Army List: Eldar Wasp Assault Walker

Dangit... I couldn't stop myself. I went into complete army list building mode with the lovely Wasp as my target. Since I want to capitalize on those sexy legs we need to look at what the Wasp brings to the table once again.

1. Multitudes of accurate high strength shots.
Since quantity has a quality all of its own, Shuriken Cannons or Scatter Lasers doubled up on the Wasps, combined with their BS 4, will torrent down infantry and give us a good chance to affect light vehicles as well. Heavier weapons could go here, but like it's papa the War Walker the frame is simply too fragile to spend more points on. Plus, 8 Str 6 shots at 36" range is just awesome.

2. Sneaky Deployment Strategies
With Deep Strike and Jump Jets it's very easy for the Wasp to get into position for side or rear armor shots on enemy vehicles, particularly if they're going for the midfield. This plays in with our Shuriken Cannon/Scatter Laser strategy from above which I like.

3. Free up Heavy Support Slots
The biggest thing going against War Walkers was their use of a HS slot. With Wasps in Troops we can now have our cake and eat it too... and I LIKE cake.

4. Objective Contestor Extraordinaire
If these babies survive till late game a 30" assault is a GREAT way to contest troops off of an objective. Sure, they might not last terribly long against anything but GEQ but you can always hope for the Fritz classic 5th turn win if necessary, so sticking around more than a turn won't be needed.

So, given the above let's see what we can do. I have a bit of experience with Eldar as they were the army I played before I started buying my own units but definitely take the following with a hefty grain of salt as I'm no Space Elf master.

We'll start with 3 groups of 2 Wasps armed with dual Scatter Lasers, giving us 48 BS 4 Str 6 shots right from the get go.

We'll expand from there by looking at our vacant Heavy Support slots. Eldar LOVE their HS and we have four ways to go here- Wraithlords, Falcons, Fire Prisms and Nightspinners. I want to say here that I love the look of Wraithlords and love that they are immune to anything below strength 5. But the missile spam going around these days will make mincemeat of one lickety split, leaving these overcosted giants on the shelf. Maybe next codex...

Falcons are pretty cool but have consistently failed to impress me. DAVU (Dire Avenger Upgraded, i.e. small 5 man scoring unit) Falcons have their uses but I want something that will bring out the pain in our Heavy Support slot. Falcons do have quite a few shots but we could easily replace them with twice their number in Wasps and still maintain equivalent firepower.

Fire Prisms and Nightspinners both conveniently come in the same kit, but I think the Prism is going to win out here for me as we have enough high AP high strength shots from the Wasps already. The Prisms will give us pretty good anti-tank and great anti-infantry, particularly if we link the blasts for some Str 10 AP 1 or Str 6 AP 3 twin linked goodness. Having duality in a tank is always a good thing, and Lord knows we need something to take out those GK Terminators that are going to start showing up soon... We'll also throw Holo Fields and Shuriken Cannons on these babies to help us deal with One Gun Syndrome. The Holo-Fields might not be a good upgrade but I have a strange habit of trying to make sure my expensive tanks survive...

Next let's look at scoring. We may have taken up 3 Troops slots but we have nothing to score with yet. Enter the Storm Guardian. I've always like the aesthetic of Guardians and these boys seem to me to be the only Eldar troop choice worth taking, except perhaps for min sized Dire Avenger squads. Storm Guardians can at least theoretically do something given the correct support, plus they can take meltaguns fusion guns! Crappy BS 3 fusion guns, but fusion guns nonetheless. Flamers might be the better option here, but since they cost the same for some reason we'll stick with the fusion for now. Squads of 11 with a Warlock (either Enhance or Destructor, take your pick) plus a Wave Serpent with Shuriken Cannon and TWL Bright Lance sound nice, so let's fill out the other 3 troops slots with these boys.

Finally we need an HQ. Since Farseers are great we'll take one of those with Runes of Warding for psychic defense and Fortune and Doom to help our guys stay alive and our enemies become dead. We don't really need Guide because the majority of our force is BS 4 or twin linked. We'll have to take out a Storm Guardian so that he can ride in style.

