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**Arbiter**

Well, if there is ever stronghold or escalation never take deathstars, also as far as playing a gravstar goes, they do have trouble with the Deercouncil because if your not careful you can get assaulted and then its over, same with beastpacks only worse for you. Also at double FOC you may see a 6 heldrakes running around, while not a big deal to your star, the rest of your army can get murdered.

**Commander_Farsight**

Arbiter wrote:
Well, if there is ever stronghold or escalation never take deathstars, also as far as playing a gravstar goes, they do have trouble with the Deercouncil because if your not careful you can get assaulted and then its over, same with beastpacks only worse for you. Also at double FOC you may see a 6 heldrakes running around, while not a big deal to your star, the rest of your army can get murdered.

Ok. I thought that the Grav star rips appart the Deercouncil (maybe not in CC, but in shooting)? I hope that 4 Riptides is enough to deal with that! I am only taking 1 Bursttide and 3 Iontides (including O'Vesa), sounds like it could be a problem. Maybe go with 2:2 then?

**FlingitNow**

Yeah Gravstar should kill the council fairly comfortably. There is a reason the Council is considered a mid tier deathstar.

**Commander_Farsight**

FlingitNow wrote:
Yeah Gravstar should kill the council fairly comfortably. There is a reason the Council is considered a mid tier deathstar.

How do you feel the GraVesa star would match up against Necron Air cav. or 6 helldrakes? I feel like there are plenty of Riptides of AA support, but how do you think the whole deathstar would have to function against something like that overall?

**Arbiter**

The star can't kill much air units because that's not its purpose, it deletes ground targets that can hurt it (like other stars) as for AA being covered by 4 tides that can be ok depending on your rolling, remember needing 4s to hit and then 5s to glance wit iontides. Also the reason the Deer council can hurt the gravstar is by debuffing the crap out of them, like making them 4/5+ AS and shooting them to death or flee off the board, though if they someone manage to get into CC the gravstar is gone.

**Commander_Farsight**

Arbiter wrote:
The star can't kill much air units because that's not its purpose, it deletes ground targets that can hurt it (like other stars) as for AA being covered by 4 tides that can be ok depending on your rolling, remember needing 4s to hit and then 5s to glance wit iontides. Also the reason the Deer council can hurt the gravstar is by debuffing the crap out of them, like making them 4/5+ AS and shooting them to death or flee off the board, though if they someone manage to get into CC the gravstar is gone.

I think that the purpose is to blast the Deercouncil to bits before that can even happen.

If the purpose of the GraVesa star is to delete ground units, how is one going to be able to deal with lists that include many flyers, or what is quite popular at tournaments right now, FMC Daemon spam? That is one of my two concerns with the list, the lack of AA. Also my other one is that there is kind of a lack of troops in every list I make due to the fact that the initial deathstar itself is so expensive. Is there a way I can get more troops in there? I feel like at 2k I should really have at least 4 troops just because all my opponent has to do is target troops to win. Thoughts?

**FlingitNow**

Also you can only reduce their armour save to 3+ as multiple castings of jinx have no further effect and you've got to casy it against a 4+ deny. The unit is not gone if you're in combat with it. What Ap2 do you have in CC? You may not even win combat against it and it will grind you out you fail 1 Ld test and its game over they don't care about Ld.

**Commander_Farsight**

FlingitNow wrote:
Also you can only reduce their armour save to 3+ as multiple castings of jinx have no further effect and you've got to casy it against a 4+ deny. The unit is not gone if you're in combat with it. What Ap2 do you have in CC? You may not even win combat against it and it will grind you out you fail 1 Ld test and its game over they don't care about Ld.

Sorry I'm not understanding the question.

Edit:
So I updated my GraVesastar list. It only includes 3 Riptides instead of 4 now, but I have 3 more troop choices, and I added another Grav Centurion. What do you think? I have just been told by the great ImotekhTheStormlord that the GraVesastar is not going to work because the Grav Cents dont hurt the Deer Councils 2+ cover. Can someone explain how they kill the Council?

