In-Focus: Eversor Assassin

Have you ever faced an Assassin? Warhammer 40,000 armies that are Imperial will often have the option of fielding an Assassin – a rare, and deadly, unit with a lot to fear. The first Assassin I ever faced off against was a Vindicare Assassin. Armed with his massive Sniper Rifle that could kill practically anything, this guy, to me, was more effective than a Lascannon.

Not only that, but he could pick off specific models within squads, forcing out all your sergeants, special weapons, and anything fancy.

But I didn’t lose that game – definitely not to the Assassin. At the end of the day, he still hit on 2+, and still wounded on 4+, just like any other snipers in the game (with the benefit of no armour saves allowed against him).

Now I use my own Assassin regularly as part of my Space Marine army – the Nighthawks. Assassins fit their theme very well. The Nighthawks are a stealthy Space Marine army, placing secrecy, and well-timed surgical strikes above such silly notions of honour or glory. Assassins seemed to fit the bill perfectly. My Assassin of choice? The Eversor Assassin (not in any small part because it was also the least expensive Assassin).

Through repeated uses, though, I’ve discovered that Assassins are NOT Spearhead units. They can’t just go gallivanting into enemy territory expecting to slash apart their enemies and then win the day – no matter how deadly they may at first appear.

In a way, Assassins are microcosms of Warhammer 40,000 as a whole. The Vindicare Assassin is about target priority with your shooting. The Culexus Assassin is about weird special rules that give you an edge against some opponents, but cost you against others. The Callidus Assassin is about taking out one key unit, no matter the cost. The Eversor is about brute strength of close combat.

This article will discuss the Eversor.

In many ways, the Eversor is the simplest and easiest Assassin to operate, aptly fitting its description as a human bomb. Release, and watch the carnage. This is very simple. But, as mentioned, the Eversor is a microcosm of the close combat aspect of Warhammer 40,000. In a sense, every dedicated close combat unit can be operated exactly as just mentioned – start with a squad of them, then release them at your opponent. If they get there, boom! You deal huge amounts of damage.

However, to best operate the Eversor Assassin, you must be more careful. Eversors have many strengths, and can be assigned many rolls:

- Anti-Heavy Vehicle

- Anti-Light Vehicle

- Anti-Heavy Infantry

- Anti-Light Infantry

- Character/Monstrous Creature Assassination

- Flanking

That’s a lot of options for a single unit – usually enough to classify it as a Spearhead unit. But, for as much as the Eversor represents the power of close combat units, it also represents their weaknesses. To further examine the Eversor, I think it’s prudent that we look at its unit entry a little more closely:

WS 5 (hits anything on either 3’s or 4’s)

BS 5 (S4 pistol, or Poison 4+ pistol)

S 4 (power weapon, or Poison 4+, or always glance on a 6)

T 4

W 2 (explodes when he dies)

I 5 (Infiltrate, Meltabombs)

A 3 (+1 for 2 CCWs, +1d6 instead of +1 when charging, 12” charge range)

Ld 10 (Fearless)

Sv 4+ (Invulnerable)

As you can see… a WACK-load of special abilities. Actually, he has another special ability (Fast Shot), but as of 5^th Edition it’s useless (Pistols being Assault 1 now – before, he always counted as stationary for purposes of shooting, which meant he could shoot his pistol twice, now that means absolutely nothing). Like all Imperial armies, the Eversor is more defined by his equipment rather than his stats. His stats, really, aren’t that impressive.

If you’re aiming to shoot with him, you’re probably doing something really wrong. Admittedly, there’s probably nothing wrong WITH shooting with him – but chances are that the shooting will be less than effective, and is really just an icing on the cake more than it is something worthwhile. If anything, being too tempted into using his Pistol can leave you more often in a bad spot (pulling you out of assault range if he kills with it) than it will help. Yes it can wound anything on a 4+, but if it’ so tough that it necessitates you using that aspect of it, then what you’re really hoping for is to get it in assault anyways.

The greatest asset of the Eversor Assassin is his charge range and bonus attacks. Whenever the Eversor Assassin could charge, take the range he could charge, and then double it. That means that, even when going through difficult terrain, he will still bound ahead of your opponent. Keep in mind, as an Independent Character, he also can move through cover more easily than most units. A 12” charge always catches people by surprise. Just when they think they’re safe at 18”, BAM, you’re in! Combined with his Infiltration ability, and you can be assaulting on turn 1 provided he’s out of Line of Sight of ANY units.

