lash92 wrote: Dragoons all the way. They have an in build -1 and will flood the enemy with S8 attacks due to exploding hits on 4+. Easily my favorite unit!
Yeah I second the chicken love. I even enjoy them in my mars lists.
ph34r wrote: Is Grand Strategist good still? Maximum 6 CP refunded over a game, right?
Not sure really. Monitor Malevelos is almost as good. The admech price buffs actually have me looking at running an actual 100% admech list at LVO. I would be running Cawl + 1x6 dakkabots as the core, with other admech grafted on as necessary. I still think bots and cawl are the way to go. But damn if those infantry aren't efficient now. I need to go look at that facebook spreadsheet again to see how the plasma calivers are doing now.
Are you leaning towards 2 or 3 detachments in a pure Admech list?
What are people’s consensus on 3x battalions. Too much of a tax or with engineer reductions acceptable now?
I don't think you need a third battalion as pure admech since there aren't that many strong strategems to make the taxes pay off.
MARS double battalion with STYGIES aux
Spoiler:
2x MARS battalion Cawl 3x Enginseer 6x9 rangers with omnispex 3x neutrons 1x6 dakkabots
1x STYGIES Aux 1x4 dragoons
MARS brigade with Smash captain patrol (based on Reece's ideas in podcast)
Spoiler:
MARS brigade Cawl (WL, aura is good here) 2x enginseer 6x9 rangers with omnispex 3x10 infiltrators with tazer/uzi for WRATH 3x1 Lascannon ballistari 3x1 Neutron
BLANGELS patrol 1x smash captain (to solve flier problems and knights and consume CP) 1x6 scouts (to screen out certain deepstrike / infiltrate threats)
With these neutron changes I just can't see bringing the guard vehicles again. Neutrons are so cheap now. -26 points a chassis is bananas. Ballistari are cheap now too, maybe they can hide out of LOS and rely on Cawl's aura to keep them relevant? They are a bit of a tax in the brigade ... but ... I kinda like them at 80 points. The autocannon ones don't feel relevant versus any specific threat, and the infiltrator spam covers dealing with weaker or high invulnerable threats.
EDIT: if you don't like smash in the brigade, you can trade 1 stack of infiltrators and Smash and the scouts for: 1x5 STYGIES dragoons and 1x4 servitors
Suzuteo wrote: Problem with Calivers is that you have to run them Lucius. That or bring a ton of Drills...
Why not bring Kataphrons? Too worried about durability?
I have them sitting on the shelf, but they still cost either 48 for plasma or 51 for grav assuming the phosphor blaster. A neutron with 2x stubber is now 119. Kataphrons are now for sure more damage than dakkabots point for point. But it all comes down to their terrible saves and how good of a shooting target they are. Even with AGRIPINNA and the servitor farm, you can lose kataphrons to stray mortar fire. Their saves are bad on a very pricey unit that can't natively deepstrike and instantly dies in combat. A RAVEN castellan could kill an easy 5 bases with Cawls wrath, 2 from the volcano lance, 1.5 from the shoulder guns, and 1 from the shieldbreaker missile. I haven't run the mathhammer yet but my instinct says that the castellan could kill 8 bases or 400 points a turn. 600 points of plasmaphrons should take 12-14 wounds off of a castellan. But then it still shoots at full strength and strips bases off the board every time you fail a 5++ (assuming the detachment).
How do you think kataphrons should be run? I can't figure it out.
Im thinking of trying 5 grav flamers in agripinaa. Going second you have cover 3 turns straight so your still 3W t5 3+ 5++ and if the squad isnt wiped its going back to full strength. Ruin hideing is a great option or taking a litteral bunker. Cawl wrath is lethal vs whatever target. But it only Avg 7 shots so if it misses 1 fails to W 1 or 2 and you make 1 or 2 5++ it wont kill the unit alone. If he empties everything into it then everything else is still good what doesnt it delete
Wulfey wrote: I have them sitting on the shelf, but they still cost either 48 for plasma or 51 for grav assuming the phosphor blaster. A neutron with 2x stubber is now 119. Kataphrons are now for sure more damage than dakkabots point for point. But it all comes down to their terrible saves and how good of a shooting target they are. Even with AGRIPINNA and the servitor farm, you can lose kataphrons to stray mortar fire. Their saves are bad on a very pricey unit that can't natively deepstrike and instantly dies in combat. A RAVEN castellan could kill an easy 5 bases with Cawls wrath, 2 from the volcano lance, 1.5 from the shoulder guns, and 1 from the shieldbreaker missile. I haven't run the mathhammer yet but my instinct says that the castellan could kill 8 bases or 400 points a turn. 600 points of plasmaphrons should take 12-14 wounds off of a castellan. But then it still shoots at full strength and strips bases off the board every time you fail a 5++ (assuming the detachment).
How do you think kataphrons should be run? I can't figure it out.
I think it's how you use them that matters. They're basically like any other heavy weapons infantry. Deploy them in ruins with a bunch of Catachans protecting them, pop them out to shoot something important. It works for Guard, why not us?
tneva82 wrote: And opponent is unlikely to deploy his objectives so that you can easily see them. Add to that terrain and the fact you have to put 12" gap from those and again: If you put your bots into immobile you would be lucky to see more than 2 objectives. Or maybe you see them but enemy can get within 3" and still be out of LOS.
So your immobile bots are guarding 1, maybe 2 objectives and opponent can use LOS blockers to deal with rest of army. If all are around bots...Well then neither is killing anything unless he wants to open action while he controls 4-5 objectives. Good luck.
Precisely because game isn't about mindlessly killing things being immobile is bad. If it was just mindlessly killing things sure lock up, shoot and mindlessly kill things with your immobile bots. Others meanwhile move and control objectives.
That's fine? I'm simply pointing out that trying to create a lopsided board is inherently bad play for a shooting army. I never said you could make your opponent do anything. In fact, my entire argument is that every time you try to change protocols, you can't stop your opponent from simply moving out of danger, so you will pretty much never get the benefits of double shooting. Override at least gives you one devastating turn of shooting to delete a critical unit from the board. If you do so in a good spot, you can also make it difficult for opponents to maneuver. And before you say it, no, changing protocols does not do this. Not any more than simply keeping Aegis mode on. Indeed, you're not really arguing for mobility as much as the illusion of mobility for a unit whose greatest benefit only comes at the cost of being rooted.
In any case, I tire of this argument. My advice is don't bring Datasmiths, don't bother taking the relic, and keep Robots in Aegis mode until you need them to kill something important. Then Override them in a good spot to do it. This is optimal for Robots--has been for months and will continue being this way. If you want to build/play suboptimally, go right ahead. I won't stop you.
Quick question - how do we rate the pts reduced Ironstriders now?
I'm considering using them in a Mars Brigade over Dragoons since they benefit more from being part of the Cawl-Star while being the mobile platform needed for objective grabbing.
@wulfey your mars brigade idea is an interesting one. I can just see opponents face when you tell him your a mars list and he expects a static wall and is met with a mobile force!
How do you feel a list like this would stack up against knights and eldar?
@Aranis I cannot unsee a sad datasmith getting visitation rights at the weekends for dakkabot baseball games
@mathhammer users. How do you represent neutron lasers damage d6 (1,2,3 treat as 3) do you put D9 in there?
I would rather still rely on Infiltrators to do my heavy lifting. They don't need a babysitter and make a good distraction.
I was thinking more as a screen for our heavy support? 15 of them in a line, pop acquistion at all costs to get a 4++ against shooting and a 3++ in close combat, 6's throwing back a mortal wound. They are only 9pts a model and there CC output isnt too bad.
Surprised FW hasnt done a short FAQ for them to get Forgeworld access
Hopilites would last longer than electropriests or most other screens, so it may be worthy for a unit to just tie down some models, but as it stands right now I don't know how much they're worth it without dogmas. I honestly don't know why they don't have them in the first place... sure they guard titans but since titans come from forgeworlds...?
Hey, does anyone have any tactics on how to beat deathguard? They are my least favorite army to play against, and I just want to know how to compete with all the craziness they have.
Tiger9gamer wrote: Hopilites would last longer than electropriests or most other screens, so it may be worthy for a unit to just tie down some models, but as it stands right now I don't know how much they're worth it without dogmas. I honestly don't know why they don't have them in the first place... sure they guard titans but since titans come from forgeworlds...?
Hey, does anyone have any tactics on how to beat deathguard? They are my least favorite army to play against, and I just want to know how to compete with all the craziness they have.
Well ive justed finished painting up 15 of them haha so was just wondering if anyone has used them and had any success than them. I think the only 3 dogmas that would suit them is Graia, Stygies and Mars anyway.
For fighting deathguard its all about killing there support characters. They are force multipliers in their lists. Id recommend the new cheaper 5 man double transuranic arquebus now to put pressure on those characters from the get go, new plasma kataphrons to force lot of wounds and multiple damage and the trusty neutron onagers to swat away bloat drones and plague burst crawlers.
Tiger9gamer wrote: Hopilites would last longer than electropriests or most other screens, so it may be worthy for a unit to just tie down some models, but as it stands right now I don't know how much they're worth it without dogmas. I honestly don't know why they don't have them in the first place... sure they guard titans but since titans come from forgeworlds...?
Hey, does anyone have any tactics on how to beat deathguard? They are my least favorite army to play against, and I just want to know how to compete with all the craziness they have.
I ran 3 units of them at a tournament in nov they are pretty solid for 1pt more than vanguard. Treating them as a block of 30 with the omniscient mask they are solid
Tiger9gamer wrote: Hopilites would last longer than electropriests or most other screens, so it may be worthy for a unit to just tie down some models, but as it stands right now I don't know how much they're worth it without dogmas. I honestly don't know why they don't have them in the first place... sure they guard titans but since titans come from forgeworlds...?
Hey, does anyone have any tactics on how to beat deathguard? They are my least favorite army to play against, and I just want to know how to compete with all the craziness they have.
They're also pretty solid running up to hold an objective and using Acquisition at Any Costs. Suddenly, they've got a 4++ invulnerable save from range, 3++ in CC and an extra attack.
Tiger9gamer wrote: Hopilites would last longer than electropriests or most other screens, so it may be worthy for a unit to just tie down some models, but as it stands right now I don't know how much they're worth it without dogmas. I honestly don't know why they don't have them in the first place... sure they guard titans but since titans come from forgeworlds...?
Hey, does anyone have any tactics on how to beat deathguard? They are my least favorite army to play against, and I just want to know how to compete with all the craziness they have.
I ran 3 units of them at a tournament in nov they are pretty solid for 1pt more than vanguard. Treating them as a block of 30 with the omniscient mask they are solid
ph34r wrote: Is Grand Strategist good still? Maximum 6 CP refunded over a game, right?
Are you leaning towards 2 or 3 detachments in a pure Admech list?
What are people’s consensus on 3x battalions. Too much of a tax or with engineer reductions acceptable now?
Grand strategist is 1 per turn but no limit before T1.
Im thinking 1 to 2 if pure. If pure id go for a brigade over 2 batallions the you dont really need a 4th hq and everything else is good.
What armies did you use them against? Did having no dogma's bother them much? And how well did they perform? Would love to hear your input on them, as i think they could work in a pure admech build. With Acquisition at all Costs they have a 2+ 4++ against shooting and a 3++ vs combat all for 9pts and a 2CP strat.
Ideasweasel wrote: @wulfey your mars brigade idea is an interesting one. I can just see opponents face when you tell him your a mars list and he expects a static wall and is met with a mobile force!
How do you feel a list like this would stack up against knights and eldar?
@Aranis I cannot unsee a sad datasmith getting visitation rights at the weekends for dakkabot baseball games
@mathhammer users. How do you represent neutron lasers damage d6 (1,2,3 treat as 3) do you put D9 in there?
With regards to the MARS brigade + smash, when it comes to knights we can assume it will be some kind of Castellan + guard or Castellan + gallants. Neutrons are just not that great against knights, but I think they are good just because with Cawl they hit Eldar fliers more than you think and they ignore the saves of the fliers. Icarus would perform better against more targets, but when a neutron has a good target it kills its points every time it shoots. Anything without an invul is 119 point neutron bait. Overall I think the admech army struggles against T8 with a 3++/4++. I dropped the dragoons because while they are point efficient against a knight, they are slower than a knight so it is likely the knight gets the charge. A gallant that charges some dragoons kills minimum 2 bases and usually kills 3. So this is a roundabout way of saying, I still think I need smash captain just so I have some kind of way of dealing with knights. I can trade 8CP and smash to kill 1 knight guaranteed, and then hope the rest of my army puts out enough attrition and board control to win. Smash has been a consistent must have versus Eldar for a long time because he threatens their best models. Neutrons do well against eldar vehicles and rangers with omnispexes are excellent for their points against Eldar infantry.
The MARS brigade with a focus on infiltrators over dakkabots gives up the 100% kill power of the dakkabots but greatly spreads out the number of targets an eldar play has to deal with. They can't rely on DOOM + GUIDE + Harlequin Haywire to kill 660 points of models in one unit in one shooting phase. Instead, they have to deal with infiltrators coming in turn after turn and putting out wrath of mars to eliminate one unit a turn. The funny thing is that the infiltrators even have access to +1 to hit and can get to 2+ rerolling to hit outside of the cawl bubble. I think the 3x180 points of infiltrators putting out 50 shots each time from deep strike should do better against eldar overall than the dakkabots putting out 108 stronger shots if you get first turn and your opponent has bad terrain. Granted, eldar can just eliminate infiltrators that are exposed in their shooting phase. They will just get rinsed away, but ideally they did enough damage to keep you in the game. The real fear are the 3x disintegrator ravagers that can kill their points in infiltrators every shooting phase. But neutrons happen to be a good answer to ravagers (or maybe I should be running icarus ...).
My mars brigade ends up being a kind of infantry horde army that doesn't mind playing other hordes. I would have 54 rangers and 30 infiltrators. If the other guy puts down 100 boyz, 100 guardsmen, 100 daemons, 100 gaunts, 100 bloodletters, yeah, bring it on.
MARS Brigade + Smash patrol [this list is actually 2331 points pre CA2018]
Spoiler:
MARS
Cawl + Engi + Engi
6x9 rangers with omnispex
3x10 uzi infiltrators
3x1 lascannon ballistari
3x1 neutron onagers
Tiger9gamer wrote: Hopilites would last longer than electropriests or most other screens, so it may be worthy for a unit to just tie down some models, but as it stands right now I don't know how much they're worth it without dogmas. I honestly don't know why they don't have them in the first place... sure they guard titans but since titans come from forgeworlds...?
Hey, does anyone have any tactics on how to beat deathguard? They are my least favorite army to play against, and I just want to know how to compete with all the craziness they have.
I ran 3 units of them at a tournament in nov they are pretty solid for 1pt more than vanguard. Treating them as a block of 30 with the omniscient mask they are solid
ph34r wrote: Is Grand Strategist good still? Maximum 6 CP refunded over a game, right?
Are you leaning towards 2 or 3 detachments in a pure Admech list?
What are people’s consensus on 3x battalions. Too much of a tax or with engineer reductions acceptable now?
Grand strategist is 1 per turn but no limit before T1.
Im thinking 1 to 2 if pure. If pure id go for a brigade over 2 batallions the you dont really need a 4th hq and everything else is good.
What armies did you use them against? Did having no dogma's bother them much? And how well did they perform? Would love to hear your input on them, as i think they could work in a pure admech build. With Acquisition at all Costs they have a 2+ 4++ against shooting and a 3++ vs combat all for 9pts and a 2CP strat.
I used them in an infantry horde with am. They held my centre line and footslogged. I didnt use aquisition very often instead used them to take out tau/eldar/knights. 30 shots strength 6 does a lot and even 1 unit in CC did a lot of damage with the +2 to hit strat the only army they struggled against was DW
Deathwatch are -not- weak. Their anti-tank is medicore/bad but one of their clutch units: 10 veterans with stormbolters, 7 chainswords and 3 stormshields got even better post CA. The damage output those guys can deal is real scary. Just basic intercessors are quite powerful in DW as well, since you can splice in other primaris.
Hmmm i was all excited about buying a styrix and i’ve just noticed it’s questor imperialis not <questoris alleigance> do i actually lose that much from it not being questoris mechanicus?
Thematically i hate it; The imperium can suck it, I merely tolerate their presence lol
Octovol wrote: Hmmm i was all excited about buying a styrix and i’ve just noticed it’s questor imperialis not <questoris alleigance> do i actually lose that much from it not being questoris mechanicus?
Thematically i hate it; The imperium can suck it, I merely tolerate their presence lol
Wulfey wrote: With regards to the MARS brigade + smash, when it comes to knights we can assume it will be some kind of Castellan + guard or Castellan + gallants. Neutrons are just not that great against knights, but I think they are good just because with Cawl they hit Eldar fliers more than you think and they ignore the saves of the fliers. Icarus would perform better against more targets, but when a neutron has a good target it kills its points every time it shoots. Anything without an invul is 119 point neutron bait. Overall I think the admech army struggles against T8 with a 3++/4++. I dropped the dragoons because while they are point efficient against a knight, they are slower than a knight so it is likely the knight gets the charge. A gallant that charges some dragoons kills minimum 2 bases and usually kills 3. So this is a roundabout way of saying, I still think I need smash captain just so I have some kind of way of dealing with knights. I can trade 8CP and smash to kill 1 knight guaranteed, and then hope the rest of my army puts out enough attrition and board control to win. Smash has been a consistent must have versus Eldar for a long time because he threatens their best models. Neutrons do well against eldar vehicles and rangers with omnispexes are excellent for their points against Eldar infantry.
The MARS brigade with a focus on infiltrators over dakkabots gives up the 100% kill power of the dakkabots but greatly spreads out the number of targets an eldar play has to deal with. They can't rely on DOOM + GUIDE + Harlequin Haywire to kill 660 points of models in one unit in one shooting phase. Instead, they have to deal with infiltrators coming in turn after turn and putting out wrath of mars to eliminate one unit a turn. The funny thing is that the infiltrators even have access to +1 to hit and can get to 2+ rerolling to hit outside of the cawl bubble. I think the 3x180 points of infiltrators putting out 50 shots each time from deep strike should do better against eldar overall than the dakkabots putting out 108 stronger shots if you get first turn and your opponent has bad terrain. Granted, eldar can just eliminate infiltrators that are exposed in their shooting phase. They will just get rinsed away, but ideally they did enough damage to keep you in the game. The real fear are the 3x disintegrator ravagers that can kill their points in infiltrators every shooting phase. But neutrons happen to be a good answer to ravagers (or maybe I should be running icarus ...).
My mars brigade ends up being a kind of infantry horde army that doesn't mind playing other hordes. I would have 54 rangers and 30 infiltrators. If the other guy puts down 100 boyz, 100 guardsmen, 100 daemons, 100 gaunts, 100 bloodletters, yeah, bring it on.
MARS Brigade + Smash patrol [this list is actually 2331 points pre CA2018]
Spoiler:
MARS
Cawl + Engi + Engi
6x9 rangers with omnispex
3x10 uzi infiltrators
3x1 lascannon ballistari
3x1 neutron onagers
BLANGELS
Smash captain + 1x6 scouts
In my opinion, if you are going to do a single Brigade, you should go with a well-mixed AdMech Soup:
Octovol wrote: Hmmm i was all excited about buying a styrix and i’ve just noticed it’s questor imperialis not <questoris alleigance> do i actually lose that much from it not being questoris mechanicus?
Thematically i hate it; The imperium can suck it, I merely tolerate their presence lol
Which option;
a) 6 Kataphron Breachers w/Heavy Arc Rifle (Lucius) & Upgrade Enginseer to Dominus and make him Lucius instead of mars.
b) Make the patrol a supreme command, change scouts to another smash cap, and add 6 Mars Kataphron Breachers w/Heavy Arc Rifles
c) 2 Kastellan (Mars), Drop 1 HB on Servitors, Add 5 Lucius Rangers
d) Add Mars Icarus Dunestrider, Drop 1 HB on Servitors, 5 Kataphron Breacher w/Heavy Arc Rifle and lower claw
Both lists have pushback when needed. Both have multiple ways of dealing high and hard damage. Both lists have a solid number of infantry to screen/support, do damage. Thoughts?
LIST-1: I like list 1. I think the idea of a big gaggle of admech that stands and shoots is still a good idea against a lot of lists. But it will struggle against Tier 1 fast assault lists or Eldar or going second against a shooting list where you can't put your destroyers in LOS blocking terrain. I think the RYZA idea is a good one and ups the destroyers killing power enough to threaten knights (but will struggle against any army with -toHit modifiers). I would look to using 1x10 MARS infiltrators in place of the 1x6 breachers because the infiltrators can use WRATH effectively and can outfight the breachers and provide your list some flexibility on objectives and countercharging. You aren't going to be using the +1 to hit strat on the breachers. And i think the dakkabots need to be RYZA to get the other +1 to hit from the elimination volley strategem.
List2 - I am suspicious of the librarian dreadnaught. I think he is points that could be MARS infiltrators. The librarian dreadnaught is inherently unreliable due to the psychic phase. But he must make combat to get his points back yet isn't fast without that FLY spell. I also think SMASH is 124 points now because stormshield went down 5 points. So I would take (D) but with the infiltrators instead of the breachers. 50 shots with WRATH and cawl is pretty good at removing a critical unit with good invuls but not many wounds.
PiñaColada wrote: Deathwatch are -not- weak. Their anti-tank is medicore/bad but one of their clutch units: 10 veterans with stormbolters, 7 chainswords and 3 stormshields got even better post CA. The damage output those guys can deal is real scary. Just basic intercessors are quite powerful in DW as well, since you can splice in other primaris.
The thing is, with everyone going down in points cost, marines and necrons are pretty much in the same posistion as before CA. They are still just 1 wound 3+ save models, i have fought against DW quite reguarly at my local club and ive never been that impressed with them. Yeah they can spam lots of , hurricanes, bolt storm gauntlets, special issue bolt rounds, hellblasters and assault cannons, but they still have the fundamental problems all space marine codexes have this edition.
The hardest armies i have fond that are a counter to our army is fast moving semi durable lists that can easily tie us up in melee. A shooting matchup vs us is usually in favour of Admech.
Wulfey wrote: With regards to the MARS brigade + smash, when it comes to knights we can assume it will be some kind of Castellan + guard or Castellan + gallants. Neutrons are just not that great against knights, but I think they are good just because with Cawl they hit Eldar fliers more than you think and they ignore the saves of the fliers. Icarus would perform better against more targets, but when a neutron has a good target it kills its points every time it shoots. Anything without an invul is 119 point neutron bait. Overall I think the admech army struggles against T8 with a 3++/4++. I dropped the dragoons because while they are point efficient against a knight, they are slower than a knight so it is likely the knight gets the charge. A gallant that charges some dragoons kills minimum 2 bases and usually kills 3. So this is a roundabout way of saying, I still think I need smash captain just so I have some kind of way of dealing with knights. I can trade 8CP and smash to kill 1 knight guaranteed, and then hope the rest of my army puts out enough attrition and board control to win. Smash has been a consistent must have versus Eldar for a long time because he threatens their best models. Neutrons do well against eldar vehicles and rangers with omnispexes are excellent for their points against Eldar infantry.
The MARS brigade with a focus on infiltrators over dakkabots gives up the 100% kill power of the dakkabots but greatly spreads out the number of targets an eldar play has to deal with. They can't rely on DOOM + GUIDE + Harlequin Haywire to kill 660 points of models in one unit in one shooting phase. Instead, they have to deal with infiltrators coming in turn after turn and putting out wrath of mars to eliminate one unit a turn. The funny thing is that the infiltrators even have access to +1 to hit and can get to 2+ rerolling to hit outside of the cawl bubble. I think the 3x180 points of infiltrators putting out 50 shots each time from deep strike should do better against eldar overall than the dakkabots putting out 108 stronger shots if you get first turn and your opponent has bad terrain. Granted, eldar can just eliminate infiltrators that are exposed in their shooting phase. They will just get rinsed away, but ideally they did enough damage to keep you in the game. The real fear are the 3x disintegrator ravagers that can kill their points in infiltrators every shooting phase. But neutrons happen to be a good answer to ravagers (or maybe I should be running icarus ...).
My mars brigade ends up being a kind of infantry horde army that doesn't mind playing other hordes. I would have 54 rangers and 30 infiltrators. If the other guy puts down 100 boyz, 100 guardsmen, 100 daemons, 100 gaunts, 100 bloodletters, yeah, bring it on.
MARS Brigade + Smash patrol [this list is actually 2331 points pre CA2018]
Spoiler:
MARS
Cawl + Engi + Engi
6x9 rangers with omnispex
3x10 uzi infiltrators
3x1 lascannon ballistari
3x1 neutron onagers
BLANGELS
Smash captain + 1x6 scouts
In my opinion, if you are going to do a single Brigade, you should go with a well-mixed AdMech Soup:
laam999 wrote: They will, but they'll gain access to the stratagems and the new things from vigilus book can still be used, it's a clever tactic, it's just a trade
Might aswell add some hoplites too at that point haha! Would be interesting how it plays out
deffrekka wrote: How are you mixing forgeworlds into 1 detachment? You lose all the dogmas dont you?
Yup, but being able to use the specific stratagems is much more worth, because our Dogmas are (except Stygies) not that much worth.
I think the same can be said for pretty much all factions in the game, most codexes have alot of bad traits that they arent taken. Its only really the later dexes that have the better traits.
Had a fun game today, 2000 pts AdMech two battalions VS Raven Guard, with one of the new CA Eternal War missions. Wanted to try the two fisty Robots I bought yesterday. I won 20-9 and tabled him on turn 5. The new missions look great and with the way deployment works it was a brain exercise to infiltrate both our armies, as he deployed them first and I had to adapt.
Play of the game was the survivor of a Ranger squad that got murdered by Shrike. After having dealt with him with my Icarus, this lone Ranger killed a Marine every turn until this epic shot on a 4+ where he took the last wound off a Repulsor and had it exploding, killing a last Devastator and talmost killing a Primaris Lieutenant. Glorious.
From my mathhammering 6x RYZA plasma destroyers do twice as much expected damage to a 4++ knight as AGRIPINNA assuming RR1s and +1 to hit.
6*3.5*0.78*0.67*0.5*3 - 16.5
Adding in ELIMINATION VOLLEY on top of that gets you to:
6*3.5*0.97*0.67*0.5*3 - 20.5
AGGRIPINA with just the +1 versus a 4++ knight:
6*3.5*0.78*0.5*0.5*2 - 8.2
AGGRIPINA Gravaphrons for reference:
6*5*0.78*0.33*0.5*2 - 7.7
Based on this I think it is really worth running the plasma destroyers as RYZA, especially in ITC where you could probably get them into a piece of ruins and prevent them from being in LOS on turn 1. You shouldn't have a deployment in ITC where there is zero LOS blocking terrain for INFANTRY models. Also, units of servitors that are AGRIPPINA can be restored to 4 models for only 1CP but they don't have to share a forgeworld for purposes of the biosplicing strategem.
From this I conclude the following:
- Run your PlasmaDestroyers as RYZA
- Run your Servitors as AGRIPPINA
- I think committing to RYZA means running 2x6 plasma destroyers and relying on the WLT to bring back 4 bases over the course of the game
- Gravaphrons are almost as good as non-Ryza plasmaphrons if you aren't RYZA even against super hard targets
- 220 points of kastelons and 2CP for +1 to hit is not worth it relative to just bringing 220 more points of destroyers
Wulfey wrote: From my mathhammering 6x RYZA plasma destroyers do twice as much expected damage to a 4++ knight as AGRIPINNA assuming RR1s and +1 to hit.
6*3.5*0.78*0.67*0.5*3 - 16.5
Adding in ELIMINATION VOLLEY on top of that gets you to:
6*3.5*0.97*0.67*0.5*3 - 20.5
AGGRIPINA with just the +1 versus a 4++ knight:
6*3.5*0.78*0.5*0.5*2 - 8.2
AGGRIPINA Gravaphrons for reference:
6*5*0.78*0.33*0.5*2 - 7.7
Based on this I think it is really worth running the plasma destroyers as RYZA, especially in ITC where you could probably get them into a piece of ruins and prevent them from being in LOS on turn 1. You shouldn't have a deployment in ITC where there is zero LOS blocking terrain for INFANTRY models. Also, units of servitors that are AGRIPPINA can be restored to 4 models for only 1CP but they don't have to share a forgeworld for purposes of the biosplicing strategem.
From this I conclude the following:
- Run your PlasmaDestroyers as RYZA
- Run your Servitors as AGRIPPINA
- I think committing to RYZA means running 2x6 plasma destroyers and relying on the WLT to bring back 4 bases over the course of the game
- Gravaphrons are almost as good as non-Ryza plasmaphrons if you aren't RYZA even against super hard targets
- 220 points of kastelons and 2CP for +1 to hit is not worth it relative to just bringing 220 more points of destroyers
Yeah. My math says the same. Just got to play the Ryza Kataphrons a bit more carefully. They likely won't let them live more than one turn. Indeed, it makes the case for two units a lot stronger than bringing 2x Robots, just as you said. That being said, I don't think building for Elimination Volley or bringing a second unit of Kataphrons is necessary. Kataphrons should just be yet another high threat tool in our toolbox.
I actually like running Servitors as Graia in multi-FW detachments because they help protect your Kataphrons and nearby units from psychic powers.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, another fun fact: Kataphrons can use the Infoslave Skull stratagem and intercept any unit within 12". LOL. And yes, you can use the stratagems because the stratagem specifies "as if it were the Shooting phase."
Well youve picked an optimal target for the plasma over grav, ignored the eye of xi lexum, ignored the survivability agripinaa offers in terms of strat and overwatch to high volume of fire models as to the 220pts for robots your not just paying for +1bs you are also paying for 36 shots and a distraction.
U02dah4 wrote: Well youve picked an optimal target for the plasma over grav, ignored the eye of xi lexum, ignored the survivability agripinaa offers in terms of strat and overwatch to high volume of fire models as to the 220pts for robots your not just paying for +1bs you are also paying for 36 shots and a distraction.
The eye of xi lexum only works within 18" of an enemy vehicle to get reroll 1's to wound and comes out of a relic slot, or you pay a CP extra to get it. As your plasma destroyers are already regretting a vehicle you might Aswell spend the 1 CP to get +1 to wound and damage. As for Agripinaa's dogma, it can be just as useless as Ryza's if you never actually get charged and see combat.
Ryza's plasma specialists works against all target, monsters, battlesuits, infantry and vehicles unlike the eye. Agripinaa is better on grav destroyers instead of plasma destroyers, and as proven before Ryza will double the damage dealt even with just a +1 to hit from noospheric mindlock. I personally would go Ryza over Agripinaa as to me getting that RAW damage off is better than maybe getting to recycle a squad if they don't get wiped.
U02dah4 wrote: Well youve picked an optimal target for the plasma over grav, ignored the eye of xi lexum, ignored the survivability agripinaa offers in terms of strat and overwatch to high volume of fire models as to the 220pts for robots your not just paying for +1bs you are also paying for 36 shots and a distraction.
I would say any competitive admech list has to have some kind of an answer for 3 things:
(1) Knight Castellan (2) Alaitoc / Ynnari Fliers, Shining Spears, and Dark Reapers (3) Hordes of fast melee (orks, daemons, tyranid)
I am not picking these target profiles at random. These are the top tier and common threats I expect at the LVO (also these are what was winning and what I faced at SoCal open). When designing a competitive majority admech list, you should have some answer for 1,2,3 in there. Or else you should have a theory as to why you will for sure win against two of them and don't mind a disadvantage against the third. I don't think there is an admech list that actually competes with all three of those things at once. Some of the various RYZA destroyer soups over the last page feel winning against (1) and (2). I question how they deal with (3) but that is a tradeoff that can make sense since (3) isn't as much of a threat if you are bringing a whole lot of infantry to speed bump the first turn charge.
