I've already played all my current armies this year sadly, i might have one more new army this year, but it won't be ready in time for this one (hopefully for the GT though!) I'll be sparing people another dose of the Krieg, they're back on the shelf for the rest of this year (barring the European event this weekend), and Iyanden really don't work properly at 3000pts unless you're prepared to just spam air and anti-AA, and that doesn't make for a particularly fun game for anyone...

So really it's either Biel Tan, Marines, or Steel Legion - i might even try an unusual list now that the pressure's off for the championship somewhat!

Suddenly realised this is only in two weeks' time. I was going to paint something new, but may be forced to slum it with my Air Cavalry.

Cobra spam! Do you have the models to play your Biel Tan as, say, Alaitoc? That'd be unusual

Think I'll bring my Steel Legion, I never use them - which is both a reason for and against I suppose. I'm hoping to bring Tau to the GT, though my work's cut out to get them painted.

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I was originally planning on going for Yme-Loc, but i'm still waiting for some of the models to turn up sadly. Might try to use that kind of themed list with the Biel Tan mind you, especially as the Yme-Loc list ironically isn't great for super-heavy tanks imo*. Ah well...


*Basis for that statement? You have to take them in at least pairs, which is fine for Scorpions (barring activation issues) but rubbish for Cobras thanks to shooting two TK weapons at a unit of warmachines means you can take both hits on the first warmachine.

What models do you need? New lynx-y/hornet-y vehicles?

On the TK, well, I think that can be both a good thing and a bad thing depending on the weapon, the target, whether you prefer to remove a unit from the board or to do the most damage, and simply what you roll. But surely it's the same for 2 separate Cobras anyway?

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Not quite, let's say you're up against something like an IG superheavy tank co, or a Nid Dominatrix with the little guarding guys (who are still war engines). With a pair of cobras you move up and shoot, and let's be optimistic and say both hit. Both of those hits (which are D6 TK) go on one of the war engines (which can take up to 3 hits before one has to be assigned to one of the others). So let's say you do the average number of wounds, which would be 7. Each of the war engines (other than the Dom) has 3 wounds each, so one warmachine dies, but the other wounds don't get carried across, so are lost. Comparatively two Cobras have the chance of destroying two war engines, although this is of course dice permitting. Due to the flexibility of two, even if you say do 1 or 2 wounds to one of them, you can then re-align to hit another clean war engine. Only really an issue for Cobras, as the issue is down to multi-wound weapons. Hopefully they might be allowed as single units (but non core obviously) in the future This is also why you tend to see shadowswords as individuals rather than a unit of 3, as they struggle somewhat against units of warmachines (especially as many are 3 wounds, which is pretty much the worst case scenario for them, with something big like a Titan being best case - if you can get a bead on it anyway!)

As to what i'm waiting for at the moment, Warp Hunters and Hornets, although i think i've put off painting some of the other bits due to lack of the final models to complete the army.

I'm sure someone will correct me, but the way I play the Cobra is the same as how I play Deathstrikes. First hit is applied and you roll for the damage. If the WE is still alive the second hit is applied and you roll for the damage.

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yeah that's the way I've always played it.... as the great Mephiston once said:

"never fire two deathstrikes at a baneblade company unless you want one very dead baneblade"

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I think if the damage rolled is >= the first WE's DC, the second hit to be applied to the next WE, which I suppose means that against formations of anything with shields you'll mainly be taking down shields?

Yes exactly, and that's what the official FAQ says. Which is the same effect whether firing one formation of two cobras, or two formations of single cobras sequentially.

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Certainly true though that having them separate is more flexible, as you can see the outcome of the first shot before deciding what to do with the second (e.g. firing at something else, or attacking from a different side like Richard says).

I'm not actually sure I'd always want to spread the damage across the WEs though. Killing the actual unit is probably worth something, especially if killing that first unit is enough to break the formation anyway (less true for SHTs, but generally true for pairs of things). Enough to be worth wasting 1 DC or so of damage perhaps, but there's probably a fairly narrow sweet spot where this would be a preferable outcome. A 3x 3DC formation like a SHT is probably worst case scenario for a D6 damage weapon like the cobras, largely because there's such a large swing. The average might be 7 damage but for that first hit, getting a 1 is just as likely as getting a 6. In this scenario there's a 25% chance of wasting at least 1 DC, but criticals reduce this down to 18.75%.

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Aah, that explains my confusion on it then, i was going by the rulebook which doesn't mention that at all, just that you allocate hits to war engines based on DC, make saves, and then do damage - nothing there about being able to pass off the second hit just because it's already dead! (i.e. as in the case of a model having to make two or more saves and failing the first one, the others don't get passed on to surviving members of the unit). This is also probably due to the only time it ever really coming up in a game was against Dave, where i was using Macro weapons, and his tiny 'dom support titans' were soaking up all my Macro fire, despite only having 1 wound left each by this point.

On the Cobra's themselves, it's pretty rare to have a D6 titankiller in the game so it's one of the few units where hitting small DC war engines with a unit of 2 would actually be much of an issue. Generally speaking with a D3 titankiller weapon i'd rather finish off a wounded war engine, but with the D6 given there's always the chance you might just cheekily kill one outright on average rolls, it would i think be better - especially if the first war engine hit was down to 1 wound.

And this is one of the problems with playing 12 odd systems - i do sometimes miss some of the more obscure nuances in the system

The issues is once again vague wording. Deathstrikes for example do one HIT, with causes D6 damage points to WE's.

So if you fired two deathstrikes at a Dom with two hierodules in front, both hit, the first hit is allocated to a Heiro. The dice rolls a six which kills the hiero, with 3 damage lost. The next missile would hit the second hiero so the Dom can't be hurt. If the first missile only rolled two damage, with no criticals, then the second missile would hit it and kiill it.

Or that's how I understand and have played it.

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The relevant section from the FAQ is


So Meph (Kyrt and others) are correct. As such The Cobras (and any other unit with TK shooting) tend to work better in singles than in multiples when shooting at formations with more than one WE because of the reasons stated