Deer Council - The next project!

Hi guys, So this weekend is the Death or Glory tournament in Ashtead, Surrey (I think it's Surrey lol) - an 1850, 40 man, 5 game bad boy and MY FIRST tournament since much earlier in the year where I HAVEN'T had to run Tyranids!

I ran the Nids cause I wanted a good performance at the ETC and was, well.. distinctly average. But I'm free now to have a good look at what I want to run over the next year and

 I'm running ...... Tau.

Allied with more Tau.

Yup. I'm a boring bastard - I love S7 and the shooting phase...always have, always will lol.

But as those super early battle reports, the first few posts on the Sons of Sanguinius will attest, it's an army I've run for years and I love suits.

It's sad when you have to justify your choice of army cause it's a bit good in the current meta. I read a post from Luke Nurser over at the Death or Glory blog and he opened his post with something like "I've run eldar forever, they were my second ever army and I love them" like you have to apologise for running something strong, relevant and current.

  Fuck that.

  I'm running Tau with Farsight Tau Allied in. Fuck y'all haha!

HOWEVER... I do also flit around and change what I want to run and I've dived AWAY from the Screamer Council as something that I'll be running (depsite loving the broken ass craziness of it... I mean LOVING it too BTW, loving it.) and I'd quite like to try and get the Eldar up and running in a NON-SERPENT SPAM kinda fashion.

  I love the mobility and antics that Eldar can bring to the table and one of my absolute favourite blogs ever was Way of Saim Hann - Fritz40k as it is now.

It is a wonderful site, run by a great guy and it was my first source of information on the blogosphere back in the day - when I first started playing again at the start of 5th ed and I was running Eldar myself. I principally loved his anti-meta jetbike mobility and 'Eldar Turn 5' shenanigans and that is what I'd like to bring back to my gaming.

Now, I appreciate I can do that with Allied Eldar into my Tau or vice versa, but I think I'd like to bring in the Dark Kin. Dark Eldar - yeah, for sure bitch! They are gorgeous models. You'll remember oh long time Sons fan, that I ran Dark Eldar to my first ever tournament win at the first Blog Wars tournament a few years ago and realy, the models have been shelved since. So, I'd really love it if I could bring them back to the table.

I'm thinking Deer Council.


Yeah, Seer Council Eldar with Dark Eldar.

Deer Council.

There have been a couple of excellent articles written recently that put forward the Deer Council as unbeatable and fun.
But it isn't unbeatable - you need to roll Fortune on JUST 6 rolls and really, you need it early in that string of rolls to make it super solid - cause then you can switch out and get the good stuff.
On the otherhand, the Screamer Council will have 9 rolls at least, max 12, 13 if you count Fateweavers single roll on Divination to get his good stuff off... it's gonna happen.

Deer Council changes when they don't get it and that's what I like.
The Risk.
When it fails it really is poor.. and requires a lot more management and trickery to win.

I quite fancy it - it's fast, resilient, deadly and most importantly, LOW MODEL COUNT! Yup, I'm still on quite a kick where I don't want another army that has a large model count for a while lol!
Sure I'll get back into my Nids when the new books hits, but til then... Looooooooow model count FTW - so Deathstars basically.

I've never really run Deathstars properly before, I quite fancy it as I think it'll add another dimension to my play - not only in playing with them, but truly understanding how they tick.

My next tournament (after DoG) is Battlefield Birmingham and that's 1500... so what do I run at that?

We have to have the 2 Farseers in HQ, they need Jetbikes of course and when adding +1T and 3+ save for 15 points as well as superb 'contestability' and 'line breakage', why wouldnt you?

I do like a "Solitaire" build Autarch, but for this army - you MUST roll Fortune. One "5" from 6 maximum rolls.. you should get it... but where you get it in the sequence of rolls determines the overall effectiveness of the rest of the force as well. And times you don't get it... pray it isnt against Tau and Serpent Spam that ignores cover and play a defensive game.

I think Runes of Witnessing need to be taken on both, because at the end of the day, there will be a turn in a game where a failure to cast is utterly unacceptable. But I may change my opinion on this.

Shard of Anaris makes the unit fearless and that is crucial.

Then 8 jetbike Warlocks, aim to mix up the rolls of Runes of Battle and pray for 2+ armour as well as a smattering of other bits.

Add in the Baron from the Dark Eldar portion of the list to help go first (very vulnerable going second) and to add stealth and hit and run to the Council as well as that awesome 2++ save at the front, tanking like a boss with Fortune. He also hits at S6 on the charge and can survive quite well on his own so could just bugger off towards the end of the game as another contest unit if necessary.

I think people overlook the Council in its ability to contest as you can spit off 4 different units when it is crucial to victory.

This ties up a huge amount of points however and leaves little to play with at 1500.

Troops have to be next and I'm opting for 4 x 3-man Wind Rider Jetbike units. They can sit in reserve and just bomb around late game or hide when they come on. They also form a small MSU firing squad where we can aim to ground FMCs with multiple units of TL goodness, then charge with the Council with massed Fleshbane attacks.

On the Dark Eldar side we can cheaply pick up 5 Kabalite Warriors and just buy them a Venom with extra Cannon and Grislies for the LD test reroll - psychic tests are a true LD test in 6th so that is a nice touch. If it were not for the inherent fragility of the Venoms I'd maybe suggest that Runes of Witnessing weren't needed, but I think they still are. The Venoms also bring some excellent long range poison shooting and can be greatly used to reach out on those backfield units. They also have the speed to get to where they need to be and can be operated with the Kabalites either on or off the board as walk on reserves.  

I love Swooping Hawks and a unit of 6 is superb for harrassment and for hyper accurate late game contesting, so they get a nod..

Warp Spiders are a cracking unit too and they match the mobility of the army and bring in some needed firepower.

I would quite like some Bright Lance War Walker units, but the truth is 1500 is really tight for points and whilst I could fit them, I'd need to lose quite a bit.. let's see..

Farseer - Jetbike, Shard, RoWit
Farseer - Jetbike, RoWit
Baron
8 Jetbike Warlocks
2 x 5 Kabalites in Venoms, Cannon, Grislies
4 x 3 man Jetbike units
6 Swooping Hawks
8 Warp Spiders

1497....

Thoughts? too much of a 'gamblers army'? Too gimmicky? I've never been a deathstar fan, but times change and I fancy something different...