I finally had a chance to use my Slaanesh CSM list on Saturday in two separate games. Actually, I used two different versions of the list; now that I have a daemon prince together, I went ahead and created a variant that included one. First, though, I wanted to play the original list I’d built. I’d promised my friend Jon that he would get first crack at the list, so he brought his Space Wolves to the table. Here’s what I brought to the table:

HQ: Chaos Sorcerer (1#, 125 pts)
1 Chaos Sorcerer (Mark of Slaanesh; Lash of Submission)

Elite: Possessed (7#, 241 pts)
5 Possessed (Icon of Slaanesh)
1 Possessed Champion
1 Rhino (Daemonic Possession)

Troops: Noise Marines (7#, 280 pts)
5 Noise Marines (Sonic Blaster x4; Blastmaster)
1 Noise Champion (Doom Siren; Power Weapon)
1 Rhino (Daemonic Possession)

Troops: Chaos Space Marines (11#, 285 pts)
9 Chaos Space Marines (Icon of Slaanesh; Plasmagun x2)
1 Aspiring Champion (Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol)
1 Rhino

Troops: Chaos Space Marines (11#, 265 pts)
9 Chaos Space Marines (Icon of Slaanesh; Meltagun x2)
1 Aspiring Champion (Power Fist)
1 Rhino

Heavy Support: Obliterators (2#, 150 pts)
2 Obliterators

Heavy Support: Obliterators (2#, 150 pts)
2 Obliterators

Total: 1496 points

We rolled up a mission from the Battle Missions book and ended up playing Pillage, a Chaos Marine mission. It’s basically a Spearhead deployment objective mission, but with two differences. First, your board edge is not the long board edge touching your table quarter; instead, you only get the edges of your quarter itself. It’s a bit restrictive, but as you can only start with an HQ and 2 troops, and everything else goes into reserves, it’s not as crowded as a standard Spearhead deployment. Secondly, you don’t score objectives held at the end of the game. Instead, you accumulate points by having an uncontested, un-assaulted unit touching the objective at the end of your opponent’s turns. It’s an interesting concept, but in practice it felt very wonky. I was able to claim two of the three objectives on the first turn, and I just out-accumulated Jon to the point where the winner was clear on turn 3. I’d rather use the deployment with a standard Seize Ground mission instead.

With the scoring being a bit odd, I won’t go into the play-by-play, but I will cover some of the highlights of how my army performed.

Initiative wins battles. I’ve played enough games against Eldar, with both my Tau and Khorne CSM armies, to know how important going first in assault is. Having the Mark of Slaanesh on everything in the army (save the vehicles and Obliterators) made a huge difference. Rather than trading blows with the Space Wolves in assault, I could get the drop on my opponent and throw a flurry of blows at them. With enough hits, I could cut down the competition (even something as hardy as a Storm Shield Terminator) and reduce their ability to counterattack. Unlike Khorne Berzerkers’ Furious Charge, the effect wasn’t limited to the first round of combat; every time, I was swinging and hitting first.

Lash of Submission is effective. I know that quite a bit has been written about Lash princes and Lash sorcerers, but there’s a reason; it’s that good. Even with mechanized armies being so prevalent, it’s not hard to force troops out of their transports, and once they’re out you can pull them right to where you want them. One particularly effective strategy was to Lash a unit of marines towards my Noise Marines into a vaguely teardrop-shaped formation, and then have the Noise Champion hit them with his doom siren. Whatever survived the AP3 template weapon (which generally wasn’t much) would be mopped up by the rest of the unit’s sonic blasters, and any particularly lucky enemies that survived would get assaulted.

Obliterators are more fragile than I thought. Obliterators are basically Terminators on steroids: same armor save, same invulnerable save, and twice as many wounds. However, melta guns ruin their day. Not only do they ignore the Oblits’ armor, but they’re strong enough to double them out and kill them instantly. With every unit of Jon’s Grey Hunters packing a marine with a melta gun, there were multiple threats on the table, and Jon used them effectively to whittle down my heavy support.

