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So I already play the nemesis strike force (standard internet Libby, termies, and double dreadknight cheese) at about 1000-1500 points, depending on if i add in more termies, stormtaven, and/ or land raider crusaders (transports).... I'm aiming to expand to 1850 for an upcoming tournament and was thinking of allying vanilla marines for the censtar / draigo combo.... Is there any particular weakness or tourney list that I should fear? I want to make the most competitive build that I can, so any questions, comments or critique is welcome!

It's biggest weakness (other than that it is an ~800 pt unit) is that it's heavily dependent on Psychic powers to be effective. Obviously Gate is a must, otherwise they are much too slow. It also really needs Prescience and Perfect Timing to shine in damage output. You're also going to want Invis to be able to survive other really nasty shooting armies.

Eggsinonebasketcase unfortunately.

One that requires a LOT of good psychic rolls.

Otherwise you could i suppose keep it simple and make the cent unit 3man so you can storm raven them just in case you dont get the right rolls.

Well the main downsides are mostly inherent.. its expensive, low model count, dictates your list design heavily, and relies on the fickle nature of the psychic phase.

That said the unit is very fun to pilot although probably not to play against if unprepared.

As for counters, there are plenty of things although most are pretty unreliable (it wouldn't be a star otherwise):

Hit them before their defenses are up. Orbital bombs, barrage, etc.

Deny key powers. This is important since the unit is actually harder to play correctly than it appears on the surface. Do you cast invis first then teleport or vice versa? For example..
I'm sure people will have different opinions and I have my preference, just food for thought.

Saturate the board to mess with they're deep strike landing zones. Not everyone is capable of this but fodder armies can keep them at a distance. LS storms will also cause problems.

Get around draigo and torrent the unit down. Armies like eldar and tau are fully capable of shooting straight through invisibility due to the high volume of twin linked shots. Also nearly every model in the unit is key in some way or another (draigo- GoI/tank, libby(s)- invis/prescience/foreworning/perfect timing etc, serg- splitfire/grav, nillas- grav) so each model reduces effectiveness significantly.

Play MSU so they don't have any high value targets.

Scatter blasts on top of them. This one can actually be quite painful and is a reason to keep friendly's at a safe distance. Even a centstar can go down to 5 wyverns for example. Local custom will dictate but around here they are allowed to target a unit and chain their way into another. ymmv.

Certain other attacks that bypass defenses like reaver HoW attacks, kharn inside 40 zombie horde, SHW stomp attacks or other auto hitting nonsense and so on. Or simply something very very killy like 15 DC with astorath rerolling hits and wounds.

I'm sure theres plenty more but thats off the top of my head.

Lastly check your local TO for if they've decided to follow suite with BAO/LVO format and nerf invisibility.

Yeah, Deathstar armies are not point and click. With only one unit, you'd better move it to the right place at the right time and shoot and assault the right things, because if you make a mistake you won't have the chance to make it up and a smart opponent can beat you on objectives.

Thanks everyone! Very good points and connects to consider

The third post is overall correct, but MSU isn't really a counter since the unit IS going to have an Omniscope and therefore splitfire.

While not technically a 'counter' to the unit, MSU strategies are the accepted 'counter strategy' to combat deathstars. Its more about mitigating damage while playing the mission and ignoring the star. Nothing does this better than MSU.

As mentioned all of the usual issues associated with fielding a Death Star.

Also watch out for the Culexus, especially in a pod.

A shooting geared opponent (Or the Blood Angels Turn 1 Assault army) Could badly maul or kill your star before you get going.

 Eldarain wrote:
As mentioned all of the usual issues associated with fielding a Death Star.

Also watch out for the Culexus, especially in a pod.

A shooting geared opponent (Or the Blood Angels Turn 1 Assault army) Could badly maul or kill your star before you get going.

This. If an opponent manages to deny Shrouding/Invisibility/Gate the CentStar will be left with a low movement to try and maneuver, and then will undoubtedly be shot a lot. Other than one Character to Tank (often Draigo or a BikeMaster), the Centurions themselves will start taking a lot of hits, and aren't too tough with no Invuln if your opponent starts pouring in Melta, Grav, or Plasma.

Walk briskly in the other direction.

That or a Culexis and all the Vindicators you can get your hands on.

The Centurionstar is a shooty unit, and with Draigo you can't run from it. Aside from Gate, it doesn't actually rely on psychic powers that much, and even then you only need Gate to reposition once or twice a game. With Draigo to tank wounds, and large bases to spread out, vindicators won't do much for you.

 Eldarain wrote:
As mentioned all of the usual issues associated with fielding a Death Star.

