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 WindstormSCR wrote:

 iddy00711 wrote:
How are DW Leviathan dreadnoughts doing?

Feared, lethal, and MVP of my last three games.

I'm running claw and grav or cyclonic because that's what I have (and claw purely for the looks)

veil of time terminator librarian dropping in with it has proven a great idea, especially combo'd with might of heroes making the thing T9 with 4 attacks. Armor of contempt stratagem is not to be overlooked either, especially against armies that have a lot of ways of dealing MWs (getting a save vs DE/clowns haywire blasters makes for sad opponents).

drop in, to serious damage to a single target or a few targets with melta/grav, get a decent charge chance with VoT, rip and tear whatever didn't melt, get stuck in and absorb a ton of shooting the next turn.

I was thinking more in terms of the dakka version, assault LD just dont seem that great with 4A each.

Double storm cannon is the way to go for sure.

I’m thinking about taking a Plasma Obliterator with a 10-man Primaris team in it. Deploy it at the edge of the deployment zone, and with advances you’ve got a good 10-15” of movement in any direction. They can hunker down and pop off assault shots til needed then jump out and open up when needed, and the building itself is a huge bullet sink that doesn’t care about damage. The actual damage it does plugs in a gap in Deathwatch shooting.

what are the thoughts on close combat squads and delivery methods?

I'm currently entertaining the idea of a squad with a blackshield and watch sergeant with thunder hammers, and possibly a heavy TH or two in there with a few bodies for padding

 WindstormSCR wrote:
what are the thoughts on close combat squads and delivery methods?

I'm currently entertaining the idea of a squad with a blackshield and watch sergeant with thunder hammers, and possibly a heavy TH or two in there with a few bodies for padding

You might need someone take SS to tank AP-2/3 attacks and sone chaff with only chainsword to eat AP-0/1 attacks. Plus your killy dudes with TH. HTH rarely worth it given the restriction on 2A guys only. Also, one biker in there is better.

I'm not convinced there is any need to take cc vets. Arming them with storm bolters and a couple of frag cannons is about the same price but more effective at short range. You can deep strike them instead of investing a Corvus or transport like you would need for a cc squad.

Even the most shooty armies can be improved with a fast cc unit if they have the option for it. Lots of nasty stuff has defenses like -1’s to hit and invulns against ranged stuff but nothing to protect them from a hammer to the face. The new knights can get 3++’s against shooting for a turn, forget wasting any antitank on that.

I've run 3++ knights for some time now (Atropos has native 4++ vs shooting). Weight of fire is what brings them down, as per usual, along with mortal wounds. So I'm going to try and figure out what an Osseus-WM leading a 10man dakka vet squad, jumping out of a corvus, could do to my Atropos...

Luckily DW is pimped out in terms of dakka. I think Osseus Key Watchmaster is going to become well favoured if we see a knight meta, as he unlocks 2d3 mortal wounds against a knight (with clavis strat) and gives them a nasty -1 to hit on the strikeback. Good use of doctrines and missions will help.

8 stormbolters and 2 fragcannons with doctrine will drop 6.7 damage on a 3++ knight; tempest, osseus and clavis will do another 6MW, your blackstar dropping into hover mode (with ACs, HB & SML) will chip in around 3. Your watchmaster will do one more with his spear in CC.

That means you've hit the knight with 16.7 damage in one round, and burned 4CPs, with your veterans, watch master and corvus. Due to the two strats & the relic, your watchmaster has personally done 7 damage to that knight! That's with 618pts spent on troops, an HQ and a transport. Very respectable.

The rest of your list should be able to drop 11 more wounds on the target in the same round, and drop that 555pt monster to its knees! Failing that, the 3++ knight should be fully degraded, and at -1 to hit, so hitting on 5s, probably 6s, thanks to the Osseus Key.

 Badablack wrote:
Even the most shooty armies can be improved with a fast cc unit if they have the option for it. Lots of nasty stuff has defenses like -1’s to hit and invulns against ranged stuff but nothing to protect them from a hammer to the face. The new knights can get 3++’s against shooting for a turn, forget wasting any antitank on that.

Almost all -1 to hit is from outside 12" so that's not an issue for your dakka vets. Because your dakka vets don't need a transport and are more effective I still can't see the need for cc vets. The stats and price of a cc vet just isn't that good. You're probably better off going with allies (BA in particular) or a single model like a TH jump watch captain or a cc dread.

 SputnikDX wrote:

What are your thoughts on the HQs? I really like Watch Masters but I only have one of them unfortunately. Do you think it would be easy to kitbash one using a guardian spear bit from a Custodes?

