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It'll never get into assault before something shoots it to death.

 koooaei wrote:
You don't always need to get into assault with a melee oriented army to win games.

Half of my games with orks are won with just a few minor assaults or even withour them completely. Even though half of my list is pretty much choppaboyz and shootaboyz.

Use your melee stuff to controle the board. The enemy won't be able to close distance in time to outscore you.

Mutilators are usable and can be useful sometimes. Another question is their ugly models. Ugly in a bad way - even for csm.

You can't outscore people with zero models. That's a problem the BA are facing. And CSM, frankly.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:


You've got to be kidding me.

1. They don't have reliable means of getting into melee. They have an inaccurate Deep Strike, cannot run, and if you're not in ownership of the IA with the Spartan Assault Tank, they only have access to the gak Land Raider.
2. They're not actually dangerous for the points. You wanna Deep Strike them near me while the Raptors come in close? Uhhhh okay. I'll just shoot the Raptors. Why am I going to care if the Mutilator charges? If I'm in cover, even the Necrons will strike first. Other armies just have enough units to shoot with that it won't cause much trouble.
3. Mathematically I'm going to do more with Terminators. While it isn't the same for minimum investment, what else were you going to spend the points on? Neither can sweep, but at least Terminators can run and can take cheap Combi-Weapons.

1. Irrelevant. When they drop in, they are assaulting next turn. The enemy knows this. That is what saturation is about. It isnt as if the enemy is going to do nothing aboutit. Sadly for the enemy, they wont be able to do something about EVERYTHING.

2. Not dangerous? 4 attacks with any weapon you can think of, with terminator armor and tough 5. Are you joking? There are HQ's who would give their left nut to be that good. But that aside, you can shoot at whatever you like. You just wont have enough shooting to stop it all. Mutilators are excellent for how inexpensively they sit in that underused elite slot and provide value. Even their deaths serve to drain the enemy arsenal. I dont speak theoretically here. I've had them in my force for quite a while. They do work.

3. Terminators are okay. they are more expensive. That's the value of a Mutilator. It isn't (you say it is, but uh...no). And the threat of the three Terminators with weapons paid for is so much more expensive, yet will get shot by the ame unit the Mutilator will. Except the enemy will be killing JUST a Mutilator instead of a three man expensive Terminator squad. Why is that better?

I dont care if anyone buys them. That's your call, General. I'm just explaining the huge saturation value they offer up. Nurgle Mutilators are worth it.

They aren't terrible if you deep strike single units to try to take out tanks. They will die to mcs or gmcs, and can't catch the faster unit in the games. If the enemy is good at melee they'll just wipe it without trying too hard.

So against Eldar or tau, they aren't worth it since they most likely won't catch the faster armies at all and moving doesn't reduce their firepower much on units that matter. Other units that do care about moving aren't heavily threatened by this, and it's somewhat trivial for them to remove it.

Necrons and sm it's a toss up. If your army is very fast they can be worth it, especially if the enemy only takes stars. Cents can split fire however, so if it's a cent spammy list the mutilators won't matter much.

Against nids, they won't do anything useful. They won't catch the fmcs, the mcs can shoot them off the board, and they don't do damage to swarms.

They are very good against ig though. Any non skimmer armored column would be afraid of 3 solo mutilators

Akiasura wrote:
They aren't terrible if you deep strike single units to try to take out tanks. They will die to mcs or gmcs, and can't catch the faster unit in the games. If the enemy is good at melee they'll just wipe it without trying too hard.

So against Eldar or tau, they aren't worth it since they most likely won't catch the faster armies at all and moving doesn't reduce their firepower much on units that matter. Other units that do care about moving aren't heavily threatened by this, and it's somewhat trivial for them to remove it.

Necrons and sm it's a toss up. If your army is very fast they can be worth it, especially if the enemy only takes stars. Cents can split fire however, so if it's a cent spammy list the mutilators won't matter much.

