Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Sorry your right, they don't move, (which I know, I just had a brain fart)

However, agianst horde type armies, it will be hard to -not- be in range of a charge, scatter or not. 1/3 of the time no scatter, and then usually less than 50% of the rest the scatter is not enough to worry about. I always go ballsy with my ASM because otherwise they are just wasted points. (Deepstrike no more than 6" away from a unit I want to charge)

Armies that run high power shooting lists tend to be smaller, and usually can't spare the units to "bubble wrap" all their other units effectively I'll shoot the ones I can't charge, charge the others. Etc. I'll even charge that imperial knight as my ASM have melta bomb Sgts.

Even with scatter, ASM squads with fleet are more likely to be able to assualt than not.

Most of the time if night fighting is a thing, I'll hold my army for turn two, if possible giving my oppent first turn. As my army is entirely null deploy.

 raiden wrote:

Armies that run high power shooting lists tend to be smaller, and usually can't spare the units to "bubble wrap" all their other units effectively I'll shoot the ones I can't charge, charge the others. Etc. I'll even charge that imperial knight as my ASM have melta bomb Sgts.

Let's see. Tau - do you really want to face all that overwatch gak-storm from a bubblewrap? Eldar, they'll counter-null deploy and just fly around the table. Imperial Guard - one of the easiest armies to bubble wrap with conscripts.

One meltabomb won't kill a Knight reliably.

Come on, this formation is strong, but it's not OP and without counters.

 Enigwolf wrote:

 raiden wrote:

Armies that run high power shooting lists tend to be smaller, and usually can't spare the units to "bubble wrap" all their other units effectively I'll shoot the ones I can't charge, charge the others. Etc. I'll even charge that imperial knight as my ASM have melta bomb Sgts.

Let's see. Tau - do you really want to face all that overwatch gak-storm from a bubblewrap? Eldar, they'll counter-null deploy and just fly around the table. Imperial Guard - one of the easiest armies to bubble wrap with conscripts.

One meltabomb won't kill a Knight reliably.

Come on, this formation is strong, but it's not OP and without counters.

It's easy, use the two 5 man bolter dev squads to force them to GtG or even if they pass make it so they can't fire overwatch.

I didn't say it would, but it could potentially finish one off after grav devs shooting.

True on the guard, but shooting doesn't care.

I agree, their are lists that can fight this list, but you can take two of these formations at 1500. One with grav, one with multi-melta or HB or w/e

Tau and Orks aren't really tournament competitive, so they're not really a concern for Skyhammer.

Unless there's an entire meta shift.

raiden wrote:Sorry your right, they don't move, (which I know, I just had a brain fart)

No problem bud. I make my share of mistakes too. Way too many of them in fact.

raiden wrote:However, agianst horde type armies, it will be hard to -not- be in range of a charge, scatter or not. 1/3 of the time no scatter, and then usually less than 50% of the rest the scatter is not enough to worry about. I always go ballsy with my ASM because otherwise they are just wasted points. (Deepstrike no more than 6" away from a unit I want to charge)

Even a DS at 6" away leaves you only able to kill models with the flamers within 8" of the unit. So against most horde targets that is 2-3 models if you are lucky. The problem with 6" DS is that you scatter 6"+ toward the opponent ~16% of the time, you scatter 6"+ away from the target ~24% of the time. This means ~40% of the time you either mishap or scatter out of charge range. The remainder of the time you will fail your charges about ~20% of the times (ie failed charges 6-12" from the target, I ignored the possibility of failing a 5" and less charge). This gives an overall chance to not make the charge on the order of ~60%. Which is the majority of the time.

raiden wrote:Armies that run high power shooting lists tend to be smaller, and usually can't spare the units to "bubble wrap" all their other units effectively I'll shoot the ones I can't charge, charge the others. Etc. I'll even charge that imperial knight as my ASM have melta bomb Sgts.

You are looking at bubble wrap the wrong way. Bubble wrap doesn't have to be cheap units just units that are disposable. The thing about a SM army with this formation is that grav cannon devs are extremely expensive.

