40kenthusiast wrote:Terminators can't be compared to Possessed because they can't take Rhinos. Footslogging Termies are worse than rhino borne possessed, teleporting termies are worse than rhino borne possessed, land raider borne terminators are better than rhino borne possessed, but cost twice as much.

Footslogging possessed are worse than any flavor of terminators. The only relevant comparison is two rhinos full of possessed vs. a land raider full of terminators, but that's too situational to assess accurately.

Unless, you know, you are going first, in which case you've got a rhino in his face, smoking and having moved 12", full of possessed and the rest of your guys are 12" behind, in their own smoking rhinos, with 2 lashers hiding amongst them. If he's going first (which you know when you scout) you are going to scout into cover or into shield position for the rest of the rhinos.

I'm going to be honest with you. If you rely on your infantry to kill walkers, you are already in a bad place. Combi meltas on the rhinos and Obliterators are your answer to dreads, not assaulting them with >20 point guys that they'll hit on 4's and squish on 2's.

This is how it goes. You move up your rhinos, smoke. Then you hop out, lash and charge. After that they destroy your first wave, and you kill them with your second wave. Truth be told, Possessed are among the most enduring thing you can get in your first wave.

You've got the ability to take an Icon which Berserkers/Ksons/Noise Marines can't do, so if you are really worried about getting shot with bolters or autocannons (seriously, autocannons? Are the Guard giving you trouble?) you can get t5. Further, you are already tougher vs. plasma guns/cannons with your invul save, so relax.

I really thought that the dakka principal had penetrated the world with the onset of 5th edition, but maybe not. Ok, I'll bite. You can pierce armor by putting out lots of wounds. Possessed, and Berserkers, and anything else that fits in a CSM rhino, will get their points out of almost anything they charge, including SM.

That's a good point. Similarly, Plague Marines have I3, Ksons have SAP and rely overly much on their sorc and Berserkers can't get meltaguns. Every unit has weaknesses, that's why you bring the full roster, and mix and match them to your targets. Further, terrain is a weakness that lash can mitigate, which is a plus.

Ok, maybe you just missed lash? That would make a lot of sense actually. Anyway, when you charge somebody you lash them into a line, so that you fight as few as possible, and consequently you don't shoot pre-charge, or they'll pull the guys you can reach. Shooting is for second wavers, to be done from the hatches in the rhino while you sit on the objective.

Look, if it's a 3-5 objective game, you are just trying to keep them from wiping you out, and you lash them off their objectives in the last round. If it's a fortress game it's probably a draw anyway, and if its KP this obviously doesn't matter. In any case, Possessed map most closely to a Noise Marine or Berserker squad that you send out to get stuff done. You don't expect them to score, they are there to destroy enemy troop choices.

Nofasse 'Eadhunta wrote:

TheBloodGod wrote: 1) No anti-tank ability. The vast majority of games, they can't scratch a dreadnaught at all. If your opponent plops some ironclad dreads into this squad the squad is toast and hasn't accomplished anything.

They're not killing walkers, but they can destroy other kinds of vehicles in CC with their S5.

-- Walkers kill them. They are utterly defenseless against them. This for "elite combat troops." They also cannot ever scratch any vehicle with rounded armor like a Landraider or Monolith. If they weren't very points-expensive, then this could be forgiven, but almost all of the alternatives can take higher than S5 attacks.

TheBloodGod wrote:4) Do not possess frag or krak grenades or any option to take them. This means they will attack last against terrain. That's pretty sucky for "shock troops"

Sticking your Lord (or any of your HQs at that) in that squad will null that.

-- Incorrect. Only MODELS with frag grenades don't attack at initiative 1. Also, for such an expensive squad, they should not need an expensive HQ to join them. If you're having to stick your Lord in a rhino with 9 possessed, you have one extremely weak, extremely expensive squad. Your enemy just has to see "big overpriced HQ-rhino" and blow it up. When the overpriced T4 3+ save 1 wound elites fall out, shoot em dead. Sticking him with terminators or raptors or chosen or berserkers or something else would be better in pretty much any circumstance.

TheBloodGod wrote:5) Don't possess any shooting ability. So if they don't want to charge in that forest full of melee-ork nobz, they can't do any damage. Even berserkers have 1 pistol each to be taken into account shooting and then charging in.

That can be a good thing, as there IS such a thing as killing too many.

