First Experiences with Strike from the Shadows

[Capt Laertes]

Hi All

 

I managed to get in a few games yesterday with Raven Guard using the new chapter tactics and stratagems and thought I'd share the experiences in case it proved useful! I played three games using this list:

 

2000pts

Battalion Detachment - 6 CPs

10 Deployment 'Drops'

 

Captain w/ Thunder Hammer

Chaplain w/ Jump Pack

 

Vanguard Vets x10 - 5 Swords, 3 Fists, 2 Axes, 4 Plasma Pistols, 3 Storm shields

Vanguard Vets x10 - Jump Packs, 6 Twin Claws, 4 Fists, 4 Storm Shields

Sternguard Vets x6 - 6x Combi-Melta, Rhino

 

Scouts x5 - Sniper Rifles, Camo

Scouts x5 - Sniper Rifles, Camo

Tactical x5 - Combi-Flamer, Flamer, Rhino

 

Land Speeders x3 - All Heavy Flamers & Multi-Meltas

 

Devastators x5 - 4 Missile Launchers

 

I thought this was quite a balanced and competitive list and was greatly looking forward to using Strike from the Shadows with the Vanguard Vets!

 

FIRST GAME - TAU EMPIRE

 

Tau List:

 

Ethereal

10 Strike Team

10 Strike Team

10 Strike Team

6 Crisis Suits - All Twin Plasma & Fusion

10 Pahtfinders

10 Pathfinders

Longstrike

Hammerhead

Hammerhead

Stormsurge (!)

 

The battle field was mostly open with a couple of hills in each deployment zone but with a large landing pad complex just off centre in the middle. Devastators and Scouts deployed far back to give supporting fire, land speeders, tacticals and sternguard ready to move forward as fast as possible... and of course one squad of vanguard with the chaplain and the other vanguard with the captain deployed in the complex ready for a first turn charge! The Tau deployed all their fire warriors opposite the complex with the stormsurge behind them, while longstrike and his hammerheads covered the open ground. Crisis Team in Reserve. 10 Drops to 11 meant the Ravens went first (thankfully!).

 

The early game went ok for the Ravens, with the Landspeeders and Devastators blowing a hammerhead out of the air and the captain leading his vanguard in slaughtering one strike team and damaging the stormsurge with their plasma pistols. The chaplain and his vanguard were not so lucky taking 6 casualties from a lot of 'For the Greater Good' overwatch. They still killed a strike team though.

 

Then things went wrong for the Vanguard Vets... the Stormsurge and some fire warriors leaving the Captain feeling very lonely and the newly arrived Crisis Suits doing the same to the Chaplain. Longstrike and his hammerhead buddy also shot down two of the land speeders. A very good counter-punch from the Tau!

 

The stormsurge had to go, so the Devastators and last landspeeder opened up on it, reducing it to 5 wounds. Then the Captain, fully expecting to be obliterated by the overwatch charged it... and made it in with 2 wounds left. And smacked it down with two Thunder Hammer hits The Chaplain was useful in harrassing the hammerhead and some pathfinders by charging in and making them relocate, which he continued to do until the final turn when he was finally shot down. The Sternguard jumped out of their Rhino and took out 4 Crisis Suits with their meltas.

 

Things were looking ok for the Ravens, but the Tau firepower started to show in turns 3 & 4 - The captain was shot down by Fire Warriors, who also repulsed an attack from the tacticals (the last one killed by the Ethereal in assault!) who had finally caught up. Longstrike and the last Crisis suits took out the Sternguard, Land Speeder, Chaplain and even started attacking some sniper scouts.

 

All in all, a close and fun game, which resulted in a minor victory for the Tau, who only had Longstrike, 2 Crisis Suits, a few pathfinders, 3 Fire Warriors and the Ethereal left. The Ravens only had the Devastators, one squad of scouts and two rhinos who were merrily charging into the remaining pathfinders repeatedly!

