The Dark Eldar Beaststar - we can rebuild you [40k DE]

What was the Beaststar ?

[a Beaststar gets ready to support an Eldar army, link to battle report]

A bit of history, the Beaststar came from the previous Dark Eldar codex.  In that codex you could have up to 5 beastmasters in a unit, and each beastmaster could bring 0-1 Clawed Fiend or 0-2 Razorwing Flocks or 0-5 Krymerae.  What you could do was take 5 beastmasters and 25 Krymerae to make a big fast assault unit.  Then add in the Baron, a cheap (105 points) special character who gave the unit a higher leadership (ld9), Hit and Run & Stealth.  Back then the Krymerae were only toughness 3, but sported a 4+ invulnerable save, so another buff was having a nearby farseer give them a reroll on their save making for an resilient unit with loads of wounds that could not be tied down by a blob and would kill units by the weight of attacks.

All this changed when the new codex arrived :(  The maximum size of the beastpack was changed to 12 models, although you can now freely pick any of the available models to make up the unit.  The Baron who gave the unit so many nice rules also disappeared from the codex.


Can we rebuild the Beaststar

Although we can only have 12 models in a beast pack now, we can have more than 12 wounds by using Clawed Fiends.  Clawed Fiends got a bit better and cheaper in the new codex, being a poor man's Grotesque while not requiring a transport.

Now we could go for 12 Clawed Fiends, but it costs a whopping 360 points, for 36, toughness 5, wounds.  While doable this is a huge unit before you add any characters.  Krymerae are still not bad in the new codex; they went down by 2 points each, while going up to toughness 4 for the cost of their invulnerable save going down to 5+ from 4+.  By adding in some Krymerae we can have the best of both worlds, majority toughness 5 while also have the first shots go against the Krymerae's invulnerable save.

My starter for 10 Beaststar is:
1 Beastmaster
5 Krymerae
6 Clawed Fiends
totalling 240 points, 24 wounds (majority toughness 5) and a total of 2 Str 3, 15 Str 4 & 36 Str 5 attacks on the charge.  However please note this unit is all about the charge as the Clawed Fiends have Rage.  The unit would drop to 1 Str 3, 10 Str 4 & 24 Str 5 attacks if they are charged or it is the 2nd round of a combat.

Why the beastmaster rather than a 6th Krymerae ?  It's not really for the leadership 8, its really that the three options for a decent character to join the unit is toughness 4 (see below), so having one Beastmaster keeps the majority toughness at 5 after the character joins.  Another option would be to add a 7th Clawed Fiend instead of the Beastmaster pushing the unit up to 260 points.


Leadership 8 is Not Enough

As a unit get large in size, and more importantly points value your whole game will depend on whether than unit performs well or not.  It also means it could be game over if a unit fails a critical leadership test.  For the beaststar I propose leadership 8 is not really enough.  In most games an opponent will see it as a threat and it is not that tough so it will be easy to force a morale test (4 casualties required).  In this case you can't have a nearly 1 in 3 chance that the rest of the unit will run off the board.  Leadership 9 is a minimum requirement, leadership 10 is better while being fearless is ideal.  So bare this in mind when choosing which character should be used to supplement the Beaststar.


How do Star's fail ?

When looking at what character we might want to add to the Beaststar, we have to ask what does the Beaststar really need, and what will prevent it doing well in a game.

1) As mentioned above morale is fickle thing, and you can't have so many points invested in a unit which has anything but a very small chance of running off the table due to a morale check, being fearless would be preferable.

2) Being bogged down - some armies can have fearless cheap large units which will tie up the beaststar all game, large guard blobs with 4+ inv save come to mind, or really any large unit which has had invisibility cast on it.  Alternatively they may be too tough for the beaststar to deal with, eg. thunderwolf cav.  In this case the Beaststar needs a way to get out of these bad match-ups and on to better targets.  Previously the Beaststar used the Baron who had Hit and Run, so another character with Hit and Run would be useful.  Its possible to play the Beaststar without Hit and Run, but you have to be careful not to be tied down by a bad match-up.