However, for as much as the Eversor Assassin is lethal, it is also very vulnerable. With only 2 wounds, a toughness of 4, and a 4+ (albeit invulnerable) armour save, the Eversor Assassin cannot spend any time out in the open, and dies pretty quickly in close combat too. A single squad shooting at it will most likely take it out. Not only that, but if your enemy fails to break, or there’s too many of them, the Eversor will get hit by so many retaliation attacks that he’ll likely blow up.

When fighting an Eversor, keep this fragility in mind. If you don’t get the chance to shoot at it as its darting through cover, watch what happens when it charges. Any squad it touches on the charge will likely be annihilated (though, since it does NOT have offensive grenades, it will strike last if it’s assaulting into cover). If the squad it charges is annihilated, you have a prime opportunity to take it out with shooting. If the squad miraculously survives and doesn’t kill it back, counter-charge. After that initial charge, the Eversor is MUCH weaker. Yes it explodes on death, but that’s nothing to the carnage it can do if it survives the next combat round and is allowed to charge again on the subsequent turn.

For those controlling the Eversor that go the slow and steady route (waiting to charge later rather than charge right away), be very careful not to get caught in the “grand melee” that can sometimes occur, with tons of units entering into a massive multi-unit combat. The Eversor does NOT thrive in this area! Your opponents will more often get hits back on the Eversor, and if you lose due to your side taking more casualties, the Eversor’s Fearlessness will keep him there, and he’ll probably die from having to take armour saves as a result of this.

Finally, when using the Eversor, always be mindful of what you’re attacking. If the vehicle didn’t move last turn, a melta-bomb is the way to go. If it did move, getting tons of attacks with the Neuro-Gauntlet (auto-glance on a 6) will more likely damage and shake the vehicle, allowing a melta-bomb on the next turn. If your opponent is T3, turn off that gauntlet (the Eversor still has a regular power weapon that ALSO ignores armour) so that you can wound on 3’s rather than 4’s. If you’re against a Monstrous Creature (Carnifexes are great targets), turn that Neuro-gauntlet on, as it TOO ignores armour saves.

Choose your targets carefully ahead of time. The Eversor is the checkers of the Assassins. If your opponent is poorly placed, 1 Eversor assassin can chew his way through as many as 3 units in relatively short time. If you poorly place your assassin, be prepared for him to go pop turn 1.

Risk and Reward

Warhammer 40,000 is, largely, a game about risk management. Whenever you do something, you take a chance. On the one hand, you might succeed – on the other hand, you might fail. Chance is a fickle thing, and no matter HOW much probability study you put into it, at the end of the day, you still have to roll those dice. Sure, 91 times out of 100 you’ll succeed – but there’ll still be those 9 times that you’ll fail. This roll, this crucial roll, may be one of those times.

Then again, it may not.

The point is; you truly don’t know until you try.

Some people will claim that this completely dismisses any argument for probability studies. They say that you can’t arm-chair general a game and know from the numbers what the outcome will be. But that isn’t quite fair either – as you do know that, most of the time, a certain situation will yield a certain result. Usually, when a squad of 10 Orks charges a squad of 10 Marines, the Orks will win. If I can assume that the Orks do get into combat, at roughly that level of strength, I can assume the outcome.

But this only works for the short-run, only for stuff that’s happening, effectively, “right now”.

And “right now” for me was a decision I faced in a recent game against the Imperial Guard. (for the record, I tied the game)

Hopeless odds – a 5-man Sternguard Squad with a Chaplin, an empty Razorback with twin-link Lascannon, an Immobilized Rhino, and a Force Commander who already used up his Orbital Strike. A total of 9 models, worth roughly 500 points – most of it in 2 models.

At the board edge, a corner of the table, are 3 Armoured Fist squads in their Chimeras, one squad of an Infantry Platoon, and a Leman Russ Demolisher. I had, rather ineffectually the turn before, merely forced one Chimera and its payload to not be able to shoot this turn.

Being pinned in placed, and with time rapidly running out where the Imperial Guard could try to steal my objective in an attempt to win the game, the Guard had to move up the table – and the easiest and safest route… Tank-Shocking through my Sternguard Veterans.

