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Hi my friend I play against takes a crazy annoying death star of 3 centurions with coteaz, Tigirius and a Chapter master on bike with shield eternal basically the cents are at the back, the two librarians in the middle and the bike at the front, tanking shots.

with all the psychic powers in there, he always seems to be able to get gates of infinity, prescience and either ignores cover/reroll failed wounds or to hits or something.

I run black templars and i'm really struggling against this unit, everything else in the army I can sort out quite easily but this one squad just jumps around the board with gates blasting me to death with the grav cannons, i reluctant to take vehicles as he just drops in so hes just in range and strips away the hull points. any recommendations on how to handle this?

Triple up on vindicators.

He can only kill one of them at a time (he could risk splitfiring, but that changes things from a Vindicator being certainly dead to two vindicators being maybe dead) and you only need one good hit to cripple the death-star.

That being said, the Gravstar is a brutal match-up against other power armor clad armies as a whole.

Before I would have recommended allying in some Medusas but they're currently having an existential crisis.

Thanks kain, I hadn't thought of that, I'll often run them in a heresy list too and I can get POTMS on vindicators in there and also take legion medusas to navigate around that. he certainly wouldn't expect a mechanized list anyway haha

anything AP2 with deepstrike will ruin him - plasmas or grav-guns in a drop pod for one example. vindicator would probably do well as there's a decent chance of squishing his bike chap through weight of 3+ saves (unless he has EW, it'll squish him in one). stormtalons are probably a good choice as well, as they can fly over and fire into the rear with assault cannons, any rends will do the job.

3 vindicators and 3 stormtalons, almost certainly destroy his deathstar and then still be competitive enough to fight the rest of his army.

 some bloke wrote:
anything AP2 with deepstrike will ruin him - plasmas or grav-guns in a drop pod for one example. vindicator would probably do well as there's a decent chance of squishing his bike chap through weight of 3+ saves (unless he has EW, it'll squish him in one). stormtalons are probably a good choice as well, as they can fly over and fire into the rear with assault cannons, any rends will do the job.

3 vindicators and 3 stormtalons, almost certainly destroy his deathstar and then still be competitive enough to fight the rest of his army.

Coteaz prevents deepstriking with 12" inches of Coteaz himself. If you run Drop Pod gravs (with a 9" range) you might not get shots off. If you run melta or plasma (in RF range), you have to drop accordingly, but it can be done. Remember to be within 12" of the squad he's with, not Coteaz, or you'll lose everything that drops in.

Legion of the Damned: plasma cannon, plasma gun, combi-plasma. I regularly field two units of these (sometimes one with a melta loadout) and it wrecks new power builds like knights and grav cent stars. They are expensive, but once they're down they have to be dealt with and can completely catch them off guard. Don't knock it til you try it lol!

2 Vindicators could work, 3 would be the safest. Something fast with plasma to hit the side though would be ideal as well, bypass the 3++ on the chapter master and hit the side, then the librarian and Coteaz fall to the plasma pretty quick.

xTHExCLINCHERx wrote:
Legion of the Damned: plasma cannon, plasma gun, combi-plasma. I regularly field two units of these (sometimes one with a melta loadout) and it wrecks new power builds like knights and grav cent stars. They are expensive, but once they're down they have to be dealt with and can completely catch them off guard. Don't knock it til you try it lol!

100% agree with LotD being overlooked. I run C-Grav, PG, PC though. More AP2 shots. 3 AP3 wounding on armor is better than 2 S7 shots. That being said, Legion is great against Seerstar and Centstar, however, I'm going to have to disagree with them being effective against Knights. Plasma at S7 is only going to Glance on 5's on Side/Rear, and they might even shield that side if you're running 3 Plasmas. Against the melta squad you mentioned, I can see that. But unless you're running Vulcan, the meltas (after you factor the 4++), you're only getting 1 pen off on average.

 optometris wrote:
Hi my friend I play against takes a crazy annoying death star of 3 centurions with coteaz, Tigirius and a Chapter master on bike with shield eternal basically the cents are at the back, the two librarians in the middle and the bike at the front, tanking shots.

with all the psychic powers in there, he always seems to be able to get gates of infinity, prescience and either ignores cover/reroll failed wounds or to hits or something.