This leaves us with the following:

Farseer, runes of warding, fortune, doom: 125
11 Storm Guardians, 2 fusion, warlock (125), wave serpent, TWL bright lance (135)
11 Storm Guardians, 2 fusion, warlock (125), wave serpent, TWL bright lance, shuriken cannon (145)
10 Storm Guardians, 2 fusion, warlock (117), wave serpent, TWL bright lance, shuriken cannon (145)
2 Wasp Assault Walkers, each with 2 scatter lasers (150)
2 Wasp Assault Walkers, each with 2 scatter lasers (150)
2 Wasp Assault Walkers, each with 2 scatter lasers (150)
Fire Prism, shuriken cannon, holofields (160)
Fire Prism, shuriken cannon, holofields (160)
Fire Prism, shuriken cannon, holofields (160)
Total: 1847

Having the ability to have 3 Fire Prisms alongside 6 war walkers is an impressive amount of firepower to say the least. And in this list we have every kind of firepower taken care of- big blasts and tons of high strength for hordes, anti-tank Lance and blast shots, and we even have 6 janky assault elements for late game objective grabbing/contesting and horde control. Again I'm not sure what powers to give the Warlocks, or if the fusion guns are the right buy for the Storm Guardians given their low BS. Flamers + Destructor might be better to help them succeed at their chosen mission.

Tactics are shoot, shoot, then late game objective grab/contest. You have the option of deep striking the Wasps to get the side/rear shots or you can start them on the board and Jump Jet into position.

Alternatively we can replace the Storm Guardians with min sized Dire Avengers, cutting the price of our Troops in half and freeing up 187 pts. Taking the Holo fields off of our Fire Prisms will save an additional 105 pts giving us 292 to play around with. We can put in a squad of Dragons with a Shuriken Cannon Wave Serpent for 190. We can also save another 120 pts by downgrading our Wasps' Scatter Lasers to Shuriken Cannons, giving us another 222 to play with. That's enough for another Dragon squad and to give both Dragon squads an exarch with a heavy flamer for some more duality.

This gives us the following list:

Farseer, runes of warding, fortune, doom: 125
5 Fire Dragons (80), exarch with Dragon's Breath Flamer (12), wave serpent, TWL shuriken cannon, shuriken cannon (110)
5 Fire Dragons (80), exarch with Dragon's Breath Flamer (12), wave serpent, TWL shuriken cannon, shuriken cannon (110)
5 Dire Avengers (60), wave serpent, TWL bright lance, shuriken cannon (145)
5 Dire Avengers (60), wave serpent, TWL bright lance, shuriken cannon (145)
5 Dire Avengers (60), wave serpent, TWL bright lance, shuriken cannon (145)
2 Wasp Assault Walkers, each with 2 shuriken cannons (110)
2 Wasp Assault Walkers, each with 2 shuriken cannons (110)
2 Wasp Assault Walkers, each with 2 shuriken cannons (110)
Fire Prism, shuriken cannon (125)
Fire Prism, shuriken cannon (125)
Fire Prism, shuriken cannon (125)
Total: 1849

2 more tanks than before and two much better Land Raider hunters. The Wasps should still have plenty of range to reach out and touch things at 24" and our overall Str 6 firepower hasn't decreased at all. I'm not sure which of the lists I like more- Storm Guardians just sound cooler than DAVU Wave Serpents, but I can't argue with the increased weight of tanks in the second list.

So what are your thoughts? How would you build around the elegant Wasp?

*Image property of Forge World

Eldar Wasp: Love Takes Flight

I've always loved walkers. I played a lot of MechWarrior back in the day and stomping around a virtual battlefield with my force-feedback joystick occupied a lot of my hours in high school.

In 40k there is no shortage of walkers. Dreadnoughts look pretty cool, but Sentinels look a whole lot better to me. There's something about the longer, chicken walker legs and the simple fact that a pilot is driving the robot that make it hit home for me.

Along this same vein is the Eldar War Walker, which edges out the Sentinel to not only be my favorite 40k walker but probably my favorite 40k model period. Those graceful lines, the fluidity of motion and the posability of the model all really speak to me.

Of course now there is the Wasp, and I have fallen in love again. Why? The enclosed cockpit is part of it, but what seals the deal is what's on its lovely rear end:

JUMP JETS!

