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No chance in hell I'm buying 16 bikes but I appreciate seeing the math against triple crusaders here. Hopefully our more balanced lists can produce similar results.

 slave.entity wrote:
No chance in hell I'm buying 16 bikes but I appreciate seeing the math against triple crusaders here. Hopefully our more balanced lists can produce similar results.

I think with Dread Host they can. Our biggest problem was being unable to reliably get into combat. We now have a mechanism.

 slave.entity wrote:
No chance in hell I'm buying 16 bikes but I appreciate seeing the math against triple crusaders here. Hopefully our more balanced lists can produce similar results.

ATM shooting them is much easier. With an Ares and 3 caladius and you can will a knight in on turn.

Agamatus bikes with pulsars

So in reading the new reviews by youtubers, they all seem to suggest the 3x5 blobs of Allarus with a Flag and Trajaan, and an allarus SC is the new hot gak with dread host. Basically turn 2 16 allarus drop down mulch any characters, and then charge the lines. the Guardians hold objectives and pick off targets of oppurtunity. I am really liking this new Allarus over Aquillon sentiment. Character targeting more than makes up for everything else they lose out on.

Actually for dread host im thinking something more like this:

Outrider
Allarus captain commander/w Relic axe, +2 wounds or CP refund or destroyer

Venetari squad x6

2x pallas gravs

Spearhead

Trajann/w warlord

Telemon x2fist (IGLTC)
2x Calladius grav/w illiastus

Vexilla/w magnifica



Runs about 1650 which is about where the points adjustments should put us around the old 2000.


This would be my dread host list.


Character targeting will definitely be important, but allarus don't do enough damage at range and taking more than 1 or 2 squads of termies will mean you cant buff all 3 of them very much.

Yeah I think 1 squad of termies and maybe a second one or a bike squad is about the max. The “ignore AP-2” strat is extremely good...that math for the AGC on knights changes a lot when you get 2+ saves. Shadowkeepers is also a lot nicer than I initially thought.
I don’t know if it puts our termies on the same level as GK Paladins (-1 dmg strat, always in cover) but they are much better than they were.

I think our termies can compete with that level of durability. We got so many defensive strats: Arcane Genetic Alchemy for a Transhuman Physiology equivalent, Emperor's Auspice to shut down ALL rerolls, Auramite and Adamantium to ignore up to AP -2. You could even go Shadowkeepers for Grim Responsibility for -1 STR to incoming attacks. Granted it's quite a CP investment but with even 2 of those active on a unit of our termies they're gonna be stupid hard to shift. You could even put a Vexilla Magnifica near them for -1 to hit. WotS gave them a lot of tools to the point where even if they somehow fail the charge it isn't a death knell for them now.

-1 is a lot more useful when you can also shut re-rolls, for sure.

As someone who has actually played all jetbikes verse all knights, it is knight advantaged. Or was. Now it is not so clear

stratigo wrote:
As someone who has actually played all jetbikes verse all knights, it is knight advantaged. Or was. Now it is not so clear

Same here i went to a tournament with an all bike list and i had two games against knights. I had no chance of winning against them. The 4 dmg AGC and house krast is so good against bikes.

 nordsturmking wrote:

stratigo wrote:
As someone who has actually played all jetbikes verse all knights, it is knight advantaged. Or was. Now it is not so clear

Same here i went to a tournament with an all bike list and i had two games against knights. I had no chance of winning against them. The 4 dmg AGC and house krast is so good against bikes.

You were cheated. The Krast AGC is only 4 dmg against Titanic units, and 3 dmg against models with 10+ wounds.

 greyknight12 wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:

stratigo wrote:
As someone who has actually played all jetbikes verse all knights, it is knight advantaged. Or was. Now it is not so clear

Same here i went to a tournament with an all bike list and i had two games against knights. I had no chance of winning against them. The 4 dmg AGC and house krast is so good against bikes.

