Unless your opponent is particularly dim-witted that they let themselves get assaulted by these things, they will not get assaulted by these things, and they will have wasted your points.
Do yourself a favour and convert them to Obliterators. Or hold them for 6 months in case the next Chaos Codex comes out and they suddenly become awesome.
Mutilators are the worst unit in our codex... And we have the worst codex... Like Yarium said, you'd need to face a particularly dim-witted opponent for them to be of any use... Like a young school child or a mentally handicapped opponent.
The only thing I've found them useful is in The Purge Detachment.
Just put in separate 2 solo Nurgle Mutilators to satisfy the min requirement for that detachment. Use them to deepstrike opponents backline for cheep distraction or deployment zone VP accruements.
They're pretty bad, but they're not quite as bad as people like to pretend.
You can feasibly run one or two as distractions, DS them near the enemy and menace vehicles / shooty units, and with MoN are decently tough to tie things up.
That said, they're usually overshadowed by obliterators in most cases. They're only better against vehicles or total chaff, because they can turn on chainfists / lightning claws as opposed to just always a powerfist.
Dtox wrote: Building my chaos army and found some mutilators for a good deal, are they a good unit to add to my roster?
They are very useful, sicne they take up an Elite slot. I use them to increase target saturation with very credible melee threats that are tiresome to kill. They drop in alongside the Raptors, Obliterators and Rhinos to force a huge glut of targets all at once.
Can't charge the turn they deep-strike and are slow and purposeful, so they can't ever run to catch up to something.... They're never going to catch anything. No opponent that has any skill will waste a turn shooting them, they will just avoid them so that they don't get charged. They are a waste of points that will NEVER earn their points back. Regardless of what some people say, they are only a distraction unit when you are playing games against the mentally handicapped.
Wouldn't a unit of 6 or 8 with multiple casters buffing them up and protecting them with invisibility be ok. It would be slow, but everything that can not fly over them would sooner or later get charged by them.
Makumba wrote: Wouldn't a unit of 6 or 8 with multiple casters buffing them up and protecting them with invisibility be ok. It would be slow, but everything that can not fly over them would sooner or later get charged by them.
Except they can't run, so they move 6" per turn. Period. Putting buffs on them is really just a waste of psyker powers. You would need a few units of them to try and shepherd a unit towards a corner and maybe hope they spend a few turns shooting at them instead of something more important, and at that point you're using so many points on them.
They have slow and purposeful. It's a nasty rule - it means Obliterators can't fire overwatch, and Mutilators can't run.
They do have deep strike, though.
They actually suit a Purge Detachment quite well - there is an argument that massed solo mutilators are quite good, especially in maelstrom games - because of the sheer number of units you're being asked to cope with, and the fact that it takes a disturbing amount of fire to put down even a single nurgle mutilator. Plus, they can dismantle most units if they catch it - the trick is spreading out multiple solo models into a drag-net so your opponent has to fight his way past some of them, not running after him with a big block that's slower than he is.
At the same time.....still about the worst unit going.
Meganobz can work better, though - they have access to the Bully Boyz formation and the Blitz Brigade, which can deliver them into combat very quickly.
KhorneontheCobb wrote: Can't charge the turn they deep-strike and are slow and purposeful, so they can't ever run to catch up to something.... They're never going to catch anything. No opponent that has any skill will waste a turn shooting them, they will just avoid them so that they don't get charged. They are a waste of points that will NEVER earn their points back. Regardless of what some people say, they are only a distraction unit when you are playing games against the mentally handicapped.
It doesnt matter if they can charge the round they come in. They get you pinned up against the board, and slow and purposeful makes sure you don't stop fleeing marines from going right off the board. This is really okay.
When you land 9 credible melee threats in someones front lawn, the Mutilators will have made their value known to you. 3 Obliterators, 3 Mutilators and three Raptor/other Squads. All at once. Its a good time.
I'm all here with Jancoran. Nurgle mutilators can be decent if you use them in a right way. The opponent runs away? Good, now he's off the objective. And where is he supposed to run? Towards your spawns and bikes, probably.
I like chaos terminators more simply cause of combi-plazma. But for the price of them, you can get 2 solo mutilators that don't have ld problems and can choose cc weapons. C-plazma is not bad, though.
so yeah, I decided against getting mutilators for the time being. It was a really enticing sale, but the overwhelming amount of negative thoughts towards them made me reconsider. It'd be nice if they didnt have slow and purposeful, or if they at least had a useful reason for having it.
Dtox wrote: so yeah, I decided against getting mutilators for the time being. It was a really enticing sale, but the overwhelming amount of negative thoughts towards them made me reconsider. It'd be nice if they didnt have slow and purposeful, or if they at least had a useful reason for having it.
KhorneontheCobb wrote: Can't charge the turn they deep-strike and are slow and purposeful, so they can't ever run to catch up to something.... They're never going to catch anything. No opponent that has any skill will waste a turn shooting them, they will just avoid them so that they don't get charged. They are a waste of points that will NEVER earn their points back. Regardless of what some people say, they are only a distraction unit when you are playing games against the mentally handicapped.
It doesnt matter if they can charge the round they come in. They get you pinned up against the board, and slow and purposeful makes sure you don't stop fleeing marines from going right off the board. This is really okay.
When you land 9 credible melee threats in someones front lawn, the Mutilators will have made their value known to you. 3 Obliterators, 3 Mutilators and three Raptor/other Squads. All at once. Its a good time.
koooaei wrote: I'm all here with Jancoran. Nurgle mutilators can be decent if you use them in a right way. The opponent runs away? Good, now he's off the objective. And where is he supposed to run? Towards your spawns and bikes, probably.
I like chaos terminators more simply cause of combi-plazma. But for the price of them, you can get 2 solo mutilators that don't have ld problems and can choose cc weapons. C-plazma is not bad, though.
You've got to be kidding me.
1. They don't have reliable means of getting into melee. They have an inaccurate Deep Strike, cannot run, and if you're not in ownership of the IA with the Spartan Assault Tank, they only have access to the gak Land Raider.
2. They're not actually dangerous for the points. You wanna Deep Strike them near me while the Raptors come in close? Uhhhh okay. I'll just shoot the Raptors. Why am I going to care if the Mutilator charges? If I'm in cover, even the Necrons will strike first. Other armies just have enough units to shoot with that it won't cause much trouble.
3. Mathematically I'm going to do more with Terminators. While it isn't the same for minimum investment, what else were you going to spend the points on? Neither can sweep, but at least Terminators can run and can take cheap Combi-Weapons.
You don't always need to get into assault with a melee oriented army to win games.
Half of my games with orks are won with just a few minor assaults or even withour them completely. Even though half of my list is pretty much choppaboyz and shootaboyz.
Use your melee stuff to controle the board. The enemy won't be able to close distance in time to outscore you.
Mutilators are usable and can be useful sometimes. Another question is their ugly models. Ugly in a bad way - even for csm. If you can build them yourself or get 3-d party than there's no reason not to take mutilators in an assault-oriented list when all the obliterator slots are taken.
koooaei wrote: You don't always need to get into assault with a melee oriented army to win games.
Half of my games with orks are won with just a few minor assaults or even withour them completely. Even though half of my list is pretty much choppaboyz and shootaboyz.
Use your melee stuff to controle the board. The enemy won't be able to close distance in time to outscore you.
Mutilators are usable and can be useful sometimes. Another question is their ugly models. Ugly in a bad way - even for csm.
You can't outscore people with zero models. That's a problem the BA are facing. And CSM, frankly.
1. They don't have reliable means of getting into melee. They have an inaccurate Deep Strike, cannot run, and if you're not in ownership of the IA with the Spartan Assault Tank, they only have access to the gak Land Raider.
2. They're not actually dangerous for the points. You wanna Deep Strike them near me while the Raptors come in close? Uhhhh okay. I'll just shoot the Raptors. Why am I going to care if the Mutilator charges? If I'm in cover, even the Necrons will strike first. Other armies just have enough units to shoot with that it won't cause much trouble.
3. Mathematically I'm going to do more with Terminators. While it isn't the same for minimum investment, what else were you going to spend the points on? Neither can sweep, but at least Terminators can run and can take cheap Combi-Weapons.
1. Irrelevant. When they drop in, they are assaulting next turn. The enemy knows this. That is what saturation is about. It isnt as if the enemy is going to do nothing aboutit. Sadly for the enemy, they wont be able to do something about EVERYTHING.
2. Not dangerous? 4 attacks with any weapon you can think of, with terminator armor and tough 5. Are you joking? There are HQ's who would give their left nut to be that good. But that aside, you can shoot at whatever you like. You just wont have enough shooting to stop it all. Mutilators are excellent for how inexpensively they sit in that underused elite slot and provide value. Even their deaths serve to drain the enemy arsenal. I dont speak theoretically here. I've had them in my force for quite a while. They do work.
3. Terminators are okay. they are more expensive. That's the value of a Mutilator. It isn't (you say it is, but uh...no). And the threat of the three Terminators with weapons paid for is so much more expensive, yet will get shot by the ame unit the Mutilator will. Except the enemy will be killing JUST a Mutilator instead of a three man expensive Terminator squad. Why is that better?
I dont care if anyone buys them. That's your call, General. I'm just explaining the huge saturation value they offer up. Nurgle Mutilators are worth it.
They aren't terrible if you deep strike single units to try to take out tanks. They will die to mcs or gmcs, and can't catch the faster unit in the games. If the enemy is good at melee they'll just wipe it without trying too hard.
So against Eldar or tau, they aren't worth it since they most likely won't catch the faster armies at all and moving doesn't reduce their firepower much on units that matter. Other units that do care about moving aren't heavily threatened by this, and it's somewhat trivial for them to remove it.
Necrons and sm it's a toss up. If your army is very fast they can be worth it, especially if the enemy only takes stars. Cents can split fire however, so if it's a cent spammy list the mutilators won't matter much.
Against nids, they won't do anything useful. They won't catch the fmcs, the mcs can shoot them off the board, and they don't do damage to swarms.
They are very good against ig though. Any non skimmer armored column would be afraid of 3 solo mutilators
Akiasura wrote: They aren't terrible if you deep strike single units to try to take out tanks. They will die to mcs or gmcs, and can't catch the faster unit in the games. If the enemy is good at melee they'll just wipe it without trying too hard.
So against Eldar or tau, they aren't worth it since they most likely won't catch the faster armies at all and moving doesn't reduce their firepower much on units that matter. Other units that do care about moving aren't heavily threatened by this, and it's somewhat trivial for them to remove it.
Necrons and sm it's a toss up. If your army is very fast they can be worth it, especially if the enemy only takes stars. Cents can split fire however, so if it's a cent spammy list the mutilators won't matter much.
Against nids, they won't do anything useful. They won't catch the fmcs, the mcs can shoot them off the board, and they don't do damage to swarms.
They are very good against ig though. Any non skimmer armored column would be afraid of 3 solo mutilators
This sounds like the most reasonable analysis. Mutilators do less than nothing against my BA, which leads me to think that they are one of the worst units in the game.
Akiasura wrote: They aren't terrible if you deep strike single units to try to take out tanks. They will die to mcs or gmcs, and can't catch the faster unit in the games. If the enemy is good at melee they'll just wipe it without trying too hard.
So against Eldar or tau, they aren't worth it since they most likely won't catch the faster armies at all and moving doesn't reduce their firepower much on units that matter. Other units that do care about moving aren't heavily threatened by this, and it's somewhat trivial for them to remove it.
Necrons and sm it's a toss up. If your army is very fast they can be worth it, especially if the enemy only takes stars. Cents can split fire however, so if it's a cent spammy list the mutilators won't matter much.
Against nids, they won't do anything useful. They won't catch the fmcs, the mcs can shoot them off the board, and they don't do damage to swarms.
They are very good against ig though. Any non skimmer armored column would be afraid of 3 solo mutilators
Not all units have speed in those armies you mention and Tau generals for some weird reasons will gunline which makes them highly susceptible to the Mutilators unique advantages (see Dirge Casters for details). So while it might be true that SOME units can get away, the Mutilator general knows this and isn't aiming at those, specifically (though a good drop can cut off a lot of avenues for even fast units to go depending on the angle BECAUSE: boards do not have unlimited dimensions).
It isn't trivial to remove a two wound Tough 5 2+ armor creature. You may say it is, but it isn't, in fact. Although luck happens, it takes 60 STR 4 shots to kill a single mutilator! Sixty is a lot of expended resources. It takes about 45 or so to reliably do it with STR 5. So even Tau Fire Warriors are going to spend 2-3 full units (if they even have that many) just to kill the Mutilator. and that is what I mean when I say their deaths serve to sap the enemy arsenal. That same Mutilator if not stopped, will kill an entire unit of Fire Warriors and if the Fire Warriors are very unlucky, it will take the thing an extra phase to finish the job, which may well happen. So you are in the catbirds seat with that Mutilator if they fail. Knowing that, can the Tau general even take the chance? No. He's gotta' kill it. So when you really think about that little guy sucking up so much in resources, its pretty cool.
What if he drops and threatens a Riptide from the outside angle? The riptide with nowhere to run to that isnt right into yet another Mutilator ( I use three) just has to rely on shooting to do the job.
If a Crisis team come up and kills one, spending their load on that, they aren't spending it on the far more voluminous Raptor unit coming. And so on.
Saturation. THAT is the value of Mutilators. They sap your enemies resources, and are good enough to force units into permanent vacations, preferably NOT all in one go! One of the genius's, as I have learned using them is that their 4 attacks on the charge will often allow a unit a decent chance t standing their ground, thus protecting it from shooting in the folloing enemy shooting phase. That's actually a good thing. And their Slow and Purposeful rule screws Marines. The Mutilators are almost always deeeep in the enemy zone. So there is little chance that any Marines they clash with will be far from the board edge. With just a modicum of luck, he can send the Space Marines who normally would just stick and fight running off the board!
I am quite smitten with the low cost, high return Mutilator. Entire units of three I could understand not liking. But the Mono-Nurgle Droppings? pretty good.
Akiasura wrote: I read that as "worst unit in the game", apologies.
I bet Jancoran has a use for them.
Warp Talons? I do. I did a blog entry on it actually.
I do not recommend Warp Talons to anyone in the general sense, but I did find an interesting way to use them back in 6th. Haven't used them in 7th.
The Dimensional Key and some other things came into play there. If you're interested, you can read the blog entry on it. The plan for using them is kind of a complex one. Way more complex than most people will have the patience or interest in. But it is there nonetheless.
It wasn't an insult. Lots of people have postulated a lot of things for BA, most of which don't end up working on the table top. A 6th ed analysis is not likely to be transferable to 7th in any event. It's hard to believe the subject of outrage was the wave serpent.
I agree with your theory about mutilators, but it seems that they'll get shot with the AP 2 stuff and the raptors will get shot and killed with the other weapons in a list. Bladestorm doesn't seem too healthy for mutilators either. Although all being separate units really helps. As I said in another thread, BA would be good if I could field 60 units of a single assault marine.
The sad part is your list requires a dual CAD now. Or two flesh tearer detachments, more likely. I actually hate the Baal now that it's in the heavy slot.
Akiasura wrote: I read that as "worst unit in the game", apologies.
I bet Jancoran has a use for them.
Warp Talons? I do. I did a blog entry on it actually.
I do not recommend Warp Talons to anyone in the general sense, but I did find an interesting way to use them back in 6th. Haven't used them in 7th.
The Dimensional Key and some other things came into play there. If you're interested, you can read the blog entry on it. The plan for using them is kind of a complex one. Way more complex than most people will have the patience or interest in. But it is there nonetheless.
Warptalons have found a long term home in my Tzeentch Daemons army.
The one area that Tzeentch's boys almost completely lack in, is assault capabilities. A Sorc w/Prophet of the Voices + 5-6 Possessed + 5-6 Talons adds a decent amount of hitting power, and brings yet more WC's to help fuel the army's main strength.
Talons w/MoT are easy to boost to a 3++ or even a 2++ save, and the Shred USR helps the army deal with T5 and/or multi-wound critters, which helps take the pressure off of the likes of LoC and DP to deal with every big threat.
Crimson Slaughter Possessed also get an arguably better table to roll on, as 2/3 results make them harder to gun down or else boost their speed. (and the Sorc can provide a smattering of ap2 attacks).
The squad can also take a Rhino if there's pts to spare, which of course can simply play the role of mobile LoS blocker.
Still, I'd never dream of taking Talons in a strait-up CSM army... There's no synergies anywhere, and they bring nothing to the table that at least 3 other units don't already bring!
Akiasura wrote: They aren't terrible if you deep strike single units to try to take out tanks. They will die to mcs or gmcs, and can't catch the faster unit in the games. If the enemy is good at melee they'll just wipe it without trying too hard.
So against Eldar or tau, they aren't worth it since they most likely won't catch the faster armies at all and moving doesn't reduce their firepower much on units that matter. Other units that do care about moving aren't heavily threatened by this, and it's somewhat trivial for them to remove it.
Necrons and sm it's a toss up. If your army is very fast they can be worth it, especially if the enemy only takes stars. Cents can split fire however, so if it's a cent spammy list the mutilators won't matter much.
Against nids, they won't do anything useful. They won't catch the fmcs, the mcs can shoot them off the board, and they don't do damage to swarms.
They are very good against ig though. Any non skimmer armored column would be afraid of 3 solo mutilators
Not all units have speed in those armies you mention and Tau generals for some weird reasons will gunline which makes them highly susceptible to the Mutilators unique advantages (see Dirge Casters for details). So while it might be true that SOME units can get away, the Mutilator general knows this and isn't aiming at those, specifically (though a good drop can cut off a lot of avenues for even fast units to go depending on the angle BECAUSE: boards do not have unlimited dimensions).
Any unit that can run is, by definition, faster than a mutilator. I believe this nearly every unit in the Tau army, though there could easily be one or two I'm not thinking of.
A mutilator can be one or 2 rounded by most units in the tau army, especially given their large amount of split fire and marker lights, and relatively high strength weapons. Tau aren't afraid of this unit.
It's also hard to get a good drop when you want to, since chaos does not have access to a way to make deep striking as accurate as a pod is, and mutilators can't run after dropping to fix bad drops. They also can't decide when the deep strike arrives.
It isn't trivial to remove a two wound Tough 5 2+ armor creature. You may say it is, but it isn't, in fact. Although luck happens, it takes 60 STR 4 shots to kill a single mutilator! Sixty is a lot of expended resources. It takes about 45 or so to reliably do it with STR 5.
For fire warriors, that's a rapid fire from a fire warrior unit over the course of two turns, without any support. Marker lights make this a lot easier, obviously (becomes possible to kill it with one turn of shooting by a 12 man squad if 2 marker lights are applied). Support fire also helps.
A plasma crisis suit team can do it without trying, and can take split fire.
For marines, they are very resistant to bolters, but bolters won't be what does damage (they never are). Plasma guns can, if rapid fire, nearly do the job on their own. The commander firing a combi weapon, or the bolters, means one squad armed with 2 PGs do it usually. Overwatch and remaining attacks might let a wound slip through, though it's doubtful.
Grav cents also do it easily and can take split fire.
Assuming the mutilator can charge when you want it to, which given the inaccurate deep strike and slow speed, isn't always the case.
So against their best targets, fire warriors, it takes 2 turns or 1 with support. Against other targets, that are fairly popular, its not even the whole squad thanks to split fire. And you can't deepstrike them where you want or when you want...so yeah, pretty trivial.
So even Tau Fire Warriors are going to spend 2-3 full units (if they even have that many) just to kill the Mutilator. and that is what I mean when I say their deaths serve to sap the enemy arsenal. That same Mutilator if not stopped, will kill an entire unit of Fire Warriors and if the Fire Warriors are very unlucky, it will take the thing an extra phase to finish the job, which may well happen. So you are in the catbirds seat with that Mutilator if they fail. Knowing that, can the Tau general even take the chance? No. He's gotta' kill it. So when you really think about that little guy sucking up so much in resources, its pretty cool.
What if he drops and threatens a Riptide from the outside angle? The riptide with nowhere to run to that isnt right into yet another Mutilator ( I use three) just has to rely on shooting to do the job.
If a Crisis team come up and kills one, spending their load on that, they aren't spending it on the far more voluminous Raptor unit coming. And so on.
Unless suddenly split fire. Or the crisis team deep strikes behind the raptors (you did deep strike the crisis suits?) and shoots the raptors while letting the obligatory fire warriors target the mutilators.
You'd also need to be able to deploy all 3 mutilators around the riptide at the same time and be within charging range without anything being around that can stop that. Pretty low odds, imo, but YMMV depending on your opponents' ability to deploy against deep strike successfully.
Saturation. THAT is the value of Mutilators. They sap your enemies resources, and are good enough to force units into permanent vacations, preferably NOT all in one go! One of the genius's, as I have learned using them is that their 4 attacks on the charge will often allow a unit a decent chance t standing their ground, thus protecting it from shooting in the folloing enemy shooting phase. That's actually a good thing.
It is a good thing, if it happens. But a unit has to be extremely slow to be caught by the mutilators. I can't imagine ever catching a unit with a jetpack, a bike, or any eldar unit. Even units that can run can easily outdistance the mutilators. Many units can just rapid fire and remove them, although to be fair I imagine firewarriors without support or necron warriors can't.
If they could deepstrike accurately, run, or do it on time...
And their Slow and Purposeful rule screws Marines. The Mutilators are almost always deeeep in the enemy zone. So there is little chance that any Marines they clash with will be far from the board edge. With just a modicum of luck, he can send the Space Marines who normally would just stick and fight running off the board!
Considering a marine unit can rapid fire one off the board, I can't imagine this happening unless someone just doesn't fire at them for some reason. 2 Nurgle mutilators cost about what a squad of marines sans transport costs, so it's not even a bad value.
I am quite smitten with the low cost, high return Mutilator. Entire units of three I could understand not liking. But the Mono-Nurgle Droppings? pretty good.
I suppose it depends on your definition of pretty good. For the chaos codex? It's not bad. For the game as a whole? No.
I wouldn't mind reading a battle report of you using them against one of the power dexes and how it played out, if you have one available.
If they could run or deepstrike with accuracy, I'd consider them. Assaulting out of deepstrike would make them amazing. Against lower tier armies (the ones that have AV values outside of a few rare formations like the marines have) they do fine.
I don't know. Even BA have grav bikers. Orks outfight them. DE are too fast. Lower tier lists are lower tier because they have no answers for triple digit S6 shots from 36" away. We have answers for slow assault units that deep strike and happen to be T5 2+. In fact, I can consistently put the hammer down on GK because they volunteer themselves to get shot in the face by grav and melta.
Just to note, Mutilators can get accurate Deep Strike via Icons from Codex: Daemons, as they have the 'Daemon' special rule.
Khorne, Nurgle & Slaanesh especially all have easy access to fast moving Icons. ('Crushers, Drones & Seekers/'Nettes)
It's really only Tzeentch who loses out, as neither Flamers nor Screamers can take an Icon. Still, MoT Mutilators would only scatter D6" if coming in near another Icon, or else one could simply try to Summon some free Pink Horrors who can choose to take a full command.
Speaking of tzeentch how are thousand sons as far as fighting goes? I heard they used to have some potent shooting but this was many years ago (probably about 5-6 years ago).
Experiment 626 wrote: Just to note, Mutilators can get accurate Deep Strike via Icons from Codex: Daemons, as they have the 'Daemon' special rule.
Khorne, Nurgle & Slaanesh especially all have easy access to fast moving Icons. ('Crushers, Drones & Seekers/'Nettes)
It's really only Tzeentch who loses out, as neither Flamers nor Screamers can take an Icon. Still, MoT Mutilators would only scatter D6" if coming in near another Icon, or else one could simply try to Summon some free Pink Horrors who can choose to take a full command.
Mutilators only ever get the d6" scatter bonus off of daemon icons as they never have "Daemon of X" just the Daemon rule (and having a mark doesn't change that)
flamingkillamajig wrote: Speaking of tzeentch how are thousand sons as far as fighting goes? I heard they used to have some potent shooting but this was many years ago (probably about 5-6 years ago).
They are mediocre at best. They're biggest problem is they pay a huge points premium for their aspiring sorcerer (who is god awful because he only gets powers from the terrible tzeentch discipline) and their Ap3 bolters while cool are less effective considering how easy it is to get some sort of cover save against it. They're usuable in a more casual setting but should never be taken in a competitive scenario.
Experiment 626 wrote: Just to note, Mutilators can get accurate Deep Strike via Icons from Codex: Daemons, as they have the 'Daemon' special rule.
Khorne, Nurgle & Slaanesh especially all have easy access to fast moving Icons. ('Crushers, Drones & Seekers/'Nettes)
It's really only Tzeentch who loses out, as neither Flamers nor Screamers can take an Icon. Still, MoT Mutilators would only scatter D6" if coming in near another Icon, or else one could simply try to Summon some free Pink Horrors who can choose to take a full command.
Mutilators only ever get the d6" scatter bonus off of daemon icons as they never have "Daemon of X" just the Daemon rule (and having a mark doesn't change that)
flamingkillamajig wrote: Speaking of tzeentch how are thousand sons as far as fighting goes? I heard they used to have some potent shooting but this was many years ago (probably about 5-6 years ago).
They are mediocre at best. They're biggest problem is they pay a huge points premium for their aspiring sorcerer (who is god awful because he only gets powers from the terrible tzeentch discipline) and their Ap3 bolters while cool are less effective considering how easy it is to get some sort of cover save against it. They're usuable in a more casual setting but should never be taken in a competitive scenario.
Agree with 1k sons. They are up there for one of the worst units in the entire game as well, since they are absurdly expensive and lack offensive output.
Their bolters should have been heavy 3 with extra strength. Or the sorceror can cast a different "spell" that changes their weapons/armor profile to make them useful against a variety of targets. They really should be the most powerful cult troop, given their high point cost, not the worst.
Martel732 wrote: I don't know. Even BA have grav bikers. Orks outfight them. DE are too fast. Lower tier lists are lower tier because they have no answers for triple digit S6 shots from 36" away. We have answers for slow assault units that deep strike and happen to be T5 2+. In fact, I can consistently put the hammer down on GK because they volunteer themselves to get shot in the face by grav and melta.
You're still missing it. You're still trying to go by "What can do more". thats not the point of the mutilator here. And last time I checked, no one is fast enough to break through the "box" created by Chaos Raptors and Rhinos, Mutilators and Obliterators. No one. Talking about ti doesnt make it so. If someone tries null deploying it, the army can just center up and wait. You're talking about 9-12 units forming a box. No matter how "good" this stuff you're mentioning is, its STILL stuck and STILL cant kill all it needs to kill. The Mutilators are as likely to survive and do damage from target priority as they are anything else.
I am not suggesting the Mutilators are the second coming or aren't outclassed by "better" units in some form or fashion. What I'm telling you is that the only reason the Mutilators WNT get their chance is if the enemy simply prioritizes them. And i hope they do.
mondo80 wrote: 2 wound assault terminators are bad? I know one guy who drives them around in a landraider.
I know a guy who thought warp talons were the best unit in the game because claws.
Doesn't make them good.
Muties in a landraider is a very expensive unit that falls over against similar priced units from other dexes. At best it will manage to kill 2 units, more likely 1 or none, before being destroyed.
For people claiming Muties are good, I'd appreciate a battle report where they are used against a good force effectively or a tactica that holds up to scrutiny. Saying "I said so" doesn't carry much weight on an online forum.
mondo80 wrote: 2 wound assault terminators are bad? I know one guy who drives them around in a landraider.
The problem is that they have slow and purposeful (making them slow to footslog it up and cannot sweep advance, while gaining none of the benefits since they have no ranged weapons) and only come in units of 3 at max, making them waste space in a Land raider. Paladins, the only real equivallents in the game, at least come with psycannons and psychic powers backing that up.
mondo80 wrote: 2 wound assault terminators are bad? I know one guy who drives them around in a landraider.
The problem is that they have slow and purposeful (making them slow to footslog it up and cannot sweep advance, while gaining none of the benefits since they have no ranged weapons) and only come in units of 3 at max, making them waste space in a Land raider. Paladins, the only real equivallents in the game, at least come with psycannons and psychic powers backing that up.
He did have a chaos lord in the raider with them and they were able to assault out of it.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Who has a standard Land Raider actually live to T2 unless their opponent sucks?
Depends. My space wolf list would ignore this unit since my twc star isn't remotely afraid of it and I'd rather go after units that are more threatening.
My marines would carve it apart. Grav weapons would do that.
My Eldar, turn 1 or 2. Fire dragons would tear it apart and not be concerned about the unit inside overly much, being much faster. My whole army might ignore it since it's extremely fast while this thing lumbers around costing 400 points for a few lascannon shots.
Necrons would glance to death then send in wraiths for easy clean up. I may just ignore since at most it'd wipe one squad and the wraiths would destroy this unit.
Honestly a lot of my lists would ignore this unit since it's so slow and requires cc to perform well. I'd rather go after actual threats. If they advance as a wall I'd target with superior firepower or attempt to outflank.
If I had to remove it however it wouldn't be a big deal for the power armies. Nids would struggle at removing the raider by T2 but they have bad anti tank at ranged. They are the only army I'm seeing having issues, and they aren't threatened by this unit either. Slow and melee don't work in 40k.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Who has a standard Land Raider actually live to T2 unless their opponent sucks?
Depends. My space wolf list would ignore this unit since my twc star isn't remotely afraid of it and I'd rather go after units that are more threatening.
My marines would carve it apart. Grav weapons would do that.
My Eldar, turn 1 or 2. Fire dragons would tear it apart and not be concerned about the unit inside overly much, being much faster. My whole army might ignore it since it's extremely fast while this thing lumbers around costing 400 points for a few lascannon shots.
Necrons would glance to death then send in wraiths for easy clean up. I may just ignore since at most it'd wipe one squad and the wraiths would destroy this unit.
Honestly a lot of my lists would ignore this unit since it's so slow and requires cc to perform well. I'd rather go after actual threats. If they advance as a wall I'd target with superior firepower or attempt to outflank.
If I had to remove it however it wouldn't be a big deal for the power armies. Nids would struggle at removing the raider by T2 but they have bad anti tank at ranged. They are the only army I'm seeing having issues, and they aren't threatened by this unit either. Slow and melee don't work in 40k.
Ignore them and they attack. You can pretend like they wont reach anything. But they will, and they punch hard.
Don't ignore them and they soak your resources for me. This I like. I don't mind losing them if it costs you two or three hundred points to do... and it might. I dont mind losing them if you have to pour a ton of attacks into them in melee to be sure. It protects the other participants.
mondo80 wrote: 2 wound assault terminators are bad? I know one guy who drives them around in a landraider.
I know a guy who thought warp talons were the best unit in the game because claws.
Doesn't make them good.
Muties in a landraider is a very expensive unit that falls over against similar priced units from other dexes. At best it will manage to kill 2 units, more likely 1 or none, before being destroyed.
For people claiming Muties are good, I'd appreciate a battle report where they are used against a good force effectively or a tactica that holds up to scrutiny. Saying "I said so" doesn't carry much weight on an online forum.