Also watch out for the Culexus, especially in a pod.

A shooting geared opponent (Or the Blood Angels Turn 1 Assault army) Could badly maul or kill your star before you get going.

.


The culexus is very rare. I've never seen one in an all comers competitive matchup.. About half the armies I see don't run psykers making it good in only some of your games.. IMHO.. Bc I said this ill probs see one the next time I get to a tourney..

As said, MSU is the way to go.
I'd take small Purifier units in Rhinos.
Cleansing Flame can be devastating.

I've found that Centstars get straight up out-Deathstar'd by Screamerstars. The problem is they have to live in two phases of the game--it's a psychic Deathstar that does damage with its shooting.

A mutual tarpit of my 400-point Screamerstar and your 800-point Centstar is a win for me, especially since my unit is still contributing with summons or defensive powers during the tarpit. Meanwhile I throw my bucket full of deny dice against Gate each turn to continue it while Fateweaver and Friends obliterate the rest of the army.

It generally devolves into them throwing ALL their Psychic dice at Gate to get out of it, which leaves the unit incredibly vulnerable and not particularly effective.

broo wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
As mentioned all of the usual issues associated with fielding a Death Star.

Also watch out for the Culexus, especially in a pod.

A shooting geared opponent (Or the Blood Angels Turn 1 Assault army) Could badly maul or kill your star before you get going.

.


The culexus is very rare. I've never seen one in an all comers competitive matchup.. About half the armies I see don't run psykers making it good in only some of your games.. IMHO.. Bc I said this ill probs see one the next time I get to a tourney..

I think that has less to do with the Culexus and more to do with the general 2 detachment rule in most tournaments. Assassins form their own detachment. There are not many lists that I'd be willing to sacrifice my allied detachment and its benefits to plop in an assassin. If tournaments go to 3 detachments or more, I'd expect to see more of them as their value really starts to shine then.

DJ3 wrote:
I've found that Centstars get straight up out-Deathstar'd by Screamerstars. The problem is they have to live in two phases of the game--it's a psychic Deathstar that does damage with its shooting.

A mutual tarpit of my 400-point Screamerstar and your 800-point Centstar is a win for me, especially since my unit is still contributing with summons or defensive powers during the tarpit. Meanwhile I throw my bucket full of deny dice against Gate each turn to continue it while Fateweaver and Friends obliterate the rest of the army.

It generally devolves into them throwing ALL their Psychic dice at Gate to get out of it, which leaves the unit incredibly vulnerable and not particularly effective.

Yep. Daemons and particularly ScreamerStar are a very rough match up for the CentStar. Daemons generally out do CentStar armies in the psychic phase, can hold their own in the assault phase (which CentStar generally doesn't like to be stuck in), and against everything but DPs and SoulGrinders the Cents are basically really expensive bolter caddies.

I played against the CentStar for the first time yesterday with a Daemons/Tyranids list and ended up winning handily. I was running a two Tz'erald, 7 ScreamerStar, 16 Hounds with a Kh'erald, Fateweaver and 2 Hive Tyrants. By the end of turn three all that was left on the board for the CentStar army were Draigo, 3 Libbys, and a Storm Talon that had just arrived. Draigo and co were stuck in combat with 2++ Hounds and the Storm talon was inevitably dead next turn when the Flyrants looked at it.

@DJ3: I know you ripped apart my 3 Flyrant list (and not without reason), but I'd like to hear your opinion on the 2 Flyrant one. I think it's pretty strong.

I agree. Daemons can be a tough match regardless, and cents aren't particularly effective here to begin with. Probably their worst match.

On the flip side there isn't much at range to threaten them either. In this instance it's probably worth considering breaking up the support pieces.. although I haven't tried it.

Panzer you're absolutely correct on that.. I'm still waitining for TO's to open it up so we can see some cool combos.. soon hopefully

iirc current BAO FAQ doesn't allow gate to work out of combat.. not that everyone uses BAO but just thought id point that out..

BAO faq does not mess with gate other than to clarify it can be used in combat and while falling back but cannot be used while pinned/gtg.

With the censtar I wouldn't be afraid of any daemon list as it just makes my grey Knights that much better and I'd have a ton of psychic from them anyways.
I'm anxious to try it, seems easy enough and quite competitive

I was reading through the BAO FAQ... did not see any nerf to invisibility within the FAQ. I am assuming that the decision was made solely for LVO at this time. I will be running March Madness in Arkansas, and I am going to use their FAQ. As far as I can tell, Invisibility is pretty much unchanged.

The only real downfall is that a mishap on the Deep Strike table can cost you the LVO...