Mutilators anygood?

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**Jancoran**

Good times. Sounds typical of that kind of force. i think the enemy force gets pinned in and when that happens, it's hard to undo it.

The value of some Chaos Marines would simply be to make the objectives theirs at a low cost from reserve?

As for your Mutilators, getting in the way can really slow an enemy unit down as it did here. It might not be big on the stat sheets but it certainly makes a difference in game.

Good report. My game is soon.

**Jancoran**

koooaei wrote:
Jancoran wrote:
Thats awesome. Will you video it?

Probably not video but will try to take a few pictures on my phone.

Had another vassal game vs the same dude with Raukaan but this time he changed it up a bit and played much cleaner from a tactical pov. He changed a knight for a purely melee one, moved away from the 2-d land-raider (which he owns irl...sad thing, really) and exchanged the first one for a redeemer full of shotgun scouts with a vet sarge with a fist (awesome), took a min squad of sniper scouts with a multimelta landspeeder storm, took a comsquad with an apothecary and accompanied them with a biker techmarine. I also changed the list a bit. As i wanted, changed havoks and a chariot for 4 nurgle obliterators.

He held ground 1-st turn, i pushed forward. Sorc took a wound summoning pink horrors and than min sniper scouts shot him down with a precision shot that i failed to look out and save. The 2-d sorc which was my warlord didn't get too lucky with psy powers - i should have rolled biomancy but decided to fish for invisibility but got all the mediocre powers.

Than i deepstrike most of my stuff all around the map, do squat with shooting due to VSG. Masque dances the hell out of comsquad so that they can only move d3 and have -5 ws. I get too confident and run too close to them - must have been 7" away from bikers but instead i think that he'd try to back up. My mistake. He than shoots down an obli and a mutilator, charges scouts into nurgle spawns and chops them down quite well making a lot of armor and 6+++ in the process - he was a champ at rolling fnp that game, really. He charges deepstriking daemonettes. Luckilly, with -5 to WS he only kills 3 and instability kills another 2. And bikers passed 2 out of 2 fnp. He charges a knight at a scattered mutilator that got into it's way. Than i separate warlord sorc and spawns, join sorc to a nearby mutilator, get force weapon, btw, sorc got +1 str form mutation, charge into the comsquad but sorc does below average and kills just one biker. He passes 3 out of 4 fnp for other wounds. 4+++ makes comsquad very tarpitty.

Mutilators wreck his flank without a knight but with a speeder and VSG exploding both. As he had both scouts and dread on the battlements and as it's not written how vehicles get this 2d6 s6 hits resolved, we decide that it's side armor => av13 dread doesn't care. But scouts get pinned. Other scouts leave just one spawn with one wound left down from the starting 3 (other 2 died to shooting previously). Knight charges into the daemonettes that got caught by a comsquad and kills them, piling in to the sorc and mutilator. Sorc kills another one dude and it happens to be an apothecary that doesn't make his look out. Spawns that have separated from a sorc wreck 2 demolishers and shake another one.

2 Oblis explode a landraider, wounding 7 nearby scouts in the process but they pass 5 4+ saves and 2 6+++ saves. Other oblit and 2 melta from marines does squat to a dread, i than charge it with an oblit that was wounded previously and daemonnettes to eat overwatch but dread does one wound to an obli in melee and i fail armor. He finally finishes off spawns with his scouts. Tarpits a mutilator with damned legioneers. My other mutilators finish off the sniper scouts and kill a few legioneers. Knight kills a mutilator, sorc kills a biker and now we're left in a combat with his warlord tech marine, knight and my warlord sorc.