I got ya, mate.
Chaos Marines vs. Eldar. Chaos wins. Mutilators show their value in turns 3 and 4.
This Mutilator review pretty much supports everything that you're saying, and even brings in some mathhammer to show how terrible Mutilators are, but it gives you a good strategy to use them for, at the end.
Here is a thread/tactica discussing different ways in which to deploy Mutilators effectively, and in a much more constructive manner, I might add. Among them is DSing three individual Mutis for maximum effect.
Fists vs. Chaos Marines. Turn 3 and 4 see the Muti wreck a Rhino when the nearby Tac Marines fail to eliminate it on the turn it deepstrikes in.
raven guard vs. Chaos Marines. Chaos gets wrecked, but I'd like to point out how a single Mutilator drew the fire of a Tac Squad and a Rapier - a total of 190 pts. worth of shooting to take out a 55 pts. model. How delicious. A Mutilator proceeds to drive the Rapier Crew off the Board (55 pt. Unit rendering a 120-pt. Unit absolutely useless). Another Muti gets destroyed by a 100 pt. Thunderfire. Notice how the Mutis are drawing fire from higher-point Units the entire match.
Those are local gakky games. I see Warp Talons kill an Assault Terminator squad once and you don't see anyone praising them. We're using math and what's competitive and what's logical.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also one of those comes from Jancoran's blog, which has been shown to be terrible in different threads.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Those are local gakky games. I see Warp Talons kill an Assault Terminator squad once and you don't see anyone praising them. We're using math and what's competitive and what's logical.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also one of those comes from Jancoran's blog, which has been shown to be terrible in different threads.
Such negativity, SMH. Here's a few more, then.
http://www.mobswell.net/streaming/TvVyvouo6Ww/warhammer-40k-chaos-space-marine-mutilator-tactics.html Runs through a few viable ways of running mutis.
This guy explains a great use for Mutilators 4Chan supports the strategy that has been espoused on virtually every link that I've given, as well.
This battle report has Mutilators wrecking face, due to the fact that the opponent chose to shoot at juicier targets and payed the price for it.
Honestly, at this point, I'm sick of looking up battle reports and tacticas, but I think that I've proven my point. Concede defeat, and move on. Nobody likes a stubborn negative nancy who has been proven wrong by 10 sources and brings no sources of her own to support her claim.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Those are local gakky games. I see Warp Talons kill an Assault Terminator squad once and you don't see anyone praising them. We're using math and what's competitive and what's logical.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also one of those comes from Jancoran's blog, which has been shown to be terrible in different threads.
Such negativity, SMH. Here's a few more, then.
http://www.mobswell.net/streaming/TvVyvouo6Ww/warhammer-40k-chaos-space-marine-mutilator-tactics.html Runs through a few viable ways of running mutis.
This guy explains a great use for Mutilators 4Chan supports the strategy that has been espoused on virtually every link that I've given, as well.
This battle report has Mutilators wrecking face, due to the fact that the opponent chose to shoot at juicier targets and payed the price for it.
Honestly, at this point, I'm sick of looking up battle reports and tacticas, but I think that I've proven my point. Concede defeat, and move on. Nobody likes a stubborn negative nancy who has been proven wrong by 10 sources and brings no sources of her own to support her claim.
A stubborn negative nancy brings an undeniable prove. "The army i play sux".
mondo80 wrote: 2 wound assault terminators are bad? I know one guy who drives them around in a landraider.
I know a guy who thought warp talons were the best unit in the game because claws.
Doesn't make them good.
Muties in a landraider is a very expensive unit that falls over against similar priced units from other dexes. At best it will manage to kill 2 units, more likely 1 or none, before being destroyed.
For people claiming Muties are good, I'd appreciate a battle report where they are used against a good force effectively or a tactica that holds up to scrutiny. Saying "I said so" doesn't carry much weight on an online forum.
I got ya, mate.
Chaos Marines vs. Eldar. Chaos wins. Mutilators show their value in turns 3 and 4.
Old dex, I've already seen this battle report. This is the one where the guy takes a very sub par list and forgets to deploy a Wave serpent.
I'm quite aware of Jancorans blog. I've been asking him for recent battle reports to back up his claims for a while now, much to my dismay
This Mutilator review pretty much supports everything that you're saying, and even brings in some mathhammer to show how terrible Mutilators are, but it gives you a good strategy to use them for, at the end.
Here is a thread/tactica discussing different ways in which to deploy Mutilators effectively, and in a much more constructive manner, I might add. Among them is DSing three individual Mutis for maximum effect.
Fists vs. Chaos Marines. Turn 3 and 4 see the Muti wreck a Rhino when the nearby Tac Marines fail to eliminate it on the turn it deepstrikes in.
An old game, and the marine list is terrible. It has 30+ tactical marines
raven guard vs. Chaos Marines. Chaos gets wrecked, but I'd like to point out how a single Mutilator drew the fire of a Tac Squad and a Rapier - a total of 190 pts. worth of shooting to take out a 55 pts. model. How delicious. A Mutilator proceeds to drive the Rapier Crew off the Board (55 pt. Unit rendering a 120-pt. Unit absolutely useless). Another Muti gets destroyed by a 100 pt. Thunderfire. Notice how the Mutis are drawing fire from higher-point Units the entire match.
The only good battle report that was posted, so thank you for that.
A few things
1) Were the mutilators deployed as a group? They all arrived turn 2 and I can't find them in the photos.
2) 190 points to kill a 55 pt model isn't great, but it's not terrible. It's 1/3 of their point cost, which is the cusp of being worth shooting at.
3) The mutilator destroyed the rapier crew AFTER the crew was roasted by a drake. So...they dedicated more points than the unit was worth by a bit.
4) I see no mention of the mutilator killing a thunderfire. The thunderfire is still operating on the last turn, when does this happen?
5) The only other time the mutilator was fired upon was by the techmarine, which destroyed it.
To me, if a unit can kill 1/3 of it's points in a turn, that's about average. 1/2 is great, but not even the bikes manage to kill their point cost every turn without support. 1/4 and lower is where it gets bad. So in this report, the mutilator managed to barely succeed once, and this is the only relevant report you posted. For the rest of the game, there is no mention of them doing anything, and this was not a powerful list.
In the future, if someone is asking for battle reports against the power armies (Space Marines, Eldar, Tau, Necron) posting old battle reports doesn't do much to help your argument. It makes it seem like, since these armies have released, mutilators have completely fallen off the game (or maybe chaos has?). Competitive army lists (For eldar, this would mean bikes, aspect warriors, WK, and not guardians from a previous edition; Space marines bikes and cents, not 30+ tacticals or vanguard; Necrons decurion; Tau suits and tides). That's what I have been asking for the entire time, from anyone, and so far no one has delivered. I'm a professor by trade, if someone is able to provide evidence that I'm wrong I'll happily switch opinions. I own a huge chaos army and would love to field mutilators, but in my meta only the better armies get played. I won't be going up against 30 tacticals or a dread mob sadly Out of your 10 sources, 1 battle report is against a modern codex I believe, and the list isn't what I would consider competitive, and the mutilators didn't accomplish what you are claiming. I probably should have spelled out what competitive consists of so that's my mistake.
Appreciate the reports though!
@ Jancoran
You can't just claim a unit will reach everything. Provide proof, in the form of a battle report against the modern eldar army and how mutilators perform.
Or a report against modern marines featuring bikes and cents.
Or modern Wolves featuring a TWC star.
Or modern decurion.
Because an entire army that can run extremely fast, has the fastest choices in the game (jet bikes, hawks, warp spiders, wave serpents, WK) isn't easy to catch when you are using one of the slowest units in the game that must reach melee.
It might cost 200-300 points for the weaker armies, but as was shown (using you know...math) for most armies it's a 140-150 point investment. It's not bad, it's right on the cusp of being worth firing at and if chaos had more viable threats they'd be a lot better. As it is, they really need more accurate deepstrike and speed to be worth using. The battle report posted shows that, at no point, was it a 200-300 point investment to remove the mutilator.
Martel732 wrote: I don't know. Even BA have grav bikers. Orks outfight them. DE are too fast. Lower tier lists are lower tier because they have no answers for triple digit S6 shots from 36" away. We have answers for slow assault units that deep strike and happen to be T5 2+. In fact, I can consistently put the hammer down on GK because they volunteer themselves to get shot in the face by grav and melta.
You're still missing it. You're still trying to go by "What can do more". thats not the point of the mutilator here. And last time I checked, no one is fast enough to break through the "box" created by Chaos Raptors and Rhinos, Mutilators and Obliterators. No one. Talking about ti doesnt make it so. If someone tries null deploying it, the army can just center up and wait. You're talking about 9-12 units forming a box. No matter how "good" this stuff you're mentioning is, its STILL stuck and STILL cant kill all it needs to kill. The Mutilators are as likely to survive and do damage from target priority as they are anything else.
I am not suggesting the Mutilators are the second coming or aren't outclassed by "better" units in some form or fashion. What I'm telling you is that the only reason the Mutilators WNT get their chance is if the enemy simply prioritizes them. And i hope they do.
It's really hard to box in BA or DE. Orks will love you for getting so close. Again, these lists have the tools to deal with your CSM box in. I really don't see why you think trying to outmaneuver BA is going to end well.
koooaei wrote: Do you guyz have batreps where mutilators perform poorly?
I haven't seen CSM in months. So, no. Do you need a batrep to see where this is not a good unit against BA? It's not good for the same reason that GK aren't particularly good vs BA.
Funny thing is, if they could get a 3+ invul save, they might actually be considered one of the more powerful units in the game (being essentially Hammernators with +1 wound and chainfists). Currently the best they can do is a 4+ invul save.
koooaei wrote: Do you guyz have batreps where mutilators perform poorly?
Isn't this the same as the teacup argument?
No its clearly not a celestial teapot argument. All you need is a battle report where the mutilator do nothing useful and are destroyed. A celestial teapot argument is an argument impossible to demonstrate due to its techincal impossibility. This is clearly not the case and so far seem to have failed to provide a battle rep in which they are atrocious. What you are doing is called moving the goal post. You challenged someone to bring you battle reports and they did. You challenged them to bring you a tactic and use for them and they did. They even brought proof that those tactics work in the real world with real paper. Do they claim they are killer units? No they are not, but aren't nearly as bad as the craptastic unit you make them. Your tactical orthodoxy seem to blind you to different uses and stratagem. One man's trash is another man treasure...
We are reading very different reports if you thought they worked as advertised. Drawing 190 points worth of gunfire all game and removing one wounded cheap unit off the board is pretty useless, and is what I would expect. And the marine list was extremely subpar.
It doesn't annoy me, every meta is different and I wouldn't mind mine being more casual, but they can't be used as proof of efficacy. Especially when the unit in question didn't accomplish much.
I like it when people use less-than-optimal units for fun. You get to see things like Warp Talons jumping about - makes it more interesting just from a variety point of view.
That can be done, if you have limitless cash to spend on w40k. Can't see how it could be otherwise. Well maybe if someone plays in a place where everything can be counts as with everything, and you can just take 10 cultists to represent 10 warp talons. Even if the size of models is wrong.
2k point games vs super bad lists are hardly an argument in favor of using mutilators. When was the last time a tournament wining chaos list run those. ?
Makumba wrote: That can be done, if you have limitless cash to spend on w40k. Can't see how it could be otherwise. Well maybe if someone plays in a place where everything can be counts as with everything, and you can just take 10 cultists to represent 10 warp talons. Even if the size of models is wrong.
2k point games vs super bad lists are hardly an argument in favor of using mutilators. When was the last time a tournament wining chaos list run those. ?
I'm assuming you're replying to me as you mention warp talons after I did? I don't know why you would need limitless cash to play with non-optimal models. I have some warp talons I made before I found out they weren't super-awesome. I wasn't even arguing to use mutilations, I just said I like it when I see different stuff in general - are you saying I'm wrong for liking something?
It's really hard to box in BA or DE. Orks will love you for getting so close. Again, these lists have the tools to deal with your CSM box in. I really don't see why you think trying to outmaneuver BA is going to end well.
Orks dont' love me for getting close.
Outmaneuvering Blood Angels is harder. I agree. But then you don't have to really do that. If Blood angels won't engage and play to their strongest suit, what am I worried about? Blood Angel shooting? I feel like I am pretty well equipped to meet Blood angels on their terms. Dante is a beast and I do respect the hell out of him. He's immune to my best trick for removing him so of course deserves my respect. That really is no statement on Mutilators though.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
koooaei wrote: Do you guyz have batreps where mutilators perform poorly?
I haven't seen 'em. So we should question it. Lol. Hilarious.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: In Jancoran's CAAC locals of course, where he TRULY shows his unorthodox Tactics against the bad AND the mediocre!
Prove it. Go play all the people I play and come back then. Until then, save it.
They are a bad unit in a bad codex. Do they have no use. No, but we need to accept two versions of 40k, one were people take fun fluffy and cool units in their army, and one where people crunch numbers to divine the best units and ignore the rest.
Can Chaos Marine beat other armies, yes. Do they reliably win major tournaments, not to my knowledge.
koooaei wrote: Do you guyz have batreps where mutilators perform poorly?
Tbh, I am unable to find any batreps that are recent where mutilators are included at all. You see the usual suspects of course, though chaos has very little bat reps to chose from as is.
It seems no side is able to provide batreps that illustrate their point, beyond the one where they charge a damaged 120 point squad and fail to accomplish anything else, despite the claims that were...exaggerated.
It's really hard to box in BA or DE. Orks will love you for getting so close. Again, these lists have the tools to deal with your CSM box in. I really don't see why you think trying to outmaneuver BA is going to end well.
Orks dont' love me for getting close.
Outmaneuvering Blood Angels is harder. I agree. But then you don't have to really do that. If Blood angels won't engage and play to their strongest suit, what am I worried about? Blood Angel shooting? I feel like I am pretty well equipped to meet Blood angels on their terms. Dante is a beast and I do respect the hell out of him. He's immune to my best trick for removing him so of course deserves my respect. That really is no statement on Mutilators though.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
koooaei wrote: Do you guyz have batreps where mutilators perform poorly?
I haven't seen 'em. So we should question it. Lol. Hilarious.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: In Jancoran's CAAC locals of course, where he TRULY shows his unorthodox Tactics against the bad AND the mediocre!
Prove it. Go play all the people I play and come back then. Until then, save it.
You mean where I wouldn't be allowed FW units because they're expensive and unbalanced in your mind, even after people like Peregrine proved you wrong in an almost 20 page thread, only for you to block them? Where I'm basically not allowed to take the lists I want?
I don't NEED to play your locals to know how trashy the players are. You showed that already in several CSM threads and the FW one.
Martel732 wrote: I still don't understand why csm assault units should be scary to orks or ba.
I also don't understand why anyone thinks dante is any good.
To be fair, an AoBF Jugger Lord leading a unit of MoK Spawn or Bikers is pretty scary... Sure it's not Thundercav or any other hitty Deathstar levels of scary, but still not something most units want to be dancing with.
Martel732 wrote: I still don't understand why csm assault units should be scary to orks or ba.
I also don't understand why anyone thinks dante is any good.
To be fair, an AoBF Jugger Lord leading a unit of MoK Spawn or Bikers is pretty scary... Sure it's not Thundercav or any other hitty Deathstar levels of scary, but still not something most units want to be dancing with.
After dealing with TWC, it doesn't seem that bad at all. That's the problem with the older dexes. Their "scary" is yawn-inducing compared to the newer ones ability to lay waste or soak firepower. I'll deal with the lord and spawn/bikers at lot easier than double WK. Is Dante supposed to be good because he can tie up a Jugger Lord for a couple turns?
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Dante strikes at AP2 S6 at minimum with I6. Oh, and has EW.
Mostly it is the EW that sets him as good in my book.
This. He can punch on with almost anything and not only have a decent chance at winning, but a not-unreasonable chance at coming out virtually unscathed.
Will he solo a WK? No, but then, measuring a units worth against a WK isn't productive in any army but Eldar (not that it won't keep happening unfortunately).
Will he have an excellent chance at doing his job once he gets there? Yep. Does he need some help getting there? Yep. Does his moving to LOW mean you can free up HQ slots for a libby and a priest? Yep.
Besides, 2 things:
1) Why are we talking about Dante in a thread about CSM Muties?
2) How has it managed to take 4 pages to convince people that Muties are top contenders for worst unit in all of 40k? A single look at their stats and abilities should tell you that much.
You mean where I wouldn't be allowed FW units because they're expensive and unbalanced in your mind, even after people like Peregrine proved you wrong....
He...proved...something did he? And you seem unaware so I will correct you. I put him on ignore two yars ago. So I dont even see his posts dude. He's too abusive. I am okay with people disagreeing. Its a forum. But when someone grows so abusive and reckless in their posts, I have to draw a line. So i did.
So I dont even know what you're talking about to be honest. I never saw any of it.
Thats admittedly a thread from 6th ed but someone challenged me to use mutilators in the lone wolf deep striking distraction roll before I labled them as useless. After having used them in several games (which I tqlk about in that thread), i cant say they are useless, but I also cant think of why I would take them over other options in the dex.
Too slow, too situational, too expensive for what they do and no reliable delivery system.
Deep Strike seems about as reliable as it gets without spending any points.
I think an aversion by some players to deep Striking is partly to blame for the perceptions of Mutilators. I deep strike stuff like crazy, all the time, and without fear. the Deep Strike table is quite forgiving. But I suppose if you dont posess the intestinal fortitude to make drops, then Mutilators will seem less cool to you.
I guess I'll do a battle report then. I did one actually on Christmas but it was with my son, and he was playing with the Mutilators. So there's not a lot of gain to watching that one, other than my own personal enjoyment of playing with him.
I think the aversion to deepstrike depends on what kind of board you play on. If it's fairly open then it becomes a much more viable strategy. If you have a lot of terrain than I understand the reluctance as the table may not be that bad, but still can hold up a lot of points in reserves at best and dusted at worst. Mutilators do well with it since they are small and fairly cheap, but still they are a slow assault unit that isn't that durable.
There are better things in the book to use than Muties, but they could be fun.
The models are straight up fugly though. If you wanted to use them, I'd suggest taking a box of Chaos Termies and a box of Chaos Spawn and make your own mutilators.
Jancoran wrote: Deep Strike seems about as reliable as it gets without spending any points.
I think an aversion by some players to deep Striking is partly to blame for the perceptions of Mutilators. I deep strike stuff like crazy, all the time, and without fear. the Deep Strike table is quite forgiving. But I suppose if you dont posess the intestinal fortitude to make drops, then Mutilators will seem less cool to you.
I guess I'll do a battle report then. I did one actually on Christmas but it was with my son, and he was playing with the Mutilators. So there's not a lot of gain to watching that one, other than my own personal enjoyment of playing with him.
Today, an all time low on dakkadakka was reached.
Instead of posting battle reports, tactics, math, or debating strategies, we have begun to suggest other movers of plastic/metal figures are somehow more cowardly, and this cowardice stops them from seeing greatness.
Dtox wrote: so yeah, I decided against getting mutilators for the time being. It was a really enticing sale, but the overwhelming amount of negative thoughts towards them made me reconsider. It'd be nice if they didnt have slow and purposeful, or if they at least had a useful reason for having it.
Depends on the sale. If they're dirt cheap, and if you like the model. You'll find use for them. I don't have any just because I can't any good deals on them. That being said. If i can find them ridiculously cheap. I'd find a use for them. Maybe next edition they'll be good, and You'll be glad you picked them up early. I know I was when I picked up spawn early in 5th, Back when everyone still assumed they were awful because of how awful they were for the longest time. Do you fancy yourself more of a collector or player? If your a collector, pick them up, at least they're kinda neat to see as part of a complete battleforce. If you plan to play competitively... why are you playing CSM?
Jancoran wrote: Deep Strike seems about as reliable as it gets without spending any points.
I think an aversion by some players to deep Striking is partly to blame for the perceptions of Mutilators. I deep strike stuff like crazy, all the time, and without fear. the Deep Strike table is quite forgiving. But I suppose if you dont posess the intestinal fortitude to make drops, then Mutilators will seem less cool to you.
I guess I'll do a battle report then. I did one actually on Christmas but it was with my son, and he was playing with the Mutilators. So there's not a lot of gain to watching that one, other than my own personal enjoyment of playing with him.
Today, an all time low on dakkadakka was reached.
Instead of posting battle reports, tactics, math, or debating strategies, we have begun to suggest other movers of plastic/metal figures are somehow more cowardly, and this cowardice stops them from seeing greatness.
I don't use deep strike much because I think it sucks. Actually, I think it doubly sucks because I think reserves suck as well. I punish heavy users of deep strike mercilessly quite often.
I don't use deep strike much because I think it sucks. Actually, I think it doubly sucks because I think reserves suck as well. I punish heavy users of deep strike mercilessly quite often.
Is that right? Well I certainly have no problem with you not utilizing it. =)
Well, i just thought it's unfair to ask for batreps with mutilators doing fine, getting this batreps than still disregard tham as garbage even when you've got no batreps to prove how outright bad they are. Just seems a bit one-sided and unfair towards poor mutilators. What do they need to do to prove their worth? Kill deathstars on their own? Catch up scatbikes even though there's literally nothing in the codex that can reliably do that on it's own?
All i want to say is that mutilators seem to be fine for csm. Another question is that csm don't have easy win buttons.
I'll try them out with my orks next year But first - a daemon slaanesh detachment with a masque.
Btw, Jancoran, i know that you like unusual stuff. Try this out: daemonettes with an instrument and a masque. Ultimate anti-deathstar/fmc.
They need to have a role they're good at, and like Warp Talons they don't have one. They can't sweep OR run, are useless as, since they can't catch up, have no range power (compared to their cousins Centurions and Obliterators), they have a VERY small squad cap, they can't get a dedicated Land Raider (and that's still a junk transport), AND to top it off they have to switch weapons each round. Couple that with the Mathhammer not being in their favor (and therefore nobody cares if you actually DO catch up to something with it), they can't even provide a real distraction.
The Mutilators were NOT doing fine. Those reports were against crap players using crap lists (Jancoran called a 6th Edition Eldar list with THREE Serpents Mechdar. He honestly doesn't have a clue what he's talking about at this point if you missed that). Also remember popping a Rhino isn't hard for many units to do, so for it to be pointed out as a feat in one game says nothing.
The fact this thread has gone on four pages to get this into your skulls when basic logic and math was presented quite honestly boggles my mind.
You want a use? They fulfill the minimum needed to get The Purge FOC for 110 points. Therefore taking two separate detachments will cost you a tax of 220 for 8 Heavy Support slots. They're basically Cultists without the Objective Secured.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Those are local gakky games. I see Warp Talons kill an Assault Terminator squad once and you don't see anyone praising them. We're using math and what's competitive and what's logical.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also one of those comes from Jancoran's blog, which has been shown to be terrible in different threads.
And this is where your logic fails entirely. Just because warp talons and mutilators don't work for YOUR playstyle don't mean they don't work for others. Going by math hammer and what's competitive imho is a bad way to design a list
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Those are local gakky games. I see Warp Talons kill an Assault Terminator squad once and you don't see anyone praising them. We're using math and what's competitive and what's logical.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also one of those comes from Jancoran's blog, which has been shown to be terrible in different threads.
And this is where your logic fails entirely. Just because warp talons and mutilators don't work for YOUR playstyle don't mean they don't work for others. Going by math hammer and what's competitive imho is a bad way to design a list
Sure, play a few games using mutilators and warp talons and tell us how it went. I say that going by mathhammer and what's competitive is the ONLY way to properly design your list if your opponents don't always bring joke lists.
koooaei wrote: Well, i just thought it's unfair to ask for batreps with mutilators doing fine, getting this batreps than still disregard tham as garbage even when you've got no batreps to prove how outright bad they are. Just seems a bit one-sided and unfair towards poor mutilators. What do they need to do to prove their worth? Kill deathstars on their own? Catch up scatbikes even though there's literally nothing in the codex that can reliably do that on it's own?
Well, for one, its extremely hard to prove a negative. I can't prove that mutilators aren't good via batreps, because in batreps people aren't taking them at all. The batreps posted are either outdated or, quite frankly, prove the point that mutilators are bad (as seen in the one batrep from 2015).
The fact that they aren't being taken is a sign that they are bad. You rarely see drakes, bikers, raptors, spawn, plague marines, standard marines all being widely excluded from bat reps. Other unis you see occasionally but not all the time, but mutilators? Not common, not in competitive games.
Furthermore, nobody was able to provide a batrep where they do well. One guy provided one, and wildly exaggerated what they accomplished (or made it up). They didn't accomplish much in that game, chasing off one squad that already had a heldrake attack it and tanking, at best, 190 points. That was for 3 of them, btw.
As for what they need to accomplish, they need to do what is being stated they can do. Absorb enough firepower to be worth considering (200-300 points) and catch anything in melee.
Which, to be fair, we aren't seeing much of.
Keep in mind that Jancoran, despite his claims that they are good, has been unable to provide a method for getting them into CC that isn't equivalent to "dude try harder" or "gotta get that fortitude".
If he had a battle report using them against a good list, I'd be more inclined to listen to him. But he has never been able to do so, in any of the threads detailing his methods.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Those are local gakky games. I see Warp Talons kill an Assault Terminator squad once and you don't see anyone praising them. We're using math and what's competitive and what's logical.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also one of those comes from Jancoran's blog, which has been shown to be terrible in different threads.
And this is where your logic fails entirely. Just because warp talons and mutilators don't work for YOUR playstyle don't mean they don't work for others. Going by math hammer and what's competitive imho is a bad way to design a list
It's not a matter of Warptalons not fitting certain play styles as it is the fact that many of these so-called 'specialist' Chaos units are just plain bad...
Warptalons cost too much for what you get. They have a special ability that can't be viably used as the army lacks any form of Deep Strike mitigation, nor can they garner any proper supports from within their own army. They're too effective at cutting up MEQ's, yet fall flat against most MC's due to the prevalence of 2+ saves on them. They can't dent Deathstars as they lack any way to get ap2 into the unit, nor do they have the weight of attacks to chew through them.
The one and only unit they really shine against, T5/3+, is typically only seen in small numbers, again making their combat role a crap-shoot, as they're likely to kill off the unit and then sit around to eat a whack load of enemy bullets.
Are Talons playable? Absolutely they are, but there's no hiding the fact that they, like Mutilators, as just a bad unit.
I freely admit that I love my small unit of Talons when playing my Tzeentch Daemons! But I make no mistake that my army is highly non-competitive.
If I wanted to make it competitive, things like the Talons would absolutely need to go, alongside my Flamers who are just dead weight competitively speaking. Meanwhile, I'd need to radically alter the way I use my Pink Horrors, trim down my Tzheralds, add in the better Slaanesh/Nurgle/Khorne Dog units, etc...
Mutilators are playable. But they're still a terrible unit that simply cannot be used against the top end stuff, and functions horribly in its intended role. They simply have far too much going against them that there is no way to make them viable against the newer books, especially when they're running their more optimised lists.
I'm sure BA just don't fit my playstyle. It has nothing to do with being a codex filled with garbage. Nothing to see here. Move along.
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koooaei wrote: Well, i just thought it's unfair to ask for batreps with mutilators doing fine, getting this batreps than still disregard tham as garbage even when you've got no batreps to prove how outright bad they are. Just seems a bit one-sided and unfair towards poor mutilators. What do they need to do to prove their worth? Kill deathstars on their own? Catch up scatbikes even though there's literally nothing in the codex that can reliably do that on it's own?
All i want to say is that mutilators seem to be fine for csm. Another question is that csm don't have easy win buttons.
I'll try them out with my orks next year But first - a daemon slaanesh detachment with a masque.
Btw, Jancoran, i know that you like unusual stuff. Try this out: daemonettes with an instrument and a masque. Ultimate anti-deathstar/fmc.
I actually have much more faith in mathhammer than batreps. Many batreps involve suspect lists, poor decisions pushing the plastic, rules mistakes, or all three. For example, for an Eldar batrep to be relevant to me, there'd have to be 20+ scatterbikes and double WK involved.
Well, i just thought it's unfair to ask for batreps with mutilators doing fine, getting this batreps than still disregard tham as garbage even when you've got no batreps to prove how outright bad they are. Just seems a bit one-sided and unfair towards poor mutilators. What do they need to do to prove their worth? Kill deathstars on their own? Catch up scatbikes even though there's literally nothing in the codex that can reliably do that on it's own?
I'm sorry, I may have missed it, but I didn't see where Jancoran posted a Batrep. The closest thing I've seen is the thread I linked to where I talk about having used them in a few games. I would hesitate to call those battle reports though.
Of course, I'm not sure how much it really matters either. At this point it's not likely that someone who's argued as strenuously for the use of Mutilators as Jancoran has is going to hog play some battles with the intent of doing reports and then come back and say "sorry guys, my bad. I was wrong." I mean, is that something that happens on Dakka? Plus, and I don;t mean this to be offensive (seriously, I really don't), but Jancoran argues just hard enough for most of his points that he reminds me of Ailaros at times. I doubt he's really open to being wrong. I'd also like to see more of the meta he plays in. I remember someone (it may actually have been Ailaros) arguing for the use of a unit no one else thought was any good. This poster swore up and down that the unit was great and we just need to "L2P". When they finally posted a battle report about it, they were lined up against a list so sub-par that it was like it was made by a spider monkey with a mental deficiency. SO of COURSE in a meta like that, things will suddenly become "good". Not saying that's definitely the case for Jancoran, but I always wonder about that with people.
I think the most honest, unbiased review your going to get of them is in the thread I linked. My take going in was "these are trash" and my take coming out was, "these are better than I thought, but outside of this experiment, they weren't nearly good enough for me to take them over several other things in the book. Even if it's just for a distraction tactic.
There are better things in the book to use than Muties, but they could be fun.
This sums it up for me. There is almost nothing WORSE in the book (which is saying something considering how bad that book was right out of the gate), but in certain situations they CAN be fun. In a more narrative driven campaign for example, my group fought several battles using Space Hulk tiles that represented ship boardings. When you're in a cramped space and teleportation doesn't go awry, and the enemy can't escape, Muties are fun and fluffy. Slow moving and able to soak up damage with the other marines running down the hallway behind them seemed like a fluffy way to use them. They were also sent into small command bunkers that campaign.
Like I said though, these were narrative driven campaigns where the rarely wen up against anything really tough or competitive. In a more competitive meta or at tournament, I honestly can't see using them.
Edited because autocorrect made me sound even dumber than I actually am ...
We aren't talking about what's fun to use, though. Otherwise, when you have people hammering in the point of "don't use tournament standards and they're okay", what's the point of discussion?
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Those are local gakky games. I see Warp Talons kill an Assault Terminator squad once and you don't see anyone praising them. We're using math and what's competitive and what's logical.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also one of those comes from Jancoran's blog, which has been shown to be terrible in different threads.
And this is where your logic fails entirely. Just because warp talons and mutilators don't work for YOUR playstyle don't mean they don't work for others. Going by math hammer and what's competitive imho is a bad way to design a list
It's not a matter of Warptalons not fitting certain play styles as it is the fact that many of these so-called 'specialist' Chaos units are just plain bad...
