Sunday, June 11, 2017

DE: Meta prediction and Ynnari D-scythes

These guys are really, really good.

I just want to go on the record in making a pretty bold prediction on the meta to come.  After playing my first game yesterday and getting pretty adjusted to the new rules, one of the most impactful things that I noticed first was the change in the wound table.

I firmly believe that the meta going forward will be T5+ toughness models with multiple wounds.  This means stuff like Wraithguard, Nob Bikerz, Crisis Suits, and of course, some transports.  It all depends on cost-effective they will be and how useful their weapon attacks will be.  This prediction mostly comes from the fact that I noticed that S6-9 all wound T5 on 3+ unlike 2+.  That means when it comes to wounding something, these models all received a 50% increase in their overall durability for what can actually inflict wounds on them.  Once you get past the wounding stage, most larger-caliber weapons that can damage them are now doing random damage like D3 or D6.  This means that they can either do solid damage once they get in, or fire for little effect.  Regardless of the damage type, I think wounding the model is most important:  I think the most cost-effective way to dispose of these threats, you high a high-volume of shots either at S3-4 and a crap ton of shots, or plentiful S6-7 with a good amount of AP.  Regardless of which way you go, I think you need more shots, preferably with AP, and consistent damage.  Now I'm starting to look at Disintegrators a little bit harder.

With that said, yesterday's game was mind-opening for a lot of reasons.  Having just played my first game of 8th, I saw first hand the effects of the wound table, no vehicle facing, lack of cover, vehicles making charges, and how various units changed in terms of cost-effectiveness from one edition to another.  Some things just take a little to get used, but others are just a little weird for me.  I've been DE for a really long time and not really using terrain to my full advantage to get cover saves seem really weird to me.  It's a little unsettling at first, especially when I'm not crawling around cover as much as I used to, and just charging them into combat feels a little weird at first.  Of course, this is probably just me being nit-picky, but one can't really deny that in some ways, the earlier editions of 40K felt a bit more tactical with how you placed units carefully and deliberately to get the most out of your cover saves.  With that element gone, I just need to explore other ways to fill that void.

One of the things I'm going to do right away is to try something new for my Dark Eldar and that's to introduce Wraithguard with D-Scythes in Wave Serpents.  After playing against these units yesterday, I was absolutely floored by how effective I think they are.  At 45 ppm, I think they're expensive but worth every penny because of their sheer flexibility when it comes to putting guaranteed damage on things.  They're T5 with 3W a piece at 3+ AS, so they've gotten significantly more durable because of just how the wound table works now.  Their auto-hitting D-Scythes are rather incredible because they're S10 AP-4 1 dmg each, but they get D3 shots for the entire unit so they can go anywhere from 5-15 shots that auto-hit.  This means that they're incredibly lethal not only in attack, but also on Overwatch, and if you kill anything they just trigger Soulburst.  They're not incredibly bad in combat anymore either now because they're while they only have 1 attack, it does it's S5 AP-1 at D3 damage.  They also have Implacable so they can Fall Back out of combat and still shoot.  Once I saw what Ynnari D-scythes can do, I immediately went out and bought 2 boxes because man, it was just unreal flexibility.  Even their 5" movement seems like a scam because all their weapons are Assault and if you Advance with them, they can move on average ~8.5" and still fire with 8" range for an average threat range of 16.5".  For a weapon of this magnitude, that's incredible.

Other units I was pleased with:  My Ravagers and my Hemlock did some serious work, and my gunboats in general felt like they put out a good amount of damage.  My Trueborn died after my Venoms got put down, but overall I learned a lot about the new edition.  I'll tell you what though, I really liked the Wave Serpents in this edition.  The T7 is great, 13W with 16" range is also great, they can take 3x Shuriken Cannons for 9 shots at S6 pseudo-rending, and can advance 2D6 with Star Engines and Vectored Engines makes it so enemies shooting at you are at -1 to Hit.  The Serpent Shield is just icing on the cake, reducing every bit of damage you take and bursting for D3 mortal wounds whenever you need it to happen.

With that said, here's a new list that I've been working on:

2000
Ynnari Battalion - 6 CP

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, PGL = 76
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, PGL = 76

TROOP:
7x Warriors, Blaster = 64
Raider, Dark Lance, Shock Prow = 116
180

5x Warriors, Blaster = 50
5x Warriors, Blaster = 50
Raider, Dark Lance, Shock Prow = 116
216

ELITE:
5x Wraithguard, D-Scythes = 225
Wave Serpent, VS Engines, 3x Shuriken = 163
388

5x Wraithguard, D-Scythes = 225
Wave Serpent, VS Engines, 3x Shuriken = 163
388

FLYER:
Hemlock Wraithfighter = 211

HEAVY:
Ravager, 3x Dark Lance = 155
Ravager, 3x Dark Lance = 155
Ravager, 3x Dark Lance = 155

The VS Engines stand for Vectored Star Engines, but that just means I put both of them on there.  Again, I'm trading less poisoned shots here because of the overall reduction of Warriors, but I'm making up for it with 18 S6 Shuriken shots that are bound to make a difference on more durable shooting platforms.

I can also change this around to add a Farseer for the Doom/Fortune and stick him in a Wave Serpent to be dropped off with the Wraithguard, but for now I think I'm going to try my luck with no additional psyker support.

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