Dirty Tricks

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Shit that doesn't work in real life but does in tabletop gaming that claims to be simulations. See also: the "Murphy's Rules" feature of Steve Jackson games periodicals.

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Dirty Tricks in Warhammer 40K

In the grimdark universe there's only war. And as the saying goes "all is fair in love and war" some munchkins abuse EVERY rule in the book, if possible. Remember the Devilfish of Doom? Yes, I mean that kind of munchkin. This part features imbalanced combos or dirty tricks that are impossible on a real battlefield and possible countermeasures. It refers to the 6th edition rulebook of Warhammer 40K.

The Rhino Scope

What's meant by that, a Rhino with a scoped Stormbolter? Nope, that can be done with every race that sports cheap Transports, e.g. Dark Eldar or Imperials. All you need is one shooty squad, and two transports.

Choose a target, that can be one specific model or a group of models in a squad, e.g. one of those pesky Space Marines with a Lascannon or a expensive HQ (Papa Smurf). Put the first model in shooting distance to the victim, err target, and form a conga line towards it. Now place the two transport right and left of the conga line in a way that the whole line only sees the target(s). If the line now fires, only those models who can be seen can be removed as losses. And only characters get 'Attention Sir'.

Counter: Well, the obvious, shoot at least one of the transports before the formation comes to bear.

Jaws of the World Wolf reloaded

Jaws of the World Wolf is a Psychic Power from the old Space Wulves Codex, sported by the Runepriest, easily the most broken counter against any psyker. With Living Lightnings the Runepriest ist also a freaking tesla coil. Now put him on a bike or into a Metal Box and you have a driving tesla coil. As if this isn't enough, this guy has an equipment option to deny an 36" bubble to infiltrators. Now this guy alone is a pest, but per HQ-slot your opponent brings two of them. Now try imagine a White Scars/Space Wulves list. Grav-Gun Spam and Jaws of the World Wolf. In a nutshell: Try an Initiative-Test with Initiative 1, and your model is lost, if you fail. No FnP, no Attention Sir, no Eternal Warrior, no Invulnerable/Armour Save, just a lousy Deny the Witch.

Counter: This combo sucks big against Flyerlist like Cron Air or Hellturkeys, and is just good against shooty mobs and armoured assaults. For all other armies, try to stay out of the Jaws death zone and shoot him down from distance as long as you can. Or wait for the nerfing in the next codex.

The ScreamerStar

First of all a definition: A somethingstar is a combo that's nearly impossible to kill, dishes out damage like nothing else and costs a fortune, similar to the deathstar, so it is only seen in high- to midlevel point games.

A ScreamerStar comes from the Chaos Demon Codex, featuring four Heralds and nine Screamers of Tzeentch. First of all enter the Screamers: Fast as a hurricane, no ranged attack, normal close combat attacks an a pseudo melta bomb attack, counting as jetbikes. These little guys are the armor and wounds of the Screamerstar.

Now the Heralds of Tzeentch are the real punch of this thing, four buggers on discs, all fitting in one HQ-slot. Heralds are level 3 psykers with access to divination and change, so an Exalted Locus of Conjuration makes sense on one of them. Two of them get Exalted Rewards, the other ones Lesser Rewards. Doesn't sound like much, does it?

The armor comes from one Psychic power named 'Forewarning' and the Exalted Reward 'Grimoire of True Names'. Forewarning gives the unit the psyker is in a 4++ save. The Grimoire of True Names make this a 2++ save on a dice roll of 3+, and all demons of Tzeentch reroll failed saves. One of those heralds will likely have forewarning, normally the player rolls eight times on the Divination table and the last four times he invests in 'Flickering Fire'.

The other Exalted Reward could be a Portaglyph, the two Lesser can be what the player likes. Now this unit has a body count of 13, after the first turn normally a rerollable Invulnerable Save of 2++, and up to 16D6 S6 AP4 witchfire hits on 24" which are likely ignoring cover. Models who were hurt have to make a toughness test. On a fail they take D3 additional wounds with no saves allowed.

The Fateweaver is a common addition as warlord, as he allows one dice per turn to be rerolled. Guess which.

Counters: There are some weaknesses. First of all, it is expensive and, thanks to the Emprah, not a pointing unit. It depends heavily on Forewarning, so if the munchkin doesn't get this, the unit has lost its main defence. The Grimoire carrier is vulnerable to Barrage Sniping, the whole unit to Mind Strike Missiles. The Unit has trouble to kill a few things: AV 12 flyers, everything AV 13 or higher, tough MC and large TEQ Squads.

Also a good counter: Bring an everlasting Runepriest to the date.