Warhammer World Visit

Just got off the phone to Matt who's filled me in on the plans for our Apoc-style game at Warhammer World next Wednesday. We've booked the Assault on Terra table. There used to be an article about how it was made on the Warhammer World website but since they merged the sites it's got lost. Anyway, I was pleased to hear that they've rebased the entire table in a snow theme! It's almost like they knew we were coming!

So the plan is to have a all-day 6000 point game. One the one side will be Matt and I with 3K of Blood Angels and 3K of Space Wolves. Facing us will me our friend Alex (who we play Necromunda with) and he'll use a combined Daemonhunters and Imperial Guard army of 6K pts. We're not using any of the Apoc rules by the way just that it's a huge game. Both mine and Matt's armies will have to comform to a standard FOC whereas we're being a bit more flexible with Alex since it'd be difficult with the models he has to make it all legal.

The basic idea is that BA/SW will guard the fortress on one side of the map and try and stop Alex getting his forces onto a suitable objective inside the base. In a planetstrike style Alex will win if he has a unit within 3" of the objective contested or not. A big attack and defend scenario really. We're kind of making it up as we go along at this point really. 

Anyway, I'll post again once I've put together my half of our list. Expect to see me make the most of my 4 HQ choices! I should mention that anyone who wants to come watch is welcome to! Not that I anticipate anyone doing so but just in case anyone was thinking about it.

Special Characters Summary

As promised I'm going to summarise the pros & cons of all the special characters then in a few subsequent posts I'll give some sample army lists to try and get people using more interesting armies!

A full list of the articles in this series is on the right of the blog and if you're considering using any of the special characters I suggest reading them. This list of pros and cons is just to give you a guide. Some characters look like they have far more of one than another but that doesn't necessarily mean you should use them (or not). Bear in mind you need to pick a character that suits your army style. 

Njal Stormcaller 
Pros: Powerful psyker, can use two powers per turn plus powerful Lord of Tempests. Possibly the best anti-psychic in the game (nullifies on 3+, 24" range). Durable 2+/4+ save.

Cons: Not great in combat, only two wounds and not eternal makes him vulnerable for the points. High points cost particularly with terminator armour. Minimal army benefits.

Best uses: Terminator bodyguard sat on an objective or with long fangs blasting away with lightning. 

Logan Grimnar 
Pros: Eternal warrior, 3 wounds, 2+/4+ save and stubborn will keep him alive. Living legend can make an assault phase pretty lethal. High King makes a unit either great at combat or shooting. Can strike at I5 but option of power fist. Wolf Guard become troops, freeing up elite slots. Lethal in combat.

Cons: At higher points can limit army as WG must be troops. Extremely high points cost can put him out of contention in 2000pts or less. High King makes his use a tricky choice.

Best uses: Large, well equipped unit of terminators in a land raider or drop pod. Alternatively, gives long fangs relentless or tank hunters but wastes his CC prowess. 

Ragnar Blackmane 
Pros: Cheaper option than Logan. Ablative wounds from fen wolves. Furious charge for a unit gives I5 for them and I6 for him. Once per game gives it to more units. Insane amount of attacks on the charge (possibly) if used in a large unit. Saga can give him even more attacks. High strength thanks for FC and frost blade. Invulnerable save.

Cons: Relies on getting the charge. Only gets a 3+ basic save and no eternal warrior makes him vulnerable to power fists and high strength shots. High cost for someone that can be killed so easily.

Best uses: Stick him in a rhino or drop pod with a full strength unit of grey hunters and pile him into a crucial enemy unit. Pop a standard and you're almost guaranteed to annihilate them (should you get the charge). 

Bjorn the Fell-Handed 
Pros: Venerable, AV13 and 5+ save makes him durable. Ability to dreadlock a unit. Bonus objective which can come in handy. High strength even in CC weapon destroyed. Gives you option to re-roll for deployment. Can soak up a lot of fire which gives a good distraction to protect the rest of your force.

Cons: Must die to make rest of army fearless. Additional objective can back-fire badly and loses D3 KP if not held in annihilation games. No drop pod means he'll have a long walk to get into combat and one lucky shot could potentially cost you 270pts. High cost over a standard dread without significant improvements.

Best uses: Counter charge on an objective/protect long fangs. Hug cover and try and dread-lock an opponent. 

Ulrik the Slayer 
Pros: Low points cost above a standard wolf priest makes him easier to include. Awesome against high toughness such as daemons/big tyranids. Army wide benefit from Wolf-Helm plus difficult for an IC to hit in combat. Makes his unit fearless. Plasma pistol can come in handy.

