MechaEmperor7000 wrote: We sort of established that 9 pages ago, but something about batreps generated another 9 pages of finger pointing.
I know, I just wanted to offer my opinion on the matter. I apologize that it wasn't that insightful, but I just wanted to pop in.
I know but I felt like some sass, if only to get the point across to others that this issue still hasn't been acknowledged.
It has, actually, been acknowledged by all parties as one of the Mutilatorss' greatest weaknesses. Which is why people aren't saying "start the game with Mutilators there to cover your Warlord" or "Deepstrike them in next to some Jetbikes", it's being argued that they complement target saturation and make good Linebreakers, make the enemy have to choose between being forced to snap shot at prioirty targets or eat the charge and squeeze off a round of shooting before being destroyed.
dusara217 wrote: It has, actually, been acknowledged by all parties as one of the Mutilatorss' greatest weaknesses. Which is why people aren't saying "start the game with Mutilators there to cover your Warlord" or "Deepstrike them in next to some Jetbikes", it's being argued that they complement target saturation and make good Linebreakers, make the enemy have to choose between being forced to snap shot at prioirty targets or eat the charge and squeeze off a round of shooting before being destroyed.
It's more like "that's all they can do". Any unit can "Compliment Target Saturation" especially if it's more copies of the same unit (it's a much more terrifying prospect to choose between three Obliterators than two obliterators and a mutilator), while faster units or squads that have both DS and larger unit counts would be better linebreakers (I did list that in most cases, a single Obliterator would be better at the same linebreaker job for a scant few more points since it will get off one round of shooting before reverting to the same issue as the Mutilator). Generally, I've only seem people successfully argue that, when you have nothing else to purchase, Muties would be good for gap filling.
Has the scenario ever come up where you took Mutilators before you ran out of slots or points (and not just for a fluff army or a challenge army, those would be entirely different arguments)?
I never use Mutilators, because the points are tight enough that I can rarely afford the stuff I need already. In the above example, if I had about 180 points and totally filled up with HQ, I would see if I can divide up my list enough to make room for another Chaos Sorceror in another CAD.
To do that you'd have to add more Marines tax, and I explained my reticense on that: no saturation value and minimal contribution other than obsec which i already have six of. They don't do more for you.
A singular Sorcerer WAS in my list for quite a whle but it failed to do enough pretty much all the time and was my default Warlord simply because my other one was i nthe thick of things all the time. I switched it out for a Chaos Lord on the wing and much happier with the results, as now he is still in the thick of things but he does more for my Raptors (Fearless is a very big deal when you invest in that many)
But thats not the subject.
As for taking them when I didn't have to? I would. In this case I took them because they were sort of the obvious choice given the list. However, they act like extremely flexible and tough Paladins in a group. A Sorcerer might actually be a great idea for them when grouped like that.
183 points of Nurgle Mutilators in a unit does 5 wounds to anything reliably and possibly more depending on who iut is they are smashing. Clearly they would always be aimed at high value targets.
Closest Terminator Equivalent: 201pts gets you 4 Nurgle Terminators with Chainfists. They kill the same amount essentially and are far less capable of keeping up their damage output and cannot take as many wounds. they shoot a little which adds to their utility, for as long as they are still alive.
Nothing else really kills harder targets or those of high value like either one of them can, for the same points. Nothing. Any unit that can reliably kill off five wounds of ANY type they wish are essentially non existent. Now there are some better at killing hordes/Mid range stuff (basically every fast attack Chaos has are great at it), some slightly better at killing MEQ (Warp Talons, Heldrakes and the heavy support slots I suppose, though the Defiler is probably he best of the Heavy Support at it, unfortunately)
So if you're looking for an answer to hard to kill things, the Mutilators really are one of the Chaos Codex's better choices. One hopes Helbrutes and Maulerfiends will be treated better in the new codex (and one can guarantee the Helbrutes and maulerfiends will be) but at this time, that's the reality.
When you gain perspective on the Codex, you kind of see why Mutilators, while not exactly as cool as the opponents similar answers in some armies, is really pretty good in the context of the current Chaos reality. We can live in the land of "should" all we want, but it doesn't bend reality to our will. They actually are a good option for some things in a Chaos list.
Do you need them to win? Nope. Will they be somehow the reason you lost? gimme a break.
Why do all four Terminators need Chainfists though? Why not just spend on Combi-Melta and then 1-2 Chainfists, seeing as most vehicles are going to die from that anyway? Then there's the matter of Power Fists usually handling the situation just fine outside of AV14?
If you overspend where unnecessary, of course it is going to look bad.
You could do 5 terminators with Combi weapons. I believe that's roughly the same points as the mutilators, though you can't fit them into 3 different slots (you'd probably have to get a 6th and get two squads, so still less units than the 3 mutilators).
Combi Pgs are 10 Pg shots at rapid fire range and 15 PF attack off the charge (not that they'll ever charge, but if we are going to assume the mutilators reach combat lets assume the same for the termies). Similar CC to 3 mutilators except against the heaviest of targets, and much better ranged attacks and overall damae output.
Possibly a trade involving chain fists for combis. I don't know the points for chain fists off hand, I've never seen them taken tbh, so most likely the combis are better.
I wouldn't mark termies for nurgle. Keep them cheap.
The termies are weaker attrition (1 less wound, lower toughness) for a similar CC profile but a much improved ranged option. I'd give the advantage to the termies, but if the enemy lacks AP or grav weapons, the mutilators wouldn't be that much worse.
Martel732 wrote: I still think, however, that's it's very much a case of a good player winning with a poor unit.
Alternatively, look at it this way. Some units are more difficult to use than others, and some armies have a greater degree of interdependency.
That's not necessarily to say a unit is objectively "bad". But it may be more difficult to employ effectively. Jancoran is effectively boxing in his opponents with multiple threats and getting excellent results. War Kitten is just zooming away from his opponent, who's Mutilators don't perform.
Difficulty of use definitely influences the perception of a unit. I've seem Lictors referred to as "beyond terrible" on dakka, pre-LVO. So I think it's important to keep that reality in mind, when people might attempt to pass off subjective judgements as objective truth.
Kharn is 165 points I think and he can actually blow up an Imperial Knight in one round of combat when he charges (I actually did the math hammer on this one. This is due to him having an absurd number of attacks and mainly Gorechild's special rules). And he not only comes cheaper, but can be used to fulfill another CAD's "HQ Tax", isn't slowed my Slow and Purposeful, and not only can reliably blow up vehicles, but also work against T6 Monstrous Creatures and even medium sized squads. The only flaws with Kharn compared to Muties is that he is not immune to AP3 weaponry (which Muties are) and can't get T5. He is also technically slowed by infantry level movement and can't hit flyers (well, actually he can, but it's not gonna be very effective with a single plasma pistol shot) but those are problems shared by the Muties too. Oh and Kharn can sweep the crap out of units, since he's bound to win most combats he's in (the only ones I say he would lose is if he went up against stuff with 3++).
Also the Nurgle Terminator example highlights another flaw of the Mutilators: You are paying for all of those weapons. In a Terminator unit, you can spare some points by just buying one or two chainfists, as against vehicles a whole unit of them are just overkill. That's part of the reason why Warp Talons are bad too; you are paying for every model's lightning claws when realistically you'll probably lose 2-3 of them before they ever get close enough to do some damage.
This is another fallacy in that, yes, Mutilators are good when you compare them to another unit kitted as close as possible to the mutilator's stats.But this again ignores the fact that some units can do the same job better for less points with different equipment. You're effectively shaping the question to suit the answer, rather than ask the question to get an answer.
if you want an example of a unit that can compete with the muties differently, then take a unit of Plague Marines in a Rhino with Plasma Guns. This unit has superior mobility to both Kharn and the Muties, can reliably threaten vehicles that would just outrun both, can quickly redeploy to threaten other units, will not be bogged down in combat, and while can't provide the same amount of wounds in one turn, can provide consistent damage every turn due to having a ranged weapon and not being forced to swap weapons every turn. The Mutie's wound output starts faltering if it's forced to use a suboptimal weapon or isn't in combat, so overall this unit would provide more bang for the buck. The better part is, with a Nurgle Lord, this unit can also fulfill the "troop tax" that Muties can't and can gain objective secured. Plop them on an Objective and they can literally do absolutely nothing else for the duration of the game and still be a benefit to your army. But a squad of 3 Muties that end up too far away from anything else (remember, they can't sweep)? dead weight until they can somehow get back to the fight. And literally every other model in the game can out-walk them.
Now, this is why I said (several pages ago) that if you just removed the squad cap of 3 and their Slow and Purposeful, these would actually be good, if not terrifying, cuz 5-10 of these might be expensive, but they will tear and shred their way through everything, regardless of which weapon they use. Since they don't have weapons, they would basically be running every turn they can't be charging, which means that gunline armies would have to choose between stand and shoot or high tail it out of there. With slow and purposeful, the choice for them is very clear: just backpedal and shoot.
They don't. But to have the same ability as a Mutilator (in fairness) I include it for the comparison.
So you intentionally made a unit overspend on points on things they don't need, then point out that they're overcosted compared to Mutilators in a very specific scenario that favors the Mutilators over the Terminators (dealing 5 wounds in close combat, when Chaos Terminators are better used as gun platforms)?
I hope I'm not the only one that sees the contradiction here.
I think we can do better. If you really want to see which unit outperforms the other, let's try and set up the most accurate comparison we can.
At 183pts you get 3x Nurgle Mutilators with the Mutilators Weapons rule, for 177pts you get 3x Nurgle Terminators each with a LC and Chainfist.
Mutilators have twice the # of wounds and Fear, while Terminators have Chaos Boons and aren't saddled by SnP. Melee output should be identical given no casualties. Damage falloff is more severe for the Terminators. There are some tradeoffs in the 'Mutilator Weapons" rules compared to the Terminators, which have permanent access to a LC and Chainfist. Pretty fair though. Neither can sweep, the Terminators cost 6pts less, and they have +1LD.
So which is the better pure multirole CC unit? I'll let you two decide, but I think this is a better comparison for discussion. If you want Mutilators, you aren't choosing them for Combi-Meltas and a min Chainfist.
Why are we buying both a Lightning Claw AND Chainfist though? I could just buy 1-2 Chainfists and leave just Power Axes or Mauls instead and use the saved points for the only appropriately costed Combi-Weapons in the game...
Yoyoyo wrote: I think we can do better. If you really want to see which unit outperforms the other, let's try and set up the most accurate comparison we can.
If by accurate you mean "let's try to recreate the mutilator using another unit" then sure. I don't really see why that is useful, especially if people are saying the mutilator's role is only useful because you can take 3 single guys, and you certainly can't do that with termies.
But why is that an accurate comparison? We can use the elite slot, or a similar number of points (I don't think there is going to be a situation at 1800 points where all of your troops, HQ, FA, and HS are full). When people compare the farseer to the autrach and say the farseer is better, they don't load up the farseer with melee weapons and try to use him outside of his role after all.
Especially since it's pretty well known that the melee upgrades for terminators are absurdly overcosted, and the melee special rule of the mutilator isn't worth very much. It seems a little like stacking the deck, or trying to focus on a very unusual scenario to score points, rather than build an optimal unit/list.
At 183pts you get 3x Nurgle Mutilators with the Mutilators Weapons rule, for 177pts you get 3x Nurgle Terminators each with a LC and Chainfist.
Alternatively, for about 180 points, we can get 4 Termies with combi weapons, with PFs and MoN. This is the more common terminator loadout (sometimes you see MoT, or no PFs and just combis).
So you can get 8 pg shots, or 4 melta shots. There are very few tanks that will survive 4 melta shots (flyers, Skimmers with Jink). 8 Pg shots can put wounds on heavy units (oddly enough, if the mutilators were taken as a unit, the 8 pgs would do some serious damage).
The unit has worse melee output unless charging (but I doubt either unit will get to charge much), worse attrition versus small arms (2 less wounds), worse attrition versus heavy arms (2 less wound) and a much better footprint/ranged attack.
This is a much fairer discussion then your loadout. Alternatively, we could do 5 terminators with combis and no upgrades.
That's a fair comparison, since you are comparing each unit in the role they are chosen for, and not shoehorning a unit into a role .
Mutilators have twice the # of wounds and Fear, while Terminators have Chaos Boons and aren't saddled by SnP. Melee output should be identical given no casualties. Damage falloff is more severe for the Terminators. There are some tradeoffs in the 'Mutilator Weapons" rules compared to the Terminators, which have permanent access to a LC and Chainfist. Pretty fair though. Neither can sweep, the Terminators cost 6pts less, and they have +1LD.
All true, probably why nobody would take terminators with this loadout.
Remember when Jancoran put up the scenario of breachers and scat bikes, and everyone was quick to chime in that the scenario was highly unlikely?
You are seeing something similar here.
So which is the better pure multirole CC unit? I'll let you two decide, but I think this is a better comparison for discussion. If you want Mutilators, you aren't choosing them for Combi-Meltas and a min Chainfist.
You can easily flip this statement around.
[b] If you want Terminators, you aren't choosing them for the LC and Chainfist combo [b].
So let's shoot for a more fair comparison, instead of choosing the worst loadout for a unit for a role on the battlefield that isn't even really needed.
Yoyoyo wrote: I think we can do better. If you really want to see which unit outperforms the other, let's try and set up the most accurate comparison we can.
At 183pts you get 3x Nurgle Mutilators with the Mutilators Weapons rule, for 177pts you get 3x Nurgle Terminators each with a LC and Chainfist.
Mutilators have twice the # of wounds and Fear, while Terminators have Chaos Boons and aren't saddled by SnP. Melee output should be identical given no casualties. Damage falloff is more severe for the Terminators. There are some tradeoffs in the 'Mutilator Weapons" rules compared to the Terminators, which have permanent access to a LC and Chainfist. Pretty fair though. Neither can sweep, the Terminators cost 6pts less, and they have +1LD.
So which is the better pure multirole CC unit? I'll let you two decide, but I think this is a better comparison for discussion. If you want Mutilators, you aren't choosing them for Combi-Meltas and a min Chainfist.
You can't put both a lc and power fist on chaos terminators (except the champion). It is one or the other (and on the champion it is expensive to have both).
Jancoran, clearly when you had around 200 points to spend and you were choosing between cultists manning an ADL or mutilators you should have chosen the compromise. Mutilator manning the ADL with a second mutilator for deep striking (or filling the first mutilator's spot if it got shot off the ADL).
Well, the opposing argument is that all of your Troops, FA, and HS are taken, and all you have left are elite slots.
I think this is a bit absurd (6 full troops alone can easily cost 1200 points, never mind the FA choices) but it's the framework they are arguing from.
Well, the opposing argument is that all of your Troops, FA, and HS are taken, and all you have left are elite slots.
I think this is a bit absurd (6 full troops alone can easily cost 1200 points, never mind the FA choices) but it's the framework they are arguing from.
That wasn't the example. The example was all but hq/troop/elite were full, which is not such a strange situation.
Jancoran was choosing between cultists, mutilators or terminators.
Since he runs a nurgle lord he could have chose rhino'd up plague marines, but I guess those fit his Night Lords theme worse than teleporting supermurderterminator mutilators.
Well, the opposing argument is that all of your Troops, FA, and HS are taken, and all you have left are elite slots.
I think this is a bit absurd (6 full troops alone can easily cost 1200 points, never mind the FA choices) but it's the framework they are arguing from.
That wasn't the example. The example was all but hq/troop/elite were full, which is not such a strange situation.
Jancoran was choosing between cultists, mutilators or terminators.
Since he runs a nurgle lord he could have chose rhino'd up plague marines, but I guess those fit his Night Lords theme worse than teleporting supermurderterminator mutilators.
The Night Haunters spirit is alive and well in the Mutilators. So it fits.
But theme wasn't the reason for the Mutilators. It just happens to fit.
Not an option as was explained to you in detail, and which you didnt read.
You misunderstand. It is an unreasonable premise. If you have placed yourself in a position where the best thing to take with your remaining points is a Mutilator, you have already made a mistake somewhere in the list building process.
Restructure your list instead of forcing yourself into taking poor units.
The Night Haunters spirit is alive and well in the Mutilators. So it fits.
What?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Anyway, Jancoran, I am just talking. If your alleged tournament performances are more than just talk as well, surely you'd not hesitate to show it in a Vassal match?
Not an option as was explained to you in detail, and which you didnt read.
You misunderstand. It is an unreasonable premise. If you have placed yourself in a position where the best thing to take with your remaining points is a Mutilator, you have already made a mistake somewhere in the list building process.
Restructure your list instead of forcing yourself into taking poor units.
The Night Haunters spirit is alive and well in the Mutilators. So it fits.
What?
Jancoran already talked himself into a corner when he unintentionally admitted that the only way Mutilators can be superior to anything is when you intentionally overspend on them, like when he posted the example with the nurgle terminators all armed with chainfists instead of sensibly only arming some of them with chainfists. He's just too deep in to actually admit his logic was flawed. Same with Yoyoyo, to them the only "fair" comparison is if another unit has the exact same loadout and capabilities of a Mutilator while placed into a very specific situation. They don't understand that the very premise of that is why Mutilators are bad; other units may not have the same methods to reach the same result, but can reach the same result much more easily using other methods (Bikes can accomplish other tasks during the game, and still turboboost to the back end to get linebreaker, while a Mutilator squad has to be held back in reserve for most of the game to avoid being killed). Similarly, other units might not do as well in such a situation, but they can avoid said situation altogether while Mutilators not only do not have that option (say, chasing down a vehicle), but actually forces you into that sub-optimal position.
Also if anyone's wondering. Yes, I have tried Mutilators before. They're like a rube-goldberg machine in that I have to find convoluted ways to set them up to even get good mileage out of them (namely, using other units to threaten them into position and using DS to get within punching distance). With a unit of Oblits, I just shoot the crap out of the enemy in one turn and be done with it.
If you were limited to one CAD then maybe this would make sense in a larger game, but your not. Rather than take mutilators I would rather take another CAD, Formation, or demon allies and get something useful.
Have played a game today. Not very competitive but there was noone else to play against as none of the opposition of mutilators was there to proove the point on the battlefield
Spoiler:
+++ (1496pts) +++
++ Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (The Purge) ++
Sorcerer [2x Additional Mastery Level, Bike, Gift of mutation, Power Armour, Sigil of corruption, Spell familiar]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
++ Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (Combined Arms Detachment) ++
Chaos Lord [Bike, Dimensional Key, Gift of mutation, Lightning Claw, Power Armour, Power Fist, Sigil of corruption]
Chaos Cultists [Cultist Champion, 9x Cultists with Autopistols]
Chaos Space Marines [3x Chaos Marine with Boltgun, 1x Chaos Marine with Meltagun], Aspiring Champion [Combi-melta]
+ Chaos Rhino [Dirge caster, Dozer Blade]
Chaos Spawn [Mark of Nurgle, 5x Spawn]
Chaos Spawn [Mark of Nurgle, 5x Spawn]
Havocs [4x Autocannon, 4x Havoc], Aspiring Champion [Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon]
Imperial Bunker [Comms Relay, Void Shield]
VS IG company command [carapce armour, plasmagun x2, power weapon, standard]
+ Chimera
vets [melta x3]
+ Chimera [dozer]
vets [melta x3]
+ Chimera [dozer]
scions [10guys, 2 melta]
scions [10guys, 2 melta]
armoured sen [sentinels x2, lascannon x2]
armoured sen [sentinels x2, multilasers x2]
leman russ battle tank [bolter sponsons]
leman russ battle tank [bolter sponsons]
devil dog [multi melta, cammo netting]
total 1498
Lord got Shred from mutation and nightfight warlord trait, sorc got nothing from mutaton and shrowding, hallucination and summoning,
1 Chaos. I got 1-st turn. Shrowding went off, didn't manage to summon + perilled and went superman on a 6. Moved forward, havoks glanced a chimera once. Score a bunch of VP for controliing objectives.
1 IG. Void shield went down from a devil dog's multimelta but shrowding, nightfight and cover saves led to only one spawn getting killed and one wound on another spawn. He scores no VP.
2 Chaos. I get to deepstrike 5 mutilators with re-roll from comms relay and do so very aggressively but all 5 scatter and 3 mishap. All 3 get delayed which is pretty nice. Shrowded goes off once again. Havoks score another glance on the chimera. Rhino goes flat-out towards a squad into a ruin to deny them overwatch and sorc with spawns try to make a 9" charge but fail. Lord and spawns multicharge sentinels and devil dog. Spawns shake and glance a devil dog and lord wrecks one sentinel with his power fist activating a dimensional key. Score a few more VP for controling objectives.
2 IG. He deepstrikes scions near my cultists but mishaps and gets misplaced - i put him into the corner on his side of the board. He stuns and glances a rhino - shrowding helps to survive. Than tries to kill a mutilator but it takes combined shooting from comsquad, chimera vets and lazcannon sentinels to kill one mutilator. The last sentinel gets wrecked by lord. He gets a point for first blood and killing a unit in shooting.
3 Chaos. I deepstrike all 4 mutilators within the dimensional key reach, cornering him completely. Move forwards with spawns for a multicharge on everything i can reach. CSM disembark and glance a leman russ with a melta. Havoks finish off a devil dog. Than i proceed multicharging stuff. Mutilator explodes a leman russ, spawns wreck vehicles here and there, sorc + spawns finally makes it to a squad in ruins and reaches another leman russ to boot, killing and wrecking everything.
3 IG. By this time he's got nowhere to run and is hopelessly behind on VP but he continues a game. Vets and comsquad kill 3 spawns, the rest of the list puts a wound on 2 mutilators. But than it's basically over.
They can take 6 elite slots, 4 heavy support, a bunch of infantry.
I did not know that. However my first thought to that was "Buy all the Blightkings and make a Nurgle Terminator Army".
Which book is this detachment in? I might have to get it.
EDIT:
Martel732 wrote: Ironic that BA have a crowded elite section and CSM are fielding mutilators just to use the elite slot. Mirror images of bad.
Can you imagine if we still had the 3.5 dex's rules and Iron Warriors can take Elite-slot Obliterators with no restrictions? Especially if the Oblits got their old stats back. We'd have enough cheese to cover every Mcdonalds sandwich for the next 40 years.
koooaei wrote: [He] tries to kill a mutilator but it takes combined shooting from comsquad, chimera vets and lazcannon sentinels to kill one mutilator.
Ouch. That's upwards of 300pts to kill a 60pt model.
Pretty cool report koooai. Dimensional key for zero scatter DS was a nice touch.
koooaei wrote: Have played a game today. Not very competitive but there was noone else to play against as none of the opposition of mutilators was there to proove the point on the battlefield
Spoiler:
+++ (1496pts) +++
++ Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (The Purge) ++
Sorcerer [2x Additional Mastery Level, Bike, Gift of mutation, Power Armour, Sigil of corruption, Spell familiar]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
++ Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (Combined Arms Detachment) ++
Chaos Lord [Bike, Dimensional Key, Gift of mutation, Lightning Claw, Power Armour, Power Fist, Sigil of corruption]
Chaos Cultists [Cultist Champion, 9x Cultists with Autopistols]
Chaos Space Marines [3x Chaos Marine with Boltgun, 1x Chaos Marine with Meltagun], Aspiring Champion [Combi-melta]
+ Chaos Rhino [Dirge caster, Dozer Blade]
Chaos Spawn [Mark of Nurgle, 5x Spawn]
Chaos Spawn [Mark of Nurgle, 5x Spawn]
Havocs [4x Autocannon, 4x Havoc], Aspiring Champion [Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon]
Imperial Bunker [Comms Relay, Void Shield]
VS IG company command [carapce armour, plasmagun x2, power weapon, standard]
+ Chimera
vets [melta x3]
+ Chimera [dozer]
vets [melta x3]
+ Chimera [dozer]
scions [10guys, 2 melta]
scions [10guys, 2 melta]
armoured sen [sentinels x2, lascannon x2]
armoured sen [sentinels x2, multilasers x2]
leman russ battle tank [bolter sponsons]
leman russ battle tank [bolter sponsons]
devil dog [multi melta, cammo netting]
total 1498
Lord got Shred from mutation and nightfight warlord trait, sorc got nothing from mutaton and shrowding, hallucination and summoning,
1 Chaos. I got 1-st turn. Shrowding went off, didn't manage to summon + perilled and went superman on a 6. Moved forward, havoks glanced a chimera once. Score a bunch of VP for controliing objectives.
1 IG. Void shield went down from a devil dog's multimelta but shrowding, nightfight and cover saves led to only one spawn getting killed and one wound on another spawn. He scores no VP.
2 Chaos. I get to deepstrike 5 mutilators with re-roll from comms relay and do so very aggressively but all 5 scatter and 3 mishap. All 3 get delayed which is pretty nice. Shrowded goes off once again. Havoks score another glance on the chimera. Rhino goes flat-out towards a squad into a ruin to deny them overwatch and sorc with spawns try to make a 9" charge but fail. Lord and spawns multicharge sentinels and devil dog. Spawns shake and glance a devil dog and lord wrecks one sentinel with his power fist activating a dimensional key. Score a few more VP for controling objectives.
2 IG. He deepstrikes scions near my cultists but mishaps and gets misplaced - i put him into the corner on his side of the board. He stuns and glances a rhino - shrowding helps to survive. Than tries to kill a mutilator but it takes combined shooting from comsquad, chimera vets and lazcannon sentinels to kill one mutilator. The last sentinel gets wrecked by lord. He gets a point for first blood and killing a unit in shooting.
3 Chaos. I deepstrike all 4 mutilators within the dimensional key reach, cornering him completely. Move forwards with spawns for a multicharge on everything i can reach. CSM disembark and glance a leman russ with a melta. Havoks finish off a devil dog. Than i proceed multicharging stuff. Mutilator explodes a leman russ, spawns wreck vehicles here and there, sorc + spawns finally makes it to a squad in ruins and reaches another leman russ to boot, killing and wrecking everything.
3 IG. By this time he's got nowhere to run and is hopelessly behind on VP but he continues a game. Vets and comsquad kill 3 spawns, the rest of the list puts a wound on 2 mutilators. But than it's basically over.
Here's a pic from the start of 4-th turn
It seems most of the heavy lifting came from your Sorceror and Spawns, cuz I see them getting repeatedly mentioned. That is actually honestly surprising since I was expecting the spawns to drop like flies and be little more than tarpits, but they killed a lot. The mutilators though performed more or less as I expected; they ate up roughly 400 points (including the Dimensional key needed to help them not-mishap) and did little other than explode a Russ less than half their points and fork over a few VPs.
If you got the chance, maybe try it out by replacing the muties with some cultists and more spawns?
koooaei wrote: Have played a game today. Not very competitive but there was noone else to play against as none of the opposition of mutilators was there to proove the point on the battlefield
[spoiler]
+++ (1496pts) +++
++ Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (The Purge) ++
Sorcerer [2x Additional Mastery Level, Bike, Gift of mutation, Power Armour, Sigil of corruption, Spell familiar]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
++ Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (Combined Arms Detachment) ++
Chaos Lord [Bike, Dimensional Key, Gift of mutation, Lightning Claw, Power Armour, Power Fist, Sigil of corruption]
Chaos Cultists [Cultist Champion, 9x Cultists with Autopistols]
Chaos Space Marines [3x Chaos Marine with Boltgun, 1x Chaos Marine with Meltagun], Aspiring Champion [Combi-melta]
+ Chaos Rhino [Dirge caster, Dozer Blade]
Chaos Spawn [Mark of Nurgle, 5x Spawn]
Chaos Spawn [Mark of Nurgle, 5x Spawn]
Havocs [4x Autocannon, 4x Havoc], Aspiring Champion [Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon]
Imperial Bunker [Comms Relay, Void Shield]
VS IG company command [carapce armour, plasmagun x2, power weapon, standard]
+ Chimera
vets [melta x3]
+ Chimera [dozer]
vets [melta x3]
+ Chimera [dozer]
scions [10guys, 2 melta]
scions [10guys, 2 melta]
armoured sen [sentinels x2, lascannon x2]
armoured sen [sentinels x2, multilasers x2]
leman russ battle tank [bolter sponsons]
leman russ battle tank [bolter sponsons]
devil dog [multi melta, cammo netting]
total 1498
Lord got Shred from mutation and nightfight warlord trait, sorc got nothing from mutaton and shrowding, hallucination and summoning,
1 Chaos. I got 1-st turn. Shrowding went off, didn't manage to summon + perilled and went superman on a 6. Moved forward, havoks glanced a chimera once. Score a bunch of VP for controliing objectives.
1 IG. Void shield went down from a devil dog's multimelta but shrowding, nightfight and cover saves led to only one spawn getting killed and one wound on another spawn. He scores no VP.
2 Chaos. I get to deepstrike 5 mutilators with re-roll from comms relay and do so very aggressively but all 5 scatter and 3 mishap. All 3 get delayed which is pretty nice. Shrowded goes off once again. Havoks score another glance on the chimera. Rhino goes flat-out towards a squad into a ruin to deny them overwatch and sorc with spawns try to make a 9" charge but fail. Lord and spawns multicharge sentinels and devil dog. Spawns shake and glance a devil dog and lord wrecks one sentinel with his power fist activating a dimensional key. Score a few more VP for controling objectives.
