How to Melee the 6th Edition Way

Hey Guys,

Sorry I am behind here but; as I warned we are all busy bees around here getting ready for the NOVA open this week. I got some great practice this weekend at the Time Machine in Manchester CT by participating in an RTT there, it was great fun.


Shameless half naked female attention grabber: Good you found your way here!

Anyway here a brief article on how to play a melee army in 6th edition which is almost a taboo and often shunned topic. It really upsets me when people say the only valid melee list is FMC daemons but they in reality aren't even a melee army. FMC daemons are really only successfully played as a stay in the air, fly off the board and pick off units type army. If they try to fight in melee they will either smash through their target and get blown to pieces or get lucky enough that the unit actually stays but then you have to hope you definitely break them next combat or you get shot to pieces then. If you don't believe me take some time and watch Goatboy or Nick N. play their Daemons and see how many and which kind of combats they get into.

As usual with these articles folks lets start with our list design and for a pure (or melee heavy army) to work you are going to go by one very simple design philosophy; target saturation. Think about that for a minute; if you provide one target or very few targets to shoot at it makes target priority a no-brainer for these static or even worse, very fast gun line armies. This eliminates FMC and deathstars and please keep in mind this is with a all-comers, GT winning philosophy in mind. Yes FMC and deathstars can not only win games but win GTs with the right pairings but we are focusing on melee here.

The armies that do target saturation the best are the Tyranids and cavalry based Daemons. What is most interesting is that they both provide target saturation in very different ways.

The Daemons are doing target saturation by using multiple fast units that are immediately in the opponents face. This makes an army that forces immediate decisions that every decisions is correct but it is just not enough to stop all of it so at the same time each decision is wrong.


Tyranids are more of slow moving wave type of target saturation. Tyranids slowly move up with their big nasties while throwing their fast gribblys in your face. While the obvious answer seems to be kill the big nasties this is also the wrong decision as you quickly find yourself engulfed in more gribblys than you can deal with. If you kill the gribblys, by the time you kill enough to make them not a threat the nasties are at your door.

The common theme here is you are forcing multiple decisions; all of which are wrong which you can read more about in my article about adaptive play style.


Ok you have your list now you need to learn how to play it. Just like a shooting army; you are going to win or lose your game in the movement phase. You need to make sure you position yourself defensively as you advance up the field or offensively as you get closer to your target without leaving yourself completely vulnerable. If you have to make a choice between an offensive and defensive movement; always choose the defensive. It is still a dice game and if shit goes wrong you want to be safe.

Don't forget to play to the mission; it is fun as hell to run screaming up the field but if the terrain is no bueno for you to survive with than keep the fuck back. There is never an excuse to run face first into missiles. Get into the safest position possible for you to jump on objectives or into quarters to stay out of range to conserve kill points. I have had many games where I literally hide for 5 turns. It is boring, it sucks but most of those games I have won.

Now that you read all this great stuff time for the bad news; melee armies or even units are extremely difficult to play. It is easier to play gun line armies I am not going to lie but playing melee armies will 100% without a doubt make you a better 40k player in 6th edition. Take your lickings, keep your head up and learn to mitigate the damage, the fine art of eating  overwatches (hmm that gives me an idea for another article), and making the charges so you stay in combat until your opponents turn.

One last thing; table quarters and objective missions are generally much easier for armies that actually leave their deployment zone.

Any questions? Ask away!

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Objective Mission Tactics: Control the Center

My Precious! Objective

Hello Gents,
Good evening a pleasure to see you and thanks for tuning in. Today I wanted to take some time to talk about some tactics for winning objective missions. With a large majority of missions in tournaments revolving around capturing objectives in 6th edition I wanted to go over some of my thought process and tactics for winning these missions. More specifically how controlling the center of the board helps with this process.

With the Nova Open being next week lets use their objective placement as our focus for this article which is one objective in the center of the board and one in the center of each table quarter.

Lets start with why holding the center of the board is a good thing in this format and setup. When you hold the center of a board you are the shortest possible distance to all four of the objectives in the quadrants. This is important because as a game evolves it allows for some fluidity in your plan to make adjustments and make plays for objectives that if you were to go heavy on one flank, it would be out of the question for you to attempt to go for the others.

Holding the center is also good for offensive purposes as you can easily shift your hard forces in the center to either flank and lend assistance. As a common theme in this blog you need the right tools for the job and not all lists are designed or all that good at controlling the center of the board.


If you do not have the right list; controlling board center is going to be difficult if not impossible. A tau gunline for example is not going to run in the center of the field and expect to hold strong. Looking at something like a GK paladin list or even my Tyranids however is the very definition of a board center control army. Once you dig 10 paladins or, oh, say 3 tervigons and a swarmlord into the center of the table not only is no one going to want to go near that center objective but you are also one turn away from being on any obective, especially with Tervigons making babies all over the place.

You also want to be sure to set this up correctly; when playing a board center control army going second is usually the best idea. This allows you to effectively do two things; the first being that you have bottom of the turn to contest/control objectives, and second is something I mentally setup every game during deployment and that is making a slightly harder push to one side.



Remember; with 5 objectives on the table you need 3 to win assuming that everyone is going to be controlled. Once my opponent sets up i look at their deployment and decide which of the two side objectives i am going to push harder for. Being a board center army I know I am plopping my heavy hitters in the center so that is one objective taken care of, you will usually want a couple deck chair units to take care of one of the objectives in your deployment zone so that is two. The third objective I always try to pick as the weakest flank in my opponents deployment zone.

Picking this as your third objective does several things. One thing is does is keep your opponent fighting in his deployment zone, second thing it does is keep your opponent away from your deck chairs and the this thing it does is force your opponent to move to the weaker side of the board to react.........Exactly! this forces them to move past your nice strong center.

This exposes another advantage to board center armies. They tend to force your opponent to react to you as opposed to the faster, or heavier fire power armies which have to react to what their opponent is doing.