As an example, my current thinking of my MARS brigade + smash:
Spoiler:
MARS brigade Cawl + 2x enginseer 5x9 rangers with omnispex 2x8 vanguard 3x1 autocannon ballistari 3x1 neutron onagers 3x10 infiltrators
BLANGELS patrol Smash + 1x6 scouts
Versus (1) I am counting on not having that many good targets for the castellan starting on the board. My ballistari are going to get shredded if they can't hide (but maybe they can and use their speed to get back into cawl aura range). My neutrons are vulnerable to the castellan, but they can force the 3CP shield strategem and are relatively tough targets for their points (119 points for 11 T7/5++ wounds is very good). I would be counting on my infiltrator + wrath of mars and my smash captain to deal with the castellan.
Versus (2) I am keeping at least 2 infiltrators off the board and hopefully putting 1 out of LOS. I expect to use WRATH every turn from the infiltrators to kill key low wound count elite units (spears, reapers). I also have smash if the fliers get close. The rangers with omnispexes can get easy kill points on eldar rangers and eldar footmen and even threaten dark reapers in LOS. Ballistari are again going to die hard, but they are only 60 points a piece and I don't mind dark reapers cleaning them up.
Versus (3) I have 60 skitarii foot and 30 elites that can put out 150 flechette shots a turn. The infiltrators are even plausible counter chargers after the first rank of skitarii foot get annihilated (hopefully costing my opponent CP). In a full on middle of the board melee class I get full rerolls to hit on my infiltrators from the relic. Smash isn't that great here, but he does give me 1 hard hitter to take on a daemon prince or something that actually fights hard in melee.
EDIT: on the specifics of AGRIPINNA vesus RYZA, my buddy who wants to run AGRIPINNA is leaning towards GRAV because grav is better against lower T targets and is within 10% versus the hardest plausible target T8/3++. My conclusion is that RYZA needs 2x6 for redundancy but does more damage. AGRIPINNA you might as well run GRAV because it is easier to use and more consistent against more targets without worrying about modifiers and overcharge. I worry abotu AGRIPINNA's ability to deal with (1) castellan because it just doesn't have the math to drop the knight in two full turns of shooting, but the knight can plausibly kill 6 bases in 1 full volley. I would say that AGRIPINA for sure does better against (2) eldar and their 3+ saves and modifiers and (3) hordes because FRESH RECRUITS lets you pull a grav squad out of combat and start it somewhere else in your deployment zone.
I do take your point but then your answer is plasma is best provided you take 90 models for dealing with horde.
If you only take 25 vanguard and 0-5 infiltrators Grav might be more beneficial vs 3 which is where agripinaa overwatch also comes in
Vs 2 -1's can still pose a plasma risk and grav is still strong due to the lower t wound count
Personnally it might be my local meta but 2 and 3 seem on the increase in comparison to 1 and of the 3 it seems least buffed by chapter approved.
The castellan list is a difficult match up if they castle it properly even your list is going to struggle to take it out by t2 as T1 your vanguard will be out of range and your infiltrators wont have landed. While your smash can't hit it till the screen is clear.
Aggripinaa's reroll to W of 1 on all guns with the eye of xi lexum is a big boost if you want to early kill it /bracket it alternatively focussing the rest of the army and playing the objectives
18" yes but the model its on moves 9.5 assuming advance and only it has to be 18" to boost all your backfield artillery
U02dah4 wrote: Well youve picked an optimal target for the plasma over grav, ignored the eye of xi lexum, ignored the survivability agripinaa offers in terms of strat and overwatch to high volume of fire models as to the 220pts for robots your not just paying for +1bs you are also paying for 36 shots and a distraction.
I would say any competitive admech list has to have some kind of an answer for 3 things:
(1) Knight Castellan
(2) Alaitoc / Ynnari Fliers, Shining Spears, and Dark Reapers
(3) Hordes of fast melee (orks, daemons, tyranid)
I am not picking these target profiles at random. These are the top tier and common threats I expect at the LVO (also these are what was winning and what I faced at SoCal open). When designing a competitive majority admech list, you should have some answer for 1,2,3 in there. Or else you should have a theory as to why you will for sure win against two of them and don't mind a disadvantage against the third. I don't think there is an admech list that actually competes with all three of those things at once. Some of the various RYZA destroyer soups over the last page feel winning against (1) and (2). I question how they deal with (3) but that is a tradeoff that can make sense since (3) isn't as much of a threat if you are bringing a whole lot of infantry to speed bump the first turn charge.
As an example, my current thinking of my MARS brigade + smash:
Spoiler:
MARS brigade
Cawl + 2x enginseer
5x9 rangers with omnispex
2x8 vanguard
3x1 autocannon ballistari
3x1 neutron onagers
3x10 infiltrators
BLANGELS patrol
Smash + 1x6 scouts
Versus (1) I am counting on not having that many good targets for the castellan starting on the board. My ballistari are going to get shredded if they can't hide (but maybe they can and use their speed to get back into cawl aura range). My neutrons are vulnerable to the castellan, but they can force the 3CP shield strategem and are relatively tough targets for their points (119 points for 11 T7/5++ wounds is very good). I would be counting on my infiltrator + wrath of mars and my smash captain to deal with the castellan.
Versus (2) I am keeping at least 2 infiltrators off the board and hopefully putting 1 out of LOS. I expect to use WRATH every turn from the infiltrators to kill key low wound count elite units (spears, reapers). I also have smash if the fliers get close. The rangers with omnispexes can get easy kill points on eldar rangers and eldar footmen and even threaten dark reapers in LOS. Ballistari are again going to die hard, but they are only 60 points a piece and I don't mind dark reapers cleaning them up.
Versus (3) I have 60 skitarii foot and 30 elites that can put out 150 flechette shots a turn. The infiltrators are even plausible counter chargers after the first rank of skitarii foot get annihilated (hopefully costing my opponent CP). In a full on middle of the board melee class I get full rerolls to hit on my infiltrators from the relic. Smash isn't that great here, but he does give me 1 hard hitter to take on a daemon prince or something that actually fights hard in melee.
EDIT: on the specifics of AGRIPINNA vesus RYZA, my buddy who wants to run AGRIPINNA is leaning towards GRAV because grav is better against lower T targets and is within 10% versus the hardest plausible target T8/3++. My conclusion is that RYZA needs 2x6 for redundancy but does more damage. AGRIPINNA you might as well run GRAV because it is easier to use and more consistent against more targets without worrying about modifiers and overcharge. I worry abotu AGRIPINNA's ability to deal with (1) castellan because it just doesn't have the math to drop the knight in two full turns of shooting, but the knight can plausibly kill 6 bases in 1 full volley. I would say that AGRIPINA for sure does better against (2) eldar and their 3+ saves and modifiers and (3) hordes because FRESH RECRUITS lets you pull a grav squad out of combat and start it somewhere else in your deployment zone.
Just out of curiosity, how often do you roll 6's to wound with you infiltrators when you pop wrath of mars? On average wouldnt it be around 6.6 MWs
6.6MWs is the difference between dead dark reaper squad / shining spears and a not dead target. Unlike dakkabots, the infiltrator play cannot kill a knight with wrath of mars. This is a weakness I am taking assuming that (2) eldar and (3) hordes are more dangerous than (1) castellan.
Pure admech has a very hard time versus castellans period because even though a 1x6 dakkabots can do like 18-20 wounds to a knight, the knight can kill 3 dakkabots a turn from longer range. EDIT: and I have gotten cheated by fast melee players before who claim they can snake stuff to touch the dakkabots first turn. For sure dakkabots do more damage to hordes than infiltrators if they get to fire. It is harder to cheat infiltrators than dakkabots.
Also note that if you can get to 2+ rerolling to hit, then 10 infiltrators should do 8 MW:
50*0.97*0.167 = 8
I can use the skitarii strategem to give them +1 to hit and then either use Cawl's aura or use the reroll 1s to hit in shooting stratagem.
@wulfey I am really liking the viability of brigades now and your list is definitely an interesting one, I’m actually tempted to go out and get more infiltrators. Even pre faq they had been surprise match winners for me on a couple of occasions.
What are you planning on doing with the six scouts though?
The six scouts are for very specific matchups where I think my opponent has a strong infiltrate move, other scouts, nurglings, or stealth suits. Or they can be used to make the 9" deepstrike bubble that comes from teleporting daemons / orks even longer than it otherwise would be (this puts DAJUMP 18-27" from your deployment edge instead of 9"). The scouts also cheaply get the BLANGELS strategems and prevent loss of a CP.
EDIT: having played 3x5 scout squads for like a year, I always kept wishing I actually had 1 squad that was like 10. If I had 1 super scout squad then I could make a 28" daisy chain on the first drop that denies a huge board area to my opponent. They also block knight movement in the movement phase (even if they just get annihilated, that can easily be 8" of gallant movement slowed down).
Wulfey wrote: 6.6MWs is the difference between dead dark reaper squad / shining spears and a not dead target. Unlike dakkabots, the infiltrator play cannot kill a knight with wrath of mars. This is a weakness I am taking assuming that (2) eldar and (3) hordes are more dangerous than (1) castellan.
Pure admech has a very hard time versus castellans period because even though a 1x6 dakkabots can do like 18-20 wounds to a knight, the knight can kill 3 dakkabots a turn from longer range. EDIT: and I have gotten cheated by fast melee players before who claim they can snake stuff to touch the dakkabots first turn. For sure dakkabots do more damage to hordes than infiltrators if they get to fire. It is harder to cheat infiltrators than dakkabots.
Also note that if you can get to 2+ rerolling to hit, then 10 infiltrators should do 8 MW:
50*0.97*0.167 = 8
I can use the skitarii strategem to give them +1 to hit and then either use Cawl's aura or use the reroll 1s to hit in shooting stratagem.
I was just generally curious how many 6's you usually roll. If its me, my 6's pop up quite regularly to the annoyance of my gaming group but I haven't used Mars this edition, always stygies I've gone.
Last time I took out the dakkabots I got burned pretty bad a few times with not enough 6s showing up on the 1 critical turn of shooting I needed to stay in the game. So yeah, you have to round any 6 roll expectations down pretty hard. Hence the redundancy of being able to do it so many turns in a row!
U02dah4 wrote: Well youve picked an optimal target for the plasma over grav, ignored the eye of xi lexum, ignored the survivability agripinaa offers in terms of strat and overwatch to high volume of fire models as to the 220pts for robots your not just paying for +1bs you are also paying for 36 shots and a distraction.
I would say any competitive admech list has to have some kind of an answer for 3 things:
(1) Knight Castellan
(2) Alaitoc / Ynnari Fliers, Shining Spears, and Dark Reapers
(3) Hordes of fast melee (orks, daemons, tyranid)
I am not picking these target profiles at random. These are the top tier and common threats I expect at the LVO (also these are what was winning and what I faced at SoCal open). When designing a competitive majority admech list, you should have some answer for 1,2,3 in there. Or else you should have a theory as to why you will for sure win against two of them and don't mind a disadvantage against the third. I don't think there is an admech list that actually competes with all three of those things at once. Some of the various RYZA destroyer soups over the last page feel winning against (1) and (2). I question how they deal with (3) but that is a tradeoff that can make sense since (3) isn't as much of a threat if you are bringing a whole lot of infantry to speed bump the first turn charge.
As an example, my current thinking of my MARS brigade + smash:
Spoiler:
MARS brigade
Cawl + 2x enginseer
5x9 rangers with omnispex
2x8 vanguard
3x1 autocannon ballistari
3x1 neutron onagers
3x10 infiltrators
BLANGELS patrol
Smash + 1x6 scouts
Versus (1) I am counting on not having that many good targets for the castellan starting on the board. My ballistari are going to get shredded if they can't hide (but maybe they can and use their speed to get back into cawl aura range). My neutrons are vulnerable to the castellan, but they can force the 3CP shield strategem and are relatively tough targets for their points (119 points for 11 T7/5++ wounds is very good). I would be counting on my infiltrator + wrath of mars and my smash captain to deal with the castellan.
Versus (2) I am keeping at least 2 infiltrators off the board and hopefully putting 1 out of LOS. I expect to use WRATH every turn from the infiltrators to kill key low wound count elite units (spears, reapers). I also have smash if the fliers get close. The rangers with omnispexes can get easy kill points on eldar rangers and eldar footmen and even threaten dark reapers in LOS. Ballistari are again going to die hard, but they are only 60 points a piece and I don't mind dark reapers cleaning them up.
Versus (3) I have 60 skitarii foot and 30 elites that can put out 150 flechette shots a turn. The infiltrators are even plausible counter chargers after the first rank of skitarii foot get annihilated (hopefully costing my opponent CP). In a full on middle of the board melee class I get full rerolls to hit on my infiltrators from the relic. Smash isn't that great here, but he does give me 1 hard hitter to take on a daemon prince or something that actually fights hard in melee.
EDIT: on the specifics of AGRIPINNA vesus RYZA, my buddy who wants to run AGRIPINNA is leaning towards GRAV because grav is better against lower T targets and is within 10% versus the hardest plausible target T8/3++. My conclusion is that RYZA needs 2x6 for redundancy but does more damage. AGRIPINNA you might as well run GRAV because it is easier to use and more consistent against more targets without worrying about modifiers and overcharge. I worry abotu AGRIPINNA's ability to deal with (1) castellan because it just doesn't have the math to drop the knight in two full turns of shooting, but the knight can plausibly kill 6 bases in 1 full volley. I would say that AGRIPINA for sure does better against (2) eldar and their 3+ saves and modifiers and (3) hordes because FRESH RECRUITS lets you pull a grav squad out of combat and start it somewhere else in your deployment zone.
My solution is Mars Spearhead (or Battalion) with 3x Icarus Crawlers, Mech Soup Battalion, and a Catachan Battalion. I might go down to 5 Kastelan Robots or 2 Icarus Crawlers for more Catachan. I think having Straken+MiniPriest with 20 Guardsmen, Company Commander with 20 Guardsmen, and Company/Platoon Commander with 10 Guardsmen should suffice.
I would avoid Smash Captains right now because we don't have many other complementary assault units. And furthermore, a lot of Soup/Knights lists are preparing for Smash Captains. They definitely are still strong, but I think we have the tools within the faction to pursue a distinctly AdMech shooting strategy. (Basically, the army divides into 2-3 components and the Guardsmen form a flexible screen as they get into position and/or MMM for objectives.)
If you run Grav, Agripinaa is definitely the best choice. But it's a hammer in search of a nail in my opinion. MEQs and TEQs have structural weaknesses in 8E that make them easy pickings for most armies. Ironically, a lack of preparation for TEQs is precisely why Don's DG list did so well at BAO.
U02dah4 wrote: Well youve picked an optimal target for the plasma over grav, ignored the eye of xi lexum, ignored the survivability agripinaa offers in terms of strat and overwatch to high volume of fire models as to the 220pts for robots your not just paying for +1bs you are also paying for 36 shots and a distraction.
I would say any competitive admech list has to have some kind of an answer for 3 things:
(1) Knight Castellan
(2) Alaitoc / Ynnari Fliers, Shining Spears, and Dark Reapers
(3) Hordes of fast melee (orks, daemons, tyranid)
I am not picking these target profiles at random. These are the top tier and common threats I expect at the LVO (also these are what was winning and what I faced at SoCal open). When designing a competitive majority admech list, you should have some answer for 1,2,3 in there. Or else you should have a theory as to why you will for sure win against two of them and don't mind a disadvantage against the third. I don't think there is an admech list that actually competes with all three of those things at once. Some of the various RYZA destroyer soups over the last page feel winning against (1) and (2). I question how they deal with (3) but that is a tradeoff that can make sense since (3) isn't as much of a threat if you are bringing a whole lot of infantry to speed bump the first turn charge.
As an example, my current thinking of my MARS brigade + smash:
Spoiler:
MARS brigade
Cawl + 2x enginseer
5x9 rangers with omnispex
2x8 vanguard
3x1 autocannon ballistari
3x1 neutron onagers
3x10 infiltrators
BLANGELS patrol
Smash + 1x6 scouts
Versus (1) I am counting on not having that many good targets for the castellan starting on the board. My ballistari are going to get shredded if they can't hide (but maybe they can and use their speed to get back into cawl aura range). My neutrons are vulnerable to the castellan, but they can force the 3CP shield strategem and are relatively tough targets for their points (119 points for 11 T7/5++ wounds is very good). I would be counting on my infiltrator + wrath of mars and my smash captain to deal with the castellan.
Versus (2) I am keeping at least 2 infiltrators off the board and hopefully putting 1 out of LOS. I expect to use WRATH every turn from the infiltrators to kill key low wound count elite units (spears, reapers). I also have smash if the fliers get close. The rangers with omnispexes can get easy kill points on eldar rangers and eldar footmen and even threaten dark reapers in LOS. Ballistari are again going to die hard, but they are only 60 points a piece and I don't mind dark reapers cleaning them up.
Versus (3) I have 60 skitarii foot and 30 elites that can put out 150 flechette shots a turn. The infiltrators are even plausible counter chargers after the first rank of skitarii foot get annihilated (hopefully costing my opponent CP). In a full on middle of the board melee class I get full rerolls to hit on my infiltrators from the relic. Smash isn't that great here, but he does give me 1 hard hitter to take on a daemon prince or something that actually fights hard in melee.
EDIT: on the specifics of AGRIPINNA vesus RYZA, my buddy who wants to run AGRIPINNA is leaning towards GRAV because grav is better against lower T targets and is within 10% versus the hardest plausible target T8/3++. My conclusion is that RYZA needs 2x6 for redundancy but does more damage. AGRIPINNA you might as well run GRAV because it is easier to use and more consistent against more targets without worrying about modifiers and overcharge. I worry abotu AGRIPINNA's ability to deal with (1) castellan because it just doesn't have the math to drop the knight in two full turns of shooting, but the knight can plausibly kill 6 bases in 1 full volley. I would say that AGRIPINA for sure does better against (2) eldar and their 3+ saves and modifiers and (3) hordes because FRESH RECRUITS lets you pull a grav squad out of combat and start it somewhere else in your deployment zone.
My solution is Mars Spearhead (or Battalion) with 3x Icarus Crawlers, Mech Soup Battalion, and a Catachan Battalion. I might go down to 5 Kastelan Robots or 2 Icarus Crawlers for more Catachan. I think having Straken+MiniPriest with 20 Guardsmen, Company Commander with 20 Guardsmen, and Company/Platoon Commander with 10 Guardsmen should suffice.
I would avoid Smash Captains right now because we don't have many other complementary assault units. And furthermore, a lot of Soup/Knights lists are preparing for Smash Captains. They definitely are still strong, but I think we have the tools within the faction to pursue a distinctly AdMech shooting strategy. (Basically, the army divides into 2-3 components and the Guardsmen form a flexible screen as they get into position and/or MMM for objectives.)
If you run Grav, Agripinaa is definitely the best choice. But it's a hammer in search of a nail in my opinion. MEQs and TEQs have structural weaknesses in 8E that make them easy pickings for most armies. Ironically, a lack of preparation for TEQs is precisely why Don's DG list did so well at BAO.
Now that's a list I want to hear how it performs. Kudos for doing something different with guard than just the same old, same old 32. Isn't 3 Icarus Crawlers kind of excessive though? If there aren't any worthwhile flying units then you'll only be able to boost one of them with Protector Doctrina.
Yeah. Like I said, probably will cut a Crawler for more infantry.
On that note, Flechette Blaster and Taser Goad is the flavor of the edition for Infiltrators, right? 180 points for a unit of 10. Seems a bit steep, especially for a unit with a one-fourth chance or so of not making their charge. Used to be 220 though. Sheesh. =\
Suzuteo wrote: Yeah. Like I said, probably will cut a Crawler for more infantry.
On that note, Flechette Blaster and Taser Goad is the flavor of the edition for Infiltrators, right? 180 points for a unit of 10. Seems a bit steep, especially for a unit with a one-fourth chance or so of not making their charge. Used to be 220 though. Sheesh. =\
It's mostly for 50 Mars Strat shots that do a mortal on a 6+ to wound. Making a charge is just a bonus. Not a bad way to spend 180pts.
Oh, I don't disagree. I was just checking to make sure I got the setup right. With the sharp points decrease, it seems viable right now, but I am not sure if it is optimal.
Definitely Blaster + Goad. 30 vs 50 shots for MW generation us huge.
Also depending on the match up I wouldn't even deepstrike them. If you go up against Orks or Nids just use them as a second line defense for you gunline. Let them charge your Guardsman or Skitarii or what ever screen and then counter charge. 21 S6 attacks exploding on +5 possible rerolling 1's is huge.
Yeah Acquisition at all Costs is pretty good on Kataphrons in cover and with the enhanced invun saves. 2+ 4++ at t5 3 wounds each. Just wont be able to do it turn if your going second.
Sure, but you should be able to hide them inside ruins turn 1 anyway. Sure if your opponent has got 9 Basilisks you may have a proble, but there will be always hard counters.
U02dah4 wrote: Even then if your agripinaa and 1 model survives your good
Yea thats alright but if you loose 5 models your leadership is now 2 (3 with a broad spectrum nearby) so you will have to spend 2CP to auto pass morale and a further 3CP to regen them back up to full. Its a totally different play style to the Ryza plasma destroyers so we cant really compare them as equals in a sense.
If we look at averages, you get 21 bs3 rerolling 1's shots with 6 plasma destroyers. That is 13 dead GEQ, 12 dead MEQ, 6 dead kataphron equivalents with Aquisition at All Costs and enhanced bionics, 20.42 damage to a t6/7 3+ target, 16.33 wounds to a t8 4++ target.
Comparing that 30 grav shots with reroll 1's to hit and wound (vs vehicles) at bs 3. 16 GEQ dead, 13 MEQ dead, 2.28 dead kataphron equivalents, 12.96 damage vs a t6/7/8 3+ save monster, 15.12 vs vehicle versions and 9.07 damage to a t8 4++ invun knight.
Now if we make this a castellan with a 3++, the plasma destroyers do 13.61 damage (goes to 17.01 with a further +1 to hit) vs the grav destroyers 6.05 at bs 3 and 7.56 at bs2. So the Agripinaa grav destroyers only beats the Ryza plasma destroyers vs GEQ (by 3 extra kills) and MEQ (1 extra kill) whilst loosing out vs every other target. Then if we factor in the heavy gravs 30" range vs the plasmas 36" there is an additional benefit towards the plasma again. Points wise you are paying 51pts per heavy grav and phophor blaster destroyer to the 48pts of the plasma culverin and phosphor blaster destroyer.
I just cant see myself using Agripinaa grav destroyers or plasma in that case whilst Ryza is still king of that RAW damage output. They dont rely on MWs like Mars to do there damage, and they can get to bs2 rerolling 1's for there shots. Whilst yeah Agents of Vect can stop plasma specialists, they can also stop Fresh Converts which would be a bigger kick in the gonades than stopping a +1 to wound and damage.
Im curious why suddenly everyone seems to be talkibg about infiltrators over something like corpuscari priests? Similar price, similar output but can threaten more targets with its shooting (s5) as lets be honest getting a 9" charge is situational so the cc stats arnt too relevent. is the infiltrator talk simply due to its deepstrike ability?
The problem with ryza is it does little for the rest of your brigade if your running one. Almost any other forgeworld dogma offers more advantage to the rest. Aggripinaa makes all our multishooting units painfull to charge includeing the kataphrons
Ryza is probably the strongest vs knights but that strength isn't equal against all lists. For many units a ceiling effect makes little difference between the 2 (if you overkill a russ its still dead no matter how much you overkill it.)
I would run 5 grav flamers with 2 robots for the 2+bs rerolling 1's to hit and eye of xi lexum against any vehicle/knight army (once it gets in targeting range 18" +9.5" per turn.) This buffs every aggripinaa unit on the field which makes up for the kataphron damage deficit because my ballistarii/neutron lasers will pick up the slack
Also plasma struggle more vs stacked -1
the ability to regenerate a half dead unit is huge it forces your enemy to focuss it plasma if i kill a couple of models your effectiveness halves agripinaa i come back at full strength unless you finish it.
As to priest? Infiltrators deepstrike and getting the unit you want corpuscarii cant adjust easily to board state t2 and 2W + benefitting from cover is often better than 5++5+++ on a 1W model. Theres nothing wrong with corpuscarii but they are just not quite as effective i ran them at a tourney in November they were probably the choice i regretted most
Thanks, priests/infiltrators are very comparable. Its a trade vs spending cp to deepstrike priests and do more damage vs no cp spent to get them there potentially killing a bit less. The saves is an issue and im not a math guru to work it out lol. You have definatly helped me work out a direction.
@deffrekka :
Very good point regarding moral, haven't even realised that they have such low LD. I mean wtf they are Servitors and can't even think really for themthemselves.
But this just means that we have to maximize the blow which our Kataphrons can deal, which means going Ryza.
@ U02DAH4 :
I think that you are overestimating the value of +5 Overwatch. I mean sure it's not bad, but there are just so so many ways a good player can circumvent it... Charge from out of LOS, charge a week unit nearby and use your pile in / consolidate to tie them up, charge first with a unit which could tank this or use something which can negate overwatch totally (hello captain Smash :p)
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Envii wrote: Thanks, priests/infiltrators are very comparable. Its a trade vs spending cp to deepstrike priests and do more damage vs no cp spent to get them there potentially killing a bit less. The saves is an issue and im not a math guru to work it out lol. You have definatly helped me work out a direction.
Problem is you can't deepstrike them as Mars and use Wrath of Mars ln them. (You could buy a Drill, but this would make them very expensive as a MW delivery method)
No but for every 3 shots your having an expectancy of1 hit if your firing 20-50 shots its a few. Wont stop a strong assault unit but it will cause some damage as to the rest thats about positioning given that we autocover we dont have to be in ruins and can keep away from walls or use hoplites as barriers (i dont mind if they get charged its funny)
lash92 wrote: @deffrekka :
Very good point regarding moral, haven't even realised that they have such low LD. I mean wtf they are Servitors and can't even think really for themthemselves.
But this just means that we have to maximize the blow which our Kataphrons can deal, which means going Ryza.
@ U02DAH4 :
I think that you are overestimating the value of +5 Overwatch. I mean sure it's not bad, but there are just so so many ways a good player can circumvent it... Charge from out of LOS, charge a week unit nearby and use your pile in / consolidate to tie them up, charge first with a unit which could tank this or use something which can negate overwatch totally (hello captain Smash :p)
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Envii wrote: Thanks, priests/infiltrators are very comparable. Its a trade vs spending cp to deepstrike priests and do more damage vs no cp spent to get them there potentially killing a bit less. The saves is an issue and im not a math guru to work it out lol. You have definatly helped me work out a direction.
Problem is you can't deepstrike them as Mars and use Wrath of Mars ln them. (You could buy a Drill, but this would make them very expensive as a MW delivery method)
If they could use a Tech-Priests LD when they are nearby that would make them that much better. I think because people dont use them this edition they have forgotten their stats! They have only gotten better due to the the Servitor Maniple and potential +2 to hit combination. And i fully agree with you about the overwatch on a 5+. People can ignore it just as easily as they can ignore Ryza's reroll 1s to hit in CC. Thats why i view both dogmas as equals as both can be negated fairly easily.
Because their ideas work great for buffing 1 unit which is awesome but the trade off is every backfield ranger/balistarii/neutronager not getting a -1 from say stygies.
Sure those strats are good buffs to 1 unit but thats not worth a loss to the others.
Now in a battalion your impacting 2 other troops which are cheap and expendable and 2hq's which probably wont benefit to much anyway graia stygies and agripinaa do nothing for them So the impact on your army is minimal.
In a brigade thats 3 hq 5 troop 3 elites 3 fa and 3 Hv units minimum which is a huge number of units to miss a substantial buff.
I would argue given our CP demards I want a brigade minimum
What I dislike about mixed AdMech for a big detachment is lack of synergies. You'd need a Ryza Dominus to reroll the 1s of your Kataphrons and to repair them, and so this Dominus exist only for your Kataphrons, which dampens their efficiency as you have to include 90 pts of Dominus to assist them. Then you'd have to have more units as Ryza to make the Dominus more worthwhile. If you're facing -1/-2/-3 armies you'll regret not having the Dominus at least. You could do a Patrol of 1 Dominus + 6 Kataphrons, and the two other detachments Stygies and Mars to have their boni if you want to. You'll keep your Stygies Rangers, and the WoM Infiltrators.
I would avoid Smash Captains right now because we don't have many other complementary assault units. And furthermore, a lot of Soup/Knights lists are preparing for Smash Captains. They definitely are still strong, but I think we have the tools within the faction to pursue a distinctly AdMech shooting strategy. (Basically, the army divides into 2-3 components and the Guardsmen form a flexible screen as they get into position and/or MMM for objectives.)
If you run Grav, Agripinaa is definitely the best choice. But it's a hammer in search of a nail in my opinion. MEQs and TEQs have structural weaknesses in 8E that make them easy pickings for most armies. Ironically, a lack of preparation for TEQs is precisely why Don's DG list did so well at BAO.
So with the RYZA/MARS list you have 3 threats: 2x1 Icarus 1x6 dakkabots 1x6 plasma destroyers
Each of these basically cost as much as a knight and are as important as a knight. They all rely on being able to shoot. Then the list has some support characters, 25 skitarii, and 40 catachan. I have had games where I spent two turns with nothing able to be shot thanks to ITC terrain and character rules. As an admech gunline, I think your list is in fact as much dakka as an admech gunline could do and there isn't any room for improvements as is. But damn did my shooting knight list get burned in games in ITC terrain in a few games. I actually have all the models in your list on my shelf except for straken and the priest, but maybe I could kitbash them.
Aaranis wrote: What I dislike about mixed AdMech for a big detachment is lack of synergies. You'd need a Ryza Dominus to reroll the 1s of your Kataphrons and to repair them, and so this Dominus exist only for your Kataphrons, which dampens their efficiency as you have to include 90 pts of Dominus to assist them. Then you'd have to have more units as Ryza to make the Dominus more worthwhile. If you're facing -1/-2/-3 armies you'll regret not having the Dominus at least. You could do a Patrol of 1 Dominus + 6 Kataphrons, and the two other detachments Stygies and Mars to have their boni if you want to. You'll keep your Stygies Rangers, and the WoM Infiltrators.
This.
A Dominus alone for 92 points is just waaay to expensive if he is just going to buff one or two units rather than half your army. Not to mention that repairing things can become a massive headache. Enginseers are wasted points if they don't have vehicles to repair.
Also -1 to hit from Stygies is just that damn good, especially when combined with shroudpsalm and other defensive buffs (Crawler inv. save, Dragoons going to -2 to hit at 12"+, Kastelan Aegis during turn 1 if you don't go first and others). It's one of the main reasons we can outgun other ranged shooting armies.
Aaranis wrote: What I dislike about mixed AdMech for a big detachment is lack of synergies. You'd need a Ryza Dominus to reroll the 1s of your Kataphrons and to repair them, and so this Dominus exist only for your Kataphrons, which dampens their efficiency as you have to include 90 pts of Dominus to assist them. Then you'd have to have more units as Ryza to make the Dominus more worthwhile. If you're facing -1/-2/-3 armies you'll regret not having the Dominus at least. You could do a Patrol of 1 Dominus + 6 Kataphrons, and the two other detachments Stygies and Mars to have their boni if you want to. You'll keep your Stygies Rangers, and the WoM Infiltrators.
In all this excitement, I forgot about Dominus's gear! How much does Eradicator Ray cost now? Is it 8 or 10?
Also, I wanted to point out a thing about plasma. It might be possible that, given how it seems to work in the Ork codex, dying on a 1 with overcharged will happen on an unmodified roll. If that happens, hurrah we got buffed against -1 to hit armies, but downside is that we can't shoot safe anymore with +1 to Hit, making rerolls that much more important. Now I don't know if GW will do that and when (likely next FAQ) but if it does we have to think about it.
Another gripe I have with plasma culverins (not that I hate them mind you) is the random number of shots. Nothing worse than popping your über-strats to fire 3 shots. At least grav is reliable on that point, I don't understand why it costs more than plasma though, same price should be right.
If I stick to my plan of going 4 Fistelans, grav could do the anti-elite role of the Dakkastelans while being less static. Just a theory as of now but my Lucius + Agripinaa list shouldn't include Dakkastelans. Onagers and Fistelans should do the anti-tank role well enough.
