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As the title says. I never really looked at the BA codex untill now and I must say he seems like an overpriced monster creature that can get slapped in the face by a force weapon.

I see his psychic powers and his stats and his special rules. its good but not great. he has no Eternal warrior, no invul save and hes not fearless.
why are people crying about him so much? I face Abaddon with massed Berzerkers or bloodcrushers with fateweaver like all the time and Mrfisting seems like garbage compared to that =|.

em I missing something?

He's obnoxious for a guard commander because you can't use BiD on him, but that's about it.

My guess is that he breaks other player's shiny toys with ease. Against well-balanced armies, I don't see how he'd be much more of a nuisance than his points cost would dictate.

What makes him bad is a better question IMHO. He's an absolute beatstick.

His stats speak for themselves. His psychic powers are also very powerful and only add to this. He's like a Daemon Prince but better.

He only has a few flaws. As you said, he's go no invulnerable save. Then again, at the initiative he can strike at, this doesn't matter so much.
He's not got eternal warrior. Then again, with his toughness, this is counteracted slightly.
He can't join units. He is however on a small base and can easily get shields/cover saves.
His main weakness is weakness to enemy psykers.

He's an incredibly deadly model. A smart opponent can neutralise him but a smart general can also use him very well. Ultimately he's a target that you MUST take out and that alone can make him worth taking...

He is annoying because unless you do a bit of list tailoring you cannot kill him before he kills much more than his own points worth. The only plasma in my guard army was an executioner with plasma sponsons. Lascannons in a guard army are unreliable. He will slaughter your list if you do not have plasma.


Name one unit that can get a CHANCE to force weapon him?
Nothing has ini 7 str 6 and a force weapon other than another meph.

Force weapons are really a non-issue. Most models with force weapons will get killed before they get to swing it against him. If they do survive, at t6, they probably need a 6 to wound him. After all that, meph still gets to use his hood to negate it.

I think what people don't like, is even if he loses 4 wounds, he's still at 100% combat effectiveness, while bloodcrusher, massed zerkers, etc get weaker as you do wounds to them.

Plus he has a lot of mobility compared to someone like Abaddon.

If you come with a list that doesn't specifically have a 'How do I deal with Mephiston' he will more than likely completely annihilate a sizable portion of your force. His high initiative, toughness, and the fact that he will more likely than not be rerolling to hit with 2+ to wound (and with str 10 to ID pretty much anything without eternal warrior, force weaponing or not)

Mephiston is a Hive Tyrant/Bloodthirster stat'd unit that's sizes as a normal infantry model, he's easy to hide, easy to keep out of harms way, get cover saves, and is really hard to do anything about until he strikes.

Where a Trygon may have to sit there for all to see after deepstriking and weather a torrent of firepower, or march across the board in full view of everything, Mephiston can jump from cover to cover, staying out of LoS or at least getting cover, and do it with a 12" move, and its hard to get a bead on him.

Were Mephiston the size of a Hive Tyrant or Bloodthirster he wouldn't be as bad. The problem is that he's still on the same par on terms of killyness and survivability, way more useful psychic powers, is roughly similar in cost, but only a fraction of the size. He can even strike before a Hive Tyrant, wound it on 2's, and kill it outright before it gets a chance to attack.


He's a simple case of fanwank gone too far.

Jaon wrote:Name one unit that can get a CHANCE to force weapon him?
Nothing has ini 7 str 6 and a force weapon other than another meph.

Does a Swarmlord perhaps with Tyrant Guard including Lashwhips count?

Mephy is what Abbadon wishes he was. If Abby had Mephy's stats he would've taken Cadia a long time ago.

Jaon wrote:He is annoying because unless you do a bit of list tailoring you cannot kill him before he kills much more than his own points worth. The only plasma in my guard army was an executioner with plasma sponsons. Lascannons in a guard army are unreliable. He will slaughter your list if you do not have plasma.


Name one unit that can get a CHANCE to force weapon him?
Nothing has ini 7 str 6 and a force weapon other than another meph.

A basic librarian with quickening strikes at I10. I understand he needs a 6 to wound but it only takes 1 ;D. with the stormshield he has a chance to live if he failed.


I see how he can be good I have no doubt or blind eye to that. I just don't think he is worth the crying I have seen about him. but then again
its only normal if a newer player of some sort gets like 3 squads wiped out by him due to their poor planning that they would complain.

