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Mutilators are NOT supposed to fight deathstars. Of course, a 61 pt unit can't really tickle 500+ pt units. It's NOT their role. Why are you trying to trow them at stuff they won't perform against. As said above, you got other stuff to deal with deathstars.
I think you're using a wrong arguement. They're great against deathstar units cause the enemy won't be able to reliably deal with them while simultaniously dealing with the rest of your lists. Besides, there's masque that's amazing against expensive stuff - especially melee oriented that don't use transports - pretty much 95% of deathstars nowadays.

I don't think so. Most death stars are tough and fast. You can divide them further by melee or shooting, although th majority is melee based.

Mutilators will not be able to catch the vast majority of Death Stars. Cents teleport, wraiths and screamers are fast, destroyers are fast, bikes are fast, twc are fast. Draigo with Paladins is the only one I can see them catching tbh.

Mutilators can not beat a melee star in combat. Even off the charge, wraiths, twc, Paladins (maybe? I don't play gk) will wipe the mutilators before they can swing unless you manage to get them with all of them (even then, for many, it's close).

Shooting Death Stars can eliminate two a turn pretty easily. This is pretty good, but since most deathstars that shoot can teleport, I doubt it'll come up much. If it does they are fine.

How they perform against deathstars isn't critical to their performance though it is worth mentioning. I never said it was. You yourself mentioned that deathstars are common in competitive metas and I don't disagree. To me, their weakness against msu shooting is crippling since that is more relevant.

To me, their limited targets and weakness to competitive units is why they aren't good. They certainly have uses in a non competitive or tank heavy environment.

 koooaei wrote:
Mutilators are NOT supposed to fight deathstars. Of course, a 61 pt unit can't really tickle 500+ pt units. It's NOT their role. Why are you trying to trow them at stuff they won't perform against. As said above, you got other stuff to deal with deathstars.
I think you're using a wrong arguement. They're great against deathstar units cause the enemy won't be able to reliably deal with them while simultaniously dealing with the rest of your lists. Besides, there's masque that's amazing against expensive stuff - especially melee oriented that don't use transports - pretty much 95% of deathstars nowadays.

Except that you don't HAVE to deal with the Mutilator. They're SaP and don't do well in melee for the points. Why am I going to waste time going after them except for Kill Points?

Also I looked up the Masque and I'm not impressed. T3 two wounds? Even with debuffing an opponent's BS that's ridiculously easy to kill.

 Dtox wrote:
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.

That is more the role of Chaos Spawn in that report. I'll attempt to sum up the game for purposes of discussion:

--- koooaei goes 2nd, doesn't seize
--- Drop Pod Grav Cents have no good targets (all 2+ units in reserve. no AV) but are forced to enter on T1 anyway, subsequently fail to kill 50pts of Cultists
--- koooaei locks the Grav Cents with Spawn, gains first blood on 2x units by encircling and wrecking a speeder/embarked scouts with spawns+summoned daemonettes
--- Vets+Calgar enter from reserve and charge the offending Spawn+Sorc, eventually win combat with losses. The other Vets fail their charge and are crippled in return by Masque
--- Mutilators start dropping in everywhere, win 2 VPs and deny another. One dies to Mishap and another to overwatch, but successfully clear 2 Tac Squads
--- Oblits suffer from poor shooting and mishaps, only manage to down a Speeder. Daemonettes tangle with Vanguard
--- Initial combats finally resolve, surviving Sorc kills Calgar with a Focused Witchfire and Spawn proceed to wreck a HQ tank
--- Honor Guard in a flyer finally make combat and kill most of kooaei's original Daemon detachement after a 10-inch charge
--- Score tied 9-9, SM attempts to score 1+d3pts but a Mutilator tanks 230pts of Stormraven fire to deny VPs
--- Mutilators score a Maelstrom VP by "Kill a Flyer" (lol) and also force Scouts off an objective in CC. Kooaei secures the objective and CSM wins by 2pts

Spawn+Sorc combo does most of the major destruction (Scout/Speeder, Grav Cents, Calgar, Chronus Vindicator) but Mutilators don't do too badly taking on smaller targets (Stormraven, 2x Tacs w/HB, most of a Scout squad). Their utility (as kooaei said in the batrep) was more being able to,DS onto VPs, deny VPs by board control and deal with small units like Tacs and Scouts economically.

 Dtox wrote:

 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.

They deep strike where you want them as fast as any other unit can get there. So yeah. they will Rawr. My personal use of them is not the only one. Its just proven to be effective. Koo' has done several battles with them as well and played them differently and they worked for him.

Yoyoyo wrote:

 Dtox wrote:
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.

That is more the role of Chaos Spawn in that report. I'll attempt to sum up the game for purposes of discussion:

--- koooaei goes 2nd, doesn't seize
--- Drop Pod Grav Cents have no good targets (all 2+ units in reserve. no AV) but are forced to enter on T1 anyway, subsequently fail to kill 50pts of Cultists
--- koooaei locks the Grav Cents with Spawn, gains first blood on 2x units by encircling and wrecking a speeder/embarked scouts with spawns+summoned daemonettes
--- Vets+Calgar enter from reserve and charge the offending Spawn+Sorc, eventually win combat with losses. The other Vets fail their charge and are crippled in return by Masque
--- Mutilators start dropping in everywhere, win 2 VPs and deny another. One dies to Mishap and another to overwatch, but successfully clear 2 Tac Squads
--- Oblits suffer from poor shooting and mishaps, only manage to down a Speeder. Daemonettes tangle with Vanguard
--- Initial combats finally resolve, surviving Sorc kills Calgar with a Focused Witchfire and Spawn proceed to wreck a HQ tank
--- Honor Guard in a flyer finally make combat and kill most of kooaei's original Daemon detachement after a 10-inch charge
--- Score tied 9-9, SM attempts to score 1+d3pts but a Mutilator tanks 230pts of Stormraven fire to deny VPs
--- Mutilators score a Maelstrom VP by "Kill a Flyer" (lol) and also force Scouts off an objective in CC. Kooaei secures the objective and CSM wins by 2pts

Spawn+Sorc combo does most of the major destruction (Scout/Speeder, Grav Cents, Calgar, Chronus Vindicator) but Mutilators don't do too badly taking on smaller targets (Stormraven, 2x Tacs w/HB, most of a Scout squad). Their utility (as kooaei said in the batrep) was more being able to,DS onto VPs, deny VPs by board control and deal with small units like Tacs and Scouts economically.

