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Total War: Warhammer/Tactics/Banner Rules

2022-03-20T06:32:25Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* Minimum Army Size */

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So you're here because you want to play [[Total War: WARHAMMER]] online. Well, while you certainly could use the game's actual Quick Battle system, you will have to go through a ton of toxicity, cheese tactics and general stupidness that comes from playing online games in general. This is why a lot of online players prefer to play with community Discord servers where there are expectations of politeness and good sportsmanship. There are even community made rules called the Banner Rules that are used by these communities in both casual and competitive play, which is what this article is about. While the rules will be listed below, you can also check out [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1blvwkYSM3l7KW2Zf6t2Nra4eY7MSjP4d/view| this link] if you want more up to date info.

==Minimum Army Size==
Each army in these multiplayer scenes must have a minimum of 300 models on the field.* This is mostly to prevent Single Entity spam as those kinds of monsters are considered very strong in multiplayer for the most part. Trust me, no Beastmen player is going to have fun if their opponent decides to bring 3 Rogue Idols to the fight.

*note this guide has not yet been adjusted to account for warhammer 3 and the orge kingdoms, where even on ultra unit size a unit of bulls has only 24 models and as such might have an been given an exception. (

==Unit Limits==
In the same vein as above, you can only bring a limit of the same type of unit in order to prevent the cheesey spam that is common in normal multiplayer. As of right now it is as follows:

*'''Infantry''': Maximum 5 of a kind
*'''Monstrous Infantry, War Beasts, Cavalry, Chariots, Artillery''': Maximum 4 of a kind
*'''Special Single Entities (Big monsters like Giants, Carnosaurs, Dragons ETC.)''': Maximum 3 total
*'''Heroes/Single Entities''': Maximum 2 of a kind

You can also bring up to 8 of the same unit unit with different weapon variants, such as having Great Weapons instead of shields. It's important to note that the same unit with shields, the same unit but armoured, and RORs aren't considered different variants. So, Saurus Warriors and Saurus Warriors with shields are considered the same unit but Peasant Archers and Peasant Archers with Pox Arrows are separate variants so you can have 5 of one and 3 of the other just fine.

There are also strict limits to certain ranged units. You can only bring 6 360 degree fire units, 4 chariots and 6 Skirmisher Cavalry or Chariots. Once again, mainly to avoid annoying uber kite builds.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Æonic Orb

2022-03-19T10:04:31Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* So what is this Orb of unstoppable rape and carnage */

[[File:Aeonic_Orb_Model.PNG|right|thumb|500px|If there was one vehicle that could be considered as the physical embodiment of [[Anal Circumference]]....]]
A rare and ancient piece of [[Necron]] artillery, the '''Æonic Orb''' is a floating construct built during the [[War in Heaven]] to counter the forces of the [[Old Ones]]. This ungodly beast of a weapon is to a [[Monolith]] what a Monolith is to a Scarab. Why is this thing so hueg, one might ask? Because, my friend, it has [[rip and tear|really hueg guts]]. The main weapon on the Æonic Orb is, in fact a [[Plasma|fragment of a star]]! Not just any star, mind you, the star in question is typically stolen from a particularly disgraced or hated race or kingdom's solar system, relinquishing the planets and remaining population to [[grimdark|fly off into space, frozen and dark, coasting forever.]]

Keep in mind the [[Imperial Guard]] (and lesser militaries) face this thing and [[Lolwut|still win]]. 40k folks, it's batshit insane all around.

*'''Height:''' 25-30m; approx
*'''Mass:''' 15 kilotonnes; approx
*'''Crew:''' 0-3 crew; approx
==So what is this Orb of [[Anal circumference|unstoppable rape and carnage]]==
To put this in detail, the Æonic Orb itself is merely a container for the star fragment, which has been heavily compressed using spatial and dimensional manipulation, and modified via the addition of fresh hydrogen and removal of waste elements from the big ball of fiery death, making it a small ball of even ''more'' fiery death. Other systems include solar energy collectors on the inside of the star chamber to collect enough energy to power all of the various systems, drives, and functions of the Orb. The containment systems keep the star both contained (big surprise) and mobile, as well as isolating the gravity field of the imprisoned star to, you know, stop the thing from imploding the Æonic Orb and any planet it sits on.

It floats along the ground much like a Monolith, but at a higher altitude. Since [[GW]] never released an official (or unofficial) model for the thing, nobody knows quite what it looks like. Maybe it is camera-shy. Or kills all witnesses. Probably the latter. Either way, it is big and somewhat circular. It has no other weapons besides the star.

Oh, wait, did we forget to mention the star fragment is the main weapon? ''BECAUSE IT IS.'' This monstrosity uses a part of a STAR as a weapon! You see, the containment field on the Æonic Orb can be breached on command, releasing all of the power and fury of a literally unchained fusion reaction in any direction it chooses. [[Plasma]] wishes it was this cool. Kurzgesagt actually did a video on this subject about what would happen if you brought a fragment of the sun to the earth: the result of there Maths was: ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0ldO87Pprc you die]''. It's basically the same as 4 '''Billion''' tons of TnT going off. Set it off in Paris, London melts. Not only do you get a blinding light, a burst of raw plasma, and a heat so searing that magma starts to look like ice, you also get a blast of every conceivable kind of radiation, meaning that if by some miracle of miracles you survive your "stellar" experience, you will probably have no totally-intact strand of DNA left in your body, and literally every organ in your body will fail, get cancer, lyse, and/or boil. Not always in that order. But most likely that would not happen ,because you will die.

It can fire in a Solar Flare or Solar Burst. The former is designed to [[anime|pierce the heavens]] and burn through any defense, even the earth itself, sublimating all matter with impunity, in what can only be described as a continuous, beam-like explosion. The latter is designed to bathe infantry and vehicles, turning the area inside the blast into an inhospitable hellhole of heat and radiation so intense organic life boils and pops like a balloon (if not already instantly burned to hot ash) while tanks melt like butter into hot, gooey slag. The only caveat is that the star powers the containment field, so the Æonic Orb must stop and recharge after each shot or risk a total solar breach and release a supercharged, super-compressed star onto the battlefield, permakilling Necron, Foe, the entire Planet it was standing on and severely fucking up the whole star system with its gravity in short order.

[[File:Relic00068.jpg|500px|thumb|right|You may laugh for its rather phallic appearance, but god help you if your army actually face this Dong of Merciless Penetration.]]

Which brings up an interesting point. There is no way to defend against this rape-machine. Consider: the Imperial Navy gets its hands on 4 Black Stone Fortresses (or Planet Killers whatever). Even if they were able to breach the armor of the Orb, the fragment could resume its original dimensions, swallowing part of the planet or fly apart in a sort-of mini-nova and kill everyone. Even in the mild, "resume normal size scenario," the gravitational changes in the solar system following the escape of the star fragment from the Orb would butt fuck even Jupiter sized planets in the system. Those planets that didn't get swallowed would be launched into interstellar space. The only way to destroy it without getting destroyed is to use [[Warp Weapons]] in order to send the sun to the warp and let the Daemons burn instead. Which would still be quite a Story Breaker since only the Imperium, the Eldar, (technically the Orks) and Chaos have Warp Weapons, and Chaos itself won't be keen on sending such a massive amount of energy into the Warp.

And of course, nothing this awesome could be made by GW (thank you, I was always rather proud of it), even in [[Epic]] scale where the rules for it were released. Necrons rarely, if ''ever'', draw upon the Æonic Orb in battle. It is considered a critical resource by current Necron forces, and only in an all-out war will they send this deathmachine to battle. And let's be fair, the Necrons haven't faced an all-out war since they gobsmacked the [[Old Ones|Old Ones.]]

If you ''DO'' decide that you have to make an apocalypse entry for this thing so that you can use it in your army, the Energon edition of Unicron the Planet Eater in planet form is PERFECT, well, ''assumedly''. Nothing else in the universe is ''probably'' a better ''estimated'' match than this [[grimdark]] [[tyranids|void manifestation]] for ages 3 and up. It's a big, black and green death orb of planetary destruction. It even has little scarab pincers and an opening to its interior that can clamp open and shut. If you have a Necron army and don't already own a Unicron action figure, get one. The only way this [[Transformers|Transformer]] could be beat is if the official release for the Æonic Orb is as big as your typical playing board; unlikely, but probably to scale.

=="Æonic Orbs" in Classic Scifi==
In classic science fiction there exists a even more awesome parallel called the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjtFnWh53z0|"Nicoll-Dyson Beam"], marking perhaps the first time that something in 40K isn't the most [[awesome|EXTREME]] example of what it's supposed to represent. A Nicoll-Dyson Beam directs the energy output of an entire star towards a specific direction, which can be used to move entire stars (AKA a Shkadov Thruster), or [[exterminatus|incinerate a distant planet]] from light years away. In fact, very serious people have had very serious discussions about one of the solutions to the Fermi Paradox is that the first civilization in a galaxy to reach sufficient level of technology to build such a thing would use it to eradicate any other technological civilizations that may one day rise to challenge its dominance.

==8th Edition Rules==
This unit contains 1 Æonic Orb ('''Power Rating 300''').
{| class=wikitable
|- valign=top
! Name !! M !! WS !! BS !! S !! T !! W !! A !! Ld !! Sv
|-
| Æonic Orb || * || 6+ || * || 16 || 18 || 150 || * || 10 || 2+
|}

{| class=wikitable
|- valign=top
! Remaining W !! M !! BS !! A
|-
| 121-150+ || 24” || 2+ || 6
|-
| 91-120 || 20” || 3+ || D6
|-
| 61-90 || 16” || 3+ || 3
|-
| 31-60 || 12” || 4+ || D3
|-
| 1-30 || 8” || 5+ || 1
|}
'''Wargear:'''
*Repair Nanoscarabs: Each time a model with Repair Nanoscarabs loses a wound, roll a D6; on a 5+, the model does not lose that wound.
*Star-Cage:
::{| class=wikitable
|- valign=top
! Weapon !! Range !! Type !! S !! AP !! D !! Abilities
|-
|'''Star-Cage (Solar Burst)''' || 72" || Heavy 3 || * || * || * || This weapon can target up to three different units in the shooting phase, choose how many hits to allocate to each unit before rolling. For each attack that its roll one D6 for each model in the target unit; on a 3+ that model suffers 3 mortal wounds. Each time you roll a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon, the target suffers 3 mortal wounds in addition to any other damage.
|-
|'''Star-Cage (Solar Flare)''' || 180" || Macro 1 || * || -5 || 24 || This weapon wounds on a 2+. Your opponent must subtract 3 from every kind of save used against attacks from this profile. Each time you roll a wound roll of 6+ for this weapon, the target suffers 6 mortal wounds in addition to any other damage. If this attack hits, roll a die for every unit within 9" of the target; on a 3+ that unit suffers D6 mortal wounds.
|}

'''Special Rules''':
*'''Advanced Living Metal:''' At the beginning of your turn this model regains D3 wounds lost previously in the battle.
*'''Banishment Security Measures:''' If this model is reduced to 0 wounds, roll a D6 before removing it from the battlefield. On a 4-5, each unit within 3D6" suffers 2D6 mortal wounds. On a 6 the security protocols fail to banish the compressed star into a pocket dimension, each unit within 36" suffers 18 mortal wounds.
*'''Blinding Light:''' Non-{{W40kKeyword|Necron}} that have line of sight of this model subtract 2 from their hit rolls during the Shooting phase.
*'''Containment Field:''' This model has a 3+ Invulnerable save. Each time this model fails a saving throw, roll a D6. On a 6, this model suffers D6 additional wounds.
*'''Giant Construct:''' This model can Fall Back in the Movement phase and still shoot and/or charge during its turn. When this model Falls Back, it can move over enemy models that don't have the {{W40kKeyword|TITANIC}} keyword, though at the end of its move it must be more than 1" away from all enemy units. This model can fire its shooting weapons even if there are enemy models within 1" unless those enemy models are {{W40kKeyword|TITANIC}}. In this case, it can shoot the enemy unit that is within 1" of it or any other visible enemy unit that is within range and more than 1" away from any friendly models. In addition, this model can move and fire Heavy weapons without any penalty to its hit rolls. Finally, this model only gains a cover bonus to its armour save if at least half of it is obscured from the firing unit.
*'''Stellar Gravity Core:''' At the start of your Shooting phase, roll a dice for each non-{{W40kKeyword|Necron}} unit that can {{W40kKeyword|Fly}} and is within 24" of this model; on a 4+ that unit suffers D6+6 mortal wounds. Roll two dices and pick the highest result if the target is a {{W40kKeyword|Flyer}}.

'''Keywords''':
*Faction: {{W40kKeyword|<Dynasty>}}, {{W40kKeyword|Necrons}}
*{{W40kKeyword|Lord of War}}, {{W40kKeyword|Æonic Orb}}, {{W40kKeyword|Titanic}}, {{W40kKeyword|Vehicle}}, {{W40kKeyword|Fly}}

==The Official Version==
Some [[heretic]]s over at Specialist Games [https://web.archive.org/web/20061118121022/http://specialist-games.com/assets/NecronV32.pdf once claimed] that the Orb contained only a fragment of a star, and looked something like this:

[[File:SketchyOrb.png]]

However they never finished it beyond a playtest draft, and they went out of business, so what do they know.

== Gallery ==

<gallery>
File:Epic_Necron_Aeonic_Orb.jpg|3D print on Shapeways
File:Epic-necron-aeonic-orb.jpg|Courtesy of Wargaming Workshop on this "What could've been" design of the [[rape|unholy testicle of doom.]]
File:ene_unicron_alt.jpg|Unicron has pyramids on top and, according to his name, is a 'cron. It is time our long lost battle-brother rejoin the [[Necrons|ranks of its army]]!
image:AEonic_orb.JPG|What [[Lexicanum]] thinks an Æonic Orb might look like. Image since removed as it only stood as proof of their [[FAIL|fail]].
</gallery>

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Necrons]]

[[Category: Vehicles]]

[[Category: Skimmers]]

{{Necrons-Forces}}
{{40k-Necron-Ships}}

Bows and Arrows

2022-03-18T18:37:11Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* The Decline */

[[Image:Gurren_no_Yumiya.jpg|thumb|Yumi Bow. The Samurai's ACTUAL primary battlefield weapon.]]
An '''arrow''' is a modified version of a [[spear]]. It is smaller, lighter, typically has a set of feathers on the back end known as fletching to improve its ballistics and a notch in the end. Arrows are used as ballistic projectiles launched using a '''bow'''. A bow at it its most simple is a cord of elastic material (such as string, sinew or silk) held between a rigid but still elastic arch of material. The arrow is notched to the string, held against the bow and pulled back, putting the string under tension and storing energy. When released, the arrow is accelerated to a high speed. Bows were soon adopted on every continent save Australia for hunting and warfare for at least 12,000 years. A person trained in the use of a bow is called an archer, the skill of making use of a bow to shoot arrows at targets is known as archery.

In typical western fantasy, the Bow is the preferred weapon of [[Elves]], which makes some sense given the facts about elves (long lives, good vision and dexterity and speed on foot), but is still a little problematic if you think about it. The biggest limitations on bow use are the physical strength and stamina of the user, who was subject to heavy fatigue, and elves have a Constitution penalty and aren't always known for lifting. Well, unless they are Tolkienian elves (especially Noldor) - than you may see some pointy-eared guy launching arrows the size of a javelin that pierce through dragons and giant flaming daemons, and doing this for HOURS without his hands falling off from exhaustion.

In modern-setting fiction, and the attendant games based around them, bows are phenomenally popular (compared to the rest of the traditional medieval arsenal). Tons of superheroes like Hawkeye and Green Arrow who have it as a gimmick, sure, but also relative normies like Katniss from Hunger Games, Kagome from InuYasha, the rebooted Lara Croft, John Rambo, even the Dukes of fuckin' Hazzard. Something about the mystique and elegance of the bow ("...a weapon from a more civilized age") lends itself to becoming a unique non-firearm option for shooty heroes who are trying to make it through the gun-control skub of the 21st century. (The fact that it's relatively silent weapon is also a big draw even in video games - "Silenced" guns are still loud enough that you can hear them from the next room.)

== Archery in Warfare ==
The big advantage of a bow in pre-modern warfare was simple and obvious: range. When compared with javelins or thrown axes and spears, bows have a notable advantage in terms of range (Only the Aztec atlatl could get close), rate of fire and the amount of ammunition which could be carried into battle. Certain bows such as Welsh Longbows had range of up to 300 meters. Though when bows were used at such distances they were more akin to artillery than a modern sniper rifle, being loosed in volleys at the area in which enemy forces were standing rather than individual archers trying to hit individual enemy soldiers. A fit, well-trained archer could loose up to twelve arrows a minute, a rate of fire which was better than that of most [[firearm]]s until the 19th century and the rise of breech loading rifles. The biggest downside of bows and arrows is that they are basically useless in hand to hand combat. At best, they are an inefficient club and a short brittle spear. For this reason archers in battle would carry a backup weapon in case of close quarters fighting: usually a [[dagger]], a short [[sword]] or a [[warhammer]] (which is also used to set anti-cavalry spikes).

As mentioned, the basics of archery were common across the world for both hunting and as a sport, and archery continues to be practiced in the present day. A basic bow and basic arrows are fairly easy to make and use and save for Australia basically everyone made use of archery. Military archery was much less common however. Arrows loosed from a simple hunting bow may kill a deer or a naked human being, but they can be stopped by a basic wooden or even wicker [[shield]]. Their range was also limited. To a formation of well armored and/or shield equipped soldiers, arrow fire from common hunting bows were little more than a annoyance, and they would only be used in warfare as a weapon of last resort. For bows to be worthwhile against such forces, they needed to go beyond a simple oak branch and hemp string. Large bows made of yew and ironwood were one option if said trees were available. The English were famous for using such bows. Another option would be to make bows by gluing together layers of horn, sinew and either wood or bamboo.

Both heavier longbows and composite bows had considerable power and could penetrate shields, mail and even plate armor at close range but were more difficult to make and were (in the case of composite bows) more sensitive to moisture. Either way, both of these types of bows took a lot of time to master. Training an archer usually began in childhood. Archeologists can identify the skeletons of such archers with just a glance because the constant strain on their bodies from using the bows forced their skeletons to compensate (enlarged left arm bones and bone spurs on the left arm, left wrist, and right fingers). Due to their value in battle and the time which needed to be invested in training them, said archers were considered elite soldiers and were seen as valuable. In 1571 at the Battle of Lepanto, the Ottoman Fleet was dealt a major defeat. Amongst the biggest losses they had suffered was the deaths of many skilled composite bow armed archers. While their forces of galleys was reconstructed and recrewed fairly swiftly, it took a decade to train replacement archers. It should be noted that at this time, both the Ottomans and the Christians were making heavy use of matchlock [[firearm]]s, yet the superior rate of fire and accuracy of archers made they were still in high demand along with the arquebus-wielding soldiers.

Archers could fight either on foot or on horseback. Mounted archers equipped with composite bows could be quite devastating, raining arrows on forces armed with spears and swords from a safe distance while easily avoiding the slow moving masses of men. Many ancient armed forces are known for their use of mounted archery, and the resulting [[rage]] it inspired in their foes: See the Parthians (i.e. Persians) vs. the Romans, the Huns vs. Europe and the [[Mongols]] vs. Pretty Damn Well Everyone. Foot archers sacrificed this mobility for increased accuracy, increased numbers (cavalry archers also need to be trained in horsemanship and have a horse) and the ability to hide and dig in. Foot archers, if used properly and backed up with pikemen, were the best pre-gunpowder counter to cavalry archers. In fact, up until the invention of the breech loader Longbows were STILL better weapons then muskets because you could fire several volleys of arrows in the time needed to reload after firing a musket only once. It's also one of the major reasons the American and Russian militaries didn't establish a permanent presence on the Great Plains and the Central Asian steppes while they were still armed with muzzle loaders. Until the mass adoption of the breechloader and the lever action rifle, trying to hold your ground against raving bands of mounted archers was suicide without forts or reliable supply lines that aren't razed to the ground by angry natives.

On foot, bowmen excelled in forests. At close range the bow had a chance to either go though early armor (and longbows had decent odds against all but the heaviest of plate), or pick of weak unarmed points. Further against other armored foes a bowmen would have higher speed and could be a lot more quiet then the walking tin cans of the other guy, additionally armor has a tendency to get caught on things further accenting the maneuverability advantage. While Robin Hood may never have existed, bow armed [[bandit]]s most certainly did terrorize woods.

== The Decline ==
Bows have two major issues that make their use on the battle field problematic: training time and user fatigue. Compared to a crossbow or a firearm, bows require years and years of practice to become really, really good at, and to build up the endurance to perform the difficult feat of pulling back a high-tension wire, holding it to aim, and letting go over and over again. There is an old English proverb which goes; "To train a longbowman start with his grandfather." The best archers in human history were the English Yeoman, the Japanese Samurai, Ottoman Janissaries and Mongol Horse archers: entire social classes full of hard-training men. In fact, we can go into any English graveyard and figure out who the longbowmen were just by looking at the left arms on the skeletons. Conversely, crossbows and guns are easy to train with and don't necessarily wear you out as quickly. If you can field more men than your enemy, it gives you a pretty massive advantage. (For added hilarity, anything more than minimal training on early musketeers was a waste of time, because the first generation of guns would wander off-target no matter how carefully you aimed; instead of training ''better'' gunners, you were better served training ''even more'' gunners).

Once stronger crossbows, more reliable firearms, and better reloading mechanisms and manufacturing methods for both became commonplace, the longbow faded from martial prominence, like the [[sword]] before it.

The bow held out a while longer in England and Japan, the two great strongholds of archery. The English stopped using the bow around 17th century when gunpowder finally could be relied to work in humid conditions on campaign. It was the reforms of the English Civil War that ultimately did in the bow in England. The New Model Army of Parliament opted for an entirely pike & shot formation, as the few archer companies were generally Royalists. After the defeats the Royalists took at Edgehill and Marston Moor, training skilled archers to replace their losses wasn't practical and so they too opted for pike & shot (and got crushed a year later at Naseby). The last fielding of an archer company in Britain is said to have been by a force of Royalist Highlanders fighting against the Covenanters at Tippermuir in 1644.

In Japan bows and guns coexisted for several centuries (the earliest guns arriving in the 1500's) as tradition, feudalism, and technical limitations kept the Japanese [[Firearm|tanegashimas]] from becoming a hunting tool like it did in the west. This held back the decline of archery as a skill and kept them relevant longer than in the west. Bows didn't completely disappear from Japanese battlefields until the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, the last and largest Samurai rebellion of the Meiji revolution, in which the last samurai rebels got cut down by breechloader rifles and gatling guns.

Tribes in the American plains kept bows alive long after muskets were regularly available. The Comanche used bows for buffalo hunting until 1878, when there no more buffalo to hunt.

The occasional general got it in his head to revive the longbow tradition as [https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0207 late as 1776], but it never gained any traction. Hilariously and awesomely, though, Lt. Col. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill Jack Churchill] went armed with a longbow to France in 1940.

== Types of bows and arrows ==
*'''Hunting Bow''': Any one of a billion variations on the theme of a simple bow made from local wood with a low draw weight. Easy to make and easy to master. Such bows would be (and still are) used for hunting, training and sport, but due to their low power they had little to no ability to pierce armor and were of little military use, but you know, throw enough paint at a wall some of it's gonna stick so troops armed with bows were still used in the army because that one time in a hundred they're useful makes that pittance you pay them worth it.

*'''Composite / Self bow''': Not a type of bow, as much as a way of building them. the self bow is what we think of when we say "bow" a single piece of curved wood with a string. Composite bows on the other hand are made of layers of different wood, horn and sinew glued together. The tougher materials allow composite bow to store as much energy as a self bow that has a bigger draw, but it's more complex to build and the glue can break apart in wet weather, which is why they were used mostly in the mid east and never caught on in Europe. Recurve bows are often built using composite techniques.

*'''Longbow''': The prime missile weapon of England, (the rest of Europe tended to use crossbows during the Middle Ages due to how damn hard it is to get large army of longbowmen). Longbow is actually an anachronistic term; in their time they were known only as bows or, outside of England, English bows. The first usage of "longbow" comes from the late 15th century and is used to differentiate them from crossbows, because they are held LONGwise rather than CROSSwise (not because they are long). It was unquestionably the best range weapon of the time period, and thus [[Medieval Stasis|the most common type of bow seen in fantasy]]. This is not actually due to the design or functionality of the bow; the thick cross section and heavy limbs of a longbow make it quite inefficient as a bow design, with many other bow designs (such as the recurves used by asiatic horse archers) being more efficient designs. The main advantage of a longbow is how rapid they are to make, since they can be made from a single straight stave of wood; some bowyers give a figure of less than two hours from seasoned stave to bow. The longbow is defined as a bow that is big as the person using it, but the most powerful bows of the medieval period were often longer than the user was tall, to reduce the chance of breakage. Another advantage of the Longbow is that, unlike the smaller and more efficient composite recurve bow, thet were made of one bit of wood, meaning they won't break apart every time it rains. English and Welsh long bows are traditionally made of yew and are composed of one solid piece of wood, meaning you can make a powerful bow fairly quickly. In fact, the way they were cut from the yew made them natural composite bows, using the different parts of the trunk to give extra springy strength. Good yew was so valued by the English that Edward IV put a tax on Italian traders stipulating that they had to supply a certain number of bowstaves for every tun of cargo (Italian yew being the best). Making a longbow'''man''' on the other hand takes a lot longer, and the English were the only ones to pull it off on a large scale. To do that they had to structure their entire society around making longbowmen, training from the age of 7. The French and Scots also produced respectable numbers of longbowmen. Longbowmen were mostly drawn from the yeomen, the land-owning commoners with a status between the peasants and knights (incidentally making them part of the first examples of the emerging middle class). Many were basically professional soldiers in an age of levies and warrior aristocracies, and were well equipped and very well paid. They were in huge demand as mercenaries, especially in the Prussian crusades and Italian civil wars. The English longbowmen were so notoriously dangerous that, supposedly, during the Hundred Years War, the French would sever the fingers necessary to a draw a longbow back, the index and middle, of any longbowman they captured. In response, Brits would taunt the French before battles by presenting said fingers, something which later evolved into the modern "Up Yours!" gesture. The long bow has the last recorded wartime bow kill in history, when British Lt. Col. Jack Churchill used one in World War II. He was also carrying a Scottish claymore and a set of bagpipes, so we can safely say his nickname of "Mad Jack" was well deserved.

*'''Yumi''': The generic name for all asymmetrical Japanese bows, further divided into the daikyū longbow and the shorter hankyū. The yumi is a type of longbow that can be over 2 meters in length end to end, with the grip being displaced from the center of the bow towards one end or the other. Exactly ''why'' the yumi is asymmetrical is debated,: some think it is so the bow could be fired kneeling, others think it helped when firing on horseback. Fortunately, any accuracy problems caused by that weird shape are mostly ironed out by the Japanese style of archery.
**'''Kyūdō''': The way of the bow, the Japanese style of archery. Like a lot of Japanese fighting styles it bundles spiritual learning into its raw martial technique, which is why it's hung on a bit better then other archery styles. What makes Kyūdō different from western archery is that you draw the string farther back, behind the ear, and that you spin the bow as you fire it so that the string ends in front of your forearm eliminating the need for a bracer to stop the string raise welts on your arm. Additionally the other big difference is that Kyūdō techniques are incredibly detailed with 8 or more steps each with an exact way of doing each.

*'''Recurve Bow''': A bow where the tips of the arms bend away from the archer, and the bow as a whole actually curves ''forward'' when unstrung. This gives the bow much higher tension and power at a shorter size, making it ideal for cavalry. It was one of the oldest types of bow more complex than "bendy wood with a string," and revolutionized warfare when it was first invented.

*'''Compound Bow''': The powerful modern version, utilizing both high-tension materials and the use of multi-stringed pulleys to thoroughly outpace anything the ancient world had. The near-complete obsolescence of the bow in modern warfare has ensured that most compound bows are used today by sportsmen and hunters. Note: In the past people called composite bows "Compound bows."

*'''Cable backed bow''': a cable backed bow uses ropes or cables running bow tip to bow tip to reinforce the structure of the bow. The big advantage of a cable-backed bow is that the cable reinforcement lets you make a bow out of very weak wood; they were common among the Inuit, who could use drift wood to make fairly powerful bows.
**''' Penobscot or Wabenaki bow,''': Invented by the Penobscot nation (which was a part of the Wabenaki confederation hence the name [[skub]]), the Penobscot bow is a type of cable backed bow. The difference is a Penobscot bow uses a second smaller bow with the arms pointing forward to help to get further tension out of otherwise weak wood.

*'''"The Instant Legolas"''': As you can tell by the name this is modern engineering thing done for fun to crank up the power of an ancient weapon. Invented by the German Joerg Sprave (since everything bigger then a slingshot is banned) the "Instant Legolas" adds a magazine mechanism to a bow, thus allowing what is in effect semiautomatic fire or burst fire depending on how you look at it: from a bow. Hence the name. It is distinct from a crossbow since there is no device to hold the string back, as such it turns the bow it is attached to into a cross between a repeating crossbow and a normal bow. Tod Todeschini has demonstrated such a device could be made with only technology from the Middle Ages, though quite costly in production time. While the "Instant Legolas" may not be the most practical invention, (since you know guns are a thing in our timeline), it's a fun one hence why it's on the list here for all your clockpunk world build needs.

