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Illic Nightspear

2018-05-12T08:52:15Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* 8th Edition */

[[File:Illic Nightspear.jpg|350px|right|thumb|Nightspear has been known to inspire intense rifle envy in both friends and foes.]]
'''Illic Nightspear''' is a fuckold [[Eldar]] who has followed the [[Paths of the Eldar#Path of the Outcast|Path of the Outcast]] for thousands of years. Over time he has grown fond of bright colors and bad jokes, and thus has developed a clown fetish of massive proportions. He's named Nightspear for his fondness of ''spearing'' [[Harlequin]] ladies in the ''night''. He also wears that long-ass ponytail quite well, [[Abaddon| unlike a certain someone who looks absolutely ridiculous with it]].

He is supposedly looking for lost paths in the [[Webway]], which means that he has fostered powerful relations with the Harlequins (mostly the women), leaving thousands of bastards that are almost as badass in the ways of sniping and stealth as he is. They are known as Pathfinders by their less skilled brethren, the [[Eldar Ranger|Rangers]]. He has a list of broken hearts, pissed off exes, and baby mommas so long that it rivals [[Vance Motherfucking Stubbs]]' harem. This would be impressive, except it's taken him a fuck billion times longer to do, thus further cementing <s> [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|humanity's glory]]</s> humanity's status as basically an ever-multiplying swarm of galactic locusts. On the other hand, Eldar women are probably slower to get into bed or serious relationships, and they do have slower gestation periods when they get pregnant, and conception requires several bouts of intercourse.

Between his skill with guns, his age, grey hair and serial womanizing, he's the Eldar equivalent of Clint Eastwood.

[[File:Carnac Bait.jpg|190px|thumbnail|left|Illic and his involvement in the Carnac Campaign in a nutshell.]]

Illic sometimes decides to give some of his knowledge of the webway to Craftworld Alaitoc, whose close ties to the Harlequins lures him in for the chance of getting some of that multicolored ass.

The Pathfinders whisper that Nightspear is supposedly off preventing the cataclysm known in Eldar legend as the Rhana Dandra, when all of the [[Phoenix Lord]]s will gather and face their final deaths, but there are so many legends about him (mostly about how he pursues dat space clown ass) that it is difficult to be sure of his intentions. Regardless, his presence on the battlefield is a great asset to Alaitoc, and he has ended conflicts with his ability to 360 no scope [[Imperium|Imperial]] generals, [[Necron Lord]]s, and various other enemies of the Eldar with his rifle that can banish people into the [[Warp]].

In reality, however, like most of his Craftworld Illic is largely only known for failing any time he appears in a story, his only well-known adventures consisting of the failure of the Carnac Campaign and that time he was caught by Nemesor Zahndrek and saved by Ko'sarro Khan since, apparently, Illic is a damsel in distress.

==On the Tabletop==
{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Illic Nightspear:''' || 140 || 5 || 9 || 3 || 3 || 3 || 6 || 3(4) || 10 || 5+
|}

[[FAIL|Inexplicably]], despite his fluff, he has neither the highest possible BS in theory or in practice—his rockin' sockin' BS9 is awesome, but compare that to [[Cypher]]'s at BS10. Heck, even BS8 is [[Vindicare|achievable]] [[Callidus|in]] [[Eversor|mere]] [[Culexus|decades]] by humans, provided they [[Grimdark|train like they mean it]]. Still, BS9 is pretty sick; with the 3+ re-roll, it means on average he only misses 1 of every 18 shots, so he's a hell of a marksman if there ever was one. His Warp-powered sniper rifle, Voidbringer, is an AP2 Sniper weapon with a range of 48" and the Distort special rule, meaning that on a roll of 6, it causes Instant Death to multi-wound enemies and automatically penetrates vehicles. Try one-shotting a [[Carnifex]] for some great lulz. He also has a shuriken pistol and an Eldar power sword if the situation becomes desperate, but with S3 the only thing he'll be killing in close combat is basic troops.

As far as special rules, he has the standard Eldar ones (Fleet, Ancient Doom and Battle Focus), Independent Character (so he can still join squads), Hatred (Necrons), Preferred Enemy (Necrons), Shrouded (+2 to Cover Saves to offset his paper-thin mesh armor), and his Warlord Trait is Mark of the Incomparable Hunter. He also has a few unique rules. Sharpshot makes all of his shooting attacks Precision shots, meaning he can assassinate enemy commanders or pick off individual models with scary weapons; and with Master of Pathfinders, he can grant Sharpshot to any squad of Rangers he joins. Lastly, Walker of the Hidden Path allows him to Infiltrate anywhere on the battlefield, ignoring distance requirements.

== 8th Edition ==

{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Illic Nightspear:''' || 80 || 2 || 2 || 3 || 3 || 5 || 4 || 9 || 5+
|}

In an edition where snipers are in higher demand than ever before, Illic Nightspear delivers. Compared to a Vindicare Assassin (because what else would you compare him to?) Illic has some subtle but interesting differences. First off he wounds ''everything'' (that isn't a VEHICLE) on 2+ - whereas the Vindicare can only effectively snipe INFANTRY models. Illic also deals a flat 3 damage (and 1 mortal wound on a 6+), whereas the Vindicare only deals D3 (D6 if you win the lottery). Of course the Vindicare ignores invulnerable saves, cover saves, and has almost 2x the range - against INFANTRY characters with at least a 4++ save he pulls ahead, but against weaker supporting characters Illic wins easily. Illic also excels at murdering otherwise tough models that lack invulnerable saves (like Aggressors, Meganobz, etc). He also fills an HQ tax.

{{Eldar-Characters}}

Illic Nightspear

2018-05-12T08:50:59Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* 8th Edition */

Illic Nightspear

2018-05-12T08:50:37Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* 8th Edition */

[[File:Illic Nightspear.jpg|350px|right|thumb|Nightspear has been known to inspire intense rifle envy in both friends and foes.]]
'''Illic Nightspear''' is a fuckold [[Eldar]] who has followed the [[Paths of the Eldar#Path of the Outcast|Path of the Outcast]] for thousands of years. Over time he has grown fond of bright colors and bad jokes, and thus has developed a clown fetish of massive proportions. He's named Nightspear for his fondness of ''spearing'' [[Harlequin]] ladies in the ''night''. He also wears that long-ass ponytail quite well, [[Abaddon| unlike a certain someone who looks absolutely ridiculous with it]].

He is supposedly looking for lost paths in the [[Webway]], which means that he has fostered powerful relations with the Harlequins (mostly the women), leaving thousands of bastards that are almost as badass in the ways of sniping and stealth as he is. They are known as Pathfinders by their less skilled brethren, the [[Eldar Ranger|Rangers]]. He has a list of broken hearts, pissed off exes, and baby mommas so long that it rivals [[Vance Motherfucking Stubbs]]' harem. This would be impressive, except it's taken him a fuck billion times longer to do, thus further cementing <s> [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|humanity's glory]]</s> humanity's status as basically an ever-multiplying swarm of galactic locusts. On the other hand, Eldar women are probably slower to get into bed or serious relationships, and they do have slower gestation periods when they get pregnant, and conception requires several bouts of intercourse.

Between his skill with guns, his age, grey hair and serial womanizing, he's the Eldar equivalent of Clint Eastwood.

[[File:Carnac Bait.jpg|190px|thumbnail|left|Illic and his involvement in the Carnac Campaign in a nutshell.]]

Illic sometimes decides to give some of his knowledge of the webway to Craftworld Alaitoc, whose close ties to the Harlequins lures him in for the chance of getting some of that multicolored ass.

The Pathfinders whisper that Nightspear is supposedly off preventing the cataclysm known in Eldar legend as the Rhana Dandra, when all of the [[Phoenix Lord]]s will gather and face their final deaths, but there are so many legends about him (mostly about how he pursues dat space clown ass) that it is difficult to be sure of his intentions. Regardless, his presence on the battlefield is a great asset to Alaitoc, and he has ended conflicts with his ability to 360 no scope [[Imperium|Imperial]] generals, [[Necron Lord]]s, and various other enemies of the Eldar with his rifle that can banish people into the [[Warp]].

In reality, however, like most of his Craftworld Illic is largely only known for failing any time he appears in a story, his only well-known adventures consisting of the failure of the Carnac Campaign and that time he was caught by Nemesor Zahndrek and saved by Ko'sarro Khan since, apparently, Illic is a damsel in distress.

==On the Tabletop==
{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Illic Nightspear:''' || 140 || 5 || 9 || 3 || 3 || 3 || 6 || 3(4) || 10 || 5+
|}

[[FAIL|Inexplicably]], despite his fluff, he has neither the highest possible BS in theory or in practice—his rockin' sockin' BS9 is awesome, but compare that to [[Cypher]]'s at BS10. Heck, even BS8 is [[Vindicare|achievable]] [[Callidus|in]] [[Eversor|mere]] [[Culexus|decades]] by humans, provided they [[Grimdark|train like they mean it]]. Still, BS9 is pretty sick; with the 3+ re-roll, it means on average he only misses 1 of every 18 shots, so he's a hell of a marksman if there ever was one. His Warp-powered sniper rifle, Voidbringer, is an AP2 Sniper weapon with a range of 48" and the Distort special rule, meaning that on a roll of 6, it causes Instant Death to multi-wound enemies and automatically penetrates vehicles. Try one-shotting a [[Carnifex]] for some great lulz. He also has a shuriken pistol and an Eldar power sword if the situation becomes desperate, but with S3 the only thing he'll be killing in close combat is basic troops.

As far as special rules, he has the standard Eldar ones (Fleet, Ancient Doom and Battle Focus), Independent Character (so he can still join squads), Hatred (Necrons), Preferred Enemy (Necrons), Shrouded (+2 to Cover Saves to offset his paper-thin mesh armor), and his Warlord Trait is Mark of the Incomparable Hunter. He also has a few unique rules. Sharpshot makes all of his shooting attacks Precision shots, meaning he can assassinate enemy commanders or pick off individual models with scary weapons; and with Master of Pathfinders, he can grant Sharpshot to any squad of Rangers he joins. Lastly, Walker of the Hidden Path allows him to Infiltrate anywhere on the battlefield, ignoring distance requirements.

== 8th Edition ==

{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Illic Nightspear:''' || 80 || 2 || 2 || 3 || 3 || 5 || 4 || 9 || 5+
|}

{{Eldar-Characters}}

In an edition where snipers are in higher demand than ever before, Illic Nightspear delivers. Compared to a Vindicare Assassin (because what else would you compare him to?) Illic has some subtle but interesting differences. First off he wounds ''everything'' (that isn't a VEHICLE) on 2+ - whereas the Vindicare can only effectively snipe INFANTRY models. Illic also deals a flat 3 damage (and 1 mortal wound on a 6+), whereas the Vindicare only deals D3 (D6 if you win the lottery). Of course the Vindicare ignores invulnerable saves, cover saves, and has almost 2x the range - against INFANTRY characters with at least a 4++ save he pulls ahead, but against weaker supporting characters Illic wins easily. Illic also excels at murdering otherwise tough models that lack invulnerable saves (like Aggressors, Meganobz, etc).

Illic Nightspear

2018-05-12T08:47:17Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* On the Tabletop */

[[File:Illic Nightspear.jpg|350px|right|thumb|Nightspear has been known to inspire intense rifle envy in both friends and foes.]]
'''Illic Nightspear''' is a fuckold [[Eldar]] who has followed the [[Paths of the Eldar#Path of the Outcast|Path of the Outcast]] for thousands of years. Over time he has grown fond of bright colors and bad jokes, and thus has developed a clown fetish of massive proportions. He's named Nightspear for his fondness of ''spearing'' [[Harlequin]] ladies in the ''night''. He also wears that long-ass ponytail quite well, [[Abaddon| unlike a certain someone who looks absolutely ridiculous with it]].

He is supposedly looking for lost paths in the [[Webway]], which means that he has fostered powerful relations with the Harlequins (mostly the women), leaving thousands of bastards that are almost as badass in the ways of sniping and stealth as he is. They are known as Pathfinders by their less skilled brethren, the [[Eldar Ranger|Rangers]]. He has a list of broken hearts, pissed off exes, and baby mommas so long that it rivals [[Vance Motherfucking Stubbs]]' harem. This would be impressive, except it's taken him a fuck billion times longer to do, thus further cementing <s> [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|humanity's glory]]</s> humanity's status as basically an ever-multiplying swarm of galactic locusts. On the other hand, Eldar women are probably slower to get into bed or serious relationships, and they do have slower gestation periods when they get pregnant, and conception requires several bouts of intercourse.

Between his skill with guns, his age, grey hair and serial womanizing, he's the Eldar equivalent of Clint Eastwood.

[[File:Carnac Bait.jpg|190px|thumbnail|left|Illic and his involvement in the Carnac Campaign in a nutshell.]]

Illic sometimes decides to give some of his knowledge of the webway to Craftworld Alaitoc, whose close ties to the Harlequins lures him in for the chance of getting some of that multicolored ass.

The Pathfinders whisper that Nightspear is supposedly off preventing the cataclysm known in Eldar legend as the Rhana Dandra, when all of the [[Phoenix Lord]]s will gather and face their final deaths, but there are so many legends about him (mostly about how he pursues dat space clown ass) that it is difficult to be sure of his intentions. Regardless, his presence on the battlefield is a great asset to Alaitoc, and he has ended conflicts with his ability to 360 no scope [[Imperium|Imperial]] generals, [[Necron Lord]]s, and various other enemies of the Eldar with his rifle that can banish people into the [[Warp]].

In reality, however, like most of his Craftworld Illic is largely only known for failing any time he appears in a story, his only well-known adventures consisting of the failure of the Carnac Campaign and that time he was caught by Nemesor Zahndrek and saved by Ko'sarro Khan since, apparently, Illic is a damsel in distress.

==On the Tabletop==
{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Illic Nightspear:''' || 140 || 5 || 9 || 3 || 3 || 3 || 6 || 3(4) || 10 || 5+
|}

[[FAIL|Inexplicably]], despite his fluff, he has neither the highest possible BS in theory or in practice—his rockin' sockin' BS9 is awesome, but compare that to [[Cypher]]'s at BS10. Heck, even BS8 is [[Vindicare|achievable]] [[Callidus|in]] [[Eversor|mere]] [[Culexus|decades]] by humans, provided they [[Grimdark|train like they mean it]]. Still, BS9 is pretty sick; with the 3+ re-roll, it means on average he only misses 1 of every 18 shots, so he's a hell of a marksman if there ever was one. His Warp-powered sniper rifle, Voidbringer, is an AP2 Sniper weapon with a range of 48" and the Distort special rule, meaning that on a roll of 6, it causes Instant Death to multi-wound enemies and automatically penetrates vehicles. Try one-shotting a [[Carnifex]] for some great lulz. He also has a shuriken pistol and an Eldar power sword if the situation becomes desperate, but with S3 the only thing he'll be killing in close combat is basic troops.

As far as special rules, he has the standard Eldar ones (Fleet, Ancient Doom and Battle Focus), Independent Character (so he can still join squads), Hatred (Necrons), Preferred Enemy (Necrons), Shrouded (+2 to Cover Saves to offset his paper-thin mesh armor), and his Warlord Trait is Mark of the Incomparable Hunter. He also has a few unique rules. Sharpshot makes all of his shooting attacks Precision shots, meaning he can assassinate enemy commanders or pick off individual models with scary weapons; and with Master of Pathfinders, he can grant Sharpshot to any squad of Rangers he joins. Lastly, Walker of the Hidden Path allows him to Infiltrate anywhere on the battlefield, ignoring distance requirements.

== 8th Edition ==

{| class=wikitable
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Illic Nightspear:''' || 80 || 2 || 2 || 3 || 3 || 5 || 4 || 9 || 5+
|}

{{Eldar-Characters}}

In an edition where snipers are in higher demand than ever before, Illic Nightspear delivers. Compared to a Vindicare Assassin (because what else would you compare him to?) Illic has some subtle but interesting differences. First off he wounds ''everything'' (that isn't a VEHICLE) on 2+ - whereas the Vindicare can only effectively snipe infantry models. Illic also deals a flat 3 damage (and 1 mortal wound on a 6+), whereas the Vindicare only deals D3 (D6 if you win the lottery). Of course the Vindicare ignores invulnerable saves, cover saves, and has almost 2x the range - against infantry characters with at least a 4++ save he pulls ahead, but against weaker supporting characters Illic will eat them alive.

Khaine

2018-05-06T17:52:22Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* On the Tabletop */

[[File:Khaine End Times.png|350px|thumb|right|The only Eldar god that has the [[Awesome|testosterone]] and [[RAEG]] to rival [[Khorne|Khorne.]]]]
<div style="font-size:1.10em;font-weight:bold;font-style:bold;font-family:serif;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em"> ALL WHO OPPOSE ME SHALL BURN TO CINDERS AND ASH! - Khaine, being anal as fuck</div>'''

{{Topquote|Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.|Dylan Thomas}}

'''Khaela Mensha Khaine''' (also known as the '''Bloody-Handed God''' or '''Big Daddy Calgar's personal pleasure object''') is the [[Dark Elf]], [[High Elf]], and [[Eldar]] God of War and Fire. He is also GW's chosen punchbag for when ever they want to prove just how powerful their new character of the week is. Its got to the point that the question isn't who could beat an Avatar but who hasn't beaten an Avatar.

==In Warhammer 40,000==
Mr. K.M. Khaine is one of the three Eldar gods that survived the [[Fall of the Eldar]] (the other two being [[Cegorach]] and [[Isha]]), although he was trampled and pushed out of the [[Warp]] and into realspace while [[Khorne]] was busy piledriving baby [[Slaanesh]] all over Eldar heaven. Because of this, he's no longer "alive" in a spiritual sense and is now shattered into a bajillion physical pieces. These pieces made their way into the [[Craftworld]]s, where they can be used to summon a manifestation of Khaine when the need arises. An [[Avatar of Khaine]] is a towering daemonic creature that loses to basically anything it ever fights. He's also the angriest god of the Eldar pantheon, although he can't really contest with the [[RAGE]] of [[Angron]] and [[Doombreed]].

It has been [[Xenology|hinted]] at that Khaine (as well as the rest of the Eldar pantheon) is one of the [[Old Ones]], and so strictly speaking is not exclusively an Eldar deity. He was also the Bloody-Handed God of War for the [[Hrud]].

===The story of the single angriest Eldar entity ever===
Long ago, when the Eldar were the most powerful race in the universe and they hadn't raped themselves yet, Khaine heard from [[Lileath]], the prophecy-giver of the Eldar pantheon, that the Eldar would one day kill him. Khaine, never one for subtlety, decided to [[exterminatus|murder every last one of the pansies]] to ensure that never happened. However, [[Isha]], the mother-goddess of the Eldar, wept for them because no sane mother would want her own children butchered to death by a maniacal god of war. Khaine's rage gets pretty visible at this point because he had the hots for Isha and still completely ignored her, even after she immediately used her common sense and said she was not getting with a genocidal manifestation of pure wrath (per the book ''Path of the Eldar''. Speaking of which, this book basically says that Eldar [[Exarch|Exarchs]] and Khaine have severe psychological problems. Too bad the only gods who come close to being psychologists are [[God-Emperor of Mankind|this warmongering atheist]] and [[Tzeentch|this squawking politician patron]] of [[Sorcerer (Dungeons & Dragons)|spontaneous casters]]. The last one would be [[Malal|this god]] who doesn't believe that you (or he) exists.

Anyway, that's where [[Asuryan]], the Phoenix King of the Eldar gods, intervened and decided to spare the Eldar from their would-be fate at the bloody hands of Khaine and Isha from having to witness it, by creating a barrier to separate mortals from gods for all eternity. This ensured that the mortal Eldar would never have the chance to kill Khaine and that Khaine would never be able to enter the mortal realm and kill all of the Eldar. This solution worked for Khaine, but not so well for Isha.

Isha missed talking to her children and so cheated through the whole barrier deal by having [[Vaul|Vaul the Artificer]] (the best craftsman of the Eldar gods) make spirit stones to communicate with them. Khaine however, discovered this, and cried foul on Isha and her husband [[Kurnous]]. Asuryan, not wanting to look like a biased dick, told Khaine that he could do whatever he wanted with the two, so naturally Khaine chose eternal torment. Vaul got pissed at this and bargained with Khaine that he would make a hundred of his finest swords in a year in exchange for Isha and Kurnous' release, which Khaine agreed to.

However, because Vaul decided to jerk off on the last day rather than work, he couldn't make the last sword in time and instead tried to trick Khaine by putting one normal sword among the bunch of ninety-nine epic swords he made, thinking that Khaine, with his short attention span and inability to count beyond 10, wouldn't notice and would just accept the fuckheug pile of swords as is. Which is exactly what seemingly happened at first, and Khaine released Isha and Kurnous. [[Just as planned|Situation over]]. [[Not as planned|However, Vaul didn't count on Khaine being a total mathfag/detailfag whenever he's weaponwhoring]], and so Khaine got almighty pissed when he discovered that he got tricked. Yeah, a lot of people reeeaaallly love to screw with Khaine. Too bad the guy has a terrible sense of humor.

This trickery had unfortunate consequences for the whole Eldar pantheon, who after Asuryan shrugged the matter off started to take sides: some agreed with Khaine, others told him to calm the fuck down and grow up; and things snowballed from there and boiled over into the mortal realm. Exactly what the hell happened then is unclear but a couple of things are set in stone. At one point, Khaine got his hands on Vaul and beated the shit out of him before chaining him to his anvil. Another certainty is that he eventually murdered Eldanesh, an Eldar champion, although why he did it is unclear since multiple reasons have been put forward (there's lore on this in multiple sources and they are contradictory as fuck):

*Eldanesh challenged Khaine to an honorable duel for the freedom of Vaul, armed with the last blade the Artisan-God should have finished in time (and did before his capture). (Original lore from 2ed. Codex: Eldar.)
*Eldanesh, as nominal leader of the mortal Eldars, was just tired of his shit and told Khaine to calm the fuck down because he and the [[War in Heaven]] was fucking things up for the Eldar royally. (More recent lore.)
*Eldanesh and Khaine actually collaborated during the war against the [[Necrons]], but at the end he gave Khaine the middle finger when he tried to convince him to keep killing for the sake of killing and generally having violent fun. And Eldanesh did it in vain because his murder triggered the internecine [[War in Heaven]] anyway. (See also the novel ''Path of the Eldar'' by [[Gav Thorpe]].)

Anyway, whatever the exact reason, what is certain is Khaine got [[rage|a little angry]] at Eldanesh and slapped a bitch, and since said bitch wasn't a god it really didn't end well. That's the point where Asuryan got '''really''' tired of everyone's shit so he told everyone to shut the fuck up and condemned Khaine to have blood eternally drip from his hands to remind him of his crime, earning him the title "Khaela Mensha" (or Bloody-Handed).

When the [[Chaos Gods|Chaos god]] [[Slaanesh]] was birthed from the accumulated Warp energy of the Eldar's galactic empire of excess and decadence, Khaine tried to battle the newborn god and managed to put up a pretty good fight, despite the fact The Great Hermaphrodite had already consumed the other Eldar gods and was backed by the Ruinous Powers themselves. Despite Slaanesh overpowering him she/he/it did not have power enough to consume Khaine, but then [[Khorne]] appeared and challenged Slaanesh to a battle, as he claimed that Khaine was his property and that Slaanesh had no right to eat him. Needless to say, Slaanesh lost. While Khorne was busy piledriving and backbreaking Slaanesh into oblivion, Khaine was in the middle of it and got shattered into a million pieces, presumably because Khorne had left his axe back at the Brass Citadel and Khaine was the only available melee weapon at the time. Or maybe he made a fine object on which to drop Slaanesh over and over again. Whatever it was, he doesn't say and the rest is history.

So in the end, Lileath's prophecy did come true in a sense. The Eldar were responsible for the birth of Slaanesh, who sort of got Khaine killed, but not totally because technically he is still "alive". It's just that he's not up and about anymore, like [[Cegorach]] and [[Isha]], and now has to live with the fact that he, the Eldar god of war and destruction, was himself destroyed. Either way, it was either [[Just As Planned]] by [[Tzeentch]], who was the only Chaos God who didn't directly intervene during the fall of the Eldar, or Cegorach, because that hilarious son of a bitch just HAD to do it to put Khaine in his place before he slipped back into the [[Webway]]. Hell, for all we know, the two could have orchestrated the entire Fall of the Eldar just to be the only two entities who managed to successfully screw with Khaine and get away with it.

===The Avatar of Khaine===
[[File:Avatar vs Lorgar.jpg|thumb|350px|right|The Avatar of Khaine in its natural state of existence: dying horribly to make whatever character or faction GW is currently trying to sell look awesome. (In this instance, [[Lorgar]] mercy killed it.)]]

The Avatar of Khaine is a unique Eldar [[daemon]] unit. The Avatar is basically a small fragment of Khaine's power given form through one of his fragments present in a Craftworld.

The Eldar will only summon the Avatar into battle under the most dire of circumstances when there is no other choice. This is because in order to summon the Avatar, the Eldar must sacrifice one of their [[Exarch]]s, known as the "Young King", in order to bring him into existence, and this only lasts for a limited amount of time. Like any daemon, after some time, the Avatar will eventually degenerate and disappear, taking the sacrificed Exarch with it. There is an alternative method of awakening the Avatar, but it requires no less than six [[Phoenix Lord]]s to show up on a craftworld simultaneously and place their weapons at the Avatar's feet. The concentration of psychic energy is enough to not only awaken the Avatar without needing a sacrifice but to [[Apocalypse|supercharge him]].

He <s>used to be</s> '''IS''' really strong, but [[Games Workshop]]'s authors have taken a liking to murdering Avatars every chance they get depending on marketing needs. Because of this, the Avatar has been:

*Killed hilariously by [[Marneus Calgar]] in hand-to-hand combat in the 5th edition [[Space Marine]] codex.
*Possessed by Heartslayer, a [[Keeper of Secrets]] (oh, the irony), during the invasion of the Eldar Craftworld Kher-Ys.
*Trampled to death by twelve stampeding [[Carnifex|Carnifexes]] during the battle between [[Craftworld Iyanden]] and the [[Hive Fleet Kraken]]. What happened was that the Avatar goaded the swarm's [[Hive Tyrant]] into a duel. What the Avatar failed to realize was that this wasn't tabletop and that the [[Tyranids]] are a pragmatic instead of an idealistic lot who have no concept of honorable or dirty fighting, so the Hive Tyrant just raised his brow at this and sent twelve Carnifexes to run the Avatar over. (Weirdly, [[Matt Ward]] gave him a more dignified death than this bullshit.)
*Strangled (WTF?)/neck snapped by [[Fulgrim]]. Which doesn't make much sense, considering the Avatar neither breathes nor has bones. Then again, Astartes (and humanity in general) have proven time and again that they can kill ''anything'', all thanks to the favoritism and [[plot armor]] brought to them by Games Workshop.
*Killed by the [[Sanguinor]].
*Doused in a great flood by the water people of Astrominus IV after his raw power and heat defrosted them from their icy imprisonment by the Space Wolves.
*"Put out of his misery" by [[Lorgar Aurelian|Lorgar]] (who was, at the time, considered to be the worst fighter out of all the [[Primarchs]]). Though the Avatar was heavily damaged even before the fight, unable to even stand and driven mad by centuries spent in the Warp, and this was just a few pages before Lorgar proved to be a top level badass as he battled and bested Anggrath, the uber-[[Bloodthirster]] of Khorne who can eat Avatars and [[Titans]] like cookies.
*Killed by [[Gabriel Angelos]]' 3rd company without the aid of anything heavier than a [[Dreadnought]] during the [[Dawn of War|Tartarus Campaign]] (though a video game example is slightly less ridiculous because it's usually up to the player rather than plot armor). The presence of [[Isador Akios]], though he was already descending towards [[heresy]], probably helped too.
*Killed in a break-dancing competition by a Khornate [[Bloodthirster]] during the Eldar's incursion on Lorn V (at least this one's non-canon).
*Killed in ''single combat'' by Epistolary Anteas of the [[Blood Ravens]] during the Kronus Campaign. (Yep, Papa Smurf himself just got outdone by a [[Librarian]]). (This might not be entirely canon; Anteas is only credited with stealing the pieces of the Avatar's armor, and the in-game Librarian is only fighting the Avatar single-handedly because of engine limitations. The cutscene is designed to show off monstrous creatures, which Spess Mehreens don't have.)
*If the [[Imperial Guard]] under [[Governor-Militant Lukas Alexander|Lukas Alexander]] defeat the eldar on Kronus, then the avatar gets killed by a MOTHER FUCKING [[sentinel|SENTINEL]]. This is non-cannon however.
*Killed ''twice'' by [[Blood Ravens Force Commander|Force Commander Hair Gel's]] squad during the fighting to pacify the Eldar in subsector Aurelia. Though to be honest, both of these battles are really fucking hard if you don't have a well-managed squad, and nothing short of [[Ulkair|greater daemons]] is more than a speedbump for [[Tarkus]] or [[Cyrus]].
*Stabbed in the heart by [[Maugan Ra]] to temper his Maugetar. See? Even in its own faction, the thing gets killed anticlimactically.
*Abandoned on a [[Maiden World]], where its connection to the Eldar was severed, reducing it to a mindless state of rage. The now-unbound Avatar consequently called out to the [[Orks]] of the nearby Octarius system, which were [[Looted|happy to answer it]]. It's kind of sad that the only time the Avatar isn't being a jobber is when he's being used by someone else entirely.
*Killed by the [[Legion of the Damned]] when assisting the [[Invaders]] in their assault on Craftworld Idharae. When the Legion realized their flaming bolters did squat against the Avatar, they instead brought the roof down on it. Bringing down the roof...sigh...
*Possibly defended [[Caerys|Farseer Caerys']] last base on Kaurava III only to be blown away by <strike>[[Vance Stubbs|VANCE MOTHERFUCKING STUBBS]] and his 100 [[Baneblade|Baneblades]] after they refused to fuck off.</strike> KRUMPED BY GORGUTZ! QWIT WHININ' DIS IZ KANNON YA 'UMIE GROT!
*Slain by a Battlewagon whilst leading Ulthwe's forces in a near suicidal attempt to defeat a powerful Ork Warboss.
*Somehow able to achieve a mutual kill against [[Skarbrand]], most likely the closest thing to a victory any Avatar has ever achieved; it should be noted that, as the Avatar of the Craftworld with the greatest devotion to Khaine, it may have been stronger than normal. Sadly, with the death of the Craftworld and Infinity Circuit, this Avatar is most likely no more.
*Somehow fused and corrupted by a Genestealer Patriarch who took over it on the Craftworld Ziasutra.
*A purer shard of he Avatar of Khaine, called the Warshard, was killed rather quickly by the Yncarne possessing Yvraine which, considering the Yncarne itself was easily defeated by Ahriman, does not say good things about Khaine.

One rare example of an Avatar of Khaine not being used as a punching bag is in the Fracture of Biel Tan where one ties with an injured Skarbrand.

