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 Hulksmash wrote:
@Suzeto
I don't think we're going to move each other. I'm actually cutting pretty much all the guard (may keep the mortars) from my list but would happily run pure admech. I would appreciate it though if you didn't make assumptions about where or how I play. I play on LVO terrain and Nova terrain (which is actually heavier than terrain at LVO this year) at those actual events. I generally play pretty well and finish high. I was also the 3rd highest admech player in ITC this year and the only one in the top 3 without a knight at LVO.

I'm firmly of the opinion that Admech are in a place where they really can be run pure.

My experience, as singular as it is, is that Rangers are probably THE best infantry in the game in a Mars detachment. The reasons aren't simple point efficiency though.

The amount and type of firepower that needs to be directed to kill the infantry is of a different standard than guard screens. Additionally they outrange anything that isn't a fire warrior when it comes to cheap infantry. Ignoring cover means they win every shoot out outside of 12" and they normally get the first punch in.

But keep pushing the only way to play is with Guard and Knights. See what that gets you once GSC are fully rolling in the meta too

Yes, and I am impressed that you managed it. But you are the ONLY person who has gotten that far with a pure Forge World Brigade, whereas there are five other AdMech players at LVO who did just as well or better, and a further dozen or so who have been at it for months with better-than-expected results. Furthermore, none of your matchups were the various Soup lists floating around. Maybe chalk it up to local meta, but when you play in California and get stomped a couple of times by Soup, you realize how bad Skitarii actually are for anything other than shooting. (And I do acknowledge that Stygies or Graia Rangers are amazing shooters, but the army is full of amazing shooters.)

U02dah4 wrote:
@suzeto I've never said guard are bad just that they are dealable with and they are. Yes on net a vanguard is slightly worse than a guardsmen but 6 vanguard only represnt 12% of my army where as for guard 16.5% of yours for 6 guard squads + 3 officers more if you want straken or a priest. (I wouldnt run 6 orders but you have in your explanation)

I also didn't say you needed to bring that many guardsmen I said thats the point they become hard to dead with.

When you make assumptions like i wont be able to get to a middle objective in 3 turns it just doesn't match with my playtesting. Last night i left 100 genestealers dead by t3 now admittedly they are t4 5++ and largely ignore moral but it wasnt enough to stop me taking the mid t3.

As to missions well i tend to play etc style missions with itc terrain. However i cant recall a lot of games with terrain dense enough where you could effectively hide 60 guardsmen out of LOS while advanceing down the field.

Not when i advance a wave and most of my units can shoot the length of the board.

As to the castellan no it cant obliterate an entire firebase in a single round .we have to many targets. Yes its broken but if it was that broken every player would run one.

@hulksmash i still prefer vanguard to rangers- at short and medium (up to 24") vanguard outperform rangers and thats what i want from my frontline. The extra damage on 6's makes them surprisingly flexible on mass vs vehicles and the -1t really supports breachers /hoplites in CC. Beyond 27" yes rangers are better but we have other units for that role but by the time you get to that range your damage output is low. (In a 17 the argument is different and as objective holders fine) but pure admech has other options for that role.

Rangers are much, much more efficient than Vanguard if you're using them to shoot other infantry. You pretty much need to take them in a pure Forge World though. I think Graia or Stygies are the best for this.

My Guard are usually around 20% of my army, and they are very much worth it in terms of the amount of VP they score. Ultimately, that is what this game boils down to. Scoring VP and denying VP. Guardsmen don't shoot as well as Skitarii, and they aren't as durable either, but they score and screen WAYYY better, which is what I think infantry should do.

I didn't say you would not be able to GET to a middle objective. I said you won't TAKE it. I can hold units hiding in LOS blocking terrain 12"+ inches away and constantly move them onto the objective while gunning down your Vanguard with Robots or something; you meanwhile have to commit the entire unit in a single turn because it takes you two turns to move the same distance. I only need to score 2-3 more points than you, and you're already at a massive disadvantage in a clocked game.

Again, I never hide all 60 of my Guardsmen in the same place. They're always in groups of one or two units with an officer nearby.

I know a Castellan cannot obliterate an entire firebase. I am pointing out that if you're going to make bad assumptions, I can make them too.

 deffrekka wrote:
All 3 of you make valid points but it still all comes down to personal play style. Take for example me and U02dah4, hes an Agripinaa lover and im a Ryza lover, we both have success with our own armies. One may be more powerful than the other on paper but its the general that determines how strong they are.

From my own experiences Guard Infantry are a lot easier to play than Skitarii Rangers/Vanguard due to their cost, quantity and the orders that automatically go off. But for me that bored the hell out of me and like Hulksmash i have slowly phased my Guard out of my Admech.

Since CA18 and Vigilus Defiant ive replaced my Guardsmen with Kataphrons, not once in the whole 7th and 8th have i used Destroyers before, not ever. Now i am. They literally DESTROY anything you point them at, they will earn back there points and more so. Does that make my list weaker than the Guardsmen variant? No not really, its a side grade.

With my Ryzatrons i have reliably one shot Castellans, multiple vehicles/squads off the board whilst also being "durable". I am loving them, reminds me of having my old triple caliver Vanguard back with preferred enemy and tankhunter/monsterhunter. ITS GLORIOUS.

But that doesnt mean U02dah4's Grav Destroyers are bad, its just a different style of play. I am actually pleasantly surprised with Hulksmash having success with pure Admech, thats what i want OUR FACTION to be. 8th ed so far has been a rollercoaster for me, with more bad than good. Admech started off good then took a nose dive, we were then less Mech and more Flesh with Guard pulling the weight for us, now i can see my bionics again, the scrap code is gone and maybe there is a light at the end of the cogitator!?

We no longer have to be shoe horned into allying (i like it when you said alloying haha, so fitting!) in Guard and i really hope GW nails down hard on Soup. I play pure Deldar with no soup and they are still amazing, i play pure Orkz and get the shaft... (thats an Ork Codex problem....). Allies should supplement the army, not override it and provide massive benefits thats there is no reason not to Soup.