Being accompanied by the Chaplin, they automatically passed their Ld test, and I had an option. I could get out of the way, or I could attempt a Death or Glory attack with my weakly S6 Krak Grenade against the fiendishly resilient Armour 12 of the Chimera. At the end of the game, we both agreed that this decision was the most important one of the game.

Most of a game of Warhammer 40,000 can be played rather simply. Unit 1 engages unit 2 because unit 1 has an excellent chance of defeating unit 2. Unit 3 could spend a turn shooting, but since it doesn’t have a very good chance of doing anything, it runs to get to a better position instead. Often at least once in a game though, you’ll be presented with a difficult decision – take the safe route that will keep you in an okay position regardless of the outcome, or take the chance that, while slim, may change everything.

I’ve mentioned the term “impact” briefly in the past. Impact, I said, is how much a certain action’s consequences will affect the game.

For example, you have an option to shoot at an enemy Heavy Support, or an enemy Troop. If it’s the beginning of the game, you’ll probably be shooting the Heavy Support. If it’s the end of the game, you’ll probably be shooting the Troop. Why? Because at the beginning of the game, removing your opponent’s Heavy Support will reduce the amount of damage that army can deal to you, whereas at the end of the game, when the Heavy Support may only be able to shoot at you once more, stopping your opponent’s troops from capturing objectives or contesting them will ensure your overall victory.

In this sense, at the beginning of the game, shooting the Heavy Support will have higher Impact, whereas shooting the Troops will have immensely higher Impact at the end of the game.

Unfortunately, as of yet, I can’t tell you a sure-fire way to determine Impact – it’s just not quantifiable. Judging points-value to points-value is a good start, but ultimately it will be the unique situation that you find yourself in that will determine the answer.

Instead, let me present you with a simple scale. Judging things by this scale can help put things into perspective so that you can make the best decision possible.

IMPACT:

1 – Very low Impact. Taking this option will result in almost no change to the game and won’t force your opponent to do things any differently.

Ex. Having a lascannon kill a single model in an opposing squad of Troops that are at full-strength, and the Troops are not being overly threatening.

2 – Low Impact. This option will marginally reduce your opponent’s strength, but not their options. In the end, your opponent’s impact against you is largely untouched, but their odds of successfully impacting you are reduced.

Ex. Shooting an Ordnance round into a 3-man squad of Devastators, the Devastators are in heavy cover (4+ cover save), and it’s Turn 4.

3 – Medium Impact. This option will either significantly reduce your opponent’s strength, or will marginally reduce their strength but will also reduce their options.

Ex. Attempting to destroy a transport that’s 1 move away from assaulting your valuable units. Chances are the unit will lose some strength, not too much, but will force your opponent to slug their way across the table, slowing them down and forcing their hand.

OR

Ex. Attempting to annihilate a Troop squad in the early game by either destroying them completely, or bringing them under 50% strength and trying to get them to fail a Ld test.

4 – High Impact. This option will almost definitely annihilate an opposing unit, and/or will put you more in control of the game by removing some of your opponent’s options. Your opponent will feel hurt after this.

Ex. Destroying your enemy’s HQ. Stopping their Troops from claiming an objective right at the end of the game. Taking out multiple units with a well-placed charge. These are all good ways to cause no end of grief for your opponents.

5 – Game-Changing Impact. This option, if successful, will change the face of the game. Not only will it destroy something that’s bugging you, but it will throw a wrench into everything that your opponent is trying to do. If you can achieve this level of impact at the beginning of the game, the game is almost as good as won.

Ex. Destroying a Tyranid player’s only Synapse creature within range of most of their army. Taking out the crucial Necron Monolith at the beginning of the game, preventing the Necron Army from gaining access to multiple “We’ll Be Back” saves. Causing your opponent’s only 2 Troop units to fall back off the table, preventing them from ever winning the game.

Preferably you want to be achieving as high Impact as possible as much of the time as possible. However, it’s not that simple – you still have that pesky problem named “chance”. Even if every Lascannon on the table turns its sights on the Monolith on turn 1, you still probably won’t take it out, and glancing it does almost nothing (1 in 6 chance of Immobilization, every other roll is effectively pointless against the Monolith).

