40K Army List: Adepticon 2009 Gladiator ~ Part 2
Part 1 of this series, covered Bigred, Jwolf, and Minus67’s Reaver builds, but as we were testing out our lists, there was dissention within the ranks! Darkwynn and Bushido Red Panda, decided to try out diffeent approaches to the Gladiator challenge.
Months back we sat around the table and began the theoryhammer sessions and opened them up for the BoLS readers to check on popular opinion. After several weeks we narrowed the choices down to a handful of serious contenders:
Reaver Builds
8 Destroyer pieplates give them the highest shooting lethality in the game. They can clear elite armies in 2 turns, and cripple horde armies in 3-4. Enemy superheavies are for the most part doomed.
Superheavy Flyer Builds
These are masters of positioning, and can drop off enough elite infantry late game to take objectives or kill ANY single thing in a single firing phase (even Reavers). They have fickle reserves hovever,and only get one chance. They are also useless versus horde armies with lots of long range high-volume shooting (remind you of anyone?)
Angrrath the Unbound-Fateweaver Builds
The most potent assault force in the game bar none. These represent a mortal threat to anything if they can drop in close enough to assault the next turn.
IG Flying Circus Builds
These are able to just loiter and burn down the clock, awaiting last turn objective grabs. They are an almost impossible foe for Chaos Daemon and dedicated assault armies to deal with, but have the same vulnerabilities as the Superheavy flyer builds. They are paradoxically, also vulnerable to dedicated air-to-air flyers, as most of the AV:10 flying transports do not carry AA mounts.
The Plan(s)
Bushido Red Panda: Eldar Superheavy Flyer Build
Bushido is a trickster. He’s been playing Eldar a looooooong time and knows many of thier secret ways. His Gladiador game lies in taking his time, and offering up little to no easy targets for an enemy army to sink its teeth into. His ground forces are usually kept out of harms way early game and rely on Eldrad’s redeployment to help out. Then the airforce reserves in (quickly with the aid of an Autarch who is not pictured), and begins to take down key enemy units, relying mainly on the Vampire’s Pulsar. Those 2 S:D blasts per turn make short work of most targets. Most enemies are hard pressed to repel this much flyer firepower protected by Eldar holofields.
Once the foe is weakened, the Vampire swoops in and unleashes the one-two punch of firedragons to knock out stubborn threats,and guardian-jetbikes to swiftly grab objectives, supported by the original ground based forces. Bushido’s list is most potent versus other large expensive targets, elite armies, or Flying Circuses. He runs risks if he hits a massive horde army, but he does win on style points for deploying jetbikes out of a flyer. No one ever said the Eldar weren’t cool!
Darkwynn: Anggrath the Unbound-Fateweaver Build
Darkwynn is one of Austin’s most aggressive players. He normally runs lists like Black Templars, and prides himself on pretty much steamrollering through the enemy lines, slaying merrily as he goes. Early on in our testing, he decided that the Reaver holding back and blazing away just wouldn’t cut it for him. He demanded blood, and there was only one build guaranteed to spill it by the gallon…
His Chaos Deamons list is anchored by a Nurgle Daemon-prince and 3 packs of plaguebearers, who hopefully come in nice an early. Then comes the anvil, as Fateweaver, Anggrath, and another pair of Lords of Change come on down and bring the pain. Anggrath is about the killiest thing in the game; winged, and able to drop even a Reaver in a single round of assualt, or massacring handfuls of infantry at a time. He is already difficult to bring down, and Fateweaver only makes things worse. Add to that the rampaging Nurgle nasties, and the harrassing firepower of the Lords of Change, and you have a recipe for serious pain if the enemy army can’t reposition in a big hurry.
No matter how his deployment rolls go, Darkwynn’s army will be going straight for the throat.
~By now, the Gladiator is over, and we are all either drinking away our sorrows, or raising our glasses to our triumphs. In any case, we’ll let you know how we all did as soon as we can grab a computer. More soon…