**Arbiter**

Ok well, grav cents ignore their armour because of Ap2, the tau buffmander lets them ignore the council's 2+ cover, all they have left is a 4+ inv. Also remember that FMC is completely different then a Av flyer, reason being is you would AV on 6's only, and daemon princes on their AS of 3+ (if they have it) or 6"s if they have none, but you can ground them with small arms fire, or skyfire and then shoot them with cents.

Not 100% sure what flingitnow was saying but i'll try my best to interpret.

He says that multiple powers from RoB (runes of battle) don't stack, which i'm sorry to say doesn't fly, I personally have written to GW asking and haven't gotten a reply worth noting, and seeing how local Midwest tournaments play it as that it can stack, I play it that way. Also you are correct that the Deer council has no AP2 CCW (other then shard of anaris) they can get an Ap3 weapon (firesaber) and hitting first with 30+ attacks re rolling hits of 4 (normally) and wounds of 2+ (flesh bane and doom) that's a lot of As on 2+/3+/4+. Lastly, on the note of the gravstar running away, horrify and terrify combo can accomplish it, will it happen every game? No, is it possible? Yes.

Hope this helps, and remember, troops is where it counts.

**FlingitNow**

Terrify doesn't remove ATSKNF so they won't care about running away. Protect/Jinx says "whilst this power is in effect blah blah blah" if you cast it once or a thousand times it is in effect. Also every single time the rulebook talks about osychic powers stacking it tells you that different powers stack. Now did they write that to intentionally confuse the reader or do only different powers stack. Also note how some powers specifically call out they stack with themselves. You pull that on me and none of your Helmeted models are shooting or assaulting anything.

Loth is lvl3 so he denies your Warlock powers on a 4+. Add in that you are Ld8 so only have a 2/3 chance to pass (because I would have killed your paper planes by then) and you only have a 1 in 3 chance of even getting the power off against the unit.

Look at the big UK tournaments Gravstar smashes the Council far more often than not. Also the Gravstar does not need to ground a FMC to kill it. They can kill nearly everything as they reroll to hit and to wound/armour pen.

Also with Sisters about the Council is pointless as 1 unit of sisters shoots at it and every hit causes a perils on every model in the unit. I expect on the Tournament scene the Seer Council won't even be considered competitive soon. It was great a year ago when it first started appearing and the only deathstar it had to compete with was the bomb. But Ovesastar, Gravstar, GraVesastar and the Beast pack have all left it in their wake.

**Arbiter**

Well to point out a few things, on the note of powers, that's how its played in the Midwest, at 6 different local gaming stores. On the note of ATSKNF they auto regroup at the beginning of his turn, so yes he can possibly run off the board if he rolls high enough, remember hes rolling 3D6 because of the buffmander, and if 1 model is off the table, they all are removed. On the note of loth, OK, 50% chance of powers from warlocks going off, with 10 warlocks i'm ok with that, on the note of LD8 venoms help with that. At the UK tournaments I think gravstars smash others due to people not knowing how to counter them, which granted takes practice, those people will eventually find out. On the note of Sisters I would have no clue as I haven't got their "codex" but I do know the farseers can eat 6 perils of the warp between them if they are in front before wounds are taken.

**FlingitNow**

Jetpack infantry still flee 2d6 and he's unlikely to be near his board edge past turn 1. 10 Warlocks yes but how many would have protect/jinx 1 maybe 2...

Maybe changing the rules helps the Seer Council in America but I doubt it's a massive change. I think I already mentioned the Venoms that's what I was referring too with paper planes you'll have a max of 2 unless that is another rules change you guys play by?

Sisters unit causes a perils on every psyker in the unit for each hit. 5 shots at Bs4 and 1 at Bs5 with PE. So you can tank for the Farseers but all the warlocks go up in smoke and the Farseers take 1-2 wounds each. It is a stupid rule.

At a normal level the Seer council will curb stomp everything. But at the top end it loses to the top tier deathstars. Results prove that.