3) Unlike other deathstars the Beaststar is not that tough (it has lots of wounds, 24, but has very poor armour saves) so anything that can improve it's resilience would be a great help

4) The beaststar can't deal with heavy rear armour or walkers (non-walker vehicles with poor rear armour will be ripped apart by the beaststar), so anything that can help with Walkers or units with high rear armour would be nice



The Contenders

Up first we have the Eldar Autarch.  Stock he gives the Beaststar leadership 10, and helps with reserve rolls.

First upgrade you must give him is something to increase his speed.  Unlike some deathstars such as Necron Wraiths with Characters the Beaststar can not afford to be slowed down by a character with the basic 6" move.  The beaststar (and more importantly the rest of the Dark Eldar army) does not have the resilience to play the waiting game, it must rip the strategic heart of the enemy in the first 3 turns, and can not afford to play the attrition game.  Options for speed are Swooping Hawk wings, a Jetbike or a Warp Jump Generator.  I would advise against the Warp Jump generator because the Autarch would not be able to flicker jump in the Beastpack, and even if he could the unit couldn't.  Swooping Hawk Wings gives him great speed being able to move 18" in the movement phase, great for springing from the back to near the front of the unit in preparation for a charge.  However the Jetbike gives the Autarch toughness 4, the option for a very ling move of 48" if he leaves the beastpack, plus relentless allowing him to fire a heavy weapon on the move (eg. a repear missile launcher).  Ultimately it's down to your personal preference, but I would advise the Jetbike.

The Autarch can also choose more wargear to help the beastpack.  He can have a Banshee mask, meaning the unit charged can not fire overwatch at the beastpack, allowing them to easily charge units they may have worried about, eg. units with lots of shots and/or flamers, D-scythe armed wraithguard or large blobs come to mind.  The Autarch can also include include some anti tank weapons in either a fusion gun or a reaper missile launcher.  The Autarch can include some extra combat punch to unit, taking advantage of his high Weapon skill, Initiative and Attacks.  If on a bike a lance is nice, but even a basic power weapon would help against marines with their 3+ save.

Finally if you want to go the extra mile the Autarch can take the relic than makes him fearless.  However please note that with the cost of a Jetbike or Wings, a ranged weapon, a lance or a relic weapon and the cost of the Autarch can get quite costly, moving the cost of the Autarch and the Beastpack quite expensive.

When it gets to that level of points you have to ask yourself would two slightly smaller beastpacks be better than one with a Character, but that's a question for all 3 contenders.

Next up we have the Eldar Farseer.  This time we have only one option to improve his speed which is to put him on a jetbike.  Rather than some combat punch and a bit of shooting, the Farseer adds loads of support to the unit through his psychic powers.  From the basic rerolls to hit powers the Farseer can really up the surviveability of unit through castings of invisibility or the power to reroll saves which is great on the invulnerable saves of the Krymerae.

The Farseer is also good at supporting the rest of your army with his psychic powers.  Another good use of the Farseer psychic powers is using spells such as Psychic Shriek to deal with opposing units the beastpack might find differcult to kill (the beastpack will struggle against units with good and/or rerollable saves).


The Baron Rebron

The best thing about the old Baron Sathonyx was that he was cheap, and had Hit & Run, meaning it was hard to pin the beastpack down, and the distance they could travel between the end of the opponent's combat phase to the end of their next charge was phenomenal and easy to catch an opponent off guard.  The average distance was 29.5" (3D6" Hit & Run, 12" Move, 2D6 Charge).

So what character can give us Hit & Run ?  It's Baharroth "The Cry of the Wind" the Swooping Hawk Phoenix Lord.  He comes in at a very reasonable 65 points over the cost of the old Baron.  Although he doesn't have the Stealth of the Baron, he does bring toughness 4, a 2+ armour save, Eternal Warrior, a faster 18" move, and even Haywire grenades.  Baharroth also Fearless, meaning once the Beaststar can stand a round of combat without getting too depleted they can Hit & Run away (provided they don't roll a 6) and charge something else.

