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.

You might as well spring for the Arq on those Rangers. Arc Rifles are just meh, even with being cheap.

It seems like after Chapter Approved, many of you are preferring multiple Icarus Crawlers to Neutron Lasers. I have a second Crawler kit I am building now, and wondering whether I should go 2 Icarus or 1 Icarus and 1 Neutron laser. Thoughts?

 rollawaythestone wrote:
It seems like after Chapter Approved, many of you are preferring multiple Icarus Crawlers to Neutron Lasers. I have a second Crawler kit I am building now, and wondering whether I should go 2 Icarus or 1 Icarus and 1 Neutron laser. Thoughts?

The Neutron Laser will tear through anything that doesn't have an invulnerable save. Few shots, but very powerful. The Icarus is more generalist: lots of medium damage shots, less bothered by invulnerable saves due to the average AP-2. The fact that it has bonuses against <Fly> makes it very popular in a T'au/Aeldari/Drukhari meta where the guns' profiles are tailored to counter them. I'd say it depends on your meta.

People overlook the humble Eradication Beamer: 100 pts gets you an Onager who can deal with any target reasonably, and turns into a lighter Neutron Laser at short range. I'm playing an Icarus, a Laser and a Beamer together in my 2000 pts list and they've yet to get all destroyed at the end of the game. They're quite resilient, can be repaired fairly easily, and pack a good variety of weapon profiles for all situations.

 rollawaythestone wrote:
It seems like after Chapter Approved, many of you are preferring multiple Icarus Crawlers to Neutron Lasers. I have a second Crawler kit I am building now, and wondering whether I should go 2 Icarus or 1 Icarus and 1 Neutron laser. Thoughts?

I used to run two neturon plus a icarus but recently I've been facing more armies with more infantry and the neturon laser is really wasted when you only have that to shoot at so I figured I'll just run the ones with 10 shots and usually something they make sense shooting at.

 Aaranis wrote:

 rollawaythestone wrote:
It seems like after Chapter Approved, many of you are preferring multiple Icarus Crawlers to Neutron Lasers. I have a second Crawler kit I am building now, and wondering whether I should go 2 Icarus or 1 Icarus and 1 Neutron laser. Thoughts?

The Neutron Laser will tear through anything that doesn't have an invulnerable save. Few shots, but very powerful. The Icarus is more generalist: lots of medium damage shots, less bothered by invulnerable saves due to the average AP-2. The fact that it has bonuses against <Fly> makes it very popular in a T'au/Aeldari/Drukhari meta where the guns' profiles are tailored to counter them. I'd say it depends on your meta.

People overlook the humble Eradication Beamer: 100 pts gets you an Onager who can deal with any target reasonably, and turns into a lighter Neutron Laser at short range. I'm playing an Icarus, a Laser and a Beamer together in my 2000 pts list and they've yet to get all destroyed at the end of the game. They're quite resilient, can be repaired fairly easily, and pack a good variety of weapon profiles for all situations.

Spot on with the Neutron, but I kind of have to disagree with the Beamer. You have D6 shots right? So basically 3.5 on average. That's not good for killing some infantry the way like the Icarus loadout can do.

Regarding the original question. I wouldn't go for 1 Neutron. If I were to run neutrons I would go for 2-3 just because, they are so swingy, so you can mitigate it. But atm yeah go for an Icarus.(if you have other ways of handling handling high toughness targets!)

and yet only 19 points more for a neutron onager, less for an Icarus. so I would rather go for those than the beamer.

 Hulksmash wrote:
If you ca. Squeeze in a techpriest I to the ig detachment. He has the forgeworld keyword so you can gratis him for psychic defense.

One thing to note is that AdMech+Knights is strong because of Necromechanic, which you cannot get in a Guard detachment. With Tech-Adept stratagem, you are healing a Knight for 4 wounds per turn.

 Suzuteo wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
If you ca. Squeeze in a techpriest I to the ig detachment. He has the forgeworld keyword so you can gratis him for psychic defense.

One thing to note is that AdMech+Knights is strong because of Necromechanic, which you cannot get in a Guard detachment. With Tech-Adept stratagem, you are healing a Knight for 4 wounds per turn.

I was talking about an extra techpriest not shifting his current one. It was a way to get some psychic defense while keeping everything thing 99% the same

Essentially its local meta more knights neutronagas
More aeldari more icarus

Neutron Crawlers are pretty bad at killing Knights, actually. Robots or Ryzaphrons are a lot better.