What they did to GSC is kinda interesting and i hope that gets pushed to other races as well. And what Hulksmash says about the meta shifting to GSC is most likely true, around where i am people have been popping up and buying them left, right and centre and i have been out of stock as well! Blobs of 20 Acolytes (with hand flamers), bikes vomiting out det bombs, freight train aberrants, masses of neophytes, there own (pre-nerfed) AoV. These are all problems the meta will have to face now.

And as Admech we still have the guns to deal with this, and as crap as the Manipulus maybe, he may be required to boost our Cognis Flamer over watch now. That is something im slowly leaning towards.

At the end of the day dont try force a certain army style on someone else, your Guard may rock for you, but his Rangers or Vanguard may outclass Guard in his hands. Ive seen plenty of non meta lists pull the pants off of the current meta lists, it even happened to me and cost me first place at an event when a sneaky slaanesh list went for my booty (literally) and knocked me off to 4th place (4-1.... as pure Admech).

Sure. And I definitely would say that familiarity is important as well. But I think Guardsmen have way higher skill ceiling and potential than Skitarii, which pretty much just shoot. If you want to run Skitarii knowing their limitations, go for it. But know your limitations. By way of example, one of my friends is the best Space Wolf player in the world this year. His success doesn't necessarily mean pure Space Wolves are not still the worst pure faction in the game, and even he acknowledged that he had luck in his matchups, but he took out everything in his army that was not working. And that meant most of the Space Wolf plastic. Haha. His army is Herohammer, with something like 6-8 characters (mostly mounted), 3 troops, one of those FW Dreadnoughts, and a Falchion for killing Castellans.

Ryzaphrons are great. I think they are truly what pushed us into being a T1 army. Taking them with an Officer of the Fleet with Dagger is even better. Just one of the many examples of Guard+AdMech being greater than just Guard or just AdMech. People may scream cheese, but come on. We were hitching rides in Drop Pods and scouting fortifications in 7E. Shame is an emotion that AdMech do not have.

To be clear, this argument began because people were saying Guardsmen were easy to deal with. They are definitely not. They are a fast-moving, high model count ObSec blob. Even if you manage to kill them all, they will have scored 2-3 VP on you, which is why they are taken in Soup in the first place. I'm not actually trying to force anyone to run anything. Just saying that the competitive advantages of Guardsmen cannot be denied and should not be downplayed.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I really feel it's an apples and oranges situation. I've played guard infantry heavy since 5th and skitarii heavy admech since the start of 8th. They really just don't do the exact same job, even when you think they would like trying to compare a FRFSRF guardsman to a Vanguard.

Guardsmen are more about objectives and screening. They have firepower and combat uses, but even when heavily kitted out for these roles their main jobs will still be holding objectives and screening more powerful units. I would never rely on a single squad to kill much of anything in this game, you really need two at minimum and an officer to ensure they do anything noteworthy. If an army knows how to snipe your characters, you are seriously at risk of losing a major chunk of their effectiveness.

Meanwhile I feel you can take skitarii units purely, or even mostly kitted out for shooting as their main role and still make them useful for screening. Skitarii, even Metallica vanguard, will never match the mobility of guard. However, their firepower stays way more effective on the move than guard could ever hope to be. And if they're in cover or have shroudpsalm, they are twice as durable to typical anti chaff weapons like storm bolters as a guardsman would be. Granted you can get 2 guardsmen per skitarii but you can only cram so many men into one area. And if you think about the mandatory officers you know the guard player must run to make his men effective, really the skitarii are more efficient since they really don't care if they have tech-priests nearby and technically cost less for what they're doing.

There's a lot I'm not getting into there of course, and there are solid arguments for both approaches. Personally I think a combo of skitarii and guardsmen is probably the best option in a vacuum, but the combination of regiment/Forgeworld abilities really makes it a tough call to make. It also doesn't help that all of Admech's troops are genuinely useful in at least some context. Some prefer certain FW's over others but at the end of the day they can all be used. Rangers are dirt cheap ranged infantry that are an efficient choice for arquebuses. Vanguard are surprisingly punchy and good walking firepower as well as a carrier for plasma and melee support. Destroyers, well, destroy things with scary efficiency, even non Ryza. And Breachers are starting to show promise as dirt cheap body guard units, tough with a good save and multiple abilities to bring back dead models.

I totally agree with this. And I do take 5x10 Catachans (for scoring) alloyed with 2x Graia Vanguard (-1T aura and Abhor) and Officer of the Fleet + Ryza Kataphron Destroyers (Outflanking anti-tank) . This was the optimal troop loadout I settled on. It mixes amazingly strong scoring with great anti-tank counter-punching. Shooting is actually a very low priority; I rely on my firebase for that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Redemption wrote:
New tech-priest and servitor models in the Combat Arena box:

Spoiler:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/02/15/15th-feb-new-models-games-and-funko-pop-at-the-new-york-toy-fairgw-homepage-post-3/#gallery-12-3

Hopefully these will see 40k rules, but otherwise they're at least decent alternate models.

Yesss. If we get more force multipliers for Skitarii like with the Manipulus, I can actually see Red Tide being a thing.

I don't know what to say man. You've built yourself up so high for knowing how to use guard and attributed such a high skill level to yourself that I think you're a bit lost on other ways and other interactions. Which is cool. We don't have to agree. But telling people they are wrong when you clearly don't seem to understand the methodology of a list can get old. That's how you get stagnant.

I do love the constant "I play in a tougher meta" statements you like to throw out there though. Definitely something that opens up discussion....

(p.s. that dagger thing wouldn't work at most major GT's off the west coast and I'm not sure it would work on one there if someone asked about it. RAW it's not wrong but even the ITC guys tend to step on gamey anti-RAI stuff like that)

@Suzuteo To be clear the argument did not start with the suggestion that guard where easy to deal with it started with the suggestion that they were impossible to deal with. It is clear from others answers that you can in fact dealing with guard is entirely possible. This does not make them weak as a choice.