I upgraded the Rangers in this refinement. I actually am really digging the Graia Vanguard + Catachan concept. The Vanguard disrupt psykers, absorb Overwatch with their superior Shroudpsalm saves, and have a -1T aura. Combined with Catachan +1S doctrine, you're hitting other GEQs on 2+. A good example of AdMech+Guard outperforming straight Guard.
Need to think of a better way to use my spare 30 points though. It's currently invested in a spare Platoon Commander and Cognis Heavy Stubbers. If I cut the Mortars too, I have 55 points to play with. Maybe 5x Plasma Guns? Haha.
With 6D6, I think the chance of getting a totally dud volley is not too high.
Suzuteo wrote: Thanks. Guess I cannot fit a second Battalion in. Needs 135 points. I actually only have 126 to spare. So... back to 5x10 Catachans, I guess.
Spoiler:
Mars Spearhead Detachment - 1080 Cohort Cybernetica (-1 CP)
HQ - 190 1x Belisarius Cawl
Heavy Support - 890 6x Kastelan Robot - 18x Heavy Phosphor Blaster
1x Onager Dunecrawler - Icarus Array, Cognis Heavy Stubber, Broad-Spectrum Data Tether
1x Onager Dunecrawler - Icarus Array, Cognis Heavy Stubber, Broad-Spectrum Data Tether
I upgraded the Rangers in this refinement. I actually am really digging the Graia Vanguard + Catachan concept. The Vanguard disrupt psykers, absorb Overwatch with their superior Shroudpsalm saves, and have a -1T aura. Combined with Catachan +1S doctrine, you're hitting other GEQs on 2+. A good example of AdMech+Guard outperforming straight Guard.
Need to think of a better way to use my spare 30 points though. It's currently invested in a spare Platoon Commander and Cognis Heavy Stubbers. If I cut the Mortars too, I have 55 points to play with. Maybe 5x Plasma Guns? Haha.
With 6D6, I think the chance of getting a totally dud volley is not too high.
I just rolled 6 sets of 6d6 and got the following results: 19, 20, 24, 22, 22 and 19, so an average of 21 exactly. I think grav is priced so high as you are getting a flat number of shots that dont kill the bearer on a 1 and is still ap 3. Its most likely they combined the pts of a heavy bolter and a plasma gun to get the costs.
Imagine how awesome destroyers would look and be if they could also take plasma calivers instead of the cognis flamer or phosphor blaster. That would be crazy! Just rolled another set of 6d6 and got: 23, 21, 22, 25, 22 and 16 for another average of 21.5 shots a turn. From 12 attempts thats quite accurate.
Aaranis wrote: What I dislike about mixed AdMech for a big detachment is lack of synergies. You'd need a Ryza Dominus to reroll the 1s of your Kataphrons and to repair them, and so this Dominus exist only for your Kataphrons, which dampens their efficiency as you have to include 90 pts of Dominus to assist them. Then you'd have to have more units as Ryza to make the Dominus more worthwhile. If you're facing -1/-2/-3 armies you'll regret not having the Dominus at least. You could do a Patrol of 1 Dominus + 6 Kataphrons, and the two other detachments Stygies and Mars to have their boni if you want to. You'll keep your Stygies Rangers, and the WoM Infiltrators.
This.
A Dominus alone for 92 points is just waaay to expensive if he is just going to buff one or two units rather than half your army. Not to mention that repairing things can become a massive headache. Enginseers are wasted points if they don't have vehicles to repair.
Also -1 to hit from Stygies is just that damn good, especially when combined with shroudpsalm and other defensive buffs (Crawler inv. save, Dragoons going to -2 to hit at 12"+, Kastelan Aegis during turn 1 if you don't go first and others). It's one of the main reasons we can outgun other ranged shooting armies.
In a pure gunline but with 3 units of hoplites an enginseer with the omniscient mask is priceless. Or the eye of xi lexum. Unlike the dominous they are cheap enough to go with your frontline.
So you have a probability of around 90% to get at least 16 shots.
What that distribution drives home is that 45% of the time you will be doing less shots than you expect and that bottom 20% reduce your expected damage output a fair amount. However top 15% don't do the same because once your target is dead its dead.
Just saying, even if you rolled 2s on all of those shots, Plasma would still deal more damage on average to T6+ than Grav. That +1 to wound and +1 to damage is quite something.
30 S5 DD3 vs T6-9, 3+: 30*1/3*2 = 20
12 S8 D3 vs T6-7, 3+: 12*5/6*3 = 30
12 S8 D3 vs T8, 3+: 12*2/3*3 = 24
12 S8 D3 vs T9-15, 3+: 12*1/2*3 = 18
All other factors being the same.
EDIT: Ugh, keep making mistakes with basic arithmetic. Lol.
Automatically Appended Next Post: So I just realized that there is a really weird loophole in The Dagger of Tu'sakh. Not sure if any of you have ever encountered any discussion of it.
Here is the text of its rules:
During deployment, you can set up the bearer and one INFANTRY unit from your army behind enemy lines instead of placing them on the battlefield. The infantry unit must have the same <REGIMENT> keyword as the bearer if the bearer has one. At the end of any of your Movement phases these units can launch their daring attack – set them up within 3" of each other, anywhere on the battlefield that is wholly within 6" of any battlefield edge and more than 9" away from any enemy models.
Here is what I am thinking:
1) Characters like Enginseers and Commissars do not have a <Regiment> keyword.
2) If the character has no <Regiment> keyword, then the restriction is eliminated.
3) The relic has no army restriction, nor is there is generalized rule for relics to be restricted.
Does this mean Enginseers can outflank a unit of Kataphrons?!
This feels like Scout moving Imperial Bunkers all over again.
Well my grav will be 2+ to hit and sometimes will reroll 1's to w vs a big target
Now damage is capped at 26 (i did once encount a porphyrion but normally you wont) so that 30=26 (as you killed your target (24 does most of the time too)
Now run those same figures vs an ork horde or a double-1 aeldari
Now also run the figures without the ryza bonus because I wont have it in a brigade
Also 12x 0.97x0.666x0.5x3 =11.6 thats 2+ to hit rerolling 1's +1 to w and damage vs a t8 knight with RIS and 3 dam not 24
Grav 30x0.97x0.3333x0.5x2= 9.6 or 11.1 with the eye of xi
I get that it is a really strong option vs high T however not that much difference on a bad roll for shots. So more variability.
Against the stacked -1 aeldari lists and the ork horde plasma is less optimal.
So across the 3 list types its close but the second you going full brigade having a stygies type-1 on everything else is going to out way the extra damage on the one knight list you play in the tourney (assuming 16% of lists are IK)
Also faq'd the dagger in the codex AMfaq the dagger can now only be given to an infantry officer commisars and enginseers arnt officers
How does everyone feel about the Implacable Determination WLT for Guard? I noticed also that it can give max advance to ANY unit, including your AdMech units. Given Kastelans can now become assault, these are 14" advance Robots with BS5+ shooting? Alternative, you can do insane 24" MMM with Guard. If you go second, you can run up to an objective and steal it with ObSec.
But yeah, I am trying to figure out my WLT and relic. I don't really want an AdMech relic; my list has no melee, so Mask is out; Raiment or Pimp Cane seem to be the only good options, but less than ideal. At the same time, I do want a 5+ CP recycler.
what i just created to show the difference between grav and plasma. The only time grav wins is vs infantry where it gets around 2-3 extra kills, but with pure damage dealt plasma always wins. Note, vs knights plasma specialists increases the damage dealt by 100% the original value where as grav with the eye deals and extra 16.66% precent.
vs veq grav mostly kills its target plasma you can probably split fire to two monster same
vs knight neither kills target. But plasma does more.
Plasma does have much higher varience though
Double vehicle damage on one unit that might get wiped T1 just doesnt seem worth it when the eye will boost my kastellan my onagers and my balistarii or stygies will protect them all
Really im comparing top row plasma vs 1st/second row grav in a brigade and there really isnt that much in it Grav wins on every count with the eye and loses against knights without. VEQ and monster are tied at killed it.
How does everyone feel about the Implacable Determination WLT for Guard? I noticed also that it can give max advance to ANY unit, including your AdMech units. Given Kastelans can now become assault, these are 14" advance Robots with BS5+ shooting? Alternative, you can do insane 24" MMM with Guard. If you go second, you can run up to an objective and steal it with ObSec.
But yeah, I am trying to figure out my WLT and relic. I don't really want an AdMech relic; my list has no melee, so Mask is out; Raiment or Pimp Cane seem to be the only good options, but less than ideal. At the same time, I do want a 5+ CP recycler.
I think it very much depends on your list grand strategist is still strong. Given we will burn CP. Old grudges is good if you have a lot of AM vehicles. For Adm in considering the agripinaa -1 dam or the CP regen trait.
vs veq grav mostly kills its target plasma you can probably split fire to two monster same
vs knight neither kills target. But plasma does more.
Plasma does have much higher varience though
Double vehicle damage on one unit that might get wiped T1 just doesnt seem worth it when the eye will boost my kastellan my onagers and my balistarii or stygies will protect them all
Really im comparing top row plasma vs 1st/second row grav in a brigade and there really isnt that much in it Grav wins on every count with the eye and loses against knights without. VEQ and monster are tied at killed it.
How does everyone feel about the Implacable Determination WLT for Guard? I noticed also that it can give max advance to ANY unit, including your AdMech units. Given Kastelans can now become assault, these are 14" advance Robots with BS5+ shooting? Alternative, you can do insane 24" MMM with Guard. If you go second, you can run up to an objective and steal it with ObSec.
But yeah, I am trying to figure out my WLT and relic. I don't really want an AdMech relic; my list has no melee, so Mask is out; Raiment or Pimp Cane seem to be the only good options, but less than ideal. At the same time, I do want a 5+ CP recycler.
I think it very much depends on your list grand strategist is still strong. Given we will burn CP. Old grudges is good if you have a lot of AM vehicles. For Adm in considering the agripinaa -1 dam or the CP regen trait.
Well you also have to factor in that the eye may never get to go off turn 1. Most people dont deploy there vehicles on the 12" line and we dont exactly deploy our stuff on the 12" line either, so with a 6" move you wont be able to activate the eye turn 1 unless you advance which means you cant fire your characters weapons and he is now out of position. And even then there will still be a big chance that your eye will not be with 18" to trigger for your army.
Now ive also done a few other comparisons for us to go off vs the most common types of enemy vehicles and monsters. VS a PBC with +2 to hit and reroll 1's to hit and wound the grav does 10.08 damage, a Alaitoc Wave Serpent would be 7.02 damage and a alaitoc Hemlock would suffer 9.45, vs a Flyrant with catalyst off would be dealt 8.64, vs Mortarion with miasma of pestilence he would suffer 5.19 and against stygies dakkabots its 9.07 damage.
+2 to hit rerolling 1's to hit and plasma specialists get the following on the same targets: 18.15, 18.9, 21.27, 22.69, 13.61 and 20.42. So as you can see it makes a huge difference, and whilst yes it doesnt kill the bigger stuff in 1 volley, it means we have to spend less rescources finishing it off with the rest of our army or it is degraded enough to ignore it for the rest of the turn.
Given that i stick the eye on an enginseer i dont mind not firing his laspistol to advance it sems a fair trade. The risk of not firing a laspistol is minimal.
Does depend on the list against a non vehicle list you dont take it. Against an aeldari list if they go first theres usually something in advance range
In an ik list go 2nd the gallent/errant/warden will often move in range and auto cover 3 turns is solid
Against the lone castellan youll get to it at some point but if he plays it well not till t2-3
I always deploy on the line my vanguard/hoplites are on it and advancing till they are in range and the eginseer is 1 step behind. In my last tourney i activated it 50% of the tine t1(by going second and advancing.
And if they only units in the army where a single unit of kataphrons id agree but in a brigade buffing 1 unit is just not worth the trade of all the others being better
Are you talking about bringing an enginseer in your admech detachment or the IG detachment. Because I'm not sure if you can give an IG wlt to a unit being taken from your admech codex. I'd double check the codex too, if I remember right the admech codex and IG codex have different keywords. I'm at work or else I'd open my codexes and check right now
U02dah4 wrote: Given that i stick the eye on an enginseer i dont mind not firing his laspistol to advance it sems a fair trade. The risk of not firing a laspistol is minimal.
Does depend on the list against a non vehicle list you dont take it. Against an aeldari list if they go first theres usually something in advance range
In an ik list go 2nd the gallent/errant/warden will often move in range and auto cover 3 turns is solid
Against the lone castellan youll get to it at some point but if he plays it well not till t2-3
I always deploy on the line my vanguard/hoplites are on it and advancing till they are in range and the eginseer is 1 step behind. In my last tourney i activated it 50% of the tine t1(by going second and advancing.
And if they only units in the army where a single unit of kataphrons id agree but in a brigade buffing 1 unit is just not worth the trade of all the others being better
50% chance turn 1 to buff all units vs 1 vehicle target for 16% is better than 1 unit getting 85-100% buffed in damage output? Even against a guard army with their whole army in cover turn 1 the 6 kataphrons can split fire into 3 chimera based vehicles and 11.34 damage to each one or 2 leman russ and deal 13.61 damage to each one. If it were grav you cant split fire affectively with those kataphrons, they will either all have to fire at the marked target to get the most of the 16.6666% boost or loose out on their effectiveness vs multiple targets. The plasma doesnt suffer that negative downside, if your enginseer can get in range to get that reroll 1's the plasma kataphrons will be in range to fire their phosphor blasters at those vehicles too which means 3 dead VEQ, 2 dead leman russes, more dead GEQ and MEQ and more wounds vs knights.
I cant see myself justifying spending a relic slot on an enginseer who's sole task is to run up the board to get a chance to boost the damage of your army by 16.66% vs a single vehicle when that one vehicle (or 3) against Ryza would already be dead by the plasma destroyers. The extra 2 - 3 dead GEQ or MEQ is mariginal when our whole army pumps out enough shots to trash can chaff units. You wouldnt then have to waste onagers and kastellans fire power to then overkill a heavily damaged target. It may work for you but i wouldnt bet my armies synergy on a 50% coin toss if the stars align and allow my enginseer to reach 18" of the Knight, Shadowsword, erm well thats it, as anything else Ryza destroyers will annihilate in one volley. Hell, i wouldnt even do the eye on a baneblade chassis as the plasma specialists do 34.03 wounds to it!!!! The only target that survives are ones with invun saves better than a 5++ or Mortarion.
I view both Agripinaa and Ryza equals with their dogma as both can be easily avoided (psychic powers, charges from line blocking terrain, pile ins and consolidates and specific relics and units that cancel overwatch to begin with and for Ryza just killing the target to begin with before it strikes). The warlord traits are both equally meh... -1 damage to a guy who is most likely out of the itty gritty fight for the majority of the battle or +1 str and damage to a dominus weapons which is ok but i wouldnt go for it. Then relic wise ive gone over why the eye isnt fully optimal and the XCIX is ok but once again i wouldnt choose to buff a dominus' weapons over buffing and repairing my army better.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And we will most likely see a rise in scout and armoured Sentinels after CA aswell as doomsday arks and other lightly armoured but relatively cheap vehicles.
Against these light targets the plasma destroyers can split fire again, d6 per scout Sentinel is 7.09 damage or 5.67 per armoured Sentinel. Doomsday arks 2 destroyers would do around about 12 damage after quantum shielding. Grav would do 12.15 to scout Sentinels so a single destroyer cant even kill a scout Sentinel, 12.96 to armoured sentinels so once again 1 cant kill a single Sentinel and does about 11 damage to a Doomsday ark.
In all these cases i have given the enemy the benefit of cover for us going first and you dont get to reroll 1's to wound as you wouldnt pick sentinels as the target and there is no chance in hell youd reach a Doomsday ark turn 1 to get the eye off.
If you can get it to work great, but its not that great, it is essentially a subpar Lieutenant who takes up a relic slot and doesnt contribute much else to the army as he is quite disjointed in his position. Ad mech really should have a sub-domina that gives us a reroll 1s to wound from the get go but our dex is very devoid of characters and options you would think admech would get.
We should have about 6 types of tech-priest to pick from not 2.
**If the Eye was more like Relic of Lost Cadia or the Writ of the Living Muse i woud be fully onboard with you, but it has 2 criterias that it has to meet before it goes off and its gimmick vs chaos vehicles looks good until you realise chaos doesnt have particulary tough vehicles except the PBC.
Yes a strategy predicated on 1 unit having first go will lose every time you go second
If i go second either my destroyers come back at full strength (strat) or atleast the rest of my army gets a 16% buff vs a big vehicle
As to dogma most armies can't play around it - either they ignore it completely or they are assault in which case its huge. I am also debateing the offensive agripinaa option vs stygies but its less of a clear comparison. I havnt played vs a baneblade in my last 4 tourneys knights are a more frequent superheavy and yes plasma is better assuming you go first ryzas dogma is of little value ever
Im not sure scout sentinels is a prime concern
The relic of cadia is a 1 shot aoe bubble the eye can pick a different target each turn and buffs your whole army . The relic therefore better t1 but the aggregate benefit over multi turns is the eye
Your strategy is all about t1 going second you lose and even going first dark reaper flyers am artillery will carve them up before t2
Yes I feel like we haven't talked a lot about durability. What is great with Dakkastelans is that four of them is 24W at T7, 2+/4++ against shooting, which gives quite a lot of resilience against first turn fire. 6 Kataphrons are 18W, 4+/6++ base at T5, and cost more than 4 Robots I believe. Now it may be argued that you can hide them out of LoS with these weird ITC house rules but I'm not sure you could do that every game, and even then some armies are just very mobile or have big models that will get a LoS. If you don't have first turn and lose 5 Kataphrons, you can pay 2 CP to have the last not fleeing but you'll have only one Kataphron left nonetheless. With Agripinaa, you pay 3CP more but your battle plan can still work at least. The Ryza Destroyers list is indeed very powerful but really alpha strike based, be wary of this. Don't forget to a least pay 1cp for a 5++ whatever your FW is.
U02dah4 wrote: 1) yes a strategy predicated on 1 unit having first go will lose every time you go second
If i go second either my destroyers come back at full strength (strat) or atleast the rest of my army gets a 16% buff vs a big vehicle
As to dogma most armies can't play around it - either they ignore it or they are assault in which case its huge. I am also debateing the offensive agripinaa option vs stygies but its less of a clear comparison. I havnt played vs a baneblade in my last 4 tourneys knights are a nore frequent superheavy and yes plasma if better assuming you go first ryza is of little value ever
Im not sure scout sentinels is a prime concern
The relic of cadia is a 1 shot aoe bubble the eye can pick a different target each turn and buffs your army . The relic therefore better t1 vut the aggregate benefit over multi tirns is the eye
Your strategy is all about t1 going second you lose and even going first dark reaper flyers am artillery will carve them up before t2
You can easily hide kataphrons in a ruin so that they cannot be seen and you can also deploy out of line of sight and out of range of the enemies weapons. In the tournaments i attend at every single ruins ground floor is covered up, that means no line of sight to them. This works for going first and second. To begin with you can deploy them further back than there grav equivalents due to them having 6" further range on their main armament. Next the only things that will be killing them when they are out of sight by being in ground floor ruins or placed behind terrain that blocks line of sight for things big enough as knights and wraithknights is mortars, basilisks, ignis weapons, hive guard, smart missile and grey knights with a psychic power. How often do you seen ignis weapons, smart missiles that are within 24" turn 1 and grey knights?. Mortars arent really that affective either, a cadian heavy weapon team with take aim deals a whopping 0.79 damage so 3 squads of them and dotted around 6 infantry squads will deal 3.97 wounds.... not exactly scary, and id be questioning why mortars would be targeting them when i have other infantry to kill that arent as durable. Now with basilisks i would also be questioning why on earth he is targeting them say over my vehicles and robots? And anyway 3 basilisks will deal 5.44 damage to destroyers with enhanced bionics, so that is 1 dead and its getting remade. There are other Non LOS weapons out there like the Manticore but how often do you see them?
Combat is easily avoidable with correct screening and perfect spacings so it will only happen if you are sloppy turn 1. Now when it comes to Agripinaa's dogma, it is quite avoidable, my Orkz would just Tokyo Drift into them cancelling out there overwatch, charge from LOS blocking terrain and vehicles or charge a durable unit into it first line a bonebreaka. My Deldar has the Vexator mask so you wont be getting overwatch and things like Slashcaptains, Harlies, Nids and GC can easily negate overwatch entirely. Dogma dealt with. Now with Fresh Converts, if someone can kill 6 Ryza Destroyers turn 1 they will destroy 6 Agripinaa Destroyers turn 1 so no coming back. 3 PS Plasma Destroyers are still more efficent than 6 Grav Destroyers. 3 PS Destroyers do the same damage output as non PS 6 Destroyers and still beat Grav Destroyers by about 19%. It really isnt a comparision in terms of actually damage dealt on the table.
This whole tactic works from the get go, if you go first or second, if you have lost some dudes. It doesnt require a squishy eye carry sprinting up the field to mark a knight, he is a 4 wound MEQ... with marching up the board you are putting him at risk of getting sniped by fliers, psychic powers, actual snipers and shield breaker missiles. That also seems like you are putting all your eggs in one fragile basket. A 16% buff is nice, but your whole army doesnt need it vs one vehicle no matter how big. If the relic didnt need 2 quotas to met we would be whistling a different tune! But 18" and being a vehicle is very hard to achieve turn 1 and a smart opponent will know what he does and either move away (vehicles move faster than infantry) or eliminate him which isnt hard.
I would also start re-evaluate scout Sentinels now.... for 44pts you get a heavy flamer, 45pts a missile launcher, 35pts a multilaser, 38pts for a heavy bolter, 40pts for a plasma cannon or autocannon and 50pts for a lascannon. Seeing how each one is cheaper than a 51pt grav and cognis flamer Kataphron with greater speed, a 9" move extra at the start of the game, benefit hugely from Cadians, Catachan, Vostroyan, Armaggedon and Tallarn and are as durable as 2 Kataphrons whilst also filling out their Brigade slots, yeah they should be a concern....
In response to dark reapers, they cant see kataphrons if they are on the ground floor or ruins, fliers wont deal a huge amount of damage to a 6 man squad and i proved my point about artillery before. As for the Relic of Cadia, having it go off WHEN you want it, vs ANYTHING you want and also granting re-roll 1's to and hit wound and all hits and wounds vs chaos for all units within 12" of a CC that is always taken in any detachment and provides more benefits than an Enginseer could ever dream of its a huge deal instead of the Eye that maybe wont go off, maybe will never make it there, that maybe the Enginseer is dead is a ditch or maybe there is just no vehicles to use it on.
Using Plasma Specialist works whether you go first or second due to LOS blocking terrain and placement, every turn without prerequisites, against multiple targets at the same time, doesnt waste a relic slot or chucks an Enginseer away and deals DOUBLE the damage Agripinaa Kataphrons will do to a Castellan with a 3++ which means you dont have to delegate more rescources to put it down. You would have to fire 3 neutron lasers at the Knight before a 1 would statistically come up for a total of another 4.24 damage dealt to that knight. Thats 11.8 damage all together from 4 units whilst the 6 plasma destroyers have done 13.61!
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Aaranis wrote: Yes I feel like we haven't talked a lot about durability. What is great with Dakkastelans is that four of them is 24W at T7, 2+/4++ against shooting, which gives quite a lot of resilience against first turn fire. 6 Kataphrons are 18W, 4+/6++ base at T5, and cost more than 4 Robots I believe. Now it may be argued that you can hide them out of LoS with these weird ITC house rules but I'm not sure you could do that every game, and even then some armies are just very mobile or have big models that will get a LoS. If you don't have first turn and lose 5 Kataphrons, you can pay 2 CP to have the last not fleeing but you'll have only one Kataphron left nonetheless. With Agripinaa, you pay 3CP more but your battle plan can still work at least. The Ryza Destroyers list is indeed very powerful but really alpha strike based, be wary of this. Don't forget to a least pay 1cp for a 5++ whatever your FW is.
6 plasma and phosphor kataphrons is 288pts vs the 440pts for 4 triple phosphor kastellans. Turn 1 both have cover or a 3+ 5++ (enhanced bionics) for the katas and a 1+ 4++ for the dakkabots. Turn 2 the katas will have a 2+ 4++ from AaAC whilst also regaining a model and repairing one d3 if needed. The kastellans just heal d3. A strat can be used to heal either unit twice for 2d3. Kataphrons have 18 wounds total to the dakkabots 24. But take in mind kataphrons are 152pts cheaper, can hide in magic ruins and hit better. Either way you should be taking both in a list.
Another point no one has raised up yet, Agripinaa is pretty much capped at only having 6 in a unit, nothing is stopping someone from taking 6-12 kataphons. Yeah thats 576pts at the max and harder to hide but its more damage output than a Castellan for under its points cost, has 36 wounds, access to heals and regens, hits more accurate, is objective secured, isnt as neutered to high damage weapons and is fairly resilent turn 2 onwards from small arms.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It is basically our version of the loota star. The loota star is 515pts with 30 grots for grot shield and doesnt shoot aswell as the 12 kataphrons. Its a crazy build but it could very well work.
I have a 1k tournament incoming, Didnt play in tournaments yet and only played against Necrons, Tyranids ( always lost), and once against deathwatch.
Any tips especially regarding deployment? Also what do I do against a A: Shoot heavy list; B Melee heavy list; C Knights
My list is Cawl, enginseer, 4x 5 Vanguards with each one plasma, 1 stocked rangersquad, 5 tazer infiltrators, 1 neutronlaser crawler Edit: and 3 Dakkabots
So your terrain is always perfect rectangular boxes which enable your shooting army to hide perfectly in while your aggro army perfectly hides out of LOS. No right angles only so your opponent can fly over. Ork drifting most certainly doesnt work unless you have atleast declared a charge somewhere my frontlines are all out in the open why stick them behind terrain to be charged by orks when i can get cover anywhere its almost like you expect your opponent to play badly.
Your right I have no idea why your opponent would target your squishier higher damage output unit with artillery it makes no sense and yes i recognise not everyone has it.
Again i would estimate that castellan 1/6 games at most and even then you dont do double damage if your opperateing at 3 models.but since your terrain is always a perfect square your opponents will never bring artillery and none of them will think about shooting your kataphrons your golden. Plus once you fire you are in the open you only get 1 shot then squish because even that opponent who doesnt know what your doing will oh and vect is funny.
How on earth can the 4w enginseer be sniped by flyers hes surrounded by hoplites and vanguard on all sides against that sort of mobility again you assume your opponent plays badly
As to model limit 5 would seem optimal given moral 12 you cant heal and a third of your armies in 1 squishy unit. Its not all about alpha
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0XFallen wrote: I have a 1k tournament incoming, Didnt play in tournaments yet and only played against Necrons, Tyranids ( always lost), and once against deathwatch.
Any tips especially regarding deployment? Also what do I do against a A: Shoot heavy list; B Melee heavy list; C Knights
My list is Cawl, enginseer, 4x 5 Vanguards with each one plasma, 1 stocked rangersquad, 5 tazer infiltrators, 1 neutronlaser crawler
A check his range if he cant you go second then advance towards him 3 turns with cover
B he will come to you castle up around cawl and try and operate at max weapon range
C focus 1 and pray the neutron laser doesnt miss
In the future drop cawl at 2k hes viable at 1k hes just too many points for what he buffs
vs veq grav mostly kills its target plasma you can probably split fire to two monster same
vs knight neither kills target. But plasma does more.
Plasma does have much higher varience though
Double vehicle damage on one unit that might get wiped T1 just doesnt seem worth it when the eye will boost my kastellan my onagers and my balistarii or stygies will protect them all
Really im comparing top row plasma vs 1st/second row grav in a brigade and there really isnt that much in it Grav wins on every count with the eye and loses against knights without. VEQ and monster are tied at killed it.
We have plenty of other options to kill infantry that outperform Destros though, including Robots, Crawlers, Infiltrators, and Guardsmen...
Higher variance is not a problem when the variance is overwhelmingly to the right of Grav's numbers.
It is true that if you are going to build a mono-FW Brigade, that they can be built in a way to maximize their individual advantages. And Eye is probably the best FW-specific relic. I just think there are very few such advantages in comparison to a mixed Brigade. For example, according to my math, access to Cawl rerolls and Wrath of Mars is much better than the Eye for Robots. And Dominus rerolls and access to Plasma Specialists is much better for Plasmaphrons. Really, only Crawlers and Ballistarii seem to barely edge out as the primary beneficiaries of Dominus rerolls and the Eye.
How does everyone feel about the Implacable Determination WLT for Guard? I noticed also that it can give max advance to ANY unit, including your AdMech units. Given Kastelans can now become assault, these are 14" advance Robots with BS5+ shooting? Alternative, you can do insane 24" MMM with Guard. If you go second, you can run up to an objective and steal it with ObSec.
But yeah, I am trying to figure out my WLT and relic. I don't really want an AdMech relic; my list has no melee, so Mask is out; Raiment or Pimp Cane seem to be the only good options, but less than ideal. At the same time, I do want a 5+ CP recycler.
I think it very much depends on your list grand strategist is still strong. Given we will burn CP. Old grudges is good if you have a lot of AM vehicles. For Adm in considering the agripinaa -1 dam or the CP regen trait.
It's AdMech relics that are my problem. We have a few decent WLTs.
U02dah4 wrote: So your terrain is always perfect rectangular boxes which enable your shooting army to hide perfectly in while your aggro army perfectly hides out of LOS. No right angles only so your opponent can fly over. Ork drifting most certainly doesnt work unless you have atleast declared a charge somewhere my frontlines are all out in the open why stick them behind terrain to be charged by orks when i can get cover anywhere its almost like you expect your opponent to play badly.
Your right I have no idea why your opponent would target your squishier higher damage output unit with artillery it makes no sense and yes i recognise not everyone has it.
Again i would estimate that castellan 1/6 games at most and even then you dont do double damage if your opperateing at 3 models.but since your terrain is always a perfect square your opponents will never bring artillery and none of them will think about shooting your kataphrons your golden. Plus once you fire you are in the open you only get 1 shot then squish because even that opponent who doesnt know what your doing will oh and vect is funny.
How on earth can the 4w enginseer be sniped by flyers hes surrounded by hoplites and vanguard on all sides against that sort of mobility again you assume your opponent plays badly
As to model limit 5 would seem optimal given moral 12 you cant heal and a third of your armies in 1 squishy unit. Its not all about alpha
A quarter of your army actually not a third, most terrain now a days use ruins with 3 to 4 walls making a U or a box shape, this blocks line of sight..... Unless your tables are barren wastes perfect for gunlines? Te last time ive seen ruins with 2 walls was like the beginning of 8th. Due to terrain being quite useless in 8th, events have increased the size, number and house rules for said terrain to make up for the lack of cover in these cases. Most armies in the game can clear away a screen of t3 infantry with a 4(3+) save... our skitarii are not famed for being the most point efficent chaff unit in the game. If you have a perfect screen around your Enginseer, how is it that he reaches anything 18" away to mark up? If the unit infront of him rolls a 1 to advance, he is then trapped behind them..... If he rolls a 6 and the others don have enough movement once again he either stays behind the screen or is out in the open. It is not hard to break chaff lines. Fliers can regularly fly to weak points in your formation and tear apart squishy characters. I have done it with Dark Talons, Storm Ravens, Hemlocks, Dakkajets, Razorwings, Void Ravens and even the over costed Fire Raptor. Snipers also exist in the game, scout snipers are now 13pts if i am not mistaken, alaitoc rangers, our own rangers with arquebus, the new space marine stratagem that makes a unit of (now cheaper again) intercessors with stalker boltrifles get to target out characters and deal MWs on 6,s, Dark Creed Tanatalus, Deathskull players with a Dread Mek Souped up Big Mek picking out your characters with 4d6 shots (possible 6d6 shots), Deathjesters with Curtain Fall, psychic powers, Castellans with shield breaker missiles, the list goes on. If some one wants you Enginseer dead they will do it, it isnt impossible by any stretch of the imagination.
