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What are these people with these awful awful lists doing in the SoCal Open?
One list has 3 dominus?
The other has a mars brigade without dragoons???
Another runs a mars vanguard detachment?????
Another runs Kastelans in the stygies detachment with phosphor and FLAMERS and has Cawl in the other Mars detachment????????????
All of them haven't cracked top 90. Wow, who knew :p
Then another guy runs Scions instead of Elysians?
Then a guy runs Bullgryns instead on conscripts?
Finally, an actually competant pure AdMech list is 44th(LWW):
Mars + stygies with 20 melee priests
Finally a soup list is undefeated yet:
With Mars Spearhead + Dragoons
Celestene
Astropath, Comisar, conscripts, Batteries
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/10/22 05:06:02
My gaming group (after seeing falcons getting grinding advance) is considering allowing for the Onager eradication beamer and HPB to fire twice its shots with a grinding advance style rule - do you guys think the weapon would need a points bump along with that?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/22 05:12:09
rvd1ofakind wrote: What are these people with these awful awful lists doing in the SoCal Open?
One list has 3 dominus?
The other has a mars brigade without dragoons???
Another runs a mars vanguard detachment?????
Another runs Kastelans in the stygies detachment with phosphor and FLAMERS and has Cawl in the other Mars detachment????????????
All of them haven't cracked top 90. Wow, who knew :p
Then another guy runs Scions instead of Elysians?
Then a guy runs Bullgryns instead on conscripts?
Finally, an actually competant pure AdMech list is 44th(LWW):
Mars + stygies with 20 melee priests
Finally a soup list is undefeated yet:
With Mars Spearhead + Dragoons
Celestene
Astropath, Comisar, conscripts, Batteries
I wouldn't be surprised if most players who know what they're doing have seen Admech for the crap that it is, and have left it entirely, leaving just a few who have no real idea what to throw together.
lash92 wrote: Forgot to mention the Ranger. Wanted to include two 5 men squads with 2 Arquebuses and an Omnispex each.
Sure I would like that, if you can find time for that As for playstyle I would like to field an advancing gunline of Vanguard to grab objectives, support by my backfield castel of Dunecrawler and maybe robots.
And some Dragoons for melee action.
Do you think I would benefit more from Mars or from Stygies?
The -1 to hit is a really nice boost, but the reroll all misses from Cawl is also really tempting.
But if I play Mars wouldn't it be better to just run 5 man squads because of the missing -1? But how can I play objective based missions then?
Stygies adds a lot for the survivability while Mars will turn more around a devastating artillery.
With Stygies your units gain a lot of survivability against ranged attack so that they can make the trip to their objectives and stay alive long enough to have their own guns in range, Vanguards especially will need it due to their short range. I intend to play swarms of Vanguards too actually, I love AdMech infantry Their unique infiltration stratagem is really helpful too, it can help you place a Vanguard unit in a good spot, use melee Kastelans effectively or, in the case of your list, place Dragoons in a position from which they can charge turn 1, forming a distraction unit that is both somewhat durable and really powerful. Present this threat to your opponent early on and he'll focus those instead of your more important units. If he doesn't he's about to discover what a dozen S8 hits can do to an army.
Mars encourages you more to have a strong artillery, because you'll obviously have Cawl in your army, giving a reroll hits aura of 9" in which you can place 4 Kastelans and your Dunecrawlers, sometimes even your Snipers. Kataphrons really benefit from that too. Thing is, you'll rely more on tabling your opponent than playing the objectives, and against certain armies you may lose due to that if the terrain is set up a certain way. You'll need abundant screening units too, that will serve as a shield against enemy melee units, and to put deep-strikers out of threatening distance, otherwise your core army could get engaged in CC and you'll most likely lose that battle. The big strength of Mars is the Wrath of Mars stratagem, which is the reason why you'll want loads of Kastelans that reroll all hit rolls. They can destroy ANYTHING in range of their guns with this stratagem, but they have to be protected. That's how Mars plays, while you could see any other army like Stygies as a wide-spread army on the table with a certain number of lone operatives, you'll have Mars as a single bubble of slow destruction, with every element of the army dedicated to the protection of the artillery.
If you play Mars well you can be really destructive, but it's not the kind of list everyone wants to face, especially in a casual meta. I know I hate facing immobile gunlines, because most of the time it's just a matter of how many of my guys will be alive by the time they're in range to do anything useful. Playing AdMech like that feels boring to me, it's fun a few times but then you actually want a movement phase some days. Stygies might be more fun thanks to the better survivability that encourages you to move out. Graia can be very nice too to help your 1W models survive, and you have access to a deny the witch stratagem that can be really useful too.
