Having had a few days to catch up on sleep and reflect on the weekends games, it’s now time to really inspect the successes and failures of the corsairs units. You can find the game info in the last post here. What you read in a book does not always translate to the table so it’s important to be impassive and not let emotional connection to an idea or theme get stuck for the sake of your feelings – especially when you are playing an event and want to do well.
Harlequins
The heroes path is always a fun formation to run but it never fit well into the over Corsairs build I had. It was very nice to have 3 infiltrators to force opponents to consider having the killer clowns behind their lines and also to counter other infiltrating units.
On the trio individually….
My Shadow Seer was largely irrelevant. Used almost exclusively as a Psychic Shriek delivery system (thanks to some appalling power rolls!) he never really had significant impact on the games. This only reinforces my thoughts on him needing to be part of a Harlequin unit to really shine.
My Solitaire firmly remains my least favourite elite choice from the clowns roster. He is just so unreliable on the table and costs way to many points to boot. With him in the formation – infiltrate is actually a hindrance as I could not charge off the bat. With his mobility and perceived threat level I won’t be infiltrating him again.
The Death Jester was originally the model I was most dubious about with the Harlequin codex… no more! The more I use them the more I love Death is not Enough. It’s a game changer for a lot of armies – anything that’s not fearless has a real worry. Combined with infiltrate and a decent height position he creates a huge threat for his small cost.
Corsairs
Let’s start with the winners and work backwards…
Warp Hunters are quite simply a game changing vehicle. The 36” barrage with multiple small blasts on a fast skimmer means that should you get first turn, a pair of them should either cripple or destroy pretty much whatever you want – anywhere on the table. I was genuinely in awe and slightly horrified of the decimation they cause. I don’t expect to ever need more than 2.
Hornets are another unit that comes as no surprise on the table for effectiveness. Immune to nearly all small arms, mobile and a huge range with decent rate of fire and weapon stats make them another no brainer. I am not convinced that 2 per unit is enough due to misses – I really think 3 per unit might be the sweet spot as more often than not I found myself firing both units of 2 at a single target. Then again, fielding multiple units of 2 across a couple of coteries is also a possibility. Either way – Hornets are deadly.
Corsair Jet bikes with scatter lasers need no real feedback or introduction. I will comment that again, I think 4 or even 5 might be more useful for later in the game – better resilience and output over the game, better combat ability if needed, not taking an LD test after losing 1 model… yeah, 5 seems like it’s worth trying
The Wasp walker is an odd thing in this list. I only had points for 1 and wished on more than one occasion I had 2. Costing 10 points more than the pair of scatter bikes which match its firepower, the Wasp seems at first like a waste. The main benefits come from its assault ability interestingly. The hammer of wrath it gets is amazing for dealing with light/medium infantry and AV10 combined with the grenade FAQ means they will actually hang around against a lot of enemy units. I can see advantages for units of 2 for sure, perhaps even with other weapon payloads.
My prince and baron performed as expected – the prince in particular was a great bully unit, able to fight back against things like flesh hounds which would otherwise threaten the list terribly. The baron should have been left with the venom blade – his base S3 meant he never really lifted his weight in combat with his void sabre.
The elephant in the room though are the Felarch bikes. At 3 models strong with venom blades, on paper they rock. On the charge they get 5 attacks each, wound on 2+ with WS5. In practice… I am far from impressed. With the baron and prince, they always drew larger than expected volumes of enemy fire which even with lookout sir rolls saw them lose their shadowfield protection easily enough. They lack the real punch of a deathstar and have too few numbers – every loss to them hurts significantly. I often had turn 2 charges but I can’t help but think more bikes with guns would have been better. Any unit they bully well is easily done so by the prince alone and anything with real hitting power will see them off in short order – especially if the enemy has 2+ saves.
So now it’s back to the painting table and drawing board to knock up an 1850 corsairs list and get it on the table – LVO is just 2 months away and I need to be ready!