Against nids, they won't do anything useful. They won't catch the fmcs, the mcs can shoot them off the board, and they don't do damage to swarms.

They are very good against ig though. Any non skimmer armored column would be afraid of 3 solo mutilators

This sounds like the most reasonable analysis. Mutilators do less than nothing against my BA, which leads me to think that they are one of the worst units in the game.

You misspelled warp talons

Akiasura wrote:
You misspelled warp talons

They're not good, either.

I read that as "worst unit in the game", apologies.

Akiasura wrote:
I read that as "worst unit in the game", apologies.

I bet Jancoran has a use for them.

Akiasura wrote:
They aren't terrible if you deep strike single units to try to take out tanks. They will die to mcs or gmcs, and can't catch the faster unit in the games. If the enemy is good at melee they'll just wipe it without trying too hard.

So against Eldar or tau, they aren't worth it since they most likely won't catch the faster armies at all and moving doesn't reduce their firepower much on units that matter. Other units that do care about moving aren't heavily threatened by this, and it's somewhat trivial for them to remove it.

Necrons and sm it's a toss up. If your army is very fast they can be worth it, especially if the enemy only takes stars. Cents can split fire however, so if it's a cent spammy list the mutilators won't matter much.

Against nids, they won't do anything useful. They won't catch the fmcs, the mcs can shoot them off the board, and they don't do damage to swarms.

They are very good against ig though. Any non skimmer armored column would be afraid of 3 solo mutilators

Not all units have speed in those armies you mention and Tau generals for some weird reasons will gunline which makes them highly susceptible to the Mutilators unique advantages (see Dirge Casters for details). So while it might be true that SOME units can get away, the Mutilator general knows this and isn't aiming at those, specifically (though a good drop can cut off a lot of avenues for even fast units to go depending on the angle BECAUSE: boards do not have unlimited dimensions).

It isn't trivial to remove a two wound Tough 5 2+ armor creature. You may say it is, but it isn't, in fact. Although luck happens, it takes 60 STR 4 shots to kill a single mutilator! Sixty is a lot of expended resources. It takes about 45 or so to reliably do it with STR 5. So even Tau Fire Warriors are going to spend 2-3 full units (if they even have that many) just to kill the Mutilator. and that is what I mean when I say their deaths serve to sap the enemy arsenal. That same Mutilator if not stopped, will kill an entire unit of Fire Warriors and if the Fire Warriors are very unlucky, it will take the thing an extra phase to finish the job, which may well happen. So you are in the catbirds seat with that Mutilator if they fail. Knowing that, can the Tau general even take the chance? No. He's gotta' kill it. So when you really think about that little guy sucking up so much in resources, its pretty cool.

What if he drops and threatens a Riptide from the outside angle? The riptide with nowhere to run to that isnt right into yet another Mutilator ( I use three) just has to rely on shooting to do the job.

If a Crisis team come up and kills one, spending their load on that, they aren't spending it on the far more voluminous Raptor unit coming. And so on.

Saturation. THAT is the value of Mutilators. They sap your enemies resources, and are good enough to force units into permanent vacations, preferably NOT all in one go! One of the genius's, as I have learned using them is that their 4 attacks on the charge will often allow a unit a decent chance t standing their ground, thus protecting it from shooting in the folloing enemy shooting phase. That's actually a good thing. And their Slow and Purposeful rule screws Marines. The Mutilators are almost always deeeep in the enemy zone. So there is little chance that any Marines they clash with will be far from the board edge. With just a modicum of luck, he can send the Space Marines who normally would just stick and fight running off the board!

I am quite smitten with the low cost, high return Mutilator. Entire units of three I could understand not liking. But the Mono-Nurgle Droppings? pretty good.


.

"I am quite smitten with the low cost, high return Mutilator."

Yeah, we can tell.

Martel732 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
I read that as "worst unit in the game", apologies.

I bet Jancoran has a use for them.