-- and shooting guns is optional. A player can decide not to shoot if "killing too many" would be a problem. I don't complain that my non-possessed choices can have the option to "kill too many"

TheBloodGod wrote:6) Not troops and unable to score objectives etc. With objectives being the difference between winning and losing, this matters.

But they CAN contest, that can really turn the game in your favor.

-- Any unit can contest. But troops can contest and claim objectives. This is and always will be a negative for possessed. You cannot defend it.

TheBloodGod wrote:7) Completely random. Generally, the less randomness involved, the better something is strategically.

Some people enjoy that.

-- Yes, and some people enjoy losing all the time. If you want to talk about combat effectiveness, it has nothing to do with what you "like"

TheBloodGod wrote:Possessed carry a big "shoot me" sign, but lack the 2+ armor save or FNP to make up for it. If you do get FNP/scout/Fleet ones, they're pretty sucky.

Well they obviously can't work if they're not invincible like you want them.

-- More overdramatic hyperbole please. The point is you're wrong. They're no harder to kill than regular cheap marines to 3/4th the guns out there. To the remaining quarter, they've only got a 5+ save, which means 2/3rds of them still die like cake.

TheBloodGod wrote:That puts him one step ahead of you. If he finds out they have power weapons, your opponent can use strategy to make sure you don't use them against anything with a 2+ save.

Taking into account the amount of 2+ saves you've made reference to, I can see what kinds of armies you play...

40kenthusiast wrote:Gah! Air!

What to compare them to:

Alright, the only thing it makes sense to compare Possessed to are the troop choices. That's because they both are able to take a rhino. I'll digress to point out that any unit that can take a rhino should take a rhino. Even in a SM army Mech is crucial in 5th, but with Lash in the picture not taking them would be rank silliness.

-- incorrect. They can be compared to everything. You just have to take in account the different mobility options being used. Possessed and troop choices and chosen can all take rhinos. Raptors can fly around. Terminators can deep strike or be carried in an assault-vehicle with Armor 14.

Terminators can't be compared to Possessed because they can't take Rhinos. Footslogging Termies are worse than rhino borne possessed, teleporting termies are worse than rhino borne possessed, land raider borne terminators are better than rhino borne possessed, but cost twice as much. Footslogging possessed are worse than any flavor of terminators. The only relevant comparison is two rhinos full of possessed vs. a land raider full of terminators, but that's too situational to assess accurately.

-- A rhino is extremely far from a safe transport device for any super-squad. Your rhino-possessed will become footslogging possessed in 1-2 turns with a smart opponent. In this case, deep striking terminators that can shoot on the turn they drop in are far better. They're also more versatile as they can have things like combi-meltas which can blow up Armor 14.

I'm going to go down TBG's list of observations and make point by point rebuttals. Its unfair, but I'm trying to work off a bad mood.

"If you somehow get scouting, that'll probably emphasize that one rhino is full of expensive marines who he can just blow up."

Unless, you know, you are going first, in which case you've got a rhino in his face, smoking and having moved 12", full of possessed and the rest of your guys are 12" behind, in their own smoking rhinos, with 2 lashers hiding amongst them. If he's going first (which you know when you scout) you are going to scout into cover or into shield position for the rest of the rhinos.

-- Grats your possessed rhino is the one in range of the majority of enemy guns, so it's basically guaranteed to be immobilized/stunned/possibly destroyed from stripping mobility and the lil gun off. You now have spent hundreds of points on foot sloggers that die easy.

"A 5+ invuln. isn't very big. It's tiny compared to feel no pain. Which you won't have 5/6th of the time. That time when you do have FNP, you'll be lacking extra speed or initiative or the ability to cut through armor. Etc etc. "

Argh! This sentence hurts my head. First off, 5+ invul is 2/3 the size of FNP when both apply, not "tiny". It's got a similar effect. Second, 5+ invul occurs in a lot of cases that you don't get FNP in. Like, say, missile launchers, lascannons, plasma guns, melta guns, power weapons, rending attacks, ordnance template weapons, power fists, etc. Next up, what's with the comparison to FNP anyway? The only way to get FNP in a rhino is to take plague marines, who assault slightly less hard than possessed, even if they didn't roll a fighting ability.

-- Incorrect. The majority of times your troops are shot at, with a plague marine style thing would get 3+ save and then 4+ FNP afterwords. This means a bolter shot penetrates 3+ and FNP 16.7% of the time. Against a 3+/5++ it kills them 33.3% of the time. That's WITHOUT counting the T5 that a PM has. A 5+ is not 2/3rds as strong, against any non-huge-gun fire, FNP is TWICE as strong. Mathematically proven. And if your opponent is firing 10 lascannons into a group of Plague Marines, then he's not firing them at Terminators or Daemon Princes or Obliterators which are killing his army. Possessed cost 23.8% more than a berserker, even if you occasionally save from a missile launcher, your unit will be completely dead, period.

