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http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2012/12/08/video-battle-report-marines-vs-harliestar-1750pts-bao-test

In this game, Facepuncher takes his Blood Angels/Ultramarines out against Frankie’s Harliestar in this 1750pt BAO Test Match.

Enjoy!

Good report, thanks for posting it. Crazy to see that list take such a beating after how well it's been doing of late.

Look forward to the next one.

Yeah, if you can hit them before they can get Fortuned up, they are pretty vulnerable. With Vect though, they go first about 75% of the time.

Wow Frankie got smashed pretty badly. I would definitely like to see how this game would've gone had he gone first.

Nice report! Enjoyed it!

Glad you guys enjoyed it!

And had Frankie Gone first, he would have taken a lot less wounds and counter attacked with a lot more force. Dave's saves were also red hot that game.

Lysander and Sternguard in a pod is a pretty scary unit (not cheap though). I didn't realize he had 4 wounds until this, dude is a tank. Just make sure you keep the sarge alive so he doesn't get tied up in a challenge with a lamb.

What kind of necron lists do you see around you? Zahndrekh (to remove HnR) plus a decent sized scarab unit could prob give the harlie-star a headache for a couple turns, and while the quad gun will take out one flyer, the rest of the army is pretty fragile and could probably be mostly wiped by the fliers's/passengers alpha strike, once the harlies are locked up. (something similar to what to the guy who won best general at DaBoyz used)

The problem with the Harlies (one of the MANY problems with it, haha) is that it has Hit and Run. You can't pin the bastards down! hahaha

If someone had Zandrehk, that obviously would mitigate that problem a ton. Fuegan would still be insta gibbing them with Smash, but you would certainly hold them up for at least a few rounds of combat which can make all the difference.

We don't see him much though, honestly. The most common special character around these parts is Imotehk.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and yeah, Lysander is a beast! He has been a total Boss since he came out, people just got all sweet on Vulcan for the most part.

Link appears to be broken for me.

http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2012/12/08/video-battle-report-marines-vs-harliestar-1750pts-bao-test-match/

I just tried it and it worked for me. I reposted the link for you.

 Reecius wrote:
The problem with the Harlies (one of the MANY problems with it, haha) is that it has Hit and Run. You can't pin the bastards down! hahaha

If someone had Zandrehk, that obviously would mitigate that problem a ton. Fuegan would still be insta gibbing them with Smash, but you would certainly hold them up for at least a few rounds of combat which can make all the difference.

We don't see him much though, honestly. The most common special character around these parts is Imotehk.

Yeah, I play DE and run allied harlies and farseer along with Baron and beasts for 2 annoyingly tough units with Hit and Run so I know all about how useful it is (and how often it catches people off guard, even people I play all the time). Zahndrekh taking HnR away is super annoying for my army (plus I forget he can do that sometimes lol).

I'm not a huge fan of Immotek, sometimes he's amazing and sometimes his nightfight craps out on T2 (even with a chronotek) and his lightning doesn't hit a single thing, while Zahndrekh is always useful. 4+ seize is cool but with a flier list going second isn't all that bad, hell depending on the mission and if they have a lot of fliers it can be better to go second.

Hey man, great report as always. Poor harleystar though.. :(

1) do you think that lists like Frankie's are always going to be hurt by alpha strike capable armies?

2) do you know why facepuncher went with lysander instead of libby with prescience? I'm guessing the eldar had runes of warding somewhere in there, so woulda hurt him in this case, and obviously less killy in CC, but a nice 100 points cheaper too ..

@Bugs_N_Orks

That is a really good combo, but I think the Baron's HnR only works with Hellions. No, just checked my book, he has it too, nice one! That is brutal.

Imotehk is a bit hit or miss, but when he is on, he is game winning. Against some armies, particularly MSU Mech lists, he can win the game by himself. With the increase in infantry lists, his usefulness has diminished, but he is still pretty solid.

You make a good point though, that Zandrehk is going to be more consistently useful.

@Lord PoPo

Thanks! Glad you liked the report.

Frankie's list is very vulnerable to the Alpha Strike, but he usually gets first turn thanks to Vect. I think it is a safe bet to assume first turn, however, he may have been wise to bubble wrap the unit too, just for insurance and to mitigate that first turn kick in the nuts that pretty much decided the game.

