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Just smush all the whining bad players beneath your mighty Imperial tank tracks

Seriously, if it turns out to be bust, GW will errata it in Chapter Approved. I wouldn't worry.

 RedCommander wrote:
Luckily, there's (usually) no need to. You see, 40k is played with scenarios that have objectives. I only need to control the most important section with the Shadowsword(+enough support). Meanwhile, I move the rest of my guys to secure other areas of the battlefield. To contest the 'Sword-territory, the opponent must bring their list's A-game there... which is usually costly and something that a Shadowsword is suited to destroy. This makes it easier for the part of the army that is elsewhere.

There's usually at least 3 objectives. Shadowsword controls 1 of them with his gun sitting in place. Fine. I go and get the 2-5 others that your shadowsword can't see just like that without moving. I think that is fair trade off for me

I don't get it. This thread has been a cycle of 7 pages of you talking to people, 75% go "just take this reasonable step to make your army not a one-note" and then 25% go "I just don't like superheavies"

then you say "oh well, guess I don't get to play this army I love, I've got to put them on the shelf and never ever play them....oh, woe is me, if only people on the internet would come tell me it's all ok....."

What are you getting out of this? Look, throwing them in Battlescribe, it looks like 3 random Baneblade chassis vehicles average to about 1500 points. Make that all your heavy armor, and that's a completely reasonable fraction of your army for a 2500 or 3000 point game, and your list isn't all that skewed so long as you don't take the additional step of pouring absolutely all of the remainder of your points into MORE heavy armor, like Leman Russes.

The reason many people don't like to play against pure skew lists is because the tactic of "If I take only tanks, all your anti-infantry weaponry is worthless, so really I only have to play against half your army" makes for uninteractive games where your opponent just has to sit and take fire and try to win on objectives. It removes the option to have a fight, which is usually why people like to play 40k.

The solution is so, so simple. Take the remaining 1000 points you've got, and use it on..something else. Anything else. Whatever strikes your fancy really. Take some Skitarii vanguards, some Sydonian Dragoons, and a Techpriest Dominus as a contingent from the mechanicus dedicated to protecting the valuable war machines. Take a contingent of Deathwatch and an Inquisitor and his Henchmen as an Ordo Xenos task force commissioning the superheavies to smash an alien infestation. Bring along a fully decked out infantry regiment of guardsmen with officers, heavy weapon squads, infantrymen and auxilia support, under orders to protect the tanks at all costs.

The list you showed a page before had three tanks, fully upgraded, and almost nothing but units dedicated to buffing those tanks. I see a psyker, at least one of the "+1BS" buff vehicles, and about 15 GEQ with no visible weapon upgrades. That is a skew list that takes the route of "if I present only tanks, anything that's not anti-tank is unable to meaningfully participate" and that's the kind of list that, while perfectly fine at NOVA, is likely to lose you games in a local club setting.

So I'm running into another dilemma with the lack of carapace vets in the Codex (my poor shotgun legionaries)...

... BUT ANYWAYS

I will try to take all of this to heart, and build an army with more infantry/variety and not quite so focused on the tanks, especially now that I've got some models that can work alongside them.

Slipspace's post helped me to understand the difference as well. I'll definitely endeavour to take more variety in the lists.

Playing 2500 point games will help a ton, I am sure - that gives me an extra 1k of units that aren't superheavy armour. I'm sure if I just ask ahead I could arrange a game at this point level instead of the usual 2k.

Thanks everyone.

tneva82 wrote:

 RedCommander wrote:
Luckily, there's (usually) no need to. You see, 40k is played with scenarios that have objectives. I only need to control the most important section with the Shadowsword(+enough support). Meanwhile, I move the rest of my guys to secure other areas of the battlefield. To contest the 'Sword-territory, the opponent must bring their list's A-game there... which is usually costly and something that a Shadowsword is suited to destroy. This makes it easier for the part of the army that is elsewhere.

There's usually at least 3 objectives. Shadowsword controls 1 of them with his gun sitting in place. Fine. I go and get the 2-5 others that your shadowsword can't see just like that without moving. I think that is fair trade off for me

True, it all depends on the scenario... and the placement of the objectives. However, many scenarios let the players pick the places for objectives, so I'm picking half of them. Can you guess where I'm placing the three objectives I control? Yeah. And I don't need to control all of the remaining three objectives to win, the rest of my army is tasked to get one (or two) of them.