Sadly spawn don't seem to work for me, as I believe they are fast attack and i'm putting together a purge detachment, can't have fast attack there.

Although, I suppose that doesn't mean they can't be a part of ANOTHER detachment or formation in my army...didnt think about that actually.

If you want a unit that rawrs across the battlefield (I'm assuming you mean don't deep strike?) then your choices are somewhat limited.
Spawn, bikes, raptors all rawr. Spawn do it very well depending on the matchup. A landraider with something nasty inside do it well if your opponent can't handle it (no melta, mc, Grav, D weapons or haywire). There is also rhino rush.

I'm not sure what the purge is limited to so can't offer more advice. Our other tough units, oblits muties and terminators really want to deep strike since they are slow. You could put termies in a raider I suppose.

Akiasura wrote:
If you want a unit that rawrs across the battlefield (I'm assuming you mean don't deep strike?) then your choices are somewhat limited.
Spawn, bikes, raptors all rawr. Spawn do it very well depending on the matchup. A landraider with something nasty inside do it well if your opponent can't handle it (no melta, mc, Grav, D weapons or haywire). There is also rhino rush.

I'm not sure what the purge is limited to so can't offer more advice. Our other tough units, oblits muties and terminators really want to deep strike since they are slow. You could put termies in a raider I suppose.

yeah I will definitely consider spawn, also maulerfiends sound pretty neato from what i've seen.

Spawns are just great. I think they're the best unit in the entire csm dex. But they can't deal with everything themselves as they're only s5. But fast, cheap, tough and fearless. And sometimes they're surprisingly choppy vs stuff they can hurt.

Spawns ARE good.

Mauler fiends are good depending on your list. They are a sort of go big or go home type of unit.

You really want a lot of AV (so rhinos, fiends, and drakes) in an effort to overload your opponents anti tank weapons to the point where enough gets delivered. You can supplement this with other high toughness units as well (bikes, spawn). I am unsure how a mutilator would perform in such a list, since they are right on the cusp of being tough for their points.

Just be aware that certain lists, like Grav spam, can easily roll over mauler fiends quite easily. Spawn help, but if a cent star is taken, the spawn won't matter as much since the cents will target other units and leave basic marines on spawn detail.

I imagine such a list might do well against crons and Eldar that don't take a WK though, if you can destroy the WS before the dragons do work. Or the Hawks.


Edit; spawn are amazing and I can't think of any unit that easily counters them that isn't blatantly Op (wk). Go nurgle with them or keep them cheap. Khorne isn't bad.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Spawn+Sorc combo does most of the major destruction (Scout/Speeder, Grav Cents, Calgar, Chronus Vindicator) but Mutilators don't do too badly taking on smaller targets (Stormraven, 2x Tacs w/HB, most of a Scout squad). Their utility (as kooaei said in the batrep) was more being able to,DS onto VPs, deny VPs by board control and deal with small units like Tacs and Scouts economically.

To be fair, Spawns + sorcs cost > twice as much as mutilators. But they're definitely good and the movement force of the list. Psy buffs are generarally essential to make them proper hammer. Mutis and oblis are born to be anvil and they suit each other pretty well. I'd like to play this list against eldar and see how far can it go. I hope to counter wk with summoned daemonettes. They might block the way and inflict a couple wounds with rends. They'll sure die to instability in melee though. But i'm fine with it. Anywayz, need to see it in action.

My game will be against Eldar. Planning to do a batrep

Akiasura wrote:
Just be aware that certain lists, like Grav spam, can easily roll over mauler fiends quite easily. Spawn help, but if a cent star is taken, the spawn won't matter as much since the cents will target other units and leave basic marines on spawn detail.

This match is a good example of how it's not always about what's impressive on paper. Maulerfiends and Heldrakes have nice special rules and weapons, but they would have presented more rewarding targets in this game. Mutilators and Oblits hiding safely in reserve don't need to compromise their T2 positioning and more or less run around unchallenged. Nothing the high-octane SM shooting units effectively target all game is worth more than ~75pts! Grav Cents were offered up as an ideal counter earlier in this thread, but they can't leverage that firepower due to how Mutilators/Oblits deploy. Weren't Grav Cents w/Split Fire supposed to be an ideal "cost effective counter" and generally just one of the most broken units in the game? They end up costing ~285 points to force Cultists to lose 7" of position and tarpit Spawn in assault for 5x CC phases.

I'm not trying to knock Heldrakes or Maulerfiends, but it's easy to look at the statline of a model and not apply the bigger picture. First, lists that break the meta catch people unprepared. Second, economy matters. If a unit needs to score a VP at the cost of shooting or needs to roleplay a speed bump, it's better if it's cheap. That's the point of Masque right? She crippled a 175pt squad for a turn and picked up a VP in challenge. Third, internet wisdom discourages assaulting as it isn't guaranteed damage like shooting, but CC helps to push models off objectives due to lowered LD modifiers. Driving a unit off an objective was necessary on T5, and Mutilators in CC attack leadership to shift units better than a Heldrake can by shooting alone. Finally, functional immunity to most Morale checks (as lone models) is a huge bonus -- even a LD9 unit can fail 17% of the time and that is significant. Anybody play XCOM on high difficulty? I learned the hard way that if you take enough high-consequence shots at 90%, at some point it will inevitably all go horribly wrong.

