Right, my Hive Fleet has not one, but TWO matches lined up for the weekend. On Saturday I'll be fending off James McD's Dark Eldar, before fighting Harry and the club Dark Angels on Sunday.
I haven't settled on my army list, but I've decided - for the sake of experience for fighting tournaments and for the sake of fairness (neither Harry nor James have played all that much) - to use the same list for both matches (well, unless I tweak it in light of how I'm playing.) Plus, I'm not entirely sure what to use against Dark Eldar, so I may as well stick with my standard list. I'm thinking I might swap some stuff around from the list I last played:
(i) Catalyst on the Tervigon, otherwise I'm just wasting its psychic potential.
(ii) Adrenal glands on the Tervigon so I can boost adrenal glands on the Termies so I can take down lightly armoured vehicles.
(iii) Seriously consider adrenal glands on the stealers for some higher killing power, and - again - to boost their anti vehicle potential.
To make room, I think I'll downsize the stealers and ripper swarms. I've thought about Zoanthropes, but decided I can live without. (Those stealers could well go in my final list in any case - more venomthropes might be better instead.)
Tactics wise, I'm thinking that the Space Marines are the least dangerous worry here. Their vehicles are going to be a ball ache. If a Land Raider arrives, it'll also be a ball ache as I've got little to take it out - hopefully the HG can either blow it up or glance it enough to stop it moving so my Tervigon can rip it open. Meh. It's only a Land Raider; those las cannons are nasty, but las cannon fire is a fact of life in the brutal world of 40k, right? The space marine army will probably get whacked with the common or garden tactic of me charging towards them en masse and not stopping until I've killed everything. This time I'm going to play it even more mindless than with the Thousand Sons, and pile everything into one enormous blob - last game I seperated the Warriors and some HG into a right flank and that just seemed not to work. Unless the marines split into two, I won't split into two.
Dark Eldar, on the other hand, are an unknown quantity. I don't know the Codex past the basics. I've used Google which, unsurprisingly, brought me back to Fritz:
http://saimhann.blogspot.com/2011/04/epic-tyranids-vs-dark-eldar.html
But that didn't give me tactics, just a portent of being wiped out utterly. Hmm... not good. So I'm expecting a lightly armoured, fast moving death force that can actually go toe to toe with me in close combat. Fortunately, I still reckon nothing can go toe to toe with my Shrike. So his best close combat troops have to be the target of my Shrike. I need to scent them, hunt them and scythe them before they can kick into action. Plus, if he does go close bomat heavy, then my major weakness - of having to get to my foe - is eliminated. Presumably he'll at least hang off a little, building up Pain Tokens.
His lightly armoured raiders are going to be zipping about that map, open topped firing on me. I think the best bet might be to spread out - the exact reverse of what I'll do to the Emperor's Best. If I occupy a quarter of the map, and push my front forces close to his table edge, then he'll be forced to flank me or face me. I'll stick the Hive Guard on the flank and Warriors on the centre flank. If he sits in front, he'll get whacked by the adrenal glanded termagants (if the Tervigon survives) as well as their small arms fire; the small arms fire of the Tyranid Warriors; even the Shrike can get in on that kind of party. The Ripper Swarms are useless unless I crack open a raider on the first turn or two. Damn. The stealers will be more effective - if they come in on the table edge I've forced him onto, he'll get hit by them. if they come in on the other table edge, at least they'll be with my army and not sat on their own twiddling their claws.
This won't be a bloodless affair, and I fear that my lack of Codex Fu will mean that some of what I've just said will fuck me up. But the current plan is: dominate the space in order to dominate the game, and hope that the poisoned weapons and close combat skillz don't entirely out match my own.
I think I'm developing an Eldar phobia...
No comments:
Post a Comment