2 IG. He deepstrikes scions near my cultists but mishaps and gets misplaced - i put him into the corner on his side of the board. He stuns and glances a rhino - shrowding helps to survive. Than tries to kill a mutilator but it takes combined shooting from comsquad, chimera vets and lazcannon sentinels to kill one mutilator. The last sentinel gets wrecked by lord. He gets a point for first blood and killing a unit in shooting.
3 Chaos. I deepstrike all 4 mutilators within the dimensional key reach, cornering him completely. Move forwards with spawns for a multicharge on everything i can reach. CSM disembark and glance a leman russ with a melta. Havoks finish off a devil dog. Than i proceed multicharging stuff. Mutilator explodes a leman russ, spawns wreck vehicles here and there, sorc + spawns finally makes it to a squad in ruins and reaches another leman russ to boot, killing and wrecking everything.
3 IG. By this time he's got nowhere to run and is hopelessly behind on VP but he continues a game. Vets and comsquad kill 3 spawns, the rest of the list puts a wound on 2 mutilators. But than it's basically over.
Here's a pic from the start of 4-th turn
[/spoiler]
It seems most of the heavy lifting came from your Sorceror and Spawns, cuz I see them getting repeatedly mentioned. That is actually honestly surprising since I was expecting the spawns to drop like flies and be little more than tarpits, but they killed a lot. The mutilators though performed more or less as I expected; they ate up roughly 400 points (including the Dimensional key needed to help them not-mishap) and did little other than explode a Russ less than half their points and fork over a few VPs.
If you got the chance, maybe try it out by replacing the muties with some cultists and more spawns?
It was also about as horribly a Guard list as one could possibly make... (seriously, no Wyverns? aren't those a mandatory 2+ in every single IG list circa 2013/14?!)
Muties are fine and dandy against the lowliest levels of opposing lists.
They're not worth the toilet paper they're printed on against anything from Necrons and on however.
One thing I think that would be helpful for them, (and by extension ALL the 'Daemon' CSM units), would be to replace their marks with the actual "Daemon of 'X'" rules.
Remove the utterly crippling tiny unit size cap, (make them 1-6 for feth's sake!), and obviously Slow & Purposeful (which has 0 place on an ASSAULT unit in the first place!), and they'd be a fun, decent unit to take.
Experiment 626 wrote: It was also about as horribly a Guard list as one could possibly make... (seriously, no Wyverns? aren't those a mandatory 2+ in every single IG list circa 2013/14?!)
Muties are fine and dandy against the lowliest levels of opposing lists.
They're not worth the toilet paper they're printed on against anything from Necrons and on however.
One thing I think that would be helpful for them, (and by extension ALL the 'Daemon' CSM units), would be to replace their marks with the actual "Daemon of 'X'" rules.
Remove the utterly crippling tiny unit size cap, (make them 1-6 for feth's sake!), and obviously Slow & Purposeful (which has 0 place on an ASSAULT unit in the first place!), and they'd be a fun, decent unit to take.
I would give the enemy list the benefit of the doubt as like dice rolls, you never know if your opponent will bring a soul-crushing cheese list or something noob.
However my main concern is that the Muties didn't seem to even earn back their points (and actually forked over two VPs) even against this kind of a list (speaking of which, I thought it was the Spawns and Lord that destroyed those sentinels). My Vindicators win back their points every time the cannon fires.
It was also about as horribly a Guard list as one could possibly make... (seriously, no Wyverns? aren't those a mandatory 2+ in every single IG list circa 2013/14?!)
I don't mind playing against other lists. Want a match?
koooaei wrote: Have played a game today. Not very competitive but there was noone else to play against as none of the opposition of mutilators was there to proove the point on the battlefield
Spoiler:
+++ (1496pts) +++
++ Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (The Purge) ++
Sorcerer [2x Additional Mastery Level, Bike, Gift of mutation, Power Armour, Sigil of corruption, Spell familiar] Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle] Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle] Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle] Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle] Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle] Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
++ Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (Combined Arms Detachment) ++ Chaos Lord [Bike, Dimensional Key, Gift of mutation, Lightning Claw, Power Armour, Power Fist, Sigil of corruption] Chaos Cultists [Cultist Champion, 9x Cultists with Autopistols] Chaos Space Marines [3x Chaos Marine with Boltgun, 1x Chaos Marine with Meltagun], Aspiring Champion [Combi-melta] + Chaos Rhino [Dirge caster, Dozer Blade] Chaos Spawn [Mark of Nurgle, 5x Spawn] Chaos Spawn [Mark of Nurgle, 5x Spawn] Havocs [4x Autocannon, 4x Havoc], Aspiring Champion [Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon] Imperial Bunker [Comms Relay, Void Shield]
VS IG company command [carapce armour, plasmagun x2, power weapon, standard] + Chimera vets [melta x3] + Chimera [dozer] vets [melta x3] + Chimera [dozer] scions [10guys, 2 melta] scions [10guys, 2 melta] armoured sen [sentinels x2, lascannon x2] armoured sen [sentinels x2, multilasers x2] leman russ battle tank [bolter sponsons] leman russ battle tank [bolter sponsons] devil dog [multi melta, cammo netting]
total 1498
Spoiler:
Lord got Shred from mutation and nightfight warlord trait, sorc got nothing from mutaton and shrowding, hallucination and summoning,
1 Chaos. I got 1-st turn. Shrowding went off, didn't manage to summon + perilled and went superman on a 6. Moved forward, havoks glanced a chimera once. Score a bunch of VP for controliing objectives. 1 IG. Void shield went down from a devil dog's multimelta but shrowding, nightfight and cover saves led to only one spawn getting killed and one wound on another spawn. He scores no VP. 2 Chaos. I get to deepstrike 5 mutilators with re-roll from comms relay and do so very aggressively but all 5 scatter and 3 mishap. All 3 get delayed which is pretty nice. Shrowded goes off once again. Havoks score another glance on the chimera. Rhino goes flat-out towards a squad into a ruin to deny them overwatch and sorc with spawns try to make a 9" charge but fail. Lord and spawns multicharge sentinels and devil dog. Spawns shake and glance a devil dog and lord wrecks one sentinel with his power fist activating a dimensional key. Score a few more VP for controling objectives. 2 IG. He deepstrikes scions near my cultists but mishaps and gets misplaced - i put him into the corner on his side of the board. He stuns and glances a rhino - shrowding helps to survive. Than tries to kill a mutilator but it takes combined shooting from comsquad, chimera vets and lazcannon sentinels to kill one mutilator. The last sentinel gets wrecked by lord. He gets a point for first blood and killing a unit in shooting. 3 Chaos. I deepstrike all 4 mutilators within the dimensional key reach, cornering him completely. Move forwards with spawns for a multicharge on everything i can reach. CSM disembark and glance a leman russ with a melta. Havoks finish off a devil dog. Than i proceed multicharging stuff. Mutilator explodes a leman russ, spawns wreck vehicles here and there, sorc + spawns finally makes it to a squad in ruins and reaches another leman russ to boot, killing and wrecking everything. 3 IG. By this time he's got nowhere to run and is hopelessly behind on VP but he continues a game. Vets and comsquad kill 3 spawns, the rest of the list puts a wound on 2 mutilators. But than it's basically over.
Here's a pic from the start of 4-th turn
It seems that the Mutilators charged on the same turn they arrived from reserves, isn't that against the rules or is there something there I'm missing?
{EDIT} Found it, guessing the mutilator that charged was one which arrived on turn 2
It was also about as horribly a Guard list as one could possibly make... (seriously, no Wyverns? aren't those a mandatory 2+ in every single IG list circa 2013/14?!)
I don't mind playing against other lists. Want a match?
I not in the 'Mutilators are useless trash' camp myself... I honestly think they can be used decently in strictly non-competitive style games, where they do indeed function well enough as solo/dual Deep Strikers.
But that's really it. Outside of being essentially pawns and playing against other really watered down lists, they just have too much working against them to be functional - especially against the 7.5 Decurion/Gladius styled lists!
They're too slow on their own to be used effectively as the beatstick line breaker they're meant to be. Bikers, Spawn, Raptors, allied Daemons/Gorepack, etc... all do that job better and aren't reliant on a 230+pts delivery system.
They're too random as compared to other specialised assault units, as you're forced to change-up their weapon option each phase.
They have little to no synergies within their own codex. Take them as allies to a Chaos Daemons army though, and suddenly they get perks! (ie: Icons for D6" scatter, Instruments for chaining Reserves, amazing Psychic supports, Grimoire, etc...)
I would give the enemy list the benefit of the doubt as like dice rolls, you never know if your opponent will bring a soul-crushing cheese list or something noob.
However my main concern is that the Muties didn't seem to even earn back their points (and actually forked over two VPs) even against this kind of a list (speaking of which, I thought it was the Spawns and Lord that destroyed those sentinels). My Vindicators win back their points every time the cannon fires.
This is why it's so important nowadays to take a few minutes and be upfront with opponents about what you're looking for out of a game.
Vs. another strictly non-serious list, the Mutilator can function reasonably well, as they did soak up more firepower than they were worth against that very low key IG list. (a pair of Wyverns + Pask-Punisher would have munched those Spawns!)
Against a Marine list running lots of grav, or an MSU'd Eldar list or other 'competitive' list? They're more than likely dead weight & wasted points. (at least Plasmacide Termies for example can nuke something juicy when they DS into play, while Obsec Possessed can take/hold Objectives, etc...)
Experiment 626 wrote: This is why it's so important nowadays to take a few minutes and be upfront with opponents about what you're looking for out of a game.
Vs. another strictly non-serious list, the Mutilator can function reasonably well, as they did soak up more firepower than they were worth against that very low key IG list. (a pair of Wyverns + Pask-Punisher would have munched those Spawns!)
Against a Marine list running lots of grav, or an MSU'd Eldar list or other 'competitive' list? They're more than likely dead weight & wasted points. (at least Plasmacide Termies for example can nuke something juicy when they DS into play, while Obsec Possessed can take/hold Objectives, etc...)
If you've read the past 10 or so pages, the pro camp basically ignored every scenario that doesn't favor mutilators over other types of troops and, in one case, deliberately made Terminators overspend on equipment just to prove the Mutilator's superiority.
Yoyoyo wrote:Mutilators aren't superior to Terminators.
Units are just tools to produce effects, and the idea is you use different tools in different situations.
Basically, don't blame a crowbar for not being a hammer.
The quote below implies differently:
Yoyoyo wrote:I think we can do better. If you really want to see which unit outperforms the other, let's try and set up the most accurate comparison we can.
At 183pts you get 3x Nurgle Mutilators with the Mutilators Weapons rule, for 177pts you get 3x Nurgle Terminators each with a LC and Chainfist.
Mutilators have twice the # of wounds and Fear, while Terminators have Chaos Boons and aren't saddled by SnP. Melee output should be identical given no casualties. Damage falloff is more severe for the Terminators. There are some tradeoffs in the 'Mutilator Weapons" rules compared to the Terminators, which have permanent access to a LC and Chainfist. Pretty fair though. Neither can sweep, the Terminators cost 6pts less, and they have +1LD.
So which is the better pure multirole CC unit? I'll let you two decide, but I think this is a better comparison for discussion. If you want Mutilators, you aren't choosing them for Combi-Meltas and a min Chainfist.
That was an example of what I mean by "ignored every scenario that doesn't favor mutilators over other types of troops". Whenever we put the Muties in a scenario that would realistically happen or compare a unit that can approach the same problem from a much more effective or point-efficient angle (such as Terminators that can shoot people with Meltas), it gets either brushed off as "not being the same role" or just completely ignored. Yes, the terminators would suck if they had to be restricted to pretend they're mutilators, but that doesn't innately mean Mutilators would be good for that situation either. "Pure Multi-role CC unit"? A Chaos Lord can do better for the same points. A Forge Fiend doesn't even need to get into CC range to be multi-role, namely because those two can actually catch the stuff they need to and can catch stuff that other things can't catch.
Finally, that whole "don't blame a crowbar for not being a hammer" analogy is very off. As it stands, a Mutilator is a tool without a purpose. Other things in the codex can either perform the same job better (which, surprisingly, is the Spawn of all things), perform it's job and something else (terminators with min. melee weapons and a combi weapon) or achieve the same ends through different means (anything with a decent gun). We're not blaming the Mutilator for not being a role it's not suppose to do, we're blaming it because the job it can do is both so obscure and inconsequential that it's taking resources away from other units to do their jobs (it's effectively only good against units that can't cause a lot of S8 wounds in a single turn, has no good guns, and walks slowly...which is basically other Mutilators). So no, we're not blaming mutilators for not being a hammer when it's a crowbar. We're saying we don't need crowbars and we're keep getting examples where the situation for a hammer is continually adjusted so a Crowbar can do it.
Plus there's the need to try and shoehorn as much into the unit as you can. On another forum I was debating how Plague Marines made the Vanilla Marines useless, and one person said that to get 10 Plague Marines with two Plasma Guns is much more expensive than 10 Marines with two Plasma Guns and MoN. There were several things off with that:
1. Plague Marines are Fearless, so you don't need to max out the Rhino they travel in.
2. The Plague Marines get their guns at minimum size anyway.
3. They end being cheaper that way, surprisingly.
So we end up with 5 Plague Marines with two Plasma Guns are the main direct comparison between the two. They also end up being tougher (T5 + FNP + Fearless for not running away + Being easier to hide in cover). The only thing you get more of is Bolters, and why get them that way? You're not low on Bolters in the first place
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Plus there's the need to try and shoehorn as much into the unit as you can. On another forum I was debating how Plague Marines made the Vanilla Marines useless, and one person said that to get 10 Plague Marines with two Plasma Guns is much more expensive than 10 Marines with two Plasma Guns and MoN. There were several things off with that:
1. Plague Marines are Fearless, so you don't need to max out the Rhino they travel in.
2. The Plague Marines get their guns at minimum size anyway.
3. They end being cheaper that way, surprisingly.
So we end up with 5 Plague Marines with two Plasma Guns are the main direct comparison between the two. They also end up being tougher (T5 + FNP + Fearless for not running away + Being easier to hide in cover). The only thing you get more of is Bolters, and why get them that way? You're not low on Bolters in the first place
Indeed, Plague Marines are still one of the better units in the codex. And even with those excessive spending, 10 Plague Marines with 2 Plasma Guns with a rhino can still reasonably threaten anything near their point range, as well as claim objectives and be damn hard to shift. 10 regular plasma marines, especially without VotLW? Not so much.
Identical effects mean you are restricted to sizing up the platform and its relative price, you aren't comparing a Plague unit with a plasma gun to a CSM unit with a power sword.
Once units have different effects they will outperform each other in different situations, and as a wargame the player's job is to manufacture situations conducive to winning.
We want AT, and striking hard in melee. Therefore, you don't NEED 5 Chainfists in the same squad because you want it. You buy 1-2 and use Combi-Melta in unison.
Yoyoyo wrote: It's for purposes of comparison Slayer.
Identical effects mean you are restricted to sizing up the platform and its relative price, you aren't comparing a Plague unit with a plasma gun to a CSM unit with a power sword.
Once units have different effects they will outperform each other in different situations, and as a wargame the player's job is to manufacture situations conducive to winning.
Yes, to manufacture a situation conducive to winning is a Wargamer's job. Unfortunately, any situation where you place yourself into where Mutilators are superior, point for point, to something else is intentionally going against this. I will reiterate, yet again for the third page, the situation in which Mutilators would be superior to Chaos Terminators means you're ignoring the options Chaos Terminators have and you're ignoring their abilities. This is anything but fair, because the point cost for a unit isn't just for what it has, but also what it has access to. Chaos Terminators PAY points for the ability to run in the shooting phase if they can't shoot anything. They PAY points for the ability to buy a Land Raider and not use a HS slot. They pay for having the option of choosing their weapons, and they pay for being able to shoot in the first place. They also pay for the ability to choose what to do in those situations. And even in that example, those options don't just disappear. Forcing them to chase after a specific target as the Mutilators, then claiming they don't do it well enough, is just backwards. Where's the Fairness for the Chaos Terminators?
In that example, let's reverse it:
The Chaos Terminators take a Reaper Autocannon, bump themselves up to a 5 man squad doing so. They take Combi-meltas on the rest, and take 2 Chainfists in the unit while everyone else uses Power Swords. They take Mark of Tzeentch instead of Mark of Nurgle because they're not afraid of ID. Comes to 232 points.
The closest you can get with Mutilators is 252, which is 4 of them with Mark of Tzeentch(probably split into 2 units instead of 4, "to be fair" to the Terminators).
Neither unit gets access to a Transport, but they can teleport in. They have to hunt down several Chimeras and then deal with a few Leman Russes coming at them.
The Terminators can DS in and immediately engage the Chimeras with the Reaper Autocannon and can advance on the Russes. Their Combi-Bolters also lets them threaten the Chimeras still at range as long as they're not shooting at the front armor. The Reaper Autocannon can also threaten the rear armor of the russ, so it either has to turn around now to face the Terminators (and thus revealing it to forces on the other side) or leave it be and be susceptible to rear-armor shooting. The Mutilators can do nothing this turn, as they have no guns and cannot run. The mutilators are also vulnerable to the Leman Russ's Battle Cannon as, while they will have their armor save against it, they will instantly die because they are T4. The russ will also not care about turning around for the Mutilators, as they will hit it on the rear armor regardless of which way the russ is looking, so it will continue to hold it's AV14 towards your other troops. In addition, since not all of the units are holding the crucial Chainfist and Autocannons, they can tank wounds for those that do, letting them survive longer without lowering overall combat effectiveness. Mutilators start losing combat effectiveness the moment the unit takes more than 1 wound (or takes an ID wound).
The above scenario doesn't sound very fair to the Mutilators does it? That's because they're being forced to neglect options available to them. They're not even being restricted in abilities like the Terminators were. To make the fight more "fair" in this case, the Mutilators should be allowed to take MoN instead of MoT and split up into 4 units of 1. That is fair because while the two units can't do exactly the same thing, they can mitigate their lack in one area to strengthen another area. Your example with the Terminators was unfair for this specific reason; you were forcing them to neglect their own options and abilities for the sake of playing along with the Mutilators.
(and, to be honest, even with all of that going for the Mutilators, they still won't be very effective in that since the only thing they would mitigate is the ID. Everything else will more or less stay the same).
EDIT: Forgot to add Mark of Tzeentch to the Mutilators
HoundsofDemos wrote: If you were limited to one CAD then maybe this would make sense in a larger game, but your not. Rather than take mutilators I would rather take another CAD, Formation, or demon allies and get something useful.
You're asking why I don't ally myself? Why? I've told you that I have.
In fact what I use is (and i alluded to it earlier) a Chaos Space Marine army with a Black Legion Allied Detachment. What you're suggesting costs me more Chaos Marines which i don't need just to fford NOT choosing a very good option for my strategy. why would I do that? Between the cost of them and their rhino, it simply doesn't help my plan to spend those extra points all in some effort to avoid an obvious choice, the Mutilator.
Strategy is the issue here.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
koooaei wrote: Have played a game today. Not very competitive but there was noone else to play against as none of the opposition of mutilators was there to proove the point on the battlefield
Spoiler:
+++ (1496pts) +++
++ Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (The Purge) ++
Sorcerer [2x Additional Mastery Level, Bike, Gift of mutation, Power Armour, Sigil of corruption, Spell familiar]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
++ Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (Combined Arms Detachment) ++
Chaos Lord [Bike, Dimensional Key, Gift of mutation, Lightning Claw, Power Armour, Power Fist, Sigil of corruption]
Chaos Cultists [Cultist Champion, 9x Cultists with Autopistols]
Chaos Space Marines [3x Chaos Marine with Boltgun, 1x Chaos Marine with Meltagun], Aspiring Champion [Combi-melta]
+ Chaos Rhino [Dirge caster, Dozer Blade]
Chaos Spawn [Mark of Nurgle, 5x Spawn]
Chaos Spawn [Mark of Nurgle, 5x Spawn]
Havocs [4x Autocannon, 4x Havoc], Aspiring Champion [Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon]
Imperial Bunker [Comms Relay, Void Shield]
VS IG company command [carapce armour, plasmagun x2, power weapon, standard]
+ Chimera
vets [melta x3]
+ Chimera [dozer]
vets [melta x3]
+ Chimera [dozer]
scions [10guys, 2 melta]
scions [10guys, 2 melta]
armoured sen [sentinels x2, lascannon x2]
armoured sen [sentinels x2, multilasers x2]
leman russ battle tank [bolter sponsons]
leman russ battle tank [bolter sponsons]
devil dog [multi melta, cammo netting]
total 1498
Lord got Shred from mutation and nightfight warlord trait, sorc got nothing from mutaton and shrowding, hallucination and summoning,
1 Chaos. I got 1-st turn. Shrowding went off, didn't manage to summon + perilled and went superman on a 6. Moved forward, havoks glanced a chimera once. Score a bunch of VP for controliing objectives.
1 IG. Void shield went down from a devil dog's multimelta but shrowding, nightfight and cover saves led to only one spawn getting killed and one wound on another spawn. He scores no VP.
2 Chaos. I get to deepstrike 5 mutilators with re-roll from comms relay and do so very aggressively but all 5 scatter and 3 mishap. All 3 get delayed which is pretty nice. Shrowded goes off once again. Havoks score another glance on the chimera. Rhino goes flat-out towards a squad into a ruin to deny them overwatch and sorc with spawns try to make a 9" charge but fail. Lord and spawns multicharge sentinels and devil dog. Spawns shake and glance a devil dog and lord wrecks one sentinel with his power fist activating a dimensional key. Score a few more VP for controling objectives.
2 IG. He deepstrikes scions near my cultists but mishaps and gets misplaced - i put him into the corner on his side of the board. He stuns and glances a rhino - shrowding helps to survive. Than tries to kill a mutilator but it takes combined shooting from comsquad, chimera vets and lazcannon sentinels to kill one mutilator. The last sentinel gets wrecked by lord. He gets a point for first blood and killing a unit in shooting.
3 Chaos. I deepstrike all 4 mutilators within the dimensional key reach, cornering him completely. Move forwards with spawns for a multicharge on everything i can reach. CSM disembark and glance a leman russ with a melta. Havoks finish off a devil dog. Than i proceed multicharging stuff. Mutilator explodes a leman russ, spawns wreck vehicles here and there, sorc + spawns finally makes it to a squad in ruins and reaches another leman russ to boot, killing and wrecking everything.
3 IG. By this time he's got nowhere to run and is hopelessly behind on VP but he continues a game. Vets and comsquad kill 3 spawns, the rest of the list puts a wound on 2 mutilators. But than it's basically over.
Here's a pic from the start of 4-th turn
Yup. Box of doom. The Mutilators work well for it.
Yoyoyo wrote:Mutilators aren't superior to Terminators.
Units are just tools to produce effects, and the idea is you use different tools in different situations.
Basically, don't blame a crowbar for not being a hammer.
The quote below implies differently:
Yoyoyo wrote:I think we can do better. If you really want to see which unit outperforms the other, let's try and set up the most accurate comparison we can.
At 183pts you get 3x Nurgle Mutilators with the Mutilators Weapons rule, for 177pts you get 3x Nurgle Terminators each with a LC and Chainfist.
Mutilators have twice the # of wounds and Fear, while Terminators have Chaos Boons and aren't saddled by SnP. Melee output should be identical given no casualties. Damage falloff is more severe for the Terminators. There are some tradeoffs in the 'Mutilator Weapons" rules compared to the Terminators, which have permanent access to a LC and Chainfist. Pretty fair though. Neither can sweep, the Terminators cost 6pts less, and they have +1LD.
So which is the better pure multirole CC unit? I'll let you two decide, but I think this is a better comparison for discussion. If you want Mutilators, you aren't choosing them for Combi-Meltas and a min Chainfist.
That was an example of what I mean by "ignored every scenario that doesn't favor mutilators over other types of troops". Whenever we put the Muties in a scenario that would realistically happen or compare a unit that can approach the same problem from a much more effective or point-efficient angle (such as Terminators that can shoot people with Meltas), it gets either brushed off as "not being the same role" or just completely ignored. Yes, the terminators would suck if they had to be restricted to pretend they're mutilators, but that doesn't innately mean Mutilators would be good for that situation either. "Pure Multi-role CC unit"? A Chaos Lord can do better for the same points. A Forge Fiend doesn't even need to get into CC range to be multi-role, namely because those two can actually catch the stuff they need to and can catch stuff that other things can't catch.
Finally, that whole "don't blame a crowbar for not being a hammer" analogy is very off. As it stands, a Mutilator is a tool without a purpose. Other things in the codex can either perform the same job better (which, surprisingly, is the Spawn of all things), perform it's job and something else (terminators with min. melee weapons and a combi weapon) or achieve the same ends through different means (anything with a decent gun). We're not blaming the Mutilator for not being a role it's not suppose to do, we're blaming it because the job it can do is both so obscure and inconsequential that it's taking resources away from other units to do their jobs (it's effectively only good against units that can't cause a lot of S8 wounds in a single turn, has no good guns, and walks slowly...which is basically other Mutilators). So no, we're not blaming mutilators for not being a hammer when it's a crowbar. We're saying we don't need crowbars and we're keep getting examples where the situation for a hammer is continually adjusted so a Crowbar can do it.
Did this all make sense to you when you read it out loud to yourself? Do you not understand that he is trying to tell you that the effect I am paying points for is the best tool for that effect and you are changing the discussion when you DEMAND that the effect I need be different? It's absurd to tell me that! Do you understand that this is what he is telling you?
Yes, to manufacture a situation conducive to winning is a Wargamer's job.
If you had just stopped right there, you'd have been right. Ya' didn't. You "yeah but"'d him.
THIS is why the Mutilators work so well. You are using them to force the strategy of Saturation with diminished return for the enemies efforts in stopping it. And it works. You can say it doesn't til the cows come home. You can say it's only done in "non-competitive metas, but mine isn't one.
This level of disregard won't serve you well when it's done to you. When it is, you won't have the luxury of the internet to tell you you're "so right". Lol. You'll have the same hard choices to make that saturatin forces on everyone. Saturation only matters if the units involved are pretty capable of damage dealing. Mutilators fit that bill. Tying things up? Also a redeeming quality. wasteful of enemy resources? good times.
I don't know what army you play most of the time. What I do know is that
A: You don't need Mutilators to win, but they will win for you if your strategy makes them useful.
B: Your strategy dictates the right units. Always.
So if you want to know the secret of Mutilators, there it is. Apply yourself strategically to the problem instead of being a Codex-nay sayer like the rest of them. Strategy is the thing. it's everything you should be considering when you look at a unit. Every list and idea is a case study. Learn instead of shutting your mind off. Maybe you dont NEED Mutilators for the list you have and if so, i think thats super. Saying you cant use them or "shouldn't" is another matter. That's just a closed mind.
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Martel732 wrote: Or in the case of BA, box of mild annoyance until the opponent gets their turn and shoots me off the table.
HoundsofDemos wrote: If you were limited to one CAD then maybe this would make sense in a larger game, but your not. Rather than take mutilators I would rather take another CAD, Formation, or demon allies and get something useful.
You're asking why I don't ally myself? Why? I've told you that I have.
In fact what I use is (and i alluded to it earlier) a Chaos Space Marine army with a Black Legion Allied Detachment. What you're suggesting costs me more Chaos Marines which i don't need just to fford NOT choosing a very good option for my strategy. why would I do that? Between the cost of them and their rhino, it simply doesn't help my plan to spend those extra points all in some effort to avoid an obvious choice, the Mutilator.
Strategy is the issue here.
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koooaei wrote: Have played a game today. Not very competitive but there was noone else to play against as none of the opposition of mutilators was there to proove the point on the battlefield
Spoiler:
+++ (1496pts) +++
++ Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (The Purge) ++
Sorcerer [2x Additional Mastery Level, Bike, Gift of mutation, Power Armour, Sigil of corruption, Spell familiar]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
Mutilator [Mark Of Nurgle]
++ Chaos Space Marines: Codex (2012) (Combined Arms Detachment) ++
Chaos Lord [Bike, Dimensional Key, Gift of mutation, Lightning Claw, Power Armour, Power Fist, Sigil of corruption]
Chaos Cultists [Cultist Champion, 9x Cultists with Autopistols]
Chaos Space Marines [3x Chaos Marine with Boltgun, 1x Chaos Marine with Meltagun], Aspiring Champion [Combi-melta]
+ Chaos Rhino [Dirge caster, Dozer Blade]
Chaos Spawn [Mark of Nurgle, 5x Spawn]
Chaos Spawn [Mark of Nurgle, 5x Spawn]
Havocs [4x Autocannon, 4x Havoc], Aspiring Champion [Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon]
Imperial Bunker [Comms Relay, Void Shield]
VS IG company command [carapce armour, plasmagun x2, power weapon, standard]
+ Chimera
vets [melta x3]
+ Chimera [dozer]
vets [melta x3]
+ Chimera [dozer]
scions [10guys, 2 melta]
scions [10guys, 2 melta]
armoured sen [sentinels x2, lascannon x2]
armoured sen [sentinels x2, multilasers x2]
leman russ battle tank [bolter sponsons]
leman russ battle tank [bolter sponsons]
devil dog [multi melta, cammo netting]
total 1498
Lord got Shred from mutation and nightfight warlord trait, sorc got nothing from mutaton and shrowding, hallucination and summoning,
1 Chaos. I got 1-st turn. Shrowding went off, didn't manage to summon + perilled and went superman on a 6. Moved forward, havoks glanced a chimera once. Score a bunch of VP for controliing objectives.