I run black templars and i'm really struggling against this unit, everything else in the army I can sort out quite easily but this one squad just jumps around the board with gates blasting me to death with the grav cannons, i reluctant to take vehicles as he just drops in so hes just in range and strips away the hull points. any recommendations on how to handle this?

ignore it (try staying out of LoS) and focus on other things.

He will never be able to make his points back. (you're looking at what? 650 points in total there? yeah, that unit of his will not kill 650 points of your army by itself)

The CM is only useful if you start shooting at him. If you don't, thats a 170 point model doing nothing for your opponent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 optometris wrote:
Thanks kain, I hadn't thought of that, I'll often run them in a heresy list too and I can get POTMS on vindicators in there and also take legion medusas to navigate around that. he certainly wouldn't expect a mechanized list anyway haha

no point in dropping a vindicator pie plate on the unit as the CM will just take all the saves on his 3++ shield

ignoring it isnt an option, it has gates of infinity so just teleports all over the board blasting me to death

 optometris wrote:
ignoring it isnt an option, it has gates of infinity so just teleports all over the board blasting me to death

well, in that case you need to make tactical use of the board to position your units so that he can either only deepstrike into an area that has no LoS to your units, or do a risky deep strike and potentially suffer a mishap if he wants to arrive at a place from where he can directly shoot at your units.

You could also use 35pt rhinos as mobile walls to protect your units from grav volleys.

play on a board with some impassable terrain, and take 3 landspeeder storms, to give 3 24" bubbles of "scatter twice as far". he'll never get close enough to do anything, and chances are he'll mishap. he'll roll an average scatter on 4D6" of 14". I reackon that'll screw him over.

I'd also bring a decent CC unit with AP2 and then, when he arrives, just charge him. they can't even overwatch. I'd also suggest you charge one of the scout units in as well, use their cheap character to challenge. let's be honest here, he can kill 1 unit a turn, and a vehicle with the split-fire. I think a landraider with thunderhammer stormshield termies will wreck them. they'll pop in, blow up the landraider, and then you'll assault them. just remember the unit still fires at the same time, he can't shoot the landraider with the lascannon then shoot the guys inside with the grav guns.

I'm going to try a mechanized heresy list against him, have 3 vindicators with POTMS in each tile, with a spartan in between them on one side and two lascannon mortis contemptors in between the other two . deep strike a fire raptor behind the squad so that it isnt getting the chapter master saves and try to get him to make a tonne of saves on the centurions.

Well, Deep Striking units count as they have moved. If a Bike model moves, it receives Jink (a cover save). So, you can Focus Fire anything with 6+ or worse cover save - bypassing his CM at all, as he'll have a 5+ cover (Jink). Tigurius has no invulnerable save and only a 3+ to defend himself (unless he or Coteaz roll Forewarning, but killing 4++ is better for you than 3++ in an EW dude).
And don't forget that GoI isn't the safest of powers; if the DS dice scatters and gets a double for distance, someone is gone.

vector strike - so does that mean as the chapter master is entitled to a 5+ jink cover save, i can bypass him by electing to shoot with focus fire at the poorer cover save guys hitting the librarians and centurions instead???

 optometris wrote:
vector strike - so does that mean as the chapter master is entitled to a 5+ jink cover save, i can bypass him by electing to shoot with focus fire at the poorer cover save guys hitting the librarians and centurions instead???

That is exactly what Vector Strike meant.

Bikes 2 grav and a combi grav. Prescience the squad so they land 8 hits then 6.666 wound. Focus fire to ignore the chapter master and his 5+ jink bam 3 dead centurions.

thanks chaps, this is a potential game changer!

 optometris wrote:
I'm going to try a mechanized heresy list against him, have 3 vindicators with POTMS in each tile, with a spartan in between them on one side and two lascannon mortis contemptors in between the other two . deep strike a fire raptor behind the squad so that it isnt getting the chapter master saves and try to get him to make a tonne of saves on the centurions.

