Musings from the Warp: 40k meta

Showing posts with label 40k meta. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Concept Tau list - Fire warrior Spam

As my luck would have it, I found myself listening to the latest Independent Characters podcast show of force show talking about everybody's favorite blue aliens, the Tau. The show was great as the guys dove into the background, sample lists, and themes of the army. After listening to the show, I was inspired to pick up my Tau once again and have a go at finally completing the paint job that I started over 2 years ago. My Tau army was my 3rd army that I started. Back in 4th edition, I had completed about 1500 points worth of models but have since recently bought many of the new models and some more crisis suits as I wanted to build a far sight enclave army. Listening to the show gave me some ideas that with little effort I would be able to run a list that is different than what you typically see out there. The list would put a focus on spamming strength 5 shooting, namely firewarriors, 4 maxed out squads complete with EMP grenades to deal with any vehicles, 2 6 man stealth suit squads all with burst cannons, etc. Rounding out these 6 squads would be 3 missile sides, skyway, marker drone squadron, and since I own them, 2 Remora stealth drones. The complete list is below.

+++ New Tau Firewarrior spam list (1849pts) +++

Selections:

Tau Empire: Codex (2013) v19 (Primary Detachment) Selections:

+ HQ + (225pts)

    * Commander (170pts)
        (Independent Character, Supporting Fire, Very Bulky)
        Crisis battlesuit, Drone controller, 2x Missile pod, Neuroweb System Jammer, Onager Gauntlet, Stimulant injector, XV8-02 Crisis 'Iridium' Battlesuit

    * Ethereal (55pts)
        (Failure is Not An Option, Independent Character, Invocation of the Elements, Stubborn)
        Blacksun filter

+ Elites + (396pts)

    * Stealth Team (198pts)
        (Infiltrate, Supporting Fire)
        * Stealth Shas'ui
            Advanced targeting system, Burst cannon, Stealth battlesuit (Shrouded, Stealth)
        * Stealth Shas'ui
            Advanced targeting system, Burst cannon, Stealth battlesuit (Shrouded, Stealth)
        * Stealth Shas'ui
            Advanced targeting system, Burst cannon, Stealth battlesuit (Shrouded, Stealth)
        * Stealth Shas'ui
            Advanced targeting system, Burst cannon, Stealth battlesuit (Shrouded, Stealth)
        * Stealth Shas'ui
            Advanced targeting system, Burst cannon, Stealth battlesuit (Shrouded, Stealth)
        * Stealth Shas'ui
            Advanced targeting system, Burst cannon, Stealth battlesuit (Shrouded, Stealth)

+ Troops + (528pts)

    * Fire Warrior Team (132pts)
        (Supporting Fire)
        EMP grenades, 12x Fire Warrior Shas'la with pulse rifle, Photon grenades

+ Fast Attack + (264pts)

    * Drone Squadron (84pts)
        (Supporting Fire)
        * 6x Marker Drone
            6x Markerlight

    * DX-6 'Remora' Drone Fighter Squadron [FW] (90pts)
        * DX-6 'Remora'
            (Deep Strike, Shrouded)
            Blacksun filter (Night Vision), Networked markerlight, 2x Seeker Missile, Twin-linked long-barelled burst cannon

+ Heavy Support + (436pts)

* Sky Ray Missile Defense Gunship (130pts)
Disruption pod, 2x Networked markerlight, 6x Seeker missile, Twin-linked smart missile system, Velocity tracker

    * XV88 Broadside Team (204pts)
        (Extremely Bulky, Supporting Fire)
        * Broadside Shas'ui
            Broadside battlesuit, Early warning override, Seeker missile, Twin-linked high-yield missile pod, Twin-linked smart missile system
        * Broadside Shas'ui
            Broadside battlesuit, Early warning override, Seeker missile, Twin-linked high-yield missile pod, Twin-linked smart missile system
        * 4x Missile Drone
            4x Missile pod

    * XV88 Broadside Team (102pts)
        (Extremely Bulky, Supporting Fire)
        * Broadside Shas'ui
            Broadside battlesuit, Early warning override, Seeker missile, Twin-linked high-yield missile pod, Twin-linked smart missile system
        * 2x Missile Drone
            2x Missile pod

Yup, no crisis suits other than the commander and no riptides. It's a purely built list to maximize strength 5 shooting. Pics are of my almost completed Riptide. And yes, wont be using it with this list... lol. Let me know what you guys think.

Monday, August 4, 2014

2nd 7th ed game and beyond...

