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By which I mean, the ability to observe your opponent's deployment / opening moves, then counter accordingly with infiltrate / deepstrike / outflank. I imagine the prereqs for this would be:

1. The ability for all / most of your army to infiltrate / deepstrike / outflank. i.e. DOA BA

2. The ability to manipulate your reserve rolls to get what you want when you need it. I imagine GK / DE are best at this, IG second and Tyranids place third?

3. A proper villainous sneer to mock your enemy when you disrupt his carefully laid plans. Additional points for monocle or handlebar mustache.

Initially I was thinking BA DOA but they don't seem to be able to play around with their reserves that much. Which is a big thing and essentially comes down to luck. What do you guys think?

I think drop pod BT can do what you are looking for. If you go second, your opponent gets 2 turns of doing nothing but movement.

Eldar/Dark Eldar. The extra mobility goes a long way for this. Dark Eldar add to this with Vect (if I remember correctly), Eldar with Eldrad.

BA with deep-striking LR's, that are screaming "in your face fool"

Not really, the large foot print of the land raider only makes it a decent option on a battlefield devoid of terrain.

I like to not deep strike my LR's.

BA DoA armies get re-rolls on their reserve rolls, that's about as good as you can get as far as reserve manipulation goes (since you can re-roll if you don't want to arrive yet as well).

Essentially you are describing what is often referred to as a null deployment list. You deploy nothing or next to nothing initially and through some mechanism or other ensure you get the first strike in the turn you arrive. BA DoA is an obvious one, but they have dropped in effectiveness/popularity with GK bringing insane Deep Strike defence. There are certainly other lists which can do this as well, Mech Eldar with 1-2 Autarch's work the same way, as do properly built Drop Pod lists. Templars do it automatically, but all the other Marine lists can effectively do this by taking enough empty Pods that they drop nothing turn 1 (although this usually means they deploy some fire support elements initially). Grey Knights have heaps of options in this regard with multiple Terminator options (which can all Deep Strike) and reserve buffs. The other candidate is Dark Eldar, who can do complete null deployments with Harlies + Portal, or partial null deployment with Raider+unit with Portal.

Tyranids.

Two words; Ymgarl Genestealers

BWAHAHA YOU FOOL!

Anyone who reserves all against DE will find themselves unable to enter the board on turn 2.

DoA is pretty good with the rerolling of reserve rolls as mentioned.

Eldrad can reposition d3 units after deployment is done and Yriel can modify his reserve rolls. Plus Eldar can outflank their Scorpions and such.

GK are pretty good with army repositioning as well, using Librarians to summon units to them, Mordrak for first turn no-scatter DS, and a GKGM being able to give any unit the stealth special rule.

Ashenshugar wrote:Anyone who reserves all against DE will find themselves unable to enter the board on turn 2.

This is simply not true.

As for the topic, Mechanized Eldar offers the best counter-punching/trap strategies. They get to decide where and when combat takes place more than any other build/army because of their speed, range, and reserve manipulation. The downside is they are terminally boring to play as they're perfect game only lasts 3 turns, of which one is spent in real fighting distance.

Necron monolith destroyer wing can qualify. Reserve everything, declare warriors will be coming through the DSing monoliths, and fly the 15 destroyers on the board (moving as jetbikes).

If he spreads out, you concentrate and isolate a piece to destroy with local superiority. If he concentrates, then you can cut him off from objectives by interposing the monoliths. Reserved destroyers get to fly in anywhere on your edge and shoot before anything hits back even if he is going first.

The best thing is to cackle evilly as he sweats trying to figure out what to do in his empty turns and protect against the incoming pain.

Necrontyr40k wrote: Reserve everything, declare warriors will be coming through the DSing monoliths, .

Best just to bring the Warriors in from your edge. That way the Monoliths aren't committed to bringing them in, and they don't die if the Monoliths do. If you really want to move them somewhere, a Monolith should be close enough to teleport them anyway.

Tau win hands down.

They have a positional relay and it brings reserves in on a 2+

When used they can only roll for one reserve each turn.

Round 1 nothing

Round 2 - 2+ bring a Piranha in with a disruption pod and turbo boost it away from the enemy.

Round 3 - 2+ bring in another turbo boost it the opposite way.

Round 4 - 2+ bring in another turbo boost in away again.

Round 5 - Everything comes on, hammerheads rail gun the face off some armor suits concentrate firepower, and you can drop the most epic sneering snicker of all time!



Hopefully you roll a 1 on reserves too!