As to rangers they tend to be at the back so 5 s4 shots vs the vanguards 15 s3 shots against your guardsmen thats 1.5 dead vs 5 dead to the vanguard even in Rf range vanguard still win by 2 and the extra damage on 6's against the space marine 5 rangers 0.55 or 1.10 dead marines vs 1.11 dead from vanguard (so still in their favour but negligable whats funny is against a breacher rangers are 0.37 or 0.74 depending on range vanguard are 1.65. Gotto love that multidamage on 6's

So despite your assertion vanguard are almost always the better shooting option vs infantry (and everything else)

rangers have range and cost in their favour which is not bad as an allied detatchment but within faction we have enough backfield to stand on objectives



Automatically Appended Next Post:
In his defence on the dagger thing it is legal i'm just not sure its that good an option though. i mean it guarentees they get to fire but means they wont fire turn 1 and the faster they fire the faster their target isn't firing at you. Personally I'd rather try and stick them in a ruin and encase I don't get T1

@Hulksmash
That's the thing. I don't know how to use Guard better than most. I actually know how to use Skitarii better than Guard. I only switched a few months ago after throwing in the towel on them, which is why I am impressed you made it so far with them.

Really, it's not me saying that I am more skilled than anyone, and I would hate for you to get that impression. It's me saying that Guard are amazingly good, and I have seen them kicking my teeth in enough times to be convinced of the fact. It's much easier to win games when you can score better than your opponent, especially if you get a crap first round. I definitely win a lot more with Catachans+Vanguard.

I don't know much about the meta in the Twin Cities, but I can only say that California tourney meta is suffocatingly competitive and cheesy. Also, you're right, nobody really honors RAI on this coast (since nobody has ever really known what GW intends), so if I ever play a Midwest or East Coast tourney, I will be sure to ask the TO.

@U02dah4
You can go back a few pages and see for yourself.

Yes... Rangers tend to be in the back; Vanguard are better than Rangers on the move, but without a good transport, they don't move nearly fast enough, and they are usually outnumbered for ObSec. And 5 dead? Did you forget to calculate the save? And for the purposes of calculation, the maximum damage of a Vanguard is 1 against most infantry; they are wonderful Primaris killers though.

You can deploy turn one with the Dagger in your own deployment zone. The purpose of the Dagger is to protect your Ryzaphrons from getting melted by Cawl's Wrath right off the bat.

yes sorry 3.3 dead as opposed to 1.5 and 3 dead vanguard are still better vs guard sm and breachers what infantry are they worse against?

as to the mid objective - its a game of 5 turns+ I find i can often take my opponents backfield objectives on turn 2 or 3 but thats just playtesting (the solar flare/ infiltrators are awesome sometimes) I agree its impossible for me to have got their on turn 2 I mean even deploying on the frontline and walking will get me their you have no overwatch because your in a ruins and i just charge from outside and stab you through the wall but admittedly walking forward in a straight line with my whole army is tough when we are all in cover irrespective of terrain. so hypothetically my 6 breachers charge they beat your guard squad down to 2.5 models dealing 1.2 w back to the breachers (assuming chainsword on the sgt and either a priest or straken) now we do moral (note on turn 1 if i go second this is a 6" charge but you have no overwatch so what the hell. But lets be honest they will be supported by hoplites and another unit of breachers encase you have 2 squads

as to the dagger let me quote you the tactical reserves rule

"Furthermore, in matched play games, units that are not placed on the battlefield during deployment in order to arrive on the battle mid-game as reinforcements cannot arrive on the battlefield during the first battle round."

so its quite clear no T1

 Suzuteo wrote:
@Hulksmash

You can deploy turn one with the Dagger in your own deployment zone. The purpose of the Dagger is to protect your Ryzaphrons from getting melted by Cawl's Wrath right off the bat.

I thought the Nov Big FAQ new tactical reserves rule states that you cannot deep strike on turn 1?

https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/warhammer_40000_the_big_faq_2_en-2.pdf
Page 3.

it does - but he knows how to play better

@The Forgemaster
Ah, apologies. I was thinking of the Spring FAQ beta rule. I actually have not yet decided to deploy them on turn one anyway. They are much more impactful when held in reserve.

@U02dah4
Now now, no need to be snarky.

You're shifting goalposts again by bringing up Hoplites and Breachers. We can argue in circles forever if we don't constrain the scope of things, and we'll end up comparing full Guard lists to full AdMech lists.

Anyhow, I tire of the argument. Here's my last word on the matter:

Guard are faster and more flexible than Skitarii. They also have higher body counts for ObSec and screening. Skitarii outshoot Guard and have better durability in most cases. These are objective truths.

When combined with Skitarii, I think Guard can be stronger than pure Guard or pure Skitarii. I specifically prefer Vanguard+Catachans. This is my opinion and my preference for play.

If you want to run pure Skitarii, go ahead. I am not going to stop you. In fact, I will wish you all the best of luck, root for you over any other matchup out there, and be impressed when you succeed where I have failed.

No not shifting at all my argument is that i can deal with guardsmen the same argument I've made all along.

You are the only one suggesting the answer has to be pure comparison between one unit and another.

Vanguard are an answer to guard in the open but I have other units for CC and other units still for range.

My competitive list contains all these units i merely constrain myself to the tools I am taking to my next GT for how I would deal with that situation as a mono admech list I have breachers and a unit of hoplites.

oh and just for reference hoplites are skitarii

Probably a silly question but how are you doing the officer of the fleet thing? Yes he doesnt have <regiment> keyword so i can see the RAW you state but if you say this is true to allow the movement of non regiment units (ie destroyers) does this not mean that all your guard in that detachment no longer get their regiment benefits as not all units are from the same <regiment>? So your catachans are just regular guard? Seems a massive trade off for a single trick.

Officer of the Fleet is Aeronautica Imperialis and thus counts as Auxilia.