Enemy Hive Tyrants have lots of wounds, and are often guarded by yet more gribbly creatures to absorb the blows.

Lots of Troops at the beginning of the game will be in range of Ld-modifying bonuses, or won’t even be close enough to the table edge to force them out of the game even early on.

The point is low Impact actions are often easier to achieve than high Impact actions.

And there you have your basics of risk;

High % chance that you can weakly influence your opponent.

Low % chance that you can massively influence your opponent.

If you attempt the low impact action, even if you fail, your failure won’t lie heavily on you. If you attempt a high impact action though, if you fail the consequences can be pretty bad.

So, at what point is the risk worth the potential reward?

This is what was going through my mind during the game. I had a choice – I could move clear of the tank-shocking vehicle. If I did, my opponent would have free rein of the board. They wouldn’t outright destroy my units, but they could do a lot of damage and I’d have to scramble to deal with the approaching forces.

Or, I could Death or Glory with a S6 Krak Grenade against Armour 12. I knew I would automatically hit, thanks to the Death or Glory special rules, but those same rules would force me to hit the front armour – not the back. So a 1 in 6 chance of even just a glancing hit.

Even if I got that hit, I would still need to roll either a 4 OR a 6 to stop it (a result of 5 would merely result in a destroyed weapon and the tank would continue rumbling forward).

Total % chance of success – not good (that’s all I needed to know – checking the math now, I see that I had a 5.6% chance actually – or 1 in 18).

If I failed, which was likely, I would not only have done nothing, but additionally LOST a 25 point model of a very effective squad, setting me even further behind than if I just took the safe route and stepped around the vehicle.

But if I succeeded…

Then my opponent would be boxed in. From the position I was in, if it succeeded, my Sternguard would be protected from most shooting for the turn. Furthermore, my enemy would have to bring their Chimera’s often difficult terrain to move forward. Anyone who plays with or against Mechanized Imperial Guard will know that Chimera Congestion is a problem that even “Reactin” won’t solve.

I probably spent a full 2 minutes judging what to do. In the end, I figured that it was worth the risk, and I took the option. And what do you know? Today just happened to be that 1 time after 17 failures that I succeeded.

The effect was pretty devastating to my opponent. I would rate it a 4 on the Impact scale, maybe 4.5. It wasn’t game-winning, but it certainly was game-changing. I didn’t deal a lot of damage, but in one move I had boxed my opponent in, giving my vastly inferior force (9 models remember) a chance against some 44 models (40 Guardsmen, some with special or heavy weapons, 3 Chimeras, and a Leman Russ Exterminator).

I didn’t destroy all my opponent’s forces in that area, but I stopped all by 1 Chimera and its squad of Guardsmen from reaching the objective, and then the Chaplin (still alive) proceeded to annihilate them. By keeping my opponent off my objective, I was able to turn a losing game in a draw.

How would things have turned out if they happened differently? I can only guess that the Sternguard would have faced a quicky, flamer-filled death, followed by the Chaplin bitting the dust from multiple lascannons to the face, and then having to use what was left of my Troops to fight off some 30 Guardsmen and tank. But… we’ll never know now.

So, try to judge your risk and rewards. It’s not always the right choice to take the safe route – sometimes you have to throw caution to the wind, because IF you succeed, the impact of that action will change everything.

The Sliding Scale of 2-dice Probabilities

Warhammer 40,000 is a game built on rules and probabilities. Those who designed the game wanted it to be balanced, fair, but with enough complexities that the game would allow almost any situation to occur and be carried out. Not only that, but the game had to be designed with a certain flavour. This flavour is called “telescoping”.

Telescoping is how the game goes from small scale to large scale, or large scale to small scale, by orders of magnitude. A 500 point game lasts about 30min, start to finish. A 1000 point game lasts about an hour and a half though, 3 times as much time for only twice as many points. A 3000 point game can last the whole day if things start getting off course.

(note, the reason for the jump is that you are dealing with more models. A 1500pt game of two Grey Knights players will still go swiftly, a 1500pt game of two troop-heavy Ork players will take much, much longer)

However, telescoping also applies to the math and structure behind the game. The simplest reason is due to the properties of the dice.