Sorry I know that was kind of wall of text like but it is a pretty complex topic. Again; if you local guys really like this stuff bug Chase (you know who he is!) and have him schedule a tactics session.

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1ksons are Terrible

Hey Guys, Bill here with another “Insert army/unit here” is terrible. Today’s entry is in response to a friend of mine who responded to my thread regarding the blog. He wanted a 1k sons list with the only stipulation being the scoring units are 1k sons. Challenge accepted and I think I am actually going to give this list a shot. I admittedly cheated a little and added a unit of pink horrors so I could take daemon allies by I made up for it by not putting any other marks in the list other than tzeentch! As with all of these lists guys; they are quickly thrown together brain childs of mine with zero testing or tweaking.

Without further delay; the list:

1850 Pts - Codex: Chaos Space Marines Roster

HQ: Sorcerer in Terminator Armour (1#, 155 pts)

   1 Sorcerer in Terminator Armour, 155 pts (Mark of Tzeentch; Force Axe; Increase Mastery Level x1; Warlord; Biomancy; Pyromancy; Telepathy; Tzeentch)

      1 Burning Brand of Skalathrax

Elite: Possessed (8#, 248 pts)

   7 Possessed, 248 pts (Mark of Tzeentch)

      1 Possessed Champion (Close Combat Weapon)

Heavy Support: Chaos Land Raider (1#, 245 pts)

   1 Chaos Land Raider, 245 pts (Dozer Blade; Extra Armour)

Troops: Thousand Sons (10#, 265 pts)

   9 Thousand Sons, 265 pts

      1 Aspiring Sorcerer (Force Axe; Biomancy; Pyromancy; Telepathy; Tzeentch)

Troops: Thousand Sons (6#, 185 pts)

   4 Thousand Sons, 185 pts

      1 Aspiring Sorcerer (Force Axe; Biomancy; Pyromancy; Telepathy; Tzeentch)

      1 Chaos Rhino (Combi-Boltgun)

Troops: Thousand Sons (6#, 185 pts)

   4 Thousand Sons, 185 pts

      1 Aspiring Sorcerer (Force Axe; Biomancy; Pyromancy; Telepathy; Tzeentch)

      1 Chaos Rhino (Combi-Boltgun)

Troops: Thousand Sons (5#, 150 pts)

   4 Thousand Sons, 150 pts

      1 Aspiring Sorcerer (Force Axe; Biomancy; Pyromancy; Telepathy; Tzeentch)

HQ: Lord of Change (1#, 305 pts)

   1 Lord of Change (HQ) [cd], 305 pts (DR: Greater Rewards x1; DR: Exalted Rewards; Psyker (Mastery Level 3); 6E Psychic Disciplines: ; Biomancy; Divination; Pyromancy; Telepathy)

Troops: Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (12#, 108 pts)

   12 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (Troops) [cd], 108 pts

Total Roster Cost: 1846

I like this list because it literally has all the tools, I can kill vehicles, has dedicated melee, tons of AP3, is super durable, very sneak and deceptive (my favorite) and my new favorite is fairly MSU without being spammy. Honestly I would probably drop the 3^rd 5 man unit and in obliterators but he wants 1ksons so he gets em!

Here is the breakdown

HQ: Sorcerer in Terminator Armour (1#, 155 pts)-  To be honest; If I had my way I would be taking Abbadon here, he absolutely belongs toting around with the possessed in a Land Raider but my buddy wanted 1ksons and 1ksons he shall get. This guys makes them troops, he also is a decent support character to tank some shots for the big unit of 1k sons or join the possessed if you get something fun like Iron Arm.

Elite: Possessed (8#, 248 pts)-It’s a wonky list, so I wanted to do fully wonky. Is this unit overcosted? Hell yes! Is the rest of the army as well? Hell yes, so who cares! This unit is Str 5 T5 and has a decent amount of attacks. More importantly they are also a daemon with +1 invuln save which you will see why is important in a moment. I know…the suspense!!

Heavy Support: Chaos Land Raider (1#, 245 pts)- The Land Raider has a lot of utility in this list. Most of the time I see it carrying the possessed but if you are fighting a melee army I can see it protecting your 10 man 1ksons and using the possessed as a counter charge unit. Oh yeah, it’s also AV 14 with las cannons on the side.

Troops: Thousand Sons (10#, 265 pts)

Troops: Thousand Sons (6#, 185 pts)

Troops: Thousand Sons (6#, 185 pts)

Troops: Thousand Sons (5#, 150 pts)- The sad fact is, the 1ksons are over costed for something as easy to kill as a standard marine. They have a few tricks but they are still so over costed that instead of trying to make them effective you are going to be focused on protecting them. My suggestion is to focus 100% on keeping them safe and rolling pyromancy on your Champ and sneak him out for some pop shots. With the new marine book though you may some really nice fodder to use those AP3 bolters on.

I also like the Rhinos in this list because you can move and turbo boost to get your unit in a defensive position. Also with the new trend of deathstar shooting units (36 str 5-7 missiles I’m looking at you!) it is fun to force an opponent to waste that many shots on a pesky rhino. They will kill it, rather easily but it means that isn’t shooting at the 5 man hoofing it across the field that turn.

HQ: Lord of Change (1#, 305 pts)-This guy is the reason I had to cheat. He is a level 3 flying MC and has access to Bio, Divination, Telepathy which means he can basically do anything. More importantly; remember those daemonic possessed marines with a 4+ invuln we spoke about earlier? Well they are friendly daemon so cast grimoire on them and laugh with your 2+ invulnerable.

Troops: Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (12#, 108 pts)- They are level 2 being 12 strong and are another scoring unit that can have grimoire cast on them. They also allow me to bring the Lord of Charge and they are Tzeentch so blah!

Hope you guys enjoyed the article, again as are all these “terrible” army blog entries these are meant to be fun, semi-competitive lists. You probably are not going to win a GT with these but you will surprise your friends, and maybe even stomp at a local RTT and it brings new life to stuff that isn’t thought of too much. I promised you would never see a netlist on this blog unless people are playing my GT lists and I am sticking to my guns!