Warptalons cost too much for what you get. They have a special ability that can't be viably used as the army lacks any form of Deep Strike mitigation, nor can they garner any proper supports from within their own army. They're too effective at cutting up MEQ's, yet fall flat against most MC's due to the prevalence of 2+ saves on them. They can't dent Deathstars as they lack any way to get ap2 into the unit, nor do they have the weight of attacks to chew through them.
The one and only unit they really shine against, T5/3+, is typically only seen in small numbers, again making their combat role a crap-shoot, as they're likely to kill off the unit and then sit around to eat a whack load of enemy bullets.
Are Talons playable? Absolutely they are, but there's no hiding the fact that they, like Mutilators, as just a bad unit.
I freely admit that I love my small unit of Talons when playing my Tzeentch Daemons! But I make no mistake that my army is highly non-competitive.
If I wanted to make it competitive, things like the Talons would absolutely need to go, alongside my Flamers who are just dead weight competitively speaking. Meanwhile, I'd need to radically alter the way I use my Pink Horrors, trim down my Tzheralds, add in the better Slaanesh/Nurgle/Khorne Dog units, etc...
Mutilators are playable. But they're still a terrible unit that simply cannot be used against the top end stuff, and functions horribly in its intended role. They simply have far too much going against them that there is no way to make them viable against the newer books, especially when they're running their more optimised lists.
You have to realize people would still use the same stupid logic if every CSM unit cost 5 points more.
I'm going to reserve further judgement until I see the ba article. If some crazy DoA strategy is suggested, then i'll know for sure. DoA has always stood for dead on arrival. It didn't work in 5th or 6th and it won't work now in 7th.
Well, i just thought it's unfair to ask for batreps with mutilators doing fine, getting this batreps than still disregard tham as garbage even when you've got no batreps to prove how outright bad they are. Just seems a bit one-sided and unfair towards poor mutilators. What do they need to do to prove their worth? Kill deathstars on their own? Catch up scatbikes even though there's literally nothing in the codex that can reliably do that on it's own?
I'm sorry, I may have missed it, but I didn't see where Jancoran posted a Batrep. The closest thing I've seen is the thread I linked to where I talk about having used them in a few games. I would hesitate to call those batters though.
He had one battle report against the eldar 6th edition codex I believe. The opponent spammed guardians and forgot to deploy a waveserpent, so probably wasn't the best player around. The list wasn't competitive (3 WS, maybe 4, guardian heavy and one WS was not deployed)
It was certainly not the WS spam we saw back in 6th, despite claims that it was.
Of course, I'm not sure how much it really matters either. At this point it's not likely that someone who's argued as strenuously for the use of Mutilators as Jancoran has is going to hog play some battles with the intent of doing reports and then come back and say "sorry guys, my bad. I was wrong." I mean, is that something that happens on Dakka?
It does with more reasonable players. I've had someone (I want to say vipoid) convince me I was wrong regarding BA and a formation they had at an earlier time. I had someone else convince me noise marines and regular marines were worth using for chaos (long ago, can't recall who). Another person on this forum recently convinced me of hawks being good (after 4 editions of ignoring them outside of their phoenix lord, I didn't even read their new rules )
In those situations, people linked army lists/battle reports, showed me the math, and detailed how they were to be used effectively. I even argued with them quite a bit, but admitted they were right eventually.
The problem is people in Jancorans camp just go "Well I made it work in my super competitive meta! I don't have a battle report, or strategy, but you guys are cowards! I mean, I've taken them against the mighty dread mob!", which isn't a convincing argument. I've had similar arguments from people who want to introduce reiki healing in my quantum mechanics in chemistry class The worst argument I've seen so far is him saying a dominion squad can kill a WK and riptide on the same turn, trying to change it to multiple, I running the numbers and determining how many points that would be exactly, and him saying I made a mistake in my math but not pointing it out after 2 pages of discussion. All the while suggesting I was a horrible professor.
Plus, and I don;t mean this to be offensive (seriously, I really don't), but Jancoran argues just hard enough for most of his points that he reminds me of Ailaros at times. I doubt he's really open to being wrong. I'd also like to see more of the meta he plays in. I remember someone (it may actually have been Ailaros) arguing for the use of a unit no one else thought was any good. This poster swore up and down that the unit was great and we just need to "L2P". When they finally posted a battle report about it, they were lined up against a list so sub-par that it was like it was made by a spider monkey with a mental deficiency. SO of COURSE in a meta like that, things will suddenly become "good". Not saying that's definitely the case for Jancoran, but I always wonder about that with people.
No, that sums up Jancoran pretty well. Whenever he posts a report the enemies list looks very weak, and their strategies seem terrible (charging a 2 Wound WK into 6 re-rolling to hit not firing snap shot lascannons springs to mind. He would have been better off not touching the model at all).
I'd really like to see his strategies against a competitive option, because I have read through his entire blog and enjoy his writing style (it's pretty funny). But whenever he introduces a tactic against a competitive opponent, he seems to get the rules wrong or doesn't understand why it won't work (The murdersword against the WK being a prime example), so I think his meta is more casual.
Which is fine, I'm all for a more casual meta. But it doesn't belong in a conversation about the strength of a unit.
I think the most honest, unbiased review your going to get of them is in the thread I linked. My take going in was "these are trash" and my take coming out was, "these are better than I thought, but outside of this experiment, they weren't nearly good enough for me to take them over several other things in the book. Even if it's just for a distraction tactic.
That's a good summary of them. They are just missing 1 or 2 special rules or improved stats and they'd be good. Not amazing, but good.
Imagine muties with 3 wounds, more attacks, fleet, strike at init with fists...something. A lot of the chaos codex feels that way.
You know what would be an immediate fix for Obliterators and Mutilators? S5 and T5 standard. At least they'd be almost as good as Centurions.
Assault Centurions make Mutilators cry. For the same price, Mutilators have a 5++ and Deep Striking. Centurions can either fight at range with 3 TL Bolters or charge at I4 through cover, and can either flame stuff or for 5 more points carry a TL Melta Gun. For a few more points the Mutilators can take T5, but Centurions ID them anyway thanks to S10.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You know what would be an immediate fix for Obliterators and Mutilators? S5 and T5 standard. At least they'd be almost as good as Centurions.
Assault Centurions make Mutilators cry. For the same price, Mutilators have a 5++ and Deep Striking. Centurions can either fight at range with 3 TL Bolters or charge at I4 through cover, and can either flame stuff or for 5 more points carry a TL Melta Gun. For a few more points the Mutilators can take T5, but Centurions ID them anyway thanks to S10.
At the very least they need to swap Slow & Purposeful for Relentless. S5/T5 would be simply amazing to have, especially if the MoN gets changed to something more flavourful than just the boring +1T. (I'd personally love to see it become say, FnP + Shrouded, then add a Nurgle psychic power to add +1FnP!)
Oh, and for the love of feth, remove that utterly stupid as gak BS about not being able to use the same weapon in consecutive turns!
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You know what would be an immediate fix for Obliterators and Mutilators? S5 and T5 standard. At least they'd be almost as good as Centurions.
Assault Centurions make Mutilators cry. For the same price, Mutilators have a 5++ and Deep Striking. Centurions can either fight at range with 3 TL Bolters or charge at I4 through cover, and can either flame stuff or for 5 more points carry a TL Melta Gun. For a few more points the Mutilators can take T5, but Centurions ID them anyway thanks to S10.
At the very least they need to swap Slow & Purposeful for Relentless. S5/T5 would be simply amazing to have, especially if the MoN gets changed to something more flavourful than just the boring +1T. (I'd personally love to see it become say, FnP + Shrouded, then add a Nurgle psychic power to add +1FnP!)
Oh, and for the love of feth, remove that utterly stupid as gak BS about not being able to use the same weapon in consecutive turns!
The fact that they aren't being taken is a sign that they are bad.
Thousands of flies can't be mistaken? It's quite a weak arguement.
For example, noone was running lictors cause they're weak and mathhammer, and drama. BAM 1-st place at LVO (or BAO?). Noone's running masque. BAM 4 victories and one draw with orks + masque at ETC.
There are a lot of underestimated things in wh40k. The fact that "they aren't being taken" doesn't mean they're bad at all.
The fact that they aren't being taken is a sign that they are bad.
Thousands of flies can't be mistaken? It's quite a weak arguement.
For example, noone was running lictors cause they're weak and mathhammer, and drama. BAM 1-st place at LVO (or BAO?). Noone's running masque. BAM 4 victories and one draw with orks + masque at ETC.
There are a lot of underestimated things in wh40k. The fact that "they aren't being taken" doesn't mean they're bad at all.
The guy was only using the Lictors because they're Locator Beacons for the other good unit in the list besides the Flyrants: Mawlocs. People honestly need to stop citing this list as an example for this kinda topic. It's getting old and people kinda keep missing that.
That said I have no idea what this Masque list is.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Martel732 wrote: And assault centurions are still considered poor. Because grav centurions are LULZ ALL OF YOU DIES!
The fact that they aren't being taken is a sign that they are bad.
Thousands of flies can't be mistaken? It's quite a weak arguement.
Are...you calling other players flies?
It's not a strong argument, which is why I listed some others (that you chose to omit and not respond to?) but when the people who say mutilators are good have no argument at all....even a weak argument is better than none.
For example, noone was running lictors cause they're weak and mathhammer, and drama. BAM 1-st place at LVO (or BAO?).
You mean the list that spammed mawlocs and FMCs (which everyone agreed are very good) while using a few lictors as locator beacons?
I saw the list, it didn't use the lictors in a new way. They weren't attacking anything or doing damage. If you check out the battle reports, the lictors didn't do anything weird or interesting other than act as locator beacons. I believe they spent most of the game hiding and going to ground.
There are a lot of underestimated things in wh40k. The fact that "they aren't being taken" doesn't mean they're bad at all.
Which, again, is why I've been listing other arguments and asking for evidence that they are good. So far, no one has provided anything at all other than insulting other players.
I'm not sure why you singled out one piece of what I've been saying to pick at, rather than address any one of my points about why mutilators are weak, or my comments on the provided battle reports. Do you not have anything else to add to the discussion?
40k isn't exactly a deep game either, this isn't WMH where 2 years into the game we are discovering new combos that are absurdly strong.
At release, people saw that scat bikes were the best thing in eldar. Lo and behold, such is the case.
At release, people saw the WK was way undercosted and the best GMC in the game. Lo and behold, such is the case.
At release, people saw that guardians were subpar as were shining spears. Lo and behold, such is the case.
So on and so forth, sometimes there is a bit of a debate but usually by about 3-5 months after release any combos or tricks have been discovered. There isn't enough synergy in this game to make for weird tricks or combos that no one has seen before.
Look. Skyhammer exists. These are ASM assaulting from DS combined with grav cannons to my face. There is nothing the CSM can do to my BA that is remotely that brutal. Want to deep strike some CC units? You're asking to be assaulted by a list that desperately wants to be able to assault. Thanks for making that happen for me.
While not exactly great evidence I ran 5 Nurgle Votlw warp talons today vs Grey Knights 2 of them quite happily chewed on a purifiers squad and the last one ran around being a annoying so and so by grabbing objectives lol
There are a lot of underestimated things in wh40k. The fact that "they aren't being taken" doesn't mean they're bad at all.
Which, again, is why I've been listing other arguments and asking for evidence that they are good. So far, no one has provided anything at all other than insulting other players.
I'm not sure why you singled out one piece of what I've been saying to pick at, rather than address any one of my points about why mutilators are weak, or my comments on the provided battle reports. Do you not have anything else to add to the discussion?
40k isn't exactly a deep game either, this isn't WMH where 2 years into the game we are discovering new combos that are absurdly strong.
At release, people saw that scat bikes were the best thing in eldar. Lo and behold, such is the case.
At release, people saw the WK was way undercosted and the best GMC in the game. Lo and behold, such is the case.
At release, people saw that guardians were subpar as were shining spears. Lo and behold, such is the case.
So on and so forth, sometimes there is a bit of a debate but usually by about 3-5 months after release any combos or tricks have been discovered. There isn't enough synergy in this game to make for weird tricks or combos that no one has seen before.
I think the only glaring miscalculation in recent years, was how a goodly portion of the competitive crowd initially declared that Daemons were unplayable & too random to even compete in friendly games.
Lo and behold, Daemons were a top codex in 6th, (with multiple optimised variations), and 7th has been just as kind as they can still compete even against the majority of the 7.5 stuff. (only free transport spam & Scatbikes/Wraithknight/Str.D spam really terrify them)
I can actually recall certain Tournament players outright calling the codex the worst rules set that GW had ever produced! (and then those same self-proclaimed 'experts' were among the first to claim that Daemons & summoning made 7th ed unplayable at the competitive level. )
I'd really like to see his strategies against a competitive option, because I have read through his entire blog and enjoy his writing style (it's pretty funny). But whenever he introduces a tactic against a competitive opponent, he seems to get the rules wrong or doesn't understand why it won't work (The murdersword against the WK being a prime example), so I think his meta is more casual.
Which is fine, I'm all for a more casual meta. But it doesn't belong in a conversation about the strength of a unit.
I'm with you on this. I also like Jancoran's blog. His writing style is fun and I do like that he tries to cover things that might be considered out of the ordinary by those on the "competitive scene". My only gripe (and this is a gripe I have with players in general) is that there's often not as much context as I'd like when he talks about his strategies and lists. This is a common mistake that a lot of people make too. Everyone kind of assumes that everyone else's meta is the same as theirs. This is, of course, false. That's why when I give advice I try to always stress context. For example, I will always tell people that my meta is semi competitive (meaning tough games but not a meta where 3 out of 4 are running hardcore, face smashing net lists) and I'll also generally list the types of armies/lists I tend to face on a regular basis. That way everyone reading knows right away where I'm coming from and whether or not my particular advice will work for them.
I think if everyone did that before handing out advice, a lot of this would be much easier to sort through. This Mutilators discussion in particular would have benefitted from more people giving a general rundown of their meta so we could all see what everyone else was facing. There' nothing wrong AT ALL with giving advice from the position of a fluffy "forge the narrative" type of meta. But if that's the meta your advice comes from AND you're telling me you're giving me advice for the competitive scene ... I have to call BS.
The problem is people in Jancorans camp just go "Well I made it work in my super competitive meta! I don't have a battle report, or strategy...
Except I did have batreps, did present the strategies and so you are entirely misrepresenting me. As usual. And i suppose that will be the way of it.
You not liking what I have to say doesnt mean I didn't tell you how to do it. And you not appreciating the way to do it is your call. But you were told, you were shown and you choose to reject it. I'm fine with that last part. Just don't go telling people this tripe about not offering any proof or any strategies. I did.
Also: I have no idea what you're talking about. Again. Who said a word about Serpents?
He's talking about the battle report on your blog (finally found the post they were in lol) between your Knight Lords list and your friend's "Mechdar". If that's what you're basing your opinion on then I'd have to agree that you're on shaky ground. That was a really weird Eldar list (not sure I'd consider it true mechdar but I see where you're coming from) and a lot of silly mistakes were made. That's cool and it happens all the time, but you can't use that as an example to say "see! they work".
Show me something in a situation like I had to deal with in the thread I posted where you're in a more competitive meta with stronger opponents (in terms of list building) and then I'm interested.
It was a very cool, well written report, but not one I'd hang my hat on as evidence that Mutilators are "good".
I see that a few other links were posted in the same post as your report was linked in so I'm going to read those now too. It's not that I think it's impossible to find legitimately solid uses for Mutilators (that work in a competitive scene and can't be better filled by something else in the codex), it's just that I've not really seen much actual evidence of it. I have some really cool conversion ideas for Mutilators so I'd really love for them to be decent.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Those weren't games. That was people messing around with "games".
3 Serpents is NOT Mechdar. If you're going to make "unorthodox" battle reports, at least get your bloody facts straight.
Your sad refusal to accept any reason nor any proof nor any anything is what I find the most odd.
It's not proof though. You merely state that they can catch enemies (they being the muties) but aren't really showing how one of the slowest units in the game is able to do so, besides claiming you've done it.
Also: I have no idea what you're talking about. Again. Who said a word about Serpents?
This is in regards to one of your battle reports where you faced off against a 6th edition eldar opponent who you claimed was running mechdar.
It's from another thread, and not really relevant to the discussion at hand.
The problem is people in Jancorans camp just go "Well I made it work in my super competitive meta! I don't have a battle report, or strategy...
Except I did have batreps, did present the strategies and so you are entirely misrepresenting me. As usual. And i suppose that will be the way of it.
Where are the batreps of you using mutilators against 7th edition codexes? The stronger ones, if possible?
I've asked you for batreps constantly, for any of your unorthodox tactics and how they fare against competiive lists, and you have always been unable to provide any. Always.
I've asked how you are going to get the mutilators into combat, since their only effective range is melee and they are incredibly slow, and lack accurate deepstrike. Your response has been...lacking.
You mentioned they draw the fire of 200-300 point units, despite me showing that a ~150 point marine squad can kill one pretty reliably. What 300 point unit that you see on the table is dedicating firepower to this thing, rather than just moving away?
You not liking what I have to say doesnt mean I didn't tell you how to do it. And you not appreciating the way to do it is your call. But you were told, you were shown and you choose to reject it. I'm fine with that last part. Just don't go telling people this tripe about not offering any proof or any strategies. I did.
Was this when you mentioned deploying all of them (somehow at the same time) and surrounding the enemy (despite not having accurate deep strike) and chasing them off the board (despite being extremely slow and not that tough)?
Or was it when you mentioned anyone who can't get the above to work lacks intestinal fortitude?
Nothing else I mentioned about previous discussions is false either. Those all happened.
EDIT;
I had a friend design my muties so they match my maulerfiends. They both look like hydras, with several dragon heads coming out of their arms and necks, and the armor looks like its bursting apart.
I would love to field them. My eldar/sm armies look quite boring.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Those weren't games. That was people messing around with "games".
3 Serpents is NOT Mechdar. If you're going to make "unorthodox" battle reports, at least get your bloody facts straight.
Your sad refusal to accept any reason nor any proof nor any anything is what I find the most odd.
Also: I have no idea what you're talking about. Again. Who said a word about Serpents?
http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2014/02/battle-report-mechdar-vs-night-lords.html That's specifically what I'm talking about. There are THREE Wave Serpents in a 2000 point game and you call it Mechdar. Coupled with the junk choices made, the fact this was presented in this thread as proof of Mutilators showing their value is complete junk and deserves to be thrown out if you actually have a sense of dignity. Nobody would take this seriously if they actually read it.
THAT is not Mechdar. You have obviously NOT faced Mechdar. I also doubt you've seen a good Eldar list this edition either. So yes the statement is entirely relative to the discussion at hand.
Also: I have no idea what you're talking about. Again. Who said a word about Serpents?
He's talking about the battle report on your blog (finally found the post they were in lol) between your Knight Lords list and your friend's "Mechdar". If that's what you're basing your opinion on then I'd have to agree that you're on shaky ground. That was a really weird Eldar list (not sure I'd consider it true mechdar but I see where you're coming from) and a lot of silly mistakes were made. That's cool and it happens all the time, but you can't use that as an example to say "see! they work".
Show me something in a situation like I had to deal with in the thread I posted where you're in a more competitive meta with stronger opponents (in terms of list building) and then I'm interested.
It was a very cool, well written report, but not one I'd hang my hat on as evidence that Mutilators are "good".
I see that a few other links were posted in the same post as your report was linked in so I'm going to read those now too. It's not that I think it's impossible to find legitimately solid uses for Mutilators (that work in a competitive scene and can't be better filled by something else in the codex), it's just that I've not really seen much actual evidence of it. I have some really cool conversion ideas for Mutilators so I'd really love for them to be decent.
That is a 6E battle report that is indeed irrelevant to this discussion. His only gripe is "Thats not wave spam",. Well if not, call it what you will then Slayer-Fan. Lol. I don't really care WHAT he calls it. I smashed it. If the two Prisms had been Wave Serpents, I'd have smashed them too. I'd still be standing on their wreckage, for all the same reasons.
It would be one thing if i had painted them as the second coming of Christ. But I have not. I have said they absolutely have a place, and why and when. That is what I've said. Certainly good enough for me to have taken them to tourney.
There is a little mini-crusade going on to somehow "nuh uh" me to death, but I've put the Mutilators to the test. I dunno what else you can do BUT win to prove a point, because its all talk outside of that. I've done the former plenty. Lost a few too, but it wasn't because I spent some points on them. Doing a a battle report of me winning with them will somehow make it more real? I don't think so. But I have already decided to do one and said so on another thread a while ago. I have been waiting to find an opponent with the right models for it and the holidays are tough times to get games in. Wouldn't want Slayer-fan to lose his lunch over me playing the "wrong" army. God forbid!
Martel732 wrote: As I said, the mutilator thing makes be dubious, but I'm not really an expert on CSM. I've seen them maybe once, ever, and they weren't a problem.
The BA material is so far out of date that it doesn't count for much.
Agreed and I said as much. It wasn't meant for 7E.
The fact that they aren't being taken is a sign that they are bad.
Thousands of flies can't be mistaken? It's quite a weak arguement.
For example, noone was running lictors cause they're weak and mathhammer, and drama. BAM 1-st place at LVO (or BAO?). Noone's running masque. BAM 4 victories and one draw with orks + masque at ETC.
There are a lot of underestimated things in wh40k. The fact that "they aren't being taken" doesn't mean they're bad at all.
The lictor list only worked for the given scenarios. Same with the masque list. This way we can claim anything is bad or good. Invisibility or D weapons are suddenly bad, because we refaq them. Deathstars can be made godlike if all scenarios have kill points and D is nerfed.
Doing a a battle report of me winning with them will somehow make it more real?
Nope. But if they were selling like jetbikes for eldar, and were in almost every chaos list, then it would mean they are good. If they are not seen in tournament lists, and there are many different tournaments around the world, then they are either bad, or too situational to use.
If they were selling like jetbikes for eldar, and were in almost every chaos list, then it would mean they are good. .
And you see the internetz at work, right here. Lol. Some sheeple's kids.
Too funny.
Statements like this are why it's hard to take you seriously. You don't have to insult people you disagree with.
Unless you are going to claim that the most popular unit in eldar competitive lists, the jetbike w/scat laser, is bad, I don't really see your point in insulting people here.
If they were selling like jetbikes for eldar, and were in almost every chaos list, then it would mean they are good. .
And you see the internetz at work, right here. Lol. Some sheeple's kids.
Too funny.
Statements like this are why it's hard to take you seriously. You don't have to insult people you disagree with.
Unless you are going to claim that the most popular unit in eldar competitive lists, the jetbike w/scat laser, is bad, I don't really see your point in insulting people here.
If they were selling like jetbikes for eldar, and were in almost every chaos list, then it would mean they are good. .
And you see the internetz at work, right here. Lol. Some sheeple's kids.
Too funny.
Statements like this are why it's hard to take you seriously. You don't have to insult people you disagree with.
Unless you are going to claim that the most popular unit in eldar competitive lists, the jetbike w/scat laser, is bad, I don't really see your point in insulting people here.
The irony here is... Pretty ironic.
So...still nothing to contribute beyond insults then?
If you ever get around to writing a batrep that backs up what you're saying, or you have a workable strategy, be sure to let everyone know
Jancoran wrote: Already wrote one. Already filmed one. You didnt like them
Meh.
I did like the battle reports, quality of writing wise they are fine.
The problem is your opponents write very casual lists and seem to not be the greatest at the game, and we are discussing competitiveness of a unit.
So I'm looking for batreps of mutilators being used to good effect in a 7th edition meta. I think we can agree the power level of many of the newer codexes have escalated, leaving CSM further behind. A 6th edition game against a pretty casual list against a mediocre, at best, player doesn't benefit or back up anything that you're claiming mutilators are capable of.
If you do write one, I'd be interested in reading it. Especially if the opponent is up to par.
I could write one in 2-3 weeks, but it won't be nearly as quality writing as the ones on your blog. Mine tend to read like lab reports.
I have a feeling my chaos will get steam rolled against my friends fists though.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Those weren't games. That was people messing around with "games".
3 Serpents is NOT Mechdar. If you're going to make "unorthodox" battle reports, at least get your bloody facts straight.
Your sad refusal to accept any reason nor any proof nor any anything is what I find the most odd.
It's not proof though. You merely state that they can catch enemies (they being the muties) but aren't really showing how one of the slowest units in the game is able to do so, besides claiming you've done it.
Also: I have no idea what you're talking about. Again. Who said a word about Serpents?
This is in regards to one of your battle reports where you faced off against a 6th edition eldar opponent who you claimed was running mechdar.
It's from another thread, and not really relevant to the discussion at hand.
The problem is people in Jancorans camp just go "Well I made it work in my super competitive meta! I don't have a battle report, or strategy...
Except I did have batreps, did present the strategies and so you are entirely misrepresenting me. As usual. And i suppose that will be the way of it.
Where are the batreps of you using mutilators against 7th edition codexes? The stronger ones, if possible?
I've asked you for batreps constantly, for any of your unorthodox tactics and how they fare against competiive lists, and you have always been unable to provide any. Always.
I've asked how you are going to get the mutilators into combat, since their only effective range is melee and they are incredibly slow, and lack accurate deepstrike. Your response has been...lacking.
You mentioned they draw the fire of 200-300 point units, despite me showing that a ~150 point marine squad can kill one pretty reliably. What 300 point unit that you see on the table is dedicating firepower to this thing, rather than just moving away?
You not liking what I have to say doesnt mean I didn't tell you how to do it. And you not appreciating the way to do it is your call. But you were told, you were shown and you choose to reject it. I'm fine with that last part. Just don't go telling people this tripe about not offering any proof or any strategies. I did.
Was this when you mentioned deploying all of them (somehow at the same time) and surrounding the enemy (despite not having accurate deep strike) and chasing them off the board (despite being extremely slow and not that tough)?
Or was it when you mentioned anyone who can't get the above to work lacks intestinal fortitude?
Nothing else I mentioned about previous discussions is false either. Those all happened.
EDIT;
I had a friend design my muties so they match my maulerfiends. They both look like hydras, with several dragon heads coming out of their arms and necks, and the armor looks like its bursting apart.
I would love to field them. My eldar/sm armies look quite boring.
I can't believe that a question about Mutilators being any good went for 6 pages.
They're a strictly assault unit that can never move than 6" in a players whole turn (not counting the charge)... They're the worst unit in the codex.
I could understand someone fielding them just to switch it up in a casual game and doing something different. I could even believe someone saying "I just love the model" (as amazed as I would be that someone actually liked those ugly things!)....
But someone saying that they are a good unit to take on competetive lists from the newer codices ?? Hahahahahahaha
Bartali wrote: I see a thread with Jancoran arguing that a 6" move assault unit isn't bad hasn't disappointed.
I note Jancoran ignored this post from Akiasura (who's posts in this thread have been excellent), so I though i'd repost it.
Except I responded. So.
What happens here is simple. I say X. someone says "Nuh uh" and demands to know when and how. I already told them when and how. They just are playing obtuse and pretending that I did not. Which leaves YOU thinking I didn't answer a question. If you read the entire thread, as odious as you may find it, you will learn this pattern.
The trouble for me is that I don't particularly care to repeat myself ad nauseum if it can be helped (and sometimes it cant). Akiasura here likes to do this circle thing with me, and I've just not played along anymore. If he wants to discuss this with me, or if anyone does, the first step is listening to what I already said.
The geometry isn't complicated either. There is this thing called a corner. it represents the meeting point of two board edges. When you form a fence around this, the enemy has nowhere to run. Sometimes the units themselves form the corner. In other cases, the corner is literally a board edge. Either way the enemy has nowhere to go.
When that happens, the Mutilators speed becomes a non issue because it doesn't NEED to go very far to start flipping peoples tables over. It couldn't be easier to explain.
The Mutilator is also, if the enemy calls for it, useful as a sync. You flood the enemy with units and they have to choose who to kill. No matter the unit they use to TRY and kill the T5 Mutilator with its 2+ save, the Mutilator will almost never cost more. So if the enemy spends a apir of available units trying, then its death has certainly saved some squishier units some trouble. And this is a win for the Chaos player. Heres why: its a given that those same units the enemy just fuired would have fired at SOMETHING. Given that fairly obvious fact, I think you should be agreeing with me that the inevitable shots they release are far more affordable to the Chaos player if they are into the Mutilator. thus my comment that I really do hope they try and kill him. it's literally no downside for the Chaos player, as the Chaos player would have taken casualties somewhere ANYWAYS. But in this way you absolutely limit the damage.
The Mutilator itself is, if left alive (because shooting wasn't successful) dangerous. It will end tanks. it will end softer units. Its Slow and Purposeful rule gives it the rare ability to push marine units off the board instead of letting them cling to combat. It has some very nice bonus's. The enemy is in a corner so it isn't a question of whether the Mutilator will charge. It is what it will charge.
The Mutilators also hide well and can hang around hidden to take objectives. as the game wears on, the enemy ability to do anything about them diminishes as you'd expect. Such a ploy could force an enemy to have to go track down the lone Mutilator and spend its shooting on the run. Those are all positive outcomes.
The Mutilator is not a superstar so much as it is an extremely affordable ablation tool and its an extremely affordable way to kill a tank. Possibly more than one since squadrons are a thing.
The Mutilator is so few points that its hardly an imposition to any fast list to take.
I happened to use them in an army that can push 11 units into the enemies face all at once. For that reason, the Mutilator does its job admirably. shoot the Mutilator or... the Dirge Caster Rhino? Hmmm... Shoot the Mutilator or the 3+ save Raptors... Hmmm... Shoot the Mutilator o the Obliterators which are probably a lot more of a problem? hmm...
and best of all, it takes an elite slot (currently) so its not like they cost you another unit that was "so much better" for the same points!
I dunno. I've laid it out pretty well.
Yet the only thought anyone here has is that it looks like a paperweight on paper. My question is: Even if that were true it wouldn't erase the virtue I just shared, would it? So dare the enemy not to kill it. If he chooses not to, in it goes to smash something its got cornered. If he does, the Chaos players remaining forces are better off for the distraction.
Yoyoyo wrote: Out of curiosity, what's the most cost-effective counter to a 61pt Nurgle Mutilator?
Let's say it DS'd successfully, and you have 1 turn to kill it before getting charged.
Two attack bikes with plasma? They have to hit, not overheat and get through cover/Invuls though. So probably not in one turn. But maybe? And would they be there when the time came?
Skitarii have some 3 shot Plasma weapons but I don't know how small the unit has to be.
An IG command Squad can sport 2 Plasma for like 95 points minimum I think.
Almost all the options are realistically double its points, really, but it can be done.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ashiraya wrote: A splitfiring Centurion should kill it reliably.
But you have to buy a whole unit. But sure. I don't think we can characterize a unit of Centurions as they would normally be fielded as any kind of cheap solution though. hehehe.
The main unit can fire at something else, while the splitfiring Centurion costs what, 85 points? Looks like an adequate solution to me.
