I'm pretty scared; there will be a shift in the meta pretty damn soon back towards bike spam lists. These lists are crazy fast, pretty durable (Toughness 5, 3++ anyone?), and with Khan at the forefront (Giving Scout to all bikes + units with a dedicated transport), White Scars who were ALREADY awesome (+1 to Jink, Str 5 Hammer of Wrath, Ignore ALL Terrain, Hit and Run!!!) are going to be even scarier.
So how do you stop them? Impossible, right?
Wrong.
I'll admit though - Optimus Prime Time (who can occasionally be seen wandering around aimlessly in the comments section, and close friend/gym buddy of a few of the writers here) is the one that pointed this out to Crazy and I, so don't be thanking me. In fact, the whole reason this post came to light is because I lost an argument with Optimus, and now have to write it up myself to serve as a humiliation/know your rules properly post. :(
Anyway.
According to the Scout Universal Special Rule (USR), Scout moves (to which White Scars are going to be taking full advantage of) must end their movement at least 12" away from the opponent. That's damn important now, as most of the White Scars army will be Scouting.
Tell you what hurts this? Infiltrators (Thanks Optimus!).
Scouts, Kroot, Stealth Teams, Rangers, Kommandos, ANY unit in the game with the Infiltrate special rule will stop the first initial fast paced move towards your lines.
Take 2 Kroot units for instance. They'll infiltrate 12" out of line of sight, or 18" within line of sight, and just spread out, forming a line of sorts (or really, however you want to play it), to halt the initial scout movement to a maximum of 6".
If, during your opponents deployment, they spread out evenly across the field, refuse flank them! Deploy both Infiltrating units in front of one of their flanks; they'll have to first focus on the removal of those units, or spend another turn moving around them to get into proper position. That's another turn for you to further block their movement towards your lines, and to mow them down.
If, during your opponents deployment, they try to refuse flank you, screen your infiltrating units in front of them. That basically just ruins their battle plan, as they have to spend more turns than they wanted, again getting into position, while you get another turn of movement away from/shooting them.
The possibilities are endless, but the main point here is that one shift in meta leads to another. You should definitely be looking at including some Infiltrating units into your army.
Sure, their whole army will most likely be able to Outflank (thanks to the Scout USR), but this means they will have a much smaller number of units on the board, and they will be forced to split their force up, the rest of which may or may not be turning up on turn 2 (at the earliest).
So as stated before; invest in some Infiltrators!!! Scouts and Kroot are two really great, really cheap units that can really force your White Scars opponent to rethink his/her battle plan. This gives you a lot more time to think about what you're going to do. You can shut down parts of your opponents army for the first turn and control their movement later in the game, which will be such a valuable asset to have against armies with such a massive output (Crazy's graviton hammer list, anyone?)
Anyway, hope you've enjoyed the short article! Happy gaming! Smash those White Scars!!!
Alles gute,
TommyH
Counter to your counter: bring my own infiltrators and hope to win the roll off! Infiltrate first and stop you from stopping me scouting!
ReplyDeleteThat's of course a very good tactic too - you can set up a denial zone with your own infiltrators and guarantee that full, 12" scout move of doom.
DeleteCounter to your counter to my counter: Bring a Rune Priest with a Chooser of the Slain -- prevents infiltration within 18" of the CoS marker.
DeleteGrey Knight Servo skulls work too
ReplyDeleteAnother counter to the counter - An allied Rune Priest with a Chooser of the Slain would help limit enemy infiltrators with the 18" radius no go area.
ReplyDeleteServo skulls are good for both though!
Ah, beaten to it!
Deletehaha, only by a few seconds!
DeleteI don't really think that White Scars will cause that big of a meta shift, mostly because that style of army already kinda exists (it's just that White Scars do it better). Basically, you needed to be able to deal with Ravenwing Bolter Banner lists and Daemon Khornedog spam before, and White Scars is really just another iteration of these lists.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I agree that infiltrators are a pretty decent counter, I would also suggest that pretty much any fast combat unit works against them as well. Basically, being able to tie something down in assault means there's one less thing to deal with, so you can shoot the rest. Riptides, Wraithknights, Solitaires and Dreadknights all seem like good candidates for this role.
Hey dude, thanks for replying. The only issue I have with attempting to tie them down is their natural Hit and Run. That's not to say it wouldn't work (I mean, something like a Spawn Lord will just wipe them) but is definitely something to keep in mind. Personally, I think running White Scars as MSU is the best option. Kill points would suck but small squads of 5 are maximising your utility to get Grav weapons and keep the points down.
DeleteYeah, H&R is a bitch, but even just having combat threats around makes it way harder for them to close with armies that they want to close with (namely Tau and Eldar). Also, viable combat units are far more common than viable infiltrators, so this provides an option for armies who's infiltrators generally suck.
ReplyDeleteI had already planned to ally in Wolves for a runepriest (psychic powers fit a Stormseer quite well) and hadn't even thought aboutt he chooser, cheers for pointing that one out.
ReplyDeleteA couple of 30 point units of ratlings (leaving one slot for Marbo), a pair of colossi and a spawn lord would do nicely.
ReplyDeleteShame it'd likely be rubbish against everything else.
Guard pretty much auto stop white scars anyway. Don't know what the fuss is all about.
Delete
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