Possessed Marines aren’t bad. There’s not much chance of me running them as a hammer unit; they’re not predictable enough or nasty enough to serve that job. However, they’re still a decent assault, and the randomness is a fun aspect (which I think can be just as important as being powerful). I’d compare them to summoned daemons, but with a number of advantages even though they cost more. First, they’re not solely dependent on having a 5+ invulnerable save; they still have marine armor under all the claws and teeth. Second, they can take icons, which mean they can take chaos marks; see “Initiative wins battles” above. Third, they really only have one bad random power: Scout. Everything else they can get is a solid option. Finally, they can take a Rhino, which gives you another piece of moving cover to use.

All told, I had a lot of fun playing this army. Unlike my Tau, which can really only shoot, and my Khorne CSM, which can really only assault, this felt like a much more versatile list. Like most marine variants, it’s solid both in shooting and in assault, and it has a few edges particular to it that really allow it to shine. In fact, I enjoyed playing this army so much that I’m strongly considering selling off my Khorne army to focus more resources on growing this one. Anyone interested in 1750-2000 points of assault-y Chaos Marines?

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about the other variant of my Slaanesh list, which got to face off against W.D.R. from the Undergopher podcast and his vanilla Marine army!

Artwork by Remton. Used without permission.

If you haven’t had a chance to listen, my first podcast appearance is available for download now.  About 38 minutes in, Tim (“ThatDamnPunk”, or just “Punk”) talks briefly about his basic strategy with his Blood Angels: pin his enemy into a corner. Late Saturday night, we tried just that scenario out, as I ran my Tau against him. Our mission/deployment? Annihilation/Spearhead. We only managed to get two and a half turns in before we had to call the game on time, but the first two turns were the key to the game, and what happened is making me re-evaluate how I deploy my army, especially in Spearhead.

First, let me just say that Spearhead is my least favorite of the three standard deployment types. The deployment area is the smallest, and my opponent is closer than in any other deployment style. With 5th Edition’s strong support of assault armies, this is that much more dangerous for me. Invariably, my army ends up being plastered along the very back corner to try to maximize my distance from my opponent’s army. Hopefully, this can buy me a turn or two of firing and maneuvering out of the corner, splitting my army to attempt to pincer the enemy between two firing lanes. I can relieve the clutter in deployment by putting some things in reserve, such as my Fire Warriors. However, while this does allow me to deploy them later outside of the box, it takes away their firepower, weakening my first-turn “alpha strike” capability. This hurt me in my tournament earlier this year, when I faced Dark Eldar. Had I left the Fire Warriors on the field in deployment, their fire would have likely brought down a number of Raiders, but by putting them in reserves, I just left them to come on piecemeal and get taken apart by the oncoming horde.

Against Tim’s Blood Angels, though, even this Alpha Strike plan didn’t work. He went first (with me failing to seize the initiative), and proceeded to, well, pin me in the corner. Between his Baal Predators rushing me with 30″ of movement (a 18″ flat out Scout move, plus 12″ of normal movement), and dropping two of his three drop pods right in my deployment area (each of which contained a Furioso Dreadnought and a Locator Beacon), he boxed me in and opened fire. Before I could even take a turn, I was down a Piranha and a Hammerhead, and my avenues for movement were highly restricted. I was able to get a bit of revenge on my turn, though. A combination of markerlight and railgun fire brought down one of the Predators, and I was able to remove the melta from one of the Furiosos. My Crisis Suits were able to start moving out a bit, but quarters were still a bit tight.