===On the Tabletop===
[[File:LatestKhaine.jpg|thumb|right|300px|FOOL! YOU DARE QUESTION THE SIZE OF MY LOINCLOTH?!]]
The Avatar of Khaine took a bit of a beating with 8th edition. For starters, the Avatar now costs 250 points while not improving too much. What you get for that cost is a whopping WS2+ A5 monster that hits at S8 AP-4 D6 damage, with a reroll on the damage. This means that the Avatar of Khaine can punch holes in tanks like it's nobody's business. Do note that it has only 5 attacks and it deals no Mortal Wounds, so it can kill a maximum of 5 models per turn. If you really want all your attacks to hit, give him an Autarch buddy for rerolls for your To Hit rolls. On top of that it can also shoot with that profile as an 12" Assault 1 weapon, and thanks to Battle Focus does not get -1 to hit if it advanced the same turn. Paired with its 7" movement and a re-roll on failed charge rolls one of the Avatar's largest problems in earlier editions, its low speed, has been kind of addressed. As for saves it gets a 3+, a 5++ due to being a Daemon and its Molten Body ability has been reworked into granting yet another 5++ save instead of immunity to flamers and melta weapons. With the advent of multi-wound weapons this is quite useful and it would be one hell of a job to write down exactly which guns count as flamers or melta now that the keywords regarding them are gone, it is still sad to see such a flavorful ability disappear. With T6, W8 and no degrading of its abilities as it gets hurt the Avatar can stay in the fight long enough, but two lucky Lascannon shots can put it down for the count with frightening ease (although if you lose a character to shooting in 8th edition you probably don't know what you're doing). Don't forget that it's a Character, so as long as it remains screened by other units it should be able to get close enough to the enemy to deal damage. Be wary of flyers with powerful weapons, for they can easily assassinate your Avatar because of the high speed of the rest of the Eldar army compared to it.

If you're not running a Saim-Hann list the Avatar's '''12"''' aura (which allows units to re-roll failed charges and makes them immune to morale) can be pure rape. Use him to propel Howling Banshees up the table, or to lead a horde of Guardian blobs.

When using Power Ratings instead the Avatar clocks in at 13 points, the second-most expensive unit behind the [[Wraithknight]]. Nothing much changes about it, so stick it in combat as soon as you can to get the most out of it.

==Warhammer Fantasy==
Similar to his 40k part only not in pieces. He is given a LOT more respect in this version of him, shown to be a powerful, mighty god that is renowned and feared (as he should be, you pussies).

There was no prophecy that the Elves would harm him, so that 40k story about him trying to wipe the mortal elves out didn't happen in the Fantasy universe because he had no reason to dislike the mortal elves. The Swords of [[Vaul]] story DID happen however, and that final Sword was the [[Widowmaker]] which somehow ended up in the mortal world (a lot of Khaine's shit does actually, probably at a 1:1 ratio with [[Lileath|Lileath's]]). He's not outright evil (other than the fact he likes war just like the Fantasy players), rather he's pretty neutral and the High Elves love to acknowledge the dualities of "evil has to be killed by good, there can be no joy without sorrow, etc" with him.

Overall, Khaine is a huge asshole and High Elves acknowledge him as part of the pantheon but do not actually worship him (barring a small minority amongst the [[Ulthuan|Nagarythe]] who are a bit more fucked up than the rest of the lot, which is saying something). [[Dark Elves]] on the other hand praise him in [[Asuryan|Asuryan's]] place (when they aren't worshiping [[Slaanesh]] anyway).
High Elves do not insult him however, and still include a depiction of him amongst the High Elf Pantheon who view him as a necessary evil. High Elf warriors pray to Khaine before battle, but are careful to insure that his influence does not drive them batshit crazy. The Shrine of Khaine is a hotly fought over place between the High and Dark Elves, the former trying to prevent his worship and the latter trying to, well, worship at it. It's the location of the [[Widowmaker]] (see below).

He's not overly fond of ANY of the elf races in the mortal world, but since the Dark Elves revere him instead of big boss Asuryan (Eldar confirmed for Dark Elves, Dark Eldar confirmed for <strike>badass Dark Elves</strike> {{FWIP}} '''TRAITOR, DIE IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD ASURYAN AND THE PHOENIX KING!''' What Phoenix King? You mean [[Malekith]] [[End Times|lol]]?) he grants them boons then sits back with some popcorn and watches the Elves slaughter each other.

His love of war combined with his elfness and that his most ardent worshipers are scantily-clad women means he's probably the secret love-child of Khorne and Slaanesh (tsundere confirmed).

===The Sword of Khaine===
Long ago, when the Old Ones left and Daemons were overrunning the world, [[Aenarion]], the first Phoenix King of the High Elves (as well as the father of the king of the Dark Elves) took up the Sword to help fight off the Daemons. He used it to kick so much ass he eventually drove the Daemons back. During the final battle against the Daemons, while his [[Caledor the Dragontamer|best bud]] created a Vortex to syphon off the extra magic and keep the Daemons from manifesting properly, he used the sword to fight and kill all four avatars of the [[Chaos Gods]], killing a Lord of Change, Bloodthirster and Keeper of Secrets single-handedly (though his HUEG dragon helped him against the Great Unclean One). Suck it Marneus.

Aenarion, mortally wounded, took his (also mortally wounded) dragon and flew across half a continent (which, thanks to the size of the Warhammer world, means a full sized continent) back to the island then stuck it in the ground at the Shrine, where it remains to this day.

Some editions imply the Widowmaker being grabbed by Aenarion and thus causing the Dark Elves to happen is Khaine's plan come to fruition so there'd always be elves fighting and thus his portfolio would mean something. Other times, he's with the other gods in facepalming when he nabbed it and cursed himself. It's open to interpretation.

===Khaine Lives In Death===
Kane.. er, I mean Khaine... was the main focus of [[The End Times]]' third book, which focused on the conclusion of the Elven wars.

So Malekith, king of the Druchii and all-around bad person, manages to repeat the ritual of becoming the Phoenix King once again and succeeds this time, reclaiming the title that was rightfully his. [[Tyrion]], the closest thing to a guardian as Ulthuan has had the entire event, finds this to be a breaking point in a series of upsets (Including being utterly unaware that his own illegitimate daughter was sacrificed to summon [[Nagash|the king of the spooky scary skeletons]] and the death of the last Phoenix King) decides that enough is enough. At the Shrine of Khaine, Tyrion reaches for the Widowmaker, and thus becomes possessed by the big guy himself as his Avatar.

This possession does a 180 on his personality; where once Tyrion was a noble prince who was dedicated to defending his land, Khaine's possession turned him into a murderous asshole. Well, that and Morathi's attempts at wooing him. This too affected the Elves as well, as they also surrendered to their murderous impulses and Witches joined with his host. Together, they rampaged through Wood Elves and murdered Orion (and Kurnous), they executed Kohril when he stole the Widowmaker in hopes of ending the war early, and generally just stopped caring about protecting their land.

This all comes to a head at the Isle of the Dead, where all Elves had a massive battle, with Malekith's side being bolstered by the ghosts of Phoenix Kings past who sought to repay a debt to their creator. Eventually Malekith, now bearing Asuryan's power, and Tyrion the Avatar of Khaine battled. It was long, bloody, and terrible, but eventually it ended when Alith Anar managed to snipe out Tyrion's heart. Tyrion's death also spelled the death of Khaine, and thus his madness faded from the world and the Old Gods faded from the world. When Tyrion was resurrected in the last book, it was free of the Bloody Handed one's influence.

===Age of Sigmar===

In Age of Sigmar Khaine (like all the Aelven gods) is dead, killed in the End Times. But the Aelven Gods are cyclical and will reincarnate if they're worshiped enough. Khaine's parts ended up in Khorne's control...somehow and were reforged into weapons for his greatest generals, except for Khaine's iron heart which, despite his greatest efforts, would not break or even crack. Finally Khorne got frustrated and hurled it away where, after a lot of shit, it came into the clutches of Morathi, who is the High Oracle of Khaine and is uniting worshipers to bring Khaine back to life.

Except not. Holding onto the Iron Heart of Khaine has allowed [[Morathi]] to steal its power and she's using it as part of her plan to ascend to Godhood. Of course given that a lot of other members of her family (like Malekith/Malerion or Alarielle) have ascended to Godhood, maybe when she ascends she'll be the Goddess of Murder herself, Khaine reborn.

===On the Tabletop===

As implied by the name, the Daughters of Khaine faction is entirely devoted to Khaine and as such they get their own Avatar of Khaine model. This can be taken either on foot or as part of a Cauldron of Blood, but unlike the 40k version, it's not the heart of a Craftworld or Temple but simply an iron statue, animated by magic. As such it requires continual prayers from Daughters of Khaine Priests to stay awake and moving, at least until you hit turn 3 in an all-Daughters army, at which point it wakes up permanently as part of their escalating table allegiance ability (there are a lot of bonuses to playing all Daughters of Khaine, the girls do not play well with others).

Once he's awake however, he's an incredibly brutal close combat unit. Clocking in at 180 points (or included as part of the 300/330 for a Cauldron) he moves 9 inches a turn, has a short ranged shooting attack that can hit hard (6 shots, 3s to hit, 3s to wound, -1 rend, 1 damage, just don't ask how it hurts Magmadroths) and in close combat he's got 4, 3 to hit, 3 to wound, -3 rend, 3 Damage hits. Yes, flat 3 damage. Alone he can very easily wreck entire units or annihilate monsters (especially since the turn he wakes up automatically, he gets rerolls of 1 to hit) and on top of a Cauldron he can help the Cauldron eat squads. The only downside is he's basically only a beatstick, only having a small +1LD aura (which is active whether he's awake or not). Still, as the monster at the front of a brutal charge, he certainly does the job.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:M3470223a 99120212009 2013CauldronOfBlood01 873x627.jpg|Dark Elf Cauldron of Blood, a mobile shrine to Khaine administered to by his fangirls.
Image:AvatarofKhaine.png|Here we can see Khaine being a little bit mad at Isha lying about that ”time of the month”
Image:1236357978434.jpg|The Avatar of Biel-tan, soon to get its shit kicked in.
</gallery>

{{Eldar-Forces}}
{{High Elves}}
{{Eldar-Gods}}

Dark Eldar

2018-04-27T19:37:15Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330:

[[Image:Dark_Eldar_Symbol.png‎|center]]
[[Image:Dark Eldar Raid Colored by MajesticChicken.jpg|right|thumb|600px|Mercy? Interesting word, I always wanted to know its meaning.]]
{{Topquote|Cruel people are busy all the time, as if to find justification for the cruelty of their dealings.|Leo Tolstoy}}
{{Topquote|Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.|Albert Schweitzer}}
{{Topquote|In a world without the law of God, you have chaos, oppression, tyranny, and everyone doing what is right in their own eyes.|Randall Terry, moralfag}}

The '''Dark Eldar''' (also known as the '''Drukhari''', cuz trademark reasons) are the villainous, Extra [[Grimdark]], and more BDSM obsessed counterparts of the [[Eldar]], who followed the horrific depravity that saw the Eldar Empire destroyed. Hailing from Port [[Commorragh]] in the [[Webway]], the Dark Eldar spirit out from the shadows to take slaves and to commit unspeakable atrocities on whoever they capture. They're the [[Honsou|sickest fucks]] in all of [[Warhammer 40,000]], which is a hell of an accomplishment, even for [[Slaanesh|the literal god of pleasure and excess]]. Their lives revolve around sadistic torture, making them a sort of cross between the Cenobites from Hellraiser and the Reavers from Firefly. They are mainly pirates, though sometimes hire themselves out as mercenaries before they inevitably betray their employers.

Surprisingly, Dark Eldar draw a lot of inspiration from the Fair Folk - not the pussy Disney pixi-fairies, but the [[World of Darkness]]-style inhumanly beautiful monsters that make humans suffer just for their own amusement, kidnap children to turn them into pets/slaves, and run the Wild Hunt that kill maim and rape everything in its wake, vanishing without a trace at dawn. Commonly derided for being the biggest Edge-Lords in the galaxy (or "scene-kid" Eldar), Dark Eldar come across as the only race that's actively trying to ''one-up'' Chaos for title of the universe's most grimdark faction.

For their fantasy counterparts see [[Druchii]]

==History==
The Eldar, after the [[FATAL|disaster]] that caused [[Slaanesh]] and [[Eye of Terror|turned their empire into the universe's biggest Goatse.cx reference]], destroying their race and [[grimdark|killing 90% or so of their population outright]], were a dying race. Slaanesh was devouring their souls like Eldar McNuggets, and it was only through ascetic mysticism and use of Soulstones that the Eldar could avoid getting nommed by She Who Thirsts. Conventional wisdom was that these Eldar only survived on craftworlds and the maiden worlds that the Eldar had colonized before the fall.

[[Dawn of War|Conventional wisdom]], of course, [[C.S.Goto|means little in the 40K universe]]. Whilst most of the Eldar were mass-raped to death by Slaanesh when their falling into depraved cycles of decadence reached critical mass and caused a Chaos god to be born, a few of them survived because they were in parts of the Webway (a portal network that the Eldar use for transportation). They escaped with no real ill-effects, or so they thought. In reality, Slaanesh was slowly nomming their souls just like she does every Eldar without a Soulstone - however, they found that by [[Grimdark|continuing to engage in rampant hedonism and by torturing and inflicting pain and anguish on other creatures would reduce or even reverse the effects of Slaanesh's hold on them]], forcing them to seek out and capture, kill, and torment the "lesser" races of the galaxy in order to satiate themselves and stave off their doom.

Sadistic and psychotic to the point of making your average [[Chaos Space Marines|Chaos Marine]] look like hippies in contrast, hopped up on cocktails of combat stimulant drugs, and armed predominantly with weapons and equipment that cause [[Indrick Boreale|unspeakable immeasurable agony]] in those they go after, the Dark Eldar are easily the most depraved and vicious race the 41st millennium has. Hated by literally every single faction in the 41st millennium, the Dark Eldar are perhaps the only race with [[Anal circumference|bigger assholes]] than [[Eldrad]], though in spite of this, unlike their sissy counterparts, the Dark Eldar are hated much less by the playerbase - presumably because their army actually takes some brains to use and isn't a giant bunch of status-quo-defending [[Eldar|faggots]]. Well, that and its implied they use [[Rule 34|sexual torture]] along with the normal kind.

In battle, Dark Eldar center around hit-and-run tactics, dealing huge damage and moving fast; few of their units can really take much abuse, making them even more fragile than their counterparts. Their standard infantry armor is identical to that of a Guardian (not terribly good), their vehicles are predominantly lightly-armored transport and attack craft that can be brought down by anti-infantry gunfire, and the armor on a typical Wych or Grotesque is no tougher than the ramshackle metal plating favored by Orks, but without the whole "I believe this armor will protect me, which is why it does" and at absolute best will cover only nipples and vulva, meaning that it would take considerable skill (and a somewhat sadistic shooter) to bounce a round off of their 'armour'. Suffice to say, they are extremely fragile and metaphorically half-naked in battle (literally if female), and getting the most out of them takes skill and patience that is rarely-seen on [[/tg/]]; whilst most fa/tg/uys will openly mock your average Eldar player, they will give pause and show some respect to a Dark Eldar player worth their salt.

The Dark Eldar are known for the ''excessive'' amount of [[Faptau|fapping]] [[Heresy|material]] involved with them, and they are the subject of thousands of sexual fantasies by desperate masochistic teenagers and middle aged neckbeards incapable of handling [[Female Space Marines|real women]]. They did, after all, kind of rape/drug/kill/etc themselves into oblivion, which tends to lend itself towards certain excessive abuses. They are also known for having some of the most fucking awesome-looking models on the tabletop, even if the armor of half of what they field will suffer instant critical existence failure at the hands of your typical [[Space Marine]]. This is pretty standard for all Xenos though.

==Codex Update==
[[File:Dark_Eldar_Safe.jpg|thumb|right|1998-2010 - twelve years of codex blue balls]]
The Dark Eldar, historically, have always been the race for the professionals; they were insanely hard to use by any stretch, their units too lightly-armored, their models requiring some expertise to pick up without impaling yourself, and they were easily the ''least'' played faction in the 41st Millennium. Nearly 12 years passed before a codex update - and suddenly just recently (2010), [[Games Workshop|GW]] decided to throw the Dark Eldar players a much-needed bone.

Sweet [[Emperor|Jesus]], talk about buffs.

Very little changed fluff-wise, though a lot was fleshed out, but the Dark Eldar gained substantial staying power and can actually field a reasonably <s>tough</s> hard-hitting army now. Their new Power from Pain rule makes them tougher as they score kills, and the army now has a lot of potential for being much more forgiving of mistakes (previously it was a case of either steamrolling foes or getting curb-stomped). Lots of new options and extensive access to poisoned range weapons makes them extremely versatile - as well as the bane of Tyranid players everywhere.

NEW (7th ed) CODEX IS HERE! It's a mixed bag, but serious nerfs are there. On the downside: Vect, Sliscus, Malys, Decapitator and Baron are no longer playable, though most of them are still mentioned in the fluff. Flickerfields have disappeared from all vehicles except Venoms, and Wyches somehow got ''even'' worse by losing haywire grenades and their gladiator weapons just becoming variants on a re-rolling.

On the upside: Power From Pain is just something that happens to the whole army with the bonuses stacking each turn, rather than having to make mediocre units kill things in order to become useful. Mandrakes actually became half-decent (though still vastly inferior to Incubi & Trueborn), Grotesques no longer explode when left alone, Talos & Chronos engines come in squads, and Scourges became able to spam more toys.

<s> As of 8th Edition the Dark Eldar are currently an Index only army, they'll have to wait for their Codex,</s> and have been renamed the 'Drukhari' for copyright reasons. Congratulations! The [[Asdrubael Vect|sick]] [[Honsou|fucks]] are next in line for a codex. Its here! Like most armies in this edition they have their own equivalent of Chapter Tactics, Toughness on vehicles, and movement rates, all of these buff them considerably compared to the previous edition, add on top the posibility to gain etra CP for bringing multiple smaller detachments and the considerable buffs on wyches and Mandrakes, and you've got an army thats going to get more popular than ever before! They still play Glass Cannon, but are way more forgiving and benefit both agressive psycho and patient hunter playstyles.

==The Dark Eldar Themselves==
[[Image:1287692229240.jpg|thumb|right|A lot like this, really.]]
{{topquote|I came to bring the pain, hardcore from the brain/Let's go inside my astral plane.|Method Man, Archon of the Wu Tang Kabal}}

The story of the Dark Eldar's fall and their need to inflict pain and horror in order to live - as well as elaboration on their kabalistic practices - have gone a long way towards deepening their fluff considerably (as one noble fa/tg/uy surmised, less retarded Saturday morning cartoon villainy). While some have balked at the more vampiric flavor of the New DE Codex, several denizens of /tg/ have managed to extract comic gold from this. A common musing is that they are ambitious, sex-crazed, easily shot down, boat-and-plane-loving pseudo-aristocrats (all though many of the Dark Eldar really are aristocratic) haunted by a dark curse - ergo, they're not vampires, but, in fact, the Kennedys.

Putting it simply, the soul of a Dark Eldar is [[Grimdark|an open wound that can only be salved with suffering, a void that can only be filled with tortured bodies, a thirst that can only be quenched by spilled blood.]] The origin of this void within the Dark Eldar, and the source of the nigh-religious terror that drives them to commit these daily atrocities, is the knowledge that [[Matt Ward|<s>THEY WILL NEVER BE ULTRAMARINES</s>]] upon death, their soul is forfeit to the Chaos God Slaanesh - an eventuality they intend to stem off at all costs.

Fortunately for the Dark Eldar, provided that someone recovers enough of their remains, their dead body parts can be brought to the Dark Eldar Haemonculi (an ancient order of Dr. Mengeles, the people that educated [[Fabius Bile]] in the art of being a gigantic [[Creed|dick]]) and regenerate themselves in case of death, complete with personality and mental faculties intact. This also keeps their soul from being devoured by Slaanesh - but at a price - this regenerative process is fueled by pain just as surely as the Dark Eldar themselves. This is the reason Dark Eldar raids are so eager to get in and get out as fast as possible; [[grimdark|if the subject is dead for more than a day or so, they're beyond recovery]].

Their diet of anguish has blessed the Dark Eldar with some of the longest lifespans in the setting, only surpassed by godlike figures like the C'tan, Necrons, the [[Emperor|Emprah]], [[Phoenix Lords]] and the Chaos Gods. If they die, they can just respawn back at base once the Haemonculi have managed to torture and/or bosh enough pain out of their subjects to allow the occupants of their rejuvenation pods to regenerate. This system is dependant on the Haemonculi though, and as a result they are the single most crucial group within all of Commorragh.

The Dark Eldar have also overcome the traditional [[Gay|Elven birthrate problem]] by finding a fun workaround to the long gestation period of conventional Eldar - they can remove a fertilized ovum and place it in an amniotic tube to age them quickly enough to be useful. This is looked down on by Dark Eldar society however - they even have an elite unit, the Trueborn, that are basically a bunch of spoiled brats who feel entitled to all the good weapons just because they got pushed out of a proper twat. The fact that hedonism is the rule in Commorragh probably helps too.

The Dark Eldar have some of the most advanced tech in the 41st millennium, in cases even surpassing the powerful weapons of their cousins. Access to weapons that basically fling incandescent dark matter and miniature stars around goes a long way towards giving them serious "I'm going to fuck your shit up" power, and their access to arcane wargear and super-fast vehicles even more so. In fact the only race that comes even close to the technological level and destructive power of the Dark Eldar is the [[Necrons]], whose basic weapon rips the molecules off its target, flaying one layer off at a time (though it's still near-instant). Despite this most of the powerful technology cannot be used by the Dark Eldar anymore as it was Psychic in nature, and their psychic abilities have long atrophied away. What little remains tends to not be too impressive.

All that said, at least now their continued survival is not as implausible as the Reavers from Firefly maintaining a functional spacefleet - the Dark Eldar are smart, and even though they'll fight each other to death over a biscuit in Commorragh, during a raid into Real Space they set aside their differences to [[/tg/ gets shit done|GET SHIT DONE]]. The new codex also points out the Dark Eldar do follow a fairly strict set of rules while fighting each other and running shit; one of the reasons they enjoy raiding realspace is that it allows them to cut loose and just butcher innocents for a while.

It is also worth noting that the closest word Dark Eldar have to the concept of love is something along the lines of willingly submitting one's will to another.

==COMMORRAGH WELCOMES CAREFUL DRIVERS==
[[Image:Dork_Elfdar_Winch.png|thumb|right|My bra is a face. Your argument is invalid.]]
The Dark Eldar live in the Dark City of Commorragh, basically an impossibly large extradimensional port city fueled by two stolen suns (and they made sure to steal suns from inhabited planetary systems, because fuck those guys). Think of a sprawling cross between 17th century Port Royal with Mos Eisley space port (a wretched hive of scum and villainy) with a drug/torture/rape-based economy (Detroit) and the warped architecture of ''Inception''. So watch out, Utica! Commorragh is a city on the... Grow!

[[Story:A cage, shattered|If you can survive the inhabitants of the Dark City]] there is only one problem. Being in the Webway, every now and then the Dark City will suffer something called a Dysjunction; the Webway/Warp equivalent of a natural disaster which is a more powerful combination of earthquake/firestorm/hurricane that can spread across large parts of the Webway and really wreck Commorragh. In addition, it damages the walls of the Webway, which can allow daemons to invade all across Commorragh. Fortunately, this is rare and only happens during huge bouts of Warp-related turmoil, hence why Dark Eldar are so serious about enforcing the ban of sorcery and psychic power usage inside Commorragh. These Dysjunctions, when they do occur, regularly destroy subrealms of Commorragh.

It's only been invaded thrice. First by Orks (that time with daemons, apart from Dysjunctions, they were summoned into Commorragh) and the second was when Vect, plotting a coup against the ruling Archons, arranged for a ship filled with a few hundred Space Marines (in a shocking change from the norm, the [[Salamanders]], for once; [[Matt Ward]] is rumored to have had the vapors from this, though the Salamanders are frequently depicted as having a huge grudge against the Dark Eldar due to Vulkan's origin story) to be towed to the Dark City. Of course, ''most'' of Commorragh's armed forces fought the Space Marines, who managed to escape with ease. The City was also invaded by the [[Death Guard]] at a point.

[[Lucius]], whilst not invading it, did manage to destroy an entire subrealm of Commorragh and kill so many Dark Eldar it was noted as the largest single loss of Eldar life since the [[Fall]], and cowed all of Commorragh into a defensive mode, with Vect and the other leaders powerless to do anything to stop Lucius and his single ship.

Apart from invasions, however, Space Marines have made a frequent habit of entering and exiting it, the Salamanders, [[Space Wolves]] and [[Deathwatch]] all having successfully entered the city and exited alive, along with the [[Emperor's Children]], Deathmongers and Death Guard. In fact there are precious few times Space Marines don't enter and exit Commorragh at their own leisure, and Dark Eldar seem particularly bad at containing them.

==The name==
Ironically, the term "Dark Eldar" almost never appears in universe - no one really calls them by that name. Dark Eldar call themselves just Eldar, since they think they are the only true Eldar, inheritors of the old Eldar Empire, while all other are defectors from the true Eldar path (of rape, drugs and rock-n-roll); most will admit they have a point, but whether they're outright correct is a debate for another time. Craftworlders call them the Dark Kin, Exodites - the Children of [[Khaine]], and Corsairs and Harlequins simply call them Commorites. As for other races, most of them don't know and/or care about the differences between Eldar subraces/cultures, at best distinguishing Commorites (and sometimes Corsairs too) by their MO as as pirates or raiders of Eldar, or by their appearance as Spikey Panzees. About the only people who actually use the term "Dark Eldar" in-universe are some of the Ordo Xenos Inquisitors and their acolytes, and even they also often call them Chaos or Tainted Eldar, mistakenly thinking DEldar are Chaos-worshipers.

The modern name "Drukhari"™ doesn't make much more sense from a DE perspective. If we assume the Eldar lexicon to be based on IRL Celtic languages (some Eldar sentences are ''litteraly'' Irish/Scottish), then "Drukhari"™ would be related to ''drouk'' (Breton) or ''droch'' (Old Irish), from Gaullish ''drucos'' meaning "evil, bad". Something quite weird given how DE are beyond moral considerations, so it's probably a term coined by other Eldar subcultures. (Droch, Drouk, Drucos / Drukos also can mean 'Wheel', 'Circlet', 'Bridge', 'Wet', 'Drown' and 'To Deceive'. It is entirely possible while it's coined by other subcultures, it could be the inhabitants of Commorragh see themselves as 'Eldar of the Dark City', or other Eldar may name them 'The Eldar that Deceive', both of which may feasibly be 'Drukhari'™) Really, though, its just an alteration of the name for Warhammer Fantasy's Dark Elves, Druchii.

The term 'Eladrith Ynneas' (Ee-lad-rith Yin-nee-ah-ss) was coined in 5the ed by Vect shortly after his meteoric rise to power, and is widely considered to sound much cooler than American comedian Drew-Carey.

==Tactics==
The Dark Eldar put a lot of emphasis on lightning fast piratical raids, their vehicles are lightly armoured, but are the fastest available, allowing them to get in and out as quick as possible. They have a lot of units who prefer getting up close and personal, such as Wyches and Incubus, who put emphasis on causing as much pain as possible whilst still getting home in time for tea. This doesn't mean to say they don't have good ranged weaponry, their splinter rifles fire crystalized poison and their blast weapons fire dark matter, completely annihilating anything in its path. In short, all their weapons are designed to fuck up everything they touch in the most extravagant and painful way possible. Fear, infiltration and sabotage are their main weapons, and usually their enemies don't know they are fighting the Dark Eldar until its far too late.

The Dark Eldar themselves despise a fair fight, they will use anything at their disposal and no tactic is too underhanded and no ploy too despicable. They have no code of honor (save for the incubus) and will do anything as long as they come out on top, which to them is coming away with as many slaves and stolen raw materials as possible. And when they do get home with their booty, they will open their finest wines, sit on thrones made of dead slaves, kick up their heels on living slaves being used as footrests (or just rape them) and twirl their metaphorical handlebar mustaches. Cue evil laugh.

==Special Characters==
<s>At least the Dark Eldar actually have playable special characters now:</s> HAHA - not anymore! As of the 7th ed codex, the Deldar lost a good half of their special characters.

===RIP===
*[[Asdrubael Vect| Asdrubael Vect]], the Pimp Master General of Commorragh who's now a manipulator on par with Eldrad (hardly high praise) and, impossibly, an even bigger dick. A tragic loss he is much missed; his rules helped your army like crazy and made him the deadliest [[Primarch|non-HH]] [[Swarmlord|infantry-sized]] model in 40k, impossible to re-create without lucky rolls on dice and homebrews. Why Games Workshop saw fit to remove Vect from the latest Codex is a mystery as he had a model (based on the out-of-production plastic raider kit) but given the latest trend of shifting some characters off into the Lord of War section, Vect on the Dais of Destruction would've been a nice fit, especially considering that Santa Claws based monstrosity we were given in the Space Wolves codex.
*[[Lady Malys]], an anime villainess and Vect's pissed-off ex. She won [[Daemon|someone's heart]] in a contest and shoved it in her chest. She was ''okay'' as a character so her passing isn't that big a deal. She was also dropped from the rules but still also features heavily all the way through the new codex as the up and coming rival to Vect, her loss was more inexplicable since she could have easily filled the gap of special character Archon, since Succubus & Haemonculi both have theirs; but she was likely cut because she doesn't have a model and GW couldn't be bothered to give her one.
*<s>Kruellagh the Vile, possibly the worst-named character in 40K history. Also her model made her look like a cheesy DC supervillain.</s> NO LONGER EXISTS. ALL HAIL [[Phil Kelly|LORD KELLY!]]
*Lord Hellion [[Baron Sathonyx]], who many on /tg/ believe to be Spider-Man's archnemesis. Was kinda cool for his FOC-shifting abilities with respects to Hellions.
*[[Kheradruakh]] the Decapitator, who, uh, cuts peoples heads off and collects them like beanie babies. Implied to be collecting them like coconuts to do some serious warp-related shit. Was also never used because [[Counts as|Mandrakes suck]]. He recently played a major role in the Gathering Storm, saving all of Commorragh from a massive Dysjunction.
*[[Duke Sliscus]], the Pirate Duke who drinks poisons, has all the best drugs, and brings all the bitches to the yard with his gigantic [[Eldrad|cock]]. Almost as insufferable as [[Assholetep]]. Much missed because his contraband rule stopped you from rolling terrible combat drugs, and now this is gone. The rest of his rules weren't particularly special though, so you can still have him using the Archon rules.

===Survivors===
*[[Urien Rakarth]], a hyper-evolved Pavi Largo. Quite possibly the sickest fuck in the galaxy (at the very least a strong contender), and that is really an achievement of unimaginable proportions.
*[[Drazhar]], the Master of Blades, who does not speak and slashes other Incubi to bits from time to time just to throw his weight around. <strike>Despite him having a different name than the old Phoenix Lord of the Striking Scorpions</strike> (Drazhar is just a nickname meaning "living sword", nobody knows his real name as he just appeared one day out of nowhere, never removes his armor, and probably kills anyone who tries to touch the goods), many people believe Drazhar is Arhra. An additional piece of <strike>bait</strike> evidence is that his warsuit is much more ancient than any other one available to the incubi cults and pretty much out of their understanding, leading some to think it's -the- original warsuit. Considering Ahra disappeared after getting buttfucked by his successor and disappeared some time before Drazhar showed up, and you can pretty much piece the evidence of the <strike>mystery</strike> thinly veiled "but what if it's not trueeeeeeeee" tactic together.
*[[Lelith Hesperax]], an oversexed gladiatrix/snuff-film porn starlet (srsly, so much implied masturbation in her profile, it's not even funny).

