Ynnari: Deploying against first-turn charge

School's in session again!

There's a good amount of first-turn charge armies out there that can pretty much guarantee a kill any of your units once they get it off.  I don't think this is quite good for the game, and why they made Drop Pods and other similar units pin-point accurate is beyond me.  Regardless, it's always good to keep your head clear, see the threat for what it is and develop a counter-strategy so you can stop this kind of nonsense.

Luckily, I play an army that has a lot of thin little space-boats that can come together like Legos if I need them to.  So next time, before Swarmlord sends 20x Genestealers into your face, deploy in a manner that eliminates the possibility of your units getting charged.  Unless you're taking a huge lot of Razorwing flocks to clutter the field as fodder, your next best option is flyers.

How?  By using flyers' rules and their fat bases to bubble-wrap your army in a way that will minimize the amount of damage that can be inflicted by funneling the opponent.  Think 300, the Battle of Thermopylae, the Hot Gates, or if you want to be more imaginative with 40K examples, you've called for Broken Arrow on top of your surrounded units.  Now that you have Aeldari air superiority forming a corridor of firepower to stop the enemy in his tracks.  This does not work against flying units that can just assault you, but that's life.

Here's how it works in the rules:

• Your opponent has to be 9" away from you when he drops in with his units.
• Their units have to be more than 1" away from your units before they charge.
• Airborne says that units cannot assault you unless they have the Fly rule.
• Flyer bases are fat, so you can extend the charge range needed for your opponent.
• You space out your flyers enough so nothing can get in, and if your army needs more space, make room so only a few small base models can fit through, and only in a straight line.

Examples below where I have 4 flyers and set up by the table edge behind me.  Another example shows a corner deployment because I have fewer flyers and bigger units.  The ~3" line is just a rough example of the distance you can put out to enable single-line infantry-sized models to get in.

Middle of the board deployment.

Corner deployment with a fatty Wave Serpent.

Basically, if you see someone trying the first-turn charge cheese, you deploy like this.  Depending on the size of your army, and how many flyers you have, the easier it will be to deploy against such shenanigans.  In short, any faction can do this if they have enough flyers or units with the Airborne special rule.

It doesn't look pretty, but it gets the job done.  God damn you GW for writing such ass rules in the first place.

Ynnari: Tournament results and new list

The Doomseer returns.

Alright boys, I got back from my tournament and it was freaking crazy man.  It was a 2K ITC tournament with 3 rounds of pure cancer, and a side of 911.  Yeah man, the last round, a fight broke out, threats were made and the cops were called.  I mean, who the hell gets into a fight over game rules in a game with little plastic men.  That's just ridiculous.

The list I went into the tournament was with this tried and true list:

1999
Ynnari Battalion - 6 CP

HQ:
Farseer, Singing Spear = 120
Doom, Fortune

Warlock, = 37
Conceal/Reveal

TROOP:
5x Warriors, Blaster = 50
Venom, Splinter = 80
130

5x Warriors, Blaster = 50
Venom, Splinter = 80
130

5x Warriors, Blaster = 50
Venom, Splinter = 80
130

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

5x Wraithguard, D-Scythes = 225
Wave Serpent, VEngines, Stones, 3x Shuriken = 163
388

FLYER:
Hemlock Wraithfighter = 211
Conceal/Reveal

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

Overall, very solid list and I would everyone stood out pretty evenly.  There was not a unit here that I would say underperformed, except for maybe the Warriors holding the Blasters because they didn't do anything effectual in any round of the tournament.  They either missed, didn't wound, or my opponent saved, so lol.

Onto the games themselves, my first round was against some bullshit level list with Magnus, a LoC, Changeling, a bunch of Burning Chariots, and a bunch of Horrors and Flamers.  The dude had like 12 Command Points and near-infinite Smites with -1 to hit one everything near the Changeling, and Magnus himself is just king of bullshit.  I mean, the entire army threw out Mortal Wounds everywhere, but Magnus throws out 2D6 himself on a 10+ with T7, 18W, 3+/4++ and re-roll 1s and a S16 -4 AP 3 damage weapon.  Nevermind try to cast with my list when he can cast and deny 3x a phase with a +2 modifier.  No really though, it was absolutely insane.  I ended up losing the game to what seemed like an endless flock of Tz Daemons that didn't die, and the match-up felt like it was pretty big mismatch.  All that high-S AP fire doesn't count for much if nothing dies.  Feeslbadman.

