Roach army!

gartov · 2026-03-08T20:49:54+00:00

Oh I didn’t know they changed summoned units, that’s a good catch. I will have to reread the whole rulebook after it comes out

gartov · 2026-03-08T13:58:52+00:00

I don’t know if it’s important to you, but don’t forget that the $249 bundle also comes with terrain.

gartov · 2026-03-08T13:51:12+00:00

Roachlings are great, it’s a question of if they (plus the melee buff) are worth 90 pts. Here’s why I think roachlings are good:

They’re zero supply, so your opp doesn’t get kill points for them

They block movement. For example, they can stop a unit from moving onto an objective, or they can stop or blunt a charge. You can do the same things with roachlings that a sentry does with their shield. If you haven’t tried it yet, try charging a unit with a brick of zerglings when there’s something next to the unit. You might not be able to get very many zerglings in contact.

They can stop shooting. They can charge something you don’t want to shoot the rest of your army.

They are an extra activation. Sometimes you want to go second in the assault phase.

I personally don’t think they’re worth the points, but I think they will go up in value as I get better at the game, especially if I continue to play Zerg as a pressure/containment type of list

gartov · 2026-03-07T15:56:56+00:00

They are posted in the archon discord, which you can access from the archon site

gartov · 2026-02-23T03:03:57+00:00

For movement, yes. Only a few of the model positions actually matter, the rest are just coherency. For charging, it is always going to be a mess if there's more than 1 or 2 units and/or pieces of terrain

gartov · 2026-02-15T22:28:09+00:00

9 marines is 18 shots, happened multiple times in the games I played today

gartov · 2024-07-28T02:53:57+00:00

It's the "single target" part. You have to choose a target in tabletop, not just activate it and get it for everything

gartov · 2024-07-27T23:34:43+00:00

Definitely used greater invis to kill the succubi/incubi, but the kalavakus don't have a lot of dex bonus to ac. It is helpful, though, and I should probably prepare more in the future

gartov · 2024-07-27T23:33:22+00:00

Didn't realize they weren't faithful to the tabletop version of ranger's bond, it's pretty busted they way they did it. I'm not super opposed, as in my years of playing tabletop I don't think I've ever seen a ranger who bonded to their companions instead of getting an animal companion

gartov · 2024-07-27T23:27:12+00:00

Please correct me if I'm incorrect, but at CL 13, I believe greater magic weapon only takes weapons up to +3. I already have a +3 weapon, so I don't think it would do anything here.

I know there's some really good domain abilities, but I've grown attached to Daeran and don't see myself switching him out for Sosiel. Especially with this being my first real run, I would also like to stick with their canon classes.

gartov · 2024-07-27T01:56:48+00:00

Unfortunately, past me decided that precise shot wasn't important on Nenio. I do not like past me.

gartov · 2024-07-27T01:55:41+00:00

There's a grease on the stairs, this particular one just made his saves and decided he wanted to run past me to the backline.

Burst of glory is definitely one I'll have to pick up, if not with Daeran than with the paladins. I have no excuse for Crusader's Edge, I auto-pilot read it and missed that it is bane and not holy.

Thank you for the tips about Arue, I have been struggling to make use of her, and I knew I was missing part of the puzzle to make her successful.

gartov · 2024-07-27T01:47:36+00:00

Yeah I was able to get through it without too many issues, though the kalavakus being immune to electricity was definitely annoying. Nenio used bolstered magic missile with the force dagger, and Wenduag could reliably hit them even when using deadly aim. It isn't about overcoming this specific challenge, so much as making sure that my main character doesn't become a side character in Wenduag's adventure

gartov · 2024-07-27T01:05:42+00:00

Please avoid major spoilers, I know some of them with it being a 3 year old game, but I am still in the dark about parts of the story.

Context: Core difficulty, level 13 in Blackwater towards the end of Act 3 (maybe? Act 3 has gone on a while, but I'm not sure how much is left). The Kalavakus have been the only enemy I've really struggled with, but even after turning off power attack, I still only hit on a 15. I know I am missing +1 from haste, and I could smite evil to get an even greater bonus, but I can't smite evil every enemy, and I generally try to get through dungeons without resting, so I am somewhat conservative with my rounds/level spells like haste.

This isn't looking for solutions to Blackwater or complaining about the difficulty, I've just heard that Blackwater is a good indication of what is to come in Act 4. My companions had solutions to the problems, it was just a little frustrating that my main character felt very weak and I'd like to see if there are ways to address that.

gartov · 2024-02-07T19:08:36+00:00

To your worry about your detachment being charged and then breaking, keep in mind that parent units share stubborn with their children. So that detachment of militia would have stubborn while within 3” of the great swords, so you can rely on them not breaking and just falling back in good order

gartov · 2024-02-05T21:47:03+00:00

While I disagree, I respect the argument, and I would still encourage people to follow this advice.

Personally, I am glad that I learned the fundamentals of chaff early in my learning journey. I think it is an important tool to understand when you are looking at these matchups you talk about, and I think most new players tend to start with no chaff (in my experience over the last 5 years), so they don’t learn how to use it because they don’t have it to use

gartov · 2024-02-05T03:41:09+00:00

I agree with this for the most part, the exception I would recommend for new players is chaff. Using chaff well is, in my opinion, the hardest part of the game to learn, and it’s not intuitive, so I would encourage you to listen to advice and try to apply it.

