Nomad Warbands.

So this was written for Caledonia in N3 but a lot of the tactics are still valid:

https://forum.corvusbelli.com/index.php?threads/2037/

 

Different warbands serve different roles, a hacker spekrt and a MSR spectr do different things, so do Morlocks v Chimeras.

A Chimera is a guided cruise missile. There is nothing the chimera's won't tear apart in melee (with the help of her pups), given enough orders to get there. The key is "given enough orders." If you opponent has a well set up ARO net and it would be order prohibitive to get there, its not worth it. You need experience looking at the board and knowing when its feaible to send her to a juicy target, and when its better to hold off and just wait until next turn. As models die, and board position degrades/evolves throughout the game opportunites will arise for her to strike. She has tools to get where she needs to be with climbing plus and ecplise, but they all cost orders. Generally she is wasted being using as a corner guard, or just mucking things up, like you would use a morlock or jag.

Zondautica (and other expensive Bikish impetuous units) in my experience operate similarly. They are fast, but expensive and relatively frail. Generally you are best off holding them back until you see an opening to exploit. Zondnautica has smoke so can make some holes. Zondnautica also have the nice trick of dismounting so they can guard two different places, or in desperation you can use the bike/remote like morlock to corner guard. Losing the bike hurts, but its not as bad as loosing the unit.

I don't have much experience with the dog warriors, I am not a fan of them stylisticly.

 

Yeah you've basically got a bunch of guided missiles there. If theres something big and nasty that you need dead, uberfall and mcmurrough are the guys you send up to deaderise them. They're order heavy to utilise but are usually very likely to kill whatever you get them in with. They're also good for causing chaos in back lines.

In terms of utility, they're best as your reserve drop. You can then stick them where you need them or where there's less aro coverage. It's worth noting that first turn runs will hog up basically all of one group's orders by the time you've popped smoke a couple of times so it's got to be worth it.
They exert a large bubble of "dont go here" on your opponent or a "deal with me quickly" imperative so that in and of itself can be very useful if there are objectives or zones to score as its very presence will force the opponent to react.

The biker is an odd one, I like the specialist or the spitfire. The bike/remote is basically a disposable asset you can use to clear mines, template clumped up teams, force aros with etc. It can be used aggressively to force bad aro choices on an opponent too or just guard an objective. I find they're not good at bumrushing on a t1 rampage, they're better held back as a t2 or 3 piece (the hacker though is excellent at t1 objective grabs)

 

I feel like in N4 units like the Uberfallkommando have become more defensive / counterstrikey. They can still act like a missile but with less overall orders and having to guess where your smoke templates go means that's gonna take the meat of a turn, so it's really got to be worth it. Plus, the crit and dodge changes make high ARM units like TAGs at least (who you are more likely to see) harder to kill in CC when you do get there. A lot of the time I'd rather reach out with Hacking to stall my opponent.

However, these units will counterpunch clear things off objective in the midfield very well. They have less far to smoke their way there, so it requires less of advanced mental trigonometry. Plus they actually often have decent WIP for discover / intuitive attacking markers. In the case of Ubers, getting 4 potential discovers with the 4 models (even if 3 of them are low WIP) can put your opponent in a bind.

Defensively, their high PH's and bonuses to dodge means they are great at dodging into CC with models on an attack run who stray too close, even (or especially) around corners. An alpha striking gun fighter who suddenly finds themselves in a knife fight with a freaked out furry can be in for a bad day.

 

I've always thought of WB that way because the two I use are Jaguars and Myrmidons. But I agree the impetuous ones are more like that now. Even late N3 they seemed more like that. It just isn't worth the orders to try to force them in the enemy DZ when they have a good chance to fail on the enemy ARM and then die anyways.

 

I don't mean to imply that Chimera etc. are to be thrown away first turn regardless. Throwing stuff away is always bad. Also if you get the whole package there, even high BTS targets are going to sweat, between the MA damage bonus, and the friends in melee bonus, the damage will be relatively high, and there is the potential for a lot of saving throws being made.

I think that using them for active defense is tricky for Chimera, the pups want to dodge, the chimera wants to smoke. The Chimera doesn't smoke any better than a morlock, and shes much more of an investment in points. My point is it is hard to use them to just gum up an area like you use a morlock. You can try to disperse your pups to guard corners, and try to dodge into melee, but you also have to be cautios because the dodge movement could take them out of range of the Chimera, causing them to go inert, which doesn't get you far. (But can be devasating if it works right).

You are correct that using her as a threat, a force in being, is very good use of her, you just need to be mindful to keep her safe.I do really like the triple discover with pupniks. That is a great way to make high value markers sweat, because the pups are likely to discover when you walk up close, and if the marker breaks marker state to respond to a pupnik you haven't really lost anything of value.

 

Yeah I think in defense the Chimera really needs to be tucked away (Like prone on a roof) with the pups hiding around corners nearby but spread as much as you can. Positioning can be tricky similar to a link. But climbing plus means she can get tucked away like that without slowing her down too much when she wants to come out to play. One N4 advantage is that the Chimera is pretty dangerous just by herself so if a pup has to go in an exposed spot to get sacrificed for an opponent order, it's not the end of the world.

Another one is that N4 impetuous makes such troopers easier to keep alive for the late game and valuable in it with their extra activations as order counts get lower.