Martel732 wrote: Do slots even matter, really? It's just about points for me.
Admittedly probably not unless doing a brigade. I’ve been debating on swapping mine back down. Basically it’s trapping me into taking 2 attack bikes and 1 heavy slot I’m not wild about, but going down to 2 battalions meaning converting all those points straight into an HQ (not that Id mind another smash) and cost 3cps. 2 for the brigade and 1 for having to use the 2cp assassin instead of 1cp slot. Even granting that vanilla marines don’t have the best strats, giving up 3 cps for smash cap vs same points in units doesn’t seem like the best return.
Stalkers are pretty nice for filling a brigade. So are the new suppressors. Especially for BA. For any vanilla that might want to punch, suppressors are boss.
Yeah, if I had like 100 more points (dang assassin being too good to skip :p) it’d work out perfectly. I would change the bikes to suppressors. If you saw my post above I was definitely eyeing the Stalker, there’s plenty of fly targets around. Until I build one I’m gonna try the Thunderfire though, I have no source of indirect fire otherwise and those brigade cps mean I can always use the strat.
Martel732 wrote: Indirect fire is powerful. Thunderfire is another of that 10% divergence for ba. Whirlwind isnt terrible if you pretend ig doesnt exist.
Spacemarine codex doesn't look soo bad if your pretending IG doesn't exist.
No, it's still bad. Just some options look much better because IG basically has monopoly on effective ignore LoS. As good as hive guard are, they are not catahcan manticores.
Martel732 wrote: Do slots even matter, really? It's just about points for me.
Not for elites. Battalions give you 6 elites.
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Martel732 wrote: Stalkers are pretty nice for filling a brigade. So are the new suppressors. Especially for BA. For any vanilla that might want to punch, suppressors are boss.
Suppressors are really nice. Better than I expected. Their height is actually an advantage. Can't hide from these guys. They are also great for holding back line. I really wish they were HS though. Stalkers are good but I would much rather fill HS with suppressors. Eliminators are okay too I guess - they just don't fit into my builds.
Figure 4 Supressors is about the cost of a quad autocannon venerable. So not quite as good shooting, but more mobile and gives another much needed FA option. And the overwatch prevention would be useful in a more assault list.
I keep waffling on the Eliminators. At first I was thinking they’d be quite useful since you get sniping and ignore cover in 1 unit, but then realized at their cost they kinda waste the sniper power as you roll too few dice to fish for mortals and too few to likely do much thru walls. They’re great to prevent an opponent hiding a char with 1w left out of sight, but don’t seem like near as good general case damage for the points as I first hoped.
Yeah, that’s my point, the regular Los sniper shot is decent, but worse than scout snipers cause you only get half the mortal wounds. Then the ignore los shot does less damage. Getting them both in 1 unit is nice, but neither half is all that great.
bort wrote: Yeah, that’s my point, the regular Los sniper shot is decent, but worse than scout snipers cause you only get half the mortal wounds. Then the ignore los shot does less damage. Getting them both in 1 unit is nice, but neither half is all that great.
Yeah, and you're looking at 72 points for a minimum strength unit right? Doesn't really seem to add up honestly. I haven't gotten any yet, waiting to see what the kit looks like. the models so far are worth buying on looks alone though.
Getting my ass kicked by Tau. (sorry for the long post...)
I've played mostly against a Tau army and after several crushing or clear defeats its starting to see like we (my army) have no answers for them.
We've been playing missions from the rulebook and Chapter Aproved. I'm using Raven Guard chapter tactics. My forces roughly:
- Captain (or 2). The other captain has been a terminator captain deepstricking with 2 terminator units.
- Liutenant (or 2)
- sometimes a techmarine to repair dreadnoughts
- 3 scout squads with bolters
- 2-3 intercessor squads
- 2 x devastator squad (lascannon/missile launcher + heavy bolter)
- 0-2 hellblaster squads with the heavy version
- Reiver squad deep striking
- Terminators and sometimes assault terminators
- Venerable Dread with twin lascannon and missile launcher
- Dreadnought with assault cannon and CCW - Aggressors with bolt weapon
- Stormhawk Interceptor with assault cannons, skyhammer missiles and icarus storm cannon
Tau forces roughly
- Small detachment from different sept than the rest of the army. They are markerlight users:
- Cadre Fireblade and 3 marksmen guys with (Sa'sea? sept) re-rolls to ther markerlighst
- Cadre Fireblade (going with bunch of fire warriors)
- Coldstar Commander (flying where ever he wants)
- 2 x Riptides (accompanied by 10-15 shield drones, so I can't even touch the battle suits with my big guns because all of the drones have to be killed first)
- Broadside sometimes
- Ghostkeel
- 2 units of those smaller stealth suits
- 6 guys with Crisis suits deep striking (accompanied with some drones)
- about 3 units of fire warriors
- some drone units
Situation at the end of the 1st battle round: "This does not look good."
Situation at the end of the 2nd battle round: "The battle has been decided."
After 3rd round: "Lets see who is the last marine to get killed today"
Main problems:
- Tau firepower. Riptides at the forefront are just deleting my units like flies
- The survivability of the Tau. Battlesuits with their invulnerable saves and shield drones make them really hard to kill.
- Speed and board control. Stealth suits start all over the field and those other battlesuits move with pretty good speed.
- "Tau are bad in close combat", they said. Even IF I manage to get to CC with them, the overall overwatch is just brutal. WHEN my turn ends the battlesuits just fly away from CC and shoot my guys to bits. And my guys even aren't that special in combat anyways!
So, I know my army isn't a tournament force and it doesn't have to be, but atleast I would like to put up a fight against them. All tips are welcomed Is there any hope for us? What is/are the magic units I'm missing?
Tau are like a video game boss in the way they must be approached.
This is exactly what I think about them.
They are perfectly beatable, however just not with marines for the most part. Though that could be said about most codex's when your using pure marines as your base.
Nids, guard & eldar do fine vrs tau heck even soup does well vrs Tau. GSC are nasty to them,marines just haven't got the right tools.
Ehhh. Tau are straight busted. Broadsides just put out too much firepower and benfit from -1ap upgrade way too much. It would be okay if you could kill them but when you have to chew through 30+ drones first...just forget it. The drone intercept needs to be like a 4+ not a 2+ and Sniper abilities need to completely ignore them. The drone should also have to be in LOS to protect the unit you are shooting.
Xenomancers wrote: Ehhh. Tau are straight busted. Broadsides just put out too much firepower and benfit from -1ap upgrade way too much. It would be okay if you could kill them but when you have to chew through 30+ drones first...just forget it. The drone intercept needs to be like a 4+ not a 2+ and Sniper abilities need to completely ignore them. The drone should also have to be in LOS to protect the unit you are shooting.
Marines can not win a fair fight against tau.
Again savour protocols arn't exactlly OP, just marines as they should lore wise loose a shooting war with Tau.
They also loose a shoot out with guard and heck they even loose a shooting war with Drukari.
That's not a problem with saviour protocols it's marine shooting being poor and having 0 melee ability outside of smash captains.
Funny enough guard, eldar of both colours, GSC and soup do plenty well enough against Tau which indicates that they aren't the problem, marines just not bringing worthwhile rules is.
Xenomancers wrote: Ehhh. Tau are straight busted. Broadsides just put out too much firepower and benfit from -1ap upgrade way too much. It would be okay if you could kill them but when you have to chew through 30+ drones first...just forget it. The drone intercept needs to be like a 4+ not a 2+ and Sniper abilities need to completely ignore them. The drone should also have to be in LOS to protect the unit you are shooting.
Marines can not win a fair fight against tau.
Again savour protocols arn't exactlly OP, just marines as they should lore wise loose a shooting war with Tau.
They also loose a shoot out with guard and heck they even loose a shooting war with Drukari.
That's not a problem with saviour protocols it's marine shooting being poor and having 0 melee ability outside of smash captains.
Funny enough guard, eldar of both colours, GSC and soup do plenty well enough against Tau which indicates that they aren't the problem, marines just not bringing worthwhile rules is.
Ehhh - they are OP agains the weapons you need to kill their 2+ save units in cover. Intercepting shots against weapons which tend to have only few shots is OP. Also their intercept ability working out of LOS is particularly busted because that means you can't use effective weapons on the drones. It becomes very quickly a game you can't even possibly win without a good portion of your army having ignore LOS. Plus its not like Shield drones are easy to kill ether. 3+ in cover and 4++ and a 5+++ at all times. I've fired 2 WW and a thunderfire cannon into them before only to watch them make a bunch of 4+ 5+++ which basically means the rest of my army is doing practically nothing.
The only way you can assault a tau fort realistically is to have an ignore overwatch ability which is particularly rare. So that isn't a viable way to beat them ether (where it really should be their weakness)
Xenomancers wrote: Ehhh. Tau are straight busted. Broadsides just put out too much firepower and benfit from -1ap upgrade way too much. It would be okay if you could kill them but when you have to chew through 30+ drones first...just forget it. The drone intercept needs to be like a 4+ not a 2+ and Sniper abilities need to completely ignore them. The drone should also have to be in LOS to protect the unit you are shooting.
Marines can not win a fair fight against tau.
Again savour protocols arn't exactlly OP, just marines as they should lore wise loose a shooting war with Tau.
They also loose a shoot out with guard and heck they even loose a shooting war with Drukari.
That's not a problem with saviour protocols it's marine shooting being poor and having 0 melee ability outside of smash captains.
Funny enough guard, eldar of both colours, GSC and soup do plenty well enough against Tau which indicates that they aren't the problem, marines just not bringing worthwhile rules is.
Ehhh - they are OP agains the weapons you need to kill their 2+ save units in cover. Intercepting shots against weapons which tend to have only few shots is OP. Also their intercept ability working out of LOS is particularly busted because that means you can't use effective weapons on the drones. It becomes very quickly a game you can't even possibly win without a good portion of your army having ignore LOS. Plus its not like Shield drones are easy to kill ether. 3+ in cover and 4++ and a 5+++ at all times. I've fired 2 WW and a thunderfire cannon into them before only to watch them make a bunch of 4+ 5+++ which basically means the rest of my army is doing practically nothing.
The only way you can assault a tau fort realistically is to have an ignore overwatch ability which is particularly rare. So that isn't a viable way to beat them ether (where it really should be their weakness)
Except your not listening again.
Do marines have the tools to beat Tau NO.
Does that make Tau OP like you claim NO.
Does it highlight that marines suck yes.
You know what kills drones good MW, Weight of dice & ILOS.
You know what kills battle suits well, dissy cannons, MW spam, Battlecannons, raw weight of dice.
T5 doesn't matter against massed S3
Marines just don't have any of the above that doesn't automatically make other armies OP.
Jesus by that logic everything outide of 1W power armour is OP.
ILOS is exceptionally rare unless you are playing Imperial guard. Mortal wounds are mostly ignored by having screening units. Weight of dice is countered by 2+ saves. It seems like you are ignoring the real issue here. Being unable to target the units you need with the weapons you need to is pretty unbalanced in a game that is essentially 90% tactically about target priority.
Oddly enough - space marines have some unique ability to apply mortal wounds to units through screens with line breaker bombardment...unfortunately the ability is too short ranged and dependent on going first it doesn't work.
Regardless - there are plenty of armies that don't have real ILOS options...that makes drones OP and in essence makes tau OP.
Eldar do well against tau because tau can't deal witrh -2 to hit...(almost no one can)
Guard do well against tau for obvious reasons (ILOS for days) Plus they outrange most of their super shooty units with their own super shooty units.
Nids are actually terrible against gaurd. They don't even need drones to beat nids. They are practically immune to their assault units and 2+ saves in cover nids can not deal with. At least not after turn 1 Kuyoun wipes out everything in your army that shoots competently.
One of the biggest problems with Tau right now in my opinion is Darkstrider and Shadowsun. The Tau can just spam the gak out of Riptides and infantry, and you can't ever kill the Riptides because they always have a 3+ invuln save (which Knights can't get anymore how come Riptides get it?) and you can't engage them in close combat either.
Darkstrider is the most undercosted, overloaded model in the game. He has so many ridiculous abilities that break this game. If you somehow manage to engage Tau in melee despite the hitting on 5s rerolling 1s and all kinds of other bs, you can hit them, maybe even kill them, tie units up, but guess what! IM STILL SHOOTING YOU AFTER I DISENGAGE!!!! BECAUSE DARKSTRIDER IS STANDING THERE!!!
Darkstrider is the most undercosted, overloaded model in the game. He has so many ridiculous abilities that break this game. If you somehow manage to engage Tau in melee despite the hitting on 5s rerolling 1s and all kinds of other bs, you can hit them, maybe even kill them, tie units up, but guess what! IM STILL SHOOTING YOU AFTER I DISENGAGE!!!! BECAUSE DARKSTRIDER IS STANDING THERE!!!
I mean, you do play Imperium, there is a good bit of access to snipers. Darkstrider is almost the perfect target.
There must surely be a space marine codex coming very soon? So many units not included in the book now and even more on the way.
All the stuff from shadow spear plus we also have the new repulsor tank destroyer and a new iron hands Primaris guy too. Even if it's just a second edition like chaos got?
ultimentra wrote: One of the biggest problems with Tau right now in my opinion is Darkstrider and Shadowsun. The Tau can just spam the gak out of Riptides and infantry, and you can't ever kill the Riptides because they always have a 3+ invuln save (which Knights can't get anymore how come Riptides get it?) and you can't engage them in close combat either.
Darkstrider is the most undercosted, overloaded model in the game. He has so many ridiculous abilities that break this game. If you somehow manage to engage Tau in melee despite the hitting on 5s rerolling 1s and all kinds of other bs, you can hit them, maybe even kill them, tie units up, but guess what! IM STILL SHOOTING YOU AFTER I DISENGAGE!!!! BECAUSE DARKSTRIDER IS STANDING THERE!!!
And he's how many points? With how many wounds?
Insanity.
Tau need a huge nerf. HUGE.
Your complaining because you can't kill 5 (Toughness 3)wounds with a 5+ Sv because he has a sudo fly aura.
Jesus I know marines are bad but that's just showing that your list is terrible.
Rogerio134134 wrote: There must surely be a space marine codex coming very soon? So many units not included in the book now and even more on the way.
All the stuff from shadow spear plus we also have the new repulsor tank destroyer and a new iron hands Primaris guy too. Even if it's just a second edition like chaos got?
Undoubtedly on the way.
Some rumours point to vehicles getting a chapter tactic as well.
But will it simply be a Primaris codex or another full marine release? It's already a bloated book - I wish they would simply consolidate data sheets wherever possible.
Darkstrider is the most undercosted, overloaded model in the game. He has so many ridiculous abilities that break this game. If you somehow manage to engage Tau in melee despite the hitting on 5s rerolling 1s and all kinds of other bs, you can hit them, maybe even kill them, tie units up, but guess what! IM STILL SHOOTING YOU AFTER I DISENGAGE!!!! BECAUSE DARKSTRIDER IS STANDING THERE!!!
I mean, you do play Imperium, there is a good bit of access to snipers. Darkstrider is almost the perfect target.
ultimentra wrote: One of the biggest problems with Tau right now in my opinion is Darkstrider and Shadowsun. The Tau can just spam the gak out of Riptides and infantry, and you can't ever kill the Riptides because they always have a 3+ invuln save (which Knights can't get anymore how come Riptides get it?) and you can't engage them in close combat either.
Darkstrider is the most undercosted, overloaded model in the game. He has so many ridiculous abilities that break this game. If you somehow manage to engage Tau in melee despite the hitting on 5s rerolling 1s and all kinds of other bs, you can hit them, maybe even kill them, tie units up, but guess what! IM STILL SHOOTING YOU AFTER I DISENGAGE!!!! BECAUSE DARKSTRIDER IS STANDING THERE!!!
And he's how many points? With how many wounds?
Insanity.
Tau need a huge nerf. HUGE.
Your complaining because you can't kill 5 (Toughness 3)wounds with a 5+ Sv because he has a sudo fly aura.
Jesus I know marines are bad but that's just showing that your list is terrible.
They have a 4+ save and put out 3 str 5 shots at 15" next to a fireblade. The point is after you assault a tau army - you should be winning - because you took a lot of fire to get there. Currently tau are basically immune to assault. They dont even need darkstrider - however - dark strider would make it even harder to beat tau with melle units.
My apologies for not playing my toy soldiers the correct way. I dont use a static gunline. I have cyborgs wearing red robes for that, and they do it better. Thank you for backing me up Xenomancer.
Darkstrider is the most undercosted, overloaded model in the game. He has so many ridiculous abilities that break this game. If you somehow manage to engage Tau in melee despite the hitting on 5s rerolling 1s and all kinds of other bs, you can hit them, maybe even kill them, tie units up, but guess what! IM STILL SHOOTING YOU AFTER I DISENGAGE!!!! BECAUSE DARKSTRIDER IS STANDING THERE!!!
I mean, you do play Imperium, there is a good bit of access to snipers. Darkstrider is almost the perfect target.
ultimentra wrote: One of the biggest problems with Tau right now in my opinion is Darkstrider and Shadowsun. The Tau can just spam the gak out of Riptides and infantry, and you can't ever kill the Riptides because they always have a 3+ invuln save (which Knights can't get anymore how come Riptides get it?) and you can't engage them in close combat either.
Darkstrider is the most undercosted, overloaded model in the game. He has so many ridiculous abilities that break this game. If you somehow manage to engage Tau in melee despite the hitting on 5s rerolling 1s and all kinds of other bs, you can hit them, maybe even kill them, tie units up, but guess what! IM STILL SHOOTING YOU AFTER I DISENGAGE!!!! BECAUSE DARKSTRIDER IS STANDING THERE!!!
And he's how many points? With how many wounds?
Insanity.
Tau need a huge nerf. HUGE.
Your complaining because you can't kill 5 (Toughness 3)wounds with a 5+ Sv because he has a sudo fly aura.
Jesus I know marines are bad but that's just showing that your list is terrible.
They have a 4+ save and put out 3 str 5 shots at 15" next to a fireblade. The point is after you assault a tau army - you should be winning - because you took a lot of fire to get there. Currently tau are basically immune to assault. They dont even need darkstrider - however - dark strider would make it even harder to beat tau with melle units.
Really if your going to complain about a named charictor FFS look at a codex.
Darkstrider is a 5+ save, he doesn't do 3 shots untill 9 inches.
Though if your playing against people getting the rules that wrong no wonder your think everything is broken.
You realize he is behind firewarriors right? Possibly lots of them...I miss understood you - I thought we were talking about fire warriors. That is the unit that dark strider actually buffs.
Yes, which is why they're often the first thing I shoot at. Amazing right? Kill the drones with anti infantry fire before firing heavy weapons at battlesuits or other high value targets.
And yes they may have an excess but bodyguard units do have a diminishing return as they often don't do that much damage.
Yes, which is why they're often the first thing I shoot at. Amazing right? Kill the drones with anti infantry fire before firing heavy weapons at battlesuits or other high value targets.
And yes they may have an excess but bodyguard units do have a diminishing return as they often don't do that much damage.
That's absolutely the right thing to do.
But on proper boards with enough LoS blocking terrain, it becomes a bit of a cat and mouse game for Marines.
Yes, which is why they're often the first thing I shoot at. Amazing right? Kill the drones with anti infantry fire before firing heavy weapons at battlesuits or other high value targets.
And yes they may have an excess but bodyguard units do have a diminishing return as they often don't do that much damage.
That's absolutely the right thing to do.
But on proper boards with enough LoS blocking terrain, it becomes a bit of a cat and mouse game for Marines.
Relying on terrain is foolish. Especially at tournaments.
Yes, which is why they're often the first thing I shoot at. Amazing right? Kill the drones with anti infantry fire before firing heavy weapons at battlesuits or other high value targets.
And yes they may have an excess but bodyguard units do have a diminishing return as they often don't do that much damage.
That's absolutely the right thing to do.
But on proper boards with enough LoS blocking terrain, it becomes a bit of a cat and mouse game for Marines.
Relying on terrain is foolish. Especially at tournaments.
I think you misread what I said.
I said that terrain makes it difficult to counter shield drones for Astartes. That's why ignore LoS weapons are so reliable against them.
And lots of terrain is by far the best way to play this game. You, sir, can feel free to attend tournaments with piss poor boards all you want - doesn't mean it's a standard. Can you be clearer about what obscure crutches you're relying on in the future?
Being ill prepared to handle terrain because sometimes you won't have to is probably the weakest complaint I've heard from you yet.
Yes, which is why they're often the first thing I shoot at. Amazing right? Kill the drones with anti infantry fire before firing heavy weapons at battlesuits or other high value targets.
And yes they may have an excess but bodyguard units do have a diminishing return as they often don't do that much damage.
That's absolutely the right thing to do.
But on proper boards with enough LoS blocking terrain, it becomes a bit of a cat and mouse game for Marines.
Relying on terrain is foolish. Especially at tournaments.
No ones talking about relying on terrain. It's just if you are on a standard board (with bad but not non existent cover) You can easily hide a few drones. A few drones is all you need to completely ruin a marine shooting phase.
A detachment of guard with a bunch of mortar heavy weapon teams would often make its points back in a table with a healthy amount of LOS blocking terrain. If nothing else it would allow you to take some of the anti-infantry strain off the marines so they can get to proper beakie jobs.
I seem to recall that someone above liked the FW Whirlwind variant for something, but the base one is still bad.
If you want to stick with Marines and ignore LoS, it's pretty much the Thunderfire for the strat or Eliminators for the snipe effect. Both offer something the Whirlwind doesn't for the same cost.
So after 6 months I am finally coming home and it's time to take off the dust from my marines. One CA approved later, I have a lot of info to get in. Basically, my new list looks like this;
I decided to take a stormraven again because of the new bolter rules, and I am going to try the three pedators thanks to the cover stratagem (and this way I hope they won't have enough AT weapon to take down both T1) I don't know for the vv, I just wanted something to go with my CM !
The main points I wanted to handle were: anti infantry firepower (getting better thanks to the bolter rules) and AT firepower (the predators). However, I have no psy and very few boots on the ground (Marine psy is so bad and the librarian didn't get any discount !).
I do have 88 pts left, so feel free to comment and give advices !
Well, 1 quick thought is you’re only 2 troops and 2 fa from a 12cp brigade instead of a 5cp battalion. That’s like 180 points, so you could do it just by swapping the tacticals to scouts and using the last points for some attack bikes or tarantulas.
Edit: just realized there was more than 3 scout bikes, so could break those into 2 squads.
What do you think of terminators now ? I have never been a fan (offensive output so low !!!), but with the beacon they could tp, kill a lonely unit, and come back home, they could secure the relic, and give me a bit more mobility, for 'only" 165 points ?
bort wrote: Admittedly true, but you can get +7 for cheaper than the loyal 32... Bare min you can move 1 hq and 3 of a type over to get +1 for free.
Yeah indeed, I could put the CM and the elite choices in their own vanguard detchament. Always good to grab one more CP for free
Or I could use an assassin, they have become super nice !
If you can, get in Tigurius, the ability to make a friendly model have an additional -1 to hit for free at the start of the opponents shooting phase is going to be a big help. The access to MoH to buff either the captain for damage (5 Str 10 thunder hammer hits, yes please, 6 if you use him as the imperiums sword WLT) or make the stormraven or one of the predators T8, which is one of the biggest toughness thresholds in the game.
Give the LT a thunderhammer, he has 3 attacks at WS2, then purchase the armor indomitus for him. I use it on my JP librarian all the time and it makes him extremely durable.