It just seems like your making up that Agripinaa are flat out better than Ryza when you havent test it, and also insinuating that whatever is in the Rzya force is annhilated turn 1 which isnt the case. Even if you are reduced to 3 models, those kataphrons are dealing 6.81 damage to that Castellan with a 3++, whislt your newly regened squad of 6 (which is most likely out of range now as they are only 6" up the board with a 30" range weapon with a knight most likely only 8" up the board...) only deals 7.56 wounds at a 2+ rerolling 1s to hit and wound. So 3 little plasma guys do 0.75 less than your wholllllleeeeee squad of 6. You dont need reroll 1's to wound when each guy does 2.29 damage to your 1.26 per guy. Thats a 68.38% increase in efficiency, correct me if i am wrong but that is better than 16.66% across the whole army, who shouldnt be wasting shots at the castellan.
As for having a larger unit than 6 here is my current thoughts:
10 Ryza destroyers in an imperial bunker or 9 with their Dominus. This bunker is essentially their grot shield, however its toughness 8 with 12 wounds and a 3+ save for only 10pts more than a 3 units of grots and doesnt us up a CP. It does use up a slot out of our 3 detachments but a brigade/2 battalions should be enough. It is also vulnerable to haywire type weapons but also pretty much immune to small arms and poison weapons. 5 can still shoot out of it if the bunker is locked in combat and friendly units can shoot at enemy units engaged with the bunker.
The unit inside then gains an additional 3" of movement from the disembarkment and gains 12 t8 wounds all for 100pts. This bunker also takes up considerably less board space than 9-10 kataphrons and is quite small aswell in terms of drawing line of sight to it (if you use a lot of terrain like events i go to).
It is 532pts for 9 and a bunker or 580pts for 10 and a bunker. This is 65 to 17pts more points than the loota star with its grots, they only use 5CP round 1 (enhanced bionics) and 4CP from there on compared to the lootas 5-7CP turn 1 (mob up, grot shield) and 5-6CP (grot shield) from then onwards.
Pros:
2+ rerolling 1's to hit
More durable than 25 lootas
Better weapons than lootas
Has a better average of shots that arent screwed over by deffguns own number of shots mechanic
Has a better chance of killing Knights than Lootas
Regens wounds and models
Can split fire more effectively
Has access to better stratagems like Aquisition at All Costs andInfoslave Skull
Cons:
Cant teleport across the board to get better line of sight
Worse LD Affected more by negatives to hit but not to the point of hitting on 5+
Cant get 150 shots like lootas + DDD
Thats you magic bunker for you, morale and model loss problems are solved to a degree with a lump of ceramite and plasteel protecting your kataphrons from the worst of the enemy fire. If a castellan shoots at the bunker with his volcano lance, his plasma decimator cannot shoot the unit inside or any other of his weapons for that matter. You may loose one to the bunker dying but 8-9 is still going to kick up some havoc. May be all your eges in one basket, but the same can be said for the knight and atleast the the kataphrons are vastly cheaper than the knight and has better benefits and synergy too.
vs veq grav mostly kills its target plasma you can probably split fire to two monster same
vs knight neither kills target. But plasma does more.
Plasma does have much higher varience though
Double vehicle damage on one unit that might get wiped T1 just doesnt seem worth it when the eye will boost my kastellan my onagers and my balistarii or stygies will protect them all
Really im comparing top row plasma vs 1st/second row grav in a brigade and there really isnt that much in it Grav wins on every count with the eye and loses against knights without. VEQ and monster are tied at killed it.
We have plenty of other options to kill infantry that outperform Destros though, including Robots, Crawlers, Infiltrators, and Guardsmen...
Higher variance is not a problem when the variance is overwhelmingly to the right of Grav's numbers.
It is true that if you are going to build a mono-FW Brigade, that they can be built in a way to maximize their individual advantages. And Eye is probably the best FW-specific relic. I just think there are very few such advantages in comparison to a mixed Brigade. For example, according to my math, access to Cawl rerolls and Wrath of Mars is much better than the Eye for Robots. And Dominus rerolls and access to Plasma Specialists is much better for Plasmaphrons. Really, only Crawlers and Ballistarii seem to barely edge out as the primary beneficiaries of Dominus rerolls and the Eye.
How does everyone feel about the Implacable Determination WLT for Guard? I noticed also that it can give max advance to ANY unit, including your AdMech units. Given Kastelans can now become assault, these are 14" advance Robots with BS5+ shooting? Alternative, you can do insane 24" MMM with Guard. If you go second, you can run up to an objective and steal it with ObSec.
But yeah, I am trying to figure out my WLT and relic. I don't really want an AdMech relic; my list has no melee, so Mask is out; Raiment or Pimp Cane seem to be the only good options, but less than ideal. At the same time, I do want a 5+ CP recycler.
I think it very much depends on your list grand strategist is still strong. Given we will burn CP. Old grudges is good if you have a lot of AM vehicles. For Adm in considering the agripinaa -1 dam or the CP regen trait.
It's AdMech relics that are my problem. We have a few decent WLTs.
I agree Suzeteo, its what i have been trying to say. We dont need more anti infantry, we need tools to kill the current meta which is still knights, eldar and horde. The table i did before shows that the plasma can easily switch between anti tank to anti infantry without loosing too much efficiency. A lose of 2-3 guardsmen or orkz dead isnt huge when youve already killed 12 to begin with. I do also agree with you about the Eye being the best named forgeworld relic, but there are others that out class it and dont require as many boxes to be ticked to allow it to go off. CA and Vigilus has opened up kataphrons in such away that we have never seen before.
Aaranis wrote: Yes I feel like we haven't talked a lot about durability. What is great with Dakkastelans is that four of them is 24W at T7, 2+/4++ against shooting, which gives quite a lot of resilience against first turn fire. 6 Kataphrons are 18W, 4+/6++ base at T5, and cost more than 4 Robots I believe. Now it may be argued that you can hide them out of LoS with these weird ITC house rules but I'm not sure you could do that every game, and even then some armies are just very mobile or have big models that will get a LoS. If you don't have first turn and lose 5 Kataphrons, you can pay 2 CP to have the last not fleeing but you'll have only one Kataphron left nonetheless. With Agripinaa, you pay 3CP more but your battle plan can still work at least. The Ryza Destroyers list is indeed very powerful but really alpha strike based, be wary of this. Don't forget to a least pay 1cp for a 5++ whatever your FW is.
I think AdMech is fantastically durable in 8E. But it's not toughness, wounds, and inv. saves that make the difference (though we do have those), it's the fact that neither Robots, Ballistarii, nor Kataphrons have wound tables. On top of this, repairs brutally punish opponents for failing to kill a target.
The magic bunker rules have historically hurt us a lot more than they have helped us due to our lack of decent infantry. It was one of the contributors to AdMech underperformance in ITC. But now that we have Kataphrons, we should abuse the rule.
0XFallen wrote: I have a 1k tournament incoming, Didnt play in tournaments yet and only played against Necrons, Tyranids ( always lost), and once against deathwatch.
Any tips especially regarding deployment? Also what do I do against a A: Shoot heavy list; B Melee heavy list; C Knights
My list is Cawl, enginseer, 4x 5 Vanguards with each one plasma, 1 stocked rangersquad, 5 tazer infiltrators, 1 neutronlaser crawler
Not sure if Cawl is efficient in a 1000 point list, especially without Kastelans. A Dominus would be better. That being said, if you want to run an infantry heavy list, it's totally do-able at 1000 points. Just make them Graia or Stygies.
Against shooting heavy lists, it's all about getting range and LOS on your opponent. Know their ranges and movement well, and try to kill their biggest anti-vehicle shooting threats first. Use your infantry to grab objectives and force them to commit their infantry.
Against melee heavy lists, you need to create depth between your enemy and you. Try to get the long deployment and place objectives spaced relatively far apart. Break up your army to form either layers of defense or castles around objectives. A layered defense is deploying infantry further out from your army, typically out of LOS and perpendicular to the line of advance (imagine a line between your opponent and your artillery), which forces your opponent to engage in melee earlier than he would like. A castle consists of a heavy shooting piece and supporting infantry or table edge to form a wall against charges. Keep them within range of one another so that they can support one another with fire. You might lose out on points the first few rounds, but the enemy knows that they have to come to you, since your superior shooting will take their toll on his melee units if they camp objectives. Focus on surviving the assaults in rounds 1-2 and gradually take control in rounds 3-6.
Special note for Tyranids: Do not ever employ a layered defense against them. They will use Overrun to get free moves.
Against a pure Knights list, tar pit the Gallants with infantry to prevent them from getting to your artillery. Focus on killing his Castellan and/or Crusader.
Little something i just noticed, for master of biosplicing the Servitors dont have to be from your forgeworld, so we can include them in a guard battalion/brigade to regen our kataphons, as servitors dont benefit from anything in our actual codex. 614pts for a guard brigade min.
I think you sold me on the value of the RYZA destroyers. I did the math a few pages back and they are our 1 good knight killer. And knights can't shoot infantry in terrain or bunkers hiding inside of terrain pieces. What do you think of this variant on what I was working on:
MARS brigade + RYZA patrol
Spoiler:
MARS Cawl + 2x enginseer [engi is free WL] 2x10 infiltrators 1x4 servitors [for biosplicing] 5x10 rangers with omnispex 1x8 vanguard 3x1 autocannon ballistari 3x1 neutrons
RYZA - specialist detachment Dominus with volkite [specialist WL for CP] 1x6 plasmaphrons
If I want to use a bunker I would either need to start mixing up the brigade into a soup (which is probably the right idea), or I would need to switch to soup battalions, or I would need to cut into the infiltrators (I don't like this because it reduces the payload/damage of the list too much and decreases the reason to take cawl).
This is actually a 100% admech list that i think feels plausible. It is a shooting list for sure, with only a little bit of counter assault (the infiltrators), which means it is vulnerable to lists that can really hide in terrain forever. But I like its ability to answer the dark reaper / castellan problem better than the dakkabots star.
Cawl Engi - MARS (free warlord, probably monitor malevelous and the skitarii RRhits in fight phase relic) Engi - RYZA (splice WLT with 1CP) 2x10 rangers with omnispex + 2x9 rangres + 1x8 vanguard MARS 2x10 infiltrators MARS 1x4 servitors AGRIPINNA (so I can refil their squad for 1CP) 3x1 autocannon ballistari MARS (kind of lame tax units) 3x1 neutron MARS ( I still think neutron are better because when they have good targets, they are the best shooters in the game)
And the big one: 1x8 RYZA plasmaphrons with blasters (not bringing the TPD since i can get rr1 to hit in shooting from the canticle, but going down 1 plasmaphron is equivalent to RR1s in the shooting phase)
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deffrekka wrote: Little something i just noticed, for master of biosplicing the Servitors dont have to be from your forgeworld, so we can include them in a guard battalion/brigade to regen our kataphons, as servitors dont benefit from anything in our actual codex. 614pts for a guard brigade min.
AGRIPPINA servitors can be restored from 1 model to 4 models for 1CP.
I think you sold me on the value of the RYZA destroyers. I did the math a few pages back and they are our 1 good knight killer. And knights can't shoot infantry in terrain or bunkers hiding inside of terrain pieces. What do you think of this variant on what I was working on:
MARS brigade + RYZA patrol
Spoiler:
MARS
Cawl + 2x enginseer [engi is free WL]
2x10 infiltrators
1x4 servitors [for biosplicing]
5x10 rangers with omnispex
1x8 vanguard
3x1 autocannon ballistari
3x1 neutrons
RYZA - specialist detachment
Dominus with volkite [specialist WL for CP]
1x6 plasmaphrons
If I want to use a bunker I would either need to start mixing up the brigade into a soup (which is probably the right idea), or I would need to switch to soup battalions, or I would need to cut into the infiltrators (I don't like this because it reduces the payload/damage of the list too much and decreases the reason to take cawl).
This is actually a 100% admech list that i think feels plausible. It is a shooting list for sure, with only a little bit of counter assault (the infiltrators), which means it is vulnerable to lists that can really hide in terrain forever. But I like its ability to answer the dark reaper / castellan problem better than the dakkabots star.
Cawl
Engi - MARS (free warlord, probably monitor malevelous and the skitarii RRhits in fight phase relic)
Engi - RYZA (splice WLT with 1CP)
2x10 rangers with omnispex + 2x9 rangres + 1x8 vanguard MARS
2x10 infiltrators MARS
1x4 servitors AGRIPINNA (so I can refil their squad for 1CP)
3x1 autocannon ballistari MARS (kind of lame tax units)
3x1 neutron MARS ( I still think neutron are better because when they have good targets, they are the best shooters in the game)
And the big one:
1x8 RYZA plasmaphrons with blasters (not bringing the TPD since i can get rr1 to hit in shooting from the canticle, but going down 1 plasmaphron is equivalent to RR1s in the shooting phase)
Finally someone agress with me Im currently typing up a list even if it is 23:48pm here haha!!! Just so you know to get Noospheric Mindlock off on the second list you need a Dominus that you dont have so you will be going off on BS 4+ and the overcharge may kill them, unless you play it safe and just do Plasma Specialists for Str 7 + 1 to wound and Damage 2. I think ii prefer the first list more just due to you missing some synergy with the Ryza destroyers
This is where i am at atm with 211pts left to go (I like to name all my units ):
If I was going to run an almost guard brigade, I would make a few tweaks to that list. I don't think that RYZA onagers are that great.
RYZA - servitor specialist battalion
Dominus (specialist WLT) + Enginseer
1x9 plasmaphrons
2x5 rangers
1x4 dakkabots (might as well give the +1 to hit, got the CP)
Bunker
VALHALLA brigade - artillery specialist detachment
3x1 company commander (grand strategist natural WLT + artillery WLT and artillery relic that lets you ignore cover)
3x4 ARGIPPINA servitors
3x1 flame scout sentinels
6x10 guardsmen
3x1 wyverns
Wyverns can get reroll to hit for 2CP, and for 2CP more that one wyvern can shoot twice, and then the relic gives you ignore cover, and the artillery WLT makes 6+ to wound an additional -1, and wyverns by default reroll to wound. That is some obscene "killing infantry in cover" firepower. And the VALHALLA guys all stand in front and shoot into combat when they are tied up.
Wulfey wrote: If I was going to run an almost guard brigade, I would make a few tweaks to that list. I don't think that RYZA onagers are that great.
RYZA - servitor specialist battalion
Dominus (specialist WLT) + Enginseer
1x9 plasmaphrons
2x5 rangers
1x4 dakkabots (might as well give the +1 to hit, got the CP)
Bunker
VALHALLA brigade - artillery specialist detachment
3x1 company commander (grand strategist natural WLT + artillery WLT and artillery relic that lets you ignore cover)
3x4 ARGIPPINA servitors
3x1 flame scout sentinels
6x10 guardsmen
3x1 wyverns
Wyverns can get reroll to hit for 2CP, and for 2CP more that one wyvern can shoot twice, and then the relic gives you ignore cover, and the artillery WLT makes 6+ to wound an additional -1, and wyverns by default reroll to wound. That is some obscene "killing infantry in cover" firepower. And the VALHALLA guys all stand in front and shoot into combat when they are tied up.
I marked them Ryza otherwise they would have 0 heals haha good catch on the Agripinaa Servitors, could save me an extra 20pts. And i was thinking Wyrens now that they are cheaper. With an Astrapath they can ignore cover too. Also i forgot about the Artillery detachment, you sneaky man
Supressive Fire negating U02dah4's overwatch again
Aaranis wrote: Yes I feel like we haven't talked a lot about durability. What is great with Dakkastelans is that four of them is 24W at T7, 2+/4++ against shooting, which gives quite a lot of resilience against first turn fire. 6 Kataphrons are 18W, 4+/6++ base at T5, and cost more than 4 Robots I believe. Now it may be argued that you can hide them out of LoS with these weird ITC house rules but I'm not sure you could do that every game, and even then some armies are just very mobile or have big models that will get a LoS. If you don't have first turn and lose 5 Kataphrons, you can pay 2 CP to have the last not fleeing but you'll have only one Kataphron left nonetheless. With Agripinaa, you pay 3CP more but your battle plan can still work at least. The Ryza Destroyers list is indeed very powerful but really alpha strike based, be wary of this. Don't forget to a least pay 1cp for a 5++ whatever your FW is.
I think AdMech is fantastically durable in 8E. But it's not toughness, wounds, and inv. saves that make the difference (though we do have those), it's the fact that neither Robots, Ballistarii, nor Kataphrons have wound tables. On top of this, repairs brutally punish opponents for failing to kill a target.
The magic bunker rules have historically hurt us a lot more than they have helped us due to our lack of decent infantry. It was one of the contributors to AdMech underperformance in ITC. But now that we have Kataphrons, we should abuse the rule.
0XFallen wrote: I have a 1k tournament incoming, Didnt play in tournaments yet and only played against Necrons, Tyranids ( always lost), and once against deathwatch.
Any tips especially regarding deployment? Also what do I do against a A: Shoot heavy list; B Melee heavy list; C Knights
My list is Cawl, enginseer, 4x 5 Vanguards with each one plasma, 1 stocked rangersquad, 5 tazer infiltrators, 1 neutronlaser crawler
Not sure if Cawl is efficient in a 1000 point list, especially without Kastelans. A Dominus would be better. That being said, if you want to run an infantry heavy list, it's totally do-able at 1000 points. Just make them Graia or Stygies.
Against shooting heavy lists, it's all about getting range and LOS on your opponent. Know their ranges and movement well, and try to kill their biggest anti-vehicle shooting threats first. Use your infantry to grab objectives and force them to commit their infantry.
Against melee heavy lists, you need to create depth between your enemy and you. Try to get the long deployment and place objectives spaced relatively far apart. Break up your army to form either layers of defense or castles around objectives. A layered defense is deploying infantry further out from your army, typically out of LOS and perpendicular to the line of advance (imagine a line between your opponent and your artillery), which forces your opponent to engage in melee earlier than he would like. A castle consists of a heavy shooting piece and supporting infantry or table edge to form a wall against charges. Keep them within range of one another so that they can support one another with fire. You might lose out on points the first few rounds, but the enemy knows that they have to come to you, since your superior shooting will take their toll on his melee units if they camp objectives. Focus on surviving the assaults in rounds 1-2 and gradually take control in rounds 3-6.
Special note for Tyranids: Do not ever employ a layered defense against them. They will use Overrun to get free moves.
Against a pure Knights list, tar pit the Gallants with infantry to prevent them from getting to your artillery. Focus on killing his Castellan and/or Crusader.
Oops forgot the Main pieces, which are 3 Kastelan robots
Still playing around but this is what im working on
Agripinaa Patrol Servitor Maniple
1 x dominous eradicator + macrostubber
1 x destroyers (5grav 3flamer 2 phosphor)
2 x (servitors +1 plasma cannon)
Stygies Brigade
3 x enginseer (1 omniscient mask 1 monitor malevolus)
1 x rangers
5 x vanguard
3x hoplite + Data teather
3 x balistarii (2autocannon one las cannon)
2 x onager neutron laser +2 stubers
1 x kastelan robots (2 robots x 3 phosphor)
Catachan emporers wrath batalion
2 company commanders (1laspistol 1 boltgun)
3 x infantry squad
1x basilisk
deffrekka wrote: Little something i just noticed, for master of biosplicing the Servitors dont have to be from your forgeworld, so we can include them in a guard battalion/brigade to regen our kataphons, as servitors dont benefit from anything in our actual codex. 614pts for a guard brigade min.
Yeah, none of the specialist detachment stuff is coded to Forge World. Which is what gave me the idea of mixed detachments in the first place.
Automatically Appended Next Post: My current working list (it's probably 95% there):
Spoiler:
Mars Spearhead Detachment - 1070 Cohort Cybernetica (-1 CP)
HQ - 190 1x Belisarius Cawl
Heavy Support - 880 6x Kastelan Robot - 18x Heavy Phosphor Blaster
1x Onager Dunecrawler - Icarus Array, Broad-Spectrum Data Tether
1x Onager Dunecrawler - Icarus Array, Broad-Spectrum Data Tether
Group A1: Cawlstar, Enginseer, Crawlers
Group A2: Graia Vanguard, Straken, MiniPriest, 2x10 Guardsmen
Group A3: Implacable Commander, 1x10 Guardsmen
Group B1: Ryza Dominus, Ryza Vanguard, Plasmaphrons, Graia Servitors
Group B2: Commander, 2x10 Guardsmen
These groups are mostly self-sufficient (rerolls, anti-psyker, -1T aura) and can be deployed together or apart. They can also be further divided to grab objectives.
@U02dah4
I actually liked your previous list better. Not sure why the Stygies is in there like that.
@Suzuteo I think you onto something with the catachans over smash captain. More bodies is better. And RYZA is all the flat 3 damage I need. I would run the servitors in the guard detachment as AGRIPINNA so I can resurrect them.
The servitor dataslates in the ig book and sm book is different than the one in the admech book right? No canticles, different power levels, no forgeworld key word and no canticles. You can use the ability on ig/sm servitors bdcause keyword but nothing more.
Hulksmash wrote: The servitor dataslates in the ig book and sm book is different than the one in the admech book right? No canticles, different power levels, no forgeworld key word and no canticles. You can use the ability on ig/sm servitors bdcause keyword but nothing more.
They have a <FORGE WORLD> but no canticles. I don't mind. I would rather that than break my forge world bonus on expensive units.
0XFallen wrote: Just played with my 1k list against deathwatch.
Now I cant believe how strong their Hqs are, or how weak ours are.
One Hq of his could fly 12", 4++ and a hammer that killed a crawler in 1 turn, and 2 kastelans the other turn while still rerolling all 1s
The 2nd Hq could reroll all misses, hit, wounds, even in overwatch!! While still being good in melee and having a solid ranged weapon.
Im baffeled, please show me light again Omnissiah
He must of been quite lucky with that Watch Captain with thunderhammer. 4 attacks hitting on 3's rerolling ones and wounding on 3's whilst you would still get your 5++ (rerolling 1's by another crawler) and he does 3 damage a swing. The second HQ must of been a Watch Master and used a Mission Tactic/Stratagem vs your Heavy Support options. Maybe try taking a couple squads of arquebus to threaten these characters, they only a 4++ vs them and 4 will ruin his day.
Our HQs are more of a supportive role with healing and reroll 1's to hit but can be a tank if needed and can put out some firepower and melee when required. They just arent front line characters like space marines. We win the long war, marines go for the short war, they cant do attrition well.
0XFallen wrote: Just played with my 1k list against deathwatch.
Now I cant believe how strong their Hqs are, or how weak ours are.
One Hq of his could fly 12", 4++ and a hammer that killed a crawler in 1 turn, and 2 kastelans the other turn while still rerolling all 1s
The 2nd Hq could reroll all misses, hit, wounds, even in overwatch!! While still being good in melee and having a solid ranged weapon.
Im baffeled, please show me light again Omnissiah
He must of been quite lucky with that Watch Captain with thunderhammer. 4 attacks hitting on 3's rerolling ones and wounding on 3's whilst you would still get your 5++ (rerolling 1's by another crawler) and he does 3 damage a swing. The second HQ must of been a Watch Master and used a Mission Tactic/Stratagem vs your Heavy Support options. Maybe try taking a couple squads of arquebus to threaten these characters, they only a 4++ vs them and 4 will ruin his day.
Our HQs are more of a supportive role with healing and reroll 1's to hit but can be a tank if needed and can put out some firepower and melee when required. They just arent front line characters like space marines. We win the long war, marines go for the short war, they cant do attrition well.
What did you use and what did he field?
I had cawl, enginseer, 3 dakkabots, 1 neutronlaser, 5 infiltrators, 1x rangers stocked, 4x5 vanguards with each 1 plasma.
He had the 2 Hqs, rest were mixed squads stormshields, terminators, intercessors, the big intercessors. He deepstriked about half and used the teleport relikt.
I was tabled as I had turn 4 only a single enginseer left
Thx for your time
0XFallen wrote: I have a 1k tournament incoming, Didnt play in tournaments yet and only played against Necrons, Tyranids ( always lost), and once against deathwatch.
Any tips especially regarding deployment? Also what do I do against a A: Shoot heavy list; B Melee heavy list; C Knights
My list is Cawl, enginseer, 4x 5 Vanguards with each one plasma, 1 stocked rangersquad, 5 tazer infiltrators, 1 neutronlaser crawler
0XFallen wrote: Oops forgot the Main pieces, which are 3 Kastelan robots
Heavy Support - 440 4x Kastelan Robot - 12x Heavy Phosphor Blaster
Total: 1000 points 8 CP (-1 CP)
Take Cohort Cybernetica so your Robots can run and shoot. They are your primary anti-tank/anti-everything firebase.
Dominus over Cawl because you get an entire extra Robot. Choppy setup so that he stands a chance in Heroic Intervention; Omniscient Mask is also acceptable, though I personally would use the stratagem to take it in cases where you need to deploy your Infiltrators as a counter-charger. Monitor Malevolus because this army is quite CP hungry. (Expect to spend 3-4 points per turn.)
At lower points, one big unit of Vanguard is efficient. Use the Doctrina to get 2+ safe OC plasma. Most of your infantry should be Rangers though. Good for screening.
Big unit of Infiltrators. Drop them down, turn on Wrath of Mars and/or Doctrina, cook stuff. Use +1S Canticles to kill vehicles in CC up to T7. Deploy close to your artillery if you want to use them as counter-chargers.
0XFallen wrote: Just played with my 1k list against deathwatch.
Now I cant believe how strong their Hqs are, or how weak ours are.
One Hq of his could fly 12", 4++ and a hammer that killed a crawler in 1 turn, and 2 kastelans the other turn while still rerolling all 1s
The 2nd Hq could reroll all misses, hit, wounds, even in overwatch!! While still being good in melee and having a solid ranged weapon.
Im baffeled, please show me light again Omnissiah
Well, DW is one of the more competitive armies at low points. Or any game that uses PL. I swear, 40k actually makes a lot more sense at 1000 points because of the "I go with everything, then you go with everything" structure. Armies are a lot less killy.
Our HQs are support, not principal combatants. At 1000 points though, I would set them up for last-ditch fighting, just in case, but I would never charge one at the enemy line.
You need more infantry. Haha. I feel like I am a doctor recommending exercise or something. 80% of the times, the problem with a list is that people underestimate how many infantry they need. Infantry do a ton of things in a very point efficient manner, including:
-Protect your artillery from melee
-Deny deep strike area
-Deny ruins
-Seize and hold objectives
-Kill other infantry
In my opinion, the best infantry for this job are Guardsmen. In a meta where fighting Orks and Tyranids is a high possibility, Catachans are your best bet.
Skitarii are a decent second pick. Rangers are good for anti-infantry. Vanguard are much more flexible because they can advance and shoot.
Of course, infantry should not be your primary firebase. For AdMech, that mantle belongs mostly to Robots and Kataphrons now.
0XFallen wrote: Thx for the recommendations, why not just use wrath of mars with the robos though?
As you get 50 shots with the infiltrators to the 36 shots of the kastellans. If they are in double tap mode then yeah 72 shots but i believe you get better mobility and accuracy with the infiltrators as with doctrinas they are bs 2 so dont need cawl baby sitting them.
0XFallen wrote: Thx for the recommendations, why not just use wrath of mars with the robos though?
As you get 50 shots with the infiltrators to the 36 shots of the kastellans. If they are in double tap mode then yeah 72 shots but i believe you get better mobility and accuracy with the infiltrators as with doctrinas they are bs 2 so dont need cawl baby sitting them.
The extra Robot with dominus vs Cawl does about 35 wounds against Geq vs 34 wounds, is it worth as Cawl is stronger, can take a different relic(enginseer) and have a bigger and better buff for the rest of the army because of his huge base as well as the modifier for canticles? I also only own 5 infiltrators sadly.
Edit: So maybe : Cawl, enginseer, 4 Kastelan, 2x5 rangers(1x arc rifle for straight 1k points), 3x5 vanguards 1plasma each, 1x10 vanguards with 3 plasma and EDT?
0XFallen wrote: Thx for the recommendations, why not just use wrath of mars with the robos though?
As you get 50 shots with the infiltrators to the 36 shots of the kastellans. If they are in double tap mode then yeah 72 shots but i believe you get better mobility and accuracy with the infiltrators as with doctrinas they are bs 2 so dont need cawl baby sitting them.
The extra Robot with dominus vs Cawl does about 35 wounds against Geq vs 34 wounds, is it worth as Cawl is stronger, can take a different relic(enginseer) and have a bigger and better buff for the rest of the army because of his huge base as well as the modifier for canticles? I also only own 5 infiltrators sadly.
So maybe : Cawl, enginseer, 4 Kastelan, 2x5 rangers, 3x5 vanguards 1plasma each, 1x10 vanguards with 3 plasma?
I personally wouldnt take any named character in 1000pts. Thats just me though, he still takes up 190pts which is nearly a 5th of your list in one character! Try out your new list though and yet us know how it goes
0XFallen wrote: Thx for the recommendations, why not just use wrath of mars with the robos though?
As you get 50 shots with the infiltrators to the 36 shots of the kastellans. If they are in double tap mode then yeah 72 shots but i believe you get better mobility and accuracy with the infiltrators as with doctrinas they are bs 2 so dont need cawl baby sitting them.
The extra Robot with dominus vs Cawl does about 35 wounds against Geq vs 34 wounds, is it worth as Cawl is stronger, can take a different relic(enginseer) and have a bigger and better buff for the rest of the army because of his huge base as well as the modifier for canticles? I also only own 5 infiltrators sadly.
So maybe : Cawl, enginseer, 4 Kastelan, 2x5 rangers, 3x5 vanguards 1plasma each, 1x10 vanguards with 3 plasma?
I personally wouldnt take any named character in 1000pts. Thats just me though, he still takes up 190pts which is nearly a 5th of your list in one character! Try out your new list though and yet us know how it goes
Will do ! One last question: Regarding Cawl where do you place him, in front of the robots to take the charge?
0XFallen wrote: Thx for the recommendations, why not just use wrath of mars with the robos though?
As you get 50 shots with the infiltrators to the 36 shots of the kastellans. If they are in double tap mode then yeah 72 shots but i believe you get better mobility and accuracy with the infiltrators as with doctrinas they are bs 2 so dont need cawl baby sitting them.
The extra Robot with dominus vs Cawl does about 35 wounds against Geq vs 34 wounds, is it worth as Cawl is stronger, can take a different relic(enginseer) and have a bigger and better buff for the rest of the army because of his huge base as well as the modifier for canticles? I also only own 5 infiltrators sadly.
So maybe : Cawl, enginseer, 4 Kastelan, 2x5 rangers, 3x5 vanguards 1plasma each, 1x10 vanguards with 3 plasma?
I personally wouldnt take any named character in 1000pts. Thats just me though, he still takes up 190pts which is nearly a 5th of your list in one character! Try out your new list though and yet us know how it goes
Will do ! One last question: Regarding Cawl where do you place him, in front of the robots to take the charge?
Crawl isnt all that durable although he looks it on paper, he is quite resilient to small arms fire but weak to heavy hitters as he only has a 5++ invun (why gw why... we should have conversion fields back!!!) When i played mars at the start of 8th i had him behind the robots but close enough to Heroically intervene. The chaff line should be enough to absorb chargers, just keep them just more than 3" ahead of the robots so they cant be consolidated into
So... more effective wounds, and another Robot's worth of wounds that the opponent has to kill? (Remember, no wounds table!) Seems like a good deal to me. Lol.
Cawl placement depends on a lot of factors. Generally speaking, you should have him to the side and slightly behind the Robots. This is because the Robots are a lot more durable, especially in Aegis mode, and you don't want to give them the option to shoot Cawl. If your Robots are in Protector mode, put Cawl in front with your screen to make it harder for your opponent to charge the Robots. Remember: you want to stop them BEFORE they reach the Robots.
IVIOOSE wrote: so if taking caul in a mars detachment is he the best choice for warlord? the extra 3" bubble is nice but is it necessary.
if you take him as warlord what have people been taking for a relic?
It's not really hard to keep your artillery within 6" of Cawl.
That is the daunting question. My answer thus far is to not take any AdMech relics at all. Instead, make a Guard HQ your Warlord and take Kurov's Aquila. I like Grand Strategist or Implacable Determination for Guard WLTs.