Oh, one more thing:  If you see someone playing GW Tz dice (which my first opponent was), you should probably call TO and have him change dice.  Not only was my first opponent speed-rolling, but he was playing with these abominations and I literally couldn't read his dice.  I couldn't see if he made hits, passed saves, or even how he tracked wounds as clearly as I would like.  My goal in the tournament was to see what was out there and to test out the meta, but having to play this kind of bullshittery was enough to get me triggered.  I eventually complained to the TO after the game, but just as a forewarning for those going to tournaments, please let your opponents know before the game starts.

Good job GW, dipshits.

Next two rounds were complete shitshows too, but in my favor.  The second round I faced up with another Ynnari player, but ended up seizing on him and 1-turning his Wraithknight before systematically erasing his army off the board.  He ended up calling it at the end of Turn 2.  Round 3 ended with my opponent getting first turn, blowing up one of my Wave Serpents with some crazy flying Storm Eagle Assault Gunship.  On my turn I shot down the stupid bird and he fired for little effect with his remaining Stormraven, while I managed to down it in another round of shooting.  On my opponent's turn, he charged Mephiston into some D-Scythes, they killed his ass and then Soulbursted into his Librarian Dreadnought and it was GG from there.

Here's what I realized by the end of the day:

• This is a tournament, people take some beardy ass shit and that's expected.  For example, my friend Adam showed up with 4x Wave Serpents filled with D-Scythes, Wraithblades and Wraithcannons, and 2x Hemlocks.  He did pretty well in the tournament as well, but there was also 6 Storm Talon list with Girlyman bubble, multiple Knights, Stormswords and other kinds of filth.  You need to mentally prepare for stuff like this.
• Alpha Strikes are vitally important in this game I feel.  I think making that huge initial impact that can leave your opponents' reeling, and potentially taking out that one crucial unit is what's going to define the meta for a while.  While MCs and multi-wound single models are strong, being able to kill those models quickly and efficiently is going to be stronger.
• I'm not really feeling the bubble-wrap mechanics too much.  Stuff like Girlyman giving units re-roll Hits and Wounds around him, Azrael's 4++ bubble and re-roll hits, and even Dante skipping around the battlefield powering up his Stormravens.  Just feels really strong, with little risk involved, and dead easy to execute.

Look at this Tz stack!

With that said, let's try something else.  While I really liked the list that I played today, it was also really balanced.  Maybe too balanced and possibly not enough killy in the first round of the game.  I have a lot of points sitting inside transports not contributing to the battle itself.  So what should we do about that?

2000
Spearhead/Air Wing - 5 CP

HQ:
Farseer Skyrunner, Singing Spear = 168
Doom, Fortune

TROOP:
10x Warriors, Blaster, Dark Lance = 105
Raider, Dark Lance = 115
220

10x Warriors, Blaster, Dark Lance = 105
Raider, Dark Lance = 115
220

ELITE:
5x Trueborn, 4x Blaster = 115
Venom, Splinter = 80
195

FLYER:
Hemlock Wraithfighter = 211
Conceal/Reveal

Hemlock Wraithfighter = 211
Conceal/Reveal

Razorwing, 2x Dark Lance = 155
Razorwing, 2x Dark Lance = 155

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

Yeah, that's right:  17 Dark Lances that open up with possible Doom on the first turn, before I run some Hemlocks down their throat with possible Smites.  I still have enough Poison to throw around, and I even have a little Blasterborn in a Venom to help with the shooting.  This is a much better Alpa Strike list and the Doom from the Farseer does amazing stuff.  Once you use Doom, you really can't go back.