Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Remember its at end of a game turn, not player turn for determining if you are tabled or not.

 Leth wrote:
Remember its at end of a game turn, not player turn for determining if you are tabled or not.

Oh right, I had forgotten that. Thanks!

Alright guys sorry for the delay real life got in the way of the promised battle reports.

So I played 3 games; 1000 pts, 1500 pts, killteam (200 pts)

1000 pt game:

My list consisted of;

Killteam primaris (malleus):

3x veterans
2x vets w/ frag cannon
2x terminators w/ TH/SH & cyclone missile launcher
Drop pod (embarked)

Killteam secundis (malleus):

3x veterans
2x vets w/ frag cannon
2x terminators w/ TH/SH & cyclone missile launcher
Drop pod (embarked)

Killteam tertius (strategium/furor):

3x vets w/ stalker bolters & bolters
2x vets w/ infernus heavy bolters
1x biker
1x terminators w/ TH/SH & cyclone missile launcher
1x lib lvl 2
Drop pod (not embarked)

------------------

So I was facing off against eldar, it was nightmare fuel. Windriders, farseers on jetbikes and a wraithknight. I got first turn and he failed to steal.

So in the first turn I managed to drop the wraith knight with a great drop pod distance with kill team malleus, poisoned (sadly 6+) Bolter shots with heavy support mission tactic and rerolls to wound as well as impacting frag cannon shots made flipping short work of it, the CML helped a ton too, honestly it was overkill and his 5++ meant nothing.

The other malleus killteam easily whiped a bike team off the board but he was running msu so no worries there. Tertius took out 2 squads on their own thanks to my lib rolling the ignores cover power and having prescience. Turned on presience for rerolls and the CML and everything else made short work.

So I hurt hard first turn, he had some horrible saves, but he kept up his spirits and struck back. Sadly it didn't go so well for him, he punched a few more bike teams down the board, intent to take out tertius and abuse their range and speed over both primaris and secundis. Luckily of his shots that hit and wounded, the biker jinked 5 of the 6 and died on the sixth then another squad rolled horribly and my terminator saved it all. Final squad shot and killed him but he stopped all the shots.

My next turn I used the angelis beacon to warp tertius out of trouble, but they landed within Bolter range which was perfect. Moved primaris and secundis up and the combined firepower from all 3 killteams all but finished him off and he conceded.

Great success against the xenos scum!!!

------------------------------

So 1500 this time....exact same list but primaris gets a hell of an upgrade.

I added:

Inquisitor coteaz
Librarian conclave light: ml2, ml1, ml1
2 more frag cannons
2 more super terminators

Sssssssoooooo this was the funniest thing I've done in a long time. I was playing against kdk, this is one hell of a list, spams that damn formation that adds blood tithe every turn, as many of that as he can, axe of ruin suicide lord, spams bloodthirters....it's a headache and a half honestly.

This table is DENSE with terrain, really multi level stuff. Some of them towers longer than my arm. There is a tower like this on the top left and bottom right corner of the table. They have 7 floors which can make it impossible to scale in a game. Usually they're not used by anyone but our damn tau player.

But I go and roll something funny on my conclave now don't I.....I rolled shifting worldscape.....I giggled my power armoured butt off.

I got first turn, he seized, I made him reroll into a fail with coteaz. His jimmies were resulted from minute 1. I put ALL of my units inside this one tower, dropped my drop pods in all his main approaches using the new drop pod faq to just frustrate him....I then succeeded in shifting worldscape and punched my whole army in cover into the middle of the board.

Poor move through cover and combined firepower that dropped every unit but his cultists in 2 turns saw him give up at the end of his turn 3, he's a good mate and we were laughing hysterically about how well it worked.

Best moment has his bloodthirter from the axe of ruin being Insta-gibbed from coteaz' super interceptor with impacting frag cannons.

