Trouble is that is like someone trying to sell a car with two broken cylinders in its motor by pointing out if it is simply towed or pushed, nobody will ever feel like the motor isn't good. However.. I encourage you to post up the lists, so that gaurd players can look at them and get good ideas for their own struggles with the matter.
In fact...
I been meaning to ask this list to start considering good soup combinations for gaurd as a matter of course, because of the generic weakness of gaurd at so many operational objectives in ninth. For example, a core of 3 iron hands redempter dreads and a single character dread, with an augmented techmarine leading them, as a possible midfield countercharge and firebase? I know this doesn't exactly win the midfield battle, but concentrating 4 dread + 1 character as a countercharge isn't too shabby either, and at -1 damage per hit, with some repair available, they are not as easy to bring down as a trio of tank commanders (which would, of course, cost abotu 50 more each than the 3 dread redempters.
The whole package is about 800 points -- not trivial at all -- but you can buy a lot of gaurd with 1200 points, I think.
tau tse tung wrote: I don't understand why everybody is moaning here. I reminds me of the days of 7th or 5th.
Guard with a sisters or GSC detachment have been working fine for me. Using the ambush rule to tie up heavy close combat units with say a rockgrinder has done well for me so far. The dagger of a sisters squad in a multimelta immulator has done well by me. I don't see the issue?
I could see allies working, but a lot of people want pure IG to work, and that's a struggle. We shouldn't have to ally to be functional, we're a main army. Sisters of silence or something, sure, makes sense they'd need allies to win, but we're IG, were supposed to be able to carry our own weight. I think the main issue isn't the guard codex itself, but the mission set it is being asked to fight in. Guard units, in a vacuum, can be quite good. The manticore might be the most cost efficient shooting unit in the game point for point, guardsmen are very effective in numbers, and Bullgryn do their job pretty well, to name just a few.
The issue is that the rules of most missions absolutely punish IG. There are certain secondaries that are almost impossible to not max against us, and they're in different categories. Few armies in the game, even losing, are going to fail to get Attrition every turn for example. We also rely on a ton of characters, so Assassinate is easy, and often it combines with other missions like Abhor the Witch or Thin Their Ranks, meaning a unit like a Tank Commander can give up points for 3 different secondaries. What this means is a pure IG army needs to go into most missions understanding that it is giving up 45 points to the opponent practically guaranteed, so you need to crush the opponent on objectives. Except you do that by having durable units park on objectives quickly and then fight the opponent off of them, not exactly a thing IG is known for. Meanwhile, armies like marines give up very few secondaries while having a relatively easy time scoring secondaries and primaries alike. There isn't a single Secondary I've seen that punishes a marine player at all in the core rulebook. Usually I'm stuck with the mission specific secondary, engage on all fronts, and then hoping my opponent brought enough pyskers or vehicles/monsters/characters to get a decent amount of kill secondary. GW really needed something in the secondaries that punishes elite armies but there's none to be seen. Marines aren't even the worst offender, pulling secondaries out of a custodes player is like pulling teeth.
We're not as disadvantaged as Tau, but we are struggling when it comes to winning the mission. The best results I have had have involved heavily spamming the few good units we have, namely Catachan Infantry squads, Bullgryn, Manticores, Special weapon squads reserved/stormtroopers, and Demolisher tank commanders. And even then, it's a hard fight vs marines and custodes. Honestly if we just got a couple secondaries that involved killing elite units of infantry, or even a rule that stated thin their ranks was calculated by infantry wounds inflicted, not models killed, guard would get a good boost. As is, you just need to realize that the deck is stacked against you a bit.
I've not really gotten to try much else given my work schedule and covid. I'm part of a league that locks you into factions so once I went Catachan there was no changing it. I'm mulling over some ideas for Cadian infantry spam and some stormtrooper/infantry hybrid lists that mostly ignore tanks, but it'll be a while before I get to try them. I want to like tank commanders, but they're just so fragile and hard to hide while giving up points. I'm tempted to forgo them entirely and put those points into a doom drop of stormtroopers while leaving a couple manticores in the back with a horde of guardsmen and Bullgryn to hold the line till the drop happens. I may try it at 1500pts, we'll see what I can finish getting painted before the next stage.
I would almost consider arming up a detachment of the world's worst point cost units in the game ... inquisition! 6 acolytes with 6 meltas is about the same price as an eradicator unit, and if they were ordo minoris you could reroll all shooting and wounding vs a character. IF they were also given psychic pursuit by a friendly inquisitor, they become the most terrifying thing to suddenly drop next to a couple of marines like librarians and such.
Cause I don't care how many 5++ saves you make, you miss a couple, and meltas gonna melt.
Suddenly strip out the enemy's ability to 5++ shield, 6+++ feel no pain, and bring his units back from the dead, and you will have a lot better odds of killing a lot of marines with manticore firepower, with plasma rifles, with anything in your army.
I know its about 300 points, but if you can reduce 220 points of chief librarian and chief apothecary to nothing with it, wouldn't it be well spent?
Slip them into the middle of a big drop of scions, and the enemy may end up unable to screen the valkyrie out from all its possible approaches -- and stepping out of a bird doesn't allow auspex scan.
If not, well, point them at a nearby dreadnaught and shoot it with meltas. Could make your points back as well.
So I think acolyte melta is a possible soup in that I would not, a month ago, have thought to be worth it on any level what so ever, simply because you can put them in a bird and step out to whammo.
Anyone tried outflanking melta special weapon teams/command squads? They’re crazy low PL so it costs 1 cp to drop 3 of each + a commander. Or scion melta command squads
Also remember scion deepstrike has no cost, and is more flexible. Also remember that scions commmand squads can pair or tripple up in a valkyrie for a precision drop of devastating result, without risking any sort of countermeasure against reinforcements arriving. (eg auspex scans or superior intelligence, et al.)
I think the board edge stuff works best with things like longer ranged RF plasma in custom regiments, maximizes your chance to get on a real target from the few places you can come on board "up front".
C4790M wrote: Anyone tried outflanking melta special weapon teams/command squads? They’re crazy low PL so it costs 1 cp to drop 3 of each + a commander. Or scion melta command squads
I am doing so in the crusade league my store is having. 18 bodies, 9 plasma for only 3PL total? Yes please. Haven't tried outflanking yet, seems like a good strat to give them some mobility flexibility.
So, based on the Kreig article today, it looks like Command Squads of all flavors won't take up a slot if their respective HQ unit is brought. Not sure if Platoon Commanders will count though, but maybe, given their history.
Does anyone here think the following will be seen more commonly once our Codex is out?
-3x Chimera + 3 Command Squads (all Melta or Plasma)
-6x Chimera + Commander + Special Weapons Squad (Melta or Plasma) + Command Squad (Melta or Plasma)
- (If Platoon Commanders don't count for taking a Command Squad without using a slot): 3x Chimera + Commander + Special Weapons Squad (Melta or Plasma) + Command Squad (Melta or Plasma)
Arcanis161 wrote: So, based on the Kreig article today, it looks like Command Squads of all flavors won't take up a slot if their respective HQ unit is brought. Not sure if Platoon Commanders will count though, but maybe, given their history.
Does anyone here think the following will be seen more commonly once our Codex is out?
-3x Chimera + 3 Command Squads (all Melta or Plasma)
-6x Chimera + Commander + Special Weapons Squad (Melta or Plasma) + Command Squad (Melta or Plasma)
- (If Platoon Commanders don't count for taking a Command Squad without using a slot): 3x Chimera + Commander + Special Weapons Squad (Melta or Plasma) + Command Squad (Melta or Plasma)
You would still need to deal with rule of 3, just because they free up slots doesn't mean you can take more of them. Since there's no such thing as platoon vs company command squads anymore, you're stuck with 3 of them and 3 SWS. If you want more, you'll need to take vets or stormtroopers.
I'm curious how the WS and # of attacks of the Death Riders will shake out. Changing the hunting lance to AP-3, D2 (instead of Dd3) and the claws to AP-1 makes them a bit more efficient against the Marine profile.
IF they remain at A2 (A3 for the Ridemaster) and WS3+ it would mean a unit of 5 kills:
11 attacks x 2/3 x 2/3 x 5/6 = 4.07 Marines and then the horses another
10 x 2/3 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 (because D1) = 0.83 for a total of 4.9, so one Squad. Currently death riders are at 15 points/horse, so that would mean they can kill their points in standard marines in one charge. More if the Regimental standard still gives +1 attack to each.
And the Death Rider Command Squad seems to get one attack more. But of course, I wouldn't be surprised if GW either degrades them to A1, WS 4+ and/or increases their price.
Arcanis161 wrote: So, based on the Kreig article today, it looks like Command Squads of all flavors won't take up a slot if their respective HQ unit is brought. Not sure if Platoon Commanders will count though, but maybe, given their history.
Does anyone here think the following will be seen more commonly once our Codex is out?
-3x Chimera + 3 Command Squads (all Melta or Plasma)
-6x Chimera + Commander + Special Weapons Squad (Melta or Plasma) + Command Squad (Melta or Plasma)
- (If Platoon Commanders don't count for taking a Command Squad without using a slot): 3x Chimera + Commander + Special Weapons Squad (Melta or Plasma) + Command Squad (Melta or Plasma)
You would still need to deal with rule of 3, just because they free up slots doesn't mean you can take more of them. Since there's no such thing as platoon vs company command squads anymore, you're stuck with 3 of them and 3 SWS. If you want more, you'll need to take vets or stormtroopers.
Ah, ok, so just the last one of: 3x Chimera + Commander + Special Weapons Squad (Melta or Plasma) + Command Squad (Melta or Plasma).
You guys think this will be common? Or does it seem too fragile for the points?
More like too many points for what it's doing sadly. For the price of a chimera and command squad with officer you could be deepstriking proper stormtroopers anywhere on the board with a whole host of bonuses and nasty abilities. Lambda lions for example have ap3 lasguns base, ways for those lasguns to dish out MW, reroll 1 aura so they can double down on rerolling wounds vs monsters/tanks or reroll 1's to wound against anything, etc. Etc. Others get increased rapid fire range or hit bonuses.
The big upside to the chimeras of course is they're tougher for the points and can be doing their thing from turn one, but if I want a vehicle to get weapons into place I'd want a valkyrie for the grav chutes, since it's not much more than a chimera while being tougher to kill and having better weapons, mobility, and deployment rules. Problem is if you go second you may as well paint a giant "shoot me" sign on the valkyrie, no one is dumb enough to let one live.
strategic reserve is costed for your ambush like ability to put the unit off the board based on the total power level you put in SR. Ambush however has a fixed price for 1 to 3 tallarn units, of which any one can be a vehicle unit, EVEN A SQUAD. So for 3 cp, I remember it costing, you can put 2 squads of veterans and 3 leman russ off the board to come in on the board edge, as an example, while with the SR strat you pay 1 cp per (roughly) 10 levels of power. So marginally tallarns can do it cheaper cp wise, but comparitively, you could send all three leman russes into strategic reserve as separate units, and thus, bring them in over here, way over there, and another one back down yonder, as the mood struck you.
So efficiency vs flexibility for vehicles, basically.
Am I the only one that really hates FW stuff?
Don't get me wrong. I really like how the models look. But thats it.
The rules are always OP. They always has to do more than the GW stuff. At least so it seems.
Better weapons, better special rules.
And most of the time the point cost is just cheap.
No never enjoy playing against FW stuff. So I refuse to use FW rules myself!
@ Krull: I don't see it that way. The Malcadors are worse than their weight in Leman Russ, the Machariusses are worse/on par with their Baneblade counterparts (the Vulcan can have more shots than the Stormlord but has no transport capacity or firing deck). The Hades drill is gimicky but (in my opinion) far from overpowered. The Carnodon is a relatively cheap Lascannon platform, but LR are still better at almost all roles it can have. I don't know the flyers well enough to say something about them, but I assume those are pretty good, I grant you that but I so far have to see someone complaining about them or one of it appearing massivly in tournaments.
In other words: looking at IG which Forgeworld models so you have in mind when you refer to broken and too cheap FW stuff?
Krull wrote: Am I the only one that really hates FW stuff?
Don't get me wrong. I really like how the models look. But thats it.
The rules are always OP. They always has to do more than the GW stuff. At least so it seems.
Better weapons, better special rules.
And most of the time the point cost is just cheap.
No never enjoy playing against FW stuff. So I refuse to use FW rules myself!
So I don't care the dkok lost much or not!
What planet are you on. The vast majority of forgeworld units were completely unplayable during 8th and 9th so far.
I mean ask yourself what you have actually seen at tournaments doing well outside of custodes (who are half forgeworld as a faction) I can count maybe 10 units or just under 5% of forgeworld models that see competative play (and two of them aren't in the compendium) and most of those datasheets weren't playable throughout 8th only becoming good with successive buffs to SM looking at iron hands dreadnoughts. Outside of the dreadnoughts its tough to think of anything overpowered. The cyclops knight castigator hoplites carnodon and custodes are all reasonable but balanced options
Sure the few units that are going to see play tend to be at the more efficient end because lets face it because that's why people run them at events no one trying to win is taking that 2000pt warhound titan or an acastus knight because fw is broken (well actually I have seen both at events coming last as you would expect).
Forgeworld needed some rules changes and points adjustments but mostly to make them better the range wants to be on a par with GW not underpowered.
Sentineil wrote: He posted the exact same question about FW in the Necron thread. Probably just trolling since it hasn't been accurate in about 10 year for IG
FW does seem to throw out something weird every few years that some people take heavy advantage of. Look at the Sabre turrets and quad mortars in 7th, or Vendetta spam in 5-6th (I miss you vendettas!) and there was a lot of Vultures lurking in early 8th. Most of the time its because of an unintended rule interaction (like Sabre Turrets being T7) or a unit just being criminally undercosted.
Yes but was that any more broken than the admech warcon or the all my transports are free sm battle company of the era.
You need to judge forgeworld by how it has performed in 8th and 9th which are the editions we are in not by 5th/6th ed which is what a decade ago.
I'm not saying forgeworld won't throw up the odd broken unit when they put out 200+ but so does GW. But they are few and far between and usually over nerfed unlike the GW castellan that sat around forever or SM now.
So one question pops into my head. At this point, our melee element is usually seeming to be a big pile of bully with maul, and its goign to swing last if the marines have a justicar. IS splitting it into two piles (of perhaps 5 each) better than one pile of 10 with an extra 48 points to burn?
Would a pile of 4 bully and 8crusader (with a minipriest nearby each) be enough to stop a marine charge long enough that a valhallan army could unload everything into the remnants of the enemy's unstopable melee ball? Cause that's a way for us to maybe do things such that the marines end up disfavorably losing troops -- while almost by definition having a second strike pack midfield able to do stuff after the trade.
Cause I could just see squeezing such a ball into each of 2 midfield objectives, but it leaves you with a lot fewer points to play artillery.
@ Dukeofstoff: I lack experience if that would stop a marine charge, but it sounds good.
One thing though regarding CC dudes: IF (a big if) Death Riders stay at 15 points as of the latest points upgrade there is some argument for them. For the price of one Bullgryn (43 points) you get 3 riders (45 points).
So T5 W3 4++ OR 2+ vs. 3 x T4 W2, 4+, 5++ against S4 or less.
I'm not sure how the math shakes out. I think the Bullgryns are a bit more sturdy, but the death riders cover more ground for the same cost, have a FNP roll against normal Marine CC attacks, are faster, hit pretty brutal on the charge with their new AP-3, D2 lances, can be ordered and outflanked. I think (unsupported by experience, so just theory) that even if they start on the board they might be useful as charge deterrent.
Pyroalchi wrote:Also right of now Ambush lets you deploy 7'' (instead of 6'') from the table edge. Which might (I'm not sure) be enough for a Baneblade with sponsons.
Also let's you come on wherever you want, even the enemy's table edges if you wish. It's probably the biggest advantage the tallarn doctrine has.
Dukeofstuff wrote:So one question pops into my head. At this point, our melee element is usually seeming to be a big pile of bully with maul, and its goign to swing last if the marines have a justicar. IS splitting it into two piles (of perhaps 5 each) better than one pile of 10 with an extra 48 points to burn?
Would a pile of 4 bully and 8crusader (with a minipriest nearby each) be enough to stop a marine charge long enough that a valhallan army could unload everything into the remnants of the enemy's unstopable melee ball? Cause that's a way for us to maybe do things such that the marines end up disfavorably losing troops -- while almost by definition having a second strike pack midfield able to do stuff after the trade.
Cause I could just see squeezing such a ball into each of 2 midfield objectives, but it leaves you with a lot fewer points to play artillery.
I've heard of worse plans. Beware that the Valhallans shoot into combat can be difficult to pull off because you use your order to shoot into combat and lose your reroll 1's or FRFSRF to do it. This can be mitigated a bit by bringing a character with a universal reroll order like Yarrick or using grenadiers to Chuck 10 frag grenades, but overall your shooting will be a bit weaker. You also need to have your infantry close enough to the combat to contribute without getting killed in it or picked off by enemy fire. Guardsmen with special weapons are juicy targets even when your opponent doesn't know what you're up to, so you either need terrain or transports. I guess a few double flamer or double Bolter chimeras packed with SWS, Vets, or CCS could do the job, but you're paying a lot of points for the privilege. Not to mention you're giving up a better doctrine like Catachan. This could be fixed by bringing a Valhallan infantry detachment and a tank detachment from Catachans or custom depending on preference I guess.
That said, the local Blood Angels player swears my Valhallans are the most difficult for him to beat, and I run Catachans quite a bit as well. It is a fun curve ball that absolutely throws people off the first time they see it, but just beware that once people see it they wise up pretty quick.
As for Bullgryn, usually you see the big mob for buffs, but with stuff like the Judicare and the fact that they're our only really objective taking unit, it might indeed be better to try two smaller squads, that way they can split up, stay together, fit in transports, whatever you need. I have everything I need to try something like that, I may give it a spin next time I have a chance for a 2k game.
Sentineil wrote: He posted the exact same question about FW in the Necron thread. Probably just trolling since it hasn't been accurate in about 10 year for IG
Not exact the same.
Here i added i dont care dkok lost much because there was much talk about dkok. And i don't see why you would take dkok apart for liking the ugly models.
I do acknoledge most FWOP stuff was from before 8th and a bit early 8th.
I didnt say the OP stuff was guard stuff.
In 8th it was mostly FW dreadnoughts you encountered.
PS: not everyone reads the necrons and IG tactics. so this general comment/question belongs in both
I do acknoledge most FWOP stuff was from before 8th and a bit early 8th.
I didnt say the OP stuff was guard stuff.
In 8th it was mostly FW dreadnoughts you encountered.
@ Krull: serious question: then why do you post the statement that FW stuff is always overpowered and often too cheap in the 9th Edition IG tactics threat? Isn't that rather pointless then?
But to be fair again as answer to your question: No I don't hate FW or playing against Forgeworld looking from the perspective of 9th Edition IG.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Wow... it seems Death riders now have a flat 5++ instead of "only against S4 or less". => they might (!) acutally become an alternative to Bullgryns I think.
Also for some reason the Death Rider Command Squad went from elite to fast attack and the normal riders from fast attack to elite?
Also the Trojan is still there and seems to be able to let a vehicle with a one-shot weapon fire again (hello Death Strike missile)
Tarantulas are now Fortifications.
Edit: and according to the goonhammer article it seems the riders even went to W3 dir still 15 points. Those are some serious buffs...
I got 20 counts as Death Riders so I'm pretty hyped
do dying death k riders get an extra lance attack in their doctrine as well? That could give you quite a decent alternative to bullygrns, some lost resilience -- but a stingback in melee.
Dukeofstuff wrote: do dying death k riders get an extra lance attack in their doctrine as well? That could give you quite a decent alternative to bullygrns, some lost resilience -- but a stingback in melee.
Unfortunately no, for some reason the only models that get the rules are vehicles and characters.
Dukeofstuff wrote: do dying death k riders get an extra lance attack in their doctrine as well? That could give you quite a decent alternative to bullygrns, some lost resilience -- but a stingback in melee.
The thing is that it seems Death Riders also went to W3, 5++ against everything. So they are sometimes even more resilient than Bullgryns now point for point. If I'm not mistaken the 3 Death riders you can get for each Bullgryn can always soak up more damage then the Bruteshield Bullgryn. And compared to Slabshield Bullgryn they are worse against S4,5,8 AP0, equal against S3,6,7, AP0 and S4 AP-1 and better against everything else.
Not exact the same.
Here i added i dont care dkok lost much because there was much talk about dkok. And i don't see why you would take dkok apart for liking the ugly models.
I do acknoledge most FWOP stuff was from before 8th and a bit early 8th.
I didnt say the OP stuff was guard stuff.
In 8th it was mostly FW dreadnoughts you encountered.
PS: not everyone reads the necrons and IG tactics. so this general comment/question belongs in both
Posting this in the IG Tactica-Thread = Troll confirmed.
Let's ignore it and move along people.
How do we feel about the "new" FW-Tanks?
I only own 3, the Malcador Infernus, the Macharius and the Valdor;
The Infernus. Actually improved by becoming cheaper and getting more shots on it's maingun.
With 2 Heavy Flamer sponsons (because why not) it's less than 300 points.
I can actually see myself using it quite frequently now.
The Macharius. Did it even change? Still pretty bad, given it's cost and damage output. 2 regular Leman Russes will both outshoot it and outtank it. If they'd given it the Grinding Advance-rule I could see myself field it, as it would technically be like slamming two Leman Russes together into a single LoW, with slightly higher damage out put but lower resiliency. Now however you're essentially just spending 3 CP for a tank that offers nothing new and is worse point-for-point than our regular tanks...
The Valdor Went from bad to worse with it's gun going from Heavy 2D3 to Heavy 3.
Not sure in what world 3 BS3+ S12 AP3 D6(if it didn't move) shots is worth 340 pts but it's not this one.
2 Leman Russ Vanquishers can probably outgun in it's intended role, and that's saying something.
On the flipside, the Macharius Vanquisher got some boost it's Macharius-brother didn't and now looks ...OK:ish as a Tank/Monster-hunter.
Only 2 shots, but with +1 to hit it might actually land some hits, and with enough S, AP and D to actually inflict damage.
Not only better at its job than the Valdor (which isn't saying much tbh), but it's cheaper as well(!).
I might actually use my regular Macharius as a count-as Vanquisher and give it a go.
Casual game tonight. Old terrain from the FLGS meant my army was unable to fire long distance shots in turns 1,2,3. Manticores utterly failed at killing aggressors in cover. My souped in marines did pretty well (except the infiltrators who were swallowed whole by the enemy's army, a marine white scars horde with 2 dreadnaughts) My scions had almost no effect, wiht the exception of a precise drop on turns 1 and 2 from my one valkyrie (killed a dreadnaught, won an objective by doing so, and hopped out into the fourth quadrend for "all 4 areas" VP points.