The setup I think of when I think of this formation is;
Skyhammer Annhilation Force (860pts)
Assault Squad (100pts); Jump Packs, 4x Marines w/ 2x Flamer + Sarge w/ Meltabombs
Assault Squad (100pts); Jump Packs, 4x Marines w/ 2x Flamer + Sarge w/ Meltabombs
Devastator Squad (330pts); Drop Pod, 9x Marines w/ 4x Grav-cannon + Sarge w/ Meltabombs and Combi-Grav
Devastator Squad (330pts); Drop Pod, 9x Marines w/ 4x Grav-cannon + Sarge w/ Meltabombs and Combi-Grav

This setup is the best results against the largest variety of armies however it is also a lot of pts for 30 MEQ bodies that all have to be within 24" of an enemy to do anything, 490 pts of which is on 10 MEQ bodies which need to be within 24" and in LoS to shoot effectively. That is what is getting lost on a lot of people. If this formation comes down and only kills 2 rhinos and ties up 4 units of 5 TAC marines then the return damage to this formation is going to eliminate ~660 pts with little to no trouble.

It would be entirely viable to bubble wrap with an expensive anti tank unit if you your opponent doesn't bring any tanks. Just choose whatever is the least useful and put it between where DSers have to DS and your valuable units you need. Even if the grav devs shoot the unit to death you can still buy 4"+ of additional charge distance the assault marines would have to make.

raiden wrote:Even with scatter, ASM squads with fleet are more likely to be able to assualt than not.

Please see above. Once you get to 9" even reroll will leave you failing charges more often than not.

raiden wrote:Most of the time if night fighting is a thing, I'll hold my army for turn two, if possible giving my oppent first turn. As my army is entirely null deploy.

There is definitely positives and negatives to that. It really depends on what you have to hold the fort and what the opponent brings. Against a psychic deathstar that is quite likely to loose you the game. Additionally a CWE scatbike + wraithknight could actually spread the bikes out enough to block DSing within 24" of the wraithknight by turn 2. In fact many armies can with the correct dispersion pattern occupy enough of the board to leave your DSing skyhammer without valuable targets. Against an opponent that tries to null deploy this could be valuable assuming you go second.

raiden wrote:It's easy, use the two 5 man bolter dev squads to force them to GtG or even if they pass make it so they can't fire overwatch.

Actually this doesn't necessarily function against Tau like you think. You can stop 4 of the tau units from firing over watch but all the other units within the bubble still get to shoot.

raiden wrote:I agree, their are lists that can fight this list, but you can take two of these formations at 1500. One with grav, one with multi-melta or HB or w/e

IMO this formation alongside a well designed white scars biker or scouts SM CAD could be a top tier or nearly so army. More than one of these formations is an extreme build that will only really beat up on players who don't know the strategies to deal with the tricks this brings, ie DS and assault. This army can be largely counter with simple strategy and model placement.

Enigwolf wrote:Come on, this formation is strong, but it's not OP and without counters.

I agree. This is another all too common case of sky is falling reaction. I will have to update my extreme alpha strike thread with tactics for and against this formation. The turn 2 DS and possible assaults are a somewhat unique strategic exercise.

As an Ork player, I wouldn't play against this. Why waste 30 - 45 minutes setting up terrain, choosing a mission and deploying my army just to have my forces crippled in the first turn and then start packing everything back up? This reminds me of when turn 1 kills were common in Magic the Gathering. Shuffle, draw, opponent takes turn and game over before you get to play a single card. The only difference is you can do it every game in 40k because you don't have to draw randomly and instead of wasting 2 minutes, I wasted a half hour.

Why do Orks have one lousy formation that (sometimes) allows a few extra S3 hits when charging and Marines get about a dozen that grant a ton of powerful abilities?

considering this formation is pretty garbage against orks I am not sure what you are complaining about.

I just watched a veteran Tau player concede to a Skyhammer list at the top of turn one during the assault phase.

1850 points, the Skyhammer player pinned three Tau units and locked up two units of Broadsides in assault, swept his Pathfinders, and controlled the board. And that was with one of the assault squads getting decimated with interceptor (then fail charging) and another one losing a couple men. The Broadsides were going to be locked in CC for the rest of the game. Both Crisis suit units were pinned, the pathfinders were pinned (then wiped in assault), and his vehicles were jinking. His Riptide was castled in safely and some Suits were in reserve, maybe a couple more free while castled in, but there was no reason to play at that point. Victory, top of turn one.

The kicker was that the space marine player also had two other Drop Pods from outside the formation come in with a bunch more stuff. There were like ten units on top of the Tau army and there simply isn't a mechanic to counter it. Interceptor doesn't mean squat when there are such a huge number of units. Neither does overwatch when things get basically auto-pinned.

