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 Kevcron wrote:

Kangodo wrote:
I don't really like a R-Orb in groups of 15.
Just some math:
It improves RP by only 1. That means on average you need 6 dead warriors to make the Orb useful.
The Orb is 2.5 times as expensive as a Warrior, so you need 15 dead Warriors before it got its points back.
They already resurrect on a 5+, the 4+ is (in my opinion) only worth it in expensive groups or in 20-blobs.

Stalkers are awesome, but they are also a big "SHOOT ME" if you only take one.

Imothek and Pulse-teks are great for warrior-lists, since they will take care of all the Large Blasts that can ruin your day.

Aww that sucks because IMHO it can't be a "phalanx" without a res orb. Have you ever used, or seen before, a blob with more than 20? May e a squad of 25 with an OL with res orb and two GAs to support it or would you prefer breaking it into two squads of fifteen? Noob question (sorry!) but a pulse tek is a destructo with solar pulse?

The only way you're going to have 25 models in a single blob is if you have multiple force org (2000+ point games) so you can add 4 Royal Court members and an Overlord.
Not an impossible scenario, but there would probably be better uses for all those Court members (RCDI, multi cryptek Death & Despair squads, etc.)

Also, using Stalkers to twin link Warriors is kind of a waste.
Twin linked Tesla Immortals, Destruc-teks, Doomsday Arks = VERY yes.
Twin linked Gauss Flayer Warriors = meh.

I have used phalanx lists many times to success in the past. I only stopped using it because my friends hated playing against it. It's just not much fun to be on the receiving end against a list where you can't kill any of their stuff.

2-3 blobs of 15 warriors with attached lords, supported by 2 ghost arks with 5 man squads inside and attached crypteks of your choice (generally lance/pulse). Your choice of either scarabs or 5-man immortal squads in front of the big blobs. A monolith on the side helps as well. Spyders in bigger games.

Your army moves forward in layers. In front are the scarabs and immortals, your hard crunchy shell to protect against assaults and provide cover saves. Behind them are your big blobs of warriors with orbs. Behind them are the ghost arks. Monoliths and spyders hang out here as well doing their support thing. Crypteks keep night fighting up and provide anti-armor/MC support. Taking Imotekh can be useful, but he's pretty expensive for what he brings.

You want to set up overlapping rings of influence for your ghost ark rez powers, spyder gloom prisms/fabricators, and monolith gates. Everything just marches implacably up the field, shooting as they go. Your opponent will invariably take far more casualties than you, with the end game having their army ragged and thinned out and your army more or less in the same condition at the start.

Armies that deep strike nasty squads into your vulnerable backfield can be a problem for this list. You'll want to set your army up in a circle instead. Arks at the center, monolith in the back, warriors and chaff in a ring around the important bits. Monstrous creature spam is something else that's difficult to bring down, especially things like dreadknights and riptides with 2+ T6. For those its best to just try and tie them up with scarabs and small squads. Keep squads between them and your ghost arks! It helps to keep the monolith near the center of the board so it can teleport units in to support parts of your army that are in trouble. Nothing saves the day like 15 warriors suddenly in rapid fire range.

With any setup, you want to keep everything in support range of each other. Don't spread your army too far apart or your opponent will just take it out piecemeal. Assaults will be your downfall, so make sure anything reaching your lines has been shot into suitable pieces first.

Pulse tek is a destructek with Solar Pulse.
You can't run 25 man warrior squads, so says the codex.
2 15s supported by 2 10s in GA would be nasty, and if you have an RO nearby then all the better!
If you run a stalker, I would consider the HGC, you can shoot at a tank then have all your lovely gauss weapons being TL against it

Somebody want to run some quick mathhammer on 20 gauss flayers VS 20 twin-linked gauss flayers when shooting at various tanks?
People keep advocating using the two as an alternative to actual anti-AV, so I want to see some hard facts to settle things once and for all.

(and 15 walking / 10 riding isn't as effective as 20 walking / 5 riding, if you're running a ResOrb)

Excellent thread guys. Some really good advice all around.

Somebody want to run some quick mathhammer on 20 gauss flayers VS 20 twin-linked gauss flayers when shooting at various tanks?