My taurox spam was literally useless. Killed maybe 2 marines with multiple rounds of gatling and HSVG fire.
Sigh. MY friend is ultracompetitive -- this was his idea of a casual list to be "gentle" on me, so all of his primaris units had feel no pains and were in cover every round, of course. However, 2 things DID work well. Good. Marines I used worked well. Nothing else did except melta command squads. Oh, and my one multilaser KILLED A MARINE EVERY ROUND. While the manticores, with full payload, killed only 3 all game. What the hell..... but I will never talk bad about those 5 points on a valkyrie again. Never.
Bad. Manticores had no to little effect, suffering from lousy accuracy despite cadian rerolls (he used a strat to turn some of his units -1 to be hit) and because of the effects of terrain and saves.
New thought of the day. Instead of useless manticores and rather underperforming tauroxes, I would consider a third group with iotan gorgonnes to allow a near to the enemy drop (5.1 inches) in addition to the usual valkyrie based precsion drop. Probably with lots of meltas.
*Avenger strike fighter bolt cannon is fixed. Heavy 10, S6, Ap2, 2 damage. Downside is it went down to T6 and is only BS4. Also it can't take any additional weapons, you get two lascannon and the bolt cannon, plus a dinky stubbed, that's it. 165pts. Might work well for hunting characters
*The new artillery crew rules mean all guardsmen crew are essentially decorative, the only thing that matters is the gun itself. This includes the rapier. Basilisk and medusa field guns are 120pts, pretty useless since they have way less wounds and a worse save for minimal pts difference. Rapier is 85pts
*The new cyclops is pretty vicious for the points, I can see myself running these, if only to get to stuff hiding in combat. A few of these combined with Valhallan conscripts would be a fun way to mess with combat armies. Fun tidbits, the cyclops can only hit models it can see and always has a flat 6" range. You can have an officer standing on the other side of a wall 2" away and he'd be fine, same for enemies. For 50pts seems like a steal for 2d6 S9 d3 damage hits on everything in a 6" radius. Hide them behind walls or tanks and wait for some poor sap to charge your infantry screen or even keep it near a target you know the opponents elite melee unit wants to hit. You can also stick them in transports for some reason, but they can't be blown up the turn you disembark them.
*Armageddon Medusa may become a competitive artillery choice for IG, especially with custom regiment. Heavy d6, S10, ap3, d6 damage that ignores LOS with 36" rsnge is not bad especially with 9ths smaller tables. Might try a couple in my catachans combined with the tank ace manticores. Looks like 140 but I might be reading costs wrong, if heavy bolters isn't included it's 155.
*Vulture lost a ton of weapon options. Basically you can take two MRP and two hellstrikes, or you can take twin punisher, that's it. 190pts the way you know you're gonna take it.
*Vendetta can carry 12 guys again, pretty sure that's a change from 8th, 210 pts, pricey for 6 lascannon shots. still doesn't get roving gunship, best it will ever hit on is 4's
*Hellstrikes got the melta rule by the way, but it's always on. Kind of nice, but on the vendetta for example you get 4 lascannon or 2 hellstrikes shots, I'm not sure why you would ever pick the hellstrikes if you have an option.
*Hades breaching drill can be taken in any regiment, as long as you take a vet or combat engineers unit to go with it. Doesn't have any guns but might make a nice distraction since it's got a nasty melee profile for the cost. I think it's 80pts but might be 60, might not be a bad choice for plasmavets or something.
*Thunderers still don't have grinding advance, but are 120pts. Would rather have the medusa if I'm gonna have a non leman Russ Demolisher cannon style weapon that can't grinding advance.
*The CRASSUS ARMORED ASSAULT TRANSPORT is 240pts
These are just things I noticed rewatching the video on 1080p. I'm sure I missed some stuff. Overall the superheavies seem like letdowns.
What is the rapier shooting like now? I reckon the armaged medusa is a way to not have to lose warlord traits and command points just to beef up manticores. Or alternately, its a rather better third gun if your doctrine rerolls wound numbers, than either a 3rd manty or basi to pair with the obligatory 2 manticore full pay base. Cyclops looks neat! (especially) to be a great "shake up the meta" asset. My competitive marine opponent friend is running an ultra elite infantry all primaris and most of them 40 points a model army these days, in a deathball. So tempting!
Huh, there is some point specifically remember it being 6 models. If it wasn't 8th I'm stumped when it would've been. Oh well, 210pts for a 6 lascannon plane, even carrying 12 dudes is pretty steep.
With the release of the imperial armor compendium and the points adjustments, a few options have opened up to make different styles of lists. I think since a lot of armies have been going anti-tank we can look at the rapier laser destroyer for our anti-tank, as well as the quad launcher for a wyvern stand in . Also the tarantula has been moved to a fortification and you can have 1-3 per slot.
@Fishborn: what does "Multilaser +30" at the Carnodon mean? The four MLs together cost 30 more than now (so 60) or really each ML =35 points? And what does Lascannon -20 at the Carnodon and -75 at the Malcador mean?
Instead of useless manticores and rather underperforming tauroxes, I would consider a third group with iotan gorgonnes to allow a near to the enemy drop (5.1 inches) in addition to the usual valkyrie based precsion drop. Probably with lots of meltas.
Alternatively, instead of taking Payload Manticores and going Cadian, take them, go Catachan/Gunnery Expert and add a Master of Ordonance. His one Heavy 6 artillery barrage per game alone is worth it imo.
So the Multilaser +30 means there is one base points cost for the model equipped with Multilasers that costs 30 more points than the 8th edition equipped similarly. If it has autocannons or volkite it costs -10 from last edition and if it has nothing but lascannon it's 20 points cheaper.
They made that one models rules have the most options.
Fishborne wrote: So the Multilaser +30 means there is one base points cost for the model equipped with Multilasers that costs 30 more points than the 8th edition equipped similarly. If it has autocannons or volkite it costs -10 from last edition and if it has nothing but lascannon it's 20 points cheaper.
They made that one models rules have the most options.
Does that make sense?
That would be at least... surprising.
The old basecost of the Carnodon (after the last points update) was 60 + 2x5 +10 =80 points. With Quad AC/Volkite it was 120, the Quad LC variant was 60 + 4x20 = 140 points. If what you write should be true it would be 110 for Multilaser, Volkite, AC and 120 for Quad Lascannons. That would be... really weird, as MLs would be 15 points instead of 5. Unless they seriously buffed up Multilasers to play in the same weight class as the other heavy weapons like Autocannons, Heavy Bolters and Heavy Flamers.
The Macharius. Did it even change? Still pretty bad, given it's cost and damage output. 2 regular Leman Russes will both outshoot it and outtank it. If they'd given it the Grinding Advance-rule I could see myself field it, as it would technically be like slamming two Leman Russes together into a single LoW, with slightly higher damage out put but lower resiliency. Now however you're essentially just spending 3 CP for a tank that offers nothing new and is worse point-for-point than our regular tanks...
The Macharius dropped 100 pts, gained twice the attacks, added Adamantium Tracks, and lost one point of strength. Twin battlecannon is still the same, 2d6, Str 8, -2ap, D6 damage. Has Steel Behemoth and Smoke Launchers as in the codex. Seems not too bad really anymore, but not great. 310 points out of the box.
Dukeofstuff wrote: What is the rapier shooting like now?
I reckon the armaged medusa is a way to not have to lose warlord traits and command points just to beef up manticores. Or alternately, its a rather better third gun if your doctrine rerolls wound numbers, than either a 3rd manty or basi to pair with the obligatory 2 manticore full pay base.
Cyclops looks neat! (especially) to be a great "shake up the meta" asset. My competitive marine opponent friend is running an ultra elite infantry all primaris and most of them 40 points a model army these days, in a deathball. So tempting!
Fishborne wrote: With the release of the imperial armor compendium and the points adjustments, a few options have opened up to make different styles of lists. I think since a lot of armies have been going anti-tank we can look at the rapier laser destroyer for our anti-tank, as well as the quad launcher for a wyvern stand in . Also the tarantula has been moved to a fortification and you can have 1-3 per slot.
Watch this in 1080p on a computer and you should be able to read just about the whole book. The thunderbolt didn't really jump out at me but I don't own one so I didn't look too hard, whereas I do have an Avenger so I took a careful look at it.
I had a chance to field my Kriegsoup for the first time since the changes yesterday, against the cheez Necron dynasty (obsec for all & 6" move before T1.)
On first blush I was obviousy gutted by what GW had done to the faction. So many cool units lost.
But then I started digging and there are some clear buffs for the faction, and there's a clear winner to my eyes: Death Rider Command Squadron. They kept A2, the lances went to -3 and flat D2 on the charge, and the horse kicks got a point of AP, which is all gravy. But the huge buff was to survivability: 3W, 4+/5+++ is a really tanky little profile for 15pts a model. (they also got nerfed with a WS4.) I took 3 squads of 4 and they did great work for me. DS Engineers were solid, and finally getting FRFSRF on my kriegers was awesome. Each team got a melta, and they did a bit of work. I managed to beat a pretty tasty Necron list (we had to finish up at T3 but it was looking very good).
Being fully honest, I run my Krieg with Guilliman for his glorious buff bubble. Previously I ran a big blob of Bullgryns to escort him, but Now I've dropped them for a 6-man squad of Bladeguard as Bobby gives them such a nice set of buffs.
So yeah, Krieg have probably improved overall - a terrible regimental doctrine but access to three very strong units: Engineers, Drills and DRC squads.
One thing for the sake of completeness: last page I posted very optimistic about Death Riders offensive output on the basis of them staying at 2 attacks each and the command squad getting 3 as GW so happily posted about "command squads being even better with +1 attack!".
As grouchoben posted, its the other way around as they reduced the number of attacks on the normal riders. Typical GW to turn this into a celebration.
It also seems as if the DKOK regimental standard giving cavalry +1 attack is gone so Death Riders went from 2-3 lance attacks at WS3+ to one at WS4+.
But as they also got much tougher one cannot really call it a nerf. With the new stats I assume its much less important to try and let them charge each round. When 10 Death Riders still produced 14 Lance hits it seemed important but now with 5.5... Not so much
Yeah exactly, they're a harrasment unit now, for good or for ill. One further nerf to their punch is that Krieg can no longer order cavalry now, as far as I can see. Bummer.
Still, assuming you're being shot by >T4 weaponry, each rider is roughly 100% tankier than their former iteration... That's a big deal. It means that if you tie a squad of no-frills intercessors in CC on turn one, your DRC Squad will still be standing at the end of the game.
grouchoben wrote: Yeah exactly, they're a harrasment unit now, for good or for ill. One further nerf to their punch is that Krieg can no longer order cavalry now, as far as I can see. Bummer.
Hopefully that is just an oversight and be fixed in an errata. Seems weird to have a Death Rider Commander being able to give orders to Infantry but not other Death Riders (inc themselves).
Especially as, with the squatting of Rough Riders, there are no other cavalry units in the IG roster...
I'd appreciate everyone's opinion on the Malcador Infernus. It's 250pts (or 260, can't quite make out on the video) which is a drop of 65-75pts. Also its main gun is now 3d6 instead of 2d6, S7 -2 2D, 18" range. Still T8, W18. Beefy, and perfect for the marine infestations we're experiencing.
This looks to me like it's approaching good... Only 30 or so pts more than a tank commander, and shoots effectively all the way down to 1W. Obviates Guard WS4+ problems. I know we're in the Eradicator meta at the moment, but anyone else see the appeal of this thing, other than its amazing model?
Definitly. I personally would still try to charge it into something as soon as possible. It can still shoot the infernogun in CC as far as I know and while sturdy, every Marine player that wants it dead, will have it dead. Bit charged in it might take some with him when exploding
I'm particularly interested as it's one of the only vehicles to serisouly benefit from the new Krieg doctrine (Hflamer sentinels, chimera and hellhounds being the others). If it roles a 4+ fine, it blows up doing 1d6 MW. If it doesn't you get another chance, with a 4+ to do another 3d6 auto-hitting shots. So you have a 75% chance to wreck something as it dies, so long as you made it within 6" of your opponent's force.
Looks pretty solid so far. As you want to use strike first, strike hard you might try to squeeze in another 2 hunter killer missiles on the Sentinels. And if you expand your army I would recommend spreading the Relic and WL traits over more than one model. Bit dir a patrol: looks decent.
I could get an executioner turret and swap the lascannon for a heavy bolter on the tc for the extra hunterkillers on the sentinels but its a tough trade. The lascannon basically gives me one every turn. I'm open to the executioner though, I'll think about it.
Thanks for the advice! I'll make sure to spread the goodies around.
Alternatively you could swap one of the Sentinel ML for a Multilaser or two for autocannons to squeeze the HK missiles in. Some autocannons might be a practical alternative to the missile launchers. Or in the case of the Multilaser: it's pretty likely the Sentinels will be shot at pretty soon, and the first killed can be the Multilaser one. Also Multilaser Sentinels are less of a loss when you use them to charge something
At 500pts I'd be tempted to go with a gunnery expert Punisher tank commander. That thing will shred what little troops your opponent has, leaving your squads free to hold objectives and win the game. Definitely try and get two more hkm as Pyro says...
Yeah I can def magnetize the sentinels weapon so I'll do one with a Multilaser. Then I can give the other sentinels and the tc a hk too. I like that a lot. Thanks!
^The range doctrine right? That would be pretty savage. I did briefly consider punisher pask myself but I'd have to cut down on infantry. If I were going that way tho, punisher pask, heavy bolter sponsors, fill the rest with as much infantry and heavy bolters as possible.
Interesting to see this idea with a sentinel bomb, I've been thinking about it too. I'm not sure, but wouldn't plasma cannons be good since you're Cadian and re-rolling 1s anyway? Then you can over-charge on turn one, when you're hitting better, and stay a bit safer afterwards if you like. By the way, grouchoben, you're thinking of Weapon Expert for the Punisher right?
The most critical limiting factor in alpha strike 3 sentinals is that you have to get a bead on the enemy's models no matter what, before they can simply shoot your relatively fragile little tanklings off the board. So scout works best for it, and I prefer the loadout missle launcher + hunter killer on all 3 cadian scoutenals. After flushing the hk and suddenly dropping from 6d6 that almost always hit to 3 krak a round (or 3 frag) it becomes a nicely long ranged, 18 wounds of either antihorde or antiarmor. Not shabby.
Sentinel with ML and HKM is 55 points on T6 W6 Sv3+ platform.
3 of them is 165, for 18 wounds with stratagem for the half-damage.
So now opponent needs to decide. Either to commit and destroy 3 sentinels which are real AT threat turn one (3x s8 ap-2 d6 and 3x s10 ap-2 d6 hitting on 3s even through dense cover or flyers) or destroy TC or Manticore or other piece of equipment valid for the entire game.
I honestly think that 3x Armoured Sentinels is great distraction carnifex turn one for only 165 points and 2CP (1 for Daft Manouvering, 1 for Strike First Strike Hard).
Minus is, after turn one Armoured Sentinels will hit on 4s at best and with HKM they are not so great anymore
I personally think that even then they can be quite useful as kind of blockers. Especially in the low Point games that are mentioned here, it might not be completely easy to Keep the Leman Russ from getting touched. And in its current configuration (Battlecannon + Lascannon, no sponsons) it most likely loose at least a round of shooting, as the BC cannot shoot in CC and the Lascannon can't remove much.
The Sentinels on the other hand have quite some footprint with their large bases, being able to block enemies when arranged in a tight line or even a cordon surrounding the LR. Or by directly charging stuff that would rater shoot than fight in CC. They won't kill anything, but those 6 T6 3+ wounds for 55 Points are not really easily removed in CC.
It's just a theory, not based on experience, but after that first volley with strike first, strike hard I would aggressivly go forwards to mess with the enemies movement possibilities and charge stuff.
What do you all think of the new rules for the Avenger Strike Fighter? Went to bs 4 and lost missiles, but it came down in price a bit and the avenger gatling went up to 10 shots and became 2 damage.
Despire the bs, The damage output on the Cannon seems to have gone up against multi wounds and is about even on single wound models
The bs hurts the lascannons a bit, and no missiles makes tank hunting with it a bit more of a struggle... leave tank hunting up to the lightning I guess?
Looks like it could be a good character/marine hunter.
Smotejob wrote: What do you all think of the new rules for the Avenger Strike Fighter? Went to bs 4 and lost missiles, but it came down in price a bit and the avenger gatling went up to 10 shots and became 2 damage.
Despire the bs, The damage output on the Cannon seems to have gone up against multi wounds and is about even on single wound models
The bs hurts the lascannons a bit, and no missiles makes tank hunting with it a bit more of a struggle... leave tank hunting up to the lightning I guess?
Looks like it could be a good character/marine hunter.
Avenger worth bringing?
I'm not sure yet. Going down to Toughness 6 is honestly my biggest concern with it, but the loss of extra weapons also hurts. That said the main bolt cannon is a huge upgrade over the old one.
I'd say think about the price. It's 10pts more than a kitted out Manticore with full payload or even with a leman Russ. What are you getting for the price? Is that mobility worth the durability hit? Can you make it's shots count? I feel like you have to snipe characters to make it worthwhile, otherwise you're plinking a few wounds off a tank and a few marines or something each turn. If my math is right bolt cannon kills a couple of marines in the open and probably does 2 damage to a tank. Combined with the lascannons, it's probably enough to guarantee dropping a generic character but I wouldn't trust it to take out a tougher named character or dreadnaught.
I'll probably run mine in fun games with my two vultures just because they look cool, but I would expect you'll still get more mileage out of tanks and artillery.
Question, if I take Yarrick and make him my warlord, can I sacrifice his warlord trait to take a tank ace, as per PA rules? Or does he absolutely have to get the Master of Command trait?
Esmer wrote: Question, if I take Yarrick and make him my warlord, can I sacrifice his warlord trait to take a tank ace, as per PA rules? Or does he absolutely have to get the Master of Command trait?
I think you can sacrifice it to get the tank ace. Unlike Guilliman, he doesn't HAVE to be your warlord, only if you do have him get a trait he has to have Master of Command.
Cyclops tanks look ace now with a fixed 16" threat range.
If I take a Tempestus detachment with Valkyries and a Catachan detachment with cyclops tanks, can I load one of the tanks and a squad of scions in a Valkyrie? Or is it not allowed to use another detachment's transport (with the right keywords)?
If I take a Tempestus detachment with Valkyries and a Catachan detachment with cyclops tanks, can I load one of the tanks and a squad of scions in a Valkyrie? Or is it not allowed to use another detachment's transport (with the right keywords)?
Detachments have no bearing on transport capability, only keywords. A Valkyrie can carry any ASTRA MILITARUM INFANTRY.
The Cyclops is one of the only units in the AM roster to significantly benefit from the new Krieg doctrine, which I rather like.
If you kill it it needs a 5+ to explode (nerfed from 3+), and if that fails you get another chance to fire its weapon on a 4+. Fairly reliable really, makes it feasible to choose to advance it as a tactical judgment.
Sentinels, funnily enough, are also big winners, which is nice as I use 3 with lascannons and HKMs.
Hellhounds and the Infernus too, but they don't really suit my playstyle as much.
How viable is a mobile guard army? Clearly not super competitive but am I gonna have a bit of fun with it or just get ruined?
I was thinking going catachan with lots of flamer chimeras, hellhounds and sentinels for early board control. Maybe some scions in Taurox Primes as well. Hopefully keep my troops alive for a round or two in their transports then spill out obsec on objectives for late turns to hang on.
I think it's viable as hell, but would be harder to pilot to a top table than a lot of other armies. Going into guard is a multi-edition prospect - it's a long haul and has to be done, somewhat, for the love of it. I reckon the code, when it drops, will be pretty sweet.
Alright so if our goal is to build a competitive guard list to take on tournaments, have we settled on footguard to be the most viable option?
Against AM, the enemy is going to easily max their secondary objectives, so if we want to win we need to win on primary and also max out our secondaries. And if so, what secondary's would we build around?
How viable would it be to take 2-3 astropaths with the sole goal of doing the psychic actions to try and max out one secondary? Seems a minimal impact on list building and wouldnt be tooo hard to get 12-15 points off their actions.
What would be the best other secondary to build around, something objective related?
As for the list Im thinking 2 battalions, 10-12 infantry squads, 3 heavy weapon squads, and 2 tank ace manticores form the core. Normally Id run the infantry squads all bare bones, but maybe its worth throwing a lascannon/plasma in each squad, as it gives these guys some level of threat at least.
Then maybe special weapons squads thrown in? Bullgryn maybe? Demolisher Tank Commanders? All feel potentially strong.
Goal being to flood the board in obsec bodies that the opponents list will struggle to kill (generally lists that are tailored to beat space marines struggle to deal with this many bodies).
(Also, I think maybe the 40+ Death Rider list might be the most competitive option, but most don't have access to that amount of resin and we have already discussed their prospects. Still a squad or two might be key in getting some outflanking if that's the kind of secondary we want to go after?)
I hope Guard get a drastic overhaul in their codex - even a few nudges would help, like making tank aces just straight up 1cp upgrades, rather than being locked (so you can burn 6cp pregame if you really want to).
Until then I do think we need to avoid showing too much hull. Grind them down is hard to max out in a lot of games whilst bring it down is so trivial against mech lists... And the new melta is terrible news for them.
So I think 3 sents, no-LoS firing, and flanking/reserved tanks are all viable still, so it doesn't have to be strict footguard...
I do think some chunky units are necessary - whether Bullgryns, Deathriders, or allies. Something to contest the centre and buy your squads some breathing space.
I am following this thread with great interest, and don't have enough playing experience to really comment on your ideas for competitive play, Ninjafiredragon. To me it seems rather strong indeed to flood the board with cheap bodies, especially if the codex gives us some better tools further on. I guess just a minor thing such as increased infantry survivability would have great importance. Still, I've been thinking mostly about the mechanized route, doing some basic mathhammer. My conclusions (again, take it with a grain of salt) offer some support for a heavy flamer-based list with Gunnery Experts and Pyromaniacs. The unit that really shines with that combination is the double flamer chimera, which does +40% damage, versus the Catachan one with +21% damage. I guess most people would prefer playing Catachan, but I'm stuck with the idea that the melee infantry doesn't synergize with the heavy flamers, as both prefer to kill low-armour targets, so the ideal complement would rather be plasma. What if I built a list with sentinels and chimeras armed to the teeth with +40% flamers, and then added a detachment of Lambdan Lions with plasma, to counter high-armour units? Please tell me your thoughts!
Chimeras should be carefully compared to the taurox sentinals in the lambda lions list .. which can benefit from a 5++ save aura emanating from their lambadian warlord's relic field generator.