Of course, it might be a different story if the placement of objectives was determined randomly.

(As a side note, I'm basically arguing that super heavies didn't need so many buffs.)

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So I'm running into another dilemma with the lack of carapace vets in the Codex (my poor shotgun legionaries)...

Eh, buy more?

IMO, just ensure that you have 1,000 pts of non-Superheavies, and you should be fine. 1,000 pts of dudes backed by a Baneblade isn't completely out of the question for 1,500 pts, when the opponent might take a Riptide or WK as their LoW.

Not sure if it was mentioned, but with the Codex in hand - SHVs can only benefit from Regiment doctrines in a SHV 'company' (aka a full Superheavy detachment): [Emphasis mine]

“If your armyis Battle-forged, all <REGIMENT>units in an ASTRA MILITARUM Detachment (excluding those in Super-heavy Auxiliary Detachments) gain a Regimental Doctrine, so long as every unit in that Detachment (apart from the exceptions noted opposite) is drawn from the same regiment."

So no random single Catachan Shadowswords. Helps add fluff/balance to fielding a SHV company instead, though.

I enjoyed playing your army today (Well yesterday). I'm presuming it was you I played at least XD.

As long as your communicate your list, there's nothing wrong with it.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So I'm running into another dilemma with the lack of carapace vets in the Codex (my poor shotgun legionaries)...

Eh, buy more?

IMO, just ensure that you have 1,000 pts of non-Superheavies, and you should be fine. 1,000 pts of dudes backed by a Baneblade isn't completely out of the question for 1,500 pts, when the opponent might take a Riptide or WK as their LoW.

Buy more? They don't exist in the codex, how can they "buy more" when they don't exist?

Sorry, I originally though he was bemoaning a lack of models to dilute the Superheavies.

GhostRecon wrote:
Not sure if it was mentioned, but with the Codex in hand - SHVs can only benefit from Regiment doctrines in a SHV 'company' (aka a full Superheavy detachment): [Emphasis mine]

“If your armyis Battle-forged, all <REGIMENT>units in an ASTRA MILITARUM Detachment (excluding those in Super-heavy Auxiliary Detachments) gain a Regimental Doctrine, so long as every unit in that Detachment (apart from the exceptions noted opposite) is drawn from the same regiment."

So no random single Catachan Shadowswords. Helps add fluff/balance to fielding a SHV company instead, though.

.... Except that the Supreme Command detachment is a thing which grants a LoW slot and we have the cheapest HQ units in creation.

I just did this math for another post, but note that the Catachans doctrine adds very little to the Shadowsword's damage output. Re-rolling 1 die is only worth about an 11% improvement on the result of 3d3, and the Shadowsword will only see a ~6% increase in expected wounds off of this against most targets because it already tends to overkill things. Cadia is better if you're sitting still, but you probably shouldn't be sitting still.

 malamis wrote:

GhostRecon wrote:
Not sure if it was mentioned, but with the Codex in hand - SHVs can only benefit from Regiment doctrines in a SHV 'company' (aka a full Superheavy detachment): [Emphasis mine]

“If your armyis Battle-forged, all <REGIMENT>units in an ASTRA MILITARUM Detachment (excluding those in Super-heavy Auxiliary Detachments) gain a Regimental Doctrine, so long as every unit in that Detachment (apart from the exceptions noted opposite) is drawn from the same regiment."

So no random single Catachan Shadowswords. Helps add fluff/balance to fielding a SHV company instead, though.

.... Except that the Supreme Command detachment is a thing which grants a LoW slot and we have the cheapest HQ units in creation.

Still a minimum of 90pts and one detachment slot to give one SHV a regimental doctrine - so in essence paying 494pts to give one to a Shadowsword? Which one is worth the cost at that point? I'd posit the Valhallan one, probably, since otherwise an opponent only needs to do at least 13 wounds to reduce the effectiveness of your SHV by 33% outright.

Curious how a Shadowsword does against equal points-worth of Stygies VIII Dunecrawlers, though.

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it, except to let people know you'll be bringing superheavies. If people know you're bringing them, or if you're a regular and people know about you, they have a chance to prepare and maybe adjust their lists a bit if they can, or at least adjust their tactics. As long as you're not That Fething Guy about rules and are congenial and friendly, should be no problem as far as I'm concerned.