Was putting some thought into terminators and was initially couldn't really think of a good way to use them because as you said damage output is pretty low. But then I started thinking of how to use the strategic mobility aspect to really use the terminators and came up with a couple ideas that might make them capable in a TAC list:
1) Standard Deepstrike, get stuck in, teleport back to the objective after the squad is spent. Going to work best with a list that applies a lot of second turn pressure
2) Charge blockers, many lists take advantage of charging and surrounding small, tough to kill units, and pillowfisting them to protect against your shooting. Terminators aren't necessarily easy to displace and could be decent first turn blockers that just nope out when they get tied up
3) Far flank defense, got objectives in the corners or want to shove out the flank bubble? Place a terminator on each flank/ corner with the homers being covered by their brother squad. It allows you to project board control onto either flank while also giving you the option to overload one of yours if the need arises.
Basically, terminators are going to have low damage output even with a cyclone missile launcher. but have some strategic mobility that allows them to apply that firepower and durability where it might be more useful. The problem is that the mobility is really vulnerable, an enemy just needs to get within 9 inches to disable it. So they'll always remain a risky pick, I think they just need a stratagem that gives them a bit of extra oomf, or make teleport homers equip-able by all infantry and bike units so that terminators can act as a constant re positioning force
Yeah so today I learnt / remembered that the stormraven doesn't have the new rapid fire rule and doesn't get the cover T1 because he is a flyer. So, hum, he is a big fragile target that can't even use correctly it's hurricane bolters, for 300 points. I guess I'll have to let him collect dust a little bit longer...
Otherwise, have you used dreadnought lately ? I wanna play my ironclad, especially seeing as I will probably play defensively with my marines so its low movement wouldn't be such an issue. One ven and one ironclad instead of he vv and one tac would give me a bit more long range AT firepower and tank saturation but I'm not sure about the ironclad
Vilehydra wrote: If you can, get in Tigurius, the ability to make a friendly model have an additional -1 to hit for free at the start of the opponents shooting phase is going to be a big help. The access to MoH to buff either the captain for damage (5 Str 10 thunder hammer hits, yes please, 6 if you use him as the imperiums sword WLT) or make the stormraven or one of the predators T8, which is one of the biggest toughness thresholds in the game.
Give the LT a thunderhammer, he has 3 attacks at WS2, then purchase the armor indomitus for him. I use it on my JP librarian all the time and it makes him extremely durable.
Was putting some thought into terminators and was initially couldn't really think of a good way to use them because as you said damage output is pretty low. But then I started thinking of how to use the strategic mobility aspect to really use the terminators and came up with a couple ideas that might make them capable in a TAC list:
1) Standard Deepstrike, get stuck in, teleport back to the objective after the squad is spent. Going to work best with a list that applies a lot of second turn pressure
2) Charge blockers, many lists take advantage of charging and surrounding small, tough to kill units, and pillowfisting them to protect against your shooting. Terminators aren't necessarily easy to displace and could be decent first turn blockers that just nope out when they get tied up
3) Far flank defense, got objectives in the corners or want to shove out the flank bubble? Place a terminator on each flank/ corner with the homers being covered by their brother squad. It allows you to project board control onto either flank while also giving you the option to overload one of yours if the need arises.
Basically, terminators are going to have low damage output even with a cyclone missile launcher. but have some strategic mobility that allows them to apply that firepower and durability where it might be more useful. The problem is that the mobility is really vulnerable, an enemy just needs to get within 9 inches to disable it. So they'll always remain a risky pick, I think they just need a stratagem that gives them a bit of extra oomf, or make teleport homers equip-able by all infantry and bike units so that terminators can act as a constant re positioning force
I like the thinking behind everything in this post.
In particular, I like the 3rd Terminator idea a lot, with the "crossed" Teleport Homers. I've tried to come up with good ways to use that ability and never really came up with something satisfying, but the 'doubling up' potential is very cool.
Master Chief VF wrote: I think that hunters are some of the strongest models in the codex SM at the moment.
If you build a space marines list you should bring at least 2 of these things with you.
80 points for a lascannon (with some perks) The extra range over a normal LC is often overkill, the free re-roll is nice, but odds are you have a captain near. Plus vs. flyers is pretty sweet, if situational.
It’s on a T8 chassis, which is also very nice.
For 110 you get a TLLC Razor. Double the firepower (ish) for only 30 more points. T7, so not quite as nice, a little cargo which can help lower drops, no slot required.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the hunter is a very overlooked tank. But I don’t know if I’d go so far at to call it one of the strongest models, or mandatory to take multiples. If you need to fill HS slots for a brigade, you could do a lot worse though.
So me and some of the guys at the flgs have been talking lately about armies you don't see often on the tables. We have a pretty semi serious group of players, we like to run fluffy lists but at the same time we like to make those lists as competitive as we can.
Anyways as we were talking and i have always loved the black templars but no one here plays them. I know that they are seen as just not that good in some reapects due to no psychers and only able to deny if using cp plus their legion trait is seen as sub par by a lot of people but i want to give them a try. Then i saw that furry armageddon video and i had to make an army lol.
This is what i am thinking...
Spoiler:
++ Unbound Army (Faction) (Imperium - Space Marines) [130 PL, 2,000pts] ++
So the list idea is pretty aggressive and simple. Lots of transportation for units to get up into 24" range by turn 2. I had to put the drop pod of 10 marine squads with flamers because...... "Avenge me brother... AVENGED ME!". But between the crusader, the 3 rhinos, the drop pod, the jump pack marines, and the vindicators, the army should have mobility covered.
Any thoughts or advice from veteran black templar players?
Storm shields are 2pts, i figured why not put them on there. If even 1 3++ save is made where it would have failed normally thats a marine that i didnt pay for's wound right there. And if they do fail, its whatever. But as a screen for my chrs they make a pretty hard tar pit for anything that punches hard (mr demon prince.... come here, i want you to swing at me and not my tank!)
Yeah i like vindicators a lot. Just traded a venerable dread for 2 giving me 3 (guy has had them for 7 months and never used them so was willing to make me a deal for a dread he needed for his list, i call it a win!).
My theory craft of the list is threat saturation. My opponents should have trouble taking out that many vehicles turn 1, but you never know. If i go 2nd i use the strat to give myself cover so a 1+ land raider and 2+ rhinos / vindicators t1 is nice. If they kill the crusader then all i need is for the 3 vindicators to survive then i can start dropping pie plates like its 7th edition (3d3 mortals on a 4+? Hell yes). If they kill one the other 2 are still pretty effective for what they are and the rhinos move up to have turn 2 multi meltas and plasma guns in range getting full rerolls thanks to the high marshel. Threat saturation at its finest.
Vanguard vets and attack bikes take up the bully roll, find an easy target and make them suffer. I had luck with vanguard vets with jump packs and melta bombs before in a ravenguard list. They flew up next to a armiger helverin, dropped a melta bomb on it, charged in and surrounded it, then next turn fell back and dropped another bomb killing it. Thats going to be their roll.
So yeah, that's what i was thinking when making the list.
Master Chief VF wrote: I think that hunters are some of the strongest models in the codex SM at the moment.
If you build a space marines list you should bring at least 2 of these things with you.
Realstically why you would every take it over the stalker boggles the mind. Even hitting on 4's vs ground targets it will do more damage vs anything but a t8 target (and that isn't significant) However anything with the fly keyword is likely getting hit 6 times compared to one with the hunter - it's not even close.
Yeah, the stalker is just way more versatile (not that I'd really take either of them tbh) and most of the targets you want skyfire against aren't that tough to begin with.
As per dreadnoughts. If your playing defensively, just take ranged venerable dreads. If your that afraid of elite chargers give it a dreadnought CC weapon. Ironclads are only ever going to be worth it if your going to be applying heavy 2nd turn pressure.
As per Vindicators. Keep in mind that as soon as you lose one, your down to a really sub-par weapon profile. Also keep in mind that you can advance and still use the strategem IIRC. I've been thinking about using them to counter drone/character spam. Sure they're hitting characters on 5+ but with 5-6 characters in an aura bubble you might be able to snipe one or two of them. If your feeling REALLY CP Inefficient drop down an orbital for funsies afterwards
Vindicators do make a very efficient unit for dealing with 1 important niche set of opponent units: The T5 melee beatsticks like Bullgryn. S10 and enough damage to probably 1 shot each target model means it can earn it's points back in a single shot vs a unit the rest of the army will struggle to wound.
Too bad their range is so terrible they probably won't survive to get the shot off vs their prime target and they're not good enough vs other units.
Triple vindis has a few tricks up its sleeves. The Strat is pretty good, allowing you to drop mortal wounds in a bubble fairly accurately. In addition, you don't have to fulfill any normal requirements for shooting, so you can a) advance them on T1, b) not worry in the slightest if they get caught up in cc.
they form a pretty decent roadblock, and there's a chance your opponent might overly-prioritise them with their shooting.
grouchoben wrote: Triple vindis has a few tricks up its sleeves. The Strat is pretty good, allowing you to drop mortal wounds in a bubble fairly accurately. In addition, you don't have to fulfill any normal requirements for shooting, so you can a) advance them on T1, b) not worry in the slightest if they get caught up in cc.
they form a pretty decent roadblock, and there's a chance your opponent might overly-prioritise them with their shooting.
This is exactly what i was thinking. Target saturation between the crusader, the trip vindicators, and the 2 rhinos with melta / plasma teams in it.
Well I like the crusader with them, he's a perfect match. Not so sure about the rhino teams tbh. I think you'd be better off standing back with FW dreads, behind the crazed Vindis and some big intercessor vet squads but hey, everyone's got their own jam right? Good luck and let us know how it works out.
It just seems hard to justify a vindicator over a barebones predator for the small amount more points. Especially at triple, killshot is just as good as the vindicator strat and on a better platform.
I run trip preds in my space wolves and yeah they are amazing there as well. Especially next to njal giving them -1 to hit and cover. But i think the big difference will be t7 of the pred vs t8 of the vindicators. I did consider running both but couldnt find a way to do that and have any meaningful level of all comers fighting ability.
Their board position is vastly different though, and vindis can form bunch points, tie in CC and still 'shoot', and are T8. I agree that Preds when they are left alone are much better, but they make target priority so straight forward for your opponent. Board control, denial, LoS blocking and CC shooting are significant advantages. Not enough to make them competitive, but enough to make them tactically interesting, and cheeky to play.
godardc wrote: Are three pedators with killshot valuable ? Almost 600 pts, quite squishy and an obvious target for the opponent, isn't it ?
They sure feel that way, esp. with the point premium on them. Still, if you're playing on boards with enough terrain to give them LOS cover I think they'd be alright.
The only way i see them valuable is in a space wolves force, preds at -1 to hit and a 2+ save due to cover are surprisingly resilient, you can get 2 or sometimes 3 turns with kill shot with proper target priority before you lose one.
Azuza001 wrote: The only way i see them valuable is in a space wolves force, preds at -1 to hit and a 2+ save due to cover are surprisingly resilient, you can get 2 or sometimes 3 turns with kill shot with proper target priority before you lose one.
Yeah that seems much more interesting, I'm quite jealous, and sad that GW hate us mini marines so much now. I'll do a test on the 5th July with three predators vs DG so I'll soon see.
Have a game planned tomorrow against a regular Tau opponent. His list has crippled most of my armies and he wants to practice for the London GT so it's going to be pretty mean, but need help planning my SM list as it's the only one that's beaten him.
His list
2x Commanders w. 4x FB Shadowsun
Darkstrider
Ethereal
Cadre Fireblade
His main tactic is to castle up and use a huge number of buffs on the Broadsides. The list has tabled my other lists including Raven Castellan Knights, Armoured Guard and Custodians, but my Marine list is the only one that's beaten it, partially due to a large degree of LoS-block and unlucky rolls on his part.
My list Lias Issodon
Lieutenant
Librarian
2x10 Tacticals w. Lascannon, Plasma + Combi-Plas 10x Intercessors
10x Hellblasters
5x Devs w. ML 5x Devs w. HB Leviathan Dreadnought w. Stormcannons
The RG tactic certainly helped but I highly doubt I could pull off another win with this list. What else could I add to it? I have the following units at my disposal in addition to the ones above.
10x Tacticals
10x Reivers
Various other Characters including Ancients, Chaplains, etc.
5x Termies w. CML 2x Dreadnoughts w. TL + CCW 5x Devs w. MM
Target priority and playing the mission is very important in that fight. My mentor for 8th edition was the stores top tau player and i learned how to fight tau with necrons vs him.
What i learned was -
1. Target the fire warriors first. They have to die, and most tau players wont save a fire warrior with a drone, but they are the backbone of a tau force. Between the sheer number of overwatch shots they add and the range of their guns they have to go.
2. Once the firewarriors are no longer an issue ( remember that you dont have to kill a squad to make it no longer a threat) target drones next with any anti infantry weapons you have. Always target the drones before firing any anti tank weapons, every removed drone is one more las cannon that can get through.
3. Use close combat as a threat, not an actual thing. If your opponent thinks your going to be able to lock something important in cc he may move it away from an important objective.
godardc wrote: Are three pedators with killshot valuable ? Almost 600 pts, quite squishy and an obvious target for the opponent, isn't it ?
No - predators are one of the worst choices we have. Even without strats the Vinidcator is better and is at least scary in certain situations. Plus they are a lot cheaper. Tripple vindy really helps the rest of your list. Because not killing one of those vindis is basically not an option for your opponent. Preds? Who cares...+1 to wound? I'm already rerolling all my wounds....Plus they are a lot easier to kill.
Thanks for the input, i find +1 to wound and +1 dmg from 3 preds with autocannon / heavy bolters to be quite nasty myself.
For 1cp thats 6d3 str 7 (wounding t8+ on 4's, t7-on 3's) ap-1 d4 shots and 18 str 5 (wounding t6+ on 4's) ap-1 d2 shots. In the game of invunerables thats pretty nasty for a lot of vehicles to face. You should reliably kill 2 armigers with 3 preds with that setup.
But i also agree that vindicators put a lot more pressure on the enemy. They have to kill 1, its that simple. And even if they do then you have 2 really powerful cannons that should be able to deal with enemy vehicles easily enough as long as you roll average.
If you take 3 Preds, it's to force the opponent to kill one T1. Which means it's because you need him diverted from your other super-killy threats.
But if you can force them to put most of their dakka into taking out a single backfield tank, they'll have less dakka going into whatever else you took.
Vindicators, scary ? It's probably the only unit I haven't seen played since 8th dropped, with land speeders. The very moment 8th was launched, vindicators were doomed. Even the stratagem is garbage: disgustingly resilient stops MW, hordes of gaunts, guards and orks just laugh at 6 (on average) MW, and only at 24"... Only SM fear that. Oh, how the mighty have fallen ! And only if you can, after having spent your CP, hit on 4+... I should give them a try then I guess !
So i was looking at something and realized the strat not only works even if the tank is in cc but also hurts friendlys as well as opponents. So i came up with the following for maximun lols....
Exalted Court [-1CP]: Exalted Court: 1 Extra Warlord Trait
Heirlooms of the Household [-1CP]: Heirlooms of the Household: 1 Extra Heirloom
Household Choice: Questor Imperialis
. House Hawkshroud
+ Lord of War +
Armiger Helverins [9 PL, 172pts] . Armiger Helverin: Heavy Stubber
Armiger Helverins [9 PL, 172pts] . Armiger Helverin: Heavy Stubber
Knight Gallant [20 PL, 352pts]: Character (Exalted Court), Character (Heirloom of the House), Character (Knight Lance), Heavy Stubber, Heirloom: Armour of the Sainted Ion, Reaper Chainsword, Thunderstrike gauntlet, Warlord Trait: Landstrider
Predator [9 PL, 150pts]: Predator autocannon, Two Heavy Bolters
Predator [9 PL, 150pts]: Predator autocannon, Two Heavy Bolters
Predator [9 PL, 150pts]: Predator autocannon, Two Heavy Bolters
++ Total: [122 PL, 10CP, 2,000pts]
So the idea is maximum threat saturation, using the infantry to zone the enemy away from your fun toys.
If your able to the galant should be able to draw some fire quickly thanks to its ability to be an immediate threat. If it takes a bunch of wounds but doesnt die use the strat from vindicators to do 3d3 mortal wounds to it killing it yourself then pop strat to explode on a 4+ for even more lols.
Does it make sense? No. But it does lead to some stupid trolly fun.....
If you really try this, I wanna have the after action report !
The Crimson Fists chapter tactics, does it work on shooting attacks too ?
I really like all their rules and special stratagems, and what about the relic ? Does it benefit from the new rapid fire rules ?
Wow that's strong !
Imagine small 2 or 3 men squad of veterans with plasma, they could totally be safe for overheating while shooting even small squad of elite ennemy infantry
Do you have any experience playing with or again Crimson Fists ?
godardc wrote: Vindicators, scary ? It's probably the only unit I haven't seen played since 8th dropped, with land speeders. The very moment 8th was launched, vindicators were doomed. Even the stratagem is garbage: disgustingly resilient stops MW, hordes of gaunts, guards and orks just laugh at 6 (on average) MW, and only at 24"... Only SM fear that. Oh, how the mighty have fallen ! And only if you can, after having spent your CP, hit on 4+...
I should give them a try then I guess !
The stratagem is amazing. 3d3 mortal wounds in splash damage and you don't need to be eligible to shoot (so you can pop smoke) or have LOS to use it. It has a lot of value that isn't automatically apparent.
Plus on it's own vs a 5 man unit the vindi becomes d6 shots. Plus str 10 really hurts a lot of units. Being only 125 and being t8. The vindi is already superior to the pred. The stratagem is better too. Im really not trying to hype up ether option and they are both pretty bad.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
godardc wrote: So, how does plasma and rerolls of 1's and bolter drill work with their CT ?
I have a plasma gun.
Le'ts say I roll a one and a 2.
I have +1 for shooting due to my CT.
So I can't have a 1 and I don't die ?
Obviously I didn't separate the two detachment but there would be 2 detachment (one batallion and one vanguard). The idea was to avoid vehicles and to play an assault heavy army.
So all the characters and the veterans into the pod.
Everyone that can in deepstrike (or maybe no, I would see depending on the game: flexibility !), And either T2 or T3 I can make a big deepstrike with most of my units grouped together, or no, as I have many units they don't HAVE to stay together.
I choose Black Templars to increase my chances to get charges.
Good combo with the cheap veterans, the characters and why not heroic intervention.
I guess the Ancient would work better with the terminators.
I have enough points and CP to get a culexus to protect me from smites spam and others psy chenanigans on addition of the BT stratagem.
The big vv squad should be two 5 men squad, ignore the fact they are only one single big unit.
I could put the BT helm on the Ancient and give him a 9 range for his ability.
Obviously it's not a highly competitive army, but could it work ?
It's pretty fun that I have every single model to play this army btw
No it will not work. Vanguard veterans suck major grox bung. I play BT and Ive tried them all sorts of ways. If you want an assault element take the sword brethren detachment from vigilus, helbrecht, and 5 company vets with power fists and storm shields.
Chaplain Grimaldus isnt that great these days, his ability doesnt work with -1 to hit.
Why bother wih a chapter champion when you have an emperors champion?
Don't take Power Fists on the Sword Brethren, take Thunder Hammers. You're already splurging points on them, might as well make them as strong as possible.
ultimentra wrote: No it will not work. Vanguard veterans suck major grox bung. I play BT and Ive tried them all sorts of ways. If you want an assault element take the sword brethren detachment from vigilus, helbrecht, and 5 company vets with power fists and storm shields.
Chaplain Grimaldus isnt that great these days, his ability doesnt work with -1 to hit.
Why bother wih a chapter champion when you have an emperors champion?
I could go on.
If you want to take VV, take them in Ultramarine Victrix Guard detachment, they are really good when getting +1 to hit, and fight in the enemy's charge phase. The only concern is they get shot off the board, or those death explosion of the Knight they just smashed dead putting 6MW on them.
So bit of an update on my previous post regarding a Tau match.
I ran the same list as before, expect adding some Termies to make up the points. I know they're not the best choice, but I was hoping the Storm Bolter fire would help cut down a few Drones.
I was absolutely tabled.
We used ITC setups with 1st-floor-blocking LoS, but even with a very conservative setup I had no chance. His tactic each turn was simply:
1. Use Montka, advance everything into LoS*
2. Pop Markerlights
3. Pop Command and Control Node on the Broadsides.
4. Delete unit.
*Twice, using Shadowsun.
Lost the Hellblasters on turn 1, the Ancient's banner let them kill 3 Fire Warriors, nothing else. Next turn he reduced the Leviathan to 7 wounds, killed the Intercessors and a Tac Squad, turn 3 killed the Librarian, HBDevs and the other Tacs at which point I conceded. All in all I killed around 5 Shield Drones and 20 Fire Warriors.
No idea what the hell I could take to even stand a chance against this list, individually it's not too scary, but when you have advance/fire Broadsides rerolling all wounds, combined with 20+ Shield Drones it gets a bit on the ridiculous side.
Used his Drones to restrict my DS, they dropped in, killed a few Fire Warriors thanks to LoS trickery on his part, all killed next turn by the Riptide. 3 were able to fire with the Ancient and killed 2 Drones.
Valkyrie wrote: So bit of an update on my previous post regarding a Tau match.
I ran the same list as before, expect adding some Termies to make up the points. I know they're not the best choice, but I was hoping the Storm Bolter fire would help cut down a few Drones.
I was absolutely tabled.
We used ITC setups with 1st-floor-blocking LoS, but even with a very conservative setup I had no chance. His tactic each turn was simply:
1. Use Montka, advance everything into LoS*
2. Pop Markerlights
3. Pop Command and Control Node on the Broadsides.
4. Delete unit.
*Twice, using Shadowsun.
Lost the Hellblasters on turn 1, the Ancient's banner let them kill 3 Fire Warriors, nothing else. Next turn he reduced the Leviathan to 7 wounds, killed the Intercessors and a Tac Squad, turn 3 killed the Librarian, HBDevs and the other Tacs at which point I conceded. All in all I killed around 5 Shield Drones and 20 Fire Warriors.
No idea what the hell I could take to even stand a chance against this list, individually it's not too scary, but when you have advance/fire Broadsides rerolling all wounds, combined with 20+ Shield Drones it gets a bit on the ridiculous side.
Play your army as Ravenguard? -1 to hit sounds like would ruinrights day. Most of their weapons carried by Broadsides will naturally hit on 4+ right? so make them hit on 5+ is the way to make them look less scary.
Valkyrie wrote: So bit of an update on my previous post regarding a Tau match.
I ran the same list as before, expect adding some Termies to make up the points. I know they're not the best choice, but I was hoping the Storm Bolter fire would help cut down a few Drones.
I was absolutely tabled.
We used ITC setups with 1st-floor-blocking LoS, but even with a very conservative setup I had no chance. His tactic each turn was simply:
1. Use Montka, advance everything into LoS*
2. Pop Markerlights
3. Pop Command and Control Node on the Broadsides.
4. Delete unit.
*Twice, using Shadowsun.
Lost the Hellblasters on turn 1, the Ancient's banner let them kill 3 Fire Warriors, nothing else. Next turn he reduced the Leviathan to 7 wounds, killed the Intercessors and a Tac Squad, turn 3 killed the Librarian, HBDevs and the other Tacs at which point I conceded. All in all I killed around 5 Shield Drones and 20 Fire Warriors.
No idea what the hell I could take to even stand a chance against this list, individually it's not too scary, but when you have advance/fire Broadsides rerolling all wounds, combined with 20+ Shield Drones it gets a bit on the ridiculous side.
Shadowsun doesn't let you use Montka twice. Her ability "Genius of Kauyon" lets her declare Kauyon even if Kauyon or Mont'ka has already been declared. The only way your opponent can declare Mont'ka twice is if he takes Commander Farsight and makes those units Farsight Enclaves.