"The problem with possessed is they're so expensive, and each power is gonna leave you with several downsides. "

You've got roughly 300 points for each rhino, give or take. You might get an extra Terminator somewhere for going with cheaper assaulters in stead of more expensive one, but in general the difference between 10 Possessed with Icon and 10 Berserkers with Pfist champ isn't titanic. It isn't enough to get another squad.

"1) No anti-tank ability. The vast majority of games, they can't scratch a dreadnaught at all. If your opponent plops some ironclad dreads into this squad the squad is toast and hasn't accomplished anything. "

I'm going to be honest with you. If you rely on your infantry to kill walkers, you are already in a bad place. Combi meltas on the rhinos and Obliterators are your answer to dreads, not assaulting them with >20 point guys that they'll hit on 4's and squish on 2's. Even if you do end up sending in the guys and praying for a fist hit, the Possessed's ability to 5+ save and make it last longer is quite valuable, though what you really want in a fight like that is a Kson squad with a warptiming melta bomb sorc.

-- If your opponent can charge a walker into combat with you and you are utterly defenseless, you're already in a bad place. The place of fail army designers. Your rhino will already be destroyed/missing the combi-melta. You also cannot shoot the walker as soon as he runs into combat with your possessed. You're fearless and so you're locked in combat, unable to scratch him, until every one of your possessed is dead. (Several squished per turn, then occasional more dying from fearless rule.)

"2) No harder to kill using the majority of guns. Bolters, Shootas, Lasguns, Heavy Bolters, Autocannons, etc. The majority of armies can treat these guys like they're those 3+ invulnerable terminators, and fire massed guns on them. 1/3rd of wounds will kill a possessed, and with possessed costing 26+ points each, good points return. "

This is how it goes. You move up your rhinos, smoke. Then you hop out, lash and charge. After that they destroy your first wave, and you kill them with your second wave. Truth be told, Possessed are among the most enduring thing you can get in your first wave. You've got the ability to take an Icon which Berserkers/Ksons/Noise Marines can't do, so if you are really worried about getting shot with bolters or autocannons (seriously, autocannons? Are the Guard giving you trouble?) you can get t5. Further, you are already tougher vs. plasma guns/cannons with your invul save, so relax.

-- This is how it goes, smoke does not make a rhino invinceable. It's armor 11 only. Since your army is all rhinos and not landraiders or heavy armor, your opponent can dump get a whole lot of rolls on the damage table against your possessed rhino on the first turn. Likelihood of several damage rolls is that you'll be immobilized/stunned/combi-melta destroyed, possibly enough weapon destroyed + immobilized to blow it up. With your combi-melta and extra-armor you're going to claim you always take, the squad is 330 points and still has the weaknesses I mentioned. A squad of berserkers w/ powerfist champ in a rhino can be as low as 285 and still be fine because you can afford field multiple squads of troops.

-- Also, you cannot drive forward in a rhino, disembark, and charge on the same turn, even if you use lash. Your opponent has plenty of time to immobilize or blow up your rhino at long range, walk backwards, and shoot you dead. If you somehow get close enough, you might destroy One squad of troops and then on his turn, your unit is finished off. Neither of which are better than the results achieved by charging using noise marines or berserkers or some other assault squad.

-- Throw on an icon of Nurgle and you're looking at 380 points for 10 guys with a 3+ save and 1 wound, who still lose as soon as they're locked in combat with 1 dreadnaught who costs 100 points. The math says that plasma guns and cannons will eat you alive. 2/3rds of your guys that get smoked by plasma are dead. You're talking about lashing units into possessed, but the enemy can lash possessed together and kill them in one obliterator barrage like cake.



"3) No armor-piercing ability. 4 out of 6 special abilities don't allow you to pierce armor. This means that 3+ and particularly 2+ armor saves will do lots of damage. A SM Termie AS would decimate Possessed. 2+ save against anything except rending/power weapon, 3+ save against rending/power weapon. If you're going to argue that mostly your squad'll be attacking Tactical Marines which suck at melee, then Noise Marines or Plague Marines or Berserkers can rape tactical marines in combat, For Much Cheaper! "

I really thought that the dakka principal had penetrated the world with the onset of 5th edition, but maybe not. Ok, I'll bite. You can pierce armor by putting out lots of wounds. Possessed, and Berserkers, and anything else that fits in a CSM rhino, will get their points out of almost anything they charge, including SM.