 

So far, Strike from the Shadows seems a decent (if very risky) tactic for Vanguard Vets, especially against an army like Tau with effective overwatch. Shadow Masters didn't really have any effect this game since most of the fire fights were within 12"...

 

On to the next game...

 

 

[Capt Laertes]

SECOND GAME - ELDAR (Craftworlds)

 

Eldar List:

 

Farseer

Autarch Skyrunner - Lance

10 Dire Avengers in Wave Serpent w/ Twin Bright Lance

10 Dire Avengers in Wave Serpent w/ Twin Bright Lance

6 Fire Dragons in Falcon w/ Pulse Laser & Starcannon

5 Shining Spears

8 Warp Spiders

8 Swooping Hawks

5 Dark Reapers

 

Looked like a nice balanced Eldar Aspect list...

 

This time on a ruined cityscape battlefields covered with large ruined buildings... ideal for giving sneaky Ravens cover! The Devastators and Sniper Scouts deployed in the top floors of ruined buildings while the speeders, tacticals in rhino and sternguard in Rhino advanced underneath. The Eldar deployed with their Avengers in Wave Serpents in the centre supported by the Warp Spiders and Dark Reapers in cover in ruins. The Autarch and Shining Spears on one flank, the Fire Dragons in their Falcon on the other, with the Swooping Hawks in the skies. The two Vanguard squads, Captain and Chaplain again used Strike for the Shadows and set up in ruins on the flank, ready to take out the Fire Dragons in their Falcon and then smash their way down the Eldar battle line. The small Eldar army had the first turn, but the Vanguard would easily be able to take one turn of fire with a 2+ cover save and plenty of 3++ storm shields....

 

Nope. 20 Vanguard Vets dead in one round of firing. The Eldar moved so quickly to bring their whole force to attack the Vets, they stood no chance. The Captain and Chaplain tried to counter attack, but were easily gunned down. Meanwhile, right down the other end of the battlefield, the Autarch and Shining Spears struck right into the Raven Guard deployment zone. They were finally taken down, but not before they had destroyed the Sternguard and the Devastators. The only good result for the Ravens were the Land Speeders taking out both Wave Serpents and the tacticals flaming some Dire Avengers, but there's no other way to say it: This was a contemptuous massacre by the Eldar :(

 

I badly under-estimated both the firepower and speed of Eldar. Elite armies be warned, they can focus and overwhelm even exceptional units with frightening ease. But what else is new, eh?

 

Next game...

[Extropian]

Do you feel li,e you deployed too aggressively with SFTS in the second game, knowing the Eldar had first turn? Or do you think they would have been able to get onto you regardless?

 

I think one of the mia. Trick to using STFS effectively will be judging when to be conservative. We know who is goin first before we deploy them, but it's hard to judge at times.

[Capt Laertes]

THIRD GAME - Space Wolves

 

Space Wolves list:

 

Wolf Lord in Terminator Armour - Combi-Plas & Claw

Rune Priest - Axe?

10 Grey Hunters - 2 Combi-Plas, 2 Plasma Guns, 2 Claws, in Rhino

10 Grey Hunters - 2 Combi-Plas, 2 Plasma Guns, 2 Axes, in Rhino

10 Grey Hunters - 2 Combi-Melta, 2 Meltaguns, 2 Fists, in Drop Pod

9 Grey Hunters - 2 Combi-Melta, 1 Meltagun, 2 Fists, in Drop Pod

6 Long Fangs - 4x Lascannon

6 Long Fangs - 5 Missile Launchers, Wolf Guard Terminator w/ Cyclone Missile Launcher

 

Very troop heavy, but troops with scary firepower!

 

Used the cityscape board again (since the game against the Eldar was quite short!)

 

Usual for the Ravens, Devastators and Snipers in buildings, Land Speeders and Rhinos with Tacticals and Sternguard ready to move forward. Similar for the Wolves, with the Long Fangs in their own two tall buildings, with Rhinos containing Grey Hunters rumbling forward underneath. Drop Pods and Wolf Lord waiting to drop/teleport. But this time, the Ravens saw their chance, using Strike from the Shadows to set up both squads of Vanguard, the captain and chaplain in a building right between the two buildings occupied by the wolves. But the Wolves had the first turn, so I was hoping they couldn't put as many shots into them as the Eldar...

