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I came across in a thread the other day a guy suggesting the use of a 900pts+ unit, now I don't want to get into another discussion (admittedly argument) about the aforementioned unit, but now it has me thinking...

In a 2000-2500pts game is there ever any need for a 900pts+ unit?


I say no, a hammer/deathstar unit is great by all means, but 900pts (admittedly with LRR) is absurdly too much. I feel it's just too much to benefit the rest of your army, very much a case of 'eggs in one basket' and would likely be too effective. By all means have some TH/SS termies or other nasty unit, but 900pts is wheyhey too much IMHO.

Thoughts?

It depends. Either they'll kill way more than their points and never die, or they'll take up such a huge point sink that the rest of your army is crippled.

Against an army like Guard, a Deathstar is no more effective in melee than one of your melee specialists, usually. Against something like Tyranids, that Deathstar unit can wreck shop before it's brought down, at considerable expense to your opponent.

It depends. The best advice I think is just to know your meta-game, and plan accordingly.

I run would have no problem running fateweaver and 3 units of blood crushers for 933 points. i know its four units but it plays like one with keeping 6 IN from fateweaver. it works great and it is hard enough to kill that i feel safe with it.

I think it comes down to survivability of the unit.

So, even though we don't have victory points anymore, it's still a useful shorthand for unit effectiveness. Take that unit and ask yourself "in what situations will this unit make its points back?" Feel free to qualitatively throw points on for metagame reasons (10 terminators are unlikely to kill their points back, but they are very hard to move off an objective, so are worth more than their raw killing power, for example).

If you find that there are only a very few, specific circumstances where the unit will be worth its points, then don't take it. After all, this shorthand rule is already ignoring things like opportunity costs, and other things which weigh against death star units.

Oh, and if they were telling you to take a vehicle, or less than 9 wounds worth of stuff, then don't bother, as those will be effective only in circumstances that begin with "if my opponent forgets to bring any wepaons that begin with melta..." or "if my opponent forgets to bring any weapons that begin with plasma..." respectively. Always assume that your opponent is going to bring enough melta or plasma (or their equivalents in other weapons).

I big unit like that always causes problems for me. Either I have to shoot alot at them to damage them so much I can kill them in close combat, or I have to just ignore them! That leaves them free for roaming the battlefield, killing my units one by one. I can try to move away from them, limit their chance to destroy a unit per turn. In this case I could focus on the rest of the army. The greatest success of such a huge unit is soaking up alot of ammunition, still being able to destroy units in close combat.

It's hard to ignore a unit which will kill your army piece by piece each assault phase, but it's even worse to waste alot of shooting at them, just to see that they survive alot of it.

A 900 point army seems silly to me. In fantasy it works fine a nice big Dragon that can swoop around killing pretty much everything and being vulnerable to very little that doesn't require luck is great.

In 40K terms however there is always something that can kill you. look at this example: Abaddon and five Chaos Terminators in a Landraider - this may be less than 900 points but I'm sure you get the general idea. We'll assume he is fighting the Imperial Guard. Two tanks that can munch this unit in one turn and would be expected to be in a lot of guard lists: Demolisher + executioner. Demolisher fires first pops open the Land Raider - but wait I hear you cry that takes some good dice rolling ok fine. Chimera with command squad and 4 melta guns drives to within 6" and fires Land Raider dead/Stormtroopers with 2 Melta Guns Gravchut deepstrike from Valerye Land Raider is dead.
Nex the Executioner fires and kills on average 3 Terminators + Wounds Abaddon who now has to footslog into the guard. Combined sqad fires at him at close range 60 Lasguns on Abby + 2 Termies = a lot of ones rolled.

This is just an example but I can think of so many ways of taking out this 900 point unit it is unbelievable and there is not even the argument that if you are concentrating on this unit then the rest of the army get you because in a 2000 pt game that only leaves 1000 points to get you and with a bit of intelligent target priority in 2 turns of shooting you could have most of your army in tact and your opponent could loose 2 units and be down to 750 points.

shealyr wrote:Against something like Tyranids, that Deathstar unit can wreck shop before it's brought down, at considerable expense to your opponent.

Two words lash-whip and bonesword.
Any nid player that dosen't have some in his list is basically unprepaerd for any deathstar.