Warp Talons? I do. I did a blog entry on it actually.

I do not recommend Warp Talons to anyone in the general sense, but I did find an interesting way to use them back in 6th. Haven't used them in 7th.

The Dimensional Key and some other things came into play there. If you're interested, you can read the blog entry on it. The plan for using them is kind of a complex one. Way more complex than most people will have the patience or interest in. But it is there nonetheless.

Do you have a blog entry for BA, out of curiosity? I'd be interested to see what you think (even if erroneously) is going to work for them.

Heres the blog for Warp Talons.

http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2014/01/warp-talons.html

as for your insult, there was one for 6th Edition.

It wasn't an insult. Lots of people have postulated a lot of things for BA, most of which don't end up working on the table top. A 6th ed analysis is not likely to be transferable to 7th in any event. It's hard to believe the subject of outrage was the wave serpent.

I agree with your theory about mutilators, but it seems that they'll get shot with the AP 2 stuff and the raptors will get shot and killed with the other weapons in a list. Bladestorm doesn't seem too healthy for mutilators either. Although all being separate units really helps. As I said in another thread, BA would be good if I could field 60 units of a single assault marine.

The Blood Angels codex has changed. The meta has also. So I should re-address that issue soon. But you're free to read it anyways.

http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-do-i-make-blood-angels-work-again.html

A fair number of comments and suggestions came to that thread. It was one of my more thorough treatments of a codex though

 Jancoran wrote:
The Blood Angels codex has changed. The meta has also. So I should re-address that issue soon. But you're free to read it anyways.

http://40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-do-i-make-blood-angels-work-again.html

The sad part is your list requires a dual CAD now. Or two flesh tearer detachments, more likely. I actually hate the Baal now that it's in the heavy slot.

 Jancoran wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
I read that as "worst unit in the game", apologies.

I bet Jancoran has a use for them.

Warp Talons? I do. I did a blog entry on it actually.

I do not recommend Warp Talons to anyone in the general sense, but I did find an interesting way to use them back in 6th. Haven't used them in 7th.

The Dimensional Key and some other things came into play there. If you're interested, you can read the blog entry on it. The plan for using them is kind of a complex one. Way more complex than most people will have the patience or interest in. But it is there nonetheless.

Warptalons have found a long term home in my Tzeentch Daemons army.

The one area that Tzeentch's boys almost completely lack in, is assault capabilities. A Sorc w/Prophet of the Voices + 5-6 Possessed + 5-6 Talons adds a decent amount of hitting power, and brings yet more WC's to help fuel the army's main strength.

Talons w/MoT are easy to boost to a 3++ or even a 2++ save, and the Shred USR helps the army deal with T5 and/or multi-wound critters, which helps take the pressure off of the likes of LoC and DP to deal with every big threat.

Crimson Slaughter Possessed also get an arguably better table to roll on, as 2/3 results make them harder to gun down or else boost their speed. (and the Sorc can provide a smattering of ap2 attacks).
The squad can also take a Rhino if there's pts to spare, which of course can simply play the role of mobile LoS blocker.

Still, I'd never dream of taking Talons in a strait-up CSM army... There's no synergies anywhere, and they bring nothing to the table that at least 3 other units don't already bring!

 Jancoran wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
They aren't terrible if you deep strike single units to try to take out tanks. They will die to mcs or gmcs, and can't catch the faster unit in the games. If the enemy is good at melee they'll just wipe it without trying too hard.

So against Eldar or tau, they aren't worth it since they most likely won't catch the faster armies at all and moving doesn't reduce their firepower much on units that matter. Other units that do care about moving aren't heavily threatened by this, and it's somewhat trivial for them to remove it.

Necrons and sm it's a toss up. If your army is very fast they can be worth it, especially if the enemy only takes stars. Cents can split fire however, so if it's a cent spammy list the mutilators won't matter much.