Humans aren't objective by nature so it helps to be aware of common bias. If anyone knows about loss aversion, it would explain a lot about why people irrationally hate failed charges and deep strike. If you want a unit that is dynamic and cinematic, Mutilators fail. No speed, thus no rawr. The model itself is, put politely, a point of contention. But they are pretty good at soaking up damage from bigger units, establishing board presence, wrecking pricey AV up to 2-3x their cost and bullying MSU off positions. I think in 4 games, we've only seen a sub-100pt unit kill a Mutilator once. Is that correct?

Incidentally Akia, it's very possible to counter Spawn without WKs, but you need an Instant Death weapon. Think about a charging BA Librarian with the Mace Relic, Force and Quickening -- that's about 2-3 dead Spawn before they strike, and that number goes up to 4 with an attached Sang Priest and Digital Weapons. Equivalent points in Scatterbike shooting would kill about 3x Nurgle Spawn out of cover, 1x Spawn in cover with Endurance, or 1x Spawn in Cover with Shrouded. That's one of the major benefits of having a toolbox army, rather than just drowning a unit in A++ shooting.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
Just be aware that certain lists, like Grav spam, can easily roll over mauler fiends quite easily. Spawn help, but if a cent star is taken, the spawn won't matter as much since the cents will target other units and leave basic marines on spawn detail.

This match is a good example of how it's not always about what's impressive on paper. Maulerfiends and Heldrakes have nice special rules and weapons, but they would have presented more rewarding targets in this game. Mutilators and Oblits hiding safely in reserve don't need to compromise their T2 positioning and more or less run around unchallenged. Nothing the high-octane SM shooting units effectively target all game is worth more than ~75pts! Grav Cents were offered up as an ideal counter earlier in this thread, but they can't leverage that firepower due to how Mutilators/Oblits deploy. Weren't Grav Cents w/Split Fire supposed to be an ideal "cost effective counter" and generally just one of the most broken units in the game? They just end up costing ~285 points to force Cultists to lose 7" of position and tarpit Spawn in assault for 5x CC phases.

Specifically, the Centstar was mentioned as being a good counter because it can teleport. This would allow it to fire at 2 mutilators/oblits a turn, or earn about ~130-160 pts a turn after T2 while being relatively safe. That's about 1/3 to 1/2 of the units cost depending on the build, so it's fine.
Cents are not nearly as good without the star, since they are so slow and can't reposition/flee from approaching units. Which we saw here. You have to be a lot more careful with how you deploy Cents if they are stuck being incredibly slow and have few targets.

Deciding to deploy them knowing that everything valuable was going to be arriving T2+ on T1 (unless that is how the formation works? Do they not count as DSing unit for the pod?) was a mistake, he could have just held them back to keep them safe from the spawn for some additional turns and threaten the mutilators.

Mistakes happen, but poor tactical play/list building doesn't make a unit poor or its opposition great.

Yoyoyo wrote:

I'm not trying to knock Heldrakes or Maulerfiends, but it's easy to look at the statline of a model and not apply the bigger picture. First, lists that break the meta catch people unprepared.

Sure, but we aren't seeing them go against the Meta. The meta consists of deathstars, MSU, and GMCs, not stationary tanks and vanguard vets, or infantry with heavy bolters. All of these are targets mutilators don't want to see. At all.
Unless you mean the casual meta. I imagine that varies wildly and is hard to discuss.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Second, economy matters. If a unit needs to score a VP at the cost of shooting or needs to roleplay a speed bump, it's better if it's cheap.

Sure, and for this mutilators aren't terrible. They cost a little too much unless someone only has expensive squads (for some reason, that's certainly not an optimal choice unless it's a deathstar). If they were faster, I'd feel a lot better about them for scoring VPs. Or if they were tougher.

Yoyoyo wrote:

That's the point of Masque right? She crippled a 175pt squad for a turn and picked up a VP in challenge. Third, internet wisdom discourages assaulting as it isn't guaranteed damage like shooting, but CC helps to push models off objectives due to lowered LD modifiers.

That is actually the opposite of internet wisdom.
Melee units do way more damage then shooting due to more attacks and sweeping advance rules. Notice that most of the death stars are melee based for this reason, since they are more likely to earn their points back through melee than shooting. The one exception has split fire and, let's face it, the best weapons in the game.
The internet discourages melee because most melee units are too slow to catch anyone, not tough enough to survive to reach melee, and are dramatically overcosted. Berzerkers are a good example of a bad melee unit, wraiths are an example of a good one. But when an army has a good melee unit, you do see it spammed or taken in deathstars.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Driving a unit off an objective was necessary on T5, and Mutilators in CC attack leadership to shift units better than Heldrake can by shooting alone. Finally, functional immunity to most Morale checks is a huge bonus -- even a LD9 unit can fail 17% of the time and that is significant. Anybody play XCOM on high difficulty? I learned the hard way that if you take enough high-consequence shots at 90%, at some point it will inevitably it will go horribly wrong.

That's true, but a good general tries to put the odds in his favor rather than relying on good/bad rolls. Xcom is no different...you don't want a 17% hit chance and bet your guy's life on it. Not if you play Ironman anyway.
Not to mention the plethora of units that just don't care about LD in this game..it's why its referenced as a worthless stat most of the time.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Humans aren't objective by nature so it helps to be aware of common bias. If anyone knows about loss aversion, it would explain a lot about why people irrationally hate failed charges and deep strike.

