Teleportation Waves

I was thinking about the way strike squads are described as being the first wave of a Grey Knight attack, securing objectives for the main strike force to then reinforce; using the Nemesis Strike Force we can actually replicate this now. The rites of teleportation allow us to choose squads to roll for reserves on turn one, it's not an all or nothing choice. With that in mind, we can attempt to teleport strike squads with homers to key areas and then attempt to bring the terminators down onto their homers, which is both characterful and potentially useful.

Strike squads are cheaper than the terminator equivalents and have smaller bases which make mishaps less likely. Getting a 5 man strike team into a small dropzone is much easier than doing so with their larger brethren. In addition, then getting them into LoS breaking cover is simpler what with their footprint being so much smaller

I'm loathe to risk a mishap with a 350 point squad of terminators, but having a choice of homers makes me far more confident of taking a big unit, which in turn is a survivable concentration of force. This could be particularly handy in maelstrom missions.

I'd also probably have an interceptor squad with a homer handy in case my strike squads turn up late/ get killed.

This wouldn't work in all battles though. You'd likely want to be in a situation with enemy forces in reserve to prevent the strike squads being immediately overrun and you need to be playing a game with enough points to allow you to field 3-4 strike squads along with at least 2 terminator squads and probably a dreadknight as heavy teleportation backup. Strike squads are still expensive, so keep the terrain in mind. They aren't suicide squads: knight survivability should still be high on your agenda and cover is the best way to do this.


It's just an idea, but in a battle where you need your deployment to stay flexible this could be a valid tactic. Sure you could not have any knights turn up for two turns, but fortune favours the bold.

I like the sound of this approach. VERY fluffy, and reasonably plausible strategically. Any plans to try it out in a bat rep that you could share with us?

I like the idea and how it plays into the fluff. However, depending on your opponent, do you really think 5 Strikes will hold up against a round of focused shooting vs the entire opposing army.

I like to think so because i like the idea but its a hefty price to pay (110+) for a maybe-accurate teleport.

Unless you maybe plan to DS all the way in your own deployment zone.

SteelTitan wrote:I like the idea and how it plays into the fluff. However, depending on your opponent, do you really think 5 Strikes will hold up against a round of focused shooting vs the entire opposing army.

Sai wrote:This wouldn't work in all battles though. You'd likely want to be in a situation with enemy forces in reserve to prevent the strike squads being immediately overrun and you need to be playing a game with enough points to allow you to field 3-4 strike squads along with at least 2 terminator squads and probably a dreadknight as heavy teleportation backup. Strike squads are still expensive, so keep the terrain in mind. They aren't suicide squads: knight survivability should still be high on your agenda and cover is the best way to do this.

Like I said, it's situational. Half the challenge in the game is deciding when to do these things. It also depends on where you play: the tables at my store have 4+ LoS breaking pieces of terrain of various sizes, so hiding is possible. Without that it would be suicide for my strike squads so I wouldn't do it. Also, it depends on if your opponent is using reserves. If he is this becomes a lot more viable.

The 5 man squad shouldn't be alone, and there are redundancies in place. Really you want to have 3+ possible homers because half the point is to keep your teleportation flexible: losing any one strike squad shouldn't cripple the strategy. Also, the strike squads won't be the only thing on the board turn 1, the interceptors, dreadknight and dreadnoughts would be there.

Don't think of it as points spent on an accurate teleport. The strike squad adds firepower, an objective grabbing unit, a charge blocking unit and a psychic dice. If they assault with the terminators you have an opportunity to pursue a broken enemy, overcoming one of the terminators' weaknesses. If charging an enemy with overwatching AP2 weapons, send the strike squad. If AP3+, (and not too numerous,) send the terminators first.



I've only done this once in a maelstrom mission against necrons at 1750 points. The Necrons were vehicle heavy, they had 3 annihilation barges and a command barge, a large unit of warriors and one of immortals, a pair of stalkers and the Forgeworld tombstalker. A big bunch of wraiths were also skulking around. The one with some sort of interdimensional distort weapon. They were deployed fairly evenly across the board with and infantry squad on both flanks. There were a lot of trenches across the board with a rock formation in both deployment zones a ruined fortress of redemption sat dead centre. My two interceptor squads and the dreadknight set up towards the middle, slightly closer to my left flank.

The Necrons had first turn and advanced, but were out of range or LoS across the board.

I dropped a strike squad on the flanks, on the left near the rock formation in the necron deployment zone, on the right next to an abandoned bunker midfield. My twin incinerator squad shunted forward and to the left, right on top of the 17/18 warriors, with the dreadknight moving forward to present another target. the storm bolter strike squad with the homer and hammer moved centrally. Both strike squads shot and ran a couple of inches into cover, not really achieving very much. The dreadknight and incinerators wiped out the warriors easily. The dreadknight's torrant was actually aimed at the command barge so he charged and hammered the commander straight into the afterlife. Unfortunately he had a 3+ we'll be back which he promptly made. My dreadnought with missile launcher and lascannon took an annihilation barge out of action.

The necron army collectively moved toward my left flank with the exception of a barge, the stalker and the immortals, but the terrain and limited necron range stymied the return fire. The interceptor squad was shot at and finished off by wraiths. The left side strike squad was reduced to the sergeant and psycannon and the dreadknight was reduced to one wound.

Next turn I failed my terminator reserve rolls but the stormraven came in on the right flank... the strike squad shot down the necron lord, though he came back again at the end of the turn. The dreadknight moved to cover and the interceptor squad jumped forward and attacked the stalker but failed to kill it. Likewise, the raven managed only to take a wound from the stalker.
The Necrons killed my left hand strike squad with shooting and my hammer interceptor squad got mobbed by wraiths, though they took down the stalker. The immortals advanced on my right flank. The stormraven managed to avoid getting shot down.

Two terminator squads teleported to the right hand strike squad's location and the third came by raven as it kicked into hover mode. The dreadknight incinerated the necron lord and he stayed dead this time while the dreadnought and raven took down a barge each. The terminators destroyed the immortals and stalker before occupying the trench.
The next turn the dreadknight fell to the forgeworld tombstalker.

The rest of the game consisted of terminators firing away and charging against the last of the necrons as they shifted back across the board. They were out of formation so they arrived piecemeal which helped. The while the raven and dreadnought continued to snipe at vehicles, most notably the necron flier when it eventually arrived.

I ended up winning 14-6 though a lot of my points came from killing the enemy commander ( 6 of them) Although they were late, the terminators arrived in an ideal position to avoid the forces that would have killed them, the tomb stalker, ap2 gun, mass fire and wraiths while focussing on what they can kill easily.