You were cheated. The Krast AGC is only 4 dmg against Titanic units, and 3 dmg against models with 10+ wounds.

sorry i meant the 14 shot version with extra hits on 6's. I remembered it wrong. And the lack of big LOSB Terrain was also an issue.

 nordsturmking wrote:

stratigo wrote:
As someone who has actually played all jetbikes verse all knights, it is knight advantaged. Or was. Now it is not so clear

Same here i went to a tournament with an all bike list and i had two games against knights. I had no chance of winning against them. The 4 dmg AGC and house krast is so good against bikes.

There's also making the blithe assumption that the knight player is going to be the one getting charged. Knights are a bad shooting platform if that's all you're using them for. They're meant to fight in combat as well as shoot, and against a bike based list, they usually have the initiative of combat, where they can hold back a turn and shoot and then push forward, shoot, and charge, since bikes have no capability to outshoot a knight. I've only had the initative in a charge via deepstrike, or luring the knights into charging a less useful unit and then hitting it with the bikes. But usually deepstriking, which I don't do when I'm running 20 bikes, but I will when I'm running 13 (my standard battalion is 3 bike caps, 9/10 bikes, the recent points changes allowed me to squeeze in an extra bike, a vexilia, and 3 by 3 guard).

Knights are very strong against bikes.

But now with defensive tricks, bikes can manage. I think a good bike/termy split is a way to go, providing 2 big hammers with a lot of defensive tools to worry about. And maybe a telemon. Pending points and rules changes. Forgeworld stuff is generally in flux.

 nordsturmking wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:

stratigo wrote:
As someone who has actually played all jetbikes verse all knights, it is knight advantaged. Or was. Now it is not so clear

Same here i went to a tournament with an all bike list and i had two games against knights. I had no chance of winning against them. The 4 dmg AGC and house krast is so good against bikes.

You were cheated. The Krast AGC is only 4 dmg against Titanic units, and 3 dmg against models with 10+ wounds.

sorry i meant the 14 shot version with extra hits on 6's. I remembered it wrong. And the lack of big LOSB Terrain was also an issue.

Then it's the terrain that partially robbed you. Though, still, Endless Fury should only average one dead Jetbike per turn. It's not enough of a boost to do much more than a normal AGC to Jetbikes.

I fought Alexander Fennell's Knights at a competitive tournament (and others since, but that was the 'biggest' name I ever tangled with for Knights). It's the stomping feet that should tear your Jetbikes apart, not the guns.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

stratigo wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:

stratigo wrote:
As someone who has actually played all jetbikes verse all knights, it is knight advantaged. Or was. Now it is not so clear

Same here i went to a tournament with an all bike list and i had two games against knights. I had no chance of winning against them. The 4 dmg AGC and house krast is so good against bikes.

There's also making the blithe assumption that the knight player is going to be the one getting charged. Knights are a bad shooting platform if that's all you're using them for. They're meant to fight in combat as well as shoot, and against a bike based list, they usually have the initiative of combat, where they can hold back a turn and shoot and then push forward, shoot, and charge, since bikes have no capability to outshoot a knight. I've only had the initative in a charge via deepstrike, or luring the knights into charging a less useful unit and then hitting it with the bikes. But usually deepstriking, which I don't do when I'm running 20 bikes, but I will when I'm running 13 (my standard battalion is 3 bike caps, 9/10 bikes, the recent points changes allowed me to squeeze in an extra bike, a vexilia, and 3 by 3 guard).

Knights are very strong against bikes.

But now with defensive tricks, bikes can manage. I think a good bike/termy split is a way to go, providing 2 big hammers with a lot of defensive tools to worry about. And maybe a telemon. Pending points and rules changes. Forgeworld stuff is generally in flux.

Again, I think this is a terrain issue. The Jetbikes have the same movement or better than a Knight and they have FLY. You should be able to angle well enough to charge or control more objectives to get more points. Either way is a win.

Audustum wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:

stratigo wrote:
As someone who has actually played all jetbikes verse all knights, it is knight advantaged. Or was. Now it is not so clear

Same here i went to a tournament with an all bike list and i had two games against knights. I had no chance of winning against them. The 4 dmg AGC and house krast is so good against bikes.