A single die roll does not produce many variations. It’s an exact equal chance of the numbers 1 through 6 being rolled. However, when you roll two dice together (like in a Ld test), you can achieve an ARRAY of results:

Ld	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Pass %	3%	8%	17%	28%	42%	58%	72%	83%	92%
% Change	-	+5%	+9%	+11%	+14%	+16%	+14%	+11%	+9%

Notice the % change column. In a single d6 roll, each roll is 16.7% greater or less than the ones next to it. If you need a 4+, it’s 50%, but 5+ is 66.7% and 3+ is 33.3%. The change is even.

Not so with 2 dice…

If you’re measuring something like Leadership, going up from Ld7 to Ld8 (+14% increase) gives you a bigger jump in your chance of success than going from Ld8 to Ld9 (+11%). Keep that in mind the next time you’re deciding how far away from that Junior Officer you’re going to be moving your Infantry Platoon.

Leadership is not the only situation where a single attribute change makes a larger than normal difference. The same applies to twin-linked weapons.

BS	5	4	3	2	1
Normal	83%	66%	50%	33%	17%
Twin-Linked	97%	89%	75%	54%	30%
% Change	+14%	+23%	+25%	+21%	+13%

As you can see here, it’s clearly a huge advantage to be twin-linked (a Twin-Linked BS2 weapon has an even better chance to hit than a normal BS3 weapon) – but that the amount that it’s worth changes from point to point. A BS5 weapon only gets a 14% increase in effectiveness from being Twin-Linked, but a BS3 weapon gets a staggering +25% increase in effectiveness.

The laws of probability affecting the roll of 2 (or more) dice is a great example of something called the Normal Distribution.

Normal Distributions are used by probability experts to determine just how likely, or unlikely something is. Essentially, it says that if you do something a whole bunch, 68% of the answers will be more or less within 1 Standard Deviation of each other. A Standard Deviation is a short way of saying “the square root of the average distance of any point in the study from the average of the study”.

Or in other words… with a d6, the average roll is 3.5, with a standard deviation of 1.5.

(To calculate standard deviations quickly, but not exactly accurate, find the difference between the average result, and then the higher or lower result, and divide by 3. Three standard deviations account for 98% of results, which for us effectively can be said to be all, or 100%, of the possible results. This makes the working deviation for a d6 1.2, not 1.5, as you can take 3 steps down from 3.5 to 0 at 1.2, and 3 steps up to 6 at 1.2.)

So, if you shoot 10 bolter shots, your average result will be that 6.6 will hit (upper SD = 1.1, lower SD = 2.2). That means that 68% of the time 4 or more or 8 or less will hit.

Also with Normal Distributions, we can see further and further into the probabilities. Go a SECOND standard deviation away from the norm, and you encounter 95% of all occurrences.

Knowing the standard deviation of a dice roll is very important. In the last probability analysis posted here, I said that if 24 shots came from Space Marine Bolters you can count on 12 hitting. Why 12? Why not 8? Surely you can count on hitting with 8 more than you can count on 12. Why not just 1?

I don’t count on these, because they’re too far away from the average (16). If I WERE to estimate a fast and dirty standard deviation, I’d say it were 2. I know it’s not, but 2’s an easy number to work with. I can say that I’m 68% confident (mostly confident) that I’ll hit anywhere between 14 and 18 times. If I hit more or less than that, then I really have encountered bad luck.

How is this useful to you? Once again, when judging a situation. Before we said, with the very basics, that you could count on killing 2 Space Marines with 24 bolter shots, but now we can say that we’re confident that we’ll kill between 2 and 4.

***PERSONAL NOTE:

While doing this example, 24 Space Marine Bolter Shots, I ran a quick probability study. I averaged the number of shots hit from the mean and 1 standard deviation away from the mean. In other words, I took all the possibilities that are likely to happen at each step in the way, and calculated the average of that.

Thus, 24 shots, average 16 hit, possibly 18.7 hit, possibly 10.7 hit. Then, 10.7 hit, average 5.3 wound, possibly 3.6 wound, possibly 7.1 wound. And so on.

Once finished, I arrived at an answer that was 68% of the time you’ll kill between 2 and 8 Space Marines. I knew this was wrong. Why? Because experience tells me that 24 shots will often kill 2 Space Marines. That’s just what I’ve noticed over the years, no math about it. I then looked through the equations and found where I was wrong.