I think it's around turn 4 and as he played quite conservatively for the first turn and basically got locked into his deployment zone for the whole game, i score a lot of VP from controling the board and we're like 8-4 in favor of CSM. and most of my "controle point X" are not drawn yet. I got lucky rolling 6 points for two d3 point missions early on.
As for the forces, he has an unharmed knight, a warlord, Dread locked down in combat with 1 daemonette, 3 legioneers locked with a full health mutilator and a bunch of scouts. I have a sorc locked into combat with his warlord and knight, pink horrors, 1 daemonette locked with a dread, 3 mutilators, 2 oblits near scouts, marines and cultists. So, in terms of forces, he wouldn't be able to wipe me out in time as i'm basically scattered across the whole map. So, we finish the game as he concedes as it was allready very late but this was a very close one and we both enjoyed it. If knight got lucky and rolled a 6 on a stomp killing my warlord sorc turn 3, it could have changed the outcome of the game eventually. But luck went both ways, he did extremely good with his saves, though. But poor landraider. I hate it when a 250 pt mostly transport vehicle gets one-shotted. Anywayz, the game was going in my favor but who knows what can happen with those maelstorm - i can get a bad hand and he can get a good one and than murderize stuff with a few lucky rolls. It's not likely but it happens from time to time but, once again, it was very late.

Now my thoughts about mutilators and the list on the whole. Mutilators did fine once again. They're pretty fine in this context and create a lot of tension if they don't mass mishap which also happens from time to time but icon helps out a lot. Oblits did better than havoks and chariot, i think. Also, i need to incorporate horrors into my list. Summoning is a great tool but it's quite dangerous for 2-wound sorcs without fnp. I could probably give up on a few upgrades here and there - like gifts of mutation, marines could be exchanged for another bunch of cultists or i could get rid of them whatsoever taking Purge as a main detachment. I do like rhino marines though. But they'd free a lot of points for another oblits and horrors that'd make summoning much safer. Will definitely keep mutilators. I think that 5-7 is a good number for them. Mixing them up with oblits is nice. Auto-loose for killpoint games, though

I did a battle report for and with my son recently. He played my Mutilator army (he likes Chaos Marines and Dark Eldar). I can PM you the link if you wanna see it. Hehehe.

**koooaei**

Of course! You can PM such things without asking.

**Jancoran**

koooaei wrote:
Of course! You can PM such things without asking.

Done. Sent. Enjoy. His pre-game discussion is pretty uh...hilarious.

**koooaei**

Well, it was a tough match and it wasn't maelstorm, so board controle during the game wasn't important, basically, what mutilators tend to provide. Imo, if you're playing eternal war, msu is not the way to go anywayz cause you instantly have 1/6 chance of auto-loosing and msu tend to be overall weaker than deathstars but they provide better board presence (which is wasted in eternal war).

Good game anywayz! You guyzare good sports. Too bad pikachu didn't come out of reserves to stomp the blasted pointy ears.

**Yoyoyo**

So to recap:

- 7x Mutilators
- No major problems during DS
- One dies to shooting after DS (unknown value)
- 2x slapfight a LotD squad, one dies (~200pts)
- Two act as speedbumps for the Knight (~325pts)
- Kill count is 1x VSG, 1x LSS, 1x Sniper Scouts (~200pts)
- Misc effects: pinned Scouts, acted as bodyguard for HQ

What are your thoughts on a Chaos Daemon HQ rather than Horrors? Grimoire would help you turn the tables on the Knights and Dreads, and if casting fails it's only a 30pt item on a unit which probably would have died anyway.

**koooaei**

Yoyoyo wrote:
So to recap:

- 7x Mutilators
- No major problems during DS
- One dies to shooting after DS (unknown value)
- 2x slapfight a LotD squad, one dies (~200pts)
- Two act as speedbumps for the Knight (~325pts)
- Kill count is 1x VSG, 1x LSS, 1x Sniper Scouts (~200pts)
- Misc effects: pinned Scouts, acted as bodyguard for HQ

What are your thoughts on a Chaos Daemon HQ rather than Horrors? Grimoire would help you turn the tables on the Knights and Dreads, and if casting fails it's only a 30pt item on a unit which probably would have died anyway.