Keep in mind that units that kill their own value in enemy units in one shooting phase are typically considered 'utterly broken'. After all, if your entire army could you'd table your enemy turn 1.
As a comparison, 140 points of Tactical Marines rapid firing at Guardsmen outside of cover (an ideal target in an ideal situation) will kill 40 points of Guardsmen.
Ashiraya wrote: The main unit can fire at something else, while the splitfiring Centurion costs what, 85 points? Looks like an adequate solution to me.
It could work. I'm pretty okay with that. Same Centurion would probably kill 3-4 wounds in another unit. So I suppose if push comes to shove, I'd be okay with it. Again assuming he hits, and I fail the saves.
Naturally, the Centurion could roll poorly and the Mutilator survives. Meanwhile the Centurion's two squadmates roll well and delete one of your Raptor squads. Luck goes both ways and shouldn't be relied on to keep your units alive.
Keep in mind that units that kill their own value in enemy units in one shooting phase are typically considered 'utterly broken'.
As a comparison, 140 points of Tactical Marines rapid firing at Guardsmen outside of cover (an ideal target in an ideal situation) will kill 40 points of Guardsmen.
I don't know about utterly broken. Its just a mismatch. Centurion Unit has the right weapon. Yet against Gaunts... not so much. Mismatches happen and you have to look for them where you can.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ashiraya wrote: Naturally, the Centurion could roll poorly and the Mutilator survives. Meanwhile the Centurion's two squadmates roll well and delete one of your Raptor squads. Luck goes both ways and shouldn't be relied on to keep your units alive.
I'm stating fact, not arguing. I agree that it's not a terrible solution at all.
As for the others killing Raptors: irrelevant to the Mutilator.
It is relevant for the Mutilator, because his job is to protect the others as a distraction, no? If the ones he is distracting for die, he becomes a lot less useful.
Centurions are great against just about anything other than light infantry and believe me, SM have lots of other things to deal with light infantry.
What happens here is simple. I say X. someone says "Nuh uh" and demands to know when and how. I already told them when and how. They just are playing obtuse and pretending that I did not. Which leaves YOU thinking I didn't answer a question. If you read the entire thread, as odious as you may find it, you will learn this pattern.
Actually, you had not.
You were asked how mutilators reach a unit when they are about as slow as it gets in this game. There was no response.
You were asked how mutilators can absorb the firepower of 200-300 point units, when less than 150 seems enough for most armies to kill them. There was no response.
You were asked how you managed to use them effectively against the more competent armies. There was no response.
The trouble for me is that I don't particularly care to repeat myself ad nauseum if it can be helped (and sometimes it cant). Akiasura here likes to do this circle thing with me, and I've just not played along anymore. If he wants to discuss this with me, or if anyone does, the first step is listening to what I already said.
I directly quote you and respond piece by piece.
It would be very hard for me to fail to listen to you, and other posters would be quick to point out that what I'm quoting and saying doesn't match up. It would also be very easy for you to do the same.
The geometry isn't complicated either. There is this thing called a corner. it represents the meeting point of two board edges. When you form a fence around this, the enemy has nowhere to run. Sometimes the units themselves form the corner. In other cases, the corner is literally a board edge. Either way the enemy has nowhere to go.
So, you are relying on the enemy castling up? The better armies don't really castle (Necrons, Eldar, SM, Tau) save occasionally Tau if they go MC heavy (and they have interceptor, so the mutilators are awful against them). Most of the good armies want to get closer than that, since their guns are relatively close range, or they have excellent assault units.
As for a board edge, that could work, but considering how slow you are the enemy has to be hugging the edge before they have no where to go.
Keep in mind the earliest you can arrive is turn 2, so the earliest you'll assault is turn 3-4. That's half the game where your distraction unit has not been very distracting at all.
When that happens, the Mutilators speed becomes a non issue because it doesn't NEED to go very far to start flipping peoples tables over. It couldn't be easier to explain.
It is easy to explain, but that doesn't make it a good strategy.
You rely on the following to make the mutilators work;
1) Enemies are castling up or deploying near a board edge. Given the lack of deepstrike in the chaos army, and the lack of speed on most units, there is little reason to do this. Most armies castle to avoid rear shots on their armor from deepstrikers, or because their enemy is absurdly fast and hard hitting in melee, and every turn is precious. Chaos isn't really like that either, although it can be moderately quick and hard hitting (still loses out to the true stars of melee in this game sadly).
2) Your enemy has no interceptor. You have very little deepstrike, even a little interceptor is enough to obliterate the units that fall
3) Your enemy has big units only that cost 200-300 that the mutilator can threaten effectively so it can serve as a distraction. Considering the better armies run MSU or large deathstars (or worse, both), I don't see this happening.
4) The enemy does not have a unit that can delete the mutilators either through melee or assault that costs 150 points nearby. This one is possible depending on how your enemy places his troops.
5) You manage to deploy enough mutilators on the same turn or the rest of your army is fast enough to threaten the enemy by the time the mutilators arrive to force a fence on the opponent. Chaos is slow and overcosted, so I don't see this as a good strategy against the better armies. YMMV though.
The Mutilator is also, if the enemy calls for it, useful as a sync. You flood the enemy with units and they have to choose who to kill. No matter the unit they use to TRY and kill the T5 Mutilator with its 2+ save, the Mutilator will almost never cost more. So if the enemy spends a apir of available units trying, then its death has certainly saved some squishier units some trouble. And this is a win for the Chaos player. Heres why: its a given that those same units the enemy just fuired would have fired at SOMETHING. Given that fairly obvious fact, I think you should be agreeing with me that the inevitable shots they release are far more affordable to the Chaos player if they are into the Mutilator. thus my comment that I really do hope they try and kill him. it's literally no downside for the Chaos player, as the Chaos player would have taken casualties somewhere ANYWAYS. But in this way you absolutely limit the damage.
Well, the downside is that you spent points on the mutilator, and it's dead. I don't know why you consider this dead model better than that dead model, unless they would have caused drastically more wounds if they fired at something else.
The mutilator doesn't have to cost more than the squad doing the killing. Very few squads in the game can remove their points per turn after all, unless they are melee (and will only have a few turns to do so anyway, as compared to ranged). 1/2 to 1/3 is fine, with 1/4 being average, and 1/5 being bad.
So if a unit costs less than 150, firing on the mutilator is a fine use of points. It's the 225 and over where the mutilator starts being cost effective as a distraction, but this is rarely required to remove them.
Take a 10 man marine squad with 2 pgs. This will delete the mutilator.
If firing at regular marines in 5+ cover, they do 1.48 wounds from plasma and 1.78 from the bolters, assuming rapid fire range. This is 3.25 wounds which is actually less points than the mutilator. You save points if they shoot the marines instead. Outside of cover, it's equal to the mutilators points pretty much.
But it's not better, and certainly not significantly better.
The Mutilator itself is, if left alive (because shooting wasn't successful) dangerous. It will end tanks. it will end softer units. Its Slow and Purposeful rule gives it the rare ability to push marine units off the board instead of letting them cling to combat. It has some very nice bonus's. The enemy is in a corner so it isn't a question of whether the Mutilator will charge. It is what it will charge.
So you just assume the shooting wasn't successful, despite the fact marines armed with pgs can do it pretty reliably?
And the enemy is just in a corner why?
And it'll charge anything within 6+2d6 inches of it's deepstriking position one turn later. Because that's all it can reach...which is about as slow as it gets in the game. If for some reason the enemy can't move out of the way, or charge it, or kill it....lot of ifs.
The Mutilators also hide well and can hang around hidden to take objectives. as the game wears on, the enemy ability to do anything about them diminishes as you'd expect. Such a ploy could force an enemy to have to go track down the lone Mutilator and spend its shooting on the run. Those are all positive outcomes.
Sure, if they were realistic it would be a lot better.
Mutilators don't hide well, being extremely slow they have issues reaching cover that allows them to hide effectively and are easily one of the worst objective grabbers in the game.
Mutilators don't benefit from cover much, since they have a invul save stock. They really only want to move towards the enemy, since melee is their effective range and they are so slow. They can't waste a turn going any direction but forward.
The enemy's ability to deal with every unit (hopefully) weakens as the game continues. This is not unique to the mutilator, and can't be considered a strength. We'd have to list it for literally every unit in the game.
The Mutilator is not a superstar so much as it is an extremely affordable ablation tool and its an extremely affordable way to kill a tank. Possibly more than one since squadrons are a thing.
Squadrons make them more vulnerable, although it does help them work together. It's hard to say what the better way to run them is.
The Mutilator is so few points that its hardly an imposition to any fast list to take.
One mutilator is cheap, but 3 is nearly 200 points, which is over 10% of your point total (I want to say that 3 w/MoN is pretty much 10%). That could be a decent number of spawn, a raptor squad loaded out, bikers, a drake, a fiend, havoks loaded out, a 10 man squad with most of the trimmings...
For a unit that most likely won't accomplish much, 200 points is a lot. I believe I could take 9 scat bikes instead of 3 mutilators (pretty close I think).
I happened to use them in an army that can push 11 units into the enemies face all at once. For that reason, the Mutilator does its job admirably. shoot the Mutilator or... the Dirge Caster Rhino? Hmmm... Shoot the Mutilator or the 3+ save Raptors... Hmmm... Shoot the Mutilator o the Obliterators which are probably a lot more of a problem? hmm...
I'd shoot the raptors, since they are the only unit that is fast and a real threat to me as an eldar player. Or as an SM player.
Pretty easy decision imo.
As stated above, point cost wise they do not do their job admirably. Compared to marked raptors they probably save you a few points (10-15?) but not a massive amount.
and best of all, it takes an elite slot (currently) so its not like they cost you another unit that was "so much better" for the same points!
As stated, 3 of them can be quite a bit in the chaos codex.
I agree that the elite slots are rarely used. Suicide termies are the only thing that comes to mind, though I think they are a lot better than mutilators.
Yet the only thought anyone here has is that it looks like a paperweight on paper. My question is: Even if that were true it wouldn't erase the virtue I just shared, would it? So dare the enemy not to kill it. If he chooses not to, in it goes to smash something its got cornered. If he does, the Chaos players remaining forces are better off for the distraction.
You need to ask yourself the following;
Are you better off spending ~ 200 points on 3 mutilators or 200 points on another unit? If you do that, you'll find mutilators don't measure up.
If you are arguing 200 points of mutilators are better than tossing 200 points out the window...of course they are. Every unit in the game looks good in that light.
Did I say I was? No. I'm explaining what you wanted me to explain. Corners. Someone does not have to castle up strictly speaking for you to build one for them. All you need is the corner. You can create the corners.
2) Your enemy has no interceptor. You have very little deepstrike, even a little interceptor is enough to obliterate the units that fall
You forgot, apparently, that this means they arent firing at anything else next turn? This is bad for me? I don't think that it is. I think it's exactly why a Mutilator is making its points up. Absorbing it, with or without interceptor, is fine.
You were asked how mutilators reach a unit when they are about as slow as it gets in this game. There was no response.
That, again, is because i already told you why. You didn't like the answer. You thought asking why again was going to illicit a different answer for some reason. I would suggest that if I tell you that it is excellent for acheiving unit saturation on the enemy's front, that you dont need much imagination to understand what I am saying and why their "lack of speed" you put so much stock in becomes effectively irrelevant.
3) Your enemy has big units only that cost 200-300 that the mutilator can threaten effectively so it can serve as a distraction. Considering the better armies run MSU or large deathstars (or worse, both), I don't see this happening.
Just to be clear... You "Dont see" an enemy firing anything over 60 points at it? And those units that are not over 60 points... are going to kill it reliably? All three of them?
That's why you "dont see it happening"? because you think all those little units they have are going to have the complete freedom to target the easy to hide Mutilator and the (lets say) Land Raider or Storm Lord it alighted next to will be disinclined to try and kill it?
Kay.
Let me counter propose this idea: NOT all enemies are MSU. Further, few if any have less expensive units than this one. Almost none of those less expensive units can do it on their own. If several are committed to killing just one Mutilator, how big a sad face do you think I'll be wearing? probably not a very big one, right?
So theres a few isolated units that if given the opportunity could pop him and while that's true and we already know they would be firing at "something", then I am fine with it being the Mutilator.
5) You manage to deploy enough mutilators on the same turn or the rest of your army is fast enough to threaten the enemy by the time the mutilators arrive to force a fence on the opponent. Chaos is slow and overcosted, so I don't see this as a good strategy against the better armies. YMMV though.
You say that. Yet I'm on top of the enemy in round 2. Thats about as soon as it get in 40K terms, literally. So not slow.
That players don't tend to play faster Chaos armies is another matter. that has nothing to do with Mutilators and everything to do with players making choices. And maybe they want a Chaos army that does different things than mine. Nothing wrong with that. But if they want to find a use for Mutilators: no problem. I've described how. You absolutely can threaten the enemy by the time the Mutilators start dropping. Absolutely done it more times than I need to to show that.
If a two wound t5, 2+ armor is is tough to kill in you meta, then your not playing competitive 40k. Scat bikes, WR, Grav anything, plasma anything will kill that in one turn no problem. Even concentrated bolter or pulse fire will drop that in a turn. Not to mention they are a very slow assault unit, who if they scatter poorly will probably take two turns to get an assault off. They are a bad unit.
Well, the downside is that you spent points on the mutilator, and it's dead. I don't know why you consider this dead model better than that dead model,
You're probably right, You don't know. And I find that odd.
Scat bikes, WR, Grav anything, plasma anything will kill that in one turn no problem. Even concentrated bolter or pulse fire will drop that in a turn. Not to mention they are a very slow assault unit, who if they scatter poorly will probably take two turns to get an assault off. They are a bad unit.
Sure. So do it. Fire all those things at the Mutilator.
9 Scatterbikes (3x3) will do the trick like you boast. Reliably kills it. So fire your 243 points in Scatterbikes at the Mutilator and show me how good a general you are. Did you add Warlocks? if so... Well... Better make it 318 or more. But who would do that?
Fire your "concentrated bolters" at it. In your meta you play with what, 5 man Squads? Akiasura here says MSU is all the rage competitively. So you got like 4 shots plus a Plasma. Shouldn't take more than 3 of those to do him in, assuming they can all see him (and hey why wouldn't you be able to?). Whats that in points? 200? 300 if luck doesnt go your way? I dunno. Last time i checked you need more than two Plasma guns to do it. Bolters might tip it over the edge at short range. Not at long range.
Pulse fire? You bet. Takes 50 shots to do it. Assume Rapidfire, that's what? 225 points in Fire Warriors? if they are all close enough and have line of sight? Now we can add markerlights in but then we'd have to include their cost also... So...
Show me the great general you are by expending these amounts of troops to kill the singular Mutilator. These are your examples, not mine. I think they are miraculously good ideas and you should totally do it.
Mutilator value isnt in being unkillable. When was the last thing you saw that was unkillable? Good answer.
Their value is in exhausting your resources and being strong ENOUGH of a threat that you really cant just ignore him lest you want to lose some tanks et al. but if you don't ignore him it costs you more than me and potentially saves more points than he cost in made saves! The economics of war.
Don't use Mutilators. Do use Mutilators. I guess it doesnt matter that much to me. This to me is just an academic thing. I know how to use them. I'm sharing that with you. You don't have to absorb it. But its there.
For the record, the split-fire Centurion will kill a Mutilator, inflicting 2.3 wounds. That is with MoN. MoT shows 2.06 wounds inflicted.
If you honestly thought that the 90 point Centurion cared THAT much about the lost fire power, the other two (assuming minimum size) will kill 7.6 MoN Raptors, and if there's THREE there will be 11 dead.
Tell me what Sun Tzu does to counter THAT, please.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: For the record, the split-fire Centurion will kill a Mutilator, inflicting 2.3 wounds. That is with MoN. MoT shows 2.06 wounds inflicted.
If you honestly thought that the 90 point Centurion cared THAT much about the lost fire power, the other two (assuming minimum size) will kill 7.6 MoN Raptors, and if there's THREE there will be 11 dead.
Tell me what Sun Tzu does to counter THAT, please.
Im pretty sure...Slayer-Fan... That i already said...twice... that the Centurion might do it. So. I have no idea why you're ranting.
Scat bikes, WR, Grav anything, plasma anything will kill that in one turn no problem. Even concentrated bolter or pulse fire will drop that in a turn. Not to mention they are a very slow assault unit, who if they scatter poorly will probably take two turns to get an assault off. They are a bad unit.
Sure. So do it. Fire all those things at the Mutilator.
9 Scatterbikes (3x3) will do the trick like you boast. Reliably kills it. So fire your 243 points in Scatterbikes at the Mutilator and show me how good a general you are. Did you add Warlocks? if so... Well... Better make it 318 or more. But who would do that?
Fire your "concentrated bolters" at it. In your meta you play with what, 5 man Squads? Akiasura here says MSU is all the rage competitively. So you got like 4 shots plus a Plasma. Shouldn't take more than 3 of those to do him in, assuming they can all see him (and hey why wouldn't you be able to?). Whats that in points? 200? 300 if luck doesnt go your way? I dunno. Last time i checked you need more than two Plasma guns to do it. Bolters might tip it over the edge at short range. Not at long range.
Pulse fire? You bet. Takes 50 shots to do it. Assume Rapidfire, that's what? 225 points in Fire Warriors? if they are all close enough and have line of sight? Now we can add markerlights in but then we'd have to include their cost also... So...
Show me the great general you are by expending these amounts of troops to kill the singular Mutilator. These are your examples, not mine. I think they are miraculously good ideas and you should totally do it.
Mutilator value isnt in being unkillable. When was the last thing you saw that was unkillable? Good answer.
Their value is in exhausting your resources and being strong ENOUGH of a threat that you really cant just ignore him lest you want to lose some tanks et al. but if you don't ignore him it costs you more than me and potentially saves more points than he cost in made saves! The economics of war.
Don't use Mutilators. Do use Mutilators. I guess it doesnt matter that much to me. This to me is just an academic thing. I know how to use them. I'm sharing that with you. You don't have to absorb it. But its there.
Assuming it's close enough to charge, then yes lets assume rapid fire range. Again even a tac squad with a grav gun will kill this thing in one turn. A 5 man squad with a plasma and combi plasma will also kill it.
A tac squad with a grav gun isn't the best unit but between the rapid fire bolters and grav it will die. Again that's assuming it lands near anything worth charging due to it having to deep strike. Yes, they are cheap but that's all they have going for it.
I will agree with you on one point, scat bikes won't bother shooting, they will just avoid it since it's painfully slow after deepstrike.
A tac squad with a grav gun isn't the best unit but between the rapid fire bolters and grav it will die. Again that's assuming it lands near anything worth charging due to it having to deep strike. Yes, they are cheap but that's all they have going for it.
Cheap
Deep Strike
Kill tanks with abandon (4 attacks, Armourbane!)
easy to hide line breakers
Cost way more to kill than they cost.
Wounds saved against other targets due to better toughness and saves.
If it every catches a tank i'd be amazed, it can only move 6 inches a turn. The only interesting thing it does is a bit of area denial. That might be useful if it wasn't a unit in a meh codex.
HoundsofDemos wrote: If it every catches a tank i'd be amazed, it can only move 6 inches a turn. The only interesting thing it does is a bit of area denial. That might be useful if it wasn't a unit in a meh codex.
6" plus charge you mean. The premise here is that the original poster already is going to use Chaos Marines. So thats not in question. So given he wil, he's wanting to know if the Mutilators can be used and how.
Pointing out that you think its a bad codex doesnt address his question in the least and thats what is flustering me. GIVEN you are going to play a faction, get good advice to use within THAT faction and dont moan about the Jones's.
HoundsofDemos wrote: If it every catches a tank i'd be amazed, it can only move 6 inches a turn. The only interesting thing it does is a bit of area denial. That might be useful if it wasn't a unit in a meh codex.
6" plus charge you mean. The premise here is that the original poster already is going to use Chaos Marines. So thats not in question. So given he wil, he's wanting to know if the Mutilators can be used and how.
Pointing out that you think its a bad codex doesnt address his question in the least and thats what is flustering me. GIVEN you are going to play a faction, get good advice to use within THAT faction and dont moan about the Jones's.
Fair point, i missed him being set on CSM. That said even as cheap as they are I think there are better ways to spend points in that book. As dysfunctional as the book is, if you want an assault unit, Ally in demons. My additional reservation is that the models require me to buy three and are ugly.
Since we seem intent on continuing this stupidity, how is the csm player finding a spare ~180 points for 3 MoN muties? If they are playing competitively, they're taking ~500 points worth of fast attack, be it whatever combination of drakes / Spawn / bikes, then another 500 on hq for Be'lakor and either a tricked out sorcerer or a juggerlord, 100 points of cultists, then 0 - 684 points on Obliterators / havoks. That's already ~1750 pointsdepending on what points level you are building to. You can't fit 3 muties in, and I know I'd rather have a unit of termicideround me out to 1850 that fulfil the same role but are dangerous on the drop.
Maybe if you run a rush list with double cad nurgle biker lords and bike Sorcs in Spawn and 6 maulerfiends, but then, you're better off using your spare FA slots for individual Spawn, which are half the price, significantly faster, almost as dangerous in cc and almost as durable to small arms due to cover and more durable against ap2 due to increased toughness and an additional wound.
There's no room for bad units in a "competitive" CSM list, and muties are bad. They're not scary enough to be a real distraction carnifex and they aren't fast enough to force the issue.
Not to mention you've just given away 3 kill points in purge for no real gain. At least they're not HS or FA I guess, otherwise that would be 2 games they failed at. I guess they would have some use at maelstrom though, but then that's a whole different kettle of fish.
I think this thread hinges on what the OP meant by 'anygood'. Is he asking if mutilators are the winningest unit, or is he interested in how to make mutilators perform their best.
I think this thread has nicely covered these options, and has even mentioned strong alternative units that use similar tactics to mutilators (and maybe use these tactics even more efficiently).
If you are using a fast MSUCSM army it isn't too hard to pen some enemies in. Even when they are able to move, many units sacrifice fire power by moving away. So by surrounding the enemy (or creating your own 'corners') you can mitigate the mutilators lack of speed. That said they are really slow.
That said things can go wrong. One game I was fighting another csm list. I managed to tarpit the Juggerlord, but no deepstrike arrived turn 2 so I have to commit more tarpit for a turn. Turn 3 the termicide and mutilator scatter so there is a gap in the pen should JL clears the tarpit (which he does).
Turn 4 the muti and the termicide both fail some pretty short charges and the JL (injured from 2 rounds of oblit and termi shooting) runs away, but at least I now have a couple of units in the area to grab objectives before the game ends. Overall a poor performance.
MANz in trucks, a bunch of boyz, solo oblits and mutilators. Maybe a termi or biker sorc. Depending on points. If i'll have spare points, i'll run a biker sorc with spawns, if not - just a termi sorc with oblits or mutilators.
So you're going to completely ignore that mutilators, as it turns out, aren't an great distraction because they simply aren't tough enough for their points? Okay...
Did I say I was? No. I'm explaining what you wanted me to explain. Corners. Someone does not have to castle up strictly speaking for you to build one for them. All you need is the corner. You can create the corners.
You can create an area where two edges of the board meet?
Share with me this mystical power.
2) Your enemy has no interceptor. You have very little deepstrike, even a little interceptor is enough to obliterate the units that fall
You forgot, apparently, that this means they arent firing at anything else next turn? This is bad for me? I don't think that it is. I think it's exactly why a Mutilator is making its points up. Absorbing it, with or without interceptor, is fine.
It depends on the unit that has interceptor. Thinking about most competitive tau lists, I don't think there is much interceptor around, and certainly not any that would be cost effective. It's better just to use a small crisis team or something with splitfire.
So yeah, interceptor could be an effective counter, but in today's meta, isn't.
You were asked how mutilators reach a unit when they are about as slow as it gets in this game. There was no response.
That, again, is because i already told you why. You didn't like the answer. You thought asking why again was going to illicit a different answer for some reason. I would suggest that if I tell you that it is excellent for acheiving unit saturation on the enemy's front, that you dont need much imagination to understand what I am saying and why their "lack of speed" you put so much stock in becomes effectively irrelevant.
You keep saying unit saturation but aren't declaring how you are getting it.
3 Mutilators as separate units are most likely not going to arrive on turn 2. Certainly not with all of them in range for a charge.
The only units in the chaos main dex that are in melee by turn 2 are bikers. Everything else is strictly turn 3, maybe 4 if they decide to castle near a board edge. It's simply that raptors will move 24+run move and a charge, and that isn't enough to clear the board unless your opponent feels he can out melee you. And let's be honest, many armies can do so.
In 2 turns of shooting 4 units of 5 scat bikes can do any of the following following;
Destroy 8 Rhinos (how much of your target saturation was rhinos?)
Destroy 8 Mutilators
Kill 29.6 Marines (!)
Kill 23.7 Nurgle Marines (Not plague) or non MoN bikers
Kill 17.78 Nurgle bikers
That's just about 750 points of the eldar army. They still have a lot left that can do damage (Dragons, Waveserpents, Spiders, WK, among others) before you get close enough to saturate everything. Eldar aren't the best in melee, but a WK will be a big problem for you and even striking scorpions do okay.
This is why I don't like your answer, and keep hoping you'll give a better one that actually stands a chance of working against better lists . Your strategy works fine for dread mobs and guardian spamming eldar, it falls apart against competitive 40k.
3) Your enemy has big units only that cost 200-300 that the mutilator can threaten effectively so it can serve as a distraction. Considering the better armies run MSU or large deathstars (or worse, both), I don't see this happening.
Just to be clear... You "Dont see" an enemy firing anything over 60 points at it? And those units that are not over 60 points... are going to kill it reliably? All three of them?
As stated, there are almost no units in the game (not even the dreaded grav cent) that kills its point cost in one turn .
Most units are good if they can kill 1/3 of their point cost in a turn, with 1/4 being average and anything less than that being bad.
Costing more than their points to destroy is not a strength of the mutilator, it is a strength of nearly every unit in 40k. A unit would have to cost between 200-300 for the mutilator to be a distraction. Distraction fexes, for example, usually absorb over 500 points of shooting from many targets that aren't force or str D.
That's why you "dont see it happening"? because you think all those little units they have are going to have the complete freedom to target the easy to hide Mutilator and the (lets say) Land Raider or Storm Lord it alighted next to will be disinclined to try and kill it?
Kay.
No competitive list will ever include a land raider and IG are not a competitive faction.
So...considering those units won't exist in a competitive game, I would say that the odds of the mutilator landing next to it are slim to none As stated, I'm sure your tactics work great if the enemy isn't competitive or good at the game. Most strategies do.
You still haven't said why a mutilator is easy to hide, being so slow and not gaining anything from cover. Is it the inaccurate deepstrike it can't adjust at all?
Let me counter propose this idea: NOT all enemies are MSU.
Right, most units are either MSU (cost about ~100 points), are standard units (~150 plus transports) or are deathstars (prices vary but are usually well over 400 if the HQ is included).
I stated as much.
It's just that none of those units are scared of the mutilators.
MSU units and standard units are making a decent percentage of their points back. Deathstars out melee the mutilator and at worse will lose 1 guy, less if they are faster than the mutilator.
This isn't including the fact that most things in the game are a great deal faster than the mutilator anyway.
You, ideally, want a unit that costs 200-300 points that is unsupported and must deal with the mutilator. To your credit, landraiders and Storm Lords are great targets.
To your discredit, competitive lists don't include land raiders and storm lords. Against good lists, the mutilator has no good targets.
Further, few if any have less expensive units than this one. Almost none of those less expensive units can do it on their own.
If the unit costs 2x-3x what the mutilator costs, it's an effective use of its firepower to one round the mutilator. Very few (off hand I can't think of any that do it reliably turn after turn) units in this game destroy their point cost in 1 turn. Great units manage it in 2 (like the grav cents) and good units manage it in 3. Average in 4. Bad units in 5.
This is why melee has a hard time being good, fyi. Most melee units don't see combat till turn 3 at the earliest and need to destroy 2 units to be earn their points back. So they, at best, won't see a return till turn 4, and won't impact the enemy army for half the game.
If a melee unit is tough and can be in combat by turn 2, 3 at the latest if your enemy is actively dodging you, then it has a much easier time earning its points back. The mutilator is none of these things, though to be fair if it manages any damage at all its probably done okay.
If several are committed to killing just one Mutilator, how big a sad face do you think I'll be wearing? probably not a very big one, right?
If my enemy needed to commit several units to destroy one mutilator, I'd wear a big smile too. I mean, what are they playing where that is the case? A basic marine squad with 2 pgs can one round this guy, and that's not a unit known for its devastating firepower (For the record, they kill 3 marines, which is less points than the mutilator).
So theres a few isolated units that if given the opportunity could pop him and while that's true and we already know they would be firing at "something", then I am fine with it being the Mutilator.
Uh, it's more than a few. It's nearly every competitive unit in the game. Many non competitive ones like Tacticals too.
Some of them score only 40 points if they kill your marines, and 60+ if they kill your mutilator. Making firing at your mutilator the better choice , which makes it a pretty bad distraction, no?
5) You manage to deploy enough mutilators on the same turn or the rest of your army is fast enough to threaten the enemy by the time the mutilators arrive to force a fence on the opponent. Chaos is slow and overcosted, so I don't see this as a good strategy against the better armies. YMMV though.
You say that. Yet I'm on top of the enemy in round 2. Thats about as soon as it get in 40K terms, literally. So not slow.
Is your enemy moving towards you? I can see bikes manage it, but not rhinos or raptors.
Unless if on top by you mean charging by turn 3. Which is great, except for the fact the enemy has 2 nearly full rounds of shooting and well...I've already illustrated what just 40% of his army does in 2 rounds.
For the record, charging by turn 3 is average for a melee unit, its not fast. Many of the faster melee units manage to hit melee by turn 2, and good deepstriking units are effective every turn from 1 onwards, 2 at the latest (but they impact the game by turn 2).
Also, you do realize that if the mutilator is destroyed you're down 60 points, but if the same unit of marines fires at your chaos marines, you're only down 40?
I find it odd that you don't know why that's bad
I was lazy one day and decided to mimic Nayden's Lictorshame list using Chaoscrons. Solo Mutilators, solo Obliterators, solo Heavy Destroyers, some cultist Chaff and a pair of Nightscythes. The troop part was weak (Cultists serving as Sorcerer bodyguards) but the results were better than expected overall. Having 14-something multiwound T5 solos at 1850 points as well as 2 units of msu flayed ones went a long way. Anti-invisibility remains the main bugbear of course.
Adding another element to this, what if the Chaos player were experimenting with 7th Edition detachment of their own? The Purge stands out as an obvious way to test this as an army concept without any of the usual dead weight associated with CSM.
It's a FW detachment that requires 1 HQ and 2 Elites. as a minimum. You can then throw a further 4 Elites and 4 Heavy Support on top of that. So if you were to burn the detachment you could get a Nurgle Sorcerer, 6 solo Mutilators and 4 pairs of Obliterators for something like 900pts.
