Blog Archives
Quick Tip: Tag-Team to Win Combat
Hey all Son of Adam here with a quick tip about tipping the favor of combat. This technique is a very particular one, but it can be shaped to good effect against most non-fearless armies; it’s called the tag-team. Please keep in mind that this technique cannot be used in every circumstance, but when it can be used, it can be the shift in power during a game.
Once in the last round of a tournament, I was facing a horde ork army with a full sized nob biker unit. There was nothing in my army that could have faced that unit head on and my opponent knew it. He stretched the squad out across the board so that no matter where I went in my turn he would be close enough to engage me. I was stuck in a hard place and had to employ the tag-team.
I happened to get the rule book power terrify (it relieves a unit of the fearless special rule) and I used it on his nob bikers (keep in mind this tactic can only be used on non-fearless units). I moved up my combat unit and did not shoot in order to keep the formations that he had put out in place. Then I multi-assaulted his strung out nobs squad (big scary unit) and tag-teamed his boys squad (an easily killable unit). I used my movement in such a way to make sure that nearly all of the combat squad could only get in on the boys squad and I dumped nearly all of my attacks into it. During his reaction most of his nob squad was too far away to fight, and most of the boys were dead.
For combat resolution I had killed enough of the boys that his biker squad was taking its leadership test on a two. Even with the re-roll they failed, and since the boys were still big enough to be fearless I couldn’t pursue them. The Nobs with both warbosses rolled their three dice and fled off the table.
That is the tag-team. In these pictures you can see how the eldar jetbikes are facing off against a paladin squad. During their movement they position themselves in a place where they can declare the convenient rhino as their primary target and the paladins as the secondary.
After they charge they dump all of their attacks into the rhino and only one of the warlocks hits the paladins. Since in sixth edition all damages against a tank count towards combat resolution the paladins end up loosing combat by enough to make them test on double ones.
They fail their leadership and if the bikes roll low enough to catch them, then the paladins will break and run off the table.
This is very situational, and it’s not a guarantee, but if you find the opportunity, try it. You can help push favor of combat towards your units if you can find a way to push the combat resolution to 9+ on your side. Good luck all.
List Building: Checklist
Be intentional about the Heavy Support and Fast Attack choices that you pick.
Hey guys, Son of Adam here again with a little list building checklist. This is not the end all be all of list building, but is simply a quick check to run through your list in order to see if you are missing something.
If you are building an all-comers list for any mission in the new BRB, then there are some things that you ought to make sure that you consider. Here is a very basic two part checklist to run through your list. The first is directly written with the Golden Rules in mind, and the second are with the potential meta in mind.
Mission Specific:
- How will this list handle scoring/contesting 6 different objectives?
- Is there any way to reduce my kill point total? Does this list have too many?
- Are all of the heavy support choices in this list diverse enough to take advantage of Big Guns Never Tire without creating too much of a victory points liability should they be destroyed and award the opponent victory points?
- Are all of the Fast Attack choices in this list diverse enough to take advantage of The Scouring without creating too much of a victory points liability should they be destroyed and award the opponent victory points?
- Can this list get a near guarantee that I claim one particular objective of my choosing?
- Can this list guarantee that I can deny one particular objective of my opponent?
- Does this list provide a solution for seizing and holding the relic?
- Does this list provide a solution for forcing an opponent to drop the relic?
- Does this list have a hard to kill Warlord?
- Does this list provide a means to kill the opponents Warlord?
- Does this list have an easy to kill unit?
- Does this list provide a means for getting the first kill?
- What in this list is poised to be in the enemy’s deployment zone at the end of the game?
General Defense:
- Does this list provide a solution for AV14 vehicles?
- Does this list provide a solution for Deathstars?
- Does this list provide a solution for fliers?
- Does this list provide a solution for hordes?
- Does this list provide a solution for MSU?
- Does this list provide a solution for 2+ saves?
- Does this list provide a solution for Monstrous Creatures
- Does this list provide a solution for Psykers?
Expect to see more fliers in the 6th Edition. How will your list defend against them?
Notice that these are not overly specific. That is intentional. There are many tricky ways to deal with the different threats and achieve different objectives. For example you can deal with a deathstar without killing it (see here for that article). Or win “The Emperor’s Will” without trying to claim the opponents objective (article here), or any at all (article here). Keep an eye out for providing an answer to each of these items in non-traditional ways.