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Orks are Terrible

Hey everyone Bill here again with some more content! I have a slight obsession with making lists, so much so that I leave my laptop with Army Builder home so I do not have temptation at work. Now that I pretty much have what I am going to play in the tournament season sorted It has left me alot of free Army Builder time. This means I am working on making good lists for armies that are currently bad. Today I set my sights on ally free Orks.



My favorite combination with Orks is with Necron allies but that is too easy so I am going to work on Orks with no allies. This list is very outside the box and is EXTREMELY difficult to use so please take all this with a grain of salt. Orks are still a melee army but doing so with the classic boys is impossible because you are pulling models from the front and the boys are too slow. This list focuses on getting assault units in as fast as possible using unconventional methods and trying to help a bit with over watch. This army works by presenting multiple threats very quickly. I could easily make a dakka list but Orks want to smash stuff!

So lets get to it! Here is the list, from here I will breakdown my selections and why.
1850 Pts - Codex: Orks Roster

HQ: Mega-armoured Warboss (1#, 115 pts)
   1 Mega-armoured Warboss, 115 pts (Bosspole; Cybork Body; Warlord)

HQ: Warboss (1#, 135 pts)
   1 Warboss, 135 pts (Cybork Body; Warbike; Power Klaw)

Elite: Meganobz (6#, 245 pts)
   5 Meganobz, 245 pts (Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon x1)
      1 Trukk (Red Paint Job)

Elite: Lootas (10#, 150 pts)
   10 Lootas, 150 pts

Elite: Lootas (10#, 150 pts)
   10 Lootas, 150 pts

Troops: Nobz (10#, 205 pts)
   1 Nobz, 205 pts (Count as Troop Troops)
      9 Nobz
      1 Nobz (Bosspole)

Troops: Meganobz (6#, 255 pts)
   5 Meganobz, 255 pts (Count as Troop Troops; Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon x2)
      1 Trukk (Red Paint Job; Reinforced Ram)

Troops: Boyz (20#, 130 pts)
   20 Boyz, 130 pts (Shootas; Big Shoota x2)

Troops: Boyz (20#, 130 pts)
   20 Boyz, 130 pts (Shootas; Big Shoota x2)

Troops: Gretchin (11#, 40 pts)
   10 Gretchin, 40 pts
      1 Runtherd

Fast Attack: Deffkoptas (5#, 175 pts)
   5 Deffkoptas, 175 pts

Fast Attack: Stormboyz (5#, 60 pts)
   5 Stormboyz, 60 pts

Fast Attack: Stormboyz (5#, 60 pts)
   5 Stormboyz, 60 pts

Total Roster Cost: 1850

It is going to be difficult to explain my way out of this one because It looks like absolute rubbish but just hang on for the ride hopefully you get the same vision I do. Again, this is a super hard list to play but it is outside the box and I am not sure many will know how to handle it.

1850 Pts - Codex: Orks Roster

HQ: Mega-armoured Warboss (1#, 115 pts)
   1 Mega-armoured Warboss, 115 pts (Bosspole; Cybork Body; Warlord)

I chose the mega armoured warboss for a couple of reasons; the first is to make one unit of mega nobz scoring and the other is to put him in the 10 man nob unit for LD9 and a boss pole, that is actually a pretty easy unit to hide, is pretty durable when going to ground and just overall great for charging anything that wants to get near your squishy troops. Plus for 115 points you will not find a better character, period. I can also put him in with the meganobz if terrain is perfect for foot nobz.

HQ: Warboss (1#, 135 pts)
   1 Warboss, 135 pts (Cybork Body; Warbike; Power Klaw)

This guy is a little trickier, again for 135 points he is a complete badass but I wanted to find a way to get him to combat quicker and much cheaper than a conventional bike or nob biker squad and my vehicle to make this happen is the deffkopta unit. The deffkopta unit and it's scout provides a huge footprint and great squad to attach your warboss too first turn. Sure you cannot charge top of one but if you get bottom of one you can and your warboss just expanded his unit frontage by alot.

Elite: Meganobz (6#, 245 pts)
   5 Meganobz, 245 pts (Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon x1)
      1 Trukk (Red Paint Job)

I don't have to explain why meganobz are awesome, I am hoping the cat is out of the bag by now but more so why a trukk is better than a battlewagon. Trukks can move 25" inches in a turn, cost 35 points and have a 12 capacity with open top. They also have a ramshackle table with a worst case scenario being better than your standard explosion (only str 3) and the other two results giving you extra movement with your trukk or a 6" disembark. Oh yeah, play some games and I promise you your battlewagons and trukks both only last one turn as well. The tick is to reserve the trukks with meganobz and when they come on the board they are already mid field.

Elite: Lootas (10#, 150 pts)
   10 Lootas, 150 pts

Elite: Lootas (10#, 150 pts)
   10 Lootas, 150 pts

Long range support and hopefully forcing some flyers to evade. Lootas r lootas

Troops: Nobz (10#, 205 pts)
   1 Nobz, 205 pts (Count as Troop Troops)
      9 Nobz
      1 Nobz (Bosspole)

20 boyz may admittedly may be a better purchase than 10 nobz but lets face it, this can be a scary unit to charge with a mega boss in here and is much easier to hide than a boys mob. The unit just has some utility that cannot be ignored. And when you consider everything else coming at you, do you have time to even deal with these guys?

Troops: Meganobz (6#, 255 pts)
   5 Meganobz, 255 pts (Count as Troop Troops; Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon x2)
      1 Trukk (Red Paint Job; Reinforced Ram)

Moar meganob goodness.