Against nids, they won't do anything useful. They won't catch the fmcs, the mcs can shoot them off the board, and they don't do damage to swarms.

They are very good against ig though. Any non skimmer armored column would be afraid of 3 solo mutilators

Not all units have speed in those armies you mention and Tau generals for some weird reasons will gunline which makes them highly susceptible to the Mutilators unique advantages (see Dirge Casters for details). So while it might be true that SOME units can get away, the Mutilator general knows this and isn't aiming at those, specifically (though a good drop can cut off a lot of avenues for even fast units to go depending on the angle BECAUSE: boards do not have unlimited dimensions).

Any unit that can run is, by definition, faster than a mutilator. I believe this nearly every unit in the Tau army, though there could easily be one or two I'm not thinking of.
A mutilator can be one or 2 rounded by most units in the tau army, especially given their large amount of split fire and marker lights, and relatively high strength weapons. Tau aren't afraid of this unit.
It's also hard to get a good drop when you want to, since chaos does not have access to a way to make deep striking as accurate as a pod is, and mutilators can't run after dropping to fix bad drops. They also can't decide when the deep strike arrives.

 Jancoran wrote:

It isn't trivial to remove a two wound Tough 5 2+ armor creature. You may say it is, but it isn't, in fact. Although luck happens, it takes 60 STR 4 shots to kill a single mutilator! Sixty is a lot of expended resources. It takes about 45 or so to reliably do it with STR 5.

For fire warriors, that's a rapid fire from a fire warrior unit over the course of two turns, without any support. Marker lights make this a lot easier, obviously (becomes possible to kill it with one turn of shooting by a 12 man squad if 2 marker lights are applied). Support fire also helps.
A plasma crisis suit team can do it without trying, and can take split fire.
For marines, they are very resistant to bolters, but bolters won't be what does damage (they never are). Plasma guns can, if rapid fire, nearly do the job on their own. The commander firing a combi weapon, or the bolters, means one squad armed with 2 PGs do it usually. Overwatch and remaining attacks might let a wound slip through, though it's doubtful.
Grav cents also do it easily and can take split fire.

Assuming the mutilator can charge when you want it to, which given the inaccurate deep strike and slow speed, isn't always the case.

So against their best targets, fire warriors, it takes 2 turns or 1 with support. Against other targets, that are fairly popular, its not even the whole squad thanks to split fire. And you can't deepstrike them where you want or when you want...so yeah, pretty trivial.

 Jancoran wrote:

So even Tau Fire Warriors are going to spend 2-3 full units (if they even have that many) just to kill the Mutilator. and that is what I mean when I say their deaths serve to sap the enemy arsenal. That same Mutilator if not stopped, will kill an entire unit of Fire Warriors and if the Fire Warriors are very unlucky, it will take the thing an extra phase to finish the job, which may well happen. So you are in the catbirds seat with that Mutilator if they fail. Knowing that, can the Tau general even take the chance? No. He's gotta' kill it. So when you really think about that little guy sucking up so much in resources, its pretty cool.

What if he drops and threatens a Riptide from the outside angle? The riptide with nowhere to run to that isnt right into yet another Mutilator ( I use three) just has to rely on shooting to do the job.

If a Crisis team come up and kills one, spending their load on that, they aren't spending it on the far more voluminous Raptor unit coming. And so on.

Unless suddenly split fire. Or the crisis team deep strikes behind the raptors (you did deep strike the crisis suits?) and shoots the raptors while letting the obligatory fire warriors target the mutilators.
You'd also need to be able to deploy all 3 mutilators around the riptide at the same time and be within charging range without anything being around that can stop that. Pretty low odds, imo, but YMMV depending on your opponents' ability to deploy against deep strike successfully.

 Jancoran wrote:

Saturation. THAT is the value of Mutilators. They sap your enemies resources, and are good enough to force units into permanent vacations, preferably NOT all in one go! One of the genius's, as I have learned using them is that their 4 attacks on the charge will often allow a unit a decent chance t standing their ground, thus protecting it from shooting in the folloing enemy shooting phase. That's actually a good thing.

