SO CRAZY IT JUST MIGHT WORK: FEAR THE REAPER

This is going to be the first of an ongoing segment where I talk about some insane army list ideas that revolve around a bat-shit-crazy idea that could potentially do an enormous amount of damage, or could crash and burn so hard you might as well have not even rolled any dice.

Lets start with a Dark Eldar CAD.  Take 2 characters, one with the Armour of Misery, the other with the Arch Angel of Pain, and one of them with a Webway portal.

Then we move on to two level 3 Sorcerers from the Crimson slaughter book, they will roll their powers on Telepathy for the most part, Psychic Shriek, Dominate, and Terrify being the important considerations.

Next we incorporate the Formation Kranon's Helguard.

Finally we consider the Crimson Slaughter warlord trait Maelstrom of Torment.

At this point you should have about 500 points to fill in the blanks and buy upgrades and transports and such.

So what do you get when you combine all those things together?  Lets do the math...

The Armour of Misery dishes out a -2Ld to anyone within 6", Kranon's Helguard add a -1Ld if you are within 12" of any unit, Terrify adds yet another -1Ld to the target unit, and if you happen to get Maelstrom of Torment, that will add another -1Ld.  Add all those negatives together and you get a whopping -5Ld penalty.

Then you cast Dominate on one unit, and Psychic Shriek on the other and watch and your enemies army either runs away, dies, or stands there dumbfounded

Add to that the Archangel of Pain which piles on another -2Ld penalty when it activates, although it doesn't effect units with Fearless or ATSKNF, for a whopping -7Ld check that inflicts a wound for each point you fail by on each unit with 9"

So lets have a look at my test army...

Kranon's Helguard:
Chad Lord, Axe of Blind Fury, MOK, Aura of Dark Glory
Cultist (x10) flamer
Cultist (x10) flamer
Land Raider, Fourth Quadrant Rebellion Legacy of Ruin
Terminators (x3) x3 combi-meltas
Chosen (x5) no upgrades
Helbrute
Raptors (x5) x2 melta-guns, meta-bomb

Dark Eldar CAD
Archon, Armour of Misery, webway portal, Venom (x2 splinter cannons)
Haemonculus, Archangel of Pain
Warriors (x5), blaster, Sybarite, Phanasm grenade launcher, Raider, dark lance, shock prow
Warriors (x5), blaster, Sybarite, Phanasm grenade launcher, Raider, dark lance, shock prow

Crimson Slaughter CAD
Sorcerer, level 3, Sigil of Corruption, spell familiar, Warlord
Sorcerer, level 3, spell familiar
Cultists (x10) flamer
Cultists (x10) flamer

The basics are as follows...
Turn 1, try to open as many transports as possible with the Land Raider, Raiders and warriors, Helbrute, and Raptors.

Turn 2, deep strike the Archon and Haemonculus somewhere really close to the enemy, getting as many units within 6" as possible, the Armour of Misery gives them -2Ld.  Then drop in the Terminators somewhere useful, distracting, or sneaky.  Meanwhile I move up with Kranon's Helguard, the Lord, both sorcerers, and the chosen in the Landraider and deploy within striking distance.  If I managed to roll Maelstrom of Torment, that is a further -2Ld, if not it's only -1Ld.  Then I use the Raider with it's shock prow to ram any AV12 and under facing possible as a last ditch effort to open any transports.

In the Psychic phase I try to cast as many powers as I can throwing minimal dice and relying on the spell familiar.  I realize that one of the sorcerer's will have to bail out of the squad in order to be ale to cast multiples of the same power, but it's a sacrifice worth making for this to work.
I'll start with Terrify on units affected by the other penalties that's a further -1Ld.  This may cause them to run if they are not fearless.
Then I move on to Dominate, which I will cast on units not targeted by Terrify but still being affected by the other Ld effects.  This will help ensure my safety as those units won't be able to retaliate...I hope.
Then I cast the Shrieks on the units I want to die.  With a potential -5 to their Ld, Psychic Shriek will inflict 5-6 wounds on average assuming the target was originally Ld10, which it probably wont' be.

In the shooting phase I work on popping more of the transports and use the Phantasm Grenade Launchers and Archangel of Pain for more Ld shenanigans(assuming I'm not playing Space marines).  The Archangel of Pain forcing a Ld check with a possible -7Ld modifier.  Ouch.

Turns 3 and 4 are Rinse and Repeat as long as I am alive.  There is an added bonus to the Helguard, if an enemy unit is within 12" of 2 or more units of the Helguard, they get a -1BS modifier as well.  Top that off with the fact that most of the army causes Fear you should be relatively safe in the assault phase.  I also want to keep the Cultists as a barrier from deep striking units getting tot he Land raider and the Legacy of Ruin will keep them fearless as long as the tank is alive.  Those 3 things will help keep me alive to deliver the payload.

So, what do you guys think?  Is it crazy enough that it just might work?  Or an insane idea destined to fail?  Let me know in the comments.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.