Hey guys, well I finished playing my 2nd and 3rd game of 7th and in a word I am inspired. 7th edition has been everything that I wanted giving me my share of laughs, technicality, and most important fun. Playing in a league definitely helps with this as playing at my buddy's house has its advantages namely alcohol, but also food, and a form of comradre that cant be replicated at a gamestore so easily. With every wargame, its the community of friends that will determine the success of a game in an area. With the closing of the gamestore that I played 40K at, games came hard to come by. In relation warmahordes had a huge explosion of players lately and so I stared playing that as my way of getting my wargaming fun in. Warmahordes is a tremendous game and something I will play more of whenever I get a chance as I have a great gaming group and thus never longing for a game. But 40k for a couple of months was a dying game in my area which was sad for me. So definitely I feel lucky that I have found a league to get my 40k fix. In my next series of games I did find units that were allstars and that vehicles are still susceptible to be glanced out if you do throw several medium to high strength shots, (looking at you Tau/Necrons). The definite allstar that I have seen are chariots especially the Catacomb command barge aka the douche canoe (thank you 11th company for a great name). The fact that it has a 2+ 3++ in the shooting phase, can get up due to everliving, make it a very formidable unit. The fact that right now it can sweep zooming fliers is a little over the top. Hopefully this will get faqed soon as I do find this a little game breaking.

So in my 2nd game I faced the wrath of the Necrons which is one of the older armies that have stayed as one of the top armies in these early days of 7th edition. They have great transports, somewhat resilient troops, high leadership, and above all great shooting. Having an entire army full of AV 13 vehicles facing you is pretty tough especially if you are not prepared for it. On top of that 2 douche canoes that are no slouches in close combat makes for a great army. The game was a great one in an atmosphere of great friends, good beer, and awesome homemade salsa. It was close but in the end the Necrons defeated my 3 Juggerlord CC list 5-4 in an emperor's will, vanguard strike game. The game was definitely going my opponent's way until about turn 3 when the power of the 3 juggerlords became apparent. Huge disappointment in my CSM squads due to yet again morale issues. They didnt get sweep due to necron lords having low initiative but really, a 20 man unit should be able to put down a necron lord in a command barge. They did snapshot a necron flyer down though which was cool and I had 2 csm that were left from a 12 man unit melta bomb an annihilation barge to death before getting shot down by a warrior unit next turn. The game was close and I still could have pulled it off if the game ended on turn 5 or 7. Alas it ended on turn 6 and with it the juggerlords lost their first game of 7th edition. The juggerlords still proved to me that close combat is still viable as long as you have great terrain and amongst all at least one line blocking terrain piece.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

1st Game Completed.. and loving it...

Hi guys,
Well I finally got the opportunity to play my first game of 7th edition. It has been a long time as with most things real life got in the way and so delayed my ability to get a game in. The closing of my local FLGS didnt help matters and the local other store seems more content with boycotting GW games and embracing warmahordes. Dont get me wrong, warmahordes is great fun and have since started playing it with great gusto however 40K will always be my first love. A good friend of mine that I had lost touch with got in touch with me and invited me to join their gaming club's summer league and I am glad that I did as my first games of 40K 7th edition has been great fun. For this opportunity, I took my LVO list as I wanted to see how resilient vehicles have become with the 5 daemon engines i was bringing. He took a Draigowing list consisting of a big squad of paladins, stormraven full of DCAs, 3 psybacks loaded with acolytes, Coatez, and a beefed up dreadknight. The game began with me thinking that I would be giving up first blood with my opponent killing one of my rhinos and yet I didn't. Even though my opponent put 2 hullpoints of damage on it including a natural roll of 6 I didn't lose the Rhino. The fact that he needed a 7 to destroy and used a weapon that was wp4 meant that my little rhino not only survived but allowed the squad within to put the hurt on the dreadknight that had failed to kill it. My maulerfiends also survived the fusillade that hit them as my opponent didnt have a lot of ap2, ap1 weaponary. What did I take from this, that going forward I and i'm sure the 40k community as a whole will be bringing a lot more ap2, ap1 weapons. Lascannons will again be in vogue as will meltaguns, meltabombs, etc. Will we see the return of the MSU armies? Not necessarily but they will definitely make a comeback in this edition. What you will see is armies that have great troop units with cheap transports such as space marines, IG, and maybe even CSM. Drop pod armies with Objective secured will be quite powerful as opponents will need to destroy not only the troops but also the pod themselves to stop them from scoring. This edition will definitively change how the meta plays making armies more varied. I am just hoping that GW hurries up and updates armies as some of the older books are really stating to show their age.

On the painting table like I stated in my last post, I am building a Blood Angel drop pod army. I am going for an army that can be played as either a codex space marine army as well as a blood angel army. Pics are of my tact squad. Let me what you think.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Giant Robots in 40k??!!

Hey guys, so whats with the title you ask? Imperial Knights of course and what a surprise GW pulled on the community. The Knights have been out for over 2 months and still I'm amazed on how great the model looks and what they bring to the game. The Knights of course could be seen as their attempt to fix the meta. I dont think that is the reason these were released, GW just wanted to release a model and a concept that would sell well as well as to get a reaction from those old veterans who have nothing good to say bout GW. They definitely hit it out of the park with this model and the concept of an army of super heavies is rather interesting. Now with everything looking good why is the release getting such a backlash from certain circles. The D weapon of course that the Knight is armed with but GW made this D weapon a little more acceptable. By making it a CCW weapon and giving it more "conventional" ranged weapons, the Knight is seen as not that game breaking. What else did GW do to make it less broken? By giving it a high points cost and only giving it 6 hull points, the knight is far from being invincible. Will some armies struggle against 1,2, or 3 of them. Of course they will but by adding in such a unit and making it available to all imperial armies and some Xenos, it changes the meta and forces even those death star armies to bring something to combat it as its one of the few things that will counter such armies. Death star players will have to use points on countering such monsters which might cut down on us seeing the same lists over and over again or at least limit the options said player has to spend on the deathstar itself. Will it be a dramatic change to the meta? Probably not but at the very least players will have another option to use against these lists.