You'd then have a further 950pts to play with Allies. Depending on any game rules you might be limited in the number of Detachments available. If not, you could make a decent headstart by mixing in a Daemonkin Blood Pack to spam out Flesh Hounds, and a second Daemon detachment for Malefic buffs, scatter mitigation and Scoring.
I'm not suggesting that it's capable of fighting Eldar, but it's probably a step up from the 'usual' CSM format.
It doesn't sound terrible, but I think you'd be better off allying in demons.
Nurgle sorcerer isn't great. Ideally casters should be undivided though this isn't always feasible.
Mutilators seem bad since they are relatively fragile for their point cost. They are roughly 2x as tough as a mon marine while being more expensive, slower, and only better in melee.
Obits aren't terrible, and 8 of them seem good. I don't think it's worth 900 points though, at that point I'd rather run Havoks or suicide termites.
I already said they fulfill the Cultist role for The Purge (that you take two detachments for the tax of 220 points). You're better off with Termicide "troops".
I legitimately forgot what Mutilators where. I had to do a google image search and then laughed out loud when I saw. The same with Tau fliers. Whenever I see one I think 'wow that player really kitbashed the hell out of that tank' before I remember that GW actually has a Tau flier kit.
Akiasura wrote: So you're going to completely ignore that mutilators, as it turns out, aren't an great distraction because they simply aren't tough enough for their points? Okay...
Saying "as it turns out" doesn't make it so. Sorry.
You can create an area where two edges of the board meet?
Share with me this mystical power.
I did. You didn't read what I wrote (again). You pretended like I didnt adress it (again) so you could (again) ask me this unnecessary question which i already answered).
It depends on the unit that has interceptor. Thinking about most competitive tau lists, I don't think there is much interceptor around, and certainly not any that would be cost effective. It's better just to use a small crisis team or something with splitfire.
So yeah, interceptor could be an effective counter, but in today's meta, isn't.
Typical again. YOU bring up intercepters as a reason. You do. And I respond. And then you act as if *I* brought interceptor up and come across as minimizing interceptor! What in the world...
You keep saying unit saturation but aren't declaring how you are getting it.
Not relevant to Mutilators. Im not going to turn this into a list discussion. What I've told you is simple. If you are going to play Chaos. IF... Then you can easily saturate the front line and use Mutilators as a part of that. Go to your codex and figure out how to do it. The central point HERE is that it can be done and when done, Mutilators can play an inexpensive and very effective roll.
As stated, there are almost no units in the game (not even the dreaded grav cent) that kills its point cost in one turn .
Irrelevant to the actual discussion. Who cares? the point is that this particular one requires multiple units to kill and gives little in return. Some cover or easily obtained line of sight blocking makes it even more unlikely that the Mutilator will necessarily be staring down the wrong barrels. It will happen, dont misquote me on that. Just not as often. So we'll see who the enemy decides to go after, eh?
It really is like listening to a 10 year old trying to explain why his favorite superhero is the best, when its a d-lister nobody xmen student. You tell them they are wrong and give numerous reasons and examples, but they just start screaming and crying out "nu uh! Your stupid!", like that somehow helps their case. That's what this present discussion is, with the added benefit of condescending tone and passive aggressive statements
To your discredit, competitive lists don't include land raiders and storm lords. Against good lists, the mutilator has no good targets.
I see. The last ITC event I was at two weeks ago was won by a guy with a Storm Lord. You're welcome to strip him of his title if you think you're good enough. Just tell him he's wrong and I am sure he'll turn that award right over to ya. His Decurion opponent couldn't even defeat him with all that gauss. Shocking since his army consisted of 9 pieces of armor, essentially. Seemed like a match the Decurion should win but...no.
This stilted sense of whats competitive that you have seems to come from a pool of generals who just do not know how to create anything approximating a strategy. Sure they do the calculations like you do and figure out the "strongest unit" and then spam it, or whatever, eschewing those that may not be as strong. They get on Dakkadakka and listen to talking heads tell them not to take anything flexible if it sacrifices killing power to get it. There's definite virtue in numbers so do not misquote me and suggest I don't value the numbers. But the numbers they never consider are opportunity cost which is invisible, and strategic value that may exceed the units actual stats or killing ability. Ablation is another never-foused-upon idea and In a game that mostly features objectives, you simply cannot have this limited a view anymore. You just can't. All these things are definitely of importance and minimizing that is foolish.
That's because vehicle spam actually DOES okay against Necrons because mathematically Gauss isn't something to rely on, you dolt. NOBODY spams Gauss for a reason.
Once again this proves you know little about the game.
Gauss is pretty inefficient against cheap vehicles. Plus,if the Crons are close enough to double tap Gauss into my Rhino, odds are they are getting a visit from the DC on my turn.
Akiasura wrote: So you're going to completely ignore that mutilators, as it turns out, aren't an great distraction because they simply aren't tough enough for their points? Okay...
Saying "as it turns out" doesn't make it so. Sorry.
That's why I provided some, you know, math.
A unit of marines w/ 2 pgs firing at a mutilator kills ~60 points.
A unit of marines w/2 pgs firing at a unit of marines kills ~60 points, ~40 if they are in cover.
The marines in cover are actually tougher than a mutilator, and equal without cover. Cover is pretty common.
You can create an area where two edges of the board meet?
Share with me this mystical power.
I did. You didn't read what I wrote (again). You pretended like I didnt adress it (again) so you could (again) ask me this unnecessary question which i already answered).
I told you the corner can be created by units.
You defined a corner as the place where 2 board edges meet.
Please explain how units can create an area where 2 board edges meet. If mutilators can do this, it is absurdly overpowered.
It depends on the unit that has interceptor. Thinking about most competitive tau lists, I don't think there is much interceptor around, and certainly not any that would be cost effective. It's better just to use a small crisis team or something with splitfire.
So yeah, interceptor could be an effective counter, but in today's meta, isn't.
Typical again. YOU bring up intercepters as a reason. You do. And I respond. And then you act as if *I* brought interceptor up and come across as minimizing interceptor! What in the world...
Uh, you realize that was me admitting you were right about interceptor? I know this may shock you, but in debates when one side is wrong, and its proven that they are wrong, they admit it.
You keep saying unit saturation but aren't declaring how you are getting it.
Not relevant to Mutilators. Im not going to turn this into a list discussion. What I've told you is simple. If you are going to play Chaos. IF... Then you can easily saturate the front line and use Mutilators as a part of that. Go to your codex and figure out how to do it. The central point HERE is that it can be done and when done, Mutilators can play an inexpensive and very effective roll.
Considering your whole strategy with mutilators involves target saturation, I would think how to achieve this with chaos by turn 2 is critical to their use.
But if you are unwilling/unable to supply how you manage to get enough targets up there by turn 2 without them being killed, that's fine.
As stated, there are almost no units in the game (not even the dreaded grav cent) that kills its point cost in one turn .
Irrelevant to the actual discussion. Who cares? the point is that this particular one requires multiple units to kill and gives little in return. Some cover or easily obtained line of sight blocking makes it even more unlikely that the Mutilator will necessarily be staring down the wrong barrels. It will happen, dont misquote me on that. Just not as often. So we'll see who the enemy decides to go after, eh?
First, I didn't misquote you at all. I include what I said, and how you responded directly.
Second, how is a mutilator's toughness not relevant to the discussion? The whole point of the mutilator in this discussion is that it can absorb firepower effectively. If the enemy earns more points killing the mutilator then it does firing at your other troops, it's a terrible distraction. It doesn't take a "wrong barrel" to bring one down effectively, we aren't always talking about units like cents, where your enemy might have one or two units total (though split fire...) we are talking about Tacticals, Avengers, 5 man scat bike squads, marine biker squads, small crisis suit teams...
I mean, a Rhino is a great distraction because it will almost always save you points if it's shot at. There are a few corner cases (haywire if its your only tank springs to mind) but in most cases? Worth it.
The mutilator? It turns out, not worth it.
Third, how is it easily hiding behind LoS blocking terrain? It doesn't have accurate deepstriking, it's slow, but most importantly, it needs to approach the enemy to be a threat . It has to leave LoS blocking cover (maybe not normal cover, but it has an invul so who cares?) eventually or it remains useless.
Fourth, you've claimed a few times now that multiple units are require to kill a mutilator, despite it being shown that 5 scat bikes, a unit of marines with 2 pgs, and several other units (including a single cent) are all capable of doing so quite easy. I asked "What armies require multiple units to kill a mutilator? I can't think of any" and you were unable to provide examples of factions that lack the ability to kill a mutilator with a single unit that costs 2-3x as much in a single turn. They might have a few units that can't, sure, but not factions.
To quote yourself, saying "as it turns out" doesn't make it so.
You still haven't said why a mutilator is easy to hide,
THIS needs explanation?
You mean, do you need to explain why one of the slowest units in the game that needs to reach melee combat to do anything at all is somehow easy to hide?
Because yeah.
You do.
Units that need to reach melee in general are hard to hide, because they must move towards the enemy and end within move+2d6 (and the closer the better, failing a charge can be death).
A unit like the mutilator, who can't even run, pretty much has to move towards the enemy every turn or risk becoming a non-factor.
See how I listed reasons why a mutilator is hard to hide?
Edit;
I don't know why you think anyone I know goes on Dakkadakka or anything. Most of them play WMH most of the time, and even before that, nobody was on here.
It's not hard to look at the codex and realize what units are good and which ones are not. The game isn't complicated.
If someone won with the storm lord, that's great and surprising, although necron do struggle with armor spam. Did he not run into grav cents or eldar?
But considering that, in your meta, the dread mob is considered to be a good list and 3-4 waveserpents were mechdar, I'm not surprised.
I'm trying hard here, really I am. I'm just not seeing mutilators as a problem for BA. That's not a good sign. I've got plasma, grav, melta, power axes, power fists, and dreadnoughts all as hard counters. I'm not even remotely talking smack here, but if you aren't TWC, Wraiths, or some other CC deathstar, you are better off shooting BA to death, not trying your hand at some CC shenanigans. Against "reasonable" units, BA can be quite deadly.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: That's because vehicle spam actually DOES okay against Necrons because mathematically Gauss isn't something to rely on, you dolt. NOBODY spams Gauss for a reason.
Once again this proves you know little about the game.
hehehe. Oh does it? he had more than Gauss Slayer-Fan. Good lord. you are just... precious.
Martel732 wrote: Gauss is pretty inefficient against cheap vehicles. Plus,if the Crons are close enough to double tap Gauss into my Rhino, odds are they are getting a visit from the DC on my turn.
There were no Rhinos. A Stormlord. Gauss gets its moneys worth against that. Even a couple hull points here and there pays big given it comes from WARRIORS!
That aside, the StormLord took all comers. I comment on the Decurion because Akiasura thinks its a competitive thing to do. The reality is, the guy is a really good General and he had a tough list to damage. It was a good list. Surprising too. you don't see lists like his too often.
No. what you did was repeat what I already know and have said: it can be killed. No one said otherwise so repeating yourself as if it was a revalation is...pointless.
You defined a corner as the place where 2 board edges meet.
re-read the post again and then get back to me. I very specifically told you in the post that it could be either a board edge or a unit edge, so to speak. Go read it again and again until you get it.
Considering your whole strategy with mutilators involves target saturation, I would think how to achieve this with chaos by turn 2 is critical to their use.
It is. But its an entirely different thread for you to start. I think anyone with two cells connected by a synapse can crack open the codex and figure out how to get there in round two. Heldrakes, rhinos, Raptors, Bikes, Maulerfiends, outflanking steeds with Spawn and all kinds of fun other ideas. Whatever else you would like to bring that's fast. I don't care what you use. That's up to you and your list proclivities. I'm just telling you that if you do employ that strategy, Mutilators are a good add.
You mean, do you need to explain why one of the slowest units in the game that needs to reach melee combat to do anything at all is somehow easy to hide?
Because yeah.
You do.
Units that need to reach melee in general are hard to hide, because they must move towards the enemy and end within move+2d6 (and the closer the better, failing a charge can be death).
A unit like the mutilator, who can't even run, pretty much has to move towards the enemy every turn or risk becoming a non-factor.
See how I listed reasons why a mutilator is hard to hide?
.
Um... I know you're actually smarter than this so you're just trolling me. But sure, I'll bite. Mutilator drops. rhino moves in front. or. Mutilators drops behind cover since it cant shoot anyways. Or, Mutilator drops BEHIND the enemy tank using that tanks girth for cover and LOS blocking. Now it must (not always) turn to fire which still keeps me blocked somewhat or it can choose not to fire and make way for other units to kill me.
Another way: simple cover from other units flooding forward. Another way: target priority. It can simply not be the easiest target for the units available to kill. in a perfect storm you can kill one with the right unit with enough shots. Sure you can. No one is arguing otherwise. No one. Ever. but should they? another story. My enemy isn't going to prioritize my mutilator just to make your case. lol. He'll only do it if it makes sense to him. I'll give him a lot of reasons to question it. But he still might.
The rhinos are the most obvious way but lots of others exist. Sometimes the best cover is your enemy.
It's not hard to look at the codex and realize what units are good and which ones are not. The game isn't complicated.
.
If its so obvious then why aren't all the lists the same? Lol. No. there is an enormous variety among armies and it is that variety that forces you to think and shift and change.
The game actually is a bit complicated. Expert play is something you apparently are an expert on. How would you know what expert play is, if there was no expertise necessary for this uncomplicated game?
Food for thought. I think you are minimizing the game to make a point. That's not intellectually honest. I don't think you believe that for one minute. You've talked too much about "competitive play" to think there is no such thing and if there is, then there's complication. Enough to allow the more mentally agile to rise to the top.
I'm not going to argue more on that because the game is what it is. Within that framework, whatever you characterize it as being, the Mutilator (our subject) can be used. Can be hidden. Can have cover. Can soak too much resource for too little gain, yet can end armor and smaller units on its own. Quite useful. Not that hard to hide if that's even the goal.
it may not even be the goal. In saturation, something WILL die. So sometimes its just a red herring. The game situation is just too varied to say what will be true until the time comes.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Martel732 wrote: You know, people have complained about me on here before, and not totally undeserved, I might add. But I've NEVER been that condescending before.
You have been. Believe me. I'm on the receiving end enough times to know. But I will say it has been a LOT more muted lately which I appreciate.
Martel732 wrote: Gauss is pretty inefficient against cheap vehicles. Plus,if the Crons are close enough to double tap Gauss into my Rhino, odds are they are getting a visit from the DC on my turn.
There were no Rhinos. A Stormlord. Gauss gets its moneys worth against that. Even a couple hull points here and there pays big given it comes from WARRIORS!
That aside, the StormLord took all comers. I comment on the Decurion because Akiasura thinks its a competitive thing to do. The reality is, the guy is a really good General and he had a tough list to damage. It was a good list. Surprising too. you don't see lists like his too often.
So, what was the list then?
Did he face Eldar/SM? I don't see how 9 tanks, that aren't rhinos, could survive against SM/eldar in their standard lists competitive lists at all.
It's not really me who thinks the Decurion is competitive. It's pretty much...everyone? It broke the game at release and remains the best way to run necrons.
Are you saying the Decurion isn't competitive?
No. what you did was repeat what I already know and have said: it can be killed. No one said otherwise so repeating yourself as if it was a revalation is...pointless.
I think you missed the point.
My math pointed out several things that you seem to ignore;
It does not take multiple units to destroy a mutilator, as you claim. Since you keep mentioning it does, I figured this would be a big revelation to you.
It does not take a 200-300 point unit to destroy a mutilator, 100-150 point units do it just fine and are commonly taken choices as well.
And finally, on occasion (I didn't test it in many scenarios, but I imagine it'll work out in most) the enemy gets more points from firing at the mutilators than they do if they fired at basic marines.
Obviously, this makes firing at the mutilators a good choice for the enemy in many situations. Which makes them a terrible distraction unit.
You defined a corner as the place where 2 board edges meet.
re-read the post again and then get back to me. I very specifically told you in the post that it could be either a board edge or a unit edge, so to speak. Go read it again and again until you get it.
Here is what you said, verbatim;
The geometry isn't complicated either. There is this thing called a corner. it represents the meeting point of two board edges. Not sure what a unit edge is at all. Is it threat distance? Or something else?
I recall you mentioning forming a fence around the corner, but that still involves the enemy army sitting in a corner or near a board edge for 2-3 turns.
If you mean, somehow, getting behind the enemy's army so that when they flee combat they run into another unit...okay? I don't see why that's better than if mutilators could just catch the enemy unit themselves. The only reason to push someone over the board edge in the first place is due to marines having their special rule, and other units forming the board edge don't work the same way. I don't see mutilators being good at getting behind anyone either to form this other corner, being slow and having inaccurate deepstrike.
Considering your whole strategy with mutilators involves target saturation, I would think how to achieve this with chaos by turn 2 is critical to their use.
It is. But its an entirely different thread for you to start. I think anyone with two cells connected by a synapse can crack open the codex and figure out how to get there in round two. Heldrakes, rhinos, Raptors, Bikes, Maulerfiends, outflanking steeds with Spawn and all kinds of fun other ideas. Whatever else you would like to bring that's fast. I don't care what you use. That's up to you and your list proclivities. I'm just telling you that if you do employ that strategy, Mutilators are a good add.
And you were doing so good with laying off the condescending tone too .
A decent amount of the options you listed aren't "there" on round 2. They are in position to charge by turn 3, which is average speed, but many of them will have just taken potshots or done nothing for the first 2 turns. The exceptions being Drakes and Bikes which, surprise surprise, are considered the best units in the codex. Maybe we have different definitions of there?
If the enemy goes first, he has 3 turns to shoot at you before you charge. That's...half the game. It's 45 marines from the scat bikes, which is most likely every marine you have on the table, to give you an idea of how bad that is.
All of those things sound a lot better than mutilators regardless, imo. They continue to be fast turn after turn, and are actual threats in CC. Many of them are difficult to remove as well, point for point when compared to mutilators.
Remember, as you like to point out, things don't exist in a vacuum, and taking mutilators is an opportunity cost.
You are giving up the chance to take 185(ish) points worth of spawn, raptors, or bikers for 3 mutilators. Is it worth it?
I'm arguing no. You're arguing yes.
You mean, do you need to explain why one of the slowest units in the game that needs to reach melee combat to do anything at all is somehow easy to hide?
Because yeah.
You do.
Units that need to reach melee in general are hard to hide, because they must move towards the enemy and end within move+2d6 (and the closer the better, failing a charge can be death).
A unit like the mutilator, who can't even run, pretty much has to move towards the enemy every turn or risk becoming a non-factor.
See how I listed reasons why a mutilator is hard to hide?
Um... I know you're actually smarter than this so you're just trolling me. But sure, I'll bite. Mutilator drops. rhino moves in front.
So the mutilator is far back enough where the rhino can move completely infront of him to block LoS in a way that no one moving 6" can shoot? That doesn't sound like he's up in everyone's face turn 2, ready to charge.
or. Mutilators drops behind cover since it cant shoot anyways.
Assuming it doesn't scatter out of cover, since it can't adjust, and the enemy can't fix it by moving a bit.
And assuming he can move through the LoS blocking cover. If he can't you just slowed him down, and he only has a few turns to reach CC before the game is over as is.
This is the only method I see as being at all likely, though it's still not great odds since your enemy has to place troops that are threatened by the mutilators close to the terrain knowing you will most likely drop there.
Or, Mutilator drops BEHIND the enemy tank using that tanks girth for cover and LOS blocking.
Most armies use tanks that are out in front, being transports. Or they are fliers.
Perhaps less competitive forces use tanks as stationary firing platforms, but Tau, Necrons, Eldar, and SM do not.
Also, on my turn, I just...move the tank away? It's hard to imagine the mutilator is so placed that a 6" move won't allow something to shoot at it.
Now it must (not always) turn to fire which still keeps me blocked somewhat or it can choose not to fire and make way for other units to kill me.
Right. Assuming you even get there via deepstrike and the enemy takes such a unit. I mean, stationary firing tanks are not taken any longer because drop pods make a mockery of these units.
But your meta may vary.
in a perfect storm you can kill one with the right unit with enough shots. Sure you can. No one is arguing otherwise. No one. Ever.
Uh, you have. You keep mentioning multiple units and 200-300 points worth of scat bikes, despite 5 being plenty and a tactical squad getting the job done fine.
The problem is what the right unit is. If we were discussing a tactical squad, or bikes, for example, we'd have to throw 300-500 points to one round the unit unless we got very lucky. Not a lot of units like that around outside of cents.
But muties? Simple standard weapons for a tactical squad.
but should they? another story. My enemy isn't going to prioritize my mutilator just to make your case. lol. He'll only do it if it makes sense to him. I'll give him a lot of reasons to question it. But he still might.
Sure, but I could flip this around just as easy.
No enemy with two brain cells connected by a synapse will deploy in such a way that allows you to hide behind one of his few tanks that must be stationary (if he even takes any) and ignore an easy to remove threat, especially when it isn't tough to remove and is still worth a decent amount of points.
The rhinos are the most obvious way but lots of others exist. Sometimes the best cover is your enemy.
The rhinos bring you too far back, and most enemies can remove the mutilator pretty easy.
Honestly I think a full squad of chaos marines could just charge it if they have bolt pistols and CC weapons. It's not a tough nut to crack, like a rhino from the front is for many units. And a rhino is half the points.
It's not hard to look at the codex and realize what units are good and which ones are not. The game isn't complicated.
If its so obvious then why aren't all the lists the same? Lol. No. there is an enormous variety among armies and it is that variety that forces you to think and shift and change.
Most lists are the same. It's been that way since 3rd, when rhino rush and SC spam existed. I had someone ask me to look at a recent tournament's eldar lists in regards to swooping hawks, and every list had the following
1 Fire dragon squad in WS 4 Scat bikes squads, 5 man squads each
1 WK
1 Farseer
1 warp spider squad
The rest being flavored the same, although half had hawks and the other half had WG.
The tournament was about 1/4 eldar too.
It's why we can say things like "Mechdar" and most people instantly know 1500 out of 1850 points, or FMC spam and most people have a good idea what the list looks like for nids.
It's why when you did claim that you had faced mechdar in 6th and had a battle report, people were dismissive. It didn't fit the definition of mechdar.
The game actually is a bit complicated. Expert play is something you apparently are an expert on. How would you know what expert play is, if there was no expertise necessary for this uncomplicated game?
Expert play involves knowing all the rules for your and every enemies' codex/formation. 40k is big on gotcha moments, because there is so much out there right now. For example, knowing how the murder sword interacts with the WK so you don't charge it and lose your really expensive HQ without any hope of killing the WK.
Expert play involves knowing, off hand, probabilities. For example, knowing that an IG squad armed with 4 lascannons that are currently re-rolling to hit and are firing at BS 3 on snap shots is not the best target for your GMC with 2 wounds left to charge.
Expert play involves knowing how to properly deploy your army to minimize damage but maximize damage. For example, knowing that the only real anti-tank that your WS has to be afraid of is a single use large blast weapon that ignores cover, so you deploy each wave serpent far away, since in 6th edition WS were fast and had absurd range anyway, and the enemy carrying the weapon isn't too challenging to remove if you make it a goal.
Expert play involves knowing target priority. For example, if I am presented with a choice of a dirge caster rhino or raptors to fire at, I fire at the raptors.
Expert play involves list building. For example, knowing that you'd be better off with another drake, bike squad, raptor squad, or spawn instead of 3 mutilators.
That's the basics.
But the game itself isn't overly complicated, there aren't new and exciting changes arriving 2-3 years after something was released unless an edition change happens.
Take a look at WMH. Denny's recent tier list, body and soul, was out for 2 years before people saw it start becoming a thing in the tournament scene. It didn't seem to be very good, until someone put the pieces together and ran it, and then it was running around destroying everything.
Or H3's ability to run trenchers and form a smoke wall (a unit that has been collecting dust for years now).
There are many examples like that in WMH because it is an incredibly complicated game in terms of unit interactions. 40k has re-rolls and stuff like invisibility or ignores cover, not a whole lot of units interact with each other outside of killing.
Food for thought. I think you are minimizing the game to make a point. That's not intellectually honest. I don't think you believe that for one minute. You've talked too much about "competitive play" to think there is no such thing and if there is, then there's complication. Enough to allow the more mentally agile to rise to the top.
I don't think 40k is a game where the mentally agile rise to the top. I think it's a game where the wealthy and those with time on their hands rise to the top. And those with internet access.
It certainly isn't a game that you would master after 1 game, there are too many rules for that, but it isn't a game that requires constant practice either like WMH.
I'm not going to argue more on that because the game is what it is. Within that framework, whatever you characterize it as being, the Mutilator (our subject) can be used. Can be hidden. Can have cover. Can soak too much resource for too little gain, yet can end armor and smaller units on its own. Quite useful. Not that hard to hide if that's even the goal.
Sure, if you compare 200 points of mutilators to 200 points of nothing, it looks good.
If you compare it to 200 points of other, better, choices from the same dex...? Not really.
Opportunity costs my friend.
it may not even be the goal. In saturation, something WILL die. So sometimes its just a red herring. The game situation is just too varied to say what will be true until the time comes.
True, but the goal of saturation is to make sure enough survives. So you want units that will do damage, or take a lot of damage in that situation. Your raptors, for example, are great at this. They are fast, just tough enough to be hard to remove (remember, tacticals do less damage to raptors, point for point, compared to mutilators). Bikers are another amazing unit.
Which is why you see them taken and not...warp talons, for example.
Martel732 wrote: You know, people have complained about me on here before, and not totally undeserved, I might add. But I've NEVER been that condescending before.
You have been. Believe me. I'm on the receiving end enough times to know. But I will say it has been a LOT more muted lately which I appreciate.
I'd appreciate it if you calmed it down as well. You're not as the bad as the guy who suggested all other players were flies though
jreilly89 wrote: Nothing but pages of Jancoran defending Mutilators as good and players simply need to L2P. What a good day
Side note, seriously. Mutilators only work wonders against newbies and the clinically brain dead. Even Guardsmen would make short work of Mutilators.
Admittedly they can be a massively fun modeling project though!
That's not the discussion at hand though. LOTS of things make for fun modeling projects, and saying that you shouldn't take tournament areas to look at units means there's never any point for discussion.
Not Chaos. Who cares? You saying a Stormlord is bad is kinda what I expect: "oh he took X? Yeah X sucks and his opponents suck". Lol. Okay man. If you say so.
Oh it competes. It just has a big problem against Obsec lists. Despite its power, my Militarum Tempestus keep beating a Decurion because he simply cannot kill us all before we can get to his objectives. And he cant contest them. So its game over. Reserve a lot. Zoom around a lot. Shoot only his token CAD stuff. Plant on objectives and win. Between ITC rules and the built in down side, you almost always need to include a CAD. CAD's naturally take away from the third formation you'd rather take. so it's... not as broken as some thought it would be. its good though and does compete.
Not only did I not, but I even engaged abd agreed with the Centurion example. its ridiculous to suggst the rest of the unit didnt get bought right along with that centurion butit int untrue that it could splitfire. So yeah. There are a couple things that might gank it somewhat less expensively. So no. No one :missed" anything here.
the enemy gets more points from firing at the mutilators than they do if they fired at basic marines. Obviously, this makes firing at the mutilators a good choice for the enemy in many situations. Which makes them a terrible distraction unit.
What basic Marines? I didnt mention any as potential targets. But sure. If we WERE comparing it to those...
I guess what I would say to that is: thats a tactical consideration you'll have to make. I personally dont push Marines upfield in the Rhinos most times, so it wont come up for me. But a General has to do what his list is designed to do.
A decent amount of the options you listed aren't "there" on round 2. :
Yup. So if you plan to build YOUR army around speed...use them. If you don't, that's cool too. The rest of this post is you minimizing. Which isnt an argument. So I clipped it.
Remember, as you like to point out, things don't exist in a vacuum, and taking mutilators is an opportunity cost.
You are giving up the chance to take 185(ish) points worth of spawn, raptors, or bikers for 3 mutilators. Is it worth it?
I'm arguing no. You're arguing yes.
:
No. I am not arguing that you shouldn't take Spawn. I didn't say that. Ever. So kindly take your words from my mouth.
You're shifting the goal post here. For starters, i already used all three fast attack choices. So it not RELEVANT whether spawn are cooler. Spawn werent coolr than what I took for Fast Attacks. So there you go. If someone has a list that doesn't use all the fast slots, then sure, grab some Spawn. So you're talking apples to oranges here and that is bad form.
COMPARATIVE statements like this are not what are being offered to you. A way to USE Mutilators. that is what I offered. Comparisons only matter if its slot v slot. But it isnt in this case and Ive told you REPEATEDLY that the fact its an elite is one of its strong points.
So the mutilator is far back enough where the rhino can move completely infront of him to block LoS in a way that no one moving 6" can shoot? That doesn't sound like he's up in everyone's face turn 2, ready to charge.
Huh? it deep strikes. the rhino (which is offered as one of many examples) is at the 30" mark round 1. By round two it is EASILY in range to block for anything it wants. It can also flat out after the Deep Strike so if you're off a bit, you can compensate. but dont fixate on this. My objection to you is that you play obtuse just like you're doing here. "Huh. What? how can a rhino get that far upfield". Are you kidding? you know full well that it can. Why are you even asking? It's a waste of time.
True, although for the points it's a very odd unit that looks at the mutilator and doesn't think "might as well".
Not when faced with a competing priority. Which is pretty much in almost every game. Kinda wonder what those Marines are thinking about those Raptors? Even if the Raptors stand the three units of Marines up that tried to shoot everything up, they'll never move again. Thats bad. Which is why you might NOT just say "might as well". But thats the kind of confusion or tarket priority problem that the saturation approach hopes to gain.
jreilly89 wrote: Nothing but pages of Jancoran defending Mutilators as good and players simply need to L2P. What a good day
Side note, seriously. Mutilators only work wonders against newbies and the clinically brain dead. Even Guardsmen would make short work of Mutilators.
Admittedly they can be a massively fun modeling project though!
That's not the discussion at hand though. LOTS of things make for fun modeling projects, and saying that you shouldn't take tournament areas to look at units means there's never any point for discussion.
I was being a bit tongue in cheek.
A fun modeling project pretty much IS the one and only spot where Mutilators come out on top!
even in a purely 'for gaks and giggles' list, playing against an equally super fluff bunny list, I'd expect nothing from a solo or paired Mutilators beside staring across the board menacingly and shaking their fists in a useless & horribly non-threatening gesture!
I mean, stationary firing tanks are not taken any longer because drop pods make a mockery of these units.
How interesting. You have no stationary tanks in your "meta"? Lol. Like the pods care whether you moved or not? You think being "not stationary" makes you harder to hit? Whats a stationary tank, one with more than one weapon or just one tread? That's just my "meta" that has those tanks? Yikes man. That is an absurd statement. Really.
The Mutilators are bad becaaaaaaaause... your more advanced meta has no stationary tanks for it to victimize?
Not Chaos. Who cares? You saying a Stormlord is bad is kinda what I expect: "oh he took X? Yeah X sucks and his opponents suck". Lol. Okay man. If you say so.
