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Yeah I like the Packs honestly but everyone takes the Pods. I think the option to Null Deploy and have everything come in reliably on turn 2 sounds pretty strong to me. Pods force you to alpha strike.

I'm glad there are others who play with Packs as well.

Or didnt have the ability to. Example: i faced an iron hands list that played the following.

Master of the Forge

5x Centurion Devastators with grav cannons

5x sniper scouts with cloaks

5x tac marines in a pod with melta+combi

3x mortis pattern contemptor dreads with 2 kheres pattern assault cannons and cyclone missile launcher

Imperial knight with melta cannon

Not all lists have the ability to bubble wrap to such a degree that a small squad that only scatters 1d6 cant slip in there.

 th3maninblak wrote:
Or didnt have the ability to. Example: i faced an iron hands list that played the following.

Master of the Forge

5x Centurion Devastators with grav cannons

5x sniper scouts with cloaks

5x tac marines in a pod with melta+combi

3x mortis pattern contemptor dreads with 2 kheres pattern assault cannons and cyclone missile launcher

Imperial knight with melta cannon

Not all lists have the ability to bubble wrap to such a degree that a small squad that only scatters 1d6 cant slip in there.

I guess not. His mistake.

In defense of Podded Assault Squads, when the pod lands you can correct 6" of that deviation with your deployment move.

So if you scatter 7", and you then deploy 6" out of the Pod, you've only deviated 1" from your intended destination. That's really good if you're using Inferno Pistols. Further, if you scatter on top of another unit, you aren't DS Mishapped, just redeployed a shorter distance. That makes them a more reliable choice, especially if trying to land in the back of a parking lot.

And then you also have a nuisance objective thief. For the price of 2.5 marines, you have an AV12 vehicle sitting around that had a reasonable chance of landing on an objective. If you have a 1" round objective, and we estimate a pod as having a 3" diameter, that pod could scatter 5" and still be claiming / contesting the objective. That would happen 52% of the time, if you tried to drop on top of an objective... and then the Assault squad can reposition 6" to get into range of something. A very nice bonus seeing as they're free.

Admittedly, on their own they're a suicide squad, but they can drop in to give backup to other units, like infiltrating Scouts. If they manage to fire twice in a game, they've probably succeeded at their intended use. Happening to hold an objective would be icing on an already awesome cake. Those Assault marines going to ground afterwards could be hard to shift, and the pod draws a vastly disproportionate amount of aggression if it's within 3" of an objective.

All of that is true. Bur if even one melta gunner survives with a jump pack he becomes a highly mobile threat to tanks, particularly light transports that he can assault. With dante the two strategies are roughly even.

Martel732 wrote:

 th3maninblak wrote:

rollawaythestone wrote:
Considering Assault Squads with double Melta and Combi-melta or Inferno Pistol many people take Pods instead of Jump Packs. If you are taking Dante in your list with Descent of Angels, why go with the Pod? Is it just another thing on the table that the opponent has to kill? I guess the Pod can't mishap easily, so there's that.

Short answer? In my experience, you don't. Leave the packs on, come in very reliably on turn 2 with a higher degree of accuracy than with a drop pod. My list for the league had 2 tri melta assault marine squads and a command squad with jump packs and 3 melta guns. Needless to say, my opponents never got to fire their knights more than once per game.

Someone forgot to bubblewrap.

Nah, he ran out and didn't have time to go to the store to get some more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 th3maninblak wrote:

rollawaythestone wrote:
Considering Assault Squads with double Melta and Combi-melta or Inferno Pistol many people take Pods instead of Jump Packs. If you are taking Dante in your list with Descent of Angels, why go with the Pod? Is it just another thing on the table that the opponent has to kill? I guess the Pod can't mishap easily, so there's that.

Short answer? In my experience, you don't. Leave the packs on, come in very reliably on turn 2 with a higher degree of accuracy than with a drop pod. My list for the league had 2 tri melta assault marine squads and a command squad with jump packs and 3 melta guns. Needless to say, my opponents never got to fire their knights more than once per game.

Remember half your pods come in first turn, so there is a reason to go for it. You get them in sooner and causing damage sooner and you get a reliable number in first turn as well.

For podding vs deepstrike jump packs, if you pod you don't have to decide between shooting and running to minimize blasts.

 Zefig wrote:
For podding vs deepstrike jump packs, if you pod you don't have to decide between shooting and running to minimize blasts.

This is the main reason I can see for podding.

I think I prefer jump beta strike more. The codex is one of the weakest, so if I play a full 6 or 7 round game, I can expect a tabling against a competitive higher tier codex list. But if I don't really put much on for him to kill early, and effectively shorten the game by at least a turn, I could have the game end while guys are still valiantly holding objectives and the like.