This is a very general checklist, but not a bad one to give your list a quick run-through. Most of us try to run through this checklist in our heads anyway, but it is good to have a tangible list in front of us, and will benefit those that have not considered it before.
Run your list through this checklist and tell us about how it fared. Feel free to post an overview of your list and its strengths and weaknesses in regards to the checklist in the comments below. If you want to send me a copy of your list and your review personally send it to SonofAdam@MasterCraftGaming.com.
Road to NOVA: Necron Air Force
The Necron Air Force is a powerhouse in the 6th edition.
Hey guys Son of Adam here with a NOVA prep discussion about the Necron Air Force list. As you guys know from the teaser below I recently had a chance to play against the dreaded Necron Air Force in a NOVA primer mission.
Some quick updates on my progress before we begin: with 7 days left, most of the army is built, most of the basing is done, the army list is getting near finalized, and the display board needs a bunch of work. Tonight some of the fellas are coming over and we are going to paint all night. Even though my stuff isn’t done yet, I’m still going to try and produce some content for the site and so here we go.
The Necron Air Force is a very potent list that has most NOVA attendees frightened. That is one of the reasons I wanted to get a battle report in here about them. This list is generally based off of having maxed out, or nearly maxed out flyers. It also tends to add one of the Necron characters (typically the Traveler or the Stormlord) with a large and tough enough squad not to get wiped on the first turn. Then the question has been what travels in the night scythes. Some swear to the survivability of the immortals, some the fire power/tricks of crypteks, and other the points effectiveness of the 5 man warrior squad. In the end you are generally left with 8+ scythes (3 of which are doom scythes), a beefy/deathstar unit, and massed mobile scoring units.
Some of the guys at my FLGS were talking about how to challenge this list and flyer lists in general. Each time an idea came up; there would only need to be a slight change to the Air Force list that would knock it down again. We even ran the IG air force against it, but the Doom Scythe is just too strong for aerial combat. In the end it kept looking like nothing could shoot down enough of those flying croissants without being wiped off the table. This may change with new updates and war gear, but for now the biggest threat to flyers is other flyers and even then, cron flyers are the best of the lot at this point.
One problem that developed was a mirror match. In the competitive scene, you have to expect that whatever is being considered one of the most powerful lists is going to be there in numbers. If that’s the case, everyone who is bringing this list must consider this possibility and prepare accordingly. This is where the special characters come in. The stormlord allows for some extra defense, while providing unreliable support at bringing flyers down. On the other hand the Traveler allows you to potentially get control of 4 Doom Scythes a turn with his mind in the machine.
Necron’s firepower destroys units.
As far as a response to flyers goes, some armies have a few options to bring them down, others must rely on allies. Presently flyers are the best way to fight flyers, but this inherently has the problem of escalation. If I bring three flyers then my opponent will bring four. And, in the flyer vs. flyer games, first turn tends to loose as they will alpha strike an empty table and then get alpha’d in return. On the other hand you can bring AA defense guns on the Aegis or the Bastion. However, the Aegis gun tends to get dropped rather quickly and the Bastion is expensive and disallows scoring.
There is only one real weakness that I can find for the flyers in this pre-AA adolescence of 6th edition in regards to NOVA style tournaments. However, this weakness is not one that is exclusively held by flyers. Tanks and flyers don’t count for scoring in table quarters missions. If you start the game with 8+ flyers, or >1000 pts for crons, you will be at an initial disadvantage against armies like nids that are all scoring.
All in all the air force lists are very strong until 6th gets more AA rules and there isn’t much that can compete with them. However, with the prevalence of table quarter missions, some inexperienced cron players may be eliminated during these rounds. I won’t go into what happened in my last match, but you can watch some of the other air force games on different sites and check back here by the end of the week to see how this one went. I will be a little more thorough in how I tried to defend against the crons in the strategy follow-up that comes out after the report.
Thanks for reading. Check back soon for some of the content that will be coming out. Make sure to follow our website, like our facebook, and subscribe to the YouTube channel.
-Peace.
Deployment: Refuse Flank
Hey all, its Son of Adam again with a littletactic for deployment; the second sphere of Game Strategy. In this write up we are going to talk about how faster armies can really take advantage of the refuse flank deployment.
