Dan, Dan, Superman takes his Space Marine Biker list out against Frankie and the notorious Dark Harliestar and shows us what tactics can do. This is a GREAT example of ways to play around a Deathstar. Like I always say, don’t start a fight you can’t win, and always play to the mission. Deathstars are crazy, and fighting them head on is often not the way to go about it. Enjoy!
Wow. That Harliestar is sure broken and requires no skill to win with.
Haha. This is fantastic, thanks again!
If you’re not going to leave this alone, I’ll address it in hopes of making myself more clear and rephrase. Against anyone who is unprepared for a list like this, you have an extremely good chance of winning without much effort. As long as you know the basics of how the list runs, it’s not terribly difficult to roll over your opponent. Yes, you need to know the base game, basic tactics, etc. but when compared with a balanced list, it requires less forethought beyond moving/positioning.
Not True. Balanced Lists are Easier to play, by far.
Im not even sure any of us know what a balanced list is anymore. Frankie and any other great generals are Always difficult to roll unless they are somehow playing handicapped. Doesnt hold much water, partner.
how does the harliestar react to burna in wagon? 70+ s4 hits is nasty.
Burna’s would for sure wipe out my army I would have to e very tactical against that list and hopefully outflank the battle wagon and pop it before it has a chance to get close enough to me.
Yeah, like Frankie said, you’d have to try and pop the Wagon before it bar-b-qued you.
Another thing to think about is if you don’t get past the Tank characters, they still take all the hits first. Positioning will be really important.
I’ve killed an entire Harlie unit with burna boyz before. Then 30 bladestorming Dire Avengers killed the rest of my army. I don’t see 6th changing any of that, so the biker player was smart to use mobility, which is usually the Eldar weapon of choice, against them.
Dan is a really good player, and knew he couldn’t just directly engage the Deathstar.
Hi guys i have been a long time follower. I really appreciate your bat reps and all you guys do for the gaming community. Anyway I have been play testing myself since 6th came out, I have found the Necron air force to be especially brutal. I have seen very little bat reps playing this list, or any list like it, online. I wonder if you have play tested against it and found serious weaknesses, cause in my experience it is demolishing the death star lists I see you guys playing.
Hey Leeder, thanks for the support!
Yeah, we agree. It is brutal. We’re building one now and as soon as we have it ready, you’ll be seeing it in Bat Reps. It is a worrisome list as like a Deathstar, it is SO resilient that it will not be fun to play against for most people.
As AA becomes more prevalent, I think we’ll see that they aren’t quite so bad, but for now, that is the list we think will drive people crazy the most.
I don’t see it demolishing deathstars, per se, as the majority of them (Night Scythes) lack the firepower to really do any telling damage. What have you seen that makes the advantage so great? I know the Harliestar can just sit in cover and wait, soaking up shots with a 2+ reroll cover save like it’s nothing, same with the Chaos Termiestar.
Orks would be most susceptible to it, but even so, I think Nob Bikers could play keep away most of the game.
I guess demolish the death star is misstating.
The thing I find is the necron air force can ignore the harliestar itself and eat the rest of the force to nothing, and there is very little in the harliestar that can can hurt them. They can’t assault the planes. Eldrad can give rerolls to hit but I’m an alpha strike force so if I play right there is very little shooting back at me.
The nob bikers lose alot of their advantages to the doom scythe as they lose feel no pain and get insta-killed, they have 4+ cover but any fails and they are gone. I actually find lootas to be the orks best air defense. tons of shots and long range but to be effective you need enough of em to survive getting eaten by tesla shots from the night scythes.
The chaos termiestar I need to test more, haven’t messed around with that much. I imagine the doom scythe would still pose quite a threat to it though.
With 4 night scythes and 3 doom scythes at 1500 points it’s a ton of flying even with AA The army is very mobile and invasion beams mean you can disembark in the last turn, easily, for objective snagging.
The doom scythe can’t be ignored, it is far to dangerous, and so a ton of shots are put into taking out those 3 planes which can be hard to do. It is also an alpha strike force as your entire army is reserved because they are all flyers. meaning you should get first blood every time.
I don’t want it to seem like I am bashing other armies, or that other armies can’t win against this kind of list, it just seems to be an uphill battle. The lists you guys have been showing are really great lists, I have been using my own similar variations with great success. I just wondered how those lists are faring for you against necron air force lists.
I’ve actually been playing more 1850 point games, than 1500, this may be why these lists are in more of an uphill battle.
Have you guys really felt that 1500 has been that much faster than 1850. In my experience it hasn’t been that much faster. Most of the things that slow things down in a 1850 point game are the same as what will slow it down in 1500 point games. I defer to your superior knowledge though as I know you have been running events for a long time. I really enjoy the variety at a 1850 point level. Wound allocation is a real pain though, and I understand the need to shave whatever time you can.
I still think the the necron air force list is abit up for debate if it can deploy with all of its units inside the reserve. While the flyers cannot deploy normally the units can and should be counted towards the reserve limit, so you might have to deploy half your units if that is the ruling. Though this doesn´t make the air force list illeagal it severly hampers it survivability of its scoring units, and it is by an armys scoring unit they win or loose.
The more i play the new missions the more i like them. Scoring units are really important in most of the missions and having mobile and sturdy units are really important. The secondary objectives i think is really important in the mission type also because especially first blood forces the players to be more aggresive and with a bigger focus on durability and with nightfight. It is not always an automatic vp for the player who goes first.
A third thought i have gotten while watching your battlereports are that i think you guys are playing with too much and too big LOS-blocking terrain and this is can be quite beneficial or the Deathstar units because they can absue it with tanking characters. So with less LOS-terrain i think tanking characters is less useul.
Well that was my morning rants for the day 🙂
Ah no man, you aren’t bashing armies at all, you are presenting a really well thought out opinion based on experience, which is awesome. We’re learning from you, too. That is the cool thing about forums.
Our issue is that we primarily play in and run tournaments, and we had a really finely tuned system in 5th with 90-95% of 1750pt games finishing to a natural conclusion within 2 hours and 15 minutes.
So, our minds go to: how can we get games done on time in the same time limit with new rules and a slower game? The only answer we can see is lowering the points limit and then working our way back up. I hope we can get back up to at least 1750pts, but the game is so much slower now I don’t really see it.
We just put together a Necron Air Force, and you are right, it kicks a lot of armies right in the nuts. It is brutal! We haven’t tried Orks yet, but I think my list will really suffer to it. We’ll try the Dark Harliestar, too, see if your assumptions are correct about it.
The only thing that reigns it in are the missions, but unfortunately the missions that Flyers suck against Dethstars are AWESOME at (the Relic for example). It is just SO rock, paper, scissors. Bums me out.
Funny enough Frankie and I ran this matchup again last night. This time was the Scourging mission so now all my units were troops and fast gave up bonus points.
It ALSO went to turn 7 and both are armies were very depleted. It ALSO came down to if vect could kill my captain but artificer armor saved my bacon and Vect got fisted to death.
So now I’m sure I’ll have to play Frankie in a tourny and we will mop the floor with me (as usual).