There is some truth to this, but a big reason people hate failed deepstrikes and charges, as compared to missing, is that failed charges and deepstrikes can leave a unit horribly exposed and killed. Missing means your enemy has a few more models to attack you with, which is bad, but not failing a charge bad. A whole turn of an expensive unit doing nothing from one 2d6 roll is something shooting units rarely, if ever, have to contend with. It's one of the reasons fleet is so good.

Yoyoyo wrote:

If you want a unit that is dynamic and cinematic, Mutilators fail. No speed, thus no rawr. The model itself is, put politely, a point of contention. But they are pretty good at soaking up damage from bigger units, establishing board presence, wrecking pricey AV usually 2-3x their cost and bullying MSU off positions. I think in 4 games, we've only seen a sub-100pt unit kill a Mutilator once. Is that correct?

I think in all of these reports, we have seen nearly zero sub 100 pt units. MSU isn't being utilized, and these lists are not what you would call competitive.
None of these things are new, we covered them pretty early on in the thread. The problem is that needlessly large units are uncommon (unless deathstars which destroy muties), stationary pricey tanks are uncommon, and MSU/MC/GMC rules the day. All things the mutilators don't do well against.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Incidentally Akia, it's very possible to counter Spawn without WKs, but you need an Instant Death weapon. Think about a charging BA Librarian with the Mace Relic, Force and Quickening -- that's about 2-3 dead Spawn before they strike, and that number goes up to 4 with an attached Sang Priest and Digital Weapons. Equivalent points in Scatterbike shooting would kill about 3x Nurgle Spawn out of cover, 1x Spawn in cover with Endurance, or 1x Spawn in Cover with Shrouded. That's one of the major benefits of having a toolbox army, rather than just drowning a unit in A++ shooting.

True, spawn are bad against ID weapons. Those are so rare I don't consider it a large weakness of them unless facing a few armies that have a decent amount.
GMCs, units that can hit Str 10, and honestly scat bikes are a lot more common.
Getting endurance and shrouded isn't guaranteed either sadly, although spawn do benefit a lot from Belakor and psykers in general. But no one is saying spawn are bad, just that they have counters that the big boys take.

There are so few units that even see the field small enough for me not to justify the instance of my Mutilator. It can and does often absorb FAR more points in enemy strength than they lose. So while it can happen and it even will happen (to one?) I'm not going to cry about it. It's value is in soaking the love the enemy has to give and feeding Khornes desire while hoping to give a big Nurgle filled love tap to some lucky souls.

A point I made before is that they are unable to catch Marines running off which can really be a helpful feature too. Love that about them. While Tactical marines might be found foraging far forward, with my army they probably wont be. Too busy being blocked off by Raptors. So in my case the lovely wall of Marines that might be pinned back there are going to get hit and one hopes run right off the board instead of staying ensconced in combat interminably. Its been great a number of times.

My marines are never that close to a board edge. I'm not sure how raptors are scaring anyone, though.

@Martel -- almost certainly it's an attached IC with Raptors as bolter bait.

@Akia, I'm going to address you point-for-point as I feel we're getting along more constructively

Akiasura wrote:
Specifically, the Centstar was mentioned as being a good counter because it can teleport. This would allow it to fire at 2 mutilators/oblits a turn, or earn about ~130-160 pts a turn after T2 while being relatively safe. That's about 1/3 to 1/2 of the units cost depending on the build, so it's fine.

As you said, rolling up specific powers is unreliable. Taking Draigo to kill 2x Oblits or Mutilators each turn is not a game-winning use of a 495pt unit. Also, your costing is off

Akiasura wrote:
Deciding to deploy them knowing that everything valuable was going to be arriving T2+ on T1 (unless that is how the formation works? Do they not count as DSing unit for the pod?) was a mistake, he could have just held them back to keep them safe from the spawn for some additional turns and threaten the mutilators.

Not how it works. He would have needed to have 2x Drop Pods to hold back the Grav Cents. Which would have been a good idea in retrospect, min-maxing firepower at the expense of tactical flexibility is risky.

Akiasura wrote:
Mistakes happen, but poor tactical play/list building doesn't make a unit poor or its opposition great.

Mistakes happen for a reason. Throw out the unexpected, and people will make mistakes. That's the strength of lists with unusual mechanics or dark horse units. Man, how many times has Martel bemoaned BA lacking Grav? Now we have a spoiler list presenting zero quality targets for a T1 Grav alpha strike. That's not poor list building, that is turning the meta on its head. As said, players adapt but this is known as "the element of surprise" and it's valued for a reason. That's a hard factor to quantify in mathhammer.

Anyways -- we are seeing LoW characters, Honor Guard in flying Assault Vehicles, hot-off-the-presses 7.5th formations with free bonus rules. At this point I think a 6x Mutilator list could win LVO or Adepticon and you might still find a way to rationalize it as an anecdotal and invalid freak occurrence! You have accused certain people of having their mind made up, but consider you may not be entirely objective yourself... didn't you yourself define this as a discussion between warring "pro" and "anti" Mutilator camps? That's a way of seeing things that that forces you to argue a "side" non-objectively. How you should see this, is open-minded and creative versus dogmatic and presumptous -- that's the point of wargaming IRL. It's a process to gather information and test outcomes, not show who is smarter than who. Picking a side to defend and assuming conditions to validate your opinion is a cardinal sin in true wargaming known as situating the estimate. I want to see Mutilators fail on the tabletop, not in a debating society! But I digress.

Akiasura wrote:
The internet discourages melee because most melee units are too slow to catch anyone, not tough enough to survive to reach melee, and are dramatically overcosted. Berzerkers are a good example of a bad melee unit, wraiths are an example of a good one. But when an army has a good melee unit, you do see it spammed or taken in deathstars.

This is exactly what I meant, Wraiths are essentiallly guaranteed to reach their target. If not, they are so tough it doesn't even matter much. Their damage is not spectacular, but psychologically people prefer incurring no losses to significant gains. Google it if you have the time, human psychology is fascinating.