-----------------

The killteam is barely worth mentioning. Played against harlequins, he got the outflank leader trait, did so and I killed all 3 harlequins with a relentless stalker Bolter, a 36" frag cannon, and 30" special ammo Bolter rounds.

--------------------

So my thoughts;

Our firepower is nothing short of sensational, truely tau level stuff.
The lib conclave isn't worth taking small like that, they did 1 cool thing and then we're kind of meh. I would honestly rather spend 440 pts and take 20 extra special ammo marines.
Special ammo was talked down to me in the leaks, despite my feelings that it was amazing I went in expecting nothing. Turns out those people are fools and now I drink deeply from a flagon of their tears.
Super terminators (thunder hammer/storm shield and a cyclone missile launcher) are worth the 75 points. Period.
If not deep striking every squad should have a bike because of the hilarious jink save and because we often overkill things with firepower.
I honestly feel they perform in the top 10 as a solo army easily.
I have yet to find a points limit in which I feel happy to include a watch master sadly.
The frag cannon is still amazing

---------------------

Also a musing for everyone that has been reading the Dex, the strategies command gets rid of the 10 model limit (or so I believe after a lot of thinking) allowing you to join tomfoolery to it (like I did).

----------------------

Anyway that's all for now, hope there's some interesting stuff in there for people.

I won a 6 hour painting comp by painting my watch master, first I've ever won, which is super cool.

Sorry for any spelling/grammar atrocities, I'm on my phone atm so autocorrect is a thing.

Anyway cheers all,

Qwerty

Aren't the AP3 bolter shots S4? How'd they hurt the Wraithknight?

 MasterSlowPoke wrote:
Aren't the AP3 bolter shots S4? How'd they hurt the Wraithknight?

They wouldn't. Which sucks. DW have a very hard time with Wraithknights.

That's totally my bad, had different formatting earlier on and cutting and pasting sections didn't work very well on mobile, they were the 6+ poison shots (damn gargantuans) but I got 2 wounds from it and he failed 1.

 Eldarain wrote:
Do you think these are distinct enough to sub in as Stalker Bolters?


I have a bunch of them left over after deciding to build a bunch of my MK III dudes as Assault Marines in my 30k Word Bearers.

I would think that the Legion Seeker Bolters would be a better choice:

 minionboy wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Do you think these are distinct enough to sub in as Stalker Bolters?


I have a bunch of them left over after deciding to build a bunch of my MK III dudes as Assault Marines in my 30k Word Bearers.

I would think that the Legion Seeker Bolters would be a better choice:

100% agree. The larger magazine definitely has the profile of the Special Ammunition selector of the Deathwatch Boltgun.

I also just wanted to point out that the September White Dwarf keeps referring to the Power Sword bits from the Kill Team kit as Combat Blades. So I am just going to use them as is. I won't add the blue glaze to make them Power Swords.

Qwerty2jam wrote:
Also a musing for everyone that has been reading the Dex, the strategies command gets rid of the 10 model limit (or so I believe after a lot of thinking) allowing you to join tomfoolery to it (like I did).

Not sure what you mean here. A Strategium Command Team is either a Veteran Squad (max 10 models + transport) or one of the Kill Team formations (max 10 models + transport) and then either a Watch Captain, Librarian or Chaplain (so max 11 models + transport). It isn't like you can add a full 5-man Terminator Squad, a full 5-Man Vanguard Squad and a full 5-Man Bike Squad along with a full 10-Man Veteran Squad - you are still limited by the Squad or Kill Team type you choose to make into a Strategium Command Team.

If you mean that you can join other characters to it, you can do that with any of the other Kill Teams as well - the 10-model restriction is just on the size of the Kill Team itself when selecting it, it does not forbid you from having Independent Characters join the unit during the game.

Qwerty2jam wrote:
I have yet to find a points limit in which I feel happy to include a watch master sadly.

Qwerty

I included a Watch Master in a 2000pt list because it was the only way I could get a Black Spear force with the models I have. Although now I realize I could have moved the Librarian out of the Aquila KT and made him the Command choice. Oh, well.

