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What "Unexpected tactics" do you use with your army? As in, what special abilities, wargear, relics, psychics, etc. do you use against lists that other people don't expect/rarely use?
For me it's objuration mechanicum against scatterlaser bikes. Yeah they have a 3+ armor Save but with 40 shots from a unit 3-4 of them are gonna die, which makes shooting a risky business.

Auspex against winged Nurgle Daemon Princes, which makes their jink save only half as effective as it normally is.

Taken a page out of the Eldar Freak-Show List and have a bubble of -4 leadership around my Character hunting Archon.

A lot of people do not expect to run away.

Blitz Brigade and Dakkajets: Only AV14 on the board which scouted 12", at least 2 killkannons, and my Flash Gitz can sit in their ruins covered battle bunker with wheels dakkaing at BS3 on turn 1. Dakkajets can fly around and dakka as they please while my scouted up bustas/gitz/boyz can handle the AA if its a threat.

Orkanauts and the dread mob. At 2000 points the gorkanaut krushin krew and the dread mob makes for a lot of unexpected armor. Especially in my meta where you rarely see non-transport vehicles in any decent numbers.

Battlewagons with wreckin balls, graby klaws, and deff rolla. Ram, smack with wrecking ball, and then during your opponents turn grab them with the klaw. Do it again next turn.

 DanielBeaver wrote:
Auspex against winged Nurgle Daemon Princes, which makes their jink save only half as effective as it normally is.

I second using the auspex as an unexpected tactic.

The ability to reduce a cover save by 1 for 5pts is pretty darn good, and most people seem to underestimate it which is weird considering the sheer amount of jinking units that are around these days.

Take the Spanish Inquisition.

No body expects that.

Most people know it, but Psychic Scream (Tyranid Power: 6" Nova) on a -3 Psyker Leadership modifier throws some people off.

2d6+2 minus enemy leadership (now modified down to Ld7) ignore cover and armor. On average does 1-2 wounds to a Dreadknight, 2-3 wounds on a Flyrants (even if I'm on the ground and he is in the air), 1-2 wounds on Nurgle Daemon Princes. And obviously if I roll above average they simply get removed from the table.

Look out for their 5+ or 4+ DtW rolls. I usually just risk a perils. On average, I'll do a wound to myself on perils and do a wound on to my target. Given Nids lack of AP, this is usually to my benefit.

Feels good every time.

Teleporting a Terminator blob on top of Calgar, bang a Caestus Assault Ram packed with two grav squads and everyones favourite Ironclad-Illuminati squad.

Storm Bolters, Melta, Seismic Hammers, 3++, melta and Flamer inbound.

Have fun.

A regular opponent of mine takes this as his main force-

Imperial Guard CCS decked out with a standard
4 squads of veterans with voxs, grenadiers (melta bombs and a demo charge), camo cloaks, and carapace armor. No special weapons.
And he takes Yarrick either with bullgryns or another squad.

The reason why he does this is that he can hand out the ignores cover order to every single squad almost anywhere on the board, reroll the Ld test, and often test on a 10 thanks to Yarrick often being in range of the squad being tested. This lets him toss ignores cover demo charges all over the board. It annihilates anything not in a vehicle, and then you have guardsmen with melta bombs killing any vehicles.

The army is super hard to kill without ignores cover weapons, as he gives his vehicles camo netting as well, which nets him a 3+ cover save if its at least 25% obscured, making almost all of his vehicles (including AV14 Leman Russ battletanks) effectively non-targets. The camo cloaks on his veterans give him a 3+ in ruins making him almost as tough as marines in cover.

Now Eldar with everything in their army ignoring cover could probably tear this army a new one, but trying to fight it with a "normal" mechanized guard list or with pure skitarii is the most annoying thing I have ever fought against barring necrons.

The army is annoying resilient, and unexpectedly powerful, especially when the army multi-assaults a couple of closely packed vehicles and kills them with melta bombs, after killing the troops that disembarked with an ignores cover demo charge.

Auspexs are crazy good for 5 points.

A full platoon of guardsmen taken as individual squads. Deploy them near eachother, and hide the SWS squads in and around them.

"My devastators are shooting that squad"
"Which one? That's six squads"
"Ummmm, that one" *points as a grunt in a grunt squad*

Then they don't realize they should have shot one of the SWS full of plasma.

A lot of my opponents are surprised the first time they encounter a Freakshow list.

I also like Care Bear stare squads (8+ Henchmen Psykers) and Unbound lists with nothing but single-model Ur Ghul squads.

Deep Stike Everything...

As a chaos player I run two bare bones lords with small cultists squads and three solo spawn. They stay small and hide, waiting for reinforcements

Que Mayhem Pack, 3 Termicide Squads, and 3 Obliterators. Some games the dice gods are pleased and I get everything on the board, and give my opponent a swift kick of nurgle to the face... other games everything gets focused fired because they come out to slow :(

The Assassin Herald. A Herald of Slaanesh on Steed, with the Beguiling Locus, Greater Etherblade, Witstealer Sword (or Cleaving Strike if you roll it) and, if you want, a level or two of Telepathy.

At 120 - 170 points depending on Mastery, she's not crazy expensive, but with an effective 20" reliable threat radius, the ability to force characters to face her in a challenge, and seven S5 AP 2 attacks on the charge at WS 7, I 7 with re-rolls to hit (or six attacks, but with sixes to hit being resolved at S9) she is a very effective assassin of utility characters. Just bait out overwatch with something else first!

Infiltrating a Vindicere forwards. A lone infantry model is easy to hide, and people often forget that he has a statline that a space marine captain would envy and can still use his advanced ammunition through the pistol. The first time he puts a turbopenetrator through the back end of a tank they tend to remember.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
Take the Spanish Inquisition.

No body expects that.