Akiasura wrote:
Not to mention the plethora of units that just don't care about LD in this game..it's why its referenced as a worthless stat most of the time.

It's fairly worthless if all you do is spam shooting attacks at high LD units! But the consequences of failing a LD test tend to be severe, for example a 1WC Terrify can send a Riptide off the map. I did lengthy calculations about sweeping Necrons in CC with Beserkers, their most reliable enabler is a simple 20pt Icon that adds +1 to combat resolution. It never even crossed my mind but it makes a huge difference. People aren't tuned into attacking LD, because generally they don't plan in advance to attack LD. It's not typically straightforward and it's not effective until you start testing at LD6 on a roll of 2D6. You need modifiers. But CC is a modifier, and 2W against a LD8 target by a solo Mutilator will usually shift a unit. Off the map if you're lucky, as Jancoran said. Eldar, Tau, SM and Necrons are all vulnerable to LD failure in some form -- stacking modifiers can get complicated but -2 from 1CTF, -1 from Terrify and Dominate will reliably punk out a 450pt Fearless Stormsurge. It's wombo-combo territory but LD is far from worthless. Much like Mutilators in fact -- some strategies rely on synergy and if you don't shape the situation towards ensuring success, you probably won't be.

Akiasura wrote:
There is some truth to this, but a big reason people hate failed deepstrikes and charges, as compared to missing, is that failed charges and deepstrikes can leave a unit horribly exposed and killed.

Again, that's exactly what I mean by loss aversion. It's "safer" to just shoot at the enemy. But it's not necessarily a rational analysis of risk and reward.

Akiasura wrote:
I think in all of these reports, we have seen nearly zero sub 100 pt units.

We've seen a Company Command, Chimeras, various Scouts, Tacticals, Storm Speeders, Scout Bikes, a Techmarine HQ, Armored Sentinels (but squadroned), Vets (but with 3x weapons), a split-firing Grav Cent that didn't get the chance to shoot a Mutilator... not exactly zero. You need a sub-100pt unit that can effectively kill T5/2+/5++/2W, while its target can hide in reserves and strike anywhere. That is a tall order for most armies. Deathmarks would be *perfect*. But now we are tailoring

Yoyoyo wrote:
@Martel -- almost certainly it's an attached IC with Raptors as bolter bait.

Most stars would not be concerned about a Raptor with IC. Chaos lords make remarkably poor bait for guns compared to their SM counterparts.

Yoyoyo wrote:

@Akia, I'm going to address you point-for-point as I feel we're getting along more constructively

I appreciate the bit by bit.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
Specifically, the Centstar was mentioned as being a good counter because it can teleport. This would allow it to fire at 2 mutilators/oblits a turn, or earn about ~130-160 pts a turn after T2 while being relatively safe. That's about 1/3 to 1/2 of the units cost depending on the build, so it's fine.

As you said, rolling up specific powers is unreliable. Taking Draigo to kill 2x Oblits or Mutilators each turn is not a game-winning use of a 495pt unit. Also, your costing is off

Ah, so 1/4th to 1/3, that's slightly better. I don't use the Draigo build as I don't own GK, so I'm not aware of the exact points. I usually use the ultramarines version.
I'm not sure I would even bother firing at the mutilators in that case with Draigo. Draigo can solo them before they even get to swing after all. With the ultramarines I would need to fire at them, but they are a little cheaper in that situation so the mutilators become a better target.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
Deciding to deploy them knowing that everything valuable was going to be arriving T2+ on T1 (unless that is how the formation works? Do they not count as DSing unit for the pod?) was a mistake, he could have just held them back to keep them safe from the spawn for some additional turns and threaten the mutilators.

Not how it works. He would have needed to have 2x Drop Pods to hold back the Grav Cents. Which would have been a good idea in retrospect, min-maxing firepower at the expense of tactical flexibility is risky.

If he took only a single drop pod, that is remarkably poor planning. You take a minimum of 3 units so you have some choices, 5 is not uncommon. More or less than that is a tactical blunder during the list building phase. Arguably the most important part of the game.
I can see it with a sternguard unit with meltas I suppose, basically a screw this I'm gonna kill a tank, but even then it seems very risky.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
Mistakes happen, but poor tactical play/list building doesn't make a unit poor or its opposition great.

Mistakes happen for a reason. Throw out the unexpected, and people will make mistakes. That's the strength of lists with unusual mechanics or dark horse units. Man, how many times has Martel bemoaned BA lacking Grav? Now we have a spoiler list presenting zero quality targets for a T1 Grav alpha strike. That's not poor list building, that is turning the meta on its head. As said, players adapt but this is known as "the element of surprise" and it's valued for a reason. That's a hard factor to quantify in mathhammer.

While this list counters grav, grav isn't the meta. It's a part of it, but the list taken would fall down against scat bikes, WK, typical tau builds and a decurion. Any deathstar would just walk across the list without a concern, and deathstars are certainly part of the meta.
Besides, the SM players list wasn't exactly the meta. HB? 1 Drop Pod? Grav cents without the Star? No good biker build?

Yoyoyo wrote:

Anyways -- we are seeing LoW characters, Honor Guard in flying Assault Vehicles, hot-off-the-presses 7.5th formations with free bonus rules.

Let's be real, LoW characters are good, on occasion, but aren't competitive for the most part. Honor guard are not competitive, and not every formation is good.
We all know what makes SM good. It's the cent star, biker star, drop pods, thunderfire cannons, and non-LoW SC. None of which is seen in this list.
The better formations, like Gladius, is also not being used here. This isn't a competitive list at all.

Yoyoyo wrote:

At this point I think a 6x Mutilator list could win LVO or Adepticon and you might still find a way to rationalize it as an anecdotal and invalid freak occurrence!