== Dating a Dark Eldar ==
{| border=2 cellspacing=2 cellpadding=2
|-
! Likes !! Dislikes
|- valign=top
|
* "Playthings"
* Latex
* Leather
* Whips
* Hardcore, ballbusting Sex
* Drugs
* [[Ork#Rokkas|Rock'n'Roll]]
* S/M
* Holes
* [[Truly_Immovable_Rod|Rods]]
* [[/d/|Other odd fetishes]]
|
* Sunshine
* Puppies
* Flowers
* John Denver
* Sobriety
* "Vanilla" sex
* Erectile Dysfunction
* Prudishness
* R&B music
* Weak constitutions
|}

==See Also==
*[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Dark_Eldar(8E)|Tactics/Dark Eldar]]
*[[The Enshrouded]]
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Johnny_the_Homicidal_Maniac_characters#Johnny_.22Nny.22_C. The blood spilling ones are a lot like this little, pleasant, gory cartoon, motivation included.]

{{Dark Eldar-Characters}}
{{Dark Eldar-Forces}}

==Gallery==
<center><gallery>
Image:Dark eldar.jpg|
Image:Commorragh Runner.jpg
Image:40kshock.jpg
Image:Commorragh.jpg|What is up?
File:Blackholeinabox.jpg#file.png|Oh, that wacky Vect.
File:Duke_uses_poison.jpg#file.png|Kill like a DEldar, DEldar.
Image:Dark_Eldar_Combat_Drugs_-_Not_Even_Once_2.png| Combat drugs: Not even once.
Image:Advice_Darkeldar.jpg.jpg|No, no, you got it right the first time.
Image:Wrack by moonskinned-d5tx8oj.jpg|He's only a gimp but he's not that funny.
Image:LynnminwenCD.jpg|Buying this CD is [[Heresy]]! <s>Download it from torrent. </s> {{BLAM|HERESY!}}{{BLAM}}
File:1381591104255.jpg|Lelith Hesperax, right after killing someone and cleaning off the blood.
Image:Dark_Eldar.png|...but at least you can't call them quitters! Keep fucking that chicken!
Image:Idealized.jpg|Fucking [[My Little Pony|Pony]] nonsense... Fucking with... Sense of... What were we talking about?
File:Warhammer 40k sisters of battle adeptas sororitas battling Dark Eldar.jpg|If an army of evil space-dominatrices squared off against an army of semi-heroic space nuns, who would win? We don't care its HAWT.
File:Wych_Battle.jpg|Some armies clad their dedicated combat units in armor that covers more than areolas and genitals. Some armies are for ''pussies''.
Image:Talos pain engine by moonskinned-d5tx8v6.jpg| "Well, look. I mean, is he gonna be able to chase us? Cause if I woke up lookin' like that, I would just run towards the nearest living thing and kill it."
Image:Inception.jpg|Your daily commute in Commorragh, except everyone's an [[Dwarf Fortress|elf-rapist]], the pistols shoot poison that can kill robots, and the chicks are soul-sucking crack whore gladiators.
Image:Bell_cel_warhammer_sketch_by_elvishprincess25-db0et80.jpg| As I understand it, this is an interesting idea for a crossover...
</gallery></center>

{{WH40k-Factions}}
[[Category:Xenos]]

Doomrider

2018-02-26T10:58:38Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330:

{{Oldschool}}
{{Awesome}}
[[Image:Doomrider_NANANANANA.png|center|600px]]

''"As I ride to war, the scent of death washes over me like the wind itself. All my senses come to life, and each kill becomes more exhilarating than the last!"'' 
- Doomrider himself, in the [[Black Crusade (RPG)|Black Crusade]] book The Tome Of Blood. Yes, in a book dedicated to the servants of [[Khorne]]. [[Troll|Because that's how Doomrider rolls.]]

''We were somewhere near Cadia on the edge of the Eye of Terror, when the drugs began to take hold...''

'''Doomrider''' is the Chaos version of Charlie Sheen crossbred with [[Snowflame]]/Dr. Rockzo AND FUCKING GHOST RIDER!!!His head burns with his sheer amount of awesome...... And drugs in his system. He does cocaine and every other drug known to the galaxies. Plus other stuff that makes every drug known to man and xenos (combined) look like powdered milk. But COCAAAAAINE is his favourite. Cocaine is best (even though it probably makes him impotent, which is hilariously ironic for a Slaanesh worshiper).

He is a pretty fun guy to be around just like [[Kharn]]. I'm afraid that's all we know. He bangs 700 gram rocks that make Mick Jagger and Keith Richards look like droopy eyed [[Abaddon|armless]] children.

He and Warboss Wazdakka Gutsmek fought once, the planet they were on promptly exploded because no planet can contain that much motorcycle related awesome.

==Crunch==
Doomrider is an [[Old School Roleplaying|old]] [[Warhammer 40,000]] [[Slaanesh]]i special character hailing from 3rd Edition. Doomrider had to be summoned, and would disappear at the end of his turn of you rolled a 1 on a d6. This could lead to him disappearing on the same turn he was summoned, completely wasting the points spent on him which sucked ass. As for his performance, think of a titan moving like a Raptor that requires the constant blessing of Lady Luck and Admiral Awesome. Despite being a Daemon Prince he retained his Biker Marine statline (we've provided a picture below) but at least he had a twin-linked melta and an armor-ignoring power weapon.

==The Ballad of Doomrider==
"Out of the mists of chaos he rides, bike in his crotch and sword at his side! 
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Rider! 
Doom Rider. 
Na na, na na. 
He fights his own war, takes his own track, If he doesn't bail he might make his points back! 
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Rider! 
Doom Rider. 
Na na, na na. 
Son of Slaanesh, full of desire, [[wikipedia:Richard Pryor|He does cocaine and his head's on fire]]! 
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Rider! 
Doom rider. 
Na na, na na. 
Fights with fury of a dozen men, Spends two turns on the field then he's gone again... 
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Rider! 
Doom Rider. 
Na na, na na. 
His bike squeals as it ploughs on through the nearest guard, His skull is flaming as his daemon sword gets hard! 
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Rider! 
Doom Rider. 
Na na, na na. 
He's a killer and he's bursting out for fun! Screaming off, now he's gone, someone rolled a one!"

==Summoning Ritual==
Oh great Lord Slaanesh, send forth your servant, the Daemon Prince Doomrider!

Let our enemies tremble in ruptured awe before his fearsome visage!

Grant them an exquisite death, crushed beneath the flaming wheels of his chromium steed!

Permit them the ecstasy of being slaughtered by Doomrider's throbbing Daemonsword and his pulsating gun of gushing plasma!

Bestow on them one fleeting moment of pleasure as they stare in wonder and orgasmic delight at one of your most divine creations before dying at his hand!

Oh great Lord Slaanesh, for these reasons and many others that tease and titillate our imaginations, we beseech you, send forth your servant, the Daemon Prince Doomrider!

==The song of Doomrider==
[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKoR-3oaWlQ|the music]]<nowiki>
Faster than a Las-bolt
Terrifying scream
He's fueled by coke and Metal
He is Daemon and machine
He's the Daemon biker
Breathing coke and fire
Summoned by the cultists he is nigh / high (just choose one, both seem to be true)

He. Is. The Doom-ri-der
This. Is. The Doom-ri-der

Planets devastated
Mankind's on its knees
A Daemon comes from out the Warp because a psyker sneezed
Drowning out arty thunder
Brandishing his steel
Evil is now riding deadly wheels

He. Is. The Doom-ri-der
This. Is. The Doom-ri-der
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

*Instrumental*

Faster than a Bolt-gun round
Louder than a sonic gun
Chromium plated daemon metal
Better than the Thousand Sons

*Instrumental*

Riding high on co-caine
Wreathed in eldritch fire
Armed with daemon weapons
He lights their funeral pyres
Firing Plasma weapons
Forever he stands tall
He's bringing Armageddon to them all-

He. Is. The Doom-ri-der
This. Is. The Doom-ri-der
Bane. Of. Man. Doom-ri-der
Dead. Ly. Wheels. Doom-ri-der

*Instrumental*

He. Is. The Doom-ri-der
This. Is. The Doom-ri-der
He. Is. The Doom-ri-der
This. Is. The Doom-ri-der

Doom. Doom. Rider. Rider.
Doom. Doom. Rider. Rider-

Can't. Stop. The Doom-ri-ddddddddddeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr--
DOOM.
</nowiki>

== Death ==
<s>Doomrider's luck would not last forever though: one day [[Doombreed]], greatest of all of [[Khorne|Khorne's]] servants found Doomrider while he was busy wrecking the shit of Fulgrim's Daemon world with [[Angron]], An'ggrath, Kharn, and the other World Eaters. [[Doombreed]] found Doomrider filling up his Bike with cocaine and took the opportunity to chop Doomrider's head off with his giant flaming axe. Then Doombreed burned Doomrider's essence into ash with his fire breath and threw the ashes into a Black Hole. And that, kiddies, is why Doomrider isn't in the recent Chaos codices.

''This editor was found dead several days later, dildos shoved in both of his eye sockets. The only evidence authorities found were traces of cocaine on the body and motorcycle tracks that lead straight into a wall, up it, and then end without explanation.
''

Anyway, the real reason none of us have seen Doomrider for a while is because of his "experiment," which involved him taking EVERY SINGLE DRUG known to sentient creatures (and quite a few that aren't) in under a minute. It took him three weeks of repeated testing until he got it under a minute, after which he fell off his bike, blacked out and has spent the last few editions comatose.

''This editor was also found dead several days later with dildos shoved into his ears. The only evidence authorities found was traces of cocaine and some heroin needles on his body and motorcycle tracks that lead straight into the wall, up it, and on to the ceiling before disappearing without any explanation. The only suspect is a spider bike.''

Anyway, Doomrider is busy in another galaxy trying to find stronger drugs, because he got bored with this galaxy's drugs and he is searching for a new high.

DOOMRIDER has too much awesome to be contained/restricted to a single 40k match. He might show up in apoc, but only if the table is covered in COCAINE! FUCK YEAH!</S>

Disregard all the above cocaine-addled shit. Kor'Sarro Khan cut his head off.

==Suddenly==
Holly shit look at this [http://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-40000/master-of-the-hunt-mp3.html]! HE'S FUCKING BACK! And about to be roflstomped by <s>the entire company worth of Scars</s> Kor'sarro Khan only... by ripping Doomrider's head off with his bare hands. Fuck you, Black Library! Fuck you with a chainsword!

Apparently he wins the duel but ends up getting his head ripped off afterwards while dragging the Khan to a warp portal. The White Scars take it, but the head's still alive (which probably leads to problems with the White Scars' tradition of putting their foe's heads on display). They sealed his mouth shut at least, probably because otherwise he'd drive them all crazy with constant ramblings and demands for cocaine.

Despite the shitty ending, there are some good points. First of all, it's fucking Doomrider; better to have him come back to be killed off rather than just fade away in the depths of the retconnian. Plus they didn't fuck up Doomrider himself, presented as a pretty badass guy and having killed four other Masters of the Hunt who'd tried to take him down (although let's be fair, previous holders of ANY Space Marine rank exist only to die like bitches for the BBEG's reputation).

Well, given that Doomrider is a Daemon Prince, he isn't finished. He's just been banished for a while, and will ride again soon. Although the specifics of a daemon prince returning when his still-alive head is being held captive are unknown. Also probably not smart: bringing home the living head of a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince to hang out with your adrenaline junkie biker pals and not expecting anything to go wrong. So all in all, who's ready for some ''head''canon?

But at least Headrider and Headpool can get up to some 4th wall breaking dickery (because if we're all honest Doomrider is just a grimdark version of Deadpool before Deadpool with cocaine).

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
Image:Doomridermini.jpg|In all his mini greatness.
Image:Doomrider_NANANANANA.png|NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA DOOM RIDER
File:The rape train has no brakes.png|[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hs93Wqn6DM|THE RAPE TRAIN HAS NO FUCKING BRAKES]!!!
Image:Doomrider_Facepalm.jpg|Your failure is killing his high. (But is that really a bad thing?) yes, of course it is
Image:Doomrider_Monochrome.jpg|I DO COCAAAAAAAAAINE
Image:DoomRidah.PNG|KEKEKEKEKEYEAAAAAAH
Image:Fuckindoomrider.gif‎|Fuckin' DOOMRIDER NA NA NA!
Image:Doomrider stats.jpg|Doomrider's stats
Image:Doomrider-codec.png|[[Metal Gear Vindicare|COOOOOOOCAAAAAAAAAIIIIIINNNNNNNEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!]]
Image:CodecDoomRider2.jpg|It's not sure if [[Love Can Bloom]] on the battlefield, but COCAINE does.
Image:Slaaneshtank.jpg|More of cocaine.
Image:Fkdr Rule63.jpg|[[Rule 63]]!!
Image:Doomrider_coffee_screenrez.jpg|You know what DOOMRIDER likes in his coffee dontcha??
Image:Doomrider_4cc.png|He plays [[/tg/ (4chan World Cup team)|in a football team]], too
</gallery>
</center>

{{Template:Chaos-Marines}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Daemons]]

DISTRACTION CARNIFEX

2018-02-04T11:42:41Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* Eldar */

{{Cleanup}}
''"Remember- SHOOT THE BIG ONES."'' ― [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer]] on Tyranids.

'''DISTRACTION [[Carnifex|CARNIFEX]]!'''

'''EVERYONE START [[dakka|SHOOTING]]!!'''

DISTRACTION CARNIFEX is a psychological wargame tactic which can be used by most [[Warhammer 40,000]] armies, some [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] armies, and in several other wargames for good measure. The short version is that you plonk a huge, scary-looking model in the middle of the table, which draws a tremendous amount of enemy gunfire, while the real threats make it up the field relatively unmolested.

It's named after the [[Carnifex]], one of the big monsters of the [[Tyranid]] faction, because the DISTRACTION CARNIFEX was one of that faction's most popular tactics after their 4th edition codex. Many models other than the Carnifex can be used as a DISTRACTION model; in that case, it might still be called a DISTRACTION CARNIFEX (even if it isn't a Tyranid), a DISTRACTION <WHATEVER> (e.g. "DISTRACTION [[Battlesuit#XV104_Riptide_Battlesuit|RIPTIDE]]"), or simply a DISTRACTION. The use of all caps is '''not''' optional.

==DISTRACTION TACTICS==

First, choose your DISTRACTION model. A DISTRACTION model must have the following properties:
*Physical size. Remember, you ''want'' the DISTRACTION to get shot. You still want it to stay alive, so by all means chase after cover saves as best you can, but if there's ever a ranged threat on the table that can't see the DISTRACTION, then you're doing it wrong.
*Toughness. DISTRACTIONS don't necessarily need offensive punch -- they're actually fairly likely to die before they hit melee -- but you need them to grip the table for as long as possible.
*Scariness. Remember that DISTRACTION is a psychological tactic; the bigger and scarier your model ''looks'', the better your chances are of it pulling enemy gunfire.
*Low(ish) points cost. The DISTRACTION is a ''support'' model (indirectly) -- it should not be hogging your army points. By all means, give it all the toughness-boosting wargear you can get, and maybe one really scary-looking melee weapon wouldn't go amiss, but you want the rest of your army to be able to compensate for the loss of the DISTRACTION in the early game.

Second, choose the rest of your army. Anything that can boost the DISTRACTION's toughness without being too vulnerable itself is a must. Aside from that, try to build your army with a focus on smaller models and glass cannons -- if the DISTRACTION is taking fire, you don't need to worry so much about the little guys.

When you're deploying your army on the table, put the DISTRACTION down first, and put it right in the middle of the board (unless there's an obstacle in the middle, in which case you should put it in the longest unobstructed lane from front to back). Alternatively, you can deploy the DISTRACTION model through [[Deep Strike]], but only if you have a [[Drop Pod]] or some other method for guaranteeing that it'll enter from reserve by Turn 2 at the latest. You could also plonk your DISTRACTION down last, after building an intentionally-there hole in the middle of your army. Make it nice and memorable, and the other guy won't even remember you put the rest of the army there to begin with.

During the battle, move the DISTRACTION either first or last in your turn order, and keep it in front of the rest of your force to keep its alleged threat fresh in your opponents' minds.

If the DISTRACTION pays off, the battle will go something like this:
*'''Guard turn 1:''' Everything shoots the DISTRACTION CARNIFEX.
*'''Tyranids turn 1:''' Tyranids advance.
*'''Guard turn 2:''' Everything shoots the DISTRACTION CARNIFEX.
*'''Tyranids turn 2:''' Tyranids advance.
*'''Guard turn 3:''' Everything shoots the DISTRACTION CARNIFEX. DISTRACTION CARNIFEX finally dies.
*'''Tyranids turn 3:''' Remaining Tyranids eat everyone else's face.

===How to counter a DISTRACTION===

To be honest, if you can recognize a DISTRACTION play, you already know how to counter it; ''don't dedicate your entire army just to killing the DISTRACTION.'' If you spread your firepower in a vaguely sensible way, then you can weaken the DISTRACTION and the rest of the opponent's army. For example, if you have some weapon which only hurts the DISTRACTION on a 6+ and doesn't break its armor, maybe don't shoot the DISTRACTION with it.

===Is it really a DISTRACTION model?===

A lot of people seem to confuse the concept of death star units and the DISTRACTION units. If you're not sure, look at the original CARNIFEX again. It's ''expendable'', durable, and scary, in that order. Death star units are destructive, durable, and scary. Death star units are very different from DISTRACTION units in that death stars are not expendable, and they're meant to actually do damage. A DISTRACTION unit doesn't actually need to be terribly destructive. Indeed, if your unit IS in fact highly destructive, it's no longer a distraction. It's entirely reasonable for the opponent to spend turns shooting at your unit. A DISTRACTION unit doesn't need to do any damage, and indeed, the original CARNIFEX might not do ''any'' damage while still being effective. If you want to put units on this already-bloated list, ask yourself if it is ''expendable'', then if it is durable, and then if it is ''scary beyond its real threat''. If it matches all three, then you have a DISTRACTION CARNIFEX unit. The confusing point is that a DISTRACTION still needs to be some threat. If it's non threatening but tough, your enemy might just ignore it. The Demolisher and Vindicator work as DISTRACTIONS because if given a chance there cannons can inflict immense damage, but only if they are given such a chance. As such a DISTRACTION model needs to also be powerful, or have a reputation, that ignoring it is also a bad idea.

==Some good DISTRACTION models==

===[[Warhammer 40,000]]===

====[[Tyranids]]====

*'''DISTRACTION [[Carnifex|CARNIFEX]]:''' The original, but not really the best any more, because the Carnifex's point cost and access to toughness-boosting abilities have bounced back and forth a bit between editions. It was essential in 4th ed, impossible in 5th ed, and possible but not great in 6th, was up to the RNGs 7th, and only a Dakkafex Brood works in 8th. However this nerf makes them cheaper to field. Three Fexes will put out 36 S7 shooting attacks. Anything under T4 or without a transport will feel the pain. For anything else your Dakkafexes will be annoying pests who will eventually chip down any enemy unit's wounds at range or act as cheap tarpits that block charges and line of site for the big guns. [[JUST AS PLANNED| Mission accomplished.]]
*'''DISTRACTION [[Haruspex|HARUSPEX]]:''' A 6th ed beast that seems to be practically made to fill the DISTRACTION role, especially since it can regain wounds by killing models in melee (if it gets there). [[Games Workshop|So the new unit replaces an old one that can't do its job any more]] -- [[JUST AS PLANNED]].
*'''DISTRACTION STONECRUSHER CARNIFEX''' - Someone in [[Forge World]] was pretty sad about how DISTRACTION CARNIFEX doesn't work as well anymore, so they created their own with 2+ armor and 5+ regeneration. It's cheap, durable, intimidating, but a bit slow, meaning it draws a lot of fire. Just as planned. [[Anal circumference|Note that this works even better when it's Deep Struck into the middle of your enemy's tank formation for maximal DISTRACTION]].

====[[Imperium]]====
*'''DISTRACTION [[Dreadnought#Chapter_Specific_Dreads|AXE DREADNOUGHT]]:''' Again, drop pod one of these guys face first into the opponent's army and watch your opponents cry as your Dreadnought shrugs off even the strongest of attacks with it's 3++ save on top of its AV12. Be careful though, if they get your back armor you're dead.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Deathwing|DEATHWING KNIGHTS]]:''' Put [[Belial]] with them, deepstrike them right next to all the most dangerous units in your foe's army, and watch them squirm to murder them all. They may all die either by the sheer amounts of firepower or melee directed towards them, but it's worth watching your foe ignore Devastators, Deathwing Terminators, Ravenwing, and other such unit, just for the sheer infamous reputation that the Knights have gained.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Dreadknight|DREADKNIGHT]]:''' Take a T6 W4 Termi with a weapon for ~170 points and see the enemy focus him without really damaging him fast.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Ogryn|OGRYN DEATHSTAR]]:''' 10 Ogryn with 2 Primaris Psykers (faq stated each get 2 rolls) with biomancy for toughness and allied dark angel psyker for rerolls on everything and 4+ invulnerabilities. Watch it absorb loads upon loads of fire as your tactical units sneak up on the enemy.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Space Wolves|LONE WOLF]]:''' Give your Lone Wolf 2 Fen Wolves and Terminator Armor and just let him roam. If you feel generous, slap a Chainfist on him. The fact that you gain points by letting this guy die means you can expend him without much consequence.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Skitarii|SKITARII VANGUARDS]]:''' To be honest, this only really works against someone who hasn't played against your army much, if at all (which, since it still isn't very common, should mean this works quite often). Bare bones vanilla vanguard will run you 100pts for a ten-man squad and with their basic guns can put a serious smackdown on anything with a toughness value; add plasma calivers for extra distraction, though realize that this will make the unit a prohibitively expensive meat shield. That being said, if your opponent is targeting one vanguard squad with plasma calivers while the other three are closing in with a plethora of haywire and rad-weaponry unscathed then you're doing it right.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Adeptus_Mechanicus|KASTELANS]]:''' T7 W3 FNP 3+/(5++ against shooting) robots, take 4+ and a Techpriest Dominus with the Relic Pimp Cane in formation for extra hilarity. Give one of the Datasmiths the Robes of the Technomartyr for the sweet, sweet boon of giving everyone Cognis. Their ability to severely hurt assaulters on Overwatch will perturb your opponent even more
*'''DISTRACTION [[Adeptus_Custodes|CUSTODES]]:''' Terminators on Steroids (albeit lacking in anti-tank)
*'''DISTRACTION [[Culexus|CULEXUS]]:''' While this sounds as though it shouldn't work (the Culexus model is human-sized), the eighth-edition target priority rules force the enemy of an all-assassin army to shoot the closest model, even if that model is an invisible (hit on a 6+, always) culexus assassin. With a low cost (they're cheaper than most armies' infantry squads), five wounds apiece and a 4+ invulnerable save, they're almost impossible to kill too.

====[[Chaos]]====

*'''Distraction''' '''[[Chaos Space Marines|MURDER SWORD]]''': Chaos Space Marine one. Give a '''MURDER SWORD''' to a (random champion (<strike>NOT LEGAL</strike> Exalted Champion...)) chaos lord, or DAEMON PRINCE(illegal too (<strike>Nope, Daemon Princes can take it</strike> NO, you really can't. A Hellforge sword is NOT a "powersword")), stick it in a nest of Cultists, and laugh as the enemy targets it for the rest of the game because they don't want it getting within 400 clicks of their special snowflake character, though you are fucked if the enemy has good snipers, fucking Vindicaires... or artillery... or any decent amount of guns AH FUCK IT! This one doesn't work! <s>Still decent for removing faggots like [[Marneus Calgar|papa smurf]].</s> NOPE! Calgar has Eternal Warrior, making him immune to the Sword's ID. Better have the dice gods at your back. [[Forge World|Almost makes us wonder how this thing can be a threat to a]] [[Primarch]].
** (clears throat) "Look Out, Sir!" - on a 2+ for special characters. Even against Vindicares (but with a -2 penalty so ICs get 4+ LoS while everyone else gets a 6+) and Precision Shots. Yes, I checked before posting.
** (punches previous speaker in the throat) As the power creep goes on, even the Cultist ball gets stomped on (literally) by the new Knights as Stomp results of 6 remove all models from under the Blast. Yes, Removes. No saves, 2++, FNP or Look out Sir. Just pick those models off the table and put them into your bag. Even then, it wasn't that scary as a single turn of decent shooting can wipe your '''MURDERER''' before he gets near the corpse.
**Then again, the fact that the MURDER SWORD gets shot off the table means something else get is not getting shot at, so as far as distractions it's working.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Nurgling|NURGLINGS]]:''' Take 6-9 bases of these cute little shits,Infiltrate them as close to the enemy as possible behind ruins, enjoy a tasty 2+ cover save while your army moves up. Just pray they don't have flamers or ignore cover weapons.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Daemon Engine|DAEMON ENGINE]]:''' A Forgefiend, Maulerfiend, Defiler, Kytan, or Heldrake will be a guaranteed fire magnet. Fortunately, they all have It Will not Die (tied for best name for a 40k rule ever with He Has A Plan, beaten in the category of best overall rule name by My Will Be Done), and the Drake has the added bonus of being a flyer when Skyfire is still a relative rarity. The reputation of the Defiler and Heldrake in particular will ensure that literally everything the enemy has will be hurled at you, including the models, the table, the dice, the players at the WFB table, and chairs. Lots of chairs.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Mutilator|MUTILATOR]]:''' Pretty much the only use for Mutilators with the new CSM book, Deep Strike one behind the enemy (bonus points if it's a Tau or Guard gunline) and it will die in style as the enemy wastes a turn of valuable shooting which could have been better spent trying to bring down that Land Raider full of Terminators, or the rampaging Maulerfiend in the corner

====[[Eldar]]====

*'''DISTRACTION [[Wraithlord|WRAITHLORD]]:''' It's big, scary, 3+ save, T8 and capable of fucking shit up.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Wraithknight|WRAITHKNIGHT]]:''' Its bigger, scarier, and has more D than the average Thai prostitute.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Wraithseer|WRAITHSEER]]:''' Give it Mark of the Incomparable Hunter, a D-Cannon (for sniping characters), and the Psytronome of Iyanden (8x S9 AP-4 D6d attacks with a Ghostspear). Give it a Bonesinger to tag along, and combine with Tears of Isha to heal 2D3 wounds every turn. Make it Iyanden so its stats only degrade by half. Not so much a distraction as a murder machine.

====[[Dark Eldar]]====

*'''DISTRACTION TALOS PAIN ENGINE:''' The best part about DISTRACTION TALOS is that nobody plays DEldar. Therefore, the majority of the player population has no idea what to expect. Player: "Wait, Toughness seven?!" You: "Yep." Player: "With 3+ and FnP?!" You: "You betcha. Oh, also, enjoy [[Rip_and_tear|haywire and Shred]]." Your enemy then proceeds to unload everything they have at your slow, dead 'ard, floating scorpion beast while your gunboats, Scourges, and Reavers tear them [[Anal_circumference|several new assholes]]. For better results,(aka:something that can also function as a threat) add a cronos with a spirit probe. "4+ FnP!?!?!". If you have the [[Haemonculus]] covens supplement then take the dark artisan formation and give your heamonculus the nightmare doll for a 3+ FnP, if you make him your warlord then you get a 3+ FnP re-rolling 1s.

====[[Orks]]====

*'''DISTRACTION [[Deff Dred|DEFF DRED]]''' Just kit it out with a few scary looking weapons, let it stumble forward with the boys. This is really effective when your enemy takes less anti tank because you are playing a mainly infantry army. This is also better used in smaller games, as this thing looks like a scary, choppy hulk of metal (which it is).

*'''DISTRACTION [[Ork Boy|BOYZ]]''' Let’s face it, as 8th is Horde Edition, a good old-fashioned Boyz mob and a [[Weirdboy]] using the psychic power Da Jump means you can deposit said Boyz Mob (almost) exactly where you want it. Just make sure the mob is 20-30 strong and they might actually survive past the DISTRACTION period. Also make sure you have several more 30-Boy mobz heading across the board. [[Ork Kommando|Kommandos]] also make an excellent DISTRACTION unit, especially when used alongside a Jumped Boyz mob. 60 Orks getting a 1st turn charge? Yeah that might DISTRACT someone.

====[[Tau]]====

*'''DISTRACTION [[El'Myamoto (Sub-commander Darkstrider)|DARKSTRIDER]]:''' Enemy has a charging focused army and you only took one Pathfinder squad, stick this guy in there with a Grav-Inhibitor Drone and laugh as your opponents thrashing, snarling wave of hate never comes anywhere close.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Battlesuit#XV95_Ghostkeel_Battlesuit|GHOSTKEEL]]:''' The stealth field grants a -1 to hit with shooting attacks. The drones an additional -1. Most infantry will only be able to hit this thing at 6+, Marines at 5+ and Conscripts/Boyz can't hit it at all. This will goad them into charging into melee. 2 flamers are recommended to prevent reliable charges. Slap on a target lock for accuracy and a shield generator for survivability. Infiltration will allow you to place it right in the enemy's face, perfect for baiting them into wasting their firepower. Oh and you can easily field 2 of these for the cost of one riptide.
*'''DISTRACTION [[Battlesuit#KV128_Stormsurge_Ballistic_Suit|STORMSURGE]]:''' Its big and has even bigger gun. Slap it somewhere centerline and in plain sight behind some cover and perhaps drone or three and you have fine DISTRACTION that can sometimes hit something with said big gun.

====[[Necrons]]====

*'''DISTRACTION [[Aza'Gorod|NIGHTBRINGER]]:''' Now much faster, killier, and WAY more durable than before. This guy is going to chop up anything he gets his hands on, and the enemy is HEAVILY incentivized to keep him from dying anywhere near their army thanks to Reality Unravels. Bubblewrap it and charge it straight at something valuable, and your enemy is guaranteed to devote every gun he has to its destruction. However, being a sub-10-wound Character, he can't be singled out with shooting except by snipers, and Living Metal means they need to pile on the damage quick or he's going to get a bunch of Wounds back as he just keeps fucking running at them.

*'''DISTRACTION [[Tomb_Stalker|TOMB STALKER]]:''' Deep strikes reliably, doesnt deteriorate with damage, has good weapons and durability, and can carry a gloom prism to screw with psykers. Deep striking a T7, 9 wound MC that can make Deny the Witch rolls directly on top of your enemy's backline is sure to cause a stir.

===Warhammer Fantasy Battles===

*'''DISTRACTION [[Skaven|HELLPIT ABOMINATION]]''' - a giant scary monster, which can wreck whole hordes of infantry with some luck. Any sensible enemy with focus it down... buuuut, it is so adorable in has a chance to RISE FROM THE GRAVE, making the enemy freak out and focus it again - this time with EVERYTHING is has.
*'''DISTRACTION TREEMAN''' - Being worse than it was in last edition, it is still big and tall, and is a fine monster killer, and its shooting can wreck small elite units, so it is likely to attract much dakka (vs very inexperienced player). Beware of fire, or Treebeard's cousin becomes kindling.
*'''DISTRACTION WYVERN''' - just flys behind enemy units the whole game. Wrecks chaos very easily, assuming the enemy doesn't realize that it's just a distraction.