Turn two saw two of his Assault Squads deep-striking in, but because of the scattered units in and around the drop pod locations, denying him the use of his Locator Beacons. Still, he was able to drop one squad just behind my Crisis Suits, winning the gamble that he wouldn’t scatter. He proceeded to disarm my remaining Piranha, kill one of my Deathrains, and slaughter my Pathfinders in assault with a Furioso. Thankfully, the crater left from the Hammerhead I’d lost slowed down his other Furioso, keeping it out of assault with my Fireknives. In response, I had two squads of Fire Warriors come in around the middle of my board edge, and I opened fire on his forces with what I had left. A railgun round destroyed a Dreadnought, my remaining Deathrain disarmed his remaining Predator, and my Fireknives and Commander whittled away half of one of his Assault Squads.

However, even with the injuries I’d dealt him, it just wasn’t proving enough to stop him. His third turn (the last turn we played) saw his Librarian and Honor Guard dropping in near my Fire Warriors, my last Deathrain eliminated by an untouched Assault Squad, and my Fireknives caught in a pincer assault between his remaining Dreadnought and the remnants of his other Assault Squad. I was quickly running out of firepower, and once again, massed pulse rifle fire from my Fire Warriors had not made any scratches in a unit with Sanguinary Priests. At that point, we called the game, extrapolating out that while I might be able to bloody him some more, he definitely had the upper hand.

Clearly, this game was lost for me in the first turn. Even with what casualties I was able to inflict in return, I could not overcome the momentum of that initial tank/pod rush. The Alpha Strike strategy doesn’t work if you don’t get the first turn, and even if I had, what would I have had to shoot at? Two Baal Predators, and that’s all. My best bet would have been to leave the corner entirely and avoid getting boxed in. As more and more armies get solid fast/deep-striking options, I’m beginning to really question whether or not I should deploy at all. To paraphrase Monty Python, the first lesson of not being seen is not to stand up. If I don’t want to be targetted, I shouldn’t present one in the first place.

This brings me to the Null Deployment idea. Should I, instead, deploy as little as possible on the table? One strategy that got some traction in Tau circles shortly after 5th Edition was released was the Ninja Tau plan. This involved using a Shas’O Commander with a Positional Relay, usually with a Shield Generator and Shield Drones for maximum survivability. He would avoid fire as long as possible, bringing in one unit a turn to keep the rest of the army off the table until turn 4 or 5, when everything else would sweep in and catch the enemy off-guard in a “Delta Strike” of sorts. There’s something very attractive about this plan. It denies my opponent anything beyond the HQ (and possibly 2 troops in Dawn of War) to target, and neutralizes much of their battle plan. It also negates the “piecemeal army” effect of putting things into reserve, while allowing you to pull out units that can be useful on their own, such as Hammerheads and Broadsides and the like. On the other hand, it’s entirely dependent on the survival of that Shas’O; if he dies, the entire plan falls apart and you’re left with an army that comes out in small, uncontrolled clumps. With all the melta that’s popular in armies today, there are a lot of weapons out there that can easily double-out the Commander with one hit.

The Alpha Strike is too dependent on getting the first turn. The Null Deployment is too dependent on keeping one unit alive for four turns. Is there a middle ground? Perhaps it’s a matter of running a Positional Relay commander with a firebase of some sort, and then bringing in the heavy artillery as needed. It’s more of a Kauyon-style plan, but it might work. I don’t know if I would use Fire Warriors as the firebase, though, especially in any sort of objective-based mission. You need them to be able to grab/contest objectives late in the game. Perhaps it’s a Crisis Suit-based firebase, with Deathrains and Broadsides taking aim at the oncoming enemy while Piranhas, Hammerheads, and Fire Warriors in Devilfish sweep in late in the game. It’s going to take some doing, and more playing and testing, to figure out just the right strategy.

One of the things I was glad to see return to 5th Edition with the release of the Battle Missions book was Kill Team. Low point-value games seem to get overlooked, so it’s nice to see support for something as low as 200 points made official. Granted, the new version of Kill Team has been greatly stripped down from its 4th Edition version – no more brute squads or mutable rules – but the new version is much easier to run. However, that doesn’t mean that a proper list for it is easy to just throw together. There’s the low point budget, an abbreviated force organization chart to deal with – 1 elite, 2 troop, and 1 fast attack slot – and a focus on individually specialized units.

