This is the home of the unusual tactic, improbable gambit, army lists they said would "never work" or codexes that "suck"...yet we win with them. Winners take every advantage and every lesson they can get, applying them, no matter how unorthodox. What works, works. Arguing that it didn't is a fools errand. Read the past Blog entries (the right column of this page), comment on them and let us know what you think. Welcome!
I've done a spate of battle reports lately as I've been testing an army for a friend more so to show him how it works.
Below are the three videos that constitue this one Battle Report. I hope they will teach you a little something about NON spammy Tau lists. Note that the only unit I have more than one of (except troops of course) is the Pathfinders. You might also note that the Pathfinders in this list never fire their Markerlights!
Enjoy. And yes. I know. I need to get better at combining videos. Dang battery or my memory both crapped out on me.
Well I have a few thoughts about how to use this book.
First Impressions
My first impression was a little luke warm.I wasn't really negative so much as wondering
about Whether the Coven being so much different was going to play well without
the help of certain fairly iconic units in the Dark Eldar Codex.So let's start there.
Big Differences
The biggest difference Dark Eldar players will feel in my
estimation is the Power From Pain chart.
The Covens book uses an entirely different chart.For the uninitiated, the Power From Pain rule
is essentially a clock.On X Round, you
get Y benefit for all models in the army that have the Power From Pain Special
Rule.Unlike before, there's no need to
kill a darn thing.You just become
progressively more frenzied by the blood orgy you're perpetrating (more or
less).The Power From Pain chart for
Dark Eldar grants (eventually) Feel No Pain, Furious Charge, and Fearless (and
even Rage if the game goes that long, which IS new to the new Codex:Dark Eldar) to the models with the rule,
just as before only on a clock.
In the Coven book, it's totally different.The Power From Pain list includes Eternal Warrior, Fear, It
Will not Die, Fearless, and Zealot (not necessarily in that order).Since the Coven lists only allow you to take
units that already have Feel No Pain, the Coven chart had to change. This
Coven chart really makes the units allowed in the list truly frightening.Fearless makes the Grotesques impossible to break;
and once they attain the Fear rule, as I will explain, there is a real chance
that the enemy WS could be reduced to 1!IMagine a unit of Grotesques that, when it chargers in round 2, has It Will not
Die and it's natural Feel No Pain?Hoboy.
Fear is the Mind Killer...
The thing that makes the Fear rule work better in a Coven
list is that pretty much everything in this Codex Supplement has a rule called
Freakish Spectacle which is a 12" bubble of -1 Leadership.
This coupled with Fear makes the units in the
force have a real chance of actually affecting the enemy. This could be the difference in an assault at a critical time against an excellent melee
unit. .Units that have And They Shall Know No Fear (ATSKNF) or the Fearless special rule won't care. However there's a lot of units that will be
affected.
Aside from that, normal morale
checks will be affected in any event.This ability dove tails nicely with any Dark Eldar who ally with the
Coven with their Armour of Misery and its aura of -2 Leadership.The combination of the two could make the
Soul Fright ability of Torment Grenade Launchers extremely valuable (albeit
again, not to Fearless units or those with ATSKNF). The Torment Grenade Launcher act like a Psychic Shriek type of attack that is done on normal 2D6 and of course isn't psychic.Even without normal Dark Eldar allies, one
must admit that Fear can be a real X factor for this army to wield.
Building your Coven
The only units allowed in the normal Coven lists are
Haemonculi, Wracks, Grotesques, Talos, the Cronos and their dedicated
transports.That leaves you with a lot of holes in your list you don't normally see.The Force Organization chart allows up to 4
Heavy Support, 6 HQ's and 8 Elites, and requires two HQ's and two elites
minimum but only those units I mentioned can fill the slots.
The six Formations you can use from this book all include
the same units, only in various combinations. Each Formation, predictably,
has it's own special benefits.One
really interesting thing here is a 7th Formation.The 7th Formation, called the Carnival of
Pain, is literally all six Formations combined.If you have the models to pull this off, then the entire army gains the
Carnival of Pain special Rules:While
Urien's alive, his clock spinning ability called Master of Pain affects all non
vehicles, plus the Carnival of Pain will then re-roll 1's to wound in close
combat!To be fair the Carnival of Pain
takes about 2500 points to play, BUT it can technically be built with about 2K.
The Most Interesting Formation
The most interesting Formation is perhaps the most deceptively
uninteresting.The Formation is called
the Scalpel Squadron and is simply a pair of Wrack units and their Venoms.That's it.If a member of this squadron gets first Blood, it gains D3 Victory
Points instead of just 1!but that's not
the interesting thing (although it would seem to be).What is different is that they must be placed
in reserve and Deep Struck round 1 in their transport.Why does it matter?Well anyone who has read my articles knows I
am a very big proponent of the Null Deployment concept and with the Scalpel
Squadron, you can literally deploy nothing...nothing...at the beginning of the game.
Why do it?
Well because if you choose to go second, the enemy cannot
hurt you for two entire rounds while the clock winds on your Power From Pain
chart.Not only that but the enemy MUST start
thinking about objective on the top of round 3, and will be fragmenting his
force for you.Care must be taken to keep the Scalpel Squadron safe until the Cavalry arrive so don’t be overly in a
hurry to get First Blood with them.It
can wait.Keep them safe and use the
time to draw the enemy into bad decisions, or indecision.This isn't going to be advisable every game,
but the ability to do it is priceless against Drop pod forces, and you WILL see
those at tournaments.
Beware the Dark Holes...
I mentioned that there were holes in the Coven.Anti-air is one and really only an Aegis is
available to fix that problem.This presents a danger for sure and means that the army must come to grips with its enemies quickly and without hesitation. There is normally going to be nothing fancy about this army because once the gloves are off, they better come off fast, faster than Dave Semenko when anyone got cheeky with Gretzky.
Another
hole is ranged anti-tank workers.Like Orks, the Coven prefers a slug fest and it shows in every rule.If your plan is to use the Coven to load up
on Transports that shoot, it's probably a very terrible idea.You could have done that without the Coven
book and better.So the army HAS to embrace SPEED
as its weapon of choice.Not long range shooting.Which means the army should by and large
prefer Raiders because of the advantages of having another Hull Point.The army should also use Aethersails, another reason the Venom isn't probably the tool of choice. The Raider allows the army to set up 43" away
and then on their turn, move 36" plus the distance of turning in place
(the age old trick in 40k).This puts
you squarely nose to nose even when you go second and keeps you out of the
range of 36" weapons to start the game.Once you're up their nose, they will kill two or three transports.Accept this fate before you play a Coven list
or don't play it.However, once you're nose
to nose, its time to start punching it.Often.Your fists need to be your anti-tank in a
Coven list.You won't have many grenades
and Raider Lances are never going to get it done in the numbers you'll have
them, especially if you're utilizing their speed. Getting stranded is a
fate worse than death for this force so don't waste time getting into a shooting match.
Please feel free to ask questions, since I have not covered
everything here.I'd also like your
thoughts on the article and anything in it or even requests.Share it if you liked it.
I did a battle report and struggled mightily to put this video together. Who knew video editing could be so annoying?
Anywho, Thought I'd share the hard work with you even though I will never claim to be an expert with the camera. =) The lists are below the Battle Report.
