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If you missed them, I have written a couple of tactical articles for Eldar, Dark Eldar, Harlequins, and Corsairs. In case you aren't familiar, you can find the links below.

Part 1 & 2
Part 3

So I have had a couple people tell me this idea is "cheesy." Now, I'm not one to shirk away from some quality cheddar. In a competitive event with prize money on the line, you might as well call me Chester the Cheetah. But I never really thought of this concept as all that unfair or broken.

What do you guys think? In case you have no interest in reading tactical threads for an army you don't play, Freakshows are based around stacking up negative leadership modifiers and then hitting people with abilities like Soulfright, Psychic Shriek, Dominate, Mirror of Minds, Mind War, Terrify, and Death is Not Enough!, not to mention regular old Pinning test: is it cheesy?

I am confuzed here

About?

What freakshows are

 Jimsolo wrote:

Part 1 & 2
Part 3

What do you guys think? Stacking up negative leadership modifiers and then hitting people with abilities like Soulfright, Psychic Shriek, Dominate, Mirror of Minds, Mind War, Terrify, and Death is Not Enough!, not to mention regular old Pinning test: is it cheesy?

Well, I provided both a synopsis of the army concept as well as links to the tactical articles in my initial post.

Is there a specific aspect of it that is still confusing?

I read your previous 'articles' regarding the Freakshow concept. I found that they were well written and highlighted an area which to the best of my knowledge has not seen much focus.

I have been working on a Dark Eldar army and for the most part I had dismissed the Leadership affecting abilities for the most part. After reading your thoughts, I am taking a second look.

As for your question about them being Cheesy? I'm going with no.

How could they be cheesy given that they have almost no anti-armour capabilities and suffer a huge handicap against all Space Marine armies? I think they're awesome!

Everything in 40K that a person may conceivably lose to is in fact, cheesy.

Considering there are more armies (Orks SMs GK BA SW DA Nids) than not (SoB Necrons Guard Tau Eldar DE) that straight up ignore most of the hurt of morale checks, and several more (IG SoB) that tend to use characters (priests or commissars) that basically grant fearless/stubborn.... I don't think so at all. I think it's super super easy to lose a whole bunch of your toys' effectiveness just by playing against a certain army.

Just last week I allied with a buddy and tried to run a DE/Harlequin freakshow list, we were faced with IG and SMs, there were two 50 man IG blobs with a single commissar in each and all of our death jesters spent the whole game trying to precision shot the fether out so they could do anything... eventually we did manage to get one, engaged them in combat with a solitaire and swept 40-odd guys but the other one stayed strong the whole game and they never failed the LD9 test.

Tl;DR: Leadership modifiers are a wonky game at best when a ton of armies just ignore most of their negative effects. Against SMs it's just "I can move you guys around a bit", against orks its "a couple bonus casualties here and there" and against nids its just...nothing.

the_scotsman wrote:
Considering there are more armies (Orks SMs GK BA SW DA Nids) than not (SoB Necrons Guard Tau Eldar DE) that straight up ignore most of the hurt of morale checks, and several more (IG SoB) that tend to use characters (priests or commissars) that basically grant fearless/stubborn.... I don't think so at all. I think it's super super easy to lose a whole bunch of your toys' effectiveness just by playing against a certain army.

Just last week I allied with a buddy and tried to run a DE/Harlequin freakshow list, we were faced with IG and SMs, there were two 50 man IG blobs with a single commissar in each and all of our death jesters spent the whole game trying to precision shot the fether out so they could do anything... eventually we did manage to get one, engaged them in combat with a solitaire and swept 40-odd guys but the other one stayed strong the whole game and they never failed the LD9 test.

Tl;DR: Leadership modifiers are a wonky game at best when a ton of armies just ignore most of their negative effects. Against SMs it's just "I can move you guys around a bit", against orks its "a couple bonus casualties here and there" and against nids its just...nothing.

