So I was thinking about the developing meta that we're hearing about, specifically that elimination of Warlords is likely going to be the primary winning condition (at least at the onset). Now, unlike a few other warlords (like the Astra, SM and Ork ones) Shadowsun doesn't need to be present in order to benefit from her ability. When you commit her, you'd get the initiative and a free attachment. After that, is there any reason to keep her there? Is there a good argument AGAINST just retreating her as soon as logistics allow?

First off, she's a lightning rod for attacks. If you have a FW Elite, that would help but if not then you'll end up throwing any of your shields on her. If she wasn't present, then the best person to attack on your side would be a moving target of "Who's best to attack right now?". That might help spread out some of the damage as you can shield a few damage here and there to keep units alive.

Unlike the Eldar warlord, Tau don't have a card that would require a unique Tau character to be present to use (IE Nullify) except for the neutral No Mercy card, and even then you could play it with our signature character or toss it for a shield instead. Not to mention there are no equipment for Tau that have to be placed on a unique card. And with Shadowsun's staggering attack value of 1, is there a reason to not just withdraw her immediately?

Nope. Retreating this warlord quickly is not a bad idea. You lose very little. And honestly, I think you can make similar arguments for the Eldar and Dark Eldar warlords, too.

Honestly, I think that you're going to see much more warlord retreating in ALL factions than people seem to think. I don't agree that "warlord death" will be the primary win condition. The way I see it, NO warlord's presence is so necessary that you wouldn't actively retreat and try to avoid being bloodied instead of staying put, becoming bloodied, and losing the ability you thought was so important to keep at that planet, anyway.

Unlike the Eldar warlord, Tau don't have a card that would require a unique Tau character to be present to use (IE Nullify) except for the neutral No Mercy card, and even then you could play it with our signature character or toss it for a shield instead. Not to mention there are no equipment for Tau that have to be placed on a unique card. And with Shadowsun's staggering attack value of 1, is there a reason to not just withdraw her immediately?

Just to be clear, you don't need a Unique character to be present to use those cards -- they just have to be up, somewhere. Unless I'm drastically misunderstanding how those cards read.

Unlike the Eldar warlord, Tau don't have a card that would require a unique Tau character to be present to use (IE Nullify) except for the neutral No Mercy card, and even then you could play it with our signature character or toss it for a shield instead. Not to mention there are no equipment for Tau that have to be placed on a unique card. And with Shadowsun's staggering attack value of 1, is there a reason to not just withdraw her immediately?

Just to be clear, you don't need a Unique character to be present to use those cards -- they just have to be up, somewhere. Unless I'm drastically misunderstanding how those cards read.

The issue is that if you retreat, you exhaust the Warlord to do so. But you're correct that you don't need to be at the planet to use them.

As an alternative to retreating heavily; you may instead elect to use Shadowsun to set up units further down the line (i.e. forgo the First Planets early to set up heavily at planets 3+; stacking high-powered units and attchments). Obviously that depends on planet setup and your opponent's deployment decisions too.

Ah sure, fair.

I guess in my mind I'd almost never retreat as an Action with my warlord. Losing the tempo on the damage-dealing is huge. Rather throw the 1 damage on top of them somewhere, and then Retreat at the end-of-combat-round sequence. Ergo, Ready warlord.

Obviously the math doesn't always work out that well and will not always be optimal. So it goes.

Warlord death was something that I was thinking about as a strong winning possibility. For a faction like Chaos, for example, that can multiply damage so much. It may be feasible for others, as well. It really seemed to me from the beginning that warlords are not all that difficult to kill, maybe I'm wrong there, but that is the impression I've always had. They have to be deployed somewhere and they have to go into battle every turn, so there are ample possibilities for damage. If nothing else, they may be forced to run a lot.

I was watching the Youtube video of the Conquest demo and the SM player had an Ultramarines Dreadnought in hand. I thought he had the resources to deploy it and wondered why he didn't, to the first planet. With 8 damage swinging every time, the ork warlord would have had to hightail it or risk being bloodied or killed quickly.I thought it could have changed the situation. After the battle, it could have been deployed with Sicarius to whatever planet he wanted to, to prevent the ork warlord from going there.