I just asked what the list was and if it faced SM/Eldar, but alright.
Oh it competes. It just has a big problem against Obsec lists. Despite its power, my Militarum Tempestus keep beating a Decurion because he simply cannot kill us all before we can get to his objectives. And he cant contest them. So its game over. Reserve a lot. Zoom around a lot. Shoot only his token CAD stuff. Plant on objectives and win. Between ITC rules and the built in down side, you almost always need to include a CAD. CAD's naturally take away from the third formation you'd rather take. so it's... not as broken as some thought it would be. its good though and does compete.
Interesting, do you have any battle reports that illustrate this?
Not only did I not, but I even engaged abd agreed with the Centurion example. its ridiculous to suggst the rest of the unit didnt get bought right along with that centurion butit int untrue that it could splitfire. So yeah. There are a couple things that might gank it somewhat less expensively. So no. No one :missed" anything here.
And you missed it again, so I'm going to lay it out.
The point is twofold;
1) It's not a few units that can one round the mutilator and earn a 1/3 of their points back in a single round, it's quite a few, and a lot of the commonly seen ones in a competitive scene.
2) The enemy earns more points firing at the mutilator then they earn firing at marines making it a very bad distraction unit.
I'm not even mentioning centurions. I'm mentioning avengers, scat bikers, tactical squads, bikers (though the latter need PGs or grav, but those are easily the most common weapons).
the enemy gets more points from firing at the mutilators than they do if they fired at basic marines. Obviously, this makes firing at the mutilators a good choice for the enemy in many situations. Which makes them a terrible distraction unit.
What basic Marines? I didnt mention any as potential targets. But sure. If we WERE comparing it to those...
I guess what I would say to that is: thats a tactical consideration you'll have to make. I personally dont push Marines upfield in the Rhinos most times, so it wont come up for me. But a General has to do what his list is designed to do.
I compared them to a generic target, basic marines. They are weaker, toughness wise, then basic marines against commonly seen targets, because their W/armor save to point cost ratio isn't good enough, which is very common in the 2+ save units. They are usually twice as durable against small arms, less than that against heavier weapons, but for some reason cost 3x as much.
What targets are the mutilators better targets then that are commonly seen in chaos lists (as in, not rubrics). Raptors? It's most likely equal. Spawn? Probably more effective to fire at the mutilators, as is the case with the bikes.
You intentionally didnt quote the rest of it. Bad form.
You never said unit edge.
And considering you constantly cut mine off.... I quoted the relevant parts, and then asked what use making a corner out of units would be, and why you would do that for mutilators of all things.
A decent amount of the options you listed aren't "there" on round 2. :
Yup. So if you plan to build YOUR army around speed...use them. If you don't, that's cool too. The rest of this post is you minimizing. Which isnt an argument. So I clipped it.
Uh, it's not minimizing at all, you claimed the chaos army can threaten and be in your face by turn 2, and then listed a ton of units that can do so. For the most part, it can not. The majority of the army is turn 3, unless you want to talk an all biker/drake army.
1 turn in a game that typically goes for about 5-7 before a winner is decided is a big deal. Especially for an army like chaos, that typically must be close to do any major damage at all. 11 unit target saturation means very little is doing damage on the way in, if all of the units are viable threats and not things like, say, rhinos.
Remember, as you like to point out, things don't exist in a vacuum, and taking mutilators is an opportunity cost.
You are giving up the chance to take 185(ish) points worth of spawn, raptors, or bikers for 3 mutilators. Is it worth it?
I'm arguing no. You're arguing yes.
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No. I am not arguing that you shouldn't take Spawn. I didn't say that. Ever. So kindly take your words from my mouth.
Again, you are missing the point.
You keep saying your opponent has to shoot something, and it might as well be the mutilators. You're ignoring that instead of taking the mutilators, you could have taken a more effective threatening squad.
If you are taking mutilators, you are taking one less biker, raptor, havok, marine squad, plague marine, or something. 3 of them are about as much as a standard unit.
You're shifting the goal post here. For starters, i already used all three fast attack choices. So it not RELEVANT whether spawn are cooler. Spawn werent coolr than what I took for Fast Attacks. So there you go. If someone has a list that doesn't use all the fast slots, then sure, grab some Spawn. So you're talking apples to oranges here and that is bad form.
Uh, what?
Look, everything in the game costs points. 3 Muties with MoN cost 185.
So you compare them to other units in the 160-200 pt range and see if they are anywhere near as strong. And with few exceptions...they aren't. You'd be better off taking another choice from a few slots, including a termie suicide squad.
It's not shifting the goal posts at all. Every unit is looked at for its point cost and what else you could get for the points. That's...how point costs work.
COMPARATIVE statements like this are not what are being offered to you. A way to USE Mutilators. that is what I offered. Comparisons only matter if its slot v slot. But it isnt in this case and Ive told you REPEATEDLY that the fact its an elite is one of its strong points.
I know this is going to sound crazy, but people can bring up relevant facts if they pertain to the discussion at hand, without you having to be the one to introduce them
The fact it's an elite slot is nice, but not crazy good. Maybe if you are filling out your force organization chart and can't fit another CAD or Force Org chart, but that's not exactly a common issue nowadays. So, you compare between points.
I mean...we don't say scat bikes are good simply because they beat out other troops (and being a good troop choice carriers more benefits than being a good elite), we say they are good because they compare favorably to every unit in the dex in some way. If they didn't, you'd see two min squads of guardians or bikes and everyone would walk away.
I could nearly buy 2 termies for the cost of a mutilator, and at least get some gun fire when they land after all, but unless you are filling out your HS, FA, Troops, and HQ, there are other options.
So the mutilator is far back enough where the rhino can move completely infront of him to block LoS in a way that no one moving 6" can shoot? That doesn't sound like he's up in everyone's face turn 2, ready to charge.
Huh? it deep strikes. the rhino (which is offered as one of many examples) is at the 30" mark round 1. By round two it is EASILY in range to block for anything it wants. It can also flat out after the Deep Strike so if you're off a bit, you can compensate. but dont fixate on this. My objection to you is that you play obtuse just like you're doing here. "Huh. What? how can a rhino get that far upfield". Are you kidding? you know full well that it can. Why are you even asking? It's a waste of time.
The rhino needs to be in front of the mutilator, who ideally is 6"+2d6 away from the enemy. Hopefully closer, since it's so slow and the enemy has a turn to move away, ensuring it'll never catch them.
So you need to place the entire rhino in such a way that it is between the mutilator and the enemy unit, and it's hopefully at point blank range, but the mutilator can still charge. It just seems unlikely to me that this will happen without the entire thing falling apart, but I'll bow to your expertise.
More importantly, though, if you are using your rhino to block the mutilator, it's not blocking your more important units...like the raptors.
But hey, maybe that's all part of the cunning plan.
True, although for the points it's a very odd unit that looks at the mutilator and doesn't think "might as well".
Not when faced with a competing priority. Which is pretty much in almost every game. Kinda wonder what those Marines are thinking about those Raptors? Even if the Raptors stand the three units of Marines up that tried to shoot everything up, they'll never move again. Thats bad. Which is why you might NOT just say "might as well". But thats the kind of confusion or tarket priority problem that the saturation approach hopes to gain.
I mean against raptors and mutilators I'd probably just charge the raptors. If they aren't in charge range, I walk backwards away from the mutilator and take potshots at the raptors...maybe the muties if I get rapid fire.
I mean, stationary firing tanks are not taken any longer because drop pods make a mockery of these units.
How interesting. You have no stationary tanks in your "meta"? Lol. Like the pods care whether you moved or not? You think being "not stationary" makes you harder to hit? Whats a stationary tank, one with more than one weapon or just one tread? That's just my "meta" that has those tanks? Yikes man. That is an absurd statement. Really.
The Mutilators are bad becaaaaaaaause... your more advanced meta has no stationary tanks for it to victimize?
Thats what you're going with? Hokay.
Uh, yes?
You haven't listed any other unit the mutilator is effective against, since everything else is enough to walk away from.
Not sure what your pods statement is in reference of. Do you think attacking pods is a good use of the mutilator? I can see that actually.
I call BS on the Militarum Tempestus story. NO Necron list is going to have issue killing T3 4+ and expensive vehicles like the Taurox. Trying to capture objectives will only get you so far, hence why you see a majority of competitive Necron lists use Decurion, even in the house-ruled ITC format you JUST listed.
David Koska apparently did pretty well with a Tempestus CAD at Adepticon, some people can get good mileage out of units you wouldn't expect.
MagicJuggler wrote: I was lazy one day and decided to mimic Nayden's Lictorshame list using Chaoscrons. Solo Mutilators, solo Obliterators, solo Heavy Destroyers, some cultist Chaff and a pair of Nightscythes. The troop part was weak (Cultists serving as Sorcerer bodyguards) but the results were better than expected overall. Having 14-something multiwound T5 solos at 1850 points as well as 2 units of msu flayed ones went a long way. Anti-invisibility remains the main bugbear of course.
I'd love to have seen this game. Stronger units are nice but throwing a curveball at people can have value of it's own, just because they haven't dealt with the strategy before.
Yoyoyo wrote: David Koska apparently did pretty well with a Tempestus CAD at Adepticon, some people can get good mileage out of units you wouldn't expect.
Well, it was Scions with GK's and a Knight detachment,and placed 42nd. It's not awful, but it wasn't enough to get anywhere near the Finals and had a lot more to it than just Scions.
Sounds like an a pretty cool army though in concept for some sort of Inquisitorial force.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: I call BS on the Militarum Tempestus story. NO Necron list is going to have issue killing T3 4+ and expensive vehicles like the Taurox. Trying to capture objectives will only get you so far, hence why you see a majority of competitive Necron lists use Decurion, even in the house-ruled ITC format you JUST listed.
You call BS on everything so... why should today be any different. Lol.
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Yoyoyo wrote: David Koska apparently did pretty well with a Tempestus CAD at Adepticon, some people can get good mileage out of units you wouldn't expect.
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3 Wave Serpents is NOT Mechdar. Three Wave Serpents total in a 2000 point game isn't "feared for a reason". 5-7 of them are feared for a reason. People comfortably fit in 5 at 1850 levels with other units to finish things that might've been difficult otherwise (like Wraithguard and Wraithknights for example).
The Battle Report was inaccurate from that point on, and yet you or one of your very few cohorts would present that as an example of Mutilators doing well? When your opponent sucks, even Pyrovores won't be terrible.
Though I'm sure you've made them acceptable and we're just "sheeple".
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: 3 Wave Serpents is NOT Mechdar. Three Wave Serpents total in a 2000 point game isn't "feared for a reason". 5-7 of them are feared for a reason. People comfortably fit in 5 at 1850 levels with other units to finish things that might've been difficult otherwise (like Wraithguard and Wraithknights for example).
The Battle Report was inaccurate from that point on, and yet you or one of your very few cohorts would present that as an example of Mutilators doing well? When your opponent sucks, even Pyrovores won't be terrible.
Though I'm sure you've made them acceptable and we're just "sheeple".
I was drinking diet pepsi when I read that. Result? I literally had to go replace my keyboard just now. It literally does not work anymore. Old ass thing had half the letters worn off anyways but it's definitely headed to the junkyard now.
Now we know why CSM don't have drop pods. It is the one thing mutilators are able to half reliably kill, and whenever they see one they turn it in to scrap.
I like to read this thread while imagining Jancoran and Akiasura wearing trilby hats, illuminated by their computer screens, furiously typing away in a darkened room.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Based off the fact you say lies on your blog and won't admit it, I have every right to.
Until you go back and edit that old Battle Report to be accurate, I will find it incredibly hard to take you seriously.
Also, math > skill. That's how it works.
Math Beats skill eh maybe for a cheesy game ruining min maxer like you however i can bet you i could take my fluffy death guard list vs you and play it the same way i played my dark elves in fantasy and wipe the floor with you. The fact you call both mutilators and warp talons useless shows how "great " you are skill wise
Like any game, you can be the best general/coach in the world, if the pieces/players you bring to the game are not good then you are going to have a hard time. The Chaos book is already on the weak end, and that's assuming your using units contained in it that are not bad.
Talons and mutalators are weak options due to poor rules for themselves and the way 7th edition is generally.
Martel732 wrote: If that same skilled person were using good units, they'd win even more, right? Skill and mathematical analysis are complimentary, not in opposition.
While it may be true that some players using good lists are also good... You'll never know it. When a Good General takes a "bad list" and wins, then you know he's good. Unfortunately he has simultaneously proven you wrong about the unit. Because he's nopw shown you how to use it correctly and that some or possibly most of your fears about them were unfounded.
I've extended the offer to more than one online persona. I'm fine with that test. It's the same test I already take every week anyways. What's one more, right?
If they can beat me in 4 of the six missions, they might have something. Trouble is, getting six games in to adequately test the matchup.
No that general hasn't. He's just won in spite of poor unit selection. Mathematics doesn't lie. It can be overcome, however. That same general's magnitude of victory would be higher with better units. Just because I win some games with ba or whatever doesn't make them not statistically inferior.
My take from your example is that you are a very good general who beat a bad opponent with a terrible unit. That doesn't make mutilators good. It means you are good enough to beat some opponents with bad units.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: I call BS on the Militarum Tempestus story. NO Necron list is going to have issue killing T3 4+ and expensive vehicles like the Taurox. Trying to capture objectives will only get you so far, hence why you see a majority of competitive Necron lists use Decurion, even in the house-ruled ITC format you JUST listed.
You call BS on everything so... why should today be any different. Lol.
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Yoyoyo wrote: David Koska apparently did pretty well with a Tempestus CAD at Adepticon, some people can get good mileage out of units you wouldn't expect.
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Tis true. Skill happens
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Except CSM. CSM cant get skill. They just get stomped.
Martel732 wrote: No that general hasn't. He's just won in spite of poor unit selection. Mathematics doesn't lie. It can be overcome, however. That same general's magnitude of victory would be higher with better units. Just because I win some games with ba or whatever doesn't make them not statistically inferior.
My take from your example is that you are a very good general who beat a bad opponent with a terrible unit. That doesn't make mutilators good. It means you are good enough to beat some opponents with bad units.
Mathematics doesn't lie? Lol.
You know in my business, we have a saying: Figures don't lie but liers can figure. Meaning that numbers can be made to support a lot of things that aren't true, especially when they lack context.
In any event, that all ignores the fact that you selectively accept the math that sounds good... while ignoring the math that means something: wins. You can't steal my wins with any amount of figuring. When you can, we'll chat again. Until then I think you would be better served learning than poo pooing.
Also: If you think I care whether the score is 26-3 or 26-9 this weekend when the Seahawks take on the Vikings, you're mistaken. I won't care.
In my effort to bring a Typhon, 2x Sicarian, and a Fire Raptor... I've been "eyeing" that Forgeworld Purge Detachment and use Nurgle Mutilators as backline distruptions.
There are too many variables when determining if a unit is bad or not. Is the general good and the opponent bad? What army is the opponent using? What's the scenario? Etc etc.
It seems that math is a good way to get a good overall look at how a unit is. All math points to the mutilator being bad.
Also, overall opinion by a large majority of players say that Mutilators are bad.
It seems the burden of proof is the side that says they're good because it goes against precedent and maths.
Also for the record I would entirely go onto Vassal to prove a point but I don't have a computer that does much outside browse the Internet and occasionally write up papers.
I plan on getting a well deserved upgrade but I'm surprised nobody else has actually taken up the offer. Plausible nobody knows what Vassal is.
Martel732 wrote: No that general hasn't. He's just won in spite of poor unit selection. Mathematics doesn't lie. It can be overcome, however. That same general's magnitude of victory would be higher with better units. Just because I win some games with ba or whatever doesn't make them not statistically inferior.
My take from your example is that you are a very good general who beat a bad opponent with a terrible unit. That doesn't make mutilators good. It means you are good enough to beat some opponents with bad units.
Mathematics doesn't lie? Lol.
It doesn't.
You might get multiple answers (the quadratic is a simple example), numbers can be taken out of context (as you mentioned), and mistakes can be made, but math itself is incredibly accurate when done correctly. Inferences taken upon math can be wrong, which is why most people want to see the math.
It's why it defines medicine, engineering, technology, science...pretty much every facet of human development from a hard science standpoint is based off of math to some degree.
Meaning that numbers can be made to support a lot of things that aren't true, especially when they lack context.
That's very true. A lot of arguments that are put forth rely on faulty numbers or selective data mining that isn't mentioned because it doesn't fit the narrative (is this what GW has meant by forge the narrative!?). I wish more people looked at numbers critically before making a snap judgement.
But as you're implying here, that our numbers don't fit the context, that's going to be hard to prove on your part.
To judge the offensive output, the mutilator is put against a variety of targets to see how it performs. Given it's attack profile, WS, str, it's pretty easy to put it against various models. Most toughnesses and weapon skills won't make a large impact, and invuls are the only saves that matter since the unit is melee only. The melee output for the points against a lot of heavy targets is quite good actually, but that can quickly be determined and doesn't require much work. Obviously against cheap GEQ it performs pretty poorly. I think we mostly skipped it since everyone agreed on how effective it is if it ever reaches melee.
To judge the toughness of the model, different weapons and units (most of them commonly seen, such as a tactical with 2 pgs or a 5 man scat bike squad, or even a grav cent) were run against the mutilator to determine how much firepower it can survive. This was surprisingly bad, as most units that cost between 100-150 points (minus transports) seem to be quite capable of removing the mutilator in a single turn. A few units can't, but those units can remove it in melee or are not commonly taken. There are rare exceptions (tau firewarriors) but those armies have much better options that commonly see play for removing a mutilator. Hugging cover is hard on a melee only unit, and it doesn't benefit from cover much anyway, so we didn't need to account for this like we would with, say, guardsmen or marines.
To judge it's speed, you look how fast it moves versus other units in the game. While it can deepstrike, it's a melee only unit that is incredibly slow, possibly in the top 3 for slowest unit in the entire game if looking only at its turn by turn movement. So it's speed is awful, probably its worse trait.
To take these numbers out of context we'd have to say;
"Oh, the mutilator is bad because it only kills a few guardsmen!". While true, mutilators have better targets than guardsmen in most IG lists, for killing power.
"Oh, the mutilator is great because it takes 300 points to destroy it!" This is true, but most armies have a much cheaper unit that is commonly taken that can easily destroy the mutilator.
"Oh, the mutilator is bad because it has to move 6" per turn across the entire board" This is true, but nobody is going to take a mutilator and not deepstrike or place it in a transport of some kind.
The numbers given, however, are not out of context so readily apply to the situation.
In any event, that all ignores the fact that you selectively accept the math that sounds good... while ignoring the math that means something: wins. You can't steal my wins with any amount of figuring. When you can, we'll chat again. Until then I think you would be better served learning than poo pooing.
No one is talking about stealing wins, I am not sure why you bring this up constantly. The Patriots recently lost to the dolphins, does that make the dolphins the better team? Of course not.
And it's not selectively accepting math...most of the math tells us mutilators are awful. They aren't tough enough for their points, poor range/speed on a melee only unit is pretty bad, and they are only effective against units they are often to slow to catch.
Wins are not math, btw. Just because something has a number doesn't make it a product of mathematics, although I suppose you can stretch counting to include math if you really want to.
Yoyoyo wrote: You guys probably understand that terrain and mission parameters have a large influence on how units perform.
Unless you all play by a common ruleset, terrain and universal Meta, this is really a pointless conversation.
Well, it's pointless because no one is likely to change anyone's mind (except me in regards to interceptor).
But people discuss the balance for way more complex games than 40k all the time, to meaningful results on occasion.
Check out dnd, exalted, wod, WMH, or various other table top games. WMH, right now, has a 5 page thread in the circle forums about their new large creature and trying to make it work. The Tl:dr summary is that it works in a few cases with specific warlocks, but overall is a poor model.
Fighting games are also more complex, and manage to make tier lists. Matchups are determined using tournament results, frame data, analysis of moves, and once the matchup spread is complete, tiers are placed. It takes a while, especially in a DLC/patch heavy environment like we see today, but its still done.
In 40k, we can discuss how units benefit from terrain. Obviously some units benefit more than others, and its certainly true that cover can vary (Martel's meta is a good example of this, if memory serves), but for a slow unit like the mutilator that only benefits from LoS blocking terrain, it's not a big factor.
In 40k, we can discuss how units can impact missions. Units that can do damage and wipe squads, have ObSec, are fast/tough, are all really good at taking advantage of mission objectives. But a slow unit that can be removed in one round by most 150 point units (so, another troop choice for many factions), isn't going to impact the game through objective grabbing much. How many maelstorm cards does the mutilator impact?
I'm not saying it won't happen ever. There could be 4+ cover all over your boards, you could be playing nothing but LoS blocking terrain everywhere, there could be a few occasions where the mutilator drops on an out of the way objective that, though it does take it out of the game, still made a big difference.
But these situations are remarkably corner case, and in many many more situations that are commonly seen, the mutilator does not perform as well as (if compared to 3 mutilators) to bikes, raptors, spawn, basic marines, plague marines...all the staples basically.
So yes, we can discuss it. Most people do, there are huge tactica threads after all.
One thing i will say that sorta hurts the whole LOS blocking terrain helping them is that there main mode of getting close to kill something is deepstrike. The more terrain on the board mishapping becomes an increasing problem.
Yoyoyo wrote: You can discuss and argue passionately and authoritatively without a common point of reference, yes.
Carry on.
I would believe the common point of reference is, you know, the rulebook and various supplements, codexes, etc.
Unless someone houserules the game like crazy, or uses ITC rules (which is quickly mentioned and understood, as it does change what is good and what isn't to some degree) I'm afraid I don't see your point at all.
I'm always quite disappointed in these kind of responses and how no one likes Mutilators. I don't play Chaos but still, if I did I would use them.
I personally think they look really cool (despite some people claiming it's the worst model) and I feel like you should take them in your army if you like them. If they aren't that great in a game because of GW's rule writing, does it really matter?
I say, use them. But of course, it's entirely up to you.
Harley Quinn wrote: I'm always quite disappointed in these kind of responses and how no one likes Mutilators. I don't play Chaos but still, if I did I would use them.
I personally think they look really cool (despite some people claiming it's the worst model) and I feel like you should take them in your army if you like them. If they aren't that great in a game because of GW's rule writing, does it really matter?
I say, use them. But of course, it's entirely up to you.
Because the debate is whether or not the Mutilator is any good or not. As in, is it worth taking if you want to win.
Harley Quinn wrote: I'm always quite disappointed in these kind of responses and how no one likes Mutilators. I don't play Chaos but still, if I did I would use them.
I personally think they look really cool (despite some people claiming it's the worst model) and I feel like you should take them in your army if you like them. If they aren't that great in a game because of GW's rule writing, does it really matter?
I say, use them. But of course, it's entirely up to you.
Because the debate is whether or not the Mutilator is any good or not. As in, is it worth taking if you want to win.
I suppose that's fair, but still, it saddens me a little.
Martel732 wrote: No that general hasn't. He's just won in spite of poor unit selection. Mathematics doesn't lie. It can be overcome, however. That same general's magnitude of victory would be higher with better units. Just because I win some games with ba or whatever doesn't make them not statistically inferior.
My take from your example is that you are a very good general who beat a bad opponent with a terrible unit. That doesn't make mutilators good. It means you are good enough to beat some opponents with bad units.
Mathematics doesn't lie? Lol.
You know in my business, we have a saying: Figures don't lie but liers can figure. Meaning that numbers can be made to support a lot of things that aren't true, especially when they lack context.
In any event, that all ignores the fact that you selectively accept the math that sounds good... while ignoring the math that means something: wins. You can't steal my wins with any amount of figuring. When you can, we'll chat again. Until then I think you would be better served learning than poo pooing.
Also: If you think I care whether the score is 26-3 or 26-9 this weekend when the Seahawks take on the Vikings, you're mistaken. I won't care.
Winning isn't math. Winning is a combination of many, many factors, only one of which is math. And for 40K tournaments, magnitude of winning often matters. Just like in college football. I'm not trying to steal your wins. I'm actually making them even more impressive by pointing out how abysmal mutilators are. I just don't think that your success translates into something that can be applied in a general sense across all metas.
However, note that in some cases, the mathematics is the dominant factor in determining the winner. Take the example of BA vs Scatbike/WK Eldar. There is no way to general your way out of that hole on a consistent basis. The Eldar do too much damage and are too hard to get off the board for the BA to have a reasonable chance.
Harley Quinn wrote: I'm always quite disappointed in these kind of responses and how no one likes Mutilators. I don't play Chaos but still, if I did I would use them.
I personally think they look really cool (despite some people claiming it's the worst model) and I feel like you should take them in your army if you like them. If they aren't that great in a game because of GW's rule writing, does it really matter?
I say, use them. But of course, it's entirely up to you.
Because the debate is whether or not the Mutilator is any good or not. As in, is it worth taking if you want to win.
I suppose that's fair, but still, it saddens me a little.
Me too... its the same with Warp talons sometimes.
Harley Quinn wrote: I'm always quite disappointed in these kind of responses and how no one likes Mutilators. I don't play Chaos but still, if I did I would use them.
I personally think they look really cool (despite some people claiming it's the worst model) and I feel like you should take them in your army if you like them. If they aren't that great in a game because of GW's rule writing, does it really matter?
I say, use them. But of course, it's entirely up to you.
Believe me, I wish I could. Mine look incredible. I had them converted so serpent heads are coming out of the armor, it looks like its bursting apart. I have matching fiends and a heldrake, so the army looks just incredible on the table top, especially with the leaders and terminators. I'm a god awful painter and converter, so I paid to have it done by a professional. It's the pride of my collection.
But in a meta that consists of only the strongest factions with semi-competitive lists, mutilators don't have a place. We play all of our games competitively, most of us were at one point seriously into at least one fighting game, and a few of us have played in GTs back in the day, so it would be strange to suddenly go casual. Even our RPGs are generally high danger cloak and dagger plots/combat as war style games (I'm the DM usually). Its how we like it, but it sadly doesn't work in 40k anymore. It was fine in 5th.
It's not a massive deal...most of us have at least 3 full armies after all. It's just annoying, since some of us really love eldar, crons and sm, while others like CSM, horde style nids, and orks.
Akiasura wrote: I would believe the common point of reference is, you know, the rulebook and various supplements, codexes, etc.
No, we're talking about meta, terrain, missions, points values, rules resolutions, restrictions on formations and detachments, etc. These affect the relative value of any unit. Y'know.
Pronouncements of universal value (or lack thereof) divorced from all context are not possible for a unit who's utility is defined purely in respect to non-universal situational utility.
In fact, we can only declare Mutilators bad if we hand-wave away the effects of terrain and missions (as you did), and ground discussion about 40k in irrelevant false analogies like fighting games and DND that have zero relevance on the tabletop. Do fighting games or DND score Linebreaker points?
Which means, I think this thread has been more of a psuedo-intellectual dick-measuring exercise than anything else. Play coy if you want.
Akiasura wrote: I would believe the common point of reference is, you know, the rulebook and various supplements, codexes, etc.
No, we're talking about meta, terrain, missions, points values, rules resolutions, restrictions on formations and detachments, etc. These affect the relative value of any unit. Y'know.
Pronouncements of universal value (or lack thereof) divorced from all context are not possible for a unit who's utility is defined purely in respect to non-universal situational utility.
In fact, we can only declare Mutilators bad if we hand-wave away the effects of terrain and missions (as you did), and ground discussion about 40k in irrelevant false analogies like fighting games and DND that have zero relevance on the tabletop. Do fighting games or DND score Linebreaker points?
Which means, I think this thread has been more of a psuedo-intellectual dick-measuring exercise than anything else. Play coy if you want.
Like when they try to deep strike into a terrain heavy area? That's not exactly in their favor.
Martel732 wrote: However, note that in some cases, the mathematics is the dominant factor in determining the winner. Take the example of BA vs Scatbike/WK Eldar. There is no way to general your way out of that hole on a consistent basis. The Eldar do too much damage and are too hard to get off the board for the BA to have a reasonable chance.
To be fair Martel, I understand you play without Maelstrom and with a minimum of LOS blocking terrain. Your opponents can just leverage superior range to blast you off the end of the table, without a lot of tactical options for you to even the odds.
Math is going to be much bigger factor in that kind of environment, and correspondingly assault will be much harder to pull off.
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MWHistorian wrote: Like when they try to deep strike into a terrain heavy area? That's not exactly in their favor.
Notice we didn't come to a conclusion on the value of Deepstrike either.
Your right we can only go by general trends. The general trend which includes a rough average of all metas across the world seems to say that they are not a good unit. Chaos generally has not done well in major tournaments to my knowledge. From this we can extrapolate that Chaos space marines is not a great book, and mutilators are not a great unit.
Akiasura wrote: I would believe the common point of reference is, you know, the rulebook and various supplements, codexes, etc.
No, we're talking about meta,
Meta is certainly relative. We can discuss what type of meta's (what armies do well/ do not do well against mutilators? What units? Are these strong or weaker dexes?) however, so I don't see that as something outside of discussion.
We can and have discussed how mutilators benefit and don't benefit from terrain.
It's actually commonly brought up how certain units gain greatly from it or are impacted negatively from it quite often. I don't see why you are bringing it up as something that can't be discussed...it is all the time. We can debate how much it is, but generally units that are fast or have long range weapons benefit from cover more, since they aren't as inclined to leave it. Or if their ability to live requires cover. Mutilators don't really fall into either camp.
There are limited amounts of missions in the rulebook unless you houserule them. We can easily discuss them, it's not like there are hundreds of different ones.
Which is why house rules are typically not included in these discussions unless you mention them from the onset.
Point values for armies are usually standard across most metas (1500-2000, with ~1800 probably being the most common). It's not like anyone discusses 300-50,000, we can easily discuss the range of point values most people play with.
If you want to go over or under that, you merely have to state that certain units perform well in smaller point games or larger ones.
If you mean the point value of the unit, that's pretty much set in stone barring house rules.
rules resolutions, restrictions on formations and detachments, etc.
Which are all house rules and not included in an online discussion.
Take my meta. We don't use allies much, but outside of that its fair game. I mention this when people discuss ally combos as being powerful, since I don't commonly see them and can't comment on their effectiveness outside of damage, speed, or toughness.
But my meta includes houserules, which I make a point to mention. Beyond those house rules, I'm perfectly capable of discussing the game.
These affect the relative value of any unit. Y'know.
They do, and are discussed (missions, terrain benefit) unless they are house rules (formation restrictions).
You can't say "Well the gladius strike force is awful because my meta doesn't allow it". It may not work in your meta, but that doesn't make it weak at all.
See how easy that was?
Pronouncements of universal value (or lack thereof) divorced from all context are not possible for a unit who's utility is defined purely in respect to non-universal situational utility.
True, which is a good thing they weren't divorced of all context.
I mean, we compared them to other units in the chaos codex in regards to effect on the table top.
We compared their toughness against the firepower of enemy units of various strengths.
We compared their speed to the games standard (6" +2d6 charge compared to 6" +d6 run + 2d6 charge) and found them slow. Out of effective melee units, they are incredibly slow, with their only saving grace being inaccurate deepstrike that they can't adjust since they can not run.