I built my Master with a halberd from the Grey Knight range. Clipped the barb off the back side for a flat space to glue a boltgun that had the grip shaved off.

 SkrawnyNob wrote:

 SputnikDX wrote:

What are your thoughts on the HQs? I really like Watch Masters but I only have one of them unfortunately. Do you think it would be easy to kitbash one using a guardian spear bit from a Custodes?

I built my Master with a halberd from the Grey Knight range. Clipped the barb off the back side for a flat space to glue a boltgun that had the grip shaved off.

My WIP watch master. I kitbashed mine with Artemis, a blood angel head and guardian spear.

saint_red wrote:

 Badablack wrote:
Even the most shooty armies can be improved with a fast cc unit if they have the option for it. Lots of nasty stuff has defenses like -1’s to hit and invulns against ranged stuff but nothing to protect them from a hammer to the face. The new knights can get 3++’s against shooting for a turn, forget wasting any antitank on that.

Almost all -1 to hit is from outside 12" so that's not an issue for your dakka vets. Because your dakka vets don't need a transport and are more effective I still can't see the need for cc vets. The stats and price of a cc vet just isn't that good. You're probably better off going with allies (BA in particular) or a single model like a TH jump watch captain or a cc dread.

That is not the case for most Xeno races. iirc Dark Eldar and Harlequin have army wide -1 to hit against shooting and inv saves on their transports no matter ranges. Necron Tombblade is also a flat -1 to hit as well. Tyranids, when under the buff of Venomthrope, also get -1 to hit against shooting no matter range.

The Dark Eldar and Harlequin are the most disgusting cases, because if you cannot kill that transport before shooting phase ended, it will be already too late for you to inflict any meaningful damage because you cannot hurt the passengers inside. So they always tgave the upperhand in the battle.

That may be true but I can guarantee that you aren't going to be charging a venom with your melee vets.

There is no good way to get melee vets into combat. None. There is a good way to get dakka vets into range (deep strike). Venoms having -1 to hit doesn't change that.

RogueApiary wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
The farm is probably going to get nerfed hard soon enough. I would just move on instead.

September is the next balance pass and they made the CP battery even better with the last one. No point gimping yourself for the next 3 months on the off chance it might get changed.

If a guard cp nerf happens along with a move to 1750 as standard, then you can forget about competitive DW anyway so you might as well enjoy being solid mid/upper mid tier while it lasts.

Even still, I would say a BA scout BN + DW BN is far more useful than 2x DW BN. At least the BA BN plugs the board control and psyker defense gaps.

I really hope GW doesn’t nerf all the mid tier armies while leaving the top essentially untouched to appease this idiotic demand for faction purity. I’m sure they will because it’s just getting louder but honestly it’s like expecting orks to not take Boyz.

 LunarSol wrote:

RogueApiary wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
The farm is probably going to get nerfed hard soon enough. I would just move on instead.

September is the next balance pass and they made the CP battery even better with the last one. No point gimping yourself for the next 3 months on the off chance it might get changed.

If a guard cp nerf happens along with a move to 1750 as standard, then you can forget about competitive DW anyway so you might as well enjoy being solid mid/upper mid tier while it lasts.

Even still, I would say a BA scout BN + DW BN is far more useful than 2x DW BN. At least the BA BN plugs the board control and psyker defense gaps.

I really hope GW doesn’t nerf all the mid tier armies while leaving the top essentially untouched to appease this idiotic demand for faction purity. I’m sure they will because it’s just getting louder but honestly it’s like expecting orks to not take Boyz.

If the Guard CP battery gets hammered, competitive 8th turns into which flavor of Eldar you'd like to play with maybe some Chaos tacked on. I would say that the Knight Codex has me hopeful a battery nerf is not imminent. As it's very plain by the fact that Knights generate so few CPs organically because of the Knight Lance rule and have so many expensive strats that the army was designed with VP batteries in mind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

saint_red wrote:
That may be true but I can guarantee that you aren't going to be charging a venom with your melee vets.

There is no good way to get melee vets into combat. None. There is a good way to get dakka vets into range (deep strike). Venoms having -1 to hit doesn't change that.

I'd argue the Corvus is a good way to deliver a melee kill team, but it's better used to deliver 4x frag cannons anyway, which incidentally also give zero feths about hit modifiers. The real issue is that a fully loaded melee kill team is comically expensive and dead in the water if it somehow manages to eliminate it's target, since the Corvus that brought them in is almost assuredly dead. At least the frag cannons can threaten out to 15-21" with frag and 24"-30" with slugs.

