Okay Temp, you seem so annoyed that I just can't resist a chance to defend
Renaud a bit. :)
>>even Guardians are useful
>>for protecting your rear units from Thawks, biospores and the like.
>Don't pretend. Guardians are worthless. They cost 25 points/stand, which
>is the same as Dire Avengers. They take slightly longer to break, and give
>up more VPs (6 vs 4 if bought as individual detachments, and 5 vs 4 if
>bought as a host). Give me 16 DA stands and a Prism cannon vs 18 guardian
>stands any day.
Though I guess I won't be defending him in this particular instance. Temp
is right, guardians are worthless.
>>4- Eldar Titans are useless. Don't bother taking any in your army. Even
>>with two Pulsar Cannons, the only hope you could have is gaining initiative
>>and fire it once. 10 secons later, it will be reduced to ashes by barrage
>>templates.
>What do you never play Orks or Chaos? I'm the first person to talk about
>how much Eldar titans suck against IG and Squats, but they work fine against
>Orks and Chaos. Warlock titans can be nice since they can use a psy-lance
>vs. chaos and their mind shout power vs. Orks.
I personally use the Eldar Titans against Space Marine, Titan Legions,
Orks, Chaos and Tyranids. However, it might be worth noting that my group
doesn't consider dual pulsar/dual wing laser to be cheesy.
>>Exception: Revenants are just fantastic units! They can hide
>>behind buildings and their Pulsars are very powerful. I've always 2 or 4 of
>>them (depending on the points of the game) in my army.
>While I think they are useful, they are also pretty easy to take down. Any
>of the barrages you mentioned will eat them even quicker, and even two bikes
>at +3 caf have a shot at winning in cc, three is virtually a guarantee.
Yeah, but I like them anyways. They're cheap enough that on their own they
can mount a strong assault against a particular objective that isn't too
heavily guarded, and probably come out on top. Though I probably wouldn't
use them against any of the armies I didn't previously list. Besides, the
little buggers are so darn cute!
>>5- Carefully plan your shooting phase: unless very special circumstances,
>>always fire your Doomweavers first (no LOS required if you've flyers), then
>>your "direct fire" troops and shoot your pop-up units last... Your opponent
>>will then have few units to fire back at your popping-up vehicles.
>Always fire doomweavers first? Why? Fire them when it is most
>advantageous. Most of the time the enemy does not have direct line of sight
>to your doomweavers, so they can safely delay. On the other hand your dark
>reapers (for example) need line of sight, so if you let the other guy shoot
>at them before you get to fire them, then you have lost firepower. Maybe
>you are assuming that doomweavers can force his units to delay some of their
>first fire, but that is far from being a certainty, especially considering
>the automatic scatter.
Dark Reapers? I never take those guys. They're a terrible deal! Each one
of them costs more than a prism cannon, yet somehow is still much less
effective than one I've found. I have a hard time justyifying spending 250
points for 4 dinky little stands unless those stands are Exarchs.
But back to what the gist of your paragraph was on, in this case I tend to
agree with both of you. First I try to fire off all of my vulnerable
units, but if I have a chance of nailing enemy artie with my doomweavers,
that could save my vulnerable units from dying at all, as opposed to firing
before they die. A single detachment of doomweavers can render an IG Artie
company mostly inoperational if it can pick off just two units. Hit a
bombard, and suddenly the bombards drop from a 2+ hit to a 4+ hit, or if it
didn't die, the bombards suddenly have to fire in advance, at which time
they realize that they can't fire indirectly! Do the same to one of the
basilisk detachments and his Artie company is reduced to a single
detachment of basilisks!
><snip> vs. squats . . .
>>Hmmm... Of course, NEVER take Titans but Revenants in your army (see
>>above), but definitely take Tempests! Really, what do you think about 12
>>long-range pop-up attacks with a -3 Save Mod and 1+ Saves for 900 pts?
>Against squats they are so much toast. He will have a colossus with a
>pop-up skimmer, or overlords, so no hiding and waiting until he is out of
>first fire (like that would happen with a squat player anyway). Next he
>takes some of that 9 barrage point, -3 armor save artillery and pegs as many
>tempests as he wishes. I'd be willing to bet that the rockets from a
>Colossus would be able to break a detachment single-handedly in a lot of
>cases.
Yeah, I have to agree here. I never take Tempests against the Squats.
>> Let's go back to the Squats: I agree with the Eldritch Storm
>>tactics, even if it means very often that you would dangerously expose your
>>Warlocks, something I hate to do: better keep them for the end of the game.
>Warlocks have to be exposed. If you dont' use them, then why buy them?
I'm pretty sure here Renaud meant don't expose Warlocks unless the
situation justifies it, a reasonable assertion.
>>Concerning the Jet-Bikes, you should be
>>very lucky to find an opponent deploying his artillery within 70 cm of
>>them, unless:
>It's impossible under normal game circumstances.