===Warmachine and Hordes===
It can be done here too!

*'''DISTRACTION CENTURION''' - The [[Cygnar|Cygnarian]] Heavy Warjack Centurion is made for this - Though reasonably killy in and of itself, it's main job is absorbing stupid amounts of fire and hits while your shooty army gets into place, and with defensive buffs up the arse, Cygnar can easily make it even tougher.
*'''DISTRACTION BERSERKER''' - Khador is nothing but inventive - Though the Beserker Heavy Warjack is unstable and technologically weak compared to its predecessors, it can still majorly fuck up some unlucky sod with its twin axes. That is not why you use it, though - It is because it have a tendency to explode when given focus. It is fairly cheap too, so send it after whatever you want and watch as it gets blown up by anyone on the field - Your enemy if they manage to bring it down, or you, for the lulz.
*'''DISTRACTION GHORDSON BASHER''' - This might just be the epitome of distraction - A rather fast Heavy Warjack made for one thing, smashing things with its head. Really. That is what it does. Throw it into the enemy and watch as it bounces the enemy about like gravity went on a break.
*'''DISTRACTION AVATAR OF MENOTH''' - Arguably the best of the Character Heavy Warjacks (The [[Cryx]] Deathjack being the only other real contended for the title), it is big, scary, hits like an a freight train and is hard enough to endure the return fire. Throw the Choir Hymn of Passage, the Vassal of Menoth's Enliven and, if you are playing Grand Scrutator Severius, put Defenders Ward on it for a 12/23 monster that's immune to non-magical shooting, can move after taking damage and can lock enemy units in place/force them to move towards you for your next turn when shit is going to get fucked. This is literally the Sain Distraction Carnifex as it forces the enemy to move towards it instead of doing anything productive, and combined with Harbinger of Menoth's feat you either force the enemy to stay still, or get blasted by instagibbing Fire damage roll.
*'''DISTRACTION COLOSSAL''' - Basically every Colossal is a giant distraction tool to draw fire. Especially against inexperienced players who vastly overestimate their threat value.

==Variations==

There are a couple variations on the Distraction Carnifex theme.
*High Axe Low Sword - Used primarily in fantasy wargames, especially pre-Age of Sigmar Warhammer, although it can be applied elsewhere. The idea is to place several Distraction Carnifexes on one side of the field, forcing you opponent to overcommit to one side with their "tough" units. On the other side of the field, a fast, hard-hitting unit or units is placed, allowing that group to strike before proper defense can be mounted.

*Magician's Left Hand - The magician's left hand is the opposite of a Distraction Carnifex. It is valuable, innocuous, and fragile. Typically it's worth far more points than it appears and can inflict massive damage if ignored. Small, elite units with attached characters often fit into this category (although they aren't tough enough to be Death Stars). Distraction Carnifexes are almost mandatory with these types of units, as it allows them to function properly.

*Space Created - Stolen from [[video game]] MOBAs, the term refers to a player character acting as a Distraction Carnifex. This generally allows that player's team to secure an objective or just deny the opponent farm, often at the cost of the player's life. Also used facetiously to refer to a player faffing about.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics]]

Brother-Sergeant

2018-02-02T08:34:17Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* On the tabletop */

[[File:Brother_Sergeant.jpg|300px|right|thumb|[[Red Scorpions]] Brother-Sergeant. In case you didn't know, that white helmet denotes that he is [[Mary Sue|special.]]]]
A '''Brother-Sergeant''' is basically what his name implies; he's a black sergeant. Wait, no, we got that wrong...

A Brother-Sergeant is basically what his name implies; he's the Space Marine equivalent of a sergeant in the [[Imperial Guard]] (except with thicker armor, bigger guns, higher statline, and pauldrons), an [[Eldar]] Exarch (debatable, this point is), and the Shas'ui of the [[Tau]]. Basically, he's the guy in charge of a squad of SPESS MEHREENZ, a step above Battle-Brother, and a step below Brother-Captain. Typically, he's there by virtue of duration of service, or by virtue of the previous sergeant getting cut the fuck apart by [[Tyranids]], which seems to be the most popular way for them to die in canon. They're usually the guys who, if they don't get killed early in the story, have plot armor that is thicker than the armor on an Imperator Titan. This typically manifests in the most cheesy (and admittedly awesome) ways, one of the most popular of which is their ability to charge into thousands of enemies with guns who fire ineffectually or inaccurately at the literal giant adorned in vividly-painted armor, and once in close quarters everything dies. ''EVERYTHING.'' Including Chaos Marines.

==Weaponry and wargear==
Your average Sergeant comes equipped with a bolt pistol and a chainsword because of tradition. A Sergeant's rank is represented on his [[power armor]] by the Iron Skull, which dates to the era of the Legiones Astartes. One piece of advice recommended by the [[Codex Astartes]] is to identify the Sergeant with a red helmet. This originally dates back to the [[Great Crusade]] where a red helmet was a mark of censure under the [[Ultramarines]] Legion, something they borrowed from the [[Night Lords]] Legion's use of sinners-red gauntlets to mark condemned Legionaries. However, during the Battle of Calth, Sergeant Aeonid Thiel of the 135th Company, who had been marked for censure for forming theoreticals against Space Marines, proved instrumental in leading the counter-assault on the [[Word Bearers]], so [[Roboute Guilliman]] ordered all Sergeants to repaint their helmets red, saying it would be a mark of honour.

==Variants==
There's a few different kinds of Sergeants.

*Scout Sergeant: Basically a Space Marine who decided he prefers being sneaky. Typically these are highly-experienced sergeants who either favor stealth and subtlety, and prefer to educate the next generation of their Chapter rather than fighting alongside the glory hounds of the rest of their Chapter, or who just like [[Cyrus|growling and snarling cynically and pessimistically about everything without having to worry about someone with actual experience telling him to shut the hell up and quit being such an emo git.]] It can also be a combination of any or all of these factors. They don't wear power armor but they do wield sniper rifles so fucking huge and powerful that it'd make the modern day M82 Barrette look like a fuckin' peashooter, so...yeah, who the fuck needs armor when [[Tau|you can reduce a Warboss's head to mush from 5+ miles with the pull of a trigger?]]

*Veteran Sergeant: Well, Brother-Sergeants are already veterans of hundreds of battles, so these guys are veteran veterans. They typically are part of the Chapter's 1st Company and have received their Terminator Honors, though they may not actually wear Terminator armor themselves. They're often seconded to other companies' squads to impart their centuries of wisdom onto the lesser-experienced Astartes in the Chapter to keep everyone up to snuff. They also tend to be attached to [[Command Squad]]s. This is often actually a dead-end sort of rank to have; Veteran Sergeants don't typically advance to Brother-Captains, though this largely because the Brother-Captains don't take to the field as much, whereas Brother-Sergeants ALWAYS take to the field if their squad is deployed, thus making them more the aspect of "might" in the Chapter, where the Captains are the aspect of the "mind," if you will. They get better equipment in general and it's a foregone conclusion that if one of them is bearing down on you...well, you're fucked, should've prayed harder. Or not have been born a filthy xenos.

*Terminator Sergeant: A Sergeant in command of a Terminator Squad. Hard as an Imperial Guardsman's standard-issue adamantium balls but not quite as manly, Terminator Sergeants are still beastly as hell. Funny thing is, though, this beastliness doesn't actually tend to show up much in fluff. In fact, they largely serve as the faceless icons of unimaginable toughness who get cut apart like a [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|katana through paper.]] Their place is that of the eldar Avatar, when Space Marines have to die instead of eldar in order to give the big-bad (or the protagonist) street cred.

==On the tabletop==
These guys are basically the one guy in the squad who looks a little different than the others for whatever reason you want to think up. Generally-speaking, they aren't very different from the other units in the squad other than that they typically have one more attack (without special wargear taken into account) and Leadership, and have all that <s>7th</s>8th edition character rule and challenge stuff going on. Nothing very remarkable, for the most part.

{{Marines-Forces}}
{{Blood Angels}}

Brother-Sergeant

2018-02-02T08:33:24Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* On the tabletop */

[[File:Brother_Sergeant.jpg|300px|right|thumb|[[Red Scorpions]] Brother-Sergeant. In case you didn't know, that white helmet denotes that he is [[Mary Sue|special.]]]]
A '''Brother-Sergeant''' is basically what his name implies; he's a black sergeant. Wait, no, we got that wrong...

A Brother-Sergeant is basically what his name implies; he's the Space Marine equivalent of a sergeant in the [[Imperial Guard]] (except with thicker armor, bigger guns, higher statline, and pauldrons), an [[Eldar]] Exarch (debatable, this point is), and the Shas'ui of the [[Tau]]. Basically, he's the guy in charge of a squad of SPESS MEHREENZ, a step above Battle-Brother, and a step below Brother-Captain. Typically, he's there by virtue of duration of service, or by virtue of the previous sergeant getting cut the fuck apart by [[Tyranids]], which seems to be the most popular way for them to die in canon. They're usually the guys who, if they don't get killed early in the story, have plot armor that is thicker than the armor on an Imperator Titan. This typically manifests in the most cheesy (and admittedly awesome) ways, one of the most popular of which is their ability to charge into thousands of enemies with guns who fire ineffectually or inaccurately at the literal giant adorned in vividly-painted armor, and once in close quarters everything dies. ''EVERYTHING.'' Including Chaos Marines.

==Weaponry and wargear==
Your average Sergeant comes equipped with a bolt pistol and a chainsword because of tradition. A Sergeant's rank is represented on his [[power armor]] by the Iron Skull, which dates to the era of the Legiones Astartes. One piece of advice recommended by the [[Codex Astartes]] is to identify the Sergeant with a red helmet. This originally dates back to the [[Great Crusade]] where a red helmet was a mark of censure under the [[Ultramarines]] Legion, something they borrowed from the [[Night Lords]] Legion's use of sinners-red gauntlets to mark condemned Legionaries. However, during the Battle of Calth, Sergeant Aeonid Thiel of the 135th Company, who had been marked for censure for forming theoreticals against Space Marines, proved instrumental in leading the counter-assault on the [[Word Bearers]], so [[Roboute Guilliman]] ordered all Sergeants to repaint their helmets red, saying it would be a mark of honour.

==Variants==
There's a few different kinds of Sergeants.

*Scout Sergeant: Basically a Space Marine who decided he prefers being sneaky. Typically these are highly-experienced sergeants who either favor stealth and subtlety, and prefer to educate the next generation of their Chapter rather than fighting alongside the glory hounds of the rest of their Chapter, or who just like [[Cyrus|growling and snarling cynically and pessimistically about everything without having to worry about someone with actual experience telling him to shut the hell up and quit being such an emo git.]] It can also be a combination of any or all of these factors. They don't wear power armor but they do wield sniper rifles so fucking huge and powerful that it'd make the modern day M82 Barrette look like a fuckin' peashooter, so...yeah, who the fuck needs armor when [[Tau|you can reduce a Warboss's head to mush from 5+ miles with the pull of a trigger?]]

*Veteran Sergeant: Well, Brother-Sergeants are already veterans of hundreds of battles, so these guys are veteran veterans. They typically are part of the Chapter's 1st Company and have received their Terminator Honors, though they may not actually wear Terminator armor themselves. They're often seconded to other companies' squads to impart their centuries of wisdom onto the lesser-experienced Astartes in the Chapter to keep everyone up to snuff. They also tend to be attached to [[Command Squad]]s. This is often actually a dead-end sort of rank to have; Veteran Sergeants don't typically advance to Brother-Captains, though this largely because the Brother-Captains don't take to the field as much, whereas Brother-Sergeants ALWAYS take to the field if their squad is deployed, thus making them more the aspect of "might" in the Chapter, where the Captains are the aspect of the "mind," if you will. They get better equipment in general and it's a foregone conclusion that if one of them is bearing down on you...well, you're fucked, should've prayed harder. Or not have been born a filthy xenos.

*Terminator Sergeant: A Sergeant in command of a Terminator Squad. Hard as an Imperial Guardsman's standard-issue adamantium balls but not quite as manly, Terminator Sergeants are still beastly as hell. Funny thing is, though, this beastliness doesn't actually tend to show up much in fluff. In fact, they largely serve as the faceless icons of unimaginable toughness who get cut apart like a [[Katanas are Underpowered in d20|katana through paper.]] Their place is that of the eldar Avatar, when Space Marines have to die instead of eldar in order to give the big-bad (or the protagonist) street cred.

==On the tabletop==
These guys are basically the one guy in the squad who looks a little different than the others for whatever reason you want to think up. Generally-speaking, they aren't very different from the other units in the squad other than that they typically have one more attack (without special wargear taken into account) and Leadership, and have all that <s>6</s>7th/s>8th edition character rule and challenge stuff going on. Nothing very remarkable, for the most part.

{{Marines-Forces}}
{{Blood Angels}}

Khaine

2018-01-16T10:08:59Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* On the Tabletop */

[[File:Khaine End Times.png|350px|thumb|right|The only Eldar god that has the [[Awesome|testosterone]] and [[RAEG]] to rival [[Khorne|Khorne.]]]]
<div style="font-size:1.10em;font-weight:bold;font-style:bold;font-family:serif;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em"> ALL WHO OPPOSE ME SHALL BURN TO CINDERS AND ASH! - Khaine, being anal as fuck</div>'''

{{Topquote|Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.|Dylan Thomas}}

'''Khaela Mensha Khaine''' (also known as the '''Bloody-Handed God''') is the [[Dark Elf]], [[High Elf]], and [[Eldar]] God of War and Fire. He is also GW's chosen punchbag for when ever they want to prove just how powerful their new character of the week is. Its got to the point that the question isn't who could beat an Avatar but who hasn't beaten an Avatar.

==In Warhammer 40,000==
Mr. K.M. Khaine is one of the three Eldar gods that survived the [[Fall of the Eldar]] (the other two being [[Cegorach]] and [[Isha]]), although he was trampled and pushed out of the [[Warp]] and into realspace while [[Khorne]] was busy piledriving baby [[Slaanesh]] all over Eldar heaven. Because of this, he's no longer "alive" in a spiritual sense and is now shattered into a bajillion physical pieces. These pieces made their way into the [[Craftworld]]s, where they can be used to summon a manifestation of Khaine when the need arises. An [[Avatar of Khaine]] is a towering daemonic creature that loses to basically anything it ever fights. He's also the angriest god of the Eldar pantheon, although he can't really contest with the [[RAGE]] of [[Angron]] and [[Doombreed]].

It has been [[Xenology|hinted]] at that Khaine (as well as the rest of the Eldar pantheon) is one of the [[Old Ones]], and so strictly speaking is not exclusively an Eldar deity. He was also the Bloody-Handed God of War for the [[Hrud]].

===The story of the single angriest Eldar entity ever===
Long ago, when the Eldar were the most powerful race in the universe and they hadn't raped themselves yet, Khaine heard from [[Lileath]], the prophecy-giver of the Eldar pantheon, that the Eldar would one day kill him. Khaine, never one for subtlety, decided to [[exterminatus|murder every last one of the pansies]] to ensure that never happened. However, [[Isha]], the mother-goddess of the Eldar, wept for them because no sane mother would want her own children butchered to death by a maniacal god of war. Khaine's rage gets pretty visible at this point because he had the hots for Isha and still completely ignored her, even after she immediately used her common sense and said she was not getting with a genocidal manifestation of pure wrath (per the book ''Path of the Eldar''. Speaking of which, this book basically says that Eldar [[Exarch|Exarchs]] and Khaine have severe psychological problems. Too bad the only gods who come close to being psychologists are [[God-Emperor of Mankind|this warmongering atheist]] and [[Tzeentch|this squawking politician patron]] of [[Sorcerer (Dungeons & Dragons)|spontaneous casters]]. The last one would be [[Malal|this god]] who doesn't believe that you (or he) exists.

Anyway, that's where [[Asuryan]], the Phoenix King of the Eldar gods, intervened and decided to spare the Eldar from their would-be fate at the bloody hands of Khaine and Isha from having to witness it, by creating a barrier to separate mortals from gods for all eternity. This ensured that the mortal Eldar would never have the chance to kill Khaine and that Khaine would never be able to enter the mortal realm and kill all of the Eldar. This solution worked for Khaine, but not so well for Isha.

Isha missed talking to her children and so cheated through the whole barrier deal by having [[Vaul|Vaul the Artificer]] (the best craftsman of the Eldar gods) make spirit stones to communicate with them. Khaine however, discovered this, and cried foul on Isha and her husband [[Kurnous]]. Asuryan, not wanting to look like a biased dick, told Khaine that he could do whatever he wanted with the two, so naturally Khaine chose eternal torment. Vaul got pissed at this and bargained with Khaine that he would make a hundred of his finest swords in a year in exchange for Isha and Kurnous' release, which Khaine agreed to.

However, because Vaul decided to jerk off on the last day rather than work, he couldn't make the last sword in time and instead tried to trick Khaine by putting one normal sword among the bunch of ninety-nine epic swords he made, thinking that Khaine, with his short attention span and inability to count beyond 10, wouldn't notice and would just accept the fuckheug pile of swords as is. Which is exactly what seemingly happened at first, and Khaine released Isha and Kurnous. [[Just as planned|Situation over]]. [[Not as planned|However, Vaul didn't count on Khaine being a total mathfag/detailfag whenever he's weaponwhoring]], and so Khaine got almighty pissed when he discovered that he got tricked. Yeah, a lot of people reeeaaallly love to screw with Khaine. Too bad the guy has a terrible sense of humor.

This trickery had unfortunate consequences for the whole Eldar pantheon, who after Asuryan shrugged the matter off started to take sides: some agreed with Khaine, others told him to calm the fuck down and grow up; and things snowballed from there and boiled over into the mortal realm. Exactly what the hell happened then is unclear but a couple of things are set in stone. At one point, Khaine got his hands on Vaul and beated the shit out of him before chaining him to his anvil. Another certainty is that he eventually murdered Eldanesh, an Eldar champion, although why he did it is unclear since multiple reasons have been put forward (there's lore on this in multiple sources and they are contradictory as fuck):

*Eldanesh challenged Khaine to an honorable duel for the freedom of Vaul, armed with the last blade the Artisan-God should have finished in time (and did before his capture). (Original lore from 2ed. Codex: Eldar.)
*Eldanesh, as nominal leader of the mortal Eldars, was just tired of his shit and told Khaine to calm the fuck down because he and the [[War in Heaven]] was fucking things up for the Eldar royally. (More recent lore.)
*Eldanesh and Khaine actually collaborated during the war against the [[Necrons]], but at the end he gave Khaine the middle finger when he tried to convince him to keep killing for the sake of killing and generally having violent fun. And Eldanesh did it in vain because his murder triggered the internecine [[War in Heaven]] anyway. (See also the novel ''Path of the Eldar'' by [[Gav Thorpe]].)

Anyway, whatever the exact reason, what is certain is Khaine got [[rage|a little angry]] at Eldanesh and slapped a bitch, and since said bitch wasn't a god it really didn't end well. That's the point where Asuryan got '''really''' tired of everyone's shit so he told everyone to shut the fuck up and condemned Khaine to have blood eternally drip from his hands to remind him of his crime, earning him the title "Khaela Mensha" (or Bloody-Handed).

When the [[Chaos Gods|Chaos god]] [[Slaanesh]] was birthed from the accumulated Warp energy of the Eldar's galactic empire of excess and decadence, Khaine tried to battle the newborn god and managed to put up a pretty good fight, despite the fact The Great Hermaphrodite had already consumed the other Eldar gods and was backed by the Ruinous Powers themselves. Despite Slaanesh overpowering him she/he/it did not have power enough to consume Khaine, but then [[Khorne]] appeared and challenged Slaanesh to a battle, as he claimed that Khaine was his property and that Slaanesh had no right to eat him. Needless to say, Slaanesh lost. While Khorne was busy piledriving and backbreaking Slaanesh into oblivion, Khaine was in the middle of it and got shattered into a million pieces, presumably because Khorne had left his axe back at the Brass Citadel and Khaine was the only available melee weapon at the time. Or maybe he made a fine object on which to drop Slaanesh over and over again. Whatever it was, he doesn't say and the rest is history.

So in the end, Lileath's prophecy did come true in a sense. The Eldar were responsible for the birth of Slaanesh, who sort of got Khaine killed, but not totally because technically he is still "alive". It's just that he's not up and about anymore, like [[Cegorach]] and [[Isha]], and now has to live with the fact that he, the Eldar god of war and destruction, was himself destroyed. Either way, it was either [[Just As Planned]] by [[Tzeentch]], who was the only Chaos God who didn't directly intervene during the fall of the Eldar, or Cegorach, because that hilarious son of a bitch just HAD to do it to put Khaine in his place before he slipped back into the [[Webway]]. Hell, for all we know, the two could have orchestrated the entire Fall of the Eldar just to be the only two entities who managed to successfully screw with Khaine and get away with it.

===The Avatar of Khaine===
[[File:Avatar vs Lorgar.jpg|thumb|350px|right|The Avatar of Khaine in its natural state of existence: dying horribly to make whatever character or faction GW is currently trying to sell look awesome. (In this instance, [[Lorgar]] mercy killed it.)]]

The Avatar of Khaine is a unique Eldar [[daemon]] unit. The Avatar is basically a small fragment of Khaine's power given form through one of his fragments present in a Craftworld.

The Eldar will only summon the Avatar into battle under the most dire of circumstances when there is no other choice. This is because in order to summon the Avatar, the Eldar must sacrifice one of their [[Exarch]]s, known as the "Young King", in order to bring him into existence, and this only lasts for a limited amount of time. Like any daemon, after some time, the Avatar will eventually degenerate and disappear, taking the sacrificed Exarch with it. There is an alternative method of awakening the Avatar, but it requires no less than six [[Phoenix Lord]]s to show up on a craftworld simultaneously and place their weapons at the Avatar's feet. The concentration of psychic energy is enough to not only awaken the Avatar without needing a sacrifice but to [[Apocalypse|supercharge him]].

He <s>used to be</s> '''IS''' really strong, but [[Games Workshop]]'s authors have taken a liking to murdering Avatars every chance they get depending on marketing needs. Because of this, the Avatar has been:

*Killed hilariously by [[Marneus Calgar]] in hand-to-hand combat in the 5th edition [[Space Marine]] codex.
*Possessed by Heartslayer, a [[Keeper of Secrets]] (oh, the irony), during the invasion of the Eldar Craftworld Kher-Ys.
*Trampled to death by twelve stampeding [[Carnifex|Carnifexes]] during the battle between [[Craftworld Iyanden]] and the [[Hive Fleet Kraken]]. What happened was that the Avatar goaded the swarm's [[Hive Tyrant]] into a duel. What the Avatar failed to realize was that this wasn't tabletop and that the [[Tyranids]] are a pragmatic instead of an idealistic lot who have no concept of honorable or dirty fighting, so the Hive Tyrant just raised his brow at this and sent twelve Carnifexes to run the Avatar over. (Weirdly, [[Matt Ward]] gave him a more dignified death than this bullshit.)
*Strangled (WTF?)/neck snapped by [[Fulgrim]]. Which doesn't make much sense, considering the Avatar neither breathes nor has bones. Then again, Astartes (and humanity in general) have proven time and again that they can kill ''anything'', all thanks to the favoritism and [[plot armor]] brought to them by Games Workshop.
*Killed by the [[Sanguinor]].
*Doused in a great flood by the water people of Astrominus IV after his raw power and heat defrosted them from their icy imprisonment by the Space Wolves.
*"Put out of his misery" by [[Lorgar Aurelian|Lorgar]] (who was, at the time, considered to be the worst fighter out of all the [[Primarchs]]). Though the Avatar was heavily damaged even before the fight, unable to even stand and driven mad by centuries spent in the Warp, and this was just a few pages before Lorgar proved to be a top level badass as he battled and bested Anggrath, the uber-[[Bloodthirster]] of Khorne who can eat Avatars and [[Titans]] like cookies.
*Killed by [[Gabriel Angelos]]' 3rd company without the aid of anything heavier than a [[Dreadnought]] during the [[Dawn of War|Tartarus Campaign]] (though a video game example is slightly less ridiculous because it's usually up to the player rather than plot armor). The presence of [[Isador Akios]], though he was already descending towards [[heresy]], probably helped too.
*Killed in a break-dancing competition by a Khornate [[Bloodthirster]] during the Eldar's incursion on Lorn V (at least this one's non-canon).
*Killed in ''single combat'' by Epistolary Anteas of the [[Blood Ravens]] during the Kronus Campaign. (Yep, Papa Smurf himself just got outdone by a [[Librarian]]). (This might not be entirely canon; Anteas is only credited with stealing the pieces of the Avatar's armor, and the in-game Librarian is only fighting the Avatar single-handedly because of engine limitations. The cutscene is designed to show off monstrous creatures, which Spess Mehreens don't have.)
*Killed ''twice'' by [[Blood Ravens Force Commander|Force Commander Hair Gel's]] squad during the fighting to pacify the Eldar in subsector Aurelia. Though to be honest, both of these battles are really fucking hard if you don't have a well-managed squad, and nothing short of [[Ulkair|greater daemons]] is more than a speedbump for [[Tarkus]] or [[Cyrus]].
*Stabbed in the heart by [[Maugan Ra]] to temper his Maugetar. See? Even in its own faction, the thing gets killed anticlimactically.
*Abandoned on a [[Maiden World]], where its connection to the Eldar was severed, reducing it to a mindless state of rage. The now-unbound Avatar consequently called out to the [[Orks]] of the nearby Octarius system, which were [[Looted|happy to answer it]]. It's kind of sad that the only time the Avatar isn't being a jobber is when he's being used by someone else entirely.
*Killed by the [[Legion of the Damned]] when assisting the [[Invaders]] in their assault on Craftworld Idharae. When the Legion realized their flaming bolters did squat against the Avatar, they instead brought the roof down on it. Bringing down the roof...sigh...
*Possibly defended [[Caerys|Farseer Caerys']] last base on Kaurava III only to be blown away by <strike>[[Vance Stubbs|VANCE MOTHERFUCKING STUBBS]] and his 100 [[Baneblade|Baneblades]] after they refused to fuck off.</strike> KRUMPED BY GORGUTZ! QWIT WHININ' DIS IZ KANNON YA 'UMIE GROT!
*Slain by a Battlewagon whilst leading Ulthwe's forces in a near suicidal attempt to defeat a powerful Ork Warboss.
*Somehow able to achieve a mutual kill against [[Skarbrand]], most likely the closest thing to a victory any Avatar has ever achieved; it should be noted that, as the Avatar of the Craftworld with the greatest devotion to Khaine, it may have been stronger than normal. Sadly, with the death of the Craftworld and Infinity Circuit, this Avatar is most likely no more.
*Somehow fused and corrupted by a Genestealer Patriarch who took over it on the Craftworld Ziasutra.
*A purer shard of he Avatar of Khaine, called the Warshard, was killed rather quickly by the Yncarne possessing Yvraine which, considering the Yncarne itself was easily defeated by Ahriman, does not say good things about Khaine.

===On the Tabletop===
[[File:LatestKhaine.jpg|thumb|right|300px|FOOL! YOU DARE QUESTION THE SIZE OF MY LOINCLOTH?!]]
The Avatar of Khaine took a bit of a beating with 8th edition. For starters, the Avatar now costs 250 points while not improving too much. What you get for that cost is a whopping WS2+ A5 monster that hits at S8 AP-4 D6 damage, with a reroll on the damage. This means that the Avatar of Khaine can punch holes in tanks like it's nobody's business. Do note that it has only 5 attacks and it deals no Mortal Wounds, so it can kill a maximum of 5 models per turn. If you really want all your attacks to hit, give him an Autarch buddy for rerolls for your To Hit rolls. On top of that it can also shoot with that profile as an 12" Assault 1 weapon, and thanks to Battle Focus does not get -1 to hit if it advanced the same turn. Paired with its 7" movement and a re-roll on failed charge rolls one of the Avatar's largest problems in earlier editions, its low speed, has been kind of addressed. As for saves it gets a 3+, a 5++ due to being a Daemon and its Molten Body ability has been reworked into granting yet another 5++ save instead of immunity to flamers and melta weapons. With the advent of multi-wound weapons this is quite useful and it would be one hell of a job to write down exactly which guns count as flamers or melta now that the keywords regarding them are gone, it is still sad to see such a flavorful ability disappear. With T6, W8 and no degrading of its abilities as it gets hurt the Avatar can stay in the fight long enough, but two lucky Lascannon shots can put it down for the count with frightening ease (although if you lose a character to shooting in 8th edition you probably don't know what you're doing). Don't forget that it's a Character, so as long as it remains screened by other units it should be able to get close enough to the enemy to deal damage. Be wary of flyers with powerful weapons, for they can easily assassinate your Avatar because of the high speed of the rest of the Eldar army compared to it.

When using Power Ratings instead the Avatar clocks in at 13 points, the second-most expensive unit behind the [[Wraithknight]]. Nothing much changes about it, so stick it in combat as soon as you can to get the most out of it.

==Warhammer Fantasy==
Similar to his 40k part only not in pieces. He is given a LOT more respect in this version of him, shown to be a powerful, mighty god that is renowned and feared (as he should be, you pussies).

There was no prophesy that the Elves would harm him, so that 40k story about him trying to wipe the mortal elves out didn't happen in the Fantasy universe because he had no reason to dislike the mortal elves. The Swords of [[Vaul]] story DID happen however, and that final Sword was the [[Widowmaker]] which somehow ended up in the mortal world (a lot of Khaine's shit does actually, probably at a 1:1 ratio with [[Lileath|Lileath's]]). He's not outright evil (other than the fact he likes war just like the Fantasy players), rather he's pretty neutral and the High Elves love to acknowledge the dualities of "evil has to be killed by good, there can be no joy without sorrow, etc" with him.

Overall, Khaine is a huge asshole and High Elves acknowledge him as part of the pantheon but do not actually worship him (barring a small minority amongst the [[Ulthuan|Nagarythe]] who are a bit more fucked up than the rest of the lot, which is saying something). [[Dark Elves]] on the other hand praise him in [[Asuryan|Asuryan's]] place (when they aren't worshiping [[Slaanesh]] anyway).
High Elves do not insult him however, and still include a depiction of him amongst the High Elf Pantheon. The Shrine of Khaine is a hotly fought over place between the High and Dark Elves, the former trying to prevent his worship and the latter trying to, well, worship at it. It's the location of the [[Widowmaker]] (see below).

He's not overly fond of ANY of the elf races in the mortal world, but since the Dark Elves revere him instead of big boss Asuryan (Eldar confirmed for Dark Elves, Dark Eldar confirmed for <strike>badass Dark Elves</strike> {{FWIP}} '''TRAITOR, DIE IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD ASURYAN AND THE PHOENIX KING!''' What Phoenix King? You mean [[Malekith]] [[End Times|lol]]?) he grants them boons then sits back with some popcorn and watches the Elves slaughter each other.

His love of war combined with his elfness and that his most ardent worshipers are scantily-clad women means he's probably the secret love-child of Khorne and Slaanesh (tsundere confirmed).