While bows are largely the same from one type to another, the type of arrows they fired could be very different, with each built for a different task.

*'''Barbed Arrow''': arrows with at least a pair of barbs pointing out the backside so that they would get stuck in whatever they impacted, meaning wounds were both nastier and more difficult to treat. Also pretty damn useful for fishing since they won't float away since they're stuck.

*'''Bodkin point''': a European four sided pointed arrow head, the Bodkin looks like a tiny tall pyramid with steep sides. The Bodkin point was, thanks to it narrow tip, better able to penetrate, or at least heavily dent, armor then other arrow heads, and was good at deal with most kinds of armor at close range. The french learned this to their dismay in the Battle of Agincourt where the french knights charged across a muddy field, were slowed and made easy picking for the mass of English longbowmen. Even if the arrows couldn't penetrate some of their armor, the slow down and denting of their gear made them easy targets for the English longbowmen who, coupled with their innate strength from heavy bow use, smash their way to victory with the mallets they wield.

*'''Broadhead''': what we think of when we say "arrowhead", a broad base coming to a narrow point. The broadhead was built to take on animals by wounding them, then causing them to bleed out through the large gash and internal bleeding it created. When humans started killing each other it was just as effective against unarmed humans, but once we started wearing armor the broadhead had things more difficult. Still in use today for most hunters, and soft armor (ranging from leather to kevlar) are still vulnerable to penetration.
**'''Mechanical Broadhead''': A modernized version of the broadhead, these arrows feature heads that are normally small and blunt like field point arrows, but deploy retractable blades when they hit something. This allows them to deploy arbitrarily wide "heads" without affecting the arrow's accuracy and are more effective at wounding big game, but they tend to be more difficult to maintain than their fixed-blade cousins, require more draw strength since kinetic energy is lost when triggering the blades, and it's possible for the blades to deploy too early. Which type of broadhead is better is still a subject of intense debate among bow hunters.

*'''Target Point Arrow''':This type of arrow has a bullet-shaped heads with a sharp point, meant for penetrating archery targets without causing permanent damage by doing so.
**'''Field Point Arrow''': A relative of the target point arrow with a distinct "shoulder" on the point, which keeps the arrow from sticking into objects like tree stumps if a shot is fired outdoors and misses. It is commonly used for shooting practice and small game hunting, since they can be made with similar weight and flight properties to broadheads without causing damage to the target upon removal.

*'''Fowling Arrow''': Also called a blunt or bludgeon arrow, these arrows have a flat, bulb-like tip. They were designed to have limited range and penetrative power, instead focusing on downing birds in flight or killing small game via blunt force trauma. The impact of the arrows was enough to break the bird's bones. The limited penetration kept the meat edible and largely unexploded compared to broadheads.

*'''Judo Arrows''': A recent design, these arrows are designed for field practice and small game hunting in outdoors areas. Small spring wire "arms" attached to the arrowhead allow it to catch on grass and debris if it misses its target, preventing it from being lost in vegetation.

*'''Elf-Arrows''': Yes, that's what they're called. These are flint arrow heads used by the indigenous peoples of Europe, and particularly England, before they got a hand on the whole civilization thing. When the medieval people found these things in the ground they assumed they were arrows made and used by fairy and elves to kill cattle and humans.

*'''Flaming arrows''': These were NOT just setting the shaft of your arrow on fire, a Flaming arrow replaces the arrow head with something to carry the fire to the target. In a hurry (or on the cheap) you could just wrap rags soaked in something flammable around the tip of your arrow, but if you were ready you would use specially made arrows heads which were built like a cage so you could shoot a burning coal. It should be added that, given the small amount of flame these things put out, they were primarily used to light flammable things on fire (sails, thatch roofs, dry grass, and so on). Against anything living, they put out so little flame that they would be useless as anything other than a ''very'' marginal terror weapon ("look how many arrows we can put out; surrender before we have the light to shoot accurately"). Though in theory they could spook cavalry mounts.

*'''Fire Arrow''': Not to be confused with a flaming arrow, a Fire arrow is just like a normal arrow, only with a rocket attached. Fire arrows were used by all of the major "eastern" nations, China, Mongolia, Korea and Japan. China invented them and their use spread to the others. The Korean version was called the '''Singijeon''' and could be loaded for long range or for shorter ranges but with an explosive warhead. After the mongols used them in their attempt to conquer japan, the Japanese picked up a version for themselves called the '''Bo-hiya''' which was fired from out of an Arquebus rather then the lunching platforms (most famous being the Korean Hwacha) that the Chinese and Koreans favored.

*'''Ya''': Japanese arrows, unlike European ones these could be over a meter long.
**'''Kaburi-Ya (Whistling Arrow)''': Used both to signal to commanders and to scare the crap out of enemy soldiers, the "whistling arrow" works as you think it would, either the tip of the arrow was replaced or they added something along the length of the arrow to cause the whistling.
**'''Karimata''': A wacky looking arrow head, the "ropecutter" is a Y shaped arrowhead, with the two upper arms of the arrow pointing out toward the target. The Karimata was used to hunt big game by causing bleeding, but logically it would also create horrible wounds on a human.

*'''Explosive Arrow''': Relatively modern, but nevertheless still entertaining. Take a bomb and tie it to front of arrow in place of arrowhead. Generally very forward heavy and not very aerodynamic so it might not fly the way one might want it to, but given the whole "exploding" thing it doesn't need to be that accurate as long as it hits the general vicinity of where you want it to hit.

*'''Safety Arrow''': Arrows with wide, padded heads that make them (relatively) safe to use for re-enactment combats, although their users still advise the use of armor to avoid any accidents. With a 35 pound draw bow, capping an arrow with a penny divides the shaft's force over enough area to avoid breaking skin, although without padding it can still bruise.

==See Also==
*[[Crossbow]]

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Bows and Arrows

2022-03-18T18:20:02Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: Jack_Churchill was not the officer in question, General Charles Lee for example wrote a letter to Benjamin Franklin supporting the reintroduction of bows and arrows,

[[Image:Gurren_no_Yumiya.jpg|thumb|Yumi Bow. The Samurai's ACTUAL primary battlefield weapon.]]
An '''arrow''' is a modified version of a [[spear]]. It is smaller, lighter, typically has a set of feathers on the back end known as fletching to improve its ballistics and a notch in the end. Arrows are used as ballistic projectiles launched using a '''bow'''. A bow at it its most simple is a cord of elastic material (such as string, sinew or silk) held between a rigid but still elastic arch of material. The arrow is notched to the string, held against the bow and pulled back, putting the string under tension and storing energy. When released, the arrow is accelerated to a high speed. Bows were soon adopted on every continent save Australia for hunting and warfare for at least 12,000 years. A person trained in the use of a bow is called an archer, the skill of making use of a bow to shoot arrows at targets is known as archery.

In typical western fantasy, the Bow is the preferred weapon of [[Elves]], which makes some sense given the facts about elves (long lives, good vision and dexterity and speed on foot), but is still a little problematic if you think about it. The biggest limitations on bow use are the physical strength and stamina of the user, who was subject to heavy fatigue, and elves have a Constitution penalty and aren't always known for lifting. Well, unless they are Tolkienian elves (especially Noldor) - than you may see some pointy-eared guy launching arrows the size of a javelin that pierce through dragons and giant flaming daemons, and doing this for HOURS without his hands falling off from exhaustion.

In modern-setting fiction, and the attendant games based around them, bows are phenomenally popular (compared to the rest of the traditional medieval arsenal). Tons of superheroes like Hawkeye and Green Arrow who have it as a gimmick, sure, but also relative normies like Katniss from Hunger Games, Kagome from InuYasha, the rebooted Lara Croft, John Rambo, even the Dukes of fuckin' Hazzard. Something about the mystique and elegance of the bow ("...a weapon from a more civilized age") lends itself to becoming a unique non-firearm option for shooty heroes who are trying to make it through the gun-control skub of the 21st century. (The fact that it's relatively silent weapon is also a big draw even in video games - "Silenced" guns are still loud enough that you can hear them from the next room.)

== Archery in Warfare ==
The big advantage of a bow in pre-modern warfare was simple and obvious: range. When compared with javelins or thrown axes and spears, bows have a notable advantage in terms of range (Only the Aztec atlatl could get close), rate of fire and the amount of ammunition which could be carried into battle. Certain bows such as Welsh Longbows had range of up to 300 meters. Though when bows were used at such distances they were more akin to artillery than a modern sniper rifle, being loosed in volleys at the area in which enemy forces were standing rather than individual archers trying to hit individual enemy soldiers. A fit, well-trained archer could loose up to twelve arrows a minute, a rate of fire which was better than that of most [[firearm]]s until the 19th century and the rise of breech loading rifles. The biggest downside of bows and arrows is that they are basically useless in hand to hand combat. At best, they are an inefficient club and a short brittle spear. For this reason archers in battle would carry a backup weapon in case of close quarters fighting: usually a [[dagger]], a short [[sword]] or a [[warhammer]] (which is also used to set anti-cavalry spikes).

As mentioned, the basics of archery were common across the world for both hunting and as a sport, and archery continues to be practiced in the present day. A basic bow and basic arrows are fairly easy to make and use and save for Australia basically everyone made use of archery. Military archery was much less common however. Arrows loosed from a simple hunting bow may kill a deer or a naked human being, but they can be stopped by a basic wooden or even wicker [[shield]]. Their range was also limited. To a formation of well armored and/or shield equipped soldiers, arrow fire from common hunting bows were little more than a annoyance, and they would only be used in warfare as a weapon of last resort. For bows to be worthwhile against such forces, they needed to go beyond a simple oak branch and hemp string. Large bows made of yew and ironwood were one option if said trees were available. The English were famous for using such bows. Another option would be to make bows by gluing together layers of horn, sinew and either wood or bamboo.

Both heavier longbows and composite bows had considerable power and could penetrate shields, mail and even plate armor at close range but were more difficult to make and were (in the case of composite bows) more sensitive to moisture. Either way, both of these types of bows took a lot of time to master. Training an archer usually began in childhood. Archeologists can identify the skeletons of such archers with just a glance because the constant strain on their bodies from using the bows forced their skeletons to compensate (enlarged left arm bones and bone spurs on the left arm, left wrist, and right fingers). Due to their value in battle and the time which needed to be invested in training them, said archers were considered elite soldiers and were seen as valuable. In 1571 at the Battle of Lepanto, the Ottoman Fleet was dealt a major defeat. Amongst the biggest losses they had suffered was the deaths of many skilled composite bow armed archers. While their forces of galleys was reconstructed and recrewed fairly swiftly, it took a decade to train replacement archers. It should be noted that at this time, both the Ottomans and the Christians were making heavy use of matchlock [[firearm]]s, yet the superior rate of fire and accuracy of archers made they were still in high demand along with the arquebus-wielding soldiers.

Archers could fight either on foot or on horseback. Mounted archers equipped with composite bows could be quite devastating, raining arrows on forces armed with spears and swords from a safe distance while easily avoiding the slow moving masses of men. Many ancient armed forces are known for their use of mounted archery, and the resulting [[rage]] it inspired in their foes: See the Parthians (i.e. Persians) vs. the Romans, the Huns vs. Europe and the [[Mongols]] vs. Pretty Damn Well Everyone. Foot archers sacrificed this mobility for increased accuracy, increased numbers (cavalry archers also need to be trained in horsemanship and have a horse) and the ability to hide and dig in. Foot archers, if used properly and backed up with pikemen, were the best pre-gunpowder counter to cavalry archers. In fact, up until the invention of the breech loader Longbows were STILL better weapons then muskets because you could fire several volleys of arrows in the time needed to reload after firing a musket only once. It's also one of the major reasons the American and Russian militaries didn't establish a permanent presence on the Great Plains and the Central Asian steppes while they were still armed with muzzle loaders. Until the mass adoption of the breechloader and the lever action rifle, trying to hold your ground against raving bands of mounted archers was suicide without forts or reliable supply lines that aren't razed to the ground by angry natives.

On foot, bowmen excelled in forests. At close range the bow had a chance to either go though early armor (and longbows had decent odds against all but the heaviest of plate), or pick of weak unarmed points. Further against other armored foes a bowmen would have higher speed and could be a lot more quiet then the walking tin cans of the other guy, additionally armor has a tendency to get caught on things further accenting the maneuverability advantage. While Robin Hood may never have existed, bow armed [[bandit]]s most certainly did terrorize woods.

== The Decline ==
Bows have two major issues that make their use on the battle field problematic: training time and user fatigue. Compared to a crossbow or a firearm, bows require years and years of practice to become really, really good at, and to build up the endurance to perform the difficult feat of pulling back a high-tension wire, holding it to aim, and letting go over and over again. There is an old English proverb which goes; "To train a longbowman start with his grandfather." The best archers in human history were the English Yeoman, the Japanese Samurai, Ottoman Janissaries and Mongol Horse archers: entire social classes full of hard-training men. In fact, we can go into any English graveyard and figure out who the longbowmen were just by looking at the left arms on the skeletons. Conversely, crossbows and guns are easy to train with and don't necessarily wear you out as quickly. If you can field more men than your enemy, it gives you a pretty massive advantage. (For added hilarity, anything more than minimal training on early musketeers was a waste of time, because the first generation of guns would wander off-target no matter how carefully you aimed; instead of training ''better'' gunners, you were better served training ''even more'' gunners).

Once stronger crossbows, more reliable firearms, and better reloading mechanisms and manufacturing methods for both became commonplace, the longbow faded from martial prominence, like the [[sword]] before it.

The bow held out a while longer in England and Japan, the two great strongholds of archery. The English stopped using the bow around 17th century when gunpowder finally could be relied to work in humid conditions on campaign. It was the reforms of the English Civil War that ultimately did in the bow in England. The New Model Army of Parliament opted for an entirely pike & shot formation, as the few archer companies were generally Royalists. After the defeats the Royalists took at Edgehill and Marston Moor, training skilled archers to replace their losses wasn't practical and so they too opted for pike & shot (and got crushed a year later at Naseby). The last fielding of an archer company in Britain is said to have been by a force of Royalist Highlanders fighting against the Covenanters at Tippermuir in 1644.

In Japan bows and guns coexisted for several centuries (the earliest guns arriving in the 1500's) as tradition, feudalism, and technical limitations kept the Japanese [[Firearm|tanegashimas]] from becoming a hunting tool like it did in the west. This held back the decline of archery as a skill and kept them relevant longer than in the west. Bows didn't completely disappear from Japanese battlefields until the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, the last and largest Samurai rebellion of the Meiji revolution, in which the last samurai rebels got cut down by breechloader rifles and gatling guns.

Tribes in the American plains kept bows alive long after muskets were regularly available. The Comanche used bows for buffalo hunting until 1878, when there no more buffalo to hunt.

The occasional general got it in his head to revive the longbow tradition as late as 1792 (or in one hilarious case, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill 1940]), but it never gained any traction.

== Types of bows and arrows ==
*'''Hunting Bow''': Any one of a billion variations on the theme of a simple bow made from local wood with a low draw weight. Easy to make and easy to master. Such bows would be (and still are) used for hunting, training and sport, but due to their low power they had little to no ability to pierce armor and were of little military use, but you know, throw enough paint at a wall some of it's gonna stick so troops armed with bows were still used in the army because that one time in a hundred they're useful makes that pittance you pay them worth it.

*'''Composite / Self bow''': Not a type of bow, as much as a way of building them. the self bow is what we think of when we say "bow" a single piece of curved wood with a string. Composite bows on the other hand are made of layers of different wood, horn and sinew glued together. The tougher materials allow composite bow to store as much energy as a self bow that has a bigger draw, but it's more complex to build and the glue can break apart in wet weather, which is why they were used mostly in the mid east and never caught on in Europe. Recurve bows are often built using composite techniques.

*'''Longbow''': The prime missile weapon of England, (the rest of Europe tended to use crossbows during the Middle Ages due to how damn hard it is to get large army of longbowmen). Longbow is actually an anachronistic term; in their time they were known only as bows or, outside of England, English bows. The first usage of "longbow" comes from the late 15th century and is used to differentiate them from crossbows, because they are held LONGwise rather than CROSSwise (not because they are long). It was unquestionably the best range weapon of the time period, and thus [[Medieval Stasis|the most common type of bow seen in fantasy]]. This is not actually due to the design or functionality of the bow; the thick cross section and heavy limbs of a longbow make it quite inefficient as a bow design, with many other bow designs (such as the recurves used by asiatic horse archers) being more efficient designs. The main advantage of a longbow is how rapid they are to make, since they can be made from a single straight stave of wood; some bowyers give a figure of less than two hours from seasoned stave to bow. The longbow is defined as a bow that is big as the person using it, but the most powerful bows of the medieval period were often longer than the user was tall, to reduce the chance of breakage. Another advantage of the Longbow is that, unlike the smaller and more efficient composite recurve bow, thet were made of one bit of wood, meaning they won't break apart every time it rains. English and Welsh long bows are traditionally made of yew and are composed of one solid piece of wood, meaning you can make a powerful bow fairly quickly. In fact, the way they were cut from the yew made them natural composite bows, using the different parts of the trunk to give extra springy strength. Good yew was so valued by the English that Edward IV put a tax on Italian traders stipulating that they had to supply a certain number of bowstaves for every tun of cargo (Italian yew being the best). Making a longbow'''man''' on the other hand takes a lot longer, and the English were the only ones to pull it off on a large scale. To do that they had to structure their entire society around making longbowmen, training from the age of 7. The French and Scots also produced respectable numbers of longbowmen. Longbowmen were mostly drawn from the yeomen, the land-owning commoners with a status between the peasants and knights (incidentally making them part of the first examples of the emerging middle class). Many were basically professional soldiers in an age of levies and warrior aristocracies, and were well equipped and very well paid. They were in huge demand as mercenaries, especially in the Prussian crusades and Italian civil wars. The English longbowmen were so notoriously dangerous that, supposedly, during the Hundred Years War, the French would sever the fingers necessary to a draw a longbow back, the index and middle, of any longbowman they captured. In response, Brits would taunt the French before battles by presenting said fingers, something which later evolved into the modern "Up Yours!" gesture. The long bow has the last recorded wartime bow kill in history, when British Lt. Col. Jack Churchill used one in World War II. He was also carrying a Scottish claymore and a set of bagpipes, so we can safely say his nickname of "Mad Jack" was well deserved.

*'''Yumi''': The generic name for all asymmetrical Japanese bows, further divided into the daikyū longbow and the shorter hankyū. The yumi is a type of longbow that can be over 2 meters in length end to end, with the grip being displaced from the center of the bow towards one end or the other. Exactly ''why'' the yumi is asymmetrical is debated,: some think it is so the bow could be fired kneeling, others think it helped when firing on horseback. Fortunately, any accuracy problems caused by that weird shape are mostly ironed out by the Japanese style of archery.
**'''Kyūdō''': The way of the bow, the Japanese style of archery. Like a lot of Japanese fighting styles it bundles spiritual learning into its raw martial technique, which is why it's hung on a bit better then other archery styles. What makes Kyūdō different from western archery is that you draw the string farther back, behind the ear, and that you spin the bow as you fire it so that the string ends in front of your forearm eliminating the need for a bracer to stop the string raise welts on your arm. Additionally the other big difference is that Kyūdō techniques are incredibly detailed with 8 or more steps each with an exact way of doing each.

*'''Recurve Bow''': A bow where the tips of the arms bend away from the archer, and the bow as a whole actually curves ''forward'' when unstrung. This gives the bow much higher tension and power at a shorter size, making it ideal for cavalry. It was one of the oldest types of bow more complex than "bendy wood with a string," and revolutionized warfare when it was first invented.

*'''Compound Bow''': The powerful modern version, utilizing both high-tension materials and the use of multi-stringed pulleys to thoroughly outpace anything the ancient world had. The near-complete obsolescence of the bow in modern warfare has ensured that most compound bows are used today by sportsmen and hunters. Note: In the past people called composite bows "Compound bows."

*'''Cable backed bow''': a cable backed bow uses ropes or cables running bow tip to bow tip to reinforce the structure of the bow. The big advantage of a cable-backed bow is that the cable reinforcement lets you make a bow out of very weak wood; they were common among the Inuit, who could use drift wood to make fairly powerful bows.
**''' Penobscot or Wabenaki bow,''': Invented by the Penobscot nation (which was a part of the Wabenaki confederation hence the name [[skub]]), the Penobscot bow is a type of cable backed bow. The difference is a Penobscot bow uses a second smaller bow with the arms pointing forward to help to get further tension out of otherwise weak wood.

*'''"The Instant Legolas"''': As you can tell by the name this is modern engineering thing done for fun to crank up the power of an ancient weapon. Invented by the German Joerg Sprave (since everything bigger then a slingshot is banned) the "Instant Legolas" adds a magazine mechanism to a bow, thus allowing what is in effect semiautomatic fire or burst fire depending on how you look at it: from a bow. Hence the name. It is distinct from a crossbow since there is no device to hold the string back, as such it turns the bow it is attached to into a cross between a repeating crossbow and a normal bow. Tod Todeschini has demonstrated such a device could be made with only technology from the Middle Ages, though quite costly in production time. While the "Instant Legolas" may not be the most practical invention, (since you know guns are a thing in our timeline), it's a fun one hence why it's on the list here for all your clockpunk world build needs.

While bows are largely the same from one type to another, the type of arrows they fired could be very different, with each built for a different task.

*'''Barbed Arrow''': arrows with at least a pair of barbs pointing out the backside so that they would get stuck in whatever they impacted, meaning wounds were both nastier and more difficult to treat. Also pretty damn useful for fishing since they won't float away since they're stuck.

*'''Bodkin point''': a European four sided pointed arrow head, the Bodkin looks like a tiny tall pyramid with steep sides. The Bodkin point was, thanks to it narrow tip, better able to penetrate, or at least heavily dent, armor then other arrow heads, and was good at deal with most kinds of armor at close range. The french learned this to their dismay in the Battle of Agincourt where the french knights charged across a muddy field, were slowed and made easy picking for the mass of English longbowmen. Even if the arrows couldn't penetrate some of their armor, the slow down and denting of their gear made them easy targets for the English longbowmen who, coupled with their innate strength from heavy bow use, smash their way to victory with the mallets they wield.

*'''Broadhead''': what we think of when we say "arrowhead", a broad base coming to a narrow point. The broadhead was built to take on animals by wounding them, then causing them to bleed out through the large gash and internal bleeding it created. When humans started killing each other it was just as effective against unarmed humans, but once we started wearing armor the broadhead had things more difficult. Still in use today for most hunters, and soft armor (ranging from leather to kevlar) are still vulnerable to penetration.
**'''Mechanical Broadhead''': A modernized version of the broadhead, these arrows feature heads that are normally small and blunt like field point arrows, but deploy retractable blades when they hit something. This allows them to deploy arbitrarily wide "heads" without affecting the arrow's accuracy and are more effective at wounding big game, but they tend to be more difficult to maintain than their fixed-blade cousins, require more draw strength since kinetic energy is lost when triggering the blades, and it's possible for the blades to deploy too early. Which type of broadhead is better is still a subject of intense debate among bow hunters.

*'''Target Point Arrow''':This type of arrow has a bullet-shaped heads with a sharp point, meant for penetrating archery targets without causing permanent damage by doing so.
**'''Field Point Arrow''': A relative of the target point arrow with a distinct "shoulder" on the point, which keeps the arrow from sticking into objects like tree stumps if a shot is fired outdoors and misses. It is commonly used for shooting practice and small game hunting, since they can be made with similar weight and flight properties to broadheads without causing damage to the target upon removal.

*'''Fowling Arrow''': Also called a blunt or bludgeon arrow, these arrows have a flat, bulb-like tip. They were designed to have limited range and penetrative power, instead focusing on downing birds in flight or killing small game via blunt force trauma. The impact of the arrows was enough to break the bird's bones. The limited penetration kept the meat edible and largely unexploded compared to broadheads.

*'''Judo Arrows''': A recent design, these arrows are designed for field practice and small game hunting in outdoors areas. Small spring wire "arms" attached to the arrowhead allow it to catch on grass and debris if it misses its target, preventing it from being lost in vegetation.

*'''Elf-Arrows''': Yes, that's what they're called. These are flint arrow heads used by the indigenous peoples of Europe, and particularly England, before they got a hand on the whole civilization thing. When the medieval people found these things in the ground they assumed they were arrows made and used by fairy and elves to kill cattle and humans.

*'''Flaming arrows''': These were NOT just setting the shaft of your arrow on fire, a Flaming arrow replaces the arrow head with something to carry the fire to the target. In a hurry (or on the cheap) you could just wrap rags soaked in something flammable around the tip of your arrow, but if you were ready you would use specially made arrows heads which were built like a cage so you could shoot a burning coal. It should be added that, given the small amount of flame these things put out, they were primarily used to light flammable things on fire (sails, thatch roofs, dry grass, and so on). Against anything living, they put out so little flame that they would be useless as anything other than a ''very'' marginal terror weapon ("look how many arrows we can put out; surrender before we have the light to shoot accurately"). Though in theory they could spook cavalry mounts.

*'''Fire Arrow''': Not to be confused with a flaming arrow, a Fire arrow is just like a normal arrow, only with a rocket attached. Fire arrows were used by all of the major "eastern" nations, China, Mongolia, Korea and Japan. China invented them and their use spread to the others. The Korean version was called the '''Singijeon''' and could be loaded for long range or for shorter ranges but with an explosive warhead. After the mongols used them in their attempt to conquer japan, the Japanese picked up a version for themselves called the '''Bo-hiya''' which was fired from out of an Arquebus rather then the lunching platforms (most famous being the Korean Hwacha) that the Chinese and Koreans favored.

*'''Ya''': Japanese arrows, unlike European ones these could be over a meter long.
**'''Kaburi-Ya (Whistling Arrow)''': Used both to signal to commanders and to scare the crap out of enemy soldiers, the "whistling arrow" works as you think it would, either the tip of the arrow was replaced or they added something along the length of the arrow to cause the whistling.
**'''Karimata''': A wacky looking arrow head, the "ropecutter" is a Y shaped arrowhead, with the two upper arms of the arrow pointing out toward the target. The Karimata was used to hunt big game by causing bleeding, but logically it would also create horrible wounds on a human.

*'''Explosive Arrow''': Relatively modern, but nevertheless still entertaining. Take a bomb and tie it to front of arrow in place of arrowhead. Generally very forward heavy and not very aerodynamic so it might not fly the way one might want it to, but given the whole "exploding" thing it doesn't need to be that accurate as long as it hits the general vicinity of where you want it to hit.

*'''Safety Arrow''': Arrows with wide, padded heads that make them (relatively) safe to use for re-enactment combats, although their users still advise the use of armor to avoid any accidents. With a 35 pound draw bow, capping an arrow with a penny divides the shaft's force over enough area to avoid breaking skin, although without padding it can still bruise.

==See Also==
*[[Crossbow]]

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Novitiate Squad

2022-03-16T23:28:58Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* Tabletop */

[[File:NovitiateSquad.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Every Sister's origin story. From regular bitch to bolter bitch.]]
A '''Novitiate''' is for all intents and purposes, a term used to describe a [[Sisters of Battle|Sister-in-Training.]] Ergo, they are the Bolter Bitches' equivalent of a [[Whiteshield Conscript]]; they are female Progena of the [[Schola Progenium]]s. These aspirants are then given a Ring of Suffrage to wear and take the Oaths of Adherence, in order to become Novitiates.

==Overview==
Their training is overseen by a veteran Sororitas, who ensure the Novitiates master the Adepta's fundamentals and this may last quite a number of years or even decades. Even if a Novitiate has already been chosen to serve within a particular Order during that time, their trainers will demand that the Novitiates know the basic skills of all of the Adepta's Orders. So yes, they do more than just [[Flamer|burning shit up]] and [[/d/|dry humping the]] [[Emprah]]'s statue. They actually have a life outside of the cathedrals you know and, like any other educational facilities, they can choose and embark on different careers in the [[Ecclesiarchy]].

Even while training, though, a Novitiate may join the Adepta Sororitas on missions to gain further experience and know-how; where their training will be on the field of battle. There, the Novitiate's skills and devotion will be tested against the Imperium's enemies. Novitiates are also often selected to join the retinues of [[Ordo Hereticus]] [[Inquisitor]]s, who a Sororitas is asked to join their service. These are likely to be the Novitiates who have proven themselves to be among the most capable and self-sufficient of their class. Those chosen have also been deemed strong enough to endure the rigours and perils of serving with an Inquisitor. The Novitiates who survive such duties, often return to the Sororitas even firmer in their convictions and further honed in their skills. Sororitas that survive long-term duties with the [[Inquisition]], are a very valuable asset for the Adepta in their war against all things extra heretical. As a result of this, they are often destined to join the high ranks of their Orders.

