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.

I’m thinking about building a new army. I want something fast, with sneaky tricks. I have always enjoyed winning by maneuver and guile. What 40k Army is best exemplified on the table by these metrics.

In the past I really enjoyed a 5th ed ultramarines army with outflanking scout speeders full of scouts. A drop pod dread, sicarius so I could infiltrate or scout another unit and a better chance to steal the initiative. It played fast, in your face, lots of speed and maneuverability on the table. It wasn’t terribly strong but it was great for surprise and more than once won against a more powerful force based on its ability to react and destabalize my foe. What should I play. Dakkadakka, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Orks? They can deep strike pretty much anything.

Or maybe gene stealer cults. They are all about deploying unpredictable reserves

You are in luck, Genestealer Cults are being released in a few weeks - seems to fit the bill very nicely.

Purple Orks are of course the sneakiest. Ever seen a Purple Ork?

Genestealer in Tyranids and Genestealer Cults would probably fit your bill quite nicely.

Its an open information game, sneaky isnt a thing.

That depends on the definition of sneaky. If it is just breaking the core rules or taking them up to 11 as far as efficiency goes, to a point where your playing a different games then most opponents, there are a few armies and builds that could cover that.

Drukhari have a lot of pretty subversive stratagems that might be up your street.

Necrons have a FW character which can re-roll the steal the initiative roll. The deceiver can re-deploy himself and/or up to D3 units after deployment, but before the first battle round. Necrons nephrekh can deepstrike infantry or swarm for 1 CP. They have a relic which lets them redeploy a HQ and another infantry unit at the end of the movement phase. The monolith can teleport units from the battlefield to its location. Unfortunaly the monolith itself is gak. Any necron nephrekh unit can auto advance 6".

GSC by any means

 p5freak wrote:
Necrons have a FW character which can re-roll the steal the initiative roll. The deceiver can re-deploy himself and/or up to D3 units after deployment, but before the first battle round. Necrons nephrekh can deepstrike infantry or swarm for 1 CP. They have a relic which lets them redeploy a HQ and another infantry unit at the end of the movement phase. The monolith can teleport units from the battlefield to its location. Unfortunaly the monolith itself is gak. Any necron nephrekh unit can auto advance 6".

Necrons do have the means to pull off some sneaky stuff, rapidly getting units anywhere on the table before Turn 2 with the Veil of Darkness, Grand Illusion and the Nemesor Zahndrek/Vargard Obyron combo (which also enables the shutting down of enemy aura abilities). There are multiple ways to combo off of these with transports and strategems allowing you, if you wanted, to get the majority of your army within 12" on Turn 1.

These combos can be a risky and expensive investment that demand getting first turn however.

GSC may have what you are looking for (won't know until see codex), but also look at Harlequins. They are fast, do have some deep strike options to move characters around, a few different masque forms that can mess with opponents (either through Ld or assault movement), etc. You do have to play Harlies right though, as hey can be glass cannons.

Dark Eldar have a boatload of tricks that lets them redeploy units at a moments notice.

Consider harlequins - fast & sly little bastards they are )))

Looking at the new preview and commentary, GSC seems to be it. Or Harlequins or mounted DE. Both are fast.

Ynnari Eldar. The things you can do with Soulburst is pretty nasty.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Its an open information game, sneaky isnt a thing.

Check the GSC preview.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Its an open information game, sneaky isnt a thing.

Check the GSC preview.

Still open information, as you make the choice who is where when you reveal, rather than secretly note who is where.

Is not hidden information, it's information not yet decided but you can choose whatever you want.

No different from deepstrike in being "hidden"

Not entirely as there are more tokens than units to deploy so it can be determined post hoc. Then characters will have a role in that, too.

Still nothing is hidden.

You know what units, what positions and the every possible combination, and the GSC player PICKS what he what's, therefore it will always be the optimal choice (unless he makes a mistake)

There is no room to bluff or need to make guesses

Well, if that is the benchmark for sneaky, it'll be Harlequins. They have a Tactical Objective for Maelstrom, where both players need to write down an objective number in secret

 BoomWolf wrote:
Still nothing is hidden.

You know what units, what positions and the every possible combination, and the GSC player PICKS what he what's, therefore it will always be the optimal choice (unless he makes a mistake)

There is no room to bluff or need to make guesses

Take the CA scenarios where one side deploys entirely:

If GSC deploy first then I have almost no information to deploy against - I have lost that advantage.
If I deploy first then GSC can deploy specifically against me, but also gets to respond to my first turn movements without compromising the plan or safety of his units.

e.g. I might be aware that he has Cult LRBTs, but I can't know which corner of the table they might appear. He has control over what can reach those tanks, which forces me to center table where more of his other units can reach me.

GSC is undoubtedly going to be the sneakiest army of all.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Still nothing is hidden.

You know what units, what positions and the every possible combination, and the GSC player PICKS what he what's, therefore it will always be the optimal choice (unless he makes a mistake)

There is no room to bluff or need to make guesses

Take the CA scenarios where one side deploys entirely:

If GSC deploy first then I have almost no information to deploy against - I have lost that advantage.
If I deploy first then GSC can deploy specifically against me, but also gets to respond to my first turn movements without compromising the plan or safety of his units.

e.g. I might be aware that he has Cult LRBTs, but I can't know which corner of the table they might appear. He has control over what can reach those tanks, which forces me to center table where more of his other units can reach me.

GSC is undoubtedly going to be the sneakiest army of all.

No, it's not.

If it had been on one side but you didn't know, it would be sneaky.

The way it is, he does not decide until you already did your thing. You can't figure out the right one, because there is no right or wrong blip.