BT Vindicators do not have POTMS anymore


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vector Strike wrote:
Well, Deep Striking units count as they have moved. If a Bike model moves, it receives Jink (a cover save). So, you can Focus Fire anything with 6+ or worse cover save - bypassing his CM at all, as he'll have a 5+ cover (Jink). Tigurius has no invulnerable save and only a 3+ to defend himself (unless he or Coteaz roll Forewarning, but killing 4++ is better for you than 3++ in an EW dude).
And don't forget that GoI isn't the safest of powers; if the DS dice scatters and gets a double for distance, someone is gone.

wow now that is some shenanigans I have seldom encountered

by this logic you can just stick to taking straightforward 3 Vindicators, and declare "focus fire cover saves 6+ (or worse)" with each of them, and then the entire squad gets wiped out even if a single pie plate hits?



=====================


of course, next game your opponent will drop the bike (what was the point of taking it anyway?) and this tactic will no longer work.

In such a case, I think the idea someone mentioned with the triple Grav Bikes (one combi) perhaps with a MM attack bike attached to it - two of such units would allow you to use their meneuverability to shoot at the deathstar from an angle the CM cannot tank wounds against. Watch the deathstar melt away

Can't Focus Fire With Pie Plates

Chapter Master Has A Bike For T 5

 Sir Arun wrote:
of course, next game your opponent will drop the bike (what was the point of taking it anyway?) and this tactic will no longer work.

Higher Toughness to keep majority T at 5.

Although it'd be 3x T5, 2x T4, T3 without the bike, so still majority T5 until they lost 2 Cents.

Wait so without the bike, the 3 Cents are T5, Coteaz is T3, vanilla CM and Tiggy are T4, so majority would be T5 until 2 Cents drop.

What happens then? We'll have 1 Cent left at T5, the CM and Tiggy at T4 and Coteaz at T3, so majority toughness becomes T4.

I take it the bike upgrade prolongs majority toughness 5 until all 3 Cents are killed and continues to persist until the CM is also killed.

Use the highest. And don't forget the Libby - that'd make it majority T4 after 2 Cents die.

so yes, focus fire will ruin that death star.

Try it, OP

Try it and watch your butthurt opponent cry foul and then show him page 40/41 of the BRB and he will have to accept it.

 Sir Arun wrote:

 optometris wrote:
I'm going to try a mechanized heresy list against him, have 3 vindicators with POTMS in each tile, with a spartan in between them on one side and two lascannon mortis contemptors in between the other two . deep strike a fire raptor behind the squad so that it isnt getting the chapter master saves and try to get him to make a tonne of saves on the centurions.

BT Vindicators do not have POTMS anymore

Sorry forgot to say thats if I took legion rules and ran a heresy army, I often switch between the two

 optometris wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:

 optometris wrote:
I'm going to try a mechanized heresy list against him, have 3 vindicators with POTMS in each tile, with a spartan in between them on one side and two lascannon mortis contemptors in between the other two . deep strike a fire raptor behind the squad so that it isnt getting the chapter master saves and try to get him to make a tonne of saves on the centurions.

BT Vindicators do not have POTMS anymore

Sorry forgot to say thats if I took legion rules and ran a heresy army, I often switch between the two

Have you ever tried Sigsimund by any chance?

no I did try dorn the other day, quite fun, problem is everyone runs away from them

 optometris wrote:
no I did try dorn the other day, quite fun, problem is everyone runs away from them

Sigsimund is as hurty as some of the weaker primarchs and has less of a reputation so they might not run away from him at first sight.

They probably will when he challenges Abaddon and shoves the Talon of Horus up his arse though.

haha his stats are pretty sweet, I just wanted to try a primarch so took Dorn, If I do take a named character then Ill take siggy. Bit more fluffy, as my legion list is the group of imperial fists that will become black templars.

 Sir Arun wrote:


wow now that is some shenanigans I have seldom encountered

by this logic you can just stick to taking straightforward 3 Vindicators, and declare "focus fire cover saves 6+ (or worse)" with each of them, and then the entire squad gets wiped out even if a single pie plate hits?

As schadenfreude pointed out, can't FF with Vindicators, but other people in his army (plasma/melta) can.

 optometris wrote:
no I did try dorn the other day, quite fun, problem is everyone runs away from them

lol. maybe putting then inside a land raider with scout capability? (I think LR Proteus can do it)