Edit: So about to use this on a friend today! Will report how it goes down he plays IG (mech)

Contrary to popular belief, CSM can be cunningly subtle.
(albeit, in a blunt, violent way)

This one is a killer:
2x 5-man CSM terminator squads (MOK+ Khorne lord) DS on a Icon of khorne or a Skull-champ's personal icon in order to engage units frantically trying to avoid a MOK lord (w. daemon weapon) led bezerker rampage.

That chews most armies up beautifully.

Tau are (imo) the best at #2 for end-game win-snatching.

Using a list along the lines of what Beefcakesoup said, if you're on an objective-control scenario, for turns 1-3/4, bring on something shooty and/or expendable (The Railhead or suits for some firepower, or some Fire Warriors for an expendable 60 pts) and then on the last/second-to-last turn, bring on the Pirahnas.

You can turboboost the Pirahnas (24"), detatch their gun drones (2"), run them (up to 6"), and contest an objective (assuming a 3" contest radius) that can be 30-36" from your board edge.

Times that by 3 Pirahnas, and you can usually get at least a draw out of the matchup, along with the dreadsock being whiffed at your head for using such cheese

NO question. Eldar with Eldrad. Being able to reposition after your foe has placed is HUGE. Seriously only eldar get this kind of janky weirding rules.

sennacherib wrote:NO question. Eldar with Eldrad. Being able to reposition after your foe has placed is HUGE. Seriously only eldar get this kind of janky weirding rules.

Forgot about Eldrad, yes that is a huge point, but you still have to fight his list which may or may not struggle against you. Tau can actually build a list to abuse reserves! More cheesy imho

and necrons. the shiny naked gold guy lets you do that


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and yeah that tau thing is nasty :3

The deciever!

My monoliths are over here!

PYSCH! Now they are over here!
>.<

Genestealer-heavy Nids.

60 or so Genestealers infiltratring with FNP-slinging Tervigons behind them. Throw in a unit of Ymgarls for good measure. Most people have trouble dealing with that many Stealers rushing them, panic, and then end up spreading their shots across multiple units.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Necrontyr40k wrote: Reserve everything, declare warriors will be coming through the DSing monoliths, .

Best just to bring the Warriors in from your edge. That way the Monoliths aren't committed to bringing them in, and they don't die if the Monoliths do. If you really want to move them somewhere, a Monolith should be close enough to teleport them anyway.

I agree that is the better way in standard deployment, where you have at least a sizable chunk deploy normally, e.g. liths and destroyers, and then the warriors walk in. That is what I normally do.

But, in this thread we are talking about the wham factor of reserve plus DS. In such deployment, if you declare the warriors will be walking in, the enemy can try to run to the edge and prevent you for walking in. Then the warriors are automatically destroyed. People with large infiltrator squads (e.g. kroot) or people with fast skimmers (e.g. Dark Eldar and IG) can do this and then it will be they who will snicker "Haha you fool". Conversely, if you declare walking through the monolith, a very unlikely sequence of events has to happen for the warriors to be destroyed - the monoliths coming out of reserve a turn before the warriors and getting all destroyed or immobilized and blocked off before the warriors can come in. Also, walking in loses the "haha you fool" factor of DSing a monolith and having a squad of warriors spew out and rapid-fire gauss weapons into whatever unfortunate victim is around.

The first time someone realizes how good the Veil of Darkness is is always a magical moment.

Powerguy wrote:BA DoA armies get re-rolls on their reserve rolls, that's about as good as you can get as far as reserve manipulation goes (since you can re-roll if you don't want to arrive yet as well).

Essentially you are describing what is often referred to as a null deployment list. You deploy nothing or next to nothing initially and through some mechanism or other ensure you get the first strike in the turn you arrive. BA DoA is an obvious one, but they have dropped in effectiveness/popularity with GK bringing insane Deep Strike defence. There are certainly other lists which can do this as well, Mech Eldar with 1-2 Autarch's work the same way, as do properly built Drop Pod lists. Templars do it automatically, but all the other Marine lists can effectively do this by taking enough empty Pods that they drop nothing turn 1 (although this usually means they deploy some fire support elements initially). Grey Knights have heaps of options in this regard with multiple Terminator options (which can all Deep Strike) and reserve buffs. The other candidate is Dark Eldar, who can do complete null deployments with Harlies + Portal, or partial null deployment with Raider+unit with Portal.

Now see, I like the idea of empty drop pods but where do they come from in the force allocation chart? They're in the dedicated transport section right? So how can you take empty ones?

I would mostly definately put genestealer-heavy nids up there. It's pretty easy to make a list that has a lot of infiltrating stealers (or outflanking) supported by Tervigons to keep your opponent locked in place, then for reserves have some zoanthropes and/or carnifexes and/or trygons and/or ymgarls coming in. Some builds are counters to it, but it is a nice army that would generally do well if you know how to use it.