It is a good thing, if it happens. But a unit has to be extremely slow to be caught by the mutilators. I can't imagine ever catching a unit with a jetpack, a bike, or any eldar unit. Even units that can run can easily outdistance the mutilators. Many units can just rapid fire and remove them, although to be fair I imagine firewarriors without support or necron warriors can't.
If they could deepstrike accurately, run, or do it on time...

 Jancoran wrote:

And their Slow and Purposeful rule screws Marines. The Mutilators are almost always deeeep in the enemy zone. So there is little chance that any Marines they clash with will be far from the board edge. With just a modicum of luck, he can send the Space Marines who normally would just stick and fight running off the board!

Considering a marine unit can rapid fire one off the board, I can't imagine this happening unless someone just doesn't fire at them for some reason. 2 Nurgle mutilators cost about what a squad of marines sans transport costs, so it's not even a bad value.

 Jancoran wrote:

I am quite smitten with the low cost, high return Mutilator. Entire units of three I could understand not liking. But the Mono-Nurgle Droppings? pretty good.

I suppose it depends on your definition of pretty good. For the chaos codex? It's not bad. For the game as a whole? No.
I wouldn't mind reading a battle report of you using them against one of the power dexes and how it played out, if you have one available.

If they could run or deepstrike with accuracy, I'd consider them. Assaulting out of deepstrike would make them amazing. Against lower tier armies (the ones that have AV values outside of a few rare formations like the marines have) they do fine.

I don't know. Even BA have grav bikers. Orks outfight them. DE are too fast. Lower tier lists are lower tier because they have no answers for triple digit S6 shots from 36" away. We have answers for slow assault units that deep strike and happen to be T5 2+. In fact, I can consistently put the hammer down on GK because they volunteer themselves to get shot in the face by grav and melta.

Just to note, Mutilators can get accurate Deep Strike via Icons from Codex: Daemons, as they have the 'Daemon' special rule.

Khorne, Nurgle & Slaanesh especially all have easy access to fast moving Icons. ('Crushers, Drones & Seekers/'Nettes)
It's really only Tzeentch who loses out, as neither Flamers nor Screamers can take an Icon. Still, MoT Mutilators would only scatter D6" if coming in near another Icon, or else one could simply try to Summon some free Pink Horrors who can choose to take a full command.

Speaking of tzeentch how are thousand sons as far as fighting goes? I heard they used to have some potent shooting but this was many years ago (probably about 5-6 years ago).

Experiment 626 wrote:
Just to note, Mutilators can get accurate Deep Strike via Icons from Codex: Daemons, as they have the 'Daemon' special rule.

Khorne, Nurgle & Slaanesh especially all have easy access to fast moving Icons. ('Crushers, Drones & Seekers/'Nettes)
It's really only Tzeentch who loses out, as neither Flamers nor Screamers can take an Icon. Still, MoT Mutilators would only scatter D6" if coming in near another Icon, or else one could simply try to Summon some free Pink Horrors who can choose to take a full command.

Mutilators only ever get the d6" scatter bonus off of daemon icons as they never have "Daemon of X" just the Daemon rule (and having a mark doesn't change that)

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Speaking of tzeentch how are thousand sons as far as fighting goes? I heard they used to have some potent shooting but this was many years ago (probably about 5-6 years ago).

They are mediocre at best. They're biggest problem is they pay a huge points premium for their aspiring sorcerer (who is god awful because he only gets powers from the terrible tzeentch discipline) and their Ap3 bolters while cool are less effective considering how easy it is to get some sort of cover save against it. They're usuable in a more casual setting but should never be taken in a competitive scenario.

Chaos whatzits are much better and they're not exactly top tier either (at least they can get T6 and 3 wounds).