As I have a converted Baron model (there never was an official model) I plan to add the Autarch Swooping Wings to him, however so far my search of ebay and my usual bitz sites have turned up a blank.  I'm going to keep watching and I'm sure I'll come up with a pair of wings soon.  Below's a picture of my Baron after assembly (I suddenly realised I don't have any pictures of him painted):

Overall the three character options all add something nice to the beastpack, with each giving different benefits.  Being Eldar characters they all require a troops choice to make an Allied Detachment to keep the army bound, buts that's not hard with cheap and effective Eldar Jetbikes.  You can either go with the 3 unupgraded jetbike to do the 5th edition come from reserve to do a last turn objective hop, or for 16 points more than a dual splinter cannon venom you can upgrade the 12 poison shots to 12 str 6 shots.

This is still theory hammer at the moment, but as soon as I find some Autarch wings I'm going to slap them on my Baron, paint them up and give the new Beaststar a whirl.  They aren't as good as most tournament deathstar, eq. Necron Lychstar with associated characters or Thunderstar with friends but they can dish out the pain to most units in this shooting centric 7th edition, and plays well with the glass cannon approach of Dark Eldar.  Lastly as most people have not played against Clawed Fiends I don't some people may underestimate how hard the unit will hit.

So here's my revised Beaststar, ready for playtesting:

Phoenix Lord Baharroth "The Cry of the Wind"
5 Krymerae
7 Clawed Fiends

430 points for a fast but fragile-ish (unit that puts out on the charge 42 Str 5 attacks, 20 str 4 attacks & 5 Str4 power weapon attacks.  I think the rest of the army would need to put a bit more than usual focus on low ap weapons and anti tank to face walkers, Imperial Knights, Wraithknights, Stormsurges etc., but nearly everything else can taken care of by the Beaststar or avoided while the Beaststar takes apart the rest of the enemy army.

Do you think this unit could work ?  Is it viable in a casual or competitive setting ? What do you see as its biggest weaknesses ?  I'd love to hear your thoughts on the unit.

Rathstar

Beasts & Bodyguards Part Two - What I think of Clawed Fiends [Dark Eldar]

For my second article in this series we look at the big monster from the beastpack; the Clawed Fiend.  Compared to the Dark Eldar's other Toughness 5 monsters (the other two being Sslyths and Grotesques) the Clawed Fiends are the fastest, strike earliest (higher initiative), and hit with more attacks on the charge (unless the Grotesques are outnumbered), and they do this at the lowest cost per wound.  So why aren't these models seen more often, and what do I think of them ?

There are a number of reasons why this model is rarely seem on the gaming table.  The first is that the model is finecast and therefore expensive, next the model comes in only one pose, putting off modelers who don't like identical models in a group and don't want to convert finecast.

However a quick google picture search will show lots of examples of much cheaper alternatives.  This goes for all the beastpack models as this comparison shows:

A good example of an alternative conversion is the pic below from Dave Taylor Miniature's blog:

based on Undead Vargheists, but a google search will bring up loads of other examples from conversions based on Warhammer Ogres to Privateer Press and other manufacturer models.  Dark Eldar is great for conversions so let your imagination go wild.

So now we have got the cost and modelling issues out of the way, how good are Clawed Fiends on the battlefield.  The obvious comparison is against Grotesques & Sslyth, and the comparison starts off well with Clawed Fiends being the cheapest per wound, and being Beasts they are fast across the battlefield, are not slowed by terrain meaning they don't need (even if they could take one) a transport, and more importantly aren't slowed to infantry speed if they lose a paper thin transport.

The pluses keep coming:  Clawed Fiends have a high enough initiative that they strike before Marines (unlike both Grotesques & Sslyths).

So with these significant strengths what are their weaknesses:

The first is that they are only WS3 not 4 like the rest of the Dark Eldar army.  This means that they will get hit easier by WS4 opponents.  However it does not affect what they hit on against WS4, 5 or 6.  If you pick the right target and strike first doing enough damage that there aren't too many attacks coming back you can mitigate this issue.