1 IG. Void shield went down from a devil dog's multimelta but shrowding, nightfight and cover saves led to only one spawn getting killed and one wound on another spawn. He scores no VP.
2 Chaos. I get to deepstrike 5 mutilators with re-roll from comms relay and do so very aggressively but all 5 scatter and 3 mishap. All 3 get delayed which is pretty nice. Shrowded goes off once again. Havoks score another glance on the chimera. Rhino goes flat-out towards a squad into a ruin to deny them overwatch and sorc with spawns try to make a 9" charge but fail. Lord and spawns multicharge sentinels and devil dog. Spawns shake and glance a devil dog and lord wrecks one sentinel with his power fist activating a dimensional key. Score a few more VP for controling objectives.
2 IG. He deepstrikes scions near my cultists but mishaps and gets misplaced - i put him into the corner on his side of the board. He stuns and glances a rhino - shrowding helps to survive. Than tries to kill a mutilator but it takes combined shooting from comsquad, chimera vets and lazcannon sentinels to kill one mutilator. The last sentinel gets wrecked by lord. He gets a point for first blood and killing a unit in shooting.
3 Chaos. I deepstrike all 4 mutilators within the dimensional key reach, cornering him completely. Move forwards with spawns for a multicharge on everything i can reach. CSM disembark and glance a leman russ with a melta. Havoks finish off a devil dog. Than i proceed multicharging stuff. Mutilator explodes a leman russ, spawns wreck vehicles here and there, sorc + spawns finally makes it to a squad in ruins and reaches another leman russ to boot, killing and wrecking everything.
3 IG. By this time he's got nowhere to run and is hopelessly behind on VP but he continues a game. Vets and comsquad kill 3 spawns, the rest of the list puts a wound on 2 mutilators. But than it's basically over.
Here's a pic from the start of 4-th turn
Yup. Box of doom. The Mutilators work well for it.
Yoyoyo wrote:Mutilators aren't superior to Terminators.
Units are just tools to produce effects, and the idea is you use different tools in different situations.
Basically, don't blame a crowbar for not being a hammer.
The quote below implies differently:
Yoyoyo wrote:I think we can do better. If you really want to see which unit outperforms the other, let's try and set up the most accurate comparison we can.
At 183pts you get 3x Nurgle Mutilators with the Mutilators Weapons rule, for 177pts you get 3x Nurgle Terminators each with a LC and Chainfist.
Mutilators have twice the # of wounds and Fear, while Terminators have Chaos Boons and aren't saddled by SnP. Melee output should be identical given no casualties. Damage falloff is more severe for the Terminators. There are some tradeoffs in the 'Mutilator Weapons" rules compared to the Terminators, which have permanent access to a LC and Chainfist. Pretty fair though. Neither can sweep, the Terminators cost 6pts less, and they have +1LD.
So which is the better pure multirole CC unit? I'll let you two decide, but I think this is a better comparison for discussion. If you want Mutilators, you aren't choosing them for Combi-Meltas and a min Chainfist.
That was an example of what I mean by "ignored every scenario that doesn't favor mutilators over other types of troops". Whenever we put the Muties in a scenario that would realistically happen or compare a unit that can approach the same problem from a much more effective or point-efficient angle (such as Terminators that can shoot people with Meltas), it gets either brushed off as "not being the same role" or just completely ignored. Yes, the terminators would suck if they had to be restricted to pretend they're mutilators, but that doesn't innately mean Mutilators would be good for that situation either. "Pure Multi-role CC unit"? A Chaos Lord can do better for the same points. A Forge Fiend doesn't even need to get into CC range to be multi-role, namely because those two can actually catch the stuff they need to and can catch stuff that other things can't catch.
Finally, that whole "don't blame a crowbar for not being a hammer" analogy is very off. As it stands, a Mutilator is a tool without a purpose. Other things in the codex can either perform the same job better (which, surprisingly, is the Spawn of all things), perform it's job and something else (terminators with min. melee weapons and a combi weapon) or achieve the same ends through different means (anything with a decent gun). We're not blaming the Mutilator for not being a role it's not suppose to do, we're blaming it because the job it can do is both so obscure and inconsequential that it's taking resources away from other units to do their jobs (it's effectively only good against units that can't cause a lot of S8 wounds in a single turn, has no good guns, and walks slowly...which is basically other Mutilators). So no, we're not blaming mutilators for not being a hammer when it's a crowbar. We're saying we don't need crowbars and we're keep getting examples where the situation for a hammer is continually adjusted so a Crowbar can do it.
Did this all make sense to you when you read it out loud to yourself? Do you not understand that he is trying to tell you that the effect I am paying points for is the best tool for that effect and you are changing the discussion when you DEMAND that the effect I need be different? It's absurd to tell me that! Do you understand that this is what he is telling you?
Yes, I have read my own post out loud, and given that most other people agree with my stance, they have too. If you are going to attack me personally, especially when you don't even address the points I bring up with anything more than a "Are you stupid?" response, then I have no more reservations. Do you not understand that in your mind, you have narrowed the scenario so far that everything short of the dice rolls have now become in favour of the Mutilator Winning? You have literally came up with an improbably excuse as to why a certain outcome didn't come up, then when we challenge it you either ignore it or imply we are ignorant. And You, might I add, is the one changing the discussion. The Discussion is whether or not the Mutilators are Good. That means "are their effect something you Need?" No. It's not, at least for the majority of the people in this thread outside of you, Yoyoyo, and possibly kooaei (I have no clue if he mains them or not). If you actually read my post, my numerous posts, I have conceded the fact that the effect, in that very Specific scenario, yes the Mutilators are better. But I then Go On to say why that effect is not needed, why it's frivolous, and why, ultimately, it means the mutilators are bad. Like I said in the quote. I'm not blaming the Mutilators for being a Hammer when they're a Crowbar. I just don't need a Crowbar.
Also, this time if you're gonna quote me, at least quote me in full. Don't cherry pick my post again.
I'd just walk away at this point. They are clearly going to tailor the situation anyway, and neither of them will admit they are wrong.
They will continue to cherry pick, misquote, and insult people until you give up. Pretty much everyone else chiming in has agreed with what you're saying and that its correct. It's all you'll get.
Spare yourself the trauma, they will never ever admit they are wrong. About anything
"Tailoring it". Its an army I play and win with. Theres no tailoring of anything. Im relating an actualized usage. Not some THEORY. So theres nothing to tailor, no situation to alter. The reality is... Mutilators are demonstably good. All I hear is a lot of theory and strenuous objection based on rationalizations, not practiced attempts to learn the strategy it fits.
Akiasura wrote: I'd just walk away at this point. They are clearly going to tailor the situation anyway, and neither of them will admit they are wrong.
They will continue to cherry pick, misquote, and insult people until you give up. Pretty much everyone else chiming in has agreed with what you're saying and that its correct. It's all you'll get.
Spare yourself the trauma, they will never ever admit they are wrong. About anything
Very much so. They have long since made up their mind about us, about our opinions and about our character long before the discussion started. This was simply an excuse to belittle us.
I think some people need to take a breath and remember this is a board about toy soliders, no need to cut quotes/get snarky to prove a point. Remember rule 1
My point is that it's hard to mathhammer things outside of raw killing power like threat saturation, positioning and force spread. And this things are what mutilators can perform somewhat fine. They're like 2 times more threatening in melee than obliterators for the points. Reasonaply tough to not die from a stiff breeze early on.
All in all i'm reasonably happy with how they perform and what they can do. My only real issue is possible mishaps. Is there any other way i'm not aware of to mitigate scatter for csm? Other than dimensional key cause i haven't managed to charge it before turn 2. Maybe there's a way to delay mutilators to turn 3? Something? I'd prefer no scatter tobe honest. Maybe some locator beacons or stuff from allies?
Except Mutilators fail at that. You can make the same claim for Warp Talons, and Bikers/Raptors outperform them. In the same way, unless your list is junk in the first place, you'll have the points for a few Terminators.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Except Mutilators fail at that. You can make the same claim for Warp Talons, and Bikers/Raptors outperform them. In the same way, unless your list is junk in the first place, you'll have the points for a few Terminators.
They didn't fail in my game. Don't see why they should, to be honest. There are no better options for that very job at that point range.
I've had a 2-d game where 3 mutilators managed to deepstrike behind enemy lines turn 2. That was handy cause i lost one squad of spawns with sorc and my 2-d squad was worn out. But the combined force of my frontline leftovers and mutilators made the day. Mostly cause the opponent was very shooty but had nowhere to run.
To be honest, i find them on par with obliterators in this regard. I often had obliterators do nothing with shooting but act as a backline bully in melee. Mutilators do it better and cheaper. No shooting though. But that's why they're cheaper.
Gaming experience > Theoryhammer. At least for me. I've seen them perform fine in 2 games out of 2. Will need to test them against tougher stuff but i think they'll be even better against deathstar lists.
I gotta say despite a little drama I've been enjoying this thread a lot.
Between kooaei and Jancoran's experiences, it's quite clear how this strategy works. There needs to be a fairly sturdy unit with high mobility (Spawn, Raptors) that can quickly corral the enemy against the board edge. Once escape is shut off, Mutilators deepstrike to make the backfield untenable, so the enemy can't stall the FA element and reorganize. So basically, it's just hammer and anvil. It's kind of elegant, really.
With less forces on the table CSM doesn't present many good targets. The FA element is protected by psychic buffs and cover, while the Mutilators in reserve can't be targeted. There are no good AT targets, which spoils the utility of units like the Meltavets and Lascannon Sentinels. Probably the best counter for the Guard player would have been breaking open a flank so he could have escaped the trap closing around him, but once those Mutilators 'completely corner' his forces on T3 it's no longer an option. And that's very early in the game. Maybe he could have deployed differently? Either way it's a neat little strategy.
In terms of further optimization, getting Cursed Earth up reliably by T2, and finding some effective way to remove AP2 weapons from squads without compromising the FA elements, would do a lot to help the Mutilators tilt the game harder. But as was noted, that synergy is pretty hard to achieve within CSM alone. I think their only anti-scatter Mechanic is the dimensional key, and for sniping models you're limited to Focused Witchfires.
It will give up 1st Blood reliably but I guess that's life
OH! I think i've found solution. Daemons have icons and instruments that allow other daemons to deepstrike within 6" of the bearer and scatter only d6 inches. Mutilators are daemons. 6" is not much but a mutilator on each side is neat. I'm planning to take daemonettes + masque + chariots for anti-tank and torrent flamers.
Will allow to save points on the key and take 2-d sorc perhaps. Will need to re-think the fortification and havoks. Was not impressed by 4 autocannons. Not that they're too bad but not outstanding.
That was an interesting report, people always poo-poo the dimensional key. I've been tempted to take it on a Tzeentch disc, even just for the difficult/dangerous terrain effected (but never put it into practice).
koooaei wrote: My point is that it's hard to mathhammer things outside of raw killing power like threat saturation, positioning and force spread. And this things are what mutilators can perform somewhat fine. They're like 2 times more threatening in melee than obliterators for the points. Reasonaply tough to not die from a stiff breeze early on.
All in all i'm reasonably happy with how they perform and what they can do. My only real issue is possible mishaps. Is there any other way i'm not aware of to mitigate scatter for csm? Other than dimensional key cause i haven't managed to charge it before turn 2. Maybe there's a way to delay mutilators to turn 3? Something? I'd prefer no scatter tobe honest. Maybe some locator beacons or stuff from allies?
You can try and force mishap if they arrive turn 2 and hope they get to show up next turn. But really, scatter doesn't tend to be so punishing when you're landing a single 40mm base, and a single mutilator is cheap enough to risk. Depending on how poorly your opponent has positioned, and where you have managed to get your other units upfield, you only might need one or two to arrive safely.
nareik wrote: That was an interesting report, people always poo-poo the dimensional key. I've been tempted to take it on a Tzeentch disc, even just for the difficult/dangerous terrain effected (but never put it into practice).
But look at the battle report, the dimensional key only got activated after 5 of the 6 units of mutilators were rolled to have turned up anyway. 3 of them scattered into a mishap and then were fortunate enough to go back into reserve.
If they hadn't scattered or the mishap had destroyed them or allowed the opposing player to place them then the Dimensional key would have guided in a single mutilator. Which is not really worth the points cost.
If Chaos marines had some method of delaying reserves, then it would be great. As it is, it really isn't that useful as there's pretty good odds that by the time it gets activated your units are already on the table.
nareik wrote: But they do have a method of delaying reserves, trying to force a mishap and hoping for the best!
Chaos is fickle indeed!
That's not really a very good method. If you don't mishap your unit is probably in the wrong place as you were aiming for a mishap rather than to actually land them where you need them, if you do mishap then there's the chance your unit ends up either dead or on the complete opposite side of the board to where it wants to be.
koooaei wrote: OH! I think i've found solution. Daemons have icons and instruments that allow other daemons to deepstrike within 6" of the bearer and scatter only d6 inches. Mutilators are daemons. 6" is not much but a mutilator on each side is neat. I'm planning to take daemonettes + masque + chariots for anti-tank and torrent flamers.
Will allow to save points on the key and take 2-d sorc perhaps. Will need to re-think the fortification and havoks. Was not impressed by 4 autocannons. Not that they're too bad but not outstanding.
Keep in mind that;
1. The Instrument unit must also be in reserve and pass their roll first. You also cannot chain in a unit that's already made a Reserves roll that turn.
Instruments are good, but they can still backfire horribly.
2. The Masque is pure garbage.
She's not counted as a Herald, so you can't buy her in the 4-for-1HQ slot package.
She can never join other units, and a re-rolled 5++ is actually worse than her old 3++ save!
Her dances are all short ranged and require direct Line of Sight, meaning you have to put her frail as hell T3/W2 frame into harm's way.
She is so much more trouble than she's worth... At best, you can potentially catch an opponent exactly once with her, provided they're also entirely ignorant about Daemons in general. Mostly though, she's the single easiest 1st Blood point to be had in the entire game.
The amount of buffs you literally need to throw at her, (Cursed Earth and/or Forewarning, Grimoire, Invis, etc...), are better off even going to the likes of the Mutilators themselves or Warptalons! (let alone other actual scary Chaos Daemon units like Seekers/Hounds/Screamers, etc...)
The Masque is easily the single worst model in the entire game! Even die-hard fluff bunny Daemon players admit she's a steaming turd.
3. Don't take Burning Chariots unless you've got a bunch of other Warpflame attacks to compliment it.
Our Heavy section still contains Soul Grinders, (your much safer source for torrent templates), Princes with the same alignment as an HQ Greater Daemon, even Khannons and the Slaany Chariots.
Warpflame requires saturation to not turn around and bite you in the rump. Unless you can also reliably back-up the Burny Chariots with Flickering Fire, Flamers et all, don't bother with them!
The other option for them is to simply take 4 Exalted Flamers on their own! They count as Heralds, so you can take 4 per HQ slot.
nareik wrote: But they do have a method of delaying reserves, trying to force a mishap and hoping for the best!
Chaos is fickle indeed!
That's not really a very good method. If you don't mishap your unit is probably in the wrong place as you were aiming for a mishap rather than to actually land them where you need them, if you do mishap then there's the chance your unit ends up either dead or on the complete opposite side of the board to where it wants to be.
I didn't say they had a good method, I said they had a method .
Ok, so the general consensus is that Mutilators are good for target saturation, and little else.
The positive camp says this makes them good
The negative camp says this makes them bad.
/thread
Mozzyfuzzy wrote: So we're now talking about taking daemon allies to make mutilators work?
Why not just add more daemons than take mutilators?
Or why not just take daemons?
My point exactly. Except replace "Daemons" with prettymuch anything else.
EDIT: Kooaei showing me the Purged Detachment actually does open up a legitimate use for Mutilators, one that no other unit in the codex can do better than it, but it's none of the things stated above. I'm gonna be coy and ask if any of you can guess what it is. :3 (it's actually not that hard).
koooaei wrote: My point is that it's hard to mathhammer things outside of raw killing power like threat saturation, positioning and force spread. And this things are what mutilators can perform somewhat fine. They're like 2 times more threatening in melee than obliterators for the points. Reasonaply tough to not die from a stiff breeze early on.
All in all i'm reasonably happy with how they perform and what they can do. My only real issue is possible mishaps. Is there any other way i'm not aware of to mitigate scatter for csm? Other than dimensional key cause i haven't managed to charge it before turn 2. Maybe there's a way to delay mutilators to turn 3? Something? I'd prefer no scatter tobe honest. Maybe some locator beacons or stuff from allies?
Well your strategy might differ, but in my force i kinda want them there turn two. Not charging til turn 3 is fine. I dont really know what you're trying to do with yours.
The Key is one answer (I hi-lited its virtue in my Warp Talons article). I don't know if an Aegis would help? I havent got it in front of me but the Comms relay lets you re-roll reserves. There is also a Warlord Trait that helps manipulate reserves that you could try for.
Also, outflanking them might be an option if you hve enough of them. that would require a really fast flexible middle of your army and would lead to some Mutilators being out of position for most of a game. So i am not soo sure i like that option in most games.
Oddly, I think the Autarch could be a crazy idea. He works on the army if I recall. Come the apocalypse, no doubt but he can do shenanigans? I just woke up and haven't even gotten coffe yet but those are my thoughts for the moment.
dusara217 wrote: Ok, so the general consensus is that Mutilators are good for target saturation, and little else.
The positive camp says this makes them good
The negative camp says this makes them bad.
/thread
dusara217 wrote: Ok, so the general consensus is that Mutilators are good for target saturation, and little else.
The positive camp says this makes them good
The negative camp says this makes them bad.
/thread
WAT? You call auto-grounding FMC, locking any unit in place and denyng overwatch 'pure garbage'?
Masque is golden as a 75 pt backup for those who can't deal with deathstars. It showed itself exceptionally good with orks. And csm melee pressure lists would benefit from it tremendously as csm can't reliably deal with deathstars.
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Mozzyfuzzy wrote: So we're now talking about taking daemon allies to make mutilators work?
Why not just add more daemons than take mutilators?
Or why not just take daemons?
They work without daemons too. I'm just thinking of ways to make them more reliable with scatters. And can't find good solutions in csm codex. Maybe i miss something?
You never actually presented that list when multiple people said they were interested in seeing it, nor did you present any battle reports with it. Until then, dumb luck is what it is.
If anybody has Vassal and has already challenged the "Mutilators is goodz" camp, I have a list I'd like to throw your way to see how it deals with those various lists, as it honestly shouldn't be a problem. Not having a decent computer sucks in this instance.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also you didn't miss anything for the more accurate Deep Strike within the CSM codex. If there were, I'd be running even MORE Termicide.
The idea I had for them was to use them as the minimum tax for The Purge Detachment to unlock HS slots.
At 55 points a piece, they are only 5 points more expensive than the Cultists, and the lowest-costing Elites Choice. For the Purge, this means for a modest investment of around 200 points (a HQ of some kind, possibly Sorceror or a modestly equipped Chaos Lord) you get access to 4 CSMHS choices, 1 fortification and a LoW choice. You also technically have 4 more Elites choices but that section isn't very crowded to begin with and if you were taking elites they might be better than the Muties, so I'm ignoring that for this part.
But point for point you get 1 more HS slot for 10 points more than another CAD, and since the HS slot is easily one of the more bloated sections of the CSM dex, it could be a worthy investment to bring in more Obliterators, Havocs (they are better at being MSU special weapon harassers than anything else in the codex), more tanks, Fiends and, if by some reason you want them, Defilers. The drawback of only having Mark of Nurgle or No Mark isn't that bad when the MoN is one of the stronger marks in the book.
At least, that's how I would use them if I had to field them. For me though I just go straight up unbound since CSM doesn't have that many good command benefits to begin with, but it's something.
I already pointed them out as a "Troop Tax" earlier in the thread. It doesn't make them any bit useful though. At least Cultists have OS, but then I'd rather have 4 Heavy Slots.
Therefore, why not just run Termicide as your tax? 225 points is more expensive, but what were you going to spend that extra 100 points on anyway?
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: I already pointed them out as a "Troop Tax" earlier in the thread. It doesn't make them any bit useful though. At least Cultists have OS, but then I'd rather have 4 Heavy Slots.
Therefore, why not just run Termicide as your tax? 225 points is more expensive, but what were you going to spend that extra 100 points on anyway?
Sorry, I didn't see it through the 13 pages of drama that happened before. I wonder why this wasn't argued as their primary use rather than just "distraction" that keeps getting shouted at to the heavens.
But yeah, I would see them as purely to get the 4 HS slots, cuz if you just want more HS choices, there's no other way. For about a 400 point investment (this is including the obligitory HQ choice) you get access to 8 HS slots, which I can do a lot with (namely, spam Havocs in Rhinos with special weapons) Otherwise, I still agree with everything else you said.
They're being used an elite slot bullet sponge in a method that attempts to box in the opponent. They're better bullet sponges than anything BA have, so it's hard for me to judge that. Maybe if you throw out some nurgle marines and such, CSM can be tough enough to tank Tau and Eldar shooting. Which would make them way better than BA, actually. That doesn't seem to be the consensus around here.
Fair enough. I have to point out the need to differentiate them though.
They make use out of the Purge FOC as well. If you absolutely don't want a MoN Lord, you can still get them as "troops". No OS, but that's not entirely important.
dusara217 wrote: Ok, so the general consensus is that Mutilators are good for target saturation, and little else.
The positive camp says this makes them good
The negative camp says this makes them bad.
/thread
It's more like the positive side says they can be quite useful, in a limited and specific context.
The negative side has argued that they are not "any bit useful" or "useful as a troop tax", in an unlimited context.
My impression was that Akiasura somehow managed to argue both sides at once.
Martel has argued that they are more useful than BA.
Koooaei won a game with them and posted a report, which didn't really change anyone's mind.
So basically this thread is the General Discussion forum operating as per usual
dusara217 wrote: Ok, so the general consensus is that Mutilators are good for target saturation, and little else.
The positive camp says this makes them good
The negative camp says this makes them bad.
/thread
It's more like the positive side says they can be quite useful, in a limited and specific context.
Well in an extremely unusal and one dimensional context, sure.
The positive side is also proving to be quite insulting which isn't helpful to the discussion.
The negative side has argued that they are not "any bit useful" or "useful as a troop tax", in an unlimited context.
Not really, the troop tax argument is brand new and just started (and actually seems like the best use for them). The negative side is the side who said they were useful against slow armies with stationary tanks like IG after all, which is what we saw.
The negative side is also arguing that their uses aren't really needed in most lists/opponents, and they are only able to operate against relatively rare army builds anyway. Making them, over all, not a good unit.
Take, for example, the most recent battle report.
It's an IG list that features very little weapons that are considered effective (LRBT, Sentinels with Lascannons, No Wyverns, not a lot of guard with divination).
The Chaos list takes 6 mutilators and an item that helps them with deep strike.
When you look at a few of the mutilators accomplished, it seems that those individual mutilators performed well.
When you look at the mutilators as a group of 6, it seems that they performed poorly. They only managed to absorb about 600 points worth of shooting throughout the entire game (in a game that featured 5000 points of shooting). They managed to destroy a few stationary targets, but didn't earn the points back for the 6 (Could be wrong, not looking at the IG codex currently but it seems that way).
Two sides look at that report.
The positive side says "Look at what that one mutilator accomplished! 300 points worth of firepower, and another one destroyed a tank! That's great, and proves that they are worth it."
The negative side says "6 Mutilators against IG (one of their best opponents) and an unoptimized list and all they accomplish is one round of absorbing firepower and a few targets? Not worth it"
It's possible we have a very different definition of when a unit is worth its points however.
My impression was that Akiasura somehow managed to argue both sides at once.
Right?
It's almost like someone was trying to determine what uses mutilators have, if any, rather than have an agenda I've also been the only person willing to admit that both sides are right to a degree.
Crazy for a forum I know.
Koooaei won a game with them and posted a report, which didn't really change anyone's mind.
True.
This is the same with the last battle report. The mutilators don't seem to be earning their points back by absorbing fire or direct kills, so it's hard to say what their value is compared to say...the spawn in this game.
Generally if you are a competitive player, you aren't going to be impressed by very...poorly designed lists, especially in a game like 40k where list construction is huge. It's not anything different than what the negative side said pages ago....IG with stationary targets are vulnerable to mutilators.
IG with stationary targets are not competitive however. I think nearly everyone can agree that is the case, a quick look at tournaments will show that is the case.
For the record, I don't like sides in a debate. We should all be trying to share ideas and come to as objective a truth as possible in a game like this.
As far as using them as "troops" tax for the purge detachment, I would rather use the cheap spawn instead as my Elite choices. 55pts for 3 spawn vs 55 points for one mutilator. Seems like a much better option to me.
Spawns are fast attack in the CSM dex no? Unless you're talking about the renegades, but I was refering to using them to unlock CSMHS choices (which, as I understood it, couldn't mix and match with the Renegades)
Ah, I was thinking since we were discussing using a Purge detachment out of SOV, we could discuss the better option out of there as well for Elites. If you want to limit to just CSM codex, yeah, not so much.
Yoyoyo wrote: My impression was that Akiasura somehow managed to argue both sides at once.
Right?
Saying "Mutilators are useful in certain situations, provided those situations are uniquely those which are useless to the player" isn't a good argument. It's just a very silly position to defend. I'm assuming you write so much and avoid summaries because it helps mask how nonsensical that line of thought really is.
Getting back on track, the scenario being discussed now is this. Two FA wings bottle up the enemy, at which point Mutilators can DS into the trapped enemy to conduct charges on the following turn. By choosing this strategy it maximizes the Mutilator's value (durability, threat saturation, positioning and force spread). The questions are:
1) What makes the most effective FA element? So far we've seen Lords/Sorcs with Raptors/Spawn.
2) What makes the best DS element? Mutilators are functional but perhaps there's a better DS option.
3) What has the best synergy? Comms Relay and the Dimensional Key have been used, right now Daemon allies are a point of discussion.
Screamers with Tzeralds perhaps? More units from Malefic powers would put extra pressure on the confined enemy, Cursed Earth would solve DS scatter, and you can get the Grimoire to lend extra durability where you need it.
Yoyoyo wrote: My impression was that Akiasura somehow managed to argue both sides at once.
Right?
Saying "Mutilators are useful in certain situations, provided those situations are uniquely those which are useless to the player" isn't a good argument.
It's a good thing I've never said that, but let's avoid having an actual attempt at understanding someone's stance here.
It's just a very silly position to defend. I'm assuming you write so much and avoid summaries because it helps mask how nonsensical that line of thought really is.
I'm assuming you don't quote people in their entirety so that it's easier to misconstrue what they are saying, like the last time this happened.
Or you just want to avoid having a debate (since you don't actually want to discuss anything that was actually said at all...) while making attacks.
But hey, that's just a theory.
Getting back in track, the context being discussed now is this. Two FA wings bottle up the enemy, at which point Mutilators can DS into the trapped enemy to conduct charges on the following turn. By choosing this strategy it maximizes the Mutilator's value (durability, threat saturation, positioning and force spread). The questions are:
1) What makes the most effective FA element? So far we've seen Lords/Sorcs with Raptors/Spawn.
Bikes are generally seen to be the best FA option. The fact they can turbo boost makes them the better option to support a mutilator over Raptors. Best of all, by making them T6, you make a lot of the small arms the enemy has taken pretty useless between the two units.
Even better, if they turbo boost round one and the enemy was at all forward, you can be in melee by turn 2, preventing enemy squads from firing at the mutilators when they arrive.
Raptors are much slower than bikes, and won't see melee until turn 3 at the earliest, a turn later than the mutilators will arrive unless you want to hold them in reserve (or roll poorly, but you are taking comms/dimensional key for a reason).
If you want to spam transports, however, raptors are probably superior to bikes.
2) What makes the best DS element? Mutilators are functional but perhaps there's a better DS option.
Well, Terminators with a useful loadout were suggested several times. They do a slightly different job than mutilators, though in a pinch can perform a similar role. Having a decent ranged punch can eliminate problem units if they take enough combi weapons, and they must be dealt with.
The best way to run them is a 3 man squad, only combi weapons. I believe it's called termicide.
Oblits are far and away superior in nearly every way, but use a more competitive slot, so if you are already full up on HS, are probably not what you are looking for.
3) What has the best synergy? Comms Relay and the Dimensional Key have been used, right now Daemon allies are a point of discussion.
Assuming you mean deep strike? If you want synergy in the form of buffs, Mutilators in single man squads are probably not worth casting them on.
If so, Daemon allies are very good. The daemon codex is much better than the CSM codex overall, with only a few units from CSM being worth taking.
A small Termicide Squad (armed with Combi-Meltas) costs 110 points, exactly the same as 2 Mutilators. It's functionally the CSM version of Drop Pod Sternguards, but a bit more risky as nothing in the CSM codex has mishap mitigation.
