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I had the fortune to play Assault Cents last night so I figured it would be a good time to chat about them and the meta warping they will do. Currently Assault Centurions are trending really hard - especially for Raven Guard. Most people at least bring them with 11" flamers and sprinkle some other trait like +1 advance / charge.

This places Cents in a place where they can't be easily charged unless Overwatch blocking is available (unlikely for IF, at least). Smash caps suffer for other reasons, too:

1) If they don't have D4 he will require twice as many attacks
2) Even at S8 he'll wound on 3s
3) AP3 still leaves them with a 5+

6 * .666 * .666 * .666 = 1.77 wounding hits

This means even with a damage 4 hammer you MIGHT kill two (a whopping 104 points). When the rest swing back (S10 AP4 D3) -- the smash captain dies (twice over). And, if smash is more threatening he may get sniped by Eliminators.

But, Centurions are slow. Like....really slow. What's the issue?

This stuff:


Even a knight charging can struggle. Unless they rock a Thunderstrike the Cents will have a 5+ save and the knight is force out of using stomps. Any non-Gallant Knight will swing 4 times, which means fewer chances to kill models than Smash. Those remaining (unsupported) 4 Cents cause 17 damage removing all save from Knights...

So, hopefully its a little more clear why these chonky bois are a clear and present danger. Rocking a pile of heavy bolters that won't benefit from the super doc will be a dangerous risk to face. And for everyone else -- bring overwatch blocking or strong anti-tank. Middling weapons will not save you.

Oh! I almost forgot.

Yes they seem to be very popular around here. No idea how people got them though, because our store had 2 boxs. And I saw them being played by 8 different people.

Also they are horrible to counter charge, unless you have a no overwatch ability. eating all those bolters and flamers is a big problem.

This is why I hate the codex supplement structure.

Assault cents are clearly not a problem when they can't shoot their flamers 11" and infiltrate. But, under the right circumstances, they can, COMPLETELY changing what the unit does and how you deal with it.

Imagine a world where some DE subfaction could take a max-sized unit of Grotesques, zoink them up off the board and plop them down 9" away for a completely guaranteed charge turn 1, for the low low cost of a warlord trait.

That's outwardly ludicrous. Grotesques would HAVE to have their damage output nerfed, and it would be the fault of the subfaction, not the unit itself. For every other subfaction, Grots would be a reasonable unit. But not for the Coven of Immaculate horsegak!

If Assault cents don't get some kind of nerf for this outside of RG in either chapter approved or some other balance action, I'll eat my hat. If GW even considers removing this ludicrous ability instead, I'll eat another hat.

This is why supplement subfaction-locked game changing contetnt like this is fething. stupid.

Well they are old models. Maybe they will get nerfed in the CA, or go legend soon.

Assault Cents don't need a nerf just because they can actually actually shoot their Flamers in a particular setup.

Sounds like fodder for Plasma Guns.

Feels like the list that won Blood and Glory this weekend might be relevant to this thread; Imperial Fists Thunderfires and Whirlwinds mixed with Raven Guard Centurions. It's a bit odd to say that the Centurions will cause IF to struggle when there's nothing preventing you from combining them...

Wouldn't a rhino do pretty good to soak up an ow?

When you get hit by a unit of them, 3 scout dreads and two or four units shoting at you from pod droping down turn 1, there maybe no units with plasma left after turn 1.

 Desubot wrote:
Wouldn't a rhino do pretty good to soak up an ow?

Unfortunately no one takes those and you'd need it to be full health. The flamers alone would put 4 or 5 wounds on it - probably up to 7 with the hurricanes. And even if you do you need a LOT to take down the unit if even one smash captain can't get the job done.

I... I don't even know what my mono Tyranid list could do to survive that short of going first?

I mean my hordes of termagants are weaker than ever and TFC can slow hormagaunts down so much I get bottle necked into my own deployment zone.

 Burnage wrote:
Feels like the list that won Blood and Glory this weekend might be relevant to this thread; Imperial Fists Thunderfires and Whirlwinds mixed with Raven Guard Centurions. It's a bit odd to say that the Centurions will cause IF to struggle when there's nothing preventing you from combining them...

I thought you lost the super doctrines if you mix chapters? Surely there is little benefit to bringing IF artillery without the super doctrine?

 Burnage wrote:
Feels like the list that won Blood and Glory this weekend might be relevant to this thread; Imperial Fists Thunderfires and Whirlwinds mixed with Raven Guard Centurions. It's a bit odd to say that the Centurions will cause IF to struggle when there's nothing preventing you from combining them...

