Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

These two seem to have a lot in common.

They are hero-returned badasses in the fluff.
They murder entire units on the tabletop.
They are incredibly hard to put down even on their own
They are a handful of points to tone down how powerful they are
And they lack the Independent character rule meaning they can't join units and thus have no safe delivery system.

That last one is usually the nail in the coffin for most players but Balls to the Wall BA and GK players have been trying to hammer these two heroes into their armies all the same for their ridiculously powerful special rules.

The only problem is getting them to the enemy.

This is where transports come in. Mephiston could have a jump pack but isn't three biomancy powers just that much juicier?

Now your options are to jack a dedicated transport from someone else (usually a bad idea) leaving that unit vulnerable and usually putting you in a fragile metal box anyway or to take a different force org slot transport vehicle. For BA and GK, this means Land Raiders and Storm Ravens.

Now the Land Raider is an expensive but fairly durable beast with some okay guns but when you're moving you're not shooting (very well) and when you're shooting you're not moving (and not assaulting with your one man army) also, they tend to throw out tracks or lose hullpoints on terrain when it's fairly easy to strip their hullpoints anyway, leading to your character slogging it, and usually dying or not impacting the game enough to warrant all those points you spent on him.

This is where the Storm Raven comes in. Cheaper than a Land Raider, harder to kill and not bothered by terrain thanks to the Flyer rules and best of all, it totes some of the best weapons Space Marines armies have to offer with missiles, assault cannons, multi meltas, hurricane bolters and the occasional lascannons or plasma cannon for situational use. Not to mention that it is also an Assault Vehicle making it that much easier to charge Mr. Superhero into your opponent's favorite unit.

Now the question:
Putting your Monster-Character in a Storm Raven by himself. Is it a viable strategy?
Does it become more viable if you've got nothing else to put in there?
Would it be a good idea (being that you can take them as allies) to put both of these guys in the same list or would their egos keep them from fitting on the same tabletop and threaten to blot out the sun?

Stormraven mean earliest turn 3 assault. That means max of 3 units said character can mutilate. Not necessarily a bad thing though.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Stormraven mean earliest turn 3 assault. That means max of 3 units said character can mutilate. Not necessarily a bad thing though.

Well if we're speaking technically, the # of units Crowe/Meph can kill is infinite, as multiple units can be charged/can charge him

And with possible 7 turns

Max 14 Assaults won if Stormraven begins game on a skyshield

Max 10 Assaults won if Stormraven begins game in reserves

Crowe kills things on the table top?

Yeah...I'm not sure I would count Crowe as a "powerful" model. With only 2 wounds and only a 2+/4++ outside of combat, he's not that tough. He'll never have a huge number of attacks (generally 3-4 is the maximum), if he attacks at all. The only real thing that stands out is his 2+ rerollable armor in combat.

Also, Mephiston only get 2 rolls in Biomancy, despite being Mastery Level 3. I actually think he's much better off keeping his jump pack, strength 10 attacks, and preferred enemy.

Siphen wrote:
Yeah...I'm not sure I would count Crowe as a "powerful" model. With only 2 wounds and only a 2+/4++ outside of combat, he's not that tough. He'll never have a huge number of attacks (generally 3-4 is the maximum), if he attacks at all. The only real thing that stands out is his 2+ rerollable armor in combat.

Also, Mephiston only get 2 rolls in Biomancy, despite being Mastery Level 3. I actually think he's much better off keeping his jump pack, strength 10 attacks, and preferred enemy.

Regarding Crowe, FAQ denotes Cleansing Flame as a Close combat attack, and Crowe's CC attacks all rend on a 4+, so outside challenges Crowe will usually kill 50% of a squad per assault phase

Mephy only gets two rolls on biomancy? Thats news to me. You can swap out each (and has to be all) powers for a power from the brb.

Meph can switch out all 3.....

Crowe is actually really good if you use him correctly. Get him in a transport, shove him at CC monsters like Abbadon, Juggerlords, Daemon Princes, Chapter Masters...... He'll kill it dead. He has 2 uses, squad killing and one-use Character hunting.

Lucarikx

Ive always wondered how GK people ran crowe. He just doesnt seem worth it given the fact he has to foot slog accross the board. I cant imagine putting him in a LR or a SR either.

Mephy on the other hand can use his jump power and get around nicely. Ive used him before and walked him right behind a LR so people couldn't draw LOS to him.

I think I ran him in 4 games and he made his points back, plus some, in every game but one.

Since it has been said several times Mephiston can only switch out for 2 rolls on a book power chart as per the Blood Angel FAQ

PSYCHIC POWERS
A Blood Angels Librarian (including Mephiston) may use the
psychic disciplines found in the
Warhammer 40,000
rulebook,
instead of those in
Codex: Blood Angels
. If he does so, generate
two new powers from the
Biomancy
,
Divination
,
Telepathy
or
Telekinesis
disciplines (in any combination) before armies are
deployed.

RAW or FAQAW in this case is obvious he should get two power rolls

RAI and I think as most people will play it in anything but very well organized tournaments, he should get three.