Redone, the calculations show what likely happens, 68% of the time between 3.7 and 1.9 Space Marines will die from 24 Bolter shots.

Morale of the Story: Never let numbers dominate your thinking. If you KNOW something, and your calculated answers say differently, chances are your numbers are wrong. All too often people get caught up in the equations, but the fail to anticipate the outcome in order to really gauge how accurate it is. If I say 6 – 2 = 3, you know it’s wrong, because you already expected a different answer. If I ask what 529 – 315 equals, you might not know the exact answer, but you’ll know that an answer above 300 or lower than 100 has GOT to be wrong. Develop these instincts, they’re incredibly powerful tools when dealing with math.

***

Want to see this in practice? Here’s the 24-Shot experiment. Find a dice roller online (type “dice roller” into google, first one should be the D&D one, that’s fine). Now, pretend to roll the dice for 24 Bolter Shots at BS4 against a Space Marine squad (3+ save).

Keep track of how many Space Marines died each time.

Do these experiments 10 times.

Now, average out the number of space marines died (total space marines died divided by 10). I can guarantee you (98% certain) that this number lies between 3.7 and 1.8.

Want even more precise? 68% of you will have a value between 3.2 and 2.5.

Your most common scores for number of Space Marines died will be 2 and 3. You will have either one or two results of 1 or 4 Space Marines dying (most likely you’ll have more 4’s than 1’s, but I can’t be quite as confident). One or two rolls will be completely outside this (like 7 dying, or 0 dying).

When you understand probabilities, you can really give yourself an advantage by predicting the outcomes of near-future events.

USB Escapism

Well, once again I’m missing my USB stick. That little bugger just keeps escaping me. So, I’ll have to present you with something off the cuff.

Today, I’m going to talk about Magic: The Gathering, and how you can relate it to Warhammer 40,000. Why Magic? Because, after picking up Magic Online (a digital version of the game – pretty much just an interface for playing the game), I’ve had many more chances to play Magic than Warhammer.

Overall, in fact, it’s much easier to become “good” at Magic than it is to become “good” at Warhammer. This has nothing to do with the game’s complexity or difficulty though. The big reason is the fact that you do get more chances to play Magic than Warhammer. In Magic, you can play a match in as short a time-span as 5 minutes, although a common length for the game would be 10 or 15 minutes. Warhammer, on the other hand, takes a good 2 and a half hours even for a straight-up, 1-on-1, 1500 point match. You need to set up terrain, place armies, go through 5 or 6 turns of back and forth action/reaction, and your tactical decisions take longer to execute.

So, in the time that it takes you to have 1 battle, you could probably have played 10 games of Magic. You’ll learn a lot more about how Magic works from those 10 games than you will from that 1 game.

But, regardless of the differences, Magic and Warhammer are built on very similar concepts. In both you have a pre-determined pool of resources that you choose to play with. In Warhammer this is your army list, and in Magic this is your deck list. You both play a game, trying to maximize your use of limited resources. Warhammer is much more a game of controlled loses, as your army tends to be diminished, whereas Magic is more about gaining and growing your power-base in order to have a superior lead over your opponent (although games can be won without doing this; see “Red Deck Wins” philosophies about trying to win before you run out of gas).

In the end, every game in the world comes down to a similar basic resource – time. In Warhammer, think of everything you could do if you could take 2 turns in a row – think of how destructive that would be for your enemy. In Magic, you literally can take an extra turn with cards like (((Time Warp))). Even games like Monopoly or Chess have a basis of gaining ground on your opponent – using moves, cards, or actions to make your moves count for more and making your opponent’s count for less, effectively gaining fractions of a turn on your opponents.

In Magic, gaining a turn on your opponent is much easier – and not just because of cards like Time Warp. The crux of the matter comes down to what does it mean to gain a turn? Magic theory states this as laying down an extra land (bypassing the one-land a turn rule), or drawing extra cards (bypassing the one-card drawn per turn rule). There are some other ways (like having extra Upkeeps (Paradox Haze), Attack Phases (Relentless Assault), etc.) but they’re much, much more rare.

So, if you can do things like return a land to their hand (Boomerang), you can “gain” a turn on your opponent. If you destroy multiple creatures with a single card (Consume the Meek), you “gain” a turn on your opponent. If you cast a spell that does a lot of different things (Cruel Ultimatum), you “gain a turn” (or in this case, multiple turns) on your opponent.