Broadsides are really vulnerable to being tied up in melee. They are battlesuits without fly. If you tie them up in melee they can't fall back and shoot. Getting into melee with broadsides can be a pain but it can be done.
Also from the units you are listing that were killed it seems you brought lots of shorter range firepower. Broadsides are slow and only have 36" range. It is possible to just bring longer range guns and just sit out of range.
The broadside blob is good but does have weaknesses.
Have you tried the sicaran punisher ? Quite cheap, predator priced, and have an honest firepower: up to 27 heavy bolter shots, some rerolling 1 to wound.
Tau sept is on another level, and you'll be extremely hard-pressed to match them in the hands of an okay player with just SM. That's the truth of the matter. ... I honestly think their point pricing is a bit skewed.
Valkyrie wrote: So bit of an update on my previous post regarding a Tau match.
I ran the same list as before, expect adding some Termies to make up the points. I know they're not the best choice, but I was hoping the Storm Bolter fire would help cut down a few Drones.
I was absolutely tabled.
We used ITC setups with 1st-floor-blocking LoS, but even with a very conservative setup I had no chance. His tactic each turn was simply:
1. Use Montka, advance everything into LoS*
2. Pop Markerlights
3. Pop Command and Control Node on the Broadsides.
4. Delete unit.
*Twice, using Shadowsun.
Lost the Hellblasters on turn 1, the Ancient's banner let them kill 3 Fire Warriors, nothing else. Next turn he reduced the Leviathan to 7 wounds, killed the Intercessors and a Tac Squad, turn 3 killed the Librarian, HBDevs and the other Tacs at which point I conceded. All in all I killed around 5 Shield Drones and 20 Fire Warriors.
No idea what the hell I could take to even stand a chance against this list, individually it's not too scary, but when you have advance/fire Broadsides rerolling all wounds, combined with 20+ Shield Drones it gets a bit on the ridiculous side.
Play your army as Ravenguard? -1 to hit sounds like would ruinrights day. Most of their weapons carried by Broadsides will naturally hit on 4+ right? so make them hit on 5+ is the way to make them look less scary.
That's exactly what I was running, the -1 really didn't do much once he had 5+ Markerlights on my guys.
Blood Hawk wrote:
Valkyrie wrote: So bit of an update on my previous post regarding a Tau match.
I ran the same list as before, expect adding some Termies to make up the points. I know they're not the best choice, but I was hoping the Storm Bolter fire would help cut down a few Drones.
I was absolutely tabled.
We used ITC setups with 1st-floor-blocking LoS, but even with a very conservative setup I had no chance. His tactic each turn was simply:
1. Use Montka, advance everything into LoS*
2. Pop Markerlights
3. Pop Command and Control Node on the Broadsides.
4. Delete unit.
*Twice, using Shadowsun.
Lost the Hellblasters on turn 1, the Ancient's banner let them kill 3 Fire Warriors, nothing else. Next turn he reduced the Leviathan to 7 wounds, killed the Intercessors and a Tac Squad, turn 3 killed the Librarian, HBDevs and the other Tacs at which point I conceded. All in all I killed around 5 Shield Drones and 20 Fire Warriors.
No idea what the hell I could take to even stand a chance against this list, individually it's not too scary, but when you have advance/fire Broadsides rerolling all wounds, combined with 20+ Shield Drones it gets a bit on the ridiculous side.
Shadowsun doesn't let you use Montka twice. Her ability "Genius of Kauyon" lets her declare Kauyon even if Kauyon or Mont'ka has already been declared. The only way your opponent can declare Mont'ka twice is if he takes Commander Farsight and makes those units Farsight Enclaves.
Broadsides are really vulnerable to being tied up in melee. They are battlesuits without fly. If you tie them up in melee they can't fall back and shoot. Getting into melee with broadsides can be a pain but it can be done.
Also from the units you are listing that were killed it seems you brought lots of shorter range firepower. Broadsides are slow and only have 36" range. It is possible to just bring longer range guns and just sit out of range.
The broadside blob is good but does have weaknesses.
My mistake on the Commander, he did use Shadowsun but his choice of Mont'ka or Kau'yon was legal.
Getting close was very difficult, mainly as he was bubblewrapping his Broadsides with Drones and Fire Warriors.
Blood Hawk wrote:Shadowsun doesn't let you use Montka twice. Her ability "Genius of Kauyon" lets her declare Kauyon even if Kauyon or Mont'ka has already been declared. The only way your opponent can declare Mont'ka twice is if he takes Commander Farsight and makes those units Farsight Enclaves.
Broadsides are really vulnerable to being tied up in melee. They are battlesuits without fly. If you tie them up in melee they can't fall back and shoot. Getting into melee with broadsides can be a pain but it can be done.
Also from the units you are listing that were killed it seems you brought lots of shorter range firepower. Broadsides are slow and only have 36" range. It is possible to just bring longer range guns and just sit out of range.
The broadside blob is good but does have weaknesses.
My mistake on the Commander, he did use Shadowsun but his choice of Mont'ka or Kau'yon was legal.
Getting close was very difficult, mainly as he was bubblewrapping his Broadsides with Drones and Fire Warriors.
I am confused. Did he declare mont'ka twice? All Tau players can use Master of War once per game to declare Kauyon or Mont'ka. Shadowsun can use Kauyon once per game as well. So if he is playing Tau sept he can't Mont'ka twice.
Blood Hawk wrote:Shadowsun doesn't let you use Montka twice. Her ability "Genius of Kauyon" lets her declare Kauyon even if Kauyon or Mont'ka has already been declared. The only way your opponent can declare Mont'ka twice is if he takes Commander Farsight and makes those units Farsight Enclaves.
Broadsides are really vulnerable to being tied up in melee. They are battlesuits without fly. If you tie them up in melee they can't fall back and shoot. Getting into melee with broadsides can be a pain but it can be done.
Also from the units you are listing that were killed it seems you brought lots of shorter range firepower. Broadsides are slow and only have 36" range. It is possible to just bring longer range guns and just sit out of range.
The broadside blob is good but does have weaknesses.
My mistake on the Commander, he did use Shadowsun but his choice of Mont'ka or Kau'yon was legal.
Getting close was very difficult, mainly as he was bubblewrapping his Broadsides with Drones and Fire Warriors.
I am confused. Did he declare mont'ka twice? All Tau players can use Master of War once per game to declare Kauyon or Mont'ka. Shadowsun can use Kauyon once per game as well. So if he is playing Tau sept he can't Mont'ka twice.
Apologies for the confusion, he did the following actions in this order:
1. Use Mont'ka to advance with everything (clustered around Shadowsun) to get in LoS.
2. Used Kauyon with Shadowsun next turn for the reroll bonus.
Because of the Mont'ka move he had pretty much locked down most of the centre of the board. Whichever way I approached him I'd have to deal with at least 2 turns of Broadside/Riptide fire. While I easily took out his Pathfinders he still had Markerlights with 3x Sac'ea Firesights, 1x Fireblade and Darkstrider. Couldn't shoot them thanks to Character Targeting, and Networked Markerlight/Orbital Marketlight Uplink ensured a lot of my units were lit up for him
Are you suggesting 4 repulsers to fight tau? Thats a horrible idea.
First a lot of places do the rule of 3, so it may not even be an option. Even if it is tau have some of the best anti tank units with massive range and little cost (hello mr broadside). A standard tau list should be able to kill 2 of those repulsers before they are even in range if the tau player knows what they are doing.
Yeah, dont try that... unless you actually already own those models then why not, its just a game. But dont spend money on those kinds of things thinking your going to be able to beat tau with them.
Azuza001 wrote: Are you suggesting 4 repulsers to fight tau? Thats a horrible idea.
First a lot of places do the rule of 3, so it may not even be an option. Even if it is tau have some of the best anti tank units with massive range and little cost (hello mr broadside). A standard tau list should be able to kill 2 of those repulsers before they are even in range if the tau player knows what they are doing.
Yeah, dont try that... unless you actually already own those models then why not, its just a game. But dont spend money on those kinds of things thinking your going to be able to beat tau with them.
Repulsors get around the rule of 3 because they're Dedicated Transports.
And the sheer volume of firepower they kick out would work well.
It may just be my local meta, but most of the Tau players I've played seem to have a bit of trouble laying down enough fire fast enough against multiple armoured threats.
Azuza001 wrote: Are you suggesting 4 repulsers to fight tau? Thats a horrible idea.
First a lot of places do the rule of 3, so it may not even be an option. Even if it is tau have some of the best anti tank units with massive range and little cost (hello mr broadside). A standard tau list should be able to kill 2 of those repulsers before they are even in range if the tau player knows what they are doing.
Yeah, dont try that... unless you actually already own those models then why not, its just a game. But dont spend money on those kinds of things thinking your going to be able to beat tau with them.
The Gman rupulsor list is gonna be based entirely on who gets first turn.
Azuza001 wrote: Are you suggesting 4 repulsers to fight tau? Thats a horrible idea.
First a lot of places do the rule of 3, so it may not even be an option. Even if it is tau have some of the best anti tank units with massive range and little cost (hello mr broadside). A standard tau list should be able to kill 2 of those repulsers before they are even in range if the tau player knows what they are doing.
Yeah, dont try that... unless you actually already own those models then why not, its just a game. But dont spend money on those kinds of things thinking your going to be able to beat tau with them.
The Gman rupulsor list is gonna be based entirely on who gets first turn.
So, like, the worst sort of 40k
Going second didn't slow down the Throne of War GT winner.
Ah, i thought they were heavy support like land raiders, thats my mistake. But yeah, set up the table, roll for deployment, put your stuff on the table, roll for first turn and if you dont get it gg? Thats horrible 40k playing.
Hey all, looking for feedback on my list and what i should add/get rid of. I mostly play against my friend's admech, tyranids, or genestealer cults.
The only real caveat is that it's my 30k army so I want to avoid anything that isn't cross compatible with Age of Darkness, except for reasonable stuff like scouts or scout bikes.
1,999 points, 9 CP Chapter Tactic: Salamanders
Battalion Detachment
• HQ Captain – 74 - Chapter Master, Storm of Fire warlord trait
Lieutenant – 60
godardc wrote: Are three pedators with killshot valuable ? Almost 600 pts, quite squishy and an obvious target for the opponent, isn't it ?
No - predators are one of the worst choices we have. Even without strats the Vinidcator is better and is at least scary in certain situations. Plus they are a lot cheaper. Tripple vindy really helps the rest of your list. Because not killing one of those vindis is basically not an option for your opponent. Preds? Who cares...+1 to wound? I'm already rerolling all my wounds....Plus they are a lot easier to kill.
Predators are significantly better than vindis.
But, again, you need three, plus other tanks. Predators work when your army is all armor and few infantry.
Repulsor with Gatling cannons and lascannon
Repulsor with Gatling cannons and lascannon
Spearhead detachment
Smash captain with thunder hammer
Redemptor with Gatling cannons
Primaris ancient with banner of emperor ascendant
3 aggressors
----
Very similar list to what I currently use with my Deathwatch and the plan I normally use is putn everything together in a big blob and match it forward and then deepstrike a hard hitting unit in behind the enemy.
So in this force I'll be placing the aggressors and hellblasters inside the repulsors to keep them safe at the start of the game and slowly move everything forward within Kantor and the banners aura too get all re roll hits and return fire on death.
Tempted to make them a liberator strike force detachment as well to gain the decent stratagems from that too.
grouchoben wrote: Tau sept is on another level, and you'll be extremely hard-pressed to match them in the hands of an okay player with just SM. That's the truth of the matter. ... I honestly think their point pricing is a bit skewed.
Uhhh - yeah. Don't even bother playing against tau with space marines. It is a joke of a game.
grouchoben wrote: Tau sept is on another level, and you'll be extremely hard-pressed to match them in the hands of an okay player with just SM. That's the truth of the matter. ... I honestly think their point pricing is a bit skewed.
Uhhh - yeah. Don't even bother playing against tau with space marines. It is a joke of a game.
A gman gunline can kill the big suits if you get first turn before they amp into 3 plus invuls. But its first turn warhammer.
Rogerio134134 wrote: So I've been using my crimson fists as Deathwatch but fancy actually using them as space marines for once. Here's a quick run down of my list.
Repulsor with Gatling cannons and lascannon
Repulsor with Gatling cannons and lascannon
Spearhead detachment
Smash captain with thunder hammer
Redemptor with Gatling cannons
Primaris ancient with banner of emperor ascendant
3 aggressors
----
Very similar list to what I currently use with my Deathwatch and the plan I normally use is putn everything together in a big blob and match it forward and then deepstrike a hard hitting unit in behind the enemy.
So in this force I'll be placing the aggressors and hellblasters inside the repulsors to keep them safe at the start of the game and slowly move everything forward within Kantor and the banners aura too get all re roll hits and return fire on death.
Tempted to make them a liberator strike force detachment as well to gain the decent stratagems from that too.
Few points and questions - it's totally pedantic, but that's a Vanguard Detachment not a Spearhead
Definitely worth it to make those Hellblasters a full 10 man instead of 2 MSU squads if you go with the Liberator detachment. Can always combat squad if you need to. The bigger squad makes those nice specialist detachment strats better.
A smash captain with a thunder hammer isn't the best choice for Crimson Fists because you can use the Fist of Vengeance relic to hit as hard as a Thunder Hammer, but without the penalty to hit, and it's cheaper. Another fun variant I've seen is more of a blender style Warlord of a Captain on a bike with a Thunder Hammer, Chainsword swapped to teeth of terra, and the the one warlord trait that gives you more attacks if you're surrounded. Throws out a ton of attacks and is super fun.
I'm not entirely sure those Infiltrators will do much without support. They're expensive, but committing to them in numbers gives you some really powerful tricks and tools against a variety of different armies - they also like having support from their HQs. I'm just not sure a single unit of them will achieve much. Give it a shot though and let us know!
grouchoben wrote: Tau sept is on another level, and you'll be extremely hard-pressed to match them in the hands of an okay player with just SM. That's the truth of the matter. ... I honestly think their point pricing is a bit skewed.
Uhhh - yeah. Don't even bother playing against tau with space marines. It is a joke of a game.
A gman gunline can kill the big suits if you get first turn before they amp into 3 plus invuls. But its first turn warhammer.
Yeah thats what you are gonna try to do. But each riptide/ broadside will have at least 12 drones supporting them. Unless you brought 3 whirlwinds or thunderfire cannons you literally can not win. Tank bolters with the 2+ save and put lascannons on the drones. Meanwhile. Tau are killing about 1/3 of your army a turn.
You might have a chance if they have no where to hide a drone. But hiding a drone really isn't that hard.
grouchoben wrote: Tau sept is on another level, and you'll be extremely hard-pressed to match them in the hands of an okay player with just SM. That's the truth of the matter. ... I honestly think their point pricing is a bit skewed.
Uhhh - yeah. Don't even bother playing against tau with space marines. It is a joke of a game.
A gman gunline can kill the big suits if you get first turn before they amp into 3 plus invuls. But its first turn warhammer.
Yeah thats what you are gonna try to do. But each riptide/ broadside will have at least 12 drones supporting them. Unless you brought 3 whirlwinds or thunderfire cannons you literally can not win. Tank bolters with the 2+ save and put lascannons on the drones. Meanwhile. Tau are killing about 1/3 of your army a turn.
You might have a chance if they have no where to hide a drone. But hiding a drone really isn't that hard.
grouchoben wrote: Tau sept is on another level, and you'll be extremely hard-pressed to match them in the hands of an okay player with just SM. That's the truth of the matter. ... I honestly think their point pricing is a bit skewed.
Uhhh - yeah. Don't even bother playing against tau with space marines. It is a joke of a game.
A gman gunline can kill the big suits if you get first turn before they amp into 3 plus invuls. But its first turn warhammer.
Yeah thats what you are gonna try to do. But each riptide/ broadside will have at least 12 drones supporting them. Unless you brought 3 whirlwinds or thunderfire cannons you literally can not win. Tank bolters with the 2+ save and put lascannons on the drones. Meanwhile. Tau are killing about 1/3 of your army a turn.
You might have a chance if they have no where to hide a drone. But hiding a drone really isn't that hard.
"Literally can not win"
Let me break it down here.
Tau have 1+ saves in cover on both riptides and broadsides. You are shooting mostly ap-0/1 and single shot anti tank that has decent ap-2 or 3.
So ether way hes taking 2+ saves. 2+ saves to put the wounds on the drones and 2+ saves for having a 1+ save in cover. Sure eventually hell run out of drones. You run out of lascannons before they do though.
When he shoots at you - hes ignoring cover with predominantly ap-2. So you get 5+ saves and hes got more shots.
Like is it that hard to figure you can't win in this scenario?
2+ saves vs 5+ saves...who wins?
I've won against Tau. Lots of people have. You see, the key to winning at this game is to actually play it. Only then you'll see there's more to it than a simplified one to one comparison.
I know you've previously said you don't play, so I understand there are factors involved that are a lot harder to come to grips with. You simply haven't yet modeled them into your assessment.
Points dude. Points. Marine stuff is expensive. Infantry are 4 points.
This is interaction here is specific to the fact that drones make single shot weapons useless. Most xenos units are not single shot variety and if they are - they are mobile and able to get around the drone problem. marines lists literally can not. Because they don't have to tools to deal with the problem.
You can jsut dump plasma into them. But low and behold! The power of on demand -1 to hit. The commander is just going to make the squad kill itself with neuroweb system jammer.
Nowadays people are playing with things called "missions". Tau aren't particularly good at them, because they tend to involve capturing objectives outside of the Tau deployment zone - where no Tau wants to be.
Tau are always a nasty opponent but with some LoS blocking terrain and the CA18 missions they are entirely beatable.
That being said, dead units don't score objectives. I don't like the reliance on LoS blockers. It seems like shooting is inherently too good if we have to randomly turn it off for free every match.
Mandragola wrote: Nowadays people are playing with things called "missions". Tau aren't particularly good at them, because they tend to involve capturing objectives outside of the Tau deployment zone - where no Tau wants to be.
Tau are always a nasty opponent but with some LoS blocking terrain and the CA18 missions they are entirely beatable.
Yes they are beatable. Harlequins do particularly well against them because they can turn off overwatch. So do eldar because the wave serpent is really durable against tau shooting and can tie units up after turn 1 and they can take hostages with shinning spears and their own on demand -1 tot hit against them. Guard do really well against them because of their huge amount of LOS ignoring weapons and not to mention they actually outrange tau in most situations. They aren't beatable with marines though. Which is all I was saying.
Rogerio134134 wrote: So I've been using my crimson fists as Deathwatch but fancy actually using them as space marines for once. Here's a quick run down of my list.
Repulsor with Gatling cannons and lascannon
Repulsor with Gatling cannons and lascannon
Spearhead detachment
Smash captain with thunder hammer
Redemptor with Gatling cannons
Primaris ancient with banner of emperor ascendant
3 aggressors
----
Very similar list to what I currently use with my Deathwatch and the plan I normally use is putn everything together in a big blob and match it forward and then deepstrike a hard hitting unit in behind the enemy.
So in this force I'll be placing the aggressors and hellblasters inside the repulsors to keep them safe at the start of the game and slowly move everything forward within Kantor and the banners aura too get all re roll hits and return fire on death.
Tempted to make them a liberator strike force detachment as well to gain the decent stratagems from that too.
Few points and questions - it's totally pedantic, but that's a Vanguard Detachment not a Spearhead
Definitely worth it to make those Hellblasters a full 10 man instead of 2 MSU squads if you go with the Liberator detachment. Can always combat squad if you need to. The bigger squad makes those nice specialist detachment strats better.
A smash captain with a thunder hammer isn't the best choice for Crimson Fists because you can use the Fist of Vengeance relic to hit as hard as a Thunder Hammer, but without the penalty to hit, and it's cheaper. Another fun variant I've seen is more of a blender style Warlord of a Captain on a bike with a Thunder Hammer, Chainsword swapped to teeth of terra, and the the one warlord trait that gives you more attacks if you're surrounded. Throws out a ton of attacks and is super fun.
I'm not entirely sure those Infiltrators will do much without support. They're expensive, but committing to them in numbers gives you some really powerful tricks and tools against a variety of different armies - they also like having support from their HQs. I'm just not sure a single unit of them will achieve much. Give it a shot though and let us know!
Cheers bud I always use a smash captain normally to come in with the inceptors and he does well but ill bare in mind the power fist captain.
Infiltrators I agree on, may just use more intercessors.
I run a Primaris captain with the fist of vengance. He's cheap enough at 92 points to mostly sit around buffing my repulsors, and then batter anything that comes into melee range. Ideally he'd have a Lieutenant and Librarian to buff him (might of heroes and null zone) but even without he's a true beatstick. 5 attacks hitting on 2s is way better than 4 hitting on 3s.
Martel732 wrote: That being said, dead units don't score objectives. I don't like the reliance on LoS blockers. It seems like shooting is inherently too good if we have to randomly turn it off for free every match.
LOS blocking favors tau in most cases too. Most units fly so can just hop over obstructions. SMS are a great weapon that doesn't need LOS. Plus drones out of LOS are unmanageable without tons of ignore LOS. Really I think drones need a rule where they have to be within LOS of the shooting unit to be used to block shots. Then marines have a chance. Because they have plenty of anti infantry weapons. They just can't shoot them at the correct targets against tau in most cases.
Mandragola's right, SM often have the edge in playing the mission. I've beaten pretty good Tau lists, but with 2 marines left on the board. They will decimate you. The question is, can you rack up enough points to thumb your nose at them over the piles of your soldiers?
Of course, all this assumes that your Tau opponent hasn't brought some movement in their list. They have good movement and DS if they want it, but the allure of more über dakka is hard to resist, and the balance is tricky to achieve as far as I can see.
Really, I think against a well played Tau sept list, Gman lists are the only ones that might be viable. Hardly 'insight of the year', I know.
When facing a gunline I can't dislodge, I can usually out-mission them. I'll end the match with far less on the board, but they'll have trouble holding ground outside their gunline.
Martel732 wrote: That being said, dead units don't score objectives. I don't like the reliance on LoS blockers. It seems like shooting is inherently too good if we have to randomly turn it off for free every match.
If there was ever a single thing that could be described as being the "wrong" way to play 40k, planet bowling ball would definitely be it.
We can run simple simulations to calculate the result of simple standoff firefights. Those will mirror exactly what you should expect on Planet Bowling Ball.
But, no two tables should be identical for terrain. A cunning maneuver one game that let you LOS his firebase while still hitting his skirmishers/chaff will simply not be an option next game, because the terrain is different/in different spots.
The more terrain, the more it varies. A gunline on a very terrain-dense board will have a ton of overlapping blindspots. Those blindspots give you options.
Last time I faced an IG gunline, they got Hammer & Anvil - basically an additional free turn of shooting before I could do anything. The terrain was dense enough such that until bottom of 2,only a couple units could fire at only my most durable units, which had cover. On Planet Bowling Ball, they could just have shot whatever whenever from wherever.
The same argument holds whether it's Shooting or CC that's too good. The biggest difference is that CC tends to prefer LOS-blocking terrain, whereas Shooting prefers impassible but not LOS-blocking terrain.
Even if/when CC is too good, terrain provides variability. Without it, it's not much more complicated to simulate the results.
The same argument holds whether it's Shooting or CC that's too good. The biggest difference is that CC tends to prefer LOS-blocking terrain, whereas Shooting prefers impassible but not LOS-blocking terrain.