Because they are still rookies, Novitiates are grouped into small teams led by a Sister Superior. These Superiors are known as Novitiate Superiors and they are charged with steering the faith of their Novitiates and serve as an inspirational example of how a warrior of the Adepta Sororitas acts at all times.

==Armoury==
[[File:Fx5yTyUS0eFsyWwi.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Okay, how the hell did a [[Fire Warrior|Weeaboo]] manage to make a Novitiate [[Wat|a hostage!?]] [[EPIC FAIL|Jesus fuck that is embarrassing,]] [[Sisters of Battle#Sisters Snuff|which is one hell of a feat given the Sisters of Battle's abysmal track record...]]]]
All Novitiates wear [[Flak Armour]], albeit ones that are specially made to look like nuns into battle. As such, they don't really last too long especially when considering the Bolter Bitches' love for CQC combat, of which Flak Armour provides as much protection as wet toilet paper. All Novitiates are armed with a standard-issue [[Autogun]] and [[Autopistol]] for ranged combat and either a basic (And we mean <u>'''''basic'''''</u>) close combat weapon like a [[Basic Close Combat Weapons#Flail|Flail]], [[Basic Close Combat Weapons#Hammer|Warhammer]] or a [[Basic Close Combat Weapons#Sword|Sword]], albeit ones that are master crafted. On special occasions, some of them are known to wield a [[Purgatus Crossbow|Purgatus]] or [[Stake Crossbow]] or even a [[Flamer]].

==Types of Novitiates==
*'''Novitiate Exactor''' - [[/d/|Whip me harder step-sister!]] Some zealous Novitiates are given [[Power weapon#Neural Whip|Neural Whips]] to use on their foes. Occasionally they will use them on [[Slaanesh|fellow Novitiates (kinky)]] whom the Exactors feel are lapsing in bravery and faith.
*'''Novitiate Penitent''' - The diet version of the [[Sisters Repentia]]s. These are Novitiates whose faith is found wanting. They wield [[Chain Weapon#Eviscerator|Penitent Eviscerators]] and are whipped into battle by Novitiate Exactors.

==Tabletop==

Introduced in the Kill Team: Chalnath set, Sisters Novitates are aspiring Battle Sisters who haven't yet earned the right to wear power armour or wield bolt weapons. Coming in a squad of 9 Novitates equipped with autoguns and a single Novitate Superior who's a full-fledged Sister with power armour and boltgun, these girls provide a low cost-per-body supplement to your basic Sisters, as they're essentially veteran guardsmen statlines with a 4+ sv. Novitates have CORE, '''<ORDER>''', Shield of Faith, and Sacred Rites just like full-fledged sisters, so they benefit from your special rules and buffs as normal. They also have normal 40k rules comeing with the release of there box and you can almost count the seconds till people start using the crunch of the Novitates as a proxy for Frateris Militia units.

{{Sisters-of-Battle}}

T-72

2022-03-14T05:29:06Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470:

[[File:T-72 Tank.jpg|300px|right|thumb|For the glory of slav-kind!]]
{{topquote|Have you captured a Russian tank or armored personnel carrier and are worried about how to declare it(for tax purposes)? Keep calm and continue to defend the Motherland! There is no need to declare the captured Russian tanks and other equipment, because the cost of this ... does not exceed 100 living wages |Ukraine's National Agency for the Protection against Corruption (NAPC) }}
The T-72 is Soviet second generation MBT employed by a variety of nations. In classic Russian fashion, it is rugged, relatively easy to produce, and simple enough that any soviet peasant can hop in and spread the revolution with utmost efficiency. The T-72 incorporates some of the latest advances in Soviet weapons technology, mouning an auto-loading 2A46 125mm main gun, which is capable of firing fin stabilized ammunition, and is protected by BDD composite armor similar to the Chobham armor used on western tanks.

Note that this article covers the actual T-72 only, the version produced and intended strictly for Soviet use. A downgraded export model, the T-72M, was produced for foreign sales and licensed for production by certain countries, like the Polish People's Republic. T-72s remain in the modern Russian Army's armored forces, but it has largely been replaced in Russian use by the improved T-72B3 and T-90, both of which are modernised overhauls of the original T-72.

==In Team Yankee==
[[File:T-72 Stat Card.jpg|300px|left|thumb|The Stat Card]]
''Updating this section for Team Yankee V2.''

The T-72A is an iconic Red Army MBT, representing the middle ground between a horde of T-55AM2s and a tiny company of T-64Bs. Being also the first tank introduced to the game alongside the M1, it has been powercreeped into obscurity. If you're still reading this, you are a true Soviet patriot.

This budget T-64 plays the role of a jack-of-all-trades tank, but compares poorly to it's earlier cousin, the T62m, due to it's points cost. Whether you need a tank for linebreaking, assault or fire support, the T-72 can do it all, just not very well.

Lets start with the boomstick. The T-72 mounts a 125mm 2A46 gun which is quite capable of punching through early model NATO Main Battle tanks and stands a decent chance of damaging later models with it's AT value of 22, and with the FP of 2+, practically anything you penetrate you are going to blow up. It's also rather good at dealing with unarmored targets like infantry and light vehicles as the ''Brutal'' rule means that they have to re-roll their successful saves. The T-72 can fire on the move with near impunity as the stabilizer negates the negative effects of moving and the laser rangefinder negates the penalties of firing on the move. The only downside is the fact that the 2A46 only has a ROF of 1, both halted and on the move, which means that you must mass tanks to mass fire, as is the case with practically all Soviet tanks. Importantly, the presence of the stabilizer means that the T-72 can really move when it needs to, and this is an aspect that many commanders forget about when calculating flank and spank distances. Although it suffers a penalty to hit, getting a flank shot when you need it means the distance between victory and defeat.

Oh, there is also a pair of machine guns; one 12.7mm AA mounted on a pintle and a 7.62mm mounted coaxially.

It's when the T-72 begins taking fire rather than dishing it out that things can get a bit dicey. The Frontal armour only has a paltry rating of 16, and the sides have a rating of 8. This value lies in the worst sweet spot for armor values, as common anti-tank weapons like the TOW, MILAN and other ATGMs will send turrets flying faster than you can say "cyka". To make things worse for our exploding hot pocket, new TOW 2 and 120mm DU rounds will simply tear through the T-72's front like it wasnt there. The T72's best defense is its mobility. Make full use of it's adequate 3+ cross to ensure you are hugging cover and make Uncle Sam work for his kills.

Things do get a little better as the T-72 is equipped with BDD armour, which bumps the side armour up to 13 against things with HEAT. Like the T64, the T-72 can assault fairly well and is suited to bullying US infantry, or other infantry when you have taken out their Carl Gustavs.

Despite these quirks, the T-72's points cost is the true deal breaker. At the onset of Team Yankee, a platoon of 3 for 12 points seemed like insane value when compared alongside the M1, but since then time has marched on and cheaper and better units, particularly the T-72's knockoff cousin, the T-72m, have all but kicked our poor stalwart to the curb like most Soviet WW2 veterans. A single tank add-on at 5pts each is simply too much to bear (ahem) for this poor workhorse. Hence, If you are somehow forced to use the T-72, fielding them in platoons of 3 in a full company of 10 is probably the best way you can flog a dead horse. There are better options out there (looking at you T62m) for fire support or for zerging. Dont say we didnt warn you!

==IRL==
[[File:T-64 IRL.jpg|300px|right|thumb|A Soviet tank defending the tree which Stalin plucked an apple from as a child.]]
Like many Soviet tanks, the T-72 is among the most massively-produced post-WWII tanks out there, seeing service in many countries outside Soviet borders. Like all things Soviet, ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRAPmAeQl0k| except their cars]), its chief features are cost-effective design and simple but efficient lethality. Even while the modern Russian Army has replaced the venerable T-72 with newer tanks (namely the T-90, which is basically just a T-72 with more current weapon systems), the T-72 is still solid enough that it has been repurposed for a wide variety of combat roles that it wasn't originally designed for, including the [[wikipedia:BMPT_Terminator|BMPT Terminator]] used for urban pacification (and simultaneously sporting one of the most menacing names for a tank ever), or the [[TOS-1 Buratino]]. If your confused by that and remember T-72's getting Roflstomped during the Gulf War, the answer is that those were [[T-72M]] which are the export version of the T-72 and were not as advanced as the ones used by the Russian army and eastern bloc nations proper along with the reported inability of Middle Eastern armies in mastering the art of Soviet Doctrine (AKA Attack Move) (or any doctrine, really. Read some books about Arab-Israeli wars, they are so one-sided it's not even funny). Well the Republican Guard of Iraq did actually have sound defensive tactics but ultimately were overwhelmed by M1 Abrams tanks rushing over their defensive positions.

There's a bit of an old wives' tale regarding the T-72's and other Russian tank's autoloaders: namely that it's autoloader would every so often accidentally eat the Gunner's arm. This is a myth likely originating from Bryan Perrett's "Soviet armour since 1945" that haven't been true of the T-64's even when they were new as they simply wouldn't have been entered production otherwise. While yeah, T-64's were more complex and therefore less reliable compared to T-72, broken thread, suspension system or engine is one thing, but dead or seriously injured gunner is another. Let me give an example: in 1941 the Red Army had a grenade named RG-41, and it was more than a match to more common RGD-33, weighting less while having the same amount of explosives. The only problem was its safety system: if you fucked up the initiation sequence (and it was not as simple as "pull the pin") and it malfunctioned, that baby could blow in your hands right in the moment you were about to throw it. After less than ''a dozen'' recorded incidents (and mind it, not a word in press or anything!), soldiers simply stop using those grenades, preferring to throw RGDs-33 or not using anything at all, which lead to RG-41 quickly being replaced with much safer RG-42. [[Chaos_Space_Marines|A tank that can bite your arm off is a very, very bad thing for morale, and no one in the right mind would sit in it, am I right?]]

Incidentally: the T-72 was not the most modern tank in the Soviet Arsenal by the time of Team Yankee 1985 start date for world war three. That title belongs to the [[T-80]], first introduced in 1976, well in time for this 'dust up'.

The Russians have put a lot of effort into providing modernized models to their front line forces in the Ukrainian conflict. So far the effort seems to have resulted in either burned out Russian tanks, abandoned ones, or free new rides for Ukrainian farmers. Base model T-72B stripped of all ERA gear have been spotted in the field as well, and any Russian in one of those is likely going to end up a burning wreck on the side of the road.

The T-72B3 and B3M seems to be the preferred punching bag for Ukrainian anti armor teams and the amount of turrets sent flying in excess of 40 meters is starting to compete with Iraq.

{{Soviet Forces in Team Yankee}}
[[Category:Team Yankee]]
[[Category:Vehicles]]

T-72

2022-03-14T05:28:33Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470:

[[File:T-72 Tank.jpg|300px|right|thumb|For the glory of slav-kind!]]
{{topquote|Have you captured a Russian tank or armored personnel carrier and are worried about how to declare it? Keep calm and continue to defend the Motherland! There is no need to declare (for tax purposes) the captured Russian tanks and other equipment, because the cost of this ... does not exceed 100 living wages |Ukraine's National Agency for the Protection against Corruption (NAPC) }}
The T-72 is Soviet second generation MBT employed by a variety of nations. In classic Russian fashion, it is rugged, relatively easy to produce, and simple enough that any soviet peasant can hop in and spread the revolution with utmost efficiency. The T-72 incorporates some of the latest advances in Soviet weapons technology, mouning an auto-loading 2A46 125mm main gun, which is capable of firing fin stabilized ammunition, and is protected by BDD composite armor similar to the Chobham armor used on western tanks.

Note that this article covers the actual T-72 only, the version produced and intended strictly for Soviet use. A downgraded export model, the T-72M, was produced for foreign sales and licensed for production by certain countries, like the Polish People's Republic. T-72s remain in the modern Russian Army's armored forces, but it has largely been replaced in Russian use by the improved T-72B3 and T-90, both of which are modernised overhauls of the original T-72.

==In Team Yankee==
[[File:T-72 Stat Card.jpg|300px|left|thumb|The Stat Card]]
''Updating this section for Team Yankee V2.''

The T-72A is an iconic Red Army MBT, representing the middle ground between a horde of T-55AM2s and a tiny company of T-64Bs. Being also the first tank introduced to the game alongside the M1, it has been powercreeped into obscurity. If you're still reading this, you are a true Soviet patriot.

This budget T-64 plays the role of a jack-of-all-trades tank, but compares poorly to it's earlier cousin, the T62m, due to it's points cost. Whether you need a tank for linebreaking, assault or fire support, the T-72 can do it all, just not very well.

Lets start with the boomstick. The T-72 mounts a 125mm 2A46 gun which is quite capable of punching through early model NATO Main Battle tanks and stands a decent chance of damaging later models with it's AT value of 22, and with the FP of 2+, practically anything you penetrate you are going to blow up. It's also rather good at dealing with unarmored targets like infantry and light vehicles as the ''Brutal'' rule means that they have to re-roll their successful saves. The T-72 can fire on the move with near impunity as the stabilizer negates the negative effects of moving and the laser rangefinder negates the penalties of firing on the move. The only downside is the fact that the 2A46 only has a ROF of 1, both halted and on the move, which means that you must mass tanks to mass fire, as is the case with practically all Soviet tanks. Importantly, the presence of the stabilizer means that the T-72 can really move when it needs to, and this is an aspect that many commanders forget about when calculating flank and spank distances. Although it suffers a penalty to hit, getting a flank shot when you need it means the distance between victory and defeat.

Oh, there is also a pair of machine guns; one 12.7mm AA mounted on a pintle and a 7.62mm mounted coaxially.

It's when the T-72 begins taking fire rather than dishing it out that things can get a bit dicey. The Frontal armour only has a paltry rating of 16, and the sides have a rating of 8. This value lies in the worst sweet spot for armor values, as common anti-tank weapons like the TOW, MILAN and other ATGMs will send turrets flying faster than you can say "cyka". To make things worse for our exploding hot pocket, new TOW 2 and 120mm DU rounds will simply tear through the T-72's front like it wasnt there. The T72's best defense is its mobility. Make full use of it's adequate 3+ cross to ensure you are hugging cover and make Uncle Sam work for his kills.

Things do get a little better as the T-72 is equipped with BDD armour, which bumps the side armour up to 13 against things with HEAT. Like the T64, the T-72 can assault fairly well and is suited to bullying US infantry, or other infantry when you have taken out their Carl Gustavs.

Despite these quirks, the T-72's points cost is the true deal breaker. At the onset of Team Yankee, a platoon of 3 for 12 points seemed like insane value when compared alongside the M1, but since then time has marched on and cheaper and better units, particularly the T-72's knockoff cousin, the T-72m, have all but kicked our poor stalwart to the curb like most Soviet WW2 veterans. A single tank add-on at 5pts each is simply too much to bear (ahem) for this poor workhorse. Hence, If you are somehow forced to use the T-72, fielding them in platoons of 3 in a full company of 10 is probably the best way you can flog a dead horse. There are better options out there (looking at you T62m) for fire support or for zerging. Dont say we didnt warn you!

==IRL==
[[File:T-64 IRL.jpg|300px|right|thumb|A Soviet tank defending the tree which Stalin plucked an apple from as a child.]]
Like many Soviet tanks, the T-72 is among the most massively-produced post-WWII tanks out there, seeing service in many countries outside Soviet borders. Like all things Soviet, ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRAPmAeQl0k| except their cars]), its chief features are cost-effective design and simple but efficient lethality. Even while the modern Russian Army has replaced the venerable T-72 with newer tanks (namely the T-90, which is basically just a T-72 with more current weapon systems), the T-72 is still solid enough that it has been repurposed for a wide variety of combat roles that it wasn't originally designed for, including the [[wikipedia:BMPT_Terminator|BMPT Terminator]] used for urban pacification (and simultaneously sporting one of the most menacing names for a tank ever), or the [[TOS-1 Buratino]]. If your confused by that and remember T-72's getting Roflstomped during the Gulf War, the answer is that those were [[T-72M]] which are the export version of the T-72 and were not as advanced as the ones used by the Russian army and eastern bloc nations proper along with the reported inability of Middle Eastern armies in mastering the art of Soviet Doctrine (AKA Attack Move) (or any doctrine, really. Read some books about Arab-Israeli wars, they are so one-sided it's not even funny). Well the Republican Guard of Iraq did actually have sound defensive tactics but ultimately were overwhelmed by M1 Abrams tanks rushing over their defensive positions.

There's a bit of an old wives' tale regarding the T-72's and other Russian tank's autoloaders: namely that it's autoloader would every so often accidentally eat the Gunner's arm. This is a myth likely originating from Bryan Perrett's "Soviet armour since 1945" that haven't been true of the T-64's even when they were new as they simply wouldn't have been entered production otherwise. While yeah, T-64's were more complex and therefore less reliable compared to T-72, broken thread, suspension system or engine is one thing, but dead or seriously injured gunner is another. Let me give an example: in 1941 the Red Army had a grenade named RG-41, and it was more than a match to more common RGD-33, weighting less while having the same amount of explosives. The only problem was its safety system: if you fucked up the initiation sequence (and it was not as simple as "pull the pin") and it malfunctioned, that baby could blow in your hands right in the moment you were about to throw it. After less than ''a dozen'' recorded incidents (and mind it, not a word in press or anything!), soldiers simply stop using those grenades, preferring to throw RGDs-33 or not using anything at all, which lead to RG-41 quickly being replaced with much safer RG-42. [[Chaos_Space_Marines|A tank that can bite your arm off is a very, very bad thing for morale, and no one in the right mind would sit in it, am I right?]]

Incidentally: the T-72 was not the most modern tank in the Soviet Arsenal by the time of Team Yankee 1985 start date for world war three. That title belongs to the [[T-80]], first introduced in 1976, well in time for this 'dust up'.

The Russians have put a lot of effort into providing modernized models to their front line forces in the Ukrainian conflict. So far the effort seems to have resulted in either burned out Russian tanks, abandoned ones, or free new rides for Ukrainian farmers. Base model T-72B stripped of all ERA gear have been spotted in the field as well, and any Russian in one of those is likely going to end up a burning wreck on the side of the road.

The T-72B3 and B3M seems to be the preferred punching bag for Ukrainian anti armor teams and the amount of turrets sent flying in excess of 40 meters is starting to compete with Iraq.

{{Soviet Forces in Team Yankee}}
[[Category:Team Yankee]]
[[Category:Vehicles]]

C'tan

2022-03-14T04:20:36Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* Aza'Gorod, The Nightbringer */

[[File:Nightbringer.jpg|thumb|The infamous Nightbringer]]
{{topquote|That is not dead which can eternal lie; And with strange aeons even death may die.|[[H.P. Lovecraft]]}}
{{topquote|Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God.|Shermer's Last Law}}

The '''C'tan''' (pronounced "Kit-tahn" or “Cuh- tahn”- not "kitten"...[[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|ha]]) are like the 40k's weaker and more diet-lite version of Galactus: ancient and powerful Star Gods capable of warping reality when they're recently full from a buffet of planets inhabited by life. These abilities are specifically called out as non-psychic, making the C'tan the most powerful entities who do not draw strength from the [[Warp|Immaterium]], which is anathema to them and vice versa - they are strictly Gods of reality.

They were given physical bodies by the ancient Necrontyr. They are often called Star Vampires due to the habitat and feeding habits they evolved with, as they are capable of 'nomming entire stars with ease, but soon they found living planets to taste better. Their vast power, however, is limited to the Materium; the Warp is anathema to them, as they cannot control or enter it, and being big babies decided if they can't play in Hyperspace-Hell nobody can <s>which probably makes them good guys in a sense though</s>{{BLAM}}which means they share one of their main goals with the [[Imperium of Man]]. Before the concept was retconned, the C'tan tampered with humanity to inject the anti-psyker [[Pariah]] gene and probably built the Cadian Pylons that created the Cadian gate by forming a bubble of normality that cuts into the [[Eye of Terror]]. In 4th edition they were responsible for massive amounts of [[just as planned]].
[[File:Download.jpg|thumb|300px|right|C'tan in a Tesseract. Your only way of surviving this is to run and order Exterminatus.]]

And now they are <s>[[Pokemon]].</s> Shards.

(They are <s>evolving</s> reforming however.)

==History==
===Oldcron lore (3rd edition)===
In their original incarnation in the 3rd Edition Necron Codex, the C’tan (Necrontyr for ‘Star God’) were born during the Big Bang. At this stage, they were immaterial energy entities born from suns, which they in turn fed upon. They were completely apart from material reality and spent most of their time consuming the energy of stars.

Eventually they were discovered by the Masters of Technology and ever bitter Necrontyr. The Necrontyr were obsessed with studying suns, since their own evolution had been so badly impacted by their home world's star, while their war against the Old Ones (another exceptionally advanced race who the Necrontyr had sought to exterminate out of spite) was going poorly and they were desperate to find a way to turn the tides. At this point the C’tan were barely sentient and effectively just semi-conscious clouds of energy but the Necrontyr found a way to transfer them into living metal bodies.

The first C'tan was found "sucking" the energies of the Necrontyr planet's sun, the same sun that gave off enough hard radiation to make the proto-Necrontyr’s lives nasty, brutish, and short.

The Necrontyr formed a necrodermis body and coaxed the star-sucker to inhabit it. This C'tan was later named '''The Nightbringer.''' When the Nightbringer awoke in the new body, it noticed the Necrontyr for the first time and discovered they were like Chinese take-out: really yummy and spicy, more so than bland stars, but you could eat a few thousand and still feel hungry an hour later. It took a while and much slaughter before the Necrontyr could convince the Nightbringer that they were more useful in servitude, and there were other yummy lifeforces to be eaten instead out there; only then did it stop killing them. Soon other C'tan were found and also offered necrodermis bodies.

Now possessed of actual physical forms, the C’tan began to change. Firstly, they found feeding upon the electromagnetic pulses of living bodies to be much better than feeding upon stars (even if it required many, many more bodies to sate them). Secondly, they found being worshipped as Gods very satisfying. Given their immense power, the Necrontyr basically handed over the reins of their civilisation to these entities, and so enamoured by it the C’tan developed egos. As a result of this, and probably the fact such entities were beyond concepts like morality, the C’tan became sentient and exceptionally malevolent Gods.

The C’tan began to remake the Necrontyr in their image. Having reduced their population to largely willing slaves, the C’tan sought to expand their dominion and both dominate and feed on all life in the galaxy. Not much is known about their worshippers, except the Nightbringer's presence caused its worshippers to have horrifying visions of death in bloodshed that drove many insane, and The Deceiver was so popular it had to send some of its followers to worship the other C'tan for fear they'd get jealous. It was The Deceiver, though the Necrontyr knew it as The Messenger, who offered them a new way to exterminate their hated foes the Old Ones as well as escape their blighted physiology. Living metal bodies. The Necrontyr accepted. In this older edition, most of the Necrontyr weren't on board with making such a huge change [[Grimdark|but they were tricked or forced into it by The Deceiver's followers]]. In the end the Necrontyr ceased to exist and became the C’tan’s slaves, the Necrons.

The C’tan in turn battled the Old Ones for dominion of the galaxy, and with their own immense powers and the Necron’s amazing science, began to win. In turn the C’tan enslaved trillions – either to force them to worship them as gods, or to feed upon them in ‘Red Harvests’ (or both). Large chunks of the galaxy were reduced to a wasteland. As the harvests grew thin, the C’tan turned upon each other, in large part due to the Deceiver promising the Nightbringer that his fellow Star Gods essence would taste excellent. Eventually only four were left. The Deceiver, the Nightbringer, the Void Dragon and the Outsider.

At this stage the Old One’s desperate attempts to defeat the C’tan brought the clock to midnight. With the galaxy already devastated and much of the population consumed or enslaved, the Old One’s new races, populated by psykers, caused the warp to produce [[Daemon|malevolent entities]] eager to enslave and destroy reality. These began to pour into reality en mass. While the C’tan were pleased with this destroying the Old One’s civilisation, they panicked. Not only were they completely incapable of manipulating the warp, it was very much capable of destroying them, and likewise, leaving them with nothing to feed upon. The C’tan attempted to cut off the material reality from the warp but devastated by infighting and unable to handle the mass warp incursions, decided upon a new approach.

The C’tan and their Necron servants would retreat to tombs erected on dead worlds and wait out the galaxy becoming an arid wasteland until it bore new species – specifically those suited to becoming slaves and servants and food.

===Newcron lore (5th ed onwards)===

Other C'tan gods were discovered feeding on stars, but the most significant of these was named '''The Deceiver''' (not that other [[Tzeentch|Deceiver]]). Weaker than the others, The Deceiver is better at [[just as planned|leveraging other entities]] to do what it wants. After inhabiting a necrodermis body, it adapted to the material world quickly and became very popular with the Necrontyr by means of cunning and guile - mind you, back then he was known simply as the Messenger. It was the Deceiver that convinced the Necrontyr they could escape their short lifespans and succeed in their battles against the [[Old Ones (Warhammer)|Old Ones]] by inhabiting necrodermis bodies themselves. The Deceiver neglected to mention that these new [[Necrons]] would be insensate, dull-witted and easily manipulated by the C'tan. That's how they came to know his other trait - being a massive dickhead. Both figuratively and literally.

During the Necrons' war against the Old Ones, the C'tan also fought amongst themselves, destroying the necrodermis bodies they used to have an effect on the material world. After the Old Ones were rendered extinct, the Necrons turned on the few surviving, weakened C'tan, and tore them into a fuck-ton of shards which they then imprisoned in [[Tesseract Vault|Tesseract Labyrinths]]. While those shards are like over nine thousand times weaker than full-strength C'tan, they are still rape machines of death and destruction, and some [[Necron Overlord]]s are arrogant enough to release them on their enemies like giant grimdark <s>[[Pokemon]]</s> attack animals. Still, some of the shards managed to escape and even merge to regain part of their godlike power, some can even have their own mindless Necron slaves to justify some of the old fluff. Of course, the final goal of each unchained shard is to free all other shards of himself and merge with them to form a god of pure murder and rape, capable of tearing apart entire sectors single-handedly. Though the Necrons are ever vigilant and constantly hunting the escaped shards.

tl/dr: They were once an energy based race of star-vampires, were then turned into metal gods of death, and are now slave warriors and hunted runaways trying to regain their former glory. Oh, how the mighty fall...

Some have, for varying reasons, considered the C'tan to have been gratuitously shoehorned into the setting, and claim that with the 5th edition Necron Codex they were put in their place. Make of that what you will. Generally speaking the reason is more practical. Oldcron C'tan were suppose to rival the Chaos Gods yet they weren't all that hard to table, making them look weak, and GW isn't all that into removing stuff with models, so they just claim there are weakened enslaved avatars.

And, according to most recent fluff, their necrodermis makes them look like a cross between Eldar and humans. So what the hell did the Necrontyr look like?

== Transcendent C'Tan Shard==
A '''Transcendent C'Tan Shard''', introduced in [[Apocalypse]], is a C'tan Shard that has eaten/merged with/subsumed a large number of other Shards (between twelve and several hundred), becoming scary powerful in the process. In fact, it's ''so'' powerful, it's an <s>Apocalypse-only Gargantuan creature as powerful as a [[Titan]]</s> a Monstrous Creature with a power equivalent to a 6th edition [[Wraithknight]] (he had that [[nerf]] coming), all in a package the size of a regular C'tan. Funny enough, the most damage it dealt back in the day was blowing up, and not shooting the surely-not-warp-mind-bullet-lightning.

One of the most terrifying things is that a Transcendent Shard "calls" other shards of the same C'tan, hoping to absorb them and increase its own power in the process. Eventually, a loose Transcendent C'tan will reunite all loose Shards, becoming the original, nigh-on unkillable, godlike C'tan, which will no doubt be very angry at the Necrons for double-crossing them. [[Grimdark|Grimdark enough for you?]] No? Well, what if we told you [[Not as planned|there are ALREADY C'tan Shards on the loose]]? Some of them can even think for themselves. Remember the [[Uriel Ventris|Nightbringer of Pavonis]] or the "golden-skinned" being who guided [[Abaddon]] to Drach'Nyen? Or maybe a [[Void_Dragon|Dragon]] sleeping on [[Mars]]?

Very few [[Necron Dynasty|Necron dynasties]] have one, because it's very hard to keep something that powerful in check. It requires a massive Tesseract Vault to keep it ''barely'' contained. Despite this, there have been reports of particularly powerful/desperate/fucking stupid dynasties using the Transcendent shards without a Vault when the need arises, but only if said Shard is not yet powerful enough (which is why they are "only" MC compared to the Vault, that is a [[Rape|Super-heavy Flyer vehicle with upgraded C'Tan powers]]). In this state, the risk of the Shard going rogue increases a thousandfold, so even [[Assholetep]] thinks twice about releasing such power, because if the Transcendent Shard escapes and reunites with the other Shards of itself, the full-fledged C'tan will return. [[Rape|Let's leave to the reader's imagination what would happen then...]] After all, the Silent King had to basically sucker-punch the C'tan with a reality breaking superweapon, while they were tired and distracted, to shatter them in the first place. Even if the Necrons still had that weapon, it probably wouldn't work again.

