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Skitarii Musings


WestRider

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Sorry, meant Haywire, not Armourbane. And with Dunestrider, these guys are basically Cavalry speed, which really reduces the need for a Transport.

I agree they don't need one for the speed, but would benefit from the extra durability prior to the charge, and the frag grenades have merit too.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Finally getting these guys on the table this afternoon. Basically just going Rule of Cool and trying a bunch of different things out, plus throwing down everything I've got at least partially painted. Got a second Knight and the new book, so I want to try some of that out, and then it's basically what's ready to hit the table. I expect to get destroyed, because it's also my first game against the new Eldar, but if he doesn't have Webway Portals for his Fire Dragons, I think I can at least put up a fight.

 

Knight Crusader, Battle Cannon, StormSpear
Knight Errant, Fist, Icarus

10 Vanguard, 3 Plasma Calivers, Omnispex, Phosphor Pistol (Warlord)
10 Vanguard, 3 Arc Rifles, Omnispex, Arc Pistol
5 Sicarian Infiltrators, Arkhan's Divinator
5 Sicarian RustStalkers, Dataspike
DuneCrawler, Icarus

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Just wondering, why a Vanguard Warlord? Seems like a really easy slain warlord... Can neither Knight be a Warlord?

You need at least three Knights for one of them to be Warlord. Also, if the Warlord is part of a Skitarii Maniple, they gain Preferred Enemy along with any other bonuses, so the Plasma Calivers become much, much safer and more reliable.

 

Because of playing Tyranids and IG for so long, I tend to treat pretty much everything as disposable, so I give up Warlord in most games anyhow. As long as I get some value out of it, I'm OK with that.

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Went pretty well. Fortunately, the Eldar list had mostly been constructed on the basis of "Ooh, shiny!" as well. The nastiest thing was a Triple Falcon Deep Strike Squadron full of Fire Dragons that took out my Crusader (because I didn't have enough dudes to bubble-wrap), and then the explosion got about half a Squad of Vanguard instead of scattering back onto the Fire Dragons and Falcons like I wanted.

 

The Vanguard were very solid. I got kind of lucky with my Cover Saves, but still, if you've got some other stuff to draw some of the fire off, they can be tougher than you might expect, and the Doctrina Imperatives make their firepower rather more impressive than their basic statline would suggest. Omnispexes are awesome. Got quite a lot of extra damage out of those.

 

RustStalkers got punked out by a lone Banshee Exarch. I'd popped the +3BS/-2WS Imperative, so they were hitting on 5s, and rolled badly after that. Only three hits from 16 Attacks, and they all failed to Wound and got run down because the Exarch had done one Wound.

 

The Infiltrators, tho, got a lot of mileage out of the +WS Imperatives along with their Electrostatic Aura. Also, they generate a truly ludicrous number of S6 Hits, and against T3, their Flechette Pistols are really scary, too. Tried to combo with the Vanguard's T debuff, but couldn't quite get the two combats close enough together.

 

Knight Crusader did about what I expected for the two Turns it had before a dozen Fire Dragons landed behind it. That is a LOT of guns :D

 

Errant got kind of pinned down by another Fire Dragon Squad waiting to jump out from behind an LoS Blocker, but once he got around them, and into the fight, he was a champ. Did most of the work killing a couple of Falcons, and also dropped some Swooping Hawks that tried to drag him down with Haywire Grenades, another Squad of Fire Dragons, and some Shining Spears, and if the game had gone to Turn 6, he was in position to pick up Warlord (which I also had a Maelstrom card for) for me.

 

Dunecrawler did nothing. Missed with a bunch of snap shots, and then got taken out by the Scatter Lasers on the Falcons when they dropped it. Not a good matchup for it.

 

The biggest change I would have made in game play would be to be more conservative with the RustStalkers. I really needed them on that flank to clear out the Fire Dragons that were keeping my Errant locked down and take an Objective in the back corner, and once they got taken out, that basically collapsed that flank, and then I had to waste discards on my two Secure Objective 3s, which really hurts in Deadlock.

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The dunecrawler should have wrecked the Eldar vehicles. Skyfire hits skimmers. Page 171... I'd think The icarus array would be an ideal matchup vs Eldar and Necrons.

Dunecrawler is nice, but he's 125pts base with that icarus array. He also can't pen AV13+. They are certainly useful against such foes, but they are not a solo solution.