>>And of course, your Jet-Bikes are dead if they don't hit something
>>immediately.
>How is that? They will take a serious pounding if anyone can see them, but
>most folks on this list have some sort of house rule that restricts pop-up
>vision or adds shadows behind terrain, so they can often be hidden. Even if
>they can't be hidden from indirect barrages, they can be hidden from direct
>fire.
Ah, and herein lies my strategy (and Temps it would seem) for eliminating
Squat artillery. Skulk forward using maximum coverage from terrain and
keeping your detachments far enough away from each other that they don't
get caught in the same attacks. If so much as one detachment gets through,
those Squat artillery pieces are toast. And if they don't, they've drawn
they're points worth of fire. :)
>> So, I prefer to destroy the Squat artillery and/or reduce its
>>effectiveness by a combination of the following tactics:
>>1- Heavy Doomweavers "bombing" ("Webbing"?). Remember that many Squat
>>weapons can't fire if they move: even if they escape the Webs, they will do
>>nothing for the turn.
>Just the artillery. This will work temporarily in an artillery duel, but he
>will get to fire some units, and he will attempt to kill those of yours that
>have not fired yet. There's also the fact that Goliaths are fairly small in
>ground coverage, so even a small drift can miss them completely.
I think its possible to win this one. Knock out the thunderfires first, as
they cannot move and will die. Then just start trying to whack those
Goliaths, each one you hit is like him hitting two of your doomweavers
pointwise, and every other one you hit will die instead of not being able
to fire for a turn due to being on advance.
>>2- Nightwings deep infiltration (very risky, but juicy if it works).
>It's not gonna work. Half of a Squat army is on permanent ff and a good
>portion of that has extended firing arcs. Do you really think he'll just
>let you fly into his deployment zone and hang out?
I like those nightwings myself. Once the doomweavers knock off the AA guns
those things have free reign of the table as I see it. You don't even have
to fire for them to be worth it, as him trying to shoot them down will
expend a disproportionately large amount of his resources if he tries
anything (due to their general tendency to be in hard to get at and distant
places and their -1 to be hit). If he doesn't go for them, then they come
thundering in and burn off the Squat artillery before you can say,
"whoops." A single detachment of those things gets 18 shots, so he has to
waste his time killing them if he doesn't want to die. Get two detachments
and you just rush them past him on charge to somewhere distant behind him,
AA fire or not (assuming he doesn't have _too_ much AA fire, don't know how
much most Squat players use).
>>3- Sacrifice of cheap troops (like Spirit host, once again) in order to
>>attract enemy fire while you're concentrating on useful stuff (killing
>>Overlords, advancing within range with 75 cm weapons, taking some
>>objectives).
>Why will he fire at the spirit host instead of your "useful stuff"? Squats
>have enough range to reach out and touch the units that you are supposedly
>screening. Your opponent would be stupid to shoot up the wraithguard for no
>possible VPs, when he can just as easily hit the falcons (or, God forbid,
>Tempests) 20 cm behind them.
Because you take your wraithguard and dreadnaughts and you get them in his
face! Charge them into a group of his bikes, or use a detachment of 100
point aspect warriors to lead them on a kamikaze assault into enemy
territory. Make them so annoying to the enemy that he will take
disproportionate damage if he ignores your supposedly worthless troops.
>>Just as an example, the last time I played (10 days ago), it was a 10.000
>>pts game against a Squat army. I won 76/43 in two turns. The Squats fielded
>>2 Colossus, 1 Cyclop, 4 Overlords, 4 Goliaths, 2 complete Land Trains, 2
>>Artillery companies, 2 Bikers Guilds, 12 Gyrocopters, and so on. I had 9
>>Tempests, 10 Doomweavers, 4 Firestorms, 6 Nightwings, 4 Revenants + a
>>balanced mix of the other Eldar units. At the end of the game, my opponents
>>still had his 2 Colossus and his Cyclop (I didn't even tried to fire at
>>them), but nothing else among his "heavies". Great job by the Doomweavers,
>>I confess...
>What a freaky force. Your opponent chose particularly poorly considering he
>was fighting eldar. No anti-aricraft. The land trains are both doomweaver
>fodder waiting to happen. By the time you've fired two detachments at them
>they are hoplessly scattered. So that's 1400 points or so that fell to 300?
>And what in the world is he doing taking a Cyclops vs. Eldar? No void
>shield there! That's another 500 useless points. I bet I could beat anyone
>if I started out the first turn with close to a 20% advantage in points.
>Why not just go beat up a cripple?
I have to agree with Temp here, that is a freaky force. My personal motto
is, "don't take the Cyclops against the Eldar." Words to live by. My
other motto is, "don't take the Land Train against the Eldar." Also words
to live by.