It very much depends on your list
Warlord traits
Monitor malevolous is on a paa with grandstrategist if you need more cp Necromechanic isnt terrible if you want a repair bot
armoured exoskeleton agripinaa dominous makes him tankier
Relic
The omniscient mask is broken in combination with hoplites
The eye is strong but only against vehicles agripinaa only
Autocadeousius of arkhan land repair bot
How many people have tried hoplites do they make their points back and are they decent for their points. What’s the best way to protect them? Bunker or vehicle
IVIOOSE wrote: How many people have tried hoplites do they make their points back and are they decent for their points. What’s the best way to protect them? Bunker or vehicle
I have 20 and only ever tried out 15 of them, they are just a more "durable" chaff line to protect your robots from assault. They have some melee capabilities, nothing to crazy and they are quite resilient to targets that do good ap wounds to them in CC. Not bad for 9pts, but you get double there wounds in guardsmen, so it depends entirely on your list as a whole.
I ran 30 in a GT in Nov(3 squads with data teathers) accompied by an enginseer with omniscient mask.
I footslogged them in a blob of 30 in an infantry horde
They are 1pt more than vanguard and for that you get 3+(canticle) 4++ melee 5++ shooting assault1 s6 ap1 d3damvs vehicles.
They are great for killing light vehicles (aeldari) and infantry on mass and will chip a couple of w off a knight in a pinch in CC they have twice as many hits and mortal w indefence the ombiscient mask is huge and when a knight or character charges them the mortal W out put is awesome. Massed guardsmen may be more of a barrier but they dont have the same damage output.
I would use them either as footslogging infantry blob aiming to take the midfield
Or as a frontline wall.
I wouldnt protect them they are the protection
If your going to transport take electropriests they need it to get to their target
If your going to bunker up kataphrons they have the range to make use of it
Knight Gallant [20 PL, 368pts]: Character (Exalted Court), Character (Heirloom of the House), Heavy Stubber, Heirloom: The Helm Dominatus, Ironstorm Missile Pod, Reaper Chainsword, Thunderstrike gauntlet, Warlord Trait: Knight Seneschal
The list is fine the only thing i would consider is making a warglaive a freeblade (fixed penalties - no strats and reroll 6's) random bonusrs)
A 6 up fnp is half as good on a warglaive as a gallent your not useing strats on it anyway. And reroll 6's one doesnt always occur cos you pass the ledership check and 2 even when applied will reroll to a success 2/3 of the time.
Knight Gallant [20 PL, 368pts]: Character (Exalted Court), Character (Heirloom of the House), Heavy Stubber, Heirloom: The Helm Dominatus, Ironstorm Missile Pod, Reaper Chainsword, Thunderstrike gauntlet, Warlord Trait: Knight Seneschal
The only problems i see with the list is that you have 30 troops. I dot know if you are playing the new CA 18 missions there but they require more bodies now, so i would tend to aim for 50 troops minimum. One more thing, i dont think the relic on the Dominus is worth it, he will barely be in combat so maybe take the pimp cane instead to get max usuage out of the relic.
lash92 wrote: Some love for Skitarii snipers post FAQ?
72 points per Skitarii sniper team with Omnispex.
I used them before CA18 when they wore 97pts but now at 72pts its a steal! Basically a twin autocannon team that can target characters with 60" and MW output on 6s.
lash92 wrote: Some love for Skitarii snipers post FAQ?
72 points per Skitarii sniper team with Omnispex.
Still suffer from the same problem as before you need a few teams to reliably kill characters and they are squishy for there points. Certainly better though.
Think if I was to go that way i would drop the omnispex and put one sniper in each unit atleast that way they are harder to kill
lash92 wrote: Some love for Skitarii snipers post FAQ?
72 points per Skitarii sniper team with Omnispex.
Still suffer from the same problem as before you need a few teams to reliably kill characters and they are squishy for there points. Certainly better though.
Think if I was to go that way i would drop the omnispex and put one sniper in each unit atleast that way they are harder to kill
I tend to run 2 teams of 5 with 2 arquebus each but no omnispex, 65pts per squad. They are pretty self sufficient in that they are far away up high and their sole target is characters. They are one of the more better snipers in the game in that they have a high str, some ap, multiple damage and still do the usual MWs on 6s. I probably wont take more than 2 squads worth, If they kill a character great! but usually they force your opponent to skulk out of LOS which limits his movement potential and pens him in.
Knight Gallant [20 PL, 368pts]: Character (Exalted Court), Character (Heirloom of the House), Heavy Stubber, Heirloom: The Helm Dominatus, Ironstorm Missile Pod, Reaper Chainsword, Thunderstrike gauntlet, Warlord Trait: Knight Seneschal
I'm waiting to buy some more Rangers so as to build 4 more arquebuses, so that I can field 3x 7-8 Rangers with 2 Arquebuses each, and maybe and Omnispex as well. We're going to play a lot of CA2018 missions, and some require characters to capture points, if I understood well. As my own character pool is limited, I plan on deleting the opponent's. With three squads of either Lucius or Stygies they'll be a real threat, it's easy to commit a bit of fire to kill one unit but three demands a bit more commitment. If there's no characters to target they'll be ideal to finish off almost dead targets.
Aaranis wrote: I'm waiting to buy some more Rangers so as to build 4 more arquebuses, so that I can field 3x 7-8 Rangers with 2 Arquebuses each, and maybe and Omnispex as well. We're going to play a lot of CA2018 missions, and some require characters to capture points, if I understood well. As my own character pool is limited, I plan on deleting the opponent's. With three squads of either Lucius or Stygies they'll be a real threat, it's easy to commit a bit of fire to kill one unit but three demands a bit more commitment. If there's no characters to target they'll be ideal to finish off almost dead targets.
With 3 squads you seem very committed Just sucks they have to stay still to fire as 3 squads not moving sucks!
Definitely go Stygies the -1 is much more viable then ignoring -1. I'm still not a big fan of Lucius, maybe if you plan on some kind of weird teleporting Kastelan / Kataphrons shenanigans.
Since I haven't really played that much with snipers: Is it really that easy to lose them. Sure they are just Skitarii in cover, but you got 60" range and outrange most dedicated anti infantry weapons.
I speak of Lucius because yes, I'm planning a future list (gotta buy stuff first) with 4 Fistelans with Combustors in a Cohort Cybernetica, they come out of DS, charge at 6" and godspeed. The list is a Lucius Battalion with Cohort Cybernetica and an Agripinaa Battalion with 6 Destroyers in a Servitor Maniple, I posted it a few pages back. The plan is to have multiple threats at once, with Dragoons and Robots making a mess in the middle while I move with my Agripinaa line to claim board control. The 3 Rangers squad will be Lucius and hanging in the backfield with a Dominus for rerolls/counter charging. I'll post the list if I find it in the thread.
What do you think of servitors as bodyguards for kastelan= 20 points for 4 models with a good weapon, although it hits on 5+. I dont like the models though so I was thinking of using Eldar Guardians with hoodless ranger heads and some claw or fist bits and maybe some guitar strings
0XFallen wrote: What do you think of servitors as bodyguards for kastelan= 20 points for 4 models with a good weapon, although it hits on 5+. I dont like the models though so I was thinking of using Eldar Guardians with hoodless ranger heads and some claw or fist bits and maybe some guitar strings
Im using the dark mechanicus guys out of Blackstone fortress as my servitors. If you are only usinh them to body guard Kastelans then for 20pts there pretty good, but if you are alss using them for Biosplicing you may want to be more cautious where there are placed as if you loose them you wont be regaining destroyers back.
Eh, I was planning to acquire a dozen of these Negavolt Cultists to use as count-as Fulgurites so that I didn't have to paint these abominations again. I'll use the 10 WFB Ghouls I still have to be Servitors.
At 65pts for a base squad of rangers with 2 Transuranic Arquebus each it comes out to 195pts for six sniper shots. Doesnt seem like too big of a commitment for something that will change how your opponent moves and thinks and does okay damage in their own right.
Goldenemperor wrote: At 65pts for a base squad of rangers with 2 Transuranic Arquebus each it comes out to 195pts for six sniper shots. Doesnt seem like too big of a commitment for something that will change how your opponent moves and thinks and does okay damage in their own right.
Essentially they are sniper scouts, same cost, same amount of wounds, same armour save but worse str and t that wont really come into affect same with WS however they get 2 better guns and the 3 rifles arent that bad either. They just dont get to infiltrate. I would still only take 2 squads but 3 can work too, its just close to 1/5th of your list in 15 t 3 wounds
With three squads I'm sure to cover my backfield and most of the objectives my side of the board. I can spread them to deny DS in my back and will always have LoS on characters. I'm not bothered that they're not moving because the rest of my list is going to cover the board. I'm sure it would work, I may not be the best choice but in my meta and with the looks of our tables it's easier to understand.
Aaranis wrote: Eh, I was planning to acquire a dozen of these Negavolt Cultists to use as count-as Fulgurites so that I didn't have to paint these abominations again. I'll use the 10 WFB Ghouls I still have to be Servitors.
I found them pretty easy to convert from guadsman and kataphrom breacher parts
My Fulgurites are franken-models. If I had to do them again, I would probably just do Flagellants with AdMech parts the next time around.
Negavolt Cultists look like good Corpuscarii stand-ins. Actually, come to think of it, you can probably do either. And they're $3 a pop!
Aaranis wrote: With three squads I'm sure to cover my backfield and most of the objectives my side of the board. I can spread them to deny DS in my back and will always have LoS on characters. I'm not bothered that they're not moving because the rest of my list is going to cover the board. I'm sure it would work, I may not be the best choice but in my meta and with the looks of our tables it's easier to understand.
Massed Mortar fire can and will kill them from out of LOS. That is something I am coming to appreciate about Catachans. I can delete a unit of GEQs every turn while hiding in magic bunkers.
Hey I am considering getting some admech to work as fluffy allies for my Iron Hands successor chapter. As of right now I own zero admech models. I am wondering what units you guys would think would have some synergy with primaris marines using deathwatch rules.
Tibs Ironblood wrote: Hey I am considering getting some admech to work as fluffy allies for my Iron Hands successor chapter. As of right now I own zero admech models. I am wondering what units you guys would think would have some synergy with primaris marines using deathwatch rules.
If you want a single Patrol, take a Ryza Dominus with 6x Ryza Kataphrons and a single unit of Graia Servitors. Give them the Servitor Maniple specialist detachment from Vigilus Defiant. This combination lets you stack Noospheric Mindlock and Plasma Specialists stratagems to give the Kataphrons +1 to hit, +1 to wound, and +1D. If you want CP, add in 2x5 Rangers, maybe with 2x Arquebus each (AdMech snipers are quite cost efficient now) and an Enginseer.
Other options include Icarus Crawlers for anti-air, Dragoons for a cavalry-like melee vehicle, and Knights. Lol. Everything else Deathwatch can probably handle better or the investment is too great.
Knight Gallant [20 PL, 368pts]: Character (Exalted Court), Character (Heirloom of the House), Heavy Stubber, Heirloom: The Helm Dominatus, Ironstorm Missile Pod, Reaper Chainsword, Thunderstrike gauntlet, Warlord Trait: Knight Seneschal
The only problems i see with the list is that you have 30 troops. I dot know if you are playing the new CA 18 missions there but they require more bodies now, so i would tend to aim for 50 troops minimum. One more thing, i dont think the relic on the Dominus is worth it, he will barely be in combat so maybe take the pimp cane instead to get max usuage out of the relic.
I only have that relic as I'm converting my own dominus and it's going to have a lot of mechadendrites.
I see your point about bodies, but I can't see what's worth losing. The crawlers and armigers are my anti tank and dragoons and knights are my heavy hitting sponges. They're there to take hits and hit hard while tanks and bodies do what they need.
I've played with this list once and I did lose but I think I need to learn to focus fire more and not split the armigers. I also totally forgot about the Knights relic.
Knight Gallant [20 PL, 368pts]: Character (Exalted Court), Character (Heirloom of the House), Heavy Stubber, Heirloom: The Helm Dominatus, Ironstorm Missile Pod, Reaper Chainsword, Thunderstrike gauntlet, Warlord Trait: Knight Seneschal
The only problems i see with the list is that you have 30 troops. I dot know if you are playing the new CA 18 missions there but they require more bodies now, so i would tend to aim for 50 troops minimum. One more thing, i dont think the relic on the Dominus is worth it, he will barely be in combat so maybe take the pimp cane instead to get max usuage out of the relic.
I only have that relic as I'm converting my own dominus and it's going to have a lot of mechadendrites.
I see your point about bodies, but I can't see what's worth losing. The crawlers and armigers are my anti tank and dragoons and knights are my heavy hitting sponges. They're there to take hits and hit hard while tanks and bodies do what they need.
I've played with this list once and I did lose but I think I need to learn to focus fire more and not split the armigers. I also totally forgot about the Knights relic.
Why alot of mechadendrites can also be curator variants so they can be the autocadaeus, it doesnt have to resemble a pimp cane. My own warlord is Scoria + scallax mechadendrite tail sections and then the Lectro Maester voltagheist on his back and the voltaic pistol in one arm, a omnissian axe in the other and a servo arm with the red corsairs conversion beamer as his heavy weapon. And thats my Arch Magos Biologist Samekh Umbra
Automatically Appended Next Post: Has anyone thought about including Larsen Van Der Grauss in a mixed Admech detachment? He can teleport for 1CP, increase his save and attacks by 1 when by an objective (not that great) and is a 22pt elite slot character from mars!
I ran both in Nov larsen.is awesome but he does use a whole detatchment as you have to take elucidia with him at minimum. If your tunning a third detatchment hes a valid choice. As a single model he cant take his own strategems but is a valid target for admech strategems
What do you guys think of fire warriors and scouts as servitor models. Are they good alternatives? Which do you prefare, dont want to pay too much but if you have other ideas pls tell me.
Different weapons ofcourse, change the head to hoodless ranger heads and remove the big shoulder pat/s, lastly adding wires from the skitarii backpacks
Knight Gallant [20 PL, 368pts]: Character (Exalted Court), Character (Heirloom of the House), Heavy Stubber, Heirloom: The Helm Dominatus, Ironstorm Missile Pod, Reaper Chainsword, Thunderstrike gauntlet, Warlord Trait: Knight Seneschal
The only problems i see with the list is that you have 30 troops. I dot know if you are playing the new CA 18 missions there but they require more bodies now, so i would tend to aim for 50 troops minimum. One more thing, i dont think the relic on the Dominus is worth it, he will barely be in combat so maybe take the pimp cane instead to get max usuage out of the relic.
I only have that relic as I'm converting my own dominus and it's going to have a lot of mechadendrites.
I see your point about bodies, but I can't see what's worth losing. The crawlers and armigers are my anti tank and dragoons and knights are my heavy hitting sponges. They're there to take hits and hit hard while tanks and bodies do what they need.
I've played with this list once and I did lose but I think I need to learn to focus fire more and not split the armigers. I also totally forgot about the Knights relic.
Why alot of mechadendrites can also be curator variants so they can be the autocadaeus, it doesnt have to resemble a pimp cane. My own warlord is Scoria + scallax mechadendrite tail sections and then the Lectro Maester voltagheist on his back and the voltaic pistol in one arm, a omnissian axe in the other and a servo arm with the red corsairs conversion beamer as his heavy weapon. And thats my Arch Magos Biologist Samekh Umbra
Automatically Appended Next Post: Has anyone thought about including Larsen Van Der Grauss in a mixed Admech detachment? He can teleport for 1CP, increase his save and attacks by 1 when by an objective (not that great) and is a 22pt elite slot character from mars!
Larsen is admech and mars so can be targetted by admech strategems but they didnt give him the faction keyword so he can't be taken in a admech detatchment only an elucidean starstriders one. His main thing is that for 1cp he can redeploy great for objective grabbing jowever he only gets access to this strategem if you take elucidia vhane.
Hes not bad for 22pts and an elite slot, just cant fit in an Admech Detachment as he doesnt have them as his faction, he just has mars and admech as his keyword. They just should give use a lectro maester as a new option for us, providing a 5++ aura for units within 6".
I would take one every time if that were the case.
Aaranis wrote: With three squads I'm sure to cover my backfield and most of the objectives my side of the board. I can spread them to deny DS in my back and will always have LoS on characters. I'm not bothered that they're not moving because the rest of my list is going to cover the board. I'm sure it would work, I may not be the best choice but in my meta and with the looks of our tables it's easier to understand.
Massed Mortar fire can and will kill them from out of LOS. That is something I am coming to appreciate about Catachans. I can delete a unit of GEQs every turn while hiding in magic bunkers.
There's only a single player using mortars in my meta so it's not really a concern, and not a lot of LoS blocking terrain either, so no worries this side of things.
deffrekka wrote: Hes not bad for 22pts and an elite slot, just cant fit in an Admech Detachment as he doesnt have them as his faction, he just has mars and admech as his keyword. They just should give use a lectro maester as a new option for us, providing a 5++ aura for units within 6".
I would take one every time if that were the case.
Isnt that the same as Cawl though? As long as you take him in a Mars sub-faction detachment it should be fine.
deffrekka wrote: Hes not bad for 22pts and an elite slot, just cant fit in an Admech Detachment as he doesnt have them as his faction, he just has mars and admech as his keyword. They just should give use a lectro maester as a new option for us, providing a 5++ aura for units within 6".
I would take one every time if that were the case.
Isnt that the same as Cawl though? As long as you take him in a Mars sub-faction detachment it should be fine.
No Cawl has Admech and Mars in his Faction Keyword, Van Der Grauss has Starstriders in his, then his keywords have Mars and Admech. So he CAN be affected by Admech abilities and Strats but taking him in the same detachment will lose the benefits of being pure Admech. To use his strats however you need Elucia Vhane.
Stupid and strange rules writing in my eyes. In his lore he is from a set of Tech Priests called Lectro Maesters that forgeworlds send out to find new sources of power and fuel. The Electro Priests view them as there prophets, but yet we cant get them.... I would of just added a short 1 page pdf or CA2018 page for the Lectro Maesters to be a unit for Admech and boom 3rd HQ choice that isnt Cawl and provided a boosted invun save to our units instead of more heals like the Enginseer.
The RT and Blackstone Fortress characters seem to show that GW isn’t interested in using these releases to give us new useful and viable characters. Maybe because if they were good, we’d all complain about having to buy these expensive games just to use one fig in our army that we’d miss out not including?
I wouldn’t expect them to get useful rules changes until they were available separately anyway.
Unrelated topic, I ran against nids tonight and still struggle there. It feels like his shooting is able to keep up with mine (except robots) and I spend my entire list just trying to hold off the melee portions of his list so get eaten up by both melee and shooting. Robits then get in close combat and stuck there and die. Hrm. Need to space them out better I guess.
Pomguo wrote: The RT and Blackstone Fortress characters seem to show that GW isn’t interested in using these releases to give us new useful and viable characters. Maybe because if they were good, we’d all complain about having to buy these expensive games just to use one fig in our army that we’d miss out not including?
I wouldn’t expect them to get useful rules changes until they were available separately anyway.
Unrelated topic, I ran against nids tonight and still struggle there. It feels like his shooting is able to keep up with mine (except robots) and I spend my entire list just trying to hold off the melee portions of his list so get eaten up by both melee and shooting. Robits then get in close combat and stuck there and die. Hrm. Need to space them out better I guess.
Given the point decreases, maybe running flamers might be a good idea to increase your Overwatch ?
Pomguo wrote: The RT and Blackstone Fortress characters seem to show that GW isn’t interested in using these releases to give us new useful and viable characters. Maybe because if they were good, we’d all complain about having to buy these expensive games just to use one fig in our army that we’d miss out not including?
I wouldn’t expect them to get useful rules changes until they were available separately anyway.
Unrelated topic, I ran against nids tonight and still struggle there. It feels like his shooting is able to keep up with mine (except robots) and I spend my entire list just trying to hold off the melee portions of his list so get eaten up by both melee and shooting. Robits then get in close combat and stuck there and die. Hrm. Need to space them out better I guess.
What list did you run Pomguo?
Maybe try a more assault focused list to respond to this, Metallica, Graia and Agripinaa are all built around the assault phase with either shooting into combat, falling back and shooting or better overwatch. Instead of fielding more chaff try out more dragoons and even infiltrators to combat them on your terms. Valhallan guardsmen may help too with shooting into allied combats and i would take vanguard over rangers in this match up as well.
As for flamers, they all went down except orks. Flamers are 6pts heavy flamers are 14pts, havent checked hand flamers yet.
I would recommend Dragoons against Nids. He will struggle to kill them effectively and they are good against Genestealer due to high number of attacks and wounding on 2+ plus they can also handle the heavier stuff.
Also have some counter charge elements with high number of attacks backed up by a squad of Vanguard with their -1 aura. For example Infiltrators or BA scouts will be wounding Genestealer on 2+, Catachan Guardsman on 3+.
Aaranis wrote: With three squads I'm sure to cover my backfield and most of the objectives my side of the board. I can spread them to deny DS in my back and will always have LoS on characters. I'm not bothered that they're not moving because the rest of my list is going to cover the board. I'm sure it would work, I may not be the best choice but in my meta and with the looks of our tables it's easier to understand.
Massed Mortar fire can and will kill them from out of LOS. That is something I am coming to appreciate about Catachans. I can delete a unit of GEQs every turn while hiding in magic bunkers.
There's only a single player using mortars in my meta so it's not really a concern, and not a lot of LoS blocking terrain either, so no worries this side of things.
Ah. Well, I tend to offer generalized advice since I obviously do not know everyone's meta.
Which reminds me. I need to find a bigger game store in the SF Bay Area that does tourneys. AdMech may be competitive again.
Pomguo wrote: The RT and Blackstone Fortress characters seem to show that GW isn’t interested in using these releases to give us new useful and viable characters. Maybe because if they were good, we’d all complain about having to buy these expensive games just to use one fig in our army that we’d miss out not including?
I wouldn’t expect them to get useful rules changes until they were available separately anyway.
Unrelated topic, I ran against nids tonight and still struggle there. It feels like his shooting is able to keep up with mine (except robots) and I spend my entire list just trying to hold off the melee portions of his list so get eaten up by both melee and shooting. Robits then get in close combat and stuck there and die. Hrm. Need to space them out better I guess.
Given the point decreases, maybe running flamers might be a good idea to increase your Overwatch ?
Nids and Orks have always been a real concern. Hence why I have Straken, MiniPriest, 50 Catachans, 10 Vanguard. INFANTRY! Don't skimp on them.
Anyhow, I would recommend Infiltrators and maybe Dragoons for screening. Deploy them with your line, of course; they are going to come to you, no doubt.
This is a good point. Phosphor Blasters or Cognis Flamers on Kataphrons? Blasters are nice because you can split fire them into infantry. Flamers are a good insurance policy against charges. Anyone with experience actually running these things care to chime in?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Aaranis wrote: Ours did, Cognis flamers are now 8 and the Incendine combustor is 15.
Actually, they are 7, per the ebook in my hands. Lol.
Also, Cognis Heavy Stubbers went down to 2. A must-take at that price.
Don't worry your advice is appreciated ! That's why I told you about my local meta setup. There's not many Guard players all in all.
As for Flamers on Kataphrons, in my Agripinaa-Lucius list I plan on using them agressively, advancing up the field. I believe flamers are nice in this role. Blasters can be nice too, at 9" they're 6 heavy bolter shots for 3 models, that ignore cover. But the better Overwatch is an attractive option as I get charged quite often.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And yes we've been saying it, Cognis heavy stunners on Onagers are no-brainer now.
Aaranis wrote: Don't worry your advice is appreciated ! That's why I told you about my local meta setup. There's not many Guard players all in all.
As for Flamers on Kataphrons, in my Agripinaa-Lucius list I plan on using them agressively, advancing up the field. I believe flamers are nice in this role. Blasters can be nice too, at 9" they're 6 heavy bolter shots for 3 models, that ignore cover. But the better Overwatch is an attractive option as I get charged quite often.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And yes we've been saying it, Cognis heavy stunners on Onagers are no-brainer now.
Heavy stunners are your onagers wearing 6" heels, make up and fake nails?
Yeah sure if you use Guard allies treat yourself, it's way more effective. I only have AdMech and Dark Angels though, so my only screens are Skitarii. Dragoons are quite nice for that role when not infiltrated. Of course if I play against a shooty army that problem disappears.
Im actually thinking of taking Vostroyans as my guard ally instead of Valhallans. There order works when they are in close combat unlike the Valhallans which allows them to shoot into CC with risk of hitting allies, but alos Vostroyans have the better stratagem of +1 to hit for a unit and there rapid fire and heavy weapons get +6" range with weapons witha range of 24" and higher. This means i can deploy further back if needed and still get to shoot at peak efficiency!
Plus my Solar Auxilia will suit the heirloom look of the First Born.
U02dah4 wrote: Catachans tacking on a basilisk and making it emporers wrath to double fire seems too strong especialy given we dont have non LOS fireing
Id probably go with a wyvern, 8d6 shots reroll to hit and wound ignore cover and -1 ap on 6s to wound.
There is certainly a strong argument for the wyvern its certainly good at killing that boxed in infantry squad but the things the wyvern is great at killing we already have lots to deal with as we pack a ton of low S firepower
The basilisk on the other hand 2d6 (each d6 of which is determined by best of 3d6) S9 AP2 might have a quarter of the shots but its going to knock a fair few W off that backfield knight/vehicle
U02dah4 wrote: There is certainly a strong argument for the wyvern its certainly good at killing that boxed in infantry squad but the things the wyvern is great at killing we already have lots to deal with as we pack a ton of low S firepower
The basilisk on the other hand 2d6 (each d6 of which is determined by best of 3d6) S9 AP2 might have a quarter of the shots but its going to knock a fair few W off that backfield knight/vehicle
Well a Wyvern is used to hit targets we cant see, thats infantry that are hiding, weakened vehicles, counter artillery tactics vs mortars, mekgunz, thudd guns, other basilisks. We dont have a hard time hitting backfield vehicles as they are quite hard to actually hide effectively, and as Admech we arent lacking in ways to deal with armour. Plasma, Wrath of Mars, Onagers, Dragoons, etc.
A Wyvern double firing with reroll to hit, wound and 6's do ap1 kills 13 GEQ to the basilisks (reroll to hit, double fire and +1 ap on 6s to wound) 6. MEQ its 5.83 to 4. VEQ 4.47 to 6.67 damage and finally 2.72 to 5.33 against KEQ. So overall i think the Wyvern is the better all rounder, it can switch between targets reasonably well .
If your list is lacking AT plug it with basilisks, if your list is struggling to kill pesky infantry hiding out of LOS use a Wyvern. This then gets pretty juicy with the new CA2018 missions. Killing all infantry, units with fly (jetbikes) and characters is what we should be aiming towards nowadays and i know the one thing i struggle with is infantry units hiding out of LOS on objectives i cant currently reach without loosing rangers or vanguard.
My list wasn’t particularly competitive so was likely largely my own fault, but I did also run a more competitive list a few months back and get trounced even worse (dragoons chewed up by stealers, etc).
Graia Batt
5x Rangers (1 arc)
5x Rangers (1 arc)
5x Vanguard (plasma)
Dominus (cheapest loadout, warlord with Prime Hermeticon and Techno Mitre)
Enginseer
10 Hoplites
12 Fulgurites
3 twin las ironstriders
2x double cognis neutron onagers
Had the hoplites and skitarii arrayed in a wide screen out of the exocrine’s range, forcing it to move first turn and give up double shots (tho not suffer -1 to hit, thanks to Onslaught in the psychic phase). The fulgurites wrapped one side of the tank+chicken firebase, and the custodes wrapped the rest. Turn 1 was successful in that the first turn charge genestealers failed to do anything except penetrate my screens, didn’t touch the custodes and fulgurites - and I killed the swarmlord with the lascannons (only did 3 damage to the exocrine with both onagers combined).
Counter charge was also nasty, with the custodes handily wiping that first genstealer blob.
Turn 2 his warriors and exocrine and hive guard decimated the custodes, taking them down to 2 guys (and a flyrant killed 2/3 ironstriders). I popped the auto-pass morale strat and then the “+1 attack for every model that died this battle round” strat to make them still attack 18 times against the second genestealers that couldn’t reach me due to the dead swarmlord. Sadly only killed 6 so died to the counterattack. Fulgurites got locked in combat with the two trygons and wiped both in turn 3. Assassins didn’t manage to kill much but at least made his flyrant run away and the eversor kept the hiveguard tied up in combat for a turn before dying.
By the end of turn 4, we called it due to his objective play leading by 10VPs. All the custodes units were dead, along with two ironstriders, all the hoplites, most skitarii, and all the assassins.
I think I might drop the assassins but with that neurothrope and gant/gaunt screens I feel like I need something able to reach the backfield to be competitive. Should probably get a less expensive countercharge than custodes too, though they did absorb a ton of fire and did a lot of hurt before they died. Robots with flamers sounds strong but I’d need to be less of an idiot when deploying, to avoid consolidation shenanigans that skip overwatch. Hard to do while keeping them in 6” of the dominus and kataphrons I feel.
My list wasn’t particularly competitive so was likely largely my own fault, but I did also run a more competitive list a few months back and get trounced even worse (dragoons chewed up by stealers, etc).
Graia Batt
5x Rangers (1 arc)
5x Rangers (1 arc)
5x Vanguard (plasma)
Dominus (cheapest loadout, warlord with Prime Hermeticon and Techno Mitre)
Enginseer
10 Hoplites
12 Fulgurites
3 twin las ironstriders
2x double cognis neutron onagers
Had the hoplites and skitarii arrayed in a wide screen out of the exocrine’s range, forcing it to move first turn and give up double shots (tho not suffer -1 to hit, thanks to Onslaught in the psychic phase). The fulgurites wrapped one side of the tank+chicken firebase, and the custodes wrapped the rest. Turn 1 was successful in that the first turn charge genestealers failed to do anything except penetrate my screens, didn’t touch the custodes and fulgurites - and I killed the swarmlord with the lascannons (only did 3 damage to the exocrine with both onagers combined).
Counter charge was also nasty, with the custodes handily wiping that first genstealer blob.
Turn 2 his warriors and exocrine and hive guard decimated the custodes, taking them down to 2 guys (and a flyrant killed 2/3 ironstriders). I popped the auto-pass morale strat and then the “+1 attack for every model that died this battle round” strat to make them still attack 18 times against the second genestealers that couldn’t reach me due to the dead swarmlord. Sadly only killed 6 so died to the counterattack. Fulgurites got locked in combat with the two trygons and wiped both in turn 3. Assassins didn’t manage to kill much but at least made his flyrant run away and the eversor kept the hiveguard tied up in combat for a turn before dying.
By the end of turn 4, we called it due to his objective play leading by 10VPs. All the custodes units were dead, along with two ironstriders, all the hoplites, most skitarii, and all the assassins.
I think I might drop the assassins but with that neurothrope and gant/gaunt screens I feel like I need something able to reach the backfield to be competitive. Should probably get a less expensive countercharge than custodes too, though they did absorb a ton of fire and did a lot of hurt before they died. Robots with flamers sounds strong but I’d need to be less of an idiot when deploying, to avoid consolidation shenanigans that skip overwatch. Hard to do while keeping them in 6” of the dominus and kataphrons I feel.
Do you find the custodes to be affective? Instead of the assassins to hit the back lines have you tried artillery units like mortars, basilisks and wyverns?
I used to use 2 eversor and a Callidus assassin in my 2k list and they do fit a role admech have trouble with, but I find they die after they have done there task, just fire and forget missiles for a turn.
I would probably drop the balistarii for another neutron Onager and reinforce your mainline infantry some more.
U02dah4 wrote: There is certainly a strong argument for the wyvern its certainly good at killing that boxed in infantry squad but the things the wyvern is great at killing we already have lots to deal with as we pack a ton of low S firepower
The basilisk on the other hand 2d6 (each d6 of which is determined by best of 3d6) S9 AP2 might have a quarter of the shots but its going to knock a fair few W off that backfield knight/vehicle
Well a Wyvern is used to hit targets we cant see, thats infantry that are hiding, weakened vehicles, counter artillery tactics vs mortars, mekgunz, thudd guns, other basilisks. We dont have a hard time hitting backfield vehicles as they are quite hard to actually hide effectively, and as Admech we arent lacking in ways to deal with armour. Plasma, Wrath of Mars, Onagers, Dragoons, etc.