6 mutilators this time. And 4 oblits that i liked a lot. They actually support each other pretty well. I think that a combination of mutilators and obliterators is better than all those points in either mutilators or obliterators. It's also hard for me to tell weather more mutilators and less obliterators is better than more obliterators and less mutilators. It mostly depends on the opponent. I'm just doing > mutilators for the sake of this thread for now but i see mutilators coming on top in some fights. Sometimes, shooting just does squat with all those fancy cover saves while an extra attack with probably better suited weapons like maces, lc and chainfists against vehicles. A power fist is often not enough to reliably down a vehicle even if you catch it up close whereas +1 attack and chainfists is a complete game changer.

As for grimoire, i run masque as HQ. I see it's value higher than grimoire in such a msu list. So far i haven't encountered deathstars but even against a tough relatively expensive squad of bikers it was allready worth it. Besides, it shot down LoTD and scout's shooting later on. Masque actually forced LoTD to get stuck with a mutilator cause they didn't manage to put it down with bs1 shooting. And even if i run into a full mechanised list, masque is just 75 pts and quite fast, so can at least run around and score. It also has 6 s4 rending attacks on the charge. And dances can't fail unlike grimoire.

**Yoyoyo**

Not necessarily saying remove Masque, but you could run dual CAD.

(As I know you were looking for more Summoning from a Malefic psyker)

**koooaei**

That's possible. But i don't want to take too many pts away from the front. And if i want to run a proper daemon melee list, they themselves require a lot of effort to make work - like psy buffing. And i don't want to go full daemon factory cause it generally doesn't pay off. There's a certain point when summoning starts to take away more than giving back. To more reliably summon something, you need at least 7-8 WC. And it's a LOT. I also want to buff spawns at the same time.

**Jancoran**

koooaei wrote:
Well, it was a tough match and it wasn't maelstorm, so board controle during the game wasn't important, basically, what mutilators tend to provide. Imo, if you're playing eternal war, msu is not the way to go anywayz cause you instantly have 1/6 chance of auto-loosing and msu tend to be overall weaker than deathstars but they provide better board presence (which is wasted in eternal war).

Good game anywayz! You guyzare good sports. Too bad pikachu didn't come out of reserves to stomp the blasted pointy ears.

If there had been another turn, Pikachu might have tilted the battle. Lol.

Obviously the skill levels were different, but I thought you might like to watch it just because its been the subject here. He's pretty good for his age though.

**Yoyoyo**

@ koooaei: I lost the even longer version, but I think the only place where you can save a lot of points is the Bunker. Trying to forego it :

Warlord trait, trying for Strategic Genuis: 31% chance
ML3 Divination Sorc, fishing for Scrier's Gaze: 66% total chance
A ML3 Tzeentch Herald can try for Scrier's gaze on Divination (now up to 75%) or just stay in Malefic.

So in a minimum of 2/3rds of games, you'd have a 8/9 chance of Reserves coming in. In the remainder, you still have a 2/3 chance. That can be further mitigated by buying another Instrument+Icon, which can be chained together to create a LZ for incoming Oblits and Mutilators. There's a lesser chance of reserves entering, but also lesser chances of mishaps. Maybe that's worth sacrificing the Comms Relay?

So basically:

- Exchange Gift of Mutation and Spell Familiar for Balestar
- Drop the Bunker, drop 1x Mutilator, exchange Melta Marines for Cultists (-251pts)
- Buy ML3 Herald, buy Daemonettes w/Icon and Instrument (+205pts)
- The difference is +46pts, to use on a Disc and Rewards or scrounge up 5pts to buy a VSG.

You could riff on this a few different ways, like a 3-Layer VSG with Barricades placed on an Objective for Nurglings (2+ cover). Or two Rhino Marines and use Pink Horrors to summon, skip the Herald entirely. Or even take a ML2 Herald of Slaneesh with an Exalted Locus to Challenge out critical enemy ICs, after Masque kills their mobility. Or spend the points in an entirely different way within CSM.

I don't know, what do you think? There's some drawbacks but it also opens up some potential synergies. 150pts of Bunker+Cultists is similar to 150pts of VSG+Cultists, you're essentially trading Rhino Marines+Mutie for a Herald+Daemonettes, plus the associated tradeoffs of an Icons/Instrument versus a guaranteed reserves reroll.

