Whatever happened to the Deathstars ?

Remember when a couple of completely tooled out Wolf Lords riding gigantic wolves accompanied by Thunderwolf cavalry could single handedly win a GT ? They had no ranged shooting !! I was a Draigowing player. Fifth edition really catered to the deathstar going all the way back to Nob bikers in the very beginning. Sixth edition on the other hand is very balanced. For instance any unit can ever hold just one objective. If you're trying to run a deathstar army now then you are bound to fail.

On the other hand there are some units in sixth edition I often refer to as a quasi deathstar (QDS). They are very strong and can go a long way to winning but they can't do it all by their lonesome. I love a unit of tooled Purifiers lead by Inquisitor Coteaz at 1850 points - to me that's a great example of a QDS. A level 3 Librarian leading a squad of five Paladins at 2000+ points is another QSD. I have learned that the QSD is best selected from a non scoring unit - this puts a lot of pressure on your opponent to not focus on killing your scoring units which in turn makes your scoring units all that much stronger. The new Tau Commander is going to be another QSD... He bounces back and forth between various units buffing them to wreck ultimate havoc. I would definitely invest 200+ points in a Tau Commander now - he is just that good in my opinion... Potentially better than any named special character in the new Tau codex if you're willing to pay the points.

Shooting is the king in sixth edition. Can you name one sixth edition deathstar unit that has won a major event ? A blob that sits behind an Aegis Defense Line (ADL) and continually goes to ground is not a deathstar... They are flame bait at best. Deathstars are all about killing lots and lots of enemy units each and every turn. Only if a tournament organizer specifically tailors their missions to a deathstar can they win a big event and that answers my own question I asked above... please pay attention - maybe you just might learn something useful. ; )

A true deathstar might eventually emerge in sixth edition but I don't see it happening any time soon in sixth edition unless the developers majorly screw up. Many a broken unit were due to GW not taking the necessary time to thoroughly review their newly written rules and properly play test them, so what's new... Well it just seems like now GW now will FAQ to death anything that is potentially broken... With a few exceptions like alien robots, heh! Nobody is perfect, right ? No new codices from Mat Ward so far either... He is really busy on the Fantasy side of the game. It will be very interesting to see what eventually emerges.

Psychic powers are really off the hook now - only Eldar and Space Wolves have a strong counter. That's why I love the level 3 Grey Knight Librarian casting three Divination psychic powers each turn... Divination mostly buffs shooting. For example remove the cover save and that annoying blob hunkered down behind the ADL is toast.

That's all I have to say for now on this subject.