Yeah you want netrons for stuff like leman Russe's or space marine vehicles. Anything with a big chunk of wounds and a 3+ save. Ironically with protector doctrina I find them better at killing enemy fliers like stormravens than Icarus crawlers. They really hate invulns. The moment you meet those all the AP in the world is pretty useless. Meanwhile Icarus has opposite problem, it really struggles with armor but loses little effectiveness against invulns. Which is my one complaint with Icarus, it feels really useless against marines for the most part.

I love using neutron, don't get me wrong. For pure admech they're a very solid AT option. Its just that they're very similar in role to Armiger Warglaives, something many admech players have in abundance. Armigers are fast, have just as much AP, can fight in close combat, and can be tougher at times. And unlike icarus/hellverin comparison, Warglaives hit just as much as Neutrons. I've found that using a mix of Warglaives and Icarus Onager really hits the best of both worlds. Warglaives are stupid fast and easily close to melta 2d6 range, while simultaneously taking heat off the Onagers and the rest of your army.

If rule of 3 wasn't around, I'd just run a few of both Onager weapons and be happy. But when you can only take 3 I find myself needing the utility the Icarus array provides far more than the punch the neutrons give. Neutrons are easy to find similar solutions for from knights or guard, meanwhile the Icarus array is pretty unique. If I was running pure admech without knights though, I'd run way more neutrons. At that point they're really our only option aside from ironstriders that'll die way too fast or punching said target to death. Yes we have Kataphrons too but they require lots of CP and really can only be buffed one unit at a time. Onagers on the other hand are cheap, consistent shooting with no CP expenditure, something admech really needs when most of our units rely on gimmicks to hit at best efficiency.

I'm going to try taking my Onagers out of the list and instead taking a squad of 6 breachers with heavy arc rifles. I think with Cawl re-rolls they'll be more effective against big things with invuln saves and about the same against other stuff.

 Suzuteo wrote:
Don't get me wrong. They are quite good. But we just don't have the sort of charge bonuses for our infantry to make them reliable. We can do shooting, but 9x Carbine + 3x Plasma Caliver or 12x Hoplite, typically with Graia dogma for durability and maximum anti-Psyker annoyance, is the upper limit on the amount of damage output we can use with the Drills. For everything else, going Lucius is better.

How did you get 3 plasmas and 9 carbines in one squad when the max squad size is 10? Or if they’re two squads, wouldn’t 4 plasmas and 8 carbines be more firepower in the drill?

Also 12 hoplites are ok but their shooting is on the weaker end if you’re not gonna face vehicles. With so few shots I see them more as screens that can fight back ok or potentially drop some mortal wounds on whatever wipes them out.

Wouldn’t 12 Corpuscarii (or 11 with a dominus) be the most firepower we could put in a drill?

Pomguo wrote:

 Suzuteo wrote:
Don't get me wrong. They are quite good. But we just don't have the sort of charge bonuses for our infantry to make them reliable. We can do shooting, but 9x Carbine + 3x Plasma Caliver or 12x Hoplite, typically with Graia dogma for durability and maximum anti-Psyker annoyance, is the upper limit on the amount of damage output we can use with the Drills. For everything else, going Lucius is better.

How did you get 3 plasmas and 9 carbines in one squad when the max squad size is 10? Or if they’re two squads, wouldn’t 4 plasmas and 8 carbines be more firepower in the drill?

Also 12 hoplites are ok but their shooting is on the weaker end if you’re not gonna face vehicles. With so few shots I see them more as screens that can fight back ok or potentially drop some mortal wounds on whatever wipes them out.

Wouldn’t 12 Corpuscarii (or 11 with a dominus) be the most firepower we could put in a drill?

Corpuscarii have only 5++ and 5+++, while Hoplites rock 4+/5++ and 4++ against melee - can't say I play Hoplites too much, but they seem to be more survivable. If I payed extra 134pts for transport I'd want to transport something more survivable into the fray. Unless I'd be dropping 12 Corpuscarii in Mars, for WoM, but 10 Infiltrators are better and cheaper for that task. Otherwise, a bomb of 20 Corpuscarii in Lucius seems to be a better idea of utilising them IMO

20 Lucius is a strong bomb, but 11 Agripinaa + Dominus in a drill is also pretty strong (and means you aren’t stuck with Lucius).

As for Hoplites, their save is better but they don’t get a FNP. Pretty close in survivability imo - but worlds apart in guaranteed damage output (ie the firepower they put out on the turn they arrive). 12 shots at S6 AP-1 and D3dmg on vehicles only (otherwise 1dmg) VS 33 shots rerolling 1s and exploding on 6s at S5 AP0 1dmg... against any target surely the priests are doing more by a long way? Plus their overwatch is fantastic even without Agripinaa, which makes up for the 1 less invuln in melee (as does the FNP).