You lose super doc then. Also, consider the mirror match. How does that IF list fight itself? Tremor shells to make them crawl, but you're going to drop a lot of CP with little damage. No sure why Apothecaries haven't showed up to heal them.

the_scotsman wrote:
This is why I hate the codex supplement structure.

Assault cents are clearly not a problem when they can't shoot their flamers 11" and infiltrate. But, under the right circumstances, they can, COMPLETELY changing what the unit does and how you deal with it.

Imagine a world where some DE subfaction could take a max-sized unit of Grotesques, zoink them up off the board and plop them down 9" away for a completely guaranteed charge turn 1, for the low low cost of a warlord trait.

That's outwardly ludicrous. Grotesques would HAVE to have their damage output nerfed, and it would be the fault of the subfaction, not the unit itself. For every other subfaction, Grots would be a reasonable unit. But not for the Coven of Immaculate horsegak!

If Assault cents don't get some kind of nerf for this outside of RG in either chapter approved or some other balance action, I'll eat my hat. If GW even considers removing this ludicrous ability instead, I'll eat another hat.

This is why supplement subfaction-locked game changing contetnt like this is fething. stupid.

Yeah it is beyond dumb. In a standard marine list without a method to turn 1 mobilize cents even for their bargain cost assault cents aren't very good. In some matchups taking them will mean they are a 100% useless unit. Therefor you can't take them...Plus the LR is another issue with them. They charge you 285 points for a unit that can't even deploy cents on turn 2 into combat vs a gunline. Yet this warlord trait does it turn 1? So I assume this warlord trait is worth nearly 300 points right? At this point I am just done with stratagems. They ruin this game. As well as these stupid sub-faction rules. I miss the days when everyone got a single trait.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Burnage wrote:
Feels like the list that won Blood and Glory this weekend might be relevant to this thread; Imperial Fists Thunderfires and Whirlwinds mixed with Raven Guard Centurions. It's a bit odd to say that the Centurions will cause IF to struggle when there's nothing preventing you from combining them...

You lose super doc then. Also, consider the mirror match. How does that IF list fight itself? Tremor shells to make them crawl, but you're going to drop a lot of CP with little damage. No sure why Apothecaries haven't showed up to heal them.

Cause an assault cent is cheaper than an apoth.

Now all we need is a "White Scars Are Teh OPs, Woe Is USSSSSSSSSS" thread to hit for the cycle.

Don't let me down dakka.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Wouldn't a rhino do pretty good to soak up an ow?

Unfortunately no one takes those and you'd need it to be full health. The flamers alone would put 4 or 5 wounds on it - probably up to 7 with the hurricanes. And even if you do you need a LOT to take down the unit if even one smash captain can't get the job done.

I mean with all this talk of charging spiky bois, its just a though.

but why even play at their strengths. IF best thing is their shooting so im not sure why charging was even brought up.

Blow through them with a hellblaster fortress wall. im not mathing it out but im pretty sure it would do a pretty good dent.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Cause an assault cent is cheaper than an apoth.

Good point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sterling191 wrote:
Now all we need is a "White Scars Are Teh OPs, Woe Is USSSSSSSSSS" thread to hit for the cycle.

Don't let me down dakka.

Please don't mistake this as a "this is OP" thread. My intention is inform people of the interesting little facets springing up around the new marine books so they might be able to adjust a little better rather than being totally caught off guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:


Blow through them with a hellblaster fortress wall. im not mathing it out but im pretty sure it would do a pretty good dent.

Agreed - hence the caution about taking low AP over high AP.

My friend plays assault cents in his RG. One unit of 6, 2 of 3. My Chaos Knights have a hard time with them. Unless I get a chance to strike first. Lots of avenger shots usually do the trick. In melee my Castigator can do some damage, but that 4th wound makes it harder to squad wipe even with 12 sword attacks at -4 AP.

Deadalus your point about needing AP is mute though.

IF have AP. Stalker bolt guns hit at -3 with ignore cover and 2 damage vs 4 wound models is perfect. No reason not to bring at least 15 of these. Wounding on 5's is not a problem. Plus they likely will have cents of their own with the mortal wound spam ability. It really is a good thing that only RG have access to this because if it was IF that had access - pretty much any unit in the game would be auto deleted turn 1 by a billion mortals.

If I was to build an IF list I would probably bring 30 SBR intercessors and literally every other unit in the army would have ether a TFC/HB/Assasult cannon/or Onslaught cannon or eliminator sniper.