Swarm/non elite armies have an advantage and disadvantage in their numbers. They can overwhelm an elite force or outlast it in a battle of attrition. However, its disadvantage is in the deployment sphere. You can only physically fit so many models on any given portion of the table, and so these armies are forced to spread out or play some squads in reserve. Either way, this deployment style has a weakness against the refuse flank deployment. (Something else I must note here is that swarm armies are forced to do this, but many elite armiesdo this as well, from tactical necessity, or poor play. Either way it will open up the opportunity to take advantage of the refuse flank style of deployment).
The Tau Piranha is a good example of a unit that can take advantage of the refuse flank tactic.
In the refuse flank tactic, you can counter deploy against an enemy that has spread out by focusing all of your forces on one flank of the table. The advantage here, which is best utilized by ranged or fast moving units, is to be able to bring the full force of your army against a smaller portion of your opponent’s army, in order to overwhelm it with less losses.
For example let’s imagine that a Vulkan player takes 4 rhinos full o’ tacs and evenly spreads them across his dawn of war deployment zone. You take your speedy Dark Eldar list and counter deploy them all on his right flank. Now when the game starts all he has to do is prepare the two rhinos in range for your force, and hurriedly try to move the other two to that side of the table, forfeiting all of their support until they get there. Then you can bring all of your mobility and firepower to bear in order to overwhelm his two tactical squads just in time to now take the same force against the other two that have essentially just made it to the fight.
This is a fantastic way for making up for being outmatched
with your list. If your opponents army is better than yours and makes this mistake (or is forced to), then you can even the odds by making a portion of his army irrelevant for the purposes of the game.
Thanks for reading. Leave a comment or write us an email with any feedback. Check out our other stuff and sub/like/follow our sites. Thanks for the support all.
Cheers
Tying for the Win
Hey guys, Son of Adam here with a quick article on tying for the win. This is part of the third sphere of game strategy; macro-game-play. Let’s hop down this rabbit hole and see what’s inside.
After a long hard fought battle sometimes both players get the same number of kill points, or have the same number of objectives and the game comes down to those good ol’ secondary objectives. Now that we are talking about sixth those are the; slay the warlord, line-breaker, and first blood objectives. When tying for the win, as the name says, you try to do this intentionally. However, if you are playing in a tournament with different rules you will need to figure out if this tactic will work and what other subtle things you need to do in order to pull it off.
Jetbikes are often overlooked in list building, but their manueverability is useful for getting into the enemy’s deployment zone.
Playing for the tie is often much easier than going for the win, but with this tactic you can achieve both. At the start of the match take a minute and look at the mission and both armies, then judge for yourself; do I have an easier time at winning the secondary and tying the primary or at winning the primary? Whichever one turns out to be more of a sure thing is the one you should go for.
You must be subtle when you do this, as in the minds of most players it will be the battle for the primary and a disregard of the secondary. Let’s continue on in the Art of War(hammer) here.
“9. As circumstances are favorable, modify your plans.
10. All warfare is based on deception.
11. Hence, when able to take the objective, we must appear unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must appear far away; we must make them believe we are other than what we are.
12. If your enemy’s strength is greater than your own evade him and seek victory another way.
13. Attack where he is unprepared, appear where you are unexpected.
14. These tactical methods, which lead to victory, cannot be divulged beforehand.
15. The general who wins has made many calculations before the battle is fought, likewise the general who makes few looses. Therefore, calculate how you may achieve victory beforehand and it shall be yours.”
So, when your force is outmatched you must modify your plans and play for a victory through secondary objectives while still appearing to play for the primary. When doing this, you will then appear where you are not expected, and attack what he has not prepared, and secure the victory.
When considering the secondary objectives, Draigo is a great choice. Not only is he hard to kill, but he also excells against other warlords.
When you are building your list keep this tactic in mind. As an example; if you know you will be playing the standard 6th edition missions, build a list that can achieve first blood, has a general that is hard to kill, and can use its mobility to get into the enemies deployment zone, while still being able to contest objectives. This may make your list look weak to some, which in the end is a good thing, as it will further the deception that you are outmatched and boost the confidence of your opponent.
Go out and try using this tactic. See if you can take victory from a strong opponent or against a list that is stronger than yours. Then make sure you come back here and tell us about it. Be sure to check out our videos and follow/like/comment/sub to our stuff. Thanks for the help fellas.
Please note that all references to the Art of War(hammer) are a fictitious knock off of the real Art of War by Sun Tzu. Some portions are a direct quote; I do not mean to take credit for any of it. Go check it out, it’s a great book.
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