In either case, he can cast 2 biomancy powers and Force weapon every turn.

Without debating the uses of the actual heroes themselves in this case, I was just using two examples of "independentless" characters that could be carried into combat by an assault vehicle/gunship such as the Storm Raven if such a vehicle isn't carrying something else vital to your strategy and if taking one or more of these One Man Army Missiles and shooting them at the enemy would be an effective tactic.

Remember people, this is a tactics forum/thread, not a debate on how powerful any given unit is/isn't or whether or not they are worth their price tag for the killiness they bring in a vacuum against the "ultimate opponent"

Now if you want to say "well spending 850 points on 2 planes and 2 single model units of melee attackers is not only a bad idea but would cost you the majority of games simply because of how much it restricts your list" then I would accept this argument.

However this is not what anyone is arguing. You are all arguing about whether Mephiston/Crowe are "good" which is only distracting from the topic I wanted to discuss here.

Now please, stay on topic because I'm sincerely interested in arguments for/against hero hammer in planes. Or land raiders. Or wave serpents. Or Venoms. Or Devilfish. Or Battlewagons. Pick your poison. Is a dragoon style close combat monster a good idea if you can get him into combat safe?

I guess I'm thinking mostly of the mounted heroes of Warhammer Fantasy, on wings of Griffons and Dragons and Wyverns.

If I can't give Mephiston a Thunderwolf mount (like a kitted out Wolf Lord) why not have him soar into battle on Wings of Flame?

Crowe's never been great.

The only GK without a Force weapon (indeed, it's only a CC weapon, which gives buffs to the enemy when they charge). No IC so no joining Purifiers, he's really not too hot sadly. Though ruling CF to proc rending is interesting, and might give him a use past unlocking Purifiers as troops and Heroic Sacrifice.

Meph's pretty cool though.

So really, to speak on the topic at hand, I'd rather have my Stormraven carrying - well, just about any unit that isn't Crowe. He can sit at the back and "guard" (read: Speedbump) my home point. I'll take anything else in the GK codex to go punch things in the face.

Tactics is precisely what we are discussing. Crowe and Mephiston have their uses, but the damage each is capable of inflicting does not warrant the cost of a transport. In the case of Mephiston, he often doesn't even need it. The fact that Crowe isn't very good in the FIRST place is enough to declare that he's not worth shoving into a transport, unless you're trying to deny Slay the Warlord.

Arguments of how powerful any unit is and whether or not they're worse the price tag are precisely the sorts of thing I'd expect to be discussed in these forums.

If you want to use crowe in any productive way then I think you almost have to put him in a stormraven. The GK stormraven is excellent and a staple in most list anyways as it is a flying MM, skyfire, 4 S7 rending shots, 6/12 S5 shots, and perils causing missiles. You loose your transporting a small scoring henchman squad but you gain a unit which can contest or kill just about any troops selection off of their objective, including enough of a blobb squad to pull it off an objective. Crowe is a weird one as the more numerous the unit he engages the better but if he runs into anything with even a decent melee character in it he is done for.

Mephy can and will run by himself just fine. If you are reasonably competent at jumping from LoS blocker to LoS blocker most opponents will find him hard to kill at range. This does however require LoS blocking terrain and I would not recommend biomancy on him as a jump pack movement helps his biggest problem. Mephy needs to select his fights. Mephy is horrible against Sv2+ opponents which means most of the dedicated CC IC can take him in a duel. He is also super expensive so just tying him up with cheap challenges is a valid counter. If you want to run Mephy with biomancy I would highly recommend a stormraven as it lets him chose his battles. The BA stormraven is also excellent AA and anti tank and is the key feature of the only decent BA competitive build. Mephy is a very weird one and is entirely a bully. He is best used against high damage poor defense melee characters and small high toughness units (wraithguard, wraithknight, Tyranid MC, etc.).

I've seen Crowe run many times as just in a stormraven hiding. He's not durable at all.

Mephiston on the other hand definitely does not need a transport at all when he can fly.

You can't put Mephiston in a LR, afaik, 'cause LR are dedicated transport for BA and can't be bought as independent heavy vehicle. AFAIK, of course

you can put him on 'raven but that's mean if you're lucky he come on the table at turn 2, assault at turn 3 (and that probably mean you will need to hover with 'raven, thus condemning them to an horrible death).
However, you can also transport a Dreadnaught on the stormraven, and so you can charge with both him and a 2x blood talon furioso or dc dreadnaught

i used Mephiston some time, and always used codex powers; with fleet and Wings of Sanguinius he almost everytime gone to killing spree, save when my adversary get a veeeeeery lucky roll and kill him with 5 ratling on first rurn (@#£$%&) or when i'm stupid and got distracted by some foes while other sneak behind and stole my relic ;_;
that's not sure, however, 'cause he could spend his time to shoot mephiston out of the way or just flee onthe other side of the tabletop

a raven could be a good thing... or a bad thing, it depends on your luck on reserve :\

Concerning Mephiston and powers; the digital codex (which came out well after the FAQ) gives him three rolls if he swaps out his standard powers.

