Hi everyone. I've been super busy with work and family stuff so I'm having trouble finding time to blog. Plus I'm painting a Warmachine army up. Fun game.
My favorite game so far has been against Gatormen. The dude was a nice fellow but he said it would be embarrassing if he lost to a n00b like me. He was doing this thing where he put puddles all over the board, and so long as his gators were in the puddles, I couldn't shoot him. Well, half my army shoots, so it's completely useless and I'm wondering what the hell I'm going to do when the gators come get me. So on the second turn, he moves his caster within 15" of mine. and puts him in one of the puddles. So my caster (Ashlynn) has a spell that pulls the model it hits d6" directly towards her if she hits. So I walk up, and yoink him out of his puddle and whop his warcaster over the head with a couple warjacks winning on turn 2 and trying feebly to stifle a shit-eating grin. So I've won five games straight since losing my first two, now. Game is not hard at all!
I also want to complain about the Battlescribe app on my phone. The guy has seen fit to update the interface and put ads all over the place, but he has decided to not fix the feature that makes it crash whenever I click the wrong button, even though I never know what button that will be. Somebody should do something! And would whoever uploaded the damn Daemon catalog into the repository fix the sodding costs for the Soul Grinders already? You copied and pasted the Daemon of Soandso costs from the Daemon Prince entry, I get it, but fix it, damn you! If anyone knows how to upload a catalog to that repository, let me know, and then do it for me because I am lazy.
But I did not come here today to talk to you about that.
Suppose we were to set about creating the most efficient summoning list such that you could get three units per turn fairly reliably without breaking the bank (In a two source, no double-CAD format.). You may not like the answer as it involves Eldar, but let's see how it looks anyway.
5 dice are required for your typical psyker to have a 50/50 shot at Summoning. 6 dice pumps it to 75%. You would need 18 warp charge to have a decent shot at 3 units per turn with no help. It takes a lot of points to get that much WC, usually at the expense of other stuff. So if you want to do this on the cheap, you start bargain hunting.
The single cheapest dedicated summoner in the game is a Farseer with the Spirit Stone of Anath'lan. The stone lets him summon for WC2 meaning he has a 75% shot on 4 dice, and he'll usually need one to shag the perils wound. He's 115 points. You probably want him on a bike, which is only 15 points because those aren't very good at all, and you'll probably want Runes of Witnessing so he can reroll his first summoning attempt in order to improve your odds of getting more stuff in the early game. So all told, he's 130 points, fills your allied HQ choice cheaply, and makes you want to punch Phil Kelly in the ding ding. Later we might give him the Mantle of the Laughing God or something.
Next in line is the CSM Sorcerer with Spell Familiar. At 80 points for just that, he can get you a unit per turn on his own, but he'll be dead in two rounds. So we would crank him up to ML3 for the extra WC and give him the Mark of Nurgle and a Palanquin for extra wounds. Now he's 180. He'll still die before the game is over, but he'll get you a unit on 5 dice the vast majority of the time.
For a warlord, you'd take that Sorcerer template and plus him up a bit more. Give him Prophet of the Voices and the Daemonheart plus a Sigil. 265 points total. Now he won't perils on any double, he'll regenerate those perils he does roll, and he has four wounds. He'll need an escort of Possessed to have someplace to hang out, but your troops choices suck anyway, and you have Eldar allies so shut up. Consideration might be given to putting the Daemonheart on the non-Prophet Sorcerer since he'll be taking more wounds. That would require experimentation.
Okay so we have a Farseer for 130 and two ML3 Sorcerers for 180 and 265 respectively. We're up to WC9, and we need 15 in order to have a pretty good shot at 3 units per turn. Looks like we need 3 more WC base, and it's going to come from Warlocks. At 35 points apiece, 2 will cost me 70. I can stash them in Wave Serpents I no doubt brought along, though I will have to take Guardians. If I want more than two Warlocks, I need to either bring a Vaul's Wrath weapons battery, or make a mini Jetseer Council.
I don't want to dump a bunch of points into a jetbike squad that I can't protect and is just there to drop a unit on the board, and I'm bringing a Wraithknight, so a Vaul's Wrath battery is out, so I would probably buy the two Warlocks and finish with 11 Warp Charge. I have a 50/50 shot at getting the needed 15 WC on the first turn. The very first thing I'll do is summon two squads of Horrors to beef that up, and then we're off to the races.
All told, it costs me 645 points to do this. I can run the Farseer with Warp Spiders, stash the Warlocks with Guardians in Serpents, and we have a list taking shape.
Sorcerer, MoN, palanquin, ML3, daemonheart, Prophet of the Voices, sigil, spell familiar
Sorcerer, MoN, palanquin, ML3, spell familiar
5 Possessed, MoN
10 Cultists
Heldrake, baleflamer
Farseer, jetbike, Spirit Dealy of Al Habib, runes of witnessing
Warlock
Warlock
10 Storm Guardians, 2 meltaguns, Wave Serpent, scatter laser
10 Storm Guardians, 2 meltaguns, Wave Serpent, scatter laser
7 Warp Spiders
Wraithknight
1848
I couldn't come up with anything better than the Drake. It kinda works here. Drop two Horrors first turn, plus some Daemonettes if fortune goes your way, then Daemonette spam til the game ends. Blast away with Serpents and Wraithknights and stuff. You got yer summoning. You got some good anti tank and anti-infantry. You got Objective Secured. You got everything! Fun will be had by almost everyone at the table!
