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So what do you guys think is the best scare tactic that makes uou or your apponent just say "oh crap"

For me i would say my 3 vindicators or a godhammer lr with a chaplain

Vindicators aren't the least bit scary. I love seeing them across the table, because I know those are points that won't do any damage to me. The short range of the weapon means I get at least one, if not two or more, turns to shoot at it before it can shoot back. Anything I can potentially glance to death with an AC doesn't scare me. The LR is also not scary if you only have one.

I have found bringing the 3 Vendettas out of the case to be pretty disturbing to most opponents. Same with 3 Leman Russes. Or, with a different army, 3 units of Long Fangs.

What scare me the most? Broadsides.

Deathmarks, deathmarks everywhere.

Or even better, doomsday arks.

 beerbeard wrote:

I have found bringing the 3 Vendettas out of the case to be pretty disturbing to most opponents.

a crap!

Still it is worse when it is 6 or 9

For my army it is Deathleaper. He wasn't as scary at first, but folks start to dread him when they see me pulling out my army case now.

Nids in general? 3 DakkaFex in pods tend to make most people suddenly panic.

Pack your army in a rifle case.

With a rifle.

Be sure to lay it across the tabletop when you're unpacking your army and simply leave it there for the entirety of the game, refusing to acknowledge its existence and staring at your opponent constantly. Every time he moves a model, every time he clears his throat, stare his ass down.

There's nothing as scary as something partially unknown. Something that you know is a very real threat, but that you can't actually perceive.

My vote goes to deepstrikers for this, especially drop pod marines. You know that there are going to be sternguard, and you know they're going to wreck friggin face when they show up, but you don't know where, and you don't necessarily know when. It's a threat lurking in the darkness.

Anything that starts on the table is something I can shoot at or use my own deepstrikers against. They can be tough to deal with, depending on what they are, but they're not properly scary.

Drop Pod full of death Company + Drop Pod full of death Company dreadnought.

If you play with someone who has no experience with flyers I bet he ll be scared to death.
If you haven't played against anything you haven't witness it's power before it can be scary.
Everything new is frightful till you understand it.

If you use them right, Death Company can be very scary

I'd also vote with Drop Podding Marines, especially multiple units of sternguard. That element of unpredictable death from above really works to put your opponent on the back foot.

I'll actually add to this a personal story to the effect. The first time I'd ever played against drop pods and the first time I'd ever played against black templar were in the same game.

So, start with all the craziness and uncertainty of drop pods. Add the shock of their initial assault. Then add the fact that when I counterattacked, it gave them free movement closer to my stuff which allowed him to kill my army faster. I could either sit down and let him eat me, or I could struggle against him, which would make him destroy me faster. By the bottom of turn 2, all of my important units were dead without me having even gotten to use them, and the survivors literally couldn't do anything without just making it worse.

By the end of the game, I had a single model hiding on the roof of some ruins with my opponent's army doing whatever it wanted in my deployment zone.

Terrifying.

 beerbeard wrote:
Vindicators aren't the least bit scary. I love seeing them across the table, because I know those are points that won't do any damage to me. The short range of the weapon means I get at least one, if not two or more, turns to shoot at it before it can shoot back.

3 BA Vindicators. That's 3 STR10 AP1 Pie plates of doom with the fast rule. If you plan to survive, you'd better pray you get 1st turn, and have enough lascannons to deal with them then, because you won't get a second shot in.

3 Dread Knights. I can never kill them all in one turn.

nkon wrote:3 BA Vindicators. That's 3 STR10 AP1 Pie plates of doom with the fast rule. If you plan to survive, you'd better pray you get 1st turn, and have enough lascannons to deal with them then, because you won't get a second shot in.

Seriously, let's say I properly displace my units in a ruin or behind an ADL. A vindicator will hit 2/3ds of the time in BS4 blast world, say, and when it does hit, it will hit three whole models. Let's be generous and say 4.

That makes 3.3 wounds, which turns into 1.6 killed after cover, assuming I don't go to ground.

If a vindicator is doing an average of 1 or 2 models killed per turn, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to get a second shot in.

Plus, it's not like there are fliers or deepstriking melta or dreadknight shunthammers or mass blaster/darklance spam or, you know, anything in close combat.

They start on the board, so you know where they are and where they're going. They have a short range, so you have a couple of turns to figure out what to do with them. They have flimsy side and rear armor, so they're not terribly difficult to destroy. You can just spread out and used cover to basically negate their damage.

No. Vindicators are not scary, even if you give them "fast".

 Ailaros wrote:

nkon wrote:3 BA Vindicators. That's 3 STR10 AP1 Pie plates of doom with the fast rule. If you plan to survive, you'd better pray you get 1st turn, and have enough lascannons to deal with them then, because you won't get a second shot in.

Seriously, let's say I properly displace my units in a ruin or behind an ADL. A vindicator will hit 2/3ds of the time in BS4 blast world, say, and when it does hit, it will hit three whole models. Let's be generous and say 4.

That makes 3.3 wounds, which turns into 1.6 killed after cover, assuming I don't go to ground.

If a vindicator is doing an average of 1 or 2 models killed per turn, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to get a second shot in.