A Wyvern double firing with reroll to hit, wound and 6's do ap1 kills 13 GEQ to the basilisks (reroll to hit, double fire and +1 ap on 6s to wound) 6. MEQ its 5.83 to 4. VEQ 4.47 to 6.67 damage and finally 2.72 to 5.33 against KEQ. So overall i think the Wyvern is the better all rounder, it can switch between targets reasonably well .
If your list is lacking AT plug it with basilisks, if your list is struggling to kill pesky infantry hiding out of LOS use a Wyvern. This then gets pretty juicy with the new CA2018 missions. Killing all infantry, units with fly (jetbikes) and characters is what we should be aiming towards nowadays and i know the one thing i struggle with is infantry units hiding out of LOS on objectives i cant currently reach without loosing rangers or vanguard.
having thought it tbrough i might be better off ditching both for HWT mortars. -They night be less effective but they are not burning through CP at the rate i mean your spending 2cp+4 perturn to get that one detatchment working just two CP for the double fire is more sustainable at the cost of effectiveness and its not like WoM the servitors or even just the skitarii +1/2to hit consume our CP
U02dah4 wrote: There is certainly a strong argument for the wyvern its certainly good at killing that boxed in infantry squad but the things the wyvern is great at killing we already have lots to deal with as we pack a ton of low S firepower
The basilisk on the other hand 2d6 (each d6 of which is determined by best of 3d6) S9 AP2 might have a quarter of the shots but its going to knock a fair few W off that backfield knight/vehicle
Well a Wyvern is used to hit targets we cant see, thats infantry that are hiding, weakened vehicles, counter artillery tactics vs mortars, mekgunz, thudd guns, other basilisks. We dont have a hard time hitting backfield vehicles as they are quite hard to actually hide effectively, and as Admech we arent lacking in ways to deal with armour. Plasma, Wrath of Mars, Onagers, Dragoons, etc.
A Wyvern double firing with reroll to hit, wound and 6's do ap1 kills 13 GEQ to the basilisks (reroll to hit, double fire and +1 ap on 6s to wound) 6. MEQ its 5.83 to 4. VEQ 4.47 to 6.67 damage and finally 2.72 to 5.33 against KEQ. So overall i think the Wyvern is the better all rounder, it can switch between targets reasonably well .
If your list is lacking AT plug it with basilisks, if your list is struggling to kill pesky infantry hiding out of LOS use a Wyvern. This then gets pretty juicy with the new CA2018 missions. Killing all infantry, units with fly (jetbikes) and characters is what we should be aiming towards nowadays and i know the one thing i struggle with is infantry units hiding out of LOS on objectives i cant currently reach without loosing rangers or vanguard.
having thought it tbrough i might be better off ditching both for HWT mortars. -They night be less effective but they are not burning through CP at the rate i mean your spending 2cp+4 perturn to get that one detatchment working just two CP for the double fire is more sustainable at the cost of effectiveness and its not like WoM the servitors or even just the skitarii +1/2to hit consume our CP
The main difference is that to get the same amount of shots as wyvern you will need 8 mortars which is 88pts, and they wont get reroll to hit or wound and also ignore cover an gain ap1 on 6s to wound. I think that is worth the 2CP to fire again and 2CP to reroll ro hit. You wont need to do it every turn and as Vostroyan you can even trade the reroll to hit for +1 to hit for 1CP less. It is also more durable than those mortar teams and can also charge lock things better if it comes down to it.
Thats a reasonable trade. Either way they both work and with a guard brigade we arent low on CP like other elite armies.
deffrekka wrote: Do you find the custodes to be affective? Instead of the assassins to hit the back lines have you tried artillery units like mortars, basilisks and wyverns?
I used to use 2 eversor and a Callidus assassin in my 2k list and they do fit a role admech have trouble with, but I find they die after they have done there task, just fire and forget missiles for a turn.
I would probably drop the balistarii for another neutron Onager and reinforce your mainline infantry some more.
Custodes were stars, wiping both genestealer blobs and two trigons - but they were stuck doing that fight most of the game and were wittled down to almost nothing by an entire turn’s shooting aimed at the guard (exocrine’s 12 shots, warriors, hive guard and flyrant). But I feel for their cost they probably didn’t pull as much weight as they needed to. The ballistari killed the swarmlord in a turn which stopped the second genestealers from having their double-move and made them sitting ducks for the custodes, but then all the remaining lascannon shots in the entire game did nothing. The neutron onagers meanwhile did 3 damage the exocrine and nothing else all game. They’re my only S8+ shooting but they’re deeply unreliable, both chickens and spiders!
Not sure what I should do short of dragging a knight or IG tanks into the mix. I’m not looking to buy much for a while so large purchases like those are probably a ways off. I guess maybe I’ll just duck Nids for a while haha.
Wyvern wont anyway because most of that dissapears turn 2 when you run out of CP mortars do get reroll 1's to hit because you swap to cadia. You will also run 9 mortars because they come in 3's vengence of cadia potentially allows you do the +1 to hit. If your going to do it 1cp base 1 for warlord 1 for relic then 2 for double fire 2 for reroll hits is 7by t1 11 by t2
Now if in spending 2 before game on my kataphrons and 1 on my relic 3 on bosting kataphrons 2 on WoM and want 4 left
That equals 6cp pre game 7t1 9t2
Even with a brigade and batalion your 2cp over by T2 and im not factoring in resurecting kataphrons or skitarii +1/2 to hit or that im taking an aux detatchment
So really its 8 mortar shots rerolling n shots and wounds at a cost of 1cp + 2 per turn
Vs 9 mortars rerolling 1's to hit at a cost of 0 CP per turn and a saving of 4pts
U02dah4 wrote: Wyvern wont anyway because most of that dissapears turn 2 when you run out of CP mortars do get reroll 1's to hit because you swap to cadia. You will also run 9 mortars because they come in 3's vengence of cadia potentially allows you do the +1 to hit. If your going to do it 1cp base 1 for warlord 1 for relic then 2 for double fire 2 for reroll hits is 7by t1 11 by t2
Now if in spending 2 before game on my kataphrons and 1 on my relic 3 on bosting kataphrons 2 on WoM and want 4 left
That equals 6cp pre game 7t1 9t2
Even with a brigade and batalion your 2cp over by T2 and im not factoring in resurecting kataphrons or skitarii +1/2 to hit or that im taking an aux detatchment
So really its 8 mortar shots rerolling n shots and wounds at a cost of 1cp + 2 per turn
Vs 9 mortars rerolling 1's to hit at a cost of 0 CP per turn and a saving of 4pts
Thats if you are running Cadians which most of us arent, we are either using Catachan, Valhallan or Vostroyan as they fill in weaknesses in our army, which is cheap chaff that help us out in CC. Catachans punch stuff to death, Valhallans shoot into our melees to help clear our robots to keep shooting and Vostroyans shoot into there own melee. Cadians just reroll ones when they stand still, nothing amazing for our army.
For me im not using Mars so thats 2 CP saved there, neither am i using Agripinaa so 3CP saved there too. My army has a Battalion and a Brigade so thats 20CP to begin with. I use 1 on Servitor Maniple, 1 on Emperors Wrath and depending who i am against 1 to boost my destroyers to a 5++. So say we im now at 18CP, i use 2 for Elimination Volley, 1 for Noospheric Mindlock and 1 for Plasma Specialists. I am now at 14CP. From my play testing vs my clubs armies i only really use Plasma Specialists once, that is because after that they have wiped out the targets i want. I ont need to use it again when i can then overcharge without risk of blowing up with NML.
So with these 14CP I can use them on double repair (1CP), Acquisition at all Costs (2CP), Doctrinas (1CP) and other 1CP Admech Strats. So now i have say 12CP left, that is plenty for my Wyvern, it only needs to fire once, and judging whether i need rerolls to hit or not i then use 3/4CP on him, bringing me down to 9CP.
Those 9 mortar teams are 99pts for 9 t3 5+ save 2 wound bases. For 103pts you get a far superior platform that doesnt need to stand still, doesnt need baby sitting by a officer and can also get healed up by an enginseer if it is not taken out. In a purely counter artillery stance it is more effective. It can easily take out 2 whole squads of HWT mortars (13.03 wounds), against hive guard we are getting 2.1 dead, an Astral Aim Dreadnought (you rarely see it) 4.47 damage, Mek Gunz 8.36 damage and other chimera based artillery platforms 4.47 damage. This is double the damage those mortars will do.
And now im not saying mortars are bad, infact they are the opposite, HOWEVER, in the light of the Vigilant Defiant book, the new specialist detachments have now opened up previously subpar units to be alot better and more competitive AKA kataphrons, Wyverns, Ravenwing, other Forgeworlds, etc. So whilst those HWTs may plug gaps in your army, they dont in mine, and i have CP to spare. I am after reliable and consistant anti infanry that are hiding long range out of LOS. An 8D6 weapon with reroll to hit, wound that can get access to a +1 to hit and also ignores cover is leagues ahead of the poor mans mortar.
You may say "But Deffrekka, that Wyvern will get shot at by Basilisks and Castellans" then i welcome that notion! Every AT weapon pointed at my IG half of my list is saving the bacon of my actually killing power in Onagers and Kastelans. Cadians may work but i do not want another section of my army forced to sit around to get reroll 1's to hit, my army is mobile and it plays to the new CA2018 missions, which is model count, characters, fly units and TROOP battlefield type and mobility.
We no longer have an excuse to sit there and castle, fellow Magos we must adapt and take the fight to the enemy!!!
Catachans rarely punch anything to death i mean sure the three attacks s4 sounds nice but given that your made of tissue paper any assault unit just wipes them on the charge meanwhile again because we are tissue paper overwatch tends to half the effectiveness of the squad sure its a strong deterrant but i can think of 1 game out of my last 18 where it mattered.
I think youll find from the data cadians are the second most favoured choice. If im running mortars they are stationary on objectives and the infantry will be on the flanks of my admech. Unless they sit on a midfield objective in which case they will be stationary. They dont need sitting by an officer although you can for the reroll all hits concersely for one of the wyvern bonuses it needs to be near an officer
Again i personally feel you can do 2 of
Servitors of either forgeworld
WoM
Wyvern effectively
What you cant do is all 3. So your ditching WoM im ditching the wyvern and im sure that other list could include the wyvern and WoM at the expense of the servitors
Now if i was playing pure guard im taking your wyvern and my hwt
LexOdin9 wrote: Since when did Tactica Mechanicus become Tactica Astra Militarum? It doesn't say Imperial Guard on my codex...
Yeah I was glad to be moving from Tactica: Imperial Soup when CA and Vigilus came but the last pieces of advice lately have mostly been "add X guards" :/ Not saying they're wrong as sadly missed of the time it IS the most competitive choices because Guard is broken, but I thought the point of the tactica was to speak of mono-Admech, since CA and Vigilus I believe it's really doable to play pure AdMech seriously.
LexOdin9 wrote: Since when did Tactica Mechanicus become Tactica Astra Militarum? It doesn't say Imperial Guard on my codex...
bloody hell, thank you! I was wanting to discuss admec not how catachans should be used. flesh if weak, and their tank tops are showing way too much of it for my liking...
So, do you guys think it is now worth taking two dominii in general lists? It would mean there is at least one more bubble of re-rolling 1's for the army, and would mean there is less of a giant bubble ripe for an assault unit to pop. at 90 points each I could fit them in with my usual list if I drop a few dudes from my naked 10 man skitarii squads, so it would be worth looking at just to provide more area for our dudes to cover?
U02dah4 wrote: Catachans rarely punch anything to death i mean sure the three attacks s4 sounds nice but given that your made of tissue paper any assault unit just wipes them on the charge meanwhile again because we are tissue paper overwatch tends to half the effectiveness of the squad sure its a strong deterrant but i can think of 1 game out of my last 18 where it mattered.
I think youll find from the data cadians are the second most favoured choice. If im running mortars they are stationary on objectives and the infantry will be on the flanks of my admech. Unless they sit on a midfield objective in which case they will be stationary. They dont need sitting by an officer although you can for the reroll all hits concersely for one of the wyvern bonuses it needs to be near an officer
Again i personally feel you can do 2 of
Servitors of either forgeworld
WoM
Wyvern effectively
What you cant do is all 3. So your ditching WoM im ditching the wyvern and im sure that other list could include the wyvern and WoM at the expense of the servitors
Now if i was playing pure guard im taking your wyvern and my hwt
Ork boys and Tyranid Hormagaunts are also made of tissue paper and Boyz only get 3 attack at 19 and below and 4 at 20 and above. Catachans move quicker, get orders, have a better save, shoot better. So whilst they are made of tissue paper, quantity is a quality all of its own
In regards to pure admech, it can work but 8th as a whole isnt just about being one army anymore unless you are forced to ala Orkz, Tau and Necrons. We have the same keyword and hence they are part of our pool of units to choose from. And for all intensive purposes, some people use there imperial guard as Tech Guard for the Admech. The forces of the Mechanicus is so much wider than what we got from our codex. We should have Hyspasists, Cataphractii, Protectors, Praetorians, Perfecturia, Sagitarii and Balisteria not to mention different Tech Priests that arent under the Dominus class.
So in that sense surely we are allowed to discuss Imperial guard who are aligned to a forgeworld are we not? Its like Deathguard taking allies from Renegades or Nurgle Daemons, it is both Fluffy and in the spirit of the game to have a combined arms force.
LexOdin9 wrote: Since when did Tactica Mechanicus become Tactica Astra Militarum? It doesn't say Imperial Guard on my codex...
bloody hell, thank you! I was wanting to discuss admec not how catachans should be used. flesh if weak, and their tank tops are showing way too much of it for my liking...
So, do you guys think it is now worth taking two dominii in general lists? It would mean there is at least one more bubble of re-rolling 1's for the army, and would mean there is less of a giant bubble ripe for an assault unit to pop. at 90 points each I could fit them in with my usual list if I drop a few dudes from my naked 10 man skitarii squads, so it would be worth looking at just to provide more area for our dudes to cover?
I only take 2 if i am running 2 detachments, otherwise i have a enginseer as my 2nd / 3rd HQ of a detachment. He is still quite expensive at 90pts if he is only buffing your backlines, but if his at the front taking names and kicking ass then he can quickly get his pts back. Just remember if you get or choose reroll 1s to hit in the shooting phase his aura then becomes redundent.
U02dah4 wrote: Point is at 20 and above ork boys survive to get in you have 30 boys and lose 5 to overwatch 25 get in lots of damage.
You have 10 guardsmen lose 5 to overwatch 5 survive to get in not so much
But your viewing that in a vacuum. 30 boys with no upgrades is 210pts, 10 guardsmen is 40pts. Likelyhood of 30 boys making it into combat isnt the best unless you are EVIL SUNZ and if you get Da Jump off. They can still fail the charge. Your getting 52 Guardsmen for that price, 26 Vanguard or 30 Rangers. Its all about context. And with good placement you can mitigate most of there damage to affect just one unit regardless of Skitarii or Guardsmen chaff.
Then Generally vs Admech, infantry like orkz dont tend to last long when they are staring down the barrels of Kastelans who are now more mobile and accurate than before.
It’s essentially Wulfey’s list from a few pages back with a minor tweak. I have a tournament I’m planning to go to next spring and am considering running this.
It’s essentially Wulfey’s list from a few pages back with a minor tweak. I have a tournament I’m planning to go to next spring and am considering running this.
I like it! thats alot of rangers haha!! do you know what event pack the tournament is using and if it has any limitations? You have alot of bodies and good mobility with the ironstrides and infiltrators. Teh gallant will also kick up a fuss and go all pacific rim on people.
LexOdin9 wrote: Since when did Tactica Mechanicus become Tactica Astra Militarum? It doesn't say Imperial Guard on my codex...
Been that way since the start of 8th, no reason to either, the Faithful 17 is cheaper than the loyal 32
Yeah, but the local 32 are much much more useful. Alone the move move order is so freaking useful. Plus you get nearly twice as many models for screening.
@ Ideasweasel:
Are you set on running the Galant? Otherwise I would maybe consider running some bots instead. Don't know if Cawl is worth it the amount of artillery you have.
Also: You got many CPs but besides WoM not that many interesting things to spend them on.
Most of the times, the primary purpose of Guard is to just stand there and prevent people from charging straight into your dudes. They also can be sacrificed to grab objectives with ObSec.
Catachans punch other GEQs to death. You can very easily swarm over Fire Warriors or non-Catachan Guardsmen. The time that they buy against Orks or Nids is priceless. They also do a fair job against MEQs if you pair them with Vanguard.
And that is why I talk about Guard. Because AdMech+Guard is superior to either AdMech or Guard alone.
This all being said, all of my Guardsmen are actually Skitarii using Guard rules. So it doesn't feel unfluffy to me at all.
But at the same time, surely there's an IG tactica page you can discuss them on? I'd like to see more discussion of admech units on here and less discussion of IG units.
It's an AdMech army with some Guard elements, not the other way around. Many competitive AdMech armies will have Guardsmen in them (as is the case with most Imperium armies), but very few competitive Guard armies will have AdMech in them.
It's honestly unavoidable given how strong and flexible Guard is in this infantry-dominated meta.
Well we are advocateing mostly admech with a tiny portion of guard not mostly guard with a tiny portion of admech so the admech thread is more appropriate. Also rifle through the other tactica threads and you will find ally discussions are common.
You want to discuss mono we wont stop you. I will even contribute my opinion - i don't think its a good tactical choice when soups an option- I might even go as far as to suggest its as good a choice as playing mono inquisition.
We however want to discuss competative building of admech as its a tactica thread and part of that is discussing the best allies.
I don't really have a problem with soup, I run AdMech + QuestorMech.
Really, it's just seeing so much Guard discussion that is getting a bit annoying. I'd love to see some serious discussion about any other faction as allies for AdMech, anything except more IG.
I'm being a bit petty about it but I'll get over it.
LexOdin9 wrote: Since when did Tactica Mechanicus become Tactica Astra Militarum? It doesn't say Imperial Guard on my codex...
Been that way since the start of 8th, no reason to either, the Faithful 17 is cheaper than the loyal 32
Yeah, but the local 32 are much much more useful. Alone the move move order is so freaking useful. Plus you get nearly twice as many models for screening.
@ Ideasweasel:
Are you set on running the Galant? Otherwise I would maybe consider running some bots instead. Don't know if Cawl is worth it the amount of artillery you have.
Also: You got many CPs but besides WoM not that many interesting things to spend them on.
Cawl is there for the reroll bubble and at 190 points he is just great. I’m not totally set on the Gallant but I wanted something with a bit of melee punch to handle the big stuff and push up if needed. I’m a bit bored of the dakkabot bucket of dice approach. I get it’s the best unit in the dex but I wanted to try a more mobile force that doesn’t just pitch a tent and stay in one place the whole game
I think without shooty robots Cawl struggles to be worth the points. Him, the robots, and kataphron destroyers exist in this neat synergistic unit that becomes drastically worse if you remove one piece.
Mobile admech is fun and can work at less-than-competitive levels, but Cawl isn’t really a good fit for that kinda list imo. Not just the 100 point saving, but getting out of Mars can help such lists massively!
And I realized a significant portion of the community does not agree that "as if it were the X phase" satisfies "in the X phase."
Thing is, I have always played that way, and all of the rulings on the matter (which I have posted in the linked thread) seem to agree. Specifically, the rulings concerning Fire and Fade, Opportunistic Advance, and Auspex Scan.
What is everyone's thoughts on the matter? Because if it is true, Infoslave Skull is a lot less powerful than I'd thought. Though to be fair, it may be covered by the Auspex Scan ruling, so maybe we can get away with using Shooting phase stratagems like Noospheric Mindlock and Dominus rerolls on our Kataphrons.
And I realized a significant portion of the community does not agree that "as if it were the X phase" satisfies "in the X phase."
Thing is, I have always played that way, and all of the rulings on the matter (which I have posted in the linked thread) seem to agree. Specifically, the rulings concerning Fire and Fade, Opportunistic Advance, and Auspex Scan.
What is everyone's thoughts on the matter? Because if it is true, Infoslave Skull is a lot less powerful than I'd thought. Though to be fair, it may be covered by the Auspex Scan ruling, so maybe we can get away with using Shooting phase stratagems like Noospheric Mindlock and Dominus rerolls on our Kataphrons.
I know its a different system but in AoS if something happens as if it were the shooting phase for example, it doesnt actually get the benefits of being the shooting phase. For example my Blood stalkers can fire in the hero phase. When they shoot they get MWs on a 6 to hit in the shooting phase, but not in the hero phase. GW faqd it that way.
So maybe the same can be said for 40k, just like our reroll 1 aura from Dominus can be used in overwatch. Technically it isnt that phase, you are just allowed to act out of sequence in a sense.
@deffrekka ha no way, small world. I’m trying to convince some buddies to come down but worst case scenario I go down solo. I have a good mate who lives in Manchester so can hang out with him in the evenings
I live in Scotland so it’s a bit of a mission heading down
Ideasweasel wrote: @deffrekka ha no way, small world. I’m trying to convince some buddies to come down but worst case scenario I go down solo. I have a good mate who lives in Manchester so can hang out with him in the evenings
I live in Scotland so it’s a bit of a mission heading down
I pretty much live on the outskirts of Manchester! In August i run my own tournament down there during Britcon
So for those of you who are considering aggressive Kastelan shoot bots, what's your opinion on the heavy flamer they can take opposed to a 3rd heavy phosphor blaster. I'm going to look at it from Metallica pov but you're welcome to chime in for your fw.
Heavy phosphor
+More range
+Consistent
+Interacts with the new strategem better as well as better using things like elimination volley
+Better AP, strength, and ignores cover
-more CP hungry
-not as effective for overwatch
-once strategems are down robot firepower drops off dramatically on the move
-vulnerable to debuffs and -1 oenalties
Incendine combustor
+Ignores BS penalties for movement, -1 hit shenanigans, lack of strats
+Makes robot far more effective in overwatch, with protector and several bots can make them untouchable to all but the most serious assault units
+12" range ensures there's no magic window to charge from where you cannot shoot them minus charging from out of LOS -cuts into ranged output
-less ap, especially against targets with cover
-is primarily a defensive upgrade on a unit that needs to be busting heads every turn
-gains far less from strategems
I feel the only way to figure this out is trial and error but I'm interested in hearing your opinions. Triple heavy phosphor allows you to revert to classic Dakkabots mode if the need arises. With incendine combustor you are committed to the mid fight. On the other hand incendine combustor ensure you're far more likely to survive the midnight without being tied up in combat with a guard squad or something.
For reference, if my mathhammer is about right, 4 kastelan with incendine/double phosphor drops about 21~22 orks on the charge in protector mode. Not perfect but that will seriously maim most fast horde assault units like nids or orks that Admech would traditionally worry about, especially if you are relying on skitarii screens or pushing them up the middle to hold an objective. The tradoff is you're losing 24 heavy phosphor shots a turn you do this in protector mode and you're not guaranteed to have enemy units in range to use the incendine combustors.
And I realized a significant portion of the community does not agree that "as if it were the X phase" satisfies "in the X phase."
Thing is, I have always played that way, and all of the rulings on the matter (which I have posted in the linked thread) seem to agree. Specifically, the rulings concerning Fire and Fade, Opportunistic Advance, and Auspex Scan.
What is everyone's thoughts on the matter? Because if it is true, Infoslave Skull is a lot less powerful than I'd thought. Though to be fair, it may be covered by the Auspex Scan ruling, so maybe we can get away with using Shooting phase stratagems like Noospheric Mindlock and Dominus rerolls on our Kataphrons.
I think you are getting confused a bit here. Infoslave skull activates a unit as if it were the shooting phase, the re-roll auras come from other units that specify 'in the shooting phase'. So they cant apply to infoslave units as the aura is from a unit that is not in the shooting phase.
MrMoustaffa wrote: So for those of you who are considering aggressive Kastelan shoot bots, what's your opinion on the heavy flamer they can take opposed to a 3rd heavy phosphor blaster. I'm going to look at it from Metallica pov but you're welcome to chime in for your fw.
Heavy phosphor
+More range
+Consistent
+Interacts with the new strategem better as well as better using things like elimination volley
+Better AP, strength, and ignores cover
-more CP hungry
-not as effective for overwatch
-once strategems are down robot firepower drops off dramatically on the move
-vulnerable to debuffs and -1 oenalties
Incendine combustor
+Ignores BS penalties for movement, -1 hit shenanigans, lack of strats
+Makes robot far more effective in overwatch, with protector and several bots can make them untouchable to all but the most serious assault units
+12" range ensures there's no magic window to charge from where you cannot shoot them minus charging from out of LOS -cuts into ranged output
-less ap, especially against targets with cover
-is primarily a defensive upgrade on a unit that needs to be busting heads every turn
-gains far less from strategems
I feel the only way to figure this out is trial and error but I'm interested in hearing your opinions. Triple heavy phosphor allows you to revert to classic Dakkabots mode if the need arises. With incendine combustor you are committed to the mid fight. On the other hand incendine combustor ensure you're far more likely to survive the midnight without being tied up in combat with a guard squad or something.
For reference, if my mathhammer is about right, 4 kastelan with incendine/double phosphor drops about 21~22 orks on the charge in protector mode. Not perfect but that will seriously maim most fast horde assault units like nids or orks that Admech would traditionally worry about, especially if you are relying on skitarii screens or pushing them up the middle to hold an objective. The tradoff is you're losing 24 heavy phosphor shots a turn you do this in protector mode and you're not guaranteed to have enemy units in range to use the incendine combustors.
I think the combustor may be a good loadout but the main issue i see is that your not gonna use them turn 1 from the get go! With the triple phosphors you will most likely start earning pts back dtraight away. I assume your going Metallica or Lucius? If the whole army is built around advancing to the mid field id say yeah go for it! If not stay as the triple phosphors.
Not a fan of moving shooty bots agressively, the -1 to hit for moving with heavy weapons makes them giant orks without dakka rule hitting on 5s
As far as the general conversation, I think the main annoyance is that in the "Tactica Mechanicus" thread, a significant amount of pages in this discussion are devoted purely to guard tactics and which guard units are best. I would not be exaggerating to say if we got rid of purely guard tactic posts, that half the pages in this thread be gone.
Its understood that currently, guard is the top dog (they deserved a point nerf in CA but meh) and the answer to every imperial army is "Just add a guard bat/loyal 32 to it" is pretty annoying for those that want to mono list. Discussing guard tactics, even as an ally army, isnt really "Tactica Mechanicus"
WrentheFaceless wrote: Not a fan of moving shooty bots agressively, the -1 to hit for moving with heavy weapons makes them giant orks without dakka rule hitting on 5s
Not with strafing fire run and then paired with elimination volley, 3's to hit.
WrentheFaceless wrote: Not a fan of moving shooty bots agressively, the -1 to hit for moving with heavy weapons makes them giant orks without dakka rule hitting on 5s
Not with strafing fire run and then paired with elimination volley, 3's to hit.
One of those only works if you have kataphrons also moving up with them, which dakkabots will severely outpace. The other strat would prevent you from using the kataphron detachment if you're running your bots and kataphrons in the same detachment.
Again also if you're constantly moving you're missing out on half their potential damage by not having them double-tap
Ideasweasel wrote: @deffrekka ha no way, small world. I’m trying to convince some buddies to come down but worst case scenario I go down solo. I have a good mate who lives in Manchester so can hang out with him in the evenings
I live in Scotland so it’s a bit of a mission heading down
I pretty much live on the outskirts of Manchester! In August i run my own tournament down there during Britcon
WrentheFaceless wrote: Not a fan of moving shooty bots agressively, the -1 to hit for moving with heavy weapons makes them giant orks without dakka rule hitting on 5s
Not with strafing fire run and then paired with elimination volley, 3's to hit.
One of those only works if you have kataphrons also moving up with them, which dakkabots will severely outpace. The other strat would prevent you from using the kataphron detachment if you're running your bots and kataphrons in the same detachment.
Again also if you're constantly moving you're missing out on half their potential damage by not having them double-tap
Double tap isnt the be all end all type of move, and its quite easy to have both Kataphrons and Kastelans. I have both in my list in 2 detachments, same forge world so they still benefit each other. There are always solutions to problems. If you are moving up Kastelans why arent you also moving up your Destroyers? It isnt hard to stay within" 6" of each other and you arent necessarily advancing your Kastelans, that only works with Metallica. Instead you use strafing fire to avoid the heavy penalty. When your army moves as a coherent force the synergies stay locked together. Ive had alot of success with my new mobile Admech and i havent even missed double shooting all that much. Maybe if your Mars you will miss it but my Plasma Specialists have been performing very well in all circumstances.
We are no longer forced to castle, be static and rely on Protector Protocols. I never use it turn 2 unless i know my my lines will be compromised anyway.
Hey all, so ive had a small AdMech afmy for awhile (SC + Forgebane) and i havent really touched it, but ive just ordered 2 of the admech christmas bundles and 2 boxes of kataphron. If someone would mind helping me with the list id be grateful. So what ill have is:
Spoiler:
What I currently have assembled:
2x Dominus (volkite/serpenta and Ray/stubber)
2x 5man Rangers with an Arquebus in each
10x Vanguard with 3 plasma
1x Ironstrider with autocannon
1x Dunecrawler with Neutron laser and stubber
Unassembled ill have:
2x Enginseers
20x Skitarii (I was thinking another 10x Vanguard and making the ranger squads 10 each)
10 Infiltrator (Was thinking five and five?)
2x Datasmiths
4x Kastellans (triple phosphor?)
2x Dunexrawlers ( I was thinking Nuetron and Icarus)
6x Kataphrons (maybe 3 and 3?)
This is the list I had in mind, I would really appreciate feed back.
Spoiler:
++ Battalion Detachment +5CP [1191pts] ++
Archeotech Specialist: Archeotech Specialist: 2 Extra Relics (-3CP)
Kastelan Robots [440pts] . Kastelan Robot: Heavy Phosphor Blaster
. . Two Heavy Phosphor Blasters: 2x Heavy Phosphor Blaster
. Kastelan Robot: Heavy Phosphor Blaster
. . Two Heavy Phosphor Blasters: 2x Heavy Phosphor Blaster
. Kastelan Robot: Heavy Phosphor Blaster
. . Two Heavy Phosphor Blasters: 2x Heavy Phosphor Blaster
. Kastelan Robot: Heavy Phosphor Blaster
. . Two Heavy Phosphor Blasters: 2x Heavy Phosphor Blaster
Sicarian Infiltrators [90pts] . Infiltrator Princeps . . Stubcarbine and Power Sword: Power Sword, Stubcarbine
. 4x Sicarian Infiltrator (Stub/Sword): 4x Power Sword, 4x Stubcarbine
+ Heavy Support +
Onager Dunecrawler [119pts]: Broad Spectrum Data-tether, Cognis Heavy Stubber
. Neutron Laser and Cognis Heavy Stubber: Cognis Heavy Stubber, Neutron Laser
Onager Dunecrawler [119pts]: Broad Spectrum Data-tether, Cognis Heavy Stubber
. Neutron Laser and Cognis Heavy Stubber: Cognis Heavy Stubber, Neutron Laser
++ Total: [1996pts] ++
I could always drop the technomartyr relic far a 2 CP gain, and monitor malevolent seems like a good WL trait too
deffrekka wrote: So maybe the same can be said for 40k, just like our reroll 1 aura from Dominus can be used in overwatch. Technically it isnt that phase, you are just allowed to act out of sequence in a sense.
Actually, no it can't.
Lord of the Machine Cult: You can re-roll hit rolls of 1 in the Shooting phase for friendly <FORGE WORLD> units within 6".
Each time a charge is declared against a unit, the target unit can immediately fire Overwatch at the would-be attacker.
Overwatch does not fire "as if it were the Shooting phase."
Envii wrote: I think you are getting confused a bit here. Infoslave skull activates a unit as if it were the shooting phase, the re-roll auras come from other units that specify 'in the shooting phase'. So they cant apply to infoslave units as the aura is from a unit that is not in the shooting phase.