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The dunecrawler should have wrecked the Eldar vehicles. Skyfire hits skimmers. Page 171... I'd think The icarus array would be an ideal matchup vs Eldar and Necrons.

The Skimmers weren't on the table until they Deep Struck behind the Dunecrawler and blew it apart with Pulse Laser fire.

 

Ironically, every time my Errant's Icarus Autocannon fired at a Falcon, I got box cars on it, which would have hit a ground target, too, but every time I tried to hit something on the ground, it failed.

 

@Pax: Yeah, I had the Dunecrawler with the Icarus because my opponent loves his Crimson Hunter and I was expecting to see it. For AV13+, I had things like the Errant and the Haywire Vanguard.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Kicked it up a little with some BA Allies:

 

10 Vanguard, 3 Plasma Calivers, Omnispex, Phosphor Blast Pistol (Warlord)

2x5 Vanguard, 2 Arc Rifles, Omnispex, Arc Pistol

5 Rangers, 2xTransuranic Arquebus

5 RustStalkers, Dataspike

Dunecrawler

 

Librarian, Meltabombs

2x5 Tac Marines, Plasmagun, Combi-Plasma, Meltabombs, Assback

5 Tac Marines, Meltagun, Combi-Melta, Meltabombs, Bolterback

3xRhino (for Vanguard)

 

Faced Cult Mechanicus+Ultramarines

Dominus, Volkite thingy (Warlord)

3 Destroyers, 2 Grav, 1 Plasma, all with Flamers

3 Breachers, 2 Haywire, 1 Torsion

 

Tigurius

3 Tac Squads in Rhinos, ML/Flamer, random junk on Sarges

5 Hammernators

 

In a slight variation on my usual approach with Pods, I used the fast Transports and Scout on the dismounted guys to rush up and get myself set on 5 of the 6 Maelstrom Objectives. Then my Army kind of gradually crumbled from there, but I was able to keep his penned up well enough in the process that I still won 14-8.

 

- Vanguard and Razor Tacs did their thing. Solid Units, even after just a couple of Games with the Vanguard, I'm down with them.

- Rangers were garbage. Their damage output is miniscule compared to cheaper Vanguard Units. That said, they did score me two Maelstrom Points by camping an Objective, and did a bit of damage with the Arquebuses, but totally not worth 115 Points.

- Dunecrawler got too close claiming an Objective and got punched in the face by Hammernators. Eradication Beamer was underwhelming, but that was partly lack of good targets, and partly managing to miss twice on BS5/6 with the S10 AP1 shot on Rhinos. I'll try it again at some point, but the next outing is getting a Neutron Laser.

- RustStalkers were given another try, because they got punked out by that Banshee Exarch last time. Much better performance this time. The Librarian slapped Quickening and Unleash Rage on them, and they just steamrolled a Tac Squad, even after losing one to Overwatch. Then the last three tried to take on the Breachers and just bounced. Not bad for five of them, but they need more if they're going to try to do more than just pick on Tac Squads. If I'd had a couple more, they would have ripped up the Breachers pretty badly. And even more so if Tigurius hadn't been around giving them a 4++ and Instakilling dudes with his Force Staff. Definitely getting more play time, and I want to pick up at least one more box. Probably going to end up being two more, because after I get one, I'll only be one box away from a KillClade.

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I still haven't managed to quite pull off the Vanguard+Sicarian Infiltrators combo yet, and I don't really have enough of either type of Sicarian, but even without that, I've managed some pretty impressive feats with them in Assaults.

 

I kind of feel like the Kastelans should have some sort of rule that makes them immune to Poison/Fleshbane, but basically turns Haywire into Fleshbane+Rending against them. I mean, a Dreadnought has more organic components than they do.

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I literally bumped my Dragoon on the table yesterday and he broke. I really wanna run those guys, but the kit is such crap.

Finally built one of these. The kit is very cleverly designed, and I'm not using that term in a positive way. More of an "Ooh, you're so sharp you're going to cut yourself one of these days" kind of thing. Specifically, you're going to cut your thumb with the spiky kneepads on the thing. Whoever designed this should be condemned to a hell of having to build them over and over again.

 

That said, now that I've got mine together, it seems pretty solid. Were you using superglue on it? This really seems like a kit for plastic cement.

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