I've used it a few times and due to the number of models they actually cause opponents to totally freak out. The vehicles popped by the Combi Meltas though are more due to the strength than due to the Melta rule, as I've never successfully deepstriked close enough to a vehicle to get that (and didn't want to risk them being destroyed before doing anything). The only reason I don't use combi-plasmas is because my models are the old metal ones that came with the combi-meltas. They almost certainly die within 2-3 turns though, but by that time it's inconsequential since they've blown up something like a hammerhead or Leman Russ (effectively trading for the points).
Akiasura wrote: Terminators with a useful loadout were suggested several times. They do a slightly different job than mutilators, though in a pinch can perform a similar role.
Not looking for Termicide, not looking for Sternguard, not looking for a different unit that can perform a similar role "in a pinch".
We want a unit that can perform the exact same role, but better.
So we're looking for a dedicated CC bully that can cost-effectively smash any target it encounters without losing effectiveness, and get where it needs to by deepstrike. That's more along the line of Assault Centurions than Sternguard.
Akiasura wrote: Terminators with a useful loadout were suggested several times. They do a slightly different job than mutilators, though in a pinch can perform a similar role.
Not looking for Termicide, not looking for Sternguard, not looking for a different unit that can perform a similar role "in a pinch".
Apparently you're not looking to address anything I said earlier or quote what was said in their entirety either...
Because the original statement made by you was What makes the best DS element? Mutilators are functional but perhaps there's a better DS option I think Terminators fit the criteria of "DS option".
Or you can keep cherry picking. I don't know why you're so determine to continue doing this, but go crazy.
I wouldn't call it a bully, as there are many units that can beat the mutilator in combat, but if you want a dedicated CC only unit that Dses I think all you got is warp talons as far as the CSM codex goes. For a dex about chaos, we don't have much in the way of DS options.
I couldn't suggest warp talons to anyone, so mutilators it is.
Unless you want to include daemons. Daemons have a lot of CC units that can act as bullies.
that can cost-effectively smash any target it encounters without losing effectiveness,
Well, this is not the mutilator.
There are many units in the game that can kill the mutilator, in CC, before it even gets to strike. So, it's not any unit it encounters.
A DP would probably be a better choice, since it has a lot fewer targets that can roll it, but its much more expensive and can't deep strike.
I don't think there is a unit in the CSM dex that can cost effectively smash any target it encounters and deepstrike. We should probably make the goalposts more reasonable or include daemons.
and get where it needs to by deepstrike. That's more along the line of Assault Centurions than Sternguard.
I don't know why you bring up sternguard, I didn't.
Let's stick to the CSM dex, or possibly daemons. I don't know why you are bringing up sternguard or assault centurions, unless you, once again, aren't reading what people are typing.
Maybe you should quote and make points one at a time to avoid this kind of thing from happening.
My impression was that Akiasura somehow managed to argue both sides at once.
Right?
It's almost like someone was trying to determine what uses mutilators have, if any, rather than have an agenda I've also been the only person willing to admit that both sides are right to a degree. Crazy for a forum I know.
tbf, I already admitted that Oblits do the Muties' job much better than the Muties do. I was just arguing that Muties aren't useless garbage, and can have a useful role in certain, very specific competitive lists, so long as said lists play to the Muties' strengths.
My impression was that Akiasura somehow managed to argue both sides at once.
Right?
It's almost like someone was trying to determine what uses mutilators have, if any, rather than have an agenda I've also been the only person willing to admit that both sides are right to a degree. Crazy for a forum I know.
tbf, I already admitted that Oblits do the Muties' job much better than the Muties do. I was just arguing that Muties aren't useless garbage, and can have a useful role in certain, very specific competitive lists, so long as said lists play to the Muties' strengths.
My apologies, I meant someone that was considered to be in a camp or side.
I'm basing who is considered in a camp by how they are being treated by certain posters. I don't think you qualify I'm sorry to say
I didn't mean to belittle or demean your contributions to this thread, which I've actually enjoyed since, while I disagree with you, they've generally been very polite with rare exception and were quickly remedied.
==================================================================================================================================
Including lines so people can more easily tell when I'm starting a different thought...
To my disagreement with your statement;
Can you define the bolded part? We may have a different criteria for what is considered competitive.
To me, competitive means what you typically see taken at the major tournaments. This includes the more famous builds that typically get nick names in these games (Centstar, ScreamerStar, Triptide, Scatbike Spam) as well as the better formations in the best codexes.
Against these codexes, I don't think the mutilator has a spot in the list. To be honest, I don't think CSM has a list at all, but if you're shooting for a game I'd leave the mutilators at home.
If by competitive you mean the best options within that specific codex, there are probably some armies that mutilators will do well against, with IG being the most obvious example given it's high amount of stationary tanks. We'd have to discuss what armies have competitive lists that mutilator would do well against, because honestly I would have no idea. My meta is mainly semi-competitive lists (we don't abuse allies much) with the more competitive factions, so I'm not very with factions like Dark Eldar, for example (at least as far as 7th is concerned). Unless I own the faction of course.
Akiasura wrote: I don't know why you are bringing up sternguard or assault centurions, unless you, once again, aren't reading what people are typing.
Here's why:
MechaEmperor7000 wrote: It's functionally the CSM version of Drop Pod Sternguards, but a bit more risky as nothing in the CSM codex has mishap mitigation.
I thought it was a very valid comparison from Mecha. And yes, I read what he typed, apparently you didn't. Maybe consider your own fallibility and tone down the snark.
Next, "DS element" specifically refers to a DS element in the context of koooaei and Jancoran's strategy. So don't ignore context and cherry pick yourself. The Termicide option and even Oblits have been sized up already. Reference koooaei's comments about threat saturation and positioning, and Martel's comments about being a cost-effective bullet sponge. You can't just see "CC bully" and forget about these other points we're using to compare value.
Daemon Prince is a fail on threat saturation, can't charge as many targets and is far less durable for the points. Same to Warp Talons, both these units are 3+.
Sternguard and Termicide do have earlier impact with Melta on the drop, but they are less durable and less capable in CC.
Oblits are pretty even I have to say.
Assault Cents serve the same purpose as a dangerous CC unit over a very short distance. They'd be a great analogue but they need a Drop Pod and can't run solo. So they don't really match either. Lictors are probably a better true analogue, max dispersion and a dedicated CC profile. They aren't tied down by SnP though, and have a ton of other advantages.
That's my take on it. Do try and control your outbursts a little, maybe even play the strategy so you understand how it works better. I am enjoying the more productive side of this discussion and I'd prefer to see the thread not get locked.
Akiasura wrote: Terminators with a useful loadout were suggested several times. They do a slightly different job than mutilators, though in a pinch can perform a similar role.
Not looking for Termicide, not looking for Sternguard, not looking for a different unit that can perform a similar role "in a pinch".
We want a unit that can perform the exact same role, but better.
So we're looking for a dedicated CC bully that can cost-effectively smash any target it encounters without losing effectiveness, and get where it needs to by deepstrike. That's more along the line of Assault Centurions than Sternguard.
Helbrutes can do it in the formation that lets them deepstrike. Terminators can do it AND shoot (And I'm saying they have the same effectiveness as Muties, not that they're unfocused). And that's just staying within the Elites slot (Raptors can do it too in the same vein as Terminators, and just name any daemon ally and they can do it too). Also, Mutilators lose effectiveness without even being hurt, since they must switch weapons each turn so unless they completely wipe out something AND there's a completely different type of unit nearby, they will lose effectiveness because they will have to switch to a sub-optimal weapon next combat phase. Terminators and Helbrutes don't have that drawback. (so, amusingly, Muties don't even fit the criteria you laid out)
Ironically, this type of suicidal thinking would be good in KDK, had they actually gotten Muties. They would have presented a legit dilemma there since the opponent doesn't /want/ to kill them to keep the blood tithe down. But noooo, the children of khorne gets Warp Talons instead.
The Helbrute comparison is actually pretty fitting.
And Mutilators would have been much more synergistic in KDK. The lack of synergies within the CSM book is one of their biggest downfalls.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
MechaEmperor7000 wrote: Also, Mutilators lose effectiveness without even being hurt, since they must switch weapons each turn so unless they completely wipe out something AND there's a completely different type of unit nearby, they will lose effectiveness because they will have to switch to a sub-optimal weapon next combat phase. Terminators and Helbrutes don't have that drawback. (so, amusingly, Muties don't even fit the criteria you laid out)
Legit and objectively negative drawback. It's one of the qualities where the (illegal) LC/Chainfist Terminators outperformed Mutilators in that comparison, and Helbrutes would also count.
Yes, which is why me and Akiasura have, repeatedly, stated that we know they fulfill a very specific, very niche role, but that role is Not Needed within the whole of the Chaos Space Marine as another unit can not only perform that role, but also do something else.
I had a long-ass explanation written up but then I realized you'd probably just ignore it or cherrypick it again. So I'll sum up my entire reasoning with a comedic vid:
My impression was that Akiasura somehow managed to argue both sides at once.
Right?
It's almost like someone was trying to determine what uses mutilators have, if any, rather than have an agenda I've also been the only person willing to admit that both sides are right to a degree. Crazy for a forum I know.
tbf, I already admitted that Oblits do the Muties' job much better than the Muties do. I was just arguing that Muties aren't useless garbage, and can have a useful role in certain, very specific competitive lists, so long as said lists play to the Muties' strengths.
Their slot makes them valuable. given that you have already used Obliterators in your heavy slots (I have) you can now pillage the elites slots for more ways to saturate the enemy. enter the Mutilator. In one CAD you can now drop six separate targets. This is excellent for the strategy of saturation and ablation.
I ran it in a small scale battle (750 points VS 6th edition Vanilla Space Marines in a CAD) but the thing was I ran only helbrutes.
It was like benny hill especially since his heavy weapons couldn't reliably engage them anymore (cuz they were, in his words, popping out of the woodwork).
EDIT: I just ran the vanilla DV Helbrutes with the multimelta since I didn't have converted ones or the money to buy the newer ones (I'd have prefered to go full CC). Also forgot to mention I was unbound, since otherwise my entire army would have been held back in reserve.
Yoyoyo wrote: I'm not sure that Helbrute formation is better. Seems like you'd have to test that.
I tried them once and they didn't do much. They're pretty random as they have to roll on a frenzied table every turn - that's my main issue with them. 1/3 chance to not do what you want them to do. And they're vehicles, so have quite mediocre durability for the points. I've had much better results with a murderpack formation.
I know that one game is not enough but i don't have faith in them Now the 5 helbrute squad has some potential with psy buffs. I've had them perform good vs droppod nidzilla and SM smashfether+bikers without H&R. The combination i used was 3 with fist+melta, one with fist + flamer + scourge and champ with 2 fists + flamer.
Yoyoyo wrote: I'm not sure that Helbrute formation is better. Seems like you'd have to test that.
I faced helbrutes a few times. The Deep Striking was very cool. Only trouble was, they cost a LOT more and of course you had to take them in that formation so it is kind of a heavier investment. It would sap a fairly significant part of the list for me to use it instead.
Akiasura wrote: I don't know why you are bringing up sternguard or assault centurions, unless you, once again, aren't reading what people are typing.
Here's why:
MechaEmperor7000 wrote: It's functionally the CSM version of Drop Pod Sternguards, but a bit more risky as nothing in the CSM codex has mishap mitigation.
I thought it was a very valid comparison from Mecha. And yes, I read what he typed, apparently you didn't. Maybe consider your own fallibility and tone down the snark.
You may want to make it clear that you're referencing someone else. Since, you know, you quoted me directly and immediately mentioned sternguard in the original opening remark and then brought it up later, all without mentioning you were talking to/about anyone else's comments. It was all even in one sentence after a quote from me.
Which would be pretty obvious if you quoted the entire thing, or even mentioned MechaEmperor at all.
Next, "DS element" specifically refers to a DS element in the context of koooaei and Jancoran's strategy.
It does?
The part where I quoted you (and you notice I quoted the entire part) didn't include any such conditions.
Regardless, I don't see what bearing this has on what I stated. The oblits and warptalons are pretty much the only other choices, and what I stated can be related to their strategy or separately. Warp talons are awful, oblits are good. I'm not sure if I'd take them as a single unit (maybe if you get multiple CADs?) since they are often the only good HS option we have outside of tanks (where you want to spam transports for armor saturation, not mutilators) and havoks (who don't really support the mutilators much or really anything else).
No context was ever supplied by you.
You'll notice I quoted the entire part and replied to everything that you stated, so no cherry picking was performed. Next time, you may want to provide some context if what you are saying relies on it.
And besides, nothing I said doesn't apply to their strategy. There is nothing stated you can't take a few mutilators and use termicide, for example, to target a tank or MC that might reliably threaten the Mutilators. Muties don't like most Mc's in CC, since the MCs are usually faster and ignore their 2+ save.
Maybe tone down the anger a bit.
The Termicide option and even Oblits have been sized up already. Reference koooaei's comments about threat saturation and positioning, and Martel's comments about being a cost-effective bullet sponge.
The termicide option was never fully explored in the context of DS options, only as a CC bully with a very specific loadout. Saying it was sized up isn't really true at all.
If you are including oblits, I have to assume we are looking at the whole package and not just the CC bully options, since no one would take oblits for their CC prowess. Oblits can serve just fine as target saturation choices as well, although 3 termies with combi are more expensive than a single mutilator with MoN. Still, you could include a mixture of both.
You can't just see "CC bully" and forget about these other points we're using to compare value.
You specifically mentioned it's a CC bully able to take on any unit it encounters in a cost effective manner. You'll notice I quoted that part specifically so you could see what I'm addressing.
It's not. A mutilator is useful because it's cheap and provides target saturation, but it's not a CC bully. It certainly can't target any unit.
I didn't forget the other points, I included them, but you calling them a CC bully is simply not a strength of theirs. They need to target units that are weak in CC or stationary tanks.
If taken against say, Space Wolves, they couldn't charge grey hunters without dying before swinging, and thats their basic infantry. Possibly Long Fangs, but you don't see them taken as much anymore. I don't think they could take down chaos marines with true grit either. They are certainly not CC bullies, but this doesn't discount their usage as a saturation unit entirely and I don't think anyone claimed otherwise.
Let's stick to what people typed and not strawman them.
can't charge as many targets and is far less durable for the points.
It's true, a Daemon prince can't charge as many targets as 3 mutilators can (ideally).
In practice, a DP can probably charge a many different types of targets (certainly more than the mutilator is capable of, depending on the DPs loadout which is pretty much all I was saying in regards to the DP).
Even in the Battle report we saw, 6 only charged a few units over the course of the game. Certainly not more than a DP could be made to charge over a battle.
As for being far tougher for the points, that isn't always true. Remember, many DPs can fly and can gain a very good cover save. The difference between a 3+ to hit to a 6+ to hit is big, especially when few weapons are capable of dealing reliable wounds on either. Mutilators are weaker against grav weapons, which are common if you face marines. DPs also have access to powers that can make them invisible, or raise their stats to the point where they are much tougher than a mutilator. Not to mention, being so much faster, they can utilize LoS blocking cover a lot better than the mutilator.
So, far tougher is a bit of an exaggeration. I'd say the DP is a bit risky, but can be made to be tougher than the mutilator if the right powers are rolled. Probably why everyone goes for the special character or just a Black Mace one with wings.
Agreed, Warp Talons are awful. Easily the worst unit in the dex. Pretty much all that's worth saying about them, but if we are talking DS options we might as well be complete.
Sternguard and Termicide do have earlier impact with Melta on the drop, but they are less durable and less capable in CC.
Sure, I think everyone is saying the same thing. Sternguard are probably some of the best DSing units you can take outside of centurions, but they aren't very durable at all. Certainly lack CC by a huge amount in comparison.
Assault Cents serve the same purpose as a dangerous CC, they'd be a great analogue but they need a Drop Pod and can't run solo. So they don't really match either. Lictors are probably a better true analogue, max dispersion and a dedicated CC profile.
Why don't we stick to CSM or Daemons? It's the only units we are likely to see in a CSM list. Let's not broaded the scope of the argument to include Assault Cents or Lictors.
That's my take on it. Do try and control your outbursts a little, maybe even play the strategy so you understand how it works better. I am enjoying the more productive side of this discussion and I'd prefer to see the thread not get locked.
No offense, but you burst into the thread a while back and accused people of involving themselves in a pseudo-intellectual dick measuring contest right from the start.
I don't think you should lecture anyone in regards to outbursts.
You should really try quoting people in their entirety, or mention people by name if you don't want to, so you don't take people out of context. I don't want to accuse you of strawmanning, I think it's the nature of your posting style, but it does keep happening, Even in this post.
If you drop them close enough with a ranged weapon, they actually do surprisingly well. Going Crazed means it pumps 2 melta shots into whatever's close by. The other two results gives you a respectable amount of attacks on the charge otherwise. They just generally do better if you can drop them behind vehicle lines or expensive Infantry (but MCs are a big nono). Failing that tho, dropping them in a large squad and reverse-tarpitting them is also good.
Granted, my success was probably due to the low points, since the other guy opted to combat squad his squads, so my helbrutes actually did use them as cover to avoid shooting phases (5 marines can be reliably killed in 2 turns). But hey, lemons to lemonade.
Agreed, Warp Talons are awful. Easily the worst unit in the dex. Pretty much all that's worth saying about them, but if we are talking DS options we might as well be complete.
Warp talons are at least fast and choppy against 3+ armor. Now possessed are a whole different story.
@ Yoyoyo,
Sure.
I only had a problem with the quotes out of context and the rude start up to your contribution in this thread.
We can let bygones be bygones as long as it's kept polite.
@ MechaEmperor,
I always found the helbrute formation to be pretty good against most lists. I run a lot of transports in my lists, I actually consider the rhino with Havok launcher to be a huge advantage CSM has over SM, so the helbrute formation just adds to the armor saturation of the list.
I usually play big games and found they work well. The only thing that causes them to fall over is other MCs, where they don't do very well, being slower. GMCs especially are a problem, notably the wraith knight. I usually take Belakor and try to target the WK or other MC's on the table. My strategies match yours.
My games play as follows;
Turn 1, All bikes turbo boost and rhinos go flat out. Nothing in my army walks. FMC goes behind the rhinos for cover, as do the spawn (if the game is big enough...spawn are the first thing I cut tbh)
Turn 2, Bikes enter melee, rhinos drop plague marines who double tap. Any rhinos that died, their plague marines run to try to reach double tap range or assault.
Oblits drop in, I've also tried Havoks and can't decide what I like better. Havoks are in a transport with special weapons in this list. At this point, the enemy usually has too many units in his front line to deal with. Or I'm dealing with a super competitive list and I'm screwed.
Mcs are given priority by the PGs while oblits target tanks. Bikes go after infantry squads that can threaten me, since most of my army is T5 or sporting better saves than a 3+. I find bikes with lord back up not bad, though marines have much better bikes.
Helbrutes target vehicles and basically saturate the place in armor.
Turn 3;
FMC enters combat, everything is hopefully in melee range or I am way up on attrition and can carry the victory home. If all of the enemy MCs are dead I usually do okay. Deathstars usually will walk all over me though, can't really counter those.
I find this list does well against most dexes, but suffers against Eldar (WK x 2 is hard to handle), Marines (bike deathstar plus grav cents), Daemons (Screamer star). It does well against Tau and Necrons, who don't do well against armor saturation or CC by turn 2. I haven't faced the newest formation or a flying bakery however. Wraiths in high enough numbers in decurion are a problem if you don't target the spyders, but they are usually not horribly hard to kill with so much plasma running around.
I can't suggest the bikes enough. I don't run the same list, I personally don't use muties much, but in any saturation list being able to enter melee by turn 2 is huge if the rest of your army is fast. Bikes are probably the best thing in our dex, even though I am not sure what the best loadout is.
I can't decide to use Slaanesh, Nurgle, Or Khorne (GASP) on the bikes. Slaanesh is good for FnP but requires huge units and gets pricey. Nurgle is good for T6 but a lot of weapons seem to be higher strength lately. I'm leaning towards khorne since it's not expensive and allows the bikes to do a lot of damage in melee.
I tried the same thing with Bjorn and his angels once and actually got embarassingly shot off the table when three tornados looked at them in the wrong way (glanced at their bootys, quite literally), so it's not always gonna work. I also haven't tried it in bigger games (I presume 1000 points would go roughly the same, but no clue on 1500 or 2000) so this might be less viable at those ends. I need more helbrutes for that.
Not really. I just use the Warp Talons like I would have a Raptor Lord. A needlessly expensive Raptor lord. (if you can't tell I'd rather have an actual Raptor lord)
koooaei wrote: I think that warp talons have a place in current biker-heavy enviroment. Just a min squad around the midfield.
Hm, I don't think many bikers are that worried about warp talons. Warp talons need to deepstrike, and their chances of blinding most units are very slim unless its orks or necrons...maybe tau?
While warp talons hit like a truck, any 2+ save and they fall over. Recall that, for marine bikers, a guy with a 2+ save is usually in front tanking as many hits as possible. The warp talons will just bounce off of him. They can't do anything against centurions, and those are the 2 units I'm really afraid of.
Against eldar, they perform better having more targets. It's still easy for 2 min size units of scat bikers to decide they are a good target and wipe them, since they are about as tough as marines are against most guns without decent AP values while being incredibly more expensive. Not to mention their jetbikes are fast enough where the warp talons most likely won't reach CC.
Orks probably would worry a bit about warp talons, oddly enough. Their bikers are expensive, and the army as a whole lacks shooting power to remove them trivially.
Basically, I don't think any army that has MSU or split fire is worried about Talons. Way too overcosted and not tough enough for what they do. Even if they wipe one unit, it has to be a large unit for them to be a plus in the attrition battle.
Possessed aren't really any better. Their only use is if you roll lucky, or in one of the formations that makes them better. Maybe in a raider, but I think raiders are pretty bad against eldar and marines. Khorne Berzerkers are probably better in a raider, though they are also terrible.
Ashiraya wrote: I main(ed) CSM, but I also have 30k Word Bearers and Orks.
Of course, if we want to be mean I can dig out my Eldar...
Hm, I think a playtest against CSM without mutilators would be very interesting.
Eldar would be a bit much. I don't think anyone is claiming that mutilators have a place against a competitive eldar list. If they are, eldar would probably be the better choice. We can determine a competitive level where mutilators still have a place.
I have a feeling we will find that place faster working from the ground up than bottom down though.
I like the idea of a 'control experiment' CSM list with no mutilators...
On the other hand, anyone going to bring a cheesefest Come The Apocalypse list with all top of the line competitive units with a mutilator spam purge detachment thrown in?
Is it really fair to have the mutilators performance weighed down by the rest of their CSM buddies?
koooaei wrote: BTW, i'm up for a game again. Want to test mutilators against other stuff than just IG.
For all y'all who have Vassal, let's get koooaei another game. I want to see more hot Mutilator CSM action
Me too. Although I'm bias'd. Lol. You know if you tell people when the game is, people can join and watch it.
The best way to play on Vassal is with Skype going and since i dont really WANT most people knowing my number, I am a little loathe to go there with some. The interface doesnt easily allow you to type and focus on the game simultaneously as a player. But VASSAL is really good for getting some games in like this so I'm torn on doing it with people on Dakkadakka.
But I will totally tune in for one of these games!
Might as well. Eventually. My computer overheats 15 minutes into running a call though haha!
Have you tried opening the case and clearing the fans and vents of dust/debris? Often older computers work perfectly much better once their cooling systems are cleared out a bit. It's an easy piece of maintenance and there are surely lots of simple guides on the webs you can use.
Had another game today, now against forgeworld Raukaan with a lot of vehicles.
Spoiler:
Lists in short.
CSM:
2 biker sorcs, 2x5 Nurgle spawns, melta csm in rhino, cultists, autocannon havoks, 7 solo Nurgle mutilators, Masque of Slaanesh, daemonettes with icon and instrument, Tzeench chariot and Bunker with comms relay and void shield.
Raukaan list:
Master of the forge, 2 min bolter scoust, 3 scout bikes with grenade launchers, melta LoTD, 2 forgeworld land-raiders that are cheaper but not assault, 3 demolishers in a squadron, mortis dread with 12-shot assault cannon, Imperial knight with a hellstorm s7 ap3 flamer and a VSG with 2 shields.
My warlord trait is nightfight once again, i decide to go biomancy now and get iron arm, endurance and haemorrhage on my warlord and iron arm, speed and summoning (daemo) on the 2-d lock.
I win 1-st turn, deploy a bunker in the middle, warlord sorc+spawns on the left flank, other spawns on the right, cultists in ruins, rhino and a chariot up front.
He deploys a knight on my left flank, demolishers a bit left from the center (left from my pov), VSG with a dread on top (didn't know you can do that btw) a bit right of the center, land raiders on each flank - the left one in ruins, the right one near other ruins and infiltrates his scout bikes forward on my right flank for...no particular reason i guess.
CSM Turn 1:
I move aggressively on my right flank and move towards the center with my left spawns as i don't want to get engaged with a knight but want to block it off if needed. Rhino and chariot move forward staying within cover.
Some horrors get spawned, the summoner goes superman rolling a 6. Cast endurance on warlord spawns. Havoks + chariot down void shields and glance a land-raider once.
I perform an amazing 10" charge and murderize scouts.
SM Turn 1:
He moves his knight forward and burns some spawns but endurance helps out. Demolishers kills 2 spawns on the right flank, Mortis dread immobilizes and shakes a rhino - i make a lot of 4+ cover saves thx to nightfight. Landraiders put a wound here and there but cover helps again.
Knight doesn't make a 11" charge.
CSM Turn 2:
I didn't get daemonettes with an icon in turn 2 even with a re-roll, got 3 out of 7 mutilators in and decide to not rush the others. All 3 landed successfully - 2 on the left flank close to a landraider with a techmarine and 3-d near vindicators. Masque that doesn't have targets in this game, deepstrikes close to cultists in a ruin but scatters a lot ending up just about 12" from them - good enough. Right flank spawns push forward towards his demolishers, other spawns and cultists leg it from a knight.
Trying to summon daemonettes with pink horrors but i fail 7 out of 8 4+ rolls, peril and get stripped off their witchfire to boot.
I kill a few scouts with havoks and forget to shoot a chariot. Dance the scouts to 1BS but than forget to run Masque to get closer. I forget a lot of things this turn.
Spawns wreck a vindi and sorc explodes a 2-d one with his melta bomb.
SM Turn 2:
LoTD deepstrike close to a chariot and rhino but get scattered rather far away but get very lucky and end up exactly 1.5" away from my fortification on one side and 1.5" away from spawns on the other. Still within multi-melta range of a chariot.
Knight moves forward trying to threaten spawns and cultists at my backlines.
He had to respond to the threat on the right flank, so he shot at a lone mutilator that landed close to them - it took him shooting from a landraider and a mortis dread to do so. He also kills a few spawns there. Chariot gets exploded by LoTD. I'm fine with it cause he had to choose between a rhino and LoTD and rhino was in a pretty good position to disembark marines to score even though it got immobilized by a dread turn 1. Knight does a few wounds to spawns and kills a bunch of cultists but they pass ld.
He fails a 9" charge towards spawns with his knight.
CSM Turn 3:
I deepstrike daemonettes and 3 more mutilators - forgot about instrument, though - it'd be all 4 otherwise. 1 mutilator mishaps and gets delayed, however the other 3 land in a great position near his VSG and dread just behind a knight that got blocked out by daemonettes so that he couldn't reach mutilators. My left flank spawns rush towards the knight and block it - he's completely surrounded with spawns and daemonettes and there are 2 mutilators within charge reach and 2 other mutilators within a turn of movement towards him if needed be. Warlord sorc doesn't follow them and instead joins cultists to try to kill LoTD.
I summon plague beareres to threaten a right flank landraider. Shoot a few LoTD down.
Mutilators explode a left flank landraider and techmarine+scouts get pinned. Spawns finish off a vindi.
He gets completely surrounded with little hope of turning the tide of battle. Yep, knights can do crazy stuff sometimes but i think that was not the case. We were pretty even on maelstorm for the first 2 turns but i controlled the field on the 3-d. So, he concedes.
I'm pretty sure it's clear that mutilators are good against not very mobile forces. Cause all 3 of my games with them were against non-biker lists. I don't pick matches - that's what i just get so far. Interesting to see how they fare against very mobile stuff.
Akiasura wrote: Koooaie,
I'd rate warp talons as the worst and possessed as second but it's minor. I'd be surprised to see either accomplish anything.
I've found that Warptalons are decent enough when allied to Daemons.
I use a small unit of 5-6 in my mono-Tzeentch list to help take some of the pressure off the likes of the Lord of Chage & Screamers when it comes to assaults.
Admittedly I play entirely non-"Tournament" competitive, so it's not like I'm taking them up against the likes of Eldar cheese, Decurion/Gladius, Centstar, Tau formations, etc...
Still, they've done decently even against the likes of MSU Marine biker spam, as within a Daemons army, they get all the psychic supports and synergies they could ever want. (and entirely lack within their own book!)
- Instruments + Cursed Earth/Icons gives them the accurate DS they want.
- Divination/Malefic/Grimoire give them the survivability boost and added hitting power through Prescience.
- Typically opponents are far more concerned with the Boomstick LoC (god forbid he gets Precog!) and Screamers soaking up the majority of the enemy's shooting.