For 20 shots, you are going from 2.22 Glances/Salvo to 2.96 Glance/Salvo. Of course, there's a pretty good chance the Stalker took off an HP of his own, but it makes Stalker+Blob move from likely being able to take down a vehicle each turn to comfortably taking out a vehicle each turn. Still, its a pretty big investment to do so, and wasn't great against the cheap vehicles in 5th. Waveserpents however seem like a pretty good target though.

Against MEq and rapid fire range (just for any idea of the upside), we go from 4.44 MEq/Salvo to 5.92. So about a MEq and a half. Not bad, not overwhelmingly good either.

I'm a little indifferent on the Stalker myself. His contribution is generally steady, but not overwhelming. However, when you got a prime target that needs to go down, Stalkers become invaluable. They are a stand alone Death Star contingency. I like him in Doomsday Arc/Monolith lists probably more then anything. Non twinlinked Tesla lists, like you mentioned, also seem like a good fit.

Appreciate the thoughtful response, but I know I'm missing something here so I'll just throw it out there and get noobed lol: wouldn't it be better to not assault and get the overwatch shots instead, especially since army wide initiative is 2 and you wouldn't go first anyways? I love the IDE of phaeron but I can't seem to justify using it for assaults (in my head anyways because I'm still building my army and haven't actually used it yet!)

That's a very good question, and definitely not a noob question as its a pretty common perspective to have. The question is, would you rather have Overwatch shots, or 20 extra attacks, plus them losing Xbases extra attacks, plus an extra War Scythe attack, plus get to choose who ends up base to base with each other on the charge (critical if you have MSS). The assaulting unit almost always comes out ahead in these equations, regardless if the units themselves are shooty or assaulty based. Phaeron effectively makes the Warrior blob a hybrid unit (like Grey Hunters), particularly when you start adding Imothek, or War Scythes, or MSS...etc. Even though your I2, your going to soften the unit up with rapid fire first, and if you have been shooting them a turn or two before this, their generally isn't much left to punch you, even if they punch first. Like I showed above, 40 rapid fire shots can kill 4 to 5 MEq bases. So a full squad of Grey Hunters or ASM would be cut and half before CC even began. Makes a pretty big difference.

Also, Kevcron, if you end up going with a pair of GA's, a pair of DA's are pretty savvy as well. Stick them in the corner and just punish the opponent at range, while your blobs an GA's move up and control mid field. It's a pretty salty strat.

I don't really like a R-Orb in groups of 15.
Just some math:
It improves RP by only 1. That means on average you need 6 dead warriors to make the Orb useful.
The Orb is 2.5 times as expensive as a Warrior, so you need 15 dead Warriors before it got its points back.
They already resurrect on a 5+, the 4+ is (in my opinion) only worth it in expensive groups or in 20-blobs.

This is a pretty fair point. My general rule is, if the unit is 200 points or more, then a Res Orb is probably worth it. 15 Warriors is borderline, but do keep in mind that the unit is technically bigger then that due to RC attachments, "free" Warriors from GA's and ICs. So, its borderline, and you could go either way, but in my opinion if you have an IC attached, it probably pushed it into "Res Orb it" range.



My Blob runs like this:

20 Warriors
Imothek
Cronomotron Tek (who makes Imo's 2+/3++ amazing)
Ghost Arc

I also have a DLord with a Res Orb who can hop into the unit at any point in the battle if need be.

ShadarLogoth wrote:

Somebody want to run some quick mathhammer on 20 gauss flayers VS 20 twin-linked gauss flayers when shooting at various tanks?

For 20 shots, you are going from 2.22 Glances/Salvo to 2.96 Glance/Salvo. Of course, there's a pretty good chance the Stalker took off an HP of his own, but it makes Stalker+Blob move from likely being able to take down a vehicle each turn to comfortably taking out a vehicle each turn. Still, its a pretty big investment to do so, and wasn't great against the cheap vehicles in 5th. Waveserpents however seem like a pretty good target though.

Against MEq and rapid fire range (just for any idea of the upside), we go from 4.44 MEq/Salvo to 5.92. So about a MEq and a half. Not bad, not overwhelmingly good either.

I'm a little indifferent on the Stalker myself. His contribution is generally steady, but not overwhelming. However, when you got a prime target that needs to go down, Stalkers become invaluable. They are a stand alone Death Star contingency. I like him in Doomsday Arc/Monolith lists probably more then anything. Non twinlinked Tesla lists, like you mentioned, also seem like a good fit.