I think Facepuncher went with Lysander purely because of Lysander's boss status. He is such a beast in combat and his bolter drill ability really makes Sterguard go crazy. It is essentially presience, plus he himself will smash most things in combat.

I love Harlies a lot, however like has been said if you don't get first turn and the enemy has drop pods you better have them protected or they will wither under shooting as 5 up sucks. Fortune is what makes them amazing. Thanks for posting.

 Reecius wrote:
I think Facepuncher went with Lysander purely because of Lysander's boss status. He is such a beast in combat and his bolter drill ability really makes Sterguard go crazy. It is essentially presience, plus he himself will smash most things in combat.

I think more importantly than his boss smash-status is his 2+ armor save with 4 wounds (over a Libby's 2); keep him out front to tank for the Sternguard.

Loved the report, thanks for sharing. What is the noise that keeps popping up in the background? Sounds like some sort of power tool.

That's an airbrush if I'm not mistaken. You can see the red tank for it in a couple of shots.

 Unholy_Martyr wrote:
That's an airbrush if I'm not mistaken. You can see the red tank for it in a couple of shots.

Makes sense....airbrush in a hobby shop, not sure why I didn't think of that in the first place. Thanks, Detective!

It is indeed an airbrush compressor, we use ours on a daily basis for our painting projects. We're pretty much always trying to do multiple things at once so sometimes you get that background noise.

Glad you guys enjoyed the report! And yeah, Lysander is one of the best tank characters in the game. He is just beastly, and strength 10 attacks with +1 on the damage table are nothing to sneeze at, either.

You have to love Darnath - I think he's the best special character in the SM codex... Running him with Sternguard in a pod is brilliant!

 Reecius wrote:
It is indeed an airbrush compressor, we use ours on a daily basis for our painting projects. We're pretty much always trying to do multiple things at once so sometimes you get that background noise.

Glad you guys enjoyed the report! And yeah, Lysander is one of the best tank characters in the game. He is just beastly, and strength 10 attacks with +1 on the damage table are nothing to sneeze at, either.

Awesome report as usual.

And yah Lysander is ap2 with +1 to damage chart for tank destroying on a 4+ haha. And his rerolls for sternguard bolter ammo is just icing on the cake.

Thank you for the great battle report!

I am astonished as to how well the forces of the imperium did this game! This is the very first battle report that I have seen in 6th edition to use more than just 1 or 2 drop pods and being able to Alpha Strike the enemy deployment area seems like a lot of fun!

Even then, if he had put them in cover, Sternguard have ammo that ignores cover, so the best the harlies could do is have 5+ rerollable inv save, not much would have remained even with the fortune...

I have really been enjoying SM this edition. They are really fun to play.

And yeah, the Sternguard ignoring cover is really, really good.

Were the BA assault squad in combat with the harliestar (well Vect, Fuegan and Eldrad)? Otherwise Eldrad shouldn't have be run down due to Lysander being in Terminator Armour.

Also did you not have fortune up when Vect failed his shadowfield?

 Lord PoPo wrote:
Hey man, great report as always. Poor harleystar though.. :(

1) do you think that lists like Frankie's are always going to be hurt by alpha strike capable armies?

2) do you know why facepuncher went with lysander instead of libby with prescience? I'm guessing the eldar had runes of warding somewhere in there, so woulda hurt him in this case, and obviously less killy in CC, but a nice 100 points cheaper too ..

SM librarians don't get divination so he'd still need to fill the mandatory HQ slot for allies.

Overall I'm not sure the Harliestar is all that great, thanks largely to games like this. If the Harliestar player doesn't go first, several armies-- most notably many Drop Pod armies-- can deliver a hard punch that the Harliestar may not be able to come back from.

Further, there are a lot of units that seem to counter the Harliestar pretty hard. Any Ignores Cover barrages-- most notably Whirlwinds and Griffons, but also the Tau Airbursting Fragmentation Projector and various other units with Perfect Timing cast on them-- can snipe the Shadowseer and remove the Harliestar's strong cover save, making the unit much more vulnerable.