== Known C'tan ==
===[[Aza'Gorod]], The Nightbringer===
[[File:The Nightbringer.jpg|300px|thumb|These [[Space Marines]] are [[Fist of the North Star|already dead]], they just don't know it yet.]]
Here to fuck your shit up. The first C'tan revealed to inhabit realspace. Scared the crap out of a race/culture that was a threat to the race/culture that created all the other races in WH40K. Likes killing, killing and, well, killing. In short: [[Night Lords|batshit insane]] though in a different way than the Outsider. When the Necrontyr gave him a necrodermis body, he got a taste for livings and started slaughtering the Necrontyr who summoned him, only stopping when they pledged themselves to his service and pointed out there were other races to consume. Ate most of the other C'tan along with the Outsider, though he was convinced into doing so by the Deceiver while the Outsider was convinced by Cegorach, and is therefore known among his brethren as a team killing fucktard. Pretty much a giant, mechanical, space Grim Reaper that shoots lightning. He once battled the [[Eldar]] war god Khaela Mensha Khaine and lost (though he managed to give Khaine a black eye on the way out), after which he was imprisoned for millennia.

He was freed by [[Uriel Ventris]] and the [[Ultramarines]] 4th Company. And yes, that does mean the Ultrasmurfs have fucked over the entire galaxy on a scale not seen since the Eldar murderfucked [[Slaanesh]] into existence, but lets not get into that. The (Intelligent) Necrons under his authority tend to be the "silent, kill-every-living-thing" type with all the subtlety of an [[Angry Marine]]. In fact, they hate life so much that even bacteria and archaea are purged from any active Tomb World they inhabit, so basically there like all necrons before the lore rework/retcon.

(On a sidenote, the [[Skub|edit squabbles]] between the Necron-affiliated [[Neckbeards]] and the Chaos-affiliated neckbeards over what basically amounted to a "who would win in a fight?" discussion about him and Khorne was ''hilarious'' for the unaffiliated to watch.)

===[[Mephet'ran]], The Deceiver===
[[File:Deceiver.jpg|300px|thumb|Mind-rapist extraordinaire. That is Trazyn by the way, screaming his vocal cords, the only instance the Troll paralyzed by fear]]
Mass dickery on a galactic scale that only [[Cegorach]] could rival and long before [[Tzeentch]] was even a sparkle in the Warp's eye. Got the bright idea of convincing the Necrontyr to turn themselves into the zombie-mummy-skeleton-robots known as <strike>[[Tomb Kings]]</strike> Necrons. Rumored to have implanted the Pariah Gene into humans to help combat the forces of the Warp. This has since been retconned, but that's [[Just as Planned|just what he wants you to think]]. Spends his days taking part in "Just as planned" contests with Tzeentch, The Emprah, [[Cegorach]] the Laughing God, and maybe/probably [[Alpharius]] (and/or Omegon), though no one really wins in the end as everything they do results in a paradox. The Eldar refer to the Deceiver as "The Jackal God", because they apparently had jackals or something like them in outer space millions of years ago. (And just happened to identify them with trickster gods, but this isn't actually surprising. You have a a dog - a loyal friend - which has taught itself to act like a cat - a pointy bastard: ''of course'' it's a trickster.) Or it's a purely "meaning"/metaphorical translation. The Necrontyr, however, called him Mephet'Ran, or "the messenger", making him the Necrontyr equivalent of Hermes or Thoth (or Nyarlathotep if we want to go Lovecraft) hence his golden six-pack. The (Intelligent) Necrons under his command tend to be sneaky and manipulative bastards with many of the [[Necron Lord]]s under his command occupying many important positions in the Imperium of man and are the type of Necrons most likely to stop and chat with you, the second most common type. These are probably more dangerous overall than the ones who just want to kill you. One of them infiltrated the [[Inquisition]] and set himself up as Inquisitor Raleigh of the [[Alienhunters|Ordos Xenos]] in Xenology as part of a plot to learn humanity's greatest weakness, which turned out to be knowledge since humans are insatiably curious fucks which isn't actually that far from the truth. The Deceiver may have given [[Failbaddon]] his beloved daemon sword Drach'nyen in an almost Tzeentchian scheme <s>to reduce Abby's WS to 1 </s>. This would, as stated above, make Abaddon too powerful to be killed and replaced as Warmaster, and therefore ensure that only Abaddon <strike>and his massive degrees of incompetence</strike> would ever be at the head of the [[Chaos Space Marines|Traitor Legions]]. In the old fluff, it is confirmed that the Deceiver DID give the armless Despoiler two Blackstone Fortresses. These are gigantic ancient spaceships that can destroy stars and can kill a C'tan because it is essentially a massive Distort weapon floating in space, and as the C'Tan cannot exist within or interact with the warp, a Distort weapon will kill them instantly as anything caught in its radius is torn between the warp and realspace, potentially even sucking them in entirely. This more than anything is what has probably kept Abaddon in power. The Deceiver would also much rather they were owned by people that didn't know what they truly are rather than the Eldar or anyone affiliated with them who could reactivate and utilize the Distort weapon.

Little known fact is that The Man With No Name was the Deceiver. Seriously.

Also seeing how he gave the Silent King full control of both his mind and total control of the Necron Forces, it implies he knew the Silent King was going to turn on the C'tan, and seeing how most free Shards seem to be the Deceiver it would imply he's running around trolling others all over the place, like SG-1's Baal with all his clones. This guy gave up godhood so he could be more of a dick. That's dedication right there.

===[[Mag'ladroth]], The Void Dragon===
[[File:7fattpselu851.jpg|thumb|Doesn’t look like an actual dragon, surprisingly.]]

The Void Dragon can exert control over any machine, making him the most influential C'tan when at full power. It has been theorized that the [[Emperor]] battled the Void Dragon and successfully managed to put it to sleep under Mars. He didn't kill the Dragon, [[Just as planned|instead using its influence to give humanity mastery over machines]]. Extended from this theory, it is believed by some that the [[Omnissiah]] fervently worshiped by the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] is [[Not as planned|actually the Void Dragon]], as he's supposedly the entity that causes the ramshackle excuse for technology the Imperium has to work properly. There's also an Eldar legend of their forge god Vaul failing to destroy the Dragon, only managing to force its hibernation in the so-called "Vaul Moon," although that could, in fact, be Mars itself. In case you're wondering how powerful he is, note that he was once shot at by <i>multiple</i> Blackstone Fortresses simultaneously (keeping in mind that even a single Blackstone Fortress can [[Exterminatus|destroy a planet]] Death Star-style); all this managed to do was make him sleepy. Vaul, meanwhile, allegedly attacked the Dragon with an army at his back and was never heard from again. This is probably the only reason the Emperor was able to defeat the Dragon; it was just tired from his previous scuffle. To top it all off, the Empruh's psychic power is apparently the only thing C'tan are vulnerable to. In short, powerful as FUCK. The Necrons under his command are probably massive technophiles with a raging hard-on for machines... then again, they're already machines, so that would be expected, but they're probably even <b>bigger</b> technophiles than their fellows and emphasize their mechanicalness over their undeadness. Could be argued that he's the only C'tan who's whole, given that he was shot by the Blackstone Fortresses and went to have a little sleepy, meaning he could have avoided the Silent King's master ball. If so, it'll be a bit of a problem to catch him now that's he's hanging out in the [[Terra|most heavily defended solar system]] in the entire galaxy.

If the Void Dragon were to ever wake up, its possible that the tenuous grip on technology the Mechanicus still had could be lost entirely. Those of the Mechanicus would be affected the worst- in an old 3rd Ed Necron codex tale, one such techpriest who discovered the truth of the Dragon tore every last implant from his body in a fearful insanity. Their incredibly strange relationship with technology sees them both venerating it, entrusting themselves to it blindly while also understanding little of it, shunning technology like that of AI in the wake of the Men of Iron. Wholly dependent and wholly ignorant of their tech, the Imperium's biggest threat lurks right under their noses- under their very skin, in some literal cases. In short, any human society that isn't still wearing loincloths and banging rocks together is going to have a really bad day. The Necrons themselves seem to be aware of this too. On one occasion, a Necron force took [[The World Engine]] for a joyride and divebombed Mars. It wasn't exactly successful (meaning it was completely destroyed by the Solar Garrison), but they got robo-boots on the ground, and the fact that they were able to do it at all shook things up for the [[High Lords of Terra|High Lords]]. The question is why exactly they did this, given the old and new fluff for the 'Crons gives them dramatically different relationships with the C'tan. Some Necrons probably still worship the C'tan, so they could have been trying to either free or destroy it. Or [[Mephet'ran|manipulating the Imperium]] into dedicating more forces to protect it so the nids or Chaos don't let it out by accident. Freeing it might arguably be even worse for the Necrons than the Imperium. Necron suicide cult anyone?

Given that models have since been made of its shards it turns out it WAS sharded. SO maybe whats in Mars is the largest chunk? Was he sharded with the rest? or was his throwdown with Emps what did the deed? how much danger does a shard possess given its fearsome powers? lotta questions presented but not a lot answered.

===[[Tsara'noga]], The Outsider===
Ate at the same C'tan-cannibalism salad bar as the Nightbringer but did so due to the dickery of [[Cegorach]] the Laughing God instead of the dickery of the Deceiver, but feels bad about it; blames Eldar gods for his bad eating habits. Decided to say "screw you guys, I'm taking my ball and leaving," and currently lives in a Dyson (vacuum cleaner) Sphere outside the galaxy. A hive fleet of [[Tyranid|Tyranids]] decided to go AROUND this place, not just ignore it like Tyranids do with Necron tomb-worlds. Were the Tyranids scared? Dunno, it's safer to lick a bandsaw than stop to ask a Tyranid. Other beings prefer to blow their own brains out rather then look at the Outsider when he's in town. Grimdark. The (intelligent) Necrons under his command are probably batshit insane. Also to note, it is theorized HE IS THE HIVEMIND of the Tyranids, needless to say, if this is true the galaxy is screwed (But not the Blood Angels. [[Matt ward|They're good friends with the Soulless, spooky, sleepy tin skeletons that literally cannot feel any kind of emotion]], logic.)

You do not mess with The Outsider. Given that he went off to sulk about being a greedy little cannibal the Outsider might be fine and dandy and not in the Silent Kings battle box in case he ever has to face a Charizard

===[[Nyadra'zatha]], The Burning One===
[[File:Burning One.jpg|300px|thumb|[[Sisters of Battle|FIRE FIRE FIRE]]]]
Gee, I bet you can't guess what his shtick is. Hint: it involves [[Webway]] gates. Wait, what? Yeah, apparently the Burning One was the C'tan that told the [[Necrons]] how to break into the [[Dolmen Gate|Dolmen Gates]] and troll the [[Old Ones (Warhammer)|Old Ones]] on their own turf. He was implemented to give more background to the "Lord of Fire" ability, but many [[neckbeards]] believe that [[Games Workshop]] added him specifically to make us argue about whether or not he's [[Khaine]]. Whether or not this is true, [[troll|you should absolutely use an Avatar of Khaine to represent a C'tan Shard with Lord of Fire and laugh when your opponent's Fire Dragon Exarch's meltagun blows up in his face.]]
*Oh, and in case you didn't get it: he's a pyromaniac asshole. The only reason he wanted to go into the Webway was to burn the fuck out of it.

Once had his own rules in both '''Champions of Fenris''' and '''Shield of Baal: Exterminatus'''. All his attacks have Soul Blaze and has a special power of S5 AP4 assault 2D6 ignores cover soul blaze and the special rule Wall of Fire which means all the attacks auto-hit including flyers and models blocked by line of sight.

These were for special missions however and not a special character that any army could take. Instead there is a formation in Exterminatus to represent the Burning One, which is '''squad''' consisting of a single shard and two Crypteks, where the whole unit uses the Toughness of the Shard and it also gets Feel No Pain. Despite its name, the formation could easily apply to any other C'Tan as well.

Finally has a model, since it's confirmed that a shard of the Burning One is trapped above the Silent King's throne. Oh, and he's wearing its flayed skin. Grimdark.

===Iash'uddra, The Endless Swarm===
Nothing is known about this guy but his name. Contrary to some fa/tg/uys belief, he is not a reference to [[Tau Quest]], but rather to the old fan theory in which the Tyranids were led by a C'tan. Again, GW is actively trying to make us argue and fanwank, the trollan fucks.

Of course if you don't want to subscribe to GW's fuckery it could be where the Scarabs come from, since they are, arguably, a huge swarm of mechanical undead bugs.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/b6y62o/new_details_on_obscure_ctan_by_matt_ward/ If this post is to be believed,] he's the Scarab creator indeed! Also, apparently, his form is not as solid as those of other C'tan, looking more like gestalt being of Scarabs, barely holding together in humanoid form, instead. So a double reference to Apophas from Warhammer Fantasy.

===Og'driada, The Arisen===
Even less is known about him, than about Iash'uddra ([https://imgur.com/a/Vz8yS57 his only canonical appearance so far]), but, [https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/b6y62o/new_details_on_obscure_ctan_by_matt_ward/| if this post is to be believed], this C'tan is the oldest one of them all, roused from sleep by the consumption of the Necrontyr and shrouded in heavy robes.

===Kalugura, the Silent Cry===
This guy exists entirely because of [[FAIL]]. In ''Black Crusade - Hand of Corruption'', the [[Tomb World]] Kalugura has a single captive C'Tan Shard. Which C'Tan isn't named: it's just called "C'Tan Shard of Kalugura", i.e. "the C'Tan Shard that they have on Kalugura". Some dumb fuck at GW was looking for new C'Tan to add to the 9E Codex, apparently saw this entry and didn't read past the name, and assumed it meant "the Shard of the C'Tan Kalugura", and added it to the Codex as "Kalugura the Silent Cry". So we're stuck with that, I guess.

===Llandu'gor, The Flayer===
Llandu'Gor is responsible for the [[Flayed Ones]]. The Necrons sharded him so hard he completely died, but he managed to infect thousands of Necrons with his hunger as a final dick move, turning them into warped ghouls with a gore fetish and teleportation powers. Which basically means that he has millions of Necrons under his influence, and that this number is continuously growing, because the Flayer Curse is contagious.

The exact wording of the curse is as follows:

"To those who have turned their faces away. To those who are faithless and wretched in their jealousies. To those who have denied us. To those who have denied me. I will wreak vengeance. I will wrench your souls and break your bones. I will cast hunger through your accursed existence. Down the eons, you will not forget. I will grant you this gift from love turned aside and make you like me, break you in my image as you have broken me. I shall cast the fear of myself into you and all of your kind. I am Llandu’gor. I am the hunger. I am the flayer, and from this moment, you shall be too."

Apparently named after a Welsh village, must be a nice place. (NB: depends which Welsh villages, there are heaps of Llansomethings)

===Yggra’nya, The Moulder of Worlds===
Yggra’nya was the C'tan responsible for the creation of the World Engine, known as [[Tomb World|Borsis]] to the Necrons. After getting sharded and imprisoned on Borsis, let's just say he wasn't all that fond of the folks who took over the place in his absence. When the Astral Knights came down for their suicide attack on the planet, he convinced them to free him, and promptly proceeded to [[Rape|fuck up the ruling Overlord and every power generator on the planet, opening up the World Engine for bombardment from the Imperial Fleet.]] After that, he hightailed it out of there and probably went off into another galaxy to fuck around with, like he said he would. Or not, considering he seemed to have Deceiver levels of dickery.

Another shard of the Worldmaker was present on Damnos when the Ultramarines returned to retake it for the Imperium after [[Fail|Cato Sicarius' first attempt.]] Contained within a Tesseract Vault, it was happily powering an entire floating Necron City when [[Marneus Calgar|Marneus Calgar]] decided to say fuck it and [[Wat|dual-wield a Gauss Pylon to blow the damn thing up and release the C'tan shard within]].Yggra'nya shouted with its newfound freedom, and the shout grew until it was cracking the earth beneath it, until Cato threw a Vortex grenade and sucked it into the Warp.

===N’phoran,The Spiral Flame===
Very little is known about this guy beside information found in Necron 8th ed codex page 100.
He is burning everything to dust in that little text they have wrote (poor Tyranids) in codex.
Sounds a tiny bit familiar like The Burning One, but who am i to judge?

===Zarhulash,The Potentate===
Introduced In Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work. He is first shown as one of eight C'tan shards(the others were consumed by him during their sleep) powering the Pharos on Sotha. He is then freed by Cawl who, in an effort to betray the C'tan, submitted to him and allowed Zarhulash to access the current state of the Galaxy. In that same scene it is implied that the actual Necrodermis cage-body is hard for the "human" mind to make sense of until it reduced it to a "sensible" human-esque form.
During the Interactions with Cawl he claims that the C'tan are truly divine while the Machine God is a Lie, the Chaos Gods are mere conciousness as a result of warp disturbances, and the Emperor is "a weapon".

Shortly before Cawl's sudden and inevitable Hackerman betrayal and after bossing around both Cawl and Token "Brown" Captain Felix battling robo-bugs, he manages to gain control of the local Canoptek constructs which quickly peel him out of his skin revealing that the actual C'tan looks closer to a miniature sun. Of course right after realizing Cawl betrayed him he is then confronted with a choice: smack Cawl and risk getting swallowed by the black hole created by a collapsing Pharos device, or escaping through a portal made by Cawl leading to a tasty Sun to eat on the far side of the Galaxy. He of course goes for the latter swearing vengeance and the like on Cawl.

This all has some Implications: C'tan shards can't tussle with a singularity, though it is unknown if a full C'tan can, the appearance of a shard may be more eldritch/cosmic horror-ish than otherwise implied, it doesn't take much for a shard to get rid of his skin-cage, and this shard is well and truly free from the necrons. It remains to see if anything interesting gets done with him or if he's a one and done kinda deal.

== Eldritch Star Crunch ==

In their original forms the C'tan were Monstrous Creatures with fairly insane stat lines; toughness 8, 5 wounds and 4+/4++ as well as the ability to move through terrain freely and in general be very unpleasant to deal with. C'tan could not be assaulted without leadership checks, and if destroyed, detonated and caused damage to all units around them (this does not also take into account the slew of unique rules both kept). They were not cheap; the Nightbringer sat at 360pts, the Deceiver at 300.

Eight edition allowed a fair bit of [[cheese]] with the biggest, stinkiest wheel being the Deceiver. His teleport ability was one of the main reason that a fairly neglected army was able to score big as it allowed you to Deep Strike several units where they could most easily rape your opponent's lines.

===9th Edition Zoomer Primer===

Ninth edition boosted every shard in a major way, making them almost mandatory. It introduced the Void Dragon and gifted all shards with a stats buff as well as [[Awesome|the '''Necrodermis''' rule, making it so they cannot lose more than 3 wounds per phase]] [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka|(a.k.a Prophet of Gork and Mork but easier to say)]]. They still have the same ability to cast two (with one extra random one with a stratagem) powers at the end of the movement phase, [[Rape|all of which cannot be denied and get off on low rolls, dealing a shitton of mortal wounds.]]

Naturally, there had to be a casualty and it ended up being [[Mephet'ran|'''the Deceiver''']]. Our sweet prince of cheese received a simple but devastating nerf : <strike>his teleport can now only redeploy units in the deployment zone. It didn't receive any real compensation either, so it's likely that he'll end up being discarded for the others.</strike> That nerf was lifted- Grand Illusion can now send those units into Strategic Reserves without those units costing extra CP. Which means...oh yes...someone has finally managed to out-Creed Creed. In addition, he can deep-strike himself (as in, into deployment zones too) and has a constant -1 to hit.

The cheap, working man's shard this time around is '''the <strike>Noodle</strike> Transcendent C'tan'''. It doesn't have any incredible rules or weapons, but he does have the same choice of two powers as well as a neat table to roll for that grants him 2 out of 6 random and largely good buffs. Considering his price he might be a good call in a list that finds itself short of points but in need of mortal wounds.

Now the two big lads : [[Mag'ladroth|'''the Void Dragon''']], fittingly for something that ''allegedly'' drove the Mechanicus' zeal, a vehicle hunting nightmare. He has access to a fairly unique piercing ranged attack that deals damage to its target as well as anything in between. That makes him hazardous to its potential screen but a definite beast with enhanced damage to vehicles (rolling D3+3 instead of D6 on them). He also seems to like munching on Rhino meat since he derives healing from destroying them.

And the absolute king of the group [[Aza'Gorod|'''the Rapebringer''']]. [[Anal Circumference|'''6 attacks at S14 AP-4, damage D6 - ignores invulnerable saves and Feel No Pain saves (and any other ability that negates damage. Dreadnoughts, Death Guard, Ghazghkull, other C'tan...all just meat for the Reaper).''' That's all.]] Did we mention his schtick is to roll 3d3, and for every 4+ the target unit (needs to be 9” away or less with TLoS) eats d3 mortal wounds? No?

== Gallery ==

<gallery>
Image:7fattpselu851.jpg|The Void Dragon, in all his not really dragony-ness
Image:C'Tan The Nightbringer.gif|I AM THE NIGHT... bringer?
Image:Night Bringer by PabelBilly.jpg|You can't spell "reap" without RAPE
Image:The Nightbringer 2.jpg|
Image:The Nightbringer 3.jpg|
Image:The Nightbringer 4.jpg|
Image:Michaelangelo Nightbringer.jpg|The Deceiver would make more sense here, but [[Neckbeard|who would bother complaining about minutia like that?]]
Image:C'Tan The Deceiver.gif|GOLDEN SIXPACK
Image:Deceiver 2.jpg|The Deceiver, doing what it does best.
Image:Poor Imperial Heartworlds.gif|If only Forgeworld would hurry up and give the Necrons a Titan sized C'tan
Image:Burning One 2.png|YOU KNOW WHAT THIS PAGE NEEDS? [[Burna Boyz|MORE FIRE!]]
Image:Burning One vs Bio-Titan.png|Did someone say [[Tyranid]] barbecue?
Image:Void dragon necrons.jpg|For those of us stuck in the past Crypteks might as well be Dragoncrons.
Image:Void Dragon by Littlecutter.png|Well, the Void Dragon is sometimes called a Wyrm.
Image:Void Dragon by Blabyloo.jpeg|An alternate, considerably more Tomb Kings-esque take on the Dragon of Mars.
</gallery>

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Necrons]]

{{Necrons-Forces}}

[[Category:40k and Fantasy Gods]]

T-72

2022-03-13T07:45:06Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: Ukrainian authorities said captured Russian tanks (like T-72's are non taxable and i find this grimly funny

{{cleanup}}

[[File:T-72 Tank.jpg|300px|right|thumb|For the glory of slav-kind!]]
{{topquote|Have you captured a Russian tank or armored personnel carrier and are worried about how to declare it? Keep calm and continue to defend the Motherland! There is no need to declare the captured Russian tanks and other equipment, because the cost of this ... does not exceed 100 living wages |Ukraine's National Agency for the Protection against Corruption (NAPC) }}
The T-72 is Soviet second generation MBT employed by a variety of nations. In classic Russian fashion, it is rugged, relatively easy to produce, and simple enough that any soviet peasant can hop in and spread the revolution with utmost efficiency. The T-72 incorporates some of the latest advances in Soviet weapons technology, mouning an auto-loading 2A46 125mm main gun, which is capable of firing fin stabilized ammunition, and is protected by BDD composite armor similar to the Chobham armor used on western tanks.

Note that this article covers the actual T-72 only, the version produced and intended strictly for Soviet use. A downgraded export model, the T-72M, was produced for foreign sales and licensed for production by certain countries, like the Polish People's Republic. T-72s remain in the modern Russian Army's armored forces, but it has largely been replaced in Russian use by the improved T-72B3 and T-90, both of which are modernised overhauls of the original T-72.

==In Team Yankee==
[[File:T-72 Stat Card.jpg|300px|left|thumb|The Stat Card]]
''Updating this section for Team Yankee V2.''

The T-72A is an iconic Red Army MBT, representing the middle ground between a horde of T-55AM2s and a tiny company of T-64Bs. Being also the first tank introduced to the game alongside the M1, it has been powercreeped into obscurity. If you're still reading this, you are a true Soviet patriot.

This budget T-64 plays the role of a jack-of-all-trades tank, but compares poorly to it's earlier cousin, the T62m, due to it's points cost. Whether you need a tank for linebreaking, assault or fire support, the T-72 can do it all, just not very well.

Lets start with the boomstick. The T-72 mounts a 125mm 2A46 gun which is quite capable of punching through early model NATO Main Battle tanks and stands a decent chance of damaging later models with it's AT value of 22, and with the FP of 2+, practically anything you penetrate you are going to blow up. It's also rather good at dealing with unarmored targets like infantry and light vehicles as the ''Brutal'' rule means that they have to re-roll their successful saves. The T-72 can fire on the move with near impunity as the stabilizer negates the negative effects of moving and the laser rangefinder negates the penalties of firing on the move. The only downside is the fact that the 2A46 only has a ROF of 1, both halted and on the move, which means that you must mass tanks to mass fire, as is the case with practically all Soviet tanks. Importantly, the presence of the stabilizer means that the T-72 can really move when it needs to, and this is an aspect that many commanders forget about when calculating flank and spank distances. Although it suffers a penalty to hit, getting a flank shot when you need it means the distance between victory and defeat.

Oh, there is also a pair of machine guns; one 12.7mm AA mounted on a pintle and a 7.62mm mounted coaxially.

It's when the T-72 begins taking fire rather than dishing it out that things can get a bit dicey. The Frontal armour only has a paltry rating of 16, and the sides have a rating of 8. This value lies in the worst sweet spot for armor values, as common anti-tank weapons like the TOW, MILAN and other ATGMs will send turrets flying faster than you can say "cyka". To make things worse for our exploding hot pocket, new TOW 2 and 120mm DU rounds will simply tear through the T-72's front like it wasnt there. The T72's best defense is its mobility. Make full use of it's adequate 3+ cross to ensure you are hugging cover and make Uncle Sam work for his kills.

Things do get a little better as the T-72 is equipped with BDD armour, which bumps the side armour up to 13 against things with HEAT. Like the T64, the T-72 can assault fairly well and is suited to bullying US infantry, or other infantry when you have taken out their Carl Gustavs.

Despite these quirks, the T-72's points cost is the true deal breaker. At the onset of Team Yankee, a platoon of 3 for 12 points seemed like insane value when compared alongside the M1, but since then time has marched on and cheaper and better units, particularly the T-72's knockoff cousin, the T-72m, have all but kicked our poor stalwart to the curb like most Soviet WW2 veterans. A single tank add-on at 5pts each is simply too much to bear (ahem) for this poor workhorse. Hence, If you are somehow forced to use the T-72, fielding them in platoons of 3 in a full company of 10 is probably the best way you can flog a dead horse. There are better options out there (looking at you T62m) for fire support or for zerging. Dont say we didnt warn you!

==IRL==
[[File:T-64 IRL.jpg|300px|right|thumb|A Soviet tank defending the tree which Stalin plucked an apple from as a child.]]
Like many Soviet tanks, the T-72 is among the most massively-produced post-WWII tanks out there, seeing service in many countries outside Soviet borders. Like all things Soviet, ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRAPmAeQl0k| except their cars]), its chief features are cost-effective design and simple but efficient lethality. Even while the modern Russian Army has replaced the venerable T-72 with newer tanks (namely the T-90, which is basically just a T-72 with more current weapon systems), the T-72 is still solid enough that it has been repurposed for a wide variety of combat roles that it wasn't originally designed for, including the [[wikipedia:BMPT_Terminator|BMPT Terminator]] used for urban pacification (and simultaneously sporting one of the most menacing names for a tank ever), or the [[TOS-1 Buratino]]. If your confused by that and remember T-72's getting Roflstomped during the Gulf War, the answer is that those were [[T-72M]] which are the export version of the T-72 and were not as advanced as the ones used by the Russian army and eastern bloc nations proper along with the reported inability of Middle Eastern armies in mastering the art of Soviet Doctrine (AKA Attack Move) (or any doctrine, really. Read some books about Arab-Israeli wars, they are so one-sided it's not even funny). Well the Republican Guard of Iraq did actually have sound defensive tactics but ultimately were overwhelmed by M1 Abrams tanks rushing over their defensive positions.

There's a bit of an old wives' tale regarding the T-72's and other Russian tank's autoloaders: namely that it's autoloader would every so often accidentally eat the Gunner's arm. This is a myth likely originating from Bryan Perrett's "Soviet armour since 1945" that haven't been true of the T-64's even when they were new as they simply wouldn't have been entered production otherwise. While yeah, T-64's were more complex and therefore less reliable compared to T-72, broken thread, suspension system or engine is one thing, but dead or seriously injured gunner is another. Let me give an example: in 1941 the Red Army had a grenade named RG-41, and it was more than a match to more common RGD-33, weighting less while having the same amount of explosives. The only problem was its safety system: if you fucked up the initiation sequence (and it was not as simple as "pull the pin") and it malfunctioned, that baby could blow in your hands right in the moment you were about to throw it. After less than ''a dozen'' recorded incidents (and mind it, not a word in press or anything!), soldiers simply stop using those grenades, preferring to throw RGDs-33 or not using anything at all, which lead to RG-41 quickly being replaced with much safer RG-42. [[Chaos_Space_Marines|A tank that can bite your arm off is a very, very bad thing for morale, and no one in the right mind would sit in it, am I right?]]