EDIT: Here's a base for a 2000 pts list with your favoured models, you have 1940 pts, this gives you room for upgrades, more units or whatever, this is more a guideline than a list you absolutely have to follow through of course I suggest adding some mortal wounds units, like Fulgurites or Ruststalkers with Razors + Chordclaw, to deal with units with big invulnerable saves like Assault Terminators and the likes. If you chose to play Mars the Kastelans or Infiltrators will suffice with the Stratagem I guess.
lash92 wrote: Forgot to mention the Ranger. Wanted to include two 5 men squads with 2 Arquebuses and an Omnispex each.
Sure I would like that, if you can find time for that As for playstyle I would like to field an advancing gunline of Vanguard to grab objectives, support by my backfield castel of Dunecrawler and maybe robots.
And some Dragoons for melee action.
Do you think I would benefit more from Mars or from Stygies?
The -1 to hit is a really nice boost, but the reroll all misses from Cawl is also really tempting.
But if I play Mars wouldn't it be better to just run 5 man squads because of the missing -1? But how can I play objective based missions then?
Stygies adds a lot for the survivability while Mars will turn more around a devastating artillery.
With Stygies your units gain a lot of survivability against ranged attack so that they can make the trip to their objectives and stay alive long enough to have their own guns in range, Vanguards especially will need it due to their short range. I intend to play swarms of Vanguards too actually, I love AdMech infantry Their unique infiltration stratagem is really helpful too, it can help you place a Vanguard unit in a good spot, use melee Kastelans effectively or, in the case of your list, place Dragoons in a position from which they can charge turn 1, forming a distraction unit that is both somewhat durable and really powerful. Present this threat to your opponent early on and he'll focus those instead of your more important units. If he doesn't he's about to discover what a dozen S8 hits can do to an army.
Mars encourages you more to have a strong artillery, because you'll obviously have Cawl in your army, giving a reroll hits aura of 9" in which you can place 4 Kastelans and your Dunecrawlers, sometimes even your Snipers. Kataphrons really benefit from that too. Thing is, you'll rely more on tabling your opponent than playing the objectives, and against certain armies you may lose due to that if the terrain is set up a certain way. You'll need abundant screening units too, that will serve as a shield against enemy melee units, and to put deep-strikers out of threatening distance, otherwise your core army could get engaged in CC and you'll most likely lose that battle. The big strength of Mars is the Wrath of Mars stratagem, which is the reason why you'll want loads of Kastelans that reroll all hit rolls. They can destroy ANYTHING in range of their guns with this stratagem, but they have to be protected. That's how Mars plays, while you could see any other army like Stygies as a wide-spread army on the table with a certain number of lone operatives, you'll have Mars as a single bubble of slow destruction, with every element of the army dedicated to the protection of the artillery.
If you play Mars well you can be really destructive, but it's not the kind of list everyone wants to face, especially in a casual meta. I know I hate facing immobile gunlines, because most of the time it's just a matter of how many of my guys will be alive by the time they're in range to do anything useful. Playing AdMech like that feels boring to me, it's fun a few times but then you actually want a movement phase some days. Stygies might be more fun thanks to the better survivability that encourages you to move out. Graia can be very nice too to help your 1W models survive, and you have access to a deny the witch stratagem that can be really useful too.
EDIT: Here's a base for a 2000 pts list with your favoured models, you have 1940 pts, this gives you room for upgrades, more units or whatever, this is more a guideline than a list you absolutely have to follow through of course I suggest adding some mortal wounds units, like Fulgurites or Ruststalkers with Razors + Chordclaw, to deal with units with big invulnerable saves like Assault Terminators and the likes. If you chose to play Mars the Kastelans or Infiltrators will suffice with the Stratagem I guess.
First of all thank you very much for all your help, that was nice input for starting my AdMech force.
Yeah I also love the infantry, especially the Skitarii I think I will stick to Stygies because their playstyle seems just a lot more fun for me.
Hey guys, one thing i just noticed, is crusaders got added to the Astra militarum book with the astra militarum keyword. (they were NOT given the <regiment> keyword however so not sure if that's really much of a change.... )
no idea how good they are but the models are fething fantastic and easily made into admech counts as, you can load them a priest and something else up in a chimera so that's 15 points for a 3++ 3 attacks at str 3 AP -3
didn't see the option for the priest to take an evicerator though, so i'mma keep looking.
again, never tried crusaders or did the mathhammer on them but they seem fun and look cool
of course this is also a good way to use those FW skitarii too.