Cons: Vanilla wolf priest gives a lot of the same benefits but more flexibility with the preferred enemy. Only two wounds, no eternal warrior and T4 makes him vulnerable to power fists etc.

Best uses: Large unit of GH or BC. Almost a must against Tyranids/Daemons. Use Mentor to boost a dreadnought, lone wolf or PF model. 

Canis Wolfborn
Pros: Big target to distract your opponent away from the rest of your army. S5 and ablative wounds make him durable. Fen wolves can be taken as troops and will have better stats thanks to Saga. High strength, rending, wolf claws and potential for a lot of attacks makes him deadly in combat. Potential to engage a unit 24" away in combat (12" charge range). Low points cost makes him easy to include.

Cons: No invulnerable save - railguns and S10 characters are not your friends. Needs a change in army style to be really effective.

Best uses: Give him a TWC bodyguard (with a storm shield) and get him in on a horde of orks/nids. Solo with fen wolves could be tricky but worth a go. 

Arjac Rockfist 
Pros: Good against ICs or MCs. Pretty cheap to include and can be split from WG squad to lead another unit. Throw the hammer to de-mech your target first. Storm shield without the downside. Eternal warrior and terminator armour make him sturdy. Large number of thunder hammer attacks will make him scary to your opponents.

Cons: Not an independent character so some benefits are wasted. No model available (but easy to convert). No unit or army-wide benefits (since he's just an upgrade character).

Best uses: Upgrade a terminator squad and go on the hunt for high toughness stuff. Drop pod him in near some juicy tanks or heavy weapons teams. 

Lukas the Trickster 
Pros: Last Laugh has the potential to make him more than pay for himself. Good number of attacks and re-roll from claw will make a mess of a lot of things in combat. Cheapest of all the characters listed here so not going to break the bank to include him.

Cons: Have to get him killed to make the most of him. Doesn't really benefit his unit. Pelt is pretty useless since he needs to be alone and at that point you probably want him to die. Must include Blood Claws to use him, relies on charge. Limits leadership of his unit.

Best uses: Upgrade a 15 man blood claw squad and give them a wolf priest. If you've got the points stick that little lot in an LR Crusader and ensure you get the charge. Find something juicy for him to trap in stasis forever and watch your opponent scrabble to find some reason why his valuable model isn't removed from the table!

Final thoughts
I hope this series will have at least encouraged people to give the special characters a go. I know they're a lot of points but if you pick a couple and give them a go I'm sure you won't be disappointed. We showed at the tournament that sometimes an SC can be lethal when used right. Don't expect them to win games for you but sometimes the result of a crucial combat can be changed by their presence.

The alternative is to create your own characters with their own backstory and benefits. This can either be using the rules from an SC with a different name or by tooling up a wolf lord or battle leader. The codex gives you some great options for them and the Sagas give them a bit more flavour. 

Let me know if you try any of them or have problems finding a role for them in your army. If nothing else they're (mostly) fantastic looking models to have on the table and people will respect you more for using them than boring stats lists. Remember 40K doesn't always have to be super competitive!

Thoughts on Special Characters - Part 7: Arjac Rockfist & Lukas the Trickster

We've come to the final part of this series and it's a double header of "upgrade" characters. These guys can't be taken on their own so they aren't the usual special characters. However, they're pretty potent in their own right. The other main difference between them and the HQ choices is that they don't enhance the unit they're tied to (in fact Lukas makes them worse if anything!). Let's start with Arjac.

Arjac Rockfist, The Anvil of Fenris

Arjac Rockfist can be taken in a squad of Wolf Guard but it doesn't have to be a terminator squad. He costs 170pts plus 18pts for the WG he upgrades from. This makes him the same basic cost as Ulrik or Canis. Bear in mind that like other WG he can go off to lead other squads such as Grey Hunters but not Scouts because of his terminator armour. This means you could include him along with the usual WG that you put with your Grey Hunters and have him attach in the same way they do. The advantage of this over conventional ICs is that he can't be targeted separately in CC and he doesn't have to charge first like ICs do whilst still getting the protection of being in a squad. 

His basic statline is quite nice. The most noticeable things are the S5 and 3 attacks, couple this with his thunder hammer and that's strength 10 and a couple of bonus attacks on the charge (1 for charging and 1 from his shield, which even works when he's been charged). So that's a whopping 5 S10 attacks which combined with the obligatory Wolftooth necklace means bad times for anything he comes across. The rest of his stat line isn't so exciting. BS and WS 5 are nice but since he has a necklace anyway and he only gets one shooting attack (I'll come to that later) he doesn't really need either. His toughness 4, 2 wounds and terminator armour make him just as difficult to kill as two terminators with storm shields. Saga of the Bear ensures he's not at risk from instant death which is handy to protect him from pesky lascannons and meltaguns.