Incidentally: the T-72 was not the most modern tank in the Soviet Arsenal by the time of Team Yankee 1985 start date for world war three. That title belongs to the [[T-80]], first introduced in 1976, well in time for this 'dust up'.

The Russians have put a lot of effort into providing modernized models to their front line forces in the Ukrainian conflict. So far the effort seems to have resulted in either burned out Russian tanks, abandoned ones, or free new rides for Ukrainian farmers. Base model T-72B stripped of all ERA gear have been spotted in the field as well, and any Russian in one of those is likely going to end up a burning wreck on the side of the road.

The T-72B3 and B3M seems to be the preferred punching bag for Ukrainian anti armor teams and the amount of turrets sent flying in excess of 40 meters is starting to compete with Iraq.

{{Soviet Forces in Team Yankee}}
[[Category:Team Yankee]]
[[Category:Vehicles]]

Churchill

2022-03-12T10:45:39Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* In Real Life */

The Churchill Tank (not to be confused with the Leader of Britain) was one of the heaviest tanks fielded by the British Army during World War II. It is notorious for having an incredibly flawed development cycle and for it's distinctive design.

==In Real Life==
The Churchill Tank's name is debated. Some say it was named in honor of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, but others argue they are referring to his relative, who was in the House of Lords in the late 1800s. The Churchill was first ordered under the premise that World War II would be the same as World War I: static battlefields with lots of difficult terrain and anti-tank guns. Thusly, the tank had to be able to resist fire from German AT guns, provide support for Infantry and be able to cross trenchs (hence the length). This resulted in it being a complete fatass compared to most other allied tanks, though the Churchill was still [[Meme|water weight]] compared to the Tiger.

After the fall of France, the design was revised to better support Infantry Formations, as British doctrine of the time dictated that fat heavy tanks act as mobile gun emplacements for infantry. Most of the early versions (MKI-VI) were shit, and the tank was close to being removed from service. However, some (probably Australian) madlads in North Africa got the idea to strap a 75mm AT gun into the turret to replace the 57mm cannon found on the more common Mark III. After the War office saw how effective these [[Orks|jerry rigged Churchills]] were, they were immediately designated the Mark VII and had 1600 of the things produced.

The Churchill saw reliable service across the world, though primarily in Europe it gained a reputation for being tough as nails and able to be specialized for just about anything, from Engineer support vehicles to tow tanks to bridge layers to minesweepers, there was a variant of the Churchill for just about everything. Interestingly, the Churchill was also judged to be a superior Jungle Fighting vehicle, most likely because the Japanese had nothing that could really scratch it. In Soviet service, they were replaced by the T-10 and IS-2, but were utilized enough to have been present at the Battle of Kursk.

Interestingly enough, the German analysis of the tank after the Dieppe landings indicated that the armor was at least equal to the armor of the Tiger, but as the armor was largely square shaped it had inferior protective qualities compared to the Tiger. Both tanks were notoriously slow, underpowered, and unreliable, but the Churchill did have the advantage of having better torque due to its engine setup which was effectively a 12 cylinder inline (compared to the Tiger's V12); while it maxed out around 10 mph, the Churchill could do that 10 mph on level ground or straight up a 30 degree incline.
{{British Forces in Flames of War}}

Tiger 1

2022-03-12T10:44:14Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* IRL */

The '''Tiger I''', aka the Panzerkampwagen VI Ausf. E was a German heavy tank during WWII. When most people hear about German Tanks during WWII, this beast is usually what comes to mind first. A 54 tonne brick shithouse packing a massive 88mm cannon, it could be a nightmare for allied tanks to face. It was also expensive, ponderous and had a lot of mechanical issues, but its crews were the handpicked best that the German Army, making it by far one of the most feared and dangerous tanks of the war. Its reputation and numbers were both a bit overestimated at the time and since, but that hasn't stopped virtually every video game, film, or wargame that even mentions Nazi Germany from bringing the Tiger I out to wreak some havoc.

==Mid War==
This is where the Tiger I really stands out in all its glory. Developed because Hitler got pissed off that the Soviets were beating everything his forces had with the T-34, the Mid War Tiger I is able to play Godzilla pretty thoroughly. Few, if any wargamers will be looking to let you play Giant Lizard with impunity, however, and the Tiger I costs a ton of points and is kinda slow. It can fight extremely well, but it isn't invincible at all.

==Late War==
True Late War Tiger I tanks are distinguished by their ''Zimmerit'' anti-magnetic coating, giving the tank a rougher surface appearance. A different, lower-profile cupola was also used. By the Late War period the Axis were losing badly, so Tiger I tanks will be facing vastly more numerous forces that have tank designs getting better by the day, and Allied air power racing all over the countryside. The Tiger I remains slow, expensive and difficult to maneuver, meaning its chances of getting disabled by one problem or another are excellent, but that 88mm cannon can knock out anything the Allies can send.

Mid War-type Tiger I tanks still existed by 1944-1945, obviously, so a model of one of those can be fielded just the same. There is no real substantial difference between them, with both having the same major upsides and downsides. You see, there's two sides to every ''Panzer''...

Tiger I's are available in Late War as part of the Heer (Army) or the Waffen-SS. One of the most famous Late War examples of this mighty beast is the one commanded by Michael Wittmann of the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion, one of only a few German armor units lucky enough to get the Tiger in significant quantity. Wittmann is one of the Tiger I's most famed commanders, best known for his Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords and his destruction of a British mechanized/armored column at Villers-Bocage in summer 1944. Battlefront Miniatures made a special-issue Tiger I/Schwimmwagen set (GBX16) to allow FoW players to field Wittmann's Tiger, but any Late War-type Tiger I will do for players looking to put Wittmann into the battle.

==IRL==
The Tiger I was developed after the Battle of France, after the Germans were forced to acknowledge that their early war Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs had insufficient performance against their heavier enemies, the French Char 1B and the British Matilda respectively. Flashback to 1937, where several German arms firms were working on ideas for a heavy tank. This is the earliest origins of the Tiger I. Still, with France folding quickly and Operation ''Seelöwe'' nothing but a fevered dream, not much was done until one year later.

Speed forward to Operation Barbarossa, where the German High Command learned that their master race tanks were pretty much useless against the Russian T-34s and KV-1s. Thus, the Tiger I was pushed forward at breakneck speed, chosen in preference to Porsche's shitty Ferdinand design.

On the battlefield, especially in late 1942 and early 1943, The Tiger was an absolute beast: Sporting an 88mm KWK 36 at gun which could kill most operational tanks during the war at range far outside them being a threat , and several MG 34s as effective deterrents to infantry rushes; it was the uncontested master of long-range engagements and a serious threat in brawls. Despite weighing over 50 tons mobility was okay-ish: a Tiger could keep up with the smaller Pz. III's and IV's when a big push was needed. Due to its strong armor it was all but immune to enemy return fire, except either at point-blank range, or from the most powerful AT weapons. Early on, close air support and artillery bombardment were the most 'efficient' way to kill them, especially if they hung back and could take advantage of their 'acht-acht's' impressive range to ravage the opposition with impunity.

Also, it’s worth noting that the Tiger I was only given to experienced crews who knew what they were doing, not to mention they had the Tigerfibel, a satirical instruction manual that told crews how to operate and handle the tank so it doesn’t break down. So generally, Tiger Is were only reserved for the best tank crews. Which goes to show why most German tank aces were driving Tigers.

In spite of all this, the Tiger had more then it's fair share of flaws: 50 tons meant they were hard to move around by train, and smaller bridges would collapse under them, and it put a massive strain put on the engine, transmission and intricate drivetrain, making them prone to frequent mechanical breakdowns and requiring constant heavy maintenance. Add to that, the Maybach HL210 engine was underpowered for the Tiger's weight, meaning it didn't merely drink (hard to obtain) gas: it guzzled it like a space wolf and made the logistics of keeping them supplied hell. Therefore, its greatest enemies were long distances, bridges, and breakdowns. It also had a massive profile, and failed to incorporate the advantages of sloped armor into its design, which made it vulnerable to more advanced AT guns. Compounding this, its large size made it target practice for CAS aircraft and dedicated field artillery. It was also expensive, costing 250,000 Reichmarks to build. In contrast, a Panzer IV cost 117,000 and a Panther cost 144,000.

In spite of these terrible shortcomings, the Tiger earned a reputation as a terribly effective weapon if deployed in the right place. In one case, a single Tiger took on a fuckload of Shermans and knocked all of them out of action with minimal damage sustained. Even the simple rumour of a platoon of Tigers operating somewhere got both the Russians and Western allies to bomb the everloving shit out of the zone they were suspected to be in. Just in case.

Interestingly, the designers of the tank were acutely aware of the fact that it was too heavy. So as a possible solution, the vehicle was designed with the ability to ford relatively shallow waters in which the entire vehicle is submerged, with a snorkel system feeding air to the engine and the entire crew compartment being sealed. The complexity of this system meant that it was abandoned shortly after the first tanks rolled off the assembly lines in order to get them to the front faster, but it was incredibly interesting nonetheless.

Being in such high demand in the field, the Tiger 1 spawned only a single spinoff design: the Sturmtiger. [[Derp|A personal favorite of Hitler]], it was functionally a [[Vindicator]] that shot big fuckoff rockets and had so much frontal armor that even a [[Baneblade]] would tip its hat to it. It was primarily used as a heavy siege vehicle against pesky defensive structures like pillboxes, or to cause collective existence failures to Communist IS-2s and KV-1s. However, investing resources into an offensive weapon when forced on the defensive was not a good idea; and ultimately the Sturmtiger was as impressive when seen in action as it was pretty much useless to the overall war effort.

{{Template:German Forces in Flames of War}}

M4 Sherman

2022-03-12T10:42:39Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* In Real Life */

{{topquote|War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.|General William Tecumseh Sherman}}
{{America}}
[[File:M4 Sherman.png|thumb|I can be whatever you want me to be baby.]]
The M4 Sherman is the poster child of freedom, the Freeaboo's ideal body type, and the backbone of the Western allies' armored forces. It was mass produced at a higher rate than even the Russian [[T-34]], and came out as the 2nd most produced tank of the war. It came in a dizzying number of variants, with a wide variety of weapons, engines, and even suspensions and hull types. It is one of only a few tanks to be deployed on all theaters of the war, including the Eastern Front, China, and the Pacific. It's one of the first tanks to enter service with stabilization for the main gun. It's reliable, easy to fix, ergonomic, and extremely versatile, both in Flames of War and in real life.

For all this, the Sherman tends to get a bad rep. Most of this focuses on it's armor and firepower, which is weaker than [[Panther|German]] [[Tiger|tanks]] of the later war period. We won't get into this debate here more than to say that you will have to find ways to compensate for your weaker armor and cannon when going up against German and Soviet heavy tanks as a Late War Flames of War player. However, with effective combined arms, mobile tactics, and a little bit of luck the M4 will serve you just as reliably as it served the allies in World War 2.

==In Mid War==
===American===
===British===
==In Late War==
==='''American'''===
The M4 Medium Tank is just as it was in Mid War, but this time with far better crews! The Americans get the option of "trained" M4 crews that are hit on a 3+ and have a 3+ last stand, or "Veteran" M4 crews that trade all that in for a 4+ to hit and a 3+ tactics. What really makes the M4 stand out in the American force is its 'Stabilizer' special rule. This lets the M4 maintain it's rate of fire of 2 on the move, though it suffers a -1 to hit. This gives you a higher chance of hitting a shot in almost all situations, making the American M4 the king of mobile warfare and exceptionally flexible. A second point in the Sherman's favor is the sheer number of machineguns it brings, pumping out 5 shots per tank stationary and making it very capable at pinning enemy infantry and blocking enemy infantry assaults.

The US has a few different platoons to bring their M4s in late war. The first is the Dday formations, which bring M4 Sherman and Sherman 76 platoons. Compared to the bulge platoons, the 76mm platoons are more expensive and the 75mm platoons are slightly cheaper for their value. That being said, the Dday formations are less flexible than the Bulge formations, with homogenous platoons and fewer M4 variants available.

The Bulge formations is where the Sherman really blossoms into its full potential. The US unlocks access to the Late 75mm M4, the Easy Eight, the Jumbo, HVAP ammo, and up armored M4 variants. The coolest part though is that you can mix and match any of these variants freely within a platoon, letting you essentially customize your force completely ''down to the individual tank'' (with the exception being that you can only bring one jumbo per unit, including the HQ). Do you want something to hunt heavy tanks? Boom, E8s with HVAP, maybe a jumbo. You want something a bit more durable to maybe duel with enemy heavies and mediums? Slap a Jumbo 76mm on with some 76mm M4s and add some 75mm M4s with smoke. Need something cheaper to support and flank? Bring base M4s and tack on a jumbo for some good survivability. The possibilities are truly as endless as your imagination.

First off, we'll go over some of the command card options available in the Bulge: American book. The first is HVAP. This card costs half a point per tank and boosts all your 76mm cannons to pen 13. This is practically a must take, taking your 76mm M4s from scary medium tank hunters to capable heavy tank hunters as well for a relatively trivial rise in points.

Second is the uparmored sherman. This can be added to M4 (late), M4 (76mm), and E8s on an individual tank basis. This costs a point and boosts the front and side armor by one in exchange for a -1 on its cross rating. This can really help deal with medium tanks like the Stug and Panzer IV, but still leaves you rather vulnerable to heavy AT and limits your ability to take cover from them. As such, it really depends on your local meta if you take these: if PaK 40s and stugs or other medium tanks are the thing where you're at, or if you just really like the look, then take them! If not, it's not really worth it.

====M4 Sherman====
This is the generic stat card for the M4, M4A1, and early M4A2s in US service. The base M4 Sherman is a cheap middle of the road tank with a cannon that can deal with enemy medium tanks and armor that keeps it safe against light and medium antitank guns. That said, AT10 will struggle against the side armor of 8 on heavy tanks like the Tiger and IS-2, meaning that while the 75mm is a capable vehicle in most situations, it struggles against heavy tanks. Use the maneuverability provided by the stabilizer and artillery smoke to avoid enemy heavy tanks and heavy antitank guns and focus on breaking through and exploiting enemy light vehicles and medium tanks. This is where the M4 truly shines, being cheap and mobile. In addition, it has direct fire smoke, meaning that this tank can act in support to help smoke out enemy tanks and cover your own infantry and tanks from enemy infantry and antitank guns.

====M4 (Late)====
This is the stat card for the later model M4A2s and M4A3s in US service. These models had their frontal armor increased to 65mm and wet stowage installed, but retained the reliable 75mm cannon. In game this gives them bonuses to frontal armor and remount, something that can really help in duels with German panzers. This tank is just as versatile and capable as the base vehicle, though without improved penetration it will still struggle to deal with heavier enemy armor.

====M4 (105)====
The M4 (105) is the odd one out here, being essentially an artillery/assault gun variant on the Sherman. It's got an AT9, FP2+, Brutal and Slow-Firing 105mm gun as well as the FA7 of the 76mm Sherman. All in all, it's kinda hard to find a place for, trying to fill a niche that doesn't really exist. It's got the armor to go toe to toe with enemy mediums, but not the penetration. It's helpless against heavies. It's job as artillery is done better by the cheaper priest and 105mm towed artillery. It lacks the volume of fire to deal with enemy infantry platoons in direct fire. It may find a place hunting enemy light and medium AT guns, but it will get slaughtered by enemy heavy AT. It might be useful as an integrated artillery asset in an M4 tank company, but you have so many other units you can put in there, why bother. If someone comes up with a use for this thing, let me know!

====M4 (76)W====
This stat card represents the M4 (76)W, M4A1 (76)W, M4A2 (76)W, and M4A3 (76)W fielded by the US. The M4 (76) is a capable enough antitank vehicle, with a 76mm high velocity gun that bumps the antitank up to 12, wet stowage that gives it a 3+ remount, and a front armor of 7 thanks to the up armored T23 turret. This, combined with the stabilizer, makes it a capable QRF vehicle for dealing with heavy tank breakthroughs as well as the king of dueling with enemy medium tanks. It also makes it a relatively pricy vehicle, with a full veteran platoon coming in at 28 points for 5. Nevertheless, this is currently ''the'' final word in American antitank and will serve you well if used properly. Consider escorting them with some form of infantry to help assault and capture enemy tanks, because FP3+ always bails when you need it to kill and chances are you really can't afford to lose these tanks. Something worth noting is the "No HE" rule on the main gun, meaning it suffers against infantry, but if you were looking for an infantry killer you shoulda just gone with the cheaper 75mm anyway.

====M4A3E8 Easy Eight====
The E8 takes everything the 76mm does and does it better. For a point boost it gets 2 major bonuses: a 2+ cross and smooth ride, which essentially says that as long as it moves less than 4" it fires as if it was stationary. This is essentially a '''free''' blitz move that lacks some of the major drawbacks of an actual blitz move: you can assault following it (lmao you better be desperate to assault with M4s) and you can stack it with a regular blitz move to get an 8" blitz. This makes them the unparalleled masters of terrain and reserves, with their ability to reliably traverse all kinds of terrain and shoot at full rate of fire on their first turn on the table. That said, these things come with a hefty price tag: 7 points per tank for the elite variant, as much as a Soviet IS-2 heavy tank, and its not very tough for that cost. Be careful with them, use terrain and smoke to keep them alive so they can do their job. You aren't a brainlet Soviet or German player that can just push his tanks forward and suck up shots, you're a US player, be smart about it. It's generally smart to take this variant by itself, since the other variants will often slow it down, particularly the Jumbo.

====M4A3E2 Jumbo====
One tank in each Sherman platoon may be upgraded to one of the heaviest armored tanks in the game, the M4A3E2 Sherman Jumbo. This thicc boi has front armor 11 and side armor 8 and comes in 2 variants, the 75mm and 76mm. Paired with the target allocation rules and smart use of terrain and distance, this tank can effectively halve the number of casualties you take to AT14 cannons ''at least.'' This does come with a massive drawback though: 4+ cross. This really limits your options when it comes to using terrain and advancing through walled fields, though its armor reduces your need for such cover. Consider pairing it with a lucky card to help with the occasional failed armor or target reallocation.

==='''British'''===
The US provided the British with 17,184 Sherman Tanks of all models throughout the war.

A notable British variant was the Firefly, which carried a QF 17-pounder 76.2mm cannon. Introduced in early 1944, Sherman Fireflies could pierce the armor of Panther and Tiger Tanks.

As a notable aside, it was the Brits who decided to give the M4 medium tank the official designation of Sherman.

==='''Soviet'''===
Some 4,102 Sherman Tanks were sent to the USSR as part of Lend Lease. These were notably equipped with Diesel Engines so they could use the same fuel that T-34s used. Fun fact: the Soviets that got to ride into lend-lease Shermans were full of praise about it, rating it as equal or even better than their own T-34; unlike the M3 which they called the "grave for seven brothers".

==In Real Life==
[[File:M4 Sherman IRL.jpg|thumb|"This American tub's not half bad wot?"]]

The M4 epitomizes the US Government's commitment to supplying its soldiers with massive quantities of almost good enough equipment. From the onset, the M4 was designed to maximize easy of reapir and part longevity over all other concerns since the damn thing had to serve an ocean way from the factory making the parts for them. Mechanically, it was largely a continuation of the ''definitely not good enough'' M3, minimizing the amount of factory changes needed to produce it. Ultimately M4's would be churned out by a dozen companies with half a dozen different engine setups, ranging from V8's to twin diesels to repurposed aircraft engines. Its slab-sided high profile was a consequence of a secondary requirement that it be easily transportable by existing railroads, which initially limited its overall width to 103 inches.

US doctrines during the war saw the tank as an infantry support tool, with tank hunting relegated to specialist tank destroyer units like the M10 with its 76mm 52 cal gun. The initial M4's hit Europe with 75mm 40 cal guns which were barely adequate against Germany's pre war Panzers. British versions fielding the QF-6 were found to be slightly better, but ultimately the decision was made mid-war to put the M10's 76mm gun on the Sherman and upgun the TD even further.

The Sherman was one of the first tanks to introduce gyro stabilized guns, but it wasn't until the introduction of horizontal volute spring suspension in the "easy eight" E8 variant that it gained a reputation for being able to shoot on the move. Wet ammunition storage was introduced midway through the war, which did much to reduce the M4's tendency to burn on a hit. However, fuel and hydraulic fires remained a problem, earning the tank the "Zippo" nickname for its tendency to burst into flames.

The U.S. Marine Corps fielded the ''other'' M4 "Zippo" in the Pacific, a flamethrower variant that trades the 76mm main gun for a heavy flamethrower, just the thing for dealing with an enemy that is notoriously skilled at refusing to die. It gave up its anti-tank capability and shared the same overall shortcomings as the conventional M4, but Marines loved this thing, because torching the enemy in their caves and bunkers was vastly better than going in after them the hard way.

The U.S. Army and U.S. Marines never actually called this tank the "Sherman"; that was part of a naming system for American tanks received by the British Army under the Lend-Lease Program, referencing various American Civil War generals. General William Tecumseh Sherman rose to led one of the most successful campaigns ever waged against the seceding Southern states, using brutal pragmatism and a willingness to spend the lives he had to if it moved the U.S. Army closer to victory, so given how the M4 was also part of a massive, pragmatically-oriented, and ultimately successful army, the nickname is appropriate.

{{US Forces in Flames of War}}
{{British Forces in Flames of War}}
{{Soviet Forces in Flames of War}}

M4 Sherman

2022-03-12T10:39:55Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470:

{{topquote|War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.|General William Tecumseh Sherman}}
{{America}}
[[File:M4 Sherman.png|thumb|I can be whatever you want me to be baby.]]
The M4 Sherman is the poster child of freedom, the Freeaboo's ideal body type, and the backbone of the Western allies' armored forces. It was mass produced at a higher rate than even the Russian [[T-34]], and came out as the 2nd most produced tank of the war. It came in a dizzying number of variants, with a wide variety of weapons, engines, and even suspensions and hull types. It is one of only a few tanks to be deployed on all theaters of the war, including the Eastern Front, China, and the Pacific. It's one of the first tanks to enter service with stabilization for the main gun. It's reliable, easy to fix, ergonomic, and extremely versatile, both in Flames of War and in real life.

For all this, the Sherman tends to get a bad rep. Most of this focuses on it's armor and firepower, which is weaker than [[Panther|German]] [[Tiger|tanks]] of the later war period. We won't get into this debate here more than to say that you will have to find ways to compensate for your weaker armor and cannon when going up against German and Soviet heavy tanks as a Late War Flames of War player. However, with effective combined arms, mobile tactics, and a little bit of luck the M4 will serve you just as reliably as it served the allies in World War 2.

==In Mid War==
===American===
===British===
==In Late War==
==='''American'''===
The M4 Medium Tank is just as it was in Mid War, but this time with far better crews! The Americans get the option of "trained" M4 crews that are hit on a 3+ and have a 3+ last stand, or "Veteran" M4 crews that trade all that in for a 4+ to hit and a 3+ tactics. What really makes the M4 stand out in the American force is its 'Stabilizer' special rule. This lets the M4 maintain it's rate of fire of 2 on the move, though it suffers a -1 to hit. This gives you a higher chance of hitting a shot in almost all situations, making the American M4 the king of mobile warfare and exceptionally flexible. A second point in the Sherman's favor is the sheer number of machineguns it brings, pumping out 5 shots per tank stationary and making it very capable at pinning enemy infantry and blocking enemy infantry assaults.

The US has a few different platoons to bring their M4s in late war. The first is the Dday formations, which bring M4 Sherman and Sherman 76 platoons. Compared to the bulge platoons, the 76mm platoons are more expensive and the 75mm platoons are slightly cheaper for their value. That being said, the Dday formations are less flexible than the Bulge formations, with homogenous platoons and fewer M4 variants available.

The Bulge formations is where the Sherman really blossoms into its full potential. The US unlocks access to the Late 75mm M4, the Easy Eight, the Jumbo, HVAP ammo, and up armored M4 variants. The coolest part though is that you can mix and match any of these variants freely within a platoon, letting you essentially customize your force completely ''down to the individual tank'' (with the exception being that you can only bring one jumbo per unit, including the HQ). Do you want something to hunt heavy tanks? Boom, E8s with HVAP, maybe a jumbo. You want something a bit more durable to maybe duel with enemy heavies and mediums? Slap a Jumbo 76mm on with some 76mm M4s and add some 75mm M4s with smoke. Need something cheaper to support and flank? Bring base M4s and tack on a jumbo for some good survivability. The possibilities are truly as endless as your imagination.

First off, we'll go over some of the command card options available in the Bulge: American book. The first is HVAP. This card costs half a point per tank and boosts all your 76mm cannons to pen 13. This is practically a must take, taking your 76mm M4s from scary medium tank hunters to capable heavy tank hunters as well for a relatively trivial rise in points.

Second is the uparmored sherman. This can be added to M4 (late), M4 (76mm), and E8s on an individual tank basis. This costs a point and boosts the front and side armor by one in exchange for a -1 on its cross rating. This can really help deal with medium tanks like the Stug and Panzer IV, but still leaves you rather vulnerable to heavy AT and limits your ability to take cover from them. As such, it really depends on your local meta if you take these: if PaK 40s and stugs or other medium tanks are the thing where you're at, or if you just really like the look, then take them! If not, it's not really worth it.

====M4 Sherman====
This is the generic stat card for the M4, M4A1, and early M4A2s in US service. The base M4 Sherman is a cheap middle of the road tank with a cannon that can deal with enemy medium tanks and armor that keeps it safe against light and medium antitank guns. That said, AT10 will struggle against the side armor of 8 on heavy tanks like the Tiger and IS-2, meaning that while the 75mm is a capable vehicle in most situations, it struggles against heavy tanks. Use the maneuverability provided by the stabilizer and artillery smoke to avoid enemy heavy tanks and heavy antitank guns and focus on breaking through and exploiting enemy light vehicles and medium tanks. This is where the M4 truly shines, being cheap and mobile. In addition, it has direct fire smoke, meaning that this tank can act in support to help smoke out enemy tanks and cover your own infantry and tanks from enemy infantry and antitank guns.

====M4 (Late)====
This is the stat card for the later model M4A2s and M4A3s in US service. These models had their frontal armor increased to 65mm and wet stowage installed, but retained the reliable 75mm cannon. In game this gives them bonuses to frontal armor and remount, something that can really help in duels with German panzers. This tank is just as versatile and capable as the base vehicle, though without improved penetration it will still struggle to deal with heavier enemy armor.

====M4 (105)====
The M4 (105) is the odd one out here, being essentially an artillery/assault gun variant on the Sherman. It's got an AT9, FP2+, Brutal and Slow-Firing 105mm gun as well as the FA7 of the 76mm Sherman. All in all, it's kinda hard to find a place for, trying to fill a niche that doesn't really exist. It's got the armor to go toe to toe with enemy mediums, but not the penetration. It's helpless against heavies. It's job as artillery is done better by the cheaper priest and 105mm towed artillery. It lacks the volume of fire to deal with enemy infantry platoons in direct fire. It may find a place hunting enemy light and medium AT guns, but it will get slaughtered by enemy heavy AT. It might be useful as an integrated artillery asset in an M4 tank company, but you have so many other units you can put in there, why bother. If someone comes up with a use for this thing, let me know!

====M4 (76)W====
This stat card represents the M4 (76)W, M4A1 (76)W, M4A2 (76)W, and M4A3 (76)W fielded by the US. The M4 (76) is a capable enough antitank vehicle, with a 76mm high velocity gun that bumps the antitank up to 12, wet stowage that gives it a 3+ remount, and a front armor of 7 thanks to the up armored T23 turret. This, combined with the stabilizer, makes it a capable QRF vehicle for dealing with heavy tank breakthroughs as well as the king of dueling with enemy medium tanks. It also makes it a relatively pricy vehicle, with a full veteran platoon coming in at 28 points for 5. Nevertheless, this is currently ''the'' final word in American antitank and will serve you well if used properly. Consider escorting them with some form of infantry to help assault and capture enemy tanks, because FP3+ always bails when you need it to kill and chances are you really can't afford to lose these tanks. Something worth noting is the "No HE" rule on the main gun, meaning it suffers against infantry, but if you were looking for an infantry killer you shoulda just gone with the cheaper 75mm anyway.

====M4A3E8 Easy Eight====
The E8 takes everything the 76mm does and does it better. For a point boost it gets 2 major bonuses: a 2+ cross and smooth ride, which essentially says that as long as it moves less than 4" it fires as if it was stationary. This is essentially a '''free''' blitz move that lacks some of the major drawbacks of an actual blitz move: you can assault following it (lmao you better be desperate to assault with M4s) and you can stack it with a regular blitz move to get an 8" blitz. This makes them the unparalleled masters of terrain and reserves, with their ability to reliably traverse all kinds of terrain and shoot at full rate of fire on their first turn on the table. That said, these things come with a hefty price tag: 7 points per tank for the elite variant, as much as a Soviet IS-2 heavy tank, and its not very tough for that cost. Be careful with them, use terrain and smoke to keep them alive so they can do their job. You aren't a brainlet Soviet or German player that can just push his tanks forward and suck up shots, you're a US player, be smart about it. It's generally smart to take this variant by itself, since the other variants will often slow it down, particularly the Jumbo.