**Arbiter**

Ahh, forgot tau is jetpack and not jumppack. Again its random. We should see the results of RoB stacking when the new eldar FAQs come out. The max venoms you can take for troops is 2 unless you can take more due to double FOC. Again I know nothing about sisters, do they need to wound? Do you get saves? I agree with you a lot, on the council being midtier, but I have seen very experienced people play it gaking other deathstars and I believe it depends on the players rather the models.

**FlingitNow**

The sisters hit you take a perils. Its dumb.

Yes a good player with the Council will beat a bad player with Gravstar. Heck a good player with Serpent spam could beat a bad player with a Deathstar. I've seen a guy lose with a FBSC at 1k to an average Sisters build (that was a special kind of dumb). So player ability can be a big factor just as build and dice (we've all lost games because dice said no).

**Commander_Farsight**

I totally forgot about the MSSS! Thats why you take Torchstar for the Ignores Cover. I appreciate all of your coversations. Its helping me as a player get to understand the game better. So here is a list that I came up with. I have a few concerns, but I want to know what you guys think first.

Spoiler:

So I dropped a Riptide so its down to 2 + O'Vesa. This allowed me to take more troop choices and one more Grav Centurion. I felt like this was a fair trade due to the fact that I was really lacking troops before. The two Kroot squads will outflank hopefully trying to grab an opponents objective. Scouts camp it up in my backfield. All the suits DS. My concern was dropping the Riptide. I know that 3 Riptides is still very powerful, but I dont know if that I still have enough fire power (Stupid as that may sound when Im packing 3 Riptides and 5 Grav Centurions). So what are your thoughts?

Also, if anyone could help me with some tactics, I dont have the models yet, and I have only played O'Vesa star once or twice. Tactics would be much appreciated, thanks.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

FlingitNow wrote:
The sisters hit you take a perils. Its dumb.

Yes a good player with the Council will beat a bad player with Gravstar. Heck a good player with Serpent spam could beat a bad player with a Deathstar. I've seen a guy lose with a FBSC at 1k to an average Sisters build (that was a special kind of dumb). So player ability can be a big factor just as build and dice (we've all lost games because dice said no).

I totally understand that. This will be my first GT, so I'm really going for the experience and to do the best I can. I am still somewhat new to the game, but have already ascended to be one of the top players in my fairly weak FLGS. I will have plenty of time to get practice games in too with this list.

**Arbiter**

I like the list as it has 5 troop choices, the 3 tides give some decent AA though if you play vs someone who takes like 4 ravens and 4 talons you may have a problem, but it sounds like your FLGS isn't into spam/power builds so you should be fine. Only thing i'm not sold on is the unit of 3 suits with flamers, maybe drop 1 and give the other 2 missiles so at least they can do something?

Also I thank flingitnow for the note on SoB, I had no idea they were anti psyker to the max!

Ps. Your commander has the H&R battle gear, so does he take it? or the model with highest I value?

**astro_nomicon**

A model with Hit and Run confers that USR to the unit. Hit and Run states that you use the highest I value in the unit for taking the Initiative Test.

**Arbiter**

Wasn't sure, when I read the H&R special rule in the big BRB it says the unit takes an I test, not saying highest, lowest, majority.

**Commander_Farsight**

Arbiter wrote:
Wasn't sure, when I read the H&R special rule in the big BRB it says the unit takes an I test, not saying highest, lowest, majority.

I thought that it was the Initiative of the model taking the wargear, although the effect is on the whole unit. I'll check again when I get home. I don't think that I am going to change up the 3 man unit of Crisis Suits. The purpose of them is to either come in as late as possible, or to hide, and then hop onto an objective. The purpose of the flamers is to just take out any light infantry and put a lot of hits on them. In general, anything larger than that would take out the Suits outright, so imo there is no point in spending more points when it might not even be viable.

**FlingitNow**

Unit characteristic tests are always taken on highest stat in the unit.

SoB are witch hunters. But it is mainly that one unit with poorly worded condemor bolters...

As for the list I would drop a troops choice to get some missiles on a few units. Perhaps dropping the sniper rifles as the scouts are just outflanking anyway. Perhaps give a unit of crisis with missiles VTs instead of the Iontide as he's poor AA even with the VT.