Not all units in the appropriate slots in the Tau codex are equally suited for Kill Teams, however. Here are the units that I wouldn’t run for a Kill Team:

• Fire Warriors. Sure, you can run 2 squads of  10 Fire Warriors as a kill team force. Unfortunately, that’s about as interesting as they’re going to get. There’s no flexibility in Fire Warriors, since they can’t change up their weapon choices apart from choosing carbines or rifles. You can take a Devilfish, which helps somewhat, but if you’re wanting to take a transport, Pathfinders are a better choice.
• Crisis Suits. On one hand, if you want to build specialists with different weapon loadouts, there’s no better choice in the codex. Unfortunately, they’re not cheap; 3 suits could easily fill up your entire 200-point budget with little to spare. Considering that you risk losing a Kill Team mission once you lose half your models, there’s not much room for error, and providing so few targets makes it easy for your opponent to focus-fire them down. At most, I might run a monat suit alongside some other choice.
• Vespid. They’re not good for much of anything, and Kill Team doesn’t change that. They have even less weapon flexibility than Fire Warriors, and their Jump Infantry/Fleet status doesn’t help their effectiveness at all, other than helping them run away.

On the other side of the spectrum are the units that I think would work in a Kill Team:

• Stealth Suits. You get the armor save and jet pack abilities of crisis suits and the extra defense of their stealth generation field, all for a much more reasonable price thanks to the free burst cannons. You can also upgrade to a fusion blaster, although the shorter range is risky due to the risk of assault. I wouldn’t necessarily run a list entirely of Stealth Suits, but in combination with another choice, you could have a solid team.
• Pathfinders. In Kill Team, these are effectively better Fire Warriors. They’re better equipped, thanks to their markerlights, and they have the option for rail rifles as well. They also can take a Scout move, which can help you get a better position for targeting your opponent’s team. The mandatory Devilfish takes up enough points to ensure that you won’t running anything other than Pathfinders, but it can also net you two Gun Drones, which gives you a total of 3 extra models for determining your loss condition.
• Gun Drones. Assuming you haven’t taken any Pathfinders, taking a unit of these can help fill out some points nicely. They get the jump-shoot-jump benefits of being jet pack infantry and have better initiative than Fire Warriors should they get caught in assault. It’s two points more expensive per drone to take them as a stand-alone unit, rather than as wargear with a drone controller, but they have the added benefit of not being tied to a controlling model. If you lose your non-drone units, you don’t start losing drones automatically.
• Kroot. Kroot were made for Kill Team, I think. They’ve got a fair amount of variety as far as what can be put inside a Kroot unit. You’ve got your standard kroot for all-around utility, you’ve got kroot hounds for assault, a krootox for some heavier support, and you can even throw in a shaper. In the Kill Team environment, the shaper actually makes sense: with his 3 wounds he’ll be tougher than most enemy models, and by giving him Eternal Warrior as a specialist you keep him from getting doubled-out. Kroot also have the benefit of being cheap; you can easily fit 18-21 models into your team, and that includes a little bit of everything. Take a Krootox (since outflanking isn’t an issue), give him Relentless, and let him pick off the enemy at range (since he can hit the entire 4′x4′ table) while your Kroot and hounds close in for closer kills with their superior numbers.

I’ve got a few Kill Team lists that I’m playing around with, and I hope to test them in the next few weeks or so. I especially want to try the Kroot list, although I’d need to get a few things (like Kroot Hounds, a Krootox, a Shaper, and some more Kroot) before I can build it. For Pathfinders, I’d need some Rail Rifles. In the meantime, I’ll try out a Stealth Suit list and see how it goes. Here’s what I’m looking at:

Elite: Stealthsuits (4#, 140 pts)
3 Stealthsuits (Burst Cannon x3)
1 Team Leader (Burst Cannon; Hard-wired Multi-tracker; Markerlight;) – Feel No Pain specialist

Fast Attack: Gun Drone Squadron (5#, 60 pts)
5 Gun Drone Squadron

Total: 200 points

I’m up in the air on the markerlight, since its hits are only going to be usable by one figure per turn. I could downgrade the team leader and get an extra gun drone instead. First, though, I need to test it out and see how it goes.