Anyway, the Deathwatch detachment was less than half of the whole list. For one Kill Team and one Dreadnought, the Watch Master doesn't 'force multiply' hard enough. I only changed Mission Tactics twice. I started him on the board attached to an Inquisitorial Henchmen unit to make use of his Beacon Angelus. But he didn't add much to them. In fact I had to shoot his guardian spear with standard bolter rounds so the henchmen could also shoot their bolters.

I still really want to get him to combat. I have a feeling he will surprise an opponent or two. I mean, he looks like such an old man in the official model, but S5 I5 AP2 is pretty darn decent. The Block special rule along with iron halo should make him pretty tough, too.

Granted this is only one game's worth of results, so YMMV.

Great stormshield moment in a 1k game last night. Playing vs white scars, my alpha unit dropped on top of khan and 5 kitted bikes in cover and absolutely annihilated it. I left a bolter/shield marine toward the back facing toward a dev squad that I knew would have shots on it. Sure enough, I took 7 grav wounds on that expensive unit, but that stormshield guy in the back saved all 7 on the stormshield!

 SkrawnyNob wrote:
I started him on the board attached to an Inquisitorial Henchmen unit to make use of his Beacon Angelus. But he didn't add much to them. In fact I had to shoot his guardian spear with standard bolter rounds so the henchmen could also shoot their bolters.

I think you misread the Special Issue Ammunition rule.

All models with special issue ammunition in a unit must use the same type of ammunition when the unit shoots.

The rule only affects those with special issue ammunition in the first place. Since the Henchmen don't have special issue ammunition, they can still fire their boltguns using regular ammo when the joined character uses special ammo.

After finally deciding to take the plunge I've decided on building a small 2k army.
What load outs are people running on the basics?

I was half tempted to grab 4 basic box's of vets then run:

4 frag cannon
Sgt with sword

4 heavy flamer/bolter
Sgt with sword

4 stalker patter bolters
Sgt with sword

5 kitted out purely for CC


Was tempted to run that all in pods as a base, but unsure on the viability of the units.
I rather not mix and match too much as I prefer each unit has a sole purpose and focuses on that.

But am I shooting myself in the foot so to speak?

Is there any real benefit to taking a CAD instead of a Black Spear Strike Force? I suppose having Vanguard Veterans with some Storm Shields on some and a couple HTH on the others would make for a good combo that can't really be done in a Black Spear without sacrificing the Veterans' shooting. Is there really anything else beneficial about a CAD?

Objective Secured is the main one as well as a smaller points commitment to get into the army.

Personally I am finding in planning my armies that

A. There will always be allies of some sort
B. I need to completely adjust the list based on the demands of the missions I am going to play.

Still need to plan for a GT I am going to, need to look at the NOVA mission pack.

However I am strongly considering a CAD with mini Space Wolf Thunderwolves star to help me with knights/Eldar(Attach him to the WS character from overkill so they get hit and run without losing it muahahahahaha)

Another thing I dont see people incorporating is Rhinos/Drop Pods into their lists. For 35 points you get another unit that can sit on objectives or just be an annoyance. OS in a CAD, as a low model count army it is crucial to have these things.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Is there any real benefit to taking a CAD instead of a Black Spear Strike Force? I suppose having Vanguard Veterans with some Storm Shields on some and a couple HTH on the others would make for a good combo that can't really be done in a Black Spear without sacrificing the Veterans' shooting. Is there really anything else beneficial about a CAD?