This message was edited 7 times. Last update was at 2017/10/22 12:35:15
I play Krieg casually, and in local tournaments, and recently built an Atropos. I know it's far from a minmax unit, but what can I say, I love playing it! Blunt force trauma all the way! Plus a 3++ against shooting (with the strat), backing up T8 W27 is pretty tasty and can have a decent psychological impact.
Anyway, I'm severely tempted to blow some money on a single AdMech detachment to unlock the very nice strategems for my knight.
Can anyone recommend a single detachment to roll into an Atropos/Krieg army?
From what I've been reading on this thread, I was thinking Stygies Outrider or Spearhead: either an Enginseer HQ & 3 striders, or a TPD HQ with 3 Onegars. What do you guys think?
The rest of my army tends to be deathriders and hades drills for deepstrike elements, sometimes an eversor; 3 squads for shielding; a mix of quad and medusa artillery; a cheesy taurox prime or two for horde control; 3 primaris psykers for denial and allround goodness.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/10/22 13:21:36
But I don't agree on your strats - Machine Spirit Resurgent is not junk. Bringing your 550pt investment back up to peak performance for 1cp is a bargain; degrading stats are a huge brake on knights' usefulness imo, with no other way of curtailing it, unlike Valhallen SHTs, who basically get it for free. But Knight of Cogs is pretty meh, I agree. The strat that bestows 5+++ against mortal wounds for the round isn't bad either, considering the amount of smite spam wafting around my local scene.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/22 14:34:15
But I don't agree on your strats - Machine Spirit Resurgent is not junk. Bringing your 550pt investment back up to peak performance for 1cp is a bargain; degrading stats are a huge brake on knights' usefulness imo, with no other way of curtailing it, unlike Valhallen SHTs, who basically get it for free. But Knight of Cogs is pretty meh, I agree. The strat that bestows 5+++ against mortal wounds for the round isn't bad either, considering the amount of smite spam wafting around my local scene.
It depends on the list, but since Knights are pretty sub-par in the environment, keeping them fighting fit sounds good... or just don't take a Knight that requires babysitting? Notice a trend here with most of us eschewing them? That is because outside of fun games, they are a 585pt liability.
Automatically Appended Next Post: FYI, some new FAQs hit.
Earthshakers are AP -3 now.
Elysians got the Command Squad limit - like we knew they would.
Also, not a big deal - but no MoO for the Earthshakers.
The huge change that struck me was the Summary Exection change. Whooooboy. That really shakes things up.
"Send in the next wave!" apparently now requires reinforcement points.
So I guess this means Conscripts maybe aren't going to be our no-brainer go-to? Thoughts?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/22 16:21:28
Disappointing that Admech saw nothing after the disappointment that was their original FAQ, but I assume that we're just waiting (hoping) on Chapter Approved at this point for some serious overhauling.
Probably not. Without any blatant power abuses, Admech is likely to just flit down the memory hole and be forgotten by GW's writers as quickly as they right-clicked the codex together.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/22 17:34:08
Fafnir wrote: Probably not. Without any blatant power abuses, Admech is likely to just flit down the memory hole and be forgotten by GW's writers as quickly as they right-clicked the codex together.
Well, the AM eratta was quite the game-changer.. no more uber objective holding Conscripts - Get into Cover only affecting infantry, among other things.
MIKEtheMERCILESS wrote: Well, the AM eratta was quite the game-changer.. no more uber objective holding Conscripts - Get into Cover only affecting infantry, among other things.
i doubt you will see a huge shift overnight, there's still going to be a lot of people showing up with giant conscript blobs, they're still going to be a lot of wounds to get through, it's just going to be easier to get through them now. I doubt conscripts will be made useless by this. more like they'll be balanced. eventually the meta will settle, and i doubt conscripts will be on top anymore but they'll still be there. razorspam ... that'll be a good contender for top now.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/22 21:07:35
Suzuteo wrote: As impressive as Storm Shields are... these guys are still W1. FRFSFR is going to rake them...