====M4A3E2 Jumbo====
One tank in each Sherman platoon may be upgraded to one of the heaviest armored tanks in the game, the M4A3E2 Sherman Jumbo. This thicc boi has front armor 11 and side armor 8 and comes in 2 variants, the 75mm and 76mm. Paired with the target allocation rules and smart use of terrain and distance, this tank can effectively halve the number of casualties you take to AT14 cannons ''at least.'' This does come with a massive drawback though: 4+ cross. This really limits your options when it comes to using terrain and advancing through walled fields, though its armor reduces your need for such cover. Consider pairing it with a lucky card to help with the occasional failed armor or target reallocation.

==='''British'''===
The US provided the British with 17,184 Sherman Tanks of all models throughout the war.

A notable British variant was the Firefly, which carried a QF 17-pounder 76.2mm cannon. Introduced in early 1944, Sherman Fireflies could pierce the armor of Panther and Tiger Tanks.

As a notable aside, it was the Brits who decided to give the M4 medium tank the official designation of Sherman.

==='''Soviet'''===
Some 4,102 Sherman Tanks were sent to the USSR as part of Lend Lease. These were notably equipped with Diesel Engines so they could use the same fuel that T-34s used. Fun fact: the Soviets that got to ride into lend-lease Shermans were full of praise about it, rating it as equal or even better than their own T-34; unlike the M3 which they called the "grave for seven brothers".

==In Real Life==
[[File:M4 Sherman IRL.jpg|thumb|"This American tub's not half bad wot?"]]

The M4 epitomizes the US Government's commitment to supplying its soldiers with massive quantities of almost good enough equipment. From the onset, the M4 was designed to maximize production capability over all other concerns. Mechanically, it was largely a continuation of the ''definitely not good enough'' M3, minimizing the amount of factory changes needed to produce it. Ultimately M4's would be churned out by a dozen companies with half a dozen different engine setups, ranging from V8's to twin diesels to repurposed aircraft engines. Its slab-sided high profile was a consequence of a secondary requirement that it be easily transportable by existing railroads, which initially limited its overall width to 103 inches.

US doctrines during the war saw the tank as an infantry support tool, with tank hunting relegated to specialist tank destroyer units like the M10 with its 76mm 52 cal gun. The initial M4's hit Europe with 75mm 40 cal guns which were barely adequate against Germany's pre war Panzers. British versions fielding the QF-6 were found to be slightly better, but ultimately the decision was made mid-war to put the M10's 76mm gun on the Sherman and upgun the TD even further.

The Sherman was one of the first tanks to introduce gyro stabilized guns, but it wasn't until the introduction of horizontal volute spring suspension in the "easy eight" E8 variant that it gained a reputation for being able to shoot on the move. Wet ammunition storage was introduced midway through the war, which did much to reduce the M4's tendency to burn on a hit. However, fuel and hydraulic fires remained a problem, earning the tank the "Zippo" nickname for its tendency to burst into flames.

The U.S. Marine Corps fielded the ''other'' M4 "Zippo" in the Pacific, a flamethrower variant that trades the 76mm main gun for a heavy flamethrower, just the thing for dealing with an enemy that is notoriously skilled at refusing to die. It gave up its anti-tank capability and shared the same overall shortcomings as the conventional M4, but Marines loved this thing, because torching the enemy in their caves and bunkers was vastly better than going in after them the hard way.

The U.S. Army and U.S. Marines never actually called this tank the "Sherman"; that was part of a naming system for American tanks received by the British Army under the Lend-Lease Program, referencing various American Civil War generals. General William Tecumseh Sherman rose to led one of the most successful campaigns ever waged against the seceding Southern states, using brutal pragmatism and a willingness to spend the lives he had to if it moved the U.S. Army closer to victory, so given how the M4 was also part of a massive, pragmatically-oriented, and ultimately successful army, the nickname is appropriate.

{{US Forces in Flames of War}}
{{British Forces in Flames of War}}
{{Soviet Forces in Flames of War}}

25-Pounder Field Troop

2022-03-12T10:36:23Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* IRL */

The 25 pounder field troop is a unit available in Flames of War. It is armed with the British QF-25 pounder Howitzer, the most common Howitzer in the Commonwealth arsenal.

==IRL==
The 25-pounder Howitzer started out as a new design post WWI for a new Howitzer. While the design had been finished, it was slow to be introduced due to a lack of funding, because peace, great depression and shit. It could fling 8.76 cm (~3+ in shells) well over 2 miles. Unique compared to most Howitzers, it had a plate strapped to the bottom of it that the wheels could be rolled onto to allow a smooth flat surface for quick rotation of the gun.

After Hitler started <s>the Great Crusade</s> World War II: electric boogaloo, the QF was organized into Field Artillery Regiments of approximately 24 guns, with each gun commanded by a Sergeant and operated by 5 junior soldiers. The British were extremely well trained in their use, and by 1944-1945 the Germans fully believed that the Bings had developed an automatic version of the weapon.

The Aussies developed a lighter version of the weapon that could be transported by air, as well as having the advantage of being light enough to be dragged by a Jeep or manhandled up difficult terrain, all traits that made it invaluable in the jungle heavy mountains of Burma.

There were also experiments in mounting the weapon in a turret atop a Valentine Chassis they called the Bishop. It has all the problems of the KV-2 with none of the benefits and was quickly abandoned for the Priest.

The Weapon served as far as 1980 in training units, and even today the Pakistanis are still making ammo for the damn things, mostly because Russia doesn't like them as much as they like India.

{{Template:British Forces in Flames of War}}

Monsterhearts

2022-03-10T08:53:50Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* Mechanics */

{{Game Infobox
|name = Monsterhearts
|picture = [[File:Monsterhearts.jpg|200px]]
|type = [[RPG]]
|publisher = Buried Without Ceremony
|system = Powered by the Apocalpyse
|authors = Avery Alder
|year = 2012,2017
|awards = 2013 Origins best rpg
}}

What's that, [[World of Darkness]] isn't sexual enough for you? Now there's a game for you! Based somewhat loosely on [[Apocalypse World]], this game allows you to choose an archetype from teen supernatural media, and has mechanics for "sex moves" when you sex at NPCs or other player characters, and a "darkest self" for when you want to personify your self-loathing.

This is the Buffy the Vampire Slayer game, or maybe True Blood, or Ginger Snaps. Watching sexy beautiful people and the slow-motion car crashes that are their love-lives.

See also: [[Monsterhearts Quest]]

== Mechanics ==
Uses [[Powered By the Apocalypse]] rules, so every player gets a playbook (called "skins") with prescribed moves, every roll is 2d6 (6- fail, 7-9 success with consequences, 10+ success), and the GM never rolls dice just throws ninjas at you and gets to do "hard moves" if you roll 6 or less. Characters get tokens that represent influence over other characters, called "strings", that can be spent for a bonus after a roll, provoke the target character, or just flat out hurt them.

Sex moves only trigger if you sleep with a player character or a significant NPC. They don't trigger if it was rape, asshole, gotta be a mutual fuck(-up).

Stats are:
* hot - excite other people (provoke them to action, esp. to get them horny)
* cold - suppress other people (demoralize, halt, discourage, hold your own cool)
* volatile - your own extreme actions, your fight, and your flight
* dark - spooky shit, "gaze into the abyss" and your skin's supernatural junk

Everyone gets four hitpoints, but really you gotta worry about filling up on "conditions": tags that are penalties on your rolls until you can clear them.
You only need five XP to level up, and you get to add a new power from your "skin" right away even in the middle of combat.

Skins are:
* The Chosen - Buffy the vampire slayer. Sex move: full heal, and gain a string if they regret it, or give a string if regret it.
* The Fae - Titania or Oberon weirdo. Sex move: cuddle naked and you can ask for a promise ("faerie contract"), else they give two strings.
* The Ghost - haunt some shit with your trauma. Sex move: both players can ask a question about the other character. The non-Ghost must answer honestly.
* The Ghoul - iZombie, the hungry dead. Sex move: fucking someone adds "fuck {name} again" as one of your unnatural appetites and repeats will award XP.
* The Infernal - warlock, pimped out by Satan. Sex move: the Devil loses a string on you but gains a string on whoever you fucked, so it turns you into a Demonic STD.
* The Mortal - you sexy codependent little bitch. Sex move: start your lover's Darkest Self episode
* The Queen - bossy bitch. Sex move: they get a condition tag that marks them as one of your gang
* The Vampire - you domineering asshole. Sex move: gain a string when you say "no" to someone who wants the vampire D. lose all strings on them if you say "yes"
* The Werewolf - you violent bastard. Sex move: you go steady with them, and gain +1 to defend them, and you know the instant they sleep with someone else breaking it.
* The Witch - you dangerous nerd. Sex move: You get a personal item from them (and they're oddly okay about it), which represents having a string on them.

{{PBtA_games}}
[[Category:Roleplaying]]

[[Category:Powered by the Apocalypse]]

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh

2022-03-10T08:41:24Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* Pros */

This is the general tactics page on how to play [[Slaanesh]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]].

==Why Play Slaanesh?==
*You prefer Speed and using your mobility to outmaneuver and tear apart your enemy as opposed to the simple rip and tear.
*Because you're a sexual deviant and this is the best way to show your horniness without going out in public. (Though given that this game is T rated expect the more sexual parts of Slaanesh to be toned down, at least until some of the modders have their say)
*Because fuck armor, your crab claw ladies don't give a fuck about it.
*You want to play the only army in the game that is non-binary inclusive.
*Some degenerate is going to give you a NSFW mod, it's only a matter of time.

===Pros===
*'''Speed''': You ARE the fastest army in the entire game. Trailers and unit stats show so far that your cavalry, chariots, and Legendary Lord have a base speed of 100, daemonettes outrun most skirmishers with base speed over 50, and even slaanesh marauders have above average cardio with 38 speed. Your army will run circles around everyone else, wood elves and beastmen included.
*'''AP''': Heavy armour shouldn't be a problem for you in the slightest. Factions that rely on armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos will dread when you come on to the battlefield.
*'''Cavalry and Chariots''': With numerous varieties of both Cav and Chariots you have the ability to be a really strong threat while on the move. Sure, Heartseekers and Hellstriders probably won't beat Grail Knights in a fair one on one fight but their sheer speed will mean that back line is probably doomed. Plus the chariot variety means an armored front line is going to suffer.
*'''Flanking Potential''': Cavalry aside, many of your units are fast and have "Devastating Flanker" as well. You can expect to be one of the best factions for penetrating a soft spot in the enemy's army.
*'''Fatigue fighting''': Fatigue heavily penalizes melee attack and armor stacking to -30% melee attack and -25% armor when a unit is completely exhausted. Melee defense remains surprisingly good with only a maximum -10% penalty from fatigue. This significantly benefits you since most of your units rely on melee defense and ward saves for survival. While you're not going to outlast Nurgle or any faction with lore of life, your army of half naked tarts will fight. . .well not better but less bad compared to other factions the longer a battle drags on.
*'''Immunity to Fear''': A big part of the Mark of Slaanesh on the tabletop was immune to psych. This is carried over as Immune to Psych for your mortal units. Combined with all your daemons being unbreakable, you really won't give a shit about big scary monsters or units.
*'''Diplomacy''': Few mortals can resist the God(dess) of Pleasure. Unlike other Daemonic Forces, you have diplomatic options at your disposal. This can be useful to close off a front with a non-aggression pact, or even an alliance of convenience when necessary.

===Cons===
*'''Fragile''': The downside of having an army of half naked monster girls/boys/things? There isn't a ton of armour to go around. Expect to be taking a punishing on the way in (Not that Slaanesh has an issue with that), so long as you aren't using ward saves. Which you shouldn't since Slaanesh units have some bound ward save abilities which are generally far more impactful than armor.
*'''Lack of Ranged''': You can't hump your opponent to death from the other side of the map. You have no ranged units to speak of. Seriously, even freaking KHORNE has ranged units. You have no chance at playing defense.
*'''Lack of Fliers''': When Furies are the best flying unit you have, it's safe to say you aren't a faction that is designed around dogfighting and controlling the skies. You will easily be the weakest Monogod faction when it comes to the air.
*'''No Flexibility''': The other monogods are one dimensional too but you have it the worst. Everyone fighting you knows you're going to bring a fast glass cannon army. Like your other chaos monogod siblings, you do one thing well and can't do much else. Somewhat ironic that the factions closest to chaos are the most predictable opponents.
*'''Fast Games''': Because of their fragility and need to be maneuvered correctly to win, expect Slaanesh games to be quick, regardless of who wins. Slaanesh will either completely slaughter the enemy or run into a brick wall and crumple to dust. If you like long, tense game where the winner can be decided at any moment you won't get that from Slaanesh too much.
*'''DLC''': Sorry but trends are trends and some of your better units may be reserved for Lord Packs. From a launch standpoint you got Tzeentch and Nurgle beat, but you could use some more mortals/boob snakes.
*'''not beginner friendly''': a bit of an odd one sure, but it has to be said, slaanesh is not a faction for beginners with no range units, no somewhat tanky monsters and all of your units being made of used condoms where even a cheap unit of archers can kill your lord in milliseconds, slaanesh heavily punishes you for one mistake and one has to sell there soul and become the dark lord of micromanagement if you want to win consistently as slaanesh, especially in multiplayer.

==Faction Traits==
*'''Daemonic''': Undead with extra steps, really. Once your daemonic units lose enough leadership, they'll begin to lose health and fade back into the Warp in the same vein that undead units crumble away. The good news is that even if your daemons are doomed to evaporate, they'll at least stick in and fight to the last model.

*'''Devastating Flanker''': A bunch of your units have this special ability which doubles their charge bonus when attacking an enemy unit from the flank or rear. Considering your Furies and all your cavalry have Vanguard, as well as the obscenely high speed of your army overall, this incentivizes you to try to encircle the enemy as quickly as possible and... well no way to say this that's not going to be a double entendre, '''Hit them hard and fast in the rear!'''

*'''Sensuous Seductions''': Like with the other Chaos god armies you have a battlefield resource that unlocks map-wide abilities as you accumulate it. As with the other daemonic factions these battlefield resources have three tiers and when you use one of them it reduces the resources you've accumulated so far. This one is gained by killing units that have negative morale, meaning you can keep replenishing these abilities so long as there are still units on the battlefield to kill. The three abilities (in order of strength and cost) are:
**''Fascination'': A direct-damage spell that also causes Rampage on the target
**''Narcissism'': An AoE snare, similar to Net of Amyntok
**''Sweet Sorrow'': An AoE buff to speed and vigor

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===

*'''[[N'Kari]]''': He's here and he's looking a lot like his classic artwork where he's facing down Aenarion. He's big, he's fast, he's purple, and he's got four nipples. Has a blistering 100 speed, which means he's a single entity monster that can keep up with warhounds and light cavalry. This guy is going to blitz across the battlefield and right into your "backline," which is good because he has only 5 armor and will need to hurry if he doesn't want to get turned into Swiss cheese by ranged units. His offensive potential is extremely high, and you can stack physical resist and ward save to make him quite durable in melee, but best used to hit and run/flank. Also a caster of the Lore of Slaanesh, but your probably better off putting skill points elsewhere, use a hero caster. His special abilities include:
**''Harvester of Souls'': heals him when nearby units are complete destroyed (this stacks)- combine with high ward and he'll be extremely tough
**''Willing Prey'': debuffs an enemy's melee attack and defense
**''The Witstealer Sword'': massively boosts his AP and base weapon damage.-Alternative live dangerously and take the Sword of Slaanesh from his chaos realm first visit if possible and enjoy a greater demon with well over 100 speed 60-70% physical resist/40% ward and a sword of Khaine equivalent. doing 1.2k weapon damage.

===Generic Lords===

*'''Exalted Keeper of Secrets''': Same as Blood boi, Bird Boi, and Plague Boi. The Exalted Keeper of Secrets acts as the lord while the standard one is a monster you can recruit. An anti-large AP monster with the Lores of Slaanesh and Shadows that can get around the battlefield very quickly. Believe it or not it's slower than a Bloodthirster and less mobile since it can't fly. That said it has a lot of nasty special abilities, including a Mortis Engine effect against low-leadership enemies, AoE hexes that causes rampage or reduce melee attack, and an activatable buff that massively boosts its melee damage over the course of three stages. also gets some regen while killing broken units.

*'''Herald of Slaanesh''': A hybrid lord with the Lore of Slaanesh and/or Shadow magic along with AP in melee. Think a Loremaster for the High Elves only faster and frailer. Your only lord choice with the Devastating Flanker ability. Can ride the Steed of Slaanesh, Seeker Chariot, or Exalted Seeker Chariot. Will also realistically be your only Lord choice in the early campaign as you can't get the Exalted Greater Daemon without evolving one of these things like a Pokemon. Like other daemonic Herald lords she also has three "locus" abilities, which include:
**''Grace'': A ward save that greatly improves melee defence and physical resistance. -By far the best, helps fragile Slaanesh units survive
**''Swiftness'': An augment which greatly improves charge bonus, speed and charge speed.
**''Beguilement'': A hex which reduces leadership and melee defence.

==Heroes==

===Legendary Heroes===

===Generic Heroes===

*'''Alluress''': A hero version of the Herald, like for the other three gods. Same spell lores and mounts. Also has Devastating Flanker.

*'''Cultist of Slaanesh''': A Dark Elf cultist who is mostly intended to be a campaign map agent, on the battlefield she is a skilled fighter with a number of unique abilities including Devastating Flanker and "Gate of Slaanesh" which grants up to 3 demonette summons and later one keeper of secrets per battle. actually quite good. usually want them on campaign map do spread cults and give gifts of slaanesh but good to increase mobility to lords and summon disposable tarpits and a giant suicide keeper of secrets each fight.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Marauders of Slaanesh''': Slannesh's warriors of pain and seduction ([[Emperor's Children|no, not those guys.]] [[Daemonette|or those guys.]] [[Hedonites of Slaanesh|Look, Slaanesh has a lot of freaks working for them, ok?]]) The big difference between these guys and normal Mauraders is they have Immune to Psych, meaning they are far less likely to run than their cousins in the Warriors of Chaos and Norsca. Come with an Anti Large spear version, and standard version, and a tanky whip version. Use them as your cheap screeners to protect your Daemonettes from missiles. These are also your only shielded infantry options. whip version is the most useful long term due to good/decent staying power but you may just have to forgo a traditional frontline late game.

*'''Daemonettes''': Very fast, very AP heavy, and very squishy Daemonic infantry unit. Roughly equivalent to wardancers, stats wise, but considerably faster. Has Devastating Flanker.

*'''Exalted Daemonettess''': Faster, killier, sexier Daemonettes. Roughly equivalent to bladesingers, stats wise, but considerably faster. Has Devastating Flanker and the Soulscent passive ability, which increases their armour piercing and melee attack when within range of an enemy unit whose morale is wavering or lower.

===Missiles===

None, until a dlc adds one possibly.

===Cavalry===
*'''Seekers:''' Has the potential to be one of the fastest units in the entire series, unfortunately they don’t even have any armour, so cycle charging might be your best strategy when using them. Has Devastating Flanker and Vanguard deployment, making them well suited for getting right up in the face of range-heavy armies.

*'''Heartseekers:''' Named after the unit champion of Seekers, these things are a straight upgrade. Unlike your regular seekers these guys have the Soulscent passive ability which increases their armour piercing and melee attack capability when within range of an enemy unit with morale wavering or lower. Also has Devastating Flanker and Vanguard deployment.

*'''Hellstriders:''' Essentially the same as the above, only they’ll cut their losses and run rather than fight to the bitter end. Will come with lances (or pincers rather) and Hellscourge whips. Another unit with Vanguard, the lance variants also get anti-large. Do ''not'' have Devastating Flanker.

===Chariots===
*'''Seeker Chariot:''' A low model chariot unit with poison and Devastating Flanker. Super fast for a chariot but probably even more brittle when trapped in prolonged melee.
*'''Hellflayer:''' Essentially acts as a giant lawnmower, able to plough through infantry. Unfortunately it’s a wide target so might get singled out by ranged fire. Has Devastating Flanker but unlike the other chariots this one also has the Soulscent ability.
*'''Exalted Seeker Chariot:''' An extremely fast but extremely fragile single-entity chariot that will mow down any heavily armored infantry it comes across. Has Poison, Perfect Vigour, and Devastating Flanker.

===War Beasts===
*'''Fiend of Slaanesh:''' Imagine even faster, bigger, rat ogres with a debuff aura and you’d get the idea. Would be able to keep up with the rest of your forces, but unfortunately has just as much armour as the rest of them. Has the Soporific Musk passive ability which lowers enemy melee defense and melee attack.
*'''Chaos Furies (Slaanesh):''' Essentially the same as the other furies, acting like daemonic harpies with buffs from their god. In this case, speed, armour piercing and Devastating Flanker. Most importantly it has Vanguard deployment, which means it can deploy alongside your cavalry units for punishing encirclements.

===Monsters===
*'''Chaos Spawn of Slaanesh''': Appeared in the Nurgle vs Slaanesh video. Will likely be used the same way you use normal Spawn, only might be faster and have better AP
*'''Soul Grinder of Slaanesh''': A purely melee version of the Soul Grinder with 75 speed, anti-large, and lots of armour piercing damage. May be preferable for most uses to the keeper of secrets because they have actually good armor and fill a similar role. trade some speed and lack of devastating flanker for being the only Slaanesh unit with good armor.
*'''Keeper of Secrets:''' Your Greater Daemon unit is fast, has lots of weapon strength and armor piercing, as well as Blissful Rapture, Devastating Flanker, and Strider. Can cast two spells from the Lore of Slaanesh: Lash of Slaanesh and Acquiescence. powerful melee killer vs monsters and infantry but need to flank/ hit and run for best affect due to low durability. use size and high mass to run in and out of the fight. if you want a stand up fight monster use the soul grinder. Campaign tech tree can give them the whole lore of Slaanesh but they aren't good casters, just use a lord or hero instead. good targets for buffs to weapon damage like mind razor or the Slaanesh rampage buff.

===Artillery===

None to speak of. You don't have any ranged units at all.

==Multiplayer Strategies==
Slaanesh is all about one thing, going at your opponent as fast as possible. Oh, they will resist, but you'll get your way in the end. Slaanesh really needs to find that perfect vulnerable position and slide right in. Don't go for grinding here, get into the habit of rhythmically pulling in and out to get the best result possible. Be sure to conserve as much of your unit's energy and fight too, you don't wait to climax too early. If all goes well eventually everything will come together in one big- <span style='color:purple;font-size:100%'>'''SNAP''' I'm the embodiment of ecstasy and excess and even ''I'' was getting sick of the sex puns!</span> Ok fine, you have a ton of mobility, AP and dps on your units but they will fall apart really fast if they meet stern resistance. Your units are built to flank, so if you try to take a frontal fight with any semi sturdy faction you are going to get massacred. The lack of ranged and fliers also means you will have to get to that backline the old fashioned way. It will be a Micro heavy army that will reward good timing and have one of the higher skill floors in the game. Now go teach those ungrateful bastards our horny ways!

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': One of a few factions hornyer then you! (Rimshot). Your faster but not by as much as you are with other factions, expect a game of trying to get a charge off while not being charged in turn. That they have Archers and a sorta Artillery in the Cygor might force you to be a little bolder then you might otherwise want. Over all: an intresting match up.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Oh man, if you can micro well you are going to have a field day with Dwarfs. You have pretty much everything that they hate fighting from an affordable AP frontline, fast flankers to dive the backline and chariots galore. Daemonettes will likely make the most cost effective front line, and a few mauraders to screen will allow them to get in without taking too much in the way of missile fire. It's unknown whether Seekers or Hellstriders (probably Hellstriders, they can have shields) will make the better choice for cav, but either way they should be able to rapidly get around and dive those cannons and guns before they can do much damage. Even your furies have AP and Devastating Flanker, which will make them great for killing dwarf ranged units. With three options of chariots to pick from (go for normal seeker chariots, they'll be available in more numbers) you should be able to punch through their lines and dry hump that silly book of theirs. Really, the only thing that won't work are monsters as Dwarfs have plenty of missiles and Anti Large, so Fiends, Spawns and KOS can stay at home, meaning a Herald will likely be your best Lord option. If you can micro well you can dominates this match up but if not... well, prepare for a lot of your skimpy crab ladies to get turned into sexy ground beef.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|Khorne]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Saurus based formations will be child's play to your forces. Slow and heavily armored, even your infantry will be able to cycle charge them with impunity. Larger dinosaurs will be at your tender mercies as well, Soul Grinders, Keepers of Secrets and even just Marauders with Spears will be suited to dealing with the heavily armored beasts. The units to keep tabs on here will be the Skinks. Reasonably fast (not as fast as you, but still worth noting) and unarmored, putting all that juicy AP to waste. Units to be particularly wary of will be the Terradon Riders. You can do virtually nothing as they rain poisonous javelins from the sky, crippling and slowing your forces to be a better match for Skink Cohorts or Chameleon Stalkers. So long as you keep on the move, cycle charge their forces and try to waste as much ammo as you can, they'll eventually be forced to commit to a losing fight.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': This might actually be a difficult one. Your biggest strengths are speed and armor piercing, but Nurgle's units have almost no armor to begin with and don't really have a back line to speak of. Fighting them is going to be like when someone in a cartoon punches a fat guy and their arm just sinks into his gut. You don't have the things that scare Nurgle the most, namely fire damage and ranged units. Instead you're going to have to rely on your superior mobility to cycle charge his slow moving units again and again. You might not benefit from your AP but you still have substantial charge bonuses. The real question is how many charges it takes to cut through Nurgle's absurdly large health pools and healing. If you get dragged into a war of attrition you're going to lose.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': You'll be able to dive their backline in record speeds, but you should not underestimate the firepower they can plug you with before you reach them. They'll likely have hordes of Skavenslaves to simply tie down your forces through unarmored bodies alone, so try to keep on the move.

*'''Slaanesh''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': Tzeentch's ground units are squishy, and bad at melee, and not as fast as yours, so you ''should'' use that to your advantage by encircling them and shredding them in melee as quick as possible; they are probably the only Daemons you'll be okay with sticking around in melee with, but you should be charging as much as possible still just for the Charge Bonus. All those ranged shots won't matter if you're already up close and give them no chance to use it. Plus, they don't really have a lot of ammo, so after the first few volleys they will run out of shit to throw at you and start cycle charging.

:That being said, Tzeentch also has the ''most flyers'' out of the 4 gods, so you should expect a Tzeentch player to take some of them just to fuck with you; screamers or doom knights will intercept your chariots. Tzeentch also has Barrier, which nullifies the first few hits they take in combat, which will be your charge. Models will still get thrown, they just wont get hurt right away.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': The Vampire Counts might be your comrades in terms of shunning ranged weapons but beyond that they're very different from you. You have almost no flyers, Vampires have a bunch. Your units hit really hard but are super fragile, while the undead excel at grinding you down with blobs of durable chaff. This second part is the biggest problem for you, as wars of attrition are the ultimate bane of your existence. All those flying units will also mean your great speed still won't give you your choice of engagements, as the vargheists can charge you but you can't charge the vargheists. Your best bet is probably going to be to act as a scalpel, cutting the enemy lords an heroes neatly out of their army. If you can do that the rest won't matter. Unfortunately, since a lot of their lords can take flying mounts, that will be easier said than done. Definitely bring Furies and anything that can act as an assassin or elite anti-large. The fact that their units don't route is good and bad for you. Bad because you can't stack your army abilities while fighting them, and good if you bring N'Kari as when they die he can get a ton of heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': Calling it now, this will be an interesting mashup. You both are going to be fast, and very squishy, so dealing with their archers should be easy. However, your lack of armor on your nude beasts will make them easy targets. So basically a drag race of vegans vs virgins. Likely to go very poorly for Slaanesh as Slaaneshi armies will be paying for AP that is not going to do anything to the hippies, and Slaaneshi armies tend to be very allergic to missiles, which the wood elves are just about the most shoot happy faction in the entire game.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Phaeron

2022-03-08T20:51:23Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* Phaemous Phaerons */

[[File:ImotekhPhaeron.jpg|300px|right|thumb|[[Star Wars|I find your lack of faith....disturbing...]]]]

A '''Phaeron''' (male) or '''Phaerakh''' (female) is a [[Necron]] who rules an entire [[Necron Dynasty]]; after the [[Triarch]] left the galaxy following the [[War in Heaven]], they are the highest-ranking Necrons in the galaxy, barring the [[Silent King]] himself.

