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Yep, I'm talking about sacrificing a tank in turn 2 (or your first or second turn on the table if you started in reserve) --preferably empty, unless you're doing a fish of fury with fire dragons.

And then, if necessary, sacrificing another tank and another tank, as many as necessary until the ork player realizes that killing these tanks, fun though it is, is costing him the game.


I haven't played chess since 8th grade, but even I understand the concept of sacrificing units for a positional advantage.

Yeah, I would not advise this tactic. Feeding someone Wave Serpents to assault to "slow them down" is not a smart tactic. It may be effective for you, but there is a whole hell of a lot better/more effective ways to play.

BlueDagger wrote:Yeah, I would not advise this tactic. Feeding someone Wave Serpents to assault to "slow them down" is not a smart tactic. It may be effective for you, but there is a whole hell of a lot better/more effective ways to play.

Such as?

Let's try the chess puzzle on this nob biker vs. nightspinner topic.

Say you're playing a capture & control with your regular 1750-1850 army (so about 4-6 wave serpents, a couple of small bike units, a nightspinner and a couple of prisms, and an HQ right?). You got a wave serpent with troops in it on your home objective. Your opponent deploys his nob bikers at the leading edge of his deployment zone, about 30-36" away (it can't be more than 36" on a 4' wide table). He's got a big mob of 30 boyz on his objective, a second big mob, and a bunch of kannons or lootas. He has first turn, you fail to seize, he turbos toward your objective and also runs his second boyz unit behind them.

How will you win that game? Is the nightspinner indispensable in your victory?

Assume for the purposes of this puzzle that the ork player is competent and therefore has good spacing on his units--so more than 5" between the boyz and the bikes--and that he will not slow to avoid dangerous terrain tests as a result of being hit by a nightspinner blast. He'll just take the casualties.

Anybody following this thread, feel free to respond to the puzzle. I know what I would do, but I'm interested to hear what other players would do.

Flavius Infernus wrote:

BlueDagger wrote:Yeah, I would not advise this tactic. Feeding someone Wave Serpents to assault to "slow them down" is not a smart tactic. It may be effective for you, but there is a whole hell of a lot better/more effective ways to play.

Such as?

Let's try the chess puzzle on this nob biker vs. nightspinner topic.

Say you're playing a capture & control with your regular 1750-1850 army (so about 4-6 wave serpents, a couple of small bike units, a nightspinner and a couple of prisms, and an HQ right?). You got a wave serpent with troops in it on your home objective. Your opponent deploys his nob bikers at the leading edge of his deployment zone, about 30-36" away (it can't be more than 36" on a 4' wide table). He's got a big mob of 30 boyz on his objective, a second big mob, and a bunch of kannons or lootas. He has first turn, you fail to seize, he turbos toward your objective and also runs his second boyz unit behind them.

How will you win that game? Is the nightspinner indispensable in your victory?

Assume for the purposes of this puzzle that the ork player is competent and therefore has good spacing on his units and will not slow to avoid difficult terrain tests as a result of being hit by a nightspinner blast.

K he is going first, has nobs lined up directly across from my objective (in the furthest back corner), 30 boyz on his objective, Loots in the middle of the table.

#1. Why the hell would you try to seize? You WANT 2nd
#2. If you see nobs pointed at your home objective like a heat seeking missile at the minimum distance... you don't deploy on your home objective You will no be able to kill them off before they go ahold of you. You let them ride their pretty heads onto it as you pound them from a distance. Then you trot over ther an land you wave serpent on the dead bodies.

From a deployment standpoint in this situation if there is no hiding from the lootas you either A) go all reserves if there is too many packs of them, or B put your least need unit out as bait and pray for the best, but you try to out range/LoS at least 2 of the packs.

To take down the pack of boyz/nobz I personally would hit them with my dragons squads, but that is because I run a TL Heavy flamer Exarch which makes short work of them, as well as the melta shots. That combined with the rest of the arsenal would probably end them in one round of shooting depending on how clustered up they are.