How many Ryzaphrons do you ambush? Because assuming a squad size of 6 with Ryza stratagem and +1 to hit they deal "just" 11 wounds to an Castellan with 3++.

 lash92 wrote:
How many Ryzaphrons do you ambush? Because assuming a squad size of 6 with Ryza stratagem and +1 to hit they deal "just" 11 wounds to an Castellan with 3++.

Yes, a unit of 6. Mostly because that's all the Kataphrons that I have, partly because I am not sure if I want to dedicate many more points toward a DS unit.

Still, there will be other things shooting at the Castellan. Dakkabots and/or a Krast Knight.

On that score, I am in the process of building a new one to replace the rather poorly built and painted one I had from 7E. I've been crunching numbers for Knights, and it's pretty much down to Krast Crusader vs. Styrix. I favor the latter, and I was wondering if there's anything I am not considering:

Krast Crusader (Ion Bulwark + Headsman's Mark)
+Two guns are better than one
+I think Wulfey mentioned this many months ago, but Krast Feet with +1S is the best anti-Castellan weapon by far. (14.22 expected wounds, and this is before the Krast stratagem!)
+RFBC definitely will be in range on Round 1
-Avenger and RFBC have very low peak damage. I doubt you will ever kill a Knight Castellan with a Crusader from just shooting.
-Thermal Cannon melta range is pretty much not an option. It would be better to just try to kick.
-Very easy for a Castellan to deploy outside Avenger threat in Round 1.

Krast Styrix (First Knight + Headsman's Mark)
+Volkite gun has good range (45"), consistent shots (5), and great outlier damage (Command reroll that low damage)
+You know what is better than S9 Krast Feet? S9 Krast Feet with RR1. (16.59 expected wounds)
+Reaper Chainsword with RR1 is really good against T7 vehicles without the Titanic keyword
+Built-in Ion Bulwark and Sanctuary!
+Twin Rad-cleanser and Graviton Crusher are great against elite infantry; they always have to make 4.67 saves without cover, and each one deals 3 damage
-Siege Claw is pretty useless; you can drop it for a Reaper if you want to save 25 points
-You pretty much have to try and close with the enemy in melee or he's just not making his points back

Oh, and does anyone have spare Krast "hand grasping serpent" decals? I misplaced mine and would like to buy one of each of the three sizes.

 Suzuteo wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
@Suzeto
I don't think we're going to move each other. I'm actually cutting pretty much all the guard (may keep the mortars) from my list but would happily run pure admech. I would appreciate it though if you didn't make assumptions about where or how I play. I play on LVO terrain and Nova terrain (which is actually heavier than terrain at LVO this year) at those actual events. I generally play pretty well and finish high. I was also the 3rd highest admech player in ITC this year and the only one in the top 3 without a knight at LVO.

I'm firmly of the opinion that Admech are in a place where they really can be run pure.

My experience, as singular as it is, is that Rangers are probably THE best infantry in the game in a Mars detachment. The reasons aren't simple point efficiency though.

The amount and type of firepower that needs to be directed to kill the infantry is of a different standard than guard screens. Additionally they outrange anything that isn't a fire warrior when it comes to cheap infantry. Ignoring cover means they win every shoot out outside of 12" and they normally get the first punch in.

But keep pushing the only way to play is with Guard and Knights. See what that gets you once GSC are fully rolling in the meta too

Yes, and I am impressed that you managed it. But you are the ONLY person who has gotten that far with a pure Forge World Brigade, whereas there are five other AdMech players at LVO who did just as well or better, and a further dozen or so who have been at it for months with better-than-expected results. Furthermore, none of your matchups were the various Soup lists floating around. Maybe chalk it up to local meta, but when you play in California and get stomped a couple of times by Soup, you realize how bad Skitarii actually are for anything other than shooting. (And I do acknowledge that Stygies or Graia Rangers are amazing shooters, but the army is full of amazing shooters.)

U02dah4 wrote:
@suzeto I've never said guard are bad just that they are dealable with and they are. Yes on net a vanguard is slightly worse than a guardsmen but 6 vanguard only represnt 12% of my army where as for guard 16.5% of yours for 6 guard squads + 3 officers more if you want straken or a priest. (I wouldnt run 6 orders but you have in your explanation)

I also didn't say you needed to bring that many guardsmen I said thats the point they become hard to dead with.

When you make assumptions like i wont be able to get to a middle objective in 3 turns it just doesn't match with my playtesting. Last night i left 100 genestealers dead by t3 now admittedly they are t4 5++ and largely ignore moral but it wasnt enough to stop me taking the mid t3.

As to missions well i tend to play etc style missions with itc terrain. However i cant recall a lot of games with terrain dense enough where you could effectively hide 60 guardsmen out of LOS while advanceing down the field.

Not when i advance a wave and most of my units can shoot the length of the board.

As to the castellan no it cant obliterate an entire firebase in a single round .we have to many targets. Yes its broken but if it was that broken every player would run one.

@hulksmash i still prefer vanguard to rangers- at short and medium (up to 24" vanguard outperform rangers and thats what i want from my frontline. The extra damage on 6's makes them surprisingly flexible on mass vs vehicles and the -1t really supports breachers /hoplites in CC. Beyond 27" yes rangers are better but we have other units for that role but by the time you get to that range your damage output is low. (In a 17 the argument is different and as objective holders fine) but pure admech has other options for that role.

Rangers are much, much more efficient than Vanguard if you're using them to shoot other infantry. You pretty much need to take them in a pure Forge World though. I think Graia or Stygies are the best for this.

My Guard are usually around 20% of my army, and they are very much worth it in terms of the amount of VP they score. Ultimately, that is what this game boils down to. Scoring VP and denying VP. Guardsmen don't shoot as well as Skitarii, and they aren't as durable either, but they score and screen WAYYY better, which is what I think infantry should do.

