Lord Hanaur

Yahoo, got a couple test games in with the Defiler added. Great addition, and totally getting more production than I did with the Sorcerer. Backfield defense is better against Warp Spiders and the like. Also been toying with deployments. As always the goal is to defend the ACTUALLy important things by making the actually not important things an easier target. Somethings gotta die some time. Switching the one Raptor unit helps me take casualties slower on the side that has the bigger amount of firepower, assuming I hjave no way to avoid it altogether. The list is evolving really well. I hope to do a follow up battle report once it feels tuned up. With this kind of force in 6E, it's not as simple to design as it seems. There are things on the board you can't see as readily on paper. A "feel" for deployment is important and that is taking a little longer as the list changes, but I'm getting there. Pretty fun experiment.

Tau. So awesome. And their army isn't bad either. I think you beat Tau by: 1. Focusing a ton on their troops. Though more damaging units exist and scare you, the reality is, scoring units are the primary target in most games and you can lose nearly everything and win as long as you have troops left. 2. Reserves. Cant shoot what they cant see. Comms Relays can help you keep units off the board and force the issue to secondaries because you simply have more troops than they do at the days end. Therefore: 3. First Blood at all cost. With enough speed, Linebreaker is easy. Keep your warlord alive and you dont have to worry about his. So whatever you do, dont give up first blood and pick out the easiest to kill unit and kill it round 1. It's no guarantee that you CAN get (or avoid) First Blood. But Tyranids DO have the advantage of massive body counts that threaten and force the enemy into shooting THEM, with low chance of first blood, compared to the things trying to kill, say, ONE Fire Warrior Squad the Tyranids are focusing on. Other things: 4. Tau LD sucks. Pin the Markerlights. Then pin Riptides if you still can. Infiltrating Broodlords in cover = good. Who says they need to charge right away? They can be your support units for a bit. 5. Broadsides do not like Exocrines. Nor Mawlocs. Just saying. 6. Tyranid Artillery does not suck. Crowded FOC there but I cant help but notice that the Tyranid artillery essentially never "misses". Barrages against Tau are great. Barrages allow you to get past the drone walls and other defenses. like the Mawloc does. I'd use a Mawloc, personally but... There's a few morsels of biomatter for thought.

Looks like we might have 6 or 7 coming. Could be a full house.

Killing universes goooood. Eating is gooood. Bacon is goooood.

We'll have stuff. Dont worry. I think I have a pak36 i wont be using, two maybe. My buddy has a ton of armored cars you can use.

update: I played a few more games with this list and continue to make tweaks as I see more opponents. Little things at first, as I prodded along. Deep Striking my Raptors continues to be a challenge. It is a large unit and scatters have hurt pretty badly (though one must admit that I am probably on the aggressive side). That is my number one issue at the moment. The actual Strategy itself works very well: flood them with targets all at once and with not enough guns to kill it all, cut off their avenues of escape and then go in roaring with Dirge Casters. Bouncing the Raptors forward is certainly one options behind a wall of Rhinos instead of reserving them, but those rhinos certainly do go down despite the Land Raiders shadow which they can hide in. Not helping matters has been that the Landraider has immobilized itself or been immobilized in round 1, every game (mostly terrain tests). So I have wisely added a Dozer blade. This epic bad luck has seen Rhinos not getting to the enemy in as good a numbers as i needed, where I needed, so the Destroyer Blades had to come off to make room. I also found that the Sorcerer, while very cool, ultimately needed to be less of a feature for this force. Those points needed to be redistributed a little. So in the most recent version of this experiment in melee oriented army listing here's where I'm at: 14 Khornate Raptors (Icon of Wrath, 2 Meltaguns, Gift of Mutation+Sword+Meltabomb on Champion) 14 Nurgle Raptors (2 Meltaguns, Gift of Mutation+Sword+Meltabomb on Champion) Heldrake (BaleFlamer) 3 Rhinos (Dirge Casters) Chaos LandRaider (Dozer, Dirge Caster) Defiler (Dirge Caster, BattleCannon, TL Heavy Flamer, TL Havoc Launcher, TL AutoCannon) 1 Nurgle Obliterator 1 Nurgle Mutilator 1 Nurgle Mutilator Sorcerer (Psychic Shriek most of the time, Gift of Mutation) 3 units of 5 Chaos Marines 1 unit of 5 Chaos Marines (Flamer)

Allies are cool and all, but I rarely use them. My Sisters of Battle are pretty much the only army i actually utilize them in and I almost feel like I'm not since they've had IG in their list forever. Codex on codex action is hot. Let's do THAT.