In the typical scenario of units you listed out, you try to tag both units with the nightspinner blast if possible, if not you hit the nobz with as many being covered as possible and poof, no turboboosting next round and a few wounds. If you started on the board you fortune a dragon serpent, and guide both prisms. Run the Fire Serpent right at the lootas and hope your Fortune + Full out holds. Proceed to drop your S5 ap4 TL Large blasts from the prisms on the Lootas. Scatter lasers take priority lootas as well as EML from serpent. You rbikes should be in reserve.

I feel like nob bikers are a unit that is supposed to kill stuff... So if I feed them a grav tank, they get to do what they want to do anyway, which is kill stuff.

But I´ve never actually played in a tournament, so maybe in a tournament nob bikers don´t want to kill anything but just boost arround the entire game.^^

Also I feel like eldar with their 4th edition points costs don´t get enough units on the table to start with... so why sacrefice one???

If I want to stop thoose nob bikers, I will shoot them and when they are widdeled down a little ( insert night spiiner here ), I will charge them with my seer council to take them out.

Good call starting in reserve. I actually forgot to mention you can go back in time and start in reserve if you want to.

So part of your army enters turn 2, with the nob bikers already on your objective--having boosted last turn for a 3+ cover, and the forward boyz (having run twice) an average of 30" into the table from their own edge.

Also I agree that the priority target for str6 shooting is lootas or kannons (I'm seeing kannons more often recently, and small units of lootas). They may score a tank or two, but won't last long against TL scatterlasers and prism blasts.

Good call not shooting the nightspinner at the boyz. That's what the ork player wants, because it won't really slow him down or cause significant casualties.

But I don't agree with the math on your fire dragons. We're talking a competent ork player here who knows how to spread out with big-base models, so 2-3 models under the template, tops. You wound on 4s with a reroll, but they still get FNP, and even if a wound gets through it's only 1 wound, which won't remove a model. So if we're generous and say the exarch scores 2 wounds that get past FNP, he kills no models. Four (?) fusion guns from dragons, say 3 hits/wounds (rounding) they get cover saves. The ork player puts one fusion gun wound on his T5 warboss, so that if he fails his cover save he just takes a wound, and the other two wounds average one dead model (slightly less if they're taking the 3+ save).

So two fire dragon squads like this kill about two, maybe three models, and score a couple of stray wounds. Unless they have cybork bodies, which work against the flamer in addition to FNP, losing probably only 1-2 models, or less if they're taking 3+ cover.

Then next turn, the remaining nobs and warboss* eat the fire dragons and the serpent(s) they rode in on.

*The nob biker units I most commonly see have 5-6 nobs in addition to the warboss.

I´d still say that a seer council could deal with the nob bikers, while the rest of the army would concentrate on the rest of the opponents army.

First shoot them a little, put your destructor templates onto them and then charge...

Khe-Loc wrote:I´d still say that a seer council could deal with the nob bikers, while the rest of the army would concentrate on the rest of the opponents army.

Maybe an ork player can back me up here, but I think nob bikers can grind away a bike council in a couple of turns. The bikes would bog the nobs, but nob bikes would take minimal casualties (they take more wounds than usual, but still get their 4+ save *and* FNP against your blades/spears, and they're only single wounds, so he won't lose models for several phases). Our theoretical competent ork player would shuffle all his str6+ claws in base contact with the farseer if possible and try to insta-gib him. One failed rerolled save for the farseer, fortune is gone, and warlocks with only 4+ saves would go down pretty quick after that.

I think it would be better to send your bike council against the advancing mob of boyz. Throw down some destructors and wade in, make sure the PK nob is in base with a warlock so he can't allocate on the farseer, and grind through their crappy saves until they all die or break. It's not a sure thing, but if those boyz get on your objective, you're not getting them off before the game ends--especially if they have cover.