if you play units in transports right you should not have to worry about FRFSRF. not too much anyway. the 1W part isn't the problem it's the T3 str 3 and NO shooting ability . which is why i'll be heavily playtesting before committing.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also looking at the Taghmata list from 30k.... yeah GW if you could just copy and paste the tech priest auxilia straight over, that'd be greaaaaaaaaaaaat.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/10/23 01:53:48
rvd1ofakind wrote: @tsol
Kataphrons, Ruststalkers and servitors aren't slightly overpriced... Their cost needs to be cut in HALF. I'm not joking, I did math on most of these
not quite sure about half on destroyers 45-55 maybe. servitors need something more than just a point reduction. they need expanded unit selection I.e. larger units and more can take heavy weapons. Ruststalkers are horrible and infiltrators did NOT need that reduction in attacks
I’d like to see both kataphrons get double their current wounds before I consider them worth their points. I mean a destroyer with a culverin is 70 and 73 with a heavy grav, plus the phosphor blaster (which if you ask me should replace all phosphor serpenta and just get rid of that pos) they’re not expensive as an option, they’re only expensive because they can’t do their role of heavy ranged infantry well enough. An autocannon Ironstrider is 75 points, has double the wounds, more attacks and toughness, more movement, better shooting ability, a better save, better synergy with our strategms and comparable dmg output. ~5 points difference.
FYI dunecrawler points cost is absolutely fine. Leman russ, Falcon grav tanks and fire prisms are all now within 10-20 points of each other, ours being the cheapest of all of them.
*edited to fix my stat inaccuracies.
I agree as well as disagree.
Kataphrons I think should be about 175pts for three with the heavy grav and phopsher give or take 15 for glamers. Or keep their current price and give them better survivablity. Either 3+ like the breachers (unlikely) or a 6+ feel no pain, or maybe add more wounds. Make the Destroyers/breachers both 5 wounds and keep their current costs. Ruststalkers, are indeed overpriced, fully agree. I can see myself making them work at 15pts per model including wargear, at their current costs they are horrible overcosted and weak in offense and defense with no good means to manuver as well. Servitors are laughably bad. A servitor with a servo arm should cost 8 pts. Bam. There I fixed them.
Just a wish list here: I wish Breachers fired D3 shots on their Torsion cannons and Heavy 3 on the Heavy Arc rifles. If they did that, I would play 12 of them on the field.
I truely am hoping that the Handbook at the end of the year will give us some serious changes or at least some reasonable point deductions. As others have said. Our codex came out too soon and it obvious that it was printed at the same time or right after the indexs. As there is almost no change when its obvious there should be IE look at our powerfist. Still costs 20 pts. What has me the most worried is the ERRATA and FAQ have NOT changed any point values. Which to me, implies they are done with the faction and will not support them any further. I pray I am wrong though.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/10/23 04:41:36
8th Overhaul!
Over 18,000 SM
Over 7000 Tyranids
About 3000 Genestealer cult
About 6000 IG
About 2500 Chaos
About 5000 Skitarii/Admech *Current focus
About 3000 Deamons
2 Imperial Knigts... Soon to be a third
More than that, not only are they expensive and fragile, they're just not very good at much of anything. Some of those guns are nice, but hitting on a 4+ isn't going to make them stand out. And those powerfists are horrendous at 5+ with no way to improve them outside of stratagems spent on far better units.
Heyyy, so I have a tournament report from SoCal open. It has gossip. Hopefully I won't get banned and this doesn't go viral beyond this thread. I ran the Celestine + Cawl + Robots + Earthshakers list. This is my effort to write up some notes. I placed 23 at 4-2 and got best admech.
For reference, here is my list again:
Spoiler:
Cawl 1x5 Kastelon 2x1 NeutrOnager 1x4 Dragoon
Celestine + Geminae 2x Astropath 1x Commisar
Company Commander CADIA 5+/5+ Master of Ordinance 29 Conscripts 3x1 Earthshaker
Opponent 1: Justin - Inquisition / Scions / AM but no Codex goodness. Justin went first and held his deepstrikers back. He walked towards my robots. My artillery generally killed 1 taurox a turn and my wrath of mars removed his bullgryns. Celestine and the dragoons mopped up his mobile stuff and after he dropped, each robot removed a scion team. His list ... like it just didn't work. I can't see his list doing anything at an ITC competitive event. He didn't take the 5+/5+ WLTrait/Relic and was pretty grumpy that I did. Like ... why didn't he run it? It is obviously OP. Run that shiz. This is ITC. Play fluff at the GW store where no one counts up points.
Opponent 2: Eric - 2x Renegade knights, magnus, lord of skulls. Eric went first, got off the 3++ power on magnus, and pushed up. His shooting wasn't that great, I think he glassed an Onager. My shooting was poor and magnus lived. His return shooting was good, he aced celestine and my dragoons. He failed to get into combat second turn thanks to celestine ressurecting in a good spot. My surviving artillery and robots tabled him on turn 3. It was a rougher game than it should have been but Cawl eventually killed a knight.