Keep in mind that Psychic Shriek, Mirror of Minds, and Laugh of Sorrows work on everyone: Fearless or not.

All it takes is enough Ld modifiers to reduce a unit to Ld 5, and a successfully cast Mirror of Minds becomes an instant kill, regardless of Wounds, Toughness, FNP, or Invulnerable saves. It cannot be stopped, regardless of whether your opponent is a Gargantuan Creature, a Greater Daemon, or anything else.

EDIT: Also, I'm sorry you had a bad experience with a list. If you want to PM me, I'd be happy to help you troubleshoot the problems. I've been trying to raise this baby since December, and I'm pretty sure I might be able to at least help a little bit.

Oh look, its a 'cheesy' thread and guess what guys? I didn't make it

I think "cheesy" is beginning to be defined as "something which cannot be conveniently and reliably countered".

Imp Knight spam = Can't reliably hurt with multiple dedicated anti vehicle squads

2++ rerollable = Can't counter without uncommon and often costly S

Supporting Fire = Can't really avoid with melee when played right by Tau

Decurion = Have to bring ID to get a marginal counter or S which is not very widespread

Wraith spam = Can't effectively hide from it, can't effectively hurt it without S

Scat bikes = Tricky to pin down or even hit without spreading yourself thin

Ranged D = Can only hide out of LOS or pray for bad roll

Etc.

Therefore, I see why armies like Tau, Eldar, etc would call it cheesy - they can't directly do anything about it and it can do damage. However, the fact that at least half the armies in game are immune to many effects of Freak Show means it's not cheesy.

It's not cheesey, as a player of something like it myself, it has several major flaws. The biggest is being out Psykic'd, as assuming Dark Eldar primary it's impossible to assure you get your important powers off due to warp charge pool, and if taking from Phantasmancy your not even assured any offensive powers.

AT isn't a problem, Scourges cost 120pts for 4 Haywire shots. 2 units + some Dark Lances can down a Knight. The problem lies with people centralizing an army around the theme rather then using it as just another tool in the arsenal.

I understand this completely....And I wouldnt call it cheesy , but it is very strong when played correctly. And Like Jim has been saying, Fearless/ATSKNF do not stop it.

So it can be very effective

Jim, I've been following your work on this concept since your first post. To be perfectly frank, I think that the freakshow concept is a breath of fresh air.

When I think of cheese, I think of spamming undercosted units like Wraithknights, Scatterbikes, Riptides, the entire Necron Decurion formation, Canoptek Harvest formations, etc., to which there are no strong counters, and bizarre deathstars that are often combinations of units from many codices (Gravstar w/ Tigurius and Draigo).

Freakshow is the opposite - you're depending upon player skill to bring multiple concomitant modifiers into play, and the army is itself generally reasonably fragile. It has hard counters, namely mechanized lists and vehicle-heavy lists.


If we start labeling everything that's strong, when used skillfully, as "cheese," then we're socially penalizing good players with innovative strategies. That's a little bit ridiculous, and akin to saying that Bobby Fisher was a cheesy chess player.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Everything in 40K that a person may conceivably lose to is in fact, cheesy.

Exalted.

Some people cry cheese any time you hit them with any combination or tactic that
A.) took them by surprise
B.) they were ill prepared to counter
C.) Both A & B

Actually I would consider it the opposite of cheese. You're building your entire army around a strategy that will be ignored by anything with lots of access to fearless units, enough psychic dice to just deny the scary powers like psychic shriek or lots of armor running around. Together, that list encompasses about 2/3 of the armies in the game. Not only is your concept not cheesy, it's not even that good unless your enemy is using certain armies. Even then, a scatter bike/D weapon/archon with WWP build would offer a far more convincing victory. This concept might be fun in friendly games but I wouldn't put any money on it to place highly in a tournament.

It could be scary for a greentide if you roll dominate.

I'd be interested to hear from the people who think it's super-cheesy. (No arguments or judgements. Just curious.)