What other context do you want?
In fact, we can only declare Mutilators bad if we hand-wave away the effects of terrain and missions (as you did),
I did no such thing.
I gave reasons why mutilators are not effected by terrain much (outside of LoS blocking terrain) and missions.
To restate;
Terrain
1) Mutilators do not gain much of a benefit from cover. Cover offers a 5+ save, which mutilators already always get in the form of an invul save. Standing in most cover doesn't benefit them at all.
2) Mutilators gain a small benefit from 4+ cover, which is much rarer and they have trouble reaching since they are a melee unit that can not run. The benefit is small, since you are going from a 5++ to a 4++ instead of nothing to a 4++, like you would see with raptors, most spawn, bikers
3) Mutilators do benefit from LoS blocking terrain, but not as much as faster units or units with guns. They must reach melee so the enemy must be within 11-12" of LoS blocking terrain without being able to kill the mutilator first. This is corner case barring LoS heavy boards, where they can be playable.
Missions
1) Mutilators are extremely slow and can't respond well to mission objectives because of this.
2) Mutilators are relatively easy to remove and can't be trusted to hold an objective.
You probably didn't notice all those reasons you hand waved away from your high horse
You can also declare mutilators bad for tons of reasons, without including terrain or missions. They would have to benefit immensely from missions or terrain to be good, because on their own they are quite bad (and their are many units that are good because of terrain and missions).
Some reasons not including terrain and missions are;
To slow
Not tough enough
Melee only
A little too expensive for what they bring
Inaccurate deep strike without being able to adjust for it
But reading the discussions illustrates all of this. Nothing is being hand waved away.
and ground discussion about 40k in irrelevant false analogies like fighting games and DND that have zero relevance on the tabletop. Do fighting games or DND score Linebreaker points?
Those aren't false analogies at all.
You claimed we couldn't analyze 40k units due to the complex nature of the game and mitigating circumstances that can't be accounted for.
I pointed to other systems that are even more complex than 40k and often have even larger mitigating circumstances, yet people are perfectly capable of discussing the relative strength of options in those systems.
You can't hand wave analogies away. If you don't like that they aren't tabletop wargames, look at WMH. People discuss the value of units all the time, and that game has more varied terrain with bigger impacts, and a much stronger scenario play.
Or you can point out how the analogies don't work instead of just claiming they don't because not table top (even though I included a table top example )
Or you know, go to the tactics forum. Or most of the pages in general discussion. Or BoLS, or warseer, or any other forum where people discuss 40k and see they are doing it just fine, if you feel only 40k can equate to 40k.
You are still trying to play off context as insignificant. Writing more won't change that.
At the end if the day, you are better off just saying "they haven't shown results in the ITC". Which is a lot more sensible and succinct as a response.
Yoyoyo wrote: You are still trying to play off context as insignificant. Writing more won't change that.
At the end if the day, you are better off just saying "they haven't shown results in the ITC". Which is a lot more sensible and succinct as a response.
,
Wow. Zero reading comprehension. He just said how all of that matters and can in fact be used to determine if a unit is good or not.
Akiasura wrote: We are reading very different reports if you thought they worked as advertised. Drawing 190 points worth of gunfire all game and removing one wounded cheap unit off the board is pretty useless, and is what I would expect. And the marine list was extremely subpar.
I know this is from an age ago, but, 55 pt. unit keeps 190 pts. from doing their job. How is that not a good distraction?
MWHistorian wrote: Wow. Zero reading comprehension. He just said how all of that matters and can in fact be used to determine if a unit is good or not.
First, grow up. Second, nah. It doesn't tell me how Mutilators perform in 500pt combat patrol game against a Meched up IG opponent, where his troops need to score a Maelstrom VPs rather than bubblewrapping a LRBT firebase. That's context.
As for the rest:
By and large, discussions that develop into excessive block-quoting and ‘fisking’ cease to have value: it’s usually a tedious point-scoring exercise.
MWHistorian wrote: Wow. Zero reading comprehension. He just said how all of that matters and can in fact be used to determine if a unit is good or not.
First, grow up. Second, nah. It doesn't tell me how Mutilators perform in 500pt combat patrol game against a Meched up IG opponent, where his troops need to score a Maelstrom VPs rather than bubblewrapping a LRBT firebase. That's context.
Thats specific context, but that doesn't invalidate any of the context I already had provided. But you can go ahead and continue to not address points being made.
As for your specific scenario;
In a Maelstorm mission, the mutilator will probably be quite bad for grabbing VPs. Some of the objectives include such things as Cast a Power, Do a Challenge, Destroy a flyer, none of which the mutilator can do at all really.
He can attempt to move to a location to capture an objective, but he's quite slow.
If you instead meant how would a mutilator stop a meched up IG army...he wouldn't mostly. He's too slow to catch meched IG.
The only exception being if the LRBT decides to stand still and nothing else decides to shoot the mutilator.
At such limited points, list construction becomes even more important than it does at higher point values. If the IG player is simply a few LRBT's, which is a pretty bad list since it can only fight effectively against a small amount of enemies, then the mutilator is good. If the IG player is taking transports with troops, the mutilator is bad as the chimera + squad can destroy the mutilator as it lands. The LRBT will still have 2 rounds of shooting, which is a lot in a 500 point game. He could destroy 20% of your army in that time, more if you take raptors, bikes, spawn, or plagues.
I also included that we could discuss lower point games (which aren't common by most accounts) and discussed maelstorm.
We also discussed meta's and mentioned that against certain factions (IG being specifically mentioned) the mutilator has use, but it's relatively corner case and can not be considered good.
So...if you had read the discussion, vehicles that must be stationary to fire without supporting troops being nearby was actually mentioned.
As for the rest:
By and large, discussions that develop into excessive block-quoting and ‘fisking’ cease to have value: it’s usually a tedious point-scoring exercise. http://www.thepolemicalmedic.com/arguing-on-the-internet/
This strikes me as odd, because every professional email I've ever sent at my university and previous employers works like this.
When discussing someone's works, we don't write a conclusion in at the end. We break it apart point by point and write in counter points where they belong, not a lengthy summary at the end.
To do so would mean missing points (like you did when I mentioned WMH as an example of a TT game where discussing strategy is done) or confusion as to what you are talking about.
But I mean, it's some guy on the internet with a website. I'm sure he knows what he's talking about.
dusara217 wrote: I know this is from an age ago, but, 55 pt. unit keeps 190 pts. from doing their job. How is that not a good distraction?
It is. But at this point certain people are more interested in proving a point than offering anything of value. Typical dakka
Well, this was also discussed (again, if you read the discussion...which I'm starting to think you didn't, which explains why you feel there is no value in it. It's long, can't hold it against you)
The mutilator being discussed is a little more expensive than that, due to MoN. We can discuss the standard build (I'm not convinced it's worse, since it seems a lot of weapons are higher strength nowadays which makes the extra toughness not as good).
Regardless, the average unit costs between 100-180 points, plus transports (transports often have too much utility compared to a typical infantry unit to be so easily broken down, I don't want to include them here. We can though).
When deciding to fire at an opponent, one of the decisions to make is based on points. How ahead on attrition am I going to be if I destroy this unit? You even reference here (55 vs 190) and oddly enough, don't include any context. But hey, let's go.
Excellent shooting targets results in about a half of the units cost being destroyed in one turn. So if a unit costs 110-120 points and can destroy the mutilator in 1 turn, it's amazing if they fire at the mutilator. When looked at, here we see the top contenders you'd expect; 5 man scats, a single cent bike with split fire, other units with split fire that have plasma weapons....
Against these targets, mutilators are awful. Regular chaos marines are actually tougher, point for point.
Good shooting targets result in about 1/3-1/4 of their points in a turn. So a unit would have to cost about 150-180 to be a good use of points if firing at the mutilator. Here we see the vast majority of units. Most infantry units (Tacticals with 2 pg, Dire Avengers) from the stronger factions fall into this category, as do non-death star heavies/elites. These units can destroy a mutilator in one turn with rare exception.
Mutilators are bad against these targets, about equal to standard marines while being worse in nearly every way besides slow melee/deepstriking (unless FW) point for point.
Average shooting targets result in about 1/4 or a little more. A unit would need to cost 200+ points for it to do an average job that turn if shooting at a mutilator. Very few units require such a point investment to destroy the mutilator, though they do exist.
Against these targets, mutilators start being a good distraction. You save points if they had fired at something else and are up on attrition. Sadly, these units are rare and many armies have access to better units that are cheaper and can destroy a mutilator.
Bad shooting targets result in about 1/5 or worse a turn. A unit would need to cost 270-300 points for it to be a bad choice to fire at the mutilator.
Against these targets, mutilators start being amazing. Sadly, we are in almost deathstar point levels, and deathstars aren't frightened of a single mutilator charging in.
So...look, we actually proved a point!
Of course, you guys were too busy discussing about why we should bother to debate at all to notice this was covered a while ago in the thread
This is what I get for going on vacation without a Laptop charger. I really hate to bring up something from 6 pages ago, but I hate to leave an argument without at least conceding defeat, and I refuse to concede defeat unless proven wrong. Seriously, at least provide some kind of battle report of your own that shows them failing. I never like Mutis to begin with, honestly, Oblits do the job better, but I do believe that they are playable, and have a use as a distraction unit, and/or Linebreaker Unit that isn't a high-priority target. My replies are in red.
mondo80 wrote: 2 wound assault terminators are bad? I know one guy who drives them around in a landraider.
I know a guy who thought warp talons were the best unit in the game because claws.
Doesn't make them good.
Muties in a landraider is a very expensive unit that falls over against similar priced units from other dexes. At best it will manage to kill 2 units, more likely 1 or none, before being destroyed.
For people claiming Muties are good, I'd appreciate a battle report where they are used against a good force effectively or a tactica that holds up to scrutiny. Saying "I said so" doesn't carry much weight on an online forum.
I got ya, mate.
Chaos Marines vs. Eldar. Chaos wins. Mutilators show their value in turns 3 and 4.
Old dex, I've already seen this battle report. This is the one where the guy takes a very sub par list and forgets to deploy a Wave serpent.
I'm quite aware of Jancorans blog. I've been asking him for recent battle reports to back up his claims for a while now, much to my dismay
The Muties did precisely what we claimed they would. They chased units out of advantageous positions, and drew fire from other Units. How does this not prove the point? Better yet, how about you disprove it by actually providing sources where they failed to do their job (ie distracting heavy weapons fire, or forcing it to move). Perhaps using actual logic rather than throwing around insults would drive your point through our thick skulls a little better? Rebuffs tend to work better when based upon logic, as insults are generally only there to get an emotional response from people.
This Mutilator review pretty much supports everything that you're saying, and even brings in some mathhammer to show how terrible Mutilators are, but it gives you a good strategy to use them for, at the end.
Good read, nothing new though
Nothing new? It shows them useful for getting a VP, ie, one of the primary means of winning matches.
Here is a thread/tactica discussing different ways in which to deploy Mutilators effectively, and in a much more constructive manner, I might add. Among them is DSing three individual Mutis for maximum effect.
Fists vs. Chaos Marines. Turn 3 and 4 see the Muti wreck a Rhino when the nearby Tac Marines fail to eliminate it on the turn it deepstrikes in.
An old game, and the marine list is terrible. It has 30+ tactical marines
Yeah, the Muti had no real effect here, by the time they could charge, the Marines were already dead. I'm pretty sure that I just posted this link because it was one of the only Battle Reports that I could find. I posted literally every Battle Report I found in the first 5 pages of Google that featured solo Muties (as running a full squad of Muties is, imho, downright moronic).
raven guard vs. Chaos Marines. Chaos gets wrecked, but I'd like to point out how a single Mutilator drew the fire of a Tac Squad and a Rapier - a total of 190 pts. worth of shooting to take out a 55 pts. model. How delicious. A Mutilator proceeds to drive the Rapier Crew off the Board (55 pt. Unit rendering a 120-pt. Unit absolutely useless). Another Muti gets destroyed by a 100 pt. Thunderfire. Notice how the Mutis are drawing fire from higher-point Units the entire match.
The only good battle report that was posted, so thank you for that.
A few things
1) Were the mutilators deployed as a group? They all arrived turn 2 and I can't find them in the photos.
2) 190 points to kill a 55 pt model isn't great, but it's not terrible. It's 1/3 of their point cost, which is the cusp of being worth shooting at.
3) The mutilator destroyed the rapier crew AFTER the crew was roasted by a drake. So...they dedicated more points than the unit was worth by a bit.
4) I see no mention of the mutilator killing a thunderfire. The thunderfire is still operating on the last turn, when does this happen?
5) The only other time the mutilator was fired upon was by the techmarine, which destroyed it.
1.) It appears that they were. Use of the word "Mutilator" (no s) made it appear to me that they were deployed separately during the battle, but they were not. Skimming articles isn't always the best way to select them.
4.) I said that the Mutis got destroyed by one, not that they killed one. I'll just assume you misread that.
To me, if a unit can kill 1/3 of it's points in a turn, that's about average. 1/2 is great, but not even the bikes manage to kill their point cost every turn without support. 1/4 and lower is where it gets bad. So in this report, the mutilator managed to barely succeed once, and this is the only relevant report you posted. For the rest of the game, there is no mention of them doing anything, and this was not a powerful list.
In the future, if someone is asking for battle reports against the power armies (Space Marines, Eldar, Tau, Necron) posting old battle reports doesn't do much to help your argument. It makes it seem like, since these armies have released, mutilators have completely fallen off the game (or maybe chaos has?). Competitive army lists (For eldar, this would mean bikes, aspect warriors, WK, and not guardians from a previous edition; Space marines bikes and cents, not 30+ tacticals or vanguard; Necrons decurion; Tau suits and tides). That's what I have been asking for the entire time, from anyone, and so far no one has delivered. I'm a professor by trade, if someone is able to provide evidence that I'm wrong I'll happily switch opinions. I own a huge chaos army and would love to field mutilators, but in my meta only the better armies get played. I won't be going up against 30 tacticals or a dread mob sadly Out of your 10 sources, 1 battle report is against a modern codex I believe, and the list isn't what I would consider competitive, and the mutilators didn't accomplish what you are claiming. I probably should have spelled out what competitive consists of so that's my mistake.
Appreciate the reports though!
I posted every Battle Report that I could find within 5 pages of a google search, which I just repeated and couldn't find anything else worth adding. Also, the burden of proof lies upon all parties making claims, not just the ones making positive claims.
MWHistorian wrote: There are too many variables when determining if a unit is bad or not. Is the general good and the opponent bad? What army is the opponent using? What's the scenario? Etc etc.
It seems that math is a good way to get a good overall look at how a unit is. All math points to the mutilator being bad.
Also, overall opinion by a large majority of players say that Mutilators are bad.
It seems the burden of proof is the side that says they're good because it goes against precedent and maths.
What math? You've been shown that it does indeed ablate very well. You cant MATH that away because you don't KNOW what will actually both want to and be able to fire at it in any given turn and you wont be able WITH MATH to tell me whether that is game relevant or will be in the end in any given game.
So claiming some mathematical victory here is A: Impossible. B: ignores actual results.
You can't claim a "math victory". Try it. Tell your opponent the next time you see them using a bad unit that you just math'd them. I am sure they will be very impressed and concede. But on the off chance you play it out just to get crazy, great.
I'm actually making them even more impressive by pointing out how abysmal mutilators are. I just don't think that your success translates into something that can be applied in a general sense across all metas.
.
You could do it.
Come now. Anyone who can read (or watch as the case may be) can see how I do something and say "ah ha... I see what his thinking is there" and then apply it (or just ask). Maybe it looks crazy because you never thought of it. This thread sems to indicate a lot of Mutilator haters. That's okay.
Meta? Everyone has to deal with Battle Companies. Everyone is dealing with War Convocations. Everyone is dealing with Scatter Bikes. Everyone is seeing the Space Wolk Biker Grav spam. Everyone is seeing the Drop pod armies with the special formation. Tau Empire Optimized Stealth Cadres and other fun stuff? Seeing it. You act as if this isn't the meta I live in! Its the one most of us live in.
Take the example of BA vs Scatbike/WK Eldar. There is no way to general your way out of that hole on a consistent basis. The Eldar do too much damage and are too hard to get off the board for the BA to have a reasonable chance.
I think I can safely say that if you go out and try something crazy... the worst possible outcome is a loss. Last time I checked, that wasn't a fate worse than death. So if what you're doing with your Blood Angels isn't working against Biker spam and Wraith knights, dare I suggest that you try something different? If you're already losing to them.... What have you got to lose by trying something new? Not Mutilators specifically (obviously) but the mindset about how best to time and use stuff?
I see nothing but gain for you if you do. I see the definition of insanity if you do the same thing over and over yet expect a different result. There's a reason I do unorthodox things and its because I am aware of those things and do not want to fall victim. Sometimes it takes a new angle in order to solve a new problem
Akiasura wrote: I would believe the common point of reference is, you know, the rulebook and various supplements, codexes, etc.
No, we're talking about meta, terrain, missions, points values, rules resolutions, restrictions on formations and detachments, etc. These affect the relative value of any unit. Y'know.
Pronouncements of universal value (or lack thereof) divorced from all context are not possible for a unit who's utility is defined purely in respect to non-universal situational utility.
In fact, we can only declare Mutilators bad if we hand-wave away the effects of terrain and missions (as you did), and ground discussion about 40k in irrelevant false analogies like fighting games and DND that have zero relevance on the tabletop. Do fighting games or DND score Linebreaker points?
Which means, I think this thread has been more of a psuedo-intellectual dick-measuring exercise than anything else. Play coy if you want.
Like when they try to deep strike into a terrain heavy area? That's not exactly in their favor.
Chances of losing one? Zero. Actually. So jumping into terrain? No problem!
dusara217 wrote: This is what I get for going on vacation without a Laptop charger. I really hate to bring up something from 6 pages ago, but I hate to leave an argument without at least conceding defeat, and I refuse to concede defeat unless proven wrong. Seriously, at least provide some kind of battle report of your own that shows them failing. I never like Mutis to begin with, honestly, Oblits do the job better, but I do believe that they are playable, and have a use as a distraction unit, and/or Linebreaker Unit that isn't a high-priority target. My replies are in red.
mondo80 wrote: 2 wound assault terminators are bad? I know one guy who drives them around in a landraider.
I know a guy who thought warp talons were the best unit in the game because claws.
Doesn't make them good.
Muties in a landraider is a very expensive unit that falls over against similar priced units from other dexes. At best it will manage to kill 2 units, more likely 1 or none, before being destroyed.
For people claiming Muties are good, I'd appreciate a battle report where they are used against a good force effectively or a tactica that holds up to scrutiny. Saying "I said so" doesn't carry much weight on an online forum.
I got ya, mate.
Chaos Marines vs. Eldar. Chaos wins. Mutilators show their value in turns 3 and 4.
Old dex, I've already seen this battle report. This is the one where the guy takes a very sub par list and forgets to deploy a Wave serpent.
I'm quite aware of Jancorans blog. I've been asking him for recent battle reports to back up his claims for a while now, much to my dismay
The Muties did precisely what we claimed they would. They chased units out of advantageous positions, and drew fire from other Units. How does this not prove the point? Better yet, how about you disprove it by actually providing sources where they failed to do their job (ie distracting heavy weapons fire, or forcing it to move). Perhaps using actual logic rather than throwing around insults would drive your point through our thick skulls a little better? Rebuffs tend to work better when based upon logic, as insults are generally only there to get an emotional response from people.
Well, as I've mentioned already....
1) It's very hard to prove a negative. It's much easier to prove that they are good, if its true. Since the side of the argument is unable to claim any reasons as to why they are good other than "it works in gameplay" proof of gameplay is required. Otherwise we could say the pyrovore is good.
2) I was unable to provide any battle reports where the mutilators are even taken other than yours. Notice that the ones you provided prove my point for me, for the most part. I imagine I'd have the same issues finding ones where pyrovores performed poorly as well, since most people just won't play them.
3) At no point did I insult Jancoran in that message. That list was very subpar for a 6th edition list (especially since it was claimed to be mech dar) and he did forget to deploy a wave serpent. I have also asked Jancoran to post battle reports of his success with units, because he uses his games as proof of why things work. If someone came on here and said they beat Scatbike spam with pyrovores, but couldn't explain how, wouldn't you ask for a report?
4) I have been providing logic. I've posted detailed reasoning as to why mutilators are bad, in many ways. Even in specific context, when asked. The other side has devolved into insults since, I imagine, they are out of reasoning.
5) I have actually been the one being insulted (or did you skip over pseudo intellectual dick measuring comment?).
6) None of the battle reports the mutilators are good side provided really shows they are good. At all, despite exaggerations and claims to the contrary.
This Mutilator review pretty much supports everything that you're saying, and even brings in some mathhammer to show how terrible Mutilators are, but it gives you a good strategy to use them for, at the end.
Good read, nothing new though
Nothing new? It shows them useful for getting a VP, ie, one of the primary means of winning matches.
1) It's from 2012. It's not the current edition.
2) It's just a review. People can say anything.
3) It pretty much admits that they are terrible overall.
Here is a thread/tactica discussing different ways in which to deploy Mutilators effectively, and in a much more constructive manner, I might add. Among them is DSing three individual Mutis for maximum effect.
Fists vs. Chaos Marines. Turn 3 and 4 see the Muti wreck a Rhino when the nearby Tac Marines fail to eliminate it on the turn it deepstrikes in.
An old game, and the marine list is terrible. It has 30+ tactical marines
Yeah, the Muti had no real effect here, by the time they could charge, the Marines were already dead. I'm pretty sure that I just posted this link because it was one of the only Battle Reports that I could find. I posted literally every Battle Report I found in the first 5 pages of Google that featured solo Muties (as running a full squad of Muties is, imho, downright moronic).
Fair enough, I couldn't find any new ones myself. [b] Another report where mutilators are bad and don't achieve anything though
raven guard vs. Chaos Marines. Chaos gets wrecked, but I'd like to point out how a single Mutilator drew the fire of a Tac Squad and a Rapier - a total of 190 pts. worth of shooting to take out a 55 pts. model. How delicious. A Mutilator proceeds to drive the Rapier Crew off the Board (55 pt. Unit rendering a 120-pt. Unit absolutely useless). Another Muti gets destroyed by a 100 pt. Thunderfire. Notice how the Mutis are drawing fire from higher-point Units the entire match.
The only good battle report that was posted, so thank you for that.
A few things
1) Were the mutilators deployed as a group? They all arrived turn 2 and I can't find them in the photos.
2) 190 points to kill a 55 pt model isn't great, but it's not terrible. It's 1/3 of their point cost, which is the cusp of being worth shooting at.
3) The mutilator destroyed the rapier crew AFTER the crew was roasted by a drake. So...they dedicated more points than the unit was worth by a bit.
4) I see no mention of the mutilator killing a thunderfire. The thunderfire is still operating on the last turn, when does this happen?
5) The only other time the mutilator was fired upon was by the techmarine, which destroyed it.
1.) It appears that they were. Use of the word "Mutilator" (no s) made it appear to me that they were deployed separately during the battle, but they were not. Skimming articles isn't always the best way to select them.
4.) I said that the Mutis got destroyed by one, not that they killed one. I'll just assume you misread that.
1) I was very confused by this, and it really defeats the purpose of the report. We have been discussing them as 3 different guys.
4) Oh you mean where they were destroyed by overwatch from the techmarine? I did misread that, sorry.
Again, outside of killing one unit (Which you somehow forget to mention that a heldrake had already attacked....) the mutilators didn't do anything. It didn't seem, from the photos, that the tac squad had another target to really fire at, and if the mutilators had deployed together, they too are about 190 points.
Honestly, the newer battle reports show the mutilators showing up and not really accomplishing anything of note. Just like most of us have claimed would happen.
To me, if a unit can kill 1/3 of it's points in a turn, that's about average. 1/2 is great, but not even the bikes manage to kill their point cost every turn without support. 1/4 and lower is where it gets bad. So in this report, the mutilator managed to barely succeed once, and this is the only relevant report you posted. For the rest of the game, there is no mention of them doing anything, and this was not a powerful list.
In the future, if someone is asking for battle reports against the power armies (Space Marines, Eldar, Tau, Necron) posting old battle reports doesn't do much to help your argument. It makes it seem like, since these armies have released, mutilators have completely fallen off the game (or maybe chaos has?). Competitive army lists (For eldar, this would mean bikes, aspect warriors, WK, and not guardians from a previous edition; Space marines bikes and cents, not 30+ tacticals or vanguard; Necrons decurion; Tau suits and tides). That's what I have been asking for the entire time, from anyone, and so far no one has delivered. I'm a professor by trade, if someone is able to provide evidence that I'm wrong I'll happily switch opinions. I own a huge chaos army and would love to field mutilators, but in my meta only the better armies get played. I won't be going up against 30 tacticals or a dread mob sadly Out of your 10 sources, 1 battle report is against a modern codex I believe, and the list isn't what I would consider competitive, and the mutilators didn't accomplish what you are claiming. I probably should have spelled out what competitive consists of so that's my mistake.
Appreciate the reports though!
I posted every Battle Report that I could find within 5 pages of a google search, which I just repeated and couldn't find anything else worth adding. Also, the burden of proof lies upon all parties making claims, not just the ones making positive claims.
That's not true.
One side, the side claiming muties are bad, has given detailed reasoning on why they believe mutilators are bad. Math and scenarios have been submitted as proof.
The other side, claiming muties are good, has been unable to give reasoning that isn't "they overcome their weaknesses in gameplay". Battle reports would be required as proof here, since nothing else has been offered.
To note, and I think this is critical;
In the battle reports provided by the mutilators are good side, the mutilators did not perform well in any of the 7th edition battles even though their performance was exaggerated. So really, the mutilators are bad side does have proof, they just didn't provide it.
Martel732 wrote: However, note that in some cases, the mathematics is the dominant factor in determining the winner. Take the example of BA vs Scatbike/WK Eldar. There is no way to general your way out of that hole on a consistent basis. The Eldar do too much damage and are too hard to get off the board for the BA to have a reasonable chance.
To be fair Martel, I understand you play without Maelstrom and with a minimum of LOS blocking terrain. Your opponents can just leverage superior range to blast you off the end of the table, without a lot of tactical options for you to even the odds.
Math is going to be much bigger factor in that kind of environment, and correspondingly assault will be much harder to pull off.
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MWHistorian wrote: Like when they try to deep strike into a terrain heavy area? That's not exactly in their favor.
Notice we didn't come to a conclusion on the value of Deepstrike either.
We've started using maelstrom, but that doesn't help against tabling.
"Which is why you cant talk the Mutilator into sucking. Lol. You see? "
No, I don't. But we can agree to disagree.
" You act as if this isn't the meta I live in! "
Sure doesn't seem to be.
"Sometimes it takes a new angle in order to solve a new problem"
Firstly, I have lists drawn up before I know my opponent. Also, BA don't even have variation in the codex like CSM do. Nothing with a mutilator stat line, even. Everything is an meq. No MCs. The tanks are all garbage. A bunch of assault units no one care about because they'll never get close enough to assault anyone. Except, I guess, for your mutilators.
"Sometimes it takes a new angle in order to solve a new problem"
Firstly, I have lists drawn up before I know my opponent. Also, BA don't even have variation in the codex like CSM do. Nothing with a mutilator stat line, even. Everything is an meq. No MCs. The tanks are all garbage. A bunch of assault units no one care about because they'll never get close enough to assault anyone. Except, I guess, for your mutilators.
But it is. In fact. The same lists you see. 8 of the top 40 ITC Generals attend the same tournaments I do. That's just the ones I know of. I'm pretty sure I'm seeing the same stuff.
As for your list, I'm not sure what you mean. Obviously any time you go to a tournament, you dont know who you're facing.
But i assure you of this much: If you're that down on your army, it won't come as much of a surprise if results follow. You have got to look for the possibilities and stop marrying yourself to the idea that "out-uniting" people is the only way to win. Sometimes just being in the right place at the right time is plenty.
"Sometimes it takes a new angle in order to solve a new problem"
Firstly, I have lists drawn up before I know my opponent. Also, BA don't even have variation in the codex like CSM do. Nothing with a mutilator stat line, even. Everything is an meq. No MCs. The tanks are all garbage. A bunch of assault units no one care about because they'll never get close enough to assault anyone. Except, I guess, for your mutilators.
But it is. In fact. The same lists you see. 8 of the top 40 ITC Generals attend the same tournaments I do. That's just the ones I know of. I'm pretty sure I'm seeing the same stuff.
As for your list, I'm not sure what you mean. Obviously any time you go to a tournament, you dont know who you're facing.
But i assure you of this much: If you're that down on your army, it won't come as much of a surprise if results follow. You have got to look for the possibilities and stop marrying yourself to the idea that "out-uniting" people is the only way to win. Sometimes just being in the right place at the right time is plenty.
That's just the issue. All this thread is really doing at this point is convincing me more that the CSM have many more possibilities than the BA. Almost all BA units are just meqs kitted out slightly differently. Same stats, mostly the same equipment, etc.
dusara217 wrote: This is what I get for going on vacation without a Laptop charger. I really hate to bring up something from 6 pages ago, but I hate to leave an argument without at least conceding defeat, and I refuse to concede defeat unless proven wrong. Seriously, at least provide some kind of battle report of your own that shows them failing. I never like Mutis to begin with, honestly, Oblits do the job better, but I do believe that they are playable, and have a use as a distraction unit, and/or Linebreaker Unit that isn't a high-priority target. My replies are in red.
mondo80 wrote: 2 wound assault terminators are bad? I know one guy who drives them around in a landraider.
I know a guy who thought warp talons were the best unit in the game because claws.
Doesn't make them good.
Muties in a landraider is a very expensive unit that falls over against similar priced units from other dexes. At best it will manage to kill 2 units, more likely 1 or none, before being destroyed.
For people claiming Muties are good, I'd appreciate a battle report where they are used against a good force effectively or a tactica that holds up to scrutiny. Saying "I said so" doesn't carry much weight on an online forum.
I got ya, mate.
Chaos Marines vs. Eldar. Chaos wins. Mutilators show their value in turns 3 and 4.
Old dex, I've already seen this battle report. This is the one where the guy takes a very sub par list and forgets to deploy a Wave serpent.
I'm quite aware of Jancorans blog. I've been asking him for recent battle reports to back up his claims for a while now, much to my dismay
The Muties did precisely what we claimed they would. They chased units out of advantageous positions, and drew fire from other Units. How does this not prove the point? Better yet, how about you disprove it by actually providing sources where they failed to do their job (ie distracting heavy weapons fire, or forcing it to move). Perhaps using actual logic rather than throwing around insults would drive your point through our thick skulls a little better? Rebuffs tend to work better when based upon logic, as insults are generally only there to get an emotional response from people.
Well, as I've mentioned already....
1) It's very hard to prove a negative. It's much easier to prove that they are good, if its true. Since the side of the argument is unable to claim any reasons as to why they are good other than "it works in gameplay" proof of gameplay is required. Otherwise we could say the pyrovore is good.