Opponent 3: Don - 6x plague crawlers, 2x bloat drones, Mortarian, some characters. He dropped Mortarian first right in the middle of the board. I put the robots down 36" away and I knew he didn't have warp time or a way through my screen turn 1. I luckily got first turn and aced Mortarian and a Crawler. The rest of the game was him inneficetly shelling me and killing celestine and a few dragoons while I killed a crawler a turn. Eventually celestine's second life ran up the board and aced his last character. This was by far the best showing of my list. All the elements came together to demolish what should be a devastating army. He ended up 19th, ahead of me.
Opponent 4: Laurence - Ynnari Yncarne, Yvraine, 2x serpent tanks, 2x wrathguard shooters, a flier, terrible terrible black rocket guys This was an extremely cagey and hard fought game. He got first turn and was able to kill 2 robots with the damn rocket guys. When I got my turn my onager aced his flier and I moved and plopped the robots and rerolled on 6s to kill the rocket guys. The rest of the game was a slow grind with him having just 2 more hold objectives than me. I ground him down to 2 models with both onagers, cawl, 2 artillery, my conscripts, and 1 psyker left. But he won on secondaries with just yncarne and a car left on turn 6 24-21. He was a great opponent, good looking, fit, drank hard, great beard, hot girlfriend who liked to party. My chick hung out with his all morning. It was cool. This was by far the most tactical and we agreed it was the best game of the tournament. It should have been streamed.
Opponent 5: Alex - Tau, Yvara, 2 forgeworld tau tanks, longstrike, 3 commanders, some crisis, some drones. I took way too fething long to deploy and was a slow playing bitch. He had all the tools to just kill me by turn 2. It was vanguard strike on gak terrain. So I painstakingly measured out all of his advance distances for the YVara (it can kill the robots by itself). I knew exactly the line he would need if he got a 6 on the advance and I was just over it. My conscript screen largely held and denied any crisis drops until turn 3. His YVara rolled like gak and got an onager down to 4 wounds. My robots then walked up, plopped, and deleted the YVara. MY Neutrons then picked at his tanks all game until they were gone. Celestine ran up the middle and occupied the 'ground' floor to claim the central objective. Since I could crowd that objective with bodies and be 'non-LOS' due to ITC, he was fethed on points. The game was lost since he never tried to constest the middle. I made mistakes and he wouldn't let me take them back, but by the end he had 1 suit commander left. Earthshakers are rigged, start working on yours. I went hard on this guy. It was intense. Spectators were like, this is isn't chill anymore. Both of us were red and sweating. Laurence was like, why did you not let him concede? But afterwards we were buddies for sure. He was a go hard but fair guy. He asked me on a podcast afterwards and I want to go to his store. He is largely everyone's favorite.
Opponent 6: Adam - much better Ynnari list, 4 serpents, 4 wraithguard, Yncarne, some caster I heard from a source that Adam was a known cheat and was 1 more complaint from getting banned. I watched his dice the whole time. He played loose with movement and wound counters and I really didn't like his face. For some reasons my robots just couldn't wound. All my shooting was gak and this guy rerolled all kinds of failed saves as cocked dice. Coldest of cold shooting the whole time. His army manages to have -1 on everything all the time. It is super lame. He is oddly hard on rules for being so loose with stuff. Since my shooting just didn't work he eventually closed on my lines and I lost. I argued him into me getting 14 points and that got me to rank 23 and best admech. I usually finish tournaments 1-5, so hey, I will take it.
Comments on the list going forwards. My list is dead. The FAQ today killed it. I also think AdMech is dead when the new Eldar codex drops. Everything about the Ynnari wraithguard list will be even more horrendous as an infilitrating, strategeming, -2 to be hit list. Unless something radically changes I don't see myself taking this army to the LVO. What would be the point? If I draw eldar I would just lose period.
Celestine: as much as she did work all the time, in ITC she gives up full points on kingslayer and headhunter (since geminae are characters) every game. She devastates certain opponents, but people who bring truly hard lists will not be phased by celestine's modest damage output. Also, since conscripts are dead, she won't have the insane synergy with her 6++, TAKE COVER, and the +1 to save psychic power.