When you throw in the reroll 1's and the extra than normal AP, each individual 120 point taurox can put out 28 shots, bs3+, so you expect something like 18 hits minimum (this compares pretty well to the dual flamer) and the shots range in ap down to -3. Also, with reroll 1's, my bad! you expect about 21 or so hits. Also, these thinner (through a tight map) tauroxprimes are FASTER than chimeras, and can still also use all their guns in melee range combat.
A few drops from a transport is also a huge force multiplier for scions, because that transport itself (valky, usually) can bring some decent firepower to bear (2d6 S5/-1/1 and 6 s5/-1/2 and a lascannon at bs3+, for example) and also it is a great distraction carnifax. The ability of a badly wounded bird to zip off a board edge and thus be unavialable for follow up shooting to kill, is not to be despised -- and can seriously throw off someone's calculations about how to get to a thin the ranks or bring it down victory max.
So yeah, Chimeras are not bad per se (seninals are, they don't transport, they are slower, they don't have decent firepower for cost compared to chimera or sentinals after they flush their missle first turn punch.
Whew.
Regular gaurd might be happier in chimera, but small scions groups of 1 officer/1comman dsquad/5scions fit nicely in a t'prime.
That's an interesting point, taurox primes really outdamage flamer chimeras. I hadn't compared them really, this is how it looks I guess...
2 x Flamer Chimera with Gunnery Experts and Pyromaniacs against guardsmen-equivalents: 2 x 4,25 (hits, with re-roll type) x 0,78 (wounds with re-roll 1s) x 0,83 (AP-1) = 5,5 unsaved wounds.
20 Gatling shots and 8 Hot-Shot Volley Gun shots with Lambdan doctrine against guardsmen-equivalents: 20 x 0,67 x 0,67 x 0,83 + 8 x 0,67 x 0,67 x 1 = 11,0 unsaved wounds.
Then I didn't include any re-rolls for the Taurox, since it depends on the warlord trait and seems a bit more situational. All in all, you could say +100% damage and only +26% cost (120 p versus 95 p). Without the Lambdan doctrine it would be +70% damage. I guess the survivability is where the chimera is better, and the idea of maximising its weapons is not that good after all? Would the jury-rigged repairs work better then, to get a steady stream of wounds back? Or just go for the Spotter Details which people seem to do in the tournament lists, to improve the Demolisher Cannons? To clarify, I'm thinking of a list with both chimeras, sentinels and demolishers, backed up with scions.
IMHO I would run for battalion + spearhead configuration.
Throw infantry body to battalion and give them wilderness survivors and whatever else you fancy. Unless playing against IF or IW guardsmen rocks +4 sv which can be bumped to +3 using take cover.
Go to dense cover for those sweet -1 penalties and maybe (MAYBE) guardsmen will survive something. There isn't many terrain pieces which combines desne and light cover so going for dense cover with wilderness survivors can yield some gains. For 5ppm it seems reasonable.
In spearhead I'd put commissar for cheap HQ tax and 2 manticores + wyvern or basilisk for some artillery support with gunnery experts or cadia (overlapping fields of fire). Other idea would be go for catachan and buy Harker to act as better Master of Ordnance. Full Payload Manticores with reroll attacks and 1 to hit rolls are kinda scary.
Also, to mitigate Assassinate secondary vox-casters seems as better piece of equipment right now. Hide CC outside of LoS with IS or CS with vox caster and order everybody within 18'' with inpunity
Pomander Cask wrote: I am following this thread with great interest, and don't have enough playing experience to really comment on your ideas for competitive play, Ninjafiredragon. To me it seems rather strong indeed to flood the board with cheap bodies, especially if the codex gives us some better tools further on. I guess just a minor thing such as increased infantry survivability would have great importance. Still, I've been thinking mostly about the mechanized route, doing some basic mathhammer. My conclusions (again, take it with a grain of salt) offer some support for a heavy flamer-based list with Gunnery Experts and Pyromaniacs. The unit that really shines with that combination is the double flamer chimera, which does +40% damage, versus the Catachan one with +21% damage. I guess most people would prefer playing Catachan, but I'm stuck with the idea that the melee infantry doesn't synergize with the heavy flamers, as both prefer to kill low-armour targets, so the ideal complement would rather be plasma. What if I built a list with sentinels and chimeras armed to the teeth with +40% flamers, and then added a detachment of Lambdan Lions with plasma, to counter high-armour units? Please tell me your thoughts!
I've given my 2c on the competitive pressures to build around a few pages back [specifically, on page 6].
I'm looking at something maybe like Brigade [Regular] + Patrol [Scions].
The Brigade would have infantry, Hellhounds, Manticores, Scout Sentinels, Artillery, and lots of infantry. The patrol has drop units that can accomplish secondaries easily and threaten to snatch objective from the enemy, forcing a response.
Another question that came up during my last game: If an IG Commander is performing an action during a turn, can he still dish out orders? My impression was that yes, since it's not explicitedly an aura, but on second thought, I am not so very sure about that.
I will note that I used 2 tank commanders (and 2 similar units, redempter dreadnaughts) in a combined marine/gaurd list last weekend and learned a painful lesson. (Also, I learned that my local GT is crazy competitive, way worse than local FLGS casual tourneys.)
The good players could block my movement with trivial tiny infantry units by placing them in the only spot my tanks would be able to advance, so that I could only get rid of the blockers AFTER my move phase. Result? I had one game where a tyranid horde player literally hid his entire army on his side of the board, and just fed me tiny numbers of termagaunts each turn to block my advance in two of the 3 lanes between terrain that my tanks could fit.
Since the third lane was in my deployment zone, this meant he could keep me off his half the board AND unable to target his half. Note that he clearly outgunned me at non-line of sight shooting, too, with his hivegaurds. It was a rough game. I threw the kitchen sink at him, aggressors dying beside incursors to the horde, but couldn't bring my tank or dread guns to bear on any worthwhile target all game. (and I note, for you manticore users, his ENTIRE ARMY was -1 to be hit for shooting, from one HQ, that's a power we gaurd need to be able to nerf.)
If, however, you were to use tallarn leman russes, perhaps armed with a demolisher and 3 heavy flamers and a stormbolter each, and back them up with a pair fo tallarn tank commanders to issue orders, you might could sort of offset this strategy by strategically deploying a pair of them (the squad) for 3 cp .. and using tank orders to push the others up the alleyway after or before firing (so you make 7 inches, not 1, per turn, till you get out of it.). It wouldn't help move things like hellhounds any faster, but it could get your front edge able to move -- and force the enemy back aroudn the corner so your flood of stuff could get into line of sight. Obstructing terrain with line of slight blocking outer walls was my NIGHTMARE, because the tournament was large enough that the game store used all their 8th edition terrain. So 3/4 of the tables had gigantic ruins on the tiny little 9th edition tables, and there was one table I played on that literally didn't have room to advance the leman russes across the board except in a 6 inch wide alleyway down the center. (Which my opponent blocked with a different 5 man squad each round, of course).
Note that I won that game but it was hard. The result of the "bigger terrain" meant my tanks lost a couple turns in each game trying to get line of sight to the enemy. This isn't going to be less a problem with something like a hellhound, or a sentinal (which is actually slower in some ways) but of course stuff like bully and infantry can cross ruins, so to them, the midfield of the game board is open. Its also why I would never take a chimera as a transport, EVER, when a stripped down valkyrie is so cheap and can deliever stuff to the far wall of the tournament on turn 1.
I think that tallarn would have served me far better than the regiment I had, and of course, my usual scions and flyers (I use them almost all the time I play, actually) I would never have NOTICED these effects. For scion infantry you either drop out past the terrain, deepstrike where you feel like, or march through the ruins in a straight line. Liuke scions, tallarn tanks can cheaply get offboard to ambush in later, and like scions, they are thus harder to pick a bottleneck to impose.
It was very painfully eyeopening to see how choked the ground is to tanks in this edition. Last edition much of the same terrain (literally, I remember playing it) on the same boards was used -- but blue tape now covers the edges of the board, and the play area is just smaller enouhg that its hell on mechanized gaurd's critical need to acquire line of sight. ESPECIALLY horrific were the 14inch by 14 inch obstructing terrain pieces, two of which were in the middle of every game board, which were ruins infantry could walk through, and physically blocked line of sight into their interior from more than half the board, each.
So, my first game was on fairly open terrain, and I lost against a really good player -- but scored a respectable 68 points. My second game was the nids, and he brought some 120 or so little guys to use specifically to inhibit people moving. Also, I was told he was among the top 4 nids players on earth, so my hard loss to him was utterly not a surprise. He was an overt master of movement with the nids pieces, in and out of combat. I still scored over 50, but it was definitely skill that locked me in on that relatively (compared to later) open terrain.
My third game was against a scions only army, utterly set to alpha strike. His 5 valkkyries dropped wave after wave of melta and plasma on my innocent tanks. I did blow two up, but terrain had almost no factor in the whole game, it was entirely "react to alpha strike at point blank range" on my end.
Game four, you couldn't move a tank across the board, if you walked from one edge to antoher, there was NO non-ruins (counts as tanks can't cross) non obstructing spot wider than 3 inches. When those terminators finally reached center (and could charge with their special sauce marine advance and charge stuff) they wiped me in a turn. Until then, my army (with 4 tank commander or dreadnaught but NO indirect fire) could merely wait to die.
Seriously, never try to outmelee 25+ terminators with 2 tank commanders. No matter what. Had I been able to move aroudn the board, my opponent could have blocked my movement with a few incursors carefully steppiong out of the walls at the right moment. I lost fairly gallantly, but I lost.
Game 5 was against a deathly iron hands deathball. He set it up (ferrios, apothecary, chaptermaster, lieutenant) with his hellblasters, etc, in a forest exactly 1/2 the board across on his deployment line. The only spot on this terrain one could cross with vehicles was the firing lane his hellblasters had (and his other infatnry heavy units) .. but as a result, he was all in one place. I let my tanks sit back on my side of the big ruins divide to keep him over THERE, and used small units to snake the win out from him.
Gaurd regulars won me that game out of strategic reserves, even though I got slaughtered firing at his 6+++, 5++, 3+, 3W wonders from my side.
So yeah, had I brought (for example) three manticores with 2 tank ace? it would have been a very different firght against the terminators or the nids. but as it was, it gave me inspired the idea of the using tallarns to leapfrog through the tight spots by firing the back tank, advance the second through the hole you just made, then fire the front tank. And rinse and repeat.
While a sqaud of them pops in from the strategic reserves.
grouchoben wrote: ...
I do think some chunky units are necessary - whether Bullgryns, Deathriders, or allies. Something to contest the centre and buy your squads some breathing space.
Along these lines I just bit the bullet on ordering 10 crusaders. Will put them together with a missionary to create another ball of annoyance and block/hold strategic points.
The last few games I played my armor was just getting melted from distance due to the heavy weapons people are brining, so I figure I'm going to try to null that out with quantities. As a result, I'm building up to do waves of conscripts and trying to toughen them up with an inquisitor. As I understand it Commissar is not an OFFICER, and unless it got FAQ'd somewhere, his orders shouldn't be affected by the conscript roll for orders.
Eventually I'll probably run a sisters /conscripts /armor combo. Just to keep a lot of bodies and decentralize/toughen some of the dakka. Trying to build up 4 or 5 mini forces to go after objectives or try to take out something dangerous.
We'll see how it works when I get things built. For 8th edition I had built out a nice Armaggedon style force with 6 Chimeras and and 5 Russ tanks, and it got absolutely pillaged by some blood angels that were across the board and in my face on pretty much the first turn. May revisit later but right now I'm focused on trying to reduce the 2ndaries the adversary can max, while trying to focus on getting the balance on the main objective points.
Just remember.
3+/4++ buffed by an astropath becomes 2+/3++ and buffed again by cover or the strategem becomes 1+/3++ or even 0+/3++. The thigns people will kill crusaders with are going to be marines, and the likely killer units will come with a couple points of AP on their many, many attacks.
10 assault bolters? 30 or 60 shots, 20 or 40 hits, 16 or 32 saves. AP -1.
10 terminators? 40 boltershots, then they charge and show the crusaders what units that bring real armor saves AND stormshields are like.
6 aggressors? 54.
Assault onslaught sidecannon from a redempter, while only 8 shots, gives ap-2.
I guess my point is, if you don't buff the armor, the unit is going to die in a turn or two without ever reaching its shield.
Dukeofstuff, your situation seems like something that's just luck of the draw, at least when it comes to terrain. For terrain to be so thick you cant even move a Russ across the table sounds like a ridiculous amount of terrain. I'd have a talk with that TO, or probably avoid that store in the future. I agree there should be a good amount of terrain but Leman Russe's are not big tanks, if they can't move on the table something is horribly wrong. That is going to dramatically skew lists and not in a good way, I can only assume they absolutely hate superheavies and are trying to soft ban them. But I can't speak for your club, it could just be an honest mixup.
As for being competitive, I feel like I repeat myself a lot, but I feel like it boils down to guardsmen and artillery, plus some sort of reserved second wave of either special weapon teams or stormtroopers.
In some way shape or form, guard must have a way to be competitive that we've just not found yet. Green tide orks can win, horde nids can win. Horde guard, in some way, must be competitive. I'm tempted to try a list with 0 vehicles, just guardsmen, stormtroopers, and a big mob of Bullgryn, but really the manticores feel like a pretty key ingredient. Perhaps you could bring additional artillery, like Armageddon Medusa, so you get the hitting power of a demolisher but don't need to see the target, or just a couple basilisks for consistent backup damage. Maybe the secret sauce is a big old drop of stormtroopers with Lambda Lions for decently durable infantry with lots of fire power dropped all over the board. Maybe you say to hell with it, bring 250 guardsmen with wilderness survivors/18" rapid fire and a couple manticores, and just swarm the board. There's something we're not seeing here, we just gotta keep experimenting
If one goes the hordy road one might advocate for Deathriders instead of Bullgryns. They don't hit as hard (having lost one attack and now being only WS4+) but you get 3 for each Bullgryn. I currently have 20 counts as Death Riders, but will likely not get to play any time soon. Still just looking at the theory, that's a lot of area covered, relatively speedy, deepstrikable and 60, T4, 4+, 5++ wounds for 300 points.
As some gravy on top they are neither infantry nor swarm, so Knights cannot move over them. Situational, but funny.
Esmer wrote: Another question that came up during my last game: If an IG Commander is performing an action during a turn, can he still dish out orders? My impression was that yes, since it's not explicitedly an aura, but on second thought, I am not so very sure about that.
The valkryie isn't a shooty transport if its cheap (but for 55 points and 1 cp extra, it is, and has 14W and -1 to be hit, too). It has abilities and flexibilities most things in the game lack. A wounded bird can retreat offboard and regroup at the other end, denying the enemy's shorter ranged guns a kill even when you are down to a wound or two.
It can drip soldiers in small units as it flies rapidly across the whole map, simultaneously gaining multiple objectives, sectors, and victory conditions like likebreaker or engage.
And, while its not QUITE a marine twin lascannon, the firepower off a valkyrie is nothing at all to sneeze at. Math it out, and you are certainly still in the fight with that twin lascannon or twin assault cannon rhino.
Esmer wrote: Another question that came up during my last game: If an IG Commander is performing an action during a turn, can he still dish out orders? My impression was that yes, since it's not explicitedly an aura, but on second thought, I am not so very sure about that.
Opinions on this?
It's just one of those things where both yes and no are true answers, depending on how you define certain terms. Personally, I think it matches definition of an Aura as per the BRB Glossary, and thus will be unusable if undertaking an action.
BRB, Page 364 wrote:Aura: A rule that is classified as an aura can affect multiple models or units that meet its criteria and are within a set distance of the model it is on (including that model itself). If a model is within range of multiple auras with the same name, it can only be affected by one of those rules at any one time (pg 202).
Can an Order affect multiple models or units? Yes, since a single unit of 2 models is multiple models. Does an Order have a set of criteria for which models it can affect and are within a set distance of the model it is on? Yes.
Orders can only be isssued, per the codex, to a unit, not to a model. So they don't affect individual models, only units, and by their definition NEVER multiple units, and are thus not auras, but something else. If they could affect multiple units, I would see your argument, but they cannot fractionally affect a non unit model or models (as auras can, when you have several marines in the field and several not). If you wish to affect two units with two orders, you must issue two separate orders, one to each.
Dukeofstuff wrote: Orders can only be isssued, per the codex, to a unit, not to a model. So they don't affect individual models, only units, and by their definition NEVER multiple units, and are thus not auras, but something else. If they could affect multiple units, I would see your argument, but they cannot fractionally affect a non unit model or models (as auras can, when you have several marines in the field and several not). If you wish to affect two units with two orders, you must issue two separate orders, one to each.
Err, you do know most Auras affect units, not individual models, right?
This discussion is better for another thread. Shortly put, you can't target individual models wiht an order, the only thing the rules permit is to target one (not multiple) units. So it shares neither of the characteristics that oyur sentence ascribes to units that are CLASSIFIED as auras, which, being classified as an ORDER, the order is already... not.
So poking on the astropath discussion. Would it make sense to you to keep two astropaths together with a tank unit to give psy barrier and nighshroud to the three models in the unit every turn? Assuming there's lots of foot guard out forward to grab objectives and screen (assume in this case 3conscript blobs, 3 10 man infantry blobs, and a malleus psyker dishing out power through knowledge and psychic fortitude, and a lord commisar down field /platoon commander down field)
Note that you can't target 3 tanks as a unit, because they cease to be a unit upon deployment on the board and are operated as 3 separate units from then on for all purposes.
HOWEVER.
If you have, for example, an up armored pair of tanks and a single tank with +1 from the shield spell, you can pick which of the three to slap the -1 to be hit on and makethe whole tank commander column surprisingly hard to kill. Especially if you keep ducking them behidn cover, you tallarn dog you!
I'm thinking I'm going to try pulling the astropaths back from the front lines then and have them try to look after the armor blob then as you suggest in my next match. Good stuff, thanks!
I am going to be getting a Baneblade for Christmas this year. I have decided that I want to either build it as a Baneblade or a Hellhammer.
My question for you... Is the Hellhammer Canon worth the extra points over the Baneblade Canon? Baneblade is twice the range, but it is S9 versus S10 of the Hellhammer. Hellhammer also ignores the armor bonuses from cover.
How valuable is that strength bonus? I feel like it won't make that big of a deal, but I would like to get some other opinions.
BaconCatBug wrote: For something as expensive as a Baneblade I highly recommend you Magnetise it.
Definitely good advice. I will watch that for sure. Thank you!
Regardless of the source, though... How valuable is S10 right now? I feel like T8 is the highest thing in the game currently, so S9 will be just as good against that. Is T5 prolific enough to want to bring S10 weapons?
I think (!) S10 will be worth it in the future, as Gravis armor becomes more common with space Marines. The Aggressor, Eradicator and heavy Intercessor (not sure if I got the last one right) all come in T5, W3, 3+. And the Hellhammer Cannon is pretty optimal against this target, as it wounds on 2+, doesn't give them any save regardless of cover and kills one with every unsaved wound.
Also Necrons also got more T5, W3+ models in form of Skorpek Destroyers and the new objectives have (in my opinion) made Bullgryns (also T5, W3) even more attractive for IG.
In other words: look at the Hellhammer as a tool to better target T5, not necessary T9 when you compare it with the Baneblade
The bane cannon's ap-3 will put average marines in cover on a 5++, 1/3 shots wasted.
The hellhammer in that situation will give them no save at all (-4 ap AND ignore cover) .. and if its shooting at eradicator, aggressor, incepter, or such, you get a few more wounds. So I think its worth it, since it seems in tourney play about every other army is some flavor of marines.
Dukeofstuff wrote: The valkryie isn't a shooty transport if its cheap (but for 55 points and 1 cp extra, it is, and has 14W )o
Why the 1CP?
I usually have at least one pure scions detachment, and that means I can use the scions only unlocked strategem to grant it a -1 to be hit even while hovering (Source, psychic awakening book "the greater good". If its in a pure gaurd detachment that isn't an option. If you plan to float around the board providing dakka though, your BS shooting matters, and so hover matters, and its more important than if you are just a quick delivery vehicle (which can ride in on aircraft and then swap to hover only in the turn you drop your troop).
A cheap valkyrie is just 110 points with a hellstrike and a multilaser, but a good "floating dakka base" valkyrie is between 140 and 165 depending how you exactly equip her, and those are the ones I tend to put the -1 in hover on.
I have an urge to run a blob of conscripts buffed by two astopaths with a psychic barrier and nightshroud, and an inquisitor with Power through knowledge and Psychic fortitude. Add a lord commissar for orders, and its 30 guys with -1 to be hit, +1 save, 5+ Invulnerable, and fearless. As they thin out bring up the next blob. Potentially useful thing to distract or gum up the mid board?
RegularGuy wrote: I have an urge to run a blob of conscripts buffed by two astopaths with a psychic barrier and nightshroud, and an inquisitor with Power through knowledge and Psychic fortitude. Add a lord commissar for orders, and its 30 guys with -1 to be hit, +1 save, 5+ Invulnerable, and fearless. As they thin out bring up the next blob. Potentially useful thing to distract or gum up the mid board?
30 guardsmen with a 3+/4++ is gonna be decently annoying to chew through, you're basically sisters at their most annoying. If you take wilderness survivors, you could theoretically get 2+/4++ conscripts with take cover.
The only issue I have is that this takes a lot of setup to do, you've got 3, THREE pysker powers that need to go off and you're spending a cp for take cover. That's just way too risky to act like an opponent won't deny and ruin your plan. Not to mention you're spending almost as many points on the buffing characters as the conscripts themselves. And you need to go first otherwise the best save you'll have is a 3+.
That was the meta a few years back, during the deathstar phase, sort of the anti deathstar. Once they nerfed the psyker phase, commissars, and buffed blast weapons, they're really not what they used to be.
I'd forget the commissar. They could still hold an object or tar down an enemy but they still won't be as good as swarm bases like nurglings or scarabs. So how much do you really want to spend on them?
I am still waiting for GW to do the sane thing and reduce conscript points cost before I start considering them again. Judging from Space Marines with their, what, 15 or so Troops choices, giving Guard the option to field 4 pts conscripts, 5 pts infantry and 6 pts Veterans as troops would be both fair and consistent and also relieve the overcrowded Elite slot.
I wouldn't even mind there being a 0-1 or one-infantry-squad-per-conscript/veteran troop limitation of some sort.
Esmer wrote: I am still waiting for GW to do the sane thing and reduce conscript points cost before I start considering them again. Judging from Space Marines with their, what, 15 or so Troops choices, giving Guard the option to field 4 pts conscripts, 5 pts infantry and 6 pts Veterans as troops would be both fair and consistent and also relieve the overcrowded Elite slot.