I just honestly expected him to have 4+ invul fearless eternal warrior etc lol I was over estimating him.

Only if the librarian is an epistolary and feels confident that they can win a hood fight for the multiple powers

^^ This

Plus, who takes an Epistolary with Quickening anyways???

The issue is not "what can kill Mephiston?"

The issue is "what can kill Mephiston in an average, all-comers list that can't be gakked by him before getting a chance to strike in close combat, or actually seeing him for shooting?"

good family life

kirsanth wrote:

Jaon wrote:Name one unit that can get a CHANCE to force weapon him?
Nothing has ini 7 str 6 and a force weapon other than another meph.

Does a Swarmlord perhaps with Tyrant Guard including Lashwhips count?

That's quite a chunk of points to go kill Mephy with. Then again it is one of the more all-comers choices available.

shealyr wrote:^^ This

Plus, who takes an Epistolary with Quickening anyways???

The issue is not "what can kill Mephiston?"

The issue is "what can kill Mephiston in an average, all-comers list that can't be gakked by him before getting a chance to strike in close combat, or actually seeing him for shooting?"

Agonizers in DE, all the instant death in DE, Lysander, plasma rifles (Tau), a basic Hive Tyrant stands a good chance, Skulltaker on a Chariot does as well, Abaddon stands a good chance. Anything that has a decent chance of turning someone into something else (Tzeench stuff from DoC, Sorcs in standard Chaos, Zogwart). That's 6 (7 if you count orks) armies that have a good chance of taking him out with options that are not out of the realm of reason, and that's off the top of my head.

DE is good vs MCs in general. However the other ones are debatable, either on how well they do against Mephiston, or how practical they are. The Tzeentch Sorceror with Gift of Chaos in particular, isnt very practical for taking down Mephy, as the Sorceror has to make a Psychic Test (easy to do) get past Meph's hood (not that easy) and then Meph has to roll a 6 (kinda hard now). The Sorceror in question would also find himself with a power that he cant really use on anything else with reliable success (basically actually succeeding as well as doing noticable damage to the opponent. If he "spawned" a marine or a DC, it's not that big of a loss considering how much stuff he went through to do so) after that. Buying a second power would mean you got Gift of Chaos solely to kill off Mephy, not to mention drive up the Sorc's cost. Tzeentch Daemons, however, have a much mroe reliable chance as it's technically not a psychic power, so it cant be ignored.

Also meph can hide in transports... imagine having to kill a LRC just to face a 5 wound char that can chew up and spit out 4-5 marines on average a turn?

Shrike325 wrote: Zogwart

Yes, except no. Mephiston isn't an indepentend character, and as such is immune to squigification.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Shrike325 wrote: Zogwart

Yes, except no. Mephiston isn't an indepentend character, and as such is immune to squigification.

Good call, I always forget that about ol Zog.

Also, to note, Meph can pretty easily be tarpitted. He goes through 5 terminators like 5 guardsmen, but he goes through 5 guardsmen like he goes through 5 guardsmen. Going through even just 21 of them will take awhile.

Except with his manoeuvrability and the Blood Angels otherwise impressive anti-infantry, that shouldn't be a problem. You're correct, he is very tarpittable. However, the squad that does so will almost certainly die and even then the BA player shouldn't let such a thing happen.

For the OP, one of the reasons Mephiston is complained about so highly is that his stats are so 'out there'. It's not so much that he's good, but that he's got the stats and abilities of Tyrants and Daemon Princes etc. but better.

In game terms, as others have said, a not-too-good player or an all-corners list will very likely struggle.
A skilled player can likely take Mephiston to pieces. But then again, what if the BA player is skilled?

Yes, but people were talking about "rolling up your line" with Meph. While the BA player has some degree of control over what he attacks, so does the guard, nid, or ork player. Even if Meph gets one solid unit utterly wrecked, his opponent can always make sure that the second unit he's engaged with is a tarpit.

Yes, it will probably die, but that's sort of the point. Mephiston wasting 4 blood angel player turns just to kill tens of points of worthlessness sounds like a pretty good deal for a sacrificial unit.

Sure you can tarpit mephy. Only a completely brain dead, not-even-trying-to-win opponent running Mephiston will let you do that though. They have an entire rest of an army to use. It's not exactly a leap of faith into the completely unknown wild blue yonder to think that the BA player will have another assault unit on the table, and where do you think they're going to go if they see meph being drowned in light, easily killed wounds? I bet I can take a guess, can you?