The part I don't like is that you start off on the back foot in maelstrom while doing it. Unless you got some easy stuff like "hold the line" or "hold one of your objectives" with your hiding scouts, you're probably behind already.

There is definitely a shout for pack's but i think pod's win out especially if you have more than 1 or 2 in turn 1. I have just got my 5th and I'm going to see how that goes.

I'm going to use my 2 furioso's. Another 2 will have a tri-melta ASM and a 10 man flamer tac squad.

I'm still stuck for what to put in the 5th one. It's probably going to be between my ,up to 10, sternguard a tri-melta command squad a furioso libby or another, up to 10, tac squad for a different role to the flamers, maybe plasma if i didn't already have 5 in a AC razorback. Does any one have any suggestion's/other option's about what to put in the 5th?

Cheer's.

K

niv-mizzet wrote:
The codex is one of the weakest.

Pessimism invades Baal, once again. We were 2nd in the bottom not long ago, we aren't any worse now.

 valkyriePROfail wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:
The codex is one of the weakest.

Pessimism invades Baal, once again. We were 2nd in the bottom not long ago, we aren't any worse now.

And arguably didn't go up any slots.

Martel732 wrote:

 valkyriePROfail wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:
The codex is one of the weakest.

Pessimism invades Baal, once again. We were 2nd in the bottom not long ago, we aren't any worse now.

And arguably didn't go up any slots.

And what makes you think BA is one of the worst codices, LVO win rate?
Codex was rebalanced in terms of point cost and is arguably much better now. Being a fairly new codex yet, people is still testing what works better and what not. At least give it some more time to be judged.

No death stars. No centurions. No biker troops. No stormtalons. No TFCs. No Smashbane. No counter-death stars. Costs are better, yes, but selection sucks.

 valkyriePROfail wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 valkyriePROfail wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:
The codex is one of the weakest.

Pessimism invades Baal, once again. We were 2nd in the bottom not long ago, we aren't any worse now.

And arguably didn't go up any slots.

And what makes you think BA is one of the worst codices, LVO win rate?
Codex was rebalanced in terms of point cost and is
arguably much better now. Being a fairly new codex yet, people is still testing what works better and what not. At least give it some more time to be judged.

This is pretty on point. Give it time. And with 11 people playing it out of 221 its not a big enough sample size.

Martel732 wrote:
No death stars. No centurions. No biker troops. No stormtalons. No TFCs. No Smashbane. No counter-death stars. Costs are better, yes, but selection sucks.

If you want marines just play vanilla marines and paint them red....

BA codex wasnt mean to work like vanilla. Does that makes it one of the worst codices? Many codices wish to have current DC, fast vehicles (or overcharged engines option) or sanguinary priests. I see BA codex closer to a mid tier than to bottom tier, but its just my humble opinion.

 valkyriePROfail wrote:
BA codex wasnt mean to work like vanilla. Does that makes it one of the worst codices? Many codices wish to have current DC, fast vehicles (or overcharged engines option) or sanguinary priests. I see BA codex closer to a mid tier than to bottom tier, but its just my humble opinion.

If it's mid tier, then a substantial number of codices must be worse. Who is worse than BA? The only one I can think of is DA.

Martel732 wrote:

 valkyriePROfail wrote:
BA codex wasnt mean to work like vanilla. Does that makes it one of the worst codices? Many codices wish to have current DC, fast vehicles (or overcharged engines option) or sanguinary priests. I see BA codex closer to a mid tier than to bottom tier, but its just my humble opinion.

If it's mid tier, then a substantial number of codices must be worse. Who is worse than BA? The only one I can think of is DA.

That comes to my mind SoB, Chaos marines, GK, new Harlequins if you dont ally them and Orks maybe. But still opinions and like I said, give the codex some more time to see how terrible is, or not.

There is a very valid point to be made, that BA does not equal SM codex. They're different, and must be played differently. I'm trying to wrap my head around them, myself. Many of my earlier strategies with them were simply better in the Vanilla 'Dex. Sit'n'shoot Scouts with vehicles as an Iron Hands detachment, and all the infantry / bikes as a White Scars detachment... except for an IH Master of the Forge, riding in a Land Raider with some WScar Honour Guard.

So far, I'd say that the vanilla Marine 'dex is stronger, as is Eldar, Tau, Necrons, and Knights.

I'd say we're on par with Nids, Chaos [with codex add-ons], Sisters, Grey Knights... ish.

We're stronger than DA's, but who isn't? We're stronger than Astra Militarum. I've played them for years, and they have a good codex, just for the wrong edition.

I don't know about Orks, though they sound weak. I don't know about Space Wolves, it sounds like they're mid-tier but a hard matchup for BA.

I've never met a Daemon player, so I don't know about them at all.