Even if/when CC is too good, terrain provides variability. Without it, it's not much more complicated to simulate the results.
godardc wrote: Are three pedators with killshot valuable ? Almost 600 pts, quite squishy and an obvious target for the opponent, isn't it ?
No - predators are one of the worst choices we have. Even without strats the Vinidcator is better and is at least scary in certain situations. Plus they are a lot cheaper. Tripple vindy really helps the rest of your list. Because not killing one of those vindis is basically not an option for your opponent. Preds? Who cares...+1 to wound? I'm already rerolling all my wounds....Plus they are a lot easier to kill.
Predators are significantly better than vindis.
But, again, you need three, plus other tanks. Predators work when your army is all armor and few infantry.
But too much armor and you are vulnerable to T1 and T2 assaults. Especially my friend playing kraken kids...
It's difficult to balance things out !
Martel732 wrote: Hardly. I just dont understand the endless harping on terrain. Terrain is free and random. You can never count on it.
Insisting on los blockers sure seems like a concession that shooting is too strong.
The game is meant to be played with terrain. The points values are balanced with terrain in mind. Every battle report GW has ever done with 40k has included terrain. It's a wargame, and you would expect units to see their value increase/decrease with terrain. In fact, it's one of the reasons why 40k can't be (and shouldn't be) "perfectly balanced." It also makes perfect sense that an army focussed on shooting would have an advantage over an army focussed on punching you, in an open field at some distance, because duh.
In addition, YOU are responsible in no small part for the types of tables you game on.
Martel732 wrote: Hardly. I just dont understand the endless harping on terrain. Terrain is free and random. You can never count on it.
Insisting on los blockers sure seems like a concession that shooting is too strong.
Seriously? If there’s not enough terrain then shooty armies will benefit, because they can shoot anything they want. Too much and melee armies will benefit because they won’t be shot. You therefore want a decent amount of terrain so as to have fair and interesting games. This is obvious.
It’s totally reasonable to have a fair set up of terrain that makes for interesting games featuring movement, rather than simply deciding games between two gunlines by whoever wins the roll for first turn. I don’t play this game just to flip a coin to see who wins.
You’re wrong to say that terrain is a random factor. Tournaments will usually publish their terrain set ups in advance so you can prepare for it. You know what terrain you have in your own collection or what your local club has. So you can design your army to work with the conditions you’ll be facing, say by taking more stuff that ignores LoS if there’s a lot of stuff that blocks it.
Terrain isn't a single random factor; it's a collection of tons of partially-independent factors. Which means that, while any individual one facet might be unpredictable, there's a great deal of consistency on the whole.
That's why relying on multiple random factors is better than relying no a single random factor.
godardc wrote: Are three pedators with killshot valuable ? Almost 600 pts, quite squishy and an obvious target for the opponent, isn't it ?
No - predators are one of the worst choices we have. Even without strats the Vinidcator is better and is at least scary in certain situations. Plus they are a lot cheaper. Tripple vindy really helps the rest of your list. Because not killing one of those vindis is basically not an option for your opponent. Preds? Who cares...+1 to wound? I'm already rerolling all my wounds....Plus they are a lot easier to kill.
Predators are significantly better than vindis.
But, again, you need three, plus other tanks. Predators work when your army is all armor and few infantry.
But too much armor and you are vulnerable to T1 and T2 assaults. Especially my friend playing kraken kids...
It's difficult to balance things out !
This is one advantage vindis have over preds. You have to actually kill one of them to turn them off. You can fall back and still use their stratagem.
Yeah indirect fire weapons do exist, but they're less effective than direct fire guns. So if a player spends their points on wyverns to ignore terrain they'll have less firepower than if they'd taken tank commanders on planet bowling ball. The terrain is still doing its job.
There's certainly variation in how much cover there'll be, but it affects everyone. A shooty player who brings only direct fire guns will lose missions with lots of LoS-blocking terrain. A good player will therefore take stuff to manage that issue, slightly reducing their firepower in the process. LoS blockers are therefore the antidote to leafblower lists, because they make it impossible to win a tournament playing that way.
I'm generally quite happy if people are trying to shift my intercessors out of cover with mortars and stuff. It takes a long time to get rid of them. I'm less happy about basilisks!
Martel732 wrote: Hardly. I just dont understand the endless harping on terrain. Terrain is free and random. You can never count on it.
Insisting on los blockers sure seems like a concession that shooting is too strong.
Dice are random, too. What I'm trying to teach you here is that the mark of a good player is how they're able to maximize the strengths of the army they're piloting while mitigating its weaknesses in the face of uncertainties and factors not under their control. This is called player skill, and it's how folks are still winning games as Blood Angels even when you aren't. This happens during the game - not before. Terrain can be random, but how you use it to mitigate your weaknesses or maximize your strengths is key.
This is the reason why we play games rather than simulating lists. This is hard to understand for somebody who doesn't play the game, but I can assure you that there's more to it than just list building, picking ITC secondaries, and then rolling a die to see who wins.
My win rate is actually right in line with 40kstats. That rate just sucks. I know that skill matters, but constantly running out of marines hurts a lot.
So i want to get your folks opionons on a unit i do not see used often, the lowly contemptor dreadnought. I was looking at it and comparing it to armiger warglaves and i think it is a valid option to run now days.
Comparison between the 2.
Speed = Warglaive is 14", but 9" contemptors is still pretty good. winner : Warglaive
Range = Warglaive has a 30" melta gun, Contemptor is a 24" multimelta. However contemptor hits on 2's vs warglaives 3's so when moving normal speed they are hitting on the same value and we are talking about 6" being the difference. Unfortunately i still have to give this one to the warglaive, it can advance and shoot where the contemptor cant so the Warglaive has a better threat range. Winner : warglaive.
Survivability = Warglaives have more wounds than a contemptor (12 vs 10) and both have a 3+/5++ save. However i would be remissed to not mention chapter tactics here. The contemptor can get -1 to hit outside 12" where the warglaive can get count double the remaining wounds. Both have access to a 6+++ option as well. In the end this one i think has to go to the warglaive, but only just so. Its really close, but it comes down to which you think is a better defensive buff, -1 to hit or count wounds as double. Winner : Warglaive
Cost = this is an easy one to cover, warglaives are 20 pts more expensive than contemptors. That savings can add up to 3 contemptors getting a free leiutenant out of the deal as the same cost as the 3 warglaives. Winner : Contemptor
Cp value = as i mentioned under cost 3 contemptors can get a free leiutenant for the price of 3 warglaives. Thats 1cp there. Also contemptors are elite choices, not LOW. This means if your trying to run a brigade they already have a spot to fill in. Warglaives are typically taken when your already doing a bigger knight to be sure to get the household trait and the cp. In the end i am giving this one to the contemptor, we are talking about in a space marine army right here and contemptors fit in better than warglaives if your looking for pure cp.
Close combat = This is a bit tricky to do. Both have arguably the same weapon for cc, str x2 ap-3 d3. Both get the same number of attacks (4). Contemptors are stonger than warglaives, wounding t7 on 2's vs 3's for the warglaive, but the warglaive does have a sweep attack that can do more hits vs a swarm force that may look to bog you down in cc. Chapter tactics have a few tricks to let the contemptor run free (ultramarines and white scars both work to make sure your contemptor isnt in a combat with something that isnt its entended target) but household traits have lots of bonuses that deal with cc as well. In the end i am giving this one to the contemptor, but only barely, because its higher strength and the synergy you can pull with it that the warglaive cant.
Synergy = now that i am talking about this i think its important to remember we are talking about a space marine army. This means many space marine powers can help make these guys even better. Might of heros is a particularly good one, +1 attack, str, and toughness means your wounding everything in cc on 2's thats not t9, which means pretty much everything. Warglaives cant get that kind of boost. If we are talking pure soup the issue becomes more muddied. But we are talking marines right now so in a marine force contemptors just fit better than warglaives. Winner : Contemptor (for a space marine army)
In the end its a tie i suppose, or at the very least the contemptor makes a valid alternative to the warglaive. There are tricks the warglaive can do a contemptor cant (outflanking for example, or advance and charge) so i think what it really comes down to is what the job your looking for them to do is. Any comments / thoughts welcomed.
No, it has always been part of the rules and the rules take them into account. Maybe it's not in the 8th Ed rulesbook as before but you had guidelines and everything about terrain and how much was needed at minimum.
You are not supposed to play on planet bowling ball and that's taken into account when they wrote the weapons and shooting rules: so if you don't play with terrain you are actually giving a free and random advantage to shooting.
Is it a concession because assault is too strong in your meta?
Don't think so, seems to be a misunderstanding of the rules.
Remember 40k ISN'T chess and never wanted to be, it's a narrative game, they told it enough like that, so you are supposed to tell something, a story, on a battlefield of the 41st millenium. I don't understand how you could play without terrain keeping that in mind ?
Martel732 wrote: The narrative could be : "This battle takes place in a flat area similar to the eastern front in WWII".
That's an incredibly valid narrative.
Absolutely true, I cannot agree more.
But then you're totally okay with doing whatever it is you want in a narrative game and the competitive value of your units goes out the window.
And the narrative doesn't stop with establishing the setting. Don't play every game on planet bowling ball and hide that fact when you're addressing the value of units of armies. It's skewed analysis and functionally worthless.
Azuza001 wrote: So i want to get your folks opionons on a unit i do not see used often, the lowly contemptor dreadnought. I was looking at it and comparing it to armiger warglaves and i think it is a valid option to run now days.
Comparison between the 2.
Speed = Warglaive is 14", but 9" contemptors is still pretty good. winner : Warglaive
Range = Warglaive has a 30" melta gun, Contemptor is a 24" multimelta. However contemptor hits on 2's vs warglaives 3's so when moving normal speed they are hitting on the same value and we are talking about 6" being the difference. Unfortunately i still have to give this one to the warglaive, it can advance and shoot where the contemptor cant so the Warglaive has a better threat range. Winner : warglaive.
Survivability = Warglaives have more wounds than a contemptor (12 vs 10) and both have a 3+/5++ save. However i would be remissed to not mention chapter tactics here. The contemptor can get -1 to hit outside 12" where the warglaive can get count double the remaining wounds. Both have access to a 6+++ option as well. In the end this one i think has to go to the warglaive, but only just so. Its really close, but it comes down to which you think is a better defensive buff, -1 to hit or count wounds as double. Winner : Warglaive
Cost = this is an easy one to cover, warglaives are 20 pts more expensive than contemptors. That savings can add up to 3 contemptors getting a free leiutenant out of the deal as the same cost as the 3 warglaives. Winner : Contemptor
Cp value = as i mentioned under cost 3 contemptors can get a free leiutenant for the price of 3 warglaives. Thats 1cp there. Also contemptors are elite choices, not LOW. This means if your trying to run a brigade they already have a spot to fill in. Warglaives are typically taken when your already doing a bigger knight to be sure to get the household trait and the cp. In the end i am giving this one to the contemptor, we are talking about in a space marine army right here and contemptors fit in better than warglaives if your looking for pure cp.
Close combat = This is a bit tricky to do. Both have arguably the same weapon for cc, str x2 ap-3 d3. Both get the same number of attacks (4). Contemptors are stonger than warglaives, wounding t7 on 2's vs 3's for the warglaive, but the warglaive does have a sweep attack that can do more hits vs a swarm force that may look to bog you down in cc. Chapter tactics have a few tricks to let the contemptor run free (ultramarines and white scars both work to make sure your contemptor isnt in a combat with something that isnt its entended target) but household traits have lots of bonuses that deal with cc as well. In the end i am giving this one to the contemptor, but only barely, because its higher strength and the synergy you can pull with it that the warglaive cant.
Synergy = now that i am talking about this i think its important to remember we are talking about a space marine army. This means many space marine powers can help make these guys even better. Might of heros is a particularly good one, +1 attack, str, and toughness means your wounding everything in cc on 2's thats not t9, which means pretty much everything. Warglaives cant get that kind of boost. If we are talking pure soup the issue becomes more muddied. But we are talking marines right now so in a marine force contemptors just fit better than warglaives. Winner : Contemptor (for a space marine army)
In the end its a tie i suppose, or at the very least the contemptor makes a valid alternative to the warglaive. There are tricks the warglaive can do a contemptor cant (outflanking for example, or advance and charge) so i think what it really comes down to is what the job your looking for them to do is. Any comments / thoughts welcomed.
I've used both, so here are a couple of thoughts:
Don't call Contemptors "humble". They are pretty badass. It's arguable that they're our best dreadnought. They deliver their hits fairly rapidly and they don't tend to miss. Armigers only hit on a 3+ in combat, usually without rerolls.
Don't take a melta on a contemptor. The assault cannon gets 6 shots, so you've got some reasonable dakka for clearing screens.
A contemptor benefits a lot from a librarian. If Null Zone and Might of Heroes are cast then things will get messed up - even including enemy knights.
Ultimately I think a contemptor can be a decent use of 140 points. The Armiger's speed does probably give it the edge, but the Contemptor - once you include the buffs it can get - is more reliably dangerous.
I condidered the assault cannon and it also seems pretty good as a str 7 assault cannon but that comparison would be vs the dakka armiger and it would not end well for the contemptor i believe. 4d3 str 7 ap-1 2dmg is better than 6 str 7 ap-1 1dmg even before adding range in.
What got me onto this is that i picked up a relic contemptor from forgeworld recently, with double gattlings and the cyclone misisle launcher. I was thinking running 3 contemptors, 2 melta fist and 1 relic, in my black templar army (not the best chapter choice for them but rerolling charges could be useful to make sure those charges go off when they get in range).
But thank you for your input, i am glad i am not the only one who sees this unit and says "that could be nasty if buffed correctly "
Sorry but no, a contemptor with an assault cannon is not an analogue with an Armiger Helverin. A Helverin doesn't have a dreadnought close combat weapon with four attacks at WS2+. A Helverin is for shooting up vehicles while a kheres assault cannon is really just an anti-personnel weapon - quite a good one but really not the point of the dreadnought. There's no comparison whatsoever.
I guess something like a contemtpor mortis might be comparable with the Helverin. I've had ok results from contemptors with quad lascannons, and those got cheaper in the latest CA. I prefer stormcannon leviathans and deredeos though.
Sorry was late last night, didnt really post what I meant. I was saying the same thing, a contemptor with multimelta is a decent analog for a warglaive but a contemptor with an assault cannon isnt anywhere near the same as a helviern. Quad las mortis sounds cool, same with deredeos dreds. The the deredeos seem more like a support dread as well, being able to give a 5++ bubble to others. That could really help some units out (hellblasters, venerable dreads just to think of a few off the top of my head). Not really the same tool you know?
Ok cool, no worries. I just think the comparison is irrelevant.
It's not really important whether a contemptor is like an armiger - or any other unit. What matters is whether or not it's a useful unit for your army. A Kheres assault cannon isn't necessarily a bad choice because it's a different class of weapon to the armiger's melta lance.
The thing that armigers and contemptors are both really for is smashing things in melee. The nice thing about a contemptor is that it's a pretty efficient way of delivering those 3 damage hits to things. It's fairly cheap and quick, with a good strength and great WS. The armiger is faster and a little tougher, but it has a worse strength and WS, so it does less damage when it gets there.
Overall my experience is that both are kind of ok, but neither is a really great unit. People who want to do those D3 hits in melee tend to field smash captains, with good reason.
A Contemptor is a decent platform for delivering those DCCW attacks, as I said. It works well because it doesn’t cost much, it’s reasonably quick and it tends to actually hit and wound things it reaches. That’s not to say that it’s a phenomenally powerful unit, but it’s one that’s able to do a job.
I haven’t seen anyone use a DCCW on a leviathan any time lately. I’ve got stormcannons on mine, which work ok. I prefer repulsors nowadays - the fly keyword is priceless.
So i picked up a repulsar exterminator with the plasma cannon to use in my black templar list recently, cant wait to try it out. But my local meta has seen a shift lately. This shift is to a lot of heavy armor and air. Harliquins, dark eldar, knights (oh the knights), stormfangs, stormravens, stormhawks.... it seems everyone either has 3 russ commanders or aircraft or a knight.
This got me thinking about the hunter and stalker units, specifically the hunter. Its 80 pts for a 60" single las cannon shot that rerolls failed hits and adds 1 to hit rolls vs aircraft. As a cheap option to add a laz cannon in vs a 5 man tactical squad with a single las this thing seems like a steal. What do you guys think of it?
Azuza001 wrote: So i picked up a repulsar exterminator with the plasma cannon to use in my black templar list recently, cant wait to try it out. But my local meta has seen a shift lately. This shift is to a lot of heavy armor and air. Harliquins, dark eldar, knights (oh the knights), stormfangs, stormravens, stormhawks.... it seems everyone either has 3 russ commanders or aircraft or a knight.
This got me thinking about the hunter and stalker units, specifically the hunter. Its 80 pts for a 60" single las cannon shot that rerolls failed hits and adds 1 to hit rolls vs aircraft. As a cheap option to add a laz cannon in vs a 5 man tactical squad with a single las this thing seems like a steal. What do you guys think of it?
I'm a fan of the Hunter myself. I'm convinced the Hunter is actually one of the hidden gems of Codex Space Marines - mono build of course, there's definitely some more competitive options in the Imperial motor pool.
^I'm so close to agreeing with the above, but I always wind up looking at the Razorback instead as it packs the Twin Las, or the Stalker for the multitude of shots.
But yes, 80 is a low low price for that T8 11w 60"Lascannon.
Insectum7 wrote: ^I'm so close to agreeing with the above, but I always wind up looking at the Razorback instead as it packs the Twin Las, or the Stalker for the multitude of shots.
But yes, 80 is a low low price for that T8 11w 60"Lascannon.
Two of those and a Thunderfire cannon feels like a decent start to a Spearhead.
The hunter is tough for its points, but its firepower is not good for the price. It's roughly half what a quad las contemptor would cost. That has twice the firepower but is arguably less tough than even a single hunter.
I actually really like repulsors. The fly keyword is priceless and they have ridiculous amounts of dakka. I find them properly versatile option that can fight against infantry hordes as well as enemy vehicles. Can't wait to get my executioners on the table.
They aren't fun to build though! I've built two so far and put together the chassis of the third last night. I'm doing the tracks seperately though and I've been putting off building them. Trimming the flash off those for my first two normal repulsors was a traumatic experience.
Mandragola wrote: The hunter is tough for its points, but its firepower is not good for the price. It's roughly half what a quad las contemptor would cost. That has twice the firepower but is arguably less tough than even a single hunter.
I actually really like repulsors. The fly keyword is priceless and they have ridiculous amounts of dakka. I find them properly versatile option that can fight against infantry hordes as well as enemy vehicles. Can't wait to get my executioners on the table.
They aren't fun to build though! I've built two so far and put together the chassis of the third last night. I'm doing the tracks seperately though and I've been putting off building them. Trimming the flash off those for my first two normal repulsors was a traumatic experience.
Don't take that against Eldar, Eldar can delete one each turn from 48" away.
Not sure why people are against predators, kill shot strat seems to work wonders. Any ideas on how this list did so well? What combos, tricks is this list running?
That's a very odd list so I'm surprised it did so well. The vanguard vets are probably able to do good work against flyer lists though and the Leviathan will be relatively hard to get rid of, with Tigurius making it hard to hit. I could see the army getting swamped by hordes though.
One thing the list does have is tons of psychic defence. Those BT scouts are an interesting addition.
That list puts out a ton of attacks from units with high invunerable saves, i can see that working just fine.
As for predators they are amazing, i take 3 all the time and they always do wonders. Problem is they are better in a space wolves detachment where Njal can cast stormcaller giving them a 2+ save then spend 3cp and make them -1 to hit making them much harder to kill. Basic marines cant get that level of protection.
Mandragola wrote: That's a very odd list so I'm surprised it did so well. The vanguard vets are probably able to do good work against flyer lists though and the Leviathan will be relatively hard to get rid of, with Tigurius making it hard to hit. I could see the army getting swamped by hordes though.
One thing the list does have is tons of psychic defence. Those BT scouts are an interesting addition.
I doubt hordes would be an issue. It doesn't show the relics on the list but we do know it's a Victrix Guard detachment. In that case he's almost guaranteed to be running the relic banner that adds +1 attack. In addition, you can spend CP to fight in your opponent's charge phase or add +1 to hit in the fight phase. Turns those Vanguard Vets into a freaking lawnmower.
Mandragola wrote: That's a very odd list so I'm surprised it did so well. The vanguard vets are probably able to do good work against flyer lists though and the Leviathan will be relatively hard to get rid of, with Tigurius making it hard to hit. I could see the army getting swamped by hordes though.
One thing the list does have is tons of psychic defence. Those BT scouts are an interesting addition.
I doubt hordes would be an issue. It doesn't show the relics on the list but we do know it's a Victrix Guard detachment. In that case he's almost guaranteed to be running the relic banner that adds +1 attack. In addition, you can spend CP to fight in your opponent's charge phase or add +1 to hit in the fight phase. Turns those Vanguard Vets into a freaking lawnmower.
It's not super weird, it's just them finally allowing you to have wysiwyg rules.
As for the list it's nice to see something different to the standard parking lot for marines but I hate that it's yet more atleast subfaction only soup or go home for competitive lists.
It makes sense because literally every unit is pulling some form of double-duty, which marines really need to take advantage of to compete.
For example,
The librarian trio is tailoring psychic powers to the match-up (if its ITC at least), allowing for the conclave strat to ensure null-zone gets off, and providing sufficient deny. They also aren't slouches in combat with force weapons. Give the phobos the armour indomitus and your looking at a 0+ save in cover, making him pretty difficult to remove.
The UM scouts can pull board control, character suppression, and objective holding. The BT scouts allowing for a 50%/75% chance to just outright deny a psychic power is also critical.
Vanguard vets are lawnmowers, heavy-hitters with the thunderhammers, and can also tie units down. I'd be curious how many games he won with this list by surrounding a non-fly tank and just pillowfisting it until it was the opponents CC phase. Having access to Psychic fortress is also critical for reducing the damage done by smite spam.
The Leviathan is just good, especially when MoH'ed and protected by Tiggy.
The thunderfire puts out some decent Ignore LOS fire, but the real benefit is its ability to control units like genestealers or lord discordants with the strategem.
And Rowboat just ties it together. he can beatstick enemy beatsticks while providing all of the juicy UM buffs nearby.
Mandragola wrote: The hunter is tough for its points, but its firepower is not good for the price. It's roughly half what a quad las contemptor would cost. That has twice the firepower but is arguably less tough than even a single hunter.
I actually really like repulsors. The fly keyword is priceless and they have ridiculous amounts of dakka. I find them properly versatile option that can fight against infantry hordes as well as enemy vehicles. Can't wait to get my executioners on the table.
They aren't fun to build though! I've built two so far and put together the chassis of the third last night. I'm doing the tracks seperately though and I've been putting off building them. Trimming the flash off those for my first two normal repulsors was a traumatic experience.
I didn't think my repulsor was that bad to build, I mean my personal hell was the chaos marine Defiler.
Tomorrow I'm thinking of fielding dual repulsor crimson fist force with 2 repulsors and Kantor, anyone have much luck with Pedro?? He seems expensive but reroll all hits is great and he gives all crimson fists that plus 1 attack which is handy
Rogerio134134 wrote: Tomorrow I'm thinking of fielding dual repulsor crimson fist force with 2 repulsors and Kantor, anyone have much luck with Pedro?? He seems expensive but reroll all hits is great and he gives all crimson fists that plus 1 attack which is handy
Pedro has done some serious work in almost every game I have run. He does need some protection, but Pedro's Goon Squad of Honour Guard, a Captain with the Fist of Vengeance, and an Ancient is nuts.