I wouldn't even mind there being a 0-1 or one-infantry-squad-per-conscript/veteran troop limitation of some sort.
Grots are 5 points, so I dont't thing 4 point conscripts are coming anytime soon. I think at their current cost the 3+/4++ psy barrier + inquisitor combo makes them interesting to throw ahead turn 1 and block enemy movement, to support 3 or 4 infantry squads move move moving ahead as a "second blocking wave" which will resist better than the 3 or 4 infantry squads move move moving ahead of the conscripts.
Regarding that rather complex conscript setup:
If I'm not mistaken, the Inquisitor + 2 Astropaths also cost 110 points. So instead you could also get another 22 conscripts. I think in a lot of situations this might be easier, as "Just more conscripts" don't depend in 3 psyker powers going of or alternatively the two Astropaths can protect a more valuable target than a conscript blobs.
grouchoben wrote: If vets went troops I'd run 100% vets: with their strat and BS they jump 100% in damage vs marines. Just sayin.
And what would be wrong with that? You pay more for the models and more their weapons while they die just as fast, and it's not like you can do the strat with every single Veteran squad every single turn. Seems reasonable to me. I mean you could run 100% Scions too if you want.
Pyroalchi wrote: Regarding that rather complex conscript setup:
If I'm not mistaken, the Inquisitor + 2 Astropaths also cost 110 points. So instead you could also get another 22 conscripts. I think in a lot of situations this might be easier, as "Just more conscripts" don't depend in 3 psyker powers going of or alternatively the two Astropaths can protect a more valuable target than a conscript blobs.
So that really is the trade, the real core would be how well the psykers can slow the extinction of a conveyor belt of conscripts vs just grab more conscripts. Currently running 3 conscript blobs of 30 each, 3 10 man infantry, 3 vets. Rest is artillery. Basic goal is to choke objectives and control the board, and the psyker fueled blob is basically trying to slow /smother objectives contention
I'm not super competitive, and sometimes I just enjoy bringing something that is a bit off script. Will let you know what happens if I try it out this fall.
Speaking of vets, my son recently learned the difference between a 10 man guard squad and a 10 man vet squad with 3 plasma and an autocannon as he was trying out his redemptor dread. No doubt if they were a troops choice I'd use them preferentially for a lot of things
MrMoustaffa wrote: Dukeofstuff, your situation seems like something that's just luck of the draw, at least when it comes to terrain. For terrain to be so thick you cant even move a Russ across the table sounds like a ridiculous amount of terrain. I'd have a talk with that TO, or probably avoid that store in the future. I agree there should be a good amount of terrain but Leman Russe's are not big tanks, if they can't move on the table something is horribly wrong. That is going to dramatically skew lists and not in a good way, I can only assume they absolutely hate superheavies and are trying to soft ban them. But I can't speak for your club, it could just be an honest mixup.
I hadn't thougth about superheavies. I think it was just some of the terrain they had was older than this edition and they haven't updated it (perhaps with a hacksaw) yet to fit the new boards. This was, also, the first big event they have held since covid hit.
I have yet to use it in 9th, but in 8th it was absolutely terrible, since you had ONE shot each turn. Not to mention having only 36" range when boards were 72" and your gun could get blown to hell and leave your two useless guardsmen standing there holding their dicks. I really want to try it now, since it has a guaranteed 3 shots and the damage is at least 4, with possible 6 instead of the massively swiningy range it had before.
Automatically Appended Next Post: What does everybody think about the Baneblade platform now, given the changes to the the supreme command detachment? I love my Baneblade and always had it babysat with a Trojan and Salamander Command vehicle, but now that they are useless and legended, respectfully, I feel like they're trying to push them out of 40K and into apocalypse.
grouchoben wrote: If vets went troops I'd run 100% vets: with their strat and BS they jump 100% in damage vs marines. Just sayin.
And what would be wrong with that? You pay more for the models and more their weapons while they die just as fast, and it's not like you can do the strat with every single Veteran squad every single turn. Seems reasonable to me. I mean you could run 100% Scions too if you want.
A point upgrade to a model to give it +1bs and access to new strats is very very cheap. Just saying that balance might be upset pretty seriously. Why take IS squads anymore?
grouchoben wrote: If vets went troops I'd run 100% vets: with their strat and BS they jump 100% in damage vs marines. Just sayin.
And what would be wrong with that? You pay more for the models and more their weapons while they die just as fast, and it's not like you can do the strat with every single Veteran squad every single turn. Seems reasonable to me. I mean you could run 100% Scions too if you want.
A point upgrade to a model to give it +1bs and access to new strats is very very cheap. Just saying that balance might be upset pretty seriously. Why take IS squads anymore?
Ideally you bring back platoons, so infantry platoons are your way to get a ton of troops into a small detachment, vets give you lots of cheaper firepower in a detachment.
I was thinking of trying a heavy weapon team. All heavy bolters, maybe one lascannon. That have that new strategem that looks pretty powerful. (Concentrated fire: +1 to hit and wound.) Mini sentinel bomb maybe? One for 51 points wouldn't be too much of a commitment. Placed in cover and given the take cover strategem they even have a respectable 3+ save. What do you guys think?
Question for the group, since I have a bit of a AM army: would a 5++ make guardsmen hordes viable (like 200 bodies)? With an allied Custodes detachment and 1 CP a turn, you can project from a Vexilla an 18” bubble for Imperium infantry of 5++ against ranged and re-roll morale for units wholly within. Idea would be embedding heavy/special weapons in the squads and using hidden artillery as basically the only the only tanks. Obviously a FNP for the guardsmen too would be ideal but AFAIK there’s no way to do that.
slip wrote: I was thinking of trying a heavy weapon team. All heavy bolters, maybe one lascannon. That have that new strategem that looks pretty powerful. (Concentrated fire: +1 to hit and wound.) Mini sentinel bomb maybe? One for 51 points wouldn't be too much of a commitment. Placed in cover and given the take cover strategem they even have a respectable 3+ save. What do you guys think?
I really like the HWS with a platoon leader parked next to them to issue the order Take Aim! then give them the stratagem to make them extra lethal, in games I have done this it has paid dividends. Though, the only downside is that I use it with mortars and nothing else usually since everybody who knows anything about IG will target a HWS of lascannons/rockets/HBs first. But, on the other hand, if you have a HWS with no mortars, you could keep them in cover and then bring them out, and with the stratagem, cancel out the -1 to hit, still get the +1 to wound, and with the platoon leader next to them, re-roll 1s then you are only missing on 2s and 3s. I like mortars though myself, because you can re-roll 1s (if not Cadian or all hits if Cadian) then you get the +1 to hit/wound, to hit on 3s and then wound on 3/4 depending on what you're shooting at.
grouchoben wrote: If vets went troops I'd run 100% vets: with their strat and BS they jump 100% in damage vs marines. Just sayin.
And what would be wrong with that? You pay more for the models and more their weapons while they die just as fast, and it's not like you can do the strat with every single Veteran squad every single turn. Seems reasonable to me. I mean you could run 100% Scions too if you want.
A point upgrade to a model to give it +1bs and access to new strats is very very cheap. Just saying that balance might be upset pretty seriously. Why take IS squads anymore?
By the same logic, why take squads when you could take Scions? Or why take one of the weaker SM Troops option when you could take the stronger ones in the current codex?
In any case, there's an easy way to counter that, make Veterans (and Conscripts for that matter) 0-1 for every infantry squad you've taken in the same bataillon or brigade detachment. If you want to field a pure veteran force, take them in a vanguard.
@ Greyknight12: as with other ways to make guardsmen sturdier: take a hard look if the added survivability really outshines buying more guardsmen for the price invested in the Custodes. Note that against AP 0 (lasguns, Punisher cannons, lots of other light anti horde stuff) the 5++ adds nothing and the added survivability against AP-1 is not really big. Instead of 5/6th of AP-1 wounds going through, 4/6 go through the 5++, so you loose 20% less guardsmen against AP-1.
I think that is seldom worth it unless you wanted to bring Custodes anyway
slip wrote: I was thinking of trying a heavy weapon team. All heavy bolters, maybe one lascannon. That have that new strategem that looks pretty powerful. (Concentrated fire: +1 to hit and wound.) Mini sentinel bomb maybe? One for 51 points wouldn't be too much of a commitment. Placed in cover and given the take cover strategem they even have a respectable 3+ save. What do you guys think?
I really like the HWS with a platoon leader parked next to them to issue the order Take Aim! then give them the stratagem to make them extra lethal, in games I have done this it has paid dividends. Though, the only downside is that I use it with mortars and nothing else usually since everybody who knows anything about IG will target a HWS of lascannons/rockets/HBs first. But, on the other hand, if you have a HWS with no mortars, you could keep them in cover and then bring them out, and with the stratagem, cancel out the -1 to hit, still get the +1 to wound, and with the platoon leader next to them, re-roll 1s then you are only missing on 2s and 3s. I like mortars though myself, because you can re-roll 1s (if not Cadian or all hits if Cadian) then you get the +1 to hit/wound, to hit on 3s and then wound on 3/4 depending on what you're shooting at.
Luckily I am cadian.
If you don't mind ditching the +1 to hit you could do all lascannons and keep it in reserve for more of a true bomb. The accuracy is still not great but keeping them in reserve might keep them out of the fracas long enough a diminished army can't target them as easily them they do emerge.
They could also benefit from overlapping fields of fire but I'd say that's if you were gonna use it anyway, since the cp cost is outrageous at this point. But since I'm definitely going to use it anyway, why not have them around to take advantage? Emerge, strategem, 3+ to hit, reroll 1s, 2+ to wound p much anything, potential 3d6 wounds.
Smotejob wrote: Anyone ever thought to try a 2k list with 27 bullgryns in it?
definitly thought about it, but more for fun. Would also be hilarious to fill up the reat of the army with Ogryns (I know they have week rules but the look of 50+ Ogryns/Bullgryns on the board would be awesome).
The main problem would be that 27 Bullgryns are more than half your army without shooting. And while sturdy and good in CC, they lack tools to get them faster into CC (no charge boni that I'm aware off, no charge after advance, no increased pile in move). They also don't have ObSec, while each one costs the same than ~ 8 Guardsmen that do have it. Also I said "good" in CC, but they are not overwelmingly good. SM Aggressors for example hit more or less equally good (-1 BS, but +1 S, +2 AP), for the same cost and almost the same sturdiness while still being able to shoot and better integrated in their faction.
Final note: depending how heavy your vicinity is in Gravis Marines it might be that a lot of People currently prepare to face T5, W3, 3+ models and thus stack up on weapons to deal with these profiles (and therefore also Bullgryns).
Relic of Lost Cadia, overlapping fields of fire, direct assault, strike first, strike hard
- Flat 6 damage Hunter Killer Missiles on full payload manticores.
- Trojan can reload the hunter killer missile every turn.
- Relic of lost Cadia helps those flat 6 missiles and overcharges plasmacannons hit home
- Multiple ways of getting +1 to hit through strats.
- Sentinels are tough with half damage. Manticores can deployed out of line of sight.
Massed infantry. Massed CP. Massed Orders.
Brigade
Creed for additional orders and +2CP.
3x Company Commander.
Kurovs Aquila
- This unlocks 12 troop choices with no CP wastage.
- Allows 9/10 orders per turn.
- Bonus 2 CP from Creed +Kurovs Aquila
Psyker Boosted Conscripts for Objectives/screening.
Lord Inquisitor Coteaz
2x Astropath
2x30 Conscripts.
- The goal is to advance the conscripts onto an objective/road block and then warding incantation, psychic barrier, take cover stratagem, nightshroud & psychic fortitude to make an unbreakable 3++ blob of conscripts.
- 4 deny the witch attempts.
- Coteaz is a reasonable fighter, smite spammer and grants all nearby units LD10.
Relic of Lost Cadia, overlapping fields of fire, direct assault, strike first, strike hard
- Flat 6 damage Hunter Killer Missiles on full payload manticores.
- Trojan can reload the hunter killer missile every turn.
- Relic of lost Cadia helps those flat 6 missiles and overcharges plasmacannons hit home
- Multiple ways of getting +1 to hit through strats.
- Sentinels are tough with half damage. Manticores can deployed out of line of sight.
Massed infantry. Massed CP. Massed Orders.
Brigade
Creed for additional orders and +2CP.
3x Company Commander.
Kurovs Aquila
- This unlocks 12 troop choices with no CP wastage.
- Allows 9/10 orders per turn.
- Bonus 2 CP from Creed +Kurovs Aquila
Psyker Boosted Conscripts for Objectives/screening.
Lord Inquisitor Coteaz
2x Astropath
2x30 Conscripts.
- The goal is to advance the conscripts onto an objective/road block and then warding incantation, psychic barrier, take cover stratagem, nightshroud & psychic fortitude to make an unbreakable 3++ blob of conscripts.
- 4 deny the witch attempts.
- Coteaz is a reasonable fighter, smite spammer and grants all nearby units LD10.
1x Manticore
>Full Payload, Heavy Bolter, Hunter Killer
1x Manticore
>Full Payload (-1CP), Heavy Bolter, Hunter Killer
3x Heavy Weapon Squad
>3x Mortars
Transports 90
Trojan Support Vehicle
> Hunter Killer, Heavy Bolter
Total 1998
Thought about catachan? Mass str4 attacks on all those troops and with straken around makes them just as mean as orks, but cheaper. Also gives your vehicles a reroll for random number of attacks. Cadians largely want to stand still and gunline but catachans can play a bit more aggressive.
Also, I agree with the rest of your reasoning as my guard lists are taking similar shape... all the way down to coteaz!
Thought about catachan? Mass str4 attacks on all those troops and with straken around makes them just as mean as orks, but cheaper. Also gives your vehicles a reroll for random number of attacks. Cadians largely want to stand still and gunline but catachans can play a bit more aggressive.
Also, I agree with the rest of your reasoning as my guard lists are taking similar shape... all the way down to coteaz!
Coteaz might be the best unit Guard can field! I think you can build the core of these infantry heavy backed by artillery lists from either:
Cadia Brigade
- Gets the most orders & CP with Creed.
- "Overlapping Fields of Fire" & "Relic of lost Cadia" is two of of the best strats & relics in Guard dex
- Basic Guardsmen with Lascannons can get 3+ to hit with re-rolls is something.
- Naturally re-rolling 1s with stationary indirect.
Catachan Brigade
- Straken!
- Strength 4 infantry, Straken, Coteaz, a priest, you can actually shift units in the assault phase.
- Re-rolls on D6 weaponry for artillery.
Wilderness Survivors / Disciplined Shooters + 2nd detachment of Expert Gunners /Jury Rigging for artillery.
- Most durable infantry from ranged fire (wildness does prevent use of advancing & move, move, move)
- 18" rapid fire plasma vets/command squads arriving from reinforcements is no joke.
- Least CP if taking extra detachments for artillery.
I'm not sure which of the above 3 setups will yield the best results. I'm currently going down the route of hunter killer missile shenagians with the trojan which I think Cadia synergises with.
It got updated in the new Imperial armour Compendium so its legal. It's 85 points (90 with Hunter Killer). Movement 12, Toughness 7, 10 wounds, 3+, transport of 6.
It can repair one model within 3" for 1 wound and re-arm one deleted use of a one shot attack. (yes, you re-arm a deathstrike missile) The full payload manticores firing flat 6 damage Hunter Killer Missiles is probably the best use of it.
I would still think about if the Trojan is really worth it. For that price you almost get two Sentinels with Lascannons, which are (in my opinion) better than one full payload hunter killer missile. Especially when considering that the reload happens after the shooting phase (?) so the reloaded Manticore might not even get to fire it, or not at full BS.
Pyroalchi wrote: I would still think about if the Trojan is really worth it. For that price you almost get two Sentinels with Lascannons, which are (in my opinion) better than one full payload hunter killer missile. Especially when considering that the reload happens after the shooting phase (?) so the reloaded Manticore might not even get to fire it, or not at full BS.
I'm still using it as transport for 6 man special weapon teams or command squads.
I think trojan compares favourable to the chimera and Taurox in those cirumstances.
Pyroalchi wrote: I would still think about if the Trojan is really worth it. For that price you almost get two Sentinels with Lascannons, which are (in my opinion) better than one full payload hunter killer missile. Especially when considering that the reload happens after the shooting phase (?) so the reloaded Manticore might not even get to fire it, or not at full BS.
I'm still using it as transport for 6 man special weapon teams or command squads.
I think trojan compares favourable to the chimera and Taurox in those cirumstances.
I am more interested in the use of that repair point.
Does it stack with other repairs?
cause every little bit helps in the gambit "undying gaurd armor". (I am gonna post a list on this in a moment.)
You could do even less dying armor if oyu were custom / juryrig/gunnery experts. But you couldn't move the tanks after removing a blocker unit, which I think is a big deal, and the difference of 1 point spread out is far less impactful than massively repairing an almost dead tank.
I am agreeing on the basic structure of inquisitor, bunch of officers/buff characters, a ton of guardsmen, special weapon/ccs in reserves, and manticores for fire support. I've been doing Catachans a lot with powerswords and I prefer them over Cadian. Really orders don't seem to be as important as the ability to do damage in melee in an emergency. Obviously orders help but they're not the first thing I focus on. Plus Catachans get great order efficiency since you can bring a fourth commander with straken and Harker has his reroll 1's aura.
My main issue I've run into is whether I run Bullgryn or not, and the more I look at basic Bullgryn squads the less I've enjoyed them. Essentially with the focus on guardsmen, they're now your "tanks" for lack of a better term, and people are kitting out to kill gravis anyways. The Bullgryn, while a good unit, are mainly just suffering from lack of target saturation. Almost makes me want to try them in a tank list instead. That and a Bullgryn is almost as much as a whole squad is a tough pill to swallow. I'm going to try running some Bullgryn bodyguards though, see how that does. They get a good number of attacks and combined with a character blob of an officer with a fist, a preacher, and a pysker or inquisitor, you can deal with a lot of smaller threats pretty reliably.
The sad thing is it looks like we're going to be locked into a pretty narrow build to be competitive. While I enjoy that build for now, I can tell it's going to get boring eventually. We really need platoons back, the new restriction with detachments makes fielding enough infantry really difficult without multiple battalion or a brigade
Dukeofstuff wrote: Why coteaz over a simple 65 point malleus dual psyker / melta sniper? I am curious now!
I know infantry is probably where we end up, but there has to be some way to run a tank group, too. I hope.
Mainly because Coteaz casts 3 psyker powers & 2 denys in a turn with psyker mastery and has leadership 10 aura. As an added bonus he's also an actual threat in melee with a flat 3 damage Nemesis hammer. The standard inquisitor works fine though.
Dukeofstuff wrote: Why coteaz over a simple 65 point malleus dual psyker / melta sniper? I am curious now!
I know infantry is probably where we end up, but there has to be some way to run a tank group, too. I hope.
I like the malleus Inquisitor for the denial because I see a lot of pyskers but coteaz is more proactive. If your opponent doesn't bring pysker, he'll do more throughout the game. Also if you have an inquisitor youre probably bringing an astropath or two to shore up your denial as well so it's not a big loss.
You guys are insane. 9th edition is mental. The game has gotten so much bigger and more complex since I last played (which admittedly was over 20 years ago). Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to actually play a game yet, but I have been doing a lot of painting, watching vids and reading - including 6 pages of this thread, so far; I am going to get a post in now as it's getting late. This is by way of giving the following thoughts some context.
1. If we are gonna have to get up close and nasty, how do vets with shotguns and 3 flamers get on? 75 points only. Melee buffs from various sources optional. Would be super cool and bad-ass to have a platoon of these chaps also, and unexpected by oppo.
2. I read a lot about Bullgryns being awesome (the models certainly are) and I don't disagree with that, but the Sentinel Powerlifter is the same points. You get better toughness and more wounds but no shield. Worse WS but better Strength.You can't get Infantry buffs but the Crush Em! strategem is great for these guys. Loads more speed which is the best thing.
3. I live in futile hope that they will bring back beastmen and penal legions and human bombs. Or at the very least the Assault Squad.
1. If we are gonna have to get up close and nasty, how do vets with shotguns and 3 flamers get on? 75 points only. Melee buffs from various sources optional. Would be super cool and bad-ass to have a platoon of these chaps also, and unexpected by oppo.
The biggest issue I see with this is that flamers essentially waste the veterans' better ballistic skill. You'd likely be better off taking special weapons teams if you're wanting to try spam flamer stuff.
PaddyMick wrote: You guys are insane. 9th edition is mental. The game has gotten so much bigger and more complex since I last played (which admittedly was over 20 years ago). Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to actually play a game yet, but I have been doing a lot of painting, watching vids and reading - including 6 pages of this thread, so far; I am going to get a post in now as it's getting late. This is by way of giving the following thoughts some context.
1. If we are gonna have to get up close and nasty, how do vets with shotguns and 3 flamers get on? 75 points only. Melee buffs from various sources optional. Would be super cool and bad-ass to have a platoon of these chaps also, and unexpected by oppo.
...
Welcome back to the game. As a relative noob I can sympathize with the painting reading etc.
So right now I tend to run Catachan, and I give flamers to the regular infantry. The goal is to get them in as bodies on objectives, maybe put up a little fight or slow other units down, and be able to burn guys out of cover for my other guns. Vets I am running with 3 plasma and an autocannon because it's marines marines marines here, and it seems to do a good job. Never really played with shotguns as I tend to use my vets as either stand-off or "we who are about to die salute you" attacks on something big.
I think another problem with shotgun vets is, that Lasguns are mostly better:
>12': lasguns 1 shot, Shotgun 0
6-12': both 2 shots at same strength
<6'': both 2 shots, but shotgun +1 strength.
The shotguns can advance and shoot, the lasguns too, if they are tallarn vor example
But the Lasguns can double their output by FRFSRF.
@ Sentinel Powerlifters: I really like them too as models, but Bullgryns can ride in transports and profit from being infantry
Yeah good point, but the BS is only wasted on 3 out of 10 guys. Those shotguns are assault so beinig vets mitigates the -1 for advance and shoot. SW squads seem a bit lacking sinice it's only 6 guys and they take an elite slot. 6 is an awkward number for blast and transport capacity also I think.
@RegularGuy
Cheers! the volume of material is huge but I am getting there...still got to catch up on all the lore as well, but I am loving it.
Catachan is a good call. I am thinking this is an suicide squad, so plasma makes them too expensive. Having all assault weapons makes it so they can run up and unload, then overwatch with flamers if they get charged - or spend some on melee buffs and get stuck themselves.
Yeah good point, but the BS is only wasted on 3 out of 10 guys. Those shotguns are assault so beinig vets mitigates the -1 for advance and shoot. SW squads seem a bit lacking sinice it's only 6 guys and they take an elite slot. 6 is an awkward number for blast and transport capacity also I think.