Hopefully 9th edition will just get rid of weapon range all together.

Infinite Range
Everything Wounds Everything.

Winning.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Deadalus your point about needing AP is mute though.

IF have AP. Stalker bolt guns hit at -3 with ignore cover and 2 damage vs 4 wound models is perfect. No reason not to bring at least 15 of these. Wounding on 5's is not a problem. Plus they likely will have cents of their own with the mortal wound spam ability. It really is a good thing that only RG have access to this because if it was IF that had access - pretty much any unit in the game would be auto deleted turn 1 by a billion mortals.

If I was to build an IF list I would probably bring 30 SBR intercessors and literally every other unit in the army would have ether a TFC/HB/Assasult cannon/or Onslaught cannon or eliminator sniper.

It's still a stark contrast from IF bringing Heavy Bolters and Asscans expecting to not have to have problems. 30 SBRs (over 500 points) kill 2 a turn.

And note I'm not saying these things are unbeatable. I'm saying prepare your lists accordingly.

 Togusa wrote:
Hopefully 9th edition will just get rid of weapon range all together.

Infinite Range
Everything Wounds Everything.

Winning.

With any luck we can at least eliminate one problem in 9th. Just give every army access to the 200-300 WL traits army traits and stratagems and relics and say go for it! Everyone has access to everything. Then at least everyone is OP.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Deadalus your point about needing AP is mute though.

IF have AP. Stalker bolt guns hit at -3 with ignore cover and 2 damage vs 4 wound models is perfect. No reason not to bring at least 15 of these. Wounding on 5's is not a problem. Plus they likely will have cents of their own with the mortal wound spam ability. It really is a good thing that only RG have access to this because if it was IF that had access - pretty much any unit in the game would be auto deleted turn 1 by a billion mortals.

If I was to build an IF list I would probably bring 30 SBR intercessors and literally every other unit in the army would have ether a TFC/HB/Assasult cannon/or Onslaught cannon or eliminator sniper.

IF tactics only increase damage vs vehicles. Unless stalker bolt rifles now just do 2 damage? They might, tbh I forget with how many freaking buffs they've slathered on marines at this point.

the_scotsman wrote:


IF tactics only increase damage vs vehicles. Unless stalker bolt rifles now just do 2 damage? They might, tbh I forget with how many freaking buffs they've slathered on marines at this point.

Yes, 2 damage.

For my Eldar, going to start looking at spamming starcannons again I guess.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:


IF tactics only increase damage vs vehicles. Unless stalker bolt rifles now just do 2 damage? They might, tbh I forget with how many freaking buffs they've slathered on marines at this point.

Yes, 2 damage.

Sure, why not. I dunno, I feel like they might still confuse new players. Just combine the profiles into a generic "bolt rifles" profile that's Rapid Fire 3, 30" range, S4 AP-1 D2 and be done with it. Maybe someone will bring something other than marines to a tournament, we can't have that.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:


IF tactics only increase damage vs vehicles. Unless stalker bolt rifles now just do 2 damage? They might, tbh I forget with how many freaking buffs they've slathered on marines at this point.

Yes, 2 damage.

Sure, why not. I dunno, I feel like they might still confuse new players. Just combine the profiles into a generic "bolt rifles" profile that's Rapid Fire 3, 30" range, S4 AP-1 D2 and be done with it. Maybe someone will bring something other than marines to a tournament, we can't have that.

I think it distinguishes the options better than they used to be (the assault bolter is 3 shots now). The problems arise when people start applying other bonuses. Moving and shooting w/ reroll 1s makes the SBR king for IH. Getting up to D3 with IF, but no move and shoot. UM / RG / WS have no distinct synergy.

Whether or not these things are too strong is beyond the scope of this thread, but I do enjoy the different supplements carving out their niche.

This also might be a bad time to mention that SBRs can snipe with a stratagem.

The AP arms race is why vehicles without Invulnerable saves are bad.

Isn't this type of alpha list going to be heavily impacted by first turn? I would think if you go first against it that's a huge advantage for you.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The AP arms race is why vehicles without Invulnerable saves are bad.

I feel like that is a conundrum. Centurions stand despite having no invuln, but they also do so, because 2+ W4 is a weird place @ 52 points (for the common load out).

Allarus Custodians are W4 2+/5++, but both their melee and shooting is worse -- at 79 points. They're faster and come with their own deepstrike though. Honestly, Centurions may need to go down 1 attack as with the bonus they're rocking 4 on the first turn of combat. Either that or they may need to go up in points (or Custodians come down).