If a 6x mutilator list won LVO or adepticon and faced competitive lists I would be pleasantly surprised and change my opinion.
My request since the start of the thread hasn't changed once. Do mutilators have a place against the better lists?

All of the battle reports presented have been either against remarkably casual lists with their favorite targets, or the mutilators didn't accomplish anything at all. It's simply not convincing, and equating these battles to LVO at all just doesn't seem accurate. This doesn't even represent semi-competitive (not a single competitive option taken mostly. I mean HBs?) let alone competitive.

Yoyoyo wrote:

You have accused certain people of having their mind made up, but consider you may not be entirely objective yourself... didn't you yourself define this as a discussion between warring "pro" and "anti" Mutilator camps? That's a way of seeing things that that forces you to argue a "side" non-objectively. How you should see this, is open-minded and creative versus dogmatic and presumptous -- that's the point of wargaming IRL. It's a process to gather information and test outcomes, not show who is smarter than who. Picking a side to defend and assuming conditions to validate your opinion is a cardinal sin in true wargaming known as situating the estimate. I want to see Mutilators fail on the tabletop, not in a debating society! But I digress.

I didn't accuse anyone of having their mind made up. I have said that no one has said anything new, and this remains true. Everyone has agreed that mutilators work well against casual lists or those with large expensive shooty units that lack split fire. And tanks.

My point has been that mutilators fail against the following;
Any melee death star
MSU builds, since it doesn't take much firepower to knock one out.
Any fast army
Any MC/GMC
Common infantry choices from many armies who have special weapons.

These are commonly seen in the meta (or competitive choices, if you want to use that term). No one has yet to disagree with that, or suggest that mutilators are able to overcome these in some way. You can suggest that this isn't the meta, but I don't think that is an argument that anyone cares to make.

I refer to sides since it's easier than spelling out everyone's name. I think that, for the most part, neither side has really talked about the unit fairly beyond a few people (which doesn't include Martel, yourself, Jancoran, or Koooaei, imo). Some of this is from lack of reading (mentioning that deathstars are common when I said they were already, but was specifically talking about a certain type of deathstar they would be good against but is never seen, and then changing it to why are deathstars being mentioned at all when they realized it didn't help their point) because they want to prove a point. Or goal post moving (not competitive list but any list, for example).
You'll notice my goal post has never changed. Are they good against competitive lists? If so, they are not a good unit. I don't think they are the best in the elite slot either.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
The internet discourages melee because most melee units are too slow to catch anyone, not tough enough to survive to reach melee, and are dramatically overcosted. Berzerkers are a good example of a bad melee unit, wraiths are an example of a good one. But when an army has a good melee unit, you do see it spammed or taken in deathstars.

This is exactly what I meant, Wraiths are essentiallly guaranteed to reach their target. If not, they are so tough it doesn't even matter much. Their damage is not spectacular, but psychologically people prefer incurring no losses to significant gains. Google it if you have the time, human psychology is fascinating.

That isn't what was originally claimed.
What was originally claimed is that melee is disdained by the internet, when the opposite is the case. Nothing said here really goes against that, so I'm going to assume we can move past attacking internet wisdom.
Unless you want to argue that Berzerkers are a good unit.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
Not to mention the plethora of units that just don't care about LD in this game..it's why its referenced as a worthless stat most of the time.

It's fairly worthless if all you do is spam shooting attacks at high LD units! But the consequences of failing a LD test tend to be severe, for example a 1WC Terrify can send a Riptide off the map. I did lengthy calculations about sweeping Necrons in CC with Beserkers, their most reliable enabler is a simple 20pt Icon that adds +1 to combat resolution. It never even crossed my mind but it makes a huge difference. People aren't tuned into attacking LD, because generally they don't plan in advance to attack LD. It's not typically straightforward and it's not effective until you start testing at LD6 on a roll of 2D6. You need modifiers. But CC is a modifier, and 2W against a LD8 target by a solo Mutilator will usually shift a unit. Off the map if you're lucky, as Jancoran said. Eldar, Tau, SM and Necrons are all vulnerable to LD failure in some form -- stacking modifiers can get complicated but -2 from 1CTF, -1 from Terrify and Dominate will reliably punk out a 450pt Fearless Stormsurge. It's wombo-combo territory but LD is far from worthless. Much like Mutilators in fact -- some strategies rely on synergy and if you don't shape the situation towards ensuring success, you probably won't be.

Most people don't bother attacking LD because many armies are flat out immune to LD effects. If you are playing a one off game against say, Tau, then LD is fine (and most of your good examples are against Tau). However, the vast majority of the enemies are not tau. Most are LD 9-10, Fearless, or Marines. The weaker armies in the game suffer from LD, not the strong ones (outside of tau).
If the enemy is immune to LD, no amount of synergy will overcome that. There are also combos that necrons can do with LD...but you don't see them in competitive lists because they are incredibly chancy based on your opponent's army. Not even chancy in that the odds are against you, but chancy in the way that you don't get to use your ability at all.

As for the board edge argument...that works against the slow static armies. Most of the better armies are quite fast. Necrons and SW want to move closer to you. Marines are deepstriking or on bikes. Eldar are on jetbikes, skimmers, or have battle focus. Tau are, again, the only army that hugs the boardedge at all, and even that isn't always true.

Again, it's a strategy that works against weaker armies and more casual lists. The competitive armies overcome this by the nature of their design. It's one of the reasons they are seen as stronger.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
There is some truth to this, but a big reason people hate failed deepstrikes and charges, as compared to missing, is that failed charges and deepstrikes can leave a unit horribly exposed and killed.

Again, that's exactly what I mean by loss aversion. It's "safer" to just shoot at the enemy. But it's not necessarily a rational analysis of risk and reward.