I didn't say you would not be able to GET to a middle objective. I said you won't TAKE it. I can hold units hiding in LOS blocking terrain 12"+ inches away and constantly move them onto the objective while gunning down your Vanguard with Robots or something; you meanwhile have to commit the entire unit in a single turn because it takes you two turns to move the same distance. I only need to score 2-3 more points than you, and you're already at a massive disadvantage in a clocked game.

Again, I never hide all 60 of my Guardsmen in the same place. They're always in groups of one or two units with an officer nearby.

I know a Castellan cannot obliterate an entire firebase. I am pointing out that if you're going to make bad assumptions, I can make them too.

 deffrekka wrote:
All 3 of you make valid points but it still all comes down to personal play style. Take for example me and U02dah4, hes an Agripinaa lover and im a Ryza lover, we both have success with our own armies. One may be more powerful than the other on paper but its the general that determines how strong they are.

From my own experiences Guard Infantry are a lot easier to play than Skitarii Rangers/Vanguard due to their cost, quantity and the orders that automatically go off. But for me that bored the hell out of me and like Hulksmash i have slowly phased my Guard out of my Admech.

Since CA18 and Vigilus Defiant ive replaced my Guardsmen with Kataphrons, not once in the whole 7th and 8th have i used Destroyers before, not ever. Now i am. They literally DESTROY anything you point them at, they will earn back there points and more so. Does that make my list weaker than the Guardsmen variant? No not really, its a side grade.

With my Ryzatrons i have reliably one shot Castellans, multiple vehicles/squads off the board whilst also being "durable". I am loving them, reminds me of having my old triple caliver Vanguard back with preferred enemy and tankhunter/monsterhunter. ITS GLORIOUS.

But that doesnt mean U02dah4's Grav Destroyers are bad, its just a different style of play. I am actually pleasantly surprised with Hulksmash having success with pure Admech, thats what i want OUR FACTION to be. 8th ed so far has been a rollercoaster for me, with more bad than good. Admech started off good then took a nose dive, we were then less Mech and more Flesh with Guard pulling the weight for us, now i can see my bionics again, the scrap code is gone and maybe there is a light at the end of the cogitator!?

We no longer have to be shoe horned into allying (i like it when you said alloying haha, so fitting!) in Guard and i really hope GW nails down hard on Soup. I play pure Deldar with no soup and they are still amazing, i play pure Orkz and get the shaft... (thats an Ork Codex problem....). Allies should supplement the army, not override it and provide massive benefits thats there is no reason not to Soup.

What they did to GSC is kinda interesting and i hope that gets pushed to other races as well. And what Hulksmash says about the meta shifting to GSC is most likely true, around where i am people have been popping up and buying them left, right and centre and i have been out of stock as well! Blobs of 20 Acolytes (with hand flamers), bikes vomiting out det bombs, freight train aberrants, masses of neophytes, there own (pre-nerfed) AoV. These are all problems the meta will have to face now.

And as Admech we still have the guns to deal with this, and as crap as the Manipulus maybe, he may be required to boost our Cognis Flamer over watch now. That is something im slowly leaning towards.

At the end of the day dont try force a certain army style on someone else, your Guard may rock for you, but his Rangers or Vanguard may outclass Guard in his hands. Ive seen plenty of non meta lists pull the pants off of the current meta lists, it even happened to me and cost me first place at an event when a sneaky slaanesh list went for my booty (literally) and knocked me off to 4th place (4-1.... as pure Admech).

Sure. And I definitely would say that familiarity is important as well. But I think Guardsmen have way higher skill ceiling and potential than Skitarii, which pretty much just shoot. If you want to run Skitarii knowing their limitations, go for it. But know your limitations. By way of example, one of my friends is the best Space Wolf player in the world this year. His success doesn't necessarily mean pure Space Wolves are not still the worst pure faction in the game, and even he acknowledged that he had luck in his matchups, but he took out everything in his army that was not working. And that meant most of the Space Wolf plastic. Haha. His army is Herohammer, with something like 6-8 characters (mostly mounted), 3 troops, one of those FW Dreadnoughts, and a Falchion for killing Castellans.

Ryzaphrons are great. I think they are truly what pushed us into being a T1 army. Taking them with an Officer of the Fleet with Dagger is even better. Just one of the many examples of Guard+AdMech being greater than just Guard or just AdMech. People may scream cheese, but come on. We were hitching rides in Drop Pods and scouting fortifications in 7E. Shame is an emotion that AdMech do not have.

To be clear, this argument began because people were saying Guardsmen were easy to deal with. They are definitely not. They are a fast-moving, high model count ObSec blob. Even if you manage to kill them all, they will have scored 2-3 VP on you, which is why they are taken in Soup in the first place. I'm not actually trying to force anyone to run anything. Just saying that the competitive advantages of Guardsmen cannot be denied and should not be downplayed.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I really feel it's an apples and oranges situation. I've played guard infantry heavy since 5th and skitarii heavy admech since the start of 8th. They really just don't do the exact same job, even when you think they would like trying to compare a FRFSRF guardsman to a Vanguard.

Guardsmen are more about objectives and screening. They have firepower and combat uses, but even when heavily kitted out for these roles their main jobs will still be holding objectives and screening more powerful units. I would never rely on a single squad to kill much of anything in this game, you really need two at minimum and an officer to ensure they do anything noteworthy. If an army knows how to snipe your characters, you are seriously at risk of losing a major chunk of their effectiveness.

Meanwhile I feel you can take skitarii units purely, or even mostly kitted out for shooting as their main role and still make them useful for screening. Skitarii, even Metallica vanguard, will never match the mobility of guard. However, their firepower stays way more effective on the move than guard could ever hope to be. And if they're in cover or have shroudpsalm, they are twice as durable to typical anti chaff weapons like storm bolters as a guardsman would be. Granted you can get 2 guardsmen per skitarii but you can only cram so many men into one area. And if you think about the mandatory officers you know the guard player must run to make his men effective, really the skitarii are more efficient since they really don't care if they have tech-priests nearby and technically cost less for what they're doing.

