Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi guys and gals,

Just wanted to ask what are your game changing units, the models that have won you the game during that clutch moment, who has been the one to fight insurmountable odds to claim victory at the 11th hour?

To kick things off, I'd nominate my Autarch, with most of her retinue dead she challenges a demon prince whilst a Greater Unclean One and Soul Grinder charge into the fray, the Demon swings first and lays the Autarch low until the Phoenix gem wounds the beast (on a 6) and it fails its save! Autarch stands back up and strikes, inflicting an instant death wound with the Shard of Anaris. The other demons whiff and explode due to instability (the Soul grinder then got haywired to death by an intrepid bunch of hawks)

With that being said, who are your 'war heroes' when it comes to 40k?

My Immortal Immortals would probably be it for me. They've stood their ground on many objectives, against the odds, as well as killed many terminators with pot shots of Tesla. My Overlord was with a unit of them, and went up against a unit of SS/TH Termies and a Chapter Master, My Overlord couldn't land a blow on the Chapter Master, but after my Immortals were finished beating the Termies to a pulp, they proceeded to kill the Chapter Master.

A lone gun drone blocked and held up a tac squad in assault for several turns that would have otherwise been able to charge (and tie up) my battlesuits, which were in the process of making a mad dash for the objective.
In the same game, another unit of gun drones survived an ungodly amount of shooting with only one surviving, but still capping an objective

I like gun drones.

For my Necrons, these are Wraiths when they get into cc and also Warriors in Night Scythes when they disembark and pop something important for the enemy.

This wasn't one of my units but in a game vs DA. A single THSS Death-wing term absorbed a huge amount of firepower making 30 3++ saves or more against my army. I always said it was because of his action pose - which had both arms spread out wide like "bring it on!"

For my Eldar, the Fire Dragons are usually game changing when they disembark and pop a tank, heavily armored unit, or monster.

I don't really have any. My units are good at changing potential wins to tablings, but that's about it.

Probably my Shadowsword. My regular opponent and I decided to bring superheavies in an 1850 point game since we were pushed for time and wanted a quick game.

He played Chaos Space marines and brought a Great Brass Scorpion of Khorne and I brought my Imperial Gua-I mean Astra Militarum.

I got lucky with the volcano cannon on it, either hitting on target or having very little scatter. I was also really lucky when rolling on the D table. It single handedly wiped out my opponent's army. To add insult to injury, when I got a direct hit on his Greater Brass Scorpion followed by a 6 on the D table, followed by a 4, it was destroyed, but when it exploded it wiped out the rest of his army. This was on turn 2.

I would say that was pretty game changing.


In terms of normal units (since I don't use silly D weapon monsters that often), my trusty Thunderfire Cannon that I always bring with my Iron Hands. It never fails to deliver and always does a cracking job of thinning out my opponent's infantry in the early stages of the game.

Rarely do I have hero units that really stand out to win the game but strangely enough its the Tau that has my battlefield heroes.

The Fire Warrior who's squad got stomped by a knight down to just him, passed his leadership 4 roll, survived all the melee attacks from the Imperial Knight to then land the final EMP grenade to kill the Knight and then survived the IK going nuclear. Then survived being shot at by a few scions before the game ended. Total loss for the Tau but the Greater Good gained a hero to elevate and inspire the people to fight on.

Pathfinder squad who was down to 3 models made a difficult terrain move of a 5 and a run of a 5 to end the turn on the objective with an inch of movement to spare.

Also had my Railhead fired the only remaining AP2 shot into a Lucky Stikk Mega Armored Warboss to hit and wound which then the boss failed the 2+ LoS and failed a 5+ cover save to be instant killed. Without that hit it would of been a nightmare to kill that squad which was looking to tear up the backfield.

Ork Warboss watched 2 units of 20 shoota boyz unload into a flying daemon prince to zero effect. Me being silly declaired that the boss is gonna show the boyz how its done and proceeds to hit, wound, then the prince failed the cover save and fail the grounding check. The Boyz then charged in and clobbered the prince into warp dust (which the weirdboy did a line of before firing a kill bolt to destroy two vehicles).