@RegularGuy
Cheers! the volume of material is huge but I am getting there...still got to catch up on all the lore as well, but I am loving it.
Catachan is a good call. I am thinking this is an suicide squad, so plasma makes them too expensive. Having all assault weapons makes it so they can run up and unload, then overwatch with flamers if they get charged - or spend some on melee buffs and get stuck themselves.
Some notes regarding the current rules:
1st: regarding transport capacity: Chimeras and Valkyries have a capacity of 12, so can fit exactly 2 Special weapons Squads (or 3 Command Squads while we are at it). So they are not really awkward to Transport. Regarding blast: against 6 models it only increases the average number of hits from 3.5 to 4.That's not really that bad.
2nd: Vets also take an elite slot in 9th edition (as in 8th edition)
3rd: overwatch now costs 1 CP. That might not always be worth it on a veteran squad, even if it has 3 flamers
See it that way: a Veteran squad with shotguns and 3 flamers is 75 Points. 2 SWS with 6 flamers are EDIT: 90 Points (so 20% more). Yes the Veterans can shoot their shotguns after advancing, but that does not balance out twice the flamers.
Vets after advancing: 10.5 flamer hits + 6 shotgun hits (as the sergeant has a pistol)
2 SWS after advancing: 21 flamer hits. (so 27% more)
Both variants fit in a chimera or Valkyrie.
Then again: do as you like. I don't want to Keep you from using vets, I just want to point out that for flamers SWS are the more points efficient option as their worse BS doesn't matter.
Thanks for that analysis. I always thought of the extra 2 slots in a chimera being for characters, but 2 SW squads works - although it is 2 elite squads, compared to one. With a 10 man team the cheaper, faster taurox is an option too.
I take your point about damage output with more flamers, but say you didn't need to advance with the shotguns, you get an extra couple of hits.
Of course you are right with the Taurox/additional officers/priests in the Chimera. The latter would be especially useful with catachans.
In the end I guess it comes down to personal preference and which transports one has at his/her disposal.
Had a 2000 pts against the Silent King's shiny host yesterday night. While I got lucky in the first shooting phase and managed to bring the big guy himself down in the fist round, the Necron player eventually outperformed me on primary objectives and won the game with a 10 points lead because I didn't manage to remove his 20 man strong Necron Warrior troops from the objectives. Both Manticore rockets and Plasma cannons, which I had brought in anticipation of tough vehicles, proved ineffective against hordes of 1W models that kept coming back, despite their maxed Blast.
So I'm thinking to change the loadout for the rematch. Instead of Executioner commanders and 2 Manticore aces with Full payload, I am pondering 2 Punisher commander aces with Weapon expert and 2 normal Manticores. I also want to ditch some other stuff from the list (I brought a Devil Dog who did absolutely nothing) and add a Lambdan Lions detachment with 1 Tempestor with Keys to the Armoury and two 10 man squads with max Volley Gun loadout.
Other thoughts on effectively (as in: make sure the damn tin buckets stay dead) decimating Necron infantry?
I have not fielded any scions since they became their own thing, but I do have about 40 old metal Stormtrooper models that I want to field.
Can I use scion squads in a non-scion detachment? Meaning if I pick Tallran for my regimental doctrine, can I have a a few scions squads without it messing up the doctrine for the rest of the army or would it prevent it?
I have not fielded any scions since they became their own thing, but I do have about 40 old metal Stormtrooper models that I want to field.
Can I use scion squads in a non-scion detachment? Meaning if I pick Tallran for my regimental doctrine, can I have a a few scions squads without it messing up the doctrine for the rest of the army or would it prevent it?
You preserve the doctrine, but the Scions themselves dont benefit from it. Same as with Bullgryns, Ratlings and psykers.
It would work, but you can also get a scions detachment for as little as adding a single tempest prime to your couple of squads, and spending the 2 cp.
Those scions now have extra doctrines available AND a host of their own specific strategems that you don't get with non-detachment scions. And it means gaurd can take (only way!) a second warlord trait on the tempest prime for a cp. Which means you can end up shooting 2 full payload manticores hunterkiller missles using the (not often seen) grand strategist desperation reroll. For a flat 6D weapon, you sort of figure that 1 cp spent before the game worth it, fire two such missles, and you expect to lose a single hit, wound, roll. So you fix that.
that's not an option for the manticore duo if there is no spare warlord.
Esmer wrote: Had a 2000 pts against the Silent King's shiny host yesterday night. While I got lucky in the first shooting phase and managed to bring the big guy himself down in the fist round, the Necron player eventually outperformed me on primary objectives and won the game with a 10 points lead because I didn't manage to remove his 20 man strong Necron Warrior troops from the objectives. Both Manticore rockets and Plasma cannons, which I had brought in anticipation of tough vehicles, proved ineffective against hordes of 1W models that kept coming back, despite their maxed Blast.
So I'm thinking to change the loadout for the rematch. Instead of Executioner commanders and 2 Manticore aces with Full payload, I am pondering 2 Punisher commander aces with Weapon expert and 2 normal Manticores. I also want to ditch some other stuff from the list (I brought a Devil Dog who did absolutely nothing) and add a Lambdan Lions detachment with 1 Tempestor with Keys to the Armoury and two 10 man squads with max Volley Gun loadout.
Other thoughts on effectively (as in: make sure the damn tin buckets stay dead) decimating Necron infantry?
I also just played against the Silent King and his shiny host yesterday! My game went slightly better, but it was very, very close (65-64 victory for me).
In regards to decimating Necron infantry, Punisher tanks commanders with Weapon Expert would certainly be the best option I can think of. But be careful replacing all of your anti-tank with anti-infantry options. Necrons have some very stout vehicles (not to mention the Silent King himself), and if you don't have any tools to deal with them you might be in for a load of trouble. Additionally, the Punishers will only have a 24" range, and if you're within range to shoot them, they're in range to shoot you. If the SK is floating around, he can easily remove a Leman Russ per turn with no trouble. Definitely ditch the Devil Dog though; normal Hellhounds will do better against Necrons, especially mass infantry lists.
Here's a summary of the list I took against Necrons yesterday:
Brigade (Cadian)
2x Company Commanders
2x Tank Commanders (battle cannons, x3 heavy bolters, one with Slow and Purposeful)
1x Primaris Psyker
6x Infantry Squads (2 with plasma guns, 4 with melta guns)
3x Astropaths
5-man Ogryn Squad
3-man Bullgryn squad
1x Ministorum Priest
2x Hellhounds with Heavy Flamers
2x Armored Sentinels (1 autocannon, 1 ML due to points)
2x Basilisks
1x Manticore w/ Full Payload
If I had the models painted and ready, I would have dropped a basilisk and the ML Sentinel for another Manticore, and dropped the Ogryns for more Bullgryns, but otherwise the list was effective. The Basilisks sucked, but the Tank Commanders definitely pulled their weight.
I also learned to watch out for Lychguard when the Silent King is in action. Apparently the Lychguard prevent the SK from being targeted by shooting attacks. This resulted in me ignoring the SK for the entire game and getting rid of all his troops (4x10-man Immortal Squads).
Other thoughts on effectively (as in: make sure the damn tin buckets stay dead) decimating Necron infantry?
Just looked at the datasheets - so you have to kill the whole squad in one turn, or it's like T1000 in Terminator 2? Maybe lure them into a iron foundry?
20 guys at T4, 1W, 4+ save to shift. That's a tough one. Looking down our wargear list for something S4, with decent AP and 1 wound, there ain't much. I can see why you want lots of hot shot volley guns. EDIT: actually, if you have to move AND can get in half range, I think you are killing more with overcharged plasma.
How about a couple of Wyverns? Blast so max shots, 2 would do 48 S4 re-rolling wounds, If you get a +1 to hit buff you would kill........10?
I math out hte LRBT with punisher as doing about 10.5 with a full salvo from a tank commander with the tank ace +1 ap strat and a gatling turret punisher while reroll 1's is on. (I ignore heavy bolter effects and sponsons).
I note that you could also make a very interesting case for putting old grudges on one of the units of warriors, so that your basic infantry whoever they are get to reroll all their woudns (as do ALL your tanks nearby) at that target till it dies.
IF you are olnly rolling out a few hundred points of scions, is reroll 1's for the whole pile of them worth more than full woudn rerolls against that first 20 man you just want to kill?
Other thoughts on effectively (as in: make sure the damn tin buckets stay dead) decimating Necron infantry?
Not played them, but my guess would be whittle them down bit by bit till you think you can finish them off in one attack. Small guns first, big guns for the finisher.
It's great doing 10 kills with a Wyvern, but if 4 stand back up not so much, so wait till there's only 9 left and hopefully finish them off.
Right then. I have finally caught up and read this whole thread. There are some very interesting ideas and insights (especially from MrMoustaffa, Pyroalchi and Inquisitor Lord Katherine). It beats watching youtube tactics vids where the guy just basically tells you whats on the datacard, but at least I can paint with a vid on, and from the sound of it, i'll be painting a lot of infantry now.
What I have taken from the discussion so far:
1-2 Manticores with full payload are auto include
Take at least 100 infantry. 120 would be great. 150 even better.
Make a 'melta hedge' (I love this phrase).
Have a plan.
Think of some fluff about why you gonna be out there killing so many spess mehreens.
Cheesy thought of the day:
If you go with a hoard, make your most expensive 3 models sentinels and bring them on from reserves on T5 for guaranteed 15 victory points from the 'While we stand, we fight' secondary.
If you go with a hoard, make your most expensive 3 models sentinels and bring them on from reserves on T5 for guaranteed 15 victory points from the 'While we stand, we fight' secondary.
That's gonna be a real challenge, as it would require you to not bring any other Guard vehicles whatsoever.
PaddyMick wrote: Right then. I have finally caught up and read this whole thread. There are some very interesting ideas and insights (especially from MrMoustaffa, Pyroalchi and Inquisitor Lord Katherine). It beats watching youtube tactics vids where the guy just basically tells you whats on the datacard, but at least I can paint with a vid on, and from the sound of it, i'll be painting a lot of infantry now.
What I have taken from the discussion so far:
1-2 Manticores with full payload are auto include
Take at least 100 infantry. 120 would be great. 150 even better.
Make a 'melta hedge' (I love this phrase).
Have a plan.
Think of some fluff about why you gonna be out there killing so many spess mehreens.
Cheesy thought of the day:
If you go with a hoard, make your most expensive 3 models sentinels and bring them on from reserves on T5 for guaranteed 15 victory points from the 'While we stand, we fight' secondary.
I'd say to try and cap the model count in the 120 range to limit the opponent's "thin their ranks" score. I'd also recommend limiting vehicles to limit the opponents "bring it down" score.
Thinking ~100 infantry, 4-6 vehicles (depending on # of wounds on the vehicles) limits you opponents ability to max out secondary objectives and forces a tough decision.
If you go with a hoard, make your most expensive 3 models sentinels and bring them on from reserves on T5 for guaranteed 15 victory points from the 'While we stand, we fight' secondary.
That's gonna be a real challenge, as it would require you to not bring any other Guard vehicles whatsoever.
Yes that's right, apart from lots of other sentinels.
I'd say to try and cap the model count in the 120 range to limit the opponent's "thin their ranks" score. I'd also recommend limiting vehicles to limit the opponents "bring it down" score.
Thinking ~100 infantry, 4-6 vehicles (depending on # of wounds on the vehicles) limits you opponents ability to max out secondary objectives and forces a tough decision.
You make a good point here. I sometimes forget to account for what the other guy will wanna do. I am still on basic strategy: level one.
From what I have read though, our strength is in numbers making those secondaries hard to keep from giving up. Can you give me an abbreviated version of a list you have in mind?
I have a fun catachan list that brings a little bit of everything.
Inquisitor coteaz
Straken, 2x company commander
30 conscripts
5x10 infantry with melta guns.
9 bullgryns, master of Ordnance, officer of the fleet, astropath, 2x command squads with plasma guns
2x manticore with hunter killers
Hws with mortars
Avenger strike fighter
Vulture with twin punisher
An all around fun fighting force. The most ill ever give up on bodies is 12, most on heavy is 12. I can give up 10 with my psyker characters, however, I tend to get 15 secondary points a game from psykers and my opponent has to chew threw a lot of bodyguards to get my characters
Lots of firepower, good board presence, good at contesting the middle of the board, plenty of punching power as well with straken + Priest.
Will this win tournaments? Nah. But it is pretty good all rounder list that can go toe to toe with most lists.
I'd say to try and cap the model count in the 120 range to limit the opponent's "thin their ranks" score. I'd also recommend limiting vehicles to limit the opponents "bring it down" score.
Thinking ~100 infantry, 4-6 vehicles (depending on # of wounds on the vehicles) limits you opponents ability to max out secondary objectives and forces a tough decision.
Remember that each model with 10 or more wounds that is removed counts as 10 tallies for Thin Their Ranks (effectively one VP). So ~100 infantry and 4-6 vehicles will potentially give up more points to Thin Their Ranks than 120 Infantry would. Also, with a mixed army, your opponent can take both Thin Their Ranks and Bring It Down, because for some stupid reason they are in different Secondary Objective categories. So now you're looking at approximately 15 VPs available from Thin Their Ranks, and 15 VPs available from Bring It Down. In order to avoid this downfall, you really need to look at going either almost entirely all big Vehicles (giving up Bring it Down easily, but not TTR), or going almost all Infantry (giving up TTR, but not BID). Of course all vehicles is not effective right now in 9th, unless you get a lucky match-up with someone not running a ton of anti-tank or "anti-tank" firepower. This is why I'm seeing folks recommending max infantry, with only a couple vehicles - probably just 2 Full Payload Manticores and some supporting Sentinels, since they don't give as many points for Bring It Down, and only count as one model for Thin Their Ranks.
Cheesy thought of the day:
If you go with a hoard, make your most expensive 3 models sentinels and bring them on from reserves on T5 for guaranteed 15 victory points from the 'While we stand, we fight' secondary.
Lol, that sounds awesome. I have enough Infantry and Death Riders in my collection that this might actually be possible. But wasn't there a rule that reserves had to come till T3?
Nontheless in a slight modification of that cheesiness: one might fill a Valkyrie with 3 Astropaths and 2 Primaris Psykers, baiting he enemy to take Abhor the witch and then just fly out of the battlefield every turn, so that they can never be killed (also denying points for 5 squishy characters). If one has a real horde (just Infantry squads, Conscripts and Commanders) the Valkyrie + both Primaris might well be the three most expensive models, so you can take "while we stand"
Looks good. I've not really looked at Flyers yet, but there seems to be a lot of potential, more so than with many other armies, could they be one of the Guard's main assets? probably.
Nontheless in a slight modification of that cheesiness: one might fill a Valkyrie with 3 Astropaths and 2 Primaris Psykers, baiting he enemy to take Abhor the witch and then just fly out of the battlefield every turn, so that they can never be killed (also denying points for 5 squishy characters). If one has a real horde (just Infantry squads, Conscripts and Commanders) the Valkyrie + both Primaris might well be the three most expensive models, so you can take "while we stand"
That is some tasty cheese right there! So no T5 reserves, nevermind :(
EDITED 'cos i am still getting used to using this forum and using quotes
I'd say to try and cap the model count in the 120 range to limit the opponent's "thin their ranks" score. I'd also recommend limiting vehicles to limit the opponents "bring it down" score.
Thinking ~100 infantry, 4-6 vehicles (depending on # of wounds on the vehicles) limits you opponents ability to max out secondary objectives and forces a tough decision.
Remember that each model with 10 or more wounds that is removed counts as 10 tallies for Thin Their Ranks (effectively one VP). So ~100 infantry and 4-6 vehicles will potentially give up more points to Thin Their Ranks than 120 Infantry would. Also, with a mixed army, your opponent can take both Thin Their Ranks and Bring It Down, because for some stupid reason they are in different Secondary Objective categories. So now you're looking at approximately 15 VPs available from Thin Their Ranks, and 15 VPs available from Bring It Down. In order to avoid this downfall, you really need to look at going either almost entirely all big Vehicles (giving up Bring it Down easily, but not TTR), or going almost all Infantry (giving up TTR, but not BID). Of course all vehicles is not effective right now in 9th, unless you get a lucky match-up with someone not running a ton of anti-tank or "anti-tank" firepower. This is why I'm seeing folks recommending max infantry, with only a couple vehicles - probably just 2 Full Payload Manticores and some supporting Sentinels, since they don't give as many points for Bring It Down, and only count as one model for Thin Their Ranks.
Ah yes. You are right.
Still a fun list
Vehicles really are hit hard this edition for that rule.
Automatically Appended Next Post: My question... if we wanted to maximize damage turn 1, what units are we using? Manticores ofc. But what else?
So, I built a list that's a stealthy keepaway list, its made to look like it will be an easy win for the enemy while providing them with a single "escape valkyrie". The 3 most expensive models are an inquisitor, yarrik, and the valkyrie that carries him, as well as the psyker wyrdvanes and aradia madellan. Leaving only 1 astropath on the board, vulnerable, for most of the game, as well as the engenseer, ministerium priest, and a single company commander. This list, you trash talk, you say stuff like "I don't think the marines you have are that hard to kill" or "yeah, we will see, I want to show that gaurd servitors are just as good as your eradicators" or "Yarrik is going to give me rerolls, so I don't need other officers" You basically want to appear a little insane to your opponent, in the hopes he thinks "wow, this guy must have had a real easy matchup to get to round 2 against me, I will just clean house with this gaurd moron who brought all the officers and all the psykers!" Cause its a game of valkyrie keep-away.
Result is, I hope, an enemy who takes abhor the witch, assassinate, suddenly only gets 5+12 or 17/30 (*and its not certain he pulls that off.) (so if he pulls off a perfect third, he gets at most 32 points. while its probably possible for your gaurd list to score 15 points just by not losing yarrik, inquisitor, and valkyrie (which keeps the two others offboard, a lot, and to finagle 10 points each from the other 2 secondaries. So you should be in the running?). If you keep your astropath offboard, he loses another 8 points and your list should function, more or less. Leaving him with at most 8 + 15 secondary to your 15+20.
I invite anyone here to look the list over and tell me what secondaries they predict a typical opponent will take? Am I wrong with this idea?
My question... if we wanted to maximize damage turn 1, what units are we using? Manticores ofc. But what else?
Squad of scout sentinels with lascannon and HK and Strike First, Strike Hard strategem maybe.
Can Scions deepstrike on turn 1? or do you need a Valkyrie to get up to that kind oif mischeif?. Data sheet looks like you can but there may be another rule I am missing.
Style choice: squad of 3 sentinel powerlifters. They have 'scout vehicle' so you can set up a T1 charge using 'Crush Em!' and get in 9 WS2+ S10 -2 D3 attacks on those eradicators. Don't forget to pop smoke in case you get shot next round.
Convince your opponent that the deathstrike time is neigh rule is rolled on a D20
Automatically Appended Next Post: @Dukeofstuff
That is seriously strong ripe stilton cheese my friend, love it. A good spoort would offer his opponent port and crackers with that one.
I got to say, if you are playign against marines in local tournament? Your cheese better stink.
Also .. note that scions can not deepstrike in on turn 1. Only valkyries and vendettas to my knowledge can forward deploy, let them out with gravchut rule, and they then fire. Its gaurd's answer to drop pod shenanigans, I guess.
To me, this points at the biggest challenge for me in 9th, the almost double taxation of thin their ranks and bring it down. It felt like there was a lot more flexibility about how you wanted to structure your army in 8th vs now, where you spend a lot of the thought of building your army not so much in fighting, but in denying secondary objectives.
I really think they just need to put all the "kill stuff" secondary objectives under a single category. No reason players should be able to take 3 different "just kill your opponent's army" as secondaries.
CommunistNapkin wrote: I really think they just need to put all the "kill stuff" secondary objectives under a single category. No reason players should be able to take 3 different "just kill your opponent's army" as secondaries.
Yes, I would agree with this. Not exactly a balance if you can get so many points just because I play guard with psykers lol. I don't think I could field a list with <150 wounds that all count towards thin ranks. With almost all our vehicles (10-12 wounds) feeding both objectives. And heaven forbid I bring 3 psykers in that army.
An all-vehicle list seems like it might do okay. It will give up 15 points easily, but not sure they will be able to get thin ranks from a bunch of leman Russ/manticore. Of course, this comes with its own host of problems.
3x Armored Sentinels, plasma cannons, HK missiles
3x Armored Sentinels, plasma cannons, HK missiles
3x Armored Sentinels, plasma cannons, HK missiles
manticore hk missile(full payload)
manticore hk missile(full payload)
2x basilisk unit w/ hk missile
leman russ battle tanks unit
3x punishers w/ hk missiles
This way can only get like 10? from thin ranks. Granted no troops, but the idea is that the alpha strike is so big that we can let our punishers tank the middle. Just a veeeery rough idea and haven't trialed it haha.
How about this one to reduce thin the ranks? It may only have 3 vehicles, but they are pretty good ones. Doomhammer. Doomhammer. DoomFreakishlyAnotherHammer 1260 points. Then. company commander lord commisar yarrik (he gives doomhammers reroll 1's) 30 regular gaurd infantry with 3 melta and 3 heavy bolter 1 ministerium priests, 1 engenseers, 1 astropath 3 veteran squads with 9 plasma and 3 heavy bolter
So sure, you only have .. uh .. 98 thin the ranks, and 9 vehicle, and 5 psyker. So the enemy is left trying to kill all your officers for his best secondary.
But I bet its a fun as hell list to play (unless the terrain is depressingly like my last GT, and you can't go to the other sid eof the board at all.) DOOMHAMMMERS ... CHARRRRRRGE! *people often forget the doomhammer IS a melee unit. A 26 wound, 9 attack melee unit with a hell of a precharge softening up cannon.
These tempt me lol The issue I run into is without a good number of bodies I'm finding it hard to dominate primaries. I suppose I should be happy for the conundrum to figure out.
Has anyone had any success with mech infantry? I was finding chimeras going down rather fast. Also the points change from 8th I found I couldn't take the six chimeras I wanted
RegularGuy wrote: These tempt me lol The issue I run into is without a good number of bodies I'm finding it hard to dominate primaries. I suppose I should be happy for the conundrum to figure out.
Has anyone had any success with mech infantry? I was finding chimeras going down rather fast. Also the points change from 8th I found I couldn't take the six chimeras I wanted
I've had some good games with my 133rd lions list that runs 6 taurox primes.
The additional ap from 133rd and reroll 1s aura warlord trait makes for mean taurox primes. Then pile out 50ish scions. I have 2 versions from there. A patrol with 2 manticore and MoO. Or 2 avenger strike fighters and an officer of the fleet.
The 2 strike fighters are really nice for character hunter and harassment.
I have always had luck with lambdans and tauroxes. I note kappic eagles is a good buy, too, for mechinf.