Plus, it's not like there are fliers or deepstriking melta or dreadknight shunthammers or mass blaster/darklance spam or, you know, anything in close combat.

They start on the board, so you know where they are and where they're going. They have a short range, so you have a couple of turns to figure out what to do with them. They have flimsy side and rear armor, so they're not terribly difficult to destroy. You can just spread out and used cover to basically negate their damage.

No. Vindicators are not scary, even if you give them "fast".

Well played sir, well played. I spoke in haste, and have been defeated. My enthusiasm and love for the inherent awesomeness of vindicators has been defeated by your superior logic.

furbyballer wrote:
3 Dread Knights. I can never kill them all in one turn.

These, on the other hand, could be. They all start on the board, and then they all shunt straight into something turn 1. For the rest of the game you have three angry monstrous creatures with a 2+ save to deal with. Simultaneously.

They're scary because your opponent puts them on the board, and you KNOW what's coming. The question is if you're ready yet or not.

Instinctual wrote:That element of unpredictable death from above really works to put your opponent on the back foot.

And I think this is how we can see fear empirically here. If your opponent is forced to castle up and be defensive, it's probably a good sign that you've got a fear-inducing unit.

For me it's piling 180+ orks onto the table, and then pulling out the other case, for later..

Few armies build to deal effectively with mass horde, though more these days than in 5th's vehiclespam meta.

A lot of people say "oh crap" when i deploy my 80-100 guardsmen + tanks on the table. I think they overlook the fact of how weak they are, and are just looking at the amount of models they see.

After a few years of playing the game it's difficult to scare me anymore. My usual response to a "scary" unit or tactic (in the sense that it is generally considered over powered and/or cheesy) is a sad sigh. Other than that i can often at least endeavour to counter the scary part of an army.
That being said what does scare me is Orks:

Ascalam wrote:For me it's piling 180+ orks onto the table...

I'm yet to play them in 6th Edition (where it seems they've become less effective) to be fair, but in 5th Edition i could never do enough to stop them. Once they got into combat it was over and they ALWAYS got into combat

Peace Out!
Jonny!

I think before my next game I will bring some of my guard with me and unpack my three vendettas and the start asking for games with a list using something completely different just to see what happens.

3 LRCs.... oh god

I've only really managed to scare my opponent once and that was the first time i used Tervigons and the swarmlord. First turn I just had the swarmlord hiding behind a building and everything else was outflanking. My mate was playing IG and spent the whole turn driving his vehicles into postions for no real reason. In my second turn, I got almost every reserve roll at the same time and munched him good! But that trick never worked again!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Then he used those damn dreadpods on me when I was playing IG...fair enough...(before they had the special rule change)

1) Get out your CSM army
2) get out your lash princes/sorcs
3) grab several bags of cheezels or dorito's or any chip that has that yellowy orange greasepowderdust crap on it
4) Start eating said chips whilst giving your opponent lurid grins and suggestive leers
5) when they ask whats up, go to lick the greasepowderdustcrap, then grin and tell them the bit in Lash of submission where, RAW, you can move your opponents models.
6) take up lurid grin and leer again and look at their most delightfully painted heroic model.
7) -AND THIS IS THE HARD BIT- try not to crack up laughing as they go "oh crap"

Lots of Marine Drop Pods and a Sternguard Drop Pod with a Librarian.

This generally scares most of the folks at my local especially considering the new Psyker rules. I've divined that thiswill make most players wet themselves.

However some units that terrify me are:

The Draigo Death Star.
Njal Stormcaller
Mephiston
Tervigons...... I fear/hate Tervigons.

Very long ago in 4th I know a guy who brought 3 Hammerheads in a 1000 point game. This is back when non-Ordinance blast weapons either hit right on target or missed entirely, and I believe you could stack Hammerhead shooting with Markerlights. The end result was 3 large pie plates that hit EXACTLY where you wanted them too with one of them missing every other turn. And they were S6. I grew to dread those damn tanks.

Drop Pod armies are just as disturbing. Not only do they get into your deployment zone turn one, but they also don't allow you to deploy reactively.

I think that if you really want to scare your opponents, though, pull out 4+ Scythes in a 1 FOC game.

If we can go old school the scarest model was the Aribite Judge. WS9 BS9. Give him a Displace Field and vortex grenades. Guy made the Swarmlord look like a chump.

Still have my model though.

I vote for the Space Wolf Lone Wolf. I have seen ridiculous amounts of firepower (sometimes from myself) go into killing a single guy with a hammer. Something about them just frightens people even though there really is no reason to.

I have used a similar tactic with a Wraithlord with just a sword and flamers and running him straight. Doesn't always work, but when it does it's hilarious.

What used to be great was the old deployment method for mandrakes... that used to really scare the pants off of people.

I used to love playing mind games with people when I used them, even though they weren't an amazing unit they were a great detterent/distraction

Amazing what a little fear will do to peoples playing style.

 Lokas wrote:
Pack your army in a rifle case.

With a rifle.

Be sure to lay it across the tabletop when you're unpacking your army and simply leave it there for the entirety of the game, refusing to acknowledge its existence and staring at your opponent constantly. Every time he moves a model, every time he clears his throat, stare his ass down.

I'd snatch it and strip it in front of you, and pocket the firing pin. Don't be a dick.