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How effective would running Mephiston be against GKs? Dark Eldar? His stat line looks unreal but no Eternal Warrior and No Invul. save make him liable to force weapons?

Well, force axes mainly, but any roll of a "1" on his artificer armor save will kill him.

My real issue(s) with him is that he's stuck at AP3, and that he can't join units. Oh and he only generates 2 book powers if he switches out his 3 BA BA powers.

He was an auto-take almost in 5th, but in 6th, I kinda stay away. In some ways Dante is actually better now because he can make 2+ armor elites troops. But Dante got hosed by no Eternal Warrior.

In general, BA special characters are not so special. I think the most competitive one is now Tycho. Yes, Sanguinius help us, Tycho is now our best special character.

What makes Tycho so special?

Tycho is useful for his board wide ld10, 2+ armor, sternguard ammo and CCW. Good at a lot of things but not amazing either, solid choice.

Mephiston is still a beast if you keep him away from ap2 squads… which often happen to be the 2+ save squads… ez/pz don’t attack hammer time. There are three things that make him still a force to be feared.
1) Transfixing gaze = Challenge champion, allows you to target a IC at the start of combat and either gain a large advantage or make them double guess about who they will challenge you with.
2) Master Lvl 3, depending on local rule judges this can either be 2-3 core rule book powers, 2bio/1div for a beatstick or 2tele/1div for support. Very versatile.
3) One of the few things that can take a flying transport without worrying about crashing.

IMO: I only run the man in a serious tournament setting if I can take 3 rule book powers.

Well. He's cheaper than the rest, at 175 pts. He gets sternguard special ammo, so he fits well there. He's got the usual 2+/4++ saves, which is good. He's also got the leadership trick which is good.

But his big trick for 6th edition is his Dead Man's Hand. He gets attacks that outright ignore armor saves on his own initiative. So he is actually better in hand to hand overall than Mephiston (AP3) or Dante (Init 1), especially for the points. He still loses to TH/SS terminators, but who doesn't? Although for big games, you can ally with C:SM and get null zone..........

Tycho is a good candidate to ride a drop pod with Corbs and 8 sternguards. But like with all BA units, you have to be careful, because our model count sucks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hazal wrote:
Tycho is useful for his board wide ld10, 2+ armor, sternguard ammo and CCW. Good at a lot of things but not amazing either, solid choice.

Mephiston is still a beast if you keep him away from ap2 squads… which often happen to be the 2+ save squads… ez/pz don’t attack hammer time. There are three things that make him still a force to be feared.
1) Transfixing gaze = Challenge champion, allows you to target a IC at the start of combat and either gain a large advantage or make them double guess about who they will challenge you with.
2) Master Lvl 3, depending on local rule judges this can either be 2-3 core rule book powers, 2bio/1div for a beatstick or 2tele/1div for support. Very versatile.
3) One of the few things that can take a flying transport without worrying about crashing.

IMO: I only run the man in a serious tournament setting if I can take 3 rule book powers.

The BA FAQ is quite clear about how many powers Mephiston gets. The number is two, not three. Any tournament or opponent that lets someone use 3 powers on Mephiston is cheating. I hate it too, but
that's the way it is.

For 250 pts, I don't want to have to keep said model away from 2+ armor and force weapons. Oh and plasma...........


Automatically Appended Next Post:
All that being said, if Mephiston were an IC, I would still use him, because then I could go telepathy and cast a 2 charge and a 1 charge power in the same turn. But nope........

That's why I said local meta, my LFGS has gone with three due to the next faq which stated his mastery level 3... yea I know they need to clarify it to the point where it cant be disputed.

Points of a model vs what you can throw it against is really moot, I can spend 250 on a TH/SS blob of terminators but I will keep them away from a blob of Boyz. Meph is still one of the best MEQ 10 man assassins out there. In 5th he excelled in that role and fell to terminator/pw/plasma squads, that hasent changed as much as it has been highlighted in 6th.

This paragraph tells you exactly how it works:

"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."

If Mephy switches out powers, he gets two powers. It really isn't debatable. Yes, it sucks, but I'm not sure how much it would even help him to get 3 powers since hes' not an IP.

