Rise of the Talos

With a change in edition, there needs to be a change in strategies, I've played the game through a little better than  four iterations of the rules and learned quickly that even though it looks like a small update, it's always a whole new game.  With that in mind, my first couple 6th edition games were ran with an old style list.  Webway portals, heavy on assault and short range units like wyches, wracks, and beasts; and of course Ravagers, and a Talos for theme.

The approach of death

Obviously, the list fell completely flat, but I needed to see how bad it was before I could re-build.  One of the things that has been echoed throughout the Dark Eldar community, is that our vehicles didn't get nerfed as badly as others with the addition of Hull Points.  To an extent I agreed with this, Raiders and Venoms were already fragile and once they got into those rapid fire and melta ranges they died, this remained the same.  The one thing I did notice was my Ravagers were getting destroyed much easier.  Sitting at a further range, I often took more heavy shots with the ravagers, resulting in stuns and weapon destroyed results  with the occasional destroyed result; often the Ravagers would still be alive at the end of a game.  6th edition though, the stun locks, or multiple stuns turned into Hull Point death, and the move and fire at full range of rapid fire weapons put more things in range sooner.  The Ravagers were still quite good at anti vehicle, but they just weren't lasting long enough to work as that anvil unit.

Bash Brothers chillin

My first instinct was to try and rely on Flyers, we have some very good ones.  But I quickly realized that two things, they weren't going to be available enough through out the game to bring to bear effectively enough(2/3rds or less of the game turns), and they were just a gimmick effectiveness for now; as more armies got flyers, or figured out how to torrent of fire them down they would be just as vulnerable.  So I was concerned for a bit, but then I noticed how well my Talos was performing, twin-linked haywire blasters had him tag teaming vehicles dead via hull points with a scourge unit with two more haywire blasters, and once he got that first pain token, he was much harder to kill.

'Come at me Bro'

So as part of my Apocalypticon build, I had gotten another Talos kit, mostly for some more bits, but also to throw together another Talos with these observations in mind.  The last few games, the Ravager has sat on the shelf, and the heavy slots have been filled with 2 Talos, and usually a Razorwing.  Surprisingly these guys have absolutely preyed on vehicles that take any damage(finishing them off quickly stripping two more hull points), laughed at overwatch as they crash into assault with hammer of wrath, and dominated the table.  In combination with a few other changes, that I'll detail in a later post, I think the foot bound Taloi are here to stay, and spark the Dark Footdar revolution, I definitely believe they give the Ravager a very viable run for that 'king of the heavy' crown that it once had.