Unit of 5 Killa Kanz with Grotzookas killed 2 units of bikers with shooting before getting into close combat with a Daemon Prince. After 5 rounds of combat 3 Kanz survived and there was a dead prince.

Not really game changing, but Drazhar is definitely the hero of my army. Fought a squad of Necron Warriors, the Nightbringer and the Lord with Obyron and a squad of Lych Guard virtually all by himself after the Incubi he was with all died ater the first couple rounds of combat. This lasted something like 6 rounds of combat and he only took 1 wound, having killed the Nightbringer, Obyron, several Lych Guard, most of the Warriors and reduced the Lord to a single wound.

Rippers for me. DS on an Objective and took fire power from three GravCenturions and a Relic Whirlwind Scorpius with 4 S8 AP3 Ignore Cover blasts. Won that 7-2.

They've won me a lot of games, but my fondest memory is when they swept a Riptide.

Hmmm..... I would personally say my Stormsurges, but my friends all hate my Riptides much more. I also like my Y'vahrah.

Lately, generally my Ravenwing Knights. They've got the killing power to deal with most things on the table, and the mobility to avoid the few things they can't.

My Beast Hunter Vanquisher. 72" Instant Death is no joke, especially when it's effectively twin-linked at half range. Killing a Riptide in a single hit is incredibly demoralizing.

Alternate: my plasmavet command squad. I've had them drop a Dreadknight in a single round of shooting with the aid of "Bring it Down!" Currently I'm experimenting with putting a divination Inquisitor in there for twin-linked.

COUNCIL OF DA WAAAGH!!! LED BY GHAZ'GUL THRAKKA 2++INVUL SAVE TURN ONE LOS! ROLLS ALL SMALL ARMS TO DLS MA WARBOSS WITH 4++ INVUL FROM NEARBY MFF MAMEK ALL WITH 5+ FNP FEARLESS RAMPAGE FURIOUS CHARGE RUN EVEN WITH SNP MAYBE FEAR WHO CARES MAJORITY TOUGHNESS 5 WITH ENOUGH VANILLA NOBZ FOR MAJORITY ARMOR 6+ ALL ON FOOT MOVING AT.. waaaghing speed

 Lukash_ wrote:
My Beast Hunter Vanquisher. 72" Instant Death is no joke, especially when it's effectively twin-linked at half range. Killing a Riptide in a single hit is incredibly demoralizing.

Alternate: my plasmavet command squad. I've had them drop a Dreadknight in a single round of shooting with the aid of "Bring it Down!" Currently I'm experimenting with putting a divination Inquisitor in there for twin-linked.

It's okay; they've got two or three more in the same list!

I have an Immortal squad that truly lives up to its name. Since I added them to my army, they have only been completely eliminated once (and they actually fled the battle. They have never been killed).

Ah yes. My Overlord would have to be a close second for me. Back in the old Codex, this guy paired with my last Annihilation Barge took me from a 3-9 loss against Orks, to a 7-8. He died, stood back up, ran. Got shot at by Lootas, died, stood back up, ran. Got shot at again, died, got back up, ran. All the way to get me linebreaker. Then, of course, the A-barge shot and killed a unit consisting of a Big mek, Nob, and a Warboss. The Warboss had one wound left, failed Morale, and ran back, taking away Linebreaker and giving me STW as the game ended. Still lost, but damn.

Then, he rode his chariot against Taudar. He killed a Skyray, but was shot off his chariot. He was then charged by a Riptide and 2 Commanders. He then proceeded to sweep all of them.

Then, he rode his chariot into battle against Eldar. He annihilated a Wave Serpent, charged and killed a few Fire Dragons (I didn't know what they did at the time), exploded, got back up, zoomed around to kill another Wave Serpent, Dire Avengers, died 2 more times, got up, and finally when his Autarch used those Wing things to grab an objective last turn, he zoomed to Intercept, killing him with HOW alone.

My Overlord is a badass.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 EnTyme wrote:
I have an Immortal squad that truly lives up to its name. Since I added them to my army, they have only been completely eliminated once (and they actually fled the battle. They have never been killed).

Ah yes, the Immortal Immortals.

Probably my dual librarians.