UnknownUser wrote:
How effective would running Mephiston be against GKs? Dark Eldar? His stat line looks unreal but no Eternal Warrior and No Invul. save make him liable to force weapons?

Don't know why people keep going about eternal warrior. How many S12 do we get in the game? None afaik so no ID

There are other sources of instant death...........

 Bacms wrote:

UnknownUser wrote:
How effective would running Mephiston be against GKs? Dark Eldar? His stat line looks unreal but no Eternal Warrior and No Invul. save make him liable to force weapons?

Don't know why people keep going about eternal warrior. How many S12 do we get in the game? None afaik so no ID

Force Weapons, Huskblades, Boneswords, and much less likely: Dire Swords, D-Cannons, Wraithcannons.

I remember one time my Meph got IronArm and Endurance... good times.

Another thing to consider that he's a 250 pt investment that will likely kill himself vs Tyranids and Eldar if you try to use powers. The roll 3D6 mechanic is so annoying.........

Martel732 wrote:
Another thing to consider that he's a 250 pt investment that will likely kill himself vs Tyranids and Eldar if you try to use powers. The roll 3D6 mechanic is so annoying.........

Those mechanics aren't the same, which you may already know, but aren't implying.

Shadow in the Warp makes you roll on 3d6 total, but only causes Perils on double 1's and double 6's (or triples since that's implicitly a double).

Runes of Warding makes you roll on 3d6 total, and causes Perils on double 1's, double 6's, and any result 12 or greater. There's room to argue that Runes can cause two Perils on the same roll as well.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Bacms wrote:

UnknownUser wrote:
How effective would running Mephiston be against GKs? Dark Eldar? His stat line looks unreal but no Eternal Warrior and No Invul. save make him liable to force weapons?

Don't know why people keep going about eternal warrior. How many S12 do we get in the game? None afaik so no ID

Force Weapons, Huskblades, Boneswords, and much less likely: Dire Swords, D-Cannons, Wraithcannons.

Implosion missiles.....
Fleshguantlets....

 Exergy wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Bacms wrote:

UnknownUser wrote:
How effective would running Mephiston be against GKs? Dark Eldar? His stat line looks unreal but no Eternal Warrior and No Invul. save make him liable to force weapons?

Don't know why people keep going about eternal warrior. How many S12 do we get in the game? None afaik so no ID

Force Weapons, Huskblades, Boneswords, and much less likely: Dire Swords, D-Cannons, Wraithcannons.

Implosion missiles.....
Fleshguantlets....

Hexrifles, shattershards...

Diabetes, cancer.

Broodlords psyker power.....

 hazal wrote:
I remember one time my Meph got IronArm and Endurance... good times.

Iron arm and warp speed was my best, str and toughness of 8 for most of the game and a few times in 10 and 8 base attacks, plus eternal warrior....

Corollax wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Bacms wrote:

UnknownUser wrote:
How effective would running Mephiston be against GKs? Dark Eldar? His stat line looks unreal but no Eternal Warrior and No Invul. save make him liable to force weapons?

Don't know why people keep going about eternal warrior. How many S12 do we get in the game? None afaik so no ID

Force Weapons, Huskblades, Boneswords, and much less likely: Dire Swords, D-Cannons, Wraithcannons.

Implosion missiles.....
Fleshguantlets....

Hexrifles, shattershards...

hexrifles yes
shattershards no, shattershards dont cause ID, they remove you from play.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Another thing to consider that he's a 250 pt investment that will likely kill himself vs Tyranids and Eldar if you try to use powers. The roll 3D6 mechanic is so annoying.........

Those mechanics aren't the same, which you may already know, but aren't implying.

Shadow in the Warp makes you roll on 3d6 total, but only causes Perils on double 1's and double 6's (or triples since that's implicitly a double).

Runes of Warding makes you roll on 3d6 total, and causes Perils on double 1's, double 6's, and any result 12 or greater. There's room to argue that Runes can cause two Perils on the same roll as well.

Actually, its been forever since I actually took on Tyranids, so I assumed they were as bad as the runes of warding. I was wrong. It happens from time to time.

meFEASTon