Monday, January 13, 2014

HQ Review: Deathleaper, the Most Powerful Warlord in the Game




Today we’ll be talking about the best HQ in the game: Deathleaper. The ability to assassinate any unit in the game is his key role within the Tyranid codex. He is able to do this through a myriad of different special rules, incredible stat line, and the element of surprise. While playing the leaper, it is suggested to yell, “I’m a rogue, I’m a rogue” while playing the theme song to Assassin's Creed in order to get yourself in the correct mindset.

To begin, we have to first understand Deathleaper’s warlord trait. With this warlord trait you maximize Deathleaper’s deadliness, getting yourself two victory points for slaying enemy independent characters. This amazing ability allows Deathleaper to sway the victory point game in your favor. One would not even need to worry about capturing points; instead, one could protect Deathleaper, and he will win the game for you. With his combination of scything talons, rending claws, and flesh hooks, Deathleaper is able to assassinate almost any character in the game. The only creatures Deathleaper need look out for are demon princes who outspeed him and greater demons who also out speed him. But all other characters need fear Deathleaper, for he is the assassin who stalks his prey from the shadows ("I'm a rogue, I'm a rogue!").

Deathleaper’s huge amount of special rules allow him to dart in and out of combat, slicing foes to death and achieving a massive amount of victory points through the use of his warlord trait. He is a very quick character, especially due to his instinctive behavior which will allow him to, 50% of the time, ignore the detrimental effects of difficult terrain. This instinctive behavior allows Deathleaper to run in and out of combat and through difficult terrain to his next foe, and thus his next set of victory points. Deathleaper should always be the warlord of your army to take full advantage of his instinctive behavior and his warlord trait. More importantly, Deathleaper is able to start on the field in a building. If your foe goes first, Deathleaper is capable of performing a turn one assault, striking fear (quite literally) into the hearts of all he meets.

Deathleaper is also one of the greatest tanks in the game. He achieves this through his special rule that forces enemies to only take snapshots at him along with his stealth special rule. This makes it to where he almost always has a save and forces his enemies to only take snapshots at him. This makes him immune to flamer templates, ordinance weapons, and blast weapons. That is over half of the weapon types in the game! The very fact that GW would allow a character to have such a broken rule amazes me and makes me wonder if they wanted everybody to play this fantastic character.

However, there is still more to say about Deathleaper. Deathleaper is able to ruin any psyker in the game through a combination of synapse creatures in his employment and his special rule that lowers the leadership of an enemy character for the entire game while Deathleaper is alive by D3. This is an amazing set of rules that has the potential of forcing enemy psykers to leadership four, essentially only giving them a 25% chance to succeed in casting their psychic power without taking a wound from perils. This is amazing considering the power of psykers in sixth edition. Being able to effectively neutralize a psykers on the enemy side of the field is worth the points Deathleaper costs alone, especially if it is an enemy Demon Prince, greater demon, or Rune Priest.

It is obvious that GW wanted Tyranids to be the premier codex of sixth edition. With this beast of a commander that is capable of assassinating any enemy in his path, disappear like the wind, tank entire armies worth of shooting with his snap fire rule, and ruin enemy psykers, Deathleaper is just another powerful tool in the hands of the Hive Mind.

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