- Shread gives the Talons the niche of taking out non-2+ unit with T5 or better, while the LoC + Screamers can munch any 2+ saves well enough.
Sure they should be leagues better than their current rules, but just like the Mutilator, they do have a limited role to play, and I do enjoy using them within the confines of my Tzeenchian legions.
Marine tanks are awful. Vindicators and landraiders are begging to have this exact scenario happen to them. That being said, I could see this working against other lists, but not as consistently.
koooaei wrote: Well, once again, i don't pick up my opponents. That's just what i get.
I understand. I'm mostly a bit jealous. I haven't seen a land raider to pick on in so long. Also, I think CSM box-in is something BA would be actually good against. Trying to box in BA doesn't seem like the healthiest move.
Depends on what you're running, really. Ba still require long-range support. I mostly play orks and i know the main weakness of a mediocre assault army. It's not the assault component itself - although, if you're not careful with your assault, it's weak too - it's the backline actually. You can't simultaniously push and protect your backlines. And every time something dangerous lands behind your main front - you got two choices: either send something back and risk not getting into combat with it again, or rush forward and hope that what's left behind will at least take down some of the foes together with them.
I think that that'd be the main purpose of mutilators. Yep, no way you're gona win a fight against a dedicated melee foe unless you're in a very good position with muties. And it really requires the enemy to not have Hit and run. In this case, just try to block their way with spawns or summoned daemonnettes. They'll even kill something in the process. If they don't have hit and run you could tarpit them with spawns and than charge from the side with muties and kill a couple marines.
koooaei wrote: Depends on what you're running, really. Ba still require long-range support. I mostly play orks and i know the main weakness of a mediocre assault army. It's not the assault component itself - although, if you're not careful with your assault, it's weak too - it's the backline actually. You can't simultaniously push and protect your backlines. And every time something dangerous lands behind your main front - you got two choices: either send something back and risk not getting into combat with it again, or rush forward and hope that what's left behind will at least take down some of the foes together with them.
I think that that'd be the main purpose of mutilators. Yep, no way you're gona win a fight against a dedicated melee foe unless you're in a very good position with muties. And it really requires the enemy to not have Hit and run. In this case, just try to block their way with spawns or summoned daemonnettes. They'll even kill something in the process. If they don't have hit and run you could tarpit them with spawns and than charge from the side with muties and kill a couple marines.
Anywayz, needs testing. I'm all for it.
I've stopped using any range support at all. Because those units for BA are bad. It's all plasma guns, grav guns, melta guns, flamers, DC, fragnoughts, and/or archangel sanguine wing. Sometimes I use whirlwinds, but those move with the army. There is no back line for BA.
koooaei wrote: Had another game today, now against forgeworld Raukaan with a lot of vehicles.
Spoiler:
Lists in short.
CSM:
2 biker sorcs, 2x5 Nurgle spawns, melta csm in rhino, cultists, autocannon havoks, 7 solo Nurgle mutilators, Masque of Slaanesh, daemonettes with icon and instrument, Tzeench chariot and Bunker with comms relay and void shield.
Raukaan list:
Master of the forge, 2 min bolter scoust, 3 scout bikes with grenade launchers, melta LoTD, 2 forgeworld land-raiders that are cheaper but not assault, 3 demolishers in a squadron, mortis dread with 12-shot assault cannon, Imperial knight with a hellstorm s7 ap3 flamer and a VSG with 2 shields.
My warlord trait is nightfight once again, i decide to go biomancy now and get iron arm, endurance and haemorrhage on my warlord and iron arm, speed and summoning (daemo) on the 2-d lock.
I win 1-st turn, deploy a bunker in the middle, warlord sorc+spawns on the left flank, other spawns on the right, cultists in ruins, rhino and a chariot up front.
He deploys a knight on my left flank, demolishers a bit left from the center (left from my pov), VSG with a dread on top (didn't know you can do that btw) a bit right of the center, land raiders on each flank - the left one in ruins, the right one near other ruins and infiltrates his scout bikes forward on my right flank for...no particular reason i guess.
CSM Turn 1:
I move aggressively on my right flank and move towards the center with my left spawns as i don't want to get engaged with a knight but want to block it off if needed. Rhino and chariot move forward staying within cover.
Some horrors get spawned, the summoner goes superman rolling a 6. Cast endurance on warlord spawns. Havoks + chariot down void shields and glance a land-raider once.
I perform an amazing 10" charge and murderize scouts.
SM Turn 1:
He moves his knight forward and burns some spawns but endurance helps out. Demolishers kills 2 spawns on the right flank, Mortis dread immobilizes and shakes a rhino - i make a lot of 4+ cover saves thx to nightfight. Landraiders put a wound here and there but cover helps again.
Knight doesn't make a 11" charge.
CSM Turn 2:
I didn't get daemonettes with an icon in turn 2 even with a re-roll, got 3 out of 7 mutilators in and decide to not rush the others. All 3 landed successfully - 2 on the left flank close to a landraider with a techmarine and 3-d near vindicators. Masque that doesn't have targets in this game, deepstrikes close to cultists in a ruin but scatters a lot ending up just about 12" from them - good enough. Right flank spawns push forward towards his demolishers, other spawns and cultists leg it from a knight.
Trying to summon daemonettes with pink horrors but i fail 7 out of 8 4+ rolls, peril and get stripped off their witchfire to boot.
I kill a few scouts with havoks and forget to shoot a chariot. Dance the scouts to 1BS but than forget to run Masque to get closer. I forget a lot of things this turn.
Spawns wreck a vindi and sorc explodes a 2-d one with his melta bomb.
SM Turn 2:
LoTD deepstrike close to a chariot and rhino but get scattered rather far away but get very lucky and end up exactly 1.5" away from my fortification on one side and 1.5" away from spawns on the other. Still within multi-melta range of a chariot.
Knight moves forward trying to threaten spawns and cultists at my backlines.
He had to respond to the threat on the right flank, so he shot at a lone mutilator that landed close to them - it took him shooting from a landraider and a mortis dread to do so. He also kills a few spawns there. Chariot gets exploded by LoTD. I'm fine with it cause he had to choose between a rhino and LoTD and rhino was in a pretty good position to disembark marines to score even though it got immobilized by a dread turn 1. Knight does a few wounds to spawns and kills a bunch of cultists but they pass ld.
He fails a 9" charge towards spawns with his knight.
CSM Turn 3:
I deepstrike daemonettes and 3 more mutilators - forgot about instrument, though - it'd be all 4 otherwise. 1 mutilator mishaps and gets delayed, however the other 3 land in a great position near his VSG and dread just behind a knight that got blocked out by daemonettes so that he couldn't reach mutilators. My left flank spawns rush towards the knight and block it - he's completely surrounded with spawns and daemonettes and there are 2 mutilators within charge reach and 2 other mutilators within a turn of movement towards him if needed be. Warlord sorc doesn't follow them and instead joins cultists to try to kill LoTD.
I summon plague beareres to threaten a right flank landraider. Shoot a few LoTD down.
Mutilators explode a left flank landraider and techmarine+scouts get pinned. Spawns finish off a vindi.
He gets completely surrounded with little hope of turning the tide of battle. Yep, knights can do crazy stuff sometimes but i think that was not the case. We were pretty even on maelstorm for the first 2 turns but i controlled the field on the 3-d. So, he concedes.
I'm pretty sure it's clear that mutilators are good against not very mobile forces. Cause all 3 of my games with them were against non-biker lists. I don't pick matches - that's what i just get so far. Interesting to see how they fare against very mobile stuff.
And it continues. I have a game planned soon against ldar, who will be quite mobile. We shall see what happens. Perhaps I willdo a battle Report.
Akiasura wrote: Please do. I'd like to see how mutilators perform against a more mobile/competitive list.
These reports are interesting, but they aren't telling us anything new. I do love reports in general though
BA are mobile, but not competitive. A useful match up, actually. Does mobility alone ruin the mutilator scheme?
Maybe I'll try Archangel sanguine wing. I recently beat a Necron list to death with that formation. Literally to death. As it turns out, Necron CAD lists can't easily stop 20 FNP marines with power weapons.
The main thing is that if an Eldar Jet bike wants to, it can trek 48" in a turn. So it is pretty much the penultimate in not getting boxed in. It also ignores intervening models, which helps even more compared to normal bike armies.
The disadvantage of actually using that ability is they are..obviously... not firing. So the question for them is, will there be a safe haven to go to and if so will it be safe enough long enough to fire the following turn.
Martel732 wrote: So you predict that the mutilators wreck ba as well?
The General matters. the army matters. The terrain matters. So who can tell?
If the enemy army is hell bent on getting into assault with me, then I suppose i'll do okay. if they play to objectives, then who knows? I certainly dont have the shooting in my particular force to scare the Blood Angels (assuming Sanguinary Priests) so a crafty player might realize that and use it to their advantage. I know I would.
Too much of your question relies on a codex and not enough on the strategy. So what does your list do?
Martel732 wrote: So you predict that the mutilators wreck ba as well?
The General matters. the army matters. The terrain matters. So who can tell?
If the enemy army is hell bent on getting into assault with me, then I suppose i'll do okay. if they play to objectives, then who knows? I certainly dont have the shooting in my particular force to scare the Blood Angels (assuming Sanguinary Priests) so a crafty player might realize that and use it to their advantage. I know I would.
Too much of your question relies on a codex and not enough on the strategy. So what does your list do?
Usually get shot and killed. But if I'm facing a CSM list that can't table me with shooting, then things change a lot. I have multiple lists; some focus on mobile shooting, while my archangels sanguine wing list tries to maximize murder with VV squads that have the free power weapons. Murdering in particular things that threaten my obj sec tac squads. The Stormraven full of combi-melta sternguards has been unpleasant so far as well. That list has enough stuff on the table that I can consider the raven a throw away unit.
Eldar in general are tough for mutilators. Their list is, naturally, the fastest in the game between jet bikes, skimmers, and battle focus. This makes them difficult to pin down for the slow mutilators.
Eldar competitive lists usually feature msu as well. Msu doesn't favor mutilators, since more units are capable of firing and wiping the mutilators. Msu weakens the target saturation strategy while utilizing it as well. It's been around for a very long time because of that. Usually special weapons being tied to squad size reigned this in, but with Eldar that isn't a problem.
Mutilators want slow, expensive, stationary vehicles so they can box them in and punch way above their point value on a good charge. Eldar, for the most part, don't do that (there are reapers and heavy weapon team like units but they aren't seen as the competitive choices). Tbh, stationary expensive tanks aren't seen as competitive in most lists because of their weaknesses, which is one of the reasons mutilators are most likely not seen as strong.
If ig with LRBT were the strongest list in the game, mutilators would be everywhere. Instead, targets that mutilators perform poorly against are the strongest units in the game.
This is why 5 man plague marines with 2 pgs were seen as the competitive options for many editions. If chaos marines could take 2 pgs in a 5 man, you would rarely see cult troops taken.
Akiasura wrote: Eldar in general are tough for mutilators. Their list is, naturally, the fastest in the game between jet bikes, skimmers, and battle focus. This makes them difficult to pin down for the slow mutilators.
Eldar competitive lists usually feature msu as well. Msu doesn't favor mutilators, since more units are capable of firing and wiping the mutilators. Msu weakens the target saturation strategy while utilizing it as well. It's been around for a very long time because of that. Usually special weapons being tied to squad size reigned this in, but with Eldar that isn't a problem.
Mutilators want slow, expensive, stationary vehicles so they can box them in and punch way above their point value on a good charge. Eldar, for the most part, don't do that (there are reapers and heavy weapon team like units but they aren't seen as the competitive choices). Tbh, stationary expensive tanks aren't seen as competitive in most lists because of their weaknesses, which is one of the reasons mutilators are most likely not seen as strong.
If ig with LRBT were the strongest list in the game, mutilators would be everywhere. Instead, targets that mutilators perform poorly against are the strongest units in the game.
This is why 5 man plague marines with 2 pgs were seen as the competitive options for many editions. If chaos marines could take 2 pgs in a 5 man, you would rarely see cult troops taken.
Plague marines would still be popular because they are hard as nails. Their FNP is hard to deny and poison melee weapons are very useful in MC-40K.
My BA lists have nothing stationary, nothing slow, and nothing expensive. This should be interesting. I wonder if this is gonna be like GK games where I'm running away shooting grav and MM.
I disagree. For their points, PMs are only slightly tougher than marines in regards to shooting. They are much better at shooting however, point for point.
I could take 3 squads of marines with rhinos/pgs for every 2 plague marines. It'd be much easier to saturate the board with with plasma, havok launchers, and armor opening up a lot of possibilities.
This is largely pointless since chaos will never get the ability to take 5 man troops with 2 special weapons.
Akiasura wrote: I disagree. For their points, PMs are only slightly tougher than marines in regards to shooting. They are much better at shooting however, point for point.
I could take 3 squads of marines with rhinos/pgs for every 2 plague marines. It'd be much easier to saturate the board with with plasma, havok launchers, and armor opening up a lot of possibilities.
This is largely pointless since chaos will never get the ability to take 5 man troops with 2 special weapons.
I didn't realize the point gap was that large. I'd probably do that too, then.
Another problem with plague marinesis that they require a lord to unlock. Lords are good but i generally prefer sorcs for the possibilities they open with psy powers. Fearless and poisoned knifes are great though.
Fearless is a BIG reason why I went away from Sorcerers. A fearless lord made an enormous difference in the Raptor squads I use. While expensive, their job isn't to "win" every combat (although they win some obviously). Their purpose is just to kleep the enemy where I want it. Board control more or less.
koooaei wrote: Another problem with plague marinesis that they require a lord to unlock. Lords are good but i generally prefer sorcs for the possibilities they open with psy powers. Fearless and poisoned knifes are great though.
You're likely going to use a Lord though in about half the lists you create, and further chances are it'll have MoN anyway to better avoid the ID Threshold. It isn't like you have to entirely go out of your way to actually make it happen. MoS is already junk anyway on the Lord, MoT gives no real benefits, and MoK only gives you the Juggerlord.
Plus if you're not going to use the Fast Attack slot much, The Purge FOC can make them into your "Troops" in the Elite slot. Then you can just ally in Cultists, whatever the other HQ was, and Spawn. BAM, done.
Akiasura wrote: I disagree. For their points, PMs are only slightly tougher than marines in regards to shooting. They are much better at shooting however, point for point.
I could take 3 squads of marines with rhinos/pgs for every 2 plague marines. It'd be much easier to saturate the board with with plasma, havok launchers, and armor opening up a lot of possibilities.
This is largely pointless since chaos will never get the ability to take 5 man troops with 2 special weapons.
I didn't realize the point gap was that large. I'd probably do that too, then.
Plague Marines cost ~1.85 chaos marines.
Against Lasguns, the plague marine takes 0.037 wounds and the chaos marine takes 0.111 wounds. Advantage plague marine at 1:3 wound ratio. Against Pulse Rifles, the plague marine takes 0.111 wounds and the chaos marine takes 0.222 wounds. Advantage plague marine at 1:2 wound ratio. Against Tau plasma Rifles, the plague marine takes 0.444 wounds and the chaos marine takes 0.8333 wounds. Advantage plague marine at 1:1.88 wound ratio. Against plasma gun hits the plague marine takes 0.556 wounds and the chaos marine takes 0.833 wounds. Advantage chaos marine as ~1:1.5 wound ratio is less than 1:1.85 point ratio.
So Plague marines are more survivable for their cost against anything S6 and below. S7 and above means you're better off with the more bodies from standard Chaos Marines.
On the other hand, if you just want two plasma guns then 5 Plague Marines are 20 points cheaper than the 10 man chaos marine squad.
MoT gives you 3++ which is fine and access to s8 ap1 beam if you'r erunning a psycher which is a very powerful thing for 1 WC.
MoS gives noize marines - pretty decent marked marines actually. They pay relatively cheap for a potent ap3 flamer, fearless and ini5.
Right, which is why you see them spammed.
We were discussing if you could take 5 man marine squads with 2 pgs. You can't currently but if you could it would be pretty good.
Agree on noise marines, I actually like them a lot, and they work really well in a rhino list if your meta is marine heavy. I don't think they are up to par compared to plague marines though, and nurgle bikers are most likely superior to slaanesh bikers. The only squad I think you want the lord in is the biker squad, though the raptor squad isn't that much worse.
Akiasura wrote: Right, which is why you see them spammed.
We were discussing if you could take 5 man marine squads with 2 pgs. You can't currently but if you could it would be pretty good.
Even in a 5 man squad, from a survival point of view, plague marines would be worth it against anything but S7+ shooting.
Though, admittedly, S7+ is not in short supply these days.
I'm talking more about the offensive power and armor saturation. It was already mentioned that plague marines are pretty tough defensively.
Defensively, plague marines are worth it. Melee wise they would most likely still be better than the 5 marine squad point for point, defensively or offensively.
But offensively shooting, the 5 man marine squad with pgs would be greatly superior to the plagues. You could spam rhinos with havok launchers to make for a great saturation list. Really wish we had the ability to mix and match equipment more than the sm. apparently we kept the codex
koooaei wrote: MoT gives you 3++ which is fine and access to s8 ap1 beam if you'r erunning a psycher which is a very powerful thing for 1 WC.
MoS gives noize marines - pretty decent marked marines actually. They pay relatively cheap for a potent ap3 flamer, fearless and ini5.
1. You still have to roll for Doombolt. Since you can't roll more than half, you're stuck at a 33% chance to get it. That's pretty lousy since you could just roll on another table and get something better, like off Telepathy (Primaris is at least a guarantee)
2. Noise Marines need the Blastmaster to be MUCH cheaper. They should also be stock with the sonic guns, but that's a different topic. Also they won't live to get off the Flamer. It IS nasty, but you have to make it there, and they're only the toughness of a Marine.
Martel732 wrote: BA are mobile, but not competitive. A useful match up, actually. Does mobility alone ruin the mutilator scheme?
I'd like to see them face off against Ork hordes, mass Poison weapons from DE, and a MC-heavy list from Tyranids, maybe they will run into more difficulty. Dust off the Power Mauls and Lightning Claws basically. Anyways, they seem to be walking over 7th edition tank armies without much resistance.
Martel732 wrote: BA are mobile, but not competitive. A useful match up, actually. Does mobility alone ruin the mutilator scheme?
I'd like to see them face off against Ork hordes, mass Poison weapons from DE, and a MC-heavy list from Tyranids, maybe they will run into more difficulty. Dust off the Power Mauls and Lightning Claws basically. Anyways, they seem to be walking over 7th edition tank armies without much resistance.
I don't think anyone is claiming it's a fluke, just that the two lists are very similar and as optimal as it gets for mutilators. Both are very casual tank heavy lists that lack msu (one list has about 500 points in two tanks, unless FW landraiders get a price reduction) and anti-infantry.
After all, when I think 7th edition and competitive, tank heavy does not spring to mind.
I'd really like to see them faced off against a stronger list, rather than Orks or DE. FMC heavy tyranids could be interesting. So far, they haven't done anything that anyone has claimed was unwarranted for them.
Ashiraya wrote: You know something is pretty terrible when a Dreadnought hard counters it!
I know i'm (sadly) almost two weeks behind on this comment.
Dreadnaughts hard counter Manz. Are we going to say that Manz, one of the best units in the Ork codex, are now terrible? When pretty much every army with TEQ units lusts after them and constantly suggests they get rules changes which make their TEQ upto par with manz?
Ashiraya wrote: You know something is pretty terrible when a Dreadnought hard counters it!
I know i'm (sadly) almost two weeks behind on this comment.
Dreadnaughts hard counter Manz. Are we going to say that Manz, one of the best units in the Ork codex, are now terrible? When pretty much every army with TEQ units lusts after them and constantly suggests they get rules changes which make their TEQ upto par with manz?
As someone who owns a lot of TEQ and MANz, I've never looked at MANz and wished all my TEQ could be like them. I don't even see it being mentioned on the site, tbh. TEQ are, defensively, not bad usually. It's their offensive output at range that suffers.
If I had to pick best unit in the Ork codex, it would probably be Loota's. Big Mek would be up there as well. After that probably bikerz, regular boyz...not to sure where to go from there.
koooaei wrote: MoT gives you 3++ which is fine and access to s8 ap1 beam if you'r erunning a psycher which is a very powerful thing for 1 WC.
MoS gives noize marines - pretty decent marked marines actually. They pay relatively cheap for a potent ap3 flamer, fearless and ini5.
1. You still have to roll for Doombolt. Since you can't roll more than half, you're stuck at a 33% chance to get it. That's pretty lousy since you could just roll on another table and get something better, like off Telepathy (Primaris is at least a guarantee)
2. Noise Marines need the Blastmaster to be MUCH cheaper. They should also be stock with the sonic guns, but that's a different topic. Also they won't live to get off the Flamer. It IS nasty, but you have to make it there, and they're only the toughness of a Marine.
1. 66% if you roll twice.
2. I don't use blastmasters - they're counter-intuitive to what a unit of marines generally wants to do. It wants to controle the midfield as reliably and as cheap as possible. I find that a doom siren and bolters + ccw are good enough for this mission. Siren also threatens bikes a bit. And it's a good idea to soften up a target before your melee units charge in. It also helps a lot against assault. Flamer overwatch is nice.
As for manz - they're amazing cause they have trukks and 2 wounds. They're actually easier to make work than mutilators I totally see a massed manz list in trukks with vsg wrecking face to even top lists.
Akiasura wrote: one list has about 500 points in two tanks, unless FW landraiders get a price reduction
I think so, those tanks were probably 2x Proteus Land Raiders. They are 200pts each and can be upgraded with Ceramite Armor (I think).
So I'm guessing it must have been hilarous/utter catastrophe when freakin MUTILATORS of all units start dropping all over his backfield to deliver Armorbane Chainfists into his melta-proofed Land Raiders. Unexpected lol.
There literally couldn't be a more perfect counter. So yeah no surprise he conceded in T3. Back to the drawing board!
Yep, they were 200 pt landraiders. LR aren't great since 6-th but his philosophy was that they're at least harder to kill than rhinos and he plays killpoint games a lot. So, it probably makes sence to have fewer more expensive and generally sturdy units out there. Especially in a shooty meta. LR in cover are pretty hard to take out. Especially, when it's a 3+ cover thanks to techmarine.
koooaei wrote: MoT gives you 3++ which is fine and access to s8 ap1 beam if you'r erunning a psycher which is a very powerful thing for 1 WC.
MoS gives noize marines - pretty decent marked marines actually. They pay relatively cheap for a potent ap3 flamer, fearless and ini5.
1. You still have to roll for Doombolt. Since you can't roll more than half, you're stuck at a 33% chance to get it. That's pretty lousy since you could just roll on another table and get something better, like off Telepathy (Primaris is at least a guarantee)
2. Noise Marines need the Blastmaster to be MUCH cheaper. They should also be stock with the sonic guns, but that's a different topic. Also they won't live to get off the Flamer. It IS nasty, but you have to make it there, and they're only the toughness of a Marine.
1. 66% if you roll twice.
2. I don't use blastmasters - they're counter-intuitive to what a unit of marines generally wants to do. It wants to controle the midfield as reliably and as cheap as possible. I find that a doom siren and bolters + ccw are good enough for this mission. Siren also threatens bikes a bit. And it's a good idea to soften up a target before your melee units charge in. It also helps a lot against assault. Flamer overwatch is nice.
As for manz - they're amazing cause they have trukks and 2 wounds. They're actually easier to make work than mutilators I totally see a massed manz list in trukks with vsg wrecking face to even top lists.
It seems like regular Marines will do that job you want. Blastmasters are one of the few advantages Noise Marines get. They can be fired on the move outside of the Rhino, and inside the Rhino you can still launch blasts that ignore cover. The Doom Siren just won't get a chance to do anything, seeing that Noise Marines are just MEQ's. Of course a Dreadclaw can deliver a Doom Siren accurately...
If I'm facing a CSM list that can't table me with shooting, then things change a lot. I have multiple lists; some focus on mobile shooting, while my archangels sanguine wing list tries to maximize murder with VV squads that have the free power weapons. Murdering in particular things that threaten my obj sec tac squads. The Stormraven full of combi-melta sternguards has been unpleasant so far as well. That list has enough stuff on the table that I can consider the raven a throw away unit.
So... Is there one you use for tournaments? I assume there is? That's the one I'd use as an example.
Martel732 wrote: Not a specific list. There's no real strong build, so I mix it up a lot.
Well... Its off topic, but if I were you, I would stick to one build and just tweak it as you go so you can master it. The first couple times you try a new strategy, it takes a few games to discriminate between bad luck and your faulty decisions vs. the actual list and how wll it CAN perform its mission.
For example my Night Lords looked very different when i first started as you can see on the blog battle reports. I started with a Defiler in the list if memory serves and tried a Land Raider and so on. The core of the list was unchanged but i slowly morphed the one list until it did what I wanted. Key words there: what I wanted. It now carries out both my plan A and my plan B when plan A goes to pot.
Again off the subject but throwing the baby out with the bth water probably won't make you more adept with the codex. You have to decide what your CORE strategy and back up plan will be, build a list you think can do it and then ever so slowly change it as games pile up until you feel its the best version of that CORE that you can. Having disparate lists (within the codex) that try different things isn't probably going to teach you how to strategize.
Personally, i like to play with everything. Luckilly, orks are great at doing this. I can easlly deploy orkartes, orklequins, orkdar, orka militarum, etc. and people will be quite happy to play against it. Well, at least at this place.
First of all, it's just fun to play different lists often. Second thing is that you start to see what's really behind the tactical decisions for this armies. And it's a very important thing. You start to see new weaknesses of this armies that might have been concealed from another point of view. I've noticed that i've started to generally perform much better against eldar after running them a few times myself.
But yep, practice makes perfect.
Anywayz, let's go back to mutilators. Anyone up for a test match?
Martel732 wrote: Not a specific list. There's no real strong build, so I mix it up a lot.
Well... Its off topic, but if I were you, I would stick to one build and just tweak it as you go so you can master it. The first couple times you try a new strategy, it takes a few games to discriminate between bad luck and your faulty decisions vs. the actual list and how wll it CAN perform its mission.
For example my Night Lords looked very different when i first started as you can see on the blog battle reports. I started with a Defiler in the list if memory serves and tried a Land Raider and so on. The core of the list was unchanged but i slowly morphed the one list until it did what I wanted. Key words there: what I wanted. It now carries out both my plan A and my plan B when plan A goes to pot.
Again off the subject but throwing the baby out with the bth water probably won't make you more adept with the codex. You have to decide what your CORE strategy and back up plan will be, build a list you think can do it and then ever so slowly change it as games pile up until you feel its the best version of that CORE that you can. Having disparate lists (within the codex) that try different things isn't probably going to teach you how to strategize.
Just my opinion.
I don't think BA can really have a core strategy, because they fail as both a shooting and as an assault army. I'm trying to have models on the table on turn 4, not have elaborate plans here.
I don't think BA can really have a core strategy, because they fail as both a shooting and as an assault army. I'm trying to have models on the table on turn 4, not have elaborate plans here.
I said strategy. You're not talking about strategy.
For example, the strategy for my list is to free the Chaos Marines to score my objectives through oppressive board control. That strategy once you state it out loud, instantly calls for certain units to fill it out.
For the Blood Angels, positional dominance is probably the watchword. You don't need to wreck face. You ned to be where and when you want ot be and stand that ground WHEN it's calld for,
There's different ways to go about everything but knowing WHAT you want to do is the thing.
Mutilators play well to that plan. They are there because they play well to that plan. In the case of Blood Angels, they are somewhat similar in nature albeit different enough to matter. But the same basic thing I do could be attempted with them. Different units, same result.
Its the strategy that is the important thing. Again, in my opinion. the army are tools. So long as they CAN do what you ask, how WELL they do it is of lesser importance. in the end, many strategies rely on only one survivor in the unit to carry out the mission.
Think about it. Mutilators aren't indestructible or anything. they die like everything else in 40K. But its the role they play that matters more.
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koooaei wrote: Personally, i like to play with everything. Luckilly, orks are great at doing this. I can easlly deploy orkartes, orklequins, orkdar, orka militarum, etc. and people will be quite happy to play against it. Well, at least at this place.
First of all, it's just fun to play different lists often. Second thing is that you start to see what's really behind the tactical decisions for this armies. And it's a very important thing. You start to see new weaknesses of this armies that might have been concealed from another point of view. I've noticed that i've started to generally perform much better against eldar after running them a few times myself.
But yep, practice makes perfect.
Anywayz, let's go back to mutilators. Anyone up for a test match?
within the same codex was what I was addressing. Scattering all over and trying stuff isnt as effective as sort of a slow morphing attempt. You give in too quickly to despair when you dont force yourself to learn what little things you need to do to better the result each time. its like adding a drop of paint at a time to a color until you get the perfect color, you know?
One of our local players got interested in all that mutilator noize. He is in a camp of "Mutilators suck". Long story short, we've got a match soon where he's playing ultramarines with a new fancy charge from reserve vanguard formation. The stakes are hing. If mutilators loose than i make him an artillery piece out of plastic clay the size of an ork mek gun - he'll probably run it as one or as TFC. If mutilators win, he makes me a meganob out of...something like green stuff
koooaei wrote: Another problem with plague marinesis that they require a lord to unlock. Lords are good but i generally prefer sorcs for the possibilities they open with psy powers. Fearless and poisoned knifes are great though.