His special rules are the standard Acute Senses, ATSKNF, Counter-Attack but with the addition of Stubborn which doesn't take effect until he's on his own. Grimnar's Champion gives him a nice re-roll to hit against ICs and MCs. It does however, mean that he has to direct attacks to ICs which you'd probably do anyway. The Anvil Shield is just a storm shield but as I've mentioned you get an extra attack in the first round of combat. The foehammer can be thrown 6" with S10 and AP1 making it the world's shortest ranged railgun! This might not sound brilliant but it does give a combat heavy terminator squad chance to de-mech a target before clobbering the occupants. 

I'd use him with 4 terminator buddies in a drop pod. Perhaps something like Arjac, 3 wolf claw terminators and a cyclone/PF combo. The wolf claws give you some I4 attacks and then Arjac and the fist can wreak havoc last. It may be worth swapping out a claw terminator for another hammer and shield to give you added protection. That or put him in a drop pod with an 8 man grey hunter squad and see what you can get to fight you! The other more obvious alternative is to put him with a squad in a land raider and pile into your enemies strongest unit. I'd even consider a redeemer so he's gets 7 friends to ride alongside.

PS Thanks to Cathexis on DakkaDakka for the inspiring Arjac conversion that I'm working to emulate with a few differences (I'll post about this when he's done).

Lukas the Trickster

The first and most obvious thing to notice about Lukas, and the reason he doesn't get used, is that he's an upgrade to a squad of blood claws. I think the problem people have with Blood Claws is that they cost the same as grey hunters and don't offer enough to compensate for the loss of those bolters. Anyway, let's look at Lukas and I'll come back to this issue.

Lukas costs 140pts plus 15pts for the BC he replaces, at 155pts he's the cheapest "special character". He's pretty tooled up for the points too. He gets a necklace, talisman, wolf claw, a plasma pistol and his pelt (which we'll come to later). His statline is quite nice, he gets 2 extra points in WS & BS over his squad mates, an extra wound, 3 attacks and that all important I5. His leadership is a measly 8 but it also can't be increased by adding a IC to the squad which also applies to the rest of the squad. This can easily be mitigated by adding a Wolf Priest to his squad which gives them all Fearless and Preferred Enemy. Speaking of which preferred enemy is pretty vital with Blood Claws given their low WS.

Anyway, his special rules are what make him, well... special. The most infamous of these is his Last Laugh ability. Should Lukas find himself in combat and your opponent lands a killing blow then you roll off to see if you can remove all the models that were in base contact with him! This affects both friend and foe so be careful who you put next to him but the possibilities of this rule are endless. Charge him into a land raider and let the occupants get out and attack you. Should they kill you and you win the roll off then it's bye bye land raider! His pelt on the other hand has been a little bit screwed by the FAQ. Since he isn't an IC you can't allocate attacks to him separately so you opponent is unlikely to have to re-roll many hits. In practice this means that he has to be on his own for it to do anything at all and to be honest once he's alone you almost want him to die so that he can play his final trick.

For me Lukas is best in a full strength squad of blood claws (15 including him) and a vanilla wolf priest. For them to be truly effective they need a land raider crusader to get them into a (nearly) guaranteed charge position. Throw in a power weapon for one of the claws and a multi-melta for the crusader and it's over 600 points for this unit. Can't see many people finding space for them in their lists but in high points games (at least 2500) he'd be a fun little addition. This unit will have about 66 attacks on the charge with a good chunk of them as power weapons. Add in the preferred enemy and you've got a good chance of annihilating a large squad. The Wolf Priest also gets rid of the annoying Headstrong. In my post yesterday I talked about distraction units and he's certainly that. Anyone who knows about him will be understandably cautious about getting into combat with him which you can play to your advantage. 

The alternative is a smaller bodyguard for Lukas and stick him in either a razorback or rhino and pile them forward as quick as possible. Park up, hope not to get de-meched them charge out and make a mess of someone. Either way I doubt you'll see anyone using him at a tournament. I have to agree that BCs aren't as good as GHs but they're certainly more fun!

Right, that's it then. The next post in this series will be the last and it'll be a handy summary of the pros and cons of each character so you can choose which, if any, you'd like to try out!