I run two units that almost always do the bulk of the heavy lifting. One is a RW command squad with apothecary and chaplain with MoR. The other is a command squad with 4x plasma and an apothecary. I join a librarian to both. Rerolling your misses to avoid gets hot (with the feel no pain on top of that) is a great power on it's own, but if you can also give all that plasma ignores cover or either unit 4++ then it gets pretty brutal.

I realize it isn't super cheese, but those units tend to be staples in my builds, and the librarians are really what make them shine.

No matter what units I take, I still lose. :(

My lone Khorne Berserker Champion. While he technically still lost his first battle, he quite literally singlehandedly butchered about 350 points worth of tau (fire warriors and at least one battlesuits) before being punched in the crotch by a desperate battlesuit. This was in 4th edition mind you, where he had much better rules and combat was a lot more killy.

I have a Dreadnought that went toe to toe with Belial and an entire Squad of DW Knights. Through shear amounts of weird rolls, he killed Belial and all but two of the DW Knights. The Knights could not kill him (this was the old DA Codex), and I never seemed to be able to get a hit off on them, or they kept making saves when I did.

Great question! I've two that both involve wraithknights.

Just after the new Dark Angels codex I played a casual game against some Eldar. The Wraithknight charged my Librarian who elected to fire his single shot combi-plasma in overwatch. With the brand new Grim Resolve rule, his role of 5 was a hit, and miraculously took the final Wound off of the Wraithknight.

More recently, Chief Librarian Ezekiel rolled a 6 on the Perils of the Warp chart (that gives Fleshbane and Smash) casting Force, then promptly marched up to a Wraithknight and gave it 12 unsaved Wounds.

Plenty of shameful units too of course, but nobody wants to hear about them.

 Kr00gZ wrote:
No matter what units I take, I still lose. :(

Cannot be. What army are you playing?

St. Celestine.

On more than one occasion she has single-handedly grabbed the winning victory point.

How could I forget,

I'm up against Imperial knights for the first time and they are absolutely murdering me through very good dice rolls on my opponent's side and absolutely miserable rolls on my side...

Anyways the Crimson hunters come thundering down the table, the first two manage an explode result and between them take one of the behemoths down to a single hull point, finally my Beast of an Exarch just hammers into the other imperial knight completely destroying it in a single round of shooting with multiple explode results.

Probably my Ork Warboss with Da Lucky Stikk and FNP. An absolute beast at tanking stuff, usually is the last guy alive, and with 4 WS 6 STR 10 AP 2 attacks, he murders about everything in sight. Just recently, him and a big group of Nobz with a Painboy in it beat a big group of TWC and a Space Wolf Lord with 4 Relics on a TWC into the ground.

I'd consider my Leman Russ Eradicator any time I've played him, cheaper than the typical Battle Tank, even with HB sponsors, as he's dealt out a lot of damage to enemy infantry. Sure, he doesn't outright kill a whole squad, but he does enough with a S6 AP4 Ignore Cover Large Blast, 9 S5 AP4 and 3 S4 AP6 shots to really be my most reliable and consistent dude and make other squads less combat effective after he's shot them.

Also my Commander with Sword of Conquest, always fun to see him actually do a few wounds there and then. (Can't wait to upgrade him throughout the campaign we have going on!)

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Kr00gZ wrote:
No matter what units I take, I still lose. :(

Cannot be. What army are you playing?

Tyranids, mainly, not that it matters. Best army or units still can't compensate for poor command execution. I just don't focus well during games.

However, I did do a bit better with Malanthropes. My opponents usually target my Venomthropes and synapse creatures as a priority. Presenting them with a unit that is *both* really had them overly focused on those units. Those buggers rolled saves for days and soaked up a ton of fire.

Hate me please:

My Riptide. Gamechanger in turns 1-3 with S8 AP2 ignores cover pie plates completely wiping out squads. Gamechanger in turns 4-6 where it punches characters to death in melee and hangs onto objectives despite the rest of my army being taken off the table.

He's killed his fair share of Chaplains, Autarchs, Farseers and Chaos Lords in combat. People seem to really underestimate how strong they are in combat. And despite playing Tau at the moment, I'm still a chaos player at heart and just love those few successful assault phases that can swing a game. (Which are ironically more common for Tau than CSM anyway...)