I am claiming it is a rational analysis of risk and reward. I listed reasons why it is so, it's not merely "safer". It's safer, and I have shown why.

A missed charge means that I will not only miss my charge, and thus my entire damage for 1 turn, but I can get charged. That's a 2 attack swing (-1 attack from the enemy, +1 attack for me). If a unit has FC or Rage, it's an even bigger deal. Orks versus marines, for example, is incredibly charge dependent. Orks need the extra attack and +1 str to get work done unless they are in a huge swarm, or they'll be bogged down all game without anything happening. And that's marines...marines are terrible in CC.

It also can often mean I'm out of cover, and closer to your army allowing you to rapid fire back. This can mean I don't do any damage and you will do 2x the damage with shooting if I had just stayed back.

If I miss my shooting phase it just means those models I would have killed are still shooting back. That is a much better outcome than failing a charge. Failing a deepstrike is similar to missing a charge.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
I think in all of these reports, we have seen nearly zero sub 100 pt units.

We've seen a Company Command, Chimeras, various Scouts, Tacticals, Storm Speeders, Scout Bikes, a Techmarine HQ, Armored Sentinels (but squadroned), Vets (but with 3x weapons), a split-firing Grav Cent that didn't get the chance to shoot a Mutilator... not exactly zero. You need a sub-100pt unit that can effectively kill T5/2+/5++/2W, while its target can hide in reserves and strike anywhere. That is a tall order for most armies. Deathmarks would be *perfect*. But now we are tailoring

Was the company command sub 100?
Chimeras are not sub 100 with their loadout.
Tacticals are not sub 100, though they would be good...if they had PGs instead of HBs.
Scout bikes are not a great unit. Neither are scouts.
The techmarine actually killed one in a report.
Sentinels were armed with Lascannons and are a awful unit.
The cent build is terrible.

This is why these reports aren't doing much convincing for anyone (you'll notice it's the same 4 people talking about them). They are against casual non competitive units/builds/factions. Even for the units themselves, the options taken are bad (no teleport for cents? No other DS units? HBs for tacticals?).
Put it up against a good list and I'll be more interested. I'm sure many are in the same camp. Against casual lists, you can make a lot more work, but it doesn't prove that the unit in question is at all useful. Heck, some of the lists, like the IG one, are amazing for mutilators, they were built that badly.

I was also not the one that brought up sub-100.

My stance has always been that a unit in the 150-180 range destroying a mutilator is a good use of points. That's a lot of things, including scat bikes, dragons, marines, some biker designs (although not good ones), and more. Not all, tau warriors for example, but most armies can fill that order and it no-longer remains so tall.
Again, my goal post hasn't changed. I even provided a detailed break down on why that is a reasonable goal post to have.

To be honest, that Marine list is more junk than the Mutilator one.
1. Heavy Bolters? Even IF hordes were a thing these are terrible weapons.
2. No transports on the Tactical Marines?
3. Nobody uses a Stormraven as a transport. It's a bad idea.

Even with such a terribly constructed list they almost won. If that isn't proof for the anti-Mutilator side I don't know what is.

A single grav cent is not guaranteed to kill a muti/obli though. It does 2.16 wounds statistically. So, there's always like 20% chance to inflict just one. 1.62 when in ruins without ignore cover. Or with 4++ with cursed earth. Though, it's not always a good idea to stick daemons up front for cursed earth.

I just think that Centstar is a bit too expensive and risky with scatters. We play on boards with plenty terrain, so deepstriking a not-so-small unit is risky. Besides, there are my units everywhere. Of course, it's possible to go out of harm's way but ideally, you want to controle objectives too. Cent star wants to kill big targets - not 61 pts single model units.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, it's possible to deny jumps once or twice. I have 9+ WC. That'll at least force him to over-invest wc and maybe take a couple wounds from perils.

 koooaei wrote:
A single grav cent is not guaranteed to kill a muti/obli though. It does 2.16 wounds statistically. So, there's always like 20% chance to inflict just one.

It's more like a 16% chance, and that doesn't include the fact that the psyker is often providing re-rolls to hit, bumping the odds up. If needed, we can always throw an extra cent in there and still pay for about 1/3 of the two cents, making it a fair trade.

 koooaei wrote:

1.62 when in ruins without ignore cover. Or with 4++ with cursed earth. Though, it's not always a good idea to stick daemons up front for cursed earth.

Again, the psyker powers that the centstar often includes, while providing benefits for the mutilators.
Ruins are relatively rare terrain compared to ones that provide a 5+ save, which the mutilator doesn't benefit from. The mutilator is also slow and needs to be in melee range to be effective, it can't always benefit from cover (especially ruins) if it wants to be effective. We've discussed this several times.
Cursed earth requires the psyker be relatively close. So now we are talking about a bike psyker if you want the mutilators not deploying very far back. I suppose a disc would work but that seems to be asking to get shot off the table unless you stick him with bikes.

This is extremely corner case.

 koooaei wrote:

I just think that Centstar is a bit too expensive and risky with scatters. We play on boards with plenty terrain, so deepstriking a not-so-small unit is risky. Besides, there are my units everywhere. Of course, it's possible to go out of harm's way but ideally, you want to controle objectives too. Cent star wants to kill big targets - not 61 pts single model units.

If you want to argue the centstar is not one of the most powerful combos in the game, you're welcome to try. I think you'll be hard pressed to back that up or prove it though...it's been a staple of marine lists for a while and we can see lots of evidence of such builds going to the larger events. Including those that nerf invisibility (which the centstar can try to get). Unlike, say, mutilators.

But to address what you said;
1) If you think deepstriking a centstar, a unit that can be quite far away from its targets and still be effective, is dangerous then you must think that deepstriking the mutilators, which must be close to the enemy, is absurdly risky and not worth doing. I'm not sure how you can say anything else. The centstar might have to deal with more terrain having a bigger frontprint, but the mutilator has to deal with units since it must get close. Not to mention you are DSing 3 of them, minimum. Plus possibly oblits (who are much easier to DS for similar reasons unless aiming for back arcs).