So, what are your opinions on Tau in the Kill Team environment? What would your ideal Kill Team be?

Image © Games Workshop.

We were also playing one of the new Battle Missions scenarios: First Contact, one of the Tyranid missions. The deployment mode in this one is odd, as it splits the table into six zones, places an objective in the middle of each, and then has you roll for each unit to determine the zone into which it’s deployed. It scattered my army across the board, and left all but one of his units coming off one of the short board edges. Being so randomly scattered, I wasn’t able to get my Pathfinders into a good position. That said, they helped a squad of Fire Warriors do nasty things to a Venomthrope before we called the game. 4 markerlight hits let me get their BS up to 5 and remove the Venomthrope’s cover save, which let their pulse rifles make short work of the creature.

It’s only one small result, but it’s very encouraging. Hopefully, I can get a full game in soon and see how they play out across all 5+ turns.

My mind keeps wandering back to a line in the Tau Codex describing the Tau’s philosophy towards seizing territory: “Ground is for position from which to make the kill; once the kill is made, the ground is for the taking.” I’m starting to wonder if perhaps that same attitude should be taken to the tabletop. Rather than worrying about capturing objectives, the goal should be to prevent the opponent from capturing objectives by removing his ability to do so. Once the enemy troops are off the scene, that’s when the Fire Warriors come in to sit on the objective. Instead of going for several small mechanized troop units, run the minimum – two units of Fire Warriors – at full size in fully tricked-out Warfish. The points normally spent on the two extra transports go towards more Elite and Heavy Support choices, which is where our main ability to do damage resides. Those units either have the range to reach out and touch someone, or the ability to jump around the board and/or deep-strike in to exactly where they’re needed. In a pinch, those units can contest the objectives and deny them to your opponent.

“But two of the three core mission types are about capturing objectives,” you might object. Only one of those mission types – Seize Ground – has you dealing with more than two objectives. Capture and Control lets you focus on two objectives, one of which is yours from the start. If you treat the objectives as bait – kauyon-style – then your killzones are defined for you from the start of the game, allowing you to focus your plan from turn one. Seize Ground is a bit harder to deal with, as there are three to five objectives to fight over, but the basic strategy still stands. Placing the objectives becomes an important strategic choice; whenever possible, put them where your opponent is denied cover. Create lanes of fire where moving towards an objective becomes risky for your opponent. Focus on having one or two that you can hold yourself, on your terms, and focus on keeping the opponent’s troops off of the others.

Right now, I haven’t tested this strategy on the table – I’m on vacation right now, and about 250 miles away from my miniatures – but I’ve been working on putting together an army list to support the plan, and then I’ll give it numerous trials by fire. At this point, I’m working on fine-tuning a 1500-point list under this philosophy, and once I have it together I’ll post it here.

So, what do you think? Could this work, or is this a horribly-flawed plan?

A few notes about the Stealth Marker Team:

• Moving and firing every turn is absolutely worth it, as is still having 12 burst cannon shots every turn while doing so.
• With only 5 markerlights, I still managed to average 3 hits a turn, which gave me enough to boost my BS to 5 on the units that needed it.
• Positioning is everything. Between being able to infiltrate into a safe markerlighting position, and being able to Jump-Shoot-Jump into cover or out of assault range, I was able to keep my Stealth Team useful every turn.

Still, at the end of the day, Markerlights can help you score a hit, but it can’t make a wound stick when invulnerable saves or Feel No Pain is involved. They’re far from a panacea, especially against tough units like Nob Bikers. A markerlight is only as good as the weaponry it guides, so remember to keep that in mind when deciding target priority for your markerlight units, be they Stealth Team, Pathfinder, or Sky Ray.

