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Hey, I'm just wondering after fielding my own Death Star unit, what do you guys actually use, if anything, as a Death Star for your army?

For me, it's the 230 point Leman Russ Executioner w/ plasma cannon sponsons.

I am an ardent fan of not doing this. In my thousand point list, if you exclude the HQ, I don't have any unit in my army that costs more than 65 points (the HQ costs more because of the fleet officer and regimental standard). At 1500 I add guard vehicles, but none of those is more expensive than 160.

Time and time again I've seen people foolishly spend a lot of points on a single unit and then have it disappear against a single shot from a demolisher cannon. Plus, a single unit can't split that deadly fire across multiple targets, or move in more than one direction at once. The fact that death star units soak up a lot of points into a single kill point is a sad consolation to losing lots of points to single rounds of shooting/assault.

Only done this once. 8 Bloodcrushers with full upgrades, 3 Heralds of Khorne on juggernauts, and Skulltaker on a juggernaut.

Watching Logan Grimnar and 20 SW Terminators spend 6 turns running away from them was funny.

Some of the more common ones are:

TH/SS Terminators
Bloodcrushers
Thunderwolves

I personally don't like placing too much responsibility on one specific unit, I prefer balance and saturation of threats so that my army can't be essentially beheaded by the loss of a single unit.

My favorite so far has been 10 Grey Hunters, attached Wolf Guard, Ragnar Blackmane, and Wolf Priest. Preferred Enemy, with Furious Charge, D3 attack bonus on the charge, re-rolling 1's...brings a tear to my eye when they destroy almost everything they touch...

Your Deathstar is nothing compared to the power of the Warp!

A) 20 Plague marines and Kharn.
B) 10 Seer Council with Farseer and Autarch.
C) 9 Bikers, fist, 2 meltas, Attack Bike.
Khan, Chappy on bikes.
3 Techmarines, harness, power weapon, bikes.
D) 10 TH/SS termies and Shrike.

@Gavo:
I don't think a single tank constitutes a Death Star...

It either ends up being 3 ravagers with dissies. or 2 dracons with punishers, tormentor helms, and hoping that they dont OD on there combat drugs. oh and there incubi retinues.

Sanctjud wrote:
@Gavo:
I don't think a single tank constitutes a Death Star...

It costs an obscene amount though, 230 points for a single model.

stupid double posts )=

I think the term "death star" is getting tossed around a bit too loosely. It implies that it's a near-unstoppable unit, but it also implies that a significant amount of your force is tied up in it. Like the 500 point jetbike seer council in a 1500 point list. I think it also implies that if your opponent does successfully stop the unit, then your chances of winning are over.

Units that can beat the crap out of things, but are still decently priced, aren't really "death stars." They're good units. Things like 200 point TH terminator units fall into this category.

We all remember what happened to the original Death Star at the end.

I would agree that spending too many points on one unit is often a waste.

That said my own personal hammer (since its not some unstoppable unit) is a Chaos Land Raider with daemonic possession loaded with Kharn the Betrayer and 9 Khorne Berzerkers, one of them a champ with PF.

Pretty standard really compared to some of the ridiculous seer council or nob biker units that take half their armies points.

@Viper217

Hmmm..

Farsser, bike, fortune, RoWarding
10 Warlocks on bikes, Enhance, Embolden.
620ish.

LR Possessed, Kharn, 9 Zerkers, fist.
634ish.

My biker Death Star is 1015ish points.
Plague Marines are 685ish points.
Termies and Shrike is very close to 600ish points.

True, its kinda pricey, but they certainly have a better chance of making it across the board in the LR compared to a Rhino, :p

But if someone wastes 70 points of PCS to melta-gun the LR on turn one... well I'd say it counts as a "Death Star"

My deathstar unit in my salamanders tends to be 5 th/ss assault terminators plus Vulkan & a libby with null zone in a land raider redeemer.

However, for 'ard Boys I'm running 7 assault terminators (4 Lightning claw, 3 TH/SS) Vulkan & Cassius in a land raider crusader.

In my gaming league I've been having a ton of fun with Lysander, 6 grey knight terminators, Cassius, and a tech marine with sevro harness/power sword in a crusader.

Blood Angels will be able to make one hell of a deathstar unit with assault terminators, a priest, and a Reclusiarch. Feel no pain, S 5, I 5, rerolling to hit and wound lightning claws = OUCH

Very true, just last game I lucked out as my friend dropped his usual MM dread from a pod right next to it, and rolled a 1 on the damage chart (->2 as melta, still no effect on possessed).

My brother often fields groups of lootas, being immune to them (or any ranged ork shooting really) is very nice.