The problem with cp farm is it too cheap and too good. It needs the nerfhammer. When you see everybody playing Imperial bringing:

3x Shield-Cpt /Dawneagles
2x Slammaguinius
3x 5x Scout
3x 3x Vertus Praetor
2x Commander
3x Infantry squad

Yeah it is time to fix it.

I'm seeing a good amount of variety in the Imperium now. They're combinations of familiar things, but its definitely not locked in. The little Guard battalion is probably the most consistent piece of the puzzle, but that's just because they're the only way Imperium has access to the kind of cheap troops available to everyone else. If they were in the space marine codex, no one would complain; just as no one complains about the 6 units of Rangers or Strike Squad you see in battalions of Eldar and Tau.

IG farm cranks out the most CPs of any army - fact.

 Primark G wrote:
IG farm cranks out the most CPs of any army - fact.

Oh...k?

That's mostly only a result of the Company Commanders being crazy cheap HQs. Other farms churn out similar CP but have to pay more for their HQs. They do often get HQs that are more impactful on the rest of the list though. That said, I think The Grand Strategist/Aquila combo pushes the value of a commander over the top and Primaris Psykers do way way too much for their cost. I'm not sure what to do about the latter, but Grand Strategist feels like it should go to max 1 CP refund like the rest of its ilk and you'd not see me shed a tear if the Aquila was removed completely. The Cheap battalion itself though is pretty much a feature of every army out Imperium or otherwise. Imperium is just the only place where historical divisions in the product line left that tool in another book.

It is less than 200 points for the detachment. Say again?

 Primark G wrote:
It is less than 200 points for the detachment. Say again?

I assume you mean that nothing else kicks out a battalion that cheap? As I said, that has more to do with the cost of the HQs.

It's worth noting that the second battalion requirements for an Imperium list probably doesn't get to be anywhere near as cheap as the first; both in terms of HQs and most definitely in terms of troops. I'd actually be curious to see the average total cost of the 4 HQ/6 Troops between Imperial lists with guard and top tier lists from other factions.

Wait and see - the nerf bat is coming and it will strike hard. Not everyone is in love with the IG CP farm.

My preferred fix to the CP batter is to raise the cost of Guardsmen.

On the topic of Deathwatch...
The deathwatch buffs seem to really, really help out intercessors. Has anyone tried a board control list based on lots of intercessors. Or can someone tell me why that is a bad idea?

It's only a bad idea because of the multiwound spam xenos are capable of.

I’ve run a 9 intercessor squad army list a few times and it did pretty well. Having a ton of relatively tough scoring units that can all reach out 36” means you never have guns going to waste.

I run 3 intercessor squads with assault bolters and 1 aggressor/inceptor, 1 with 5 hellblasters, and 3 bare 5-mans with bolt rifles. They chew stuff up surprisingly well with some antitank support.

 Primark G wrote:
It is less than 200 points for the detachment. Say again?

I'm up to 12 games post Codex release, and the biggest takeaway so far is that DW need a minimum of 13 CP and preferably even more to function. You can't get to 13 CP in a pure DW army without gutting the list of any power since you have so many points locked up in expensive HQs/Troops. Looking at a minimum of 400 points on HQ's alone in double DW BN.

The guard CP battery is a necessary evil to stay even remotely on par with Eldar/DE, without it, DW and pretty much every power armored imperium sub faction goes to garbage tier overnight. Though I suppose Guard could limp along with silly gimmicks like 13 Hellhounds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tag8833 wrote:
My preferred fix to the CP batter is to raise the cost of Guardsmen.

On the topic of Deathwatch...
The deathwatch buffs seem to really, really help out intercessors. Has anyone tried a board control list based on lots of intercessors. Or can someone tell me why that is a bad idea?

Your preferred fix just screws guard players over without actually changing anything. 5ppm and you raise the CP battery a mere 30 points while severely harming infantry guard armies, adding as much as 180 points to some mono guard lists. 6-7PPM and you've pretty much killed the army competitively, not that mono guard has done well in tournaments lately outside of gimmicks like 13 Hellhounds.

Guardsmen are undercosted.

I'm working on my new Deathwatch army atm, slowly getting off the proxy-addiction and into a fully fledged black-and-silver army, and this is the first list I'm building towards. I'd appreciate your opinions, especially in light of the current discussion concerning CPs and the viability of double-batallion DW. It's not meant to be high-end competitive, but I will want to take it down the local club and stand a reasonable chance against competent players...