You were cheated. The Krast AGC is only 4 dmg against Titanic units, and 3 dmg against models with 10+ wounds.

sorry i meant the 14 shot version with extra hits on 6's. I remembered it wrong. And the lack of big LOSB Terrain was also an issue.

Then it's the terrain that partially robbed you. Though, still, Endless Fury should only average one dead Jetbike per turn. It's not enough of a boost to do much more than a normal AGC to Jetbikes.

I fought Alexander Fennell's Knights at a competitive tournament (and others since, but that was the 'biggest' name I ever tangled with for Knights). It's the stomping feet that should tear your Jetbikes apart, not the guns.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

stratigo wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:

stratigo wrote:
As someone who has actually played all jetbikes verse all knights, it is knight advantaged. Or was. Now it is not so clear

Same here i went to a tournament with an all bike list and i had two games against knights. I had no chance of winning against them. The 4 dmg AGC and house krast is so good against bikes.

There's also making the blithe assumption that the knight player is going to be the one getting charged. Knights are a bad shooting platform if that's all you're using them for. They're meant to fight in combat as well as shoot, and against a bike based list, they usually have the initiative of combat, where they can hold back a turn and shoot and then push forward, shoot, and charge, since bikes have no capability to outshoot a knight. I've only had the initative in a charge via deepstrike, or luring the knights into charging a less useful unit and then hitting it with the bikes. But usually deepstriking, which I don't do when I'm running 20 bikes, but I will when I'm running 13 (my standard battalion is 3 bike caps, 9/10 bikes, the recent points changes allowed me to squeeze in an extra bike, a vexilia, and 3 by 3 guard).

Knights are very strong against bikes.

But now with defensive tricks, bikes can manage. I think a good bike/termy split is a way to go, providing 2 big hammers with a lot of defensive tools to worry about. And maybe a telemon. Pending points and rules changes. Forgeworld stuff is generally in flux.

Again, I think this is a terrain issue. The Jetbikes have the same movement or better than a Knight and they have FLY. You should be able to angle well enough to charge or control more objectives to get more points. Either way is a win.

Under 8th edition terrain rules, bikes are extremely difficult to hide. They take up far more of a footprint than a knight does, and a unit will actually not be fantastically shorter unless you're a hobbyest that's managed to angle all the spears downwards.

Knights especially have a few ways to push their charge envelope out much farther than custodes do with any unit, even now. A full tilt knight will probably bash its way into a squad of jetbikes from really almost anywhere.

stratigo wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:

stratigo wrote:
As someone who has actually played all jetbikes verse all knights, it is knight advantaged. Or was. Now it is not so clear

Same here i went to a tournament with an all bike list and i had two games against knights. I had no chance of winning against them. The 4 dmg AGC and house krast is so good against bikes.

You were cheated. The Krast AGC is only 4 dmg against Titanic units, and 3 dmg against models with 10+ wounds.

sorry i meant the 14 shot version with extra hits on 6's. I remembered it wrong. And the lack of big LOSB Terrain was also an issue.

Then it's the terrain that partially robbed you. Though, still, Endless Fury should only average one dead Jetbike per turn. It's not enough of a boost to do much more than a normal AGC to Jetbikes.

I fought Alexander Fennell's Knights at a competitive tournament (and others since, but that was the 'biggest' name I ever tangled with for Knights). It's the stomping feet that should tear your Jetbikes apart, not the guns.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

stratigo wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:

stratigo wrote:
As someone who has actually played all jetbikes verse all knights, it is knight advantaged. Or was. Now it is not so clear

Same here i went to a tournament with an all bike list and i had two games against knights. I had no chance of winning against them. The 4 dmg AGC and house krast is so good against bikes.