There's a lot I'm not getting into there of course, and there are solid arguments for both approaches. Personally I think a combo of skitarii and guardsmen is probably the best option in a vacuum, but the combination of regiment/Forgeworld abilities really makes it a tough call to make. It also doesn't help that all of Admech's troops are genuinely useful in at least some context. Some prefer certain FW's over others but at the end of the day they can all be used. Rangers are dirt cheap ranged infantry that are an efficient choice for arquebuses. Vanguard are surprisingly punchy and good walking firepower as well as a carrier for plasma and melee support. Destroyers, well, destroy things with scary efficiency, even non Ryza. And Breachers are starting to show promise as dirt cheap body guard units, tough with a good save and multiple abilities to bring back dead models.

I totally agree with this. And I do take 5x10 Catachans (for scoring) alloyed with 2x Graia Vanguard (-1T aura and Abhor) and Officer of the Fleet + Ryza Kataphron Destroyers (Outflanking anti-tank) . This was the optimal troop loadout I settled on. It mixes amazingly strong scoring with great anti-tank counter-punching. Shooting is actually a very low priority; I rely on my firebase for that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Redemption wrote:
New tech-priest and servitor models in the Combat Arena box:

Spoiler:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/02/15/15th-feb-new-models-games-and-funko-pop-at-the-new-york-toy-fairgw-homepage-post-3/#gallery-12-3

Hopefully these will see 40k rules, but otherwise they're at least decent alternate models.

Yesss. If we get more force multipliers for Skitarii like with the Manipulus, I can actually see Red Tide being a thing.

Oh yeah i agree with you Suzuteo! But i also agree with the others. Maybe its just me but i find Guardsmen really easy to use, screening and scoring are second nature to me, especially now with guardsmen having the easiest variation of orders they have ever known. As an old tread head (Athonian Tunnel Rats!! One of the OGs) the skill curve for Guard has dropped vastly. Skitarii need to survive, they arent as throw away as Infantry Squads, I find that i am using more of my skill keeping them combat effective for longer, i want them alive and kicking as they need to shoot and they need to score. Im more relying on there survivability (3+ save in cover, 6++ invun, -1 to hit) than pure bodies. Sure some people may treat there Skitarii as meatbags and numbers, but my Tech Priest doesnt waste resources willy nilly! And for one i never used Drop Pods or Rhinos with my Skitarii back in 7th or Scouted Fortifications. I won many tournaments as pure Skitarii (the old Dominus Maniple served me well, i didnt even run War Con like everyone else).

As i said before they are side grades, each has advantages and disadvantages.People shouldnt be shot down for wanting to run more Admech than Guard, its an Admech Tactica after all and it gets kinda tiresome with people just saying use Guard. Ive been using Guard with my Skitarii ever since the Guard book dropped and im personally sick of it. Im getting to the point where i cant stand allies and its really putting a negative outlook on 8th for me. I have always preferred 7th ed with 5th ed being my favourite. It all started well but after the Guard/Eldar/Nid books the game has gotten crazy. Stormbolters with 8 shots, genestealers moving 42" (faster than some flyers), double shooting left right and centre, castellans that one shot VEQs, automatic orders (why can guard move 12 + 2d6 by being told to? wouldnt augmented bionical soldiers who know no fatigue be able to do the same? Those guard move as fast as a bike or buggy.....). The game needs to dial back a bit, i much preferred getting nuked by a Typhon than what this games shooting phase is becoming like. The game is just as bloated as it was back in 6th and 7th.

I for one welcome a more purer Admech force, its a pleasant change and heres hoping the new Tech Priest is alright and not overpriced like the Manipulus. I think we all should drop the Guard > Skitarii argument as people wont budge from there own tastes. We should just accept they are equals in different ways. If i was new to the game and started Admech and someone told me to take Guard as my core infantry I would literally walk away from the hobby. But i am too invested in this game (started in 4th ed with Orkz). There comes a point where we arent actually Admech anymore, we are just Imperials. If thats your thing fine, but i didnt start Skitarii to buddy up with other Imperials. Originally i didnt even want Cult Mech with my Skits but they forced us together and butchered the Skitarii side.Just let people run what they want and let them tell tales of their impressive feats and wins. Its refreshing.

Well, keep in mind that at no point did I say that people cannot run Skitarii. I am simply stating that Guard are strictly more competitive in ITC due to their combination of mobility and flexibility. They are better at scoring, and scoring wins games, especially games where you fall behind on points on the table.

Can you build a list to make up for the shortcomings of Skitarii and emphasize their strengths? Yes. Clearly, some people are doing that. But personally, I think Guardsmen have a much more tolerable set of shortcomings and a much more distinct set of strengths. (Being able to outrun most transports is hilarious and something pretty much only Guard can do.)

I was all about the cheese in 7E. But then again, I played Skitarii with a Knight. Didn't have the models for a WarCon.

They are marginally superior in a lot of circumstances but they are dealable with.

Guard Strength
Model count for holding objective
Mobility - at the expense of firepower
Firepower under 12" with orders or if target is single wound without
and 21.5-27.5" with orders
CC in offence only
Strong overwatch

Weakness
Moral
Requirement for character support either your having 3 officers+priest/straken or they are not performing at optimal level many lists only have 1 or 2 officers to save pts conpromiseing on how many can be ordered. So net most expensive option.
Squishy especially in CC you go second your straken/priest is buffing 1 sgt
Easy to target (large model count gives lots of opportunity for someone to see you)

Vanguard
Strengths
Firepower 12-21.5" (if guard dont have orders and the target is multi wound stronger 1-12")
Flexible firepower double dam on 6's is great for chipping wounds off light vehicles/elite inf
CC boosts your other units vs inf
Moral not realy an issue
Not character dependent
Strong overwatch
Minimal penalty for advancing and doesnt care about terrain so you can advance with minimal penalty if no target in range

Weakness
Slow
CC damage output negligable
Works best when condensed into blocks of squads to focus firepower so really 2 blocks in most armies

Ranger
Strengths
Range firepower 27.5"-33.5"
Cheapest
Can sit on a backfield objective and still effect game.
Moral not really an issue
Not character dependent
If your going to arquebus it is the best squad for it but then you become the most expensive option

Weakness
Slow
Shooting damage negligable unless under 15" but even then the others would be better
And band where it it is best is really small
CC damage output negligable
Bad overwatch
Admech have ballistarii onagers and kastelans and kataphrons for sitting backfield and they are better at it

Ranger favour stygies/graia
Vanguard favour agripinaa/graia/lucius

 Suzuteo wrote:
Well, keep in mind that at no point did I say that people cannot run Skitarii. I am simply stating that Guard are strictly more competitive in ITC due to their combination of mobility and flexibility. They are better at scoring, and scoring wins games, especially games where you fall behind on points on the table.