Dionysodorus wrote:
I just did this math for another post, but note that the Catachans doctrine adds very little to the Shadowsword's damage output. Re-rolling 1 die is only worth about an 11% improvement on the result of 3d3, and the Shadowsword will only see a ~6% increase in expected wounds off of this against most targets because it already tends to overkill things. Cadia is better if you're sitting still, but you probably shouldn't be sitting still.

Why do people keep forgetting about Valhalla? No degrading stats till basically an inch from death is great.

SilverAlien wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:
I just did this math for another post, but note that the Catachans doctrine adds very little to the Shadowsword's damage output. Re-rolling 1 die is only worth about an 11% improvement on the result of 3d3, and the Shadowsword will only see a ~6% increase in expected wounds off of this against most targets because it already tends to overkill things. Cadia is better if you're sitting still, but you probably shouldn't be sitting still.

Why do people keep forgetting about Valhalla? No degrading stats till basically an inch from death is great.

I'm not really sure why you'd ever take this doctrine on a lone Shadowsword. It does nothing for you on most turns. On some turns, and probably either only 0 or 1 turn, it gives you +1 BS, and then some bonus movement and attacks. The extra CC ability seems like the only reason to even consider Valhalla, since otherwise you should just make it Vostroyan and use the +1 to hit stratagem when necessary.

I mean, a Shadowsword has 26 wounds. The Valhallan doctrine matters only when it's between 4 and 13 wounds remaining, where its effect on shooting is just to give +1 to hit. It's not very obvious how to value this but surely it is at best worth only about 38% of a flat +1 to hit buff, since that's its average uptime over all 26 wounds, but of course in practice your opponent can attempt to avoid leaving it with a number of wounds that give it a buff.

 Trickstick wrote:

Valentine009 wrote:
1. The thing that makes the list unfun is the insane alpha. I played against you with heavy hitting admech and I think by turn 2 we were both down to like 30% points?

Honestly that sounds like a problem with lack of LOS blocking terrain. This is a problem I have been seeing with Guard discussion recently, that people use nowhere near enough. Facing Guard on what is effectively an open field is never going to go well. If your SH company is mowing down all opposition, try to use them in a cityfight. A light infantry company that relies on things like meltas will have a much greater chance if you have dense streets to worry about.

This is a common problem in general for many gamers. People outside of shops that have invested into scenery don't want to have to invest in their own.

As a relatively competitive player, I'd have no problem playing 3 Baneblade variants, so long as there is enough LOS blocking terrain on the table. Baneblades certainly put out a lot of dakka, but I don't think they're anywhere near unstoppable or even OP. People that are complaining may just not have stopped to consider how to deal with that kind of power.

My tournament TAC list is built around having an 85% chance of taking out a Baneblade or Imperial Knight in a single turn. If people aren't planning to be able to do that, I could see why folks might complain, but frankly, that's more because they aren't choosing to adapt, rather than what is in your list.

I think 3 Baneblades is fine.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

Valentine009 wrote:
1. The thing that makes the list unfun is the insane alpha. I played against you with heavy hitting admech and I think by turn 2 we were both down to like 30% points?

Honestly that sounds like a problem with lack of LOS blocking terrain. This is a problem I have been seeing with Guard discussion recently, that people use nowhere near enough. Facing Guard on what is effectively an open field is never going to go well. If your SH company is mowing down all opposition, try to use them in a cityfight. A light infantry company that relies on things like meltas will have a much greater chance if you have dense streets to worry about.

This is a common problem in general for many gamers. People outside of shops that have invested into scenery don't want to have to invest in their own.

I mean, the thing with Guard is that it has the most artillery out of anyone. If there are two shooting armies and a ton of cover advantage goes to the one with a billion mortars. Certainly helps against the OP's superheavy list, of course.

One thing you could do is write GW and tell them that your baneblades are way, way to cheap for what they do. Really work on them to try to fix it in chapter approved, or even in a special errata. If your superheavies are 700 points each I don't think you'll have any more problems.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

Valentine009 wrote:
1. The thing that makes the list unfun is the insane alpha. I played against you with heavy hitting admech and I think by turn 2 we were both down to like 30% points?

Honestly that sounds like a problem with lack of LOS blocking terrain. This is a problem I have been seeing with Guard discussion recently, that people use nowhere near enough. Facing Guard on what is effectively an open field is never going to go well. If your SH company is mowing down all opposition, try to use them in a cityfight. A light infantry company that relies on things like meltas will have a much greater chance if you have dense streets to worry about.