I. FREAKIN. LOVE. JUMP JETS. What makes the Drop Sentinel better than the normal Sentinel? Well, besides the sweet roll bars, ROCKETS ON A MECH. In MechWarrior I almost universally chose mechs that could take off in a stream of fire, looking for nothing more than to land near/ on top of my opponent while shoving a 30 foot long shotgun in somebody's face. Here is finally a unit in 40k that can make my dreams of DFA come alive... and in a very attractive package too! Heck, it even looks like a Firefly/Raven... Anyway, with the jump jets they can move 24" in the movement phase and assault (but not shoot) afterwards. While they aren't the best assault troops a 30" charge against Guardsmen isn't a half bad way to go about things, and at the very least they can leap out of danger or to contest an objective late game.

But that's not all! These guys finally have the BS 4 that the Eldar so rightly deserve, so they don't have to rely so heavily on Guidance from Farseers to their job. This is great not only for their crazy jumping abilities but also the chance to deep strike away from your forces. But that's not the greatest thing- these fools are a TROOPS CHOICE, meaning that they don't compete for Heavy Support slots. Hot. Damn.

I see these guys sticking in the backfield while throwing out str 6 firepower, then jump jetting to late game objective contest or just to get out of trouble. They also have the option to jump down, shoot up some vehicles in their rear arc then jump away before the retaliation can get to them. They're not the best despite what some early cries of cheese might say, but their play style sounds really interesting to me and can at the very least help make War Walkers a viable choice.

This model almost single handedly wants me to start playing Eldar. They aren't THAT expensive from Forge World, and if somebody doesn't want to play by their actual rules I can always proxy them as War Walkers. And I could finally paint up an orange and grey Yme-Loc craftworld force, which I've been meaning to do for some time...

Dammit Forge World. Damn you and your pretty things that I must have!

So what do you think about this new long-legged vixen? Does function follow form or is it just a great pair of legs?

*All images of the Wasp above belong to Forge World and are used without permission (but much love!). The image of the War Walker above belongs to Games Workshop and is also used without permission (but again, much love!)

CAMPAIGN: Thoughts on using Battle Missions, Part 2

 So how can we use these categorizations in a campaign? This, of course, depends on which kind of campaign we are playing.

For a map campaign, there is generally an attacker and a defender, which certainly simplifies matters. Battle missions can be used here to add a bit more flavorful spice to the proceedings. To decide whether you use the Attacker's or Defender's mission there could be a strategy roll, determined either by a simple roll off or even going back to the old Strategy Ratings. Sufficient success on the roll (say, 3 or 4 more than the opponent's roll) could allow an army to use its Envelopment mission. If they win, it results in greater gains for them, as in an extra territory conquered, and of course greater losses if they lose the mission as well. Even if the attacker ties it would still count as a (normal) loss. Think of it as a double-down move where you win big or go home. Standard (or nearly standard, such as Dice Like Thunder missions) could also be incorporated into this schema in the case that there is a tie for the Strategy roll.

You could also have access to different Missions be tied to different hexes or nodes. Control a territory that has a large defense installation on it? Congratulations, you may now use the Prepared Assault mission when you are attacking. Is the terrain on a certain hex very dense, or has been prepared to hold off invasion for some time? You can use the Trench Warfare or Close Quarters Action to defend this area.

They may also allow you to perform special maneuvers. Take the Daemon's Invasion mission for example. They could use this as a defensive mission (such as the defense of their "capital", or the first entry point) or they could use it to launch an assault anywhere on the board and have a new rallying point for their forces. This could be coopted by another army to represent a massive teleporter/tellyporta/wraith gate that the enemy forces can use.

A narrative campaign could also use the missions in a very straightforward manner, as shown by the tree below:

The great thing about this format is that if you are bored playing a certain set of missions you can always either switch armies or simply reorganize your selection of missions from the others in the Battle Missions book. Play a Guard army that relies on speed and reserve tactics instead of the old gunline? Switch out Trench Warfare for a more fluid defense mission like Feigned Retreat or Cut & Run instead. And if you wanted to stick with the Missions aspect of the campaign, you can always switch out the Apocalypse at the end for Clash of Heroes, which is often just as epic.