Can you build a list to make up for the shortcomings of Skitarii and emphasize their strengths? Yes. Clearly, some people are doing that. But personally, I think Guardsmen have a much more tolerable set of shortcomings and a much more distinct set of strengths. (Being able to outrun most transports is hilarious and something pretty much only Guard can do.)

I was all about the cheese in 7E. But then again, I played Skitarii with a Knight. Didn't have the models for a WarCon.

I have enough models for about 7 War Cons haha!!! Back in the day i bought 12 Dominus Maniples lmao! I have Onagers for dayssssss but its a shame they got rid of their squadron rules.... Most of all i want that back. They are my favourite vehicle of all GW Imperium factions.

Its more ETC over here, theres a couple places that do ITC in England but not a lot. I run my own competition during August (a 3 day one) and thats never been ITC or ETC. Usually a lot of places still use Highlander or custom rule sets ive found. I wasnt all about the cheese in 7th, ive always enjoyed trashing deathstar builds, i never had problems facing invisibility, ironhands bike captains, tiggy with grav centurions, necron decurions. Honestly i found 7th so enjoyable. Its just people couldnt find ways to deal with the meta (Cullexis Assassins exist for a reason... ). My Skitarii were pretty much undefeated throughout 7th. But going from that to being on the back foot every game is quite the kick in the nuts. Im just finding 8th to be too crazy. Why does the game need a gazillion shots with all the rerolls under the sun? I much prefer the older twin linked weapons.

I even want stratagems and CP to change. how can you only use Strats a finite amount of times? Its like your army forgets to carry hellfire shells, flakk missiles, how to dodge, throw grenades etc. If it were more like everyone had 100CP and you buy your stratagems pre game (like the old Cities of Death/Planet Strike/Apocalypse) and can use them like a normal piece of wargear suddenly the game doesnt feel as gimmicky (you can still have some that are only 1 use per game). If i paid say 30CP on Hellfire shells i should be able to use it on a unit every turn of the game. But i digress, my opinion of 8th doesnt really matter in this tactica haha

U02dah4 wrote:
They are marginally superior in a lot of circumstances but they are dealable with.
...
Vanguard favour agripinaa/graia/lucius

+Guard: deepstrike denial, screening

- skitarii Moral is definitely an issue


Side note:
What do you guys think. I mostly have graia as my 2nd battalion for vanguard screening, but what about metallica and giving them mass arc rifles?

How is moral an issue for skittarii LD7 +1 for near by vehicle with free teather for ld8 so your useing them

5 models so if 4 die you have a 2/3 of not loseing a model to moral if 3 die 5/6 of not loseing a model to moral 1,2,5dead moral doesnt matter in addition if your late game you may even roll a canticle to reroll moral.

In reality you rarely lose more than a model to moral in a game

Vs guard ld8 assuming catachan with officer so
1,2 moral doesnt matter
3 5/6 chance not losing
4 2/3 chance not losing
5 1/2 chance not losing avg 1 dead
6 1/3 chance not losing avg 1.666 dead
7 1/6 chance not losing Avg squad dead
8 1/6 chance of sgt surviving 5/6squad dead
9 squad dead
10 doesnt matter

All can sufficiently screen thats just a function of model count placement and survivabilty. If anything vanguard have the advantage because if they are stygies you can scout them forward. Allowing you to screen further out but not all skitarii can so i didnt list it like i didnt list DSing or psychic denial. Rangers are the only ones that struggle to screen as they want to be at the back. Sure vanguard might want a couple extra squads supporting them but they dont require character buffs.


I listed model count
Infantry have no other advantage to deep strike denial unless they have move move movex to cover more ground but thats listed as mobility

My admech lists have more than enough models to deepstrike deny the whole deployment zone. Increased model count doesnt really do this much better if you have deployed right.
Not that infantry can't do that with fewer units. Its just that once you can deny more models isn't an advantage.



Other than on breachers arc rifles just arn't that effective mathmatically. we have lots of tools vs vehicles use those. Unless your filling out a detatchment upgrade your vanguard to hoplites if you want skitarri to be anti vehicle. (They make excelent screens aswell).

Hell I use 10 man squads and don't care about morale to be honest.

If Arc rifles became like there Eldar/Deldar/Harlie and Tyranid equivalents then all of a sudden you would take them more. I wouldnt take one now a days as they dont really do much except add a little more anti intantry to your list, think of them as weaker grenade launchers.

Smack on the proper haywire weapon affects like they had back 7th ed and what other armies kept and we suddenly have an amazing anti tank option, the pts would go up for the weapons, but they will become invaluable.

When i uses Rangers they are either barebones, have transuranic arquebuses or if i have spare pts left over maybe ill throw in a couple Arcs.

Are Skitarii weapons got butchered really from the 7th to 8th.

Galvanic Rifles were ap4 (which transitions to ap1 now), and on 6s to hit could pick out targets. They now cant pick out targets on 6s to hit and they lost their ap unless you roll a 6 to wound.

Radium Carbines had the same treatment. 6 to wound caused 2 wounds, now its 2 damage. There are weapons out there that deal multiple wounds (not multiple damage) so why is it so hard to let us keep it.