Ed_Bodger wrote:A 900 point army seems silly to me. In fantasy it works fine a nice big Dragon that can swoop around killing pretty much everything and being vulnerable to very little that doesn't require luck is great.

In 40K terms however there is always something that can kill you. look at this example: Abaddon and five Chaos Terminators in a Landraider - this may be less than 900 points but I'm sure you get the general idea. We'll assume he is fighting the Imperial Guard. Two tanks that can munch this unit in one turn and would be expected to be in a lot of guard lists: Demolisher + executioner. Demolisher fires first pops open the Land Raider - but wait I hear you cry that takes some good dice rolling ok fine. Chimera with command squad and 4 melta guns drives to within 6" and fires Land Raider dead/Stormtroopers with 2 Melta Guns Gravchut deepstrike from Valerye Land Raider is dead.
Nex the Executioner fires and kills on average 3 Terminators + Wounds Abaddon who now has to footslog into the guard. Combined sqad fires at him at close range 60 Lasguns on Abby + 2 Termies = a lot of ones rolled.

This is just an example but I can think of so many ways of taking out this 900 point unit it is unbelievable and there is not even the argument that if you are concentrating on this unit then the rest of the army get you because in a 2000 pt game that only leaves 1000 points to get you and with a bit of intelligent target priority in 2 turns of shooting you could have most of your army in tact and your opponent could loose 2 units and be down to 750 points.

Sounds easy to take out a power unit that can't survive alot of shots. Why don't you use this unit in your example:

10 Assault Terminators, 10 Storm Shields, Sanguinary Priest with Terminator Armour. 535pts.

Baxx wrote:

Ed_Bodger wrote:A 900 point army seems silly to me. In fantasy it works fine a nice big Dragon that can swoop around killing pretty much everything and being vulnerable to very little that doesn't require luck is great.

In 40K terms however there is always something that can kill you. look at this example: Abaddon and five Chaos Terminators in a Landraider - this may be less than 900 points but I'm sure you get the general idea. We'll assume he is fighting the Imperial Guard. Two tanks that can munch this unit in one turn and would be expected to be in a lot of guard lists: Demolisher + executioner. Demolisher fires first pops open the Land Raider - but wait I hear you cry that takes some good dice rolling ok fine. Chimera with command squad and 4 melta guns drives to within 6" and fires Land Raider dead/Stormtroopers with 2 Melta Guns Gravchut deepstrike from Valerye Land Raider is dead.
Nex the Executioner fires and kills on average 3 Terminators + Wounds Abaddon who now has to footslog into the guard. Combined sqad fires at him at close range 60 Lasguns on Abby + 2 Termies = a lot of ones rolled.

This is just an example but I can think of so many ways of taking out this 900 point unit it is unbelievable and there is not even the argument that if you are concentrating on this unit then the rest of the army get you because in a 2000 pt game that only leaves 1000 points to get you and with a bit of intelligent target priority in 2 turns of shooting you could have most of your army in tact and your opponent could loose 2 units and be down to 750 points.

Sounds easy to take out a power unit that can't survive alot of shots. Why don't you use this unit in your example:

10 Assault Terminators, 10 Storm Shields, Sanguinary Priest with Terminator Armour. 535pts.

Such a unit is truly a beast to kill, though if you can kill the priest it gets a bit easier. It takes 396 lasgun hits (132 FRF!SRF! guardsmen within 12" at 100% accuracy), 264 bolter hits (132 marines within 12"), 198 heavy bolter hits, or 158 multilaser hits if we try to kill it with non-AP 2 or better weapons. It takes only 40 plasma or melta shots to kill that unit...

The only problem with it is slow movement.

I played against a Space Wolves army in a tournament, 1750 pts, and he had a power unit consisting of the space wolves riding the wolf beasts with the HQ guy also riding his wolf. Some had storm shields, some had thunder hammers etc. I think the unit costed about 700-800pts. He won the tournament, however he had alot of shooting as well.

The most important thing about the power unit is not just buying expensive units with a character like the guy tried with chaos terminators in a land raider. No, you need a unit with good toughness, many wounds, good save, feel no pain and a good invulnerable save. If it should be effective as well, it needs good movement, not transport however. Nob bikers being a good example.