Like
patrol kappic eagles.
1 tempest prime (ke)
3x 5 man scions with 2 hsvg each (kappic eagles)
1 x 4 man command squad with 4 hsvg (ke)
lambda lions group with tempest prime (warlord, relic) and command squad and 3 10 man infantry spouting a bunch of melta and plasma
6 taurox gatling/hsvg2's
2 vendetta gunships with 2 heavy bolters each
officer of the fleet
astropath
This list is nice cause its got some alpha strike melta action, potentially, and the big vendettas paint a beautiful distraction as you talk up how much you love their paint job, how they are -1 to be hit in hover mode, how much you like them. Since lambda lions tauroxes can transport kappic eagles infantry, you put them all intauroxes and you put the lambdans in deepstrike. Or you put them allll in tauroxes. Or you load the command squads and a few meltas into the flyers for an alpha hit. Or you load all the hsvg for the same idea.
Point is, you can do it all sorts of ways, you have WAY more transport than you need, and all the transport is shooting really well.
CommunistNapkin wrote: I really think they just need to put all the "kill stuff" secondary objectives under a single category. No reason players should be able to take 3 different "just kill your opponent's army" as secondaries.
I've been proposing this change (plus a nerf to Abhor the Witch to 2/3 pts and a little rework of the Tally to work on non Vehicle/Monster WOUNDS rather than models) since the leaks of the GT Tournament Pack 2020...guess I was right after all
So, my thought for the day is, there are a LOT of types of marines out there right now counting on the ability to move indestructible troop groups slowly forward while their enemies struggle to kill a few T5, W3 units. People are building against the toughness and resilience and wounds of those units (hence the crazy popularity of the S10/-2/3 manticore). But as gaurd, we have the potential to build against their relatively poor mobility, using flyers and manticores -- thus forcing the marines to split from one end of the field to the other in a desperate bid to reach the tormenting indirect fire, while flyers with longer ranged guns flit about the board edges and focus fire on them relatively unprotected (haha, I know) marines.
It seems like a lot of the marine cheese right now is apothecary (not much we can do) but a lot of it is also more things like rapidly moving bikes, and those, I suspect would struggle (especially things like outriders) to slaughter flyers. Suspect.
Necrons now represent over 8% of all competitive lists (and have a 54% winrate), and Harlequins are the real deal. Custodes and Deathguard are both rarer but still competitive. Sisters are one of the best factions in 40k.
Space Marines are no longer the be-all and end-all of the meta, is what I'm saying.
grouchoben wrote: Necrons now represent over 8% of all competitive lists (and have a 54% winrate), and Harlequins are the real deal. Custodes and Deathguard are both rarer but still competitive. Sisters are one of the best factions in 40k.
Space Marines are no longer the be-all and end-all of the meta, is what I'm saying.
I agree and that is awesome! I just have never been to a tournament where I didn't face some sort of marines in at least one round.
So, which flyers would be your pick? I like the Vendetta obviously, but it only has six shots. However, teaming it up with Arabia Madellan and an officer of the fleet makes it a killing machine. Thunderbolts are also one of my favorites and good for the job with some missiles.
Hoe about kitting out the valks? I like keeping them cheap so no lascannon. But it's the single hellstrike missiles shot worth taking over 2d6 rocket pod shots?
Its a 10 point difference in price for another 2d6-1 shots against things that you want to kill multiple easy modles of.
Also consider that aradia only gives +1 to hit to an INFANTRY unit. So its useful on some scions (especailly stormtrooper doctrine) but its not going to assist any flyers.
Spoiler:
Like hordes of horrors, even.
I like running "royal" valkyries, with the lascannon on it and the extra heavy bolters to augment the multirocketpods. All those things are going to cost you just as many points to buy on a squad of heavy weapons or in a 10 man gaurd unit -- but valkyries have bs3+ (hover) and can get reroll 1's. and can waft across the board to present easy firing lanes and then vanish offboard to keep from giving the enemy points from a crippled bird.
Seems like you have a 14 wound platform that is inherently -1 to be hit, with T7. Why not stick a lascannon and potentially 18 (really about 13) shots of s5/-1/1 on it? Its going to annoy, distract, and perform well.
Vendetta I arm up the same way. 3 of them are pricey, but 3 vendetta + 2 full payload manticores can often win the armor to armor fight while the enemy's dreadnaughts struggle to get in range, or their demolisher equipped leman russ tank commanders languish 39 inches away. I ain't saying that it is a perfect lineup, but you can cut big holes in a marine heavy infantry army with such firepower, while dancing well away from the massed bolterfire (that will have a hard time killing these birds in most cases). Remember you can slow movement with a kill from the flyers, too, if you have scion strats from PA)
Especially cause I usually have a tiny scions detachment at a minimum in the game, so the tempest prime is usually extra warlorded to bring old grudges. Now I can pick a single "easy to wound" thing ... one knight, one piece of enemy heavy armor, one critical monster, or one 10 man unit of heavy intercessers, and give all those shots of heavy bolter rerolls to wound (long as they are near the wld). I might point the lasers elsewhere, but the combination of OG and s5/-1/1 or 2 shooting from a few valkyries can cripple a big, expensive marine unit over a few rounds, especially if you are also stripping out cover with an astropath you brought along. 18 heavy bolters at 3+ with reroll 1's (in an army with just 3 valky) and another 6d6 s5/-1/1 (bs3+ with reroll 1's) is a pretty astonishingly good load of mixed dakka. To fight gravis armor use old grudges, then interlace 2d and 1d weapons so you can slowly chip away at the enemy without wasting lots of either damage type on odd numbered big marines. To kill just marines, doesn't matter the order so much, but you probably want to pick one unit to hit with just heavy bolters (kill, kill, kill) and one to hit with the other guns (wound, kill, wound, kill, wound, kill) so you don't waste any damage. Even a marine apothecary is going to struggle to keep multiple units up to full strength, if you are spreading the pressure around and killing a couple models here, a couple there.
Anyway, that's my thougth -- I think a valkyrie with full dakka loadout is better in your army for anti-horde than a wyvern is. Multilaser + 6 + 2d6 shots gives you about 16 shots at bs3+, wiht reroll 1's, and enough penetratoin to ignore ork armor, and enough strength to offset the wyvern's reroll wounds.
So a 24 shot wyvern hitting 12 times compares pretty well to a 16 shot valkyrie hitting about .. 12.5 times. You can however ALSO unload a squad or two of elite infantry (potentially adding in 12 grenade launchers from just the right spot that your opponent doesn't want to have to charge back to) for another 42 or so shots at long range. Or mabye you use it to deliever a bunch of scions up close with precision drop, and they shoot another 36 times. That's a trick you can't so easily do with the wyvern. Anyway, my point is, if you think of the valkyrie as a free wyvern that ALSO gets to act as a transport on turn 1 with a 45 inch range, remember a full dakka valkyrie costs only about 15 points more than a wyvern, which has 3 fewer wounds, 1 less toughness, isn't -1 to be hit, can't fly away, and can't cope well with enemy armor saves. A full dakka valkyrie with the lascannon on the nose may fire 2 shots less, but at 30 points more, it can mess up enemy armor in ways few wyvern can.
Anyway. I like both birds a great deal, to deliver a constant irritation to the enemy and distract a great deal of return fire. Flyers have the added advantage that they can hover back to a friendly engenseer in a pinch. So a tiny contingent of admech with a double heal capable engenseer is an option here -- allowing 2d3 heals per turn + 1 for the strategem juryriggers for a wounded flyer. That's pretty good odds of keeping a few in service longer than anyone expected (especailly with liberal defense buffing going on from an astropath).
Singleton Mosby wrote: So, which flyers would be your pick? I like the Vendetta obviously, but it only has six shots. However, teaming it up with Arabia Madellan and an officer of the fleet makes it a killing machine. Thunderbolts are also one of my favorites and good for the job with some missiles.
Hoe about kitting out the valks? I like keeping them cheap so no lascannon. But it's the single hellstrike missiles shot worth taking over 2d6 rocket pod shots?
I feel that Vendettas are better now that they don't suffer the -1 to hit for moving now, and stay at +4BS instead of going to +5BS while moving or giving your opponent an easy target with hover. Since it can act as a transport as well, you could pack it full of scions for added punch when you drop them out.
Your already rewarded for killing your opponent's stuff as its no longer shooting back.
No way. Killing stuff is the point of the game. They should totally rework secondaries, or scrap them. They should use modified 7ed fantasy victory conditions- count up how many points of the enemy you killed, they do the same to you. For the modified part, add in extra points for holding objectives per turn, extra points for holding objectives at the end (who cares who has something turn 3, its at the end of the game is when it matters!), and bring back the victory condition where you win if you table the opponent. Warhammer games have always been about your cool stuff taking out the opponents cool stuff. Trying to move away from that spirit is really annoying.
This format would have cost me some games this edition, but it would have made my opponent much happier. As they would have rightly been rewarded for near tabling me over the course of 5 turns.
Anyways, that's enough of that mini-rant tangent.
As to actual guard tactics-
Has anyone used ogryns? They are very cheap. I am slowly building up a scions force, and I am thinking of having a squad or two of ogryn and bullygrn in the army.
I can't see past infantry at the minute. Hope new Codex addresses this.
Skewing heavily to infantry horde allows for very efficient regiment traits.
Disciple shooters/wilderness survivors is so great simply because it is a buff that is always in use. Every model in army benefitting all the time. Everything ob sec (almost) again is very efficient - i'll be watching with interest what retains ob sec moving forwards - as such a ground holding edition.
Theory crafting it out i'm looking at dropping psychic too - simply because they give up warpcraft secondary (abhor the witch) too easily.
This means against an infantry horde guard list I think I'm going to give up pretty easily:
Assassinate (purge the enemy)
Thin their ranks (no mercy, no respite)
leaving them to pick up whichever 3rd secondary movement/action based secondary suits their list.
Its this give up on points that makes infantry tricky to do well, once you move beyond thinking about killing stuff.
I think vendettas cost too many points to risk expensive infantry in them carelessly but a thing you can easily do is drop 10 gaurdsmen each on your way down the field to strafe. While you might lose a few to the gravchute dice, you probably end up with about 18 or so infantry to combine squads with over an objective, then go to ground and support with an astropath 18 inches further back. Viola, you have 18 5+, 4+, 3+ save infantry. If you happen to be wilderness survivors, you have 18 2+ save gaurd infantry, and you can probably get another gaurd squad in to join on turn 2. That's going to drive even marine dakka units absolutely bonkers as they struggle to get there, and then discover that even in melee, you are still 3+ to save.
It's looking like one thing Guard can do very well is put cheap units all over the board quite easily.
Linebreaker should be an easy score and if you can mess with with your opponent's home objective so much the better.
How about the Arvus Lighter as a way of doing this in turn 1? I could probably proxy/convert a model quite cheaply (the other great strength of guard!).
If it's airborne above an objective, does the squad inside exert any control over that objective?
PaddyMick wrote: It's looking like one thing Guard can do very well is put cheap units all over the board quite easily.
Linebreaker should be an easy score and if you can mess with with your opponent's home objective so much the better.
How about the Arvus Lighter as a way of doing this in turn 1? I could probably proxy/convert a model quite cheaply (the other great strength of guard!).
If it's airborne above an objective, does the squad inside exert any control over that objective?
The thing about the Arvus is that its still over 100 points, I believe. That's pricey for something with zero offensive output. But it does get units where they need to be! I have never tried them out- I think it could be fun.
I don't believe the squad inside the transport would matter at all for contesting/claiming and objective. Transports with troops in them used to have objective secured, i think, but that was several editions ago. I do not believe anything like that still still stands.
According to the core book there is nothing to stop models in transports claming objectives - but I could be reading that wrong. The question for me is they have to be within 5'' vertically and the 'airborne' rule does not give a height. I am sure it's probably been faq'd somewhere, like the no reserves after turn 3 rule (core book doesn't mention this either -I don't think).
It feels like models that are in an airborne transport should not count (and I know Aircraft themselves never do) but hovering ones should.
Some days, when I'm done studying for my 40k rules exams, I go read War and Peace cover to cover to relax.
Oh and it's 125 points with a crappy weapon. Agree bit pricey - needs a Kamikaze strategem so it can take out some marines when it's done transporting.
a unit can not do anything, nor be affected in any way, while it is inside a transport. I reckon that includes objective grab. The fine read of transports notes you remove them from the board.
Valyrie can cost as little as 110 points. That's stll as well armed as the arvus but its not as expensive, I don't see the allure of the FW crap here.
Dukeofstuff wrote: a unit can not do anything, nor be affected in any way, while it is inside a transport. I reckon that includes objective grab. The fine read of transports notes you remove them from the board.
Valyrie can cost as little as 110 points. That's stll as well armed as the arvus but its not as expensive, I don't see the allure of the FW crap here.
Cool OK. I wish the objective rules made it clear.
Didn't realise Valkryrie was so cheap in points, I should have checked that first. It will definately be harder to make one of those (I can't afford the official model) but I may give it a go.
I look upon the forgeworld datacards as oppurtunities to try something different and do some conversions. Got some 'powerlifters' on order, they look like a good pick, at the same price in points each as a bullgryn.
Magnetize the valk carefully. With a bit of gunswap its also a creme de la fleet gunship vendetta. 6 lascans of joy and still does everything else (except bs4 ehen hovers)
PaddyMick wrote: ...
How about the Arvus Lighter as a way of doing this in turn 1? I could probably proxy/convert a model quite cheaply (the other great strength of guard!).
This came to mind as a cheap proxy amongst friends:
Cheers, paper models like that would be good for trying stuff out before committing to a proper model. I gather some people use paper titans fro apocalype and I don't blame them.
So another thought about getting on objectives. Are we the only army that can move in the shooting phase? I am thinking blast the opponent off the objective with artillery and then Move Move Move onto it. A way to replace their guys with yours in the same turn and without getting into combat.
Moveing in during the shooting time can also be done with tallarn (only) leman russ orders. So its a skill we have two ways to pull off that few other armies can.
So another thought about getting on objectives. Are we the only army that can move in the shooting phase? I am thinking blast the opponent off the objective with artillery and then Move Move Move onto it. A way to replace their guys with yours in the same turn and without getting into combat.
Important to note that Move Move Move is one of the two orders that is resolved immediately upon issuing it, meaning that the movement must take effect before any shooting occurs. It's definitely possible that an enemy unit blocks your infantry from being able to get to the objective with M^3.
So another thought about getting on objectives. Are we the only army that can move in the shooting phase? I am thinking blast the opponent off the objective with artillery and then Move Move Move onto it. A way to replace their guys with yours in the same turn and without getting into combat.
Important to note that Move Move Move is one of the two orders that is resolved immediately upon issuing it, meaning that the movement must take effect before any shooting occurs. It's definitely possible that an enemy unit blocks your infantry from being able to get to the objective with M^3.
Plus orders must be done at the start of the shooting phase. I'm sure you know that but many newer players often don't, which is fair because GW seems to change how orders are done every edition since they came out
Plus orders must be done at the start of the shooting phase. I'm sure you know that but many newer players often don't, which is fair because GW seems to change how orders are done every edition since they came out
Just to clarify, orders must be issued at the start of the Shooting Phase. The only orders that must be carried out at the start of the shooting phase are Move! Move! Move! and Fix Bayonets!, which, as part of the order, are done immediately upon the unit receiving the order. The other orders are all performed when the unit is activated during the Shooting Phase, rather than at the start of the phase.
What is the opinion on Basilisks currently? A couple pages back someone said they had two in their list and they sucked. Is this a universal opinion on them or a one off?
Mud Turkey 13 wrote: What is the opinion on Basilisks currently? A couple pages back someone said they had two in their list and they sucked. Is this a universal opinion on them or a one off?
I feel like it was probably me talking about Basilisks sucking, but I'll go into a bit more detail for you. My Basilisks consistently get 5-6 shots with their main cannon, but even with playing them as Cadian (when I made them way back in the day, I put Cadia transfers on them, and I'm not gonna change that now that there's actual regimental doctrines, so here we are), I'm still only really looking at getting 3 hits. Of those, I only ever manage to get 1-2 of them to wound (despite wounding nearly everything on 3+ at the worst). Compare that to a Manticore where I'm usually able to get 7+ shots (gotta save that CP reroll in case I roll real low), more hits, and wounding a greater number of targets on 2+ thanks to the Strength 10 of the Manticore. The additional AP from the Basilisk really does not make up for the fewer shots or lower strength, as so many of our best targets these days have a 5+ (or better) invulnerable save anyway. Not to mention, with the change in 9th edition of making the game a maximum of 5 turns, the limited ammunition on the Manticore isn't nearly as big of a drawback as it has been in the past.
Long story short, Manticore > Basilisk, at least for now. I feel lucky to do 1d3 damage with a Basilisk on any given turn, and for 125 points, it's just not worth it. Spend the extra 20 points for the Manticore, and then give it Full Payload. I imagine if playing Catachan, the different between the two if even larger in favor of the Manticore.
Ok thanks guys I reckon I have a good handle on how the army works now and what it's capable of, so no more rules questions from me for a while now, promise
I will say that having looked over everything available, a basic Inquisitor seems like an auto-include, for the options they bring at low cost in points.
Basilisks wothout support are lackluster in this edition.. Whuke firing twice last edition at the time made them iutperform manties.
Support? You ask?. 1. 2 cp in the early turns gives them full firing rerolls to hit on one basi with aerial spotters strat. A nearby reroll 1 source or being cadian is another.
W. Help wounding. 9s is close but not 10s like a manti has.. So consider either a strat with wound rolls in it.. Or the relic of lost cadia .. Or the use of a friendly tempest prime who (for a cp) can guide the basi with old grudge rerolls. It brings you up to parity with a good ma ti to wound t5 elites. Finally, remember to value the extra ap. When someo e digs their termies in like ticks a manti gets the hit in at 3+ save... But a basi at 4+. Remember there is also likely a stormshields +1 to save in play.. So the effect on dug in terminators by a single basilisk is twice the chance to stick as a manti shot . witht he built in reroll for shotcount and the reroll to hit and the other biffs (of. Course reduci g cover effects is key. But some cover gives a -1 to hit. In that case 8 average manty shots that reroll 1 only gives you about 3 hits. Manti does as well with its reroll strat.. When you factor in the extra ap. Better.
So i believe it situational and part of integrated artillery .... But still good at its price.
Plus orders must be done at the start of the shooting phase. I'm sure you know that but many newer players often don't, which is fair because GW seems to change how orders are done every edition since they came out
Just to clarify, orders must be issued at the start of the Shooting Phase. The only orders that must be carried out at the start of the shooting phase are Move! Move! Move! and Fix Bayonets!, which, as part of the order, are done immediately upon the unit receiving the order. The other orders are all performed when the unit is activated during the Shooting Phase, rather than at the start of the phase.
Yeah sorry should have been more clear, but seems like you got what I meant. Basically you can't really rely on moving past enemy units in the shooting phase since MMM must be given at the start of the shooting phase, which means you won't have time to clear whatever you're trying to get past.
As for basilisks, GW really needs to rework how they function. The old basilisk was an unholy terror to enemy hordes, squads of marines, and could even threaten enemy tanks with a lucky hit. As it is it maybe kills 3 orks in a full strength mob and you'd be lucky to do 4 damage to an enemy tank. It's one of the biggest cannons in the guard arsenal and honestly it's just an indirect firing lascannon that does d3 damage. I'm not sure how you fix it without being an absolutely insanely powerful weapon, maybe give it a split statline for HE/AP or something. Out of our entire codex it took the loss of templates the hardest and honestly they're not even remotely worth it anymore.
I view basiliskas a uniquely suites third piece especially for cadians. Manties withoutrerolls can end up only 7 to 5 or so basi.. And basi have that full reroll strat to start a chain of interlocki g field of fire. Key to cadias artillery.
In cadian hands the full reroll strat of a basilisk is also highly useful to guide in interlocki g fire off two full payload manties. While this burns cp... It fives a large bump on accuracy to two critical assets without any of the three needin g los to the foe. As exqmple picture a fight with a bunch of hive gaurd that are+1 sace on cover .. Blocked los .. And get a minus 1 to hit rhem from a nearby wierdo nid character. Without the basilisks ability to guide in the mamties score about 3 hits... And maybe 1 failed save. With guidance they shoot vack to 4+ and la d a few more. Its the difference betweenn losing the artillery dueland winning. As an example.
Or you just drizzle shots into enemy armor and make your points back slowly.
Simply put Basilik's needed the Double Shot to be competitive.
Way back in Epic they all had double shot due to superior reload times lore wise.
Wouldn't mind a price hike and innate double shot.
Double shoot would make them stricty superior to Manticores though. It would mean that you could either shoot 2 d6 on the same target (Mantis) or decide to split 2d6 between two different targets (double-shot Baslisks).
I think basilisks could have a basilisk only strategem called "chose the payload" where you can, for a cp, swap the style of ammo in them.
"overblast" -1 damage (min 1) but also causes any save roll to have to be rolled twice, take the worst of the two.
"direct AP" +3 damage but -1 to hit.
scatterbombs 2D flat, no penalty to hit or ap or save.
grape. LOS shooting only, but any natural six does 3 his.
or regular (cause you may have multiple basis in your lineup, after all.)
Now consider you could drop your direct AP shots on someone's big ugly with your reroll strat .. or oyu could slap scatterbombs into a round that's going to hit a bunch of marines that aren't standing right by a 6+++ feel no pain source, and have only 2 wounds and a 6+ save to help them.
Sure, you wouldn't want to end up with the wrong ammo type in your basilisks when you suddenly realize that the enemy is charging your position from cover with vangaurd vets. You wouldn't want to be shooting at -1 to hit against ravengaurd's distant guys in cover. You could, however, get a LOT of interesitng and flexible use out of the lowly basilisk, while the manticore continues to be just "I shoots the missles I came with again." and all.
What are your thoughts on the Malcador Infernus? I've been thinking about running three in a Catachan detachment, each with dual heavy flamers. I'm just trying to figure out if the strength 7 makes them too inflexible as the main hammer of the army. I'd probably run them alongside 2 tank ace manticores, but by then that's 1200 or so points of my army (the rest would be mainly infantry and a few sentinels).
The auto-hitting really appeals to me, as it means I don't need to worry about degrading too much. I think the explosion is hilarious, even if it backfires on me more often than not, and it feels to me like it suits the Catachan fluff to a tee.
Drawbacks are cost (which seems ok to me), and the jack of all trades master of none nature of the main gun (struggling against T8 opponents).
I've run one in my Krieg list (shoot on death is amazing with them) and I love it. One problem I could foresee with three is ... they are hugggge models. If they explode (and they do on a 4+) then it's tricky to avoid catching a lot of your other stuff. With three it would be impossible I suspect. I often put mine in reserve, and that's not really feasible with three either. I'm early days though, would love to hear your experience with them if you pull the trigger...