So those are my thoughts. This isn't intended to be the end all be all of Battle Missions campaign usage, but more of a jumping off point for your own adventures. The great thing about the book is that it adds a lot of flavor to your campaigns with very little effort on your part, making campaigns easier to plan and more enjoyable to run. It's a great resource, and a lot of fun too.

So let's hear it. What ideas do YOU have for using the book in campaigns?

CAMPAIGN: Thoughts on Using Battle Missions, part 1

 As a bit of a follow up to my initial thoughts on using Kill Team in campaigns I thought I'd post a bit about using the other parts of the Battle Missions book... namely, the Battle Missions.

For those of you not in the know, each race in 40k gets 3 specialized Battle Missions, each with unique deployment options, objectives and special rules. Each race's Missions are intended to be very true to the central tenets of that faction- Space Marines strike with careful planning and plenty of orbital drops, Dark Eldar raid opposing militaries for slaves and lead them into ambushes, and the Imperial Guard march to war with the backing of heavy artillery and well constructed defenses.

After paging through the book a few times, I noticed a pattern emerging. Almost all of the races' missions can be categorized as one of three options: Attack, Defend, and Envelopment. Attack and Defend don't need further explanation, but Envelopment probably does. I see this as a risky gambit used by an army that could either turn out amazingly well or turn into a crushing defeat. Examples might be all or nothing Alpha strikes, desperate counter attacks and any tactic that tries to use the enemy's momentum against them.

For example, let's take a look at the Imperial Guard missions. Prepared Assault is the Imperial Guard's Attack mission, as they bravely surge against the enemy's lines with the thunderous boom of their cannons (mostly) aiding their approach. War of Attrition is a good example of an Envelopment mission, as the Guard decide to use the enemy's momentum against them by using their superior disposability to force the enemy to commit ever more troops to the conflict. It's a risky strategy, but one that can pay off big if they win. Finally, Trench Warfare has the Guard in a supremely Defensive position, as units that don't move are considered to have dug in and therefore receive area terrain cover saves and there are plenty of prepared obstacles available.

Here are my thoughts on which races' missions are Attack, Defense and Envelopment.

Chaos Space Marines: Pillage, Black Crusade, Scorched Earth
Chaos Daemons *: Night Fight, Invasion, Fight to the Death
Dark Eldar: Dawn Raid, Slave Raid, Feigned Retreat
Eldar: Pre-Emptive Strike, Flank Attack, Mobile Defense
Imperial Guard: Prepared Assault, War of Attrition, Trench Warfare
Necrons *: Ambush, Reconnaissance in Force, Implacable Advance
Orks: Blitzkrieg, Waaaagh!, Cut & Run
Space Marines: Vanguard, Surprise Attack, All-Around Defense
Tau: Vertical Envelopment, Counter Attack, Fighting Withdrawal
Tyranids *: First Contact, Wave Assault, Infestation

This is just my personal view on things- you can of course make your own designations. You may also notice that several entries have an * next to their name. These are the ones that I believe don't necessarily hold to the archetype.

Chaos Daemons are no surprise as they tend to be format warpers, ha ha. And yes, you can feel free to hit me for that one. Their missions are thematically based on either location or time of the attack rather any kind of strategy. I chose Invasion as an inappropriately named Defense mission because often other forces will try to close the portal, thus making the Daemons defend it, but it could just as easily be used in an assault (I hear those things can just pop up wherever they damn well please!).

Likewise, Necron missions are more about time and location than anything else. They represent the formulaic strategy that the armies of the star gods use to wage war. The Necrons do not defend, as they simply materialize near the battle site, execute the mission, and then go on their merry way. Ambush is about as close to a defense mission that they have, but that's really only emblematic of people unknowingly awakening a Tomb World at the start of the hostilities.

Tyranids, like the Necrons, have a bit of an escalation feel to them. We start with first hostilities, escalate to repeated assaults on the defenders, and finally escalate to the final part of the campaign where both sides have well adapted to each other. Infestation is the closest to a defense mission as the world's counterattack would probably involve battle hardened veterans of earlier assaults, and the Nids will be on ground that they are familiar with. Still, not as clean cut as the others.

Next time, I take a look at how we can integrate these missions into the different types of campaigns. See you then.

The above image is from Games Workshop and is used without permission.

