Monday 14 December 2015

40K MISFIT ONE OFF: VESPID STINGWINGS


The Vespid Stingwings are one of the oddball auxiliary units found in the Tau Codex, but rarely on the table top.  Why you ask?  Lets take a look.

First, they are 18 points a piece, and with Ld 6 you will probably take a character upgrade which boosts it to 9.  Their stats are mediocre and they have a host of special rules that only seem to explain the hefty price tag but not really provide any sort of usefulness on the table top.  And there are several units available to the Tau that can do what the Vespid do but better as well as other things.



So lets take a closer look at what these guys can do.  They are jump infantry, T4 and have a 4+ save with Stealth(ruins) which makes them quite a bit more durable than your average fire warrior and more maneuverable.  They also tote a S5 AP3 gun!!.

That's the trap.  Their gun, while S5 and AP3, it makes them slightly more deadly, but it's not what makes these guys great, it's their maneuverability.  Now you might say Tau already have maneuverability in scads, and you might also say maneuverability just to say maneuverability, but it's a very different type of movement.  Most Tau units are jet pack units, so only 6" in the movement phase, and the rest of their movement comes in the assault phase with their jet pack move.  The Vespids have a movement of 12", which makes their threat range larger.  Yeah their guns may only have an 18" range so their threat range might not actually be longer, but with their large movement it makes it harder for enemies to hide behind LOS blocking terrain.


They have another trick up their sleeve, it's called Hit and Run and as any White Scars player can tell you, it's good.  The trick about Hit and Run is that it's more than just a way to get out of close combat, although that's good as Vespid can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.  It's also a sneaky way to leapfrog a weak enemy unit and get into the enemies back field and jump on an objective a long way away.
As mentioned before, the Vespid can move 12", this gives them a good chance to jump from their cover in ruins and get close enough to shoot and/or assault, depending on how close you are, the unit we are going to leapfrog, with Fleet this will help with the random charge range.  Then after a pathetic slap fight you can hit and run past the enemy unit landing in the back field.  This can be an amazing move for mid game objective stealing or denying, or just getting a distraction unit in the back field to make your opponent make some choices and hopefully he makes the wrong ones.

There are some things to consider with this move.  You will be jumping out of combat on your turn, so your unit may just get shot to shit and it was all for nought, but those are also shots not fired at your real damage dealers.
Don't assault a unit that can kill you, you won't kill any of them and they get to swing before you can run.
Your opponent will get a consolidation move after you jump out which might get him close enough to cause you problems.

Anyway, there you go, Vespid made (sort of) useful.  Have a go with them and let me know how it works out.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.

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