No Local Store? No Problem

I've been playing Warhammer 40K since around 1992 or so... most marriages don'tlast as long as my love affair with this game. Now, for pretty much that entire period of time that has not been a FLGS around (the Gamers Sanctuary, long may she be remembered) is the only bump in that.

I often hear (Dice Like Thunder) or other podcasts that have great places to play.

I am not one of them.

I have my table, at my house, in my 40K room, which rocks, and I love it.

But it does not allow me to play other people in any semi-regular basis to test out lists against, which is sad. In addition, I tend to have to travel for tournaments, which is difficult when I am married/have my own business/and have bitten the stupid WOW crack again.

Recently we have started some local tournaments. We had one in a garage last month, and next month I will be hosting. We should have about 10 people or so with a little luck. A bunch of us throw toegether with table tops and terrain and have a good time.

Anyone out there in my shoes? What have you done to help the situation when you live this far away?

Tau vs. Dark Eldar - Guide

So I am playing the hell out of my DE these days, but in the back of my mind (and in my heart) I am always thinking of Tau.

So, with that in mind, and Tau being one of the older codexs, how do you go about handling Dark Eldar, with Tau?

Well, I am not going to talk about a Tau build. I subscribe to the mono-build of Tau at the moment with a winning list having large amounts of crisis with plasma/missiles and broadsides and a few small squads to hold score. I am assuming that you are running this or a variant of it (I run a hammerhead or two often).

Now, let's get too it.

The first problem is initive, who won? If you won set up in mid area if possible. Dark Eldar like to take advantage of Nightshields and you need to be able to respond with your entire army. Make sure that all of your fire can cover everyone else. Don't have anyone set up too far forward (do NOT infilitrate your kroot up).

Now then, if you have gone first, then the dark eldar has a problem, he can deploy, and get shot, or reserve his entire army. I think the smart play, but if not, and he sets up, move around as necessary and down every transport that has any of the following units in it 1. Wytches 2. Any Elite (Incubi, Grotesques, Wracks). After this is done, go to the Ravagers and guns in round 2 if necessary. If you fail to destroy all the vehicles you will have transports in your face on round 2, you need to kill them, and then kill the occupants. Remember your smart missiles, they will just obliterate Dark Eldar. I don't advocate shooting the warriors at first, they actually have no chance against the kroot, so are no threat in HTH, which is where you will get crushed.

Once the raiders and ravagers are down, the game should be in hand.

Now, if they reserve you have a problem. In objective based games there will be a certain desire to mill around and get closer to the objectives on round 1 and 2. DO NOT DO THIS. If you move within 27 inches of his table edge, you are asking to get in HTH. You have only one thing you can do. Stay in the center at around 30 inches away from his side. On round 2 he will scream in with 1/2 of his stuff. Still, DO NOT move toward the objective. Just kill, wipe everything that came on the table out, any way you can. On round 4 more of this stuff will come in, do the same thing again. On round 5 you need to get to the stupid objective, move 5, run, whatever. If he has anything else that is coming, you jsut have to risk it. If it is just kill points, then you shouldn't be in any problem.

If the Dark Eldar go first you have a problem. More then likely you will have 4-6 raiders or vypers full of troops that are directly in front of your army and have taken some casulties. This is the point when it is time to effect a fighting withdrawal. You need to pick a flank, right or left, and start killing one side off. Don't distribute your firepower, you need to wipe transports, and then try and make a wall of kroot to block off getting multi assaulted. Transports are key, do that first, but once their transports are done, you need to start killing troops on one side so that you can keep moving as far away while slowly feeding units to the inevitable hth.

I'm unsure that a choice to go into reserve will be successful against DE, but depending on what they are playing it may be possible... in fact that may be a better strategy if forces to go second.

Dark Eldar - Results

I would say that my 3-5th games with them at the local tournament were promising. I see problems with the list (obviously) but am contrained by a desire to paint what I have and a lack of models, although I will discuss what I think needs to change below.

I played Space Marines, Space Marines and Blood Angels.

My first game, I went first and my Wytches were caught out in the open with two bad fleet rolls (1 and a 2) and were unable to make HTH in turn 1. One squad was destroyed, but the other was able to get the job done. The incubi and lord made it to hth and did as expected, murdering bikes, and marines equally by the end of the game, and killing all the troop choices. The Archon killed a librarian in round 2 (you will see a theme here)

My second opponent went first, so I reserved my entire army. I was able to come on and get immediately into hth in round 2, with the incubi and the lord sweeping up a flank and killing everything. By the end of the game he had killed another librarian as well. The incubi finally were destroyed by thunderhammers after killed in excess of 20+ marines.

My last game is the only one that caused me real problems as I ran face first into 3 blood angel devestator squads with 12 missiles, an obvious problem, but one that I had a hart time countering. It was a mess to be honest, but a blood battle. The archon killed Memphiston and another librarian in that game, and quite a bit of other units died, however I was not aggressive enough, fearing blood angel HTH (wrongly) on turn 1. It would be interesting to play again, but this time to be more aggressive.

I definitely see a need for much more anti-infantry shooting. I see two easy places for this in the codex, that being in Venoms with their 12 poisoned shots or by running a jet fighter and taking the standard missile load out. For reasons due to survivability, the venoms appeal to me more. I made a test list up that had another 4 venoms, but I think I need to reshuffle.

I also was not impressed with the blast pistol, which will be coming out of all of the lists from now on. That is 60 pts I can better spend somewhere else. I liked the wytches with haywires quite a bit, and liked the hydra gauntlets, but was underwhelemed with the shardnets and impailers. I believe that they are best against units they never ended up being in hth with.

The Shock Prow + multiple torment grenade launchers + Aethersails worked well, allowing me to put a -3 roll on devestator squad and escort them off the table.