No DKOK specific orders or strats in the Imperial Armour Compendium, unfortunately. Trait seems situationally useful to me on ranged vehicles, though there will be games when you roll 1-3 on those critical rolls after units die, and that will be incredibly annoying.
Dukeofstuff passed on a couple of handy suggestions to me about the wound rolls:
-Old grudges warlord trait
-Vengeance for Cadia (against Chaos)
I guess the question is whether a warlord trait and ONE tank ace is better or not than TWO tank aces. This would really be down to match ups and list composition, I guess.
Does anyone have any speculation they want to share about what we could see in a new codex (just spit-balling/wish-listing)?
-changes to tank aces?
-improvements to super heavies?
-return of the battle cannon relic (wishful thinking, I know)?. And of course, it's still usable outside of tournaments.
(Introduce a "1 per infantry squad tax" to avoid people taking pure conscripts or pure vets list)
Make it so that Commanders and Tank Commanders can't order themselves (this would weaken us, but it would make normal LR usable again. Pretty sure it's bound to happen anyways by tying orders to "core")
- Change grenade launchers, autocannons, Exterminators and Vanquishers so that they don't totally suck
- Change Valhallans special rules so that they aren't the worst regiment by a long margin. ESPECIALLY change the fact that several factions (Orks, CSM, Daemons) can summon new full-strength units beyond their reinforcement points limit during the game, but Valhallans can't.
- Make 3-4 special strats for the "big 8" regiments (Cadia, Catachan, Tallarn, Mordian, Armageddon, Vostroyan, Valhallan, Krieg)
I guess the question is whether a warlord trait and ONE tank ace is better or not than TWO tank aces. This would really be down to match ups and list composition, I guess.
Honestly, slapping "Full Payload" on Manticores or "Weapon Expert" on a Punisher Commander is so much better than any Warlord trait that I've stopped bothering with traits a while ago.
Does anyone have any speculation they want to share about what we could see in a new codex (just spit-balling/wish-listing)?
- this might be a wild guess, but I would not be surprised if the Multilaser goes to 10/15 Points (EDIT: like the Autocannon, Heavy Bolter and Heavy Flamer) and moves to heavy 5 or 6 for that. It's the only standard heavy weapon left at 5 Points and as GW seems to be pretty focussed on unifying points cost, it would make kind of sense. Also at heavy 6 it would be a real alternative to the heavy bolter in Chimeras again (at least that's my personal opinion).
- As they changed the Macharius Vanquisher to S16 D9 I expect something is also done with the Leman Russ Vanquisher. Maybe S14, D6 or Dd3+4?
- More wishlisting than really expecting this: would be nice if the LR Exterminator and Eradicator would get something to make them situational more worthwile. The Exterminator is now the second most expensive configuration without much to show for it. Maybe let it ignore hard to hit from airplanes as it is listed as stop gap air defense.
- Also more wishlisting then expectation: some kind of platoon mechanic would be interesting. So something like stuffing 1 platoon commander, Command Squad, 30-60 Infantry dudes out of any combination of Infantry Squads, Veterans and Conscripts) into one troop slot. I have no idea if that would be broken, it just sounds interesting to be able to stuff a whole infantry horde list into a single Brigade.
- I'm pretty hopeful they will reconsider some of the regimental doctrines, specifically Mordian, since boni to overwatch a bit lackluster when you have to pay CP to do overwatch at all.
I expect Mordian's doctrine would involve overwatching for free - I believe they said that would be a thing for some abilities at the start of the edition.
A buff to the Vanquisher would be excellent, bu GW seems to still have a really poor understanding of what makes a good anti-tank weapon in their games, if the Gladiator is anything to go by. But, you never know.
kirotheavenger wrote: I expect Mordian's doctrine would involve overwatching for free - I believe they said that would be a thing for some abilities at the start of the edition.
A buff to the Vanquisher would be excellent, but GW seems to still have a really poor understanding of what makes a good anti-tank weapon in their games, if the Gladiator is anything to go by. But, you never know.
I feel a solution for Mordian would be to change their unique order to allow the ordered unit to overwatch without spending a CP
I feel the issue with vehicles like the Vanquisher is the problem with how quantity trumps quality right now. I've been thinking the a way to fix this would be to give vehicles a way to ignore AP of low strength weapons. Armored Keyword-treat attacks with a S of <5 as AP 0. You could then tailor the level ignored based on the vehicle (Armored Sentinel is <4 where a Leman russ <5, etc...) Then make Vanquishers/Railgun weapons get to reroll wound and max Damage vs units with that key word. This would not invalidate the low strength high ROF weapons in general, but help make tanks less vulnerable to them while making dedicated Anti-tank weapons have a more viable roll
Could do, or you could increase the strength and damage a lot.
S14 would allow it to wound T7 on 2+, plus give it 3+d6 damage or something so when it lands it consistently leaves the target hurting.
The problem is partly how blasts work (or rather don't work). Why take a Vanquisher when a Battle Tank gets d6 shots at similar strength, ap, and damage?
Why take it over a Basilisk or Manticore with Full Payload?
'Blasts' aren't really materially worse against single targets than 'regular' shots. Because they're just lots of shots now.
Could be funny (but I highly doupt it) if "armored" vehicles got damage reduction against blasts reflecting that a lot of the blast effect gets wasted compared with a solid shot. Something like damage reduction -1 against blast if the vehicle has an "armored" keyword.
=> the Vanquisher might suddenly be better than the Battlecannon against armored vehicles, as the latter would drop from 2 average damage per shot to 1.33.
=> the Exterminator would have a kind of niche again as being worse than the battlecanon against almost all targets but slightly better against armored ones.
Any ideas what to pack against Death Guard now that Plasma Guns and Heavy Bolters have become useless against them (Nevermind Autocannons who just got extra useless)? My first instinct would be Punishers, Hot-Shot Volley Guns with the +1S strat and Heavy Flamers.
Esmer wrote: Any ideas what to pack against Death Guard now that Plasma Guns and Heavy Bolters have become useless against them (Nevermind Autocannons who just got extra useless)? My first instinct would be Punishers, Hot-Shot Volley Guns with the +1S strat and Heavy Flamers.
Rapier Laser Destroyers and Hades Breaching Drills
Esmer wrote: Any ideas what to pack against Death Guard now that Plasma Guns and Heavy Bolters have become useless against them (Nevermind Autocannons who just got extra useless)? My first instinct would be Punishers, Hot-Shot Volley Guns with the +1S strat and Heavy Flamers.
I've havn't been keeping super up to date with new stuff (work is super busy at the hospital with Covid), what do Death Guard have/do that is causing the problem?
Esmer wrote: Any ideas what to pack against Death Guard now that Plasma Guns and Heavy Bolters have become useless against them (Nevermind Autocannons who just got extra useless)? My first instinct would be Punishers, Hot-Shot Volley Guns with the +1S strat and Heavy Flamers.
I've havn't been keeping super up to date with new stuff (work is super busy at the hospital with Covid), what do Death Guard have/do that is causing the problem?
Basically all D2 weapons become D1 weapons against them
ArikTaranis wrote: No DKOK specific orders or strats in the Imperial Armour Compendium, unfortunately. Trait seems situationally useful to me on ranged vehicles, though there will be games when you roll 1-3 on those critical rolls after units die, and that will be incredibly annoying.
Dukeofstuff passed on a couple of handy suggestions to me about the wound rolls:
-Old grudges warlord trait
-Vengeance for Cadia (against Chaos)
I guess the question is whether a warlord trait and ONE tank ace is better or not than TWO tank aces. This would really be down to match ups and list composition, I guess.
Does anyone have any speculation they want to share about what we could see in a new codex (just spit-balling/wish-listing)?
-changes to tank aces?
-improvements to super heavies?
-return of the battle cannon relic (wishful thinking, I know)?. And of course, it's still usable outside of tournaments.
Realistically, what I would go ahead and start preparing for now
*Orders moved to command phase. Makes sense, gets rid of the weirdness that was doing them at the start of the shooting phase, etc. Downsides are obvious, you'll need to commit to orders even earlier, and I would expect our favorite Move Move Move to be radically changed.
*Commanders no longer count as core, and orders only affect [core] infantry or vehicles. I would expect vets, ccs, SWS, hws, etc to be core, and our non core stuff will be auxiliary stuff like ogryn, pyskers, etc.
*Commanders possibly getting some sort of limit per detachment, but might not happen. Tank commanders are no longer the terrors they used to be and you don't really hear about them anymore.
*We lose all the fun stuff in the greater good. Maybe some fun stuff will be rolled in, but after the way blood angels got treated I worry.
*Smoke launchers become a strategem, which means the strike and shroud tank order will need to change
*Conscripts stay 5ppm. If grots can't be cheaper than 5ppm, there's not a snow balls chance in hell we'll get 4 pt conscripts
*Vets will lose shotguns and autoguns
*Mordians getting a new trait of some sort, considering theirs literally does not function at the moment. They're easily the worst regiment at the moment, even Valhallans tank profile and morale effects have at least a little effect. Perhaps they get worded like Tau and always get to overwatch on a 5+, would give them a neat niche.
*Im hoping Valhallans get an actual strategem to use, since we're the only army I know of that has a "recycle the unit" strat that needs CP and points to use.
*And while I'm wishlisting for things that will never happen, guard sarges will be able to take lasguns again for the first time in 10 years
We can either overblast the DG with weaponry that does more than 2 each hit (meltas or multimeltas at short range, rapier lasguns, baneblade main guns (many of them), or any full payload basi or manti, OR
we can sneak under the damage effect with 1D stuff that harms marines.
That's scions, heavy flamers, and multiple rocket pods, the gatling taurox guns of the lambdan taurox spam, and the tank ace turret punisher gatlings of any gaurd regiment.
Or, we get them in melee, and hope that we can drown them in catachan infantry.
Lots of it.
Regarding the DG, GW have hinted that it'll be dangerous to be up close and personal with them because of the forthcoming contagions of nurgle rules.
I dunno, at least the humble lasgun is actually better now against DG. Primaris psykers will help us deal those now unsaveable mortal wounds to them, which will be handy as long as they're not screened by poxwalkers. I'd expect the DG infantry to become quite expensive with the new additional wounds.
Bullgryn will be worse due to the flat 2 damage of their mauls, as will powerfists etc
Deepstrike denial with scout sentinels and Rein/Raus could be really important to slow them down, as could protecting from outflankers with cheap units along the flanks.
Shadowswords will be greatly improved against the new disgustingly resilient rule, not that many people are necessarily taking those. They'll be handy vs mortarion and plagueburst crawlers.
Edit: Armageddon Medusas (especially with Catachan) are now pretty nasty with their d6 damage in the new imperial armour compendium. Its basically like having stronger but shorter range lascannons that can fire with no LoS needed.
So, personal complaint, I tried to buy that compendium of forces book with all them thar forgeworld IG stuff in it so I could see the statline for the medusa today, and foudn out that GW stores don't carry it because "that's not our company, we only carry GW stuff."
My options are apparently to wait 55 years for it to be snailmailed out, because while its "not my company" the guy then quickly described how rough it is mailing things with everyone working overtime and doing extra shifts and still months and months behind.
Basically, the same guy then told me he was no cash in the store because his bank also refuses to allow him in the lobby, so he can't deposit or get change. (I would TEND to credit this if it were not also my own bank, 5 blocks away, adn I know they been open for about 5 months now despite covid.)
So I left feeling ill used, and no closer to knowing how a medusa works.
Seriously, GW is its own enemy sometimes.
So my idea of the day is to compare the effects of an artillery park as a whole -- 2 manticores with full payload seems to be de rigeur these days, but its not a full park. So I add in a basilisk cause I have one painted and then thought to myself that its a good synergy for cadians, who are naturally better at artillery than catachans or any of the extra die for shot count people. I know a lot of folk imagine catachan artillery to be better, but they are doing so in a vaccum, and fighting rarely happens in a vaccum. People slide into cover and behind it, and suddenly the many ineffective shots of catachans don't do so well. (I have done the math on this, and it boils down to cadians can spend CP to make their shooting more accurate, and more wounding, while catachans have very limited strategems to employ. So if you are going to do MORE than 2 manticores, the cadians quickly overpower the less accurate catachans and get something called an economy of scale in using CP to interlock fields of fire (or in using the relic to gain a lot of reroll power). Which leads me to posit that IF medusa are any good, that might be a decent and cost effective fourth gun in to round out the shooting.
A "shorter ranged, stronger non LOS lascannon" sounds nice if it can also be fired at 3+BS and reroll its 1's, of course.
Anyway, I plan on using this half of the army as the main grinder force troops stuff -- the way I always run cadians )(cause I am stubborn, have you ever met a gaurd player who wasn't?) with their grenades and missle launchers, orders passed out, and backed by the arty park. Then give a smaller force of scions to pinch hit as the alphastrikes.
What you folk think? Its not bullygrn and its not crusaders, but it seems / feels like it would still stand a chance if the artillery really is concentrated enough to bring down enemy troopkill pressure and to relieve the midboard.
Well, to answer your question on the manticore, I can give you a quick rundown.
*155pts
*Cannon is a demolisher cannon but with 12 more inches in range and it can do indirect fire now. D6 shots, d6 damage, you get the idea.
*Has same statline as a manticore as far as T, Sv, etc.
*Very little options, I don't even think you can give it a heavy flamer now
As far as how it looks competitively, I would say it looks good, but nowhere near a manticore as far as firepower. It's basically an antitank gun that ignores LOS. If for some reason artillery heavy guard turns out to be a really slick army, perhaps a mix of manticores, medusa, and wyverns could be good, covering all the bases. Emperor help you if someone tags you in combat or you can't fire for some reason though. I've got two that I want to try at some point, curious to see how they do.
As for Cadian vs Catachan, I despise d6 shot weapons without a reroll. Cadians have a 16% chance to fire one shot, Catachans have a 3% with the reroll. Yeah, I won't have quite as big swings when you're lucky and roll 4-5 shots with Cadians, but I can rely on my tanks to almost always roll average or higher for shots. Plus Catachans can still provide reroll 1's and make use of other artillery strats, while staying on the move, which is way more powerful than you'd expect with 12" of movement a turn. The Cadian trait, while powerful, really pushes you into gunline and sitting still, not necessarily a good idea in 9th. Not to mention you need to do a wound to the target to proc overlapping fields of fire, and the relic of Cadia only works for one turn. I get why you may prefer it, but I wouldn't take Cadian unless I had a high number of consistent shot weapons. In my experience I'd rather have a more consistent good unit than a unit that spikes between insane and "whelp, I guess I get one shot now". Given the manticores and medusa would ideally be aiming at hard targets with low model count, you can't rely on blast for them, so my only option is rerolls.
Especially for manticores, the ability to reroll a low die and keep a high one can really help them reliably get around 9-10 shots a turn for me. I would never trust a Cadian tank to do that with the consistency Catachans can.
I do know all that and had just hoped (sigh) that the medusa would shoot like a bigger basilisk, rather than like a single d6. I would be all over it if it was built in best of 2 shots. Or that it was doing 3+d3 per hit, I would be all over that, as well. But this is sort of not as good as a basilisk, I think with great sadness.
at 155 points for half a demolisher turret weapon's shots ... meh, I see one shot pinging off a marine stormshield and that's it. Will try it anyway... By "not a heavy flamer" do you mean there is a heavy bolter (only) baked into that 155? And thanks for the info. Guess I won't be running to order that book, this week after all. What a wierd world is ninth that I am looking at something that shoots essentially d6 lascannon shots indirect and saying "meh, it probably can't even kill infantry much at all, they are too tough for its low damage consistancy, I guess I need to use it to kill knights."
Seeing how every 9th Edi Codex seems to be getting some sort of "get this non-cumulative special rule this battle round" gimmick, what do you reckon is in store for us?
Personally, I'd like something that emphasizes the combined arms mass warfare of the Guard and represents those parts of the military that support your ground forces from beyond the immediate battlefield.
I'm thinking something like:
"Turn 1: Preparatory bombardment: Roll for each enemy unit, get MW on 6+"
"Turn 2: Strategic Air Recon - your VEHICLE units get +1 to hit"
"Turn 3: Tactical Air Recon - your INFANTRY units get +1 to hit"
"Turn 4: Air Strike targets identified - Roll for each enemy unit, get MW on 5+"
"Turn 5: Ammo restock deployed - all RANGED weapons profiles get +1 A on their weapons type"
Dukeofstuff wrote: How about this one to reduce thin the ranks? It may only have 3 vehicles, but they are pretty good ones.
Doomhammer.
Doomhammer.
DoomFreakishlyAnotherHammer 1260 points.
Then.
company commander
lord commisar yarrik (he gives doomhammers reroll 1's)
30 regular gaurd infantry with 3 melta and 3 heavy bolter
1 ministerium priests, 1 engenseers, 1 astropath
3 veteran squads with 9 plasma and 3 heavy bolter
So sure, you only have .. uh .. 98 thin the ranks, and 9 vehicle, and 5 psyker. So the enemy is left trying to kill all your officers for his best secondary.
But I bet its a fun as hell list to play (unless the terrain is depressingly like my last GT, and you can't go to the other sid eof the board at all.) DOOMHAMMMERS ... CHARRRRRRGE! *people often forget the doomhammer IS a melee unit. A 26 wound, 9 attack melee unit with a hell of a precharge softening up cannon.
I've put together a sisters/baneblades list related to this. Put in 3 banehammers, 6 sisters squads with 2 storm bolters each, 3imagifiers 2 hospitalers 2 cannoness.
Idea is the bane hammers roll in and slow/pin things down and delete while the sisters move up and turtle on objectives. It's my "hammer my sisters" list. Could be fun
How are Wyvern's viewed in the current game climate? I have a couple of wheeled griffions I was want to field because I really like the models and I feel they would work well as Wyverns, but I'm not sure how they will preform. Does their 4D6 shots and reroll wounds make up for their low Strength/AP?
Esmer wrote: Seeing how every 9th Edi Codex seems to be getting some sort of "get this non-cumulative special rule this battle round" gimmick, what do you reckon is in store for us?
Personally, I'd like something that emphasizes the combined arms mass warfare of the Guard and represents those parts of the military that support your ground forces from beyond the immediate battlefield.
I'm thinking something like:
"Turn 1: Preparatory bombardment: Roll for each enemy unit, get MW on 6+"
"Turn 2: Strategic Air Recon - your VEHICLE units get +1 to hit"
"Turn 3: Tactical Air Recon - your INFANTRY units get +1 to hit"
"Turn 4: Air Strike targets identified - Roll for each enemy unit, get MW on 5+"
"Turn 5: Ammo restock deployed - all RANGED weapons profiles get +1 A on their weapons type"
I guess for such a thing, I'd like to see several styles that tailor to different guard play style. Pure infantry, mech infantry, combined arms, infantry with heavy or super heavy support, etc.
Would take some effort to plot it all out well. I'd have to wonder if we'd get that much attention. As long as it has flexibility for play styles and doesn't channel guard to one particular style to optimize benefits.
Esmer wrote: Seeing how every 9th Edi Codex seems to be getting some sort of "get this non-cumulative special rule this battle round" gimmick, what do you reckon is in store for us?
Personally, I'd like something that emphasizes the combined arms mass warfare of the Guard and represents those parts of the military that support your ground forces from beyond the immediate battlefield.
I'm thinking something like:
"Turn 1: Preparatory bombardment: Roll for each enemy unit, get MW on 6+"
"Turn 2: Strategic Air Recon - your VEHICLE units get +1 to hit"
"Turn 3: Tactical Air Recon - your INFANTRY units get +1 to hit"
"Turn 4: Air Strike targets identified - Roll for each enemy unit, get MW on 5+"
"Turn 5: Ammo restock deployed - all RANGED weapons profiles get +1 A on their weapons type"
I guess for such a thing, I'd like to see several styles that tailor to different guard play style. Pure infantry, mech infantry, combined arms, infantry with heavy or super heavy support, etc.
Would take some effort to plot it all out well. I'd have to wonder if we'd get that much attention. As long as it has flexibility for play styles and doesn't channel guard to one particular style to optimize benefits.
A similar thing to what the Marines and Necrons have could be done - depending on your particular playstyle (vehicles, infantry, ordonance etc) one phase gets prolonged an additional turn, or gets an extra bonus for that particular turn etc.
The Superheavy Baneblade 'Eight' - how good are they? Any must takes? Any don't bothers?
I've always dreamed of owning one, and have decided to fulfil my dream this Xmas, so I'm curious.
I don't have one but from a purely theoretical point of view: under the current rules especially the CP tax for bringing one they all have a hard time being competetive compared to their weight in Leman Russes/Tank Commanders. The latter also can take orders and better tank aces.
From the eight I have the feeling the best are the Stormlord and Shadowsword, as long as there are good targets for those. The Stormlord has quite some d2 firepower that might come in handy when facing lots of Marines and its extended firing deck is really nice. The Shadowsword has a realistic chance to kill its points in one shooting round IF there is a titanic target, preferably without invulnerability save. And unfortunatly none of the eight will survive more than one round if someone wants them gone.
A note of caution though: what I said might be shaken up with the codex. If for example a brigade gets a superheavy slot or the superheavies get better tank aces/can be ordered, they might geh much more competetive. Or the pendulum swing the other way and the Shadowsword loses its titankilling ability.
Note that a stormlord's firepower is easy to buff (at least once) with old grudges, if you are worried about the mix having a valid enemy, you end up doing ok against big things. Not quite shadowswordlike, but it gets a lot of fire to try to go past shields.
Also, wyvern suck in the current meta, buy a 150 point valkyrie instead, which does as well antihorde but ALSO threatens marine and light armor assets while being a transport .. a transport that is 3 wounds more and -1 to be hit. I am not knocking wyvern, just that I seem to hit marine armies or necrons or sisters or other thigns they pretty much can't harm, about 3/4 the time.
Dukeofstuff wrote: Also, wyvern suck in the current meta, buy a 150 point valkyrie instead, which does as well antihorde but ALSO threatens marine and light armor assets while being a transport .. a transport that is 3 wounds more and -1 to be hit. I am not knocking wyvern, just that I seem to hit marine armies or necrons or sisters or other thigns they pretty much can't harm, about 3/4 the time.
I would think that Wyverns would be decent at clearing an opponent's chaff units that are babysitting their backfield objectives. Things like small Sisters squads, Nurglings, etc. that your other units either can't get LOS to or don't warrant using your precious Manticore shots on. Plus they would do terrible, terrible things to big units of Ork Boyz or Tyranid gaunts.
Of course, now that I think about it maybe it would be more points efficient to just take HWS with mortars for this kind of duty instead. Mortars have been nerfed since their heyday in the first half of 8th, but maybe they are still worth it for some non-LOS shooting? I hope so, I have 2 squads of them on my shelf.