Because the Necrontyr were so short-lived, there used to be a fair amount of turnover in this position (and in all positions in Necrontyr society, for that matter), but after the pact with the [[C'tan]] and biotransference, the present set of Phaerons are effectively immortal and ever-living (in fact, they have a special rule called just that), so the only way to replace one is to kill him or conquer his dynasty. Either one is a difficult proposition, as the Phaerons were given bodies of the finest, most robust construction, and rule over endless phalanxes and legions of warriors. However, this does nothing to prevent all manner of civil wars and political shenanigans as various nutty robot zombie nobles attempt to seize power for themselves.

Phaerons were added to the Necron army in the Fifth Edition [[Codex]], as a way to give the Necrons some character. Note the pun on "Pharaoh," the ruler of an ancient Egyptian dynasty, as if you needed more proof that the new Necrons are [[Tomb Kings]] IN SPACE.

== Phaemous Phaerons ==

* [[Imotekh the Stormlord]], Phaeron of the Sautekh Dynasty, the most powerful Dynasty as of the 41st Millennium.
* Szarekh, the [[Silent King]], Phaeron of the Szarekhan Dynasty, <strike>the only surviving member of the [[Triarch]]</strike> and one-time ruler of the entire [[Necron]] Empire. After defeating the [[C'tan]], he left the galaxy out of shame that he fed his people's souls wholesale to the Deceiver, met the [[Tyranids]], and hustled back home to rouse the Necrons against the extragalactic threat. The other two phaerons of the Triarch, '''Hapthatra the Radiant''' and '''Mesophet the Shadowed Hand''' stand at either side of the Silent King upon the Dais of Dominion.
*[[Trazyn the Infinite]], <s>[[Blood Ravens|Thief]]</s> Collector Extraordinaire. Was never officially crowned Phaeron, but is more than powerful enough to deserve the title, and even if he's not he probably collected on already. (This is brought to you by Trazyn simps.)

== Tabletop ==

Phaerons on the tabletop are basically [[Necron Overlord]]s with an extra upgrade that makes them (and any unit they join) Relentless. In 5th this was an improvement, making your I2, 1-attack zombiebot horde suck slightly less when push came to shove. In 6th, assault was essentially worthless, so there's no real point in doing this. Unless you WANT to assault with warriors (pro-tip: don't bother).

In 7th Edition, you can't make an Overlord a Phaeron anymore. At all. Crunch-wise, it's no big deal (Relentless wasn't actually needed that much). Fluff-wise, you can just call your Overlord a Phaeron all the same.

EDIT: GW has heard our pleas, returning Phaerons to the tabletop as an upgrade as of ninth edition, this time in the form of a two CP upgrade that allows them to My Will Be Done twice in a single turn!

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Necrons]]

{{Necrons-Forces}}

Kairos Fateweaver

2022-03-08T20:24:16Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* Truth or Lie? */

{{Heresy}}
[[File:KairosFWart.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Pollywannacracka. Also this otherwise badass picture makes his second head look kinda weird and atrophied; it's variously portrayed either this way, as a sort of mutant outgrowth, or as a natural bisection, like the Aquil{{BLAM}}]]

'''Kairos Fateweaver''' is one of the more powerful [[Lord of Change|Lords of Change]] in the service of [[Tzeentch]], known as his Oracle. His name derives from an Ancient Greek concept of the key and propitious time for an action to be taken. While χρόνος (''chronos'') referred to time as a linear series of events, καιρός (''kairos'') had [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos "'''''a qualitative, permanent nature.'''''"] Very apropos of the [[warp]].

While Tzeentch knew everything there was to know about the past and present, he was unhappy that he couldn't get a perfect view of the future. In an attempt to overcome this issue, he went to the Well of Eternity at the center of reality. (How much of this is intended to be absolutely literal is absolutely unclear, but the 40k universe is a strange place.) However, because Tzeentch is kind of a massive bitch, he didn't want to go in himself and sent his Lords of Change instead. The problem: none of his servants ever returned.

Fed up with this, Tzeentch eventually grabbed Kairos and tossed him into the well. He survived, but emerged incredibly aged ''(which for a creature of the warp immune to the passage of time is saying something)'' completely insane (even by daemonic standards) and with a second head (resemblance to the Imperial Aquilla is ENTIRELY coincidental...). He knows everything from the past and the future and when asked a question, one head will tell the truth, and the other will tell an equally believable lie. <s>It's possible that the Imperial Aquila is a representation of Kairos.</s> {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|Heresy!}}

During Lorgar's quest for knowledge in the Eye of Terror, Kairos appeared to him and gave Lorgar a choice, saying that the Aurelian could either seek revenge on Roboute Guilliman for the destruction of Khur, but ensure that Chaos would lose the upcoming war, or put aside his personal desires and work for the big four, and ensure their eventual victory. ''Aurelian'' notes that in this single instance, both of his heads were telling the truth. He also disguised himself as an entirely different oracle (with a little bit of a shout out to [[H.P. Lovecraft]]) in order to trick Ahriman and the Thousand Sons into regathering Magnus's shards and binding them together in a way that Tzeentch preferred (oddly, getting Lucius the Eternal to help out, who was just kind of there, doing his dueling thing and fucking off from his chapter to hang out with the [[Thousand Sons]] for a little while.) It's been implied that Kairos tried repeatedly to influence the Lion in the time he wandered the forests of Caliban as a youth; unfortunately for Kairos however, he really couldn't have picked a worse primarch to try this on, and the Lion being the Lion each and every time shut him the fuck down until big bird just gave up. Centuries later he tried overtly attacking the Lion and his fleet during the Thramas Crusade, and that went even less well.

He's also part of the ship, "Accursed Eternity" that was formerly a space marine battle barge and the one who taught [[Blood Drinkers]] the blood ritual.

== Gathering Storm ==

He was tasked by Magnus and allied with the Red Corsairs to capture Guilliman by binding the primarch with chains made of his own guilt, anger and disappointment. He initially succeeded but was immediately fucked over by none other than Cypher, who led a troupe of Harlequins and a bunch of Khornate daemons led by Skarbrand to fuck him right up his daemonic cloaca.

==The End Times==
He tells Archaon that he will be killed by someone "who is not mortal", but Archaon is like fuck that shit and tells him to attack Averheim where Valten resides. Like all things Tzeentch related, he failed and had his heads cut off to summon a more useful servant, a greater daemon of khorne [[Ka'bandha|Ka'Bandha]].

==[[Total War: WARHAMMER|Total War: Warhammer 3]]==
Kairos is the first playable Legendary Lord for Tzeentch in Total War: Warhammer III, where he leads the Oracles of Tzeentch faction against the forces of Cathay. In story, Kairos has been sealed out of the Chaos Realms by the dying [[Ursun]]'s roar, and is looking for a spell to get himself back in. This spell comes in the form of the Book of Fates from [[The Advisor]], who offers to give him Ursun's eyes to see the present in exchange for a drop of Ursun's blood to break his curse from the book. Kairos is one of the most powerful spellcasters in the game, with the ability to swap out spells from other lores so he can fly around and burn enemies to a crisp. He's garbage in melee though, so keep him away from dedicated fighters.

His ending might actually be the canon one for the game as after reaching Ursun the demon ends up taking his eyes which are then attached to one of his tongues much like they appear in the End Times books. This would definitely explain why Kislev got stomped so hard in End Times, plus the fact Kairos later got spanked by Amber Order Patriarch Gregor Martak after the wizard got buffed by Ulric might have resulted in Ulric absorbing some of Ursun’s energy and explain why the two gods seem to have fused together in Age of Sigmar.

==Truth or Lie?==

To get a straight answer from what is effectively two creatures where one tells the truth and the other lies is tricky but doable. provided you restrict yourself to true/false questions. Karios's heads work much like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_and_Knaves Knights and Knaves] logic puzzle made famous in ''Labyrinth''. You can pick either head and, for some true/false question ''Q'', ask, "If I asked you Q, would you answer True?"

{| align="center" border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse;"
|+ Kairos's Answers
! !! You picked the Honest head. !! You picked the Lying head.
|-
! The answer to Q is actually True.
| align="center" | Yes || align="center" | No (lie)
|-
! The answer to Q is actually False.
| align="center" | No || align="center" | Yes (lie)
|}

Unfortunately we're not done. Although not explicitly confirmed in canon, which head lies and which head tells the truth will probably change with each question, unlike in Knights and Knaves, so you should not determine which head is lying for this question and then use that knowledge to change your next question. For example the Knight and Knave puzzle is often framed like '''one will lead you home the other to death''' hence why knowing which one lies is so important, if after asking the question the Knight and Knave could switch roles, then you have no way of knowing whose lying and therefore knowing which one will take you home/doom you. Asking Kairos questions for which there is no false answer, such as "If 1=2, then what is the Emperor's favorite cheese?", or no true answer, such as "How many inches do I weigh?", making him incapable of lying or telling the truth, may result in the sort of paradox that leaves you thoroughly Tzeentched.

As you can imagine attempting to outsmart an insane, immortal, all-knowing daemon isn't the best of ideas. Unless Kairos is fully compelled to answer you truthfully (like in the case of Lorgar); he might just flip the table and turn you into a [[Chaos Spawn|gribbly mess of mutated flesh]] as his way of refusing to put up with your shit. In fact, since Kairos has already seen the past and future it's highly likely he has already foreseen your attempts at trying to get a straight answer out of him and prepared his answers beforehand. Thus, Kairos is less "knights and knaves" and more "Hardest logic puzzle ever by George Boolos". In addition to one liar and one truth-teller, add in a random element (traditionally a third character who answers at random, and who is indistinguishable from the others aside from his answers; in Kairos's case, he probably swaps heads), and add onto that they deliberately answer in a language you don't speak (The three gods riddle), and of course they not only know exactly what kind of question you're going to ask but will also make sure that both their responses sound perfectly true with no way to tell which one is false, and further add that if they don't like your question they are going to kill you. [[Zero Punctuation|And then laugh. And then display your corpse at the museum of failure wearing a silly hat.]]

Basically the only way to get an answer out of him IF you have a way of phrasing the questioning such that you bypass the whole which head lies and which tells the truth thing, is if you are strong enough to impel him to answer your question: and in 40k the number of characters that can do that are on a very short list, which spoiler: you are not on.

In fact the only way to get useful information out of him is to winnow a massive pool of data down to two. If you ask him "what planet in the galaxy is my maguffin" he will only give back 2 answers out of the entire galaxy, one wrong planet and one correct one. He is going to fuck with you of course but now you know you have a 50% chance to be right, and if your powerful enough to summon a greater Demon, you can figure the rest out.

==On the Tabletop==
For 40k 9th edition, we are still waiting for a proper codex tho

{| class=wikitable cellspacing=0 cellpadding=4 align=center
|- valign=top
! Name !! M !! WS !! BS !! S !! T !! W !! A !! Ld !! Sv !! Points
|-
| Kairos || 12/8/6 || 3+ || 2+ || 6 || 7 || 16 || 5/3/1 || 10 || 6+ || 270
|-
|}
<br>

Kairos now has the exact same point cost as a regular Lord of Change, so comparisons are pretty straightforward. The main thing you loose is one point of WS (the LoC has 2+) and some deal of customization, but for everything else Kairos is straight up better. To start with, the LoC comes equipped with a Staff of Tzeentch that has S=6, AP=-2, D=3, whereas Kairos comes equipped with the Staff of Tomorrow that gives S=8, AP=-3,D=D6, and both weapons turn slain characters into a Chaos Spa... One of those [[Chaos Spawn|fucking things]], the LoC has to pay 5 points extra to get that weapon profile with a Baleful Sword, but this sword works like a power fist in that it substracts 1 from all hit rolls and its just a +1, instead of a +2 to strenght.

Similarly, Kairos has a Smite Range of 36", whereas a regular LoC needs to be equipped with a relic to increase it to 30" from its default 18". The lord of change knows two spells from the tzeentch discipline and can increase the known amount with relics and stratagems, but Kairos knows all of them. Finally both the regular LoC and Kairos have a bonus to psychic casts that start at +2 and go down as they take wounds, but the LoC can cast and deny two times per phase whereas Kairos can cast and deny 3 times. The biggest reason reason you would want to use a LoC over Kairos is have a tankier bird with The Impossible Robe relic that gives it a 4+ invul save (3+ after Ephemeral form) and a good warlord trait, like Incorporeal Form to give it a "disgustingly resilient" reduction of wounds taken or Daemonspark to make your horror blobs terrifying.

Whatever the case, Kairos will make sure to make your opponent dispair during the psychic phase and he'll be able to ahnihilate one or two vehicles with his flying movement and melee attacks that hurt like lascannons, just be sure you have a way to prevent HIM from getting sniped by lascannons first

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:KairosFateweaverMini.jpg|SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK
</gallery>

{{Daemons-Characters}}
[[Category: Warhammer Fantasy]]
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category: Age of Sigmar]]
[[Category: Disciples of Tzeentch]]

Kairos Fateweaver

2022-03-08T18:54:13Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* Truth or Lie? */

{{Heresy}}
[[File:KairosFWart.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Pollywannacracka. Also this otherwise badass picture makes his second head look kinda weird and atrophied; it's variously portrayed either this way, as a sort of mutant outgrowth, or as a natural bisection, like the Aquil{{BLAM}}]]

'''Kairos Fateweaver''' is one of the more powerful [[Lord of Change|Lords of Change]] in the service of [[Tzeentch]], known as his Oracle. His name derives from an Ancient Greek concept of the key and propitious time for an action to be taken. While χρόνος (''chronos'') referred to time as a linear series of events, καιρός (''kairos'') had [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos "'''''a qualitative, permanent nature.'''''"] Very apropos of the [[warp]].

While Tzeentch knew everything there was to know about the past and present, he was unhappy that he couldn't get a perfect view of the future. In an attempt to overcome this issue, he went to the Well of Eternity at the center of reality. (How much of this is intended to be absolutely literal is absolutely unclear, but the 40k universe is a strange place.) However, because Tzeentch is kind of a massive bitch, he didn't want to go in himself and sent his Lords of Change instead. The problem: none of his servants ever returned.

Fed up with this, Tzeentch eventually grabbed Kairos and tossed him into the well. He survived, but emerged incredibly aged ''(which for a creature of the warp immune to the passage of time is saying something)'' completely insane (even by daemonic standards) and with a second head (resemblance to the Imperial Aquilla is ENTIRELY coincidental...). He knows everything from the past and the future and when asked a question, one head will tell the truth, and the other will tell an equally believable lie. <s>It's possible that the Imperial Aquila is a representation of Kairos.</s> {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|Heresy!}}

During Lorgar's quest for knowledge in the Eye of Terror, Kairos appeared to him and gave Lorgar a choice, saying that the Aurelian could either seek revenge on Roboute Guilliman for the destruction of Khur, but ensure that Chaos would lose the upcoming war, or put aside his personal desires and work for the big four, and ensure their eventual victory. ''Aurelian'' notes that in this single instance, both of his heads were telling the truth. He also disguised himself as an entirely different oracle (with a little bit of a shout out to [[H.P. Lovecraft]]) in order to trick Ahriman and the Thousand Sons into regathering Magnus's shards and binding them together in a way that Tzeentch preferred (oddly, getting Lucius the Eternal to help out, who was just kind of there, doing his dueling thing and fucking off from his chapter to hang out with the [[Thousand Sons]] for a little while.) It's been implied that Kairos tried repeatedly to influence the Lion in the time he wandered the forests of Caliban as a youth; unfortunately for Kairos however, he really couldn't have picked a worse primarch to try this on, and the Lion being the Lion each and every time shut him the fuck down until big bird just gave up. Centuries later he tried overtly attacking the Lion and his fleet during the Thramas Crusade, and that went even less well.

He's also part of the ship, "Accursed Eternity" that was formerly a space marine battle barge and the one who taught [[Blood Drinkers]] the blood ritual.

== Gathering Storm ==

He was tasked by Magnus and allied with the Red Corsairs to capture Guilliman by binding the primarch with chains made of his own guilt, anger and disappointment. He initially succeeded but was immediately fucked over by none other than Cypher, who led a troupe of Harlequins and a bunch of Khornate daemons led by Skarbrand to fuck him right up his daemonic cloaca.

==The End Times==
He tells Archaon that he will be killed by someone "who is not mortal", but Archaon is like fuck that shit and tells him to attack Averheim where Valten resides. Like all things Tzeentch related, he failed and had his heads cut off to summon a more useful servant, a greater daemon of khorne [[Ka'bandha|Ka'Bandha]].

==[[Total War: WARHAMMER|Total War: Warhammer 3]]==
Kairos is the first playable Legendary Lord for Tzeentch in Total War: Warhammer III, where he leads the Oracles of Tzeentch faction against the forces of Cathay. In story, Kairos has been sealed out of the Chaos Realms by the dying [[Ursun]]'s roar, and is looking for a spell to get himself back in. This spell comes in the form of the Book of Fates from [[The Advisor]], who offers to give him Ursun's eyes to see the present in exchange for a drop of Ursun's blood to break his curse from the book. Kairos is one of the most powerful spellcasters in the game, with the ability to swap out spells from other lores so he can fly around and burn enemies to a crisp. He's garbage in melee though, so keep him away from dedicated fighters.

His ending might actually be the canon one for the game as after reaching Ursun the demon ends up taking his eyes which are then attached to one of his tongues much like they appear in the End Times books. This would definitely explain why Kislev got stomped so hard in End Times, plus the fact Kairos later got spanked by Amber Order Patriarch Gregor Martak after the wizard got buffed by Ulric might have resulted in Ulric absorbing some of Ursun’s energy and explain why the two gods seem to have fused together in Age of Sigmar.

==Truth or Lie?==

To get a straight answer from what is effectively two creatures where one tells the truth and the other lies is tricky but doable. provided you restrict yourself to true/false questions. Karios's heads work much like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_and_Knaves Knights and Knaves] logic puzzle made famous in ''Labyrinth''. You can pick either head and, for some true/false question ''Q'', ask, "If I asked you Q, would you answer True?"

{| align="center" border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse;"
|+ Kairos's Answers
! !! You picked the Honest head. !! You picked the Lying head.
|-
! The answer to Q is actually True.
| align="center" | Yes || align="center" | No (lie)
|-
! The answer to Q is actually False.
| align="center" | No || align="center" | Yes (lie)
|}

Unfortunately we're not done. Although not explicitly confirmed in canon, which head lies and which head tells the truth will probably change with each question, unlike in Knights and Knaves, so you should not determine which head is lying for this question and then use that knowledge to change your next question. For example the Knight and Knave puzzle is often framed like '''one will lead you home the other to death''' hence why knowing which one lies is so important, if after asking the question the Knight and Knave could switch roles, then you have no way of knowing whose lying and therefore knowing which one will take you home/doom you. Asking Kairos questions for which there is no false answer, such as "If 1=2, then what is the Emperor's favorite cheese?", or no true answer, such as "How many inches do I weigh?", making him incapable of lying or telling the truth, may result in the sort of paradox that leaves you thoroughly Tzeentched.

As you can imagine attempting to outsmart an insane, immortal, all-knowing daemon isn't the best of ideas. Unless Kairos is fully compelled to answer you truthfully (like in the case of Lorgar); he might just flip the table and turn you into a [[Chaos Spawn|gribbly mess of mutated flesh]] as his way of refusing to put up with your shit. In fact, since Kairos has already seen the past and future it's highly likely he has already foreseen your attempts at trying to get a straight answer out of him and prepared his answers beforehand. Thus, Kairos is less "knights and knaves" and more "Hardest logic puzzle ever by George Boolos". In addition to one liar and one truth-teller, add in a random element (traditionally a third character who answers at random, and who is indistinguishable from the others aside from his answers; in Kairos's case, he probably swaps heads), and add onto that they deliberately answer in a language you don't speak (The three gods riddle), and of course they not only know exactly what kind of question you're going to ask but will also make sure that both their responses sound perfectly true with no way to tell which one is false, and further add that if they don't like your question they are going to kill you. [[Zero Punctuation|And then laugh. And then display your corpse at the museum of failure wearing a silly hat.]]

Basically the only way to get an answer out of him IF you have a way of phrasing the questioning such that you bypass the whole which head lies and which tells the truth thing, is if you are strong enough to impel him to answer your question: and in 40k the number of characters that can do that are on a very short list, which spoiler: you are not on.

In fact the only way to get useful information out of him is to winnow a massive pool of data down to two. If you ask him "what plane in the galaxy is my maguffin" he will only give back 2 answers out of the entire galaxy, one wrong planet and one correct one. He is going to fuck with you of course but now you know you have a 50% chance to be right, and if your powerful enough to summon a greater Demon, you can figure the rest out.

==On the Tabletop==
For 40k 9th edition, we are still waiting for a proper codex tho

{| class=wikitable cellspacing=0 cellpadding=4 align=center
|- valign=top
! Name !! M !! WS !! BS !! S !! T !! W !! A !! Ld !! Sv !! Points
|-
| Kairos || 12/8/6 || 3+ || 2+ || 6 || 7 || 16 || 5/3/1 || 10 || 6+ || 270
|-
|}
<br>

Kairos now has the exact same point cost as a regular Lord of Change, so comparisons are pretty straightforward. The main thing you loose is one point of WS (the LoC has 2+) and some deal of customization, but for everything else Kairos is straight up better. To start with, the LoC comes equipped with a Staff of Tzeentch that has S=6, AP=-2, D=3, whereas Kairos comes equipped with the Staff of Tomorrow that gives S=8, AP=-3,D=D6, and both weapons turn slain characters into a Chaos Spa... One of those [[Chaos Spawn|fucking things]], the LoC has to pay 5 points extra to get that weapon profile with a Baleful Sword, but this sword works like a power fist in that it substracts 1 from all hit rolls and its just a +1, instead of a +2 to strenght.

Similarly, Kairos has a Smite Range of 36", whereas a regular LoC needs to be equipped with a relic to increase it to 30" from its default 18". The lord of change knows two spells from the tzeentch discipline and can increase the known amount with relics and stratagems, but Kairos knows all of them. Finally both the regular LoC and Kairos have a bonus to psychic casts that start at +2 and go down as they take wounds, but the LoC can cast and deny two times per phase whereas Kairos can cast and deny 3 times. The biggest reason reason you would want to use a LoC over Kairos is have a tankier bird with The Impossible Robe relic that gives it a 4+ invul save (3+ after Ephemeral form) and a good warlord trait, like Incorporeal Form to give it a "disgustingly resilient" reduction of wounds taken or Daemonspark to make your horror blobs terrifying.

Whatever the case, Kairos will make sure to make your opponent dispair during the psychic phase and he'll be able to ahnihilate one or two vehicles with his flying movement and melee attacks that hurt like lascannons, just be sure you have a way to prevent HIM from getting sniped by lascannons first

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:KairosFateweaverMini.jpg|SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK
</gallery>

{{Daemons-Characters}}
[[Category: Warhammer Fantasy]]
[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category: Age of Sigmar]]
[[Category: Disciples of Tzeentch]]

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay

2022-03-06T07:39:56Z

2601:1C0:5C00:EFC0:0:0:0:2470: /* Multiplayer Strategies */

This is the general tactics page on how to play [[Cathay]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]].

==Why Play Cathay==
*Because Total War: Three Kingdoms didn't go hard enough into fantasy for you.
*These guys are finally being fleshed out (with the full blessings of our [[Games Workshop|evil British overlords]] nonetheless) after years and you want to see what they come up with.
*You're into chinese history and mythology.
*You want to play a defensive gunline but don't want to play as boring white guys, short vengeful alcoholics or the bad guys from Pirates of the Caribbean
*You think it's extremely funny to watch Flamers of Tzeentch, Jezzails, and Artillery pieces nuke themselves when you use Mirror Missile on them.

===Pros===
*'''Designed for Total War''': One thing we can say as an advantage for Cathay is unlike the other factions they will be designed from the ground up to be in a Total War game rather than trying to transition from a tabletop game into total war. This gives them the potential to be one of the best-designed races and balanced since they're not trying to fit a square Warhammer peg into a round Total War hole.
*'''Numbers''': In lore, Cathay has the largest population of all the human nations, so they have bodies to spare. Don't expect Skaven numbers, but you'll likely have large armies compared to other good guy races.
*'''Range''': As the oldest Human nation to have gotten gunpowder, it makes sense it plays a big role in your army. You have access to a ton of gunpowder units and artillery to blast the enemy apart. You also got some elite crossbows to play around with. The harmony system ensures that your ranged units have some of the higest reload skill in the entire game, which means... Well, [[Dakka|you shoot a lot.]]
*'''Air Power''': With your Longma, War Balloons and your Dragons you will be decently scary in the air. You won't be fast, and any opposing faction with decent air cavalry will likely threaten you, but you have some potent options.
*'''Harmony''': Cathay has a solid combination of ranged and melee units that work together well in concert. Similarly, units can either be Yin or Yang aligned and having the two working together provides you with a bonus.
*'''Defensive''': Cathay is built to last. Between your faction mechanics and selection of magical lores, Grand Cathay is built to hold the line. If you crave a faction with a strong, staunch line of spears to keep your enemies at bay, Cathay's going to be the faction for you.

===Cons===
*'''Synergy''': Due to the way Harmony works, you will NEED to keep units close to each other, otherwise individual units will underperform. As such, you will likely be locked into turtling in order to get your units close enough to get the buffs they might need in order to perform efficiently. On their own, your units actually have ''lower'' stats than their equivalent in other armies, only getting better when properly buffed.
*'''Slow''': Cathay won't be winning many foot races compared to other factions. Though not as plodding as the dwarfs or lizardmen, you don't have much in the way of cavalry and your war balloons are pretty susceptible to air cav and missile fire.
*'''Limited Cavalry''': You are the worst Cav faction of all the non Chaos human factions. Jade Lancers are about equal to Empire Knights, Peasant Horsemen are really only good at chasing routing units or dealing with ranged units and Longma Riders lack armor piercing and anti-large. You will likely struggle to outmatch other cav heavy factions in that regard.
*'''Limited Skirmishers''': No vanguard deployment, stalk, or cheap fast movers other than peasant horsemen. You're going to suck at harrying broken units off the map and hunting enemy skirmishers + war machines.
*'''AoE Susceptible''': A core mechanic of Cathay units is that they gain bonuses when in close proximity with each other. While this can be great for holding the line, it also makes your forces more vulnerable to vortex or wind spells. You'll have to keep an eye out for enemy wizards.
*'''No Melee Expert Non-Legendary Lords or Heroes''': None of your non-LL and Heroes are really that good in melee combat or can serve as a tank. I know what you're thinking "But the Dragon Siblings!" but they won't be leading all your armies in campaign and they are expensive in multiplayer. 3 out of 4 of your Lords and Heroes are Mages and the one that isn't, the Lord Magistrate, is stated to be a support buffing character rather than a than a melee duelist or a tank. Shugengan lords are stated to be decent in melee but trust me, that's only by Mage Lord standards. You won't have many characters that can be safely thrown into melee combat. The closest Melee Lord and Hero Cathay may get before their DLCs are Gotrek & Felix, and that's just assuming that CA will even allow Cathay to recruit them.
*'''DLC''': There are three guarantees in life. Death, Taxes, and Core Races getting units withheld for DLC. There is already a notable lack of monkey in the Cathay roster. Sorry Cathay, don't expect to be different. (Though in this case, I guess it's less "units being held back" and more "CA and GW making up more shit later.")

==Faction traits==
*'''Battle Harmony''': Shared by all non-character Cathay units. Melee units are marked as "Yang", while ranged units are "Yin"; these units gain bonuses when near a unit of the opposite type: leadership and melee defence for melee Yang units, and leadership and reload speed for ranged Yin units. Characters multiply these bonuses for nearby units.
*'''Mastery of the Elemental Winds''': Shared by all Cathayan spellcasters, this ability enhances their spells for each spellcaster present in the army. This encourages taking multiple spellcasters, something not usually done in other factions.
*'''Formation Attack''': A trait that makes the unit try to stay in formation, even when in combat. Presumably, this makes holding chokepoints and positions easier to do.

==Lords==
We finally got the names of the two legendary lords, and they turn out to be new characters. The children of the Dragon Emperor and the Moon Empress, they rule in his stead over the various provinces of Cathay.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Miao Ying]], the Storm Dragon, ruler of the Northern Provinces and Commander of the Great Bastion.''': Daughter of the Dragon Emperor. Miss Cold and Aloof. She is in the north and is daddy's favourite. Can transform between human form where she buffs harmony and a big dragon to melee it up in battle. She will be able to use a hybrid of Life and Yin Magic: Including Earth Blood, Storm of Shadows, Flesh to Stone, Missile Mirror, Regrowth and Talons of Night, with both Lore Traits of Lifebloom and Power of Yin. She has the Wrath of the Storm ability, which increases melee attack, makes attacks magical, and makes those affected immune to psychology. She also has the Disdain of Dragons ability, which lowers enemy melee attacks in a constant radius. She also has access to the Mirror Missile spell which is easily one of the most trollish spells in the entire game, you will never tire of watching the enemy's elite ranged units delete themselves when they fire with the hex activated.

*'''[[Zhao Ming]], the Iron Dragon, ruler of the Western Provinces and Lord of Shang-Yang''': Son of the Dragon Emperor, and a mama's boy. His faction is stated to focus on and specialize in Alchemists and Astronomers. Can transform between human form where he buffs harmony and a big dragon to melee it up in battle. He will be able to use a hybrid of Metal and Yang magic. He also has the Ward of Iron ability, a bound buff he can use to make a unit much harder to kill.