K now you are talking about around 600 point unit if you are talking 5-6 nobs with bikes, pks, and cyborg bodies with a biker boss. At that point he has 1250 points for everything else in his army leading to a "eggs in one basket" syndrone. Just avoid it and shoot it at range, after you have killed his objective campers.

Yep, a 600+ point deathstar unit. I've seen one like it in both my two most recent tournaments (in different cities run by different ork players, and both players did well in the rankings).

Orks are cheap. 1250 will easily buy you two maxed units of boys (less than 500 points) and 3 units of 5 lootas (225 points) or three batteries of three kannons (180 points). You'd even have points left over for another smaller mob of boyz or some kommandoes or something.

I think the nob biker unit is tough enough that you can shoot your entire army's long-range guns at it for an entire game and not kill them all--not to mention that all those lootas or kannons are shooting at you the whole time unless you deal with them. You have to get past the FNP and wound allocation to kill them.

As long as they're on your objective, you can't do better than a draw even if you can clear the other objective. You can't ignore them if you want to win the game.

This is what I meant about how there are some things you can't fly away from. Sometimes you need to clear or hold a position to win a game.

Hint? If only there were some way to get *two* turns of shooting out of my fire dragons...

k, I can see having that much of an issue with Thundercav deathstar (because we have NO effective answer to that), but really nobbiker deathstart is not that scary. You have a Nightspinner giving them dangerous terrain tests and preventing their turboboosting while you whittle away their backfield. They can't be everywhere.

Also, why in the world would you worry about Kannons? You shoot a scatter laser into them and they become a pack of gretchin.

They don't need to be everywhere--they only need to be on your home objective (which they can reach by turn 3 at the latest, even without turboboosting). If you're entering from reserve, they won't need to turboboost to camp your objective, they'll already be there. They don't even need to move at that point, not that dangerous terrain tests are a threat to units with FNP and 2 wounds per model (and skilled rider on the warboss).

Of course Eldar have an answer to Wolfstar armies. It involves, oh let's see, interdicting their movement with skimmers to render them nearly useless?

If the bikers are already there they aren't moving, so no turbo boost save, making them more vulnerable.

Dangerous terrain tests negate FNP and since the nob play has no control over who takes the wound it negate wound magic.

Skilled Rider is lost by the Warbiker when he joins the squad, just move through cover on foot ICs.

Wolfstar has a maximum assault range of 6"+ D6"+ 12" and with 40mm bases can easily stretch out half way across the board with 2W T5 (not t4/5) and storm shields and thunder hammers.

At this point we'll have to agree to disagree though, since I'm apparently getting nowhere with explanations.

Man, my nurgle opponents have been cheating me by taking FNP on dangerous terrain :(

But ICs keep skilled rider when they join a unit. They lose move through cover, but that doesn't apply to a biker.

A Wolfstar unit with a grav tank parked in front of it has a maximum assault range of 1"--unless they want to walk around. I really don't see the sense of insisting that Eldar have no counter to something because the counter involves sacrificing grav tanks. Who cares how many grav tanks you lose as long as you win the game?

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:I´d still say that a seer council could deal with the nob bikers, while the rest of the army would concentrate on the rest of the opponents army.

Maybe an ork player can back me up here, but I think nob bikers can grind away a bike council in a couple of turns. The bikes would bog the nobs, but nob bikes would take minimal casualties (they take more wounds than usual, but still get their 4+ save *and* FNP against your blades/spears, and they're only single wounds, so he won't lose models for several phases). Our theoretical competent ork player would shuffle all his str6+ claws in base contact with the farseer if possible and try to insta-gib him. One failed rerolled save for the farseer, fortune is gone, and warlocks with only 4+ saves would go down pretty quick after that.

I think it would be better to send your bike council against the advancing mob of boyz. Throw down some destructors and wade in, make sure the PK nob is in base with a warlock so he can't allocate on the farseer, and grind through their crappy saves until they all die or break. It's not a sure thing, but if those boyz get on your objective, you're not getting them off before the game ends--especially if they have cover.