 

And this time (much to my relief!), it worked out ok. The wolves had a problem in that they needed to deal with the Vets, but also try to deal with the Raven Guard mech assault and supporting fire coming at them from across the table. Love it, seemed like a perfect demonstration of Raven Guard tactica! So one squad of wolves deployed from their rhino to attack the captain's vets and another came down in their drop pod to attack the chaplain's vets, with the longfangs adding their fire as well. The wolves did average, gunning down 4 from one squad and 3 from the other, but when they followed it up with charges into the Vets (far too reckless!) they were cut down by the waiting Ravens. Meanwhile the other Drop Pod containing Grey Hunters came down in support of the other squad of Grey Hunters mounted in their Rhino, and managed some success in gunning down all the Devastators.

 

Then the Ravens struck, and that was it for the Wolves really. The Chaplain led his vets in cutting down one squad of longfangs. The other Vets and Show Captain charged into the Wolf Lord who had teleported in and the Shadow Captain smashed the Wolf with his Thunder Hammer. The Land Speeders, Snipers, Sternguard and Tacticals made short work of the packs of Grey Hunters (and Rune Priest) who were attacking them. By the end of turn 2 the Wolves only had their empty Rhinos, Drop Pods and a few long fangs left.

 

Text book victory for the Ravens, utilising their tactics perfectly. The Wolves made a mistake in splitting their force and were too reckless, but Strike from the Shadows forced them to make that decision. 

 

 

All in all, really like the Raven's tactics and stratagems. I thought Strike from the Shadows would be OP only costing 1 CP, but it puts units that use it at great risk, and against some armies it can be almost useless and actually dangerous if you don't get the first turn (something which is a problem in 8th generally I think!). Didn't get much use out of Shadow Masters, but reckon it's pretty nice if a bit situational.

 

Hope you've enjoyed these summary reports, if you've found them useful (or useless!), let me know.

 

Cheers

[Capt Laertes]

@ Extropian

 

Yeah it probably was too aggressive, I definitely felt that at the time. But now I think about it, I'm not sure where I could have put the Vets so that the Eldar couldn't get at them  first with several units except have them cowering at the back of my deployment zone! Maybe reserve the Jump Pack Vets against Eldar and hope for a charge when they arrive using CP re-roll... 

[Extropian]

Nice write ups, thanks!

 

Yeah, a lot of STFS positioning will depend on the table and who has first turn I expect. It's going to be interesting getting experienced with these rules and seeing how that changes things as things develop.

[Capt Laertes]

@ Extropian

 

Thanks mate!

 

Yeah I think you're exactly right, got to judge the situation.

 

Another aspect that occurred to me during these games was order of deployment - do you declare you're putting units 'in the shadows' early in your deployment order to see where the enemy deploys units without putting your own on the table, or do you leave them until last to bluff the enemy into thinking you're not going to use it? Tactically very interesting!

[Extropian]

Yeah, there's a lot of mind games and tricks you can do with this I think. This stratagem alone is probably my favourite thing in the Codex tbh, for pure fun.

[defl0]

Thoughts on what you think would be an optimized vanguard vet unit?

[Capt Laertes]

@ defl0

 

In every one of these games I wished the Vets on foot had more plasma pistols, Strike from the Shadows infiltration along with the Captain meant they did some decent damage with 4 of them, if they'd had 7 or 8 they could have put the serious hurt on key enemy units every game, eg. they may have been able to cripple the stormsurge in the first game before it got the chance to shoot. Being able to put down that much fire power on something and then charge and destroy another unit in the same turn would have been awesome and I reckon it would really help compensate for the risk of infiltrating/deep striking so close to the entire enemy army.