Nobody had any fun.

Yeah I don't see this doing much to the typical ork army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tau gun line, however, as above, seems like fish in a barrel for it. (Haw haw I make fish joke. Is good!)

niv-mizzet wrote:
Yeah I don't see this doing much to the typical ork army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tau gun line, however, as above, seems like fish in a barrel for it. (Haw haw I make fish joke. Is good!)

The guy couldn't even castle up much because there were multiple TFCs on the board. It was the dumbest match of 40k I've seen in my life.

How did the Intercepting Large Blast Riptides not wipe the Assault marines and the Broadsides not interceptor the leftovers or the 4 Grav Devs. I get the formation can bring the heat, but I don't see how the Tau player got crapped on so hard. Fire Warriors or Kroot bubble wrapping Broadsides is a thing. His vehicles that jinked dont need models in it, if the entire army needs to do work on Turn1.

Survival is most important and it's not that hard when you play with proper terrain and correct deployment (Nova terrain in mind).

What's his full SM list or Tau's for that matter. Multiple TFCs is 200-300, the formation is at least 950, and thats only 10 Devs (with Grav) and 20 ASMs. If you want combat squaded Devs, you need another 140. Then you need 3 more pods in order to had 2 additional Turn1. That's another 300-500 if you're going to fill them with something worth while. Add tacticals (or they might be in the ones in the pods) and it's a full list. But Tacs are tacs. I don't see them as scary for tau with all their 2+.

TL;DR - I'd like to know more

mercury14 wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:
Yeah I don't see this doing much to the typical ork army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tau gun line, however, as above, seems like fish in a barrel for it. (Haw haw I make fish joke. Is good!)

The guy couldn't even castle up much because there were multiple TFCs on the board. It was the dumbest match of 40k I've seen in my life.

Yea......you dont castle against an army like this, Thats what they want, once the alpha strike is gone over half of his army is just a sitting duck with no mobility. You need to take advantage of your range and either deploy in separate corners, reserve everything, etc.

Also I have never seen a tau army without enough interceptor to kill all the grav marines....cant blame power on army comp issues.

I'm glad tau are getting stomped now. That list sounds like tau cheese anyway. I don't feel sorry for tau/necron/eldar cheese players.that get leaf blowered off the board. Taste of their own medicine


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You can purchase a 3rd drop pod as a fast attack slot with out pputting anything in it.

Saythings wrote:
How did the Intercepting Large Blast Riptides not wipe the Assault marines and the Broadsides not interceptor the leftovers or the 4 Grav Devs. I get the formation can bring the heat, but I don't see how the Tau player got crapped on so hard. Fire Warriors or Kroot bubble wrapping Broadsides is a thing. His vehicles that jinked dont need models in it, if the entire army needs to do work on Turn1.

Survival is most important and it's not that hard when you play with proper terrain and correct deployment (Nova terrain in mind).

What's his full SM list or Tau's for that matter. Multiple TFCs is 200-300, the formation is at least 950, and thats only 10 Devs (with Grav) and 20 ASMs. If you want combat squaded Devs, you need another 140. Then you need 3 more pods in order to had 2 additional Turn1. That's another 300-500 if you're going to fill them with something worth while. Add tacticals (or they might be in the ones in the pods) and it's a full list. But Tacs are tacs. I don't see them as scary for tau with all their 2+.

TL;DR - I'd like to know more

The Riptide's interceptor left one assault marine squad with just one marine and the broadsides intercepted some of the devs but again failed to kill them all. And since the Devs in this formation just need to look at something to pin it, leaving even one alive is a huge problem.

Everything in the Skyhammer was combat squaded, plus two more pods in addition to that dropped, both carring a bunch of Melta. There were simply a huge number of targets.

The Tau player bubble wrapped with pathfinders and some Fire Warriors, he had no Kroot. But since there were three TFCs it was carnage. Some big unit of either pathfinders or Fire warriors got pinned which triggered the assault marines to not take overwatch and reroll everything, wiped.

And yes, Tacs hitting on 3's and rerolling 1's is frightening to all Tau that's not 2+.

Also the Devs didn't even have grav, they had plasma and lascannons.

Have a batrep for this?