Stealth Team
3 Shas’ui w/ Burst Cannon, Drone Controller, Marker Drone
1 Shas’ui team leader w/ Burst Cannon, Markerlight, Hardwired Multi-tracker, Drone Controller, Marker Drone
Cost: 260 points

Pathfinder squad
7 Pathfinders w/ Markerlights and Pulse Carbines
1 Shas’ui w/ Markerlight and Pulse Carbine
1 Devilfish w/ Smart Missile System, Disruption Pod, Multi-Tracker
Cost: 221 points

So, what are the advantages of each? Let’s start with the Stealth Team.

• Jet Pack Infantry – this is probably the biggest advantage of the stealth team. Most importantly, it makes the unit Relentless, allowing them to move and shoot their markerlights. They also gain the extra 6″ of movement in the assault phase, allowing them to use Jump-Shoot-Jump tactics, as well as effectively putting their markerlight range at 42″.
• 3+ Armor Save – higher survivability is better. True, it doesn’t carry over to the drones, but the suits themselves can take more punishment than pathfinders can.
• Markerlights on Drones – having the markerlights mounted on drones allows the stealth suits to still use their burst cannons. With 4 suits, that’s 12 shots at 18″ – 4 more than the pathfinders can dish out. Also, unlike the pathfinders, the Stealth Team can fire their markerlights and their burst cannons in the same turn. Even the team leader, with his multi-tracker, can fire both.
• Networked Markerlights – thanks to the marker drones’ networked markerlights, the Stealth Team can even use their own markerlight hits, if they so choose. Note that this is not true for the team leader’s markerlight.
• Infiltrate – deploying last on the table, and being able to be within 12″ to 18″ of an enemy unit allows the Stealth Team to get into a prime location for lighting up the enemy.
• Deep Strike – if a prime location can’t be found at the beginning of the game, then the Stealth Team can deep strike later in the game, keeping them safe until they deploy, at which time they are free to mark the enemy.
• Stealth Field – always being treated as being under night fighting rules helps keep the Stealth Team just a little bit safer. Whether the field helps in assault as it did in 4th edition is still up in the air, unfortunately.*

So, that’s what the Stealth Team has going for it. What advantages do the Pathfinders have over them?

• Lower Cost – the Pathfinder unit I’ve posted is relatively maxed out; it’s got a full unit with a shas’ui, and it’s riding in a Warfish. With all that, it’s still cheaper than the Stealth Team. At the very bare minimum, a 4-man Pathfinder squad can be had for 128 points. You’d be hard-pressed to find a less expensive option for putting markerlights on the table.
• More Markerlights – the Pathfinder unit is bringing 8 markerlights, as opposed to the Stealth Team’s 5. That’s going to get you an average of 1-2 extra markerlight hits a turn.
• Dedicated Transport – the Pathfinders come with their own Devilfish, which they can use to get into a good position. After that, they can either use it to escape, give it to another unit for taxi purposes, or just let it run around on its own to harass the enemy and contest objectives.
• Scout – getting a free move before the first turn can help the Pathfinders react to enemy positions and pick a better markerlighting position. More importantly, it allows them to deploy from their Devilfish before the first turn, thus allowing them to stay stationary and fire.
• Fast Attack slot – Stealth Teams have to compete with Crisis Suits – the workhorses of the Tau army – for Elite slots. Pathfinders, on the other hand, are a Fast Attack option, and are arguably the best Fast Attack unit we have. It’s easy to fit them into your army’s FOC.
• Markerlights not tied to drones – one weakness of the Stealth Team is that, while there are many advantages to having marker drones, there’s one major weakness: if you lose a drone controller, you lose the attached drone as well. Each dead Stealth Suit causes you to lose two models, not just one. Pathfinders, on the other hand, each carry their own markerlight, so losing one is just that – one model lost.

On a side note, both units are capable of outflanking (Stealth Teams due to their Infiltrate rule, Pathfinders due to being Scouts), so that particular item is a wash.