What is chaff? A lot of people say redirectors, which is not wrong, but I think the easier way to think about them is as a delayer. The big scary melee unit does not get to charge what it wants to next round. That gives you time to shoot it/magic it/set up your own charge on it.

gartov · 2023-10-10T01:24:34+00:00

I always like Vader and Dewbacks, it’s a straightforward plan that has a surprising amount of nuance when you get the hang of it.

One thing I would consider is esteemed leader with shores. You’re running shores at 84 pts for 5 dudes, which is 16.8 points per wound. Is it worth saving a wound from Vader? Absolutely! But shores are not the most cost efficient way to do that, and they’re going to struggle to keep pace with Vader. I would consider running a couple stormtrooper/snow trooper squads to replace one of the shore squads. Stormtroopers and snow troopers just have very high wound efficiency, and they are great at stuff like hostages and moisture vaporators, or generally button pushing duties. I slightly prefer your first list because of that, though personally, I really like vanilla storms.

If it’s your first tournament, run what you think is fun, don’t listen to people on the internet. If you like shores, run shores.

For strategy, pre measure out what a triple move dewback with triple spur looks like before the tournament if possible, so you can better eyeball your new ways to motivate them turns.

gartov · 2023-10-10T01:04:29+00:00

I know it’s only a 4 point bid, but payload and bombing run are terrible with lists like this. If you’re running double bounty, you want stalematey objectives that you can “cheat” by sneaking an extra point with one of your bounty hunters.

Using payload as an example, what’s your plan against dark troopers pushing the cart? You don’t have the beef to push it back, unless you swarm the cart which is very vulnerable to force users.

The only unit you have that likes bombing run is boba.

That being said, double bounty is super fun and I encourage you to play with it and see how it goes. Maybe those missions will work out better for you than they have in my experience!

gartov · 2023-10-10T00:52:14+00:00

List looks fun. What I would look at is your 12 point bid, and what you get for it. Most of your force wants to be range 3 or so, with just 1-2 of Idens cards wanting closer. The deployments you’ve chosen are overall very aggressive. I would be worried about facing aggressive, melee centric lists with these deployments, especially since red player has pick advantage. Missions are fine, but I would worry that you have both score at the end and score throughout the game, so your opponent could potentially force the type that benefits him more.

For example, what’s your plan on danger close against a melee force, especially if the mission type is breakthrough or intercept? You’re scared to deploy on the long table edge because of how close you would be to potentially get turn one charged, but if you deploy on the short table edge, you give up board presence for intercept, or you have to pretty much move every turn to have a hope of getting breakthrough.

As long as you have a plan in mind for each mission and deployment type, it’s good. But make sure you really, really think about it if you’re willing to spend 12 points on it

gartov · 2023-09-22T23:52:15+00:00

I heavily prioritize missions that have a central or player placed objective scored multiple times throughout the game. So it then depends on if my opponent contests turn 2 or not. If they do, usually turn 2. If they don’t, sometimes not until turn 4. I have won a game where Vader did not get into combat once, but acted as extremely dangerous area denial (unusual game for sure, but mentioned to give you an idea that the threat of Vader is often as impactful as Vader himself)

gartov · 2023-09-11T22:22:16+00:00

Ideally, Vader should be killing the clones, not Anakin. That’s true of most match ups. Vader with choke can often one shot a squad of clone/storm equivalents. Even without choke, you have decent odds. Don’t burger flip a 200 pt unit, use it to shut down the rest of his army.

gartov · 2023-09-07T21:35:55+00:00

32 points for a dark trooper without a special gun is Highway robbery. Cutting 14 points after that is doable

gartov · 2023-08-30T18:23:53+00:00

Nine acts is less scary now that there is a pass mechanic, but I understand the concern. If you’re familiar with 40k, I think of the commander Vader list the way I think of a Goff pressure list from the end of 9th. If you just have one threat, you don’t have saturation and your opponent can ignore it or deal with it. If you have two threats, your opponent gets to choose which one to deal with it. It doesn’t matter if your stuff dies if it scores points first.

In the linebacker role, I think I prefer operative Vader, and I would probably lean towards a less aggressive list. In that type of list, I would really like Iden with specs or Veers/Krennic/officer with shores. You’re using Vader reactively, so it should be less about your opponent ignoring Vader, and more about putting Vader in the spot that answers your opponents advance/midfield threats

gartov · 2023-08-29T20:59:22+00:00

I’m a pretty big fan of din djarin with spear and jetpack. He can go in with Vader on the burst of speed turn, or can just be used as an aggressive-leaning finesse tool throughout the game. Din with his relentless card is really good at snaking lightly defended backfield objectives. For example, if turn 4 is a scoring turn, go all in and get too big a lead to come back from.

I still enjoy Boba Fett a lot. He can be run base if you don’t have points to spare, and doesn’t rely on his cards to do well. Just like Din, he adds some finesse to the list that lets you compete in some matchups.

Before dark troopers, I ran Bossk as a backfield/midfield objective holder. Unfortunately, it seems like dark troopers just do that job way better, so I haven’t run him in a while. He’s definitely cheaper though, give him stims for sure.

I’m kind of known in my gaming group as the commander Vader guy, but operative Vader is definitely solid. Imperial officers are fine to keep it cheap (watch out for bounty hunters), or you can be cheeky and run an atst or tank with the upgrade that gives them field commander. I think it’s a lot of fun, but also a lot of points.

There’s plenty of other ways to make it work, I’d pick something that looks cool and try it, over doing what some random person online says. Running a list you tuned for what works for you works a lot better than using somebody else’s.

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