Besides, if survivability is your concern you could make them Graia for a third 6+ roll after the two 5+ rolls, which would also make them deepstriking psychic deniers on a 4+ - unlike Secutarii who can’t get a forgeworld keyword.

dadamowsky wrote:
Corpuscarii have only 5++ and 5+++, while Hoplites rock 4+/5++ and 4++ against melee - can't say I play Hoplites too much, but they seem to be more survivable.

Against 1 damage weapons a 5+ invulnerable save combined with a 5+ 'feel no pain' save is statistically better than a single 4+ save though (44.4% average failure rate vs 50% average failure rate).

The FNP save just get progressively worse on weapons that deal multiple damage per unsaved wound because you have to roll 5+ for each damage dealt to not be killed (59.2% average failure rate vs damage 2 weapons for example).

Pomguo wrote:
How did you get 3 plasmas and 9 carbines in one squad when the max squad size is 10? Or if they’re two squads, wouldn’t 4 plasmas and 8 carbines be more firepower in the drill?

Also 12 hoplites are ok but their shooting is on the weaker end if you’re not gonna face vehicles. With so few shots I see them more as screens that can fight back ok or potentially drop some mortal wounds on whatever wipes them out.

Wouldn’t 12 Corpuscarii (or 11 with a dominus) be the most firepower we could put in a drill?

Typo. You're right. 8x Carbine and 4x Plasma. And my point is that Priests would be better off coming down as one big Lucius unit. It's only the MSUs and the units that need to make it into melee that benefit from the Drill.

But then dedicated melee in a drill is a bad gamble, since their odds are so low. That’s why imo Corpuscarii are the best thing (other than Ryza plasma vanguard possibly) to put in a drill - they have the same mortal wounds on a charge as Fulgurites, and also have taser hits in close combat for a fair amount of hurt, but they guarantee a truckload of hits on arrival even if they fail that charge. They’re betyer shooters than almost anyone else you could put in a drill, and a solid melee option too if you luck out and make the charge. Best of both worlds - same way Infiltrators make a better bomb than Ruststalkers.

As for Lucius, yeah it’s a great bomb, but forces you into a sub-optimal FW (elevtroprietss care not between AP0 or AP-1) and it’s not like a drill isn’t going to be handy on the deepstrike too - not to mention you save a CP! People twist their armies or add in unwanted HQs just for 1CP, so I’m not that quick to spend one if there’s a solid alternative .

 ultimentra wrote:
I'm going to try taking my Onagers out of the list and instead taking a squad of 6 breachers with heavy arc rifles. I think with Cawl re-rolls they'll be more effective against big things with invuln saves and about the same against other stuff.

I'm curious to see how that does, I have 6 breachers that I would like to use, maybe in the special detachment with 6 destroyers, the idea of a couple of regenerating squads of kataphron slowly moving around blasting things sounds cool if probably not the most competitive

Liking all the Corpuscarii discussion - I'm one of the few that actually likes their model, and would love to make them work. Their firepower just seems so useful in the new melee horde meta.

 Redemption wrote:

dadamowsky wrote:
Corpuscarii have only 5++ and 5+++, while Hoplites rock 4+/5++ and 4++ against melee - can't say I play Hoplites too much, but they seem to be more survivable.

Against 1 damage weapons a 5+ invulnerable save combined with a 5+ 'feel no pain' save is statistically better than a single 4+ save though (44.4% average failure rate vs 50% average failure rate).

The FNP save just get progressively worse on weapons that deal multiple damage per unsaved wound because you have to roll 5+ for each damage dealt to not be killed (59.2% average failure rate vs damage 2 weapons for example).

Also factor in that aech have 2-3 turns in cover which hoplites benefit from and Corpuscarii dont

Very true, not unless it is cover that gives +2 to saves. On the flip-side, that also means that the Corpuscarii don't care about any armour penetration on ranged weapons.

Exactly what I meant mentioning armor save. Hoplites can easily sit on 3+ with canticles or terrain setup, Corpuscarii are tied to expensive and situational Acquisition to improve their save.

As for the Drill issue - I don't think taking the 134 transport is the most efficient pts spending. Corpuscarii are nothing but very efficient DS screen cleaners for someone else to capitalise. Fulgurites on the other hand are the clear winners for the seat, with all their d3 mortal wounds, and 3++, to get support with transportation. They will most likely pay off their, and the Drill, costs.

I'm not buying the Lucius dogma argument either. It's clearly meh, but that's what mixed detachments are for . Lucius Corpuscarii, with Graia Skitarii, with Stygues Drill and Fulgurites (for the optional infiltration shenanigans) - and you have the best of each world noy caring about the crappy dogmas at all.