After looking at the two units, there’s two ways we can compare them. From an pure economic standpoint, the Pathfinders are the winners, hands down. They’re cheaper per model, allow you to pack more markerlights for fewer points, and can be decently tricked out and still come in under the Stealth Team’s cost. However, from a pure utility standpoint, I have to give the win to the Stealth Team. They’re more mobile, more survivable, and are capable of doing more damage than the Pathfinder team, all while providing comparable markerlight support – if not better support, thanks to being able to shoot and move every turn. Unless you’re pressed for points, I feel that they’re the better option. The Pathfinder transport is nice, and does make it a solid option, but there’s just not that many turns in the game, and you’re going to lose at least two turns using it – one to pick up a unit, and another to disembark them. Stealth Teams don’t have that slowdown, and can remain just as mobile as a Devilfish.

Now, as for myself, I’ve been using Pathfinders for my markerlight support, and while they’re good, they’re not quite as good as I’d hoped. This weekend, then, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is. I’ve picked up another Stealth Team (for my fourth marker drone), and I’m going to put them to the test during my gaming over the Labor Day holiday. I think the peformance will prove my conclusions above, but there’s only one way to be sure, and that’s to try it on the table.

* EDIT: The Stealth Field Generator’s anti-assault effect – treating the Stealth Team as being in cover for assault – is unclear in 5th Edition. This is because it’s terrain, not cover, that changes up the initiative order in 5th Edition, and Stealth Fields don’t change the terrain. However, the unofficial INAT FAQ from Adepticon indicates that the assaulters are still affected, while the official GW FAQ says nothing either way.  Rules as Written say one thing, Rules as Intended indicate another way, and there’s no consensus. It’s always best to err on the side of caution, though, so unless your opponent or tournament organizer says otherwise, assume that it does not help.

Pride
It’s easy to fall prey to overconfidence. Sometimes, it’s overconfidence in one’s own position. When you feel your army is placed more securely than it actually is, it’s tempting to take additional risks just to kill more enemy models. This can occasionally lead to underestimating your opponent and overextending yourself. Before you realize what’s just happened, the objectives that you solidly controlled are now in your opponent’s hands, leaving you with little time to recover. Another form of overconfidence is placing too much value into a particular unit. By fixating too heavily on one unit and its killing capability, you can lose sight of the big picture. Worse still is if you lose the unit; with the linchpin of your tactical thinking removed, it can be hard to shift gears and maintain your battle plan.

Anger
This one’s easy to understand. The enemy aggravates you, whether by disabling/killing one of your units or surviving one of your attacks (see “Pride”, above), and you overreact, becoming more focused on dealing pain to your opponent than on completing and winning the mission. It’s easy to exploit an angry player; throw a baiting unit in the way, bloody their nose, and then pull their focus off of the objectives. Straying through anger can also come from more than just what’s happening on the table. If you’re playing an opponent who annoys you, aggravates you, or has consistently bested you, the temptation exists to bring down as much death and destruction upon them as possible just to prove a point. While it may be cathartic, it can pull your attention away from the mission’s objectives. This can lead to some tragic irony when you end up handing the game to your opponent because you’ve tried too hard to kill them, rather than focusing on beating them.

Fear
The opposite of angry play, fearing what the opponent could do to you can also lead to poor tactical decisions and draw your mind away from the mission. While it’s good to understand and respect what your opponent’s army can do, it’s easy to take that too far and focus solely on stopping them from doing what they do. This is a common trap for me as a Tau player; I dread assault units, because I know that my army does not fare well in close combat. This often leads me to go out of my way to kill any such units, rather than focus on claiming and holding objectives. This can leave me scrambling to run up a unit of Fire Warriors on turn 5 in a mad dash to claim the objective I’ve completely ignored. Also, much like angry play, fearful play can have a strong metagame component involved. Whether it’s fearing a particular player after having been tabled consistently in the past, or fearing a particular army list, entering the game with the wrong mindset can make you lose before you’ve put a single miniature on the table.