His stats are ridiculous and the model size is just beyond ludicrous. Why can't a Hive Tyrant or a Demon Prince ride around in a transport or something? Because they're big, horrible nasties and they're supposed to stand out and be susceptible to counter fire. Not good old Blood Angels though! Nothing is quite as much fun as seeing two 35-point-boxes-of-invincibility-for-a-turn stuffed full of other nastiness driving across the field ending every turn in a wedge formation with everyone's favorite Lord of The Cheese safely ensconced behind the mobile wall, completely immune to the shooting everyone always wants to point out as a weakness of his.

Yes, the BA player has the rest of their army, but so does his opponent.

You say that only a brain-dead BA player would let Mephiston get tar-pitted, but it's equal to say that only a brain-dead ork player wouldn't get him tarpitted right away.

40k is a game between two players, not a game between mephiston and an army that just sits there doing nothing, waiting to get slaughtered.

Slick wrote:Only if the librarian is an epistolary and feels confident that they can win a hood fight for the multiple powers

Why would the librarian need that epist upgrade? hes only using 1 power. ._.

and both of them would be battling for psychic powers with their hoods.
both have LD10 they have even odds.

GamzaTheChaos wrote:

Slick wrote:Only if the librarian is an epistolary and feels confident that they can win a hood fight for the multiple powers

Why would the librarian need that epist upgrade? hes only using 1 power. ._.

and both of them would be battling for psychic powers with their hoods.
both have LD10 they have even odds.

They need to be an epistolary because using the force weapon's special effect counts as a psychic power. If you don't upgrade to epistolary, you can use quickening but not the instant kill power, or vice versa.

On another note, a GK Grand Master with some ablatave wounds in the form of a retinue would ruin Mephiston's day. He's likely to kill 3 Terminators, and then the Grand Master retaliates with an S6 Force weapon that'll go so far up his ass that the Grand Master could probably use him like a puppet.

Fafnir wrote:

GamzaTheChaos wrote:

Slick wrote:Only if the librarian is an epistolary and feels confident that they can win a hood fight for the multiple powers

Why would the librarian need that epist upgrade? hes only using 1 power. ._.

and both of them would be battling for psychic powers with their hoods.
both have LD10 they have even odds.

They need to be an epistolary because using the force weapon's special effect counts as a psychic power. If you don't upgrade to epistolary, you can use quickening but not the instant kill power, or vice versa.

On another note, a GK Grand Master with some ablatave wounds in the form of a retinue would ruin Mephiston's day. He's likely to kill 3 Terminators, and then the Grand Master retaliates with an S6 Force weapon that'll go so far up his ass that the Grand Master could probably use him like a puppet.

lol oh yeah duh ._.

He one shots my Nightbringer when I field him. That's pretty good.

Just Dave wrote:Except with his manoeuvrability and the Blood Angels otherwise impressive anti-infantry, that shouldn't be a problem. You're correct, he is very tarpittable. However, the squad that does so will almost certainly die and even then the BA player shouldn't let such a thing happen.

For the OP, one of the reasons Mephiston is complained about so highly is that his stats are so 'out there'. It's not so much that he's good, but that he's got the stats and abilities of Tyrants and Daemon Princes etc. but better.

In game terms, as others have said, a not-too-good player or an all-corners list will very likely struggle.
A skilled player can likely take Mephiston to pieces. But then again, what if the BA player is skilled?

Basically this. Meph is what every player fears in an MC: one that iis the size of an infantry with almost all of the benefits. Apart from 2D6 penetration he has the best of both worlds, high wounds, high toughness, easily attainable cover save, small base "foot print", short stature (comparatively to, say a walking Hive Tyrant or a non-winged prince). Kharn would likely be in the same boat too if he wasnt so easily gibbed by a lascannon or melta gun, which are much more practical (and common) for an all-comers list than, say, an Epistolary with Quickening charging towards Meph.

Ailaros wrote:Yes, the BA player has the rest of their army, but so does his opponent.

You say that only a brain-dead BA player would let Mephiston get tar-pitted, but it's equal to say that only a brain-dead ork player wouldn't get him tarpitted right away.

40k is a game between two players, not a game between mephiston and an army that just sits there doing nothing, waiting to get slaughtered.

That sure was a lot of words for absolutely no reason. The idea was put forth that he is easily tarpittable like you can just simply ignore him. It's still wrong in spite of what you said, he is not easily tarpittable.