Troops: Boyz (20#, 130 pts)
   20 Boyz, 130 pts (Shootas; Big Shoota x2)

Troops: Boyz (20#, 130 pts)
   20 Boyz, 130 pts (Shootas; Big Shoota x2)

Troops: Gretchin (11#, 40 pts)
   10 Gretchin, 40 pts
      1 Runtherd

Unfortunately the standard Ork troop units have been reduced to deck chairs. Still hard to shift though when going to ground every turn.

Fast Attack: Deffkoptas (5#, 175 pts)
   5 Deffkoptas, 175 pts

Scouting sneakyness for the warboss.

Fast Attack: Stormboyz (5#, 60 pts)
   5 Stormboyz, 60 pts

Fast Attack: Stormboyz (5#, 60 pts)
   5 Stormboyz, 60 pts

These two units are hilarious, they are literally here to either deepstrike in (hopefully late game) and try to hide/contest or fly up with the others and eat some overwatch. Poor bastards.

By now I hope I have you all rolling on the floor laughing at this list I honestly do not think it is too bad. I can see myself playing it, listening to chuckles and being quite successful when people let their guard down. Are there are better lists? Oh hell yes. Are there better Ork melee lists at this current time? I don't really think so unless you are relying on allies or gimmicks. Hopefully you guys see what I see and if not, I would be happy to try and help! If this article doesn't convince you this blog is all about making you a better a player while the rest of the internet is trying to make you a better list builder than I don't know what will!

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Being Like Water: Adaptive Playstyle (Part 1?)

Hey everyone, as promised here is my article for playing 40k "like water" aka an article on adaptive playstyle. Let me first get out of the way; to learn to play with an adaptive playstyle you need to to have a list with some utility. If you do not have all the tools than successfully changing how you play the list can be very difficult. Playing a list with nine wave serpents for example; you are going to play the same way each game and if you have a terrible matchup......sucks to be you.

For those of you who missed my neat video snippet in my "Let's Get Ready to Rumble" post:


The best way to describe how to go about learning to be an adaptive player is to start by giving yourself goals on the tabletop and giving yourself multiple ways to both achieve that goal, and GTFO if the shit hits the fan. The reason why I say this is a starting point is because it forces you to starting thinking of some unconventional methods of both achieving your goals and saving your ass.

Get out of that frame of mind of; I need to kill this unit so I'll move my unit into rapid fire range because that is how they do the most damage. Instead keep yourself at a safe distance and enlist multiple units to taking down the enemy, not only that but put a counter assault unit in position near them. Doing this keeps your units safer, gives you multiple opportunities to wipe the unit out and if they do make that stupid long charge they will get counter assault and pay for rolling so well. This is called forcing the wrong decision.

Forcing the wrong decision is the easiest way to identify a great player. These are those moments where you are trying to make a decision and each scenario is bad. If you can't play a fast army that always keeps you safe than play an army that forces bad decision. My Eldar and my Tyranids are polar opposites in this regard. My Eldar forces decisions because I leave very little of them while my Tyranids leave many decisions that can be made but they are all the wrong decisions.


Next we move into list construction. When setting yourself up to be an adaptive player you want to make sure that your list construction is allowing you to be as flexible as you want to be. Here is a quick punch list of key items your list should be able to do.

• Give your independent characters multiple homes. Your characters should be able to provide benefits and have uses from almost any unit in your army, depending on the opponent your ICs should be able to give you advantages to that type of army.

• Provide your units options for deployment. Try to pick units that have multiple ways of deploying when facing various opponents. One of the things I love about the Stormraven list I have is I can combat squad, infilitrate, scout, start in a raven, start in a landspeeder storm with any unit in the army. This is a hidden benefit that most people underestimate. People will expect me to start 40 scouts on the table than when I offer to go first and all my Ravens are in reserve and all my scouts are infiltrating I get to go first, and see how my opponent sets up. Consider this when building a list.

• Set yourself up for success. The one is simple; give yourself tools to do every job. It is tempting to spam because it provides some breathing room to let you make mistakes. Having a limited number of tools to complete a task will make you think smarted and play more efficient to keep those limited tools safe. This is like having a toolbox of hammer, you will abuse them, break them, throw them away, and lose them. If you have only one you will treat it like gold. Having one also gives you more room for different tools instead of a box of hammers.

I can go one with this forever and it is already too wall of text for my liking so I will stop there. I will continue on with a part II if I get enough positive feedback, as always hoped you enjoyed the article. I am also considering setting up a tactics "seminar" with BG as an event if you guys are interested. Let me know your thoughts.

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Beating the Mighty Wave Serpent

I have been watching the mighty internet scratching their heads since the release of the new Eldar book on how the new wave serpent can be stopped. The meta has shifted again and the panic has set in......."But we have all bought Tau, and now the Tau have trouble with serpents."

 Cries of holo fields, armour 12, and moving flat out send the droves to the forums to claim [H] Tau Army [W] Wave Serpents. I mean if you can't beat them, join them right?

Since 6th edition has hit, the big claim has been close combat is dead. This was especially the feeling when Tau was released. Well, as it turns out the close combat that everyone has shunned is the easiest was to kill the mighty wave serpent.

ZOMG, Iknorite? Remember; their serpent shield, the holo fields and even the armour 12 is completely ignored as bonuses when you engage the machines in close combat and with all the fast close combat options it is not too hard to chase the fast skimmer down.

The first important advantage to remember is that when attacking vehicles in close combat you attack their rear armour and Wave Serpents like many others means this is armour 10. Because the vehicles are fast you want to make sure that you are going to kill it when you engage it because you may only get one opportunity. I will even put close combat at a disadvantage and not factor penetrating hits.

Str 3= Cannot damage tank
Str 4(Standard infantry)= 24 attacks on average to get 3 hull points
Str 6(Crack grenades, etc.)= 8 attacks on average to get 3 hull points
Str 8(Power fists, etc.)= 5 attacks on average to get 3 hull points
Str 10(Smashing MC's)= 4 attacks on average to get 3 hull points

 Lets compare this to shooting at the Wave Serpent when it has gone flat out with holofields and serpent shield. This is assuming BS4.