Crowe is murder to hordes of chaff units like Boyz, Cultists, Gaunts, Guardsmen, and lesser Daemons.

Against anything that can punch worth a damn in CC, not so much.

You mostly get crowe because you want purifiers as troops, and you get purifiers because you want a lot of psycannons.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Stormraven mean earliest turn 3 assault. That means max of 3 units said character can mutilate. Not necessarily a bad thing though.

Turn 1 or 2 with a Landing pad?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kain wrote:
Against anything that can punch worth a damn in CC, not so much.

What are you talking about?

Bloodthirsters, Vect, Calgar all hide from GK Champions like little girls...nobody wants to lose their all star HQ to Heroic Sacrifice.

 ductvader wrote:


What are you talking about?

Bloodthirsters, Vect, Calgar all hide from GK Champions like little girls...nobody wants to lose their all star HQ to Heroic Sacrifice.

I believe the reference is to units capable of CC, rather than characters.

For example, Crowe vs Gaunts with toxin sacs? Dead.

Warriors with rending claws? Dead.

A mob of boyz? Dead.

50 strong guard blob? Dead.

He's two wounds at T4. Re-rollable 2+ or not, volume of attacks will bring him down. Assuming he even gets to CC on Two 2+ save wounds.

That's a fair point.

He is saving 97% of Armor Saves though...I once held up a Crusader Squad for 4 turns with just him.

Daemonettes...Two turns and then dead...that rending.

He's extremely niche. So, yeah, take him for purifiers, but never plan for him to kill anything.

Now on the off-chance your opponent is fielding Ultramarines from C:SM and spams tacticals, Crowe will go to town.

Sidenote...It's hilarious that Crowe can wound a Marine on a 4 and outright kill him while wounding a Guardman on a 3 gives that man a 1/3 chance of living.

 bocatt wrote:

They are incredibly hard to put down even on their own

Crowe is incredibly easy to put down on his own.

2 T4 wounds is not exactly impressive.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

 bocatt wrote:

They are incredibly hard to put down even on their own

Crowe is incredibly easy to put down on his own.

2 T4 wounds is not exactly impressive.

Doesn't it take like 430ish Marine Attacks to take him down?

Hitting on 5s, Wounding on 4s and a 2+rerollable armor save.

EDIT: Maybe they hit on 4s...

Crowe is primarily a horde killer in CC.

His armor save and special abilities are punishing to enemies with bad saves and bad armor penetration capabilities.

Put him against something that can pierce those saves with reliability after his flames have a go and he's a goner.

As the others said. Toss him against 30 termagants or basic cultists? He'll eat them.

Put him against Nobz and he's going to be goo on someone's power klaw.

He's really just a purifier +1 who doesn't even get a psycannon.

Draigo is by far the superior beatstick (except against 2+ saves as Crowe gets quite a number of rending hits) as far as GKs go.

Crowe's rerollable saves are balanced out by Draigo having an actual invulnerable save and having more wounds.

Also, Draigo murders nearly every psyker and daemon character in the game short of a few cheese builds in CC (save for those with 2+ saves). Even Skarbrand goes down like a chump to Draigo.

tl;dr You don't take Crowe because he's awesome, but because he lets you take awesome units. If you want to murder things, Draigo is usually better for that.

 ductvader wrote:

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

 bocatt wrote:

They are incredibly hard to put down even on their own

Crowe is incredibly easy to put down on his own.

2 T4 wounds is not exactly impressive.

Doesn't it take like 430ish Marine Attacks to take him down?

Hitting on 5s, Wounding on 4s and a 2+rerollable armor save.

EDIT: Maybe they hit on 4s...

He's more than likely talking about simply shooting him down since his re-roll saves stance only applies in close combat and he isn't an IC so he can't hide himself in units like other HQ choices. Basically you leave him out in the open and he'll die pretty quickly to a rapid-firing bolter squad or a shoota boy mob in short order. You'd have to waste a transport on him just so he doesn't get shot to pieces by any fast-moving or outflanking units.

 Kain wrote:
f you want to murder things, Draigo is usually better for that.

Heck, Standard Champions and Grand Masters too...I've taken Draigo all of 3 or so times...in my experience a Standard Grand Master is going to be nearly as effective. And while taking a Champion can be difficult between Grand Masters (Draigo and Mordrack), Coteaz, and generic Inquisitors...he'll beat the crap out of most units as well, while buffing and hiding in a GK unit.

Crowe has an invul. Iron Halo.

The problem is that he can't join a unit and has a decent chance of dying to overwatch from a horde.

Yeah, he has a halo. But massed Bolters won't care about that. Or splinter rifles. Or lasguns. Heck, Ratlings. I'm putting it out there, in cover, five Ratlings have a decent chance to kill Crowe.
Can someone Mathhammer that? I think it's 0.2 wounds/turn without Rending, with a 5% chance to Rend per Ratling.

Feth it, someone do the Mathhammer properly, please