I'd say we're only outright weaker than 5 codices, and it pains me to consider Knights a codex. I think the tournament list for BA is still in the works, it's relatively new and I think people were trying to build SM lists without the toys, which wouldn't work.

 valkyriePROfail wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 valkyriePROfail wrote:
BA codex wasnt mean to work like vanilla. Does that makes it one of the worst codices? Many codices wish to have current DC, fast vehicles (or overcharged engines option) or sanguinary priests. I see BA codex closer to a mid tier than to bottom tier, but its just my humble opinion.

If it's mid tier, then a substantial number of codices must be worse. Who is worse than BA? The only one I can think of is DA.

That comes to my mind SoB, Chaos marines, GK, new Harlequins if you dont ally them and Orks maybe. But still opinions and like I said, give the codex some more time to see how terrible is, or not.

Sisters are very good, just low viable build numbers due to lack of options. (Most notably the troops.) I've borrowed and proxy'd a bit of sister before when some local guys said they were bad. They have since been convinced otherwise.
It's hard to find players for them because you could buy 2 other armies for the price of a sisters army.

Chaos would be worse if nurgle didn't exist.

GK? You mean grey knights? Really? Grey knights, like sisters, don't have a lot of options. But they are a fantastic force otherwise. I can't imagine anyone thinking they're anything but top of the middle codices or better, way above BA.

I haven't checked out the harlies yet, but it sounds like another little add on book that's more meant to be an ally force, so I don't really consider that a full army to be compared to.

Orks, dark angels, and dark eldar are like the only ones in direct competition for the low ranks with BA, and I've personally made some ork lists that make my BA cry in head to head. So out of 16 armies not counting the little supplements like clan R and farsight, there are only 3 I consider to be on the same competitive level as BA in a one-source situation. That's in the bottom 25% if my math isn't failing me.

Bottom 25% sounds about right. Right where we started lol.

Well, each of us has his own opinion based on experience or mere guessing but is still 100% subjective. No one has the right point or just we all have it. My 45% isnt less valid than your "below 25%" because you considered SoB, GK and chaos sm better than I did. Its kinda pointless, this doesnt go anywhere to be fair.

 valkyriePROfail wrote:
Well, each of us has his own opinion based on experience or mere guessing but is still 100% subjective. No one has the right point or just we all have it. My 45% isnt less valid than your "below 25%" because you considered SoB, GK and chaos sm better than I did. Its kinda pointless, this doesnt go anywhere to be fair.

Why do you think BA as as good as SoB, GK, or CSM? I've stated why I think they aren't.

How we are better than...

CSM: much better assault units, better special characters, actual anti air, drop pods, ATSKNF, better mobility, fast vehicles.

SoB: significantly more cost efficient units, not a close range army that is toughness 3, more durable army wide with prevalent feel no pain, drop pods, ATSKNF, less reliant on a single unit (excorcists).

GK: we have an actual codex? The only good things in that codex are Draigo, librarians and dreadknights. Centurion star having to be a primary GK for draigo is the ONLY reason their win rate is so high.

DA: more cost efficient units across the board, better "chapter tactics", better relics, appropriately costed as opposed to a pricing experiment at the beginning of an edition.

DE: Not wearing paper armor flying around in paper airplanes made out of explodium, no useless units like hellions or wyches, better relics.

Orks: probably even.

 valkyriePROfail wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 valkyriePROfail wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:
The codex is one of the weakest.

Pessimism invades Baal, once again. We were 2nd in the bottom not long ago, we aren't any worse now.

And arguably didn't go up any slots.

And what makes you think BA is one of the worst codices, LVO win rate?
Codex was rebalanced in terms of point cost and is arguably much better now. Being a fairly new codex yet, people is still testing what works better and what not. At least give it some more time to be judged.

I agree here really. Out of interest just exactly what were people taking in these lists that faired poorly?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:

 valkyriePROfail wrote:
BA codex wasnt mean to work like vanilla. Does that makes it one of the worst codices? Many codices wish to have current DC, fast vehicles (or overcharged engines option) or sanguinary priests. I see BA codex closer to a mid tier than to bottom tier, but its just my humble opinion.

If it's mid tier, then a substantial number of codices must be worse. Who is worse than BA? The only one I can think of is DA.

In my mind I would say Dark Angels, Chaos Marines, Sisters of Battle, Tyranids, Grey Knights and Orks.

I think Imperial Guard are roughly even with us. We have a whole load of short range melta that can ruin their day and they ain't bubble wrapping every tank. Besides we also have a whole of flamer goodness to say goodbye to such bubble wraps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 greatbigtree wrote:
There is a very valid point to be made, that BA does not equal SM codex. They're different, and must be played differently. I'm trying to wrap my head around them, myself. Many of my earlier strategies with them were simply better in the Vanilla 'Dex. Sit'n'shoot Scouts with vehicles as an Iron Hands detachment, and all the infantry / bikes as a White Scars detachment... except for an IH Master of the Forge, riding in a Land Raider with some WScar Honour Guard.