The benefits of a CAD over the Black Spear that I can see:

- Objective Secured
- Biker Squads with full mobility
- Vanguard Squads with full mobility
- Very small squads of Bikes, Vanguard and/or Terminators possible for shenanigans in non-kill points games


I am seriously considering running both a Black Spear with some Aquila Kill Teams (such as the 4xFrag Cannon drop pod, etc) alongside a CAD with two 5-man Veteran Squads (5 w/ Stalkers as objective holders & ranged support, 5 w/ Bolters and 2-3 Storm Shields purely as objective holders). Then I can have a few 2-man Vanguard and Bike harassment teams to force the enemy to choose between numerous dangerous threats. This way, I still get some ObSec and small utility squads, plus the benefits of Kill Team re-rolls. I might even consider buying pods for all Kill Teams and the two objective holders, just so I can have a few empty pods to increase my alpha-strike potential with the loaded ones.

I am leaning toward the following Black Spear Strike Force.

Black Spear Strike Force:

Core:
-Watch Company

--Watch Captain Artemis - 145 pts

--Aquila Kill Team
---Veteran Squad (4x Frag Cannons, Power Sword and Bolter and Sergeant) - 225 pts
---2x Terminators (Assault Cannon each) - 120 pts

--Aquila Kill Team
---Veteran Squad (Bolters and Shotguns on everyone, Power Maul on Sergeant) - 125 pts
---2x Vanguard Veterans (Heavy Thunder Hammer) - 110 pts

--Aquila Kill Team
---Veteran Squad (Bolters and Shotguns on everyone, Power Maul on Sergeant) - 125 pts
---2x Vanguard Veterans (Heavy Thunder Hammer) - 110 pts

--Veterans
---Veteran Squad (Stalker Boltguns and Boltguns on everyone, Razorback with TL Assault Cannon) - 210 pts

Command:
-Watch Commander

--Librarian (Force Sword, Mastery Level 2, Tome of Ectoclades) - 95 pts

Auxiliary:
-Dropship
--Corvus Blackstar (Blackstar Rocket Launcher, Infernum Halo-Launcher) - 200 pts

Oathsworn Detachment
Knight Paladin - 375 pts


Total - 1850/1850 pts

My other option is to replace the Razorback with two Bike Marines with Power Weapons and make the Veterans into an Aquila Kill Team. Which would be a better choice? I want a little more fire support for the army, so a Razorback seems like a good choice for the SPB Squad. My reason for the SPB squad having both a SPB and a Boltgun is that they will ride in the Razorback to wherever they need to be, pop out and fire their boltguns, then set up shop and use their SPB from there on out. The Librarian will probably ride with the SPB Squad, but I suppose he could go with one of the HTH Aquila Squads (Artemis will go with the other).

Played 1850 against myself last night since I couldn't get down to the shop. Took a bunch of pics, will put up a full battle report in a day or two.

Deathwatch/Black Templars

Libby lvl 2
Aquila kill team (2 combi flamer, 2 terms heavy flamer)
Aquila kill team (2 combi melta, 2 terms melta)
Aquila kill team (2 combi plas, 2 assault cannon)

Skyhammer annihilation
2x10 Assault marines (vet sarge, sword melta bombs)
2x5 Devastators (4 melta, 4 lascannon)

Tyranids
Tyrant (2x Devs, regen)
2x Tyrant guard
Flyrant (2x Devs)
2x1 Zoe
Malanthrope
2x20 Hormagaunts
2x10 Termagants
1x2 Carnifex (2x Devs)
1x3 Biovores
Deathleaper Assassin Brood

It's been about 6 months since I last played, so I made a lot of mistakes on both sides. I didn't tailor either list, I simply grabbed the nids because I thought it would be more fun to play against xenos than marines, chaos or IG. As soon as I deployed and looked at the nids I felt like I had fethed up.

My DW list simply doesn't have the long range firepower to stand up to the pressure of the Tyranids, especially with how tough the Malanthrope makes everything. Luckily I play maelstrom, so right off the rip I knew I was going to be playing for the short game.