KILL TEAM: Thoughts on its use in Campaigns

I've been thinking about Kill Team a lot lately. Maybe it was the huge brawl from last Tuesday, or maybe it has intersected and mixed with my thoughts on my Changeling campaign, but most of my thoughts have been on how to best incorporate small units into campaign style missions. There are two general categories of campaigns that my thoughts incorporate, map based and narrative. BTW, thanks to Col Corbane for the handy dandy blog that he has on campaigns- it's been a great read so far!

We'll begin with my thoughts on map based. I've been thinking about 40k campaigns in general for a bit now, probably ever since the end of the last (and first) that I was involved with. It was a bit of a trial by fire as it was a massive map based game with resource allocation, veterancy stats, different types of terrain, etc... really, quite a bit TOO much going on, especially for someone who a) didn't have proper models yet (oh cardboard box Wave Serpents, you were great!) and b) had just started playing the game.

But anyway, back on topic, the particular rules set that we were using had two different kinds of battle groups- normal armies and recon forces. The normal armies were, well, normal armies, while the recon forces were limited to 500 pts of whatever you wanted. These forces had a longer LOS on the campaign map and could attempt to sneak about the map gathering intel on the enemy.

One thing that I found very distressing about this was that units with Stealth, Infiltrate and Scout were no better at, well, being stealthy, infiltrating or scouting than any other unit. Especially as a member of a force equipped with Rangers and Pathfinders this was a bit of a slap in the face.

So this has led back to more thoughts by me- how could I simulate a small, elite team of commandos attacking an enemy installation? The answer of course, being Kill Team. This is a rough draft of what the mission might look like:

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Kill Team Mission: Sabotage

Your squad has been charged with destroying materiele vital to the enemy's war effort- live or die, destroy the target!

The Kill Team consists of the standard mission size as found in the Battle Missions expansion. In addition, the Specialists optional rule is in use for the attacker's forces. As this mission is taking place far behind enemy lines the Kill Team may ONLY contain models that have the Stealth, Infiltrate and/or Scout USRs. This may include models that are given one of these USRs as part of their Specialist training.

Optional rule: Units with Deep Strike may also be used, including units that gain this ability from a vehicle.

In addition, one infantry model in the Attacker's kill team must be given the Demolitions Specialist ability. This model is equipped with a demolitions charge. If the model is killed it drops the charge. Any other infantry model that moves within 1" of the charge may pick it up, and is from then on considered equipped with it.

The Defender will set up the terrain for the mission and include one building that will be designated the Target. The Defender then deploys first anywhere that he or she chooses on the map. The Attacker then chooses a table quarter that his or her team is attacking from and deploys there.

Objective: Normal Kill Team objectives are in effect, in addition to the destruction of the Target. If a model equipped with a demolitions charge assaults the Target it will be rigged to explode.

The outcome of this mission might be that the enemy loses access to one of its Heavy Support or Fast Attack slots in the next mission, or any other detriment that you think is sufficiently nasty for players to wish to do this.

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A way to make sure that sending in a Kill Team isn't simply an automatic choice might be that every player has a limited number of Specialist points- if they are killed while on mission, you lose the Specialist points and may soon be unable to conduct your black ops missions.

Other variations on this mission exist- you could have an Assassination run to execute the enemy commander, depriving the enemy of their HQ in the coming battle (though the HQ would likely be able to participate in the Kill Team mission, making it quite a bit harder for the attacker!), just something that would affect the campaign map or the next mission.

This particular kind of mission could also be incorporated into Narrative campaigns quite easily. Many huge conflicts begin with the smallest of actions, and Kill Team is very representative of this in the 40k universe. What might begin as a squabble between the Governor's guards and the local Guard regiment might escalate into full blown heresy, or a particularly nasty orbital defense laser might have to be eliminated before the Planetstrike can begin. Of course, the normal Kill Team mission may also be used to spice up the action. Perhaps as a campaign opener both sides are fighting over an alien artifact- depending on who wins the mission their army might have to make a fighting retreat while the enemy pursues them in force?

So there are a lot of ideas out there, and I'll probably be coming back to this subject in the future as I really want to put on a cool, probably narrative campaign sometime in the future for my FLGS. I'll try include my initial thoughts on campaigns and the Battle Missions book in general sometime later this week.