So, what’s the solution? One word: focus. Keep your mind on the mission. Don’t underestimate the opponent, but don’t overestimate them either. Don’t take the game personally. Keep your attention on the table and the task at hand. Watch the objectives, and play to win the game.

At first glance, the dual burst cannons seem to be a very solid option. For half the cost of the SMS, you get half again as many shots, all with the same strength and armor penetration, that can be split evenly between two separate targets. You do lose 6 inches of range, but it seems to be a fair trade for what you gain. More fire is always better, right?

However, the extra 10 points spent on the SMS gets you more than just extended range. Just what do you get for the extra cost?

1. 6 extra inches of range. More reach is always good, especially if it can soften up or eliminate a unit before it gets into assault range.
2. Ignoring line of sight. This alone is worth the extra points. Being able to hit anything in a 24″ radius, regardless of whether it’s hidden behind a hill, wall, or another larger unit (like a vehicle) is invaluable. It allows you to remain a threat while removing the need to expose yourself to the target.
3. Ignoring many cover saves. In the cover-save-rich environment of 5th Edition, this is huge. The SMS ignores any cover that the target is not inside (area terrain) or touching. This allows you to ignore intervening units (either your own or your opponent’s), as well as most terrain between the tank and the target. Also, with the rules on whether a unit is in cover or not, half the targeted unit would actually have to be touching its piece of cover before it would gain any benefit.

The SMS has some major adavantages that the dual burst cannon just can’t match. However, that doesn’t mean that the missiles are superior in every way to to the cannons. First, you do give up some killing power with the SMS. Over a standard 5 turn game, the burst cannons can potentially have 10 more shots than the smart missiles. Against a lightly-armored army like Orks or Eldar, that’s likely to be as many as 5 to 8 additional kills. Second, while cover saves are great, they’re not going to matter much against an opponent with heavier armor. Space Marines and their equivalents will get their armor save against both AP 5 weapons, so ignoring cover saves may not make as much difference as one would like. Finally, 10 points less is 10 points less; if you need to shave points off of your army list, downgrading from an SMS to dual burst cannons is a viable option.

There’s also an additional caveat on both of these weapons – the usefulness of both is highly limited without the additional purchase of a target lock. Without that upgrade, these weapons are limited to targeting the same unit as the vehicle’s main gun. For a Hammerhead with an ion cannon, it’s an annoyance; for one with a railgun, it can render the secondary gun(s) useless. In most cases, you’re going to want to take the target lock, so just figure that into the vehicle’s true cost (unless, as mentioned, you’re running an Ionhead and don’t care about splitting fire). The Skyray has an advantage in this case; it comes already equipped with a target lock, so it ignores this issue completely.

Speaking of the Skyray, it approaches the choice of secondary weaponry from a completely different angle. Its primary armament – the two networked markerlights – have no strength, making them defensive weapons. That means that whatever you choose for the front turrets become’s the Skyray’s main gun, thanks to 5th Edition’s more restrictive defensive weapon rules. With that in mind, the single SMS is a better choice than the dual burst cannons. A Skyray with an SMS can move at combat speed and still fire all its weaponry, all without the need of a vehicle multi-tracker; with the multi-tracker, it can do the same at cruising speed. The burst cannons, on the other hand, would lose half their shots, as only one would be able to fire.

So where does that leave us? In many ways, the SMS is the superior option for our heavy tanks. With its ability to ignore most of the things that would prevent you from targeting another unit and landing hits, it’s a great option that’s well worth the points. That doesn’t mean that the burst cannons are bad; they are still a viable, and significantly cheaper, option that has similar killing effectiveness. In the end, if you have the points to spare, go SMS. If not, don’t be afraid of going with option #2.

* Gun drones have weaker weaponry, don’t benefit from a targeting array, and give up more kill points, all for the same cost as the SMS. They’re not even remotely viable as a useful option for our tanks.