This is exactly what I mean! Why not? I mean, the designers seem to disagree with this rules-lawyering notion. Here, I tracked down some examples:
Ruling explicitly stating that all normal rules of a phase apply when it is as if it were a phase:
Q: If the unit arriving as reinforcements is a Character, can the firing unit shoot at it even if it is not the closest enemy unit?
A: No – unless the firing unit is using a weapon that allows them to target a Character even if it is not the closest enemy unit. This takes place ‘as if it were the Shooting phase’, so all the normal restrictions of the Shooting phase still apply.
Two rulings concerning using a unit ability, rules penalty, and a battlefield rule with a stratagem as if it were a phase:
Q: Which, if any, Movement phase rules apply to a move made with the Fire and Fade Stratagem?
A: All such rules apply
Q: Can a Swooping Hawk unit use Fire and Fade to move over an enemy unit and use the Swooping Hawk Grenade Pack ability? If I use Fire and Fade on a Crimson Hunter, will it crash due to not being able to move its minimum distance? If a unit that can Fly uses Fire and Fade in a Fire and Fury Battlezone, does it have to roll for the Burning Skies special rule?
A: Yes in all cases.
Text of the rules in question:
Fire and Fade 1 CP - You can use this Stratagem after a friendly ASURYANI unit shoots in your Shooting phase. If you do so, the unit can immediately move 7" as if it were the Movement phase (it cannot Advance as part of this move). However, it cannot charge in the same turn that it does so.
Swooping Hawk Grenade Pack: Swooping Hawks can fire a spread of grenades when they are set up on the battlefield using the Children of Baharroth ability and as they fly over enemy units in the Movement phase...
Burning Skies [Battlefield Rule]: Units that can Fly must roll a dice each time they move in the Movement phase...on a roll of 1, they suffer D3 mortal wounds.
Ruling concerning using a stratagem as if it were a phase for unit abilities, another stratagem, and a WLT:
Q: Can the Opportunistic Advance Stratagem be used when a unit is affected by the Swarmlord’s Hive Commander ability, the Overrun Stratagem, or the Mind Eater Warlord Trait?
A: Yes in all cases. Please note the FAQ above regarding moving multiple times in a single phase.
Text of the rules in question:
Opportunistic Advance 1 CP - Use this stratagem in the Movement phase when you roll the dice for an Advancing Kraken unit (other than a unit that can FLY). You can double the number you roll and add that total to their Move characteristic for that Movement phase, rather than following the normal rules for Advancing.
Hive Commander: In each of your Shooting phases, you can pick one friendly <HIVE FLEET> unit within 6" of your Swarmlord. This unit can Move (and Advance, if you wish) as if it were the Movement phase instead of shooting.
Overrun: 1CP - Use this Stratagem when any <TYRANIDS> unit destroys an enemy unit in the Fight phase and is not within 3″ of another enemy unit. Instead of consolidating, that unit can move and Advance as if it were the Movement phase. It cannot move within 1″ of an enemy unit when doing so.
Mind Eater (WLT) Each time the Warlord slays an enemy Character in the Fight phase, choose a friendly <HIVE FLEET> unit within 3". At the end of the phase, that unit can move and Advance as if it were the Movement phase.
Automatically Appended Next Post: In short, I do think that we should be able to use Noospheric Mindlock and Lord of the Machine Cult with Infoslave Skull. Because there are precedents showing that stratagems and unit abilities can be used with stratagems that specify "as if." And I cannot find any evidence that points to the contrary.
deffrekka wrote: So maybe the same can be said for 40k, just like our reroll 1 aura from Dominus can be used in overwatch. Technically it isnt that phase, you are just allowed to act out of sequence in a sense.
Actually, no it can't.
Lord of the Machine Cult: You can re-roll hit rolls of 1 in the Shooting phase for friendly <FORGE WORLD> units within 6".
Each time a charge is declared against a unit, the target unit can immediately fire Overwatch at the would-be attacker.
Overwatch does not fire "as if it were the Shooting phase."
Envii wrote: I think you are getting confused a bit here. Infoslave skull activates a unit as if it were the shooting phase, the re-roll auras come from other units that specify 'in the shooting phase'. So they cant apply to infoslave units as the aura is from a unit that is not in the shooting phase.
This is exactly what I mean! Why not? I mean, the designers seem to disagree with this rules-lawyering notion. Here, I tracked down some examples:
Ruling explicitly stating that all normal rules of a phase apply when it is as if it were a phase:
Q: If the unit arriving as reinforcements is a Character, can the firing unit shoot at it even if it is not the closest enemy unit?
A: No – unless the firing unit is using a weapon that allows them to target a Character even if it is not the closest enemy unit. This takes place ‘as if it were the Shooting phase’, so all the normal restrictions of the Shooting phase still apply.
Two rulings concerning using a unit ability, rules penalty, and a battlefield rule with a stratagem as if it were a phase:
Q: Which, if any, Movement phase rules apply to a move made with the Fire and Fade Stratagem?
A: All such rules apply
Q: Can a Swooping Hawk unit use Fire and Fade to move over an enemy unit and use the Swooping Hawk Grenade Pack ability? If I use Fire and Fade on a Crimson Hunter, will it crash due to not being able to move its minimum distance? If a unit that can Fly uses Fire and Fade in a Fire and Fury Battlezone, does it have to roll for the Burning Skies special rule?
A: Yes in all cases.
Text of the rules in question:
Fire and Fade 1 CP - You can use this Stratagem after a friendly ASURYANI unit shoots in your Shooting phase. If you do so, the unit can immediately move 7" as if it were the Movement phase (it cannot Advance as part of this move). However, it cannot charge in the same turn that it does so.
Swooping Hawk Grenade Pack: Swooping Hawks can fire a spread of grenades when they are set up on the battlefield using the Children of Baharroth ability and as they fly over enemy units in the Movement phase...
Burning Skies [Battlefield Rule]: Units that can Fly must roll a dice each time they move in the Movement phase...on a roll of 1, they suffer D3 mortal wounds.
Ruling concerning using a stratagem as if it were a phase for unit abilities, another stratagem, and a WLT:
Q: Can the Opportunistic Advance Stratagem be used when a unit is affected by the Swarmlord’s Hive Commander ability, the Overrun Stratagem, or the Mind Eater Warlord Trait?
A: Yes in all cases. Please note the FAQ above regarding moving multiple times in a single phase.
Text of the rules in question:
Opportunistic Advance 1 CP - Use this stratagem in the Movement phase when you roll the dice for an Advancing Kraken unit (other than a unit that can FLY). You can double the number you roll and add that total to their Move characteristic for that Movement phase, rather than following the normal rules for Advancing.
Hive Commander: In each of your Shooting phases, you can pick one friendly <HIVE FLEET> unit within 6" of your Swarmlord. This unit can Move (and Advance, if you wish) as if it were the Movement phase instead of shooting.
Overrun: 1CP - Use this Stratagem when any <TYRANIDS> unit destroys an enemy unit in the Fight phase and is not within 3″ of another enemy unit. Instead of consolidating, that unit can move and Advance as if it were the Movement phase. It cannot move within 1″ of an enemy unit when doing so.
Mind Eater (WLT) Each time the Warlord slays an enemy Character in the Fight phase, choose a friendly <HIVE FLEET> unit within 3". At the end of the phase, that unit can move and Advance as if it were the Movement phase.
Automatically Appended Next Post: In short, I do think that we should be able to use Noospheric Mindlock and Lord of the Machine Cult with Infoslave Skull. Because there are precedents showing that stratagems and unit abilities can be used with stratagems that specify "as if." And I cannot find any evidence that points to the contrary.
I thought i put cant haha!!! Sorry about that! Im a quick typer!
Tbh we should just have the same aura ability of Captains/Archons/etc. Why is ours a downgraded version, youd think a Dominus (a Tech Priest that studies war) would be better at providing buffs to shooting than a Space Marine Captain who just gives out orders. The Dominus would be usng his advance cogitators to feed data to his servitors and skitarii to enhance them.
Im not sure i can articulate this well but will try. 1) noospheric mindlock states 'use this stratagem at the start of your shooting phase'. Infoslave is not used in that phase so cant be applied. 2) lord of the machine cult is an aura coming from a dominus that is active only in the shooting phase. If you used infoslave on the dominus then you could argue he can reroll as the stratagem acts as if it were the shooting phase and the dominus has his own rule applicable in that phase., but as no where does it allow his aura to be used outside of that phase on another unit it sadly cannot be used.
Hope that makes sense.
Suzuteo wrote: Ohhh. Okay. I was not sure actually, but I had to make that clear for everyone.
Might want to cut down the quote. That is a wall of text I posted. Haha.
If and when we get a new codex, i really hope they rethink our Tech Priests as a whole. They should be calculated thinking machines not a repair bot. We could have Explorators, Logis, Rune-Priests, Transmechanics, Genetors, Artisans and Lexmechanics with the addition of the 2 we always have. Each one would do a different think and change our army through their skill set. I actually found the first Skitarii codex to be very flavourful and had good options, the Cult Mechanicus codex however wasnt that great. Then we got joined together and stripped us of a lot of our defining traits, it just feels like im playing a skeleton codex. Maybe this is because we were one of the first 5 codexes out, but i think we need an update. And thats not to sound greedy, we used to have scout moves to compensate for the lack of transports, we no longer have that. Our Doctrinas were just a buff each turn from alpha, beta and gamma. Now they are stratagems... Our Canticles are mainly crap and our dunestrider got downgraded to a stratagem youd never use!!!
Ah. I think you are right to say that Noospheric Mindlock cannot be used with Infoslave Skull because it specifies the time that it can be used. But how about Plasma Specialists?
Use this Stratagem before a RYZA unit from your army attacks in the Shooting phase. Add 1 to the wound rolls made for all of that unit’s plasma weapons and increase the damage inflicted by any plasma weapon by 1...
So you think that even though the rules specify "as if it were the Shooting phase," because the Dominus is not affected by that rule, the unit shooting does not benefit from the aura? Hm...
I concur the dominous effects shooting phase only not overwatch. Or strats that act like the shooting phase its just bad GW wording
Yes we need a few more units and a new codex would be nice.
I always felt the defining thing with skitarii was no HQ's and at present while there are rules that benefit skitarii there is nothing to benefit cult mechanicus.
However having just had my first post chapter approved/vigilous game vs orks and having effectively tabled them. (My opponent conceaded T3 with 2 units of boys a warboss and whatever the ork psyker is left)). I am now convinced we can hold our own in competative.
The only lists im unsure of are ironically pure knights where i am forced to play objective as i dont think i have enough AV and monster lists e.g. chaos demon mortarion/magnus princes because my grav/hoplite/eye of xi are less effective
No to Noospheric Mindlock
Yes to Plasma Specialists
??? to Lord of the Machine Cult
I am convinced that Implacable Determination works with Move! Move! Move! though due to that Tyranid ruling.
--
Anyone want to bombard 40kFAQ with these questions? I think this really needs answering.
Can the Plasma Specialists Stratagem be used when a unit shoots with the Infoslave Skull Stratagem?
When a unit shoots with the Infoslave Skull Stratagem, is it affected by Shooting phase aura abilities such as Belisarius Cawl's Lord of Mars or a Tech-Priest Dominus's Lord of the Machine Cult abilities?
I am kinda stumped for LVO. Doing a lot of tinkering. I am pretty set on running some kind of admech spam tho just for feels. At this point it has to be for fluff. Lootas / castellan / chaosHordes / aeldari soup really are better armies in ITC.
Wulfey wrote: I am kinda stumped for LVO. Doing a lot of tinkering. I am pretty set on running some kind of admech spam tho just for feels. At this point it has to be for fluff. Lootas / castellan / chaosHordes / aeldari soup really are better armies in ITC.
So what did you try post CA and what worked and what not?
Is LVO allowing Vigilus Defiant content? I still think the AdMech Cohort+Maniple+Catachans list is going to be a strong contender for one of the top shooting armies. It lets you stack a ton of stratagems on already solid units.
Wulfey wrote: I am kinda stumped for LVO. Doing a lot of tinkering. I am pretty set on running some kind of admech spam tho just for feels. At this point it has to be for fluff. Lootas / castellan / chaosHordes / aeldari soup really are better armies in ITC.
What draws you to Admech then Wulfey? My Dark Eldar are such a better army but i always come back to Admech even though they arent as good. I think for me my opponent has to have a chance and have an enjoyable game for it to be fun for me, and whilst Admech may not seem the best for ITC and ETC events they have their own quirks and tricks that set them apart from the usual tournament lists. We can make our own Loota star with Ryza Kataphrons in a bunker, we can take a Castellan, we can make a Red Tide and Aeldari Soup well we can go Imperial Soup so. At the end of the day we all play specific races because we are attached to them and love them. If we all played the next best thing it'd be quite a boring game and very repetitive! Any getting top 10 / 5 / 3 is still something great, even if you dont claim first place. Its skill, sportsmanship, army's theme and a bit of luck that makes events, not some guy who relies purely on mathammer, min maxing and cheesy combos.
Play it you way buddy! i have 24k points worth or Orkz, will i ever use that much?! Hell no! All my Admech are Forge World Mechanicum conversions, is that affective? Hell no! Ive hand painted gold tribal patterns on every single dark eldar miniature i own! My advice is just take something you think works and looks great, who knows you may surprise someone and nab top 3.
No to Noospheric Mindlock
Yes to Plasma Specialists
??? to Lord of the Machine Cult
I am convinced that Implacable Determination works with Move! Move! Move! though due to that Tyranid ruling.
--
Anyone want to bombard 40kFAQ with these questions? I think this really needs answering.
Can the Plasma Specialists Stratagem be used when a unit shoots with the Infoslave Skull Stratagem?
When a unit shoots with the Infoslave Skull Stratagem, is it affected by Shooting phase aura abilities such as Belisarius Cawl's Lord of Mars or a Tech-Priest Dominus's Lord of the Machine Cult abilities?
Me personally, id say no they dont work unless its the shooting phase. But thats how i play it, i wouldnt stop anyone else doing it, however the only reason i see it that way is the ruling with how they ruled it in AoS, they dont allow abilities that affect the shooting phase to go off when something is done out of sequence as if it were that phase so in that way i dont do it in 40k.
Wulfey wrote: I am kinda stumped for LVO. Doing a lot of tinkering. I am pretty set on running some kind of admech spam tho just for feels. At this point it has to be for fluff. Lootas / castellan / chaosHordes / aeldari soup really are better armies in ITC.
I don't think its that simple take the castellan list it was weakened in the late game at BFQ2 and people build to counter it.
Conversely people don't build or in many cases know how to counter admech.
The castellan list while still strong didn't improve in CA/vigilous while many other armies did that can only reduce its win%
Admech dropped 300pts and received special detatchments that huge it can only increase its win%
We certainly wern't good enough before but i dont think there is enough post CA/vigilous data to see how it has changed the meta/outcomes
Playing the new CA missions, they all seem to be more about board control than before, more in line with how many tourneys run it. In theory I like this, it's a good thing! But I'm stumped as to how I should list build and deploy against an army like the Nids I faced a few days back.
If I bunker up against a guaranteed first-turn charge, then they get to dominate the board for 2-3 turns and rack up endless VPs doing so, as it takes a while to weather successive charges even if I do end up wiping the melee units eventually. I just about managed to screen off a first turn charge last time but it cost me 20 skitarii and was mostly because the opponent was using no dakkafexes and half as many Hive Guard as usual - next time we play those screens will be shot off the board and the charge will reach the valuable stuff in all likelihood.
If I build an assault army that moves into the board, they all die even easier as they're not able to make any first turn charges themselves and tend to be glass cannons that will die to an opponent's charge.
So I guess I feel like Ad Mech is a gun platform (mobile is possible but weaker and not very fast) and a counter-charge army, and neither can compete with devastating first turn charges in a board control game? Or am I just list-building or deploying wrong?
No, you describe what is simply true. You won't have board control back until turn 3. But by then, if you haven't wiped out half of the guy's army, you are doing something wrong.
Again, pure Skitarii are much, much worse than pure Guardsmen or Skitarii+Guardsmen. This is because Skitarii lack force multipliers and in fact actually offer Guardsmen yet another force multiplier.
Vanguard+Catachans gives you a mobile force that lets you threaten other hordes in CC; they also run over GEQs since Catachans have 3x S4 attacks, yet the enemy will become T2 after the Vanguard aura takes effect. Order-spam Cadians or plasma-spam Vostroyans are also much better than Rangers or Vanguard.
Hoplites are great screens vs melee assault armies but large kataphrons or dakka kastellans in agripinaa are not so bad aswell as they will kill a few in overwatch
I would tend to wall across the board with guard on flank heavy shootets on the other and 30 hoplites in the middle. Loseingg 20 skitarii is nothing if it bys the rest a turn.
Most armies wont be taking opposing objectives till turn 2-3
I guess I just don’t have enough infantry haha. And am maybe not choosing the right targets.
Turn 1, 20 genestealers hit me. Turn 2 20 more would’ve hit if I didn’t kill the swarmlord, and dakkafexes would be incoming in future games. It seems to take all my screens and firepower and counter-charge to handle the flying hve tyrant, 40 GSs, swarmlord, and dakkafexes, leaving the Hive Guard and Exocrine to shoot my own shooting to bits, and the game ends with both sides mostly devastated but him sitting on a 10VP lead.
I guess I feel like first turn charge ability paired with great shooting means I’m always one step behind, and my entire army dies just dealing with half of the opponent’s. Wasn’t sure if the solution was more shooting, but seems like maybe it’s more bodies. Thanks!
Yes. You need enough infantry to give you the time to kill their anti-tank shooting and then their melee. Then you can re-establish board control with the surviving infantry. And this is no small ask. Tyranids are really good at killing GEQs. So you may have to hide them in ruins and such on turn one (assuming ITC rules) and then move them into place, either attacking their Gants or castling your Robots in a position with clear LOS on turn two. It all really depends on your board and the distance between the deployments.
They should be way more afraid of your Robots than you their Dakkafexes. I mean, we have less shots, but AP-2 and Wrath of Mars results in way greater final wound output than any Dakkafex or Flyrant could hope to achieve, even with Enhanced Senses and the stratagems to give one MC +1D and reroll failed wounds.
Roast Dakkafexes with Plasma Culverins. These are T7 W8 without any invulnerable save and half the range as your guns. Not a major shooting threat though, in my opinion. I would kill them last.
As for the Flyrants, Hive Guard, and Exocrine, which might actually be a greater threats, take them down with Robots and maybe Crawlers if you have them.
As someone who plays against Nids fairly often:
It's totally normal that you won't be scoring the first turn and also feel like you are losing pretty hard. But that is normal and after you repelled their assaults you have 3 turns or so left for boardcontrol.
Also I can't stress enough how good Dragoons are against Nids :p They are great to screen your artillery against Genestealers and bring a hefty counterpunch with them.
Bonus points if you run Stygies and he targets them with their -2 to hit.
What would you guys run in a 1750pts game with max 2 detachment and 1 needs to be a Batallion?
My first idea was to try a Brigade + Blood Angels, problem is that I can't make the BA a patrol due to the mandatory Batallion.
Second idea was dual Batallion: Maybe 1 with a mobile Stygies gunline and second either Guard or BA.
Also what's everyone's opinion on Kataphrons in a Stygies detachment? Yay or nay?
And to be quite blunt, every army has its weaknesses Pomguo. No single army will trash all lists there are out there. If genestealer rush type armies are you bane maybe just accept it. How often have you fought against Nids in a event and such? I only remember 2 instances where i have been put against nids this edition with my Admech, the first time it came out to a draw and the second time i got beaten by 2 VPs. I think its perfectly fine to admit that your army has a flaw. I would personally advice building towards killing Eldar, GEQ, Knights and Orkz. Anything else just dont plan your list towards.
Ive always found building a TAC list makes your army very weak, as you dont have enough rescources to push any one phase to a great outcome. Instead i always tend to build focused lists that specialist a certain aspect of the game. There was a quite famous quote in the 4th ed rule book from the Lion who describes that if you can force and control one or two aspects of an engagement you will have the upper hand and thats what i try to do, rule 2 phases like for example the shooting and psychic phase or movement and assault.
You should always make your opponent react to you and dont start a plan of action till turn 2. Turn 1 is too unpredictable and chaotic to accurately plan towards.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
lash92 wrote: As someone who plays against Nids fairly often:
It's totally normal that you won't be scoring the first turn and also feel like you are losing pretty hard. But that is normal and after you repelled their assaults you have 3 turns or so left for boardcontrol.
Also I can't stress enough how good Dragoons are against Nids :p They are great to screen your artillery against Genestealers and bring a hefty counterpunch with them.
Bonus points if you run Stygies and he targets them with their -2 to hit.
What would you guys run in a 1750pts game with max 2 detachment and 1 needs to be a Batallion?
My first idea was to try a Brigade + Blood Angels, problem is that I can't make the BA a patrol due to the mandatory Batallion.
Second idea was dual Batallion: Maybe 1 with a mobile Stygies gunline and second either Guard or BA.
Also what's everyone's opinion on Kataphrons in a Stygies detachment? Yay or nay?
Stygies Kataphrons could work, you trade RAW damage output for better surviability. TBH i dont think we need BA allies anymore, whilst Smash Captains are good we can get more infantry on the board now for the new missions that have come out. Scouts only really do is screen out deepstrikers which you can still do with normal infantry turn 2 for cheaper. Maybe try out some Ravenwing now that they have there attack squadron, it gives mobility and more accurate fire power and the Talon Master isnt a slouch either.
You did the math on Kataphrons IIRC. What´s your recommendation on Grav vs Plasma for Stygies?
Yeah also thought about Dark Angels, Sammael and Talonmaster provide quite good mobility, cant be shot at and have good shooting and melee.
Regarding Blood Angels: I have an idea which I want to test after christmas. Since there seems to be a shift towards board control why don´t we use BA for this. You could take a Batallion with 20 Intercessors, Corbulo, Captain Smash and a relic standard bearer (which all good cheaper).
This gives you:
- 40w with 3+ and 5+++ FnP - ability to heal / revive models
- 40 S5 CQC attacks with a +1 to wound, rerollings 1´s to hit AND to wound, exploding and +6 due to corbulo
- 20 to 40 shots
- Captain smash ofc ^^
For non-Ryza, Grav does better against anything low toughness or less than 3 wounds.
BA Intercessors don't last very long at all. The only way you make MEQs work in 8E is if you can hide them in ruins or deepstrike them, then get close enough to charge and grab them by the buckle. The best way for BA to do this is with Lemartes + Death Company or characters like Mephiston and Smash Captain.
lash92 wrote: You did the math on Kataphrons IIRC. What´s your recommendation on Grav vs Plasma for Stygies?
Yeah also thought about Dark Angels, Sammael and Talonmaster provide quite good mobility, cant be shot at and have good shooting and melee.
Regarding Blood Angels: I have an idea which I want to test after christmas. Since there seems to be a shift towards board control why don´t we use BA for this. You could take a Batallion with 20 Intercessors, Corbulo, Captain Smash and a relic standard bearer (which all good cheaper).
This gives you:
- 40w with 3+ and 5+++ FnP - ability to heal / revive models
- 40 S5 CQC attacks with a +1 to wound, rerollings 1´s to hit AND to wound, exploding and +6 due to corbulo
- 20 to 40 shots
- Captain smash ofc ^^
Yeah that could work! Give it a try In regards to plasma over grav, i think it tends to equal out when playing non Ryza Destroyers. The plasma is better vs a wider scope of targets and the grav is better vs more infantry and light vehicles like dark eldar and harlies. All depends what you think you will fight most with your army.
To me Plasma is a great all purpose option if you're not sure what you're up against. If your meta typically has lots of infantry and the rest of your army has enough anti tank, grav will serve you well.
In terms of which FW is best for Kataphrons, that's a question I'm considering as well. I'd say it somewhat depends on how the rest of your army is benefiting, but if your meta has a lot of assault armies and not too many gunlines, Stygies might not be the best option. If the opposite is true or if it's more of a mix, Stygies is a good choice. Ryza is good if you want to get the most out of your Plasma Destroyers and if you happen to have some assault elements of your own such as Dragoons or Fulgurites and you prefer playing more offensively. Graia is also worth mentioning since they can deny psykers and the WL trait helps if your Kataphrons are tied up in combat with horde infantry.
Suzuteo wrote: Yes. You need enough infantry to give you the time to kill their anti-tank shooting and then their melee. Then you can re-establish board control with the surviving infantry. And this is no small ask. Tyranids are really good at killing GEQs. So you may have to hide them in ruins and such on turn one (assuming ITC rules) and then move them into place, either attacking their Gants or castling your Robots in a position with clear LOS on turn two. It all really depends on your board and the distance between the deployments.
They should be way more afraid of your Robots than you their Dakkafexes. I mean, we have less shots, but AP-2 and Wrath of Mars results in way greater final wound output than any Dakkafex or Flyrant could hope to achieve, even with Enhanced Senses and the stratagems to give one MC +1D and reroll failed wounds.
Roast Dakkafexes with Plasma Culverins. These are T7 W8 without any invulnerable save and half the range as your guns. Not a major shooting threat though, in my opinion. I would kill them last.
As for the Flyrants, Hive Guard, and Exocrine, which might actually be a greater threats, take them down with Robots and maybe Crawlers if you have them.
I’m mainly bothered by the dakkafexes because they can clear my screens turn 1 to let the genestealers charge whatever they want - and basically my whole army is stuff that doesn’t do well being charged - fulgurites and dragoons die easily to stealers and so never get to hit back very hard if at all, armigers and onagers much the same. I think I’d probably slap 5 incendine+phosphor kastelans on the frontline but then they’d probably just be avoided and shot at later in the game while the stealers chew through everything else. Maybe Corpuscarii might do better, due to some overwatch and trading AP and multidamage on the Fulgurites for taser hits.
Anyway thanks all for the advice, I appreciate it! It may be that I’ve simply built a list that can’t handle this type of constant rush hybrid monster+elite melee list with reasonable shooting pressure. I do better against other lists but our meta in Beijing is either all tanks or all horde so it’s easier to just slap a solid firebase down and blow it away.
I would always go plasma, as my army already can deal with mass infantry and t6 and below units. Plasma allows me to deal with t7 units alot more effectively instead of relying on just Onagers and Kastelans.
I agree with Mr.Funktastic, Stygies is alright for them but not the best suited for them. Instead i would go Graia, Metallica or Mars for them if you are not going to have them as Ryza Plasma Specialists.
The only time id use Grav is with Agripinaa due to better overwatch and the possible Eye going off but you all know my opinion on that Forge World haha! XD Like the above said, if you see yourself fighting fast CC armies, go grav, in any other case go plasma.
Suzuteo wrote: Yes. You need enough infantry to give you the time to kill their anti-tank shooting and then their melee. Then you can re-establish board control with the surviving infantry. And this is no small ask. Tyranids are really good at killing GEQs. So you may have to hide them in ruins and such on turn one (assuming ITC rules) and then move them into place, either attacking their Gants or castling your Robots in a position with clear LOS on turn two. It all really depends on your board and the distance between the deployments.
They should be way more afraid of your Robots than you their Dakkafexes. I mean, we have less shots, but AP-2 and Wrath of Mars results in way greater final wound output than any Dakkafex or Flyrant could hope to achieve, even with Enhanced Senses and the stratagems to give one MC +1D and reroll failed wounds.
Roast Dakkafexes with Plasma Culverins. These are T7 W8 without any invulnerable save and half the range as your guns. Not a major shooting threat though, in my opinion. I would kill them last.
As for the Flyrants, Hive Guard, and Exocrine, which might actually be a greater threats, take them down with Robots and maybe Crawlers if you have them.
I’m mainly bothered by the dakkafexes because they can clear my screens turn 1 to let the genestealers charge whatever they want - and basically my whole army is stuff that doesn’t do well being charged - fulgurites and dragoons die easily to stealers and so never get to hit back very hard if at all, armigers and onagers much the same. I think I’d probably slap 5 incendine+phosphor kastelans on the frontline but then they’d probably just be avoided and shot at later in the game while the stealers chew through everything else. Maybe Corpuscarii might do better, due to some overwatch and trading AP and multidamage on the Fulgurites for taser hits.
Anyway thanks all for the advice, I appreciate it! It may be that I’ve simply built a list that can’t handle this type of constant rush hybrid monster+elite melee list with reasonable shooting pressure. I do better against other lists but our meta in Beijing is either all tanks or all horde so it’s easier to just slap a solid firebase down and blow it away.
Havent Dakkafexes only got a 18" range with a 7" move? If they advance they are at -1 to hit. So either 5+ to hit or 4+ with enhanced senses. If you deploy atleast 26" away from the fexes i dont see that as being an issue. Usually people dont deploy Carnifexes on the 24" line anyway as they have bad melee without CC weapons and are relatively squishy even with sporecysts/ malanphropes. You do concede board conrol to that player but thats how it is vs all horde armies so you just have to make up for it in the mid to late game.
And i would strongly consider aggripinaa grav for the strat and eye both of which improve it though ryza plasma is the other strong choice. Stygies is variable its great in a long distance shoot off but doesnt help vs an army that closes the gap quickly
Just remember the eye only works against vehicles so in those games vs Tyranids and Daemons (excluding soul grinders) it will have no affect if you have to keep the same relic throughout the event.
deffrekka wrote: Just remember the eye only works against vehicles so in those games vs Tyranids and Daemons (excluding soul grinders) it will have no affect if you have to keep the same relic throughout the event.
In those games you just dont take it- its always an extra relic for that reason however you encounter 3-4 list with vehicles for every list without so if forced to preselect you take it
Would appreciate some feedback on my post CA 1750 AdMech plus BA combo. AdMech provides a solid firebase and AA, while BA act as durable boardcontrol due to combining 2 wounds with a 5+ FnP and an Apothecary.
I ran Mephiston at socal open. I lovingly crafted him out of 4 different kits from leftover marines who were non-competitive. He wet the bed every game at 145 points. He was either laughably too slow because he didn't get his powers off, or he insta died to some melta / hi-AP junk before making combat. At 160 points I would never take him over a 124 point smash captain, or even better, a 100 point lemartes. I think he did okay 1 game, but I had already won by a mile.
Smash captains can get really lucky with their 3++ and win you games. There just isn't a good way to turn 10CP into a dead LOW with mephiston. And he isn't even good at clearing scouting infantry groups like lemartes.
Pomguo wrote: I’m mainly bothered by the dakkafexes because they can clear my screens turn 1 to let the genestealers charge whatever they want - and basically my whole army is stuff that doesn’t do well being charged - fulgurites and dragoons die easily to stealers and so never get to hit back very hard if at all, armigers and onagers much the same. I think I’d probably slap 5 incendine+phosphor kastelans on the frontline but then they’d probably just be avoided and shot at later in the game while the stealers chew through everything else. Maybe Corpuscarii might do better, due to some overwatch and trading AP and multidamage on the Fulgurites for taser hits.
Anyway thanks all for the advice, I appreciate it! It may be that I’ve simply built a list that can’t handle this type of constant rush hybrid monster+elite melee list with reasonable shooting pressure. I do better against other lists but our meta in Beijing is either all tanks or all horde so it’s easier to just slap a solid firebase down and blow it away.
If you're playing ITC rules, just cram your melee infantry into or behind ruins. Dakkafexes rarely will be in range before your 36" guns will be in range of them. And Kraken Genestealers can't reach you on turn one. Well, unless you misdeploy.
The only situations where you would just shoot the Genestealers first and foremost are forced short deployments, which I don't think exist in ITC. Anyhow, in this case, I would charge the Genestealers with my Vanguard+Catachans. Point for point, Vanguard+Catachans are better at melee against Genestealers.
Wulfey wrote: I ran Mephiston at socal open. I lovingly crafted him out of 4 different kits from leftover marines who were non-competitive. He wet the bed every game at 145 points. He was either laughably too slow because he didn't get his powers off, or he insta died to some melta / hi-AP junk before making combat. At 160 points I would never take him over a 124 point smash captain, or even better, a 100 point lemartes. I think he did okay 1 game, but I had already won by a mile.