So basically, there are much better/points efficient ways to deal with armor than using Warriors + Stalker (eg. 2 Storm-teks + 1 Veil-tek = many vehicles glanced to death in the opponent's back field)

 skoffs wrote:
Somebody want to run some quick mathhammer on 20 gauss flayers VS 20 twin-linked gauss flayers when shooting at various tanks?
People keep advocating using the two as an alternative to actual anti-AV, so I want to see some hard facts to settle things once and for all.

Shaderlogoth is right with his math.
It's very small, but it's *just* enough to make a difference on vehicles with 3HP.
Combined with the S9-shot itself it almost guarantees you to shoot down almost most tanks.

I also play a lot of Tesla-back up in my warrior-lists, so this gives the Stalker a dual-role.

 Murenius wrote:

bodazoka wrote:

How about the warriors shooting back? you would surely have to argue with someone that the warriors lay like snipers to be able to see behind the arc? I can see being able to fire AT the warriors because LOS means people can see there legs but the other way around?

The rules are pretty clear about that. Each of your models that can see at least part of one model in the target unit can fire. The target gets a cover save if it is obstructed for at least one shooter when allocating a wound to it. So in your particular case the Ghost Arc will most likely provide cover to the target, but you may shoot.

And if your game revolves about discussing questions like "this unit is in cover" or "they may not shoot" you are playing with the wrong people. Discussions like this have made a lot of people quit the game. We have a house rule in our local group: if such a discussion starts it's always decided in favor of the asked question (so units get cover when in doubt and units may rather shoot than not when in doubt). This has saved us a lot of time and alltogether everyone has more fun, cause next time it will be your unit that gets its cover save.

Cheers for the answer, it has confused me more lol!!

Also, I don't play with people like that at all really I just want to make it clear in my head so I know i'm not doing anything illegal or cheesy.

"Each of your models that can see at least part of one model in the target unit can fire" - I would say that warriors standing behind a ghost ark cant see models in front of the ghost ark unless they are laying down?

"The target gets a cover save if it is obstructed for at least one shooter when allocating a wound to it" - I thought you could fire freely through your own units if they are in front? and that the unit being fired upon only gets a cover save if it is obscured by one of it's allied units? ie I am shooting at terminators behind the unit of marines so the terminators get a 5+

From the first quote I would conclude that the warriors cant see any unit but can be shot at as you can see there legs?

bodazoka wrote:
"The target gets a cover save if it is obstructed for at least one shooter when allocating a wound to it" - I thought you could fire freely through your own units if they are in front? and that the unit being fired upon only gets a cover save if it is obscured by one of it's allied units? ie I am shooting at terminators behind the unit of marines so the terminators get a 5+

No, any unit in between gives a cover save, regardless of if it's friendly or enemy. The only exception is that each model ignores other models in it's own unit. So if you have 20 warriors, the ones in the front don't give cover for shots coming from the guys in the back. But if you have two different units, the unit in front gives cover from shots that the back unit takes.

TehCheator wrote:

bodazoka wrote:
"The target gets a cover save if it is obstructed for at least one shooter when allocating a wound to it" - I thought you could fire freely through your own units if they are in front? and that the unit being fired upon only gets a cover save if it is obscured by one of it's allied units? ie I am shooting at terminators behind the unit of marines so the terminators get a 5+

No, any unit in between gives a cover save, regardless of if it's friendly or enemy. The only exception is that each model ignores other models in it's own unit. So if you have 20 warriors, the ones in the front don't give cover for shots coming from the guys in the back. But if you have two different units, the unit in front gives cover from shots that the back unit takes.

Aaaaahhhhhh rite..

That makes sence.. thank you for that.

I still will have to check if the warriors behind can see, I know there is some space there...

A full Phalanx seems like a very nice unit for Illuminor Szeras. I know the internet has decreed he is useless but for 100 points you get a S8 AP2 shot (at 36in too) and a phalanx with either T5, BS5 or S5 and Defensive grenades which help quite a lot if something does manage to assault it.

BlackSanguinor wrote:
A full Phalanx seems like a very nice unit for Illuminor Szeras. I know the internet has decreed he is useless but for 100 points you get a S8 AP2 shot (at 36in too) and a phalanx with either T5, BS5 or S5 and Defensive grenades which help quite a lot if something does manage to assault it.