That said, I can definitely understand that not taking the LR each game is to my benefit, not only does it save alot of points, my opponents who are used to the LR might have adjusted their list to deal with it, and when it isn't there might have overspent on some crazy unit to deal with it.

My death star is actually a dual land raider set up...


LR Redeemer
Ragnar Blackmane
10 Wolf Guard, 8 with power weps, 2 with thunder hammers

LR Crusader
Logan Grimnar
10 Wolf Guard, 9 with power weps, 1 with thunder hammer

If needed sprinkle with combiweps on the thunderhammer dudes, and add Ulrik or wolf priest to Ragnars unit.

17 guys with 4-7 attacks each (2 base, 1 extra CCW, +D3[3] from Ragnar, +1 from Logan) on the charge all at I5 S5 with power weps, rerolling misses.

In all my armies, I only have one "Death Star" unit, and that is only in one variation of a list.

Eldrad, Yriel, and full Council in a WS definately counts.

If you don't manage to kill them, you lose....if you kill them fast I lose....period. This is why I don't usually use the unit fully kitted out like that.

Lelith helsprex + wych dracite + full retinue of wychs cheap and effective
Lysander Pedro Cantor and sternguard is pretty cool too

My Death Star unit is 2000 points of Titans

Squad of 8 GK terminators and Grandmaster.

For me, I have a BattleWagon filled to the brim with Meganobs and a Megaboss, usually with a KKF around it from somewhere else. I usually like to have Deffkoptas and Killa Kans make a big enough threat of themselves to keep the fire off of said unit before I Rolla it into their forces, then disperse terrible Meganob death. :3

Of course this is all in great fun. Death Star unites are usually just for hilarity and awsome, usually not effectiveness. Of course I could be wrong. <<

When you play pure GKs, every unit is a Death Star unit.

I have enjoyed a lot of success with my melee Hive Tyrant (Bonesword & Lash Whip, Scything Talons, Old Adversary, Toxic Miasma and Regenerate) and his three Tyrant Guard (with Lash Whips). The unit is surprisingly resilient in cover, and the first couple of wounds can be allocated to the Hive Tyrant, so that he can spend a few turns Regenerating them (thus preserving the full compliment of Tyrant Guard). In melee, they reduce everything in comtact with them to I1, put out a good number of attacks and have Toxic Miasma to strip away hordes of lighter armed infantry (always nice to devour entire Guard platoons in just a couple of turns). For extra bang, a Prime can be added for additional Bonesword attacks and another Regenerating wound-sponge, though the cost ramps up just a liiiittle bit too high for my taste at that point.

Slow, hard to kill and able to rip the heart out of an enemy army.

Mine is:

Wolf lord, TH/SS, runic armour, bike, saga of eternal warrior, wolf tail talisman

Wolf Lord, Frostblade, SS, Runic Armour, bike, saga of warrior born, wolf tail talisman, melta bombs

Wolf Priest, Bike, melta bombs, wolf tail talsman

4 Swiftclaws, meltabombs.

Yes it ranks in at around 750pts for 7 models, but they are essentially Terminator Nob Bikers on steroids, with immune to instant death and ablative wounds, and preferred enemy, and the ability to split and kill 4 units in one turn, oh and 3 5+ saves against any psychic power, if one passses the whole squad is safe...

Somewhat bizzarely, the weakpoint is the swiftclaws, if they all die it stops being a squad, and then all the synergy falls apart, fun though

If I felt rich, I could add another wolf lord

I actively avoid "death star" type units when building a list. Death Stars telegraph your moves to much, and remove the flexibility of an army.

The one everyone knows and hates:
Nob Bikers; 1xPK/slugga, 1xPK/combirokkit, 1xPK/bosspole, 1xPK/runt, 1xPK/Waaagh banner, 1xPK/combiskorcha, 1xBigChoppa, 1xetc.
PainBoy (biker)+3xgrots
WarBoss (biker)



My personal favorite is Mephiston. 250pt sink for a single model that can't join other units to hide. Yea, you can stick him in a Deep-Striking LandRaider, but that doubles his cost too.

Being a nid player, star units arent really an option
About the best you can do is throw an alpha with a unit of tooled up warriors.
But still fragile.


The game i had today it was actually my least killy thing that done the most damage.
Trygon killed 7 termies and a termie chappy only taking 4 wounds in return.
The harpy that i had high hopes for actually died in a DS mishap

Ran one for fun over the weekend. 15 burna boyz with Mad Dok Grotsnik, giving them cybork bodies, Fearless, and FNP. Good times.