Dark Eldar Venom?

So I was tinkering around last night with my new Dark Eldar stuff, and though I had convinced myself to wait on the new Venom models, curiosity got the best of me. I bought 2 Vypers before I heard that GW was going to be putting Venoms out next year, so downtime and boredom led to:

What do you guys think? Should I pursue this or wait on some new models? I think this model looks pretty good, and is about the right size for 5 models.

To Be or not To Be (Competitive)

Often folks in our hobby speak of having to make a choice between a "fun" list and a "competitive" list. I don't understand the difference. And even after I ask these supposed "fun" players what makes them think they are having fun and us "competitive" players aren't having fun, I rarely receive an answer that makes sense.

So what is it that "fun" gamers do different than competitive gamers? They try to justify their lists through "fluff" reasons (fluff for any that aren't familiar with the term, means based on the story or history) or through "comp" (comp is short hand for composition, or the make up of your army. comp scores are given at some tournaments based off your army build) reasons. But to a competitive gamer, these fluff bunnies are breaking their own definition, because by limiting your composition, you are making things less fun for yourself. For instance, one thing that fluff bunnies dislike is spamming the same unit over and over again, however what if the army I am building relies on those core elements for the theme that my competitive list is going for? Or what if its the only option available (i.e. Necron warriors)?

And what exactly is not fun about trying to win? Isn't that the point of playing a game? A game, by definition, is  "an activity engaged in for diversion or amusement" Nothing in there says anything about winning, so I guess if I play a game i'm not supposed to win? Tell that to an NFL player, a Nascar team, or a Sculling Crew. Have these people trained their asses off to come out and play? Hell no, they came to win! Winning is fun!

Oh those are team sports you say, OK great, do you play Chess to pass the time? Have you ever played to a draw in Chess? Its the worst feeling on Earth! Do you play checkers because you want to get to know your opponent better? No you play these games to win.

Well folks, there is nothing wrong with playing to win a game. If people weren't supposed to win games, games would have never been invented. Have any of you ever won a game? How does that feel? Winning is one of the greatest feelings humans can ever feel. Its like watching fireworks for 36 hrs straight, it never gets old and it excites you every time! 

So why are competitive gamers looked down upon in 40k? 

I think it stems from GW putting out battle reports for years where players spend most of the 10 page report talking about all the fun they had using every unit they had available instead of making a list designed to win. I mean most 40kers have read White Dwarf over the years, and we know those lists are not designed to decisively win a game. "Really, Gav took 6 sternguard on foot and gave the Serg a combi-flamer?" "Wow look at all those Bio-Morphs on that Hive Tyrant, why would you spend 280 pts on him when you could just get Swarmlord for better flexibility?" "Wow did you see that Phil Kelly had 5 dire Avengers walking in that battle report against the non-mechanized non-Lash CSM list?" 

Another reason I believe competitive gamers are looked down on is because many competitive gamers are also WAAC (Win at all Cost) gamers. Sometimes that term is the same as calling someone a cheater or shady. Nobody strives to be TFG (that fucking guy) but most WAAC gamers are TFG. And many WAACers and TFGs are also self proclaimed competitive gamers. That doesn't bode well for us have fun while winning sort of folks. In reality, these players are not competitive, they are cheaters or assholes. Sometimes both. Nobody likes TFG, not even TFG's mother, nor Jesus.

It boils down to this, if you think competitive gaming isn't fun, maybe you should try to win a few times. I think all us competitive guys will agree that winning is what keeps us all coming back. The challenge of building a list that can completely shalack the other guy is fun, the challenge of breaking that person down on the battlefield is lots of fun, and talking shit to those guys on forums, Facebook, or whereever is also fun.

What do you guys think? Are competitive gamers not having fun? Do fluff bunnies make up excuses to lose?





 

Web Way Portals?

This week's article will discuss an oldie that was brought back into the fold in the new Codex, the Web Way Portal.

For you folks that don't know what a Web Way Portal is, or how it works, or how it used to work this article will be particularly enlightening, and may give you a few wtf moments. Rest assured, this is the reaction I'm looking for!