There's also making the blithe assumption that the knight player is going to be the one getting charged. Knights are a bad shooting platform if that's all you're using them for. They're meant to fight in combat as well as shoot, and against a bike based list, they usually have the initiative of combat, where they can hold back a turn and shoot and then push forward, shoot, and charge, since bikes have no capability to outshoot a knight. I've only had the initative in a charge via deepstrike, or luring the knights into charging a less useful unit and then hitting it with the bikes. But usually deepstriking, which I don't do when I'm running 20 bikes, but I will when I'm running 13 (my standard battalion is 3 bike caps, 9/10 bikes, the recent points changes allowed me to squeeze in an extra bike, a vexilia, and 3 by 3 guard).

Knights are very strong against bikes.

But now with defensive tricks, bikes can manage. I think a good bike/termy split is a way to go, providing 2 big hammers with a lot of defensive tools to worry about. And maybe a telemon. Pending points and rules changes. Forgeworld stuff is generally in flux.

Again, I think this is a terrain issue. The Jetbikes have the same movement or better than a Knight and they have FLY. You should be able to angle well enough to charge or control more objectives to get more points. Either way is a win.

Under 8th edition terrain rules, bikes are extremely difficult to hide. They take up far more of a footprint than a knight does, and a unit will actually not be fantastically shorter unless you're a hobbyest that's managed to angle all the spears downwards.

Knights especially have a few ways to push their charge envelope out much farther than custodes do with any unit, even now. A full tilt knight will probably bash its way into a squad of jetbikes from really almost anywhere.

I have no idea what your local tables are like. On a standard (NOVA/LVO) board the center ruin(s) are big enough to hide Jetbikes as are the deployment zone ruin on each side (note LVO only uses standard terrain for top tables, NOVA uses it for all tables).

While some Knights definitely go fast, they can't go through walls AND your Vexilla can hit them with a Tanglefoot grenade. Slows them down a lot. Conversely, the Jetbikes can jump over a wall in their movement phase.

In addition, you have Stooping Dive. You should be keeping your Jetbike squads within a reasonable distance so you can counter-charge and smash a bum rushing Knight.

While I know we all have 15+!bikes lying around from when the codex first came, let’s not sit and pretend a bike list is going to be good in 9th. Terminators get tangle foot grenade, vexilla teleportation, ignores up to AP -2, and dreadhost deepstrike (although be careful with this one, only use it when you’re ok with failing the charge.) Most importantly, they are cheaper than bikes (assuming nothing crazy happens to points) and are infantry. I think having a large blob of guys who can hold the center is going to important in 9th and terminators are going to be key for this. I think most of you guys agree with me here, I just wanted inform anyone reading this thread that an biker army isn’t going to very competitive.

The real question is whether or not a single biker unit in general list is going to be good. Points will be a big deciding factor here, but as a general concept I like the having idea of 4-5 man biker unit with my bike captain. You can hid this blob turn 1, then jump them out as you deepstrike with your terminators. That said Brian Pullen (a playtester for 9th) said that he doesn’t think bikers are going to be good enough. This could mean their points are going to increase more in proportion to something like an allarus terminator (which Pullen thought would be quite good). It could also mean Pullen just doesn’t like bikes much, and that’s it’s only his opinion that bikes will bad. We’ll have to wait and see, but I would really love to use more than just 1 of my 18 biker models for my competitive army.

Salt donkey wrote:
While I know we all have 15+!bikes lying around from when the codex first came, let’s not sit and pretend a bike list is going to be good in 9th. Terminators get tangle foot grenade, vexilla teleportation, ignores up to AP -2, and dreadhost deepstrike (although be careful with this one, only use it when you’re ok with failing the charge.) Most importantly, they are cheaper than bikes (assuming nothing crazy happens to points) and are infantry. I think having a large blob of guys who can hold the center is going to important in 9th and terminators are going to be key for this. I think most of you guys agree with me here, I just wanted inform anyone reading this thread that an biker army isn’t going to very competitive.

The real question is whether or not a single biker unit in general list is going to be good. Points will be a big deciding factor here, but as a general concept I like the having idea of 4-5 man biker unit with my bike captain. You can hid this blob turn 1, then jump them out as you deepstrike with your terminators. That said Brian Pullen (a playtester for 9th) said that he doesn’t think bikers are going to be good enough. This could mean their points are going to increase more in proportion to something like an allarus terminator (which Pullen thought would be quite good). It could also mean Pullen just doesn’t like bikes much, and that’s it’s only his opinion that bikes will bad. We’ll have to wait and see, but I would really love to use more than just 1 of my 18 biker models for my competitive army.