Perhaps I'm being obtuse or the way you define things doesn't really match my headspace at the moment - either way I can't really agree with your assessment.

I feel like GSC is about to become super popular in the meta.

Well, yea.
Its a cool army, and it just got a TON of love in models.

Even if the rules turn out to be lackluster, it would be popular by sheer awesome style points.



However, 40k currently, other than a handful of missions with hidden objectives, has no room to be sneaky, because all information is open and shared between all players.
Everything you know, the opponent knows too, and vice versa-therefor you can't be "sneaky" because bluffing is literally impossible.

There is only perfect plays, and mistakes (and luck, given dice are a thing). never misdirection, never a need to "scout", "test" or "probe"-because all the information is there, if you are skilled enough to read it.


Compare to a TGC-you don't know what cards are in the opponent's hand, or what cards he set up with "trap" mechanics (like secrets in hearthstone, traps in yugi, etc)
Even if you know your opponent's entire deck, you don't know what he has CURRENTLY available to him, until he plays it (or some card/effect gave you new info, like a card that lets you look at the opponent's hand)

 sennacherib wrote:
I’m thinking about building a new army. I want something fast, with sneaky tricks. I have always enjoyed winning by maneuver and guile. What 40k Army is best exemplified on the table by these metrics.

In the past I really enjoyed a 5th ed ultramarines army with outflanking scout speeders full of scouts. A drop pod dread, sicarius so I could infiltrate or scout another unit and a better chance to steal the initiative. It played fast, in your face, lots of speed and maneuverability on the table. It wasn’t terribly strong but it was great for surprise and more than once won against a more powerful force based on its ability to react and destabalize my foe. What should I play. Dakkadakka, I would love to hear your thoughts.

T'au Empire have a great deal of this. It's a synergy army and it can do just about every deployment shenanigan there is, and it has sneaky units in it. Some relics to turn the enemies aggression against them. Etc...

 sennacherib wrote:
I’m thinking about building a new army. I want something fast, with sneaky tricks. I have always enjoyed winning by maneuver and guile. What 40k Army is best exemplified on the table by these metrics.

In the past I really enjoyed a 5th ed ultramarines army with outflanking scout speeders full of scouts. A drop pod dread, sicarius so I could infiltrate or scout another unit and a better chance to steal the initiative. It played fast, in your face, lots of speed and maneuverability on the table. It wasn’t terribly strong but it was great for surprise and more than once won against a more powerful force based on its ability to react and destabalize my foe. What should I play. Dakkadakka, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Did you consider that ultramarines army as sneaky? If yes then most of the thread may not understand that. I see your description (not the word sneaky) as being a fast aggressive highly mobile army. If thats the case you could consider drukhari as a highly mobile army with lots of different moving parts that you have to work to get the best of through positioning and they have a host of neat stratagems that give that sneaky feel.

 sennacherib wrote:
I’m thinking about building a new army. I want something fast, with sneaky tricks. I have always enjoyed winning by maneuver and guile. What 40k Army is best exemplified on the table by these metrics.

In the past I really enjoyed a 5th ed ultramarines army with outflanking scout speeders full of scouts. A drop pod dread, sicarius so I could infiltrate or scout another unit and a better chance to steal the initiative. It played fast, in your face, lots of speed and maneuverability on the table. It wasn’t terribly strong but it was great for surprise and more than once won against a more powerful force based on its ability to react and destabalize my foe. What should I play. Dakkadakka, I would love to hear your thoughts.

A Militarum Tempestus force would be good. Lots of Scions blitzing forward in Valkyries turn one with reinforcements deep striking and exiting Taurox Primes turn 2.

 Nithaniel wrote:

 sennacherib wrote:
I’m thinking about building a new army. I want something fast, with sneaky tricks. I have always enjoyed winning by maneuver and guile. What 40k Army is best exemplified on the table by these metrics.

In the past I really enjoyed a 5th ed ultramarines army with outflanking scout speeders full of scouts. A drop pod dread, sicarius so I could infiltrate or scout another unit and a better chance to steal the initiative. It played fast, in your face, lots of speed and maneuverability on the table. It wasn’t terribly strong but it was great for surprise and more than once won against a more powerful force based on its ability to react and destabalize my foe. What should I play. Dakkadakka, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Did you consider that ultramarines army as sneaky? If yes then most of the thread may not understand that. I see your description (not the word sneaky) as being a fast aggressive highly mobile army. If thats the case you could consider drukhari as a highly mobile army with lots of different moving parts that you have to work to get the best of through positioning and they have a host of neat stratagems that give that sneaky feel.

Yeah. I consider redeploying, outmaneuver I gotta and scout infiltrate moves sneaky. I don’t want an army that wins because of the win button. Rather I would like to win by out playing and out maneuvering my foe. Dark elder, harlequins and custodies seem to be interesting.

if you don't want an army that wins because of win button then Harlequins and custodes fit that well. Youll heare it said often that 8th edition is wonn and lost in the movement phase. The game is much more about how you move and position your units, screening units in particular. Learning to position and force your opooonents into certain positions is key with any army. The highly mobile armies like the ones mentioned and CWE all are fairly strong if souped up.

Have you considered dusting off your untramarines? The old sneaky shenanigans you used may no longer be effective but you will definitely not find a win button anywhere in that army. Drukhari however are one of the strongest monofaction armies.

Custodes got hurt a little bit by the change to the fly keyword but if you have the temperament to play a highly mobile aggressive elite army then they are really good and give you a lot of options to add in other imperial factions if you choose to.

Really starting to look like it's gonna be cults. With all of the speed, deployment shenanigans, ambush shenanigans, and character assassination potential they have (even their mining drill fortification literally snipes characters), GSC are looking pretty damn sneaky.