Warhammer, meanwhile, is a lot more difficult for gaining ground on your opponent. There are no special abilities that give a whole extra turn, nothing that stops your opponent from moving their entire army, and zilch that can call in an extra unit to appear in the game.

Instead, you have to rely on tactics and strategy to gain ground. Every turn that you merely Stun an enemy vehicle, you gain ground as the vehicle is effectively destroyed for one more turn. Every time you force your opponent through difficult terrain, you slow them down, giving you more time to get into a better position or send another volley of Pulse Rifles into their ranks. Every time you make an assault with the intention of preventing them from moving on their next turn, you take ground away from them.

In Warhammer this is called “controlling the flow of the game”. Are you the one who is dictating what happens in the game, or is your opponent dictating what happens? In short, if you’re controlling it, then you’re likely winning. If your opponent is controlling it, then you’re likely losing.

Take this situation; you have a Seer Council and are facing up against Grey Knights. You really want to get your Seer Council into combat with their Terminators. It’s your best chance at slowing them down if you can get a “Doom” psychic power off on them. However, there’s a Land Raider nearby that will just take apart your army if you let it live, and only your Seer Council is in a position to tackle it.

In a sense, at this point, you may think that you’re in control. You have your choice of targets, and can go for the best chance-to-profit move (attacking the Land Raider). But really, you’re probably out of control. In the time it takes you to attack the Land Raider, the Terminators will have moved away from you, meaning that to attack them back again will take twice as much effort as it did before. The same goes for the Land Raider. Yes you have a choice, but neither of them are good.

Overall, it’s easier for a close-combat style army to control the flow of the game than it is for the shooting army. Shooting armies get a bonus at the start of the game through army placement, but once on the table they’ll be stuck in their initial deployments – while the close combat army still has lots of options for taking you apart.

When the game is between two shooting armies, placement is even more important – as shooting and destroying one unit can allow you to gain ground on your opponent as they can’t fire back.

Things are most complicated when the game is between two close combat armies. It’s all too easy for the game to collapse into one grand melee somewhere on the table – with forces pilling in on all sides. If it looks like this is about to happen, carefully judge the strength of all units that likely will get involved. The winner of the grand melee often wins the game. Remember a backup plan should your forces fail. If it looks like your opponent has the advantage, turn tail and run for cover and reinforcements. You may be giving some ground to your opponent, but you can gain a lot of it back by deciding where and when the grand melee takes place.

And now, you're moment of Zen...

Snazzgunz: Relentless, Eternal Warrior, Furious Charge

Universal Special Rules. They simply sound terrifying. They’re Universal (big), they’re Special (awesome), and they’re a Rule (ticketable offense).

In Snazzgunz, I’ll be looking over the special rules that are ever-present throughout Warhammer 40,000. From the Universal Special Rules, to the Eldar Jetbikes special rules, to Tyranid special rules (wow there’s a lot there).

It’s interesting to look at the framework of Warhammer 40,000. Everywhere in the game we are presented with rules. Really, though, the game just has a few basics:

Infantry move 6”, assault 6”, you roll twice to see if you might deal damage to your opponent, and they roll once to see if they’re okay. That’s it. So in many ways, Warhammer 40,000 is a game about BREAKING the rules. Yes Infantry move 6”… but Infantry with Jump Packs move 12”! Yes you roll twice to see if you deal damage… but if you’re twin-linked you get to reroll some dice! Yes they get to roll to see if they’re okay… but NOT if you dealt the wound with a Power Weapon.

Universal Special Rules are rules that are likely to be found in multiple armies. The most common is the Invulnerable Save. It breaks the rule that, even when you don’t get a save, you still get a save (Boss Klopz: “Da metal skelliez don’t count!”).

Presented here are 3 other Special Rules that you’ll often run into. Maybe not all the time (these rules are usually found on Elite, HQ, or Heavy Support units), but you’ll still run into them quite often.

Relentless

The first is the Relentless Rule. This easy-to-learn rule allows a model to move, fire any weapons, and still assault. Most commonly you will encounter this rule when fighting Space Marines (all Terminator models gain this rule), or Tyranids (their Monstrous Creatures have this rule).