-- Says the person foolish enough to think a 5+ invulnerable save = survivability. If you do 6 wounds on possessed with plasma, then 4 of them die. If your possessed do 6 wounds on terminators in combat, then 1 of them dies. That's a 4-to-1 ratio of hardness and you're claiming your 5+ is survival but 2+ just requires "dakka"? So completely clueless.

"4) Do not possess frag or krak grenades or any option to take them. This means they will attack last against terrain. That's pretty sucky for "shock troops""

That's a good point. Similarly, Plague Marines have I3, Ksons have SAP and rely overly much on their sorc and Berserkers can't get meltaguns. Every unit has weaknesses, that's why you bring the full roster, and mix and match them to your targets. Further, terrain is a weakness that lash can mitigate, which is a plus.

-- Except Plague Marines are made to be good defensively, and they absorb massed gunfire several times better than Possessed. Possessed die in droves to mass Dakka, and cost 26 points each. A humble plague marine gets T5, 3+ save, then 4+ chance a failed save doesn't go through. He also subtracts 1 attack from each enemy charging, has assault grenades making him attack people in terrain at I3 compared to the I1 of possessed, and the ability to take up to 2 special guns like 2 melta guns which can pierce even Armor 14. Plague marines are inarguably great at what they do, being steadfast all-around troops which receive charges well and can carry 2 landraider-blowing-up weapons. They take a charge, then berserkers or other units can countercharge and obliterate the enemy.

-- Berserkers get 4 S9 attacks on the charge, 3 S8 attacks in subsequent rounds of combat. That means that they are sufficient to cause instant-death or to blow up landraiders or dreadnaughts. Even Armor 13 Ironclads. I don't see a particular weakness they have compared to Possessed. They cost 23.8% cheaper which means you get 4 possessed or 5 berserkers. The berserkers can kill more kinds of targets, can claim objectives, can assault people in forests, cannot be defeated with 1 walker, etc.

-- Noise Marines are for back-up shooting which can be mobile. For your 330 point possessed squad, someone could afford an extra 13 Noise Marines w/ 13 Sonic Blasters to stand behind his other squads. Once your rhino gets blown up because it's Armor 11, you can be gunned down at range. 13 Noise marines lets off 39 shots at 24". That's 26 hits, 13 wounds, 4.33 of your possessed dead in the first shooting phase. They can walk backwards and keep shooting while moving killing an average of 2.89 possessed per turn while walking backwards 6". If you get within 12", they can walk forward, kill another 2.89, charge in with 39 attacks at I5 before you get to attack. Killing an average of 3.25 possessed before you get to attack back. This would be even more dramatic when facing "non-cheese" armies. Lash can push orks backwards to stand at 24" over and over while the shooting kills droves of them without them getting to attack back, and the noise marines are STILL deadly chargers.

"5) Don't possess any shooting ability."

Ok, maybe you just missed lash? That would make a lot of sense actually. Anyway, when you charge somebody you lash them into a line, so that you fight as few as possible, and consequently you don't shoot pre-charge, or they'll pull the guys you can reach. Shooting is for second wavers, to be done from the hatches in the rhino while you sit on the objective.

-- If possessed suck so bad that you need to sacrifice your daemon princes to get them into combat, you have to factor the DP's 155 points into the cost of the possessed squad. I don't know about you, but I could just field something like noise marines or berserkers, use my lashes for obliterators to blow things away, and then rely on my NM's shooting to kill stuff without needing it lashed.

"6) Not troops and unable to score objectives etc. With objectives being the difference between winning and losing, this matters"

Look, if it's a 3-5 objective game, you are just trying to keep them from wiping you out, and you lash them off their objectives in the last round. If it's a fortress game it's probably a draw anyway, and if its KP this obviously doesn't matter. In any case, Possessed map most closely to a Noise Marine or Berserker squad that you send out to get stuff done. You don't expect them to score, they are there to destroy enemy troop choices. Yes, there is the occasional game where you end up claiming enemy objectives with your assaulters, but those are walkovers anyway, and you've already got the win from your second wave.

-- Again, has nothing to do with possessed. There's nothing to guarantee your Princes will be able to stand out there lashing things into your possessed and not get shot to death. If they get shot to death. Well, you lost the game, but who cares, some people like that.