Under Str 6= Cannot damage the tank  Str 6(Scatter lasers etc.)= 38 shots on average to get 3 hull points
Str 7(Missile broad sides, tesla, etc.)= 19 shots on average to get 3 hull points
Str 8(Missile launcher, etc.) = 13 shots on average to get 3 hull points
Str 9(Las Cannon, etc.)= 9 shots on average to get 3 hull points

Another advantage to keep in mind is that vehicles cannot overwatch so all that fire power is useless when you are running at the tank screaming. Just keep an eye out if there are any of those good-two-shoes supporting fire Tau hanging within 6" of the tank.

I hope this articles helps your Wave Serpent woes and helps people give a second thought to close combat before you turn your back on it completely. Oh, and most important; close combat is way more FUN. Remember? That thing you should be having in a game.

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NOVA Practice

Hey guys, Just a heads up for you local folks. Even though the NOVA practice tournament got canceled this weekend a bunch of the guys who signed up will still be a Battlegrounds in Plainville getting some practice in. Come on down, chat, play some warhams, and we will probably go out for some dinner afterwards. Hope to see you there!

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Lets Get Ready to Rumble!!!!

Hey guys, Bill here with with some more of my gamer "wisdom" I want to cram into your brains. Before I get into it; I just wanted to say thanks for all the positive feedback I have been getting on my blog posts. Hopefully I'll even be able to pull you into some discussion, live on the blog! HINT HINT!

Today I wanted to talk about getting prepared for a tournament. I am not talking about remembering to bring your dice and tape measure but how do you prepare your game for an upcoming tournament. I am going to try to touch on a bunch of different topics without using walls of text so if I am vague about something please feel free to ask.



Practice Makes Perfect

Lets get the obvious one out of the way; practice. If you want to get better, faster, and more efficient with your army you have to practice. Repetition is the best way to get rules in your head and you can use these practice sessions to get faster with your army without sacrificing quality of play.

When you set out to practice there are a few keys that make a practice session worth it. Play someone better than you. Finding a new guy who doesn't know his way around a tape measure may result in your victory but what have you really accomplished. Play someone way better than you, get your butt kicked and banter back and forth about what happened and what you can do to be more successful in the future.

Play against the netlisters. If you are serious about winning a tournament you have to get over the fact that you are going to play people using netlists. This means that learning how to beat them is just as important. Find someone who is playing these lists and ask them for a game. Playing against the guy with a completely whacky army or fluffy army is awesome for beer and pretzels warhammer but not for practicing for a tournament, it is just a waste of time.



Where Did I Put that Deckchair Unit?

The next thing you want to prep is your list. I am writing this article assuming you have all made army lists before. When preparing for a tournament I try to play against as many different kinds of armies as possible; this lets you essentially look through your toolbox and make sure that you have the right tool for the job so to speak. Make sure that your army list is accomplishing what it should with the tools that you have.

Don't be afraid to admit to yourself that you have too many hammers and not enough screwdrivers. What I mean by this is maybe you are smashing infantry to pieces but three land raiders show up and you have zero or very limited answers. Balance your list so you can efficiently deal with most threats and never tailor your armies to deal with gimmicks.

Never, and I mean ever completely revamp your list. Think about it; you put weeks of practice into this list and you play against an army that absolutely thrashes you. The first thing you do is go home and work something completely different up to deal with that list. All the practice you have done before hand is now completely useless. Instead take your time, make some tweaks here and there and play the army again. Maybe the problem wasn't your list at all in the first place.


Be Like Water

This is all about refining your playstyle; look forward to a full article on this. When you are preparing; work on preparing your mind to have a very flexible playstyle. I hear all the time "I am an aggressive player," or "I play super safe." Don't compartmentalize your game like that you need to be playing however the game, mission, opponent, and format dictate you to play. I have played against many different kinds and skill levels of players. There are some I always have hard games against, those that destroy me, and some that I destroy.

I have noticed overtime that the difference isn't that army that they are playing, or bad luck it is based on both of our abilities to adapt to the situation. Games that are tough; we are both playing "like water," games that are super easy for me, the person has a set play style which is always apparent right at deployment 99% of the time. Those games that I get demolished I can always think back to what I should have done differently or see what my opponent did that was unconventional.  This means I didn't adapt to the situation or my opponent was able to adapt to what I was doing one turn ahead of me.

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Timeless Tactics: Slingshot

Hey guys, Bill here with another tactics article. This time I want to talk about a timeless tactic that has stood the test of time and several editions. Many people know about it but not too many people use the tactic known as the slingshot.

The slingshot is a tactic that can do two things; the first is using an independent character that is closer to an intended charge target than a unit to pull that unit into combat. The second is just the opposite; using a unit that closer to a charge target than an independent character and his current unit to get that character into combat.

The utility of this tactic is obvious; it allows characters and units to cover more ground, or charge targets that were at one point in the turn out of reach.

Before we get into actually using the tactic is important to remember two rules; any Independent character that ends his movement within 2” of a unit automatically joins that unit. The second and much more important is that once a character joins a unit in the movement phase; that unit cannot move any further so make sure the unit moves before the independent character does in all scenarios.

An average charge threat range for a standard infantry unit is 13” (6” move, avg. 7” charge). If you do something as simple as join a character to that unit at his maximum coherency you are improving that average by 3-4” (2” coherency, 1-2” base). While this was without a doubt more critical in 5^th edition with a fixed charge distance, the current state of melee armies means that anything that makes that charge more likely to happen is important.

In this picture "the bad guys" are the red circles and your purple unit has just been joined by an IC that used to be in your green unit. Your charge range is now much shorter and the charge range is now much more likely or even possible in a situation where it may not have been possible before.

Even more useful is pulling a character in that is normally too far away to charge. Depending on the unit size the character is joining, joining a character to a unit that is further ahead than he is can help even a standard infantry character cover massive distances and get into those melees to make a huge difference. The best part about this tactic as well is it is often harder to see coming and your opponent will be more likely to leave a unit vulnerable.