Several other units are also problems for the Harliestar-- Space Marine Librarians can cast Null Zone, greatly increasing the vulnerability of both the Archon and the Harlequins themselves. Space Wolf Rune Priests make casting Fortune (which the unit relies on) unreliable. Nemesor Zahndrekh can remove the Harliestar's ability to Hit and Run and then use other units to tarpit them. Grey Knight Stormravens can snipe off the Shadowseer with a single missile hit.

Overall, the Harliestar is very strong against people who don't know how it works and don't have any of the things that do major damage to it, but IMO it has too many potential counters to be a truly competitive build. This isn't even getting into its issues with Tank Shock and Focus Fire/Line of Sight sniping...

@Captain Jay

I wasn't playing so I actually can't answer your questions. I haven't played in a bat rep in a while actually, been too busy running the shop.

@Kingsley

It is still a top tier army (Frankie's record with it against a wide variety of armies and players attests to that) but it does have some weaknesses. The odds of Alpha Striking it though, are very low due to Vect, about 1/4

Griffons don't ignore cover, I think you mean the Colossus. But yes, Barrage weapons are really effective against this list, which is why Frankie always tries to kill them first. Drop Pods are good too, but I assure you Frankie won't let something like that happen twice. That was a painful lesson learned, he and I were talking about it after the game.

So far in competitive play, he has had few to know problems. He barely, barely lost to Jy2 in the finals at the Golden Throne GT on a single roll of the last die of the game. And Jy2's Wraith/Flyer Necron list was about as good as the get.

 Reecius wrote:
@Kingsley

It is still a top tier army (Frankie's record with it against a wide variety of armies and players attests to that) but it does have some weaknesses. The odds of Alpha Striking it though, are very low due to Vect, about 1/4

By my calculation it's actually 1/3 (1/4 chance for opponent to go first and not get seized on, 1/12 chance of opponent going second and seizing), disregarding any chance of the opponent bringing Coteaz, Sicarius, Bjorn, Vect, etc.

 Reecius wrote:
Griffons don't ignore cover, I think you mean the Colossus.

Haha, you're right-- I get my IG artillery units that don't have models mixed up a lot!

 Reecius wrote:
But yes, Barrage weapons are really effective against this list, which is why Frankie always tries to kill them first. Drop Pods are good too, but I assure you Frankie won't let something like that happen twice. That was a painful lesson learned, he and I were talking about it after the game.

That's fair. I know I've gotten a lot better at defending against Deep Strikers after a few games against them.

 Reecius wrote:
So far in competitive play, he has had few to know problems. He barely, barely lost to Jy2 in the finals at the Golden Throne GT on a single roll of the last die of the game. And Jy2's Wraith/Flyer Necron list was about as good as the get.

I don't think this is because the list itself is fully competitive but rather because it is not understood. I do not think Harliestar is a serious competitor against people who have prepared a response to it; while it is certainly a factor in competitive planning I don't think it is a truly competitive list in itself but rather a potential "spoiler" list. The fact that it has been successful in tournament play IMO is more reflective of the fact that the meta is unsettled than the fact that the list itself is strong; as with Nob Bikers, I think that it is too "one-trick" for competitive play in a developed metagame.

The Harliestar is an anomaly of the game. Just like Draigowing was back when the new GK dex just came out. From an analytical perspective, it appeared to be a one-dimensional build (or 1-trick pony build as some would call it) and many of the more experienced players (critics), including I, were saying that it couldn't compete against a more balanced army. That while it will dominate armies not equipped to deal with it, it had some severe short-comings against the better and more balanced armies with the necessary tools to play against it. And then most of the successful GK tournament armies turned out to be either Draigowing or Coteaz-Inquisition.

The secret to their success is to surround the deathstar with good complementary support units. Because the real weakness of deathstar armies are the supporting characters. That's how you usually deal with these types of armies if you can't deal with the deathstar itself head-on. However, Frankie has tweaked his list such that now, his supporting characters (i.e. the troops) are virtually impossible to kill without super mobility. His jetbikes come in from reserves and they can move up to 48"!!! You can't catch those suckers, and any guns trained on them just lets his deathstar creep closer to your army unmolested. It is truly a difficult army to face. I played against his Harliestar at the Golden Throne GT. At first, I thought this would be a good matchup for me because my opponent really didn't have much in terms of anti-air. It ended up to be a tough, tough fight and probably the 2nd toughest matchup for me at the tournament. After playing against it twice, I can see why people hate to play against it....it is just a really tough army to face. But if you don't think it is balanced enough to win tournaments, you will be in for a rude awakening if you should ever face it. It isn't invincible especially if you've got the right tools, but it is just a b*tch playing against an army with re-rollable 2+ armour/cover saves and with troops that you will almost never be able to catch.

 jy2 wrote:
But if you don't think it is balanced enough to win tournaments, you will be in for a rude awakening if you should ever face it.

