Spotlight: Helldivers... Part 1.

Since I now have three Helldivers in my army (until I change my mind like I always do), I got to thinking about it. It's actually a pretty survivable little machine at three points. With DEF14/ARM15 and 22 health boxes, it's a lot tougher to take out than your average three point solo, can boost it's attack and damage, and benefit from Battlegroup buffs. Add to that the ability to burrow and the Helldiver strikes where it likes, and has a pretty good chance of surviving it.

So why is this wondrous machine just three points... There have been epic discussions about this on the privateer press forums, and some of it actually made sense:

• Focus: Operating at the front or behind enemy lines, makes it hard to keep the thing within control range so you can assign Focus. This drawback is made less annoying with Terminal Velocity, as Mortenebra can move up and fire her pulse, to allow the Helldiver to be 20" away from her at the beginning of the round. There's also Deryliss, but having him so far up the front is asking for trouble.

• Movement: The Helldiver is slow and tops out at just above ten inches per round, with burrowing, which is faster than running. It does so without using any Focus, but the main issue is, that the Helldiver works best when it's out in front of the army, pushing back ranged units or making the opponent jump through hoops to avoid a burrow charge through his lines. Cryx is a faction of SPD6-7 models, and being left behind means the Helldiver will do nothing for the entire game. With Mortenebra there's a slight offset in the T4 bonus, that increases the deployment zone by two inches, but this really isn't enough. The thing I see here is, that I'll have to slow the rest of my army down in order to maximize the three Helldivers, and that could be an issue in scenario play.

• Offensive capabilities: It's only MAT6 & PS13. While this is true, when running it with Mortenebra it becomes able to charge for free and roll 3d6+6 to hit with Terminal Velocity, making it able to pull of a fully boosted charge without spending any Focus at all. Giving it two Focus allows it two fully boosted attacks, which will take down a lot of the weaker casters, and if Mortenebra burns her feat on it, something is going down hard. The Helldiver also has the option of a boosted slam for no cost, as Terminal Velocity allows free power attacks and slams. This can set a caster up for some real world hurt, if they get slammed through their own troops and into the arms of a FULLY OPERATIONAL DEATHSTAR... or Slayer/Harrower. There's also the added little thing, that a Terminal Velocity Helldiver is amazingly fast on the charge: 3" Unburrow + 1.57" base +10.5" charge = 15.07 inches... not a lot of jacks that can do that.
  

• No Arc Node: Typically the only bonejacks that see play in Cryx are Arc Nodes, and the Helldiver doesn't have one. The argument is, that for one more point it could be a Nightwretch or Deathripper, and this makes the Helldiver bad. Guess what, Mortenebra doesn't need a node.

So why am I bringing three? Well the main concern when facing a Helldiver is the astounding number of angles it can attack from, and as Aduro from the Privateer Press forum says: having one coming at you, with pretty much Nothing you can do about it until it attacks, has a Very distinct psychological effect on most opponents. (...) really messes with your opponent's head and plans.

This means that with three Helldivers coming at him, not only will it be next to impossible to stop them all from coming through, but it will mess up everything from deployment to assassination attempts, since he constantly has to worry about three little diggers turning his day into a nightmare of Terminal Velocity boosted charges. Fielding Helldivers is not about averages, it's about potential, and the potential for three free charges/slams at almost any angle is exceptional.

I've been thinking about letting my opponent go first in scenario play. Edit: This turned out to be an amazingly bad idea, and has been removed from the post!

Part two of this article is now up.

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Scavengers...

Just ordered two Scavengers. I know they get a lot of heat on the various forums, and to be honest i think they're really expensive for what I get, except with Mortenebra. I probably can't get them in time for a play test, so I'll have to bring them to the qualifiers without any experience running them *gulp*.

The plan is to run them on the flanks, depending on where my opponent deploys his flanking solos, and then hopefully go to town on them. With Terminal Velocity they can assault 12.5" and if they kill their target they can retreat 7" afterward. This will either allow me to take out most solos and retreat to safety, or require my opposition to bunch up in the hopes of getting at my Scavengers with either free strikes or just making sure they're still in range after the Sprint move. This can be exploited by working the Scavengers as a team, or by keeping my Warwitches close by to spray the bunched up models.

The thing is, that even against an undamaged target the Scavenger under Terminal Velocity is rolling 3d6+7 to hit and 3d6+11 damage on a charge, which should take out most normal 5 health solos, and it's doing it without spending any Focus (will probably give it a Focus to make sure I can kill something and get away though, but that's what Warwitch Sirens are for, and they're running on the flanks anyway). If it's something a bit more resilient, I could always shoot it with my Harrower and if it's damaged the Scavenger is rolling 4d6+11 and will take out Dragoons if I give it a Focus to buy another attack.

I had planned for those 8 points to be used for a Leviathan, but after doing a lot of encounters in my head, I ended up with the annoying result, that the things I need to kill either have Stealth or really High DEF, which means that I'd have to dedicate 3+ Focus to a Leviathan in order to get that kill I need (assuming they don't have Stealth and just ignore me). With the Scavengers I can get that kill for no Focus at all, as long as I can get TV up, and I'm probably doing that every round anyway.
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