A chapter master is a big help for repulsors. They fire an awful lot of dakka so full rerolls help a lot. They make the biggest difference with overwatch, where it almost doubles their firepower, making them no fun at all to charge.
I’ve not run Pedro for my fists. I just sometimes upgrade my Primaris Captain to a chapter master. Pedro is kind of awesome though.
Yeah I'm going to give him a shot tomorrow, twin repulsors with hellblasters/aggressors, Pedro walking behind the tanks and redemptor and see how we get on.
Vilehydra wrote: It makes sense because literally every unit is pulling some form of double-duty, which marines really need to take advantage of to compete.
For example,
The librarian trio is tailoring psychic powers to the match-up (if its ITC at least), allowing for the conclave strat to ensure null-zone gets off, and providing sufficient deny. They also aren't slouches in combat with force weapons. Give the phobos the armour indomitus and your looking at a 0+ save in cover, making him pretty difficult to remove.
The UM scouts can pull board control, character suppression, and objective holding. The BT scouts allowing for a 50%/75% chance to just outright deny a psychic power is also critical.
Vanguard vets are lawnmowers, heavy-hitters with the thunderhammers, and can also tie units down. I'd be curious how many games he won with this list by surrounding a non-fly tank and just pillowfisting it until it was the opponents CC phase. Having access to Psychic fortress is also critical for reducing the damage done by smite spam.
The Leviathan is just good, especially when MoH'ed and protected by Tiggy.
The thunderfire puts out some decent Ignore LOS fire, but the real benefit is its ability to control units like genestealers or lord discordants with the strategem.
And Rowboat just ties it together. he can beatstick enemy beatsticks while providing all of the juicy UM buffs nearby.
Awesome. Just what i was looking for.
Can you clarify what you mean by: Double duty? LIke whats the double duty for the Vanguards? I assume you mean good in 2 phases, but some units don't seem obvious to me.
What is this "surround non fly tank and pillowfisting until opponents CC phase?" Can you elaborate?
"Double duty" as in manage two or more roles/functions, most likely. Being able to respond to several types of threats is important.
Vanguards there are mentioned as being able to deal high damage (which is obvious), but also tie stuff down (which is also a really good use). Not killing something immediately, but taking it out of the opposing players control, while at the same time shielding your Vanguard from effective counterplay is a pro move, imo.
When it comes to space marines you really need to have a double duty plan for every unit you put into the list.
Example : Black Templar Scouts. With their special deployment they can deploy right on the front line. If you go first you can move them forward but not charge, putting them 3" away from an opponents line and move blocking important things t1 from being useable, like a knight gallent. If your opponent goes first you can deny any psycic powers t1 with them thanks to the black templar strat. Finally if they are ignored they can grab mid field objectives easy. All these uses for 55 pts is pretty good. Sure they will probably die after t1 but they did their job well.
Thats why bt scouts are finding their way into many soup lists.
How are you guys dealing with the triple disco lord lists (or soon to be a thing chaos knights) while still being TAC?
They do so much work with DttFE, anything they touch dies. They have marks that let them advance and charge, go first and other terrible things. Morty is the same thing (but better) so either I try to shoot him down and then deal with the disco lords (if I go first) or get my butt kicked if I don't (still getting my butt kicked if I go first but at least there's a chance).
While I'm at it, anyone have any suggestions for dealing with 40-60 plague bearers?
Hitting on 4's-5's is so ugly that by the time I've dealt with morty and the disco bros (this has happened once and the dice gods were heavily involved) the plague bearers pretty much have all of the board and I've got very little left to fight them with.
Anyone stumbled across anything that works against this besides hiding in the second floor of ruins? I'm hesitant to use bolter cents as they are such a liability vs anything with good med/long range shooting (tau, chaos FW dreads, DE, eldar flyers, i.e. the other meta lists). I've tried DW but two big storm bolter units only kill 10 of them and then they get swallowed by the horde.
bananathug wrote: How are you guys dealing with the triple disco lord lists (or soon to be a thing chaos knights) while still being TAC?
They do so much work with DttFE, anything they touch dies. They have marks that let them advance and charge, go first and other terrible things. Morty is the same thing (but better) so either I try to shoot him down and then deal with the disco lords (if I go first) or get my butt kicked if I don't (still getting my butt kicked if I go first but at least there's a chance).
While I'm at it, anyone have any suggestions for dealing with 40-60 plague bearers?
Hitting on 4's-5's is so ugly that by the time I've dealt with morty and the disco bros (this has happened once and the dice gods were heavily involved) the plague bearers pretty much have all of the board and I've got very little left to fight them with.
Anyone stumbled across anything that works against this besides hiding in the second floor of ruins? I'm hesitant to use bolter cents as they are such a liability vs anything with good med/long range shooting (tau, chaos FW dreads, DE, eldar flyers, i.e. the other meta lists). I've tried DW but two big storm bolter units only kill 10 of them and then they get swallowed by the horde.
That sounds filthy, go Crimson fists with MSU and multiple repulsor/redemptor for massive rate of fire?
bananathug wrote: How are you guys dealing with the triple disco lord lists (or soon to be a thing chaos knights) while still being TAC?
They do so much work with DttFE, anything they touch dies. They have marks that let them advance and charge, go first and other terrible things. Morty is the same thing (but better) so either I try to shoot him down and then deal with the disco lords (if I go first) or get my butt kicked if I don't (still getting my butt kicked if I go first but at least there's a chance).
While I'm at it, anyone have any suggestions for dealing with 40-60 plague bearers?
Hitting on 4's-5's is so ugly that by the time I've dealt with morty and the disco bros (this has happened once and the dice gods were heavily involved) the plague bearers pretty much have all of the board and I've got very little left to fight them with.
Anyone stumbled across anything that works against this besides hiding in the second floor of ruins? I'm hesitant to use bolter cents as they are such a liability vs anything with good med/long range shooting (tau, chaos FW dreads, DE, eldar flyers, i.e. the other meta lists). I've tried DW but two big storm bolter units only kill 10 of them and then they get swallowed by the horde.
Disco lords require board control. The real killing power in that list are the discos and morty, you need to hold back the discos while you kill morty. BT scouts are excellent in this regard as they also have the deny strat for either miasma of pestilence OR warp time, depending on your board situation. Focus down morty, then focus down the discos without giving up too much ground. The one that gives +2 to advance and charge as a field commander trait is your primary target after morty is down. They're tough, but plasma and lascannons both fit perfect into the niche of killng Disco lords. -3 AP puts it right into their invuln save, and you only need 6 wounds (3 for lascannons) to go through. Also, keep your units spread in such a way that they cant be consolidated into.
As per plaguebearers, massed bolter fire followed by mass charges. I know it sounds silly but think of it like this. The -1 lasts for the phase, so you need to shoot plaguebearer squad below 20. You then need to absolutely pile on casualties. The best way to mitigate plaguebearer toughness is to force morale checks on them. If you're running snipers or any assassins, murder the sloppity bilepiper. Essentially every kill past 7 counts as double so forcing two plaguebearer squads to make d6+X morale checks is an excellent way to force models off the board. Of course the demon Icon makes this less reliable, but its still the best way of putting down plaguebearer models.
On a side note, I've been running a sternguard/vulkan team in a rhino to mulch these sort of lines, and while they don't generally outright kill the PBs, the remove enough models to charge them without a -1 and force a morale save.
Also, lists that have discos and plaguebearers may put the plaguebearers in a daisy chain at the front. IIRC the disco bases are larger then 2" at their smallest point (not quite sure, would need to doublecheck). If this is the case, then you can use his plaguebearers against their movement paths with scouts in CC with plaguebearers.
Also @ Dynas. No matter what weapon your equipped with, every unit has a 'base attack' that is their strength and no AP. You can use this to your advantage by locking down units in assault so that you can avoid the enemy shooting phase. For example, you enemy has two leman russes, you can only charge one. You charge the leman with the vanguard, get in, and surround the leman russ so it can no longer fallback. Now you have two options, use the thunderhammers equipped on some of the vanguard to try and kill the leman russ, OR to have all of them use their str 4 ap- standard attacks instead. If you kill it, you remove the leman russ for the rest of the game, and your vanguard are now sitting in the open ready to get shot by the other leman russ. If you tie it down, you negate it for a round of shooting while also having the added benefit of protecting your vanguard vets from the other leman russ. In their combat phase, you attempt to kill the thing (spending the 3 CP if necessary to fight again) so that you can now charge and kill his other leman russ. These sort of moves can win you games.
Hey guys, just wanted to post the space marines list I've been using lately and have been having moderate success with. I don't post much, but I check in on this board regularly, and take peoples suggestions on here into consideration. I would love to hear opinions and get some constructive criticism. This list attempts to feel like a balanced marines force, with lots of power armored bodies, and a variety of support units, incorporating tanks, planes and dreadnoughts, while still hitting hard and having some staying power.
Space Marines Battalion 2000 points
HQ Primaris Chapter Master with plasma pistol and power fist
Primaris LT with power sword and pistol
Troops
x10 primaris intercessors, sgt with power sword (use primaris vets strategem upgrade to be able to use double tap bolt rifles)
x5 primaris intercessors
x5 primaris intercessors
x5 bolter scouts
x5 bolter scouts
x5 sniper scouts
Elites
Redemptor Dread with double gatling
Relic contemptor dread with quad lascannons
Relic Venator Sicaran Tank Destroyer w/ heavy bolter
x5 Primaris Reivers with grav chutes and carbines
Fast Attack
x4 bikers, sgt with storm bolter
Flyer
Xiphon Interceptor with 4 lascannons and rotary missile launcher
Dedicated Transport
Razorback with twin assault cannons
Auxiliary Support Detachment
Custodes Telemon Dreadnought with two archanus storm cannons and spiculus bolt launcher
I usually form two separate fire bases to hold two objectives to start. One has the Chapter master and LT buffing the contemptor and redemptor, and some supporting primaris infantry. The other fire base has the Telemon and razorback and some infantry. The sicaran and Xiphon can move and shoot without penalty, so they start hidden and then move into buff range if possible or to the flank that needs the most help. The scouts serve multiple roles depending on match up. Vs shooty armies they infiltrate and hold remote or back field objectives, and vs assault armies they form a screen. The reivers deepstrike and either grab a poorly defended out of the way objective or reinforce the line and the bikes either help clear screens or advance onto objectives. The telemon has been useful in being a multi role long range support unit; tough to kill and capable of killing multiple infantry types or heavily damaging armor as necessary. I feel like if I wanted a palate change, a repulsor executioner could fill a similar role for similar points. The xiphon can move quickly and damage tanks, or get in deep to threaten LOS ignoring units. I have plenty of other marine units available in my collection, and would appreciate suggestions on tweaks. Thanks!
I could save some points by going contemptor mortis (like 10-15 or so I think?) but I didn't really have anything else to sink those 15 points into that I could think of. The relic one gets a couple extra wounds and a 6+ FNP which is nice for durability. I usually go raven guard too, so if I pop him in cover he can be fairly resilient. I have 2 relic unit elite slots by taking the other two non relic elites (sicaran takes a relic unit slot too), so I figured why not.
.. so you do. guess a part of me was still stuck in the old FOC.
Although if you can find the points for another HQ at this point you might be better off creating a vanguard detachment for your elties to gain back another CP.
3 big tanks and a dread with some decent infantry too, the plan is for the 3 tanks to advance together with Pedro hugging the back of the executioner with the leiutenant to grant all the re rolls.
Yeah thats a pretty interesting list. I faced something similar last week, dark angels player had the executioner, regular repulsar, and a land raider crusader vs my eldar. It... didnt go well for him. A doomed / jinxed repulsar dies very quickly to shuriken fire, and it doesn't even have to be a lot, so be careful against stuff like that.
Azuza001 wrote: Yeah thats a pretty interesting list. I faced something similar last week, dark angels player had the executioner, regular repulsar, and a land raider crusader vs my eldar. It... didnt go well for him. A doomed / jinxed repulsar dies very quickly to shuriken fire, and it doesn't even have to be a lot, so be careful against stuff like that.
Yeah to be honest the scene at my local club is not top tier play unless you specifically ask your opponent for a game like that so I think they will do ok. Normally I run a list with a single repulsor and 2 dreads and I do quite well at a local level.
I love the tanks though and think they look fantastic, if there was a way of giving them an invulnerable save somehow it would make them quite powerful.
Why would you not trade autolaunchers for frag launchers? 2d6str 4 shots at 18" range is totally worth 8 points. IMO its also worth it to upgrade the storm bolters to frag launchers. Then you are dumping 4d6str 4 on something. For 12 points you will be doing 14 shots str 4 instead of 4 shots. For 12 points. Totally worth. Sometimes youll roll hot to and get 20+ shots. When your rerolling all hits and 1's to wound. That is a whole infantry unit destroyed.
Also...I think a standard LT is probably better. You save a fair amount of points plus you can give him reasonable gear if you want...like a jump pack THSS. Im assuming your LT is taking your relic as well. So A chainsword and SS and jump pack is probably your best build. Then give him teeth of tera. Or you can take the crimson fist power fist which is quite good. In order to make these changes youd probably need to take a TLHB on a repulsar
Good suggestions but I really like the consistency of storm bolters, the enemy is usually within 12 so I get a guaranteed 12 shots plus 18 shots from the Gatling and all the rest.
I did look into a liberator strike force leiutenant with the 9 inch reroll hits bubble but realised it's only Primaris characters!
I agree that you should aways upgrade the auto launchers. You pay so much for the guns piled on that thing, you are not going to want to forgo shooting, barring niche cases.
I’ll take stormbolters over frag launchers though.
S/AP/D is the same. Range and number of shots are what mater.
Stombolers get 4 shots <12”. Better then the d6.
From 12-18” The d6 is going to be better then the bolter’s 2 shots.
18-24” the stombolter still gets those two shots though.
So the frag launchers are better statistically in the 12-18” band. That’s not nothing, and covers a lot of ground. But I prefer the consistancy of flat numbers, and the better close in fire and option for longer range. If they cost the same, it might be a coin toss. But the Frags are more expensive, so I take bolters when able. YMMV
Nevelon wrote: I agree that you should aways upgrade the auto launchers. You pay so much for the guns piled on that thing, you are not going to want to forgo shooting, barring niche cases.
I’ll take stormbolters over frag launchers though.
S/AP/D is the same. Range and number of shots are what mater.
Stombolers get 4 shots <12”. Better then the d6.
From 12-18” The d6 is going to be better then the bolter’s 2 shots.
18-24” the stombolter still gets those two shots though.
So the frag launchers are better statistically in the 12-18” band. That’s not nothing, and covers a lot of ground. But I prefer the consistancy of flat numbers, and the better close in fire and option for longer range. If they cost the same, it might be a coin toss. But the Frags are more expensive, so I take bolters when able. YMMV
The main reason that 18" band matter is the kraks are also 18". So typically you will want to maintain 18". That combined with you -2 to charge keeps certain units from being able to reliably charge you. Getting within 12 can also be difficult ESP when trying to stay in an aura. It was a no brainer when bolt dics effected vehicles though.
Had a tournament today, rounds 1 and 2. Rounds 3 and 4 are next sunday. Our flgs does tournaments more casually, so the rules are you can change whatever you want in between rounds, but once your opponent has been named your stuck to your list you have on hand at that point to hand to them. Even so i stuck to the same list both rounds, and won my first 2 games. We randomly roll for missions from chapter approved 2018.
My list. Both games i spent 3cp and turned the captain on bike into a chapter master.
So my first opponent was running chaos knights with chaos deamons (slaanssh). He had a chaos castellen, a chaos gallent, a chaos helvrine, 30 deamonettes, the special slaanesh deamon prince, and the special keeper of secrets.
Mission was beachead.
I deployed 2 of my 5 man scout squads in the center 9" away from my opponents line and on the center objective, then spread out covering my flanks. 3rd scout squad and 2 venerable dreads sat on my own objective.
I went first, moved my scouts up advancing them and leaving the center objective putting all 10 scouts out in a line 2" away from his gallant and keeper of secrets. I then moved the vindicators up within 24" of the demonettes / deamon prince. Finally i moved my dreadnaughts forward towards the center. I used the strat for mortal wounds and killed 7 demonettes from 1 squad, 4 from another, and put 4 on the deamon prince. I also put 6 wounds onto the keeper of secrets.
My plan worked perfectly. He moved up but the scouts move blocked the galant completely and forced the keeper to go around, buying me a free turn. The demonettes and dp moved up too but were just outside charge range after advancing. Shooting / assault he ended up killing the contemptor, the 1 move blocking scout squads and 3 from the other move block squad, one of my 5 man crusader squads, and did 6 wounds to one of the ironclads.
Turn 2 i unloaded everything at the deamons. I ended up killing the deamon prince, all the demonettes, the keeper of secrets, and the gallent took 8 wounds. I repaired the ironclad 3 wounds, and took control of the center objective while getting the remaining forward scouts onto his objective to at least contest his objective.
His turn 2 he tried to regroup, moving his gallent up to get at the center and putting the castellen onto his own objective. He killed the few remaining forward scouts, killed both ironclads, and killed one of the vindicators.
Unfortunately for him it was no where near enough. The remaining 2 vindicators fired on the castellen putting 10 wounds onto him. I then killed the gallent with my remaining shooting. This left him his castellen and armiger, with the castellen at 16 wounds. He tried to do some more damage and killed the other ironclad and put some wounds on another vindicator but it wasnt enough. My next turn i killed the castellen with my 2 venerables that had been sitting on my objective playing long range fire support and he called it.
2nd game was vs a imperial soup list with a friend of mine that I play all the time.
He had 2 salamander batallions and a guard supreme command detachment.
His list specifically had a smash captain, a leiutenant, a smash captain on bike, a librarian on bike, 5 x 5 man tacticals each with a missile launcher and 4 with combi plasmas, a 5 man sniper scout squad, 3 leman russes with heavy bolters / battle cannons and baneblade varient that had some soet of 3d6 shot super battlecannon. The guard were catachan for reroll shots.
Mission was the 5th mission from ca. I went first again and focused on holding 2 objectives in my deployment zone. Shooting i killed one of the 5 man salamander squads with the vindicators, killed a few scouts, and put 8 wounds on one of the command tanks. All and all pretty ineffective.
Unfortunately for my friend he was very worried about the trip vindicator strat so he focused dramatically on them. He killed one and killed a bunch of scouts.
Turn 2 i kept the preasure on. I killed the weakened commander, put 10 wounds onto the baneblade, and killed one of his smash captains that became out of positioned and i lit up with a massive amount of bolter fire (I think i ended up shooting 52 bolter shots at him getting full rerolls with them). I ended up shooting him off of one of his own objectives.
His turn he ended up blowing the other 2 vindicators and killing the contemptor dreadnought.
My 3rd and final turn i moved my assault units (everything except the 2 venerable dreads and 2 crusaders on my objectives) onto his flank with the baneblade and 7 salamander tacticals onto that flanks. I dropped my pod into his deployment zone on that flank as well. I moved onto his objective, killed his baneblade, and he called it. I still had way too much on the table but he was down to his 2 bike charecters, a 5 man salamander team, and 2 of the russes.
Overall i am pretty happy with the army and how its working. I think the contemptor needs to go.... it just gets targeted and blinked before a tech marike can even try and heal it..... though that could be a case of my opponents know i like it so.... yeah. If i do remove it i can drop the normal tech marine for another chr, maybe a leiutenant or emporers champion.... advice welcomed.
I deployed 2 of my 5 man scout squads in the center 9" away from my opponents line and on the center objective, then spread out covering my flanks. 3rd scout squad and 2 venerable dreads sat on my own objective.
I went first, moved my scouts up advancing them and leaving the center objective putting all 10 scouts out in a line 2" away from his gallant and keeper of secrets.
DO NOT DO THIS, if your opponent was more read up on the rules, they would realize that heroic intervention doesn't require you to have charged a unit, simply that a unit is within 3" of a character at the end of the charge phase. If the knight is a character (has to be for WLT or relics) it could've also heroically intervened. This meant that moving them within 2 inches could've actually given them ~ 5 inches of extra movement (2" heroic intervention, 3" consolidation after killing the scouts).
Always make sure its 3.1 inches away from a character that you don't want intervening.
Otherwise keep me updated on the linebreaker bombardment, I've been tempted to swap a knight errant out for them because linebreaker absolutely deletes certain tau/demon builds. Also keep in mind, linebreaker bombardment is NOT a shooting attack, it simply says you cannot shoot your demolisher cannons. This means that your vindicators can advance, smoke, AND be tied up in close combat and still activate linebreaker bombardment. It makes them great blockers against plaguebearer spam and the like.
Xenomancers wrote: Why would you not trade autolaunchers for frag launchers? 2d6str 4 shots at 18" range is totally worth 8 points. IMO its also worth it to upgrade the storm bolters to frag launchers. Then you are dumping 4d6str 4 on something. For 12 points you will be doing 14 shots str 4 instead of 4 shots. For 12 points. Totally worth. Sometimes youll roll hot to and get 20+ shots. When your rerolling all hits and 1's to wound. That is a whole infantry unit destroyed.
Also...I think a standard LT is probably better. You save a fair amount of points plus you can give him reasonable gear if you want...like a jump pack THSS. Im assuming your LT is taking your relic as well. So A chainsword and SS and jump pack is probably your best build. Then give him teeth of tera. Or you can take the crimson fist power fist which is quite good. In order to make these changes youd probably need to take a TLHB on a repulsar
Just a small thing an LT can not be given a Storm Shield because GW reasons.
Captains can while gaining a 3++ instead of a 4++ ie very little but the CCHQ without an invulnerable save can't take the storm shield.
Libratians also can't take them for reasons.
Index terminator libbies can take a SS for most marine flavors IIRC. I think Deathwatch are the only ones who cant make use of that particular loadout for whatever reason.
Xenomancers wrote: Why would you not trade autolaunchers for frag launchers? 2d6str 4 shots at 18" range is totally worth 8 points. IMO its also worth it to upgrade the storm bolters to frag launchers. Then you are dumping 4d6str 4 on something. For 12 points you will be doing 14 shots str 4 instead of 4 shots. For 12 points. Totally worth. Sometimes youll roll hot to and get 20+ shots. When your rerolling all hits and 1's to wound. That is a whole infantry unit destroyed.
Also...I think a standard LT is probably better. You save a fair amount of points plus you can give him reasonable gear if you want...like a jump pack THSS. Im assuming your LT is taking your relic as well. So A chainsword and SS and jump pack is probably your best build. Then give him teeth of tera. Or you can take the crimson fist power fist which is quite good. In order to make these changes youd probably need to take a TLHB on a repulsar
Just a small thing an LT can not be given a Storm Shield because GW reasons.
Captains can while gaining a 3++ instead of a 4++ ie very little but the CCHQ without an invulnerable save can't take the storm shield.
Libratians also can't take them for reasons.
Man that is lame. So glad I play ultras so I don't even have to deal with LT.
Consider putting your LTs or libbies in the armor indomitus. It makes them way more survivable. I have a jump-pack librarian and the things that he has survived with a 2+/3++ is absurd. I always end up free-buying the Shield eternal, and then using a cp to buy the AI. A shield eternal captain can take a point blank riptide and reliably live through it.
So now I am torn. I had slighyly modified my list to get a leutinant in in place of the tech marine on foot without loosing the contemptor but now i have picked up 2 thunderfire cannons and i REALLY want to find a way to put them into my list. Unfortunately i dont see a way of doing so without dropping the contemptor.
I had to drop the smash captain down to fit the leiutenant in. In my first 2 games he never got into combat as i was using him as a tactical reserve type of unit (keeping him within 9" of as much as possible while staying a threat if anything did break through my dreadnaughts/ vindicator line). But i am not sure i am happy with this list.