Regardless of all the suggestions above I'm curious to see how next the challenge plays out.

**koooaei**

Vsg is a bit wasted in an army without vehicles. 100 pts is a Kitted herald or a squad of horrors that'd be more useful imo. It's hard to come across an army that can't down 3 av12 shields in one go.

Divination tree can be fine. It has 4++, primaris and yep, scyer's gaze can be great. But it's not nearly as reliable as simply having comms relay. Bunker also provides blos for cultists. And i can but an obli inside or on top of battlements too.

Nevertheless, i think that your idea with baelstar and more daemons can work too. Spawns with 4++ are tasty indeed.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Spawn can get into cover just fine for a save. What you REALLY want is the Rending power from Divination.

Well you want both but still.

**koooaei**

HMM, that's quite interesting. Spawns often get stuck when they get caught by naughts or 2+ saves.

Twin-linked, 4++, rending, scyer's gaze. But also not so useful fearless, overwatch and ignore cover for shooting which i don't have.

Thanks for an idea - i'll need to digest it and see what i get and what i loose.

**Yoyoyo**

koooaei wrote:
But also not so useful fearless, overwatch and ignore cover for shooting which i don't have.

Fearless is in the Telepathy discipline, what you would get is Precognition (Psyker rerolls failed saves, failed to hit, failed to wound). That one is useful on the Sorc I think, they are fragile and it may protect against getting sniped out.

The shooting powers won't work with Spawns, but you do pick up Counterattack. The only CSM units that have Overwatch are the Marines and Cultists.

Ignore Cover... maybe reorganize two Oblits into a single unit to have a good target to buff with Prescience+Ignore Cover? With Instruments + Icons you can bring them in reliably and with luck keep them out of combat. And with the weapons flexibility you have the perfect option against a lot of different targets.

**Slayer-Fan123**

koooaei wrote:
HMM, that's quite interesting. Spawns often get stuck when they get caught by naughts or 2+ saves.

Twin-linked, 4++, rending, scyer's gaze. But also not so useful fearless, overwatch and ignore cover for shooting which i don't have.

Thanks for an idea - i'll need to digest it and see what i get and what i loose.

You can always cast those on your Plague Marines if you have to.

**koooaei**

Oh, right about fearless - missed the tree. I generally roll either telepathy for shreik, shrowding, terrify and invis or biomancy for all the great stuff there. Also summoning. Baelstar has it's advantages of not spending 70 pts on a fortification just for comms relay.

Are there any other reserve manipulations in daemon codex? Well, we could ally in eldar with a dude for +1 reserves and scatbikes but not this time.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or maybr there are some more useful fortifications?

**Yoyoyo**

There isn't much else in the way of Daemon options, at least I can't think of any. Adding ML3 Heralds for more rolls on Divination will push your odds up to 85 or 90% (from 77%). There's also a lesser reward for the troops that gives +1 to reserve rolls, but you need to fish for a 6 to grab it.

If you keep your list as it is, you could equip Daemonheart on the Malefic Sorc, which won't prevent perils but you can hopefully regen the lost wound with IWND. 2+ save is money anyway, and the Crimson Slaughter traits are pretty solid with Spawn (Shrouded, Hatred, Ld debuff). So best case scenario -- permanently Shrouded 2+/4++ Div Sorc who lets you reroll reserves.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Buying IWND is pretty bad in that regard. You're for both IWND and 2+ when a Sorcerer is still only two wounds. It makes him FAR too expensive. If an opponent wants a two wound model to die, it'll happen pretty easily. Just buy the things necessary (4++, ML3, bike, Spell Familiar/Balestar) and don't go overboard.

**koooaei**

This sorcs are allready like 185 pts, so VERY expensive. They could be cheaper, but i find that every time i don't take 4++, i regret about it. And mutation just fits the theme so nicely.

