Terror Tactics

We’ve all seen it and felt it. You set up your army and right in front of you there’s a big nasty monster. It might be a bloodthirster, a carnifex, Malekith on his dragon or any of the big monsters of the warhammer universe but the fact is that there is something in front of you that can probably annihilate almost anything in your army. And you need to deal with it.

Most players have over the years developed tactics to fight those abominations. For most people this means including strong units or weapons that can take down a monster. A giant isn’t so scary when you fire 2 cannonballs a turn at it and a carnifex can only survive so many lascannon hits before it dies. Other go sneaky and use magic items/wargear or dedicated anti-monster units. For example, the warhammer40k force weapon is a classic example of a weapon that isn’t that great agaisnt normal troops but can take down a monster really quick.
In fact people are becoming so good at dealing with these that I see a lot of players shun those high points units, afraid they are going to end up splattered and losing the game.

I think they are missing the real usefulness of these monsters. I’ll take the example of ‘’fluffy’’ my carnifex. Fluffy is a close combat armed carnifex designed to be able to take down multiple models down each turn. He’s equiped with claws and scything talons giving him 1d6+1 strenght 10 attacks. He’s also tusked to give him +2 attacks on the charge, tail sythe for more attacks agaisnt large squads and has +1T and +1W when I can afford it. With a toughness of 7 it means strenght 3 opponents cant even wound him. Fluffy costs around 200 points.

I’ve played around 10 games with fluffy and so far. Quick chart of his efficiency :
-got in close combat : 6/10 (60%)
-got shot to death : 2/10 (20%)
-killed his own point worth : 1/10 (10%)
-killed a major character/general : 1/10(10%)
-tanks destroyed : 2

Yes, it doesn’t look very good for such a high point investment. Only once I got his points back in killing and about half the time he doesn’t even get in combat and when he does it’s usually late in the game. I think Fluffy was the game winning model only once due to a particulary lucky rampage spree. So why waste points on him ? Why not put more lictors/ raveners/ gaunts/ etc… ?

Because the real value of fluffy is not what he does but what he makes my opponent does. When Fluffy is on the table my opponent is faced with a simple choice. Either he deals with Fluffy before he reaches his lines or he doesn’t and runs the chance of a healty Fluffy reaching him and rampaging his army. If he wants to deals with Fluffy in close combat he will have to use his super close combat units. So by putting Fluffy on the table I can already begin to tell my oponent plan and dictate the pace of the game. Fluffy might not kill 200 points of troops each game but if he ties up my enemy heavy weapon shooting(and normal too sometimes) for 2 or 3 turns then it means the rest of my army will reach the enemy relativly intact. Priceless for a Tyranid. If I can draw the terminators/generals and close combat specialist toward him then they won’t be hitting the rest of my army.

Fluffy like most of the monsters of warhammer player is a great terror weapon. And there’s no better way to win a game than making your opponent play to your tune.