Baxx wrote:

Ed_Bodger wrote:A 900 point army seems silly to me. In fantasy it works fine a nice big Dragon that can swoop around killing pretty much everything and being vulnerable to very little that doesn't require luck is great.

In 40K terms however there is always something that can kill you. look at this example: Abaddon and five Chaos Terminators in a Landraider - this may be less than 900 points but I'm sure you get the general idea. We'll assume he is fighting the Imperial Guard. Two tanks that can munch this unit in one turn and would be expected to be in a lot of guard lists: Demolisher + executioner. Demolisher fires first pops open the Land Raider - but wait I hear you cry that takes some good dice rolling ok fine. Chimera with command squad and 4 melta guns drives to within 6" and fires Land Raider dead/Stormtroopers with 2 Melta Guns Gravchut deepstrike from Valerye Land Raider is dead.
Nex the Executioner fires and kills on average 3 Terminators + Wounds Abaddon who now has to footslog into the guard. Combined sqad fires at him at close range 60 Lasguns on Abby + 2 Termies = a lot of ones rolled.

This is just an example but I can think of so many ways of taking out this 900 point unit it is unbelievable and there is not even the argument that if you are concentrating on this unit then the rest of the army get you because in a 2000 pt game that only leaves 1000 points to get you and with a bit of intelligent target priority in 2 turns of shooting you could have most of your army in tact and your opponent could loose 2 units and be down to 750 points.

Sounds easy to take out a power unit that can't survive alot of shots. Why don't you use this unit in your example:

10 Assault Terminators, 10 Storm Shields, Sanguinary Priest with Terminator Armour. 535pts.

Its not easy if you don't have the correct kit for it. The unit you have chosen: Khorne Berzerkers, Khorne Lord with Deamon Weapon + Sorceror using Warp TIme - seen it done and it was not pretty. Power units are fine but they force you to play one dimetionally bvesides if you take a unit and destroy its transport you leave it marooned. On an average sizewd table in an objectives based game that unit is not going to be able to move around a lot and hence can be bypassed. Of course if you add a librarian with the Gate of Infinity to the unit above it becomes trully horrible.

Baxx wrote:10 Assault Terminators, 10 Storm Shields, Sanguinary Priest with Terminator Armour. 535pts.

Oh yeah, now that's incredibly hard to stop, however, that's a freakin' good deal at 535pts!

The guy that suggested the 900pts unit, had them all in a Landraider as well. It was something like:
- Ragnar
- Wolf Priest
- Arjac
- 2xWolf Guard w/ SS's.

I think such a unit is riddled with too many flaws, particularly all being in on vehicle. As someone mentioned, this one 900pts unit would have to stand up to 2000pts worth of fire...

I actually have personal experience with Space Wolves Deathstars, and the trick is plasma cannons and meltas. If they are attempting to use a Landraider to get their deathstar in, you have to melta it, it is worth sacrifincing almost any unit from your army to do so as long as it gets done. Afterwhich 4 plasma cannons should proceed to wreck that unit, as they all have to disembark within 2 "of the hull of the landraider, immobilising works as well but takes longer, as they are likely to jump out and eat the Melta unit that just killed their transport. They should win in combat however and then take about 2 turns to kill with plasma Cannons.

Deathstar thread and no discussion of the true deathstars? EDIT: My bad, Baxx touched on some of the factors of a true deathstar too. Only one person brought up the 10 Termies, and only BA ones. Space Marines can take 10 TH/SS termies with Vulcan or Shrike for extra fun.

Also, don't forget:

- Nob Bikerz and Warboss
- Eldar Bike Seer Council
- 8 Blood Crushers and Skulltaker or a Herald
- 5 Thunderwolves with a Character and attached wolves

Each of those units can abuse wound allocation or are incredibly tough, and can cause alot of damage when they attack. Some are all three! (Don't forget the Nobz all have big shootaz on their bikes, or are using combi-rokkits and flamers for wound allocation) The bike seer council has fortune and enhance, destructor and singing spears, while the bloodcrushers have 3+/5++ and are eternal warriors. Finally, the thunderwolves can pack the storm shields in, and the wolf lord can take his own shield and Saga of the Bear to take those few S10 hits for the team.

Most units of regular power armor space marines are not really deathstars because they only have 1 wound and a 3+ save. However, there are several ways to make them a little tougher.