So far, I'd say that the vanilla Marine 'dex is stronger, as is Eldar, Tau, Necrons, and Knights.

I'd say we're on par with Nids, Chaos [with codex add-ons], Sisters, Grey Knights... ish.

We're stronger than DA's, but who isn't? We're stronger than Astra Militarum. I've played them for years, and they have a good codex, just for the wrong edition.

I don't know about Orks, though they sound weak. I don't know about Space Wolves, it sounds like they're mid-tier but a hard matchup for BA.

I've never met a Daemon player, so I don't know about them at all.


I'd say we're only outright weaker than 5 codices, and it pains me to consider Knights a codex. I think the tournament list for BA is still in the works, it's relatively new and I think people were trying to build SM lists without the toys, which wouldn't work.

Well said.

I really honestly think we are meant to operate as a close quarters force. Drop pods I think will be instrumental in our tournament list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

niv-mizzet wrote:

 valkyriePROfail wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 valkyriePROfail wrote:
BA codex wasnt mean to work like vanilla. Does that makes it one of the worst codices? Many codices wish to have current DC, fast vehicles (or overcharged engines option) or sanguinary priests. I see BA codex closer to a mid tier than to bottom tier, but its just my humble opinion.

If it's mid tier, then a substantial number of codices must be worse. Who is worse than BA? The only one I can think of is DA.

That comes to my mind SoB, Chaos marines, GK, new Harlequins if you dont ally them and Orks maybe. But still opinions and like I said, give the codex some more time to see how terrible is, or not.

Sisters are very good, just low viable build numbers due to lack of options. (Most notably the troops.) I've borrowed and proxy'd a bit of sister before when some local guys said they were bad. They have since been convinced otherwise.
It's hard to find players for them because you could buy 2 other armies for the price of a sisters army.

Chaos would be worse if nurgle didn't exist.

GK? You mean grey knights? Really? Grey knights, like sisters, don't have a lot of options. But they are a fantastic force otherwise. I can't imagine anyone thinking they're anything but top of the middle codices or better, way above BA.

I haven't checked out the harlies yet, but it sounds like another little add on book that's more meant to be an ally force, so I don't really consider that a full army to be compared to.

Orks, dark angels, and dark eldar are like the only ones in direct competition for the low ranks with BA, and I've personally made some ork lists that make my BA cry in head to head. So out of 16 armies not counting the little supplements like clan R and farsight, there are only 3 I consider to be on the same competitive level as BA in a one-source situation. That's in the bottom 25% if my math isn't failing me.

I played a Nurgle army the other weak, which I won really comfortably. When you get the charge on them and you will because they are mostly slow, then you'll wipe them out. In that Game I lost a total of 4 Death Company and a Death Company Dreadnought.

Also I play Grey Knights and I have to disagree. There is nothing special in the Grey Knights army that makes them better than Blood Angels. In fact they often have to ally because they lack a ton of high strength guns. Psycannons took a bit hit when they were made Salvo weapons. So now PA marines i.e. Purifiers aren't as good with those Psycannons. Draigo is good but then again we have Dante anyway who is just as much as a badass. They really only excel at the Pschic phase which granted they dominate quite easily.

I'm really surprised how many people think ba didnt move up on the rankings. They aren't my main army but I've played about 8-10 games with them and love them.
Bsf mephiston with biomancy is awesome when you have another lib casting quickening on him.
Last two games I've played he's killed a wraithknight in 1 charge, and a twc deathstar with some help of a charging dc dread

Want a death star, mephy 3 th ss, 2 lc terminators in crusader, throw in a term lib with ss and ve and an ig priest. Pod dreads in to draw fire and use cheap 5 man dc jp squads to pull the enemies army around. Break there game plan then hit them with meph.

That or take gk and buff 2 dreadknights with lib on bikes. It's bloody funny

No one ever said that a low tier codex couldn't win a game against a higher one. But using that as evidence is literally anecdotal. I mean, I've had my BA school eldar a couple times, but it certainly doesn't make me think my codex is better.

As for GK, not having many options is not the same as those options not being powerful.

Tyranids? Someone said tyranids?! Some people just have some bizarre opinions. \o.o/

Also keep in mind, unless you list EIGHT main armies (not counting little supplement books,) then you're still saying it's a "bottom 50%" book. (And really, clan R and farsight enclave are better as well, so if you did include them, BA would be even lower.)

I dont understand why alot of you are being so negative tbh, although critique is obviously good to create a decent list.
I dont have experience since a few games in 5th, but perhaps we should focus on what BA do well, instead of saying what makes them a bad army. The title of this thread is based on that.

Is Baal Predator any good anymore? Best loadout?