===The Sword of Khaine===
Long ago, when the Old Ones left and Daemons were overrunning the world, [[Aenarion]], the first Phoenix King of the High Elves (as well as the father of the king of the Dark Elves) took up the Sword to help fight off the Daemons. He used it to kick so much ass he eventually drove the Daemons back. During the final battle against the Daemons, while his [[Caledor the Dragontamer|best bud]] created a Vortex to syphon off the extra magic and keep the Daemons from manifesting properly, he used the sword to fight and kill all four avatars of the [[Chaos Gods]], killing a Lord of Change, Bloodthirster and Keeper of Secrets single-handedly (though his HUEG dragon helped him against the Great Unclean One). Suck it Marneus.

Aenarion, mortally wounded, took his (also mortally wounded) dragon and flew across half a continent (which, thanks to the size of the Warhammer world, means a full sized continent) back to the island then stuck it in the ground at the Shrine, where it remains to this day.

Some editions imply the Widowmaker being grabbed by Aenarion and thus causing the Dark Elves to happen is Khaine's plan come to fruition so there'd always be elves fighting and thus his portfolio would mean something. Other times, he's with the other gods in facepalming when he nabbed it and cursed himself. It's open to interpretation.

===Khaine Lives In Death===
Kane.. er, I mean Khaine... was the main focus of [[The End Times]]' third book, which focused on the conclusion of the Elven wars.

So Malekith, king of the Druchii and all-around bad person, manages to repeat the ritual of becoming the Phoenix King once again and succeeds this time, reclaiming the title that was rightfully his. [[Tyrion]], the closest thing to a guardian as Ulthuan has had the entire event, finds this to be a breaking point in a series of upsets (Including being utterly unaware that his own illegitimate daughter was sacrificed to summon [[Nagash|the king of the spooky scary skeletons]] and the death of the last Phoenix King) decides that enough is enough. At the Shrine of Khaine, Tyrion reaches for the Widowmaker, and thus becomes possessed by the big guy himself as his Avatar.

This possession does a 180 on his personality; where once Tyrion was a noble prince who was dedicated to defending his land, Khaine's possession turned him into a murderous asshole. Well, that and Morathi's attempts at wooing him. This too affected the Elves as well, as they also surrendered to their murderous impulses and Witches joined with his host. Together, they rampaged through Wood Elves and murdered Orion (and Kurnous), they executed Kohril when he stole the Widowmaker in hopes of ending the war early, and generally just stopped caring about protecting their land.

This all comes to a head at the Isle of the Dead, where all Elves had a massive battle, with Malekith's side being bolstered by the ghosts of Phoenix Kings past who sought to repay a debt to their creator. Eventually Malekith, now bearing Asuryan's power, and Tyrion the Avatar of Khaine battled. It was long, bloody, and terrible, but eventually it ended when Alith Anar managed to snipe out Tyrion's heart. Tyrion's death also spelled the death of Khaine, and thus his madness faded from the world and the Old Gods faded from the world. When Tyrion was resurrected in the last book, it was free of the Bloody Handed one's influence.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:M3470223a 99120212009 2013CauldronOfBlood01 873x627.jpg|Dark Elf Cauldron of Blood, a mobile shrine to Khaine administered to by his fangirls.
Image:AvatarofKhaine.png|Here we can see Khaine being a little bit mad at Isha lying about that ”time of the month”
Image:1236357978434.jpg|The Avatar of Biel-tan, soon to get its shit kicked in.
</gallery>

{{Eldar-Forces}}
{{High Elves}}
{{Eldar-Gods}}

List of 40K Cheese

2018-01-14T02:17:20Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* Imperial Guard */

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The history of Warhammer 40,000 is a history of violence. No matter what people will tell you, the game has always had excessive problems with imbalance, min-maxing and blatant bullshit - From the days of [[Rogue Trader]] to modern day 8th Edition, the game has fostered many [[Cheese|cheesy]] units, army lists or deathstars, who have changed the meta and repeatably broken the game - Not through players maximizing their gear or people abusing unclear rules, but by simply being awfully balanced and written.

Fortunately, many of these, if not all of them, are the very concept of "The flame that burn twice as bright dies twice as fast", as they all got their reckoning at some point or another. Being either nerfed to the ground, changed to the core or completely removed from the game, this allowed the next-cheesy thing to step in with a silly hat and a way too small point-tax.

But life will go on. New codices will be under/overpowered and grind the others to dirt, the meta will change to deal with what-ever is the most powerful at the moment, and [[Warseer|the forums will]] be white-hot with [[Rage|rage]] over the unbalance present, but life will go on, and as soon as you accept this eternal struggle for our fun and wallets, you will be at peace.

As time goes on, this list will grow, to encompass more and more cheese as it gets released. If you feel that a unit, model or deathstar needs mentioning in the list, feel free to add to it with your own experiences and knowledge.

== 2nd Edition ==
'''Polymorphine:''' Assassins (and anyone else with the access to the wargear) used to be able to magically appear in the middle of a squad via Polymorphine (killing a troop when you exploded out of his body, leading to such shenanigans as [[Arseplomancer|a Guardsman hiding a dude in power armor on a bike]]). Then Jump Pack over and throw a Vortex Grenade and killing anything on a 2+.

== 3rd Edition ==
Eldar Exarchs with the unique ability to "Build your own Exarch." You could have a bright lance that shot twice with warp spider pack that allowed you to jump all over the field, then add a Powerfield that gave you a 2+ invulnerable save). This was just one of many cheese custom Exarchs that were possible; however, they were also the only thing keeping Eldar on the table - those customizable Exarchs, though cheesy, were expensive in an army with nerfed and expensive units and weapons. Eldar were largely bottom-tier in 3rd edition.

===3.5 Edition===
In general, 3.5 had 3 specifically cheesy armies, two of which belonged to Chaos.

====Necrons====
Necrons were introduced as a stand-alone codex army for the first time in 3.5. Their release was met with immediate hostility once neckbeards read their codex; here's why:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hod0WtYE4SA|here is a video of their grand debut]
* Warscythes in abundance that ignored all saves and rolled 2D6 for pens .
* We'll Be Back made infantry immune to death as they basically had a 4++ that could be rolled after they failed their 3+ armour save and after your opponent was done shooting.
**Compounding that, the Resurrection Orb that ignored any of the restrictions previously applied to the WBB rule like instant death or bypassing armour saves in CC.
* Veil of Darkness which allowed you to Deepstrike hop a unit all over the board.
* Basic infantry guns that could kill a landraider with a lucky shot.
* The fucking Monolith - immune to anything that wasn't S9/10 and/or ordinance, could deepstrike and never suffer a mishap, fixed your broken troops and could deepstrike in any from reserves.
* Necron Pariahs - they lowered opponent's troops Ld to 7 unless better, made psykers piss themselves unless fearless AND had warscythes and gauss blasters, the latter of which were basically heavy bolters that could kill vehicles too.
* Wraiths had the only 3++ save in the game and were proper Necrons unlike today, meaning they too had WBB.
* C'tan being IMPOSSIBLY GOOD! The Nightbringer could use a Bloodthirster as a speedbump while the Deceiver allowed you to reposition your army after deployment.

Necrons earned the title "n00bcrons" for a reason; though they didn't have the sheer quantity of cheese that Chaos had at the time, what cheese they had was prevalent throughout their army and was way too good for the points paid.

====Chaos====
Going into third edition, Chaos was... unremarkable. Bland. Decent crunch-wise, but without the wealth of options to field Daemons/Cultists/Mutants/Fallen/Renegades/... they had in 2e. Pete Haines listened to the players (yes, GW did that back then) and Chapter Approved articles in White Dwarf did provide those variants over the years. Eventually GW decide to bring out a 3.5 Codex updated with all those options and a couple extra added on top... and that's where it went horribly wrong. A wealth of options meant a wealth of possible combinations and some were just... too much. Though not the same level of cheese as Necrons quality-wise Chaos Space Marines got a massive truckload of it, that went from 'strong but expensive' to 'outrageous'. Here's a smattering of what CSM had in 3.5:

''Young cheese'' (things that were a-okay on their own but could combine into ungodly monstrosities.)
* Khornate chain axes: Being one of the only things that could outright modify armour saves, reducing them to 4+ unless worse, across the board - that's right, your terminator's save is no better than carapace armour against them. Ork Choppas did the same on an army-wide level for free back then.
* Unit Champions could take Psy Powers and even Daemon Weapons. Strong, but with only 1 HP it could turn very ugly very quickly both ways.
* [[Possessed]] were expensive but they could ''buy'' their powers instead of rolling for them, which included rending, fleet ''and'' a magical bolt pistol shot, making them point-for-point one of the best assault units in the game.

''Aged cheese'' (This is where it started to get really ugly, although those things were still within hailing distance of manageable.)
* Chaos Lords that could out-punch anything, point-for-point.
* Vehicle upgrades that could regrow lost weapons and unimmobilize themselves on 4+, ignore crew shaken/stunned ''and'' grant +1 AV on all sides.
* Bloodletters that wore power armour and wielded power weapons. Basically an evil deep-striking space marine honour guard.
* [[Sonic Weaponry]] - anything with a MoS could exchange their guns for sonic weapons (and get access to the Slaaneshi armoury if they were characters). This lead to [[Rhino]]s, [[Dreadnought]]s, Defilers, Lords, Lieutenants, regular Marines, Chosen, Possessed, Aspiring Champions, Bikers, Havocs and Terminators all sporting Sonic Weapons. They weren't as good as they would become in later editions, but they were better than the Bolters and Autocannons they replaced (almost) for free.
* [[Defiler|That enemy crab thing]] gets introduced as both a monstrous creature and a walker, which made it pretty much invulnerable in melee against anything without Power Fists (or equivalent Strength-doubling CC weapons).
* [[Obliterator]]s. Back then they were fucking GOD-TIER - S/T5, two hit points, 2+/5++, loaded with heavy and special weapons, Fearless, deep-striking. Luckily for your opponents you could only take a single squad of up to three of them. Eventually they got FAQ'd down to T 4(5) which made them more vulnerable to 'Instant Death' but they were still ''hard'' customers and an auto-take.

''Premium cheese'' (The really retarded things that could break the game. Never mind those costed arms and legs in points, unless the opponent knew what was coming and went to great lengths to avoid them, those things were "I-win" buttons.)
* A [[Daemon Prince]] with Power Armour, Wings and the Dread Axe. Tough, moved like jump pack infantry, a beastly statline, 3+/5++ and the really cheesy part: the Dread Axe ignored invulnerable saves and wounded on a 4+ unless better. Combined to the fact the DP was a monstrous creature that ignored armor saves; and you had a tough, fast motherfucker with a truckload of attacks that hit/wounded easily, ignored '''all''' saves and could easily consolidate from unit to unit, remaining locked in CC and untargetable the whole game as it solo'ed the enemy army. (And I wish I was exaggerating...)
* Siren. A Slaaneshi minor psychic power that made a model immune to shooting and blocked line of sight. Spam generously.
* Veteran skills - ranging from 1-3 pts. per model, could be taken on any squad (only 1 skill for marked units) with higher costs for independent characters. You could load up whole squads that infiltrated, moved through cover and furiously charged.
* Chosen. Chosen were... absurdly powerful since you could make any member in the squad an aspiring champion, giving them access to the armoury. If they were marked and if you took a chosen squad in a multiple of the number of that God (Slaanesh 6, Nurgle 7, Khorne 8, Tzeentch 9), then the 10 pt. upgrade cost was free! Deathstar of 8 Khornate champions that could butcher through anything (and I mean anything) with a truckload of [[exploding dice]] S7 attacks ignoring armor saves on the charge coming out of a Land Raider to chain-rape unit after unit, anyone? Or if you prefer, 9 Tzeentchian Sorcerers [[troll|auto-succeeding on psychic tests thanks to the Mark of Tzeentch]] with psychic Heavy Bolters and Lascannons unleashing some next-level mind-bullet dakka (or alternatively turning everything into [[Chaos Spawn]]s)? Yeah, it was kinda like that back then...
* The [[Emperor's Children]] Legion list. Sirens, sirens you can't shoot and that will demolish you in CC everywhere.
* The [[Iron Warriors]] Legion list. Remember above where I said only one unit of god-like Obliterators? Well, nope! Take as much as you can! Oh, and you can exchange two Fast Attack slots on the FOC for one more Heavy Support choice! More Obliterators? MORE OBLITERATORS!

Now, you'd think that with that generous amount of cheese, GW would get the message and stop piling it on... But then the world-wide "Eye of Terror" campaign happened and Chaos got another toy to play with - the Lost and the Damned army list. Veteran Chaos players actually rejoiced when it was announced as it meant they could go back to the 2nd ed days of fielding traitor Guard, Beastmen, mutants and other dregs supported by a very small number of traitor Marines. Sadly enough, while it did allow to do that, the army list came with its own rapetrain of cheese:

* The list allowed to take units from the 3.5 CSM and Imperial Guard Codices in various FOC slots; which amounted to taking the best of all worlds.
* A cheap HQ choice (Chaos Lieutenant) that was point for point even more killy than the 3.5 Chaos Lord.
* Mutants could be taken in huge cheap hordes that could tarpit pretty much anything forever.
* Big mutants being awesome dakka blobs with 3 wounds each and great Chaos mark effects - basically, better Ogryns!
* Traitor guardsmen had better stats than loyalists, access to chaos marks, veteran skills here and there (Infiltrate ahoy!) and could wield '[[Bolter]]s'. Yes, said slapdash 'Bolters' had the same "Gets Hot!" rule as plasma weapons which meant you'd lose some traitors each time you fired but it was a very small price to pay to unleash an ungodly amount of dakka.

It's really no mystery as to why Chaos won the Eye of Terror campaign. Games Workshop, concerned with their future revenue streams from Spess Muhreen fanchildren, decided to basically reset the crunch and shift the timeline away from the event while attempting to balance (read: nerf to the ground) what it could in 4th edition.

====Honorable Mention: [[Imperial Guard]] Armored Division====
This one deserves an honorable mention, even if it quickly disappeared after the arrival of [[Necrons]] and their vehicle-killing Gauss everything and "We'll be Back!" shenanigans. Back in 3rd ed., vehicles were much less prevalent as were the ways of dealing with them. This list was [[rape|vehicles only!]]. HQ? [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Russ]] variant. Troops? Leman Russ variants. Anything else? Leman Russ variants (with the token Infantry Squad in a Chimera). Park together, point battle cannons and let fly, all guns!

== 4th Edition ==

===[[Fish of Fury]]===

It has its own page, but the basic gist involved using a semi-invulnerable troop transport as a mobile bunker for the otherwise assault-prone Fire Warriors.

The tactic died when errata changed how skimmers worked.

===[[Imperial Guard]] 500-Point Assholery===
Take minimalist choices for the bulk of your mandatory force org setup. Use the remaining points to buy a [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Fucking Russ]] and absolutely butt-fuck the balance of low-point games. The personification of being [[That Guy]].

===[[Imperial Guard]] Unit Deletion Barrage===
In the 4th edition codex, the Hunter-Killer Missile cost a mere 5 points. Because of this, an insanely common strategy was to load basically every single vehicle you fielded that could fit one with one, and with many guard armies that could be 6-7 vehicles on a 1000-point list at the time. Once loaded, the tactic was simple: find the single most threatening enemy model on the board that could be reliably penetrated with a Krak Missile, acquire line of sight, and hammer the shit out of it with all your Hunter-Killers in one go. Even with guard accuracy being what it is, the fact that you could potentially obliterate a lynchpin unit or pesky independent character meant that this was often used to secure early dominance.

When the 5th edition Tyranid codex came out, this tactic was very often used to flat-out cripple 'Nid players by taking out their [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX]]ES and [[Hive Tyrant]]s from standoff range, fucking over attempts to counter.

The tactic ended when 5th edition cranked the cost of HK Missiles to 15 points each.

== 5th Edition ==
Ah yes, the height of the Cruddex and the Wardex, the game-breakingest era of 40K

===[[Grey Knights]]===
Seriously, there's a shitload to explain here for the noobs:

* First and foremost, Psycannons - S7 AP4 rending on models that could otherwise always shoot them.
* Psybolt ammunition, leading to the creation of the much feared Psyfleman Dreadnought, pumping out 4 S8 AP4 twin-linked shots a turn.
* Kaldor Draigo outcreeding Creed and just generally being a monster (unless and until he fought Abaddon).
* EVERYTHING ARMED WITH A FUCKING FORCE WEAPON SERIOUSLY WTF - in particular, Force Halberds. Auto-take, granting all the bonuses of a nemesis force weapon and +2 Initiative, meaning your silver armoured Mary Sues struck before most Eldar units.
* Librarians with a flamer template that removed models from play - not just instant death, they took an initiative test or were removed from play doling out auto-pens to vehicles.
* The only list that could take Assassins or Inquisitors, which both got buffed into the fucking sky.
* The goddamn Nemesis Dreadknight debuted here - absolutely broken if not expensive (MC w/ 2+ save, psychic powers).
* Oh hey, they ''also'' got stormravens - on top of being immune to melta weapons and transporting an OP squad plus an OP dreadnought, the GK stormraven could also take psybolt ammo for its heavy bolters, assault cannons, etc.

People hated the Grey Knights - even longtime GK players hated them. A list that was built to destroy daemon armies (during a time when they didn't even need a special list to destroy them because they were so bad - seriously, it wasn't uncommon for GK players to fight demons without suffering so much as a wound!) got buffed into a list with units that were just flat-out better than anyone else could field. Some GK players took to making lists that used none of the staples mentioned above in order to give themselves a challenge.

===[[Blood Angels]]===
Cheesy for the [[Matt Ward|exact same reason]] as Grey Knights. Here are just a few things they received:

* Deep-striking Landraiders, because that's just great - just fucking great.
* Furioso Dreadnoughts in general. Their FA13 made them immune to Krak grenades prevalent on most infantry; coupled with Blood Talons which generated more attacks every time you caused a wound. With S6 and WS6. Fuuuuuuuuck!
* In addition to regular Furiosos, you could also take a FLYING. LIBRARIAN. DREADNOUGHT. Jesus Christ...
* Death Company Dreadnoughts were also outrageous - taking up a fucking ''Troops'' slot, they were Furiosos with a more offensive focus, their WS and FA lowered by a point in exchange for fleet, more attacks and furious charge and rage.
* Blood Angels Dreadnoughts could also take a Magna Grapple on top of their arm weapons, an S8 AP2 assault 1 weapon with a 24" range that, should it pen a vehicle or wound a monstrous creature, could then drag it closer to the dreadnought.
* Mephiston - basically, a monstrous creature with psychic powers that could take cover. And fly. And reduce his opponent's WS/I to 1.
* The Stormraven gunship debuted in this list - a flying landraider with weaker armour but immune to melta weapons that could transport a squad AND a dreadnought. Oh, and it's an assault vehicle ffs. Given how powerful in CC Blood Angels infantry is as well as just how deadly their dreadnoughts are, getting them where they needed to be in a fast skimmer that was immune to melta weapons AND was heavily armed was the cherry on top of this particular cheesecake.

===Imperial Guard===
Arguably the only army in 5th that got a stratospheric Cruddex buff, the rest getting nerfed into uselessness as [[Robin Cruddace]] hates you:

* This was the first time Guard could field vehicle squads, particularly for Basilisks and Leman Russes allowing players to cover the field in pie plates.
* Master of the Fleet, which subtracted 1 from your opponent's deep strike rolls. Particularly nasty against the above two lists which relied on deep-strike spam to get close enough to shred armies.
* Master of Ordnance, which came with its own pie plate attack.
* [[Creed|CREEEEEEEED!!!!1]]
* Hellhound squads and variants get introduced, especially the bane(wolf) of all MEQs, the banewolf.
* Veterans - particularly melta-vets. They are legend when it comes to vehicle busting.
* Valkyries and Vendettas - fucking hell, where do I even begin? Super fast chimera, identical armour and a shitload of guns; Vendettas take it to the next level with 3 TL Lascannons.
* Hydra flak tank debuts in this list outside of FW and is amazing at taking out bikers and fast skimmers with its super-long range autocannons that bypass Jink saves. Eldar tears flow unstoppably.
* Orders are introduced here as well; they weren't OP per se, but combined well with other buffs to the list for horrifying efficacy.
* Up until the release of the GK codex in 5th, Guard could still take allies with Daemon or Witch Hunters leading to the construction of the infamous Guard leaf-blower list, so named for how fast it removed your opponents models from the board. Mind, when GK came out with their Wardex, this didn't really put too much of a damper on the blower but now they had competition at least.

== 6th Edition ==

=== The [[Heldrake]] ===

The Heldrake was added to the 6th Edition [[Chaos Space Marine]] Codex as a new unique flier. The Codex itself was generally considered a weak book, and many cried that the CSMs would be left in the dust for the third edition in a row... Which would have been true, were it not for the Heldrake. As the only flier in the codex, and by far one of the most efficient ones in the entire game at the moment of release, it became ''the'' crutch for the entire codex. It could singlehandedly take on entire squads of Space Marines with impunity, because of 1) An AP 3 flamer, that everyone upgraded the Hades Autocannon to get and which could [[FATAL|fire from its cavernous rear due to RAW]], 2) the Vector Strike rule, that made it able to strike the unit it would be about to toast and 3) being a flier, few things could take it down quickly enough. Three of them could be taken in the Fast Attack slots, and you can be sure that people did just that.

With the arrival of 7th Edition, the rules for Turret-mounted weapons got changed (no more asses of fire), as did the changes to Vector Strike - Now, the flamer can only be placed wherever the mouth is pointing, and because it is a flier, it cannot just swivel around to hit an enemy like it used to. On top of that, Vector Strike only does one attack on ground enemies, compared to the old D3+1 that it hit everything with. Nowadays, the Heldrake is still a tough, fast flier, that can take out both fliers and infantry, but it isn't so overpowered that every CSM player has to have three of them in any army list.

And again with the arrival of 8th edition it's kinda back, it's pricier (like most vehicles) and while it's not that good it now has its asses of fire (and wings of fire, and legs of fire, and belly buttons of fire...) back and its Baleflamer is nasty but it now only wounds MEQs on a 3+ and is only AP -2, it's good with being able to do 12 wounds and all, but it really shines against Tau infantry gunlines. While Tau aren't as common as all of the many many many SM chapters, thanks to 7th edition many players started collecting Tau and they're still seen. When Tau are seen, as you deploy your Heldrake you can be fairly certain that mass fire warriors won't do too much damage to it but god help you if you even let a crisis see it, which is easier than you think.

===[[Chapter Master Smashfucker]]===
Smashfucker is a character build for the [[Iron Hands]] that exploits several durability-boosting relics to become nigh-unkillable for a fraction of the points cost of a named character.

== 7th Edition ==

'''[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Eldar(7E)|The Entirety of 7th Edition Eldar]]''': No really, they're completely fucking broken. The entire army can be considered unholy rotten cheese, worthy only of being boycotted against. You know they're bad when the only way to beat them is to tell your opponent, "Fuck you, I'm not playing against Eldar!" Unless of course you play [[Space Marines]] or [[Necrons]], who have access to gravspam (especially useful against Wraith) and resurrection cheese respectively. Any other post-Necron codex isn't bad either, but less certain than these first two. Which brings us to...

The [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marines(7E)#Dataslate_Formations|Skyhammer Annihilation Force]], a Space Marine dataslate formation. Two Devastator squads in drop pods that ignore Drop Pod Assault, and two Assault Squads with jump packs. The devs are Relentless on the turn they Deep Strike, and the assault squads can charge immediately.

[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marines(7E)#Gladius_Strike_Force|Gladius Strike Force]]: Space Marines' detachment-size formation. Anything in a Battle Demi-Company is Objective Secured, and any Drop Pods, Rhinos and Razorbacks taken as dedicated transport have their base cost reduced to 0 if you take two demi-companies.

The [[Screamerstar]], a combination of artifacts and psychic powers that gives a unit of Screamers a 2+ Invulnerable Save while rerolling results of 1, making them effectively invincible.

[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Cult_Mechanicus(7E)#Formations|Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation]]: Includes units from Cult Mechanicus, Skitarii, and and Imperial Knights. Everything has Canticles of the Omnissiah, all wargear is free, and nothing Gets Hot. You like winning? Use this formation and literally pay to win.

== 8th Edition ==

===Imperial Guard===
'''[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperial_Guard(8E)|The Entirely of 8th Edition Imperial Guard]]'''. Remember Eldar and Tau in 7th Edition? Yep, that's the Imperial guard right now. Between Morale immune blobs of dirt cheap Conscripts literally flooding the board and bringing down everything through sheer volume of fire (this isn't a thing anymore, try reading the FAQs...or the Codex) or deep striking Scions shoved full of Plasma or Melta as well as the best vehicles and flyers in the game. Like Eldar, Tau and Necrons in 7th, it's pretty bad when the only way to beat them (i.e. if you suck at list-building) is saying "Fuck you, I'm not playing against Imperial Guard".

Now they have a new Codex. let us see the highlights:

*Bullgryns in general. They changed the wording Instead of slab shields being 2+, slab shields give +2 to your saves now. So if you want to field Celestine who has an aura with 6+ inv, slab shields improve this to a 4++. So now they are a 2+/4++ unit. And you can take it further, with the psychic power psychic ward they get an additional +1 saves so now they are at 1+/3++ and finally with the 1CP strategem take cover they get an additional save in the enemy shooting phase so enjoy your 0+/2++ Bullgryn-Celestine deathstar of doom that requires two Smites per Bullgryn to wear down.

*HQ units can take a Relic that lets them regain spent CP on a 5+ because of course they can. Remember that the Imperial Guard are second to Chaos Daemons in cheapest Brigade Regiments in the game so if you are somehow below 12 CP you are optimising your list wrong.

*Mordians. One Mordian strategem lets you spend 1CP to give any unit exploding dice on a 6 to hit. This is ANY weapon, so have fun giving it to Mortar Teams or units stuffed full of Flamers or a Leman Russ Punisher.... They also have an Order that lets units with lasguns target characters directly, pretty much making them the only counter to the Imperial Guard. It's bad when the only counter to an army is to play that army yourself.

*Valhalla can [[Skaven |fire into melee combat without any penalty other than hitting friendly units on a 1]]. Of course you can ignore this by just bringing Flamers....Or you could just issue the order to a heavy Weapons team and use your Conscripts like Skavenslaves....[[Commander Kubrik Chenkov |Oh and those Conscript blobs that die to that? You can spend 2CP to bring them right back]] (post-FAQ this actually costs reinforcement points now)...In an army where if you are guaranteed a Brigade detachment for most games.

*Vostroya has an order that allows them to shoot any weapon in close combat. They this includes Grenades, Flamers, you heavy Weapons teams...Oh and they can spend CP to add +1 to their hit rolls in the shooting phase meaning that all Plasma Weapons are safe to supercharge.

No doubt [[Robin Cruddace|He]] had a part in this.

===Space Marines===

====[[Ultramarines]]====
Have all of the best Marine toys plus a number of game breaking Chapter abilities. First all Ultramarine units can literally walk out of Close Combat and keep firing, making assault orientated armies useless against them. Second they can regain any spent Command Points on a 5+ so really can spam those Re-Rolls. Third they can even spend CP to re-roll 1's. This is before we even get into what Rowboat can do to your army...

=====[[Roboute Guilliman]]=====
Any keyword '''Imperium''' unit within 12" adds 1 to advances and charges, re-roll hits of 1 and can re-roll failed morale tests, meaning you can spam the '''fuck''' out of stupidly cheap [[Imperial Guard]] Plasma.

'''Ultramarines''' units within 6" re-rolls of failed hit and wound rolls as well. Guilliman himself is affected by his own aura, allowing him to add 1 to charges and advances as well as re roll failed hits and wounds. If all that wasn't enough if your army is battleforged you get 3 extra CP.). [[That Guy |It's not unusual to see him sat in the middle of a pile of Assault Cannon Razorbacks with Lascannon Squads inside, and Stormravens tossed in for good measure. Or sat behind a huge wall of Hellblasters]].

Guilliman himself is a beast in close combat, with a 3++, 9 Wounds and 6 S6, AP-4 3 Damage attacks with 6's adding d3 Mortal Wounds. He also has a Power Fist with no to hit penalty because of course he fucking does. He also revives on a 4+ with 1d6 Wounds back so good luck killing this fucker for good unless you literally send hordes of Fire Dragons or Scions after him. And even then he's just going to get back up and murder whatever downed him nest turn.

So for all of this he must be expensive, right? Even Wraithknights must be cheap compared to-[[What |what he only costs 385 points?!]]Yeah. So, barring restrictions, it's possible to take him in [[Fail |500 point games...]] There are countless batreps out there of him taking on entire armies alone and just crushing them.

Basically Ultramarines, and Imperium by extension, shoot better than any other army, fight better than any other army and are all but immune to morale thanks to this unbalanced cunt.

====[[Raven Guard]]====
Anything shooting at the Raven Guard are shooting at -1 to hit if outside of 12", and they can spend CP to allow infantry to Deep Strike just before Turn 1. This pretty much guarantees that you will always be going first with your Aggressors dropping in right next to an opponent without having counted as moved.

Oh and thier Warlords are immune to Overwatch so [[MURDERWINGS]] is back, and it's cheaper to do than just taking Shrike.

====[[Chapter Master Smashfucker]]====
Smashfucker is back and broken as ever. Take an Iron Hands Captain on Bike with a Thunder Hammer and Shield Eternal and the Iron Resovle Warlord trait. The result is a stupidly mobile Beatstick with 7 Wounds and a 3+/3++/6+++/6++++. Plus unlike Girlyman, an Apothecary can heal him.

====Auspex Scan====
A 2CP Stratagem that lets an Infantry unit shoot at anything that Deeps Strikes within 12". So what's wrong with that? Unlike similar abilities from other Codexes which all say <s>they require line of sight</s> (it still says as if it were the shooting phase, so LoS is needed), or need specific HQ unit nearby, this one does not. It also means any Aggressors that can use this will be shooting twice, <s>without needing line of sight</s>...Now you see that Scions Squad. Now you don't.

====Custom [[Land Raider]]====
[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/11/18/get-ready-chapter-approved-nov-18gw-homepage-post-3/ Chapter Approved is allowing people to create Custom Land Raiders]. Additional Sponsons means you can end up with something ridiculous like 8 Lascannons total. [[Matt Ward |Ultramarines will also be able to combine with with the usual Guilliman bullshit]] while Raven Guard make theirs even more difficult to kill. Then of course you can have an [[Dakka|Imperial Fists Land Raider spamming Hurricane Bolters while also ignoring all cover]]. So the supplement that was supposed to be re-balancing the game has resulted in making things even worse. However, custom Land Raiders are only allowed in Open Play, so by definition any kind of balance has long since flown out the window anyhow.

===Chaos Daemons===

[[Chaos Daemons]] Basically the only army in the game that can fill multiple Brigade Detachments thanks to Brimstone Horrors, plus they can cherry pick the Imperial Guard's best units via the Renegades faction, and the Chaos Space Marines best toys and charcters due to the Chaos keyword. Combining the Changeling with Alpha Legion Obliterators for example...Have fun...

