Rangers. I've said before that I love me some Infiltrate and I mean it. I'm taking two 5-man squads of Rangers as two of my Troops choices.
Not only do they infiltrate, but like some of my Dark Angels Scouts, they have sniper weapons.
Always hit on a 2+, always wound on a 4+. In addition, they cause 'pinning.'
Incase you're new to 40k, Pinning occurs whenever my Rangers cause a wound with those sniper weapons. Every time you're wounded, you make a leadership test. If it's failed, your unit is "pinned," unable to move or shoot in their next turn. They've effectively thrown themselves to the ground, unaware of where the shots are coming from.
With two of these squads, I can shoot at and hopefully pin TWO enemy units; something I could not do with one squad of 10. These guys do not have the strict regimentation of the Dark Angels, so there's no 'Combat Squads' rule to help me out here. Everything with the Eldar must be precise, clean, and with clear purpose. All else is waste. As it should be.
Damn straight that's how it should be with Eldar. They have to keep themselves on the straight and narrow to keep from falling back into the ways that created Slaanesh in the first place.
ReplyDeleteBut when I played the Eldar, the rangers were so awesome! If only I had figured out how to use them as effectively as the Dire Avengers. I need to remember that pinning thing.
When you played Eldar, your opponent was the Dark Angels. Due to Space Marines' rediculously high Leadership value, I'm afraid you didn't get to fully see how useful Pinning is. The common Space Marine has a Leadership value of 8. This means that only 4 out of 11 wounds will result in Pinning. If there's a leader/commander around, they use HIS Leadership value of 10. Now only 2 of 11 wounds will cause pinning.
ReplyDeleteAgainst Marines, the Rangers have a bit of difficulty. Good hit rate, decent wound rolls (considering Space Marines' Toughness of 4), but no Armour Penetration. This pretty much leaves you to the mercy of the Space Marines' almighty Power Armour.
Next time we should set up a similarly small battle, only this time pitting the Eldar against Tyranids. Key thing to remember is that most Tyranids players like to fluff up their army with lots of gaunts to get their numbers high. The advantage to the Eldar opponent who fields Rangers is that Gaunts have a Leadership value of 5. 7 out of 11 wounds will result in Pinning. That's a pretty good chance of being pinned.
Nice work on the camo design on the cloaks for the Rangers.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I only used three colors on the cloaks: Bestial Brown, Snakebite Leather, and Bubonic Brown.
ReplyDeleteHere's another pic for a better view of the cloak:
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e387/MasterDarksol/Warhammer%2040/DarksolsGallery015.jpg
For the second squad of Rangers I'm planning on, I'm going to use more greens in the camo ... since the models look exactly the same, I don't want the rangers to look stale.
I love rangers in my Eldar squad, and use them to great effect with Dire Avengers and swooping Hawks to allay any units charging them.
ReplyDeleteI agree that different paint schemes for different units of rangers can create a nice effect. I painted my first squad with green camo and my second in Arctic. The arctic has a neat effect. I will try to find time to post some pics.