This is a common problem in general for many gamers. People outside of shops that have invested into scenery don't want to have to invest in their own.

Placement is a big problem as well. I see so many table shots where there are 4 big bits of terrain which is just about okay but they've been placed in the corners of the board which drastically reduces their impact.

GhostRecon wrote:

Still a minimum of 90pts and one detachment slot to give one SHV a regimental doctrine - so in essence paying 494pts to give one to a Shadowsword? Which one is worth the cost at that point? I'd posit the Valhallan one, probably, since otherwise an opponent only needs to do at least 13 wounds to reduce the effectiveness of your SHV by 33% outright.

Curious how a Shadowsword does against equal points-worth of Stygies VIII Dunecrawlers, though.

One does not take naked superheavies; it's a waste of the phenomenal unit tax. 10 heavy bolters and 4 lascannons is absolutely worth the points on a single, easily buffed model.... so long as you're savy enough to keep it alive.

So with that in mind 630 points of cadian shadowsword with an adjacent 'old grudges' commander would outright kill 1 with the volcano cannon, probably with just one failed save, average 4 wounds on a second with the lascannons and 3.8 wounds with the heavy bolters, factoring in rerolls. If however it could attack after another unit had inflicted one wound on one of them it would be hitting on 4s with the +1 to hit cadian strat.

The main reason not to load it up is that you're creating a vulnerability. A fully-loaded Shadowsword is going to be one of your most fragile units. If you don't go first -- and so can't cast +1 Sv and -1 to hit on it -- you stand to lose a whole lot of firepower to an alpha strike. It's not really about being "savvy enough to keep it alive". It's a huge target.

And there's not much of a unit tax here. A barebones Shadowsword is paying 406 points for its body, its CC ability, and its volcano cannon, twin heavy bolter, and storm bolter. It costs 15.6 points per wound, which is not great but which at least doesn't make it an obvious target (this is comparable to a fully-loaded Russ). You can then pay another 136 points, or 33% of its base cost, for 10 heavy bolters and 4 lascannons. This is now 20.8 points per wound, which is incredibly fragile, especially for a multi-wound model which is vulnerable to things like lascannons.

What is this really buying you? It's a little hard to directly compare heavy bolters and lascannons. The game values a lascannon at 2.5 times a heavy bolter. So let's say this is 8 lascannons' worth of firepower. Meanwhile the volcano cannon alone is worth at least 15 lascannons, and often much more (I'm assuming the only thing you get out of the volcano cannon is going to 2+ to wound from 3+ and then 2d6 damage instead of d6). So this is at best a ~50% increase in firepower. We'd generally only be willing to pay about 22% (square root of 1.5) more for this kind of increase in offensive ability, so this does not look like a good deal. And this is ignoring its CC output, which this upgrade doesn't help with at all.

This thread made me want to do a lore accurate Artillery company.

Nine artillery pieces too many artillery pieces?

 NivlacSupreme wrote:
This thread made me want to do a lore accurate Artillery company.

Nine artillery pieces too many artillery pieces?

Nine plus a salamander command, an atlas and a trojan.

Just play the army you want. If you let your opponents know what they are getting into beforehand things should be fine.

Might as well go full Krieg and have 18 arty pieces by using the lighter stuff as elites.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 NivlacSupreme wrote:
This thread made me want to do a lore accurate Artillery company.

Nine artillery pieces too many artillery pieces?

Nine plus a salamander command, an atlas and a trojan.

Wouldn’t need a Trojan if I was using self propelled artillery, apparently atlasses are pretty rare and they can have command chimeras as well.

It’d probably be all plastic. Maybe some DKoK Crewman and Command staff if I went that direction.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Might as well go full Krieg and have 18 arty pieces by using the lighter stuff as elites.

That’d be two companies

I missed the ''lore accurate part'' oops.

Dionysodorus wrote:
The main reason not to load it up is that you're creating a vulnerability. A fully-loaded Shadowsword is going to be one of your most fragile units. If you don't go first -- and so can't cast +1 Sv and -1 to hit on it -- you stand to lose a whole lot of firepower to an alpha strike. It's not really about being "savvy enough to keep it alive". It's a huge target.

And there's not much of a unit tax here. A barebones Shadowsword is paying 406 points for its body, its CC ability, and its volcano cannon, twin heavy bolter, and storm bolter. It costs 15.6 points per wound, which is not great but which at least doesn't make it an obvious target (this is comparable to a fully-loaded Russ). You can then pay another 136 points, or 33% of its base cost, for 10 heavy bolters and 4 lascannons. This is now 20.8 points per wound, which is incredibly fragile, especially for a multi-wound model which is vulnerable to things like lascannons.