Since trying to overwhelmingly alpha strike against this Tyranid list is basically an all-or-nothing gamble (With really bad odds), I planned to use my drop pods and assault squads to keep the Tyranids hemmed in on their half of the map. Luckily I had gotten the objective heavy (3 mid, 2 DW side, 1 Nid side) side of the board, so odds were in my favor.
I elected to keep skyhammer off the board till turn 2, hoping to have better targets when the nids broke their anti-alpha strike bubbl, but before they hit the midfield.

For the Tyranids, I typically keep 1-2 of the lictors in reserve for DS or outflank, but this game I thought having them on/near every objective at the start would be useful as it was the mission where you can score opponents # objective cards. I castled up in the middle with a gant squad on each flank bubbling me and giving me the ability to cover most of the board with a tarpit.

Basically, the game went about as expected, I used 3 pods to block the midfield, 2 to hold objectives, used the DW squads to pick up the lictors off objectives, assault squads to hold up gants. Sheer volume of firepower from carnifexes and tyrants meant I knew I would be wiped if I didn't kill them, and with my squad loadouts and the malanthrope, trying to do so would be very risky and put everything in serious danger. I elected to hide to the best of my ability and try to force the Tyranids into bad spots.

It was actually a pretty close game going into the 4th turn, but both assault squads had ABYSMAL dice and the Hormagaunts were absolutely on fire. I went 5 rounds of combat without 1 of the vet sergeants doing a single wound. That's 15 attacks, should've been ~6-7 dead hormagants. Hormagants were saving almost 50% of their wounds, and picking up 1-2 marines a turn, despite being massively strung out and losing a lot of attacks (Should, on average, take 18 hormagaunt attacks to kill 1 marine). My saves were terrible, the biovores picked up two terminators and 4-5 marines. The weight of fire from the HT and Carni were just oppressive, the biggest thing that saved me was LOS.

I didn't get a single psychic power off until turn 4, after I had put down a zoanthrope and rolled a 6 for dice.

Turn 4 I failed to finish off (Or even make progress) against the gant blobs, dropped the flyrant, but had to warp my healthiest DW squad right infront of the carnifexes to do it. I knew it meant they would die, but, without them the flyrant was going to take an objective from me, and then be on his way to kill them later. Two models survived thanks to LOS, but at that point I had 2x2 DW vets, the libby, and 4 members of the assault cannon squad left near the middle of the board. There was no escape, not enough bodies, and the score was basically tied.

I had to go for big scoring plays, as I didn't have the mobility to get past the Tyranid board control, and didn't have any hope of surviving to the end of the game.

Ended up DW being tabled by the last attack from the Malanthrope at the bottom of 6. Tyranids won 17-12, having scored, I think, 5-6 points on turn 6. If it had ended on turn 5 it may have been a draw or DW victory, I have to go back and check the pics.

My thoughts - Grav Cannons would have made a massive difference. I already knew they were better, but, the weight of fire is REALLY important. A single level 2 is not a reliable psychic source, but, still made a difference for defense. Beacon Angelis is REALLY strong. I considered using it to warp a drop pod over for walling things off, but ended up taking the squad. Not having Ob Sec cost me a LOT of points. There was a single Horamagaunt from one squad in range of an objective I had a drop pod on, who was locked in combat and I just COULDN'T kill him. Tyranids took that objective from DW twice, and denied the D3 VP for 3 objectives for a turn or two because of it. Also had a drop pod contesting an obj with a lictor, could've scored there as well.

Really like the Terminators in squads. The DW pack a solid punch, rerolling 1s to wound always is great. Totally forgot about shotguns, used bolt pistols instead, don't think it would've made a difference. Overall, pretty cool army. Flexible. Fun. Will try again. Maybe try to fit some Grav cannons in, although the reason I didn't bring them was because I don't have any models.

 Ambience 327 wrote:

 SkrawnyNob wrote:
I started him on the board attached to an Inquisitorial Henchmen unit to make use of his Beacon Angelus. But he didn't add much to them. In fact I had to shoot his guardian spear with standard bolter rounds so the henchmen could also shoot their bolters.