I certainly think it can win tournaments, but I think that's largely due to nonadaptation. I actually think Draigowing is similar. Overall I think Draigowing is pretty clearly not a "serious" army, and its wins are due to people not knowing what to do against it or not taking the necessary countermeasures. Nob Bikers are also a good example of this type of army.

It's important to note that these non-balanced lists can still win. In fact, they do so pretty regularly. If you want to win a tournament, I think this type of list is actually a good choice. Many people don't know what to do against these lists or don't have the right tools to win against them.

But IMO this is because 40k does not have a very serious competitive scene and even in advanced tournaments many people are unfamiliar with the metagame. In a developed competitive environment, you have to assume people will know the strengths and weaknesses of potential opposing builds, especially ones that are discussed online, and take appropriate choices to maximize their ability to deal with them.

Thus, I advocate taking a more balanced force, as unbalanced armies only grow worse as more people learn about them and begin planning to deal with them. In the short term, they are very strong, but in the long term I think they generally become competitively invalid. Few would advocate Nob Bikers or Draigowing these days...

 Kingsley wrote:

I certainly think it can win tournaments, but I think that's largely due to nonadaptation. I actually think Draigowing is similar. Overall I think Draigowing is pretty clearly not a "serious" army, and its wins are due to people not knowing what to do against it or not taking the necessary countermeasures. Nob Bikers are also a good example of this type of army.

It's more than that. Even TAC armies adapted to fight this army will have a hard time unless you actually gear your TAC army specifically to fight this army (in order words, tailor). And I say this after having both faced and played as Draigowing and nob bikers as well as having played against the Harliestar. Tactics will help against these armies, but then you are assuming that a good general of a deathstar army hasn't adjusted his tactics as well to shore up his weaknesses. A lot of people play these types of deathstar armies but they lose because they don't really understand their own armies. They think the army plays itself. That is far from the truth. Most deathstar armies take skill and a tactical mind to really play because the holes in their armies are bigger than in normal TAC armies. The good generals really understand the limitations of their armies and you can be sure they have done something about it, both in terms of designing their lists and also in their strategies. These armies then become a serious threat in tournament play. But because of their inherent weaknesses, they are also more likely to have hard-counters as well.

It's important to note that these non-balanced lists can still win. In fact, they do so pretty regularly. If you want to win a tournament, I think this type of list is actually a good choice. Many people don't know what to do against these lists or don't have the right tools to win against them.

But IMO this is because 40k does not have a very serious competitive scene and even in advanced tournaments many people are unfamiliar with the metagame. In a developed competitive environment, you have to assume people will know the strengths and weaknesses of potential opposing builds, especially ones that are discussed online, and take appropriate choices to maximize their ability to deal with them.

Thus, I advocate taking a more balanced force, as unbalanced armies only grow worse as more people learn about them and begin planning to deal with them. In the short term, they are very strong, but in the long term I think they generally become competitively invalid. Few would advocate Nob Bikers or Draigowing these days...

40K will never become truly competitive because firstly, it is just too expensive of a hobby and second, there are just too many combinations nowadays, especially taken into consideration allies. Only the hardcore with the resources to acquire the materials (i.e. the codices of the armies they don't play) or the savvy who knows how to find the materials on the internet will possess the knowledge necessary to be truly competitive. The majority of gamers only possess as much knowledge as the experience they gain from actually playing against others. This becomes like a bell curve in which probably only about 15% or less of the gamers truly understand the game.

I also advocate taking a more balanced force. However, an "intentionally" unbalanced army like deathstars won't necessarily get worse as more people learn how to play against them (assuming that people are still taking TAC lists and not resorting to completely tailoring). It just means that, due to their lack of balance, they will be more matchup-prone in a competitive setting than more traditional balanced TAC armies. On the flip side, the deathstar armies are also more likely to dominate their opponents as well.