"7) Completely random..."

This is more or less the converse of the scrub argument "Use Tactics". The theory here is that they'll "use tactics" and beat my possessed. If that's true I'm already done, since they can "Use Tactics" and defeat my X, where X is whatever. In general, Possessed are marines in a rhino. The only roll that really changes that is Fleet, and you are rarely lucky enough to get that. There is no tactics that help vs. marines in a rhino, save to engage them. If they had a thermal exhaust port we'd know it by now.

-- "Use tactics" depends on your unit having jobs to do, and being able to do those jobs reliably. All your arguments so far have shown that your possessed need baby-sitting from the rest of your army or they become useless right away. If possessed are garbage without each possessed squad having a lash prince riding next to it the whole game, then they're obviously worse than Noise Marines or Plague Marines or Berserkers.
-- Having no shooting ability, little defensive ability per cost point, and no anti-armor or anti-terrain or anti-walker ability, limits what "tactics" you can use. If you were a good player this would be understandable to you.

"8) Expensive, expensive..."

Yes, I wish we could get Orc boys in our CSM codex. It's rough that we can't. In a comparison that matters, a squad of possessed vs. a squad of noise mareines with sonic blasters, or plague marines with plasma guns, or berserkers with a power fist, or Ksons with a warptime sorc, is roughly equal.

DarkHound wrote:Well, I do feel sorry for you there Democratus. Actually, you think that they'd be able to outflank then since they were in reserve? Funny that GW would over look such a possibility (though kind of expected).

Blood God, you bring up a lot of good points. You did miss a point of Possessed generally being able to fill your fluff requirements though. Possessed aren't going to win the game single handedly, and all of your exampled of what would kill the possessed are true for the Berzerkers. The only thing is, is that some possessed are going to survive a Battlecannon round, while the zerkers will be flattened. I have to say about your seventh thing to be taken into account about Possessed, anyone can blow them into oblivion no matter what power they roll if they feel it's a threat. Most of the time they will, and while you may feel it's a lot of points to be spending on a fodder unit (which at that point it will be) they will probably stay alive for 2 turns depending on how many Demolisher rounds get thrown at them.

The other point you made is, yes, there are things that it'd be better not to assault with Possessed. This is true of any unit (except maybe Nightbringer). You just have to know where to strike is all. If you roll a 4 or 6, go Termy hunting. If you roll a 5, and have Icon of Nurgle, throw them at an Ork Horde and watch the madness. Fleet and Scout fulfill the same purpose which is get them into combat faster, or Furious Charge isn't really game changing, so send them at MEQ's or GEQ's since they aren't equiped at that point to deal much else, but will dice them sufficiently.

EDIT: Blighter, took like 10 minutes to write this up and the thread moved on, heh.
EDIT of an EDIT: Also, try not to turn this into a flame war. Counter each others points, but be courtious.
EDIT of.. whatever: I don't use Lashes and they work just fine. It takes having bigger 'SHOOT ME' signs running around the battlefield, I'll admit, but Lash isn't essential.

Hollismason wrote:Does Fabius bile's ability work with Possessed?

TheBloodGod wrote:Again wrong. A squad of Noise Marines or Berserkers w/ Pfist of equal size to your proposed unit, will be far less points, allowing multiple units which can counter-attack the enemy from multiple directions.

Nurglitch wrote:The hilarious part is that people roll dice in Warhammer 40k to hit, to wound, to save, to run away, to rally, to hold their ground, and sometimes even to move. Yet Possessed are random...

DarkHound wrote:Yeah, that was me Nofasse, lol.

'Ere be da link: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/231912.page

I've had some really bad experiences with Dreads in tournaments though. I rolled 3 ones on sanity against the only list (in 750pts) that didn't have atleast one landraider in it.
I think the only unit that can't be saved is the Spawn though. I might take it if it had a 5+ save (just how nuts I am).

lambadomy wrote:

A comparison - a unit they might compete with for role/points: Khorne Berzerkers

10 berzerkers with Champ, powerfist, 2 plasma pistols is the same cost as 10 possessed with a champion - 270 points.

They're both fearless marines.

Possessed have +1 Str, and a random power
Berzerkers have +1 WS and furious charge, and a hidden fist.

DarkHound wrote:Turns out charging a mob of 5 Nobs with 6 Possessed is a bad idea. Got munched by 12 Big Choppas and 6 Power Klaws. I did manage to take a wound off of all of them, but Possessed are a huge point sink below 1000pts.