I think you misread the Special Issue Ammunition rule.

All models with special issue ammunition in a unit must use the same type of ammunition when the unit shoots.

The rule only affects those with special issue ammunition in the first place. Since the Henchmen don't have special issue ammunition, they can still fire their boltguns using regular ammo when the joined character uses special ammo.

Ah, very good! Thanks for catching that.

Just got done converting Zameon Gydrael into on of my Sergeants. Had to cut off his left hand to give him a boltgun. Hard than it seems since that involved cutting the had off one of the right hand boltguns, a left hand off a Grav Pistol, and pricing them all together. Looks really good now. Also decided to give him a hooded helmet head, so had to cut away his existing head. Pain in the butt, especially since his Power Sword is a little subpar compared to a Power Maul. But I like him anyway.

When running a Black Spear, when my squads drop in, I will probably spend the first turn shooting their boltguns, then switch to Shotguns the second turn so they can assault. Since my Sergeants lack Shotguns, they will be chucking a Krak Grenade. Seems pretty straight forward.

Yeah, I just ordered kill team Cassius, so a lot of conversions in my future

 Leth wrote:
Yeah, I just ordered kill team Cassius, so a lot of conversions in my future

I converted the Iron Hand's Combi-Melta into a Stalker Bolter, cut the Chainsword off of the Space Wolf and glued a grenade hand in its place. Otherwise the majority of the Marines from that box that I am going to use need no conversions, though that is just the Imperial Fist, Ultramarine, and Blood Raven. My next conversion project is going to be converting the Assault Cannon Terminator from Dark Vengeance by cutting away his regular Terminator shoulder pauldron so I can glue a DW pauldron in its place, converting the Chainfist Terminator by giving him a Heavy Flamer and cutting off the Chainsword portion to attach a Meltagun (also scraping away some of the Dark Angels details to make him a Blood Angel), and giving one of the plain SB/PF Terminators a Cyclone Missile Launcher(and scraping away the Dark Angel stuff and the Terminator Pauldron, so he can be made into another Chapter). Overall, I am having a lot of fun converting these guys.

As for some Tactics stuff. Should I run the two Heavy Flamer/Melta Fist Terminators with my Frag Cannon Aquila or should I keep my original plan of running the two Assault Cannon Terminators?

Also, is it me or are Combi-Weapons 100% pointless on Veterans? Why would I take a Combi-weapon when I can just exchange my Boltgun for a Meltagun and my CCW for a Boltgun? And technically, is anything stopping me from giving 4 Veterans a Frag Cannon AND a Missile Launcher? Sure it is stupidly expensive, but it would be versatile. Or any number of ridiculous combinations.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What is going to be better for an army with WC Artemis? I almost want to switch my Librarian out for a Chaplain so he can reroll with that bomb. But a Librarian seems more useful as I will probably take Telepathy or Biomancy to get better survival.

Played a couple games with deathwatch w/ allies and without. I put a thought or two into my list construction and...

Here are my thoughts, maybe it will help you:

1. Frag cannon FTW, glance/or penn land raiders, knights, kill TEQs/Guards/Nids/Orks...etc. Its simply amazing, and lets you assault too. Combine it with shotgun mahreens, throw down templates @ low armor blobs for maximum lulz. Worked well against Solar Auxilia, Guards, Orks, Nids, also forces MEQ to make a lot of armor rolls, negated with mission tactics, clean up the table real good.

2. Artemis FTW, killed a knight and Solar Auxilia Malcador on 2 separate games. His stasis bomb is...amazing. Chances of hitting outweighs the chance of him killing himself. I also attached him with a stormshield/hammer heavy malleus kill team. If you negate rolling 1s with mission tactics or chaplain, his chance of killing himself is now 1/6, or 16%. Especially when you roll a 6 for Str D ap 1 bomb when it hits, the knight and malcador goes kaboom lol.

