In this final installment of Fatecrusher Tactics, Will talks about properly deploying his Daemons and his infamous Flying V formation.
This week we’ll talk about Big Bird’s flying V formation deployment. How and why I deploy my army on the table. Why I pick out my 1st and 2nd waves. This is also the final article on my daemon tactics.
Depending on the match up, I’ll stick with my usual wave set-up. 1st wave- Fateweaver, Lord of Change, 1 x Blood Crushers, Fiends, Plaguebearers. 2nd wave- 1 x Bloodcrushers, 2 units of Plaguebearers, Seekers. I sometimes switch the Fiends and Seekers around if I need too. If I’m playing Draigowing I’ll even put all my eggs in one basket and make a super wave with Fiends, all the Bloodcrushers and Seekers. I typically keep both waves somewhat similar because of the off chance I don’t get my preferred wave. That way, you aren’t crippled in 1/3 games.
My deployment starts with Fateweaver. I do this so he has more deep striking room. He is too important to risk with a mishap, and gives me a better idea of where the rest of my army should land, leaving him centrally to everything else to grant his buffing aura. I place the crushers in front of him but within that bubble of awesome. The fiends land behind fateweaver as they are fast enough to not worry so much about placement, but still within Big Bird’s protection. The Lord of change is somewhere near fateweaver depending on what im trying to do with him, so that he too can be damn near impossible to kill. I drop my troops on the furthest objective from my opponent, or safest place if its kill points. They then cheer encouragements to the rest of the army and keep their heads down.
The reason why I place my main forces within 12inchs of fateweaver is to give them some wiggle movement for scattered deep strikes. This also allows them to run back into Big Bird’s range of awesomeness if needed after a bad scatter. It is almost always better to place them conservatively and use your run move to correct bad scatters than take a risky drop and lose them to a mishap.
Some other small tips to remember: always keep track of where you’re placing your icon when you deep strike. You have to prepare for next turn by having the icon placed with enough room for next turn’s arrivals to all fit where you need them. Now, there’s only 2 models that can shoot in this list. So what you do shoot at has to be high priority targets, Such as Lootas, Warwalkers, etc. Really anything that has a high volume of firepower that big bird needs to worry about.
And that’s it really. Once your boys are in the right place, with intelligent placement, you let the Daemons do what they do best and rip everything apart in combat. The nice thing about placing your units after your opponent has deployed is that you always get to go “first” in a sense. If anyone has any questions about certain tactics, or anything really feel free to ask.
Thanks for reading, and Next week, I’ll begin my on going articles on my All Marine army. Building, painting. Conversion ideas. Everything really.