Also, rolling on strategic can give +1 to reserve rolls. As for rewards, it might be worth it just for this extra chance. It's not very expensive anywayz.

**Yoyoyo**

I think there are merits, provided you intend to avoid Horrors or Heralds. It bumps a 185pt model up to 215pts. IWND is needed to deal with T1 Perils. You can't risk summoning again on 1W and any other bad luck is curtains. I'd keep the Sigil too.

Meanwhile if you combo a 2+ with Precognition, a T5 Sorc becomes 4x as survivable as with a 3+. It will take about 1100pts of Scatterbikes to drop 2W from him, add a 4+ FNP from Biomancy and it takes over 2000pts. Grav, Melta and Plasma will mostly bounce off the spawn and then there's mandatory challenges. So it has value if there's not a character like Culexus, Stomps and D-weapons that negate saves.

But it's still better to have a cheap Malefic caster if the list can support it, otherwise that's a lot of eggs in one basket.

Anyway, just throwing out ideas. I'm curious to see what direction this list might go.

**koooaei**

Here's a promissed batrep.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/jforum.page?module=posts&action=list&topic_id=677557&viewResults=true

**Dtox**

Wowie

! I didnt expect my question to spawn such an extensive discussion and chain of replies! Have there been any changes in opinion when it comes to the mutilators? or is the consensus still that they're just not very worth the points?

I hope yall have been having fun with the whole thing, sure seems like it lol.

**koooaei**

Finished a batrep.

**Akiasura**

The consensus seems to be, to answer the ops question, that mutilators have a niche use.
If your opponent runs large squads instead of msu, mutilators do well.. They will absorb well above their point cost. The expensive squad must be bad at assault and not have split fire.

If your opponent runs stationary tanks, they will do well. Mutilators punch way above their point cost against such targets.

If neither of the above is true, mutilators don't seem to do well. Neither of the above is seen in competitive lists, so that is why mutilators are also not seen in competitive lists.

I hesitate to call any of this a consensus however.

**koooaei**

There are a lot of deathstars in competitive meta actually.
The thing is that mutilators don't need to fight against melee dudes - we've got summoned daemonettes + masque, sorc's debuffs and spawns for tarpits. I see mutilator's role more of area controlers. Backlines and vehicles hate them. When needed, they can join serious melee combats but their speed is not ideal for that. However, they do rock the enemy backlines, deny area and limit movement for just a bunch of points. I think that nothing in the codex except for obliterators can really suit this role as perfectly as mutilators do. I don't think that mutilators are better than obliterators but at the same time, obliterators are not better than mutilators. Obliterators are more versatile but worse in melee and more expensive. I actually think that it's better to go with a mix. You never know when you'll need those chainfists with an extra attack or ini4 claws/maces. At the same time, shooting weapons are invaluable. It's probably better to have more obliterators in general but it's hard to tell without playtesting. If anyone wants to do it, go with a mix anywayz.

My opinion is that mutilators are fine. They can be used in most melee-oriented (hey, you should be melee-oriented with csm) lists with good results. Don't expect them to solo the game but they're very handy. I actually think of using them with my orks when i finally get bully boyz and trukks done. Well, got one bully boy from this very game as a bet. Also, another dude from our club bet a bunch of 3-d party grots. Man, i need more of those. Thanks, mutilators.

**Jancoran**

koooaei wrote:
Here's a promissed batrep.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/jforum.page?module=posts&action=list&topic_id=677557&viewResults=true

Batrep? Cool. Will check it out.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dtox wrote:
Wowie ! I didnt expect my question to spawn such an extensive discussion and chain of replies! Have there been any changes in opinion when it comes to the mutilators? or is the consensus still that they're just not very worth the points?

I hope yall have been having fun with the whole thing, sure seems like it lol.

No agreement. some people who started with "Mutilators suck" have backed down on their stance as you can see and as more voices have spoken up and now several Batreps on top of them. I'd say the wave has shifted.