You're likely going to use a Lord though in about half the lists you create, and further chances are it'll have MoN anyway to better avoid the ID Threshold. It isn't like you have to entirely go out of your way to actually make it happen. MoS is already junk anyway on the Lord, MoT gives no real benefits, and MoK only gives you the Juggerlord.
Plus if you're not going to use the Fast Attack slot much, The Purge FOC can make them into your "Troops" in the Elite slot. Then you can just ally in Cultists, whatever the other HQ was, and Spawn. BAM, done.
Off topic but MoT does open up the option for jetbike, a good delivery system which also boosts offence and defence of the lord. If we're talking about unlocking cult troops (not sure if Thousand Sons are worth unlocking, but that is another discussion) then the sorcerlord on disc is a good place to put a burning brand, which is worth relatively more post heldrake nerf.
I agree the disc is an awesome upgrade, but it isn't worth buying MoT over MoN. T6 4++ is going to be more valuable than T5 3++ when Eternal Warrior isn't readily available. Plus with the Horns from the Supplement I can get an extra attack for around the same offensive output.
Also, that'd be excellent IF Sorcerers didn't have to do a roll on the Tzeentch table.
Probably not video but will try to take a few pictures on my phone.
Had another vassal game vs the same dude with Raukaan but this time he changed it up a bit and played much cleaner from a tactical pov. He changed a knight for a purely melee one, moved away from the 2-d land-raider (which he owns irl...sad thing, really) and exchanged the first one for a redeemer full of shotgun scouts with a vet sarge with a fist (awesome), took a min squad of sniper scouts with a multimelta landspeeder storm, took a comsquad with an apothecary and accompanied them with a biker techmarine. I also changed the list a bit. As i wanted, changed havoks and a chariot for 4 nurgle obliterators.
He held ground 1-st turn, i pushed forward. Sorc took a wound summoning pink horrors and than min sniper scouts shot him down with a precision shot that i failed to look out and save. The 2-d sorc which was my warlord didn't get too lucky with psy powers - i should have rolled biomancy but decided to fish for invisibility but got all the mediocre powers.
Than i deepstrike most of my stuff all around the map, do squat with shooting due to VSG. Masque dances the hell out of comsquad so that they can only move d3 and have -5 ws. I get too confident and run too close to them - must have been 7" away from bikers but instead i think that he'd try to back up. My mistake. He than shoots down an obli and a mutilator, charges scouts into nurgle spawns and chops them down quite well making a lot of armor and 6+++ in the process - he was a champ at rolling fnp that game, really. He charges deepstriking daemonettes. Luckilly, with -5 to WS he only kills 3 and instability kills another 2. And bikers passed 2 out of 2 fnp. He charges a knight at a scattered mutilator that got into it's way. Than i separate warlord sorc and spawns, join sorc to a nearby mutilator, get force weapon, btw, sorc got +1 str form mutation, charge into the comsquad but sorc does below average and kills just one biker. He passes 3 out of 4 fnp for other wounds. 4+++ makes comsquad very tarpitty.
Mutilators wreck his flank without a knight but with a speeder and VSG exploding both. As he had both scouts and dread on the battlements and as it's not written how vehicles get this 2d6 s6 hits resolved, we decide that it's side armor => av13 dread doesn't care. But scouts get pinned. Other scouts leave just one spawn with one wound left down from the starting 3 (other 2 died to shooting previously). Knight charges into the daemonettes that got caught by a comsquad and kills them, piling in to the sorc and mutilator. Sorc kills another one dude and it happens to be an apothecary that doesn't make his look out. Spawns that have separated from a sorc wreck 2 demolishers and shake another one.
2 Oblis explode a landraider, wounding 7 nearby scouts in the process but they pass 5 4+ saves and 2 6+++ saves. Other oblit and 2 melta from marines does squat to a dread, i than charge it with an oblit that was wounded previously and daemonnettes to eat overwatch but dread does one wound to an obli in melee and i fail armor. He finally finishes off spawns with his scouts. Tarpits a mutilator with damned legioneers. My other mutilators finish off the sniper scouts and kill a few legioneers. Knight kills a mutilator, sorc kills a biker and now we're left in a combat with his warlord tech marine, knight and my warlord sorc.
I think it's around turn 4 and as he played quite conservatively for the first turn and basically got locked into his deployment zone for the whole game, i score a lot of VP from controling the board and we're like 8-4 in favor of CSM. and most of my "controle point X" are not drawn yet. I got lucky rolling 6 points for two d3 point missions early on.
As for the forces, he has an unharmed knight, a warlord, Dread locked down in combat with 1 daemonette, 3 legioneers locked with a full health mutilator and a bunch of scouts. I have a sorc locked into combat with his warlord and knight, pink horrors, 1 daemonette locked with a dread, 3 mutilators, 2 oblits near scouts, marines and cultists. So, in terms of forces, he wouldn't be able to wipe me out in time as i'm basically scattered across the whole map. So, we finish the game as he concedes as it was allready very late but this was a very close one and we both enjoyed it. If knight got lucky and rolled a 6 on a stomp killing my warlord sorc turn 3, it could have changed the outcome of the game eventually. But luck went both ways, he did extremely good with his saves, though. But poor landraider. I hate it when a 250 pt mostly transport vehicle gets one-shotted. Anywayz, the game was going in my favor but who knows what can happen with those maelstorm - i can get a bad hand and he can get a good one and than murderize stuff with a few lucky rolls. It's not likely but it happens from time to time but, once again, it was very late.
Now my thoughts about mutilators and the list on the whole. Mutilators did fine once again. They're pretty fine in this context and create a lot of tension if they don't mass mishap which also happens from time to time but icon helps out a lot. Oblits did better than havoks and chariot, i think. Also, i need to incorporate horrors into my list. Summoning is a great tool but it's quite dangerous for 2-wound sorcs without fnp. I could probably give up on a few upgrades here and there - like gifts of mutation, marines could be exchanged for another bunch of cultists or i could get rid of them whatsoever taking Purge as a main detachment. I do like rhino marines though. But they'd free a lot of points for another oblits and horrors that'd make summoning much safer. Will definitely keep mutilators. I think that 5-7 is a good number for them. Mixing them up with oblits is nice. Auto-loose for killpoint games, though
Good times. Sounds typical of that kind of force. i think the enemy force gets pinned in and when that happens, it's hard to undo it.
The value of some Chaos Marines would simply be to make the objectives theirs at a low cost from reserve?
As for your Mutilators, getting in the way can really slow an enemy unit down as it did here. It might not be big on the stat sheets but it certainly makes a difference in game.
Probably not video but will try to take a few pictures on my phone.
Had another vassal game vs the same dude with Raukaan but this time he changed it up a bit and played much cleaner from a tactical pov. He changed a knight for a purely melee one, moved away from the 2-d land-raider (which he owns irl...sad thing, really) and exchanged the first one for a redeemer full of shotgun scouts with a vet sarge with a fist (awesome), took a min squad of sniper scouts with a multimelta landspeeder storm, took a comsquad with an apothecary and accompanied them with a biker techmarine. I also changed the list a bit. As i wanted, changed havoks and a chariot for 4 nurgle obliterators.
He held ground 1-st turn, i pushed forward. Sorc took a wound summoning pink horrors and than min sniper scouts shot him down with a precision shot that i failed to look out and save. The 2-d sorc which was my warlord didn't get too lucky with psy powers - i should have rolled biomancy but decided to fish for invisibility but got all the mediocre powers.
Than i deepstrike most of my stuff all around the map, do squat with shooting due to VSG. Masque dances the hell out of comsquad so that they can only move d3 and have -5 ws. I get too confident and run too close to them - must have been 7" away from bikers but instead i think that he'd try to back up. My mistake. He than shoots down an obli and a mutilator, charges scouts into nurgle spawns and chops them down quite well making a lot of armor and 6+++ in the process - he was a champ at rolling fnp that game, really. He charges deepstriking daemonettes. Luckilly, with -5 to WS he only kills 3 and instability kills another 2. And bikers passed 2 out of 2 fnp. He charges a knight at a scattered mutilator that got into it's way. Than i separate warlord sorc and spawns, join sorc to a nearby mutilator, get force weapon, btw, sorc got +1 str form mutation, charge into the comsquad but sorc does below average and kills just one biker. He passes 3 out of 4 fnp for other wounds. 4+++ makes comsquad very tarpitty.
Mutilators wreck his flank without a knight but with a speeder and VSG exploding both. As he had both scouts and dread on the battlements and as it's not written how vehicles get this 2d6 s6 hits resolved, we decide that it's side armor => av13 dread doesn't care. But scouts get pinned. Other scouts leave just one spawn with one wound left down from the starting 3 (other 2 died to shooting previously). Knight charges into the daemonettes that got caught by a comsquad and kills them, piling in to the sorc and mutilator. Sorc kills another one dude and it happens to be an apothecary that doesn't make his look out. Spawns that have separated from a sorc wreck 2 demolishers and shake another one.
2 Oblis explode a landraider, wounding 7 nearby scouts in the process but they pass 5 4+ saves and 2 6+++ saves. Other oblit and 2 melta from marines does squat to a dread, i than charge it with an oblit that was wounded previously and daemonnettes to eat overwatch but dread does one wound to an obli in melee and i fail armor. He finally finishes off spawns with his scouts. Tarpits a mutilator with damned legioneers. My other mutilators finish off the sniper scouts and kill a few legioneers. Knight kills a mutilator, sorc kills a biker and now we're left in a combat with his warlord tech marine, knight and my warlord sorc.
I think it's around turn 4 and as he played quite conservatively for the first turn and basically got locked into his deployment zone for the whole game, i score a lot of VP from controling the board and we're like 8-4 in favor of CSM. and most of my "controle point X" are not drawn yet. I got lucky rolling 6 points for two d3 point missions early on.
As for the forces, he has an unharmed knight, a warlord, Dread locked down in combat with 1 daemonette, 3 legioneers locked with a full health mutilator and a bunch of scouts. I have a sorc locked into combat with his warlord and knight, pink horrors, 1 daemonette locked with a dread, 3 mutilators, 2 oblits near scouts, marines and cultists. So, in terms of forces, he wouldn't be able to wipe me out in time as i'm basically scattered across the whole map. So, we finish the game as he concedes as it was allready very late but this was a very close one and we both enjoyed it. If knight got lucky and rolled a 6 on a stomp killing my warlord sorc turn 3, it could have changed the outcome of the game eventually. But luck went both ways, he did extremely good with his saves, though. But poor landraider. I hate it when a 250 pt mostly transport vehicle gets one-shotted. Anywayz, the game was going in my favor but who knows what can happen with those maelstorm - i can get a bad hand and he can get a good one and than murderize stuff with a few lucky rolls. It's not likely but it happens from time to time but, once again, it was very late.
Now my thoughts about mutilators and the list on the whole. Mutilators did fine once again. They're pretty fine in this context and create a lot of tension if they don't mass mishap which also happens from time to time but icon helps out a lot. Oblits did better than havoks and chariot, i think. Also, i need to incorporate horrors into my list. Summoning is a great tool but it's quite dangerous for 2-wound sorcs without fnp. I could probably give up on a few upgrades here and there - like gifts of mutation, marines could be exchanged for another bunch of cultists or i could get rid of them whatsoever taking Purge as a main detachment. I do like rhino marines though. But they'd free a lot of points for another oblits and horrors that'd make summoning much safer. Will definitely keep mutilators. I think that 5-7 is a good number for them. Mixing them up with oblits is nice. Auto-loose for killpoint games, though
I did a battle report for and with my son recently. He played my Mutilator army (he likes Chaos Marines and Dark Eldar). I can PM you the link if you wanna see it. Hehehe.
Well, it was a tough match and it wasn't maelstorm, so board controle during the game wasn't important, basically, what mutilators tend to provide. Imo, if you're playing eternal war, msu is not the way to go anywayz cause you instantly have 1/6 chance of auto-loosing and msu tend to be overall weaker than deathstars but they provide better board presence (which is wasted in eternal war).
Good game anywayz! You guyzare good sports. Too bad pikachu didn't come out of reserves to stomp the blasted pointy ears.
- 7x Mutilators
- No major problems during DS - One dies to shooting after DS (unknown value)
- 2x slapfight a LotD squad, one dies (~200pts)
- Two act as speedbumps for the Knight (~325pts)
- Kill count is 1x VSG, 1x LSS, 1x Sniper Scouts (~200pts)
- Misc effects: pinned Scouts, acted as bodyguard for HQ
What are your thoughts on a Chaos Daemon HQ rather than Horrors? Grimoire would help you turn the tables on the Knights and Dreads, and if casting fails it's only a 30pt item on a unit which probably would have died anyway.
- 7x Mutilators
- No major problems during DS - One dies to shooting after DS (unknown value)
- 2x slapfight a LotD squad, one dies (~200pts)
- Two act as speedbumps for the Knight (~325pts)
- Kill count is 1x VSG, 1x LSS, 1x Sniper Scouts (~200pts)
- Misc effects: pinned Scouts, acted as bodyguard for HQ
What are your thoughts on a Chaos Daemon HQ rather than Horrors? Grimoire would help you turn the tables on the Knights and Dreads, and if casting fails it's only a 30pt item on a unit which probably would have died anyway.
6 mutilators this time. And 4 oblits that i liked a lot. They actually support each other pretty well. I think that a combination of mutilators and obliterators is better than all those points in either mutilators or obliterators. It's also hard for me to tell weather more mutilators and less obliterators is better than more obliterators and less mutilators. It mostly depends on the opponent. I'm just doing > mutilators for the sake of this thread for now but i see mutilators coming on top in some fights. Sometimes, shooting just does squat with all those fancy cover saves while an extra attack with probably better suited weapons like maces, lc and chainfists against vehicles. A power fist is often not enough to reliably down a vehicle even if you catch it up close whereas +1 attack and chainfists is a complete game changer.
As for grimoire, i run masque as HQ. I see it's value higher than grimoire in such a msu list. So far i haven't encountered deathstars but even against a tough relatively expensive squad of bikers it was allready worth it. Besides, it shot down LoTD and scout's shooting later on. Masque actually forced LoTD to get stuck with a mutilator cause they didn't manage to put it down with bs1 shooting. And even if i run into a full mechanised list, masque is just 75 pts and quite fast, so can at least run around and score. It also has 6 s4 rending attacks on the charge. And dances can't fail unlike grimoire.
That's possible. But i don't want to take too many pts away from the front. And if i want to run a proper daemon melee list, they themselves require a lot of effort to make work - like psy buffing. And i don't want to go full daemon factory cause it generally doesn't pay off. There's a certain point when summoning starts to take away more than giving back. To more reliably summon something, you need at least 7-8 WC. And it's a LOT. I also want to buff spawns at the same time.
koooaei wrote: Well, it was a tough match and it wasn't maelstorm, so board controle during the game wasn't important, basically, what mutilators tend to provide. Imo, if you're playing eternal war, msu is not the way to go anywayz cause you instantly have 1/6 chance of auto-loosing and msu tend to be overall weaker than deathstars but they provide better board presence (which is wasted in eternal war).
Good game anywayz! You guyzare good sports. Too bad pikachu didn't come out of reserves to stomp the blasted pointy ears.
If there had been another turn, Pikachu might have tilted the battle. Lol.
Obviously the skill levels were different, but I thought you might like to watch it just because its been the subject here. He's pretty good for his age though.
@ koooaei: I lost the even longer version, but I think the only place where you can save a lot of points is the Bunker. Trying to forego it :
Warlord trait, trying for Strategic Genuis: 31% chance
ML3 Divination Sorc, fishing for Scrier's Gaze: 66% total chance
A ML3 Tzeentch Herald can try for Scrier's gaze on Divination (now up to 75%) or just stay in Malefic.
So in a minimum of 2/3rds of games, you'd have a 8/9 chance of Reserves coming in. In the remainder, you still have a 2/3 chance. That can be further mitigated by buying another Instrument+Icon, which can be chained together to create a LZ for incoming Oblits and Mutilators. There's a lesser chance of reserves entering, but also lesser chances of mishaps. Maybe that's worth sacrificing the Comms Relay?
So basically:
- Exchange Gift of Mutation and Spell Familiar for Balestar
- Drop the Bunker, drop 1x Mutilator, exchange Melta Marines for Cultists (-251pts)
- Buy ML3 Herald, buy Daemonettes w/Icon and Instrument (+205pts)
- The difference is +46pts, to use on a Disc and Rewards or scrounge up 5pts to buy a VSG.
You could riff on this a few different ways, like a 3-Layer VSG with Barricades placed on an Objective for Nurglings (2+ cover). Or two Rhino Marines and use Pink Horrors to summon, skip the Herald entirely. Or even take a ML2 Herald of Slaneesh with an Exalted Locus to Challenge out critical enemy ICs, after Masque kills their mobility. Or spend the points in an entirely different way within CSM.
I don't know, what do you think? There's some drawbacks but it also opens up some potential synergies. 150pts of Bunker+Cultists is similar to 150pts of VSG+Cultists, you're essentially trading Rhino Marines+Mutie for a Herald+Daemonettes, plus the associated tradeoffs of an Icons/Instrument versus a guaranteed reserves reroll.
Regardless of all the suggestions above I'm curious to see how next the challenge plays out.
Vsg is a bit wasted in an army without vehicles. 100 pts is a Kitted herald or a squad of horrors that'd be more useful imo. It's hard to come across an army that can't down 3 av12 shields in one go.
Divination tree can be fine. It has 4++, primaris and yep, scyer's gaze can be great. But it's not nearly as reliable as simply having comms relay. Bunker also provides blos for cultists. And i can but an obli inside or on top of battlements too.
Nevertheless, i think that your idea with baelstar and more daemons can work too. Spawns with 4++ are tasty indeed.
koooaei wrote: But also not so useful fearless, overwatch and ignore cover for shooting which i don't have.
Fearless is in the Telepathy discipline, what you would get is Precognition (Psyker rerolls failed saves, failed to hit, failed to wound). That one is useful on the Sorc I think, they are fragile and it may protect against getting sniped out.
The shooting powers won't work with Spawns, but you do pick up Counterattack. The only CSM units that have Overwatch are the Marines and Cultists.
Ignore Cover... maybe reorganize two Oblits into a single unit to have a good target to buff with Prescience+Ignore Cover? With Instruments + Icons you can bring them in reliably and with luck keep them out of combat. And with the weapons flexibility you have the perfect option against a lot of different targets.
Oh, right about fearless - missed the tree. I generally roll either telepathy for shreik, shrowding, terrify and invis or biomancy for all the great stuff there. Also summoning. Baelstar has it's advantages of not spending 70 pts on a fortification just for comms relay.
Are there any other reserve manipulations in daemon codex? Well, we could ally in eldar with a dude for +1 reserves and scatbikes but not this time.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Or maybr there are some more useful fortifications?
There isn't much else in the way of Daemon options, at least I can't think of any. Adding ML3 Heralds for more rolls on Divination will push your odds up to 85 or 90% (from 77%). There's also a lesser reward for the troops that gives +1 to reserve rolls, but you need to fish for a 6 to grab it.
If you keep your list as it is, you could equip Daemonheart on the Malefic Sorc, which won't prevent perils but you can hopefully regen the lost wound with IWND. 2+ save is money anyway, and the Crimson Slaughter traits are pretty solid with Spawn (Shrouded, Hatred, Ld debuff). So best case scenario -- permanently Shrouded 2+/4++ Div Sorc who lets you reroll reserves.
Buying IWND is pretty bad in that regard. You're for both IWND and 2+ when a Sorcerer is still only two wounds. It makes him FAR too expensive. If an opponent wants a two wound model to die, it'll happen pretty easily. Just buy the things necessary (4++, ML3, bike, Spell Familiar/Balestar) and don't go overboard.
This sorcs are allready like 185 pts, so VERY expensive. They could be cheaper, but i find that every time i don't take 4++, i regret about it. And mutation just fits the theme so nicely.
Also, rolling on strategic can give +1 to reserve rolls. As for rewards, it might be worth it just for this extra chance. It's not very expensive anywayz.
I think there are merits, provided you intend to avoid Horrors or Heralds. It bumps a 185pt model up to 215pts. IWND is needed to deal with T1 Perils. You can't risk summoning again on 1W and any other bad luck is curtains. I'd keep the Sigil too.
Meanwhile if you combo a 2+ with Precognition, a T5 Sorc becomes 4x as survivable as with a 3+. It will take about 1100pts of Scatterbikes to drop 2W from him, add a 4+ FNP from Biomancy and it takes over 2000pts. Grav, Melta and Plasma will mostly bounce off the spawn and then there's mandatory challenges. So it has value if there's not a character like Culexus, Stomps and D-weapons that negate saves.
But it's still better to have a cheap Malefic caster if the list can support it, otherwise that's a lot of eggs in one basket.
Anyway, just throwing out ideas. I'm curious to see what direction this list might go.
Wowie ! I didnt expect my question to spawn such an extensive discussion and chain of replies! Have there been any changes in opinion when it comes to the mutilators? or is the consensus still that they're just not very worth the points?
I hope yall have been having fun with the whole thing, sure seems like it lol.
The consensus seems to be, to answer the ops question, that mutilators have a niche use.
If your opponent runs large squads instead of msu, mutilators do well.. They will absorb well above their point cost. The expensive squad must be bad at assault and not have split fire.
If your opponent runs stationary tanks, they will do well. Mutilators punch way above their point cost against such targets.
If neither of the above is true, mutilators don't seem to do well. Neither of the above is seen in competitive lists, so that is why mutilators are also not seen in competitive lists.
I hesitate to call any of this a consensus however.
There are a lot of deathstars in competitive meta actually.
The thing is that mutilators don't need to fight against melee dudes - we've got summoned daemonettes + masque, sorc's debuffs and spawns for tarpits. I see mutilator's role more of area controlers. Backlines and vehicles hate them. When needed, they can join serious melee combats but their speed is not ideal for that. However, they do rock the enemy backlines, deny area and limit movement for just a bunch of points. I think that nothing in the codex except for obliterators can really suit this role as perfectly as mutilators do. I don't think that mutilators are better than obliterators but at the same time, obliterators are not better than mutilators. Obliterators are more versatile but worse in melee and more expensive. I actually think that it's better to go with a mix. You never know when you'll need those chainfists with an extra attack or ini4 claws/maces. At the same time, shooting weapons are invaluable. It's probably better to have more obliterators in general but it's hard to tell without playtesting. If anyone wants to do it, go with a mix anywayz.
My opinion is that mutilators are fine. They can be used in most melee-oriented (hey, you should be melee-oriented with csm) lists with good results. Don't expect them to solo the game but they're very handy. I actually think of using them with my orks when i finally get bully boyz and trukks done. Well, got one bully boy from this very game as a bet. Also, another dude from our club bet a bunch of 3-d party grots. Man, i need more of those. Thanks, mutilators.
Dtox wrote: Wowie ! I didnt expect my question to spawn such an extensive discussion and chain of replies! Have there been any changes in opinion when it comes to the mutilators? or is the consensus still that they're just not very worth the points?
I hope yall have been having fun with the whole thing, sure seems like it lol.
No agreement. some people who started with "Mutilators suck" have backed down on their stance as you can see and as more voices have spoken up and now several Batreps on top of them. I'd say the wave has shifted.
No board has unlimited space. Mutilators take advantage of this fact and box enemies in or steal midfield safe havens. They occupy the Elites slot which is ideal for them and allows you to take them without much competition. The competion that people seem to favor who dont like Mutilators is a more expensive Terminator squad with less wounds. I dont agree but thats been the number one counter volley.
Regardless of consensus, here's what is true: You can absolutely learn to use them. You just have to want to. Like everything you ever undertook, it's just a matter of doing it.
Dtox wrote: Wowie ! I didnt expect my question to spawn such an extensive discussion and chain of replies! Have there been any changes in opinion when it comes to the mutilators? or is the consensus still that they're just not very worth the points?
I hope yall have been having fun with the whole thing, sure seems like it lol.
No agreement. some people who started with "Mutilators suck" have backed down on their stance as you can see and as more voices have spoken up and now several Batreps on top of them. I'd say the wave has shifted.
No board has unlimited space. Mutilators take advantage of this fact and box enemies in or steal midfield safe havens. They occupy the Elites slot which is ideal for them and allows you to take them without much competition. The competion that people seem to favor who dont like Mutilators is a more expensive Terminator squad with less wounds. I dont agree but thats been the number one counter volley.
Regardless of consensus, here's what is true: You can absolutely learn to use them. You just have to want to. Like everything you ever undertook, it's just a matter of doing it.
Well it definitely sounds like they have their uses, however I wasn't intending on having them for the purpose of "drop in and be an issue." I looked towards them as being a tough-to-kill unit going across the battlefield yelling "rawr" as they clash into and rend the enemy front lines. It does not sound like they would be very good for that purpose, however, due to the lack of mobility and all that.
koooaei wrote: There are a lot of deathstars in competitive meta actually.
The thing is that mutilators don't need to fight against melee dudes - we've got summoned daemonettes + masque, sorc's debuffs and spawns for tarpits. I see mutilator's role more of area controlers. Backlines and vehicles hate them. When needed, they can join serious melee combats but their speed is not ideal for that. However, they do rock the enemy backlines, deny area and limit movement for just a bunch of points. I think that nothing in the codex except for obliterators can really suit this role as perfectly as mutilators do. I don't think that mutilators are better than obliterators but at the same time, obliterators are not better than mutilators. Obliterators are more versatile but worse in melee and more expensive. I actually think that it's better to go with a mix. You never know when you'll need those chainfists with an extra attack or ini4 claws/maces. At the same time, shooting weapons are invaluable. It's probably better to have more obliterators in general but it's hard to tell without playtesting. If anyone wants to do it, go with a mix anywayz.
My opinion is that mutilators are fine. They can be used in most melee-oriented (hey, you should be melee-oriented with csm) lists with good results. Don't expect them to solo the game but they're very handy. I actually think of using them with my orks when i finally get bully boyz and trukks done. Well, got one bully boy from this very game as a bet. Also, another dude from our club bet a bunch of 3-d party grots. Man, i need more of those. Thanks, mutilators.
Just to point out, most death stars in this game are either melee oriented (twc, bike of some kind, wraith, screamer) or have split fire (cents). There are few death stars that don't fit into one of the above categories, and mutilators don't want to see any of the former around. So yes, Death Stars are common, but the ones mutilators would actually perform well against are extremely rare.
I don't think either side has managed to convince anyone, most of the random posters seem to chime in with "they're terrible" and leave the thread after all. Neither side has said anything new (the fact that mutilators are good against tanks and struggle against dedicated melee units or msu isn't new, and was mentioned early in the thread).
To be fair, I don't think oblits are very good either. They have been relatively weaker every new dex, and even at the drop people seemed to favor havoks over oblits.
Mutilators are NOT supposed to fight deathstars. Of course, a 61 pt unit can't really tickle 500+ pt units. It's NOT their role. Why are you trying to trow them at stuff they won't perform against. As said above, you got other stuff to deal with deathstars.
I think you're using a wrong arguement. They're great against deathstar units cause the enemy won't be able to reliably deal with them while simultaniously dealing with the rest of your lists. Besides, there's masque that's amazing against expensive stuff - especially melee oriented that don't use transports - pretty much 95% of deathstars nowadays.
I don't think so. Most death stars are tough and fast. You can divide them further by melee or shooting, although th majority is melee based.
Mutilators will not be able to catch the vast majority of Death Stars. Cents teleport, wraiths and screamers are fast, destroyers are fast, bikes are fast, twc are fast. Draigo with Paladins is the only one I can see them catching tbh.
Mutilators can not beat a melee star in combat. Even off the charge, wraiths, twc, Paladins (maybe? I don't play gk) will wipe the mutilators before they can swing unless you manage to get them with all of them (even then, for many, it's close).
Shooting Death Stars can eliminate two a turn pretty easily. This is pretty good, but since most deathstars that shoot can teleport, I doubt it'll come up much. If it does they are fine.
How they perform against deathstars isn't critical to their performance though it is worth mentioning. I never said it was. You yourself mentioned that deathstars are common in competitive metas and I don't disagree. To me, their weakness against msu shooting is crippling since that is more relevant.
To me, their limited targets and weakness to competitive units is why they aren't good. They certainly have uses in a non competitive or tank heavy environment.
koooaei wrote: Mutilators are NOT supposed to fight deathstars. Of course, a 61 pt unit can't really tickle 500+ pt units. It's NOT their role. Why are you trying to trow them at stuff they won't perform against. As said above, you got other stuff to deal with deathstars.
I think you're using a wrong arguement. They're great against deathstar units cause the enemy won't be able to reliably deal with them while simultaniously dealing with the rest of your lists. Besides, there's masque that's amazing against expensive stuff - especially melee oriented that don't use transports - pretty much 95% of deathstars nowadays.
Except that you don't HAVE to deal with the Mutilator. They're SaP and don't do well in melee for the points. Why am I going to waste time going after them except for Kill Points?