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]] [[Category:Gamebreaking]] [[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics]]

List of 40K Cheese

2018-01-14T02:13:48Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* 8th Edition */

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The history of Warhammer 40,000 is a history of violence. No matter what people will tell you, the game has always had excessive problems with imbalance, min-maxing and blatant bullshit - From the days of [[Rogue Trader]] to modern day 8th Edition, the game has fostered many [[Cheese|cheesy]] units, army lists or deathstars, who have changed the meta and repeatably broken the game - Not through players maximizing their gear or people abusing unclear rules, but by simply being awfully balanced and written.

Fortunately, many of these, if not all of them, are the very concept of "The flame that burn twice as bright dies twice as fast", as they all got their reckoning at some point or another. Being either nerfed to the ground, changed to the core or completely removed from the game, this allowed the next-cheesy thing to step in with a silly hat and a way too small point-tax.

But life will go on. New codices will be under/overpowered and grind the others to dirt, the meta will change to deal with what-ever is the most powerful at the moment, and [[Warseer|the forums will]] be white-hot with [[Rage|rage]] over the unbalance present, but life will go on, and as soon as you accept this eternal struggle for our fun and wallets, you will be at peace.

As time goes on, this list will grow, to encompass more and more cheese as it gets released. If you feel that a unit, model or deathstar needs mentioning in the list, feel free to add to it with your own experiences and knowledge.

== 2nd Edition ==
'''Polymorphine:''' Assassins (and anyone else with the access to the wargear) used to be able to magically appear in the middle of a squad via Polymorphine (killing a troop when you exploded out of his body, leading to such shenanigans as [[Arseplomancer|a Guardsman hiding a dude in power armor on a bike]]). Then Jump Pack over and throw a Vortex Grenade and killing anything on a 2+.

== 3rd Edition ==
Eldar Exarchs with the unique ability to "Build your own Exarch." You could have a bright lance that shot twice with warp spider pack that allowed you to jump all over the field, then add a Powerfield that gave you a 2+ invulnerable save). This was just one of many cheese custom Exarchs that were possible; however, they were also the only thing keeping Eldar on the table - those customizable Exarchs, though cheesy, were expensive in an army with nerfed and expensive units and weapons. Eldar were largely bottom-tier in 3rd edition.

===3.5 Edition===
In general, 3.5 had 3 specifically cheesy armies, two of which belonged to Chaos.

====Necrons====
Necrons were introduced as a stand-alone codex army for the first time in 3.5. Their release was met with immediate hostility once neckbeards read their codex; here's why:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hod0WtYE4SA|here is a video of their grand debut]
* Warscythes in abundance that ignored all saves and rolled 2D6 for pens .
* We'll Be Back made infantry immune to death as they basically had a 4++ that could be rolled after they failed their 3+ armour save and after your opponent was done shooting.
**Compounding that, the Resurrection Orb that ignored any of the restrictions previously applied to the WBB rule like instant death or bypassing armour saves in CC.
* Veil of Darkness which allowed you to Deepstrike hop a unit all over the board.
* Basic infantry guns that could kill a landraider with a lucky shot.
* The fucking Monolith - immune to anything that wasn't S9/10 and/or ordinance, could deepstrike and never suffer a mishap, fixed your broken troops and could deepstrike in any from reserves.
* Necron Pariahs - they lowered opponent's troops Ld to 7 unless better, made psykers piss themselves unless fearless AND had warscythes and gauss blasters, the latter of which were basically heavy bolters that could kill vehicles too.
* Wraiths had the only 3++ save in the game and were proper Necrons unlike today, meaning they too had WBB.
* C'tan being IMPOSSIBLY GOOD! The Nightbringer could use a Bloodthirster as a speedbump while the Deceiver allowed you to reposition your army after deployment.

Necrons earned the title "n00bcrons" for a reason; though they didn't have the sheer quantity of cheese that Chaos had at the time, what cheese they had was prevalent throughout their army and was way too good for the points paid.

====Chaos====
Going into third edition, Chaos was... unremarkable. Bland. Decent crunch-wise, but without the wealth of options to field Daemons/Cultists/Mutants/Fallen/Renegades/... they had in 2e. Pete Haines listened to the players (yes, GW did that back then) and Chapter Approved articles in White Dwarf did provide those variants over the years. Eventually GW decide to bring out a 3.5 Codex updated with all those options and a couple extra added on top... and that's where it went horribly wrong. A wealth of options meant a wealth of possible combinations and some were just... too much. Though not the same level of cheese as Necrons quality-wise Chaos Space Marines got a massive truckload of it, that went from 'strong but expensive' to 'outrageous'. Here's a smattering of what CSM had in 3.5:

''Young cheese'' (things that were a-okay on their own but could combine into ungodly monstrosities.)
* Khornate chain axes: Being one of the only things that could outright modify armour saves, reducing them to 4+ unless worse, across the board - that's right, your terminator's save is no better than carapace armour against them. Ork Choppas did the same on an army-wide level for free back then.
* Unit Champions could take Psy Powers and even Daemon Weapons. Strong, but with only 1 HP it could turn very ugly very quickly both ways.
* [[Possessed]] were expensive but they could ''buy'' their powers instead of rolling for them, which included rending, fleet ''and'' a magical bolt pistol shot, making them point-for-point one of the best assault units in the game.

''Aged cheese'' (This is where it started to get really ugly, although those things were still within hailing distance of manageable.)
* Chaos Lords that could out-punch anything, point-for-point.
* Vehicle upgrades that could regrow lost weapons and unimmobilize themselves on 4+, ignore crew shaken/stunned ''and'' grant +1 AV on all sides.
* Bloodletters that wore power armour and wielded power weapons. Basically an evil deep-striking space marine honour guard.
* [[Sonic Weaponry]] - anything with a MoS could exchange their guns for sonic weapons (and get access to the Slaaneshi armoury if they were characters). This lead to [[Rhino]]s, [[Dreadnought]]s, Defilers, Lords, Lieutenants, regular Marines, Chosen, Possessed, Aspiring Champions, Bikers, Havocs and Terminators all sporting Sonic Weapons. They weren't as good as they would become in later editions, but they were better than the Bolters and Autocannons they replaced (almost) for free.
* [[Defiler|That enemy crab thing]] gets introduced as both a monstrous creature and a walker, which made it pretty much invulnerable in melee against anything without Power Fists (or equivalent Strength-doubling CC weapons).
* [[Obliterator]]s. Back then they were fucking GOD-TIER - S/T5, two hit points, 2+/5++, loaded with heavy and special weapons, Fearless, deep-striking. Luckily for your opponents you could only take a single squad of up to three of them. Eventually they got FAQ'd down to T 4(5) which made them more vulnerable to 'Instant Death' but they were still ''hard'' customers and an auto-take.

''Premium cheese'' (The really retarded things that could break the game. Never mind those costed arms and legs in points, unless the opponent knew what was coming and went to great lengths to avoid them, those things were "I-win" buttons.)
* A [[Daemon Prince]] with Power Armour, Wings and the Dread Axe. Tough, moved like jump pack infantry, a beastly statline, 3+/5++ and the really cheesy part: the Dread Axe ignored invulnerable saves and wounded on a 4+ unless better. Combined to the fact the DP was a monstrous creature that ignored armor saves; and you had a tough, fast motherfucker with a truckload of attacks that hit/wounded easily, ignored '''all''' saves and could easily consolidate from unit to unit, remaining locked in CC and untargetable the whole game as it solo'ed the enemy army. (And I wish I was exaggerating...)
* Siren. A Slaaneshi minor psychic power that made a model immune to shooting and blocked line of sight. Spam generously.
* Veteran skills - ranging from 1-3 pts. per model, could be taken on any squad (only 1 skill for marked units) with higher costs for independent characters. You could load up whole squads that infiltrated, moved through cover and furiously charged.
* Chosen. Chosen were... absurdly powerful since you could make any member in the squad an aspiring champion, giving them access to the armoury. If they were marked and if you took a chosen squad in a multiple of the number of that God (Slaanesh 6, Nurgle 7, Khorne 8, Tzeentch 9), then the 10 pt. upgrade cost was free! Deathstar of 8 Khornate champions that could butcher through anything (and I mean anything) with a truckload of [[exploding dice]] S7 attacks ignoring armor saves on the charge coming out of a Land Raider to chain-rape unit after unit, anyone? Or if you prefer, 9 Tzeentchian Sorcerers [[troll|auto-succeeding on psychic tests thanks to the Mark of Tzeentch]] with psychic Heavy Bolters and Lascannons unleashing some next-level mind-bullet dakka (or alternatively turning everything into [[Chaos Spawn]]s)? Yeah, it was kinda like that back then...
* The [[Emperor's Children]] Legion list. Sirens, sirens you can't shoot and that will demolish you in CC everywhere.
* The [[Iron Warriors]] Legion list. Remember above where I said only one unit of god-like Obliterators? Well, nope! Take as much as you can! Oh, and you can exchange two Fast Attack slots on the FOC for one more Heavy Support choice! More Obliterators? MORE OBLITERATORS!

Now, you'd think that with that generous amount of cheese, GW would get the message and stop piling it on... But then the world-wide "Eye of Terror" campaign happened and Chaos got another toy to play with - the Lost and the Damned army list. Veteran Chaos players actually rejoiced when it was announced as it meant they could go back to the 2nd ed days of fielding traitor Guard, Beastmen, mutants and other dregs supported by a very small number of traitor Marines. Sadly enough, while it did allow to do that, the army list came with its own rapetrain of cheese:

* The list allowed to take units from the 3.5 CSM and Imperial Guard Codices in various FOC slots; which amounted to taking the best of all worlds.
* A cheap HQ choice (Chaos Lieutenant) that was point for point even more killy than the 3.5 Chaos Lord.
* Mutants could be taken in huge cheap hordes that could tarpit pretty much anything forever.
* Big mutants being awesome dakka blobs with 3 wounds each and great Chaos mark effects - basically, better Ogryns!
* Traitor guardsmen had better stats than loyalists, access to chaos marks, veteran skills here and there (Infiltrate ahoy!) and could wield '[[Bolter]]s'. Yes, said slapdash 'Bolters' had the same "Gets Hot!" rule as plasma weapons which meant you'd lose some traitors each time you fired but it was a very small price to pay to unleash an ungodly amount of dakka.

It's really no mystery as to why Chaos won the Eye of Terror campaign. Games Workshop, concerned with their future revenue streams from Spess Muhreen fanchildren, decided to basically reset the crunch and shift the timeline away from the event while attempting to balance (read: nerf to the ground) what it could in 4th edition.

====Honorable Mention: [[Imperial Guard]] Armored Division====
This one deserves an honorable mention, even if it quickly disappeared after the arrival of [[Necrons]] and their vehicle-killing Gauss everything and "We'll be Back!" shenanigans. Back in 3rd ed., vehicles were much less prevalent as were the ways of dealing with them. This list was [[rape|vehicles only!]]. HQ? [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Russ]] variant. Troops? Leman Russ variants. Anything else? Leman Russ variants (with the token Infantry Squad in a Chimera). Park together, point battle cannons and let fly, all guns!

== 4th Edition ==

===[[Fish of Fury]]===

It has its own page, but the basic gist involved using a semi-invulnerable troop transport as a mobile bunker for the otherwise assault-prone Fire Warriors.

The tactic died when errata changed how skimmers worked.

===[[Imperial Guard]] 500-Point Assholery===
Take minimalist choices for the bulk of your mandatory force org setup. Use the remaining points to buy a [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Fucking Russ]] and absolutely butt-fuck the balance of low-point games. The personification of being [[That Guy]].

===[[Imperial Guard]] Unit Deletion Barrage===
In the 4th edition codex, the Hunter-Killer Missile cost a mere 5 points. Because of this, an insanely common strategy was to load basically every single vehicle you fielded that could fit one with one, and with many guard armies that could be 6-7 vehicles on a 1000-point list at the time. Once loaded, the tactic was simple: find the single most threatening enemy model on the board that could be reliably penetrated with a Krak Missile, acquire line of sight, and hammer the shit out of it with all your Hunter-Killers in one go. Even with guard accuracy being what it is, the fact that you could potentially obliterate a lynchpin unit or pesky independent character meant that this was often used to secure early dominance.

When the 5th edition Tyranid codex came out, this tactic was very often used to flat-out cripple 'Nid players by taking out their [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX]]ES and [[Hive Tyrant]]s from standoff range, fucking over attempts to counter.

The tactic ended when 5th edition cranked the cost of HK Missiles to 15 points each.

== 5th Edition ==
Ah yes, the height of the Cruddex and the Wardex, the game-breakingest era of 40K

===[[Grey Knights]]===
Seriously, there's a shitload to explain here for the noobs:

* First and foremost, Psycannons - S7 AP4 rending on models that could otherwise always shoot them.
* Psybolt ammunition, leading to the creation of the much feared Psyfleman Dreadnought, pumping out 4 S8 AP4 twin-linked shots a turn.
* Kaldor Draigo outcreeding Creed and just generally being a monster (unless and until he fought Abaddon).
* EVERYTHING ARMED WITH A FUCKING FORCE WEAPON SERIOUSLY WTF - in particular, Force Halberds. Auto-take, granting all the bonuses of a nemesis force weapon and +2 Initiative, meaning your silver armoured Mary Sues struck before most Eldar units.
* Librarians with a flamer template that removed models from play - not just instant death, they took an initiative test or were removed from play doling out auto-pens to vehicles.
* The only list that could take Assassins or Inquisitors, which both got buffed into the fucking sky.
* The goddamn Nemesis Dreadknight debuted here - absolutely broken if not expensive (MC w/ 2+ save, psychic powers).
* Oh hey, they ''also'' got stormravens - on top of being immune to melta weapons and transporting an OP squad plus an OP dreadnought, the GK stormraven could also take psybolt ammo for its heavy bolters, assault cannons, etc.

People hated the Grey Knights - even longtime GK players hated them. A list that was built to destroy daemon armies (during a time when they didn't even need a special list to destroy them because they were so bad - seriously, it wasn't uncommon for GK players to fight demons without suffering so much as a wound!) got buffed into a list with units that were just flat-out better than anyone else could field. Some GK players took to making lists that used none of the staples mentioned above in order to give themselves a challenge.

===[[Blood Angels]]===
Cheesy for the [[Matt Ward|exact same reason]] as Grey Knights. Here are just a few things they received:

* Deep-striking Landraiders, because that's just great - just fucking great.
* Furioso Dreadnoughts in general. Their FA13 made them immune to Krak grenades prevalent on most infantry; coupled with Blood Talons which generated more attacks every time you caused a wound. With S6 and WS6. Fuuuuuuuuck!
* In addition to regular Furiosos, you could also take a FLYING. LIBRARIAN. DREADNOUGHT. Jesus Christ...
* Death Company Dreadnoughts were also outrageous - taking up a fucking ''Troops'' slot, they were Furiosos with a more offensive focus, their WS and FA lowered by a point in exchange for fleet, more attacks and furious charge and rage.
* Blood Angels Dreadnoughts could also take a Magna Grapple on top of their arm weapons, an S8 AP2 assault 1 weapon with a 24" range that, should it pen a vehicle or wound a monstrous creature, could then drag it closer to the dreadnought.
* Mephiston - basically, a monstrous creature with psychic powers that could take cover. And fly. And reduce his opponent's WS/I to 1.
* The Stormraven gunship debuted in this list - a flying landraider with weaker armour but immune to melta weapons that could transport a squad AND a dreadnought. Oh, and it's an assault vehicle ffs. Given how powerful in CC Blood Angels infantry is as well as just how deadly their dreadnoughts are, getting them where they needed to be in a fast skimmer that was immune to melta weapons AND was heavily armed was the cherry on top of this particular cheesecake.

===Imperial Guard===
Arguably the only army in 5th that got a stratospheric Cruddex buff, the rest getting nerfed into uselessness as [[Robin Cruddace]] hates you:

* This was the first time Guard could field vehicle squads, particularly for Basilisks and Leman Russes allowing players to cover the field in pie plates.
* Master of the Fleet, which subtracted 1 from your opponent's deep strike rolls. Particularly nasty against the above two lists which relied on deep-strike spam to get close enough to shred armies.
* Master of Ordnance, which came with its own pie plate attack.
* [[Creed|CREEEEEEEED!!!!1]]
* Hellhound squads and variants get introduced, especially the bane(wolf) of all MEQs, the banewolf.
* Veterans - particularly melta-vets. They are legend when it comes to vehicle busting.
* Valkyries and Vendettas - fucking hell, where do I even begin? Super fast chimera, identical armour and a shitload of guns; Vendettas take it to the next level with 3 TL Lascannons.
* Hydra flak tank debuts in this list outside of FW and is amazing at taking out bikers and fast skimmers with its super-long range autocannons that bypass Jink saves. Eldar tears flow unstoppably.
* Orders are introduced here as well; they weren't OP per se, but combined well with other buffs to the list for horrifying efficacy.
* Up until the release of the GK codex in 5th, Guard could still take allies with Daemon or Witch Hunters leading to the construction of the infamous Guard leaf-blower list, so named for how fast it removed your opponents models from the board. Mind, when GK came out with their Wardex, this didn't really put too much of a damper on the blower but now they had competition at least.

== 6th Edition ==

=== The [[Heldrake]] ===

The Heldrake was added to the 6th Edition [[Chaos Space Marine]] Codex as a new unique flier. The Codex itself was generally considered a weak book, and many cried that the CSMs would be left in the dust for the third edition in a row... Which would have been true, were it not for the Heldrake. As the only flier in the codex, and by far one of the most efficient ones in the entire game at the moment of release, it became ''the'' crutch for the entire codex. It could singlehandedly take on entire squads of Space Marines with impunity, because of 1) An AP 3 flamer, that everyone upgraded the Hades Autocannon to get and which could [[FATAL|fire from its cavernous rear due to RAW]], 2) the Vector Strike rule, that made it able to strike the unit it would be about to toast and 3) being a flier, few things could take it down quickly enough. Three of them could be taken in the Fast Attack slots, and you can be sure that people did just that.

With the arrival of 7th Edition, the rules for Turret-mounted weapons got changed (no more asses of fire), as did the changes to Vector Strike - Now, the flamer can only be placed wherever the mouth is pointing, and because it is a flier, it cannot just swivel around to hit an enemy like it used to. On top of that, Vector Strike only does one attack on ground enemies, compared to the old D3+1 that it hit everything with. Nowadays, the Heldrake is still a tough, fast flier, that can take out both fliers and infantry, but it isn't so overpowered that every CSM player has to have three of them in any army list.

And again with the arrival of 8th edition it's kinda back, it's pricier (like most vehicles) and while it's not that good it now has its asses of fire (and wings of fire, and legs of fire, and belly buttons of fire...) back and its Baleflamer is nasty but it now only wounds MEQs on a 3+ and is only AP -2, it's good with being able to do 12 wounds and all, but it really shines against Tau infantry gunlines. While Tau aren't as common as all of the many many many SM chapters, thanks to 7th edition many players started collecting Tau and they're still seen. When Tau are seen, as you deploy your Heldrake you can be fairly certain that mass fire warriors won't do too much damage to it but god help you if you even let a crisis see it, which is easier than you think.

===[[Chapter Master Smashfucker]]===
Smashfucker is a character build for the [[Iron Hands]] that exploits several durability-boosting relics to become nigh-unkillable for a fraction of the points cost of a named character.

== 7th Edition ==

'''[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Eldar(7E)|The Entirety of 7th Edition Eldar]]''': No really, they're completely fucking broken. The entire army can be considered unholy rotten cheese, worthy only of being boycotted against. You know they're bad when the only way to beat them is to tell your opponent, "Fuck you, I'm not playing against Eldar!" Unless of course you play [[Space Marines]] or [[Necrons]], who have access to gravspam (especially useful against Wraith) and resurrection cheese respectively. Any other post-Necron codex isn't bad either, but less certain than these first two. Which brings us to...

The [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marines(7E)#Dataslate_Formations|Skyhammer Annihilation Force]], a Space Marine dataslate formation. Two Devastator squads in drop pods that ignore Drop Pod Assault, and two Assault Squads with jump packs. The devs are Relentless on the turn they Deep Strike, and the assault squads can charge immediately.

[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marines(7E)#Gladius_Strike_Force|Gladius Strike Force]]: Space Marines' detachment-size formation. Anything in a Battle Demi-Company is Objective Secured, and any Drop Pods, Rhinos and Razorbacks taken as dedicated transport have their base cost reduced to 0 if you take two demi-companies.

The [[Screamerstar]], a combination of artifacts and psychic powers that gives a unit of Screamers a 2+ Invulnerable Save while rerolling results of 1, making them effectively invincible.

[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Cult_Mechanicus(7E)#Formations|Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation]]: Includes units from Cult Mechanicus, Skitarii, and and Imperial Knights. Everything has Canticles of the Omnissiah, all wargear is free, and nothing Gets Hot. You like winning? Use this formation and literally pay to win.

== 8th Edition ==

===Imperial Guard===
'''[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperial_Guard(8E)|The Entirely of 8th Edition Imperial Guard]]'''. Remember Eldar and Tau in 7th Edition? Yep, that's the Imperial guard right now. Between Morale immune blobs of dirt cheap Conscripts literally flooding the board and bringing down everything through sheer volume of fire (this isn't a thing anymore, try reading the FAQs...or the Codex) or deep striking Scions shoved full of Plasma or Melta as well as the best vehicles and flyers in the game. Like Eldar, Tau and Necrons in 7th, it's pretty bad when the only way to beat them (i.e. if you suck at list-building) is saying "Fuck you, I'm not playing against Imperial Guard".

Now they have a new Codex. let us see the highlights:

*Bullgryns in general. They changed the wording Instead of slab shields being 2+, slab shields give +2 to your saves now. So if you want to field Celestine who has an aura with 6+ inv, slab shields improve this to a 4++. So now they are a 2+/4++ unit. And you can take it further, with the psychic power psychic ward they get an additional +1 saves so now they are at 1+/3++ and finally with the 1CP strategem take cover they get an additional save in the enemy shooting phase so enjoy your 0+/2++ Bullgryn-Celestine deathstar of doom that requires two Smites per Bullgryn to wear down.

*HQ units can take a Relic that lets them regain spent CP on a 5+ because of course they can. Remember that the Imperial Guard are second to Chaos Daemons in cheapest Brigade Regiments in the game so if you are somehow below 12 CP you are optimising your list wrong.

*Mordians. One Mordian strategem lets you spend 1CP to give any unit exploding dice on a 6 to hit. This is ANY weapon, so have fun giving it to Mortar Teams or units stuffed full of Flamers or a Leman Russ Punisher.... They also have an Order that lets units with lasguns target characters directly, pretty much making them the only counter to the Imperial Guard. It's bad when the only counter to an army is to play that army yourself...

*Valhalla can [[Skaven |fire into melee combat without any penalty other than hitting friendly units on a 1]]. Of course you can ignore this by just bringing Flamers....Or you could just issue the order to a heavy Weapons team and use your Conscripts like Skavenslaves....[[Commander Kubrik Chenkov |Oh and those Conscript blobs that die to that? You can spend 2CP to bring them right back]]...In an army where if you are guaranteed a Brigade detachment for most games...

*Vostroya has an order that allows them to shoot any weapon in close combat. They this includes Grenades, Flamers, you heavy Weapons teams...Oh and they can spend CP to re-roll 1's in the shooting phase meaning that all Plasma Weapons are save to supercharge given that the Imperial Guard are always swimming in CP.

No doubt [[Robin Cruddace|He]] had a part in this.

===Space Marines===

====[[Ultramarines]]====
Have all of the best Marine toys plus a number of game breaking Chapter abilities. First all Ultramarine units can literally walk out of Close Combat and keep firing, making assault orientated armies useless against them. Second they can regain any spent Command Points on a 5+ so really can spam those Re-Rolls. Third they can even spend CP to re-roll 1's. This is before we even get into what Rowboat can do to your army...

=====[[Roboute Guilliman]]=====
Any keyword '''Imperium''' unit within 12" adds 1 to advances and charges, re-roll hits of 1 and can re-roll failed morale tests, meaning you can spam the '''fuck''' out of stupidly cheap [[Imperial Guard]] Plasma.

'''Ultramarines''' units within 6" re-rolls of failed hit and wound rolls as well. Guilliman himself is affected by his own aura, allowing him to add 1 to charges and advances as well as re roll failed hits and wounds. If all that wasn't enough if your army is battleforged you get 3 extra CP.). [[That Guy |It's not unusual to see him sat in the middle of a pile of Assault Cannon Razorbacks with Lascannon Squads inside, and Stormravens tossed in for good measure. Or sat behind a huge wall of Hellblasters]].

Guilliman himself is a beast in close combat, with a 3++, 9 Wounds and 6 S6, AP-4 3 Damage attacks with 6's adding d3 Mortal Wounds. He also has a Power Fist with no to hit penalty because of course he fucking does. He also revives on a 4+ with 1d6 Wounds back so good luck killing this fucker for good unless you literally send hordes of Fire Dragons or Scions after him. And even then he's just going to get back up and murder whatever downed him nest turn.

So for all of this he must be expensive, right? Even Wraithknights must be cheap compared to-[[What |what he only costs 385 points?!]]Yeah. So, barring restrictions, it's possible to take him in [[Fail |500 point games...]] There are countless batreps out there of him taking on entire armies alone and just crushing them.

Basically Ultramarines, and Imperium by extension, shoot better than any other army, fight better than any other army and are all but immune to morale thanks to this unbalanced cunt.

====[[Raven Guard]]====
Anything shooting at the Raven Guard are shooting at -1 to hit if outside of 12", and they can spend CP to allow infantry to Deep Strike just before Turn 1. This pretty much guarantees that you will always be going first with your Aggressors dropping in right next to an opponent without having counted as moved.

Oh and thier Warlords are immune to Overwatch so [[MURDERWINGS]] is back, and it's cheaper to do than just taking Shrike.

====[[Chapter Master Smashfucker]]====
Smashfucker is back and broken as ever. Take an Iron Hands Captain on Bike with a Thunder Hammer and Shield Eternal and the Iron Resovle Warlord trait. The result is a stupidly mobile Beatstick with 7 Wounds and a 3+/3++/6+++/6++++. Plus unlike Girlyman, an Apothecary can heal him.

====Auspex Scan====
A 2CP Stratagem that lets an Infantry unit shoot at anything that Deeps Strikes within 12". So what's wrong with that? Unlike similar abilities from other Codexes which all say <s>they require line of sight</s> (it still says as if it were the shooting phase, so LoS is needed), or need specific HQ unit nearby, this one does not. It also means any Aggressors that can use this will be shooting twice, <s>without needing line of sight</s>...Now you see that Scions Squad. Now you don't.

====Custom [[Land Raider]]====
[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/11/18/get-ready-chapter-approved-nov-18gw-homepage-post-3/ Chapter Approved is allowing people to create Custom Land Raiders]. Additional Sponsons means you can end up with something ridiculous like 8 Lascannons total. [[Matt Ward |Ultramarines will also be able to combine with with the usual Guilliman bullshit]] while Raven Guard make theirs even more difficult to kill. Then of course you can have an [[Dakka|Imperial Fists Land Raider spamming Hurricane Bolters while also ignoring all cover]]. So the supplement that was supposed to be re-balancing the game has resulted in making things even worse. However, custom Land Raiders are only allowed in Open Play, so by definition any kind of balance has long since flown out the window anyhow.

===Chaos Daemons===

[[Chaos Daemons]] Basically the only army in the game that can fill multiple Brigade Detachments thanks to Brimstone Horrors, plus they can cherry pick the Imperial Guard's best units via the Renegades faction, and the Chaos Space Marines best toys and charcters due to the Chaos keyword. Combining the Changeling with Alpha Legion Obliterators for example...Have fun...

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]] [[Category:Gamebreaking]] [[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics]]

List of 40K Cheese

2018-01-14T02:12:15Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* Imperial Guard */

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The history of Warhammer 40,000 is a history of violence. No matter what people will tell you, the game has always had excessive problems with imbalance, min-maxing and blatant bullshit - From the days of [[Rogue Trader]] to modern day 8th Edition, the game has fostered many [[Cheese|cheesy]] units, army lists or deathstars, who have changed the meta and repeatably broken the game - Not through players maximizing their gear or people abusing unclear rules, but by simply being awfully balanced and written.

Fortunately, many of these, if not all of them, are the very concept of "The flame that burn twice as bright dies twice as fast", as they all got their reckoning at some point or another. Being either nerfed to the ground, changed to the core or completely removed from the game, this allowed the next-cheesy thing to step in with a silly hat and a way too small point-tax.

But life will go on. New codices will be under/overpowered and grind the others to dirt, the meta will change to deal with what-ever is the most powerful at the moment, and [[Warseer|the forums will]] be white-hot with [[Rage|rage]] over the unbalance present, but life will go on, and as soon as you accept this eternal struggle for our fun and wallets, you will be at peace.

As time goes on, this list will grow, to encompass more and more cheese as it gets released. If you feel that a unit, model or deathstar needs mentioning in the list, feel free to add to it with your own experiences and knowledge.

== 2nd Edition ==
'''Polymorphine:''' Assassins (and anyone else with the access to the wargear) used to be able to magically appear in the middle of a squad via Polymorphine (killing a troop when you exploded out of his body, leading to such shenanigans as [[Arseplomancer|a Guardsman hiding a dude in power armor on a bike]]). Then Jump Pack over and throw a Vortex Grenade and killing anything on a 2+.

== 3rd Edition ==
Eldar Exarchs with the unique ability to "Build your own Exarch." You could have a bright lance that shot twice with warp spider pack that allowed you to jump all over the field, then add a Powerfield that gave you a 2+ invulnerable save). This was just one of many cheese custom Exarchs that were possible; however, they were also the only thing keeping Eldar on the table - those customizable Exarchs, though cheesy, were expensive in an army with nerfed and expensive units and weapons. Eldar were largely bottom-tier in 3rd edition.

===3.5 Edition===
In general, 3.5 had 3 specifically cheesy armies, two of which belonged to Chaos.

====Necrons====
Necrons were introduced as a stand-alone codex army for the first time in 3.5. Their release was met with immediate hostility once neckbeards read their codex; here's why:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hod0WtYE4SA|here is a video of their grand debut]
* Warscythes in abundance that ignored all saves and rolled 2D6 for pens .
* We'll Be Back made infantry immune to death as they basically had a 4++ that could be rolled after they failed their 3+ armour save and after your opponent was done shooting.
**Compounding that, the Resurrection Orb that ignored any of the restrictions previously applied to the WBB rule like instant death or bypassing armour saves in CC.
* Veil of Darkness which allowed you to Deepstrike hop a unit all over the board.
* Basic infantry guns that could kill a landraider with a lucky shot.
* The fucking Monolith - immune to anything that wasn't S9/10 and/or ordinance, could deepstrike and never suffer a mishap, fixed your broken troops and could deepstrike in any from reserves.
* Necron Pariahs - they lowered opponent's troops Ld to 7 unless better, made psykers piss themselves unless fearless AND had warscythes and gauss blasters, the latter of which were basically heavy bolters that could kill vehicles too.
* Wraiths had the only 3++ save in the game and were proper Necrons unlike today, meaning they too had WBB.
* C'tan being IMPOSSIBLY GOOD! The Nightbringer could use a Bloodthirster as a speedbump while the Deceiver allowed you to reposition your army after deployment.

Necrons earned the title "n00bcrons" for a reason; though they didn't have the sheer quantity of cheese that Chaos had at the time, what cheese they had was prevalent throughout their army and was way too good for the points paid.