Pomguo wrote:
But then dedicated melee in a drill is a bad gamble, since their odds are so low. That’s why imo Corpuscarii are the best thing (other than Ryza plasma vanguard possibly) to put in a drill - they have the same mortal wounds on a charge as Fulgurites, and also have taser hits in close combat for a fair amount of hurt, but they guarantee a truckload of hits on arrival even if they fail that charge. They’re betyer shooters than almost anyone else you could put in a drill, and a solid melee option too if you luck out and make the charge. Best of both worlds - same way Infiltrators make a better bomb than Ruststalkers.

As for Lucius, yeah it’s a great bomb, but forces you into a sub-optimal FW (elevtroprietss care not between AP0 or AP-1) and it’s not like a drill isn’t going to be handy on the deepstrike too - not to mention you save a CP! People twist their armies or add in unwanted HQs just for 1CP, so I’m not that quick to spend one if there’s a solid alternative .

Well, no, the idea is to deep strike in on the transport, disembark the next turn, move, charge. Both Priests are pretty good, actually. But again, it's about opportunity cost. Mars Infiltrators are better that Lucius Corpuscarii IMO, with their built-in DS and access to Wrath of Mars. Catachans make a better anti-horde melee screen. If you want an alpha strike, bring Death Company and Lemartes.

I doubt anybody would have a pure Lucius detachment.

But then if you don’t use a pure Lucius detachment then you lose all FW traits, right? I’m vaguely averse to giving up those buffs.

As for disembarking the next turn, didn’t realise that was actually an option. Misread the text and thought they had to come out with the drill.

Pomguo wrote:
But then if you don’t use a pure Lucius detachment then you lose all FW traits, right? I’m vaguely averse to giving up those buffs.

As for disembarking the next turn, didn’t realise that was actually an option. Misread the text and thought they had to come out with the drill.

Are the buffs coming from Lucius, Graia or Ryza even worth bothering though? I doubt it quite frankly, not in the majority of cases at least. Even Stygies dogma is passable if you take it on the Drill and the Fulgurites/Hoplites (as you want these to be closer than 12"). If you really want dogmas, you can always create a second mixed detachment for utility only.

Hoplites dont get a dogma.

Mars is meh without cawl and ryza is negligable in most builds

Graia will make your 1w models 16% more survivable essential no but on mass it makes a noticable difference

Stygies boosts anything that gonna hang at the back robots ballistarii dunecrawlers

Agripinaa and lucius can be really usefull or not at all it depends on your opponents list

Your generally better of with them if you can add them.

I've found Graia good for my 10 man Vanguard and then Stygies for Rangers. Dual Battalion seems to be enough CP for our army I feel.

U02dah4 wrote:
Hoplites dont get a dogma.

Mars is meh without cawl and ryza is negligable in most builds

Graia will make your 1w models 16% more survivable essential no but on mass it makes a noticable difference

Stygies boosts anything that gonna hang at the back robots ballistarii dunecrawlers

Agripinaa and lucius can be really usefull or not at all it depends on your opponents list

Your generally better of with them if you can add them.

I've tried running Graia Skitarii. It was promising at first, but the amount of Punishers everywhere is simply too... punishing? The Punishers puns (hattrick!), always wanted to do that

Anyway, if I understand Graia correctly, you resolve the Refusal to Yield immediately when the model is slain, so after each "attack". Meaning, that 14 unsaved shots on 10 model squad demands 14 successful consecutive roll of 6 to made that squad survive. It is not going to happen. And the straightforward FnP rule would actually be more useful to the multiwound models.

From all of our dogmas I find Mars (if Cawl is taken) and Stygies to be worthwhile. Metalica... maybe, but it buffs primarily our Skitarii and they die way to fast as we already know. Maybe Cybernetica Kastelans will be playable in Metalica, idk. Rest of our dogmas are passable. And with the similarly passable WLTs and relics the only reason to ever consider a FW to pick IMO are the stratagems.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I've found Graia good for my 10 man Vanguard and then Stygies for Rangers. Dual Battalion seems to be enough CP for our army I feel.

Depends on what are you running. I find 13 CPs to be burnt by the end of turn 2 if I am not careful and haven't been planning the expenditure beforehand

Yes im running brigade+battalion and still feel short on CP.

14 unsaved shots would only require 14 6's if your aim was to not lose a model.

As to multi W yes and no 1 roll negates the attack reguardless of damage so a 6 dam las cannon shot can be negated by 1 role but it wont trigger unless the model dies