Smash captains can get really lucky with their 3++ and win you games. There just isn't a good way to turn 10CP into a dead LOW with mephiston. And he isn't even good at clearing scouting infantry groups like lemartes.
Mm... psychic can be hit or miss. The real problem is that Mephiston is much less powerful as a beatstick against other psychic armies. But you're right. 160 points is getting a bit steep.
So I kept thinking about the various MARS lists and dakkabots just kept feeling to limiting. They are a porphyrions worth of points (after cawl) that don't feel like they can get their points back. For sure the MARS COHORT list is in a better place than dakkabots were a month ago. But it struggles to deal damage to big things (even tho big things are kind of dying down now ... so ... hmmm ... ). I don't really like going heavy on guard infantry because I don't think it gets really efficient without a serious point investment into support characters.
I am narrowing down to two lists for LVO. I must run majority admech if I am playing to win best 'admech'.
List#1 - 2x MARS battalion + catachan arty spearhead
Spoiler:
2x MARS battalions (1x cohort detach)
Cawl + 3x Engis
1x10 infiltrators
6x5 rangers
3x1 icarus with stubbers
1x6 dakkabots
CATA spearhead (arty detach)
CC + Wyvern + 2x3 mortar teams
MARS list is a traditional mars shooting list but it happens to be more mobile than usual thanks to the COHORT detachment strategem. This list will struggle against a castellan and a turn1 deepstrike daemons and characters melee list, but is tuned to have answers to Eldar lists and other balanced armies. The tiny Wyvern detachment is specifically there to turn 4CP into a unit of dead dark reapers in cover. The MARS list has almost no melee and will struggle once tied up. But I like its chances against non-porphyrion shooting lists.
The STYGIES list can take on more horde melee lists that can make guaranteed turn 1 charges. The castellan is broadly more flexible than the dakkabots. The idea with this list is that the dragoons go out and do their things for a few turns and then the castellan lives all game and wins on attrition.
Both of these lists feel worse than any CATACHAN brigade, but I really want that majority admech status.
Hrm, hadn’t realised the distances were so small. In fact, last game I deployed a thin screen 12” back from my deployment zone’s edge to force the exocrine to move and shoot (for the -1 but also to cost it its 2x shots), so if next time he brought dallafexes they still wouldn’t help with such a screen. Hive guard also only have 36” range, so I’m not sure if that was played wrong.
So theoretically if I set up, say, 2x20 Hoplites 12.5” back from the deplpyment edge in overlapping lines I could block the first turn charge guaranteed. But would have to leave anything else a further 5” or 6” back from that line to avoid consolidation + piling in + fight again from reaching them. Exocrine would still move 6” on turn 1 and then be able to shoot any counter-charged units on turn 2 without moving, unless the second move in the fight phase was used on the stealers to retreat instead of attack. Hive guard would need to advance turn 1 to get in range. So I guess then turn 2 I’d need to be able to kill the swarmlord and first stealer blob without opening myself up to any fire I couldn’t also cripple that turn. Exocrine’s T8 probably means Ironstriders again!
@Suzuteo It’s hard to deploy your whole army out of kraken genestealer charge range - they get a pretty high likelihood of a 13” or 14” advancing in the movement phase which can be boosted to an 18” or 20” advance using a strat, and then they get to do another 13” or 14” advance in the shooting phase, all before their 12” charge. 31-34” movement before the charge phase crosses no man’s land and then some, leaving them pretty able to charge at the very least your screens. Thus my hummimg and hawing about screens (which would probably be solved with Catachans as suggested, but I can’t bring myself to plop down cash on those ugly old figs just yet, let alone paint three dozen of them!
You dont really need to invest in the catachan brigade. Whilst good look at it this way. A basic 30 guard as screen, that are there to simply die and block a charge. 120pts. Put a melee squad or 2 directly behind it. Yes the may get consoloded into but if they do you get to swing 1st before they can fight twice. The guard means they have to either shoot them and split fire on 3 squads or split even further to get the melee squads behind aswell. You will loose stuff but when you know you will get charged feed them chaff and dont get locked up. A seriois player wont kill your screen but will try to wrap it, hence why guard do well as its dam hard to not kill them lol.
I'm going to get another box of 10 Skitarii soon, I'm thinking about building the most of them as base Rangers + 2 arquebuses (I'll have to acquire some bits for this) but as I'm going to play Lucius I'm wondering if it might be worth it to have a 10-man Vanguard squad with 3 plasma calivers deep striking. I could drop them in a cover building and rain radium and plasma from there.
Wulfey wrote: So I kept thinking about the various MARS lists and dakkabots just kept feeling to limiting. They are a porphyrions worth of points (after cawl) that don't feel like they can get their points back. For sure the MARS COHORT list is in a better place than dakkabots were a month ago. But it struggles to deal damage to big things (even tho big things are kind of dying down now ... so ... hmmm ... ). I don't really like going heavy on guard infantry because I don't think it gets really efficient without a serious point investment into support characters.
I am narrowing down to two lists for LVO. I must run majority admech if I am playing to win best 'admech'.
List#1 - 2x MARS battalion + catachan arty spearhead
Spoiler:
2x MARS battalions (1x cohort detach)
Cawl + 3x Engis
1x10 infiltrators
6x5 rangers
3x1 icarus with stubbers
1x6 dakkabots
CATA spearhead (arty detach)
CC + Wyvern + 2x3 mortar teams
MARS list is a traditional mars shooting list but it happens to be more mobile than usual thanks to the COHORT detachment strategem. This list will struggle against a castellan and a turn1 deepstrike daemons and characters melee list, but is tuned to have answers to Eldar lists and other balanced armies. The tiny Wyvern detachment is specifically there to turn 4CP into a unit of dead dark reapers in cover. The MARS list has almost no melee and will struggle once tied up. But I like its chances against non-porphyrion shooting lists.
The STYGIES list can take on more horde melee lists that can make guaranteed turn 1 charges. The castellan is broadly more flexible than the dakkabots. The idea with this list is that the dragoons go out and do their things for a few turns and then the castellan lives all game and wins on attrition.
Both of these lists feel worse than any CATACHAN brigade, but I really want that majority admech status.
The stygies list looks more fun and might have greater table control. Although have you added that up right? I think that list might be over 2k slightly
*edit* unless your Castellan is @ 593 points then it adds up fine haha. Maths is never my strong subject it would seem
deffrekka wrote: Just remember the eye only works against vehicles so in those games vs Tyranids and Daemons (excluding soul grinders) it will have no affect if you have to keep the same relic throughout the event.
In those games you just dont take it- its always an extra relic for that reason however you encounter 3-4 list with vehicles for every list without so if forced to preselect you take it
Some events now make you post down on your army list what relics, warlord traits and pregame CPs you have spent on your list. So if you take 2 or more relics they must be listed down. This is becoming quite common now, I guess it's to make the game alittle harder if you've a relic that only works against a certain list.
I know the event in going to in January and February have this ruling so I must list my warlord traits, field commanders, relics, pre game stratagems and specialist detachments.
Suzuteo wrote: For non-Ryza, Grav does better against anything low toughness or less than 3 wounds.
BA Intercessors don't last very long at all. The only way you make MEQs work in 8E is if you can hide them in ruins or deepstrike them, then get close enough to charge and grab them by the buckle. The best way for BA to do this is with Lemartes + Death Company or characters like Mephiston and Smash Captain.
Thats whats the relic banner ist for. Having a 5+ FnP is pretty nice on a 2W model, e.g. some one shoots plasma at you, you just need to make one out of two 5+.
What would you suggest is better for boardcontrol from our one arsenal.
Pomguo wrote: Hrm, hadn’t realised the distances were so small. In fact, last game I deployed a thin screen 12” back from my deployment zone’s edge to force the exocrine to move and shoot (for the -1 but also to cost it its 2x shots), so if next time he brought dallafexes they still wouldn’t help with such a screen. Hive guard also only have 36” range, so I’m not sure if that was played wrong.
So theoretically if I set up, say, 2x20 Hoplites 12.5” back from the deplpyment edge in overlapping lines I could block the first turn charge guaranteed. But would have to leave anything else a further 5” or 6” back from that line to avoid consolidation + piling in + fight again from reaching them. Exocrine would still move 6” on turn 1 and then be able to shoot any counter-charged units on turn 2 without moving, unless the second move in the fight phase was used on the stealers to retreat instead of attack. Hive guard would need to advance turn 1 to get in range. So I guess then turn 2 I’d need to be able to kill the swarmlord and first stealer blob without opening myself up to any fire I couldn’t also cripple that turn. Exocrine’s T8 probably means Ironstriders again!
@Suzuteo It’s hard to deploy your whole army out of kraken genestealer charge range - they get a pretty high likelihood of a 13” or 14” advancing in the movement phase which can be boosted to an 18” or 20” advance using a strat, and then they get to do another 13” or 14” advance in the shooting phase, all before their 12” charge. 31-34” movement before the charge phase crosses no man’s land and then some, leaving them pretty able to charge at the very least your screens. Thus my hummimg and hawing about screens (which would probably be solved with Catachans as suggested, but I can’t bring myself to plop down cash on those ugly old figs just yet, let alone paint three dozen of them!
You dont have to use Catachans models as Catachans, you can say you are using gene enhanced Tech Auxilia or they have better bionics, relic combat armour from the dark age of technology. I myself use Solar Auxilia for my guardsmen, they suit the aesthetic of the Admech. Make some fluff up and kitbash. Another good one ive done is use genecult neophytes, cut off all the icons and gave them vanguard helmets. Autoguns are the same as Lasguns so its fine and looks miles better then any Cadians or Catachan. Or simply use skitarii and trade the guns out or modify carbines to look more lasgun like.
Wulfey wrote: So I kept thinking about the various MARS lists and dakkabots just kept feeling to limiting. They are a porphyrions worth of points (after cawl) that don't feel like they can get their points back. For sure the MARS COHORT list is in a better place than dakkabots were a month ago. But it struggles to deal damage to big things (even tho big things are kind of dying down now ... so ... hmmm ... ). I don't really like going heavy on guard infantry because I don't think it gets really efficient without a serious point investment into support characters.
I am narrowing down to two lists for LVO. I must run majority admech if I am playing to win best 'admech'.
List#1 - 2x MARS battalion + catachan arty spearhead
Spoiler:
2x MARS battalions (1x cohort detach) Cawl + 3x Engis 1x10 infiltrators 6x5 rangers 3x1 icarus with stubbers 1x6 dakkabots
CATA spearhead (arty detach) CC + Wyvern + 2x3 mortar teams
MARS list is a traditional mars shooting list but it happens to be more mobile than usual thanks to the COHORT detachment strategem. This list will struggle against a castellan and a turn1 deepstrike daemons and characters melee list, but is tuned to have answers to Eldar lists and other balanced armies. The tiny Wyvern detachment is specifically there to turn 4CP into a unit of dead dark reapers in cover. The MARS list has almost no melee and will struggle once tied up. But I like its chances against non-porphyrion shooting lists.
The STYGIES list can take on more horde melee lists that can make guaranteed turn 1 charges. The castellan is broadly more flexible than the dakkabots. The idea with this list is that the dragoons go out and do their things for a few turns and then the castellan lives all game and wins on attrition.
Both of these lists feel worse than any CATACHAN brigade, but I really want that majority admech status.
The stygies list looks more fun and might have greater table control. Although have you added that up right? I think that list might be over 2k slightly
*edit* unless your Castellan is @ 593 points then it adds up fine haha. Maths is never my strong subject it would seem
Yeah my teammates are pushing for something along the lines of the dragoons + castellan list. The castellan is still a problem for admech list making because it can do so much that our army ought be able to do but can't. Cawl's Wrath does the work of a ryza plasmaphron squadron but isfar more durable. And a castellan is about as tough as a dakkabot herd but way harder to shut down and much harder to LOS out. Icarus are still good. I think admech right now is in a good place if you want to splash them in as allies, like an icarus battalion with a guard brigade. But every time I try to run the numbers on a solo admech list I end up with heaps of tax units or infantry that just don't measure up against other army's horde units. I really want to run huge numbers of rangers but the math doesn't work. They don't do much damage and they aren't tough and they are super vulnerable to ITC terrain melee shenanigans. Admech doesn't have enough army wide forcemultiplies to make man spam work. Tau Firewarriors can get access to +1 to wound and benefit from markerlights. Cultists can get +1 to wound, fight twice, and psychic buffs on 40 man stacks. Eldar guardians get doom/guide/fortune/etc. There isn't a way to turn a 7 point ranger's rifle into more than it is.
Hence my idea:
Try to make the most of our good units. So maybe a Stygies Bat with Crawlers and Dragoons / Ironstriders and pair that with a faction that does infantry better then we do. For example Guard or my suggestion Blood Angels.
As promised here are some results of the 1k tournament that I played today, with 3 games. Changed the list a bit too. Luckily didnt play against knights or heavy melee oriented lists. I like the new chapter approved rules with less focus on tabling and more tactical deployment, A chooses zone, B puts whole army on table, then A, B starts. Tabling also doesnt stop the game. Cybernetica cohort is a must for dakkabots I have to say.
Mars battalion
2x enginseer ( one with mechandrite melee relic)
1x5 stocked vanguard
2x5 stocked rangers
General Idea is getting objective and midfield control with lots of screen to prevent dakkabot charges, cawl being able to give a lot of vanguards his buff(the bigger units), servitors are bodyguards for dakkabots, can also be used as distraction or objective cappers, same with enginseers
Favored Canticles: Cover, morale, melee if needed
First game: Victory against Tau
He played 3 big Bots, some infantry, some stealth suits, drones
Had first turn, he made a vanguard move with one of his big dudes.
I moved onwards, put all the cp in dakkabots and shot him down, he noticed cawl gives a lot of rerolls and decided to let his flyer warlord big robot with a melee relic to charge into cawl, he survived and after that I collapsed on him with enginseers and servitors. Was GG after this and won by killing a lot of characters for VP
Second game: Lost against Eldar
He played some infantry, some snipers, some heavy troops, some with melta in a big transport, some bikers.
Had fist turn again, some procedure. Decided to kill the transport first, as he hided almost the rest in a corner, and he cant deliver his meltas to me. Used all the cps needed for dakkabots, had bad rolls und he had a lot of wounds left, failed first blood as in 2 units each 1 survived. Had some objective points though. Later on after some shooting from both sides he managed to charge me with some bikers and his transport, tried to use the charge to gain the objective which gave 2 VP that turn, did it, it exploded and killed like 20 infantry and made a lot of wounds in cawl and other enginseers, he could then disembark his melta unit and blew up cawl and a dakkabot, this was a turning point and I hoped for a tie at that point. However luck wasnt on my side when 36 dakkashots with mortal wounds against infantry with 4+/6+++ only killed 3 guys and so he held a lot of objectives which cost me the game.
Third game: Grand victory against Deathwatch( 10 vp vs 1)
He played tacticals, some bikers, chapter master and a blood angels smash captain, he deepstrike half of them.
Had first turn again, he placed them out of LOS however dakkabots being assault I managed to get a good angle, used the vanguard screen frontline to cover about half of the field and enginseers for deepstrike denial. Killed most of them turn 1 which were like 13 marines with double shooting and WoM. He didnt find a good deepstrike place because of Admech "Horde" lol and he struggled to achieve something with his Hqs because the units died, did some mw to me, nothing special and the smashcaptain failed his charge as he tried to snake through my units to my kastelans, rolled an 6 needed a 8, rerolled into a 4 which wasnt enough to charge anything, he gave up and declared a table at that point and I got the VP for what would have happened which is dakkabots shoot everything down. He said though that his smash captain one hittet a knight last game for like 4 cp and he took him especially against them because he hates knights.
At the end: played against mostly shooting with deathwatch and eldar had some melee potential. Shroudpsalm and Morale reroll where nice, all the rerolling on the plasma was brutal, and the dakkabots melted infantry, which they should with such investments. Assault for turn 1 is really nice and the huge screen was fun to play as I played like the 7th edition skitarii, just running around. Servitors seem nice for just 20 points but didnt see much action. With 2 Battalions at 1k which is easily doable I could also use acquisition at all costs at key moments.
deffrekka wrote: You dont have to use Catachans models as Catachans, you can say you are using gene enhanced Tech Auxilia or they have better bionics, relic combat armour from the dark age of technology. I myself use Solar Auxilia for my guardsmen, they suit the aesthetic of the Admech. Make some fluff up and kitbash. Another good one ive done is use genecult neophytes, cut off all the icons and gave them vanguard helmets. Autoguns are the same as Lasguns so its fine and looks miles better then any Cadians or Catachan. Or simply use skitarii and trade the guns out or modify carbines to look more lasgun like.
Here are my Guardsmen:
You can also see some of the artillery in the background. Also my Secutarii-counts-as-Skitarii.
And their officers:
Ministorum Priest, 2x Company Commander, and Straken.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pomguo wrote: @Suzuteo It’s hard to deploy your whole army out of kraken genestealer charge range - they get a pretty high likelihood of a 13” or 14” advancing in the movement phase which can be boosted to an 18” or 20” advance using a strat, and then they get to do another 13” or 14” advance in the shooting phase, all before their 12” charge. 31-34” movement before the charge phase crosses no man’s land and then some, leaving them pretty able to charge at the very least your screens. Thus my hummimg and hawing about screens (which would probably be solved with Catachans as suggested, but I can’t bring myself to plop down cash on those ugly old figs just yet, let alone paint three dozen of them!
Depends on the board, but yeah, Genestealers have incredible reach; 8"+6"*2+12" = 32". If they are going all in with a Swarmlord, that's 52" reach. In the case of the former, it will probably be a T2 charge. In the case of the latter, you will need to stack your infantry to build a strongpoint. Fortunately, you can't Adrenaline Surge then Overrun into combat; you can still shoot the next turn.
Keep in mind that they can only pile in or consolidate closer to the nearest model. It is not a free 3" move each time.
Catachans are great against hordes because they can actually do quite a bit of damage if you charge into them, three ranks deep.
The Kraken strat allows you to double the dice result of an advance move, giving them even more reach. But yeah the local Nids player always uses The Swarmlord to slingshot them turn 1, thus my defensive dilemma. Catachans are probably the answer for admech (short of 15 flamer + double phosphor robots in a triangle with Cawl inside, or something similarly ludicrous). Another option is 2x6 Custodes Jetbikes with overwatch on 5+ and the 3CP countercharge strat, but that’s also more of a specific counter list and not really admech at all anymore besides a small ironstrider or onager stygies battery.
Great army by the way, love the conversions and counts-as! I’m still working through painting what I have and so buying a horde is something I’m aiming to avoid if possible, but I’ll see how the meta lies once I’m done with the infantry I have already.
Aaranis wrote: I'm going to get another box of 10 Skitarii soon, I'm thinking about building the most of them as base Rangers + 2 arquebuses (I'll have to acquire some bits for this) but as I'm going to play Lucius I'm wondering if it might be worth it to have a 10-man Vanguard squad with 3 plasma calivers deep striking. I could drop them in a cover building and rain radium and plasma from there.
Advice anyone ?
Also, how do we mathammer "roll two dice and pick the highest" ? I want to run the maths for the Cognis Flamer's overwatch but the average would be 3.5 for both dice statistically, do I just up it to 4 from nowhere ?
As promised here are some results of the 1k tournament that I played today, with 3 games. Changed the list a bit too. Luckily didnt play against knights or heavy melee oriented lists. I like the new chapter approved rules with less focus on tabling and more tactical deployment, A chooses zone, B puts whole army on table, then A, B starts. Tabling also doesnt stop the game. Cybernetica cohort is a must for dakkabots I have to say.
Mars battalion
2x enginseer ( one with mechandrite melee relic)
1x5 stocked vanguard
2x5 stocked rangers
General Idea is getting objective and midfield control with lots of screen to prevent dakkabot charges, cawl being able to give a lot of vanguards his buff(the bigger units), servitors are bodyguards for dakkabots, can also be used as distraction or objective cappers, same with enginseers
Favored Canticles: Cover, morale, melee if needed
First game: Victory against Tau
He played 3 big Bots, some infantry, some stealth suits, drones
Had first turn, he made a vanguard move with one of his big dudes.
I moved onwards, put all the cp in dakkabots and shot him down, he noticed cawl gives a lot of rerolls and decided to let his flyer warlord big robot with a melee relic to charge into cawl, he survived and after that I collapsed on him with enginseers and servitors. Was GG after this and won by killing a lot of characters for VP
Second game: Lost against Eldar
He played some infantry, some snipers, some heavy troops, some with melta in a big transport, some bikers.
Had fist turn again, some procedure. Decided to kill the transport first, as he hided almost the rest in a corner, and he cant deliver his meltas to me. Used all the cps needed for dakkabots, had bad rolls und he had a lot of wounds left, failed first blood as in 2 units each 1 survived. Had some objective points though. Later on after some shooting from both sides he managed to charge me with some bikers and his transport, tried to use the charge to gain the objective which gave 2 VP that turn, did it, it exploded and killed like 20 infantry and made a lot of wounds in cawl and other enginseers, he could then disembark his melta unit and blew up cawl and a dakkabot, this was a turning point and I hoped for a tie at that point. However luck wasnt on my side when 36 dakkashots with mortal wounds against infantry with 4+/6+++ only killed 3 guys and so he held a lot of objectives which cost me the game.
Third game: Grand victory against Deathwatch( 10 vp vs 1)
He played tacticals, some bikers, chapter master and a blood angels smash captain, he deepstrike half of them.
Had first turn again, he placed them out of LOS however dakkabots being assault I managed to get a good angle, used the vanguard screen frontline to cover about half of the field and enginseers for deepstrike denial. Killed most of them turn 1 which were like 13 marines with double shooting and WoM. He didnt find a good deepstrike place because of Admech "Horde" lol and he struggled to achieve something with his Hqs because the units died, did some mw to me, nothing special and the smashcaptain failed his charge as he tried to snake through my units to my kastelans, rolled an 6 needed a 8, rerolled into a 4 which wasnt enough to charge anything, he gave up and declared a table at that point and I got the VP for what would have happened which is dakkabots shoot everything down. He said though that his smash captain one hittet a knight last game for like 4 cp and he took him especially against them because he hates knights.
At the end: played against mostly shooting with deathwatch and eldar had some melee potential. Shroudpsalm and Morale reroll where nice, all the rerolling on the plasma was brutal, and the dakkabots melted infantry, which they should with such investments. Assault for turn 1 is really nice and the huge screen was fun to play as I played like the 7th edition skitarii, just running around. Servitors seem nice for just 20 points but didnt see much action. With 2 Battalions at 1k which is easily doable I could also use acquisition at all costs at key moments.
Nice battle report, glad to see you fought well. I just have a question: how did the transport's explosion against Eldars cause 20 casualties ? The only way I see it be possible is if you had around 7 infantry units and rolled 3 MWs for each unit, that seems a bit far-fetched. I've seen people playing it as "X mortal wounds PER MODEL" so if that's the case that's wrong.
Aaranis wrote: I'm going to get another box of 10 Skitarii soon, I'm thinking about building the most of them as base Rangers + 2 arquebuses (I'll have to acquire some bits for this) but as I'm going to play Lucius I'm wondering if it might be worth it to have a 10-man Vanguard squad with 3 plasma calivers deep striking. I could drop them in a cover building and rain radium and plasma from there.
Advice anyone ?
Also, how do we mathammer "roll two dice and pick the highest" ? I want to run the maths for the Cognis Flamer's overwatch but the average would be 3.5 for both dice statistically, do I just up it to 4 from nowhere ?
In my opinion, full-sized units of Vanguard are too vulnerable at 2000 points.
Roll 2 D6 and pick the highest has an average value of 4.47222.
Aaranis wrote: I'm going to get another box of 10 Skitarii soon, I'm thinking about building the most of them as base Rangers + 2 arquebuses (I'll have to acquire some bits for this) but as I'm going to play Lucius I'm wondering if it might be worth it to have a 10-man Vanguard squad with 3 plasma calivers deep striking. I could drop them in a cover building and rain radium and plasma from there.
Advice anyone ?
Also, how do we mathammer "roll two dice and pick the highest" ? I want to run the maths for the Cognis Flamer's overwatch but the average would be 3.5 for both dice statistically, do I just up it to 4 from nowhere ?
In my opinion, full-sized units of Vanguard are too vulnerable at 2000 points.
Roll 2 D6 and pick the highest has an average value of 4.47222.
Thanks ! How do you calculate it though, for future use ? Like charges and such.
Yeah it's more expensive than Rangers with two arquebuses so I'm hesitant. Thing is I have a single plasma caliver that I'm never playing because a single one has no impact, so I'm looking for uses. Another idea is 8 with 2 calivers.
There are 36 possible permutations of 2D6. 1&1, 1&2, 1&3, 1&4, 1&5, 1&6, 2&1, 2&2...
If you average the higher value of each of these permutations, you get 4.47222.
As for charges, it's a bit more involved. Once again, 36 permutations of 2D6.
10 of these values are 9 or higher, so the base chance to successfully make a 9" charge is 10/36 = 27.78%. The other 26 permutations are failures. To figure out the chances after a command reroll...
1/36 of them have a higher value of 1; you need 8 to reach 9, so there is a 0/6 chance of success after a reroll.
3/36 of them have a higher value of 2; 0/6 chance of success.
5/36 of them have a higher value of 3; 1/6 chance of success.
7/36 of them have a higher value of 4; 2/6 chance of success.
6/36 of them have a higher value of 5; 3/6 chance of success.
4/36 of them have a higher value of 6; 4/6 chance of success.
Suzuteo wrote:There are 36 possible permutations of 2D6. 1&1, 1&2, 1&3, 1&4, 1&5, 1&6, 2&1, 2&2...
If you average the higher value of each of these permutations, you get 4.47222.
As for charges, it's a bit more involved. Once again, 36 permutations of 2D6.
10 of these values are 9 or higher, so the base chance to successfully make a 9" charge is 10/36 = 27.78%. The other 26 permutations are failures. To figure out the chances after a command reroll...
1/36 of them have a higher value of 1; you need 8 to reach 9, so there is a 0/6 chance of success after a reroll.
3/36 of them have a higher value of 2; 0/6 chance of success.
5/36 of them have a higher value of 3; 1/6 chance of success.
7/36 of them have a higher value of 4; 2/6 chance of success.
6/36 of them have a higher value of 5; 3/6 chance of success.
4/36 of them have a higher value of 6; 4/6 chance of success.
Realistically though, you only want to reroll when the high value of the 2D6 is 4.
I think bringing 2 Calivers in MSU is fine.
Thanks for all the info ! I like it to be discussing mathematical methods for optimisation, it's very Tech-Priest-esque.
I'm building my new Start Collecting right now, I've settled on the construction, I'll have after building:
- 3x7 Vanguards, one squad with 2 Calivers
- 3x8 Rangers, two squads with 2 Arquebuses and Omnispexes, and the last one with 2 Arc rifles
When adding the Kataphrons I'm closer to a Brigade now. I'd need just two Ironstrider Ballistarii to fill the other 2 FA slots. But I prefer the flexibility of 2 Battalions for Dogmas and such.
0XFallen wrote:It was more like 20 Wounds, killing about 13 infantry, rolling very high and a lot of wounds on my hqs
Still quite an explosion. I love it when it happens. In a recent game against Raven Guard, I had my 2 Fistelans and Datasmith punching a Redemptor Dreadnought, he blew up and made 6 MWs to the Robots and 4 to the Datasmith, killing him on the spot. He was deadlier when blowing up than shooting and didn't have a chance to strike. Always send your Redemptor Dreadnought in CC guys.
These are my Kastelans! Sorry for the blurry photo, my phone is a potatoe when it comes to taking pictures! I have 1 more to paint up, the camera doesnt show it well but they have a glossy blue finish.
The fluff for them being that they use graviton weapons to trash compact anyone who gets in their way and then they fire ignis missiles to burn out any cover. My Forgeworld is from the Lathe Worlds, Hesh, Hett and Hadd which is in the current lore and they still maintain and use the older and forbidden machines of a bygone age. They are fully self aware and quite angry, the one on the left has a lump of concrete in his fist that he is crushing (its currently being painted) and my 4th one has ripped out a lamp post and is swinging it in anger at the enemy.
I prefer the look of Domitars over the 1950s robot look.
deffrekka wrote: These are my Kastelans! Sorry for the blurry photo, my phone is a potatoe when it comes to taking pictures! I have 1 more to paint up, the camera doesnt show it well but they have a glossy blue finish.
The fluff for them being that they use graviton weapons to trash compact anyone who gets in their way and then they fire ignis missiles to burn out any cover. My Forgeworld is from the Lathe Worlds, Hesh, Hett and Hadd which is in the current lore and they still maintain and use the older and forbidden machines of a bygone age. They are fully self aware and quite angry, the one on the left has a lump of concrete in his fist that he is crushing (its currently being painted) and my 4th one has ripped out a lamp post and is swinging it in anger at the enemy.
I prefer the look of Domitars over the 1950s robot look.
They look neat, congrats ! I can understand not everyone likes them, but personally, I love the out-of-place design. It shows they were built in a time where Mankind had better technology, and its designs were more elegant than our nowadays Rhino for example. Kinda how you would compare a modern battle tank with the first WW1 ones.
I have infantry that can fight- hoplites. It is certainly not a requirement to be competative though and even in events whrere itc terrain rules apply lots of terrain isnt enclosed ruins.
Aaranis wrote: Yeah we don't play ITC's house rules in Europe so no need for this here for me, it's a form of schism
Right. ITC is for NA and UK mostly.
U02dah4 wrote: I have infantry that can fight- hoplites. It is certainly not a requirement to be competative though and even in events whrere itc terrain rules apply lots of terrain isnt enclosed ruins.
And what if you end up on a board where there are enclosed ruins in critical areas? Your army needs to be able to handle this very common situation. Hell, we're thinking of ways to abuse this house rule, so it is highly likely others will as well.
Since there is coming an ITC series to Germany 2019. What exactly is this housing big house rule you are all talking about? Is it that ground floors block LOS?
Indirect artillery can KILL infantry hiding in ruins, but it can't hold the ruins themselves. There is a reason why mobile infantry do so well in this meta.
We still need to prepare for minority contingencies...
Yeah I'm not liking these invincible bunkers for ITC that make infantry all but untouchable to shooting. We really need rules for either destroying buildings or at least being able to shoot in at close range with flamer style weapons or something. This game lacks true "overwatch" style abilities so we can at least shoot as the enemy darts from building to building and it really hurts. Hitting on 6's and not even getting to shoot if you can't see the target is going to make things like genestealers absolutely hell to deal with. At least now they can't keep you out of the buildings by being 24mm from the wall and ensuring you can't fit inside.
On the bright side I guess it gives infiltrators a boost, not that they quite matchup with genestealers but they're our only real answer. Electropriests are too slow, Dragoons can't attack anything above ground floor, and anything else is just too niche or not that great. Taser goads can smash hordes of low save models and power swords can do some good against marines or other high save units in a pinch with proper canticles or vanguard support. Yes I know a better answer is just "bring allies" but I like to try and avoid soup where I can, I really don't like just cherry picking the best from each codex even if that is what wins tournaments.
I kind of wish that the city fight ideas had just been rolled into the rules wholesale for 8th and ITC. Obscured targets are harder to hit, and cover still gives armor bonuses with things like ruins giving better saves, with the trade-off being you always hit on a 6 and line of sight can still be drawn through ruins. I've not gotten to play with them yet, but at a glance I know they solved a lot of issues my group had with the original cover rules for 8th. Cover does a lot but there are ways to mitigate it, especially if you go full city fight and use some of the strats that allow you to target buildings and turn them into dangerous terrain and collapse on occupants inside
Well no. It's giving advantages to infantry with good CC capabilities. The horde advantage is a result of math. Basically, any unit can wound any unit combined with the fact that 6 infantry are cheaper than a vehicle with 6 infantry's worth of weapons.
so was just wondering if anyone has used them and had any success than them. I think the only 3 dogmas that would suit them is Graia, Stygies and Mars anyway.
but I haven't used Mars this edition, always stygies I've gone.
so you will be going off on 