What is this really buying you? It's a little hard to directly compare heavy bolters and lascannons. The game values a lascannon at 2.5 times a heavy bolter. So let's say this is 8 lascannons' worth of firepower. Meanwhile the volcano cannon alone is worth at least 15 lascannons, and often much more (I'm assuming the only thing you get out of the volcano cannon is going to 2+ to wound from 3+ and then 2d6 damage instead of d6). So this is at best a ~50% increase in firepower. We'd generally only be willing to pay about 22% (square root of 1.5) more for this kind of increase in offensive ability, so this does not look like a good deal. And this is ignoring its CC output, which this upgrade doesn't help with at all.

Well presented, but I cannot agree with you.

The damage output of a full Shadow sword upgrade kits is, pre-buff, 5 dead marines or 2.5 dead primaris just from the heavy bolters, paying exactly 14 points per wound which is uncanny. ( 30 * 3 * 4 * 3 /216).
For comparison, 6 SWS Guardsmen with 3 plasma guns on overcharge at 24" pay 43.2 points per dead marine average. ( 3 * 5 * 5 * 3 /216)
Double tapped punishers fare horribly in this problem space, With Pask paying in the region of 30 pts per dead marine. (40 * 5 * 4 * 2/216) before buffs.

From which i'd like to point out that the twin heavy bolter is in the top 3 for most efficient marine killer in the guard, which on a shadowsword can reliably wipe a squad of devastator lascannons in the open every turn, or even in cover with Cadian buffs.

The story for the lascannons against their intended target ( t7 sv3+) is actually a bit pitiful in that it's only 4 pts better (24) per wound than the HBolter set ( 28) assuming 3 avg for lascannon damage.

So from that I suggest that TL HBs are actually worth the 'tax' of the lascannons over the course of the game, and certainly in a buffed alpha strike. The standard single HBolter is 2 points worse per kill than the twin gun, i'm guessing because it can split fire more easily.

As to your CC point, it *does* increase its CC effectiveness by virtue of all the sponsons pouring out enough damage for 2 dead marines in over watch, which, combined with the Defensive Gunners Stratagem goes up enough to wipe a charging min/max squad when including the volcano cannon. If it's being multi charged, it would then get to fire again, as having killed the assaulting unit there's no over watch prevention potentially allowing for, as i've experienced, shooting 110 dice in the opponent's assault phase.

Now to be sure this was a bit of a fluke but as you put it the threat profile of the high value target means the opponent can be obliged to pour even the sub-optimal units at it to try and take it out, a prospect which over watch causes to be very risky. There is also the revised Steel Behemoth rules which means the SHC can move and shoot without penalties to either the HBs or LCs, making the SHC investment very viable as a mobile objective spoiler, not least because the thing is big enough to literally roll over an objective and prevent opponents from getting within range for their superior numbers (which would have suffered overwatch lets not forget) to matter.

Finally don't forget that steel behemoth also allows for it to shoot *only* the heavy bolters ( or heavy flamers) into close combat; if there's a particularly stubborn CC unit that can wrap around it to prevent it withdrawing this can actually matter.

If you have a pair of SHCs, one with and one without the upgrade kit you're essentially dictating which unit the opponent has to address first; a major tactical and psychological advantage which goes beyond just the raw damage output. Have the shadowsword at the back at maximm effective range and, say, a half upgraded stormsword revving forward and your opponent has to start asking some serious questions about where he spends his resources as the classic approach of 'ignore the big stuff' becomes non-viable.

Regarding keeping it alive; in a less than ideal situation where low drop count means not going first, placing the SHT last can make enough of a difference as your opponent will have to spread out ranged anti tank drops, allowing you to pick and choose your targets on a typical 6x4 table, and not exposing the thing to what you don't want it exposed to.

Alternatively just take 2 bastions containing single company commanders and screen it from an entire side of the board with 40+ wounds at t9.

In summary, sure it's paying a lot for its own wounds, but it has access to very flexible, very reliable weapons that are very very cheap per wound *caused* combined with excellent mobility not available outside of Punishers, and thats before we apply buffs of any kind - something which that volume of firepower would struggle to fit into the mostly 3/6" bubbles they come from for IG.