So on a largescale sense, I do agree that an all Jetbike list is not going to do great in 9th. Sadly, I am sorely tempted to take just ONE: a Shield-Captain. If you give him the Captain-Commander trait that allows consolidation in any direction, he can hit a target and then immediately leave combat before retaliation. Stack him out with the usual 3++, re-roll charges, 5+++, Victor of the Blood Games and he can go hold an objective in your opponent's backfield by himself without much concern. He might even be able to assassinate a character and escape without much/any retaliation.

That said, I am currently planning to run one sizable Jetbike squad and one sizable Aquilon squad as the core of an army.

Has anyone considered that (Arcane Genetic Alchemy) can go on their bikes to make sure they are only wounded on 4s, and with another stratagem (The Emperor’s Auspice), you can turn off all rerolls against that one squad of bikes for a turn?

So for 4 CP for those stratagems, you have a squad of bikes that is
-1 to hit from a Vexilla or the new dense terrain rules
No rerolls to hit, no rerolls to wound, no rerolls for random shots, no rerolls for random damage.
Can only be wounded on 4s,
Still has a 2+, 4++

 iGuy91 wrote:
Has anyone considered that (Arcane Genetic Alchemy) can go on their bikes to make sure they are only wounded on 4s, and with another stratagem (The Emperor’s Auspice), you can turn off all rerolls against that one squad of bikes for a turn?

So for 4 CP for those stratagems, you have a squad of bikes that is
-1 to hit from a Vexilla or the new dense terrain rules
No rerolls to hit, no rerolls to wound, no rerolls for random shots, no rerolls for random damage.
Can only be wounded on 4s,
Still has a 2+, 4++

It's pretty sweet! You can do it for a terminator unit too I think though so it's a wash when comparing the two.

Don’t sleep too hard on allarus. Their ability to target characters with a strat merges with the Bolter buff could give them the ability to wipe out two key combo chars from, say, a marine army, and still follow that up with smashing face with their axes.

stratigo wrote:
Don’t sleep too hard on allarus. Their ability to target characters with a strat merges with the Bolter buff could give them the ability to wipe out two key combo chars from, say, a marine army, and still follow that up with smashing face with their axes.

I think it's like 11 shots on average to down a 3+ marine captain, I might be wrong. It's possible but you're gonna need a fair number of terminators.

On the other hand, if you back them up with a Vindicare you might be able to work some magic and recoup some of that CP while you're at it!

Audustum wrote:

stratigo wrote:
Don’t sleep too hard on allarus. Their ability to target characters with a strat merges with the Bolter buff could give them the ability to wipe out two key combo chars from, say, a marine army, and still follow that up with smashing face with their axes.

I think it's like 11 shots on average to down a 3+ marine captain, I might be wrong. It's possible but you're gonna need a fair number of terminators.

On the other hand, if you back them up with a Vindicare you might be able to work some magic and recoup some of that CP while you're at it!

You can combo the shoot characters with the double your bolter shots and hit characters

Allarus are going to be so good in 9th, they were already good but now with the way 9th missions are is going to be about holding the centre of the table their utility is just so good.

I think bikes will see use but this edition isn’t shaping up to be a horde edition from what the play testers have been saying, they could be wrong but bikes are going to suffer from not having the infantry keyword and us maybe not needing hurricane bolters so much. Only time will tell on this one but I’ve shelved my bikes and I’m working on another 6 Allarus so I can run 2 units of 6 with a Dreadhost Allarus SC.

I think the Telemon will be a really good unit, a good few sources have said dreads are going to be really good and the Telemon is the best dread out there with the new strats (though surely the half damage strat will get FAQd). I can also see Achillus being good too. I’ve heard from playtesters that vehicles are getting a big boost and dreads will benefit greatly so I’m really happy about that. Also Brian from Tabletop Titans said most Custodes will be bringing Battalions so I concede defeat there, seems troops and infantry keyword is going to be super important that we’ll need 3 x guard units anyway.