===Lords===
*'''Dragon-Blooded Shugengan Lord''': Descended from when a human pulled a Donkey from Shrek with Cathay's rulers. Your Mage lord, they come with the lores of Yang or Yin and their mounts are Warhorse or Jade Longma for extra mobility.

*'''Lord Magistrate''': Your cheap normal frontline general. His lone gimmick is being able to further improve the harmony mechanic of his army, so extra incentive to form up in a sexy turtle. His mounts are Warhorse or Sky Lantern. Sadly he's garbage in melee, his mounts suck and pretty much anything he can do a Shugengan can do better. As such no real reason to nab him unless you want to hear his gloriously hammy voice acting.

===Legendary Heroes===

===Generic Heroes===
*'''Alchemist''': Mages who fight with vials and magic that looks like Chinese calligraphy. Lore of Metal user with some extra bound buffs to armour, melee attack and magic damage with armour piecing. Can mount a warhorse.

*'''Astromancer''': Your lore of heavens caster. His mounts are a Warhorse for mobility or a Wu Xing War Compass which seems as though it will boost his magic output considerably.

==Units==

===Infantry===
*'''Peasant Long Spearmen''': Your early chaff unit that's literally expected to run away once things get hairy. The unexpected MVP of the roster (at least until DLCs give you something better). They come with Expendable ''and'' Expert Charge Defense, which is a rarity for tier 1 units.
**Rather than treating them like Skavenslaves, they're a lot more like TK skeleton spearmen without the shields: a really good screen with lots of bodies, relatively high health compared to the rest of your infantry, and high model count that can absorb losses. They're still expendable chaff, and you take them to die in place of your Jade warriors or Celestial Guard.
** Really fucking good for how easy and cheap they are. With the harmony buff, the Peasant Long Spearmen have stats higher than state troops, and function very well as a front line against everything. They are vulnerable to missiles, but you should have outshooting your opponents anyway.
**The Terracotta sentinel is very vulnerable to tarpitting, Peasant Long Spears are mobile and numerous enough to keep some of that pressure off them. They wont provide any harmony benefits though.
**Significantly better in Campaign. By the late game, it wouldn't be hard to produce them at tier 7, and their morale gets significantly better with technology and building upgrades, and can lead to hilarious situations where a single unit of Peasants holds off a band of Chosen on its own. They wont do any damage, of course, but that's why you drop a vortex or airship bomb on them.
*'''Jade Warriors''': Your mid-tier unit and your bread and butter until you can afford Celestial Dragon Guard. Have a unique mechanic where the longer they sit still and brace, the more bonuses they get, gaining higher charge resistance and armour. Make the Dragon Empire into the Turtle Empire with these guys.
**The Sword and Shield combo, when combined with Harmony and their own innate stationary buff, they are very tough and can still find a use to tank hits for the Dragon Guard in the late-game. Excellent front line unit with good missile block chance and armor.
**The Halberd has better melee attack and armor piercing, so theyre like the Wardancers in that even when fighting against heavy infantry, it might be useful to take them to do some damage. Still more of a holding force than an aggressive force.

*'''Celestial Dragon Guard''': Your elite, end-game unit, taking the best from both Jade Warriors since they're all armed with Halberds and Shields. They have expert charge defense, AP, and dont get bonuses/lose nothing from moving, meaning you could move them to where they're needed most, or even have them charge though Peasant chaff, foregoing the low charge bonus to keep models alive given the low-model count typical of Elite Infantry.

===Missiles===
*'''Peasant Archers''': Like your peasant infantry, but with a bow and arrow. Cheap and expendable, potentially valuable if you need a relatively disposable unit to provide a small amount of ranged support and trigger the yin/yang buff where needed. Said to not have any AP at all, so probably only good against the undead or other unarmored chaff.
** Very cost effective, especially with the harmony buffs. Can put down a significant amount of fire with their reload skill buffs.

*'''Jade Warrior Crossbowmen''': Jade Warriors with crossbows (in case you couldn't have told from their name). Armoured and with a shielded variant, they sit in-between Empire Crossbowmen and Dwarf Quarrelers in terms of durability and power; they still have the same "hunker-down" ability as regular JW, so you'll probably want to move them in position behind Long Spears and refrain from moving them to keep those bonuses.

*'''Celestial Warrior Crossbowmen''': Jade Warriors on steroids, once again. Shielded, heavily armoured and with armour-piercing bolts, they're durable archers that can trade shots with the enemy's best.
**On paper, their bolts have more strength than the Sisters of Avelorn, but it's mundane AP versus the Fire/Magic combo that lets the Sisters put in work against pretty much anything. Celestial Crossbowmen have better DPS when buffed, though.
**Desperate and in a pinch? Castle too tight for shooting? Well, they're still Celestial Guard, and so are decent in melee, minus the AP or anti-large bonus. They still give Harmony when in melee.

* '''Iron Hail Gunners''': A living version of the Zombie Handcannons from the Pirate coast, these ladies massacre armoured infantry with their high-AP shotguns. With the Harmony system, being able to keep them closer to your melee units will make them into machinegunning shotgunners.
**Unlike your Crossbowmen or Crane gunners, they lack shields or armor, but are much more mobile. You can flank with them to outright delete elite infantry, but even having them shoot through gaps in your formation is also helpful, because they're Cathayan shotguns.
**Considering how quickly you can get these ladies in the Campaign, they're instrumental damage dealers from early to mid.
** Be cautious about using them against the ogres because they will literally just run through your front line, because hurr durr pull through. In campaign, best employed against all chaos factions other than Tzeentch, whose basic units will fucking slaughter the gunners with their ranged attacks, because fuck you I guess.

* '''Crane Gunners''': Human Skaven Jezzails. Much like their rat counterparts, these gunners excel at long-ranged sniping with their second-only-to-artillery range and will likely form a core part of your backline while you make the enemy come to you. They come with shields, which should give them some missile resistance to weather counter-fire and kill those jezzails.

===Cavalry===
*'''Peasant Horseman''': The fastest thing in your army that can't fly. Probably based on the herdsmen levies that numerous Chinese dynasties employed as scouts and light cav. Probably not worth getting unless you are desperate for cavalry. Low leadership and low attack. Use them to screen for low tier enemy missile units or artillery. Alternate take: This is easily your best unit for chasing down routing units, as you'll want Jade Lancers and Longma to do other things. So in Multiplayer or even early campaign a few of these guys probably won't hurt.

*'''Jade Lancers''': Jade warriors on horseback. More defensive than other factions cavalry. More suited defending your flank than running in to attack the enemy. Fucking awful other than their mediocre armor and their shields, ineffective in melee, incredibly slow. Can't even run down enemies because of their glacial speeds. In campaign, consider using the Iron Hail gunners/Jade Crossbows/etc. if you want a flanking unit, who will actually kill the units they are supposed to kill, or just peasant horsemen if you want to run down routing enemies.

*'''Great Jade Longma Riders''': Your versions of pegasus knights, except instead of a rich noble who sneers at peasants, you get a rich noble whose great-great-great-grandad got busy with a dragon. Also comes with Fear, possibly making them an expensive option to spook away and chase routing units. Their true strength will be as a bodyguard unit for your squishy balloons against enemy air forces, and being a hammer to the rest of your rosters anvil.
**Stats wise, they're roughly between pegasus and royal pegasus knights that traded away their Anti-Large bonus in exchange for 30 more armour (110 total), higher weapon strength, and charge bonus. As such, they're better at dealing with multiple different types of opponents but aren't quite as good at dealing with large units and other cav.

===Chariots===
*'''Wu-Xing War Compass''': A big ol' magical battery that boosts Harmony and counts towards Mastery of Elemental Winds increase the power of your spells. Can cast Urannons Thunderbolt and Comet of Casanodora, but pays Winds to do so.
**Also ok in melee as a...cart. it moves as fast as infantry, literally anyone who gets run over by this thing deserves to die under the hooves of plain old cows dragging a heavy fucking magic compass.
**Take it on an Astromancer because you're spending Winds of Magic for those spells anyway

===Monsters===
*'''Terracotta Sentinel''': Take the standard Terracotta soldier from China, make it really big and teach it kung fu and you have this thing. Possible doomstack material. They are unbreakable and hit like a truck, making them good at both clearing chaff and 1v1ing monsters. Don't leave them unsupported against missile units or anti-large elites, as they'll still break down to concentrated AP and missiles. Causes Terror for understandable reasons.
**If you've played Tomb Kings, you know what to expect: keep them away from Halberd tarpits and anti-large monstrous infantry, and if you can't, give them a screen, like Peasant spears or Jade cavalry.

===Artillery===
* '''Grand Cannon''': Pulled by oxen making surprisingly mobile, your normal cannon unit. Unlike other factions cannon units, also comes with flaming attacks by default, making it slightly better at burning up trees and mummies, and cutting through regeneration. It is roughly as fast as a standard infantry unit, which is actually a big deal because it will be able to keep up with your main army and rearrange itself much easier than a normal cannon.
** Extremely strong basic artillery unit, which, with the harmony bonuses, can and will kill large units very fucking quickly with their reload bonuses. Always nice to swat Fateweaver out of the sky even before the shit starts spamming searing doom/various fires over your lines.

* '''Fire Rain Rocket''': Imagine a hellstorm rocket battery that fires even faster due to the Harmony mechanic. Terrifying. Aim for big blobs of enemies and watch as they become chunky salsa. Compared to the normal Hellstorm it does more missile damage, but the majority of it isn't actually AP. So while you still want to aim for blobs, those blobs should be of less armoured infantry rather than heavily armoured stuff.

* '''Kongming Sky Lantern''': The smaller of the two airship units with Crane Gunners, and dedicated support. It provides a morale boost to your infantry on top of Harmony, so even your Peasants will hold the line for as long as they humanly can. They also grant vision on units that are hiding in foliage, which can help thwart ambushes. They don't reveal Stalk, though.
**It can fire while moving and line of sight isn't much of a problem, so as long as it doesn't get attacked, it can take potshots at the enemy. It's slow as balls though, so any decent flying unit that gets its hands on it will be able to tear it to pieces.
**Almost useless, if it wasn't for the harmony mechanic + its encouragement buff, you probably wouldn't ever take them. As a flying unit, it can provide a source of Harmony that the enemy cant touch unless they devote their other flyers or ranged units on it.
**Offensively, though, their crane guns are like the stormbolter on a Rhino: they just dont shoot enough to actually be dangerous, and don't have the bombs that would otherwise make them useful. You may as well take the Crane Guns on infantry if you want sniper fire, or the Sky Junk for Guns, Bombs, and Rockets.

* '''Kongming Sky-junks''': The heavier of the two airship units that [[Awesome|acts as a flying Helstorm Rocket Battery]]. Can also drop bombs gyrocopter style, and has high armour against missile units. Unlike most other flying units, it can't toggle landing, so try to protect it against flying cav with missile units. It is slow as fuck and will be pretty much useless once it runs out of ammo, but it will hopefully do some devastating damage before that happens.
**Tanky enough to take hits from Furies and other flying beasties that lack AP, they are a nice flying Distraction Carnifex until they run out of ammo. And even when they do, they're a nice flying anvil to hold flyers in place while your Longma riders hammer them.
**They do have an edge against ground artillery, as even if theyre focused down by other artilery pieces, you can expect them to miss more often than not because you're flying, just put them far away enough that those missed shots dont hit your castles infantrybl instead.
**Much more effective when you fire very closely downwards, otherwise, just a shitty fire rain launcher.

==Multiplayer Strategies==
You are what happens when the Empire, Dwarfs, and Skaven all have the world's weirdest threesome where lingering eye contact was held with the Vampire Coast; and they had a baby. Your themes revolve around plentiful, expendable infantry and strong missiles working in unison to bunker down an area and blast anything that comes at you straight to hell. Harmony is a double edge sword, as while it encourages you to pair units together and builds buffs, it also means units on their own aren't reaching their full potential. This is a quantity over quality faction with limited offensive options, as the closest thing you have to offensive infantry is sword and board Jade Warriors, and while they have cavalry, they're slow and limited compared to other factions.

Since the Cathayan army is so new, there's a massive lack of units for the army compared to all the other established factions, and in some ways, it almost feels unfinished. For example, your have no ranged cavalry options, which means your cavalry options won't be able to receive the Harmony benefit if they go too far (and the bubble is so small, you can lose Harmony just chasing after other cavalry). CA is definitely holding back options to make room for new DLC.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': With more flavours of cavalry than you can comprehend, you'll need to set up extremely defensively and bring plenty of halberds to fend off all the armoured horse riders. Be sure to pepper them with your armour piecing missiles, and use peasant chaff to block charges and allow your actual hard hitters to stay in position to fire upon them. Don't bother bringing lanterns and longma riders, Bretonnias air forces are too scary and will easily win any aerial battle, and the lanterns and longma aren't going to be much help against cav and are wasted on peasant chaff.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''':
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Heavily armored barbarians are threatening Cathay's border, and it's up to hot dom dragon waifu and her warpdust snorting fuccboi brother to keep Cathay safe
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WoC wants to get into melee as soon as they can, and their elite infantry will fuck yours since all your AP is on anti-large; at least your dudes will fuck over any Dragon Ogres, though. Anything bigger than a Dragon Ogre can be handled by the Sentinel
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You outclass them in ranged combat with actual archers, guns, and artillery, WoC players will send Manticores and Cavalry after them, so keep some Halberds next to them (which you should be doing anyway for the Harmony mechanic.)
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That being said, their lack of ranged weapons means that your Sky-Junks will have grand old time, and may be a better investment than ground-based Fire Rockets. Manticores will die to Longma Riders, so keeping them protected will not be an issue.
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*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''':
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This will be tough for the same reason the Vampirates are bad in this matchup, they do your main tactic better than you do. They have a wider assortment of guns and artillery, and great ways to kill your large units. They have Catapults to fuck your formations, while your indirect artillery lacks AP to punch through thicc dwarf armor.
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You will need to play offence against the Dwarfs which isn't great as you have no armour-piercing infantry that isn't bonus versus large, and your units only hit their peak efficiency when they're stationary and next to someone of the opposite type. They're also slow, not dwarf-slow, but slow enough that you'll take losses from Dwarf artillery, so it's a good idea to have at least a few peasants in front off your dudes to die for the Greater G--Harmony.

Your shielded crossbowmen are decent with good AP, get better when they're stationary, reload quicker with the Harmony mechanic; so long as their shields are faced where the shots are coming from, you can bounce some missiles off, too; Iron Hail gunners are much quicker than Jade Warriors or Dwarfs, and their shotguns pack a mean punch, especially when they're quick-firing with Harmony. They can be very good flankers when you pair them with Peasant Long Spears to guard their flanks and provide Harmony. Crane Gunners are like Skaven jezzails, use them to shoot down Gyrocopters to clear the skies and give your airships the ability to shoot from afar without being shot down. Speaking of airships, the Skyjunk is a better investment than the Fire Rain rocket; their weapons are similar, but the Skyjunk is harder to hit by enemy artillery, has much better angling, and when it runs out of ammo, can drop bombs that will be much more disruptive than the non-AP Fire Rain rockets.

Jade Warriors with shields will likely by your best melee infantry bet as they might be able to survive salvos as they hold against the dwarven line, but try screening them with Peasant Long Spears; they'll break, but when they regroup you can use them as Harmony buffers with your Iron Hail or Crane Guns. In terms of how to break the line, Ox Cannons are quite mobile for an artillery piece, and Crane Guns can provide covering fire from afar.

Your best lord option is a dragon blooded lore of yin caster on a longma. She's highly disruptive to ranged heavy factions since she can summon fodder into the middle of the enemy gunline like a flying vampire lord and overcast missile mirror to shut down individual ranged units for 36 seconds at a time.
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*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''':

*'''Grand Cathay''':
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This game is still too new for a meta, and most games you have on MP will just be people trying shit out. That being said, take Skyjunks and Fire Rockets and shoot the shit out of the enemy castle. Exploit the Grand Cannons mobility and provide harmony with cheap Peasants that you wont mind losing. Pop airships with Longma or Sky Lanterns, and save the Crane Gunners for their Longma. Take a sentinel and if your opponent takes one too, they can practice their kung fu

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*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|Khorne]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': This will theoretically be a tricky match up, but ultimately one in your favor. Your plentiful AP gunpowder units will make quick work of the sluggish Saurus and, when coupled with your multitude of halberd units, can do some serious damage to their bigger beasties, but they're likely not going to be the forces a competent Lizardmen army will bring. Instead, Skinks will be your bane. Fast skirmishers and Chameleons will hassle you from all angles with their poisonous darts while their cavalry (flying or otherwise) disrupts your formations with fear/terror-inducing charges. If they're bringing a Slann, you will NEED to keep on top of your positioning; positioning your forces too close makes them prime candidates for the myriad of vortex and wind spells at their beck and call. Deal with them first, followed by any cavalry/skirmishers and clean up what's left with your plentiful gunpowder.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Nurgle hates ranged units, enemy large units, an abundance of anti-large, fire damage, and enemies that can hold out in a grindfest against them. You are all of these things and Nurgle has vanishingly few options against you. Long Ma riders take a huge dump all over any of Nurgle's fliers and the fire damage of your artillery, magic, and more will make Nurgle weep with sorrow as you delete his slow moving and utterly unshielded units off the table one after the other. And as Nurgle has extremely anemic charges he can't even reliably break your formations without lucky spell casts; which of course relies on the Nurglites even getting a spellcaster in range through your numerous means to snipe them off the field. You can basically win this matchup while AFK, but something to watch out for is nurgles Army Ability, which can jump from one nearby unit to another, and Harmony forces your units together, so keep an eye out for the plauges.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': From the looks of it, this seems to be your hardest matchup by far. Your harmony mechanic relies heavily on having a solid plan for most stages of the game and Skaven excel at disruption, be it through summons, skirmishing Eshin troops or just raw balls-to-the-wall firepower of Clan Skryre. Mirror Missile is your friend in this match-up and for its relatively low winds of magic cost is one of the single most brutal anti-ranged unit spells in the entire game, forcing the Skaven commander to either force their ranged unit into inactivity for twenty seconds or watch their prized shooters wipe themselves out.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': What's this, a speedy flanking faction designed to dive backlines? This could spell trouble for you. Fortunately, you theoretically have one way to banish Slaanesh's creeps back to the warp, and that's "Invest in flying units and box up with halberds." Slaanesh has no ranged units and only Furies as fliers, so as long as you have a Longma unit or cheap missiles to protect them, your Sky Lanterns and Sky Junks will be pretty much untouchable as they blast apart Slaanesh's ranks. Due to the amount of AP on their roster, Celestial Dragon Guard are a risky choice so invest either in Peasent spears or Jade Warriors with Halberds. You won't win the melee fight so don't bother investing in it. Have your infantry hold while your War Ballons shoot, your flying casters cast (Grab either the Dragon Siblings or a Shugangen in the air to keep them safe) and your Longma use their speed to flank and rear charge. Your balloons will run out of ammo eventually though, so make every shot count. Or just bring crossbows/archers, and shoot the living shit out of the exhibitionists.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': If the Coast thinks they can outshoot you they have another thing coming. Rocket artillery devastates Vampirate formations and while they can swat your Sky lanterns out of the sky if they bring terrorgheists, Long Ma riders and your Legendary Lords can swat those out of the air in turn and curbstomp any deck droppers they bring. You have well armoured and shielded ranged units who will tear straight through the fragile ranks of the Coast and can stop any monsters they field cold; while your artillery is able to out-trade Vampirate cannons with a better rate of fire as long as harmony is active. Also Missile Mirror was basically created to troll the Vampire Coast specifically.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''':

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''C'''

You know how Harmony encourages you to stick your units together and to hold down a single point while not getting too aggressive? In Domination you win by doing the exact opposite of that. Since you have to spread out your forces and go on the offensive it's really hard for you to actually keep your Harmony active meaning a good chunk of your units won't be fighting at their price range. What's more, since you're out maneuvered by most factions, odds are you will not being getting to most points first and will have to fight off your enemies to secure them. Good news is that with your high armor, Terrocottas and range once you do have a point it's decently hard to kick you off. It would really help if you had some kind of decent, inexpensive mobile threat or just a fast ranged unit that can help keep harmony on all your infantry. You're way better in normal land battles though, as it's significantly easier to play your game and keep Harmony up.

==Campaign Mechanics and Tactics==

Unlike Kislev, which devolves into a Daemon fuckfest around the third or fourth wave of Rifts, Cathay is so easily-defendable that it's just begging for a rework, or at least a nerfbat.

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'''Bastion:''' You have no real enemies outside the invaders in the Steppes beyond the Bastion, or the Ogres/Chaos Warriors in the Mountains to the South. The Bastion has a unique "Chaos Invasion" mechanic where Kurgans get spawned every so often to lay siege to the Bastion. They are Norscans rather than WoC, though, so have absolutely no artillery or siege ability outside of throwing trolls or mammoths at you, and the Bastion Gates practically pay for themselves once you invest in the Upkeep Lowering building chain, (which can go as far as 90% upkeep reduction for garrisoned armies), and get the settlement to level 4 to build Terracotta Sentinels. The Kurgans pretty much only exist to die against your garrisons and give them free experience. Funnily enough, should an AI Cathayan faction own all the gates, the stacks will do absolutely nothing but wait outside the gates.

'''Trade and Treaties:'''Speaking of Cathayan Factions, there are four hostile rebels (two for each Legendary Lord) and two Loyalist ones, who will be pretty easily confederated once you beat the rebels. Do this as quickly as you can, because your income will rise substantially with their provinces and stability. Cathayan income is comparable to High Elves, without the expensive upkeep. You will actually have enough passive income to station a hero in each province to close rifts as they come up, and the gold needed for each action.

You'll also have lots of potential trade partners; by sending Caravans westwards, you can establish diplomatic relations with factions they pass through, and trade treaties can be established with those on the route. These trade relationships can be turned into military treaties, which can eventually lead to Outposts, a new mechanic in Campaign that lets you build military outposts in major settlements (Provincial Capitals with 4+ slots). If you both have an outpost in each other's territories, both factions get to purchase infantry from each other's respective recruitment pools. Cathayan Castles with Kislev Tzar Guard? Na, think Jade Warriors backed by Kroxigors, or Hawk Riders screening for your airships!

'''Harmony and the Compass:''' Harmony is pretty tedious. Your economic/defense buildings, technology, and characters (+1 for heroes, +3 for lords) all have a corresponding Yin-Yang cost. Going too far towards one way will lead to inefficiency at the least, and provincial instability at the worst. Yin and Yang balance will fluctuate as you lose heroes and research tech, and certain buildings will wax and wane in usefulness as your empire expands/contracts: One Yin building, for example, provides better casualty replenishment, while its Yang counterpart ranks up your Peasants; one is more useful when you're trying to replenish losses after capturing a territory, the other is better for giving you quality levies, but both are mutually exclusive per settlement. Since you only need to build the first tier for the yin-yang point, it is sometimes helpful to leave a building slot open for quick rebalancing, or demolishing the ones you dont need anymore.

The Celestial Compass on the other hand provides campaign bonuses depending on which way the winds of magic is directed: corruption cleansing, casualty replenishment, control, or growth ; as it stays pointed in one direction, a meter fills up, providing grander effects, like increased income, attrition on enemies (but only the regions beyond the Bastion), or a comet like spell on the battlefield.

'''Actually playing:''' As mentioned above, uniting Cathay is your top priority, because the potential income you can get by having so many peaceful provinces under your direct control. And there's honestly not a lot of directions for you to expand to: The Steppes outside the bastion is simply too chaotic to be worth it, and the Mountains of Mourn are filled with Ogres and Chaos Warriors who will happily take a break from killing each other to kill you instead. Until the late game, your contact with the Old World will be limited to Caravans, which is fine, since they still provide line of sight and diopomacy options in the mountains and beyond in the Old World.

The Rifts will start out delivering only small amounts of corruption, but will get more severe as the campaign drags on, to the point that they can bring a province to 100 corruption in only a few turns. Close all the rifts in your provinces first with heroes, then those belonging to your sibling, because if lefr uncheck for too long, Daemonic heroes will emerge and the corruption will spawn rebellions. Only your faction leader can enter the Warp or traverse the rifts to fast travel to another place on the map, and when closing a rift with an army will only cause a battle, whereas using a hero only costs gold.

You need to collect four Daemon Prince souls, one from each Realm, to lead to the final battle.

*Slaanesh takes a minimum of 6 turns, as you need to go past each of the six circles and deny all the gifts presented at each exit. You can, however avoid pointless battles the easiest here by simply going straight to each rings portal and avoiding the Slaanesh daemons.
*Tzeentch's realm is like a pokemon gym, where you go from island to island via teleporter until you arrive at his palace. The islands only really have 2 portals, the one you came from, and the one you need to reach, so as long as you just go from one to the next, you'll be fine. What makes this difficult, though, is that you spend the rest of your movement teleporting, no matter how much you had left. Some islands have Daemons waiting to jump you outside of the teleportation portal, sometimes one stack, others, two. Never march through a portal, since that will leave you exhausted, or worse, with no retreat option. If youre afraid of being jumped on arrival, in TW3 you can still move in the encampment stance(but at 50% range), so this not only prevents attrition but gives you an advantage on the defense
*Khorne wants to watch you fight. His realm is full of rogue armies that you must defeat, and for each kill you get, you fill up a meter. Fill this meter and he will grant you the honor of fighting the Daemon Prince at the Brass Citadel. Pick a fight against the undead or daemons, because rather than run away, they will fight on until the entire unit is wiped. This will fill the bar quickly, and its not like you had lots of ways to chase after routing ememies.
*Nurgle grinds you down with attrition, but thankfully unless Ku'gath is there too, you won't actually catch a "real" plague. The best way to move through his realm is encamped, but doing so cuts movement in half. You can also visit landmarks for some replenishment, because Nurgle is nothing but generous. That being said, his daemons will block your path and respawn right away.
*The Shadow Legion: After collecting all 4 souls, the road to the Forge of Souls is unlocked. Once more, portals will open all throughout the world, but this time Belakors forces will erupt and lay siege to your cities. The amount looks to be variable, amd by this point in the game, you are probably at war with more than just Chaos. If you have any spare heroes, close the portals right away to prevent reinforcements. Since this happens right after collecting the fourth soul, you can time it to happen right after clearing the latest wave of Kurgans, so that at the very least, you're not dealing with a Bastion invasion at the same time you're dealing with literal hell gates erupting all over your empire.
*The Final Battle: Belakor controls the Forge of Souls. It is a survival battle, so you will face three waves while also fighting through the forge. The first wave is nothing difficult, and can be won solely through Sky Junks and Celestial Crossbows, but the 2nd and 3rd will be tedious, since you're in the Forge of Souls, you will be facing a whole bunch of Soul Grinders. Take Celestial Halberds, Celestial Crossbows, and multiple Sentinels. The Halberds are self explanatory, since you will need some tough holding units to hold against the waves of Daemons, and their expert charge defence means that while fighting Bloodletters is inefficient, they wont give up without a fight; Crossbows are quite dangerous when focus firing in volleys, but the two artillery Soul Grinders (Nurgle and Tzeentch) are both also the tankiest. Take out Tzeentch first, because Barrier recharges, and it will recharge once you stop shooting it. When teched up, Sentinels are a good match for Soul Grinders, but are very slow in movement and attacking without support, so you will want to have someone fight the Daemons while the Sentinels fight the Daemon Engines.
**This is where a military alliance really comes in handy. Bloodletters are pretty good against your infantry, and are still pretty dangerous when they mob a sentinel. Tzar Guard or Armored Kossars provide some offensive oomph that your Celestials and Jade Warriors otherwise lack.
**One tricky part about Survival is that even after a wave is "over," you will continue to be harassed until the next wave begins. After the first wave ends, Chaos Hounds wil harass your troops until they capture the secont point, so you will need to leave a rear guard behind to deal with them, otherwise your heavy infantry, or worse, your slow, slow, Sentinels wil get stuck behind swatting them. After the second wave, Belakor spawns endless Daemons. Daemonettes and Bloodletters will rush you, while Pink Horrors will pepper you with magic while taking no damage in return from barrier.
**The Final Wave wont end until Belakor is slain, and then you will need to mop up whatever remains. Belakor summons even more Soul grinders, as well as a bunch of heavier hitters, like Minotaurs of Khorne and Doom Knights. They will be teleporting in from all over the throne room, so you will need to keep an eye out for when a portal opens and for what comes out of it. The only thing that prevents this from being utter Bullshit is that they give you a shit ton of Sentinels (7??) in the final wave of reinforcements, and you will be legitimately retarded if you take anything else besides them. In fact, because of how many Sentinels you get for the final battle, you may be able getting away only three or four in your army, and filling the rest with heavy infantry or crossbows. The final battle is chaotic and all over the place, and warm bodies to hold back the reinforcements might be more helpful than 15 sentinels all trying to gangbang Belakor.

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[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}