You win. Close thread. We're done here.

Charging a green tide with a couple of squads of Necron warriors. Can't believe it actually worked... Almost

Using the amphibious rule on my Chimeras loaded with vets to lure CC units in then pull back over river to shoot the CC units apart with impunity
No one saw that coming. Everyone forgets that rule

Whenever I am battling a Wraith heavy Eldar army with my Farsight Enclaves I tend to charge a team or even two of Crisis Suits into CC to prevent them from messing me up with their shooting. Against the D-Scythe ones I have found a big team of Drones with a Commander supporting them do the job well by tying them up for several turns and even the game in one case.

Attach a Necron Destroyer Lord to Death Marks against Drop Pods (or anything that can deep strike on turn 1). Then Deep Strike on the opponent's turn 1. Then detach the Destroyer Lord and assault something on your turn. It gives the Death Marks Preferred enemy for when they arrive too.

My Freakshow lists always take people by surprise.

The Banshee list backed with Striking Scorpion in an infiltrating Wave Serpent. People are so scared of the Wave Serpent they forget how fast the Banshees move (9" + 12" run on the first turn, 9" + (2D6" +3") charge on the second turn.)

I play Alpha Legion
'Nuff Said

The spore mine field formation for the Tyranids can be kind of unexpected and helpful.

They are easy to under-estimate while your opponent is focusing on your larger elements and they're just slowly creeping forward. They also compliment each-other in assault to take over-watch.

Plus they have an endless-swarm like rule to come back on a 4+ which laughably so in my last game using them they made almost every single one until the last turn.

I had a blast with them.

 digital-animal wrote:

I had a blast with them.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
Take the Spanish Inquisition.

No body expects that.

How it saddens me that I can only exalt this once!

There is no particular restriction against Artillery running in the shooting phase, so your Vaul's Wrath Support Battery in your Craftworld Warhost can move a cool 12" a turn.

That's not super useful on it's own - they're not relentless, so they can't fire their guns after moving (and there is an argument to be made that Relentless doesn't actually work on Artillery). But there's another interesting quirk of the Artillery rules we can exploit: when being shot at, you always use the T7 of the guns, but you assign wounds to the closest model as usual. Which means you can attach a Phoenix Lord to your support weapon at take 2+ armor saves at T7.

In the 6th edition codex, this didn't work too well because the Support Weapons didn't have Battle Focus (and so the unit as a whole could not benefit from Battle Focus). But one of the subtle changes of the 7th edition codex was that the entire Vaul's Wrath Support Battery unit now has Battle Focus, not just the guardians - which means your Phoenix Lord can move+run+shoot, and also have T7, for only 30 points extra. You still can't shoot the Heavy Guns (Battle Focus doesn't work with Heavy Weapons), but you're taking that 30pt unit as part of a Warhost anyhow.

Maugan Ra is on obvious choice for this, but it's also hilarious on Jain Zar - you can run up the field 15" a turn, towing your support weapons with you like a shield. You do have to leave the unit if you intend to assault (since artillery can't assault), but it will shield you for a turn.

Attach a Necron Destroyer Lord to Death Marks against Drop Pods (or anything that can deep strike on turn 1). Then Deep Strike on the opponent's turn 1. Then detach the Destroyer Lord and assault something on your turn. It gives the Death Marks Preferred enemy for when they arrive too.

That is pretty cool as an alternative deployment option, I dig it. Might even have to mention this to my die hard cron buddy.

As for my contribution I'll just list a couple I use..

Vs. Drop pod marines, skyhammer etc, with my dark eldar I like to reserve all my forces leaving only grotesques, clawed fiends and mandrakes all in cover. Its pretty funny watching their meltas and grav weaponry do jack all and skyhammers assault is even more pathetic.

Another tactic I use with multiple armies is to use my transports as throw away speed bumps to interdict movement against hordes or even the odd imperial knight. This allows me to redeploy or just ignore them for longer.

Along that same vein I used to enjoy using MM attack bikes to stall assault transports. Not as relevant in this edition unfortunately but in the past you could park dead in front of tank shoot the MM at whatever and dare it to tank shock you. If they do you get an auto hitting melta shot or force them to skirt the width of the bike +1" on either side. Pretty annoying for 50 pts.

1) Locate the opponent's favourite elite unit (that lacks invulns, costs a lot, and does not have more than T5)

2) Emperor's Champion, 15-man Crusader Squad, Land Raider Crusader.

3) Crush his hopes and dreams

4) Bulldoze the entire flank

 digital-animal wrote:
The spore mine field formation for the Tyranids can be kind of unexpected and helpful.

They are easy to under-estimate while your opponent is focusing on your larger elements and they're just slowly creeping forward. They also compliment each-other in assault to take over-watch.

Plus they have an endless-swarm like rule to come back on a 4+ which laughably so in my last game using them they made almost every single one until the last turn.

I had a blast with them.

Iam planning to use this list in a battleforged/no limit tournament:

Tyranid CAD

tyranid prime
10 termgaunts
10 termgaunts
10 termgaunts
10 termgaunts

tyrannocyte 75
tyrannocyte 75
tyrannocyte 75
tyrannocyte 75
tyrannocyte 75

Lictor Formation
deathleaper 130
lictor 50
lictor 50
lictor 50
lictor 50
lictor 50

Sporefield formation
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)

Sporefield formation
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)

Sporefield formation
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)

Sporefield formation
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)

Sporefield formation
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
sporemine cluster (3 mines)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)
mucolide sporebomb (1 bomb)

Harlequin formation "the heroes path"
Shadowseer + mask + level 2 upgrade+ haywire grenades
Death jester + haywire grenades
Solitaire + rose + haywire grenades

Inquisition detachment
Inquisitor + 3x servo-skulls

Reallllyyy unexpected....