, scissor".

 

I hope for the first option personally.

[Jackelope King]

It really reinforces the idea of a "defense in depth" balanced approach.

 

Either that or it will lead to a bigger game of "paper, rock, scissor".

 

I hope for the first option personally.

It's the former.

 

If you've been playing a balanced list for the past few months, Dark Eldar aren't going to change it. Mine packs some close-ranged fast melta in Bikers and plenty of long-ranged autocannons.

 

And the Power of Pain mentioned above is incorrect.

 

1 Pain Token = Feel No Pain

2 Pain Tokens = Furious Charge

3 Pain Tokens = Fearless

 

The real trick to making a powerful Dark Eldar army is going to be using Homunculii and similar units as a pool of starting pain tokens, then distributing them correctly to reinforce as many squads as possible with Feel No Pain, or to pass off Furious Charge to as many squads of butt kickers as possible (an Archon running off with two pain tokens suddenly gains FNP and FC and becomes even more terrifying). Independent Characters are going to be key to some of the trickier Dark Eldar builds that rely on them to ferry Pain Tokens around and get the whole army Feel No Pain.

 

...

 

So yeah, my list honestly isn't changing. Some people are talking about spamming Heavy Bolters. This is a bad idea. We need range. Autocannons and missile launchers. Both of these have that critical range of 48", which means the Dark Eldar will need to come inside your range to shoot (even with Night Shields). These have high enough S to shred their vehicles, and guess what? T3 will be instant-death'd by S7 and S8 weapons. That means they will feel pain when you turn Autocannons on their dismounted troops. Heavy Bolters might wound on 2s, but the Dark Eldar will still get FNP.

 

Finally, unless you're playing Bikers, Jumper Blood Angels, or most of the various flavors of Foot Space Wolves, I hope you've Mech'd up by now. Dark Eldar don't get Pain Tokens from killing Vehicles. They're pretty efficient at killing vehicles, but they're actually similar to Mechdar with their difficulties in dealing with large numbers of light-weight vehicles.

 

Codex: Space Marines already has the tools to deal with this Codex. I've been advocating for most of them for awhile now. Just make sure you use 'em ;)

[minigun762]

I was thinking the same thing about S7 Autocannons for insta-kill. It sounds like the little guys are T3 but what about their HQs or other units?

[Warp Angel]

I was thinking the same thing about S7 Autocannons for insta-kill. It sounds like the little guys are T3 but what about their HQs or other units?

 

Almost the whole army, short of their two monstrous creatures are T3. A few exceptions, but not many. Their monstrous creatures, however, are all T7, which makes a small difference when shooting heavy weapons at them.

[Kay]

All DE are t3 except hemonculii (t4) ancient hemonculii (t5) grotesques (t5) and Drazhar (t4 and eternal warrior)

They key to victory with DE are pain tokens but they have several ways to begin with FNO with several units. Hemonculii give a token to the unit they are, grotesques have 1 the talos-like MC have a s3 ap3 large blast weapon that if scores a casualty gives a token to a unit in a 12".

 

DE are a very mobile hard hitting army but they work as an engine. They have to work in conjumction with each other in order to be effective. If in that engine you manage to make stop working a couple of pieces, you can force the whole engine to crumble. In addition, they are nothing without their raiders.

 

The hellion grabbing stuff only work on the "run" part of their hit and run. They flee carring your character and end in base contact. The combat is made on the mext turn so make sure to finish them before they flee. If they do so in your turn it means you charged or it is the second round of combat so in both sotuations they should be dead. If they flee in their turn, you can charge them in your assault phase and eother protect it character or retaliate them for the assasination. They dont hit that hard against marines so your char have fairly high cjances to survive and kill them in return. Farseers, ethereals and the like should worry, but not us.

 

They are a fairly competitive army, but not untreatable how they are often pictured.

[Jackelope King]

They [DE] are a fairly competitive army, but not untreatable how they are often pictured.

But since it's a new codex, and this is the Internet, IT MUST BE BROKENZORZ OMG MY MARINES ARE DOOMED AIEEEEE!!!!11one

 

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu198/ecostarr/onoz_omg1.gif

[minigun762]

I think Dark Eldar are going to make me re-emphasize my Chaos armies shooting power over just relying on their assault abilities.

 

Some of those units were made to eat MEQs for breakfast/lunch/dinner and the pain tokens reward them for doing just that, so denying them kills will be more important then with other armies.