I'd caution everyone to wait on making any additional forgeworld purchases until after GW reveals what they are doing with forgeworld rules. Provided that's why you are looking at the models. Forge world usually experiences a lot of fluctuation in its rules

Ok so I’m going to power rank all the captain commander traits here.


Tier 1 good and almost all situations

1) + 2 W: I think people are sleeping in this one a bit. The reason I like this is due to how it synergizes with supreme creation. With that 5+++ this trait gives you’re shield captain an effective +3 wounds, as it takes 3 unsaved wounds on average to do 2 wounds to a model with a 5+++. This effective means a 2+, 3++ captain with this combination will give you an extra T6 storm shield guardian for your list in terms of wounds provided.
Extremely good.

2) 5+ cp regan trait: you know this one, and you know why it will be good. Next

Teir 2 situational great

3) unstoppable destroyer. I like this one but think people are overrated it a bit for 9th. The problem is the main use this trait provides is to back out of Combat before your opponent swings. In the 8th this is good because you are preventing a whole round of attack backs even if your opponent will recharges you. This is because your opponent’s unit would get to strike first during its turn. However, since order of activation is different in 9th, during your opponents turn that same unit will now strike after your shield captain, meaning staying in combat with a unit you failed to kill is less punishing than it was before. Obviously, there are still plenty of movement shenanigans you can still use this for, and you still use this to force your opponent to charge a shield captain that they might have been able to kill during you assault phase. These reasons keep this trait as situationally good, but because of the 9th Ed assault changes it’s a tier below the 2 best traits

4) + 1 to M, Adv, and charge. Do you want your dreadhost terminator captain to make a charge from deepstrike, without having to banner him? We’ll have I got the trait for you! For real 3 d6 pick the 2 highest gets a lot better on an 8 inch charge, especially with a CP re-roll.

Power gap

Teir 3 situational usable (honestly you probably wouldn’t be too wrong to just ignore everything past this point)

5) +3 ‘ to aura’s: this one could be nice if you got a warlord trait that you really want extended. Maybe the solar watch one? However, outside of the stuff like this I just think there are better choices.

6) +2 A vs 6+ model units: 2 attacks are always great, so against armies that have Deathstars this could be useful. Np That said the fact that this turns off once your opponents units grow smaller is big negative against it.

7) re-roll wounds against vehicles and monsters: certain vehicle and monster heavy lists you’ll want this but there are also plenty of times you’ll want something like unstoppable destroyer instead.

Tier 4 trash that is always bad.

8) double damage on 6’s. This is the side benefit that the nurgle demon’s power virulent blessing gives. Best in case is you get like 3 more damage on something dangerous with a dreadhost captain. That’s still well below what the top tier choices gives you as a baseline.

9) more attack when hurt: just straight bad. “Yes I know my shield captain is now more dangerous because you’ve hurt him, but I’d really like it if you didn’t finish him off.”

I disagree on tier 4's. A SC biker with the trait could take down a lot of big things, it's very swingy, but on a bike it's godly. especially paired with VOTBG and missile launchers? Now you are talking knight Territory damage, also they would disengage and fall back before the knight gets to retort.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
How does the Gate keeper work with the new Overwatch rules?

Salt donkey wrote:
Ok so I’m going to power rank all the captain commander traits here.


Tier 1 good and almost all situations

1) + 2 W: I think people are sleeping in this one a bit. The reason I like this is due to how it synergizes with supreme creation. With that 5+++ this trait gives you’re shield captain an effective +3 wounds, as it takes 3 unsaved wounds on average to do 2 wounds to a model with a 5+++. This effective means a 2+, 3++ captain with this combination will give you an extra T6 storm shield guardian for your list in terms of wounds provided.
Extremely good.