My Cornea Transplant is going along nicely. I see zero problems coming my way for this event and am very excited to meet you guys. Let's have a blast. I'm gonna be there early to set up and ready to play by 9, just FYI.

I dont care about that stuff that much. in the end I just wanna play. Historical accuracy is better than not but if its the diff between playing and not...

I think its the best way to go, but my friend uses just one and seems to make it work quite well. It's a big source of annoyance round after round.

Heres the link if you want it: http://www.40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2013/06/6th-edition-tau-flyers-how-to-make-them.html

It is cool. Those drones are saweet.

Ive seen squadrons be very good firebases in ravenwing armies

For tournament play, two Riptides is also good as I have proven. =) Most people here treat normal games as practice games. And I'm yet to feel compelled to add another. Heck, I don't even use Broadsides. TAU Bombers are really unique. Rarely do you find a weapon system that can hit three targets in a round.

Generally you dont want to add drones to fw unless you want markerlights added. But the shield drone adds a tough wound if your plans put fire warriors into harms way a lot OR if you havent got as many scoring units as youd like and want to toughen the existing squads a bit.

Kay so amend that to one Mawloc. But that fixes the points as well. So i spose thats alright.

Ill spread the word

My blog has an article on using the bomber. The bomber is pretty cool. Now I use two Riptides (three is overkill in my opinion) but dont buy into the opinion that bombers arent cool. You just have to support them correctly. Just as you do in any lit that wants to feature an air force.

Again, no codex but the site says exocrine is an elite... not a heavy

So right out the gate, after reading this coidex my mind immediately went to the Hive Crones and Exocrines. The Exocrines can take out a Quad gun pretty fast once it's in place and in range. The Hive Crones can follow and nuclear strike most flyers with ease, almost as easily as the Crimson Hunter does perhaps. The Hive Crone is still quite effective against normal ground targets, though that is not its primary function. Nonetheless it can smash isolated ground vehicles pretty nicely afterwards. I think this a real winner. The Exocrine is a foul thing that isn't very sturdy in the grand scheme of things, but then, that's what the horde of bugs is FOR: Keep em busy and form a screen that the Venomthropes can enhance. The other thing you need for a list is definitely (it seems to me) venomthropes. Synapse is pretty important so that'll have to be a priority issue methinks. I was musing and thinking that a nice core for a Tyranid force would be: 2 Hive Crones 3 Venomthropes (Cause yeah...Awesome) 2 Exocrine (Act like less disappointing Vindicators pretty much when you think about it) Hive Tyrant (synapse) 2 30 Termagaunt Broods (Devourers) 1 30 Hormagaunt brood (Screening force) Broodlord and his buddies Genestealer buddies to pin down important units early and maybe even eat them) Brood of Shrikes with Devourers (for Synapse and fortitude at the weaker points in the line) 2 Mawlocs (Because Line breaker and uber fun DUNE effect. I can chat "Shai-Hulud" every time it surfaces) Can someone tell me how many points that would be. FEELS like 2K but I dont have the codex with me to confirm it.

That was a very nice thing to say. Thanks!

Not a worthy response. And you are mistaken.

On the other hand... If you DO have a lot of time on your hands... Hey why not, right?

Ah man, the barometric pressure being caused by this codex is pretty craycray. Lol.

And if there's one thing that's fun to do, its deep striking shinanigans. Lemme tell ya. Though I DID just have a terribad Night Lord game yesterday wherein I mishap'd 5 times. But hey. First time its ever happened so my enthusiasm remains for those shenanigans.