3. Meltafist is great, its cheap and lets you assault. Kills those Av14/Av13 stuff real fast.

4. Beacon Angelis is very versatile. VERY. Let's you go all sorts of crazy stuff. Teleport your kill team to help out your HQ or teleport away from some deathstar and shoot them from far away. I gave it to a captain with artificer armor and jump pack, letting him run around with impunity and guiding deep strikes around the board. Remember, maneuver warfare wins the day, don't let the enemies dictate your movement and battles.

5. Giving Corvus Blackstar locater beacon is a solid tactical choice IMO. As the corvus flies towards whatever target, the turn it hovers to drop kill team off, just deep strike other shooty kill team(s). In my case, I deep striked a malleus kill team with meltafist termies w/ cyclone and mahreens with frag cannons poped the land raider in one turn and the squad in the corvus jumped out, shot @ the survivors from the land raider and assaulted and wiped the unit with hammers.

6. Take both vanguard vets and termies in kill team for maximum lulz, or bike for more lulz.

7. Take shotgun/boltgun for maximum win, or whatever weapon/boltgun for versatility .

I'm really hoping the Shotgun/Bolter stuff sticks. If not just because I just primed 20 Shotguns.

So some of the formations say "any number from the following" and then lists, for example, Librarians. Does this mean you can take 0?

Cause you know.. some say 0 is a number.

Really trying to decide if the Black Spear is worth it over CAD.

Losing obsec is absolutely massive, and the Black Spear buffs themselves aren't particularly amazing. Yeah, 1 more change of targets is nice, but, obsec is one of the strongest abilities in the game. The only thing that Black Spear really has that keeps me from immediately writing it off is the strength of mixed kill teams, and the reroll 1s to wound vs all targets of the aquilla team.

Putting 2 terminators in each squad is just so powerful, particularly in drop pod lists. Comparing 4x Veterans vs 2x terminators;

88 vs 80 pts
4W vs 2W, however, Terminators saves make them only 75% as durable vs AP2, equally durable vs AP4+ and 600% more durable vs AP3, figured without cover.
8A vs 4A with the Terms having PF attacks
Vets can take heavies but they're not relentless, Terms can take CML or AC for heavy, and are relentless
Vets have 4 types of specials, Terms only HF and Melta. Vets using Combis are not stuck using a special, and can still use their special ammo
Terminators provide Fearless, but cannot sweep (Does this stop the squad? I think not, but not 100%)
If using Vets alone, they can be in a CAD and be obsec, cannot be obsec with terminators in a kill team
10 vets can combat squad

You can fill a drop pod with straight Vets and 4 combis, or 6 vets, 2 terms and misc weapons for about 300 pts either way, so in the end the cost is pretty close. Durability is pretty close. Both can fit similar firepower at around 300 pts. The two main things that differ are the Aquila kill team Term squads reroll all 1s to wound, are Fearless and have two powerfists included in cost, the straight vets are obsec, and can combat squad.

What say you all? Go CAD with 10 man vet squads, or Black Spear with mixed Aquilla teams?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Rezyn wrote:
So some of the formations say "any number from the following" and then lists, for example, Librarians. Does this mean you can take 0?

Cause you know.. some say 0 is a number.

Yes. The lists that require you to take something explicitly say so.

The universal deep strike seems interesting as well. Especially with beacons, homers and the Angelis.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
Really trying to decide if the Black Spear is worth it over CAD.

Losing obsec is absolutely massive, and the Black Spear buffs themselves aren't particularly amazing. Yeah, 1 more change of targets is nice, but, obsec is one of the strongest abilities in the game. The only thing that Black Spear really has that keeps me from immediately writing it off is the strength of mixed kill teams, and the reroll 1s to wound vs all targets of the aquilla team.