In this picture that same IC is changing from green squad to purple but in this example a fight he was once not eligible to join he is being brought in by joining the closer unit to our "bad guys."

When making this move you want to be sure to calculate pile in moves and potential damage, the last thing you want to do is setup this charge only to have found out that you strung your unit out too much and you cannot pile in to stay in combat. Even if your character cannot get in to fight this round, he will get to fight next round and look at all that extra ground you just covered.

Also keep in mind that while the things outlined here are offensive. This could even be used defensively to charge a much weaker unit to pull yourself away from a target that can kill you if your standard move and run is not enough to escape. It can also be used to pull a scoring unit closer to an objective or a unit over to contest or get into a table quarter. In a game where movement is key, play laterally, think outside the box and be sneaky, very sneaky.

Hope you guys enjoyed the article, I know others have wrote about it before but as a severely under-utilized tactic I felt it my duty to resurface the topic and generate some discussion.

Any questions? Ask away!

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ETC Summary Day 2

Here is the standing after day two, with two more games to go Team USA has to win both games to have a shot at making the podium. Today they had a victory vs. Team England (last years champs) and had a tough loss to Team Poland. I have no not seen the points break down for round 4 yet.

Current Standings: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3od94TpMuvcdE1wRGQ2MGxLTHM/edit

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ETC Day 1 Summary

Day one of the ETC is in the books and what a day it has been. One thing I have to say is that Serbia's coverage of the event has been absolutely second to none compared to years past. They have had all the information you could ever need moments after they had it themselves. For those of you who may have missed it here is day for the 40k boys. 

By the way you can stay frequent with the current standings, happenings, and pictures/video of the event on the Novi Sad ETC 2013 Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ETC-2013-Novi-Sad/147903428748437

Day 1 Game 1 vs. Czech Republic 

Result: Team USA win (Team USA 105 to Team Czech Republic 55)

Day 1 Game 2 vs. Wales

Result : Draw (Team USA 75 Team Wales 85)

This puts Team USA in 9th place going into day 2 and they are paired vs. Team England (last years champs) who are currently in 10th. The draw puts USA in a tough spot to get gold but it is certainly not out of their reach yet.

Standings after round 2: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3od94TpMuvcNnB6U3VKTmdYeDA/edit

Pairings for round 3: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3od94TpMuvceklDLXJQcGhWM2c/edit

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ETC State of Mind

Feeling motivated today with my new blog swagger look so I may even do a double post today. But for now with the ETC going on this weekend lets discuss how it is different than the standard tournament scene and why even if you you made a super team of all the best players in the world, why they may not win or even do all that great. 

First and foremost the ESC (European Singles Championships) were held through the week this week and I am very proud of the Merican' boys! Congratulations to Andrew Gonyo for taking the Gold and Alan (pajamapants) Bajramovic (1/3 of my trios team this year) for taking Bronze. Tony Kopach came in 5th making three of Team USA in the top 5. Very impressive indeed. I have played against all three of these guys and they are extremely deserving of the prestige.

The differences that you see in an ETC team format stem from it's pairing system. Unlike a standard one on one tournament system the ETC teams are eight players strong and sometimes feature a non-playing coach to make the 9th member. Once teams are paired up the team either rolls off or draws a card and the lower scoring team has to put forward a member for the other team to pair against. STOP! before we go any further; this is where all the magic happens. Think about that; if a team loses that roll they have to choose one of their players that they feel can not lose (I'm not saying win here on purpose and you will see why later) to the entire other team. The low roll also chooses the table that pairing fights on. This continues on until all eight players are paired against each other. Lets look at how this system effects the game.

Lets first look at the lists; in the past the internet has looked at ETC lists and kinda tilted their head saying it is horrible and why would the person take this choice over that. Because of this unique pairing system list building is completely different as it forces the team to create lists that fill different roles. I like to look at these lists as falling into three categories; Defender, Attacker, and Hybrid. While the roles seem pretty straight forward it is the play style, list build, and pairing that is where the real challenge comes in. A defender is going to be used most of the time as a list that is put forward, realizing that they are going to receive the worst possible match-up the list style and play style must be to conserve as many points as possible and maybe even squeak out a minor win. Attack lists are made to be pure points machines your job is to get 20 points or 17 in a worst case scenario. Hybrid lists can, well, do either if the match-up favors them they should be going for big points while if it does not they can give up few. Just as an example; Brad Chester and his drop wolves are an attacker list, Greg Sparks and his Eldar/Dark Eldar is a defender list while something like Andrew Gonyo and his Tau are hybrid maybe a little heavier on the defender side. Looking at the reactions on the internet to the 6th edition lists are pretty funny though because in 6th ed. with the meta being so hard to pin down, and making a true all comers more difficult with each new book everyone seems to be heralding the lists. Don't read into that comment too much, I just find it interesting.

The next thing to look at is play style and team work. Show boaters, big egos, and risk takers need not apply at the ETC. With four hour rounds there are no excuses for errors and you absolutely have to be a team player. If your captain puts you forward and tells you I really need you to draw this and save as many points as possible you better not take a big risk and try to get some points. Sure, if it is completely safe and you can pickup a few points than go for, capitalize on  your opponents mistakes but you are trying to win the round (all 4 games) not the individual game. It doesn't matter if you have never lost a tournament game yet in 2013, if your captain gives you a horrible matchup you need to suck it up and do what is best for the team even if it means hiding everything out of LoS and going to ground for 5 rounds. This is where the non-playing coach is extremely important. while they cannot tell give you game advice or tell you much else about happenings they can tell you how many points they need you to get or if you need to play safer or riskier. This is huge because if a big dice swing happens are you go 15-5 on a table you should have gone 20-0 or 18-2 than you need to take a couple risks to make up some points. 

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Target Aquired!