Last game I played against nob bikers, I shot them 3 wounds from range, closed up my council, destructord the hell out of them, which wounded two more and killed one. Then I charged, and killed like 2 with the council, autarch inlicted some more wounds and killed one.

I was lucky with my saves, and the farseer lived, one warlock went down, and a wound on the autarch was inflicted.

The next turn, I proceeded wounding the warboss twice, and took out the last biker...

So imo it's doable. Sure, I had the charge, and got quite lucky with my saves, but yeah...

Dont know if this has already been mentioned, but if you doom a unit with a high save then you get to reroll to wound, even if it doe wound in order to get a rending 6.
This will get you an one in three chance to ignore the as

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Master Melta wrote:Night spinners use the large blast...

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1640390a_NightSpinner_Rules.pdf

Actually the pdf linked here says "blast," which means small blast. If it were the large blast it would need to say "large blast." Unless I'm missing something?

When the nightspinner rules first came out, I saw opponents play a couple of them and saw how it was the small blast. I was pretty unimpressed. Then, as now, I was thinking this would be worth it if it were the large blast. But one small str6 blast from a tank that costs as much as a fire prism just isn't worth it IMO, in spite of the mostly ineffective movement effect.

If you read it again i think you'll find a "Large" before the word blast. albeit a coule of space bar pushes away from it.

MrMerlin wrote:Dont know if this has already been mentioned, but if you doom a unit with a high save then you get to reroll to wound, even if it doe wound in order to get a rending 6.
This will get you an one in three chance to ignore the as

Really? The sucsessfull ones too? Never heard of this before, but might actuallly be worth it against things like terminators and so on...

Khe-Loc wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:Dont know if this has already been mentioned, but if you doom a unit with a high save then you get to reroll to wound, even if it doe wound in order to get a rending 6.
This will get you an one in three chance to ignore the as

Really? The sucsessfull ones too? Never heard of this before, but might actuallly be worth it against things like terminators and so on...

sure you get to reroll to wound in every case, even if your own template scatters onto your models, you get to reroll the succesive ones

MrMerlin wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:Dont know if this has already been mentioned, but if you doom a unit with a high save then you get to reroll to wound, even if it doe wound in order to get a rending 6.
This will get you an one in three chance to ignore the as

Really? The sucsessfull ones too? Never heard of this before, but might actuallly be worth it against things like terminators and so on...

sure you get to reroll to wound in every case, even if your own template scatters onto your models, you get to reroll the succesive ones

Nope, thats not possible, sine I don´t doom my own squad, nor the nightspinner, I doom the opponents squad!

Khe-Loc wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:Dont know if this has already been mentioned, but if you doom a unit with a high save then you get to reroll to wound, even if it doe wound in order to get a rending 6.
This will get you an one in three chance to ignore the as

Really? The sucsessfull ones too? Never heard of this before, but might actuallly be worth it against things like terminators and so on...

sure you get to reroll to wound in every case, even if your own template scatters onto your models, you get to reroll the succesive ones

Nope, thats not possible, sine I don´t doom my own squad, nor the nightspinner, I doom the opponents squad!

No, I mean as the opponent you get to reroll wouds caused by your own templates that catter on a doomed unit

Sorry, didn't phrase that properly

MrMerlin wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:

Khe-Loc wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:Dont know if this has already been mentioned, but if you doom a unit with a high save then you get to reroll to wound, even if it doe wound in order to get a rending 6.
This will get you an one in three chance to ignore the as

Really? The sucsessfull ones too? Never heard of this before, but might actuallly be worth it against things like terminators and so on...

sure you get to reroll to wound in every case, even if your own template scatters onto your models, you get to reroll the succesive ones

Nope, thats not possible, sine I don´t doom my own squad, nor the nightspinner, I doom the opponents squad!

No, I mean as the opponent you get to reroll wouds caused by your own templates that catter on a doomed unit

Sorry, didn't phrase that properly

Never mind, I got it now =)