Still, that, "Why not just go beat up a cripple?" phrase is a little harsh
I think. Properly done, I could see that force coming out on top. They
have a chance, albeit not as good as if they traided in the Cyclops for a
Colossus and the Land Trains for, I dunno, anything.
>>Once again, I don't understand why you don't have large numbers of shots.
>>Once again, Tempests, Doomweavers and Firestorms are the key. Once again,
>>masses of slowly advancing infantry are just likely to be shot before
>>becoming dangerous.
>Once again, 900 points in tempests translates to 6 hits on average. 900
>points in Firestorms translates to 6 hits on average (or if they hit on a 3,
>instead of a 4 as I remember, then it's 8 hits). So with 1800 points you
>are killing 12 models per turn IF you can find that many in the open AND
>they don't have armor saves. It takes 17 stands to break an IG tactical
>company. IF you roll well, we'll say you break a single IG tac company at
>600 pts . . . barely. Also, there is the ever present artillery company
>with 150cm range. That means he can start 20 cm back from the from edge of
>the deployment zone and your tempests and firestorms are grist for the
>Basalisks (-2 saves, 2 templates/detachment) and Bombards (-3 saves). Your
>doomweavers may kill a few and delay a few, but they will still eat you up.
C'mon, you don't seriously fire upon IG tactical companies with Tempests
and firestorms do you? If so, I hardly think you're in a position to be
laughing at anyone. The strength of the Tempest is as the mailed fist of
the Eldar, used when properly supported. Other, cheaper units are picking
off his mud foots while the Tempest is smashing Titans and SHVs. The
firestorm on the other hand, shows its strength as an interdiction unit.
You blast the enemy's transports while they're still full, you knock down
incoming aircraft. And lacking better targets, you start smashing
everything that goes by, especially command units if possible. (also if
your group allows it, you start smashing enemy first fire units, and when
you've depleted those, have your first fire units start smashing enemy
advance units until the enemy is rendered incapable of fighting back)
Re: Artie company, see above where I described why I thought a Doomweaver
firebase would defeat an Artie company.
>>I agree, but here, I would say: sit back and destroy them. They are so slow
>>and so short-ranged.
>You have obviously never played a chaos marine player. They are very fast
>and shooty. Or a fast CC army for that matter (Marine bikes, slaanesh
>beastrider, discriders, fleshounds, juggers, etc).
Yeah, that's all I ever saw. Chaos marine armies. Never seen any other
sort of Chaos army before.
>>The best Chaos units are: Khorne Cannons
>>(don't take titans even against chaos because of them),
> Cannons of Khorne are amusing, but not terribly effective. Random BPs,
>auto-scatter, and occasional explosions.
Lose a Titan to that nasty -4 save mod, and you'll stop laughing at them.
I did. Those things, while unpredictable, have the potential to be the
killing blow against a Titan of any army quite easily. That unlimited
range is kinda nice too.
>>Silver Towers,
>Um, NO. I can hear the rest of the chaos players out there circling like
>sharks if you even TRY to defend the silver towers.
I don't think he was trying to say they're good for the Chaos players. I
think he was trying to say that the silver towers are good targets. No
denying that, one little shot, 4 vps. And they're actually pretty good
until they get shot down, so get shooting on the double!
>>Lord of Battles and Magnus.
>LoB maybe. Magnus is good, but one shot sucks. Besides, he's easy to hide
>from, and if you expose him so that he has a good field of fire, then he
>becomes a siphon for your chaos cards.
Yeah, but people shoot him because they are afraid of him. People are
afraid of him because he is good.
>> (but, once again, it depends on the
>>width of the table). One last thing: don't allow house rules to denaturate
>>the game.
>Hello? You talk about changing the width of the table (a MAJOR change in
>most peoples' opinions) and then in the next sentence talk about not
>unbalancing the game with house rules. Widening the table drastically helps
>the shooty armies (and vice versa). You also talked about a 10,000 pt
>battle whent he game was designed for 3-6,000 pts., and 10 detachments of
>Doomweavers is a little extreme even at 10k.
I didn't catch him talking about a change of the table width, though I
might ahve missed it. Also, if you call playing games not 3-6000 points
even a significant change, well, then a lot of people out there are playing
pretty messed up games of Space Marine.
Still, I agree with you regarding 10 detachments of Doomweavers. That's as
bad as waveserpents. Though I didn't notice him saying that either.
Though I could be wrong.
>This is getting dangerously close to me flaming you, but you obviously don't
>play a lot, or dont' play with very skilled players.
Hmph. I'm just here trying to confuse things even more by throwing in my
tactical ideas! :)
Seriously though, aren't you being a little judgmental by basing his skill
on what you've seen from one measily strategy advice post?
>>Renaud
>Temp (Why, yes. It IS short for Tempest. Why do you ask?)
Michael the Liu
Received on Tue Apr 01 1997 - 20:27:51 UTC
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