Gooooooooood Mooorrrrning Vietnam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone, Bill here with a friendly reminder on what the hell to shoot and how the fuck to shoot it! Target priority is one of the biggest errors that I see in a game. Even if you make all the right moves, if you target the wrong (or too many) targets than the game will be much more difficult than it has to be. 

The first thing to remember when choosing your target is; choose the right target. Sure, those missile broadsides are scary but they are fairly easy to out range, or mitigate their damage with being out of LoS (smart missiles still suck but whatcha gonna do!?) the real threat are those pesky markerlights that will bring them to full BS against your fliers, while over watching, or against your precious troops after they run and fire! The pathfinders are much easier to kill and provide synergy with every unit shooting your face off. The biggest and scariest kid on the block is not always the most dangerous. If you are in an objective game; go after those troops especially if you have the tools at your disposal to stay away from the units that are putting out the real damage.Daemons are a great example of this; remember those FMCs are really going to only charge you if you are 19" away on average, probably even less if you can place yourself on the other side of terrain use this to your advantage and go after the sweet delicious troops trying to hide from you. 


After you have determined the right target make sure that you are putting enough firepower into it to make sure it is completely dead or crippled to the point where it isn't going to do much. The second biggest mistake I see people make is not committing enough to the kill thinking everything will go as planned and each unit will kill exactly like they should. WRONG!!! Take your time and setup your units so they either have multiple targets and make sure you do your order of operations such that your units with only one target fire first. This is super important to you drop pod armies out there. Don't drop in with your plans to annihilate each unit; one for one unit, give yourself options to be able to completely overload a target to make sure it is dead or give yourself multiple targets if all goes well. Its the classic; plan for worst and hope for the best.

Through all of this remember that you need to survive; going back to my priorities when I am playing a game of 40k always remember through all of this you need to survive. If a unit isn't threatening you or if you can move so they become a non-threat now or in the future than put your efforts elsewhere. Don't kill just because you can because the chances are it is a trap. Use movement and positioning as your primary tactic and killing secondary. 

In closing: give yourself options and commit commit commit if you are going to kill something. 

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2013 Army Lists

For those of your whom I practice with you are abundantly clear of what my lists are this year, why I am playing them and even how I play them. For the rest of you here is the three lists I am playing with this tournament season and what tournaments I plan on bringing them to. Feel free to ask questions and if you still don't get it; don't be shy play a game with me! I'm always looking for practice.

1850 Tyranids (NOVA Open, NOVA Invitational)
Swarmlord w/ tyrant guard
Tervigon- 3 powers, crushing claws, adrenal glands

8 ymgaryls
Doom w/ pod
Deathleaper

10 termagants
10 termagants
Tervigon- 3 powers, adrenal glands, crushing claws

Tervigon- 3 powers, adrenal glands, crushing claws

20 Gargoyles- toxin sacs

20 Gargoyles- toxin sacs

The idea behind my Tyranid is not so much to kill stuff so much as it is to be rock solid, have very limited bad matchups and be extremely good at winning games even if it isn't ever by much. To me it is extremely solid for the NOVA format so it seems like a no brainer to take it there.

1850 Eldar (Da Boyz, maybe Battle for Salvation)

Farseer w/ jetbike, singing spear, gem

Farseer w/ jetbike, singing spear

3 warlocks w/jetbike

9 Windrider Jetbikes w/ 3 cannons

9 Windrider Jetbikes w/ 3 cannons

9 Windrider Jetbikes w/ 3 cannons

6 Windrider Jetbikes w 2 cannons

6 Windrider Jetbikes w 2 cannons

8 shining spears w/ exarch, star lance, hit and run

 3 warwalkers w/ 2 bright lances 

3 warwalkers w/ 2 bright lances 

Although spammier than what I usually like to take; this army actually have a lot of diversity and alot of different tools. Deceptively durable to all forms of shooting and the fastest army I have ever seens lends alot of unique opportunity. If need be I can literally hide for 4 turns against most armies and it actually has a scary amount of firepower when I decide that something absolutely has to die. I don't know what to expect at Da Boyz including terrain so as an army that literally makes its own terrain, its a solid choice. 

1850 Space Marines w GK Allies (just farting around)

Librarian 

10 Scouts- sniper rifles

10 Scouts- sniper rifles 

10 Scouts- bolters

10 Scouts- bolters

Landspeeder Storm

Landspeeder Storm

Storm Raven-w/  las cannon, multi melta

Storm Raven w/  assault cannon, multi melta, hurricane bolters

Storm Raven w/  assault cannon, multi melta, hurricane bolters

Inquisitor w/ psyker level 1, power armor

5 Strike Knights w/ psycannon 

Storm Raven w/ heavy bolter, assault cannon, hurricane bolters, psy bolts

I don't know WTF I was thinking here to be honest. I make TONS of lists everyday and for some reason this struck a chord as good to me. Alot of utility and through play testing I have grown to absolutely love landspeeder storms. The scouts can all combat squad meaning that especially with camo cloaks it is extremely difficult to table the army and the troops are many times more durable than the standard space marine.With psychic communion getting the ravens on is super easy and if there is not much anti air, I can load the ravens up with scouts. My love for this list is how useless it looks until you really either think about, play with it, or play against it. Than you have one of those Ooooohhhhh moments. 

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Crunching Numbers: Distances

Hey guys, it's that nagging voice; Bill again. Please let me know if these are annoying or bring absolutely no value to you because I'll stop lol. I am literally writing this in the Facebook post box so if I ramble, make no sense, or could have written this much better it is because I'm spitballing here.

Psst, use a fucking tape measure! 

I am doing some thinking tonight about the numbers that we commonly "crunch" when we are developing lists. For years I have really only had to worry about hit chances, wound chances, saves, modifiers blah blah blah but with 6th edition we have a unique and new opportunity for a whole new set of numbers to crunch: Distances!!! This is all thanks to a handy new thing called pre-measuring. Sure; guessing distances in 2-5th edition was an art form but now its math. 