I think there is the possibility of using a heavy unit like that to sort of "shadow" a warlord and perhaps prevent him from going to critical locations. Or if he still does, the risk may be immense. Maybe this won't be too practical, difficult to say without playing the game first. What seems to be clear from this post is that warlords that have to be at a planet for their ability to be useful, may be at a serious disadvantage.

The game I played in, and the games I observed, Warlord elimination were the only way the games were won. In fact, in each game there was an aggressive Warlord hunt by BOTH opponents. It was REALLY cool to watch players whose Warlords were heavily damaged sweat it out against their opponents during the Warlord deployment phase. All of the games I witnessed, the Warlords of either side were bloodied before the third round.

There seems to be a very huge difference of opinion on this.

I've played about 15 games now with the most recent games being composed of combined decks (initially we both wanted to try all the Factions and such). I can safely say that (at least for us) it has been about 50-50% or maybe 60-40% in favor of capturing planets. Once players know the game fairly well, I suspect that killed Warlords being a win condition will certainly fade to some extent.

I've played about 15 games now with the most recent games being composed of combined decks (initially we both wanted to try all the Factions and such). I can safely say that (at least for us) it has been about 50-50% or maybe 60-40% in favor of capturing planets. Once players know the game fairly well, I suspect that killed Warlords being a win condition will certainly fade to some extent.

Honestly I expected this but wasn't sure how long that would take. So after seeing eveyone's opinion on it (so far) it sounds like it really depends on your opponents strategy. But if they try to start chasing Shadowsun then the deck can easily adapt to change tactics and allow you to withdraw without hamstringing your ability to use her strategy.

Overall I think Warlord kills will still be viable in the game once players start getting the stride of their strategy but will only be the primary if they have a strategy that targets warlords (like the space wolf warlord) or if their opponent makes a mistake (like leaving their warlord vulnerable and tapped).

I'd hazard a guess, too, that the designers must be pretty cautious not to slip-up and make an easy, quick way to kill a Warlord because that would be one of the easier ways for the game to get "broken" I'd imagine.

Right now it feels very tightly balanced. I can somewhat agree with the people who claim that the DE Warlord and the Dark Eldar in general might not be the toughest of the factions but then another part of me disagrees with that - so I'm torn on whether or not that's a fact yet.

In fact, in each game there was an aggressive Warlord hunt by BOTH opponents.

I think the "both" there might be the difference in our experiences. If only one players is engaged in an aggressive warlord hunt, it is very easy for the other player to either avoid the conflict, retreat, or (if they are really clever) lure the "hunting" player into committing his warlord to planets without much strategic command advantage and choke them out of cards and resources. So at least in my play group, we learned early that unless both players were actively going for the warlord win, you gave too much control of the tempo of the game to an opponent.

if their opponent makes a mistake (like leaving their warlord vulnerable and tapped).

Yup. With just the core set, warlord wins in my play group tend to come down to someone making a mistake, someone forcing a mistake by the other player, or ending up in a situation where the opponent is about to win by warlord or planets and you can't stop them on both.

That said, I agree that the previews of the first monthly packs are consciously trying to make hunting the warlord a more viable strategy that doesn't depend so much on your opponent being just as aggressive. Between the new Space Marine warlord and the "kneel your warlord to..." Deployment Actions, I think the designers are trying to make aggressiveness pay off a bit more.

If you lose the game due to warlord death then either it was a last ditch attempt to stop your opponent from winning by planet capture or you're just not very good.

Yeah, as I said in a different post (sorry there are three about this frequency of win conditions going on right now...ooops) I have rarely seen Warlords bloody, much less die, before someone has captured three-like planets.

If you lose the game due to warlord death then either it was a last ditch attempt to stop your opponent from winning by planet capture or you're just not very good.