Necrontyr40k wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Necrontyr40k wrote: Reserve everything, declare warriors will be coming through the DSing monoliths, .

Best just to bring the Warriors in from your edge. That way the Monoliths aren't committed to bringing them in, and they don't die if the Monoliths do. If you really want to move them somewhere, a Monolith should be close enough to teleport them anyway.

I agree that is the better way in standard deployment, where you have at least a sizable chunk deploy normally, e.g. liths and destroyers, and then the warriors walk in. That is what I normally do.

But, in this thread we are talking about the wham factor of reserve plus DS. In such deployment, if you declare the warriors will be walking in, the enemy can try to run to the edge and prevent you for walking in. Then the warriors are automatically destroyed. People with large infiltrator squads (e.g. kroot) or people with fast skimmers (e.g. Dark Eldar and IG) can do this and then it will be they who will snicker "Haha you fool". Conversely, if you declare walking through the monolith, a very unlikely sequence of events has to happen for the warriors to be destroyed - the monoliths coming out of reserve a turn before the warriors and getting all destroyed or immobilized and blocked off before the warriors can come in. Also, walking in loses the "haha you fool" factor of DSing a monolith and having a squad of warriors spew out and rapid-fire gauss weapons into whatever unfortunate victim is around.

Jihadnik wrote:

Powerguy wrote:BA DoA armies get re-rolls on their reserve rolls, that's about as good as you can get as far as reserve manipulation goes (since you can re-roll if you don't want to arrive yet as well).

Essentially you are describing what is often referred to as a null deployment list. You deploy nothing or next to nothing initially and through some mechanism or other ensure you get the first strike in the turn you arrive. BA DoA is an obvious one, but they have dropped in effectiveness/popularity with GK bringing insane Deep Strike defence. There are certainly other lists which can do this as well, Mech Eldar with 1-2 Autarch's work the same way, as do properly built Drop Pod lists. Templars do it automatically, but all the other Marine lists can effectively do this by taking enough empty Pods that they drop nothing turn 1 (although this usually means they deploy some fire support elements initially). Grey Knights have heaps of options in this regard with multiple Terminator options (which can all Deep Strike) and reserve buffs. The other candidate is Dark Eldar, who can do complete null deployments with Harlies + Portal, or partial null deployment with Raider+unit with Portal.

Now see, I like the idea of empty drop pods but where do they come from in the force allocation chart? They're in the dedicated transport section right? So how can you take empty ones?

You can deploy a unit outside of its dedicated transport, so you can buy them for squads then deploy them normally giving you empty drop pods.

In the end. Orks have the best troll face.

@ not_u - Cheers mate, I always wondered how that worked!

n0t_u wrote:

Jihadnik wrote:

Powerguy wrote:BA DoA armies get re-rolls on their reserve rolls, that's about as good as you can get as far as reserve manipulation goes (since you can re-roll if you don't want to arrive yet as well).

Essentially you are describing what is often referred to as a null deployment list. You deploy nothing or next to nothing initially and through some mechanism or other ensure you get the first strike in the turn you arrive. BA DoA is an obvious one, but they have dropped in effectiveness/popularity with GK bringing insane Deep Strike defence. There are certainly other lists which can do this as well, Mech Eldar with 1-2 Autarch's work the same way, as do properly built Drop Pod lists. Templars do it automatically, but all the other Marine lists can effectively do this by taking enough empty Pods that they drop nothing turn 1 (although this usually means they deploy some fire support elements initially). Grey Knights have heaps of options in this regard with multiple Terminator options (which can all Deep Strike) and reserve buffs. The other candidate is Dark Eldar, who can do complete null deployments with Harlies + Portal, or partial null deployment with Raider+unit with Portal.

Now see, I like the idea of empty drop pods but where do they come from in the force allocation chart? They're in the dedicated transport section right? So how can you take empty ones?

You can deploy a unit outside of its dedicated transport, so you can buy them for squads then deploy them normally giving you empty drop pods.

Yeah the idea is that you buy Pods for fire support units which really don't need them like Riflemen Dreads, Thunderfire Cannons, Devastator Squads etc, its only 35pts and they aren't a complete waste of points as they block LoS, movement and give you Beacons to increase accuracy for the remaining Pods. This lets you leave both your heavy hitters (like a full sized Sternguard unit of 2) and scoring units in reserve without committing much early on. Technically its not a true null deployment army, because you tend to deploy the fire support elements in hard cover to start doing damage straight away, but the theory behind it is the same.