Two Hypotheses that I know of have been proposed that were, in any way, viable. The first involves DSing Muties next to some LFs (or equivalent units) to distract Heavy Weapons fire from advancing tanks, Spawn, etc. This would force the enemy to choose between a.) firing upon the Muties, thus losing the opportunity to target the actually combat-useful targets b.) running away, forcing Snap Shots w/ the heavy weapons c.) Ignoring the Muties, and eating the charge. Unfortunately, nobody has actually bothered to test his with two or three matches to see if it actually works. The other one is using them DS for Linebreaker, which nobody has argued against, nor tested.
2) I was unable to provide any battle reports where the mutilators are even taken other than yours. Notice that the ones you provided prove my point for me, for the most part. I imagine I'd have the same issues finding ones where pyrovores performed poorly as well, since most people just won't play them.
3) At no point did I insult Jancoran in that message. That list was very subpar for a 6th edition list (especially since it was claimed to be mech dar) and he did forget to deploy a wave serpent. I have also asked Jancoran to post battle reports of his success with units, because he uses his games as proof of why things work. If someone came on here and said they beat Scatbike spam with pyrovores, but couldn't explain how, wouldn't you ask for a report?
Perhaps I misread the tone of voice, then. It appeared that you were calling his meta trash and his list bad. I admit it can be easy to mistake such things when reading forum posts.
4) I have been providing logic. I've posted detailed reasoning as to why mutilators are bad, in many ways. Even in specific context, when asked. The other side has devolved into insults since, I imagine, they are out of reasoning.
5) I have actually been the one being insulted (or did you skip over pseudo intellectual dick measuring comment?).
Honestly, you two had a good little back-and-forth going with the insults, and I skipped about two pages of the thread when I ran into a page where the first half was literally just insults. I'm actually a little surprised Alpharius didn't lock the thread on that page.
6) None of the battle reports the [b]mutilators are good side provided really shows they are good. At all, despite exaggerations and claims to the contrary.
My Batreps were all of the ones that I could find that seemed relevant to the discussion at hand, the point was that they were useful, when used properly, and the strategies that I believe them to be useful for were not present in any of the BatReps provided.
This Mutilator review pretty much supports everything that you're saying, and even brings in some mathhammer to show how terrible Mutilators are, but it gives you a good strategy to use them for, at the end.
Good read, nothing new though
Nothing new? It shows them useful for getting a VP, ie, one of the primary means of winning matches.
1) It's from 2012. It's not the current edition.
2) It's just a review. People can say anything.
3) It pretty much admits that they are terrible overall.
It puts forth a viable strategy, that makes perfect sense, that was the point. It reiterated all of your points, but it said that they were useful, when used properly (ie cheap linebreaker).
Here is a thread/tactica discussing different ways in which to deploy Mutilators effectively, and in a much more constructive manner, I might add. Among them is DSing three individual Mutis for maximum effect.
Fists vs. Chaos Marines. Turn 3 and 4 see the Muti wreck a Rhino when the nearby Tac Marines fail to eliminate it on the turn it deepstrikes in.
An old game, and the marine list is terrible. It has 30+ tactical marines
Yeah, the Muti had no real effect here, by the time they could charge, the Marines were already dead. I'm pretty sure that I just posted this link because it was one of the only Battle Reports that I could find. I posted literally every Battle Report I found in the first 5 pages of Google that featured solo Muties (as running a full squad of Muties is, imho, downright moronic).
Fair enough, I couldn't find any new ones myself. Another report where mutilators are bad and don't achieve anything though
raven guard vs. Chaos Marines. Chaos gets wrecked, but I'd like to point out how a single Mutilator drew the fire of a Tac Squad and a Rapier - a total of 190 pts. worth of shooting to take out a 55 pts. model. How delicious. A Mutilator proceeds to drive the Rapier Crew off the Board (55 pt. Unit rendering a 120-pt. Unit absolutely useless). Another Muti gets destroyed by a 100 pt. Thunderfire. Notice how the Mutis are drawing fire from higher-point Units the entire match.
The only good battle report that was posted, so thank you for that.
A few things
1) Were the mutilators deployed as a group? They all arrived turn 2 and I can't find them in the photos.
2) 190 points to kill a 55 pt model isn't great, but it's not terrible. It's 1/3 of their point cost, which is the cusp of being worth shooting at.
3) The mutilator destroyed the rapier crew AFTER the crew was roasted by a drake. So...they dedicated more points than the unit was worth by a bit.
4) I see no mention of the mutilator killing a thunderfire. The thunderfire is still operating on the last turn, when does this happen?
5) The only other time the mutilator was fired upon was by the techmarine, which destroyed it.
1.) It appears that they were. Use of the word "Mutilator" (no s) made it appear to me that they were deployed separately during the battle, but they were not. Skimming articles isn't always the best way to select them.
4.) I said that the Mutis got destroyed by one, not that they killed one. I'll just assume you misread that.
1) I was very confused by this, and it really defeats the purpose of the report. We have been discussing them as 3 different guys.
4) Oh you mean where they were destroyed by overwatch from the techmarine? I did misread that, sorry.
Again, outside of killing one unit (Which you somehow forget to mention that a heldrake had already attacked....) the mutilators didn't do anything. It didn't seem, from the photos, that the tac squad had another target to really fire at, and if the mutilators had deployed together, they too are about 190 points.
Honestly, the newer battle reports show the mutilators showing up and not really accomplishing anything of note. Just like most of us have claimed would happen.
To me, if a unit can kill 1/3 of it's points in a turn, that's about average. 1/2 is great, but not even the bikes manage to kill their point cost every turn without support. 1/4 and lower is where it gets bad. So in this report, the mutilator managed to barely succeed once, and this is the only relevant report you posted. For the rest of the game, there is no mention of them doing anything, and this was not a powerful list.
In the future, if someone is asking for battle reports against the power armies (Space Marines, Eldar, Tau, Necron) posting old battle reports doesn't do much to help your argument. It makes it seem like, since these armies have released, mutilators have completely fallen off the game (or maybe chaos has?). Competitive army lists (For eldar, this would mean bikes, aspect warriors, WK, and not guardians from a previous edition; Space marines bikes and cents, not 30+ tacticals or vanguard; Necrons decurion; Tau suits and tides). That's what I have been asking for the entire time, from anyone, and so far no one has delivered. I'm a professor by trade, if someone is able to provide evidence that I'm wrong I'll happily switch opinions. I own a huge chaos army and would love to field mutilators, but in my meta only the better armies get played. I won't be going up against 30 tacticals or a dread mob sadly Out of your 10 sources, 1 battle report is against a modern codex I believe, and the list isn't what I would consider competitive, and the mutilators didn't accomplish what you are claiming. I probably should have spelled out what competitive consists of so that's my mistake.
Appreciate the reports though!
I posted every Battle Report that I could find within 5 pages of a google search, which I just repeated and couldn't find anything else worth adding. Also, the burden of proof lies upon all parties making claims, not just the ones making positive claims.
That's not true.
One side, the side claiming muties are bad, has given detailed reasoning on why they believe mutilators are bad. Math and scenarios have been submitted as proof.
The other side, claiming muties are good, has been unable to give reasoning that isn't "they overcome their weaknesses in gameplay". Battle reports would be required as proof here, since nothing else has been offered.
To note, and I think this is critical;
In the battle reports provided by the mutilators are good side, the mutilators did not perform well in any of the 7th edition battles even though their performance was exaggerated. So really, the mutilators are bad side does have proof, they just didn't provide it.
Actually, if you had bothered to read the post, you would have realized that you misread a portion, and I said that they got killed by a 100 pt. Unit, not the other way around. But, whatever floats your boat.
Ok, then, i'm no Einstein of 40k, so what makes for good point expenditure for a single VP? Let's say that we're playing an 1850 pt. Tournament match, and I DS my Mutilator to your backfield for Linebreaker late-game. Was my 63 pt. (with MoN, it adds 8 pts., I think) expenditure worth it? To my mind, that seems like a worthy Unit, when used in such a manner, is this not the case? Obviously, it's not going to be an absolute gamechanging kind of thing, but that seems like an excellent bargain for the one VP that might be the difference between defeat and draw, or draw and victory.
EDIT: Added a few responses into the spoiler, I just realized you responded inside of it. My bad.
I was referring to the parts where you mentioned a 190 point unit fired at a single mutilator and that a single mutilator ran off a small squad, while neglecting to mention the heldrake that had attacked the same unit. And it was a unit of mutilators, not a single guy....which makes it worse...
I clearly stated that I had misread the tech marine and restated it (i believe they died to over watch). Literally stated I had misread that.
But that would require reading what other people are writing
Line breaker is rarely achieved by mutilators, and chaos has a lot of units that can more easily achieve this, by being either tougher or faster. Firing a 150 point tactical squad at a mutilator to remove a vp is a good use of points since it moves you forward on scenario and attrition after all. Removing a bike squad is much harder, since they can boost into a corner out of sight.
If you could control when you ds in, could hide, or was tougher, that would be a lot better. You also can only score one point line breaker max no?
Akiasura wrote: One side, the side claiming muties are bad... The other side, claiming muties are good
As Dusara said, you are either misreading things or framing a strawman.
The counter-point is not that Mutilators are "good", it's that abstracted Platonic ideals of 'good' or 'bad' shouldn't be applied to a game like 40k, where units only possess situational value in context to the actual game conditions.
Your assertions are not proof, and in the case "Mutilators can't manifest a psychic power", they aren't even constructive. Neither can a Wraithknight.
If I was listing the strengths of a wraith knight, I wouldn't list maelstrom missions, though it is a great deal faster and tougher than the mutilator for the points. More deadly against a variety of targets as well.
Someone listed maelstorm missions as a strength of the mutilator without explaining why they are good at it. I went through some of the cards and detailed why they really aren't good at maelstorm missions, and no counter points were given. Someone is now mentioning line breaker and we are discussing that.
Please point out my strawman. I am responding directly to everyone. You even said its a good distraction unit by saying 50 points can absorb firepower from a 190 point unit makes it a good distraction unit, despite the lack of context. Despite my breakdown on why this is false....
"Mutilators are good" is a different argument than "context is what determines utility". Strawman.
Reference that CSM bike squad, mobility and breaking LOS is a better defense against certain LOS weapons. However, not against an AP3 Ignores Cover Barrage. In this case, a single model 2W model limits # of casualties (no morale check) and the 2+ save protects the model.
Once again, you are assuming the context to support your argument. We can play "what if" all day, but it's kind of juvenile isn't it?
Akiasura wrote:I was referring to the parts where you mentioned a 190 point unit fired at a single mutilator and that a single mutilator ran off a small squad, while neglecting to mention the heldrake that had attacked the same unit. And it was a unit of mutilators, not a single guy....which makes it worse...
I clearly stated that I had misread the tech marine and restated it (i believe they died to over watch). Literally stated I had misread that.
But that would require reading what other people are writing
Line breaker is rarely achieved by mutilators, and chaos has a lot of units that can more easily achieve this, by being either tougher or faster. Firing a 150 point tactical squad at a mutilator to remove a vp is a good use of points since it moves you forward on scenario and attrition after all. Removing a bike squad is much harder, since they can boost into a corner out of sight.
If you could control when you ds in, could hide, or was tougher, that would be a lot better. You also can only score one point line breaker max no?
I didn't realize you had written things in the spoiler, as well, my apologies. Fixed the post.
Also, by your way of thinking, what is a competitive amount of points to spend on a Victory Point? Would spending 200 points on a victory point seem like points well-spent? What about 189 pts.?
personally, I think the proof provided was plenty good on the Pro-side.
The thought process was laid out clearly for those who wanted to know. There are indeed battle reports that were offered (one at least by me and another by another guy).
I also have the actualized tournament results (8 tournament games in a row won) as further evidence.
When and how you use units is the key to FINDING the latent value in them. Not this situational mathhammer where the PERFECT tool is assumed to have the perfect shot on the unit and always willing to use it.
That's what yoyoyo is protesting against. You cant just assume the worst case scenario for the Mutilator into being as your "answer" to it.
Terrain and the multiplicity of potential enemies factors big.
Consider this:
An army with 5x3 scatter bikes. Rightly feared. Now imagine 5 x 6 Breachers within 5" of them. Now imagine that there are four markerlights on each biker unit. Now imagine that its the Tau Empires turn to fire.
Of course in this light, and in this context, no one is betting on the scatter Bikes, are they? if you are, you sir are more of an optimist than I!
That's kind of what's being done here with the Mutilators.
And the other thing thats being done is that my comments are being inflated to mean more than i have stated. I have never stated they are the second coming of Christ. I have said they are extremely worthwhile given their cost and slot and explained why. The opposition is making it appear that I have made a more grandiose claim about them than I have as if to suggest I AM overselling them. But when the thread is entirely about this one unit, and I've had success with them, why would I not commend them? To commend them isn't to say they are infnitely better but simply that you're missing an opportunity by not adding them.
Here is a slot that is completely under used in the Chaos Marine codex. A unit that can do real damage for almost nothing! A unit that can absolutely ablate more points than it costs to do something and most importantly do so as a credible threat with a penalty attached for ignoring it. In other words... PERFECT for saturation and IDEAL for those who espouse MSU (which by the way includes Akiasura, ironically one of the loudest among the opposition).
You are painting up an unrealistic scenario. Scatterbikes can move almost the entire battlefield in one turn. The breachers are never going to be that close.
I am sure Mutilators look great in scenarios that are never going to come true as well.
Jancoran, I challenge you to a Vassal match. Let's see if your Mutilators are up to the task in actual practice, not just in alleged tournament wins.
I can't believe this has gone on for 10 pages lol.
But I have to agree with Akiasura. I haven't read everything (it was kinda confusing at times) but it sounds like that Mutilators are usable in certain niche situations. However *in general* they have neither the versatility they imply they have, nor the point-effectiveness.
In the linebreaker example, Mutilators is a nice 60-ish point drop in the backline since no other choice in the CSM codex can bring a deepstrike at that point cost (even the cheapest terminator build is at least around 100 points). However, I could argue that this is only viable if you couldn't afford the extra points for an Obliterator/lack the slot for an obliterator (who can DS and then fire off something, potentially destroying something of value in addition to getting Linebreaker) OR if you wish to use some other method. A squad of bikers might be a tad bit more expensive than mutilators, but you can probably hold them back in reserve and then turbo boost them up to the back lines in a turn or two if you wanted them to survive, or give them a plasma gun and have them do something during the game and then turbo boost for that last point.
In both cases though, the examples would be a tad bit more expensive than a single Mutilator. However this brings me to my next point: a unit's effectiveness is not only measured by what it can do, but also by what it would deny you. The linebreaker is a good strategy, but if I could spend the extra 60 points on something else that would enhance another unit, I would have to weigh the linebreaker strategy against enhancing another unit. Can the enhancement be measured linear-ly? (like, add more wounds to a unit) or is it a force multiplier? (an Icon that grants extra buffs to a lot of models). In this case, not only is the Mutilator's point cost in question, but also the Elite Slot it uses. If that entire strategy will cost me the option of using another unit with a strategy I need, then Mutilators will get the shaft.
For me, in most cases Mutilators are not worth it, but it's not just due to some underperformance, but also because of resources. Using more than one would mean I'm allocating points away from another unit that actually need it (I can buy a lot for 110 points). I will not let my Chaos lord run around in power armor because I was short points for a Mutilator, but I won't hesitate to spend those same points to increase the effectiveness of my chaos lord with more wargear (or maybe even upgrade him to a Daemon Prince, or a Daemon Prince into Be'Lakor). Even if they could fill a niche, they won't be considered "good" unless they are superior to something. Bloodcrushers are considered bad because they have no armor save and can die to a S8 cannon so easily, but in a mono-khorne army you still gotta take em because they're the only reliable source of fast-moving icons for them. But if Plague drones become an option, suddenly Bloodcrushers are left without a job since the drones do it so much better.
An army with 5x3 scatter bikes. Rightly feared. Now imagine 5 x 6 Breachers within 5" of them. Now imagine that there are four markerlights on each biker unit. Now imagine that its the Tau Empires turn to fire.
Of course in this light, and in this context, no one is betting on the scatter Bikes, are they? if you are, you sir are more of an optimist than I!
That's kind of what's being done here with the Mutilators.
Except that the scatter bike situation will never happen. How will 30 infantry speed models get within 5" of one of the fastest units in the game? Their transports will just get shot to death by the scatter bikes
You know what counters mutilators? Shooting them with ap2 are moving away from them. Did you know EVERY ARMY is capable of doing that? That pretty much any competent player that brought a balanced list should be able to make those mutilators do nothing?
MechaEmperor7000 wrote: But I have to agree with Akiasura [it sounds like that Mutilators are usable in certain niche situations]
I was under the impression he was arguing the opposite.
The real value of the discussion is what those niche situations are, and how reproducible they can be.
Uh, you literally posted a niche situation that I said the discussion had covered already, and admitted that mutilators were good in that situation . Most of the thread has been covering just that. Once you look at the niche situations, it's easy to determine that, by and large, mutilators are not worth it. We aren't going to keep typing that statement by the 8th page of discussion however.
I never once said they are useless in any and all situations, which you would know if you had actually read what I had written. Even recently, in response to yourself. Maybe someone was too involved in a pseudo intellectual dick measuring, eh? The problem is, in the vast majority of commonly encountered situations against the vast majority of armies, mutilators are bad.
I even stated that in my "How many points is needed in the unit firing at the mutilators break down" I admitted that if a unit costs 240+ (or costs 120 and takes 2 turns) then the mutilator is a great distraction.
However, such units are incredibly rare and often times the army has better units to deal with the mutilators. For example another niche unit that was covered are Tau fire warriors. They cost about 120-150, but usually take 2 rounds to destroy the mutilator. So thats in the point breakdown where the mutilator is excellent.
However, the tau have many units that cost less with plasma, and other units that split fire. So it's an niche situation, and doesn't make the mutilators good.
Reading the thread will help Yoyoyo, unless you are deliberating misreading or strawmanning .
@ Dusara217
It's alright, I flew off the handle a bit since you had accused me of ignoring what you had said. I make it a point to read everything and if I misread, am quick to apologize for doing so. It happens. I actually apologized to Jancoran in another thread for misunderstanding him.
As to your question, it's hard to say. If you spend 60 points on a VP, that's incredible. I think the problem is it's difficult to ensure the mutilator survives, since it's not that tough or fast for it's points. If I have to spend twice as much, say on bikes, but I'm much more likely to score my VPs since bikes can jink, are T5 (or 6), and can turbo boost, I'd most likely do that.
It's a fair point though, and one I hadn't considered. If you scored a linebreaker point for every unit, and could control deepstrikes, I would say mutilators are certainly worth it. Even with one of those factors, they'd approach "okay".
MechaEmperor7000 wrote: But I have to agree with Akiasura [it sounds like that Mutilators are usable in certain niche situations]
I was under the impression he was arguing the opposite.
The real value of the discussion is what those niche situations are, and how reproducible they can be.
I said "but mutilators are usable in niche situations". I meant that I agree that Mutilators are bad, but they have /some/ use.
I just don't see that use as being justified in giving up something else in my army. As it stands, most arguments end up "if you had the points to spare" or "in this specific situation". However, in most listbuilding, unless you're specifically tailoring your list towards something, such considerations are usually at the bottom of the list when considering whether or not a unit is "good" for you. If a unit makes you start questioning what you can cut for it, then it's a good unit. But if you have to rationalize sparing the points to take it, then it's a sign it's probably not the best.
EDIT: @ Akiasura: Yoyoyo misquoted me. The word "but" may be small, but it drastically changes my stance if it was left out. However I wasn't entirely sure on your platform either so I just generalized. Sorry if you did mean to say that Mutilators did have their niche uses.
Ashiraya wrote: You are painting up an unrealistic scenario. .
I know. that was the point. Lol. The point was that this is not always going to happen. So it is indeed pointless to assume context, like this, when you make your argument.
Mecha,
After 10 pages I imagine it's hard to follow anyone in this thread..
You would think people would read what you posted before insulting you though...
Depending on opponents deployment, the infiltrate trait could work. But that would rely on getting it, you not having something better to infiltrate (chosen with special weapons maybe) or lumping yourself with Huron or Ahriman.
But again, you're limiting yourself in trying to make mutilators work, when you could be taking the better things in CSM. And mitigate the self limiting you have done by picking CSM as your army
Akiasura wrote:Mecha,
After 10 pages I imagine it's hard to follow anyone in this thread..
You would think people would read what you posted before insulting you though...
I posted it on the first page or something but no one seemed to pick up the "there are better options" reason and just kept talking about batreps. Which might I add is another fallacy since one batrep proving they're good isn't definitive proof. I would rather look at how many Tourney-level CSM lists that had access to Mutilators (so basically any list made since 6th edition) actually contained mutilators; the fact that few people included them should be a bigger indicator that they're bad rather than them actually performing badly, since it means that they would have taken things away from legitimately good choices.
Mozzyfuzzy wrote:Depending on opponents deployment, the infiltrate trait could work. But that would rely on getting it, you not having something better to infiltrate (chosen with special weapons maybe) or lumping yourself with Huron or Ahriman.
But again, you're limiting yourself in trying to make mutilators work, when you could be taking the better things in CSM. And mitigate the self limiting you have done by picking CSM as your army
^---This. This is why Mutilators is bad. There's no point in building a rube goldberg machine to prove their worth when you can just take something that's good on it's own.
Akiasura wrote:Mecha,
After 10 pages I imagine it's hard to follow anyone in this thread..
You would think people would read what you posted before insulting you though...
I posted it on the first page or something but no one seemed to pick up the "there are better options" reason and just kept talking about batreps.
Ah yes, I do remember that. For some reason, some people involved in this thread feel you can't compare units to other units in the same dex. I don't understand it myself, but it's not an argument they are willing to address.
I brought up the same point much later in the discussion, and was immediately shot down, or not addressed.
Its one reason I prefer the point by point breakdown of replying...you can't ignore points made since you have to quote them (or it becomes obvious that you are omitting something), and are less likely to misread them.
Which might I add is another fallacy since one batrep proving they're good isn't definitive proof.
I agree, for what its worth. I don't think a battle against Jancoran will prove anything in regards to units strength.
But when people are claiming they are good only in corner case scenarios, you aren't left with much to do.
I would rather look at how many Tourney-level CSM lists that had access to Mutilators (so basically any list made since 6th edition) actually contained mutilators; the fact that few people included them should be a bigger indicator that they're bad rather than them actually performing badly, since it means that they would have taken things away from legitimately good choices.
I brought this up as well.
People mentioned that tournament goers only spam the best choices. I do agree with them that, in 40k, that is certainly the case.
Ashiraya wrote: You are painting up an unrealistic scenario. .
I know. that was the point. Lol. The point was that this is not always going to happen. So it is indeed pointless to assume context, like this, when you make your argument.
True, but looked what happened when you used this extremely unlikely context.
The posters immediately pointed out that this situation was extremely remote and unrealistic.
Not all cases are this clear cut (for example, are the marines you are firing at in cover or not? Rapid fire range or not) but many are.
You can certainly bring up different types of context, its what we have been doing the entire thread, and then judge how likely each one is.
The stationary battle tank with no supporting infantry for example, is relatively rare outside of IG. Interceptor on expensive units, however, is common (when it's seen...I'm not saying interceptor is common) and we can effectively rule it out as a reason mutilators might be bad.
I can't believe this has gone on for 10 pages lol.
For me, in most cases Mutilators are not worth it, but it's not just due to some under performance, but also because of resources. Using more than one would mean I'm allocating points away from another unit that actually need it.
Yet this isnt necessarily the case either.
Consider that in my army, the only actual slot OPEN to take a unit in is...Elites and troops. Different lists will come to a different crossroads. But in my list, these are the choices for those points. Situation being King, we consider what to do.
With 180 points to spend, the Elites slots aren't primo. While an argument can be made for Terminators, they don't help me saturate nor ablate as well but they are as viable as any choice there so one could do that. I looked at it and said "sure you could, but why have just one unit when you can have three that are also essentially terminators with more wounds than the Terminators! 6 wounds of Terminators would cost me more and waste enemy fire less". So while it was tempting and I had the models in spades, I decided to forego them. Any argument you can make for units that can kill Mutilators "easily" applies just as well to Terminators.
The Troops option wasn't a terribad option. I could have squeaked some more scoring into the list. I essentially could add two small units on foot with some weapons. Not a terrible idea but we already have six Obsec units. Chaos Marines are certainly not going to threaten tanks from the backfield at those points nor saturate, there again. It doesn't really force the enemies hand in any way. If the enemy can get free of their lines to get my Marines, that would already be their goal and the extra Marines force no action and ablate nothing the enemy would have preferred to kill. So perhaps after some games, if it turned out I needed more Obsec I could always go back and make that change but at face value, Chaos Marines weren't going to help me.
That left inexpensive Cultists. As cheap as they are, I could take them and an Aegis Defense Line and a gun. It was not unappealing because anti-air/Anti-skimmer et al is definitely useful against a fair number of enemies. Also Obsec. They would melt under any adversity but if i could hold the units attention well enough up front then perhaps they wouldnt have to wworry about it much. So I looked to my list and asked myself "Do I, in fact, have enough to hold them forward long enough?" The answer was a maybe. Maybe. But i wasn't feeling confident that on their own and with no other targets to consider, that the Raptors in my force would be able to, on their own, do it. But Maybe. Certain enemies? Absolutely. But with too many enemies, this was a hollow maybe. Drop Pod armies are common enough and the White Scars and Thunder Cavalry Space Wolves all have some tools there.
So ultimately the idea of Cultists died and that brought me back to the question at hand.
Other option was to add another troops tax to my Black Legion and turn them into a CAD. But at that point, I've got even less points to spend.
Nope. Mutilators made the most sense. So then I thought: Three in a unit or three separate ones? Well it just made sense to make them separate. They are the perfect MSU type of ablation unit, all extra wounds are wasted, and they can all deep strike in different places so that I can saturate and yet have the option to just Line break with one if that makes the most sense.
then I played them in actual games and they performed exactly as imagined. They'd Deep Strike fearlessly right next to the Broadsides as the Raptors showed up and now you're forcing tough choices on the enemy. Broadsides know they can do some damage to whatever they want to. But now theres 11 things they have to decide on. Stop the Dirge Casters that will screw their overwatch? Kill the Raptors who can blanket the army in a warm embrace? Nuke the Multi-wound killer Mutilators? Kill the Obliterators that can ALSO kill multiwound models and can BOTH fight and shoot? 11 targets, and not enough bullets in the day. What to do...
It works really well. Sometimes they die, and it takes a couple units to kill one. No one cares. Sometimes they live. Everyone cares. They can hurt any unit type. That's a really good equation that can only favor me.
I get jancoran's point to a certain extent. T5 2+ is pretty tough. Against most weapons that's more durable than a dreadnought. I still think, however, that's it's very much a case of a good player winning with a poor unit.
I can't believe this has gone on for 10 pages lol.
For me, in most cases Mutilators are not worth it, but it's not just due to some under performance, but also because of resources. Using more than one would mean I'm allocating points away from another unit that actually need it.
Yet this isnt necessarily the case either.
Consider that in my army, the only actual slot OPEN to take a unit in is...Elites and troops. Different lists will come to a different crossroads. But in my list, these are the choices for those points. Situation being King, we consider what to do.
With 180 points to spend, the Elites slots aren't primo. While an argument can be made for Terminators, they don't help me saturate nor ablate as well but they are as viable as any choice there so one could do that. I looked at it and said "sure you could, but why have just one unit when you can have three that are also essentially terminators with more wounds than the Terminators! 6 wounds of Terminators would cost me more and waste enemy fire less". So while it was tempting and I had the models in spades, I decided to forego them.
The Troops option wasn't a terribad option. I could have squeaked some more scoring into the list. I essentially could add two small units on foot with some weapons. Not a terrible idea but we already have six Obsec units. Chaos Marines are certainly not going to threaten tanks from the backfield at those points nor saturate, there again. It doesn't really force the enemies hand in any way. If the enemy can get free of their lines to get my Marines, that would already be their goal and the extra Marines force no action and ablate nothing the enemy would have preferred to kill. So perhaps after some games, if it turned out I needed more Obsec I could always go back and make that change but at face value, Chaos Marines weren't going to help me.
That left inexpensive Cultists. As cheap as they are, I could take them and an Aegis Defense Line and a gun. It was not unappealing because anti-air/Anti-skimmer et al is definitely useful against a fair number of enemies. Also Obsec. They would melt under any adversity but if i could hold the units attention well enough up front then perhaps they wouldnt have to wworry about it much. So I looked to my list and asked myself "Do I, in fact, have enough to hold them forward long enough? The answer was a maybe. Maybe. But i wasn't feeling confident that on their own and with no other targets to consider, that the Raptors in my force would be able to, on their own, do it. But Maybe. Certain enemies? Absolutely. But with too many enemies, this was a hollow maybe. Drop Pod armies are common enough and the White Scars and Thunder Cavalry Space Wolves all have some tools there.
So ultimately the idea of Cultists died and that brought me back to the question at hand.
Other option was to add another troops tax to my Black Legion and turn them into a CAD. But at that point, I've got even less points to spend.
Nope. Mutilators made the most sense. So then I thought: Three in a unit or three separate ones? Well it just made sense to make them separate. They are the perfect MSU type of ablation unit, all extra wounds are wasted, and they can all deep strike in different places so that I can saturate and yet have the option to just Line break with one if that makes the most sense.
then I played them in actual games and they performed exactly as imagined. They'd Deep Strike fearlessly right next to the Broadsides as the Raptors showed up and now you're forcing tough choices on the enemy. They know they can do some damage to whatever they want to. But now theres 11 things they have to decide on. Stop the Dirge Casters that will screw their overwatch? Kill the Raptors who can blanket the army in a warm embrace? Nuke the Multi-wound killer Mutilators? Kill the Obliterators that can ALSO kill multiwound models and can BOTH fight and shoot? 11 targets, and not enough bullets in the day. What to do...
It works really well. Sometimes they die, and it takes a couple units to kill one. No one cares. Sometimes they live. Everyone cares. They can hurt any unit type. That's a really good equation that can only favor me.
So in death or in life, they serve.
However, you're still only considering them when you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Has the scenario ever come up where you took Mutilators before you ran out of slots or points (and not just for a fluff army or a challenge army, those would be entirely different arguments)?
I usually play 1000-1500 points, and rarely 2000 or above. In those cases, I never use Mutilators, because the points are tight enough that I can rarely afford the stuff I need already. In the above example, if I had about 180 points and totally filled up with HQ, I would see if I can divide up my list enough to make room for another Chaos Sorceror in another CAD.
Just thought I'd pop in to say this. One of my main opponents is a CSM player. There are many things in his army that give me pause regardless of what army I'm playing. Mutilators aren't one of them. If they can get to the fight they can do some damage. But their slow speed is what cripples them imo. Most of my armies are mechanized and can just easily zoom away from them. They're not a terrible unit, they're just not great.
But first - a daemon slaanesh detachment with a masque.
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