20 Death Company are pretty mean (with FNP)
20 Plague Marines are mean
10 Wraithguard

But these units don't project the same sheer amount of force that the above deathstars do.

Anyway, I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

Deathstars are pretty huge risk/reward. What happens to that 900 pt unit if you immobilize the land raider turn 1? Oh yeah, nothing, as the other army fights the rest of your units with a 900 pt advantage. The deathstars that work the best (and they all have weaknesses) are the self-contained, highly mobile, highly versatile ones, the nob bikers and seer council on jetbikes, that sort of thing. They get up on you in a hurry, are hard to kill, and still deadly when they lose a couple of their members.

Just Dave wrote:

Baxx wrote:10 Assault Terminators, 10 Storm Shields, Sanguinary Priest with Terminator Armour. 535pts.

Oh yeah, now that's incredibly hard to stop, however, that's a freakin' good deal at 535pts!

The guy that suggested the 900pts unit, had them all in a Landraider as well. It was something like:
- Ragnar
- Wolf Priest
- Arjac
- 2xWolf Guard w/ SS's.

I think such a unit is riddled with too many flaws, particularly all being in on vehicle. As someone mentioned, this one 900pts unit would have to stand up to 2000pts worth of fire...

I have a similar unit (not that I play, but on paper):

- Ragnar
- Wolf Priest
- 10 Wolf Guard, all with dual Wolf claws
- Land Raider Reedemer

It came up to over 1K points. Also, Logan was in the army, podding in attached to a unit of Multi-Melta Long Fangs (+Relentless on the first turn) close to where I would want to end movement. So, on Turn 2, disembark WolfStar, pop Logan's Living Legend, and assault.

I think it was something like 83 possible attacks with rerolls to hit and to wound, all power weapons, striking with Str. 5 at Init. 5.

I think 900 points is a bit excessive...
But i have gone over 900 points once... but it was Apocolypse so its all ok right? Seer council... need i say any more?

But i have run 10 Wraithguard + spiritseer w/ conceal (396 points)
+Eldrad (210)
+Yriel (155)

761 total.

Eggs in one basket... yea... but in killpoints thats a hard unit to get rid of... i know there are ways to do it but they will soak up alot of firepower the rest of my army should be able to pick off enough points for a win. When it comes to objectives a full wraithguard squad can be taken as a troops choice... i wouldn't like to be the one tasked with moving that unit off an objective. Yes, they are slow, and a huge points sink, but they do well in my FLGS

They can be useful in victory point terms, becasue your opponent has to fight so very hard to claim any points, whilst your unit of doom munches away on theirs. I say they are worth it, fielding a deathstar in a small points game means that your opponent is probably unpreppered to kill it, the higher the point game, the less shock value you get.

whitedragon wrote:
- 8 Blood Crushers and Skulltaker or a Herald

if you going to call blood crushers a deathstar at least do them right.

8 bloodcrushers
icon, fury, insrument
skulltaker on jug
herald of khorne with might , blessing , death strike
herald of khorne with might, icon, death strike
herald of khorne with might, fury, death strike

for a meager ( add all together ) 980 points

that gives you 7 wound allocation guys and 5 regulars with a 3+/5++save and a 2+ vs psychic wounds on one of them.
( I would run fateweaver somewhere near one for the re-roll)

With 53 power weapon attacks on the charge, all between S 6 and 7 two with rending ,one with instadeath.

and three S 7 AP 2 shots.



And all you have to do is move 12" an turn and they can touch you.

deviant cadaver wrote:

whitedragon wrote:
- 8 Blood Crushers and Skulltaker or a Herald

if you going to call blood crushers a deathstar at least do them right.

Obvious troll is obvious? I didn't do loadouts on any of the deathstars I mentioned. It is assumed that they will be kitted out to the max to abuse wound allocation as well. That's another one of the requirements of a deathstar.

They can be useful in victory point terms, becasue your opponent has to fight so very hard to claim any points, whilst your unit of doom munches away on theirs. I say they are worth it, fielding a deathstar in a small points game means that your opponent is probably unpreppered to kill it, the higher the point game, the less shock value you get.

Oh man... I played against a redeemer in a 500 point game the other day, it was downright slowed...