2) The centstar is not there to hold objectives. It's there to delete squads. Bikes and Drop podding marines (ultra cheap transports that have very accurate deepstriking and a decent gun) are there for objective capturing. You'll rarely find anyone using the centstar for objective holding when the marines have plenty of units that do it better. If they can for free, sure, but they won't sacrifice a turn of shooting for it unless it costs the game.
That being said, with the teleport, cents are much better at capturing critical objectives then the slow mutilators are.

3) It's not the centstar firing at a mutilator (the centstar, if led by draigo, can just kill the mutilator in CC before it swings after all). It's the centstar deleting two mutilators or 2 oblits, or a mutie and whatever else is in your army. And with gate and re-rolls to hit, it does so turn after turn after turn

4) If the mutilator suffers any wounds, it becomes a lot weaker. At 1 wound, there is now a chance that overwatch or marine basic attacks can wipe it before it even gets to swing, meaning now it can only "bully" tanks (which means, for most marine players, landed pods, rhinos, and razorbacks only).

 koooaei wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, it's possible to deny jumps once or twice. I have 9+ WC. That'll at least force him to over-invest wc and maybe take a couple wounds from perils.

You know it cost one warp charge? It's extremely hard to block...even throwing 9+ WC tokens at it you're likely to only block 1-2 dice. He can always just throw 2 more dice at it and ignore invisibility. Most of the buffs the centurions need are incredibly cheap to be effective.

I know for sure that cent star is garbage against both my footslogging orks with KFF. And this list is not a good matchup for centstar either. If you support them with psychers, it's becoming a 600+ pt unit and wc are not great for this list either. Vital stuff can e denied or libbies will suffer perils. And yes, i don't think centstar is the most powerful deathstar in the game.

I said one of the most powerful, not the (I think twc is probably the best, though it's a point of contention).

Cent star does okay against orks though it's easily their worst matchup. They can still target any vehicles, meganobs, and bikers, which are the better things in the ork dex. The hurricane bolters help, and against footsloggers they will never have to fight in CC (though they don't do...terrible, it's not great by any means).

They still have their targets. Against pretty much any list that isn't tailored for them, they always have targets. It's not like marines have issues removing boyz off the table between bikes, thunder fire cannons, death wind launchers, and stern guard.

chance of them suffering from perils is generally pretty low, even against the really good psyker armies (Gk, Eldar). You should try playing against a competitive marine list to see how it behaves on the table, it's very strong and a great Tac list.



Edit, Yoyoyo, the above is a good example of why we aren't making progress.
I have already been misquoted.

We have someone stacking the deck for one unit but not allowing it for the other, despite what is common or how easy it is to make it happen (cursed earth or ruins for muties versus re rolls for the cent star).

Someone claiming they know something for a fact doesn't really invite a debate, even though they initially opened with a good point (Grav weapons are situational). Discussion can reveal that although they are correct, footsloggers are a rough target for cents, it doesn't paint the whole picture (footsloggers often have units that still don't want to see cents, and cents do have decent anti infantry weapons. Marines in general have great anti horde weapons so the cents can focus on the few targets they would be good against in that matchup).

It's making the discussion chase its tail to a degree, if that describes it well.

Bolter bait? Who uses bolters?

Even if centstar is killing 2 mutilators/oblits per turn, it's still not making it's points back. + masque will make them bs1 at least once. Centstar is strong but not against this list.

 koooaei wrote:
Even if centstar is killing 2 mutilators/oblits per turn, it's still not making it's points back. + masque will make them bs1 at least once. Centstar is strong but not against this list.

Sure they will, that's 120-160 pts per turn over the course of 5-7 turns without a fear of return fire, since your list is largely relatively slow melee and gravs teleport with decently ranged guns.
It'll take them a while, but they will get there. It's certainly not optimal, but luckily marines don't have much problem putting wounds on things without save if they take a good list (TFC, Deathwind Launchers, basic marines armed correctly, hurricane bolters on the gravs themselves).
This isn't a great list for them to face, that's true, but there are still targets they can fire at and they are quite safe. I wouldn't say they are weak here...you still aren't catching them or killing them after all.

Masque can make them BS 1 for exactly one turn if she lands within the correct deepstrike distance from them. Otherwise, she will immediately be shot off the table, since her defensive stats are garbage. So let's say 4-6 turns (-1 turn). They can still remove 8-12 oblits or mutilators, which is nearly every unit you took of such (if not every unit). They are still making their points back, although it does take a while.

It's not like your list has that many spawn, only 10. The deathwind launchers, TFC, and other weapons (grav isn't great although with 5 shots re-rolling to hit and wound, it will put wounds on them. Those re-rolls make this weapon way too good). After the spawn are dead, you don't have anything too threatening on the table outside daemonettes (who the cents can take in combat) and horrors (which 1 unit is not scary).

A competitive marine list could have deathwind launchers target the spawn, along with marines armed correctly. Try to target the psyker squad more.
The TFC continues to fire at the spawn/daemonettes.
The bikers with a IC smash into anything and everything without fear.
The cents teleport around removing muties/oblits as they arrive.
Something randomly kills the Masque.

Tl:dr The spawn are the best thing in the list, and the crutch it is build around. They are an amazing unit, but not one marines have trouble removing.

let's play it out. I challenge your centstar in a avassal match.

I still want to play against it with the Archangel sanguine wing.

@Martel - BA have bolters, obviously. Everyone else is allowed to field a more useful weapon. Softball question from you this time

But much more importantly:

Match 5: Mutant League vs. Centstar!

Who's up and what's the bet?