 

In assault, the Claws and Fists were decent but the Swords and Axes were disappointing as they rely so much on the dice to wound and saves and so sometimes do almost nothing. But that's nitpicking really since they're so much cheaper I suppose. And obviously Thunder Hammers would be better than Fists for the same points but I've got Fists modelled on them. The Storm Shields were unlucky in these games rolling plenty of 2s, but I still reckon between 3-5 are a good idea for a squad that puts itself in so much danger so quickly.

 

Last point I forgot to mention in the write ups: it's pretty annoying when you take so many storm shields and then have your squad wiped with mortal wounds - watch out for Destroyer Missiles (Stormsurge) and Serpent Shields (Bloody frustrating Eldar!), buts that situational I suppose.

 

Ideal Squad: 10 Vets - 6-7 Plasma Pistols, 3-4 Storm Shields, 4-5 Thunder Hammers, 5-6 Lightning Claws. Strike from the Shadows along with the Captain. Pretty pricey though!

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

We had some mathy stuff in another threat  in which the poster demonstrated that claws are by far the most efficient weapon against 1 wound models with 3-4 toughness and thunder hammers were by far the most efficient against larger multi wound high toughness targets.  I cant quite remember the numbers on pistols but I think they were mostly inferior to claws or nearly anything you would target with them.  Assuming the methods/calculations were correct, pick claws or TS/SS, everything else is less efficient.  Of course this assumes you want a unit of VVs that have a particular task.  If you want something okay at hitting most targets but not great... axes/sword are prolly good.  If you want to attack light stuff like guard inf... maybe just chain swords since they are free.  

 

Maybe take a 10 man with 5 claws and 5 TH/SS.  Combat squad them as needed.  

 

My anecdotal experience in 8th so far... claws are the sauce.  They shred marines like crazy and if you have rerolls to hit you might even get the attention of the blood god.

[Mr. Poe]

This is stepping aside from the laws of math and moving towards personal experience/preference so take it with a grain of salt. I find that just the shear volume of wounds you can cause with re-rolling claws catches people of guard and creates opportunity to fail saves. 6 failed saves at 1 dmg. is just as good as 2-3 failed saves at D3.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

This is stepping aside from the laws of math and moving towards personal experience/preference so take it with a grain of salt. I find that just the shear volume of wounds you can cause with re-rolling claws catches people of guard and creates opportunity to fail saves. 6 failed saves at 1 dmg. is just as good as 2-3 failed saves at D3.

This happened to me on Saturday.  I wiped a 4 man biker squad with just Shrike.  I rolled well for d3 dmg but nothing legendary.

 

Offtopic: I also saw my first truly legendary roll.  My opponent was rolling to wound with some inceptors and rolled SIX 6's and two 5s.  Not sure what the odds are of getting six 6's on 8 dice but im sure its not good.  

[Alcyon]

Would definitely be curious to see how Shrike would've done against the Tau Overwatch in that first game. RAW I believe his Warlord Trait suppresses the "For the Greater Good" rule, and if you can get a multi-charge off with him you could potentially block a lot of shooting from the enemy. 

[defl0]

So I've gotten in a couple games with SftS at this point.

 

First 2 things if note. You can use it on as many units as you have command points and you deploy then after the sieze the initiative roll... Which is not how I originally thought it worked, but it is.

 

With that in mind, I think a good RG list has units that are really powerful if you go first or if you go second.

 

For examples:

 

1. Aggressors with bolt gauntlets are insanely good if you go first, because you can deploy them in range to not move and double tap their weapons. It's a maybe alpha strike against any army expecting to throw money at you.

 

2. Hellblasters are quite good if you go second. With rapid fire 30 you can deploy at a range where you can move and rapid fire but your opennent most likely can't charge you and has a-1 to hit you.

 

There are also a bunch of combos like a librarian and rievers plus a termi squad or vanguard vet squad which is really powerful but situational.

 

Finally, Raven Guard are one of the few armies that can have a beta strike. The -1 can really help you survive going second especially if u do things like bring your own terrain