Also I looked up the Masque and I'm not impressed. T3 two wounds? Even with debuffing an opponent's BS that's ridiculously easy to kill.
Dtox wrote: Well it definitely sounds like they have their uses, however I wasn't intending on having them for the purpose of "drop in and be an issue." I looked towards them as being a tough-to-kill unit going across the battlefield yelling "rawr" as they clash into and rend the enemy front lines. It does not sound like they would be very good for that purpose, however, due to the lack of mobility and all that.
That is more the role of Chaos Spawn in that report. I'll attempt to sum up the game for purposes of discussion:
--- koooaei goes 2nd, doesn't seize
--- Drop Pod Grav Cents have no good targets (all 2+ units in reserve. no AV) but are forced to enter on T1 anyway, subsequently fail to kill 50pts of Cultists
--- koooaei locks the Grav Cents with Spawn, gains first blood on 2x units by encircling and wrecking a speeder/embarked scouts with spawns+summoned daemonettes
--- Vets+Calgar enter from reserve and charge the offending Spawn+Sorc, eventually win combat with losses. The other Vets fail their charge and are crippled in return by Masque
--- Mutilators start dropping in everywhere, win 2 VPs and deny another. One dies to Mishap and another to overwatch, but successfully clear 2 Tac Squads
--- Oblits suffer from poor shooting and mishaps, only manage to down a Speeder. Daemonettes tangle with Vanguard
--- Initial combats finally resolve, surviving Sorc kills Calgar with a Focused Witchfire and Spawn proceed to wreck a HQ tank
--- Honor Guard in a flyer finally make combat and kill most of kooaei's original Daemon detachement after a 10-inch charge
--- Score tied 9-9, SM attempts to score 1+d3pts but a Mutilator tanks 230pts of Stormraven fire to deny VPs --- Mutilators score a Maelstrom VP by "Kill a Flyer" (lol) and also force Scouts off an objective in CC. Kooaei secures the objective and CSM wins by 2pts
Spawn+Sorc combo does most of the major destruction (Scout/Speeder, Grav Cents, Calgar, Chronus Vindicator) but Mutilators don't do too badly taking on smaller targets (Stormraven, 2x Tacs w/HB, most of a Scout squad). Their utility (as kooaei said in the batrep) was more being able to,DS onto VPs, deny VPs by board control and deal with small units like Tacs and Scouts economically.
Dtox wrote: Wowie ! I didnt expect my question to spawn such an extensive discussion and chain of replies! Have there been any changes in opinion when it comes to the mutilators? or is the consensus still that they're just not very worth the points?
I hope yall have been having fun with the whole thing, sure seems like it lol.
No agreement. some people who started with "Mutilators suck" have backed down on their stance as you can see and as more voices have spoken up and now several Batreps on top of them. I'd say the wave has shifted.
No board has unlimited space. Mutilators take advantage of this fact and box enemies in or steal midfield safe havens. They occupy the Elites slot which is ideal for them and allows you to take them without much competition. The competion that people seem to favor who dont like Mutilators is a more expensive Terminator squad with less wounds. I dont agree but thats been the number one counter volley.
Regardless of consensus, here's what is true: You can absolutely learn to use them. You just have to want to. Like everything you ever undertook, it's just a matter of doing it.
Well it definitely sounds like they have their uses, however I wasn't intending on having them for the purpose of "drop in and be an issue." I looked towards them as being a tough-to-kill unit going across the battlefield yelling "rawr" as they clash into and rend the enemy front lines. It does not sound like they would be very good for that purpose, however, due to the lack of mobility and all that.
They deep strike where you want them as fast as any other unit can get there. So yeah. they will Rawr. My personal use of them is not the only one. Its just proven to be effective. Koo' has done several battles with them as well and played them differently and they worked for him.
Dtox wrote: Well it definitely sounds like they have their uses, however I wasn't intending on having them for the purpose of "drop in and be an issue." I looked towards them as being a tough-to-kill unit going across the battlefield yelling "rawr" as they clash into and rend the enemy front lines. It does not sound like they would be very good for that purpose, however, due to the lack of mobility and all that.
That is more the role of Chaos Spawn in that report. I'll attempt to sum up the game for purposes of discussion:
--- koooaei goes 2nd, doesn't seize
--- Drop Pod Grav Cents have no good targets (all 2+ units in reserve. no AV) but are forced to enter on T1 anyway, subsequently fail to kill 50pts of Cultists
--- koooaei locks the Grav Cents with Spawn, gains first blood on 2x units by encircling and wrecking a speeder/embarked scouts with spawns+summoned daemonettes
--- Vets+Calgar enter from reserve and charge the offending Spawn+Sorc, eventually win combat with losses. The other Vets fail their charge and are crippled in return by Masque
--- Mutilators start dropping in everywhere, win 2 VPs and deny another. One dies to Mishap and another to overwatch, but successfully clear 2 Tac Squads
--- Oblits suffer from poor shooting and mishaps, only manage to down a Speeder. Daemonettes tangle with Vanguard
--- Initial combats finally resolve, surviving Sorc kills Calgar with a Focused Witchfire and Spawn proceed to wreck a HQ tank
--- Honor Guard in a flyer finally make combat and kill most of kooaei's original Daemon detachement after a 10-inch charge
--- Score tied 9-9, SM attempts to score 1+d3pts but a Mutilator tanks 230pts of Stormraven fire to deny VPs --- Mutilators score a Maelstrom VP by "Kill a Flyer" (lol) and also force Scouts off an objective in CC. Kooaei secures the objective and CSM wins by 2pts
Spawn+Sorc combo does most of the major destruction (Scout/Speeder, Grav Cents, Calgar, Chronus Vindicator) but Mutilators don't do too badly taking on smaller targets (Stormraven, 2x Tacs w/HB, most of a Scout squad). Their utility (as kooaei said in the batrep) was more being able to,DS onto VPs, deny VPs by board control and deal with small units like Tacs and Scouts economically.
Sadly spawn don't seem to work for me, as I believe they are fast attack and i'm putting together a purge detachment, can't have fast attack there.
Although, I suppose that doesn't mean they can't be a part of ANOTHER detachment or formation in my army...didnt think about that actually.
If you want a unit that rawrs across the battlefield (I'm assuming you mean don't deep strike?) then your choices are somewhat limited.
Spawn, bikes, raptors all rawr. Spawn do it very well depending on the matchup. A landraider with something nasty inside do it well if your opponent can't handle it (no melta, mc, Grav, D weapons or haywire). There is also rhino rush.
I'm not sure what the purge is limited to so can't offer more advice. Our other tough units, oblits muties and terminators really want to deep strike since they are slow. You could put termies in a raider I suppose.
Akiasura wrote: If you want a unit that rawrs across the battlefield (I'm assuming you mean don't deep strike?) then your choices are somewhat limited.
Spawn, bikes, raptors all rawr. Spawn do it very well depending on the matchup. A landraider with something nasty inside do it well if your opponent can't handle it (no melta, mc, Grav, D weapons or haywire). There is also rhino rush.
I'm not sure what the purge is limited to so can't offer more advice. Our other tough units, oblits muties and terminators really want to deep strike since they are slow. You could put termies in a raider I suppose.
yeah I will definitely consider spawn, also maulerfiends sound pretty neato from what i've seen.
Spawns are just great. I think they're the best unit in the entire csm dex. But they can't deal with everything themselves as they're only s5. But fast, cheap, tough and fearless. And sometimes they're surprisingly choppy vs stuff they can hurt.
Mauler fiends are good depending on your list. They are a sort of go big or go home type of unit.
You really want a lot of AV (so rhinos, fiends, and drakes) in an effort to overload your opponents anti tank weapons to the point where enough gets delivered. You can supplement this with other high toughness units as well (bikes, spawn). I am unsure how a mutilator would perform in such a list, since they are right on the cusp of being tough for their points.
Just be aware that certain lists, like Grav spam, can easily roll over mauler fiends quite easily. Spawn help, but if a cent star is taken, the spawn won't matter as much since the cents will target other units and leave basic marines on spawn detail.
I imagine such a list might do well against crons and Eldar that don't take a WK though, if you can destroy the WS before the dragons do work. Or the Hawks.
Edit; spawn are amazing and I can't think of any unit that easily counters them that isn't blatantly Op (wk). Go nurgle with them or keep them cheap. Khorne isn't bad.
Spawn+Sorc combo does most of the major destruction (Scout/Speeder, Grav Cents, Calgar, Chronus Vindicator) but Mutilators don't do too badly taking on smaller targets (Stormraven, 2x Tacs w/HB, most of a Scout squad). Their utility (as kooaei said in the batrep) was more being able to,DS onto VPs, deny VPs by board control and deal with small units like Tacs and Scouts economically.
To be fair, Spawns + sorcs cost > twice as much as mutilators. But they're definitely good and the movement force of the list. Psy buffs are generarally essential to make them proper hammer. Mutis and oblis are born to be anvil and they suit each other pretty well. I'd like to play this list against eldar and see how far can it go. I hope to counter wk with summoned daemonettes. They might block the way and inflict a couple wounds with rends. They'll sure die to instability in melee though. But i'm fine with it. Anywayz, need to see it in action.
Akiasura wrote: Just be aware that certain lists, like Grav spam, can easily roll over mauler fiends quite easily. Spawn help, but if a cent star is taken, the spawn won't matter as much since the cents will target other units and leave basic marines on spawn detail.
This match is a good example of how it's not always about what's impressive on paper. Maulerfiends and Heldrakes have nice special rules and weapons, but they would have presented more rewarding targets in this game. Mutilators and Oblits hiding safely in reserve don't need to compromise their T2 positioning and more or less run around unchallenged. Nothing the high-octane SM shooting units effectively target all game is worth more than ~75pts! Grav Cents were offered up as an ideal counter earlier in this thread, but they can't leverage that firepower due to how Mutilators/Oblits deploy. Weren't Grav Cents w/Split Fire supposed to be an ideal "cost effective counter" and generally just one of the most broken units in the game? They end up costing ~285 points to force Cultists to lose 7" of position and tarpit Spawn in assault for 5x CC phases.
I'm not trying to knock Heldrakes or Maulerfiends, but it's easy to look at the statline of a model and not apply the bigger picture. First, lists that break the meta catch people unprepared. Second, economy matters. If a unit needs to score a VP at the cost of shooting or needs to roleplay a speed bump, it's better if it's cheap. That's the point of Masque right? She crippled a 175pt squad for a turn and picked up a VP in challenge. Third, internet wisdom discourages assaulting as it isn't guaranteed damage like shooting, but CC helps to push models off objectives due to lowered LD modifiers. Driving a unit off an objective was necessary on T5, and Mutilators in CC attack leadership to shift units better than a Heldrake can by shooting alone. Finally, functional immunity to most Morale checks (as lone models) is a huge bonus -- even a LD9 unit can fail 17% of the time and that is significant. Anybody play XCOM on high difficulty? I learned the hard way that if you take enough high-consequence shots at 90%, at some point it will inevitably all go horribly wrong.
Humans aren't objective by nature so it helps to be aware of common bias. If anyone knows about loss aversion, it would explain a lot about why people irrationally hate failed charges and deep strike. If you want a unit that is dynamic and cinematic, Mutilators fail. No speed, thus no rawr. The model itself is, put politely, a point of contention. But they are pretty good at soaking up damage from bigger units, establishing board presence, wrecking pricey AV up to 2-3x their cost and bullying MSU off positions. I think in 4 games, we've only seen a sub-100pt unit kill a Mutilator once. Is that correct?
Incidentally Akia, it's very possible to counter Spawn without WKs, but you need an Instant Death weapon. Think about a charging BA Librarian with the Mace Relic, Force and Quickening -- that's about 2-3 dead Spawn before they strike, and that number goes up to 4 with an attached Sang Priest and Digital Weapons. Equivalent points in Scatterbike shooting would kill about 3x Nurgle Spawn out of cover, 1x Spawn in cover with Endurance, or 1x Spawn in Cover with Shrouded. That's one of the major benefits of having a toolbox army, rather than just drowning a unit in A++ shooting.
Akiasura wrote: Just be aware that certain lists, like Grav spam, can easily roll over mauler fiends quite easily. Spawn help, but if a cent star is taken, the spawn won't matter as much since the cents will target other units and leave basic marines on spawn detail.
This match is a good example of how it's not always about what's impressive on paper. Maulerfiends and Heldrakes have nice special rules and weapons, but they would have presented more rewarding targets in this game. Mutilators and Oblits hiding safely in reserve don't need to compromise their T2 positioning and more or less run around unchallenged. Nothing the high-octane SM shooting units effectively target all game is worth more than ~75pts! Grav Cents were offered up as an ideal counter earlier in this thread, but they can't leverage that firepower due to how Mutilators/Oblits deploy. Weren't Grav Cents w/Split Fire supposed to be an ideal "cost effective counter" and generally just one of the most broken units in the game? They just end up costing ~285 points to force Cultists to lose 7" of position and tarpit Spawn in assault for 5x CC phases.
Specifically, the Centstar was mentioned as being a good counter because it can teleport. This would allow it to fire at 2 mutilators/oblits a turn, or earn about ~130-160 pts a turn after T2 while being relatively safe. That's about 1/3 to 1/2 of the units cost depending on the build, so it's fine.
Cents are not nearly as good without the star, since they are so slow and can't reposition/flee from approaching units. Which we saw here. You have to be a lot more careful with how you deploy Cents if they are stuck being incredibly slow and have few targets.
Deciding to deploy them knowing that everything valuable was going to be arriving T2+ on T1 (unless that is how the formation works? Do they not count as DSing unit for the pod?) was a mistake, he could have just held them back to keep them safe from the spawn for some additional turns and threaten the mutilators.
Mistakes happen, but poor tactical play/list building doesn't make a unit poor or its opposition great.
I'm not trying to knock Heldrakes or Maulerfiends, but it's easy to look at the statline of a model and not apply the bigger picture. First, lists that break the meta catch people unprepared.
Sure, but we aren't seeing them go against the Meta. The meta consists of deathstars, MSU, and GMCs, not stationary tanks and vanguard vets, or infantry with heavy bolters. All of these are targets mutilators don't want to see. At all.
Unless you mean the casual meta. I imagine that varies wildly and is hard to discuss.
Second, economy matters. If a unit needs to score a VP at the cost of shooting or needs to roleplay a speed bump, it's better if it's cheap.
Sure, and for this mutilators aren't terrible. They cost a little too much unless someone only has expensive squads (for some reason, that's certainly not an optimal choice unless it's a deathstar). If they were faster, I'd feel a lot better about them for scoring VPs. Or if they were tougher.
That's the point of Masque right? She crippled a 175pt squad for a turn and picked up a VP in challenge. Third, internet wisdom discourages assaulting as it isn't guaranteed damage like shooting, but CC helps to push models off objectives due to lowered LD modifiers.
That is actually the opposite of internet wisdom.
Melee units do way more damage then shooting due to more attacks and sweeping advance rules. Notice that most of the death stars are melee based for this reason, since they are more likely to earn their points back through melee than shooting. The one exception has split fire and, let's face it, the best weapons in the game.
The internet discourages melee because most melee units are too slow to catch anyone, not tough enough to survive to reach melee, and are dramatically overcosted. Berzerkers are a good example of a bad melee unit, wraiths are an example of a good one. But when an army has a good melee unit, you do see it spammed or taken in deathstars.
Driving a unit off an objective was necessary on T5, and Mutilators in CC attack leadership to shift units better than Heldrake can by shooting alone. Finally, functional immunity to most Morale checks is a huge bonus -- even a LD9 unit can fail 17% of the time and that is significant. Anybody play XCOM on high difficulty? I learned the hard way that if you take enough high-consequence shots at 90%, at some point it will inevitably it will go horribly wrong.
That's true, but a good general tries to put the odds in his favor rather than relying on good/bad rolls. Xcom is no different...you don't want a 17% hit chance and bet your guy's life on it. Not if you play Ironman anyway.
Not to mention the plethora of units that just don't care about LD in this game..it's why its referenced as a worthless stat most of the time.
Humans aren't objective by nature so it helps to be aware of common bias. If anyone knows about loss aversion, it would explain a lot about why people irrationally hate failed charges and deep strike.
There is some truth to this, but a big reason people hate failed deepstrikes and charges, as compared to missing, is that failed charges and deepstrikes can leave a unit horribly exposed and killed. Missing means your enemy has a few more models to attack you with, which is bad, but not failing a charge bad. A whole turn of an expensive unit doing nothing from one 2d6 roll is something shooting units rarely, if ever, have to contend with. It's one of the reasons fleet is so good.
If you want a unit that is dynamic and cinematic, Mutilators fail. No speed, thus no rawr. The model itself is, put politely, a point of contention. But they are pretty good at soaking up damage from bigger units, establishing board presence, wrecking pricey AV usually 2-3x their cost and bullying MSU off positions. I think in 4 games, we've only seen a sub-100pt unit kill a Mutilator once. Is that correct?
I think in all of these reports, we have seen nearly zero sub 100 pt units. MSU isn't being utilized, and these lists are not what you would call competitive.
None of these things are new, we covered them pretty early on in the thread. The problem is that needlessly large units are uncommon (unless deathstars which destroy muties), stationary pricey tanks are uncommon, and MSU/MC/GMC rules the day. All things the mutilators don't do well against.
Incidentally Akia, it's very possible to counter Spawn without WKs, but you need an Instant Death weapon. Think about a charging BA Librarian with the Mace Relic, Force and Quickening -- that's about 2-3 dead Spawn before they strike, and that number goes up to 4 with an attached Sang Priest and Digital Weapons. Equivalent points in Scatterbike shooting would kill about 3x Nurgle Spawn out of cover, 1x Spawn in cover with Endurance, or 1x Spawn in Cover with Shrouded. That's one of the major benefits of having a toolbox army, rather than just drowning a unit in A++ shooting.
True, spawn are bad against ID weapons. Those are so rare I don't consider it a large weakness of them unless facing a few armies that have a decent amount.
GMCs, units that can hit Str 10, and honestly scat bikes are a lot more common.
Getting endurance and shrouded isn't guaranteed either sadly, although spawn do benefit a lot from Belakor and psykers in general. But no one is saying spawn are bad, just that they have counters that the big boys take.
There are so few units that even see the field small enough for me not to justify the instance of my Mutilator. It can and does often absorb FAR more points in enemy strength than they lose. So while it can happen and it even will happen (to one?) I'm not going to cry about it. It's value is in soaking the love the enemy has to give and feeding Khornes desire while hoping to give a big Nurgle filled love tap to some lucky souls.
A point I made before is that they are unable to catch Marines running off which can really be a helpful feature too. Love that about them. While Tactical marines might be found foraging far forward, with my army they probably wont be. Too busy being blocked off by Raptors. So in my case the lovely wall of Marines that might be pinned back there are going to get hit and one hopes run right off the board instead of staying ensconced in combat interminably. Its been great a number of times.
@Martel -- almost certainly it's an attached IC with Raptors as bolter bait.
@Akia, I'm going to address you point-for-point as I feel we're getting along more constructively
Akiasura wrote: Specifically, the Centstar was mentioned as being a good counter because it can teleport. This would allow it to fire at 2 mutilators/oblits a turn, or earn about ~130-160 pts a turn after T2 while being relatively safe. That's about 1/3 to 1/2 of the units cost depending on the build, so it's fine.
As you said, rolling up specific powers is unreliable. Taking Draigo to kill 2x Oblits or Mutilators each turn is not a game-winning use of a 495pt unit. Also, your costing is off
Akiasura wrote: Deciding to deploy them knowing that everything valuable was going to be arriving T2+ on T1 (unless that is how the formation works? Do they not count as DSing unit for the pod?) was a mistake, he could have just held them back to keep them safe from the spawn for some additional turns and threaten the mutilators.
Not how it works. He would have needed to have 2x Drop Pods to hold back the Grav Cents. Which would have been a good idea in retrospect, min-maxing firepower at the expense of tactical flexibility is risky.
Akiasura wrote: Mistakes happen, but poor tactical play/list building doesn't make a unit poor or its opposition great.
Mistakes happen for a reason. Throw out the unexpected, and people will make mistakes. That's the strength of lists with unusual mechanics or dark horse units. Man, how many times has Martel bemoaned BA lacking Grav? Now we have a spoiler list presenting zero quality targets for a T1 Grav alpha strike. That's not poor list building, that is turning the meta on its head. As said, players adapt but this is known as "the element of surprise" and it's valued for a reason. That's a hard factor to quantify in mathhammer.
Anyways -- we are seeing LoW characters, Honor Guard in flying Assault Vehicles, hot-off-the-presses 7.5th formations with free bonus rules. At this point I think a 6x Mutilator list could win LVO or Adepticon and you might still find a way to rationalize it as an anecdotal and invalid freak occurrence! You have accused certain people of having their mind made up, but consider you may not be entirely objective yourself... didn't you yourself define this as a discussion between warring "pro" and "anti" Mutilator camps? That's a way of seeing things that that forces you to argue a "side" non-objectively. How you should see this, is open-minded and creative versus dogmatic and presumptous -- that's the point of wargaming IRL. It's a process to gather information and test outcomes, not show who is smarter than who. Picking a side to defend and assuming conditions to validate your opinion is a cardinal sin in true wargaming known as situating the estimate. I want to see Mutilators fail on the tabletop, not in a debating society! But I digress.
Akiasura wrote: The internet discourages melee because most melee units are too slow to catch anyone, not tough enough to survive to reach melee, and are dramatically overcosted. Berzerkers are a good example of a bad melee unit, wraiths are an example of a good one. But when an army has a good melee unit, you do see it spammed or taken in deathstars.
This is exactly what I meant, Wraiths are essentiallly guaranteed to reach their target. If not, they are so tough it doesn't even matter much. Their damage is not spectacular, but psychologically people prefer incurring no losses to significant gains. Google it if you have the time, human psychology is fascinating.
Akiasura wrote: Not to mention the plethora of units that just don't care about LD in this game..it's why its referenced as a worthless stat most of the time.
It's fairly worthless if all you do is spam shooting attacks at high LD units! But the consequences of failing a LD test tend to be severe, for example a 1WC Terrify can send a Riptide off the map. I did lengthy calculations about sweeping Necrons in CC with Beserkers, their most reliable enabler is a simple 20pt Icon that adds +1 to combat resolution. It never even crossed my mind but it makes a huge difference. People aren't tuned into attacking LD, because generally they don't plan in advance to attack LD. It's not typically straightforward and it's not effective until you start testing at LD6 on a roll of 2D6. You need modifiers. But CC is a modifier, and 2W against a LD8 target by a solo Mutilator will usually shift a unit. Off the map if you're lucky, as Jancoran said. Eldar, Tau, SM and Necrons are all vulnerable to LD failure in some form -- stacking modifiers can get complicated but -2 from 1CTF, -1 from Terrify and Dominate will reliably punk out a 450pt Fearless Stormsurge. It's wombo-combo territory but LD is far from worthless. Much like Mutilators in fact -- some strategies rely on synergy and if you don't shape the situation towards ensuring success, you probably won't be.
Akiasura wrote: There is some truth to this, but a big reason people hate failed deepstrikes and charges, as compared to missing, is that failed charges and deepstrikes can leave a unit horribly exposed and killed.
Again, that's exactly what I mean by loss aversion. It's "safer" to just shoot at the enemy. But it's not necessarily a rational analysis of risk and reward.
Akiasura wrote: I think in all of these reports, we have seen nearly zero sub 100 pt units.
We've seen a Company Command, Chimeras, various Scouts, Tacticals, Storm Speeders, Scout Bikes, a Techmarine HQ, Armored Sentinels (but squadroned), Vets (but with 3x weapons), a split-firing Grav Cent that didn't get the chance to shoot a Mutilator... not exactly zero. You need a sub-100pt unit that can effectively kill T5/2+/5++/2W, while its target can hide in reserves and strike anywhere. That is a tall order for most armies. Deathmarks would be *perfect*. But now we are tailoring
Akiasura wrote: Specifically, the Centstar was mentioned as being a good counter because it can teleport. This would allow it to fire at 2 mutilators/oblits a turn, or earn about ~130-160 pts a turn after T2 while being relatively safe. That's about 1/3 to 1/2 of the units cost depending on the build, so it's fine.
As you said, rolling up specific powers is unreliable. Taking Draigo to kill 2x Oblits or Mutilators each turn is not a game-winning use of a 495pt unit. Also, your costing is off
Ah, so 1/4th to 1/3, that's slightly better. I don't use the Draigo build as I don't own GK, so I'm not aware of the exact points. I usually use the ultramarines version.
I'm not sure I would even bother firing at the mutilators in that case with Draigo. Draigo can solo them before they even get to swing after all. With the ultramarines I would need to fire at them, but they are a little cheaper in that situation so the mutilators become a better target.
Akiasura wrote: Deciding to deploy them knowing that everything valuable was going to be arriving T2+ on T1 (unless that is how the formation works? Do they not count as DSing unit for the pod?) was a mistake, he could have just held them back to keep them safe from the spawn for some additional turns and threaten the mutilators.
Not how it works. He would have needed to have 2x Drop Pods to hold back the Grav Cents. Which would have been a good idea in retrospect, min-maxing firepower at the expense of tactical flexibility is risky.
If he took only a single drop pod, that is remarkably poor planning. You take a minimum of 3 units so you have some choices, 5 is not uncommon. More or less than that is a tactical blunder during the list building phase. Arguably the most important part of the game.
I can see it with a sternguard unit with meltas I suppose, basically a screw this I'm gonna kill a tank, but even then it seems very risky.
Akiasura wrote: Mistakes happen, but poor tactical play/list building doesn't make a unit poor or its opposition great.
Mistakes happen for a reason. Throw out the unexpected, and people will make mistakes. That's the strength of lists with unusual mechanics or dark horse units. Man, how many times has Martel bemoaned BA lacking Grav? Now we have a spoiler list presenting zero quality targets for a T1 Grav alpha strike. That's not poor list building, that is turning the meta on its head. As said, players adapt but this is known as "the element of surprise" and it's valued for a reason. That's a hard factor to quantify in mathhammer.
While this list counters grav, grav isn't the meta. It's a part of it, but the list taken would fall down against scat bikes, WK, typical tau builds and a decurion. Any deathstar would just walk across the list without a concern, and deathstars are certainly part of the meta.
Besides, the SM players list wasn't exactly the meta. HB? 1 Drop Pod? Grav cents without the Star? No good biker build?
Anyways -- we are seeing LoW characters, Honor Guard in flying Assault Vehicles, hot-off-the-presses 7.5th formations with free bonus rules.
Let's be real, LoW characters are good, on occasion, but aren't competitive for the most part. Honor guard are not competitive, and not every formation is good.
We all know what makes SM good. It's the cent star, biker star, drop pods, thunderfire cannons, and non-LoWSC. None of which is seen in this list.
The better formations, like Gladius, is also not being used here. This isn't a competitive list at all.
At this point I think a 6x Mutilator list could win LVO or Adepticon and you might still find a way to rationalize it as an anecdotal and invalid freak occurrence!
If a 6x mutilator list won LVO or adepticon and faced competitive lists I would be pleasantly surprised and change my opinion.
My request since the start of the thread hasn't changed once. Do mutilators have a place against the better lists?
All of the battle reports presented have been either against remarkably casual lists with their favorite targets, or the mutilators didn't accomplish anything at all. It's simply not convincing, and equating these battles to LVO at all just doesn't seem accurate. This doesn't even represent semi-competitive (not a single competitive option taken mostly. I mean HBs?) let alone competitive.
You have accused certain people of having their mind made up, but consider you may not be entirely objective yourself... didn't you yourself define this as a discussion between warring "pro" and "anti" Mutilator camps? That's a way of seeing things that that forces you to argue a "side" non-objectively. How you should see this, is open-minded and creative versus dogmatic and presumptous -- that's the point of wargaming IRL. It's a process to gather information and test outcomes, not show who is smarter than who. Picking a side to defend and assuming conditions to validate your opinion is a cardinal sin in true wargaming known as situating the estimate. I want to see Mutilators fail on the tabletop, not in a debating society! But I digress.
I didn't accuse anyone of having their mind made up. I have said that no one has said anything new, and this remains true. Everyone has agreed that mutilators work well against casual lists or those with large expensive shooty units that lack split fire. And tanks.
My point has been that mutilators fail against the following;
Any melee death star
MSU builds, since it doesn't take much firepower to knock one out.
Any fast army
Any MC/GMC
Common infantry choices from many armies who have special weapons.
These are commonly seen in the meta (or competitive choices, if you want to use that term). No one has yet to disagree with that, or suggest that mutilators are able to overcome these in some way. You can suggest that this isn't the meta, but I don't think that is an argument that anyone cares to make.
I refer to sides since it's easier than spelling out everyone's name. I think that, for the most part, neither side has really talked about the unit fairly beyond a few people (which doesn't include Martel, yourself, Jancoran, or Koooaei, imo). Some of this is from lack of reading (mentioning that deathstars are common when I said they were already, but was specifically talking about a certain type of deathstar they would be good against but is never seen, and then changing it to why are deathstars being mentioned at all when they realized it didn't help their point) because they want to prove a point. Or goal post moving (not competitive list but any list, for example).
You'll notice my goal post has never changed. Are they good against competitive lists? If so, they are not a good unit. I don't think they are the best in the elite slot either.