Actually, at low point games Szeras is pretty good. That force multiplier he grants comes in pretty handy on blobs... too bad there's no way to get around the randomness of the stat buff (seriously, wtf did they think they were doing when they added that part? That better be one of the first things they change in the next codex).

I don't mind the randomness, I only mind the weird S5-buff in there.
Why exactly would I want S5 Warriors again?

If it was a random between Toughness, BS and Weapon-Strength than I'd love it.

I'm just sticking with a generic OL with MSS, WS, SW, RO, and phaeron for my blob. I love some of the special character's abilities but sometimes they seem expensive. They IMHO seem to be just fine by themselves in dealing with any other warlord an opponent can field. Correct me if I'm wrong but the load out above has everything a phalanx needs, or any army below 1500pts. Imhotek's lightning and night fighting would be murder in apocalypse and high point games though.

 Kevcron wrote:
I'm just sticking with a generic OL with MSS, WS, SW, RO, and phaeron for my blob. I love some of the special character's abilities but sometimes they seem expensive. They IMHO seem to be just fine by themselves in dealing with any other warlord an opponent can field. Correct me if I'm wrong but the load out above has everything a phalanx needs, or any army below 1500pts. Imhotek's lightning and night fighting would be murder in apocalypse and high point games though.

Why Phaeron?

Warriors don't get anything from relentless.

ShadarLogoth wrote:

That's a very good question, and definitely not a noob question as its a pretty common perspective to have. The question is, would you rather have Overwatch shots, or 20 extra attacks, plus them losing Xbases extra attacks, plus an extra War Scythe attack, plus get to choose who ends up base to base with each other on the charge (critical if you have MSS). The assaulting unit almost always comes out ahead in these equations, regardless if the units themselves are shooty or assaulty based. Phaeron effectively makes the Warrior blob a hybrid unit (like Grey Hunters), particularly when you start adding Imothek, or War Scythes, or MSS...etc. Even though your I2, your going to soften the unit up with rapid fire first, and if you have been shooting them a turn or two before this, their generally isn't much left to punch you, even if they punch first. Like I showed above, 40 rapid fire shots can kill 4 to 5 MEq bases. So a full squad of Grey Hunters or ASM would be cut and half before CC even began. Makes a pretty big difference.
.

That convinced me that if i have the points i should stick it in. Makes sense to me but I'd love to hear a counter argument if you have one!

If you run a warrior blob, you definitely want to make it survive cc, after all in 1500 games (with a useful OL in there) it's about 1/4 of your points. It depends on what you want them to do. If they're guarding home obj then they don't need relentless from a Phaeron. If they're going to get another one then the move fire charge could work. In 5th it would allow you to fire on the go, in 6th it's less useful to you imo

I think phalanxes (being so large) aren't best served guarding an objective. If you took the points to invest in warriors, arks, and an orb then you should march that puppy down the middle of the field and draw fire. Kill what you can and absorb hits while other smaller units defend objectives.

Granted, especially in the Relic mission. But as I said it depends on what role you want. It's a simple question; do you want to assault?

Don't suppose someone can do the math hammer for me on a 10 man unit of assault marines being fired at by warriors and then charging and going a round of combat with said warriors?

Same points values?

IMO I would assume they get wiped out?

 Mitranekh the Omniscient wrote:
Granted, especially in the Relic mission. But as I said it depends on what role you want. It's a simple question; do you want to assault?

It's not really a question of wanting to Assault, it's a question of not being afraid of Assault if it comes your way. This allows you to use the brick as an area denial unit.


People don't think twice about getting a Warscythe or MSS on the Overlord running with a Warrior block, however Phaeron makes a bigger difference then both of those. It's a very serious upgrade that is only mired by peoples flawed perception of Necrons in assault.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BlackSanguinor wrote:
A full Phalanx seems like a very nice unit for Illuminor Szeras. I know the internet has decreed he is useless but for 100 points you get a S8 AP2 shot (at 36in too) and a phalanx with either T5, BS5 or S5 and Defensive grenades which help quite a lot if something does manage to assault it.

Running him with a Phaeroned blob is actually pretty nifty. That way, regardless of what upgrade you get, it will be useful. He's a little pricey even still for what you get, but it works pretty well.