Now I do have some complaints about the release.

1. The fact that the army consists of one model and yet this justified a full codex release? I would have thought that the codex itself would have at least several models for players to use to fill their army. The codex basically just gives players access to 2 models, what about the lancer, etc? Yes we know that Forgeworld is releasing the lancer and what a kit it is but what about rules for it? Since its a Forgeworld model, now we need to deal with players or tournys that will only allow it. GW should have just included it in the codex and told us that it would be released later. The Imperial Knight codex in my opinion could have been an ebook just like the legion of the damned book, a 20 to 30 page supplement for 16 bucks and not full book price.

2. What about Chaos Space Marines Knights? Geez this really bugs the crap out of me as I am primarily a CSM player and a Knight would have helped the army tremendously. The abilities of the Knight would fill in some of the weaknesses of the army and also help it fight against the deathstars. I have a dark mech army and would have loved to add one or two of these beasties to my army. I guess the rumor is that Forgeworld will be creating these but just like the lancer, since its forgeworld it will "exist" in tourneys that allow them. I just hope we dont get a separate codex for these guys and its handled through a simple supplement download and not a full codex release. Now dont get me wrong, you give me more options in Chaos Knights and then I wont mind a full codex release.

So in conclusion, Imperial Knights, I give them a big thumbs up!! Its a release that came out of nowhere, is a fantastic looking model, and will hopefully change the meta a bit.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Meta in Peril.... Grey Knights again???!!!

Hey guys, today I finished listening to the latest episode of the 11th company and made the mistake of heading out to everyones`s favorite color commentary and 40k expert Stelek and oh my gosh I got the feeling that they think that the Meta is in peril due to 2 books that were released this year - Tau and Eldar. Stelek of course chose the little kid route and took his toys and went home and judging by his last posts over the last 3 months decided that 40k as it stands is unplayable. I applaud TO's who have taken the steps of leveling out the playing field by adding more terrain or more line of sight blocking terrain pieces so that armies with the ability to ignore cover wont auto win if they get the first turn. In fact, per the rules of the game, the game is designed to have some line of sight blocking terrain so games are not just shooting galleries. I will give Stelek credit with his USG game rules for competitive 40K rules, rules to streamline the game for tournament play, I have read some of it and wish him luck with it but to be honest, dont see it going anywhere. The 11th company in their latest podcast cast what I say a dark shadow on what they call a meta where only if you take eldar or tau will you have a shot at winning any tournament. I might agree with this to a point but come on.. How do you explain Ben Molie getting to the final tables with a necron/Ork list? Or the guy from the FTN podcast who took a blood angel list and did very well with it? Is it harder for players not using Tau or Eldar? Sure but I still believe that its the player not the list that makes the winner. Am I blind in my assumptions? Are we in the era of the Grey Knight, eh Tau/Eldar. Is that all we we see in every tournament top table or final 5? Where are daemons in the middle of this? To many of the 40k experts, this codex is part of the problem as well with its unkillable screamer star build. No matter what, top tournament players are going to take what they perceive as a good or powerful army as they want to win and find that using lists like this will help them achieve that. If the internet says that Tau are over powered, or Eldar wave serpent spam is the only way to win tournaments, guess what, that is all you are going to see.

I heard a very interesting rumor/gossip on another podcast in regards to the speed that GW is doing releases. The host stated that during his conversation with this insider person, one of the reasons that releases were coming out so quick was that GW wanted people to stick to their armies, buy some allies and units to update their armies and to create all comers armies with their armies. The speed of the releases would make it that the meta would be constantly changing and so people wouldn't be able to keep up with the changes. This sounds all fine and dandy but in the end, GW knows that the faster it can release product, the more money it can generate. These top tournament players will and have been buying and playing what is perceived to be the top armies. What my hope is that with new releases, new codexs become the top dog. So what could be done in the meantime? Bring back comp? Nah, but when even Goatboy from bols is sad and angry about the current state of the game and proposing that comp gets implemented into major Tournaments is the current state of the game that horrible? Will maybe its the fact that 40k isnt a tourney friendly game? GW has always maintained that 40k is more a beer and pretzels game which in the end could be the issue after all...

With the new Horus Hersey book out now, I have been in full Nightlord mode and have been working on adding more models to my biker squads, rhinos, and some basic CSMs. Pics are of my converted dark vengeance DA bikers to Nightlord bikers. Let me know what you think.

Musings from the Warp