Lets start with list design; think of these distances at the various deployment types when designing lists. A great example is the new and fancy missile broadsides; ask yourself if you can stay out of 42" (out of 36" if you don't mind eating the overwatch) and still be effective? A huge mistake can be designing your list only with dawn of war in mind. That is only 1/3 of your deployment types. I never really thought about deployment types when I was designing an army until I made my Eldar bike army. The bike army performs best in vanguard and hammer and anvil so now I am going in with an advantage against most in all but dawn of war. 

The second of course is thinking of these distances during game play. I already mentioned gauging distances of threats but make sure you are using this knowledge for not only current threats but future. Lets talk again about my bikes; or anything in general that is terrified of the mighty heldrake. If I fight three heldrakes on dawn of war it is going to be a very rough game but take those same three and if I play them on hammer and anvil they really aren't all that scary. Think about it for a minute; it is easy to think that a heldrakes threat is 56" (36"move, 12" torrent, 8" template). In hammer and anvil I can keep myself at that 57-72" band from their board edge or maybe even have a tempting target in the path to bring those heldrakes forward but they won't be able to do any significant damage. I than turbo boost my whole army past them and they are going to have to hover if they want to flame me next turn. 

I know what you are thinking; perfect world! Distances are absolute. In a game with few fixed things (Damn you diiiiiiice!!) take advantage of these. When your opponent hands you their list; don't look at the terrain look at their threat ranges and what you have to stay safe from. Any good terrain is a bonus from there.

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Get Your Priorities Straight!

Hey Guys and Gals Bill here with more random thoughts. I could use some help making these thoughts not so random so if there is anything you are interested in hearing about, hearing my (probably incorrect) opinion on, or just chatting about let me know please.


Today I wanted to talk about my priorities while I am playing a game to achieve victory! I wanted to write about this because I feel like too often people wrack their brains with list changes when it is very possible that the problem isn’t the list but what you are trying to achieve with it. In these cases this is counterproductive because in the event of a complete list redesign all prior practice is nullified. Hopefully this helps people slow down, think about their moves in a different way and get more effective practice with a list before a complete redesign.
So here it is: Survival, Mission Objectives, Destruction. Article over……just kidding. That is my priority system when I am making a move at its basic core. There are many boring details, number crunching, flow charts (srsly warhams is serious bidness!), blah blah blah that I use in my head that can change these priorities in any given situation but when I am practicing for a non-specific format or just playing a book mission these are the priorities that I use with my play style and type of armies that I usually play. I can go into those situation changers in further details if requested but for now I’ll stick to my basics.

                                                        


My first priority when playing is always first and foremost survival. Before I make a move I think if there is anything I can do to increase their chances of living or if their death will ensure the survival of a much more valuable unit to the current situation. This is an important distinction to make because units dying to ensure the survival (or maximum destruction of your opponent!!!) of the rest of an army is a well-established tactic. People will often bait you into first blood, getting a super easy kill point or just watching something shiny go kersplat!! Do not fall for these tricks by asking yourself what kind of trouble you are putting yourself in to do this. Perfect case and point is my Tyranids; I am always making free termagant units hoping people charge them so the swarmlord on the other side of the wall can feast, or make them move close enough to shoot so gargoyles can pounce. When you put destruction before survival in your priorities I lost a free termagant unit while you lost much more.

                                                       

Second priority is Mission Objectives; take a minute to think to yourself; is making this move putting me closer to achieving the mission objective at the end of the game. This is especially tricky in kill point missions because people often confuse killing a unit, any unit, at any cost as a move closer to achieving your objective. This is not always the case if you are giving up several kill points to annihilate one for example. Or the case with objectives or the relic; hopping on that objective too early (or of course too late) may not be the best solution come turn 5 when you are in a good position to use that unit and still get back on that objective in the end.
You will notice a trend with these first two priorities in that they are long-term solutions while my third priority (destruction) is a short-term solution. What I mean by this is that the first two priorities help you through the whole game right to the end while the third only helps you in the here and now. 

                                                             

Third priority is destruction and at its core is a short-term solution. When playing you really only want to commit to this when you can change destruction from a short-term solution to a long-term solution. Ask yourself before you try to kill something; am I going to live if I do this? Is killing this unit helping me long-term win the game? Can I commit enough to ensure that beyond a shadow of a doubt (or dice!) that my target will either die or be crippled to the point that I have achieved my objective? Not doing enough damage to a unit, or in the case of melee armies doing too much damage can often be game breaking so get your priorities straight!

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Net Lists and why they aren't ever the IWIN button!

Hey Guys and Gals Bill here with some more random thoughts. This time is my opinion of why in competitive 40k " bad" or "wonky" lists will more often than not beat that latest hotness of a net list. 

Time and time again a list that wins a GT or even a local RTT baffles the interwebs as to how a person could win with a list like that. Of course an easy part of that answer is the person is a skilled player. A more often overlooked answer is these odd ball lists simply haven't been prepared for.



A super powerful build loses power very quickly when everyone starts to practice against that build but put something together that has good utility, all the tools and just completely outside the box and people tilt their head. You can never prepare for something completely unique especially if this unique list has unit synergy and doesn't rely on each unit to work independently. Very easy to prepare for the list that everyone is playing. 



So go ahead, assemble your 5 daemon princes, tzeentch screamers, wave serpents and riptides. I'm ready for ya! How many practice games against an entire army that moves 48" have you had?

Internet disclaimer: this is in my experience I'm sure you have one million solutions to all my claims. Great!

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Welcome!

Hey everyone, due to the positive feedback I have been receiving on the Dark Star Facebook page I have decided to finally make my own blog. Most who read this are going to already know who I am, and my background but to those who don't I'm looking forward to getting to know you, and you getting to know me. I'm going to start by migrating some of my posts over from the Dark Star page but first and foremost I am interested to hear what you guys are interested in hearing from me. You are spending your precious time reading so please let me know what it is that you want to read so I won't have you completely fucking bored.

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