DARK ELDAR: FASTER THAN FURIOUS

Here we are, the finally of the Dark Eldar shitty units review.  What a ride it has been.  Without further ado, lets get into the Heavies.

Both the Talos and the Chronos are rather good Monstrous creatures.  They get a wide variety of funky weapons to choose from and can be taken in units of up to 3.  Their biggest downfall is that they only have 3 wounds, but at 120 and 100 points, respectively, and FNP, they are a pretty hard nut to crack.  The Coven supplement only makes them better as several of the formations include the Talos and Chronos and only add more special rules to them.

Another popular unit is the Ravager.  With 3 heavy weapons that can be used to take out heavy infantry or be upgraded to take out tanks, it's a vital unit in the typical Dark Eldar army, fielding at least 2.

Which leaves us with the Voidraven Bomber.  The only shitty Heavy choice in the book oddly enough.  It comes armed with 2 Void Lances, which are Lascannons with Lance, and a Void Mine, which has the same stats but is a large blast bomb.  You can swap the Void Lances for Dark Scythes which are 24" S8 AP 2 small blast, but I think this thing is probably best used to take out heavy vehicles.  If you feel that there won't be much that's able to take it down, you could add a hefty missile payload.  Personally I would take the Shatterfield missile as it's pretty useful against a parking lot of light vehicles or lots of infantry.  This will pump the cost up to 200 points, for an AV 10 flier, but having the ability to open up multiple rhinos who happen to get too close has got it's benefits.

So that's it for Heavies, a little surprising actually since Dark Eldar are supposed to be a fast moving, hard hitting style army.

So, onto Wargear... which I think might be a long one as it seems like wargear isn't a big spending point on the typical armies.  Usually those points go to more models and more shooting.

The first piece of shit gear I'm gonna yak about is the Phantasm Grenade Launcher.  This thing is absolutely useless against more than half of the units out there being anything that's Fearless or anything with ATSKNF.  The great thing about this weapon is that it works against Eldar, or at least most of their units, and the Dark Eldar have ways of lowering your Ld to make this weapon even more effective.  Another good thing about this weapon is that you just have to hit the target.  You don't have to do any damage, and there is potential for it to do quite a bit of damage.

I'm sure this guy has one of the gauntlet weapons.

The mindphase and flesh gauntlets are decent weapons but are widely unpopular due to their lack of AP.  Both of these weapons are limited to 3 units that can take them, and 2 of those units don't need either because they already have weapons just as good, which means the only model that can benefit from them is the haemonculus and he isn't going to take either of these ones over the venom blade or the Scissorhand which are vastly better in a general sense.  The flesh gauntlet has a place as it can cause ID and it's poinson 4+, so it's got a chance at killing big MC's with a mediocre save.  The mindphase also has an awkward spot against heavy hitters who would hit before, or at the same time as the Haemonculus's unit but after the haemonculus.  He can hit the target with concussive and allow the rest of his unit to hit the enemy first, reducing the amount of damage they take as a result.

The hex rifle is another oddball.  It's far too unreliable to be worth taking, but if it pays off, it's amazing.  It has the sniper rule which includes junior rending and Precision shot.  It also has a rule that if you happen to make a precision shot the resulting wound causes ID.  Which means that if you roll a 6 to hit, and a 6 to wound, your opponent is one failed look out sir and invul save away from becoming a greasy stain.  See what I mean about unreliable.  It is only 10 points, and it's assault weapon, so if you have a couple points you could throw the guy in a transport and have him cruise around taking potshots.

With my previous 2 tactic articles, the chain snares and shock prow seem like pretty good pieces of gear.  I particularly like the shock prow as it's allows you to slam into other light vehicles at will and be completely impervious to the impact and deal out a S7 hit.

So, a vehicle can take a weapon called a Torment Grenade Launcher.  Sounds familiar right?  Kinda like Phantasm Grenade Launcher, well they are the exact same fucking thing.  The only difference is that the one that is mounted on a vehicle has 6 extra inches.  Now I know what I could do with 6 extra inches, but this isn't it.  Everything you want to know about this weapon, look above.

Almost all of the Artefacts range between total crap to meh, but each one has a situation that makes it useful.  The Animus Vitae is a little expensive, but it's payoff is pretty huge.  An 8" AP2 weapon and if it causes a wound it EVERY model on the table with Power from Pain adds one to the chart.  Do you remember all those times in previous posts where I said "depending on the Power from Pain chart..."  This has the ability to make all those dreams come true.
The Archangel of Pain is basically a nova version of the Phantasm Grenade Launcher with a -2 Ld penalty.  If you can tag team this with another character with the Armour of Misery, that would be a -4 Ld check for every unit within 9", triple team those 2 items with a web way portal then you got yourself a nuke.  Again, it doesn't work on anything Fearless or has ATSKNF, so it's a trick that, 60% of the time, it works every time.

And that's it for my Dark Eldar post.  Hope you guys had a good time reading it.  Feel free to leave thoughts and ideas in the comments section.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.