I find Wyverns to be pretty significantly overpriced for what they bring to the table at the moment. Right now the name of the game seems to be heavy, durable infantry for mid-field objectives, and the Wyvern just won't do very much to T5, 3+ or 2+, 3W units. Every now and then, you'll get a match-up against a light infantry spam list like Tyranids or Orks or even a Guard mirror-match, and it will shine a little more in those situations.
I think that GW jacked the price up so high on them because they were worried about the potential damage increase from having 4x d6 blast weapons, but that hasn't really played out in the game as we're seeing it. Very few lists are taking blobs of 11+ light infantry models.
Hey guys, with the changes to Krieg im looking at adding in some more Codex units to my army. I have already picked up x3 Sentinels and im planning on taking them as Scout Sentinels with Lascannons and Hunter Killer Missiles to take advantage of the First Strike Stratagem. Would it be worth it to get more then x3 Sentinels?
I think it comes down to personal taste. My recommendation would be to play a game or two with your current 3 Sentinels, get a feeling if you like playing with them and get some use out of them. If yes: get 3 more.
Regarding your Lascannon+HK Missile Sentinel: I would recommend building those as Armored Sentinels or magnetize the roof (which is not really hard). With the mentioned armament they would tend to hang back and shoot instead of running forward, so the advantages of the Scout Sentinel (+1'' movement, Scout move and the Go Recon Order) would be kind of wasted on those. As armored Sentinels they would Profit from better armor and Deft Manoeuvering.
Scout Sentinels on the other hand seem to be pretty good either with Heavy flamers (because they are fast enough to get those into range ASAP) or Multilasers, to keep them as cheap as possible if you just want to use them as screen and maybe even charge stuff to bind it in CC.
I've got 3 armoured sentinels painted up, and have ordered 3 more. I have also ordered 6 scout sentinels (and 3 powerlifters! all proxy models).
I am probably not running all of them at once but I would like the option as I think they look really good units. Cheap scouts for a screen and some forward deployment, armoured with las or plas and hk for punch, and mixing in with infantry to hold objectives. Powerlifters as a counter-charge or even first turn charge threat (I know they are not in the codex but they are so cool and better than Bullgryn for my money).
gmaleron wrote: Hey guys, with the changes to Krieg im looking at adding in some more Codex units to my army. I have already picked up x3 Sentinels and im planning on taking them as Scout Sentinels with Lascannons and Hunter Killer Missiles to take advantage of the First Strike Stratagem. Would it be worth it to get more then x3 Sentinels?
Lascannons are wasted on Scout Sentinels, as they are likely not going to survive more than one round of enemy shooting. Maybe a single one will survive to achieve ObSec or Secondaries.
You should take the HK missiles though.
Definitely go armoured with that loadout! But really, just invest in a cheap hobby drill and some magnets and mag them all, would be my advice. I'm a fellow Krieg player with 3 sentinels, on the fenceon whether I need more too
note that I just glued a small piece of sprue to the Scout Sentinel roll cage to make it interchangeable with the armored roof. That was my first WH40k vehicle ever, so it's really not hard.
note that I just glued a small piece of sprue to the Scout Sentinel roll cage to make it interchangeable with the armored roof. That was my first WH40k vehicle ever, so it's really not hard.
Nice! I guess if the bits come in the box, use them all. I am loving the paint job also.
I wonder what the new codex will bring for sentinels? My wish would be for a 'Sentinel Commander' so they can form platoons and be issued orders. Maybe a special character in a sentinel (not sure if anything like this existed in previous editions?) oh and bring back jet bikes and landspeeders while they are at it.
I wish they would dump the current idea of tank commanders and replace with generic vehicle command as an upgrade.
You could still buy an elite version of the leman russ (but it should be expensive) .. only just cause its got its own +BS, doesn't mean it give sout orders.
Maybe limit the upgrade to 1 auxiliary vehicle (can be anything with vehicle in it) .. .cheap, and +1 order can be given to nearby units in 18 inch vox range.
Limit a second upgrade to 1 vehicle of at least 80 points value, cheap, but +2 orders can be given, to vehicels in the 18 inch vox window.
Have a one per side possible "warlord command tank" with various warlord powers. That tank has to have a transport capacity big enough to give up 6 models worth of transport stuff on commo gear, but could not just order a nearby unit, it would also have an aura warlord effect. These could come from a generic list of vehicular warlord traits or they could be faction specific. (For example, the cadian faciton specific warlord trait would allow all leman russ in a 9 inch bubble to reroll turret shot counts, while the tallarn faction specific warlord trait would allow vehicles to fire their hull weaponry instead of making melee attacks in the melee phase, the steel legion warlord trait would allow some sort of snarky character proteciton for steel legion infantry units (but only if equipped with voxes) near a chimera (until the chimera designated in the aura is killed, of course, and then you pick another one next command phase. It would basically mean the troops are coordinating with the chimera dynamically to use it for cover and concealment, dodging in and out of being targetable, whatever, without being crushed.)
It would be cool, potentially, to ahve your command sentinal passing an order out to the tank in front of it -- which makes that sentinal a character, and thus character protcted as under 10 wounds. So suddenly you have a sentinal as a possible commander, who can issue an order to your combat vehicle and follow it across the board. Or stuff.
I dunno, this is just an off the cuff idea I just am having, it lacks refinement but has some merit.
Sounds interesting, and I agree something needs to change with Tank Commanders as to me they are pretty lame fluff-wise in the fact you can take them on their own and have them order themselves about.
I have faith that GW will drop an interesting codex for Guard. For its time the 8e codex was interesting and competitive without being unbalanced. Looking forward to them kicking the crutches out and reworking the faction's balance. It really needs it.
Studying what happened to krieg's stormtroops, I predict (somewhat morosely) ...
the good.
Cheaper tank commanders
the bad
BS4+ tank commanders that are not core.
It would be nice if they really leant into the Ace abilities, perhaps paying points instead of CP.
I would be okay with Tank Commanders being BS4 if all tanks had the option of buying an "Expert Gunner" for BS3, or similar.
Afterall, the best gunners didn't necessarily go the platoon/company commander's tank.
Speaking about what might come in a new codex, is there anything that could be done to make regular Ogryn useable? I want to field my regular ones, but the way they are currently, they're probably one of, if not the, worst unit in the codex
Imperial armor faq is out right off the bat noticed this
Change the first sentence to read:
‘The bearer can be selected to shoot with if it is within Engagement
Range of any enemy units and can make attacks with its Cyclops
demolition charge when doing so. When this unit is selected to
shoot with its Cyclops demolition charge, you must target and
resolve attacks against every other visible unit within range
(friendly and enemy), even if those units are within Engagement
Range of models from a unit from the opposing side.’
I don't remember cyclops being able to "fire" in combat before, so that's pretty cool.
Also DKOK rider captains can give orders to cavalry and infantry now, so your cavalry can fix bayonets now
@ Ogryns: note that as long as they can shoot before charging in they are better than Bullgryns against W1 models or models with -1 Damage like the new deathguard
Math:
Ogryn and Bullgryns get the same # of Attacks, same WS, same AP, just the strength and damage differ and damage doesn't matter against said targets. Bullgryns have better strenght, but Ogryns get 3 S5 AP 0 shots each.
which comes down to (assuming one charging Ogryn/Bullgryn with 4 attacks):
T3, W1, 5+ (Guardsmen): Bullgryn 1.852, Ogryn: 2.148
T3, W1, 4+ (Firewariors, Scions): Bullgryn 1.481, Ogryn: 1.685
T3, W1, 3+ (Sisters): Bullgryns: 1.111 Ogryns: 1.222
T4, W2, 3+, -1 damage (new Deathguard): Bullgryns 0.888, Ogryns: 1.222
=> Deathguard is damage done, the others are models killed.
It's a niche use, but it is there. Note that the calculation is on a per model basis while Ogryns only cost ~70% of a Bullgryn, so against said targets the balance is even more in their favor.
Edit: I ignored any thrown Grenades, but as both units can throw them I assume they won't change much about the general point.
Do you factor in those times when the charge doesn't come off? So Ogryns shoot but Bullgryns don't and neither fights. Could be another tick in the plus column for them.
Add in the mortal wound strategem for them - which could put a big dent in a small unit so the melee isn't so important - being better value per point, and I think you got a solid case for Ogryns.
This makes me think about the 'how to clear 20 necron off an objective' question a couple of pages ago, and I reckon 9 ogryns with 2 cp (grenadier and mortal wound strategems) could do it in one turn. Too late to do the mathhammer now, i've had a couuple of beers.
No I assumed for the comparison that all charges succeed and no one is lost to overwatch. So as you say: the favors are slightly more on the side of the Ogryns
Regarding the Necron Math:
20 Necron Warriors = 260 points, T4,W1,4+
1 Pack of 9 Ogryns: 270 points.
27 shots => 4.5 dead warriors
(or use "Grenadiers" for 54 shots => 6.75 dead warriors)
Furious charge => 4.5 dead warriors
37 CC attacs => 11 dead warriors.
Moral phase => 1 model definitly flees
Combat attrition => further models flee
So indead on average rolls and under the assumption that they do their charge those 9 Ogryn clear the 20 Necron Warriors (21 to be exact, so even slightly below average rolls are enough) EDIT: for roughly the same points. If one manages to put a priest nearby they even overkill a bit, so that subaverage rolls should still succeed.
Huh, interesting. I guess the reservations I have for ogryn is their terrible save and the fact that people are kitting out specifically to kill 3 wound models with marines lately, not mention the fact that ogryn don't seem to be very good at killing marines either.
That first one is the biggest one, there's a lot of weapons that will absolutely melt ogryn and there really isn't a way to get them across the table safely. I guess you can take cover and pyschic barrier for a 3+ but at that point why not just take Bullgryn? Although hearing "ogryn are great as long as you don't fight marines" feels a bit iffy when marines are probably the most common enemy in the game between chaos and loyalist versions once they all get 2w.
Yeaaaaah, regular Ogryn are in a weird spot where they don't really fill a niche anywhere in the Guard book atm. Bullgryn do a better job anchoring a flank, including surviving longer and putting out more damage output than regular Ogryn. I feel like regular Ogryn should have more offensive capability rather than their current weird mishmash of mediocre shooting alongside chaff-clearing CC ability.
What about using them as a screen, while many armies are setting up to deal with 3W marines, they would force a choice or Ogryn or tanks. They are tougher then many other screening options and will still be a threat. You'll save a few points from Bullgryn and their effectiveness sounds to still be on par due to their better shooting even if you don't get into CC
Random (kinda stupid but fun sounding) idea, how about outflank them with Tallarn Stratagem? Have them pop in from reserve to get them in the back?
They ain't tallarn. So its not exactly easy to pull off, you need a tallarn transport to outflank them, and if its smaller than a baneblade, they will be at most 4 of the, which isn't that pressing a threat given their fragility.
Course, it might let you outflank a baneblade with an actual melee threat in it as a disposable asset set and keep the cost down, too. That's a new thought, I think. Something like a doomhammer or stormsword with 8 to 10 of them, and a priest...
Unless you meant strategic reserves, whcih I don't like as much as the tallarn trick. That maybe is doable, too.
The biggest issue is their survivability in comparison to Bullgryns. Though their damage output is on par or better against some targets (basically 1-wound chaff models and the new Plague Marines), Bullgryns just survive so much better with their 2+ or 4++, and also get more out of defensive buffs like the Take Cover stratagem or Psychic Barrier. I do think that potentially increasing their offensive output would be a good option, so that players would have a real choice between the harder-to-kill Bullgryns or the do-a-lot-of-damage Ogryns, but at the moment that's not the case.
What I would really like to see, though, is an increased Wound characteristic. Back in the day, they had 3 wounds to Terminators' 1 wound. Now Terminators have 3 wounds and we're still at 3 as well. I feel like Ogryns/Bullgryns could easily go up to 4 or possibly even 5 wounds with either no points increase or a very minimal one. Alternatively, an increase to toughness 6 isn't too crazy, or potentially a damage-ignoring effect like the new Plague Marines and Dreadnoughts.
I am going to try mine in a CRASSUS and see how it goes. It looks okay to me for 240 points now. 4 heavy bolters, and those adantium tracks could do some damage to marines (charging in with the Crush Them! strat).
Bringing one Titanic model may tempt my opponent to take Titan Slayer for an easy 10 points but then they miss out on Bring it Down against what I plan to be a Sentinel- heavy list.
PaddyMick wrote: I am going to try mine in a CRASSUS and see how it goes. It looks okay to me for 240 points now. 4 heavy bolters, and those adantium tracks could do some damage to marines (charging in with the Crush Them! strat).
Bringing one Titanic model may tempt my opponent to take Titan Slayer for an easy 10 points but then they miss out on Bring it Down against what I plan to be a Sentinel- heavy list.
That's the issue with ogryn though. The point is they're cheaper, so theoretically you get more. But you need a transport to get them there, so you end up spending more. It's frustrating, they're an iconic unit and I'd like to see them run. But as it sits they just can't survive in the open, which is supposed to be their job. The only thing I can think of to make them work is to just completely double down and take 27 of them and then saturate the board harder with Bullgryn as well, but even that doesn't work because the ogryn get hit with anti infantry thanks to their garbage save while AT targets Bullgryn. Ogryn just don't have a unit they saturate with very well. Bullgryn line up great with other tanks, but what do ogryn line up with? All guardsmen just means anything multi damage will splat the ogryn. All tanks, the enemy anti infantry shoots the ogryn because it has nothing else to do. Try to do a mix and odds are opponent just picks off your good units and ignore the ogryn till they need a kill point.
I just don't see a niche they fill for now and with us being on the backfoot every unit needs to have a clear and useful purpose to be in a list. An unfocused unit like ogryn just doesn't line up with that.
Thanks for your thoughts and I get the points you are making. I agree with everyone that their lack of durability is a big issue, and would like to see some changes in the new codex.
One counter-point I do want to make though is that the transport is not worthless in itself and need not be just a points drain. Say you took 8 orgyns, a priest and an infantry squad to ride in the CRASSUS - after the Ogryns and priest jump and out and get stuck in, the infantry stay in and the transport goes and sits on an objective and becomes a non-threatening, durable holder (same wounds as 2 chimeras with better toughness).
Dukeofstuff wrote: They ain't tallarn. So its not exactly easy to pull off, you need a tallarn transport to outflank them, and if its smaller than a baneblade, they will be at most 4 of the, which isn't that pressing a threat given their fragility..
Doh, I keep forgetting that they don't get the regimental key word.
Consider how much MORE worthless they are now.
Deathgaurd is about to put -1 toughness on everything in melee range. T4 bullygrn are at least still shielded, but t4 orgyn???
Regarding the staying power: just mathing around a bit:
As mentioned above for the price of 2 Bullgryn you get 3 Ogryns. Just running the numbers how many hits you need on average to kill both (B1=2 Bullgryn with slabshields (2+), B2= 2 Bullgryn with Brute shields (4++), O = 3 Ogryns (5+))
So absolutely yes: There seems to be no situation were those three Ogryns tank more fire than their weight in Slabshield Bullgryns. And only against AP 0 they are slightly sturdier than Brute shield Bullgryns.
I think the only things they have going for them: while Bullgryns might sometimes fail their charge, Ogryns at least fire their guns. And it is a bit cheaper to put a 9 of them together to have maximum use out of furious charge. I don't say that is efficient, just that from a theoretical point of view those are slight advantages.
Pyroalchi wrote: Regarding the staying power: just mathing around a bit:
As mentioned above for the price of 2 Bullgryn you get 3 Ogryns. Just running the numbers how many hits you need on average to kill both (B1=2 Bullgryn with slabshields (2+), B2= 2 Bullgryn with Brute shields (4++), O = 3 Ogryns (5+))
So absolutely yes: There seems to be no situation were those three Ogryns tank more fire than their weight in Slabshield Bullgryns. And only against AP 0 they are slightly sturdier than Brute shield Bullgryns.
I think the only things they have going for them: while Bullgryns might sometimes fail their charge, Ogryns at least fire their guns. And it is a bit cheaper to put a 9 of them together to have maximum use out of furious charge. I don't say that is efficient, just that from a theoretical point of view those are slight advantages.
I really appreciate you breaking down the math there! So the real question I think... Is it worth taking Ogryns to do slightly more damage in a few select circumstances, even though they will pretty much always lack the survivability of Bullgyns? I think at the moment the answer is no. Granted, I still take them in some games because I have 5 of the old metal Ogryn models that I love, and occasionally they do fun things.
Oh yeah taking certain units can be fun and cool. I have an Executioner tank I run with a ridiculous loadout because it's my first Russ and is known to be stupidly lucky, but I wouldn't recommend it in a tactics thread because mathwise it's not that great on paper. This is the tactics thread so we have to be brutally honest about if a unit is good or not. Unless you exactly know what your opponent is running, ogryn are just too vulnerable to a variety of situations to beat out Bullgryn.
I'm not really sure how you fix ogryn either. They're meant to be a beefy shock unit for busting open an enemy line, but Bullgryn already do that that and do it quite well while being durable. The only idea I can think of is make them a glass cannon, buff the guns and their melee so that the equivalent points of ogryn does a ton of damage compared to Bullgryn, but lacks the staying power. Even then you wouldn't really see people run them because they're slow, but they could have niche uses from reserve and chimeras, similar to SWS, CCS, and stormtroopers
Mortian has some pretty cool Ogryn sculpts with all manners of heavy weapons. And I think that would be a potential niche. Give them access to Lascannons, heavy flamers, heavy bolters, etc. As platform they would be in between Sentinels and HWS/Servitors in sturdiness. While the same price as Sentinels and squishier they could be taken in larger groups and rose transports and I think (!) It would give them a role again.
Also it would not be too hard to kitbash as one usually has heavy weapons spare from HWS.
Ogryn's problem is that they made Bullgryns to do the same thing, just better.
Ogryn's probably need to lean into the ranged part, it's the only thing bullgryns don't do better.
Give them heavy bolters and heavy flamers and stuff. A close range volley from Ogryns, perhaps followed by a charge should do more damage than a Bullgryn charge, particularly against light-medium infantry.
Bullgryns on the other flipside should have the upper hand when it comes to staying power and damage against heavier targets like Terminators.
MrMoustaffa wrote: Oh yeah taking certain units can be fun and cool. I have an Executioner tank I run with a ridiculous loadout because it's my first Russ and is known to be stupidly lucky, but I wouldn't recommend it in a tactics thread because mathwise it's not that great on paper.
Do you refer to the specific load-out or the Executioner in general?
Because I'd always take the Executioner over the Battle Cannon-against melee/short-range/mind-range MEQ armies.
Executioners aren't terrible, particularly if buffed with reroll 1s.
The D2 can be particularly useful against MEQs, and 36" isn't that short on the new table size.
I rate them as third-best choice for the Russ, after punisher and demolisher. They've taken a bit of a hit due to dense terrain rules but if you can draw a bead on marines and get reroll 1s then it's gravy.
MrMoustaffa wrote: Oh yeah taking certain units can be fun and cool. I have an Executioner tank I run with a ridiculous loadout because it's my first Russ and is known to be stupidly lucky, but I wouldn't recommend it in a tactics thread because mathwise it's not that great on paper.
Do you refer to the specific load-out or the Executioner in general?
Because I'd always take the Executioner over the Battle Cannon-against melee/short-range/mind-range MEQ armies.
My loadout is tank commander with plasma sponsons and a lascannon. It absolutely shreds things because it always rolls an absurd amount of hits. Back in blast rules days it would typically land 20-30 hits, nowadays with blasts it tends to roll around 15-16 shots on average and hits almost every time. That's not average for what it should be obviously, but I've seen it one shot repulsors, entire squads of gravis infantry, thundercav, you name it.
If I look at it purely objectively, it pales compared to a naked Demolisher cannon command tank if we look at damage done. And I run demolisher commanders a lot so I'm quite familiar with how powerful they are. Like I said the Executioner just seems to be lucky.
Is the Battle Cannon not considered good anymore? I was under the impression that it used to be considered one of the best choices, at least until they buffed Demolishers.
ZergSmasher wrote: Is the Battle Cannon not considered good anymore? I was under the impression that it used to be considered one of the best choices, at least until they buffed Demolishers.
I think the battle cannon was only ever mandatory for the hammer of sunderance, and now that most games exclude specialist detachments, it's not strong enough to compete against the demolisher with the smaller tables and the crucial S10 and higher damage output against multi wound models like gravis.
ZergSmasher wrote: Is the Battle Cannon not considered good anymore? I was under the impression that it used to be considered one of the best choices, at least until they buffed Demolishers.
I would recommend it:
A) against ranged combat enemies
B) against light-armored enemies
C) when playing on large table sizes
D) on normal Leman Russes
So, it's still pretty versatile. I'd say it's the best generalist choice for a naked non-TC Russ staying in your hinterland.
By comparison, Executioner and Demolisher will be better if:
A) playing against close-range to mid-range enemies
B) playing against MEQ and TEQ C) taken by a Tank Commander
MrMoustaffa wrote: Oh yeah taking certain units can be fun and cool. I have an Executioner tank I run with a ridiculous loadout because it's my first Russ and is known to be stupidly lucky, but I wouldn't recommend it in a tactics thread because mathwise it's not that great on paper.
Do you refer to the specific load-out or the Executioner in general?
Because I'd always take the Executioner over the Battle Cannon-against melee/short-range/mind-range MEQ armies.
My loadout is tank commander with plasma sponsons and a lascannon.
The las cannon is probably a bit much, but other than that, I'd say an all Plasma TC is a great choice against MEQ and TEQ. If you're already shooting with overcharged Plasma from the Turret, might as well fire 3-4 more shots with the same weapon from the sponsons.
BC's big advantage is using distance to buy an extra round of unmolested firing. That's lost in the current edition more times than not. In tradeoff less AP (even gaurd starts to make saves well when in cover, much less terminators) and its less damage means 2W (much less 3W) models are going to soak a lot of shots that are 1W only.
Plasma's 2W gives you solid consistancy against intercessers and even against 3W stuff, cause a lot of that is also deathball/feel no pain and the fourth point offsets that a lot.
The demo cannon makes for quite a strong marine killer in all classes, but especialy if you can sucker someone into putting transhuman where YOU would want it.
Deathballs usually get an apothecary boost (feel no pain, heals) .. but incursors out at an objective don't. They also usually don't get the favored transhuman treatment. These are the places that the battle cann's lackluster damage and penetration of marine armor + cover - 2 = 4+ saves casue it to end up killing half or less than the demo or plasma.
So you can kill 1 or 2 in the dathball -- or plasma down whole squads everywhere else, strip enemy board control from this small, elite army, and use your superior numbers of cheap troops to swim in and steal victory points left and right.