The idea here is to drop the three librarians in for a +2 free Nullzone cast with Empyric Channeling, drops smites everywhere and provide denial & Psychic fortress to try and protect my expensive vets. Rip targets up with 3 fragcannons and 15 storm bolters. Watchmaster threatens big vehicle targets with the Osseus/Clavis double whammy and -1 to hit. One intercessor squad deepstrikes with hellblasters; the other two plink away; beacon angelis for backup or shenanigans. Fliers are there to damage heavy targets and thin hordes. 6 drops; 12CPs on turn 1 (14, -1 for 2nd relic, -1 for teleport strat):


++ Battalion 1 Detachment ++

- 2x Librarian Force axe, Storm Bolter

- Intercessors
5x Auto Bolt Rifle

- Intercessors
5x Bolt rifles

- Intercessors
5 x Bolt rifles
4 x Plasma Incinerators

++ Battalion 2 Detachment ++

Librarian: Force axe, Storm Bolter, The Beacon Angelis

Watch Master: Lord of Hidden Knowledge, Osseus Key, Warlord

- x3 Veterans
. Veteran: Chainsword, Storm Bolter
. Veteran: Storm Bolter, Storm shield
. Veteran: Storm Bolter, Storm shield
. Veteran: Deathwatch Frag Cannon
. Watch Sergeant: Chainsword, Storm Bolter

++ Air Wing Detachment +1CP ++

- x2 Corvus Blackstar: Auspex Array, Hurricane bolter, Twin assault cannon, Stormstrike Missile Launchers

- Xiphon Interceptor

 Primark G wrote:
Guardsmen are undercosted.

Mind telling me how raising their cost to 5ppm would actually do anything other than feth over guard players while doing nothing to Custodes and the other imperium factions who only lose 30 points on the CP battery? Or maybe you think they should cost 6 ppm, and be equal cost to Ork Boyz, who are effectively immune to morale and S4/T4.

For additional points of reference, Termagants are 4ppm, have a roughly equal gun, a slightly worse save, and are immune to morale unless the Tyranid player screwed up or is already losing badly. Cultists are also 4ppm, but you can take them in groups of 40, and the bastards can come back to full strength from a single model and can start 3" from you turn one.

You want to raise the price of Guardsmen, then you'd better bring back the old summary execution rule because even now, pure guard lists are pretty underwhelming in a competitive environment.

If I didn't know you played Imperium I'd think you had a raging boner for making the Eldar the unopposed Kings of 8th Ed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 grouchoben wrote:


A list

Looks solid for what you're going for. Semi competitive pure DW. I personally would run more frag cannons as they become a more potent threat the more concentrated there are since 4 frag cannons with the +1 to wound strat is terrifying.

Feel like even with a Xiphon, your AT is very thin. You're one 11 wound flier away from losing most of your AT power. 4 Hellblasters and a WM are just not enough, though maybe spamming mortals with the three librarians will pick up some of the slack.

RogueApiary wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
Guardsmen are undercosted.

Mind telling me how raising their cost to 5ppm would actually do anything other than feth over guard players while doing nothing to Custodes and the other imperium factions who only lose 30 points on the CP battery? Or maybe you think they should cost 6 ppm, and be equal cost to Ork Boyz, who are effectively immune to morale and S4/T4.

For additional points of reference, Termagants are 4ppm, have a roughly equal gun, a slightly worse save, and are immune to morale unless the Tyranid player screwed up or is already losing badly. Cultists are also 4ppm, but you can take them in groups of 40, and the bastards can come back to full strength from a single model and can start 3" from you turn one.

You want to raise the price of Guardsmen, then you'd better bring back the old summary execution rule because even now, pure guard lists are pretty underwhelming in a competitive environment.

If I didn't know you played Imperium I'd think you had a raging boner for making the Eldar the unopposed Kings of 8th Ed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 grouchoben wrote:


A list

Looks solid for what you're going for. Semi competitive pure DW. I personally would run more frag cannons as they become a more potent threat the more concentrated there are since 4 frag cannons with the +1 to wound strat is terrifying.

Feel like even with a Xiphon, your AT is very thin. You're one 11 wound flier away from losing most of your AT power. 4 Hellblasters and a WM are just not enough, though maybe spamming mortals with the three librarians will pick up some of the slack.

I personally think the cost of the Commander should change, rather than the squad, but, that’s a different discussion altogether.


I’ve been toying with running more Primaris units as a 1000 point battalion, supporting something else. Small model and unit count, but, I still think it has the ability to play missions really well.