 CrownAxe wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
Just to note, Mutilators can get accurate Deep Strike via Icons from Codex: Daemons, as they have the 'Daemon' special rule.

Khorne, Nurgle & Slaanesh especially all have easy access to fast moving Icons. ('Crushers, Drones & Seekers/'Nettes)
It's really only Tzeentch who loses out, as neither Flamers nor Screamers can take an Icon. Still, MoT Mutilators would only scatter D6" if coming in near another Icon, or else one could simply try to Summon some free Pink Horrors who can choose to take a full command.

Mutilators only ever get the d6" scatter bonus off of daemon icons as they never have "Daemon of X" just the Daemon rule (and having a mark doesn't change that)

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Speaking of tzeentch how are thousand sons as far as fighting goes? I heard they used to have some potent shooting but this was many years ago (probably about 5-6 years ago).

They are mediocre at best. They're biggest problem is they pay a huge points premium for their aspiring sorcerer (who is god awful because he only gets powers from the terrible tzeentch discipline) and their Ap3 bolters while cool are less effective considering how easy it is to get some sort of cover save against it. They're usuable in a more casual setting but should never be taken in a competitive scenario.

Agree with 1k sons. They are up there for one of the worst units in the entire game as well, since they are absurdly expensive and lack offensive output.
Their bolters should have been heavy 3 with extra strength. Or the sorceror can cast a different "spell" that changes their weapons/armor profile to make them useful against a variety of targets. They really should be the most powerful cult troop, given their high point cost, not the worst.

6 Rubrics do less damage than 10 Vanilla Marines with two Plasma Guns. Once you're in cover the durability is basically the same.

AND if you want cheap Warp Charges, 10 more points buys you a CAD with two Cultists and a Sorcerer.

Rubrics are God awful, as are Mutilators and Warp Talons.

Martel732 wrote:
I don't know. Even BA have grav bikers. Orks outfight them. DE are too fast. Lower tier lists are lower tier because they have no answers for triple digit S6 shots from 36" away. We have answers for slow assault units that deep strike and happen to be T5 2+. In fact, I can consistently put the hammer down on GK because they volunteer themselves to get shot in the face by grav and melta.

You're still missing it. You're still trying to go by "What can do more". thats not the point of the mutilator here. And last time I checked, no one is fast enough to break through the "box" created by Chaos Raptors and Rhinos, Mutilators and Obliterators. No one. Talking about ti doesnt make it so. If someone tries null deploying it, the army can just center up and wait. You're talking about 9-12 units forming a box. No matter how "good" this stuff you're mentioning is, its STILL stuck and STILL cant kill all it needs to kill. The Mutilators are as likely to survive and do damage from target priority as they are anything else.

I am not suggesting the Mutilators are the second coming or aren't outclassed by "better" units in some form or fashion. What I'm telling you is that the only reason the Mutilators WNT get their chance is if the enemy simply prioritizes them. And i hope they do.

2 wound assault terminators are bad? I know one guy who drives them around in a landraider.

 mondo80 wrote:
2 wound assault terminators are bad? I know one guy who drives them around in a landraider.

I know a guy who thought warp talons were the best unit in the game because claws.
Doesn't make them good.
Muties in a landraider is a very expensive unit that falls over against similar priced units from other dexes. At best it will manage to kill 2 units, more likely 1 or none, before being destroyed.

For people claiming Muties are good, I'd appreciate a battle report where they are used against a good force effectively or a tactica that holds up to scrutiny. Saying "I said so" doesn't carry much weight on an online forum.

 mondo80 wrote:
2 wound assault terminators are bad? I know one guy who drives them around in a landraider.

The problem is that they have slow and purposeful (making them slow to footslog it up and cannot sweep advance, while gaining none of the benefits since they have no ranged weapons) and only come in units of 3 at max, making them waste space in a Land raider. Paladins, the only real equivallents in the game, at least come with psycannons and psychic powers backing that up.