====Chaos====
Going into third edition, Chaos was... unremarkable. Bland. Decent crunch-wise, but without the wealth of options to field Daemons/Cultists/Mutants/Fallen/Renegades/... they had in 2e. Pete Haines listened to the players (yes, GW did that back then) and Chapter Approved articles in White Dwarf did provide those variants over the years. Eventually GW decide to bring out a 3.5 Codex updated with all those options and a couple extra added on top... and that's where it went horribly wrong. A wealth of options meant a wealth of possible combinations and some were just... too much. Though not the same level of cheese as Necrons quality-wise Chaos Space Marines got a massive truckload of it, that went from 'strong but expensive' to 'outrageous'. Here's a smattering of what CSM had in 3.5:

''Young cheese'' (things that were a-okay on their own but could combine into ungodly monstrosities.)
* Khornate chain axes: Being one of the only things that could outright modify armour saves, reducing them to 4+ unless worse, across the board - that's right, your terminator's save is no better than carapace armour against them. Ork Choppas did the same on an army-wide level for free back then.
* Unit Champions could take Psy Powers and even Daemon Weapons. Strong, but with only 1 HP it could turn very ugly very quickly both ways.
* [[Possessed]] were expensive but they could ''buy'' their powers instead of rolling for them, which included rending, fleet ''and'' a magical bolt pistol shot, making them point-for-point one of the best assault units in the game.

''Aged cheese'' (This is where it started to get really ugly, although those things were still within hailing distance of manageable.)
* Chaos Lords that could out-punch anything, point-for-point.
* Vehicle upgrades that could regrow lost weapons and unimmobilize themselves on 4+, ignore crew shaken/stunned ''and'' grant +1 AV on all sides.
* Bloodletters that wore power armour and wielded power weapons. Basically an evil deep-striking space marine honour guard.
* [[Sonic Weaponry]] - anything with a MoS could exchange their guns for sonic weapons (and get access to the Slaaneshi armoury if they were characters). This lead to [[Rhino]]s, [[Dreadnought]]s, Defilers, Lords, Lieutenants, regular Marines, Chosen, Possessed, Aspiring Champions, Bikers, Havocs and Terminators all sporting Sonic Weapons. They weren't as good as they would become in later editions, but they were better than the Bolters and Autocannons they replaced (almost) for free.
* [[Defiler|That enemy crab thing]] gets introduced as both a monstrous creature and a walker, which made it pretty much invulnerable in melee against anything without Power Fists (or equivalent Strength-doubling CC weapons).
* [[Obliterator]]s. Back then they were fucking GOD-TIER - S/T5, two hit points, 2+/5++, loaded with heavy and special weapons, Fearless, deep-striking. Luckily for your opponents you could only take a single squad of up to three of them. Eventually they got FAQ'd down to T 4(5) which made them more vulnerable to 'Instant Death' but they were still ''hard'' customers and an auto-take.

''Premium cheese'' (The really retarded things that could break the game. Never mind those costed arms and legs in points, unless the opponent knew what was coming and went to great lengths to avoid them, those things were "I-win" buttons.)
* A [[Daemon Prince]] with Power Armour, Wings and the Dread Axe. Tough, moved like jump pack infantry, a beastly statline, 3+/5++ and the really cheesy part: the Dread Axe ignored invulnerable saves and wounded on a 4+ unless better. Combined to the fact the DP was a monstrous creature that ignored armor saves; and you had a tough, fast motherfucker with a truckload of attacks that hit/wounded easily, ignored '''all''' saves and could easily consolidate from unit to unit, remaining locked in CC and untargetable the whole game as it solo'ed the enemy army. (And I wish I was exaggerating...)
* Siren. A Slaaneshi minor psychic power that made a model immune to shooting and blocked line of sight. Spam generously.
* Veteran skills - ranging from 1-3 pts. per model, could be taken on any squad (only 1 skill for marked units) with higher costs for independent characters. You could load up whole squads that infiltrated, moved through cover and furiously charged.
* Chosen. Chosen were... absurdly powerful since you could make any member in the squad an aspiring champion, giving them access to the armoury. If they were marked and if you took a chosen squad in a multiple of the number of that God (Slaanesh 6, Nurgle 7, Khorne 8, Tzeentch 9), then the 10 pt. upgrade cost was free! Deathstar of 8 Khornate champions that could butcher through anything (and I mean anything) with a truckload of [[exploding dice]] S7 attacks ignoring armor saves on the charge coming out of a Land Raider to chain-rape unit after unit, anyone? Or if you prefer, 9 Tzeentchian Sorcerers [[troll|auto-succeeding on psychic tests thanks to the Mark of Tzeentch]] with psychic Heavy Bolters and Lascannons unleashing some next-level mind-bullet dakka (or alternatively turning everything into [[Chaos Spawn]]s)? Yeah, it was kinda like that back then...
* The [[Emperor's Children]] Legion list. Sirens, sirens you can't shoot and that will demolish you in CC everywhere.
* The [[Iron Warriors]] Legion list. Remember above where I said only one unit of god-like Obliterators? Well, nope! Take as much as you can! Oh, and you can exchange two Fast Attack slots on the FOC for one more Heavy Support choice! More Obliterators? MORE OBLITERATORS!

Now, you'd think that with that generous amount of cheese, GW would get the message and stop piling it on... But then the world-wide "Eye of Terror" campaign happened and Chaos got another toy to play with - the Lost and the Damned army list. Veteran Chaos players actually rejoiced when it was announced as it meant they could go back to the 2nd ed days of fielding traitor Guard, Beastmen, mutants and other dregs supported by a very small number of traitor Marines. Sadly enough, while it did allow to do that, the army list came with its own rapetrain of cheese:

* The list allowed to take units from the 3.5 CSM and Imperial Guard Codices in various FOC slots; which amounted to taking the best of all worlds.
* A cheap HQ choice (Chaos Lieutenant) that was point for point even more killy than the 3.5 Chaos Lord.
* Mutants could be taken in huge cheap hordes that could tarpit pretty much anything forever.
* Big mutants being awesome dakka blobs with 3 wounds each and great Chaos mark effects - basically, better Ogryns!
* Traitor guardsmen had better stats than loyalists, access to chaos marks, veteran skills here and there (Infiltrate ahoy!) and could wield '[[Bolter]]s'. Yes, said slapdash 'Bolters' had the same "Gets Hot!" rule as plasma weapons which meant you'd lose some traitors each time you fired but it was a very small price to pay to unleash an ungodly amount of dakka.

It's really no mystery as to why Chaos won the Eye of Terror campaign. Games Workshop, concerned with their future revenue streams from Spess Muhreen fanchildren, decided to basically reset the crunch and shift the timeline away from the event while attempting to balance (read: nerf to the ground) what it could in 4th edition.

====Honorable Mention: [[Imperial Guard]] Armored Division====
This one deserves an honorable mention, even if it quickly disappeared after the arrival of [[Necrons]] and their vehicle-killing Gauss everything and "We'll be Back!" shenanigans. Back in 3rd ed., vehicles were much less prevalent as were the ways of dealing with them. This list was [[rape|vehicles only!]]. HQ? [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Russ]] variant. Troops? Leman Russ variants. Anything else? Leman Russ variants (with the token Infantry Squad in a Chimera). Park together, point battle cannons and let fly, all guns!

== 4th Edition ==

===[[Fish of Fury]]===

It has its own page, but the basic gist involved using a semi-invulnerable troop transport as a mobile bunker for the otherwise assault-prone Fire Warriors.

The tactic died when errata changed how skimmers worked.

===[[Imperial Guard]] 500-Point Assholery===
Take minimalist choices for the bulk of your mandatory force org setup. Use the remaining points to buy a [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Fucking Russ]] and absolutely butt-fuck the balance of low-point games. The personification of being [[That Guy]].

===[[Imperial Guard]] Unit Deletion Barrage===
In the 4th edition codex, the Hunter-Killer Missile cost a mere 5 points. Because of this, an insanely common strategy was to load basically every single vehicle you fielded that could fit one with one, and with many guard armies that could be 6-7 vehicles on a 1000-point list at the time. Once loaded, the tactic was simple: find the single most threatening enemy model on the board that could be reliably penetrated with a Krak Missile, acquire line of sight, and hammer the shit out of it with all your Hunter-Killers in one go. Even with guard accuracy being what it is, the fact that you could potentially obliterate a lynchpin unit or pesky independent character meant that this was often used to secure early dominance.

When the 5th edition Tyranid codex came out, this tactic was very often used to flat-out cripple 'Nid players by taking out their [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX]]ES and [[Hive Tyrant]]s from standoff range, fucking over attempts to counter.

The tactic ended when 5th edition cranked the cost of HK Missiles to 15 points each.

== 5th Edition ==
Ah yes, the height of the Cruddex and the Wardex, the game-breakingest era of 40K

===[[Grey Knights]]===
Seriously, there's a shitload to explain here for the noobs:

* First and foremost, Psycannons - S7 AP4 rending on models that could otherwise always shoot them.
* Psybolt ammunition, leading to the creation of the much feared Psyfleman Dreadnought, pumping out 4 S8 AP4 twin-linked shots a turn.
* Kaldor Draigo outcreeding Creed and just generally being a monster (unless and until he fought Abaddon).
* EVERYTHING ARMED WITH A FUCKING FORCE WEAPON SERIOUSLY WTF - in particular, Force Halberds. Auto-take, granting all the bonuses of a nemesis force weapon and +2 Initiative, meaning your silver armoured Mary Sues struck before most Eldar units.
* Librarians with a flamer template that removed models from play - not just instant death, they took an initiative test or were removed from play doling out auto-pens to vehicles.
* The only list that could take Assassins or Inquisitors, which both got buffed into the fucking sky.
* The goddamn Nemesis Dreadknight debuted here - absolutely broken if not expensive (MC w/ 2+ save, psychic powers).
* Oh hey, they ''also'' got stormravens - on top of being immune to melta weapons and transporting an OP squad plus an OP dreadnought, the GK stormraven could also take psybolt ammo for its heavy bolters, assault cannons, etc.

People hated the Grey Knights - even longtime GK players hated them. A list that was built to destroy daemon armies (during a time when they didn't even need a special list to destroy them because they were so bad - seriously, it wasn't uncommon for GK players to fight demons without suffering so much as a wound!) got buffed into a list with units that were just flat-out better than anyone else could field. Some GK players took to making lists that used none of the staples mentioned above in order to give themselves a challenge.

===[[Blood Angels]]===
Cheesy for the [[Matt Ward|exact same reason]] as Grey Knights. Here are just a few things they received:

* Deep-striking Landraiders, because that's just great - just fucking great.
* Furioso Dreadnoughts in general. Their FA13 made them immune to Krak grenades prevalent on most infantry; coupled with Blood Talons which generated more attacks every time you caused a wound. With S6 and WS6. Fuuuuuuuuck!
* In addition to regular Furiosos, you could also take a FLYING. LIBRARIAN. DREADNOUGHT. Jesus Christ...
* Death Company Dreadnoughts were also outrageous - taking up a fucking ''Troops'' slot, they were Furiosos with a more offensive focus, their WS and FA lowered by a point in exchange for fleet, more attacks and furious charge and rage.
* Blood Angels Dreadnoughts could also take a Magna Grapple on top of their arm weapons, an S8 AP2 assault 1 weapon with a 24" range that, should it pen a vehicle or wound a monstrous creature, could then drag it closer to the dreadnought.
* Mephiston - basically, a monstrous creature with psychic powers that could take cover. And fly. And reduce his opponent's WS/I to 1.
* The Stormraven gunship debuted in this list - a flying landraider with weaker armour but immune to melta weapons that could transport a squad AND a dreadnought. Oh, and it's an assault vehicle ffs. Given how powerful in CC Blood Angels infantry is as well as just how deadly their dreadnoughts are, getting them where they needed to be in a fast skimmer that was immune to melta weapons AND was heavily armed was the cherry on top of this particular cheesecake.

===Imperial Guard===
Arguably the only army in 5th that got a stratospheric Cruddex buff, the rest getting nerfed into uselessness as [[Robin Cruddace]] hates you:

* This was the first time Guard could field vehicle squads, particularly for Basilisks and Leman Russes allowing players to cover the field in pie plates.
* Master of the Fleet, which subtracted 1 from your opponent's deep strike rolls. Particularly nasty against the above two lists which relied on deep-strike spam to get close enough to shred armies.
* Master of Ordnance, which came with its own pie plate attack.
* [[Creed|CREEEEEEEED!!!!1]]
* Hellhound squads and variants get introduced, especially the bane(wolf) of all MEQs, the banewolf.
* Veterans - particularly melta-vets. They are legend when it comes to vehicle busting.
* Valkyries and Vendettas - fucking hell, where do I even begin? Super fast chimera, identical armour and a shitload of guns; Vendettas take it to the next level with 3 TL Lascannons.
* Hydra flak tank debuts in this list outside of FW and is amazing at taking out bikers and fast skimmers with its super-long range autocannons that bypass Jink saves. Eldar tears flow unstoppably.
* Orders are introduced here as well; they weren't OP per se, but combined well with other buffs to the list for horrifying efficacy.
* Up until the release of the GK codex in 5th, Guard could still take allies with Daemon or Witch Hunters leading to the construction of the infamous Guard leaf-blower list, so named for how fast it removed your opponents models from the board. Mind, when GK came out with their Wardex, this didn't really put too much of a damper on the blower but now they had competition at least.

== 6th Edition ==

=== The [[Heldrake]] ===

The Heldrake was added to the 6th Edition [[Chaos Space Marine]] Codex as a new unique flier. The Codex itself was generally considered a weak book, and many cried that the CSMs would be left in the dust for the third edition in a row... Which would have been true, were it not for the Heldrake. As the only flier in the codex, and by far one of the most efficient ones in the entire game at the moment of release, it became ''the'' crutch for the entire codex. It could singlehandedly take on entire squads of Space Marines with impunity, because of 1) An AP 3 flamer, that everyone upgraded the Hades Autocannon to get and which could [[FATAL|fire from its cavernous rear due to RAW]], 2) the Vector Strike rule, that made it able to strike the unit it would be about to toast and 3) being a flier, few things could take it down quickly enough. Three of them could be taken in the Fast Attack slots, and you can be sure that people did just that.

With the arrival of 7th Edition, the rules for Turret-mounted weapons got changed (no more asses of fire), as did the changes to Vector Strike - Now, the flamer can only be placed wherever the mouth is pointing, and because it is a flier, it cannot just swivel around to hit an enemy like it used to. On top of that, Vector Strike only does one attack on ground enemies, compared to the old D3+1 that it hit everything with. Nowadays, the Heldrake is still a tough, fast flier, that can take out both fliers and infantry, but it isn't so overpowered that every CSM player has to have three of them in any army list.

And again with the arrival of 8th edition it's kinda back, it's pricier (like most vehicles) and while it's not that good it now has its asses of fire (and wings of fire, and legs of fire, and belly buttons of fire...) back and its Baleflamer is nasty but it now only wounds MEQs on a 3+ and is only AP -2, it's good with being able to do 12 wounds and all, but it really shines against Tau infantry gunlines. While Tau aren't as common as all of the many many many SM chapters, thanks to 7th edition many players started collecting Tau and they're still seen. When Tau are seen, as you deploy your Heldrake you can be fairly certain that mass fire warriors won't do too much damage to it but god help you if you even let a crisis see it, which is easier than you think.

===[[Chapter Master Smashfucker]]===
Smashfucker is a character build for the [[Iron Hands]] that exploits several durability-boosting relics to become nigh-unkillable for a fraction of the points cost of a named character.

== 7th Edition ==

'''[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Eldar(7E)|The Entirety of 7th Edition Eldar]]''': No really, they're completely fucking broken. The entire army can be considered unholy rotten cheese, worthy only of being boycotted against. You know they're bad when the only way to beat them is to tell your opponent, "Fuck you, I'm not playing against Eldar!" Unless of course you play [[Space Marines]] or [[Necrons]], who have access to gravspam (especially useful against Wraith) and resurrection cheese respectively. Any other post-Necron codex isn't bad either, but less certain than these first two. Which brings us to...

The [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marines(7E)#Dataslate_Formations|Skyhammer Annihilation Force]], a Space Marine dataslate formation. Two Devastator squads in drop pods that ignore Drop Pod Assault, and two Assault Squads with jump packs. The devs are Relentless on the turn they Deep Strike, and the assault squads can charge immediately.

[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marines(7E)#Gladius_Strike_Force|Gladius Strike Force]]: Space Marines' detachment-size formation. Anything in a Battle Demi-Company is Objective Secured, and any Drop Pods, Rhinos and Razorbacks taken as dedicated transport have their base cost reduced to 0 if you take two demi-companies.

The [[Screamerstar]], a combination of artifacts and psychic powers that gives a unit of Screamers a 2+ Invulnerable Save while rerolling results of 1, making them effectively invincible.

[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Cult_Mechanicus(7E)#Formations|Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation]]: Includes units from Cult Mechanicus, Skitarii, and and Imperial Knights. Everything has Canticles of the Omnissiah, all wargear is free, and nothing Gets Hot. You like winning? Use this formation and literally pay to win.

== 8th Edition ==

===Imperial Guard===
'''[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperial_Guard(8E)|The Entirely of 8th Edition Imperial Guard]]'''. Remember Eldar and Tau in 7th Edition? Yep, that's the Imperial guard right now. Between Morale immune blobs of dirt cheap Conscripts literally flooding the board and bringing down everything through sheer volume of fire (this isn't a thing anymore, try reading the FAQs...or the Codex) or deep striking Scions shoved full of Plasma or Melta as well as the best vehicles and flyers in the game. Like Eldar, Tau and Necrons in 7th, it's pretty bad when the only way to beat them is saying "Fuck you, I'm not playing against Imperial Guard".

Now they have a new Codex. let us see the highlights:

*Bullgryns in general. They changed the wording Instead of slab shields being 2+, slab shields give +2 to your saves now. So if you want to field Celestine who has an aura with 6+ inv, slab shields improve this to a 4++. So now they are a 2+/4++ unit. And you can take it further, with the psychic power psychic ward they get an additional +1 saves so now they are at 1+/3++ and finally with the 1CP strategem take cover they get an additional save in the enemy shooting phase so enjoy your 0+/2++ Bullgryn-Celestine deathstar of doom that requires two Smites per Bullgryn to wear down.

*HQ units can take a Relic that lets them regain spent CP on a 5+ because of course they can. Remember that the Imperial Guard are second to Chaos Daemons in cheapest Brigade Regiments in the game so if you are somehow below 12 CP you are optimising your list wrong.

*Mordians. One Mordian strategem lets you spend 1CP to give any unit exploding dice on a 6 to hit. This is ANY weapon, so have fun giving it to Mortar Teams or units stuffed full of Flamers or a Leman Russ Punisher.... They also have an Order that lets units with lasguns target characters directly, pretty much making them the only counter to the Imperial Guard. It's bad when the only counter to an army is to play that army yourself...

*Valhalla can [[Skaven |fire into melee combat without any penalty other than hitting friendly units on a 1]]. Of course you can ignore this by just bringing Flamers....Or you could just issue the order to a heavy Weapons team and use your Conscripts like Skavenslaves....[[Commander Kubrik Chenkov |Oh and those Conscript blobs that die to that? You can spend 2CP to bring them right back]]...In an army where if you are guaranteed a Brigade detachment for most games...

*Vostroya has an order that allows them to shoot any weapon in close combat. They this includes Grenades, Flamers, you heavy Weapons teams...Oh and they can spend CP to re-roll 1's in the shooting phase meaning that all Plasma Weapons are save to supercharge given that the Imperial Guard are always swimming in CP.

No doubt [[Robin Cruddace|He]] had a part in this.

===Space Marines===

====[[Ultramarines]]====
Have all of the best Marine toys plus a number of game breaking Chapter abilities. First all Ultramarine units can literally walk out of Close Combat and keep firing, making assault orientated armies useless against them. Second they can regain any spent Command Points on a 5+ so really can spam those Re-Rolls. Third they can even spend CP to re-roll 1's. This is before we even get into what Rowboat can do to your army...

=====[[Roboute Guilliman]]=====
Any keyword '''Imperium''' unit within 12" adds 1 to advances and charges, re-roll hits of 1 and can re-roll failed morale tests, meaning you can spam the '''fuck''' out of stupidly cheap [[Imperial Guard]] Plasma.

'''Ultramarines''' units within 6" re-rolls of failed hit and wound rolls as well. Guilliman himself is affected by his own aura, allowing him to add 1 to charges and advances as well as re roll failed hits and wounds. If all that wasn't enough if your army is battleforged you get 3 extra CP.). [[That Guy |It's not unusual to see him sat in the middle of a pile of Assault Cannon Razorbacks with Lascannon Squads inside, and Stormravens tossed in for good measure. Or sat behind a huge wall of Hellblasters]].

Guilliman himself is a beast in close combat, with a 3++, 9 Wounds and 6 S6, AP-4 3 Damage attacks with 6's adding d3 Mortal Wounds. He also has a Power Fist with no to hit penalty because of course he fucking does. He also revives on a 4+ with 1d6 Wounds back so good luck killing this fucker for good unless you literally send hordes of Fire Dragons or Scions after him. And even then he's just going to get back up and murder whatever downed him nest turn.

So for all of this he must be expensive, right? Even Wraithknights must be cheap compared to-[[What |what he only costs 385 points?!]]Yeah. So, barring restrictions, it's possible to take him in [[Fail |500 point games...]] There are countless batreps out there of him taking on entire armies alone and just crushing them.

Basically Ultramarines, and Imperium by extension, shoot better than any other army, fight better than any other army and are all but immune to morale thanks to this unbalanced cunt.

====[[Raven Guard]]====
Anything shooting at the Raven Guard are shooting at -1 to hit if outside of 12", and they can spend CP to allow infantry to Deep Strike just before Turn 1. This pretty much guarantees that you will always be going first with your Aggressors dropping in right next to an opponent without having counted as moved.

Oh and thier Warlords are immune to Overwatch so [[MURDERWINGS]] is back, and it's cheaper to do than just taking Shrike.

====[[Chapter Master Smashfucker]]====
Smashfucker is back and broken as ever. Take an Iron Hands Captain on Bike with a Thunder Hammer and Shield Eternal and the Iron Resovle Warlord trait. The result is a stupidly mobile Beatstick with 7 Wounds and a 3+/3++/6+++/6++++. Plus unlike Girlyman, an Apothecary can heal him.

====Auspex Scan====
A 2CP Stratagem that lets an Infantry unit shoot at anything that Deeps Strikes within 12". So what's wrong with that? Unlike similar abilities from other Codexes which all say <s>they require line of sight</s> (it still says as if it were the shooting phase, so LoS is needed), or need specific HQ unit nearby, this one does not. It also means any Aggressors that can use this will be shooting twice, <s>without needing line of sight</s>...Now you see that Scions Squad. Now you don't.

====Custom [[Land Raider]]====
[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/11/18/get-ready-chapter-approved-nov-18gw-homepage-post-3/ Chapter Approved is allowing people to create Custom Land Raiders]. Additional Sponsons means you can end up with something ridiculous like 8 Lascannons total. [[Matt Ward |Ultramarines will also be able to combine with with the usual Guilliman bullshit]] while Raven Guard make theirs even more difficult to kill. Then of course you can have an [[Dakka|Imperial Fists Land Raider spamming Hurricane Bolters while also ignoring all cover]]. So the supplement that was supposed to be re-balancing the game has resulted in making things even worse. However, custom Land Raiders are only allowed in Open Play, so by definition any kind of balance has long since flown out the window anyhow.

===Chaos Daemons===

[[Chaos Daemons]] Basically the only army in the game that can fill multiple Brigade Detachments thanks to Brimstone Horrors, plus they can cherry pick the Imperial Guard's best units via the Renegades faction, and the Chaos Space Marines best toys and charcters due to the Chaos keyword. Combining the Changeling with Alpha Legion Obliterators for example...Have fun...

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]] [[Category:Gamebreaking]] [[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics]]

List of 40K Cheese

2018-01-14T02:11:28Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* Imperial Guard */

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The history of Warhammer 40,000 is a history of violence. No matter what people will tell you, the game has always had excessive problems with imbalance, min-maxing and blatant bullshit - From the days of [[Rogue Trader]] to modern day 8th Edition, the game has fostered many [[Cheese|cheesy]] units, army lists or deathstars, who have changed the meta and repeatably broken the game - Not through players maximizing their gear or people abusing unclear rules, but by simply being awfully balanced and written.

Fortunately, many of these, if not all of them, are the very concept of "The flame that burn twice as bright dies twice as fast", as they all got their reckoning at some point or another. Being either nerfed to the ground, changed to the core or completely removed from the game, this allowed the next-cheesy thing to step in with a silly hat and a way too small point-tax.

But life will go on. New codices will be under/overpowered and grind the others to dirt, the meta will change to deal with what-ever is the most powerful at the moment, and [[Warseer|the forums will]] be white-hot with [[Rage|rage]] over the unbalance present, but life will go on, and as soon as you accept this eternal struggle for our fun and wallets, you will be at peace.

As time goes on, this list will grow, to encompass more and more cheese as it gets released. If you feel that a unit, model or deathstar needs mentioning in the list, feel free to add to it with your own experiences and knowledge.

== 2nd Edition ==
'''Polymorphine:''' Assassins (and anyone else with the access to the wargear) used to be able to magically appear in the middle of a squad via Polymorphine (killing a troop when you exploded out of his body, leading to such shenanigans as [[Arseplomancer|a Guardsman hiding a dude in power armor on a bike]]). Then Jump Pack over and throw a Vortex Grenade and killing anything on a 2+.

== 3rd Edition ==
Eldar Exarchs with the unique ability to "Build your own Exarch." You could have a bright lance that shot twice with warp spider pack that allowed you to jump all over the field, then add a Powerfield that gave you a 2+ invulnerable save). This was just one of many cheese custom Exarchs that were possible; however, they were also the only thing keeping Eldar on the table - those customizable Exarchs, though cheesy, were expensive in an army with nerfed and expensive units and weapons. Eldar were largely bottom-tier in 3rd edition.

===3.5 Edition===
In general, 3.5 had 3 specifically cheesy armies, two of which belonged to Chaos.

====Necrons====
Necrons were introduced as a stand-alone codex army for the first time in 3.5. Their release was met with immediate hostility once neckbeards read their codex; here's why:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hod0WtYE4SA|here is a video of their grand debut]
* Warscythes in abundance that ignored all saves and rolled 2D6 for pens .
* We'll Be Back made infantry immune to death as they basically had a 4++ that could be rolled after they failed their 3+ armour save and after your opponent was done shooting.
**Compounding that, the Resurrection Orb that ignored any of the restrictions previously applied to the WBB rule like instant death or bypassing armour saves in CC.
* Veil of Darkness which allowed you to Deepstrike hop a unit all over the board.
* Basic infantry guns that could kill a landraider with a lucky shot.
* The fucking Monolith - immune to anything that wasn't S9/10 and/or ordinance, could deepstrike and never suffer a mishap, fixed your broken troops and could deepstrike in any from reserves.
* Necron Pariahs - they lowered opponent's troops Ld to 7 unless better, made psykers piss themselves unless fearless AND had warscythes and gauss blasters, the latter of which were basically heavy bolters that could kill vehicles too.
* Wraiths had the only 3++ save in the game and were proper Necrons unlike today, meaning they too had WBB.
* C'tan being IMPOSSIBLY GOOD! The Nightbringer could use a Bloodthirster as a speedbump while the Deceiver allowed you to reposition your army after deployment.

Necrons earned the title "n00bcrons" for a reason; though they didn't have the sheer quantity of cheese that Chaos had at the time, what cheese they had was prevalent throughout their army and was way too good for the points paid.

====Chaos====
Going into third edition, Chaos was... unremarkable. Bland. Decent crunch-wise, but without the wealth of options to field Daemons/Cultists/Mutants/Fallen/Renegades/... they had in 2e. Pete Haines listened to the players (yes, GW did that back then) and Chapter Approved articles in White Dwarf did provide those variants over the years. Eventually GW decide to bring out a 3.5 Codex updated with all those options and a couple extra added on top... and that's where it went horribly wrong. A wealth of options meant a wealth of possible combinations and some were just... too much. Though not the same level of cheese as Necrons quality-wise Chaos Space Marines got a massive truckload of it, that went from 'strong but expensive' to 'outrageous'. Here's a smattering of what CSM had in 3.5:

''Young cheese'' (things that were a-okay on their own but could combine into ungodly monstrosities.)
* Khornate chain axes: Being one of the only things that could outright modify armour saves, reducing them to 4+ unless worse, across the board - that's right, your terminator's save is no better than carapace armour against them. Ork Choppas did the same on an army-wide level for free back then.
* Unit Champions could take Psy Powers and even Daemon Weapons. Strong, but with only 1 HP it could turn very ugly very quickly both ways.
* [[Possessed]] were expensive but they could ''buy'' their powers instead of rolling for them, which included rending, fleet ''and'' a magical bolt pistol shot, making them point-for-point one of the best assault units in the game.

''Aged cheese'' (This is where it started to get really ugly, although those things were still within hailing distance of manageable.)
* Chaos Lords that could out-punch anything, point-for-point.
* Vehicle upgrades that could regrow lost weapons and unimmobilize themselves on 4+, ignore crew shaken/stunned ''and'' grant +1 AV on all sides.
* Bloodletters that wore power armour and wielded power weapons. Basically an evil deep-striking space marine honour guard.
* [[Sonic Weaponry]] - anything with a MoS could exchange their guns for sonic weapons (and get access to the Slaaneshi armoury if they were characters). This lead to [[Rhino]]s, [[Dreadnought]]s, Defilers, Lords, Lieutenants, regular Marines, Chosen, Possessed, Aspiring Champions, Bikers, Havocs and Terminators all sporting Sonic Weapons. They weren't as good as they would become in later editions, but they were better than the Bolters and Autocannons they replaced (almost) for free.
* [[Defiler|That enemy crab thing]] gets introduced as both a monstrous creature and a walker, which made it pretty much invulnerable in melee against anything without Power Fists (or equivalent Strength-doubling CC weapons).
* [[Obliterator]]s. Back then they were fucking GOD-TIER - S/T5, two hit points, 2+/5++, loaded with heavy and special weapons, Fearless, deep-striking. Luckily for your opponents you could only take a single squad of up to three of them. Eventually they got FAQ'd down to T 4(5) which made them more vulnerable to 'Instant Death' but they were still ''hard'' customers and an auto-take.