Also, War Convocation vs. Skyhammer:



AdMech won, BTW, by a combination of counter-part-null deploying and scattering his forces all over the board. The latter seems to be the solution to this formation - defeat the inherent synergies of the Skyhammer formation by spreading out.

Coteaz ftw here with good deployment. Think I may have to throw him into my centstar if this becomes popular and bubble wrap in a perimeter around the star so they they can either drop inside the perimeter and get a full load of shots from the centstar or deepstrike too far away

Doesn't coteaz ability stop working if embarked now?

 pretre wrote:

 raiden wrote:
^ the only thing I've seen ran with the plasma oblit is the assassin for the ignores cover plasma blast and almost no scatter chance.

I'm thinking of running:
Coteaz
Rune Priest with Ignores Cover Hat that rerolls misses.
Plasma Oblit

In an upcoming tournament.

You know, a lot of people seem to be passing over this in agreement, but I was under the understanding that to fire an emplaced weapon you had to be embarked in the building. Note that there is indeed an often overlooked difference between an "emplaced weapon" and a "weapon emplacement". They have different rules. That being the case, isn't the plasma oblit an impassable building, and thus not able to be manual fired?

How to solve coteaz:

Be 13" away from him.

Oh man. I really struggled with that one.

 Crazyterran wrote:
How to solve coteaz:

Be 13" away from him.

Oh man. I really struggled with that one.

Fine for Devs, But the ASM, if your attempting a turn 1 charge, or simply the DS charge then with positioning it wouldn't be hard to basically make it impossible to charge without landing within the 12".

I suppose it depends where coteaz is, but I doubt he'll have line of sight if an army is packed tightly around him within 12". I've used him for a long time, and even if he has a big wide area to stand in to get a view, it's likely there will be a good gap than an enemy can land in.

It's good to protect something you don't want to get into hand to hand, I suppose, but since it has to be within 12" of Coteaz, not his unit...

 Crazyterran wrote:
How to solve coteaz:

Be 13" away from him.

Oh man. I really struggled with that one.

That's why you place the bubble wrap 12" around him, so they either have to deep strike within his range or outside of the circle.

Imperial Bunker is another option to put the deathstar in in case of going second

 Crazyterran wrote:
I suppose it depends where coteaz is, but I doubt he'll have line of sight if an army is packed tightly around him within 12". I've used him for a long time, and even if he has a big wide area to stand in to get a view, it's likely there will be a good gap than an enemy can land in.

It's good to protect something you don't want to get into hand to hand, I suppose, but since it has to be within 12" of Coteaz, not his unit...

I used to play castle tactics with Tau+Grey Knights in 6th, trust me, it's not hard to castle into a corner and make it difficult for your opponent to get an early charge in or counter a drop pod army (looking at you drop pod sternguard...)

Can Flying Hive Tyrants be forced to gotoground from this rule? Because that would be bonkers...

Fearless due to monstrous creature and synapse, so no.

(Pretty sure monstrous creature makes things fearless now...)

Monstrous creatures are not automatically fearless, but they may never go to ground, voluntarily or otherwise.

 Crazyterran wrote:
How to solve coteaz:

Be 13" away from him.

Oh man. I really struggled with that one.

LOL. That's my BA solution. Then interdict his squad with extreme prejudice with grav bikers.

 BetrayTheWorld wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 raiden wrote:
^ the only thing I've seen ran with the plasma oblit is the assassin for the ignores cover plasma blast and almost no scatter chance.

I'm thinking of running:
Coteaz
Rune Priest with Ignores Cover Hat that rerolls misses.
Plasma Oblit

In an upcoming tournament.

You know, a lot of people seem to be passing over this in agreement, but I was under the understanding that to fire an emplaced weapon you had to be embarked in the building. Note that there is indeed an often overlooked difference between an "emplaced weapon" and a "weapon emplacement". They have different rules. That being the case, isn't the plasma oblit an impassable building, and thus not able to be manual fired?

Anyone able to weigh in on this? If I'm incorrect, I'd love to know how. This was previously pointed out to me, and I was unable to find a way to refute their argument without equating "emplaced weapon" to "weapon emplacement". While, in the english language the two seem interchangeable, it certainly seems that they are NOT from a rules standpoint.

To fire the plasma oblit, the unit doing the firing must be inside the weapon emplacement

Plasma oblit is a medium building, so you can embark and fire it.