Web Way Portal "fluff": Commorragh is the "capital city" if you will of the Dark Eldar, but referring to Commorragh as a city is doing it a great injustice. If a Hive World of the empire can be considered a city, then Commoragh would be a metropolis. It spans a major part of the Web Way. The Dark Eldar are the Eldar that fled their empire before the Fall and made home within the Web Way. So the Dark Eldar existed prior to the Fall, and for the last time, no they are not Slaanesh worshippers....Anyway since the Dark Eldar live within the Web Way when they go to battle oftentimes they will leave a huge portion of their army in reserve back in Commorragh then on the battlefield they will drop a device that creates a portal back to the Web Way, thereby letting their fellows pour onto the battlefield from an advanced position. Pretty crafty!

Web Way then: The WWP used to be completely disgusting, but you had to build an army completely around it. The way it used to work you declared what units would be entering the game through WWP "reserve" and then that unit couldn't enter any other way except by WWP, even vehicles could enter through it. So if you didn't put down the WWP until the last turn, your opponent couldn't do anything about them except kill the bearers of the WWPs. However all units used to be able to bring along a portal (except Mandrakes). So what you did was take a big heavy hitting close combat units in Raiders with Dark Lances and a couple of throw away Raider squads to deploy a WWP round 2 or 3 and all of a sudden the enemy has no target and you get your entire army on them turn 3 or 4, because if a unit rolled its reserve roll and the WWP wasn't down, it got to wait till a webway was out then the unit became available!

Web Way now: Well now things have changed. They obviously saw that the WWP was a little too good, because they really toned it down. It deploys the same way as it used to, but now only a few HQ choices have the ability to take it, and instead of a "WWP reserve", once the portal is deployed it is treated as a seperate board edge. Not that impressive really, because now I can't hold units back and specifically know i'll get a good portal drop before they become available...boooo!

However, with all that being said, there are still some nasty ways to deploy a webway that I think could be effective.

Consider Harlequins.

Harlequins with the Shadowseer make your opponents roll 2d6 x 2 for night fighting everytime you wish to target them. So they are hard to see. Also consider that a 50 point Haemonculus + a 30 point WWP will be able to join the Harlies giving them FNP and a WWP to deploy. Its a pricey way to deploy a webway, but its the safest route to follow for WWP deployment.

Now if you just had some fast assaulty units to pour out of the WWPs....

Oh! Beastmasters and packs you say? Hellions you say? Even Wyches or Incubi? Wow, I hadn't thought of that ;)

Dark Eldar Wracks

Why is the internet abuzz with the new Wracks rules? I'll do a little breakdown:

1) Wracks are cheap.
Wracks weigh in at 10 points a piece. What do you get for your points? Marine WS, T, I and 2 attacks base. The caveat of course is that their attacks are poison (4+) which means their str 3 means very little. (for now)

2) Wracks start with a Pain Token.
What does this mean? It means these buggers now have a 6+ save and a 4+ shrug, and unlike other Dark Kin it is not negated by str 6 or 7. That raises their survivability by a factor of 4!

3) Wracks are troops with a Haemonculus in the army.
Wracks become the most survivable troop choice in the DE army when a Haemonculus is present. Put these guys in some cover late game and people will hate trying to get them off an objective.

4) Wracks can take 1 Liquifier per 5 models.
What's a liquifier you ask? Probably the best thing your army can use to deal with hordes or Marine Equivalent armor (MEQ) in cover. Why? Because it is a str 4 flamer whose AP is D6, which means half the time MEQ get no save or cover save...and you can have 2 in a 10 man squad! Wowsa!

5) Wracks synergize with Haemonculus.
Big surprise there right? I mean Haemonculi BUILD Wracks, why wouldn't they work well together? Well consider this: the DE rule "Share the Pain" says that if an IC joins a unit it gets to share it's pain toke with the unit. Haemonculi start the game with a Pain token, Wracks start the game with a pain token...seems like I have an idea here....that's right, when they join the squad gains Feel No Pain and Furious Charge for benefiting from 2 pain tokens...Remember that Strength 3 comment earlier? Turns out that when Wracks charge now they will be I 5 and S 4...meaning against T 4 or less they re-roll wounds! Which means 75% of the attacks that get thru vs marines will wound!