My favorite game so far has been against Gatormen. The dude was a nice fellow but he said it would be embarrassing if he lost to a n00b like me. He was doing this thing where he put puddles all over the board, and so long as his gators were in the puddles, I couldn't shoot him. Well, half my army shoots, so it's completely useless and I'm wondering what the hell I'm going to do when the gators come get me. So on the second turn, he moves his caster within 15" of mine. and puts him in one of the puddles. So my caster (Ashlynn) has a spell that pulls the model it hits d6" directly towards her if she hits. So I walk up, and yoink him out of his puddle and whop his warcaster over the head with a couple warjacks winning on turn 2 and trying feebly to stifle a shit-eating grin. So I've won five games straight since losing my first two, now. Game is not hard at all!
I also want to complain about the Battlescribe app on my phone. The guy has seen fit to update the interface and put ads all over the place, but he has decided to not fix the feature that makes it crash whenever I click the wrong button, even though I never know what button that will be. Somebody should do something! And would whoever uploaded the damn Daemon catalog into the repository fix the sodding costs for the Soul Grinders already? You copied and pasted the Daemon of Soandso costs from the Daemon Prince entry, I get it, but fix it, damn you! If anyone knows how to upload a catalog to that repository, let me know, and then do it for me because I am lazy.
But I did not come here today to talk to you about that.
Suppose we were to set about creating the most efficient summoning list such that you could get three units per turn fairly reliably without breaking the bank (In a two source, no double-CAD format.). You may not like the answer as it involves Eldar, but let's see how it looks anyway.
5 dice are required for your typical psyker to have a 50/50 shot at Summoning. 6 dice pumps it to 75%. You would need 18 warp charge to have a decent shot at 3 units per turn with no help. It takes a lot of points to get that much WC, usually at the expense of other stuff. So if you want to do this on the cheap, you start bargain hunting.
The single cheapest dedicated summoner in the game is a Farseer with the Spirit Stone of Anath'lan. The stone lets him summon for WC2 meaning he has a 75% shot on 4 dice, and he'll usually need one to shag the perils wound. He's 115 points. You probably want him on a bike, which is only 15 points because those aren't very good at all, and you'll probably want Runes of Witnessing so he can reroll his first summoning attempt in order to improve your odds of getting more stuff in the early game. So all told, he's 130 points, fills your allied HQ choice cheaply, and makes you want to punch Phil Kelly in the ding ding. Later we might give him the Mantle of the Laughing God or something.
Next in line is the CSM Sorcerer with Spell Familiar. At 80 points for just that, he can get you a unit per turn on his own, but he'll be dead in two rounds. So we would crank him up to ML3 for the extra WC and give him the Mark of Nurgle and a Palanquin for extra wounds. Now he's 180. He'll still die before the game is over, but he'll get you a unit on 5 dice the vast majority of the time.
For a warlord, you'd take that Sorcerer template and plus him up a bit more. Give him Prophet of the Voices and the Daemonheart plus a Sigil. 265 points total. Now he won't perils on any double, he'll regenerate those perils he does roll, and he has four wounds. He'll need an escort of Possessed to have someplace to hang out, but your troops choices suck anyway, and you have Eldar allies so shut up. Consideration might be given to putting the Daemonheart on the non-Prophet Sorcerer since he'll be taking more wounds. That would require experimentation.
Okay so we have a Farseer for 130 and two ML3 Sorcerers for 180 and 265 respectively. We're up to WC9, and we need 15 in order to have a pretty good shot at 3 units per turn. Looks like we need 3 more WC base, and it's going to come from Warlocks. At 35 points apiece, 2 will cost me 70. I can stash them in Wave Serpents I no doubt brought along, though I will have to take Guardians. If I want more than two Warlocks, I need to either bring a Vaul's Wrath weapons battery, or make a mini Jetseer Council.
I don't want to dump a bunch of points into a jetbike squad that I can't protect and is just there to drop a unit on the board, and I'm bringing a Wraithknight, so a Vaul's Wrath battery is out, so I would probably buy the two Warlocks and finish with 11 Warp Charge. I have a 50/50 shot at getting the needed 15 WC on the first turn. The very first thing I'll do is summon two squads of Horrors to beef that up, and then we're off to the races.
All told, it costs me 645 points to do this. I can run the Farseer with Warp Spiders, stash the Warlocks with Guardians in Serpents, and we have a list taking shape.
Sorcerer, MoN, palanquin, ML3, daemonheart, Prophet of the Voices, sigil, spell familiar
Sorcerer, MoN, palanquin, ML3, spell familiar
5 Possessed, MoN
10 Cultists
Heldrake, baleflamer
Farseer, jetbike, Spirit Dealy of Al Habib, runes of witnessing
Warlock
Warlock
10 Storm Guardians, 2 meltaguns, Wave Serpent, scatter laser
10 Storm Guardians, 2 meltaguns, Wave Serpent, scatter laser
7 Warp Spiders
Wraithknight
1848
I couldn't come up with anything better than the Drake. It kinda works here. Drop two Horrors first turn, plus some Daemonettes if fortune goes your way, then Daemonette spam til the game ends. Blast away with Serpents and Wraithknights and stuff. You got yer summoning. You got some good anti tank and anti-infantry. You got Objective Secured. You got everything! Fun will be had by almost everyone at the table!