Relentless units are often all-round good Spearhead units. A Hive Tyrant is a powerful foe, but it remains deadly throughout the game largely due to the fact that every turn it’s on the table, it can cause some serious damage. In close combat, the Tyrant is a beast of Epic Proportions that even few Assault units can stand up to. At a range, the Tyrant can also be a menace, killing scores of light infantry, or punishing light vehicles. And every single turn, the Tyrant is moving towards its objective or enemy.

In this way, Relentless is a special Movement rule, since that is where it has its greatest impact. It allows units to keep moving, even if they would normally have to stand still. When using a Relentless unit, keep it on the move – either moving to a more advantageous position, moving to cover, moving to assault, or moving to the objective.

When facing a Relentless unit, try to control where the unit will move. The best direction is probably AWAY from you. As a Spearhead unit, if you break the spear’s tip, the rest can be blunted. Relentless units are often slow – so if they spend 1 turn going the opposite direction, they’ll need a whole 2^nd turn just to end back where they started… and since a game will likely only last 6 turns, you’ve just dealt with a deadly unit for 1/3^rd of the game.

Eternal Warrior

This uncommon special rule is most often found on HQ units, but also entirely throughout the Daemons codex. This rule makes you immune to the dreaded Instant Death clause. You may not see many Eternal Warriors out there, but it’s important to remember this rule when you do. The greatest players, sports stars, and chess champions in the world do as well as they do because they can exploit an opponent’s mistake.

Don’t be one of those people that make this mistake!

When you go into combat against an enemy, and you plan to take them out with a decisive Power Fist, Force Weapon, or similar attack – remember to consider Eternal Warrior. Instant Death does not come up often, but there are many armies that focus on using their Instant-Death causing characters/units to take out opposing characters. If that character turns out to have Eternal Warrior, then the attack falls flat.

By the same token, you can use your Eternal Warriors offensively in this matter, by pitting them against some of the deadliest enemies in the game and still expect to see them walk out of the fight alive.

Furious Charge

This is the real meat and potatoes I wanted to get at. This Universal Special Rule has been getting more spotlights recently from Games Workshop, mostly because every single Ork boy has it – and it is nothing to laugh at! At +1S and +1 Initiative, Furious Charge can make any assault-orientated unit doubly, or triply effective on the charge.

Nothing pisses off an Eldar Wraithlord more than when it gets charged by a Blood Angel Librarian with Furious Charge and a Force Weapon. They think they have it made, but then they realize that the Librarian only needs to do 1 wound to completely annihilate their Wraithlord. This would not be possible without Furious Charge.

It’s important to remember that Furious Charge takes effect after all other modifiers. So Ork Nobz with Power Klawz that charge are S9, not S10.

It’s often easy to forget the impact of Furious Charge. In Warhammer 40,000 we tend to think of Attacks and AP as the two biggest influencers of a weapon/model’s ability. However, Strength is probably the most important attribute after Toughness to a model. Toughness 4 is barely touched by S3 attacks (5+), able to shrug off S4 attacks (4+), vulnerable to S5 (3+) and akin to tissue paper at S6 (2+). No matter where you stand along the S3 to S5 curve, receiving +1 to your strength increases your unit’s deadliness.

That means a unit that hits on 4’s experiences a 33% increase in the number of wounds it would likely score if its attacks have the bonus from Furious Charge.

(Units that hit on 3’s experience only a 25% increase… still very sizable)

That’s like adding 3 extra models to a 9-man squad.

But you also have to remember the Initiative difference. That +1I can give you a further edge. Striking first in combat is a huge advantage, as you get to strike at full power, and your opponent will only strike back with whatever’s left (if there is even anything left).

When using Furious Charge, try to take advantage of it as often as possible. ALWAYS remember to use Hit & Run units where possible to regain the attack, initiative, and strength advantages of charging.

When fighting against units with Furious Charge, try to minimize its effects. Orks are most dangerous on the charge – so if they’re going to get to you the turn after they leave close combat, charge them instead! Deny them that advantage. Being stuck in the same combat turn after turn is the last thing units with Furious Charge want.

Always remember the impact that this can make on other rules as well. An Ork Warboss with a Big Choppa already receives a +2 bonus to Strength on top of S5. When that Furious Charge is added in, this brings the Boss up to S8 – often enough to deal Instant-Killing blows to HQs, and ruination to vehicles.