Still not convinced that Wracks are any good? Consider the fact that all Dark Eldar vehicles are open-topped and fast skimmers. This means your raider full of Wracks can fly up 12 inches + 2 inch Disembark + 6 inch assault, means those Wracks can charge an astounding 20 inches, on top of that the Raider can still fire it's Dark Lance!

I believe 1-2 units of Wracks will find their way into most Dark Eldar lists in the future, with benefits like this how could they not?

Dark Eldar

Well here we are, its been 12 years since Codex: Dark Eldar v2 hit the shelves and 12 years since anyone at GW seemed to give a damn about the Dark Kin. But finally they have arrived! For anyone that's been hiding under a rock for the past 3 months, Codex: Dark Eldar's redux was released this past Friday! Let the torturing begin!

This Codex is packed full of fun new stuff and upgraded old stuff. Mostly they didn't take anything away from the Dark Eldar and gave them some nice new abilities. The Alpha Strike is as strong as ever, despite what all the rumors seemed to point to. The hand to hand army is deadlier than ever. And if you fancied webway portal deployment, its probably safer now than it ever has been. And now finally a Haemonculus coven is finally possible with Haemonculi making Wracks troops in their armies!

So what kind of list will I be running?

Originally I decided that the Coven list would be my new bag, after-all I have drooled over Haemmie fluff for 2 years now. However after play testing a few times and now considering the amount of money I would have to spend...I think my hybrid army will be the weapon of choice.

Consider this 2000 point list(notes in italics):
Kabal of Violet Shadows: Redux
1 Baron Sathonyx
The Baron makes a great primary HQ for my army to ensure that I get first turn for my alpha striking capabilities and for the ability to deepstrike in and threaten devastators and long fangs and the like, he isn't very killy, but he doesn't have to be as long as his shadowfield is up!

1 Haemonculus
Standard cheap Haemonculus HQ to get wracks as troops and to throw a pain token into a Trueborn squad, reaver squad or the Baron as I see fit.

4 Trueborn
4 Blasters
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon

4 Trueborn
4 Blasters
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon

4 Trueborn
4 Blasters
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon
I think you will see a lot of Trueborn squads set up like this with the new Codex. This squad of Trueborn throws out 4 Blaster shots a turn (that is an 18" Dark lance shot), has a ride with an invulnerable save, and the ride can move 12" and still shoot 12 poisoned shots at 36". That is a huge threat bubble! People will learn to fear Venoms coupled with dark lance Ravagers or Voidravens.

5 Warriors
Blaster
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon

5 Warriors
Blaster
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon

5 Warriors
Blaster
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon

5 Warriors
Blaster
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon
My Warrior squads serve 2 purposes: 1) they get me some cheap blaster squads on the field, 2) they bring another Venom to the fire fight. With 7 Venoms on the table people will not want to have boots on the ground. 7 Venoms generate 84 poisoned shots per turn that effectively have 48" range. Nasty!

10 Wracks
Liquifier (2)
Acothyst
Agonizer
1 Raider Dark Lance
Flickerfield

10 Wracks
Liquifier (2)
Acothyst
Agonizer
1 Raider Dark Lance
Flickerfield
Wracks are my shock troops. These guys can put out a staggering number of attacks and are pretty resilent with T 4 and FNP. The real beauty for them is the 2 Liquifiers though, these flamers are nasty! Marines fear these flamers, hell even Terminators should fear these flamers. And the Wrack units get me 2 more Dark Lances on the field for vehicle bashing.

3 Reavers 1 Heat Lance
Standard cheap Reaver squad. These guys aren't much of a threat first turn, but with a 36" turbo boost and drugs giving them the possibility of fnp, they become a nuisance. The Heat Lance will make people want to kill them and for 78 points, if they do its no big deal. If they survive though that Heat Lance will be trouble for them, as will being able to Turbo-Boost around running squads out of the backfield and contesting objectives.

1 Ravager 3 Dark Lances

1 Ravager 3 Dark Lances

1 Ravager 3 Dark Lances
Ravagers make fill the role of primary tank hunting. These puppies are only 105 points a piece, making them somewhat of a throw away squad. But when packing 3 Dark Lances a piece and being able to move 12" and still fire all 3 guns, they have to be dealt with.

This list is very shooty, but it also has some deceptively good hand to hand in it with the wrack units. I think many DE players will fold to this Hybrid Style of list.

What do you guys think?