Drop pod is there for late game objective grabbing btw. Having a 5 man crusader squad that can grab something t3 with the pod could come in useful, but i may drop that and just upgrade everything else with the 65 pts..... choices....
Have you considered Scout Bikers for the Cluster Mine stratagems? How important is the Black Templars CT in this list? You could make it a Crimson Fists list and use 2 CPs to take the Liberator Strike Force and Field Commander Stratagem - this would give your Lt the Expert Instructor WT - 9" reroll 1s to hit. You also get access to the relic power fist that does flat 3dmg without -1 to hit for your captain. Could be something to consider.
The ct isnt that important thats true, but the stratagem is pure gold. I deploy my scouts up front so even t1 i can be garunteed to be in psycic deny range. Denying that farseer guide or fortune, or stopping that warp time deamon prince, or saying no to null zone... these things have swung the game into my favor t1 numerous times, enough that i am sold on the army as valuable to any marine player.
I had not considered scout bikers, i will take a look at them and see how they look. Thanks for the advice!
wuestenfux wrote: What's the deal with the new Blood Ravens?
Take it or leave it?
You can make it work if you like T4 2W models, Gabe, and Marine psykers, but I wouldn't go and repaint your collection to red and bone based on those rules just yet. They're cool, and there's some tactica that can help you make the best of the rules, but they aren't going to win you games on their own. There are stronger, more competitive options if what you're looking for is the best competitive edge.
It seems like the blood ravens few advantages are against....
1. Overcharged plasma - there is a lot of that out there and those t4 2w terminators / primaris will really enjoy that 2's dont pop them.
2. Blood angles smash captains - their +1 to wound (wounding on 2's) with so many of their weapons like power axes and thunder hammers wont hurt on 2's now.
3. Knights in cc - its not much but knights will not put as many wounds onto your units.
Having said all that, the tactic isnt much help. I agree, its not enough to go out and repaint your models. I kind of like the master librarian strat though. Take a phobos librarian with the tomb and that strat, now he knows 4 powers and can cast 3 with access to 2 different disciplines. That could be tactically useful if nothing else.
Azuza001 wrote: It seems like the blood ravens few advantages are against....
1. Overcharged plasma - there is a lot of that out there and those t4 2w terminators / primaris will really enjoy that 2's dont pop them.
2. Blood angles smash captains - their +1 to wound (wounding on 2's) with so many of their weapons like power axes and thunder hammers wont hurt on 2's now.
3. Knights in cc - its not much but knights will not put as many wounds onto your units.
Having said all that, the tactic isnt much help. I agree, its not enough to go out and repaint your models. I kind of like the master librarian strat though. Take a phobos librarian with the tomb and that strat, now he knows 4 powers and can cast 3 with access to 2 different disciplines. That could be tactically useful if nothing else.
Great breakdown, but I think an important thing to keep in mind is that this is only one part of the tactic - the psychic reroll is a fantastic bonus as well, but only if you're making use of psykers. I'd suggest at least one Vanguard Librarian as their powers are a bit more worthwhile.
Azuza001 wrote: It seems like the blood ravens few advantages are against....
1. Overcharged plasma - there is a lot of that out there and those t4 2w terminators / primaris will really enjoy that 2's dont pop them.
2. Blood angles smash captains - their +1 to wound (wounding on 2's) with so many of their weapons like power axes and thunder hammers wont hurt on 2's now.
3. Knights in cc - its not much but knights will not put as many wounds onto your units.
Having said all that, the tactic isnt much help. I agree, its not enough to go out and repaint your models. I kind of like the master librarian strat though. Take a phobos librarian with the tomb and that strat, now he knows 4 powers and can cast 3 with access to 2 different disciplines. That could be tactically useful if nothing else.
Great breakdown, but I think an important thing to keep in mind is that this is only one part of the tactic - the psychic reroll is a fantastic bonus as well, but only if you're making use of psykers. I'd suggest at least one Vanguard Librarian as their powers are a bit more worthwhile.
Tiggy gets a flat reroll on his powers for free. Plus an amazing -1 to to hit ability every turn. These rules are straight bunk for blood ravens.
Whats to stop you from using ultra marine rules or Gk rules to represent your blood ravens? For your chapter master just sub calgers rules and for your libby just use tiggy. You'll have a better army as a result. The name they ascribe to the rules doesn't mean much. You give your army it's character by painting it and playing it.
Then play raven guard or raptors. They even have their own special characters. I'm just saying if you want a good libby - ultras already do that better. that isn't a great design. Like maybe if he could cast 3 powers or had a unique power it would be a cool army choice. Pick the chapter tactic that benifits you the most is what I am saying. It doesn't matter what color you dudes are. Special characters and relics have to match up BUT you can also just use those models and call them whatever you want in hashtags.
Speaking of debating changing chapters, I've been more than a little tempted to try my marines as Crimson Fists instead of RG. I think the -1 to be hit is better, but so many times it's either within 12" or due to prepping for better armies with -1 to hits, my opponent can deal with it fine anyways. My army is pretty MSU already, I'd get +1 to hit on my own rolls pretty often along with the bolter and character targeting strats being way more useful than the nerfed RG one. Main thing stopping me is I feel like I should get some Centurion Devs or something to really leverage it and I'm trying to avoid buying any new models until the next batch of releases.
Blood Ravens are definatly niche, but I think are a solid choice if you're looking to play lots of libbies. with blood ravens rules you can have 2 libby's each knowing 4 spells (make one your cheif libby give the other a tome of Malchador) each re-rolling any ones. Xenomancer's point about using Tiggy isn't 100% wrong but it also misses that tiggy is only one model. if you want to run multiple librarians Blood Ravens is better by far.
Crimson fist are just cool anyways. That was the first army I played. Pedro is a great character and their new rules are pretty good. Bike squads can really kill some infantry and just need a standard captain to reroll everything. Then Pedro can march up the middle of the table with redeemptors (great CC ability for them and likely will get +1 to hit shooting at preferred targets) and whatever else you decide. Maybe Inceptors. Basically anything MSU that can hit hard in small units crimson fist is just amazing.
I use HB cents in my ultramarines and they are pretty great. You are basically forced to take a storm raven or LR to protect them if you don't go first. That really hurts...So unfortunately I think ultras are best for the cents. You get the reroll all wounds (amazing with HB and hurricanes) Plus you also buff the crusders weapons which are also great with reroll wounds.
I'd probably do something like 9 bikes in 3 squads with a biker smash captain (givem all plasmas) maybe even add an attack bike on each unit for some additional wounds. Load up on redemptor dreads and plasma inceptors. Min troops.
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BrianDavion wrote: Blood Ravens are definatly niche, but I think are a solid choice if you're looking to play lots of libbies. with blood ravens rules you can have 2 libby's each knowing 4 spells (make one your cheif libby give the other a tome of Malchador) each re-rolling any ones. Xenomancer's point about using Tiggy isn't 100% wrong but it also misses that tiggy is only one model. if you want to run multiple librarians Blood Ravens is better by far.
To me libbies already feel like a tax. Might of heros is nice but nullzone is very situational I usually take the reroll charges for my 3rd power but that is because I have Gman. True the phobos liby is a little better and you have the nullzone shunt combo you can pull off but that is a serious investment. You would also need to line that up with a lot of ap-3 ap-4 firepower. So the rest of your list is decided for you. It's gotta be Repulsor executioners/ plasma devs / and quad las mortis contemptors. Could be fun I guess. Has anyone tried anything like that yet with the blood ravens?
So i played rounds 3 and 4 with my templars today, went 4 and 0 with them at the tournament!
List was pretty much the same as before, but i dropped the drop pod and contemptor to fit in 2 thunderfire cannons.
I learned a lot even in winning today. 1st game was vs cawl ad mech with the guy running 3 of the new vehicles in full tank mode. I won because i played the mission and my 3 vindicators just would not get out of the way, instead staying around long after they should have died. He didnt kill the 3rd one until round 5, it took him that long! T8 can not be ignored! Lol.
2nd was vs a mecha ork army running a morkanaught, a gorganaught, 2 defdreads, 4 killa kans, 15 lootas, and 60 grots. He had a bunch of ork characters as well. Mission was narrow the search. I deployed first but deployed with the plan to let him go 1st because scoring on that mission is easier if your 2nd player.
I went 2nd, survived his inital onslaught losing 1 vindicator and 2 venerable dreads, then killed 80% of the grots turn 1 along with a def dread, and the lootas. Turn 2 he killed a 2nd vindicator and my bikes. My turn 2 i killed the kans, the other dread, and most everything else that was small and squishy.
From there we went back and forth, but in the end i won by 1 vp. He definatly had me almost tabled, i was down to a thunderfire cannon, the tech marine gunner, a scout, and my warlord, but end of 6 i was ahead 2 vp. Only way for him to win was if we went to round 7 and he killed my warlord. That wasnt going to happen though thanks to chr rules and the fact that my bike lord moves 20" to get away.
So yeah, not exactly happy with my list though the results were good enough. I think the list needs better counter punch available to it, slowing enemy advancment with scouts and vindicators work, as does artillery bombardment onto them from long range, but once my delaying actions have run out i am finding i have nothing that i am willing to throw away to counter attack and push the enemy back from my gunlines. Any thoughts on what units can do this well?
Recently got back from my first GT, slaughterfest. (Would HIGHLY recommend, going back next year for sure). Went 3-3 when coming up against some very tough opponents while using the following list.
+Hq+
Captain in Terminator Armor [126pts, 7pl] x1 Thunderhammer, Shield Eternal
Librarian [135pts, 7pl] x1 Force Stave, Combi-Melta, Jump Pack
+Troops+
Tactical Squad [94pts, 5pl] x1 Space Marine Sergeant w/Combi-melta and Chainsword, x3 Space Marine, x1 Space Marine w/Meltagun
Tactical Squad [94pts, 5pl] x1 Space Marine Sergeant w/Combi-melta and Chainsword, x3 Space Marine, x1 Space Marine w/Meltagun
Tactical Squad [94pts, 5pl] x1 Space Marine Sergeant w/Combi-melta and Chainsword, x3 Space Marine, x1 Space Marine w/Meltagun
+Lord of War+
Knight Errant [398pts, 20PL] x1 Thunderstrike Gauntlet, x1 Thermal Cannon, x1 Heavy Stubber, x1 Titanic feet
The good thing was that every game I lost, I could've won had I played better. I had the tools to deal with the situation but made some critical misplays that put me in a bad position when the list is all about positioning. If anybody is interested I could do some write-ups on matchups.
Nice work Vilehydra. It looks like a fun and fast list to play, a definite advantage in tournaments. I'm definitely curious to know what armies you played against and what caused you trouble.
Congrats as well vilehydra! Thats a very interesting list for sure, all that melta! Lol.
I too would be interested in a write up. I also have some questions about your list.
I see 2 venerable dreads there, were the captain and leiutenant there to provide them rerolls while vulcan moved with the troops in the rhinos?
Do you think having played the games that dropping the venerables for 2 armiger warglaives may have been a better option? You get as much anti tank, but more mobile weapons platforms for the 164 vs 140 pts plus would give the knights actual household traits. (Dont get me wrong, i love my dakka venerables!).
How did you get around the limited range of all that melta? I am sure some of those rhinos went pop before they were in range to drop their cargo off.
Thanks for the interest, here were the matchups (best of my recollection) all of these were ITC btw.
I always spent a CP to give my librarian Armor Indomitus
I always gave the terminator captain imperiums sword WLT (+1A on charge, reroll charges) and the shield eternal as my free relic
Rhino Config was always:
2 x 5 tacs in a rhino
2 x 5 tacs in a rhino
1 x 5 sternguard + LT and vulkan in the last rhino
Game 1: 1 Valiant, 1 Preceptor, 1 Crusader, and 3 warglaives. - Win
Spoiler:
ITC mission 2. Vanguard Deployment
He chose to give the valiant 2+/4++ vs shooting with relic/WLT
I gave my knight the relic thermal cannon and 4++. Librarian took Nullzone and MoH
This one was a slaughter, I place my scouts 9 inches away from his deployment zone and the rhinos in cover. Knight and vendreads playing the 48 inch range game against the valiant and preceptor. I end up getting first turn and moving my scouts 3.1 inches away from his knights, blocking all movement. I kill a warglaive with a venerable and strip 10 wounds off of the valiant. On his turn due to cover and move blocking, he was unable to do anything but kill the scouts.
Turn 2 the librarian null-zones the valiant and a warglaive, 4 meltaguns in vulkans re-roll aura kill the valiant. Both warglaives and the preceptor are finished off by the other tacs, sterns, dreads, and my knight.
The crusader fires back and kills some marines. He is then tabled Turn 3
My list was ready to roll against Chaos knights, this was a prime match-up. Scouts are able to block movement, even if I go second. The rhinos soak gat cannon shots and the marines carry enough melta that even if nullzone doesn't go off I can kill a knight a turn. Combined with a MoH thunderhammer captain and the LT I have a serious counterpunch to CC knights out. Ven dreads put out incredibly reliable damage (3 shots on 2's rerolling a miss, then a reroll for the wound makes them nasty to put wounds through on knights)
I will admit that the relic thermal rolled hot this game, stripped something like 24 wounds over two rounds off of the knights
Game 2: Abbadon, 120ish Cultist, 1x3 Oblits, Ahriman, 1k DP, 1K sorcerer, 2 bloodletter squads, bloodmaster, Exalted Champion - Loss
Spoiler:
ITC mission 4: Pointed short edge deployment (forget the name)
He gave his bloodmaster the crimson crown relic (which was terrifying) and the exalted champion the teeth of ghorvex.
Librarian had the same loadout as last match, the knight had an extra CC attack WLT and the paragon gauntlet.
My first mistake here was at the beginning of the game. I chose to go first when I absolutely should've chosen to go second. I would've had better engagement ranges and would've had to spend less time using my rhinos to screen out my backfield.
1st turn I charge some scouts into the cultist in an attempt to tie up his oblits. I get there but didn't realize his oblits rerolled all failed hits and wounds due to a two nearby characters. Scouts ended up killing some cultist and then getting kersplatted. Not the best trade, it would've been better to just dull his movement.
He moves forwards, buffing the high hell out of his oblits, but my libby denied warptime and they were unable to get to my knight. Instead they just wasted my rhino but had to use VoTlW and Endless cacophony alongside the cp that gives them all 4 marks. He also cast flickering flame on them, giving them a total of +2 to wound. The crimson crown relic allows another hit for any wound of 6+, which with +2 makes it every 4+ is an additional shot. The rhino died, but forced him to use endless cacophony becuase he rolled 1 on the random damage for the oblits.
2nd Turn I move up and disembark the two more forward rhino (another mistake here, all the marine squads need to be committed to killing cultist. Aggregate fire is critical) the knight moved up after being doombolted the previous turn (half speed) the sternguard hopped out with vulkan. Libby got both nullzone and MoH off (nullzone didnt matter because the oblits where in cover. So the -4 was a 5+/5++ either way) The oblits lose one model to the thermal cannon and melta-guns (which was far fewer then I had expected). This is where I made a rookie mistake that cost me the game. I shot a group of cultists on the right flank out of range of the 3/5 of the sternguard. Had I not done that, the entire squad would've probably died(Flamecraft strat for +1 to wound, with vulkan re-rolls. So 3d6 wounding on 2's, 2d6 killing on 2's 6 -1 to hit bolt shots and all the aggregate fire of the dreadnoughts/other marine squads) If I had killed (or just reduce enough off the screen to move my knight through) the knight would've been able to kill the tzeentch DP, and probably ahriman. Abbadon would've also been vulnerable, but killing his psychic support was way more important.
Also my TH captain came down, made his charge on the oblits. Killed them and consolidated into the bloodmaster, took 2 damage total. I then chose to fight again, piled into the exalted champion as well (both had been declared as charge targets) and split 3/3 attacks. I reduced both down to 1 wound - he used a cp reroll on the champion and saved a hit on a 6+ ended up killing my captain, at which point he fought AGAIN and killed both of the characters. Don't know if it was worth the 5 CP but it felt like it.
The rest of the game was him using magic boxes, tri-pointing, and smiting me out to remove my ability to effectively fight against him. Didn't get tabled but I had no ability to control the board after I lost the fight for the center.
2 Big mistakes:
1: Going first against an army like this probably was a 10 point swing in itself (holding more objectives over the course of 5 turns) and I had a poor engagement range
2: Doing the rookie mistake of shooting my sternguard out of range
This guy also ended up going top table, so the fact that I could've won if I had just broken that flank and got to his juicy characters is not bad IMO.
He gave his Vexillus Magnifica (the -1 to hit aura) the deny +1 relic which came in clutch
I gave my knight the 4++ and relic thermal cannon
I went second (going 1'st would've been really useful here). Thanks to cover I forced his telemons to move to shoot at might knight. Ended up taking 6 damage total from all the fire. He killed a ven-dread which made me sad first turn.
During my first turn I don't really accomplish anything, my goal is to kill as many grav tanks as possible. I don't get any which is fine, My army does most of its damage second turn. Game losing mistake here, I could'be just disembarked my troops into ruins. Not shooting anything but being completely safe from his shooting and owning more objectives. Instead I advanced the rhinos are far forward as I could while staying near ruins and smoking
His turn two he moves up super aggressively as well and kills out two rhinos, and two full squads of meltas which really hurt. My turn 2 I dove aggressively into his forward caladius and pallas tanks in the center. He ended up denying my nullzone, which hurt a lot (5++ is way better then no ++ against melta :( ). The knight was able to charge one pallas on the far left and kill it. All the melta and +1 to wound flamers were able to drop another pallas and calladius in the center. Wound a second caladius which the LT finished of with his thunderhammer. My TH captain failed to make his charge to tie down a Telemon. Killing 4 grav tanks in a turn was a big turn around but wasn't enough in the end. The Telemons killed my knight, and I was unable to kill the last two grav tanks which ended up wrecking my army over the course of the game.
Other points of note, my librarian survived a round of combat with Trajan thanks to the armor indomitus, left and tried to smite the vexilus (which he denied) then nullzoned him and shot him in the face with a melta, so that was pretty neat. Vulkan then got two tapped in the jaw by Trajans boltweapon as I rolled two 1's.
2 Mistakes:
1st Not LOS blocking ruins against a vehicle heavy army
2nd Not respecting the insane damage output that these tanks put out despite the relatively low RoF
I'll get to the other 3 later, but to answer some questions.
Salamander Ven Dreads don't require buff support for the most part. Plop them in cover with a good firing lane and just throw shots down every turn. The venerables also serve as anti-flyer. -1/-2 to hit does mitigate a lot of shooting effectiveness, but they still hit well and hard against those targets. They also tend to hold any objectives on my side of the board because I have nothing left to keep behind. If I was going to drop them it would be for helverins, not warglaives. The characters are all for buffing marines and being incredibly aggro. Without MW spam it can be super difficult to remove a MoH buffed terminator captain with the shield eternal. Vulkan and the Libby also both have 2+/3++, making them tough nuts to crack as well.
Rhinos, especially when supported by a knight are incredibly resilient. Most things that kill rhinos efficiently don't kill marines efficiently and vice versa. The only exception I ran into was the custodes player throwing all those hard hitting high AP weapons. Most of the time, I did not lose a rhino till turn two or three. By which point they have already unloaded. Avengers GatCannons kill 4 marines on average, against a rhino they do 4 damage. Same math for a overcharged HBC from riptides. After they disembark the marines they can soak overwatch, block avenues, and provide some supplemental anti-infantry fire.
Also, as for getting in range of melta. When disembarking from a transport, just remember that each model must be PARTIALLY within 3" of the transport. Meaning that you can get about an additional 4" of threat coming out of the rhino. Rhinos generally advance turn 1 and pop smoke, opponents generally target the knight (which is the cheapest ranged variant). In ITC you can't afford to lose board control and people know that, generally requiring some forward board deployment.
Greetings loyalists. I have a bro who is having hell against a tournament crons list. Something like 0-6 so far. He runs various SM units, from imperial fists mostly and usually heavy on TFCs and devs. The crons list also varies but always features 3 doom arks then typically either massed tesla immortals or bikes and destroyers, salt scarabs. Sometimes triple croissants feature as well.
What tools do space marines have against this enemy?
Great to hear about Salamanders, I've been seriously thinking about adding a small detachment of them (I keep adding Deathwatch vets and painting them as Salamanders). I'm just surprised I don't see them more often as their trait looks somewhat decent compared to others.
I agree with the ven dreads too (except mine in Deathwatch). Played a tourny 3 weeks ago and never lost a single wound off a dread, weirdly.
The problem with the Salamander trait is that you already need to cluster around your HQ units to make them remotely worth anything, which brings to the point that you only get one reroll on hitting or wounding when you're not near them. Not exactly outstanding when I can get a bunch of other stuff instead. I'd even rather have Iron Hands and they're awful.
Making the unit only slightly less reliant does nothing for one model when it's the whole unit you need to be concerned about. At most you should only do Devastator squads with two Heavies and that's it.
So with all the new pics released what are everyone's thoughts?
An infiltration dread sounds cool but idk, looks equipped with 4 heavy stubbers and a heavy bolter pistol to me (wtf is with marines using stubbers all of a sudden? Marines use bolters, guardsmen use stubbers....). The rhino is cool.
As for primaris tib and primarus khan.... i dont want to see all the chrs get that treatment. Shrike doesnt need to be a primarus. Neither does logan or azreal.
Finally, the new codex + chapter supplements... i am happy to see that but i am afraid. Those supplements better be cheap, or your looking at a lot of $$$$$ there.
The dread seems neat, and infiltrating something punchy is pretty cool. Maybe it will get some weapon options to swap out the stubbers for something else.
The main thing I'm waiting on is the las fusils. Primaris line is really missing some anti-tank punch.
The Impulsor looks like a straight up gi-joe toy, with really awkward weapon mounts. Hopefully it can be converted into something less dumb looking.
The whole vehicle aesthetic for Primaris concerns me....so ugly. As always, it will come down to points. So much of the line is still overcosted, hopefully this will be addressed in the codex.
Oh, and I also cannot stand this abundance of stubbers.
The preview video has artwork of the Impulsor with some sort of misslile pod turret (icarus launcher?), so at least it will have other options.
In the brief turnaround, it also doesn't really seem to have a transport compartment? It's more of a flatbed deck on the back. Maaaaaaybe open topped? Bring firing ports back? That sure would change the game a lot.
McGibs wrote: The preview video has artwork of the Impulsor with some sort of misslile pod turret (icarus launcher?), so at least it will have other options.
In the brief turnaround, it also doesn't really seem to have a transport compartment? It's more of a flatbed deck on the back. Maaaaaaybe open topped? Bring firing ports back? That sure would change the game a lot.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The problem with the Salamander trait is that you already need to cluster around your HQ units to make them remotely worth anything, which brings to the point that you only get one reroll on hitting or wounding when you're not near them. Not exactly outstanding when I can get a bunch of other stuff instead. I'd even rather have Iron Hands and they're awful.
Making the unit only slightly less reliant does nothing for one model when it's the whole unit you need to be concerned about. At most you should only do Devastator squads with two Heavies and that's it.
We've discussed this before, and at this point we're just going to agree to disagree. I've had good success with Salamanders, going 3-3 in my first GT against some pretty tough match-ups ran by some tough players. Do salamanders require a different approach to building a list? Absolutely, but the CT can be leveraged more than any other CTIMO.