2) 5+ cp regan trait: you know this one, and you know why it will be good. Next

Teir 2 situational great

3) unstoppable destroyer. I like this one but think people are overrated it a bit for 9th. The problem is the main use this trait provides is to back out of Combat before your opponent swings. In the 8th this is good because you are preventing a whole round of attack backs even if your opponent will recharges you. This is because your opponent’s unit would get to strike first during its turn. However, since order of activation is different in 9th, during your opponents turn that same unit will now strike after your shield captain, meaning staying in combat with a unit you failed to kill is less punishing than it was before. Obviously, there are still plenty of movement shenanigans you can still use this for, and you still use this to force your opponent to charge a shield captain that they might have been able to kill during you assault phase. These reasons keep this trait as situationally good, but because of the 9th Ed assault changes it’s a tier below the 2 best traits

4) + 1 to M, Adv, and charge. Do you want your dreadhost terminator captain to make a charge from deepstrike, without having to banner him? We’ll have I got the trait for you! For real 3 d6 pick the 2 highest gets a lot better on an 8 inch charge, especially with a CP re-roll.

Power gap

Teir 3 situational usable (honestly you probably wouldn’t be too wrong to just ignore everything past this point)

5) +3 ‘ to aura’s: this one could be nice if you got a warlord trait that you really want extended. Maybe the solar watch one? However, outside of the stuff like this I just think there are better choices.

6) +2 A vs 6+ model units: 2 attacks are always great, so against armies that have Deathstars this could be useful. Np That said the fact that this turns off once your opponents units grow smaller is big negative against it.

7) re-roll wounds against vehicles and monsters: certain vehicle and monster heavy lists you’ll want this but there are also plenty of times you’ll want something like unstoppable destroyer instead.

Tier 4 trash that is always bad.

8) double damage on 6’s. This is the side benefit that the nurgle demon’s power virulent blessing gives. Best in case is you get like 3 more damage on something dangerous with a dreadhost captain. That’s still well below what the top tier choices gives you as a baseline.

9) more attack when hurt: just straight bad. “Yes I know my shield captain is now more dangerous because you’ve hurt him, but I’d really like it if you didn’t finish him off.”

I mostly agree with this! I'd rate 3 in Tier 1 because it is still useful to prevent interrupts. Let's say my opponent has something big and nasty that I hurt, but don't kill, like a Daemon Prince. I can now 'nope' out and either force it's attacks on to my regular units or expose it to a Stooping Dive next turn before it gets a chance to kill my Shield-Captain.

I agree with the +2W being solid. I didn't originally have it that high but writing this post sold me. The aforementioned Daemon Prince probably won't be able to kill my Shield-Captain with +2W and 5+++.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

stratigo wrote:

Audustum wrote:

stratigo wrote:
Don’t sleep too hard on allarus. Their ability to target characters with a strat merges with the Bolter buff could give them the ability to wipe out two key combo chars from, say, a marine army, and still follow that up with smashing face with their axes.

I think it's like 11 shots on average to down a 3+ marine captain, I might be wrong. It's possible but you're gonna need a fair number of terminators.

On the other hand, if you back them up with a Vindicare you might be able to work some magic and recoup some of that CP while you're at it!

You can combo the shoot characters with the double your bolter shots and hit characters

Right, but that doesn't change the number of shots required to kill a marine captain.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I disagree on tier 4's. A SC biker with the trait could take down a lot of big things, it's very swingy, but on a bike it's godly. especially paired with VOTBG and missile launchers? Now you are talking knight Territory damage, also they would disengage and fall back before the knight gets to retort.


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How does the Gate keeper work with the new Overwatch rules?

The problem here is the “very swingy” part. Is there games were your jet bike captain does 12 to a knight and then comes in finish the job with his melee? Yes there will be. However, there’s also going to be games where you don’t roll a 6 with your melta Missile wound, or your opponent makes his save, or you just miss in general. In fact there will be games where you won’t get a single double damage attack through, and that seems more likely to me then the first example. In a beer in pretzel game where you just want to roll dice this is a fine trait. In a competitive game where you are trying to control as many variables as possible this simply isn’t a good option. I could never see myself taking this over the +2W trait or unstoppable destroyer.