Dragoons: I kind of expected more damage. They drew fire like crazy, which I guess is good. I was pulling them all the time. But they often lived with 1 dragoon left somewhere. Running them as Mars is easier on the points, but they truly need to be stygies to land a real punch. The other problem is that with all the -1 and -2 to hit in the game, lots of people run 'flamery' weapons that auto hit. The YVara meant my dragoons had to start way back and they eventually got killed down to 1 due to the drop melta. I guess that beats having that on the robots, but their damage just wasn't what you might think. Against a lord of skulls, or plaguecrawlers, or tau, or wraithguard, they die in overwatch. So ... several games they just had to stand there and get shot.
Robots: yeah, they do what you think. Against non-cheaty, non-wraithguard BSS these guys delete what you point at them. Rolling 90 dice volleys is exhausting and I only got through it pounding stimulants. If you run admech, run 5 robots or don't bother in competitive events. Seriously. Every admech guy at socal had 5-6. No one even tried anything else.
Onagers: yeah, excellent. Maybe take another over celestine. Not sure tho, because she does so much work to threaten, contest, and punish softer list opponents. If you bring pathfinders, or drop guys, or human sized infantry, celestine can go find those models and farm them for points. The onagers on the other hand can roll like gak and not even scratch a wave serpent.
Earthshaker batteries: I thought mine were big enough. Some bros let me know I should get bigger stakes. These guys are utter BS. And the FAQ made them -3 now. At this point, I would run 6 if I had the models. They are just BSS through and through. Also, they are great objective holders. Just plop them down and forget about it. And you can shoot at things who melee them. WTF is that? And they don't give Big Game Hunter secondaries? And they aren't 'vehicles'? THe BSS never stops with forgeworld. Run more. Make more. Craft more. Do what you have to do to get more. They are the answer to the robot weaknesses.
Conscripts/Commisar: fuq fuq fuq they are dead. Commisars are nerfed now (kill 1, reroll morale instead of pass). Imperium is now seriously hard up for screens. If I start running Stygies then I need a fat stack of support character taxes and zero-damage units. I already don't have enough points in firepower and too much in support. Rangers might be like ... no, they are a bad screen period. They are just bad at it. And they don't do any damage. I have no idea what to do about screens here. I am half tempted just to yolo it and start running earthshakers as screens. But then I would need proper dimensions on the models and I did not have proper ones even with knight sized bases. I guess we run guardsmen? Guards are dramatically less survivable than conscripts because you can't stack up to that sweet sweet 3+/4++ with celestine on a 30 wound single unit. If you run your dragoons as a screen ... uh ... I guess? But then you can't hold objectives or get into buildings or commit them to killing. Winning with the robots mean hard packing base to base on the robots. Every time I left space I started to lose. Screening the robots means base to base and deep. I don't know how to do this without conscripts.
Astropaths: mandatory. Not optional. Put 2 in right now. The 'psychic maelstrom' power is an almost consistent 3 mortal wounds. It killed magnus game 2. Always take these stupid jerks. Who cares if they give up character kills. No one takes snipers and if they are dying then you are getting tabled. Also, they are an easy 'drop' during deployment since you don't actually care where they go.
Master of Ordinance: this is the most anti-meta weirdness in my list. I put the Relic of Lost Cadia on him 2 times. It got some serious wounding off with the earthshakers and he would only get better with more earthshaker batteries. If I go to LVO, yeah, 6 Earthshakers. Run them as screens. Until then, he is gone. This is just too finicky and gimpy and requries like 10 minutes to explain to my opponent and they still don't believe it.
ALSO
Brandon Grant won. He is something of my 40k idol. He plays the dirtiest, most secretive, most perfectly to the day meta lists of all time. He won with 90 conscripts, 10 primaris psyckers, 25 scions, and 5 tauroxen. Having a few psyckers is good, having 10 means your opponent can never deny you. His list wasn't even good at the ITC secondaries. He had heaps of HeadHunter (characters), Reaper(20+ model units), and BigGameHunter (Taurox). Didn't matter. When you have 10 smites you don't care.
EDIT2:
Watch the new Eldar codex battle report. I skimmed it just to watch some clips. Dark Angels Tabled in 2 turns with Dark Angels going first. Until chapter approved comes out I don't see admech doing as well again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGo3mErmfGc
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2017/10/23 07:20:13
Their unique infiltration stratagem is really helpful too, it can help you place a Vanguard unit in a good spot, use melee Kastelans effectively or, in the case of your list, place Dragoons in a position from which they can charge turn 1, forming a distraction unit that is both somewhat durable and really powerful. Present this threat to your opponent early on and he'll focus those instead of your more important units. If he doesn't he's about to discover what a dozen S8 hits can do to an army.