Akiasura wrote: The internet discourages melee because most melee units are too slow to catch anyone, not tough enough to survive to reach melee, and are dramatically overcosted. Berzerkers are a good example of a bad melee unit, wraiths are an example of a good one. But when an army has a good melee unit, you do see it spammed or taken in deathstars.
This is exactly what I meant, Wraiths are essentiallly guaranteed to reach their target. If not, they are so tough it doesn't even matter much. Their damage is not spectacular, but psychologically people prefer incurring no losses to significant gains. Google it if you have the time, human psychology is fascinating.
That isn't what was originally claimed.
What was originally claimed is that melee is disdained by the internet, when the opposite is the case. Nothing said here really goes against that, so I'm going to assume we can move past attacking internet wisdom.
Unless you want to argue that Berzerkers are a good unit.
Akiasura wrote: Not to mention the plethora of units that just don't care about LD in this game..it's why its referenced as a worthless stat most of the time.
It's fairly worthless if all you do is spam shooting attacks at high LD units! But the consequences of failing a LD test tend to be severe, for example a 1WC Terrify can send a Riptide off the map. I did lengthy calculations about sweeping Necrons in CC with Beserkers, their most reliable enabler is a simple 20pt Icon that adds +1 to combat resolution. It never even crossed my mind but it makes a huge difference. People aren't tuned into attacking LD, because generally they don't plan in advance to attack LD. It's not typically straightforward and it's not effective until you start testing at LD6 on a roll of 2D6. You need modifiers. But CC is a modifier, and 2W against a LD8 target by a solo Mutilator will usually shift a unit. Off the map if you're lucky, as Jancoran said. Eldar, Tau, SM and Necrons are all vulnerable to LD failure in some form -- stacking modifiers can get complicated but -2 from 1CTF, -1 from Terrify and Dominate will reliably punk out a 450pt Fearless Stormsurge. It's wombo-combo territory but LD is far from worthless. Much like Mutilators in fact -- some strategies rely on synergy and if you don't shape the situation towards ensuring success, you probably won't be.
Most people don't bother attacking LD because many armies are flat out immune to LD effects. If you are playing a one off game against say, Tau, then LD is fine (and most of your good examples are against Tau). However, the vast majority of the enemies are not tau. Most are LD 9-10, Fearless, or Marines. The weaker armies in the game suffer from LD, not the strong ones (outside of tau).
If the enemy is immune to LD, no amount of synergy will overcome that. There are also combos that necrons can do with LD...but you don't see them in competitive lists because they are incredibly chancy based on your opponent's army. Not even chancy in that the odds are against you, but chancy in the way that you don't get to use your ability at all.
As for the board edge argument...that works against the slow static armies. Most of the better armies are quite fast. Necrons and SW want to move closer to you. Marines are deepstriking or on bikes. Eldar are on jetbikes, skimmers, or have battle focus. Tau are, again, the only army that hugs the boardedge at all, and even that isn't always true.
Again, it's a strategy that works against weaker armies and more casual lists. The competitive armies overcome this by the nature of their design. It's one of the reasons they are seen as stronger.
Akiasura wrote: There is some truth to this, but a big reason people hate failed deepstrikes and charges, as compared to missing, is that failed charges and deepstrikes can leave a unit horribly exposed and killed.
Again, that's exactly what I mean by loss aversion. It's "safer" to just shoot at the enemy. But it's not necessarily a rational analysis of risk and reward.
I am claiming it is a rational analysis of risk and reward. I listed reasons why it is so, it's not merely "safer". It's safer, and I have shown why.
A missed charge means that I will not only miss my charge, and thus my entire damage for 1 turn, but I can get charged. That's a 2 attack swing (-1 attack from the enemy, +1 attack for me). If a unit has FC or Rage, it's an even bigger deal. Orks versus marines, for example, is incredibly charge dependent. Orks need the extra attack and +1 str to get work done unless they are in a huge swarm, or they'll be bogged down all game without anything happening. And that's marines...marines are terrible in CC.
It also can often mean I'm out of cover, and closer to your army allowing you to rapid fire back. This can mean I don't do any damage and you will do 2x the damage with shooting if I had just stayed back.
If I miss my shooting phase it just means those models I would have killed are still shooting back. That is a much better outcome than failing a charge. Failing a deepstrike is similar to missing a charge.
Akiasura wrote: I think in all of these reports, we have seen nearly zero sub 100 pt units.
We've seen a Company Command, Chimeras, various Scouts, Tacticals, Storm Speeders, Scout Bikes, a Techmarine HQ, Armored Sentinels (but squadroned), Vets (but with 3x weapons), a split-firing Grav Cent that didn't get the chance to shoot a Mutilator... not exactly zero. You need a sub-100pt unit that can effectively kill T5/2+/5++/2W, while its target can hide in reserves and strike anywhere. That is a tall order for most armies. Deathmarks would be *perfect*. But now we are tailoring
Was the company command sub 100?
Chimeras are not sub 100 with their loadout.
Tacticals are not sub 100, though they would be good...if they had PGs instead of HBs.
Scout bikes are not a great unit. Neither are scouts.
The techmarine actually killed one in a report.
Sentinels were armed with Lascannons and are a awful unit.
The cent build is terrible.
This is why these reports aren't doing much convincing for anyone (you'll notice it's the same 4 people talking about them). They are against casual non competitive units/builds/factions. Even for the units themselves, the options taken are bad (no teleport for cents? No other DS units? HBs for tacticals?).
Put it up against a good list and I'll be more interested. I'm sure many are in the same camp. Against casual lists, you can make a lot more work, but it doesn't prove that the unit in question is at all useful. Heck, some of the lists, like the IG one, are amazing for mutilators, they were built that badly.
I was also not the one that brought up sub-100.
My stance has always been that a unit in the 150-180 range destroying a mutilator is a good use of points. That's a lot of things, including scat bikes, dragons, marines, some biker designs (although not good ones), and more. Not all, tau warriors for example, but most armies can fill that order and it no-longer remains so tall.
Again, my goal post hasn't changed. I even provided a detailed break down on why that is a reasonable goal post to have.
To be honest, that Marine list is more junk than the Mutilator one.
1. Heavy Bolters? Even IF hordes were a thing these are terrible weapons.
2. No transports on the Tactical Marines?
3. Nobody uses a Stormraven as a transport. It's a bad idea.
Even with such a terribly constructed list they almost won. If that isn't proof for the anti-Mutilator side I don't know what is.
A single grav cent is not guaranteed to kill a muti/obli though. It does 2.16 wounds statistically. So, there's always like 20% chance to inflict just one. 1.62 when in ruins without ignore cover. Or with 4++ with cursed earth. Though, it's not always a good idea to stick daemons up front for cursed earth.
I just think that Centstar is a bit too expensive and risky with scatters. We play on boards with plenty terrain, so deepstriking a not-so-small unit is risky. Besides, there are my units everywhere. Of course, it's possible to go out of harm's way but ideally, you want to controle objectives too. Cent star wants to kill big targets - not 61 pts single model units.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, it's possible to deny jumps once or twice. I have 9+ WC. That'll at least force him to over-invest wc and maybe take a couple wounds from perils.
koooaei wrote: A single grav cent is not guaranteed to kill a muti/obli though. It does 2.16 wounds statistically. So, there's always like 20% chance to inflict just one.
It's more like a 16% chance, and that doesn't include the fact that the psyker is often providing re-rolls to hit, bumping the odds up. If needed, we can always throw an extra cent in there and still pay for about 1/3 of the two cents, making it a fair trade.
1.62 when in ruins without ignore cover. Or with 4++ with cursed earth. Though, it's not always a good idea to stick daemons up front for cursed earth.
Again, the psyker powers that the centstar often includes, while providing benefits for the mutilators.
Ruins are relatively rare terrain compared to ones that provide a 5+ save, which the mutilator doesn't benefit from. The mutilator is also slow and needs to be in melee range to be effective, it can't always benefit from cover (especially ruins) if it wants to be effective. We've discussed this several times.
Cursed earth requires the psyker be relatively close. So now we are talking about a bike psyker if you want the mutilators not deploying very far back. I suppose a disc would work but that seems to be asking to get shot off the table unless you stick him with bikes.
I just think that Centstar is a bit too expensive and risky with scatters. We play on boards with plenty terrain, so deepstriking a not-so-small unit is risky. Besides, there are my units everywhere. Of course, it's possible to go out of harm's way but ideally, you want to controle objectives too. Cent star wants to kill big targets - not 61 pts single model units.
If you want to argue the centstar is not one of the most powerful combos in the game, you're welcome to try. I think you'll be hard pressed to back that up or prove it though...it's been a staple of marine lists for a while and we can see lots of evidence of such builds going to the larger events. Including those that nerf invisibility (which the centstar can try to get). Unlike, say, mutilators.
But to address what you said;
1) If you think deepstriking a centstar, a unit that can be quite far away from its targets and still be effective, is dangerous then you must think that deepstriking the mutilators, which must be close to the enemy, is absurdly risky and not worth doing. I'm not sure how you can say anything else. The centstar might have to deal with more terrain having a bigger frontprint, but the mutilator has to deal with units since it must get close. Not to mention you are DSing 3 of them, minimum. Plus possibly oblits (who are much easier to DS for similar reasons unless aiming for back arcs).
2) The centstar is not there to hold objectives. It's there to delete squads. Bikes and Drop podding marines (ultra cheap transports that have very accurate deepstriking and a decent gun) are there for objective capturing. You'll rarely find anyone using the centstar for objective holding when the marines have plenty of units that do it better. If they can for free, sure, but they won't sacrifice a turn of shooting for it unless it costs the game.
That being said, with the teleport, cents are much better at capturing critical objectives then the slow mutilators are.
3) It's not the centstar firing at a mutilator (the centstar, if led by draigo, can just kill the mutilator in CC before it swings after all). It's the centstar deleting two mutilators or 2 oblits, or a mutie and whatever else is in your army. And with gate and re-rolls to hit, it does so turn after turn after turn
4) If the mutilator suffers any wounds, it becomes a lot weaker. At 1 wound, there is now a chance that overwatch or marine basic attacks can wipe it before it even gets to swing, meaning now it can only "bully" tanks (which means, for most marine players, landed pods, rhinos, and razorbacks only).
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, it's possible to deny jumps once or twice. I have 9+ WC. That'll at least force him to over-invest wc and maybe take a couple wounds from perils.
You know it cost one warp charge? It's extremely hard to block...even throwing 9+ WC tokens at it you're likely to only block 1-2 dice. He can always just throw 2 more dice at it and ignore invisibility. Most of the buffs the centurions need are incredibly cheap to be effective.
I know for sure that cent star is garbage against both my footslogging orks with KFF. And this list is not a good matchup for centstar either. If you support them with psychers, it's becoming a 600+ pt unit and wc are not great for this list either. Vital stuff can e denied or libbies will suffer perils. And yes, i don't think centstar is the most powerful deathstar in the game.
I said one of the most powerful, not the (I think twc is probably the best, though it's a point of contention).
Cent star does okay against orks though it's easily their worst matchup. They can still target any vehicles, meganobs, and bikers, which are the better things in the ork dex. The hurricane bolters help, and against footsloggers they will never have to fight in CC (though they don't do...terrible, it's not great by any means).
They still have their targets. Against pretty much any list that isn't tailored for them, they always have targets. It's not like marines have issues removing boyz off the table between bikes, thunder fire cannons, death wind launchers, and stern guard.
chance of them suffering from perils is generally pretty low, even against the really good psyker armies (Gk, Eldar). You should try playing against a competitive marine list to see how it behaves on the table, it's very strong and a great Tac list.
Edit, Yoyoyo, the above is a good example of why we aren't making progress.
I have already been misquoted.
We have someone stacking the deck for one unit but not allowing it for the other, despite what is common or how easy it is to make it happen (cursed earth or ruins for muties versus re rolls for the cent star).
Someone claiming they know something for a fact doesn't really invite a debate, even though they initially opened with a good point (Grav weapons are situational). Discussion can reveal that although they are correct, footsloggers are a rough target for cents, it doesn't paint the whole picture (footsloggers often have units that still don't want to see cents, and cents do have decent anti infantry weapons. Marines in general have great anti horde weapons so the cents can focus on the few targets they would be good against in that matchup).
It's making the discussion chase its tail to a degree, if that describes it well.
Even if centstar is killing 2 mutilators/oblits per turn, it's still not making it's points back. + masque will make them bs1 at least once. Centstar is strong but not against this list.
koooaei wrote: Even if centstar is killing 2 mutilators/oblits per turn, it's still not making it's points back. + masque will make them bs1 at least once. Centstar is strong but not against this list.
Sure they will, that's 120-160 pts per turn over the course of 5-7 turns without a fear of return fire, since your list is largely relatively slow melee and gravs teleport with decently ranged guns.
It'll take them a while, but they will get there. It's certainly not optimal, but luckily marines don't have much problem putting wounds on things without save if they take a good list (TFC, Deathwind Launchers, basic marines armed correctly, hurricane bolters on the gravs themselves).
This isn't a great list for them to face, that's true, but there are still targets they can fire at and they are quite safe. I wouldn't say they are weak here...you still aren't catching them or killing them after all.
Masque can make them BS 1 for exactly one turn if she lands within the correct deepstrike distance from them. Otherwise, she will immediately be shot off the table, since her defensive stats are garbage. So let's say 4-6 turns (-1 turn). They can still remove 8-12 oblits or mutilators, which is nearly every unit you took of such (if not every unit). They are still making their points back, although it does take a while.
It's not like your list has that many spawn, only 10. The deathwind launchers, TFC, and other weapons (grav isn't great although with 5 shots re-rolling to hit and wound, it will put wounds on them. Those re-rolls make this weapon way too good). After the spawn are dead, you don't have anything too threatening on the table outside daemonettes (who the cents can take in combat) and horrors (which 1 unit is not scary).
A competitive marine list could have deathwind launchers target the spawn, along with marines armed correctly. Try to target the psyker squad more.
The TFC continues to fire at the spawn/daemonettes.
The bikers with a IC smash into anything and everything without fear.
The cents teleport around removing muties/oblits as they arrive.
Something randomly kills the Masque.
Tl:dr The spawn are the best thing in the list, and the crutch it is build around. They are an amazing unit, but not one marines have trouble removing.
koooaei wrote: let's play it out. I challenge your centstar in a avassal match.
Well, if it works on iPad and I can essentially "pause" when I need to switch out compounds in the machine I'm using then sure. Does it drop the game of I lose connection? If someone runs the NMR I don't get a signal for a bit.
Although I don't think it does your argument any good when it constantly devolves into the 40k equivalent of "come fight me bro".
koooaei wrote: let's play it out. I challenge your centstar in a avassal match.
Well, if it works on iPad and I can essentially "pause" when I need to switch out compounds in the machine I'm using then sure. Does it drop the game of I lose connection? If someone runs the NMR I don't get a signal for a bit.
Although I don't think it does your argument any good when it constantly devolves into the 40k equivalent of "come fight me bro".
There's just no better way to see if it works or not.
Actually, I am serious. Bolters are total gak and marine lists do well to minimize the number that they field. I can't tell you how much I hate the boltgun. I'd much rather have an Ork shoota on marines.
Depends on how you define better. A test game, on its own, isn't worth much. We'd have to run a plethora of games in order to determine how the lists compare. This can take time, especially considering my situation with vassal and inexperience using the software. And how long 40k takes to play in general. We could easily be looking at over 20 hours of game play, and that's assuming few games and me being relatively competent with the software (which I probably won't be...apple products are a bit of a pain to use in general imo).
This is why, online, you usually see people running models, simulations, math, or discussing strategies rather than a bunch of battle reports. This isn't different from how all science works...you only go to experimentation after you have a working model or theory, since it's often incredibly expensive and labor intensive to do so.
Is there a link to vassal for iPad? I am unable to find one.
Anywayz, it'd be fine to see how it fares. Your calculations say that cents will annihilate my list. My calculations show that it's gona be fine. Why not see it in action?
Actually, I am serious. Bolters are total gak and marine lists do well to minimize the number that they field. I can't tell you how much I hate the boltgun. I'd much rather have an Ork shoota on marines.
Bolters are total gak? Um. well... Generally they are free. So I guess I am wondering why this observation is really even helpful. Lol. You need an anti-depressant and to step away from the ledge. You literally argued with someone who said "Bolter Bait" by replying how gak the FREE bolters people get are. Yet the OP wasn't wrong about it BEING susceptible to bolters which was HIS point.
So either you just want to argue or you are incredibly depressed.
koooaei wrote: Anywayz, it'd be fine to see how it fares. Your calculations say that cents will annihilate my list. My calculations show that it's gona be fine. Why not see it in action?
I already answered this. It would take an immense amount of time and effort, and apparently vassal won't run on iPad. At least I can't find a link, and I've asked a few times on different threads.
I did not see any calculations on your end in regards to a cent star. Do you mean the mutilators against a single cent without buffs? I don't think that qualifies as calculations since it wasn't even a star and you didn't include everything a cent can do.
I also did not say the cent star alone would annihilate your list. Please stop misquoting me. Notice my breakdown included competitive options that show that, while the cent star wouldn't be amazing, it could still pull its weight and the rest of the list can handle what it doesn't.
It's a pretty typical SM competitive list/options that doesn't include the gladius formation. I'm not sure if your list would be better or worst against the gladius, although I suspect it would do a lot better. I'm not experienced enough with typical gladius builds to say for sure.
Edit; if that's what qualifies as calculations for you I can see why you are so disdainful of them
Actually, I am serious. Bolters are total gak and marine lists do well to minimize the number that they field. I can't tell you how much I hate the boltgun. I'd much rather have an Ork shoota on marines.
Bolters are total gak? Um. well... Generally they are free. So I guess I am wondering why this observation is really even helpful. Lol. You need an anti-depressant and to step away from the ledge. You literally argued with someone who said "Bolter Bait" by replying how gak the FREE bolters people get are. Yet the OP wasn't wrong about it BEING susceptible to bolters which was HIS point.
So either you just want to argue or you are incredibly depressed.
Or I really hate bolters. There's not much in the game that's actually susceptible to bolters. That's the whole problem with them. That, and turning off assault is a pretty crappy combination.
"Um. well... Generally they are free."
But also mandatory on models that are NOT free. But I'm in the tac marine hater camp, so maybe we just won't agree on this. And I wasn't trying to argue. I was really asking how bolters are relevant to the analysis.
The only ledge I'm on is the frustration ledge. Frustration with how bad standard marine schemes are in 7th. Because that's basically what BA are.
Akiasura wrote: If the mutilator suffers any wounds, it becomes a lot weaker. At 1 wound, there is now a chance that overwatch or marine basic attacks can wipe it before it even gets to swing, meaning now it can only "bully" tanks (which means, for most marine players, landed pods, rhinos, and razorbacks only).
In fairness, deep stirking in to kill clusters of drop pods is one of the Mutilator's niches and actually gives it a chance to be something more than a liability in kill point games.
True, I think the only problem with that is that the drop pods are not always clustered. If a mutilators can't target one every turn it's not a good use.
Havoks on a sky shield landing pad aren't awful. I like them quite a bit, although they can be targeting by volume of fire. The Eldar dex certainly made them a bit more vulnerable, but that's most of the game.
Haven't had much success with AC havoks. Maybe lazcannon ones are better. My first tests with this list included AC havoks sitting inside an av14 fortification shooting stuff. And i changed them for oblis. Think they generally perform better.
Akiasura wrote: Havoks on a sky shield landing pad aren't awful. I like them quite a bit, although they can be targeting by volume of fire. The Eldar dex certainly made them a bit more vulnerable, but that's most of the game.
The Eldar codex made EVERYTHING more vulnerable. It's stupid in terms of external balance; even Banshees have a pretty good chance to kill TERMINATORS on the charge.
I think that's more terminators being bad than banshees being amazing. It's more humiliating to have the DA shoot your terminators to death. DA that the terminators can't outshoot and can never catch because of battle focus. Yeah. And that's not even looking at the scatterbike. Because Eldar needed "troops" that hard counter most elites. At any rate, long range wound spam makes havocs look bad.
koooaei wrote: Haven't had much success with AC havoks. Maybe lazcannon ones are better. My first tests with this list included AC havoks sitting inside an av14 fortification shooting stuff. And i changed them for oblis. Think they generally perform better.
Lascannons are nice but you can get AP2 elsewhere. You save 40 points and are still generally okay against transports. You're less effective against Monstrous Creatures, but any Monstrous Creature worth a damn isn't going to care about 2-3 Lascannons hitting it.
Try the sky shield landing pad over the av14 fort.
With the mot they always get their 3++ save, which is pretty solid. They can throw a decent amount of firepower downtown from t1. Oblits are very expensive and don't provide anywhere near the same long range firepower, being better off dropping in most of the time.
AV14 was not there to save havoks - it was there for comms relay. Havoks just used it as a convenient bunker. Noone even tried to shoot them other than a demolisher 1-st turn, actually.
I'm just not impressed with their utility. Havoks are just there for damage and scoring. And they are not extremely good at both this things for the points. They're not a liability but oblits performed better in this list a couple times and i'm sticking with them so far. It's probably just cause of redundancy. The more 2w t5 2+/5++ stuff drops where needed - the better.
I've asked people i played against what they think of the list before and after the game. Most were quite confident they'd deal with mutilators easilly but when it came to doing so in the game, not all was so simple - there were many other factors like Spawns up the nose, summoned daemonettes, blos, 3+ cover in ruins when i got this warlord trait. They actually said that mass drop of tough angry mutants was quite intimidating. And it's very demoralizing when you inflict 3 ap2 wounds to a thing and it passes two 5++ saves and now you need to alter your plans emidiately. And it happens pretty often taking into consideration the number of attempts.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Btw i'm thinking of doing something with sorcs cause they underperform in combat for 185-195 pts i pay for them. Maybe i should squeeze in Slaughter horns? I can drop 1 horror and there are gona be 12 free points. Need to drop another 3 from elsewhere. Will try to leave gift of mutation as it's the theme of the list.
AV14 was not there to save havoks - it was there for comms relay. Havoks just used it as a convenient bunker. Noone even tried to shoot them other than a demolisher 1-st turn, actually.
Ah, okay.
Still, I strongly suggest the skyshield if you haven't tried it. It gives them a degree of toughness that is unmatched against a lot of weapons out there.
I'm just not impressed with their utility. Havoks are just there for damage and scoring. And they are not extremely good at both this things for the points.
Havoks have some of the most cost efficient shooting in our entire dex. Off hand, I can't think of a unit that does it better for the points.
Not a lot in our dex is extremely good. Spawn and bikes come close, and of couse Belakor. If extremely good is the standard, the army list will be boring indeed for chaos.
If you want them to capture objectives, give them special weapons in a rhino. They aren't bad at it then.
If you want them to sit on an objective, they aren't as good as cultists but they are second best after them for such purposes. I usually just take 2 cheap cultists though to avoid the lord tax.
They're not a liability but oblits performed better in this list a couple times and i'm sticking with them so far. It's probably just cause of redundancy. The more 2w t5 2+/5++ stuff drops where needed - the better.
If you had more success with oblits, by all means run them. I personally have never gotten good use out of long fangs when I played SW in 5th, although they were one of the strongest units in that dex (if not the strongest), so everyone's personal experience will vary.
I found oblits to be a bit of a liability in my lists. I don't want to run them in teams, and 1 guy being able to fire a different weapon every turn is a really bad point to fire power ratio. I haven't found the best use for the havoks yet. Currently I use them in Rhinos and move them forward for an armored wall approach, or sit them back with heavier weapons. They usually perform better in the Rhinos, but I honestly think it's just that list and not their loadout. A ton of rhinos can be a challenge for some armies (necrons, which are common in my meta, and Marines, which are also common).
I've asked people i played against what they think of the list before and after the game. Most were quite confident they'd deal with mutilators easilly but when it came to doing so in the game, not all was so simple - there were many other factors like Spawns up the nose, summoned daemonettes, blos, 3+ cover in ruins when i got this warlord trait. They actually said that mass drop of tough angry mutants was quite intimidating.
That's interesting. What were their thoughts on their own lists? Did they think they were taking strong choices, fluffy choices, or what?
I'm not surprised your mutilators performed well against any of the lists you faced, especially the IG player. I'm surprised they thought so.
And it's very demoralizing when you inflict 3 ap2 wounds to a thing and it passes two 5++ saves and now you need to alter your plans emidiately. And it happens pretty often taking into consideration the number of attempts.
It happens relatively infrequently compared to how often the thing just dies. Frankly, it happens twice as often statistically. Dice can vary, but I don't like planning on good or bad dice.
I would imagine the 8 bolters rapid firing manage to score a wound roughly half the time. Then you have overwatch and all the attacks that happen before the mutilators get to swing. Against HBs I imagine they did very well, but HBs haven't been a standard loadout in...ever? Maybe 2nd or rogue trader.
Even 1 wound on a mutilator before combat can make it dramatically at worse. Oblits you have to actually kill of course, making them a lot better.
Personally, my experience with mutilators has been dramatically different than yours. But the lists I face are also dramatically different than yours.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Btw i'm thinking of doing something with sorcs cause they underperform in combat for 185-195 pts i pay for them. Maybe i should squeeze in Slaughter horns? I can drop 1 horror and there are gona be 12 free points. Need to drop another 3 from elsewhere. Will try to leave gift of mutation as it's the theme of the list.
Have you tried Belakor? If you don't use ITC rules he is disgusting. Invisibility on spawn means they will live the entire game against nearly anything.
Akia, if you can't play Vassal (and yes the UI is complicated) why not put forward your Centstar list for someone else?
koooaei wrote: Btw i'm thinking of doing something with sorcs cause they underperform in combat for 185-195 pts i pay for them. Maybe i should squeeze in Slaughter horns?
What do you intend for the Sorcs to accomplish? Horns would have put an additional wound on a Grav Cent (1.333 ----> 2.222). It roughly doubles your wounds against T6 on the charge, so you can reliably land 1x Force Weapon hit barring Invul saves. There is good synergy with Force against multiwound targets.
Not as useful against a LOW character like Calgar or Draigo. A buff like Precognition would help you survive longer, and Masque to debuff WS, but you are still against a 3++/4++ save and EW. Expect 3-4 rounds of combat. Horns won't work beyond the first charge, and you'd have to buff a Sorc through the roof to stand a chance. +2S from FC/Force Axe, +1A Rage, reroll hits/wounds/saves from Precog, Masque debuff:
Calgar/Draigo/Shield Eternal Bike CM = Hitting on 5's, 4-5A, Wounding on 2's = About 1-2 wounds, rerollable 4++ gives a good chance to save
Mutant League Sorcerer = Hitting on 3's with reroll, 5A, Wounding T4 on 2's and T5 on 3's with reroll = About 1-2 wounds after 3++/4++ saves
That's best case scenario. You'd prefer to stay out of combat entirely here, so Horns becomes 15x dead points. So there's pros and cons.
I think a Herald with 2 Rewards and a Greater Daemon are more punchy and more disposable than your Sorcs, if you're forced to push them against a big-time CC character. But you're dependent on having the right Malefic power to summon them in the first place.
koooaei wrote: Btw i'm thinking of doing something with sorcs cause they underperform in combat for 185-195 pts i pay for them. Maybe i should squeeze in Slaughter horns?
What do you intend for the Sorcs to accomplish?
It's just not a rare sight for a sorc to charge and do little with 4 s5 attacks. I'm thinking that a ~7% price increase for 5 s6 attacks might be worth it. Considereing that sorc is the main hitting power against good armor and fnp. If they had H&R i'd not bother. But currently, i consider it to be a problem. If sorc doesn't get warp speed or some debuffs off, he's not frightening in combat. And that's a problem for an almost 200 pt character. They still generally pay off with psy stuff they provide but why not improve them if possible?
Have you tried Belakor? If you don't use ITC rules he is disgusting. Invisibility on spawn means they will live the entire game against nearly anything.
Belakor is great but what to drop? One sorc and...165 pts of extra stuff?
As for havoks, i know they're not bad but what they do for me is put a HP or Two on something or force a few saves. Not worth it. Oblis are less shooty point-to point but they're a toolbox and they can punh stuff when needed. Also, they're my shooty mutated deepstriking/scoring monsters in this list. And they make non-ap2 weapons loose the targets cause the entire list is armor-, 6+ and 2+. And the important armor- stuff is t6 and often buffed. Nothing in between. There's plenty of ap3 stuff fielded nowadays - mostly with ignore cover for fighting bikes and all of it emidiately looses it's niche. Playing orks taught me the benefits of redundancy quite well.
All in all, oblits fit the theme and perform better or at least not worse. So, here are my main arguements for them. Of course, havoks are great against light skimmers that oblits struggle to scratch unless they get within 24 with an ac and it's limited for a turn. But they can also roast the insides with an occasional HF/TL Flamer => it's more of a trade off rather than a plain downside.
Spoiler:
Also, one of our local csm dudes has 4 cool custom non-GW nurgle oblits that he lend me for a game.
! I didnt expect my question to spawn such an extensive discussion and chain of replies! Have there been any changes in opinion when it comes to the mutilators? or is the consensus still that they're just not very worth the points?