That being said, back to finish the Slaughterfest Write-Up
Game 4 - Triptide with ATS/Velocity Trackers, 2 Cyclic Ion commanders, Darkstrider, cadre fireblade, ethereal, 28 shield drones, 4 marker drones mixed in, 2 devilfish (w/ gundrones), 20 breachers, and 5 firewarriors, 3 sacea marksmen. - Win
Spoiler:
ITC mission 1, pointed short-edge deployment
He gave his cadre fire-blade through unity devastation and the puretide
I gave my knight 2+ armor and land-strider.
I deploy as far forward as cover allows, scouts not being super-useful this game I relegate them to the engineers secondary, he deploys out on his left flank of the deployment, securing an avenue of fire on an open road for his riptides. I deploy my knight to receive cover, effectively giving him a 1+ save.
Despite finishing my deployment first, he goes first.
Turn 1 despite him popping C&C node on one of his riptides, due to some poor rolls and misdeployment on the firesight for markerlight support, He manages to bring down one rhino down to two wounds with ALL of the broadsides. He moves both of his breacher-fish forward behind to try and grab some board control.
My Turn I move the knight forward, disembarking Vulkans rhino and the wounded rhino. Manage to destroy his center devilfish (which had dark-strider in it) and put the other down to two wounds remaining. Was able to charge the forcibly disembarked breachers/Darkstrider and nearby firewarrors with vulkan, the LT, and the sternguard. Ended up wiping out the breachers and darkstrider, killing and tying down a couple firewarriors.
His second turn he disembarks the other breachers close to my knight and some tacs fires everything into the knight and brings it down to 13ish wounds (2+ armor is really good here, definitely saved several wounds from SMS) and kills a couple sternguard and tacs. Not much else happens.
My Turn 2 I kill the remaining devilfish and start forcing him to take drone saves, trying to kill as many as I can through small arms focusing the drones, and heavy weapons targeting his broadsides or exposed commanders. I Charge my knight and some tacs into the forward breachers. Kill the breachers, and consolidate towards the riptides so that I am at this point within 3 inches of the riptides. TH Captain comes down trying to get an exposed charge on the sacea marksmen but fails (Tau drones can't save for sacea sept) Takes two damage for his trouble.
His turn 3. He's out of CP, so no focus fire, and he puts all of his riptide fire into the knight. He kills it by one failed save, that I used a CP re-roll to succeed. At this point he concedes because he couldn't kill the knight and I would've heroically intervened into all three of his riptides, meaning that next turn I could have charged several units with no real FtGG penalty and wiped him. Even if the knight did die, I still had a pretty commanding VP lead because of the bonus/board control.
Game 5 - Triptide with ATS/Target lock, 1 HYMP broadside squad, Shadowsun, 2 x cadre fireblade, 3x5 firewarriors, 33 shield drones - Win
Spoiler:
Mission 4 Circle-quarter deployment
Same relic loadout as last time
I finished deploying first, still lost the roll off, then he gave me first turn so I could approach his optimal engagement range.
He castled up on a two story building, placing his broadsides at the top with a 6 man drone right beneath them, triptides and drone support holding the center.
I deployed around a center two story building. Two rhinos on my south side, one on the north. Knight At the opposing corner out of range of his broadsides. Dreadnoughts deployed on objectives with scouts as engineers.
I advanced the rhinos and put the knight into cover, the rhinos pop smoke and vulkans rhino gets MoH for the additional toughness.
His turn he pops vulkans rhino, forcing his crew to disembark into the ruins, the sternguard are wittled down to to combi-flamers.
My turn I advance my knight, disembark all remaining squads and deployed the TH captain. I use any shooting I can to wittle down as many drones. I score a lucky hit with one of the vendreads las-cannons and completely Ice a broadside. Big squads and no ethereal mean I can force him to make morals to bypass standard drone survivability. I charge the firewarriors with marines, kill one squad and tri-point the two on opposing flanks. The knight fulltilts and murders one of the squads in CC and is right in the face of the opponent.
His turn 2 he focuses all of his fire power into the knight, brings it low but not killing it. He also dives with a riptide to kill my librarian so I can't nullzone out his riptides/drones. He does kill the kill the librarian (only had two wounds left after some previous skirmish fire) but exposes a riptide with no drone support. In his combat phase I finished off both of the other fire-warriors, freeing two tac squads.
My Turn 3 I continue to whittle down any drones I can, and put some lasfire into the exposed riptide to bring it down (it does branched reactor for 18 shots And 3+ invuln). Vulkan hops back in cover, and charges the exposed riptide so he only gets overwatched by the SMS, the knight and the LT then follow suit and slaughter the riptide. One tac marine squad charges a single character, uses the distance to go up the building the broadsides are in and piles-in after they have fought to tie the broadsides down. That win-condition was achieved.
His turn 3 he kills my knight, he doesn't explode and I don't try to bring him back, but it soaks most of his firepower. He kills a couple marines here and there, but nothing to critical.
After this point, through aggregate fire and attrition on his drones I'm finally able to land solid lascannons and melta hits on his riptides. This goes on for a couple turns and I table him by turn 5 or 6
Game 6- Triple Croissants, 2x Triarch stalkers, 2x doomsday arks, 20 warriors, 15 immortals, 2x6 bike squads, a cryptek, and Imotek - Loss
Spoiler:
ITC missiion 6, Vanguard Strike
Knight has 2+/4++ configuration
Librarian takes MoH and Fury of the ancients (actually came in clutch)
He has the veil of darkness on the cryptek
I deploy the rhinos behind cover, the vendreads in non-LOS blocking cover, Knight in the open (not enough cover to block him out anywhere)
He deploys his ghost arcs and stalkers in the front line, engineer immortals in the back on an objective. Bikes were deployed on the wings.
Despite finishing my deployment first, he wins the roll off and goes first. He then wins because of it.
His first turn his dice were HOT. He uses Imoteks ability to do 4 MWs to the knight and then activates the +1 to hit strategem. He then fires his doomscythes and arks at the knight. It was one of those days I couldn't make a single 4++ on the knight 7 wounds went in and killed the knight. A dreadnought was also picked off and 20 warriors were teleported into my back corner and with MWBD were able to tie down a dreadnought and get into some scouts. I try to get the knight back up, spending 4 cp for a 75% chance, but it fails. The bikes have secured both flanking objectives
My turn 1 I disembark all of my marines in an attempt to kill the nightscythes and the warriors in my backline. I kill one nightscythe and bring another down to 1 wounds, but am unable to finish it off (almost killed it with a krak grenade, but he CP'd the save). My librarian MoH's vulkan and then shoves a melta gun into the crypteks face. I then charge the warriors with all of my characters and infantry squads. The characters all made it in (thankfully) but all three infantry squads rolled 2 inch charges when I needed 4. and because of that he had 3 warriors left over which basically kept my army in the back the entire game for an army that needs to exert some pressure, thats NOT good. I was able to tie down one of the triarchs with some forward magicboxed scouts.
His turn 2 he pops a couple rhinos, and kills a few marines here and there while also failing to kill my remaining dreadnought (lucky break). He spends 2cp(?) to reroll 1's on reanimation on his warriors stuck in my back line, and during his combat phase I kill his warriors down to a single model (which he got back by using that cp), but it still ties down the a scout and tac squad. The stalker is still tied down by the scouts, but he moved the other one forward.
My turn 2 I send vulkan and the sternguard to kill the bikes on one flank and leave 1 model with ONE wound remaining. I'm able to pistol off the last warrior with the squads in CC and kill off the non-engaged stalker. The wounded doomscythe is also killed, while the third was brought down to a couple of wounds, but wasn't killed. THC captain comes in and assist the scouts in tying down the stalker and tagging some immortals that came in to kill off the scouts in CC. That captain had 6 total rounds of combat, and he rolled about 15 2's, ngl that hurt a little.
His turn 3 he used his super wounded doomscythe to kill vulkan, he got 3 shots off of a d3, 1 hit on a 5+, 1 wound on a 2+, I failed my 3+ invuln, and he rolls a 5 to just instagib vulkan. He finishes off the rhino, and is able to disengage both his stalker and immortals at this point, but not out of heroic intervention range of the captain, who does so just to roll more 2's to hit.
At this point is was pretty clear I lost the game so I just made a play for the points I could get. Over the next several turns he was able to attrition down my marine squads with the DDA gauss fire and bike particle caster fire while I was able to kill a DDA. My Librarian was able to finish off the doom scythe, and between the LT and the Librarian they killed the bikes that vulkan didn't, and a DDA. Captain got tesla'd down as he went after the other DDA which was currently holding an OBJ. The problem was, he just held the board and was racking up primaries left and right.
The opponent didn't table me, by turn 6 I had two models left on the board (the libby and a single marine in cover) but it was a near thing.
Out of all of my games, this was the one that was most determined by some cold dice rolling. Losing first turn hurt the most here (might've been able to kill a doomscythe and tie down both stalkers with a full tilting knight) and have much more board control. Failing nearly every save my knight needed to make. My knight not getting back up. My captain missing more attacks then he hit. Vulkan rolling a 1 damage on the last bike instead of 2. Bad luck happens but compared to my other two losses this one had some just straight up bad dice rolls when my opponents were on fire.
He was still a pretty chill dude, so it was an enjoyable game despite the trashcan rolls.
Was a great GT though, and I'm definitely attending next year. Well, at least if they haven't squatted mini-marines by that point.
so with the upcoming supplements does everything think it'll be time to spin out threads specific for each first founding legion as they get their own supplements, well keeping a space Marine thread for the generic suecessors?
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The problem with the Salamander trait is that you already need to cluster around your HQ units to make them remotely worth anything, which brings to the point that you only get one reroll on hitting or wounding when you're not near them. Not exactly outstanding when I can get a bunch of other stuff instead. I'd even rather have Iron Hands and they're awful.
Making the unit only slightly less reliant does nothing for one model when it's the whole unit you need to be concerned about. At most you should only do Devastator squads with two Heavies and that's it.
We've discussed this before, and at this point we're just going to agree to disagree. I've had good success with Salamanders, going 3-3 in my first GT against some pretty tough match-ups ran by some tough players. Do salamanders require a different approach to building a list? Absolutely, but the CT can be leveraged more than any other CTIMO.
That being said, back to finish the Slaughterfest Write-Up
Game 4 - Triptide with ATS/Velocity Trackers, 2 Cyclic Ion commanders, Darkstrider, cadre fireblade, ethereal, 28 shield drones, 4 marker drones mixed in, 2 devilfish (w/ gundrones), 20 breachers, and 5 firewarriors, 3 sacea marksmen. - Win
Spoiler:
ITC mission 1, pointed short-edge deployment
He gave his cadre fire-blade through unity devastation and the puretide
I gave my knight 2+ armor and land-strider.
I deploy as far forward as cover allows, scouts not being super-useful this game I relegate them to the engineers secondary, he deploys out on his left flank of the deployment, securing an avenue of fire on an open road for his riptides. I deploy my knight to receive cover, effectively giving him a 1+ save.
Despite finishing my deployment first, he goes first.
Turn 1 despite him popping C&C node on one of his riptides, due to some poor rolls and misdeployment on the firesight for markerlight support, He manages to bring down one rhino down to two wounds with ALL of the broadsides. He moves both of his breacher-fish forward behind to try and grab some board control.
My Turn I move the knight forward, disembarking Vulkans rhino and the wounded rhino. Manage to destroy his center devilfish (which had dark-strider in it) and put the other down to two wounds remaining. Was able to charge the forcibly disembarked breachers/Darkstrider and nearby firewarrors with vulkan, the LT, and the sternguard. Ended up wiping out the breachers and darkstrider, killing and tying down a couple firewarriors.
His second turn he disembarks the other breachers close to my knight and some tacs fires everything into the knight and brings it down to 13ish wounds (2+ armor is really good here, definitely saved several wounds from SMS) and kills a couple sternguard and tacs. Not much else happens.
My Turn 2 I kill the remaining devilfish and start forcing him to take drone saves, trying to kill as many as I can through small arms focusing the drones, and heavy weapons targeting his broadsides or exposed commanders. I Charge my knight and some tacs into the forward breachers. Kill the breachers, and consolidate towards the riptides so that I am at this point within 3 inches of the riptides. TH Captain comes down trying to get an exposed charge on the sacea marksmen but fails (Tau drones can't save for sacea sept) Takes two damage for his trouble.
His turn 3. He's out of CP, so no focus fire, and he puts all of his riptide fire into the knight. He kills it by one failed save, that I used a CP re-roll to succeed. At this point he concedes because he couldn't kill the knight and I would've heroically intervened into all three of his riptides, meaning that next turn I could have charged several units with no real FtGG penalty and wiped him. Even if the knight did die, I still had a pretty commanding VP lead because of the bonus/board control.
Game 5 - Triptide with ATS/Target lock, 1 HYMP broadside squad, Shadowsun, 2 x cadre fireblade, 3x5 firewarriors, 33 shield drones - Win
Spoiler:
Mission 4 Circle-quarter deployment
Same relic loadout as last time
I finished deploying first, still lost the roll off, then he gave me first turn so I could approach his optimal engagement range.
He castled up on a two story building, placing his broadsides at the top with a 6 man drone right beneath them, triptides and drone support holding the center.
I deployed around a center two story building. Two rhinos on my south side, one on the north. Knight At the opposing corner out of range of his broadsides. Dreadnoughts deployed on objectives with scouts as engineers.
I advanced the rhinos and put the knight into cover, the rhinos pop smoke and vulkans rhino gets MoH for the additional toughness.
His turn he pops vulkans rhino, forcing his crew to disembark into the ruins, the sternguard are wittled down to to combi-flamers.
My turn I advance my knight, disembark all remaining squads and deployed the TH captain. I use any shooting I can to wittle down as many drones. I score a lucky hit with one of the vendreads las-cannons and completely Ice a broadside. Big squads and no ethereal mean I can force him to make morals to bypass standard drone survivability. I charge the firewarriors with marines, kill one squad and tri-point the two on opposing flanks. The knight fulltilts and murders one of the squads in CC and is right in the face of the opponent.
His turn 2 he focuses all of his fire power into the knight, brings it low but not killing it. He also dives with a riptide to kill my librarian so I can't nullzone out his riptides/drones. He does kill the kill the librarian (only had two wounds left after some previous skirmish fire) but exposes a riptide with no drone support. In his combat phase I finished off both of the other fire-warriors, freeing two tac squads.
My Turn 3 I continue to whittle down any drones I can, and put some lasfire into the exposed riptide to bring it down (it does branched reactor for 18 shots And 3+ invuln). Vulkan hops back in cover, and charges the exposed riptide so he only gets overwatched by the SMS, the knight and the LT then follow suit and slaughter the riptide. One tac marine squad charges a single character, uses the distance to go up the building the broadsides are in and piles-in after they have fought to tie the broadsides down. That win-condition was achieved.
His turn 3 he kills my knight, he doesn't explode and I don't try to bring him back, but it soaks most of his firepower. He kills a couple marines here and there, but nothing to critical.
After this point, through aggregate fire and attrition on his drones I'm finally able to land solid lascannons and melta hits on his riptides. This goes on for a couple turns and I table him by turn 5 or 6
Game 6- Triple Croissants, 2x Triarch stalkers, 2x doomsday arks, 20 warriors, 15 immortals, 2x6 bike squads, a cryptek, and Imotek - Loss
Spoiler:
ITC missiion 6, Vanguard Strike
Knight has 2+/4++ configuration
Librarian takes MoH and Fury of the ancients (actually came in clutch)
He has the veil of darkness on the cryptek
I deploy the rhinos behind cover, the vendreads in non-LOS blocking cover, Knight in the open (not enough cover to block him out anywhere)
He deploys his ghost arcs and stalkers in the front line, engineer immortals in the back on an objective. Bikes were deployed on the wings.
Despite finishing my deployment first, he wins the roll off and goes first. He then wins because of it.
His first turn his dice were HOT. He uses Imoteks ability to do 4 MWs to the knight and then activates the +1 to hit strategem. He then fires his doomscythes and arks at the knight. It was one of those days I couldn't make a single 4++ on the knight 7 wounds went in and killed the knight. A dreadnought was also picked off and 20 warriors were teleported into my back corner and with MWBD were able to tie down a dreadnought and get into some scouts. I try to get the knight back up, spending 4 cp for a 75% chance, but it fails. The bikes have secured both flanking objectives
My turn 1 I disembark all of my marines in an attempt to kill the nightscythes and the warriors in my backline. I kill one nightscythe and bring another down to 1 wounds, but am unable to finish it off (almost killed it with a krak grenade, but he CP'd the save). My librarian MoH's vulkan and then shoves a melta gun into the crypteks face. I then charge the warriors with all of my characters and infantry squads. The characters all made it in (thankfully) but all three infantry squads rolled 2 inch charges when I needed 4. and because of that he had 3 warriors left over which basically kept my army in the back the entire game for an army that needs to exert some pressure, thats NOT good. I was able to tie down one of the triarchs with some forward magicboxed scouts.
His turn 2 he pops a couple rhinos, and kills a few marines here and there while also failing to kill my remaining dreadnought (lucky break). He spends 2cp(?) to reroll 1's on reanimation on his warriors stuck in my back line, and during his combat phase I kill his warriors down to a single model (which he got back by using that cp), but it still ties down the a scout and tac squad. The stalker is still tied down by the scouts, but he moved the other one forward.
My turn 2 I send vulkan and the sternguard to kill the bikes on one flank and leave 1 model with ONE wound remaining. I'm able to pistol off the last warrior with the squads in CC and kill off the non-engaged stalker. The wounded doomscythe is also killed, while the third was brought down to a couple of wounds, but wasn't killed. THC captain comes in and assist the scouts in tying down the stalker and tagging some immortals that came in to kill off the scouts in CC. That captain had 6 total rounds of combat, and he rolled about 15 2's, ngl that hurt a little.
His turn 3 he used his super wounded doomscythe to kill vulkan, he got 3 shots off of a d3, 1 hit on a 5+, 1 wound on a 2+, I failed my 3+ invuln, and he rolls a 5 to just instagib vulkan. He finishes off the rhino, and is able to disengage both his stalker and immortals at this point, but not out of heroic intervention range of the captain, who does so just to roll more 2's to hit.
At this point is was pretty clear I lost the game so I just made a play for the points I could get. Over the next several turns he was able to attrition down my marine squads with the DDA gauss fire and bike particle caster fire while I was able to kill a DDA. My Librarian was able to finish off the doom scythe, and between the LT and the Librarian they killed the bikes that vulkan didn't, and a DDA. Captain got tesla'd down as he went after the other DDA which was currently holding an OBJ. The problem was, he just held the board and was racking up primaries left and right.
The opponent didn't table me, by turn 6 I had two models left on the board (the libby and a single marine in cover) but it was a near thing.
Out of all of my games, this was the one that was most determined by some cold dice rolling. Losing first turn hurt the most here (might've been able to kill a doomscythe and tie down both stalkers with a full tilting knight) and have much more board control. Failing nearly every save my knight needed to make. My knight not getting back up. My captain missing more attacks then he hit. Vulkan rolling a 1 damage on the last bike instead of 2. Bad luck happens but compared to my other two losses this one had some just straight up bad dice rolls when my opponents were on fire.
He was still a pretty chill dude, so it was an enjoyable game despite the trashcan rolls.
Was a great GT though, and I'm definitely attending next year. Well, at least if they haven't squatted mini-marines by that point.
Leveraged more than any other CT? Raven Guard and Iron Hands are flat durability and Ultramarines can shoot, charge, then eventually fall back and shoot again and charge.
That's a lot more you can do for that.
Also new Chapter Tactics were posted so I think we might need to just create a new thread to be honest with the new codex approaching.
Azuza001 wrote: You think so? Vehicles being able to retreat and still shoot seems pretty good to me, just the fact you cant stop the shooting is pretty interesting.
Agreed. And they still have G-man who probably won't change too much. If you want a Primarch + Parking lot, UMs are the way to go. But personally, I'm liking Salamanders as the perfect combo of offense/defense
Fists seem like they will be quite good if most armies get moved from -1 to hit to always in cover. Ignore all those and get 1/6 more shots on all bolters without spending the cp? Wonder if this is why they’ve decided to put stubbers on all the new vehicles instead of storm bolters/heavy bolters?
Azuza001 wrote: You think so? Vehicles being able to retreat and still shoot seems pretty good to me, just the fact you cant stop the shooting is pretty interesting.
All the primaris vehicals are deadnaughts had it already or had fly so could fall back and shoot at full BS now they got the -1 to hit nerf. Because apparently GW can check their own rule set.
That or Gman got some insane buff they need to counter.
Azuza001 wrote: You think so? Vehicles being able to retreat and still shoot seems pretty good to me, just the fact you cant stop the shooting is pretty interesting.
If they could do it and still hit on 3's or 4's yeah...it would be decent. They are gonna be hitting on 5's in most cases because vehicles hold heavy weapons and the ability gives you a -1. Trust me. I play ultras with redemptors a lot already. Falling back and hitting on 5's feels like a slap in the face.
Fists seem like they will be quite good if most armies get moved from -1 to hit to always in cover. Ignore all those and get 1/6 more shots on all bolters without spending the cp? Wonder if this is why they’ve decided to put stubbers on all the new vehicles instead of storm bolters/heavy bolters?
3 top tier army traits in 1 should be tempting. It's beyond tempting. It's auto include.
Azuza001 wrote: You think so? Vehicles being able to retreat and still shoot seems pretty good to me, just the fact you cant stop the shooting is pretty interesting.
All the primaris vehicals are deadnaughts had it already or had fly so could fall back and shoot at full BS now they got the -1 to hit nerf. Because apparently GW can check their own rule set.
That or Gman got some insane buff they need to counter.
We have some other stuff to come out. Stratagems...plus doctrines (we don't even know what these are). In 7th Ultras were the doctrine masters. It is possible that is why they chose to have such a weak chapter tactic without fixing it (because they were going to get better access to doctrines) Plus new Primaris tiggy. If Tiggy has a -to hit bubble instead of single target the army is playable and can still compete with the likes of ironhands and imperial fists.
Even granting its probably the best of them I don’t think IH is as powerful as you imply. 5+ overwatch from 1 min marine unit isn’t the same as Tau bulk overwatching. And preventing vehicle degradation on the couple usable marine vehicles with a chart isn’t the same as like a knight ignoring the chart.
Not everyone is using the new stuff. On top of that not all rules are written while only thinking of the new stuff. Gw even mentions land raiders with that trait. Not going to get into an argument here about it i just dont think its a bad trait. Its not going to get me to run ultramarines. But its not that bad, there is potential in that design.
bort wrote: Even granting its probably the best of them I don’t think IH is as powerful as you imply. 5+ overwatch from 1 min marine unit isn’t the same as Tau bulk overwatching. And preventing vehicle degradation on the couple usable marine vehicles with a chart isn’t the same as like a knight ignoring the chart.
If your Tau players as using Overwatch like that they're not maximising that buff. As they can't overwatch once they have FTGG even if they are charged.
You intermingle the squads so they have to charge multiple squads you should be talking minimum 3 units they have to charge or they are getting like 2 dudes into combat.
A knight can flat ignore the chart with a strategum but people still take Hawkshroud Trait while it's far from broke it's still a worth while trait. Making vehicals fight at top tier untilk they have lost 3/4 of their wounds makes it much more difficult to spread damage around they have to esentially kill each unit to make it combat ineffective.
Leveraged more than any other CT? Raven Guard and Iron Hands are flat durability and Ultramarines can shoot, charge, then eventually fall back and shoot again and charge.
That's a lot more you can do for that.
Also new Chapter Tactics were posted so I think we might need to just create a new thread to be honest with the new codex approaching.