Putting 2 terminators in each squad is just so powerful, particularly in drop pod lists. Comparing 4x Veterans vs 2x terminators;

88 vs 80 pts
4W vs 2W, however, Terminators saves make them only 75% as durable vs AP2, equally durable vs AP4+ and 600% more durable vs AP3, figured without cover.
8A vs 4A with the Terms having PF attacks
Vets can take heavies but they're not relentless, Terms can take CML or AC for heavy, and are relentless
Vets have 4 types of specials, Terms only HF and Melta. Vets using Combis are not stuck using a special, and can still use their special ammo
Terminators provide Fearless, but cannot sweep (Does this stop the squad? I think not, but not 100%)
If using Vets alone, they can be in a CAD and be obsec, cannot be obsec with terminators in a kill team
10 vets can combat squad

You can fill a drop pod with straight Vets and 4 combis, or 6 vets, 2 terms and misc weapons for about 300 pts either way, so in the end the cost is pretty close. Durability is pretty close. Both can fit similar firepower at around 300 pts. The two main things that differ are the Aquila kill team Term squads reroll all 1s to wound, are Fearless and have two powerfists included in cost, the straight vets are obsec, and can combat squad.

What say you all? Go CAD with 10 man vet squads, or Black Spear with mixed Aquilla teams?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Rezyn wrote:
So some of the formations say "any number from the following" and then lists, for example, Librarians. Does this mean you can take 0?

Cause you know.. some say 0 is a number.

Yes. The lists that require you to take something explicitly say so.

I am leaning more and more to doing both. The Black Spear has such small requirements, that you can fairly easily add one to a CAD with a pair of small 5-Man Kill Teams for the ObSec (I'm thinking one with Stalkers for backfield objective holding & sniping, and another with 2-3 Storm Shields in a Drop Pod for taking a more remote objective and holding it strong). Then add in a Black Spear with a few Aquila and/or Strategium Aquila Kill Teams with various equipment (4xFrags, Shotguns & Infernus, CC Weapons, etc). Doing it this way also lets you field some small 1-2 man Vanguard, Terminator and Bike Squads for additional shenanigans.

Well, I just ended up getting a Watch Master and a Watch Captain. The Captain is going to be turned into Watch Captain Cortez of the Crimson Fists (he is the Captain that they rescued from the Dark Eldar Gladiator pits). He will have a Power Fist and Bolt Pistol or Boltgun. Watch Master is just going to be himself, but I will stick a Teleport Homer near him to be tested Beacon Angelis.

 Eldarain wrote:
The universal deep strike seems interesting as well. Especially with beacons, homers and the Angelis.

Problem is you don't get drop pods if you use the deep strike. Pods also are extremely good for area denial, holding objectives, blocking LOS, etc. They're one of the best things in the game.

I am leaning more and more to doing both. The Black Spear has such small requirements, that you can fairly easily add one to a CAD with a pair of small 5-Man Kill Teams for the ObSec (I'm thinking one with Stalkers for backfield objective holding & sniping, and another with 2-3 Storm Shields in a Drop Pod for taking a more remote objective and holding it strong). Then add in a Black Spear with a few Aquila and/or Strategium Aquila Kill Teams with various equipment (4xFrags, Shotguns & Infernus, CC Weapons, etc). Doing it this way also lets you field some small 1-2 man Vanguard, Terminator and Bike Squads for additional shenanigans.

Interesting idea. I wouldn't go through the trouble of getting ObSec just for stalker backfield teams though, it's most powerful on units that are going to be in the midfield, and doubly so on drop pods that a lot of armies can't remove reliably with their basic troops. My biggest issue is the HQ slots in this book are really underwhelming, except maybe Librarians. I'd rather have a 5 man kill team than another HQ.

But still, could take another ML2 Libby with 2 ObSec vet drop pods in a cad. Just solid fire support units, drop them in later when the obsec is more needed, could also combat squad so you get 4 ob sec out of it. Hmmm. Might be something to try. Although, at 700 pts or so for a libby and 2x10 man drop DW teams, I can run Skyhammer. Hmmmmm.