Plasma Calivers lost a shot, they used to be 3 shots. Again why did this have to happen, basically now we have a rapid fir plasmagun thats always active on 18" range instead of 12".

Arc weapons were mentioned before.

Heavy Grav and all there lesser variants just got slaughtered with the edition change. Maybe because everyone spammed them for 2 editions straight, but now only we use our version, i dont think ive seen a single army in person use grav this edition.

So i go plasma and arquebus as my go to weapon options for Skitarii with Vanguard fiiting plasma better and arquebuses with Rangers.

Overall we lost quite a lot, flavour, rules, options. More so than other races.

 0XFallen wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:
They are marginally superior in a lot of circumstances but they are dealable with.
...
Vanguard favour agripinaa/graia/lucius

+Guard: deepstrike denial, screening

- skitarii Moral is definitely an issue


Side note:
What do you guys think. I mostly have graia as my 2nd battalion for vanguard screening, but what about metallica and giving them mass arc rifles?

I run Metallica all the time and have given arc rifles several chances. In my opinion they're a waste of perfectly good plastic. If I want cheap guns that can do a bit of damage, I'd just take regular vanguard radium carbines. If I want an actual special weapon I'd rather have plasma that puts two shots out with more AP, strength, and consistent damage.

Personally your vanguard want to be vanilla save the points they are already good.

Rangers i would take the arquebus if i ran them as its probably the best loadout however im not keen on rangers.

In my experience, Skitarii have much better passive morale due to BSDT and lower body count. But your only real active option is to spend 2 CP to change Canticles. Meanwhile, Guard have Fight to the Death, which is 1 CP to roll D3 for morale, which is amazingly good if you absolutely cannot fail the morale test. Then there is the Catachan leadership buff (L8 on the Sergeant) and the Litanies relic.

I think the reason why Skitarii are really meh this edition is because their weapons got nerfed. I mean, Deldar get Haywire Blasters (1 mortal on 4+ to wound, D3 on 6+ to wound) for 8 points. I would definitely take that on Skitarii. Even their Radium Carbines deal 2 damage per turn instead of proccing extra shots.

 Suzuteo wrote:
In my experience, Skitarii have much better passive morale due to BSDT and lower body count. But your only real active option is to spend 2 CP to change Canticles. Meanwhile, Guard have Fight to the Death, which is 1 CP to roll D3 for morale, which is amazingly good if you absolutely cannot fail the morale test. Then there is the Catachan leadership buff (L8 on the Sergeant) and the Litanies relic.

I think the reason why Skitarii are really meh this edition is because their weapons got nerfed. I mean, Deldar get Haywire Blasters (1 mortal on 4+ to wound, D3 on 6+ to wound) for 8 points. I would definitely take that on Skitarii. Even their Radium Carbines deal 2 damage per turn instead of proccing extra shots.

Yeah, even though i made a ranty post before it is all true, they butchered us. We lost Dunestrider (the stratagem now is a joke), our Doctrinas got changed to stratagems (again why), and most of our infantry guns got changed. Other races generally kept the same rules for there guns with just adding the damage characteristic now. Arc rifles are now a poor mans grenade launcher, but i would rather pay the pts for a grenade launcher instead of the arc rifle itself.

Im hoping whenever we get a new codex again they fully revamp us from the ground up, the earlier codexes are just bad. And whilst im enjoying Vigilus Defiant my army still feels lacking and if you cant tell im getting burnt out hahaha If we were done in light of how well written Tyranids and Dark Eldar codexes are that would be a dream come true to me. Those 2 books have crazy good internal balance and character, you can use 90% of units in the book and not feel like your gimping yourself.

They are not the army that i liked in seventh I liked the mobility the not needing an HQ. We now do have more redundant units

But we are since CA18 in the best place we have been and are starting to make conpetative headway but it takes time when lots of armies have had 6-12 months to function and refine competative lists and we have had 2 months.

 deffrekka wrote:

Im hoping whenever we get a new codex again they fully revamp us from the ground up, the earlier codexes are just bad. And whilst im enjoying Vigilus Defiant my army still feels lacking and if you cant tell im getting burnt out hahaha If we were done in light of how well written Tyranids and Dark Eldar codexes are that would be a dream come true to me. Those 2 books have crazy good internal balance and character, you can use 90% of units in the book and not feel like your gimping yourself.

No argument that Nids have a super strong single codex, but isn’t it famous for having like half a book of useless crap? Spore nonsense and whatnot? Even a unit that suicides by re-deepstriking turn 3 if you try to use its pop-up mobility more than once? I was under the impression that it was half fantastic and half “don’t bother”, just that the fantastic half is still like twice as long as our entire codex due to being a much older army.

Pomguo wrote:

 deffrekka wrote:

Im hoping whenever we get a new codex again they fully revamp us from the ground up, the earlier codexes are just bad. And whilst im enjoying Vigilus Defiant my army still feels lacking and if you cant tell im getting burnt out hahaha If we were done in light of how well written Tyranids and Dark Eldar codexes are that would be a dream come true to me. Those 2 books have crazy good internal balance and character, you can use 90% of units in the book and not feel like your gimping yourself.

No argument that Nids have a super strong single codex, but isn’t it famous for having like half a book of useless crap? Spore nonsense and whatnot? Even a unit that suicides by re-deepstriking turn 3 if you try to use its pop-up mobility more than once? I was under the impression that it was half fantastic and half “don’t bother”, just that the fantastic half is still like twice as long as our entire codex due to being a much older army.

Just bring Flyrants and 150+ Gaunts. (Not a joke. That is one of the most competitive Nid armies out there.)

Meh, that's an argument to have in another topic.

So anyone else making 85pts of space for the assassin of their choice each game?

 Hulksmash wrote:
Meh, that's an argument to have in another topic.

So anyone else making 85pts of space for the assassin of their choice each game?

I'm personally wanting to fit in one of each as I'm inspired to make conversions for each one.