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The big weakness against their main competitors, is that the Clawed Fiends are fragile.  Grotesques get a 6+ armour save and Feel No Pain, Sslyths get a 5+ armour save and Feel No Pain.  Clawed Fiends get a 6+ armour save and that's it, and they don't have Power from Pain to get any bonus like the Grotesques later in the game.

Lastly Clawed Fiends have horrible leadership, and that it the same for their rivals (Grotesques and Sslyths), however rather than having to include a expensive independent character like Grotesques, they can include a 10 point beastmaster upping the unit's leadership to 8.  The beastmaster should be placed at the back of the unit, and if you have two beastmasters they shouldn't be placed close to each other to avoid them both being taken out with one enemy volley.

Overall the Clawed Fiend epitimises the Dark Eldar way of war.  They hit fast and hard but are very fragile.  To get the best out of them advance through cover to get a cover save (it doesn't slow you down after all), and hit targets that are not going to swing back with a decent number of attacks and definitely not high strength attacks (as having a high toughness is their only protection).

Even if they distract the opponent firepower, even the fragile Clawed Fiends should tie up a decent about of the enemy's firepower that would otherwise kill serious chunks of the rest of the Dark Eldar force.  Meltaguns and Lascannons will only knock off one wound, and they may even by saved by a cover save.

If you have a few aggressive elements of your army, Clawed Fiends can help give you the critical mass so that some of those elements get through.  In some games my Clawed Fiends have been seen as a huge threat and were taken out in two turns, but that allowed my Krymerae to get to assault the enemy, sometime it's the other way round.  Other times they are ignored in favour of the usual units people expect to see in a Dark Eldar army and know are good, Ravagers, Venoms, Grotesques.

Preferred targets for the Clawed Fiends are S3 T3 models (because they'll find it hard to wound the Fiends while being wounded easily by them), units with not too many attacks, particularly if they are Init4 or lower and will strike after the Fiends. Non-Walker vehicles with rear armour 10 or 11 are also good targets (5 charging fiends average 3.4 hull points against rear armour 11 and twice as much against rear armour 10).

Watch out for str10 weapons, unfortunately on the increase with the new Eldar.  However pick your targets well and plan your approach and Clawed Fiends can do well.

Now what if we combine Krymerae from my last article with Clawed Fiends to try and get the best of both worlds.  The Clawed Fiends can bring the majority toughness 5, while the Krymerae can bring the 5++ inv save.

Say 1 Beastmaster, 4 Krymerae & 4 Clawed Fiends for a nice 170 pts.  It's a nice unit with majority toughness 5, lots of attacks on the charge (16 str 4, and 24 str 5) on a very fast platform.

The limiting factor is the leadership 8.  You shouldn't put to many points into a unit that is only leadership 8, so this is about as large as I'd go. Adding another Krymerae and Clawed Fiends puts the unit cost past 200, which is a large amount for such a fragile unit.

The beaststar is dead...long live the beaststar !!!

So after saying that the beastpack is too fragile and has poor leadership to have a big unit, if you did want to go this way this is what I would do:

Have 6 Krymerar and 6 Clawed Fiends - you want as much hitting power from the max 12 models you can take while maintaining majority toughness 5.

Then add an allied Eldar Autarch with Swooping Hawk wings and a banshee mask (remember eldar charaters on jetbikes no longer have fleet with the new codex).  Finally give the Autarch the Shard of Anaris to make him fearless.

The beastpack costs 240 pts, with Autarch pushing the total past 350 pts.  But you have a fast unit that starts of with 27 majority T5 wounds that have Krymerae at the front with their 5++ inv save, and best yet no one can overwatch them when they charge.  The beastpack alone puts out 24 Str 4 and 36 Str 5 attacks on the charge :)  Still has some big weaknesses, like a wraithknight would laugh at their attacks and them stomp them into next week, but against most units it will just roll over them.

Well that's it for Clawed Fiends, probably the least used out of the Dark Eldar assault units, however it's a unit that has a nice niche, and I think should be considered.

What's your thoughts and experiences with the Clawed Fiends ?  Do you run them alone or in a mixed beastpack ? Written them off as not worth it - let me know your thoughts.

Rathstar

Up next Sslyths !!