Friday 20 July 2012

The Voice Speaks….:”Blue Sky thinking” or “Crazy ideas that might not work but I’m going to put it in the interwebs anyway”



We’ve all done it. You get an idea, you spend an hour scribbling manically while referring to your codex while cackling “this will be broken!!”.  You might even proxy it for a game or two…but ultimately you just find the A4 pad 6 months later, look at the list on it and go “what was I thinking???!”
But every now and again you hit upon a winner…and who decides? Well you, the person who’s going to buy it with their hard earning drinking tickets, that’s who. But you can get 500-1000 views on the internet and some opinions first though, right?
This will be a semi regular habit of mine if I don’t have much else to blog about, ie, “Could this work?”
Anyway for today’s delectation I bring you THE STAFF STAR (I like making names for the lists too in case they stick :P….) an idea me and certain Mr Oakham have been playing with until he jumped ship to Ork Nobbikes...traitor.
Obyron – 160
Zahndrekh -185
Destroyer Lord with weave, mindschackle and scythe – 155
Royal court -420
4 lords with weave and staff of light, 1 lord with weave and warscythe
5 crypteks, 2 with staff of light, 1 with chrometron, 2 with voltanic staffs and lightning fields
5 Warriors in night scythe – 165
5 Warriors in night scythe - 165
5 Warriors in night scythe - 165
5 Warriors in night scythe - 165
Annihilation Barge – 90
Annihilation Barge - 90
Annihilation Barge – 90
Basic premise? – 21 preferred enemy staff of light shots in to a unit with added utility and weight of fire in the form of 8 preferred enemy Strength 5 haywire shots too. This is then backed up with the defence of majority toughness 5 with 8 2+ saves and a resurrection orb and a toughness 6 guy at the front taking the hits, with a reroll per phase to help with teleporting, saves, crucial resurrection rolls and similar; and the ability to teleport out of combat and do it all over again.
Add in Zhandrekhs ability to counter most buffs (like furious charge and stealth) and give the unit itself counter attack or stealth  and throw in an over watch shot or two and you end up with a unit that you can’t really shoot and you cant really charge …(oh did I mention that if you do charge it then you take 2d6 strength 8 hits as well?) and it can lay the hurt down on pretty much anything.  Just say goodbye to any marine unit not hugging an aegis defence line and target any demolisher cannons with extreme prejudice.
Oh and the unit is all characters so you can place any of those hits that roll a 6…sorry mr uber guy at the front who I probably won’t be killing anyway as I’ve teleported to the side, all your buddies are dead.
The rest of the army becomes scoring and fire support to try and soften up units such as terminators (paladins) but even then I think if I could charge terminators with the stick star I could take em with 11 preferred enemy war scythe attacks with furious charge (eat ap 1 instagib Mr nemisis hammer!!) and a mind shackle for good measure.
Also Zhandrekhs phased reinforcements rule should be considered too. This allows your 4 flyers to AUTOMATICALLY turn up should you opponent bring on any reserves. Via deep strike admittedly, but you still get a jink save and suddenly you have 7 twin telsa destructors on the table not 3. Anything that makes target priority a bitch for your opponent is a good thing in my books.


So it’s a hell of a death star but do you think it can work? It seems to have all the tools to cope in the emerging 6th ed meta:
It can deal with flyers
It HAS flyers
It can deal with hordes
It can deal with marines.
It can lay large amount of hull points out on anything
It can deal with paladins…I think.
My only question is.. can it deal with Nob Warbikes?
Anyway..the floor is yours oh internet readership…tactical genius or insensible ravings of a madman..you decide. 
Gary

6 comments:

  1. Nice idea! A flying jack of all trades death star with good support fire and fast scoring troops - well done.

    One thing: you can't have 2 lightning fields in one court...

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  2. Hes right you know...oh well ten points to spare... :P

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  3. Gary I would probably drop one annihilation barge and a night scythe to get a doom scythe in.

    That would help deal with termies/nobbikes and BWs/LRs/ghost arks when they come up. Also you have lots of flyer saturation so it shouldnt go down easy and even if it does your opponent has committed alot of shooting to take to down.

    Kiran

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  4. hmm, so maybe :

    Obyron – 160
    Zahndrekh -185
    Destroyer Lord with weave, mindschackle and scythe – 155
    Royal court -420
    4 lords with weave and staff of light, 1 lord with weave and warscythe
    5 crypteks, 2 with staff of light, 1 with chrometron, 2 with voltanic staffs and 1 lightning field
    5 Warriors in night scythe – 165
    5 Warriors in night scythe - 165
    5 Warriors in night scythe - 165
    5 Warriors 78
    Doom Scythe – 175
    Annihilation Barge - 90
    Annihilation Barge – 90

    Which leave 12 points for somthing random on the court.

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  5. Agree with Kiran..like the newer list quite a bit, leaves only 7 points though as you've under costed the Destroyer Lord - he is 160 points with that set up.

    The fliers are gonna be hard to put down. Just got back from Brighton Warlords this weekend and can safely say fliers are tough. I can also say that Necron fliers are going to be consistently strong and can gang up on other fliers due to numbers. I'd not worry too much about the Doom Scythe going down, it'll take either a lucky Interceptor/Skyfire Bastion/Aegis or Divination Missiles/Tesla...with the latter, at least it's getting one shot off!

    Regarding the actual Death Star. The crux of the list.. the fliers are strong, don't get me wrong, and with mobility and scoring being 5/6 missions in 6th, they provide a massive boost to the power of this list without compromising on points.

    For me, it comes down to this, like you say it is "one hell of a death star".. and it can kill whatever it looks at.
    But that is only one thing per turn. You'll never assault with all of it, perhaps the DLord due to his extended range, on rare occassions Obyron as some armies may not be able to outmanouevre due to congestion..but remember, the deep strike must be at least 1" away.. more than that in all likelihood as we all know.. and from there, they just move away..which means the DLord and Oby and really only counter assault elements..320 points of it.. Not that that is necessarily a bad thin..

    My point is, the Death Star can kill one thing per turn. 5 things per game. Or, you could spread those points out and kill more.. It is a good list mate, and as a good player I'm sure you'd kick a lot of ass.. I just think that the army would crumble to Wolves..forget Death Stars like Paladins and Nob Bikerz, look at the balanced tough armies.. Dual Jaws? You teleport in and kill the rhino.. they destroy you.
    Rhino - 35
    Jaws - 100
    Death Star - 925.
    I'm not even talking out of my arse.. we all know there will be a lot of Wolves out there..
    I'm one of them.
    Just won Brighton Warlords 1850 first 6th ed tournament with them.
    Hope that'c constructive criticism ...that's how it's meant. At least food for thought.

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  6. Lol course mate :) .. intellectual exercise i think is the correct term

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