The way I think of it, there are armies that literally don't care about (old) RGCTs because they either are skirmishing within close range, are charge heavy, have ignore modifier traits, or a combination of the three. Same with UM CT (beyond the characters), Um only ever matters if A, I want to charge the unit, and B after charging the unit, don't tri-point the model. I was talking with a friend about building him out an UM army and had some fun ways to leverage it offensively. The difference between these and salamanders CT is that I will get serious value across the shooting and fighting phase for the entire game. It requires a higher investment into lower RoF weapons for sure, and that has it's own issues for sure. But no matter the match-up you can get good value from the salamander CT, and that was the old one as well. You keep this mindset of requiring to stand around the command core, and while that also adds value to even salamander marines, its not required and it allows you to flex your army all over the board which wins games.
That being said, people are talking about new CTs, Need link please!!!
Azuza001 wrote: Not everyone is using the new stuff. On top of that not all rules are written while only thinking of the new stuff. Gw even mentions land raiders with that trait. Not going to get into an argument here about it i just dont think its a bad trait. Its not going to get me to run ultramarines. But its not that bad, there is potential in that design.
They mention the landraider that comes with 8 inch flamers.
I have seen 1 litterly 1 of them in 8th edition and it died in a single round of CC. Because an almost 300 point model with 8inch 2D6 S6 weapons is good at killing Primaris.
For Tau sure. I dunno if I want to intermingle a bunch of marine units though, that’s a lot of more expensive guys who won’t be shooting next round. Unless I had so many to do it that that 5+ overwatch actually kept them from being charged.
bort wrote: For Tau sure. I dunno if I want to intermingle a bunch of marine units though, that’s a lot of more expensive guys who won’t be shooting next round. Unless I had so many to do it that that 5+ overwatch actually kept them from being charged.
As a Tau player I'm actually having a hard time seeing the funny side of this. People complaining that Tau sept trait is broken then GW gives out Tau + Hawkshroud + 6+FNP.
3 5 man intercessors units all over watch on 5+ with a captain LT rerolls bubble. Then you have potentially 36 CC attacks plus 12 Sarget weapon attacks back assualting a ironhands gunline just became a Death sentence for a number of units.
bort wrote: For Tau sure. I dunno if I want to intermingle a bunch of marine units though, that’s a lot of more expensive guys who won’t be shooting next round. Unless I had so many to do it that that 5+ overwatch actually kept them from being charged.
As a Tau player I'm actually having a hard time seeing the funny side of this. People complaining that Tau sept trait is broken then GW gives out Tau + Hawkshroud + 6+FNP.
3 5 man intercessors units all over watch on 5+ with a captain LT rerolls bubble. Then you have potentially 36 CC attacks plus 12 Sarget weapon attacks back assualting a ironhands gunline just became a Death sentence for a number of units.
Would like to point out that part of the Tau CT is access to characters, just like part of UM is access to several UM characters. Marines also don't have FtGG, which means I can charge one unit of those intercessor, and pile into the other two which means I can mitigate a lot of firepower, unlike charging Tau, something I throw in there is going to have to take the Riptides OW no matter what. 5+ OW with Tau is a lot more synergistic than it is with marines.
All the new CT's seem really good, I'm still sticking with Salamanders as a ap1 - > ap0 armor trait is huge given the prevalence of AP1 Aggregate fire style weapons (SMS with ATS, Heavy Bolters, Bolt-Rifles, etc.,) The fact that they can now affect non-dread vehicles as well is also great, less so for Sallies but UM/IH/RGCTs got a big boost from that. Predators that are always in cover or have a FNP or can fall back and shoot? Those are all pretty good.
bort wrote: For Tau sure. I dunno if I want to intermingle a bunch of marine units though, that’s a lot of more expensive guys who won’t be shooting next round. Unless I had so many to do it that that 5+ overwatch actually kept them from being charged.
As a Tau player I'm actually having a hard time seeing the funny side of this. People complaining that Tau sept trait is broken then GW gives out Tau + Hawkshroud + 6+FNP.
3 5 man intercessors units all over watch on 5+ with a captain LT rerolls bubble. Then you have potentially 36 CC attacks plus 12 Sarget weapon attacks back assualting a ironhands gunline just became a Death sentence for a number of units.
Would like to point out that part of the Tau CT is access to characters, just like part of UM is access to several UM characters. Marines also don't have FtGG, which means I can charge one unit of those intercessor, and pile into the other two which means I can mitigate a lot of firepower, unlike charging Tau, something I throw in there is going to have to take the Riptides OW no matter what. 5+ OW with Tau is a lot more synergistic than it is with marines.
All the new CT's seem really good, I'm still sticking with Salamanders as a ap1 - > ap0 armor trait is huge given the prevalence of AP1 Aggregate fire style weapons (SMS with ATS, Heavy Bolters, Bolt-Rifles, etc.,) The fact that they can now affect non-dread vehicles as well is also great, less so for Sallies but UM/IH/RGCTs got a big boost from that. Predators that are always in cover or have a FNP or can fall back and shoot? Those are all pretty good.
Your missing the point if I intermix my squads your charging all of them or none it's that simple you can't pile into a unit you didn't charge and swing and you can move within an inch of a unit you haven't charged. You either charge and swing with 2/3 models or your eating overwatch from every unit. And you will be eating CC attacks from all of the units and that's not a walk in the park when intercessors are now 3 attacks each base potentially 4.
bort wrote: Yeah, it really needs to not give -1 to hit. But the ability is nice in principle.
Assuming certain stuff stays the same, I'm thinking:
1. Iron Hands Brigade w/ Dread spam
2. Raptors Vanguard w/ Lias Sternguard Bomb
Would work okay I think. Until points get to me though I haven't an idea.
Your missing the point if I intermix my squads your charging all of them or none it's that simple you can't pile into a unit you didn't charge and swing and you can move within an inch of a unit you haven't charged. You either charge and swing with 2/3 models or your eating overwatch from every unit. And you will be eating CC attacks from all of the units and that's not a walk in the park when intercessors are now 3 attacks each base potentially 4.
Not really, here a couple ways around it:
Charge a T5+ multi-wound model to soak up all of the OW if needed and tag out all the units and charge the now tagged up units. (combined OW and CC attacks doe 3.7 ap1 wounds and 10.6 ap0 wounds, not enough to kill any standard vehicle chassis after saves have been rolled)
Charge the wings of the interleaved formation, that if your using primaris bases are pretty much maxing out at the 2" coherence rule, and pile in so that units at the edge of formation are tagged. You can't consolidate or pile-in out of coherency, and when you consolidate you MUST go close to the closest enemy model, this means that they can't move because they would break coherency, which means that each remaining squad would only have two models that could attack. This means that you have killed one unit (the initial target) and pinned two others while only taking the OW from one squad and 4 primaris models worth of CC spread across 2 units. If you didn't kill the initial target it would be 3 pinned squads with 1 squads worth of overwatch and 6 primaris worth of attacks (so 18 str4 on 3's and 10 str4 AP-1 on 5's, possibly a bit more if the SGTs were tagged) This is absolutely nothing compared to dealing with broadsides/triptides/firewarrior spam with FtGG in which I am forced to take that overwatch regardless.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The problem with the Salamander trait is that you already need to cluster around your HQ units to make them remotely worth anything, which brings to the point that you only get one reroll on hitting or wounding when you're not near them. Not exactly outstanding when I can get a bunch of other stuff instead. I'd even rather have Iron Hands and they're awful.
Making the unit only slightly less reliant does nothing for one model when it's the whole unit you need to be concerned about. At most you should only do Devastator squads with two Heavies and that's it.
We've discussed this before, and at this point we're just going to agree to disagree. I've had good success with Salamanders, going 3-3 in my first GT against some pretty tough match-ups ran by some tough players. Do salamanders require a different approach to building a list? Absolutely, but the CT can be leveraged more than any other CTIMO.
That being said, back to finish the Slaughterfest Write-Up
Game 4 - Triptide with ATS/Velocity Trackers, 2 Cyclic Ion commanders, Darkstrider, cadre fireblade, ethereal, 28 shield drones, 4 marker drones mixed in, 2 devilfish (w/ gundrones), 20 breachers, and 5 firewarriors, 3 sacea marksmen. - Win
Spoiler:
ITC mission 1, pointed short-edge deployment
He gave his cadre fire-blade through unity devastation and the puretide
I gave my knight 2+ armor and land-strider.
I deploy as far forward as cover allows, scouts not being super-useful this game I relegate them to the engineers secondary, he deploys out on his left flank of the deployment, securing an avenue of fire on an open road for his riptides. I deploy my knight to receive cover, effectively giving him a 1+ save.
Despite finishing my deployment first, he goes first.
Turn 1 despite him popping C&C node on one of his riptides, due to some poor rolls and misdeployment on the firesight for markerlight support, He manages to bring down one rhino down to two wounds with ALL of the broadsides. He moves both of his breacher-fish forward behind to try and grab some board control.
My Turn I move the knight forward, disembarking Vulkans rhino and the wounded rhino. Manage to destroy his center devilfish (which had dark-strider in it) and put the other down to two wounds remaining. Was able to charge the forcibly disembarked breachers/Darkstrider and nearby firewarrors with vulkan, the LT, and the sternguard. Ended up wiping out the breachers and darkstrider, killing and tying down a couple firewarriors.
His second turn he disembarks the other breachers close to my knight and some tacs fires everything into the knight and brings it down to 13ish wounds (2+ armor is really good here, definitely saved several wounds from SMS) and kills a couple sternguard and tacs. Not much else happens.
My Turn 2 I kill the remaining devilfish and start forcing him to take drone saves, trying to kill as many as I can through small arms focusing the drones, and heavy weapons targeting his broadsides or exposed commanders. I Charge my knight and some tacs into the forward breachers. Kill the breachers, and consolidate towards the riptides so that I am at this point within 3 inches of the riptides. TH Captain comes down trying to get an exposed charge on the sacea marksmen but fails (Tau drones can't save for sacea sept) Takes two damage for his trouble.
His turn 3. He's out of CP, so no focus fire, and he puts all of his riptide fire into the knight. He kills it by one failed save, that I used a CP re-roll to succeed. At this point he concedes because he couldn't kill the knight and I would've heroically intervened into all three of his riptides, meaning that next turn I could have charged several units with no real FtGG penalty and wiped him. Even if the knight did die, I still had a pretty commanding VP lead because of the bonus/board control.
Game 5 - Triptide with ATS/Target lock, 1 HYMP broadside squad, Shadowsun, 2 x cadre fireblade, 3x5 firewarriors, 33 shield drones - Win
Spoiler:
Mission 4 Circle-quarter deployment
Same relic loadout as last time
I finished deploying first, still lost the roll off, then he gave me first turn so I could approach his optimal engagement range.
He castled up on a two story building, placing his broadsides at the top with a 6 man drone right beneath them, triptides and drone support holding the center.
I deployed around a center two story building. Two rhinos on my south side, one on the north. Knight At the opposing corner out of range of his broadsides. Dreadnoughts deployed on objectives with scouts as engineers.
I advanced the rhinos and put the knight into cover, the rhinos pop smoke and vulkans rhino gets MoH for the additional toughness.
His turn he pops vulkans rhino, forcing his crew to disembark into the ruins, the sternguard are wittled down to to combi-flamers.
My turn I advance my knight, disembark all remaining squads and deployed the TH captain. I use any shooting I can to wittle down as many drones. I score a lucky hit with one of the vendreads las-cannons and completely Ice a broadside. Big squads and no ethereal mean I can force him to make morals to bypass standard drone survivability. I charge the firewarriors with marines, kill one squad and tri-point the two on opposing flanks. The knight fulltilts and murders one of the squads in CC and is right in the face of the opponent.
His turn 2 he focuses all of his fire power into the knight, brings it low but not killing it. He also dives with a riptide to kill my librarian so I can't nullzone out his riptides/drones. He does kill the kill the librarian (only had two wounds left after some previous skirmish fire) but exposes a riptide with no drone support. In his combat phase I finished off both of the other fire-warriors, freeing two tac squads.
My Turn 3 I continue to whittle down any drones I can, and put some lasfire into the exposed riptide to bring it down (it does branched reactor for 18 shots And 3+ invuln). Vulkan hops back in cover, and charges the exposed riptide so he only gets overwatched by the SMS, the knight and the LT then follow suit and slaughter the riptide. One tac marine squad charges a single character, uses the distance to go up the building the broadsides are in and piles-in after they have fought to tie the broadsides down. That win-condition was achieved.
His turn 3 he kills my knight, he doesn't explode and I don't try to bring him back, but it soaks most of his firepower. He kills a couple marines here and there, but nothing to critical.
After this point, through aggregate fire and attrition on his drones I'm finally able to land solid lascannons and melta hits on his riptides. This goes on for a couple turns and I table him by turn 5 or 6
Game 6- Triple Croissants, 2x Triarch stalkers, 2x doomsday arks, 20 warriors, 15 immortals, 2x6 bike squads, a cryptek, and Imotek - Loss
Spoiler:
ITC missiion 6, Vanguard Strike
Knight has 2+/4++ configuration
Librarian takes MoH and Fury of the ancients (actually came in clutch)
He has the veil of darkness on the cryptek
I deploy the rhinos behind cover, the vendreads in non-LOS blocking cover, Knight in the open (not enough cover to block him out anywhere)
He deploys his ghost arcs and stalkers in the front line, engineer immortals in the back on an objective. Bikes were deployed on the wings.
Despite finishing my deployment first, he wins the roll off and goes first. He then wins because of it.
His first turn his dice were HOT. He uses Imoteks ability to do 4 MWs to the knight and then activates the +1 to hit strategem. He then fires his doomscythes and arks at the knight. It was one of those days I couldn't make a single 4++ on the knight 7 wounds went in and killed the knight. A dreadnought was also picked off and 20 warriors were teleported into my back corner and with MWBD were able to tie down a dreadnought and get into some scouts. I try to get the knight back up, spending 4 cp for a 75% chance, but it fails. The bikes have secured both flanking objectives
My turn 1 I disembark all of my marines in an attempt to kill the nightscythes and the warriors in my backline. I kill one nightscythe and bring another down to 1 wounds, but am unable to finish it off (almost killed it with a krak grenade, but he CP'd the save). My librarian MoH's vulkan and then shoves a melta gun into the crypteks face. I then charge the warriors with all of my characters and infantry squads. The characters all made it in (thankfully) but all three infantry squads rolled 2 inch charges when I needed 4. and because of that he had 3 warriors left over which basically kept my army in the back the entire game for an army that needs to exert some pressure, thats NOT good. I was able to tie down one of the triarchs with some forward magicboxed scouts.
His turn 2 he pops a couple rhinos, and kills a few marines here and there while also failing to kill my remaining dreadnought (lucky break). He spends 2cp(?) to reroll 1's on reanimation on his warriors stuck in my back line, and during his combat phase I kill his warriors down to a single model (which he got back by using that cp), but it still ties down the a scout and tac squad. The stalker is still tied down by the scouts, but he moved the other one forward.
My turn 2 I send vulkan and the sternguard to kill the bikes on one flank and leave 1 model with ONE wound remaining. I'm able to pistol off the last warrior with the squads in CC and kill off the non-engaged stalker. The wounded doomscythe is also killed, while the third was brought down to a couple of wounds, but wasn't killed. THC captain comes in and assist the scouts in tying down the stalker and tagging some immortals that came in to kill off the scouts in CC. That captain had 6 total rounds of combat, and he rolled about 15 2's, ngl that hurt a little.
His turn 3 he used his super wounded doomscythe to kill vulkan, he got 3 shots off of a d3, 1 hit on a 5+, 1 wound on a 2+, I failed my 3+ invuln, and he rolls a 5 to just instagib vulkan. He finishes off the rhino, and is able to disengage both his stalker and immortals at this point, but not out of heroic intervention range of the captain, who does so just to roll more 2's to hit.
At this point is was pretty clear I lost the game so I just made a play for the points I could get. Over the next several turns he was able to attrition down my marine squads with the DDA gauss fire and bike particle caster fire while I was able to kill a DDA. My Librarian was able to finish off the doom scythe, and between the LT and the Librarian they killed the bikes that vulkan didn't, and a DDA. Captain got tesla'd down as he went after the other DDA which was currently holding an OBJ. The problem was, he just held the board and was racking up primaries left and right.
The opponent didn't table me, by turn 6 I had two models left on the board (the libby and a single marine in cover) but it was a near thing.
Out of all of my games, this was the one that was most determined by some cold dice rolling. Losing first turn hurt the most here (might've been able to kill a doomscythe and tie down both stalkers with a full tilting knight) and have much more board control. Failing nearly every save my knight needed to make. My knight not getting back up. My captain missing more attacks then he hit. Vulkan rolling a 1 damage on the last bike instead of 2. Bad luck happens but compared to my other two losses this one had some just straight up bad dice rolls when my opponents were on fire.
He was still a pretty chill dude, so it was an enjoyable game despite the trashcan rolls.
Was a great GT though, and I'm definitely attending next year. Well, at least if they haven't squatted mini-marines by that point.
Leveraged more than any other CT? Raven Guard and Iron Hands are flat durability and Ultramarines can shoot, charge, then eventually fall back and shoot again and charge.
That's a lot more you can do for that.
Also new Chapter Tactics were posted so I think we might need to just create a new thread to be honest with the new codex approaching.
Yeah I think on friday I'll ask a mod to lock this thread and start a new one.
Custom made chapters look like they could be cool. I like the idea of sneaky black templars, rerolling failed charges and counting as cover outside 12"....
Ice_can wrote: So far I'm seeing BT vanguard
Smash Captain
Vanguard Vets
Hammernators
Servators
Ironhands
Iron father
Lt
Intercessor x3
Repulsor
Repulsor
Add something to fillout the remaining points.
I'm thinking that's not a bad lineup. Vanguard being able to make a charge from Deep Strike 60% of the time is godly with Repulsors having the correct weapons to clear chaff.
With Custom Chapters and successors being a thing, I was thinking ×3 Stormravens with Asterion and a crew of Terminators and/or Centurions in each one. You can get mileage out of his reroll hits AND charges after all. It's a lot more expensive but I think you can leverage counting them as an Iron Hands successor and make those Ravens stay longer. Just a thought though, and not a complete one at that. Possible White Scars will be better for the advancing and charging...
BrianDavion wrote: so with the upcoming supplements does everything think it'll be time to spin out threads specific for each first founding legion as they get their own supplements, well keeping a space Marine thread for the generic suecessors?
Nah, but I think there should be a new SM thread, maybe 8.5
Automatically Appended Next Post: I can't wait to play my Iron Hands with the new CT. I think I need more intercessors...
I like the boost it looks like the White Scars are getting... basically giving their one existing strat to the whole Chapter, plus rules for a bike Khan and a psychic discipline, and I assume a few other goodies. Probably not enough to make them truly competitive, but maybe to take them from a purely fluffy list to one with a little punch. I'll run melta Bikers for the Advance + Assault weapons and hopefully some Codex (as opposed to Index) melee Vets on Bikes now that WS characters can Advance + Charge alongside them.
Iron Hands look fun too, and I do have a couple of old Dreds that need a purpose.
Sterling191 wrote: Amusingly enough White Scar Aggressors are gonna be worth a hard look.
Ehh - they are certainly better but I think VV are probably a better choice. It's really disappointing that their trait does not effect landspeeders to ignore moving and shooting penalty.
Sterling191 wrote: Amusingly enough White Scar Aggressors are gonna be worth a hard look.
Ehh - they are certainly better but I think VV are probably a better choice. It's really disappointing that their trait does not effect landspeeders to ignore moving and shooting penalty.
Different roles. VanVets arent dual wielding stormbolters and powerfists, and dont get to advance and shoot.
Sterling191 wrote: Amusingly enough White Scar Aggressors are gonna be worth a hard look.
Ehh - they are certainly better but I think VV are probably a better choice. It's really disappointing that their trait does not effect landspeeders to ignore moving and shooting penalty.
Different roles. VanVets arent dual wielding stormbolters and powerfists, and dont get to advance and shoot.
True different rolls but you get more out of the white scars tactic is what I was saying. I think aggressors get a lot more out of iron hands or imperial fists.
Aggressors gain a lot more from Iron Hands and Imperial Fists, correct. However I think you can definitely make a case for Ultramarines with the Fall Back + Shoot, on top of the rule previewed today that, if you got the Tactical Doctrine up, they won't suffer the -1 penalty.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Aggressors gain a lot more from Iron Hands and Imperial Fists, correct. However I think you can definitely make a case for Ultramarines with the Fall Back + Shoot, on top of the rule previewed today that, if you got the Tactical Doctrine up, they won't suffer the -1 penalty.
Super Special Smurf Tactical Sauce stops working if the unit Advances or Falls Back.
They still get to shoot, but with the penalty and they can't double tap.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Aggressors gain a lot more from Iron Hands and Imperial Fists, correct. However I think you can definitely make a case for Ultramarines with the Fall Back + Shoot, on top of the rule previewed today that, if you got the Tactical Doctrine up, they won't suffer the -1 penalty.
Yeah ultras aggressors are actually top tier now after seeing the ultras scions ability. They can't fall back and use it though. They can move and double tap though - which is amazing.
Yeah I misread the rule and made myself look dumb in another thread too.
However they now can advance and shoot fine, or move regularly and double tap the whole time. Get an Ancient nearby and it's a dangerous proposition
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Yeah I misread the rule and made myself look dumb in another thread too.
However they now can advance and shoot fine, or move regularly and double tap the whole time. Get an Ancient nearby and it's a dangerous proposition
Indeed - don't forget they get AP-1 on all their guns with the tactical doctrine. So realistically - they are doing about 3 times as much damage if they get into position on turn 2 and can double tap on the move as ultras - pretty wild.
Automatically Appended Next Post: If we get deep strike - deepstriking 6 man agressors turn 2 with tactical doctrine in gman buff will be game changing. Will easily be able to make up their points in a single turn. That isn't even factoring in the 19 power fist attacks that unit puts out.
just the shooting at ap-1 does about 18 wounds to a knight. So it will outright kill anything without a 2+ save or a 3++ with 18 wounds or less. Anything T7 is dead. And kill about 85 guardsmen. Or 20 priamris marines out of cover.
Next to guilliman, a 6 man squad of ultramarine aggressors with tactical doctrine and the strat that gives them an extra -1 AP does 17 wounds on average to a LAND RAIDER (pretty much the worst target they could choose to shoot at)
I know they might struggle to survive to turn 2, but if those impulsors can transport gravis then some would make it. Imagine playing a CC horde list against an army that puts out 120+ shots with guilliman rerolls for a SINGLE UNIT with a 24" threat range (and more if impulsors can be used)
Lol ninjad by someone with exactly the same thoughts haha
Next to guilliman, a 6 man squad of ultramarine aggressors with tactical doctrine and the strat that gives them an extra -1 AP does 17 wounds on average to a LAND RAIDER (pretty much the worst target they could choose to shoot at)
I know they might struggle to survive to turn 2, but if those impulsors can transport gravis then some would make it. Imagine playing a CC horde list against an army that puts out 120+ shots with guilliman rerolls for a SINGLE UNIT with a 24" threat range (and more if impulsors can be used)
Lol ninjad by someone with exactly the same thoughts haha
Triple impulsor with 9 agressors can move into position with a 4++ save ion front of Gman can then you can get out and lay down some serious heat. If doctrines can be changed on demand somehow it will be the way to run it. If you can deep strike 2 units of 6 that will work even better. That will destroy just about any 2 threats you pout in front of it. The rest of your army should probably focus on anti tank. Hard to say what to use. Maybe the new elimiantors with las.
It is also interesting. On turn 2 you can get 36 inch threat range sterngaurd jumping out of rhinos with ap-3 bolters! That is only 140 points lol.