I don't know about that. I am pretty sure that folks will develop REALLY ugly decks whose sole purpose is to smite the enemy Warlord in no time flat, regardless of the expertise of the opponent. Having your Warlord beaten like this does not mean you are no good, ya know?

There's a warlord on the way whose entire purpose is to win via the murder win condition.

Ragnar Blackmane.

That is who I am waiting for...Doesn't matter that I have a Tattoo of Blackmane's Company symbol...I swear I am just doing it cuz it seems like a good idea.

That's the ticket.

If you lose the game due to warlord death then either it was a last ditch attempt to stop your opponent from winning by planet capture or you're just not very good.

I don't know about that. I am pretty sure that folks will develop REALLY ugly decks whose sole purpose is to smite the enemy Warlord in no time flat, regardless of the expertise of the opponent. Having your Warlord beaten like this does not mean you are no good, ya know?

With an untapped Warlord, your opponent gets a maximum of one attack to do enough damage to kill you.

There are VERY few cards that can do direct damage/increase attack damage done to a warlord from your hand.

So yes, I would say that if you lose the game because your warlord died you are playing pretty poorly.

I think that's more true than not with just the core set cards. But I wouldn't bank on it long-term.

We've already seen cards spoiled that kneel the warlord in the Deploy phase, as well as cards that can do the kind of damage you're talking about with a direct and/or single attack.

If you lose the game due to warlord death then either it was a last ditch attempt to stop your opponent from winning by planet capture or you're just not very good.

I don't know about that. I am pretty sure that folks will develop REALLY ugly decks whose sole purpose is to smite the enemy Warlord in no time flat, regardless of the expertise of the opponent. Having your Warlord beaten like this does not mean you are no good, ya know?

With an untapped Warlord, your opponent gets a maximum of one attack to do enough damage to kill you.

There are VERY few cards that can do direct damage/increase attack damage done to a warlord from your hand.

So yes, I would say that if you lose the game because your warlord died you are playing pretty poorly.

I would love to play you with my Tau ranged deck; Stingwing Swarm + Ion Rifle/Command Drone/Banshee Blade/etc.

I would love to play you with my Tau ranged deck; Stingwing Swarm + Ion Rifle/Command Drone/Banshee Blade/etc.

Honestly, he's right. I've bloodied (and on one occasion, killed) warlords with a Stingwing, Ion Rifle and Command Drone more than a few times.

Well...doesn't the counter to that bit of reasoning go, "Why in the world would I send my warlord to a planet with an opponent's ready, 7-ATK Ranged unit?"

Well...doesn't the counter to that bit of reasoning go, "Why in the world would I send my warlord to a planet with an opponent's ready, 7-ATK Ranged unit?"

I'd have to be desperate before I tried that. And if I'm that desperate, I'm probably going to lose by planets if I DON'T go here, so the Warlord kill is moot.

Well...doesn't the counter to that bit of reasoning go, "Why in the world would I send my warlord to a planet with an opponent's ready, 7-ATK Ranged unit?"

I'd have to be desperate before I tried that. And if I'm that desperate, I'm probably going to lose by planets if I DON'T go here, so the Warlord kill is moot.

Well, to put it in a different perspective. You can deploy an ion gun via surprise with an ambush platform and the command link drone can be reassigned in any action phase across any distance. So basically, be wary of stingwings with Tau because it can from dangerous to a bloodied warlord with not much trouble.

We can keep going on the "coulda-woulda-shoulda" reasoning there, too. If I'm paying attention, I'm going to see your ready Stingwings, your ready Ambush Platform, and your Drone sitting somewhere on some other unit and understand the potential. I could gamble on you not having the Ion Rifle in your hand, but more likely, I'm just not going to send my warlord to a planet with that much actual (and potential) Ranged ATK strength ready without a really compelling reason (or potential defense).

As I have said, in the demo game I played, Warlord hunting was the theme. I was playing the Orks...I had two of those teleporters out, and just following my opponents Warlord with the most HEAVY hitting stuff I had on the table....perhaps we were playing it wrong?