No board has unlimited space. Mutilators take advantage of this fact and box enemies in or steal midfield safe havens. They occupy the Elites slot which is ideal for them and allows you to take them without much competition. The competion that people seem to favor who dont like Mutilators is a more expensive Terminator squad with less wounds. I dont agree but thats been the number one counter volley.

Regardless of consensus, here's what is true: You can absolutely learn to use them. You just have to want to. Like everything you ever undertook, it's just a matter of doing it.

**Dtox**

Jancoran wrote:
koooaei wrote:
Here's a promissed batrep.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/jforum.page?module=posts&action=list&topic_id=677557&viewResults=true

Batrep? Cool. Will check it out.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dtox wrote:
Wowie ! I didnt expect my question to spawn such an extensive discussion and chain of replies! Have there been any changes in opinion when it comes to the mutilators? or is the consensus still that they're just not very worth the points?

I hope yall have been having fun with the whole thing, sure seems like it lol.

No agreement. some people who started with "Mutilators suck" have backed down on their stance as you can see and as more voices have spoken up and now several Batreps on top of them. I'd say the wave has shifted.

No board has unlimited space. Mutilators take advantage of this fact and box enemies in or steal midfield safe havens. They occupy the Elites slot which is ideal for them and allows you to take them without much competition. The competion that people seem to favor who dont like Mutilators is a more expensive Terminator squad with less wounds. I dont agree but thats been the number one counter volley.

Regardless of consensus, here's what is true: You can absolutely learn to use them. You just have to want to. Like everything you ever undertook, it's just a matter of doing it.

Well it definitely sounds like they have their uses, however I wasn't intending on having them for the purpose of "drop in and be an issue." I looked towards them as being a tough-to-kill unit going across the battlefield yelling "rawr" as they clash into and rend the enemy front lines. It does not sound like they would be very good for that purpose, however, due to the lack of mobility and all that.

**Akiasura**

koooaei wrote:
There are a lot of deathstars in competitive meta actually.
The thing is that mutilators don't need to fight against melee dudes - we've got summoned daemonettes + masque, sorc's debuffs and spawns for tarpits. I see mutilator's role more of area controlers. Backlines and vehicles hate them. When needed, they can join serious melee combats but their speed is not ideal for that. However, they do rock the enemy backlines, deny area and limit movement for just a bunch of points. I think that nothing in the codex except for obliterators can really suit this role as perfectly as mutilators do. I don't think that mutilators are better than obliterators but at the same time, obliterators are not better than mutilators. Obliterators are more versatile but worse in melee and more expensive. I actually think that it's better to go with a mix. You never know when you'll need those chainfists with an extra attack or ini4 claws/maces. At the same time, shooting weapons are invaluable. It's probably better to have more obliterators in general but it's hard to tell without playtesting. If anyone wants to do it, go with a mix anywayz.

My opinion is that mutilators are fine. They can be used in most melee-oriented (hey, you should be melee-oriented with csm) lists with good results. Don't expect them to solo the game but they're very handy. I actually think of using them with my orks when i finally get bully boyz and trukks done. Well, got one bully boy from this very game as a bet. Also, another dude from our club bet a bunch of 3-d party grots. Man, i need more of those. Thanks, mutilators.

Just to point out, most death stars in this game are either melee oriented (twc, bike of some kind, wraith, screamer) or have split fire (cents). There are few death stars that don't fit into one of the above categories, and mutilators don't want to see any of the former around. So yes, Death Stars are common, but the ones mutilators would actually perform well against are extremely rare.

I don't think either side has managed to convince anyone, most of the random posters seem to chime in with "they're terrible" and leave the thread after all. Neither side has said anything new (the fact that mutilators are good against tanks and struggle against dedicated melee units or msu isn't new, and was mentioned early in the thread).

To be fair, I don't think oblits are very good either. They have been relatively weaker every new dex, and even at the drop people seemed to favor havoks over oblits.

**Ashiraya**

I can't really think of any non-melee deathstar without split fire.

Jetseer star, I guess? Though good luck trying to box in a jetbike unit.