''Premium cheese'' (The really retarded things that could break the game. Never mind those costed arms and legs in points, unless the opponent knew what was coming and went to great lengths to avoid them, those things were "I-win" buttons.)
* A [[Daemon Prince]] with Power Armour, Wings and the Dread Axe. Tough, moved like jump pack infantry, a beastly statline, 3+/5++ and the really cheesy part: the Dread Axe ignored invulnerable saves and wounded on a 4+ unless better. Combined to the fact the DP was a monstrous creature that ignored armor saves; and you had a tough, fast motherfucker with a truckload of attacks that hit/wounded easily, ignored '''all''' saves and could easily consolidate from unit to unit, remaining locked in CC and untargetable the whole game as it solo'ed the enemy army. (And I wish I was exaggerating...)
* Siren. A Slaaneshi minor psychic power that made a model immune to shooting and blocked line of sight. Spam generously.
* Veteran skills - ranging from 1-3 pts. per model, could be taken on any squad (only 1 skill for marked units) with higher costs for independent characters. You could load up whole squads that infiltrated, moved through cover and furiously charged.
* Chosen. Chosen were... absurdly powerful since you could make any member in the squad an aspiring champion, giving them access to the armoury. If they were marked and if you took a chosen squad in a multiple of the number of that God (Slaanesh 6, Nurgle 7, Khorne 8, Tzeentch 9), then the 10 pt. upgrade cost was free! Deathstar of 8 Khornate champions that could butcher through anything (and I mean anything) with a truckload of [[exploding dice]] S7 attacks ignoring armor saves on the charge coming out of a Land Raider to chain-rape unit after unit, anyone? Or if you prefer, 9 Tzeentchian Sorcerers [[troll|auto-succeeding on psychic tests thanks to the Mark of Tzeentch]] with psychic Heavy Bolters and Lascannons unleashing some next-level mind-bullet dakka (or alternatively turning everything into [[Chaos Spawn]]s)? Yeah, it was kinda like that back then...
* The [[Emperor's Children]] Legion list. Sirens, sirens you can't shoot and that will demolish you in CC everywhere.
* The [[Iron Warriors]] Legion list. Remember above where I said only one unit of god-like Obliterators? Well, nope! Take as much as you can! Oh, and you can exchange two Fast Attack slots on the FOC for one more Heavy Support choice! More Obliterators? MORE OBLITERATORS!

Now, you'd think that with that generous amount of cheese, GW would get the message and stop piling it on... But then the world-wide "Eye of Terror" campaign happened and Chaos got another toy to play with - the Lost and the Damned army list. Veteran Chaos players actually rejoiced when it was announced as it meant they could go back to the 2nd ed days of fielding traitor Guard, Beastmen, mutants and other dregs supported by a very small number of traitor Marines. Sadly enough, while it did allow to do that, the army list came with its own rapetrain of cheese:

* The list allowed to take units from the 3.5 CSM and Imperial Guard Codices in various FOC slots; which amounted to taking the best of all worlds.
* A cheap HQ choice (Chaos Lieutenant) that was point for point even more killy than the 3.5 Chaos Lord.
* Mutants could be taken in huge cheap hordes that could tarpit pretty much anything forever.
* Big mutants being awesome dakka blobs with 3 wounds each and great Chaos mark effects - basically, better Ogryns!
* Traitor guardsmen had better stats than loyalists, access to chaos marks, veteran skills here and there (Infiltrate ahoy!) and could wield '[[Bolter]]s'. Yes, said slapdash 'Bolters' had the same "Gets Hot!" rule as plasma weapons which meant you'd lose some traitors each time you fired but it was a very small price to pay to unleash an ungodly amount of dakka.

It's really no mystery as to why Chaos won the Eye of Terror campaign. Games Workshop, concerned with their future revenue streams from Spess Muhreen fanchildren, decided to basically reset the crunch and shift the timeline away from the event while attempting to balance (read: nerf to the ground) what it could in 4th edition.

====Honorable Mention: [[Imperial Guard]] Armored Division====
This one deserves an honorable mention, even if it quickly disappeared after the arrival of [[Necrons]] and their vehicle-killing Gauss everything and "We'll be Back!" shenanigans. Back in 3rd ed., vehicles were much less prevalent as were the ways of dealing with them. This list was [[rape|vehicles only!]]. HQ? [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Russ]] variant. Troops? Leman Russ variants. Anything else? Leman Russ variants (with the token Infantry Squad in a Chimera). Park together, point battle cannons and let fly, all guns!

== 4th Edition ==

===[[Fish of Fury]]===

It has its own page, but the basic gist involved using a semi-invulnerable troop transport as a mobile bunker for the otherwise assault-prone Fire Warriors.

The tactic died when errata changed how skimmers worked.

===[[Imperial Guard]] 500-Point Assholery===
Take minimalist choices for the bulk of your mandatory force org setup. Use the remaining points to buy a [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Fucking Russ]] and absolutely butt-fuck the balance of low-point games. The personification of being [[That Guy]].

===[[Imperial Guard]] Unit Deletion Barrage===
In the 4th edition codex, the Hunter-Killer Missile cost a mere 5 points. Because of this, an insanely common strategy was to load basically every single vehicle you fielded that could fit one with one, and with many guard armies that could be 6-7 vehicles on a 1000-point list at the time. Once loaded, the tactic was simple: find the single most threatening enemy model on the board that could be reliably penetrated with a Krak Missile, acquire line of sight, and hammer the shit out of it with all your Hunter-Killers in one go. Even with guard accuracy being what it is, the fact that you could potentially obliterate a lynchpin unit or pesky independent character meant that this was often used to secure early dominance.

When the 5th edition Tyranid codex came out, this tactic was very often used to flat-out cripple 'Nid players by taking out their [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX]]ES and [[Hive Tyrant]]s from standoff range, fucking over attempts to counter.

The tactic ended when 5th edition cranked the cost of HK Missiles to 15 points each.

== 5th Edition ==
Ah yes, the height of the Cruddex and the Wardex, the game-breakingest era of 40K

===[[Grey Knights]]===
Seriously, there's a shitload to explain here for the noobs:

* First and foremost, Psycannons - S7 AP4 rending on models that could otherwise always shoot them.
* Psybolt ammunition, leading to the creation of the much feared Psyfleman Dreadnought, pumping out 4 S8 AP4 twin-linked shots a turn.
* Kaldor Draigo outcreeding Creed and just generally being a monster (unless and until he fought Abaddon).
* EVERYTHING ARMED WITH A FUCKING FORCE WEAPON SERIOUSLY WTF - in particular, Force Halberds. Auto-take, granting all the bonuses of a nemesis force weapon and +2 Initiative, meaning your silver armoured Mary Sues struck before most Eldar units.
* Librarians with a flamer template that removed models from play - not just instant death, they took an initiative test or were removed from play doling out auto-pens to vehicles.
* The only list that could take Assassins or Inquisitors, which both got buffed into the fucking sky.
* The goddamn Nemesis Dreadknight debuted here - absolutely broken if not expensive (MC w/ 2+ save, psychic powers).
* Oh hey, they ''also'' got stormravens - on top of being immune to melta weapons and transporting an OP squad plus an OP dreadnought, the GK stormraven could also take psybolt ammo for its heavy bolters, assault cannons, etc.

People hated the Grey Knights - even longtime GK players hated them. A list that was built to destroy daemon armies (during a time when they didn't even need a special list to destroy them because they were so bad - seriously, it wasn't uncommon for GK players to fight demons without suffering so much as a wound!) got buffed into a list with units that were just flat-out better than anyone else could field. Some GK players took to making lists that used none of the staples mentioned above in order to give themselves a challenge.

===[[Blood Angels]]===
Cheesy for the [[Matt Ward|exact same reason]] as Grey Knights. Here are just a few things they received:

* Deep-striking Landraiders, because that's just great - just fucking great.
* Furioso Dreadnoughts in general. Their FA13 made them immune to Krak grenades prevalent on most infantry; coupled with Blood Talons which generated more attacks every time you caused a wound. With S6 and WS6. Fuuuuuuuuck!
* In addition to regular Furiosos, you could also take a FLYING. LIBRARIAN. DREADNOUGHT. Jesus Christ...
* Death Company Dreadnoughts were also outrageous - taking up a fucking ''Troops'' slot, they were Furiosos with a more offensive focus, their WS and FA lowered by a point in exchange for fleet, more attacks and furious charge and rage.
* Blood Angels Dreadnoughts could also take a Magna Grapple on top of their arm weapons, an S8 AP2 assault 1 weapon with a 24" range that, should it pen a vehicle or wound a monstrous creature, could then drag it closer to the dreadnought.
* Mephiston - basically, a monstrous creature with psychic powers that could take cover. And fly. And reduce his opponent's WS/I to 1.
* The Stormraven gunship debuted in this list - a flying landraider with weaker armour but immune to melta weapons that could transport a squad AND a dreadnought. Oh, and it's an assault vehicle ffs. Given how powerful in CC Blood Angels infantry is as well as just how deadly their dreadnoughts are, getting them where they needed to be in a fast skimmer that was immune to melta weapons AND was heavily armed was the cherry on top of this particular cheesecake.

===Imperial Guard===
Arguably the only army in 5th that got a stratospheric Cruddex buff, the rest getting nerfed into uselessness as [[Robin Cruddace]] hates you:

* This was the first time Guard could field vehicle squads, particularly for Basilisks and Leman Russes allowing players to cover the field in pie plates.
* Master of the Fleet, which subtracted 1 from your opponent's deep strike rolls. Particularly nasty against the above two lists which relied on deep-strike spam to get close enough to shred armies.
* Master of Ordnance, which came with its own pie plate attack.
* [[Creed|CREEEEEEEED!!!!1]]
* Hellhound squads and variants get introduced, especially the bane(wolf) of all MEQs, the banewolf.
* Veterans - particularly melta-vets. They are legend when it comes to vehicle busting.
* Valkyries and Vendettas - fucking hell, where do I even begin? Super fast chimera, identical armour and a shitload of guns; Vendettas take it to the next level with 3 TL Lascannons.
* Hydra flak tank debuts in this list outside of FW and is amazing at taking out bikers and fast skimmers with its super-long range autocannons that bypass Jink saves. Eldar tears flow unstoppably.
* Orders are introduced here as well; they weren't OP per se, but combined well with other buffs to the list for horrifying efficacy.
* Up until the release of the GK codex in 5th, Guard could still take allies with Daemon or Witch Hunters leading to the construction of the infamous Guard leaf-blower list, so named for how fast it removed your opponents models from the board. Mind, when GK came out with their Wardex, this didn't really put too much of a damper on the blower but now they had competition at least.

== 6th Edition ==

=== The [[Heldrake]] ===

The Heldrake was added to the 6th Edition [[Chaos Space Marine]] Codex as a new unique flier. The Codex itself was generally considered a weak book, and many cried that the CSMs would be left in the dust for the third edition in a row... Which would have been true, were it not for the Heldrake. As the only flier in the codex, and by far one of the most efficient ones in the entire game at the moment of release, it became ''the'' crutch for the entire codex. It could singlehandedly take on entire squads of Space Marines with impunity, because of 1) An AP 3 flamer, that everyone upgraded the Hades Autocannon to get and which could [[FATAL|fire from its cavernous rear due to RAW]], 2) the Vector Strike rule, that made it able to strike the unit it would be about to toast and 3) being a flier, few things could take it down quickly enough. Three of them could be taken in the Fast Attack slots, and you can be sure that people did just that.

With the arrival of 7th Edition, the rules for Turret-mounted weapons got changed (no more asses of fire), as did the changes to Vector Strike - Now, the flamer can only be placed wherever the mouth is pointing, and because it is a flier, it cannot just swivel around to hit an enemy like it used to. On top of that, Vector Strike only does one attack on ground enemies, compared to the old D3+1 that it hit everything with. Nowadays, the Heldrake is still a tough, fast flier, that can take out both fliers and infantry, but it isn't so overpowered that every CSM player has to have three of them in any army list.

And again with the arrival of 8th edition it's kinda back, it's pricier (like most vehicles) and while it's not that good it now has its asses of fire (and wings of fire, and legs of fire, and belly buttons of fire...) back and its Baleflamer is nasty but it now only wounds MEQs on a 3+ and is only AP -2, it's good with being able to do 12 wounds and all, but it really shines against Tau infantry gunlines. While Tau aren't as common as all of the many many many SM chapters, thanks to 7th edition many players started collecting Tau and they're still seen. When Tau are seen, as you deploy your Heldrake you can be fairly certain that mass fire warriors won't do too much damage to it but god help you if you even let a crisis see it, which is easier than you think.

===[[Chapter Master Smashfucker]]===
Smashfucker is a character build for the [[Iron Hands]] that exploits several durability-boosting relics to become nigh-unkillable for a fraction of the points cost of a named character.

== 7th Edition ==

'''[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Eldar(7E)|The Entirety of 7th Edition Eldar]]''': No really, they're completely fucking broken. The entire army can be considered unholy rotten cheese, worthy only of being boycotted against. You know they're bad when the only way to beat them is to tell your opponent, "Fuck you, I'm not playing against Eldar!" Unless of course you play [[Space Marines]] or [[Necrons]], who have access to gravspam (especially useful against Wraith) and resurrection cheese respectively. Any other post-Necron codex isn't bad either, but less certain than these first two. Which brings us to...

The [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marines(7E)#Dataslate_Formations|Skyhammer Annihilation Force]], a Space Marine dataslate formation. Two Devastator squads in drop pods that ignore Drop Pod Assault, and two Assault Squads with jump packs. The devs are Relentless on the turn they Deep Strike, and the assault squads can charge immediately.

[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marines(7E)#Gladius_Strike_Force|Gladius Strike Force]]: Space Marines' detachment-size formation. Anything in a Battle Demi-Company is Objective Secured, and any Drop Pods, Rhinos and Razorbacks taken as dedicated transport have their base cost reduced to 0 if you take two demi-companies.

The [[Screamerstar]], a combination of artifacts and psychic powers that gives a unit of Screamers a 2+ Invulnerable Save while rerolling results of 1, making them effectively invincible.

[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Cult_Mechanicus(7E)#Formations|Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation]]: Includes units from Cult Mechanicus, Skitarii, and and Imperial Knights. Everything has Canticles of the Omnissiah, all wargear is free, and nothing Gets Hot. You like winning? Use this formation and literally pay to win.

== 8th Edition ==

===Imperial Guard===
'''[[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperial_Guard(8E)|The Entirely of 8th Edition Imperial Guard]]'''. Remember Eldar and Tau in 7th Edition? Yep, that's the Imperial guard right now. Between ~~Morale immune blobs of dirt cheap Conscripts literally flooding the board and bringing down everything through sheer volume of fire~~ (this most definitely is ''not'' a thing anymore) or deep striking Scions shoved full of Plasma or Melta as well as the best vehicles and flyers in the game. Like Eldar, Tau and Necrons in 7th, it's pretty bad when the only way to beat them is saying "Fuck you, I'm not playing against Imperial Guard".

Now they have a new Codex. let us see the highlights:

*Bullgryns in general. They changed the wording Instead of slab shields being 2+, slab shields give +2 to your saves now. So if you want to field Celestine who has an aura with 6+ inv, slab shields improve this to a 4++. So now they are a 2+/4++ unit. And you can take it further, with the psychic power psychic ward they get an additional +1 saves so now they are at 1+/3++ and finally with the 1CP strategem take cover they get an additional save in the enemy shooting phase so enjoy your 0+/2++ Bullgryn-Celestine deathstar of doom that requires two Smites per Bullgryn to wear down.

*HQ units can take a Relic that lets them regain spent CP on a 5+ because of course they can. Remember that the Imperial Guard are second to Chaos Daemons in cheapest Brigade Regiments in the game so if you are somehow below 12 CP you are optimising your list wrong.

*Mordians. One Mordian strategem lets you spend 1CP to give any unit exploding dice on a 6 to hit. This is ANY weapon, so have fun giving it to Mortar Teams or units stuffed full of Flamers or a Leman Russ Punisher.... They also have an Order that lets units with lasguns target characters directly, pretty much making them the only counter to the Imperial Guard. It's bad when the only counter to an army is to play that army yourself...

*Valhalla can [[Skaven |fire into melee combat without any penalty other than hitting friendly units on a 1]]. Of course you can ignore this by just bringing Flamers....Or you could just issue the order to a heavy Weapons team and use your Conscripts like Skavenslaves....[[Commander Kubrik Chenkov |Oh and those Conscript blobs that die to that? You can spend 2CP to bring them right back]]...In an army where if you are guaranteed a Brigade detachment for most games...

*Vostroya has an order that allows them to shoot any weapon in close combat. They this includes Grenades, Flamers, you heavy Weapons teams...Oh and they can spend CP to re-roll 1's in the shooting phase meaning that all Plasma Weapons are save to supercharge given that the Imperial Guard are always swimming in CP.

No doubt [[Robin Cruddace|He]] had a part in this.

===Space Marines===

====[[Ultramarines]]====
Have all of the best Marine toys plus a number of game breaking Chapter abilities. First all Ultramarine units can literally walk out of Close Combat and keep firing, making assault orientated armies useless against them. Second they can regain any spent Command Points on a 5+ so really can spam those Re-Rolls. Third they can even spend CP to re-roll 1's. This is before we even get into what Rowboat can do to your army...

=====[[Roboute Guilliman]]=====
Any keyword '''Imperium''' unit within 12" adds 1 to advances and charges, re-roll hits of 1 and can re-roll failed morale tests, meaning you can spam the '''fuck''' out of stupidly cheap [[Imperial Guard]] Plasma.

'''Ultramarines''' units within 6" re-rolls of failed hit and wound rolls as well. Guilliman himself is affected by his own aura, allowing him to add 1 to charges and advances as well as re roll failed hits and wounds. If all that wasn't enough if your army is battleforged you get 3 extra CP.). [[That Guy |It's not unusual to see him sat in the middle of a pile of Assault Cannon Razorbacks with Lascannon Squads inside, and Stormravens tossed in for good measure. Or sat behind a huge wall of Hellblasters]].

Guilliman himself is a beast in close combat, with a 3++, 9 Wounds and 6 S6, AP-4 3 Damage attacks with 6's adding d3 Mortal Wounds. He also has a Power Fist with no to hit penalty because of course he fucking does. He also revives on a 4+ with 1d6 Wounds back so good luck killing this fucker for good unless you literally send hordes of Fire Dragons or Scions after him. And even then he's just going to get back up and murder whatever downed him nest turn.

So for all of this he must be expensive, right? Even Wraithknights must be cheap compared to-[[What |what he only costs 385 points?!]]Yeah. So, barring restrictions, it's possible to take him in [[Fail |500 point games...]] There are countless batreps out there of him taking on entire armies alone and just crushing them.

Basically Ultramarines, and Imperium by extension, shoot better than any other army, fight better than any other army and are all but immune to morale thanks to this unbalanced cunt.

====[[Raven Guard]]====
Anything shooting at the Raven Guard are shooting at -1 to hit if outside of 12", and they can spend CP to allow infantry to Deep Strike just before Turn 1. This pretty much guarantees that you will always be going first with your Aggressors dropping in right next to an opponent without having counted as moved.

Oh and thier Warlords are immune to Overwatch so [[MURDERWINGS]] is back, and it's cheaper to do than just taking Shrike.

====[[Chapter Master Smashfucker]]====
Smashfucker is back and broken as ever. Take an Iron Hands Captain on Bike with a Thunder Hammer and Shield Eternal and the Iron Resovle Warlord trait. The result is a stupidly mobile Beatstick with 7 Wounds and a 3+/3++/6+++/6++++. Plus unlike Girlyman, an Apothecary can heal him.

====Auspex Scan====
A 2CP Stratagem that lets an Infantry unit shoot at anything that Deeps Strikes within 12". So what's wrong with that? Unlike similar abilities from other Codexes which all say <s>they require line of sight</s> (it still says as if it were the shooting phase, so LoS is needed), or need specific HQ unit nearby, this one does not. It also means any Aggressors that can use this will be shooting twice, <s>without needing line of sight</s>...Now you see that Scions Squad. Now you don't.

====Custom [[Land Raider]]====
[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/11/18/get-ready-chapter-approved-nov-18gw-homepage-post-3/ Chapter Approved is allowing people to create Custom Land Raiders]. Additional Sponsons means you can end up with something ridiculous like 8 Lascannons total. [[Matt Ward |Ultramarines will also be able to combine with with the usual Guilliman bullshit]] while Raven Guard make theirs even more difficult to kill. Then of course you can have an [[Dakka|Imperial Fists Land Raider spamming Hurricane Bolters while also ignoring all cover]]. So the supplement that was supposed to be re-balancing the game has resulted in making things even worse. However, custom Land Raiders are only allowed in Open Play, so by definition any kind of balance has long since flown out the window anyhow.

===Chaos Daemons===

[[Chaos Daemons]] Basically the only army in the game that can fill multiple Brigade Detachments thanks to Brimstone Horrors, plus they can cherry pick the Imperial Guard's best units via the Renegades faction, and the Chaos Space Marines best toys and charcters due to the Chaos keyword. Combining the Changeling with Alpha Legion Obliterators for example...Have fun...

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]] [[Category:Gamebreaking]] [[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics]]

Librarian Dreadnought

2018-01-02T05:28:28Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* Overview */

[[File:Librarian_Dreadnaught_DWFF.jpg|300px|right|thumb|"And for an added bonus! I can fly like Superman! Our [[Spiritual Liege]] has truly gifted us!"]]
Ah yes, the [[Blood Angels]] infamous and we mean '''''INFAMOUS''''' Librarian Dreadnought. Potentially [[Skub|debated]] as one of the most [[Derp|derptastic]] and [[Bullshit|bullshittery]] idea to ever grace the face of [[Matt Ward|Ward]], the Librarian Dreadnought ties with the equally infamous [[Grey Knight]] [[Dreadknight]] and the [[Centurion Squad|Centurions]] in terms of [[Herp|balls-to-the-walls, over-the-top stupidity.]] Seriously you would think that a [[Dreadknight|baby carrier]] would top the list, but a psychic quadriplegic in a [[Mecha|mech suit]] shooting warp lightning and [[Bullshit|even flying]] is just as [[Rage|rage-inducing to any reasonable members on]] [[/tg/]].

==Overview==
The Librarian Dreadnought is a variant of the [[Furioso Dreadnought]] design utilized by the Blood Angels. Piloted by crippled and wounded [[Librarians]] from the Chapter, Librarian Dreadnoughts are perhaps the most <s>lethal</s> impractical of their kind. They combine the psychic might of a Librarian with the unyielding body and heavy firepower of a Dreadnought. Librarian Dreadnoughts have the ability to call upon the same psyker powers that they and many of their Astartes Librarians would call upon during combat.

The Librarian Dreadnought is equipped with two Fists, one armed with a built-in Storm Bolter and the other equipped with a Dreadnought Force Weapon (Don't ask why or how the Blood Angels manage to get their hands on Force Weapons exclusive to the [[Grey Knights]], then again they somehow found the secrets to make the [[Predator#Baal Predator|Baal Predator]] and [[Furioso Dreadnought]] so I guess our pretty little bishonen vampires actually live on a hidden archeo-tech city underground Baal).

The cheesy part here, of course, is the "Librarian" part, or more to the point, the ''Wings of Sanguinius'' psychic power. You see, at one point for some reason [[derp|Librarians didn't have access to Jump Packs]]. In order to remedy that, Blood Angels Librarians were given a psychic power that (in essence) gave them a Jump Pack for the turn if they successfully called upon it. (They actually manifested wings which might sound a bit retarded, but it's fitting for the Sons of [[Sanguinius]] and his whole angel-shtick.) Of course, when used on no-name average Libby so he can accompany his pals into the fray or act a suicide one-man distraction/character killer when combined to a Force Weapon, it was decent. Strong in the right circumstances, but definitely not OP. And then, suddenly, A GODDAMN DREADNOUGHT (you know, the thing that many units simply can't harm in melee thanks to it being a vehicle) CHARACTER (meaning it could attribute its melee attacks and strike those few that could harm him) WITH STRENGTH 10 (Hello, Instant Death!) AND A FORCE WEAPON (even more Instant Death!) could suddenly move twice as fast and ignore terrain... [[wat|Yeah]].

Some people thought it might just be a little too much and [[Butthurt|expressed their concerns]]. [[Matt Ward|This... thing's]] answer was to introduce [[Grey Knights|even more broken stuff into the game.]] That's GW for you...

{{Template:Marines-Forces}}

Hierophant

2018-01-01T19:15:03Z

2600:6C52:7C00:3259:0:FC9E:E127:7330: /* 8th Edition */

[[File:Hierophant Nid.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Those little specks are about to have a bad day.]]
The '''Hierophant''' is a [[Forge World]]-only fuckhuge [[Tyranid]] biotitan which is a fucking engine of destruction. It has a large arsenal of bio-weapons and is the Tyranid response to [[Gargant]]s and [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Titan]]s. The largest playable Tyranid unit in the game, it stands at 10 inches without a stand. However, in the fluff it is 15 meters tall. To put this to scale, the average height of a Imperial Guardsmen stands at around 1.5 to 1.8 meters tall while a average Space Marine is 2.5 to 2.7 meters, so on the table you can expect the size difference between a Hierophant and most things to be approximately fluff accurate - in other words it's pretty fucking huge.

They also weigh at around 51 tonnes, which in real world terms is not actually that massive. Compared to many sauropod dinosaurs (not to mention things like tanks), this is rather light. Furthermore it would be a rat compared to the Blue Whale. Figures that GW would end up failing at scale again.

== But they have spindle legs... ==

With that in mind, the Heirophant is probably not all that dense. While the dinosaurs prove that land creatures can safely get that large, dinosaurs have legs under their bodies like pillars, while the Heirophant's front legs legs go up to the "knee" then down again. From a structural perspective the body is hanging off the limbs. Additionally, for the Hive mind to create a creature that can only invade Earth-sized or smaller worlds is likely be a waste of time (unless it turns out that larger worlds in 40k don't allow the kinds of fortification that need a Hierophant to attack). Instead of being a huge brick like a Carnifex, the Heirophant is probably light for its size, armored and structured in a self-supporting way to enable so it can either take cannon shells without breaking bones or splitting armor, or it can suffer broken bones and split armor but can those wounds can't kill it before it can perform its mission. Purely speculation, but one could assume it has legs made entirely the hard chitin Tryanids use for armor, with muscle and bone only extending far enough to give mobility and reinforcing structure; Terran life forms do this as well - it's why chickens have big drum sticks but much less meat on the rest of their legs. The inside of the beast would most likely be entirely metabolic structures and weapon organs (standard Tyranid fare), but with a dense and powerful digestive system in the lower front area to take in energy - remember that petroleum, what we use for fuel, is just plants that have been changed by the earth, and it has a very high energy density. As such, it's not to hard to imagine the Hierophant being powered by some kind of organic gasoline, though it would need a lot of fuel to create enough energy-dense petrol; thus, either it needs to constantly "nurse" off a hive ship or the hive mind just has hormagaunts jump in its mouth to give it enough energy to fight. The supportive structure is likely a porous, hard (and regenerative) supporting material with a dense bone-core and plated chitin armor, segmented like an insect. The odd shape of the body probably protects vitals from infantry, smaller beasts, and flame weapons; it can walk over barricades and could even use it's circulatory system to move heat generated from movement or energy weapons to it's top, ensuring weapons organs function at peak efficiency. Alternatively, it might be at least partly supported by the hive mind, like a Zoanthrope.

[[File:Hierophant, Knarloc, Squiggoth_Size_Comparison Earth Creatures2.PNG|542px|thumb|left|But then again, if the Hierophant thinks that he is all big and mighty...]]

Of course, unless its weight is mitigated by psychic hijinks or it being filled with helium (or better yet, a considerable vacuum), there's no explanation for how a 51-ton creature on FOUR POINTED LEGS doesn't sink balls-deep into the ground the moment it makes planetfall.

It's also worth noting that all those giant dinosaurs were very slow beyond being able to take a large stride, and most large Earth animals on land have to actually be extremely cautious with their movements because it's surprisingly easy for them to break bones from relatively small falls due to their sheer mass. Even at elephant size, a slip down a few meters can cause some pretty serious injuries. While for the giant sauropods high speed movement would be next to impossible and so much as tipping over would likely be fatal. Meanwhile, the Heirophant is noted to be extremely fast (easily capable of outrunning people with jetpacks) and shrugs off tank shells like annoying gnats and can easily get into high speed rough and tumble melee fights with Titans and Stompas so even with Forgeworld's rather low weight estimations, the Hierophant is already a very much impossible beast thanks to its sheer agility (being far faster to react and move and substantially more agile than most smaller animals) and its incredible resilience. A bruthakayosaurus may be bigger but it's more fragile, slower, and would have had to spend a great deal of its day doing nothing but eating to sustain itself while the Hierophant can run around at high speeds over the course of a Hive fleet's assault on a targeted planet.

[[Crunch]]-wise, this is the most powerful Tyranid model in the game. It's extremely durable, throws out more attacks per turn than any single model - besides a CSM model that gets lucky a demon weapon, a Dreadnaught with blood talons since it can more attacks, and An'ggrath if rolls lots of 6s - and packs two S10 biocannons, which are sadly only AP3. It's only BS3, but with that many shots it's not going to matter. As the number of attacks it has, plus the fact that it's a gargantuan creature, would indicate, the main area it excels in is close combat: Apocalypse exclusive [[Daemon]]-lords are likely to die against it. It's damn hard to kill, too, having 10 wounds, toughness 9, and can regenerate and get a wound back by rolling a 6, and it gets to roll a six for every remaining wound it has.

[[Phil Kelly]] has one, and he called it Nancy. 'nuff said.

==8th Edition==

Holy fucking christ.

The Hierophant has always been a great choice. Although it was extremely expensive, it always pulled it's weight. The only problem was that the Tyranids never had a true badass TITAN. At the end of the day, the Hierophant was just a gigantic 'Nid.

Then 8th Edition happened and turned that shit RIGHT THE FUCK AROUND.

The Hierophant Bio-Titan is just that. A bio-TITAN.

3+-5+ WS, 3+ BS, S10, T8, 6-3 Attacks, an armor save of 2+ and an invulnerable save of 5++, all while moving from 12"-3". You may have noticed I skipped the wounds. We'll get to that.
Bio-Plasma Torret is pretty much a Flamer with 2D6 hits. Did I mention the Pistol rules? It's Bio-Cannons are now... Dire Bio-Cannons? Whatever, the stats are pretty much the same, but the AP is now -2 and the Damage is '''2D6'''. And yes, you still get two of them. They are Macro 6 weapons, basically meaning Titanic weapons. So yes, 12 S10 AP-2 2D6 shots on a single target is possible. And if that just was not enough [[Dakka]] for you, for the value price of D3 Mortal Wounds, you can double the strength of your bio-cannons. See also: [[Rape]].

The Hierophant also has some great Melee options as well, with Lashwhip Pods and Monstrous Scything Talons.

Although the Lashwhip Pods only do 2 Damage, you get 3 hit rolls for every Attack. You wanna use this against big crowds. The Monstrous Scything Talons have Sx2 (That's 20 fucking Strength), AP-5 (No Armor saves whatsoever), and, yet again, a Damage of 2D6. 6 attacks of S20, AP-5, and 2D6 Damage is most likely a kill to damn near anything that looks at you funny.

You also can get Incendiary Ichor (It's just Acid Blood) or Swarm Incubation Chamber (Can carry 20 Gaunts or Genestealers/6 Hive Guards, Warriors, or Tyrant Guards, AND a Prime or Broodlord. An example would be 20 Genestealers and a Broodlord, or 6 Warriors and a Prime.). Both are free.

All that for just the low, low price of-
Shit. It's now 2060 pts. AND a Power of 90.

Oh yeah, the wounds.

'''50.''' The Hierophant is now 5 times the Lord of War it once was.

So, worth it? Probably. Just sad we won't be seeing Hierophants in non-apocalypse games, even though they were usually reserved for apocalypse games anyway.
{{Tyranids-Creatures}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Tyranid]]